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[
"Phonograph",
"Terminology",
"What are some of the terms used for the phonograph?",
"The term phonograph (\"sound writing\") was derived from the Greek words phone (phone, \"sound\" or \"voice\") and graphe (graphe, \"writing\")."
] | C_53febef912dd41d38a913351d47c761c_1 | Was it referred to by any other names? | 2 | Was the phonograph referred to by any other names aside from the phonograph? | Phonograph | Usage of terminology is not uniform across the English-speaking world (see below). In more modern usage, the playback device is often called a "turntable", "record player", or "record changer". When used in conjunction with a mixer as part of a DJ setup, turntables are often colloquially called "decks". In later electric phonographs (more often known since the 1940s as record players or, most recently, turntables), the motions of the stylus are converted into an analogous electrical signal by a transducer, then converted back into sound by a loudspeaker. The term phonograph ("sound writing") was derived from the Greek words phone (phone, "sound" or "voice") and graphe (graphe, "writing"). The similar related terms gramophone (from the Greek gramma gramma "letter" and phone phone "voice") and graphophone have similar root meanings. The roots were already familiar from existing 19th-century words such as photograph ("light writing"), telegraph ("distant writing"), and telephone ("distant sound"). The new term may have been influenced by the existing words phonographic and phonography, which referred to a system of phonetic shorthand; in 1852 The New York Times carried an advertisement for "Professor Webster's phonographic class", and in 1859 the New York State Teachers Association tabled a motion to "employ a phonographic recorder" to record its meetings. Arguably, any device used to record sound or reproduce recorded sound could be called a type of "phonograph", but in common practice the word has come to mean historic technologies of sound recording, involving audio-frequency modulations of a physical trace or groove. In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, "Phonograph", "Gramophone", "Graphophone", "Zonophone" and the like were still brand names specific to various makers of sometimes very different (i.e. cylinder and disc) machines; so considerable use was made of the generic term "talking machine", especially in print. "Talking machine" had earlier been used to refer to complicated devices which produced a crude imitation of speech, by simulating the workings of the vocal cords, tongue, and lips - a potential source of confusion both then and now. CANNOTANSWER | In more modern usage, the playback device is often called a "turntable", "record player", or "record changer". | A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue recording and reproduction of sound. The sound vibration waveforms are recorded as corresponding physical deviations of a spiral groove engraved, etched, incised, or impressed into the surface of a rotating cylinder or disc, called a "record". To recreate the sound, the surface is similarly rotated while a playback stylus traces the groove and is therefore vibrated by it, very faintly reproducing the recorded sound. In early acoustic phonographs, the stylus vibrated a diaphragm which produced sound waves which were coupled to the open air through a flaring horn, or directly to the listener's ears through stethoscope-type earphones.
The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison. Alexander Graham Bell's Volta Laboratory made several improvements in the 1880s and introduced the graphophone, including the use of wax-coated cardboard cylinders and a cutting stylus that moved from side to side in a zigzag groove around the record. In the 1890s, Emile Berliner initiated the transition from phonograph cylinders to flat discs with a spiral groove running from the periphery to near the center, coining the term gramophone for disc record players, which is predominantly used in many languages. Later improvements through the years included modifications to the turntable and its drive system, the stylus or needle, pickup system, and the sound and equalization systems.
The disc phonograph record was the dominant commercial audio recording format throughout most of the 20th century. In the mid-1960s the use of 8-track cartridges and cassette tapes were introduced as alternatives. In the 1980s, phonograph use declined sharply due to the popularity of cassettes and the rise of the compact disc, as well as the later introduction of digital music distribution in the 2000s. However, records are still a favorite format for some audiophiles, DJs, collectors, and turntablists (particularly in hip hop and electronic dance music), and have undergone a revival since the 2000s.
Terminology
Usage of terminology is not uniform across the English-speaking world (see below). In more modern usage, the playback device is often called a "turntable", "record player", or "record changer", although each of these terms denote categorically distinct items. When used in conjunction with a mixer as part of a DJ setup, turntables are often colloquially called "decks". In later electric phonographs (more often known since the 1940s as record players or turntables), the motions of the stylus are converted into an analogous electrical signal by a transducer, then converted back into sound by a loudspeaker. The term phonograph ("sound writing") was derived from the Greek words (, 'sound' or 'voice') and (, 'writing'). The similar related terms gramophone (from the Greek 'letter' and 'voice') and graphophone have similar root meanings. The roots were already familiar from existing 19th-century words such as photograph ("light writing"), telegraph ("distant writing"), and telephone ("distant sound"). The new term may have been influenced by the existing words phonographic and phonography, which referred to a system of phonetic shorthand; in 1852 The New York Times carried an advertisement for "Professor Webster's phonographic class", and in 1859 the New York State Teachers Association tabled a motion to "employ a phonographic recorder" to record its meetings.
Arguably, any device used to record sound or reproduce recorded sound could be called a type of "phonograph", but in common practice the word has come to mean historic technologies of sound recording, involving audio-frequency modulations of a physical trace or groove. In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, "Phonograph", "Gramophone", "Graphophone", "Zonophone", "Graphonole" and the like were still brand names specific to various makers of sometimes very different (i.e. cylinder and disc) machines; so considerable use was made of the generic term "talking machine", especially in print. "Talking machine" had earlier been used to refer to complicated devices which produced a crude imitation of speech, by simulating the workings of the vocal cords, tongue, and lips – a potential source of confusion both then and now.
United Kingdom
In British English, "gramophone" may refer to any sound-reproducing machine using disc records, which were introduced and popularized in the UK by the Gramophone Company. Originally, "gramophone" was a proprietary trademark of that company and any use of the name by competing makers of disc records was vigorously prosecuted in the courts, but in 1910 an English court decision decreed that it had become a generic term; it has been so used in the UK and most Commonwealth countries since. The term "phonograph" was usually restricted to machines that used cylinder records.
"Gramophone" generally referred to a wind-up machine. After the introduction of the softer vinyl records, -rpm LPs (long-playing records) and 45-rpm "single" or two-song records, and EPs (extended-play recordings), the common name became "record player" or "turntable". Often the home record player was part of a system that included a radio (radiogram) and, later, might also play audiotape cassettes. From about 1960, such a system began to be described as a "hi-fi" (high-fidelity, monophonic) or a "stereo" (most systems being stereophonic by the mid-1960s).
United States
In American English, "phonograph", properly specific to machines made by Edison, was sometimes used in a generic sense as early as the 1890s to include cylinder-playing machines made by others. But it was then considered strictly incorrect to apply it to Emile Berliner's upstart Gramophone, a very different machine which played discs (although Edison's original Phonograph patent included the use of discs). "Talking machine" was the comprehensive generic term, but from about 1902 on, the general public was increasingly applying the word "phonograph" indiscriminately to both cylinder and disc machines and to the records they played. By the time of the First World War, the mass advertising and popularity of the Victrola (a line of disc-playing machines characterized by their concealed horns) sold by the Victor Talking Machine Company was leading to widespread generic use of the word "victrola" for any machine that played discs, which were generally called "phonograph records" or simply "records", but almost never "Victrola records".
After electrical disc-playing machines appeared on the market in the late 1920s, often combined with a radio receiver, the term "record player" was increasingly favored by the public. Manufacturers, however, typically advertised such combinations as "radio-phonographs". Portable record players (no radio included), with a latched cover and an integrated power amplifier and loudspeaker, were becoming popular as well, especially in schools and for use by children and teenagers.
In the years following the Second World War, as "hi-fi" (high-fidelity, monophonic) and, later, "stereo" (stereophonic) component sound systems slowly evolved from an exotic specialty item into a common feature of American homes, the description of the record-spinning component as a "record changer" (which could automatically play through a stacked series of discs) or a "turntable" (which could hold only one disc at a time) entered common usage. By the 1980s, the use of a "record changer" was widely disparaged. So, the "turntable" emerged triumphant and retained its position to the present. Through all these changes, however, the discs have continued to be known as "phonograph records" or, much more commonly, simply as "records".
Gramophone, as a brand name, was not used in the United States after 1902, and the word quickly fell out of use there, although it has survived in its nickname form, Grammy, as the name of the Grammy Awards. The Grammy trophy itself is a small rendering of a gramophone, resembling a Victor disc machine with a taper arm.
Modern amplifier-component manufacturers continue to label the input jack for a magnetic pickup cartridge as the "phono" input.
Australia
In Australian English, "record player" was the term; "turntable" was a more technical term; "gramophone" was restricted to the old mechanical (i.e., wind-up) players; and "phonograph" was used as in British English. The "phonograph" was first demonstrated in Australia on 14 June, 1878 to a meeting of the Royal Society of Victoria by the Society's Honorary Secretary, Alex Sutherland who published "The Sounds of the Consonants, as Indicated by the Phonograph" in the Society's journal in November that year. On 8 August, 1878 the phonograph was publicly demonstrated at the Society's annual conversazione, along with a range of other new inventions, including the microphone.
Early history
Predecessors to the phonograph
Several inventors devised machines to record sound prior to Thomas Edison's phonograph, Edison being the first to invent a device that could both record and reproduce sound. The phonograph's predecessors include Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville's phonautograph, and Charles Cros's paleophone. Recordings made with the phonautograph were intended to be visual representations of the sound, but were never sonically reproduced until 2008. Cros's paleophone was intended to both record and reproduce sound but had not been developed beyond a basic concept at the time of Edison's successful demonstration of the phonograph in 1877.
Phonautograph
Direct tracings of the vibrations of sound-producing objects such as tuning forks had been made by English physicist Thomas Young in 1807, but the first known device for recording airborne speech, music and other sounds is the phonautograph, patented in 1857 by French typesetter and inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. In this device, sound waves travelling through the air vibrated a parchment diaphragm which was linked to a bristle, and the bristle traced a line through a thin coating of soot on a sheet of paper wrapped around a rotating cylinder. The sound vibrations were recorded as undulations or other irregularities in the traced line. Scott's phonautograph was intended purely for the visual study and analysis of the tracings. Reproduction of the recorded sound was not possible with the original phonautograph.
In 2008, phonautograph recordings made by Scott were played back as sound by American audio historians, who used optical scanning and computer processing to convert the traced waveforms into digital audio files. These recordings, made circa 1860, include fragments of two French songs and a recitation in Italian.
Paleophone
Charles Cros, a French poet and amateur scientist, is the first person known to have made the conceptual leap from recording sound as a traced line to the theoretical possibility of reproducing the sound from the tracing and then to devising a definite method for accomplishing the reproduction. On April 30, 1877, he deposited a sealed envelope containing a summary of his ideas with the French Academy of Sciences, a standard procedure used by scientists and inventors to establish priority of conception of unpublished ideas in the event of any later dispute.
Cros proposed the use of photoengraving, a process already in use to make metal printing plates from line drawings, to convert an insubstantial phonautograph tracing in soot into a groove or ridge on a metal disc or cylinder. This metal surface would then be given the same motion and speed as the original recording surface. A stylus linked to a diaphragm would be made to ride in the groove or on the ridge so that the stylus would be moved back and forth in accordance with the recorded vibrations. It would transmit these vibrations to the connected diaphragm, and the diaphragm would transmit them to the air.
An account of his invention was published on October 10, 1877, by which date Cros had devised a more direct procedure: the recording stylus could scribe its tracing through a thin coating of acid-resistant material on a metal surface and the surface could then be etched in an acid bath, producing the desired groove without the complication of an intermediate photographic procedure. The author of this article called the device a , but Cros himself favored the word , sometimes rendered in French as ('voice of the past').
Cros was a poet of meager means, not in a position to pay a machinist to build a working model, and largely content to bequeath his ideas to the public domain free of charge and let others reduce them to practice, but after the earliest reports of Edison's presumably independent invention crossed the Atlantic he had his sealed letter of April 30 opened and read at the December 3, 1877 meeting of the French Academy of Sciences, claiming due scientific credit for priority of conception.
Throughout the first decade (1890–1900) of commercial production of the earliest crude disc records, the direct acid-etch method first invented by Cros was used to create the metal master discs, but Cros was not around to claim any credit or to witness the humble beginnings of the eventually rich phonographic library he had foreseen. He had died in 1888 at the age of 45.
The early phonographs
Thomas Edison conceived the principle of recording and reproducing sound between May and July 1877 as a byproduct of his efforts to "play back" recorded telegraph messages and to automate speech sounds for transmission by telephone. His first experiments were with waxed paper. He announced his invention of the first phonograph, a device for recording and replaying sound, on November 21, 1877 (early reports appear in Scientific American and several newspapers in the beginning of November, and an even earlier announcement of Edison working on a 'talking-machine' can be found in the Chicago Daily Tribune on May 9), and he demonstrated the device for the first time on November 29 (it was patented on February 19, 1878 as US Patent 200,521). "In December, 1877, a young man came into the office of the Scientific American, and placed before the editors a small, simple machine about which very few preliminary remarks were offered. The visitor without any ceremony whatever turned the crank, and to the astonishment of all present the machine said: 'Good morning. How do you do? How do you like the phonograph?' The machine thus spoke for itself, and made known the fact that it was the phonograph..."
Edison presented his own account of inventing the phonograph: "I was experimenting," he said, "on an automatic method of recording telegraph messages on a disk of paper laid on a revolving platen, exactly the same as the disk talking-machine of to-day. The platen had a spiral groove on its surface, like the disk. Over this was placed a circular disk of paper; an electromagnet with the embossing point connected to an arm traveled over the disk; and any signals given through the magnets were embossed on the disk of paper. If this disc was removed from the machine and put on a similar machine provided with a contact point, the embossed record would cause the signals to be repeated into another wire. The ordinary speed of telegraphic signals is thirty-five to forty words a minute; but with this machine several hundred words were possible.
"From my experiments on the telephone I knew of how to work a pawl connected to the diaphragm; and this engaging a ratchet-wheel served to give continuous rotation to a pulley. This pulley was connected by a cord to a little paper toy representing a man sawing wood. Hence, if one shouted: 'Mary had a little lamb,' etc., the paper man would start sawing wood. I reached the conclusion that if I could record the movements of the diaphragm properly, I could cause such records to reproduce the original movements imparted to the diaphragm by the voice, and thus succeed in recording and reproducing the human voice.
"Instead of using a disk I designed a little machine using a cylinder provided with grooves around the surface. Over this was to be placed tinfoil, which easily received and recorded the movements of the diaphragm. A sketch was made, and the piece-work price, $18, was marked on the sketch. I was in the habit of marking the price I would pay on each sketch. If the workman lost, I would pay his regular wages; if he made more than the wages, he kept it. The workman who got the sketch was John Kruesi. I didn't have much faith that it would work, expecting that I might possibly hear a word or so that would give hope of a future for the idea. Kruesi, when he had nearly finished it, asked what it was for. I told him I was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk back. He thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was put on; I then shouted 'Mary had a little lamb', etc. I adjusted the reproducer, and the machine reproduced it perfectly. I was never so taken aback in my life. Everybody was astonished. I was always afraid of things that worked the first time. Long experience proved that there were great drawbacks found generally before they could be got commercial; but here was something there was no doubt of."
The music critic Herman Klein attended an early demonstration (1881–2) of a similar machine. On the early phonograph's reproductive capabilities he writes "It sounded to my ear like someone singing about half a mile away, or talking at the other end of a big hall; but the effect was rather pleasant, save for a peculiar nasal quality wholly due to the mechanism, though there was little of the scratching which later was a prominent feature of the flat disc. Recording for that primitive machine was a comparatively simple matter. I had to keep my mouth about six inches away from the horn and remember not to make my voice too loud if I wanted anything approximating to a clear reproduction; that was all. When it was played over to me and I heard my own voice for the first time, one or two friends who were present said that it sounded rather like mine; others declared that they would never have recognised it. I daresay both opinions were correct."
The Argus newspaper from Melbourne, Australia, reported on an 1878 demonstration at the Royal Society of Victoria, writing "There was a large attendance of ladies and gentlemen, who appeared greatly interested in the various scientific instruments exhibited. Among these the most interesting, perhaps, was the trial made by Mr. Sutherland with the phonograph, which was most amusing. Several trials were made, and were all more or less successful. "Rule Britannia" was distinctly repeated, but great laughter was caused by the repetition of the convivial song of "He's a jolly good fellow," which sounded as if it was being sung by an old man of 80 with a very cracked voice."
Early machines
Edison's early phonographs recorded onto a thin sheet of metal, normally tinfoil, which was temporarily wrapped around a helically grooved cylinder mounted on a correspondingly threaded rod supported by plain and threaded bearings. While the cylinder was rotated and slowly progressed along its axis, the airborne sound vibrated a diaphragm connected to a stylus that indented the foil into the cylinder's groove, thereby recording the vibrations as "hill-and-dale" variations of the depth of the indentation.
Playback was accomplished by exactly repeating the recording procedure, the only difference being that the recorded foil now served to vibrate the stylus, which transmitted its vibrations to the diaphragm and onward into the air as audible sound. Although Edison's very first experimental tinfoil phonograph used separate and somewhat different recording and playback assemblies, in subsequent machines, a single diaphragm and stylus served both purposes. One peculiar consequence was that it was possible to overdub additional sound onto a recording being played back. The recording was heavily worn by each playing, and it was nearly impossible to accurately remount a recorded foil after it had been removed from the cylinder. In this form, the only practical use that could be found for the phonograph was as a startling novelty for private amusement at home or public exhibitions for profit.
Edison's early patents show that he was aware that sound could be recorded as a spiral on a disc, but Edison concentrated his efforts on cylinders, since the groove on the outside of a rotating cylinder provides a constant velocity to the stylus in the groove, which Edison considered more "scientifically correct".
Edison's patent specified that the audio recording be embossed, and it was not until 1886 that vertically modulated incised recording using wax-coated cylinders was patented by Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter. They named their version the Graphophone.
Introduction of the disc record
The use of a flat recording surface instead of a cylindrical one was an obvious alternative which thought-experimenter Charles Cros initially favored and which practical experimenter Thomas Edison and others actually tested in the late 1870s and early 1880s. The oldest surviving example is a copper electrotype of a recording cut into a wax disc in 1881.
Cylindrical Dictaphone records continued in use until the mid-20th century. The commercialization of sound recording technology had been initially aimed at use in business correspondence, i.e. transcription into writing, in which the cylindrical form offered certain advantages. With paper documents being the end product, the cylinders were considered ephemeral; need to archive large numbers of bulky, fragile sound recordings seemed unlikely, and the ease of producing multiple copies was not a consideration.
In 1887, Emile Berliner patented a variant of the phonograph which he named the Gramophone. Berliner's approach was essentially the same one proposed, but never implemented, by Charles Cros in 1877. The diaphragm was linked to the recording stylus in a way that caused it to vibrate laterally (side to side) as it traced a spiral onto a zinc disc very thinly coated with a compound of beeswax. The zinc disc was then immersed in a bath of chromic acid; this etched a groove into the disc where the stylus had removed the coating, after which the recording could be played. With some later improvements, the flat discs of Berliner could be produced in large quantities at much lower cost than the cylinders of Edison's system.
In May 1889, in San Francisco, the first "phonograph parlor" opened. It featured a row of coin-operated machines, each supplied with a different wax cylinder record. The customer selected a machine according to the title that it advertised, inserted a nickel, then heard the recording through stethoscope-like listening tubes. By the mid-1890s, most American cities had at least one phonograph parlor. The coin-operated mechanism was invented by Louis T. Glass and William S. Arnold. The cabinet contained an Edison Class M or Class E phonograph. The Class M was powered by a wet-cell glass battery that would spill dangerous acid if it tipped over or broke. The Class E sold for a lower price and ran on 120 V DC.
The phenomenon of phonograph parlors peaked in Paris around 1900: in Pathé's luxurious salon, patrons sat in plush upholstered chairs and chose from among many hundreds of available cylinders by using speaking tubes to communicate with attendants on the floor below.
By 1890, record manufacturers had begun using a rudimentary duplication process to mass-produce their product. While the live performers recorded the master phonograph, up to ten tubes led to blank cylinders in other phonographs. Until this development, each record had to be custom-made. Before long, a more advanced pantograph-based process made it possible to simultaneously produce 90–150 copies of each record. However, as demand for certain records grew, popular artists still needed to re-record and re-re-record their songs. Reportedly, the medium's first major African-American star George Washington Johnson was obliged to perform his "The Laughing Song" (or the separate "The Whistling Coon") literally thousands of times in a studio during his recording career. Sometimes he would sing "The Laughing Song" more than fifty times in a day, at twenty cents per rendition. (The average price of a single cylinder in the mid-1890s was about fifty cents.)
Oldest surviving recordings
Lambert's lead cylinder recording for an experimental talking clock is often identified as the oldest surviving playable sound recording,
although the evidence advanced for its early date is controversial.
Wax phonograph cylinder recordings of Handel's choral music made on June 29, 1888, at The Crystal Palace in London were thought to be the oldest-known surviving musical recordings, until the recent playback by a group of American historians of a phonautograph recording of Au clair de la lune made on April 9, 1860.
The 1860 phonautogram had not until then been played, as it was only a transcription of sound waves into graphic form on paper for visual study. Recently developed optical scanning and image processing techniques have given new life to early recordings by making it possible to play unusually delicate or physically unplayable media without physical contact.
A recording made on a sheet of tinfoil at an 1878 demonstration of Edison's phonograph in St. Louis, Missouri has been played back by optical scanning and digital analysis. A few other early tinfoil recordings are known to survive, including a slightly earlier one which is believed to preserve the voice of U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes, but as of May 2014 they have not yet been scanned. These antique tinfoil recordings, which have typically been stored folded, are too fragile to be played back with a stylus without seriously damaging them. Edison's 1877 tinfoil recording of Mary Had a Little Lamb, not preserved, has been called the first instance of recorded verse.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the phonograph, Edison recounted reciting Mary Had a Little Lamb to test his first machine. The 1927 event was filmed by an early sound-on-film newsreel camera, and an audio clip from that film's soundtrack is sometimes mistakenly presented as the original 1877 recording.
Wax cylinder recordings made by 19th century media legends such as P. T. Barnum and Shakespearean actor Edwin Booth are amongst the earliest verified recordings by the famous that have survived to the present.
Improvements at the Volta Laboratory
Alexander Graham Bell and his two associates took Edison's tinfoil phonograph and modified it considerably to make it reproduce sound from wax instead of tinfoil. They began their work at Bell's Volta Laboratory in Washington, D. C., in 1879, and continued until they were granted basic patents in 1886 for recording in wax.
Although Edison had invented the phonograph in 1877 the fame bestowed on him for this invention was not due to its efficiency. Recording with his tinfoil phonograph was too difficult to be practical, as the tinfoil tore easily, and even when the stylus was properly adjusted, its reproduction of sound was distorted, and good for only a few playbacks; nevertheless Edison had discovered the idea of sound recording. However immediately after his discovery he did not improve it, allegedly because of an agreement to spend the next five years developing the New York City electric light and power system.
Volta's early challenge
Meanwhile, Bell, a scientist and experimenter at heart, was looking for new worlds to conquer after his invention of the telephone. According to Sumner Tainter, it was through Gardiner Green Hubbard that Bell took up the phonograph challenge. Bell had married Hubbard's daughter Mabel in 1879 while Hubbard was president of the Edison Speaking Phonograph Co., and his organization, which had purchased the Edison patent, was financially troubled because people did not want to buy a machine which seldom worked well and proved difficult for the average person to operate.
In 1879 Hubbard got Bell interested in improving the phonograph, and it was agreed that a laboratory should be set up in Washington. Experiments were also to be conducted on the transmission of sound by light, which resulted in the selenium-celled Photophone.
Volta Graphophone
By 1881, the Volta associates had succeeded in improving an Edison tinfoil machine to some extent. Wax was put in the grooves of the heavy iron cylinder, and no tinfoil was used. Rather than apply for a patent at that time, however, they deposited the machine in a sealed box at the Smithsonian, and specified that it was not to be opened without the consent of two of the three men.
The sound vibrations had been indented in the wax which had been applied to the Edison phonograph. The following was the text of one of their recordings: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy. I am a Graphophone and my mother was a phonograph." Most of the disc machines designed at the Volta Lab had their disc mounted on vertical turntables. The explanation is that in the early experiments, the turntable, with disc, was mounted on the shop lathe, along with the recording and reproducing heads. Later, when the complete models were built, most of them featured vertical turntables.
One interesting exception was a horizontal seven inch turntable. The machine, although made in 1886, was a duplicate of one made earlier but taken to Europe by Chichester Bell. Tainter was granted on July 10, 1888. The playing arm is rigid, except for a pivoted vertical motion of 90 degrees to allow removal of the record or a return to starting position. While recording or playing, the record not only rotated, but moved laterally under the stylus, which thus described a spiral, recording 150 grooves to the inch.
The preserved Bell and Tainter records are of both the lateral cut and the Edison-style hill-and-dale (up-and-down) styles. Edison for many years used the "hill-and-dale" method on both his cylinders and Diamond Disc records, and Emile Berliner is credited with the invention of the lateral cut, acid-etched Gramophone record in 1887. The Volta associates, however, had been experimenting with both formats and directions of groove modulation as early as 1881.
The basic distinction between the Edison's first phonograph patent and the Bell and Tainter patent of 1886 was the method of recording. Edison's method was to indent the sound waves on a piece of tin foil, while Bell and Tainter's invention called for cutting, or "engraving", the sound waves into a wax record with a sharp recording stylus.
Graphophone commercialization
In 1885, when the Volta Associates were sure that they had a number of practical inventions, they filed patent applications and began to seek out investors. The Volta Graphophone Company of Alexandria, Virginia, was created on January 6, 1886 and incorporated on February 3, 1886. It was formed to control the patents and to handle the commercial development of their sound recording and reproduction inventions, one of which became the first Dictaphone.
After the Volta Associates gave several demonstrations in the City of Washington, businessmen from Philadelphia created the American Graphophone Company on March 28, 1887, in order to produce and sell the machines for the budding phonograph marketplace. The Volta Graphophone Company then merged with American Graphophone, which itself later evolved into Columbia Records.
Shortly after American Graphophone's creation, Jesse H. Lippincott used nearly $1 million of an inheritance to gain control of it, as well as the rights to the Graphophone and the Bell and Tainter patents. Not long later Lippincott purchased the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company. He then created the North American Phonograph Company to consolidate the national sales rights of both the Graphophone and the Edison Speaking Phonograph. In the early 1890s Lippincott fell victim to the unit's mechanical problems and also to resistance from stenographers.
A coin-operated version of the Graphophone, , was developed by Tainter in 1893 to compete with nickel-in-the-slot entertainment phonograph demonstrated in 1889 by Louis T. Glass, manager of the Pacific Phonograph Company.
The work of the Volta Associates laid the foundation for the successful use of dictating machines in business, because their wax recording process was practical and their machines were durable. But it would take several more years and the renewed efforts of Edison and the further improvements of Emile Berliner and many others, before the recording industry became a major factor in home entertainment.
Disc vs. cylinder as a recording medium
Discs are not inherently better than cylinders at providing audio fidelity. Rather, the advantages of the format are seen in the manufacturing process: discs can be stamped; cylinders could not be until 1901–1902 when the gold moulding process was introduced by Edison.
Recordings made on a cylinder remain at a constant linear velocity for the entirety of the recording, while those made on a disc have a higher linear velocity at the outer portion of the disc compared to the inner portion.
Edison's patented recording method recorded with vertical modulations in a groove. Berliner utilized a laterally modulated groove.
Though Edison's recording technology was better than Berliner's, there were commercial advantages to a disc system since the disc could be easily mass-produced by molding and stamping and it required less storage space for a collection of recordings.
Berliner successfully argued that his technology was different enough from Edison's that he did not need to pay royalties on it, which reduced his business expenses.
Through experimentation, in 1892 Berliner began commercial production of his disc records, and "gramophones". His "gramophone record" was the first disc record to be offered to the public. They were five inches (12.7 cm) in diameter and recorded on one side only. Seven-inch (17.5 cm) records followed in 1895. Also in 1895 Berliner replaced the hard rubber used to make the discs with a shellac compound. Berliner's early records had very poor sound quality, however. Work by Eldridge R. Johnson eventually improved the sound fidelity to a point where it was as good as the cylinder. By late 1901, ten-inch (25 cm) records were marketed by Johnson and Berliner's Victor Talking Machine Company, and Berliner had sold his interests. In 1904, discs were first pressed with music on both sides and capable of around seven minutes total playing time, as opposed to the cylinder's typical duration on two minutes at that time. As a result of this and the fragility of wax cylinders in transit and storage, cylinders sales declined. Edison felt the increasing commercial pressure for disc records, and by 1912, though reluctant at first, his production of disc records was in full swing. This was the Edison Disc Record. Nevertheless, he continued to manufacture cylinders until 1929 and was last to withdraw from that market.
From the mid-1890s until World War I, both phonograph cylinder and disc recordings and machines to play them on were widely mass-marketed and sold. The disc system superseded the cylinder in Europe by 1906 when both Columbia and Pathe withdrew from that market. By 1913, Edison was the only company still producing cylinders in the USA although in Great Britain small manufacturers pressed on until 1922.
Dominance of the disc record
Berliner's lateral disc record was the ancestor of the 78 rpm, 45 rpm, 33⅓ rpm, and all other analogue disc records popular for use in sound recording. See gramophone record.
The 1920s brought improved radio technology. Radio sales increased, bringing many phonograph dealers to near financial ruin. With efforts at improved audio fidelity, the big record companies succeeded in keeping business booming through the end of the decade, but the record sales plummeted during the Great Depression, with many companies merging or going out of business.
Record sales picked up appreciably by the late 30s and early 40s, with greater improvements in fidelity and more money to be spent. By this time home phonographs had become much more common, though it wasn't until the 1940s that console radio/phono set-ups with automatic record changers became more common.
In the 1930s, vinyl (originally known as vinylite) was introduced as a record material for radio transcription discs, and for radio commercials. At that time, virtually no discs for home use were made from this material. Vinyl was used for the popular 78-rpm V-discs issued to US soldiers during World War II. This significantly reduced breakage during transport. The first commercial vinylite record was the set of five 12" discs "Prince Igor" (Asch Records album S-800, dubbed from Soviet masters in 1945). Victor began selling some home-use vinyl 78s in late 1945; but most 78s were made of a shellac compound until the 78-rpm format was completely phased out. (Shellac records were heavier and more brittle.) 33s and 45s were, however, made exclusively of vinyl, with the exception of some 45s manufactured out of polystyrene.
Booms in record sales returned after the Second World War, as industry standards changed from 78s to vinyl, long-playing records (commonly called record albums), which could contain an entire symphony, and 45s which usually contained one hit song popularized on the radio – thus the term "single" record – plus another song on the back or "flip" side. An "extended play" version of the 45 was also available, designated 45 EP, which provided capacity for longer musical selections, or for two regular-length songs per side.
Shortcomings include surface noise caused by dirt or abrasions (scratches) and failure caused by deep surface scratches causing skipping of the stylus forward and missing a section, or groove lock, causing a section to repeat, usually punctuated by a popping noise. This was so common that the phrase: "you sound like a broken record,” was coined, referring to someone who is being annoyingly repetitious.
First all-transistor phonograph
In 1955, Philco developed and produced the world's first all-transistor phonograph models TPA-1 and TPA-2, which were announced in the June 28, 1955 edition of the Wall Street Journal. Philco started to sell these all-transistor phonographs in the fall of 1955, for the price of $59.95. The October 1955 issue of Radio & Television News magazine (page 41), had a full page detailed article on Philco's new consumer product. The all-transistor portable phonograph TPA-1 and TPA-2 models played only 45rpm records and used four 1.5 volt "D" batteries for their power supply. The "TPA" stands for "Transistor Phonograph Amplifier". Their circuitry used three Philco germanium PNP alloy-fused junction audio frequency transistors. After the 1956 season had ended, Philco decided to discontinue both models, for transistors were too expensive compared to vacuum tubes, but by 1961 a $49.95 ($ in ) portable, battery-powered radio-phonograph with seven transistors was available.
By the 1960s, cheaper portable record players and record changers which played stacks of records in wooden console cabinets were popular, usually with heavy and crude tonearms in the portables. The consoles were often equipped with better quality pick-up cartridges. Even pharmacies stocked 45 rpm records at their front counters. Rock music played on 45s became the soundtrack to the 1960s as people bought the same songs that were played free of charge on the radio. Some record players were even tried in automobiles, but were quickly displaced by 8-track and cassette tapes.
The fidelity of sound reproduction made great advances during the 1970s, as turntables became very precise instruments with belt or direct drive, jewel-balanced tonearms, some with electronically controlled linear tracking and magnetic cartridges. Some cartridges had frequency response above 30 kHz for use with CD-4 quadraphonic 4 channel sound. A high fidelity component system which cost well under $1,000 could do a very good job of reproducing very accurate frequency response across the human audible spectrum from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz with a $200 turntable which would typically have less than 0.05% wow and flutter and very low rumble (low frequency noise). A well-maintained record would have very little surface noise.
A novelty variation on the standard format was the use of multiple concentric spirals with different recordings. Thus when the record was played multiple times, different recordings would play, seemingly at random. These were often utilized in talking toys and games.
Records themselves became an art form because of the large surface onto which graphics and books could be printed, and records could be molded into unusual shapes, colors, or with images (picture discs). The turntable remained a common element of home audio systems well after the introduction of other media, such as audio tape and even the early years of the compact disc as a lower-priced music format. However, even though the cost of producing CDs fell below that of records, CDs remained a higher-priced music format than either cassettes or records. Thus, records were not uncommon in home audio systems into the early 1990s.
By the turn of the 21st century, the turntable had become a niche product, as the price of CD players, which reproduce music free of pops and scratches, fell far lower than high-fidelity tape players or turntables. Nevertheless, there is some increase in interest; many big-box media stores carry turntables, as do professional DJ equipment stores. Most low-end and mid-range amplifiers omit the phono input; but on the other hand, low-end turntables with built-in phono pre-amplifiers are widely available. Some combination systems include a basic turntable, a CD player, a cassette deck. and a radio, in a retro-styled cabinet. Records also continue to be manufactured and sold today, albeit in smaller quantities than in the disc phonograph's heyday.
Turntable technology
Turntable construction
Inexpensive record players typically used a flanged steel stamping for the turntable structure. A rubber disc would be secured to the top of the stamping to provide traction for the record, as well as a small amount of vibration isolation. The spindle bearing usually consisted of a bronze bushing. The flange on the stamping provided a convenient place to drive the turntable by means of an idler wheel (see below). While light and cheap to manufacture, these mechanisms had low inertia, making motor speed instabilities more pronounced.
Costlier turntables made from heavy aluminium castings have greater balanced mass and inertia, helping minimize vibration at the stylus, and maintaining constant speed without wow or flutter, even if the motor exhibits cogging effects. Like stamped steel turntables, they were topped with rubber. Because of the increased mass, they usually employed ball bearings or roller bearings in the spindle to reduce friction and noise. Most are belt or direct drive, but some use an idler wheel. A specific case was the Swiss "Lenco" drive, which possessed a very heavy turntable coupled via an idler wheel to a long, tapered motor drive shaft. This enabled stepless rotation or speed control on the drive. Because of this feature the Lenco became popular in the late 1950s with dancing schools, because the dancing instructor could lead the dancing exercises at different speeds.
By the early 1980s, some companies started producing very inexpensive turntables that displaced the products of companies like BSR. Commonly found in "all-in-one" stereos from assorted far-east manufacturers, they used a thin plastic table set in a plastic plinth, no mats, belt drive, weak motors, and often, lightweight plastic tonearms with no counterweight. Most used sapphire pickups housed in ceramic cartridges, and they lacked several features of earlier units, such as auto-start and record-stacking. While not as common now that turntables are absent from the cheap "all-in-one" units, this type of turntable has made a strong resurgence in nostalgia-marketed record players.
Turntable drive systems
From the earliest phonograph designs, many of which were powered by spring-wound mechanisms, a speed governor was essential. Most of these employed some type of flywheel-friction disc to control the speed of the rotating cylinder or turntable; as the speed increased, centrifugal force caused a brake—often a felt pad—to rub against a smooth metal surface, slowing rotation. Electrically powered turntables, whose rotational speed was governed by other means, eventually made their mechanical counterparts obsolete. The mechanical governor was, however, still employed in some toy phonographs (such as those found in talking dolls) until they were replaced by digital sound generators in the late 20th century.
Many modern players have platters with a continuous series of strobe markings machined or printed around their edge. Viewing these markings in artificial light at mains frequency produces a stroboscopic effect, which can be used to verify proper rotational speed. Additionally, the edge of the turntable can contain magnetic markings to provide feedback pulses to an electronic speed-control system.
Idler-wheel drive system
Earlier designs used a rubberized idler-wheel drive system. However, wear and decomposition of the wheel, as well as the direct mechanical coupling to a vibrating motor, introduced low-frequency noise ("rumble") and speed variations ("wow and flutter") into the sound. These systems generally used a synchronous motor which ran at a speed synchronized to the frequency of the AC power supply. Portable record players typically used an inexpensive shaded-pole motor. At the end of the motor shaft there was a stepped driving capstan; to obtain different speeds, the rubber idler wheel was moved to contact different steps of this capstan. The idler was pinched against the bottom or inside edge of the platter to drive it.
Until the 1970s, the idler-wheel drive was the most common on turntables, except for higher-end audiophile models. However, even some higher-end turntables, such as the Lenco, Garrard, EMT, and Dual turntables, used idler-wheel drive.
Belt drive system
Belt drives brought improved motor and platter isolation compared to idler-wheel designs. Motor noise, generally heard as low-frequency rumble, is greatly reduced. The design of the belt drive turntable allows for a less expensive motor than the direct-drive turntable to be used. The elastomeric belt absorbs motor vibrations and noise which could otherwise be picked up by the stylus. It also absorbs small, fast speed variations, caused by "cogging", which in other designs are heard as "flutter."
The "Acoustical professional" turntable (earlier marketed under Dutch "Jobo prof") of the 1960s however possessed an expensive German drive motor, the "Pabst Aussenläufer" ("Pabst outrunner"). As this motor name implied, the rotor was on the outside of the motor and acted as a flywheel ahead of the belt-driven turntable itself. In combination with a steel to nylon turntable bearing (with molybdenum disulfide inside for lifelong lubrication) very low wow, flutter and rumble figures were achieved.
Direct drive system
Direct-drive turntables drive the platter directly without utilizing intermediate wheels, belts, or gears as part of a drive train. This requires good engineering, with advanced electronics for acceleration and speed control. Matsushita's Technics division introduced the first commercially successful direct drive platter, model SP10, in 1969, which was joined by the Technics SL-1200 turntable, in 1972. Its updated model, SL-1200MK2, released in 1978, had a stronger motor, a convenient pitch control slider for beatmatching and a stylus illuminator, which made it the long-standing favourite among disc jockeys (see "Turntablism"). By the beginnings of the 80s, lowering of costs in microcontroller electronics made direct drive turntables more affordable.
Pricing
Audiophile grade turntables start at a few hundred dollars and range upwards of $100,000, depending on the complexity and quality of design and manufacture. The common view is that there are diminishing returns with an increase in price – a turntable costing $1,000 would not sound significantly better than a turntable costing $500; nevertheless, there exists a large choice of expensive turntables.
Arm systems
The tone arm (or tonearm) holds the pickup cartridge over the groove, the stylus tracking the groove with the desired force to give the optimal compromise between good tracking and minimizing wear of the stylus and record groove. At its simplest, a tone arm is a pivoted lever, free to move in two axes (vertical and horizontal) with a counterbalance to maintain tracking pressure.
However, the requirements of high-fidelity reproduction place more demands upon the arm design. In a perfect world:
The tone arm must track the groove without distorting the stylus assembly, so an ideal arm would have no mass, and frictionless bearings, requiring zero force to move it.
The arm should not oscillate following a displacement, so it should either be both light and very stiff, or suitably damped.
The arm must not resonate with vibrations induced by the stylus or from the turntable motor or plinth, so it must be heavy enough to be immune to those vibrations, or it must be damped to absorb them.
The arm should keep the cartridge stylus tangent to the groove it's in as it moves across the record, with minimal variation in angle.
These demands are contradictory and impossible to realize (massless arms and zero-friction bearings do not exist in the real world), so tone arm designs require engineering compromises. Solutions vary, but all modern tonearms are at least relatively lightweight and stiff constructions, with precision, very low friction pivot bearings in both the vertical and horizontal axes. Most arms are made from some kind of alloy (the cheapest being aluminium), but some manufacturers use balsa wood, while others use carbon fiber or graphite. The latter materials favor a straight arm design; alloys' properties lend themselves to S-type arms.
The tone arm got its name before the age of electronics. It originally served to conduct actual sound waves from a purely mechanical "pickup" called a sound box or reproducer to a so-described "amplifying" horn. The earliest electronic record players, introduced at the end of 1925, had massive electromagnetic pickups that contained a horseshoe magnet, used disposable steel needles, and weighed several ounces. Their full weight rested on the record, providing ample tracking force to overcome their low compliance but causing rapid record wear. The tone arms were rudimentary and remained so even after lighter crystal pickups appeared about ten years later. When fine-grooved vinyl records were introduced in the late 1940s, still smaller and lighter crystal (later, ceramic) cartridges with semi-permanent jewel styluses became standard. In the mid-1950s these were joined by a new generation of magnetic cartridges that bore little resemblance to their crude ancestors. Far smaller tracking forces became possible and the balanced arm came into use.
Prices varied widely. The well-known and extremely popular high-end S-type SME arm of the 1970–1980 era not only had a complicated design, it was also very costly. On the other hand, even some cheaper arms could be of professional quality: the "All Balance" arm, made by the now-defunct Dutch company Acoustical, was only €30 [equivalent]. It was used during that period by all official radio stations in the Dutch Broadcast studio facilities of the NOS, as well as by the pirate radio station Veronica. Playing records from a boat in international waters, the arm had to withstand sudden ship movements. Anecdotes indicate this low-cost arm was the only one capable of keeping the needle firmly in the groove during heavy storms at sea.
Quality arms employ an adjustable counterweight to offset the mass of the arm and various cartridges and headshells. On this counterweight, a calibrated dial enables easy adjustment of stylus force. After perfectly balancing the arm, the dial itself is "zeroed"; the stylus force can then be dialed in by screwing the counterweight towards the fulcrum. (Sometimes a separate spring or smaller weight provides fine tuning.) Stylus forces of 10 to 20 mN (1 to 2 grams-force) are typical for modern consumer turntables, while forces of up to 50 mN (5 grams) are common for the tougher environmental demands of party deejaying or turntablism.
Of special adjustment consideration, Stanton cartridges of the 681EE(E) series [and others like them] feature a small record brush ahead of the cartridge. The upforce of this brush, and its added drag require compensation of both tracking force (add 1 gram) and anti-skating adjustment values (see next paragraph for description).
Even on a perfectly flat LP, tonearms are prone to two types of tracking errors that affect the sound. As the tonearm tracks the groove, the stylus exerts a frictional force tangent to the arc of the groove, and since this force does not intersect the tone arm pivot, a clockwise rotational force (moment) occurs and a reaction skating force is exerted on the stylus by the record groove wall away from center of the disc. Modern arms provide an anti-skate mechanism, using springs, hanging weights, or magnets to produce an offsetting counter-clockwise force at the pivot, making the net lateral force on the groove walls near zero.
The second error occurs as the arm sweeps in an arc across the disc, causing the angle between the cartridge head and groove to change slightly. A change in angle, albeit small, will have a detrimental effect (especially with stereo recordings) by creating different forces on the two groove walls, as well as a slight timing shift between left/right channels. Making the arm longer to reduce this angle is a partial solution, but less than ideal. A longer arm weighs more, and only an infinitely long [pivoted] arm would reduce the error to zero. Some designs (Burne-Jones, and Garrard "Zero" series) use dual arms in a parallelogram arrangement, pivoting the cartridge head to maintain a constant angle as it moves across the record. Unfortunately this "solution" creates more problems than it solves, compromising rigidity and creating sources of unwanted noise.
The pivoted arm produces yet another problem which is unlikely to be significant to the audiophile, though. As the master was originally cut in a linear motion from the edge towards the center, but the stylus on the pivoted arm always draws an arc, this causes a timing drift that is most significant when digitizing music and beat mapping the data for synchronization with other songs in a DAW or DJ software unless the software allows building a non-linear beat map. As the contact point of the stylus on the record wanders farther from the linear path between the starting point and center hole, the tempo and pitch tend to decrease towards the middle of the record, until the arc reaches its apex. After that the tempo and pitch increase towards the end as the contact point comes closer to the linear path again. Because the surface speed of the record is lower at the end, the relative speed error from the same absolute distance error is higher at the end, and the increase in tempo is more notable towards the end than the decrease towards the middle. This can be somewhat reduced by a curved arm pivoted so that the end point of the arc stays farther from the linear path than the starting point, or by a long straight arm that pivots perpendicularly to the linear path in the middle of the record. However the tempo droop at the middle can only be completely avoided by a linear tracking arm.
Linear tracking
If the arm is not pivoted, but instead carries the stylus along a radius of the disc, there is no skating force and little to no cartridge angle error. Such arms are known as linear tracking or tangential arms. These are driven along a track by various means, from strings and pulleys, to worm gears or electromagnets. The cartridge's position is usually regulated by an electronic servomechanism or mechanical interface, moving the stylus properly over the groove as the record plays, or for song selection.
There are long-armed and short-armed linear arm designs. On a perfectly flat record a short arm will do, but once the record is even slightly warped, a short arm will be troublesome. Any vertical motion of the record surface at the stylus contact point will cause the stylus to considerably move longitudinally in the groove. This will cause the stylus to ride non-tangentially in the groove and cause a stereo phase error as well as pitch error every time the stylus rides over the warp. Also the arm track can come into touch with the record. A long arm will not completely eliminate this problem but will tolerate warped records much better.
Early developments in linear turntables were from Rek-O-Kut (portable lathe/phonograph) and Ortho-Sonic in the 1950s, and Acoustical in the early 1960s. These were eclipsed by more successful implementations of the concept from the late 1960s through the early 1980s.
Of note are Rabco's SL-8, followed by Bang & Olufsen with its Beogram 4000 model in 1972. These models positioned the track outside the platter's edge, as did turntables by Harman Kardon, Mitsubishi, Pioneer, Yamaha, Sony, etc. A 1970s design from Revox harkened back to the 1950s attempts (and, record lathes), positioning the track directly over the record. An enclosed bridge-like assembly is swung into place from the platter's right edge to its middle. Once in place, a short tonearm under this "bridge" plays the record, driven across laterally by a motor. The Sony PS-F5/F9 (1983) uses a similar, miniaturized design, and can operate in a vertical or horizontal orientation. The Technics SL-10, introduced in 1981, was the first direct drive linear tracking turntable, and placed the track and arm on the underside of the rear-hinged dust cover, to fold down over the record, similar to the SL-Q6 pictured.
The earliest Edison phonographs used horizontal, spring-powered drives to carry the stylus across the recording at a pre-determined rate. But, historically as a whole, the linear tracking systems never gained wide acceptance, due largely to their complexity and associated production/development costs. The resources it takes to produce one incredible linear turntable could produce several excellent ones. Some of the most sophisticated and expensive tonearms and turntable units ever made are linear trackers, from companies such as Rockport and Clearaudio. In theory, it seems nearly ideal; a stylus replicating the motion of the recording lathe used to cut the "master" record could result in minimal wear and maximum sound reproduction. In practice, in vinyl's heyday it was generally too much too late.
Since the early 1980s, an elegant solution has been the near-frictionless air bearing linear arm that requires no tracking drive mechanism other than the record groove. This provides a similar benefit as the electronic linear tonearm without the complexity and necessity of servo-motor correction for tracking error. In this case the trade-off is the introduction of pneumatics in the form of audible pumps and tubing. A more elegant solution is the mechanically driven low-friction design, also driven by the groove. Examples include Souther Engineering (U.S.A.), Clearaudio (Germany), and Aura (Czech Republic). This design places an exceeding demand upon precision engineering due to the lack of pneumatics.
Pickup systems
Historically, most high-fidelity "component" systems (preamplifiers or receivers) that accepted input from a phonograph turntable had separate inputs for both ceramic and magnetic cartridges (typically labeled "CER" and "MAG"). One piece systems often had no additional phono inputs at all, regardless of type.
Most systems today, if they accept input from a turntable at all, are configured for use only with magnetic cartridges. Manufacturers of high-end systems often have in-built moving coil amplifier circuitry, or outboard head-amplifiers supporting either moving magnet or moving coil cartridges that can be plugged into the line stage.
Additionally, cartridges may contain styli or needles that can be separated according to their tip: Spherical styli, and elliptical styli. Spherical styli have their tip shaped like one half of a sphere, and elliptical styli have their tip shaped like one end of an ellipse. Spherical styli preserve more of the groove of the record than elliptical styli, while elliptical styli offer higher sound quality.
(crystal/ceramic) cartridges
Early electronic phonographs used a piezo-electric crystal for pickup (though the earliest electronic phonographs used crude magnetic pick-ups), where the mechanical movement of the stylus in the groove generates a proportional electrical voltage by creating stress within a crystal (typically Rochelle salt). Crystal pickups are relatively robust, and produce a substantial signal level which requires only a modest amount of further amplification. The output is not very linear however, introducing unwanted distortion. It is difficult to make a crystal pickup suitable for quality stereo reproduction, as the stiff coupling between the crystal and the long stylus prevents close tracking of the needle to the groove modulations. This tends to increase wear on the record, and introduces more distortion. Another problem is the hygroscopic nature of the crystal itself: it absorbs moisture from the air and may dissolve. The crystal was protected by embedding it in other materials, without hindering the movement of the pickup mechanism itself. After a number of years, the protective jelly often deteriorated or leaked from the cartridge case and the full unit needed replacement.
The next development was the ceramic cartridge, a piezoelectric device that used newer and better materials. These were more sensitive, and offered greater compliance, that is, lack of resistance to movement and so increased ability to follow the undulations of the groove without gross distorting or jumping out of the groove. Higher compliance meant lower tracking forces and reduced wear to both the disc and stylus. It also allowed ceramic stereo cartridges to be made.
Between the 1950s and 1970s, ceramic cartridges became common in low-quality phonographs, but better high-fidelity (or "hi-fi") systems used magnetic cartridges. The availability of low-cost magnetic cartridges from the 1970s onwards made ceramic cartridges obsolete for essentially all purposes. At the seeming end of the market lifespan of ceramic cartridges, someone accidentally discovered that by terminating a specific ceramic mono cartridge (the Ronette TX88) not with the prescribed 47 kΩ resistance, but with approx. 10 kΩ, it could be connected to the moving magnet (MM) input too. The result, a much smoother frequency curve extended the lifetime for this popular and very cheap type.
Magnetic cartridges
There are two common designs for magnetic cartridges, moving magnet (MM) and moving coil (MC) (originally called dynamic). Both operate on the same physics principle of electromagnetic induction. The moving magnet type was by far the most common and more robust of the two, though audiophiles often claim that the moving coil system yields higher fidelity sound.
In either type, the stylus itself, usually of diamond, is mounted on a tiny metal strut called a cantilever, which is suspended using a collar of highly compliant plastic. This gives the stylus the freedom to move in any direction. On the other end of the cantilever is mounted a tiny permanent magnet (moving magnet type) or a set of tiny wound coils (moving coil type). The magnet is close to a set of fixed pick-up coils, or the moving coils are held within a magnetic field generated by fixed permanent magnets. In either case, the movement of the stylus as it tracks the grooves of a record causes a fluctuating magnetic field, which causes a small electric current to be induced in the coils. This current closely follows the sound waveform cut into the record, and may be transmitted by wires to an electronic amplifier where it is processed and amplified in order to drive a loudspeaker. Depending upon the amplifier design, a phono-preamplifier may be necessary.
In most moving magnet designs, the stylus itself is detachable from the rest of the cartridge so it can easily be replaced. There are three primary types of cartridge mounts. The most common type is attached using two small screws to a headshell that then plugs into the tonearm, while another is a standardized "P-mount" or "T4P" cartridge (invented by Technics in 1980 and adopted by other manufacturers) that plugs directly into the tonearm. Many P-mount cartridges come with adapters to allow them to be mounted to a headshell. The third type is used mainly in cartridges designed for DJ use and it has a standard round headshell connector. Some mass market turntables use a proprietary integrated cartridge that cannot be upgraded.
An alternative design is the moving iron variation on moving magnet used by ADC, Grado, Stanton/Pickering 681 series, Ortofon OM and VMS series, and the MMC cartridge of Bang & Olufsen. In these units, the magnet itself sits behind the four coils and magnetises the cores of all four coils. The moving iron cross at the other end of the coils varies the gaps between itself and each of these cores, according to its movements. These variations lead to voltage variations as described above.
Famous brands for magnetic cartridges are: Grado, Stanton/Pickering (681EE/EEE), B&O (MM types for its two, non-compatible generations of parallel arm design), Shure (V15 Type I to V), Audio-Technica, Nagaoka, Dynavector, Koetsu, Ortofon, Technics, Denon and ADC.
Strain gauge cartridges
Strain gauge or "semiconductor" cartridges do not generate a voltage, but act like a variable resistor, whose resistance directly depends on the movement of the stylus. Thus, the cartridge "modulates" an external voltage supplied by the (special) preamplifier. These pickups were marketed by Euphonics, Sao Win, and Panasonic/Technics, amongst others.
The main advantages (compared to magnetic carts are):
The electrical connection from the cartridge to the preamplifier is immune to cable capacitance issues.
Being non-magnetic, the cartridge is immune to "hum" induced by stray magnetic fields (same advantage shared with ceramic cartridges).
The combination of electrical and mechanical advantages, plus the absence of magnetic yoke high-frequency losses, make them especially suitable to reproducing frequencies up to 50 kHz. Technics (Matsushita Electric) marketed a line of strain-gauge (labeled "semiconductor") cartridges especially intended for Compatible Discrete 4 quadraphonic records, requiring such high frequency response. Bass response down to 0 Hz is possible.
By using a suitable mechanical arrangement, VTA (vertical tracking angle) stays steady independent of the stylus vertical movements, with the consequent reduction in related distortions.
Being a force sensor, the strain-gauge cartridge can also measure the actual VTF (vertical tracking force) while in use.
The main disadvantage is the need of a special preamplifier that supplies a steady current (typically 5mA) to the semiconductor elements and handles a special equalization than the one needed for magnetic cartridges.
A high-end strain-gauge cartridge is currently sold by an audiophile company, with special preamplifiers available.
Electrostatic cartridges
Electrostatic cartridges were marketed by Stax in the 1950 and 1960 years. They needed individual operating electronics or preamplifiers.
Optical readout
A few specialist laser turntables read the groove optically using a laser pickup. Since there is no physical contact with the record, no wear is incurred. However, this "no wear" advantage is debatable, since vinyl records have been tested to withstand even 1200 plays with no significant audio degradation, provided that it is played with a high quality cartridge and that the surfaces are clean.
An alternative approach is to take a high-resolution photograph or scan of each side of the record and interpret the image of the grooves using computer software. An amateur attempt using a flatbed scanner lacked satisfactory fidelity. A professional system employed by the Library of Congress produces excellent quality.
Stylus
A smooth-tipped stylus (in popular usage often called a needle due to the former use of steel needles for the purpose) is used to play the recorded groove. A special chisel-like stylus is used to engrave the groove into the master record.
The stylus is subject to hard wear as it is the only small part that comes into direct contact with the spinning record. In terms of the force imposed on its minute areas of actual contact, the pressure it must bear is enormous. There are three desired qualities in a stylus: first, that it faithfully follows the contours of the recorded groove and transmits its vibrations to the next part in the chain; second, that it does not damage the recorded disc; and third, that it is resistant to wear. A worn-out, damaged or defective stylus tip will degrade audio quality and injure the groove.
Different materials for the stylus have been used over time. Thomas Edison introduced the use of sapphire in 1892 and the use of diamond in 1910 for his cylinder phonographs. The Edison Diamond Disc players (1912–1929), when properly played, hardly ever required the stylus to be changed. The styli for vinyl records were also made out of sapphire or diamond. A specific case is the specific stylus type of Bang & Olufsen's (B&O) moving magnet cartridge MMC 20CL, mostly used in parallel arm B&O turntables in the 4002/6000 series. It uses a sapphire stem on which a diamond tip is fixed by a special adhesive. A stylus tip mass as low as 0.3 milligram is the result and full tracking only requires 1 gram of stylus force, reducing record wear even further. Maximum distortion (2nd harmonic) fell below 0.6%.
Other than the Edison and European Pathé disc machines, early disc players, both external horn and internal horn "Victrola" style models, normally used very short-lived disposable needles. The most common material was steel, although other materials such as copper, tungsten, bamboo and cactus were used. Steel needles needed to be replaced frequently, preferably after each use, due to their very rapid wear from bearing down heavily on the mildly abrasive shellac record. Rapid wear was an essential feature so that their imprecisely formed tips would be quickly worn into compliance with the groove's contours. Advertisements implored customers to replace their steel needles after each record side. Steel needles were inexpensive, e.g., a box of 500 for 50 US cents, and were widely sold in packets and small tins. They were available in different thicknesses and lengths. Thick, short needles produced strong, loud tones while thinner, longer needles produces softer, muted tones. In 1916, in the face of a wartime steel shortage, Victor introduced their "Tungs-Tone" brand extra-long-playing needle, which was advertised to play between 100 and 300 records. It consisted of a brass shank into which a very hard and strong tungsten wire, somewhat narrower than the standard record groove, had been fitted. The protruding wire wore down, but not out, until it was worn too short to use. Later in the 78 rpm era, hardened steel and chrome-plated needles came on the market, some of which were claimed to play 10 to 20 record sides each.
When sapphires were introduced for the 78 rpm disc and the LP, they were made by tapering a stem and polishing the tip to a sphere with a radius of around 70 and 25 micrometers respectively. A sphere is not equal to the form of the cutting stylus and by the time diamond needles came to the market, a whole discussion was started on the effect of circular forms moving through a non-circular cut groove. It can be easily shown that vertical, so called "pinching" movements were a result and when stereophonic LPs were introduced, unwanted vertical modulation was recognized as a problem. Also, the needle started its life touching the groove on a very small surface, giving extra wear on the walls.
Another problem is in the tapering along a straight line, while the side of the groove is far from straight. Both problems were attacked together: by polishing the diamond in a certain way that it could be made doubly elliptic. 1) the side was made into one ellipse as seen from behind, meaning the groove touched along a short line and 2) the ellipse form was also polished as seen from above and curvature in the direction of the groove became much smaller than 25 micrometers e.g. 13 micrometers. With this approach a number of irregularities were eliminated. Furthermore, the angle of the stylus, which used to be always sloping backwards, was changed into the forward direction, in line with the slope the original cutting stylus possessed. These styli were expensive to produce, but the costs were effectively offset by their extended lifespans.
The next development in stylus form came about by the attention to the CD-4 quadraphonic sound modulation process, which requires up to 50 kHz frequency response, with cartridges like Technics EPC-100CMK4 capable of playback on frequencies up to 100 kHz. This requires a stylus with a narrow side radius, such as 5 µm (or 0.2 mil). A narrow-profile elliptical stylus is able to read the higher frequencies (greater than 20 kHz), but at an increased wear, since the contact surface is narrower. For overcoming this problem, the Shibata stylus was invented around 1972 in Japan by Norio Shibata of JVC, fitted as standard on quadraphonic cartridges, and marketed as an extra on some high-end cartridges.
The Shibata-designed stylus offers a greater contact surface with the groove, which in turn means less pressure over the vinyl surface and thus less wear. A positive side effect is that the greater contact surface also means the stylus will read sections of the vinyl that were not touched (or "worn") by the common spherical stylus. In a demonstration by JVC records "worn" after 500 plays at a relatively very high 4.5 gf tracking force with a spherical stylus, played "as new" with the Shibata profile.
Other advanced stylus shapes appeared following the same goal of increasing contact surface, improving on the Shibata. Chronologically: "Hughes" Shibata variant (1975), "Ogura" (1978), Van den Hul (1982). Such a stylus may be marketed as "Hyperelliptical" (Shure), "Alliptic", "Fine Line" (Ortofon), "Line contact" (Audio Technica), "Polyhedron", "LAC", or "Stereohedron" (Stanton).
A keel-shaped diamond stylus appeared as a byproduct of the invention of the CED Videodisc. This, together with laser-diamond-cutting technologies, made possible the "ridge" shaped stylus, such as the Namiki (1985) design, and Fritz Gyger (1989) design. This type of stylus is marketed as "MicroLine" (Audio technica), "Micro-Ridge" (Shure), or "Replicant" (Ortofon).
It is important to point out that most of those stylus profiles are still being manufactured and sold, together with the more common spherical and elliptical profiles. This is despite the fact that production of CD-4 quadraphonic records ended by the late 1970s.
For elliptical and advanced stylus shapes, correct cartridge alignment is critical. There are several alignment methods, each creating different null points at which the stylus will be tangential to the record grooves, optimizing distortion across the record side in different ways. The most popular alignment geometries are Baerwald, Løfgren B and Stevenson.
Common tools to align the stylus correctly are 2-point protractors (which can be used with any turntable as long as the headshells are long enough for the chosen alignment), overhang gauges and arc protractors (model specific).
Record materials
Early materials in the 19th century were hardened rubber, wax, and celluloid, but early in the 20th century a shellac compound became the standard. Since shellac is not hard enough to withstand the wear of steel needles on heavy tone arms, filler made of pulverized shale was added. Shellac was also fragile, and records often shattered or cracked. This was a problem for home records, but it became a bigger problem in the late 1920s with the Vitaphone sound-on-disc motion picture "talkie" system, developed in 1927.
To solve this problem, in 1930, RCA Victor made unbreakable records by mixing polyvinyl chloride with plasticisers, in a proprietary formula they called Victrolac, which was first used in 1931, in motion picture discs, and experimentally, in home records, the same year. However, with Sound-on-film achieving supremacy over sound-on-disc by 1931, the need for unbreakable records diminished and the production of vinyl home recordings was dropped as well, for the time being.
The Victrolac formula improved throughout the 1930s, and by the late 30s the material, by then called vinylite, was being used in records sent to radio stations for radio program records, radio commercials, and later, DJ copies of phonograph records, because vinyl records could be sent through the mail to radio stations without breaking. During WWII, there was a shortage of shellac, which had to be imported from Asia, and the U.S. government banned production of shellac records for the duration of the war. Vinylite was made domestically, though, and was being used for V-discs during the war. Record company engineers took a much closer look at the possibilities of vinyl, possibly that it might even replace shellac as the basic record material.
After the war, RCA Victor and Columbia, by far the two leading records companies in America, perfected two new vinyl formats, which were both introduced in 1948, when the 33 RPM LP was introduced by Columbia and the 45 RPM single was introduced by RCA Victor. For a few years thereafter, however, 78 RPM records continued to be made in shellac until that format was phased out around 1958.
Equalization
Early "acoustical" record players used the stylus to vibrate a diaphragm that radiated the sound through a horn. Several serious problems resulted from this:
The maximum sound level achievable was quite limited, being limited to the physical amplification effects of the horn,
The energy needed to generate such sound levels as were obtainable had to come directly from the stylus tracing the groove. This required very high tracking forces that rapidly wore out both the stylus and the record on lateral cut 78 rpm records.
Because bass sounds have a higher amplitude than high frequency sounds (for the same perceived loudness), the space taken in the groove by low frequency sounds needed to be large (limiting playback time per side of the record) to accommodate the bass notes, yet the high frequencies required only tiny variations in the groove, which were easily affected by noise from irregularities (wear, contaminates, etc.) in the disc itself.
The introduction of electronic amplification allowed these issues to be addressed. Records are made with boosted high frequencies and reduced low frequencies, which allow for different ranges of sound to be produced. This reduces the effect of background noise, including clicks or pops, and also conserves the amount of physical space needed for each groove, by reducing the size of the low-frequency undulations.
During playback, the high frequencies must be rescaled to their original, flat frequency response—known as "equalization"—as well as being amplified. A phono input of an amplifier incorporates such equalization as well as amplification to suit the very low level output from a modern cartridge. Most hi-fi amplifiers made between the 1950s and the 1990s and virtually all DJ mixers are so equipped.
The widespread adoption of digital music formats, such as CD or satellite radio, has displaced phonograph records and resulted in phono inputs being omitted in most modern amplifiers. Some newer turntables include built-in preamplifiers to produce line-level outputs. Inexpensive and moderate performance discrete phono preamplifiers with RIAA equalization are available, while high-end audiophile units costing thousands of dollars continue to be available in very small numbers. Phono inputs are starting to reappear on amplifiers in the 2010s due to the vinyl revival.
Since the late 1950s, almost all phono input stages have used the RIAA equalization standard. Before settling on that standard, there were many different equalizations in use, including EMI, HMV, Columbia, Decca FFRR, NAB, Ortho, BBC transcription, etc. Recordings made using these other equalization schemes will typically sound odd if they are played through a RIAA-equalized preamplifier. High-performance (so-called "multicurve disc") preamplifiers, which include multiple, selectable equalizations, are no longer commonly available. However, some vintage preamplifiers, such as the LEAK varislope series, are still obtainable and can be refurbished. Newer preamplifiers like the Esoteric Sound Re-Equalizer or the K-A-B MK2 Vintage Signal Processor are also available. These kinds of adjustable phono equalizers are used by consumers wishing to play vintage record collections (often the only available recordings of musicians of the time) with the equalization used to make them.
In the 21st century
Turntables continued to be manufactured and sold in the 2010s, although in small numbers. While some audiophiles still prefer the sound of vinyl records over that of digital music sources (mainly compact discs), they represent a minority of listeners. As of 2015, the sale of vinyl LP's has increased 49–50% percent from the previous year, although small in comparison to the sale of other formats which although more units were sold (Digital Sales, CDs) the more modern formats experienced a decline in sales. The quality of available record players, tonearms, and cartridges has continued to improve, despite diminishing demand, allowing turntables to remain competitive in the high-end audio market. Vinyl enthusiasts are often committed to the refurbishment and sometimes tweaking of vintage systems.
In 2017, vinyl LP sales were slightly decreased, at a rate of 5%, in comparison to previous years' numbers, regardless of the noticeable rise of vinyl records sales worldwide.
Updated versions of the 1970s era Technics SL-1200 (production ceased in 2010) have remained an industry standard for DJs to the present day. Turntables and vinyl records remain popular in mixing (mostly dance-oriented) forms of electronic music, where they allow great latitude for physical manipulation of the music by the DJ.
In hip hop music, and occasionally in other genres, the turntable is used as a musical instrument by DJs, who use turntables along with a DJ mixer to create unique rhythmic sounds. Manipulation of a record as part of the music, rather than for normal playback or mixing, is called turntablism. The basis of turntablism, and its best known technique, is scratching, pioneered by Grand Wizzard Theodore. It was not until Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" in 1983 that the turntablism movement was recognized in popular music outside of a hip hop context. In the 2010s, many hip hop DJs use DJ CD players or digital record emulator devices to create scratching sounds; nevertheless, some DJs still scratch with vinyl records.
The laser turntable uses a laser as the pickup instead of a stylus in physical contact with the disk. It was conceived of in the late 1980s, although early prototypes were not of usable audio quality. Practical laser turntables are now being manufactured by ELPJ. They are favoured by record libraries and some audiophiles since they eliminate physical wear completely.
Experimentation is in progress in retrieving the audio from old records by scanning the disc and analysing the scanned image, rather than using any sort of turntable.
Although largely replaced since the introduction of the compact disc in 1982, record albums still sell in small numbers and are available through numerous sources. In 2008, LP sales grew by 90% over 2007, with 1.9 million records sold.
USB turntables have a built-in audio interface, which transfers the sound directly to the connected computer. Some USB turntables transfer the audio without equalization, but are sold with software that allows the EQ of the transferred audio file to be adjusted. There are also many turntables on the market designed to be plugged into a computer via a USB port for needle dropping purposes.
Responding to longtime calls by fans and disc jockeys, Panasonic Corp. said it is reviving Technics turntables–the series that remains a de facto standard player supporting nightclub music scenes.
The new analog turntable, which would come with new direct-drive motor technologies that Panasonic says will improve the quality of sound. Beginning of 2019 Technics unveiled SL-1500C Premium Class Direct Drive Turntable System which inherits the brand's high-end sound quality concept.
See also
Archéophone, used to convert diverse types of cylinder recordings to modern CD media
Audio signal processing
Compressed air gramophone
List of phonograph manufacturers
Talking Machine World
Vinyl killer
Notes
References
Further reading
Bruil, Rudolf A. (January 8, 2004). "Linear Tonearms." Retrieved on July 25, 2011.
Gelatt, Roland. The Fabulous Phonograph, 1877–1977. Second rev. ed., [being also the] First Collier Books ed., in series, Sounds of the Century. New York: Collier, 1977. 349 p., ill.
Heumann, Michael. "Metal Machine Music: The Phonograph's Voice and the Transformation of Writing." eContact! 14.3 — Turntablism (January 2013). Montréal: CEC.
Koenigsberg, Allen. The Patent History of the Phonograph, 1877–1912. APM Press, 1991.
Various. "Turntable [wiki]: Bibliography." eContact! 14.3 — Turntablism (January 2013). Montréal: CEC.
Weissenbrunner, Karin. "Experimental Turntablism: Historical overview of experiments with record players / records — or Scratches from Second-Hand Technology." eContact! 14.3 — Turntablism (January 2013). Montréal: CEC.
External links
c.1915 Swiss hot-air engined gramophone at Museum of Retro Technology
Interactive sculpture delivers tactile soundwave experience
Very early recordings from around the world
The Birth of the Recording Industry
The Cylinder Archive
Cylinder Preservation & Digitization Project – Over 6,000 cylinder recordings held by the Department of Special Collections, University of California, Santa Barbara, free for download or streamed online.
Cylinder players held at the British Library – information and high-quality images.
History of Recorded Sound: Phonographs and Records
EnjoytheMusic.com – Excerpts from the book Hi-Fi All-New 1958 Edition
Listen to early recordings on the Edison Phonograph
Mario Frazzetto's Phonograph and Gramophone Gallery.
Say What? – Essay on phonograph technology and intellectual property law
Vinyl Engine – Information, images, articles and reviews from around the world
The Analogue Dept – Information, images and tutorials; strongly focused on Thorens brand
45 rpm player and changer at work on YouTube
Historic video footage of Edison operating his original tinfoil phonograph
Turntable History on Enjoy the Music.com
2-point and Arc Protractor generators on AlignmentProtractor.com
Audiovisual introductions in 1877
American inventions
Audio players
Thomas Edison
Sound recording
Hip hop production
Turntablism
19th-century inventions | false | [
"The Utter Party Massacre was an attack by Native Americans on September 9 or 13, 1860, that killed or captured 29 of a group of 44 emigrants on a fork of the Oregon Trail in Washington Territory (modern day Idaho), United States. 10 survivors were found on October 24, 1860, emaciated and eating the disinterred remains of a party member. Historian Charles Henry Carey described the attack as \"more atrocious than any that had preceded it\". It was noted as a \"rare [occasion] when Indians not only attempted but sustained a prolonged assault on encircled emigrant wagons\".\n\nName\nThe incident has been referred to by many names. Some have referred to it by family names of party members, including the Van Ornum party massacre, the Myers massacre, the Utter train massacre, and other variations.\n\nIt has also been referred to by its location, including Salmon Falls Massacre (referring to Salmon Falls on the Snake River) and the Sinker Creek Tragedy.\n\nThe Interstate 84 road sign lists it as the Van Ornum Battle site.\n\nCitations\n\nBibliography\n\nFurther reading\n\n \n \n\n1860 in Washington Territory\nIncidents of cannibalism\nMassacres by Native Americans\nOregon Trail\nSeptember 1860 events",
"Lothoo Singh Nitharwal (1804–1855) was a Jat freedom fighter from Rajasthan, India. He wanted to overturn the role of the East India Company in India, establish democracy and also free people from exploitation by jagirdars. His best friend was Karna Meena.\n\nNitharwal is referred to by numerous other names, including Lothoo Jat, Lothoo Singh, Lothoo Ram, Loth, Lothan, Lot, Lotia, and Lohat.\n\nReferences\n\n1804 births\n1855 deaths\nRajasthani people\nIndian revolutionaries\nPeople from Sikar district"
] |
[
"Phonograph",
"Terminology",
"What are some of the terms used for the phonograph?",
"The term phonograph (\"sound writing\") was derived from the Greek words phone (phone, \"sound\" or \"voice\") and graphe (graphe, \"writing\").",
"Was it referred to by any other names?",
"In more modern usage, the playback device is often called a \"turntable\", \"record player\", or \"record changer\"."
] | C_53febef912dd41d38a913351d47c761c_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 3 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article aside from terms used for the phonograph and where the terms derived from? | Phonograph | Usage of terminology is not uniform across the English-speaking world (see below). In more modern usage, the playback device is often called a "turntable", "record player", or "record changer". When used in conjunction with a mixer as part of a DJ setup, turntables are often colloquially called "decks". In later electric phonographs (more often known since the 1940s as record players or, most recently, turntables), the motions of the stylus are converted into an analogous electrical signal by a transducer, then converted back into sound by a loudspeaker. The term phonograph ("sound writing") was derived from the Greek words phone (phone, "sound" or "voice") and graphe (graphe, "writing"). The similar related terms gramophone (from the Greek gramma gramma "letter" and phone phone "voice") and graphophone have similar root meanings. The roots were already familiar from existing 19th-century words such as photograph ("light writing"), telegraph ("distant writing"), and telephone ("distant sound"). The new term may have been influenced by the existing words phonographic and phonography, which referred to a system of phonetic shorthand; in 1852 The New York Times carried an advertisement for "Professor Webster's phonographic class", and in 1859 the New York State Teachers Association tabled a motion to "employ a phonographic recorder" to record its meetings. Arguably, any device used to record sound or reproduce recorded sound could be called a type of "phonograph", but in common practice the word has come to mean historic technologies of sound recording, involving audio-frequency modulations of a physical trace or groove. In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, "Phonograph", "Gramophone", "Graphophone", "Zonophone" and the like were still brand names specific to various makers of sometimes very different (i.e. cylinder and disc) machines; so considerable use was made of the generic term "talking machine", especially in print. "Talking machine" had earlier been used to refer to complicated devices which produced a crude imitation of speech, by simulating the workings of the vocal cords, tongue, and lips - a potential source of confusion both then and now. CANNOTANSWER | Arguably, any device used to record sound or reproduce recorded sound could be called a type of "phonograph", | A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue recording and reproduction of sound. The sound vibration waveforms are recorded as corresponding physical deviations of a spiral groove engraved, etched, incised, or impressed into the surface of a rotating cylinder or disc, called a "record". To recreate the sound, the surface is similarly rotated while a playback stylus traces the groove and is therefore vibrated by it, very faintly reproducing the recorded sound. In early acoustic phonographs, the stylus vibrated a diaphragm which produced sound waves which were coupled to the open air through a flaring horn, or directly to the listener's ears through stethoscope-type earphones.
The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison. Alexander Graham Bell's Volta Laboratory made several improvements in the 1880s and introduced the graphophone, including the use of wax-coated cardboard cylinders and a cutting stylus that moved from side to side in a zigzag groove around the record. In the 1890s, Emile Berliner initiated the transition from phonograph cylinders to flat discs with a spiral groove running from the periphery to near the center, coining the term gramophone for disc record players, which is predominantly used in many languages. Later improvements through the years included modifications to the turntable and its drive system, the stylus or needle, pickup system, and the sound and equalization systems.
The disc phonograph record was the dominant commercial audio recording format throughout most of the 20th century. In the mid-1960s the use of 8-track cartridges and cassette tapes were introduced as alternatives. In the 1980s, phonograph use declined sharply due to the popularity of cassettes and the rise of the compact disc, as well as the later introduction of digital music distribution in the 2000s. However, records are still a favorite format for some audiophiles, DJs, collectors, and turntablists (particularly in hip hop and electronic dance music), and have undergone a revival since the 2000s.
Terminology
Usage of terminology is not uniform across the English-speaking world (see below). In more modern usage, the playback device is often called a "turntable", "record player", or "record changer", although each of these terms denote categorically distinct items. When used in conjunction with a mixer as part of a DJ setup, turntables are often colloquially called "decks". In later electric phonographs (more often known since the 1940s as record players or turntables), the motions of the stylus are converted into an analogous electrical signal by a transducer, then converted back into sound by a loudspeaker. The term phonograph ("sound writing") was derived from the Greek words (, 'sound' or 'voice') and (, 'writing'). The similar related terms gramophone (from the Greek 'letter' and 'voice') and graphophone have similar root meanings. The roots were already familiar from existing 19th-century words such as photograph ("light writing"), telegraph ("distant writing"), and telephone ("distant sound"). The new term may have been influenced by the existing words phonographic and phonography, which referred to a system of phonetic shorthand; in 1852 The New York Times carried an advertisement for "Professor Webster's phonographic class", and in 1859 the New York State Teachers Association tabled a motion to "employ a phonographic recorder" to record its meetings.
Arguably, any device used to record sound or reproduce recorded sound could be called a type of "phonograph", but in common practice the word has come to mean historic technologies of sound recording, involving audio-frequency modulations of a physical trace or groove. In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, "Phonograph", "Gramophone", "Graphophone", "Zonophone", "Graphonole" and the like were still brand names specific to various makers of sometimes very different (i.e. cylinder and disc) machines; so considerable use was made of the generic term "talking machine", especially in print. "Talking machine" had earlier been used to refer to complicated devices which produced a crude imitation of speech, by simulating the workings of the vocal cords, tongue, and lips – a potential source of confusion both then and now.
United Kingdom
In British English, "gramophone" may refer to any sound-reproducing machine using disc records, which were introduced and popularized in the UK by the Gramophone Company. Originally, "gramophone" was a proprietary trademark of that company and any use of the name by competing makers of disc records was vigorously prosecuted in the courts, but in 1910 an English court decision decreed that it had become a generic term; it has been so used in the UK and most Commonwealth countries since. The term "phonograph" was usually restricted to machines that used cylinder records.
"Gramophone" generally referred to a wind-up machine. After the introduction of the softer vinyl records, -rpm LPs (long-playing records) and 45-rpm "single" or two-song records, and EPs (extended-play recordings), the common name became "record player" or "turntable". Often the home record player was part of a system that included a radio (radiogram) and, later, might also play audiotape cassettes. From about 1960, such a system began to be described as a "hi-fi" (high-fidelity, monophonic) or a "stereo" (most systems being stereophonic by the mid-1960s).
United States
In American English, "phonograph", properly specific to machines made by Edison, was sometimes used in a generic sense as early as the 1890s to include cylinder-playing machines made by others. But it was then considered strictly incorrect to apply it to Emile Berliner's upstart Gramophone, a very different machine which played discs (although Edison's original Phonograph patent included the use of discs). "Talking machine" was the comprehensive generic term, but from about 1902 on, the general public was increasingly applying the word "phonograph" indiscriminately to both cylinder and disc machines and to the records they played. By the time of the First World War, the mass advertising and popularity of the Victrola (a line of disc-playing machines characterized by their concealed horns) sold by the Victor Talking Machine Company was leading to widespread generic use of the word "victrola" for any machine that played discs, which were generally called "phonograph records" or simply "records", but almost never "Victrola records".
After electrical disc-playing machines appeared on the market in the late 1920s, often combined with a radio receiver, the term "record player" was increasingly favored by the public. Manufacturers, however, typically advertised such combinations as "radio-phonographs". Portable record players (no radio included), with a latched cover and an integrated power amplifier and loudspeaker, were becoming popular as well, especially in schools and for use by children and teenagers.
In the years following the Second World War, as "hi-fi" (high-fidelity, monophonic) and, later, "stereo" (stereophonic) component sound systems slowly evolved from an exotic specialty item into a common feature of American homes, the description of the record-spinning component as a "record changer" (which could automatically play through a stacked series of discs) or a "turntable" (which could hold only one disc at a time) entered common usage. By the 1980s, the use of a "record changer" was widely disparaged. So, the "turntable" emerged triumphant and retained its position to the present. Through all these changes, however, the discs have continued to be known as "phonograph records" or, much more commonly, simply as "records".
Gramophone, as a brand name, was not used in the United States after 1902, and the word quickly fell out of use there, although it has survived in its nickname form, Grammy, as the name of the Grammy Awards. The Grammy trophy itself is a small rendering of a gramophone, resembling a Victor disc machine with a taper arm.
Modern amplifier-component manufacturers continue to label the input jack for a magnetic pickup cartridge as the "phono" input.
Australia
In Australian English, "record player" was the term; "turntable" was a more technical term; "gramophone" was restricted to the old mechanical (i.e., wind-up) players; and "phonograph" was used as in British English. The "phonograph" was first demonstrated in Australia on 14 June, 1878 to a meeting of the Royal Society of Victoria by the Society's Honorary Secretary, Alex Sutherland who published "The Sounds of the Consonants, as Indicated by the Phonograph" in the Society's journal in November that year. On 8 August, 1878 the phonograph was publicly demonstrated at the Society's annual conversazione, along with a range of other new inventions, including the microphone.
Early history
Predecessors to the phonograph
Several inventors devised machines to record sound prior to Thomas Edison's phonograph, Edison being the first to invent a device that could both record and reproduce sound. The phonograph's predecessors include Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville's phonautograph, and Charles Cros's paleophone. Recordings made with the phonautograph were intended to be visual representations of the sound, but were never sonically reproduced until 2008. Cros's paleophone was intended to both record and reproduce sound but had not been developed beyond a basic concept at the time of Edison's successful demonstration of the phonograph in 1877.
Phonautograph
Direct tracings of the vibrations of sound-producing objects such as tuning forks had been made by English physicist Thomas Young in 1807, but the first known device for recording airborne speech, music and other sounds is the phonautograph, patented in 1857 by French typesetter and inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. In this device, sound waves travelling through the air vibrated a parchment diaphragm which was linked to a bristle, and the bristle traced a line through a thin coating of soot on a sheet of paper wrapped around a rotating cylinder. The sound vibrations were recorded as undulations or other irregularities in the traced line. Scott's phonautograph was intended purely for the visual study and analysis of the tracings. Reproduction of the recorded sound was not possible with the original phonautograph.
In 2008, phonautograph recordings made by Scott were played back as sound by American audio historians, who used optical scanning and computer processing to convert the traced waveforms into digital audio files. These recordings, made circa 1860, include fragments of two French songs and a recitation in Italian.
Paleophone
Charles Cros, a French poet and amateur scientist, is the first person known to have made the conceptual leap from recording sound as a traced line to the theoretical possibility of reproducing the sound from the tracing and then to devising a definite method for accomplishing the reproduction. On April 30, 1877, he deposited a sealed envelope containing a summary of his ideas with the French Academy of Sciences, a standard procedure used by scientists and inventors to establish priority of conception of unpublished ideas in the event of any later dispute.
Cros proposed the use of photoengraving, a process already in use to make metal printing plates from line drawings, to convert an insubstantial phonautograph tracing in soot into a groove or ridge on a metal disc or cylinder. This metal surface would then be given the same motion and speed as the original recording surface. A stylus linked to a diaphragm would be made to ride in the groove or on the ridge so that the stylus would be moved back and forth in accordance with the recorded vibrations. It would transmit these vibrations to the connected diaphragm, and the diaphragm would transmit them to the air.
An account of his invention was published on October 10, 1877, by which date Cros had devised a more direct procedure: the recording stylus could scribe its tracing through a thin coating of acid-resistant material on a metal surface and the surface could then be etched in an acid bath, producing the desired groove without the complication of an intermediate photographic procedure. The author of this article called the device a , but Cros himself favored the word , sometimes rendered in French as ('voice of the past').
Cros was a poet of meager means, not in a position to pay a machinist to build a working model, and largely content to bequeath his ideas to the public domain free of charge and let others reduce them to practice, but after the earliest reports of Edison's presumably independent invention crossed the Atlantic he had his sealed letter of April 30 opened and read at the December 3, 1877 meeting of the French Academy of Sciences, claiming due scientific credit for priority of conception.
Throughout the first decade (1890–1900) of commercial production of the earliest crude disc records, the direct acid-etch method first invented by Cros was used to create the metal master discs, but Cros was not around to claim any credit or to witness the humble beginnings of the eventually rich phonographic library he had foreseen. He had died in 1888 at the age of 45.
The early phonographs
Thomas Edison conceived the principle of recording and reproducing sound between May and July 1877 as a byproduct of his efforts to "play back" recorded telegraph messages and to automate speech sounds for transmission by telephone. His first experiments were with waxed paper. He announced his invention of the first phonograph, a device for recording and replaying sound, on November 21, 1877 (early reports appear in Scientific American and several newspapers in the beginning of November, and an even earlier announcement of Edison working on a 'talking-machine' can be found in the Chicago Daily Tribune on May 9), and he demonstrated the device for the first time on November 29 (it was patented on February 19, 1878 as US Patent 200,521). "In December, 1877, a young man came into the office of the Scientific American, and placed before the editors a small, simple machine about which very few preliminary remarks were offered. The visitor without any ceremony whatever turned the crank, and to the astonishment of all present the machine said: 'Good morning. How do you do? How do you like the phonograph?' The machine thus spoke for itself, and made known the fact that it was the phonograph..."
Edison presented his own account of inventing the phonograph: "I was experimenting," he said, "on an automatic method of recording telegraph messages on a disk of paper laid on a revolving platen, exactly the same as the disk talking-machine of to-day. The platen had a spiral groove on its surface, like the disk. Over this was placed a circular disk of paper; an electromagnet with the embossing point connected to an arm traveled over the disk; and any signals given through the magnets were embossed on the disk of paper. If this disc was removed from the machine and put on a similar machine provided with a contact point, the embossed record would cause the signals to be repeated into another wire. The ordinary speed of telegraphic signals is thirty-five to forty words a minute; but with this machine several hundred words were possible.
"From my experiments on the telephone I knew of how to work a pawl connected to the diaphragm; and this engaging a ratchet-wheel served to give continuous rotation to a pulley. This pulley was connected by a cord to a little paper toy representing a man sawing wood. Hence, if one shouted: 'Mary had a little lamb,' etc., the paper man would start sawing wood. I reached the conclusion that if I could record the movements of the diaphragm properly, I could cause such records to reproduce the original movements imparted to the diaphragm by the voice, and thus succeed in recording and reproducing the human voice.
"Instead of using a disk I designed a little machine using a cylinder provided with grooves around the surface. Over this was to be placed tinfoil, which easily received and recorded the movements of the diaphragm. A sketch was made, and the piece-work price, $18, was marked on the sketch. I was in the habit of marking the price I would pay on each sketch. If the workman lost, I would pay his regular wages; if he made more than the wages, he kept it. The workman who got the sketch was John Kruesi. I didn't have much faith that it would work, expecting that I might possibly hear a word or so that would give hope of a future for the idea. Kruesi, when he had nearly finished it, asked what it was for. I told him I was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk back. He thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was put on; I then shouted 'Mary had a little lamb', etc. I adjusted the reproducer, and the machine reproduced it perfectly. I was never so taken aback in my life. Everybody was astonished. I was always afraid of things that worked the first time. Long experience proved that there were great drawbacks found generally before they could be got commercial; but here was something there was no doubt of."
The music critic Herman Klein attended an early demonstration (1881–2) of a similar machine. On the early phonograph's reproductive capabilities he writes "It sounded to my ear like someone singing about half a mile away, or talking at the other end of a big hall; but the effect was rather pleasant, save for a peculiar nasal quality wholly due to the mechanism, though there was little of the scratching which later was a prominent feature of the flat disc. Recording for that primitive machine was a comparatively simple matter. I had to keep my mouth about six inches away from the horn and remember not to make my voice too loud if I wanted anything approximating to a clear reproduction; that was all. When it was played over to me and I heard my own voice for the first time, one or two friends who were present said that it sounded rather like mine; others declared that they would never have recognised it. I daresay both opinions were correct."
The Argus newspaper from Melbourne, Australia, reported on an 1878 demonstration at the Royal Society of Victoria, writing "There was a large attendance of ladies and gentlemen, who appeared greatly interested in the various scientific instruments exhibited. Among these the most interesting, perhaps, was the trial made by Mr. Sutherland with the phonograph, which was most amusing. Several trials were made, and were all more or less successful. "Rule Britannia" was distinctly repeated, but great laughter was caused by the repetition of the convivial song of "He's a jolly good fellow," which sounded as if it was being sung by an old man of 80 with a very cracked voice."
Early machines
Edison's early phonographs recorded onto a thin sheet of metal, normally tinfoil, which was temporarily wrapped around a helically grooved cylinder mounted on a correspondingly threaded rod supported by plain and threaded bearings. While the cylinder was rotated and slowly progressed along its axis, the airborne sound vibrated a diaphragm connected to a stylus that indented the foil into the cylinder's groove, thereby recording the vibrations as "hill-and-dale" variations of the depth of the indentation.
Playback was accomplished by exactly repeating the recording procedure, the only difference being that the recorded foil now served to vibrate the stylus, which transmitted its vibrations to the diaphragm and onward into the air as audible sound. Although Edison's very first experimental tinfoil phonograph used separate and somewhat different recording and playback assemblies, in subsequent machines, a single diaphragm and stylus served both purposes. One peculiar consequence was that it was possible to overdub additional sound onto a recording being played back. The recording was heavily worn by each playing, and it was nearly impossible to accurately remount a recorded foil after it had been removed from the cylinder. In this form, the only practical use that could be found for the phonograph was as a startling novelty for private amusement at home or public exhibitions for profit.
Edison's early patents show that he was aware that sound could be recorded as a spiral on a disc, but Edison concentrated his efforts on cylinders, since the groove on the outside of a rotating cylinder provides a constant velocity to the stylus in the groove, which Edison considered more "scientifically correct".
Edison's patent specified that the audio recording be embossed, and it was not until 1886 that vertically modulated incised recording using wax-coated cylinders was patented by Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter. They named their version the Graphophone.
Introduction of the disc record
The use of a flat recording surface instead of a cylindrical one was an obvious alternative which thought-experimenter Charles Cros initially favored and which practical experimenter Thomas Edison and others actually tested in the late 1870s and early 1880s. The oldest surviving example is a copper electrotype of a recording cut into a wax disc in 1881.
Cylindrical Dictaphone records continued in use until the mid-20th century. The commercialization of sound recording technology had been initially aimed at use in business correspondence, i.e. transcription into writing, in which the cylindrical form offered certain advantages. With paper documents being the end product, the cylinders were considered ephemeral; need to archive large numbers of bulky, fragile sound recordings seemed unlikely, and the ease of producing multiple copies was not a consideration.
In 1887, Emile Berliner patented a variant of the phonograph which he named the Gramophone. Berliner's approach was essentially the same one proposed, but never implemented, by Charles Cros in 1877. The diaphragm was linked to the recording stylus in a way that caused it to vibrate laterally (side to side) as it traced a spiral onto a zinc disc very thinly coated with a compound of beeswax. The zinc disc was then immersed in a bath of chromic acid; this etched a groove into the disc where the stylus had removed the coating, after which the recording could be played. With some later improvements, the flat discs of Berliner could be produced in large quantities at much lower cost than the cylinders of Edison's system.
In May 1889, in San Francisco, the first "phonograph parlor" opened. It featured a row of coin-operated machines, each supplied with a different wax cylinder record. The customer selected a machine according to the title that it advertised, inserted a nickel, then heard the recording through stethoscope-like listening tubes. By the mid-1890s, most American cities had at least one phonograph parlor. The coin-operated mechanism was invented by Louis T. Glass and William S. Arnold. The cabinet contained an Edison Class M or Class E phonograph. The Class M was powered by a wet-cell glass battery that would spill dangerous acid if it tipped over or broke. The Class E sold for a lower price and ran on 120 V DC.
The phenomenon of phonograph parlors peaked in Paris around 1900: in Pathé's luxurious salon, patrons sat in plush upholstered chairs and chose from among many hundreds of available cylinders by using speaking tubes to communicate with attendants on the floor below.
By 1890, record manufacturers had begun using a rudimentary duplication process to mass-produce their product. While the live performers recorded the master phonograph, up to ten tubes led to blank cylinders in other phonographs. Until this development, each record had to be custom-made. Before long, a more advanced pantograph-based process made it possible to simultaneously produce 90–150 copies of each record. However, as demand for certain records grew, popular artists still needed to re-record and re-re-record their songs. Reportedly, the medium's first major African-American star George Washington Johnson was obliged to perform his "The Laughing Song" (or the separate "The Whistling Coon") literally thousands of times in a studio during his recording career. Sometimes he would sing "The Laughing Song" more than fifty times in a day, at twenty cents per rendition. (The average price of a single cylinder in the mid-1890s was about fifty cents.)
Oldest surviving recordings
Lambert's lead cylinder recording for an experimental talking clock is often identified as the oldest surviving playable sound recording,
although the evidence advanced for its early date is controversial.
Wax phonograph cylinder recordings of Handel's choral music made on June 29, 1888, at The Crystal Palace in London were thought to be the oldest-known surviving musical recordings, until the recent playback by a group of American historians of a phonautograph recording of Au clair de la lune made on April 9, 1860.
The 1860 phonautogram had not until then been played, as it was only a transcription of sound waves into graphic form on paper for visual study. Recently developed optical scanning and image processing techniques have given new life to early recordings by making it possible to play unusually delicate or physically unplayable media without physical contact.
A recording made on a sheet of tinfoil at an 1878 demonstration of Edison's phonograph in St. Louis, Missouri has been played back by optical scanning and digital analysis. A few other early tinfoil recordings are known to survive, including a slightly earlier one which is believed to preserve the voice of U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes, but as of May 2014 they have not yet been scanned. These antique tinfoil recordings, which have typically been stored folded, are too fragile to be played back with a stylus without seriously damaging them. Edison's 1877 tinfoil recording of Mary Had a Little Lamb, not preserved, has been called the first instance of recorded verse.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the phonograph, Edison recounted reciting Mary Had a Little Lamb to test his first machine. The 1927 event was filmed by an early sound-on-film newsreel camera, and an audio clip from that film's soundtrack is sometimes mistakenly presented as the original 1877 recording.
Wax cylinder recordings made by 19th century media legends such as P. T. Barnum and Shakespearean actor Edwin Booth are amongst the earliest verified recordings by the famous that have survived to the present.
Improvements at the Volta Laboratory
Alexander Graham Bell and his two associates took Edison's tinfoil phonograph and modified it considerably to make it reproduce sound from wax instead of tinfoil. They began their work at Bell's Volta Laboratory in Washington, D. C., in 1879, and continued until they were granted basic patents in 1886 for recording in wax.
Although Edison had invented the phonograph in 1877 the fame bestowed on him for this invention was not due to its efficiency. Recording with his tinfoil phonograph was too difficult to be practical, as the tinfoil tore easily, and even when the stylus was properly adjusted, its reproduction of sound was distorted, and good for only a few playbacks; nevertheless Edison had discovered the idea of sound recording. However immediately after his discovery he did not improve it, allegedly because of an agreement to spend the next five years developing the New York City electric light and power system.
Volta's early challenge
Meanwhile, Bell, a scientist and experimenter at heart, was looking for new worlds to conquer after his invention of the telephone. According to Sumner Tainter, it was through Gardiner Green Hubbard that Bell took up the phonograph challenge. Bell had married Hubbard's daughter Mabel in 1879 while Hubbard was president of the Edison Speaking Phonograph Co., and his organization, which had purchased the Edison patent, was financially troubled because people did not want to buy a machine which seldom worked well and proved difficult for the average person to operate.
In 1879 Hubbard got Bell interested in improving the phonograph, and it was agreed that a laboratory should be set up in Washington. Experiments were also to be conducted on the transmission of sound by light, which resulted in the selenium-celled Photophone.
Volta Graphophone
By 1881, the Volta associates had succeeded in improving an Edison tinfoil machine to some extent. Wax was put in the grooves of the heavy iron cylinder, and no tinfoil was used. Rather than apply for a patent at that time, however, they deposited the machine in a sealed box at the Smithsonian, and specified that it was not to be opened without the consent of two of the three men.
The sound vibrations had been indented in the wax which had been applied to the Edison phonograph. The following was the text of one of their recordings: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy. I am a Graphophone and my mother was a phonograph." Most of the disc machines designed at the Volta Lab had their disc mounted on vertical turntables. The explanation is that in the early experiments, the turntable, with disc, was mounted on the shop lathe, along with the recording and reproducing heads. Later, when the complete models were built, most of them featured vertical turntables.
One interesting exception was a horizontal seven inch turntable. The machine, although made in 1886, was a duplicate of one made earlier but taken to Europe by Chichester Bell. Tainter was granted on July 10, 1888. The playing arm is rigid, except for a pivoted vertical motion of 90 degrees to allow removal of the record or a return to starting position. While recording or playing, the record not only rotated, but moved laterally under the stylus, which thus described a spiral, recording 150 grooves to the inch.
The preserved Bell and Tainter records are of both the lateral cut and the Edison-style hill-and-dale (up-and-down) styles. Edison for many years used the "hill-and-dale" method on both his cylinders and Diamond Disc records, and Emile Berliner is credited with the invention of the lateral cut, acid-etched Gramophone record in 1887. The Volta associates, however, had been experimenting with both formats and directions of groove modulation as early as 1881.
The basic distinction between the Edison's first phonograph patent and the Bell and Tainter patent of 1886 was the method of recording. Edison's method was to indent the sound waves on a piece of tin foil, while Bell and Tainter's invention called for cutting, or "engraving", the sound waves into a wax record with a sharp recording stylus.
Graphophone commercialization
In 1885, when the Volta Associates were sure that they had a number of practical inventions, they filed patent applications and began to seek out investors. The Volta Graphophone Company of Alexandria, Virginia, was created on January 6, 1886 and incorporated on February 3, 1886. It was formed to control the patents and to handle the commercial development of their sound recording and reproduction inventions, one of which became the first Dictaphone.
After the Volta Associates gave several demonstrations in the City of Washington, businessmen from Philadelphia created the American Graphophone Company on March 28, 1887, in order to produce and sell the machines for the budding phonograph marketplace. The Volta Graphophone Company then merged with American Graphophone, which itself later evolved into Columbia Records.
Shortly after American Graphophone's creation, Jesse H. Lippincott used nearly $1 million of an inheritance to gain control of it, as well as the rights to the Graphophone and the Bell and Tainter patents. Not long later Lippincott purchased the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company. He then created the North American Phonograph Company to consolidate the national sales rights of both the Graphophone and the Edison Speaking Phonograph. In the early 1890s Lippincott fell victim to the unit's mechanical problems and also to resistance from stenographers.
A coin-operated version of the Graphophone, , was developed by Tainter in 1893 to compete with nickel-in-the-slot entertainment phonograph demonstrated in 1889 by Louis T. Glass, manager of the Pacific Phonograph Company.
The work of the Volta Associates laid the foundation for the successful use of dictating machines in business, because their wax recording process was practical and their machines were durable. But it would take several more years and the renewed efforts of Edison and the further improvements of Emile Berliner and many others, before the recording industry became a major factor in home entertainment.
Disc vs. cylinder as a recording medium
Discs are not inherently better than cylinders at providing audio fidelity. Rather, the advantages of the format are seen in the manufacturing process: discs can be stamped; cylinders could not be until 1901–1902 when the gold moulding process was introduced by Edison.
Recordings made on a cylinder remain at a constant linear velocity for the entirety of the recording, while those made on a disc have a higher linear velocity at the outer portion of the disc compared to the inner portion.
Edison's patented recording method recorded with vertical modulations in a groove. Berliner utilized a laterally modulated groove.
Though Edison's recording technology was better than Berliner's, there were commercial advantages to a disc system since the disc could be easily mass-produced by molding and stamping and it required less storage space for a collection of recordings.
Berliner successfully argued that his technology was different enough from Edison's that he did not need to pay royalties on it, which reduced his business expenses.
Through experimentation, in 1892 Berliner began commercial production of his disc records, and "gramophones". His "gramophone record" was the first disc record to be offered to the public. They were five inches (12.7 cm) in diameter and recorded on one side only. Seven-inch (17.5 cm) records followed in 1895. Also in 1895 Berliner replaced the hard rubber used to make the discs with a shellac compound. Berliner's early records had very poor sound quality, however. Work by Eldridge R. Johnson eventually improved the sound fidelity to a point where it was as good as the cylinder. By late 1901, ten-inch (25 cm) records were marketed by Johnson and Berliner's Victor Talking Machine Company, and Berliner had sold his interests. In 1904, discs were first pressed with music on both sides and capable of around seven minutes total playing time, as opposed to the cylinder's typical duration on two minutes at that time. As a result of this and the fragility of wax cylinders in transit and storage, cylinders sales declined. Edison felt the increasing commercial pressure for disc records, and by 1912, though reluctant at first, his production of disc records was in full swing. This was the Edison Disc Record. Nevertheless, he continued to manufacture cylinders until 1929 and was last to withdraw from that market.
From the mid-1890s until World War I, both phonograph cylinder and disc recordings and machines to play them on were widely mass-marketed and sold. The disc system superseded the cylinder in Europe by 1906 when both Columbia and Pathe withdrew from that market. By 1913, Edison was the only company still producing cylinders in the USA although in Great Britain small manufacturers pressed on until 1922.
Dominance of the disc record
Berliner's lateral disc record was the ancestor of the 78 rpm, 45 rpm, 33⅓ rpm, and all other analogue disc records popular for use in sound recording. See gramophone record.
The 1920s brought improved radio technology. Radio sales increased, bringing many phonograph dealers to near financial ruin. With efforts at improved audio fidelity, the big record companies succeeded in keeping business booming through the end of the decade, but the record sales plummeted during the Great Depression, with many companies merging or going out of business.
Record sales picked up appreciably by the late 30s and early 40s, with greater improvements in fidelity and more money to be spent. By this time home phonographs had become much more common, though it wasn't until the 1940s that console radio/phono set-ups with automatic record changers became more common.
In the 1930s, vinyl (originally known as vinylite) was introduced as a record material for radio transcription discs, and for radio commercials. At that time, virtually no discs for home use were made from this material. Vinyl was used for the popular 78-rpm V-discs issued to US soldiers during World War II. This significantly reduced breakage during transport. The first commercial vinylite record was the set of five 12" discs "Prince Igor" (Asch Records album S-800, dubbed from Soviet masters in 1945). Victor began selling some home-use vinyl 78s in late 1945; but most 78s were made of a shellac compound until the 78-rpm format was completely phased out. (Shellac records were heavier and more brittle.) 33s and 45s were, however, made exclusively of vinyl, with the exception of some 45s manufactured out of polystyrene.
Booms in record sales returned after the Second World War, as industry standards changed from 78s to vinyl, long-playing records (commonly called record albums), which could contain an entire symphony, and 45s which usually contained one hit song popularized on the radio – thus the term "single" record – plus another song on the back or "flip" side. An "extended play" version of the 45 was also available, designated 45 EP, which provided capacity for longer musical selections, or for two regular-length songs per side.
Shortcomings include surface noise caused by dirt or abrasions (scratches) and failure caused by deep surface scratches causing skipping of the stylus forward and missing a section, or groove lock, causing a section to repeat, usually punctuated by a popping noise. This was so common that the phrase: "you sound like a broken record,” was coined, referring to someone who is being annoyingly repetitious.
First all-transistor phonograph
In 1955, Philco developed and produced the world's first all-transistor phonograph models TPA-1 and TPA-2, which were announced in the June 28, 1955 edition of the Wall Street Journal. Philco started to sell these all-transistor phonographs in the fall of 1955, for the price of $59.95. The October 1955 issue of Radio & Television News magazine (page 41), had a full page detailed article on Philco's new consumer product. The all-transistor portable phonograph TPA-1 and TPA-2 models played only 45rpm records and used four 1.5 volt "D" batteries for their power supply. The "TPA" stands for "Transistor Phonograph Amplifier". Their circuitry used three Philco germanium PNP alloy-fused junction audio frequency transistors. After the 1956 season had ended, Philco decided to discontinue both models, for transistors were too expensive compared to vacuum tubes, but by 1961 a $49.95 ($ in ) portable, battery-powered radio-phonograph with seven transistors was available.
By the 1960s, cheaper portable record players and record changers which played stacks of records in wooden console cabinets were popular, usually with heavy and crude tonearms in the portables. The consoles were often equipped with better quality pick-up cartridges. Even pharmacies stocked 45 rpm records at their front counters. Rock music played on 45s became the soundtrack to the 1960s as people bought the same songs that were played free of charge on the radio. Some record players were even tried in automobiles, but were quickly displaced by 8-track and cassette tapes.
The fidelity of sound reproduction made great advances during the 1970s, as turntables became very precise instruments with belt or direct drive, jewel-balanced tonearms, some with electronically controlled linear tracking and magnetic cartridges. Some cartridges had frequency response above 30 kHz for use with CD-4 quadraphonic 4 channel sound. A high fidelity component system which cost well under $1,000 could do a very good job of reproducing very accurate frequency response across the human audible spectrum from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz with a $200 turntable which would typically have less than 0.05% wow and flutter and very low rumble (low frequency noise). A well-maintained record would have very little surface noise.
A novelty variation on the standard format was the use of multiple concentric spirals with different recordings. Thus when the record was played multiple times, different recordings would play, seemingly at random. These were often utilized in talking toys and games.
Records themselves became an art form because of the large surface onto which graphics and books could be printed, and records could be molded into unusual shapes, colors, or with images (picture discs). The turntable remained a common element of home audio systems well after the introduction of other media, such as audio tape and even the early years of the compact disc as a lower-priced music format. However, even though the cost of producing CDs fell below that of records, CDs remained a higher-priced music format than either cassettes or records. Thus, records were not uncommon in home audio systems into the early 1990s.
By the turn of the 21st century, the turntable had become a niche product, as the price of CD players, which reproduce music free of pops and scratches, fell far lower than high-fidelity tape players or turntables. Nevertheless, there is some increase in interest; many big-box media stores carry turntables, as do professional DJ equipment stores. Most low-end and mid-range amplifiers omit the phono input; but on the other hand, low-end turntables with built-in phono pre-amplifiers are widely available. Some combination systems include a basic turntable, a CD player, a cassette deck. and a radio, in a retro-styled cabinet. Records also continue to be manufactured and sold today, albeit in smaller quantities than in the disc phonograph's heyday.
Turntable technology
Turntable construction
Inexpensive record players typically used a flanged steel stamping for the turntable structure. A rubber disc would be secured to the top of the stamping to provide traction for the record, as well as a small amount of vibration isolation. The spindle bearing usually consisted of a bronze bushing. The flange on the stamping provided a convenient place to drive the turntable by means of an idler wheel (see below). While light and cheap to manufacture, these mechanisms had low inertia, making motor speed instabilities more pronounced.
Costlier turntables made from heavy aluminium castings have greater balanced mass and inertia, helping minimize vibration at the stylus, and maintaining constant speed without wow or flutter, even if the motor exhibits cogging effects. Like stamped steel turntables, they were topped with rubber. Because of the increased mass, they usually employed ball bearings or roller bearings in the spindle to reduce friction and noise. Most are belt or direct drive, but some use an idler wheel. A specific case was the Swiss "Lenco" drive, which possessed a very heavy turntable coupled via an idler wheel to a long, tapered motor drive shaft. This enabled stepless rotation or speed control on the drive. Because of this feature the Lenco became popular in the late 1950s with dancing schools, because the dancing instructor could lead the dancing exercises at different speeds.
By the early 1980s, some companies started producing very inexpensive turntables that displaced the products of companies like BSR. Commonly found in "all-in-one" stereos from assorted far-east manufacturers, they used a thin plastic table set in a plastic plinth, no mats, belt drive, weak motors, and often, lightweight plastic tonearms with no counterweight. Most used sapphire pickups housed in ceramic cartridges, and they lacked several features of earlier units, such as auto-start and record-stacking. While not as common now that turntables are absent from the cheap "all-in-one" units, this type of turntable has made a strong resurgence in nostalgia-marketed record players.
Turntable drive systems
From the earliest phonograph designs, many of which were powered by spring-wound mechanisms, a speed governor was essential. Most of these employed some type of flywheel-friction disc to control the speed of the rotating cylinder or turntable; as the speed increased, centrifugal force caused a brake—often a felt pad—to rub against a smooth metal surface, slowing rotation. Electrically powered turntables, whose rotational speed was governed by other means, eventually made their mechanical counterparts obsolete. The mechanical governor was, however, still employed in some toy phonographs (such as those found in talking dolls) until they were replaced by digital sound generators in the late 20th century.
Many modern players have platters with a continuous series of strobe markings machined or printed around their edge. Viewing these markings in artificial light at mains frequency produces a stroboscopic effect, which can be used to verify proper rotational speed. Additionally, the edge of the turntable can contain magnetic markings to provide feedback pulses to an electronic speed-control system.
Idler-wheel drive system
Earlier designs used a rubberized idler-wheel drive system. However, wear and decomposition of the wheel, as well as the direct mechanical coupling to a vibrating motor, introduced low-frequency noise ("rumble") and speed variations ("wow and flutter") into the sound. These systems generally used a synchronous motor which ran at a speed synchronized to the frequency of the AC power supply. Portable record players typically used an inexpensive shaded-pole motor. At the end of the motor shaft there was a stepped driving capstan; to obtain different speeds, the rubber idler wheel was moved to contact different steps of this capstan. The idler was pinched against the bottom or inside edge of the platter to drive it.
Until the 1970s, the idler-wheel drive was the most common on turntables, except for higher-end audiophile models. However, even some higher-end turntables, such as the Lenco, Garrard, EMT, and Dual turntables, used idler-wheel drive.
Belt drive system
Belt drives brought improved motor and platter isolation compared to idler-wheel designs. Motor noise, generally heard as low-frequency rumble, is greatly reduced. The design of the belt drive turntable allows for a less expensive motor than the direct-drive turntable to be used. The elastomeric belt absorbs motor vibrations and noise which could otherwise be picked up by the stylus. It also absorbs small, fast speed variations, caused by "cogging", which in other designs are heard as "flutter."
The "Acoustical professional" turntable (earlier marketed under Dutch "Jobo prof") of the 1960s however possessed an expensive German drive motor, the "Pabst Aussenläufer" ("Pabst outrunner"). As this motor name implied, the rotor was on the outside of the motor and acted as a flywheel ahead of the belt-driven turntable itself. In combination with a steel to nylon turntable bearing (with molybdenum disulfide inside for lifelong lubrication) very low wow, flutter and rumble figures were achieved.
Direct drive system
Direct-drive turntables drive the platter directly without utilizing intermediate wheels, belts, or gears as part of a drive train. This requires good engineering, with advanced electronics for acceleration and speed control. Matsushita's Technics division introduced the first commercially successful direct drive platter, model SP10, in 1969, which was joined by the Technics SL-1200 turntable, in 1972. Its updated model, SL-1200MK2, released in 1978, had a stronger motor, a convenient pitch control slider for beatmatching and a stylus illuminator, which made it the long-standing favourite among disc jockeys (see "Turntablism"). By the beginnings of the 80s, lowering of costs in microcontroller electronics made direct drive turntables more affordable.
Pricing
Audiophile grade turntables start at a few hundred dollars and range upwards of $100,000, depending on the complexity and quality of design and manufacture. The common view is that there are diminishing returns with an increase in price – a turntable costing $1,000 would not sound significantly better than a turntable costing $500; nevertheless, there exists a large choice of expensive turntables.
Arm systems
The tone arm (or tonearm) holds the pickup cartridge over the groove, the stylus tracking the groove with the desired force to give the optimal compromise between good tracking and minimizing wear of the stylus and record groove. At its simplest, a tone arm is a pivoted lever, free to move in two axes (vertical and horizontal) with a counterbalance to maintain tracking pressure.
However, the requirements of high-fidelity reproduction place more demands upon the arm design. In a perfect world:
The tone arm must track the groove without distorting the stylus assembly, so an ideal arm would have no mass, and frictionless bearings, requiring zero force to move it.
The arm should not oscillate following a displacement, so it should either be both light and very stiff, or suitably damped.
The arm must not resonate with vibrations induced by the stylus or from the turntable motor or plinth, so it must be heavy enough to be immune to those vibrations, or it must be damped to absorb them.
The arm should keep the cartridge stylus tangent to the groove it's in as it moves across the record, with minimal variation in angle.
These demands are contradictory and impossible to realize (massless arms and zero-friction bearings do not exist in the real world), so tone arm designs require engineering compromises. Solutions vary, but all modern tonearms are at least relatively lightweight and stiff constructions, with precision, very low friction pivot bearings in both the vertical and horizontal axes. Most arms are made from some kind of alloy (the cheapest being aluminium), but some manufacturers use balsa wood, while others use carbon fiber or graphite. The latter materials favor a straight arm design; alloys' properties lend themselves to S-type arms.
The tone arm got its name before the age of electronics. It originally served to conduct actual sound waves from a purely mechanical "pickup" called a sound box or reproducer to a so-described "amplifying" horn. The earliest electronic record players, introduced at the end of 1925, had massive electromagnetic pickups that contained a horseshoe magnet, used disposable steel needles, and weighed several ounces. Their full weight rested on the record, providing ample tracking force to overcome their low compliance but causing rapid record wear. The tone arms were rudimentary and remained so even after lighter crystal pickups appeared about ten years later. When fine-grooved vinyl records were introduced in the late 1940s, still smaller and lighter crystal (later, ceramic) cartridges with semi-permanent jewel styluses became standard. In the mid-1950s these were joined by a new generation of magnetic cartridges that bore little resemblance to their crude ancestors. Far smaller tracking forces became possible and the balanced arm came into use.
Prices varied widely. The well-known and extremely popular high-end S-type SME arm of the 1970–1980 era not only had a complicated design, it was also very costly. On the other hand, even some cheaper arms could be of professional quality: the "All Balance" arm, made by the now-defunct Dutch company Acoustical, was only €30 [equivalent]. It was used during that period by all official radio stations in the Dutch Broadcast studio facilities of the NOS, as well as by the pirate radio station Veronica. Playing records from a boat in international waters, the arm had to withstand sudden ship movements. Anecdotes indicate this low-cost arm was the only one capable of keeping the needle firmly in the groove during heavy storms at sea.
Quality arms employ an adjustable counterweight to offset the mass of the arm and various cartridges and headshells. On this counterweight, a calibrated dial enables easy adjustment of stylus force. After perfectly balancing the arm, the dial itself is "zeroed"; the stylus force can then be dialed in by screwing the counterweight towards the fulcrum. (Sometimes a separate spring or smaller weight provides fine tuning.) Stylus forces of 10 to 20 mN (1 to 2 grams-force) are typical for modern consumer turntables, while forces of up to 50 mN (5 grams) are common for the tougher environmental demands of party deejaying or turntablism.
Of special adjustment consideration, Stanton cartridges of the 681EE(E) series [and others like them] feature a small record brush ahead of the cartridge. The upforce of this brush, and its added drag require compensation of both tracking force (add 1 gram) and anti-skating adjustment values (see next paragraph for description).
Even on a perfectly flat LP, tonearms are prone to two types of tracking errors that affect the sound. As the tonearm tracks the groove, the stylus exerts a frictional force tangent to the arc of the groove, and since this force does not intersect the tone arm pivot, a clockwise rotational force (moment) occurs and a reaction skating force is exerted on the stylus by the record groove wall away from center of the disc. Modern arms provide an anti-skate mechanism, using springs, hanging weights, or magnets to produce an offsetting counter-clockwise force at the pivot, making the net lateral force on the groove walls near zero.
The second error occurs as the arm sweeps in an arc across the disc, causing the angle between the cartridge head and groove to change slightly. A change in angle, albeit small, will have a detrimental effect (especially with stereo recordings) by creating different forces on the two groove walls, as well as a slight timing shift between left/right channels. Making the arm longer to reduce this angle is a partial solution, but less than ideal. A longer arm weighs more, and only an infinitely long [pivoted] arm would reduce the error to zero. Some designs (Burne-Jones, and Garrard "Zero" series) use dual arms in a parallelogram arrangement, pivoting the cartridge head to maintain a constant angle as it moves across the record. Unfortunately this "solution" creates more problems than it solves, compromising rigidity and creating sources of unwanted noise.
The pivoted arm produces yet another problem which is unlikely to be significant to the audiophile, though. As the master was originally cut in a linear motion from the edge towards the center, but the stylus on the pivoted arm always draws an arc, this causes a timing drift that is most significant when digitizing music and beat mapping the data for synchronization with other songs in a DAW or DJ software unless the software allows building a non-linear beat map. As the contact point of the stylus on the record wanders farther from the linear path between the starting point and center hole, the tempo and pitch tend to decrease towards the middle of the record, until the arc reaches its apex. After that the tempo and pitch increase towards the end as the contact point comes closer to the linear path again. Because the surface speed of the record is lower at the end, the relative speed error from the same absolute distance error is higher at the end, and the increase in tempo is more notable towards the end than the decrease towards the middle. This can be somewhat reduced by a curved arm pivoted so that the end point of the arc stays farther from the linear path than the starting point, or by a long straight arm that pivots perpendicularly to the linear path in the middle of the record. However the tempo droop at the middle can only be completely avoided by a linear tracking arm.
Linear tracking
If the arm is not pivoted, but instead carries the stylus along a radius of the disc, there is no skating force and little to no cartridge angle error. Such arms are known as linear tracking or tangential arms. These are driven along a track by various means, from strings and pulleys, to worm gears or electromagnets. The cartridge's position is usually regulated by an electronic servomechanism or mechanical interface, moving the stylus properly over the groove as the record plays, or for song selection.
There are long-armed and short-armed linear arm designs. On a perfectly flat record a short arm will do, but once the record is even slightly warped, a short arm will be troublesome. Any vertical motion of the record surface at the stylus contact point will cause the stylus to considerably move longitudinally in the groove. This will cause the stylus to ride non-tangentially in the groove and cause a stereo phase error as well as pitch error every time the stylus rides over the warp. Also the arm track can come into touch with the record. A long arm will not completely eliminate this problem but will tolerate warped records much better.
Early developments in linear turntables were from Rek-O-Kut (portable lathe/phonograph) and Ortho-Sonic in the 1950s, and Acoustical in the early 1960s. These were eclipsed by more successful implementations of the concept from the late 1960s through the early 1980s.
Of note are Rabco's SL-8, followed by Bang & Olufsen with its Beogram 4000 model in 1972. These models positioned the track outside the platter's edge, as did turntables by Harman Kardon, Mitsubishi, Pioneer, Yamaha, Sony, etc. A 1970s design from Revox harkened back to the 1950s attempts (and, record lathes), positioning the track directly over the record. An enclosed bridge-like assembly is swung into place from the platter's right edge to its middle. Once in place, a short tonearm under this "bridge" plays the record, driven across laterally by a motor. The Sony PS-F5/F9 (1983) uses a similar, miniaturized design, and can operate in a vertical or horizontal orientation. The Technics SL-10, introduced in 1981, was the first direct drive linear tracking turntable, and placed the track and arm on the underside of the rear-hinged dust cover, to fold down over the record, similar to the SL-Q6 pictured.
The earliest Edison phonographs used horizontal, spring-powered drives to carry the stylus across the recording at a pre-determined rate. But, historically as a whole, the linear tracking systems never gained wide acceptance, due largely to their complexity and associated production/development costs. The resources it takes to produce one incredible linear turntable could produce several excellent ones. Some of the most sophisticated and expensive tonearms and turntable units ever made are linear trackers, from companies such as Rockport and Clearaudio. In theory, it seems nearly ideal; a stylus replicating the motion of the recording lathe used to cut the "master" record could result in minimal wear and maximum sound reproduction. In practice, in vinyl's heyday it was generally too much too late.
Since the early 1980s, an elegant solution has been the near-frictionless air bearing linear arm that requires no tracking drive mechanism other than the record groove. This provides a similar benefit as the electronic linear tonearm without the complexity and necessity of servo-motor correction for tracking error. In this case the trade-off is the introduction of pneumatics in the form of audible pumps and tubing. A more elegant solution is the mechanically driven low-friction design, also driven by the groove. Examples include Souther Engineering (U.S.A.), Clearaudio (Germany), and Aura (Czech Republic). This design places an exceeding demand upon precision engineering due to the lack of pneumatics.
Pickup systems
Historically, most high-fidelity "component" systems (preamplifiers or receivers) that accepted input from a phonograph turntable had separate inputs for both ceramic and magnetic cartridges (typically labeled "CER" and "MAG"). One piece systems often had no additional phono inputs at all, regardless of type.
Most systems today, if they accept input from a turntable at all, are configured for use only with magnetic cartridges. Manufacturers of high-end systems often have in-built moving coil amplifier circuitry, or outboard head-amplifiers supporting either moving magnet or moving coil cartridges that can be plugged into the line stage.
Additionally, cartridges may contain styli or needles that can be separated according to their tip: Spherical styli, and elliptical styli. Spherical styli have their tip shaped like one half of a sphere, and elliptical styli have their tip shaped like one end of an ellipse. Spherical styli preserve more of the groove of the record than elliptical styli, while elliptical styli offer higher sound quality.
(crystal/ceramic) cartridges
Early electronic phonographs used a piezo-electric crystal for pickup (though the earliest electronic phonographs used crude magnetic pick-ups), where the mechanical movement of the stylus in the groove generates a proportional electrical voltage by creating stress within a crystal (typically Rochelle salt). Crystal pickups are relatively robust, and produce a substantial signal level which requires only a modest amount of further amplification. The output is not very linear however, introducing unwanted distortion. It is difficult to make a crystal pickup suitable for quality stereo reproduction, as the stiff coupling between the crystal and the long stylus prevents close tracking of the needle to the groove modulations. This tends to increase wear on the record, and introduces more distortion. Another problem is the hygroscopic nature of the crystal itself: it absorbs moisture from the air and may dissolve. The crystal was protected by embedding it in other materials, without hindering the movement of the pickup mechanism itself. After a number of years, the protective jelly often deteriorated or leaked from the cartridge case and the full unit needed replacement.
The next development was the ceramic cartridge, a piezoelectric device that used newer and better materials. These were more sensitive, and offered greater compliance, that is, lack of resistance to movement and so increased ability to follow the undulations of the groove without gross distorting or jumping out of the groove. Higher compliance meant lower tracking forces and reduced wear to both the disc and stylus. It also allowed ceramic stereo cartridges to be made.
Between the 1950s and 1970s, ceramic cartridges became common in low-quality phonographs, but better high-fidelity (or "hi-fi") systems used magnetic cartridges. The availability of low-cost magnetic cartridges from the 1970s onwards made ceramic cartridges obsolete for essentially all purposes. At the seeming end of the market lifespan of ceramic cartridges, someone accidentally discovered that by terminating a specific ceramic mono cartridge (the Ronette TX88) not with the prescribed 47 kΩ resistance, but with approx. 10 kΩ, it could be connected to the moving magnet (MM) input too. The result, a much smoother frequency curve extended the lifetime for this popular and very cheap type.
Magnetic cartridges
There are two common designs for magnetic cartridges, moving magnet (MM) and moving coil (MC) (originally called dynamic). Both operate on the same physics principle of electromagnetic induction. The moving magnet type was by far the most common and more robust of the two, though audiophiles often claim that the moving coil system yields higher fidelity sound.
In either type, the stylus itself, usually of diamond, is mounted on a tiny metal strut called a cantilever, which is suspended using a collar of highly compliant plastic. This gives the stylus the freedom to move in any direction. On the other end of the cantilever is mounted a tiny permanent magnet (moving magnet type) or a set of tiny wound coils (moving coil type). The magnet is close to a set of fixed pick-up coils, or the moving coils are held within a magnetic field generated by fixed permanent magnets. In either case, the movement of the stylus as it tracks the grooves of a record causes a fluctuating magnetic field, which causes a small electric current to be induced in the coils. This current closely follows the sound waveform cut into the record, and may be transmitted by wires to an electronic amplifier where it is processed and amplified in order to drive a loudspeaker. Depending upon the amplifier design, a phono-preamplifier may be necessary.
In most moving magnet designs, the stylus itself is detachable from the rest of the cartridge so it can easily be replaced. There are three primary types of cartridge mounts. The most common type is attached using two small screws to a headshell that then plugs into the tonearm, while another is a standardized "P-mount" or "T4P" cartridge (invented by Technics in 1980 and adopted by other manufacturers) that plugs directly into the tonearm. Many P-mount cartridges come with adapters to allow them to be mounted to a headshell. The third type is used mainly in cartridges designed for DJ use and it has a standard round headshell connector. Some mass market turntables use a proprietary integrated cartridge that cannot be upgraded.
An alternative design is the moving iron variation on moving magnet used by ADC, Grado, Stanton/Pickering 681 series, Ortofon OM and VMS series, and the MMC cartridge of Bang & Olufsen. In these units, the magnet itself sits behind the four coils and magnetises the cores of all four coils. The moving iron cross at the other end of the coils varies the gaps between itself and each of these cores, according to its movements. These variations lead to voltage variations as described above.
Famous brands for magnetic cartridges are: Grado, Stanton/Pickering (681EE/EEE), B&O (MM types for its two, non-compatible generations of parallel arm design), Shure (V15 Type I to V), Audio-Technica, Nagaoka, Dynavector, Koetsu, Ortofon, Technics, Denon and ADC.
Strain gauge cartridges
Strain gauge or "semiconductor" cartridges do not generate a voltage, but act like a variable resistor, whose resistance directly depends on the movement of the stylus. Thus, the cartridge "modulates" an external voltage supplied by the (special) preamplifier. These pickups were marketed by Euphonics, Sao Win, and Panasonic/Technics, amongst others.
The main advantages (compared to magnetic carts are):
The electrical connection from the cartridge to the preamplifier is immune to cable capacitance issues.
Being non-magnetic, the cartridge is immune to "hum" induced by stray magnetic fields (same advantage shared with ceramic cartridges).
The combination of electrical and mechanical advantages, plus the absence of magnetic yoke high-frequency losses, make them especially suitable to reproducing frequencies up to 50 kHz. Technics (Matsushita Electric) marketed a line of strain-gauge (labeled "semiconductor") cartridges especially intended for Compatible Discrete 4 quadraphonic records, requiring such high frequency response. Bass response down to 0 Hz is possible.
By using a suitable mechanical arrangement, VTA (vertical tracking angle) stays steady independent of the stylus vertical movements, with the consequent reduction in related distortions.
Being a force sensor, the strain-gauge cartridge can also measure the actual VTF (vertical tracking force) while in use.
The main disadvantage is the need of a special preamplifier that supplies a steady current (typically 5mA) to the semiconductor elements and handles a special equalization than the one needed for magnetic cartridges.
A high-end strain-gauge cartridge is currently sold by an audiophile company, with special preamplifiers available.
Electrostatic cartridges
Electrostatic cartridges were marketed by Stax in the 1950 and 1960 years. They needed individual operating electronics or preamplifiers.
Optical readout
A few specialist laser turntables read the groove optically using a laser pickup. Since there is no physical contact with the record, no wear is incurred. However, this "no wear" advantage is debatable, since vinyl records have been tested to withstand even 1200 plays with no significant audio degradation, provided that it is played with a high quality cartridge and that the surfaces are clean.
An alternative approach is to take a high-resolution photograph or scan of each side of the record and interpret the image of the grooves using computer software. An amateur attempt using a flatbed scanner lacked satisfactory fidelity. A professional system employed by the Library of Congress produces excellent quality.
Stylus
A smooth-tipped stylus (in popular usage often called a needle due to the former use of steel needles for the purpose) is used to play the recorded groove. A special chisel-like stylus is used to engrave the groove into the master record.
The stylus is subject to hard wear as it is the only small part that comes into direct contact with the spinning record. In terms of the force imposed on its minute areas of actual contact, the pressure it must bear is enormous. There are three desired qualities in a stylus: first, that it faithfully follows the contours of the recorded groove and transmits its vibrations to the next part in the chain; second, that it does not damage the recorded disc; and third, that it is resistant to wear. A worn-out, damaged or defective stylus tip will degrade audio quality and injure the groove.
Different materials for the stylus have been used over time. Thomas Edison introduced the use of sapphire in 1892 and the use of diamond in 1910 for his cylinder phonographs. The Edison Diamond Disc players (1912–1929), when properly played, hardly ever required the stylus to be changed. The styli for vinyl records were also made out of sapphire or diamond. A specific case is the specific stylus type of Bang & Olufsen's (B&O) moving magnet cartridge MMC 20CL, mostly used in parallel arm B&O turntables in the 4002/6000 series. It uses a sapphire stem on which a diamond tip is fixed by a special adhesive. A stylus tip mass as low as 0.3 milligram is the result and full tracking only requires 1 gram of stylus force, reducing record wear even further. Maximum distortion (2nd harmonic) fell below 0.6%.
Other than the Edison and European Pathé disc machines, early disc players, both external horn and internal horn "Victrola" style models, normally used very short-lived disposable needles. The most common material was steel, although other materials such as copper, tungsten, bamboo and cactus were used. Steel needles needed to be replaced frequently, preferably after each use, due to their very rapid wear from bearing down heavily on the mildly abrasive shellac record. Rapid wear was an essential feature so that their imprecisely formed tips would be quickly worn into compliance with the groove's contours. Advertisements implored customers to replace their steel needles after each record side. Steel needles were inexpensive, e.g., a box of 500 for 50 US cents, and were widely sold in packets and small tins. They were available in different thicknesses and lengths. Thick, short needles produced strong, loud tones while thinner, longer needles produces softer, muted tones. In 1916, in the face of a wartime steel shortage, Victor introduced their "Tungs-Tone" brand extra-long-playing needle, which was advertised to play between 100 and 300 records. It consisted of a brass shank into which a very hard and strong tungsten wire, somewhat narrower than the standard record groove, had been fitted. The protruding wire wore down, but not out, until it was worn too short to use. Later in the 78 rpm era, hardened steel and chrome-plated needles came on the market, some of which were claimed to play 10 to 20 record sides each.
When sapphires were introduced for the 78 rpm disc and the LP, they were made by tapering a stem and polishing the tip to a sphere with a radius of around 70 and 25 micrometers respectively. A sphere is not equal to the form of the cutting stylus and by the time diamond needles came to the market, a whole discussion was started on the effect of circular forms moving through a non-circular cut groove. It can be easily shown that vertical, so called "pinching" movements were a result and when stereophonic LPs were introduced, unwanted vertical modulation was recognized as a problem. Also, the needle started its life touching the groove on a very small surface, giving extra wear on the walls.
Another problem is in the tapering along a straight line, while the side of the groove is far from straight. Both problems were attacked together: by polishing the diamond in a certain way that it could be made doubly elliptic. 1) the side was made into one ellipse as seen from behind, meaning the groove touched along a short line and 2) the ellipse form was also polished as seen from above and curvature in the direction of the groove became much smaller than 25 micrometers e.g. 13 micrometers. With this approach a number of irregularities were eliminated. Furthermore, the angle of the stylus, which used to be always sloping backwards, was changed into the forward direction, in line with the slope the original cutting stylus possessed. These styli were expensive to produce, but the costs were effectively offset by their extended lifespans.
The next development in stylus form came about by the attention to the CD-4 quadraphonic sound modulation process, which requires up to 50 kHz frequency response, with cartridges like Technics EPC-100CMK4 capable of playback on frequencies up to 100 kHz. This requires a stylus with a narrow side radius, such as 5 µm (or 0.2 mil). A narrow-profile elliptical stylus is able to read the higher frequencies (greater than 20 kHz), but at an increased wear, since the contact surface is narrower. For overcoming this problem, the Shibata stylus was invented around 1972 in Japan by Norio Shibata of JVC, fitted as standard on quadraphonic cartridges, and marketed as an extra on some high-end cartridges.
The Shibata-designed stylus offers a greater contact surface with the groove, which in turn means less pressure over the vinyl surface and thus less wear. A positive side effect is that the greater contact surface also means the stylus will read sections of the vinyl that were not touched (or "worn") by the common spherical stylus. In a demonstration by JVC records "worn" after 500 plays at a relatively very high 4.5 gf tracking force with a spherical stylus, played "as new" with the Shibata profile.
Other advanced stylus shapes appeared following the same goal of increasing contact surface, improving on the Shibata. Chronologically: "Hughes" Shibata variant (1975), "Ogura" (1978), Van den Hul (1982). Such a stylus may be marketed as "Hyperelliptical" (Shure), "Alliptic", "Fine Line" (Ortofon), "Line contact" (Audio Technica), "Polyhedron", "LAC", or "Stereohedron" (Stanton).
A keel-shaped diamond stylus appeared as a byproduct of the invention of the CED Videodisc. This, together with laser-diamond-cutting technologies, made possible the "ridge" shaped stylus, such as the Namiki (1985) design, and Fritz Gyger (1989) design. This type of stylus is marketed as "MicroLine" (Audio technica), "Micro-Ridge" (Shure), or "Replicant" (Ortofon).
It is important to point out that most of those stylus profiles are still being manufactured and sold, together with the more common spherical and elliptical profiles. This is despite the fact that production of CD-4 quadraphonic records ended by the late 1970s.
For elliptical and advanced stylus shapes, correct cartridge alignment is critical. There are several alignment methods, each creating different null points at which the stylus will be tangential to the record grooves, optimizing distortion across the record side in different ways. The most popular alignment geometries are Baerwald, Løfgren B and Stevenson.
Common tools to align the stylus correctly are 2-point protractors (which can be used with any turntable as long as the headshells are long enough for the chosen alignment), overhang gauges and arc protractors (model specific).
Record materials
Early materials in the 19th century were hardened rubber, wax, and celluloid, but early in the 20th century a shellac compound became the standard. Since shellac is not hard enough to withstand the wear of steel needles on heavy tone arms, filler made of pulverized shale was added. Shellac was also fragile, and records often shattered or cracked. This was a problem for home records, but it became a bigger problem in the late 1920s with the Vitaphone sound-on-disc motion picture "talkie" system, developed in 1927.
To solve this problem, in 1930, RCA Victor made unbreakable records by mixing polyvinyl chloride with plasticisers, in a proprietary formula they called Victrolac, which was first used in 1931, in motion picture discs, and experimentally, in home records, the same year. However, with Sound-on-film achieving supremacy over sound-on-disc by 1931, the need for unbreakable records diminished and the production of vinyl home recordings was dropped as well, for the time being.
The Victrolac formula improved throughout the 1930s, and by the late 30s the material, by then called vinylite, was being used in records sent to radio stations for radio program records, radio commercials, and later, DJ copies of phonograph records, because vinyl records could be sent through the mail to radio stations without breaking. During WWII, there was a shortage of shellac, which had to be imported from Asia, and the U.S. government banned production of shellac records for the duration of the war. Vinylite was made domestically, though, and was being used for V-discs during the war. Record company engineers took a much closer look at the possibilities of vinyl, possibly that it might even replace shellac as the basic record material.
After the war, RCA Victor and Columbia, by far the two leading records companies in America, perfected two new vinyl formats, which were both introduced in 1948, when the 33 RPM LP was introduced by Columbia and the 45 RPM single was introduced by RCA Victor. For a few years thereafter, however, 78 RPM records continued to be made in shellac until that format was phased out around 1958.
Equalization
Early "acoustical" record players used the stylus to vibrate a diaphragm that radiated the sound through a horn. Several serious problems resulted from this:
The maximum sound level achievable was quite limited, being limited to the physical amplification effects of the horn,
The energy needed to generate such sound levels as were obtainable had to come directly from the stylus tracing the groove. This required very high tracking forces that rapidly wore out both the stylus and the record on lateral cut 78 rpm records.
Because bass sounds have a higher amplitude than high frequency sounds (for the same perceived loudness), the space taken in the groove by low frequency sounds needed to be large (limiting playback time per side of the record) to accommodate the bass notes, yet the high frequencies required only tiny variations in the groove, which were easily affected by noise from irregularities (wear, contaminates, etc.) in the disc itself.
The introduction of electronic amplification allowed these issues to be addressed. Records are made with boosted high frequencies and reduced low frequencies, which allow for different ranges of sound to be produced. This reduces the effect of background noise, including clicks or pops, and also conserves the amount of physical space needed for each groove, by reducing the size of the low-frequency undulations.
During playback, the high frequencies must be rescaled to their original, flat frequency response—known as "equalization"—as well as being amplified. A phono input of an amplifier incorporates such equalization as well as amplification to suit the very low level output from a modern cartridge. Most hi-fi amplifiers made between the 1950s and the 1990s and virtually all DJ mixers are so equipped.
The widespread adoption of digital music formats, such as CD or satellite radio, has displaced phonograph records and resulted in phono inputs being omitted in most modern amplifiers. Some newer turntables include built-in preamplifiers to produce line-level outputs. Inexpensive and moderate performance discrete phono preamplifiers with RIAA equalization are available, while high-end audiophile units costing thousands of dollars continue to be available in very small numbers. Phono inputs are starting to reappear on amplifiers in the 2010s due to the vinyl revival.
Since the late 1950s, almost all phono input stages have used the RIAA equalization standard. Before settling on that standard, there were many different equalizations in use, including EMI, HMV, Columbia, Decca FFRR, NAB, Ortho, BBC transcription, etc. Recordings made using these other equalization schemes will typically sound odd if they are played through a RIAA-equalized preamplifier. High-performance (so-called "multicurve disc") preamplifiers, which include multiple, selectable equalizations, are no longer commonly available. However, some vintage preamplifiers, such as the LEAK varislope series, are still obtainable and can be refurbished. Newer preamplifiers like the Esoteric Sound Re-Equalizer or the K-A-B MK2 Vintage Signal Processor are also available. These kinds of adjustable phono equalizers are used by consumers wishing to play vintage record collections (often the only available recordings of musicians of the time) with the equalization used to make them.
In the 21st century
Turntables continued to be manufactured and sold in the 2010s, although in small numbers. While some audiophiles still prefer the sound of vinyl records over that of digital music sources (mainly compact discs), they represent a minority of listeners. As of 2015, the sale of vinyl LP's has increased 49–50% percent from the previous year, although small in comparison to the sale of other formats which although more units were sold (Digital Sales, CDs) the more modern formats experienced a decline in sales. The quality of available record players, tonearms, and cartridges has continued to improve, despite diminishing demand, allowing turntables to remain competitive in the high-end audio market. Vinyl enthusiasts are often committed to the refurbishment and sometimes tweaking of vintage systems.
In 2017, vinyl LP sales were slightly decreased, at a rate of 5%, in comparison to previous years' numbers, regardless of the noticeable rise of vinyl records sales worldwide.
Updated versions of the 1970s era Technics SL-1200 (production ceased in 2010) have remained an industry standard for DJs to the present day. Turntables and vinyl records remain popular in mixing (mostly dance-oriented) forms of electronic music, where they allow great latitude for physical manipulation of the music by the DJ.
In hip hop music, and occasionally in other genres, the turntable is used as a musical instrument by DJs, who use turntables along with a DJ mixer to create unique rhythmic sounds. Manipulation of a record as part of the music, rather than for normal playback or mixing, is called turntablism. The basis of turntablism, and its best known technique, is scratching, pioneered by Grand Wizzard Theodore. It was not until Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" in 1983 that the turntablism movement was recognized in popular music outside of a hip hop context. In the 2010s, many hip hop DJs use DJ CD players or digital record emulator devices to create scratching sounds; nevertheless, some DJs still scratch with vinyl records.
The laser turntable uses a laser as the pickup instead of a stylus in physical contact with the disk. It was conceived of in the late 1980s, although early prototypes were not of usable audio quality. Practical laser turntables are now being manufactured by ELPJ. They are favoured by record libraries and some audiophiles since they eliminate physical wear completely.
Experimentation is in progress in retrieving the audio from old records by scanning the disc and analysing the scanned image, rather than using any sort of turntable.
Although largely replaced since the introduction of the compact disc in 1982, record albums still sell in small numbers and are available through numerous sources. In 2008, LP sales grew by 90% over 2007, with 1.9 million records sold.
USB turntables have a built-in audio interface, which transfers the sound directly to the connected computer. Some USB turntables transfer the audio without equalization, but are sold with software that allows the EQ of the transferred audio file to be adjusted. There are also many turntables on the market designed to be plugged into a computer via a USB port for needle dropping purposes.
Responding to longtime calls by fans and disc jockeys, Panasonic Corp. said it is reviving Technics turntables–the series that remains a de facto standard player supporting nightclub music scenes.
The new analog turntable, which would come with new direct-drive motor technologies that Panasonic says will improve the quality of sound. Beginning of 2019 Technics unveiled SL-1500C Premium Class Direct Drive Turntable System which inherits the brand's high-end sound quality concept.
See also
Archéophone, used to convert diverse types of cylinder recordings to modern CD media
Audio signal processing
Compressed air gramophone
List of phonograph manufacturers
Talking Machine World
Vinyl killer
Notes
References
Further reading
Bruil, Rudolf A. (January 8, 2004). "Linear Tonearms." Retrieved on July 25, 2011.
Gelatt, Roland. The Fabulous Phonograph, 1877–1977. Second rev. ed., [being also the] First Collier Books ed., in series, Sounds of the Century. New York: Collier, 1977. 349 p., ill.
Heumann, Michael. "Metal Machine Music: The Phonograph's Voice and the Transformation of Writing." eContact! 14.3 — Turntablism (January 2013). Montréal: CEC.
Koenigsberg, Allen. The Patent History of the Phonograph, 1877–1912. APM Press, 1991.
Various. "Turntable [wiki]: Bibliography." eContact! 14.3 — Turntablism (January 2013). Montréal: CEC.
Weissenbrunner, Karin. "Experimental Turntablism: Historical overview of experiments with record players / records — or Scratches from Second-Hand Technology." eContact! 14.3 — Turntablism (January 2013). Montréal: CEC.
External links
c.1915 Swiss hot-air engined gramophone at Museum of Retro Technology
Interactive sculpture delivers tactile soundwave experience
Very early recordings from around the world
The Birth of the Recording Industry
The Cylinder Archive
Cylinder Preservation & Digitization Project – Over 6,000 cylinder recordings held by the Department of Special Collections, University of California, Santa Barbara, free for download or streamed online.
Cylinder players held at the British Library – information and high-quality images.
History of Recorded Sound: Phonographs and Records
EnjoytheMusic.com – Excerpts from the book Hi-Fi All-New 1958 Edition
Listen to early recordings on the Edison Phonograph
Mario Frazzetto's Phonograph and Gramophone Gallery.
Say What? – Essay on phonograph technology and intellectual property law
Vinyl Engine – Information, images, articles and reviews from around the world
The Analogue Dept – Information, images and tutorials; strongly focused on Thorens brand
45 rpm player and changer at work on YouTube
Historic video footage of Edison operating his original tinfoil phonograph
Turntable History on Enjoy the Music.com
2-point and Arc Protractor generators on AlignmentProtractor.com
Audiovisual introductions in 1877
American inventions
Audio players
Thomas Edison
Sound recording
Hip hop production
Turntablism
19th-century inventions | true | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Phonograph",
"Terminology",
"What are some of the terms used for the phonograph?",
"The term phonograph (\"sound writing\") was derived from the Greek words phone (phone, \"sound\" or \"voice\") and graphe (graphe, \"writing\").",
"Was it referred to by any other names?",
"In more modern usage, the playback device is often called a \"turntable\", \"record player\", or \"record changer\".",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Arguably, any device used to record sound or reproduce recorded sound could be called a type of \"phonograph\","
] | C_53febef912dd41d38a913351d47c761c_1 | Any other terms that can be used? | 4 | Are there any other terms that can be used for the phonograph besides turntable, record player, or record changer? | Phonograph | Usage of terminology is not uniform across the English-speaking world (see below). In more modern usage, the playback device is often called a "turntable", "record player", or "record changer". When used in conjunction with a mixer as part of a DJ setup, turntables are often colloquially called "decks". In later electric phonographs (more often known since the 1940s as record players or, most recently, turntables), the motions of the stylus are converted into an analogous electrical signal by a transducer, then converted back into sound by a loudspeaker. The term phonograph ("sound writing") was derived from the Greek words phone (phone, "sound" or "voice") and graphe (graphe, "writing"). The similar related terms gramophone (from the Greek gramma gramma "letter" and phone phone "voice") and graphophone have similar root meanings. The roots were already familiar from existing 19th-century words such as photograph ("light writing"), telegraph ("distant writing"), and telephone ("distant sound"). The new term may have been influenced by the existing words phonographic and phonography, which referred to a system of phonetic shorthand; in 1852 The New York Times carried an advertisement for "Professor Webster's phonographic class", and in 1859 the New York State Teachers Association tabled a motion to "employ a phonographic recorder" to record its meetings. Arguably, any device used to record sound or reproduce recorded sound could be called a type of "phonograph", but in common practice the word has come to mean historic technologies of sound recording, involving audio-frequency modulations of a physical trace or groove. In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, "Phonograph", "Gramophone", "Graphophone", "Zonophone" and the like were still brand names specific to various makers of sometimes very different (i.e. cylinder and disc) machines; so considerable use was made of the generic term "talking machine", especially in print. "Talking machine" had earlier been used to refer to complicated devices which produced a crude imitation of speech, by simulating the workings of the vocal cords, tongue, and lips - a potential source of confusion both then and now. CANNOTANSWER | In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, "Phonograph", "Gramophone", "Graphophone", "Zonophone" and the like were still brand names specific to various makers | A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue recording and reproduction of sound. The sound vibration waveforms are recorded as corresponding physical deviations of a spiral groove engraved, etched, incised, or impressed into the surface of a rotating cylinder or disc, called a "record". To recreate the sound, the surface is similarly rotated while a playback stylus traces the groove and is therefore vibrated by it, very faintly reproducing the recorded sound. In early acoustic phonographs, the stylus vibrated a diaphragm which produced sound waves which were coupled to the open air through a flaring horn, or directly to the listener's ears through stethoscope-type earphones.
The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison. Alexander Graham Bell's Volta Laboratory made several improvements in the 1880s and introduced the graphophone, including the use of wax-coated cardboard cylinders and a cutting stylus that moved from side to side in a zigzag groove around the record. In the 1890s, Emile Berliner initiated the transition from phonograph cylinders to flat discs with a spiral groove running from the periphery to near the center, coining the term gramophone for disc record players, which is predominantly used in many languages. Later improvements through the years included modifications to the turntable and its drive system, the stylus or needle, pickup system, and the sound and equalization systems.
The disc phonograph record was the dominant commercial audio recording format throughout most of the 20th century. In the mid-1960s the use of 8-track cartridges and cassette tapes were introduced as alternatives. In the 1980s, phonograph use declined sharply due to the popularity of cassettes and the rise of the compact disc, as well as the later introduction of digital music distribution in the 2000s. However, records are still a favorite format for some audiophiles, DJs, collectors, and turntablists (particularly in hip hop and electronic dance music), and have undergone a revival since the 2000s.
Terminology
Usage of terminology is not uniform across the English-speaking world (see below). In more modern usage, the playback device is often called a "turntable", "record player", or "record changer", although each of these terms denote categorically distinct items. When used in conjunction with a mixer as part of a DJ setup, turntables are often colloquially called "decks". In later electric phonographs (more often known since the 1940s as record players or turntables), the motions of the stylus are converted into an analogous electrical signal by a transducer, then converted back into sound by a loudspeaker. The term phonograph ("sound writing") was derived from the Greek words (, 'sound' or 'voice') and (, 'writing'). The similar related terms gramophone (from the Greek 'letter' and 'voice') and graphophone have similar root meanings. The roots were already familiar from existing 19th-century words such as photograph ("light writing"), telegraph ("distant writing"), and telephone ("distant sound"). The new term may have been influenced by the existing words phonographic and phonography, which referred to a system of phonetic shorthand; in 1852 The New York Times carried an advertisement for "Professor Webster's phonographic class", and in 1859 the New York State Teachers Association tabled a motion to "employ a phonographic recorder" to record its meetings.
Arguably, any device used to record sound or reproduce recorded sound could be called a type of "phonograph", but in common practice the word has come to mean historic technologies of sound recording, involving audio-frequency modulations of a physical trace or groove. In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, "Phonograph", "Gramophone", "Graphophone", "Zonophone", "Graphonole" and the like were still brand names specific to various makers of sometimes very different (i.e. cylinder and disc) machines; so considerable use was made of the generic term "talking machine", especially in print. "Talking machine" had earlier been used to refer to complicated devices which produced a crude imitation of speech, by simulating the workings of the vocal cords, tongue, and lips – a potential source of confusion both then and now.
United Kingdom
In British English, "gramophone" may refer to any sound-reproducing machine using disc records, which were introduced and popularized in the UK by the Gramophone Company. Originally, "gramophone" was a proprietary trademark of that company and any use of the name by competing makers of disc records was vigorously prosecuted in the courts, but in 1910 an English court decision decreed that it had become a generic term; it has been so used in the UK and most Commonwealth countries since. The term "phonograph" was usually restricted to machines that used cylinder records.
"Gramophone" generally referred to a wind-up machine. After the introduction of the softer vinyl records, -rpm LPs (long-playing records) and 45-rpm "single" or two-song records, and EPs (extended-play recordings), the common name became "record player" or "turntable". Often the home record player was part of a system that included a radio (radiogram) and, later, might also play audiotape cassettes. From about 1960, such a system began to be described as a "hi-fi" (high-fidelity, monophonic) or a "stereo" (most systems being stereophonic by the mid-1960s).
United States
In American English, "phonograph", properly specific to machines made by Edison, was sometimes used in a generic sense as early as the 1890s to include cylinder-playing machines made by others. But it was then considered strictly incorrect to apply it to Emile Berliner's upstart Gramophone, a very different machine which played discs (although Edison's original Phonograph patent included the use of discs). "Talking machine" was the comprehensive generic term, but from about 1902 on, the general public was increasingly applying the word "phonograph" indiscriminately to both cylinder and disc machines and to the records they played. By the time of the First World War, the mass advertising and popularity of the Victrola (a line of disc-playing machines characterized by their concealed horns) sold by the Victor Talking Machine Company was leading to widespread generic use of the word "victrola" for any machine that played discs, which were generally called "phonograph records" or simply "records", but almost never "Victrola records".
After electrical disc-playing machines appeared on the market in the late 1920s, often combined with a radio receiver, the term "record player" was increasingly favored by the public. Manufacturers, however, typically advertised such combinations as "radio-phonographs". Portable record players (no radio included), with a latched cover and an integrated power amplifier and loudspeaker, were becoming popular as well, especially in schools and for use by children and teenagers.
In the years following the Second World War, as "hi-fi" (high-fidelity, monophonic) and, later, "stereo" (stereophonic) component sound systems slowly evolved from an exotic specialty item into a common feature of American homes, the description of the record-spinning component as a "record changer" (which could automatically play through a stacked series of discs) or a "turntable" (which could hold only one disc at a time) entered common usage. By the 1980s, the use of a "record changer" was widely disparaged. So, the "turntable" emerged triumphant and retained its position to the present. Through all these changes, however, the discs have continued to be known as "phonograph records" or, much more commonly, simply as "records".
Gramophone, as a brand name, was not used in the United States after 1902, and the word quickly fell out of use there, although it has survived in its nickname form, Grammy, as the name of the Grammy Awards. The Grammy trophy itself is a small rendering of a gramophone, resembling a Victor disc machine with a taper arm.
Modern amplifier-component manufacturers continue to label the input jack for a magnetic pickup cartridge as the "phono" input.
Australia
In Australian English, "record player" was the term; "turntable" was a more technical term; "gramophone" was restricted to the old mechanical (i.e., wind-up) players; and "phonograph" was used as in British English. The "phonograph" was first demonstrated in Australia on 14 June, 1878 to a meeting of the Royal Society of Victoria by the Society's Honorary Secretary, Alex Sutherland who published "The Sounds of the Consonants, as Indicated by the Phonograph" in the Society's journal in November that year. On 8 August, 1878 the phonograph was publicly demonstrated at the Society's annual conversazione, along with a range of other new inventions, including the microphone.
Early history
Predecessors to the phonograph
Several inventors devised machines to record sound prior to Thomas Edison's phonograph, Edison being the first to invent a device that could both record and reproduce sound. The phonograph's predecessors include Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville's phonautograph, and Charles Cros's paleophone. Recordings made with the phonautograph were intended to be visual representations of the sound, but were never sonically reproduced until 2008. Cros's paleophone was intended to both record and reproduce sound but had not been developed beyond a basic concept at the time of Edison's successful demonstration of the phonograph in 1877.
Phonautograph
Direct tracings of the vibrations of sound-producing objects such as tuning forks had been made by English physicist Thomas Young in 1807, but the first known device for recording airborne speech, music and other sounds is the phonautograph, patented in 1857 by French typesetter and inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. In this device, sound waves travelling through the air vibrated a parchment diaphragm which was linked to a bristle, and the bristle traced a line through a thin coating of soot on a sheet of paper wrapped around a rotating cylinder. The sound vibrations were recorded as undulations or other irregularities in the traced line. Scott's phonautograph was intended purely for the visual study and analysis of the tracings. Reproduction of the recorded sound was not possible with the original phonautograph.
In 2008, phonautograph recordings made by Scott were played back as sound by American audio historians, who used optical scanning and computer processing to convert the traced waveforms into digital audio files. These recordings, made circa 1860, include fragments of two French songs and a recitation in Italian.
Paleophone
Charles Cros, a French poet and amateur scientist, is the first person known to have made the conceptual leap from recording sound as a traced line to the theoretical possibility of reproducing the sound from the tracing and then to devising a definite method for accomplishing the reproduction. On April 30, 1877, he deposited a sealed envelope containing a summary of his ideas with the French Academy of Sciences, a standard procedure used by scientists and inventors to establish priority of conception of unpublished ideas in the event of any later dispute.
Cros proposed the use of photoengraving, a process already in use to make metal printing plates from line drawings, to convert an insubstantial phonautograph tracing in soot into a groove or ridge on a metal disc or cylinder. This metal surface would then be given the same motion and speed as the original recording surface. A stylus linked to a diaphragm would be made to ride in the groove or on the ridge so that the stylus would be moved back and forth in accordance with the recorded vibrations. It would transmit these vibrations to the connected diaphragm, and the diaphragm would transmit them to the air.
An account of his invention was published on October 10, 1877, by which date Cros had devised a more direct procedure: the recording stylus could scribe its tracing through a thin coating of acid-resistant material on a metal surface and the surface could then be etched in an acid bath, producing the desired groove without the complication of an intermediate photographic procedure. The author of this article called the device a , but Cros himself favored the word , sometimes rendered in French as ('voice of the past').
Cros was a poet of meager means, not in a position to pay a machinist to build a working model, and largely content to bequeath his ideas to the public domain free of charge and let others reduce them to practice, but after the earliest reports of Edison's presumably independent invention crossed the Atlantic he had his sealed letter of April 30 opened and read at the December 3, 1877 meeting of the French Academy of Sciences, claiming due scientific credit for priority of conception.
Throughout the first decade (1890–1900) of commercial production of the earliest crude disc records, the direct acid-etch method first invented by Cros was used to create the metal master discs, but Cros was not around to claim any credit or to witness the humble beginnings of the eventually rich phonographic library he had foreseen. He had died in 1888 at the age of 45.
The early phonographs
Thomas Edison conceived the principle of recording and reproducing sound between May and July 1877 as a byproduct of his efforts to "play back" recorded telegraph messages and to automate speech sounds for transmission by telephone. His first experiments were with waxed paper. He announced his invention of the first phonograph, a device for recording and replaying sound, on November 21, 1877 (early reports appear in Scientific American and several newspapers in the beginning of November, and an even earlier announcement of Edison working on a 'talking-machine' can be found in the Chicago Daily Tribune on May 9), and he demonstrated the device for the first time on November 29 (it was patented on February 19, 1878 as US Patent 200,521). "In December, 1877, a young man came into the office of the Scientific American, and placed before the editors a small, simple machine about which very few preliminary remarks were offered. The visitor without any ceremony whatever turned the crank, and to the astonishment of all present the machine said: 'Good morning. How do you do? How do you like the phonograph?' The machine thus spoke for itself, and made known the fact that it was the phonograph..."
Edison presented his own account of inventing the phonograph: "I was experimenting," he said, "on an automatic method of recording telegraph messages on a disk of paper laid on a revolving platen, exactly the same as the disk talking-machine of to-day. The platen had a spiral groove on its surface, like the disk. Over this was placed a circular disk of paper; an electromagnet with the embossing point connected to an arm traveled over the disk; and any signals given through the magnets were embossed on the disk of paper. If this disc was removed from the machine and put on a similar machine provided with a contact point, the embossed record would cause the signals to be repeated into another wire. The ordinary speed of telegraphic signals is thirty-five to forty words a minute; but with this machine several hundred words were possible.
"From my experiments on the telephone I knew of how to work a pawl connected to the diaphragm; and this engaging a ratchet-wheel served to give continuous rotation to a pulley. This pulley was connected by a cord to a little paper toy representing a man sawing wood. Hence, if one shouted: 'Mary had a little lamb,' etc., the paper man would start sawing wood. I reached the conclusion that if I could record the movements of the diaphragm properly, I could cause such records to reproduce the original movements imparted to the diaphragm by the voice, and thus succeed in recording and reproducing the human voice.
"Instead of using a disk I designed a little machine using a cylinder provided with grooves around the surface. Over this was to be placed tinfoil, which easily received and recorded the movements of the diaphragm. A sketch was made, and the piece-work price, $18, was marked on the sketch. I was in the habit of marking the price I would pay on each sketch. If the workman lost, I would pay his regular wages; if he made more than the wages, he kept it. The workman who got the sketch was John Kruesi. I didn't have much faith that it would work, expecting that I might possibly hear a word or so that would give hope of a future for the idea. Kruesi, when he had nearly finished it, asked what it was for. I told him I was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk back. He thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was put on; I then shouted 'Mary had a little lamb', etc. I adjusted the reproducer, and the machine reproduced it perfectly. I was never so taken aback in my life. Everybody was astonished. I was always afraid of things that worked the first time. Long experience proved that there were great drawbacks found generally before they could be got commercial; but here was something there was no doubt of."
The music critic Herman Klein attended an early demonstration (1881–2) of a similar machine. On the early phonograph's reproductive capabilities he writes "It sounded to my ear like someone singing about half a mile away, or talking at the other end of a big hall; but the effect was rather pleasant, save for a peculiar nasal quality wholly due to the mechanism, though there was little of the scratching which later was a prominent feature of the flat disc. Recording for that primitive machine was a comparatively simple matter. I had to keep my mouth about six inches away from the horn and remember not to make my voice too loud if I wanted anything approximating to a clear reproduction; that was all. When it was played over to me and I heard my own voice for the first time, one or two friends who were present said that it sounded rather like mine; others declared that they would never have recognised it. I daresay both opinions were correct."
The Argus newspaper from Melbourne, Australia, reported on an 1878 demonstration at the Royal Society of Victoria, writing "There was a large attendance of ladies and gentlemen, who appeared greatly interested in the various scientific instruments exhibited. Among these the most interesting, perhaps, was the trial made by Mr. Sutherland with the phonograph, which was most amusing. Several trials were made, and were all more or less successful. "Rule Britannia" was distinctly repeated, but great laughter was caused by the repetition of the convivial song of "He's a jolly good fellow," which sounded as if it was being sung by an old man of 80 with a very cracked voice."
Early machines
Edison's early phonographs recorded onto a thin sheet of metal, normally tinfoil, which was temporarily wrapped around a helically grooved cylinder mounted on a correspondingly threaded rod supported by plain and threaded bearings. While the cylinder was rotated and slowly progressed along its axis, the airborne sound vibrated a diaphragm connected to a stylus that indented the foil into the cylinder's groove, thereby recording the vibrations as "hill-and-dale" variations of the depth of the indentation.
Playback was accomplished by exactly repeating the recording procedure, the only difference being that the recorded foil now served to vibrate the stylus, which transmitted its vibrations to the diaphragm and onward into the air as audible sound. Although Edison's very first experimental tinfoil phonograph used separate and somewhat different recording and playback assemblies, in subsequent machines, a single diaphragm and stylus served both purposes. One peculiar consequence was that it was possible to overdub additional sound onto a recording being played back. The recording was heavily worn by each playing, and it was nearly impossible to accurately remount a recorded foil after it had been removed from the cylinder. In this form, the only practical use that could be found for the phonograph was as a startling novelty for private amusement at home or public exhibitions for profit.
Edison's early patents show that he was aware that sound could be recorded as a spiral on a disc, but Edison concentrated his efforts on cylinders, since the groove on the outside of a rotating cylinder provides a constant velocity to the stylus in the groove, which Edison considered more "scientifically correct".
Edison's patent specified that the audio recording be embossed, and it was not until 1886 that vertically modulated incised recording using wax-coated cylinders was patented by Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter. They named their version the Graphophone.
Introduction of the disc record
The use of a flat recording surface instead of a cylindrical one was an obvious alternative which thought-experimenter Charles Cros initially favored and which practical experimenter Thomas Edison and others actually tested in the late 1870s and early 1880s. The oldest surviving example is a copper electrotype of a recording cut into a wax disc in 1881.
Cylindrical Dictaphone records continued in use until the mid-20th century. The commercialization of sound recording technology had been initially aimed at use in business correspondence, i.e. transcription into writing, in which the cylindrical form offered certain advantages. With paper documents being the end product, the cylinders were considered ephemeral; need to archive large numbers of bulky, fragile sound recordings seemed unlikely, and the ease of producing multiple copies was not a consideration.
In 1887, Emile Berliner patented a variant of the phonograph which he named the Gramophone. Berliner's approach was essentially the same one proposed, but never implemented, by Charles Cros in 1877. The diaphragm was linked to the recording stylus in a way that caused it to vibrate laterally (side to side) as it traced a spiral onto a zinc disc very thinly coated with a compound of beeswax. The zinc disc was then immersed in a bath of chromic acid; this etched a groove into the disc where the stylus had removed the coating, after which the recording could be played. With some later improvements, the flat discs of Berliner could be produced in large quantities at much lower cost than the cylinders of Edison's system.
In May 1889, in San Francisco, the first "phonograph parlor" opened. It featured a row of coin-operated machines, each supplied with a different wax cylinder record. The customer selected a machine according to the title that it advertised, inserted a nickel, then heard the recording through stethoscope-like listening tubes. By the mid-1890s, most American cities had at least one phonograph parlor. The coin-operated mechanism was invented by Louis T. Glass and William S. Arnold. The cabinet contained an Edison Class M or Class E phonograph. The Class M was powered by a wet-cell glass battery that would spill dangerous acid if it tipped over or broke. The Class E sold for a lower price and ran on 120 V DC.
The phenomenon of phonograph parlors peaked in Paris around 1900: in Pathé's luxurious salon, patrons sat in plush upholstered chairs and chose from among many hundreds of available cylinders by using speaking tubes to communicate with attendants on the floor below.
By 1890, record manufacturers had begun using a rudimentary duplication process to mass-produce their product. While the live performers recorded the master phonograph, up to ten tubes led to blank cylinders in other phonographs. Until this development, each record had to be custom-made. Before long, a more advanced pantograph-based process made it possible to simultaneously produce 90–150 copies of each record. However, as demand for certain records grew, popular artists still needed to re-record and re-re-record their songs. Reportedly, the medium's first major African-American star George Washington Johnson was obliged to perform his "The Laughing Song" (or the separate "The Whistling Coon") literally thousands of times in a studio during his recording career. Sometimes he would sing "The Laughing Song" more than fifty times in a day, at twenty cents per rendition. (The average price of a single cylinder in the mid-1890s was about fifty cents.)
Oldest surviving recordings
Lambert's lead cylinder recording for an experimental talking clock is often identified as the oldest surviving playable sound recording,
although the evidence advanced for its early date is controversial.
Wax phonograph cylinder recordings of Handel's choral music made on June 29, 1888, at The Crystal Palace in London were thought to be the oldest-known surviving musical recordings, until the recent playback by a group of American historians of a phonautograph recording of Au clair de la lune made on April 9, 1860.
The 1860 phonautogram had not until then been played, as it was only a transcription of sound waves into graphic form on paper for visual study. Recently developed optical scanning and image processing techniques have given new life to early recordings by making it possible to play unusually delicate or physically unplayable media without physical contact.
A recording made on a sheet of tinfoil at an 1878 demonstration of Edison's phonograph in St. Louis, Missouri has been played back by optical scanning and digital analysis. A few other early tinfoil recordings are known to survive, including a slightly earlier one which is believed to preserve the voice of U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes, but as of May 2014 they have not yet been scanned. These antique tinfoil recordings, which have typically been stored folded, are too fragile to be played back with a stylus without seriously damaging them. Edison's 1877 tinfoil recording of Mary Had a Little Lamb, not preserved, has been called the first instance of recorded verse.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the phonograph, Edison recounted reciting Mary Had a Little Lamb to test his first machine. The 1927 event was filmed by an early sound-on-film newsreel camera, and an audio clip from that film's soundtrack is sometimes mistakenly presented as the original 1877 recording.
Wax cylinder recordings made by 19th century media legends such as P. T. Barnum and Shakespearean actor Edwin Booth are amongst the earliest verified recordings by the famous that have survived to the present.
Improvements at the Volta Laboratory
Alexander Graham Bell and his two associates took Edison's tinfoil phonograph and modified it considerably to make it reproduce sound from wax instead of tinfoil. They began their work at Bell's Volta Laboratory in Washington, D. C., in 1879, and continued until they were granted basic patents in 1886 for recording in wax.
Although Edison had invented the phonograph in 1877 the fame bestowed on him for this invention was not due to its efficiency. Recording with his tinfoil phonograph was too difficult to be practical, as the tinfoil tore easily, and even when the stylus was properly adjusted, its reproduction of sound was distorted, and good for only a few playbacks; nevertheless Edison had discovered the idea of sound recording. However immediately after his discovery he did not improve it, allegedly because of an agreement to spend the next five years developing the New York City electric light and power system.
Volta's early challenge
Meanwhile, Bell, a scientist and experimenter at heart, was looking for new worlds to conquer after his invention of the telephone. According to Sumner Tainter, it was through Gardiner Green Hubbard that Bell took up the phonograph challenge. Bell had married Hubbard's daughter Mabel in 1879 while Hubbard was president of the Edison Speaking Phonograph Co., and his organization, which had purchased the Edison patent, was financially troubled because people did not want to buy a machine which seldom worked well and proved difficult for the average person to operate.
In 1879 Hubbard got Bell interested in improving the phonograph, and it was agreed that a laboratory should be set up in Washington. Experiments were also to be conducted on the transmission of sound by light, which resulted in the selenium-celled Photophone.
Volta Graphophone
By 1881, the Volta associates had succeeded in improving an Edison tinfoil machine to some extent. Wax was put in the grooves of the heavy iron cylinder, and no tinfoil was used. Rather than apply for a patent at that time, however, they deposited the machine in a sealed box at the Smithsonian, and specified that it was not to be opened without the consent of two of the three men.
The sound vibrations had been indented in the wax which had been applied to the Edison phonograph. The following was the text of one of their recordings: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy. I am a Graphophone and my mother was a phonograph." Most of the disc machines designed at the Volta Lab had their disc mounted on vertical turntables. The explanation is that in the early experiments, the turntable, with disc, was mounted on the shop lathe, along with the recording and reproducing heads. Later, when the complete models were built, most of them featured vertical turntables.
One interesting exception was a horizontal seven inch turntable. The machine, although made in 1886, was a duplicate of one made earlier but taken to Europe by Chichester Bell. Tainter was granted on July 10, 1888. The playing arm is rigid, except for a pivoted vertical motion of 90 degrees to allow removal of the record or a return to starting position. While recording or playing, the record not only rotated, but moved laterally under the stylus, which thus described a spiral, recording 150 grooves to the inch.
The preserved Bell and Tainter records are of both the lateral cut and the Edison-style hill-and-dale (up-and-down) styles. Edison for many years used the "hill-and-dale" method on both his cylinders and Diamond Disc records, and Emile Berliner is credited with the invention of the lateral cut, acid-etched Gramophone record in 1887. The Volta associates, however, had been experimenting with both formats and directions of groove modulation as early as 1881.
The basic distinction between the Edison's first phonograph patent and the Bell and Tainter patent of 1886 was the method of recording. Edison's method was to indent the sound waves on a piece of tin foil, while Bell and Tainter's invention called for cutting, or "engraving", the sound waves into a wax record with a sharp recording stylus.
Graphophone commercialization
In 1885, when the Volta Associates were sure that they had a number of practical inventions, they filed patent applications and began to seek out investors. The Volta Graphophone Company of Alexandria, Virginia, was created on January 6, 1886 and incorporated on February 3, 1886. It was formed to control the patents and to handle the commercial development of their sound recording and reproduction inventions, one of which became the first Dictaphone.
After the Volta Associates gave several demonstrations in the City of Washington, businessmen from Philadelphia created the American Graphophone Company on March 28, 1887, in order to produce and sell the machines for the budding phonograph marketplace. The Volta Graphophone Company then merged with American Graphophone, which itself later evolved into Columbia Records.
Shortly after American Graphophone's creation, Jesse H. Lippincott used nearly $1 million of an inheritance to gain control of it, as well as the rights to the Graphophone and the Bell and Tainter patents. Not long later Lippincott purchased the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company. He then created the North American Phonograph Company to consolidate the national sales rights of both the Graphophone and the Edison Speaking Phonograph. In the early 1890s Lippincott fell victim to the unit's mechanical problems and also to resistance from stenographers.
A coin-operated version of the Graphophone, , was developed by Tainter in 1893 to compete with nickel-in-the-slot entertainment phonograph demonstrated in 1889 by Louis T. Glass, manager of the Pacific Phonograph Company.
The work of the Volta Associates laid the foundation for the successful use of dictating machines in business, because their wax recording process was practical and their machines were durable. But it would take several more years and the renewed efforts of Edison and the further improvements of Emile Berliner and many others, before the recording industry became a major factor in home entertainment.
Disc vs. cylinder as a recording medium
Discs are not inherently better than cylinders at providing audio fidelity. Rather, the advantages of the format are seen in the manufacturing process: discs can be stamped; cylinders could not be until 1901–1902 when the gold moulding process was introduced by Edison.
Recordings made on a cylinder remain at a constant linear velocity for the entirety of the recording, while those made on a disc have a higher linear velocity at the outer portion of the disc compared to the inner portion.
Edison's patented recording method recorded with vertical modulations in a groove. Berliner utilized a laterally modulated groove.
Though Edison's recording technology was better than Berliner's, there were commercial advantages to a disc system since the disc could be easily mass-produced by molding and stamping and it required less storage space for a collection of recordings.
Berliner successfully argued that his technology was different enough from Edison's that he did not need to pay royalties on it, which reduced his business expenses.
Through experimentation, in 1892 Berliner began commercial production of his disc records, and "gramophones". His "gramophone record" was the first disc record to be offered to the public. They were five inches (12.7 cm) in diameter and recorded on one side only. Seven-inch (17.5 cm) records followed in 1895. Also in 1895 Berliner replaced the hard rubber used to make the discs with a shellac compound. Berliner's early records had very poor sound quality, however. Work by Eldridge R. Johnson eventually improved the sound fidelity to a point where it was as good as the cylinder. By late 1901, ten-inch (25 cm) records were marketed by Johnson and Berliner's Victor Talking Machine Company, and Berliner had sold his interests. In 1904, discs were first pressed with music on both sides and capable of around seven minutes total playing time, as opposed to the cylinder's typical duration on two minutes at that time. As a result of this and the fragility of wax cylinders in transit and storage, cylinders sales declined. Edison felt the increasing commercial pressure for disc records, and by 1912, though reluctant at first, his production of disc records was in full swing. This was the Edison Disc Record. Nevertheless, he continued to manufacture cylinders until 1929 and was last to withdraw from that market.
From the mid-1890s until World War I, both phonograph cylinder and disc recordings and machines to play them on were widely mass-marketed and sold. The disc system superseded the cylinder in Europe by 1906 when both Columbia and Pathe withdrew from that market. By 1913, Edison was the only company still producing cylinders in the USA although in Great Britain small manufacturers pressed on until 1922.
Dominance of the disc record
Berliner's lateral disc record was the ancestor of the 78 rpm, 45 rpm, 33⅓ rpm, and all other analogue disc records popular for use in sound recording. See gramophone record.
The 1920s brought improved radio technology. Radio sales increased, bringing many phonograph dealers to near financial ruin. With efforts at improved audio fidelity, the big record companies succeeded in keeping business booming through the end of the decade, but the record sales plummeted during the Great Depression, with many companies merging or going out of business.
Record sales picked up appreciably by the late 30s and early 40s, with greater improvements in fidelity and more money to be spent. By this time home phonographs had become much more common, though it wasn't until the 1940s that console radio/phono set-ups with automatic record changers became more common.
In the 1930s, vinyl (originally known as vinylite) was introduced as a record material for radio transcription discs, and for radio commercials. At that time, virtually no discs for home use were made from this material. Vinyl was used for the popular 78-rpm V-discs issued to US soldiers during World War II. This significantly reduced breakage during transport. The first commercial vinylite record was the set of five 12" discs "Prince Igor" (Asch Records album S-800, dubbed from Soviet masters in 1945). Victor began selling some home-use vinyl 78s in late 1945; but most 78s were made of a shellac compound until the 78-rpm format was completely phased out. (Shellac records were heavier and more brittle.) 33s and 45s were, however, made exclusively of vinyl, with the exception of some 45s manufactured out of polystyrene.
Booms in record sales returned after the Second World War, as industry standards changed from 78s to vinyl, long-playing records (commonly called record albums), which could contain an entire symphony, and 45s which usually contained one hit song popularized on the radio – thus the term "single" record – plus another song on the back or "flip" side. An "extended play" version of the 45 was also available, designated 45 EP, which provided capacity for longer musical selections, or for two regular-length songs per side.
Shortcomings include surface noise caused by dirt or abrasions (scratches) and failure caused by deep surface scratches causing skipping of the stylus forward and missing a section, or groove lock, causing a section to repeat, usually punctuated by a popping noise. This was so common that the phrase: "you sound like a broken record,” was coined, referring to someone who is being annoyingly repetitious.
First all-transistor phonograph
In 1955, Philco developed and produced the world's first all-transistor phonograph models TPA-1 and TPA-2, which were announced in the June 28, 1955 edition of the Wall Street Journal. Philco started to sell these all-transistor phonographs in the fall of 1955, for the price of $59.95. The October 1955 issue of Radio & Television News magazine (page 41), had a full page detailed article on Philco's new consumer product. The all-transistor portable phonograph TPA-1 and TPA-2 models played only 45rpm records and used four 1.5 volt "D" batteries for their power supply. The "TPA" stands for "Transistor Phonograph Amplifier". Their circuitry used three Philco germanium PNP alloy-fused junction audio frequency transistors. After the 1956 season had ended, Philco decided to discontinue both models, for transistors were too expensive compared to vacuum tubes, but by 1961 a $49.95 ($ in ) portable, battery-powered radio-phonograph with seven transistors was available.
By the 1960s, cheaper portable record players and record changers which played stacks of records in wooden console cabinets were popular, usually with heavy and crude tonearms in the portables. The consoles were often equipped with better quality pick-up cartridges. Even pharmacies stocked 45 rpm records at their front counters. Rock music played on 45s became the soundtrack to the 1960s as people bought the same songs that were played free of charge on the radio. Some record players were even tried in automobiles, but were quickly displaced by 8-track and cassette tapes.
The fidelity of sound reproduction made great advances during the 1970s, as turntables became very precise instruments with belt or direct drive, jewel-balanced tonearms, some with electronically controlled linear tracking and magnetic cartridges. Some cartridges had frequency response above 30 kHz for use with CD-4 quadraphonic 4 channel sound. A high fidelity component system which cost well under $1,000 could do a very good job of reproducing very accurate frequency response across the human audible spectrum from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz with a $200 turntable which would typically have less than 0.05% wow and flutter and very low rumble (low frequency noise). A well-maintained record would have very little surface noise.
A novelty variation on the standard format was the use of multiple concentric spirals with different recordings. Thus when the record was played multiple times, different recordings would play, seemingly at random. These were often utilized in talking toys and games.
Records themselves became an art form because of the large surface onto which graphics and books could be printed, and records could be molded into unusual shapes, colors, or with images (picture discs). The turntable remained a common element of home audio systems well after the introduction of other media, such as audio tape and even the early years of the compact disc as a lower-priced music format. However, even though the cost of producing CDs fell below that of records, CDs remained a higher-priced music format than either cassettes or records. Thus, records were not uncommon in home audio systems into the early 1990s.
By the turn of the 21st century, the turntable had become a niche product, as the price of CD players, which reproduce music free of pops and scratches, fell far lower than high-fidelity tape players or turntables. Nevertheless, there is some increase in interest; many big-box media stores carry turntables, as do professional DJ equipment stores. Most low-end and mid-range amplifiers omit the phono input; but on the other hand, low-end turntables with built-in phono pre-amplifiers are widely available. Some combination systems include a basic turntable, a CD player, a cassette deck. and a radio, in a retro-styled cabinet. Records also continue to be manufactured and sold today, albeit in smaller quantities than in the disc phonograph's heyday.
Turntable technology
Turntable construction
Inexpensive record players typically used a flanged steel stamping for the turntable structure. A rubber disc would be secured to the top of the stamping to provide traction for the record, as well as a small amount of vibration isolation. The spindle bearing usually consisted of a bronze bushing. The flange on the stamping provided a convenient place to drive the turntable by means of an idler wheel (see below). While light and cheap to manufacture, these mechanisms had low inertia, making motor speed instabilities more pronounced.
Costlier turntables made from heavy aluminium castings have greater balanced mass and inertia, helping minimize vibration at the stylus, and maintaining constant speed without wow or flutter, even if the motor exhibits cogging effects. Like stamped steel turntables, they were topped with rubber. Because of the increased mass, they usually employed ball bearings or roller bearings in the spindle to reduce friction and noise. Most are belt or direct drive, but some use an idler wheel. A specific case was the Swiss "Lenco" drive, which possessed a very heavy turntable coupled via an idler wheel to a long, tapered motor drive shaft. This enabled stepless rotation or speed control on the drive. Because of this feature the Lenco became popular in the late 1950s with dancing schools, because the dancing instructor could lead the dancing exercises at different speeds.
By the early 1980s, some companies started producing very inexpensive turntables that displaced the products of companies like BSR. Commonly found in "all-in-one" stereos from assorted far-east manufacturers, they used a thin plastic table set in a plastic plinth, no mats, belt drive, weak motors, and often, lightweight plastic tonearms with no counterweight. Most used sapphire pickups housed in ceramic cartridges, and they lacked several features of earlier units, such as auto-start and record-stacking. While not as common now that turntables are absent from the cheap "all-in-one" units, this type of turntable has made a strong resurgence in nostalgia-marketed record players.
Turntable drive systems
From the earliest phonograph designs, many of which were powered by spring-wound mechanisms, a speed governor was essential. Most of these employed some type of flywheel-friction disc to control the speed of the rotating cylinder or turntable; as the speed increased, centrifugal force caused a brake—often a felt pad—to rub against a smooth metal surface, slowing rotation. Electrically powered turntables, whose rotational speed was governed by other means, eventually made their mechanical counterparts obsolete. The mechanical governor was, however, still employed in some toy phonographs (such as those found in talking dolls) until they were replaced by digital sound generators in the late 20th century.
Many modern players have platters with a continuous series of strobe markings machined or printed around their edge. Viewing these markings in artificial light at mains frequency produces a stroboscopic effect, which can be used to verify proper rotational speed. Additionally, the edge of the turntable can contain magnetic markings to provide feedback pulses to an electronic speed-control system.
Idler-wheel drive system
Earlier designs used a rubberized idler-wheel drive system. However, wear and decomposition of the wheel, as well as the direct mechanical coupling to a vibrating motor, introduced low-frequency noise ("rumble") and speed variations ("wow and flutter") into the sound. These systems generally used a synchronous motor which ran at a speed synchronized to the frequency of the AC power supply. Portable record players typically used an inexpensive shaded-pole motor. At the end of the motor shaft there was a stepped driving capstan; to obtain different speeds, the rubber idler wheel was moved to contact different steps of this capstan. The idler was pinched against the bottom or inside edge of the platter to drive it.
Until the 1970s, the idler-wheel drive was the most common on turntables, except for higher-end audiophile models. However, even some higher-end turntables, such as the Lenco, Garrard, EMT, and Dual turntables, used idler-wheel drive.
Belt drive system
Belt drives brought improved motor and platter isolation compared to idler-wheel designs. Motor noise, generally heard as low-frequency rumble, is greatly reduced. The design of the belt drive turntable allows for a less expensive motor than the direct-drive turntable to be used. The elastomeric belt absorbs motor vibrations and noise which could otherwise be picked up by the stylus. It also absorbs small, fast speed variations, caused by "cogging", which in other designs are heard as "flutter."
The "Acoustical professional" turntable (earlier marketed under Dutch "Jobo prof") of the 1960s however possessed an expensive German drive motor, the "Pabst Aussenläufer" ("Pabst outrunner"). As this motor name implied, the rotor was on the outside of the motor and acted as a flywheel ahead of the belt-driven turntable itself. In combination with a steel to nylon turntable bearing (with molybdenum disulfide inside for lifelong lubrication) very low wow, flutter and rumble figures were achieved.
Direct drive system
Direct-drive turntables drive the platter directly without utilizing intermediate wheels, belts, or gears as part of a drive train. This requires good engineering, with advanced electronics for acceleration and speed control. Matsushita's Technics division introduced the first commercially successful direct drive platter, model SP10, in 1969, which was joined by the Technics SL-1200 turntable, in 1972. Its updated model, SL-1200MK2, released in 1978, had a stronger motor, a convenient pitch control slider for beatmatching and a stylus illuminator, which made it the long-standing favourite among disc jockeys (see "Turntablism"). By the beginnings of the 80s, lowering of costs in microcontroller electronics made direct drive turntables more affordable.
Pricing
Audiophile grade turntables start at a few hundred dollars and range upwards of $100,000, depending on the complexity and quality of design and manufacture. The common view is that there are diminishing returns with an increase in price – a turntable costing $1,000 would not sound significantly better than a turntable costing $500; nevertheless, there exists a large choice of expensive turntables.
Arm systems
The tone arm (or tonearm) holds the pickup cartridge over the groove, the stylus tracking the groove with the desired force to give the optimal compromise between good tracking and minimizing wear of the stylus and record groove. At its simplest, a tone arm is a pivoted lever, free to move in two axes (vertical and horizontal) with a counterbalance to maintain tracking pressure.
However, the requirements of high-fidelity reproduction place more demands upon the arm design. In a perfect world:
The tone arm must track the groove without distorting the stylus assembly, so an ideal arm would have no mass, and frictionless bearings, requiring zero force to move it.
The arm should not oscillate following a displacement, so it should either be both light and very stiff, or suitably damped.
The arm must not resonate with vibrations induced by the stylus or from the turntable motor or plinth, so it must be heavy enough to be immune to those vibrations, or it must be damped to absorb them.
The arm should keep the cartridge stylus tangent to the groove it's in as it moves across the record, with minimal variation in angle.
These demands are contradictory and impossible to realize (massless arms and zero-friction bearings do not exist in the real world), so tone arm designs require engineering compromises. Solutions vary, but all modern tonearms are at least relatively lightweight and stiff constructions, with precision, very low friction pivot bearings in both the vertical and horizontal axes. Most arms are made from some kind of alloy (the cheapest being aluminium), but some manufacturers use balsa wood, while others use carbon fiber or graphite. The latter materials favor a straight arm design; alloys' properties lend themselves to S-type arms.
The tone arm got its name before the age of electronics. It originally served to conduct actual sound waves from a purely mechanical "pickup" called a sound box or reproducer to a so-described "amplifying" horn. The earliest electronic record players, introduced at the end of 1925, had massive electromagnetic pickups that contained a horseshoe magnet, used disposable steel needles, and weighed several ounces. Their full weight rested on the record, providing ample tracking force to overcome their low compliance but causing rapid record wear. The tone arms were rudimentary and remained so even after lighter crystal pickups appeared about ten years later. When fine-grooved vinyl records were introduced in the late 1940s, still smaller and lighter crystal (later, ceramic) cartridges with semi-permanent jewel styluses became standard. In the mid-1950s these were joined by a new generation of magnetic cartridges that bore little resemblance to their crude ancestors. Far smaller tracking forces became possible and the balanced arm came into use.
Prices varied widely. The well-known and extremely popular high-end S-type SME arm of the 1970–1980 era not only had a complicated design, it was also very costly. On the other hand, even some cheaper arms could be of professional quality: the "All Balance" arm, made by the now-defunct Dutch company Acoustical, was only €30 [equivalent]. It was used during that period by all official radio stations in the Dutch Broadcast studio facilities of the NOS, as well as by the pirate radio station Veronica. Playing records from a boat in international waters, the arm had to withstand sudden ship movements. Anecdotes indicate this low-cost arm was the only one capable of keeping the needle firmly in the groove during heavy storms at sea.
Quality arms employ an adjustable counterweight to offset the mass of the arm and various cartridges and headshells. On this counterweight, a calibrated dial enables easy adjustment of stylus force. After perfectly balancing the arm, the dial itself is "zeroed"; the stylus force can then be dialed in by screwing the counterweight towards the fulcrum. (Sometimes a separate spring or smaller weight provides fine tuning.) Stylus forces of 10 to 20 mN (1 to 2 grams-force) are typical for modern consumer turntables, while forces of up to 50 mN (5 grams) are common for the tougher environmental demands of party deejaying or turntablism.
Of special adjustment consideration, Stanton cartridges of the 681EE(E) series [and others like them] feature a small record brush ahead of the cartridge. The upforce of this brush, and its added drag require compensation of both tracking force (add 1 gram) and anti-skating adjustment values (see next paragraph for description).
Even on a perfectly flat LP, tonearms are prone to two types of tracking errors that affect the sound. As the tonearm tracks the groove, the stylus exerts a frictional force tangent to the arc of the groove, and since this force does not intersect the tone arm pivot, a clockwise rotational force (moment) occurs and a reaction skating force is exerted on the stylus by the record groove wall away from center of the disc. Modern arms provide an anti-skate mechanism, using springs, hanging weights, or magnets to produce an offsetting counter-clockwise force at the pivot, making the net lateral force on the groove walls near zero.
The second error occurs as the arm sweeps in an arc across the disc, causing the angle between the cartridge head and groove to change slightly. A change in angle, albeit small, will have a detrimental effect (especially with stereo recordings) by creating different forces on the two groove walls, as well as a slight timing shift between left/right channels. Making the arm longer to reduce this angle is a partial solution, but less than ideal. A longer arm weighs more, and only an infinitely long [pivoted] arm would reduce the error to zero. Some designs (Burne-Jones, and Garrard "Zero" series) use dual arms in a parallelogram arrangement, pivoting the cartridge head to maintain a constant angle as it moves across the record. Unfortunately this "solution" creates more problems than it solves, compromising rigidity and creating sources of unwanted noise.
The pivoted arm produces yet another problem which is unlikely to be significant to the audiophile, though. As the master was originally cut in a linear motion from the edge towards the center, but the stylus on the pivoted arm always draws an arc, this causes a timing drift that is most significant when digitizing music and beat mapping the data for synchronization with other songs in a DAW or DJ software unless the software allows building a non-linear beat map. As the contact point of the stylus on the record wanders farther from the linear path between the starting point and center hole, the tempo and pitch tend to decrease towards the middle of the record, until the arc reaches its apex. After that the tempo and pitch increase towards the end as the contact point comes closer to the linear path again. Because the surface speed of the record is lower at the end, the relative speed error from the same absolute distance error is higher at the end, and the increase in tempo is more notable towards the end than the decrease towards the middle. This can be somewhat reduced by a curved arm pivoted so that the end point of the arc stays farther from the linear path than the starting point, or by a long straight arm that pivots perpendicularly to the linear path in the middle of the record. However the tempo droop at the middle can only be completely avoided by a linear tracking arm.
Linear tracking
If the arm is not pivoted, but instead carries the stylus along a radius of the disc, there is no skating force and little to no cartridge angle error. Such arms are known as linear tracking or tangential arms. These are driven along a track by various means, from strings and pulleys, to worm gears or electromagnets. The cartridge's position is usually regulated by an electronic servomechanism or mechanical interface, moving the stylus properly over the groove as the record plays, or for song selection.
There are long-armed and short-armed linear arm designs. On a perfectly flat record a short arm will do, but once the record is even slightly warped, a short arm will be troublesome. Any vertical motion of the record surface at the stylus contact point will cause the stylus to considerably move longitudinally in the groove. This will cause the stylus to ride non-tangentially in the groove and cause a stereo phase error as well as pitch error every time the stylus rides over the warp. Also the arm track can come into touch with the record. A long arm will not completely eliminate this problem but will tolerate warped records much better.
Early developments in linear turntables were from Rek-O-Kut (portable lathe/phonograph) and Ortho-Sonic in the 1950s, and Acoustical in the early 1960s. These were eclipsed by more successful implementations of the concept from the late 1960s through the early 1980s.
Of note are Rabco's SL-8, followed by Bang & Olufsen with its Beogram 4000 model in 1972. These models positioned the track outside the platter's edge, as did turntables by Harman Kardon, Mitsubishi, Pioneer, Yamaha, Sony, etc. A 1970s design from Revox harkened back to the 1950s attempts (and, record lathes), positioning the track directly over the record. An enclosed bridge-like assembly is swung into place from the platter's right edge to its middle. Once in place, a short tonearm under this "bridge" plays the record, driven across laterally by a motor. The Sony PS-F5/F9 (1983) uses a similar, miniaturized design, and can operate in a vertical or horizontal orientation. The Technics SL-10, introduced in 1981, was the first direct drive linear tracking turntable, and placed the track and arm on the underside of the rear-hinged dust cover, to fold down over the record, similar to the SL-Q6 pictured.
The earliest Edison phonographs used horizontal, spring-powered drives to carry the stylus across the recording at a pre-determined rate. But, historically as a whole, the linear tracking systems never gained wide acceptance, due largely to their complexity and associated production/development costs. The resources it takes to produce one incredible linear turntable could produce several excellent ones. Some of the most sophisticated and expensive tonearms and turntable units ever made are linear trackers, from companies such as Rockport and Clearaudio. In theory, it seems nearly ideal; a stylus replicating the motion of the recording lathe used to cut the "master" record could result in minimal wear and maximum sound reproduction. In practice, in vinyl's heyday it was generally too much too late.
Since the early 1980s, an elegant solution has been the near-frictionless air bearing linear arm that requires no tracking drive mechanism other than the record groove. This provides a similar benefit as the electronic linear tonearm without the complexity and necessity of servo-motor correction for tracking error. In this case the trade-off is the introduction of pneumatics in the form of audible pumps and tubing. A more elegant solution is the mechanically driven low-friction design, also driven by the groove. Examples include Souther Engineering (U.S.A.), Clearaudio (Germany), and Aura (Czech Republic). This design places an exceeding demand upon precision engineering due to the lack of pneumatics.
Pickup systems
Historically, most high-fidelity "component" systems (preamplifiers or receivers) that accepted input from a phonograph turntable had separate inputs for both ceramic and magnetic cartridges (typically labeled "CER" and "MAG"). One piece systems often had no additional phono inputs at all, regardless of type.
Most systems today, if they accept input from a turntable at all, are configured for use only with magnetic cartridges. Manufacturers of high-end systems often have in-built moving coil amplifier circuitry, or outboard head-amplifiers supporting either moving magnet or moving coil cartridges that can be plugged into the line stage.
Additionally, cartridges may contain styli or needles that can be separated according to their tip: Spherical styli, and elliptical styli. Spherical styli have their tip shaped like one half of a sphere, and elliptical styli have their tip shaped like one end of an ellipse. Spherical styli preserve more of the groove of the record than elliptical styli, while elliptical styli offer higher sound quality.
(crystal/ceramic) cartridges
Early electronic phonographs used a piezo-electric crystal for pickup (though the earliest electronic phonographs used crude magnetic pick-ups), where the mechanical movement of the stylus in the groove generates a proportional electrical voltage by creating stress within a crystal (typically Rochelle salt). Crystal pickups are relatively robust, and produce a substantial signal level which requires only a modest amount of further amplification. The output is not very linear however, introducing unwanted distortion. It is difficult to make a crystal pickup suitable for quality stereo reproduction, as the stiff coupling between the crystal and the long stylus prevents close tracking of the needle to the groove modulations. This tends to increase wear on the record, and introduces more distortion. Another problem is the hygroscopic nature of the crystal itself: it absorbs moisture from the air and may dissolve. The crystal was protected by embedding it in other materials, without hindering the movement of the pickup mechanism itself. After a number of years, the protective jelly often deteriorated or leaked from the cartridge case and the full unit needed replacement.
The next development was the ceramic cartridge, a piezoelectric device that used newer and better materials. These were more sensitive, and offered greater compliance, that is, lack of resistance to movement and so increased ability to follow the undulations of the groove without gross distorting or jumping out of the groove. Higher compliance meant lower tracking forces and reduced wear to both the disc and stylus. It also allowed ceramic stereo cartridges to be made.
Between the 1950s and 1970s, ceramic cartridges became common in low-quality phonographs, but better high-fidelity (or "hi-fi") systems used magnetic cartridges. The availability of low-cost magnetic cartridges from the 1970s onwards made ceramic cartridges obsolete for essentially all purposes. At the seeming end of the market lifespan of ceramic cartridges, someone accidentally discovered that by terminating a specific ceramic mono cartridge (the Ronette TX88) not with the prescribed 47 kΩ resistance, but with approx. 10 kΩ, it could be connected to the moving magnet (MM) input too. The result, a much smoother frequency curve extended the lifetime for this popular and very cheap type.
Magnetic cartridges
There are two common designs for magnetic cartridges, moving magnet (MM) and moving coil (MC) (originally called dynamic). Both operate on the same physics principle of electromagnetic induction. The moving magnet type was by far the most common and more robust of the two, though audiophiles often claim that the moving coil system yields higher fidelity sound.
In either type, the stylus itself, usually of diamond, is mounted on a tiny metal strut called a cantilever, which is suspended using a collar of highly compliant plastic. This gives the stylus the freedom to move in any direction. On the other end of the cantilever is mounted a tiny permanent magnet (moving magnet type) or a set of tiny wound coils (moving coil type). The magnet is close to a set of fixed pick-up coils, or the moving coils are held within a magnetic field generated by fixed permanent magnets. In either case, the movement of the stylus as it tracks the grooves of a record causes a fluctuating magnetic field, which causes a small electric current to be induced in the coils. This current closely follows the sound waveform cut into the record, and may be transmitted by wires to an electronic amplifier where it is processed and amplified in order to drive a loudspeaker. Depending upon the amplifier design, a phono-preamplifier may be necessary.
In most moving magnet designs, the stylus itself is detachable from the rest of the cartridge so it can easily be replaced. There are three primary types of cartridge mounts. The most common type is attached using two small screws to a headshell that then plugs into the tonearm, while another is a standardized "P-mount" or "T4P" cartridge (invented by Technics in 1980 and adopted by other manufacturers) that plugs directly into the tonearm. Many P-mount cartridges come with adapters to allow them to be mounted to a headshell. The third type is used mainly in cartridges designed for DJ use and it has a standard round headshell connector. Some mass market turntables use a proprietary integrated cartridge that cannot be upgraded.
An alternative design is the moving iron variation on moving magnet used by ADC, Grado, Stanton/Pickering 681 series, Ortofon OM and VMS series, and the MMC cartridge of Bang & Olufsen. In these units, the magnet itself sits behind the four coils and magnetises the cores of all four coils. The moving iron cross at the other end of the coils varies the gaps between itself and each of these cores, according to its movements. These variations lead to voltage variations as described above.
Famous brands for magnetic cartridges are: Grado, Stanton/Pickering (681EE/EEE), B&O (MM types for its two, non-compatible generations of parallel arm design), Shure (V15 Type I to V), Audio-Technica, Nagaoka, Dynavector, Koetsu, Ortofon, Technics, Denon and ADC.
Strain gauge cartridges
Strain gauge or "semiconductor" cartridges do not generate a voltage, but act like a variable resistor, whose resistance directly depends on the movement of the stylus. Thus, the cartridge "modulates" an external voltage supplied by the (special) preamplifier. These pickups were marketed by Euphonics, Sao Win, and Panasonic/Technics, amongst others.
The main advantages (compared to magnetic carts are):
The electrical connection from the cartridge to the preamplifier is immune to cable capacitance issues.
Being non-magnetic, the cartridge is immune to "hum" induced by stray magnetic fields (same advantage shared with ceramic cartridges).
The combination of electrical and mechanical advantages, plus the absence of magnetic yoke high-frequency losses, make them especially suitable to reproducing frequencies up to 50 kHz. Technics (Matsushita Electric) marketed a line of strain-gauge (labeled "semiconductor") cartridges especially intended for Compatible Discrete 4 quadraphonic records, requiring such high frequency response. Bass response down to 0 Hz is possible.
By using a suitable mechanical arrangement, VTA (vertical tracking angle) stays steady independent of the stylus vertical movements, with the consequent reduction in related distortions.
Being a force sensor, the strain-gauge cartridge can also measure the actual VTF (vertical tracking force) while in use.
The main disadvantage is the need of a special preamplifier that supplies a steady current (typically 5mA) to the semiconductor elements and handles a special equalization than the one needed for magnetic cartridges.
A high-end strain-gauge cartridge is currently sold by an audiophile company, with special preamplifiers available.
Electrostatic cartridges
Electrostatic cartridges were marketed by Stax in the 1950 and 1960 years. They needed individual operating electronics or preamplifiers.
Optical readout
A few specialist laser turntables read the groove optically using a laser pickup. Since there is no physical contact with the record, no wear is incurred. However, this "no wear" advantage is debatable, since vinyl records have been tested to withstand even 1200 plays with no significant audio degradation, provided that it is played with a high quality cartridge and that the surfaces are clean.
An alternative approach is to take a high-resolution photograph or scan of each side of the record and interpret the image of the grooves using computer software. An amateur attempt using a flatbed scanner lacked satisfactory fidelity. A professional system employed by the Library of Congress produces excellent quality.
Stylus
A smooth-tipped stylus (in popular usage often called a needle due to the former use of steel needles for the purpose) is used to play the recorded groove. A special chisel-like stylus is used to engrave the groove into the master record.
The stylus is subject to hard wear as it is the only small part that comes into direct contact with the spinning record. In terms of the force imposed on its minute areas of actual contact, the pressure it must bear is enormous. There are three desired qualities in a stylus: first, that it faithfully follows the contours of the recorded groove and transmits its vibrations to the next part in the chain; second, that it does not damage the recorded disc; and third, that it is resistant to wear. A worn-out, damaged or defective stylus tip will degrade audio quality and injure the groove.
Different materials for the stylus have been used over time. Thomas Edison introduced the use of sapphire in 1892 and the use of diamond in 1910 for his cylinder phonographs. The Edison Diamond Disc players (1912–1929), when properly played, hardly ever required the stylus to be changed. The styli for vinyl records were also made out of sapphire or diamond. A specific case is the specific stylus type of Bang & Olufsen's (B&O) moving magnet cartridge MMC 20CL, mostly used in parallel arm B&O turntables in the 4002/6000 series. It uses a sapphire stem on which a diamond tip is fixed by a special adhesive. A stylus tip mass as low as 0.3 milligram is the result and full tracking only requires 1 gram of stylus force, reducing record wear even further. Maximum distortion (2nd harmonic) fell below 0.6%.
Other than the Edison and European Pathé disc machines, early disc players, both external horn and internal horn "Victrola" style models, normally used very short-lived disposable needles. The most common material was steel, although other materials such as copper, tungsten, bamboo and cactus were used. Steel needles needed to be replaced frequently, preferably after each use, due to their very rapid wear from bearing down heavily on the mildly abrasive shellac record. Rapid wear was an essential feature so that their imprecisely formed tips would be quickly worn into compliance with the groove's contours. Advertisements implored customers to replace their steel needles after each record side. Steel needles were inexpensive, e.g., a box of 500 for 50 US cents, and were widely sold in packets and small tins. They were available in different thicknesses and lengths. Thick, short needles produced strong, loud tones while thinner, longer needles produces softer, muted tones. In 1916, in the face of a wartime steel shortage, Victor introduced their "Tungs-Tone" brand extra-long-playing needle, which was advertised to play between 100 and 300 records. It consisted of a brass shank into which a very hard and strong tungsten wire, somewhat narrower than the standard record groove, had been fitted. The protruding wire wore down, but not out, until it was worn too short to use. Later in the 78 rpm era, hardened steel and chrome-plated needles came on the market, some of which were claimed to play 10 to 20 record sides each.
When sapphires were introduced for the 78 rpm disc and the LP, they were made by tapering a stem and polishing the tip to a sphere with a radius of around 70 and 25 micrometers respectively. A sphere is not equal to the form of the cutting stylus and by the time diamond needles came to the market, a whole discussion was started on the effect of circular forms moving through a non-circular cut groove. It can be easily shown that vertical, so called "pinching" movements were a result and when stereophonic LPs were introduced, unwanted vertical modulation was recognized as a problem. Also, the needle started its life touching the groove on a very small surface, giving extra wear on the walls.
Another problem is in the tapering along a straight line, while the side of the groove is far from straight. Both problems were attacked together: by polishing the diamond in a certain way that it could be made doubly elliptic. 1) the side was made into one ellipse as seen from behind, meaning the groove touched along a short line and 2) the ellipse form was also polished as seen from above and curvature in the direction of the groove became much smaller than 25 micrometers e.g. 13 micrometers. With this approach a number of irregularities were eliminated. Furthermore, the angle of the stylus, which used to be always sloping backwards, was changed into the forward direction, in line with the slope the original cutting stylus possessed. These styli were expensive to produce, but the costs were effectively offset by their extended lifespans.
The next development in stylus form came about by the attention to the CD-4 quadraphonic sound modulation process, which requires up to 50 kHz frequency response, with cartridges like Technics EPC-100CMK4 capable of playback on frequencies up to 100 kHz. This requires a stylus with a narrow side radius, such as 5 µm (or 0.2 mil). A narrow-profile elliptical stylus is able to read the higher frequencies (greater than 20 kHz), but at an increased wear, since the contact surface is narrower. For overcoming this problem, the Shibata stylus was invented around 1972 in Japan by Norio Shibata of JVC, fitted as standard on quadraphonic cartridges, and marketed as an extra on some high-end cartridges.
The Shibata-designed stylus offers a greater contact surface with the groove, which in turn means less pressure over the vinyl surface and thus less wear. A positive side effect is that the greater contact surface also means the stylus will read sections of the vinyl that were not touched (or "worn") by the common spherical stylus. In a demonstration by JVC records "worn" after 500 plays at a relatively very high 4.5 gf tracking force with a spherical stylus, played "as new" with the Shibata profile.
Other advanced stylus shapes appeared following the same goal of increasing contact surface, improving on the Shibata. Chronologically: "Hughes" Shibata variant (1975), "Ogura" (1978), Van den Hul (1982). Such a stylus may be marketed as "Hyperelliptical" (Shure), "Alliptic", "Fine Line" (Ortofon), "Line contact" (Audio Technica), "Polyhedron", "LAC", or "Stereohedron" (Stanton).
A keel-shaped diamond stylus appeared as a byproduct of the invention of the CED Videodisc. This, together with laser-diamond-cutting technologies, made possible the "ridge" shaped stylus, such as the Namiki (1985) design, and Fritz Gyger (1989) design. This type of stylus is marketed as "MicroLine" (Audio technica), "Micro-Ridge" (Shure), or "Replicant" (Ortofon).
It is important to point out that most of those stylus profiles are still being manufactured and sold, together with the more common spherical and elliptical profiles. This is despite the fact that production of CD-4 quadraphonic records ended by the late 1970s.
For elliptical and advanced stylus shapes, correct cartridge alignment is critical. There are several alignment methods, each creating different null points at which the stylus will be tangential to the record grooves, optimizing distortion across the record side in different ways. The most popular alignment geometries are Baerwald, Løfgren B and Stevenson.
Common tools to align the stylus correctly are 2-point protractors (which can be used with any turntable as long as the headshells are long enough for the chosen alignment), overhang gauges and arc protractors (model specific).
Record materials
Early materials in the 19th century were hardened rubber, wax, and celluloid, but early in the 20th century a shellac compound became the standard. Since shellac is not hard enough to withstand the wear of steel needles on heavy tone arms, filler made of pulverized shale was added. Shellac was also fragile, and records often shattered or cracked. This was a problem for home records, but it became a bigger problem in the late 1920s with the Vitaphone sound-on-disc motion picture "talkie" system, developed in 1927.
To solve this problem, in 1930, RCA Victor made unbreakable records by mixing polyvinyl chloride with plasticisers, in a proprietary formula they called Victrolac, which was first used in 1931, in motion picture discs, and experimentally, in home records, the same year. However, with Sound-on-film achieving supremacy over sound-on-disc by 1931, the need for unbreakable records diminished and the production of vinyl home recordings was dropped as well, for the time being.
The Victrolac formula improved throughout the 1930s, and by the late 30s the material, by then called vinylite, was being used in records sent to radio stations for radio program records, radio commercials, and later, DJ copies of phonograph records, because vinyl records could be sent through the mail to radio stations without breaking. During WWII, there was a shortage of shellac, which had to be imported from Asia, and the U.S. government banned production of shellac records for the duration of the war. Vinylite was made domestically, though, and was being used for V-discs during the war. Record company engineers took a much closer look at the possibilities of vinyl, possibly that it might even replace shellac as the basic record material.
After the war, RCA Victor and Columbia, by far the two leading records companies in America, perfected two new vinyl formats, which were both introduced in 1948, when the 33 RPM LP was introduced by Columbia and the 45 RPM single was introduced by RCA Victor. For a few years thereafter, however, 78 RPM records continued to be made in shellac until that format was phased out around 1958.
Equalization
Early "acoustical" record players used the stylus to vibrate a diaphragm that radiated the sound through a horn. Several serious problems resulted from this:
The maximum sound level achievable was quite limited, being limited to the physical amplification effects of the horn,
The energy needed to generate such sound levels as were obtainable had to come directly from the stylus tracing the groove. This required very high tracking forces that rapidly wore out both the stylus and the record on lateral cut 78 rpm records.
Because bass sounds have a higher amplitude than high frequency sounds (for the same perceived loudness), the space taken in the groove by low frequency sounds needed to be large (limiting playback time per side of the record) to accommodate the bass notes, yet the high frequencies required only tiny variations in the groove, which were easily affected by noise from irregularities (wear, contaminates, etc.) in the disc itself.
The introduction of electronic amplification allowed these issues to be addressed. Records are made with boosted high frequencies and reduced low frequencies, which allow for different ranges of sound to be produced. This reduces the effect of background noise, including clicks or pops, and also conserves the amount of physical space needed for each groove, by reducing the size of the low-frequency undulations.
During playback, the high frequencies must be rescaled to their original, flat frequency response—known as "equalization"—as well as being amplified. A phono input of an amplifier incorporates such equalization as well as amplification to suit the very low level output from a modern cartridge. Most hi-fi amplifiers made between the 1950s and the 1990s and virtually all DJ mixers are so equipped.
The widespread adoption of digital music formats, such as CD or satellite radio, has displaced phonograph records and resulted in phono inputs being omitted in most modern amplifiers. Some newer turntables include built-in preamplifiers to produce line-level outputs. Inexpensive and moderate performance discrete phono preamplifiers with RIAA equalization are available, while high-end audiophile units costing thousands of dollars continue to be available in very small numbers. Phono inputs are starting to reappear on amplifiers in the 2010s due to the vinyl revival.
Since the late 1950s, almost all phono input stages have used the RIAA equalization standard. Before settling on that standard, there were many different equalizations in use, including EMI, HMV, Columbia, Decca FFRR, NAB, Ortho, BBC transcription, etc. Recordings made using these other equalization schemes will typically sound odd if they are played through a RIAA-equalized preamplifier. High-performance (so-called "multicurve disc") preamplifiers, which include multiple, selectable equalizations, are no longer commonly available. However, some vintage preamplifiers, such as the LEAK varislope series, are still obtainable and can be refurbished. Newer preamplifiers like the Esoteric Sound Re-Equalizer or the K-A-B MK2 Vintage Signal Processor are also available. These kinds of adjustable phono equalizers are used by consumers wishing to play vintage record collections (often the only available recordings of musicians of the time) with the equalization used to make them.
In the 21st century
Turntables continued to be manufactured and sold in the 2010s, although in small numbers. While some audiophiles still prefer the sound of vinyl records over that of digital music sources (mainly compact discs), they represent a minority of listeners. As of 2015, the sale of vinyl LP's has increased 49–50% percent from the previous year, although small in comparison to the sale of other formats which although more units were sold (Digital Sales, CDs) the more modern formats experienced a decline in sales. The quality of available record players, tonearms, and cartridges has continued to improve, despite diminishing demand, allowing turntables to remain competitive in the high-end audio market. Vinyl enthusiasts are often committed to the refurbishment and sometimes tweaking of vintage systems.
In 2017, vinyl LP sales were slightly decreased, at a rate of 5%, in comparison to previous years' numbers, regardless of the noticeable rise of vinyl records sales worldwide.
Updated versions of the 1970s era Technics SL-1200 (production ceased in 2010) have remained an industry standard for DJs to the present day. Turntables and vinyl records remain popular in mixing (mostly dance-oriented) forms of electronic music, where they allow great latitude for physical manipulation of the music by the DJ.
In hip hop music, and occasionally in other genres, the turntable is used as a musical instrument by DJs, who use turntables along with a DJ mixer to create unique rhythmic sounds. Manipulation of a record as part of the music, rather than for normal playback or mixing, is called turntablism. The basis of turntablism, and its best known technique, is scratching, pioneered by Grand Wizzard Theodore. It was not until Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" in 1983 that the turntablism movement was recognized in popular music outside of a hip hop context. In the 2010s, many hip hop DJs use DJ CD players or digital record emulator devices to create scratching sounds; nevertheless, some DJs still scratch with vinyl records.
The laser turntable uses a laser as the pickup instead of a stylus in physical contact with the disk. It was conceived of in the late 1980s, although early prototypes were not of usable audio quality. Practical laser turntables are now being manufactured by ELPJ. They are favoured by record libraries and some audiophiles since they eliminate physical wear completely.
Experimentation is in progress in retrieving the audio from old records by scanning the disc and analysing the scanned image, rather than using any sort of turntable.
Although largely replaced since the introduction of the compact disc in 1982, record albums still sell in small numbers and are available through numerous sources. In 2008, LP sales grew by 90% over 2007, with 1.9 million records sold.
USB turntables have a built-in audio interface, which transfers the sound directly to the connected computer. Some USB turntables transfer the audio without equalization, but are sold with software that allows the EQ of the transferred audio file to be adjusted. There are also many turntables on the market designed to be plugged into a computer via a USB port for needle dropping purposes.
Responding to longtime calls by fans and disc jockeys, Panasonic Corp. said it is reviving Technics turntables–the series that remains a de facto standard player supporting nightclub music scenes.
The new analog turntable, which would come with new direct-drive motor technologies that Panasonic says will improve the quality of sound. Beginning of 2019 Technics unveiled SL-1500C Premium Class Direct Drive Turntable System which inherits the brand's high-end sound quality concept.
See also
Archéophone, used to convert diverse types of cylinder recordings to modern CD media
Audio signal processing
Compressed air gramophone
List of phonograph manufacturers
Talking Machine World
Vinyl killer
Notes
References
Further reading
Bruil, Rudolf A. (January 8, 2004). "Linear Tonearms." Retrieved on July 25, 2011.
Gelatt, Roland. The Fabulous Phonograph, 1877–1977. Second rev. ed., [being also the] First Collier Books ed., in series, Sounds of the Century. New York: Collier, 1977. 349 p., ill.
Heumann, Michael. "Metal Machine Music: The Phonograph's Voice and the Transformation of Writing." eContact! 14.3 — Turntablism (January 2013). Montréal: CEC.
Koenigsberg, Allen. The Patent History of the Phonograph, 1877–1912. APM Press, 1991.
Various. "Turntable [wiki]: Bibliography." eContact! 14.3 — Turntablism (January 2013). Montréal: CEC.
Weissenbrunner, Karin. "Experimental Turntablism: Historical overview of experiments with record players / records — or Scratches from Second-Hand Technology." eContact! 14.3 — Turntablism (January 2013). Montréal: CEC.
External links
c.1915 Swiss hot-air engined gramophone at Museum of Retro Technology
Interactive sculpture delivers tactile soundwave experience
Very early recordings from around the world
The Birth of the Recording Industry
The Cylinder Archive
Cylinder Preservation & Digitization Project – Over 6,000 cylinder recordings held by the Department of Special Collections, University of California, Santa Barbara, free for download or streamed online.
Cylinder players held at the British Library – information and high-quality images.
History of Recorded Sound: Phonographs and Records
EnjoytheMusic.com – Excerpts from the book Hi-Fi All-New 1958 Edition
Listen to early recordings on the Edison Phonograph
Mario Frazzetto's Phonograph and Gramophone Gallery.
Say What? – Essay on phonograph technology and intellectual property law
Vinyl Engine – Information, images, articles and reviews from around the world
The Analogue Dept – Information, images and tutorials; strongly focused on Thorens brand
45 rpm player and changer at work on YouTube
Historic video footage of Edison operating his original tinfoil phonograph
Turntable History on Enjoy the Music.com
2-point and Arc Protractor generators on AlignmentProtractor.com
Audiovisual introductions in 1877
American inventions
Audio players
Thomas Edison
Sound recording
Hip hop production
Turntablism
19th-century inventions | false | [
"In the study of ordinary differential equations and their associated boundary value problems, Lagrange's identity, named after Joseph Louis Lagrange, gives the boundary terms arising from integration by parts of a self-adjoint linear differential operator. Lagrange's identity is fundamental in Sturm–Liouville theory. In more than one independent variable, Lagrange's identity is generalized by Green's second identity.\n\nStatement\nIn general terms, Lagrange's identity for any pair of functions u and v in function space C2 (that is, twice differentiable) in n dimensions is:\n\nwhere:\n\nand\n\nThe operator L and its adjoint operator L* are given by:\n\nand\n\nIf Lagrange's identity is integrated over a bounded region, then the divergence theorem can be used to form Green's second identity in the form:\n\nwhere S is the surface bounding the volume Ω and n is the unit outward normal to the surface S.\n\nOrdinary differential equations \nAny second order ordinary differential equation of the form:\n\ncan be put in the form:\n\nThis general form motivates introduction of the Sturm–Liouville operator L, defined as an operation upon a function f such that:\n\nIt can be shown that for any u and v for which the various derivatives exist, Lagrange's identity for ordinary differential equations holds:\n\nFor ordinary differential equations defined in the interval [0, 1], Lagrange's identity can be integrated to obtain an integral form (also known as Green's formula):\n\nwhere , , and are functions of . and having continuous second derivatives on the\n\nProof of form for ordinary differential equations \nWe have:\n\nand\n\nSubtracting:\n\nThe leading multiplied u and v can be moved inside the differentiation, because the extra differentiated terms in u and v are the same in the two subtracted terms and simply cancel each other. Thus,\n\nwhich is Lagrange's identity. Integrating from zero to one:\n\nas was to be shown.\n\nReferences\n\nOrdinary differential equations\nMathematical identities",
"An amortization calculator is used to determine the periodic payment amount due on a loan (typically a mortgage), based on the amortization process.\n\nThe amortization repayment model factors varying amounts of both interest and principal into every installment, though the total amount of each payment is the same.\n\nAn amortization schedule calculator is often used to adjust the loan amount until the monthly payments will fit comfortably into budget, and can vary the interest rate to see the difference a better rate might make in the kind of home or car one can afford. An amortization calculator can also reveal the exact dollar amount that goes towards interest and the exact dollar amount that goes towards principal out of each individual payment. The amortization schedule is a table delineating these figures across the duration of the loan in chronological order.\n\nThe formula\nThe calculation used to arrive at the periodic payment amount assumes that the first payment is not due on the first day of the loan, but rather one full payment period into the loan.\n\nWhile normally used to solve for A, (the payment, given the terms) it can be used to solve for any single variable in the equation provided that all other variables are known. One can rearrange the formula to solve for any one term, except for i, for which one can use a root-finding algorithm.\n\nThe annuity formula is:\n\nOr, equivalently:\n\nWhere:\n A = periodic payment amount\n P = amount of principal, net of initial payments, meaning \"subtract any down-payments\"\n i = periodic interest rate\n n = total number of payments\n\nThis formula is valid if i > 0. If i = 0 then simply A = P / n.\n\nFor a 30-year loan with monthly payments, \n\nNote that the interest rate is commonly referred to as an annual percentage rate (e.g. 8% APR), but in the above formula, since the payments are monthly, the rate must be in terms of a monthly percent. Converting an annual interest rate (that is to say, annual percentage yield or APY) to the monthly rate is not as simple as dividing by 12; see the formula and discussion in APR. However, if the rate is stated in terms of \"APR\" and not \"annual interest rate\", then dividing by 12 is an appropriate means of determining the monthly interest rate.\n\nDerivation of the formula\nThe formula for the periodic payment amount is derived as follows. For an amortization schedule, we can define a function that represents the principal amount remaining at time . We can then derive a formula for this function given an unknown payment amount and .\n\nThis may be generalized to\n\nApplying the substitution (see geometric progressions)\n\nThis results in\n\nFor payment periods, we expect the principal amount will be completely paid off at the last payment period, or\n\nSolving for A, we get\n\nOther uses\nWhile often used for mortgage-related purposes, an amortization calculator can also be used to analyze other debt, including short-term loans, student loans and credit cards.\n\nSee also\n Amortizing loan\n\nExternal links\n \n\nAccounting software\nLoans\nAnnuities"
] |
[
"The Flaming Lips",
"Early history and releases (1983-1990)"
] | C_ca8285aeaf4548bf9a7a664f85008ca4_1 | What happened in 1983? | 1 | What happened in 1983 with The Flaming Lips?\ | The Flaming Lips | The Flaming Lips formed in Norman, Oklahoma in 1983 with Wayne Coyne on guitar, his brother Mark singing lead vocals, Michael Ivins on bass and Dave Kotska on drums. The band debuted at Oklahoma City's Blue Note Lounge. After they got Dave Kotska as the drummer, Richard English joined the band in 1984. That same year they recorded their only release with Mark Coyne singing lead vocals-The Flaming Lips. After his brother's departure, Wayne assumed the vocal duties and the band released their first full-length album, Hear It Is, on Pink Dust Records (the psychedelic-rock imprint of Enigma Records) in 1986. This line-up recorded two more albums: 1987's Oh My Gawd!!! and 1989's Telepathic Surgery, the latter originally planned to be a 30-minute sound collage. Drummer Nathan Roberts replaced English and guitarist Jonathan Donahue (also a member of the alternative rock band Mercury Rev) joined in 1989. In a Priest Driven Ambulance, their first album with producer Dave Fridmann, was recorded at the State University of New York in Fredonia for $5 an hour on a $10,000 budget. The album was host to a marked expansion in the band's sound and their previous experiments in tape loops and effects were given a more prominent role. During this period, Coyne made his transition to a higher, more strained vocal style akin to Neil Young, which he first used on Telepathic Surgery's "Chrome Plated Suicide" and has employed ever since. In 1990 the band caught the attention of Warner Bros. Records and were signed promptly after a representative of the label witnessed a show at which the band almost burned down the venue (American Legion Hall in Norman, Oklahoma) with the use of pyrotechnics. CANNOTANSWER | The Flaming Lips formed in Norman, Oklahoma in 1983 | The Flaming Lips are an American psychedelic rock band formed in 1983 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The band currently consists of Wayne Coyne (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Steven Drozd (guitars, keyboards, bass, vocals), Derek Brown (keyboards, guitars, percussion), Matt Duckworth Kirksey (drums, percussion, keyboards) and Nicholas Ley (percussion, drums).
The group recorded several albums and EPs on an indie label, Restless, in the 1980s and early 1990s. After signing to Warner Brothers, they released their first record with Warner, Hit to Death in the Future Head (1992). They later released The Soft Bulletin (1999), which was NME magazine's Album of the Year, and then Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002). In February 2007, they were nominated for a BRIT Award for "Best International Act". The group has won three Grammy Awards, including two for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. They were placed on Q magazines list of the "50 Bands to See Before You Die" in 2002.
History
Early history and releases (1983–1990)
The Flaming Lips formed in Oklahoma City in 1983 with Wayne Coyne on guitar, his brother Mark singing lead vocals, Michael Ivins on bass and Dave Kotska on drums. The band debuted at Oklahoma City's Blue Note Lounge. After they hired Dave Kotska as the drummer, Richard English joined the band in 1984. That same year they recorded The Flaming Lips EP, their only release with Mark singing lead vocals.
There are several theories as to how the band chose their name. One possibility is that it was inspired by the 1953 feature film Geraldine, in which comedian Stan Freberg sings several songs, including one named "Flaming Lips". Another possible source is from the 1964 film What a Way to Go! in which Shirley MacLaine's character stars in a film titled Flaming Lips. However, according to an article in the September 16, 1993 issue of Rolling Stone, Mark and Wayne came up with the name as a reference to a rumor about a classmate who contracted genital herpes after receiving cunnilingus from a partner with active cold sores. Wayne elaborated:When Mark and I were in, I think it was Junior Year in High School, there was a rumor about this girl who got herpes from this guy at a party. He went down on her with a cold sore. I don't think we knew the girl, and I'm not sure if she even existed, you know how kids just spread bullshit. But when we were thinking of band names one night over a pack of Schlitz and some left-handed cigarettes and remembered how we joked that they both had "Flaming Lips" and it just stuck.After his brother's departure, Wayne assumed the vocal duties and the band released their first full-length album, Hear It Is, on Pink Dust Records (the psychedelic-rock imprint of Enigma Records) in 1986. This line-up recorded two more albums: 1987's Oh My Gawd!!! and 1989's Telepathic Surgery, the latter originally planned to be a 30-minute sound collage.
Drummer Nathan Roberts replaced English and guitarist Jonathan Donahue (also a member of the alternative rock band Mercury Rev) joined in 1989. In a Priest Driven Ambulance, their first album with producer Dave Fridmann, was recorded at the State University of New York in Fredonia for $5 an hour on a $10,000 budget. The album was host to a marked expansion in the band's sound and their previous experiments in tape loops and effects were given a more prominent role. During this period, Coyne made his transition to a higher, more strained vocal style akin to Neil Young, which he first used on Telepathic Surgery's "Chrome Plated Suicide" and has employed ever since.
In 1990, the band caught the attention of Warner Bros. Records and was signed promptly after a label representative witnessed a show at which the band almost burned down the venue (American Legion Hall in Norman, Oklahoma) with the use of pyrotechnics.
Signed to Warner Bros. (Hit to Death in the Future Head to Clouds Taste Metallic) (1991–1996)
In 1991, the band started recording their major label debut Hit to Death in the Future Head. The album's release was halted for nearly a year because of the use of a sample from Michael Kamen's score for the film Brazil in the track "You Have to Be Joking (Autopsy of the Devil's Brain)", which required a lengthy clearance process. After the recording of this album, Donahue left the band to concentrate on Mercury Rev, and Roberts left the band as well, citing creative differences. They were replaced by Ronald Jones and Steven Drozd, respectively.
In 1993, they released Transmissions from the Satellite Heart. This was the only studio album since In a Priest Driven Ambulance, to date, in which Dave Fridmann has not been involved. Because of the success of the album and the single "She Don't Use Jelly", the band was featured on four popular television series: Beverly Hills, 90210, Late Show with David Letterman, Charmed and Beavis and Butt-head. The success of this record led to long stints of touring, opening for bands including Red Hot Chili Peppers and Candlebox.
Clouds Taste Metallic was released to much critical fanfare in late 1995, though it did not achieve the commercial success of its predecessor. The strain of the year-long Clouds tour, added to the stress from the three years touring in support of Transmissions, was a major factor in the departure of Jones in late 1996. He was said to be suffering from a severe case of agoraphobia, although the documentary Fearless Freaks states that he left because of his growing concerns over Drozd's drug use.
In September 2014, the band paid tribute to Jones and the impact his music had on their developing sound by performing Transmissions from the Satellite Heart live at First Avenue. In February 2015, they performed Clouds Taste Metallic at the same venue. Later, in December, a 20th anniversary box set called Heady Nuggs: 20 Years After Clouds Taste Metallic 1994–1997, was released.
Zaireeka (1997–1998)
The departure of Jones and a general dissatisfaction with standard "rock" music led to the three remaining members of the group redefining the direction of the band with the experimental Zaireeka (1997), a four-CD album which is intended to be heard by playing all four CDs in four separate CD players simultaneously. The music incorporated both traditional musical elements and "found" sounds (as in musique concrète), often heavily manipulated with recording studio electronics.
As part of the development of this project, the band conducted a series of "parking lot experiments" and then later, "boombox experiments". In the parking lot experiments up to 40 volunteers were given cassettes created by the band to be played at a parking lot in their cars' stereo systems simultaneously. In the "boom box experiments" an orchestra composed of up to 40 volunteers with modified "boombox"-type tape players was "conducted" – directed to vary the volume, speed or tone of the tape they were playing (again composed by the band) – by Wayne Coyne.
Meanwhile, a series of unfortunate events (recounted in the 1999 song "The Spiderbite Song") beset the band. Drozd's arm was almost amputated needlessly because of what he claimed was a spider bite (it turned out to be abscessed as a result of Drozd's heroin use), Ivins was trapped in his car for several hours after a wheel spun off of another vehicle into his windshield, and Coyne's father died after a long battle with cancer.
Mainstream breakthrough (The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots) (1999–2002)
Though their experimental endeavors received some press coverage, their real breakthrough came with the 1999 release, The Soft Bulletin. Marrying more traditional catchy melodies with synthetic strings, hypnotic, carefully manipulated beats, booming cymbals and oddball but philosophical lyrics (sung much more strongly than on earlier releases), the album quickly became one of the underground hits of the year, even widely considered to be one of the best albums of the entire decade.
Compared by many music critics to the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds because of its inclusion of harmonies and orchestrated sounds, The Soft Bulletin also featured greater use of synthesizers, drum machines, sound effects and more studio manipulation. After this album was released, Coyne stated that, "if someone was to ask me what instrument do I play, I would say the recording studio." As the band considered an attempt to recreate this complex album live solely with additional musicians to be complex and expensive, they decided to tour as a three-piece and make extensive use of pre-recorded music to fill out those parts that were not performed live by the members of the band. This led to the decision to have the drummer Drozd play primarily keyboards and guitar live instead of the drums. This, in turn, led to a decision to utilize video recordings and projections of Steven playing the drums for some of the band's older songs, so the band added Kliph Scurlock on drums and percussion, Drozd focused on guitars, keyboards, bass (when he plays bass, Ivins plays keyboards), drums and occasional vocals, when he sings, Coyne plays guitars, keyboards and theremin.
To enhance the live experience for their audience and to accurately reproduce the sound of The Soft Bulletin live, the Lips devised the concept of the "Headphone Concert". A low-powered FM transmitter was set up at shows, and the concert was simultaneously broadcast to small Walkman-style receivers and headphones made available for free to audience members. This would, in theory, allow the audiences greater sonic clarity while still feeling the power of a full live P.A. This concept was debuted in Dallas, Texas, and at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, in March 1999, and was subsequently used on the International Music Against Brain Degeneration Revue tour. This tour featured Japanese band Cornelius, Sebadoh, Robyn Hitchcock, Sonic Boom's E.A.R. and IQU.
Three years later, in the summer of 2002, the Flaming Lips joined bands Cake and Modest Mouse on the Unlimited Sunshine Tour. They also released the full-length Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots to much critical acclaim. Featuring guest musician Yoshimi P-We (who inspired the album's title track) and demonstrating more use of electronic instruments and computer manipulation than The Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi is widely considered to be the Flaming Lips' first critical and commercial success after nearly twenty years as a band. The final track on the album, "Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia)" earned a 2003 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, and the album was certified gold on April 10, 2006. In March 2007, the band revealed that they had recently teamed up with screenwriter Aaron Sorkin to produce a Broadway musical based on the album.
In January 2012, Pitchfork TV released a forty-five-minute documentary on The Soft Bulletin. The documentary featured several rare archival photos and videos along with interviews from the members, producer Dave Fridmann, and manager Scott Booker. The same year, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots was adapted into a musical after being in development for years after the album's release.
Both The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots have been released on DVD-Audio.
Following the success of "Yoshimi", Steven Drozd completed rehab for heroin addiction. This decision was spurred by a physical altercation between Drozd and Wayne Coyne.
Continued success (At War with the Mystics) (2002–2006)
Shortly after Yoshimi and The Soft Bulletin, the Flaming Lips released two EPs in the same vein of their previous album's robotic theme which contain remixed songs from Yoshimi, Fight Test and Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell. They also appeared on the track "Marching the Hate Machines (Into the Sun)" on the Thievery Corporation album The Cosmic Game. In 2002 they were invited to work with The Chemical Brothers. Steven Drozd performed lead vocals, while Wayne Coyne performed harmony vocals, on the single "The Golden Path", which was included on The Chemical Brothers compilation album, Singles 93-03.
In 2002, they performed as the opening act, as well as the backup band, for singer Beck on his Sea Change tour. In the summer of 2004, it was announced that the Flaming Lips would appear among the headliners on the 2004 Lollapalooza tour, alongside such artists as Sonic Youth and Morrissey; however, the tour was canceled because of lack of revenue. Also in 2004, the band recorded the song "SpongeBob and Patrick Confront the Psychic Wall of Energy" for the soundtrack of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. Following the concerts' cancellation, the band entered Tarbox Road Studio with producer Dave Fridmann and began work on their eleventh album, the more organic-sounding At War with the Mystics. The record, aimed to be a more guitar-based and heavier effort than recent albums, featured more politically conscious lyrics than any of their previous releases, and was released in April 2006 to a mixed yet mostly positive reception.
In 2005 the band was the subject of a documentary called Fearless Freaks, featuring appearances by other artists and celebrities such as Gibby Haynes, The White Stripes, Beck, Christina Ricci, Liz Phair, Juliette Lewis, Steve Burns, Starlight Mints, and Adam Goldberg. In that same year, the Flaming Lips contributed a version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" to the album Killer Queen: A Tribute to Queen. Also in this year, the Flaming Lips released the DVD VOID (Video Overview in Deceleration), which chronicles all of their ventures into music video that have been produced since they signed with Warner Bros in 1991. In October 2005, the Flaming Lips recorded a cover of "If I Only Had a Brain" for the soundtrack of the video game Stubbs the Zombie, which features modern rock bands covering songs from the 1950s and 1960s. Additionally, the band released one new song, "Mr. Ambulance Driver", for the soundtrack of the 2005 film Wedding Crashers (a slightly edited version of the song found its way onto the new record).
The band released two singles from At War With the Mystics: "The W.A.N.D.", which was featured in a Dell commercial and which was originally put out as a download-only single in early 2006, and "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song", which became their highest-charting single on the UK Singles Chart, peaking at No. 16. A 4-track EP, entitled It Overtakes Me, was released later in the UK that year. The only instrumental on the album, "The Wizard Turns On... The Giant Silver Flashlight and Puts on His Werewolf Moccasins", earned a 2006 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, making it twice in a row the Lips have been nominated in that category and won.
Following the April 4, 2006 release of At War with the Mystics, the band began a tour to support the album in the United Kingdom, including a finale at the Royal Albert Hall and performances at the O2 Wireless Festival. At the Leeds England date of the festival, the band opened for The Who, of whom they are long standing fans.
The band continued to tour throughout the fall of 2006 stopping in Montreal, the Virgin Festival on the Toronto Islands, Atlantic City's House of Blues, The University of Vermont in Burlington, their hometown Oklahoma City, the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas, and New York City, NY as well as several other cities. The homecoming show in Oklahoma City was performed at the Zoo Amphitheater and included the unveiling of a new UFO stage prop, and would provide footage for the U.F.O.s at the Zoo concert DVD.
On December 5, 2006, Oklahoma City honored the band with a downtown alley named after the band. Vince Gill and Charlie Christian were also given street names by the city. Flaming Lips Alley is at the center of Oklahoma City's entertainment district, Bricktown. At the official dedication in 2007, Coyne said of Oklahoma City, "...We're on the way to becoming, I think, the fucking coolest city in America."
Christmas on Mars (2008)
In 2001, the Flaming Lips began filming a low-budget indie film entitled Christmas on Mars. Filming for the movie ended in late September 2005 and premiered on May 25, 2008 at the Sasquatch! Music Festival. The film tells the story of the first Christmas of a colony set-up on the surface of Mars and was written by Wayne Coyne, and co-directed by Wayne Coyne, Bradley Beesley and George Salisbury, with the band and their friends acting in the movie.
The band brought the film to rock festivals across America during the summer of 2008 and screened it in a large circus tent they had bought for that purpose. The film was released on DVD on November 11, 2008, along with a soundtrack written and performed by the Flaming Lips.
The band released their first live concert DVD, UFO's at the Zoo: The Legendary Concert in Oklahoma City, on August 7, 2007. The band also contributed original songs to the soundtracks of several 2007 films, including "The Supreme Being Teaches Spider-Man How to be in Love" for Spider-Man 3, "I Was Zapped by the Super Lucky Rainbow" for Good Luck Chuck, "Love the World You Find" for Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, and "Maybe I'm Not the One" and "Tale of the Horny Frog" for The Heartbreak Kid.
Official rock song of Oklahoma (2009)
In March 2009 "Do You Realize??" was announced as the official rock song of Oklahoma. Ten choices were put to a public vote, and out of 21,000 votes cast nearly 51% were for "Do You Realize??" The Oklahoma Senate approved this choice unanimously. The Oklahoma House of Representatives failed to confirm the choice after Rep. Mike Reynolds, R-Oklahoma City attacked the band for its use of offensive language, and Rep. Corey Holland, R-Marlow said he had been "really offended" when Michael Ivins came to the announcement ceremony in March wearing a red T-shirt with a yellow hammer and sickle. However, that evening, Oklahoma governor Brad Henry announced he would sign an executive order naming the song the official rock song. Henry said that for more than 20 years the Flaming Lips have produced "creative, fun and provocative rock music." "The music of the Flaming Lips has earned Grammys, glowing critical acclaim and fans all over the world", the governor said. "A truly iconic rock n' roll band, they are proud ambassadors of their home state... They were clearly the people's choice, and I intend to honor that vote." However, it was revealed in 2013 that Republican Governor Mary Fallin removed this designation by not renewing Brad Henry's executive order upon taking office in 2011. An alley in Oklahoma City had been named for the band in 2006.
Embryonic and Dark Side of the Moon (2009)
In 2009, the band released their twelfth studio album and first double album, Embryonic. The album, which was the band's first to open in the Billboard top 10, was widely critically acclaimed for its new direction; late in the recording the band added Derek Brown on keyboards, percussion and guitar. In December of the same year, the band released their second album of the year and thirteenth overall, The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs with Henry Rollins and Peaches Doing The Dark Side of the Moon, a track-for-track cover of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, which was recorded with Stardeath and White Dwarfs and features guest appearances from Henry Rollins and Peaches. The album was released physically on vinyl and CD in 2010.
In 2010, the band performed "I Can Be a Frog" on the Nick Jr. television series Yo Gabba Gabba.
2011 releases
In January 2011, the Lips announced their intention of releasing a new song every month of the year. In February, they released the first track titled "Two Blobs Fucking". The song exists as 12 separate pieces on YouTube and must be played simultaneously to be heard as intended.
In March 2011, the Lips released the EP The Flaming Lips with Neon Indian.
In April, the band released the Gummy Song Skull EP, a seven-pound skull made of gummy bear material with a gummy brain, which contained a flashdrive with 4 songs on them. This release was extremely limited, but was soon leaked on the internet shortly after its release.
In May, the band released its second collaboration EP titled The Flaming Lips with Prefuse 73. It contains four songs and was released in a similar way to the earlier Neon Indian EP, in that the run was extremely limited and consisted of randomly colored, one of a kind discs. This EP was briefly available on the band's official website but sold out shortly after it was put up for sale.
June saw several releases by the band, the first being The Soft Bulletin: Live la Fantastique de Institution 2011, a live-in-studio recording of the band's 1999 album The Soft Bulletin which was on a flash drive embedded in a marijuana-flavored brain inside a strawberry flavored gummy skull. This was only released at the band's two night show at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on June 14 and 15. This show was a special two-night, one morning event in which they played the entirety of The Soft Bulletin one night and a new revamped version of The Dark Side of the Moon and collaborated with Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros for a performance of "Do You Realize??" at dawn of the second day. Also included on this flash drive was a best-of compilation titled Everyone You Know Someday Will Die. It included songs from every portion of the band's career as well as a newly recorded intro. The final June release was the Gummy Song Fetus EP which consisted of three songs on a flash drive embedded in a bubblegum-flavored fetus made of gummy bear material.
In July, the band released The Flaming Lips with Lightning Bolt, a collaborative EP with experimental rock group Lightning Bolt, featuring the songs "I Wanna Get High But I Don't Want Brain Damage" and "Working at NASA on Acid". This EP was released on randomly colored vinyl as with the previous two collaborative EPs.
In late August, the band announced that it would be recording a six-hour-long song titled "I Found a Star on the Ground". This, along with two other songs, was released in September packaged with a set of spinning discs with animations on them. This release is officially called Strobo Trip. Featured in "I Found a Star on the Ground" is Sean Lennon who, with his band, opened for the Lips in early 2011. In the song Lennon reads off several lists of names of people who donated $100 to the Oklahoma City SPCA and Academy of Contemporary Music at University of Central Oklahoma. 212 names are featured in the song.
At midnight October 31, 2011, a 24-hour song was released titled "7 Skies H3". The song played live on a never-ending audio stream on a special website set up by the band and was made available for purchase as a hard drive encased in an actual human skull, limited to 13 copies.
The band's last release of 2011 was a 12" EP collaboration, The Flaming Lips with Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, sold only at the band's annual New Years shows in Oklahoma City.
Heady Fwends, Guinness World Record and other collaborations (2012)
With their previous contract with Warner Bros. Records having expired in 2011, the band re-signed to Warner Bros. for the United States and to Bella Union in Europe in early 2012. The first release under these new deals was The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends, initially released as a limited edition vinyl-only package for Record Store Day on April 21. The album features collaborations with artists such as Kesha, Nick Cave, and Erykah Badu. In an interview with American Songwriter, Coyne stated that "Since we were releasing music every month, we thought it would be a little bit boring for us each month to say 'Well here's four more Flaming Lips songs.' We just thought 'Well we'll get some of our friends, and we'll do collaborations and see what happens.'" The album later received a wider release on CD and digitally on June 26 in the US and July 30 in Europe.
The Flaming Lips broke Jay-Z's Guinness World Record for the most live concerts (8) in 24 hours, on June 27 and 28, 2012. The attempt was part of the O Music Awards, and was Livestreamed online for the entire 24 hours. The attempt started in Memphis on the afternoon of June 27 and ended in New Orleans on the afternoon of June 28, with 20 minutes to spare. The band played with guests including Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Neon Indian, Linear Downfall and Phantogram and HOTT MT, among others.
The concerts, which were required to be at least 15 minutes long, as per Guinness rules, featured a mix of special covers, songs rarely or never performed live by the band before, and new songs from Heady Fwends.
In November 2012 the band's Lovely Sorts of Death Records released a collaborative track-by-track reinterpretation of King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King with Stardeath and White Dwarfs, Linear Downfall, New Fumes, and Space Face entitled Playing Hide and Seek with the Ghosts of Dawn on vinyl and on their own 'Satellite Heart Radio' website.
They also worked on Kesha's Warrior album (on "Past Lives") and Lipsha. She also featured on their collaborative albums.
The Terror (2013–2014)
The band's next studio album, titled The Terror, was originally due for release on April 2, 2013 in the US and on April 1 in Europe, the tour began with a new member: keyboardist and guitarist Jake Ingalls, Derek Brown focused on percussion and additional guitars and keyboards. Because of a corruption while mastering the record on vinyl, the US release was delayed for two weeks, until April 16.
In anticipation of the album's release, their song, "Sun Blows Up Today", was featured in a Hyundai Super Bowl XLVII commercial. The band also released a lyric video on for "Sun Blows Up Today" with animations created by long-time Lips collaborator George Salisbury. The band premiered the new album live at a free outdoor concert at SXSW on March 15, 2013.
Critical reception of the album has tended to focus on its thematic bleakness and the turgid noisiness of its instrumentation. Like the three albums often referred to as "a trilogy" accounting for the majority of the band's mainstream production over the past 15 years (consisting of The Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, and At War With the Mystics), The Terror adheres to the love story/space opera narrative structure while taking a much darker approach. As noted in a review by Pitchfork, "The Terror deals in more personal turmoil– loneliness, depression, anxiety... Perhaps not coincidentally, the album was preceded by news of Coyne's separation from his partner of 25 years, Michelle, and of multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd relapsing temporarily."
Jon Pareles of The New York Times summarized the thematic content of the album fairly succinctly when he wrote, "The lyrics [of 'The Terror'] find cosmic repercussions in a lovers' breakup; loneliness turns to contemplation of grim human compulsions and the end of the universe." Another critic goes so far as to say that the album underlines the Lacanian psychodynamics structurally inherent in the conventions of the space opera.
Wayne Coyne's own description of his process or the theme of the album jibes well with this critical diagnosis:
"We want, or wanted, to believe that without love we would disappear, that love, somehow, would save us that, yeah, if we have love, give love and know love, we are truly alive and if there is no love, there would be no life. The Terror is, we know now, that even without love, life goes on... we just go on... there is no mercy killing."
In November 2013 they produced and curated "The Time Has Come To Shoot You Down…What A Sound," a reworking of the Stone Roses' debut album featuring New Fumes, Spaceface, Stardeath and White Dwarfs, Foxygen, Peaking Lights, Poliça and others.
In March 2014, longtime drummer and percussionist Kliph Scurlock left the band, and was replaced by drummer, percussionist and keyboardist Matt Duckworth Kirksey and percussionist and drummer Nicholas Ley. Derek Brown began focusing on guitars, and occasional keyboards and percussion. In May, Scurlock claimed he had been fired for negative comments about Wayne Coyne's friend Christina Fallin, the daughter of Oklahoma's governor and leader of a band called Pink Pony. Fallin had recently been criticized for cultural appropriation after she wore a Native American headdress in a publicity photo. According to Scurlock, his criticism of Fallin's actions led to conflict with Coyne and his dismissal. In response, Drozd said, "[t]his Lips/Kliph bullshit has gone too far. We parted ways because of the usual band musical differences. The rest has been blown way out." Coyne went even further, calling Scurlock a "pathological liar" and stated that he never meant his defense of Fallin, which included posting a photo of his dog in a feathered headdress, to be offensive but that he was "very sorry, to anybody that is following my Instagram or my Twitter, if I offended anybody of any religion, any race, any belief system. I would say you shouldn't follow my tweets; you shouldn't even probably want to be a Flaming Lips fan because we don't really have any agenda."
Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz (2015)
On August 30, 2015, after hosting the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards, Miley Cyrus announced that Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz, the free, 23-track experimental album that Cyrus and the Flaming Lips wrote and recorded together, was available via online streaming. The album is described by Coyne as a combination of Pink Floyd and Portishead and "a slightly wiser, sadder, more true version" of Cyrus' pop music output.
Oczy Mlody, King's Mouth, and American Head (2016–present)
According to the Tarbox Roads Studio's website, the Flaming Lips began recording a new album with Dave Fridmann on January 27, 2016.
In a June interview with Danish music blog Regnsky, Wayne Coyne said that a new album would come out in January 2017, even though they had originally planned for it to be released in October 2016. Wayne Coyne later confirmed in a September interview with Consequence of Sound, that they would release a new album at the beginning of 2017. On October 20, the band confirmed the January 2017 release date for the album. The band embarked on a tour in support that was described as "rock's greatest acid punch party" with "balloons, confetti cannons and rainbow visuals". On January 13, 2017 the fourteenth Flaming Lips album Oczy Mlody was released, and featured a guest appearance by Miley Cyrus. The album charted in both the UK and US.
On Record Store Day, April 22, 2017, the Flaming Lips released Onboard the International Space Station Concert for Peace, a re-recording of seven tracks from Oczy Mlody in a faux live setting.
The band's next studio album, King's Mouth, was released on April 13, 2019 for Record Store Day. Mick Jones of The Clash and Big Audio Dynamite narrates the album; Wayne Coyne said of Jones that "he’s on almost every song... it really is quite unbelievable."
In late 2019, Coyne and Drozd collaborated with garage rock duo Deap Vally to form a new band, Deap Lips. The project's self-titled debut album was released on March 13, 2020.
On March 23, 2020, Drozd announced that the band's sixteenth studio album, American Head, is due for release in the summer. The band officially announced the album's release date as September 11, 2020, along with the single "My Religion Is You" on June 6, 2020.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the band performed a concert in their hometown of Oklahoma City on October 12, 2020, while entirely encased within inflatable human-sized bubbles. Audience members were also protected by plastic bubbles. They performed in this fashion on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and again in 2021.
On August 16, 2021, Ingalls announced on his Instagram page that he left the band on amicable terms. Also in August, Coyne commented on his Instagram that Ivins was no longer in the band, leaving Coyne as the only original member. Micah Nelson has been on bass for recent live performances.
In November 2021, the band released an album of nine Nick Cave cover songs with the young Canadian musician Nell Smith. Smith and The Lips recorded the album remotely during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown.
Members
Current members
Wayne Coyne – lead vocals (1985–present), guitars, keyboards, theremin (1983–present), backing vocals (1983–1985, 1991–present), bass guitar (2021–present)
Steven Drozd – guitars, keyboards, bass, drums, backing and lead vocals (1991–present)
Derek Brown – keyboards, guitars, percussion, backing vocals (2009–present)
Matt Duckworth Kirksey – drums, percussion, keyboards, backing vocals (2014–present)
Nicholas Ley – percussion, drums, samples (2014–present)
Current touring musicians
Micah Nelson – bass, keyboards, backing vocals (2021–present)
Former members
Mark Coyne – lead vocals (1983–1985)
Dave Kostka – drums (1983–1984)
Richard English – drums, keyboards, backing vocals (1984–1989)
Nathan Roberts – drums (1989–1991)
Jonathan Donahue – guitars, backing vocals (1989–1991)
Jon Mooneyham – guitars, backing vocals (1991)
Ronald Jones – guitars, backing vocals (1991–1996)
Kliph Scurlock – drums, percussion (2002–2014)
Jake Ingalls – keyboards, guitars (2013–2021)
Michael Ivins – bass, keyboards, backing vocals (1983–2021)
Former touring musicians
Ray Suen – percussion, violin, harp, keyboards (2009–2012)
Timeline
Selected discography
Studio albums
Hear It Is (1986)
Oh My Gawd!!! (1987)
Telepathic Surgery (1989)
In a Priest Driven Ambulance (1990)
Hit to Death in the Future Head (1992)
Transmissions from the Satellite Heart (1993)
Clouds Taste Metallic (1995)
Zaireeka (1997)
The Soft Bulletin (1999)
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)
At War with the Mystics (2006)
Embryonic (2009)
The Terror (2013)
Oczy Mlody (2017)
King's Mouth (2019)
American Head (2020)
Extended plays
The Flaming Lips (1984)
Gummy Song Skull (2011)
Gummy Song Fetus (2011)
Strobo Trip (2011)
24 Hour Song Skull (2011)
Peace Sword (2013)
Collaborative albums
The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs with Henry Rollins and Peaches Doing The Dark Side of the Moon (2009)
The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends (2012)
Playing Hide and Seek with the Ghosts of Dawn (2012)
The Time Has Come to Shoot You Down... What a Sound (2013)
With a Little Help from My Fwends (2014)
Deap Lips (2020)
Where the Viaduct Looms (2021)
Soundtracks/Miscellaneous
The Southern Oklahoma Cosmic Trigger Contest (2001)
Atlas Eets Christmas (2007)
Once Beyond Hopelessness (2008)
Awards and nominations
The Flaming Lips won their first Grammy Award in 2003, for their track "Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia)". To date, the band has been nominated for six Grammy Awards, and won three times.
References
External links
1983 establishments in Oklahoma
Alternative rock groups from Oklahoma
American experimental rock groups
American psychedelic rock music groups
Grammy Award winners
Indie rock musical groups from Oklahoma
Musical groups established in 1983
Musical groups from Oklahoma
Neo-psychedelia groups
Noise pop musical groups
Psychedelic pop music groups
Space rock musical groups
Warner Records artists
Bella Union artists
Restless Records artists | false | [
"Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books",
"\"What Happened to Us\" is a song by Australian recording artist Jessica Mauboy, featuring English recording artist Jay Sean. It was written by Sean, Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim and Israel Cruz. \"What Happened to Us\" was leaked online in October 2010, and was released on 10 March 2011, as the third single from Mauboy's second studio album, Get 'Em Girls (2010). The song received positive reviews from critics.\n\nA remix of \"What Happened to Us\" made by production team OFM, was released on 11 April 2011. A different version of the song which features Stan Walker, was released on 29 May 2011. \"What Happened to Us\" charted on the ARIA Singles Chart at number 14 and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). An accompanying music video was directed by Mark Alston, and reminisces on a former relationship between Mauboy and Sean.\n\nProduction and release\n\n\"What Happened to Us\" was written by Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz and Jay Sean. It was produced by Skaller, Cruz, Rohaim and Bobby Bass. The song uses C, D, and B minor chords in the chorus. \"What Happened to Us\" was sent to contemporary hit radio in Australia on 14 February 2011. The cover art for the song was revealed on 22 February on Mauboy's official Facebook page. A CD release was available for purchase via her official website on 10 March, for one week only. It was released digitally the following day.\n\nReception\nMajhid Heath from ABC Online Indigenous called the song a \"Jordin Sparks-esque duet\", and wrote that it \"has a nice innocence to it that rings true to the experience of losing a first love.\" Chris Urankar from Nine to Five wrote that it as a \"mid-tempo duet ballad\" which signifies Mauboy's strength as a global player. On 21 March 2011, \"What Happened to Us\" debuted at number 30 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and peaked at number 14 the following week. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 70,000 copies. \"What Happened to Us\" spent a total of ten weeks in the ARIA top fifty.\n\nMusic video\n\nBackground\nThe music video for the song was shot in the Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney on 26 November 2010. The video was shot during Sean's visit to Australia for the Summerbeatz tour. During an interview with The Daily Telegraph while on the set of the video, Sean said \"the song is sick! ... Jessica's voice is amazing and we're shooting [the video] in this ridiculously beautiful mansion overlooking the harbour.\" The video was directed by Mark Alston, who had previously directed the video for Mauboy's single \"Let Me Be Me\" (2009). It premiered on YouTube on 10 February 2011.\n\nSynopsis and reception\nThe video begins showing Mauboy who appears to be sitting on a yellow antique couch in a mansion, wearing a purple dress. As the video progresses, scenes of memories are displayed of Mauboy and her love interest, played by Sean, spending time there previously. It then cuts to the scenes where Sean appears in the main entrance room of the mansion. The final scene shows Mauboy outdoors in a gold dress, surrounded by green grass and trees. She is later joined by Sean who appears in a black suit and a white shirt, and together they sing the chorus of the song to each other. David Lim of Feed Limmy wrote that the video is \"easily the best thing our R&B princess has committed to film – ever\" and praised the \"mansion and wondrous interior décor\". He also commended Mauboy for choosing Australian talent to direct the video instead of American directors, which she had used for her previous two music videos. Since its release, the video has received over two million views on Vevo.\n\nLive performances\nMauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" live for the first time during her YouTube Live Sessions program on 4 December 2010. She also appeared on Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight on 23 February 2011 for an interview and later performed the song. On 15 March 2011, Mauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Sunrise. She also performed the song with Stan Walker during the Australian leg of Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. Tour in April 2011. Mauboy and Walker later performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Dancing with the Stars Australia on 29 May 2011. From November 2013 to February 2014, \"What Happened to Us\" was part of the set list of the To the End of the Earth Tour, Mauboy's second headlining tour of Australia, with Nathaniel Willemse singing Sean's part.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Just Witness Remix) – 3:45\n\nCD single\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Album Version) – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:39\n\nDigital download – Remix\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:38\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Stan Walker – 3:20\n\nPersonnel\nSongwriting – Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz, Jay Sean\nProduction – Jeremy Skaller, Bobby Bass\nAdditional production – Israel Cruz, Khaled Rohaim\nLead vocals – Jessica Mauboy, Jay Sean\nMixing – Phil Tan\nAdditional mixing – Damien Lewis\nMastering – Tom Coyne \nSource:\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly chart\n\nYear-end chart\n\nCertification\n\nRadio dates and release history\n\nReferences\n\n2010 songs\n2011 singles\nJessica Mauboy songs\nJay Sean songs\nSongs written by Billy Steinberg\nSongs written by Jay Sean\nSongs written by Josh Alexander\nSongs written by Israel Cruz\nVocal duets\nSony Music Australia singles\nSongs written by Khaled Rohaim"
] |
[
"The Flaming Lips",
"Early history and releases (1983-1990)",
"What happened in 1983?",
"The Flaming Lips formed in Norman, Oklahoma in 1983"
] | C_ca8285aeaf4548bf9a7a664f85008ca4_1 | How many members were in the group? | 2 | How many members were in the group The Flaming Lips? | The Flaming Lips | The Flaming Lips formed in Norman, Oklahoma in 1983 with Wayne Coyne on guitar, his brother Mark singing lead vocals, Michael Ivins on bass and Dave Kotska on drums. The band debuted at Oklahoma City's Blue Note Lounge. After they got Dave Kotska as the drummer, Richard English joined the band in 1984. That same year they recorded their only release with Mark Coyne singing lead vocals-The Flaming Lips. After his brother's departure, Wayne assumed the vocal duties and the band released their first full-length album, Hear It Is, on Pink Dust Records (the psychedelic-rock imprint of Enigma Records) in 1986. This line-up recorded two more albums: 1987's Oh My Gawd!!! and 1989's Telepathic Surgery, the latter originally planned to be a 30-minute sound collage. Drummer Nathan Roberts replaced English and guitarist Jonathan Donahue (also a member of the alternative rock band Mercury Rev) joined in 1989. In a Priest Driven Ambulance, their first album with producer Dave Fridmann, was recorded at the State University of New York in Fredonia for $5 an hour on a $10,000 budget. The album was host to a marked expansion in the band's sound and their previous experiments in tape loops and effects were given a more prominent role. During this period, Coyne made his transition to a higher, more strained vocal style akin to Neil Young, which he first used on Telepathic Surgery's "Chrome Plated Suicide" and has employed ever since. In 1990 the band caught the attention of Warner Bros. Records and were signed promptly after a representative of the label witnessed a show at which the band almost burned down the venue (American Legion Hall in Norman, Oklahoma) with the use of pyrotechnics. CANNOTANSWER | Wayne Coyne on guitar, his brother Mark singing lead vocals, Michael Ivins on bass and Dave Kotska on drums. | The Flaming Lips are an American psychedelic rock band formed in 1983 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The band currently consists of Wayne Coyne (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Steven Drozd (guitars, keyboards, bass, vocals), Derek Brown (keyboards, guitars, percussion), Matt Duckworth Kirksey (drums, percussion, keyboards) and Nicholas Ley (percussion, drums).
The group recorded several albums and EPs on an indie label, Restless, in the 1980s and early 1990s. After signing to Warner Brothers, they released their first record with Warner, Hit to Death in the Future Head (1992). They later released The Soft Bulletin (1999), which was NME magazine's Album of the Year, and then Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002). In February 2007, they were nominated for a BRIT Award for "Best International Act". The group has won three Grammy Awards, including two for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. They were placed on Q magazines list of the "50 Bands to See Before You Die" in 2002.
History
Early history and releases (1983–1990)
The Flaming Lips formed in Oklahoma City in 1983 with Wayne Coyne on guitar, his brother Mark singing lead vocals, Michael Ivins on bass and Dave Kotska on drums. The band debuted at Oklahoma City's Blue Note Lounge. After they hired Dave Kotska as the drummer, Richard English joined the band in 1984. That same year they recorded The Flaming Lips EP, their only release with Mark singing lead vocals.
There are several theories as to how the band chose their name. One possibility is that it was inspired by the 1953 feature film Geraldine, in which comedian Stan Freberg sings several songs, including one named "Flaming Lips". Another possible source is from the 1964 film What a Way to Go! in which Shirley MacLaine's character stars in a film titled Flaming Lips. However, according to an article in the September 16, 1993 issue of Rolling Stone, Mark and Wayne came up with the name as a reference to a rumor about a classmate who contracted genital herpes after receiving cunnilingus from a partner with active cold sores. Wayne elaborated:When Mark and I were in, I think it was Junior Year in High School, there was a rumor about this girl who got herpes from this guy at a party. He went down on her with a cold sore. I don't think we knew the girl, and I'm not sure if she even existed, you know how kids just spread bullshit. But when we were thinking of band names one night over a pack of Schlitz and some left-handed cigarettes and remembered how we joked that they both had "Flaming Lips" and it just stuck.After his brother's departure, Wayne assumed the vocal duties and the band released their first full-length album, Hear It Is, on Pink Dust Records (the psychedelic-rock imprint of Enigma Records) in 1986. This line-up recorded two more albums: 1987's Oh My Gawd!!! and 1989's Telepathic Surgery, the latter originally planned to be a 30-minute sound collage.
Drummer Nathan Roberts replaced English and guitarist Jonathan Donahue (also a member of the alternative rock band Mercury Rev) joined in 1989. In a Priest Driven Ambulance, their first album with producer Dave Fridmann, was recorded at the State University of New York in Fredonia for $5 an hour on a $10,000 budget. The album was host to a marked expansion in the band's sound and their previous experiments in tape loops and effects were given a more prominent role. During this period, Coyne made his transition to a higher, more strained vocal style akin to Neil Young, which he first used on Telepathic Surgery's "Chrome Plated Suicide" and has employed ever since.
In 1990, the band caught the attention of Warner Bros. Records and was signed promptly after a label representative witnessed a show at which the band almost burned down the venue (American Legion Hall in Norman, Oklahoma) with the use of pyrotechnics.
Signed to Warner Bros. (Hit to Death in the Future Head to Clouds Taste Metallic) (1991–1996)
In 1991, the band started recording their major label debut Hit to Death in the Future Head. The album's release was halted for nearly a year because of the use of a sample from Michael Kamen's score for the film Brazil in the track "You Have to Be Joking (Autopsy of the Devil's Brain)", which required a lengthy clearance process. After the recording of this album, Donahue left the band to concentrate on Mercury Rev, and Roberts left the band as well, citing creative differences. They were replaced by Ronald Jones and Steven Drozd, respectively.
In 1993, they released Transmissions from the Satellite Heart. This was the only studio album since In a Priest Driven Ambulance, to date, in which Dave Fridmann has not been involved. Because of the success of the album and the single "She Don't Use Jelly", the band was featured on four popular television series: Beverly Hills, 90210, Late Show with David Letterman, Charmed and Beavis and Butt-head. The success of this record led to long stints of touring, opening for bands including Red Hot Chili Peppers and Candlebox.
Clouds Taste Metallic was released to much critical fanfare in late 1995, though it did not achieve the commercial success of its predecessor. The strain of the year-long Clouds tour, added to the stress from the three years touring in support of Transmissions, was a major factor in the departure of Jones in late 1996. He was said to be suffering from a severe case of agoraphobia, although the documentary Fearless Freaks states that he left because of his growing concerns over Drozd's drug use.
In September 2014, the band paid tribute to Jones and the impact his music had on their developing sound by performing Transmissions from the Satellite Heart live at First Avenue. In February 2015, they performed Clouds Taste Metallic at the same venue. Later, in December, a 20th anniversary box set called Heady Nuggs: 20 Years After Clouds Taste Metallic 1994–1997, was released.
Zaireeka (1997–1998)
The departure of Jones and a general dissatisfaction with standard "rock" music led to the three remaining members of the group redefining the direction of the band with the experimental Zaireeka (1997), a four-CD album which is intended to be heard by playing all four CDs in four separate CD players simultaneously. The music incorporated both traditional musical elements and "found" sounds (as in musique concrète), often heavily manipulated with recording studio electronics.
As part of the development of this project, the band conducted a series of "parking lot experiments" and then later, "boombox experiments". In the parking lot experiments up to 40 volunteers were given cassettes created by the band to be played at a parking lot in their cars' stereo systems simultaneously. In the "boom box experiments" an orchestra composed of up to 40 volunteers with modified "boombox"-type tape players was "conducted" – directed to vary the volume, speed or tone of the tape they were playing (again composed by the band) – by Wayne Coyne.
Meanwhile, a series of unfortunate events (recounted in the 1999 song "The Spiderbite Song") beset the band. Drozd's arm was almost amputated needlessly because of what he claimed was a spider bite (it turned out to be abscessed as a result of Drozd's heroin use), Ivins was trapped in his car for several hours after a wheel spun off of another vehicle into his windshield, and Coyne's father died after a long battle with cancer.
Mainstream breakthrough (The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots) (1999–2002)
Though their experimental endeavors received some press coverage, their real breakthrough came with the 1999 release, The Soft Bulletin. Marrying more traditional catchy melodies with synthetic strings, hypnotic, carefully manipulated beats, booming cymbals and oddball but philosophical lyrics (sung much more strongly than on earlier releases), the album quickly became one of the underground hits of the year, even widely considered to be one of the best albums of the entire decade.
Compared by many music critics to the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds because of its inclusion of harmonies and orchestrated sounds, The Soft Bulletin also featured greater use of synthesizers, drum machines, sound effects and more studio manipulation. After this album was released, Coyne stated that, "if someone was to ask me what instrument do I play, I would say the recording studio." As the band considered an attempt to recreate this complex album live solely with additional musicians to be complex and expensive, they decided to tour as a three-piece and make extensive use of pre-recorded music to fill out those parts that were not performed live by the members of the band. This led to the decision to have the drummer Drozd play primarily keyboards and guitar live instead of the drums. This, in turn, led to a decision to utilize video recordings and projections of Steven playing the drums for some of the band's older songs, so the band added Kliph Scurlock on drums and percussion, Drozd focused on guitars, keyboards, bass (when he plays bass, Ivins plays keyboards), drums and occasional vocals, when he sings, Coyne plays guitars, keyboards and theremin.
To enhance the live experience for their audience and to accurately reproduce the sound of The Soft Bulletin live, the Lips devised the concept of the "Headphone Concert". A low-powered FM transmitter was set up at shows, and the concert was simultaneously broadcast to small Walkman-style receivers and headphones made available for free to audience members. This would, in theory, allow the audiences greater sonic clarity while still feeling the power of a full live P.A. This concept was debuted in Dallas, Texas, and at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, in March 1999, and was subsequently used on the International Music Against Brain Degeneration Revue tour. This tour featured Japanese band Cornelius, Sebadoh, Robyn Hitchcock, Sonic Boom's E.A.R. and IQU.
Three years later, in the summer of 2002, the Flaming Lips joined bands Cake and Modest Mouse on the Unlimited Sunshine Tour. They also released the full-length Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots to much critical acclaim. Featuring guest musician Yoshimi P-We (who inspired the album's title track) and demonstrating more use of electronic instruments and computer manipulation than The Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi is widely considered to be the Flaming Lips' first critical and commercial success after nearly twenty years as a band. The final track on the album, "Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia)" earned a 2003 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, and the album was certified gold on April 10, 2006. In March 2007, the band revealed that they had recently teamed up with screenwriter Aaron Sorkin to produce a Broadway musical based on the album.
In January 2012, Pitchfork TV released a forty-five-minute documentary on The Soft Bulletin. The documentary featured several rare archival photos and videos along with interviews from the members, producer Dave Fridmann, and manager Scott Booker. The same year, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots was adapted into a musical after being in development for years after the album's release.
Both The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots have been released on DVD-Audio.
Following the success of "Yoshimi", Steven Drozd completed rehab for heroin addiction. This decision was spurred by a physical altercation between Drozd and Wayne Coyne.
Continued success (At War with the Mystics) (2002–2006)
Shortly after Yoshimi and The Soft Bulletin, the Flaming Lips released two EPs in the same vein of their previous album's robotic theme which contain remixed songs from Yoshimi, Fight Test and Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell. They also appeared on the track "Marching the Hate Machines (Into the Sun)" on the Thievery Corporation album The Cosmic Game. In 2002 they were invited to work with The Chemical Brothers. Steven Drozd performed lead vocals, while Wayne Coyne performed harmony vocals, on the single "The Golden Path", which was included on The Chemical Brothers compilation album, Singles 93-03.
In 2002, they performed as the opening act, as well as the backup band, for singer Beck on his Sea Change tour. In the summer of 2004, it was announced that the Flaming Lips would appear among the headliners on the 2004 Lollapalooza tour, alongside such artists as Sonic Youth and Morrissey; however, the tour was canceled because of lack of revenue. Also in 2004, the band recorded the song "SpongeBob and Patrick Confront the Psychic Wall of Energy" for the soundtrack of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. Following the concerts' cancellation, the band entered Tarbox Road Studio with producer Dave Fridmann and began work on their eleventh album, the more organic-sounding At War with the Mystics. The record, aimed to be a more guitar-based and heavier effort than recent albums, featured more politically conscious lyrics than any of their previous releases, and was released in April 2006 to a mixed yet mostly positive reception.
In 2005 the band was the subject of a documentary called Fearless Freaks, featuring appearances by other artists and celebrities such as Gibby Haynes, The White Stripes, Beck, Christina Ricci, Liz Phair, Juliette Lewis, Steve Burns, Starlight Mints, and Adam Goldberg. In that same year, the Flaming Lips contributed a version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" to the album Killer Queen: A Tribute to Queen. Also in this year, the Flaming Lips released the DVD VOID (Video Overview in Deceleration), which chronicles all of their ventures into music video that have been produced since they signed with Warner Bros in 1991. In October 2005, the Flaming Lips recorded a cover of "If I Only Had a Brain" for the soundtrack of the video game Stubbs the Zombie, which features modern rock bands covering songs from the 1950s and 1960s. Additionally, the band released one new song, "Mr. Ambulance Driver", for the soundtrack of the 2005 film Wedding Crashers (a slightly edited version of the song found its way onto the new record).
The band released two singles from At War With the Mystics: "The W.A.N.D.", which was featured in a Dell commercial and which was originally put out as a download-only single in early 2006, and "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song", which became their highest-charting single on the UK Singles Chart, peaking at No. 16. A 4-track EP, entitled It Overtakes Me, was released later in the UK that year. The only instrumental on the album, "The Wizard Turns On... The Giant Silver Flashlight and Puts on His Werewolf Moccasins", earned a 2006 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, making it twice in a row the Lips have been nominated in that category and won.
Following the April 4, 2006 release of At War with the Mystics, the band began a tour to support the album in the United Kingdom, including a finale at the Royal Albert Hall and performances at the O2 Wireless Festival. At the Leeds England date of the festival, the band opened for The Who, of whom they are long standing fans.
The band continued to tour throughout the fall of 2006 stopping in Montreal, the Virgin Festival on the Toronto Islands, Atlantic City's House of Blues, The University of Vermont in Burlington, their hometown Oklahoma City, the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas, and New York City, NY as well as several other cities. The homecoming show in Oklahoma City was performed at the Zoo Amphitheater and included the unveiling of a new UFO stage prop, and would provide footage for the U.F.O.s at the Zoo concert DVD.
On December 5, 2006, Oklahoma City honored the band with a downtown alley named after the band. Vince Gill and Charlie Christian were also given street names by the city. Flaming Lips Alley is at the center of Oklahoma City's entertainment district, Bricktown. At the official dedication in 2007, Coyne said of Oklahoma City, "...We're on the way to becoming, I think, the fucking coolest city in America."
Christmas on Mars (2008)
In 2001, the Flaming Lips began filming a low-budget indie film entitled Christmas on Mars. Filming for the movie ended in late September 2005 and premiered on May 25, 2008 at the Sasquatch! Music Festival. The film tells the story of the first Christmas of a colony set-up on the surface of Mars and was written by Wayne Coyne, and co-directed by Wayne Coyne, Bradley Beesley and George Salisbury, with the band and their friends acting in the movie.
The band brought the film to rock festivals across America during the summer of 2008 and screened it in a large circus tent they had bought for that purpose. The film was released on DVD on November 11, 2008, along with a soundtrack written and performed by the Flaming Lips.
The band released their first live concert DVD, UFO's at the Zoo: The Legendary Concert in Oklahoma City, on August 7, 2007. The band also contributed original songs to the soundtracks of several 2007 films, including "The Supreme Being Teaches Spider-Man How to be in Love" for Spider-Man 3, "I Was Zapped by the Super Lucky Rainbow" for Good Luck Chuck, "Love the World You Find" for Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, and "Maybe I'm Not the One" and "Tale of the Horny Frog" for The Heartbreak Kid.
Official rock song of Oklahoma (2009)
In March 2009 "Do You Realize??" was announced as the official rock song of Oklahoma. Ten choices were put to a public vote, and out of 21,000 votes cast nearly 51% were for "Do You Realize??" The Oklahoma Senate approved this choice unanimously. The Oklahoma House of Representatives failed to confirm the choice after Rep. Mike Reynolds, R-Oklahoma City attacked the band for its use of offensive language, and Rep. Corey Holland, R-Marlow said he had been "really offended" when Michael Ivins came to the announcement ceremony in March wearing a red T-shirt with a yellow hammer and sickle. However, that evening, Oklahoma governor Brad Henry announced he would sign an executive order naming the song the official rock song. Henry said that for more than 20 years the Flaming Lips have produced "creative, fun and provocative rock music." "The music of the Flaming Lips has earned Grammys, glowing critical acclaim and fans all over the world", the governor said. "A truly iconic rock n' roll band, they are proud ambassadors of their home state... They were clearly the people's choice, and I intend to honor that vote." However, it was revealed in 2013 that Republican Governor Mary Fallin removed this designation by not renewing Brad Henry's executive order upon taking office in 2011. An alley in Oklahoma City had been named for the band in 2006.
Embryonic and Dark Side of the Moon (2009)
In 2009, the band released their twelfth studio album and first double album, Embryonic. The album, which was the band's first to open in the Billboard top 10, was widely critically acclaimed for its new direction; late in the recording the band added Derek Brown on keyboards, percussion and guitar. In December of the same year, the band released their second album of the year and thirteenth overall, The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs with Henry Rollins and Peaches Doing The Dark Side of the Moon, a track-for-track cover of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, which was recorded with Stardeath and White Dwarfs and features guest appearances from Henry Rollins and Peaches. The album was released physically on vinyl and CD in 2010.
In 2010, the band performed "I Can Be a Frog" on the Nick Jr. television series Yo Gabba Gabba.
2011 releases
In January 2011, the Lips announced their intention of releasing a new song every month of the year. In February, they released the first track titled "Two Blobs Fucking". The song exists as 12 separate pieces on YouTube and must be played simultaneously to be heard as intended.
In March 2011, the Lips released the EP The Flaming Lips with Neon Indian.
In April, the band released the Gummy Song Skull EP, a seven-pound skull made of gummy bear material with a gummy brain, which contained a flashdrive with 4 songs on them. This release was extremely limited, but was soon leaked on the internet shortly after its release.
In May, the band released its second collaboration EP titled The Flaming Lips with Prefuse 73. It contains four songs and was released in a similar way to the earlier Neon Indian EP, in that the run was extremely limited and consisted of randomly colored, one of a kind discs. This EP was briefly available on the band's official website but sold out shortly after it was put up for sale.
June saw several releases by the band, the first being The Soft Bulletin: Live la Fantastique de Institution 2011, a live-in-studio recording of the band's 1999 album The Soft Bulletin which was on a flash drive embedded in a marijuana-flavored brain inside a strawberry flavored gummy skull. This was only released at the band's two night show at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on June 14 and 15. This show was a special two-night, one morning event in which they played the entirety of The Soft Bulletin one night and a new revamped version of The Dark Side of the Moon and collaborated with Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros for a performance of "Do You Realize??" at dawn of the second day. Also included on this flash drive was a best-of compilation titled Everyone You Know Someday Will Die. It included songs from every portion of the band's career as well as a newly recorded intro. The final June release was the Gummy Song Fetus EP which consisted of three songs on a flash drive embedded in a bubblegum-flavored fetus made of gummy bear material.
In July, the band released The Flaming Lips with Lightning Bolt, a collaborative EP with experimental rock group Lightning Bolt, featuring the songs "I Wanna Get High But I Don't Want Brain Damage" and "Working at NASA on Acid". This EP was released on randomly colored vinyl as with the previous two collaborative EPs.
In late August, the band announced that it would be recording a six-hour-long song titled "I Found a Star on the Ground". This, along with two other songs, was released in September packaged with a set of spinning discs with animations on them. This release is officially called Strobo Trip. Featured in "I Found a Star on the Ground" is Sean Lennon who, with his band, opened for the Lips in early 2011. In the song Lennon reads off several lists of names of people who donated $100 to the Oklahoma City SPCA and Academy of Contemporary Music at University of Central Oklahoma. 212 names are featured in the song.
At midnight October 31, 2011, a 24-hour song was released titled "7 Skies H3". The song played live on a never-ending audio stream on a special website set up by the band and was made available for purchase as a hard drive encased in an actual human skull, limited to 13 copies.
The band's last release of 2011 was a 12" EP collaboration, The Flaming Lips with Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, sold only at the band's annual New Years shows in Oklahoma City.
Heady Fwends, Guinness World Record and other collaborations (2012)
With their previous contract with Warner Bros. Records having expired in 2011, the band re-signed to Warner Bros. for the United States and to Bella Union in Europe in early 2012. The first release under these new deals was The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends, initially released as a limited edition vinyl-only package for Record Store Day on April 21. The album features collaborations with artists such as Kesha, Nick Cave, and Erykah Badu. In an interview with American Songwriter, Coyne stated that "Since we were releasing music every month, we thought it would be a little bit boring for us each month to say 'Well here's four more Flaming Lips songs.' We just thought 'Well we'll get some of our friends, and we'll do collaborations and see what happens.'" The album later received a wider release on CD and digitally on June 26 in the US and July 30 in Europe.
The Flaming Lips broke Jay-Z's Guinness World Record for the most live concerts (8) in 24 hours, on June 27 and 28, 2012. The attempt was part of the O Music Awards, and was Livestreamed online for the entire 24 hours. The attempt started in Memphis on the afternoon of June 27 and ended in New Orleans on the afternoon of June 28, with 20 minutes to spare. The band played with guests including Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Neon Indian, Linear Downfall and Phantogram and HOTT MT, among others.
The concerts, which were required to be at least 15 minutes long, as per Guinness rules, featured a mix of special covers, songs rarely or never performed live by the band before, and new songs from Heady Fwends.
In November 2012 the band's Lovely Sorts of Death Records released a collaborative track-by-track reinterpretation of King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King with Stardeath and White Dwarfs, Linear Downfall, New Fumes, and Space Face entitled Playing Hide and Seek with the Ghosts of Dawn on vinyl and on their own 'Satellite Heart Radio' website.
They also worked on Kesha's Warrior album (on "Past Lives") and Lipsha. She also featured on their collaborative albums.
The Terror (2013–2014)
The band's next studio album, titled The Terror, was originally due for release on April 2, 2013 in the US and on April 1 in Europe, the tour began with a new member: keyboardist and guitarist Jake Ingalls, Derek Brown focused on percussion and additional guitars and keyboards. Because of a corruption while mastering the record on vinyl, the US release was delayed for two weeks, until April 16.
In anticipation of the album's release, their song, "Sun Blows Up Today", was featured in a Hyundai Super Bowl XLVII commercial. The band also released a lyric video on for "Sun Blows Up Today" with animations created by long-time Lips collaborator George Salisbury. The band premiered the new album live at a free outdoor concert at SXSW on March 15, 2013.
Critical reception of the album has tended to focus on its thematic bleakness and the turgid noisiness of its instrumentation. Like the three albums often referred to as "a trilogy" accounting for the majority of the band's mainstream production over the past 15 years (consisting of The Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, and At War With the Mystics), The Terror adheres to the love story/space opera narrative structure while taking a much darker approach. As noted in a review by Pitchfork, "The Terror deals in more personal turmoil– loneliness, depression, anxiety... Perhaps not coincidentally, the album was preceded by news of Coyne's separation from his partner of 25 years, Michelle, and of multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd relapsing temporarily."
Jon Pareles of The New York Times summarized the thematic content of the album fairly succinctly when he wrote, "The lyrics [of 'The Terror'] find cosmic repercussions in a lovers' breakup; loneliness turns to contemplation of grim human compulsions and the end of the universe." Another critic goes so far as to say that the album underlines the Lacanian psychodynamics structurally inherent in the conventions of the space opera.
Wayne Coyne's own description of his process or the theme of the album jibes well with this critical diagnosis:
"We want, or wanted, to believe that without love we would disappear, that love, somehow, would save us that, yeah, if we have love, give love and know love, we are truly alive and if there is no love, there would be no life. The Terror is, we know now, that even without love, life goes on... we just go on... there is no mercy killing."
In November 2013 they produced and curated "The Time Has Come To Shoot You Down…What A Sound," a reworking of the Stone Roses' debut album featuring New Fumes, Spaceface, Stardeath and White Dwarfs, Foxygen, Peaking Lights, Poliça and others.
In March 2014, longtime drummer and percussionist Kliph Scurlock left the band, and was replaced by drummer, percussionist and keyboardist Matt Duckworth Kirksey and percussionist and drummer Nicholas Ley. Derek Brown began focusing on guitars, and occasional keyboards and percussion. In May, Scurlock claimed he had been fired for negative comments about Wayne Coyne's friend Christina Fallin, the daughter of Oklahoma's governor and leader of a band called Pink Pony. Fallin had recently been criticized for cultural appropriation after she wore a Native American headdress in a publicity photo. According to Scurlock, his criticism of Fallin's actions led to conflict with Coyne and his dismissal. In response, Drozd said, "[t]his Lips/Kliph bullshit has gone too far. We parted ways because of the usual band musical differences. The rest has been blown way out." Coyne went even further, calling Scurlock a "pathological liar" and stated that he never meant his defense of Fallin, which included posting a photo of his dog in a feathered headdress, to be offensive but that he was "very sorry, to anybody that is following my Instagram or my Twitter, if I offended anybody of any religion, any race, any belief system. I would say you shouldn't follow my tweets; you shouldn't even probably want to be a Flaming Lips fan because we don't really have any agenda."
Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz (2015)
On August 30, 2015, after hosting the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards, Miley Cyrus announced that Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz, the free, 23-track experimental album that Cyrus and the Flaming Lips wrote and recorded together, was available via online streaming. The album is described by Coyne as a combination of Pink Floyd and Portishead and "a slightly wiser, sadder, more true version" of Cyrus' pop music output.
Oczy Mlody, King's Mouth, and American Head (2016–present)
According to the Tarbox Roads Studio's website, the Flaming Lips began recording a new album with Dave Fridmann on January 27, 2016.
In a June interview with Danish music blog Regnsky, Wayne Coyne said that a new album would come out in January 2017, even though they had originally planned for it to be released in October 2016. Wayne Coyne later confirmed in a September interview with Consequence of Sound, that they would release a new album at the beginning of 2017. On October 20, the band confirmed the January 2017 release date for the album. The band embarked on a tour in support that was described as "rock's greatest acid punch party" with "balloons, confetti cannons and rainbow visuals". On January 13, 2017 the fourteenth Flaming Lips album Oczy Mlody was released, and featured a guest appearance by Miley Cyrus. The album charted in both the UK and US.
On Record Store Day, April 22, 2017, the Flaming Lips released Onboard the International Space Station Concert for Peace, a re-recording of seven tracks from Oczy Mlody in a faux live setting.
The band's next studio album, King's Mouth, was released on April 13, 2019 for Record Store Day. Mick Jones of The Clash and Big Audio Dynamite narrates the album; Wayne Coyne said of Jones that "he’s on almost every song... it really is quite unbelievable."
In late 2019, Coyne and Drozd collaborated with garage rock duo Deap Vally to form a new band, Deap Lips. The project's self-titled debut album was released on March 13, 2020.
On March 23, 2020, Drozd announced that the band's sixteenth studio album, American Head, is due for release in the summer. The band officially announced the album's release date as September 11, 2020, along with the single "My Religion Is You" on June 6, 2020.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the band performed a concert in their hometown of Oklahoma City on October 12, 2020, while entirely encased within inflatable human-sized bubbles. Audience members were also protected by plastic bubbles. They performed in this fashion on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and again in 2021.
On August 16, 2021, Ingalls announced on his Instagram page that he left the band on amicable terms. Also in August, Coyne commented on his Instagram that Ivins was no longer in the band, leaving Coyne as the only original member. Micah Nelson has been on bass for recent live performances.
In November 2021, the band released an album of nine Nick Cave cover songs with the young Canadian musician Nell Smith. Smith and The Lips recorded the album remotely during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown.
Members
Current members
Wayne Coyne – lead vocals (1985–present), guitars, keyboards, theremin (1983–present), backing vocals (1983–1985, 1991–present), bass guitar (2021–present)
Steven Drozd – guitars, keyboards, bass, drums, backing and lead vocals (1991–present)
Derek Brown – keyboards, guitars, percussion, backing vocals (2009–present)
Matt Duckworth Kirksey – drums, percussion, keyboards, backing vocals (2014–present)
Nicholas Ley – percussion, drums, samples (2014–present)
Current touring musicians
Micah Nelson – bass, keyboards, backing vocals (2021–present)
Former members
Mark Coyne – lead vocals (1983–1985)
Dave Kostka – drums (1983–1984)
Richard English – drums, keyboards, backing vocals (1984–1989)
Nathan Roberts – drums (1989–1991)
Jonathan Donahue – guitars, backing vocals (1989–1991)
Jon Mooneyham – guitars, backing vocals (1991)
Ronald Jones – guitars, backing vocals (1991–1996)
Kliph Scurlock – drums, percussion (2002–2014)
Jake Ingalls – keyboards, guitars (2013–2021)
Michael Ivins – bass, keyboards, backing vocals (1983–2021)
Former touring musicians
Ray Suen – percussion, violin, harp, keyboards (2009–2012)
Timeline
Selected discography
Studio albums
Hear It Is (1986)
Oh My Gawd!!! (1987)
Telepathic Surgery (1989)
In a Priest Driven Ambulance (1990)
Hit to Death in the Future Head (1992)
Transmissions from the Satellite Heart (1993)
Clouds Taste Metallic (1995)
Zaireeka (1997)
The Soft Bulletin (1999)
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)
At War with the Mystics (2006)
Embryonic (2009)
The Terror (2013)
Oczy Mlody (2017)
King's Mouth (2019)
American Head (2020)
Extended plays
The Flaming Lips (1984)
Gummy Song Skull (2011)
Gummy Song Fetus (2011)
Strobo Trip (2011)
24 Hour Song Skull (2011)
Peace Sword (2013)
Collaborative albums
The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs with Henry Rollins and Peaches Doing The Dark Side of the Moon (2009)
The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends (2012)
Playing Hide and Seek with the Ghosts of Dawn (2012)
The Time Has Come to Shoot You Down... What a Sound (2013)
With a Little Help from My Fwends (2014)
Deap Lips (2020)
Where the Viaduct Looms (2021)
Soundtracks/Miscellaneous
The Southern Oklahoma Cosmic Trigger Contest (2001)
Atlas Eets Christmas (2007)
Once Beyond Hopelessness (2008)
Awards and nominations
The Flaming Lips won their first Grammy Award in 2003, for their track "Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia)". To date, the band has been nominated for six Grammy Awards, and won three times.
References
External links
1983 establishments in Oklahoma
Alternative rock groups from Oklahoma
American experimental rock groups
American psychedelic rock music groups
Grammy Award winners
Indie rock musical groups from Oklahoma
Musical groups established in 1983
Musical groups from Oklahoma
Neo-psychedelia groups
Noise pop musical groups
Psychedelic pop music groups
Space rock musical groups
Warner Records artists
Bella Union artists
Restless Records artists | true | [
"Popshop was a Swedish pop band established in Kalmar, Sweden in 1998. The members were Cornelia Dahlgren (on lead vocals), Patrik Magnusson and Johan Ramström (both on guitar), Jonas Hermansson (bass) and Micael Olofsson (drums).\n\nThe band released the album How to Tango in which there were collaborations with many renowned Swedish producers and songwriters, including Andreas Carlsson, Kent (Gillström) Isaacs, Dan Sundquist, Peter Boström and Joakim Udd and Leif Larsson. The album also included a version of David Bowie's \"Life on Mars\" that was released as a single in 2002. The group broke up in 2002. Fellow members Patrik Magnusson and Johan Ramström continued working together as RamPac and working as a songwriting duo.\n\nDiscography\n\nAlbums\n2002: How to Tango\n\nSingles\n2001: \"Careless\"\n2002: \"Piece of Cake\"\n2002: \"Life on Mars\"\n\nReferences\n\nSwedish pop music groups",
"Article 12 was a youth-led children's rights organisation based in England. Its main aim was to ensure the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child UNCRC. Welsh Regional Coordinator 1998 - 2000 was Millie Collins\n\nAbout \nThe group, run by a steering committee, worked to ensure the rights of young people were heard by decision makers. It was founded after a young people's rights conference in Greenwich, London (England) and was run by and for young people aged 18 and under. The administrative duties of Article 12 were run by CRAE (Children's Rights Alliance for England).\n\nThe group's most high-profile campaigns included 'Stop Smacking Us' (challenging Reasonable Chastisement) when it led a rally in Westminster to 10 Downing Street with 100 children. Its members have represented the United Kingdom at several United Nation's sessions. In 1999 Daisy Langmaid and David Joseph Henry took part in 10th commemorative meeting of the UNCRC in Geneva. In 2001 James Anderson and Lucy Mason took part in the Special Session on Children in New York. Many of its key members have gone on to become Human Rights activists.\n\nArticle 12 also produced a report in 2000. It was called Respect and was \"a report into how well Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is put into Practice across the UK\". The team who produced this report called themselves CR2000, which stood for Children's Rights 20000. The report was put together by the members of CR2000 conducting interviews and research with children in schools, youth groups etc., gaining their opinions and views on how well their rights were upheld and how much their opinions were heard. Members of the team were :\n\nAnna Fisher,\nDaisy Langmaid,\nEmma Richardson,\nFrancine Lansdown,\nGeorgia Lansdown,\nHossnieh Nayyeri,\nJames Anderson,\nLaura Fisher,\nLucy Mason,\nMichael Baker,\nMillie Collins,\nRobert O'Farrell,\nTamsin Landells,\n\nThis organisation is no longer active but its work continues through CRAE and work of former members who continue to work in the young people's rights movement.\n\nSee also \n Article 12 in Scotland\n\nExternal links \n BBC News | UK | Children in anti-smacking protest\n Children's Rights Alliance for England\n United Nations: Summary record of the 574th Meeting\n\nYouth organisations based in the United Kingdom\nYouth-led organizations\nYouth rights organizations\nHuman rights organisations based in the United Kingdom\nUnited Nations Youth Associations Network"
] |
[
"The Flaming Lips",
"Early history and releases (1983-1990)",
"What happened in 1983?",
"The Flaming Lips formed in Norman, Oklahoma in 1983",
"How many members were in the group?",
"Wayne Coyne on guitar, his brother Mark singing lead vocals, Michael Ivins on bass and Dave Kotska on drums."
] | C_ca8285aeaf4548bf9a7a664f85008ca4_1 | Was the group successful? | 3 | Was the group The Flaming Lips successful? | The Flaming Lips | The Flaming Lips formed in Norman, Oklahoma in 1983 with Wayne Coyne on guitar, his brother Mark singing lead vocals, Michael Ivins on bass and Dave Kotska on drums. The band debuted at Oklahoma City's Blue Note Lounge. After they got Dave Kotska as the drummer, Richard English joined the band in 1984. That same year they recorded their only release with Mark Coyne singing lead vocals-The Flaming Lips. After his brother's departure, Wayne assumed the vocal duties and the band released their first full-length album, Hear It Is, on Pink Dust Records (the psychedelic-rock imprint of Enigma Records) in 1986. This line-up recorded two more albums: 1987's Oh My Gawd!!! and 1989's Telepathic Surgery, the latter originally planned to be a 30-minute sound collage. Drummer Nathan Roberts replaced English and guitarist Jonathan Donahue (also a member of the alternative rock band Mercury Rev) joined in 1989. In a Priest Driven Ambulance, their first album with producer Dave Fridmann, was recorded at the State University of New York in Fredonia for $5 an hour on a $10,000 budget. The album was host to a marked expansion in the band's sound and their previous experiments in tape loops and effects were given a more prominent role. During this period, Coyne made his transition to a higher, more strained vocal style akin to Neil Young, which he first used on Telepathic Surgery's "Chrome Plated Suicide" and has employed ever since. In 1990 the band caught the attention of Warner Bros. Records and were signed promptly after a representative of the label witnessed a show at which the band almost burned down the venue (American Legion Hall in Norman, Oklahoma) with the use of pyrotechnics. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | The Flaming Lips are an American psychedelic rock band formed in 1983 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The band currently consists of Wayne Coyne (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Steven Drozd (guitars, keyboards, bass, vocals), Derek Brown (keyboards, guitars, percussion), Matt Duckworth Kirksey (drums, percussion, keyboards) and Nicholas Ley (percussion, drums).
The group recorded several albums and EPs on an indie label, Restless, in the 1980s and early 1990s. After signing to Warner Brothers, they released their first record with Warner, Hit to Death in the Future Head (1992). They later released The Soft Bulletin (1999), which was NME magazine's Album of the Year, and then Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002). In February 2007, they were nominated for a BRIT Award for "Best International Act". The group has won three Grammy Awards, including two for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. They were placed on Q magazines list of the "50 Bands to See Before You Die" in 2002.
History
Early history and releases (1983–1990)
The Flaming Lips formed in Oklahoma City in 1983 with Wayne Coyne on guitar, his brother Mark singing lead vocals, Michael Ivins on bass and Dave Kotska on drums. The band debuted at Oklahoma City's Blue Note Lounge. After they hired Dave Kotska as the drummer, Richard English joined the band in 1984. That same year they recorded The Flaming Lips EP, their only release with Mark singing lead vocals.
There are several theories as to how the band chose their name. One possibility is that it was inspired by the 1953 feature film Geraldine, in which comedian Stan Freberg sings several songs, including one named "Flaming Lips". Another possible source is from the 1964 film What a Way to Go! in which Shirley MacLaine's character stars in a film titled Flaming Lips. However, according to an article in the September 16, 1993 issue of Rolling Stone, Mark and Wayne came up with the name as a reference to a rumor about a classmate who contracted genital herpes after receiving cunnilingus from a partner with active cold sores. Wayne elaborated:When Mark and I were in, I think it was Junior Year in High School, there was a rumor about this girl who got herpes from this guy at a party. He went down on her with a cold sore. I don't think we knew the girl, and I'm not sure if she even existed, you know how kids just spread bullshit. But when we were thinking of band names one night over a pack of Schlitz and some left-handed cigarettes and remembered how we joked that they both had "Flaming Lips" and it just stuck.After his brother's departure, Wayne assumed the vocal duties and the band released their first full-length album, Hear It Is, on Pink Dust Records (the psychedelic-rock imprint of Enigma Records) in 1986. This line-up recorded two more albums: 1987's Oh My Gawd!!! and 1989's Telepathic Surgery, the latter originally planned to be a 30-minute sound collage.
Drummer Nathan Roberts replaced English and guitarist Jonathan Donahue (also a member of the alternative rock band Mercury Rev) joined in 1989. In a Priest Driven Ambulance, their first album with producer Dave Fridmann, was recorded at the State University of New York in Fredonia for $5 an hour on a $10,000 budget. The album was host to a marked expansion in the band's sound and their previous experiments in tape loops and effects were given a more prominent role. During this period, Coyne made his transition to a higher, more strained vocal style akin to Neil Young, which he first used on Telepathic Surgery's "Chrome Plated Suicide" and has employed ever since.
In 1990, the band caught the attention of Warner Bros. Records and was signed promptly after a label representative witnessed a show at which the band almost burned down the venue (American Legion Hall in Norman, Oklahoma) with the use of pyrotechnics.
Signed to Warner Bros. (Hit to Death in the Future Head to Clouds Taste Metallic) (1991–1996)
In 1991, the band started recording their major label debut Hit to Death in the Future Head. The album's release was halted for nearly a year because of the use of a sample from Michael Kamen's score for the film Brazil in the track "You Have to Be Joking (Autopsy of the Devil's Brain)", which required a lengthy clearance process. After the recording of this album, Donahue left the band to concentrate on Mercury Rev, and Roberts left the band as well, citing creative differences. They were replaced by Ronald Jones and Steven Drozd, respectively.
In 1993, they released Transmissions from the Satellite Heart. This was the only studio album since In a Priest Driven Ambulance, to date, in which Dave Fridmann has not been involved. Because of the success of the album and the single "She Don't Use Jelly", the band was featured on four popular television series: Beverly Hills, 90210, Late Show with David Letterman, Charmed and Beavis and Butt-head. The success of this record led to long stints of touring, opening for bands including Red Hot Chili Peppers and Candlebox.
Clouds Taste Metallic was released to much critical fanfare in late 1995, though it did not achieve the commercial success of its predecessor. The strain of the year-long Clouds tour, added to the stress from the three years touring in support of Transmissions, was a major factor in the departure of Jones in late 1996. He was said to be suffering from a severe case of agoraphobia, although the documentary Fearless Freaks states that he left because of his growing concerns over Drozd's drug use.
In September 2014, the band paid tribute to Jones and the impact his music had on their developing sound by performing Transmissions from the Satellite Heart live at First Avenue. In February 2015, they performed Clouds Taste Metallic at the same venue. Later, in December, a 20th anniversary box set called Heady Nuggs: 20 Years After Clouds Taste Metallic 1994–1997, was released.
Zaireeka (1997–1998)
The departure of Jones and a general dissatisfaction with standard "rock" music led to the three remaining members of the group redefining the direction of the band with the experimental Zaireeka (1997), a four-CD album which is intended to be heard by playing all four CDs in four separate CD players simultaneously. The music incorporated both traditional musical elements and "found" sounds (as in musique concrète), often heavily manipulated with recording studio electronics.
As part of the development of this project, the band conducted a series of "parking lot experiments" and then later, "boombox experiments". In the parking lot experiments up to 40 volunteers were given cassettes created by the band to be played at a parking lot in their cars' stereo systems simultaneously. In the "boom box experiments" an orchestra composed of up to 40 volunteers with modified "boombox"-type tape players was "conducted" – directed to vary the volume, speed or tone of the tape they were playing (again composed by the band) – by Wayne Coyne.
Meanwhile, a series of unfortunate events (recounted in the 1999 song "The Spiderbite Song") beset the band. Drozd's arm was almost amputated needlessly because of what he claimed was a spider bite (it turned out to be abscessed as a result of Drozd's heroin use), Ivins was trapped in his car for several hours after a wheel spun off of another vehicle into his windshield, and Coyne's father died after a long battle with cancer.
Mainstream breakthrough (The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots) (1999–2002)
Though their experimental endeavors received some press coverage, their real breakthrough came with the 1999 release, The Soft Bulletin. Marrying more traditional catchy melodies with synthetic strings, hypnotic, carefully manipulated beats, booming cymbals and oddball but philosophical lyrics (sung much more strongly than on earlier releases), the album quickly became one of the underground hits of the year, even widely considered to be one of the best albums of the entire decade.
Compared by many music critics to the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds because of its inclusion of harmonies and orchestrated sounds, The Soft Bulletin also featured greater use of synthesizers, drum machines, sound effects and more studio manipulation. After this album was released, Coyne stated that, "if someone was to ask me what instrument do I play, I would say the recording studio." As the band considered an attempt to recreate this complex album live solely with additional musicians to be complex and expensive, they decided to tour as a three-piece and make extensive use of pre-recorded music to fill out those parts that were not performed live by the members of the band. This led to the decision to have the drummer Drozd play primarily keyboards and guitar live instead of the drums. This, in turn, led to a decision to utilize video recordings and projections of Steven playing the drums for some of the band's older songs, so the band added Kliph Scurlock on drums and percussion, Drozd focused on guitars, keyboards, bass (when he plays bass, Ivins plays keyboards), drums and occasional vocals, when he sings, Coyne plays guitars, keyboards and theremin.
To enhance the live experience for their audience and to accurately reproduce the sound of The Soft Bulletin live, the Lips devised the concept of the "Headphone Concert". A low-powered FM transmitter was set up at shows, and the concert was simultaneously broadcast to small Walkman-style receivers and headphones made available for free to audience members. This would, in theory, allow the audiences greater sonic clarity while still feeling the power of a full live P.A. This concept was debuted in Dallas, Texas, and at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, in March 1999, and was subsequently used on the International Music Against Brain Degeneration Revue tour. This tour featured Japanese band Cornelius, Sebadoh, Robyn Hitchcock, Sonic Boom's E.A.R. and IQU.
Three years later, in the summer of 2002, the Flaming Lips joined bands Cake and Modest Mouse on the Unlimited Sunshine Tour. They also released the full-length Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots to much critical acclaim. Featuring guest musician Yoshimi P-We (who inspired the album's title track) and demonstrating more use of electronic instruments and computer manipulation than The Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi is widely considered to be the Flaming Lips' first critical and commercial success after nearly twenty years as a band. The final track on the album, "Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia)" earned a 2003 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, and the album was certified gold on April 10, 2006. In March 2007, the band revealed that they had recently teamed up with screenwriter Aaron Sorkin to produce a Broadway musical based on the album.
In January 2012, Pitchfork TV released a forty-five-minute documentary on The Soft Bulletin. The documentary featured several rare archival photos and videos along with interviews from the members, producer Dave Fridmann, and manager Scott Booker. The same year, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots was adapted into a musical after being in development for years after the album's release.
Both The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots have been released on DVD-Audio.
Following the success of "Yoshimi", Steven Drozd completed rehab for heroin addiction. This decision was spurred by a physical altercation between Drozd and Wayne Coyne.
Continued success (At War with the Mystics) (2002–2006)
Shortly after Yoshimi and The Soft Bulletin, the Flaming Lips released two EPs in the same vein of their previous album's robotic theme which contain remixed songs from Yoshimi, Fight Test and Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell. They also appeared on the track "Marching the Hate Machines (Into the Sun)" on the Thievery Corporation album The Cosmic Game. In 2002 they were invited to work with The Chemical Brothers. Steven Drozd performed lead vocals, while Wayne Coyne performed harmony vocals, on the single "The Golden Path", which was included on The Chemical Brothers compilation album, Singles 93-03.
In 2002, they performed as the opening act, as well as the backup band, for singer Beck on his Sea Change tour. In the summer of 2004, it was announced that the Flaming Lips would appear among the headliners on the 2004 Lollapalooza tour, alongside such artists as Sonic Youth and Morrissey; however, the tour was canceled because of lack of revenue. Also in 2004, the band recorded the song "SpongeBob and Patrick Confront the Psychic Wall of Energy" for the soundtrack of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. Following the concerts' cancellation, the band entered Tarbox Road Studio with producer Dave Fridmann and began work on their eleventh album, the more organic-sounding At War with the Mystics. The record, aimed to be a more guitar-based and heavier effort than recent albums, featured more politically conscious lyrics than any of their previous releases, and was released in April 2006 to a mixed yet mostly positive reception.
In 2005 the band was the subject of a documentary called Fearless Freaks, featuring appearances by other artists and celebrities such as Gibby Haynes, The White Stripes, Beck, Christina Ricci, Liz Phair, Juliette Lewis, Steve Burns, Starlight Mints, and Adam Goldberg. In that same year, the Flaming Lips contributed a version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" to the album Killer Queen: A Tribute to Queen. Also in this year, the Flaming Lips released the DVD VOID (Video Overview in Deceleration), which chronicles all of their ventures into music video that have been produced since they signed with Warner Bros in 1991. In October 2005, the Flaming Lips recorded a cover of "If I Only Had a Brain" for the soundtrack of the video game Stubbs the Zombie, which features modern rock bands covering songs from the 1950s and 1960s. Additionally, the band released one new song, "Mr. Ambulance Driver", for the soundtrack of the 2005 film Wedding Crashers (a slightly edited version of the song found its way onto the new record).
The band released two singles from At War With the Mystics: "The W.A.N.D.", which was featured in a Dell commercial and which was originally put out as a download-only single in early 2006, and "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song", which became their highest-charting single on the UK Singles Chart, peaking at No. 16. A 4-track EP, entitled It Overtakes Me, was released later in the UK that year. The only instrumental on the album, "The Wizard Turns On... The Giant Silver Flashlight and Puts on His Werewolf Moccasins", earned a 2006 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, making it twice in a row the Lips have been nominated in that category and won.
Following the April 4, 2006 release of At War with the Mystics, the band began a tour to support the album in the United Kingdom, including a finale at the Royal Albert Hall and performances at the O2 Wireless Festival. At the Leeds England date of the festival, the band opened for The Who, of whom they are long standing fans.
The band continued to tour throughout the fall of 2006 stopping in Montreal, the Virgin Festival on the Toronto Islands, Atlantic City's House of Blues, The University of Vermont in Burlington, their hometown Oklahoma City, the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas, and New York City, NY as well as several other cities. The homecoming show in Oklahoma City was performed at the Zoo Amphitheater and included the unveiling of a new UFO stage prop, and would provide footage for the U.F.O.s at the Zoo concert DVD.
On December 5, 2006, Oklahoma City honored the band with a downtown alley named after the band. Vince Gill and Charlie Christian were also given street names by the city. Flaming Lips Alley is at the center of Oklahoma City's entertainment district, Bricktown. At the official dedication in 2007, Coyne said of Oklahoma City, "...We're on the way to becoming, I think, the fucking coolest city in America."
Christmas on Mars (2008)
In 2001, the Flaming Lips began filming a low-budget indie film entitled Christmas on Mars. Filming for the movie ended in late September 2005 and premiered on May 25, 2008 at the Sasquatch! Music Festival. The film tells the story of the first Christmas of a colony set-up on the surface of Mars and was written by Wayne Coyne, and co-directed by Wayne Coyne, Bradley Beesley and George Salisbury, with the band and their friends acting in the movie.
The band brought the film to rock festivals across America during the summer of 2008 and screened it in a large circus tent they had bought for that purpose. The film was released on DVD on November 11, 2008, along with a soundtrack written and performed by the Flaming Lips.
The band released their first live concert DVD, UFO's at the Zoo: The Legendary Concert in Oklahoma City, on August 7, 2007. The band also contributed original songs to the soundtracks of several 2007 films, including "The Supreme Being Teaches Spider-Man How to be in Love" for Spider-Man 3, "I Was Zapped by the Super Lucky Rainbow" for Good Luck Chuck, "Love the World You Find" for Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, and "Maybe I'm Not the One" and "Tale of the Horny Frog" for The Heartbreak Kid.
Official rock song of Oklahoma (2009)
In March 2009 "Do You Realize??" was announced as the official rock song of Oklahoma. Ten choices were put to a public vote, and out of 21,000 votes cast nearly 51% were for "Do You Realize??" The Oklahoma Senate approved this choice unanimously. The Oklahoma House of Representatives failed to confirm the choice after Rep. Mike Reynolds, R-Oklahoma City attacked the band for its use of offensive language, and Rep. Corey Holland, R-Marlow said he had been "really offended" when Michael Ivins came to the announcement ceremony in March wearing a red T-shirt with a yellow hammer and sickle. However, that evening, Oklahoma governor Brad Henry announced he would sign an executive order naming the song the official rock song. Henry said that for more than 20 years the Flaming Lips have produced "creative, fun and provocative rock music." "The music of the Flaming Lips has earned Grammys, glowing critical acclaim and fans all over the world", the governor said. "A truly iconic rock n' roll band, they are proud ambassadors of their home state... They were clearly the people's choice, and I intend to honor that vote." However, it was revealed in 2013 that Republican Governor Mary Fallin removed this designation by not renewing Brad Henry's executive order upon taking office in 2011. An alley in Oklahoma City had been named for the band in 2006.
Embryonic and Dark Side of the Moon (2009)
In 2009, the band released their twelfth studio album and first double album, Embryonic. The album, which was the band's first to open in the Billboard top 10, was widely critically acclaimed for its new direction; late in the recording the band added Derek Brown on keyboards, percussion and guitar. In December of the same year, the band released their second album of the year and thirteenth overall, The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs with Henry Rollins and Peaches Doing The Dark Side of the Moon, a track-for-track cover of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, which was recorded with Stardeath and White Dwarfs and features guest appearances from Henry Rollins and Peaches. The album was released physically on vinyl and CD in 2010.
In 2010, the band performed "I Can Be a Frog" on the Nick Jr. television series Yo Gabba Gabba.
2011 releases
In January 2011, the Lips announced their intention of releasing a new song every month of the year. In February, they released the first track titled "Two Blobs Fucking". The song exists as 12 separate pieces on YouTube and must be played simultaneously to be heard as intended.
In March 2011, the Lips released the EP The Flaming Lips with Neon Indian.
In April, the band released the Gummy Song Skull EP, a seven-pound skull made of gummy bear material with a gummy brain, which contained a flashdrive with 4 songs on them. This release was extremely limited, but was soon leaked on the internet shortly after its release.
In May, the band released its second collaboration EP titled The Flaming Lips with Prefuse 73. It contains four songs and was released in a similar way to the earlier Neon Indian EP, in that the run was extremely limited and consisted of randomly colored, one of a kind discs. This EP was briefly available on the band's official website but sold out shortly after it was put up for sale.
June saw several releases by the band, the first being The Soft Bulletin: Live la Fantastique de Institution 2011, a live-in-studio recording of the band's 1999 album The Soft Bulletin which was on a flash drive embedded in a marijuana-flavored brain inside a strawberry flavored gummy skull. This was only released at the band's two night show at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on June 14 and 15. This show was a special two-night, one morning event in which they played the entirety of The Soft Bulletin one night and a new revamped version of The Dark Side of the Moon and collaborated with Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros for a performance of "Do You Realize??" at dawn of the second day. Also included on this flash drive was a best-of compilation titled Everyone You Know Someday Will Die. It included songs from every portion of the band's career as well as a newly recorded intro. The final June release was the Gummy Song Fetus EP which consisted of three songs on a flash drive embedded in a bubblegum-flavored fetus made of gummy bear material.
In July, the band released The Flaming Lips with Lightning Bolt, a collaborative EP with experimental rock group Lightning Bolt, featuring the songs "I Wanna Get High But I Don't Want Brain Damage" and "Working at NASA on Acid". This EP was released on randomly colored vinyl as with the previous two collaborative EPs.
In late August, the band announced that it would be recording a six-hour-long song titled "I Found a Star on the Ground". This, along with two other songs, was released in September packaged with a set of spinning discs with animations on them. This release is officially called Strobo Trip. Featured in "I Found a Star on the Ground" is Sean Lennon who, with his band, opened for the Lips in early 2011. In the song Lennon reads off several lists of names of people who donated $100 to the Oklahoma City SPCA and Academy of Contemporary Music at University of Central Oklahoma. 212 names are featured in the song.
At midnight October 31, 2011, a 24-hour song was released titled "7 Skies H3". The song played live on a never-ending audio stream on a special website set up by the band and was made available for purchase as a hard drive encased in an actual human skull, limited to 13 copies.
The band's last release of 2011 was a 12" EP collaboration, The Flaming Lips with Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, sold only at the band's annual New Years shows in Oklahoma City.
Heady Fwends, Guinness World Record and other collaborations (2012)
With their previous contract with Warner Bros. Records having expired in 2011, the band re-signed to Warner Bros. for the United States and to Bella Union in Europe in early 2012. The first release under these new deals was The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends, initially released as a limited edition vinyl-only package for Record Store Day on April 21. The album features collaborations with artists such as Kesha, Nick Cave, and Erykah Badu. In an interview with American Songwriter, Coyne stated that "Since we were releasing music every month, we thought it would be a little bit boring for us each month to say 'Well here's four more Flaming Lips songs.' We just thought 'Well we'll get some of our friends, and we'll do collaborations and see what happens.'" The album later received a wider release on CD and digitally on June 26 in the US and July 30 in Europe.
The Flaming Lips broke Jay-Z's Guinness World Record for the most live concerts (8) in 24 hours, on June 27 and 28, 2012. The attempt was part of the O Music Awards, and was Livestreamed online for the entire 24 hours. The attempt started in Memphis on the afternoon of June 27 and ended in New Orleans on the afternoon of June 28, with 20 minutes to spare. The band played with guests including Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Neon Indian, Linear Downfall and Phantogram and HOTT MT, among others.
The concerts, which were required to be at least 15 minutes long, as per Guinness rules, featured a mix of special covers, songs rarely or never performed live by the band before, and new songs from Heady Fwends.
In November 2012 the band's Lovely Sorts of Death Records released a collaborative track-by-track reinterpretation of King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King with Stardeath and White Dwarfs, Linear Downfall, New Fumes, and Space Face entitled Playing Hide and Seek with the Ghosts of Dawn on vinyl and on their own 'Satellite Heart Radio' website.
They also worked on Kesha's Warrior album (on "Past Lives") and Lipsha. She also featured on their collaborative albums.
The Terror (2013–2014)
The band's next studio album, titled The Terror, was originally due for release on April 2, 2013 in the US and on April 1 in Europe, the tour began with a new member: keyboardist and guitarist Jake Ingalls, Derek Brown focused on percussion and additional guitars and keyboards. Because of a corruption while mastering the record on vinyl, the US release was delayed for two weeks, until April 16.
In anticipation of the album's release, their song, "Sun Blows Up Today", was featured in a Hyundai Super Bowl XLVII commercial. The band also released a lyric video on for "Sun Blows Up Today" with animations created by long-time Lips collaborator George Salisbury. The band premiered the new album live at a free outdoor concert at SXSW on March 15, 2013.
Critical reception of the album has tended to focus on its thematic bleakness and the turgid noisiness of its instrumentation. Like the three albums often referred to as "a trilogy" accounting for the majority of the band's mainstream production over the past 15 years (consisting of The Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, and At War With the Mystics), The Terror adheres to the love story/space opera narrative structure while taking a much darker approach. As noted in a review by Pitchfork, "The Terror deals in more personal turmoil– loneliness, depression, anxiety... Perhaps not coincidentally, the album was preceded by news of Coyne's separation from his partner of 25 years, Michelle, and of multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd relapsing temporarily."
Jon Pareles of The New York Times summarized the thematic content of the album fairly succinctly when he wrote, "The lyrics [of 'The Terror'] find cosmic repercussions in a lovers' breakup; loneliness turns to contemplation of grim human compulsions and the end of the universe." Another critic goes so far as to say that the album underlines the Lacanian psychodynamics structurally inherent in the conventions of the space opera.
Wayne Coyne's own description of his process or the theme of the album jibes well with this critical diagnosis:
"We want, or wanted, to believe that without love we would disappear, that love, somehow, would save us that, yeah, if we have love, give love and know love, we are truly alive and if there is no love, there would be no life. The Terror is, we know now, that even without love, life goes on... we just go on... there is no mercy killing."
In November 2013 they produced and curated "The Time Has Come To Shoot You Down…What A Sound," a reworking of the Stone Roses' debut album featuring New Fumes, Spaceface, Stardeath and White Dwarfs, Foxygen, Peaking Lights, Poliça and others.
In March 2014, longtime drummer and percussionist Kliph Scurlock left the band, and was replaced by drummer, percussionist and keyboardist Matt Duckworth Kirksey and percussionist and drummer Nicholas Ley. Derek Brown began focusing on guitars, and occasional keyboards and percussion. In May, Scurlock claimed he had been fired for negative comments about Wayne Coyne's friend Christina Fallin, the daughter of Oklahoma's governor and leader of a band called Pink Pony. Fallin had recently been criticized for cultural appropriation after she wore a Native American headdress in a publicity photo. According to Scurlock, his criticism of Fallin's actions led to conflict with Coyne and his dismissal. In response, Drozd said, "[t]his Lips/Kliph bullshit has gone too far. We parted ways because of the usual band musical differences. The rest has been blown way out." Coyne went even further, calling Scurlock a "pathological liar" and stated that he never meant his defense of Fallin, which included posting a photo of his dog in a feathered headdress, to be offensive but that he was "very sorry, to anybody that is following my Instagram or my Twitter, if I offended anybody of any religion, any race, any belief system. I would say you shouldn't follow my tweets; you shouldn't even probably want to be a Flaming Lips fan because we don't really have any agenda."
Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz (2015)
On August 30, 2015, after hosting the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards, Miley Cyrus announced that Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz, the free, 23-track experimental album that Cyrus and the Flaming Lips wrote and recorded together, was available via online streaming. The album is described by Coyne as a combination of Pink Floyd and Portishead and "a slightly wiser, sadder, more true version" of Cyrus' pop music output.
Oczy Mlody, King's Mouth, and American Head (2016–present)
According to the Tarbox Roads Studio's website, the Flaming Lips began recording a new album with Dave Fridmann on January 27, 2016.
In a June interview with Danish music blog Regnsky, Wayne Coyne said that a new album would come out in January 2017, even though they had originally planned for it to be released in October 2016. Wayne Coyne later confirmed in a September interview with Consequence of Sound, that they would release a new album at the beginning of 2017. On October 20, the band confirmed the January 2017 release date for the album. The band embarked on a tour in support that was described as "rock's greatest acid punch party" with "balloons, confetti cannons and rainbow visuals". On January 13, 2017 the fourteenth Flaming Lips album Oczy Mlody was released, and featured a guest appearance by Miley Cyrus. The album charted in both the UK and US.
On Record Store Day, April 22, 2017, the Flaming Lips released Onboard the International Space Station Concert for Peace, a re-recording of seven tracks from Oczy Mlody in a faux live setting.
The band's next studio album, King's Mouth, was released on April 13, 2019 for Record Store Day. Mick Jones of The Clash and Big Audio Dynamite narrates the album; Wayne Coyne said of Jones that "he’s on almost every song... it really is quite unbelievable."
In late 2019, Coyne and Drozd collaborated with garage rock duo Deap Vally to form a new band, Deap Lips. The project's self-titled debut album was released on March 13, 2020.
On March 23, 2020, Drozd announced that the band's sixteenth studio album, American Head, is due for release in the summer. The band officially announced the album's release date as September 11, 2020, along with the single "My Religion Is You" on June 6, 2020.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the band performed a concert in their hometown of Oklahoma City on October 12, 2020, while entirely encased within inflatable human-sized bubbles. Audience members were also protected by plastic bubbles. They performed in this fashion on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and again in 2021.
On August 16, 2021, Ingalls announced on his Instagram page that he left the band on amicable terms. Also in August, Coyne commented on his Instagram that Ivins was no longer in the band, leaving Coyne as the only original member. Micah Nelson has been on bass for recent live performances.
In November 2021, the band released an album of nine Nick Cave cover songs with the young Canadian musician Nell Smith. Smith and The Lips recorded the album remotely during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown.
Members
Current members
Wayne Coyne – lead vocals (1985–present), guitars, keyboards, theremin (1983–present), backing vocals (1983–1985, 1991–present), bass guitar (2021–present)
Steven Drozd – guitars, keyboards, bass, drums, backing and lead vocals (1991–present)
Derek Brown – keyboards, guitars, percussion, backing vocals (2009–present)
Matt Duckworth Kirksey – drums, percussion, keyboards, backing vocals (2014–present)
Nicholas Ley – percussion, drums, samples (2014–present)
Current touring musicians
Micah Nelson – bass, keyboards, backing vocals (2021–present)
Former members
Mark Coyne – lead vocals (1983–1985)
Dave Kostka – drums (1983–1984)
Richard English – drums, keyboards, backing vocals (1984–1989)
Nathan Roberts – drums (1989–1991)
Jonathan Donahue – guitars, backing vocals (1989–1991)
Jon Mooneyham – guitars, backing vocals (1991)
Ronald Jones – guitars, backing vocals (1991–1996)
Kliph Scurlock – drums, percussion (2002–2014)
Jake Ingalls – keyboards, guitars (2013–2021)
Michael Ivins – bass, keyboards, backing vocals (1983–2021)
Former touring musicians
Ray Suen – percussion, violin, harp, keyboards (2009–2012)
Timeline
Selected discography
Studio albums
Hear It Is (1986)
Oh My Gawd!!! (1987)
Telepathic Surgery (1989)
In a Priest Driven Ambulance (1990)
Hit to Death in the Future Head (1992)
Transmissions from the Satellite Heart (1993)
Clouds Taste Metallic (1995)
Zaireeka (1997)
The Soft Bulletin (1999)
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)
At War with the Mystics (2006)
Embryonic (2009)
The Terror (2013)
Oczy Mlody (2017)
King's Mouth (2019)
American Head (2020)
Extended plays
The Flaming Lips (1984)
Gummy Song Skull (2011)
Gummy Song Fetus (2011)
Strobo Trip (2011)
24 Hour Song Skull (2011)
Peace Sword (2013)
Collaborative albums
The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs with Henry Rollins and Peaches Doing The Dark Side of the Moon (2009)
The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends (2012)
Playing Hide and Seek with the Ghosts of Dawn (2012)
The Time Has Come to Shoot You Down... What a Sound (2013)
With a Little Help from My Fwends (2014)
Deap Lips (2020)
Where the Viaduct Looms (2021)
Soundtracks/Miscellaneous
The Southern Oklahoma Cosmic Trigger Contest (2001)
Atlas Eets Christmas (2007)
Once Beyond Hopelessness (2008)
Awards and nominations
The Flaming Lips won their first Grammy Award in 2003, for their track "Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia)". To date, the band has been nominated for six Grammy Awards, and won three times.
References
External links
1983 establishments in Oklahoma
Alternative rock groups from Oklahoma
American experimental rock groups
American psychedelic rock music groups
Grammy Award winners
Indie rock musical groups from Oklahoma
Musical groups established in 1983
Musical groups from Oklahoma
Neo-psychedelia groups
Noise pop musical groups
Psychedelic pop music groups
Space rock musical groups
Warner Records artists
Bella Union artists
Restless Records artists | false | [
"Q was a disco group formed in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, USA. They released an album on Epic Records entitled Dancin' Man in 1977, which was successful. The group featured two members from Jaggerz, a hit-making group from the early 1970s. The title track from the album was released as a single and was successful in the US, becoming a Top 40 hit.\n\nCommercial success \nQ released a single, titled \"Dancin' Man,\" in Spring 1977 (the B side was entitled \"Love Pollution\"); spurred on by regional airplay and a full-page ad taken out in Billboard magazine, the single became a Top 30 hit in the US, peaking at number 23. In the UK, though not a national hit, in London the song reached number 8 on Capital Radio's 'Capital Countdown' Top 40 in May 1977.\n\nQ's debut album, also titled \"Dancin' Man,\" was less successful, reaching #140 on the Billboard 200. The group's second single, \"Sweet Summertime,\" stalled out at number 107 in the US, essentially rendering the group a one-hit wonder.\n\nMembers\nDon Garvin - guitar, vocals\nRobert Peckman - bass, vocals\nBill Thomas - keyboards, vocals\nBill Vogel - drums, vocals\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Q -Pittsburgh Music History\n\nMusical groups from Pittsburgh\nAmerican disco groups",
"\"Remote Control\" is a 1980, debut single by The Reddings. The song was written by Nick Mann, Bill Beard and Chet Fortune and appeared on their album, The Awakening. It was the group's most successful hit on the soul chart peaking at number six and one of two entries on the Hot 100 peaking at number eighty-nine. \"Remote Control\" was the group's most successful entry on the dance charts where the song peaked at number twenty-two.\n\nReferences\n\n1980 singles\nDance-pop songs\n1980 songs"
] |
[
"The Flaming Lips",
"Early history and releases (1983-1990)",
"What happened in 1983?",
"The Flaming Lips formed in Norman, Oklahoma in 1983",
"How many members were in the group?",
"Wayne Coyne on guitar, his brother Mark singing lead vocals, Michael Ivins on bass and Dave Kotska on drums.",
"Was the group successful?",
"I don't know."
] | C_ca8285aeaf4548bf9a7a664f85008ca4_1 | What was their first album released? | 4 | What was The Flaming Lips first album released? | The Flaming Lips | The Flaming Lips formed in Norman, Oklahoma in 1983 with Wayne Coyne on guitar, his brother Mark singing lead vocals, Michael Ivins on bass and Dave Kotska on drums. The band debuted at Oklahoma City's Blue Note Lounge. After they got Dave Kotska as the drummer, Richard English joined the band in 1984. That same year they recorded their only release with Mark Coyne singing lead vocals-The Flaming Lips. After his brother's departure, Wayne assumed the vocal duties and the band released their first full-length album, Hear It Is, on Pink Dust Records (the psychedelic-rock imprint of Enigma Records) in 1986. This line-up recorded two more albums: 1987's Oh My Gawd!!! and 1989's Telepathic Surgery, the latter originally planned to be a 30-minute sound collage. Drummer Nathan Roberts replaced English and guitarist Jonathan Donahue (also a member of the alternative rock band Mercury Rev) joined in 1989. In a Priest Driven Ambulance, their first album with producer Dave Fridmann, was recorded at the State University of New York in Fredonia for $5 an hour on a $10,000 budget. The album was host to a marked expansion in the band's sound and their previous experiments in tape loops and effects were given a more prominent role. During this period, Coyne made his transition to a higher, more strained vocal style akin to Neil Young, which he first used on Telepathic Surgery's "Chrome Plated Suicide" and has employed ever since. In 1990 the band caught the attention of Warner Bros. Records and were signed promptly after a representative of the label witnessed a show at which the band almost burned down the venue (American Legion Hall in Norman, Oklahoma) with the use of pyrotechnics. CANNOTANSWER | Hear It Is, | The Flaming Lips are an American psychedelic rock band formed in 1983 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The band currently consists of Wayne Coyne (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Steven Drozd (guitars, keyboards, bass, vocals), Derek Brown (keyboards, guitars, percussion), Matt Duckworth Kirksey (drums, percussion, keyboards) and Nicholas Ley (percussion, drums).
The group recorded several albums and EPs on an indie label, Restless, in the 1980s and early 1990s. After signing to Warner Brothers, they released their first record with Warner, Hit to Death in the Future Head (1992). They later released The Soft Bulletin (1999), which was NME magazine's Album of the Year, and then Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002). In February 2007, they were nominated for a BRIT Award for "Best International Act". The group has won three Grammy Awards, including two for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. They were placed on Q magazines list of the "50 Bands to See Before You Die" in 2002.
History
Early history and releases (1983–1990)
The Flaming Lips formed in Oklahoma City in 1983 with Wayne Coyne on guitar, his brother Mark singing lead vocals, Michael Ivins on bass and Dave Kotska on drums. The band debuted at Oklahoma City's Blue Note Lounge. After they hired Dave Kotska as the drummer, Richard English joined the band in 1984. That same year they recorded The Flaming Lips EP, their only release with Mark singing lead vocals.
There are several theories as to how the band chose their name. One possibility is that it was inspired by the 1953 feature film Geraldine, in which comedian Stan Freberg sings several songs, including one named "Flaming Lips". Another possible source is from the 1964 film What a Way to Go! in which Shirley MacLaine's character stars in a film titled Flaming Lips. However, according to an article in the September 16, 1993 issue of Rolling Stone, Mark and Wayne came up with the name as a reference to a rumor about a classmate who contracted genital herpes after receiving cunnilingus from a partner with active cold sores. Wayne elaborated:When Mark and I were in, I think it was Junior Year in High School, there was a rumor about this girl who got herpes from this guy at a party. He went down on her with a cold sore. I don't think we knew the girl, and I'm not sure if she even existed, you know how kids just spread bullshit. But when we were thinking of band names one night over a pack of Schlitz and some left-handed cigarettes and remembered how we joked that they both had "Flaming Lips" and it just stuck.After his brother's departure, Wayne assumed the vocal duties and the band released their first full-length album, Hear It Is, on Pink Dust Records (the psychedelic-rock imprint of Enigma Records) in 1986. This line-up recorded two more albums: 1987's Oh My Gawd!!! and 1989's Telepathic Surgery, the latter originally planned to be a 30-minute sound collage.
Drummer Nathan Roberts replaced English and guitarist Jonathan Donahue (also a member of the alternative rock band Mercury Rev) joined in 1989. In a Priest Driven Ambulance, their first album with producer Dave Fridmann, was recorded at the State University of New York in Fredonia for $5 an hour on a $10,000 budget. The album was host to a marked expansion in the band's sound and their previous experiments in tape loops and effects were given a more prominent role. During this period, Coyne made his transition to a higher, more strained vocal style akin to Neil Young, which he first used on Telepathic Surgery's "Chrome Plated Suicide" and has employed ever since.
In 1990, the band caught the attention of Warner Bros. Records and was signed promptly after a label representative witnessed a show at which the band almost burned down the venue (American Legion Hall in Norman, Oklahoma) with the use of pyrotechnics.
Signed to Warner Bros. (Hit to Death in the Future Head to Clouds Taste Metallic) (1991–1996)
In 1991, the band started recording their major label debut Hit to Death in the Future Head. The album's release was halted for nearly a year because of the use of a sample from Michael Kamen's score for the film Brazil in the track "You Have to Be Joking (Autopsy of the Devil's Brain)", which required a lengthy clearance process. After the recording of this album, Donahue left the band to concentrate on Mercury Rev, and Roberts left the band as well, citing creative differences. They were replaced by Ronald Jones and Steven Drozd, respectively.
In 1993, they released Transmissions from the Satellite Heart. This was the only studio album since In a Priest Driven Ambulance, to date, in which Dave Fridmann has not been involved. Because of the success of the album and the single "She Don't Use Jelly", the band was featured on four popular television series: Beverly Hills, 90210, Late Show with David Letterman, Charmed and Beavis and Butt-head. The success of this record led to long stints of touring, opening for bands including Red Hot Chili Peppers and Candlebox.
Clouds Taste Metallic was released to much critical fanfare in late 1995, though it did not achieve the commercial success of its predecessor. The strain of the year-long Clouds tour, added to the stress from the three years touring in support of Transmissions, was a major factor in the departure of Jones in late 1996. He was said to be suffering from a severe case of agoraphobia, although the documentary Fearless Freaks states that he left because of his growing concerns over Drozd's drug use.
In September 2014, the band paid tribute to Jones and the impact his music had on their developing sound by performing Transmissions from the Satellite Heart live at First Avenue. In February 2015, they performed Clouds Taste Metallic at the same venue. Later, in December, a 20th anniversary box set called Heady Nuggs: 20 Years After Clouds Taste Metallic 1994–1997, was released.
Zaireeka (1997–1998)
The departure of Jones and a general dissatisfaction with standard "rock" music led to the three remaining members of the group redefining the direction of the band with the experimental Zaireeka (1997), a four-CD album which is intended to be heard by playing all four CDs in four separate CD players simultaneously. The music incorporated both traditional musical elements and "found" sounds (as in musique concrète), often heavily manipulated with recording studio electronics.
As part of the development of this project, the band conducted a series of "parking lot experiments" and then later, "boombox experiments". In the parking lot experiments up to 40 volunteers were given cassettes created by the band to be played at a parking lot in their cars' stereo systems simultaneously. In the "boom box experiments" an orchestra composed of up to 40 volunteers with modified "boombox"-type tape players was "conducted" – directed to vary the volume, speed or tone of the tape they were playing (again composed by the band) – by Wayne Coyne.
Meanwhile, a series of unfortunate events (recounted in the 1999 song "The Spiderbite Song") beset the band. Drozd's arm was almost amputated needlessly because of what he claimed was a spider bite (it turned out to be abscessed as a result of Drozd's heroin use), Ivins was trapped in his car for several hours after a wheel spun off of another vehicle into his windshield, and Coyne's father died after a long battle with cancer.
Mainstream breakthrough (The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots) (1999–2002)
Though their experimental endeavors received some press coverage, their real breakthrough came with the 1999 release, The Soft Bulletin. Marrying more traditional catchy melodies with synthetic strings, hypnotic, carefully manipulated beats, booming cymbals and oddball but philosophical lyrics (sung much more strongly than on earlier releases), the album quickly became one of the underground hits of the year, even widely considered to be one of the best albums of the entire decade.
Compared by many music critics to the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds because of its inclusion of harmonies and orchestrated sounds, The Soft Bulletin also featured greater use of synthesizers, drum machines, sound effects and more studio manipulation. After this album was released, Coyne stated that, "if someone was to ask me what instrument do I play, I would say the recording studio." As the band considered an attempt to recreate this complex album live solely with additional musicians to be complex and expensive, they decided to tour as a three-piece and make extensive use of pre-recorded music to fill out those parts that were not performed live by the members of the band. This led to the decision to have the drummer Drozd play primarily keyboards and guitar live instead of the drums. This, in turn, led to a decision to utilize video recordings and projections of Steven playing the drums for some of the band's older songs, so the band added Kliph Scurlock on drums and percussion, Drozd focused on guitars, keyboards, bass (when he plays bass, Ivins plays keyboards), drums and occasional vocals, when he sings, Coyne plays guitars, keyboards and theremin.
To enhance the live experience for their audience and to accurately reproduce the sound of The Soft Bulletin live, the Lips devised the concept of the "Headphone Concert". A low-powered FM transmitter was set up at shows, and the concert was simultaneously broadcast to small Walkman-style receivers and headphones made available for free to audience members. This would, in theory, allow the audiences greater sonic clarity while still feeling the power of a full live P.A. This concept was debuted in Dallas, Texas, and at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, in March 1999, and was subsequently used on the International Music Against Brain Degeneration Revue tour. This tour featured Japanese band Cornelius, Sebadoh, Robyn Hitchcock, Sonic Boom's E.A.R. and IQU.
Three years later, in the summer of 2002, the Flaming Lips joined bands Cake and Modest Mouse on the Unlimited Sunshine Tour. They also released the full-length Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots to much critical acclaim. Featuring guest musician Yoshimi P-We (who inspired the album's title track) and demonstrating more use of electronic instruments and computer manipulation than The Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi is widely considered to be the Flaming Lips' first critical and commercial success after nearly twenty years as a band. The final track on the album, "Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia)" earned a 2003 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, and the album was certified gold on April 10, 2006. In March 2007, the band revealed that they had recently teamed up with screenwriter Aaron Sorkin to produce a Broadway musical based on the album.
In January 2012, Pitchfork TV released a forty-five-minute documentary on The Soft Bulletin. The documentary featured several rare archival photos and videos along with interviews from the members, producer Dave Fridmann, and manager Scott Booker. The same year, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots was adapted into a musical after being in development for years after the album's release.
Both The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots have been released on DVD-Audio.
Following the success of "Yoshimi", Steven Drozd completed rehab for heroin addiction. This decision was spurred by a physical altercation between Drozd and Wayne Coyne.
Continued success (At War with the Mystics) (2002–2006)
Shortly after Yoshimi and The Soft Bulletin, the Flaming Lips released two EPs in the same vein of their previous album's robotic theme which contain remixed songs from Yoshimi, Fight Test and Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell. They also appeared on the track "Marching the Hate Machines (Into the Sun)" on the Thievery Corporation album The Cosmic Game. In 2002 they were invited to work with The Chemical Brothers. Steven Drozd performed lead vocals, while Wayne Coyne performed harmony vocals, on the single "The Golden Path", which was included on The Chemical Brothers compilation album, Singles 93-03.
In 2002, they performed as the opening act, as well as the backup band, for singer Beck on his Sea Change tour. In the summer of 2004, it was announced that the Flaming Lips would appear among the headliners on the 2004 Lollapalooza tour, alongside such artists as Sonic Youth and Morrissey; however, the tour was canceled because of lack of revenue. Also in 2004, the band recorded the song "SpongeBob and Patrick Confront the Psychic Wall of Energy" for the soundtrack of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. Following the concerts' cancellation, the band entered Tarbox Road Studio with producer Dave Fridmann and began work on their eleventh album, the more organic-sounding At War with the Mystics. The record, aimed to be a more guitar-based and heavier effort than recent albums, featured more politically conscious lyrics than any of their previous releases, and was released in April 2006 to a mixed yet mostly positive reception.
In 2005 the band was the subject of a documentary called Fearless Freaks, featuring appearances by other artists and celebrities such as Gibby Haynes, The White Stripes, Beck, Christina Ricci, Liz Phair, Juliette Lewis, Steve Burns, Starlight Mints, and Adam Goldberg. In that same year, the Flaming Lips contributed a version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" to the album Killer Queen: A Tribute to Queen. Also in this year, the Flaming Lips released the DVD VOID (Video Overview in Deceleration), which chronicles all of their ventures into music video that have been produced since they signed with Warner Bros in 1991. In October 2005, the Flaming Lips recorded a cover of "If I Only Had a Brain" for the soundtrack of the video game Stubbs the Zombie, which features modern rock bands covering songs from the 1950s and 1960s. Additionally, the band released one new song, "Mr. Ambulance Driver", for the soundtrack of the 2005 film Wedding Crashers (a slightly edited version of the song found its way onto the new record).
The band released two singles from At War With the Mystics: "The W.A.N.D.", which was featured in a Dell commercial and which was originally put out as a download-only single in early 2006, and "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song", which became their highest-charting single on the UK Singles Chart, peaking at No. 16. A 4-track EP, entitled It Overtakes Me, was released later in the UK that year. The only instrumental on the album, "The Wizard Turns On... The Giant Silver Flashlight and Puts on His Werewolf Moccasins", earned a 2006 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, making it twice in a row the Lips have been nominated in that category and won.
Following the April 4, 2006 release of At War with the Mystics, the band began a tour to support the album in the United Kingdom, including a finale at the Royal Albert Hall and performances at the O2 Wireless Festival. At the Leeds England date of the festival, the band opened for The Who, of whom they are long standing fans.
The band continued to tour throughout the fall of 2006 stopping in Montreal, the Virgin Festival on the Toronto Islands, Atlantic City's House of Blues, The University of Vermont in Burlington, their hometown Oklahoma City, the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas, and New York City, NY as well as several other cities. The homecoming show in Oklahoma City was performed at the Zoo Amphitheater and included the unveiling of a new UFO stage prop, and would provide footage for the U.F.O.s at the Zoo concert DVD.
On December 5, 2006, Oklahoma City honored the band with a downtown alley named after the band. Vince Gill and Charlie Christian were also given street names by the city. Flaming Lips Alley is at the center of Oklahoma City's entertainment district, Bricktown. At the official dedication in 2007, Coyne said of Oklahoma City, "...We're on the way to becoming, I think, the fucking coolest city in America."
Christmas on Mars (2008)
In 2001, the Flaming Lips began filming a low-budget indie film entitled Christmas on Mars. Filming for the movie ended in late September 2005 and premiered on May 25, 2008 at the Sasquatch! Music Festival. The film tells the story of the first Christmas of a colony set-up on the surface of Mars and was written by Wayne Coyne, and co-directed by Wayne Coyne, Bradley Beesley and George Salisbury, with the band and their friends acting in the movie.
The band brought the film to rock festivals across America during the summer of 2008 and screened it in a large circus tent they had bought for that purpose. The film was released on DVD on November 11, 2008, along with a soundtrack written and performed by the Flaming Lips.
The band released their first live concert DVD, UFO's at the Zoo: The Legendary Concert in Oklahoma City, on August 7, 2007. The band also contributed original songs to the soundtracks of several 2007 films, including "The Supreme Being Teaches Spider-Man How to be in Love" for Spider-Man 3, "I Was Zapped by the Super Lucky Rainbow" for Good Luck Chuck, "Love the World You Find" for Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, and "Maybe I'm Not the One" and "Tale of the Horny Frog" for The Heartbreak Kid.
Official rock song of Oklahoma (2009)
In March 2009 "Do You Realize??" was announced as the official rock song of Oklahoma. Ten choices were put to a public vote, and out of 21,000 votes cast nearly 51% were for "Do You Realize??" The Oklahoma Senate approved this choice unanimously. The Oklahoma House of Representatives failed to confirm the choice after Rep. Mike Reynolds, R-Oklahoma City attacked the band for its use of offensive language, and Rep. Corey Holland, R-Marlow said he had been "really offended" when Michael Ivins came to the announcement ceremony in March wearing a red T-shirt with a yellow hammer and sickle. However, that evening, Oklahoma governor Brad Henry announced he would sign an executive order naming the song the official rock song. Henry said that for more than 20 years the Flaming Lips have produced "creative, fun and provocative rock music." "The music of the Flaming Lips has earned Grammys, glowing critical acclaim and fans all over the world", the governor said. "A truly iconic rock n' roll band, they are proud ambassadors of their home state... They were clearly the people's choice, and I intend to honor that vote." However, it was revealed in 2013 that Republican Governor Mary Fallin removed this designation by not renewing Brad Henry's executive order upon taking office in 2011. An alley in Oklahoma City had been named for the band in 2006.
Embryonic and Dark Side of the Moon (2009)
In 2009, the band released their twelfth studio album and first double album, Embryonic. The album, which was the band's first to open in the Billboard top 10, was widely critically acclaimed for its new direction; late in the recording the band added Derek Brown on keyboards, percussion and guitar. In December of the same year, the band released their second album of the year and thirteenth overall, The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs with Henry Rollins and Peaches Doing The Dark Side of the Moon, a track-for-track cover of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, which was recorded with Stardeath and White Dwarfs and features guest appearances from Henry Rollins and Peaches. The album was released physically on vinyl and CD in 2010.
In 2010, the band performed "I Can Be a Frog" on the Nick Jr. television series Yo Gabba Gabba.
2011 releases
In January 2011, the Lips announced their intention of releasing a new song every month of the year. In February, they released the first track titled "Two Blobs Fucking". The song exists as 12 separate pieces on YouTube and must be played simultaneously to be heard as intended.
In March 2011, the Lips released the EP The Flaming Lips with Neon Indian.
In April, the band released the Gummy Song Skull EP, a seven-pound skull made of gummy bear material with a gummy brain, which contained a flashdrive with 4 songs on them. This release was extremely limited, but was soon leaked on the internet shortly after its release.
In May, the band released its second collaboration EP titled The Flaming Lips with Prefuse 73. It contains four songs and was released in a similar way to the earlier Neon Indian EP, in that the run was extremely limited and consisted of randomly colored, one of a kind discs. This EP was briefly available on the band's official website but sold out shortly after it was put up for sale.
June saw several releases by the band, the first being The Soft Bulletin: Live la Fantastique de Institution 2011, a live-in-studio recording of the band's 1999 album The Soft Bulletin which was on a flash drive embedded in a marijuana-flavored brain inside a strawberry flavored gummy skull. This was only released at the band's two night show at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on June 14 and 15. This show was a special two-night, one morning event in which they played the entirety of The Soft Bulletin one night and a new revamped version of The Dark Side of the Moon and collaborated with Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros for a performance of "Do You Realize??" at dawn of the second day. Also included on this flash drive was a best-of compilation titled Everyone You Know Someday Will Die. It included songs from every portion of the band's career as well as a newly recorded intro. The final June release was the Gummy Song Fetus EP which consisted of three songs on a flash drive embedded in a bubblegum-flavored fetus made of gummy bear material.
In July, the band released The Flaming Lips with Lightning Bolt, a collaborative EP with experimental rock group Lightning Bolt, featuring the songs "I Wanna Get High But I Don't Want Brain Damage" and "Working at NASA on Acid". This EP was released on randomly colored vinyl as with the previous two collaborative EPs.
In late August, the band announced that it would be recording a six-hour-long song titled "I Found a Star on the Ground". This, along with two other songs, was released in September packaged with a set of spinning discs with animations on them. This release is officially called Strobo Trip. Featured in "I Found a Star on the Ground" is Sean Lennon who, with his band, opened for the Lips in early 2011. In the song Lennon reads off several lists of names of people who donated $100 to the Oklahoma City SPCA and Academy of Contemporary Music at University of Central Oklahoma. 212 names are featured in the song.
At midnight October 31, 2011, a 24-hour song was released titled "7 Skies H3". The song played live on a never-ending audio stream on a special website set up by the band and was made available for purchase as a hard drive encased in an actual human skull, limited to 13 copies.
The band's last release of 2011 was a 12" EP collaboration, The Flaming Lips with Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, sold only at the band's annual New Years shows in Oklahoma City.
Heady Fwends, Guinness World Record and other collaborations (2012)
With their previous contract with Warner Bros. Records having expired in 2011, the band re-signed to Warner Bros. for the United States and to Bella Union in Europe in early 2012. The first release under these new deals was The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends, initially released as a limited edition vinyl-only package for Record Store Day on April 21. The album features collaborations with artists such as Kesha, Nick Cave, and Erykah Badu. In an interview with American Songwriter, Coyne stated that "Since we were releasing music every month, we thought it would be a little bit boring for us each month to say 'Well here's four more Flaming Lips songs.' We just thought 'Well we'll get some of our friends, and we'll do collaborations and see what happens.'" The album later received a wider release on CD and digitally on June 26 in the US and July 30 in Europe.
The Flaming Lips broke Jay-Z's Guinness World Record for the most live concerts (8) in 24 hours, on June 27 and 28, 2012. The attempt was part of the O Music Awards, and was Livestreamed online for the entire 24 hours. The attempt started in Memphis on the afternoon of June 27 and ended in New Orleans on the afternoon of June 28, with 20 minutes to spare. The band played with guests including Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Neon Indian, Linear Downfall and Phantogram and HOTT MT, among others.
The concerts, which were required to be at least 15 minutes long, as per Guinness rules, featured a mix of special covers, songs rarely or never performed live by the band before, and new songs from Heady Fwends.
In November 2012 the band's Lovely Sorts of Death Records released a collaborative track-by-track reinterpretation of King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King with Stardeath and White Dwarfs, Linear Downfall, New Fumes, and Space Face entitled Playing Hide and Seek with the Ghosts of Dawn on vinyl and on their own 'Satellite Heart Radio' website.
They also worked on Kesha's Warrior album (on "Past Lives") and Lipsha. She also featured on their collaborative albums.
The Terror (2013–2014)
The band's next studio album, titled The Terror, was originally due for release on April 2, 2013 in the US and on April 1 in Europe, the tour began with a new member: keyboardist and guitarist Jake Ingalls, Derek Brown focused on percussion and additional guitars and keyboards. Because of a corruption while mastering the record on vinyl, the US release was delayed for two weeks, until April 16.
In anticipation of the album's release, their song, "Sun Blows Up Today", was featured in a Hyundai Super Bowl XLVII commercial. The band also released a lyric video on for "Sun Blows Up Today" with animations created by long-time Lips collaborator George Salisbury. The band premiered the new album live at a free outdoor concert at SXSW on March 15, 2013.
Critical reception of the album has tended to focus on its thematic bleakness and the turgid noisiness of its instrumentation. Like the three albums often referred to as "a trilogy" accounting for the majority of the band's mainstream production over the past 15 years (consisting of The Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, and At War With the Mystics), The Terror adheres to the love story/space opera narrative structure while taking a much darker approach. As noted in a review by Pitchfork, "The Terror deals in more personal turmoil– loneliness, depression, anxiety... Perhaps not coincidentally, the album was preceded by news of Coyne's separation from his partner of 25 years, Michelle, and of multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd relapsing temporarily."
Jon Pareles of The New York Times summarized the thematic content of the album fairly succinctly when he wrote, "The lyrics [of 'The Terror'] find cosmic repercussions in a lovers' breakup; loneliness turns to contemplation of grim human compulsions and the end of the universe." Another critic goes so far as to say that the album underlines the Lacanian psychodynamics structurally inherent in the conventions of the space opera.
Wayne Coyne's own description of his process or the theme of the album jibes well with this critical diagnosis:
"We want, or wanted, to believe that without love we would disappear, that love, somehow, would save us that, yeah, if we have love, give love and know love, we are truly alive and if there is no love, there would be no life. The Terror is, we know now, that even without love, life goes on... we just go on... there is no mercy killing."
In November 2013 they produced and curated "The Time Has Come To Shoot You Down…What A Sound," a reworking of the Stone Roses' debut album featuring New Fumes, Spaceface, Stardeath and White Dwarfs, Foxygen, Peaking Lights, Poliça and others.
In March 2014, longtime drummer and percussionist Kliph Scurlock left the band, and was replaced by drummer, percussionist and keyboardist Matt Duckworth Kirksey and percussionist and drummer Nicholas Ley. Derek Brown began focusing on guitars, and occasional keyboards and percussion. In May, Scurlock claimed he had been fired for negative comments about Wayne Coyne's friend Christina Fallin, the daughter of Oklahoma's governor and leader of a band called Pink Pony. Fallin had recently been criticized for cultural appropriation after she wore a Native American headdress in a publicity photo. According to Scurlock, his criticism of Fallin's actions led to conflict with Coyne and his dismissal. In response, Drozd said, "[t]his Lips/Kliph bullshit has gone too far. We parted ways because of the usual band musical differences. The rest has been blown way out." Coyne went even further, calling Scurlock a "pathological liar" and stated that he never meant his defense of Fallin, which included posting a photo of his dog in a feathered headdress, to be offensive but that he was "very sorry, to anybody that is following my Instagram or my Twitter, if I offended anybody of any religion, any race, any belief system. I would say you shouldn't follow my tweets; you shouldn't even probably want to be a Flaming Lips fan because we don't really have any agenda."
Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz (2015)
On August 30, 2015, after hosting the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards, Miley Cyrus announced that Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz, the free, 23-track experimental album that Cyrus and the Flaming Lips wrote and recorded together, was available via online streaming. The album is described by Coyne as a combination of Pink Floyd and Portishead and "a slightly wiser, sadder, more true version" of Cyrus' pop music output.
Oczy Mlody, King's Mouth, and American Head (2016–present)
According to the Tarbox Roads Studio's website, the Flaming Lips began recording a new album with Dave Fridmann on January 27, 2016.
In a June interview with Danish music blog Regnsky, Wayne Coyne said that a new album would come out in January 2017, even though they had originally planned for it to be released in October 2016. Wayne Coyne later confirmed in a September interview with Consequence of Sound, that they would release a new album at the beginning of 2017. On October 20, the band confirmed the January 2017 release date for the album. The band embarked on a tour in support that was described as "rock's greatest acid punch party" with "balloons, confetti cannons and rainbow visuals". On January 13, 2017 the fourteenth Flaming Lips album Oczy Mlody was released, and featured a guest appearance by Miley Cyrus. The album charted in both the UK and US.
On Record Store Day, April 22, 2017, the Flaming Lips released Onboard the International Space Station Concert for Peace, a re-recording of seven tracks from Oczy Mlody in a faux live setting.
The band's next studio album, King's Mouth, was released on April 13, 2019 for Record Store Day. Mick Jones of The Clash and Big Audio Dynamite narrates the album; Wayne Coyne said of Jones that "he’s on almost every song... it really is quite unbelievable."
In late 2019, Coyne and Drozd collaborated with garage rock duo Deap Vally to form a new band, Deap Lips. The project's self-titled debut album was released on March 13, 2020.
On March 23, 2020, Drozd announced that the band's sixteenth studio album, American Head, is due for release in the summer. The band officially announced the album's release date as September 11, 2020, along with the single "My Religion Is You" on June 6, 2020.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the band performed a concert in their hometown of Oklahoma City on October 12, 2020, while entirely encased within inflatable human-sized bubbles. Audience members were also protected by plastic bubbles. They performed in this fashion on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and again in 2021.
On August 16, 2021, Ingalls announced on his Instagram page that he left the band on amicable terms. Also in August, Coyne commented on his Instagram that Ivins was no longer in the band, leaving Coyne as the only original member. Micah Nelson has been on bass for recent live performances.
In November 2021, the band released an album of nine Nick Cave cover songs with the young Canadian musician Nell Smith. Smith and The Lips recorded the album remotely during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown.
Members
Current members
Wayne Coyne – lead vocals (1985–present), guitars, keyboards, theremin (1983–present), backing vocals (1983–1985, 1991–present), bass guitar (2021–present)
Steven Drozd – guitars, keyboards, bass, drums, backing and lead vocals (1991–present)
Derek Brown – keyboards, guitars, percussion, backing vocals (2009–present)
Matt Duckworth Kirksey – drums, percussion, keyboards, backing vocals (2014–present)
Nicholas Ley – percussion, drums, samples (2014–present)
Current touring musicians
Micah Nelson – bass, keyboards, backing vocals (2021–present)
Former members
Mark Coyne – lead vocals (1983–1985)
Dave Kostka – drums (1983–1984)
Richard English – drums, keyboards, backing vocals (1984–1989)
Nathan Roberts – drums (1989–1991)
Jonathan Donahue – guitars, backing vocals (1989–1991)
Jon Mooneyham – guitars, backing vocals (1991)
Ronald Jones – guitars, backing vocals (1991–1996)
Kliph Scurlock – drums, percussion (2002–2014)
Jake Ingalls – keyboards, guitars (2013–2021)
Michael Ivins – bass, keyboards, backing vocals (1983–2021)
Former touring musicians
Ray Suen – percussion, violin, harp, keyboards (2009–2012)
Timeline
Selected discography
Studio albums
Hear It Is (1986)
Oh My Gawd!!! (1987)
Telepathic Surgery (1989)
In a Priest Driven Ambulance (1990)
Hit to Death in the Future Head (1992)
Transmissions from the Satellite Heart (1993)
Clouds Taste Metallic (1995)
Zaireeka (1997)
The Soft Bulletin (1999)
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)
At War with the Mystics (2006)
Embryonic (2009)
The Terror (2013)
Oczy Mlody (2017)
King's Mouth (2019)
American Head (2020)
Extended plays
The Flaming Lips (1984)
Gummy Song Skull (2011)
Gummy Song Fetus (2011)
Strobo Trip (2011)
24 Hour Song Skull (2011)
Peace Sword (2013)
Collaborative albums
The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs with Henry Rollins and Peaches Doing The Dark Side of the Moon (2009)
The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends (2012)
Playing Hide and Seek with the Ghosts of Dawn (2012)
The Time Has Come to Shoot You Down... What a Sound (2013)
With a Little Help from My Fwends (2014)
Deap Lips (2020)
Where the Viaduct Looms (2021)
Soundtracks/Miscellaneous
The Southern Oklahoma Cosmic Trigger Contest (2001)
Atlas Eets Christmas (2007)
Once Beyond Hopelessness (2008)
Awards and nominations
The Flaming Lips won their first Grammy Award in 2003, for their track "Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia)". To date, the band has been nominated for six Grammy Awards, and won three times.
References
External links
1983 establishments in Oklahoma
Alternative rock groups from Oklahoma
American experimental rock groups
American psychedelic rock music groups
Grammy Award winners
Indie rock musical groups from Oklahoma
Musical groups established in 1983
Musical groups from Oklahoma
Neo-psychedelia groups
Noise pop musical groups
Psychedelic pop music groups
Space rock musical groups
Warner Records artists
Bella Union artists
Restless Records artists | true | [
"\"What a Night\" is a song performed by British band, Loveable Rogues. It was their debut single and was intended to feature on a debut album. The single was released in Ireland and the United Kingdom on 19 April 2013. The band were dropped from Syco in October 2013, but the single was featured on their debut album This and That, released in 2014 on Super Duper Records.\n\nBackground\nLoveable Rogues first announced that they're signed to Syco on June, 2012. In late 2012, the band released a free mixtape through their Soundcloud channel. The collection of songs was released as a free download and was called 'First Things First'. \"What A Night\" was previewed along with new songs such as \"Maybe Baby\", \"Talking Monkeys\" and \"Honest\".\n\nMusic video\n\nTwo teaser videos were released before the music video. The first teaser video was uploaded to their Vevo channel on 11 February 2013. The second teaser released two days after or a week before the music video released; on 19 February 2013, the music video was uploaded to their Vevo channel.\nThe video features the band having a night party with their friends.\n\nChart performance\n\"What a Night\" debuted on the UK Singles Chart at number 9 on 27 April 2013 after debuting at number 5 on the UK Singles Chart Update.\n\nTrack listing\nDigital download\n What a Night - 2:50\n Nuthouse - 3:58\n What a Night (feat. Lucky Mason) Sonny J Mason Remix] - 3:41\n What a Night (Supasound Radio Remix) - 2:42\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2013 debut singles\n2013 songs\nSyco Music singles\nSong recordings produced by Red Triangle (production team)\nSongs written by Rick Parkhouse\nSongs written by George Tizzard",
"What the Future Holds Pt. 2 is the seventh studio album by the British group Steps. The album was released on 10 September 2021 by BMG Rights Management.\n\nBackground\nIn April 2021, Steps announced what was intended to be a deluxe edition of What the Future Holds would now be released as their seventh studio album, What the Future Holds Pt.2. Claire Richards said of the new record, \"we see What the Future Holds Pt. 2 as the perfect companion piece to the original album. The new record is classic Steps but also explores some brand-new sounds.\"\n\nSingles\nThe first single was confirmed as \"Heartbreak in This City\" remix featuring singer and television personality Michelle Visage. It debuted on BBC Radio 2 on 25 February, and made available to stream/download that same day. The single debuted at number 25 on the Official Singles Sales Chart.\n\n\"Take Me for a Ride\" was released on 29 July 2021 as the album's second single. \n\nA cover of \"The Slightest Touch\" was released on 20 August 2021 as the album's third single.\n\nIn November 2021 and during opening night of the arena tour, Lee Latchford-Evans confirmed \"A Hundred Years of Winter\" was the next single. It was released on 19 November 2021.\n\nCommercial performance\nWhat the Future Holds Pt. 2 debuted at number 2 in the UK Albums Charts with 25,000 units sold, only 2,000 copies behind Manic Street Preachers' The Ultra Vivid Lament. This was the second time the two groups competed for number-one position, after their albums This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours and Step One also charted at number 1 and 2, respectively, way back in 1998. This marks Steps' third consecutive number 2 studio album since their reunion in 2012, next to Tears on the Dancefloor and What the Future Holds Pt. 1. \n\nIn Australia, the album debuted at number 11, Steps' highest peak in the country in 23 years, since their debut album Step One peaked at number 5 in 1998.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\n2021 albums\nSteps (group) albums\nPop albums by British artists"
] |
[
"John J. Pershing",
"Early career"
] | C_52af268bf5df41a7a9293e2ca9345335_1 | What was Pershings first job | 1 | What was John J. Pershing's first job? | John J. Pershing | Pershing reported for active duty on September 30, 1886, and was assigned to Troop L of the 6th U.S. Cavalry stationed at Fort Bayard, in the New Mexico Territory. While serving in the 6th Cavalry, Pershing participated in several Indian campaigns and was cited for bravery for actions against the Apache. During his time at Fort Stanton, Pershing and close friends Lt. Julius Penn and Lt. Richard B. Paddock were nicknamed "The Three Green P's," spending their leisure time hunting and attending Hispanic dances. Pershing's sister Grace married Paddock in 1890. Between 1887 and 1890, Pershing served with the 6th Cavalry at various postings in California, Arizona, and North Dakota. He also became an expert marksman and, in 1891, was rated second in pistol and fifth in rifle out of all soldiers in the U.S. Army. On December 9, 1890, Pershing and the 6th Cavalry arrived at Sioux City, Iowa, where Pershing played a role in suppressing the last uprisings of the Lakota (Sioux) Indians. Though he and his unit did not participate in the Wounded Knee Massacre, they did fight three days after it on January 1, 1891 when Sioux warriors attacked the 6th Cavalry's supply wagons. When the Sioux began firing at the wagons, Pershing and his troops heard the shots, and rode more than six miles to the location of the attack. The cavalry fired at the forces of Chief War Eagle, causing them to retreat. This would be the only occasion where Pershing would see action in the Ghost Dance campaign. In September 1891 he was assigned as the Professor of Military Science and Tactics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a position he held until 1895. While carrying out this assignment, Pershing attended the university's College of Law, from which he received his LL.B. degree in 1893. He formed a drill company of chosen university cadets, Company A. In March 1892, it won the Maiden Prize competition of the National Competitive Drills in Omaha, Nebraska. The Citizens of Omaha presented the company with a large silver cup, the "Omaha Cup." On October 2, 1894, former members of Company A established a fraternal military drill organization named the Varsity Rifles. The group renamed itself the Pershing Rifles in 1895 in honor of its mentor and patron. Pershing maintained a close relationship with Pershing Rifles for the remainder of his life. On October 20, 1892, Pershing was promoted to first lieutenant and in 1895 took command of a troop of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, one of the original Buffalo Soldier regiments composed of African-American soldiers under white officers. From Fort Assinniboine in north central Montana, he commanded an expedition to the south and southwest that rounded up and deported a large number of Cree Indians to Canada. CANNOTANSWER | Troop L of the 6th U.S. Cavalry stationed at Fort Bayard, in the New Mexico Territory. | General of the Armies John Joseph Pershing (September 13, 1860 – July 15, 1948), nicknamed "Black Jack", was a senior United States Army officer. He served most famously as the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) on the Western Front during World War I, from 1917 to 1918. In addition to leading the AEF to victory in World War I, Pershing notably served as a mentor to many in the generation of generals who led the United States Army during World War II, including George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, Lesley J. McNair, George S. Patton and Douglas MacArthur.
During his command in World War I, Pershing rejected British and French demands that American forces be integrated with their armies, essentially as replacement units, and insisted that the AEF would operate as a single unit under his command, although some American divisions fought under British command, notably in the Battle of Hamel and the breaching of the Hindenburg Line at St Quentin Canal, precipitating the final German collapse. Pershing also allowed (at that time segregated) American all-Black units to be integrated with the French Army.
Pershing's soldiers first saw serious battle at Cantigny, Chateau-Thierry, Belleau Wood June 1–26, 1918, and Soissons on July 18–22, 1918. To speed up the arrival of American troops, they embarked for France leaving heavy equipment behind, and used British and French tanks, artillery, airplanes and other munitions. In September 1918 at St. Mihiel, the First Army was directly under Pershing's command; it overwhelmed the salient – the encroachment into Allied territory – that the German Army had held for three years. For the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, Pershing shifted roughly 600,000 American soldiers to the heavily defended forests of the Argonne, keeping his divisions engaged in hard fighting for 47 days, alongside the French. The Allied Hundred Days Offensive, which the Argonne fighting was part of, contributed to Germany calling for an armistice. Pershing was of the opinion that the war should continue and that all of Germany should be occupied in an effort to permanently destroy German militarism.
Pershing is the only American to be promoted in his own lifetime to General of the Armies, the highest possible rank in the United States Army. Allowed to select his own insignia, Pershing chose to continue using four stars. After the creation of the five-star General of the Army rank during World War II, his rank of General of the Armies could unofficially be considered that of a six-star general, but he died before the proposed insignia could be considered and acted upon by Congress.
Some of his tactics have been criticized both by other commanders at the time and by modern historians. His reliance on costly frontal assaults, long after other Allied armies had abandoned such tactics, has been blamed for causing unnecessarily high American casualties. Pershing was also criticized by some historians for his actions on the day of armistice as the commander of the American Expeditionary Force. Pershing did not approve of the armistice, and despite knowing of the imminent ceasefire, he did not tell his commanders to suspend any new offensive actions or assaults in the final few hours of the war. In total, there were over 11,000 casualties, dead, missing, or injured during the final day of the war on November 11, which exceeded even D-Day casualty counts seen later in 1944. Of those, 3,500 were American casualties directly attributable to Pershing's actions. Pershing was later questioned by Congress as to why there were so many American casualties on the final day of the war.
Early life
Pershing was born on a farm near Laclede, Missouri on September 13, 1860, the son of farmer and store owner John Fletcher Pershing and homemaker Ann Elizabeth Thompson. Pershing's great-great-grandfather, Frederick Pershing, whose name originally was Pfersching, emigrated from Alsace, leaving Amsterdam on the ship Jacob, and arriving in Philadelphia on October 2, 1749. He had five siblings who lived to adulthood: brothers James F. (1862–1933) and Ward (1874–1909), and sisters Mary Elizabeth (1864–1928), Anna May (1867–1955) and Grace (1867–1903); three other children died in infancy. When the Civil War began, his father supported the Union and was a sutler for the 18th Missouri Volunteer Infantry; he died on March 16, 1906. Pershing's mother died during his initial assignment in the American West.
Pershing attended a school in Laclede that was reserved for precocious students who were also the children of prominent citizens, and he later attended Laclede's one-room schoolhouse. After completing high school in 1878, he became a teacher of local African American children. While pursuing his teaching career, Pershing also studied at the State Normal School (now Truman State University) in Kirksville, Missouri, from which he graduated in 1880 with a Bachelor of Science degree in scientific didactics. Two years later, he applied to the United States Military Academy. Pershing later admitted that serving in the military was secondary to attending West Point, and he had applied because the education offered was free and it was better than what he could obtain in rural Missouri.
West Point years
Pershing was sworn in as a West Point cadet in the fall of 1882. He was selected early for leadership positions and became successively First Corporal, First Sergeant, First Lieutenant, and First Captain, the highest possible cadet rank. Pershing also commanded, ex officio, the honor guard that saluted the funeral train of President Ulysses S. Grant as it passed West Point in August 1885.
Pershing graduated in the summer of 1886 ranked 30th in his class of 77, and was commissioned a second lieutenant; he was commended by the West Point Superintendent, General Wesley Merritt, who said Pershing gave early promise of becoming an outstanding officer. Pershing briefly considered petitioning the Army to let him study law and delay the start of his mandatory military service. He also considered joining several classmates in a partnership that would pursue development of an irrigation project in Oregon. He ultimately decided against both courses of action in favor of active Army duty.
Early career
Pershing reported for active duty on September 30, 1886, and was assigned to Troop L of the 6th U.S. Cavalry stationed at Fort Bayard, in the New Mexico Territory. While serving in the 6th Cavalry, Pershing participated in several Indian campaigns and was cited for bravery for actions against the Apache. During his time at Fort Stanton, Pershing and close friends Lt. Julius A. Penn and Lt. Richard B. Paddock were nicknamed "The Three Green P's," spending their leisure time hunting and attending Hispanic dances. Pershing's sister Grace married Paddock in 1890.
Between 1887 and 1890, Pershing served with the 6th Cavalry at various postings in California, Arizona, and North Dakota. He also became an expert marksman and, in 1891, was rated second in pistol and fifth in rifle out of all soldiers in the U.S. Army.
On December 9, 1890, Pershing and the 6th Cavalry arrived at Sioux City, Iowa, where Pershing played a role in suppressing the last uprisings of the Lakota (Sioux) Indians. Though he and his unit did not participate in the Wounded Knee Massacre, they did fight three days after it on January 1, 1891, when Sioux warriors attacked the 6th Cavalry's supply wagons. When the Sioux began firing at the wagons, Pershing and his troops heard the shots, and rode more than six miles to the location of the attack. The cavalry fired at the forces of Chief War Eagle, causing them to retreat. This was the only occasion on which Pershing saw action during the Ghost Dance campaign.
In September 1891, he was assigned as the professor of military science and tactics at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, a position he held until 1895. While carrying out this assignment, Pershing attended the university's College of Law, from which he received his LL.B. degree in 1893. He formed a drill company of chosen university cadets, Company A. In March 1892, it won the Maiden Prize competition of the National Competitive Drills in Omaha, Nebraska. The Citizens of Omaha presented the company with a large silver cup, the "Omaha Cup". On October 2, 1894, former members of Company A established a fraternal military drill organization named the Varsity Rifles. The group renamed itself the Pershing Rifles in 1895 in honor of its mentor and patron. Pershing maintained a close relationship with Pershing Rifles for the remainder of his life.
On October 20, 1892, Pershing was promoted to first lieutenant and in 1895 took command of a troop of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, one of the original Buffalo Soldier regiments composed of African-American soldiers under white officers. From Fort Assinniboine in north central Montana, he commanded an expedition to the south and southwest that rounded up and deported a large number of Cree Indians to Canada.
West Point instructor
In 1897, Pershing was appointed to the West Point tactical staff as an instructor, where he was assigned to Cadet Company A. Because of his strictness and rigidity, Pershing was unpopular with the cadets, who took to calling him "Nigger Jack" because of his service with the 10th Cavalry.
During the course of his tour at the Academy, this epithet softened to "Black Jack," although, according to Vandiver, "the intent remained hostile." Still, this nickname would stick with Pershing for the rest of his life, and was known to the public as early as 1917.
Spanish– and Philippine–American wars
At the start of the Spanish–American War, First Lieutenant Pershing was the regimental quartermaster for the 10th Cavalry; he fought on Kettle and San Juan Hills in Cuba, and was cited for gallantry. In 1919, he was awarded the Silver Citation Star for these actions, and in 1932 the award was upgraded to the Silver Star decoration. A commanding officer here commented on Pershing's calm demeanor under fire, saying he was "cool as a bowl of cracked ice." Pershing also served with the 10th Cavalry during the siege and surrender of Santiago de Cuba.
Pershing was commissioned as a major of United States Volunteers on August 26, 1898, and assigned as an ordnance officer. In March 1899, after suffering from malaria, Pershing was put in charge of the Office of Customs and Insular Affairs which oversaw occupation forces in territories gained in the Spanish–American War, including Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. He was honorably discharged from the volunteers and reverted to his permanent rank of first lieutenant on May 12, 1899. He was again commissioned as a major of Volunteers on June 6, 1899, this time as an assistant adjutant general.
When the Philippine–American War began, Pershing reported to Manila on August 17, 1899, was assigned to the Department of Mindanao and Jolo, and commanded efforts to suppress the Filipino Insurrection. On November 27, 1900, Pershing was appointed adjutant general of his department and served in this posting until March 1, 1901. He was cited for bravery for actions on the Cagayan River while attempting to destroy a Philippine stronghold at Macajambo.
Pershing wrote in his autobiography that "The bodies [of some Moro outlaws] were publicly buried in the same grave with a dead pig." This treatment was used against captured juramentado so that the superstitious Moro would believe they would be going to hell. Pershing added that "it was not pleasant [for the Army] to have to take such measures". Historians do not believe that Pershing was directly involved with such incidents, or that he personally gave such orders to his subordinates. Letters and memoirs from soldiers describing events similar to this do not have credible evidence of Pershing having been personally involved.
On June 30, 1901, Pershing was honorably discharged from the Volunteers and he reverted to the rank of captain in the Regular Army to which he had been promoted on February 2, 1901. He served with the 1st Cavalry Regiment in the Philippines. He later was assigned to the 15th Cavalry Regiment, serving as an intelligence officer and participating in actions against the Moros. He was cited for bravery at Lake Lanao. In June 1901, he served as Commander of Camp Vicars in Lanao, Philippines, after the previous camp commander had been promoted to brigadier general.
Rise to general
In June 1903, Pershing was ordered to return to the United States. President Theodore Roosevelt, taken by Pershing's ability, petitioned the Army General Staff to promote Pershing to colonel. At the time, Army officer promotions were based primarily on seniority rather than merit, and although there was widespread acknowledgment that Pershing should serve as a colonel, the Army General Staff declined to change their seniority-based promotion tradition just to accommodate Pershing. They would not consider a promotion to lieutenant colonel or even major. This angered Roosevelt, but since the President could only name and promote army officers in the general's ranks, his options for recognizing Pershing through promotion were limited.
In 1904, Pershing was assigned as the Assistant Chief of Staff of the Southwest Army Division stationed at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In October 1904, he attended the Army War College, and then was ordered to Washington, D.C. for "general duties unassigned."
Since Roosevelt could not yet promote Pershing, he petitioned the United States Congress to authorize a diplomatic posting, and Pershing was stationed as military attaché in Tokyo in 1905. Also in 1905, Pershing married Helen Frances Warren, the daughter of powerful U.S. Senator Francis E. Warren, a Wyoming Republican who served at different times as chairman of the Military Affairs and Appropriations Committees. This union with the daughter of a powerful politician who had also received the Medal of Honor during the American Civil War continued to aid Pershing's career even after his wife died in 1915.
After serving as an observer in the Russo-Japanese War attached to General Kuroki Tamemoto's Japanese First Army in Manchuria from March to September, Pershing returned to the United States in the fall of 1905. President Roosevelt employed his presidential prerogative and nominated Pershing as a brigadier general, a move which Congress approved. In skipping three ranks and more than 835 officers senior to him, the promotion gave rise to accusations that Pershing's appointment was the result of political connections and not military abilities. However, several other junior officers were similarly advanced to brigadier general ahead of their peers and seniors, including Albert L. Mills (captain), Tasker H. Bliss (major), and Leonard Wood (captain). Pershing's promotion, while unusual, was not unprecedented, and had the support of many soldiers who admired his abilities.
In 1908, Pershing briefly served as a U.S. military observer in the Balkans, an assignment which was based in Paris. Upon returning to the United States at the end of 1909, Pershing was assigned once again to the Philippines, an assignment in which he served until 1913. While in the Philippines, he served as Commander of Fort McKinley, near Manila, and also was the governor of the Moro Province. The last of Pershing's four children was born in the Philippines, and during this time he became an Episcopalian.
In 1913, Pershing was recommended for the Medal of Honor following his actions at the Battle of Bud Bagsak. He wrote to the Adjutant General to request that the recommendation not be acted on, though the board which considered the recommendation had already voted no before receiving Pershing's letter. In 1922 a further review of this event resulted in Pershing being recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross, but as the Army Chief of Staff Pershing disapproved the action. In 1940 Pershing received the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroism at Bud Bagsak, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt presenting it in a ceremony timed to coincide with Pershing's 80th birthday.
During this period Pershing's reputation for both stern discipline and effective leadership continued to grow, with one experienced old soldier under his command later saying Pershing was an "S.O.B." and that he hated Pershing's guts, but that "as a soldier, the ones then and the ones now couldn't polish his (Pershing's) boots."
Pancho Villa and Mexico
On December 20, 1913, Pershing received orders to take command of the 8th Brigade at the Presidio in San Francisco. With tensions running high on the border between the United States and Mexico because of the Mexican Revolution, the brigade was deployed to Fort Bliss, Texas, on April 24, 1914, arriving there on the 27th.
Death of wife Helen and daughters
After a year at Fort Bliss, Pershing decided to take his family there. The arrangements were almost complete, when on the morning of August 27, 1915, he received a telegram informing him of a fire in the Presidio in San Francisco, where a lacquered floor caught fire and the flames rapidly spread, resulting in the smoke inhalation deaths of his wife, Helen Frances Warren, and three young daughters, Mary, age 3, Anne, age 7, and Helen, age 8. Only his 6-year-old son, Francis Warren, survived. After the funerals at Lakeview Cemetery in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Pershing returned to Fort Bliss with his son, Francis, and his sister May and resumed his duties as commanding officer.
Commander of Villa expedition
On March 15, 1916, Pershing led an expedition into Mexico to capture Pancho Villa. This expedition was ill-equipped and hampered by a lack of supplies due to the breakdown of the Quartermaster Corps. Although there had been talk of war on the border for years, no steps had been taken to provide for the handling of supplies for an expedition. Despite this and other hindrances, such as the lack of aid from the former Mexican government, and their refusal to allow American troops to transport troops and supplies over their railroads, Pershing organized and commanded the Mexican Punitive Expedition, a combined armed force of 10,000 men that penetrated into chaotic Mexico. They routed Villa's revolutionaries, but failed to capture him.
World War I
At the start of the United States' involvement in World War I President Woodrow Wilson considered mobilizing an army to join the fight. Frederick Funston, Pershing's superior in Mexico, was being considered for the top billet as the Commander of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) when he died suddenly from a heart attack on February 19, 1917. Pershing was the most likely candidate other than Funston, and following America's entrance into the war in May, Wilson briefly interviewed Pershing, and then selected him for the command. He was officially installed in the position on May 10, 1917, and held the post until 1918. On October 6, 1917, Pershing, then a major general, was promoted to full general in the National Army. He bypassed the three star rank of lieutenant general, and was the first full general since Philip Sheridan in 1888.
As AEF commander, Pershing was responsible for the organization, training, and supply of a combined professional and draft Army and National Guard force that eventually grew from 27,000 inexperienced men to two field armies, with a third forming as the war ended, totaling over two million soldiers. Pershing was keenly aware of logistics, and worked closely with AEF's Services of Supply (SOS). The new agency performed poorly under generals Richard M. Blatchford and Francis Joseph Kernan; finally in 1918 James Harbord took control and got the job done. Pershing also worked with Colonel Charles G. Dawes to establish an Interallied coordination Board, the Military Board of Allied Supply.
Pershing exercised significant control over his command, with a full delegation of authority from Wilson and Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. Baker, cognizant of the endless problems of domestic and allied political involvement in military decision making in wartime, gave Pershing unmatched authority to run his command as he saw fit. In turn, Pershing exercised his prerogative carefully, not engaging in politics or disputes over government policy that might distract him from his military mission. While earlier a champion of the African-American soldier, he did not advocate their full participation on the battlefield, understanding the general racial attitudes of white Americans.
George C. Marshall served as one of Pershing's top assistants during and after the war. Pershing's initial chief of staff was James Harbord, who later took a combat command but worked as Pershing's closest assistant for many years and remained extremely loyal to him.
After departing from Fort Jay at Governors Island in New York Harbor under top secrecy on May 28, 1917, aboard the RMS Baltic, Pershing arrived in France in June 1917. In a show of American presence, part of the 16th Infantry Regiment marched through Paris shortly after his arrival. Pausing at the tomb of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, he was reputed to have uttered the famous line "Lafayette, we are here," a line spoken, in fact, by his aide, Colonel Charles E. Stanton. American forces were deployed in France in the autumn of 1917.
In September 1917, the French government commissioned a portrait of Pershing by 23-year-old Romanian artist Micheline Resco. Pershing removed the stars and flag from his car and sat up front with his chauffeur while traveling from his AEF headquarters to visit her by night in her apartment on the rue Descombes. Their friendship continued for the rest of his life. In 1946, at 85, Pershing secretly wed Resco in his Walter Reed Hospital apartment. Resco was 35 years his junior
Battle of Hamel
For the first time in American history, Pershing allowed American soldiers to be under the command of a foreign power. In late June, General Henry Rawlinson, commanding the British Fourth Army, suggested to Australian Lieutenant General John Monash that American involvement in a set-piece attack alongside the experienced Australians in the upcoming Battle of Hamel would both give the American troops experience and also strengthen the Australian battalions by an additional company each. On June 29, General Bell, commanding the American 33rd Division, selected two companies each from the 131st and 132nd Infantry regiments of the 66th brigade. Monash had been promised ten companies of American troops and on June 30 the remaining companies of the 1st and 2nd battalions of the 131st regiment were sent. Each American platoon was attached to a First Australian Imperial Force company, but there was difficulty in integrating the American platoons (which numbered 60 men) among the Australian companies of 100 men. This difficulty was overcome by reducing the size of each American platoon by one-fifth and sending the troops thus removed, which numbered 50 officers and men, back to battalion reinforcement camps.
The day before the attack was scheduled to commence, Pershing learned of the plan and ordered the withdrawal of six American companies. While a few Americans, such as those attached to the 42nd Battalion, disobeyed the order, the majority, although disappointed, moved back to the rear. This meant that battalions had to rearrange their attack formations and caused a serious reduction in the size of the Allied force. For example, the 11th Brigade was now attacking with 2,200 men instead of 3,000. There was a further last-minute call for the removal of all American troops from the attack, but Monash, who had chosen 4 July as the date of the attack out of "deference" to the US troops, protested to Rawlinson and received support from Field Marshal Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force. The four American companies that had joined the Australians during the assault were withdrawn from the line after the battle and returned to their regiments, having gained valuable experience. Monash sent Bell his personal thanks, praising the Americans' gallantry, while Pershing set out explicit instructions to ensure that US troops would not be employed in a similar manner again (except as described below).
African-American units
Under civilian control of the military, Pershing adhered to the racial policies of President Woodrow Wilson, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, and southern Democrats who promoted the "separate but equal" doctrine. African-American "Buffalo Soldiers" units were not allowed to participate with the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) during World War I, but experienced non-commissioned officers were provided to other segregated black units for combat servicesuch as the 317th Engineer Battalion. The American Buffalo Soldiers of the 92nd and 93rd Infantry Divisions were the first American soldiers to fight in France in 1918, but they did so under French command as Pershing had detached them from the AEF to get them into action. Most regiments of the 92nd and all of the 93rd would continue to fight under French command for the duration of the war.
Full American participation
Organization
When General Pershing met General Pétain at Compiègne at 10:45pm on the evening of March 25, 1918, Pétain told him he had few reserves left to stop the German Spring Offensive on the Western Front. In response, Pershing said he would waive the idea of forming a separate American I Corps, and put all available American divisions at Pétain's disposal. The message was repeated to General Foch on March 28th, after Foch assumed command of all allied armies. Most of these divisions were sent south to relieve French divisions, which were transported to the fight in Flanders.
By early 1918, entire divisions were beginning to serve on the front lines alongside French troops. Although Pershing desired that the AEF fight as units under American command rather than being split up by battalions to augment British and French regiments and brigades, the 27th and 30th Divisions, grouped under II Corps command, were loaned during the desperate days of spring 1918, and fought with the British Fourth Army under General Rawlinson until the end of the war, taking part in the breach of the Hindenburg Line in October.
By May 1918, Pershing had become discontented with Air Service of the American Expeditionary Force, believing staff planning had been inefficient with considerable internal dissension, as well as conflict between its members and those of Pershing's General Staff. Further, aircraft and unit totals lagged far behind those expected. Pershing appointed his former West Point classmate and non-aviator, Major General Mason Patrick as the new Chief of Air Service. Considerable house-cleaning of the existing staff resulted from Patrick's appointment, bringing in experienced staff officers to administrate, and tightening up lines of communication.
In October 1918, Pershing saw the need for a dedicated Military Police Corps and the first U.S. Army MP School was established at Autun, France. For this, he is considered the founding father of the United States MPs.
Because of the effects of trench warfare on soldiers' feet, in January 1918, Pershing oversaw the creation of an improved combat boot, the "1918 Trench Boot," which became known as the "Pershing Boot" upon its introduction.
Combat
American forces first saw serious action during the summer of 1918, contributing eight large divisions, alongside 24 French ones, at the Second Battle of the Marne. Along with the British Fourth Army's victory at Amiens, the Allied victory at the Second Battle of the Marne marked the turning point of World War I on the Western Front.
In August 1918 the U.S. First Army had been formed, first under Pershing's direct command and then by Lieutenant General Hunter Liggett, when the U.S. Second Army under Lieutenant General Robert Bullard was created. After a quick victory at Saint-Mihiel, east of Verdun, some of the more bullish AEF commanders had hoped to push on eastwards to Metz, but this did not fit in with the plans of the Allied Supreme Commander, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, for three simultaneous offensives into the "bulge" of the Western Front (the other two being the Fourth Army's breach of the Hindenburg Line and an Anglo-Belgian offensive, led by Herbert Plumer's Second Army, in Flanders). Instead, the AEF was required to redeploy and, aided by French tanks, launched a major offensive northwards in very difficult terrain at Meuse-Argonne. Initially enjoying numerical odds of eight to one, this offensive eventually engaged 35 or 40 of the 190 or so German divisions on the Western Front, although to put this in perspective, around half the German divisions were engaged on the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) sector at the time.
The offensive was marked by a Pershing failure, specifically his reliance on massed infantry attacks with little artillery support led to high casualty rates in the capturing of three key points. This was despite the AEF facing only second-line German troops after the decision by Erich Ludendorff, the German Chief of Staff, to withdraw to the Hindenburg Line on October 3–and in notable contrast to the simultaneous British breakthrough of the Hindenburg Line in the north. Pershing was subsequently forced to reorganize the AEF with the creation of the Second Army, and to step down as the commander of the First Army.
When he arrived in Europe, Pershing had openly scorned the slow trench warfare of the previous three years on the Western Front, believing that American soldiers' skill with the rifle would enable them to avoid costly and senseless fighting over a small area of no-man's land. This was regarded as unrealistic by British and French commanders, and (privately) by a number of Americans such as Army Chief of Staff General Tasker Bliss and even Liggett. Even German generals were negative, with Erich Ludendorff dismissing Pershing's strategic efforts in the Meuse-Argonne offensive by recalling how "the attacks of the youthful American troops broke down with the heaviest losses". The AEF had performed well in the relatively open warfare of the Second Battle of the Marne, but the eventual American casualties against German defensive positions in the Argonne (roughly 120,000 American casualties in six weeks, against 35 or 40 German divisions) were not noticeably better than those of the Franco-British offensive on the Somme two years earlier (600,000 casualties in four and a half months, versus 50 or so German divisions). More ground was gained, but by this stage of the war the German Army was in worse shape than in previous years.
Some writers have speculated that Pershing's frustration at the slow progress through the Argonne was the cause of two incidents which then ensued. First, he ordered the U.S. First Army to take "the honor" of recapturing Sedan, site of the French defeat in 1870; the ensuing confusion (an order was issued that "boundaries were not to be considered binding") exposed American troops to danger not only from the French on their left, but even from one another, as the 1st Division tacked westward by night across the path of the 42nd Division (accounts differ as to whether Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur, then commanding the 84th Brigade of the 42nd Division, was really mistaken for a German officer and arrested). Liggett, who had been away from headquarters the previous day, had to sort out the mess and implement the instructions from the Allied Supreme Command, Marshal Foch, allowing the French to recapture the city; he later recorded that this was the only time during the war in which he lost his temper.
Second, Pershing sent an unsolicited letter to the Allied Supreme War Council, demanding that the Germans not be given an armistice and that instead, the Allies should push on and obtain an unconditional surrender. Although in later years, many, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt, felt that Pershing had been correct, at the time, this was a breach of political authority. Pershing narrowly escaped a serious reprimand from Wilson's aide, "Colonel" Edward M. House, and later apologized.
At the time of the Armistice with Germany, another Franco-American offensive was due to start on November 14, thrusting towards Metz and into Lorraine, to take place simultaneously with further BEF advances through Belgium. In his memoirs, Pershing claimed that the American breakout from the Argonne at the start of November was the decisive event leading to the German acceptance of an armistice, because it made untenable the Antwerp–Meuse line. This is probably an exaggeration; the outbreak of civil unrest and naval mutiny in Germany, the collapse of Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, and particularly Austria-Hungary following Allied victories in Salonika, Syria, and Italy, and the Allied victories on the Western Front were among a series of events in the autumn of 1918 which made it clear that Allied victory was inevitable, and diplomatic inquiries about an armistice had been going on throughout October.
President Wilson was keen to tie matters up before the mid-term elections, and as the other Allies were running low on supplies and manpower, they followed Wilson's lead.
American successes were largely credited to Pershing, and he became the most celebrated American leader of the war. MacArthur saw Pershing as a desk soldier, and the relationship between the two men deteriorated by the end of the war. Similar criticism of senior commanders by the younger generation of officers (the future generals of World War II) was made in the British and other armies, but, in Pershing's defense, although it was not uncommon for brigade commanders to serve near the front and even be killed, the state of communications in World War I made it more practical for senior generals to command from the rear.
He controversially ordered his troops to continue fighting before the signed Armistice took effect. This resulted in 3,500 American casualties on the last day of the war, an act which was regarded as murder by a few officers under his command. Pershing doubted the Germans' good faith, and most of his contemporaries took the view he expressed to the House Committee on Military Affairs in his testimony on November 5, 1919:
The year of 1918 also saw a personal health struggle for Pershing as he was sickened during the 1918 flu pandemic, but unlike many who were not so fortunate, Pershing survived. He rode his horse, Kidron, in the Paris victory parade in 1919.
Later career
In September 1919, in recognition of his distinguished service during World War I, the U.S. Congress authorized the President to promote Pershing to General of the Armies of the United States, the highest rank possible for any member of the United States armed forces, which was created especially for him.
In 1976, Congress authorized President Gerald Ford to posthumously promote George Washington to this rank as part of the United States Bicentennial; Washington previously held the rank of General in the Continental Army, and wore a three-star insignia; his posthumous appointment to General of the Armies rank and the specific wording of the authorizing statute, Public Law 94-479, of October 1976, ensured that Washington would always be considered the U.S. Army's highest-ranking officer. Pershing was authorized to create his insignia for the new rank and chose to continue wearing four stars for the rest of his career.
In 1919, Pershing created the Military Order of the World War as an officer's fraternity for veterans of the First World War, modeled after the Military Order of Foreign Wars. Both organizations still exist today and welcome new officer members to their ranks. Pershing himself would join the MOFW in 1924.
There was a movement to draft Pershing as a candidate for president in 1920; he refused to campaign, but indicated that he "wouldn't decline to serve" if the people wanted him. Though Pershing was a Republican, many of his party's leaders considered him too closely tied to the policies of the Democratic Party's President Woodrow Wilson. Another general, Leonard Wood, was the early Republican front runner, but the nomination went to Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, who went on to win the general election.
In 1921, Pershing became Chief of Staff of the United States Army, serving for three years. He created the Pershing Map, a proposed national network of military and civilian highways. The Interstate Highway System instituted in 1956 bears considerable resemblance to the Pershing map. On his 64th birthday, September 13, 1924, Pershing retired from active military service. (Army regulations from the late 1860s to the early 1940s required officers to retire on their 64th birthday.)
On November 1, 1921, Pershing was in Kansas City to take part in the groundbreaking ceremony for the Liberty Memorial that was being constructed there, (now known as the National World War I Museum and Memorial). Also present that day were Lieutenant General Baron Jacques of the Belgian Army, Admiral of the Fleet David Beatty of the British Royal Navy, Marshal Ferdinand Foch of the French Army, and General Armando Diaz of the Royal Italian Army. One of the main speakers was Vice President Calvin Coolidge. In 1935, bas-reliefs of Pershing, Jacques, Foch and Diaz by sculptor Walker Hancock were added to the memorial. Pershing also laid the cornerstone of the World War Memorial in Indianapolis on July 4, 1927.
On October 2, 1922, amid several hundred officers, many of them combat veterans of World War I, Pershing formally established the Reserve Officers Association (ROA) as an organization at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. ROA is a 75,000-member, professional association of officers, former officers, and spouses of all the uniformed services of the United States, primarily the Reserve and United States National Guard. It is a congressionally chartered Association that advises the Congress and the President on issues of national security on behalf of all members of the Reserve Component.
In 1924, Pershing became a member of the Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. He was also an honorary member of the Society of the Cincinnati and a Veteran Companion of the Military Order of Foreign Wars. On January 5, 1935 Pershing was designated a Military Order of the World Wars Honorary Commander-in-Chief for Life.
Pershing served on a committee of the Sons of the American Revolution to establish and recognize Constitution Day in the United States.
During the 1930s, Pershing largely retreated to private life, but returned to the public eye with publication of his memoirs, My Experiences in the World War, which were awarded the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for history. He was also an active Civitan during this time.
In 1940, before and after the Fall of France, Pershing was an outspoken advocate of aid for the United Kingdom during World War II.
In August 1940, he publicly supported the "Destroyers for Bases Agreement", whereby the United States sold fifty warships from World War I to the UK in exchange for lengthy leases of land on British possessions for the establishment for military bases.
In 1944, with Congress' creation of the five star rank of General of the Army, Pershing was still considered to be the highest-ranking officer of the United States military as his rank was General of the Armies. "In [1799] Congress created for George Washington the rank of General of the Armies ... General [Ulysses S.] Grant received the title of General of the Army in 1866 . ... Carefully Congress wrote a bill (HR 7594) to revive the rank of General of the Armies for General Pershing alone to hold during his lifetime. The rank would cease to exist upon Pershing's death." Later, when asked if this made Pershing a five-star general, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson commented that it did not, since Pershing never wore more than four stars, but that Pershing was still to be considered senior to the present five-star generals of World War II.
In July 1944, Pershing was visited by Free French leader General Charles de Gaulle. When Pershing asked after the health of his old friend, Marshal Philippe Pétain – who had headed the pro-German Vichy regime until it was dissolved in late 1942 – de Gaulle replied tactfully that, when he last saw him, the Marshal was well.
Death
On July 15, 1948, Pershing died of coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure at age 87 at Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington, D.C., which was his home after 1944. He lay in state at the United States Capitol rotunda and following a state funeral, he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. near the grave sites of the soldiers he commanded in Europe. The site is now known as Pershing Hill. George C. Marshall, then serving as U.S. Secretary of State, was in charge of funeral plans.
Summary of service
Dates of rank
Proposed six-star insignia
Assignment history
1882: Cadet, United States Military Academy
1886: Troop L, Sixth Cavalry
1891: Professor of Tactics, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
1895: 1st Lieutenant, 10th Cavalry Regiment
1897: Instructor, United States Military Academy, West Point
1898: Major of Volunteer Forces, Cuban Campaign, Spanish–American War
1899: Officer-in-Charge, Office of Customs and Insular Affairs
1900: Adjutant General, Department of Mindanao and Jolo, Philippines
1901: Battalion Officer, 1st Cavalry and Intelligence Officer, 15th Cavalry (Philippines)
1902: Officer-in-Charge, Camp Vicars, Philippines
1904: Assistant Chief of Staff, Southwest Army Division, Oklahoma
1905: Military attaché, U.S. Embassy, Tokyo, Japan
1908: Military Advisor to American Embassy, France
1909: Commander of Fort McKinley, Manila, and governor of Moro Province
1914: Brigade Commander, 8th Army Brigade
1916: Commanding General, Mexican Punitive Expedition
1917: Commanding General for the formation of the National Army
1917: Commanding General, American Expeditionary Forces, Europe
1921: Chief of Staff of the United States Army
1924: Retired from active military service
1925: Chief Commissioner assigned by the United States in the arbitration case for the province of Tacna between Peru and Chile.
Honors and awards
Distinguished Service Cross Citation
In 1940 General Pershing was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism in action leading an assault against hostile Moros at Mount Bagsak, on the island of Jolo in the Philippines on June 15, 1913.
Citation
For extraordinary heroism against hostile fanatical Moros at Mount Bagsak, Jolo, Philippine Islands on June 15, 1913. He personally assumed command of the assaulting line at the most critical period when only about 15 yards from the last Moro position. His encouragement and splendid example of personal heroism resulted in a general advance and the prompt capture of the hostile stronghold.
United States decorations and medals
Note: The dates indicated are the date the award was issued, not the date of action the award is based on.
In 1932, eight years after Pershing's retirement from active service, his silver citation star was upgraded to the Silver Star decoration. In 1941, he was retroactively awarded the Army of Occupation of Germany Medal for service in Germany following the close of World War I. As the medal had a profile of Pershing on its obverse, Pershing became the only soldier in the history of the U.S. Army, and only one of four in the entire U.S. Armed Forces, eligible to wear a medal with his own likeness on it. Navy admirals George Dewey, William T. Sampson and Richard E. Byrd were also entitled to wear medals with their own image on them.
International awards
Civilian awards
Congressional Gold Medal
Thanks of Congress
Distinguished Service Medal, American Legion
Special Medal of the Committee of the city of Buenos Aires
Induction into the Nebraska Hall of Fame (1963)
Personal life and family
Pershing was a Freemason, a member of Lincoln Lodge No. 19, Lincoln, Nebraska.
Francis Pershing (son)
Colonel Francis Warren Pershing (1909–1980), Pershing's son, served in the Second World War as an advisor to the Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall. After the war he continued with his financial career and founded a stock brokerage firm, Pershing & Company. In 1938, he married Muriel Bache Richards, granddaughter of financier Jules Bache. He was father to two sons who both served in Vietnam War, Colonel John Warren Pershing III (1941–1999) and Second Lieutenant Richard W. Pershing (1942–1968). John Pershing III served in the Army from 1964 to 1967 and Army Reserve from 1967 to 1999. He attained the rank of colonel, and his assignments included special assistant to Army Chief of Staff General Gordon R. Sullivan. Richard Pershing served as a second lieutenant in the 502nd Infantry and was killed in action on February 17, 1968, in Khe Sanh during the Vietnam War.
Nita Patton (fiancée)
In 1917, two years after the deaths of his wife Helen and three daughters, Pershing courted Anne Wilson "Nita" Patton, the younger sister of his protégé, George S. Patton.
Pershing met her when she traveled to Fort Bliss to visit her brother, and he introduced them. Pershing and Nita Patton soon began a relationship; they became engaged in 1917, but their separation because of Pershing's time in France during World War I ended it. Nita Patton never married, while Pershing remained unmarried until he secretly wed Micheline Resco in 1946.
Micheline Resco (second wife)
Pershing had wartime affairs, including one with French-Romanian artist Micheline Resco (1894–1968), and he later expressed regret that he had let Nita Patton "get away". Resco was 35 years his junior and they had known each other and exchanged encoded love letters since meeting in Paris in 1917, where Resco painted Pershing's portrait. In 1946, Pershing secretly wed Resco in his Walter Reed Hospital apartment.
Legacy
Since 1930, the Pershing Park Memorial Association (PPMA), headquartered in Pershing's hometown of Laclede, Missouri, has been dedicated to preserving the memory of General Pershing's military history.
On November 17, 1961, the United States Postal Service released an 8¢ Liberty Issue postage stamp honoring Pershing, shown at right.
In popular culture
Film
Pershing is played by Milburn Stone in the 1955 film The Long Gray Line, which was based on Martin 'Marty' Maher's autobiography, Bringing Up the Brass: My 55 Years at West Point which depicts Pershing swearing Maher into the army.
Pershing is played by Ron Perlman in the 2019 film The Great War.
Television
The actor Jody McCrea was cast as Lieutenant Pershing in the 1962 episode, "To Walk with Greatness", on the syndicated television anthology series, Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. In the story line, three outlaws endanger an Indian treaty, as Pershing sets forth to find the men. Frank Ferguson was cast as Colonel Carr.
Pershing is played by Marshall Teague in the 1997 Theodore Roosevelt biographical miniseries Rough Riders, as the commander of the Buffalo Soldiers during the Battle of San Juan Hill.
Literature
Pershing appears as a character in The Friends of Pancho Villa (1996), a historical novel by James Carlos Blake.
Pershing also appears in Hard Magic: The Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia (2011).
He is mentioned frequently as one of the commanders in Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory series in the volumes set during and shortly after the alternate history version of World War I, but his actual appearance is very brief.
He also has a short appearance in the Anton Myrer novel, Once An Eagle.
See also
General Pershing WWI casualty list
M26 Pershing Tank
MGM-31 Pershing Missile
Pershing (doughnut)
References
Informational notes
Citations
Bibliography
Adas, Michael. "Ambivalent Ally: American Military Intervention and the Endgame and Legacy of World War I" Diplomatic History (2014) 38#4: 700–12.
Boot, Max. The Savage Wars of Peace New York, Basic Books, 2002.
Edmonds, James. Military Operations: France and Belgium: 1914-18, London: MacMillan, 1935
Faulkner, Richard S. Pershing's Crusaders: The American Soldier in World War I (University Press of Kansas, 2017). xiv, 758 pp
Goldhurst, Richard. Pipe Clay and Drill: John J. Pershing, the classic American soldier (Reader's Digest Press, 1977)
Lacey, Jim. Pershing. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Mordacq, Henri. Unity of Command: How it was Achieved, Paris: Tallandier, 1929 (translated by Major J.C. Bardin, National War College, Carlisle, PA)
O'Connor, Richard. Black Jack Pershing. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961.
Pershing, John J., and John T. Greenwood. My Life Before the World War, 1860–1917: A Memoir. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2013.
Pershing, John J. My Experiences in the World War, Vol. I New York: Frederick Stokes, 1931
Perry, John. Pershing: Commander of the Great War. Nashville, Tenn: Thomas Nelson, 2011.
Smith, Gene. Until the Last Trumpet Sounds: The Life of General of the Armies John J. Pershing (Wiley, New York, 1998)
Smythe, Donald. Guerrilla Warrior: The Early Life of John J. Pershing (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1973)
Smythe, Donald. Pershing: General of the Armies (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1986)
Vandiver, Frank E. Black Jack: The Life and Times of John J. Pershing – Volume I (Texas A&M University Press, Third printing, 1977)
Vandiver, Frank E. Black Jack: The Life and Times of John J. Pershing – Volume II (Texas A&M University Press, Third printing, 1977)
Weigley, Russell Frank. History of the United States Army (1967)
Welsome, Eileen. The General and the Jaguar: Pershing's Hunt for Pancho Villa: a True Story of Revolution and Revenge. New York: Little, Brown and Co, 2006.
Woodward, David R. The American Army and the First World War (Cambridge University Press, 2014). 484 pp. online review
Yockelson, Mitchell (Foreword by John S. D. Eisenhower). Borrowed Soldiers: Americans under British Command, 1918 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008)
Yockelson, Mitchell. Forty-Seven Days: How Pershing's Warriors Came of Age to Defeat at the German Army in World War I (New York: NAL, Caliber, 2016)
External links
Pershing Museum
New York Times obituary
Black Jack Pershing in Cuba
Chapter IV, General of the Armies John J. Pershing, State Funeral, 15–19 July 1948 in The Last Salute: Civil and Military Funeral, 1921–1969 by B. C. Mossman and M. W. Stark, United States Army Center of Military History
at Nebraska State Historical Society
Americans Under British Command, 1918 at Borrowed Soldiers
John J. Pershing Papers at Library of Congress
John J. Pershing at the World Digital Archive
The National Society of Pershing Rifles
The Pershing Foundation
1860 births
1948 deaths
American Episcopalians
American Expeditionary Forces
American Freemasons
American memoirists
American military personnel of the Philippine–American War
American military personnel of the Spanish–American War
American people of English descent
American people of German descent
American people of the Indian Wars
Articles containing video clips
Buffalo Soldiers
Burials at Arlington National Cemetery
Grand Crosses of the Order of the White Lion
Commanders of the Virtuti Militari
Congressional Gold Medal recipients
Grand Croix of the Légion d'honneur
Grand Crosses of the Order of the Sun of Peru
Honorary Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
Knights Grand Cross of the Military Order of Savoy
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus
Military personnel from Missouri
Nebraska lawyers
People from Lincoln, Nebraska
People from Linn County, Missouri
People of the Mexican Revolution
People of the Russo-Japanese War
Pulitzer Prize for History winners
Recipients of the Croix de guerre (Belgium)
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Recipients of the Order of the Rising Sun
Recipients of the Silver Star
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United States Military Academy faculty
Deaths from coronary artery disease | true | [
"The M46 Patton was an American medium tank designed to replace the M26 Pershing and M4 Sherman. It was one of the U.S Army's principal medium tanks of the early Cold War, with models in service from 1949 until the mid-1950s. It was not widely used by U.S. Cold War allies, being exported only to Belgium, and only in small numbers to train crews on the upcoming M47 Patton.\n\nThe M46 was the first tank to be named after General George S. Patton Jr., commander of the U.S. Third Army during World War II and one of the earliest American advocates for the use of tanks in battle.\n\nHistory\nAfter World War II, most U.S. Army armored units were equipped with a mix of M4 Sherman and M26 Pershing tanks. Designed initially as a heavy tank, the M26 Pershing tank was reclassified as a medium tank after the war. The M26 was a significant improvement over the M4 Sherman in firepower and protection. Its mobility, however, was deemed unsatisfactory for a medium tank, as it used the same engine as the much lighter M4A3 and was plagued with an unreliable transmission.\n\nWork began in January 1948 on replacing the original power plant with the Continental AV1790-3 engine and Allison CD-850-1 cross-drive transmission. This design was initially called the M26E2, but modifications continued to accumulate; eventually, the Bureau of Ordnance decided that the tank needed its own unique designation, the M46. The upgraded M26 received a new power plant and a main gun with a bore evacuator.\n\nUpon completion of the first model of the Detroit Tank Arsenal production line in November 1948, the M46 was christened after the late General George S. Patton. By December the Army had ordered several hundred. In July 1950 Detroit Arsenal was producing Pershings and M46s at a rate of over a dozen a day. In August 1950 President Harry S. Truman authorized funding for increased M46 production as part an expansion of heavy tank development program.\n\nA total of 1,160 M46s of all variants were built.\n\nCombat service\nThe only American combat use of the M46 Patton was during the Korean War. On 8 August 1950, the first M46 Patton tanks, belonging to the 6th Tank Battalion, landed in South Korea. The M46 proved to be capable against North Korean T-34 medium tanks. By the end of 1950, 200 M46 Pattons had been fielded, forming about 15% of US tank strength in Korea; the balance of 1,326 tanks shipped to Korea during 1950 were 679 M4A3 Shermans (including the M4A3E8 variant), 309 M26 Pershings, and 138 M24 Chaffee light tanks. Subsequent shipments of M46 and M46A1 Pattons allowed all remaining M26 Pershings to be withdrawn during 1951, and most Sherman equipped units were also reequipped.\n\nM46 series operators include: 1st Tank Battalion and regimental Antitank Platoons of the 1st Marine Division by 1952, 72nd Armor Regiment of the 2nd Infantry Division by January 1952, 64th Tank Battalion of the 3rd Infantry Division, 73rd Tank Battalion of the 7th Infantry Division by January 1951, 6th Tank Battalion of the 24th Infantry Division, 140th Tank Battalion (took over the tanks of the 6th Tank Battalion) and regimental tank companies of the 40th Infantry Division by October 1951, and the 245th Tank Battalion of the 45th Infantry Division by 1952. Several other regimental tank companies gained M46/M46A1s by the end of the war, including the 7th and 65th Infantry Regiments of the 3rd Infantry Division.\n\nA surviving example of the M46 Patton tank can be seen on display at the War Memorial of Korea in Seoul.\n\nIn the 1950s, small numbers of M46s were leased for training purposes at no cost to some European countries, including Belgium, France and Italy, in preparation for the introduction of the M47. American instruction teams used the vehicles to train European tank crews and maintenance personnel.\n\nVariants\n\n M46 (Dozer) - Variant equipped with M3 dozer conversion kit.\n M46A1 – Product improved variant with improved braking, cooling and fire suppression systems, as well as improved electrical equipment, AV-1790-5B engine and CD-850-4 transmission.\n M46E1 – Pilot model, M46 hull with T42 turret, fitted with the M36 90 mm Gun, and was longer to incorporate a radio, ventilator, and featured a stereoscopic rangefinder; only one built. Prototype of the M47 Patton.\n\nOperators\n\nFormer operators\n\nGallery\n\nSee also\n\n List of armored fighting vehicles\n\nTanks of comparable role, performance and era\n Centurion Mk. 1 British main battle tank\n T-44-100 Soviet medium tank\n Type 61 Japanese main battle tank\n Leopard 1 German main battle tank\n G-numbers SNL G244\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\nExternal links\n\nPatton-Mania\n\nCold War tanks of the United States\nMedium tanks of the Cold War\nMilitary vehicles introduced from 1945 to 1949\nMedium tanks of the United States",
"Bildad ( Bildaḏ), the Shuhite, was one of Job's three friends who visited the patriarch in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Job. He was a descendant of Shuah, son of Abraham and Keturah (Genesis 25:1 - 25:2), whose family lived in the deserts of Arabia, or a resident of the district. In speaking with Job, his intent was consolation, but he became an accuser, asking Job what he has done to deserve God's wrath.\n\nSpeeches\nThe three speeches of Bildad are contained in Job 8, Job 18 and Job 25. In substance, they were largely an echo of what had been maintained by Eliphaz the Temanite, the first of Job's friends to speak, but charged with somewhat increased vehemence because he deemed Job's words so impious and wrathful. Bildad was the first to attribute Job's calamity to actual wickedness, albeit indirectly, by accusing his children (who were destroyed, Job 1:19) of sin to warrant their punishment (Job 8:4). His brief third speech, just five verses in length, marked the silencing of the friends.\n\nSee also \nEliphaz\nZophar\n Elihu\n Bildad is also the name of one of the owners of the Pequod in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nHebrew Bible people\nBook of Job"
] |
[
"John J. Pershing",
"Early career",
"What was Pershings first job",
"Troop L of the 6th U.S. Cavalry stationed at Fort Bayard, in the New Mexico Territory."
] | C_52af268bf5df41a7a9293e2ca9345335_1 | How did he get into this job | 2 | How did John J. Pershing get into Troop L of the 6th U.S. Cavalry stationed at Fort Bayard, in the New Mexico Territory? | John J. Pershing | Pershing reported for active duty on September 30, 1886, and was assigned to Troop L of the 6th U.S. Cavalry stationed at Fort Bayard, in the New Mexico Territory. While serving in the 6th Cavalry, Pershing participated in several Indian campaigns and was cited for bravery for actions against the Apache. During his time at Fort Stanton, Pershing and close friends Lt. Julius Penn and Lt. Richard B. Paddock were nicknamed "The Three Green P's," spending their leisure time hunting and attending Hispanic dances. Pershing's sister Grace married Paddock in 1890. Between 1887 and 1890, Pershing served with the 6th Cavalry at various postings in California, Arizona, and North Dakota. He also became an expert marksman and, in 1891, was rated second in pistol and fifth in rifle out of all soldiers in the U.S. Army. On December 9, 1890, Pershing and the 6th Cavalry arrived at Sioux City, Iowa, where Pershing played a role in suppressing the last uprisings of the Lakota (Sioux) Indians. Though he and his unit did not participate in the Wounded Knee Massacre, they did fight three days after it on January 1, 1891 when Sioux warriors attacked the 6th Cavalry's supply wagons. When the Sioux began firing at the wagons, Pershing and his troops heard the shots, and rode more than six miles to the location of the attack. The cavalry fired at the forces of Chief War Eagle, causing them to retreat. This would be the only occasion where Pershing would see action in the Ghost Dance campaign. In September 1891 he was assigned as the Professor of Military Science and Tactics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a position he held until 1895. While carrying out this assignment, Pershing attended the university's College of Law, from which he received his LL.B. degree in 1893. He formed a drill company of chosen university cadets, Company A. In March 1892, it won the Maiden Prize competition of the National Competitive Drills in Omaha, Nebraska. The Citizens of Omaha presented the company with a large silver cup, the "Omaha Cup." On October 2, 1894, former members of Company A established a fraternal military drill organization named the Varsity Rifles. The group renamed itself the Pershing Rifles in 1895 in honor of its mentor and patron. Pershing maintained a close relationship with Pershing Rifles for the remainder of his life. On October 20, 1892, Pershing was promoted to first lieutenant and in 1895 took command of a troop of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, one of the original Buffalo Soldier regiments composed of African-American soldiers under white officers. From Fort Assinniboine in north central Montana, he commanded an expedition to the south and southwest that rounded up and deported a large number of Cree Indians to Canada. CANNOTANSWER | also became an expert marksman and, in 1891, was rated second in pistol and fifth in rifle out of all soldiers in the U.S. Army. | General of the Armies John Joseph Pershing (September 13, 1860 – July 15, 1948), nicknamed "Black Jack", was a senior United States Army officer. He served most famously as the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) on the Western Front during World War I, from 1917 to 1918. In addition to leading the AEF to victory in World War I, Pershing notably served as a mentor to many in the generation of generals who led the United States Army during World War II, including George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, Lesley J. McNair, George S. Patton and Douglas MacArthur.
During his command in World War I, Pershing rejected British and French demands that American forces be integrated with their armies, essentially as replacement units, and insisted that the AEF would operate as a single unit under his command, although some American divisions fought under British command, notably in the Battle of Hamel and the breaching of the Hindenburg Line at St Quentin Canal, precipitating the final German collapse. Pershing also allowed (at that time segregated) American all-Black units to be integrated with the French Army.
Pershing's soldiers first saw serious battle at Cantigny, Chateau-Thierry, Belleau Wood June 1–26, 1918, and Soissons on July 18–22, 1918. To speed up the arrival of American troops, they embarked for France leaving heavy equipment behind, and used British and French tanks, artillery, airplanes and other munitions. In September 1918 at St. Mihiel, the First Army was directly under Pershing's command; it overwhelmed the salient – the encroachment into Allied territory – that the German Army had held for three years. For the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, Pershing shifted roughly 600,000 American soldiers to the heavily defended forests of the Argonne, keeping his divisions engaged in hard fighting for 47 days, alongside the French. The Allied Hundred Days Offensive, which the Argonne fighting was part of, contributed to Germany calling for an armistice. Pershing was of the opinion that the war should continue and that all of Germany should be occupied in an effort to permanently destroy German militarism.
Pershing is the only American to be promoted in his own lifetime to General of the Armies, the highest possible rank in the United States Army. Allowed to select his own insignia, Pershing chose to continue using four stars. After the creation of the five-star General of the Army rank during World War II, his rank of General of the Armies could unofficially be considered that of a six-star general, but he died before the proposed insignia could be considered and acted upon by Congress.
Some of his tactics have been criticized both by other commanders at the time and by modern historians. His reliance on costly frontal assaults, long after other Allied armies had abandoned such tactics, has been blamed for causing unnecessarily high American casualties. Pershing was also criticized by some historians for his actions on the day of armistice as the commander of the American Expeditionary Force. Pershing did not approve of the armistice, and despite knowing of the imminent ceasefire, he did not tell his commanders to suspend any new offensive actions or assaults in the final few hours of the war. In total, there were over 11,000 casualties, dead, missing, or injured during the final day of the war on November 11, which exceeded even D-Day casualty counts seen later in 1944. Of those, 3,500 were American casualties directly attributable to Pershing's actions. Pershing was later questioned by Congress as to why there were so many American casualties on the final day of the war.
Early life
Pershing was born on a farm near Laclede, Missouri on September 13, 1860, the son of farmer and store owner John Fletcher Pershing and homemaker Ann Elizabeth Thompson. Pershing's great-great-grandfather, Frederick Pershing, whose name originally was Pfersching, emigrated from Alsace, leaving Amsterdam on the ship Jacob, and arriving in Philadelphia on October 2, 1749. He had five siblings who lived to adulthood: brothers James F. (1862–1933) and Ward (1874–1909), and sisters Mary Elizabeth (1864–1928), Anna May (1867–1955) and Grace (1867–1903); three other children died in infancy. When the Civil War began, his father supported the Union and was a sutler for the 18th Missouri Volunteer Infantry; he died on March 16, 1906. Pershing's mother died during his initial assignment in the American West.
Pershing attended a school in Laclede that was reserved for precocious students who were also the children of prominent citizens, and he later attended Laclede's one-room schoolhouse. After completing high school in 1878, he became a teacher of local African American children. While pursuing his teaching career, Pershing also studied at the State Normal School (now Truman State University) in Kirksville, Missouri, from which he graduated in 1880 with a Bachelor of Science degree in scientific didactics. Two years later, he applied to the United States Military Academy. Pershing later admitted that serving in the military was secondary to attending West Point, and he had applied because the education offered was free and it was better than what he could obtain in rural Missouri.
West Point years
Pershing was sworn in as a West Point cadet in the fall of 1882. He was selected early for leadership positions and became successively First Corporal, First Sergeant, First Lieutenant, and First Captain, the highest possible cadet rank. Pershing also commanded, ex officio, the honor guard that saluted the funeral train of President Ulysses S. Grant as it passed West Point in August 1885.
Pershing graduated in the summer of 1886 ranked 30th in his class of 77, and was commissioned a second lieutenant; he was commended by the West Point Superintendent, General Wesley Merritt, who said Pershing gave early promise of becoming an outstanding officer. Pershing briefly considered petitioning the Army to let him study law and delay the start of his mandatory military service. He also considered joining several classmates in a partnership that would pursue development of an irrigation project in Oregon. He ultimately decided against both courses of action in favor of active Army duty.
Early career
Pershing reported for active duty on September 30, 1886, and was assigned to Troop L of the 6th U.S. Cavalry stationed at Fort Bayard, in the New Mexico Territory. While serving in the 6th Cavalry, Pershing participated in several Indian campaigns and was cited for bravery for actions against the Apache. During his time at Fort Stanton, Pershing and close friends Lt. Julius A. Penn and Lt. Richard B. Paddock were nicknamed "The Three Green P's," spending their leisure time hunting and attending Hispanic dances. Pershing's sister Grace married Paddock in 1890.
Between 1887 and 1890, Pershing served with the 6th Cavalry at various postings in California, Arizona, and North Dakota. He also became an expert marksman and, in 1891, was rated second in pistol and fifth in rifle out of all soldiers in the U.S. Army.
On December 9, 1890, Pershing and the 6th Cavalry arrived at Sioux City, Iowa, where Pershing played a role in suppressing the last uprisings of the Lakota (Sioux) Indians. Though he and his unit did not participate in the Wounded Knee Massacre, they did fight three days after it on January 1, 1891, when Sioux warriors attacked the 6th Cavalry's supply wagons. When the Sioux began firing at the wagons, Pershing and his troops heard the shots, and rode more than six miles to the location of the attack. The cavalry fired at the forces of Chief War Eagle, causing them to retreat. This was the only occasion on which Pershing saw action during the Ghost Dance campaign.
In September 1891, he was assigned as the professor of military science and tactics at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, a position he held until 1895. While carrying out this assignment, Pershing attended the university's College of Law, from which he received his LL.B. degree in 1893. He formed a drill company of chosen university cadets, Company A. In March 1892, it won the Maiden Prize competition of the National Competitive Drills in Omaha, Nebraska. The Citizens of Omaha presented the company with a large silver cup, the "Omaha Cup". On October 2, 1894, former members of Company A established a fraternal military drill organization named the Varsity Rifles. The group renamed itself the Pershing Rifles in 1895 in honor of its mentor and patron. Pershing maintained a close relationship with Pershing Rifles for the remainder of his life.
On October 20, 1892, Pershing was promoted to first lieutenant and in 1895 took command of a troop of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, one of the original Buffalo Soldier regiments composed of African-American soldiers under white officers. From Fort Assinniboine in north central Montana, he commanded an expedition to the south and southwest that rounded up and deported a large number of Cree Indians to Canada.
West Point instructor
In 1897, Pershing was appointed to the West Point tactical staff as an instructor, where he was assigned to Cadet Company A. Because of his strictness and rigidity, Pershing was unpopular with the cadets, who took to calling him "Nigger Jack" because of his service with the 10th Cavalry.
During the course of his tour at the Academy, this epithet softened to "Black Jack," although, according to Vandiver, "the intent remained hostile." Still, this nickname would stick with Pershing for the rest of his life, and was known to the public as early as 1917.
Spanish– and Philippine–American wars
At the start of the Spanish–American War, First Lieutenant Pershing was the regimental quartermaster for the 10th Cavalry; he fought on Kettle and San Juan Hills in Cuba, and was cited for gallantry. In 1919, he was awarded the Silver Citation Star for these actions, and in 1932 the award was upgraded to the Silver Star decoration. A commanding officer here commented on Pershing's calm demeanor under fire, saying he was "cool as a bowl of cracked ice." Pershing also served with the 10th Cavalry during the siege and surrender of Santiago de Cuba.
Pershing was commissioned as a major of United States Volunteers on August 26, 1898, and assigned as an ordnance officer. In March 1899, after suffering from malaria, Pershing was put in charge of the Office of Customs and Insular Affairs which oversaw occupation forces in territories gained in the Spanish–American War, including Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. He was honorably discharged from the volunteers and reverted to his permanent rank of first lieutenant on May 12, 1899. He was again commissioned as a major of Volunteers on June 6, 1899, this time as an assistant adjutant general.
When the Philippine–American War began, Pershing reported to Manila on August 17, 1899, was assigned to the Department of Mindanao and Jolo, and commanded efforts to suppress the Filipino Insurrection. On November 27, 1900, Pershing was appointed adjutant general of his department and served in this posting until March 1, 1901. He was cited for bravery for actions on the Cagayan River while attempting to destroy a Philippine stronghold at Macajambo.
Pershing wrote in his autobiography that "The bodies [of some Moro outlaws] were publicly buried in the same grave with a dead pig." This treatment was used against captured juramentado so that the superstitious Moro would believe they would be going to hell. Pershing added that "it was not pleasant [for the Army] to have to take such measures". Historians do not believe that Pershing was directly involved with such incidents, or that he personally gave such orders to his subordinates. Letters and memoirs from soldiers describing events similar to this do not have credible evidence of Pershing having been personally involved.
On June 30, 1901, Pershing was honorably discharged from the Volunteers and he reverted to the rank of captain in the Regular Army to which he had been promoted on February 2, 1901. He served with the 1st Cavalry Regiment in the Philippines. He later was assigned to the 15th Cavalry Regiment, serving as an intelligence officer and participating in actions against the Moros. He was cited for bravery at Lake Lanao. In June 1901, he served as Commander of Camp Vicars in Lanao, Philippines, after the previous camp commander had been promoted to brigadier general.
Rise to general
In June 1903, Pershing was ordered to return to the United States. President Theodore Roosevelt, taken by Pershing's ability, petitioned the Army General Staff to promote Pershing to colonel. At the time, Army officer promotions were based primarily on seniority rather than merit, and although there was widespread acknowledgment that Pershing should serve as a colonel, the Army General Staff declined to change their seniority-based promotion tradition just to accommodate Pershing. They would not consider a promotion to lieutenant colonel or even major. This angered Roosevelt, but since the President could only name and promote army officers in the general's ranks, his options for recognizing Pershing through promotion were limited.
In 1904, Pershing was assigned as the Assistant Chief of Staff of the Southwest Army Division stationed at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In October 1904, he attended the Army War College, and then was ordered to Washington, D.C. for "general duties unassigned."
Since Roosevelt could not yet promote Pershing, he petitioned the United States Congress to authorize a diplomatic posting, and Pershing was stationed as military attaché in Tokyo in 1905. Also in 1905, Pershing married Helen Frances Warren, the daughter of powerful U.S. Senator Francis E. Warren, a Wyoming Republican who served at different times as chairman of the Military Affairs and Appropriations Committees. This union with the daughter of a powerful politician who had also received the Medal of Honor during the American Civil War continued to aid Pershing's career even after his wife died in 1915.
After serving as an observer in the Russo-Japanese War attached to General Kuroki Tamemoto's Japanese First Army in Manchuria from March to September, Pershing returned to the United States in the fall of 1905. President Roosevelt employed his presidential prerogative and nominated Pershing as a brigadier general, a move which Congress approved. In skipping three ranks and more than 835 officers senior to him, the promotion gave rise to accusations that Pershing's appointment was the result of political connections and not military abilities. However, several other junior officers were similarly advanced to brigadier general ahead of their peers and seniors, including Albert L. Mills (captain), Tasker H. Bliss (major), and Leonard Wood (captain). Pershing's promotion, while unusual, was not unprecedented, and had the support of many soldiers who admired his abilities.
In 1908, Pershing briefly served as a U.S. military observer in the Balkans, an assignment which was based in Paris. Upon returning to the United States at the end of 1909, Pershing was assigned once again to the Philippines, an assignment in which he served until 1913. While in the Philippines, he served as Commander of Fort McKinley, near Manila, and also was the governor of the Moro Province. The last of Pershing's four children was born in the Philippines, and during this time he became an Episcopalian.
In 1913, Pershing was recommended for the Medal of Honor following his actions at the Battle of Bud Bagsak. He wrote to the Adjutant General to request that the recommendation not be acted on, though the board which considered the recommendation had already voted no before receiving Pershing's letter. In 1922 a further review of this event resulted in Pershing being recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross, but as the Army Chief of Staff Pershing disapproved the action. In 1940 Pershing received the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroism at Bud Bagsak, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt presenting it in a ceremony timed to coincide with Pershing's 80th birthday.
During this period Pershing's reputation for both stern discipline and effective leadership continued to grow, with one experienced old soldier under his command later saying Pershing was an "S.O.B." and that he hated Pershing's guts, but that "as a soldier, the ones then and the ones now couldn't polish his (Pershing's) boots."
Pancho Villa and Mexico
On December 20, 1913, Pershing received orders to take command of the 8th Brigade at the Presidio in San Francisco. With tensions running high on the border between the United States and Mexico because of the Mexican Revolution, the brigade was deployed to Fort Bliss, Texas, on April 24, 1914, arriving there on the 27th.
Death of wife Helen and daughters
After a year at Fort Bliss, Pershing decided to take his family there. The arrangements were almost complete, when on the morning of August 27, 1915, he received a telegram informing him of a fire in the Presidio in San Francisco, where a lacquered floor caught fire and the flames rapidly spread, resulting in the smoke inhalation deaths of his wife, Helen Frances Warren, and three young daughters, Mary, age 3, Anne, age 7, and Helen, age 8. Only his 6-year-old son, Francis Warren, survived. After the funerals at Lakeview Cemetery in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Pershing returned to Fort Bliss with his son, Francis, and his sister May and resumed his duties as commanding officer.
Commander of Villa expedition
On March 15, 1916, Pershing led an expedition into Mexico to capture Pancho Villa. This expedition was ill-equipped and hampered by a lack of supplies due to the breakdown of the Quartermaster Corps. Although there had been talk of war on the border for years, no steps had been taken to provide for the handling of supplies for an expedition. Despite this and other hindrances, such as the lack of aid from the former Mexican government, and their refusal to allow American troops to transport troops and supplies over their railroads, Pershing organized and commanded the Mexican Punitive Expedition, a combined armed force of 10,000 men that penetrated into chaotic Mexico. They routed Villa's revolutionaries, but failed to capture him.
World War I
At the start of the United States' involvement in World War I President Woodrow Wilson considered mobilizing an army to join the fight. Frederick Funston, Pershing's superior in Mexico, was being considered for the top billet as the Commander of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) when he died suddenly from a heart attack on February 19, 1917. Pershing was the most likely candidate other than Funston, and following America's entrance into the war in May, Wilson briefly interviewed Pershing, and then selected him for the command. He was officially installed in the position on May 10, 1917, and held the post until 1918. On October 6, 1917, Pershing, then a major general, was promoted to full general in the National Army. He bypassed the three star rank of lieutenant general, and was the first full general since Philip Sheridan in 1888.
As AEF commander, Pershing was responsible for the organization, training, and supply of a combined professional and draft Army and National Guard force that eventually grew from 27,000 inexperienced men to two field armies, with a third forming as the war ended, totaling over two million soldiers. Pershing was keenly aware of logistics, and worked closely with AEF's Services of Supply (SOS). The new agency performed poorly under generals Richard M. Blatchford and Francis Joseph Kernan; finally in 1918 James Harbord took control and got the job done. Pershing also worked with Colonel Charles G. Dawes to establish an Interallied coordination Board, the Military Board of Allied Supply.
Pershing exercised significant control over his command, with a full delegation of authority from Wilson and Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. Baker, cognizant of the endless problems of domestic and allied political involvement in military decision making in wartime, gave Pershing unmatched authority to run his command as he saw fit. In turn, Pershing exercised his prerogative carefully, not engaging in politics or disputes over government policy that might distract him from his military mission. While earlier a champion of the African-American soldier, he did not advocate their full participation on the battlefield, understanding the general racial attitudes of white Americans.
George C. Marshall served as one of Pershing's top assistants during and after the war. Pershing's initial chief of staff was James Harbord, who later took a combat command but worked as Pershing's closest assistant for many years and remained extremely loyal to him.
After departing from Fort Jay at Governors Island in New York Harbor under top secrecy on May 28, 1917, aboard the RMS Baltic, Pershing arrived in France in June 1917. In a show of American presence, part of the 16th Infantry Regiment marched through Paris shortly after his arrival. Pausing at the tomb of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, he was reputed to have uttered the famous line "Lafayette, we are here," a line spoken, in fact, by his aide, Colonel Charles E. Stanton. American forces were deployed in France in the autumn of 1917.
In September 1917, the French government commissioned a portrait of Pershing by 23-year-old Romanian artist Micheline Resco. Pershing removed the stars and flag from his car and sat up front with his chauffeur while traveling from his AEF headquarters to visit her by night in her apartment on the rue Descombes. Their friendship continued for the rest of his life. In 1946, at 85, Pershing secretly wed Resco in his Walter Reed Hospital apartment. Resco was 35 years his junior
Battle of Hamel
For the first time in American history, Pershing allowed American soldiers to be under the command of a foreign power. In late June, General Henry Rawlinson, commanding the British Fourth Army, suggested to Australian Lieutenant General John Monash that American involvement in a set-piece attack alongside the experienced Australians in the upcoming Battle of Hamel would both give the American troops experience and also strengthen the Australian battalions by an additional company each. On June 29, General Bell, commanding the American 33rd Division, selected two companies each from the 131st and 132nd Infantry regiments of the 66th brigade. Monash had been promised ten companies of American troops and on June 30 the remaining companies of the 1st and 2nd battalions of the 131st regiment were sent. Each American platoon was attached to a First Australian Imperial Force company, but there was difficulty in integrating the American platoons (which numbered 60 men) among the Australian companies of 100 men. This difficulty was overcome by reducing the size of each American platoon by one-fifth and sending the troops thus removed, which numbered 50 officers and men, back to battalion reinforcement camps.
The day before the attack was scheduled to commence, Pershing learned of the plan and ordered the withdrawal of six American companies. While a few Americans, such as those attached to the 42nd Battalion, disobeyed the order, the majority, although disappointed, moved back to the rear. This meant that battalions had to rearrange their attack formations and caused a serious reduction in the size of the Allied force. For example, the 11th Brigade was now attacking with 2,200 men instead of 3,000. There was a further last-minute call for the removal of all American troops from the attack, but Monash, who had chosen 4 July as the date of the attack out of "deference" to the US troops, protested to Rawlinson and received support from Field Marshal Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force. The four American companies that had joined the Australians during the assault were withdrawn from the line after the battle and returned to their regiments, having gained valuable experience. Monash sent Bell his personal thanks, praising the Americans' gallantry, while Pershing set out explicit instructions to ensure that US troops would not be employed in a similar manner again (except as described below).
African-American units
Under civilian control of the military, Pershing adhered to the racial policies of President Woodrow Wilson, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, and southern Democrats who promoted the "separate but equal" doctrine. African-American "Buffalo Soldiers" units were not allowed to participate with the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) during World War I, but experienced non-commissioned officers were provided to other segregated black units for combat servicesuch as the 317th Engineer Battalion. The American Buffalo Soldiers of the 92nd and 93rd Infantry Divisions were the first American soldiers to fight in France in 1918, but they did so under French command as Pershing had detached them from the AEF to get them into action. Most regiments of the 92nd and all of the 93rd would continue to fight under French command for the duration of the war.
Full American participation
Organization
When General Pershing met General Pétain at Compiègne at 10:45pm on the evening of March 25, 1918, Pétain told him he had few reserves left to stop the German Spring Offensive on the Western Front. In response, Pershing said he would waive the idea of forming a separate American I Corps, and put all available American divisions at Pétain's disposal. The message was repeated to General Foch on March 28th, after Foch assumed command of all allied armies. Most of these divisions were sent south to relieve French divisions, which were transported to the fight in Flanders.
By early 1918, entire divisions were beginning to serve on the front lines alongside French troops. Although Pershing desired that the AEF fight as units under American command rather than being split up by battalions to augment British and French regiments and brigades, the 27th and 30th Divisions, grouped under II Corps command, were loaned during the desperate days of spring 1918, and fought with the British Fourth Army under General Rawlinson until the end of the war, taking part in the breach of the Hindenburg Line in October.
By May 1918, Pershing had become discontented with Air Service of the American Expeditionary Force, believing staff planning had been inefficient with considerable internal dissension, as well as conflict between its members and those of Pershing's General Staff. Further, aircraft and unit totals lagged far behind those expected. Pershing appointed his former West Point classmate and non-aviator, Major General Mason Patrick as the new Chief of Air Service. Considerable house-cleaning of the existing staff resulted from Patrick's appointment, bringing in experienced staff officers to administrate, and tightening up lines of communication.
In October 1918, Pershing saw the need for a dedicated Military Police Corps and the first U.S. Army MP School was established at Autun, France. For this, he is considered the founding father of the United States MPs.
Because of the effects of trench warfare on soldiers' feet, in January 1918, Pershing oversaw the creation of an improved combat boot, the "1918 Trench Boot," which became known as the "Pershing Boot" upon its introduction.
Combat
American forces first saw serious action during the summer of 1918, contributing eight large divisions, alongside 24 French ones, at the Second Battle of the Marne. Along with the British Fourth Army's victory at Amiens, the Allied victory at the Second Battle of the Marne marked the turning point of World War I on the Western Front.
In August 1918 the U.S. First Army had been formed, first under Pershing's direct command and then by Lieutenant General Hunter Liggett, when the U.S. Second Army under Lieutenant General Robert Bullard was created. After a quick victory at Saint-Mihiel, east of Verdun, some of the more bullish AEF commanders had hoped to push on eastwards to Metz, but this did not fit in with the plans of the Allied Supreme Commander, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, for three simultaneous offensives into the "bulge" of the Western Front (the other two being the Fourth Army's breach of the Hindenburg Line and an Anglo-Belgian offensive, led by Herbert Plumer's Second Army, in Flanders). Instead, the AEF was required to redeploy and, aided by French tanks, launched a major offensive northwards in very difficult terrain at Meuse-Argonne. Initially enjoying numerical odds of eight to one, this offensive eventually engaged 35 or 40 of the 190 or so German divisions on the Western Front, although to put this in perspective, around half the German divisions were engaged on the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) sector at the time.
The offensive was marked by a Pershing failure, specifically his reliance on massed infantry attacks with little artillery support led to high casualty rates in the capturing of three key points. This was despite the AEF facing only second-line German troops after the decision by Erich Ludendorff, the German Chief of Staff, to withdraw to the Hindenburg Line on October 3–and in notable contrast to the simultaneous British breakthrough of the Hindenburg Line in the north. Pershing was subsequently forced to reorganize the AEF with the creation of the Second Army, and to step down as the commander of the First Army.
When he arrived in Europe, Pershing had openly scorned the slow trench warfare of the previous three years on the Western Front, believing that American soldiers' skill with the rifle would enable them to avoid costly and senseless fighting over a small area of no-man's land. This was regarded as unrealistic by British and French commanders, and (privately) by a number of Americans such as Army Chief of Staff General Tasker Bliss and even Liggett. Even German generals were negative, with Erich Ludendorff dismissing Pershing's strategic efforts in the Meuse-Argonne offensive by recalling how "the attacks of the youthful American troops broke down with the heaviest losses". The AEF had performed well in the relatively open warfare of the Second Battle of the Marne, but the eventual American casualties against German defensive positions in the Argonne (roughly 120,000 American casualties in six weeks, against 35 or 40 German divisions) were not noticeably better than those of the Franco-British offensive on the Somme two years earlier (600,000 casualties in four and a half months, versus 50 or so German divisions). More ground was gained, but by this stage of the war the German Army was in worse shape than in previous years.
Some writers have speculated that Pershing's frustration at the slow progress through the Argonne was the cause of two incidents which then ensued. First, he ordered the U.S. First Army to take "the honor" of recapturing Sedan, site of the French defeat in 1870; the ensuing confusion (an order was issued that "boundaries were not to be considered binding") exposed American troops to danger not only from the French on their left, but even from one another, as the 1st Division tacked westward by night across the path of the 42nd Division (accounts differ as to whether Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur, then commanding the 84th Brigade of the 42nd Division, was really mistaken for a German officer and arrested). Liggett, who had been away from headquarters the previous day, had to sort out the mess and implement the instructions from the Allied Supreme Command, Marshal Foch, allowing the French to recapture the city; he later recorded that this was the only time during the war in which he lost his temper.
Second, Pershing sent an unsolicited letter to the Allied Supreme War Council, demanding that the Germans not be given an armistice and that instead, the Allies should push on and obtain an unconditional surrender. Although in later years, many, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt, felt that Pershing had been correct, at the time, this was a breach of political authority. Pershing narrowly escaped a serious reprimand from Wilson's aide, "Colonel" Edward M. House, and later apologized.
At the time of the Armistice with Germany, another Franco-American offensive was due to start on November 14, thrusting towards Metz and into Lorraine, to take place simultaneously with further BEF advances through Belgium. In his memoirs, Pershing claimed that the American breakout from the Argonne at the start of November was the decisive event leading to the German acceptance of an armistice, because it made untenable the Antwerp–Meuse line. This is probably an exaggeration; the outbreak of civil unrest and naval mutiny in Germany, the collapse of Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, and particularly Austria-Hungary following Allied victories in Salonika, Syria, and Italy, and the Allied victories on the Western Front were among a series of events in the autumn of 1918 which made it clear that Allied victory was inevitable, and diplomatic inquiries about an armistice had been going on throughout October.
President Wilson was keen to tie matters up before the mid-term elections, and as the other Allies were running low on supplies and manpower, they followed Wilson's lead.
American successes were largely credited to Pershing, and he became the most celebrated American leader of the war. MacArthur saw Pershing as a desk soldier, and the relationship between the two men deteriorated by the end of the war. Similar criticism of senior commanders by the younger generation of officers (the future generals of World War II) was made in the British and other armies, but, in Pershing's defense, although it was not uncommon for brigade commanders to serve near the front and even be killed, the state of communications in World War I made it more practical for senior generals to command from the rear.
He controversially ordered his troops to continue fighting before the signed Armistice took effect. This resulted in 3,500 American casualties on the last day of the war, an act which was regarded as murder by a few officers under his command. Pershing doubted the Germans' good faith, and most of his contemporaries took the view he expressed to the House Committee on Military Affairs in his testimony on November 5, 1919:
The year of 1918 also saw a personal health struggle for Pershing as he was sickened during the 1918 flu pandemic, but unlike many who were not so fortunate, Pershing survived. He rode his horse, Kidron, in the Paris victory parade in 1919.
Later career
In September 1919, in recognition of his distinguished service during World War I, the U.S. Congress authorized the President to promote Pershing to General of the Armies of the United States, the highest rank possible for any member of the United States armed forces, which was created especially for him.
In 1976, Congress authorized President Gerald Ford to posthumously promote George Washington to this rank as part of the United States Bicentennial; Washington previously held the rank of General in the Continental Army, and wore a three-star insignia; his posthumous appointment to General of the Armies rank and the specific wording of the authorizing statute, Public Law 94-479, of October 1976, ensured that Washington would always be considered the U.S. Army's highest-ranking officer. Pershing was authorized to create his insignia for the new rank and chose to continue wearing four stars for the rest of his career.
In 1919, Pershing created the Military Order of the World War as an officer's fraternity for veterans of the First World War, modeled after the Military Order of Foreign Wars. Both organizations still exist today and welcome new officer members to their ranks. Pershing himself would join the MOFW in 1924.
There was a movement to draft Pershing as a candidate for president in 1920; he refused to campaign, but indicated that he "wouldn't decline to serve" if the people wanted him. Though Pershing was a Republican, many of his party's leaders considered him too closely tied to the policies of the Democratic Party's President Woodrow Wilson. Another general, Leonard Wood, was the early Republican front runner, but the nomination went to Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, who went on to win the general election.
In 1921, Pershing became Chief of Staff of the United States Army, serving for three years. He created the Pershing Map, a proposed national network of military and civilian highways. The Interstate Highway System instituted in 1956 bears considerable resemblance to the Pershing map. On his 64th birthday, September 13, 1924, Pershing retired from active military service. (Army regulations from the late 1860s to the early 1940s required officers to retire on their 64th birthday.)
On November 1, 1921, Pershing was in Kansas City to take part in the groundbreaking ceremony for the Liberty Memorial that was being constructed there, (now known as the National World War I Museum and Memorial). Also present that day were Lieutenant General Baron Jacques of the Belgian Army, Admiral of the Fleet David Beatty of the British Royal Navy, Marshal Ferdinand Foch of the French Army, and General Armando Diaz of the Royal Italian Army. One of the main speakers was Vice President Calvin Coolidge. In 1935, bas-reliefs of Pershing, Jacques, Foch and Diaz by sculptor Walker Hancock were added to the memorial. Pershing also laid the cornerstone of the World War Memorial in Indianapolis on July 4, 1927.
On October 2, 1922, amid several hundred officers, many of them combat veterans of World War I, Pershing formally established the Reserve Officers Association (ROA) as an organization at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. ROA is a 75,000-member, professional association of officers, former officers, and spouses of all the uniformed services of the United States, primarily the Reserve and United States National Guard. It is a congressionally chartered Association that advises the Congress and the President on issues of national security on behalf of all members of the Reserve Component.
In 1924, Pershing became a member of the Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. He was also an honorary member of the Society of the Cincinnati and a Veteran Companion of the Military Order of Foreign Wars. On January 5, 1935 Pershing was designated a Military Order of the World Wars Honorary Commander-in-Chief for Life.
Pershing served on a committee of the Sons of the American Revolution to establish and recognize Constitution Day in the United States.
During the 1930s, Pershing largely retreated to private life, but returned to the public eye with publication of his memoirs, My Experiences in the World War, which were awarded the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for history. He was also an active Civitan during this time.
In 1940, before and after the Fall of France, Pershing was an outspoken advocate of aid for the United Kingdom during World War II.
In August 1940, he publicly supported the "Destroyers for Bases Agreement", whereby the United States sold fifty warships from World War I to the UK in exchange for lengthy leases of land on British possessions for the establishment for military bases.
In 1944, with Congress' creation of the five star rank of General of the Army, Pershing was still considered to be the highest-ranking officer of the United States military as his rank was General of the Armies. "In [1799] Congress created for George Washington the rank of General of the Armies ... General [Ulysses S.] Grant received the title of General of the Army in 1866 . ... Carefully Congress wrote a bill (HR 7594) to revive the rank of General of the Armies for General Pershing alone to hold during his lifetime. The rank would cease to exist upon Pershing's death." Later, when asked if this made Pershing a five-star general, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson commented that it did not, since Pershing never wore more than four stars, but that Pershing was still to be considered senior to the present five-star generals of World War II.
In July 1944, Pershing was visited by Free French leader General Charles de Gaulle. When Pershing asked after the health of his old friend, Marshal Philippe Pétain – who had headed the pro-German Vichy regime until it was dissolved in late 1942 – de Gaulle replied tactfully that, when he last saw him, the Marshal was well.
Death
On July 15, 1948, Pershing died of coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure at age 87 at Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington, D.C., which was his home after 1944. He lay in state at the United States Capitol rotunda and following a state funeral, he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. near the grave sites of the soldiers he commanded in Europe. The site is now known as Pershing Hill. George C. Marshall, then serving as U.S. Secretary of State, was in charge of funeral plans.
Summary of service
Dates of rank
Proposed six-star insignia
Assignment history
1882: Cadet, United States Military Academy
1886: Troop L, Sixth Cavalry
1891: Professor of Tactics, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
1895: 1st Lieutenant, 10th Cavalry Regiment
1897: Instructor, United States Military Academy, West Point
1898: Major of Volunteer Forces, Cuban Campaign, Spanish–American War
1899: Officer-in-Charge, Office of Customs and Insular Affairs
1900: Adjutant General, Department of Mindanao and Jolo, Philippines
1901: Battalion Officer, 1st Cavalry and Intelligence Officer, 15th Cavalry (Philippines)
1902: Officer-in-Charge, Camp Vicars, Philippines
1904: Assistant Chief of Staff, Southwest Army Division, Oklahoma
1905: Military attaché, U.S. Embassy, Tokyo, Japan
1908: Military Advisor to American Embassy, France
1909: Commander of Fort McKinley, Manila, and governor of Moro Province
1914: Brigade Commander, 8th Army Brigade
1916: Commanding General, Mexican Punitive Expedition
1917: Commanding General for the formation of the National Army
1917: Commanding General, American Expeditionary Forces, Europe
1921: Chief of Staff of the United States Army
1924: Retired from active military service
1925: Chief Commissioner assigned by the United States in the arbitration case for the province of Tacna between Peru and Chile.
Honors and awards
Distinguished Service Cross Citation
In 1940 General Pershing was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism in action leading an assault against hostile Moros at Mount Bagsak, on the island of Jolo in the Philippines on June 15, 1913.
Citation
For extraordinary heroism against hostile fanatical Moros at Mount Bagsak, Jolo, Philippine Islands on June 15, 1913. He personally assumed command of the assaulting line at the most critical period when only about 15 yards from the last Moro position. His encouragement and splendid example of personal heroism resulted in a general advance and the prompt capture of the hostile stronghold.
United States decorations and medals
Note: The dates indicated are the date the award was issued, not the date of action the award is based on.
In 1932, eight years after Pershing's retirement from active service, his silver citation star was upgraded to the Silver Star decoration. In 1941, he was retroactively awarded the Army of Occupation of Germany Medal for service in Germany following the close of World War I. As the medal had a profile of Pershing on its obverse, Pershing became the only soldier in the history of the U.S. Army, and only one of four in the entire U.S. Armed Forces, eligible to wear a medal with his own likeness on it. Navy admirals George Dewey, William T. Sampson and Richard E. Byrd were also entitled to wear medals with their own image on them.
International awards
Civilian awards
Congressional Gold Medal
Thanks of Congress
Distinguished Service Medal, American Legion
Special Medal of the Committee of the city of Buenos Aires
Induction into the Nebraska Hall of Fame (1963)
Personal life and family
Pershing was a Freemason, a member of Lincoln Lodge No. 19, Lincoln, Nebraska.
Francis Pershing (son)
Colonel Francis Warren Pershing (1909–1980), Pershing's son, served in the Second World War as an advisor to the Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall. After the war he continued with his financial career and founded a stock brokerage firm, Pershing & Company. In 1938, he married Muriel Bache Richards, granddaughter of financier Jules Bache. He was father to two sons who both served in Vietnam War, Colonel John Warren Pershing III (1941–1999) and Second Lieutenant Richard W. Pershing (1942–1968). John Pershing III served in the Army from 1964 to 1967 and Army Reserve from 1967 to 1999. He attained the rank of colonel, and his assignments included special assistant to Army Chief of Staff General Gordon R. Sullivan. Richard Pershing served as a second lieutenant in the 502nd Infantry and was killed in action on February 17, 1968, in Khe Sanh during the Vietnam War.
Nita Patton (fiancée)
In 1917, two years after the deaths of his wife Helen and three daughters, Pershing courted Anne Wilson "Nita" Patton, the younger sister of his protégé, George S. Patton.
Pershing met her when she traveled to Fort Bliss to visit her brother, and he introduced them. Pershing and Nita Patton soon began a relationship; they became engaged in 1917, but their separation because of Pershing's time in France during World War I ended it. Nita Patton never married, while Pershing remained unmarried until he secretly wed Micheline Resco in 1946.
Micheline Resco (second wife)
Pershing had wartime affairs, including one with French-Romanian artist Micheline Resco (1894–1968), and he later expressed regret that he had let Nita Patton "get away". Resco was 35 years his junior and they had known each other and exchanged encoded love letters since meeting in Paris in 1917, where Resco painted Pershing's portrait. In 1946, Pershing secretly wed Resco in his Walter Reed Hospital apartment.
Legacy
Since 1930, the Pershing Park Memorial Association (PPMA), headquartered in Pershing's hometown of Laclede, Missouri, has been dedicated to preserving the memory of General Pershing's military history.
On November 17, 1961, the United States Postal Service released an 8¢ Liberty Issue postage stamp honoring Pershing, shown at right.
In popular culture
Film
Pershing is played by Milburn Stone in the 1955 film The Long Gray Line, which was based on Martin 'Marty' Maher's autobiography, Bringing Up the Brass: My 55 Years at West Point which depicts Pershing swearing Maher into the army.
Pershing is played by Ron Perlman in the 2019 film The Great War.
Television
The actor Jody McCrea was cast as Lieutenant Pershing in the 1962 episode, "To Walk with Greatness", on the syndicated television anthology series, Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. In the story line, three outlaws endanger an Indian treaty, as Pershing sets forth to find the men. Frank Ferguson was cast as Colonel Carr.
Pershing is played by Marshall Teague in the 1997 Theodore Roosevelt biographical miniseries Rough Riders, as the commander of the Buffalo Soldiers during the Battle of San Juan Hill.
Literature
Pershing appears as a character in The Friends of Pancho Villa (1996), a historical novel by James Carlos Blake.
Pershing also appears in Hard Magic: The Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia (2011).
He is mentioned frequently as one of the commanders in Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory series in the volumes set during and shortly after the alternate history version of World War I, but his actual appearance is very brief.
He also has a short appearance in the Anton Myrer novel, Once An Eagle.
See also
General Pershing WWI casualty list
M26 Pershing Tank
MGM-31 Pershing Missile
Pershing (doughnut)
References
Informational notes
Citations
Bibliography
Adas, Michael. "Ambivalent Ally: American Military Intervention and the Endgame and Legacy of World War I" Diplomatic History (2014) 38#4: 700–12.
Boot, Max. The Savage Wars of Peace New York, Basic Books, 2002.
Edmonds, James. Military Operations: France and Belgium: 1914-18, London: MacMillan, 1935
Faulkner, Richard S. Pershing's Crusaders: The American Soldier in World War I (University Press of Kansas, 2017). xiv, 758 pp
Goldhurst, Richard. Pipe Clay and Drill: John J. Pershing, the classic American soldier (Reader's Digest Press, 1977)
Lacey, Jim. Pershing. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Mordacq, Henri. Unity of Command: How it was Achieved, Paris: Tallandier, 1929 (translated by Major J.C. Bardin, National War College, Carlisle, PA)
O'Connor, Richard. Black Jack Pershing. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961.
Pershing, John J., and John T. Greenwood. My Life Before the World War, 1860–1917: A Memoir. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2013.
Pershing, John J. My Experiences in the World War, Vol. I New York: Frederick Stokes, 1931
Perry, John. Pershing: Commander of the Great War. Nashville, Tenn: Thomas Nelson, 2011.
Smith, Gene. Until the Last Trumpet Sounds: The Life of General of the Armies John J. Pershing (Wiley, New York, 1998)
Smythe, Donald. Guerrilla Warrior: The Early Life of John J. Pershing (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1973)
Smythe, Donald. Pershing: General of the Armies (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1986)
Vandiver, Frank E. Black Jack: The Life and Times of John J. Pershing – Volume I (Texas A&M University Press, Third printing, 1977)
Vandiver, Frank E. Black Jack: The Life and Times of John J. Pershing – Volume II (Texas A&M University Press, Third printing, 1977)
Weigley, Russell Frank. History of the United States Army (1967)
Welsome, Eileen. The General and the Jaguar: Pershing's Hunt for Pancho Villa: a True Story of Revolution and Revenge. New York: Little, Brown and Co, 2006.
Woodward, David R. The American Army and the First World War (Cambridge University Press, 2014). 484 pp. online review
Yockelson, Mitchell (Foreword by John S. D. Eisenhower). Borrowed Soldiers: Americans under British Command, 1918 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008)
Yockelson, Mitchell. Forty-Seven Days: How Pershing's Warriors Came of Age to Defeat at the German Army in World War I (New York: NAL, Caliber, 2016)
External links
Pershing Museum
New York Times obituary
Black Jack Pershing in Cuba
Chapter IV, General of the Armies John J. Pershing, State Funeral, 15–19 July 1948 in The Last Salute: Civil and Military Funeral, 1921–1969 by B. C. Mossman and M. W. Stark, United States Army Center of Military History
at Nebraska State Historical Society
Americans Under British Command, 1918 at Borrowed Soldiers
John J. Pershing Papers at Library of Congress
John J. Pershing at the World Digital Archive
The National Society of Pershing Rifles
The Pershing Foundation
1860 births
1948 deaths
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Deaths from coronary artery disease | true | [
"\"How U Get a Record Deal?\" is the lead single released from Big Daddy Kane's fifth studio album, Looks Like a Job For.... The song is notable for being one of the first singles to be produced by the popular production duo, the Trackmasters.\n\nThough the song did not reach the crossover success that its follow-up, \"Very Special\", achieved, it became his sixth top ten hit on the Billboard Hot Rap Singles chart, peaking at number seven.\n\nSingle track listing\n\nA-Side\n\"How U Get a Record Deal?\" (Album Version) – 3:56\n\"How U Get a Record Deal?\" (Clean Radio Edit) – 3:56\n\"How U Get a Record Deal?\" (A cappella) – 3:19\n\nB-Side\n\"Here Comes Kane, Scoob and Scrap\" (Album Version) – 4:24\n\"Here Comes Kane, Scoob and Scrap\" (Instrumental) – 4:23\n\"How U Get a Record Deal?\" (Instrumental) – 3:56\n\nChart history\n\n1993 songs\n1993 singles\nBig Daddy Kane songs\n[[Category:Song recordings produced by Trackmasters\nWarner Records singles\nSongs written by Big Daddy Kane\nCold Chillin' Records singles",
"How Did This Get Made? is a comedy podcast on the Earwolf network hosted by Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Jason Mantzoukas.\n\nGenerally, How Did This Get Made? is released every two weeks. During the show's off-week, a \".5\" episode is uploaded featuring Scheer announcing the next week's movie, as well as challenges for the fans. In addition to the shows and mini-shows, the How Did This Get Made? stream hosted the first three episodes of Bitch Sesh, the podcast of previous guests Casey Wilson and Danielle Schneider, in December 2015. It has also hosted episodes of its own spin-off podcast, the How Did This Get Made? Origin Stories, in which Blake Harris interviews people involved with the films covered by the main show. In December 2017, an episode was recorded for the Pee Cast Blast event, and released exclusively on Stitcher Premium.\n\nEvery episode has featured Paul Scheer as the host of the podcast. The only episode to date in which Scheer hosted remotely was The Smurfs, in which he Skyped in. Raphael has taken extended breaks from the podcast for both filming commitments and maternity leave. Mantzoukas has also missed episodes due to work, but has also Skyped in for various episodes. On the occasions that neither Raphael nor Mantzoukas are available for live appearances, Scheer calls in previous fan-favorite guests for what is known as a How Did This Get Made? All-Stars episode.\n\nList of episodes\n\nMini episodes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n List of How Did This Get Made? episodes\n\nHow Did This Get Made\nHow Did This Get Made"
] |
[
"John J. Pershing",
"Early career",
"What was Pershings first job",
"Troop L of the 6th U.S. Cavalry stationed at Fort Bayard, in the New Mexico Territory.",
"How did he get into this job",
"also became an expert marksman and, in 1891, was rated second in pistol and fifth in rifle out of all soldiers in the U.S. Army."
] | C_52af268bf5df41a7a9293e2ca9345335_1 | How long was he with the U.S Cavalry | 3 | How long was John J. Pershing with the U.S Cavalry? | John J. Pershing | Pershing reported for active duty on September 30, 1886, and was assigned to Troop L of the 6th U.S. Cavalry stationed at Fort Bayard, in the New Mexico Territory. While serving in the 6th Cavalry, Pershing participated in several Indian campaigns and was cited for bravery for actions against the Apache. During his time at Fort Stanton, Pershing and close friends Lt. Julius Penn and Lt. Richard B. Paddock were nicknamed "The Three Green P's," spending their leisure time hunting and attending Hispanic dances. Pershing's sister Grace married Paddock in 1890. Between 1887 and 1890, Pershing served with the 6th Cavalry at various postings in California, Arizona, and North Dakota. He also became an expert marksman and, in 1891, was rated second in pistol and fifth in rifle out of all soldiers in the U.S. Army. On December 9, 1890, Pershing and the 6th Cavalry arrived at Sioux City, Iowa, where Pershing played a role in suppressing the last uprisings of the Lakota (Sioux) Indians. Though he and his unit did not participate in the Wounded Knee Massacre, they did fight three days after it on January 1, 1891 when Sioux warriors attacked the 6th Cavalry's supply wagons. When the Sioux began firing at the wagons, Pershing and his troops heard the shots, and rode more than six miles to the location of the attack. The cavalry fired at the forces of Chief War Eagle, causing them to retreat. This would be the only occasion where Pershing would see action in the Ghost Dance campaign. In September 1891 he was assigned as the Professor of Military Science and Tactics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a position he held until 1895. While carrying out this assignment, Pershing attended the university's College of Law, from which he received his LL.B. degree in 1893. He formed a drill company of chosen university cadets, Company A. In March 1892, it won the Maiden Prize competition of the National Competitive Drills in Omaha, Nebraska. The Citizens of Omaha presented the company with a large silver cup, the "Omaha Cup." On October 2, 1894, former members of Company A established a fraternal military drill organization named the Varsity Rifles. The group renamed itself the Pershing Rifles in 1895 in honor of its mentor and patron. Pershing maintained a close relationship with Pershing Rifles for the remainder of his life. On October 20, 1892, Pershing was promoted to first lieutenant and in 1895 took command of a troop of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, one of the original Buffalo Soldier regiments composed of African-American soldiers under white officers. From Fort Assinniboine in north central Montana, he commanded an expedition to the south and southwest that rounded up and deported a large number of Cree Indians to Canada. CANNOTANSWER | In September 1891 he was assigned as the Professor of Military Science and Tactics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a position he held until 1895. | General of the Armies John Joseph Pershing (September 13, 1860 – July 15, 1948), nicknamed "Black Jack", was a senior United States Army officer. He served most famously as the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) on the Western Front during World War I, from 1917 to 1918. In addition to leading the AEF to victory in World War I, Pershing notably served as a mentor to many in the generation of generals who led the United States Army during World War II, including George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, Lesley J. McNair, George S. Patton and Douglas MacArthur.
During his command in World War I, Pershing rejected British and French demands that American forces be integrated with their armies, essentially as replacement units, and insisted that the AEF would operate as a single unit under his command, although some American divisions fought under British command, notably in the Battle of Hamel and the breaching of the Hindenburg Line at St Quentin Canal, precipitating the final German collapse. Pershing also allowed (at that time segregated) American all-Black units to be integrated with the French Army.
Pershing's soldiers first saw serious battle at Cantigny, Chateau-Thierry, Belleau Wood June 1–26, 1918, and Soissons on July 18–22, 1918. To speed up the arrival of American troops, they embarked for France leaving heavy equipment behind, and used British and French tanks, artillery, airplanes and other munitions. In September 1918 at St. Mihiel, the First Army was directly under Pershing's command; it overwhelmed the salient – the encroachment into Allied territory – that the German Army had held for three years. For the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, Pershing shifted roughly 600,000 American soldiers to the heavily defended forests of the Argonne, keeping his divisions engaged in hard fighting for 47 days, alongside the French. The Allied Hundred Days Offensive, which the Argonne fighting was part of, contributed to Germany calling for an armistice. Pershing was of the opinion that the war should continue and that all of Germany should be occupied in an effort to permanently destroy German militarism.
Pershing is the only American to be promoted in his own lifetime to General of the Armies, the highest possible rank in the United States Army. Allowed to select his own insignia, Pershing chose to continue using four stars. After the creation of the five-star General of the Army rank during World War II, his rank of General of the Armies could unofficially be considered that of a six-star general, but he died before the proposed insignia could be considered and acted upon by Congress.
Some of his tactics have been criticized both by other commanders at the time and by modern historians. His reliance on costly frontal assaults, long after other Allied armies had abandoned such tactics, has been blamed for causing unnecessarily high American casualties. Pershing was also criticized by some historians for his actions on the day of armistice as the commander of the American Expeditionary Force. Pershing did not approve of the armistice, and despite knowing of the imminent ceasefire, he did not tell his commanders to suspend any new offensive actions or assaults in the final few hours of the war. In total, there were over 11,000 casualties, dead, missing, or injured during the final day of the war on November 11, which exceeded even D-Day casualty counts seen later in 1944. Of those, 3,500 were American casualties directly attributable to Pershing's actions. Pershing was later questioned by Congress as to why there were so many American casualties on the final day of the war.
Early life
Pershing was born on a farm near Laclede, Missouri on September 13, 1860, the son of farmer and store owner John Fletcher Pershing and homemaker Ann Elizabeth Thompson. Pershing's great-great-grandfather, Frederick Pershing, whose name originally was Pfersching, emigrated from Alsace, leaving Amsterdam on the ship Jacob, and arriving in Philadelphia on October 2, 1749. He had five siblings who lived to adulthood: brothers James F. (1862–1933) and Ward (1874–1909), and sisters Mary Elizabeth (1864–1928), Anna May (1867–1955) and Grace (1867–1903); three other children died in infancy. When the Civil War began, his father supported the Union and was a sutler for the 18th Missouri Volunteer Infantry; he died on March 16, 1906. Pershing's mother died during his initial assignment in the American West.
Pershing attended a school in Laclede that was reserved for precocious students who were also the children of prominent citizens, and he later attended Laclede's one-room schoolhouse. After completing high school in 1878, he became a teacher of local African American children. While pursuing his teaching career, Pershing also studied at the State Normal School (now Truman State University) in Kirksville, Missouri, from which he graduated in 1880 with a Bachelor of Science degree in scientific didactics. Two years later, he applied to the United States Military Academy. Pershing later admitted that serving in the military was secondary to attending West Point, and he had applied because the education offered was free and it was better than what he could obtain in rural Missouri.
West Point years
Pershing was sworn in as a West Point cadet in the fall of 1882. He was selected early for leadership positions and became successively First Corporal, First Sergeant, First Lieutenant, and First Captain, the highest possible cadet rank. Pershing also commanded, ex officio, the honor guard that saluted the funeral train of President Ulysses S. Grant as it passed West Point in August 1885.
Pershing graduated in the summer of 1886 ranked 30th in his class of 77, and was commissioned a second lieutenant; he was commended by the West Point Superintendent, General Wesley Merritt, who said Pershing gave early promise of becoming an outstanding officer. Pershing briefly considered petitioning the Army to let him study law and delay the start of his mandatory military service. He also considered joining several classmates in a partnership that would pursue development of an irrigation project in Oregon. He ultimately decided against both courses of action in favor of active Army duty.
Early career
Pershing reported for active duty on September 30, 1886, and was assigned to Troop L of the 6th U.S. Cavalry stationed at Fort Bayard, in the New Mexico Territory. While serving in the 6th Cavalry, Pershing participated in several Indian campaigns and was cited for bravery for actions against the Apache. During his time at Fort Stanton, Pershing and close friends Lt. Julius A. Penn and Lt. Richard B. Paddock were nicknamed "The Three Green P's," spending their leisure time hunting and attending Hispanic dances. Pershing's sister Grace married Paddock in 1890.
Between 1887 and 1890, Pershing served with the 6th Cavalry at various postings in California, Arizona, and North Dakota. He also became an expert marksman and, in 1891, was rated second in pistol and fifth in rifle out of all soldiers in the U.S. Army.
On December 9, 1890, Pershing and the 6th Cavalry arrived at Sioux City, Iowa, where Pershing played a role in suppressing the last uprisings of the Lakota (Sioux) Indians. Though he and his unit did not participate in the Wounded Knee Massacre, they did fight three days after it on January 1, 1891, when Sioux warriors attacked the 6th Cavalry's supply wagons. When the Sioux began firing at the wagons, Pershing and his troops heard the shots, and rode more than six miles to the location of the attack. The cavalry fired at the forces of Chief War Eagle, causing them to retreat. This was the only occasion on which Pershing saw action during the Ghost Dance campaign.
In September 1891, he was assigned as the professor of military science and tactics at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, a position he held until 1895. While carrying out this assignment, Pershing attended the university's College of Law, from which he received his LL.B. degree in 1893. He formed a drill company of chosen university cadets, Company A. In March 1892, it won the Maiden Prize competition of the National Competitive Drills in Omaha, Nebraska. The Citizens of Omaha presented the company with a large silver cup, the "Omaha Cup". On October 2, 1894, former members of Company A established a fraternal military drill organization named the Varsity Rifles. The group renamed itself the Pershing Rifles in 1895 in honor of its mentor and patron. Pershing maintained a close relationship with Pershing Rifles for the remainder of his life.
On October 20, 1892, Pershing was promoted to first lieutenant and in 1895 took command of a troop of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, one of the original Buffalo Soldier regiments composed of African-American soldiers under white officers. From Fort Assinniboine in north central Montana, he commanded an expedition to the south and southwest that rounded up and deported a large number of Cree Indians to Canada.
West Point instructor
In 1897, Pershing was appointed to the West Point tactical staff as an instructor, where he was assigned to Cadet Company A. Because of his strictness and rigidity, Pershing was unpopular with the cadets, who took to calling him "Nigger Jack" because of his service with the 10th Cavalry.
During the course of his tour at the Academy, this epithet softened to "Black Jack," although, according to Vandiver, "the intent remained hostile." Still, this nickname would stick with Pershing for the rest of his life, and was known to the public as early as 1917.
Spanish– and Philippine–American wars
At the start of the Spanish–American War, First Lieutenant Pershing was the regimental quartermaster for the 10th Cavalry; he fought on Kettle and San Juan Hills in Cuba, and was cited for gallantry. In 1919, he was awarded the Silver Citation Star for these actions, and in 1932 the award was upgraded to the Silver Star decoration. A commanding officer here commented on Pershing's calm demeanor under fire, saying he was "cool as a bowl of cracked ice." Pershing also served with the 10th Cavalry during the siege and surrender of Santiago de Cuba.
Pershing was commissioned as a major of United States Volunteers on August 26, 1898, and assigned as an ordnance officer. In March 1899, after suffering from malaria, Pershing was put in charge of the Office of Customs and Insular Affairs which oversaw occupation forces in territories gained in the Spanish–American War, including Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. He was honorably discharged from the volunteers and reverted to his permanent rank of first lieutenant on May 12, 1899. He was again commissioned as a major of Volunteers on June 6, 1899, this time as an assistant adjutant general.
When the Philippine–American War began, Pershing reported to Manila on August 17, 1899, was assigned to the Department of Mindanao and Jolo, and commanded efforts to suppress the Filipino Insurrection. On November 27, 1900, Pershing was appointed adjutant general of his department and served in this posting until March 1, 1901. He was cited for bravery for actions on the Cagayan River while attempting to destroy a Philippine stronghold at Macajambo.
Pershing wrote in his autobiography that "The bodies [of some Moro outlaws] were publicly buried in the same grave with a dead pig." This treatment was used against captured juramentado so that the superstitious Moro would believe they would be going to hell. Pershing added that "it was not pleasant [for the Army] to have to take such measures". Historians do not believe that Pershing was directly involved with such incidents, or that he personally gave such orders to his subordinates. Letters and memoirs from soldiers describing events similar to this do not have credible evidence of Pershing having been personally involved.
On June 30, 1901, Pershing was honorably discharged from the Volunteers and he reverted to the rank of captain in the Regular Army to which he had been promoted on February 2, 1901. He served with the 1st Cavalry Regiment in the Philippines. He later was assigned to the 15th Cavalry Regiment, serving as an intelligence officer and participating in actions against the Moros. He was cited for bravery at Lake Lanao. In June 1901, he served as Commander of Camp Vicars in Lanao, Philippines, after the previous camp commander had been promoted to brigadier general.
Rise to general
In June 1903, Pershing was ordered to return to the United States. President Theodore Roosevelt, taken by Pershing's ability, petitioned the Army General Staff to promote Pershing to colonel. At the time, Army officer promotions were based primarily on seniority rather than merit, and although there was widespread acknowledgment that Pershing should serve as a colonel, the Army General Staff declined to change their seniority-based promotion tradition just to accommodate Pershing. They would not consider a promotion to lieutenant colonel or even major. This angered Roosevelt, but since the President could only name and promote army officers in the general's ranks, his options for recognizing Pershing through promotion were limited.
In 1904, Pershing was assigned as the Assistant Chief of Staff of the Southwest Army Division stationed at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In October 1904, he attended the Army War College, and then was ordered to Washington, D.C. for "general duties unassigned."
Since Roosevelt could not yet promote Pershing, he petitioned the United States Congress to authorize a diplomatic posting, and Pershing was stationed as military attaché in Tokyo in 1905. Also in 1905, Pershing married Helen Frances Warren, the daughter of powerful U.S. Senator Francis E. Warren, a Wyoming Republican who served at different times as chairman of the Military Affairs and Appropriations Committees. This union with the daughter of a powerful politician who had also received the Medal of Honor during the American Civil War continued to aid Pershing's career even after his wife died in 1915.
After serving as an observer in the Russo-Japanese War attached to General Kuroki Tamemoto's Japanese First Army in Manchuria from March to September, Pershing returned to the United States in the fall of 1905. President Roosevelt employed his presidential prerogative and nominated Pershing as a brigadier general, a move which Congress approved. In skipping three ranks and more than 835 officers senior to him, the promotion gave rise to accusations that Pershing's appointment was the result of political connections and not military abilities. However, several other junior officers were similarly advanced to brigadier general ahead of their peers and seniors, including Albert L. Mills (captain), Tasker H. Bliss (major), and Leonard Wood (captain). Pershing's promotion, while unusual, was not unprecedented, and had the support of many soldiers who admired his abilities.
In 1908, Pershing briefly served as a U.S. military observer in the Balkans, an assignment which was based in Paris. Upon returning to the United States at the end of 1909, Pershing was assigned once again to the Philippines, an assignment in which he served until 1913. While in the Philippines, he served as Commander of Fort McKinley, near Manila, and also was the governor of the Moro Province. The last of Pershing's four children was born in the Philippines, and during this time he became an Episcopalian.
In 1913, Pershing was recommended for the Medal of Honor following his actions at the Battle of Bud Bagsak. He wrote to the Adjutant General to request that the recommendation not be acted on, though the board which considered the recommendation had already voted no before receiving Pershing's letter. In 1922 a further review of this event resulted in Pershing being recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross, but as the Army Chief of Staff Pershing disapproved the action. In 1940 Pershing received the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroism at Bud Bagsak, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt presenting it in a ceremony timed to coincide with Pershing's 80th birthday.
During this period Pershing's reputation for both stern discipline and effective leadership continued to grow, with one experienced old soldier under his command later saying Pershing was an "S.O.B." and that he hated Pershing's guts, but that "as a soldier, the ones then and the ones now couldn't polish his (Pershing's) boots."
Pancho Villa and Mexico
On December 20, 1913, Pershing received orders to take command of the 8th Brigade at the Presidio in San Francisco. With tensions running high on the border between the United States and Mexico because of the Mexican Revolution, the brigade was deployed to Fort Bliss, Texas, on April 24, 1914, arriving there on the 27th.
Death of wife Helen and daughters
After a year at Fort Bliss, Pershing decided to take his family there. The arrangements were almost complete, when on the morning of August 27, 1915, he received a telegram informing him of a fire in the Presidio in San Francisco, where a lacquered floor caught fire and the flames rapidly spread, resulting in the smoke inhalation deaths of his wife, Helen Frances Warren, and three young daughters, Mary, age 3, Anne, age 7, and Helen, age 8. Only his 6-year-old son, Francis Warren, survived. After the funerals at Lakeview Cemetery in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Pershing returned to Fort Bliss with his son, Francis, and his sister May and resumed his duties as commanding officer.
Commander of Villa expedition
On March 15, 1916, Pershing led an expedition into Mexico to capture Pancho Villa. This expedition was ill-equipped and hampered by a lack of supplies due to the breakdown of the Quartermaster Corps. Although there had been talk of war on the border for years, no steps had been taken to provide for the handling of supplies for an expedition. Despite this and other hindrances, such as the lack of aid from the former Mexican government, and their refusal to allow American troops to transport troops and supplies over their railroads, Pershing organized and commanded the Mexican Punitive Expedition, a combined armed force of 10,000 men that penetrated into chaotic Mexico. They routed Villa's revolutionaries, but failed to capture him.
World War I
At the start of the United States' involvement in World War I President Woodrow Wilson considered mobilizing an army to join the fight. Frederick Funston, Pershing's superior in Mexico, was being considered for the top billet as the Commander of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) when he died suddenly from a heart attack on February 19, 1917. Pershing was the most likely candidate other than Funston, and following America's entrance into the war in May, Wilson briefly interviewed Pershing, and then selected him for the command. He was officially installed in the position on May 10, 1917, and held the post until 1918. On October 6, 1917, Pershing, then a major general, was promoted to full general in the National Army. He bypassed the three star rank of lieutenant general, and was the first full general since Philip Sheridan in 1888.
As AEF commander, Pershing was responsible for the organization, training, and supply of a combined professional and draft Army and National Guard force that eventually grew from 27,000 inexperienced men to two field armies, with a third forming as the war ended, totaling over two million soldiers. Pershing was keenly aware of logistics, and worked closely with AEF's Services of Supply (SOS). The new agency performed poorly under generals Richard M. Blatchford and Francis Joseph Kernan; finally in 1918 James Harbord took control and got the job done. Pershing also worked with Colonel Charles G. Dawes to establish an Interallied coordination Board, the Military Board of Allied Supply.
Pershing exercised significant control over his command, with a full delegation of authority from Wilson and Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. Baker, cognizant of the endless problems of domestic and allied political involvement in military decision making in wartime, gave Pershing unmatched authority to run his command as he saw fit. In turn, Pershing exercised his prerogative carefully, not engaging in politics or disputes over government policy that might distract him from his military mission. While earlier a champion of the African-American soldier, he did not advocate their full participation on the battlefield, understanding the general racial attitudes of white Americans.
George C. Marshall served as one of Pershing's top assistants during and after the war. Pershing's initial chief of staff was James Harbord, who later took a combat command but worked as Pershing's closest assistant for many years and remained extremely loyal to him.
After departing from Fort Jay at Governors Island in New York Harbor under top secrecy on May 28, 1917, aboard the RMS Baltic, Pershing arrived in France in June 1917. In a show of American presence, part of the 16th Infantry Regiment marched through Paris shortly after his arrival. Pausing at the tomb of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, he was reputed to have uttered the famous line "Lafayette, we are here," a line spoken, in fact, by his aide, Colonel Charles E. Stanton. American forces were deployed in France in the autumn of 1917.
In September 1917, the French government commissioned a portrait of Pershing by 23-year-old Romanian artist Micheline Resco. Pershing removed the stars and flag from his car and sat up front with his chauffeur while traveling from his AEF headquarters to visit her by night in her apartment on the rue Descombes. Their friendship continued for the rest of his life. In 1946, at 85, Pershing secretly wed Resco in his Walter Reed Hospital apartment. Resco was 35 years his junior
Battle of Hamel
For the first time in American history, Pershing allowed American soldiers to be under the command of a foreign power. In late June, General Henry Rawlinson, commanding the British Fourth Army, suggested to Australian Lieutenant General John Monash that American involvement in a set-piece attack alongside the experienced Australians in the upcoming Battle of Hamel would both give the American troops experience and also strengthen the Australian battalions by an additional company each. On June 29, General Bell, commanding the American 33rd Division, selected two companies each from the 131st and 132nd Infantry regiments of the 66th brigade. Monash had been promised ten companies of American troops and on June 30 the remaining companies of the 1st and 2nd battalions of the 131st regiment were sent. Each American platoon was attached to a First Australian Imperial Force company, but there was difficulty in integrating the American platoons (which numbered 60 men) among the Australian companies of 100 men. This difficulty was overcome by reducing the size of each American platoon by one-fifth and sending the troops thus removed, which numbered 50 officers and men, back to battalion reinforcement camps.
The day before the attack was scheduled to commence, Pershing learned of the plan and ordered the withdrawal of six American companies. While a few Americans, such as those attached to the 42nd Battalion, disobeyed the order, the majority, although disappointed, moved back to the rear. This meant that battalions had to rearrange their attack formations and caused a serious reduction in the size of the Allied force. For example, the 11th Brigade was now attacking with 2,200 men instead of 3,000. There was a further last-minute call for the removal of all American troops from the attack, but Monash, who had chosen 4 July as the date of the attack out of "deference" to the US troops, protested to Rawlinson and received support from Field Marshal Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force. The four American companies that had joined the Australians during the assault were withdrawn from the line after the battle and returned to their regiments, having gained valuable experience. Monash sent Bell his personal thanks, praising the Americans' gallantry, while Pershing set out explicit instructions to ensure that US troops would not be employed in a similar manner again (except as described below).
African-American units
Under civilian control of the military, Pershing adhered to the racial policies of President Woodrow Wilson, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, and southern Democrats who promoted the "separate but equal" doctrine. African-American "Buffalo Soldiers" units were not allowed to participate with the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) during World War I, but experienced non-commissioned officers were provided to other segregated black units for combat servicesuch as the 317th Engineer Battalion. The American Buffalo Soldiers of the 92nd and 93rd Infantry Divisions were the first American soldiers to fight in France in 1918, but they did so under French command as Pershing had detached them from the AEF to get them into action. Most regiments of the 92nd and all of the 93rd would continue to fight under French command for the duration of the war.
Full American participation
Organization
When General Pershing met General Pétain at Compiègne at 10:45pm on the evening of March 25, 1918, Pétain told him he had few reserves left to stop the German Spring Offensive on the Western Front. In response, Pershing said he would waive the idea of forming a separate American I Corps, and put all available American divisions at Pétain's disposal. The message was repeated to General Foch on March 28th, after Foch assumed command of all allied armies. Most of these divisions were sent south to relieve French divisions, which were transported to the fight in Flanders.
By early 1918, entire divisions were beginning to serve on the front lines alongside French troops. Although Pershing desired that the AEF fight as units under American command rather than being split up by battalions to augment British and French regiments and brigades, the 27th and 30th Divisions, grouped under II Corps command, were loaned during the desperate days of spring 1918, and fought with the British Fourth Army under General Rawlinson until the end of the war, taking part in the breach of the Hindenburg Line in October.
By May 1918, Pershing had become discontented with Air Service of the American Expeditionary Force, believing staff planning had been inefficient with considerable internal dissension, as well as conflict between its members and those of Pershing's General Staff. Further, aircraft and unit totals lagged far behind those expected. Pershing appointed his former West Point classmate and non-aviator, Major General Mason Patrick as the new Chief of Air Service. Considerable house-cleaning of the existing staff resulted from Patrick's appointment, bringing in experienced staff officers to administrate, and tightening up lines of communication.
In October 1918, Pershing saw the need for a dedicated Military Police Corps and the first U.S. Army MP School was established at Autun, France. For this, he is considered the founding father of the United States MPs.
Because of the effects of trench warfare on soldiers' feet, in January 1918, Pershing oversaw the creation of an improved combat boot, the "1918 Trench Boot," which became known as the "Pershing Boot" upon its introduction.
Combat
American forces first saw serious action during the summer of 1918, contributing eight large divisions, alongside 24 French ones, at the Second Battle of the Marne. Along with the British Fourth Army's victory at Amiens, the Allied victory at the Second Battle of the Marne marked the turning point of World War I on the Western Front.
In August 1918 the U.S. First Army had been formed, first under Pershing's direct command and then by Lieutenant General Hunter Liggett, when the U.S. Second Army under Lieutenant General Robert Bullard was created. After a quick victory at Saint-Mihiel, east of Verdun, some of the more bullish AEF commanders had hoped to push on eastwards to Metz, but this did not fit in with the plans of the Allied Supreme Commander, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, for three simultaneous offensives into the "bulge" of the Western Front (the other two being the Fourth Army's breach of the Hindenburg Line and an Anglo-Belgian offensive, led by Herbert Plumer's Second Army, in Flanders). Instead, the AEF was required to redeploy and, aided by French tanks, launched a major offensive northwards in very difficult terrain at Meuse-Argonne. Initially enjoying numerical odds of eight to one, this offensive eventually engaged 35 or 40 of the 190 or so German divisions on the Western Front, although to put this in perspective, around half the German divisions were engaged on the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) sector at the time.
The offensive was marked by a Pershing failure, specifically his reliance on massed infantry attacks with little artillery support led to high casualty rates in the capturing of three key points. This was despite the AEF facing only second-line German troops after the decision by Erich Ludendorff, the German Chief of Staff, to withdraw to the Hindenburg Line on October 3–and in notable contrast to the simultaneous British breakthrough of the Hindenburg Line in the north. Pershing was subsequently forced to reorganize the AEF with the creation of the Second Army, and to step down as the commander of the First Army.
When he arrived in Europe, Pershing had openly scorned the slow trench warfare of the previous three years on the Western Front, believing that American soldiers' skill with the rifle would enable them to avoid costly and senseless fighting over a small area of no-man's land. This was regarded as unrealistic by British and French commanders, and (privately) by a number of Americans such as Army Chief of Staff General Tasker Bliss and even Liggett. Even German generals were negative, with Erich Ludendorff dismissing Pershing's strategic efforts in the Meuse-Argonne offensive by recalling how "the attacks of the youthful American troops broke down with the heaviest losses". The AEF had performed well in the relatively open warfare of the Second Battle of the Marne, but the eventual American casualties against German defensive positions in the Argonne (roughly 120,000 American casualties in six weeks, against 35 or 40 German divisions) were not noticeably better than those of the Franco-British offensive on the Somme two years earlier (600,000 casualties in four and a half months, versus 50 or so German divisions). More ground was gained, but by this stage of the war the German Army was in worse shape than in previous years.
Some writers have speculated that Pershing's frustration at the slow progress through the Argonne was the cause of two incidents which then ensued. First, he ordered the U.S. First Army to take "the honor" of recapturing Sedan, site of the French defeat in 1870; the ensuing confusion (an order was issued that "boundaries were not to be considered binding") exposed American troops to danger not only from the French on their left, but even from one another, as the 1st Division tacked westward by night across the path of the 42nd Division (accounts differ as to whether Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur, then commanding the 84th Brigade of the 42nd Division, was really mistaken for a German officer and arrested). Liggett, who had been away from headquarters the previous day, had to sort out the mess and implement the instructions from the Allied Supreme Command, Marshal Foch, allowing the French to recapture the city; he later recorded that this was the only time during the war in which he lost his temper.
Second, Pershing sent an unsolicited letter to the Allied Supreme War Council, demanding that the Germans not be given an armistice and that instead, the Allies should push on and obtain an unconditional surrender. Although in later years, many, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt, felt that Pershing had been correct, at the time, this was a breach of political authority. Pershing narrowly escaped a serious reprimand from Wilson's aide, "Colonel" Edward M. House, and later apologized.
At the time of the Armistice with Germany, another Franco-American offensive was due to start on November 14, thrusting towards Metz and into Lorraine, to take place simultaneously with further BEF advances through Belgium. In his memoirs, Pershing claimed that the American breakout from the Argonne at the start of November was the decisive event leading to the German acceptance of an armistice, because it made untenable the Antwerp–Meuse line. This is probably an exaggeration; the outbreak of civil unrest and naval mutiny in Germany, the collapse of Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, and particularly Austria-Hungary following Allied victories in Salonika, Syria, and Italy, and the Allied victories on the Western Front were among a series of events in the autumn of 1918 which made it clear that Allied victory was inevitable, and diplomatic inquiries about an armistice had been going on throughout October.
President Wilson was keen to tie matters up before the mid-term elections, and as the other Allies were running low on supplies and manpower, they followed Wilson's lead.
American successes were largely credited to Pershing, and he became the most celebrated American leader of the war. MacArthur saw Pershing as a desk soldier, and the relationship between the two men deteriorated by the end of the war. Similar criticism of senior commanders by the younger generation of officers (the future generals of World War II) was made in the British and other armies, but, in Pershing's defense, although it was not uncommon for brigade commanders to serve near the front and even be killed, the state of communications in World War I made it more practical for senior generals to command from the rear.
He controversially ordered his troops to continue fighting before the signed Armistice took effect. This resulted in 3,500 American casualties on the last day of the war, an act which was regarded as murder by a few officers under his command. Pershing doubted the Germans' good faith, and most of his contemporaries took the view he expressed to the House Committee on Military Affairs in his testimony on November 5, 1919:
The year of 1918 also saw a personal health struggle for Pershing as he was sickened during the 1918 flu pandemic, but unlike many who were not so fortunate, Pershing survived. He rode his horse, Kidron, in the Paris victory parade in 1919.
Later career
In September 1919, in recognition of his distinguished service during World War I, the U.S. Congress authorized the President to promote Pershing to General of the Armies of the United States, the highest rank possible for any member of the United States armed forces, which was created especially for him.
In 1976, Congress authorized President Gerald Ford to posthumously promote George Washington to this rank as part of the United States Bicentennial; Washington previously held the rank of General in the Continental Army, and wore a three-star insignia; his posthumous appointment to General of the Armies rank and the specific wording of the authorizing statute, Public Law 94-479, of October 1976, ensured that Washington would always be considered the U.S. Army's highest-ranking officer. Pershing was authorized to create his insignia for the new rank and chose to continue wearing four stars for the rest of his career.
In 1919, Pershing created the Military Order of the World War as an officer's fraternity for veterans of the First World War, modeled after the Military Order of Foreign Wars. Both organizations still exist today and welcome new officer members to their ranks. Pershing himself would join the MOFW in 1924.
There was a movement to draft Pershing as a candidate for president in 1920; he refused to campaign, but indicated that he "wouldn't decline to serve" if the people wanted him. Though Pershing was a Republican, many of his party's leaders considered him too closely tied to the policies of the Democratic Party's President Woodrow Wilson. Another general, Leonard Wood, was the early Republican front runner, but the nomination went to Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, who went on to win the general election.
In 1921, Pershing became Chief of Staff of the United States Army, serving for three years. He created the Pershing Map, a proposed national network of military and civilian highways. The Interstate Highway System instituted in 1956 bears considerable resemblance to the Pershing map. On his 64th birthday, September 13, 1924, Pershing retired from active military service. (Army regulations from the late 1860s to the early 1940s required officers to retire on their 64th birthday.)
On November 1, 1921, Pershing was in Kansas City to take part in the groundbreaking ceremony for the Liberty Memorial that was being constructed there, (now known as the National World War I Museum and Memorial). Also present that day were Lieutenant General Baron Jacques of the Belgian Army, Admiral of the Fleet David Beatty of the British Royal Navy, Marshal Ferdinand Foch of the French Army, and General Armando Diaz of the Royal Italian Army. One of the main speakers was Vice President Calvin Coolidge. In 1935, bas-reliefs of Pershing, Jacques, Foch and Diaz by sculptor Walker Hancock were added to the memorial. Pershing also laid the cornerstone of the World War Memorial in Indianapolis on July 4, 1927.
On October 2, 1922, amid several hundred officers, many of them combat veterans of World War I, Pershing formally established the Reserve Officers Association (ROA) as an organization at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. ROA is a 75,000-member, professional association of officers, former officers, and spouses of all the uniformed services of the United States, primarily the Reserve and United States National Guard. It is a congressionally chartered Association that advises the Congress and the President on issues of national security on behalf of all members of the Reserve Component.
In 1924, Pershing became a member of the Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. He was also an honorary member of the Society of the Cincinnati and a Veteran Companion of the Military Order of Foreign Wars. On January 5, 1935 Pershing was designated a Military Order of the World Wars Honorary Commander-in-Chief for Life.
Pershing served on a committee of the Sons of the American Revolution to establish and recognize Constitution Day in the United States.
During the 1930s, Pershing largely retreated to private life, but returned to the public eye with publication of his memoirs, My Experiences in the World War, which were awarded the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for history. He was also an active Civitan during this time.
In 1940, before and after the Fall of France, Pershing was an outspoken advocate of aid for the United Kingdom during World War II.
In August 1940, he publicly supported the "Destroyers for Bases Agreement", whereby the United States sold fifty warships from World War I to the UK in exchange for lengthy leases of land on British possessions for the establishment for military bases.
In 1944, with Congress' creation of the five star rank of General of the Army, Pershing was still considered to be the highest-ranking officer of the United States military as his rank was General of the Armies. "In [1799] Congress created for George Washington the rank of General of the Armies ... General [Ulysses S.] Grant received the title of General of the Army in 1866 . ... Carefully Congress wrote a bill (HR 7594) to revive the rank of General of the Armies for General Pershing alone to hold during his lifetime. The rank would cease to exist upon Pershing's death." Later, when asked if this made Pershing a five-star general, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson commented that it did not, since Pershing never wore more than four stars, but that Pershing was still to be considered senior to the present five-star generals of World War II.
In July 1944, Pershing was visited by Free French leader General Charles de Gaulle. When Pershing asked after the health of his old friend, Marshal Philippe Pétain – who had headed the pro-German Vichy regime until it was dissolved in late 1942 – de Gaulle replied tactfully that, when he last saw him, the Marshal was well.
Death
On July 15, 1948, Pershing died of coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure at age 87 at Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington, D.C., which was his home after 1944. He lay in state at the United States Capitol rotunda and following a state funeral, he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. near the grave sites of the soldiers he commanded in Europe. The site is now known as Pershing Hill. George C. Marshall, then serving as U.S. Secretary of State, was in charge of funeral plans.
Summary of service
Dates of rank
Proposed six-star insignia
Assignment history
1882: Cadet, United States Military Academy
1886: Troop L, Sixth Cavalry
1891: Professor of Tactics, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
1895: 1st Lieutenant, 10th Cavalry Regiment
1897: Instructor, United States Military Academy, West Point
1898: Major of Volunteer Forces, Cuban Campaign, Spanish–American War
1899: Officer-in-Charge, Office of Customs and Insular Affairs
1900: Adjutant General, Department of Mindanao and Jolo, Philippines
1901: Battalion Officer, 1st Cavalry and Intelligence Officer, 15th Cavalry (Philippines)
1902: Officer-in-Charge, Camp Vicars, Philippines
1904: Assistant Chief of Staff, Southwest Army Division, Oklahoma
1905: Military attaché, U.S. Embassy, Tokyo, Japan
1908: Military Advisor to American Embassy, France
1909: Commander of Fort McKinley, Manila, and governor of Moro Province
1914: Brigade Commander, 8th Army Brigade
1916: Commanding General, Mexican Punitive Expedition
1917: Commanding General for the formation of the National Army
1917: Commanding General, American Expeditionary Forces, Europe
1921: Chief of Staff of the United States Army
1924: Retired from active military service
1925: Chief Commissioner assigned by the United States in the arbitration case for the province of Tacna between Peru and Chile.
Honors and awards
Distinguished Service Cross Citation
In 1940 General Pershing was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism in action leading an assault against hostile Moros at Mount Bagsak, on the island of Jolo in the Philippines on June 15, 1913.
Citation
For extraordinary heroism against hostile fanatical Moros at Mount Bagsak, Jolo, Philippine Islands on June 15, 1913. He personally assumed command of the assaulting line at the most critical period when only about 15 yards from the last Moro position. His encouragement and splendid example of personal heroism resulted in a general advance and the prompt capture of the hostile stronghold.
United States decorations and medals
Note: The dates indicated are the date the award was issued, not the date of action the award is based on.
In 1932, eight years after Pershing's retirement from active service, his silver citation star was upgraded to the Silver Star decoration. In 1941, he was retroactively awarded the Army of Occupation of Germany Medal for service in Germany following the close of World War I. As the medal had a profile of Pershing on its obverse, Pershing became the only soldier in the history of the U.S. Army, and only one of four in the entire U.S. Armed Forces, eligible to wear a medal with his own likeness on it. Navy admirals George Dewey, William T. Sampson and Richard E. Byrd were also entitled to wear medals with their own image on them.
International awards
Civilian awards
Congressional Gold Medal
Thanks of Congress
Distinguished Service Medal, American Legion
Special Medal of the Committee of the city of Buenos Aires
Induction into the Nebraska Hall of Fame (1963)
Personal life and family
Pershing was a Freemason, a member of Lincoln Lodge No. 19, Lincoln, Nebraska.
Francis Pershing (son)
Colonel Francis Warren Pershing (1909–1980), Pershing's son, served in the Second World War as an advisor to the Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall. After the war he continued with his financial career and founded a stock brokerage firm, Pershing & Company. In 1938, he married Muriel Bache Richards, granddaughter of financier Jules Bache. He was father to two sons who both served in Vietnam War, Colonel John Warren Pershing III (1941–1999) and Second Lieutenant Richard W. Pershing (1942–1968). John Pershing III served in the Army from 1964 to 1967 and Army Reserve from 1967 to 1999. He attained the rank of colonel, and his assignments included special assistant to Army Chief of Staff General Gordon R. Sullivan. Richard Pershing served as a second lieutenant in the 502nd Infantry and was killed in action on February 17, 1968, in Khe Sanh during the Vietnam War.
Nita Patton (fiancée)
In 1917, two years after the deaths of his wife Helen and three daughters, Pershing courted Anne Wilson "Nita" Patton, the younger sister of his protégé, George S. Patton.
Pershing met her when she traveled to Fort Bliss to visit her brother, and he introduced them. Pershing and Nita Patton soon began a relationship; they became engaged in 1917, but their separation because of Pershing's time in France during World War I ended it. Nita Patton never married, while Pershing remained unmarried until he secretly wed Micheline Resco in 1946.
Micheline Resco (second wife)
Pershing had wartime affairs, including one with French-Romanian artist Micheline Resco (1894–1968), and he later expressed regret that he had let Nita Patton "get away". Resco was 35 years his junior and they had known each other and exchanged encoded love letters since meeting in Paris in 1917, where Resco painted Pershing's portrait. In 1946, Pershing secretly wed Resco in his Walter Reed Hospital apartment.
Legacy
Since 1930, the Pershing Park Memorial Association (PPMA), headquartered in Pershing's hometown of Laclede, Missouri, has been dedicated to preserving the memory of General Pershing's military history.
On November 17, 1961, the United States Postal Service released an 8¢ Liberty Issue postage stamp honoring Pershing, shown at right.
In popular culture
Film
Pershing is played by Milburn Stone in the 1955 film The Long Gray Line, which was based on Martin 'Marty' Maher's autobiography, Bringing Up the Brass: My 55 Years at West Point which depicts Pershing swearing Maher into the army.
Pershing is played by Ron Perlman in the 2019 film The Great War.
Television
The actor Jody McCrea was cast as Lieutenant Pershing in the 1962 episode, "To Walk with Greatness", on the syndicated television anthology series, Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. In the story line, three outlaws endanger an Indian treaty, as Pershing sets forth to find the men. Frank Ferguson was cast as Colonel Carr.
Pershing is played by Marshall Teague in the 1997 Theodore Roosevelt biographical miniseries Rough Riders, as the commander of the Buffalo Soldiers during the Battle of San Juan Hill.
Literature
Pershing appears as a character in The Friends of Pancho Villa (1996), a historical novel by James Carlos Blake.
Pershing also appears in Hard Magic: The Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia (2011).
He is mentioned frequently as one of the commanders in Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory series in the volumes set during and shortly after the alternate history version of World War I, but his actual appearance is very brief.
He also has a short appearance in the Anton Myrer novel, Once An Eagle.
See also
General Pershing WWI casualty list
M26 Pershing Tank
MGM-31 Pershing Missile
Pershing (doughnut)
References
Informational notes
Citations
Bibliography
Adas, Michael. "Ambivalent Ally: American Military Intervention and the Endgame and Legacy of World War I" Diplomatic History (2014) 38#4: 700–12.
Boot, Max. The Savage Wars of Peace New York, Basic Books, 2002.
Edmonds, James. Military Operations: France and Belgium: 1914-18, London: MacMillan, 1935
Faulkner, Richard S. Pershing's Crusaders: The American Soldier in World War I (University Press of Kansas, 2017). xiv, 758 pp
Goldhurst, Richard. Pipe Clay and Drill: John J. Pershing, the classic American soldier (Reader's Digest Press, 1977)
Lacey, Jim. Pershing. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Mordacq, Henri. Unity of Command: How it was Achieved, Paris: Tallandier, 1929 (translated by Major J.C. Bardin, National War College, Carlisle, PA)
O'Connor, Richard. Black Jack Pershing. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961.
Pershing, John J., and John T. Greenwood. My Life Before the World War, 1860–1917: A Memoir. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2013.
Pershing, John J. My Experiences in the World War, Vol. I New York: Frederick Stokes, 1931
Perry, John. Pershing: Commander of the Great War. Nashville, Tenn: Thomas Nelson, 2011.
Smith, Gene. Until the Last Trumpet Sounds: The Life of General of the Armies John J. Pershing (Wiley, New York, 1998)
Smythe, Donald. Guerrilla Warrior: The Early Life of John J. Pershing (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1973)
Smythe, Donald. Pershing: General of the Armies (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1986)
Vandiver, Frank E. Black Jack: The Life and Times of John J. Pershing – Volume I (Texas A&M University Press, Third printing, 1977)
Vandiver, Frank E. Black Jack: The Life and Times of John J. Pershing – Volume II (Texas A&M University Press, Third printing, 1977)
Weigley, Russell Frank. History of the United States Army (1967)
Welsome, Eileen. The General and the Jaguar: Pershing's Hunt for Pancho Villa: a True Story of Revolution and Revenge. New York: Little, Brown and Co, 2006.
Woodward, David R. The American Army and the First World War (Cambridge University Press, 2014). 484 pp. online review
Yockelson, Mitchell (Foreword by John S. D. Eisenhower). Borrowed Soldiers: Americans under British Command, 1918 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008)
Yockelson, Mitchell. Forty-Seven Days: How Pershing's Warriors Came of Age to Defeat at the German Army in World War I (New York: NAL, Caliber, 2016)
External links
Pershing Museum
New York Times obituary
Black Jack Pershing in Cuba
Chapter IV, General of the Armies John J. Pershing, State Funeral, 15–19 July 1948 in The Last Salute: Civil and Military Funeral, 1921–1969 by B. C. Mossman and M. W. Stark, United States Army Center of Military History
at Nebraska State Historical Society
Americans Under British Command, 1918 at Borrowed Soldiers
John J. Pershing Papers at Library of Congress
John J. Pershing at the World Digital Archive
The National Society of Pershing Rifles
The Pershing Foundation
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Deaths from coronary artery disease | false | [
"Akaluk was a tight-fitting tunic of long length has a front open with long sleeves made with quilted stuff. Once, it was an outfit of the cavalry for the first eight regiments during India's colonial era. The elite people also wore the garment in the 19th century. However, the British eventually replaced it with a waistcoat.\n\nSee also \n\n Cavalry\n Irregular military\n\nReferences \n\nCostumes\nIndian clothing\nColonial India",
"Lieutenant-General Robert Ballard Long (4 April 1771 – 2 March 1825) was an officer of the British and Hanoverian Armies who despite extensive service during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars never managed to achieve high command due to his abrasive manner with his superiors and his alleged tactical ineptitude. Although he remained a cavalry commander in the Peninsular War between 1811 and 1813, the British commander Wellington became disillusioned with Long's abilities. Wellington's opinion was never expressed directly, though when the Prince Regent manoeuvred his favourite, Colquhoun Grant into replacing Long as a cavalry brigade commander, Wellington conspicuously made no effort to retain Long. Other senior officers, including Sir William Beresford and the Duke of Cumberland, expressed their dissatisfaction with Long's abilities. The celebrated historian, and Peninsula veteran, Sir William Napier was a severe critic of Beresford's record as army commander during the Albuera Campaign; in criticising Beresford he involved Long's opinions as part of his argument. The publication of Napier's history led to a long running and acrimonious argument in print between Beresford and his partisans on one side, with Napier and Long's nephew Charles Edward Long (Long having died before the controversy reached the public arena) on the other. Recently, Long's performance as a cavalry general has received more favourable comment in Ian Fletcher's revisionist account of the British cavalry in the Napoleonic period.\n\nBackground and early military career\nLong was born the elder of twin sons to Jamaican planter Edward Long and his wife Mary at Chichester in 1771. Long received a formal education, attending Dr Thomson's School in Kensington until age nine and then being sent to Harrow School until 18 in 1789. After three years at the University of Göttingen studying military theory, Long was commissioned into the 1st King's Dragoon Guards as a cornet in 1791. With the aid of his family's substantial financial resources, Long had been promoted to captain by November 1793 and served with his regiment in Flanders during the Duke of York's unsuccessful campaign there. In the winter of 1794/95, Long had left his regiment and was attached to the staff of General Sir George Don during the retreat into Germany and return to England.\n\nFollowing his arrival, Long spent time as aide-de-camp to General Sir William Pitt who commanded the defences of Portsmouth and the friendship between the two men served Long well in his future career. By the middle of 1796 Long had again transferred however, joining the Hanoverian Army first as a non-serving officer in the York Rangers and then in command of the Hompesch Mounted Riflemen with a commission he purchased from Baron Hompesch himself for £2,000. This regiment was amongst those dispatched under Sir John Moore in putting down the Irish Rebellion of 1798, Long serving in the town of Wexford.\n\nAt the conclusion of the rebellion, Long served with the York Hussars, another Hanoverian cavalry unit at Weymouth until the Peace of Amiens. Long spent the peace studying at the Senior Division of the new Royal Military College at High Wycombe, where he became friends with its lieutenant-governor John Le Marchant, and at the return of war joined the 16th Light Dragoons as a lieutenant colonel, transferring to the 15th Light Dragoons in 1805 under the Duke of Cumberland. It was with this regiment that Long caused the first of his many upsets, almost immediately falling out with his superior officer. The situation deteriorated so much that the two both attempted to command the regiment without consulting each other, resulting in years of arguments and hostility between the two. Part of the friction was due to Long's objection to Cumberland's penchant for excessive corporal punishments, such as 'picketing.' Long was with the regiment for two years during which time it was remodelled as a hussar formation. Eventually the name too changed, becoming the 15th 'King's' Light Dragoons (Hussars).\nLong is mentioned frequently in the anonymously authored book \"Jottings from my Sabretasch.\" The author, a troop sergeant of the 15th Light Dragoons, looked upon Long as a peerless commander. He ascribed virtually all of the superiorities of organisation or training that he claimed for his regiment, over the rest of the British cavalry, to Long's initiatives when in command.\n\nPeninsular War\nIn 1808 with the dispatch of Sir John Moore's army to Spain, Long again applied for a position and was welcomed by his former commander, who by the time of Long's arrival was preparing to fight the desperate rearguard action of the Battle of Corunna amid the ruins of his campaign. Long did not have a command during the battle but instead served on his commander's staff, presumably being present at Moore's death. Returning to England, Long was soon recruited for Lord Chatham's disastrous Walcheren Expedition as adjutant-general. The campaign was an abject failure due to reconnaissance and supply failures, heavy rain, strong French resistance and a devastating epidemic of what was called at the time \"ague,\" almost certainly malaria, which killed a large proportion of the men garrisoning the town of Flushing (Vlissingen).\n\nIn 1810 Long returned to active service joining Wellington's army in the Peninsula. He took command of the cavalry (one British brigade, one Portuguese brigade and an unbrigaded British regiment) of the army of Sir William Beresford during the operations surrounding the first Allied siege of Badajoz. Long took command of the cavalry on 21 March 1811, a mere four days before they were to see action. The cavalry clash at Campo Mayor on 25 March 1811, was to become a very controversial action. Beresford considered that Long had lost control of his light cavalry, which had pursued fleeing French cavalry for up to seven miles until they came within range of the fortress guns of Badajoz. The historian Charles Oman later sided with Beresford in calling the Campo Mayor action reckless, though without naming Long. Beresford also claimed that his taking personal command of the heavy dragoons had prevented Long from ordering them to attempt a suicidal charge against French infantry squares . However, the army as whole felt differently and sided with the 13th Light Dragoons who had pursued the French. The pursuit took place after the 13th had made an epic charge causing no less than six enemy squadrons to rout, having only two and a half squadrons themselves. In contrast to Oman's opinion, the historian Sir John Fortescue wrote, \"Of the performance of Thirteenth, who did not exceed two hundred men, in defeating twice or thrice their numbers single-handed, it is difficult to speak too highly.\" Long was of the opinion, and was subsequently supported in this by the historian Sir William Napier, that if Beresford had released the British brigade of heavy dragoons he would have been able to force the whole French column to surrender. This was the start of the abrasive and acrimonious relationship between Beresford and Long. At the subsequent clash at Los Santos (16 April 1811) Long managed to retain the heavy dragoons under his command and inflicted a reverse on the French cavalry, the French 2nd Hussars suffering considerable losses. On two subsequent occasions, Long was ordered to withdraw from action without engaging whilst still delaying the French through manoeuvre, though Long maintained that he was given orders merely to fall back to a certain position, with no mention being made about delaying the French advance. On each occasion Long withdrew too quickly and gave the French time to respond, apparent failures which frustrated Beresford enough to take advantage of Long's junior rank in relation to allied Spanish cavalry generals to relieve Long of his command, on the day of the Battle of Albuera, and replace him with the more senior general William Lumley. Long subsequently took an honourable part in the battle, though under Lumley's command. Long also served under Lumley at the Battle of Usagre on 25 May 1811, when the British cavalry neatly trapped two regiments of French dragoons at a bridge, inflicting severe casualties.\n\nLong was given command of a light cavalry brigade in June 1811, following his promotion to major general, these troops were involved in a skirmish near Elvas, where a picket of around fifty men of the 11th Light Dragoons was captured (only one man escaped). Wellington was present on this occasion and gave Long a strongly worded reprimand which effectively stalemated his career. Long's political friends were, however, too strong at this stage to allow his recall from active service and therefore Long maintained his brigade command. He commanded the cavalry under Sir Rowland Hill at Arroyo dos Molinos, where a whole French infantry division and several regiments of cavalry were trapped and destroyed as fighting units. Long's cavalry charged and broke the French cavalry and captured over 200 of them plus three pieces of artillery (General Bron, commanding the French cavalry, and the Prince of Aremberg, commander of the 27th Chasseurs, were also captured).\n\nLong commanded a brigade (consisting of a single regiment - the 13th Light Dragoons) at the Battle of Vitoria in 1813. He fought at the Battle of the Pyrenees later in the same year. When Marshal Soult's large-scale attack across the Pyrenees was launched, on 25 July 1813, it caught Wellington's forces off guard and in an extended state. Long's brigade was acting as the vital link between the two main bodies of Anglo-allied troops. It was in this situation that Long performed the most important service in his active military career. General Lowry Cole sent a dispatch to Wellington to say that a French army of about 35,000 men had forced him from his defensive position and that he was falling back. The dispatch came into Long's hands and he, upon his own initiative, opened it and made a copy to be sent to his immediate superior Sir Rowland Hill. Hill then forwarded the dispatch to Wellington who had recently moved his headquarters. The original copy of the dispatch went to the location Wellington's previous headquarters and did not reach him that evening. Long's intelligent actions allowed Wellington time to react to Soult's movements; had any appreciable delay occurred before Wellington became apprised of the situation the results could have been disastrous for the allied army.\n\nThe end of active service\n\nLong's final action was in the Siege of Pamplona, after which he was recalled by the Duke of York to England with Wellington's agreement. Long corresponded with Wellington, who assured him that Long's recall was not at his request. Long strongly suspected that the Prince Regent had engineered his recall to vacate the command of his brigade so that Colquhoun Grant (commonly known as \"The Black Giant\"), the Prince's favourite, could be made its commander. Grant was also an intimate of the Duke of Cumberland which must have caused Long further displeasure. Long refused the proffered posting as a divisional commander in Scotland and scornfully retired to his estate at Barnes Terrace, Surrey.\n\nAs an officer on the general list, Long was promoted in retirement; he was promoted to lieutenant general in 1821. Royal recognition was not forthcoming however after his public feuds with two royal princes, and Long was not knighted or offered a title, unlike many of his contemporaries. He died childless in 1825 at his London house in Berkeley Square and was buried in the family crypt at Seale, Surrey.\n\nLegacy\n\nAfter his death, his nephew Charles Long, a notable scholar and historian, wrote several pamphlets defending his uncle's reputation and attacking his enemies, especially Beresford; exchanges of pamphlets and letters between Charles Long and his uncle's opponents continued through the 1830s.\n\nRobert Long was a conscientious and brave officer, whose reputation suffered as a result of certain character flaws. If his record as a cavalry general was chequered he, nevertheless, contributed substantially to a number of victories, including Los Santos, Usagre and Arroyo dos Molinos. It is to be regretted that he is chiefly remembered for the long-running acrimony generated by the action at Campo Mayor.\n\nTo his subordinates he appears to have been a popular and respected figure; characteristically he refused to allow Wellington's censure of the 13th Light Dragoons, following Campo Mayor, to be entered in the regiment's official record. From the rank-and-file he gained the affectionate appellation \"Bobby Long.\" The officers and men of the 13th Light Dragoons repaid his regard for them when they voluntarily subscribed to the purchase of a set of silver plate for Long when he was replaced in command of his brigade.\n\nUnfortunately, Long could not, it seems, avoid entering into vituperative conflicts with his superiors. When the men he made personal enemies of included royal princes (both later to become kings) and a field marshal (albeit in the Portuguese service) Long's career and reputation were bound to be adversely affected. An example of the less attractive side of Long's character is the manner in which he operated a campaign of irritation against Beresford after Campo Mayor. Long harassed Beresford by requesting clarification, to the minutest degree, of virtually every order he was given. Long did not seem to recognise that there were conflicts he had no hope of winning. Beresford was the superior officer with all the advantage of power within the relationship. Long's campaign backfired badly when Beresford, as soon as opportunity allowed, replaced him as the commander of the cavalry.\n\nLong was a regular letter writer, particularly to his twin brother Charles. The lively letters he wrote whilst on campaign in the Peninsular War were collected, edited and published in 1951. They provide a valuable insight into the workings of Wellington's army, particularly the cavalry.\n\nFurther reading \nInheriting the Earth: The Long Family's 500 Year Reign in Wiltshire; Cheryl Nicol\n\nNotes\n\nReferences \n Beamish, N.L. History of the King's German Legion, Vol. II, London (1837).\n This contains a number of inaccuracies of fact: Long commanded all of Beresford's cavalry: one brigade of British heavy cavalry, a brigade of Portuguese cavalry and an unbrigaded regiment of British light cavalry, not merely a single brigade; the head-dress of the York Hussars was a mirleton (a peakless, truncated conical hat), the newly converted British hussars wore fur kolpaks.\n Fletcher, I. Galloping at Everything: The British Cavalry in the Peninsula and at Waterloo 1808-15, Spellmount, Staplehurst (1999) .\n McGuffie, T.H. (ed). Peninsular Cavalry General (1811-1813): The Correspondence of Lieutenant-General Robert Ballard Long, London (1951).\n Napier, W.F.P. History of the War in the Peninsula and the South of France 1807-1814, London, 2nd ed. (1828–1840).\n Oman, C. (Sir Charles) History of the Peninsular War, Vol. VI: Sep. 1812-Aug. 1813, Oxford (1922)\n\n1771 births\n1825 deaths\nPeople educated at Harrow School\nUniversity of Göttingen alumni\n1st King's Dragoon Guards officers\n16th The Queen's Lancers officers\n15th The King's Hussars officers\nBritish Army personnel of the French Revolutionary Wars\nPeople of the Irish Rebellion of 1798\nBritish Army generals\nBritish Army personnel of the Napoleonic Wars\nRobert Ballard"
] |
[
"John J. Pershing",
"Early career",
"What was Pershings first job",
"Troop L of the 6th U.S. Cavalry stationed at Fort Bayard, in the New Mexico Territory.",
"How did he get into this job",
"also became an expert marksman and, in 1891, was rated second in pistol and fifth in rifle out of all soldiers in the U.S. Army.",
"How long was he with the U.S Cavalry",
"In September 1891 he was assigned as the Professor of Military Science and Tactics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a position he held until 1895."
] | C_52af268bf5df41a7a9293e2ca9345335_1 | what did he do after that | 4 | What did John J. Pershing do after the Professor of Military Science and Tactics position held until 1985? | John J. Pershing | Pershing reported for active duty on September 30, 1886, and was assigned to Troop L of the 6th U.S. Cavalry stationed at Fort Bayard, in the New Mexico Territory. While serving in the 6th Cavalry, Pershing participated in several Indian campaigns and was cited for bravery for actions against the Apache. During his time at Fort Stanton, Pershing and close friends Lt. Julius Penn and Lt. Richard B. Paddock were nicknamed "The Three Green P's," spending their leisure time hunting and attending Hispanic dances. Pershing's sister Grace married Paddock in 1890. Between 1887 and 1890, Pershing served with the 6th Cavalry at various postings in California, Arizona, and North Dakota. He also became an expert marksman and, in 1891, was rated second in pistol and fifth in rifle out of all soldiers in the U.S. Army. On December 9, 1890, Pershing and the 6th Cavalry arrived at Sioux City, Iowa, where Pershing played a role in suppressing the last uprisings of the Lakota (Sioux) Indians. Though he and his unit did not participate in the Wounded Knee Massacre, they did fight three days after it on January 1, 1891 when Sioux warriors attacked the 6th Cavalry's supply wagons. When the Sioux began firing at the wagons, Pershing and his troops heard the shots, and rode more than six miles to the location of the attack. The cavalry fired at the forces of Chief War Eagle, causing them to retreat. This would be the only occasion where Pershing would see action in the Ghost Dance campaign. In September 1891 he was assigned as the Professor of Military Science and Tactics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a position he held until 1895. While carrying out this assignment, Pershing attended the university's College of Law, from which he received his LL.B. degree in 1893. He formed a drill company of chosen university cadets, Company A. In March 1892, it won the Maiden Prize competition of the National Competitive Drills in Omaha, Nebraska. The Citizens of Omaha presented the company with a large silver cup, the "Omaha Cup." On October 2, 1894, former members of Company A established a fraternal military drill organization named the Varsity Rifles. The group renamed itself the Pershing Rifles in 1895 in honor of its mentor and patron. Pershing maintained a close relationship with Pershing Rifles for the remainder of his life. On October 20, 1892, Pershing was promoted to first lieutenant and in 1895 took command of a troop of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, one of the original Buffalo Soldier regiments composed of African-American soldiers under white officers. From Fort Assinniboine in north central Montana, he commanded an expedition to the south and southwest that rounded up and deported a large number of Cree Indians to Canada. CANNOTANSWER | He formed a drill company of chosen university cadets, | General of the Armies John Joseph Pershing (September 13, 1860 – July 15, 1948), nicknamed "Black Jack", was a senior United States Army officer. He served most famously as the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) on the Western Front during World War I, from 1917 to 1918. In addition to leading the AEF to victory in World War I, Pershing notably served as a mentor to many in the generation of generals who led the United States Army during World War II, including George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, Lesley J. McNair, George S. Patton and Douglas MacArthur.
During his command in World War I, Pershing rejected British and French demands that American forces be integrated with their armies, essentially as replacement units, and insisted that the AEF would operate as a single unit under his command, although some American divisions fought under British command, notably in the Battle of Hamel and the breaching of the Hindenburg Line at St Quentin Canal, precipitating the final German collapse. Pershing also allowed (at that time segregated) American all-Black units to be integrated with the French Army.
Pershing's soldiers first saw serious battle at Cantigny, Chateau-Thierry, Belleau Wood June 1–26, 1918, and Soissons on July 18–22, 1918. To speed up the arrival of American troops, they embarked for France leaving heavy equipment behind, and used British and French tanks, artillery, airplanes and other munitions. In September 1918 at St. Mihiel, the First Army was directly under Pershing's command; it overwhelmed the salient – the encroachment into Allied territory – that the German Army had held for three years. For the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, Pershing shifted roughly 600,000 American soldiers to the heavily defended forests of the Argonne, keeping his divisions engaged in hard fighting for 47 days, alongside the French. The Allied Hundred Days Offensive, which the Argonne fighting was part of, contributed to Germany calling for an armistice. Pershing was of the opinion that the war should continue and that all of Germany should be occupied in an effort to permanently destroy German militarism.
Pershing is the only American to be promoted in his own lifetime to General of the Armies, the highest possible rank in the United States Army. Allowed to select his own insignia, Pershing chose to continue using four stars. After the creation of the five-star General of the Army rank during World War II, his rank of General of the Armies could unofficially be considered that of a six-star general, but he died before the proposed insignia could be considered and acted upon by Congress.
Some of his tactics have been criticized both by other commanders at the time and by modern historians. His reliance on costly frontal assaults, long after other Allied armies had abandoned such tactics, has been blamed for causing unnecessarily high American casualties. Pershing was also criticized by some historians for his actions on the day of armistice as the commander of the American Expeditionary Force. Pershing did not approve of the armistice, and despite knowing of the imminent ceasefire, he did not tell his commanders to suspend any new offensive actions or assaults in the final few hours of the war. In total, there were over 11,000 casualties, dead, missing, or injured during the final day of the war on November 11, which exceeded even D-Day casualty counts seen later in 1944. Of those, 3,500 were American casualties directly attributable to Pershing's actions. Pershing was later questioned by Congress as to why there were so many American casualties on the final day of the war.
Early life
Pershing was born on a farm near Laclede, Missouri on September 13, 1860, the son of farmer and store owner John Fletcher Pershing and homemaker Ann Elizabeth Thompson. Pershing's great-great-grandfather, Frederick Pershing, whose name originally was Pfersching, emigrated from Alsace, leaving Amsterdam on the ship Jacob, and arriving in Philadelphia on October 2, 1749. He had five siblings who lived to adulthood: brothers James F. (1862–1933) and Ward (1874–1909), and sisters Mary Elizabeth (1864–1928), Anna May (1867–1955) and Grace (1867–1903); three other children died in infancy. When the Civil War began, his father supported the Union and was a sutler for the 18th Missouri Volunteer Infantry; he died on March 16, 1906. Pershing's mother died during his initial assignment in the American West.
Pershing attended a school in Laclede that was reserved for precocious students who were also the children of prominent citizens, and he later attended Laclede's one-room schoolhouse. After completing high school in 1878, he became a teacher of local African American children. While pursuing his teaching career, Pershing also studied at the State Normal School (now Truman State University) in Kirksville, Missouri, from which he graduated in 1880 with a Bachelor of Science degree in scientific didactics. Two years later, he applied to the United States Military Academy. Pershing later admitted that serving in the military was secondary to attending West Point, and he had applied because the education offered was free and it was better than what he could obtain in rural Missouri.
West Point years
Pershing was sworn in as a West Point cadet in the fall of 1882. He was selected early for leadership positions and became successively First Corporal, First Sergeant, First Lieutenant, and First Captain, the highest possible cadet rank. Pershing also commanded, ex officio, the honor guard that saluted the funeral train of President Ulysses S. Grant as it passed West Point in August 1885.
Pershing graduated in the summer of 1886 ranked 30th in his class of 77, and was commissioned a second lieutenant; he was commended by the West Point Superintendent, General Wesley Merritt, who said Pershing gave early promise of becoming an outstanding officer. Pershing briefly considered petitioning the Army to let him study law and delay the start of his mandatory military service. He also considered joining several classmates in a partnership that would pursue development of an irrigation project in Oregon. He ultimately decided against both courses of action in favor of active Army duty.
Early career
Pershing reported for active duty on September 30, 1886, and was assigned to Troop L of the 6th U.S. Cavalry stationed at Fort Bayard, in the New Mexico Territory. While serving in the 6th Cavalry, Pershing participated in several Indian campaigns and was cited for bravery for actions against the Apache. During his time at Fort Stanton, Pershing and close friends Lt. Julius A. Penn and Lt. Richard B. Paddock were nicknamed "The Three Green P's," spending their leisure time hunting and attending Hispanic dances. Pershing's sister Grace married Paddock in 1890.
Between 1887 and 1890, Pershing served with the 6th Cavalry at various postings in California, Arizona, and North Dakota. He also became an expert marksman and, in 1891, was rated second in pistol and fifth in rifle out of all soldiers in the U.S. Army.
On December 9, 1890, Pershing and the 6th Cavalry arrived at Sioux City, Iowa, where Pershing played a role in suppressing the last uprisings of the Lakota (Sioux) Indians. Though he and his unit did not participate in the Wounded Knee Massacre, they did fight three days after it on January 1, 1891, when Sioux warriors attacked the 6th Cavalry's supply wagons. When the Sioux began firing at the wagons, Pershing and his troops heard the shots, and rode more than six miles to the location of the attack. The cavalry fired at the forces of Chief War Eagle, causing them to retreat. This was the only occasion on which Pershing saw action during the Ghost Dance campaign.
In September 1891, he was assigned as the professor of military science and tactics at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, a position he held until 1895. While carrying out this assignment, Pershing attended the university's College of Law, from which he received his LL.B. degree in 1893. He formed a drill company of chosen university cadets, Company A. In March 1892, it won the Maiden Prize competition of the National Competitive Drills in Omaha, Nebraska. The Citizens of Omaha presented the company with a large silver cup, the "Omaha Cup". On October 2, 1894, former members of Company A established a fraternal military drill organization named the Varsity Rifles. The group renamed itself the Pershing Rifles in 1895 in honor of its mentor and patron. Pershing maintained a close relationship with Pershing Rifles for the remainder of his life.
On October 20, 1892, Pershing was promoted to first lieutenant and in 1895 took command of a troop of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, one of the original Buffalo Soldier regiments composed of African-American soldiers under white officers. From Fort Assinniboine in north central Montana, he commanded an expedition to the south and southwest that rounded up and deported a large number of Cree Indians to Canada.
West Point instructor
In 1897, Pershing was appointed to the West Point tactical staff as an instructor, where he was assigned to Cadet Company A. Because of his strictness and rigidity, Pershing was unpopular with the cadets, who took to calling him "Nigger Jack" because of his service with the 10th Cavalry.
During the course of his tour at the Academy, this epithet softened to "Black Jack," although, according to Vandiver, "the intent remained hostile." Still, this nickname would stick with Pershing for the rest of his life, and was known to the public as early as 1917.
Spanish– and Philippine–American wars
At the start of the Spanish–American War, First Lieutenant Pershing was the regimental quartermaster for the 10th Cavalry; he fought on Kettle and San Juan Hills in Cuba, and was cited for gallantry. In 1919, he was awarded the Silver Citation Star for these actions, and in 1932 the award was upgraded to the Silver Star decoration. A commanding officer here commented on Pershing's calm demeanor under fire, saying he was "cool as a bowl of cracked ice." Pershing also served with the 10th Cavalry during the siege and surrender of Santiago de Cuba.
Pershing was commissioned as a major of United States Volunteers on August 26, 1898, and assigned as an ordnance officer. In March 1899, after suffering from malaria, Pershing was put in charge of the Office of Customs and Insular Affairs which oversaw occupation forces in territories gained in the Spanish–American War, including Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. He was honorably discharged from the volunteers and reverted to his permanent rank of first lieutenant on May 12, 1899. He was again commissioned as a major of Volunteers on June 6, 1899, this time as an assistant adjutant general.
When the Philippine–American War began, Pershing reported to Manila on August 17, 1899, was assigned to the Department of Mindanao and Jolo, and commanded efforts to suppress the Filipino Insurrection. On November 27, 1900, Pershing was appointed adjutant general of his department and served in this posting until March 1, 1901. He was cited for bravery for actions on the Cagayan River while attempting to destroy a Philippine stronghold at Macajambo.
Pershing wrote in his autobiography that "The bodies [of some Moro outlaws] were publicly buried in the same grave with a dead pig." This treatment was used against captured juramentado so that the superstitious Moro would believe they would be going to hell. Pershing added that "it was not pleasant [for the Army] to have to take such measures". Historians do not believe that Pershing was directly involved with such incidents, or that he personally gave such orders to his subordinates. Letters and memoirs from soldiers describing events similar to this do not have credible evidence of Pershing having been personally involved.
On June 30, 1901, Pershing was honorably discharged from the Volunteers and he reverted to the rank of captain in the Regular Army to which he had been promoted on February 2, 1901. He served with the 1st Cavalry Regiment in the Philippines. He later was assigned to the 15th Cavalry Regiment, serving as an intelligence officer and participating in actions against the Moros. He was cited for bravery at Lake Lanao. In June 1901, he served as Commander of Camp Vicars in Lanao, Philippines, after the previous camp commander had been promoted to brigadier general.
Rise to general
In June 1903, Pershing was ordered to return to the United States. President Theodore Roosevelt, taken by Pershing's ability, petitioned the Army General Staff to promote Pershing to colonel. At the time, Army officer promotions were based primarily on seniority rather than merit, and although there was widespread acknowledgment that Pershing should serve as a colonel, the Army General Staff declined to change their seniority-based promotion tradition just to accommodate Pershing. They would not consider a promotion to lieutenant colonel or even major. This angered Roosevelt, but since the President could only name and promote army officers in the general's ranks, his options for recognizing Pershing through promotion were limited.
In 1904, Pershing was assigned as the Assistant Chief of Staff of the Southwest Army Division stationed at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In October 1904, he attended the Army War College, and then was ordered to Washington, D.C. for "general duties unassigned."
Since Roosevelt could not yet promote Pershing, he petitioned the United States Congress to authorize a diplomatic posting, and Pershing was stationed as military attaché in Tokyo in 1905. Also in 1905, Pershing married Helen Frances Warren, the daughter of powerful U.S. Senator Francis E. Warren, a Wyoming Republican who served at different times as chairman of the Military Affairs and Appropriations Committees. This union with the daughter of a powerful politician who had also received the Medal of Honor during the American Civil War continued to aid Pershing's career even after his wife died in 1915.
After serving as an observer in the Russo-Japanese War attached to General Kuroki Tamemoto's Japanese First Army in Manchuria from March to September, Pershing returned to the United States in the fall of 1905. President Roosevelt employed his presidential prerogative and nominated Pershing as a brigadier general, a move which Congress approved. In skipping three ranks and more than 835 officers senior to him, the promotion gave rise to accusations that Pershing's appointment was the result of political connections and not military abilities. However, several other junior officers were similarly advanced to brigadier general ahead of their peers and seniors, including Albert L. Mills (captain), Tasker H. Bliss (major), and Leonard Wood (captain). Pershing's promotion, while unusual, was not unprecedented, and had the support of many soldiers who admired his abilities.
In 1908, Pershing briefly served as a U.S. military observer in the Balkans, an assignment which was based in Paris. Upon returning to the United States at the end of 1909, Pershing was assigned once again to the Philippines, an assignment in which he served until 1913. While in the Philippines, he served as Commander of Fort McKinley, near Manila, and also was the governor of the Moro Province. The last of Pershing's four children was born in the Philippines, and during this time he became an Episcopalian.
In 1913, Pershing was recommended for the Medal of Honor following his actions at the Battle of Bud Bagsak. He wrote to the Adjutant General to request that the recommendation not be acted on, though the board which considered the recommendation had already voted no before receiving Pershing's letter. In 1922 a further review of this event resulted in Pershing being recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross, but as the Army Chief of Staff Pershing disapproved the action. In 1940 Pershing received the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroism at Bud Bagsak, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt presenting it in a ceremony timed to coincide with Pershing's 80th birthday.
During this period Pershing's reputation for both stern discipline and effective leadership continued to grow, with one experienced old soldier under his command later saying Pershing was an "S.O.B." and that he hated Pershing's guts, but that "as a soldier, the ones then and the ones now couldn't polish his (Pershing's) boots."
Pancho Villa and Mexico
On December 20, 1913, Pershing received orders to take command of the 8th Brigade at the Presidio in San Francisco. With tensions running high on the border between the United States and Mexico because of the Mexican Revolution, the brigade was deployed to Fort Bliss, Texas, on April 24, 1914, arriving there on the 27th.
Death of wife Helen and daughters
After a year at Fort Bliss, Pershing decided to take his family there. The arrangements were almost complete, when on the morning of August 27, 1915, he received a telegram informing him of a fire in the Presidio in San Francisco, where a lacquered floor caught fire and the flames rapidly spread, resulting in the smoke inhalation deaths of his wife, Helen Frances Warren, and three young daughters, Mary, age 3, Anne, age 7, and Helen, age 8. Only his 6-year-old son, Francis Warren, survived. After the funerals at Lakeview Cemetery in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Pershing returned to Fort Bliss with his son, Francis, and his sister May and resumed his duties as commanding officer.
Commander of Villa expedition
On March 15, 1916, Pershing led an expedition into Mexico to capture Pancho Villa. This expedition was ill-equipped and hampered by a lack of supplies due to the breakdown of the Quartermaster Corps. Although there had been talk of war on the border for years, no steps had been taken to provide for the handling of supplies for an expedition. Despite this and other hindrances, such as the lack of aid from the former Mexican government, and their refusal to allow American troops to transport troops and supplies over their railroads, Pershing organized and commanded the Mexican Punitive Expedition, a combined armed force of 10,000 men that penetrated into chaotic Mexico. They routed Villa's revolutionaries, but failed to capture him.
World War I
At the start of the United States' involvement in World War I President Woodrow Wilson considered mobilizing an army to join the fight. Frederick Funston, Pershing's superior in Mexico, was being considered for the top billet as the Commander of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) when he died suddenly from a heart attack on February 19, 1917. Pershing was the most likely candidate other than Funston, and following America's entrance into the war in May, Wilson briefly interviewed Pershing, and then selected him for the command. He was officially installed in the position on May 10, 1917, and held the post until 1918. On October 6, 1917, Pershing, then a major general, was promoted to full general in the National Army. He bypassed the three star rank of lieutenant general, and was the first full general since Philip Sheridan in 1888.
As AEF commander, Pershing was responsible for the organization, training, and supply of a combined professional and draft Army and National Guard force that eventually grew from 27,000 inexperienced men to two field armies, with a third forming as the war ended, totaling over two million soldiers. Pershing was keenly aware of logistics, and worked closely with AEF's Services of Supply (SOS). The new agency performed poorly under generals Richard M. Blatchford and Francis Joseph Kernan; finally in 1918 James Harbord took control and got the job done. Pershing also worked with Colonel Charles G. Dawes to establish an Interallied coordination Board, the Military Board of Allied Supply.
Pershing exercised significant control over his command, with a full delegation of authority from Wilson and Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. Baker, cognizant of the endless problems of domestic and allied political involvement in military decision making in wartime, gave Pershing unmatched authority to run his command as he saw fit. In turn, Pershing exercised his prerogative carefully, not engaging in politics or disputes over government policy that might distract him from his military mission. While earlier a champion of the African-American soldier, he did not advocate their full participation on the battlefield, understanding the general racial attitudes of white Americans.
George C. Marshall served as one of Pershing's top assistants during and after the war. Pershing's initial chief of staff was James Harbord, who later took a combat command but worked as Pershing's closest assistant for many years and remained extremely loyal to him.
After departing from Fort Jay at Governors Island in New York Harbor under top secrecy on May 28, 1917, aboard the RMS Baltic, Pershing arrived in France in June 1917. In a show of American presence, part of the 16th Infantry Regiment marched through Paris shortly after his arrival. Pausing at the tomb of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, he was reputed to have uttered the famous line "Lafayette, we are here," a line spoken, in fact, by his aide, Colonel Charles E. Stanton. American forces were deployed in France in the autumn of 1917.
In September 1917, the French government commissioned a portrait of Pershing by 23-year-old Romanian artist Micheline Resco. Pershing removed the stars and flag from his car and sat up front with his chauffeur while traveling from his AEF headquarters to visit her by night in her apartment on the rue Descombes. Their friendship continued for the rest of his life. In 1946, at 85, Pershing secretly wed Resco in his Walter Reed Hospital apartment. Resco was 35 years his junior
Battle of Hamel
For the first time in American history, Pershing allowed American soldiers to be under the command of a foreign power. In late June, General Henry Rawlinson, commanding the British Fourth Army, suggested to Australian Lieutenant General John Monash that American involvement in a set-piece attack alongside the experienced Australians in the upcoming Battle of Hamel would both give the American troops experience and also strengthen the Australian battalions by an additional company each. On June 29, General Bell, commanding the American 33rd Division, selected two companies each from the 131st and 132nd Infantry regiments of the 66th brigade. Monash had been promised ten companies of American troops and on June 30 the remaining companies of the 1st and 2nd battalions of the 131st regiment were sent. Each American platoon was attached to a First Australian Imperial Force company, but there was difficulty in integrating the American platoons (which numbered 60 men) among the Australian companies of 100 men. This difficulty was overcome by reducing the size of each American platoon by one-fifth and sending the troops thus removed, which numbered 50 officers and men, back to battalion reinforcement camps.
The day before the attack was scheduled to commence, Pershing learned of the plan and ordered the withdrawal of six American companies. While a few Americans, such as those attached to the 42nd Battalion, disobeyed the order, the majority, although disappointed, moved back to the rear. This meant that battalions had to rearrange their attack formations and caused a serious reduction in the size of the Allied force. For example, the 11th Brigade was now attacking with 2,200 men instead of 3,000. There was a further last-minute call for the removal of all American troops from the attack, but Monash, who had chosen 4 July as the date of the attack out of "deference" to the US troops, protested to Rawlinson and received support from Field Marshal Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force. The four American companies that had joined the Australians during the assault were withdrawn from the line after the battle and returned to their regiments, having gained valuable experience. Monash sent Bell his personal thanks, praising the Americans' gallantry, while Pershing set out explicit instructions to ensure that US troops would not be employed in a similar manner again (except as described below).
African-American units
Under civilian control of the military, Pershing adhered to the racial policies of President Woodrow Wilson, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, and southern Democrats who promoted the "separate but equal" doctrine. African-American "Buffalo Soldiers" units were not allowed to participate with the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) during World War I, but experienced non-commissioned officers were provided to other segregated black units for combat servicesuch as the 317th Engineer Battalion. The American Buffalo Soldiers of the 92nd and 93rd Infantry Divisions were the first American soldiers to fight in France in 1918, but they did so under French command as Pershing had detached them from the AEF to get them into action. Most regiments of the 92nd and all of the 93rd would continue to fight under French command for the duration of the war.
Full American participation
Organization
When General Pershing met General Pétain at Compiègne at 10:45pm on the evening of March 25, 1918, Pétain told him he had few reserves left to stop the German Spring Offensive on the Western Front. In response, Pershing said he would waive the idea of forming a separate American I Corps, and put all available American divisions at Pétain's disposal. The message was repeated to General Foch on March 28th, after Foch assumed command of all allied armies. Most of these divisions were sent south to relieve French divisions, which were transported to the fight in Flanders.
By early 1918, entire divisions were beginning to serve on the front lines alongside French troops. Although Pershing desired that the AEF fight as units under American command rather than being split up by battalions to augment British and French regiments and brigades, the 27th and 30th Divisions, grouped under II Corps command, were loaned during the desperate days of spring 1918, and fought with the British Fourth Army under General Rawlinson until the end of the war, taking part in the breach of the Hindenburg Line in October.
By May 1918, Pershing had become discontented with Air Service of the American Expeditionary Force, believing staff planning had been inefficient with considerable internal dissension, as well as conflict between its members and those of Pershing's General Staff. Further, aircraft and unit totals lagged far behind those expected. Pershing appointed his former West Point classmate and non-aviator, Major General Mason Patrick as the new Chief of Air Service. Considerable house-cleaning of the existing staff resulted from Patrick's appointment, bringing in experienced staff officers to administrate, and tightening up lines of communication.
In October 1918, Pershing saw the need for a dedicated Military Police Corps and the first U.S. Army MP School was established at Autun, France. For this, he is considered the founding father of the United States MPs.
Because of the effects of trench warfare on soldiers' feet, in January 1918, Pershing oversaw the creation of an improved combat boot, the "1918 Trench Boot," which became known as the "Pershing Boot" upon its introduction.
Combat
American forces first saw serious action during the summer of 1918, contributing eight large divisions, alongside 24 French ones, at the Second Battle of the Marne. Along with the British Fourth Army's victory at Amiens, the Allied victory at the Second Battle of the Marne marked the turning point of World War I on the Western Front.
In August 1918 the U.S. First Army had been formed, first under Pershing's direct command and then by Lieutenant General Hunter Liggett, when the U.S. Second Army under Lieutenant General Robert Bullard was created. After a quick victory at Saint-Mihiel, east of Verdun, some of the more bullish AEF commanders had hoped to push on eastwards to Metz, but this did not fit in with the plans of the Allied Supreme Commander, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, for three simultaneous offensives into the "bulge" of the Western Front (the other two being the Fourth Army's breach of the Hindenburg Line and an Anglo-Belgian offensive, led by Herbert Plumer's Second Army, in Flanders). Instead, the AEF was required to redeploy and, aided by French tanks, launched a major offensive northwards in very difficult terrain at Meuse-Argonne. Initially enjoying numerical odds of eight to one, this offensive eventually engaged 35 or 40 of the 190 or so German divisions on the Western Front, although to put this in perspective, around half the German divisions were engaged on the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) sector at the time.
The offensive was marked by a Pershing failure, specifically his reliance on massed infantry attacks with little artillery support led to high casualty rates in the capturing of three key points. This was despite the AEF facing only second-line German troops after the decision by Erich Ludendorff, the German Chief of Staff, to withdraw to the Hindenburg Line on October 3–and in notable contrast to the simultaneous British breakthrough of the Hindenburg Line in the north. Pershing was subsequently forced to reorganize the AEF with the creation of the Second Army, and to step down as the commander of the First Army.
When he arrived in Europe, Pershing had openly scorned the slow trench warfare of the previous three years on the Western Front, believing that American soldiers' skill with the rifle would enable them to avoid costly and senseless fighting over a small area of no-man's land. This was regarded as unrealistic by British and French commanders, and (privately) by a number of Americans such as Army Chief of Staff General Tasker Bliss and even Liggett. Even German generals were negative, with Erich Ludendorff dismissing Pershing's strategic efforts in the Meuse-Argonne offensive by recalling how "the attacks of the youthful American troops broke down with the heaviest losses". The AEF had performed well in the relatively open warfare of the Second Battle of the Marne, but the eventual American casualties against German defensive positions in the Argonne (roughly 120,000 American casualties in six weeks, against 35 or 40 German divisions) were not noticeably better than those of the Franco-British offensive on the Somme two years earlier (600,000 casualties in four and a half months, versus 50 or so German divisions). More ground was gained, but by this stage of the war the German Army was in worse shape than in previous years.
Some writers have speculated that Pershing's frustration at the slow progress through the Argonne was the cause of two incidents which then ensued. First, he ordered the U.S. First Army to take "the honor" of recapturing Sedan, site of the French defeat in 1870; the ensuing confusion (an order was issued that "boundaries were not to be considered binding") exposed American troops to danger not only from the French on their left, but even from one another, as the 1st Division tacked westward by night across the path of the 42nd Division (accounts differ as to whether Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur, then commanding the 84th Brigade of the 42nd Division, was really mistaken for a German officer and arrested). Liggett, who had been away from headquarters the previous day, had to sort out the mess and implement the instructions from the Allied Supreme Command, Marshal Foch, allowing the French to recapture the city; he later recorded that this was the only time during the war in which he lost his temper.
Second, Pershing sent an unsolicited letter to the Allied Supreme War Council, demanding that the Germans not be given an armistice and that instead, the Allies should push on and obtain an unconditional surrender. Although in later years, many, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt, felt that Pershing had been correct, at the time, this was a breach of political authority. Pershing narrowly escaped a serious reprimand from Wilson's aide, "Colonel" Edward M. House, and later apologized.
At the time of the Armistice with Germany, another Franco-American offensive was due to start on November 14, thrusting towards Metz and into Lorraine, to take place simultaneously with further BEF advances through Belgium. In his memoirs, Pershing claimed that the American breakout from the Argonne at the start of November was the decisive event leading to the German acceptance of an armistice, because it made untenable the Antwerp–Meuse line. This is probably an exaggeration; the outbreak of civil unrest and naval mutiny in Germany, the collapse of Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, and particularly Austria-Hungary following Allied victories in Salonika, Syria, and Italy, and the Allied victories on the Western Front were among a series of events in the autumn of 1918 which made it clear that Allied victory was inevitable, and diplomatic inquiries about an armistice had been going on throughout October.
President Wilson was keen to tie matters up before the mid-term elections, and as the other Allies were running low on supplies and manpower, they followed Wilson's lead.
American successes were largely credited to Pershing, and he became the most celebrated American leader of the war. MacArthur saw Pershing as a desk soldier, and the relationship between the two men deteriorated by the end of the war. Similar criticism of senior commanders by the younger generation of officers (the future generals of World War II) was made in the British and other armies, but, in Pershing's defense, although it was not uncommon for brigade commanders to serve near the front and even be killed, the state of communications in World War I made it more practical for senior generals to command from the rear.
He controversially ordered his troops to continue fighting before the signed Armistice took effect. This resulted in 3,500 American casualties on the last day of the war, an act which was regarded as murder by a few officers under his command. Pershing doubted the Germans' good faith, and most of his contemporaries took the view he expressed to the House Committee on Military Affairs in his testimony on November 5, 1919:
The year of 1918 also saw a personal health struggle for Pershing as he was sickened during the 1918 flu pandemic, but unlike many who were not so fortunate, Pershing survived. He rode his horse, Kidron, in the Paris victory parade in 1919.
Later career
In September 1919, in recognition of his distinguished service during World War I, the U.S. Congress authorized the President to promote Pershing to General of the Armies of the United States, the highest rank possible for any member of the United States armed forces, which was created especially for him.
In 1976, Congress authorized President Gerald Ford to posthumously promote George Washington to this rank as part of the United States Bicentennial; Washington previously held the rank of General in the Continental Army, and wore a three-star insignia; his posthumous appointment to General of the Armies rank and the specific wording of the authorizing statute, Public Law 94-479, of October 1976, ensured that Washington would always be considered the U.S. Army's highest-ranking officer. Pershing was authorized to create his insignia for the new rank and chose to continue wearing four stars for the rest of his career.
In 1919, Pershing created the Military Order of the World War as an officer's fraternity for veterans of the First World War, modeled after the Military Order of Foreign Wars. Both organizations still exist today and welcome new officer members to their ranks. Pershing himself would join the MOFW in 1924.
There was a movement to draft Pershing as a candidate for president in 1920; he refused to campaign, but indicated that he "wouldn't decline to serve" if the people wanted him. Though Pershing was a Republican, many of his party's leaders considered him too closely tied to the policies of the Democratic Party's President Woodrow Wilson. Another general, Leonard Wood, was the early Republican front runner, but the nomination went to Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, who went on to win the general election.
In 1921, Pershing became Chief of Staff of the United States Army, serving for three years. He created the Pershing Map, a proposed national network of military and civilian highways. The Interstate Highway System instituted in 1956 bears considerable resemblance to the Pershing map. On his 64th birthday, September 13, 1924, Pershing retired from active military service. (Army regulations from the late 1860s to the early 1940s required officers to retire on their 64th birthday.)
On November 1, 1921, Pershing was in Kansas City to take part in the groundbreaking ceremony for the Liberty Memorial that was being constructed there, (now known as the National World War I Museum and Memorial). Also present that day were Lieutenant General Baron Jacques of the Belgian Army, Admiral of the Fleet David Beatty of the British Royal Navy, Marshal Ferdinand Foch of the French Army, and General Armando Diaz of the Royal Italian Army. One of the main speakers was Vice President Calvin Coolidge. In 1935, bas-reliefs of Pershing, Jacques, Foch and Diaz by sculptor Walker Hancock were added to the memorial. Pershing also laid the cornerstone of the World War Memorial in Indianapolis on July 4, 1927.
On October 2, 1922, amid several hundred officers, many of them combat veterans of World War I, Pershing formally established the Reserve Officers Association (ROA) as an organization at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. ROA is a 75,000-member, professional association of officers, former officers, and spouses of all the uniformed services of the United States, primarily the Reserve and United States National Guard. It is a congressionally chartered Association that advises the Congress and the President on issues of national security on behalf of all members of the Reserve Component.
In 1924, Pershing became a member of the Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. He was also an honorary member of the Society of the Cincinnati and a Veteran Companion of the Military Order of Foreign Wars. On January 5, 1935 Pershing was designated a Military Order of the World Wars Honorary Commander-in-Chief for Life.
Pershing served on a committee of the Sons of the American Revolution to establish and recognize Constitution Day in the United States.
During the 1930s, Pershing largely retreated to private life, but returned to the public eye with publication of his memoirs, My Experiences in the World War, which were awarded the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for history. He was also an active Civitan during this time.
In 1940, before and after the Fall of France, Pershing was an outspoken advocate of aid for the United Kingdom during World War II.
In August 1940, he publicly supported the "Destroyers for Bases Agreement", whereby the United States sold fifty warships from World War I to the UK in exchange for lengthy leases of land on British possessions for the establishment for military bases.
In 1944, with Congress' creation of the five star rank of General of the Army, Pershing was still considered to be the highest-ranking officer of the United States military as his rank was General of the Armies. "In [1799] Congress created for George Washington the rank of General of the Armies ... General [Ulysses S.] Grant received the title of General of the Army in 1866 . ... Carefully Congress wrote a bill (HR 7594) to revive the rank of General of the Armies for General Pershing alone to hold during his lifetime. The rank would cease to exist upon Pershing's death." Later, when asked if this made Pershing a five-star general, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson commented that it did not, since Pershing never wore more than four stars, but that Pershing was still to be considered senior to the present five-star generals of World War II.
In July 1944, Pershing was visited by Free French leader General Charles de Gaulle. When Pershing asked after the health of his old friend, Marshal Philippe Pétain – who had headed the pro-German Vichy regime until it was dissolved in late 1942 – de Gaulle replied tactfully that, when he last saw him, the Marshal was well.
Death
On July 15, 1948, Pershing died of coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure at age 87 at Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington, D.C., which was his home after 1944. He lay in state at the United States Capitol rotunda and following a state funeral, he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. near the grave sites of the soldiers he commanded in Europe. The site is now known as Pershing Hill. George C. Marshall, then serving as U.S. Secretary of State, was in charge of funeral plans.
Summary of service
Dates of rank
Proposed six-star insignia
Assignment history
1882: Cadet, United States Military Academy
1886: Troop L, Sixth Cavalry
1891: Professor of Tactics, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
1895: 1st Lieutenant, 10th Cavalry Regiment
1897: Instructor, United States Military Academy, West Point
1898: Major of Volunteer Forces, Cuban Campaign, Spanish–American War
1899: Officer-in-Charge, Office of Customs and Insular Affairs
1900: Adjutant General, Department of Mindanao and Jolo, Philippines
1901: Battalion Officer, 1st Cavalry and Intelligence Officer, 15th Cavalry (Philippines)
1902: Officer-in-Charge, Camp Vicars, Philippines
1904: Assistant Chief of Staff, Southwest Army Division, Oklahoma
1905: Military attaché, U.S. Embassy, Tokyo, Japan
1908: Military Advisor to American Embassy, France
1909: Commander of Fort McKinley, Manila, and governor of Moro Province
1914: Brigade Commander, 8th Army Brigade
1916: Commanding General, Mexican Punitive Expedition
1917: Commanding General for the formation of the National Army
1917: Commanding General, American Expeditionary Forces, Europe
1921: Chief of Staff of the United States Army
1924: Retired from active military service
1925: Chief Commissioner assigned by the United States in the arbitration case for the province of Tacna between Peru and Chile.
Honors and awards
Distinguished Service Cross Citation
In 1940 General Pershing was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism in action leading an assault against hostile Moros at Mount Bagsak, on the island of Jolo in the Philippines on June 15, 1913.
Citation
For extraordinary heroism against hostile fanatical Moros at Mount Bagsak, Jolo, Philippine Islands on June 15, 1913. He personally assumed command of the assaulting line at the most critical period when only about 15 yards from the last Moro position. His encouragement and splendid example of personal heroism resulted in a general advance and the prompt capture of the hostile stronghold.
United States decorations and medals
Note: The dates indicated are the date the award was issued, not the date of action the award is based on.
In 1932, eight years after Pershing's retirement from active service, his silver citation star was upgraded to the Silver Star decoration. In 1941, he was retroactively awarded the Army of Occupation of Germany Medal for service in Germany following the close of World War I. As the medal had a profile of Pershing on its obverse, Pershing became the only soldier in the history of the U.S. Army, and only one of four in the entire U.S. Armed Forces, eligible to wear a medal with his own likeness on it. Navy admirals George Dewey, William T. Sampson and Richard E. Byrd were also entitled to wear medals with their own image on them.
International awards
Civilian awards
Congressional Gold Medal
Thanks of Congress
Distinguished Service Medal, American Legion
Special Medal of the Committee of the city of Buenos Aires
Induction into the Nebraska Hall of Fame (1963)
Personal life and family
Pershing was a Freemason, a member of Lincoln Lodge No. 19, Lincoln, Nebraska.
Francis Pershing (son)
Colonel Francis Warren Pershing (1909–1980), Pershing's son, served in the Second World War as an advisor to the Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall. After the war he continued with his financial career and founded a stock brokerage firm, Pershing & Company. In 1938, he married Muriel Bache Richards, granddaughter of financier Jules Bache. He was father to two sons who both served in Vietnam War, Colonel John Warren Pershing III (1941–1999) and Second Lieutenant Richard W. Pershing (1942–1968). John Pershing III served in the Army from 1964 to 1967 and Army Reserve from 1967 to 1999. He attained the rank of colonel, and his assignments included special assistant to Army Chief of Staff General Gordon R. Sullivan. Richard Pershing served as a second lieutenant in the 502nd Infantry and was killed in action on February 17, 1968, in Khe Sanh during the Vietnam War.
Nita Patton (fiancée)
In 1917, two years after the deaths of his wife Helen and three daughters, Pershing courted Anne Wilson "Nita" Patton, the younger sister of his protégé, George S. Patton.
Pershing met her when she traveled to Fort Bliss to visit her brother, and he introduced them. Pershing and Nita Patton soon began a relationship; they became engaged in 1917, but their separation because of Pershing's time in France during World War I ended it. Nita Patton never married, while Pershing remained unmarried until he secretly wed Micheline Resco in 1946.
Micheline Resco (second wife)
Pershing had wartime affairs, including one with French-Romanian artist Micheline Resco (1894–1968), and he later expressed regret that he had let Nita Patton "get away". Resco was 35 years his junior and they had known each other and exchanged encoded love letters since meeting in Paris in 1917, where Resco painted Pershing's portrait. In 1946, Pershing secretly wed Resco in his Walter Reed Hospital apartment.
Legacy
Since 1930, the Pershing Park Memorial Association (PPMA), headquartered in Pershing's hometown of Laclede, Missouri, has been dedicated to preserving the memory of General Pershing's military history.
On November 17, 1961, the United States Postal Service released an 8¢ Liberty Issue postage stamp honoring Pershing, shown at right.
In popular culture
Film
Pershing is played by Milburn Stone in the 1955 film The Long Gray Line, which was based on Martin 'Marty' Maher's autobiography, Bringing Up the Brass: My 55 Years at West Point which depicts Pershing swearing Maher into the army.
Pershing is played by Ron Perlman in the 2019 film The Great War.
Television
The actor Jody McCrea was cast as Lieutenant Pershing in the 1962 episode, "To Walk with Greatness", on the syndicated television anthology series, Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. In the story line, three outlaws endanger an Indian treaty, as Pershing sets forth to find the men. Frank Ferguson was cast as Colonel Carr.
Pershing is played by Marshall Teague in the 1997 Theodore Roosevelt biographical miniseries Rough Riders, as the commander of the Buffalo Soldiers during the Battle of San Juan Hill.
Literature
Pershing appears as a character in The Friends of Pancho Villa (1996), a historical novel by James Carlos Blake.
Pershing also appears in Hard Magic: The Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia (2011).
He is mentioned frequently as one of the commanders in Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory series in the volumes set during and shortly after the alternate history version of World War I, but his actual appearance is very brief.
He also has a short appearance in the Anton Myrer novel, Once An Eagle.
See also
General Pershing WWI casualty list
M26 Pershing Tank
MGM-31 Pershing Missile
Pershing (doughnut)
References
Informational notes
Citations
Bibliography
Adas, Michael. "Ambivalent Ally: American Military Intervention and the Endgame and Legacy of World War I" Diplomatic History (2014) 38#4: 700–12.
Boot, Max. The Savage Wars of Peace New York, Basic Books, 2002.
Edmonds, James. Military Operations: France and Belgium: 1914-18, London: MacMillan, 1935
Faulkner, Richard S. Pershing's Crusaders: The American Soldier in World War I (University Press of Kansas, 2017). xiv, 758 pp
Goldhurst, Richard. Pipe Clay and Drill: John J. Pershing, the classic American soldier (Reader's Digest Press, 1977)
Lacey, Jim. Pershing. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Mordacq, Henri. Unity of Command: How it was Achieved, Paris: Tallandier, 1929 (translated by Major J.C. Bardin, National War College, Carlisle, PA)
O'Connor, Richard. Black Jack Pershing. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961.
Pershing, John J., and John T. Greenwood. My Life Before the World War, 1860–1917: A Memoir. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2013.
Pershing, John J. My Experiences in the World War, Vol. I New York: Frederick Stokes, 1931
Perry, John. Pershing: Commander of the Great War. Nashville, Tenn: Thomas Nelson, 2011.
Smith, Gene. Until the Last Trumpet Sounds: The Life of General of the Armies John J. Pershing (Wiley, New York, 1998)
Smythe, Donald. Guerrilla Warrior: The Early Life of John J. Pershing (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1973)
Smythe, Donald. Pershing: General of the Armies (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1986)
Vandiver, Frank E. Black Jack: The Life and Times of John J. Pershing – Volume I (Texas A&M University Press, Third printing, 1977)
Vandiver, Frank E. Black Jack: The Life and Times of John J. Pershing – Volume II (Texas A&M University Press, Third printing, 1977)
Weigley, Russell Frank. History of the United States Army (1967)
Welsome, Eileen. The General and the Jaguar: Pershing's Hunt for Pancho Villa: a True Story of Revolution and Revenge. New York: Little, Brown and Co, 2006.
Woodward, David R. The American Army and the First World War (Cambridge University Press, 2014). 484 pp. online review
Yockelson, Mitchell (Foreword by John S. D. Eisenhower). Borrowed Soldiers: Americans under British Command, 1918 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008)
Yockelson, Mitchell. Forty-Seven Days: How Pershing's Warriors Came of Age to Defeat at the German Army in World War I (New York: NAL, Caliber, 2016)
External links
Pershing Museum
New York Times obituary
Black Jack Pershing in Cuba
Chapter IV, General of the Armies John J. Pershing, State Funeral, 15–19 July 1948 in The Last Salute: Civil and Military Funeral, 1921–1969 by B. C. Mossman and M. W. Stark, United States Army Center of Military History
at Nebraska State Historical Society
Americans Under British Command, 1918 at Borrowed Soldiers
John J. Pershing Papers at Library of Congress
John J. Pershing at the World Digital Archive
The National Society of Pershing Rifles
The Pershing Foundation
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United States Military Academy faculty
Deaths from coronary artery disease | true | [
"\"What Did I Do to You?\" is a song recorded by British singer Lisa Stansfield for her 1989 album, Affection. It was written by Stansfield, Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, and produced by Devaney and Morris. The song was released as the fourth European single on 30 April 1990. It included three previously unreleased songs written by Stansfield, Devaney and Morris: \"My Apple Heart,\" \"Lay Me Down\" and \"Something's Happenin'.\" \"What Did I Do to You?\" was remixed by Mark Saunders and by the Grammy Award-winning American house music DJ and producer, David Morales. The single became a top forty hit in the European countries reaching number eighteen in Finland, number twenty in Ireland and number twenty-five in the United Kingdom. \"What Did I Do to You?\" was also released in Japan.\n\nIn 2014, the remixes of \"What Did I Do to You?\" were included on the deluxe 2CD + DVD re-release of Affection and on People Hold On ... The Remix Anthology. They were also featured on The Collection 1989–2003 box set (2014), including previously unreleased Red Zone Mix by David Morales.\n\nCritical reception\nThe song received positive reviews from music critics. Matthew Hocter from Albumism viewed it as a \"upbeat offering\". David Giles from Music Week said it is \"beautifully performed\" by Stansfield. A reviewer from Reading Eagle wrote that \"What Did I Do to You?\" \"would be right at home on the \"Saturday Night Fever\" soundtrack.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Philip Richardson, who had previously directed the videos for \"All Around the World\" and \"Live Together\". It features Stansfield with her kiss curls, dressed in a white outfit and performing with her band on a stage in front of a jumping audience. The video was later published on Stansfield's official YouTube channel in November 2009. It has amassed more than 1,6 million views as of October 2021.\n\nTrack listings\n\n European/UK 7\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK/Japanese CD single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n UK 10\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix) – 5:52\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK 12\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 4:22\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 3:19\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:15\n\n UK 12\" promotional single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Anti Poll Tax Dub) – 6:31\n\n Other remixes\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Red Zone Mix) – 7:45\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nLisa Stansfield songs\n1990 singles\nSongs written by Lisa Stansfield\n1989 songs\nArista Records singles\nSongs written by Ian Devaney\nSongs written by Andy Morris (musician)",
"Follow Me! is a series of television programmes produced by Bayerischer Rundfunk and the BBC in the late 1970s to provide a crash course in the English language. It became popular in many overseas countries as a first introduction to English; in 1983, one hundred million people watched the show in China alone, featuring Kathy Flower.\n\nThe British actor Francis Matthews hosted and narrated the series.\n\nThe course consists of sixty lessons. Each lesson lasts from 12 to 15 minutes and covers a specific lexis. The lessons follow a consistent group of actors, with the relationships between their characters developing during the course.\n\nFollow Me! actors\n Francis Matthews\n Raymond Mason\n David Savile\n Ian Bamforth\n Keith Alexander\n Diane Mercer\n Jane Argyle\n Diana King\n Veronica Leigh\n Elaine Wells\n Danielle Cohn\n Lashawnda Bell\n\nEpisodes \n \"What's your name\"\n \"How are you\"\n \"Can you help me\"\n \"Left, right, straight ahead\"\n \"Where are they\"\n \"What's the time\"\n \"What's this What's that\"\n \"I like it very much\"\n \"Have you got any wine\"\n \"What are they doing\"\n \"Can I have your name, please\"\n \"What does she look like\"\n \"No smoking\"\n \"It's on the first floor\"\n \"Where's he gone\"\n \"Going away\"\n \"Buying things\"\n \"Why do you like it\"\n \"What do you need\"\n \"I sometimes work late\"\n \"Welcome to Britain\"\n \"Who's that\"\n \"What would you like to do\"\n \"How can I get there?\"\n \"Where is it\"\n \"What's the date\"\n \"Whose is it\"\n \"I enjoy it\"\n \"How many and how much\"\n \"What have you done\"\n \"Haven't we met before\"\n \"What did you say\"\n \"Please stop\"\n \"How can I get to Brightly\"\n \"Where can I get it\"\n \"There's a concert on Wednesday\"\n \"What's it like\"\n \"What do you think of him\"\n \"I need someone\"\n \"What were you doing\"\n \"What do you do\"\n \"What do you know about him\"\n \"You shouldn't do that\"\n \"I hope you enjoy your holiday\"\n \"Where can I see a football match\"\n \"When will it be ready\"\n \"Where did you go\"\n \"I think it's awful\"\n \"A room with a view\"\n \"You'll be ill\"\n \"I don't believe in strikes\"\n \"They look tired\"\n \"Would you like to\"\n \"Holiday plans\"\n \"The second shelf on the left\"\n \"When you are ready\"\n \"Tell them about Britain\"\n \"I liked everything\"\n \"Classical or modern\"\n \"Finale\"\n\nReferences \n\n BBC article about the series in China\n\nExternal links \n Follow Me – Beginner level \n Follow Me – Elementary level\n Follow Me – Intermediate level\n Follow Me – Advanced level\n\nAdult education television series\nEnglish-language education television programming"
] |
[
"Kim Chiu",
"Philanthropy and education"
] | C_c32c8d8c0d3f49ffa6670ac9ef972d14_0 | What was her education? | 1 | What was Kim Chiu's education? | Kim Chiu | Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes. She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child. Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya. She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim. Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well being. In August 2012, she and Lim spearheaded a relief operation in Marikina. Chiu was heavily involved with relief efforts for Typhoon Yolanda via Red Cross, which had affected parts of her hometown. Aside from giving food and water, she also held week-long clothes auctions to raise money for Typhoon victims. By 2013, it was also revealed that the actress was involved with regularly funding Isla Pulo, an impoverished community of 1,000 inhabitants in Manila Bay, Philippines. As one of Philippines highest paid endorsers, Chiu addressed the ongoing Pork Barrel tax scandal and the government's alleged misuse of the PDAF in a press conference on 28 August 2013, noting the amount of tax celebrities like herself pay to the government: "The money isn't a joke [...] we pay so much tax and we don't know where it's going." The Bureau of Internal Revenue confirmed Chiu as 131st top taxpayer in the country with P9.3M in income taxes in 2013. In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses. CANNOTANSWER | In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses. | Kimberly Sue Yap Chiu (; born 19 April 1990) is a Filipina actress, model, host, singer, dancer, and vlogger. Kim garnered acclaim at a young age for her acting performances on television and film. She is known as Philippine showbiz's "Chinita Princess" and once hailed "Princess of Philippine Movies and TV" for three consecutive years in the Philippines. She is currently managed and under contract to Star Magic, ABS-CBN's homebased talent agency and is referred to as the "Queen of the Dance Floor".
Kim Chiu started her showbiz career at the age of 16 after winning the first teen edition of the reality show Pinoy Big Brother. She then, starred in the television series, Sana Maulit Muli (2007) which won her the year's Most Promising Female Star and Most Popular loveteam with Gerald Anderson at GMMSF. This was followed by a string of successful projects and leading roles in dramas such as My Girl (2008), Tayong Dalawa (2009), Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo (2010), My Binondo Girl (2011–2012), Ina, Kapatid, Anak (2012–2013), Ikaw Lamang (2014), The Story of Us (2016), Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin (2017–2018), Love Thy Woman (2020) and Bawal Lumabas: The Series (2020).
She also starred in multiple commercially successful films including Bride for Rent (2014), I Love You, Goodbye (2009), Bakit Hindi Ka Crush Ng Crush Mo? (2013), Etiquette for Mistresses (2015) and The Ghost Bride (2017).
She has also received a PMPC Award for Best Drama Actress on her performance in Ikaw Lamang, four FAMAS Award nominations (winning one) and was hailed Princess of Philippine Movies and TV for three times at the GMMSF Box-Office Entertainment Awards for her accomplishments in the film and television industry. She has a very wide fanbase which is rapidly growing because of her chemistry, strong acting on-screen and her dedication to the entertainment industry. She is one of the few Philippine actresses with a high number of best actress accolades under her name. To top it all apart from acting she is also the endorsed by various companies in the Philippines including the international brand H&M and she's a fan of sports and exercises.
Career
2006–2008: Career beginnings
Chiu gained prominence by winning the reality series Pinoy Big Brother: Teen Edition. For the show, Chiu left her hometown of Cebu City and moved to Manila. She, along with the rest of the housemates entered the Big Brother house on April 23, 2006. After 42 days in the Big Brother house, she was named the Teen Big Winner with 626,562 votes (41.4% of the total votes) at the Aliw Theatre inside the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex in Pasay. She was the only housemate who was never nominated for eviction.
After winning, Chiu became part of Star Magic.
She and her on-screen partner Gerald Anderson became regulars in ASAP XV and appeared together in several ABS-CBN shows Love Spell, comedy sitcom Aalog-Alog and in the film First Day High.
In 2007, Chiu starred in the primetime TV series entitled Sana Maulit Muli alongside Anderson which was released to significant acclaim. That year, she was nominated and eventually won the 38th Guillermo Mendoza Box Office Awards as Most Promising Female Star and Best New Female TV Personality (for Sana Maulit Muli) at the 21st PMPC Star Awards. Sana Maulit Muli was later released in Taiwan under the PTS network, under the title Chances.
Chiu then launched her debut album "Gwa Ai Di" (Hokkien ) under Star Records, which included the single Crazy Love. It reached a Gold Record status.
Gaining much recognition for her acting roles, she then starred in the movie I've Fallen For You under Star Cinema and continually appeared in numerous advertisements. In 2008, Chiu was cast in the Philippine adaptation of the South Korean TV series My Girl.
2009–2011: Breakthrough
In 2009, Chiu secured her name as a top actress in the highly acclaimed TV series entitled Tayong Dalawa. She garnered several acting awards for her portrayal of Audrey, a woman who is loved by two military men.
Her movie I Love You, Goodbye became part of Star Cinema's official entry to the 2009 Metro Manila Film Festival. It was Chiu's first role as a villain and her first film to hit P100 million mark, with her receiving several nominations under different award-giving bodies including PMPC, 12th Gawad PASADO Awards and the 34th MMFF for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2010, she then starred in the romance film Paano Na Kaya, released nationally and internationally. She also starred in the well-received primetime drama, Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo, the highest rating teleserye of 2010 in the Philippines. In October 2010, Chiu and Anderson teamed up for the last consecutive time in the film Till My Heartaches End. In the midst of movie promotions, it was reported that the long-time couple (known as Kimerald) had split, yet the reason for the breakup was not discussed.
She top-billed in a weekly musical anthology series Your Song, as a sub-series for the 12th season called Your Song Presents: Kim. It ran for four months and led her to pair up with Sam Milby, Jake Cuenca, Pokwang, Derek Ramsay, Enrique Gil and Vice Ganda. In 2011, Chiu starred in romantic-comedy television series titled My Binondo Girl alongside Xian Lim, Matteo Guidicelli, and Jolo Revilla.
2012–present: Movies and critical success
In 2012, Chiu starred in a horror film with Vilma Santos entitled The Healing. She played a woman who is cured of glomerulonephritis through a healer but must suffer a curse. From this film, she received a number of Best Supporting Actress nominations from almost all of the film award-giving bodies, missing only the Gawad Urian and The Young Critics' Circle.
Chiu also returned to melodrama acting via Ina, Kapatid, Anak, alongside Xian Lim, Maja Salvador and Enchong Dee. After the teleserye ended with an average TV rating of 30.3% via Kantar Media/TNS, it was awarded Best Teleserye of the Year at Philippine's 2013 Yahoo Awards and was aired internationally as Her Mother's Daughter, released in foreign territories including MIPTV in France and at DISCOP West Asia in Turkey. Her portrayal also earned her an award for Best TV Drama Actress. She reunited in a movie with Anderson titled 24/7 in Love, Star Magic's ensemble film in view of the agency's 20th anniversary.
She starred in a film adaption of Ramon Bautista's novel co-starring Xian Lim, Bakit Hindi Ka Crush Ng Crush Mo?, released on July 17, 2013. Her performance received positive feedback and critics praise in view of her first comedic role on the big screen.
In January 2014, Chiu cemented her commercial draw with the romantic-comedy movie entitled Bride for Rent. Chiu plays Rocky, a poor woman who agrees to marry for money. As Star Cinema's first movie offering of 2014, the film met both critical and commercial success, earning more than P21.2 million pesos in its opening day and broke the P200 million pesos mark on its 8th day. The film established Chiu as one of the country's biggest stars having both a successful film and television career. Having grossed P325 million, it is the sixth highest grossing Filipino film of all time, the second highest grossing Filipino romantic comedy movie of all-time, third highest grossing non-MMFF film of all-time and also the highest-grossing January-released film of all-time in the country.
After the success of her two films, Chiu returned to television in the 2014 period drama, Ikaw Lamang. The series co-stars Coco Martin, Julia Montes, Jake Cuenca and KC Concepcion and dealt with social class, politics, and forbidden love. It held the first and second place viewer rating in its time slot and was awarded Best Primetime Drama Series at the 28th PMPC Star Awards for Television. This followed with the romantic comedy film, Past Tense and a portrayal as Mulan for Walt Disney Asia's 12 Days of Princess campaign.
In 2015, she appeared as one of five mistresses (alongside veterans Kris Aquino, Claudine Barretto, Iza Calzado) in the high-profile film, Etiquette for Mistresses. She recorded the Cebuano songs "Duyog" and "Labyu Langga" for the film's soundtrack. She also top-billed in the rom-com, All You Need Is Pag-Ibig, which is Star Cinema's official entry to the 2015 MMFF.
In 2016, she starred on the hit Philippine romantic drama, The Story of Us. Her performance as Tin Manalo gave her another Best Actress Awards from 6th EdukCircle Awards, 6th OFW Parangal Awards and Guillermo Mendoza. Also, on the last quarter of 2016, Kimerald loveteam was announced to set back on television via a triathlon soap opera television series Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin for the celebration of their 10th anniversary in show business.
In May 2017, Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin premiered on ABS-CBN's PrimeTanghali noontime block replacing Langit Lupa. The show debuted at Number 1 in its time slot, and consistently ranked ahead of its competition during its nine-month run.
In November 2017, she appears in the horror movie, The Ghost Bride where she plays the role as Mayen Lim who is the main protagonist of this film that she will be torn between living a normal though difficult life or accepting a strange business proposal called the Ghost Wedding in exchange for wealth and a comfortable life for her loved ones. She is also accompanied by Matteo Guidicelli, Alice Dixson, Christian Bables and Cacai Bautista in this said movie project which was set to show on theatres on All Saints' Day. In April 2018, she appears in the Filipino horror-comedy film Da One That Ghost Away directed by Tony Y. Reyes together with Ryan Bang, Enzo Pineda and the duo of Maymay Entrata and Edward Barber.
In December 2018, her movie One Great Love became part of Regal Film's official entry to the 2018 Metro Manila Film Festival. It was Chiu's first time working with Dennis Trillo and JC de Vera with her receiving nomination on the 44th annual MMFF Awards for Best Actress. She also won the Film Actress of the Year in the 50th GMMSF Box-Office Entertainment Awards for her performance in the film One Great Love.
In 2020, her song "Bawal Lumabas (The Classroom Song)" became the most disliked song in WISH 107.5's YouTube Channel having reportedly received 404k dislikes and 78k likes within 14 hours. The song was based from a viral edit made by DJ Squammy from her statement about the ABS-CBN franchise renewal controversy.
Personal life
Kim Chiu is the fourth of five children to William Chiu, a Chinese businessman from Mindoro and Louella (née Yap; 1963–2013), a Philippine Sangley native who migrated from Dinagat Islands to Surigao del Sur, Philippines. She is fluent in Cebuano, Tagalog, English, with Waray, Hokkien and Mandarin Chinese beginner level only.
Since her parent's separation in 1998, Kim had a dysfunctional relationship with both of her parents. She and her siblings were raised by their paternal grandmother and, as children, frequently moved residencies in the Philippine Visayas; locating in Tacloban, Leyte, Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, General Santos City, Mindoro and back to Cebu City until 2006. In 2013, she reconciled with her father "after five years of estrangement" while visiting his second partner and half-siblings in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro. A month later in June, her biological mother, Louella, fell into a coma. Following a week of hospitalization, Louella died on June 23, 2013, due to brain aneurysm. In a eulogy dedicated to her mother, she debunked rumors of animosity over her mother's child abandonment and expressed: "An angel guides me in my decisions in life. For me, that is finally my mom."
Chiu dated co-star Gerald Anderson from 2006 to 2010.
Kim Chiu began dating fellow Star Magic artist and leading man, Xian Lim in 2012, which was confirmed in a 2013 episode of Kris TV. They acknowledged they were "exclusively dating". On November 15, 2018, Kim Chiu confirmed she was still in a relationship with Lim during her interview on Tonight with Boy Abunda.
On March 4, 2020, Chiu was traveling along Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City on her way to a taping of her series Love Thy Woman when two unidentified gunmen, riding-in-tandem on a motorcycle, fired six gunshots at her van. Chiu and her companions were unharmed. Investigators examine the shooting as a possible case of mistaken identity. Chiu later revealed on social media that, a day after the incident, a person claiming to have been the actual target called one of her bosses to apologize.
Philanthropy and education
Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes. She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child. Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya. She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim. Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well-being. In August 2012, she and Lim spearheaded a relief operation in Marikina. Chiu was heavily involved with relief efforts for Typhoon Yolanda via Red Cross, which had affected parts of her hometown. Aside from giving food and water, she also held week-long clothes auctions to raise money for Typhoon victims.
By 2013, it was also revealed that the actress was involved with regularly funding Isla Pulo, an impoverished community of 1,000 inhabitants in Manila Bay, Philippines.
As one of Philippines highest paid endorsers, Chiu addressed the ongoing Pork Barrel tax scandal and the government's alleged misuse of the PDAF in a press conference on August 28, 2013, noting the amount of tax celebrities like herself pay to the government: "The money isn't a joke [...] we pay so much tax and we don't know where it's going." The Bureau of Internal Revenue confirmed Chiu as 131st top taxpayer in the country with ₱9.3M in income taxes in 2013.
In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses.
Filmography
Television
Films
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
Singles from OST Albums
Mine "(Sana Maulit Muli)"
Pusong Lito "(My Girl)"
Sabihin Mo Na w/ "Gerald Anderson"" (My Girl)"
Crazy Love ""Chinese Version"" "(My Girl)"
My Only Hope "(My Only Hope)"
Others
Kering Keri "(Rejoice TV Commercial)"
Whisper, I Love You "(Close Up MV)"
Softly "(Kim Chiu, Youtube)"
Bawal Lumabas "(Kim Chiu, Youtube)" - An allusion to 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic and ABS-CBN franchise renewal controversy
Music videos
Accolades
References
External links
1990 births
Living people
Actresses from Cebu
Actresses from Leyte (province)
Big Brother (franchise) winners
Filipino actors of Chinese descent
Filipino child actresses
Filipino child singers
Filipino female models
Filipino film actresses
Filipino people of Chinese descent
Filipino television actresses
Filipino Roman Catholics
People from Cebu City
Pinoy Big Brother contestants
Star Magic
Star Magic Batch 14
ABS-CBN personalities
Star Music artists
Visayan people
21st-century Filipino women singers
Cebuano people | true | [
"Tsarevna Miladinova-Alexieva (Bulgarian: Царевна Миладинова; 1856–1934) was a Bulgarian educator who became a driving force behind girls' education in what was then the Ottoman Empire, known for her role in founding the Bulgarian Girls' High School of Thessaloniki.\n\nEarly life and education \nTsarevna Miladinova was born in 1856 in Struga, a town in what is now North Macedonia.\n\nHer father was Dimitar Miladinov, an influential folklorist and activist in the Bulgarian national movement, and she would share his Bulgarian nationalist views throughout her life.\n\nWhen she was a child, the Russian consul noticed her reading during church services, and he offered to bring her with him to Russia to pursue her education. After taking him up on his offer, she graduated from a girls' high school in Kyiv, becoming one of various female members of the intelligentsia educated in Russia at that time.\n\nCareer \n\nAfter finishing school, Miladinova returned to Bulgaria and worked as a teacher while helping to found girls' schools across the region, including in Shumen, Etropole, Svishtov, and Prilep.\n\nShe taught a special class for girls within a boys' school in Shumen in the mid-1870s. Then, after working in Svishtov for a period, she gave up her position there to move to Thessaloniki, in what is now Greece, where efforts at educating young Bulgarians were beginning. She lived in Thessaloniki from 1882 to 1913, and she is best known for her work at the Bulgarian Girls' High School of Thessaloniki, which she co-founded. She was the first director of the school, which opened in 1882.\n\nMiladinova was one of Bulgaria's best-known teachers of the period, and in her later years her writings on her life and ideas appeared in various regional magazines.\n\nDeath and legacy \nMiladinova died in 1934 in Sofia, Bulgaria.\n\nHer writings were first compiled and published posthumously as Epoha, zemya i hora in 1939. An updated version with unpublished manuscripts and documents was then published under the same title in 1985.\n\nExternal links \n\n A digitized version of Epoha, zemya i hora (in Bulgarian)\n\nReferences \n\n1856 births\n1934 deaths\nPeople from Struga\nBulgarian educators\nBulgarian women writers\nBulgarian nationalists\nBulgarian Girls' High School of Thessaloniki",
"Bess Goodykoontz (August 21, 1894 – July 29, 1990) was an American educator and federal official. She was assistant US Commissioner of Education from 1929 to 1945.\n\nEarly life and education \nGoodykoontz was born in Waukon, Iowa, the daughter of Edward Warren Goodykoontz and Lela Sherman Goodykoontz. She earned bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Iowa, in 1920 and 1922. She was a member of Delta Zeta sorority.\n\nCareer \nGoodykoontz taught school in Iowa an Wisconsin. She was an assistant professor of education at the University of Pittsburgh in the 1920s. She was assistant US Commissioner of Education from 1929 to 1946. From 1933 to 1937, she was president of Pi Lambda Theta. During the 1930s, much of her attention was focused on vocational education; she also encouraged the use of motion pictures in educational settings, and testified before a 1933 Senate hearing on teacher salaries. During World War II, she testified before a 1943 Senate hearing on childcare programs to meet the needs of working mothers. She frequently spoke at college commencement exercises and teachers' conventions.\n\nAfter World War II, Goodykoontz was part of the rebuilding effort in Germany. She was director of the elementary education division from 1946 to 1949. In 1950, she was named Associate Commissioner of Education. From 1951 to 1956, she was director of the comparative education division. In 1956, she became director of the international education division. She was president of the World Organization for Early Childhood Education. In 1959 she was named Woman of the Year by Delta Zeta. She retired from the Office of Education in 1960.\n\nPublications \nGoodykoontz wrote many articles for scholarly and professional journals, including Childhood Education, The Elementary English Review, Teachers College Record, Bulletin of the American Library Association, Hispania, Pi Lambda Theta Journal, and National Altrusan. She also created publications for the Office of Education, including The Elementary School Principalship: Some Aspects of Its Development and Status (1938, with Jessie A. Lane) and Know Your Community as a Basis for Understanding the Schools Problems (1941).\n\n \"Teaching Pupils to Organize What They Read\" (1930)\n \"Pan-Pacific Women's Organization\" (1931)\n \"Some Factors Affecting the Elementary English Curriculum\" (1931)\n \"The Relation of Pictures to Reading Comprehension\" (1936)\n \"A Bibliography of Unpublished Studies in Elementary School English, 1934-1936\" (1937)\n \"Propaganda: What It Is; How It Works; What to Do About It\" (1938)\n The Elementary School Principalship: Some Aspects of Its Development and Status (1938, with Jessie A. Lane)\n Know Your Community as a Basis for Understanding the Schools Problems (1941)\n \"The Importance of Education for Family Life at the Various School Levels\" (1941)\n \"Challenges to the Present Structure of American Education\" (1945)\n\n \"Why Education for Inter-American Understanding?\" (1945)\n \"Changes Needed in School Organization to Provide for Special Groups\" (1945)\n \"The Elementary School of Tomorrow — Its Possible Structure\" (1946)\n \"Hobbies Extend Horizons, Too\" (1952)\n \"Selected Studies Relating to Community Schools\" (1953)\n \"Children's Needs Throughout the World\" (1955)\n Basic Human Values for Childhood Education (1962)\n\nPersonal life \nGoodykoontz adopted a daughter, Ellen Darrow. She died in 1990, aged 95 years, at her daughter's home in South Newfane, Vermont. Her papers are in the Hoover Library,\n\nReferences \n\n1894 births\n1990 deaths\nAmerican educators\nUniversity of Pittsburgh faculty\nUniversity of Iowa alumni"
] |
[
"Kim Chiu",
"Philanthropy and education",
"What was her education?",
"In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses."
] | C_c32c8d8c0d3f49ffa6670ac9ef972d14_0 | How did she get into philanthropy? | 2 | How did Kim Chiu get into philanthropy? | Kim Chiu | Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes. She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child. Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya. She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim. Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well being. In August 2012, she and Lim spearheaded a relief operation in Marikina. Chiu was heavily involved with relief efforts for Typhoon Yolanda via Red Cross, which had affected parts of her hometown. Aside from giving food and water, she also held week-long clothes auctions to raise money for Typhoon victims. By 2013, it was also revealed that the actress was involved with regularly funding Isla Pulo, an impoverished community of 1,000 inhabitants in Manila Bay, Philippines. As one of Philippines highest paid endorsers, Chiu addressed the ongoing Pork Barrel tax scandal and the government's alleged misuse of the PDAF in a press conference on 28 August 2013, noting the amount of tax celebrities like herself pay to the government: "The money isn't a joke [...] we pay so much tax and we don't know where it's going." The Bureau of Internal Revenue confirmed Chiu as 131st top taxpayer in the country with P9.3M in income taxes in 2013. In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses. CANNOTANSWER | Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes. | Kimberly Sue Yap Chiu (; born 19 April 1990) is a Filipina actress, model, host, singer, dancer, and vlogger. Kim garnered acclaim at a young age for her acting performances on television and film. She is known as Philippine showbiz's "Chinita Princess" and once hailed "Princess of Philippine Movies and TV" for three consecutive years in the Philippines. She is currently managed and under contract to Star Magic, ABS-CBN's homebased talent agency and is referred to as the "Queen of the Dance Floor".
Kim Chiu started her showbiz career at the age of 16 after winning the first teen edition of the reality show Pinoy Big Brother. She then, starred in the television series, Sana Maulit Muli (2007) which won her the year's Most Promising Female Star and Most Popular loveteam with Gerald Anderson at GMMSF. This was followed by a string of successful projects and leading roles in dramas such as My Girl (2008), Tayong Dalawa (2009), Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo (2010), My Binondo Girl (2011–2012), Ina, Kapatid, Anak (2012–2013), Ikaw Lamang (2014), The Story of Us (2016), Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin (2017–2018), Love Thy Woman (2020) and Bawal Lumabas: The Series (2020).
She also starred in multiple commercially successful films including Bride for Rent (2014), I Love You, Goodbye (2009), Bakit Hindi Ka Crush Ng Crush Mo? (2013), Etiquette for Mistresses (2015) and The Ghost Bride (2017).
She has also received a PMPC Award for Best Drama Actress on her performance in Ikaw Lamang, four FAMAS Award nominations (winning one) and was hailed Princess of Philippine Movies and TV for three times at the GMMSF Box-Office Entertainment Awards for her accomplishments in the film and television industry. She has a very wide fanbase which is rapidly growing because of her chemistry, strong acting on-screen and her dedication to the entertainment industry. She is one of the few Philippine actresses with a high number of best actress accolades under her name. To top it all apart from acting she is also the endorsed by various companies in the Philippines including the international brand H&M and she's a fan of sports and exercises.
Career
2006–2008: Career beginnings
Chiu gained prominence by winning the reality series Pinoy Big Brother: Teen Edition. For the show, Chiu left her hometown of Cebu City and moved to Manila. She, along with the rest of the housemates entered the Big Brother house on April 23, 2006. After 42 days in the Big Brother house, she was named the Teen Big Winner with 626,562 votes (41.4% of the total votes) at the Aliw Theatre inside the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex in Pasay. She was the only housemate who was never nominated for eviction.
After winning, Chiu became part of Star Magic.
She and her on-screen partner Gerald Anderson became regulars in ASAP XV and appeared together in several ABS-CBN shows Love Spell, comedy sitcom Aalog-Alog and in the film First Day High.
In 2007, Chiu starred in the primetime TV series entitled Sana Maulit Muli alongside Anderson which was released to significant acclaim. That year, she was nominated and eventually won the 38th Guillermo Mendoza Box Office Awards as Most Promising Female Star and Best New Female TV Personality (for Sana Maulit Muli) at the 21st PMPC Star Awards. Sana Maulit Muli was later released in Taiwan under the PTS network, under the title Chances.
Chiu then launched her debut album "Gwa Ai Di" (Hokkien ) under Star Records, which included the single Crazy Love. It reached a Gold Record status.
Gaining much recognition for her acting roles, she then starred in the movie I've Fallen For You under Star Cinema and continually appeared in numerous advertisements. In 2008, Chiu was cast in the Philippine adaptation of the South Korean TV series My Girl.
2009–2011: Breakthrough
In 2009, Chiu secured her name as a top actress in the highly acclaimed TV series entitled Tayong Dalawa. She garnered several acting awards for her portrayal of Audrey, a woman who is loved by two military men.
Her movie I Love You, Goodbye became part of Star Cinema's official entry to the 2009 Metro Manila Film Festival. It was Chiu's first role as a villain and her first film to hit P100 million mark, with her receiving several nominations under different award-giving bodies including PMPC, 12th Gawad PASADO Awards and the 34th MMFF for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2010, she then starred in the romance film Paano Na Kaya, released nationally and internationally. She also starred in the well-received primetime drama, Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo, the highest rating teleserye of 2010 in the Philippines. In October 2010, Chiu and Anderson teamed up for the last consecutive time in the film Till My Heartaches End. In the midst of movie promotions, it was reported that the long-time couple (known as Kimerald) had split, yet the reason for the breakup was not discussed.
She top-billed in a weekly musical anthology series Your Song, as a sub-series for the 12th season called Your Song Presents: Kim. It ran for four months and led her to pair up with Sam Milby, Jake Cuenca, Pokwang, Derek Ramsay, Enrique Gil and Vice Ganda. In 2011, Chiu starred in romantic-comedy television series titled My Binondo Girl alongside Xian Lim, Matteo Guidicelli, and Jolo Revilla.
2012–present: Movies and critical success
In 2012, Chiu starred in a horror film with Vilma Santos entitled The Healing. She played a woman who is cured of glomerulonephritis through a healer but must suffer a curse. From this film, she received a number of Best Supporting Actress nominations from almost all of the film award-giving bodies, missing only the Gawad Urian and The Young Critics' Circle.
Chiu also returned to melodrama acting via Ina, Kapatid, Anak, alongside Xian Lim, Maja Salvador and Enchong Dee. After the teleserye ended with an average TV rating of 30.3% via Kantar Media/TNS, it was awarded Best Teleserye of the Year at Philippine's 2013 Yahoo Awards and was aired internationally as Her Mother's Daughter, released in foreign territories including MIPTV in France and at DISCOP West Asia in Turkey. Her portrayal also earned her an award for Best TV Drama Actress. She reunited in a movie with Anderson titled 24/7 in Love, Star Magic's ensemble film in view of the agency's 20th anniversary.
She starred in a film adaption of Ramon Bautista's novel co-starring Xian Lim, Bakit Hindi Ka Crush Ng Crush Mo?, released on July 17, 2013. Her performance received positive feedback and critics praise in view of her first comedic role on the big screen.
In January 2014, Chiu cemented her commercial draw with the romantic-comedy movie entitled Bride for Rent. Chiu plays Rocky, a poor woman who agrees to marry for money. As Star Cinema's first movie offering of 2014, the film met both critical and commercial success, earning more than P21.2 million pesos in its opening day and broke the P200 million pesos mark on its 8th day. The film established Chiu as one of the country's biggest stars having both a successful film and television career. Having grossed P325 million, it is the sixth highest grossing Filipino film of all time, the second highest grossing Filipino romantic comedy movie of all-time, third highest grossing non-MMFF film of all-time and also the highest-grossing January-released film of all-time in the country.
After the success of her two films, Chiu returned to television in the 2014 period drama, Ikaw Lamang. The series co-stars Coco Martin, Julia Montes, Jake Cuenca and KC Concepcion and dealt with social class, politics, and forbidden love. It held the first and second place viewer rating in its time slot and was awarded Best Primetime Drama Series at the 28th PMPC Star Awards for Television. This followed with the romantic comedy film, Past Tense and a portrayal as Mulan for Walt Disney Asia's 12 Days of Princess campaign.
In 2015, she appeared as one of five mistresses (alongside veterans Kris Aquino, Claudine Barretto, Iza Calzado) in the high-profile film, Etiquette for Mistresses. She recorded the Cebuano songs "Duyog" and "Labyu Langga" for the film's soundtrack. She also top-billed in the rom-com, All You Need Is Pag-Ibig, which is Star Cinema's official entry to the 2015 MMFF.
In 2016, she starred on the hit Philippine romantic drama, The Story of Us. Her performance as Tin Manalo gave her another Best Actress Awards from 6th EdukCircle Awards, 6th OFW Parangal Awards and Guillermo Mendoza. Also, on the last quarter of 2016, Kimerald loveteam was announced to set back on television via a triathlon soap opera television series Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin for the celebration of their 10th anniversary in show business.
In May 2017, Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin premiered on ABS-CBN's PrimeTanghali noontime block replacing Langit Lupa. The show debuted at Number 1 in its time slot, and consistently ranked ahead of its competition during its nine-month run.
In November 2017, she appears in the horror movie, The Ghost Bride where she plays the role as Mayen Lim who is the main protagonist of this film that she will be torn between living a normal though difficult life or accepting a strange business proposal called the Ghost Wedding in exchange for wealth and a comfortable life for her loved ones. She is also accompanied by Matteo Guidicelli, Alice Dixson, Christian Bables and Cacai Bautista in this said movie project which was set to show on theatres on All Saints' Day. In April 2018, she appears in the Filipino horror-comedy film Da One That Ghost Away directed by Tony Y. Reyes together with Ryan Bang, Enzo Pineda and the duo of Maymay Entrata and Edward Barber.
In December 2018, her movie One Great Love became part of Regal Film's official entry to the 2018 Metro Manila Film Festival. It was Chiu's first time working with Dennis Trillo and JC de Vera with her receiving nomination on the 44th annual MMFF Awards for Best Actress. She also won the Film Actress of the Year in the 50th GMMSF Box-Office Entertainment Awards for her performance in the film One Great Love.
In 2020, her song "Bawal Lumabas (The Classroom Song)" became the most disliked song in WISH 107.5's YouTube Channel having reportedly received 404k dislikes and 78k likes within 14 hours. The song was based from a viral edit made by DJ Squammy from her statement about the ABS-CBN franchise renewal controversy.
Personal life
Kim Chiu is the fourth of five children to William Chiu, a Chinese businessman from Mindoro and Louella (née Yap; 1963–2013), a Philippine Sangley native who migrated from Dinagat Islands to Surigao del Sur, Philippines. She is fluent in Cebuano, Tagalog, English, with Waray, Hokkien and Mandarin Chinese beginner level only.
Since her parent's separation in 1998, Kim had a dysfunctional relationship with both of her parents. She and her siblings were raised by their paternal grandmother and, as children, frequently moved residencies in the Philippine Visayas; locating in Tacloban, Leyte, Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, General Santos City, Mindoro and back to Cebu City until 2006. In 2013, she reconciled with her father "after five years of estrangement" while visiting his second partner and half-siblings in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro. A month later in June, her biological mother, Louella, fell into a coma. Following a week of hospitalization, Louella died on June 23, 2013, due to brain aneurysm. In a eulogy dedicated to her mother, she debunked rumors of animosity over her mother's child abandonment and expressed: "An angel guides me in my decisions in life. For me, that is finally my mom."
Chiu dated co-star Gerald Anderson from 2006 to 2010.
Kim Chiu began dating fellow Star Magic artist and leading man, Xian Lim in 2012, which was confirmed in a 2013 episode of Kris TV. They acknowledged they were "exclusively dating". On November 15, 2018, Kim Chiu confirmed she was still in a relationship with Lim during her interview on Tonight with Boy Abunda.
On March 4, 2020, Chiu was traveling along Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City on her way to a taping of her series Love Thy Woman when two unidentified gunmen, riding-in-tandem on a motorcycle, fired six gunshots at her van. Chiu and her companions were unharmed. Investigators examine the shooting as a possible case of mistaken identity. Chiu later revealed on social media that, a day after the incident, a person claiming to have been the actual target called one of her bosses to apologize.
Philanthropy and education
Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes. She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child. Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya. She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim. Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well-being. In August 2012, she and Lim spearheaded a relief operation in Marikina. Chiu was heavily involved with relief efforts for Typhoon Yolanda via Red Cross, which had affected parts of her hometown. Aside from giving food and water, she also held week-long clothes auctions to raise money for Typhoon victims.
By 2013, it was also revealed that the actress was involved with regularly funding Isla Pulo, an impoverished community of 1,000 inhabitants in Manila Bay, Philippines.
As one of Philippines highest paid endorsers, Chiu addressed the ongoing Pork Barrel tax scandal and the government's alleged misuse of the PDAF in a press conference on August 28, 2013, noting the amount of tax celebrities like herself pay to the government: "The money isn't a joke [...] we pay so much tax and we don't know where it's going." The Bureau of Internal Revenue confirmed Chiu as 131st top taxpayer in the country with ₱9.3M in income taxes in 2013.
In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses.
Filmography
Television
Films
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
Singles from OST Albums
Mine "(Sana Maulit Muli)"
Pusong Lito "(My Girl)"
Sabihin Mo Na w/ "Gerald Anderson"" (My Girl)"
Crazy Love ""Chinese Version"" "(My Girl)"
My Only Hope "(My Only Hope)"
Others
Kering Keri "(Rejoice TV Commercial)"
Whisper, I Love You "(Close Up MV)"
Softly "(Kim Chiu, Youtube)"
Bawal Lumabas "(Kim Chiu, Youtube)" - An allusion to 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic and ABS-CBN franchise renewal controversy
Music videos
Accolades
References
External links
1990 births
Living people
Actresses from Cebu
Actresses from Leyte (province)
Big Brother (franchise) winners
Filipino actors of Chinese descent
Filipino child actresses
Filipino child singers
Filipino female models
Filipino film actresses
Filipino people of Chinese descent
Filipino television actresses
Filipino Roman Catholics
People from Cebu City
Pinoy Big Brother contestants
Star Magic
Star Magic Batch 14
ABS-CBN personalities
Star Music artists
Visayan people
21st-century Filipino women singers
Cebuano people | true | [
"Lisa M. Dietlin (born August 20, 1963) is an internationally recognized expert and author on philanthropy, charitable giving, and transformational change in both the personal and professional arenas. A leading figure in the American nonprofit sector, her deep experience with fundraising and the nonprofit sector, groundbreaking research on giving patterns, and influential ideas on transformational philanthropy have led her to become one of the most trusted philanthropic advisors in the nation, making numerous appearances on TV and radio.\n\nSpeaker and Coach\n\nAs founder of The Institute of Transformational Philanthropy, Lisa’s conviction that anyone can be an agent for positive change by Making A Difference® in their own life has made her a highly sought after keynote speaker, lauded for delivering compelling and practical tools for personal growth, goal achievement, and maintaining a healthy work/life balance full of “happiness and joy” to a wide range of audiences across all industries. \n\nLisa is an in-demand coach and instructor, having provided strategic guidance to over 1000 organizations, as well as to entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, and nonprofit boards and staffs to help them enact transformational change at the individual, structural, and national levels. Lisa serves as adjunct faculty at Chicago’s Northwestern University, DePaul University, and North Park University, as well as helming training seminars for clients ranging from Fortune 500’s and international charitable organizations to community-based nonprofits.\n\nAuthor\n\nLisa has authored several books on the subjects of change and growth, including Transformational Philanthropy: Entrepreneurs and Nonprofits; the Making a Difference: 365 Tips, Ideas, and Stories to Change Your World series; The Power of Three: How To Achieve Your Goals By Simply Doing Three Things A Day; and the autobiographical I Got Hit By A Taxi But You Look Run Over: Life Lessons about Happiness and Joy.\n\nAwards and Recognitions\n\nIn 2019, Lisa was named as one of the top 20 Most Inspiring Chicagoans by StreetWise magazine and was cited as a “Remarkable Woman” by the Chicago Tribune. Lisa’s other awards and recognitions include the Distinguished Graduate Award from Alpena Community College, a Certificate of Appreciation from the Association of Donor Relations Professionals, and induction into the Alpena High School Hall of Fame. Lisa serves on the Advisory Board of the Metropolitan Capital Bank and Trust, and for three years she served as a National Judge for the Tom’s of Maine \"50 States for Good\" annual charity recognition award. \n\nEducation\n\nA native of Michigan, Lisa holds undergraduate degrees from Michigan State University and Alpena Community College, and a Master’s Degree in Philanthropy and Development from Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota.\n\nEarly life \nDietlin was born in Alpena, Michigan, and spent her childhood in Michigan and Montana. Her father died when she was 13, and she and her siblings were raised by her mother. After graduating from Alpena High School and Alpena Community College, Dietlin earned a degree from Michigan State University. She received a Master of Arts degree in Philanthropy and Development from St. Mary's University of Minnesota. Dietlin served as the President for the Michigan Young Democrats, and then was the Legislative Services Specialist for the Michigan State University Senate from 1986-1991.\n\nCareer \nAt Michigan Technological University, Dietlin served as Associate Director of Corporate Relations, Director of Major Gifts and Senior Advancement Director. She moved to Chicago in 1998 and worked as Assistant Dean of Development at University of Illinois at Chicago and an adjunct professor at North Park University.\n\nIn 2000, Dietlin founded Lisa M. Dietlin & Associates, Inc. in Chicago, and served as President and CEO. LMDA worked to create philanthropic strategies for its clients, mainly entrepreneurs and non-profit organizations. Dietlin served on the Board of the Ms. Foundation and WomenOnCall.\n\nDietlin's first book, Transformational Philanthropy: Entrepreneurs and Nonprofits, was published in 2010. She later authored three more books, the Making A Difference series, which provides tips, ideas and stories about creating positive impact through giving. Two additional books authored by Lisa are The Power of Three: How to achieve your goals by simply doing three things a day and I Got Hit By a Taxi but You Look Run Over: Life Lessons about happiness and joy.\n\nDietlin was featured by the Chicago Tribune in their ebook Remarkable Women: Interviews with Inspiring Chicagoland Women In 2013 she was named one of the Top 50 Singles by Today's Chicago Woman magazine. She has also named as a SheSource expert on strategic fundraising, philanthropy, nonprofits, media and entertainment.\n\nDietlin has been a guest on many television and radio programs including NBC., CBS, Fox News, Better TV, WGN Radio, Oprah & Friends Radio NPR and First Business, giving information and ideas about how to get involved in charitable work. She appeared regularly on CBS 2 as its Chicago Charity Contributor, and was a national judge for the Tom’s of Maine \"50 States for Good\" charity recognition awards for several years. Dietlin has also contributed articles to, and been featured and quoted in various newspapers and magazines and in The Chronicle of Philanthropy. She has been a regular Huffington Post contributor through her blog \"Making A Difference®: The World of Giving\".\n\nSelected publications\n\nBooks\nTransformational Philanthropy: Entrepreneurs and Nonprofits 2010\nThe Power of Three: How to achieve your goals by simply doing three things a day\nI Got Hit By a Taxi but You Look Run Over: Life Lessons about happiness and joy.\nMaking A Difference - 365 Tips, Ideas and Stories to Change Your World.\nMaking A Difference 2 - More Tips, Ideas and Stories to Change Your World.\nMaking A Difference 3 - Still More Tips, Ideas and Stories to Change Your World.\n\nArticles\n Conscious Magazine (February 2016) \"Breaking Up The Winter Doldrums: Volunteer or Virtually Volunteer Options\"\n University World News (2016) \"Philanthropy For Social Leadership\"\n HuffPost Blog Post (June 2015) \"Making A Difference®: The World of Giving – US Charitable Giving Surpasses All Past Records in 2014\" \n HuffPost Blog Post (November 2013) \"Making A Difference®: The World of Giving – 50 STATES FOR GOOD\" Announces Those Organizations Doing the Most Good\n HuffPost Blog Post (August 2012) \"Making A Difference®: The World of Giving -- More Inspiration Right After the Olympics\n Today’s Chicago Woman (December 2011) \"Women’s Role in Philanthropy\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial Website ~ LISADIETLIN.com \nThe Institute Of Transformational Philanthropy (founded by Lisa Dietlin) \n Huffington Post (2013) Making A Difference: A World of Giving \n SheSource (2013) \nWomen on Call\n StreetWise \n\n1963 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Alpena, Michigan\nMichigan State University alumni\nSaint Mary's University of Minnesota alumni\nWriters from Michigan",
"Jennifer Rose “Jenny” Santi (born 1980) is a Filipino-born author and philanthropy advisor, former Head of Philanthropy Services for UBS in Southeast Asia, and currently the founder of the philanthropic advisory firm Saint & Partners and author of the book “The Giving Way to Happiness: Stories & Science Behind the Life-Changing Power of Giving.”\n\nEarly life and education\nSanti was born in Manila, Philippines the second of three children, and attended the Catholic school Colegio San Agustin, She graduated summa cum laude from the Ateneo de Manila University, where she almost became valedictorian, but told the administration to instead choose Roselle Ambubuyog, who became the university’s first visually-impaired valedictorian. Santi later taught for a year at the age of 22 and then moved to London to work as a management consultant. She earned her MBA from INSEAD in 2007, attended the Wharton School of Business under the Wharton-INSEAD Alliance.\n\nPhilanthropy advisory work\nAfter completing MBA, Santi became the Head of Philanthropy Services for UBS in Southeast Asia, where she advised ultra high net worth individuals and families on their giving. She conceptualized and led the UBS-INSEAD Study of Family Philanthropy in Asia, the largest study of Asian family philanthropy to date. She started her consulting firm Saint & Partners in 2013, when she got a call from the (Goldie) Hawn Foundation, asking her to be their consultant while she was on a break working on her book.\n\nThe Giving Way to Happiness Book\nSanti said she became “obsessed” with the idea and pursued it even though she did not know anyone in publishing and had never written a book, because it had the potential to inspire other people.\" In an interview she said that tales of giving go unheard and that a lot of people still resist the notion that by giving, we receive. The book was eventually published by Tarcher Penguin Random House.\n\nBibliography\n\nThe UBS-INSEAD Study of Family Philanthropy in Asia\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Personal website\n\n1980 births\nLiving people\nFilipino writers\nUBS people\nAteneo de Manila University alumni\nWharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni\nFilipino expatriates in the United States"
] |
[
"Kim Chiu",
"Philanthropy and education",
"What was her education?",
"In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses.",
"How did she get into philanthropy?",
"Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes."
] | C_c32c8d8c0d3f49ffa6670ac9ef972d14_0 | What was the first cause she became interested in? | 3 | What was the first cause Kim Chiu became interested in? | Kim Chiu | Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes. She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child. Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya. She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim. Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well being. In August 2012, she and Lim spearheaded a relief operation in Marikina. Chiu was heavily involved with relief efforts for Typhoon Yolanda via Red Cross, which had affected parts of her hometown. Aside from giving food and water, she also held week-long clothes auctions to raise money for Typhoon victims. By 2013, it was also revealed that the actress was involved with regularly funding Isla Pulo, an impoverished community of 1,000 inhabitants in Manila Bay, Philippines. As one of Philippines highest paid endorsers, Chiu addressed the ongoing Pork Barrel tax scandal and the government's alleged misuse of the PDAF in a press conference on 28 August 2013, noting the amount of tax celebrities like herself pay to the government: "The money isn't a joke [...] we pay so much tax and we don't know where it's going." The Bureau of Internal Revenue confirmed Chiu as 131st top taxpayer in the country with P9.3M in income taxes in 2013. In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses. CANNOTANSWER | She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child. | Kimberly Sue Yap Chiu (; born 19 April 1990) is a Filipina actress, model, host, singer, dancer, and vlogger. Kim garnered acclaim at a young age for her acting performances on television and film. She is known as Philippine showbiz's "Chinita Princess" and once hailed "Princess of Philippine Movies and TV" for three consecutive years in the Philippines. She is currently managed and under contract to Star Magic, ABS-CBN's homebased talent agency and is referred to as the "Queen of the Dance Floor".
Kim Chiu started her showbiz career at the age of 16 after winning the first teen edition of the reality show Pinoy Big Brother. She then, starred in the television series, Sana Maulit Muli (2007) which won her the year's Most Promising Female Star and Most Popular loveteam with Gerald Anderson at GMMSF. This was followed by a string of successful projects and leading roles in dramas such as My Girl (2008), Tayong Dalawa (2009), Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo (2010), My Binondo Girl (2011–2012), Ina, Kapatid, Anak (2012–2013), Ikaw Lamang (2014), The Story of Us (2016), Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin (2017–2018), Love Thy Woman (2020) and Bawal Lumabas: The Series (2020).
She also starred in multiple commercially successful films including Bride for Rent (2014), I Love You, Goodbye (2009), Bakit Hindi Ka Crush Ng Crush Mo? (2013), Etiquette for Mistresses (2015) and The Ghost Bride (2017).
She has also received a PMPC Award for Best Drama Actress on her performance in Ikaw Lamang, four FAMAS Award nominations (winning one) and was hailed Princess of Philippine Movies and TV for three times at the GMMSF Box-Office Entertainment Awards for her accomplishments in the film and television industry. She has a very wide fanbase which is rapidly growing because of her chemistry, strong acting on-screen and her dedication to the entertainment industry. She is one of the few Philippine actresses with a high number of best actress accolades under her name. To top it all apart from acting she is also the endorsed by various companies in the Philippines including the international brand H&M and she's a fan of sports and exercises.
Career
2006–2008: Career beginnings
Chiu gained prominence by winning the reality series Pinoy Big Brother: Teen Edition. For the show, Chiu left her hometown of Cebu City and moved to Manila. She, along with the rest of the housemates entered the Big Brother house on April 23, 2006. After 42 days in the Big Brother house, she was named the Teen Big Winner with 626,562 votes (41.4% of the total votes) at the Aliw Theatre inside the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex in Pasay. She was the only housemate who was never nominated for eviction.
After winning, Chiu became part of Star Magic.
She and her on-screen partner Gerald Anderson became regulars in ASAP XV and appeared together in several ABS-CBN shows Love Spell, comedy sitcom Aalog-Alog and in the film First Day High.
In 2007, Chiu starred in the primetime TV series entitled Sana Maulit Muli alongside Anderson which was released to significant acclaim. That year, she was nominated and eventually won the 38th Guillermo Mendoza Box Office Awards as Most Promising Female Star and Best New Female TV Personality (for Sana Maulit Muli) at the 21st PMPC Star Awards. Sana Maulit Muli was later released in Taiwan under the PTS network, under the title Chances.
Chiu then launched her debut album "Gwa Ai Di" (Hokkien ) under Star Records, which included the single Crazy Love. It reached a Gold Record status.
Gaining much recognition for her acting roles, she then starred in the movie I've Fallen For You under Star Cinema and continually appeared in numerous advertisements. In 2008, Chiu was cast in the Philippine adaptation of the South Korean TV series My Girl.
2009–2011: Breakthrough
In 2009, Chiu secured her name as a top actress in the highly acclaimed TV series entitled Tayong Dalawa. She garnered several acting awards for her portrayal of Audrey, a woman who is loved by two military men.
Her movie I Love You, Goodbye became part of Star Cinema's official entry to the 2009 Metro Manila Film Festival. It was Chiu's first role as a villain and her first film to hit P100 million mark, with her receiving several nominations under different award-giving bodies including PMPC, 12th Gawad PASADO Awards and the 34th MMFF for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2010, she then starred in the romance film Paano Na Kaya, released nationally and internationally. She also starred in the well-received primetime drama, Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo, the highest rating teleserye of 2010 in the Philippines. In October 2010, Chiu and Anderson teamed up for the last consecutive time in the film Till My Heartaches End. In the midst of movie promotions, it was reported that the long-time couple (known as Kimerald) had split, yet the reason for the breakup was not discussed.
She top-billed in a weekly musical anthology series Your Song, as a sub-series for the 12th season called Your Song Presents: Kim. It ran for four months and led her to pair up with Sam Milby, Jake Cuenca, Pokwang, Derek Ramsay, Enrique Gil and Vice Ganda. In 2011, Chiu starred in romantic-comedy television series titled My Binondo Girl alongside Xian Lim, Matteo Guidicelli, and Jolo Revilla.
2012–present: Movies and critical success
In 2012, Chiu starred in a horror film with Vilma Santos entitled The Healing. She played a woman who is cured of glomerulonephritis through a healer but must suffer a curse. From this film, she received a number of Best Supporting Actress nominations from almost all of the film award-giving bodies, missing only the Gawad Urian and The Young Critics' Circle.
Chiu also returned to melodrama acting via Ina, Kapatid, Anak, alongside Xian Lim, Maja Salvador and Enchong Dee. After the teleserye ended with an average TV rating of 30.3% via Kantar Media/TNS, it was awarded Best Teleserye of the Year at Philippine's 2013 Yahoo Awards and was aired internationally as Her Mother's Daughter, released in foreign territories including MIPTV in France and at DISCOP West Asia in Turkey. Her portrayal also earned her an award for Best TV Drama Actress. She reunited in a movie with Anderson titled 24/7 in Love, Star Magic's ensemble film in view of the agency's 20th anniversary.
She starred in a film adaption of Ramon Bautista's novel co-starring Xian Lim, Bakit Hindi Ka Crush Ng Crush Mo?, released on July 17, 2013. Her performance received positive feedback and critics praise in view of her first comedic role on the big screen.
In January 2014, Chiu cemented her commercial draw with the romantic-comedy movie entitled Bride for Rent. Chiu plays Rocky, a poor woman who agrees to marry for money. As Star Cinema's first movie offering of 2014, the film met both critical and commercial success, earning more than P21.2 million pesos in its opening day and broke the P200 million pesos mark on its 8th day. The film established Chiu as one of the country's biggest stars having both a successful film and television career. Having grossed P325 million, it is the sixth highest grossing Filipino film of all time, the second highest grossing Filipino romantic comedy movie of all-time, third highest grossing non-MMFF film of all-time and also the highest-grossing January-released film of all-time in the country.
After the success of her two films, Chiu returned to television in the 2014 period drama, Ikaw Lamang. The series co-stars Coco Martin, Julia Montes, Jake Cuenca and KC Concepcion and dealt with social class, politics, and forbidden love. It held the first and second place viewer rating in its time slot and was awarded Best Primetime Drama Series at the 28th PMPC Star Awards for Television. This followed with the romantic comedy film, Past Tense and a portrayal as Mulan for Walt Disney Asia's 12 Days of Princess campaign.
In 2015, she appeared as one of five mistresses (alongside veterans Kris Aquino, Claudine Barretto, Iza Calzado) in the high-profile film, Etiquette for Mistresses. She recorded the Cebuano songs "Duyog" and "Labyu Langga" for the film's soundtrack. She also top-billed in the rom-com, All You Need Is Pag-Ibig, which is Star Cinema's official entry to the 2015 MMFF.
In 2016, she starred on the hit Philippine romantic drama, The Story of Us. Her performance as Tin Manalo gave her another Best Actress Awards from 6th EdukCircle Awards, 6th OFW Parangal Awards and Guillermo Mendoza. Also, on the last quarter of 2016, Kimerald loveteam was announced to set back on television via a triathlon soap opera television series Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin for the celebration of their 10th anniversary in show business.
In May 2017, Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin premiered on ABS-CBN's PrimeTanghali noontime block replacing Langit Lupa. The show debuted at Number 1 in its time slot, and consistently ranked ahead of its competition during its nine-month run.
In November 2017, she appears in the horror movie, The Ghost Bride where she plays the role as Mayen Lim who is the main protagonist of this film that she will be torn between living a normal though difficult life or accepting a strange business proposal called the Ghost Wedding in exchange for wealth and a comfortable life for her loved ones. She is also accompanied by Matteo Guidicelli, Alice Dixson, Christian Bables and Cacai Bautista in this said movie project which was set to show on theatres on All Saints' Day. In April 2018, she appears in the Filipino horror-comedy film Da One That Ghost Away directed by Tony Y. Reyes together with Ryan Bang, Enzo Pineda and the duo of Maymay Entrata and Edward Barber.
In December 2018, her movie One Great Love became part of Regal Film's official entry to the 2018 Metro Manila Film Festival. It was Chiu's first time working with Dennis Trillo and JC de Vera with her receiving nomination on the 44th annual MMFF Awards for Best Actress. She also won the Film Actress of the Year in the 50th GMMSF Box-Office Entertainment Awards for her performance in the film One Great Love.
In 2020, her song "Bawal Lumabas (The Classroom Song)" became the most disliked song in WISH 107.5's YouTube Channel having reportedly received 404k dislikes and 78k likes within 14 hours. The song was based from a viral edit made by DJ Squammy from her statement about the ABS-CBN franchise renewal controversy.
Personal life
Kim Chiu is the fourth of five children to William Chiu, a Chinese businessman from Mindoro and Louella (née Yap; 1963–2013), a Philippine Sangley native who migrated from Dinagat Islands to Surigao del Sur, Philippines. She is fluent in Cebuano, Tagalog, English, with Waray, Hokkien and Mandarin Chinese beginner level only.
Since her parent's separation in 1998, Kim had a dysfunctional relationship with both of her parents. She and her siblings were raised by their paternal grandmother and, as children, frequently moved residencies in the Philippine Visayas; locating in Tacloban, Leyte, Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, General Santos City, Mindoro and back to Cebu City until 2006. In 2013, she reconciled with her father "after five years of estrangement" while visiting his second partner and half-siblings in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro. A month later in June, her biological mother, Louella, fell into a coma. Following a week of hospitalization, Louella died on June 23, 2013, due to brain aneurysm. In a eulogy dedicated to her mother, she debunked rumors of animosity over her mother's child abandonment and expressed: "An angel guides me in my decisions in life. For me, that is finally my mom."
Chiu dated co-star Gerald Anderson from 2006 to 2010.
Kim Chiu began dating fellow Star Magic artist and leading man, Xian Lim in 2012, which was confirmed in a 2013 episode of Kris TV. They acknowledged they were "exclusively dating". On November 15, 2018, Kim Chiu confirmed she was still in a relationship with Lim during her interview on Tonight with Boy Abunda.
On March 4, 2020, Chiu was traveling along Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City on her way to a taping of her series Love Thy Woman when two unidentified gunmen, riding-in-tandem on a motorcycle, fired six gunshots at her van. Chiu and her companions were unharmed. Investigators examine the shooting as a possible case of mistaken identity. Chiu later revealed on social media that, a day after the incident, a person claiming to have been the actual target called one of her bosses to apologize.
Philanthropy and education
Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes. She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child. Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya. She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim. Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well-being. In August 2012, she and Lim spearheaded a relief operation in Marikina. Chiu was heavily involved with relief efforts for Typhoon Yolanda via Red Cross, which had affected parts of her hometown. Aside from giving food and water, she also held week-long clothes auctions to raise money for Typhoon victims.
By 2013, it was also revealed that the actress was involved with regularly funding Isla Pulo, an impoverished community of 1,000 inhabitants in Manila Bay, Philippines.
As one of Philippines highest paid endorsers, Chiu addressed the ongoing Pork Barrel tax scandal and the government's alleged misuse of the PDAF in a press conference on August 28, 2013, noting the amount of tax celebrities like herself pay to the government: "The money isn't a joke [...] we pay so much tax and we don't know where it's going." The Bureau of Internal Revenue confirmed Chiu as 131st top taxpayer in the country with ₱9.3M in income taxes in 2013.
In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses.
Filmography
Television
Films
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
Singles from OST Albums
Mine "(Sana Maulit Muli)"
Pusong Lito "(My Girl)"
Sabihin Mo Na w/ "Gerald Anderson"" (My Girl)"
Crazy Love ""Chinese Version"" "(My Girl)"
My Only Hope "(My Only Hope)"
Others
Kering Keri "(Rejoice TV Commercial)"
Whisper, I Love You "(Close Up MV)"
Softly "(Kim Chiu, Youtube)"
Bawal Lumabas "(Kim Chiu, Youtube)" - An allusion to 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic and ABS-CBN franchise renewal controversy
Music videos
Accolades
References
External links
1990 births
Living people
Actresses from Cebu
Actresses from Leyte (province)
Big Brother (franchise) winners
Filipino actors of Chinese descent
Filipino child actresses
Filipino child singers
Filipino female models
Filipino film actresses
Filipino people of Chinese descent
Filipino television actresses
Filipino Roman Catholics
People from Cebu City
Pinoy Big Brother contestants
Star Magic
Star Magic Batch 14
ABS-CBN personalities
Star Music artists
Visayan people
21st-century Filipino women singers
Cebuano people | true | [
"Anna Gardner (January 25, 1816 – February 18, 1901) was an American abolitionist and teacher, as well as an ardent reformer, a staunch supporter of women's rights, and the author of several volumes in prose and verse.\n\nGardner, of Quaker ancestry, was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, in 1816, and died there in 1901. When a girl, she read The Liberator and became interested in the antislavery cause. In 1841, she published the call for the first antislavery meeting in Nantucket, at which Frederick Douglass made his first public speech and electrified his audience. She delivered many lectures during the years immediately preceding the American Civil War, and after the war, she taught in freedmen's schools in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. In 1878, she returned to New York, where soon afterward, she was severely injured in a carriage accident. After many weeks of suffering and a partial recovery, she returned to her old home in Nantucket. She lectured several times before the Nantucket Athenaeum. Gardner was a fluent writer, and in 1881, she published her best work in a volume of prose and verse entitled Harvest Gleanings.\n\nEarly life\nAnna Gardner was born on the island of Nantucket, January 25, 1816. Her father, Oliver C. Gardner, was related to most of the prominent families in Nantucket, among whom were the Cartwrights, and through them Gardner was descended from Peter Folger, the grandfather of Benjamin Franklin, and she was thus related to Lucretia Mott, Maria Mitchell, and other distinguished men and women. Through her mother, Hannah Mackerel Gardner, she descended from Tristram Coffin, the first magistrate of Nantucket. Seven generations of her ancestors lived in Nantucket. Gardner's literary tastes and talents were inherited from her mother, who was known for her love of classical poetry. On her father's side, also, she received a literary strain, as the Cartwright family has produced poets in each generation.\n\nCareer\nGardner became aware of slavery at an early age. She became a student, teacher, lecturer, and worker in the cause of human liberty and equal rights. She was a regular reader of The Liberator when she was eighteen years old. In 1841, she was instrumental in calling a remarkable antislavery meeting in Nantucket when she was twenty-five years of age, which was largely attended. At this convention, Frederick Douglass made his first oration as an abolitionist speaker. He had been exhorting in the Methodist Church and was unprepared for the call made upon him. Nevertheless, he responded and electrified his audience. Gardner spent many years in teaching the freed men in the South. Her work was done in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.\n\nShe returned to the North in 1878, and in Brooklyn, New York, she was injured by a carriage accident. After long weeks of suffering, a partial recovery, and crutches, she returned to her Nantucket home, where she continued to be engaged in teaching those around her, and writing in the interests of truth and philanthropy. Besides her antislavery work, Gardner worked in the cause of women's rights. She lectured several times before the Nantucket Athenæum. In 1881, she published a volume of prose and verse, entitled Harvest Gleanings.\n\nGardner died February 18, 1901.\n\nReferences\n\nAttribution\n\nBibliography\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\n1816 births\n1901 deaths\n19th-century American poets\n19th-century American women writers\n19th-century American women educators\n19th-century American educators\nPeople from Nantucket, Massachusetts\nAmerican women poets\nAmerican abolitionists\nEducators from Massachusetts\nWikipedia articles incorporating text from A Woman of the Century",
"Zineb Benani (born January 1, 1940 in Sidi-Kacem, Morocco) is a Moroccan human-rights activist, former politician, writer and painter. Benani was Morocco's first female politician.\n\nAfter several attempts and failures, Benani became the first woman elected on November 12, 1976 in the fourth constituency of the city of Sidi-Kacem. Thus she became the first Moroccan woman who joined a municipal council and also the first woman member of a local commune in the Cherarda Beni-Hassen region. She then held the position of vice-president of the city council and civil servant and also the post of president of the cultural commission of the city. She was a member of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces. The election of Zineb Benani in 1976 was a landmark event in the political history of Moroccan women, for several reasons, including the particular political situation in Morocco in the 1970s and for reasons related to combat and action to liberate women in general, in a country where women's rights were a sensitive issue at that time.\n\nAfter her career in politics, Benani worked as a teacher in a school for girls in the city of Sidi-Kacem. Then she held the post of school principal in Rabat in the 90s.\n\nBenani was also interested in culture, she produced a series of paintings presented in an exhibition in Rabat, room of the Ministry of Culture in 2005. She also published a collection of poetry describing her fight for the feminine cause and for human rights in general.\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\n1940 births\nMoroccan human rights activists"
] |
[
"Kim Chiu",
"Philanthropy and education",
"What was her education?",
"In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses.",
"How did she get into philanthropy?",
"Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes.",
"What was the first cause she became interested in?",
"She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child."
] | C_c32c8d8c0d3f49ffa6670ac9ef972d14_0 | What does her involvement entail? | 4 | What does Kim Chiu's involvement entail? | Kim Chiu | Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes. She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child. Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya. She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim. Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well being. In August 2012, she and Lim spearheaded a relief operation in Marikina. Chiu was heavily involved with relief efforts for Typhoon Yolanda via Red Cross, which had affected parts of her hometown. Aside from giving food and water, she also held week-long clothes auctions to raise money for Typhoon victims. By 2013, it was also revealed that the actress was involved with regularly funding Isla Pulo, an impoverished community of 1,000 inhabitants in Manila Bay, Philippines. As one of Philippines highest paid endorsers, Chiu addressed the ongoing Pork Barrel tax scandal and the government's alleged misuse of the PDAF in a press conference on 28 August 2013, noting the amount of tax celebrities like herself pay to the government: "The money isn't a joke [...] we pay so much tax and we don't know where it's going." The Bureau of Internal Revenue confirmed Chiu as 131st top taxpayer in the country with P9.3M in income taxes in 2013. In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses. CANNOTANSWER | Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya. | Kimberly Sue Yap Chiu (; born 19 April 1990) is a Filipina actress, model, host, singer, dancer, and vlogger. Kim garnered acclaim at a young age for her acting performances on television and film. She is known as Philippine showbiz's "Chinita Princess" and once hailed "Princess of Philippine Movies and TV" for three consecutive years in the Philippines. She is currently managed and under contract to Star Magic, ABS-CBN's homebased talent agency and is referred to as the "Queen of the Dance Floor".
Kim Chiu started her showbiz career at the age of 16 after winning the first teen edition of the reality show Pinoy Big Brother. She then, starred in the television series, Sana Maulit Muli (2007) which won her the year's Most Promising Female Star and Most Popular loveteam with Gerald Anderson at GMMSF. This was followed by a string of successful projects and leading roles in dramas such as My Girl (2008), Tayong Dalawa (2009), Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo (2010), My Binondo Girl (2011–2012), Ina, Kapatid, Anak (2012–2013), Ikaw Lamang (2014), The Story of Us (2016), Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin (2017–2018), Love Thy Woman (2020) and Bawal Lumabas: The Series (2020).
She also starred in multiple commercially successful films including Bride for Rent (2014), I Love You, Goodbye (2009), Bakit Hindi Ka Crush Ng Crush Mo? (2013), Etiquette for Mistresses (2015) and The Ghost Bride (2017).
She has also received a PMPC Award for Best Drama Actress on her performance in Ikaw Lamang, four FAMAS Award nominations (winning one) and was hailed Princess of Philippine Movies and TV for three times at the GMMSF Box-Office Entertainment Awards for her accomplishments in the film and television industry. She has a very wide fanbase which is rapidly growing because of her chemistry, strong acting on-screen and her dedication to the entertainment industry. She is one of the few Philippine actresses with a high number of best actress accolades under her name. To top it all apart from acting she is also the endorsed by various companies in the Philippines including the international brand H&M and she's a fan of sports and exercises.
Career
2006–2008: Career beginnings
Chiu gained prominence by winning the reality series Pinoy Big Brother: Teen Edition. For the show, Chiu left her hometown of Cebu City and moved to Manila. She, along with the rest of the housemates entered the Big Brother house on April 23, 2006. After 42 days in the Big Brother house, she was named the Teen Big Winner with 626,562 votes (41.4% of the total votes) at the Aliw Theatre inside the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex in Pasay. She was the only housemate who was never nominated for eviction.
After winning, Chiu became part of Star Magic.
She and her on-screen partner Gerald Anderson became regulars in ASAP XV and appeared together in several ABS-CBN shows Love Spell, comedy sitcom Aalog-Alog and in the film First Day High.
In 2007, Chiu starred in the primetime TV series entitled Sana Maulit Muli alongside Anderson which was released to significant acclaim. That year, she was nominated and eventually won the 38th Guillermo Mendoza Box Office Awards as Most Promising Female Star and Best New Female TV Personality (for Sana Maulit Muli) at the 21st PMPC Star Awards. Sana Maulit Muli was later released in Taiwan under the PTS network, under the title Chances.
Chiu then launched her debut album "Gwa Ai Di" (Hokkien ) under Star Records, which included the single Crazy Love. It reached a Gold Record status.
Gaining much recognition for her acting roles, she then starred in the movie I've Fallen For You under Star Cinema and continually appeared in numerous advertisements. In 2008, Chiu was cast in the Philippine adaptation of the South Korean TV series My Girl.
2009–2011: Breakthrough
In 2009, Chiu secured her name as a top actress in the highly acclaimed TV series entitled Tayong Dalawa. She garnered several acting awards for her portrayal of Audrey, a woman who is loved by two military men.
Her movie I Love You, Goodbye became part of Star Cinema's official entry to the 2009 Metro Manila Film Festival. It was Chiu's first role as a villain and her first film to hit P100 million mark, with her receiving several nominations under different award-giving bodies including PMPC, 12th Gawad PASADO Awards and the 34th MMFF for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2010, she then starred in the romance film Paano Na Kaya, released nationally and internationally. She also starred in the well-received primetime drama, Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo, the highest rating teleserye of 2010 in the Philippines. In October 2010, Chiu and Anderson teamed up for the last consecutive time in the film Till My Heartaches End. In the midst of movie promotions, it was reported that the long-time couple (known as Kimerald) had split, yet the reason for the breakup was not discussed.
She top-billed in a weekly musical anthology series Your Song, as a sub-series for the 12th season called Your Song Presents: Kim. It ran for four months and led her to pair up with Sam Milby, Jake Cuenca, Pokwang, Derek Ramsay, Enrique Gil and Vice Ganda. In 2011, Chiu starred in romantic-comedy television series titled My Binondo Girl alongside Xian Lim, Matteo Guidicelli, and Jolo Revilla.
2012–present: Movies and critical success
In 2012, Chiu starred in a horror film with Vilma Santos entitled The Healing. She played a woman who is cured of glomerulonephritis through a healer but must suffer a curse. From this film, she received a number of Best Supporting Actress nominations from almost all of the film award-giving bodies, missing only the Gawad Urian and The Young Critics' Circle.
Chiu also returned to melodrama acting via Ina, Kapatid, Anak, alongside Xian Lim, Maja Salvador and Enchong Dee. After the teleserye ended with an average TV rating of 30.3% via Kantar Media/TNS, it was awarded Best Teleserye of the Year at Philippine's 2013 Yahoo Awards and was aired internationally as Her Mother's Daughter, released in foreign territories including MIPTV in France and at DISCOP West Asia in Turkey. Her portrayal also earned her an award for Best TV Drama Actress. She reunited in a movie with Anderson titled 24/7 in Love, Star Magic's ensemble film in view of the agency's 20th anniversary.
She starred in a film adaption of Ramon Bautista's novel co-starring Xian Lim, Bakit Hindi Ka Crush Ng Crush Mo?, released on July 17, 2013. Her performance received positive feedback and critics praise in view of her first comedic role on the big screen.
In January 2014, Chiu cemented her commercial draw with the romantic-comedy movie entitled Bride for Rent. Chiu plays Rocky, a poor woman who agrees to marry for money. As Star Cinema's first movie offering of 2014, the film met both critical and commercial success, earning more than P21.2 million pesos in its opening day and broke the P200 million pesos mark on its 8th day. The film established Chiu as one of the country's biggest stars having both a successful film and television career. Having grossed P325 million, it is the sixth highest grossing Filipino film of all time, the second highest grossing Filipino romantic comedy movie of all-time, third highest grossing non-MMFF film of all-time and also the highest-grossing January-released film of all-time in the country.
After the success of her two films, Chiu returned to television in the 2014 period drama, Ikaw Lamang. The series co-stars Coco Martin, Julia Montes, Jake Cuenca and KC Concepcion and dealt with social class, politics, and forbidden love. It held the first and second place viewer rating in its time slot and was awarded Best Primetime Drama Series at the 28th PMPC Star Awards for Television. This followed with the romantic comedy film, Past Tense and a portrayal as Mulan for Walt Disney Asia's 12 Days of Princess campaign.
In 2015, she appeared as one of five mistresses (alongside veterans Kris Aquino, Claudine Barretto, Iza Calzado) in the high-profile film, Etiquette for Mistresses. She recorded the Cebuano songs "Duyog" and "Labyu Langga" for the film's soundtrack. She also top-billed in the rom-com, All You Need Is Pag-Ibig, which is Star Cinema's official entry to the 2015 MMFF.
In 2016, she starred on the hit Philippine romantic drama, The Story of Us. Her performance as Tin Manalo gave her another Best Actress Awards from 6th EdukCircle Awards, 6th OFW Parangal Awards and Guillermo Mendoza. Also, on the last quarter of 2016, Kimerald loveteam was announced to set back on television via a triathlon soap opera television series Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin for the celebration of their 10th anniversary in show business.
In May 2017, Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin premiered on ABS-CBN's PrimeTanghali noontime block replacing Langit Lupa. The show debuted at Number 1 in its time slot, and consistently ranked ahead of its competition during its nine-month run.
In November 2017, she appears in the horror movie, The Ghost Bride where she plays the role as Mayen Lim who is the main protagonist of this film that she will be torn between living a normal though difficult life or accepting a strange business proposal called the Ghost Wedding in exchange for wealth and a comfortable life for her loved ones. She is also accompanied by Matteo Guidicelli, Alice Dixson, Christian Bables and Cacai Bautista in this said movie project which was set to show on theatres on All Saints' Day. In April 2018, she appears in the Filipino horror-comedy film Da One That Ghost Away directed by Tony Y. Reyes together with Ryan Bang, Enzo Pineda and the duo of Maymay Entrata and Edward Barber.
In December 2018, her movie One Great Love became part of Regal Film's official entry to the 2018 Metro Manila Film Festival. It was Chiu's first time working with Dennis Trillo and JC de Vera with her receiving nomination on the 44th annual MMFF Awards for Best Actress. She also won the Film Actress of the Year in the 50th GMMSF Box-Office Entertainment Awards for her performance in the film One Great Love.
In 2020, her song "Bawal Lumabas (The Classroom Song)" became the most disliked song in WISH 107.5's YouTube Channel having reportedly received 404k dislikes and 78k likes within 14 hours. The song was based from a viral edit made by DJ Squammy from her statement about the ABS-CBN franchise renewal controversy.
Personal life
Kim Chiu is the fourth of five children to William Chiu, a Chinese businessman from Mindoro and Louella (née Yap; 1963–2013), a Philippine Sangley native who migrated from Dinagat Islands to Surigao del Sur, Philippines. She is fluent in Cebuano, Tagalog, English, with Waray, Hokkien and Mandarin Chinese beginner level only.
Since her parent's separation in 1998, Kim had a dysfunctional relationship with both of her parents. She and her siblings were raised by their paternal grandmother and, as children, frequently moved residencies in the Philippine Visayas; locating in Tacloban, Leyte, Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, General Santos City, Mindoro and back to Cebu City until 2006. In 2013, she reconciled with her father "after five years of estrangement" while visiting his second partner and half-siblings in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro. A month later in June, her biological mother, Louella, fell into a coma. Following a week of hospitalization, Louella died on June 23, 2013, due to brain aneurysm. In a eulogy dedicated to her mother, she debunked rumors of animosity over her mother's child abandonment and expressed: "An angel guides me in my decisions in life. For me, that is finally my mom."
Chiu dated co-star Gerald Anderson from 2006 to 2010.
Kim Chiu began dating fellow Star Magic artist and leading man, Xian Lim in 2012, which was confirmed in a 2013 episode of Kris TV. They acknowledged they were "exclusively dating". On November 15, 2018, Kim Chiu confirmed she was still in a relationship with Lim during her interview on Tonight with Boy Abunda.
On March 4, 2020, Chiu was traveling along Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City on her way to a taping of her series Love Thy Woman when two unidentified gunmen, riding-in-tandem on a motorcycle, fired six gunshots at her van. Chiu and her companions were unharmed. Investigators examine the shooting as a possible case of mistaken identity. Chiu later revealed on social media that, a day after the incident, a person claiming to have been the actual target called one of her bosses to apologize.
Philanthropy and education
Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes. She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child. Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya. She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim. Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well-being. In August 2012, she and Lim spearheaded a relief operation in Marikina. Chiu was heavily involved with relief efforts for Typhoon Yolanda via Red Cross, which had affected parts of her hometown. Aside from giving food and water, she also held week-long clothes auctions to raise money for Typhoon victims.
By 2013, it was also revealed that the actress was involved with regularly funding Isla Pulo, an impoverished community of 1,000 inhabitants in Manila Bay, Philippines.
As one of Philippines highest paid endorsers, Chiu addressed the ongoing Pork Barrel tax scandal and the government's alleged misuse of the PDAF in a press conference on August 28, 2013, noting the amount of tax celebrities like herself pay to the government: "The money isn't a joke [...] we pay so much tax and we don't know where it's going." The Bureau of Internal Revenue confirmed Chiu as 131st top taxpayer in the country with ₱9.3M in income taxes in 2013.
In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses.
Filmography
Television
Films
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
Singles from OST Albums
Mine "(Sana Maulit Muli)"
Pusong Lito "(My Girl)"
Sabihin Mo Na w/ "Gerald Anderson"" (My Girl)"
Crazy Love ""Chinese Version"" "(My Girl)"
My Only Hope "(My Only Hope)"
Others
Kering Keri "(Rejoice TV Commercial)"
Whisper, I Love You "(Close Up MV)"
Softly "(Kim Chiu, Youtube)"
Bawal Lumabas "(Kim Chiu, Youtube)" - An allusion to 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic and ABS-CBN franchise renewal controversy
Music videos
Accolades
References
External links
1990 births
Living people
Actresses from Cebu
Actresses from Leyte (province)
Big Brother (franchise) winners
Filipino actors of Chinese descent
Filipino child actresses
Filipino child singers
Filipino female models
Filipino film actresses
Filipino people of Chinese descent
Filipino television actresses
Filipino Roman Catholics
People from Cebu City
Pinoy Big Brother contestants
Star Magic
Star Magic Batch 14
ABS-CBN personalities
Star Music artists
Visayan people
21st-century Filipino women singers
Cebuano people | true | [
"Entail Act (with its variations) is a stock short title used in the United Kingdom for legislation relating to entails.\n\nList\nThe Entail (Scotland) Act 1914 (4 & 5 Geo 5 c 43)\n\nThe Entail Acts is the collective title of the following Acts:\nThe Entail Act 1685 (c 26) [12mo ed: c 22]\nThe Tenures Abolition Act 1746 (20 Geo 2 c 50 ss 14, 15, 16, 17)\nThe Sales to Crown Act 1746 (20 Geo 2 c 51 ss 2, 3)\nThe Entail Improvement Act 1770 (10 Geo 3 c 51)\nThe Entail Provisions Act 1824 (5 Geo 4 c 87)\nThe Entail Powers Act 1836 (6 & 7 Will 4 c 42)\nThe Entail Sites Act 1840 (3 & 4 Vict c 48)\nThe Entail Amendment Act 1848 (11 & 12 Vict c 36)\nThe Entail Amendment Act 1853 (16 & 17 Vict c 94)\nThe Entail Cottages Act 1860 (23 & 24 Vict c 95)\nThe Entail Amendment Act 1868 (31 & 32 Vict c 84)\nThe Entail Amendment Act 1875 (38 & 39 Vict c 61)\nThe Entail Amendment Act 1878 (41 & 42 Vict c 28)\nThe Roads and Bridges (Scotland) Act 1878 (41 & 42 Vict c 51 s 70)\nThe Roads Amendment Act 1880 (43 Vict c 7)\nThe Entail (Scotland) Act 1882 (45 & 46 Vict c 53)\n\nSee also\nList of short titles\n\nReferences\n\nLists of legislation by short title and collective title",
"The Entail Act 1685 (c 26) [12mo ed: c 22] was an Act of the Parliament of Scotland. It was one of the Entail Acts.\n\nThis Act was disapplied by section 2 of the Entail (Scotland) Act 1914.\n\nThe whole Act was repealed by sections 76(2) of, and Part I of Schedule 13 to, the Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000 on 28 November 2004. See also sections 58, 62 and 75.\n\nReferences\nHalsbury's Statutes,\n\nExternal links\nThe Entail Act 1685, as amended, from Legislation.gov.uk.\n\nActs of the Parliament of Scotland\n1680s in Scotland\n1685 in law"
] |
[
"Kim Chiu",
"Philanthropy and education",
"What was her education?",
"In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses.",
"How did she get into philanthropy?",
"Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes.",
"What was the first cause she became interested in?",
"She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child.",
"What does her involvement entail?",
"Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya."
] | C_c32c8d8c0d3f49ffa6670ac9ef972d14_0 | What other types of philanthropy does she do? | 5 | Aside from Win Against Asthma, Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya, what other types of philanthropy does Kim Chiu do? | Kim Chiu | Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes. She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child. Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya. She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim. Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well being. In August 2012, she and Lim spearheaded a relief operation in Marikina. Chiu was heavily involved with relief efforts for Typhoon Yolanda via Red Cross, which had affected parts of her hometown. Aside from giving food and water, she also held week-long clothes auctions to raise money for Typhoon victims. By 2013, it was also revealed that the actress was involved with regularly funding Isla Pulo, an impoverished community of 1,000 inhabitants in Manila Bay, Philippines. As one of Philippines highest paid endorsers, Chiu addressed the ongoing Pork Barrel tax scandal and the government's alleged misuse of the PDAF in a press conference on 28 August 2013, noting the amount of tax celebrities like herself pay to the government: "The money isn't a joke [...] we pay so much tax and we don't know where it's going." The Bureau of Internal Revenue confirmed Chiu as 131st top taxpayer in the country with P9.3M in income taxes in 2013. In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses. CANNOTANSWER | She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim. | Kimberly Sue Yap Chiu (; born 19 April 1990) is a Filipina actress, model, host, singer, dancer, and vlogger. Kim garnered acclaim at a young age for her acting performances on television and film. She is known as Philippine showbiz's "Chinita Princess" and once hailed "Princess of Philippine Movies and TV" for three consecutive years in the Philippines. She is currently managed and under contract to Star Magic, ABS-CBN's homebased talent agency and is referred to as the "Queen of the Dance Floor".
Kim Chiu started her showbiz career at the age of 16 after winning the first teen edition of the reality show Pinoy Big Brother. She then, starred in the television series, Sana Maulit Muli (2007) which won her the year's Most Promising Female Star and Most Popular loveteam with Gerald Anderson at GMMSF. This was followed by a string of successful projects and leading roles in dramas such as My Girl (2008), Tayong Dalawa (2009), Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo (2010), My Binondo Girl (2011–2012), Ina, Kapatid, Anak (2012–2013), Ikaw Lamang (2014), The Story of Us (2016), Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin (2017–2018), Love Thy Woman (2020) and Bawal Lumabas: The Series (2020).
She also starred in multiple commercially successful films including Bride for Rent (2014), I Love You, Goodbye (2009), Bakit Hindi Ka Crush Ng Crush Mo? (2013), Etiquette for Mistresses (2015) and The Ghost Bride (2017).
She has also received a PMPC Award for Best Drama Actress on her performance in Ikaw Lamang, four FAMAS Award nominations (winning one) and was hailed Princess of Philippine Movies and TV for three times at the GMMSF Box-Office Entertainment Awards for her accomplishments in the film and television industry. She has a very wide fanbase which is rapidly growing because of her chemistry, strong acting on-screen and her dedication to the entertainment industry. She is one of the few Philippine actresses with a high number of best actress accolades under her name. To top it all apart from acting she is also the endorsed by various companies in the Philippines including the international brand H&M and she's a fan of sports and exercises.
Career
2006–2008: Career beginnings
Chiu gained prominence by winning the reality series Pinoy Big Brother: Teen Edition. For the show, Chiu left her hometown of Cebu City and moved to Manila. She, along with the rest of the housemates entered the Big Brother house on April 23, 2006. After 42 days in the Big Brother house, she was named the Teen Big Winner with 626,562 votes (41.4% of the total votes) at the Aliw Theatre inside the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex in Pasay. She was the only housemate who was never nominated for eviction.
After winning, Chiu became part of Star Magic.
She and her on-screen partner Gerald Anderson became regulars in ASAP XV and appeared together in several ABS-CBN shows Love Spell, comedy sitcom Aalog-Alog and in the film First Day High.
In 2007, Chiu starred in the primetime TV series entitled Sana Maulit Muli alongside Anderson which was released to significant acclaim. That year, she was nominated and eventually won the 38th Guillermo Mendoza Box Office Awards as Most Promising Female Star and Best New Female TV Personality (for Sana Maulit Muli) at the 21st PMPC Star Awards. Sana Maulit Muli was later released in Taiwan under the PTS network, under the title Chances.
Chiu then launched her debut album "Gwa Ai Di" (Hokkien ) under Star Records, which included the single Crazy Love. It reached a Gold Record status.
Gaining much recognition for her acting roles, she then starred in the movie I've Fallen For You under Star Cinema and continually appeared in numerous advertisements. In 2008, Chiu was cast in the Philippine adaptation of the South Korean TV series My Girl.
2009–2011: Breakthrough
In 2009, Chiu secured her name as a top actress in the highly acclaimed TV series entitled Tayong Dalawa. She garnered several acting awards for her portrayal of Audrey, a woman who is loved by two military men.
Her movie I Love You, Goodbye became part of Star Cinema's official entry to the 2009 Metro Manila Film Festival. It was Chiu's first role as a villain and her first film to hit P100 million mark, with her receiving several nominations under different award-giving bodies including PMPC, 12th Gawad PASADO Awards and the 34th MMFF for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2010, she then starred in the romance film Paano Na Kaya, released nationally and internationally. She also starred in the well-received primetime drama, Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo, the highest rating teleserye of 2010 in the Philippines. In October 2010, Chiu and Anderson teamed up for the last consecutive time in the film Till My Heartaches End. In the midst of movie promotions, it was reported that the long-time couple (known as Kimerald) had split, yet the reason for the breakup was not discussed.
She top-billed in a weekly musical anthology series Your Song, as a sub-series for the 12th season called Your Song Presents: Kim. It ran for four months and led her to pair up with Sam Milby, Jake Cuenca, Pokwang, Derek Ramsay, Enrique Gil and Vice Ganda. In 2011, Chiu starred in romantic-comedy television series titled My Binondo Girl alongside Xian Lim, Matteo Guidicelli, and Jolo Revilla.
2012–present: Movies and critical success
In 2012, Chiu starred in a horror film with Vilma Santos entitled The Healing. She played a woman who is cured of glomerulonephritis through a healer but must suffer a curse. From this film, she received a number of Best Supporting Actress nominations from almost all of the film award-giving bodies, missing only the Gawad Urian and The Young Critics' Circle.
Chiu also returned to melodrama acting via Ina, Kapatid, Anak, alongside Xian Lim, Maja Salvador and Enchong Dee. After the teleserye ended with an average TV rating of 30.3% via Kantar Media/TNS, it was awarded Best Teleserye of the Year at Philippine's 2013 Yahoo Awards and was aired internationally as Her Mother's Daughter, released in foreign territories including MIPTV in France and at DISCOP West Asia in Turkey. Her portrayal also earned her an award for Best TV Drama Actress. She reunited in a movie with Anderson titled 24/7 in Love, Star Magic's ensemble film in view of the agency's 20th anniversary.
She starred in a film adaption of Ramon Bautista's novel co-starring Xian Lim, Bakit Hindi Ka Crush Ng Crush Mo?, released on July 17, 2013. Her performance received positive feedback and critics praise in view of her first comedic role on the big screen.
In January 2014, Chiu cemented her commercial draw with the romantic-comedy movie entitled Bride for Rent. Chiu plays Rocky, a poor woman who agrees to marry for money. As Star Cinema's first movie offering of 2014, the film met both critical and commercial success, earning more than P21.2 million pesos in its opening day and broke the P200 million pesos mark on its 8th day. The film established Chiu as one of the country's biggest stars having both a successful film and television career. Having grossed P325 million, it is the sixth highest grossing Filipino film of all time, the second highest grossing Filipino romantic comedy movie of all-time, third highest grossing non-MMFF film of all-time and also the highest-grossing January-released film of all-time in the country.
After the success of her two films, Chiu returned to television in the 2014 period drama, Ikaw Lamang. The series co-stars Coco Martin, Julia Montes, Jake Cuenca and KC Concepcion and dealt with social class, politics, and forbidden love. It held the first and second place viewer rating in its time slot and was awarded Best Primetime Drama Series at the 28th PMPC Star Awards for Television. This followed with the romantic comedy film, Past Tense and a portrayal as Mulan for Walt Disney Asia's 12 Days of Princess campaign.
In 2015, she appeared as one of five mistresses (alongside veterans Kris Aquino, Claudine Barretto, Iza Calzado) in the high-profile film, Etiquette for Mistresses. She recorded the Cebuano songs "Duyog" and "Labyu Langga" for the film's soundtrack. She also top-billed in the rom-com, All You Need Is Pag-Ibig, which is Star Cinema's official entry to the 2015 MMFF.
In 2016, she starred on the hit Philippine romantic drama, The Story of Us. Her performance as Tin Manalo gave her another Best Actress Awards from 6th EdukCircle Awards, 6th OFW Parangal Awards and Guillermo Mendoza. Also, on the last quarter of 2016, Kimerald loveteam was announced to set back on television via a triathlon soap opera television series Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin for the celebration of their 10th anniversary in show business.
In May 2017, Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin premiered on ABS-CBN's PrimeTanghali noontime block replacing Langit Lupa. The show debuted at Number 1 in its time slot, and consistently ranked ahead of its competition during its nine-month run.
In November 2017, she appears in the horror movie, The Ghost Bride where she plays the role as Mayen Lim who is the main protagonist of this film that she will be torn between living a normal though difficult life or accepting a strange business proposal called the Ghost Wedding in exchange for wealth and a comfortable life for her loved ones. She is also accompanied by Matteo Guidicelli, Alice Dixson, Christian Bables and Cacai Bautista in this said movie project which was set to show on theatres on All Saints' Day. In April 2018, she appears in the Filipino horror-comedy film Da One That Ghost Away directed by Tony Y. Reyes together with Ryan Bang, Enzo Pineda and the duo of Maymay Entrata and Edward Barber.
In December 2018, her movie One Great Love became part of Regal Film's official entry to the 2018 Metro Manila Film Festival. It was Chiu's first time working with Dennis Trillo and JC de Vera with her receiving nomination on the 44th annual MMFF Awards for Best Actress. She also won the Film Actress of the Year in the 50th GMMSF Box-Office Entertainment Awards for her performance in the film One Great Love.
In 2020, her song "Bawal Lumabas (The Classroom Song)" became the most disliked song in WISH 107.5's YouTube Channel having reportedly received 404k dislikes and 78k likes within 14 hours. The song was based from a viral edit made by DJ Squammy from her statement about the ABS-CBN franchise renewal controversy.
Personal life
Kim Chiu is the fourth of five children to William Chiu, a Chinese businessman from Mindoro and Louella (née Yap; 1963–2013), a Philippine Sangley native who migrated from Dinagat Islands to Surigao del Sur, Philippines. She is fluent in Cebuano, Tagalog, English, with Waray, Hokkien and Mandarin Chinese beginner level only.
Since her parent's separation in 1998, Kim had a dysfunctional relationship with both of her parents. She and her siblings were raised by their paternal grandmother and, as children, frequently moved residencies in the Philippine Visayas; locating in Tacloban, Leyte, Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, General Santos City, Mindoro and back to Cebu City until 2006. In 2013, she reconciled with her father "after five years of estrangement" while visiting his second partner and half-siblings in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro. A month later in June, her biological mother, Louella, fell into a coma. Following a week of hospitalization, Louella died on June 23, 2013, due to brain aneurysm. In a eulogy dedicated to her mother, she debunked rumors of animosity over her mother's child abandonment and expressed: "An angel guides me in my decisions in life. For me, that is finally my mom."
Chiu dated co-star Gerald Anderson from 2006 to 2010.
Kim Chiu began dating fellow Star Magic artist and leading man, Xian Lim in 2012, which was confirmed in a 2013 episode of Kris TV. They acknowledged they were "exclusively dating". On November 15, 2018, Kim Chiu confirmed she was still in a relationship with Lim during her interview on Tonight with Boy Abunda.
On March 4, 2020, Chiu was traveling along Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City on her way to a taping of her series Love Thy Woman when two unidentified gunmen, riding-in-tandem on a motorcycle, fired six gunshots at her van. Chiu and her companions were unharmed. Investigators examine the shooting as a possible case of mistaken identity. Chiu later revealed on social media that, a day after the incident, a person claiming to have been the actual target called one of her bosses to apologize.
Philanthropy and education
Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes. She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child. Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya. She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim. Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well-being. In August 2012, she and Lim spearheaded a relief operation in Marikina. Chiu was heavily involved with relief efforts for Typhoon Yolanda via Red Cross, which had affected parts of her hometown. Aside from giving food and water, she also held week-long clothes auctions to raise money for Typhoon victims.
By 2013, it was also revealed that the actress was involved with regularly funding Isla Pulo, an impoverished community of 1,000 inhabitants in Manila Bay, Philippines.
As one of Philippines highest paid endorsers, Chiu addressed the ongoing Pork Barrel tax scandal and the government's alleged misuse of the PDAF in a press conference on August 28, 2013, noting the amount of tax celebrities like herself pay to the government: "The money isn't a joke [...] we pay so much tax and we don't know where it's going." The Bureau of Internal Revenue confirmed Chiu as 131st top taxpayer in the country with ₱9.3M in income taxes in 2013.
In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses.
Filmography
Television
Films
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
Singles from OST Albums
Mine "(Sana Maulit Muli)"
Pusong Lito "(My Girl)"
Sabihin Mo Na w/ "Gerald Anderson"" (My Girl)"
Crazy Love ""Chinese Version"" "(My Girl)"
My Only Hope "(My Only Hope)"
Others
Kering Keri "(Rejoice TV Commercial)"
Whisper, I Love You "(Close Up MV)"
Softly "(Kim Chiu, Youtube)"
Bawal Lumabas "(Kim Chiu, Youtube)" - An allusion to 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic and ABS-CBN franchise renewal controversy
Music videos
Accolades
References
External links
1990 births
Living people
Actresses from Cebu
Actresses from Leyte (province)
Big Brother (franchise) winners
Filipino actors of Chinese descent
Filipino child actresses
Filipino child singers
Filipino female models
Filipino film actresses
Filipino people of Chinese descent
Filipino television actresses
Filipino Roman Catholics
People from Cebu City
Pinoy Big Brother contestants
Star Magic
Star Magic Batch 14
ABS-CBN personalities
Star Music artists
Visayan people
21st-century Filipino women singers
Cebuano people | true | [
"Jennifer Rose “Jenny” Santi (born 1980) is a Filipino-born author and philanthropy advisor, former Head of Philanthropy Services for UBS in Southeast Asia, and currently the founder of the philanthropic advisory firm Saint & Partners and author of the book “The Giving Way to Happiness: Stories & Science Behind the Life-Changing Power of Giving.”\n\nEarly life and education\nSanti was born in Manila, Philippines the second of three children, and attended the Catholic school Colegio San Agustin, She graduated summa cum laude from the Ateneo de Manila University, where she almost became valedictorian, but told the administration to instead choose Roselle Ambubuyog, who became the university’s first visually-impaired valedictorian. Santi later taught for a year at the age of 22 and then moved to London to work as a management consultant. She earned her MBA from INSEAD in 2007, attended the Wharton School of Business under the Wharton-INSEAD Alliance.\n\nPhilanthropy advisory work\nAfter completing MBA, Santi became the Head of Philanthropy Services for UBS in Southeast Asia, where she advised ultra high net worth individuals and families on their giving. She conceptualized and led the UBS-INSEAD Study of Family Philanthropy in Asia, the largest study of Asian family philanthropy to date. She started her consulting firm Saint & Partners in 2013, when she got a call from the (Goldie) Hawn Foundation, asking her to be their consultant while she was on a break working on her book.\n\nThe Giving Way to Happiness Book\nSanti said she became “obsessed” with the idea and pursued it even though she did not know anyone in publishing and had never written a book, because it had the potential to inspire other people.\" In an interview she said that tales of giving go unheard and that a lot of people still resist the notion that by giving, we receive. The book was eventually published by Tarcher Penguin Random House.\n\nBibliography\n\nThe UBS-INSEAD Study of Family Philanthropy in Asia\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Personal website\n\n1980 births\nLiving people\nFilipino writers\nUBS people\nAteneo de Manila University alumni\nWharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni\nFilipino expatriates in the United States",
"Jennifer Mary Gill (born 1951) is a semi retired executive from New Zealand who works in philanthropy. She was New Zealand's first full-time paid employee working in philanthropy, and the chair of Philanthropy New Zealand.\n\nBiography \nJennifer Gill, daughter of Jack Thompson Gill (born 1920) and Judith Anthea (née Pharo; born 1925), was born in Lower Hutt in 1951. She studied at Onslow College, Victoria University of Wellington. and Auckland Teachers College. \n\nGill taught at Manurewa East Primary School before becoming regional organizer for the aid agency Council of Organisations for Relief Services Overseas (CORSO) and travelled to visit CORSO projects in India, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Gill was also the activities organizer for and a member of the board of the Wellington YWCA. \n\nGill's work with organizations involved in philanthropy began in 1985, when Sir Roy McKenzie appointed her the executive officer of his new personal foundation, the Roy McKenzie Foundation, which she helped to set up and run. In 1990 while working for McKenzie, Gill was involved in the creation of Philanthropy New Zealand (formally the New Zealand Association of Philanthropic Trusts) and served as a trustee.\n\nIn 1994 Gill was appointed executive director of Fulbright New Zealand, an academic exchange programme between New Zealand and the United States. Throughout her time at Fulbright NZ, Gill continued her work with philanthropic organizations and was involved with other grant making trusts including being a trustee and chair of the J R McKenzie Trust. She was one of the founding members of the board of the Wellington Regional Community Foundation, was a trustee of the Funding Information Service and was chair of Philanthropy New Zealand for six years. As chair of Philanthropy New Zealand Gill help removed barriers to giving for individuals, businesses and Māori organisations through greatly enhanced tax incentives following a successful campaign to improve tax treatment of charitable donations. \n\nIn 2004 Gill returned to philanthropic work full time when she was appointed CEO of Australasia's largest community trust, Foundation North. (formally the ASB Community Trust). In her role at Foundation North, Gill was responsible for an investment portfolio valued at NZ$1.3billion and managed the distribution of grants to community projects in the Auckland and Northland regions valued at more than NZ$40 million annually.\n\nIn 2010 Gill retired from the board of Philanthropy New Zealand after twenty years' service. \n\nDuring her 15 years at Foundation North, Gill was also a member of the Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium and participated in international meetings on philanthropy hosted by the Rockefeller and Volkswagen foundations. She is regarded as a champion of effective philanthropy, playing a leading role in the development of the sector.\n\nGill is currently an independent advisor to the Centre for Social Impact New Zealand, chair of the newly established MAS Foundation, deputy chair of the Prince's Trust (NZ) and a board member of Water Safety New Zealand and the Vodafone New Zealand Foundation.\n\nRecognition \nIn 2017 Gill was named a Kiwibank Local Hero and won the inaugural Perpetual Guardian NZ Lifetime Achievement Award in philanthropy.\n\nIn the 2017 New Year Honours, Gill was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to philanthropy.\n\nPublications \n\n Gill, J., & Roy Mckenzie Foundation (N.Z.). (1992). Foundations in Britain and the United States of America. S.l.: J. Gill.\n\nReferences\n\nOfficers of the New Zealand Order of Merit\n1951 births\nPeople from Lower Hutt\nVictoria University of Wellington alumni\nLiving people\nNew Zealand philanthropists"
] |
[
"Kim Chiu",
"Philanthropy and education",
"What was her education?",
"In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses.",
"How did she get into philanthropy?",
"Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes.",
"What was the first cause she became interested in?",
"She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child.",
"What does her involvement entail?",
"Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya.",
"What other types of philanthropy does she do?",
"She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim."
] | C_c32c8d8c0d3f49ffa6670ac9ef972d14_0 | What is the Free Mali campaign? | 6 | What is the Free Mali campaign Kim Chiu participated in? | Kim Chiu | Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes. She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child. Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya. She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim. Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well being. In August 2012, she and Lim spearheaded a relief operation in Marikina. Chiu was heavily involved with relief efforts for Typhoon Yolanda via Red Cross, which had affected parts of her hometown. Aside from giving food and water, she also held week-long clothes auctions to raise money for Typhoon victims. By 2013, it was also revealed that the actress was involved with regularly funding Isla Pulo, an impoverished community of 1,000 inhabitants in Manila Bay, Philippines. As one of Philippines highest paid endorsers, Chiu addressed the ongoing Pork Barrel tax scandal and the government's alleged misuse of the PDAF in a press conference on 28 August 2013, noting the amount of tax celebrities like herself pay to the government: "The money isn't a joke [...] we pay so much tax and we don't know where it's going." The Bureau of Internal Revenue confirmed Chiu as 131st top taxpayer in the country with P9.3M in income taxes in 2013. In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses. CANNOTANSWER | Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well being. | Kimberly Sue Yap Chiu (; born 19 April 1990) is a Filipina actress, model, host, singer, dancer, and vlogger. Kim garnered acclaim at a young age for her acting performances on television and film. She is known as Philippine showbiz's "Chinita Princess" and once hailed "Princess of Philippine Movies and TV" for three consecutive years in the Philippines. She is currently managed and under contract to Star Magic, ABS-CBN's homebased talent agency and is referred to as the "Queen of the Dance Floor".
Kim Chiu started her showbiz career at the age of 16 after winning the first teen edition of the reality show Pinoy Big Brother. She then, starred in the television series, Sana Maulit Muli (2007) which won her the year's Most Promising Female Star and Most Popular loveteam with Gerald Anderson at GMMSF. This was followed by a string of successful projects and leading roles in dramas such as My Girl (2008), Tayong Dalawa (2009), Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo (2010), My Binondo Girl (2011–2012), Ina, Kapatid, Anak (2012–2013), Ikaw Lamang (2014), The Story of Us (2016), Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin (2017–2018), Love Thy Woman (2020) and Bawal Lumabas: The Series (2020).
She also starred in multiple commercially successful films including Bride for Rent (2014), I Love You, Goodbye (2009), Bakit Hindi Ka Crush Ng Crush Mo? (2013), Etiquette for Mistresses (2015) and The Ghost Bride (2017).
She has also received a PMPC Award for Best Drama Actress on her performance in Ikaw Lamang, four FAMAS Award nominations (winning one) and was hailed Princess of Philippine Movies and TV for three times at the GMMSF Box-Office Entertainment Awards for her accomplishments in the film and television industry. She has a very wide fanbase which is rapidly growing because of her chemistry, strong acting on-screen and her dedication to the entertainment industry. She is one of the few Philippine actresses with a high number of best actress accolades under her name. To top it all apart from acting she is also the endorsed by various companies in the Philippines including the international brand H&M and she's a fan of sports and exercises.
Career
2006–2008: Career beginnings
Chiu gained prominence by winning the reality series Pinoy Big Brother: Teen Edition. For the show, Chiu left her hometown of Cebu City and moved to Manila. She, along with the rest of the housemates entered the Big Brother house on April 23, 2006. After 42 days in the Big Brother house, she was named the Teen Big Winner with 626,562 votes (41.4% of the total votes) at the Aliw Theatre inside the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex in Pasay. She was the only housemate who was never nominated for eviction.
After winning, Chiu became part of Star Magic.
She and her on-screen partner Gerald Anderson became regulars in ASAP XV and appeared together in several ABS-CBN shows Love Spell, comedy sitcom Aalog-Alog and in the film First Day High.
In 2007, Chiu starred in the primetime TV series entitled Sana Maulit Muli alongside Anderson which was released to significant acclaim. That year, she was nominated and eventually won the 38th Guillermo Mendoza Box Office Awards as Most Promising Female Star and Best New Female TV Personality (for Sana Maulit Muli) at the 21st PMPC Star Awards. Sana Maulit Muli was later released in Taiwan under the PTS network, under the title Chances.
Chiu then launched her debut album "Gwa Ai Di" (Hokkien ) under Star Records, which included the single Crazy Love. It reached a Gold Record status.
Gaining much recognition for her acting roles, she then starred in the movie I've Fallen For You under Star Cinema and continually appeared in numerous advertisements. In 2008, Chiu was cast in the Philippine adaptation of the South Korean TV series My Girl.
2009–2011: Breakthrough
In 2009, Chiu secured her name as a top actress in the highly acclaimed TV series entitled Tayong Dalawa. She garnered several acting awards for her portrayal of Audrey, a woman who is loved by two military men.
Her movie I Love You, Goodbye became part of Star Cinema's official entry to the 2009 Metro Manila Film Festival. It was Chiu's first role as a villain and her first film to hit P100 million mark, with her receiving several nominations under different award-giving bodies including PMPC, 12th Gawad PASADO Awards and the 34th MMFF for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2010, she then starred in the romance film Paano Na Kaya, released nationally and internationally. She also starred in the well-received primetime drama, Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo, the highest rating teleserye of 2010 in the Philippines. In October 2010, Chiu and Anderson teamed up for the last consecutive time in the film Till My Heartaches End. In the midst of movie promotions, it was reported that the long-time couple (known as Kimerald) had split, yet the reason for the breakup was not discussed.
She top-billed in a weekly musical anthology series Your Song, as a sub-series for the 12th season called Your Song Presents: Kim. It ran for four months and led her to pair up with Sam Milby, Jake Cuenca, Pokwang, Derek Ramsay, Enrique Gil and Vice Ganda. In 2011, Chiu starred in romantic-comedy television series titled My Binondo Girl alongside Xian Lim, Matteo Guidicelli, and Jolo Revilla.
2012–present: Movies and critical success
In 2012, Chiu starred in a horror film with Vilma Santos entitled The Healing. She played a woman who is cured of glomerulonephritis through a healer but must suffer a curse. From this film, she received a number of Best Supporting Actress nominations from almost all of the film award-giving bodies, missing only the Gawad Urian and The Young Critics' Circle.
Chiu also returned to melodrama acting via Ina, Kapatid, Anak, alongside Xian Lim, Maja Salvador and Enchong Dee. After the teleserye ended with an average TV rating of 30.3% via Kantar Media/TNS, it was awarded Best Teleserye of the Year at Philippine's 2013 Yahoo Awards and was aired internationally as Her Mother's Daughter, released in foreign territories including MIPTV in France and at DISCOP West Asia in Turkey. Her portrayal also earned her an award for Best TV Drama Actress. She reunited in a movie with Anderson titled 24/7 in Love, Star Magic's ensemble film in view of the agency's 20th anniversary.
She starred in a film adaption of Ramon Bautista's novel co-starring Xian Lim, Bakit Hindi Ka Crush Ng Crush Mo?, released on July 17, 2013. Her performance received positive feedback and critics praise in view of her first comedic role on the big screen.
In January 2014, Chiu cemented her commercial draw with the romantic-comedy movie entitled Bride for Rent. Chiu plays Rocky, a poor woman who agrees to marry for money. As Star Cinema's first movie offering of 2014, the film met both critical and commercial success, earning more than P21.2 million pesos in its opening day and broke the P200 million pesos mark on its 8th day. The film established Chiu as one of the country's biggest stars having both a successful film and television career. Having grossed P325 million, it is the sixth highest grossing Filipino film of all time, the second highest grossing Filipino romantic comedy movie of all-time, third highest grossing non-MMFF film of all-time and also the highest-grossing January-released film of all-time in the country.
After the success of her two films, Chiu returned to television in the 2014 period drama, Ikaw Lamang. The series co-stars Coco Martin, Julia Montes, Jake Cuenca and KC Concepcion and dealt with social class, politics, and forbidden love. It held the first and second place viewer rating in its time slot and was awarded Best Primetime Drama Series at the 28th PMPC Star Awards for Television. This followed with the romantic comedy film, Past Tense and a portrayal as Mulan for Walt Disney Asia's 12 Days of Princess campaign.
In 2015, she appeared as one of five mistresses (alongside veterans Kris Aquino, Claudine Barretto, Iza Calzado) in the high-profile film, Etiquette for Mistresses. She recorded the Cebuano songs "Duyog" and "Labyu Langga" for the film's soundtrack. She also top-billed in the rom-com, All You Need Is Pag-Ibig, which is Star Cinema's official entry to the 2015 MMFF.
In 2016, she starred on the hit Philippine romantic drama, The Story of Us. Her performance as Tin Manalo gave her another Best Actress Awards from 6th EdukCircle Awards, 6th OFW Parangal Awards and Guillermo Mendoza. Also, on the last quarter of 2016, Kimerald loveteam was announced to set back on television via a triathlon soap opera television series Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin for the celebration of their 10th anniversary in show business.
In May 2017, Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin premiered on ABS-CBN's PrimeTanghali noontime block replacing Langit Lupa. The show debuted at Number 1 in its time slot, and consistently ranked ahead of its competition during its nine-month run.
In November 2017, she appears in the horror movie, The Ghost Bride where she plays the role as Mayen Lim who is the main protagonist of this film that she will be torn between living a normal though difficult life or accepting a strange business proposal called the Ghost Wedding in exchange for wealth and a comfortable life for her loved ones. She is also accompanied by Matteo Guidicelli, Alice Dixson, Christian Bables and Cacai Bautista in this said movie project which was set to show on theatres on All Saints' Day. In April 2018, she appears in the Filipino horror-comedy film Da One That Ghost Away directed by Tony Y. Reyes together with Ryan Bang, Enzo Pineda and the duo of Maymay Entrata and Edward Barber.
In December 2018, her movie One Great Love became part of Regal Film's official entry to the 2018 Metro Manila Film Festival. It was Chiu's first time working with Dennis Trillo and JC de Vera with her receiving nomination on the 44th annual MMFF Awards for Best Actress. She also won the Film Actress of the Year in the 50th GMMSF Box-Office Entertainment Awards for her performance in the film One Great Love.
In 2020, her song "Bawal Lumabas (The Classroom Song)" became the most disliked song in WISH 107.5's YouTube Channel having reportedly received 404k dislikes and 78k likes within 14 hours. The song was based from a viral edit made by DJ Squammy from her statement about the ABS-CBN franchise renewal controversy.
Personal life
Kim Chiu is the fourth of five children to William Chiu, a Chinese businessman from Mindoro and Louella (née Yap; 1963–2013), a Philippine Sangley native who migrated from Dinagat Islands to Surigao del Sur, Philippines. She is fluent in Cebuano, Tagalog, English, with Waray, Hokkien and Mandarin Chinese beginner level only.
Since her parent's separation in 1998, Kim had a dysfunctional relationship with both of her parents. She and her siblings were raised by their paternal grandmother and, as children, frequently moved residencies in the Philippine Visayas; locating in Tacloban, Leyte, Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, General Santos City, Mindoro and back to Cebu City until 2006. In 2013, she reconciled with her father "after five years of estrangement" while visiting his second partner and half-siblings in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro. A month later in June, her biological mother, Louella, fell into a coma. Following a week of hospitalization, Louella died on June 23, 2013, due to brain aneurysm. In a eulogy dedicated to her mother, she debunked rumors of animosity over her mother's child abandonment and expressed: "An angel guides me in my decisions in life. For me, that is finally my mom."
Chiu dated co-star Gerald Anderson from 2006 to 2010.
Kim Chiu began dating fellow Star Magic artist and leading man, Xian Lim in 2012, which was confirmed in a 2013 episode of Kris TV. They acknowledged they were "exclusively dating". On November 15, 2018, Kim Chiu confirmed she was still in a relationship with Lim during her interview on Tonight with Boy Abunda.
On March 4, 2020, Chiu was traveling along Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City on her way to a taping of her series Love Thy Woman when two unidentified gunmen, riding-in-tandem on a motorcycle, fired six gunshots at her van. Chiu and her companions were unharmed. Investigators examine the shooting as a possible case of mistaken identity. Chiu later revealed on social media that, a day after the incident, a person claiming to have been the actual target called one of her bosses to apologize.
Philanthropy and education
Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes. She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child. Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya. She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim. Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well-being. In August 2012, she and Lim spearheaded a relief operation in Marikina. Chiu was heavily involved with relief efforts for Typhoon Yolanda via Red Cross, which had affected parts of her hometown. Aside from giving food and water, she also held week-long clothes auctions to raise money for Typhoon victims.
By 2013, it was also revealed that the actress was involved with regularly funding Isla Pulo, an impoverished community of 1,000 inhabitants in Manila Bay, Philippines.
As one of Philippines highest paid endorsers, Chiu addressed the ongoing Pork Barrel tax scandal and the government's alleged misuse of the PDAF in a press conference on August 28, 2013, noting the amount of tax celebrities like herself pay to the government: "The money isn't a joke [...] we pay so much tax and we don't know where it's going." The Bureau of Internal Revenue confirmed Chiu as 131st top taxpayer in the country with ₱9.3M in income taxes in 2013.
In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses.
Filmography
Television
Films
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
Singles from OST Albums
Mine "(Sana Maulit Muli)"
Pusong Lito "(My Girl)"
Sabihin Mo Na w/ "Gerald Anderson"" (My Girl)"
Crazy Love ""Chinese Version"" "(My Girl)"
My Only Hope "(My Only Hope)"
Others
Kering Keri "(Rejoice TV Commercial)"
Whisper, I Love You "(Close Up MV)"
Softly "(Kim Chiu, Youtube)"
Bawal Lumabas "(Kim Chiu, Youtube)" - An allusion to 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic and ABS-CBN franchise renewal controversy
Music videos
Accolades
References
External links
1990 births
Living people
Actresses from Cebu
Actresses from Leyte (province)
Big Brother (franchise) winners
Filipino actors of Chinese descent
Filipino child actresses
Filipino child singers
Filipino female models
Filipino film actresses
Filipino people of Chinese descent
Filipino television actresses
Filipino Roman Catholics
People from Cebu City
Pinoy Big Brother contestants
Star Magic
Star Magic Batch 14
ABS-CBN personalities
Star Music artists
Visayan people
21st-century Filipino women singers
Cebuano people | false | [
"Child Marriage in Mali. In 2017 in Mali, 52% of girls are married off before the 18 yo. 17% are married before they turn 15. Mali is the 5th highest nation in the world for child marriage.\n\nOn October 11, 2015, First Lady of Mali Keïta Aminata Maiga launched a national campaign to end the practice of child marriage in Mali.\n\nReferences \n\nMali\nChildhood in Africa\nMalian society",
"Vishwamali, commonly known as Mali, is a female Asian elephant which is best known for being a major attraction of Manila Zoo in Manila, Philippines.\n\nEarly life\nVishwamali, nicknamed Mali, was in Sri Lanka in 1974. Mali is a female Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). It was moved into the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage after its mother died of natural causes. In 1977, when Mali was three years old, the Sri Lankan government gifted the elephant to Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos. The elephant was presented at the Malacañang Palace prior to its transfer to Manila Zoo.\n\nCaptivity at Manila Zoo\n\nWhen Mali was moved to Manila Zoo, she was placed in an enclosure with another female elephant named Shiba. Shiba, who was rescued from a circus, was territorial and behaved aggressively towards Mali. Following Shiba's death, Mali was able to roam around her enclosure more freely.\n\nTreatment and condition\n\nMali's condition has been a subject of concern by various animal welfare groups.\n\nMali has been part of a campaign led by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) alleging the elephant is subject to neglect and has been urging for the release of the elephant. PETA has campaigned for the move of Mali to an elephant to a sanctuary in Thailand, but there are concerns that the elephant may not be able to adapt to a new environment if moved out of the Manila Zoo. PETA alternatively had proposed Mali to be moved to the Elephant Sanctuary in the United States. The Network for Animals (NFA), which maintains a stance against zoos in general, makes an exception for Mali. Despite its stance, the NFA expressed in 2018 that Manila Zoo is \"the best option\" in Mali's case.\n\nThere are also contrary reports which suggests Mali is healthy. In 2013, Mali was underwent a checkup in a lead up to a potential transfer to Thailand. Nikorn Thongtip of Kasetsart University remarked that Mali is \"healthy in every system\" although exhibited \"a little bit obesity\". Thongtip remarked that the elephant's nails \"do not look bad, compared to elephants of the same age\". Although Thongtip has said that Mali had to be tested for tuberculosis, before it could be moved to Thailand. In 2018, results of blood test conducted on Mali, suggests the elephant is healthy, although the animal is still remarked to be overweight and is under a diet plan.\n\nReferences\n\nIndividual elephants\n1974 animal births\nIndividual animals in the Philippines\nHistory of Manila\nControversies in the Philippines\nPhilippines–Sri Lanka relations"
] |
[
"Kim Chiu",
"Philanthropy and education",
"What was her education?",
"In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses.",
"How did she get into philanthropy?",
"Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes.",
"What was the first cause she became interested in?",
"She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child.",
"What does her involvement entail?",
"Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya.",
"What other types of philanthropy does she do?",
"She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim.",
"What is the Free Mali campaign?",
"Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well being."
] | C_c32c8d8c0d3f49ffa6670ac9ef972d14_0 | Does she have other animal organizations that she works with? | 7 | Does Kim chiu have other animal organizations that she works with in addition to PETA? | Kim Chiu | Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes. She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child. Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya. She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim. Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well being. In August 2012, she and Lim spearheaded a relief operation in Marikina. Chiu was heavily involved with relief efforts for Typhoon Yolanda via Red Cross, which had affected parts of her hometown. Aside from giving food and water, she also held week-long clothes auctions to raise money for Typhoon victims. By 2013, it was also revealed that the actress was involved with regularly funding Isla Pulo, an impoverished community of 1,000 inhabitants in Manila Bay, Philippines. As one of Philippines highest paid endorsers, Chiu addressed the ongoing Pork Barrel tax scandal and the government's alleged misuse of the PDAF in a press conference on 28 August 2013, noting the amount of tax celebrities like herself pay to the government: "The money isn't a joke [...] we pay so much tax and we don't know where it's going." The Bureau of Internal Revenue confirmed Chiu as 131st top taxpayer in the country with P9.3M in income taxes in 2013. In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Kimberly Sue Yap Chiu (; born 19 April 1990) is a Filipina actress, model, host, singer, dancer, and vlogger. Kim garnered acclaim at a young age for her acting performances on television and film. She is known as Philippine showbiz's "Chinita Princess" and once hailed "Princess of Philippine Movies and TV" for three consecutive years in the Philippines. She is currently managed and under contract to Star Magic, ABS-CBN's homebased talent agency and is referred to as the "Queen of the Dance Floor".
Kim Chiu started her showbiz career at the age of 16 after winning the first teen edition of the reality show Pinoy Big Brother. She then, starred in the television series, Sana Maulit Muli (2007) which won her the year's Most Promising Female Star and Most Popular loveteam with Gerald Anderson at GMMSF. This was followed by a string of successful projects and leading roles in dramas such as My Girl (2008), Tayong Dalawa (2009), Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo (2010), My Binondo Girl (2011–2012), Ina, Kapatid, Anak (2012–2013), Ikaw Lamang (2014), The Story of Us (2016), Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin (2017–2018), Love Thy Woman (2020) and Bawal Lumabas: The Series (2020).
She also starred in multiple commercially successful films including Bride for Rent (2014), I Love You, Goodbye (2009), Bakit Hindi Ka Crush Ng Crush Mo? (2013), Etiquette for Mistresses (2015) and The Ghost Bride (2017).
She has also received a PMPC Award for Best Drama Actress on her performance in Ikaw Lamang, four FAMAS Award nominations (winning one) and was hailed Princess of Philippine Movies and TV for three times at the GMMSF Box-Office Entertainment Awards for her accomplishments in the film and television industry. She has a very wide fanbase which is rapidly growing because of her chemistry, strong acting on-screen and her dedication to the entertainment industry. She is one of the few Philippine actresses with a high number of best actress accolades under her name. To top it all apart from acting she is also the endorsed by various companies in the Philippines including the international brand H&M and she's a fan of sports and exercises.
Career
2006–2008: Career beginnings
Chiu gained prominence by winning the reality series Pinoy Big Brother: Teen Edition. For the show, Chiu left her hometown of Cebu City and moved to Manila. She, along with the rest of the housemates entered the Big Brother house on April 23, 2006. After 42 days in the Big Brother house, she was named the Teen Big Winner with 626,562 votes (41.4% of the total votes) at the Aliw Theatre inside the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex in Pasay. She was the only housemate who was never nominated for eviction.
After winning, Chiu became part of Star Magic.
She and her on-screen partner Gerald Anderson became regulars in ASAP XV and appeared together in several ABS-CBN shows Love Spell, comedy sitcom Aalog-Alog and in the film First Day High.
In 2007, Chiu starred in the primetime TV series entitled Sana Maulit Muli alongside Anderson which was released to significant acclaim. That year, she was nominated and eventually won the 38th Guillermo Mendoza Box Office Awards as Most Promising Female Star and Best New Female TV Personality (for Sana Maulit Muli) at the 21st PMPC Star Awards. Sana Maulit Muli was later released in Taiwan under the PTS network, under the title Chances.
Chiu then launched her debut album "Gwa Ai Di" (Hokkien ) under Star Records, which included the single Crazy Love. It reached a Gold Record status.
Gaining much recognition for her acting roles, she then starred in the movie I've Fallen For You under Star Cinema and continually appeared in numerous advertisements. In 2008, Chiu was cast in the Philippine adaptation of the South Korean TV series My Girl.
2009–2011: Breakthrough
In 2009, Chiu secured her name as a top actress in the highly acclaimed TV series entitled Tayong Dalawa. She garnered several acting awards for her portrayal of Audrey, a woman who is loved by two military men.
Her movie I Love You, Goodbye became part of Star Cinema's official entry to the 2009 Metro Manila Film Festival. It was Chiu's first role as a villain and her first film to hit P100 million mark, with her receiving several nominations under different award-giving bodies including PMPC, 12th Gawad PASADO Awards and the 34th MMFF for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2010, she then starred in the romance film Paano Na Kaya, released nationally and internationally. She also starred in the well-received primetime drama, Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo, the highest rating teleserye of 2010 in the Philippines. In October 2010, Chiu and Anderson teamed up for the last consecutive time in the film Till My Heartaches End. In the midst of movie promotions, it was reported that the long-time couple (known as Kimerald) had split, yet the reason for the breakup was not discussed.
She top-billed in a weekly musical anthology series Your Song, as a sub-series for the 12th season called Your Song Presents: Kim. It ran for four months and led her to pair up with Sam Milby, Jake Cuenca, Pokwang, Derek Ramsay, Enrique Gil and Vice Ganda. In 2011, Chiu starred in romantic-comedy television series titled My Binondo Girl alongside Xian Lim, Matteo Guidicelli, and Jolo Revilla.
2012–present: Movies and critical success
In 2012, Chiu starred in a horror film with Vilma Santos entitled The Healing. She played a woman who is cured of glomerulonephritis through a healer but must suffer a curse. From this film, she received a number of Best Supporting Actress nominations from almost all of the film award-giving bodies, missing only the Gawad Urian and The Young Critics' Circle.
Chiu also returned to melodrama acting via Ina, Kapatid, Anak, alongside Xian Lim, Maja Salvador and Enchong Dee. After the teleserye ended with an average TV rating of 30.3% via Kantar Media/TNS, it was awarded Best Teleserye of the Year at Philippine's 2013 Yahoo Awards and was aired internationally as Her Mother's Daughter, released in foreign territories including MIPTV in France and at DISCOP West Asia in Turkey. Her portrayal also earned her an award for Best TV Drama Actress. She reunited in a movie with Anderson titled 24/7 in Love, Star Magic's ensemble film in view of the agency's 20th anniversary.
She starred in a film adaption of Ramon Bautista's novel co-starring Xian Lim, Bakit Hindi Ka Crush Ng Crush Mo?, released on July 17, 2013. Her performance received positive feedback and critics praise in view of her first comedic role on the big screen.
In January 2014, Chiu cemented her commercial draw with the romantic-comedy movie entitled Bride for Rent. Chiu plays Rocky, a poor woman who agrees to marry for money. As Star Cinema's first movie offering of 2014, the film met both critical and commercial success, earning more than P21.2 million pesos in its opening day and broke the P200 million pesos mark on its 8th day. The film established Chiu as one of the country's biggest stars having both a successful film and television career. Having grossed P325 million, it is the sixth highest grossing Filipino film of all time, the second highest grossing Filipino romantic comedy movie of all-time, third highest grossing non-MMFF film of all-time and also the highest-grossing January-released film of all-time in the country.
After the success of her two films, Chiu returned to television in the 2014 period drama, Ikaw Lamang. The series co-stars Coco Martin, Julia Montes, Jake Cuenca and KC Concepcion and dealt with social class, politics, and forbidden love. It held the first and second place viewer rating in its time slot and was awarded Best Primetime Drama Series at the 28th PMPC Star Awards for Television. This followed with the romantic comedy film, Past Tense and a portrayal as Mulan for Walt Disney Asia's 12 Days of Princess campaign.
In 2015, she appeared as one of five mistresses (alongside veterans Kris Aquino, Claudine Barretto, Iza Calzado) in the high-profile film, Etiquette for Mistresses. She recorded the Cebuano songs "Duyog" and "Labyu Langga" for the film's soundtrack. She also top-billed in the rom-com, All You Need Is Pag-Ibig, which is Star Cinema's official entry to the 2015 MMFF.
In 2016, she starred on the hit Philippine romantic drama, The Story of Us. Her performance as Tin Manalo gave her another Best Actress Awards from 6th EdukCircle Awards, 6th OFW Parangal Awards and Guillermo Mendoza. Also, on the last quarter of 2016, Kimerald loveteam was announced to set back on television via a triathlon soap opera television series Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin for the celebration of their 10th anniversary in show business.
In May 2017, Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin premiered on ABS-CBN's PrimeTanghali noontime block replacing Langit Lupa. The show debuted at Number 1 in its time slot, and consistently ranked ahead of its competition during its nine-month run.
In November 2017, she appears in the horror movie, The Ghost Bride where she plays the role as Mayen Lim who is the main protagonist of this film that she will be torn between living a normal though difficult life or accepting a strange business proposal called the Ghost Wedding in exchange for wealth and a comfortable life for her loved ones. She is also accompanied by Matteo Guidicelli, Alice Dixson, Christian Bables and Cacai Bautista in this said movie project which was set to show on theatres on All Saints' Day. In April 2018, she appears in the Filipino horror-comedy film Da One That Ghost Away directed by Tony Y. Reyes together with Ryan Bang, Enzo Pineda and the duo of Maymay Entrata and Edward Barber.
In December 2018, her movie One Great Love became part of Regal Film's official entry to the 2018 Metro Manila Film Festival. It was Chiu's first time working with Dennis Trillo and JC de Vera with her receiving nomination on the 44th annual MMFF Awards for Best Actress. She also won the Film Actress of the Year in the 50th GMMSF Box-Office Entertainment Awards for her performance in the film One Great Love.
In 2020, her song "Bawal Lumabas (The Classroom Song)" became the most disliked song in WISH 107.5's YouTube Channel having reportedly received 404k dislikes and 78k likes within 14 hours. The song was based from a viral edit made by DJ Squammy from her statement about the ABS-CBN franchise renewal controversy.
Personal life
Kim Chiu is the fourth of five children to William Chiu, a Chinese businessman from Mindoro and Louella (née Yap; 1963–2013), a Philippine Sangley native who migrated from Dinagat Islands to Surigao del Sur, Philippines. She is fluent in Cebuano, Tagalog, English, with Waray, Hokkien and Mandarin Chinese beginner level only.
Since her parent's separation in 1998, Kim had a dysfunctional relationship with both of her parents. She and her siblings were raised by their paternal grandmother and, as children, frequently moved residencies in the Philippine Visayas; locating in Tacloban, Leyte, Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, General Santos City, Mindoro and back to Cebu City until 2006. In 2013, she reconciled with her father "after five years of estrangement" while visiting his second partner and half-siblings in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro. A month later in June, her biological mother, Louella, fell into a coma. Following a week of hospitalization, Louella died on June 23, 2013, due to brain aneurysm. In a eulogy dedicated to her mother, she debunked rumors of animosity over her mother's child abandonment and expressed: "An angel guides me in my decisions in life. For me, that is finally my mom."
Chiu dated co-star Gerald Anderson from 2006 to 2010.
Kim Chiu began dating fellow Star Magic artist and leading man, Xian Lim in 2012, which was confirmed in a 2013 episode of Kris TV. They acknowledged they were "exclusively dating". On November 15, 2018, Kim Chiu confirmed she was still in a relationship with Lim during her interview on Tonight with Boy Abunda.
On March 4, 2020, Chiu was traveling along Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City on her way to a taping of her series Love Thy Woman when two unidentified gunmen, riding-in-tandem on a motorcycle, fired six gunshots at her van. Chiu and her companions were unharmed. Investigators examine the shooting as a possible case of mistaken identity. Chiu later revealed on social media that, a day after the incident, a person claiming to have been the actual target called one of her bosses to apologize.
Philanthropy and education
Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes. She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child. Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya. She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim. Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well-being. In August 2012, she and Lim spearheaded a relief operation in Marikina. Chiu was heavily involved with relief efforts for Typhoon Yolanda via Red Cross, which had affected parts of her hometown. Aside from giving food and water, she also held week-long clothes auctions to raise money for Typhoon victims.
By 2013, it was also revealed that the actress was involved with regularly funding Isla Pulo, an impoverished community of 1,000 inhabitants in Manila Bay, Philippines.
As one of Philippines highest paid endorsers, Chiu addressed the ongoing Pork Barrel tax scandal and the government's alleged misuse of the PDAF in a press conference on August 28, 2013, noting the amount of tax celebrities like herself pay to the government: "The money isn't a joke [...] we pay so much tax and we don't know where it's going." The Bureau of Internal Revenue confirmed Chiu as 131st top taxpayer in the country with ₱9.3M in income taxes in 2013.
In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses.
Filmography
Television
Films
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
Singles from OST Albums
Mine "(Sana Maulit Muli)"
Pusong Lito "(My Girl)"
Sabihin Mo Na w/ "Gerald Anderson"" (My Girl)"
Crazy Love ""Chinese Version"" "(My Girl)"
My Only Hope "(My Only Hope)"
Others
Kering Keri "(Rejoice TV Commercial)"
Whisper, I Love You "(Close Up MV)"
Softly "(Kim Chiu, Youtube)"
Bawal Lumabas "(Kim Chiu, Youtube)" - An allusion to 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic and ABS-CBN franchise renewal controversy
Music videos
Accolades
References
External links
1990 births
Living people
Actresses from Cebu
Actresses from Leyte (province)
Big Brother (franchise) winners
Filipino actors of Chinese descent
Filipino child actresses
Filipino child singers
Filipino female models
Filipino film actresses
Filipino people of Chinese descent
Filipino television actresses
Filipino Roman Catholics
People from Cebu City
Pinoy Big Brother contestants
Star Magic
Star Magic Batch 14
ABS-CBN personalities
Star Music artists
Visayan people
21st-century Filipino women singers
Cebuano people | false | [
"Azalea (known in Korean as Dallae) is a chimpanzee housed at the Korea Central Zoo in Pyongyang, North Korea. She is best known for her ability to smoke cigarettes, a behavior that has garnered criticism from multiple animal rights organizations.\n\nSmoking\nAzalea smokes about one pack of cigarettes a day, though she reportedly does not inhale when smoking. She is able to light her own cigarettes using a lighter and has also learned to light a cigarette by touching it to the end of a lit cigarette. Azalea's trainers support her smoking, providing her with both supplies and encouragement. Azalea is popular with the zoo's visitors, many of whom find her funny. Smoking is a widespread habit among men in North Korea, with approximately 45% of men smoking on a regular basis and 30% of men dying from tobacco-related illnesses.\n\nAzalea is also able to perform tricks like dancing, bowing, and touching her nose.\n\nCriticism \n\nThe Zoo has been criticized by PETA President Ingrid Newkirk, who stated that it was \"cruel to willfully addict a chimpanzee to tobacco for human amusement\" and that smoking was as dangerous to Azalea as it is to humans.\n\nThe Animal Legal Defense Fund Director of Litigation has described the keeping and treatment of Azalea as part of a larger problem with displaying captive wildlife for profit, stating that \"they are made to do unnatural and freakish things to attract gawkers\".\n\nAzalea is not the only animal at the zoo known for \"less-than-ethical\" habits, with other exhibits including a dog that can manipulate an abacus, basketball-playing monkeys, and a group of doves that perform a figure-skating routine.\n\nSee also\nSmoking in North Korea\n\nReferences\n\n1996 animal births\nSmoking\nIndividual chimpanzees",
"The Alberta Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Alberta SPCA) is a registered charity dedicated to the welfare of animals. It conducts enforcement of animal protection legislation and education programs throughout Alberta. Its animal protection officers are sworn in under the Peace Officer Act.\n\nThe Alberta SPCA was established in 1959. It works closely with other agencies in animal welfare, agriculture, education, violence prevention and other areas to provide protection for animals. All donations to the Alberta SPCA are used to support its programs in Alberta. It is contracted by Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development to enforce the Animal Protection Act.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n\nOrganizations based in Alberta\nAnimal welfare organizations based in Canada\n1959 establishments in Alberta"
] |
[
"Kim Chiu",
"Philanthropy and education",
"What was her education?",
"In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses.",
"How did she get into philanthropy?",
"Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes.",
"What was the first cause she became interested in?",
"She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child.",
"What does her involvement entail?",
"Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya.",
"What other types of philanthropy does she do?",
"She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim.",
"What is the Free Mali campaign?",
"Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well being.",
"Does she have other animal organizations that she works with?",
"I don't know."
] | C_c32c8d8c0d3f49ffa6670ac9ef972d14_0 | Does she have any educational organizations she works with? | 8 | Does Kim Chiu have any educational organizations she works with? | Kim Chiu | Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes. She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child. Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya. She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim. Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well being. In August 2012, she and Lim spearheaded a relief operation in Marikina. Chiu was heavily involved with relief efforts for Typhoon Yolanda via Red Cross, which had affected parts of her hometown. Aside from giving food and water, she also held week-long clothes auctions to raise money for Typhoon victims. By 2013, it was also revealed that the actress was involved with regularly funding Isla Pulo, an impoverished community of 1,000 inhabitants in Manila Bay, Philippines. As one of Philippines highest paid endorsers, Chiu addressed the ongoing Pork Barrel tax scandal and the government's alleged misuse of the PDAF in a press conference on 28 August 2013, noting the amount of tax celebrities like herself pay to the government: "The money isn't a joke [...] we pay so much tax and we don't know where it's going." The Bureau of Internal Revenue confirmed Chiu as 131st top taxpayer in the country with P9.3M in income taxes in 2013. In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Kimberly Sue Yap Chiu (; born 19 April 1990) is a Filipina actress, model, host, singer, dancer, and vlogger. Kim garnered acclaim at a young age for her acting performances on television and film. She is known as Philippine showbiz's "Chinita Princess" and once hailed "Princess of Philippine Movies and TV" for three consecutive years in the Philippines. She is currently managed and under contract to Star Magic, ABS-CBN's homebased talent agency and is referred to as the "Queen of the Dance Floor".
Kim Chiu started her showbiz career at the age of 16 after winning the first teen edition of the reality show Pinoy Big Brother. She then, starred in the television series, Sana Maulit Muli (2007) which won her the year's Most Promising Female Star and Most Popular loveteam with Gerald Anderson at GMMSF. This was followed by a string of successful projects and leading roles in dramas such as My Girl (2008), Tayong Dalawa (2009), Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo (2010), My Binondo Girl (2011–2012), Ina, Kapatid, Anak (2012–2013), Ikaw Lamang (2014), The Story of Us (2016), Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin (2017–2018), Love Thy Woman (2020) and Bawal Lumabas: The Series (2020).
She also starred in multiple commercially successful films including Bride for Rent (2014), I Love You, Goodbye (2009), Bakit Hindi Ka Crush Ng Crush Mo? (2013), Etiquette for Mistresses (2015) and The Ghost Bride (2017).
She has also received a PMPC Award for Best Drama Actress on her performance in Ikaw Lamang, four FAMAS Award nominations (winning one) and was hailed Princess of Philippine Movies and TV for three times at the GMMSF Box-Office Entertainment Awards for her accomplishments in the film and television industry. She has a very wide fanbase which is rapidly growing because of her chemistry, strong acting on-screen and her dedication to the entertainment industry. She is one of the few Philippine actresses with a high number of best actress accolades under her name. To top it all apart from acting she is also the endorsed by various companies in the Philippines including the international brand H&M and she's a fan of sports and exercises.
Career
2006–2008: Career beginnings
Chiu gained prominence by winning the reality series Pinoy Big Brother: Teen Edition. For the show, Chiu left her hometown of Cebu City and moved to Manila. She, along with the rest of the housemates entered the Big Brother house on April 23, 2006. After 42 days in the Big Brother house, she was named the Teen Big Winner with 626,562 votes (41.4% of the total votes) at the Aliw Theatre inside the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex in Pasay. She was the only housemate who was never nominated for eviction.
After winning, Chiu became part of Star Magic.
She and her on-screen partner Gerald Anderson became regulars in ASAP XV and appeared together in several ABS-CBN shows Love Spell, comedy sitcom Aalog-Alog and in the film First Day High.
In 2007, Chiu starred in the primetime TV series entitled Sana Maulit Muli alongside Anderson which was released to significant acclaim. That year, she was nominated and eventually won the 38th Guillermo Mendoza Box Office Awards as Most Promising Female Star and Best New Female TV Personality (for Sana Maulit Muli) at the 21st PMPC Star Awards. Sana Maulit Muli was later released in Taiwan under the PTS network, under the title Chances.
Chiu then launched her debut album "Gwa Ai Di" (Hokkien ) under Star Records, which included the single Crazy Love. It reached a Gold Record status.
Gaining much recognition for her acting roles, she then starred in the movie I've Fallen For You under Star Cinema and continually appeared in numerous advertisements. In 2008, Chiu was cast in the Philippine adaptation of the South Korean TV series My Girl.
2009–2011: Breakthrough
In 2009, Chiu secured her name as a top actress in the highly acclaimed TV series entitled Tayong Dalawa. She garnered several acting awards for her portrayal of Audrey, a woman who is loved by two military men.
Her movie I Love You, Goodbye became part of Star Cinema's official entry to the 2009 Metro Manila Film Festival. It was Chiu's first role as a villain and her first film to hit P100 million mark, with her receiving several nominations under different award-giving bodies including PMPC, 12th Gawad PASADO Awards and the 34th MMFF for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2010, she then starred in the romance film Paano Na Kaya, released nationally and internationally. She also starred in the well-received primetime drama, Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo, the highest rating teleserye of 2010 in the Philippines. In October 2010, Chiu and Anderson teamed up for the last consecutive time in the film Till My Heartaches End. In the midst of movie promotions, it was reported that the long-time couple (known as Kimerald) had split, yet the reason for the breakup was not discussed.
She top-billed in a weekly musical anthology series Your Song, as a sub-series for the 12th season called Your Song Presents: Kim. It ran for four months and led her to pair up with Sam Milby, Jake Cuenca, Pokwang, Derek Ramsay, Enrique Gil and Vice Ganda. In 2011, Chiu starred in romantic-comedy television series titled My Binondo Girl alongside Xian Lim, Matteo Guidicelli, and Jolo Revilla.
2012–present: Movies and critical success
In 2012, Chiu starred in a horror film with Vilma Santos entitled The Healing. She played a woman who is cured of glomerulonephritis through a healer but must suffer a curse. From this film, she received a number of Best Supporting Actress nominations from almost all of the film award-giving bodies, missing only the Gawad Urian and The Young Critics' Circle.
Chiu also returned to melodrama acting via Ina, Kapatid, Anak, alongside Xian Lim, Maja Salvador and Enchong Dee. After the teleserye ended with an average TV rating of 30.3% via Kantar Media/TNS, it was awarded Best Teleserye of the Year at Philippine's 2013 Yahoo Awards and was aired internationally as Her Mother's Daughter, released in foreign territories including MIPTV in France and at DISCOP West Asia in Turkey. Her portrayal also earned her an award for Best TV Drama Actress. She reunited in a movie with Anderson titled 24/7 in Love, Star Magic's ensemble film in view of the agency's 20th anniversary.
She starred in a film adaption of Ramon Bautista's novel co-starring Xian Lim, Bakit Hindi Ka Crush Ng Crush Mo?, released on July 17, 2013. Her performance received positive feedback and critics praise in view of her first comedic role on the big screen.
In January 2014, Chiu cemented her commercial draw with the romantic-comedy movie entitled Bride for Rent. Chiu plays Rocky, a poor woman who agrees to marry for money. As Star Cinema's first movie offering of 2014, the film met both critical and commercial success, earning more than P21.2 million pesos in its opening day and broke the P200 million pesos mark on its 8th day. The film established Chiu as one of the country's biggest stars having both a successful film and television career. Having grossed P325 million, it is the sixth highest grossing Filipino film of all time, the second highest grossing Filipino romantic comedy movie of all-time, third highest grossing non-MMFF film of all-time and also the highest-grossing January-released film of all-time in the country.
After the success of her two films, Chiu returned to television in the 2014 period drama, Ikaw Lamang. The series co-stars Coco Martin, Julia Montes, Jake Cuenca and KC Concepcion and dealt with social class, politics, and forbidden love. It held the first and second place viewer rating in its time slot and was awarded Best Primetime Drama Series at the 28th PMPC Star Awards for Television. This followed with the romantic comedy film, Past Tense and a portrayal as Mulan for Walt Disney Asia's 12 Days of Princess campaign.
In 2015, she appeared as one of five mistresses (alongside veterans Kris Aquino, Claudine Barretto, Iza Calzado) in the high-profile film, Etiquette for Mistresses. She recorded the Cebuano songs "Duyog" and "Labyu Langga" for the film's soundtrack. She also top-billed in the rom-com, All You Need Is Pag-Ibig, which is Star Cinema's official entry to the 2015 MMFF.
In 2016, she starred on the hit Philippine romantic drama, The Story of Us. Her performance as Tin Manalo gave her another Best Actress Awards from 6th EdukCircle Awards, 6th OFW Parangal Awards and Guillermo Mendoza. Also, on the last quarter of 2016, Kimerald loveteam was announced to set back on television via a triathlon soap opera television series Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin for the celebration of their 10th anniversary in show business.
In May 2017, Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin premiered on ABS-CBN's PrimeTanghali noontime block replacing Langit Lupa. The show debuted at Number 1 in its time slot, and consistently ranked ahead of its competition during its nine-month run.
In November 2017, she appears in the horror movie, The Ghost Bride where she plays the role as Mayen Lim who is the main protagonist of this film that she will be torn between living a normal though difficult life or accepting a strange business proposal called the Ghost Wedding in exchange for wealth and a comfortable life for her loved ones. She is also accompanied by Matteo Guidicelli, Alice Dixson, Christian Bables and Cacai Bautista in this said movie project which was set to show on theatres on All Saints' Day. In April 2018, she appears in the Filipino horror-comedy film Da One That Ghost Away directed by Tony Y. Reyes together with Ryan Bang, Enzo Pineda and the duo of Maymay Entrata and Edward Barber.
In December 2018, her movie One Great Love became part of Regal Film's official entry to the 2018 Metro Manila Film Festival. It was Chiu's first time working with Dennis Trillo and JC de Vera with her receiving nomination on the 44th annual MMFF Awards for Best Actress. She also won the Film Actress of the Year in the 50th GMMSF Box-Office Entertainment Awards for her performance in the film One Great Love.
In 2020, her song "Bawal Lumabas (The Classroom Song)" became the most disliked song in WISH 107.5's YouTube Channel having reportedly received 404k dislikes and 78k likes within 14 hours. The song was based from a viral edit made by DJ Squammy from her statement about the ABS-CBN franchise renewal controversy.
Personal life
Kim Chiu is the fourth of five children to William Chiu, a Chinese businessman from Mindoro and Louella (née Yap; 1963–2013), a Philippine Sangley native who migrated from Dinagat Islands to Surigao del Sur, Philippines. She is fluent in Cebuano, Tagalog, English, with Waray, Hokkien and Mandarin Chinese beginner level only.
Since her parent's separation in 1998, Kim had a dysfunctional relationship with both of her parents. She and her siblings were raised by their paternal grandmother and, as children, frequently moved residencies in the Philippine Visayas; locating in Tacloban, Leyte, Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, General Santos City, Mindoro and back to Cebu City until 2006. In 2013, she reconciled with her father "after five years of estrangement" while visiting his second partner and half-siblings in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro. A month later in June, her biological mother, Louella, fell into a coma. Following a week of hospitalization, Louella died on June 23, 2013, due to brain aneurysm. In a eulogy dedicated to her mother, she debunked rumors of animosity over her mother's child abandonment and expressed: "An angel guides me in my decisions in life. For me, that is finally my mom."
Chiu dated co-star Gerald Anderson from 2006 to 2010.
Kim Chiu began dating fellow Star Magic artist and leading man, Xian Lim in 2012, which was confirmed in a 2013 episode of Kris TV. They acknowledged they were "exclusively dating". On November 15, 2018, Kim Chiu confirmed she was still in a relationship with Lim during her interview on Tonight with Boy Abunda.
On March 4, 2020, Chiu was traveling along Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City on her way to a taping of her series Love Thy Woman when two unidentified gunmen, riding-in-tandem on a motorcycle, fired six gunshots at her van. Chiu and her companions were unharmed. Investigators examine the shooting as a possible case of mistaken identity. Chiu later revealed on social media that, a day after the incident, a person claiming to have been the actual target called one of her bosses to apologize.
Philanthropy and education
Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes. She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child. Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya. She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim. Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well-being. In August 2012, she and Lim spearheaded a relief operation in Marikina. Chiu was heavily involved with relief efforts for Typhoon Yolanda via Red Cross, which had affected parts of her hometown. Aside from giving food and water, she also held week-long clothes auctions to raise money for Typhoon victims.
By 2013, it was also revealed that the actress was involved with regularly funding Isla Pulo, an impoverished community of 1,000 inhabitants in Manila Bay, Philippines.
As one of Philippines highest paid endorsers, Chiu addressed the ongoing Pork Barrel tax scandal and the government's alleged misuse of the PDAF in a press conference on August 28, 2013, noting the amount of tax celebrities like herself pay to the government: "The money isn't a joke [...] we pay so much tax and we don't know where it's going." The Bureau of Internal Revenue confirmed Chiu as 131st top taxpayer in the country with ₱9.3M in income taxes in 2013.
In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses.
Filmography
Television
Films
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
Singles from OST Albums
Mine "(Sana Maulit Muli)"
Pusong Lito "(My Girl)"
Sabihin Mo Na w/ "Gerald Anderson"" (My Girl)"
Crazy Love ""Chinese Version"" "(My Girl)"
My Only Hope "(My Only Hope)"
Others
Kering Keri "(Rejoice TV Commercial)"
Whisper, I Love You "(Close Up MV)"
Softly "(Kim Chiu, Youtube)"
Bawal Lumabas "(Kim Chiu, Youtube)" - An allusion to 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic and ABS-CBN franchise renewal controversy
Music videos
Accolades
References
External links
1990 births
Living people
Actresses from Cebu
Actresses from Leyte (province)
Big Brother (franchise) winners
Filipino actors of Chinese descent
Filipino child actresses
Filipino child singers
Filipino female models
Filipino film actresses
Filipino people of Chinese descent
Filipino television actresses
Filipino Roman Catholics
People from Cebu City
Pinoy Big Brother contestants
Star Magic
Star Magic Batch 14
ABS-CBN personalities
Star Music artists
Visayan people
21st-century Filipino women singers
Cebuano people | false | [
"The Saylor Academy, formerly known as the Saylor Foundation, is a non-profit organization headquartered in Washington, DC. It was established in 1999 by its sole trustee, Michael J. Saylor. Since 2008, the focus of the foundation has been its Free Education Initiative which has led to the creation of 241 courses representing 10 of the highest enrollment majors in the US.\n\nThe Saylor Academy assembles courses from openly available texts and resources. The foundation also funds the creation of new materials when needed, which is then openly licensed for use by other organizations and individuals. In March 2018 Edovo partnered with Saylor Academy.\n\nCourses\nOn its website, the foundation offers 317 free, college-level courses, which are selected as typical courses in high enrollment majors at traditional U.S. colleges. Content is accessible without needing to register or log into the website, however an account is required to gain access to final exams, and a free certificate of completion.\n\nThe foundation works with consultants to design the courses, typically university and college faculty members or subject experts. The consultant develops a blueprint for the course, then researches open educational resources (OER) to supply the course with lectures, texts, and other resources. If suitable texts and documents are not found, the foundation works with faculty to compile new materials which it releases to the OER community under a Creative Commons license. Each course is accompanied by an assessment.\n\nAccreditation and credentialing\nThe Saylor Academy is not accredited within any traditional system. According to the company, they have experimented with digital badges through the Open Badge Infrastructure.\n\nThrough cooperation with other organizations, the Saylor Academy can offer degrees.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nEducational organizations based in the United States\nFoundations based in Washington, D.C.\nEducational publishing companies of the United States\nCreative Commons-licensed books\nAmerican educational websites\nOnline nonprofit organizations\nOpen educational resources\nEducation companies established in 1999\nOrganizations established in 1999\n1999 establishments in the United States",
"World Education Services (WES) is a nonprofit organization that provides credential evaluations for international students and immigrants planning to study or work in the U.S. and Canada. Founded in 1974, it is based in New York, U.S. It also has operations in Toronto, Canada.\n\nWES evaluates more than 200,000 credentials per year; they auto-authenticate and define foreign education in U.S. or Canadian terms. WES reports that its credential evaluations are nonbinding advisory opinions.\n\nWES's proprietary database collects and stores information of academic certificates of more than 200 countries, 45,000 foreign institutions, and 20,000 academic credentials. However, WES does not have formal agreements with educational systems of any country, and the kept certificates are voluntarily provided by the candidates, and they operate with third-party motives.\n\nWES is accredited by and is a charter member of the National Association of Credential Evaluation Services (NACES) and the Alliance of Credential Evaluation Services of Canada (ACESC). The U.S. Department of Education's website lists NACES and AICE with a disclaimer that the listing of these organizations is not an endorsement.\n\nReferences\n\nEducational organizations based in the United States\nAcademic transfer\nEducation reform\nStudent assessment and evaluation\nEducational evaluation methods"
] |
[
"Kim Chiu",
"Philanthropy and education",
"What was her education?",
"In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses.",
"How did she get into philanthropy?",
"Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes.",
"What was the first cause she became interested in?",
"She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child.",
"What does her involvement entail?",
"Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya.",
"What other types of philanthropy does she do?",
"She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim.",
"What is the Free Mali campaign?",
"Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well being.",
"Does she have other animal organizations that she works with?",
"I don't know.",
"Does she have any educational organizations she works with?",
"I don't know."
] | C_c32c8d8c0d3f49ffa6670ac9ef972d14_0 | Did she graduate from college? | 9 | Did Kim Chiu graduate from college? | Kim Chiu | Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes. She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child. Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya. She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim. Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well being. In August 2012, she and Lim spearheaded a relief operation in Marikina. Chiu was heavily involved with relief efforts for Typhoon Yolanda via Red Cross, which had affected parts of her hometown. Aside from giving food and water, she also held week-long clothes auctions to raise money for Typhoon victims. By 2013, it was also revealed that the actress was involved with regularly funding Isla Pulo, an impoverished community of 1,000 inhabitants in Manila Bay, Philippines. As one of Philippines highest paid endorsers, Chiu addressed the ongoing Pork Barrel tax scandal and the government's alleged misuse of the PDAF in a press conference on 28 August 2013, noting the amount of tax celebrities like herself pay to the government: "The money isn't a joke [...] we pay so much tax and we don't know where it's going." The Bureau of Internal Revenue confirmed Chiu as 131st top taxpayer in the country with P9.3M in income taxes in 2013. In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Kimberly Sue Yap Chiu (; born 19 April 1990) is a Filipina actress, model, host, singer, dancer, and vlogger. Kim garnered acclaim at a young age for her acting performances on television and film. She is known as Philippine showbiz's "Chinita Princess" and once hailed "Princess of Philippine Movies and TV" for three consecutive years in the Philippines. She is currently managed and under contract to Star Magic, ABS-CBN's homebased talent agency and is referred to as the "Queen of the Dance Floor".
Kim Chiu started her showbiz career at the age of 16 after winning the first teen edition of the reality show Pinoy Big Brother. She then, starred in the television series, Sana Maulit Muli (2007) which won her the year's Most Promising Female Star and Most Popular loveteam with Gerald Anderson at GMMSF. This was followed by a string of successful projects and leading roles in dramas such as My Girl (2008), Tayong Dalawa (2009), Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo (2010), My Binondo Girl (2011–2012), Ina, Kapatid, Anak (2012–2013), Ikaw Lamang (2014), The Story of Us (2016), Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin (2017–2018), Love Thy Woman (2020) and Bawal Lumabas: The Series (2020).
She also starred in multiple commercially successful films including Bride for Rent (2014), I Love You, Goodbye (2009), Bakit Hindi Ka Crush Ng Crush Mo? (2013), Etiquette for Mistresses (2015) and The Ghost Bride (2017).
She has also received a PMPC Award for Best Drama Actress on her performance in Ikaw Lamang, four FAMAS Award nominations (winning one) and was hailed Princess of Philippine Movies and TV for three times at the GMMSF Box-Office Entertainment Awards for her accomplishments in the film and television industry. She has a very wide fanbase which is rapidly growing because of her chemistry, strong acting on-screen and her dedication to the entertainment industry. She is one of the few Philippine actresses with a high number of best actress accolades under her name. To top it all apart from acting she is also the endorsed by various companies in the Philippines including the international brand H&M and she's a fan of sports and exercises.
Career
2006–2008: Career beginnings
Chiu gained prominence by winning the reality series Pinoy Big Brother: Teen Edition. For the show, Chiu left her hometown of Cebu City and moved to Manila. She, along with the rest of the housemates entered the Big Brother house on April 23, 2006. After 42 days in the Big Brother house, she was named the Teen Big Winner with 626,562 votes (41.4% of the total votes) at the Aliw Theatre inside the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex in Pasay. She was the only housemate who was never nominated for eviction.
After winning, Chiu became part of Star Magic.
She and her on-screen partner Gerald Anderson became regulars in ASAP XV and appeared together in several ABS-CBN shows Love Spell, comedy sitcom Aalog-Alog and in the film First Day High.
In 2007, Chiu starred in the primetime TV series entitled Sana Maulit Muli alongside Anderson which was released to significant acclaim. That year, she was nominated and eventually won the 38th Guillermo Mendoza Box Office Awards as Most Promising Female Star and Best New Female TV Personality (for Sana Maulit Muli) at the 21st PMPC Star Awards. Sana Maulit Muli was later released in Taiwan under the PTS network, under the title Chances.
Chiu then launched her debut album "Gwa Ai Di" (Hokkien ) under Star Records, which included the single Crazy Love. It reached a Gold Record status.
Gaining much recognition for her acting roles, she then starred in the movie I've Fallen For You under Star Cinema and continually appeared in numerous advertisements. In 2008, Chiu was cast in the Philippine adaptation of the South Korean TV series My Girl.
2009–2011: Breakthrough
In 2009, Chiu secured her name as a top actress in the highly acclaimed TV series entitled Tayong Dalawa. She garnered several acting awards for her portrayal of Audrey, a woman who is loved by two military men.
Her movie I Love You, Goodbye became part of Star Cinema's official entry to the 2009 Metro Manila Film Festival. It was Chiu's first role as a villain and her first film to hit P100 million mark, with her receiving several nominations under different award-giving bodies including PMPC, 12th Gawad PASADO Awards and the 34th MMFF for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2010, she then starred in the romance film Paano Na Kaya, released nationally and internationally. She also starred in the well-received primetime drama, Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo, the highest rating teleserye of 2010 in the Philippines. In October 2010, Chiu and Anderson teamed up for the last consecutive time in the film Till My Heartaches End. In the midst of movie promotions, it was reported that the long-time couple (known as Kimerald) had split, yet the reason for the breakup was not discussed.
She top-billed in a weekly musical anthology series Your Song, as a sub-series for the 12th season called Your Song Presents: Kim. It ran for four months and led her to pair up with Sam Milby, Jake Cuenca, Pokwang, Derek Ramsay, Enrique Gil and Vice Ganda. In 2011, Chiu starred in romantic-comedy television series titled My Binondo Girl alongside Xian Lim, Matteo Guidicelli, and Jolo Revilla.
2012–present: Movies and critical success
In 2012, Chiu starred in a horror film with Vilma Santos entitled The Healing. She played a woman who is cured of glomerulonephritis through a healer but must suffer a curse. From this film, she received a number of Best Supporting Actress nominations from almost all of the film award-giving bodies, missing only the Gawad Urian and The Young Critics' Circle.
Chiu also returned to melodrama acting via Ina, Kapatid, Anak, alongside Xian Lim, Maja Salvador and Enchong Dee. After the teleserye ended with an average TV rating of 30.3% via Kantar Media/TNS, it was awarded Best Teleserye of the Year at Philippine's 2013 Yahoo Awards and was aired internationally as Her Mother's Daughter, released in foreign territories including MIPTV in France and at DISCOP West Asia in Turkey. Her portrayal also earned her an award for Best TV Drama Actress. She reunited in a movie with Anderson titled 24/7 in Love, Star Magic's ensemble film in view of the agency's 20th anniversary.
She starred in a film adaption of Ramon Bautista's novel co-starring Xian Lim, Bakit Hindi Ka Crush Ng Crush Mo?, released on July 17, 2013. Her performance received positive feedback and critics praise in view of her first comedic role on the big screen.
In January 2014, Chiu cemented her commercial draw with the romantic-comedy movie entitled Bride for Rent. Chiu plays Rocky, a poor woman who agrees to marry for money. As Star Cinema's first movie offering of 2014, the film met both critical and commercial success, earning more than P21.2 million pesos in its opening day and broke the P200 million pesos mark on its 8th day. The film established Chiu as one of the country's biggest stars having both a successful film and television career. Having grossed P325 million, it is the sixth highest grossing Filipino film of all time, the second highest grossing Filipino romantic comedy movie of all-time, third highest grossing non-MMFF film of all-time and also the highest-grossing January-released film of all-time in the country.
After the success of her two films, Chiu returned to television in the 2014 period drama, Ikaw Lamang. The series co-stars Coco Martin, Julia Montes, Jake Cuenca and KC Concepcion and dealt with social class, politics, and forbidden love. It held the first and second place viewer rating in its time slot and was awarded Best Primetime Drama Series at the 28th PMPC Star Awards for Television. This followed with the romantic comedy film, Past Tense and a portrayal as Mulan for Walt Disney Asia's 12 Days of Princess campaign.
In 2015, she appeared as one of five mistresses (alongside veterans Kris Aquino, Claudine Barretto, Iza Calzado) in the high-profile film, Etiquette for Mistresses. She recorded the Cebuano songs "Duyog" and "Labyu Langga" for the film's soundtrack. She also top-billed in the rom-com, All You Need Is Pag-Ibig, which is Star Cinema's official entry to the 2015 MMFF.
In 2016, she starred on the hit Philippine romantic drama, The Story of Us. Her performance as Tin Manalo gave her another Best Actress Awards from 6th EdukCircle Awards, 6th OFW Parangal Awards and Guillermo Mendoza. Also, on the last quarter of 2016, Kimerald loveteam was announced to set back on television via a triathlon soap opera television series Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin for the celebration of their 10th anniversary in show business.
In May 2017, Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin premiered on ABS-CBN's PrimeTanghali noontime block replacing Langit Lupa. The show debuted at Number 1 in its time slot, and consistently ranked ahead of its competition during its nine-month run.
In November 2017, she appears in the horror movie, The Ghost Bride where she plays the role as Mayen Lim who is the main protagonist of this film that she will be torn between living a normal though difficult life or accepting a strange business proposal called the Ghost Wedding in exchange for wealth and a comfortable life for her loved ones. She is also accompanied by Matteo Guidicelli, Alice Dixson, Christian Bables and Cacai Bautista in this said movie project which was set to show on theatres on All Saints' Day. In April 2018, she appears in the Filipino horror-comedy film Da One That Ghost Away directed by Tony Y. Reyes together with Ryan Bang, Enzo Pineda and the duo of Maymay Entrata and Edward Barber.
In December 2018, her movie One Great Love became part of Regal Film's official entry to the 2018 Metro Manila Film Festival. It was Chiu's first time working with Dennis Trillo and JC de Vera with her receiving nomination on the 44th annual MMFF Awards for Best Actress. She also won the Film Actress of the Year in the 50th GMMSF Box-Office Entertainment Awards for her performance in the film One Great Love.
In 2020, her song "Bawal Lumabas (The Classroom Song)" became the most disliked song in WISH 107.5's YouTube Channel having reportedly received 404k dislikes and 78k likes within 14 hours. The song was based from a viral edit made by DJ Squammy from her statement about the ABS-CBN franchise renewal controversy.
Personal life
Kim Chiu is the fourth of five children to William Chiu, a Chinese businessman from Mindoro and Louella (née Yap; 1963–2013), a Philippine Sangley native who migrated from Dinagat Islands to Surigao del Sur, Philippines. She is fluent in Cebuano, Tagalog, English, with Waray, Hokkien and Mandarin Chinese beginner level only.
Since her parent's separation in 1998, Kim had a dysfunctional relationship with both of her parents. She and her siblings were raised by their paternal grandmother and, as children, frequently moved residencies in the Philippine Visayas; locating in Tacloban, Leyte, Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, General Santos City, Mindoro and back to Cebu City until 2006. In 2013, she reconciled with her father "after five years of estrangement" while visiting his second partner and half-siblings in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro. A month later in June, her biological mother, Louella, fell into a coma. Following a week of hospitalization, Louella died on June 23, 2013, due to brain aneurysm. In a eulogy dedicated to her mother, she debunked rumors of animosity over her mother's child abandonment and expressed: "An angel guides me in my decisions in life. For me, that is finally my mom."
Chiu dated co-star Gerald Anderson from 2006 to 2010.
Kim Chiu began dating fellow Star Magic artist and leading man, Xian Lim in 2012, which was confirmed in a 2013 episode of Kris TV. They acknowledged they were "exclusively dating". On November 15, 2018, Kim Chiu confirmed she was still in a relationship with Lim during her interview on Tonight with Boy Abunda.
On March 4, 2020, Chiu was traveling along Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City on her way to a taping of her series Love Thy Woman when two unidentified gunmen, riding-in-tandem on a motorcycle, fired six gunshots at her van. Chiu and her companions were unharmed. Investigators examine the shooting as a possible case of mistaken identity. Chiu later revealed on social media that, a day after the incident, a person claiming to have been the actual target called one of her bosses to apologize.
Philanthropy and education
Chiu uses her media influence to promote various causes. She began partnership with GSK for yearly asthma awareness campaigns, Win Against Asthma, after battling asthma as a child. Chiu has since participated in disaster relief organizations such as Philippine National Red Cross and Sagip Kapamilya. She joined the PETA campaign Free Mali along with Xian Lim. Chiu made a video plea for Mali, asking that she be moved to a sanctuary for the sake of her well-being. In August 2012, she and Lim spearheaded a relief operation in Marikina. Chiu was heavily involved with relief efforts for Typhoon Yolanda via Red Cross, which had affected parts of her hometown. Aside from giving food and water, she also held week-long clothes auctions to raise money for Typhoon victims.
By 2013, it was also revealed that the actress was involved with regularly funding Isla Pulo, an impoverished community of 1,000 inhabitants in Manila Bay, Philippines.
As one of Philippines highest paid endorsers, Chiu addressed the ongoing Pork Barrel tax scandal and the government's alleged misuse of the PDAF in a press conference on August 28, 2013, noting the amount of tax celebrities like herself pay to the government: "The money isn't a joke [...] we pay so much tax and we don't know where it's going." The Bureau of Internal Revenue confirmed Chiu as 131st top taxpayer in the country with ₱9.3M in income taxes in 2013.
In 2015, Chiu passed the UPCAT and enrolled in University of the Philippines's UPOU program for business courses.
Filmography
Television
Films
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
Singles from OST Albums
Mine "(Sana Maulit Muli)"
Pusong Lito "(My Girl)"
Sabihin Mo Na w/ "Gerald Anderson"" (My Girl)"
Crazy Love ""Chinese Version"" "(My Girl)"
My Only Hope "(My Only Hope)"
Others
Kering Keri "(Rejoice TV Commercial)"
Whisper, I Love You "(Close Up MV)"
Softly "(Kim Chiu, Youtube)"
Bawal Lumabas "(Kim Chiu, Youtube)" - An allusion to 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic and ABS-CBN franchise renewal controversy
Music videos
Accolades
References
External links
1990 births
Living people
Actresses from Cebu
Actresses from Leyte (province)
Big Brother (franchise) winners
Filipino actors of Chinese descent
Filipino child actresses
Filipino child singers
Filipino female models
Filipino film actresses
Filipino people of Chinese descent
Filipino television actresses
Filipino Roman Catholics
People from Cebu City
Pinoy Big Brother contestants
Star Magic
Star Magic Batch 14
ABS-CBN personalities
Star Music artists
Visayan people
21st-century Filipino women singers
Cebuano people | false | [
"Catharine R. Stimpson (born June 4, 1936 in Bellingham, Washington) is a feminist scholar, University Professor, professor of English, and dean emerita of the Graduate School of Arts and Science at New York University.\n\nAcademic career\nStimpson did her undergraduate studies at Bryn Mawr College and earned graduate degrees from Cambridge University and Columbia University. She was the founding editor in 1975 of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.\n\nStimpson began her academic career at Barnard College, where she was founding director of the Barnard Center for Research on Women in 1971. In 1980, she became Professor of English at Rutgers University, where she also led the Institute for Research on Women, was Dean of the Graduate School and Vice Provost for Graduate Education, and University Professor. After a leave from Rutgers to serve as Director of the MacArthur Fellows Program, she became University Professor and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at New York University in 1998. In 2010, she became Dean Emerita at NYU, where she has appointments in the Department of English, the Steinhardt Institute for Higher Education Policy, and the Law School.\n\nIn 1990, she was president of the Modern Language Association and in 1999-2000 she was president of the Association of Graduate Schools of the Association of American Universities.\n\nMacArthur Fellows\nAs director of the MacArthur Fellows Program from 1993 to 1997, Stimpson helped the program move from recognizing already established scholars to the more contemporary form of today.\n\nBibliography\nIn addition to being the founding editor of Signs, Stimpson has written two books, edited seven books, and published over 150 monographs, essays, stories, and reviews.\n\nReferences\n\n1936 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Bellingham, Washington\nFeminist studies scholars\nBryn Mawr College alumni\nColumbia University alumni\nBarnard College faculty\nAlumni of the University of Cambridge\nRutgers University faculty\nNew York University faculty",
"Tara Allain (born October 2, 1985) is Miss Maine for 2007. She is a 2008 graduate of Colby College.\n\nEarly life\nAllain is the daughter of Kathleen and Daniel Allain of Worcester, Massachusetts. She is a graduate of Saint Peter-Marian High School. She majored in biology at Colby College.\n\nMiss Maine pageant\nHer platform and charity for the pageant was Habitat for Humanity.\nIn the talent competition, she performed a dance entitled \"Hangin' by a Thread\"\n\nParticipation in Maine pageant\nAllain admits that her participation in the Maine pageant was a calculated maneuver because she did not want to compete in the Massachusetts pageant. She cites that if she won, she would have to take off a year from school which she claims was not the case by participating in the Miss Maine competition.\n\nAs Miss Maine, she has visited schools to promote Habitat for Humanity.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nMissMaine.org – An Official Miss America Preliminary\n\n1985 births\nLiving people\nMiss America 2008 delegates\nPeople from Waterville, Maine\nPeople from Worcester, Massachusetts\nColby College alumni\nBeauty pageant contestants from Maine"
] |
[
"Take That",
"1993-1995: Everything Changes, Nobody Else and superstardom"
] | C_93f5c84a4b2e459c97d351f6a21ea1d5_1 | what did take that do in 1993 | 1 | What did Take That do in the year 1993? | Take That | 1993 saw the release of Everything Changes, based on Barlow's original material. It peaked at number one in the UK and spawned six singles, with four being consecutive UK number one singles - their first number one "Pray", "Relight My Fire", "Babe" and the title track "Everything Changes". The lead single "Why Can't I Wake Up with You" had narrowly missed the top spot in the UK peaking at number two and the sixth and final single "Love Ain't Here Anymore" taken from the album reached number three on the UK charts. Everything Changes saw the band gain international success with the album being nominated for the 1994 Mercury Prize, but it failed to crack the U.S. market, where an exclusive remix of "Love Ain't Here Anymore" (U.S. version) gained little success. By 1994, Take That had become radio and television stars across Europe and Asia, but it was not until 1995 that they did their first World Tour. It was during the years 1993-95 that the band fronted scores of magazine covers ranging from Smash Hits to GQ, becoming mass merchandised on all sorts of paraphernalia ranging from picture books, to posters, stickers, their own dolls, jewellery, caps, T-shirts, toothbrushes and even had their own annuals released. The band had also developed a large female teenage fanbase at the time. During this time, they performed at numerous music awards shows and chart shows such as the BRIT Awards and Top of the Pops, also winning the Best Live Act award in 1995 at the MTV Europe Music Awards, having been renowned for their breakdance routines, high energy and creative tour productions. In 1995, Take That released their third studio album Nobody Else, again based on Barlow's own material which reached number 1 in the UK and across Europe, capturing new audiences along the way, with Take That also able to make inroads in the adult audience in Britain through Barlow's melodic, sensitive ballads. For nearly five years, Take That's popularity was unsurpassed in Britain. The release of the first single from the album, "Sure", achieved yet another number one in the UK charts. It was not until their second release from that album, however, that they would experience what would become their biggest hit single, "Back for Good", which reached number one in 31 countries around the globe and to date has been covered 89 times the world over. It was also their only US hit, where it reached number seven. The song was initially unveiled for the first time via live performance while at the 1995 BRIT Awards, and based on the reception of that performance, the record pre-sold more records than expected and forced the record label to bring the release date forward by an unprecedented six weeks. The album was also noted for its cover which was a parody of the famed cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover sleeve. CANNOTANSWER | 1993 saw the release of Everything Changes, | Take That are an English pop group formed in Manchester in 1990. The group currently consists of Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen. The original line-up also featured Jason Orange and Robbie Williams. Barlow is the group's lead singer and primary songwriter, with Owen and Williams initially providing backing vocals and Donald and Orange serving primarily as dancers.
The group have had 28 top 40 singles and 17 top 5 singles on the UK Singles Chart, 12 of which have reached number one, including "Back for Good", "Never Forget", "Patience" and "Greatest Day". They have also had eight number one albums on the UK Albums Chart. Internationally, the band have had 56 number one singles and 39 number one albums. They have received eight Brit Awards—winning for Best British Group and Best British Live Act. In 2012 they received an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. According to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), Take That has been certified for 14 million albums and 11.4 million singles in the UK.
Williams left the band in 1995 while the four remaining members completed their world tour and released a final single before splitting up in 1996. After filming a 2005 Take That: For the Record about the group and releasing a new greatest hits album, a four-piece Take That without Williams officially announced a 2006 reunion tour around the UK, entitled The Ultimate Tour. On 9 May 2006, it was announced that the group were set to record new material together once again; their fourth studio album, Beautiful World, was released in 2006 and was followed up with The Circus, in 2008. The group achieved new success as a four-piece, scoring a string of chart hits across the UK and Europe while selling over 45 million records worldwide. Williams rejoined Take That in 2010 for the band's sixth studio album, Progress. Released on 15 November of that year, it was the first album of new material to feature Take That's original line-up since their 1995 album, Nobody Else. It became the fastest-selling album of the 21st century and the second fastest-selling album in British history.
In 2014, the band recorded a seventh studio album, this time as a trio without Williams and Orange. The album, titled III, was released in November 2014 and became the band's seventh number one. It was preceded by the single "These Days", which became the band's 12th number one single in the UK.
In 2011, Take That set the new record for the fastest-selling tour of all time in the UK with Progress Live, beating the previous record set by their Circus Live Tour in 2009. At the 2011 Brit Awards they won Best British Group. In 2012, Forbes named them the fifth highest-earning music stars in the world. The group performed at the London 2012 Olympic Games closing ceremony, playing "Rule the World" while the Olympic Flame was extinguished. In the same year, the Official Charts Company revealed the biggest-selling singles artists in British music chart history with Take That currently placed at 15th overall, making them the most successful boy band in UK chart history. Four of their albums are listed in the best-selling albums of the millennium, with three of them among the 60 best-selling albums in UK chart history.
History
1989–1990: Formation
In 1989, Manchester-based Nigel Martin-Smith sought to create a British male vocal singing group modelled on New Kids on the Block. Martin-Smith's vision, however, was a teen-orientated group that would appeal to more than one demographic segment of the music industry. Martin-Smith was then introduced to young singer-songwriter Gary Barlow, who had been performing in clubs since the age of 15. Impressed with Barlow's catalogue of self-written material, Martin-Smith decided to build his new-look boy band around Barlow's musical abilities. A campaign to audition young men with abilities in dancing and singing followed and took place in Manchester and other surrounding cities in 1990. At 22, Howard Donald was one of the oldest to audition, but he was chosen after he got time off work as a vehicle painter to continue the process. Prior to auditioning, Jason Orange had appeared as a breakdancer on the popular television programme The Hit Man and Her. Martin-Smith also selected 18-year-old bank employee Mark Owen and finally 16-year-old Robbie Williams to round out the group, which initially went by the name Kick It.
1990–1992: Take That & Party
Take That's first TV appearance was on The Hit Man and Her in 1990, where they performed Barlow's self-written, unreleased song, "My Kind of Girl". They later appeared a second time to perform "Waiting Around", which would become the B-side for the first single, "Do What U Like". "Promises" and "Once You've Tasted Love" were also released as singles but were minor hits in the UK. Take That initially worked the same territory as their American counterparts, singing new jack R&B, urban soul, and mainstream pop. However, they worked their way toward Hi-NRG dance music, while also pursuing an adult contemporary ballad direction. As they aimed to break into the mainstream music industry, they worked a number of small clubs, schools, and events across the country building up a fanbase as they travelled to gigs constantly for months.
Take That's breakthrough single was a cover of the 1975 Tavares hit "It Only Takes a Minute", which peaked at number seven on the UK Singles Chart in June 1992. This success was followed by "I Found Heaven", then by the first Barlow ballad "A Million Love Songs", which also reached number seven in October. Their cover of the Barry Manilow hit "Could It Be Magic" gave them their first big success, peaking at number three in the UK in the first chart of 1993. Their first album, Take That & Party, was released in 1992, and included all the hit singles to date.
1993–1995: Everything Changes, Nobody Else and superstardom
1993 saw the release of Everything Changes, based on Barlow's original material. It peaked at number one in the UK and spawned six singles, with four being consecutive UK number one singles – their first number one "Pray", "Relight My Fire", "Babe" and the title track "Everything Changes". The lead single "Why Can't I Wake Up with You" had narrowly missed the top spot in the UK peaking at number two and the sixth and final single "Love Ain't Here Anymore" taken from the album reached number three on the UK charts. Everything Changes saw the band gain international success with the album being nominated for the 1994 Mercury Prize, but it failed to crack the U.S. market, where an exclusive remix of "Love Ain't Here Anymore" (U.S. version) gained little success.
By 1994, Take That had become radio and television stars across Europe and Asia, but it was not until 1995 that they did their first World Tour. It was during the years 1993–95 that the band fronted scores of magazine covers ranging from Smash Hits to GQ, becoming mass merchandised on all sorts of paraphernalia ranging from picture books, to posters, stickers, their own dolls, jewellery, caps, T-shirts, toothbrushes and even had their own annuals released. The band had also developed a large female teenage fanbase at the time. During this time, they performed at numerous music awards shows and chart shows such as the BRIT Awards and Top of the Pops, also winning the Best Live Act award in 1995 at the MTV Europe Music Awards, having been renowned for their breakdance routines, high energy and creative tour productions.
In 1995, Take That released their third studio album Nobody Else, again based on Barlow's own material which reached number 1 in the UK and across Europe, capturing new audiences along the way, with Take That also able to make inroads in the adult audience in Britain through Barlow's melodic, sensitive ballads. For nearly five years, Take That's popularity was unsurpassed in Britain. The release of the first single from the album, "Sure", achieved yet another number one in the UK charts. It was not until their second release from that album, however, that they would experience what would become their biggest hit single, "Back for Good", which reached number one in many countries including the UK, Germany, Australia, and Norway. It was also their only US hit, where it reached number seven.
The song was initially unveiled for the first time via live performance while at the 1995 BRIT Awards, and based on the reception of that performance, the record pre-sold more records than expected and forced the record label to bring the release date forward by an unprecedented six weeks. The album was also noted for its cover, which was a parody of the famed cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover sleeve.
1995–1996: Break-up and Greatest Hits
Robbie Williams's drug abuse had escalated to a near drug overdose the night before the group was scheduled to perform at the MTV Europe Music Awards in 1994.
In June 1995, Williams was photographed by the press partying with Oasis at the Glastonbury Festival. The following month, the band offered him an ultimatum; he was to adhere to the band's responsibilities or leave before their scheduled world tour. Williams chose the latter. Williams claimed he was bored with Barlow's leadership and jealous of Barlow. Despite the loss of Williams, Take That continued to promote Nobody Else as a four-piece, scoring a further hit single with "Never Forget" with Donald on lead vocal. They subsequently went to America and completed the Nobody Else Tour in October 1995. Following the tour, the band began to plan for their next album; however, when they spent Christmas together, they mutually agreed it was time to part ways.
On 13 February 1996, Take That formally announced that they were disbanding. This was followed by the Greatest Hits compilation in 1996, which contained a new recording, a cover of the Bee Gees' "How Deep Is Your Love". The single went on to become what was to be the band's final UK number one until their 2006 comeback a decade later. Take That gave what was thought to be their final performance in April 1996 at Amsterdam. Following the band's announcement, millions of their fans were distraught around the world and in the UK alone, teenage girls threatened suicide and were seen lining streets in tears, to the point that telephone hotlines were set up by the government to deal with counselling them. After the band broke up, highly respected music figures such as Elton John noted that Take That were different from other boy bands before and after them, in that they wrote their own material through Gary Barlow. Barlow is one of only a small number of people who have won an Ivor Novello award during their time in a boy band, with George Michael whilst in Wham! and Tony Mortimer whilst in East 17 being two others who have achieved this feat. Take That had also left a legacy of being immaculate performers with a very high work ethic, causing them to be voted in as the greatest boy band of all time.
2005–2006: Reunion as a quartet and Never Forget – The Ultimate Collection
On 14 November 2005, Never Forget – The Ultimate Collection, a new compilation of their hit singles including a new previously unreleased song, also achieved great success and peaked at number 2 on UK charts, selling over 2.1 million copies in the UK alone. The new song "Today I've Lost You" (recorded in September 2005) was originally written by Barlow as the follow up to "Back for Good" but was never recorded. On 16 November 2005, the group got back together for the ITV documentary Take That: For the Record, in which they aired their views over their fame, success, the split and what the post-Williams line-up had done since. On 25 November 2005, there was an official press conference by the band announcing that the post-Robbie Williams line-up was going to tour in 2006. The tour, entitled The Ultimate Tour, ran from April to June 2006. The tour featured a guest appearance by British soul singer Beverley Knight, who replaced Lulu's vocals on the song "Relight My Fire"; although Lulu did appear during the stadium shows on "Relight My Fire" and "Never Forget". The American female ensemble Pussycat Dolls supported the group at their Dublin concert, and the Sugababes supported the group on the final five dates of the stadium leg. In a seven-year study analysing over one billion online searches via Google conducted by AccuraCast, a leading digital search agency, their comeback was ranked at number one in the UK.
2006–2007: Beautiful World
On 9 May 2006, Take That returned to the recorded music scene after more than ten years of absence, signing with Polydor Records. The band's comeback album, Beautiful World, entered the UK Albums Chart at no. 1 and, as of June 2009, had sold over 2.8 million copies in the UK. It is the 35th best selling album in UK music history.
On Beautiful World, all four members of the band had the opportunity to sing lead vocals and contribute in the songwriting. Unlike the band's earlier works, where the majority of their material was written by Barlow who received sole credit, all four band members are credited as co-writers, along with John Shanks. The comeback single, "Patience", was released on 20 November 2006, with a special event launching it on 5 November.
On 26 November "Patience" hit number 1 in the UK in its second week of chart entry, making it the group's ninth No. 1, and staying there for 4 weeks. Take That also accompanied eventual winner Leona Lewis on a live version of "A Million Love Songs" during the final of The X Factor on 16 December 2006.
The week after Beautiful World was released, it was announced that Take That had become the first artists ever to top the UK official single and album charts along with the download single, download album and DVD charts in the same week, as well as topping the radio charts.
The video for the number 1 hit single "Shine", the follow-up to "Patience", premiered on 25 January 2007 on Channel 4, ahead of its release on 26 February 2007. The band's success continued on 14 February 2007 when Take That performed live at the BRIT Awards ceremony at Earl's Court. Their single "Patience" won the Best British Single category. The third single chosen from Beautiful World was "I'd Wait For Life", released on 18 June 2007 in the UK. The single reached 17 in the UK Singles Chart. This may have been due to lack of promotion, as the band decided to take a pre-tour break rather than do any promotion for the single. The single "Rule the World", included on the deluxe version of Beautiful World, was recorded for the soundtrack of the film Stardust (2007). It reached number two in the UK and went on to become the group's second best selling single, shifting over 1.2 million units in the UK. Beautiful World was the fourth biggest-selling album of 2007. It was announced at the start of 2007 that Take That signed a record deal with American label Interscope, and would also release their album in Canada. Starting on 11 October 2007, Take That began their Beautiful World Tour 2007 in Belfast. The tour included 49 shows throughout Europe and the UK and ended in Manchester on 23 December 2007. The band received four nominations at the 2008 BRIT Awards. Nominated for Best British Group, Best British Single ("Shine"), Best British Album (Beautiful World) and Best Live Act, they took home the Best Live Act and the Best British Single awards. According to a 2007 MSN UK internet poll, Take That were voted as the "comeback kings" of the year.
2008–2009: The Circus
"Greatest Day", the first single from the album The Circus, made its radio premiere on 13 October 2008 and it was released on 24 November. It debuted at number 1 on the UK Singles Chart on 30 November 2008. An album launch party for The Circus was held in Paris on 2 December. On its first day of release The Circus sold 133,000 copies, and after four days on sale it sold 306,000 copies (going platinum) making The Circus the fastest selling album of the year. The album reached number 1 on the UK Albums Chart on 7 December 2008 with total first-week sales of 432,490, the third highest opening sales week in UK history.
On 28 October 2008, on the Radio 1 Chris Moyles show, it was announced that Take That would be touring again in June/July 2009, covering the UK and Ireland. Tickets for the Take That Present: The Circus Live tour went on sale on 31 October. The promoters, SJM, have said that the band's tour is "the fastest selling in UK history".
On 22 May 2008, Barlow and Donald attended the 2008 Ivor Novello Awards where Take That won the award for Most Performed Work with their single "Shine". Take That won the Sony Ericsson Tour of the Year award at the Vodafone music awards on 18 September 2008. They were unable to attend as they were in LA finishing off The Circus. They did send a video link message, which was shown at the awards. On 22 November 2008, Take That appeared on week 7 of the talent show The X Factor where the finalists performed some of their greatest hits and Owen and Barlow made a guest appearance to personally coach the contestants. The band also performed on Children in Need 2008, singing their new single, "Greatest Day", before donating £250,000 to the charity from their Marks and Spencer fee. The band were also voted the Greatest Boy Band of All Time, reflecting their ongoing marketability and success in the pop arena, even after two decades.
At the 2009 Brit Awards they were nominated for Best British Group and they performed "Greatest Day" at the ceremony. "Up All Night", the second single from The Circus, was released on 2 March 2009, and peaked at number 14 on the UK Singles Chart, despite heavy airplay. In Germany and Australia, "The Garden" was released as the second single instead. On 7 May 2009, Take That's official website confirmed that the third single from The Circus would be "Said It All" which was released on 15 June 2009, peaking at number 9 on the UK Singles chart. The video premiered on GMTV on 8 May 2009. It features all four band members dressed up as vintage circus clowns, which tied in with their forthcoming Take That Present: The Circus Live tour. Take That started their Circus Live tour at the Stadium of Light on 5 June 2009 in Sunderland and ended at the Wembley Stadium in London on 5 July 2009, which over 80,000 people attended. This tour quickly became the fastest-selling of all time, breaking all records by selling all of their 650,000 tickets in less than four and a half hours.
In November 2009 Take That released the official DVD of their Circus tour, which became the fastest-selling music DVD of all time in the UK on its first day of release and stayed in the top 10 of the videos chart for over a year. This overtook the previous record sales holder, which was Take That's Beautiful World Live tour and stayed at the number 1 spot for 8 weeks. The following week Take That released their first live album, The Greatest Day – Take That Present: The Circus Live, which sold 98,000 copies on its first day of release and was certified Platinum in July 2013. "Hold up a Light" was released as the fifth and final single from The Circus to radio stations and as a digital download to promote the release of the live album. The live album also featured a stripped down session recorded live at the famous Abbey Road Studios in London. It featured the members singing the setlist from the preceding tour, albeit in a studio setting.
2010–2011: Williams' return and Progress
On 7 June 2010, the news broke of a single called "Shame", which had been written by Barlow and Williams and would feature the vocals of both artists. This was the first time the pair had worked together since 1995 and would appear on the second greatest hits collection of Williams. "Heart and I", another track from the same album, was also co-written by Williams and Barlow. The single "Shame" peaked at number 2 on the UK Singles Chart while also achieving success throughout Europe, charting in over 19 countries.
After working with the band on new material in Los Angeles, on 15 July 2010 Robbie Williams announced he was returning to Take That. After months of working together, assembling new songs for a new album and even debating a band-name change to "The English", a joint statement between Williams and the group read, "The rumours are true ... Take That: the original lineup, have written and recorded a new album for release later this year." The statement went on to say, "Following months of speculation Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Jason Orange, Mark Owen, and Robbie Williams confirmed they have been recording a new studio album as a five-piece, which they will release in November." The lead single from Take That's album Progress was announced as "The Flood" and was released 7 November as a digital download, and on 8 November as a physical copy, with the album released a week later on 15 November. The single peaked at number 2 in the UK Singles Charts and to date has sold over 500,000 copies in the UK alone. The single also achieved success across Europe, charting inside the top 10 in ten countries while also charting in another nine countries whilst also being nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for best work.
On 26 October the band announced that they would be embarking on a huge UK stadium tour entitled Progress Live, starting in Sunderland on 27 May, and finishing with a record-breaking 8 nights at London's Wembley Stadium in July 2011. It was also announced that Williams would perform hit singles from his solo career during the tour. The band then played at some of the biggest venues across Europe for the second leg of the tour. The phenomenal demand for tickets across the country led to the web sites of all the major UK ticket suppliers either crashing or considerably slowing for hours on end. The demand and sheer volume of fans also created problems for the UK telephone network. Take That's Progress Live also broke all records for ticket sales selling over 1.1 million tickets in one day, smashing the previous box office record set by Take That's Circus tour in 2008.
On the first day of release Progress became the fastest selling album of the century, with 235,000 copies sold in just one day. The album reached number 1 in the UK, selling around 520,000 copies in its first week, becoming the second fastest-selling album in history. After the release of Progress it was announced that Take That have become Amazon UK's top-selling music artist of all time.
The album retained the number one spot for six consecutive weeks in the UK since its release, selling 2.8 million copies in the UK alone and becoming the best selling album of 2010
Progress also achieved success across Europe where it debuted at number one in Ireland, Greece, Germany and Denmark. and the European Top 100 Albums chart. It also debuted inside the top 10 of the charts in Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland.
"Kidz" was announced as the second single from Progress, it was released 21 February 2011 and charted well across Europe. The band performed the song live at the 2011 Brit Awards hosted at The O2 Arena, where they won a Brit for Best British Group and were nominated for Best British Album. Their performance of "Kidz", praised by critics, involved a highly choreographed routine featuring dancers dressed in police-styled riot gear bearing the Take That symbol on the uniform and shields. On 19 May 2011, Take That announced a new EP entitled Progressed, which contained eight tracks written by the band since they had reunited as a five-piece. It was packaged alongside the album Progress and returned the band to number 1 in the UK Album Chart the week after it was released on 13 June 2011.
Take That announced that the Progress Live tour would be released worldwide as their second live album to date and would also be released on home media formats across the UK and Europe on 21 November 2011. The DVD debuted at number 1 on the UK Music Video top 40 in its first week on release and sold over 200,000 copies in two weeks of release in the UK alone. Take That's efforts were recognised further when they were awarded Virgin Media's Best Live Act of 2012.
On 4 October, it was reported that Take That were to take a break after the completion of the Progress tour, with Barlow continuing his role as a judge on The X Factor and Williams recording new solo material. Take That were presented with an Ivor Novello Award for their Outstanding Contribution to British Music in May 2012.
In August 2012, Take That performed at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics, despite Barlow announcing that his daughter had been stillborn the previous week. The performance earned him praise for appearing live so soon after the tragedy. Williams was due to perform with the band but dropped out due to his wife giving birth at around the same time and thus the group performed as a four-piece. In November 2012, Take That reunited as a five-piece for the last time to perform "Never Forget" at the Music Industry Trust Awards. In 2013, Donald became a judge on the German version of the television dancing show Got to Dance.
2014–2015: Line-up change and III
In May 2013, Owen announced that Take That was to begin recording their seventh studio album in 2014, and on 14 January 2014, Donald and Barlow both tweeted that Take That had entered the studio to begin recording the album, although it was not initially clear if Williams was present at these recording sessions. On 28 April 2014, Williams announced on Twitter he was to become a father for a second time, and consequently suggested he would be unable to join Take That on their album and tour. Although welcome to return to the band at any time, Williams chose not to return for group's seventh and eighth studio albums and their accompanying tours, focusing instead on his solo commitments. He continued to write music with his colleagues and has performed with the group on several occasions since 2011's Progress tour and plans on returning at some point in the future.
On 24 September 2014, it was announced that Jason Orange had left the band. He said: 'At a band meeting last week I confirmed to Mark, Gary and Howard that I do not wish to commit to recording and promoting a new album. 'At the end of The Progress Tour I began to question whether it might be the right time for me to not continue on with Take That,' he continued. 'There have been no fallings out, only a decision on my part that I no longer wish to do this,' he added. Barlow, Donald, and Owen issued a joint statement about Orange's decision which said: "This is a sad day for us. Jason leaving is a huge loss both professionally and even more so personally ... Jason's energy and belief in what this band could achieve has made it what it is today, and we'll forever be grateful for his enthusiasm, dedication and inspiration over the years." A day after the announcement, Robbie Williams took to Twitter to show support of Orange's decision. "Mr Orange. Until we ride again. Much love, Bro.", Williams tweeted.
On 10 October 2014, Take That unveiled their first song as a three-piece and lead single from their upcoming album. Titled "These Days", it was released on 23 November 2014 and went to No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart, knocking Band Aid 30 off the top spot and becoming their 12th number one single. The album itself, called III, was released on 28 November 2014 and became the band's seventh No. 1 album. It was then followed by a sell-out arena tour entitled Take That Live. On 14 October 2015, the band announced their new single "Hey Boy", released on 16 October, which is the first single from the 2015 re-release of III. The 2015 edition of the album was released on 20 November.
In December 2015, British media buzzed about the group embarking on a stint in Las Vegas, starting 2017. Reports indicated the group impressed U.S. promoters and would headline their own residency show. Many venues circulated, including The AXIS at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, The Foundry at SLS Las Vegas and the Linq Theater at The LINQ Hotel & Casino. Local newspaper, the Las Vegas Sun writes that everything is still unconfirmed, despite Barlow confirming the rumour on Twitter.
2016–2017: Wonderland
On 2 February 2016, in an interview with The Sun, Barlow revealed that Take That would release their eighth studio album later in the year. On 4 May 2016, English drum and bass duo Sigma announced their newest single would feature Take That. "Cry" received its first radio play on 20 May 2016 and was released on that date. On 21 October 2016, the band posted a teaser on their social media pages and website depicting the logo of the band flickering with the hashtag "#WONDERLAND". The following day, it was announced that their new album, titled Wonderland, was scheduled to be released on 24 March 2017. It was then followed by a UK and Ireland arena tour entitled Wonderland Live, that commenced on 5 May 2017 at the Genting Arena in Birmingham. On 17 February 2017, the lead single of Wonderland was released. Titled "Giants", it debuted at 13 in the UK charts, which became the band's 24th UK top 20 single.
On 8 April 2017, ITV aired a specially commissioned hour-length television special titled An Evening with Take That, where the band performed some songs from the album, along with some old classics including "Never Forget", "Back for Good" and "Rule the World". The band also took part in a Q&A session with the audience members. On 27 April, it was announced on Twitter that "New Day" would be released as the next single from the album Wonderland. The band were seen recording the music video in a field in Luton the days leading up the opening night of the Wonderland Live tour. Due to the Manchester Arena bombing just days before they were due to perform at the venue, their Manchester and Liverpool dates were rescheduled or relocated. The band returned a month later to perform at the One Love Manchester benefit concert.
On 16 September 2017, Barlow, Owen and Donald were set to perform a special one-off show in Jersey after a fan bid more than £1.2 million to win a performance from the band. This then turned in to a ticketed charity event where the money from tickets sold would go towards benefiting Children in Need. The auction was held on BBC Radio 2. On 11 November 2017, Take That began their foreign tour in Perth, Australia, the first time they have performed in the country in over twenty years. They also played in New Zealand, United Arab Emirates and Israel for the first time. Unlike the other tours, a DVD for Wonderland Live was not released. Instead, it was broadcast on Sky 1 on 23 December and in cinemas.
2018–2020: The 30th Anniversary, and Odyssey
On 16 July 2018, while performing at first ever Hits Radio Live at the Manchester Arena, Barlow, Donald and Owen confirmed that they would be touring in 2019. The tour was a Greatest Hits tour and celebrated the 30th anniversary of the band. There was also a Greatest Hits album, Odyssey, which was released on 23 November 2018. The Greatest Hits album features existing songs from their back catalogue that have been re-imagined and 3 brand new songs. It also includes collaborations with Boyz II Men, Lulu, Sigma and Barry Gibb. Odyssey reached number one in the UK album chart and was certified as a platinum selling record. The following year, Odyssey Live, the recording of their tour, reached number 5, becoming the band's 13th top 5 album, with the DVD becoming the biggest live music sale of 2019.
In May 2020, Barlow, Donald, and Owen reunited with Williams for a virtual performance from their respective homes, hosted by price comparison website comparethemarket.com, to raise money for the music charity Nordoff Robbins and Crew Nation.
In other media
In April 2006, EMI licensed the band's songs to be used in the musical Never Forget, a musical based on songs of the band from the 1990s. Take That posted and then later removed a statement on their website distancing themselves from it.
Take That wrote and recorded the theme song "Rule the World" for the film Stardust directed by Matthew Vaughn, which was released in cinemas across the globe in October 2007. In 2007, their song "Back for Good" was used as part of the soundtrack for popular Korean drama The 1st Shop of Coffee Prince.
Take That presented their own TV show Take That Come to Town, a variety show in which they performed some of their biggest hits. The show also featured comedy sketches with one of Peter Kay's alter egos Geraldine McQueen. It aired on 7 December 2008 on ITV1. Sony launched their first Take That video game, SingStar Take That in 2009 for the PlayStation 3.
In November 2010, ITV aired Take That: Look Back, Don't Stare, a black-and-white documentary which focused on the band working together for the first time in 15 years. Through a series of interviews, the band look back at their achievements while also looking forward to what the future holds for them. On 18 November 2010, Williams and Barlow appeared together live on television for the first time on the Popstars program in Germany singing their hit "Shame".
In 2011, Take That's song "Love Love" was used in the credits of the 2011 film X-Men: First Class and later, "When We Were Young" was chosen as the main theme for The Three Musketeers movie. In 2015, the song "Get Ready for It" from their album III, was chosen as the theme song for the film Kingsman: The Secret Service.
In 2017, Take That launched The Band, a musical written by Tim Firth featuring the five winners of Let It Shine and some of Take That's biggest hits. Take That, including Robbie Williams, were billed as executive producers.
The group's music is regularly featured in the Channel 4 show Derry Girls, notably in the third episode of the second series, when the lead characters sneak off to attend the 1993 Take That concert in Belfast; the episode features the music video for "Pray" and ends on footage of the band performing "Everything Changes".
Artistry
Early in their career, Take That were known for party anthems such as "Do What U Like" and more mature ballads such as "A Million Love Songs" and "Back for Good". Since reuniting in 2006, they have become more experimental: their post-2006 albums Beautiful World and The Circus have featured "stadium-filling pop-rock" while Progress largely leaned towards electropop. Having been dubbed the "comeback kings" by the media for their highly successful reunion, the group has won widespread praise for their seamless transformation from teen idols to "man band" without overly relying on nostalgia, instead showcasing a more mature image and sound and reinventing themselves while maintaining their artistic integrity. Jude Rogers of The Guardian commented on Take That's post-reunion success, in light of a string of reunions by the group's disbanded counterparts from the 1990s: "Only Take That are penetrating pop's wider consciousness by becoming a man-band rather than a boy-band, singing mature, proper pop songs that cross the generations."
Take That have garnered critical acclaim and popularity as consummate live performers and for their musical output. Their domestic concert tours have been described as "some of the most flamboyant, imaginative and extravagant pop tours around". Aside from covers, all of their material is composed by the members themselves; Barlow was initially the principal songwriter who received sole credit but the other members have since taken a more active role in the composition and production process, including playing instruments for the backing track.
Band members
Current members
Gary Barlow (1990–1996, 2005–present)
Howard Donald (1990–1996, 2005–present)
Mark Owen (1990–1996, 2005–present)
Former members
Robbie Williams (1990–1995, 2010–2012)
Jason Orange (1990–1996, 2005–2014)
Timeline
Awards and nominations
|-
| 2016
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award for Best Live Act
|
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|2015
| "These Days"
| UK Music Video Awards for Best Art Direction
|
|-
| rowspan="6" style="text-align:center;"|2012
| "Pray"
|The Guardian Music Award for Best Number 1 Single
|
|-
| Take That
|Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music
|
|-
| "Back for Good"
|The Official Charts Company UK Recognition award for United Kingdom's Favourite Number One Single
|
|-
| "The Flood"
|Ivor Novello Award for PRS Most Performed Work
|
|-
| Take That
|Virgin Media Music Awards for Best Live Act
|
|-
| "Kidz"
|Virgin Media Music Awards for Best Music Video
|
|-
| rowspan="10" style="text-align:center;"|2011
|-
| Progress Live
|Audio Pro International Awards for Best Live Sound Event
|
|-
| Progress Live
|Audio Pro International Awards Grand Prix Award
|
|-
| Take That
|Phonographic Performance Limited Award for most played UK artist
|
|-
| "Kidz"
|Spex German Entertainment for Best Music Video
|
|-
| The Circus Live Tour
| Greatest Event ever at Wembley Stadium
|
|-
| Take That
|ECHO Award for Best International Group
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Group
|
|-
| Progress
| BRIT Award for MasterCard Album of the Year
|
|-
| Take That
|Virgin Media for Best Group
|
|-
| rowspan="6" style="text-align:center;"|2010
|-
| "Up All Night"
| UK Music Video Awards for Best Art Direction
|
|-
| "The Flood"
|iTunes Award for Best Single
|
|-
| Progress
| iTunes Award for Best Album
|
|-
| Take That
|Q Award Hall of Fame
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best Live Performance of the past 30 Years
|
|-
| rowspan="5" style="text-align:center;"|2009
| Take That
|GQ Men of the Year Awards for Best Band
|
|-
| Take That
|Q Award for Best Live Act
|
|-
| "Greatest Day"
|Q Award for Best Single
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Group
|
|-
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award
|
|-
| rowspan="7" style="text-align:center;"|2008
| "Shine"
|Ivor Novello Award for PRS Most Performed Work
|
|-
| "Rule the World"
|Virgin for Best Single
|
|-
| Take That
|Sony Ericsson Tour of the Year Award for Take That Arena Tour
|
|-
| "Shine"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Live Act
|
|-
| Beautiful World
|BRIT Award for Best British Album
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Group
|
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|2007
| "Patience"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|2006
| Take That
|Q Idol Award
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"|1996
| "Back for Good"
|Billboard International Hit of the Year
|
|-
| "Never Forget"
|Ivor Novello Award for Most Performed Song
|
|-
| "Back for Good"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"|1995
| "Back for Good"
|Ivor Novello Award for the Song of the Year
|
|-
| Take That
|MTV Europe Music Awards for Best Live Act
|
|-
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award
|
|-
| rowspan="6" style="text-align:center;"|1994
| "Babe"
|MTV Video Music Award for International Viewer's Choice Award for MTV Europe
|
|-
| Everything Changes
|Mercury Prize for Best Album
|
|-
| "Pray"
|Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song
|
|-
| "Pray"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| "Pray"
|BRIT Award for Best British Video
|
|-
| Take That
|MTV Europe Music Awards for Best Group
|
|-
| rowspan="4" style="text-align:center;"|1993
| "Could It Be Magic"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| "A Million Love Songs"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| "It Only Takes a Minute"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award for Best Newcomer
|
|}
Discography
Take That & Party (1992)
Everything Changes (1993)
Nobody Else (1995)
Beautiful World (2006)
The Circus (2008)
Progress (2010)
III (2014)
Wonderland (2017)
Tours
Party Tour (1992–93)
Everything Changes Tour (1993–94)
Pops Tour (1994–95)
Nobody Else Tour (1995)
The Ultimate Tour (2006)
Beautiful World Tour 2007 (2007)
Take That Present: The Circus Live (2009)
Progress Live (2011)
Take That Live (2015)
Wonderland Live (2017)
Greatest Hits Live (2019)
See also
List of best-selling boy bands
References
External links
Chinese Fansite
1990 establishments in England
1996 disestablishments in England
2005 establishments in England
Brit Award winners
Dance-pop groups
Echo (music award) winners
English boy bands
English dance music groups
Interscope Records artists
Ivor Novello Award winners
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1996
Musical groups established in 1990
Musical groups from Cheshire
Musical groups from Manchester
Musical groups reestablished in 2005
Polydor Records artists
Teen pop groups
Universal Music Group artists
Vocal quartets
Vocal quintets
Vocal trios | true | [
"\"What Did I Do to You?\" is a song recorded by British singer Lisa Stansfield for her 1989 album, Affection. It was written by Stansfield, Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, and produced by Devaney and Morris. The song was released as the fourth European single on 30 April 1990. It included three previously unreleased songs written by Stansfield, Devaney and Morris: \"My Apple Heart,\" \"Lay Me Down\" and \"Something's Happenin'.\" \"What Did I Do to You?\" was remixed by Mark Saunders and by the Grammy Award-winning American house music DJ and producer, David Morales. The single became a top forty hit in the European countries reaching number eighteen in Finland, number twenty in Ireland and number twenty-five in the United Kingdom. \"What Did I Do to You?\" was also released in Japan.\n\nIn 2014, the remixes of \"What Did I Do to You?\" were included on the deluxe 2CD + DVD re-release of Affection and on People Hold On ... The Remix Anthology. They were also featured on The Collection 1989–2003 box set (2014), including previously unreleased Red Zone Mix by David Morales.\n\nCritical reception\nThe song received positive reviews from music critics. Matthew Hocter from Albumism viewed it as a \"upbeat offering\". David Giles from Music Week said it is \"beautifully performed\" by Stansfield. A reviewer from Reading Eagle wrote that \"What Did I Do to You?\" \"would be right at home on the \"Saturday Night Fever\" soundtrack.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Philip Richardson, who had previously directed the videos for \"All Around the World\" and \"Live Together\". It features Stansfield with her kiss curls, dressed in a white outfit and performing with her band on a stage in front of a jumping audience. The video was later published on Stansfield's official YouTube channel in November 2009. It has amassed more than 1,6 million views as of October 2021.\n\nTrack listings\n\n European/UK 7\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK/Japanese CD single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n UK 10\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix) – 5:52\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK 12\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 4:22\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 3:19\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:15\n\n UK 12\" promotional single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Anti Poll Tax Dub) – 6:31\n\n Other remixes\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Red Zone Mix) – 7:45\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nLisa Stansfield songs\n1990 singles\nSongs written by Lisa Stansfield\n1989 songs\nArista Records singles\nSongs written by Ian Devaney\nSongs written by Andy Morris (musician)",
"\"Do What U Like\" is the debut single by English boy band Take That. It was released on 22 July 1991 as the lead single from their debut studio album, Take That & Party (1992).\n\nBackground\nThe song was written by Gary Barlow and Ray Hedges, and it was produced by Hedges with additional production by Graham Stack. \"Do What U Like\" was released on 15 July 1991 as the lead single from Take That's debut album Take That & Party (1992). The single was released on then-manager Nigel Martin-Smith's record label Dance U.K. and distributed by BMG (to which, through RCA Records division, later signed). The song failed to chart in any country, and was also the only single not to be included on the band's second greatest hits compilation, Never Forget – The Ultimate Collection (2005).\n\nOriginally released only on 7\" and 12\" vinyl records and as cassette single, it received a CD single reissue in 1992, from their at-time home label RCA Records, only in Australia.\n\nIn concert\nDuring the band's early television appearances and outdoor shows, the song was a recurring number to play. They performed it during the \"Pops\" tour with Mini-Take That, a preteen group that sang the material of the band.\n\nFor the \"Nobody Else\", and the subsequent \"Ultimate Tour 2006\" and \"Beautiful World Tour 2007\", the song was never played, because the band members felt that the high energy dance choreography was not possible for them to do. However, during Take That Present: The Circus Live, it was included in a medley of their earliest singles from Take That and Party with Jason and Howard performing the complicated moves and classic routines for \"Promises\", \"It Only Takes a Minute\" and \"Take That and Party\".\n\nMusic video\nThe low-budget music video for \"Do What U Like\", co-directed by former BBC Radio 1 DJ and The Old Grey Whistle Test presenter Rosemary \"Ro\" Barratt (née Newton) and MTV Europe director Angie Smith, was shot at Vector Television studios in Heaton Mersey on 21 June 1991. Featuring the band getting naked, bare buttocks and smearing jelly over themselves, the video was banned from daytime television, and at the time was only shown on Pete Waterman's late night show The Hitman and Her.\n\nReaction to the video (and, to an extent, the song) among the bandmates has been somewhat negative. In the documentary Take That: For the Record, Barlow admits that neither the song nor video were brilliant, but they were important in helping the band getting noticed. The video was also omitted from the 2005 video compilation Never Forget - The Ultimate Collection. Otherwise, it became available in digital distribution, streaming services and on band's official YouTube channel.\n\nPersonnel\nGary Barlow – lead vocals\nHoward Donald – backing vocals\nJason Orange – backing vocals\nMark Owen – backing vocals\nRobbie Williams – backing vocals\n\nTrack listings\nAustrian CD single (CDDUK2)\n \"Do What U Like\" (Club Mix) – 6:14\n \"Do What U Like\" (Radio Mix) – 3:06\n \"Waiting Around\" – 2:56\n\nUK 7\" vinyl (DUK2)\n \"Do What U Like\" (Radio Mix) – 3:06\n \"Waiting Around\" – 2:56\n\nUK cassette (CADUK2)\n \"Do What U Like\" (Radio Mix) – 3:06\n \"Waiting Around\" – 2:56\n\nUK 12\" vinyl (12DUK2)\n \"Do What U Like\" (Club Mix) – 6:14\n \"Do What U Like\" (Radio Mix) – 3:06\n \"Waiting Around\" – 2:56\n\nOfficial versions\n Radio mix (3:06)\n Club mix (6:15)\n 12\" mix (5:06)\n\nReferences\n\n1991 debut singles\n1991 songs\nTake That songs\nSongs written by Gary Barlow\nSongs written by Ray Hedges\nSong recordings produced by Ray Hedges\nSong recordings produced by Graham Stack (record producer)"
] |
[
"Take That",
"1993-1995: Everything Changes, Nobody Else and superstardom",
"what did take that do in 1993",
"1993 saw the release of Everything Changes,"
] | C_93f5c84a4b2e459c97d351f6a21ea1d5_1 | how well did everything changes do | 2 | How well did the album Everything Changes do? | Take That | 1993 saw the release of Everything Changes, based on Barlow's original material. It peaked at number one in the UK and spawned six singles, with four being consecutive UK number one singles - their first number one "Pray", "Relight My Fire", "Babe" and the title track "Everything Changes". The lead single "Why Can't I Wake Up with You" had narrowly missed the top spot in the UK peaking at number two and the sixth and final single "Love Ain't Here Anymore" taken from the album reached number three on the UK charts. Everything Changes saw the band gain international success with the album being nominated for the 1994 Mercury Prize, but it failed to crack the U.S. market, where an exclusive remix of "Love Ain't Here Anymore" (U.S. version) gained little success. By 1994, Take That had become radio and television stars across Europe and Asia, but it was not until 1995 that they did their first World Tour. It was during the years 1993-95 that the band fronted scores of magazine covers ranging from Smash Hits to GQ, becoming mass merchandised on all sorts of paraphernalia ranging from picture books, to posters, stickers, their own dolls, jewellery, caps, T-shirts, toothbrushes and even had their own annuals released. The band had also developed a large female teenage fanbase at the time. During this time, they performed at numerous music awards shows and chart shows such as the BRIT Awards and Top of the Pops, also winning the Best Live Act award in 1995 at the MTV Europe Music Awards, having been renowned for their breakdance routines, high energy and creative tour productions. In 1995, Take That released their third studio album Nobody Else, again based on Barlow's own material which reached number 1 in the UK and across Europe, capturing new audiences along the way, with Take That also able to make inroads in the adult audience in Britain through Barlow's melodic, sensitive ballads. For nearly five years, Take That's popularity was unsurpassed in Britain. The release of the first single from the album, "Sure", achieved yet another number one in the UK charts. It was not until their second release from that album, however, that they would experience what would become their biggest hit single, "Back for Good", which reached number one in 31 countries around the globe and to date has been covered 89 times the world over. It was also their only US hit, where it reached number seven. The song was initially unveiled for the first time via live performance while at the 1995 BRIT Awards, and based on the reception of that performance, the record pre-sold more records than expected and forced the record label to bring the release date forward by an unprecedented six weeks. The album was also noted for its cover which was a parody of the famed cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover sleeve. CANNOTANSWER | material. It peaked at number one in the UK and spawned six singles, with four being consecutive UK number one singles | Take That are an English pop group formed in Manchester in 1990. The group currently consists of Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen. The original line-up also featured Jason Orange and Robbie Williams. Barlow is the group's lead singer and primary songwriter, with Owen and Williams initially providing backing vocals and Donald and Orange serving primarily as dancers.
The group have had 28 top 40 singles and 17 top 5 singles on the UK Singles Chart, 12 of which have reached number one, including "Back for Good", "Never Forget", "Patience" and "Greatest Day". They have also had eight number one albums on the UK Albums Chart. Internationally, the band have had 56 number one singles and 39 number one albums. They have received eight Brit Awards—winning for Best British Group and Best British Live Act. In 2012 they received an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. According to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), Take That has been certified for 14 million albums and 11.4 million singles in the UK.
Williams left the band in 1995 while the four remaining members completed their world tour and released a final single before splitting up in 1996. After filming a 2005 Take That: For the Record about the group and releasing a new greatest hits album, a four-piece Take That without Williams officially announced a 2006 reunion tour around the UK, entitled The Ultimate Tour. On 9 May 2006, it was announced that the group were set to record new material together once again; their fourth studio album, Beautiful World, was released in 2006 and was followed up with The Circus, in 2008. The group achieved new success as a four-piece, scoring a string of chart hits across the UK and Europe while selling over 45 million records worldwide. Williams rejoined Take That in 2010 for the band's sixth studio album, Progress. Released on 15 November of that year, it was the first album of new material to feature Take That's original line-up since their 1995 album, Nobody Else. It became the fastest-selling album of the 21st century and the second fastest-selling album in British history.
In 2014, the band recorded a seventh studio album, this time as a trio without Williams and Orange. The album, titled III, was released in November 2014 and became the band's seventh number one. It was preceded by the single "These Days", which became the band's 12th number one single in the UK.
In 2011, Take That set the new record for the fastest-selling tour of all time in the UK with Progress Live, beating the previous record set by their Circus Live Tour in 2009. At the 2011 Brit Awards they won Best British Group. In 2012, Forbes named them the fifth highest-earning music stars in the world. The group performed at the London 2012 Olympic Games closing ceremony, playing "Rule the World" while the Olympic Flame was extinguished. In the same year, the Official Charts Company revealed the biggest-selling singles artists in British music chart history with Take That currently placed at 15th overall, making them the most successful boy band in UK chart history. Four of their albums are listed in the best-selling albums of the millennium, with three of them among the 60 best-selling albums in UK chart history.
History
1989–1990: Formation
In 1989, Manchester-based Nigel Martin-Smith sought to create a British male vocal singing group modelled on New Kids on the Block. Martin-Smith's vision, however, was a teen-orientated group that would appeal to more than one demographic segment of the music industry. Martin-Smith was then introduced to young singer-songwriter Gary Barlow, who had been performing in clubs since the age of 15. Impressed with Barlow's catalogue of self-written material, Martin-Smith decided to build his new-look boy band around Barlow's musical abilities. A campaign to audition young men with abilities in dancing and singing followed and took place in Manchester and other surrounding cities in 1990. At 22, Howard Donald was one of the oldest to audition, but he was chosen after he got time off work as a vehicle painter to continue the process. Prior to auditioning, Jason Orange had appeared as a breakdancer on the popular television programme The Hit Man and Her. Martin-Smith also selected 18-year-old bank employee Mark Owen and finally 16-year-old Robbie Williams to round out the group, which initially went by the name Kick It.
1990–1992: Take That & Party
Take That's first TV appearance was on The Hit Man and Her in 1990, where they performed Barlow's self-written, unreleased song, "My Kind of Girl". They later appeared a second time to perform "Waiting Around", which would become the B-side for the first single, "Do What U Like". "Promises" and "Once You've Tasted Love" were also released as singles but were minor hits in the UK. Take That initially worked the same territory as their American counterparts, singing new jack R&B, urban soul, and mainstream pop. However, they worked their way toward Hi-NRG dance music, while also pursuing an adult contemporary ballad direction. As they aimed to break into the mainstream music industry, they worked a number of small clubs, schools, and events across the country building up a fanbase as they travelled to gigs constantly for months.
Take That's breakthrough single was a cover of the 1975 Tavares hit "It Only Takes a Minute", which peaked at number seven on the UK Singles Chart in June 1992. This success was followed by "I Found Heaven", then by the first Barlow ballad "A Million Love Songs", which also reached number seven in October. Their cover of the Barry Manilow hit "Could It Be Magic" gave them their first big success, peaking at number three in the UK in the first chart of 1993. Their first album, Take That & Party, was released in 1992, and included all the hit singles to date.
1993–1995: Everything Changes, Nobody Else and superstardom
1993 saw the release of Everything Changes, based on Barlow's original material. It peaked at number one in the UK and spawned six singles, with four being consecutive UK number one singles – their first number one "Pray", "Relight My Fire", "Babe" and the title track "Everything Changes". The lead single "Why Can't I Wake Up with You" had narrowly missed the top spot in the UK peaking at number two and the sixth and final single "Love Ain't Here Anymore" taken from the album reached number three on the UK charts. Everything Changes saw the band gain international success with the album being nominated for the 1994 Mercury Prize, but it failed to crack the U.S. market, where an exclusive remix of "Love Ain't Here Anymore" (U.S. version) gained little success.
By 1994, Take That had become radio and television stars across Europe and Asia, but it was not until 1995 that they did their first World Tour. It was during the years 1993–95 that the band fronted scores of magazine covers ranging from Smash Hits to GQ, becoming mass merchandised on all sorts of paraphernalia ranging from picture books, to posters, stickers, their own dolls, jewellery, caps, T-shirts, toothbrushes and even had their own annuals released. The band had also developed a large female teenage fanbase at the time. During this time, they performed at numerous music awards shows and chart shows such as the BRIT Awards and Top of the Pops, also winning the Best Live Act award in 1995 at the MTV Europe Music Awards, having been renowned for their breakdance routines, high energy and creative tour productions.
In 1995, Take That released their third studio album Nobody Else, again based on Barlow's own material which reached number 1 in the UK and across Europe, capturing new audiences along the way, with Take That also able to make inroads in the adult audience in Britain through Barlow's melodic, sensitive ballads. For nearly five years, Take That's popularity was unsurpassed in Britain. The release of the first single from the album, "Sure", achieved yet another number one in the UK charts. It was not until their second release from that album, however, that they would experience what would become their biggest hit single, "Back for Good", which reached number one in many countries including the UK, Germany, Australia, and Norway. It was also their only US hit, where it reached number seven.
The song was initially unveiled for the first time via live performance while at the 1995 BRIT Awards, and based on the reception of that performance, the record pre-sold more records than expected and forced the record label to bring the release date forward by an unprecedented six weeks. The album was also noted for its cover, which was a parody of the famed cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover sleeve.
1995–1996: Break-up and Greatest Hits
Robbie Williams's drug abuse had escalated to a near drug overdose the night before the group was scheduled to perform at the MTV Europe Music Awards in 1994.
In June 1995, Williams was photographed by the press partying with Oasis at the Glastonbury Festival. The following month, the band offered him an ultimatum; he was to adhere to the band's responsibilities or leave before their scheduled world tour. Williams chose the latter. Williams claimed he was bored with Barlow's leadership and jealous of Barlow. Despite the loss of Williams, Take That continued to promote Nobody Else as a four-piece, scoring a further hit single with "Never Forget" with Donald on lead vocal. They subsequently went to America and completed the Nobody Else Tour in October 1995. Following the tour, the band began to plan for their next album; however, when they spent Christmas together, they mutually agreed it was time to part ways.
On 13 February 1996, Take That formally announced that they were disbanding. This was followed by the Greatest Hits compilation in 1996, which contained a new recording, a cover of the Bee Gees' "How Deep Is Your Love". The single went on to become what was to be the band's final UK number one until their 2006 comeback a decade later. Take That gave what was thought to be their final performance in April 1996 at Amsterdam. Following the band's announcement, millions of their fans were distraught around the world and in the UK alone, teenage girls threatened suicide and were seen lining streets in tears, to the point that telephone hotlines were set up by the government to deal with counselling them. After the band broke up, highly respected music figures such as Elton John noted that Take That were different from other boy bands before and after them, in that they wrote their own material through Gary Barlow. Barlow is one of only a small number of people who have won an Ivor Novello award during their time in a boy band, with George Michael whilst in Wham! and Tony Mortimer whilst in East 17 being two others who have achieved this feat. Take That had also left a legacy of being immaculate performers with a very high work ethic, causing them to be voted in as the greatest boy band of all time.
2005–2006: Reunion as a quartet and Never Forget – The Ultimate Collection
On 14 November 2005, Never Forget – The Ultimate Collection, a new compilation of their hit singles including a new previously unreleased song, also achieved great success and peaked at number 2 on UK charts, selling over 2.1 million copies in the UK alone. The new song "Today I've Lost You" (recorded in September 2005) was originally written by Barlow as the follow up to "Back for Good" but was never recorded. On 16 November 2005, the group got back together for the ITV documentary Take That: For the Record, in which they aired their views over their fame, success, the split and what the post-Williams line-up had done since. On 25 November 2005, there was an official press conference by the band announcing that the post-Robbie Williams line-up was going to tour in 2006. The tour, entitled The Ultimate Tour, ran from April to June 2006. The tour featured a guest appearance by British soul singer Beverley Knight, who replaced Lulu's vocals on the song "Relight My Fire"; although Lulu did appear during the stadium shows on "Relight My Fire" and "Never Forget". The American female ensemble Pussycat Dolls supported the group at their Dublin concert, and the Sugababes supported the group on the final five dates of the stadium leg. In a seven-year study analysing over one billion online searches via Google conducted by AccuraCast, a leading digital search agency, their comeback was ranked at number one in the UK.
2006–2007: Beautiful World
On 9 May 2006, Take That returned to the recorded music scene after more than ten years of absence, signing with Polydor Records. The band's comeback album, Beautiful World, entered the UK Albums Chart at no. 1 and, as of June 2009, had sold over 2.8 million copies in the UK. It is the 35th best selling album in UK music history.
On Beautiful World, all four members of the band had the opportunity to sing lead vocals and contribute in the songwriting. Unlike the band's earlier works, where the majority of their material was written by Barlow who received sole credit, all four band members are credited as co-writers, along with John Shanks. The comeback single, "Patience", was released on 20 November 2006, with a special event launching it on 5 November.
On 26 November "Patience" hit number 1 in the UK in its second week of chart entry, making it the group's ninth No. 1, and staying there for 4 weeks. Take That also accompanied eventual winner Leona Lewis on a live version of "A Million Love Songs" during the final of The X Factor on 16 December 2006.
The week after Beautiful World was released, it was announced that Take That had become the first artists ever to top the UK official single and album charts along with the download single, download album and DVD charts in the same week, as well as topping the radio charts.
The video for the number 1 hit single "Shine", the follow-up to "Patience", premiered on 25 January 2007 on Channel 4, ahead of its release on 26 February 2007. The band's success continued on 14 February 2007 when Take That performed live at the BRIT Awards ceremony at Earl's Court. Their single "Patience" won the Best British Single category. The third single chosen from Beautiful World was "I'd Wait For Life", released on 18 June 2007 in the UK. The single reached 17 in the UK Singles Chart. This may have been due to lack of promotion, as the band decided to take a pre-tour break rather than do any promotion for the single. The single "Rule the World", included on the deluxe version of Beautiful World, was recorded for the soundtrack of the film Stardust (2007). It reached number two in the UK and went on to become the group's second best selling single, shifting over 1.2 million units in the UK. Beautiful World was the fourth biggest-selling album of 2007. It was announced at the start of 2007 that Take That signed a record deal with American label Interscope, and would also release their album in Canada. Starting on 11 October 2007, Take That began their Beautiful World Tour 2007 in Belfast. The tour included 49 shows throughout Europe and the UK and ended in Manchester on 23 December 2007. The band received four nominations at the 2008 BRIT Awards. Nominated for Best British Group, Best British Single ("Shine"), Best British Album (Beautiful World) and Best Live Act, they took home the Best Live Act and the Best British Single awards. According to a 2007 MSN UK internet poll, Take That were voted as the "comeback kings" of the year.
2008–2009: The Circus
"Greatest Day", the first single from the album The Circus, made its radio premiere on 13 October 2008 and it was released on 24 November. It debuted at number 1 on the UK Singles Chart on 30 November 2008. An album launch party for The Circus was held in Paris on 2 December. On its first day of release The Circus sold 133,000 copies, and after four days on sale it sold 306,000 copies (going platinum) making The Circus the fastest selling album of the year. The album reached number 1 on the UK Albums Chart on 7 December 2008 with total first-week sales of 432,490, the third highest opening sales week in UK history.
On 28 October 2008, on the Radio 1 Chris Moyles show, it was announced that Take That would be touring again in June/July 2009, covering the UK and Ireland. Tickets for the Take That Present: The Circus Live tour went on sale on 31 October. The promoters, SJM, have said that the band's tour is "the fastest selling in UK history".
On 22 May 2008, Barlow and Donald attended the 2008 Ivor Novello Awards where Take That won the award for Most Performed Work with their single "Shine". Take That won the Sony Ericsson Tour of the Year award at the Vodafone music awards on 18 September 2008. They were unable to attend as they were in LA finishing off The Circus. They did send a video link message, which was shown at the awards. On 22 November 2008, Take That appeared on week 7 of the talent show The X Factor where the finalists performed some of their greatest hits and Owen and Barlow made a guest appearance to personally coach the contestants. The band also performed on Children in Need 2008, singing their new single, "Greatest Day", before donating £250,000 to the charity from their Marks and Spencer fee. The band were also voted the Greatest Boy Band of All Time, reflecting their ongoing marketability and success in the pop arena, even after two decades.
At the 2009 Brit Awards they were nominated for Best British Group and they performed "Greatest Day" at the ceremony. "Up All Night", the second single from The Circus, was released on 2 March 2009, and peaked at number 14 on the UK Singles Chart, despite heavy airplay. In Germany and Australia, "The Garden" was released as the second single instead. On 7 May 2009, Take That's official website confirmed that the third single from The Circus would be "Said It All" which was released on 15 June 2009, peaking at number 9 on the UK Singles chart. The video premiered on GMTV on 8 May 2009. It features all four band members dressed up as vintage circus clowns, which tied in with their forthcoming Take That Present: The Circus Live tour. Take That started their Circus Live tour at the Stadium of Light on 5 June 2009 in Sunderland and ended at the Wembley Stadium in London on 5 July 2009, which over 80,000 people attended. This tour quickly became the fastest-selling of all time, breaking all records by selling all of their 650,000 tickets in less than four and a half hours.
In November 2009 Take That released the official DVD of their Circus tour, which became the fastest-selling music DVD of all time in the UK on its first day of release and stayed in the top 10 of the videos chart for over a year. This overtook the previous record sales holder, which was Take That's Beautiful World Live tour and stayed at the number 1 spot for 8 weeks. The following week Take That released their first live album, The Greatest Day – Take That Present: The Circus Live, which sold 98,000 copies on its first day of release and was certified Platinum in July 2013. "Hold up a Light" was released as the fifth and final single from The Circus to radio stations and as a digital download to promote the release of the live album. The live album also featured a stripped down session recorded live at the famous Abbey Road Studios in London. It featured the members singing the setlist from the preceding tour, albeit in a studio setting.
2010–2011: Williams' return and Progress
On 7 June 2010, the news broke of a single called "Shame", which had been written by Barlow and Williams and would feature the vocals of both artists. This was the first time the pair had worked together since 1995 and would appear on the second greatest hits collection of Williams. "Heart and I", another track from the same album, was also co-written by Williams and Barlow. The single "Shame" peaked at number 2 on the UK Singles Chart while also achieving success throughout Europe, charting in over 19 countries.
After working with the band on new material in Los Angeles, on 15 July 2010 Robbie Williams announced he was returning to Take That. After months of working together, assembling new songs for a new album and even debating a band-name change to "The English", a joint statement between Williams and the group read, "The rumours are true ... Take That: the original lineup, have written and recorded a new album for release later this year." The statement went on to say, "Following months of speculation Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Jason Orange, Mark Owen, and Robbie Williams confirmed they have been recording a new studio album as a five-piece, which they will release in November." The lead single from Take That's album Progress was announced as "The Flood" and was released 7 November as a digital download, and on 8 November as a physical copy, with the album released a week later on 15 November. The single peaked at number 2 in the UK Singles Charts and to date has sold over 500,000 copies in the UK alone. The single also achieved success across Europe, charting inside the top 10 in ten countries while also charting in another nine countries whilst also being nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for best work.
On 26 October the band announced that they would be embarking on a huge UK stadium tour entitled Progress Live, starting in Sunderland on 27 May, and finishing with a record-breaking 8 nights at London's Wembley Stadium in July 2011. It was also announced that Williams would perform hit singles from his solo career during the tour. The band then played at some of the biggest venues across Europe for the second leg of the tour. The phenomenal demand for tickets across the country led to the web sites of all the major UK ticket suppliers either crashing or considerably slowing for hours on end. The demand and sheer volume of fans also created problems for the UK telephone network. Take That's Progress Live also broke all records for ticket sales selling over 1.1 million tickets in one day, smashing the previous box office record set by Take That's Circus tour in 2008.
On the first day of release Progress became the fastest selling album of the century, with 235,000 copies sold in just one day. The album reached number 1 in the UK, selling around 520,000 copies in its first week, becoming the second fastest-selling album in history. After the release of Progress it was announced that Take That have become Amazon UK's top-selling music artist of all time.
The album retained the number one spot for six consecutive weeks in the UK since its release, selling 2.8 million copies in the UK alone and becoming the best selling album of 2010
Progress also achieved success across Europe where it debuted at number one in Ireland, Greece, Germany and Denmark. and the European Top 100 Albums chart. It also debuted inside the top 10 of the charts in Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland.
"Kidz" was announced as the second single from Progress, it was released 21 February 2011 and charted well across Europe. The band performed the song live at the 2011 Brit Awards hosted at The O2 Arena, where they won a Brit for Best British Group and were nominated for Best British Album. Their performance of "Kidz", praised by critics, involved a highly choreographed routine featuring dancers dressed in police-styled riot gear bearing the Take That symbol on the uniform and shields. On 19 May 2011, Take That announced a new EP entitled Progressed, which contained eight tracks written by the band since they had reunited as a five-piece. It was packaged alongside the album Progress and returned the band to number 1 in the UK Album Chart the week after it was released on 13 June 2011.
Take That announced that the Progress Live tour would be released worldwide as their second live album to date and would also be released on home media formats across the UK and Europe on 21 November 2011. The DVD debuted at number 1 on the UK Music Video top 40 in its first week on release and sold over 200,000 copies in two weeks of release in the UK alone. Take That's efforts were recognised further when they were awarded Virgin Media's Best Live Act of 2012.
On 4 October, it was reported that Take That were to take a break after the completion of the Progress tour, with Barlow continuing his role as a judge on The X Factor and Williams recording new solo material. Take That were presented with an Ivor Novello Award for their Outstanding Contribution to British Music in May 2012.
In August 2012, Take That performed at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics, despite Barlow announcing that his daughter had been stillborn the previous week. The performance earned him praise for appearing live so soon after the tragedy. Williams was due to perform with the band but dropped out due to his wife giving birth at around the same time and thus the group performed as a four-piece. In November 2012, Take That reunited as a five-piece for the last time to perform "Never Forget" at the Music Industry Trust Awards. In 2013, Donald became a judge on the German version of the television dancing show Got to Dance.
2014–2015: Line-up change and III
In May 2013, Owen announced that Take That was to begin recording their seventh studio album in 2014, and on 14 January 2014, Donald and Barlow both tweeted that Take That had entered the studio to begin recording the album, although it was not initially clear if Williams was present at these recording sessions. On 28 April 2014, Williams announced on Twitter he was to become a father for a second time, and consequently suggested he would be unable to join Take That on their album and tour. Although welcome to return to the band at any time, Williams chose not to return for group's seventh and eighth studio albums and their accompanying tours, focusing instead on his solo commitments. He continued to write music with his colleagues and has performed with the group on several occasions since 2011's Progress tour and plans on returning at some point in the future.
On 24 September 2014, it was announced that Jason Orange had left the band. He said: 'At a band meeting last week I confirmed to Mark, Gary and Howard that I do not wish to commit to recording and promoting a new album. 'At the end of The Progress Tour I began to question whether it might be the right time for me to not continue on with Take That,' he continued. 'There have been no fallings out, only a decision on my part that I no longer wish to do this,' he added. Barlow, Donald, and Owen issued a joint statement about Orange's decision which said: "This is a sad day for us. Jason leaving is a huge loss both professionally and even more so personally ... Jason's energy and belief in what this band could achieve has made it what it is today, and we'll forever be grateful for his enthusiasm, dedication and inspiration over the years." A day after the announcement, Robbie Williams took to Twitter to show support of Orange's decision. "Mr Orange. Until we ride again. Much love, Bro.", Williams tweeted.
On 10 October 2014, Take That unveiled their first song as a three-piece and lead single from their upcoming album. Titled "These Days", it was released on 23 November 2014 and went to No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart, knocking Band Aid 30 off the top spot and becoming their 12th number one single. The album itself, called III, was released on 28 November 2014 and became the band's seventh No. 1 album. It was then followed by a sell-out arena tour entitled Take That Live. On 14 October 2015, the band announced their new single "Hey Boy", released on 16 October, which is the first single from the 2015 re-release of III. The 2015 edition of the album was released on 20 November.
In December 2015, British media buzzed about the group embarking on a stint in Las Vegas, starting 2017. Reports indicated the group impressed U.S. promoters and would headline their own residency show. Many venues circulated, including The AXIS at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, The Foundry at SLS Las Vegas and the Linq Theater at The LINQ Hotel & Casino. Local newspaper, the Las Vegas Sun writes that everything is still unconfirmed, despite Barlow confirming the rumour on Twitter.
2016–2017: Wonderland
On 2 February 2016, in an interview with The Sun, Barlow revealed that Take That would release their eighth studio album later in the year. On 4 May 2016, English drum and bass duo Sigma announced their newest single would feature Take That. "Cry" received its first radio play on 20 May 2016 and was released on that date. On 21 October 2016, the band posted a teaser on their social media pages and website depicting the logo of the band flickering with the hashtag "#WONDERLAND". The following day, it was announced that their new album, titled Wonderland, was scheduled to be released on 24 March 2017. It was then followed by a UK and Ireland arena tour entitled Wonderland Live, that commenced on 5 May 2017 at the Genting Arena in Birmingham. On 17 February 2017, the lead single of Wonderland was released. Titled "Giants", it debuted at 13 in the UK charts, which became the band's 24th UK top 20 single.
On 8 April 2017, ITV aired a specially commissioned hour-length television special titled An Evening with Take That, where the band performed some songs from the album, along with some old classics including "Never Forget", "Back for Good" and "Rule the World". The band also took part in a Q&A session with the audience members. On 27 April, it was announced on Twitter that "New Day" would be released as the next single from the album Wonderland. The band were seen recording the music video in a field in Luton the days leading up the opening night of the Wonderland Live tour. Due to the Manchester Arena bombing just days before they were due to perform at the venue, their Manchester and Liverpool dates were rescheduled or relocated. The band returned a month later to perform at the One Love Manchester benefit concert.
On 16 September 2017, Barlow, Owen and Donald were set to perform a special one-off show in Jersey after a fan bid more than £1.2 million to win a performance from the band. This then turned in to a ticketed charity event where the money from tickets sold would go towards benefiting Children in Need. The auction was held on BBC Radio 2. On 11 November 2017, Take That began their foreign tour in Perth, Australia, the first time they have performed in the country in over twenty years. They also played in New Zealand, United Arab Emirates and Israel for the first time. Unlike the other tours, a DVD for Wonderland Live was not released. Instead, it was broadcast on Sky 1 on 23 December and in cinemas.
2018–2020: The 30th Anniversary, and Odyssey
On 16 July 2018, while performing at first ever Hits Radio Live at the Manchester Arena, Barlow, Donald and Owen confirmed that they would be touring in 2019. The tour was a Greatest Hits tour and celebrated the 30th anniversary of the band. There was also a Greatest Hits album, Odyssey, which was released on 23 November 2018. The Greatest Hits album features existing songs from their back catalogue that have been re-imagined and 3 brand new songs. It also includes collaborations with Boyz II Men, Lulu, Sigma and Barry Gibb. Odyssey reached number one in the UK album chart and was certified as a platinum selling record. The following year, Odyssey Live, the recording of their tour, reached number 5, becoming the band's 13th top 5 album, with the DVD becoming the biggest live music sale of 2019.
In May 2020, Barlow, Donald, and Owen reunited with Williams for a virtual performance from their respective homes, hosted by price comparison website comparethemarket.com, to raise money for the music charity Nordoff Robbins and Crew Nation.
In other media
In April 2006, EMI licensed the band's songs to be used in the musical Never Forget, a musical based on songs of the band from the 1990s. Take That posted and then later removed a statement on their website distancing themselves from it.
Take That wrote and recorded the theme song "Rule the World" for the film Stardust directed by Matthew Vaughn, which was released in cinemas across the globe in October 2007. In 2007, their song "Back for Good" was used as part of the soundtrack for popular Korean drama The 1st Shop of Coffee Prince.
Take That presented their own TV show Take That Come to Town, a variety show in which they performed some of their biggest hits. The show also featured comedy sketches with one of Peter Kay's alter egos Geraldine McQueen. It aired on 7 December 2008 on ITV1. Sony launched their first Take That video game, SingStar Take That in 2009 for the PlayStation 3.
In November 2010, ITV aired Take That: Look Back, Don't Stare, a black-and-white documentary which focused on the band working together for the first time in 15 years. Through a series of interviews, the band look back at their achievements while also looking forward to what the future holds for them. On 18 November 2010, Williams and Barlow appeared together live on television for the first time on the Popstars program in Germany singing their hit "Shame".
In 2011, Take That's song "Love Love" was used in the credits of the 2011 film X-Men: First Class and later, "When We Were Young" was chosen as the main theme for The Three Musketeers movie. In 2015, the song "Get Ready for It" from their album III, was chosen as the theme song for the film Kingsman: The Secret Service.
In 2017, Take That launched The Band, a musical written by Tim Firth featuring the five winners of Let It Shine and some of Take That's biggest hits. Take That, including Robbie Williams, were billed as executive producers.
The group's music is regularly featured in the Channel 4 show Derry Girls, notably in the third episode of the second series, when the lead characters sneak off to attend the 1993 Take That concert in Belfast; the episode features the music video for "Pray" and ends on footage of the band performing "Everything Changes".
Artistry
Early in their career, Take That were known for party anthems such as "Do What U Like" and more mature ballads such as "A Million Love Songs" and "Back for Good". Since reuniting in 2006, they have become more experimental: their post-2006 albums Beautiful World and The Circus have featured "stadium-filling pop-rock" while Progress largely leaned towards electropop. Having been dubbed the "comeback kings" by the media for their highly successful reunion, the group has won widespread praise for their seamless transformation from teen idols to "man band" without overly relying on nostalgia, instead showcasing a more mature image and sound and reinventing themselves while maintaining their artistic integrity. Jude Rogers of The Guardian commented on Take That's post-reunion success, in light of a string of reunions by the group's disbanded counterparts from the 1990s: "Only Take That are penetrating pop's wider consciousness by becoming a man-band rather than a boy-band, singing mature, proper pop songs that cross the generations."
Take That have garnered critical acclaim and popularity as consummate live performers and for their musical output. Their domestic concert tours have been described as "some of the most flamboyant, imaginative and extravagant pop tours around". Aside from covers, all of their material is composed by the members themselves; Barlow was initially the principal songwriter who received sole credit but the other members have since taken a more active role in the composition and production process, including playing instruments for the backing track.
Band members
Current members
Gary Barlow (1990–1996, 2005–present)
Howard Donald (1990–1996, 2005–present)
Mark Owen (1990–1996, 2005–present)
Former members
Robbie Williams (1990–1995, 2010–2012)
Jason Orange (1990–1996, 2005–2014)
Timeline
Awards and nominations
|-
| 2016
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award for Best Live Act
|
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|2015
| "These Days"
| UK Music Video Awards for Best Art Direction
|
|-
| rowspan="6" style="text-align:center;"|2012
| "Pray"
|The Guardian Music Award for Best Number 1 Single
|
|-
| Take That
|Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music
|
|-
| "Back for Good"
|The Official Charts Company UK Recognition award for United Kingdom's Favourite Number One Single
|
|-
| "The Flood"
|Ivor Novello Award for PRS Most Performed Work
|
|-
| Take That
|Virgin Media Music Awards for Best Live Act
|
|-
| "Kidz"
|Virgin Media Music Awards for Best Music Video
|
|-
| rowspan="10" style="text-align:center;"|2011
|-
| Progress Live
|Audio Pro International Awards for Best Live Sound Event
|
|-
| Progress Live
|Audio Pro International Awards Grand Prix Award
|
|-
| Take That
|Phonographic Performance Limited Award for most played UK artist
|
|-
| "Kidz"
|Spex German Entertainment for Best Music Video
|
|-
| The Circus Live Tour
| Greatest Event ever at Wembley Stadium
|
|-
| Take That
|ECHO Award for Best International Group
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Group
|
|-
| Progress
| BRIT Award for MasterCard Album of the Year
|
|-
| Take That
|Virgin Media for Best Group
|
|-
| rowspan="6" style="text-align:center;"|2010
|-
| "Up All Night"
| UK Music Video Awards for Best Art Direction
|
|-
| "The Flood"
|iTunes Award for Best Single
|
|-
| Progress
| iTunes Award for Best Album
|
|-
| Take That
|Q Award Hall of Fame
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best Live Performance of the past 30 Years
|
|-
| rowspan="5" style="text-align:center;"|2009
| Take That
|GQ Men of the Year Awards for Best Band
|
|-
| Take That
|Q Award for Best Live Act
|
|-
| "Greatest Day"
|Q Award for Best Single
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Group
|
|-
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award
|
|-
| rowspan="7" style="text-align:center;"|2008
| "Shine"
|Ivor Novello Award for PRS Most Performed Work
|
|-
| "Rule the World"
|Virgin for Best Single
|
|-
| Take That
|Sony Ericsson Tour of the Year Award for Take That Arena Tour
|
|-
| "Shine"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Live Act
|
|-
| Beautiful World
|BRIT Award for Best British Album
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Group
|
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|2007
| "Patience"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|2006
| Take That
|Q Idol Award
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"|1996
| "Back for Good"
|Billboard International Hit of the Year
|
|-
| "Never Forget"
|Ivor Novello Award for Most Performed Song
|
|-
| "Back for Good"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"|1995
| "Back for Good"
|Ivor Novello Award for the Song of the Year
|
|-
| Take That
|MTV Europe Music Awards for Best Live Act
|
|-
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award
|
|-
| rowspan="6" style="text-align:center;"|1994
| "Babe"
|MTV Video Music Award for International Viewer's Choice Award for MTV Europe
|
|-
| Everything Changes
|Mercury Prize for Best Album
|
|-
| "Pray"
|Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song
|
|-
| "Pray"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| "Pray"
|BRIT Award for Best British Video
|
|-
| Take That
|MTV Europe Music Awards for Best Group
|
|-
| rowspan="4" style="text-align:center;"|1993
| "Could It Be Magic"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| "A Million Love Songs"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| "It Only Takes a Minute"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award for Best Newcomer
|
|}
Discography
Take That & Party (1992)
Everything Changes (1993)
Nobody Else (1995)
Beautiful World (2006)
The Circus (2008)
Progress (2010)
III (2014)
Wonderland (2017)
Tours
Party Tour (1992–93)
Everything Changes Tour (1993–94)
Pops Tour (1994–95)
Nobody Else Tour (1995)
The Ultimate Tour (2006)
Beautiful World Tour 2007 (2007)
Take That Present: The Circus Live (2009)
Progress Live (2011)
Take That Live (2015)
Wonderland Live (2017)
Greatest Hits Live (2019)
See also
List of best-selling boy bands
References
External links
Chinese Fansite
1990 establishments in England
1996 disestablishments in England
2005 establishments in England
Brit Award winners
Dance-pop groups
Echo (music award) winners
English boy bands
English dance music groups
Interscope Records artists
Ivor Novello Award winners
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1996
Musical groups established in 1990
Musical groups from Cheshire
Musical groups from Manchester
Musical groups reestablished in 2005
Polydor Records artists
Teen pop groups
Universal Music Group artists
Vocal quartets
Vocal quintets
Vocal trios | true | [
"A Different Shade is the debut studio album from Swedish singer Erik Segerstedt, released on February 1, 2007. It debuted at number two on the Swedish Albums Chart. The album spawned two singles, \"Can't Say I'm Sorry\", a number-one single, and \"How Did we Change\", a number-two single.\n\nTrack listing\n\"2 Happy 2 Soon\"\n\"How Did We Change\"\n\"I Can't Say I'm Sorry\"\n\"When I Hear You Say My Name\"\n\"Wherever You Are\"\n\"I'm Not Alone\"\n\"Bring My Baby Back\"\n\"She's So\"\n\"Freeway\"\n\"Knockin' on Heaven's Door\"\n\"Everything Changes\"\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2007 albums\nErik Segerstedt albums",
"Love Changes Everything - The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection, Volume 2 (2005) is an album by English soprano Sarah Brightman. It contains songs from various shows for which Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote the music. The album contains eight previously released songs along with six new recordings.\n\nTrack listing\n\"Probably on a Thursday\"\n\"The Perfect Year\"\n\"Only You\" (with Cliff Richard)\n\"Love Changes Everything\"\n\"Seeing Is Believing \" (with Michael Ball)\n\"Think of Me\" (with Steve Barton)\n\"Any Dream Will Do\" \n\"I Don't Know How to Love Him\"\n\"Too Much in Love to Care\" (with John Barrowman)\n\"The Phantom of the Opera\" (with Steve Harley)\n\"Make Up My Heart\"\n\"Don't Cry for Me Argentina\" (Spanish Version)\n\"Everything's Alright\" (with Gary Martin & Bogdan Kominowski)\n\"Whistle Down the Wind\" (piano with Andrew Lloyd Webber)\n\nWeekly charts\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\n2005 albums\nSarah Brightman albums\nAlbums produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber\nAlbums produced by Nigel Wright"
] |
[
"Take That",
"1993-1995: Everything Changes, Nobody Else and superstardom",
"what did take that do in 1993",
"1993 saw the release of Everything Changes,",
"how well did everything changes do",
"material. It peaked at number one in the UK and spawned six singles, with four being consecutive UK number one singles"
] | C_93f5c84a4b2e459c97d351f6a21ea1d5_1 | what is a song on everything changes | 3 | What is a song on the album Everything Changes? | Take That | 1993 saw the release of Everything Changes, based on Barlow's original material. It peaked at number one in the UK and spawned six singles, with four being consecutive UK number one singles - their first number one "Pray", "Relight My Fire", "Babe" and the title track "Everything Changes". The lead single "Why Can't I Wake Up with You" had narrowly missed the top spot in the UK peaking at number two and the sixth and final single "Love Ain't Here Anymore" taken from the album reached number three on the UK charts. Everything Changes saw the band gain international success with the album being nominated for the 1994 Mercury Prize, but it failed to crack the U.S. market, where an exclusive remix of "Love Ain't Here Anymore" (U.S. version) gained little success. By 1994, Take That had become radio and television stars across Europe and Asia, but it was not until 1995 that they did their first World Tour. It was during the years 1993-95 that the band fronted scores of magazine covers ranging from Smash Hits to GQ, becoming mass merchandised on all sorts of paraphernalia ranging from picture books, to posters, stickers, their own dolls, jewellery, caps, T-shirts, toothbrushes and even had their own annuals released. The band had also developed a large female teenage fanbase at the time. During this time, they performed at numerous music awards shows and chart shows such as the BRIT Awards and Top of the Pops, also winning the Best Live Act award in 1995 at the MTV Europe Music Awards, having been renowned for their breakdance routines, high energy and creative tour productions. In 1995, Take That released their third studio album Nobody Else, again based on Barlow's own material which reached number 1 in the UK and across Europe, capturing new audiences along the way, with Take That also able to make inroads in the adult audience in Britain through Barlow's melodic, sensitive ballads. For nearly five years, Take That's popularity was unsurpassed in Britain. The release of the first single from the album, "Sure", achieved yet another number one in the UK charts. It was not until their second release from that album, however, that they would experience what would become their biggest hit single, "Back for Good", which reached number one in 31 countries around the globe and to date has been covered 89 times the world over. It was also their only US hit, where it reached number seven. The song was initially unveiled for the first time via live performance while at the 1995 BRIT Awards, and based on the reception of that performance, the record pre-sold more records than expected and forced the record label to bring the release date forward by an unprecedented six weeks. The album was also noted for its cover which was a parody of the famed cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover sleeve. CANNOTANSWER | Pray | Take That are an English pop group formed in Manchester in 1990. The group currently consists of Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen. The original line-up also featured Jason Orange and Robbie Williams. Barlow is the group's lead singer and primary songwriter, with Owen and Williams initially providing backing vocals and Donald and Orange serving primarily as dancers.
The group have had 28 top 40 singles and 17 top 5 singles on the UK Singles Chart, 12 of which have reached number one, including "Back for Good", "Never Forget", "Patience" and "Greatest Day". They have also had eight number one albums on the UK Albums Chart. Internationally, the band have had 56 number one singles and 39 number one albums. They have received eight Brit Awards—winning for Best British Group and Best British Live Act. In 2012 they received an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. According to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), Take That has been certified for 14 million albums and 11.4 million singles in the UK.
Williams left the band in 1995 while the four remaining members completed their world tour and released a final single before splitting up in 1996. After filming a 2005 Take That: For the Record about the group and releasing a new greatest hits album, a four-piece Take That without Williams officially announced a 2006 reunion tour around the UK, entitled The Ultimate Tour. On 9 May 2006, it was announced that the group were set to record new material together once again; their fourth studio album, Beautiful World, was released in 2006 and was followed up with The Circus, in 2008. The group achieved new success as a four-piece, scoring a string of chart hits across the UK and Europe while selling over 45 million records worldwide. Williams rejoined Take That in 2010 for the band's sixth studio album, Progress. Released on 15 November of that year, it was the first album of new material to feature Take That's original line-up since their 1995 album, Nobody Else. It became the fastest-selling album of the 21st century and the second fastest-selling album in British history.
In 2014, the band recorded a seventh studio album, this time as a trio without Williams and Orange. The album, titled III, was released in November 2014 and became the band's seventh number one. It was preceded by the single "These Days", which became the band's 12th number one single in the UK.
In 2011, Take That set the new record for the fastest-selling tour of all time in the UK with Progress Live, beating the previous record set by their Circus Live Tour in 2009. At the 2011 Brit Awards they won Best British Group. In 2012, Forbes named them the fifth highest-earning music stars in the world. The group performed at the London 2012 Olympic Games closing ceremony, playing "Rule the World" while the Olympic Flame was extinguished. In the same year, the Official Charts Company revealed the biggest-selling singles artists in British music chart history with Take That currently placed at 15th overall, making them the most successful boy band in UK chart history. Four of their albums are listed in the best-selling albums of the millennium, with three of them among the 60 best-selling albums in UK chart history.
History
1989–1990: Formation
In 1989, Manchester-based Nigel Martin-Smith sought to create a British male vocal singing group modelled on New Kids on the Block. Martin-Smith's vision, however, was a teen-orientated group that would appeal to more than one demographic segment of the music industry. Martin-Smith was then introduced to young singer-songwriter Gary Barlow, who had been performing in clubs since the age of 15. Impressed with Barlow's catalogue of self-written material, Martin-Smith decided to build his new-look boy band around Barlow's musical abilities. A campaign to audition young men with abilities in dancing and singing followed and took place in Manchester and other surrounding cities in 1990. At 22, Howard Donald was one of the oldest to audition, but he was chosen after he got time off work as a vehicle painter to continue the process. Prior to auditioning, Jason Orange had appeared as a breakdancer on the popular television programme The Hit Man and Her. Martin-Smith also selected 18-year-old bank employee Mark Owen and finally 16-year-old Robbie Williams to round out the group, which initially went by the name Kick It.
1990–1992: Take That & Party
Take That's first TV appearance was on The Hit Man and Her in 1990, where they performed Barlow's self-written, unreleased song, "My Kind of Girl". They later appeared a second time to perform "Waiting Around", which would become the B-side for the first single, "Do What U Like". "Promises" and "Once You've Tasted Love" were also released as singles but were minor hits in the UK. Take That initially worked the same territory as their American counterparts, singing new jack R&B, urban soul, and mainstream pop. However, they worked their way toward Hi-NRG dance music, while also pursuing an adult contemporary ballad direction. As they aimed to break into the mainstream music industry, they worked a number of small clubs, schools, and events across the country building up a fanbase as they travelled to gigs constantly for months.
Take That's breakthrough single was a cover of the 1975 Tavares hit "It Only Takes a Minute", which peaked at number seven on the UK Singles Chart in June 1992. This success was followed by "I Found Heaven", then by the first Barlow ballad "A Million Love Songs", which also reached number seven in October. Their cover of the Barry Manilow hit "Could It Be Magic" gave them their first big success, peaking at number three in the UK in the first chart of 1993. Their first album, Take That & Party, was released in 1992, and included all the hit singles to date.
1993–1995: Everything Changes, Nobody Else and superstardom
1993 saw the release of Everything Changes, based on Barlow's original material. It peaked at number one in the UK and spawned six singles, with four being consecutive UK number one singles – their first number one "Pray", "Relight My Fire", "Babe" and the title track "Everything Changes". The lead single "Why Can't I Wake Up with You" had narrowly missed the top spot in the UK peaking at number two and the sixth and final single "Love Ain't Here Anymore" taken from the album reached number three on the UK charts. Everything Changes saw the band gain international success with the album being nominated for the 1994 Mercury Prize, but it failed to crack the U.S. market, where an exclusive remix of "Love Ain't Here Anymore" (U.S. version) gained little success.
By 1994, Take That had become radio and television stars across Europe and Asia, but it was not until 1995 that they did their first World Tour. It was during the years 1993–95 that the band fronted scores of magazine covers ranging from Smash Hits to GQ, becoming mass merchandised on all sorts of paraphernalia ranging from picture books, to posters, stickers, their own dolls, jewellery, caps, T-shirts, toothbrushes and even had their own annuals released. The band had also developed a large female teenage fanbase at the time. During this time, they performed at numerous music awards shows and chart shows such as the BRIT Awards and Top of the Pops, also winning the Best Live Act award in 1995 at the MTV Europe Music Awards, having been renowned for their breakdance routines, high energy and creative tour productions.
In 1995, Take That released their third studio album Nobody Else, again based on Barlow's own material which reached number 1 in the UK and across Europe, capturing new audiences along the way, with Take That also able to make inroads in the adult audience in Britain through Barlow's melodic, sensitive ballads. For nearly five years, Take That's popularity was unsurpassed in Britain. The release of the first single from the album, "Sure", achieved yet another number one in the UK charts. It was not until their second release from that album, however, that they would experience what would become their biggest hit single, "Back for Good", which reached number one in many countries including the UK, Germany, Australia, and Norway. It was also their only US hit, where it reached number seven.
The song was initially unveiled for the first time via live performance while at the 1995 BRIT Awards, and based on the reception of that performance, the record pre-sold more records than expected and forced the record label to bring the release date forward by an unprecedented six weeks. The album was also noted for its cover, which was a parody of the famed cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover sleeve.
1995–1996: Break-up and Greatest Hits
Robbie Williams's drug abuse had escalated to a near drug overdose the night before the group was scheduled to perform at the MTV Europe Music Awards in 1994.
In June 1995, Williams was photographed by the press partying with Oasis at the Glastonbury Festival. The following month, the band offered him an ultimatum; he was to adhere to the band's responsibilities or leave before their scheduled world tour. Williams chose the latter. Williams claimed he was bored with Barlow's leadership and jealous of Barlow. Despite the loss of Williams, Take That continued to promote Nobody Else as a four-piece, scoring a further hit single with "Never Forget" with Donald on lead vocal. They subsequently went to America and completed the Nobody Else Tour in October 1995. Following the tour, the band began to plan for their next album; however, when they spent Christmas together, they mutually agreed it was time to part ways.
On 13 February 1996, Take That formally announced that they were disbanding. This was followed by the Greatest Hits compilation in 1996, which contained a new recording, a cover of the Bee Gees' "How Deep Is Your Love". The single went on to become what was to be the band's final UK number one until their 2006 comeback a decade later. Take That gave what was thought to be their final performance in April 1996 at Amsterdam. Following the band's announcement, millions of their fans were distraught around the world and in the UK alone, teenage girls threatened suicide and were seen lining streets in tears, to the point that telephone hotlines were set up by the government to deal with counselling them. After the band broke up, highly respected music figures such as Elton John noted that Take That were different from other boy bands before and after them, in that they wrote their own material through Gary Barlow. Barlow is one of only a small number of people who have won an Ivor Novello award during their time in a boy band, with George Michael whilst in Wham! and Tony Mortimer whilst in East 17 being two others who have achieved this feat. Take That had also left a legacy of being immaculate performers with a very high work ethic, causing them to be voted in as the greatest boy band of all time.
2005–2006: Reunion as a quartet and Never Forget – The Ultimate Collection
On 14 November 2005, Never Forget – The Ultimate Collection, a new compilation of their hit singles including a new previously unreleased song, also achieved great success and peaked at number 2 on UK charts, selling over 2.1 million copies in the UK alone. The new song "Today I've Lost You" (recorded in September 2005) was originally written by Barlow as the follow up to "Back for Good" but was never recorded. On 16 November 2005, the group got back together for the ITV documentary Take That: For the Record, in which they aired their views over their fame, success, the split and what the post-Williams line-up had done since. On 25 November 2005, there was an official press conference by the band announcing that the post-Robbie Williams line-up was going to tour in 2006. The tour, entitled The Ultimate Tour, ran from April to June 2006. The tour featured a guest appearance by British soul singer Beverley Knight, who replaced Lulu's vocals on the song "Relight My Fire"; although Lulu did appear during the stadium shows on "Relight My Fire" and "Never Forget". The American female ensemble Pussycat Dolls supported the group at their Dublin concert, and the Sugababes supported the group on the final five dates of the stadium leg. In a seven-year study analysing over one billion online searches via Google conducted by AccuraCast, a leading digital search agency, their comeback was ranked at number one in the UK.
2006–2007: Beautiful World
On 9 May 2006, Take That returned to the recorded music scene after more than ten years of absence, signing with Polydor Records. The band's comeback album, Beautiful World, entered the UK Albums Chart at no. 1 and, as of June 2009, had sold over 2.8 million copies in the UK. It is the 35th best selling album in UK music history.
On Beautiful World, all four members of the band had the opportunity to sing lead vocals and contribute in the songwriting. Unlike the band's earlier works, where the majority of their material was written by Barlow who received sole credit, all four band members are credited as co-writers, along with John Shanks. The comeback single, "Patience", was released on 20 November 2006, with a special event launching it on 5 November.
On 26 November "Patience" hit number 1 in the UK in its second week of chart entry, making it the group's ninth No. 1, and staying there for 4 weeks. Take That also accompanied eventual winner Leona Lewis on a live version of "A Million Love Songs" during the final of The X Factor on 16 December 2006.
The week after Beautiful World was released, it was announced that Take That had become the first artists ever to top the UK official single and album charts along with the download single, download album and DVD charts in the same week, as well as topping the radio charts.
The video for the number 1 hit single "Shine", the follow-up to "Patience", premiered on 25 January 2007 on Channel 4, ahead of its release on 26 February 2007. The band's success continued on 14 February 2007 when Take That performed live at the BRIT Awards ceremony at Earl's Court. Their single "Patience" won the Best British Single category. The third single chosen from Beautiful World was "I'd Wait For Life", released on 18 June 2007 in the UK. The single reached 17 in the UK Singles Chart. This may have been due to lack of promotion, as the band decided to take a pre-tour break rather than do any promotion for the single. The single "Rule the World", included on the deluxe version of Beautiful World, was recorded for the soundtrack of the film Stardust (2007). It reached number two in the UK and went on to become the group's second best selling single, shifting over 1.2 million units in the UK. Beautiful World was the fourth biggest-selling album of 2007. It was announced at the start of 2007 that Take That signed a record deal with American label Interscope, and would also release their album in Canada. Starting on 11 October 2007, Take That began their Beautiful World Tour 2007 in Belfast. The tour included 49 shows throughout Europe and the UK and ended in Manchester on 23 December 2007. The band received four nominations at the 2008 BRIT Awards. Nominated for Best British Group, Best British Single ("Shine"), Best British Album (Beautiful World) and Best Live Act, they took home the Best Live Act and the Best British Single awards. According to a 2007 MSN UK internet poll, Take That were voted as the "comeback kings" of the year.
2008–2009: The Circus
"Greatest Day", the first single from the album The Circus, made its radio premiere on 13 October 2008 and it was released on 24 November. It debuted at number 1 on the UK Singles Chart on 30 November 2008. An album launch party for The Circus was held in Paris on 2 December. On its first day of release The Circus sold 133,000 copies, and after four days on sale it sold 306,000 copies (going platinum) making The Circus the fastest selling album of the year. The album reached number 1 on the UK Albums Chart on 7 December 2008 with total first-week sales of 432,490, the third highest opening sales week in UK history.
On 28 October 2008, on the Radio 1 Chris Moyles show, it was announced that Take That would be touring again in June/July 2009, covering the UK and Ireland. Tickets for the Take That Present: The Circus Live tour went on sale on 31 October. The promoters, SJM, have said that the band's tour is "the fastest selling in UK history".
On 22 May 2008, Barlow and Donald attended the 2008 Ivor Novello Awards where Take That won the award for Most Performed Work with their single "Shine". Take That won the Sony Ericsson Tour of the Year award at the Vodafone music awards on 18 September 2008. They were unable to attend as they were in LA finishing off The Circus. They did send a video link message, which was shown at the awards. On 22 November 2008, Take That appeared on week 7 of the talent show The X Factor where the finalists performed some of their greatest hits and Owen and Barlow made a guest appearance to personally coach the contestants. The band also performed on Children in Need 2008, singing their new single, "Greatest Day", before donating £250,000 to the charity from their Marks and Spencer fee. The band were also voted the Greatest Boy Band of All Time, reflecting their ongoing marketability and success in the pop arena, even after two decades.
At the 2009 Brit Awards they were nominated for Best British Group and they performed "Greatest Day" at the ceremony. "Up All Night", the second single from The Circus, was released on 2 March 2009, and peaked at number 14 on the UK Singles Chart, despite heavy airplay. In Germany and Australia, "The Garden" was released as the second single instead. On 7 May 2009, Take That's official website confirmed that the third single from The Circus would be "Said It All" which was released on 15 June 2009, peaking at number 9 on the UK Singles chart. The video premiered on GMTV on 8 May 2009. It features all four band members dressed up as vintage circus clowns, which tied in with their forthcoming Take That Present: The Circus Live tour. Take That started their Circus Live tour at the Stadium of Light on 5 June 2009 in Sunderland and ended at the Wembley Stadium in London on 5 July 2009, which over 80,000 people attended. This tour quickly became the fastest-selling of all time, breaking all records by selling all of their 650,000 tickets in less than four and a half hours.
In November 2009 Take That released the official DVD of their Circus tour, which became the fastest-selling music DVD of all time in the UK on its first day of release and stayed in the top 10 of the videos chart for over a year. This overtook the previous record sales holder, which was Take That's Beautiful World Live tour and stayed at the number 1 spot for 8 weeks. The following week Take That released their first live album, The Greatest Day – Take That Present: The Circus Live, which sold 98,000 copies on its first day of release and was certified Platinum in July 2013. "Hold up a Light" was released as the fifth and final single from The Circus to radio stations and as a digital download to promote the release of the live album. The live album also featured a stripped down session recorded live at the famous Abbey Road Studios in London. It featured the members singing the setlist from the preceding tour, albeit in a studio setting.
2010–2011: Williams' return and Progress
On 7 June 2010, the news broke of a single called "Shame", which had been written by Barlow and Williams and would feature the vocals of both artists. This was the first time the pair had worked together since 1995 and would appear on the second greatest hits collection of Williams. "Heart and I", another track from the same album, was also co-written by Williams and Barlow. The single "Shame" peaked at number 2 on the UK Singles Chart while also achieving success throughout Europe, charting in over 19 countries.
After working with the band on new material in Los Angeles, on 15 July 2010 Robbie Williams announced he was returning to Take That. After months of working together, assembling new songs for a new album and even debating a band-name change to "The English", a joint statement between Williams and the group read, "The rumours are true ... Take That: the original lineup, have written and recorded a new album for release later this year." The statement went on to say, "Following months of speculation Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Jason Orange, Mark Owen, and Robbie Williams confirmed they have been recording a new studio album as a five-piece, which they will release in November." The lead single from Take That's album Progress was announced as "The Flood" and was released 7 November as a digital download, and on 8 November as a physical copy, with the album released a week later on 15 November. The single peaked at number 2 in the UK Singles Charts and to date has sold over 500,000 copies in the UK alone. The single also achieved success across Europe, charting inside the top 10 in ten countries while also charting in another nine countries whilst also being nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for best work.
On 26 October the band announced that they would be embarking on a huge UK stadium tour entitled Progress Live, starting in Sunderland on 27 May, and finishing with a record-breaking 8 nights at London's Wembley Stadium in July 2011. It was also announced that Williams would perform hit singles from his solo career during the tour. The band then played at some of the biggest venues across Europe for the second leg of the tour. The phenomenal demand for tickets across the country led to the web sites of all the major UK ticket suppliers either crashing or considerably slowing for hours on end. The demand and sheer volume of fans also created problems for the UK telephone network. Take That's Progress Live also broke all records for ticket sales selling over 1.1 million tickets in one day, smashing the previous box office record set by Take That's Circus tour in 2008.
On the first day of release Progress became the fastest selling album of the century, with 235,000 copies sold in just one day. The album reached number 1 in the UK, selling around 520,000 copies in its first week, becoming the second fastest-selling album in history. After the release of Progress it was announced that Take That have become Amazon UK's top-selling music artist of all time.
The album retained the number one spot for six consecutive weeks in the UK since its release, selling 2.8 million copies in the UK alone and becoming the best selling album of 2010
Progress also achieved success across Europe where it debuted at number one in Ireland, Greece, Germany and Denmark. and the European Top 100 Albums chart. It also debuted inside the top 10 of the charts in Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland.
"Kidz" was announced as the second single from Progress, it was released 21 February 2011 and charted well across Europe. The band performed the song live at the 2011 Brit Awards hosted at The O2 Arena, where they won a Brit for Best British Group and were nominated for Best British Album. Their performance of "Kidz", praised by critics, involved a highly choreographed routine featuring dancers dressed in police-styled riot gear bearing the Take That symbol on the uniform and shields. On 19 May 2011, Take That announced a new EP entitled Progressed, which contained eight tracks written by the band since they had reunited as a five-piece. It was packaged alongside the album Progress and returned the band to number 1 in the UK Album Chart the week after it was released on 13 June 2011.
Take That announced that the Progress Live tour would be released worldwide as their second live album to date and would also be released on home media formats across the UK and Europe on 21 November 2011. The DVD debuted at number 1 on the UK Music Video top 40 in its first week on release and sold over 200,000 copies in two weeks of release in the UK alone. Take That's efforts were recognised further when they were awarded Virgin Media's Best Live Act of 2012.
On 4 October, it was reported that Take That were to take a break after the completion of the Progress tour, with Barlow continuing his role as a judge on The X Factor and Williams recording new solo material. Take That were presented with an Ivor Novello Award for their Outstanding Contribution to British Music in May 2012.
In August 2012, Take That performed at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics, despite Barlow announcing that his daughter had been stillborn the previous week. The performance earned him praise for appearing live so soon after the tragedy. Williams was due to perform with the band but dropped out due to his wife giving birth at around the same time and thus the group performed as a four-piece. In November 2012, Take That reunited as a five-piece for the last time to perform "Never Forget" at the Music Industry Trust Awards. In 2013, Donald became a judge on the German version of the television dancing show Got to Dance.
2014–2015: Line-up change and III
In May 2013, Owen announced that Take That was to begin recording their seventh studio album in 2014, and on 14 January 2014, Donald and Barlow both tweeted that Take That had entered the studio to begin recording the album, although it was not initially clear if Williams was present at these recording sessions. On 28 April 2014, Williams announced on Twitter he was to become a father for a second time, and consequently suggested he would be unable to join Take That on their album and tour. Although welcome to return to the band at any time, Williams chose not to return for group's seventh and eighth studio albums and their accompanying tours, focusing instead on his solo commitments. He continued to write music with his colleagues and has performed with the group on several occasions since 2011's Progress tour and plans on returning at some point in the future.
On 24 September 2014, it was announced that Jason Orange had left the band. He said: 'At a band meeting last week I confirmed to Mark, Gary and Howard that I do not wish to commit to recording and promoting a new album. 'At the end of The Progress Tour I began to question whether it might be the right time for me to not continue on with Take That,' he continued. 'There have been no fallings out, only a decision on my part that I no longer wish to do this,' he added. Barlow, Donald, and Owen issued a joint statement about Orange's decision which said: "This is a sad day for us. Jason leaving is a huge loss both professionally and even more so personally ... Jason's energy and belief in what this band could achieve has made it what it is today, and we'll forever be grateful for his enthusiasm, dedication and inspiration over the years." A day after the announcement, Robbie Williams took to Twitter to show support of Orange's decision. "Mr Orange. Until we ride again. Much love, Bro.", Williams tweeted.
On 10 October 2014, Take That unveiled their first song as a three-piece and lead single from their upcoming album. Titled "These Days", it was released on 23 November 2014 and went to No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart, knocking Band Aid 30 off the top spot and becoming their 12th number one single. The album itself, called III, was released on 28 November 2014 and became the band's seventh No. 1 album. It was then followed by a sell-out arena tour entitled Take That Live. On 14 October 2015, the band announced their new single "Hey Boy", released on 16 October, which is the first single from the 2015 re-release of III. The 2015 edition of the album was released on 20 November.
In December 2015, British media buzzed about the group embarking on a stint in Las Vegas, starting 2017. Reports indicated the group impressed U.S. promoters and would headline their own residency show. Many venues circulated, including The AXIS at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, The Foundry at SLS Las Vegas and the Linq Theater at The LINQ Hotel & Casino. Local newspaper, the Las Vegas Sun writes that everything is still unconfirmed, despite Barlow confirming the rumour on Twitter.
2016–2017: Wonderland
On 2 February 2016, in an interview with The Sun, Barlow revealed that Take That would release their eighth studio album later in the year. On 4 May 2016, English drum and bass duo Sigma announced their newest single would feature Take That. "Cry" received its first radio play on 20 May 2016 and was released on that date. On 21 October 2016, the band posted a teaser on their social media pages and website depicting the logo of the band flickering with the hashtag "#WONDERLAND". The following day, it was announced that their new album, titled Wonderland, was scheduled to be released on 24 March 2017. It was then followed by a UK and Ireland arena tour entitled Wonderland Live, that commenced on 5 May 2017 at the Genting Arena in Birmingham. On 17 February 2017, the lead single of Wonderland was released. Titled "Giants", it debuted at 13 in the UK charts, which became the band's 24th UK top 20 single.
On 8 April 2017, ITV aired a specially commissioned hour-length television special titled An Evening with Take That, where the band performed some songs from the album, along with some old classics including "Never Forget", "Back for Good" and "Rule the World". The band also took part in a Q&A session with the audience members. On 27 April, it was announced on Twitter that "New Day" would be released as the next single from the album Wonderland. The band were seen recording the music video in a field in Luton the days leading up the opening night of the Wonderland Live tour. Due to the Manchester Arena bombing just days before they were due to perform at the venue, their Manchester and Liverpool dates were rescheduled or relocated. The band returned a month later to perform at the One Love Manchester benefit concert.
On 16 September 2017, Barlow, Owen and Donald were set to perform a special one-off show in Jersey after a fan bid more than £1.2 million to win a performance from the band. This then turned in to a ticketed charity event where the money from tickets sold would go towards benefiting Children in Need. The auction was held on BBC Radio 2. On 11 November 2017, Take That began their foreign tour in Perth, Australia, the first time they have performed in the country in over twenty years. They also played in New Zealand, United Arab Emirates and Israel for the first time. Unlike the other tours, a DVD for Wonderland Live was not released. Instead, it was broadcast on Sky 1 on 23 December and in cinemas.
2018–2020: The 30th Anniversary, and Odyssey
On 16 July 2018, while performing at first ever Hits Radio Live at the Manchester Arena, Barlow, Donald and Owen confirmed that they would be touring in 2019. The tour was a Greatest Hits tour and celebrated the 30th anniversary of the band. There was also a Greatest Hits album, Odyssey, which was released on 23 November 2018. The Greatest Hits album features existing songs from their back catalogue that have been re-imagined and 3 brand new songs. It also includes collaborations with Boyz II Men, Lulu, Sigma and Barry Gibb. Odyssey reached number one in the UK album chart and was certified as a platinum selling record. The following year, Odyssey Live, the recording of their tour, reached number 5, becoming the band's 13th top 5 album, with the DVD becoming the biggest live music sale of 2019.
In May 2020, Barlow, Donald, and Owen reunited with Williams for a virtual performance from their respective homes, hosted by price comparison website comparethemarket.com, to raise money for the music charity Nordoff Robbins and Crew Nation.
In other media
In April 2006, EMI licensed the band's songs to be used in the musical Never Forget, a musical based on songs of the band from the 1990s. Take That posted and then later removed a statement on their website distancing themselves from it.
Take That wrote and recorded the theme song "Rule the World" for the film Stardust directed by Matthew Vaughn, which was released in cinemas across the globe in October 2007. In 2007, their song "Back for Good" was used as part of the soundtrack for popular Korean drama The 1st Shop of Coffee Prince.
Take That presented their own TV show Take That Come to Town, a variety show in which they performed some of their biggest hits. The show also featured comedy sketches with one of Peter Kay's alter egos Geraldine McQueen. It aired on 7 December 2008 on ITV1. Sony launched their first Take That video game, SingStar Take That in 2009 for the PlayStation 3.
In November 2010, ITV aired Take That: Look Back, Don't Stare, a black-and-white documentary which focused on the band working together for the first time in 15 years. Through a series of interviews, the band look back at their achievements while also looking forward to what the future holds for them. On 18 November 2010, Williams and Barlow appeared together live on television for the first time on the Popstars program in Germany singing their hit "Shame".
In 2011, Take That's song "Love Love" was used in the credits of the 2011 film X-Men: First Class and later, "When We Were Young" was chosen as the main theme for The Three Musketeers movie. In 2015, the song "Get Ready for It" from their album III, was chosen as the theme song for the film Kingsman: The Secret Service.
In 2017, Take That launched The Band, a musical written by Tim Firth featuring the five winners of Let It Shine and some of Take That's biggest hits. Take That, including Robbie Williams, were billed as executive producers.
The group's music is regularly featured in the Channel 4 show Derry Girls, notably in the third episode of the second series, when the lead characters sneak off to attend the 1993 Take That concert in Belfast; the episode features the music video for "Pray" and ends on footage of the band performing "Everything Changes".
Artistry
Early in their career, Take That were known for party anthems such as "Do What U Like" and more mature ballads such as "A Million Love Songs" and "Back for Good". Since reuniting in 2006, they have become more experimental: their post-2006 albums Beautiful World and The Circus have featured "stadium-filling pop-rock" while Progress largely leaned towards electropop. Having been dubbed the "comeback kings" by the media for their highly successful reunion, the group has won widespread praise for their seamless transformation from teen idols to "man band" without overly relying on nostalgia, instead showcasing a more mature image and sound and reinventing themselves while maintaining their artistic integrity. Jude Rogers of The Guardian commented on Take That's post-reunion success, in light of a string of reunions by the group's disbanded counterparts from the 1990s: "Only Take That are penetrating pop's wider consciousness by becoming a man-band rather than a boy-band, singing mature, proper pop songs that cross the generations."
Take That have garnered critical acclaim and popularity as consummate live performers and for their musical output. Their domestic concert tours have been described as "some of the most flamboyant, imaginative and extravagant pop tours around". Aside from covers, all of their material is composed by the members themselves; Barlow was initially the principal songwriter who received sole credit but the other members have since taken a more active role in the composition and production process, including playing instruments for the backing track.
Band members
Current members
Gary Barlow (1990–1996, 2005–present)
Howard Donald (1990–1996, 2005–present)
Mark Owen (1990–1996, 2005–present)
Former members
Robbie Williams (1990–1995, 2010–2012)
Jason Orange (1990–1996, 2005–2014)
Timeline
Awards and nominations
|-
| 2016
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award for Best Live Act
|
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|2015
| "These Days"
| UK Music Video Awards for Best Art Direction
|
|-
| rowspan="6" style="text-align:center;"|2012
| "Pray"
|The Guardian Music Award for Best Number 1 Single
|
|-
| Take That
|Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music
|
|-
| "Back for Good"
|The Official Charts Company UK Recognition award for United Kingdom's Favourite Number One Single
|
|-
| "The Flood"
|Ivor Novello Award for PRS Most Performed Work
|
|-
| Take That
|Virgin Media Music Awards for Best Live Act
|
|-
| "Kidz"
|Virgin Media Music Awards for Best Music Video
|
|-
| rowspan="10" style="text-align:center;"|2011
|-
| Progress Live
|Audio Pro International Awards for Best Live Sound Event
|
|-
| Progress Live
|Audio Pro International Awards Grand Prix Award
|
|-
| Take That
|Phonographic Performance Limited Award for most played UK artist
|
|-
| "Kidz"
|Spex German Entertainment for Best Music Video
|
|-
| The Circus Live Tour
| Greatest Event ever at Wembley Stadium
|
|-
| Take That
|ECHO Award for Best International Group
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Group
|
|-
| Progress
| BRIT Award for MasterCard Album of the Year
|
|-
| Take That
|Virgin Media for Best Group
|
|-
| rowspan="6" style="text-align:center;"|2010
|-
| "Up All Night"
| UK Music Video Awards for Best Art Direction
|
|-
| "The Flood"
|iTunes Award for Best Single
|
|-
| Progress
| iTunes Award for Best Album
|
|-
| Take That
|Q Award Hall of Fame
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best Live Performance of the past 30 Years
|
|-
| rowspan="5" style="text-align:center;"|2009
| Take That
|GQ Men of the Year Awards for Best Band
|
|-
| Take That
|Q Award for Best Live Act
|
|-
| "Greatest Day"
|Q Award for Best Single
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Group
|
|-
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award
|
|-
| rowspan="7" style="text-align:center;"|2008
| "Shine"
|Ivor Novello Award for PRS Most Performed Work
|
|-
| "Rule the World"
|Virgin for Best Single
|
|-
| Take That
|Sony Ericsson Tour of the Year Award for Take That Arena Tour
|
|-
| "Shine"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Live Act
|
|-
| Beautiful World
|BRIT Award for Best British Album
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Group
|
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|2007
| "Patience"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|2006
| Take That
|Q Idol Award
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"|1996
| "Back for Good"
|Billboard International Hit of the Year
|
|-
| "Never Forget"
|Ivor Novello Award for Most Performed Song
|
|-
| "Back for Good"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"|1995
| "Back for Good"
|Ivor Novello Award for the Song of the Year
|
|-
| Take That
|MTV Europe Music Awards for Best Live Act
|
|-
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award
|
|-
| rowspan="6" style="text-align:center;"|1994
| "Babe"
|MTV Video Music Award for International Viewer's Choice Award for MTV Europe
|
|-
| Everything Changes
|Mercury Prize for Best Album
|
|-
| "Pray"
|Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song
|
|-
| "Pray"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| "Pray"
|BRIT Award for Best British Video
|
|-
| Take That
|MTV Europe Music Awards for Best Group
|
|-
| rowspan="4" style="text-align:center;"|1993
| "Could It Be Magic"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| "A Million Love Songs"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| "It Only Takes a Minute"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award for Best Newcomer
|
|}
Discography
Take That & Party (1992)
Everything Changes (1993)
Nobody Else (1995)
Beautiful World (2006)
The Circus (2008)
Progress (2010)
III (2014)
Wonderland (2017)
Tours
Party Tour (1992–93)
Everything Changes Tour (1993–94)
Pops Tour (1994–95)
Nobody Else Tour (1995)
The Ultimate Tour (2006)
Beautiful World Tour 2007 (2007)
Take That Present: The Circus Live (2009)
Progress Live (2011)
Take That Live (2015)
Wonderland Live (2017)
Greatest Hits Live (2019)
See also
List of best-selling boy bands
References
External links
Chinese Fansite
1990 establishments in England
1996 disestablishments in England
2005 establishments in England
Brit Award winners
Dance-pop groups
Echo (music award) winners
English boy bands
English dance music groups
Interscope Records artists
Ivor Novello Award winners
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1996
Musical groups established in 1990
Musical groups from Cheshire
Musical groups from Manchester
Musical groups reestablished in 2005
Polydor Records artists
Teen pop groups
Universal Music Group artists
Vocal quartets
Vocal quintets
Vocal trios | true | [
"\"All I Want Is Everything\" is a 1996 song by the English hard rock band Def Leppard from their album Slang. The song reached #38 on the U.K. Singles Chart and has not been played live by the band since the Slang World Tour in 1997.\n\nBackground\nIn reference to the song, lead singer Elliot said in the album's commentary that \"All I Want Is Everything\" was \"demoed as almost a country song, [the song] went through a lot of changes in the studio.\" Elliot also says that the song has \"almost a U2 feel to it\", and the \"very solemn\" lyrics sum up \"a lot of what the band was going through at the time: births, deaths, divorces.\"\n\nMusic video\nThe music video was directed by Matt Mahurin and shot at \"Studios & Location\", USA in August 1996. The video was released in September 1996.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCD: Bludgeon Riffola - Mercury / LepDD17 (UK) / 578 539-2 \nThis version includes \"Strictly Limited Edition Collector's Postcards\". It contains the Slang, Retroactive, Adrenalize and Vault postcards, with the band members comments on the back of each one.\n\n \"All I Want Is Everything\"\n \"'Cause We Ended as Lovers\"\n \"Led Boots\"\n \"All I Want Is Everything\" (edit)\n\nCD: Bludgeon Riffola - Mercury / 314 578 548-2 / USA \n \"All I Want Is Everything\"\n \"Move With Me Slowly\"\n\nCD: Bludgeon Riffola - Mercury / LEPCD 17 / 578 537-2 \n \"All I Want Is Everything\"\n \"When Saturday Comes\"\n \"Jimmy's Theme\"\n \"All I Want Is Everything\" (edit)\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nDef Leppard songs\n1996 singles\nSongs written by Joe Elliott\n1996 songs",
"\"Everything Changes\" is a song by English boy band Take That. Released as the fifth single from the band's second studio album, Everything Changes (1993), and written by Gary Barlow and producers Michael Ward, Eliot Kennedy and Cary Bayliss, the song features Robbie Williams on lead vocals.\n\nThe single was released on 28 March 1994, becoming Take That's fourth consecutive single to go straight in at number one on the UK Singles Chart, where it remained for two weeks. The song sold 200,000 copies in the UK and has received a silver disc certification from the British Phonographic Industry.\n\nCritical reception\nTom Ewing of Freaky Trigger described \"Everything Changes\" as \"breezy\" and \"disco-inspired\", noting that \"this is the first number one with lead vocals from Robbie Williams.\" Music writer James Masterton deemed it \"a pop-tinged slice of 70s disco soul\" in his weekly UK chart commentary. Pan-European magazine Music & Media commented, \"Philly soul is what the \"fab five\" exercise on the title track off their current album.\" Alan Jones from Music Week rated it five out of five. He wrote, \"The glossy but insubstantial title track of the boys' double platinum album has a good chance of becoming their fourth consecutive number one\". Pop Rescue noted that Williams opens the song \"with some sultry reassurance before it opens out into a bouncy little pop song\", adding that \"at times, this song feels somewhat Stock/Aitken/Waterman\".\n\nMusic video\nThe accompanying music video for the song, liberally based on Kylie Minogue's video for her single \"Give Me Just a Little More Time\" (shot in the same location, 2 years earlier, in sepia tone), shows the band in a jazz cafe performing the song with people in the cafe joining in. The music video uses the 7-inch mix, which removes Williams' spoken intro from the album version that says \"Girl, come over here, let me hold you for a little while and remember I'll always love you.\" The 7-inch mix also appears on their Greatest Hits album.\n\nTrack listings\nThe B-side of the single features a studio version of a medley of songs by the Beatles, which the band performed live in concerts. The songs included, in order, are \"I Want to Hold Your Hand\", \"A Hard Day's Night\" and \"She Loves You\".\n\nUK and European 7-inch and cassette single \n \"Everything Changes\"\n \"Beatles Medley\"\n\nUK CD single \n \"Everything Changes\"\n \"Beatles Medley\"\n \"Everything Changes\" (Nigel Lowis remix)\n \"Everything Changes\" (extended version)\n\nUK CD digipak single \n \"Everything Changes\" (Nigel Lowis remix)\n \"Interview\"\n \"Relight My Fire\" (live at Wembley Arena)\n\nGerman CD single \n \"Everything Changes\" – 3:35\n \"You Are the One\" – 8:07\n \"Beatles Medley\" – 3:39 \n \"Interview\" – 4:26\n\nEuropean CD single \n \"Everything Changes\" – 3:33\n \"Relight My Fire\" (live at Wembley Arena) – 8:07\n\nAustralasian CD single \n \"Everything Changes\"\n \"Beatles Medley\"\n \"Everything Changes\" (Nigel Lowis remix)\n \"Everything Changes\" (extended version)\n \"Interview\"\n\nJapanese CD single \n \"Everything Changes\"\n \"Beatles Medley\"\n \"Everything Changes\" (Nigel Lowis remix)\n \"Everything Changes\" (extended version)\n \"Interview\"\n \"Relight My Fire\" (live at Wembley Arena)\n\nPersonnel\n Robbie Williams – lead vocals\n Gary Barlow – backing vocals\n Howard Donald – backing vocals\n Jason Orange – backing vocals\n Mark Owen – backing vocals\n\nCharts and certifications\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nUsage in media\nIn the Derry Girls episode \"The Concert\", the girls attend a Take That concert. Footage from a real gig was used, in which the band sang \"Everything Changes\".\n\nSee also\n List of UK Singles Chart number ones of the 1990s\n\nReferences\n\n1993 songs\n1994 singles\nBertelsmann Music Group singles\nNumber-one singles in Scotland\nRCA Records singles\nSongs written by Eliot Kennedy\nSongs written by Gary Barlow\nSongs written by Michael Ward (musician)\nTake That songs\nUK Singles Chart number-one singles"
] |
[
"Take That",
"1993-1995: Everything Changes, Nobody Else and superstardom",
"what did take that do in 1993",
"1993 saw the release of Everything Changes,",
"how well did everything changes do",
"material. It peaked at number one in the UK and spawned six singles, with four being consecutive UK number one singles",
"what is a song on everything changes",
"Pray"
] | C_93f5c84a4b2e459c97d351f6a21ea1d5_1 | name another song on the album | 4 | Besides Pray, name another song on the album Everything Changes. | Take That | 1993 saw the release of Everything Changes, based on Barlow's original material. It peaked at number one in the UK and spawned six singles, with four being consecutive UK number one singles - their first number one "Pray", "Relight My Fire", "Babe" and the title track "Everything Changes". The lead single "Why Can't I Wake Up with You" had narrowly missed the top spot in the UK peaking at number two and the sixth and final single "Love Ain't Here Anymore" taken from the album reached number three on the UK charts. Everything Changes saw the band gain international success with the album being nominated for the 1994 Mercury Prize, but it failed to crack the U.S. market, where an exclusive remix of "Love Ain't Here Anymore" (U.S. version) gained little success. By 1994, Take That had become radio and television stars across Europe and Asia, but it was not until 1995 that they did their first World Tour. It was during the years 1993-95 that the band fronted scores of magazine covers ranging from Smash Hits to GQ, becoming mass merchandised on all sorts of paraphernalia ranging from picture books, to posters, stickers, their own dolls, jewellery, caps, T-shirts, toothbrushes and even had their own annuals released. The band had also developed a large female teenage fanbase at the time. During this time, they performed at numerous music awards shows and chart shows such as the BRIT Awards and Top of the Pops, also winning the Best Live Act award in 1995 at the MTV Europe Music Awards, having been renowned for their breakdance routines, high energy and creative tour productions. In 1995, Take That released their third studio album Nobody Else, again based on Barlow's own material which reached number 1 in the UK and across Europe, capturing new audiences along the way, with Take That also able to make inroads in the adult audience in Britain through Barlow's melodic, sensitive ballads. For nearly five years, Take That's popularity was unsurpassed in Britain. The release of the first single from the album, "Sure", achieved yet another number one in the UK charts. It was not until their second release from that album, however, that they would experience what would become their biggest hit single, "Back for Good", which reached number one in 31 countries around the globe and to date has been covered 89 times the world over. It was also their only US hit, where it reached number seven. The song was initially unveiled for the first time via live performance while at the 1995 BRIT Awards, and based on the reception of that performance, the record pre-sold more records than expected and forced the record label to bring the release date forward by an unprecedented six weeks. The album was also noted for its cover which was a parody of the famed cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover sleeve. CANNOTANSWER | ", "Relight My Fire | Take That are an English pop group formed in Manchester in 1990. The group currently consists of Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen. The original line-up also featured Jason Orange and Robbie Williams. Barlow is the group's lead singer and primary songwriter, with Owen and Williams initially providing backing vocals and Donald and Orange serving primarily as dancers.
The group have had 28 top 40 singles and 17 top 5 singles on the UK Singles Chart, 12 of which have reached number one, including "Back for Good", "Never Forget", "Patience" and "Greatest Day". They have also had eight number one albums on the UK Albums Chart. Internationally, the band have had 56 number one singles and 39 number one albums. They have received eight Brit Awards—winning for Best British Group and Best British Live Act. In 2012 they received an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. According to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), Take That has been certified for 14 million albums and 11.4 million singles in the UK.
Williams left the band in 1995 while the four remaining members completed their world tour and released a final single before splitting up in 1996. After filming a 2005 Take That: For the Record about the group and releasing a new greatest hits album, a four-piece Take That without Williams officially announced a 2006 reunion tour around the UK, entitled The Ultimate Tour. On 9 May 2006, it was announced that the group were set to record new material together once again; their fourth studio album, Beautiful World, was released in 2006 and was followed up with The Circus, in 2008. The group achieved new success as a four-piece, scoring a string of chart hits across the UK and Europe while selling over 45 million records worldwide. Williams rejoined Take That in 2010 for the band's sixth studio album, Progress. Released on 15 November of that year, it was the first album of new material to feature Take That's original line-up since their 1995 album, Nobody Else. It became the fastest-selling album of the 21st century and the second fastest-selling album in British history.
In 2014, the band recorded a seventh studio album, this time as a trio without Williams and Orange. The album, titled III, was released in November 2014 and became the band's seventh number one. It was preceded by the single "These Days", which became the band's 12th number one single in the UK.
In 2011, Take That set the new record for the fastest-selling tour of all time in the UK with Progress Live, beating the previous record set by their Circus Live Tour in 2009. At the 2011 Brit Awards they won Best British Group. In 2012, Forbes named them the fifth highest-earning music stars in the world. The group performed at the London 2012 Olympic Games closing ceremony, playing "Rule the World" while the Olympic Flame was extinguished. In the same year, the Official Charts Company revealed the biggest-selling singles artists in British music chart history with Take That currently placed at 15th overall, making them the most successful boy band in UK chart history. Four of their albums are listed in the best-selling albums of the millennium, with three of them among the 60 best-selling albums in UK chart history.
History
1989–1990: Formation
In 1989, Manchester-based Nigel Martin-Smith sought to create a British male vocal singing group modelled on New Kids on the Block. Martin-Smith's vision, however, was a teen-orientated group that would appeal to more than one demographic segment of the music industry. Martin-Smith was then introduced to young singer-songwriter Gary Barlow, who had been performing in clubs since the age of 15. Impressed with Barlow's catalogue of self-written material, Martin-Smith decided to build his new-look boy band around Barlow's musical abilities. A campaign to audition young men with abilities in dancing and singing followed and took place in Manchester and other surrounding cities in 1990. At 22, Howard Donald was one of the oldest to audition, but he was chosen after he got time off work as a vehicle painter to continue the process. Prior to auditioning, Jason Orange had appeared as a breakdancer on the popular television programme The Hit Man and Her. Martin-Smith also selected 18-year-old bank employee Mark Owen and finally 16-year-old Robbie Williams to round out the group, which initially went by the name Kick It.
1990–1992: Take That & Party
Take That's first TV appearance was on The Hit Man and Her in 1990, where they performed Barlow's self-written, unreleased song, "My Kind of Girl". They later appeared a second time to perform "Waiting Around", which would become the B-side for the first single, "Do What U Like". "Promises" and "Once You've Tasted Love" were also released as singles but were minor hits in the UK. Take That initially worked the same territory as their American counterparts, singing new jack R&B, urban soul, and mainstream pop. However, they worked their way toward Hi-NRG dance music, while also pursuing an adult contemporary ballad direction. As they aimed to break into the mainstream music industry, they worked a number of small clubs, schools, and events across the country building up a fanbase as they travelled to gigs constantly for months.
Take That's breakthrough single was a cover of the 1975 Tavares hit "It Only Takes a Minute", which peaked at number seven on the UK Singles Chart in June 1992. This success was followed by "I Found Heaven", then by the first Barlow ballad "A Million Love Songs", which also reached number seven in October. Their cover of the Barry Manilow hit "Could It Be Magic" gave them their first big success, peaking at number three in the UK in the first chart of 1993. Their first album, Take That & Party, was released in 1992, and included all the hit singles to date.
1993–1995: Everything Changes, Nobody Else and superstardom
1993 saw the release of Everything Changes, based on Barlow's original material. It peaked at number one in the UK and spawned six singles, with four being consecutive UK number one singles – their first number one "Pray", "Relight My Fire", "Babe" and the title track "Everything Changes". The lead single "Why Can't I Wake Up with You" had narrowly missed the top spot in the UK peaking at number two and the sixth and final single "Love Ain't Here Anymore" taken from the album reached number three on the UK charts. Everything Changes saw the band gain international success with the album being nominated for the 1994 Mercury Prize, but it failed to crack the U.S. market, where an exclusive remix of "Love Ain't Here Anymore" (U.S. version) gained little success.
By 1994, Take That had become radio and television stars across Europe and Asia, but it was not until 1995 that they did their first World Tour. It was during the years 1993–95 that the band fronted scores of magazine covers ranging from Smash Hits to GQ, becoming mass merchandised on all sorts of paraphernalia ranging from picture books, to posters, stickers, their own dolls, jewellery, caps, T-shirts, toothbrushes and even had their own annuals released. The band had also developed a large female teenage fanbase at the time. During this time, they performed at numerous music awards shows and chart shows such as the BRIT Awards and Top of the Pops, also winning the Best Live Act award in 1995 at the MTV Europe Music Awards, having been renowned for their breakdance routines, high energy and creative tour productions.
In 1995, Take That released their third studio album Nobody Else, again based on Barlow's own material which reached number 1 in the UK and across Europe, capturing new audiences along the way, with Take That also able to make inroads in the adult audience in Britain through Barlow's melodic, sensitive ballads. For nearly five years, Take That's popularity was unsurpassed in Britain. The release of the first single from the album, "Sure", achieved yet another number one in the UK charts. It was not until their second release from that album, however, that they would experience what would become their biggest hit single, "Back for Good", which reached number one in many countries including the UK, Germany, Australia, and Norway. It was also their only US hit, where it reached number seven.
The song was initially unveiled for the first time via live performance while at the 1995 BRIT Awards, and based on the reception of that performance, the record pre-sold more records than expected and forced the record label to bring the release date forward by an unprecedented six weeks. The album was also noted for its cover, which was a parody of the famed cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover sleeve.
1995–1996: Break-up and Greatest Hits
Robbie Williams's drug abuse had escalated to a near drug overdose the night before the group was scheduled to perform at the MTV Europe Music Awards in 1994.
In June 1995, Williams was photographed by the press partying with Oasis at the Glastonbury Festival. The following month, the band offered him an ultimatum; he was to adhere to the band's responsibilities or leave before their scheduled world tour. Williams chose the latter. Williams claimed he was bored with Barlow's leadership and jealous of Barlow. Despite the loss of Williams, Take That continued to promote Nobody Else as a four-piece, scoring a further hit single with "Never Forget" with Donald on lead vocal. They subsequently went to America and completed the Nobody Else Tour in October 1995. Following the tour, the band began to plan for their next album; however, when they spent Christmas together, they mutually agreed it was time to part ways.
On 13 February 1996, Take That formally announced that they were disbanding. This was followed by the Greatest Hits compilation in 1996, which contained a new recording, a cover of the Bee Gees' "How Deep Is Your Love". The single went on to become what was to be the band's final UK number one until their 2006 comeback a decade later. Take That gave what was thought to be their final performance in April 1996 at Amsterdam. Following the band's announcement, millions of their fans were distraught around the world and in the UK alone, teenage girls threatened suicide and were seen lining streets in tears, to the point that telephone hotlines were set up by the government to deal with counselling them. After the band broke up, highly respected music figures such as Elton John noted that Take That were different from other boy bands before and after them, in that they wrote their own material through Gary Barlow. Barlow is one of only a small number of people who have won an Ivor Novello award during their time in a boy band, with George Michael whilst in Wham! and Tony Mortimer whilst in East 17 being two others who have achieved this feat. Take That had also left a legacy of being immaculate performers with a very high work ethic, causing them to be voted in as the greatest boy band of all time.
2005–2006: Reunion as a quartet and Never Forget – The Ultimate Collection
On 14 November 2005, Never Forget – The Ultimate Collection, a new compilation of their hit singles including a new previously unreleased song, also achieved great success and peaked at number 2 on UK charts, selling over 2.1 million copies in the UK alone. The new song "Today I've Lost You" (recorded in September 2005) was originally written by Barlow as the follow up to "Back for Good" but was never recorded. On 16 November 2005, the group got back together for the ITV documentary Take That: For the Record, in which they aired their views over their fame, success, the split and what the post-Williams line-up had done since. On 25 November 2005, there was an official press conference by the band announcing that the post-Robbie Williams line-up was going to tour in 2006. The tour, entitled The Ultimate Tour, ran from April to June 2006. The tour featured a guest appearance by British soul singer Beverley Knight, who replaced Lulu's vocals on the song "Relight My Fire"; although Lulu did appear during the stadium shows on "Relight My Fire" and "Never Forget". The American female ensemble Pussycat Dolls supported the group at their Dublin concert, and the Sugababes supported the group on the final five dates of the stadium leg. In a seven-year study analysing over one billion online searches via Google conducted by AccuraCast, a leading digital search agency, their comeback was ranked at number one in the UK.
2006–2007: Beautiful World
On 9 May 2006, Take That returned to the recorded music scene after more than ten years of absence, signing with Polydor Records. The band's comeback album, Beautiful World, entered the UK Albums Chart at no. 1 and, as of June 2009, had sold over 2.8 million copies in the UK. It is the 35th best selling album in UK music history.
On Beautiful World, all four members of the band had the opportunity to sing lead vocals and contribute in the songwriting. Unlike the band's earlier works, where the majority of their material was written by Barlow who received sole credit, all four band members are credited as co-writers, along with John Shanks. The comeback single, "Patience", was released on 20 November 2006, with a special event launching it on 5 November.
On 26 November "Patience" hit number 1 in the UK in its second week of chart entry, making it the group's ninth No. 1, and staying there for 4 weeks. Take That also accompanied eventual winner Leona Lewis on a live version of "A Million Love Songs" during the final of The X Factor on 16 December 2006.
The week after Beautiful World was released, it was announced that Take That had become the first artists ever to top the UK official single and album charts along with the download single, download album and DVD charts in the same week, as well as topping the radio charts.
The video for the number 1 hit single "Shine", the follow-up to "Patience", premiered on 25 January 2007 on Channel 4, ahead of its release on 26 February 2007. The band's success continued on 14 February 2007 when Take That performed live at the BRIT Awards ceremony at Earl's Court. Their single "Patience" won the Best British Single category. The third single chosen from Beautiful World was "I'd Wait For Life", released on 18 June 2007 in the UK. The single reached 17 in the UK Singles Chart. This may have been due to lack of promotion, as the band decided to take a pre-tour break rather than do any promotion for the single. The single "Rule the World", included on the deluxe version of Beautiful World, was recorded for the soundtrack of the film Stardust (2007). It reached number two in the UK and went on to become the group's second best selling single, shifting over 1.2 million units in the UK. Beautiful World was the fourth biggest-selling album of 2007. It was announced at the start of 2007 that Take That signed a record deal with American label Interscope, and would also release their album in Canada. Starting on 11 October 2007, Take That began their Beautiful World Tour 2007 in Belfast. The tour included 49 shows throughout Europe and the UK and ended in Manchester on 23 December 2007. The band received four nominations at the 2008 BRIT Awards. Nominated for Best British Group, Best British Single ("Shine"), Best British Album (Beautiful World) and Best Live Act, they took home the Best Live Act and the Best British Single awards. According to a 2007 MSN UK internet poll, Take That were voted as the "comeback kings" of the year.
2008–2009: The Circus
"Greatest Day", the first single from the album The Circus, made its radio premiere on 13 October 2008 and it was released on 24 November. It debuted at number 1 on the UK Singles Chart on 30 November 2008. An album launch party for The Circus was held in Paris on 2 December. On its first day of release The Circus sold 133,000 copies, and after four days on sale it sold 306,000 copies (going platinum) making The Circus the fastest selling album of the year. The album reached number 1 on the UK Albums Chart on 7 December 2008 with total first-week sales of 432,490, the third highest opening sales week in UK history.
On 28 October 2008, on the Radio 1 Chris Moyles show, it was announced that Take That would be touring again in June/July 2009, covering the UK and Ireland. Tickets for the Take That Present: The Circus Live tour went on sale on 31 October. The promoters, SJM, have said that the band's tour is "the fastest selling in UK history".
On 22 May 2008, Barlow and Donald attended the 2008 Ivor Novello Awards where Take That won the award for Most Performed Work with their single "Shine". Take That won the Sony Ericsson Tour of the Year award at the Vodafone music awards on 18 September 2008. They were unable to attend as they were in LA finishing off The Circus. They did send a video link message, which was shown at the awards. On 22 November 2008, Take That appeared on week 7 of the talent show The X Factor where the finalists performed some of their greatest hits and Owen and Barlow made a guest appearance to personally coach the contestants. The band also performed on Children in Need 2008, singing their new single, "Greatest Day", before donating £250,000 to the charity from their Marks and Spencer fee. The band were also voted the Greatest Boy Band of All Time, reflecting their ongoing marketability and success in the pop arena, even after two decades.
At the 2009 Brit Awards they were nominated for Best British Group and they performed "Greatest Day" at the ceremony. "Up All Night", the second single from The Circus, was released on 2 March 2009, and peaked at number 14 on the UK Singles Chart, despite heavy airplay. In Germany and Australia, "The Garden" was released as the second single instead. On 7 May 2009, Take That's official website confirmed that the third single from The Circus would be "Said It All" which was released on 15 June 2009, peaking at number 9 on the UK Singles chart. The video premiered on GMTV on 8 May 2009. It features all four band members dressed up as vintage circus clowns, which tied in with their forthcoming Take That Present: The Circus Live tour. Take That started their Circus Live tour at the Stadium of Light on 5 June 2009 in Sunderland and ended at the Wembley Stadium in London on 5 July 2009, which over 80,000 people attended. This tour quickly became the fastest-selling of all time, breaking all records by selling all of their 650,000 tickets in less than four and a half hours.
In November 2009 Take That released the official DVD of their Circus tour, which became the fastest-selling music DVD of all time in the UK on its first day of release and stayed in the top 10 of the videos chart for over a year. This overtook the previous record sales holder, which was Take That's Beautiful World Live tour and stayed at the number 1 spot for 8 weeks. The following week Take That released their first live album, The Greatest Day – Take That Present: The Circus Live, which sold 98,000 copies on its first day of release and was certified Platinum in July 2013. "Hold up a Light" was released as the fifth and final single from The Circus to radio stations and as a digital download to promote the release of the live album. The live album also featured a stripped down session recorded live at the famous Abbey Road Studios in London. It featured the members singing the setlist from the preceding tour, albeit in a studio setting.
2010–2011: Williams' return and Progress
On 7 June 2010, the news broke of a single called "Shame", which had been written by Barlow and Williams and would feature the vocals of both artists. This was the first time the pair had worked together since 1995 and would appear on the second greatest hits collection of Williams. "Heart and I", another track from the same album, was also co-written by Williams and Barlow. The single "Shame" peaked at number 2 on the UK Singles Chart while also achieving success throughout Europe, charting in over 19 countries.
After working with the band on new material in Los Angeles, on 15 July 2010 Robbie Williams announced he was returning to Take That. After months of working together, assembling new songs for a new album and even debating a band-name change to "The English", a joint statement between Williams and the group read, "The rumours are true ... Take That: the original lineup, have written and recorded a new album for release later this year." The statement went on to say, "Following months of speculation Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Jason Orange, Mark Owen, and Robbie Williams confirmed they have been recording a new studio album as a five-piece, which they will release in November." The lead single from Take That's album Progress was announced as "The Flood" and was released 7 November as a digital download, and on 8 November as a physical copy, with the album released a week later on 15 November. The single peaked at number 2 in the UK Singles Charts and to date has sold over 500,000 copies in the UK alone. The single also achieved success across Europe, charting inside the top 10 in ten countries while also charting in another nine countries whilst also being nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for best work.
On 26 October the band announced that they would be embarking on a huge UK stadium tour entitled Progress Live, starting in Sunderland on 27 May, and finishing with a record-breaking 8 nights at London's Wembley Stadium in July 2011. It was also announced that Williams would perform hit singles from his solo career during the tour. The band then played at some of the biggest venues across Europe for the second leg of the tour. The phenomenal demand for tickets across the country led to the web sites of all the major UK ticket suppliers either crashing or considerably slowing for hours on end. The demand and sheer volume of fans also created problems for the UK telephone network. Take That's Progress Live also broke all records for ticket sales selling over 1.1 million tickets in one day, smashing the previous box office record set by Take That's Circus tour in 2008.
On the first day of release Progress became the fastest selling album of the century, with 235,000 copies sold in just one day. The album reached number 1 in the UK, selling around 520,000 copies in its first week, becoming the second fastest-selling album in history. After the release of Progress it was announced that Take That have become Amazon UK's top-selling music artist of all time.
The album retained the number one spot for six consecutive weeks in the UK since its release, selling 2.8 million copies in the UK alone and becoming the best selling album of 2010
Progress also achieved success across Europe where it debuted at number one in Ireland, Greece, Germany and Denmark. and the European Top 100 Albums chart. It also debuted inside the top 10 of the charts in Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland.
"Kidz" was announced as the second single from Progress, it was released 21 February 2011 and charted well across Europe. The band performed the song live at the 2011 Brit Awards hosted at The O2 Arena, where they won a Brit for Best British Group and were nominated for Best British Album. Their performance of "Kidz", praised by critics, involved a highly choreographed routine featuring dancers dressed in police-styled riot gear bearing the Take That symbol on the uniform and shields. On 19 May 2011, Take That announced a new EP entitled Progressed, which contained eight tracks written by the band since they had reunited as a five-piece. It was packaged alongside the album Progress and returned the band to number 1 in the UK Album Chart the week after it was released on 13 June 2011.
Take That announced that the Progress Live tour would be released worldwide as their second live album to date and would also be released on home media formats across the UK and Europe on 21 November 2011. The DVD debuted at number 1 on the UK Music Video top 40 in its first week on release and sold over 200,000 copies in two weeks of release in the UK alone. Take That's efforts were recognised further when they were awarded Virgin Media's Best Live Act of 2012.
On 4 October, it was reported that Take That were to take a break after the completion of the Progress tour, with Barlow continuing his role as a judge on The X Factor and Williams recording new solo material. Take That were presented with an Ivor Novello Award for their Outstanding Contribution to British Music in May 2012.
In August 2012, Take That performed at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics, despite Barlow announcing that his daughter had been stillborn the previous week. The performance earned him praise for appearing live so soon after the tragedy. Williams was due to perform with the band but dropped out due to his wife giving birth at around the same time and thus the group performed as a four-piece. In November 2012, Take That reunited as a five-piece for the last time to perform "Never Forget" at the Music Industry Trust Awards. In 2013, Donald became a judge on the German version of the television dancing show Got to Dance.
2014–2015: Line-up change and III
In May 2013, Owen announced that Take That was to begin recording their seventh studio album in 2014, and on 14 January 2014, Donald and Barlow both tweeted that Take That had entered the studio to begin recording the album, although it was not initially clear if Williams was present at these recording sessions. On 28 April 2014, Williams announced on Twitter he was to become a father for a second time, and consequently suggested he would be unable to join Take That on their album and tour. Although welcome to return to the band at any time, Williams chose not to return for group's seventh and eighth studio albums and their accompanying tours, focusing instead on his solo commitments. He continued to write music with his colleagues and has performed with the group on several occasions since 2011's Progress tour and plans on returning at some point in the future.
On 24 September 2014, it was announced that Jason Orange had left the band. He said: 'At a band meeting last week I confirmed to Mark, Gary and Howard that I do not wish to commit to recording and promoting a new album. 'At the end of The Progress Tour I began to question whether it might be the right time for me to not continue on with Take That,' he continued. 'There have been no fallings out, only a decision on my part that I no longer wish to do this,' he added. Barlow, Donald, and Owen issued a joint statement about Orange's decision which said: "This is a sad day for us. Jason leaving is a huge loss both professionally and even more so personally ... Jason's energy and belief in what this band could achieve has made it what it is today, and we'll forever be grateful for his enthusiasm, dedication and inspiration over the years." A day after the announcement, Robbie Williams took to Twitter to show support of Orange's decision. "Mr Orange. Until we ride again. Much love, Bro.", Williams tweeted.
On 10 October 2014, Take That unveiled their first song as a three-piece and lead single from their upcoming album. Titled "These Days", it was released on 23 November 2014 and went to No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart, knocking Band Aid 30 off the top spot and becoming their 12th number one single. The album itself, called III, was released on 28 November 2014 and became the band's seventh No. 1 album. It was then followed by a sell-out arena tour entitled Take That Live. On 14 October 2015, the band announced their new single "Hey Boy", released on 16 October, which is the first single from the 2015 re-release of III. The 2015 edition of the album was released on 20 November.
In December 2015, British media buzzed about the group embarking on a stint in Las Vegas, starting 2017. Reports indicated the group impressed U.S. promoters and would headline their own residency show. Many venues circulated, including The AXIS at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, The Foundry at SLS Las Vegas and the Linq Theater at The LINQ Hotel & Casino. Local newspaper, the Las Vegas Sun writes that everything is still unconfirmed, despite Barlow confirming the rumour on Twitter.
2016–2017: Wonderland
On 2 February 2016, in an interview with The Sun, Barlow revealed that Take That would release their eighth studio album later in the year. On 4 May 2016, English drum and bass duo Sigma announced their newest single would feature Take That. "Cry" received its first radio play on 20 May 2016 and was released on that date. On 21 October 2016, the band posted a teaser on their social media pages and website depicting the logo of the band flickering with the hashtag "#WONDERLAND". The following day, it was announced that their new album, titled Wonderland, was scheduled to be released on 24 March 2017. It was then followed by a UK and Ireland arena tour entitled Wonderland Live, that commenced on 5 May 2017 at the Genting Arena in Birmingham. On 17 February 2017, the lead single of Wonderland was released. Titled "Giants", it debuted at 13 in the UK charts, which became the band's 24th UK top 20 single.
On 8 April 2017, ITV aired a specially commissioned hour-length television special titled An Evening with Take That, where the band performed some songs from the album, along with some old classics including "Never Forget", "Back for Good" and "Rule the World". The band also took part in a Q&A session with the audience members. On 27 April, it was announced on Twitter that "New Day" would be released as the next single from the album Wonderland. The band were seen recording the music video in a field in Luton the days leading up the opening night of the Wonderland Live tour. Due to the Manchester Arena bombing just days before they were due to perform at the venue, their Manchester and Liverpool dates were rescheduled or relocated. The band returned a month later to perform at the One Love Manchester benefit concert.
On 16 September 2017, Barlow, Owen and Donald were set to perform a special one-off show in Jersey after a fan bid more than £1.2 million to win a performance from the band. This then turned in to a ticketed charity event where the money from tickets sold would go towards benefiting Children in Need. The auction was held on BBC Radio 2. On 11 November 2017, Take That began their foreign tour in Perth, Australia, the first time they have performed in the country in over twenty years. They also played in New Zealand, United Arab Emirates and Israel for the first time. Unlike the other tours, a DVD for Wonderland Live was not released. Instead, it was broadcast on Sky 1 on 23 December and in cinemas.
2018–2020: The 30th Anniversary, and Odyssey
On 16 July 2018, while performing at first ever Hits Radio Live at the Manchester Arena, Barlow, Donald and Owen confirmed that they would be touring in 2019. The tour was a Greatest Hits tour and celebrated the 30th anniversary of the band. There was also a Greatest Hits album, Odyssey, which was released on 23 November 2018. The Greatest Hits album features existing songs from their back catalogue that have been re-imagined and 3 brand new songs. It also includes collaborations with Boyz II Men, Lulu, Sigma and Barry Gibb. Odyssey reached number one in the UK album chart and was certified as a platinum selling record. The following year, Odyssey Live, the recording of their tour, reached number 5, becoming the band's 13th top 5 album, with the DVD becoming the biggest live music sale of 2019.
In May 2020, Barlow, Donald, and Owen reunited with Williams for a virtual performance from their respective homes, hosted by price comparison website comparethemarket.com, to raise money for the music charity Nordoff Robbins and Crew Nation.
In other media
In April 2006, EMI licensed the band's songs to be used in the musical Never Forget, a musical based on songs of the band from the 1990s. Take That posted and then later removed a statement on their website distancing themselves from it.
Take That wrote and recorded the theme song "Rule the World" for the film Stardust directed by Matthew Vaughn, which was released in cinemas across the globe in October 2007. In 2007, their song "Back for Good" was used as part of the soundtrack for popular Korean drama The 1st Shop of Coffee Prince.
Take That presented their own TV show Take That Come to Town, a variety show in which they performed some of their biggest hits. The show also featured comedy sketches with one of Peter Kay's alter egos Geraldine McQueen. It aired on 7 December 2008 on ITV1. Sony launched their first Take That video game, SingStar Take That in 2009 for the PlayStation 3.
In November 2010, ITV aired Take That: Look Back, Don't Stare, a black-and-white documentary which focused on the band working together for the first time in 15 years. Through a series of interviews, the band look back at their achievements while also looking forward to what the future holds for them. On 18 November 2010, Williams and Barlow appeared together live on television for the first time on the Popstars program in Germany singing their hit "Shame".
In 2011, Take That's song "Love Love" was used in the credits of the 2011 film X-Men: First Class and later, "When We Were Young" was chosen as the main theme for The Three Musketeers movie. In 2015, the song "Get Ready for It" from their album III, was chosen as the theme song for the film Kingsman: The Secret Service.
In 2017, Take That launched The Band, a musical written by Tim Firth featuring the five winners of Let It Shine and some of Take That's biggest hits. Take That, including Robbie Williams, were billed as executive producers.
The group's music is regularly featured in the Channel 4 show Derry Girls, notably in the third episode of the second series, when the lead characters sneak off to attend the 1993 Take That concert in Belfast; the episode features the music video for "Pray" and ends on footage of the band performing "Everything Changes".
Artistry
Early in their career, Take That were known for party anthems such as "Do What U Like" and more mature ballads such as "A Million Love Songs" and "Back for Good". Since reuniting in 2006, they have become more experimental: their post-2006 albums Beautiful World and The Circus have featured "stadium-filling pop-rock" while Progress largely leaned towards electropop. Having been dubbed the "comeback kings" by the media for their highly successful reunion, the group has won widespread praise for their seamless transformation from teen idols to "man band" without overly relying on nostalgia, instead showcasing a more mature image and sound and reinventing themselves while maintaining their artistic integrity. Jude Rogers of The Guardian commented on Take That's post-reunion success, in light of a string of reunions by the group's disbanded counterparts from the 1990s: "Only Take That are penetrating pop's wider consciousness by becoming a man-band rather than a boy-band, singing mature, proper pop songs that cross the generations."
Take That have garnered critical acclaim and popularity as consummate live performers and for their musical output. Their domestic concert tours have been described as "some of the most flamboyant, imaginative and extravagant pop tours around". Aside from covers, all of their material is composed by the members themselves; Barlow was initially the principal songwriter who received sole credit but the other members have since taken a more active role in the composition and production process, including playing instruments for the backing track.
Band members
Current members
Gary Barlow (1990–1996, 2005–present)
Howard Donald (1990–1996, 2005–present)
Mark Owen (1990–1996, 2005–present)
Former members
Robbie Williams (1990–1995, 2010–2012)
Jason Orange (1990–1996, 2005–2014)
Timeline
Awards and nominations
|-
| 2016
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award for Best Live Act
|
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|2015
| "These Days"
| UK Music Video Awards for Best Art Direction
|
|-
| rowspan="6" style="text-align:center;"|2012
| "Pray"
|The Guardian Music Award for Best Number 1 Single
|
|-
| Take That
|Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music
|
|-
| "Back for Good"
|The Official Charts Company UK Recognition award for United Kingdom's Favourite Number One Single
|
|-
| "The Flood"
|Ivor Novello Award for PRS Most Performed Work
|
|-
| Take That
|Virgin Media Music Awards for Best Live Act
|
|-
| "Kidz"
|Virgin Media Music Awards for Best Music Video
|
|-
| rowspan="10" style="text-align:center;"|2011
|-
| Progress Live
|Audio Pro International Awards for Best Live Sound Event
|
|-
| Progress Live
|Audio Pro International Awards Grand Prix Award
|
|-
| Take That
|Phonographic Performance Limited Award for most played UK artist
|
|-
| "Kidz"
|Spex German Entertainment for Best Music Video
|
|-
| The Circus Live Tour
| Greatest Event ever at Wembley Stadium
|
|-
| Take That
|ECHO Award for Best International Group
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Group
|
|-
| Progress
| BRIT Award for MasterCard Album of the Year
|
|-
| Take That
|Virgin Media for Best Group
|
|-
| rowspan="6" style="text-align:center;"|2010
|-
| "Up All Night"
| UK Music Video Awards for Best Art Direction
|
|-
| "The Flood"
|iTunes Award for Best Single
|
|-
| Progress
| iTunes Award for Best Album
|
|-
| Take That
|Q Award Hall of Fame
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best Live Performance of the past 30 Years
|
|-
| rowspan="5" style="text-align:center;"|2009
| Take That
|GQ Men of the Year Awards for Best Band
|
|-
| Take That
|Q Award for Best Live Act
|
|-
| "Greatest Day"
|Q Award for Best Single
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Group
|
|-
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award
|
|-
| rowspan="7" style="text-align:center;"|2008
| "Shine"
|Ivor Novello Award for PRS Most Performed Work
|
|-
| "Rule the World"
|Virgin for Best Single
|
|-
| Take That
|Sony Ericsson Tour of the Year Award for Take That Arena Tour
|
|-
| "Shine"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Live Act
|
|-
| Beautiful World
|BRIT Award for Best British Album
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Group
|
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|2007
| "Patience"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|2006
| Take That
|Q Idol Award
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"|1996
| "Back for Good"
|Billboard International Hit of the Year
|
|-
| "Never Forget"
|Ivor Novello Award for Most Performed Song
|
|-
| "Back for Good"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"|1995
| "Back for Good"
|Ivor Novello Award for the Song of the Year
|
|-
| Take That
|MTV Europe Music Awards for Best Live Act
|
|-
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award
|
|-
| rowspan="6" style="text-align:center;"|1994
| "Babe"
|MTV Video Music Award for International Viewer's Choice Award for MTV Europe
|
|-
| Everything Changes
|Mercury Prize for Best Album
|
|-
| "Pray"
|Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song
|
|-
| "Pray"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| "Pray"
|BRIT Award for Best British Video
|
|-
| Take That
|MTV Europe Music Awards for Best Group
|
|-
| rowspan="4" style="text-align:center;"|1993
| "Could It Be Magic"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| "A Million Love Songs"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| "It Only Takes a Minute"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award for Best Newcomer
|
|}
Discography
Take That & Party (1992)
Everything Changes (1993)
Nobody Else (1995)
Beautiful World (2006)
The Circus (2008)
Progress (2010)
III (2014)
Wonderland (2017)
Tours
Party Tour (1992–93)
Everything Changes Tour (1993–94)
Pops Tour (1994–95)
Nobody Else Tour (1995)
The Ultimate Tour (2006)
Beautiful World Tour 2007 (2007)
Take That Present: The Circus Live (2009)
Progress Live (2011)
Take That Live (2015)
Wonderland Live (2017)
Greatest Hits Live (2019)
See also
List of best-selling boy bands
References
External links
Chinese Fansite
1990 establishments in England
1996 disestablishments in England
2005 establishments in England
Brit Award winners
Dance-pop groups
Echo (music award) winners
English boy bands
English dance music groups
Interscope Records artists
Ivor Novello Award winners
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1996
Musical groups established in 1990
Musical groups from Cheshire
Musical groups from Manchester
Musical groups reestablished in 2005
Polydor Records artists
Teen pop groups
Universal Music Group artists
Vocal quartets
Vocal quintets
Vocal trios | true | [
"Another Night may refer to:\nAnother Night (Real McCoy album), a 1995 album by Real McCoy\n\"Another Night\" (song), the title song of that album\nAnother Night (The Hollies album), a 1975 album by The Hollies\n\"Se på mej\", a song by the Swedish singer Jan Johansen, recorded in English as \"Another Night\"\n\"Another Night\", 1986 single by Aretha Franklin from the album Who's Zoomin' Who?\n\"Another Night\", 1990 single by Jason Donovan from the album Between the Lines\n\"Another Night\", 1976 song from the Camel album Moonmadness\n\"Another Night\", 1982 song from the Bucks Fizz album Are You Ready\n\"Another Night\", 2010 song from the Mac Miller EP, On and On and Beyond",
"\"Limerick Rake\" is a traditional Irish song whose composer is disputed. The lyrics are set to the tune of an earlier song titled \"Agús fagaimid siúd mar atá sé\". The lyrics likely date to the late 18th century, as attested by the use of the place-name \"Castletown Conyers\" (which was still seen referred to by its former name \"Castletown McEnyry\" as late as 1763) and the mention of the deaths of Lord Devonshire (1764) and John Damer (1776).\n\nThe song appeared in Colm Ó Lochlainn's 1939 publication Irish Street Ballads and has been recorded by a number of notable artists.\n\nLyrics\n\nNotes\n\nNotable recordings\nThe Wolfe Tones on their 1965 debut album The Foggy Dew\nThe Dubliners on their 1967 album A Drop of the Hard Stuff (sung a capella by Ciaran Bourke)\nThe Clancy Brothers on their 1970 album Welcome to Our House\nPaddy Reilly on his 1972 album At Home\nChristy Moore on his 1976 self titled album\nThe Pogues on the reissue of their 1989 album Peace and Love\nRonnie Drew on his 1999 album The Humour Is on Me Now\nThe Irish Rovers on their 2002 album Another Round (as \"The Rake\")\n\nReferences\n\nIrish ballads\n20th-century songs\nThe Dubliners songs\nThe Pogues songs"
] |
[
"Take That",
"1993-1995: Everything Changes, Nobody Else and superstardom",
"what did take that do in 1993",
"1993 saw the release of Everything Changes,",
"how well did everything changes do",
"material. It peaked at number one in the UK and spawned six singles, with four being consecutive UK number one singles",
"what is a song on everything changes",
"Pray",
"name another song on the album",
"\", \"Relight My Fire"
] | C_93f5c84a4b2e459c97d351f6a21ea1d5_1 | what was the best song on the album | 5 | What was the best song on the album Everything Changes? | Take That | 1993 saw the release of Everything Changes, based on Barlow's original material. It peaked at number one in the UK and spawned six singles, with four being consecutive UK number one singles - their first number one "Pray", "Relight My Fire", "Babe" and the title track "Everything Changes". The lead single "Why Can't I Wake Up with You" had narrowly missed the top spot in the UK peaking at number two and the sixth and final single "Love Ain't Here Anymore" taken from the album reached number three on the UK charts. Everything Changes saw the band gain international success with the album being nominated for the 1994 Mercury Prize, but it failed to crack the U.S. market, where an exclusive remix of "Love Ain't Here Anymore" (U.S. version) gained little success. By 1994, Take That had become radio and television stars across Europe and Asia, but it was not until 1995 that they did their first World Tour. It was during the years 1993-95 that the band fronted scores of magazine covers ranging from Smash Hits to GQ, becoming mass merchandised on all sorts of paraphernalia ranging from picture books, to posters, stickers, their own dolls, jewellery, caps, T-shirts, toothbrushes and even had their own annuals released. The band had also developed a large female teenage fanbase at the time. During this time, they performed at numerous music awards shows and chart shows such as the BRIT Awards and Top of the Pops, also winning the Best Live Act award in 1995 at the MTV Europe Music Awards, having been renowned for their breakdance routines, high energy and creative tour productions. In 1995, Take That released their third studio album Nobody Else, again based on Barlow's own material which reached number 1 in the UK and across Europe, capturing new audiences along the way, with Take That also able to make inroads in the adult audience in Britain through Barlow's melodic, sensitive ballads. For nearly five years, Take That's popularity was unsurpassed in Britain. The release of the first single from the album, "Sure", achieved yet another number one in the UK charts. It was not until their second release from that album, however, that they would experience what would become their biggest hit single, "Back for Good", which reached number one in 31 countries around the globe and to date has been covered 89 times the world over. It was also their only US hit, where it reached number seven. The song was initially unveiled for the first time via live performance while at the 1995 BRIT Awards, and based on the reception of that performance, the record pre-sold more records than expected and forced the record label to bring the release date forward by an unprecedented six weeks. The album was also noted for its cover which was a parody of the famed cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover sleeve. CANNOTANSWER | Why Can't I Wake Up with You | Take That are an English pop group formed in Manchester in 1990. The group currently consists of Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen. The original line-up also featured Jason Orange and Robbie Williams. Barlow is the group's lead singer and primary songwriter, with Owen and Williams initially providing backing vocals and Donald and Orange serving primarily as dancers.
The group have had 28 top 40 singles and 17 top 5 singles on the UK Singles Chart, 12 of which have reached number one, including "Back for Good", "Never Forget", "Patience" and "Greatest Day". They have also had eight number one albums on the UK Albums Chart. Internationally, the band have had 56 number one singles and 39 number one albums. They have received eight Brit Awards—winning for Best British Group and Best British Live Act. In 2012 they received an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. According to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), Take That has been certified for 14 million albums and 11.4 million singles in the UK.
Williams left the band in 1995 while the four remaining members completed their world tour and released a final single before splitting up in 1996. After filming a 2005 Take That: For the Record about the group and releasing a new greatest hits album, a four-piece Take That without Williams officially announced a 2006 reunion tour around the UK, entitled The Ultimate Tour. On 9 May 2006, it was announced that the group were set to record new material together once again; their fourth studio album, Beautiful World, was released in 2006 and was followed up with The Circus, in 2008. The group achieved new success as a four-piece, scoring a string of chart hits across the UK and Europe while selling over 45 million records worldwide. Williams rejoined Take That in 2010 for the band's sixth studio album, Progress. Released on 15 November of that year, it was the first album of new material to feature Take That's original line-up since their 1995 album, Nobody Else. It became the fastest-selling album of the 21st century and the second fastest-selling album in British history.
In 2014, the band recorded a seventh studio album, this time as a trio without Williams and Orange. The album, titled III, was released in November 2014 and became the band's seventh number one. It was preceded by the single "These Days", which became the band's 12th number one single in the UK.
In 2011, Take That set the new record for the fastest-selling tour of all time in the UK with Progress Live, beating the previous record set by their Circus Live Tour in 2009. At the 2011 Brit Awards they won Best British Group. In 2012, Forbes named them the fifth highest-earning music stars in the world. The group performed at the London 2012 Olympic Games closing ceremony, playing "Rule the World" while the Olympic Flame was extinguished. In the same year, the Official Charts Company revealed the biggest-selling singles artists in British music chart history with Take That currently placed at 15th overall, making them the most successful boy band in UK chart history. Four of their albums are listed in the best-selling albums of the millennium, with three of them among the 60 best-selling albums in UK chart history.
History
1989–1990: Formation
In 1989, Manchester-based Nigel Martin-Smith sought to create a British male vocal singing group modelled on New Kids on the Block. Martin-Smith's vision, however, was a teen-orientated group that would appeal to more than one demographic segment of the music industry. Martin-Smith was then introduced to young singer-songwriter Gary Barlow, who had been performing in clubs since the age of 15. Impressed with Barlow's catalogue of self-written material, Martin-Smith decided to build his new-look boy band around Barlow's musical abilities. A campaign to audition young men with abilities in dancing and singing followed and took place in Manchester and other surrounding cities in 1990. At 22, Howard Donald was one of the oldest to audition, but he was chosen after he got time off work as a vehicle painter to continue the process. Prior to auditioning, Jason Orange had appeared as a breakdancer on the popular television programme The Hit Man and Her. Martin-Smith also selected 18-year-old bank employee Mark Owen and finally 16-year-old Robbie Williams to round out the group, which initially went by the name Kick It.
1990–1992: Take That & Party
Take That's first TV appearance was on The Hit Man and Her in 1990, where they performed Barlow's self-written, unreleased song, "My Kind of Girl". They later appeared a second time to perform "Waiting Around", which would become the B-side for the first single, "Do What U Like". "Promises" and "Once You've Tasted Love" were also released as singles but were minor hits in the UK. Take That initially worked the same territory as their American counterparts, singing new jack R&B, urban soul, and mainstream pop. However, they worked their way toward Hi-NRG dance music, while also pursuing an adult contemporary ballad direction. As they aimed to break into the mainstream music industry, they worked a number of small clubs, schools, and events across the country building up a fanbase as they travelled to gigs constantly for months.
Take That's breakthrough single was a cover of the 1975 Tavares hit "It Only Takes a Minute", which peaked at number seven on the UK Singles Chart in June 1992. This success was followed by "I Found Heaven", then by the first Barlow ballad "A Million Love Songs", which also reached number seven in October. Their cover of the Barry Manilow hit "Could It Be Magic" gave them their first big success, peaking at number three in the UK in the first chart of 1993. Their first album, Take That & Party, was released in 1992, and included all the hit singles to date.
1993–1995: Everything Changes, Nobody Else and superstardom
1993 saw the release of Everything Changes, based on Barlow's original material. It peaked at number one in the UK and spawned six singles, with four being consecutive UK number one singles – their first number one "Pray", "Relight My Fire", "Babe" and the title track "Everything Changes". The lead single "Why Can't I Wake Up with You" had narrowly missed the top spot in the UK peaking at number two and the sixth and final single "Love Ain't Here Anymore" taken from the album reached number three on the UK charts. Everything Changes saw the band gain international success with the album being nominated for the 1994 Mercury Prize, but it failed to crack the U.S. market, where an exclusive remix of "Love Ain't Here Anymore" (U.S. version) gained little success.
By 1994, Take That had become radio and television stars across Europe and Asia, but it was not until 1995 that they did their first World Tour. It was during the years 1993–95 that the band fronted scores of magazine covers ranging from Smash Hits to GQ, becoming mass merchandised on all sorts of paraphernalia ranging from picture books, to posters, stickers, their own dolls, jewellery, caps, T-shirts, toothbrushes and even had their own annuals released. The band had also developed a large female teenage fanbase at the time. During this time, they performed at numerous music awards shows and chart shows such as the BRIT Awards and Top of the Pops, also winning the Best Live Act award in 1995 at the MTV Europe Music Awards, having been renowned for their breakdance routines, high energy and creative tour productions.
In 1995, Take That released their third studio album Nobody Else, again based on Barlow's own material which reached number 1 in the UK and across Europe, capturing new audiences along the way, with Take That also able to make inroads in the adult audience in Britain through Barlow's melodic, sensitive ballads. For nearly five years, Take That's popularity was unsurpassed in Britain. The release of the first single from the album, "Sure", achieved yet another number one in the UK charts. It was not until their second release from that album, however, that they would experience what would become their biggest hit single, "Back for Good", which reached number one in many countries including the UK, Germany, Australia, and Norway. It was also their only US hit, where it reached number seven.
The song was initially unveiled for the first time via live performance while at the 1995 BRIT Awards, and based on the reception of that performance, the record pre-sold more records than expected and forced the record label to bring the release date forward by an unprecedented six weeks. The album was also noted for its cover, which was a parody of the famed cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover sleeve.
1995–1996: Break-up and Greatest Hits
Robbie Williams's drug abuse had escalated to a near drug overdose the night before the group was scheduled to perform at the MTV Europe Music Awards in 1994.
In June 1995, Williams was photographed by the press partying with Oasis at the Glastonbury Festival. The following month, the band offered him an ultimatum; he was to adhere to the band's responsibilities or leave before their scheduled world tour. Williams chose the latter. Williams claimed he was bored with Barlow's leadership and jealous of Barlow. Despite the loss of Williams, Take That continued to promote Nobody Else as a four-piece, scoring a further hit single with "Never Forget" with Donald on lead vocal. They subsequently went to America and completed the Nobody Else Tour in October 1995. Following the tour, the band began to plan for their next album; however, when they spent Christmas together, they mutually agreed it was time to part ways.
On 13 February 1996, Take That formally announced that they were disbanding. This was followed by the Greatest Hits compilation in 1996, which contained a new recording, a cover of the Bee Gees' "How Deep Is Your Love". The single went on to become what was to be the band's final UK number one until their 2006 comeback a decade later. Take That gave what was thought to be their final performance in April 1996 at Amsterdam. Following the band's announcement, millions of their fans were distraught around the world and in the UK alone, teenage girls threatened suicide and were seen lining streets in tears, to the point that telephone hotlines were set up by the government to deal with counselling them. After the band broke up, highly respected music figures such as Elton John noted that Take That were different from other boy bands before and after them, in that they wrote their own material through Gary Barlow. Barlow is one of only a small number of people who have won an Ivor Novello award during their time in a boy band, with George Michael whilst in Wham! and Tony Mortimer whilst in East 17 being two others who have achieved this feat. Take That had also left a legacy of being immaculate performers with a very high work ethic, causing them to be voted in as the greatest boy band of all time.
2005–2006: Reunion as a quartet and Never Forget – The Ultimate Collection
On 14 November 2005, Never Forget – The Ultimate Collection, a new compilation of their hit singles including a new previously unreleased song, also achieved great success and peaked at number 2 on UK charts, selling over 2.1 million copies in the UK alone. The new song "Today I've Lost You" (recorded in September 2005) was originally written by Barlow as the follow up to "Back for Good" but was never recorded. On 16 November 2005, the group got back together for the ITV documentary Take That: For the Record, in which they aired their views over their fame, success, the split and what the post-Williams line-up had done since. On 25 November 2005, there was an official press conference by the band announcing that the post-Robbie Williams line-up was going to tour in 2006. The tour, entitled The Ultimate Tour, ran from April to June 2006. The tour featured a guest appearance by British soul singer Beverley Knight, who replaced Lulu's vocals on the song "Relight My Fire"; although Lulu did appear during the stadium shows on "Relight My Fire" and "Never Forget". The American female ensemble Pussycat Dolls supported the group at their Dublin concert, and the Sugababes supported the group on the final five dates of the stadium leg. In a seven-year study analysing over one billion online searches via Google conducted by AccuraCast, a leading digital search agency, their comeback was ranked at number one in the UK.
2006–2007: Beautiful World
On 9 May 2006, Take That returned to the recorded music scene after more than ten years of absence, signing with Polydor Records. The band's comeback album, Beautiful World, entered the UK Albums Chart at no. 1 and, as of June 2009, had sold over 2.8 million copies in the UK. It is the 35th best selling album in UK music history.
On Beautiful World, all four members of the band had the opportunity to sing lead vocals and contribute in the songwriting. Unlike the band's earlier works, where the majority of their material was written by Barlow who received sole credit, all four band members are credited as co-writers, along with John Shanks. The comeback single, "Patience", was released on 20 November 2006, with a special event launching it on 5 November.
On 26 November "Patience" hit number 1 in the UK in its second week of chart entry, making it the group's ninth No. 1, and staying there for 4 weeks. Take That also accompanied eventual winner Leona Lewis on a live version of "A Million Love Songs" during the final of The X Factor on 16 December 2006.
The week after Beautiful World was released, it was announced that Take That had become the first artists ever to top the UK official single and album charts along with the download single, download album and DVD charts in the same week, as well as topping the radio charts.
The video for the number 1 hit single "Shine", the follow-up to "Patience", premiered on 25 January 2007 on Channel 4, ahead of its release on 26 February 2007. The band's success continued on 14 February 2007 when Take That performed live at the BRIT Awards ceremony at Earl's Court. Their single "Patience" won the Best British Single category. The third single chosen from Beautiful World was "I'd Wait For Life", released on 18 June 2007 in the UK. The single reached 17 in the UK Singles Chart. This may have been due to lack of promotion, as the band decided to take a pre-tour break rather than do any promotion for the single. The single "Rule the World", included on the deluxe version of Beautiful World, was recorded for the soundtrack of the film Stardust (2007). It reached number two in the UK and went on to become the group's second best selling single, shifting over 1.2 million units in the UK. Beautiful World was the fourth biggest-selling album of 2007. It was announced at the start of 2007 that Take That signed a record deal with American label Interscope, and would also release their album in Canada. Starting on 11 October 2007, Take That began their Beautiful World Tour 2007 in Belfast. The tour included 49 shows throughout Europe and the UK and ended in Manchester on 23 December 2007. The band received four nominations at the 2008 BRIT Awards. Nominated for Best British Group, Best British Single ("Shine"), Best British Album (Beautiful World) and Best Live Act, they took home the Best Live Act and the Best British Single awards. According to a 2007 MSN UK internet poll, Take That were voted as the "comeback kings" of the year.
2008–2009: The Circus
"Greatest Day", the first single from the album The Circus, made its radio premiere on 13 October 2008 and it was released on 24 November. It debuted at number 1 on the UK Singles Chart on 30 November 2008. An album launch party for The Circus was held in Paris on 2 December. On its first day of release The Circus sold 133,000 copies, and after four days on sale it sold 306,000 copies (going platinum) making The Circus the fastest selling album of the year. The album reached number 1 on the UK Albums Chart on 7 December 2008 with total first-week sales of 432,490, the third highest opening sales week in UK history.
On 28 October 2008, on the Radio 1 Chris Moyles show, it was announced that Take That would be touring again in June/July 2009, covering the UK and Ireland. Tickets for the Take That Present: The Circus Live tour went on sale on 31 October. The promoters, SJM, have said that the band's tour is "the fastest selling in UK history".
On 22 May 2008, Barlow and Donald attended the 2008 Ivor Novello Awards where Take That won the award for Most Performed Work with their single "Shine". Take That won the Sony Ericsson Tour of the Year award at the Vodafone music awards on 18 September 2008. They were unable to attend as they were in LA finishing off The Circus. They did send a video link message, which was shown at the awards. On 22 November 2008, Take That appeared on week 7 of the talent show The X Factor where the finalists performed some of their greatest hits and Owen and Barlow made a guest appearance to personally coach the contestants. The band also performed on Children in Need 2008, singing their new single, "Greatest Day", before donating £250,000 to the charity from their Marks and Spencer fee. The band were also voted the Greatest Boy Band of All Time, reflecting their ongoing marketability and success in the pop arena, even after two decades.
At the 2009 Brit Awards they were nominated for Best British Group and they performed "Greatest Day" at the ceremony. "Up All Night", the second single from The Circus, was released on 2 March 2009, and peaked at number 14 on the UK Singles Chart, despite heavy airplay. In Germany and Australia, "The Garden" was released as the second single instead. On 7 May 2009, Take That's official website confirmed that the third single from The Circus would be "Said It All" which was released on 15 June 2009, peaking at number 9 on the UK Singles chart. The video premiered on GMTV on 8 May 2009. It features all four band members dressed up as vintage circus clowns, which tied in with their forthcoming Take That Present: The Circus Live tour. Take That started their Circus Live tour at the Stadium of Light on 5 June 2009 in Sunderland and ended at the Wembley Stadium in London on 5 July 2009, which over 80,000 people attended. This tour quickly became the fastest-selling of all time, breaking all records by selling all of their 650,000 tickets in less than four and a half hours.
In November 2009 Take That released the official DVD of their Circus tour, which became the fastest-selling music DVD of all time in the UK on its first day of release and stayed in the top 10 of the videos chart for over a year. This overtook the previous record sales holder, which was Take That's Beautiful World Live tour and stayed at the number 1 spot for 8 weeks. The following week Take That released their first live album, The Greatest Day – Take That Present: The Circus Live, which sold 98,000 copies on its first day of release and was certified Platinum in July 2013. "Hold up a Light" was released as the fifth and final single from The Circus to radio stations and as a digital download to promote the release of the live album. The live album also featured a stripped down session recorded live at the famous Abbey Road Studios in London. It featured the members singing the setlist from the preceding tour, albeit in a studio setting.
2010–2011: Williams' return and Progress
On 7 June 2010, the news broke of a single called "Shame", which had been written by Barlow and Williams and would feature the vocals of both artists. This was the first time the pair had worked together since 1995 and would appear on the second greatest hits collection of Williams. "Heart and I", another track from the same album, was also co-written by Williams and Barlow. The single "Shame" peaked at number 2 on the UK Singles Chart while also achieving success throughout Europe, charting in over 19 countries.
After working with the band on new material in Los Angeles, on 15 July 2010 Robbie Williams announced he was returning to Take That. After months of working together, assembling new songs for a new album and even debating a band-name change to "The English", a joint statement between Williams and the group read, "The rumours are true ... Take That: the original lineup, have written and recorded a new album for release later this year." The statement went on to say, "Following months of speculation Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Jason Orange, Mark Owen, and Robbie Williams confirmed they have been recording a new studio album as a five-piece, which they will release in November." The lead single from Take That's album Progress was announced as "The Flood" and was released 7 November as a digital download, and on 8 November as a physical copy, with the album released a week later on 15 November. The single peaked at number 2 in the UK Singles Charts and to date has sold over 500,000 copies in the UK alone. The single also achieved success across Europe, charting inside the top 10 in ten countries while also charting in another nine countries whilst also being nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for best work.
On 26 October the band announced that they would be embarking on a huge UK stadium tour entitled Progress Live, starting in Sunderland on 27 May, and finishing with a record-breaking 8 nights at London's Wembley Stadium in July 2011. It was also announced that Williams would perform hit singles from his solo career during the tour. The band then played at some of the biggest venues across Europe for the second leg of the tour. The phenomenal demand for tickets across the country led to the web sites of all the major UK ticket suppliers either crashing or considerably slowing for hours on end. The demand and sheer volume of fans also created problems for the UK telephone network. Take That's Progress Live also broke all records for ticket sales selling over 1.1 million tickets in one day, smashing the previous box office record set by Take That's Circus tour in 2008.
On the first day of release Progress became the fastest selling album of the century, with 235,000 copies sold in just one day. The album reached number 1 in the UK, selling around 520,000 copies in its first week, becoming the second fastest-selling album in history. After the release of Progress it was announced that Take That have become Amazon UK's top-selling music artist of all time.
The album retained the number one spot for six consecutive weeks in the UK since its release, selling 2.8 million copies in the UK alone and becoming the best selling album of 2010
Progress also achieved success across Europe where it debuted at number one in Ireland, Greece, Germany and Denmark. and the European Top 100 Albums chart. It also debuted inside the top 10 of the charts in Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland.
"Kidz" was announced as the second single from Progress, it was released 21 February 2011 and charted well across Europe. The band performed the song live at the 2011 Brit Awards hosted at The O2 Arena, where they won a Brit for Best British Group and were nominated for Best British Album. Their performance of "Kidz", praised by critics, involved a highly choreographed routine featuring dancers dressed in police-styled riot gear bearing the Take That symbol on the uniform and shields. On 19 May 2011, Take That announced a new EP entitled Progressed, which contained eight tracks written by the band since they had reunited as a five-piece. It was packaged alongside the album Progress and returned the band to number 1 in the UK Album Chart the week after it was released on 13 June 2011.
Take That announced that the Progress Live tour would be released worldwide as their second live album to date and would also be released on home media formats across the UK and Europe on 21 November 2011. The DVD debuted at number 1 on the UK Music Video top 40 in its first week on release and sold over 200,000 copies in two weeks of release in the UK alone. Take That's efforts were recognised further when they were awarded Virgin Media's Best Live Act of 2012.
On 4 October, it was reported that Take That were to take a break after the completion of the Progress tour, with Barlow continuing his role as a judge on The X Factor and Williams recording new solo material. Take That were presented with an Ivor Novello Award for their Outstanding Contribution to British Music in May 2012.
In August 2012, Take That performed at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics, despite Barlow announcing that his daughter had been stillborn the previous week. The performance earned him praise for appearing live so soon after the tragedy. Williams was due to perform with the band but dropped out due to his wife giving birth at around the same time and thus the group performed as a four-piece. In November 2012, Take That reunited as a five-piece for the last time to perform "Never Forget" at the Music Industry Trust Awards. In 2013, Donald became a judge on the German version of the television dancing show Got to Dance.
2014–2015: Line-up change and III
In May 2013, Owen announced that Take That was to begin recording their seventh studio album in 2014, and on 14 January 2014, Donald and Barlow both tweeted that Take That had entered the studio to begin recording the album, although it was not initially clear if Williams was present at these recording sessions. On 28 April 2014, Williams announced on Twitter he was to become a father for a second time, and consequently suggested he would be unable to join Take That on their album and tour. Although welcome to return to the band at any time, Williams chose not to return for group's seventh and eighth studio albums and their accompanying tours, focusing instead on his solo commitments. He continued to write music with his colleagues and has performed with the group on several occasions since 2011's Progress tour and plans on returning at some point in the future.
On 24 September 2014, it was announced that Jason Orange had left the band. He said: 'At a band meeting last week I confirmed to Mark, Gary and Howard that I do not wish to commit to recording and promoting a new album. 'At the end of The Progress Tour I began to question whether it might be the right time for me to not continue on with Take That,' he continued. 'There have been no fallings out, only a decision on my part that I no longer wish to do this,' he added. Barlow, Donald, and Owen issued a joint statement about Orange's decision which said: "This is a sad day for us. Jason leaving is a huge loss both professionally and even more so personally ... Jason's energy and belief in what this band could achieve has made it what it is today, and we'll forever be grateful for his enthusiasm, dedication and inspiration over the years." A day after the announcement, Robbie Williams took to Twitter to show support of Orange's decision. "Mr Orange. Until we ride again. Much love, Bro.", Williams tweeted.
On 10 October 2014, Take That unveiled their first song as a three-piece and lead single from their upcoming album. Titled "These Days", it was released on 23 November 2014 and went to No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart, knocking Band Aid 30 off the top spot and becoming their 12th number one single. The album itself, called III, was released on 28 November 2014 and became the band's seventh No. 1 album. It was then followed by a sell-out arena tour entitled Take That Live. On 14 October 2015, the band announced their new single "Hey Boy", released on 16 October, which is the first single from the 2015 re-release of III. The 2015 edition of the album was released on 20 November.
In December 2015, British media buzzed about the group embarking on a stint in Las Vegas, starting 2017. Reports indicated the group impressed U.S. promoters and would headline their own residency show. Many venues circulated, including The AXIS at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, The Foundry at SLS Las Vegas and the Linq Theater at The LINQ Hotel & Casino. Local newspaper, the Las Vegas Sun writes that everything is still unconfirmed, despite Barlow confirming the rumour on Twitter.
2016–2017: Wonderland
On 2 February 2016, in an interview with The Sun, Barlow revealed that Take That would release their eighth studio album later in the year. On 4 May 2016, English drum and bass duo Sigma announced their newest single would feature Take That. "Cry" received its first radio play on 20 May 2016 and was released on that date. On 21 October 2016, the band posted a teaser on their social media pages and website depicting the logo of the band flickering with the hashtag "#WONDERLAND". The following day, it was announced that their new album, titled Wonderland, was scheduled to be released on 24 March 2017. It was then followed by a UK and Ireland arena tour entitled Wonderland Live, that commenced on 5 May 2017 at the Genting Arena in Birmingham. On 17 February 2017, the lead single of Wonderland was released. Titled "Giants", it debuted at 13 in the UK charts, which became the band's 24th UK top 20 single.
On 8 April 2017, ITV aired a specially commissioned hour-length television special titled An Evening with Take That, where the band performed some songs from the album, along with some old classics including "Never Forget", "Back for Good" and "Rule the World". The band also took part in a Q&A session with the audience members. On 27 April, it was announced on Twitter that "New Day" would be released as the next single from the album Wonderland. The band were seen recording the music video in a field in Luton the days leading up the opening night of the Wonderland Live tour. Due to the Manchester Arena bombing just days before they were due to perform at the venue, their Manchester and Liverpool dates were rescheduled or relocated. The band returned a month later to perform at the One Love Manchester benefit concert.
On 16 September 2017, Barlow, Owen and Donald were set to perform a special one-off show in Jersey after a fan bid more than £1.2 million to win a performance from the band. This then turned in to a ticketed charity event where the money from tickets sold would go towards benefiting Children in Need. The auction was held on BBC Radio 2. On 11 November 2017, Take That began their foreign tour in Perth, Australia, the first time they have performed in the country in over twenty years. They also played in New Zealand, United Arab Emirates and Israel for the first time. Unlike the other tours, a DVD for Wonderland Live was not released. Instead, it was broadcast on Sky 1 on 23 December and in cinemas.
2018–2020: The 30th Anniversary, and Odyssey
On 16 July 2018, while performing at first ever Hits Radio Live at the Manchester Arena, Barlow, Donald and Owen confirmed that they would be touring in 2019. The tour was a Greatest Hits tour and celebrated the 30th anniversary of the band. There was also a Greatest Hits album, Odyssey, which was released on 23 November 2018. The Greatest Hits album features existing songs from their back catalogue that have been re-imagined and 3 brand new songs. It also includes collaborations with Boyz II Men, Lulu, Sigma and Barry Gibb. Odyssey reached number one in the UK album chart and was certified as a platinum selling record. The following year, Odyssey Live, the recording of their tour, reached number 5, becoming the band's 13th top 5 album, with the DVD becoming the biggest live music sale of 2019.
In May 2020, Barlow, Donald, and Owen reunited with Williams for a virtual performance from their respective homes, hosted by price comparison website comparethemarket.com, to raise money for the music charity Nordoff Robbins and Crew Nation.
In other media
In April 2006, EMI licensed the band's songs to be used in the musical Never Forget, a musical based on songs of the band from the 1990s. Take That posted and then later removed a statement on their website distancing themselves from it.
Take That wrote and recorded the theme song "Rule the World" for the film Stardust directed by Matthew Vaughn, which was released in cinemas across the globe in October 2007. In 2007, their song "Back for Good" was used as part of the soundtrack for popular Korean drama The 1st Shop of Coffee Prince.
Take That presented their own TV show Take That Come to Town, a variety show in which they performed some of their biggest hits. The show also featured comedy sketches with one of Peter Kay's alter egos Geraldine McQueen. It aired on 7 December 2008 on ITV1. Sony launched their first Take That video game, SingStar Take That in 2009 for the PlayStation 3.
In November 2010, ITV aired Take That: Look Back, Don't Stare, a black-and-white documentary which focused on the band working together for the first time in 15 years. Through a series of interviews, the band look back at their achievements while also looking forward to what the future holds for them. On 18 November 2010, Williams and Barlow appeared together live on television for the first time on the Popstars program in Germany singing their hit "Shame".
In 2011, Take That's song "Love Love" was used in the credits of the 2011 film X-Men: First Class and later, "When We Were Young" was chosen as the main theme for The Three Musketeers movie. In 2015, the song "Get Ready for It" from their album III, was chosen as the theme song for the film Kingsman: The Secret Service.
In 2017, Take That launched The Band, a musical written by Tim Firth featuring the five winners of Let It Shine and some of Take That's biggest hits. Take That, including Robbie Williams, were billed as executive producers.
The group's music is regularly featured in the Channel 4 show Derry Girls, notably in the third episode of the second series, when the lead characters sneak off to attend the 1993 Take That concert in Belfast; the episode features the music video for "Pray" and ends on footage of the band performing "Everything Changes".
Artistry
Early in their career, Take That were known for party anthems such as "Do What U Like" and more mature ballads such as "A Million Love Songs" and "Back for Good". Since reuniting in 2006, they have become more experimental: their post-2006 albums Beautiful World and The Circus have featured "stadium-filling pop-rock" while Progress largely leaned towards electropop. Having been dubbed the "comeback kings" by the media for their highly successful reunion, the group has won widespread praise for their seamless transformation from teen idols to "man band" without overly relying on nostalgia, instead showcasing a more mature image and sound and reinventing themselves while maintaining their artistic integrity. Jude Rogers of The Guardian commented on Take That's post-reunion success, in light of a string of reunions by the group's disbanded counterparts from the 1990s: "Only Take That are penetrating pop's wider consciousness by becoming a man-band rather than a boy-band, singing mature, proper pop songs that cross the generations."
Take That have garnered critical acclaim and popularity as consummate live performers and for their musical output. Their domestic concert tours have been described as "some of the most flamboyant, imaginative and extravagant pop tours around". Aside from covers, all of their material is composed by the members themselves; Barlow was initially the principal songwriter who received sole credit but the other members have since taken a more active role in the composition and production process, including playing instruments for the backing track.
Band members
Current members
Gary Barlow (1990–1996, 2005–present)
Howard Donald (1990–1996, 2005–present)
Mark Owen (1990–1996, 2005–present)
Former members
Robbie Williams (1990–1995, 2010–2012)
Jason Orange (1990–1996, 2005–2014)
Timeline
Awards and nominations
|-
| 2016
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award for Best Live Act
|
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|2015
| "These Days"
| UK Music Video Awards for Best Art Direction
|
|-
| rowspan="6" style="text-align:center;"|2012
| "Pray"
|The Guardian Music Award for Best Number 1 Single
|
|-
| Take That
|Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music
|
|-
| "Back for Good"
|The Official Charts Company UK Recognition award for United Kingdom's Favourite Number One Single
|
|-
| "The Flood"
|Ivor Novello Award for PRS Most Performed Work
|
|-
| Take That
|Virgin Media Music Awards for Best Live Act
|
|-
| "Kidz"
|Virgin Media Music Awards for Best Music Video
|
|-
| rowspan="10" style="text-align:center;"|2011
|-
| Progress Live
|Audio Pro International Awards for Best Live Sound Event
|
|-
| Progress Live
|Audio Pro International Awards Grand Prix Award
|
|-
| Take That
|Phonographic Performance Limited Award for most played UK artist
|
|-
| "Kidz"
|Spex German Entertainment for Best Music Video
|
|-
| The Circus Live Tour
| Greatest Event ever at Wembley Stadium
|
|-
| Take That
|ECHO Award for Best International Group
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Group
|
|-
| Progress
| BRIT Award for MasterCard Album of the Year
|
|-
| Take That
|Virgin Media for Best Group
|
|-
| rowspan="6" style="text-align:center;"|2010
|-
| "Up All Night"
| UK Music Video Awards for Best Art Direction
|
|-
| "The Flood"
|iTunes Award for Best Single
|
|-
| Progress
| iTunes Award for Best Album
|
|-
| Take That
|Q Award Hall of Fame
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best Live Performance of the past 30 Years
|
|-
| rowspan="5" style="text-align:center;"|2009
| Take That
|GQ Men of the Year Awards for Best Band
|
|-
| Take That
|Q Award for Best Live Act
|
|-
| "Greatest Day"
|Q Award for Best Single
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Group
|
|-
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award
|
|-
| rowspan="7" style="text-align:center;"|2008
| "Shine"
|Ivor Novello Award for PRS Most Performed Work
|
|-
| "Rule the World"
|Virgin for Best Single
|
|-
| Take That
|Sony Ericsson Tour of the Year Award for Take That Arena Tour
|
|-
| "Shine"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Live Act
|
|-
| Beautiful World
|BRIT Award for Best British Album
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Group
|
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|2007
| "Patience"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|2006
| Take That
|Q Idol Award
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"|1996
| "Back for Good"
|Billboard International Hit of the Year
|
|-
| "Never Forget"
|Ivor Novello Award for Most Performed Song
|
|-
| "Back for Good"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"|1995
| "Back for Good"
|Ivor Novello Award for the Song of the Year
|
|-
| Take That
|MTV Europe Music Awards for Best Live Act
|
|-
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award
|
|-
| rowspan="6" style="text-align:center;"|1994
| "Babe"
|MTV Video Music Award for International Viewer's Choice Award for MTV Europe
|
|-
| Everything Changes
|Mercury Prize for Best Album
|
|-
| "Pray"
|Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song
|
|-
| "Pray"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| "Pray"
|BRIT Award for Best British Video
|
|-
| Take That
|MTV Europe Music Awards for Best Group
|
|-
| rowspan="4" style="text-align:center;"|1993
| "Could It Be Magic"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| "A Million Love Songs"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| "It Only Takes a Minute"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award for Best Newcomer
|
|}
Discography
Take That & Party (1992)
Everything Changes (1993)
Nobody Else (1995)
Beautiful World (2006)
The Circus (2008)
Progress (2010)
III (2014)
Wonderland (2017)
Tours
Party Tour (1992–93)
Everything Changes Tour (1993–94)
Pops Tour (1994–95)
Nobody Else Tour (1995)
The Ultimate Tour (2006)
Beautiful World Tour 2007 (2007)
Take That Present: The Circus Live (2009)
Progress Live (2011)
Take That Live (2015)
Wonderland Live (2017)
Greatest Hits Live (2019)
See also
List of best-selling boy bands
References
External links
Chinese Fansite
1990 establishments in England
1996 disestablishments in England
2005 establishments in England
Brit Award winners
Dance-pop groups
Echo (music award) winners
English boy bands
English dance music groups
Interscope Records artists
Ivor Novello Award winners
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1996
Musical groups established in 1990
Musical groups from Cheshire
Musical groups from Manchester
Musical groups reestablished in 2005
Polydor Records artists
Teen pop groups
Universal Music Group artists
Vocal quartets
Vocal quintets
Vocal trios | true | [
"We Created the World is the debut studio album by Finnish alternative rock band Softengine. It was released in Finland on 3 October 2014, through Sony Music Entertainment. The album has peaked to number 7 on the Finnish Albums Chart. The album includes the singles \"Something Better\", \"Yellow House\", \"The Sirens\" and \"What If I?\".\n\nSingles\n\"Something Better\" was released as the lead single from the album on 21 March 2014. The song was selected to represent Finland at the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 at the B&W Hallerne in Copenhagen, Denmark. The song qualified from the second semi-final to compete in the final. Finland placed 11th in the final, scoring 72 points. This was Finland's best placing in the contest since Lordi's victory in the Eurovision Song Contest 2006. \"Yellow House\" was released as the second single from the album on 13 June 2014. \"The Sirens\" was released as the third single from the album on 3 October 2014. \"What If I?\" was released as the fourth single from the album on 17 December 2014.\n\nTrack listing\n\nChart performance\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2014 debut albums",
"\"I Cried\" is a popular song written by Michael Elias and Billy Duke.\n\nThe best-selling version was done by Patti Page, reaching number 13 on the Billboard chart in 1954. It was released by Mercury Records as catalog number 70416. The song was a two-sided hit, with the flip side \"What a Dream\" doing even better on the chart. It entered the chart on September 1, 1954, and stayed on for three weeks, peaking at number 26 on the Billboard Best Seller chart. Another version, by Tommy Leonetti, reached number 30 the same year. The song reached number 18 on the Cash Box best-selling record chart in that year.\n\nThe song was covered by Eddie Holman in his 1970 album, I Love You.\n\nReferences\n\n1954 songs"
] |
[
"Take That",
"1993-1995: Everything Changes, Nobody Else and superstardom",
"what did take that do in 1993",
"1993 saw the release of Everything Changes,",
"how well did everything changes do",
"material. It peaked at number one in the UK and spawned six singles, with four being consecutive UK number one singles",
"what is a song on everything changes",
"Pray",
"name another song on the album",
"\", \"Relight My Fire",
"what was the best song on the album",
"Why Can't I Wake Up with You"
] | C_93f5c84a4b2e459c97d351f6a21ea1d5_1 | when is nobody else released | 6 | Other than Everything Changes, when is Nobody Else released? | Take That | 1993 saw the release of Everything Changes, based on Barlow's original material. It peaked at number one in the UK and spawned six singles, with four being consecutive UK number one singles - their first number one "Pray", "Relight My Fire", "Babe" and the title track "Everything Changes". The lead single "Why Can't I Wake Up with You" had narrowly missed the top spot in the UK peaking at number two and the sixth and final single "Love Ain't Here Anymore" taken from the album reached number three on the UK charts. Everything Changes saw the band gain international success with the album being nominated for the 1994 Mercury Prize, but it failed to crack the U.S. market, where an exclusive remix of "Love Ain't Here Anymore" (U.S. version) gained little success. By 1994, Take That had become radio and television stars across Europe and Asia, but it was not until 1995 that they did their first World Tour. It was during the years 1993-95 that the band fronted scores of magazine covers ranging from Smash Hits to GQ, becoming mass merchandised on all sorts of paraphernalia ranging from picture books, to posters, stickers, their own dolls, jewellery, caps, T-shirts, toothbrushes and even had their own annuals released. The band had also developed a large female teenage fanbase at the time. During this time, they performed at numerous music awards shows and chart shows such as the BRIT Awards and Top of the Pops, also winning the Best Live Act award in 1995 at the MTV Europe Music Awards, having been renowned for their breakdance routines, high energy and creative tour productions. In 1995, Take That released their third studio album Nobody Else, again based on Barlow's own material which reached number 1 in the UK and across Europe, capturing new audiences along the way, with Take That also able to make inroads in the adult audience in Britain through Barlow's melodic, sensitive ballads. For nearly five years, Take That's popularity was unsurpassed in Britain. The release of the first single from the album, "Sure", achieved yet another number one in the UK charts. It was not until their second release from that album, however, that they would experience what would become their biggest hit single, "Back for Good", which reached number one in 31 countries around the globe and to date has been covered 89 times the world over. It was also their only US hit, where it reached number seven. The song was initially unveiled for the first time via live performance while at the 1995 BRIT Awards, and based on the reception of that performance, the record pre-sold more records than expected and forced the record label to bring the release date forward by an unprecedented six weeks. The album was also noted for its cover which was a parody of the famed cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover sleeve. CANNOTANSWER | 1995, | Take That are an English pop group formed in Manchester in 1990. The group currently consists of Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen. The original line-up also featured Jason Orange and Robbie Williams. Barlow is the group's lead singer and primary songwriter, with Owen and Williams initially providing backing vocals and Donald and Orange serving primarily as dancers.
The group have had 28 top 40 singles and 17 top 5 singles on the UK Singles Chart, 12 of which have reached number one, including "Back for Good", "Never Forget", "Patience" and "Greatest Day". They have also had eight number one albums on the UK Albums Chart. Internationally, the band have had 56 number one singles and 39 number one albums. They have received eight Brit Awards—winning for Best British Group and Best British Live Act. In 2012 they received an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. According to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), Take That has been certified for 14 million albums and 11.4 million singles in the UK.
Williams left the band in 1995 while the four remaining members completed their world tour and released a final single before splitting up in 1996. After filming a 2005 Take That: For the Record about the group and releasing a new greatest hits album, a four-piece Take That without Williams officially announced a 2006 reunion tour around the UK, entitled The Ultimate Tour. On 9 May 2006, it was announced that the group were set to record new material together once again; their fourth studio album, Beautiful World, was released in 2006 and was followed up with The Circus, in 2008. The group achieved new success as a four-piece, scoring a string of chart hits across the UK and Europe while selling over 45 million records worldwide. Williams rejoined Take That in 2010 for the band's sixth studio album, Progress. Released on 15 November of that year, it was the first album of new material to feature Take That's original line-up since their 1995 album, Nobody Else. It became the fastest-selling album of the 21st century and the second fastest-selling album in British history.
In 2014, the band recorded a seventh studio album, this time as a trio without Williams and Orange. The album, titled III, was released in November 2014 and became the band's seventh number one. It was preceded by the single "These Days", which became the band's 12th number one single in the UK.
In 2011, Take That set the new record for the fastest-selling tour of all time in the UK with Progress Live, beating the previous record set by their Circus Live Tour in 2009. At the 2011 Brit Awards they won Best British Group. In 2012, Forbes named them the fifth highest-earning music stars in the world. The group performed at the London 2012 Olympic Games closing ceremony, playing "Rule the World" while the Olympic Flame was extinguished. In the same year, the Official Charts Company revealed the biggest-selling singles artists in British music chart history with Take That currently placed at 15th overall, making them the most successful boy band in UK chart history. Four of their albums are listed in the best-selling albums of the millennium, with three of them among the 60 best-selling albums in UK chart history.
History
1989–1990: Formation
In 1989, Manchester-based Nigel Martin-Smith sought to create a British male vocal singing group modelled on New Kids on the Block. Martin-Smith's vision, however, was a teen-orientated group that would appeal to more than one demographic segment of the music industry. Martin-Smith was then introduced to young singer-songwriter Gary Barlow, who had been performing in clubs since the age of 15. Impressed with Barlow's catalogue of self-written material, Martin-Smith decided to build his new-look boy band around Barlow's musical abilities. A campaign to audition young men with abilities in dancing and singing followed and took place in Manchester and other surrounding cities in 1990. At 22, Howard Donald was one of the oldest to audition, but he was chosen after he got time off work as a vehicle painter to continue the process. Prior to auditioning, Jason Orange had appeared as a breakdancer on the popular television programme The Hit Man and Her. Martin-Smith also selected 18-year-old bank employee Mark Owen and finally 16-year-old Robbie Williams to round out the group, which initially went by the name Kick It.
1990–1992: Take That & Party
Take That's first TV appearance was on The Hit Man and Her in 1990, where they performed Barlow's self-written, unreleased song, "My Kind of Girl". They later appeared a second time to perform "Waiting Around", which would become the B-side for the first single, "Do What U Like". "Promises" and "Once You've Tasted Love" were also released as singles but were minor hits in the UK. Take That initially worked the same territory as their American counterparts, singing new jack R&B, urban soul, and mainstream pop. However, they worked their way toward Hi-NRG dance music, while also pursuing an adult contemporary ballad direction. As they aimed to break into the mainstream music industry, they worked a number of small clubs, schools, and events across the country building up a fanbase as they travelled to gigs constantly for months.
Take That's breakthrough single was a cover of the 1975 Tavares hit "It Only Takes a Minute", which peaked at number seven on the UK Singles Chart in June 1992. This success was followed by "I Found Heaven", then by the first Barlow ballad "A Million Love Songs", which also reached number seven in October. Their cover of the Barry Manilow hit "Could It Be Magic" gave them their first big success, peaking at number three in the UK in the first chart of 1993. Their first album, Take That & Party, was released in 1992, and included all the hit singles to date.
1993–1995: Everything Changes, Nobody Else and superstardom
1993 saw the release of Everything Changes, based on Barlow's original material. It peaked at number one in the UK and spawned six singles, with four being consecutive UK number one singles – their first number one "Pray", "Relight My Fire", "Babe" and the title track "Everything Changes". The lead single "Why Can't I Wake Up with You" had narrowly missed the top spot in the UK peaking at number two and the sixth and final single "Love Ain't Here Anymore" taken from the album reached number three on the UK charts. Everything Changes saw the band gain international success with the album being nominated for the 1994 Mercury Prize, but it failed to crack the U.S. market, where an exclusive remix of "Love Ain't Here Anymore" (U.S. version) gained little success.
By 1994, Take That had become radio and television stars across Europe and Asia, but it was not until 1995 that they did their first World Tour. It was during the years 1993–95 that the band fronted scores of magazine covers ranging from Smash Hits to GQ, becoming mass merchandised on all sorts of paraphernalia ranging from picture books, to posters, stickers, their own dolls, jewellery, caps, T-shirts, toothbrushes and even had their own annuals released. The band had also developed a large female teenage fanbase at the time. During this time, they performed at numerous music awards shows and chart shows such as the BRIT Awards and Top of the Pops, also winning the Best Live Act award in 1995 at the MTV Europe Music Awards, having been renowned for their breakdance routines, high energy and creative tour productions.
In 1995, Take That released their third studio album Nobody Else, again based on Barlow's own material which reached number 1 in the UK and across Europe, capturing new audiences along the way, with Take That also able to make inroads in the adult audience in Britain through Barlow's melodic, sensitive ballads. For nearly five years, Take That's popularity was unsurpassed in Britain. The release of the first single from the album, "Sure", achieved yet another number one in the UK charts. It was not until their second release from that album, however, that they would experience what would become their biggest hit single, "Back for Good", which reached number one in many countries including the UK, Germany, Australia, and Norway. It was also their only US hit, where it reached number seven.
The song was initially unveiled for the first time via live performance while at the 1995 BRIT Awards, and based on the reception of that performance, the record pre-sold more records than expected and forced the record label to bring the release date forward by an unprecedented six weeks. The album was also noted for its cover, which was a parody of the famed cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover sleeve.
1995–1996: Break-up and Greatest Hits
Robbie Williams's drug abuse had escalated to a near drug overdose the night before the group was scheduled to perform at the MTV Europe Music Awards in 1994.
In June 1995, Williams was photographed by the press partying with Oasis at the Glastonbury Festival. The following month, the band offered him an ultimatum; he was to adhere to the band's responsibilities or leave before their scheduled world tour. Williams chose the latter. Williams claimed he was bored with Barlow's leadership and jealous of Barlow. Despite the loss of Williams, Take That continued to promote Nobody Else as a four-piece, scoring a further hit single with "Never Forget" with Donald on lead vocal. They subsequently went to America and completed the Nobody Else Tour in October 1995. Following the tour, the band began to plan for their next album; however, when they spent Christmas together, they mutually agreed it was time to part ways.
On 13 February 1996, Take That formally announced that they were disbanding. This was followed by the Greatest Hits compilation in 1996, which contained a new recording, a cover of the Bee Gees' "How Deep Is Your Love". The single went on to become what was to be the band's final UK number one until their 2006 comeback a decade later. Take That gave what was thought to be their final performance in April 1996 at Amsterdam. Following the band's announcement, millions of their fans were distraught around the world and in the UK alone, teenage girls threatened suicide and were seen lining streets in tears, to the point that telephone hotlines were set up by the government to deal with counselling them. After the band broke up, highly respected music figures such as Elton John noted that Take That were different from other boy bands before and after them, in that they wrote their own material through Gary Barlow. Barlow is one of only a small number of people who have won an Ivor Novello award during their time in a boy band, with George Michael whilst in Wham! and Tony Mortimer whilst in East 17 being two others who have achieved this feat. Take That had also left a legacy of being immaculate performers with a very high work ethic, causing them to be voted in as the greatest boy band of all time.
2005–2006: Reunion as a quartet and Never Forget – The Ultimate Collection
On 14 November 2005, Never Forget – The Ultimate Collection, a new compilation of their hit singles including a new previously unreleased song, also achieved great success and peaked at number 2 on UK charts, selling over 2.1 million copies in the UK alone. The new song "Today I've Lost You" (recorded in September 2005) was originally written by Barlow as the follow up to "Back for Good" but was never recorded. On 16 November 2005, the group got back together for the ITV documentary Take That: For the Record, in which they aired their views over their fame, success, the split and what the post-Williams line-up had done since. On 25 November 2005, there was an official press conference by the band announcing that the post-Robbie Williams line-up was going to tour in 2006. The tour, entitled The Ultimate Tour, ran from April to June 2006. The tour featured a guest appearance by British soul singer Beverley Knight, who replaced Lulu's vocals on the song "Relight My Fire"; although Lulu did appear during the stadium shows on "Relight My Fire" and "Never Forget". The American female ensemble Pussycat Dolls supported the group at their Dublin concert, and the Sugababes supported the group on the final five dates of the stadium leg. In a seven-year study analysing over one billion online searches via Google conducted by AccuraCast, a leading digital search agency, their comeback was ranked at number one in the UK.
2006–2007: Beautiful World
On 9 May 2006, Take That returned to the recorded music scene after more than ten years of absence, signing with Polydor Records. The band's comeback album, Beautiful World, entered the UK Albums Chart at no. 1 and, as of June 2009, had sold over 2.8 million copies in the UK. It is the 35th best selling album in UK music history.
On Beautiful World, all four members of the band had the opportunity to sing lead vocals and contribute in the songwriting. Unlike the band's earlier works, where the majority of their material was written by Barlow who received sole credit, all four band members are credited as co-writers, along with John Shanks. The comeback single, "Patience", was released on 20 November 2006, with a special event launching it on 5 November.
On 26 November "Patience" hit number 1 in the UK in its second week of chart entry, making it the group's ninth No. 1, and staying there for 4 weeks. Take That also accompanied eventual winner Leona Lewis on a live version of "A Million Love Songs" during the final of The X Factor on 16 December 2006.
The week after Beautiful World was released, it was announced that Take That had become the first artists ever to top the UK official single and album charts along with the download single, download album and DVD charts in the same week, as well as topping the radio charts.
The video for the number 1 hit single "Shine", the follow-up to "Patience", premiered on 25 January 2007 on Channel 4, ahead of its release on 26 February 2007. The band's success continued on 14 February 2007 when Take That performed live at the BRIT Awards ceremony at Earl's Court. Their single "Patience" won the Best British Single category. The third single chosen from Beautiful World was "I'd Wait For Life", released on 18 June 2007 in the UK. The single reached 17 in the UK Singles Chart. This may have been due to lack of promotion, as the band decided to take a pre-tour break rather than do any promotion for the single. The single "Rule the World", included on the deluxe version of Beautiful World, was recorded for the soundtrack of the film Stardust (2007). It reached number two in the UK and went on to become the group's second best selling single, shifting over 1.2 million units in the UK. Beautiful World was the fourth biggest-selling album of 2007. It was announced at the start of 2007 that Take That signed a record deal with American label Interscope, and would also release their album in Canada. Starting on 11 October 2007, Take That began their Beautiful World Tour 2007 in Belfast. The tour included 49 shows throughout Europe and the UK and ended in Manchester on 23 December 2007. The band received four nominations at the 2008 BRIT Awards. Nominated for Best British Group, Best British Single ("Shine"), Best British Album (Beautiful World) and Best Live Act, they took home the Best Live Act and the Best British Single awards. According to a 2007 MSN UK internet poll, Take That were voted as the "comeback kings" of the year.
2008–2009: The Circus
"Greatest Day", the first single from the album The Circus, made its radio premiere on 13 October 2008 and it was released on 24 November. It debuted at number 1 on the UK Singles Chart on 30 November 2008. An album launch party for The Circus was held in Paris on 2 December. On its first day of release The Circus sold 133,000 copies, and after four days on sale it sold 306,000 copies (going platinum) making The Circus the fastest selling album of the year. The album reached number 1 on the UK Albums Chart on 7 December 2008 with total first-week sales of 432,490, the third highest opening sales week in UK history.
On 28 October 2008, on the Radio 1 Chris Moyles show, it was announced that Take That would be touring again in June/July 2009, covering the UK and Ireland. Tickets for the Take That Present: The Circus Live tour went on sale on 31 October. The promoters, SJM, have said that the band's tour is "the fastest selling in UK history".
On 22 May 2008, Barlow and Donald attended the 2008 Ivor Novello Awards where Take That won the award for Most Performed Work with their single "Shine". Take That won the Sony Ericsson Tour of the Year award at the Vodafone music awards on 18 September 2008. They were unable to attend as they were in LA finishing off The Circus. They did send a video link message, which was shown at the awards. On 22 November 2008, Take That appeared on week 7 of the talent show The X Factor where the finalists performed some of their greatest hits and Owen and Barlow made a guest appearance to personally coach the contestants. The band also performed on Children in Need 2008, singing their new single, "Greatest Day", before donating £250,000 to the charity from their Marks and Spencer fee. The band were also voted the Greatest Boy Band of All Time, reflecting their ongoing marketability and success in the pop arena, even after two decades.
At the 2009 Brit Awards they were nominated for Best British Group and they performed "Greatest Day" at the ceremony. "Up All Night", the second single from The Circus, was released on 2 March 2009, and peaked at number 14 on the UK Singles Chart, despite heavy airplay. In Germany and Australia, "The Garden" was released as the second single instead. On 7 May 2009, Take That's official website confirmed that the third single from The Circus would be "Said It All" which was released on 15 June 2009, peaking at number 9 on the UK Singles chart. The video premiered on GMTV on 8 May 2009. It features all four band members dressed up as vintage circus clowns, which tied in with their forthcoming Take That Present: The Circus Live tour. Take That started their Circus Live tour at the Stadium of Light on 5 June 2009 in Sunderland and ended at the Wembley Stadium in London on 5 July 2009, which over 80,000 people attended. This tour quickly became the fastest-selling of all time, breaking all records by selling all of their 650,000 tickets in less than four and a half hours.
In November 2009 Take That released the official DVD of their Circus tour, which became the fastest-selling music DVD of all time in the UK on its first day of release and stayed in the top 10 of the videos chart for over a year. This overtook the previous record sales holder, which was Take That's Beautiful World Live tour and stayed at the number 1 spot for 8 weeks. The following week Take That released their first live album, The Greatest Day – Take That Present: The Circus Live, which sold 98,000 copies on its first day of release and was certified Platinum in July 2013. "Hold up a Light" was released as the fifth and final single from The Circus to radio stations and as a digital download to promote the release of the live album. The live album also featured a stripped down session recorded live at the famous Abbey Road Studios in London. It featured the members singing the setlist from the preceding tour, albeit in a studio setting.
2010–2011: Williams' return and Progress
On 7 June 2010, the news broke of a single called "Shame", which had been written by Barlow and Williams and would feature the vocals of both artists. This was the first time the pair had worked together since 1995 and would appear on the second greatest hits collection of Williams. "Heart and I", another track from the same album, was also co-written by Williams and Barlow. The single "Shame" peaked at number 2 on the UK Singles Chart while also achieving success throughout Europe, charting in over 19 countries.
After working with the band on new material in Los Angeles, on 15 July 2010 Robbie Williams announced he was returning to Take That. After months of working together, assembling new songs for a new album and even debating a band-name change to "The English", a joint statement between Williams and the group read, "The rumours are true ... Take That: the original lineup, have written and recorded a new album for release later this year." The statement went on to say, "Following months of speculation Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Jason Orange, Mark Owen, and Robbie Williams confirmed they have been recording a new studio album as a five-piece, which they will release in November." The lead single from Take That's album Progress was announced as "The Flood" and was released 7 November as a digital download, and on 8 November as a physical copy, with the album released a week later on 15 November. The single peaked at number 2 in the UK Singles Charts and to date has sold over 500,000 copies in the UK alone. The single also achieved success across Europe, charting inside the top 10 in ten countries while also charting in another nine countries whilst also being nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for best work.
On 26 October the band announced that they would be embarking on a huge UK stadium tour entitled Progress Live, starting in Sunderland on 27 May, and finishing with a record-breaking 8 nights at London's Wembley Stadium in July 2011. It was also announced that Williams would perform hit singles from his solo career during the tour. The band then played at some of the biggest venues across Europe for the second leg of the tour. The phenomenal demand for tickets across the country led to the web sites of all the major UK ticket suppliers either crashing or considerably slowing for hours on end. The demand and sheer volume of fans also created problems for the UK telephone network. Take That's Progress Live also broke all records for ticket sales selling over 1.1 million tickets in one day, smashing the previous box office record set by Take That's Circus tour in 2008.
On the first day of release Progress became the fastest selling album of the century, with 235,000 copies sold in just one day. The album reached number 1 in the UK, selling around 520,000 copies in its first week, becoming the second fastest-selling album in history. After the release of Progress it was announced that Take That have become Amazon UK's top-selling music artist of all time.
The album retained the number one spot for six consecutive weeks in the UK since its release, selling 2.8 million copies in the UK alone and becoming the best selling album of 2010
Progress also achieved success across Europe where it debuted at number one in Ireland, Greece, Germany and Denmark. and the European Top 100 Albums chart. It also debuted inside the top 10 of the charts in Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland.
"Kidz" was announced as the second single from Progress, it was released 21 February 2011 and charted well across Europe. The band performed the song live at the 2011 Brit Awards hosted at The O2 Arena, where they won a Brit for Best British Group and were nominated for Best British Album. Their performance of "Kidz", praised by critics, involved a highly choreographed routine featuring dancers dressed in police-styled riot gear bearing the Take That symbol on the uniform and shields. On 19 May 2011, Take That announced a new EP entitled Progressed, which contained eight tracks written by the band since they had reunited as a five-piece. It was packaged alongside the album Progress and returned the band to number 1 in the UK Album Chart the week after it was released on 13 June 2011.
Take That announced that the Progress Live tour would be released worldwide as their second live album to date and would also be released on home media formats across the UK and Europe on 21 November 2011. The DVD debuted at number 1 on the UK Music Video top 40 in its first week on release and sold over 200,000 copies in two weeks of release in the UK alone. Take That's efforts were recognised further when they were awarded Virgin Media's Best Live Act of 2012.
On 4 October, it was reported that Take That were to take a break after the completion of the Progress tour, with Barlow continuing his role as a judge on The X Factor and Williams recording new solo material. Take That were presented with an Ivor Novello Award for their Outstanding Contribution to British Music in May 2012.
In August 2012, Take That performed at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics, despite Barlow announcing that his daughter had been stillborn the previous week. The performance earned him praise for appearing live so soon after the tragedy. Williams was due to perform with the band but dropped out due to his wife giving birth at around the same time and thus the group performed as a four-piece. In November 2012, Take That reunited as a five-piece for the last time to perform "Never Forget" at the Music Industry Trust Awards. In 2013, Donald became a judge on the German version of the television dancing show Got to Dance.
2014–2015: Line-up change and III
In May 2013, Owen announced that Take That was to begin recording their seventh studio album in 2014, and on 14 January 2014, Donald and Barlow both tweeted that Take That had entered the studio to begin recording the album, although it was not initially clear if Williams was present at these recording sessions. On 28 April 2014, Williams announced on Twitter he was to become a father for a second time, and consequently suggested he would be unable to join Take That on their album and tour. Although welcome to return to the band at any time, Williams chose not to return for group's seventh and eighth studio albums and their accompanying tours, focusing instead on his solo commitments. He continued to write music with his colleagues and has performed with the group on several occasions since 2011's Progress tour and plans on returning at some point in the future.
On 24 September 2014, it was announced that Jason Orange had left the band. He said: 'At a band meeting last week I confirmed to Mark, Gary and Howard that I do not wish to commit to recording and promoting a new album. 'At the end of The Progress Tour I began to question whether it might be the right time for me to not continue on with Take That,' he continued. 'There have been no fallings out, only a decision on my part that I no longer wish to do this,' he added. Barlow, Donald, and Owen issued a joint statement about Orange's decision which said: "This is a sad day for us. Jason leaving is a huge loss both professionally and even more so personally ... Jason's energy and belief in what this band could achieve has made it what it is today, and we'll forever be grateful for his enthusiasm, dedication and inspiration over the years." A day after the announcement, Robbie Williams took to Twitter to show support of Orange's decision. "Mr Orange. Until we ride again. Much love, Bro.", Williams tweeted.
On 10 October 2014, Take That unveiled their first song as a three-piece and lead single from their upcoming album. Titled "These Days", it was released on 23 November 2014 and went to No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart, knocking Band Aid 30 off the top spot and becoming their 12th number one single. The album itself, called III, was released on 28 November 2014 and became the band's seventh No. 1 album. It was then followed by a sell-out arena tour entitled Take That Live. On 14 October 2015, the band announced their new single "Hey Boy", released on 16 October, which is the first single from the 2015 re-release of III. The 2015 edition of the album was released on 20 November.
In December 2015, British media buzzed about the group embarking on a stint in Las Vegas, starting 2017. Reports indicated the group impressed U.S. promoters and would headline their own residency show. Many venues circulated, including The AXIS at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, The Foundry at SLS Las Vegas and the Linq Theater at The LINQ Hotel & Casino. Local newspaper, the Las Vegas Sun writes that everything is still unconfirmed, despite Barlow confirming the rumour on Twitter.
2016–2017: Wonderland
On 2 February 2016, in an interview with The Sun, Barlow revealed that Take That would release their eighth studio album later in the year. On 4 May 2016, English drum and bass duo Sigma announced their newest single would feature Take That. "Cry" received its first radio play on 20 May 2016 and was released on that date. On 21 October 2016, the band posted a teaser on their social media pages and website depicting the logo of the band flickering with the hashtag "#WONDERLAND". The following day, it was announced that their new album, titled Wonderland, was scheduled to be released on 24 March 2017. It was then followed by a UK and Ireland arena tour entitled Wonderland Live, that commenced on 5 May 2017 at the Genting Arena in Birmingham. On 17 February 2017, the lead single of Wonderland was released. Titled "Giants", it debuted at 13 in the UK charts, which became the band's 24th UK top 20 single.
On 8 April 2017, ITV aired a specially commissioned hour-length television special titled An Evening with Take That, where the band performed some songs from the album, along with some old classics including "Never Forget", "Back for Good" and "Rule the World". The band also took part in a Q&A session with the audience members. On 27 April, it was announced on Twitter that "New Day" would be released as the next single from the album Wonderland. The band were seen recording the music video in a field in Luton the days leading up the opening night of the Wonderland Live tour. Due to the Manchester Arena bombing just days before they were due to perform at the venue, their Manchester and Liverpool dates were rescheduled or relocated. The band returned a month later to perform at the One Love Manchester benefit concert.
On 16 September 2017, Barlow, Owen and Donald were set to perform a special one-off show in Jersey after a fan bid more than £1.2 million to win a performance from the band. This then turned in to a ticketed charity event where the money from tickets sold would go towards benefiting Children in Need. The auction was held on BBC Radio 2. On 11 November 2017, Take That began their foreign tour in Perth, Australia, the first time they have performed in the country in over twenty years. They also played in New Zealand, United Arab Emirates and Israel for the first time. Unlike the other tours, a DVD for Wonderland Live was not released. Instead, it was broadcast on Sky 1 on 23 December and in cinemas.
2018–2020: The 30th Anniversary, and Odyssey
On 16 July 2018, while performing at first ever Hits Radio Live at the Manchester Arena, Barlow, Donald and Owen confirmed that they would be touring in 2019. The tour was a Greatest Hits tour and celebrated the 30th anniversary of the band. There was also a Greatest Hits album, Odyssey, which was released on 23 November 2018. The Greatest Hits album features existing songs from their back catalogue that have been re-imagined and 3 brand new songs. It also includes collaborations with Boyz II Men, Lulu, Sigma and Barry Gibb. Odyssey reached number one in the UK album chart and was certified as a platinum selling record. The following year, Odyssey Live, the recording of their tour, reached number 5, becoming the band's 13th top 5 album, with the DVD becoming the biggest live music sale of 2019.
In May 2020, Barlow, Donald, and Owen reunited with Williams for a virtual performance from their respective homes, hosted by price comparison website comparethemarket.com, to raise money for the music charity Nordoff Robbins and Crew Nation.
In other media
In April 2006, EMI licensed the band's songs to be used in the musical Never Forget, a musical based on songs of the band from the 1990s. Take That posted and then later removed a statement on their website distancing themselves from it.
Take That wrote and recorded the theme song "Rule the World" for the film Stardust directed by Matthew Vaughn, which was released in cinemas across the globe in October 2007. In 2007, their song "Back for Good" was used as part of the soundtrack for popular Korean drama The 1st Shop of Coffee Prince.
Take That presented their own TV show Take That Come to Town, a variety show in which they performed some of their biggest hits. The show also featured comedy sketches with one of Peter Kay's alter egos Geraldine McQueen. It aired on 7 December 2008 on ITV1. Sony launched their first Take That video game, SingStar Take That in 2009 for the PlayStation 3.
In November 2010, ITV aired Take That: Look Back, Don't Stare, a black-and-white documentary which focused on the band working together for the first time in 15 years. Through a series of interviews, the band look back at their achievements while also looking forward to what the future holds for them. On 18 November 2010, Williams and Barlow appeared together live on television for the first time on the Popstars program in Germany singing their hit "Shame".
In 2011, Take That's song "Love Love" was used in the credits of the 2011 film X-Men: First Class and later, "When We Were Young" was chosen as the main theme for The Three Musketeers movie. In 2015, the song "Get Ready for It" from their album III, was chosen as the theme song for the film Kingsman: The Secret Service.
In 2017, Take That launched The Band, a musical written by Tim Firth featuring the five winners of Let It Shine and some of Take That's biggest hits. Take That, including Robbie Williams, were billed as executive producers.
The group's music is regularly featured in the Channel 4 show Derry Girls, notably in the third episode of the second series, when the lead characters sneak off to attend the 1993 Take That concert in Belfast; the episode features the music video for "Pray" and ends on footage of the band performing "Everything Changes".
Artistry
Early in their career, Take That were known for party anthems such as "Do What U Like" and more mature ballads such as "A Million Love Songs" and "Back for Good". Since reuniting in 2006, they have become more experimental: their post-2006 albums Beautiful World and The Circus have featured "stadium-filling pop-rock" while Progress largely leaned towards electropop. Having been dubbed the "comeback kings" by the media for their highly successful reunion, the group has won widespread praise for their seamless transformation from teen idols to "man band" without overly relying on nostalgia, instead showcasing a more mature image and sound and reinventing themselves while maintaining their artistic integrity. Jude Rogers of The Guardian commented on Take That's post-reunion success, in light of a string of reunions by the group's disbanded counterparts from the 1990s: "Only Take That are penetrating pop's wider consciousness by becoming a man-band rather than a boy-band, singing mature, proper pop songs that cross the generations."
Take That have garnered critical acclaim and popularity as consummate live performers and for their musical output. Their domestic concert tours have been described as "some of the most flamboyant, imaginative and extravagant pop tours around". Aside from covers, all of their material is composed by the members themselves; Barlow was initially the principal songwriter who received sole credit but the other members have since taken a more active role in the composition and production process, including playing instruments for the backing track.
Band members
Current members
Gary Barlow (1990–1996, 2005–present)
Howard Donald (1990–1996, 2005–present)
Mark Owen (1990–1996, 2005–present)
Former members
Robbie Williams (1990–1995, 2010–2012)
Jason Orange (1990–1996, 2005–2014)
Timeline
Awards and nominations
|-
| 2016
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award for Best Live Act
|
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|2015
| "These Days"
| UK Music Video Awards for Best Art Direction
|
|-
| rowspan="6" style="text-align:center;"|2012
| "Pray"
|The Guardian Music Award for Best Number 1 Single
|
|-
| Take That
|Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music
|
|-
| "Back for Good"
|The Official Charts Company UK Recognition award for United Kingdom's Favourite Number One Single
|
|-
| "The Flood"
|Ivor Novello Award for PRS Most Performed Work
|
|-
| Take That
|Virgin Media Music Awards for Best Live Act
|
|-
| "Kidz"
|Virgin Media Music Awards for Best Music Video
|
|-
| rowspan="10" style="text-align:center;"|2011
|-
| Progress Live
|Audio Pro International Awards for Best Live Sound Event
|
|-
| Progress Live
|Audio Pro International Awards Grand Prix Award
|
|-
| Take That
|Phonographic Performance Limited Award for most played UK artist
|
|-
| "Kidz"
|Spex German Entertainment for Best Music Video
|
|-
| The Circus Live Tour
| Greatest Event ever at Wembley Stadium
|
|-
| Take That
|ECHO Award for Best International Group
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Group
|
|-
| Progress
| BRIT Award for MasterCard Album of the Year
|
|-
| Take That
|Virgin Media for Best Group
|
|-
| rowspan="6" style="text-align:center;"|2010
|-
| "Up All Night"
| UK Music Video Awards for Best Art Direction
|
|-
| "The Flood"
|iTunes Award for Best Single
|
|-
| Progress
| iTunes Award for Best Album
|
|-
| Take That
|Q Award Hall of Fame
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best Live Performance of the past 30 Years
|
|-
| rowspan="5" style="text-align:center;"|2009
| Take That
|GQ Men of the Year Awards for Best Band
|
|-
| Take That
|Q Award for Best Live Act
|
|-
| "Greatest Day"
|Q Award for Best Single
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Group
|
|-
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award
|
|-
| rowspan="7" style="text-align:center;"|2008
| "Shine"
|Ivor Novello Award for PRS Most Performed Work
|
|-
| "Rule the World"
|Virgin for Best Single
|
|-
| Take That
|Sony Ericsson Tour of the Year Award for Take That Arena Tour
|
|-
| "Shine"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Live Act
|
|-
| Beautiful World
|BRIT Award for Best British Album
|
|-
| Take That
|BRIT Award for Best British Group
|
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|2007
| "Patience"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| style="text-align:center;"|2006
| Take That
|Q Idol Award
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"|1996
| "Back for Good"
|Billboard International Hit of the Year
|
|-
| "Never Forget"
|Ivor Novello Award for Most Performed Song
|
|-
| "Back for Good"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"|1995
| "Back for Good"
|Ivor Novello Award for the Song of the Year
|
|-
| Take That
|MTV Europe Music Awards for Best Live Act
|
|-
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award
|
|-
| rowspan="6" style="text-align:center;"|1994
| "Babe"
|MTV Video Music Award for International Viewer's Choice Award for MTV Europe
|
|-
| Everything Changes
|Mercury Prize for Best Album
|
|-
| "Pray"
|Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song
|
|-
| "Pray"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| "Pray"
|BRIT Award for Best British Video
|
|-
| Take That
|MTV Europe Music Awards for Best Group
|
|-
| rowspan="4" style="text-align:center;"|1993
| "Could It Be Magic"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| "A Million Love Songs"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| "It Only Takes a Minute"
|BRIT Award for Best British Single
|
|-
| Take That
| Silver Clef Award for Best Newcomer
|
|}
Discography
Take That & Party (1992)
Everything Changes (1993)
Nobody Else (1995)
Beautiful World (2006)
The Circus (2008)
Progress (2010)
III (2014)
Wonderland (2017)
Tours
Party Tour (1992–93)
Everything Changes Tour (1993–94)
Pops Tour (1994–95)
Nobody Else Tour (1995)
The Ultimate Tour (2006)
Beautiful World Tour 2007 (2007)
Take That Present: The Circus Live (2009)
Progress Live (2011)
Take That Live (2015)
Wonderland Live (2017)
Greatest Hits Live (2019)
See also
List of best-selling boy bands
References
External links
Chinese Fansite
1990 establishments in England
1996 disestablishments in England
2005 establishments in England
Brit Award winners
Dance-pop groups
Echo (music award) winners
English boy bands
English dance music groups
Interscope Records artists
Ivor Novello Award winners
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1996
Musical groups established in 1990
Musical groups from Cheshire
Musical groups from Manchester
Musical groups reestablished in 2005
Polydor Records artists
Teen pop groups
Universal Music Group artists
Vocal quartets
Vocal quintets
Vocal trios | true | [
"Nobody Else is a 1995 album by Take That, as well as the album's title track.\n\nNobody Else may also refer to:\n\n \"Nobody Else\" (Anthony Hamilton song)\n\"Nobody Else\" (CeCe Peniston song)\n\"Nobody Else\" (Tyrese song)\n \"Nobody Else\" (Tex Pistol and Rikki Morris song)\n\"Nobody Else\" (René Froger song)\n\nSee also\n...& Nobody Else",
"\"Nobody Else\" is an R&B–hip hop soul song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Anthony Hamilton for his debut album, XTC (1996). Released as the album's first and only single, the song was produced by George R. \"Golden Fingers\" Pearson and Timothy \"Tyme\" Riley. After being released in various formats in September 1996, the single entered the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs at number ninety-one the week of October 26, 1996, spending sixteen weeks on the chart and peaking at number sixty-three.\n\nTrack listing\nAmerican 12\" promo single\nSide A:\n\"Nobody Else\" (LP Version) – 3:21\n\"Nobody Else\" (Instrumental Version) – 3:21\n\nSide B:\n\"I Will Go\" (LP Version) – 3:47\n\"Nobody Else\" (A cappella version) – 3:17\n\nCharts\n\nAnthony Hamilton (musician) songs\n1996 debut singles\nHip hop soul songs\n1996 songs\nSongs written by Anthony Hamilton (musician)"
] |
[
"Aeschylus",
"The Suppliants"
] | C_1974ee6d0d4f446ea4c1aad41c763918_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 1 | Besides Aeschylus, are there any other interesting aspects about The Suppliants? | Aeschylus | Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants in 463 BC (Hiketides), which pays tribute to the democratic undercurrents running through Athens in advance of the establishment of a democratic government in 461. In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision, a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king. The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection, and they are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests. The 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3 confirmed a long-assumed (because of The Suppliants' cliffhanger ending) Danaid trilogy, whose constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants, The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. During the course of the war, King Pelasgus has been killed, and Danaus rules Argos. He negotiates a peace settlement with Aegyptus, as a condition of which, his fifty daughters will marry the fifty sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle predicting that one of his sons-in-law would kill him; he therefore orders the Danaids to murder their husbands on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding. In short order, it is revealed that forty-nine of the Danaids killed their husbands as ordered; Hypermnestra, however, loved her husband Lynceus, and thus spared his life and helped him to escape. Angered by his daughter's disobedience, Danaus orders her imprisonment and, possibly, her execution. In the trilogy's climax and denouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus, and kills him (thus fulfilling the oracle). He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other forty-nine Danaids are absolved of their murderous crime, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids. CANNOTANSWER | In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. | Aeschylus (, ; ; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Formerly, characters interacted only with the chorus.
Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived. There is a long-standing debate regarding the authorship of one of them, Prometheus Bound, with some scholars arguing that it may be the work of his son Euphorion. Fragments from other plays have survived in quotations, and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyri. These fragments often give further insights into Aeschylus' work. He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy. His Oresteia is the only extant ancient example. At least one of his plays was influenced by the Persians' second invasion of Greece (480–479 BC). This work, The Persians, is one of very few classical Greek tragedies concerned with contemporary events, and the only one extant. The significance of the war with Persia was so great to Aeschylus and the Greeks that his epitaph commemorates his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon while making no mention of his success as a playwright.
Life
Aeschylus was born in c. 525 BC in Eleusis, a small town about 27 km northwest of Athens, in the fertile valleys of western Attica. Some scholars argue that his date of birth may be based on counting back forty years from his first victory in the Great Dionysia. His family was wealthy and well established. His father, Euphorion, was a member of the Eupatridae, the ancient nobility of Attica. But this might be a fiction invented by the ancients to account for the grandeur of Aeschylus' plays.
As a youth, Aeschylus worked at a vineyard until, according to the 2nd-century AD geographer Pausanias, the god Dionysus visited him in his sleep and commanded him to turn his attention to the nascent art of tragedy. As soon as he woke, he began to write a tragedy, and his first performance took place in 499 BC, when he was 26 years old. He won his first victory at the City Dionysia in 484 BC.
In 510 BC, when Aeschylus was 15 years old, Cleomenes I expelled the sons of Peisistratus from Athens, and Cleisthenes came to power. Cleisthenes' reforms included a system of registration that emphasized the importance of the deme over family tradition. In the last decade of the 6th century, Aeschylus and his family were living in the deme of Eleusis.
The Persian Wars played a large role in Aeschylus' life and career. In 490 BC, he and his brother Cynegeirus fought to defend Athens against the invading army of Darius I of Persia at the Battle of Marathon. The Athenians emerged triumphant, and the victory was celebrated across the city-states of Greece. Cynegeirus was killed while trying to prevent a Persian ship retreating from the shore, for which his countrymen extolled him as a hero.
In 480 BC, Aeschylus was called into military service again, together with his younger brother Ameinias, against Xerxes I's invading forces at the Battle of Salamis. Aeschylus also fought at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. Ion of Chios was a witness for Aeschylus' war record and his contribution in Salamis. Salamis holds a prominent place in The Persians, his oldest surviving play, which was performed in 472 BC and won first prize at the Dionysia.
Aeschylus was one of many Greeks who were initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, an ancient cult of Demeter based in his home town of Eleusis. Initiates gained secret knowledge through these rites, likely concerning the afterlife. Firm details of specific rites are sparse, as members were sworn under the penalty of death not to reveal anything about the Mysteries to non-initiates. Nevertheless, according to Aristotle, Aeschylus was accused of asebeia for revealing some of the cult's secrets on stage.
Other sources claim that an angry mob tried to kill Aeschylus on the spot but he fled the scene. Heracleides of Pontus asserts that the audience tried to stone Aeschylus. Aeschylus took refuge at the altar in the orchestra of the Theater of Dionysus. He pleaded ignorance at his trial. He was acquitted, with the jury sympathetic to the military service of him and his brothers during the Persian Wars. According to the 2nd-century AD author Aelian, Aeschylus' younger brother Ameinias helped to acquit Aeschylus by showing the jury the stump of the hand he had lost at Salamis, where he was voted bravest warrior. The truth is that the award for bravery at Salamis went not to Aeschylus' brother but to Ameinias of Pallene.
Aeschylus travelled to Sicily once or twice in the 470s BC, having been invited by Hiero I, tyrant of Syracuse, a major Greek city on the eastern side of the island. He produced The Women of Aetna during one of these trips (in honor of the city founded by Hieron), and restaged his Persians. By 473 BC, after the death of Phrynichus, one of his chief rivals, Aeschylus was the yearly favorite in the Dionysia, winning first prize in nearly every competition. In 472 BC, Aeschylus staged the production that included the Persians, with Pericles serving as choregos.
Personal life
Aeschylus married and had two sons, Euphorion and Euaeon, both of whom became tragic poets. Euphorion won first prize in 431 BC in competition against both Sophocles and Euripides. A nephew of Aeschylus, Philocles (his sister's son), was also a tragic poet, and won first prize in the competition against Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Aeschylus had at least two brothers, Cynegeirus and Ameinias.
Death
In 458 BC, Aeschylus returned to Sicily for the last time, visiting the city of Gela, where he died in 456 or 455 BC. Valerius Maximus wrote that he was killed outside the city by a tortoise dropped by an eagle (possibly a lammergeier or Cinereous vulture, which do open tortoises for eating by dropping them on hard objects) which had mistaken his head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell. Pliny, in his Naturalis Historiæ, adds that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avoid a prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object, but this story may be legendary and due to a misunderstanding of the iconography on Aeschylus's tomb. Aeschylus' work was so respected by the Athenians that after his death his tragedies were the only ones allowed to be restaged in subsequent competitions. His sons Euphorion and Euæon and his nephew Philocles also became playwrights.
The inscription on Aeschylus' gravestone makes no mention of his theatrical renown, commemorating only his military achievements:
According to Castoriadis, the inscription on his grave signifies the primary importance of "belonging to the City" (polis), of the solidarity that existed within the collective body of citizen-soldiers.
Works
The seeds of Greek drama were sowed in religious festivals for the gods, chiefly Dionysus, the god of wine. During Aeschylus' lifetime, dramatic competitions became part of the City Dionysia, held in spring. The festival opened with a procession which was followed by a competition of boys singing dithyrambs, and all culminated in a pair of dramatic competitions. The first competition Aeschylus would have participated in involved three playwrights each presenting three tragedies and one satyr play. Such format is called a continuous tragic tetralogy. It allowed Aeschylus to explore the human and theological and cosmic dimensions of a mythic sequence, developing it in successive phases. A second competition involving five comedic playwrights followed, and the winners of both competitions were chosen by a panel of judges.
Aeschylus entered many of these competitions, and various ancient sources attribute between seventy and ninety plays to him. Only seven tragedies attributed to him have survived intact: The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliants, the trilogy known as The Oresteia (the three tragedies Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides), and Prometheus Bound (whose authorship is disputed). With the exception of this last play – the success of which is uncertain – all of Aeschylus's extant tragedies are known to have won first prize at the City Dionysia.
The Alexandrian Life of Aeschylus claims that he won the first prize at the City Dionysia thirteen times. This compares favorably with Sophocles' reported eighteen victories (with a substantially larger catalogue, an estimated 120 plays), and dwarfs the five victories of Euripides, who is thought to have written roughly 90 plays.
Trilogies
One hallmark of Aeschylean dramaturgy appears to have been his tendency to write connected trilogies in which each play serves as a chapter in a continuous dramatic narrative. The Oresteia is the only extant example of this type of connected trilogy, but there is evidence that Aeschylus often wrote such trilogies. The satyr plays that followed his tragic trilogies also drew from myth.
The satyr play Proteus, which followed the Oresteia, treated the story of Menelaus' detour in Egypt on his way home from the Trojan War. It is assumed, based on the evidence provided by a catalogue of Aeschylean play titles, scholia, and play fragments recorded by later authors, that three other extant plays of his were components of connected trilogies: Seven Against Thebes was the final play in an Oedipus trilogy, and The Suppliants and Prometheus Bound were each the first play in a Danaid trilogy and Prometheus trilogy, respectively. Scholars have also suggested several completely lost trilogies, based on known play titles. A number of these treated myths about the Trojan War. One, collectively called the Achilleis, comprised Myrmidons, Nereids and Phrygians (alternately, The Ransoming of Hector).
Another trilogy apparently recounted the entrance of the Trojan ally Memnon into the war, and his death at the hands of Achilles (Memnon and The Weighing of Souls being two components of the trilogy). The Award of the Arms, The Phrygian Women, and The Salaminian Women suggest a trilogy about the madness and subsequent suicide of the Greek hero Ajax. Aeschylus seems to have written about Odysseus' return to Ithaca after the war (including his killing of his wife Penelope's suitors and its consequences) in a trilogy consisting of The Soul-raisers, Penelope, and The Bone-gatherers. Other suggested trilogies touched on the myth of Jason and the Argonauts (Argô, Lemnian Women, Hypsipylê), the life of Perseus (The Net-draggers, Polydektês, Phorkides), the birth and exploits of Dionysus (Semele, Bacchae, Pentheus), and the aftermath of the war portrayed in Seven Against Thebes (Eleusinians, Argives (or Argive Women), Sons of the Seven).
Surviving plays
The Persians (472 BC)
The Persians (Persai) is the earliest of Aeschylus' extant plays. It was performed in 472 BC. It was based on Aeschylus' own experiences, specifically the Battle of Salamis. It is unique among surviving Greek tragedies in that it describes a recent historical event. The Persians focuses on the popular Greek theme of hubris and blames Persia's loss on the pride of its king.
It opens with the arrival of a messenger in Susa, the Persian capital, bearing news of the catastrophic Persian defeat at Salamis, to Atossa, the mother of the Persian King Xerxes. Atossa then travels to the tomb of Darius, her husband, where his ghost appears, to explain the cause of the defeat. It is, he says, the result of Xerxes' hubris in building a bridge across the Hellespont, an action which angered the gods. Xerxes appears at the end of the play, not realizing the cause of his defeat, and the play closes to lamentations by Xerxes and the chorus.
Seven Against Thebes (467 BC)
Seven against Thebes (Hepta epi Thebas) was performed in 467 BC. It has the contrasting theme of the interference of the gods in human affairs. Another theme, with which Aeschylus' would continually involve himself, makes its first known appearance in this play, namely that the polis was a key development of human civilization.
The play tells the story of Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of the shamed king of Thebes, Oedipus. Eteocles and Polynices agree to share and alternate the throne of the city. After the first year, Eteocles refuses to step down. Polynices therefore undertakes war. The pair kill each other in single combat, and the original ending of the play consisted of lamentations for the dead brothers. But a new ending was added to the play some fifty years later: Antigone and Ismene mourn their dead brothers, a messenger enters announcing an edict prohibiting the burial of Polynices, and Antigone declares her intention to defy this edict. The play was the third in a connected Oedipus trilogy. The first two plays were Laius and Oedipus. The concluding satyr play was The Sphinx.
The Suppliants (463 BC)
Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants (Hiketides) in 463 BC. The play gives tribute to the democratic undercurrents which were running through Athens and preceding the establishment of a democratic government in 461. The Danaids (50 daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos) flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision (a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king). The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection and are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests.
A Danaid trilogy had long been assumed because of The Suppliants''' cliffhanger ending. This was confirmed by the 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3. The constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants and The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. King Pelasgus was killed during the war, and Danaus rules Argos. Danaus negotiates a settlement with Aegyptus, a condition of which requires his 50 daughters to marry the 50 sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle which predicts that one of his sons-in-law would kill him. He orders the Danaids to murder their husbands therefore on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding.
It is revealed that 49 of the 50 Danaids killed their husbands. Hypermnestra did not kill her husband, Lynceus, and helped him escape. Danaus is angered by his daughter's disobedience and orders her imprisonment and possibly execution. In the trilogy's climax and dénouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus and kills him, thus fulfilling the oracle. He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other 49 Danaids are absolved of their murders, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids.
The Oresteia (458 BC)
Besides a few missing lines, the Oresteia of 458 BC is the only complete trilogy of Greek plays by any playwright still extant (of Proteus, the satyr play which followed, only fragments are known). Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers (Choephoroi) and The Eumenides together tell the violent story of the family of Agamemnon, king of Argos.
Agamemnon
Aeschylus begins in Greece, describing the return of King Agamemnon from his victory in the Trojan War, from the perspective of the townspeople (the Chorus) and his wife, Clytemnestra. Dark foreshadowings build to the death of the king at the hands of his wife, who was angry that their daughter Iphigenia was killed so that the gods would restore the winds and allow the Greek fleet to sail to Troy. Clytemnestra was also unhappy that Agamemnon kept the Trojan prophetess Cassandra as his concubine. Cassandra foretells the murder of Agamemnon and of herself to the assembled townsfolk, who are horrified. She then enters the palace knowing that she cannot avoid her fate. The ending of the play includes a prediction of the return of Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who will seek to avenge his father.
The Libation BearersThe Libation Bearers opens with Orestes' arrival at Agamemnon's tomb, from exile in Phocis. Electra meets Orestes there. They plan revenge against Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus. Clytemnestra's account of a nightmare in which she gives birth to a snake is recounted by the chorus. This leads her to order her daughter, Electra, to pour libations on Agamemnon's tomb (with the assistance of libation bearers) in hope of making amends. Orestes enters the palace pretending to bear news of his own death. Clytemnestra calls in Aegisthus to learn the news. Orestes kills them both. Orestes is then beset by the Furies, who avenge the murders of kin in Greek mythology.
The Eumenides
The third play addresses the question of Orestes' guilt. The Furies drive Orestes from Argos and into the wilderness. He makes his way to the temple of Apollo and begs Apollo to drive the Furies away. Apollo had encouraged Orestes to kill Clytemnestra, so he bears some of the guilt for the murder. Apollo sends Orestes to the temple of Athena with Hermes as a guide.
The Furies track him down, and Athena steps in and declares that a trial is necessary. Apollo argues Orestes' case, and after the judges (including Athena) deliver a tie vote, Athena announces that Orestes is acquitted. She renames the Furies The Eumenides (The Good-spirited, or Kindly Ones), and extols the importance of reason in the development of laws. As in The Suppliants, the ideals of a democratic Athens are praised.
Prometheus Bound (date disputed)Prometheus Bound is attributed to Aeschylus by ancient authorities. Since the late 19th century, however, scholars have increasingly doubted this ascription, largely on stylistic grounds. Its production date is also in dispute, with theories ranging from the 480s BC to as late as the 410s.
The play consists mostly of static dialogue. The Titan Prometheus is bound to a rock throughout, which is his punishment from the Olympian Zeus for providing fire to humans. The god Hephaestus and the Titan Oceanus and the chorus of Oceanids all express sympathy for Prometheus' plight. Prometheus is met by Io, a fellow victim of Zeus' cruelty. He prophesies her future travels, revealing that one of her descendants will free Prometheus. The play closes with Zeus sending Prometheus into the abyss because Prometheus will not tell him of a potential marriage which could prove Zeus' downfall.Prometheus Bound seems to have been the first play in a trilogy, the Prometheia. In the second play, Prometheus Unbound, Heracles frees Prometheus from his chains and kills the eagle that had been sent daily to eat Prometheus' perpetually regenerating liver (then believed the source of feeling). We learn that Zeus has released the other Titans which he imprisoned at the conclusion of the Titanomachy, perhaps foreshadowing his eventual reconciliation with Prometheus.
In the trilogy's conclusion, Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, it seems that the Titan finally warns Zeus not to sleep with the sea nymph Thetis, for she is fated to beget a son greater than the father. Not wishing to be overthrown, Zeus marries Thetis off to the mortal Peleus. The product of that union is Achilles, Greek hero of the Trojan War. After reconciling with Prometheus, Zeus probably inaugurates a festival in his honor at Athens.
Lost plays
Of Aeschylus' other plays, only titles and assorted fragments are known. There are enough fragments (along with comments made by later authors and scholiasts) to produce rough synopses for some plays.
Myrmidons
This play was based on books 9 and 16 of the Iliad. Achilles sits in silent indignation over his humiliation at Agamemnon's hands for most of the play. Envoys from the Greek army attempt to reconcile Achilles to Agamemnon, but he yields only to his friend Patroclus, who then battles the Trojans in Achilles' armour. The bravery and death of Patroclus are reported in a messenger's speech, which is followed by mourning.
Nereids
This play was based on books 18 and 19 and 22 of the Iliad. It follows the Daughters of Nereus, the sea god, who lament Patroclus' death. A messenger tells how Achilles (perhaps reconciled to Agamemnon and the Greeks) slew Hector.
Phrygians, or Hector's Ransom
After a brief discussion with Hermes, Achilles sits in silent mourning over Patroclus. Hermes then brings in King Priam of Troy, who wins over Achilles and ransoms his son's body in a spectacular coup de théâtre. A scale is brought on stage and Hector's body is placed in one scale and gold in the other. The dynamic dancing of the chorus of Trojans when they enter with Priam is reported by Aristophanes.
Niobe
The children of Niobe, the heroine, have been slain by Apollo and Artemis because Niobe had gloated that she had more children than their mother, Leto. Niobe sits in silent mourning on stage during most of the play. In the Republic, Plato quotes the line "God plants a fault in mortals when he wills to destroy a house utterly."
These are the remaining 71 plays ascribed to Aeschylus which are known to us:AlcmeneAmymoneThe Archer-WomenThe Argivian WomenThe Argo, also titled The RowersAtalantaAthamasAttendants of the Bridal ChamberAward of the ArmsThe BacchaeThe BassaraeThe Bone-GatherersThe CabeiroiCallistoThe Carians, also titled EuropaCercyonChildren of HerculesCirceThe Cretan WomenCycnusThe DanaidsDaughters of HeliosDaughters of PhorcysThe DescendantsThe EdoniansThe EgyptiansThe EscortsGlaucus of PontusGlaucus of PotniaeHypsipyleIphigeniaIxionLaiusThe Lemnian WomenThe LionLycurgusMemnonThe Men of EleusisThe MessengersThe MyrmidonsThe MysiansNemeaThe Net-DraggersThe Nurses of DionysusOrethyiaPalamedesPenelopePentheusPerrhaibidesPhiloctetesPhineusThe Phrygian WomenPolydectesThe PriestessesPrometheus the Fire-BearerPrometheus the Fire-KindlerPrometheus UnboundProteusSemele, also titled The Water-BearersSisyphus the RunawaySisyphus the Stone-RollerThe Spectators, also titled Athletes of the Isthmian GamesThe SphinxThe Spirit-RaisersTelephusThe Thracian WomenWeighing of SoulsWomen of Aetna (two versions)Women of SalamisXantriaeThe YouthsInfluence
Influence on Greek drama and culture
The theatre was just beginning to evolve when Aeschylus started writing for it. Earlier playwrights such as Thespis had already expanded the cast to include an actor who was able to interact with the chorus. Aeschylus added a second actor, allowing for greater dramatic variety, while the chorus played a less important role. He is sometimes credited with introducing skenographia, or scene-decoration, though Aristotle gives this distinction to Sophocles. Aeschylus is also said to have made the costumes more elaborate and dramatic, and made his actors wear platform boots (cothurni) to make them more visible to the audience. According to a later account of Aeschylus' life, the chorus of Furies in the first performance of the Eumenides were so frightening when they entered that children fainted and patriarchs urinated and pregnant women went into labour.
Aeschylus wrote his plays in verse. No violence is performed onstage. The plays have a remoteness from daily life in Athens, relating stories about the gods, or being set, like The Persians, far away. Aeschylus' work has a strong moral and religious emphasis. The Oresteia trilogy concentrated on humans' position in the cosmos relative to the gods and divine law and divine punishment.
Aeschylus' popularity is evident in the praise that the comic playwright Aristophanes gives him in The Frogs, produced some 50 years after Aeschylus' death. Aeschylus appears as a character in the play and claims, at line 1022, that his Seven against Thebes "made everyone watching it to love being warlike". He claims, at lines 1026–7, that with The Persians he "taught the Athenians to desire always to defeat their enemies." Aeschylus goes on to say, at lines 1039ff., that his plays inspired the Athenians to be brave and virtuous.
Influence outside Greek culture
Aeschylus' works were influential beyond his own time. Hugh Lloyd-Jones draws attention to Richard Wagner's reverence of Aeschylus. Michael Ewans argues in his Wagner and Aeschylus. The Ring and the Oresteia (London: Faber. 1982) that the influence was so great as to merit a direct character by character comparison between Wagner's Ring and Aeschylus's Oresteia. But a critic of that book, while not denying that Wagner read and respected Aeschylus, has described the arguments as unreasonable and forced.
J.T. Sheppard argues in the second half of his Aeschylus and Sophocles: Their Work and Influence that Aeschylus and Sophocles have played a major part in the formation of dramatic literature from the Renaissance to the present, specifically in French and Elizabethan drama. He also claims that their influence went beyond just drama and applies to literature in general, citing Milton and the Romantics.
Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), a trilogy of three plays set in America after the Civil War, is modeled after the Oresteia. Before writing his acclaimed trilogy, O'Neill had been developing a play about Aeschylus, and he noted that Aeschylus "so changed the system of the tragic stage that he has more claim than anyone else to be regarded as the founder (Father) of Tragedy."
During his presidential campaign in 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy quoted the Edith Hamilton translation of Aeschylus on the night of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Kennedy was notified of King's murder before a campaign stop in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was warned not to attend the event due to fears of rioting from the mostly African-American crowd. Kennedy insisted on attending and delivered an impromptu speech that delivered news of King's death. Acknowledging the audience's emotions, Kennedy referred to his own grief at the murder of Martin Luther King and, quoting a passage from the play Agamemnon (in translation), said: "My favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote: 'Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.' What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness; but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black ... Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world." The quotation from Aeschylus was later inscribed on a memorial at the gravesite of Robert Kennedy following his own assassination.
Editions
Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Aeschyli Tragoediae. Editio maior, Berlin 1914.
Gilbert Murray, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae. Editio Altera, Oxford 1955.
Denys Page, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae, Oxford 1972.
Martin L. West, Aeschyli Tragoediae cum incerti poetae Prometheo, 2nd ed., Stuttgart/Leipzig 1998.
The first translation of the seven plays into English was by Robert Potter in 1779, using blank verse for the iambic trimeters and rhymed verse for the choruses, a convention adopted by most translators for the next century.
Anna Swanwick produced a verse translation in English of all seven surviving plays as The Dramas of Aeschylus in 1886 full text
Stefan Radt (ed.), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Vol. III: Aeschylus (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009) (Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 3).
Alan H. Sommerstein (ed.), Aeschylus, Volume II, Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-bearers. Eumenides. 146 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2009); Volume III, Fragments. 505 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2008).
See also
2876 Aeschylus, an asteroid named for him
Ancient Greek literature
Ancient Greek mythology
Ancient Greek religion
Battle of Marathon
Classical Greece
Dionysia
Music of ancient Greece
Theatre of ancient Greece
"Live by the sword, die by the sword"
Notes
Citations
References
Bierl, A. Die Orestie des Aischylos auf der modernen Bühne: Theoretische Konzeptionen und ihre szenische Realizierung (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1997)
Cairns, D., V. Liapis, Dionysalexandros: Essays on Aeschylus and His Fellow Tragedians in Honour of Alexander F. Garvie (Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales, 2006)
Deforge, B. Une vie avec Eschyle. Vérité des mythes (Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2010)
Lefkowitz, Mary (1981). The Lives of the Greek Poets. University of North Carolina Press
— (2002). Greek Drama and Dramatists. London: Routledge Press.
Summers, David (2007). Vision, Reflection, and Desire in Western Painting. University of North Carolina Press
Thomson, George (1973) Aeschylus and Athens: A Study in the Social Origin of Drama. London: Lawrence and Wishart (4th edition)
Vellacott, Philip, (1961). Prometheus Bound and Other Plays: Prometheus Bound, Seven Against Thebes, and The Persians. New York: Penguin Classics.
Zeitlin, Froma (1982). Under the sign of the shield: semiotics and Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2nd ed. 2009 (Greek studies: interdisciplinary approaches)
Zetlin, Froma (1996). "The dynamics of misogyny: myth and mythmaking in Aeschylus's Oresteia", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 87–119.
Zeitlin, Froma (1996). "The politics of Eros in the Danaid trilogy of Aeschylus", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 123–171.
External links
Selected Poems of Aeschylus
Aeschylus-related materials at the Perseus Digital Library
Complete syntax diagrams at Alpheios
Online English Translations of Aeschylus
Photo of a fragment of The Net-pullers
"Aeschylus, I: Persians" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, II: The Oresteia" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, III: Fragments" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
5th-century BC Greek people
5th-century BC writers
520s BC births
450s BC deaths
Year of birth uncertain
Year of death uncertain
Tragic poets
Ancient Greeks accused of sacrilege
Greek people of the Greco-Persian Wars
Battle of Marathon
Accidental deaths in Italy
Deaths due to animal attacks | false | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
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"Aeschylus",
"The Suppliants",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt."
] | C_1974ee6d0d4f446ea4c1aad41c763918_0 | What happened when they fled? | 2 | What happened when the fifty daughters of Danaus fled? | Aeschylus | Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants in 463 BC (Hiketides), which pays tribute to the democratic undercurrents running through Athens in advance of the establishment of a democratic government in 461. In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision, a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king. The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection, and they are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests. The 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3 confirmed a long-assumed (because of The Suppliants' cliffhanger ending) Danaid trilogy, whose constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants, The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. During the course of the war, King Pelasgus has been killed, and Danaus rules Argos. He negotiates a peace settlement with Aegyptus, as a condition of which, his fifty daughters will marry the fifty sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle predicting that one of his sons-in-law would kill him; he therefore orders the Danaids to murder their husbands on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding. In short order, it is revealed that forty-nine of the Danaids killed their husbands as ordered; Hypermnestra, however, loved her husband Lynceus, and thus spared his life and helped him to escape. Angered by his daughter's disobedience, Danaus orders her imprisonment and, possibly, her execution. In the trilogy's climax and denouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus, and kills him (thus fulfilling the oracle). He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other forty-nine Danaids are absolved of their murderous crime, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids. CANNOTANSWER | They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, | Aeschylus (, ; ; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Formerly, characters interacted only with the chorus.
Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived. There is a long-standing debate regarding the authorship of one of them, Prometheus Bound, with some scholars arguing that it may be the work of his son Euphorion. Fragments from other plays have survived in quotations, and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyri. These fragments often give further insights into Aeschylus' work. He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy. His Oresteia is the only extant ancient example. At least one of his plays was influenced by the Persians' second invasion of Greece (480–479 BC). This work, The Persians, is one of very few classical Greek tragedies concerned with contemporary events, and the only one extant. The significance of the war with Persia was so great to Aeschylus and the Greeks that his epitaph commemorates his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon while making no mention of his success as a playwright.
Life
Aeschylus was born in c. 525 BC in Eleusis, a small town about 27 km northwest of Athens, in the fertile valleys of western Attica. Some scholars argue that his date of birth may be based on counting back forty years from his first victory in the Great Dionysia. His family was wealthy and well established. His father, Euphorion, was a member of the Eupatridae, the ancient nobility of Attica. But this might be a fiction invented by the ancients to account for the grandeur of Aeschylus' plays.
As a youth, Aeschylus worked at a vineyard until, according to the 2nd-century AD geographer Pausanias, the god Dionysus visited him in his sleep and commanded him to turn his attention to the nascent art of tragedy. As soon as he woke, he began to write a tragedy, and his first performance took place in 499 BC, when he was 26 years old. He won his first victory at the City Dionysia in 484 BC.
In 510 BC, when Aeschylus was 15 years old, Cleomenes I expelled the sons of Peisistratus from Athens, and Cleisthenes came to power. Cleisthenes' reforms included a system of registration that emphasized the importance of the deme over family tradition. In the last decade of the 6th century, Aeschylus and his family were living in the deme of Eleusis.
The Persian Wars played a large role in Aeschylus' life and career. In 490 BC, he and his brother Cynegeirus fought to defend Athens against the invading army of Darius I of Persia at the Battle of Marathon. The Athenians emerged triumphant, and the victory was celebrated across the city-states of Greece. Cynegeirus was killed while trying to prevent a Persian ship retreating from the shore, for which his countrymen extolled him as a hero.
In 480 BC, Aeschylus was called into military service again, together with his younger brother Ameinias, against Xerxes I's invading forces at the Battle of Salamis. Aeschylus also fought at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. Ion of Chios was a witness for Aeschylus' war record and his contribution in Salamis. Salamis holds a prominent place in The Persians, his oldest surviving play, which was performed in 472 BC and won first prize at the Dionysia.
Aeschylus was one of many Greeks who were initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, an ancient cult of Demeter based in his home town of Eleusis. Initiates gained secret knowledge through these rites, likely concerning the afterlife. Firm details of specific rites are sparse, as members were sworn under the penalty of death not to reveal anything about the Mysteries to non-initiates. Nevertheless, according to Aristotle, Aeschylus was accused of asebeia for revealing some of the cult's secrets on stage.
Other sources claim that an angry mob tried to kill Aeschylus on the spot but he fled the scene. Heracleides of Pontus asserts that the audience tried to stone Aeschylus. Aeschylus took refuge at the altar in the orchestra of the Theater of Dionysus. He pleaded ignorance at his trial. He was acquitted, with the jury sympathetic to the military service of him and his brothers during the Persian Wars. According to the 2nd-century AD author Aelian, Aeschylus' younger brother Ameinias helped to acquit Aeschylus by showing the jury the stump of the hand he had lost at Salamis, where he was voted bravest warrior. The truth is that the award for bravery at Salamis went not to Aeschylus' brother but to Ameinias of Pallene.
Aeschylus travelled to Sicily once or twice in the 470s BC, having been invited by Hiero I, tyrant of Syracuse, a major Greek city on the eastern side of the island. He produced The Women of Aetna during one of these trips (in honor of the city founded by Hieron), and restaged his Persians. By 473 BC, after the death of Phrynichus, one of his chief rivals, Aeschylus was the yearly favorite in the Dionysia, winning first prize in nearly every competition. In 472 BC, Aeschylus staged the production that included the Persians, with Pericles serving as choregos.
Personal life
Aeschylus married and had two sons, Euphorion and Euaeon, both of whom became tragic poets. Euphorion won first prize in 431 BC in competition against both Sophocles and Euripides. A nephew of Aeschylus, Philocles (his sister's son), was also a tragic poet, and won first prize in the competition against Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Aeschylus had at least two brothers, Cynegeirus and Ameinias.
Death
In 458 BC, Aeschylus returned to Sicily for the last time, visiting the city of Gela, where he died in 456 or 455 BC. Valerius Maximus wrote that he was killed outside the city by a tortoise dropped by an eagle (possibly a lammergeier or Cinereous vulture, which do open tortoises for eating by dropping them on hard objects) which had mistaken his head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell. Pliny, in his Naturalis Historiæ, adds that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avoid a prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object, but this story may be legendary and due to a misunderstanding of the iconography on Aeschylus's tomb. Aeschylus' work was so respected by the Athenians that after his death his tragedies were the only ones allowed to be restaged in subsequent competitions. His sons Euphorion and Euæon and his nephew Philocles also became playwrights.
The inscription on Aeschylus' gravestone makes no mention of his theatrical renown, commemorating only his military achievements:
According to Castoriadis, the inscription on his grave signifies the primary importance of "belonging to the City" (polis), of the solidarity that existed within the collective body of citizen-soldiers.
Works
The seeds of Greek drama were sowed in religious festivals for the gods, chiefly Dionysus, the god of wine. During Aeschylus' lifetime, dramatic competitions became part of the City Dionysia, held in spring. The festival opened with a procession which was followed by a competition of boys singing dithyrambs, and all culminated in a pair of dramatic competitions. The first competition Aeschylus would have participated in involved three playwrights each presenting three tragedies and one satyr play. Such format is called a continuous tragic tetralogy. It allowed Aeschylus to explore the human and theological and cosmic dimensions of a mythic sequence, developing it in successive phases. A second competition involving five comedic playwrights followed, and the winners of both competitions were chosen by a panel of judges.
Aeschylus entered many of these competitions, and various ancient sources attribute between seventy and ninety plays to him. Only seven tragedies attributed to him have survived intact: The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliants, the trilogy known as The Oresteia (the three tragedies Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides), and Prometheus Bound (whose authorship is disputed). With the exception of this last play – the success of which is uncertain – all of Aeschylus's extant tragedies are known to have won first prize at the City Dionysia.
The Alexandrian Life of Aeschylus claims that he won the first prize at the City Dionysia thirteen times. This compares favorably with Sophocles' reported eighteen victories (with a substantially larger catalogue, an estimated 120 plays), and dwarfs the five victories of Euripides, who is thought to have written roughly 90 plays.
Trilogies
One hallmark of Aeschylean dramaturgy appears to have been his tendency to write connected trilogies in which each play serves as a chapter in a continuous dramatic narrative. The Oresteia is the only extant example of this type of connected trilogy, but there is evidence that Aeschylus often wrote such trilogies. The satyr plays that followed his tragic trilogies also drew from myth.
The satyr play Proteus, which followed the Oresteia, treated the story of Menelaus' detour in Egypt on his way home from the Trojan War. It is assumed, based on the evidence provided by a catalogue of Aeschylean play titles, scholia, and play fragments recorded by later authors, that three other extant plays of his were components of connected trilogies: Seven Against Thebes was the final play in an Oedipus trilogy, and The Suppliants and Prometheus Bound were each the first play in a Danaid trilogy and Prometheus trilogy, respectively. Scholars have also suggested several completely lost trilogies, based on known play titles. A number of these treated myths about the Trojan War. One, collectively called the Achilleis, comprised Myrmidons, Nereids and Phrygians (alternately, The Ransoming of Hector).
Another trilogy apparently recounted the entrance of the Trojan ally Memnon into the war, and his death at the hands of Achilles (Memnon and The Weighing of Souls being two components of the trilogy). The Award of the Arms, The Phrygian Women, and The Salaminian Women suggest a trilogy about the madness and subsequent suicide of the Greek hero Ajax. Aeschylus seems to have written about Odysseus' return to Ithaca after the war (including his killing of his wife Penelope's suitors and its consequences) in a trilogy consisting of The Soul-raisers, Penelope, and The Bone-gatherers. Other suggested trilogies touched on the myth of Jason and the Argonauts (Argô, Lemnian Women, Hypsipylê), the life of Perseus (The Net-draggers, Polydektês, Phorkides), the birth and exploits of Dionysus (Semele, Bacchae, Pentheus), and the aftermath of the war portrayed in Seven Against Thebes (Eleusinians, Argives (or Argive Women), Sons of the Seven).
Surviving plays
The Persians (472 BC)
The Persians (Persai) is the earliest of Aeschylus' extant plays. It was performed in 472 BC. It was based on Aeschylus' own experiences, specifically the Battle of Salamis. It is unique among surviving Greek tragedies in that it describes a recent historical event. The Persians focuses on the popular Greek theme of hubris and blames Persia's loss on the pride of its king.
It opens with the arrival of a messenger in Susa, the Persian capital, bearing news of the catastrophic Persian defeat at Salamis, to Atossa, the mother of the Persian King Xerxes. Atossa then travels to the tomb of Darius, her husband, where his ghost appears, to explain the cause of the defeat. It is, he says, the result of Xerxes' hubris in building a bridge across the Hellespont, an action which angered the gods. Xerxes appears at the end of the play, not realizing the cause of his defeat, and the play closes to lamentations by Xerxes and the chorus.
Seven Against Thebes (467 BC)
Seven against Thebes (Hepta epi Thebas) was performed in 467 BC. It has the contrasting theme of the interference of the gods in human affairs. Another theme, with which Aeschylus' would continually involve himself, makes its first known appearance in this play, namely that the polis was a key development of human civilization.
The play tells the story of Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of the shamed king of Thebes, Oedipus. Eteocles and Polynices agree to share and alternate the throne of the city. After the first year, Eteocles refuses to step down. Polynices therefore undertakes war. The pair kill each other in single combat, and the original ending of the play consisted of lamentations for the dead brothers. But a new ending was added to the play some fifty years later: Antigone and Ismene mourn their dead brothers, a messenger enters announcing an edict prohibiting the burial of Polynices, and Antigone declares her intention to defy this edict. The play was the third in a connected Oedipus trilogy. The first two plays were Laius and Oedipus. The concluding satyr play was The Sphinx.
The Suppliants (463 BC)
Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants (Hiketides) in 463 BC. The play gives tribute to the democratic undercurrents which were running through Athens and preceding the establishment of a democratic government in 461. The Danaids (50 daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos) flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision (a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king). The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection and are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests.
A Danaid trilogy had long been assumed because of The Suppliants''' cliffhanger ending. This was confirmed by the 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3. The constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants and The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. King Pelasgus was killed during the war, and Danaus rules Argos. Danaus negotiates a settlement with Aegyptus, a condition of which requires his 50 daughters to marry the 50 sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle which predicts that one of his sons-in-law would kill him. He orders the Danaids to murder their husbands therefore on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding.
It is revealed that 49 of the 50 Danaids killed their husbands. Hypermnestra did not kill her husband, Lynceus, and helped him escape. Danaus is angered by his daughter's disobedience and orders her imprisonment and possibly execution. In the trilogy's climax and dénouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus and kills him, thus fulfilling the oracle. He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other 49 Danaids are absolved of their murders, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids.
The Oresteia (458 BC)
Besides a few missing lines, the Oresteia of 458 BC is the only complete trilogy of Greek plays by any playwright still extant (of Proteus, the satyr play which followed, only fragments are known). Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers (Choephoroi) and The Eumenides together tell the violent story of the family of Agamemnon, king of Argos.
Agamemnon
Aeschylus begins in Greece, describing the return of King Agamemnon from his victory in the Trojan War, from the perspective of the townspeople (the Chorus) and his wife, Clytemnestra. Dark foreshadowings build to the death of the king at the hands of his wife, who was angry that their daughter Iphigenia was killed so that the gods would restore the winds and allow the Greek fleet to sail to Troy. Clytemnestra was also unhappy that Agamemnon kept the Trojan prophetess Cassandra as his concubine. Cassandra foretells the murder of Agamemnon and of herself to the assembled townsfolk, who are horrified. She then enters the palace knowing that she cannot avoid her fate. The ending of the play includes a prediction of the return of Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who will seek to avenge his father.
The Libation BearersThe Libation Bearers opens with Orestes' arrival at Agamemnon's tomb, from exile in Phocis. Electra meets Orestes there. They plan revenge against Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus. Clytemnestra's account of a nightmare in which she gives birth to a snake is recounted by the chorus. This leads her to order her daughter, Electra, to pour libations on Agamemnon's tomb (with the assistance of libation bearers) in hope of making amends. Orestes enters the palace pretending to bear news of his own death. Clytemnestra calls in Aegisthus to learn the news. Orestes kills them both. Orestes is then beset by the Furies, who avenge the murders of kin in Greek mythology.
The Eumenides
The third play addresses the question of Orestes' guilt. The Furies drive Orestes from Argos and into the wilderness. He makes his way to the temple of Apollo and begs Apollo to drive the Furies away. Apollo had encouraged Orestes to kill Clytemnestra, so he bears some of the guilt for the murder. Apollo sends Orestes to the temple of Athena with Hermes as a guide.
The Furies track him down, and Athena steps in and declares that a trial is necessary. Apollo argues Orestes' case, and after the judges (including Athena) deliver a tie vote, Athena announces that Orestes is acquitted. She renames the Furies The Eumenides (The Good-spirited, or Kindly Ones), and extols the importance of reason in the development of laws. As in The Suppliants, the ideals of a democratic Athens are praised.
Prometheus Bound (date disputed)Prometheus Bound is attributed to Aeschylus by ancient authorities. Since the late 19th century, however, scholars have increasingly doubted this ascription, largely on stylistic grounds. Its production date is also in dispute, with theories ranging from the 480s BC to as late as the 410s.
The play consists mostly of static dialogue. The Titan Prometheus is bound to a rock throughout, which is his punishment from the Olympian Zeus for providing fire to humans. The god Hephaestus and the Titan Oceanus and the chorus of Oceanids all express sympathy for Prometheus' plight. Prometheus is met by Io, a fellow victim of Zeus' cruelty. He prophesies her future travels, revealing that one of her descendants will free Prometheus. The play closes with Zeus sending Prometheus into the abyss because Prometheus will not tell him of a potential marriage which could prove Zeus' downfall.Prometheus Bound seems to have been the first play in a trilogy, the Prometheia. In the second play, Prometheus Unbound, Heracles frees Prometheus from his chains and kills the eagle that had been sent daily to eat Prometheus' perpetually regenerating liver (then believed the source of feeling). We learn that Zeus has released the other Titans which he imprisoned at the conclusion of the Titanomachy, perhaps foreshadowing his eventual reconciliation with Prometheus.
In the trilogy's conclusion, Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, it seems that the Titan finally warns Zeus not to sleep with the sea nymph Thetis, for she is fated to beget a son greater than the father. Not wishing to be overthrown, Zeus marries Thetis off to the mortal Peleus. The product of that union is Achilles, Greek hero of the Trojan War. After reconciling with Prometheus, Zeus probably inaugurates a festival in his honor at Athens.
Lost plays
Of Aeschylus' other plays, only titles and assorted fragments are known. There are enough fragments (along with comments made by later authors and scholiasts) to produce rough synopses for some plays.
Myrmidons
This play was based on books 9 and 16 of the Iliad. Achilles sits in silent indignation over his humiliation at Agamemnon's hands for most of the play. Envoys from the Greek army attempt to reconcile Achilles to Agamemnon, but he yields only to his friend Patroclus, who then battles the Trojans in Achilles' armour. The bravery and death of Patroclus are reported in a messenger's speech, which is followed by mourning.
Nereids
This play was based on books 18 and 19 and 22 of the Iliad. It follows the Daughters of Nereus, the sea god, who lament Patroclus' death. A messenger tells how Achilles (perhaps reconciled to Agamemnon and the Greeks) slew Hector.
Phrygians, or Hector's Ransom
After a brief discussion with Hermes, Achilles sits in silent mourning over Patroclus. Hermes then brings in King Priam of Troy, who wins over Achilles and ransoms his son's body in a spectacular coup de théâtre. A scale is brought on stage and Hector's body is placed in one scale and gold in the other. The dynamic dancing of the chorus of Trojans when they enter with Priam is reported by Aristophanes.
Niobe
The children of Niobe, the heroine, have been slain by Apollo and Artemis because Niobe had gloated that she had more children than their mother, Leto. Niobe sits in silent mourning on stage during most of the play. In the Republic, Plato quotes the line "God plants a fault in mortals when he wills to destroy a house utterly."
These are the remaining 71 plays ascribed to Aeschylus which are known to us:AlcmeneAmymoneThe Archer-WomenThe Argivian WomenThe Argo, also titled The RowersAtalantaAthamasAttendants of the Bridal ChamberAward of the ArmsThe BacchaeThe BassaraeThe Bone-GatherersThe CabeiroiCallistoThe Carians, also titled EuropaCercyonChildren of HerculesCirceThe Cretan WomenCycnusThe DanaidsDaughters of HeliosDaughters of PhorcysThe DescendantsThe EdoniansThe EgyptiansThe EscortsGlaucus of PontusGlaucus of PotniaeHypsipyleIphigeniaIxionLaiusThe Lemnian WomenThe LionLycurgusMemnonThe Men of EleusisThe MessengersThe MyrmidonsThe MysiansNemeaThe Net-DraggersThe Nurses of DionysusOrethyiaPalamedesPenelopePentheusPerrhaibidesPhiloctetesPhineusThe Phrygian WomenPolydectesThe PriestessesPrometheus the Fire-BearerPrometheus the Fire-KindlerPrometheus UnboundProteusSemele, also titled The Water-BearersSisyphus the RunawaySisyphus the Stone-RollerThe Spectators, also titled Athletes of the Isthmian GamesThe SphinxThe Spirit-RaisersTelephusThe Thracian WomenWeighing of SoulsWomen of Aetna (two versions)Women of SalamisXantriaeThe YouthsInfluence
Influence on Greek drama and culture
The theatre was just beginning to evolve when Aeschylus started writing for it. Earlier playwrights such as Thespis had already expanded the cast to include an actor who was able to interact with the chorus. Aeschylus added a second actor, allowing for greater dramatic variety, while the chorus played a less important role. He is sometimes credited with introducing skenographia, or scene-decoration, though Aristotle gives this distinction to Sophocles. Aeschylus is also said to have made the costumes more elaborate and dramatic, and made his actors wear platform boots (cothurni) to make them more visible to the audience. According to a later account of Aeschylus' life, the chorus of Furies in the first performance of the Eumenides were so frightening when they entered that children fainted and patriarchs urinated and pregnant women went into labour.
Aeschylus wrote his plays in verse. No violence is performed onstage. The plays have a remoteness from daily life in Athens, relating stories about the gods, or being set, like The Persians, far away. Aeschylus' work has a strong moral and religious emphasis. The Oresteia trilogy concentrated on humans' position in the cosmos relative to the gods and divine law and divine punishment.
Aeschylus' popularity is evident in the praise that the comic playwright Aristophanes gives him in The Frogs, produced some 50 years after Aeschylus' death. Aeschylus appears as a character in the play and claims, at line 1022, that his Seven against Thebes "made everyone watching it to love being warlike". He claims, at lines 1026–7, that with The Persians he "taught the Athenians to desire always to defeat their enemies." Aeschylus goes on to say, at lines 1039ff., that his plays inspired the Athenians to be brave and virtuous.
Influence outside Greek culture
Aeschylus' works were influential beyond his own time. Hugh Lloyd-Jones draws attention to Richard Wagner's reverence of Aeschylus. Michael Ewans argues in his Wagner and Aeschylus. The Ring and the Oresteia (London: Faber. 1982) that the influence was so great as to merit a direct character by character comparison between Wagner's Ring and Aeschylus's Oresteia. But a critic of that book, while not denying that Wagner read and respected Aeschylus, has described the arguments as unreasonable and forced.
J.T. Sheppard argues in the second half of his Aeschylus and Sophocles: Their Work and Influence that Aeschylus and Sophocles have played a major part in the formation of dramatic literature from the Renaissance to the present, specifically in French and Elizabethan drama. He also claims that their influence went beyond just drama and applies to literature in general, citing Milton and the Romantics.
Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), a trilogy of three plays set in America after the Civil War, is modeled after the Oresteia. Before writing his acclaimed trilogy, O'Neill had been developing a play about Aeschylus, and he noted that Aeschylus "so changed the system of the tragic stage that he has more claim than anyone else to be regarded as the founder (Father) of Tragedy."
During his presidential campaign in 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy quoted the Edith Hamilton translation of Aeschylus on the night of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Kennedy was notified of King's murder before a campaign stop in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was warned not to attend the event due to fears of rioting from the mostly African-American crowd. Kennedy insisted on attending and delivered an impromptu speech that delivered news of King's death. Acknowledging the audience's emotions, Kennedy referred to his own grief at the murder of Martin Luther King and, quoting a passage from the play Agamemnon (in translation), said: "My favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote: 'Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.' What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness; but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black ... Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world." The quotation from Aeschylus was later inscribed on a memorial at the gravesite of Robert Kennedy following his own assassination.
Editions
Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Aeschyli Tragoediae. Editio maior, Berlin 1914.
Gilbert Murray, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae. Editio Altera, Oxford 1955.
Denys Page, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae, Oxford 1972.
Martin L. West, Aeschyli Tragoediae cum incerti poetae Prometheo, 2nd ed., Stuttgart/Leipzig 1998.
The first translation of the seven plays into English was by Robert Potter in 1779, using blank verse for the iambic trimeters and rhymed verse for the choruses, a convention adopted by most translators for the next century.
Anna Swanwick produced a verse translation in English of all seven surviving plays as The Dramas of Aeschylus in 1886 full text
Stefan Radt (ed.), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Vol. III: Aeschylus (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009) (Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 3).
Alan H. Sommerstein (ed.), Aeschylus, Volume II, Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-bearers. Eumenides. 146 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2009); Volume III, Fragments. 505 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2008).
See also
2876 Aeschylus, an asteroid named for him
Ancient Greek literature
Ancient Greek mythology
Ancient Greek religion
Battle of Marathon
Classical Greece
Dionysia
Music of ancient Greece
Theatre of ancient Greece
"Live by the sword, die by the sword"
Notes
Citations
References
Bierl, A. Die Orestie des Aischylos auf der modernen Bühne: Theoretische Konzeptionen und ihre szenische Realizierung (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1997)
Cairns, D., V. Liapis, Dionysalexandros: Essays on Aeschylus and His Fellow Tragedians in Honour of Alexander F. Garvie (Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales, 2006)
Deforge, B. Une vie avec Eschyle. Vérité des mythes (Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2010)
Lefkowitz, Mary (1981). The Lives of the Greek Poets. University of North Carolina Press
— (2002). Greek Drama and Dramatists. London: Routledge Press.
Summers, David (2007). Vision, Reflection, and Desire in Western Painting. University of North Carolina Press
Thomson, George (1973) Aeschylus and Athens: A Study in the Social Origin of Drama. London: Lawrence and Wishart (4th edition)
Vellacott, Philip, (1961). Prometheus Bound and Other Plays: Prometheus Bound, Seven Against Thebes, and The Persians. New York: Penguin Classics.
Zeitlin, Froma (1982). Under the sign of the shield: semiotics and Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2nd ed. 2009 (Greek studies: interdisciplinary approaches)
Zetlin, Froma (1996). "The dynamics of misogyny: myth and mythmaking in Aeschylus's Oresteia", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 87–119.
Zeitlin, Froma (1996). "The politics of Eros in the Danaid trilogy of Aeschylus", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 123–171.
External links
Selected Poems of Aeschylus
Aeschylus-related materials at the Perseus Digital Library
Complete syntax diagrams at Alpheios
Online English Translations of Aeschylus
Photo of a fragment of The Net-pullers
"Aeschylus, I: Persians" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, II: The Oresteia" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, III: Fragments" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
5th-century BC Greek people
5th-century BC writers
520s BC births
450s BC deaths
Year of birth uncertain
Year of death uncertain
Tragic poets
Ancient Greeks accused of sacrilege
Greek people of the Greco-Persian Wars
Battle of Marathon
Accidental deaths in Italy
Deaths due to animal attacks | true | [
"Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books",
"Thymochares (Gr. ) was an Athenian general under the Four Hundred who may have come from the deme of Sphettos.\n\nIn late 411 BC, commanding 36 triremes, he opposed the arrival of the Spartan commander Agesandridas at Oropos, but was routed, losing 22 ships at the Battle of Eretria. Most of the rowers fled to Eretria where they were slaughtered. Thucydides does not say what happened to Thymochares after the defeat. He next appears in Xenophon at an unknown location (probably somewhere in Euboea), where he arrives with ‘a few ships’, but is again defeated by Agesandridas.\n\nReferences\n\n5th-century BC Athenians\nAncient Athenian generals\nAthenians of the Peloponnesian War\n411 BC"
] |
[
"Aeschylus",
"The Suppliants",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt.",
"What happened when they fled?",
"They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection,"
] | C_1974ee6d0d4f446ea4c1aad41c763918_0 | Did he protect them? | 3 | Did King Pelasgus protect the fifty daughters of Danaus? | Aeschylus | Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants in 463 BC (Hiketides), which pays tribute to the democratic undercurrents running through Athens in advance of the establishment of a democratic government in 461. In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision, a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king. The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection, and they are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests. The 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3 confirmed a long-assumed (because of The Suppliants' cliffhanger ending) Danaid trilogy, whose constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants, The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. During the course of the war, King Pelasgus has been killed, and Danaus rules Argos. He negotiates a peace settlement with Aegyptus, as a condition of which, his fifty daughters will marry the fifty sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle predicting that one of his sons-in-law would kill him; he therefore orders the Danaids to murder their husbands on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding. In short order, it is revealed that forty-nine of the Danaids killed their husbands as ordered; Hypermnestra, however, loved her husband Lynceus, and thus spared his life and helped him to escape. Angered by his daughter's disobedience, Danaus orders her imprisonment and, possibly, her execution. In the trilogy's climax and denouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus, and kills him (thus fulfilling the oracle). He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other forty-nine Danaids are absolved of their murderous crime, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids. CANNOTANSWER | Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision, a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king. | Aeschylus (, ; ; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Formerly, characters interacted only with the chorus.
Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived. There is a long-standing debate regarding the authorship of one of them, Prometheus Bound, with some scholars arguing that it may be the work of his son Euphorion. Fragments from other plays have survived in quotations, and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyri. These fragments often give further insights into Aeschylus' work. He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy. His Oresteia is the only extant ancient example. At least one of his plays was influenced by the Persians' second invasion of Greece (480–479 BC). This work, The Persians, is one of very few classical Greek tragedies concerned with contemporary events, and the only one extant. The significance of the war with Persia was so great to Aeschylus and the Greeks that his epitaph commemorates his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon while making no mention of his success as a playwright.
Life
Aeschylus was born in c. 525 BC in Eleusis, a small town about 27 km northwest of Athens, in the fertile valleys of western Attica. Some scholars argue that his date of birth may be based on counting back forty years from his first victory in the Great Dionysia. His family was wealthy and well established. His father, Euphorion, was a member of the Eupatridae, the ancient nobility of Attica. But this might be a fiction invented by the ancients to account for the grandeur of Aeschylus' plays.
As a youth, Aeschylus worked at a vineyard until, according to the 2nd-century AD geographer Pausanias, the god Dionysus visited him in his sleep and commanded him to turn his attention to the nascent art of tragedy. As soon as he woke, he began to write a tragedy, and his first performance took place in 499 BC, when he was 26 years old. He won his first victory at the City Dionysia in 484 BC.
In 510 BC, when Aeschylus was 15 years old, Cleomenes I expelled the sons of Peisistratus from Athens, and Cleisthenes came to power. Cleisthenes' reforms included a system of registration that emphasized the importance of the deme over family tradition. In the last decade of the 6th century, Aeschylus and his family were living in the deme of Eleusis.
The Persian Wars played a large role in Aeschylus' life and career. In 490 BC, he and his brother Cynegeirus fought to defend Athens against the invading army of Darius I of Persia at the Battle of Marathon. The Athenians emerged triumphant, and the victory was celebrated across the city-states of Greece. Cynegeirus was killed while trying to prevent a Persian ship retreating from the shore, for which his countrymen extolled him as a hero.
In 480 BC, Aeschylus was called into military service again, together with his younger brother Ameinias, against Xerxes I's invading forces at the Battle of Salamis. Aeschylus also fought at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. Ion of Chios was a witness for Aeschylus' war record and his contribution in Salamis. Salamis holds a prominent place in The Persians, his oldest surviving play, which was performed in 472 BC and won first prize at the Dionysia.
Aeschylus was one of many Greeks who were initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, an ancient cult of Demeter based in his home town of Eleusis. Initiates gained secret knowledge through these rites, likely concerning the afterlife. Firm details of specific rites are sparse, as members were sworn under the penalty of death not to reveal anything about the Mysteries to non-initiates. Nevertheless, according to Aristotle, Aeschylus was accused of asebeia for revealing some of the cult's secrets on stage.
Other sources claim that an angry mob tried to kill Aeschylus on the spot but he fled the scene. Heracleides of Pontus asserts that the audience tried to stone Aeschylus. Aeschylus took refuge at the altar in the orchestra of the Theater of Dionysus. He pleaded ignorance at his trial. He was acquitted, with the jury sympathetic to the military service of him and his brothers during the Persian Wars. According to the 2nd-century AD author Aelian, Aeschylus' younger brother Ameinias helped to acquit Aeschylus by showing the jury the stump of the hand he had lost at Salamis, where he was voted bravest warrior. The truth is that the award for bravery at Salamis went not to Aeschylus' brother but to Ameinias of Pallene.
Aeschylus travelled to Sicily once or twice in the 470s BC, having been invited by Hiero I, tyrant of Syracuse, a major Greek city on the eastern side of the island. He produced The Women of Aetna during one of these trips (in honor of the city founded by Hieron), and restaged his Persians. By 473 BC, after the death of Phrynichus, one of his chief rivals, Aeschylus was the yearly favorite in the Dionysia, winning first prize in nearly every competition. In 472 BC, Aeschylus staged the production that included the Persians, with Pericles serving as choregos.
Personal life
Aeschylus married and had two sons, Euphorion and Euaeon, both of whom became tragic poets. Euphorion won first prize in 431 BC in competition against both Sophocles and Euripides. A nephew of Aeschylus, Philocles (his sister's son), was also a tragic poet, and won first prize in the competition against Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Aeschylus had at least two brothers, Cynegeirus and Ameinias.
Death
In 458 BC, Aeschylus returned to Sicily for the last time, visiting the city of Gela, where he died in 456 or 455 BC. Valerius Maximus wrote that he was killed outside the city by a tortoise dropped by an eagle (possibly a lammergeier or Cinereous vulture, which do open tortoises for eating by dropping them on hard objects) which had mistaken his head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell. Pliny, in his Naturalis Historiæ, adds that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avoid a prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object, but this story may be legendary and due to a misunderstanding of the iconography on Aeschylus's tomb. Aeschylus' work was so respected by the Athenians that after his death his tragedies were the only ones allowed to be restaged in subsequent competitions. His sons Euphorion and Euæon and his nephew Philocles also became playwrights.
The inscription on Aeschylus' gravestone makes no mention of his theatrical renown, commemorating only his military achievements:
According to Castoriadis, the inscription on his grave signifies the primary importance of "belonging to the City" (polis), of the solidarity that existed within the collective body of citizen-soldiers.
Works
The seeds of Greek drama were sowed in religious festivals for the gods, chiefly Dionysus, the god of wine. During Aeschylus' lifetime, dramatic competitions became part of the City Dionysia, held in spring. The festival opened with a procession which was followed by a competition of boys singing dithyrambs, and all culminated in a pair of dramatic competitions. The first competition Aeschylus would have participated in involved three playwrights each presenting three tragedies and one satyr play. Such format is called a continuous tragic tetralogy. It allowed Aeschylus to explore the human and theological and cosmic dimensions of a mythic sequence, developing it in successive phases. A second competition involving five comedic playwrights followed, and the winners of both competitions were chosen by a panel of judges.
Aeschylus entered many of these competitions, and various ancient sources attribute between seventy and ninety plays to him. Only seven tragedies attributed to him have survived intact: The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliants, the trilogy known as The Oresteia (the three tragedies Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides), and Prometheus Bound (whose authorship is disputed). With the exception of this last play – the success of which is uncertain – all of Aeschylus's extant tragedies are known to have won first prize at the City Dionysia.
The Alexandrian Life of Aeschylus claims that he won the first prize at the City Dionysia thirteen times. This compares favorably with Sophocles' reported eighteen victories (with a substantially larger catalogue, an estimated 120 plays), and dwarfs the five victories of Euripides, who is thought to have written roughly 90 plays.
Trilogies
One hallmark of Aeschylean dramaturgy appears to have been his tendency to write connected trilogies in which each play serves as a chapter in a continuous dramatic narrative. The Oresteia is the only extant example of this type of connected trilogy, but there is evidence that Aeschylus often wrote such trilogies. The satyr plays that followed his tragic trilogies also drew from myth.
The satyr play Proteus, which followed the Oresteia, treated the story of Menelaus' detour in Egypt on his way home from the Trojan War. It is assumed, based on the evidence provided by a catalogue of Aeschylean play titles, scholia, and play fragments recorded by later authors, that three other extant plays of his were components of connected trilogies: Seven Against Thebes was the final play in an Oedipus trilogy, and The Suppliants and Prometheus Bound were each the first play in a Danaid trilogy and Prometheus trilogy, respectively. Scholars have also suggested several completely lost trilogies, based on known play titles. A number of these treated myths about the Trojan War. One, collectively called the Achilleis, comprised Myrmidons, Nereids and Phrygians (alternately, The Ransoming of Hector).
Another trilogy apparently recounted the entrance of the Trojan ally Memnon into the war, and his death at the hands of Achilles (Memnon and The Weighing of Souls being two components of the trilogy). The Award of the Arms, The Phrygian Women, and The Salaminian Women suggest a trilogy about the madness and subsequent suicide of the Greek hero Ajax. Aeschylus seems to have written about Odysseus' return to Ithaca after the war (including his killing of his wife Penelope's suitors and its consequences) in a trilogy consisting of The Soul-raisers, Penelope, and The Bone-gatherers. Other suggested trilogies touched on the myth of Jason and the Argonauts (Argô, Lemnian Women, Hypsipylê), the life of Perseus (The Net-draggers, Polydektês, Phorkides), the birth and exploits of Dionysus (Semele, Bacchae, Pentheus), and the aftermath of the war portrayed in Seven Against Thebes (Eleusinians, Argives (or Argive Women), Sons of the Seven).
Surviving plays
The Persians (472 BC)
The Persians (Persai) is the earliest of Aeschylus' extant plays. It was performed in 472 BC. It was based on Aeschylus' own experiences, specifically the Battle of Salamis. It is unique among surviving Greek tragedies in that it describes a recent historical event. The Persians focuses on the popular Greek theme of hubris and blames Persia's loss on the pride of its king.
It opens with the arrival of a messenger in Susa, the Persian capital, bearing news of the catastrophic Persian defeat at Salamis, to Atossa, the mother of the Persian King Xerxes. Atossa then travels to the tomb of Darius, her husband, where his ghost appears, to explain the cause of the defeat. It is, he says, the result of Xerxes' hubris in building a bridge across the Hellespont, an action which angered the gods. Xerxes appears at the end of the play, not realizing the cause of his defeat, and the play closes to lamentations by Xerxes and the chorus.
Seven Against Thebes (467 BC)
Seven against Thebes (Hepta epi Thebas) was performed in 467 BC. It has the contrasting theme of the interference of the gods in human affairs. Another theme, with which Aeschylus' would continually involve himself, makes its first known appearance in this play, namely that the polis was a key development of human civilization.
The play tells the story of Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of the shamed king of Thebes, Oedipus. Eteocles and Polynices agree to share and alternate the throne of the city. After the first year, Eteocles refuses to step down. Polynices therefore undertakes war. The pair kill each other in single combat, and the original ending of the play consisted of lamentations for the dead brothers. But a new ending was added to the play some fifty years later: Antigone and Ismene mourn their dead brothers, a messenger enters announcing an edict prohibiting the burial of Polynices, and Antigone declares her intention to defy this edict. The play was the third in a connected Oedipus trilogy. The first two plays were Laius and Oedipus. The concluding satyr play was The Sphinx.
The Suppliants (463 BC)
Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants (Hiketides) in 463 BC. The play gives tribute to the democratic undercurrents which were running through Athens and preceding the establishment of a democratic government in 461. The Danaids (50 daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos) flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision (a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king). The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection and are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests.
A Danaid trilogy had long been assumed because of The Suppliants''' cliffhanger ending. This was confirmed by the 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3. The constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants and The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. King Pelasgus was killed during the war, and Danaus rules Argos. Danaus negotiates a settlement with Aegyptus, a condition of which requires his 50 daughters to marry the 50 sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle which predicts that one of his sons-in-law would kill him. He orders the Danaids to murder their husbands therefore on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding.
It is revealed that 49 of the 50 Danaids killed their husbands. Hypermnestra did not kill her husband, Lynceus, and helped him escape. Danaus is angered by his daughter's disobedience and orders her imprisonment and possibly execution. In the trilogy's climax and dénouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus and kills him, thus fulfilling the oracle. He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other 49 Danaids are absolved of their murders, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids.
The Oresteia (458 BC)
Besides a few missing lines, the Oresteia of 458 BC is the only complete trilogy of Greek plays by any playwright still extant (of Proteus, the satyr play which followed, only fragments are known). Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers (Choephoroi) and The Eumenides together tell the violent story of the family of Agamemnon, king of Argos.
Agamemnon
Aeschylus begins in Greece, describing the return of King Agamemnon from his victory in the Trojan War, from the perspective of the townspeople (the Chorus) and his wife, Clytemnestra. Dark foreshadowings build to the death of the king at the hands of his wife, who was angry that their daughter Iphigenia was killed so that the gods would restore the winds and allow the Greek fleet to sail to Troy. Clytemnestra was also unhappy that Agamemnon kept the Trojan prophetess Cassandra as his concubine. Cassandra foretells the murder of Agamemnon and of herself to the assembled townsfolk, who are horrified. She then enters the palace knowing that she cannot avoid her fate. The ending of the play includes a prediction of the return of Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who will seek to avenge his father.
The Libation BearersThe Libation Bearers opens with Orestes' arrival at Agamemnon's tomb, from exile in Phocis. Electra meets Orestes there. They plan revenge against Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus. Clytemnestra's account of a nightmare in which she gives birth to a snake is recounted by the chorus. This leads her to order her daughter, Electra, to pour libations on Agamemnon's tomb (with the assistance of libation bearers) in hope of making amends. Orestes enters the palace pretending to bear news of his own death. Clytemnestra calls in Aegisthus to learn the news. Orestes kills them both. Orestes is then beset by the Furies, who avenge the murders of kin in Greek mythology.
The Eumenides
The third play addresses the question of Orestes' guilt. The Furies drive Orestes from Argos and into the wilderness. He makes his way to the temple of Apollo and begs Apollo to drive the Furies away. Apollo had encouraged Orestes to kill Clytemnestra, so he bears some of the guilt for the murder. Apollo sends Orestes to the temple of Athena with Hermes as a guide.
The Furies track him down, and Athena steps in and declares that a trial is necessary. Apollo argues Orestes' case, and after the judges (including Athena) deliver a tie vote, Athena announces that Orestes is acquitted. She renames the Furies The Eumenides (The Good-spirited, or Kindly Ones), and extols the importance of reason in the development of laws. As in The Suppliants, the ideals of a democratic Athens are praised.
Prometheus Bound (date disputed)Prometheus Bound is attributed to Aeschylus by ancient authorities. Since the late 19th century, however, scholars have increasingly doubted this ascription, largely on stylistic grounds. Its production date is also in dispute, with theories ranging from the 480s BC to as late as the 410s.
The play consists mostly of static dialogue. The Titan Prometheus is bound to a rock throughout, which is his punishment from the Olympian Zeus for providing fire to humans. The god Hephaestus and the Titan Oceanus and the chorus of Oceanids all express sympathy for Prometheus' plight. Prometheus is met by Io, a fellow victim of Zeus' cruelty. He prophesies her future travels, revealing that one of her descendants will free Prometheus. The play closes with Zeus sending Prometheus into the abyss because Prometheus will not tell him of a potential marriage which could prove Zeus' downfall.Prometheus Bound seems to have been the first play in a trilogy, the Prometheia. In the second play, Prometheus Unbound, Heracles frees Prometheus from his chains and kills the eagle that had been sent daily to eat Prometheus' perpetually regenerating liver (then believed the source of feeling). We learn that Zeus has released the other Titans which he imprisoned at the conclusion of the Titanomachy, perhaps foreshadowing his eventual reconciliation with Prometheus.
In the trilogy's conclusion, Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, it seems that the Titan finally warns Zeus not to sleep with the sea nymph Thetis, for she is fated to beget a son greater than the father. Not wishing to be overthrown, Zeus marries Thetis off to the mortal Peleus. The product of that union is Achilles, Greek hero of the Trojan War. After reconciling with Prometheus, Zeus probably inaugurates a festival in his honor at Athens.
Lost plays
Of Aeschylus' other plays, only titles and assorted fragments are known. There are enough fragments (along with comments made by later authors and scholiasts) to produce rough synopses for some plays.
Myrmidons
This play was based on books 9 and 16 of the Iliad. Achilles sits in silent indignation over his humiliation at Agamemnon's hands for most of the play. Envoys from the Greek army attempt to reconcile Achilles to Agamemnon, but he yields only to his friend Patroclus, who then battles the Trojans in Achilles' armour. The bravery and death of Patroclus are reported in a messenger's speech, which is followed by mourning.
Nereids
This play was based on books 18 and 19 and 22 of the Iliad. It follows the Daughters of Nereus, the sea god, who lament Patroclus' death. A messenger tells how Achilles (perhaps reconciled to Agamemnon and the Greeks) slew Hector.
Phrygians, or Hector's Ransom
After a brief discussion with Hermes, Achilles sits in silent mourning over Patroclus. Hermes then brings in King Priam of Troy, who wins over Achilles and ransoms his son's body in a spectacular coup de théâtre. A scale is brought on stage and Hector's body is placed in one scale and gold in the other. The dynamic dancing of the chorus of Trojans when they enter with Priam is reported by Aristophanes.
Niobe
The children of Niobe, the heroine, have been slain by Apollo and Artemis because Niobe had gloated that she had more children than their mother, Leto. Niobe sits in silent mourning on stage during most of the play. In the Republic, Plato quotes the line "God plants a fault in mortals when he wills to destroy a house utterly."
These are the remaining 71 plays ascribed to Aeschylus which are known to us:AlcmeneAmymoneThe Archer-WomenThe Argivian WomenThe Argo, also titled The RowersAtalantaAthamasAttendants of the Bridal ChamberAward of the ArmsThe BacchaeThe BassaraeThe Bone-GatherersThe CabeiroiCallistoThe Carians, also titled EuropaCercyonChildren of HerculesCirceThe Cretan WomenCycnusThe DanaidsDaughters of HeliosDaughters of PhorcysThe DescendantsThe EdoniansThe EgyptiansThe EscortsGlaucus of PontusGlaucus of PotniaeHypsipyleIphigeniaIxionLaiusThe Lemnian WomenThe LionLycurgusMemnonThe Men of EleusisThe MessengersThe MyrmidonsThe MysiansNemeaThe Net-DraggersThe Nurses of DionysusOrethyiaPalamedesPenelopePentheusPerrhaibidesPhiloctetesPhineusThe Phrygian WomenPolydectesThe PriestessesPrometheus the Fire-BearerPrometheus the Fire-KindlerPrometheus UnboundProteusSemele, also titled The Water-BearersSisyphus the RunawaySisyphus the Stone-RollerThe Spectators, also titled Athletes of the Isthmian GamesThe SphinxThe Spirit-RaisersTelephusThe Thracian WomenWeighing of SoulsWomen of Aetna (two versions)Women of SalamisXantriaeThe YouthsInfluence
Influence on Greek drama and culture
The theatre was just beginning to evolve when Aeschylus started writing for it. Earlier playwrights such as Thespis had already expanded the cast to include an actor who was able to interact with the chorus. Aeschylus added a second actor, allowing for greater dramatic variety, while the chorus played a less important role. He is sometimes credited with introducing skenographia, or scene-decoration, though Aristotle gives this distinction to Sophocles. Aeschylus is also said to have made the costumes more elaborate and dramatic, and made his actors wear platform boots (cothurni) to make them more visible to the audience. According to a later account of Aeschylus' life, the chorus of Furies in the first performance of the Eumenides were so frightening when they entered that children fainted and patriarchs urinated and pregnant women went into labour.
Aeschylus wrote his plays in verse. No violence is performed onstage. The plays have a remoteness from daily life in Athens, relating stories about the gods, or being set, like The Persians, far away. Aeschylus' work has a strong moral and religious emphasis. The Oresteia trilogy concentrated on humans' position in the cosmos relative to the gods and divine law and divine punishment.
Aeschylus' popularity is evident in the praise that the comic playwright Aristophanes gives him in The Frogs, produced some 50 years after Aeschylus' death. Aeschylus appears as a character in the play and claims, at line 1022, that his Seven against Thebes "made everyone watching it to love being warlike". He claims, at lines 1026–7, that with The Persians he "taught the Athenians to desire always to defeat their enemies." Aeschylus goes on to say, at lines 1039ff., that his plays inspired the Athenians to be brave and virtuous.
Influence outside Greek culture
Aeschylus' works were influential beyond his own time. Hugh Lloyd-Jones draws attention to Richard Wagner's reverence of Aeschylus. Michael Ewans argues in his Wagner and Aeschylus. The Ring and the Oresteia (London: Faber. 1982) that the influence was so great as to merit a direct character by character comparison between Wagner's Ring and Aeschylus's Oresteia. But a critic of that book, while not denying that Wagner read and respected Aeschylus, has described the arguments as unreasonable and forced.
J.T. Sheppard argues in the second half of his Aeschylus and Sophocles: Their Work and Influence that Aeschylus and Sophocles have played a major part in the formation of dramatic literature from the Renaissance to the present, specifically in French and Elizabethan drama. He also claims that their influence went beyond just drama and applies to literature in general, citing Milton and the Romantics.
Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), a trilogy of three plays set in America after the Civil War, is modeled after the Oresteia. Before writing his acclaimed trilogy, O'Neill had been developing a play about Aeschylus, and he noted that Aeschylus "so changed the system of the tragic stage that he has more claim than anyone else to be regarded as the founder (Father) of Tragedy."
During his presidential campaign in 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy quoted the Edith Hamilton translation of Aeschylus on the night of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Kennedy was notified of King's murder before a campaign stop in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was warned not to attend the event due to fears of rioting from the mostly African-American crowd. Kennedy insisted on attending and delivered an impromptu speech that delivered news of King's death. Acknowledging the audience's emotions, Kennedy referred to his own grief at the murder of Martin Luther King and, quoting a passage from the play Agamemnon (in translation), said: "My favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote: 'Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.' What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness; but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black ... Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world." The quotation from Aeschylus was later inscribed on a memorial at the gravesite of Robert Kennedy following his own assassination.
Editions
Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Aeschyli Tragoediae. Editio maior, Berlin 1914.
Gilbert Murray, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae. Editio Altera, Oxford 1955.
Denys Page, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae, Oxford 1972.
Martin L. West, Aeschyli Tragoediae cum incerti poetae Prometheo, 2nd ed., Stuttgart/Leipzig 1998.
The first translation of the seven plays into English was by Robert Potter in 1779, using blank verse for the iambic trimeters and rhymed verse for the choruses, a convention adopted by most translators for the next century.
Anna Swanwick produced a verse translation in English of all seven surviving plays as The Dramas of Aeschylus in 1886 full text
Stefan Radt (ed.), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Vol. III: Aeschylus (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009) (Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 3).
Alan H. Sommerstein (ed.), Aeschylus, Volume II, Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-bearers. Eumenides. 146 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2009); Volume III, Fragments. 505 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2008).
See also
2876 Aeschylus, an asteroid named for him
Ancient Greek literature
Ancient Greek mythology
Ancient Greek religion
Battle of Marathon
Classical Greece
Dionysia
Music of ancient Greece
Theatre of ancient Greece
"Live by the sword, die by the sword"
Notes
Citations
References
Bierl, A. Die Orestie des Aischylos auf der modernen Bühne: Theoretische Konzeptionen und ihre szenische Realizierung (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1997)
Cairns, D., V. Liapis, Dionysalexandros: Essays on Aeschylus and His Fellow Tragedians in Honour of Alexander F. Garvie (Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales, 2006)
Deforge, B. Une vie avec Eschyle. Vérité des mythes (Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2010)
Lefkowitz, Mary (1981). The Lives of the Greek Poets. University of North Carolina Press
— (2002). Greek Drama and Dramatists. London: Routledge Press.
Summers, David (2007). Vision, Reflection, and Desire in Western Painting. University of North Carolina Press
Thomson, George (1973) Aeschylus and Athens: A Study in the Social Origin of Drama. London: Lawrence and Wishart (4th edition)
Vellacott, Philip, (1961). Prometheus Bound and Other Plays: Prometheus Bound, Seven Against Thebes, and The Persians. New York: Penguin Classics.
Zeitlin, Froma (1982). Under the sign of the shield: semiotics and Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2nd ed. 2009 (Greek studies: interdisciplinary approaches)
Zetlin, Froma (1996). "The dynamics of misogyny: myth and mythmaking in Aeschylus's Oresteia", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 87–119.
Zeitlin, Froma (1996). "The politics of Eros in the Danaid trilogy of Aeschylus", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 123–171.
External links
Selected Poems of Aeschylus
Aeschylus-related materials at the Perseus Digital Library
Complete syntax diagrams at Alpheios
Online English Translations of Aeschylus
Photo of a fragment of The Net-pullers
"Aeschylus, I: Persians" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, II: The Oresteia" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, III: Fragments" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
5th-century BC Greek people
5th-century BC writers
520s BC births
450s BC deaths
Year of birth uncertain
Year of death uncertain
Tragic poets
Ancient Greeks accused of sacrilege
Greek people of the Greco-Persian Wars
Battle of Marathon
Accidental deaths in Italy
Deaths due to animal attacks | false | [
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"Some species of fish will actively protect their eggs or young from predators.\n\nMouthbrooding species\nSome species gather up fertilized eggs in their mouth and keep them safe until they hatch, a process called mouthbrooding.\nCichlid. In addition to being mouthbrooders, some species continue to protect their young after they hatch, calling out to them when there is danger, and letting them swim back into their mouth to hold them safely away.\nApogonidae\nAriidae males carry a clutch of a few dozen eggs in their mouths, all of them about the size of golf balls for about two months before they hatch.\nLuciocephalus pulcher\nJawfishes\nOsteoglossid are all mouthbrooders. The parents can hold hundreds of eggs in their mouths. Once hatched, the young may make several trips outside the parent's mouth before deciding to leave permanently. Some species also build nests and protect the young after they hatch.\nGourami\n\nOther\nSuckermouth armored catfish males guard their mate's eggs until they hatch, and sometimes the larvae.\nSiamese fighting fish males build bubble nests and protect the eggs until they hatch.\n\nReferences\n\nSpecies that protect their young"
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"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt.",
"What happened when they fled?",
"They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection,",
"Did he protect them?",
"Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision, a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king."
] | C_1974ee6d0d4f446ea4c1aad41c763918_0 | Did they make it out alive in the story? | 4 | Did the fifty daughters of Danaus make it out alive in the Danaids? | Aeschylus | Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants in 463 BC (Hiketides), which pays tribute to the democratic undercurrents running through Athens in advance of the establishment of a democratic government in 461. In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision, a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king. The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection, and they are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests. The 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3 confirmed a long-assumed (because of The Suppliants' cliffhanger ending) Danaid trilogy, whose constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants, The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. During the course of the war, King Pelasgus has been killed, and Danaus rules Argos. He negotiates a peace settlement with Aegyptus, as a condition of which, his fifty daughters will marry the fifty sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle predicting that one of his sons-in-law would kill him; he therefore orders the Danaids to murder their husbands on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding. In short order, it is revealed that forty-nine of the Danaids killed their husbands as ordered; Hypermnestra, however, loved her husband Lynceus, and thus spared his life and helped him to escape. Angered by his daughter's disobedience, Danaus orders her imprisonment and, possibly, her execution. In the trilogy's climax and denouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus, and kills him (thus fulfilling the oracle). He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other forty-nine Danaids are absolved of their murderous crime, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids. CANNOTANSWER | The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection, and they are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests. | Aeschylus (, ; ; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Formerly, characters interacted only with the chorus.
Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived. There is a long-standing debate regarding the authorship of one of them, Prometheus Bound, with some scholars arguing that it may be the work of his son Euphorion. Fragments from other plays have survived in quotations, and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyri. These fragments often give further insights into Aeschylus' work. He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy. His Oresteia is the only extant ancient example. At least one of his plays was influenced by the Persians' second invasion of Greece (480–479 BC). This work, The Persians, is one of very few classical Greek tragedies concerned with contemporary events, and the only one extant. The significance of the war with Persia was so great to Aeschylus and the Greeks that his epitaph commemorates his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon while making no mention of his success as a playwright.
Life
Aeschylus was born in c. 525 BC in Eleusis, a small town about 27 km northwest of Athens, in the fertile valleys of western Attica. Some scholars argue that his date of birth may be based on counting back forty years from his first victory in the Great Dionysia. His family was wealthy and well established. His father, Euphorion, was a member of the Eupatridae, the ancient nobility of Attica. But this might be a fiction invented by the ancients to account for the grandeur of Aeschylus' plays.
As a youth, Aeschylus worked at a vineyard until, according to the 2nd-century AD geographer Pausanias, the god Dionysus visited him in his sleep and commanded him to turn his attention to the nascent art of tragedy. As soon as he woke, he began to write a tragedy, and his first performance took place in 499 BC, when he was 26 years old. He won his first victory at the City Dionysia in 484 BC.
In 510 BC, when Aeschylus was 15 years old, Cleomenes I expelled the sons of Peisistratus from Athens, and Cleisthenes came to power. Cleisthenes' reforms included a system of registration that emphasized the importance of the deme over family tradition. In the last decade of the 6th century, Aeschylus and his family were living in the deme of Eleusis.
The Persian Wars played a large role in Aeschylus' life and career. In 490 BC, he and his brother Cynegeirus fought to defend Athens against the invading army of Darius I of Persia at the Battle of Marathon. The Athenians emerged triumphant, and the victory was celebrated across the city-states of Greece. Cynegeirus was killed while trying to prevent a Persian ship retreating from the shore, for which his countrymen extolled him as a hero.
In 480 BC, Aeschylus was called into military service again, together with his younger brother Ameinias, against Xerxes I's invading forces at the Battle of Salamis. Aeschylus also fought at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. Ion of Chios was a witness for Aeschylus' war record and his contribution in Salamis. Salamis holds a prominent place in The Persians, his oldest surviving play, which was performed in 472 BC and won first prize at the Dionysia.
Aeschylus was one of many Greeks who were initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, an ancient cult of Demeter based in his home town of Eleusis. Initiates gained secret knowledge through these rites, likely concerning the afterlife. Firm details of specific rites are sparse, as members were sworn under the penalty of death not to reveal anything about the Mysteries to non-initiates. Nevertheless, according to Aristotle, Aeschylus was accused of asebeia for revealing some of the cult's secrets on stage.
Other sources claim that an angry mob tried to kill Aeschylus on the spot but he fled the scene. Heracleides of Pontus asserts that the audience tried to stone Aeschylus. Aeschylus took refuge at the altar in the orchestra of the Theater of Dionysus. He pleaded ignorance at his trial. He was acquitted, with the jury sympathetic to the military service of him and his brothers during the Persian Wars. According to the 2nd-century AD author Aelian, Aeschylus' younger brother Ameinias helped to acquit Aeschylus by showing the jury the stump of the hand he had lost at Salamis, where he was voted bravest warrior. The truth is that the award for bravery at Salamis went not to Aeschylus' brother but to Ameinias of Pallene.
Aeschylus travelled to Sicily once or twice in the 470s BC, having been invited by Hiero I, tyrant of Syracuse, a major Greek city on the eastern side of the island. He produced The Women of Aetna during one of these trips (in honor of the city founded by Hieron), and restaged his Persians. By 473 BC, after the death of Phrynichus, one of his chief rivals, Aeschylus was the yearly favorite in the Dionysia, winning first prize in nearly every competition. In 472 BC, Aeschylus staged the production that included the Persians, with Pericles serving as choregos.
Personal life
Aeschylus married and had two sons, Euphorion and Euaeon, both of whom became tragic poets. Euphorion won first prize in 431 BC in competition against both Sophocles and Euripides. A nephew of Aeschylus, Philocles (his sister's son), was also a tragic poet, and won first prize in the competition against Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Aeschylus had at least two brothers, Cynegeirus and Ameinias.
Death
In 458 BC, Aeschylus returned to Sicily for the last time, visiting the city of Gela, where he died in 456 or 455 BC. Valerius Maximus wrote that he was killed outside the city by a tortoise dropped by an eagle (possibly a lammergeier or Cinereous vulture, which do open tortoises for eating by dropping them on hard objects) which had mistaken his head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell. Pliny, in his Naturalis Historiæ, adds that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avoid a prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object, but this story may be legendary and due to a misunderstanding of the iconography on Aeschylus's tomb. Aeschylus' work was so respected by the Athenians that after his death his tragedies were the only ones allowed to be restaged in subsequent competitions. His sons Euphorion and Euæon and his nephew Philocles also became playwrights.
The inscription on Aeschylus' gravestone makes no mention of his theatrical renown, commemorating only his military achievements:
According to Castoriadis, the inscription on his grave signifies the primary importance of "belonging to the City" (polis), of the solidarity that existed within the collective body of citizen-soldiers.
Works
The seeds of Greek drama were sowed in religious festivals for the gods, chiefly Dionysus, the god of wine. During Aeschylus' lifetime, dramatic competitions became part of the City Dionysia, held in spring. The festival opened with a procession which was followed by a competition of boys singing dithyrambs, and all culminated in a pair of dramatic competitions. The first competition Aeschylus would have participated in involved three playwrights each presenting three tragedies and one satyr play. Such format is called a continuous tragic tetralogy. It allowed Aeschylus to explore the human and theological and cosmic dimensions of a mythic sequence, developing it in successive phases. A second competition involving five comedic playwrights followed, and the winners of both competitions were chosen by a panel of judges.
Aeschylus entered many of these competitions, and various ancient sources attribute between seventy and ninety plays to him. Only seven tragedies attributed to him have survived intact: The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliants, the trilogy known as The Oresteia (the three tragedies Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides), and Prometheus Bound (whose authorship is disputed). With the exception of this last play – the success of which is uncertain – all of Aeschylus's extant tragedies are known to have won first prize at the City Dionysia.
The Alexandrian Life of Aeschylus claims that he won the first prize at the City Dionysia thirteen times. This compares favorably with Sophocles' reported eighteen victories (with a substantially larger catalogue, an estimated 120 plays), and dwarfs the five victories of Euripides, who is thought to have written roughly 90 plays.
Trilogies
One hallmark of Aeschylean dramaturgy appears to have been his tendency to write connected trilogies in which each play serves as a chapter in a continuous dramatic narrative. The Oresteia is the only extant example of this type of connected trilogy, but there is evidence that Aeschylus often wrote such trilogies. The satyr plays that followed his tragic trilogies also drew from myth.
The satyr play Proteus, which followed the Oresteia, treated the story of Menelaus' detour in Egypt on his way home from the Trojan War. It is assumed, based on the evidence provided by a catalogue of Aeschylean play titles, scholia, and play fragments recorded by later authors, that three other extant plays of his were components of connected trilogies: Seven Against Thebes was the final play in an Oedipus trilogy, and The Suppliants and Prometheus Bound were each the first play in a Danaid trilogy and Prometheus trilogy, respectively. Scholars have also suggested several completely lost trilogies, based on known play titles. A number of these treated myths about the Trojan War. One, collectively called the Achilleis, comprised Myrmidons, Nereids and Phrygians (alternately, The Ransoming of Hector).
Another trilogy apparently recounted the entrance of the Trojan ally Memnon into the war, and his death at the hands of Achilles (Memnon and The Weighing of Souls being two components of the trilogy). The Award of the Arms, The Phrygian Women, and The Salaminian Women suggest a trilogy about the madness and subsequent suicide of the Greek hero Ajax. Aeschylus seems to have written about Odysseus' return to Ithaca after the war (including his killing of his wife Penelope's suitors and its consequences) in a trilogy consisting of The Soul-raisers, Penelope, and The Bone-gatherers. Other suggested trilogies touched on the myth of Jason and the Argonauts (Argô, Lemnian Women, Hypsipylê), the life of Perseus (The Net-draggers, Polydektês, Phorkides), the birth and exploits of Dionysus (Semele, Bacchae, Pentheus), and the aftermath of the war portrayed in Seven Against Thebes (Eleusinians, Argives (or Argive Women), Sons of the Seven).
Surviving plays
The Persians (472 BC)
The Persians (Persai) is the earliest of Aeschylus' extant plays. It was performed in 472 BC. It was based on Aeschylus' own experiences, specifically the Battle of Salamis. It is unique among surviving Greek tragedies in that it describes a recent historical event. The Persians focuses on the popular Greek theme of hubris and blames Persia's loss on the pride of its king.
It opens with the arrival of a messenger in Susa, the Persian capital, bearing news of the catastrophic Persian defeat at Salamis, to Atossa, the mother of the Persian King Xerxes. Atossa then travels to the tomb of Darius, her husband, where his ghost appears, to explain the cause of the defeat. It is, he says, the result of Xerxes' hubris in building a bridge across the Hellespont, an action which angered the gods. Xerxes appears at the end of the play, not realizing the cause of his defeat, and the play closes to lamentations by Xerxes and the chorus.
Seven Against Thebes (467 BC)
Seven against Thebes (Hepta epi Thebas) was performed in 467 BC. It has the contrasting theme of the interference of the gods in human affairs. Another theme, with which Aeschylus' would continually involve himself, makes its first known appearance in this play, namely that the polis was a key development of human civilization.
The play tells the story of Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of the shamed king of Thebes, Oedipus. Eteocles and Polynices agree to share and alternate the throne of the city. After the first year, Eteocles refuses to step down. Polynices therefore undertakes war. The pair kill each other in single combat, and the original ending of the play consisted of lamentations for the dead brothers. But a new ending was added to the play some fifty years later: Antigone and Ismene mourn their dead brothers, a messenger enters announcing an edict prohibiting the burial of Polynices, and Antigone declares her intention to defy this edict. The play was the third in a connected Oedipus trilogy. The first two plays were Laius and Oedipus. The concluding satyr play was The Sphinx.
The Suppliants (463 BC)
Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants (Hiketides) in 463 BC. The play gives tribute to the democratic undercurrents which were running through Athens and preceding the establishment of a democratic government in 461. The Danaids (50 daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos) flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision (a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king). The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection and are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests.
A Danaid trilogy had long been assumed because of The Suppliants''' cliffhanger ending. This was confirmed by the 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3. The constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants and The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. King Pelasgus was killed during the war, and Danaus rules Argos. Danaus negotiates a settlement with Aegyptus, a condition of which requires his 50 daughters to marry the 50 sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle which predicts that one of his sons-in-law would kill him. He orders the Danaids to murder their husbands therefore on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding.
It is revealed that 49 of the 50 Danaids killed their husbands. Hypermnestra did not kill her husband, Lynceus, and helped him escape. Danaus is angered by his daughter's disobedience and orders her imprisonment and possibly execution. In the trilogy's climax and dénouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus and kills him, thus fulfilling the oracle. He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other 49 Danaids are absolved of their murders, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids.
The Oresteia (458 BC)
Besides a few missing lines, the Oresteia of 458 BC is the only complete trilogy of Greek plays by any playwright still extant (of Proteus, the satyr play which followed, only fragments are known). Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers (Choephoroi) and The Eumenides together tell the violent story of the family of Agamemnon, king of Argos.
Agamemnon
Aeschylus begins in Greece, describing the return of King Agamemnon from his victory in the Trojan War, from the perspective of the townspeople (the Chorus) and his wife, Clytemnestra. Dark foreshadowings build to the death of the king at the hands of his wife, who was angry that their daughter Iphigenia was killed so that the gods would restore the winds and allow the Greek fleet to sail to Troy. Clytemnestra was also unhappy that Agamemnon kept the Trojan prophetess Cassandra as his concubine. Cassandra foretells the murder of Agamemnon and of herself to the assembled townsfolk, who are horrified. She then enters the palace knowing that she cannot avoid her fate. The ending of the play includes a prediction of the return of Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who will seek to avenge his father.
The Libation BearersThe Libation Bearers opens with Orestes' arrival at Agamemnon's tomb, from exile in Phocis. Electra meets Orestes there. They plan revenge against Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus. Clytemnestra's account of a nightmare in which she gives birth to a snake is recounted by the chorus. This leads her to order her daughter, Electra, to pour libations on Agamemnon's tomb (with the assistance of libation bearers) in hope of making amends. Orestes enters the palace pretending to bear news of his own death. Clytemnestra calls in Aegisthus to learn the news. Orestes kills them both. Orestes is then beset by the Furies, who avenge the murders of kin in Greek mythology.
The Eumenides
The third play addresses the question of Orestes' guilt. The Furies drive Orestes from Argos and into the wilderness. He makes his way to the temple of Apollo and begs Apollo to drive the Furies away. Apollo had encouraged Orestes to kill Clytemnestra, so he bears some of the guilt for the murder. Apollo sends Orestes to the temple of Athena with Hermes as a guide.
The Furies track him down, and Athena steps in and declares that a trial is necessary. Apollo argues Orestes' case, and after the judges (including Athena) deliver a tie vote, Athena announces that Orestes is acquitted. She renames the Furies The Eumenides (The Good-spirited, or Kindly Ones), and extols the importance of reason in the development of laws. As in The Suppliants, the ideals of a democratic Athens are praised.
Prometheus Bound (date disputed)Prometheus Bound is attributed to Aeschylus by ancient authorities. Since the late 19th century, however, scholars have increasingly doubted this ascription, largely on stylistic grounds. Its production date is also in dispute, with theories ranging from the 480s BC to as late as the 410s.
The play consists mostly of static dialogue. The Titan Prometheus is bound to a rock throughout, which is his punishment from the Olympian Zeus for providing fire to humans. The god Hephaestus and the Titan Oceanus and the chorus of Oceanids all express sympathy for Prometheus' plight. Prometheus is met by Io, a fellow victim of Zeus' cruelty. He prophesies her future travels, revealing that one of her descendants will free Prometheus. The play closes with Zeus sending Prometheus into the abyss because Prometheus will not tell him of a potential marriage which could prove Zeus' downfall.Prometheus Bound seems to have been the first play in a trilogy, the Prometheia. In the second play, Prometheus Unbound, Heracles frees Prometheus from his chains and kills the eagle that had been sent daily to eat Prometheus' perpetually regenerating liver (then believed the source of feeling). We learn that Zeus has released the other Titans which he imprisoned at the conclusion of the Titanomachy, perhaps foreshadowing his eventual reconciliation with Prometheus.
In the trilogy's conclusion, Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, it seems that the Titan finally warns Zeus not to sleep with the sea nymph Thetis, for she is fated to beget a son greater than the father. Not wishing to be overthrown, Zeus marries Thetis off to the mortal Peleus. The product of that union is Achilles, Greek hero of the Trojan War. After reconciling with Prometheus, Zeus probably inaugurates a festival in his honor at Athens.
Lost plays
Of Aeschylus' other plays, only titles and assorted fragments are known. There are enough fragments (along with comments made by later authors and scholiasts) to produce rough synopses for some plays.
Myrmidons
This play was based on books 9 and 16 of the Iliad. Achilles sits in silent indignation over his humiliation at Agamemnon's hands for most of the play. Envoys from the Greek army attempt to reconcile Achilles to Agamemnon, but he yields only to his friend Patroclus, who then battles the Trojans in Achilles' armour. The bravery and death of Patroclus are reported in a messenger's speech, which is followed by mourning.
Nereids
This play was based on books 18 and 19 and 22 of the Iliad. It follows the Daughters of Nereus, the sea god, who lament Patroclus' death. A messenger tells how Achilles (perhaps reconciled to Agamemnon and the Greeks) slew Hector.
Phrygians, or Hector's Ransom
After a brief discussion with Hermes, Achilles sits in silent mourning over Patroclus. Hermes then brings in King Priam of Troy, who wins over Achilles and ransoms his son's body in a spectacular coup de théâtre. A scale is brought on stage and Hector's body is placed in one scale and gold in the other. The dynamic dancing of the chorus of Trojans when they enter with Priam is reported by Aristophanes.
Niobe
The children of Niobe, the heroine, have been slain by Apollo and Artemis because Niobe had gloated that she had more children than their mother, Leto. Niobe sits in silent mourning on stage during most of the play. In the Republic, Plato quotes the line "God plants a fault in mortals when he wills to destroy a house utterly."
These are the remaining 71 plays ascribed to Aeschylus which are known to us:AlcmeneAmymoneThe Archer-WomenThe Argivian WomenThe Argo, also titled The RowersAtalantaAthamasAttendants of the Bridal ChamberAward of the ArmsThe BacchaeThe BassaraeThe Bone-GatherersThe CabeiroiCallistoThe Carians, also titled EuropaCercyonChildren of HerculesCirceThe Cretan WomenCycnusThe DanaidsDaughters of HeliosDaughters of PhorcysThe DescendantsThe EdoniansThe EgyptiansThe EscortsGlaucus of PontusGlaucus of PotniaeHypsipyleIphigeniaIxionLaiusThe Lemnian WomenThe LionLycurgusMemnonThe Men of EleusisThe MessengersThe MyrmidonsThe MysiansNemeaThe Net-DraggersThe Nurses of DionysusOrethyiaPalamedesPenelopePentheusPerrhaibidesPhiloctetesPhineusThe Phrygian WomenPolydectesThe PriestessesPrometheus the Fire-BearerPrometheus the Fire-KindlerPrometheus UnboundProteusSemele, also titled The Water-BearersSisyphus the RunawaySisyphus the Stone-RollerThe Spectators, also titled Athletes of the Isthmian GamesThe SphinxThe Spirit-RaisersTelephusThe Thracian WomenWeighing of SoulsWomen of Aetna (two versions)Women of SalamisXantriaeThe YouthsInfluence
Influence on Greek drama and culture
The theatre was just beginning to evolve when Aeschylus started writing for it. Earlier playwrights such as Thespis had already expanded the cast to include an actor who was able to interact with the chorus. Aeschylus added a second actor, allowing for greater dramatic variety, while the chorus played a less important role. He is sometimes credited with introducing skenographia, or scene-decoration, though Aristotle gives this distinction to Sophocles. Aeschylus is also said to have made the costumes more elaborate and dramatic, and made his actors wear platform boots (cothurni) to make them more visible to the audience. According to a later account of Aeschylus' life, the chorus of Furies in the first performance of the Eumenides were so frightening when they entered that children fainted and patriarchs urinated and pregnant women went into labour.
Aeschylus wrote his plays in verse. No violence is performed onstage. The plays have a remoteness from daily life in Athens, relating stories about the gods, or being set, like The Persians, far away. Aeschylus' work has a strong moral and religious emphasis. The Oresteia trilogy concentrated on humans' position in the cosmos relative to the gods and divine law and divine punishment.
Aeschylus' popularity is evident in the praise that the comic playwright Aristophanes gives him in The Frogs, produced some 50 years after Aeschylus' death. Aeschylus appears as a character in the play and claims, at line 1022, that his Seven against Thebes "made everyone watching it to love being warlike". He claims, at lines 1026–7, that with The Persians he "taught the Athenians to desire always to defeat their enemies." Aeschylus goes on to say, at lines 1039ff., that his plays inspired the Athenians to be brave and virtuous.
Influence outside Greek culture
Aeschylus' works were influential beyond his own time. Hugh Lloyd-Jones draws attention to Richard Wagner's reverence of Aeschylus. Michael Ewans argues in his Wagner and Aeschylus. The Ring and the Oresteia (London: Faber. 1982) that the influence was so great as to merit a direct character by character comparison between Wagner's Ring and Aeschylus's Oresteia. But a critic of that book, while not denying that Wagner read and respected Aeschylus, has described the arguments as unreasonable and forced.
J.T. Sheppard argues in the second half of his Aeschylus and Sophocles: Their Work and Influence that Aeschylus and Sophocles have played a major part in the formation of dramatic literature from the Renaissance to the present, specifically in French and Elizabethan drama. He also claims that their influence went beyond just drama and applies to literature in general, citing Milton and the Romantics.
Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), a trilogy of three plays set in America after the Civil War, is modeled after the Oresteia. Before writing his acclaimed trilogy, O'Neill had been developing a play about Aeschylus, and he noted that Aeschylus "so changed the system of the tragic stage that he has more claim than anyone else to be regarded as the founder (Father) of Tragedy."
During his presidential campaign in 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy quoted the Edith Hamilton translation of Aeschylus on the night of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Kennedy was notified of King's murder before a campaign stop in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was warned not to attend the event due to fears of rioting from the mostly African-American crowd. Kennedy insisted on attending and delivered an impromptu speech that delivered news of King's death. Acknowledging the audience's emotions, Kennedy referred to his own grief at the murder of Martin Luther King and, quoting a passage from the play Agamemnon (in translation), said: "My favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote: 'Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.' What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness; but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black ... Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world." The quotation from Aeschylus was later inscribed on a memorial at the gravesite of Robert Kennedy following his own assassination.
Editions
Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Aeschyli Tragoediae. Editio maior, Berlin 1914.
Gilbert Murray, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae. Editio Altera, Oxford 1955.
Denys Page, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae, Oxford 1972.
Martin L. West, Aeschyli Tragoediae cum incerti poetae Prometheo, 2nd ed., Stuttgart/Leipzig 1998.
The first translation of the seven plays into English was by Robert Potter in 1779, using blank verse for the iambic trimeters and rhymed verse for the choruses, a convention adopted by most translators for the next century.
Anna Swanwick produced a verse translation in English of all seven surviving plays as The Dramas of Aeschylus in 1886 full text
Stefan Radt (ed.), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Vol. III: Aeschylus (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009) (Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 3).
Alan H. Sommerstein (ed.), Aeschylus, Volume II, Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-bearers. Eumenides. 146 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2009); Volume III, Fragments. 505 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2008).
See also
2876 Aeschylus, an asteroid named for him
Ancient Greek literature
Ancient Greek mythology
Ancient Greek religion
Battle of Marathon
Classical Greece
Dionysia
Music of ancient Greece
Theatre of ancient Greece
"Live by the sword, die by the sword"
Notes
Citations
References
Bierl, A. Die Orestie des Aischylos auf der modernen Bühne: Theoretische Konzeptionen und ihre szenische Realizierung (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1997)
Cairns, D., V. Liapis, Dionysalexandros: Essays on Aeschylus and His Fellow Tragedians in Honour of Alexander F. Garvie (Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales, 2006)
Deforge, B. Une vie avec Eschyle. Vérité des mythes (Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2010)
Lefkowitz, Mary (1981). The Lives of the Greek Poets. University of North Carolina Press
— (2002). Greek Drama and Dramatists. London: Routledge Press.
Summers, David (2007). Vision, Reflection, and Desire in Western Painting. University of North Carolina Press
Thomson, George (1973) Aeschylus and Athens: A Study in the Social Origin of Drama. London: Lawrence and Wishart (4th edition)
Vellacott, Philip, (1961). Prometheus Bound and Other Plays: Prometheus Bound, Seven Against Thebes, and The Persians. New York: Penguin Classics.
Zeitlin, Froma (1982). Under the sign of the shield: semiotics and Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2nd ed. 2009 (Greek studies: interdisciplinary approaches)
Zetlin, Froma (1996). "The dynamics of misogyny: myth and mythmaking in Aeschylus's Oresteia", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 87–119.
Zeitlin, Froma (1996). "The politics of Eros in the Danaid trilogy of Aeschylus", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 123–171.
External links
Selected Poems of Aeschylus
Aeschylus-related materials at the Perseus Digital Library
Complete syntax diagrams at Alpheios
Online English Translations of Aeschylus
Photo of a fragment of The Net-pullers
"Aeschylus, I: Persians" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, II: The Oresteia" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, III: Fragments" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
5th-century BC Greek people
5th-century BC writers
520s BC births
450s BC deaths
Year of birth uncertain
Year of death uncertain
Tragic poets
Ancient Greeks accused of sacrilege
Greek people of the Greco-Persian Wars
Battle of Marathon
Accidental deaths in Italy
Deaths due to animal attacks | false | [
"\nEutychus was a young man (or a youth) of Troas tended to by St. Paul. Eutychus fell asleep due to the long nature of the discourse Paul was giving, fell from a window out of the three-story building, and died. Paul then embraced him, insisting that he was not dead, and they carried him back upstairs alive; those gathered then had a meal and a long talk which lasted until dawn. This is related in the New Testament book of the Acts of the Apostles 20:7–12.\n\nThough some (e.g. William Barclay, F. F. Bruce), do not believe that Eutychus died, Wayne Jackson observes the following facts: 1) the author Luke, a physician (Col. 4:14), plainly states that Eutychus was \"taken up dead\" (, erthe nekros); 2) after Paul embraces Eutychus, he says, \"Trouble not yourselves, for his life is in him\" (, he gar psuche autou en auto estin), not \"still in him\" as the Weymouth translation erroneously interprets; 3) Eutychus was then \"brought alive\" by which the others were \"not a little comforted\", which words would make no sense if Eutychus had not died; and 4) Luke was fully capable of describing someone as only being \"supposedly dead\" (), as he did of Paul in , but he did not do so here. However, Eutychus' complete recovery from a three-story fall, regardless of the initial result, and Paul's attendance at the scene of the accident, appears to be the impact of the narrative.\n\nThe name Eutychus means \"fortunate\".\n\nThe story of Eutychus may be related to the story of Elpenor in the Odyssey.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\nBarclay, William (1955), The Acts of the Apostles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press).\nBock, Darrell L. (2007), \"Acts: Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament\" (Ada, Michigan: Baker Publishing Group)\nBruce, F.F. (1977), Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans).\nOster, Richard (1979), The Acts of the Apostles, Part II (Austin, Texas: Sweet Publishing Company).\n\nExternal links\nThe Case of Eutychus, Christian Courier\n\nAccidental deaths from falls\nPeople in Acts of the Apostles\nResurrection",
"Gömda (Buried Alive) is the 1995 literary debut of Swedish author Liza Marklund. It is the first novel in the Maria Eriksson series.\n\nThe novel is based on a true story and deals with a woman who is abused by her boyfriend and forced into hiding. It was re-worked and re-released in 2000, and the new edition became one of the best selling books of all times in Sweden.\n\nThe pseudonym used for the main character in the series is \"Maria (or Mia) Eriksson\", who is also listed as a co-author of the first editions of the two books in the series.\n\nPlot \nBuried Alive tells the story of \"Mia\" and \"the man with the black eyes\", an immigrant from Lebanon, that soon turns into an abusive relationship. They have a child together and they break up, but the abuse continues and is intensified when \"Mia\" remarries. The welfare state is not able to protect the family, and they are forced into hiding.\n\nSequels \nA second book in the Maria Eriksson series, Asylum Granted, was published in 2004. It describes how the woman is forced to flee abroad with her family. Finally, in February 2003, she is granted asylum in the United States, on grounds of domestic violence. The story received a lot of attention in Sweden, and was even discussed in the Swedish Parliament.\n\n\"The man with the black eyes\" is the antagonist also in Asyl Den Sanna Fortsättningen på Gömda (Asylum Granted - A True Story), the second book in the series, published 9 years later. The book tells the story of how the abuser forced the woman and her new family to flee abroad. They left Sweden for South America and then spent five years in the United States, attempting to establish asylum. \"Maria Eriksson\" submitted her application as a victim of domestic violence and gender-based abuse. \"Maria Eriksson\" was granted asylum on February 25, 2003.\n\nControversy \nSwedish journalist Monica Antonsson released a book in 2008 criticising the factual background of Buried Alive. Liza Marklund and her publisher argued that although some changes were made to make identification more difficult, the bulk of the story was factually correct. They conceded, though, that the novel should have been labeled as \"based on a true story\", rather than as \"a true story\".\n\nAntonsson criticised that Maria Eriksson's grades and jobs were not factually correct, and that the ethnicity of a boyfriend and his criminal record was not reflected in the books. For example, the hospitalization of \"the man with the black eyes\" after aggravated assault by \"Maria Eriksson's\" Chilean husband, who was convicted and imprisoned for one year due to the assault, was not mentioned in the book.\n\nIn response to the criticism, Marklund has stated that she considers the bulk of the story to be factually correct and neither exaggerated nor deceptive. She has noted that the story is supported by hundreds of official documents from the courts and the social services. She has also written that she did not know of the aggravated assault committed by \"Mia Eriksson's\" Chilean husband, and that she read about for it the first time in Monica Antonsson's book. However, she noted that if Antonsson's information about the records is correct, then the court's decision confirms that the family was being harassed by \"Maria Eriksson's\" ex-boyfriend.\n\nThe controversy has been compared to the controversy surrounding Per Olov Enquist's Legionärerna and led to academic work studying the audience's relation to documentary novels. The genre is based on a mix of fact and fiction, where the author's own interpretation is part of the genre's conventions. The documentary novel often has a political objective, which in Buried Alive was to bring to the fore an abused woman's exposed situation. The genre also, like many Hollywood movies, uses popular clichés to appeal to a broader audience.\n\nGömda (Buried Alive) was initially released by Bonniers in 1995 and marketed under the category \"autobiography/biography\" in the publishing industry's catalogue. It was re-worked and re-released by Piratförlaget in 2000 as Buried Alive - A True Story and marketed as a \"documentary novel\", a term used by Piratförlaget also for the edition published by Bonniers.\n\nIn January 2009, the Swedish National Bibliography and the public libraries of Sweden reclassified all editions as fiction due to questions raised about the factual nature of the book. The classification of Asylum - the True Continuation of Buried Alive was not altered as it had been classified as fiction from the very beginning.\n\nA spokesperson and part-owner of the Piratförlaget, Jan Guillou, has told the press that the company regrets that the book was marketed as \"a true story\" and that \"based on a true story\" would have been better. In Expressen, the evening tabloid where Marklund worked, another part-owner of the publishing company, Ann-Marie Skarp, has stated that readers could not have been fooled by the label \"true story\" because, she argued, intelligent readers understand that the book is a novel based on reality and that it is not meant to be a biography.\n\nKerstin Angelin at the initial publisher, Bonnier Alba, has also commented in the press on the controversy by saying: \"The storyline, the bulk of the story, must be correct for it to be called a true story. However, for various reasons one may not want to expose individuals with name and professions, out of concern for them. It is perfectly reasonable that not every detail is true.\"\n\nAfter the controversy regarding the truthfulness of the books, \"Mia\" revealed her identity in 2009 in order to confirm her story. Today she lives with a new husband in Arizona. Since 2006 she has written three additional books about her life and about domestic violence, but without Liza Marklund being involved.\n\nReferences \n\n1995 Swedish novels\nNovels by Liza Marklund"
] |
[
"Aeschylus",
"The Suppliants",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt.",
"What happened when they fled?",
"They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection,",
"Did he protect them?",
"Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision, a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king.",
"Did they make it out alive in the story?",
"The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection, and they are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests."
] | C_1974ee6d0d4f446ea4c1aad41c763918_0 | Are there more people in the story? | 5 | Are there more people in the story, the Danaids, besides the fifty daughters of Danaus and King Pelasgus? | Aeschylus | Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants in 463 BC (Hiketides), which pays tribute to the democratic undercurrents running through Athens in advance of the establishment of a democratic government in 461. In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision, a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king. The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection, and they are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests. The 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3 confirmed a long-assumed (because of The Suppliants' cliffhanger ending) Danaid trilogy, whose constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants, The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. During the course of the war, King Pelasgus has been killed, and Danaus rules Argos. He negotiates a peace settlement with Aegyptus, as a condition of which, his fifty daughters will marry the fifty sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle predicting that one of his sons-in-law would kill him; he therefore orders the Danaids to murder their husbands on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding. In short order, it is revealed that forty-nine of the Danaids killed their husbands as ordered; Hypermnestra, however, loved her husband Lynceus, and thus spared his life and helped him to escape. Angered by his daughter's disobedience, Danaus orders her imprisonment and, possibly, her execution. In the trilogy's climax and denouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus, and kills him (thus fulfilling the oracle). He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other forty-nine Danaids are absolved of their murderous crime, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids. CANNOTANSWER | Aegyptus, | Aeschylus (, ; ; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Formerly, characters interacted only with the chorus.
Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived. There is a long-standing debate regarding the authorship of one of them, Prometheus Bound, with some scholars arguing that it may be the work of his son Euphorion. Fragments from other plays have survived in quotations, and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyri. These fragments often give further insights into Aeschylus' work. He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy. His Oresteia is the only extant ancient example. At least one of his plays was influenced by the Persians' second invasion of Greece (480–479 BC). This work, The Persians, is one of very few classical Greek tragedies concerned with contemporary events, and the only one extant. The significance of the war with Persia was so great to Aeschylus and the Greeks that his epitaph commemorates his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon while making no mention of his success as a playwright.
Life
Aeschylus was born in c. 525 BC in Eleusis, a small town about 27 km northwest of Athens, in the fertile valleys of western Attica. Some scholars argue that his date of birth may be based on counting back forty years from his first victory in the Great Dionysia. His family was wealthy and well established. His father, Euphorion, was a member of the Eupatridae, the ancient nobility of Attica. But this might be a fiction invented by the ancients to account for the grandeur of Aeschylus' plays.
As a youth, Aeschylus worked at a vineyard until, according to the 2nd-century AD geographer Pausanias, the god Dionysus visited him in his sleep and commanded him to turn his attention to the nascent art of tragedy. As soon as he woke, he began to write a tragedy, and his first performance took place in 499 BC, when he was 26 years old. He won his first victory at the City Dionysia in 484 BC.
In 510 BC, when Aeschylus was 15 years old, Cleomenes I expelled the sons of Peisistratus from Athens, and Cleisthenes came to power. Cleisthenes' reforms included a system of registration that emphasized the importance of the deme over family tradition. In the last decade of the 6th century, Aeschylus and his family were living in the deme of Eleusis.
The Persian Wars played a large role in Aeschylus' life and career. In 490 BC, he and his brother Cynegeirus fought to defend Athens against the invading army of Darius I of Persia at the Battle of Marathon. The Athenians emerged triumphant, and the victory was celebrated across the city-states of Greece. Cynegeirus was killed while trying to prevent a Persian ship retreating from the shore, for which his countrymen extolled him as a hero.
In 480 BC, Aeschylus was called into military service again, together with his younger brother Ameinias, against Xerxes I's invading forces at the Battle of Salamis. Aeschylus also fought at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. Ion of Chios was a witness for Aeschylus' war record and his contribution in Salamis. Salamis holds a prominent place in The Persians, his oldest surviving play, which was performed in 472 BC and won first prize at the Dionysia.
Aeschylus was one of many Greeks who were initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, an ancient cult of Demeter based in his home town of Eleusis. Initiates gained secret knowledge through these rites, likely concerning the afterlife. Firm details of specific rites are sparse, as members were sworn under the penalty of death not to reveal anything about the Mysteries to non-initiates. Nevertheless, according to Aristotle, Aeschylus was accused of asebeia for revealing some of the cult's secrets on stage.
Other sources claim that an angry mob tried to kill Aeschylus on the spot but he fled the scene. Heracleides of Pontus asserts that the audience tried to stone Aeschylus. Aeschylus took refuge at the altar in the orchestra of the Theater of Dionysus. He pleaded ignorance at his trial. He was acquitted, with the jury sympathetic to the military service of him and his brothers during the Persian Wars. According to the 2nd-century AD author Aelian, Aeschylus' younger brother Ameinias helped to acquit Aeschylus by showing the jury the stump of the hand he had lost at Salamis, where he was voted bravest warrior. The truth is that the award for bravery at Salamis went not to Aeschylus' brother but to Ameinias of Pallene.
Aeschylus travelled to Sicily once or twice in the 470s BC, having been invited by Hiero I, tyrant of Syracuse, a major Greek city on the eastern side of the island. He produced The Women of Aetna during one of these trips (in honor of the city founded by Hieron), and restaged his Persians. By 473 BC, after the death of Phrynichus, one of his chief rivals, Aeschylus was the yearly favorite in the Dionysia, winning first prize in nearly every competition. In 472 BC, Aeschylus staged the production that included the Persians, with Pericles serving as choregos.
Personal life
Aeschylus married and had two sons, Euphorion and Euaeon, both of whom became tragic poets. Euphorion won first prize in 431 BC in competition against both Sophocles and Euripides. A nephew of Aeschylus, Philocles (his sister's son), was also a tragic poet, and won first prize in the competition against Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Aeschylus had at least two brothers, Cynegeirus and Ameinias.
Death
In 458 BC, Aeschylus returned to Sicily for the last time, visiting the city of Gela, where he died in 456 or 455 BC. Valerius Maximus wrote that he was killed outside the city by a tortoise dropped by an eagle (possibly a lammergeier or Cinereous vulture, which do open tortoises for eating by dropping them on hard objects) which had mistaken his head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell. Pliny, in his Naturalis Historiæ, adds that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avoid a prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object, but this story may be legendary and due to a misunderstanding of the iconography on Aeschylus's tomb. Aeschylus' work was so respected by the Athenians that after his death his tragedies were the only ones allowed to be restaged in subsequent competitions. His sons Euphorion and Euæon and his nephew Philocles also became playwrights.
The inscription on Aeschylus' gravestone makes no mention of his theatrical renown, commemorating only his military achievements:
According to Castoriadis, the inscription on his grave signifies the primary importance of "belonging to the City" (polis), of the solidarity that existed within the collective body of citizen-soldiers.
Works
The seeds of Greek drama were sowed in religious festivals for the gods, chiefly Dionysus, the god of wine. During Aeschylus' lifetime, dramatic competitions became part of the City Dionysia, held in spring. The festival opened with a procession which was followed by a competition of boys singing dithyrambs, and all culminated in a pair of dramatic competitions. The first competition Aeschylus would have participated in involved three playwrights each presenting three tragedies and one satyr play. Such format is called a continuous tragic tetralogy. It allowed Aeschylus to explore the human and theological and cosmic dimensions of a mythic sequence, developing it in successive phases. A second competition involving five comedic playwrights followed, and the winners of both competitions were chosen by a panel of judges.
Aeschylus entered many of these competitions, and various ancient sources attribute between seventy and ninety plays to him. Only seven tragedies attributed to him have survived intact: The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliants, the trilogy known as The Oresteia (the three tragedies Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides), and Prometheus Bound (whose authorship is disputed). With the exception of this last play – the success of which is uncertain – all of Aeschylus's extant tragedies are known to have won first prize at the City Dionysia.
The Alexandrian Life of Aeschylus claims that he won the first prize at the City Dionysia thirteen times. This compares favorably with Sophocles' reported eighteen victories (with a substantially larger catalogue, an estimated 120 plays), and dwarfs the five victories of Euripides, who is thought to have written roughly 90 plays.
Trilogies
One hallmark of Aeschylean dramaturgy appears to have been his tendency to write connected trilogies in which each play serves as a chapter in a continuous dramatic narrative. The Oresteia is the only extant example of this type of connected trilogy, but there is evidence that Aeschylus often wrote such trilogies. The satyr plays that followed his tragic trilogies also drew from myth.
The satyr play Proteus, which followed the Oresteia, treated the story of Menelaus' detour in Egypt on his way home from the Trojan War. It is assumed, based on the evidence provided by a catalogue of Aeschylean play titles, scholia, and play fragments recorded by later authors, that three other extant plays of his were components of connected trilogies: Seven Against Thebes was the final play in an Oedipus trilogy, and The Suppliants and Prometheus Bound were each the first play in a Danaid trilogy and Prometheus trilogy, respectively. Scholars have also suggested several completely lost trilogies, based on known play titles. A number of these treated myths about the Trojan War. One, collectively called the Achilleis, comprised Myrmidons, Nereids and Phrygians (alternately, The Ransoming of Hector).
Another trilogy apparently recounted the entrance of the Trojan ally Memnon into the war, and his death at the hands of Achilles (Memnon and The Weighing of Souls being two components of the trilogy). The Award of the Arms, The Phrygian Women, and The Salaminian Women suggest a trilogy about the madness and subsequent suicide of the Greek hero Ajax. Aeschylus seems to have written about Odysseus' return to Ithaca after the war (including his killing of his wife Penelope's suitors and its consequences) in a trilogy consisting of The Soul-raisers, Penelope, and The Bone-gatherers. Other suggested trilogies touched on the myth of Jason and the Argonauts (Argô, Lemnian Women, Hypsipylê), the life of Perseus (The Net-draggers, Polydektês, Phorkides), the birth and exploits of Dionysus (Semele, Bacchae, Pentheus), and the aftermath of the war portrayed in Seven Against Thebes (Eleusinians, Argives (or Argive Women), Sons of the Seven).
Surviving plays
The Persians (472 BC)
The Persians (Persai) is the earliest of Aeschylus' extant plays. It was performed in 472 BC. It was based on Aeschylus' own experiences, specifically the Battle of Salamis. It is unique among surviving Greek tragedies in that it describes a recent historical event. The Persians focuses on the popular Greek theme of hubris and blames Persia's loss on the pride of its king.
It opens with the arrival of a messenger in Susa, the Persian capital, bearing news of the catastrophic Persian defeat at Salamis, to Atossa, the mother of the Persian King Xerxes. Atossa then travels to the tomb of Darius, her husband, where his ghost appears, to explain the cause of the defeat. It is, he says, the result of Xerxes' hubris in building a bridge across the Hellespont, an action which angered the gods. Xerxes appears at the end of the play, not realizing the cause of his defeat, and the play closes to lamentations by Xerxes and the chorus.
Seven Against Thebes (467 BC)
Seven against Thebes (Hepta epi Thebas) was performed in 467 BC. It has the contrasting theme of the interference of the gods in human affairs. Another theme, with which Aeschylus' would continually involve himself, makes its first known appearance in this play, namely that the polis was a key development of human civilization.
The play tells the story of Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of the shamed king of Thebes, Oedipus. Eteocles and Polynices agree to share and alternate the throne of the city. After the first year, Eteocles refuses to step down. Polynices therefore undertakes war. The pair kill each other in single combat, and the original ending of the play consisted of lamentations for the dead brothers. But a new ending was added to the play some fifty years later: Antigone and Ismene mourn their dead brothers, a messenger enters announcing an edict prohibiting the burial of Polynices, and Antigone declares her intention to defy this edict. The play was the third in a connected Oedipus trilogy. The first two plays were Laius and Oedipus. The concluding satyr play was The Sphinx.
The Suppliants (463 BC)
Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants (Hiketides) in 463 BC. The play gives tribute to the democratic undercurrents which were running through Athens and preceding the establishment of a democratic government in 461. The Danaids (50 daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos) flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision (a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king). The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection and are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests.
A Danaid trilogy had long been assumed because of The Suppliants''' cliffhanger ending. This was confirmed by the 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3. The constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants and The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. King Pelasgus was killed during the war, and Danaus rules Argos. Danaus negotiates a settlement with Aegyptus, a condition of which requires his 50 daughters to marry the 50 sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle which predicts that one of his sons-in-law would kill him. He orders the Danaids to murder their husbands therefore on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding.
It is revealed that 49 of the 50 Danaids killed their husbands. Hypermnestra did not kill her husband, Lynceus, and helped him escape. Danaus is angered by his daughter's disobedience and orders her imprisonment and possibly execution. In the trilogy's climax and dénouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus and kills him, thus fulfilling the oracle. He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other 49 Danaids are absolved of their murders, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids.
The Oresteia (458 BC)
Besides a few missing lines, the Oresteia of 458 BC is the only complete trilogy of Greek plays by any playwright still extant (of Proteus, the satyr play which followed, only fragments are known). Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers (Choephoroi) and The Eumenides together tell the violent story of the family of Agamemnon, king of Argos.
Agamemnon
Aeschylus begins in Greece, describing the return of King Agamemnon from his victory in the Trojan War, from the perspective of the townspeople (the Chorus) and his wife, Clytemnestra. Dark foreshadowings build to the death of the king at the hands of his wife, who was angry that their daughter Iphigenia was killed so that the gods would restore the winds and allow the Greek fleet to sail to Troy. Clytemnestra was also unhappy that Agamemnon kept the Trojan prophetess Cassandra as his concubine. Cassandra foretells the murder of Agamemnon and of herself to the assembled townsfolk, who are horrified. She then enters the palace knowing that she cannot avoid her fate. The ending of the play includes a prediction of the return of Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who will seek to avenge his father.
The Libation BearersThe Libation Bearers opens with Orestes' arrival at Agamemnon's tomb, from exile in Phocis. Electra meets Orestes there. They plan revenge against Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus. Clytemnestra's account of a nightmare in which she gives birth to a snake is recounted by the chorus. This leads her to order her daughter, Electra, to pour libations on Agamemnon's tomb (with the assistance of libation bearers) in hope of making amends. Orestes enters the palace pretending to bear news of his own death. Clytemnestra calls in Aegisthus to learn the news. Orestes kills them both. Orestes is then beset by the Furies, who avenge the murders of kin in Greek mythology.
The Eumenides
The third play addresses the question of Orestes' guilt. The Furies drive Orestes from Argos and into the wilderness. He makes his way to the temple of Apollo and begs Apollo to drive the Furies away. Apollo had encouraged Orestes to kill Clytemnestra, so he bears some of the guilt for the murder. Apollo sends Orestes to the temple of Athena with Hermes as a guide.
The Furies track him down, and Athena steps in and declares that a trial is necessary. Apollo argues Orestes' case, and after the judges (including Athena) deliver a tie vote, Athena announces that Orestes is acquitted. She renames the Furies The Eumenides (The Good-spirited, or Kindly Ones), and extols the importance of reason in the development of laws. As in The Suppliants, the ideals of a democratic Athens are praised.
Prometheus Bound (date disputed)Prometheus Bound is attributed to Aeschylus by ancient authorities. Since the late 19th century, however, scholars have increasingly doubted this ascription, largely on stylistic grounds. Its production date is also in dispute, with theories ranging from the 480s BC to as late as the 410s.
The play consists mostly of static dialogue. The Titan Prometheus is bound to a rock throughout, which is his punishment from the Olympian Zeus for providing fire to humans. The god Hephaestus and the Titan Oceanus and the chorus of Oceanids all express sympathy for Prometheus' plight. Prometheus is met by Io, a fellow victim of Zeus' cruelty. He prophesies her future travels, revealing that one of her descendants will free Prometheus. The play closes with Zeus sending Prometheus into the abyss because Prometheus will not tell him of a potential marriage which could prove Zeus' downfall.Prometheus Bound seems to have been the first play in a trilogy, the Prometheia. In the second play, Prometheus Unbound, Heracles frees Prometheus from his chains and kills the eagle that had been sent daily to eat Prometheus' perpetually regenerating liver (then believed the source of feeling). We learn that Zeus has released the other Titans which he imprisoned at the conclusion of the Titanomachy, perhaps foreshadowing his eventual reconciliation with Prometheus.
In the trilogy's conclusion, Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, it seems that the Titan finally warns Zeus not to sleep with the sea nymph Thetis, for she is fated to beget a son greater than the father. Not wishing to be overthrown, Zeus marries Thetis off to the mortal Peleus. The product of that union is Achilles, Greek hero of the Trojan War. After reconciling with Prometheus, Zeus probably inaugurates a festival in his honor at Athens.
Lost plays
Of Aeschylus' other plays, only titles and assorted fragments are known. There are enough fragments (along with comments made by later authors and scholiasts) to produce rough synopses for some plays.
Myrmidons
This play was based on books 9 and 16 of the Iliad. Achilles sits in silent indignation over his humiliation at Agamemnon's hands for most of the play. Envoys from the Greek army attempt to reconcile Achilles to Agamemnon, but he yields only to his friend Patroclus, who then battles the Trojans in Achilles' armour. The bravery and death of Patroclus are reported in a messenger's speech, which is followed by mourning.
Nereids
This play was based on books 18 and 19 and 22 of the Iliad. It follows the Daughters of Nereus, the sea god, who lament Patroclus' death. A messenger tells how Achilles (perhaps reconciled to Agamemnon and the Greeks) slew Hector.
Phrygians, or Hector's Ransom
After a brief discussion with Hermes, Achilles sits in silent mourning over Patroclus. Hermes then brings in King Priam of Troy, who wins over Achilles and ransoms his son's body in a spectacular coup de théâtre. A scale is brought on stage and Hector's body is placed in one scale and gold in the other. The dynamic dancing of the chorus of Trojans when they enter with Priam is reported by Aristophanes.
Niobe
The children of Niobe, the heroine, have been slain by Apollo and Artemis because Niobe had gloated that she had more children than their mother, Leto. Niobe sits in silent mourning on stage during most of the play. In the Republic, Plato quotes the line "God plants a fault in mortals when he wills to destroy a house utterly."
These are the remaining 71 plays ascribed to Aeschylus which are known to us:AlcmeneAmymoneThe Archer-WomenThe Argivian WomenThe Argo, also titled The RowersAtalantaAthamasAttendants of the Bridal ChamberAward of the ArmsThe BacchaeThe BassaraeThe Bone-GatherersThe CabeiroiCallistoThe Carians, also titled EuropaCercyonChildren of HerculesCirceThe Cretan WomenCycnusThe DanaidsDaughters of HeliosDaughters of PhorcysThe DescendantsThe EdoniansThe EgyptiansThe EscortsGlaucus of PontusGlaucus of PotniaeHypsipyleIphigeniaIxionLaiusThe Lemnian WomenThe LionLycurgusMemnonThe Men of EleusisThe MessengersThe MyrmidonsThe MysiansNemeaThe Net-DraggersThe Nurses of DionysusOrethyiaPalamedesPenelopePentheusPerrhaibidesPhiloctetesPhineusThe Phrygian WomenPolydectesThe PriestessesPrometheus the Fire-BearerPrometheus the Fire-KindlerPrometheus UnboundProteusSemele, also titled The Water-BearersSisyphus the RunawaySisyphus the Stone-RollerThe Spectators, also titled Athletes of the Isthmian GamesThe SphinxThe Spirit-RaisersTelephusThe Thracian WomenWeighing of SoulsWomen of Aetna (two versions)Women of SalamisXantriaeThe YouthsInfluence
Influence on Greek drama and culture
The theatre was just beginning to evolve when Aeschylus started writing for it. Earlier playwrights such as Thespis had already expanded the cast to include an actor who was able to interact with the chorus. Aeschylus added a second actor, allowing for greater dramatic variety, while the chorus played a less important role. He is sometimes credited with introducing skenographia, or scene-decoration, though Aristotle gives this distinction to Sophocles. Aeschylus is also said to have made the costumes more elaborate and dramatic, and made his actors wear platform boots (cothurni) to make them more visible to the audience. According to a later account of Aeschylus' life, the chorus of Furies in the first performance of the Eumenides were so frightening when they entered that children fainted and patriarchs urinated and pregnant women went into labour.
Aeschylus wrote his plays in verse. No violence is performed onstage. The plays have a remoteness from daily life in Athens, relating stories about the gods, or being set, like The Persians, far away. Aeschylus' work has a strong moral and religious emphasis. The Oresteia trilogy concentrated on humans' position in the cosmos relative to the gods and divine law and divine punishment.
Aeschylus' popularity is evident in the praise that the comic playwright Aristophanes gives him in The Frogs, produced some 50 years after Aeschylus' death. Aeschylus appears as a character in the play and claims, at line 1022, that his Seven against Thebes "made everyone watching it to love being warlike". He claims, at lines 1026–7, that with The Persians he "taught the Athenians to desire always to defeat their enemies." Aeschylus goes on to say, at lines 1039ff., that his plays inspired the Athenians to be brave and virtuous.
Influence outside Greek culture
Aeschylus' works were influential beyond his own time. Hugh Lloyd-Jones draws attention to Richard Wagner's reverence of Aeschylus. Michael Ewans argues in his Wagner and Aeschylus. The Ring and the Oresteia (London: Faber. 1982) that the influence was so great as to merit a direct character by character comparison between Wagner's Ring and Aeschylus's Oresteia. But a critic of that book, while not denying that Wagner read and respected Aeschylus, has described the arguments as unreasonable and forced.
J.T. Sheppard argues in the second half of his Aeschylus and Sophocles: Their Work and Influence that Aeschylus and Sophocles have played a major part in the formation of dramatic literature from the Renaissance to the present, specifically in French and Elizabethan drama. He also claims that their influence went beyond just drama and applies to literature in general, citing Milton and the Romantics.
Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), a trilogy of three plays set in America after the Civil War, is modeled after the Oresteia. Before writing his acclaimed trilogy, O'Neill had been developing a play about Aeschylus, and he noted that Aeschylus "so changed the system of the tragic stage that he has more claim than anyone else to be regarded as the founder (Father) of Tragedy."
During his presidential campaign in 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy quoted the Edith Hamilton translation of Aeschylus on the night of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Kennedy was notified of King's murder before a campaign stop in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was warned not to attend the event due to fears of rioting from the mostly African-American crowd. Kennedy insisted on attending and delivered an impromptu speech that delivered news of King's death. Acknowledging the audience's emotions, Kennedy referred to his own grief at the murder of Martin Luther King and, quoting a passage from the play Agamemnon (in translation), said: "My favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote: 'Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.' What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness; but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black ... Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world." The quotation from Aeschylus was later inscribed on a memorial at the gravesite of Robert Kennedy following his own assassination.
Editions
Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Aeschyli Tragoediae. Editio maior, Berlin 1914.
Gilbert Murray, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae. Editio Altera, Oxford 1955.
Denys Page, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae, Oxford 1972.
Martin L. West, Aeschyli Tragoediae cum incerti poetae Prometheo, 2nd ed., Stuttgart/Leipzig 1998.
The first translation of the seven plays into English was by Robert Potter in 1779, using blank verse for the iambic trimeters and rhymed verse for the choruses, a convention adopted by most translators for the next century.
Anna Swanwick produced a verse translation in English of all seven surviving plays as The Dramas of Aeschylus in 1886 full text
Stefan Radt (ed.), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Vol. III: Aeschylus (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009) (Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 3).
Alan H. Sommerstein (ed.), Aeschylus, Volume II, Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-bearers. Eumenides. 146 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2009); Volume III, Fragments. 505 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2008).
See also
2876 Aeschylus, an asteroid named for him
Ancient Greek literature
Ancient Greek mythology
Ancient Greek religion
Battle of Marathon
Classical Greece
Dionysia
Music of ancient Greece
Theatre of ancient Greece
"Live by the sword, die by the sword"
Notes
Citations
References
Bierl, A. Die Orestie des Aischylos auf der modernen Bühne: Theoretische Konzeptionen und ihre szenische Realizierung (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1997)
Cairns, D., V. Liapis, Dionysalexandros: Essays on Aeschylus and His Fellow Tragedians in Honour of Alexander F. Garvie (Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales, 2006)
Deforge, B. Une vie avec Eschyle. Vérité des mythes (Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2010)
Lefkowitz, Mary (1981). The Lives of the Greek Poets. University of North Carolina Press
— (2002). Greek Drama and Dramatists. London: Routledge Press.
Summers, David (2007). Vision, Reflection, and Desire in Western Painting. University of North Carolina Press
Thomson, George (1973) Aeschylus and Athens: A Study in the Social Origin of Drama. London: Lawrence and Wishart (4th edition)
Vellacott, Philip, (1961). Prometheus Bound and Other Plays: Prometheus Bound, Seven Against Thebes, and The Persians. New York: Penguin Classics.
Zeitlin, Froma (1982). Under the sign of the shield: semiotics and Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2nd ed. 2009 (Greek studies: interdisciplinary approaches)
Zetlin, Froma (1996). "The dynamics of misogyny: myth and mythmaking in Aeschylus's Oresteia", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 87–119.
Zeitlin, Froma (1996). "The politics of Eros in the Danaid trilogy of Aeschylus", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 123–171.
External links
Selected Poems of Aeschylus
Aeschylus-related materials at the Perseus Digital Library
Complete syntax diagrams at Alpheios
Online English Translations of Aeschylus
Photo of a fragment of The Net-pullers
"Aeschylus, I: Persians" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, II: The Oresteia" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, III: Fragments" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
5th-century BC Greek people
5th-century BC writers
520s BC births
450s BC deaths
Year of birth uncertain
Year of death uncertain
Tragic poets
Ancient Greeks accused of sacrilege
Greek people of the Greco-Persian Wars
Battle of Marathon
Accidental deaths in Italy
Deaths due to animal attacks | true | [
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] |
[
"Aeschylus",
"The Suppliants",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt.",
"What happened when they fled?",
"They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection,",
"Did he protect them?",
"Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision, a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king.",
"Did they make it out alive in the story?",
"The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection, and they are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests.",
"Are there more people in the story?",
"Aegyptus,"
] | C_1974ee6d0d4f446ea4c1aad41c763918_0 | What is his part in the story? | 6 | What is Danaus's part in the story, the Danaids? | Aeschylus | Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants in 463 BC (Hiketides), which pays tribute to the democratic undercurrents running through Athens in advance of the establishment of a democratic government in 461. In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision, a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king. The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection, and they are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests. The 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3 confirmed a long-assumed (because of The Suppliants' cliffhanger ending) Danaid trilogy, whose constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants, The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. During the course of the war, King Pelasgus has been killed, and Danaus rules Argos. He negotiates a peace settlement with Aegyptus, as a condition of which, his fifty daughters will marry the fifty sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle predicting that one of his sons-in-law would kill him; he therefore orders the Danaids to murder their husbands on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding. In short order, it is revealed that forty-nine of the Danaids killed their husbands as ordered; Hypermnestra, however, loved her husband Lynceus, and thus spared his life and helped him to escape. Angered by his daughter's disobedience, Danaus orders her imprisonment and, possibly, her execution. In the trilogy's climax and denouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus, and kills him (thus fulfilling the oracle). He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other forty-nine Danaids are absolved of their murderous crime, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids. CANNOTANSWER | Danaus rules Argos. He negotiates a peace settlement with Aegyptus, as a condition of which, his fifty daughters will marry the fifty sons of Aegyptus. | Aeschylus (, ; ; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Formerly, characters interacted only with the chorus.
Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived. There is a long-standing debate regarding the authorship of one of them, Prometheus Bound, with some scholars arguing that it may be the work of his son Euphorion. Fragments from other plays have survived in quotations, and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyri. These fragments often give further insights into Aeschylus' work. He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy. His Oresteia is the only extant ancient example. At least one of his plays was influenced by the Persians' second invasion of Greece (480–479 BC). This work, The Persians, is one of very few classical Greek tragedies concerned with contemporary events, and the only one extant. The significance of the war with Persia was so great to Aeschylus and the Greeks that his epitaph commemorates his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon while making no mention of his success as a playwright.
Life
Aeschylus was born in c. 525 BC in Eleusis, a small town about 27 km northwest of Athens, in the fertile valleys of western Attica. Some scholars argue that his date of birth may be based on counting back forty years from his first victory in the Great Dionysia. His family was wealthy and well established. His father, Euphorion, was a member of the Eupatridae, the ancient nobility of Attica. But this might be a fiction invented by the ancients to account for the grandeur of Aeschylus' plays.
As a youth, Aeschylus worked at a vineyard until, according to the 2nd-century AD geographer Pausanias, the god Dionysus visited him in his sleep and commanded him to turn his attention to the nascent art of tragedy. As soon as he woke, he began to write a tragedy, and his first performance took place in 499 BC, when he was 26 years old. He won his first victory at the City Dionysia in 484 BC.
In 510 BC, when Aeschylus was 15 years old, Cleomenes I expelled the sons of Peisistratus from Athens, and Cleisthenes came to power. Cleisthenes' reforms included a system of registration that emphasized the importance of the deme over family tradition. In the last decade of the 6th century, Aeschylus and his family were living in the deme of Eleusis.
The Persian Wars played a large role in Aeschylus' life and career. In 490 BC, he and his brother Cynegeirus fought to defend Athens against the invading army of Darius I of Persia at the Battle of Marathon. The Athenians emerged triumphant, and the victory was celebrated across the city-states of Greece. Cynegeirus was killed while trying to prevent a Persian ship retreating from the shore, for which his countrymen extolled him as a hero.
In 480 BC, Aeschylus was called into military service again, together with his younger brother Ameinias, against Xerxes I's invading forces at the Battle of Salamis. Aeschylus also fought at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. Ion of Chios was a witness for Aeschylus' war record and his contribution in Salamis. Salamis holds a prominent place in The Persians, his oldest surviving play, which was performed in 472 BC and won first prize at the Dionysia.
Aeschylus was one of many Greeks who were initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, an ancient cult of Demeter based in his home town of Eleusis. Initiates gained secret knowledge through these rites, likely concerning the afterlife. Firm details of specific rites are sparse, as members were sworn under the penalty of death not to reveal anything about the Mysteries to non-initiates. Nevertheless, according to Aristotle, Aeschylus was accused of asebeia for revealing some of the cult's secrets on stage.
Other sources claim that an angry mob tried to kill Aeschylus on the spot but he fled the scene. Heracleides of Pontus asserts that the audience tried to stone Aeschylus. Aeschylus took refuge at the altar in the orchestra of the Theater of Dionysus. He pleaded ignorance at his trial. He was acquitted, with the jury sympathetic to the military service of him and his brothers during the Persian Wars. According to the 2nd-century AD author Aelian, Aeschylus' younger brother Ameinias helped to acquit Aeschylus by showing the jury the stump of the hand he had lost at Salamis, where he was voted bravest warrior. The truth is that the award for bravery at Salamis went not to Aeschylus' brother but to Ameinias of Pallene.
Aeschylus travelled to Sicily once or twice in the 470s BC, having been invited by Hiero I, tyrant of Syracuse, a major Greek city on the eastern side of the island. He produced The Women of Aetna during one of these trips (in honor of the city founded by Hieron), and restaged his Persians. By 473 BC, after the death of Phrynichus, one of his chief rivals, Aeschylus was the yearly favorite in the Dionysia, winning first prize in nearly every competition. In 472 BC, Aeschylus staged the production that included the Persians, with Pericles serving as choregos.
Personal life
Aeschylus married and had two sons, Euphorion and Euaeon, both of whom became tragic poets. Euphorion won first prize in 431 BC in competition against both Sophocles and Euripides. A nephew of Aeschylus, Philocles (his sister's son), was also a tragic poet, and won first prize in the competition against Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Aeschylus had at least two brothers, Cynegeirus and Ameinias.
Death
In 458 BC, Aeschylus returned to Sicily for the last time, visiting the city of Gela, where he died in 456 or 455 BC. Valerius Maximus wrote that he was killed outside the city by a tortoise dropped by an eagle (possibly a lammergeier or Cinereous vulture, which do open tortoises for eating by dropping them on hard objects) which had mistaken his head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell. Pliny, in his Naturalis Historiæ, adds that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avoid a prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object, but this story may be legendary and due to a misunderstanding of the iconography on Aeschylus's tomb. Aeschylus' work was so respected by the Athenians that after his death his tragedies were the only ones allowed to be restaged in subsequent competitions. His sons Euphorion and Euæon and his nephew Philocles also became playwrights.
The inscription on Aeschylus' gravestone makes no mention of his theatrical renown, commemorating only his military achievements:
According to Castoriadis, the inscription on his grave signifies the primary importance of "belonging to the City" (polis), of the solidarity that existed within the collective body of citizen-soldiers.
Works
The seeds of Greek drama were sowed in religious festivals for the gods, chiefly Dionysus, the god of wine. During Aeschylus' lifetime, dramatic competitions became part of the City Dionysia, held in spring. The festival opened with a procession which was followed by a competition of boys singing dithyrambs, and all culminated in a pair of dramatic competitions. The first competition Aeschylus would have participated in involved three playwrights each presenting three tragedies and one satyr play. Such format is called a continuous tragic tetralogy. It allowed Aeschylus to explore the human and theological and cosmic dimensions of a mythic sequence, developing it in successive phases. A second competition involving five comedic playwrights followed, and the winners of both competitions were chosen by a panel of judges.
Aeschylus entered many of these competitions, and various ancient sources attribute between seventy and ninety plays to him. Only seven tragedies attributed to him have survived intact: The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliants, the trilogy known as The Oresteia (the three tragedies Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides), and Prometheus Bound (whose authorship is disputed). With the exception of this last play – the success of which is uncertain – all of Aeschylus's extant tragedies are known to have won first prize at the City Dionysia.
The Alexandrian Life of Aeschylus claims that he won the first prize at the City Dionysia thirteen times. This compares favorably with Sophocles' reported eighteen victories (with a substantially larger catalogue, an estimated 120 plays), and dwarfs the five victories of Euripides, who is thought to have written roughly 90 plays.
Trilogies
One hallmark of Aeschylean dramaturgy appears to have been his tendency to write connected trilogies in which each play serves as a chapter in a continuous dramatic narrative. The Oresteia is the only extant example of this type of connected trilogy, but there is evidence that Aeschylus often wrote such trilogies. The satyr plays that followed his tragic trilogies also drew from myth.
The satyr play Proteus, which followed the Oresteia, treated the story of Menelaus' detour in Egypt on his way home from the Trojan War. It is assumed, based on the evidence provided by a catalogue of Aeschylean play titles, scholia, and play fragments recorded by later authors, that three other extant plays of his were components of connected trilogies: Seven Against Thebes was the final play in an Oedipus trilogy, and The Suppliants and Prometheus Bound were each the first play in a Danaid trilogy and Prometheus trilogy, respectively. Scholars have also suggested several completely lost trilogies, based on known play titles. A number of these treated myths about the Trojan War. One, collectively called the Achilleis, comprised Myrmidons, Nereids and Phrygians (alternately, The Ransoming of Hector).
Another trilogy apparently recounted the entrance of the Trojan ally Memnon into the war, and his death at the hands of Achilles (Memnon and The Weighing of Souls being two components of the trilogy). The Award of the Arms, The Phrygian Women, and The Salaminian Women suggest a trilogy about the madness and subsequent suicide of the Greek hero Ajax. Aeschylus seems to have written about Odysseus' return to Ithaca after the war (including his killing of his wife Penelope's suitors and its consequences) in a trilogy consisting of The Soul-raisers, Penelope, and The Bone-gatherers. Other suggested trilogies touched on the myth of Jason and the Argonauts (Argô, Lemnian Women, Hypsipylê), the life of Perseus (The Net-draggers, Polydektês, Phorkides), the birth and exploits of Dionysus (Semele, Bacchae, Pentheus), and the aftermath of the war portrayed in Seven Against Thebes (Eleusinians, Argives (or Argive Women), Sons of the Seven).
Surviving plays
The Persians (472 BC)
The Persians (Persai) is the earliest of Aeschylus' extant plays. It was performed in 472 BC. It was based on Aeschylus' own experiences, specifically the Battle of Salamis. It is unique among surviving Greek tragedies in that it describes a recent historical event. The Persians focuses on the popular Greek theme of hubris and blames Persia's loss on the pride of its king.
It opens with the arrival of a messenger in Susa, the Persian capital, bearing news of the catastrophic Persian defeat at Salamis, to Atossa, the mother of the Persian King Xerxes. Atossa then travels to the tomb of Darius, her husband, where his ghost appears, to explain the cause of the defeat. It is, he says, the result of Xerxes' hubris in building a bridge across the Hellespont, an action which angered the gods. Xerxes appears at the end of the play, not realizing the cause of his defeat, and the play closes to lamentations by Xerxes and the chorus.
Seven Against Thebes (467 BC)
Seven against Thebes (Hepta epi Thebas) was performed in 467 BC. It has the contrasting theme of the interference of the gods in human affairs. Another theme, with which Aeschylus' would continually involve himself, makes its first known appearance in this play, namely that the polis was a key development of human civilization.
The play tells the story of Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of the shamed king of Thebes, Oedipus. Eteocles and Polynices agree to share and alternate the throne of the city. After the first year, Eteocles refuses to step down. Polynices therefore undertakes war. The pair kill each other in single combat, and the original ending of the play consisted of lamentations for the dead brothers. But a new ending was added to the play some fifty years later: Antigone and Ismene mourn their dead brothers, a messenger enters announcing an edict prohibiting the burial of Polynices, and Antigone declares her intention to defy this edict. The play was the third in a connected Oedipus trilogy. The first two plays were Laius and Oedipus. The concluding satyr play was The Sphinx.
The Suppliants (463 BC)
Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants (Hiketides) in 463 BC. The play gives tribute to the democratic undercurrents which were running through Athens and preceding the establishment of a democratic government in 461. The Danaids (50 daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos) flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision (a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king). The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection and are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests.
A Danaid trilogy had long been assumed because of The Suppliants''' cliffhanger ending. This was confirmed by the 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3. The constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants and The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. King Pelasgus was killed during the war, and Danaus rules Argos. Danaus negotiates a settlement with Aegyptus, a condition of which requires his 50 daughters to marry the 50 sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle which predicts that one of his sons-in-law would kill him. He orders the Danaids to murder their husbands therefore on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding.
It is revealed that 49 of the 50 Danaids killed their husbands. Hypermnestra did not kill her husband, Lynceus, and helped him escape. Danaus is angered by his daughter's disobedience and orders her imprisonment and possibly execution. In the trilogy's climax and dénouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus and kills him, thus fulfilling the oracle. He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other 49 Danaids are absolved of their murders, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids.
The Oresteia (458 BC)
Besides a few missing lines, the Oresteia of 458 BC is the only complete trilogy of Greek plays by any playwright still extant (of Proteus, the satyr play which followed, only fragments are known). Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers (Choephoroi) and The Eumenides together tell the violent story of the family of Agamemnon, king of Argos.
Agamemnon
Aeschylus begins in Greece, describing the return of King Agamemnon from his victory in the Trojan War, from the perspective of the townspeople (the Chorus) and his wife, Clytemnestra. Dark foreshadowings build to the death of the king at the hands of his wife, who was angry that their daughter Iphigenia was killed so that the gods would restore the winds and allow the Greek fleet to sail to Troy. Clytemnestra was also unhappy that Agamemnon kept the Trojan prophetess Cassandra as his concubine. Cassandra foretells the murder of Agamemnon and of herself to the assembled townsfolk, who are horrified. She then enters the palace knowing that she cannot avoid her fate. The ending of the play includes a prediction of the return of Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who will seek to avenge his father.
The Libation BearersThe Libation Bearers opens with Orestes' arrival at Agamemnon's tomb, from exile in Phocis. Electra meets Orestes there. They plan revenge against Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus. Clytemnestra's account of a nightmare in which she gives birth to a snake is recounted by the chorus. This leads her to order her daughter, Electra, to pour libations on Agamemnon's tomb (with the assistance of libation bearers) in hope of making amends. Orestes enters the palace pretending to bear news of his own death. Clytemnestra calls in Aegisthus to learn the news. Orestes kills them both. Orestes is then beset by the Furies, who avenge the murders of kin in Greek mythology.
The Eumenides
The third play addresses the question of Orestes' guilt. The Furies drive Orestes from Argos and into the wilderness. He makes his way to the temple of Apollo and begs Apollo to drive the Furies away. Apollo had encouraged Orestes to kill Clytemnestra, so he bears some of the guilt for the murder. Apollo sends Orestes to the temple of Athena with Hermes as a guide.
The Furies track him down, and Athena steps in and declares that a trial is necessary. Apollo argues Orestes' case, and after the judges (including Athena) deliver a tie vote, Athena announces that Orestes is acquitted. She renames the Furies The Eumenides (The Good-spirited, or Kindly Ones), and extols the importance of reason in the development of laws. As in The Suppliants, the ideals of a democratic Athens are praised.
Prometheus Bound (date disputed)Prometheus Bound is attributed to Aeschylus by ancient authorities. Since the late 19th century, however, scholars have increasingly doubted this ascription, largely on stylistic grounds. Its production date is also in dispute, with theories ranging from the 480s BC to as late as the 410s.
The play consists mostly of static dialogue. The Titan Prometheus is bound to a rock throughout, which is his punishment from the Olympian Zeus for providing fire to humans. The god Hephaestus and the Titan Oceanus and the chorus of Oceanids all express sympathy for Prometheus' plight. Prometheus is met by Io, a fellow victim of Zeus' cruelty. He prophesies her future travels, revealing that one of her descendants will free Prometheus. The play closes with Zeus sending Prometheus into the abyss because Prometheus will not tell him of a potential marriage which could prove Zeus' downfall.Prometheus Bound seems to have been the first play in a trilogy, the Prometheia. In the second play, Prometheus Unbound, Heracles frees Prometheus from his chains and kills the eagle that had been sent daily to eat Prometheus' perpetually regenerating liver (then believed the source of feeling). We learn that Zeus has released the other Titans which he imprisoned at the conclusion of the Titanomachy, perhaps foreshadowing his eventual reconciliation with Prometheus.
In the trilogy's conclusion, Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, it seems that the Titan finally warns Zeus not to sleep with the sea nymph Thetis, for she is fated to beget a son greater than the father. Not wishing to be overthrown, Zeus marries Thetis off to the mortal Peleus. The product of that union is Achilles, Greek hero of the Trojan War. After reconciling with Prometheus, Zeus probably inaugurates a festival in his honor at Athens.
Lost plays
Of Aeschylus' other plays, only titles and assorted fragments are known. There are enough fragments (along with comments made by later authors and scholiasts) to produce rough synopses for some plays.
Myrmidons
This play was based on books 9 and 16 of the Iliad. Achilles sits in silent indignation over his humiliation at Agamemnon's hands for most of the play. Envoys from the Greek army attempt to reconcile Achilles to Agamemnon, but he yields only to his friend Patroclus, who then battles the Trojans in Achilles' armour. The bravery and death of Patroclus are reported in a messenger's speech, which is followed by mourning.
Nereids
This play was based on books 18 and 19 and 22 of the Iliad. It follows the Daughters of Nereus, the sea god, who lament Patroclus' death. A messenger tells how Achilles (perhaps reconciled to Agamemnon and the Greeks) slew Hector.
Phrygians, or Hector's Ransom
After a brief discussion with Hermes, Achilles sits in silent mourning over Patroclus. Hermes then brings in King Priam of Troy, who wins over Achilles and ransoms his son's body in a spectacular coup de théâtre. A scale is brought on stage and Hector's body is placed in one scale and gold in the other. The dynamic dancing of the chorus of Trojans when they enter with Priam is reported by Aristophanes.
Niobe
The children of Niobe, the heroine, have been slain by Apollo and Artemis because Niobe had gloated that she had more children than their mother, Leto. Niobe sits in silent mourning on stage during most of the play. In the Republic, Plato quotes the line "God plants a fault in mortals when he wills to destroy a house utterly."
These are the remaining 71 plays ascribed to Aeschylus which are known to us:AlcmeneAmymoneThe Archer-WomenThe Argivian WomenThe Argo, also titled The RowersAtalantaAthamasAttendants of the Bridal ChamberAward of the ArmsThe BacchaeThe BassaraeThe Bone-GatherersThe CabeiroiCallistoThe Carians, also titled EuropaCercyonChildren of HerculesCirceThe Cretan WomenCycnusThe DanaidsDaughters of HeliosDaughters of PhorcysThe DescendantsThe EdoniansThe EgyptiansThe EscortsGlaucus of PontusGlaucus of PotniaeHypsipyleIphigeniaIxionLaiusThe Lemnian WomenThe LionLycurgusMemnonThe Men of EleusisThe MessengersThe MyrmidonsThe MysiansNemeaThe Net-DraggersThe Nurses of DionysusOrethyiaPalamedesPenelopePentheusPerrhaibidesPhiloctetesPhineusThe Phrygian WomenPolydectesThe PriestessesPrometheus the Fire-BearerPrometheus the Fire-KindlerPrometheus UnboundProteusSemele, also titled The Water-BearersSisyphus the RunawaySisyphus the Stone-RollerThe Spectators, also titled Athletes of the Isthmian GamesThe SphinxThe Spirit-RaisersTelephusThe Thracian WomenWeighing of SoulsWomen of Aetna (two versions)Women of SalamisXantriaeThe YouthsInfluence
Influence on Greek drama and culture
The theatre was just beginning to evolve when Aeschylus started writing for it. Earlier playwrights such as Thespis had already expanded the cast to include an actor who was able to interact with the chorus. Aeschylus added a second actor, allowing for greater dramatic variety, while the chorus played a less important role. He is sometimes credited with introducing skenographia, or scene-decoration, though Aristotle gives this distinction to Sophocles. Aeschylus is also said to have made the costumes more elaborate and dramatic, and made his actors wear platform boots (cothurni) to make them more visible to the audience. According to a later account of Aeschylus' life, the chorus of Furies in the first performance of the Eumenides were so frightening when they entered that children fainted and patriarchs urinated and pregnant women went into labour.
Aeschylus wrote his plays in verse. No violence is performed onstage. The plays have a remoteness from daily life in Athens, relating stories about the gods, or being set, like The Persians, far away. Aeschylus' work has a strong moral and religious emphasis. The Oresteia trilogy concentrated on humans' position in the cosmos relative to the gods and divine law and divine punishment.
Aeschylus' popularity is evident in the praise that the comic playwright Aristophanes gives him in The Frogs, produced some 50 years after Aeschylus' death. Aeschylus appears as a character in the play and claims, at line 1022, that his Seven against Thebes "made everyone watching it to love being warlike". He claims, at lines 1026–7, that with The Persians he "taught the Athenians to desire always to defeat their enemies." Aeschylus goes on to say, at lines 1039ff., that his plays inspired the Athenians to be brave and virtuous.
Influence outside Greek culture
Aeschylus' works were influential beyond his own time. Hugh Lloyd-Jones draws attention to Richard Wagner's reverence of Aeschylus. Michael Ewans argues in his Wagner and Aeschylus. The Ring and the Oresteia (London: Faber. 1982) that the influence was so great as to merit a direct character by character comparison between Wagner's Ring and Aeschylus's Oresteia. But a critic of that book, while not denying that Wagner read and respected Aeschylus, has described the arguments as unreasonable and forced.
J.T. Sheppard argues in the second half of his Aeschylus and Sophocles: Their Work and Influence that Aeschylus and Sophocles have played a major part in the formation of dramatic literature from the Renaissance to the present, specifically in French and Elizabethan drama. He also claims that their influence went beyond just drama and applies to literature in general, citing Milton and the Romantics.
Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), a trilogy of three plays set in America after the Civil War, is modeled after the Oresteia. Before writing his acclaimed trilogy, O'Neill had been developing a play about Aeschylus, and he noted that Aeschylus "so changed the system of the tragic stage that he has more claim than anyone else to be regarded as the founder (Father) of Tragedy."
During his presidential campaign in 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy quoted the Edith Hamilton translation of Aeschylus on the night of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Kennedy was notified of King's murder before a campaign stop in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was warned not to attend the event due to fears of rioting from the mostly African-American crowd. Kennedy insisted on attending and delivered an impromptu speech that delivered news of King's death. Acknowledging the audience's emotions, Kennedy referred to his own grief at the murder of Martin Luther King and, quoting a passage from the play Agamemnon (in translation), said: "My favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote: 'Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.' What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness; but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black ... Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world." The quotation from Aeschylus was later inscribed on a memorial at the gravesite of Robert Kennedy following his own assassination.
Editions
Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Aeschyli Tragoediae. Editio maior, Berlin 1914.
Gilbert Murray, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae. Editio Altera, Oxford 1955.
Denys Page, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae, Oxford 1972.
Martin L. West, Aeschyli Tragoediae cum incerti poetae Prometheo, 2nd ed., Stuttgart/Leipzig 1998.
The first translation of the seven plays into English was by Robert Potter in 1779, using blank verse for the iambic trimeters and rhymed verse for the choruses, a convention adopted by most translators for the next century.
Anna Swanwick produced a verse translation in English of all seven surviving plays as The Dramas of Aeschylus in 1886 full text
Stefan Radt (ed.), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Vol. III: Aeschylus (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009) (Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 3).
Alan H. Sommerstein (ed.), Aeschylus, Volume II, Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-bearers. Eumenides. 146 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2009); Volume III, Fragments. 505 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2008).
See also
2876 Aeschylus, an asteroid named for him
Ancient Greek literature
Ancient Greek mythology
Ancient Greek religion
Battle of Marathon
Classical Greece
Dionysia
Music of ancient Greece
Theatre of ancient Greece
"Live by the sword, die by the sword"
Notes
Citations
References
Bierl, A. Die Orestie des Aischylos auf der modernen Bühne: Theoretische Konzeptionen und ihre szenische Realizierung (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1997)
Cairns, D., V. Liapis, Dionysalexandros: Essays on Aeschylus and His Fellow Tragedians in Honour of Alexander F. Garvie (Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales, 2006)
Deforge, B. Une vie avec Eschyle. Vérité des mythes (Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2010)
Lefkowitz, Mary (1981). The Lives of the Greek Poets. University of North Carolina Press
— (2002). Greek Drama and Dramatists. London: Routledge Press.
Summers, David (2007). Vision, Reflection, and Desire in Western Painting. University of North Carolina Press
Thomson, George (1973) Aeschylus and Athens: A Study in the Social Origin of Drama. London: Lawrence and Wishart (4th edition)
Vellacott, Philip, (1961). Prometheus Bound and Other Plays: Prometheus Bound, Seven Against Thebes, and The Persians. New York: Penguin Classics.
Zeitlin, Froma (1982). Under the sign of the shield: semiotics and Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2nd ed. 2009 (Greek studies: interdisciplinary approaches)
Zetlin, Froma (1996). "The dynamics of misogyny: myth and mythmaking in Aeschylus's Oresteia", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 87–119.
Zeitlin, Froma (1996). "The politics of Eros in the Danaid trilogy of Aeschylus", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 123–171.
External links
Selected Poems of Aeschylus
Aeschylus-related materials at the Perseus Digital Library
Complete syntax diagrams at Alpheios
Online English Translations of Aeschylus
Photo of a fragment of The Net-pullers
"Aeschylus, I: Persians" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, II: The Oresteia" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, III: Fragments" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
5th-century BC Greek people
5th-century BC writers
520s BC births
450s BC deaths
Year of birth uncertain
Year of death uncertain
Tragic poets
Ancient Greeks accused of sacrilege
Greek people of the Greco-Persian Wars
Battle of Marathon
Accidental deaths in Italy
Deaths due to animal attacks | false | [
"\"The Boarded Window: An Incident in the Life of an Ohio Pioneer\" is a short story by American Civil War soldier, wit, and writer Ambrose Bierce. It was first published in The San Francisco Examiner on April 12, 1891 and was reprinted the same year in Bierce's collection Tales of Soldiers and Civilians. The setting for the story is that part of Ohio where Bierce's family lived until 1846.\n\nPlot summary \nThe story tells of a man named Murlock who lived alone in his cabin and was found dead one day. He was buried near the cabin next to his wife. The narrator tells the reader that this is all the known facts of the story, but there are some whispers about what had happened.\n\nIn 1820, Murlock had returned from hunting to find his wife in dire fits that eventually caused her to die. There was no means of saving her and thus, he found himself alone with her dead body. Later on, with her dead in the room, he fell asleep.\n\nWhen he awoke there was some other presence in the room and he could feel it. The table shakes and there is movement but in the dark it is hard to discern. He fires his rifle to see what is going on and witnesses a panther dragging his wife by the neck. Upon examining his wife's corpse, Murlock sees that there is part of the panther's ear in between her teeth.\n\nAnalysis \nBierce's story of a man who incorrectly thought his wife had died of fever is probably influenced by Poe's \"The Premature Burial\". \"That of Granny Magone\" is Bierce's earlier treatment of a similar subject.\n\nThe entire story is structured around the boarded window, a kind of symbolic threshold, which unites the turning points of the narrative and \"functions to enhance the suspense by directing attention toward the question of why it is boarded\".\n\nAdaptations \n\nA radio adaptation of \"The Boarded Window\" was broadcast on April 3, 2001 via National Public Radio as part of Radio Tales.\n\"Okno zabite deskami\", from 1971, directed by Janusz Majewski (director), is a film adaptation of the short story.\n\nReferences \n\n1891 short stories\nHorror short stories\nShort stories by Ambrose Bierce\nOhio in fiction\nSan Francisco Examiner",
"\"Now I Lay Me\" is a short story by American author Ernest Hemingway.\nIt is a part of Ernest Hemingway's collection of short stories titled Men Without Women, which was published in 1927.\n\nDescription \nThe short story takes place in war-torn Europe, specifically in Italy, which Hemingway chose due to his firsthand experiences there. \"Now I Lay Me\" is a short story about two men sleeping in a tent. However simple a story it may be, it reveals the psyche of military men. Although it is never completely affirmed, the context of the story suggests that the two men are injured and in some sort of a military or hospital tent. The main character, Nick Adams, refuses to sleep while it is dark outside, claiming that he is fearful of losing his soul. However, it is implied that he actually suffers from a form of PTSD from a previous raid. The other man in the tent, John, also has difficulty sleeping. This short story goes deep into Nick’s mind and shows the reader what he does to make it through the night. The discussion between the two men concludes the rest of the story.\n\n“Now I Lay Me” is a prime example of the cynicism that characterizes the writing of the Lost Generation.\n\nSee also\n Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep\n\nShort stories by Ernest Hemingway"
] |
[
"Aeschylus",
"The Suppliants",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt.",
"What happened when they fled?",
"They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection,",
"Did he protect them?",
"Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision, a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king.",
"Did they make it out alive in the story?",
"The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection, and they are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests.",
"Are there more people in the story?",
"Aegyptus,",
"What is his part in the story?",
"Danaus rules Argos. He negotiates a peace settlement with Aegyptus, as a condition of which, his fifty daughters will marry the fifty sons of Aegyptus."
] | C_1974ee6d0d4f446ea4c1aad41c763918_0 | Was he a good guy in the story? | 7 | Was Danaus a good guy in the story, the Danaids? | Aeschylus | Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants in 463 BC (Hiketides), which pays tribute to the democratic undercurrents running through Athens in advance of the establishment of a democratic government in 461. In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision, a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king. The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection, and they are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests. The 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3 confirmed a long-assumed (because of The Suppliants' cliffhanger ending) Danaid trilogy, whose constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants, The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. During the course of the war, King Pelasgus has been killed, and Danaus rules Argos. He negotiates a peace settlement with Aegyptus, as a condition of which, his fifty daughters will marry the fifty sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle predicting that one of his sons-in-law would kill him; he therefore orders the Danaids to murder their husbands on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding. In short order, it is revealed that forty-nine of the Danaids killed their husbands as ordered; Hypermnestra, however, loved her husband Lynceus, and thus spared his life and helped him to escape. Angered by his daughter's disobedience, Danaus orders her imprisonment and, possibly, her execution. In the trilogy's climax and denouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus, and kills him (thus fulfilling the oracle). He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other forty-nine Danaids are absolved of their murderous crime, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Aeschylus (, ; ; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Formerly, characters interacted only with the chorus.
Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived. There is a long-standing debate regarding the authorship of one of them, Prometheus Bound, with some scholars arguing that it may be the work of his son Euphorion. Fragments from other plays have survived in quotations, and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyri. These fragments often give further insights into Aeschylus' work. He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy. His Oresteia is the only extant ancient example. At least one of his plays was influenced by the Persians' second invasion of Greece (480–479 BC). This work, The Persians, is one of very few classical Greek tragedies concerned with contemporary events, and the only one extant. The significance of the war with Persia was so great to Aeschylus and the Greeks that his epitaph commemorates his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon while making no mention of his success as a playwright.
Life
Aeschylus was born in c. 525 BC in Eleusis, a small town about 27 km northwest of Athens, in the fertile valleys of western Attica. Some scholars argue that his date of birth may be based on counting back forty years from his first victory in the Great Dionysia. His family was wealthy and well established. His father, Euphorion, was a member of the Eupatridae, the ancient nobility of Attica. But this might be a fiction invented by the ancients to account for the grandeur of Aeschylus' plays.
As a youth, Aeschylus worked at a vineyard until, according to the 2nd-century AD geographer Pausanias, the god Dionysus visited him in his sleep and commanded him to turn his attention to the nascent art of tragedy. As soon as he woke, he began to write a tragedy, and his first performance took place in 499 BC, when he was 26 years old. He won his first victory at the City Dionysia in 484 BC.
In 510 BC, when Aeschylus was 15 years old, Cleomenes I expelled the sons of Peisistratus from Athens, and Cleisthenes came to power. Cleisthenes' reforms included a system of registration that emphasized the importance of the deme over family tradition. In the last decade of the 6th century, Aeschylus and his family were living in the deme of Eleusis.
The Persian Wars played a large role in Aeschylus' life and career. In 490 BC, he and his brother Cynegeirus fought to defend Athens against the invading army of Darius I of Persia at the Battle of Marathon. The Athenians emerged triumphant, and the victory was celebrated across the city-states of Greece. Cynegeirus was killed while trying to prevent a Persian ship retreating from the shore, for which his countrymen extolled him as a hero.
In 480 BC, Aeschylus was called into military service again, together with his younger brother Ameinias, against Xerxes I's invading forces at the Battle of Salamis. Aeschylus also fought at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. Ion of Chios was a witness for Aeschylus' war record and his contribution in Salamis. Salamis holds a prominent place in The Persians, his oldest surviving play, which was performed in 472 BC and won first prize at the Dionysia.
Aeschylus was one of many Greeks who were initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, an ancient cult of Demeter based in his home town of Eleusis. Initiates gained secret knowledge through these rites, likely concerning the afterlife. Firm details of specific rites are sparse, as members were sworn under the penalty of death not to reveal anything about the Mysteries to non-initiates. Nevertheless, according to Aristotle, Aeschylus was accused of asebeia for revealing some of the cult's secrets on stage.
Other sources claim that an angry mob tried to kill Aeschylus on the spot but he fled the scene. Heracleides of Pontus asserts that the audience tried to stone Aeschylus. Aeschylus took refuge at the altar in the orchestra of the Theater of Dionysus. He pleaded ignorance at his trial. He was acquitted, with the jury sympathetic to the military service of him and his brothers during the Persian Wars. According to the 2nd-century AD author Aelian, Aeschylus' younger brother Ameinias helped to acquit Aeschylus by showing the jury the stump of the hand he had lost at Salamis, where he was voted bravest warrior. The truth is that the award for bravery at Salamis went not to Aeschylus' brother but to Ameinias of Pallene.
Aeschylus travelled to Sicily once or twice in the 470s BC, having been invited by Hiero I, tyrant of Syracuse, a major Greek city on the eastern side of the island. He produced The Women of Aetna during one of these trips (in honor of the city founded by Hieron), and restaged his Persians. By 473 BC, after the death of Phrynichus, one of his chief rivals, Aeschylus was the yearly favorite in the Dionysia, winning first prize in nearly every competition. In 472 BC, Aeschylus staged the production that included the Persians, with Pericles serving as choregos.
Personal life
Aeschylus married and had two sons, Euphorion and Euaeon, both of whom became tragic poets. Euphorion won first prize in 431 BC in competition against both Sophocles and Euripides. A nephew of Aeschylus, Philocles (his sister's son), was also a tragic poet, and won first prize in the competition against Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Aeschylus had at least two brothers, Cynegeirus and Ameinias.
Death
In 458 BC, Aeschylus returned to Sicily for the last time, visiting the city of Gela, where he died in 456 or 455 BC. Valerius Maximus wrote that he was killed outside the city by a tortoise dropped by an eagle (possibly a lammergeier or Cinereous vulture, which do open tortoises for eating by dropping them on hard objects) which had mistaken his head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell. Pliny, in his Naturalis Historiæ, adds that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avoid a prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object, but this story may be legendary and due to a misunderstanding of the iconography on Aeschylus's tomb. Aeschylus' work was so respected by the Athenians that after his death his tragedies were the only ones allowed to be restaged in subsequent competitions. His sons Euphorion and Euæon and his nephew Philocles also became playwrights.
The inscription on Aeschylus' gravestone makes no mention of his theatrical renown, commemorating only his military achievements:
According to Castoriadis, the inscription on his grave signifies the primary importance of "belonging to the City" (polis), of the solidarity that existed within the collective body of citizen-soldiers.
Works
The seeds of Greek drama were sowed in religious festivals for the gods, chiefly Dionysus, the god of wine. During Aeschylus' lifetime, dramatic competitions became part of the City Dionysia, held in spring. The festival opened with a procession which was followed by a competition of boys singing dithyrambs, and all culminated in a pair of dramatic competitions. The first competition Aeschylus would have participated in involved three playwrights each presenting three tragedies and one satyr play. Such format is called a continuous tragic tetralogy. It allowed Aeschylus to explore the human and theological and cosmic dimensions of a mythic sequence, developing it in successive phases. A second competition involving five comedic playwrights followed, and the winners of both competitions were chosen by a panel of judges.
Aeschylus entered many of these competitions, and various ancient sources attribute between seventy and ninety plays to him. Only seven tragedies attributed to him have survived intact: The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliants, the trilogy known as The Oresteia (the three tragedies Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides), and Prometheus Bound (whose authorship is disputed). With the exception of this last play – the success of which is uncertain – all of Aeschylus's extant tragedies are known to have won first prize at the City Dionysia.
The Alexandrian Life of Aeschylus claims that he won the first prize at the City Dionysia thirteen times. This compares favorably with Sophocles' reported eighteen victories (with a substantially larger catalogue, an estimated 120 plays), and dwarfs the five victories of Euripides, who is thought to have written roughly 90 plays.
Trilogies
One hallmark of Aeschylean dramaturgy appears to have been his tendency to write connected trilogies in which each play serves as a chapter in a continuous dramatic narrative. The Oresteia is the only extant example of this type of connected trilogy, but there is evidence that Aeschylus often wrote such trilogies. The satyr plays that followed his tragic trilogies also drew from myth.
The satyr play Proteus, which followed the Oresteia, treated the story of Menelaus' detour in Egypt on his way home from the Trojan War. It is assumed, based on the evidence provided by a catalogue of Aeschylean play titles, scholia, and play fragments recorded by later authors, that three other extant plays of his were components of connected trilogies: Seven Against Thebes was the final play in an Oedipus trilogy, and The Suppliants and Prometheus Bound were each the first play in a Danaid trilogy and Prometheus trilogy, respectively. Scholars have also suggested several completely lost trilogies, based on known play titles. A number of these treated myths about the Trojan War. One, collectively called the Achilleis, comprised Myrmidons, Nereids and Phrygians (alternately, The Ransoming of Hector).
Another trilogy apparently recounted the entrance of the Trojan ally Memnon into the war, and his death at the hands of Achilles (Memnon and The Weighing of Souls being two components of the trilogy). The Award of the Arms, The Phrygian Women, and The Salaminian Women suggest a trilogy about the madness and subsequent suicide of the Greek hero Ajax. Aeschylus seems to have written about Odysseus' return to Ithaca after the war (including his killing of his wife Penelope's suitors and its consequences) in a trilogy consisting of The Soul-raisers, Penelope, and The Bone-gatherers. Other suggested trilogies touched on the myth of Jason and the Argonauts (Argô, Lemnian Women, Hypsipylê), the life of Perseus (The Net-draggers, Polydektês, Phorkides), the birth and exploits of Dionysus (Semele, Bacchae, Pentheus), and the aftermath of the war portrayed in Seven Against Thebes (Eleusinians, Argives (or Argive Women), Sons of the Seven).
Surviving plays
The Persians (472 BC)
The Persians (Persai) is the earliest of Aeschylus' extant plays. It was performed in 472 BC. It was based on Aeschylus' own experiences, specifically the Battle of Salamis. It is unique among surviving Greek tragedies in that it describes a recent historical event. The Persians focuses on the popular Greek theme of hubris and blames Persia's loss on the pride of its king.
It opens with the arrival of a messenger in Susa, the Persian capital, bearing news of the catastrophic Persian defeat at Salamis, to Atossa, the mother of the Persian King Xerxes. Atossa then travels to the tomb of Darius, her husband, where his ghost appears, to explain the cause of the defeat. It is, he says, the result of Xerxes' hubris in building a bridge across the Hellespont, an action which angered the gods. Xerxes appears at the end of the play, not realizing the cause of his defeat, and the play closes to lamentations by Xerxes and the chorus.
Seven Against Thebes (467 BC)
Seven against Thebes (Hepta epi Thebas) was performed in 467 BC. It has the contrasting theme of the interference of the gods in human affairs. Another theme, with which Aeschylus' would continually involve himself, makes its first known appearance in this play, namely that the polis was a key development of human civilization.
The play tells the story of Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of the shamed king of Thebes, Oedipus. Eteocles and Polynices agree to share and alternate the throne of the city. After the first year, Eteocles refuses to step down. Polynices therefore undertakes war. The pair kill each other in single combat, and the original ending of the play consisted of lamentations for the dead brothers. But a new ending was added to the play some fifty years later: Antigone and Ismene mourn their dead brothers, a messenger enters announcing an edict prohibiting the burial of Polynices, and Antigone declares her intention to defy this edict. The play was the third in a connected Oedipus trilogy. The first two plays were Laius and Oedipus. The concluding satyr play was The Sphinx.
The Suppliants (463 BC)
Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants (Hiketides) in 463 BC. The play gives tribute to the democratic undercurrents which were running through Athens and preceding the establishment of a democratic government in 461. The Danaids (50 daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos) flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision (a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king). The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection and are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests.
A Danaid trilogy had long been assumed because of The Suppliants''' cliffhanger ending. This was confirmed by the 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3. The constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants and The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. King Pelasgus was killed during the war, and Danaus rules Argos. Danaus negotiates a settlement with Aegyptus, a condition of which requires his 50 daughters to marry the 50 sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle which predicts that one of his sons-in-law would kill him. He orders the Danaids to murder their husbands therefore on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding.
It is revealed that 49 of the 50 Danaids killed their husbands. Hypermnestra did not kill her husband, Lynceus, and helped him escape. Danaus is angered by his daughter's disobedience and orders her imprisonment and possibly execution. In the trilogy's climax and dénouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus and kills him, thus fulfilling the oracle. He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other 49 Danaids are absolved of their murders, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids.
The Oresteia (458 BC)
Besides a few missing lines, the Oresteia of 458 BC is the only complete trilogy of Greek plays by any playwright still extant (of Proteus, the satyr play which followed, only fragments are known). Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers (Choephoroi) and The Eumenides together tell the violent story of the family of Agamemnon, king of Argos.
Agamemnon
Aeschylus begins in Greece, describing the return of King Agamemnon from his victory in the Trojan War, from the perspective of the townspeople (the Chorus) and his wife, Clytemnestra. Dark foreshadowings build to the death of the king at the hands of his wife, who was angry that their daughter Iphigenia was killed so that the gods would restore the winds and allow the Greek fleet to sail to Troy. Clytemnestra was also unhappy that Agamemnon kept the Trojan prophetess Cassandra as his concubine. Cassandra foretells the murder of Agamemnon and of herself to the assembled townsfolk, who are horrified. She then enters the palace knowing that she cannot avoid her fate. The ending of the play includes a prediction of the return of Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who will seek to avenge his father.
The Libation BearersThe Libation Bearers opens with Orestes' arrival at Agamemnon's tomb, from exile in Phocis. Electra meets Orestes there. They plan revenge against Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus. Clytemnestra's account of a nightmare in which she gives birth to a snake is recounted by the chorus. This leads her to order her daughter, Electra, to pour libations on Agamemnon's tomb (with the assistance of libation bearers) in hope of making amends. Orestes enters the palace pretending to bear news of his own death. Clytemnestra calls in Aegisthus to learn the news. Orestes kills them both. Orestes is then beset by the Furies, who avenge the murders of kin in Greek mythology.
The Eumenides
The third play addresses the question of Orestes' guilt. The Furies drive Orestes from Argos and into the wilderness. He makes his way to the temple of Apollo and begs Apollo to drive the Furies away. Apollo had encouraged Orestes to kill Clytemnestra, so he bears some of the guilt for the murder. Apollo sends Orestes to the temple of Athena with Hermes as a guide.
The Furies track him down, and Athena steps in and declares that a trial is necessary. Apollo argues Orestes' case, and after the judges (including Athena) deliver a tie vote, Athena announces that Orestes is acquitted. She renames the Furies The Eumenides (The Good-spirited, or Kindly Ones), and extols the importance of reason in the development of laws. As in The Suppliants, the ideals of a democratic Athens are praised.
Prometheus Bound (date disputed)Prometheus Bound is attributed to Aeschylus by ancient authorities. Since the late 19th century, however, scholars have increasingly doubted this ascription, largely on stylistic grounds. Its production date is also in dispute, with theories ranging from the 480s BC to as late as the 410s.
The play consists mostly of static dialogue. The Titan Prometheus is bound to a rock throughout, which is his punishment from the Olympian Zeus for providing fire to humans. The god Hephaestus and the Titan Oceanus and the chorus of Oceanids all express sympathy for Prometheus' plight. Prometheus is met by Io, a fellow victim of Zeus' cruelty. He prophesies her future travels, revealing that one of her descendants will free Prometheus. The play closes with Zeus sending Prometheus into the abyss because Prometheus will not tell him of a potential marriage which could prove Zeus' downfall.Prometheus Bound seems to have been the first play in a trilogy, the Prometheia. In the second play, Prometheus Unbound, Heracles frees Prometheus from his chains and kills the eagle that had been sent daily to eat Prometheus' perpetually regenerating liver (then believed the source of feeling). We learn that Zeus has released the other Titans which he imprisoned at the conclusion of the Titanomachy, perhaps foreshadowing his eventual reconciliation with Prometheus.
In the trilogy's conclusion, Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, it seems that the Titan finally warns Zeus not to sleep with the sea nymph Thetis, for she is fated to beget a son greater than the father. Not wishing to be overthrown, Zeus marries Thetis off to the mortal Peleus. The product of that union is Achilles, Greek hero of the Trojan War. After reconciling with Prometheus, Zeus probably inaugurates a festival in his honor at Athens.
Lost plays
Of Aeschylus' other plays, only titles and assorted fragments are known. There are enough fragments (along with comments made by later authors and scholiasts) to produce rough synopses for some plays.
Myrmidons
This play was based on books 9 and 16 of the Iliad. Achilles sits in silent indignation over his humiliation at Agamemnon's hands for most of the play. Envoys from the Greek army attempt to reconcile Achilles to Agamemnon, but he yields only to his friend Patroclus, who then battles the Trojans in Achilles' armour. The bravery and death of Patroclus are reported in a messenger's speech, which is followed by mourning.
Nereids
This play was based on books 18 and 19 and 22 of the Iliad. It follows the Daughters of Nereus, the sea god, who lament Patroclus' death. A messenger tells how Achilles (perhaps reconciled to Agamemnon and the Greeks) slew Hector.
Phrygians, or Hector's Ransom
After a brief discussion with Hermes, Achilles sits in silent mourning over Patroclus. Hermes then brings in King Priam of Troy, who wins over Achilles and ransoms his son's body in a spectacular coup de théâtre. A scale is brought on stage and Hector's body is placed in one scale and gold in the other. The dynamic dancing of the chorus of Trojans when they enter with Priam is reported by Aristophanes.
Niobe
The children of Niobe, the heroine, have been slain by Apollo and Artemis because Niobe had gloated that she had more children than their mother, Leto. Niobe sits in silent mourning on stage during most of the play. In the Republic, Plato quotes the line "God plants a fault in mortals when he wills to destroy a house utterly."
These are the remaining 71 plays ascribed to Aeschylus which are known to us:AlcmeneAmymoneThe Archer-WomenThe Argivian WomenThe Argo, also titled The RowersAtalantaAthamasAttendants of the Bridal ChamberAward of the ArmsThe BacchaeThe BassaraeThe Bone-GatherersThe CabeiroiCallistoThe Carians, also titled EuropaCercyonChildren of HerculesCirceThe Cretan WomenCycnusThe DanaidsDaughters of HeliosDaughters of PhorcysThe DescendantsThe EdoniansThe EgyptiansThe EscortsGlaucus of PontusGlaucus of PotniaeHypsipyleIphigeniaIxionLaiusThe Lemnian WomenThe LionLycurgusMemnonThe Men of EleusisThe MessengersThe MyrmidonsThe MysiansNemeaThe Net-DraggersThe Nurses of DionysusOrethyiaPalamedesPenelopePentheusPerrhaibidesPhiloctetesPhineusThe Phrygian WomenPolydectesThe PriestessesPrometheus the Fire-BearerPrometheus the Fire-KindlerPrometheus UnboundProteusSemele, also titled The Water-BearersSisyphus the RunawaySisyphus the Stone-RollerThe Spectators, also titled Athletes of the Isthmian GamesThe SphinxThe Spirit-RaisersTelephusThe Thracian WomenWeighing of SoulsWomen of Aetna (two versions)Women of SalamisXantriaeThe YouthsInfluence
Influence on Greek drama and culture
The theatre was just beginning to evolve when Aeschylus started writing for it. Earlier playwrights such as Thespis had already expanded the cast to include an actor who was able to interact with the chorus. Aeschylus added a second actor, allowing for greater dramatic variety, while the chorus played a less important role. He is sometimes credited with introducing skenographia, or scene-decoration, though Aristotle gives this distinction to Sophocles. Aeschylus is also said to have made the costumes more elaborate and dramatic, and made his actors wear platform boots (cothurni) to make them more visible to the audience. According to a later account of Aeschylus' life, the chorus of Furies in the first performance of the Eumenides were so frightening when they entered that children fainted and patriarchs urinated and pregnant women went into labour.
Aeschylus wrote his plays in verse. No violence is performed onstage. The plays have a remoteness from daily life in Athens, relating stories about the gods, or being set, like The Persians, far away. Aeschylus' work has a strong moral and religious emphasis. The Oresteia trilogy concentrated on humans' position in the cosmos relative to the gods and divine law and divine punishment.
Aeschylus' popularity is evident in the praise that the comic playwright Aristophanes gives him in The Frogs, produced some 50 years after Aeschylus' death. Aeschylus appears as a character in the play and claims, at line 1022, that his Seven against Thebes "made everyone watching it to love being warlike". He claims, at lines 1026–7, that with The Persians he "taught the Athenians to desire always to defeat their enemies." Aeschylus goes on to say, at lines 1039ff., that his plays inspired the Athenians to be brave and virtuous.
Influence outside Greek culture
Aeschylus' works were influential beyond his own time. Hugh Lloyd-Jones draws attention to Richard Wagner's reverence of Aeschylus. Michael Ewans argues in his Wagner and Aeschylus. The Ring and the Oresteia (London: Faber. 1982) that the influence was so great as to merit a direct character by character comparison between Wagner's Ring and Aeschylus's Oresteia. But a critic of that book, while not denying that Wagner read and respected Aeschylus, has described the arguments as unreasonable and forced.
J.T. Sheppard argues in the second half of his Aeschylus and Sophocles: Their Work and Influence that Aeschylus and Sophocles have played a major part in the formation of dramatic literature from the Renaissance to the present, specifically in French and Elizabethan drama. He also claims that their influence went beyond just drama and applies to literature in general, citing Milton and the Romantics.
Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), a trilogy of three plays set in America after the Civil War, is modeled after the Oresteia. Before writing his acclaimed trilogy, O'Neill had been developing a play about Aeschylus, and he noted that Aeschylus "so changed the system of the tragic stage that he has more claim than anyone else to be regarded as the founder (Father) of Tragedy."
During his presidential campaign in 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy quoted the Edith Hamilton translation of Aeschylus on the night of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Kennedy was notified of King's murder before a campaign stop in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was warned not to attend the event due to fears of rioting from the mostly African-American crowd. Kennedy insisted on attending and delivered an impromptu speech that delivered news of King's death. Acknowledging the audience's emotions, Kennedy referred to his own grief at the murder of Martin Luther King and, quoting a passage from the play Agamemnon (in translation), said: "My favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote: 'Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.' What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness; but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black ... Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world." The quotation from Aeschylus was later inscribed on a memorial at the gravesite of Robert Kennedy following his own assassination.
Editions
Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Aeschyli Tragoediae. Editio maior, Berlin 1914.
Gilbert Murray, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae. Editio Altera, Oxford 1955.
Denys Page, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae, Oxford 1972.
Martin L. West, Aeschyli Tragoediae cum incerti poetae Prometheo, 2nd ed., Stuttgart/Leipzig 1998.
The first translation of the seven plays into English was by Robert Potter in 1779, using blank verse for the iambic trimeters and rhymed verse for the choruses, a convention adopted by most translators for the next century.
Anna Swanwick produced a verse translation in English of all seven surviving plays as The Dramas of Aeschylus in 1886 full text
Stefan Radt (ed.), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Vol. III: Aeschylus (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009) (Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 3).
Alan H. Sommerstein (ed.), Aeschylus, Volume II, Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-bearers. Eumenides. 146 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2009); Volume III, Fragments. 505 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2008).
See also
2876 Aeschylus, an asteroid named for him
Ancient Greek literature
Ancient Greek mythology
Ancient Greek religion
Battle of Marathon
Classical Greece
Dionysia
Music of ancient Greece
Theatre of ancient Greece
"Live by the sword, die by the sword"
Notes
Citations
References
Bierl, A. Die Orestie des Aischylos auf der modernen Bühne: Theoretische Konzeptionen und ihre szenische Realizierung (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1997)
Cairns, D., V. Liapis, Dionysalexandros: Essays on Aeschylus and His Fellow Tragedians in Honour of Alexander F. Garvie (Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales, 2006)
Deforge, B. Une vie avec Eschyle. Vérité des mythes (Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2010)
Lefkowitz, Mary (1981). The Lives of the Greek Poets. University of North Carolina Press
— (2002). Greek Drama and Dramatists. London: Routledge Press.
Summers, David (2007). Vision, Reflection, and Desire in Western Painting. University of North Carolina Press
Thomson, George (1973) Aeschylus and Athens: A Study in the Social Origin of Drama. London: Lawrence and Wishart (4th edition)
Vellacott, Philip, (1961). Prometheus Bound and Other Plays: Prometheus Bound, Seven Against Thebes, and The Persians. New York: Penguin Classics.
Zeitlin, Froma (1982). Under the sign of the shield: semiotics and Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2nd ed. 2009 (Greek studies: interdisciplinary approaches)
Zetlin, Froma (1996). "The dynamics of misogyny: myth and mythmaking in Aeschylus's Oresteia", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 87–119.
Zeitlin, Froma (1996). "The politics of Eros in the Danaid trilogy of Aeschylus", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 123–171.
External links
Selected Poems of Aeschylus
Aeschylus-related materials at the Perseus Digital Library
Complete syntax diagrams at Alpheios
Online English Translations of Aeschylus
Photo of a fragment of The Net-pullers
"Aeschylus, I: Persians" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, II: The Oresteia" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, III: Fragments" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
5th-century BC Greek people
5th-century BC writers
520s BC births
450s BC deaths
Year of birth uncertain
Year of death uncertain
Tragic poets
Ancient Greeks accused of sacrilege
Greek people of the Greco-Persian Wars
Battle of Marathon
Accidental deaths in Italy
Deaths due to animal attacks | false | [
"Good Time Guy is a humorous syndicated comic strip that was distributed by Metropolitan Newspaper Service from June 27, 1927 to December 6, 1930.\n\nIt was begun by prolific screenwriter William Conselman under the pen name of Frank Smiley, and well-established artist Mel Cummin. Cummin was succeeded the following year by Dick Huemer (1928–29), who was in turn followed by Fred Fox (1929).\n\nCharacters and story\nRon Goulart wrote of Good Time Guy in his book The Funnies:\n\nConselman's script was dense with \"puns and complicated word-play\". There was a strong element of serendipity in the strip, with Green's naive missteps leading unexpectedly into good fortune.\n\nReferences\n\n1927 comics debuts\n1930 comics endings\nAmerican comics characters\nAmerican comic strips\nFictional hillbillies\nHumor comics",
"Guy Clarence Vanderhaeghe (born April 5, 1951) is a Canadian novelist and short story writer, best known for his Western novel trilogy, The Englishman's Boy, The Last Crossing, and A Good Man set in the 19th-century American and Canadian West. Vanderhaeghe has won three Governor General's Awards for his fiction, one for his short story collection Man Descending in 1982, the second for his novel The Englishman's Boy in 1996, and the third for his short story collection Daddy Lenin and Other Stories in 2015.\n\nLife and career\nGuy Vanderhaeghe was born on April 5, 1951 in Esterhazy, a mining town in southeastern Saskatchewan. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree with great distinction in 1971, High Honours in History in 1972 and Master of Arts in History in 1975, all from the University of Saskatchewan. In 1978 he received his Bachelor of Education with great distinction from the University of Regina. In 1973 he was Research Officer, Institute for Northern Studies, University of Saskatchewan and, from 1974 until 1977, he worked as Archival and Library Assistant at the university.\n\nFrom 1975 to 1977 he was a freelance writer and editor and in 1978 and 1979 taught English and history at Herbert High School in Herbert, Saskatchewan. In 1983 and 1984 he was Writer-in-Residence with the Saskatoon Public Library and in 1985 Writer-in-Residence at the University of Ottawa. He has been a Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Ottawa (1985–86), faculty member of the Writing Program of the Banff Centre for the Arts (1990–91), faculty member in charge of senior fiction students in the SAGE Hills Creative Writing Program (1992). Since 1993, he has served as a visiting professor of English at St. Thomas More College at the University of Saskatchewan.\n\nVanderhaeghe's first book, Man Descending (1982), was winner of a Governor General's Award and the United Kingdom's Faber Prize. A novel, The Englishman's Boy (1996), won him a second Governor General's Award for Fiction and the Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction and for Best Book of the Year, and it was shortlisted for both the Giller Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award.\n\nThe Last Crossing (2002) was a national bestseller and winner of the Saskatoon Book Award, the Saskatchewan Book Awards for Fiction and for Book of the Year, and the Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Year. The novel was selected for the 2004 edition of Canada Reads as the book that should be read by all Canadians.\n\nIn 2003, Vanderhaeghe was awarded the Saskatchewan Order of Merit and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. His 2011 publication of A Good Man finished off his Western trilogy. \"Historically spot on, the characters (fictional and real) are incredible, and the plot builds to an incredible bitter sweet ending.\"\n\nIn 2013, he received the Lieutenant Governor's Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts, Saskatchewan's highest honour in the arts.\n\nVanderhaeghe currently lives in Saskatoon. He teaches creative writing as an evening class at St. Thomas Moore College at the University of Saskatchewan. His wife Margaret Elizabeth Vanderhaeghe, a noted artist, died in 2012.\n\nHis short story collection Daddy Lenin and Other Stories was published in 2015, and won the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction at the 2015 Governor General's Awards.\nHis first novel in almost a decade was published in 2021, titled August Into Winter. Set in 1939 in a small prairie town, with a narcissistic man-child on the lam with a scrappy 12-year-old child/lover in tow and a trio of hardened lawmen on his trail.\n\nBibliography\n\nNovels\nMy Present Age (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1984).\nHomesick (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1989). \nThe Englishman's Boy (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1996). \nThe Last Crossing (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2002).\nA Good Man (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2011).\nAugust Into Winter (2021)\n\nShort story collections\nMan Descending (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1982). \nThe Trouble With Heroes (Ottawa: Borealis Press, 1983).\nThings As They Are? (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1992). \nDaddy Lenin and Other Stories (McClelland & Stewart, 2015).\n\nPlays\nI Had a Job I Liked. Once. (Saskatoon: Fifth House, 1992).\nDancock's Dance (Winnipeg: Blizzard Pub., 1996)\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n Nora Tunkel: Crisscrossing Wild West Borders and Identities: Guy Vanderhaeghe, in Tunkel: Transcultural imaginaries. History and globalization in contemporary Canadian literature. Winter, Heidelberg 2012, pp 190 – 197 = doct. thesis, Universität Wien 2009\n\nExternal links\n \n Guy Vanderhaeghe at The Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan\n\n1951 births\nLiving people\nCanadian male novelists\nCanadian male short story writers\nMembers of the Saskatchewan Order of Merit\nOfficers of the Order of Canada\nUniversity of Saskatchewan alumni\nGovernor General's Award-winning fiction writers\nWriters from Saskatchewan\nHarbourfront Festival Prize winners\n20th-century Canadian novelists\n21st-century Canadian novelists\n20th-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights\nPeople from Esterhazy, Saskatchewan\nCanadian male dramatists and playwrights\n20th-century Canadian short story writers\n21st-century Canadian short story writers\n20th-century Canadian male writers\n21st-century Canadian male writers"
] |
[
"Aeschylus",
"The Suppliants",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt.",
"What happened when they fled?",
"They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection,",
"Did he protect them?",
"Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision, a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king.",
"Did they make it out alive in the story?",
"The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection, and they are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests.",
"Are there more people in the story?",
"Aegyptus,",
"What is his part in the story?",
"Danaus rules Argos. He negotiates a peace settlement with Aegyptus, as a condition of which, his fifty daughters will marry the fifty sons of Aegyptus.",
"Was he a good guy in the story?",
"I don't know."
] | C_1974ee6d0d4f446ea4c1aad41c763918_0 | What parts of this article most interested you? | 8 | What parts of the Danaids most interested you? | Aeschylus | Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants in 463 BC (Hiketides), which pays tribute to the democratic undercurrents running through Athens in advance of the establishment of a democratic government in 461. In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision, a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king. The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection, and they are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests. The 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3 confirmed a long-assumed (because of The Suppliants' cliffhanger ending) Danaid trilogy, whose constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants, The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. During the course of the war, King Pelasgus has been killed, and Danaus rules Argos. He negotiates a peace settlement with Aegyptus, as a condition of which, his fifty daughters will marry the fifty sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle predicting that one of his sons-in-law would kill him; he therefore orders the Danaids to murder their husbands on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding. In short order, it is revealed that forty-nine of the Danaids killed their husbands as ordered; Hypermnestra, however, loved her husband Lynceus, and thus spared his life and helped him to escape. Angered by his daughter's disobedience, Danaus orders her imprisonment and, possibly, her execution. In the trilogy's climax and denouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus, and kills him (thus fulfilling the oracle). He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other forty-nine Danaids are absolved of their murderous crime, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids. CANNOTANSWER | forty-nine of the Danaids killed their husbands as ordered; Hypermnestra, however, loved her husband Lynceus, and thus spared his life and helped him to escape. | Aeschylus (, ; ; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Formerly, characters interacted only with the chorus.
Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived. There is a long-standing debate regarding the authorship of one of them, Prometheus Bound, with some scholars arguing that it may be the work of his son Euphorion. Fragments from other plays have survived in quotations, and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyri. These fragments often give further insights into Aeschylus' work. He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy. His Oresteia is the only extant ancient example. At least one of his plays was influenced by the Persians' second invasion of Greece (480–479 BC). This work, The Persians, is one of very few classical Greek tragedies concerned with contemporary events, and the only one extant. The significance of the war with Persia was so great to Aeschylus and the Greeks that his epitaph commemorates his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon while making no mention of his success as a playwright.
Life
Aeschylus was born in c. 525 BC in Eleusis, a small town about 27 km northwest of Athens, in the fertile valleys of western Attica. Some scholars argue that his date of birth may be based on counting back forty years from his first victory in the Great Dionysia. His family was wealthy and well established. His father, Euphorion, was a member of the Eupatridae, the ancient nobility of Attica. But this might be a fiction invented by the ancients to account for the grandeur of Aeschylus' plays.
As a youth, Aeschylus worked at a vineyard until, according to the 2nd-century AD geographer Pausanias, the god Dionysus visited him in his sleep and commanded him to turn his attention to the nascent art of tragedy. As soon as he woke, he began to write a tragedy, and his first performance took place in 499 BC, when he was 26 years old. He won his first victory at the City Dionysia in 484 BC.
In 510 BC, when Aeschylus was 15 years old, Cleomenes I expelled the sons of Peisistratus from Athens, and Cleisthenes came to power. Cleisthenes' reforms included a system of registration that emphasized the importance of the deme over family tradition. In the last decade of the 6th century, Aeschylus and his family were living in the deme of Eleusis.
The Persian Wars played a large role in Aeschylus' life and career. In 490 BC, he and his brother Cynegeirus fought to defend Athens against the invading army of Darius I of Persia at the Battle of Marathon. The Athenians emerged triumphant, and the victory was celebrated across the city-states of Greece. Cynegeirus was killed while trying to prevent a Persian ship retreating from the shore, for which his countrymen extolled him as a hero.
In 480 BC, Aeschylus was called into military service again, together with his younger brother Ameinias, against Xerxes I's invading forces at the Battle of Salamis. Aeschylus also fought at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. Ion of Chios was a witness for Aeschylus' war record and his contribution in Salamis. Salamis holds a prominent place in The Persians, his oldest surviving play, which was performed in 472 BC and won first prize at the Dionysia.
Aeschylus was one of many Greeks who were initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, an ancient cult of Demeter based in his home town of Eleusis. Initiates gained secret knowledge through these rites, likely concerning the afterlife. Firm details of specific rites are sparse, as members were sworn under the penalty of death not to reveal anything about the Mysteries to non-initiates. Nevertheless, according to Aristotle, Aeschylus was accused of asebeia for revealing some of the cult's secrets on stage.
Other sources claim that an angry mob tried to kill Aeschylus on the spot but he fled the scene. Heracleides of Pontus asserts that the audience tried to stone Aeschylus. Aeschylus took refuge at the altar in the orchestra of the Theater of Dionysus. He pleaded ignorance at his trial. He was acquitted, with the jury sympathetic to the military service of him and his brothers during the Persian Wars. According to the 2nd-century AD author Aelian, Aeschylus' younger brother Ameinias helped to acquit Aeschylus by showing the jury the stump of the hand he had lost at Salamis, where he was voted bravest warrior. The truth is that the award for bravery at Salamis went not to Aeschylus' brother but to Ameinias of Pallene.
Aeschylus travelled to Sicily once or twice in the 470s BC, having been invited by Hiero I, tyrant of Syracuse, a major Greek city on the eastern side of the island. He produced The Women of Aetna during one of these trips (in honor of the city founded by Hieron), and restaged his Persians. By 473 BC, after the death of Phrynichus, one of his chief rivals, Aeschylus was the yearly favorite in the Dionysia, winning first prize in nearly every competition. In 472 BC, Aeschylus staged the production that included the Persians, with Pericles serving as choregos.
Personal life
Aeschylus married and had two sons, Euphorion and Euaeon, both of whom became tragic poets. Euphorion won first prize in 431 BC in competition against both Sophocles and Euripides. A nephew of Aeschylus, Philocles (his sister's son), was also a tragic poet, and won first prize in the competition against Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Aeschylus had at least two brothers, Cynegeirus and Ameinias.
Death
In 458 BC, Aeschylus returned to Sicily for the last time, visiting the city of Gela, where he died in 456 or 455 BC. Valerius Maximus wrote that he was killed outside the city by a tortoise dropped by an eagle (possibly a lammergeier or Cinereous vulture, which do open tortoises for eating by dropping them on hard objects) which had mistaken his head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell. Pliny, in his Naturalis Historiæ, adds that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avoid a prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object, but this story may be legendary and due to a misunderstanding of the iconography on Aeschylus's tomb. Aeschylus' work was so respected by the Athenians that after his death his tragedies were the only ones allowed to be restaged in subsequent competitions. His sons Euphorion and Euæon and his nephew Philocles also became playwrights.
The inscription on Aeschylus' gravestone makes no mention of his theatrical renown, commemorating only his military achievements:
According to Castoriadis, the inscription on his grave signifies the primary importance of "belonging to the City" (polis), of the solidarity that existed within the collective body of citizen-soldiers.
Works
The seeds of Greek drama were sowed in religious festivals for the gods, chiefly Dionysus, the god of wine. During Aeschylus' lifetime, dramatic competitions became part of the City Dionysia, held in spring. The festival opened with a procession which was followed by a competition of boys singing dithyrambs, and all culminated in a pair of dramatic competitions. The first competition Aeschylus would have participated in involved three playwrights each presenting three tragedies and one satyr play. Such format is called a continuous tragic tetralogy. It allowed Aeschylus to explore the human and theological and cosmic dimensions of a mythic sequence, developing it in successive phases. A second competition involving five comedic playwrights followed, and the winners of both competitions were chosen by a panel of judges.
Aeschylus entered many of these competitions, and various ancient sources attribute between seventy and ninety plays to him. Only seven tragedies attributed to him have survived intact: The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliants, the trilogy known as The Oresteia (the three tragedies Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides), and Prometheus Bound (whose authorship is disputed). With the exception of this last play – the success of which is uncertain – all of Aeschylus's extant tragedies are known to have won first prize at the City Dionysia.
The Alexandrian Life of Aeschylus claims that he won the first prize at the City Dionysia thirteen times. This compares favorably with Sophocles' reported eighteen victories (with a substantially larger catalogue, an estimated 120 plays), and dwarfs the five victories of Euripides, who is thought to have written roughly 90 plays.
Trilogies
One hallmark of Aeschylean dramaturgy appears to have been his tendency to write connected trilogies in which each play serves as a chapter in a continuous dramatic narrative. The Oresteia is the only extant example of this type of connected trilogy, but there is evidence that Aeschylus often wrote such trilogies. The satyr plays that followed his tragic trilogies also drew from myth.
The satyr play Proteus, which followed the Oresteia, treated the story of Menelaus' detour in Egypt on his way home from the Trojan War. It is assumed, based on the evidence provided by a catalogue of Aeschylean play titles, scholia, and play fragments recorded by later authors, that three other extant plays of his were components of connected trilogies: Seven Against Thebes was the final play in an Oedipus trilogy, and The Suppliants and Prometheus Bound were each the first play in a Danaid trilogy and Prometheus trilogy, respectively. Scholars have also suggested several completely lost trilogies, based on known play titles. A number of these treated myths about the Trojan War. One, collectively called the Achilleis, comprised Myrmidons, Nereids and Phrygians (alternately, The Ransoming of Hector).
Another trilogy apparently recounted the entrance of the Trojan ally Memnon into the war, and his death at the hands of Achilles (Memnon and The Weighing of Souls being two components of the trilogy). The Award of the Arms, The Phrygian Women, and The Salaminian Women suggest a trilogy about the madness and subsequent suicide of the Greek hero Ajax. Aeschylus seems to have written about Odysseus' return to Ithaca after the war (including his killing of his wife Penelope's suitors and its consequences) in a trilogy consisting of The Soul-raisers, Penelope, and The Bone-gatherers. Other suggested trilogies touched on the myth of Jason and the Argonauts (Argô, Lemnian Women, Hypsipylê), the life of Perseus (The Net-draggers, Polydektês, Phorkides), the birth and exploits of Dionysus (Semele, Bacchae, Pentheus), and the aftermath of the war portrayed in Seven Against Thebes (Eleusinians, Argives (or Argive Women), Sons of the Seven).
Surviving plays
The Persians (472 BC)
The Persians (Persai) is the earliest of Aeschylus' extant plays. It was performed in 472 BC. It was based on Aeschylus' own experiences, specifically the Battle of Salamis. It is unique among surviving Greek tragedies in that it describes a recent historical event. The Persians focuses on the popular Greek theme of hubris and blames Persia's loss on the pride of its king.
It opens with the arrival of a messenger in Susa, the Persian capital, bearing news of the catastrophic Persian defeat at Salamis, to Atossa, the mother of the Persian King Xerxes. Atossa then travels to the tomb of Darius, her husband, where his ghost appears, to explain the cause of the defeat. It is, he says, the result of Xerxes' hubris in building a bridge across the Hellespont, an action which angered the gods. Xerxes appears at the end of the play, not realizing the cause of his defeat, and the play closes to lamentations by Xerxes and the chorus.
Seven Against Thebes (467 BC)
Seven against Thebes (Hepta epi Thebas) was performed in 467 BC. It has the contrasting theme of the interference of the gods in human affairs. Another theme, with which Aeschylus' would continually involve himself, makes its first known appearance in this play, namely that the polis was a key development of human civilization.
The play tells the story of Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of the shamed king of Thebes, Oedipus. Eteocles and Polynices agree to share and alternate the throne of the city. After the first year, Eteocles refuses to step down. Polynices therefore undertakes war. The pair kill each other in single combat, and the original ending of the play consisted of lamentations for the dead brothers. But a new ending was added to the play some fifty years later: Antigone and Ismene mourn their dead brothers, a messenger enters announcing an edict prohibiting the burial of Polynices, and Antigone declares her intention to defy this edict. The play was the third in a connected Oedipus trilogy. The first two plays were Laius and Oedipus. The concluding satyr play was The Sphinx.
The Suppliants (463 BC)
Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants (Hiketides) in 463 BC. The play gives tribute to the democratic undercurrents which were running through Athens and preceding the establishment of a democratic government in 461. The Danaids (50 daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos) flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision (a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king). The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection and are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests.
A Danaid trilogy had long been assumed because of The Suppliants''' cliffhanger ending. This was confirmed by the 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3. The constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants and The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. King Pelasgus was killed during the war, and Danaus rules Argos. Danaus negotiates a settlement with Aegyptus, a condition of which requires his 50 daughters to marry the 50 sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle which predicts that one of his sons-in-law would kill him. He orders the Danaids to murder their husbands therefore on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding.
It is revealed that 49 of the 50 Danaids killed their husbands. Hypermnestra did not kill her husband, Lynceus, and helped him escape. Danaus is angered by his daughter's disobedience and orders her imprisonment and possibly execution. In the trilogy's climax and dénouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus and kills him, thus fulfilling the oracle. He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other 49 Danaids are absolved of their murders, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids.
The Oresteia (458 BC)
Besides a few missing lines, the Oresteia of 458 BC is the only complete trilogy of Greek plays by any playwright still extant (of Proteus, the satyr play which followed, only fragments are known). Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers (Choephoroi) and The Eumenides together tell the violent story of the family of Agamemnon, king of Argos.
Agamemnon
Aeschylus begins in Greece, describing the return of King Agamemnon from his victory in the Trojan War, from the perspective of the townspeople (the Chorus) and his wife, Clytemnestra. Dark foreshadowings build to the death of the king at the hands of his wife, who was angry that their daughter Iphigenia was killed so that the gods would restore the winds and allow the Greek fleet to sail to Troy. Clytemnestra was also unhappy that Agamemnon kept the Trojan prophetess Cassandra as his concubine. Cassandra foretells the murder of Agamemnon and of herself to the assembled townsfolk, who are horrified. She then enters the palace knowing that she cannot avoid her fate. The ending of the play includes a prediction of the return of Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who will seek to avenge his father.
The Libation BearersThe Libation Bearers opens with Orestes' arrival at Agamemnon's tomb, from exile in Phocis. Electra meets Orestes there. They plan revenge against Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus. Clytemnestra's account of a nightmare in which she gives birth to a snake is recounted by the chorus. This leads her to order her daughter, Electra, to pour libations on Agamemnon's tomb (with the assistance of libation bearers) in hope of making amends. Orestes enters the palace pretending to bear news of his own death. Clytemnestra calls in Aegisthus to learn the news. Orestes kills them both. Orestes is then beset by the Furies, who avenge the murders of kin in Greek mythology.
The Eumenides
The third play addresses the question of Orestes' guilt. The Furies drive Orestes from Argos and into the wilderness. He makes his way to the temple of Apollo and begs Apollo to drive the Furies away. Apollo had encouraged Orestes to kill Clytemnestra, so he bears some of the guilt for the murder. Apollo sends Orestes to the temple of Athena with Hermes as a guide.
The Furies track him down, and Athena steps in and declares that a trial is necessary. Apollo argues Orestes' case, and after the judges (including Athena) deliver a tie vote, Athena announces that Orestes is acquitted. She renames the Furies The Eumenides (The Good-spirited, or Kindly Ones), and extols the importance of reason in the development of laws. As in The Suppliants, the ideals of a democratic Athens are praised.
Prometheus Bound (date disputed)Prometheus Bound is attributed to Aeschylus by ancient authorities. Since the late 19th century, however, scholars have increasingly doubted this ascription, largely on stylistic grounds. Its production date is also in dispute, with theories ranging from the 480s BC to as late as the 410s.
The play consists mostly of static dialogue. The Titan Prometheus is bound to a rock throughout, which is his punishment from the Olympian Zeus for providing fire to humans. The god Hephaestus and the Titan Oceanus and the chorus of Oceanids all express sympathy for Prometheus' plight. Prometheus is met by Io, a fellow victim of Zeus' cruelty. He prophesies her future travels, revealing that one of her descendants will free Prometheus. The play closes with Zeus sending Prometheus into the abyss because Prometheus will not tell him of a potential marriage which could prove Zeus' downfall.Prometheus Bound seems to have been the first play in a trilogy, the Prometheia. In the second play, Prometheus Unbound, Heracles frees Prometheus from his chains and kills the eagle that had been sent daily to eat Prometheus' perpetually regenerating liver (then believed the source of feeling). We learn that Zeus has released the other Titans which he imprisoned at the conclusion of the Titanomachy, perhaps foreshadowing his eventual reconciliation with Prometheus.
In the trilogy's conclusion, Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, it seems that the Titan finally warns Zeus not to sleep with the sea nymph Thetis, for she is fated to beget a son greater than the father. Not wishing to be overthrown, Zeus marries Thetis off to the mortal Peleus. The product of that union is Achilles, Greek hero of the Trojan War. After reconciling with Prometheus, Zeus probably inaugurates a festival in his honor at Athens.
Lost plays
Of Aeschylus' other plays, only titles and assorted fragments are known. There are enough fragments (along with comments made by later authors and scholiasts) to produce rough synopses for some plays.
Myrmidons
This play was based on books 9 and 16 of the Iliad. Achilles sits in silent indignation over his humiliation at Agamemnon's hands for most of the play. Envoys from the Greek army attempt to reconcile Achilles to Agamemnon, but he yields only to his friend Patroclus, who then battles the Trojans in Achilles' armour. The bravery and death of Patroclus are reported in a messenger's speech, which is followed by mourning.
Nereids
This play was based on books 18 and 19 and 22 of the Iliad. It follows the Daughters of Nereus, the sea god, who lament Patroclus' death. A messenger tells how Achilles (perhaps reconciled to Agamemnon and the Greeks) slew Hector.
Phrygians, or Hector's Ransom
After a brief discussion with Hermes, Achilles sits in silent mourning over Patroclus. Hermes then brings in King Priam of Troy, who wins over Achilles and ransoms his son's body in a spectacular coup de théâtre. A scale is brought on stage and Hector's body is placed in one scale and gold in the other. The dynamic dancing of the chorus of Trojans when they enter with Priam is reported by Aristophanes.
Niobe
The children of Niobe, the heroine, have been slain by Apollo and Artemis because Niobe had gloated that she had more children than their mother, Leto. Niobe sits in silent mourning on stage during most of the play. In the Republic, Plato quotes the line "God plants a fault in mortals when he wills to destroy a house utterly."
These are the remaining 71 plays ascribed to Aeschylus which are known to us:AlcmeneAmymoneThe Archer-WomenThe Argivian WomenThe Argo, also titled The RowersAtalantaAthamasAttendants of the Bridal ChamberAward of the ArmsThe BacchaeThe BassaraeThe Bone-GatherersThe CabeiroiCallistoThe Carians, also titled EuropaCercyonChildren of HerculesCirceThe Cretan WomenCycnusThe DanaidsDaughters of HeliosDaughters of PhorcysThe DescendantsThe EdoniansThe EgyptiansThe EscortsGlaucus of PontusGlaucus of PotniaeHypsipyleIphigeniaIxionLaiusThe Lemnian WomenThe LionLycurgusMemnonThe Men of EleusisThe MessengersThe MyrmidonsThe MysiansNemeaThe Net-DraggersThe Nurses of DionysusOrethyiaPalamedesPenelopePentheusPerrhaibidesPhiloctetesPhineusThe Phrygian WomenPolydectesThe PriestessesPrometheus the Fire-BearerPrometheus the Fire-KindlerPrometheus UnboundProteusSemele, also titled The Water-BearersSisyphus the RunawaySisyphus the Stone-RollerThe Spectators, also titled Athletes of the Isthmian GamesThe SphinxThe Spirit-RaisersTelephusThe Thracian WomenWeighing of SoulsWomen of Aetna (two versions)Women of SalamisXantriaeThe YouthsInfluence
Influence on Greek drama and culture
The theatre was just beginning to evolve when Aeschylus started writing for it. Earlier playwrights such as Thespis had already expanded the cast to include an actor who was able to interact with the chorus. Aeschylus added a second actor, allowing for greater dramatic variety, while the chorus played a less important role. He is sometimes credited with introducing skenographia, or scene-decoration, though Aristotle gives this distinction to Sophocles. Aeschylus is also said to have made the costumes more elaborate and dramatic, and made his actors wear platform boots (cothurni) to make them more visible to the audience. According to a later account of Aeschylus' life, the chorus of Furies in the first performance of the Eumenides were so frightening when they entered that children fainted and patriarchs urinated and pregnant women went into labour.
Aeschylus wrote his plays in verse. No violence is performed onstage. The plays have a remoteness from daily life in Athens, relating stories about the gods, or being set, like The Persians, far away. Aeschylus' work has a strong moral and religious emphasis. The Oresteia trilogy concentrated on humans' position in the cosmos relative to the gods and divine law and divine punishment.
Aeschylus' popularity is evident in the praise that the comic playwright Aristophanes gives him in The Frogs, produced some 50 years after Aeschylus' death. Aeschylus appears as a character in the play and claims, at line 1022, that his Seven against Thebes "made everyone watching it to love being warlike". He claims, at lines 1026–7, that with The Persians he "taught the Athenians to desire always to defeat their enemies." Aeschylus goes on to say, at lines 1039ff., that his plays inspired the Athenians to be brave and virtuous.
Influence outside Greek culture
Aeschylus' works were influential beyond his own time. Hugh Lloyd-Jones draws attention to Richard Wagner's reverence of Aeschylus. Michael Ewans argues in his Wagner and Aeschylus. The Ring and the Oresteia (London: Faber. 1982) that the influence was so great as to merit a direct character by character comparison between Wagner's Ring and Aeschylus's Oresteia. But a critic of that book, while not denying that Wagner read and respected Aeschylus, has described the arguments as unreasonable and forced.
J.T. Sheppard argues in the second half of his Aeschylus and Sophocles: Their Work and Influence that Aeschylus and Sophocles have played a major part in the formation of dramatic literature from the Renaissance to the present, specifically in French and Elizabethan drama. He also claims that their influence went beyond just drama and applies to literature in general, citing Milton and the Romantics.
Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), a trilogy of three plays set in America after the Civil War, is modeled after the Oresteia. Before writing his acclaimed trilogy, O'Neill had been developing a play about Aeschylus, and he noted that Aeschylus "so changed the system of the tragic stage that he has more claim than anyone else to be regarded as the founder (Father) of Tragedy."
During his presidential campaign in 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy quoted the Edith Hamilton translation of Aeschylus on the night of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Kennedy was notified of King's murder before a campaign stop in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was warned not to attend the event due to fears of rioting from the mostly African-American crowd. Kennedy insisted on attending and delivered an impromptu speech that delivered news of King's death. Acknowledging the audience's emotions, Kennedy referred to his own grief at the murder of Martin Luther King and, quoting a passage from the play Agamemnon (in translation), said: "My favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote: 'Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.' What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness; but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black ... Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world." The quotation from Aeschylus was later inscribed on a memorial at the gravesite of Robert Kennedy following his own assassination.
Editions
Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Aeschyli Tragoediae. Editio maior, Berlin 1914.
Gilbert Murray, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae. Editio Altera, Oxford 1955.
Denys Page, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae, Oxford 1972.
Martin L. West, Aeschyli Tragoediae cum incerti poetae Prometheo, 2nd ed., Stuttgart/Leipzig 1998.
The first translation of the seven plays into English was by Robert Potter in 1779, using blank verse for the iambic trimeters and rhymed verse for the choruses, a convention adopted by most translators for the next century.
Anna Swanwick produced a verse translation in English of all seven surviving plays as The Dramas of Aeschylus in 1886 full text
Stefan Radt (ed.), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Vol. III: Aeschylus (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009) (Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 3).
Alan H. Sommerstein (ed.), Aeschylus, Volume II, Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-bearers. Eumenides. 146 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2009); Volume III, Fragments. 505 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2008).
See also
2876 Aeschylus, an asteroid named for him
Ancient Greek literature
Ancient Greek mythology
Ancient Greek religion
Battle of Marathon
Classical Greece
Dionysia
Music of ancient Greece
Theatre of ancient Greece
"Live by the sword, die by the sword"
Notes
Citations
References
Bierl, A. Die Orestie des Aischylos auf der modernen Bühne: Theoretische Konzeptionen und ihre szenische Realizierung (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1997)
Cairns, D., V. Liapis, Dionysalexandros: Essays on Aeschylus and His Fellow Tragedians in Honour of Alexander F. Garvie (Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales, 2006)
Deforge, B. Une vie avec Eschyle. Vérité des mythes (Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2010)
Lefkowitz, Mary (1981). The Lives of the Greek Poets. University of North Carolina Press
— (2002). Greek Drama and Dramatists. London: Routledge Press.
Summers, David (2007). Vision, Reflection, and Desire in Western Painting. University of North Carolina Press
Thomson, George (1973) Aeschylus and Athens: A Study in the Social Origin of Drama. London: Lawrence and Wishart (4th edition)
Vellacott, Philip, (1961). Prometheus Bound and Other Plays: Prometheus Bound, Seven Against Thebes, and The Persians. New York: Penguin Classics.
Zeitlin, Froma (1982). Under the sign of the shield: semiotics and Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2nd ed. 2009 (Greek studies: interdisciplinary approaches)
Zetlin, Froma (1996). "The dynamics of misogyny: myth and mythmaking in Aeschylus's Oresteia", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 87–119.
Zeitlin, Froma (1996). "The politics of Eros in the Danaid trilogy of Aeschylus", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 123–171.
External links
Selected Poems of Aeschylus
Aeschylus-related materials at the Perseus Digital Library
Complete syntax diagrams at Alpheios
Online English Translations of Aeschylus
Photo of a fragment of The Net-pullers
"Aeschylus, I: Persians" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, II: The Oresteia" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, III: Fragments" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
5th-century BC Greek people
5th-century BC writers
520s BC births
450s BC deaths
Year of birth uncertain
Year of death uncertain
Tragic poets
Ancient Greeks accused of sacrilege
Greek people of the Greco-Persian Wars
Battle of Marathon
Accidental deaths in Italy
Deaths due to animal attacks | false | [
"Enjoying Everyday Life is an American Christian television and radio series hosted by Joyce Meyer and airing in syndication on numerous broadcast and cable television networks and on radio stations. Enjoying Everyday Life broadcasts worldwide to a potential audience of 4.5 billion people.\n\nIn 1993, her husband Dave suggested that they start a television ministry. Initially airing on superstation WGN-TV in Chicago and Black Entertainment Television (BET), her program, now called Enjoying Everyday Life, is still on the air today (WGNA, KHCE).\n\nEpisodes\n40 Things the Word Does for You - Parts 1 and 2\nAbide in Christ - John 15 Bible Study\nAgreeing with God\nAre You Resisting the Devil? - Parts 1 and 2\nThe Basics of Life: Water, Food and Hope\nBattle Strategies to Renew Your Mind - Parts 1 and 2\nThe Beauty of Generosity - Parts 1 and 2\nThe Believer's Authority\nBlessed, Broken and Given - Parts 1 and 2\nBook of James Bible Study - Parts 1 through 8\nBreaking Free - Parts 1 and 2\nBreaking Free of Wilderness Mindsets - Parts 1 and 2\nCharacteristics of a Perfect Heart - Parts 1 and 2\nCheck Your Motives - Parts 1 and 2\nClassrooms of Hope\nDare to Believe - Parts 1 and 2\nDefeating Giants - Parts 1 through 4\nDeveloping the Character Habits\nDeveloping Discipline and Self-Control - Parts 1 and 2\nDo What You Know To Do\nDon't Be Led by Your Head - Parts 1 and 2\nEmbracing Every Season of your Life - Parts 1 and 2\nEphesians Bible Study - Parts 1 through 4\nEphesians 1 Bible Study\nEphesians 2 Bible Study\nEphesians 4 Bible Study - Parts 1 and 2\nEphesians 5 Bible Study\nEphesians 6 Bible Study - Parts 1 and 2\nEstablishing Boundaries - Parts 1 and 2\nEvery Day Trust and Belief in God's Word - Parts 1 and 2\nFacing the Storms of Life\nFaithfulness - Parts 1 and 2\nFinding Freedowm Through Facing Truth - Parts 1 and 2\nFive Ways to De-Stress - Parts 1 and 2\nGalatians Bible Study - Parts 1 through 4\nGet Your Hopes Up\nGod Our Healer\nGod, What Do You Want Me to Do? - Parts 1 and 2\nGodly Wisdom for Your Finances - Parts 1 and 2\nGrace for Difficult Situations - Parts 1 and 2\nGrief and Loneliness - Parts 1 through 4\nHas Your Get Up and Go Got Up and Gone? - Parts 1 and 2\nHaving a Conversation with God\nHaving a Patient Attitude\nHealing of the Soul - Parts 1 and 2\nThe Heart of Israel\nHelp for the Uptight - Parts 1 and 2\nHope for Life\nHow Faith Works - Parts 1 and 2\nHow to Overcome Disappointment and Discouragement - Parts 1 and 2\nHow to Stand Strong in Every Season of Life - Parts 1 and 2\nHow to Win Your Battles - Parts 1 and 2\nHow Your Mind Affects Your Outlook on Life - Parts 1 and 2\nHow Your Mind Affects the World Around You - Parts 1 and 2\nI Will Not Fear - Parts 1 and 2\nI'm Saved! Now What?\nImpulsive Behavior - Parts 1 and 2\nInterrupting Satan's Plan\nIt's Time to Flip Your Switch - Parts 1 and 2\nIt's Time to Push - Parts 1 and 2\nJudgment and Criticism - Parts 1 and 2\nKeys to Breakthrough - Parts 1 through 4\nThe Law of Gradual Growth - Parts 1 and 2\nLet God Fight Your Battles - Parts 1 and 2\nLetting Go of the Past\nA Life Worth Living - Parts 1 and 2\nLive2Love - Parts 1 and 2\nLiving without Frustration\nThe Lord's Prayer - Parts 1 and 2\nLove God, Yourself, and Others as You Live by Grace - Parts 1 and 2\nThe Mercy of God - Parts 1 and 2\nMaintaining an Unselfish Attitude\nMaking the Most of Your Time - Parts 1 and 2\nThe Mouth - Parts 1 and 2\nMy Favorite Scriptures - Parts 1 through 6\nThe Name of Jesus\nNine Attitudes That Keep You Happy - Parts 1 through 4\nOur Weaknesses\nOvercoming Depression\nNo Parking at Any Time - Parts 1 and 2\nParable of the Rich Young Fool - Parts 1 and 2\nThe Parable of the Unforgiving Servant - Parts 1 and 2\nThe Parables of Jesus: The Cost of Discipleship - Parts 1 and 2\nThe Parables of Jesus: The Good Samaritan - Parts 1 and 2\nThe Parables of Jesus: The Laborers in the Vineyard - Parts 1 and 2\nThe Parables of Jesus: The Lost Son and the Elder Brother - Parts 1 and 2\nPersonal Evangelism\nThe Power and Promise of God's Word - Parts 1 and 2\nThe Power of Serving Others\nThe Power of Words - Parts 1 through 3\nPrayer\nProviding Refuge in Central America\nPsalm 23 - Parts 1 through 4\nThe Pursuit of Joy and Enjoyment - Parts 1 and 2\nPut First Things First - Parts 1 and 2\nReceiving Emotional Healing - Parts 1 and 2\nReceiving from God\nRemoving Critical Attitudes\nThe Rewards of Serving God - Parts 1 and 2\nRight and Wrong Mindsets - Parts 1 through 4\nRomans 12 Bible Study\nSharing Christ, Loving People\nSimple, Practical Changes with Real Results - Parts 1 through 6\nSimplify Your Life - Parts 1 and 2\nSix Things to Say on Purpose - Parts 1 and 2\nThe Small Adjustment that Makes a Big Difference - Parts 1 and 2\nSoul Poisons and Antidotes - Parts 1 and 2\nA Spirit-Led Journey\nStay Seated in God's Supernatural Rest - Parts 1 and 2\nStaying Strong - Parts 1 and 2\nStress Management - Parts 1 and 2\nSuffering - Parts 1 and 2\nTaking Back What Belongs to You - Parts 1 and 2\nTaking Better Care of Yourself\nTaking Risks - Parts 1 and 2\nTests We Encounter on the Way to Promotion - Parts 1 and 2\nTwo Ways to Give - Parts 1 and 2\nUnderstanding and Overcoming Depression with Linda Mintle\nUnderstanding Your Emotions - Parts 1 and 2\nUnshakeable Trust - Parts 1 through 4\nThe Value of Experience - Parts 1 and 2\nVictims of Suicide\nVictory Demands Self Control - Parts 1 and 2\nWatch Your Mouth - Parts 1 and 2\nWays the Devil Deceives Us - Parts 1 through 4\nWays to Resist the Devil - Parts 1 and 2\nWays to Simplify Your Life\nWhat about Me?\nWhat is Faith and How Does It Work? - Parts 1 through 4\nWhat is Love?\nWho is God? - Parts 1 through 3\nWhy is It Hard to Finish What You Start? - Parts 1 and 2\nYou Belong to God - Parts 1 and 2\nYou've Got What It Takes - Parts 1 and 2\nYour Words Affect Your Future - Parts 1 and 2\nYour Spiritual Health - Parts 1 and 2\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nJoyce Meyer Ministries Enjoying Everyday Life YouTube Channel\n\n1997 American television series debuts\n2000s American television series\n2010s American television series\nFirst-run syndicated television programs in the United States\nTrinity Broadcasting Network original programming",
"Andrew Dornenburg (born December 18, 1958, in Concord, California) along with his wife Karen A. Page, is a James Beard Award-winning author of a number of culinary-themed books. Among their books are Becoming a Chef (1995; 2003, 2nd ed.), Culinary Artistry (1996), Dining Out (1998), Chef's Night Out (2001), The New American Chef (2003), What to Drink With What You Eat (2006), The Flavor Bible (2008), and The Food Lover's Guide to Wine (2011).\n\nAndrew Dornenburg married Karen Page in 1990; the couple lives in New York City.\n\nAwards\nReceived Completion Medal for the Montreal International Marathon, 1990.\nReceived the James Beard Foundation Book Award for Best Writing on Food for Becoming a Chef, 1996.\nReceived the Gourmand World Cookbook Award for Dining Out, 1998.\nReceived Completion Medal for the New York City Marathon, 1998.\nNamed Finalist for the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Book Award for Dining Out, 1999.\nNamed Finalist for the James Beard Book Award for Dining Out, 1999.\nReceived Completion Medal for the New York City Marathon, 1999.\nReceived Completion Medal for the Chicago Marathon (3:23:13), 2002.\nNamed Finalist for the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Book Award for The New American Chef, 2004.\nNamed honorary Culinary Ambassador at The Culinary Institute of America, 2006.\nReceived the Georges Duboeuf \"Wine Book of the Year\" Award for What to Drink with What You Eat, 2006.\nReceived the Gourmand World Cookbook Award for What to Drink with What You Eat, 2006.\nReceived the International Association of Culinary Professionals \"Best Book on Wine, Beer or Spirits\" Award for What to Drink with What You Eat, 2007.\nReceived the International Association of Culinary Professionals \"Book of the Year\" Award for What to Drink with What You Eat, 2007.\nReceived the James Beard Book Award for The Flavor Bible, 2009.\nReceived the Nautilus Book Award for The Flavor Bible, 2010.\nThe Flavor Bible named one of \"The 10 Best Cookbooks in the World of the last 100 years\" by Alex Munipov in Forbes, April 2011.\nReceived the 2011 Gourmand Wine Book Award - USA for The Food Lover's Guide to Wine, December 2011.\nThe Food Lover's Guide to Wine named \"The #1 Wine Book of the Year\" as chosen by 195 \"best of\" lists (including those of the Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, LA Weekly, Minneapolis Star Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Vancouver Sun, and Wall Street Journal) compiled by the website Eat Your Books, December 2011.\nThe Food Lover's Guide to Wine named \"Best in the World\" in its category at the 2011 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in Paris, March 2012.\nThe Food Lover's Guide to Wine one of three books named a Finalist for the 2012 IACP Book Award in the category of \"Wine, Beer or Spirits,\" 2012.\nThe Food Lover's Guide to Wine one of three books named a Finalist for the 2012 James Beard Book Award in the category of \"Reference & Scholarship,\" 2012.\n\nReferences\n The New York Times wedding announcement \"Karen Page Wed in Boston\" (August 26, 1990)\n The New York Times Business section article \"Can't Stand the Heat? Get in the Kitchen and Learn How to Manage,\" on Becoming a Chef as \"A Chef's Guide for Executives\" (August 11, 1996)\n U.S. News & World Report article \"Secrets of the Restaurant Critics,\" on Dining Out (November 29, 1998)\n FabulousFoods.com's \"Top 10 Cookbooks of 2001,\" which lists Chef's Night Out as #1 (December 2001)\n The Washington Post citation of Dining Out as \"the single best book on the field\" (June 11, 2003)\n Restaurants & Institutions magazine article \"CEOs in White,\" on Becoming a Chef's status as a \"cult classic\" (March 1, 2004)\n Publishers Weekly'''s \"highly recommended\" review of What to Drink with What You Eat'' (June 19, 2006)\n MegNut.com article on \"The Meaning of Celebrity\" by Michael Ruhlman, which cites Becoming a Chef (July 19, 2006)\n Chicago magazine article \"The Innovators,\" in which chef Grant Achatz cites Culinary Artistry as his \"most-used cookbook\" (November 2006)\n Copley News Service wine columnist Robert Whitley on What to Drink with What You Eat (December 16, 2006)\n The Los Angeles Times \"Hot List\" of bestselling books on food and wine, which mentions What to Drink with What You Eat (January 24, 2007)\n The New York Post \"Page Six\" article \"Burger Benefits,\" on McDonald's \"10 Most Famous Former Employees,\" who include Shania Twain, Sharon Stone, Jay Leno, Jeff Bezos, Pink, and Andrew Dornenburg (February 15, 2007)\n The Toronto Star article \"Cookbook Store Cookin' After 25 Years,\" which named Culinary Artistry one of the store's \"Top 10 must-have\" cookbook picks (June 18, 2008)\n Newsweek \"Book Pick of the Week: The Flavor Bible\" (September 9, 2008)\n Publishers Weekly starred review of The Flavor Bible (September 15, 2008)\n Chicago Sun-Times article \"Savor the Flavor,\" on The Flavor Bible (October 1, 2008)\n People magazine article recommending The Flavor Bible as one of the year's best cookbooks (Holidays 2008)\n KCRW's Ellen Rose on her list of 19 \"must-have food books,\" which includes The Flavor Bible (December 3, 2008)\n \"Good Morning America\" on \"The Best Cookbooks of 2008,\" which mentions The Flavor Bible (December 23, 2008)\n Publishers Weekly article \"Cooking the Books with Ellen Clark,\" on ''The Flavor Bible'''s surprisingly strong holiday sales (January 20, 2009)\n Chicago Tribune article \"Flavor First,\" on The Flavor Bible (January 28, 2009)\n Runner's World article \"The Athlete's Palate: Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page\" (April 2009)\n Oprah Winfrey's O magazine article \"The Creative Cook,\" on The Flavor Bible (April 2009)\n 2009 James Beard Foundation Award winners (May 4, 2009)\n\nExternal links\nOfficial website\nBiography and timeline\n\nAmerican food writers\nAmerican male bloggers\nAmerican bloggers\nLiving people\n1958 births\nJames Beard Foundation Award winners\n21st-century American non-fiction writers"
] |
[
"Aeschylus",
"The Suppliants",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt.",
"What happened when they fled?",
"They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection,",
"Did he protect them?",
"Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision, a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king.",
"Did they make it out alive in the story?",
"The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection, and they are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests.",
"Are there more people in the story?",
"Aegyptus,",
"What is his part in the story?",
"Danaus rules Argos. He negotiates a peace settlement with Aegyptus, as a condition of which, his fifty daughters will marry the fifty sons of Aegyptus.",
"Was he a good guy in the story?",
"I don't know.",
"What parts of this article most interested you?",
"forty-nine of the Danaids killed their husbands as ordered; Hypermnestra, however, loved her husband Lynceus, and thus spared his life and helped him to escape."
] | C_1974ee6d0d4f446ea4c1aad41c763918_0 | Why were they ordered to kill their husbands? | 9 | Why were the Danaids ordered to kill their husbands? | Aeschylus | Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants in 463 BC (Hiketides), which pays tribute to the democratic undercurrents running through Athens in advance of the establishment of a democratic government in 461. In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision, a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king. The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection, and they are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests. The 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3 confirmed a long-assumed (because of The Suppliants' cliffhanger ending) Danaid trilogy, whose constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants, The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. During the course of the war, King Pelasgus has been killed, and Danaus rules Argos. He negotiates a peace settlement with Aegyptus, as a condition of which, his fifty daughters will marry the fifty sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle predicting that one of his sons-in-law would kill him; he therefore orders the Danaids to murder their husbands on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding. In short order, it is revealed that forty-nine of the Danaids killed their husbands as ordered; Hypermnestra, however, loved her husband Lynceus, and thus spared his life and helped him to escape. Angered by his daughter's disobedience, Danaus orders her imprisonment and, possibly, her execution. In the trilogy's climax and denouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus, and kills him (thus fulfilling the oracle). He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other forty-nine Danaids are absolved of their murderous crime, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids. CANNOTANSWER | Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle predicting that one of his sons-in-law would kill him; | Aeschylus (, ; ; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Formerly, characters interacted only with the chorus.
Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived. There is a long-standing debate regarding the authorship of one of them, Prometheus Bound, with some scholars arguing that it may be the work of his son Euphorion. Fragments from other plays have survived in quotations, and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyri. These fragments often give further insights into Aeschylus' work. He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy. His Oresteia is the only extant ancient example. At least one of his plays was influenced by the Persians' second invasion of Greece (480–479 BC). This work, The Persians, is one of very few classical Greek tragedies concerned with contemporary events, and the only one extant. The significance of the war with Persia was so great to Aeschylus and the Greeks that his epitaph commemorates his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon while making no mention of his success as a playwright.
Life
Aeschylus was born in c. 525 BC in Eleusis, a small town about 27 km northwest of Athens, in the fertile valleys of western Attica. Some scholars argue that his date of birth may be based on counting back forty years from his first victory in the Great Dionysia. His family was wealthy and well established. His father, Euphorion, was a member of the Eupatridae, the ancient nobility of Attica. But this might be a fiction invented by the ancients to account for the grandeur of Aeschylus' plays.
As a youth, Aeschylus worked at a vineyard until, according to the 2nd-century AD geographer Pausanias, the god Dionysus visited him in his sleep and commanded him to turn his attention to the nascent art of tragedy. As soon as he woke, he began to write a tragedy, and his first performance took place in 499 BC, when he was 26 years old. He won his first victory at the City Dionysia in 484 BC.
In 510 BC, when Aeschylus was 15 years old, Cleomenes I expelled the sons of Peisistratus from Athens, and Cleisthenes came to power. Cleisthenes' reforms included a system of registration that emphasized the importance of the deme over family tradition. In the last decade of the 6th century, Aeschylus and his family were living in the deme of Eleusis.
The Persian Wars played a large role in Aeschylus' life and career. In 490 BC, he and his brother Cynegeirus fought to defend Athens against the invading army of Darius I of Persia at the Battle of Marathon. The Athenians emerged triumphant, and the victory was celebrated across the city-states of Greece. Cynegeirus was killed while trying to prevent a Persian ship retreating from the shore, for which his countrymen extolled him as a hero.
In 480 BC, Aeschylus was called into military service again, together with his younger brother Ameinias, against Xerxes I's invading forces at the Battle of Salamis. Aeschylus also fought at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. Ion of Chios was a witness for Aeschylus' war record and his contribution in Salamis. Salamis holds a prominent place in The Persians, his oldest surviving play, which was performed in 472 BC and won first prize at the Dionysia.
Aeschylus was one of many Greeks who were initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, an ancient cult of Demeter based in his home town of Eleusis. Initiates gained secret knowledge through these rites, likely concerning the afterlife. Firm details of specific rites are sparse, as members were sworn under the penalty of death not to reveal anything about the Mysteries to non-initiates. Nevertheless, according to Aristotle, Aeschylus was accused of asebeia for revealing some of the cult's secrets on stage.
Other sources claim that an angry mob tried to kill Aeschylus on the spot but he fled the scene. Heracleides of Pontus asserts that the audience tried to stone Aeschylus. Aeschylus took refuge at the altar in the orchestra of the Theater of Dionysus. He pleaded ignorance at his trial. He was acquitted, with the jury sympathetic to the military service of him and his brothers during the Persian Wars. According to the 2nd-century AD author Aelian, Aeschylus' younger brother Ameinias helped to acquit Aeschylus by showing the jury the stump of the hand he had lost at Salamis, where he was voted bravest warrior. The truth is that the award for bravery at Salamis went not to Aeschylus' brother but to Ameinias of Pallene.
Aeschylus travelled to Sicily once or twice in the 470s BC, having been invited by Hiero I, tyrant of Syracuse, a major Greek city on the eastern side of the island. He produced The Women of Aetna during one of these trips (in honor of the city founded by Hieron), and restaged his Persians. By 473 BC, after the death of Phrynichus, one of his chief rivals, Aeschylus was the yearly favorite in the Dionysia, winning first prize in nearly every competition. In 472 BC, Aeschylus staged the production that included the Persians, with Pericles serving as choregos.
Personal life
Aeschylus married and had two sons, Euphorion and Euaeon, both of whom became tragic poets. Euphorion won first prize in 431 BC in competition against both Sophocles and Euripides. A nephew of Aeschylus, Philocles (his sister's son), was also a tragic poet, and won first prize in the competition against Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Aeschylus had at least two brothers, Cynegeirus and Ameinias.
Death
In 458 BC, Aeschylus returned to Sicily for the last time, visiting the city of Gela, where he died in 456 or 455 BC. Valerius Maximus wrote that he was killed outside the city by a tortoise dropped by an eagle (possibly a lammergeier or Cinereous vulture, which do open tortoises for eating by dropping them on hard objects) which had mistaken his head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell. Pliny, in his Naturalis Historiæ, adds that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avoid a prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object, but this story may be legendary and due to a misunderstanding of the iconography on Aeschylus's tomb. Aeschylus' work was so respected by the Athenians that after his death his tragedies were the only ones allowed to be restaged in subsequent competitions. His sons Euphorion and Euæon and his nephew Philocles also became playwrights.
The inscription on Aeschylus' gravestone makes no mention of his theatrical renown, commemorating only his military achievements:
According to Castoriadis, the inscription on his grave signifies the primary importance of "belonging to the City" (polis), of the solidarity that existed within the collective body of citizen-soldiers.
Works
The seeds of Greek drama were sowed in religious festivals for the gods, chiefly Dionysus, the god of wine. During Aeschylus' lifetime, dramatic competitions became part of the City Dionysia, held in spring. The festival opened with a procession which was followed by a competition of boys singing dithyrambs, and all culminated in a pair of dramatic competitions. The first competition Aeschylus would have participated in involved three playwrights each presenting three tragedies and one satyr play. Such format is called a continuous tragic tetralogy. It allowed Aeschylus to explore the human and theological and cosmic dimensions of a mythic sequence, developing it in successive phases. A second competition involving five comedic playwrights followed, and the winners of both competitions were chosen by a panel of judges.
Aeschylus entered many of these competitions, and various ancient sources attribute between seventy and ninety plays to him. Only seven tragedies attributed to him have survived intact: The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliants, the trilogy known as The Oresteia (the three tragedies Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides), and Prometheus Bound (whose authorship is disputed). With the exception of this last play – the success of which is uncertain – all of Aeschylus's extant tragedies are known to have won first prize at the City Dionysia.
The Alexandrian Life of Aeschylus claims that he won the first prize at the City Dionysia thirteen times. This compares favorably with Sophocles' reported eighteen victories (with a substantially larger catalogue, an estimated 120 plays), and dwarfs the five victories of Euripides, who is thought to have written roughly 90 plays.
Trilogies
One hallmark of Aeschylean dramaturgy appears to have been his tendency to write connected trilogies in which each play serves as a chapter in a continuous dramatic narrative. The Oresteia is the only extant example of this type of connected trilogy, but there is evidence that Aeschylus often wrote such trilogies. The satyr plays that followed his tragic trilogies also drew from myth.
The satyr play Proteus, which followed the Oresteia, treated the story of Menelaus' detour in Egypt on his way home from the Trojan War. It is assumed, based on the evidence provided by a catalogue of Aeschylean play titles, scholia, and play fragments recorded by later authors, that three other extant plays of his were components of connected trilogies: Seven Against Thebes was the final play in an Oedipus trilogy, and The Suppliants and Prometheus Bound were each the first play in a Danaid trilogy and Prometheus trilogy, respectively. Scholars have also suggested several completely lost trilogies, based on known play titles. A number of these treated myths about the Trojan War. One, collectively called the Achilleis, comprised Myrmidons, Nereids and Phrygians (alternately, The Ransoming of Hector).
Another trilogy apparently recounted the entrance of the Trojan ally Memnon into the war, and his death at the hands of Achilles (Memnon and The Weighing of Souls being two components of the trilogy). The Award of the Arms, The Phrygian Women, and The Salaminian Women suggest a trilogy about the madness and subsequent suicide of the Greek hero Ajax. Aeschylus seems to have written about Odysseus' return to Ithaca after the war (including his killing of his wife Penelope's suitors and its consequences) in a trilogy consisting of The Soul-raisers, Penelope, and The Bone-gatherers. Other suggested trilogies touched on the myth of Jason and the Argonauts (Argô, Lemnian Women, Hypsipylê), the life of Perseus (The Net-draggers, Polydektês, Phorkides), the birth and exploits of Dionysus (Semele, Bacchae, Pentheus), and the aftermath of the war portrayed in Seven Against Thebes (Eleusinians, Argives (or Argive Women), Sons of the Seven).
Surviving plays
The Persians (472 BC)
The Persians (Persai) is the earliest of Aeschylus' extant plays. It was performed in 472 BC. It was based on Aeschylus' own experiences, specifically the Battle of Salamis. It is unique among surviving Greek tragedies in that it describes a recent historical event. The Persians focuses on the popular Greek theme of hubris and blames Persia's loss on the pride of its king.
It opens with the arrival of a messenger in Susa, the Persian capital, bearing news of the catastrophic Persian defeat at Salamis, to Atossa, the mother of the Persian King Xerxes. Atossa then travels to the tomb of Darius, her husband, where his ghost appears, to explain the cause of the defeat. It is, he says, the result of Xerxes' hubris in building a bridge across the Hellespont, an action which angered the gods. Xerxes appears at the end of the play, not realizing the cause of his defeat, and the play closes to lamentations by Xerxes and the chorus.
Seven Against Thebes (467 BC)
Seven against Thebes (Hepta epi Thebas) was performed in 467 BC. It has the contrasting theme of the interference of the gods in human affairs. Another theme, with which Aeschylus' would continually involve himself, makes its first known appearance in this play, namely that the polis was a key development of human civilization.
The play tells the story of Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of the shamed king of Thebes, Oedipus. Eteocles and Polynices agree to share and alternate the throne of the city. After the first year, Eteocles refuses to step down. Polynices therefore undertakes war. The pair kill each other in single combat, and the original ending of the play consisted of lamentations for the dead brothers. But a new ending was added to the play some fifty years later: Antigone and Ismene mourn their dead brothers, a messenger enters announcing an edict prohibiting the burial of Polynices, and Antigone declares her intention to defy this edict. The play was the third in a connected Oedipus trilogy. The first two plays were Laius and Oedipus. The concluding satyr play was The Sphinx.
The Suppliants (463 BC)
Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants (Hiketides) in 463 BC. The play gives tribute to the democratic undercurrents which were running through Athens and preceding the establishment of a democratic government in 461. The Danaids (50 daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos) flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision (a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king). The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection and are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests.
A Danaid trilogy had long been assumed because of The Suppliants''' cliffhanger ending. This was confirmed by the 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3. The constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants and The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. King Pelasgus was killed during the war, and Danaus rules Argos. Danaus negotiates a settlement with Aegyptus, a condition of which requires his 50 daughters to marry the 50 sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle which predicts that one of his sons-in-law would kill him. He orders the Danaids to murder their husbands therefore on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding.
It is revealed that 49 of the 50 Danaids killed their husbands. Hypermnestra did not kill her husband, Lynceus, and helped him escape. Danaus is angered by his daughter's disobedience and orders her imprisonment and possibly execution. In the trilogy's climax and dénouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus and kills him, thus fulfilling the oracle. He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other 49 Danaids are absolved of their murders, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids.
The Oresteia (458 BC)
Besides a few missing lines, the Oresteia of 458 BC is the only complete trilogy of Greek plays by any playwright still extant (of Proteus, the satyr play which followed, only fragments are known). Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers (Choephoroi) and The Eumenides together tell the violent story of the family of Agamemnon, king of Argos.
Agamemnon
Aeschylus begins in Greece, describing the return of King Agamemnon from his victory in the Trojan War, from the perspective of the townspeople (the Chorus) and his wife, Clytemnestra. Dark foreshadowings build to the death of the king at the hands of his wife, who was angry that their daughter Iphigenia was killed so that the gods would restore the winds and allow the Greek fleet to sail to Troy. Clytemnestra was also unhappy that Agamemnon kept the Trojan prophetess Cassandra as his concubine. Cassandra foretells the murder of Agamemnon and of herself to the assembled townsfolk, who are horrified. She then enters the palace knowing that she cannot avoid her fate. The ending of the play includes a prediction of the return of Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who will seek to avenge his father.
The Libation BearersThe Libation Bearers opens with Orestes' arrival at Agamemnon's tomb, from exile in Phocis. Electra meets Orestes there. They plan revenge against Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus. Clytemnestra's account of a nightmare in which she gives birth to a snake is recounted by the chorus. This leads her to order her daughter, Electra, to pour libations on Agamemnon's tomb (with the assistance of libation bearers) in hope of making amends. Orestes enters the palace pretending to bear news of his own death. Clytemnestra calls in Aegisthus to learn the news. Orestes kills them both. Orestes is then beset by the Furies, who avenge the murders of kin in Greek mythology.
The Eumenides
The third play addresses the question of Orestes' guilt. The Furies drive Orestes from Argos and into the wilderness. He makes his way to the temple of Apollo and begs Apollo to drive the Furies away. Apollo had encouraged Orestes to kill Clytemnestra, so he bears some of the guilt for the murder. Apollo sends Orestes to the temple of Athena with Hermes as a guide.
The Furies track him down, and Athena steps in and declares that a trial is necessary. Apollo argues Orestes' case, and after the judges (including Athena) deliver a tie vote, Athena announces that Orestes is acquitted. She renames the Furies The Eumenides (The Good-spirited, or Kindly Ones), and extols the importance of reason in the development of laws. As in The Suppliants, the ideals of a democratic Athens are praised.
Prometheus Bound (date disputed)Prometheus Bound is attributed to Aeschylus by ancient authorities. Since the late 19th century, however, scholars have increasingly doubted this ascription, largely on stylistic grounds. Its production date is also in dispute, with theories ranging from the 480s BC to as late as the 410s.
The play consists mostly of static dialogue. The Titan Prometheus is bound to a rock throughout, which is his punishment from the Olympian Zeus for providing fire to humans. The god Hephaestus and the Titan Oceanus and the chorus of Oceanids all express sympathy for Prometheus' plight. Prometheus is met by Io, a fellow victim of Zeus' cruelty. He prophesies her future travels, revealing that one of her descendants will free Prometheus. The play closes with Zeus sending Prometheus into the abyss because Prometheus will not tell him of a potential marriage which could prove Zeus' downfall.Prometheus Bound seems to have been the first play in a trilogy, the Prometheia. In the second play, Prometheus Unbound, Heracles frees Prometheus from his chains and kills the eagle that had been sent daily to eat Prometheus' perpetually regenerating liver (then believed the source of feeling). We learn that Zeus has released the other Titans which he imprisoned at the conclusion of the Titanomachy, perhaps foreshadowing his eventual reconciliation with Prometheus.
In the trilogy's conclusion, Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, it seems that the Titan finally warns Zeus not to sleep with the sea nymph Thetis, for she is fated to beget a son greater than the father. Not wishing to be overthrown, Zeus marries Thetis off to the mortal Peleus. The product of that union is Achilles, Greek hero of the Trojan War. After reconciling with Prometheus, Zeus probably inaugurates a festival in his honor at Athens.
Lost plays
Of Aeschylus' other plays, only titles and assorted fragments are known. There are enough fragments (along with comments made by later authors and scholiasts) to produce rough synopses for some plays.
Myrmidons
This play was based on books 9 and 16 of the Iliad. Achilles sits in silent indignation over his humiliation at Agamemnon's hands for most of the play. Envoys from the Greek army attempt to reconcile Achilles to Agamemnon, but he yields only to his friend Patroclus, who then battles the Trojans in Achilles' armour. The bravery and death of Patroclus are reported in a messenger's speech, which is followed by mourning.
Nereids
This play was based on books 18 and 19 and 22 of the Iliad. It follows the Daughters of Nereus, the sea god, who lament Patroclus' death. A messenger tells how Achilles (perhaps reconciled to Agamemnon and the Greeks) slew Hector.
Phrygians, or Hector's Ransom
After a brief discussion with Hermes, Achilles sits in silent mourning over Patroclus. Hermes then brings in King Priam of Troy, who wins over Achilles and ransoms his son's body in a spectacular coup de théâtre. A scale is brought on stage and Hector's body is placed in one scale and gold in the other. The dynamic dancing of the chorus of Trojans when they enter with Priam is reported by Aristophanes.
Niobe
The children of Niobe, the heroine, have been slain by Apollo and Artemis because Niobe had gloated that she had more children than their mother, Leto. Niobe sits in silent mourning on stage during most of the play. In the Republic, Plato quotes the line "God plants a fault in mortals when he wills to destroy a house utterly."
These are the remaining 71 plays ascribed to Aeschylus which are known to us:AlcmeneAmymoneThe Archer-WomenThe Argivian WomenThe Argo, also titled The RowersAtalantaAthamasAttendants of the Bridal ChamberAward of the ArmsThe BacchaeThe BassaraeThe Bone-GatherersThe CabeiroiCallistoThe Carians, also titled EuropaCercyonChildren of HerculesCirceThe Cretan WomenCycnusThe DanaidsDaughters of HeliosDaughters of PhorcysThe DescendantsThe EdoniansThe EgyptiansThe EscortsGlaucus of PontusGlaucus of PotniaeHypsipyleIphigeniaIxionLaiusThe Lemnian WomenThe LionLycurgusMemnonThe Men of EleusisThe MessengersThe MyrmidonsThe MysiansNemeaThe Net-DraggersThe Nurses of DionysusOrethyiaPalamedesPenelopePentheusPerrhaibidesPhiloctetesPhineusThe Phrygian WomenPolydectesThe PriestessesPrometheus the Fire-BearerPrometheus the Fire-KindlerPrometheus UnboundProteusSemele, also titled The Water-BearersSisyphus the RunawaySisyphus the Stone-RollerThe Spectators, also titled Athletes of the Isthmian GamesThe SphinxThe Spirit-RaisersTelephusThe Thracian WomenWeighing of SoulsWomen of Aetna (two versions)Women of SalamisXantriaeThe YouthsInfluence
Influence on Greek drama and culture
The theatre was just beginning to evolve when Aeschylus started writing for it. Earlier playwrights such as Thespis had already expanded the cast to include an actor who was able to interact with the chorus. Aeschylus added a second actor, allowing for greater dramatic variety, while the chorus played a less important role. He is sometimes credited with introducing skenographia, or scene-decoration, though Aristotle gives this distinction to Sophocles. Aeschylus is also said to have made the costumes more elaborate and dramatic, and made his actors wear platform boots (cothurni) to make them more visible to the audience. According to a later account of Aeschylus' life, the chorus of Furies in the first performance of the Eumenides were so frightening when they entered that children fainted and patriarchs urinated and pregnant women went into labour.
Aeschylus wrote his plays in verse. No violence is performed onstage. The plays have a remoteness from daily life in Athens, relating stories about the gods, or being set, like The Persians, far away. Aeschylus' work has a strong moral and religious emphasis. The Oresteia trilogy concentrated on humans' position in the cosmos relative to the gods and divine law and divine punishment.
Aeschylus' popularity is evident in the praise that the comic playwright Aristophanes gives him in The Frogs, produced some 50 years after Aeschylus' death. Aeschylus appears as a character in the play and claims, at line 1022, that his Seven against Thebes "made everyone watching it to love being warlike". He claims, at lines 1026–7, that with The Persians he "taught the Athenians to desire always to defeat their enemies." Aeschylus goes on to say, at lines 1039ff., that his plays inspired the Athenians to be brave and virtuous.
Influence outside Greek culture
Aeschylus' works were influential beyond his own time. Hugh Lloyd-Jones draws attention to Richard Wagner's reverence of Aeschylus. Michael Ewans argues in his Wagner and Aeschylus. The Ring and the Oresteia (London: Faber. 1982) that the influence was so great as to merit a direct character by character comparison between Wagner's Ring and Aeschylus's Oresteia. But a critic of that book, while not denying that Wagner read and respected Aeschylus, has described the arguments as unreasonable and forced.
J.T. Sheppard argues in the second half of his Aeschylus and Sophocles: Their Work and Influence that Aeschylus and Sophocles have played a major part in the formation of dramatic literature from the Renaissance to the present, specifically in French and Elizabethan drama. He also claims that their influence went beyond just drama and applies to literature in general, citing Milton and the Romantics.
Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), a trilogy of three plays set in America after the Civil War, is modeled after the Oresteia. Before writing his acclaimed trilogy, O'Neill had been developing a play about Aeschylus, and he noted that Aeschylus "so changed the system of the tragic stage that he has more claim than anyone else to be regarded as the founder (Father) of Tragedy."
During his presidential campaign in 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy quoted the Edith Hamilton translation of Aeschylus on the night of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Kennedy was notified of King's murder before a campaign stop in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was warned not to attend the event due to fears of rioting from the mostly African-American crowd. Kennedy insisted on attending and delivered an impromptu speech that delivered news of King's death. Acknowledging the audience's emotions, Kennedy referred to his own grief at the murder of Martin Luther King and, quoting a passage from the play Agamemnon (in translation), said: "My favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote: 'Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.' What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness; but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black ... Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world." The quotation from Aeschylus was later inscribed on a memorial at the gravesite of Robert Kennedy following his own assassination.
Editions
Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Aeschyli Tragoediae. Editio maior, Berlin 1914.
Gilbert Murray, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae. Editio Altera, Oxford 1955.
Denys Page, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae, Oxford 1972.
Martin L. West, Aeschyli Tragoediae cum incerti poetae Prometheo, 2nd ed., Stuttgart/Leipzig 1998.
The first translation of the seven plays into English was by Robert Potter in 1779, using blank verse for the iambic trimeters and rhymed verse for the choruses, a convention adopted by most translators for the next century.
Anna Swanwick produced a verse translation in English of all seven surviving plays as The Dramas of Aeschylus in 1886 full text
Stefan Radt (ed.), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Vol. III: Aeschylus (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009) (Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 3).
Alan H. Sommerstein (ed.), Aeschylus, Volume II, Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-bearers. Eumenides. 146 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2009); Volume III, Fragments. 505 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2008).
See also
2876 Aeschylus, an asteroid named for him
Ancient Greek literature
Ancient Greek mythology
Ancient Greek religion
Battle of Marathon
Classical Greece
Dionysia
Music of ancient Greece
Theatre of ancient Greece
"Live by the sword, die by the sword"
Notes
Citations
References
Bierl, A. Die Orestie des Aischylos auf der modernen Bühne: Theoretische Konzeptionen und ihre szenische Realizierung (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1997)
Cairns, D., V. Liapis, Dionysalexandros: Essays on Aeschylus and His Fellow Tragedians in Honour of Alexander F. Garvie (Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales, 2006)
Deforge, B. Une vie avec Eschyle. Vérité des mythes (Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2010)
Lefkowitz, Mary (1981). The Lives of the Greek Poets. University of North Carolina Press
— (2002). Greek Drama and Dramatists. London: Routledge Press.
Summers, David (2007). Vision, Reflection, and Desire in Western Painting. University of North Carolina Press
Thomson, George (1973) Aeschylus and Athens: A Study in the Social Origin of Drama. London: Lawrence and Wishart (4th edition)
Vellacott, Philip, (1961). Prometheus Bound and Other Plays: Prometheus Bound, Seven Against Thebes, and The Persians. New York: Penguin Classics.
Zeitlin, Froma (1982). Under the sign of the shield: semiotics and Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2nd ed. 2009 (Greek studies: interdisciplinary approaches)
Zetlin, Froma (1996). "The dynamics of misogyny: myth and mythmaking in Aeschylus's Oresteia", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 87–119.
Zeitlin, Froma (1996). "The politics of Eros in the Danaid trilogy of Aeschylus", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 123–171.
External links
Selected Poems of Aeschylus
Aeschylus-related materials at the Perseus Digital Library
Complete syntax diagrams at Alpheios
Online English Translations of Aeschylus
Photo of a fragment of The Net-pullers
"Aeschylus, I: Persians" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, II: The Oresteia" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, III: Fragments" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
5th-century BC Greek people
5th-century BC writers
520s BC births
450s BC deaths
Year of birth uncertain
Year of death uncertain
Tragic poets
Ancient Greeks accused of sacrilege
Greek people of the Greco-Persian Wars
Battle of Marathon
Accidental deaths in Italy
Deaths due to animal attacks | false | [
"Guardianship in Francoist Spain (1939-1975) and the democratic transition (1975-1985) was a system which provided husbands and fathers with tremendous legal control over women. Male members of the family were able to transfer legal control of their daughters over to the state. One of the developments after the Civil War was the restoration of the Civil Code of 1889 by the Franco regime. This made women into virtual slaves to their husbands and fathers with men controlling not only the custody of their children, but their bank accounts, contracts, nationality and residency. Women did not reach the age of majority until 21, 25 if they were unmarried or not in a convent. Husbands and fathers could kill their wives and daughters for committing adultery or having sex outside marriage. Minor reforms were made in the 1950s and 1960s, largely as a result of economic pressures. \n\nReforms around eliminating guardianship accelerated in the 1970s, before the death of Franco. They included the relinguishment of controls over nationality, children's custody and inheritance, while men no longer automatically became the default head of household. Reforms accelerated in the democratic transition period. The 1978 Spanish constitution gave men and women equality under the law, effectively ending the Franco regime's system of guardianship for single women. For married women, this system would remain in place after the end of the transition period.\n\nFrancoist period (1939 - 1975)\n\n1930s Francoist Spain \nThe Civil Code of 1889 was restored by the Franco regime. This code saw the re-introduction of guardianship and subordination of women into civil law. It also saw the age of majority changed to 23, or 25 if they had not left their parents' home to marry or join a convent. Fuero del Trabajo of 1938 was the law which prevented married women from working in workshops or factories. The goal was to make women free to tend to their husband's needs inside their household.\n\nThe rights of a husband over his wife were so strict that they amounted to a kind of slavery. The laws treated women as if they were permanent minors, in the custody of their husbands. It treated them as if they were insane or demented. Under the law, women were required to have the same nationality and residency as their husbands. Women had to submit to the authority of their husbands. Women did not have legal custody of their children as full custody belonged only to husbands. The only exception was if a woman was widowed, and remarrying would mean custody would be transferred to her new husband. Women could not sign contracts without the consent of their husbands. They could not open a bank account without their husband's consent. They had to leave work once they married. Women's marital assets were considered paraphernalia, which they could not manage or sell without their husband's consent. Women could not accept inheritances.\n\n1940s \nDaughters had limited options to leave their father's households in the 1940s. They could only leave if one of their parents died and then remarried. Even then girls needed permission from a judge, and a place to live in the house of another relative. The Labor Regulation Act of 1942 said women had to sign a voluntary dismissal form within a month of being married that resulted in them losing their job. After that, newly married women had to wait two years before they could re-enter the workforce and only then, if they had permission from their husband. A 1943 law changed the age of majority for single women to 21. Despite turning 21, women could not leave the home at that age unless their fathers gave permission; they would have to wait until they were 25. The only exception was if a woman married, or entered a convent. Under the Labor Contracts Act of 1944 women needed permission from their husband before they were able to sign an employment contract. In Barcelona during the 1940s, women had to be accompanied by men such as fathers, brothers or husbands if they wanted to be out on the street at night; they could not go out unaccompanied. This was a national policy that said women could not go out alone, and needed to be accompanied by a male family member.\n\nThe 1944 Penal Code allowed for blood revenge for adultery, but only in cases where a husband caught his wife in the sexual act of committing adultery, not when a wife caught her husband. The law also stated under Article 438 that parents could kill their daughter if she was 22 years old or younger, and they caught her having sex with a man. Protests had taken place in the 1920s by women opposed to earlier versions of the law. Husbands and parents were still punished under the law for these killings, but the consequences were small and mostly included only a man being forced to leave his home and live at least 25 kilometers away for a few years. There was no punishment if the husband only seriously injured his wife. The code specified, \"The husband who, if his wife is caught in adultery and he kills the woman or the adulterer on the spot or causes them one of the serious injuries, will be punished with banishment. If he causes them second-class injuries, he will be free of punishment. These rules are applicable to parents in the same circumstances, with respect to their daughters under twenty-three years of age and their corruptors, as long as they have been living in their father's house.\"\n\nTeenage girls could become wards of the state through Patronato de Protección a la Mujer. Starting in 1941 and until 1985, girls were taken to centers run by nuns as part of the state's objective of rehabilitating the \"fallen\". Some of these girls were dropped off by parents who no longer wanted to care of them, as in the case of Raquel Castillo. Some girls were put into state custody because they were denounced by family members. Marian Torralbo was denounced by her brother, a member of Acción Católica, for partying. All were incapacitated without a trial. Women could not leave in many cases until they were 25-years-old, the age when they were legally adult women.\n\nGirls put into these reformatories were subject to virginity tests conducted by nuns. This was done on a daily basis, with girls forced to sit on a hospital bed where a doctor would ask them if they were a virgin. After they said yes, the doctor would imply they were liars and then put a stick up a girl's vagina to check without her consent. Many girls became hysterical during this process.\n\nProstitutes were held at facilities run by nuns through Patronato de Protección a la Mujer from 1941 to 1985. They were always a minority, representing between 7 and 10% of the population. They would be put into cells next to girls abandoned by their families, spending only a few nights. According to Carlos Álvarez, researcher at the University of the Basque Country, \"Their confinement fulfilled two objectives: on the one hand to separate them from the rest of society so that they did not influence it, and on the other hand to be 'rehabilitated', along the path of redemption.\"\n\n1950s \n\nThe economic situation in the 1950s led to a revisiting of the Fuero del Trabajo. Spain was expanding its industrial activities and needed a workforce to support this. One of the easiest and cheapest ways to do that was to increase the number of women in the workforce. Economic needs of Spain were viewed as more important than ideological goals. Meaningful legal reforms for women were not covered under the Civil Code until the late 1950s and early 1960s. These changes were a result of pressure by women to bring the law more in line with cultural shifts in attitudes. One such amendment followed a newspaper article by Mercedes Formica about a man who stabbed his wife to death. The change in the 1889 Civil Code gave greater protections to married women. Other changes in law saw the home being redefined less as a husband's domain but rather a family domain. Married women were entitled to half a couple's common property, and husbands were required to obtain permission from their wives before selling the woman's half. When a widowed woman with children remarried, she was now allowed to keep custody of her children in the new marriage.\n\nLaws on guardianship in Spain were not reformed until 24 April 1958. One reform meant that women could retain custody of their children if they were widowed and remarried, but only if the deceased husband specified this in his will. Another reform of the 1958 law meant that for the first time a husband could not sell or alienate marital property without his wife's consent. These, and changes around the custody of children, came about as a result of a concordat with the Vatican. Mercedes Formica, a member of Falange, was one of the major supporters of the 1958 Civil Code reforms reducing the restrictions placed on married Spanish women. Formica was active in developing a feminist consciousness in Madrid in this period.\n\nArticle 57 continued to be problematic in 1958, as it specified husbands must protect their wives. It established authority of men over women, and was used by men to justify gender violence that caused grievous harm to their wives. It established marriage as a dictatorship.\n\n1960s \nUp until the mid-1960s, Franco's legal system gave husbands near total control over their wives. This did not change until women started playing a more central role in the Spanish economy. The 1961 Law on Political Rights was supported by Sección Feminina. This amendment to the law gave women in the workforce additional rights, recognizing the importance of their work. The law saw single women being entitled to a salary similar to that of her male peers working in the same job. Pilar Primo de Rivera commented, \"The law rather than being feminist is, on the contrary, supportive of what men can give to women as the emptier glass. Why else would we want the man's salary to be sufficiently remunerative so that women, especially married woman, would not have to work out of necessity! I assure you that if family life was sufficiently endowed, 90% of women would not work. For us, it is much more convenient and more desirable to have all the problems solved. But there are many families not just in Spain but around the world that cannot dispense with working women, precisely because it ensures there is enough for their children's care and education, the primary goal of marriage.\" The law had one problem though in that married women still required permission from their husbands to accept a job.\n\nThe blood revenge law was rescinded in 1963, with husbands and parents no longer having the right to kill wives or daughters caught engaging in illicit sex acts. Many women and some men were in prison for adultery-related offenses. They were rarely talked about. Starting in 1975, before the death of Franco, women had started to mobilize by taking to the streets to demand the decriminalization of adultery.\n\nSingle pregnant teenage girls could be particularly vulnerable during this period, with the state assuming guardianship of them and their children at the Peña Grande maternity prison, officially known as Nuestra Señora de La Almudena, until the girls were 25. In some cases, the state would line these pregnant women in a row, bring in men who had paid a fee and allow them to choose among the woman for one to marry or work in his home; the women would never know this beforehand. The men would sometimes return the women they had selected, indicating they were not happy with their choice and then pick out a new woman. It was primarily from the Peña Grande maternity prison that the stolen babies were taken, with women continuing to be imprisoned there until 1984. The conditions at the state facility were so bad that girls would commit suicide by jumping off the top stairwell. María Ángeles Martínez was one woman kept at the Peña Grande facility while pregnant. She remembered her experience, commenting: \"I entered as a 19-year-old, in August of 1975. I was an orphan and I had just gotten pregnant, so my sister-in-law, who wanted to get rid of me, told me 'get dressed we're going', and without my knowing where we were going, she brought me here.\" She described the nuns, \"They told me what I was going to do with a daughter, how I was going to feed her, if they had thrown me out of the house, if I was a wretch, and she was going to be one too.\" She described the process of giving birth, \"I was in the dilatation room, and with half a head already out and they told me that I had to walk alone to the operating room and get on the gurney. I went with all the care, but she was born with a deformed skull. When they saw it, they stopped insisting I give her to them. I think that's why I did not lose my daughter.\"\n\n1970-1975 \nA reform in 1970 meant that women could prevent their husbands putting their children up for adoption without their consent. Law 31/1972 changed the law in respect to articles 320 and 321. It reduced the age of majority to 21 in all cases for women, and allowed women to act as an adult in civil life. This meant both men and women reached majority when they were 21. The law changed in 1972 to give women more freedom from their fathers. It allowed women 22 years old and older to leave the familial home without the consent of their parents.\n\nThe Association of Women Lawyers was created in Madrid in 1971. They eventually played an important role in the Codification Commission for the reform of Family Law. The last major legal reform for women occurred in May 1975, when men were stripped of their automatic head of household status, women no longer being required by law to obey them or being forced to take their husbands' nationality. The amendment in Article 62 stated, \"Marriage does not restrict the capacity of one of the spouses to act.\" Article 63 removed the requirement that a wife obey her husband, and was amended to specify that both spouses had a mutual obligation to respect and protect each other. These changes meant women could accept inheritances, appear in court, and accept a job without the approval of their husbands. The changes also impacted who controlled matrimonial property. The law was also changed so that husbands were no longer married women's legal representatives by default.\n\nDemocratic transition period (1975 - 1985)\n\n1975-1980 \nFranco died in November 1975. His death brought about a slow process of reform over the next decade. One of the major revolutions of the 1978 Spanish constitution was that it gave men and women equality under the law. Cristina Almeida explained its importance stating, \"What I knew and we all knew was that there were such obstacles that no matter how much the Constitution said that equality was decreed, it was not so easy to get it.\" The advances for women in the constitution were largely a result of feminist women who continually took to the streets to demand equal rights. As women took no direct part in writing the new Spanish constitution, gender discrimination continued to exist within Spanish law.\n\nThe 1978 Constitution still enshrined some discrimination against women, specifically against married women, as Article 57 of the Civil Code stated: \"The husband must protect the wife, and she must obey the husband.\" Despite many of the changes brought about during the transition, there was no way of establishing the number of women who were killed by their partners or husbands before the 1990s. The abuse and murder of women in Spain by their partners was a form of sexist terrorism and claimed more victims than ETA.\n\n1980s \nLaw 11/1981 made men and women equal in marriage. It ended the system under which the husband was in charge of conjugal property. Women could work without the consent of their husband, apply for a passport, open a bank account and get a drivers license. The new regulations were in line with United Nations guidelines. Children, on turning 18, now had a legal option to choose whether their father's or mother's surname came first. Law 30/1981 of 7 July also set a civil divorce process. If a family did not exercise an option to change the order of the names in their surname, the law defaulted to the father's surname as the first.\n\nThe law changed in 1985 in regard to girls taken into state custody, as it no longer allowed minors to be placed under the control of the state for their own protection. Following this, all remaining efforts for reform were terminated.\n\nReferences \n\nWomen in Francoist Spain\nWomen in the Spanish transition to democracy",
"Hinoe uma (Japanese) or bing wu (Chinese; both written 丙午, meaning \"fire horse\" in Chinese) is the 43rd combination of the sexagenary cycle. Due to a superstition that girls born in such a year will grow up to kill their husbands, birthrates in Japan tend to see a sharp decline.\n\nReferences\n\nChinese astrology\nSuperstitions of Japan"
] |
[
"Aeschylus",
"The Suppliants",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt.",
"What happened when they fled?",
"They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection,",
"Did he protect them?",
"Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision, a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king.",
"Did they make it out alive in the story?",
"The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection, and they are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests.",
"Are there more people in the story?",
"Aegyptus,",
"What is his part in the story?",
"Danaus rules Argos. He negotiates a peace settlement with Aegyptus, as a condition of which, his fifty daughters will marry the fifty sons of Aegyptus.",
"Was he a good guy in the story?",
"I don't know.",
"What parts of this article most interested you?",
"forty-nine of the Danaids killed their husbands as ordered; Hypermnestra, however, loved her husband Lynceus, and thus spared his life and helped him to escape.",
"Why were they ordered to kill their husbands?",
"Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle predicting that one of his sons-in-law would kill him;"
] | C_1974ee6d0d4f446ea4c1aad41c763918_0 | Did the escaped husband ever return to fulfill the prophecy? | 10 | Did the escaped husband, Lynceus, ever return to fulfill the prophecy? | Aeschylus | Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants in 463 BC (Hiketides), which pays tribute to the democratic undercurrents running through Athens in advance of the establishment of a democratic government in 461. In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision, a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king. The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection, and they are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests. The 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3 confirmed a long-assumed (because of The Suppliants' cliffhanger ending) Danaid trilogy, whose constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants, The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. During the course of the war, King Pelasgus has been killed, and Danaus rules Argos. He negotiates a peace settlement with Aegyptus, as a condition of which, his fifty daughters will marry the fifty sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle predicting that one of his sons-in-law would kill him; he therefore orders the Danaids to murder their husbands on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding. In short order, it is revealed that forty-nine of the Danaids killed their husbands as ordered; Hypermnestra, however, loved her husband Lynceus, and thus spared his life and helped him to escape. Angered by his daughter's disobedience, Danaus orders her imprisonment and, possibly, her execution. In the trilogy's climax and denouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus, and kills him (thus fulfilling the oracle). He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other forty-nine Danaids are absolved of their murderous crime, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids. CANNOTANSWER | Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus, and kills him (thus fulfilling the oracle). | Aeschylus (, ; ; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Formerly, characters interacted only with the chorus.
Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived. There is a long-standing debate regarding the authorship of one of them, Prometheus Bound, with some scholars arguing that it may be the work of his son Euphorion. Fragments from other plays have survived in quotations, and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyri. These fragments often give further insights into Aeschylus' work. He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy. His Oresteia is the only extant ancient example. At least one of his plays was influenced by the Persians' second invasion of Greece (480–479 BC). This work, The Persians, is one of very few classical Greek tragedies concerned with contemporary events, and the only one extant. The significance of the war with Persia was so great to Aeschylus and the Greeks that his epitaph commemorates his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon while making no mention of his success as a playwright.
Life
Aeschylus was born in c. 525 BC in Eleusis, a small town about 27 km northwest of Athens, in the fertile valleys of western Attica. Some scholars argue that his date of birth may be based on counting back forty years from his first victory in the Great Dionysia. His family was wealthy and well established. His father, Euphorion, was a member of the Eupatridae, the ancient nobility of Attica. But this might be a fiction invented by the ancients to account for the grandeur of Aeschylus' plays.
As a youth, Aeschylus worked at a vineyard until, according to the 2nd-century AD geographer Pausanias, the god Dionysus visited him in his sleep and commanded him to turn his attention to the nascent art of tragedy. As soon as he woke, he began to write a tragedy, and his first performance took place in 499 BC, when he was 26 years old. He won his first victory at the City Dionysia in 484 BC.
In 510 BC, when Aeschylus was 15 years old, Cleomenes I expelled the sons of Peisistratus from Athens, and Cleisthenes came to power. Cleisthenes' reforms included a system of registration that emphasized the importance of the deme over family tradition. In the last decade of the 6th century, Aeschylus and his family were living in the deme of Eleusis.
The Persian Wars played a large role in Aeschylus' life and career. In 490 BC, he and his brother Cynegeirus fought to defend Athens against the invading army of Darius I of Persia at the Battle of Marathon. The Athenians emerged triumphant, and the victory was celebrated across the city-states of Greece. Cynegeirus was killed while trying to prevent a Persian ship retreating from the shore, for which his countrymen extolled him as a hero.
In 480 BC, Aeschylus was called into military service again, together with his younger brother Ameinias, against Xerxes I's invading forces at the Battle of Salamis. Aeschylus also fought at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. Ion of Chios was a witness for Aeschylus' war record and his contribution in Salamis. Salamis holds a prominent place in The Persians, his oldest surviving play, which was performed in 472 BC and won first prize at the Dionysia.
Aeschylus was one of many Greeks who were initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, an ancient cult of Demeter based in his home town of Eleusis. Initiates gained secret knowledge through these rites, likely concerning the afterlife. Firm details of specific rites are sparse, as members were sworn under the penalty of death not to reveal anything about the Mysteries to non-initiates. Nevertheless, according to Aristotle, Aeschylus was accused of asebeia for revealing some of the cult's secrets on stage.
Other sources claim that an angry mob tried to kill Aeschylus on the spot but he fled the scene. Heracleides of Pontus asserts that the audience tried to stone Aeschylus. Aeschylus took refuge at the altar in the orchestra of the Theater of Dionysus. He pleaded ignorance at his trial. He was acquitted, with the jury sympathetic to the military service of him and his brothers during the Persian Wars. According to the 2nd-century AD author Aelian, Aeschylus' younger brother Ameinias helped to acquit Aeschylus by showing the jury the stump of the hand he had lost at Salamis, where he was voted bravest warrior. The truth is that the award for bravery at Salamis went not to Aeschylus' brother but to Ameinias of Pallene.
Aeschylus travelled to Sicily once or twice in the 470s BC, having been invited by Hiero I, tyrant of Syracuse, a major Greek city on the eastern side of the island. He produced The Women of Aetna during one of these trips (in honor of the city founded by Hieron), and restaged his Persians. By 473 BC, after the death of Phrynichus, one of his chief rivals, Aeschylus was the yearly favorite in the Dionysia, winning first prize in nearly every competition. In 472 BC, Aeschylus staged the production that included the Persians, with Pericles serving as choregos.
Personal life
Aeschylus married and had two sons, Euphorion and Euaeon, both of whom became tragic poets. Euphorion won first prize in 431 BC in competition against both Sophocles and Euripides. A nephew of Aeschylus, Philocles (his sister's son), was also a tragic poet, and won first prize in the competition against Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Aeschylus had at least two brothers, Cynegeirus and Ameinias.
Death
In 458 BC, Aeschylus returned to Sicily for the last time, visiting the city of Gela, where he died in 456 or 455 BC. Valerius Maximus wrote that he was killed outside the city by a tortoise dropped by an eagle (possibly a lammergeier or Cinereous vulture, which do open tortoises for eating by dropping them on hard objects) which had mistaken his head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell. Pliny, in his Naturalis Historiæ, adds that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avoid a prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object, but this story may be legendary and due to a misunderstanding of the iconography on Aeschylus's tomb. Aeschylus' work was so respected by the Athenians that after his death his tragedies were the only ones allowed to be restaged in subsequent competitions. His sons Euphorion and Euæon and his nephew Philocles also became playwrights.
The inscription on Aeschylus' gravestone makes no mention of his theatrical renown, commemorating only his military achievements:
According to Castoriadis, the inscription on his grave signifies the primary importance of "belonging to the City" (polis), of the solidarity that existed within the collective body of citizen-soldiers.
Works
The seeds of Greek drama were sowed in religious festivals for the gods, chiefly Dionysus, the god of wine. During Aeschylus' lifetime, dramatic competitions became part of the City Dionysia, held in spring. The festival opened with a procession which was followed by a competition of boys singing dithyrambs, and all culminated in a pair of dramatic competitions. The first competition Aeschylus would have participated in involved three playwrights each presenting three tragedies and one satyr play. Such format is called a continuous tragic tetralogy. It allowed Aeschylus to explore the human and theological and cosmic dimensions of a mythic sequence, developing it in successive phases. A second competition involving five comedic playwrights followed, and the winners of both competitions were chosen by a panel of judges.
Aeschylus entered many of these competitions, and various ancient sources attribute between seventy and ninety plays to him. Only seven tragedies attributed to him have survived intact: The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliants, the trilogy known as The Oresteia (the three tragedies Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides), and Prometheus Bound (whose authorship is disputed). With the exception of this last play – the success of which is uncertain – all of Aeschylus's extant tragedies are known to have won first prize at the City Dionysia.
The Alexandrian Life of Aeschylus claims that he won the first prize at the City Dionysia thirteen times. This compares favorably with Sophocles' reported eighteen victories (with a substantially larger catalogue, an estimated 120 plays), and dwarfs the five victories of Euripides, who is thought to have written roughly 90 plays.
Trilogies
One hallmark of Aeschylean dramaturgy appears to have been his tendency to write connected trilogies in which each play serves as a chapter in a continuous dramatic narrative. The Oresteia is the only extant example of this type of connected trilogy, but there is evidence that Aeschylus often wrote such trilogies. The satyr plays that followed his tragic trilogies also drew from myth.
The satyr play Proteus, which followed the Oresteia, treated the story of Menelaus' detour in Egypt on his way home from the Trojan War. It is assumed, based on the evidence provided by a catalogue of Aeschylean play titles, scholia, and play fragments recorded by later authors, that three other extant plays of his were components of connected trilogies: Seven Against Thebes was the final play in an Oedipus trilogy, and The Suppliants and Prometheus Bound were each the first play in a Danaid trilogy and Prometheus trilogy, respectively. Scholars have also suggested several completely lost trilogies, based on known play titles. A number of these treated myths about the Trojan War. One, collectively called the Achilleis, comprised Myrmidons, Nereids and Phrygians (alternately, The Ransoming of Hector).
Another trilogy apparently recounted the entrance of the Trojan ally Memnon into the war, and his death at the hands of Achilles (Memnon and The Weighing of Souls being two components of the trilogy). The Award of the Arms, The Phrygian Women, and The Salaminian Women suggest a trilogy about the madness and subsequent suicide of the Greek hero Ajax. Aeschylus seems to have written about Odysseus' return to Ithaca after the war (including his killing of his wife Penelope's suitors and its consequences) in a trilogy consisting of The Soul-raisers, Penelope, and The Bone-gatherers. Other suggested trilogies touched on the myth of Jason and the Argonauts (Argô, Lemnian Women, Hypsipylê), the life of Perseus (The Net-draggers, Polydektês, Phorkides), the birth and exploits of Dionysus (Semele, Bacchae, Pentheus), and the aftermath of the war portrayed in Seven Against Thebes (Eleusinians, Argives (or Argive Women), Sons of the Seven).
Surviving plays
The Persians (472 BC)
The Persians (Persai) is the earliest of Aeschylus' extant plays. It was performed in 472 BC. It was based on Aeschylus' own experiences, specifically the Battle of Salamis. It is unique among surviving Greek tragedies in that it describes a recent historical event. The Persians focuses on the popular Greek theme of hubris and blames Persia's loss on the pride of its king.
It opens with the arrival of a messenger in Susa, the Persian capital, bearing news of the catastrophic Persian defeat at Salamis, to Atossa, the mother of the Persian King Xerxes. Atossa then travels to the tomb of Darius, her husband, where his ghost appears, to explain the cause of the defeat. It is, he says, the result of Xerxes' hubris in building a bridge across the Hellespont, an action which angered the gods. Xerxes appears at the end of the play, not realizing the cause of his defeat, and the play closes to lamentations by Xerxes and the chorus.
Seven Against Thebes (467 BC)
Seven against Thebes (Hepta epi Thebas) was performed in 467 BC. It has the contrasting theme of the interference of the gods in human affairs. Another theme, with which Aeschylus' would continually involve himself, makes its first known appearance in this play, namely that the polis was a key development of human civilization.
The play tells the story of Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of the shamed king of Thebes, Oedipus. Eteocles and Polynices agree to share and alternate the throne of the city. After the first year, Eteocles refuses to step down. Polynices therefore undertakes war. The pair kill each other in single combat, and the original ending of the play consisted of lamentations for the dead brothers. But a new ending was added to the play some fifty years later: Antigone and Ismene mourn their dead brothers, a messenger enters announcing an edict prohibiting the burial of Polynices, and Antigone declares her intention to defy this edict. The play was the third in a connected Oedipus trilogy. The first two plays were Laius and Oedipus. The concluding satyr play was The Sphinx.
The Suppliants (463 BC)
Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants (Hiketides) in 463 BC. The play gives tribute to the democratic undercurrents which were running through Athens and preceding the establishment of a democratic government in 461. The Danaids (50 daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos) flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision (a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king). The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection and are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests.
A Danaid trilogy had long been assumed because of The Suppliants''' cliffhanger ending. This was confirmed by the 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3. The constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants and The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. King Pelasgus was killed during the war, and Danaus rules Argos. Danaus negotiates a settlement with Aegyptus, a condition of which requires his 50 daughters to marry the 50 sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle which predicts that one of his sons-in-law would kill him. He orders the Danaids to murder their husbands therefore on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding.
It is revealed that 49 of the 50 Danaids killed their husbands. Hypermnestra did not kill her husband, Lynceus, and helped him escape. Danaus is angered by his daughter's disobedience and orders her imprisonment and possibly execution. In the trilogy's climax and dénouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus and kills him, thus fulfilling the oracle. He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other 49 Danaids are absolved of their murders, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids.
The Oresteia (458 BC)
Besides a few missing lines, the Oresteia of 458 BC is the only complete trilogy of Greek plays by any playwright still extant (of Proteus, the satyr play which followed, only fragments are known). Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers (Choephoroi) and The Eumenides together tell the violent story of the family of Agamemnon, king of Argos.
Agamemnon
Aeschylus begins in Greece, describing the return of King Agamemnon from his victory in the Trojan War, from the perspective of the townspeople (the Chorus) and his wife, Clytemnestra. Dark foreshadowings build to the death of the king at the hands of his wife, who was angry that their daughter Iphigenia was killed so that the gods would restore the winds and allow the Greek fleet to sail to Troy. Clytemnestra was also unhappy that Agamemnon kept the Trojan prophetess Cassandra as his concubine. Cassandra foretells the murder of Agamemnon and of herself to the assembled townsfolk, who are horrified. She then enters the palace knowing that she cannot avoid her fate. The ending of the play includes a prediction of the return of Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who will seek to avenge his father.
The Libation BearersThe Libation Bearers opens with Orestes' arrival at Agamemnon's tomb, from exile in Phocis. Electra meets Orestes there. They plan revenge against Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus. Clytemnestra's account of a nightmare in which she gives birth to a snake is recounted by the chorus. This leads her to order her daughter, Electra, to pour libations on Agamemnon's tomb (with the assistance of libation bearers) in hope of making amends. Orestes enters the palace pretending to bear news of his own death. Clytemnestra calls in Aegisthus to learn the news. Orestes kills them both. Orestes is then beset by the Furies, who avenge the murders of kin in Greek mythology.
The Eumenides
The third play addresses the question of Orestes' guilt. The Furies drive Orestes from Argos and into the wilderness. He makes his way to the temple of Apollo and begs Apollo to drive the Furies away. Apollo had encouraged Orestes to kill Clytemnestra, so he bears some of the guilt for the murder. Apollo sends Orestes to the temple of Athena with Hermes as a guide.
The Furies track him down, and Athena steps in and declares that a trial is necessary. Apollo argues Orestes' case, and after the judges (including Athena) deliver a tie vote, Athena announces that Orestes is acquitted. She renames the Furies The Eumenides (The Good-spirited, or Kindly Ones), and extols the importance of reason in the development of laws. As in The Suppliants, the ideals of a democratic Athens are praised.
Prometheus Bound (date disputed)Prometheus Bound is attributed to Aeschylus by ancient authorities. Since the late 19th century, however, scholars have increasingly doubted this ascription, largely on stylistic grounds. Its production date is also in dispute, with theories ranging from the 480s BC to as late as the 410s.
The play consists mostly of static dialogue. The Titan Prometheus is bound to a rock throughout, which is his punishment from the Olympian Zeus for providing fire to humans. The god Hephaestus and the Titan Oceanus and the chorus of Oceanids all express sympathy for Prometheus' plight. Prometheus is met by Io, a fellow victim of Zeus' cruelty. He prophesies her future travels, revealing that one of her descendants will free Prometheus. The play closes with Zeus sending Prometheus into the abyss because Prometheus will not tell him of a potential marriage which could prove Zeus' downfall.Prometheus Bound seems to have been the first play in a trilogy, the Prometheia. In the second play, Prometheus Unbound, Heracles frees Prometheus from his chains and kills the eagle that had been sent daily to eat Prometheus' perpetually regenerating liver (then believed the source of feeling). We learn that Zeus has released the other Titans which he imprisoned at the conclusion of the Titanomachy, perhaps foreshadowing his eventual reconciliation with Prometheus.
In the trilogy's conclusion, Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, it seems that the Titan finally warns Zeus not to sleep with the sea nymph Thetis, for she is fated to beget a son greater than the father. Not wishing to be overthrown, Zeus marries Thetis off to the mortal Peleus. The product of that union is Achilles, Greek hero of the Trojan War. After reconciling with Prometheus, Zeus probably inaugurates a festival in his honor at Athens.
Lost plays
Of Aeschylus' other plays, only titles and assorted fragments are known. There are enough fragments (along with comments made by later authors and scholiasts) to produce rough synopses for some plays.
Myrmidons
This play was based on books 9 and 16 of the Iliad. Achilles sits in silent indignation over his humiliation at Agamemnon's hands for most of the play. Envoys from the Greek army attempt to reconcile Achilles to Agamemnon, but he yields only to his friend Patroclus, who then battles the Trojans in Achilles' armour. The bravery and death of Patroclus are reported in a messenger's speech, which is followed by mourning.
Nereids
This play was based on books 18 and 19 and 22 of the Iliad. It follows the Daughters of Nereus, the sea god, who lament Patroclus' death. A messenger tells how Achilles (perhaps reconciled to Agamemnon and the Greeks) slew Hector.
Phrygians, or Hector's Ransom
After a brief discussion with Hermes, Achilles sits in silent mourning over Patroclus. Hermes then brings in King Priam of Troy, who wins over Achilles and ransoms his son's body in a spectacular coup de théâtre. A scale is brought on stage and Hector's body is placed in one scale and gold in the other. The dynamic dancing of the chorus of Trojans when they enter with Priam is reported by Aristophanes.
Niobe
The children of Niobe, the heroine, have been slain by Apollo and Artemis because Niobe had gloated that she had more children than their mother, Leto. Niobe sits in silent mourning on stage during most of the play. In the Republic, Plato quotes the line "God plants a fault in mortals when he wills to destroy a house utterly."
These are the remaining 71 plays ascribed to Aeschylus which are known to us:AlcmeneAmymoneThe Archer-WomenThe Argivian WomenThe Argo, also titled The RowersAtalantaAthamasAttendants of the Bridal ChamberAward of the ArmsThe BacchaeThe BassaraeThe Bone-GatherersThe CabeiroiCallistoThe Carians, also titled EuropaCercyonChildren of HerculesCirceThe Cretan WomenCycnusThe DanaidsDaughters of HeliosDaughters of PhorcysThe DescendantsThe EdoniansThe EgyptiansThe EscortsGlaucus of PontusGlaucus of PotniaeHypsipyleIphigeniaIxionLaiusThe Lemnian WomenThe LionLycurgusMemnonThe Men of EleusisThe MessengersThe MyrmidonsThe MysiansNemeaThe Net-DraggersThe Nurses of DionysusOrethyiaPalamedesPenelopePentheusPerrhaibidesPhiloctetesPhineusThe Phrygian WomenPolydectesThe PriestessesPrometheus the Fire-BearerPrometheus the Fire-KindlerPrometheus UnboundProteusSemele, also titled The Water-BearersSisyphus the RunawaySisyphus the Stone-RollerThe Spectators, also titled Athletes of the Isthmian GamesThe SphinxThe Spirit-RaisersTelephusThe Thracian WomenWeighing of SoulsWomen of Aetna (two versions)Women of SalamisXantriaeThe YouthsInfluence
Influence on Greek drama and culture
The theatre was just beginning to evolve when Aeschylus started writing for it. Earlier playwrights such as Thespis had already expanded the cast to include an actor who was able to interact with the chorus. Aeschylus added a second actor, allowing for greater dramatic variety, while the chorus played a less important role. He is sometimes credited with introducing skenographia, or scene-decoration, though Aristotle gives this distinction to Sophocles. Aeschylus is also said to have made the costumes more elaborate and dramatic, and made his actors wear platform boots (cothurni) to make them more visible to the audience. According to a later account of Aeschylus' life, the chorus of Furies in the first performance of the Eumenides were so frightening when they entered that children fainted and patriarchs urinated and pregnant women went into labour.
Aeschylus wrote his plays in verse. No violence is performed onstage. The plays have a remoteness from daily life in Athens, relating stories about the gods, or being set, like The Persians, far away. Aeschylus' work has a strong moral and religious emphasis. The Oresteia trilogy concentrated on humans' position in the cosmos relative to the gods and divine law and divine punishment.
Aeschylus' popularity is evident in the praise that the comic playwright Aristophanes gives him in The Frogs, produced some 50 years after Aeschylus' death. Aeschylus appears as a character in the play and claims, at line 1022, that his Seven against Thebes "made everyone watching it to love being warlike". He claims, at lines 1026–7, that with The Persians he "taught the Athenians to desire always to defeat their enemies." Aeschylus goes on to say, at lines 1039ff., that his plays inspired the Athenians to be brave and virtuous.
Influence outside Greek culture
Aeschylus' works were influential beyond his own time. Hugh Lloyd-Jones draws attention to Richard Wagner's reverence of Aeschylus. Michael Ewans argues in his Wagner and Aeschylus. The Ring and the Oresteia (London: Faber. 1982) that the influence was so great as to merit a direct character by character comparison between Wagner's Ring and Aeschylus's Oresteia. But a critic of that book, while not denying that Wagner read and respected Aeschylus, has described the arguments as unreasonable and forced.
J.T. Sheppard argues in the second half of his Aeschylus and Sophocles: Their Work and Influence that Aeschylus and Sophocles have played a major part in the formation of dramatic literature from the Renaissance to the present, specifically in French and Elizabethan drama. He also claims that their influence went beyond just drama and applies to literature in general, citing Milton and the Romantics.
Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), a trilogy of three plays set in America after the Civil War, is modeled after the Oresteia. Before writing his acclaimed trilogy, O'Neill had been developing a play about Aeschylus, and he noted that Aeschylus "so changed the system of the tragic stage that he has more claim than anyone else to be regarded as the founder (Father) of Tragedy."
During his presidential campaign in 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy quoted the Edith Hamilton translation of Aeschylus on the night of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Kennedy was notified of King's murder before a campaign stop in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was warned not to attend the event due to fears of rioting from the mostly African-American crowd. Kennedy insisted on attending and delivered an impromptu speech that delivered news of King's death. Acknowledging the audience's emotions, Kennedy referred to his own grief at the murder of Martin Luther King and, quoting a passage from the play Agamemnon (in translation), said: "My favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote: 'Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.' What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness; but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black ... Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world." The quotation from Aeschylus was later inscribed on a memorial at the gravesite of Robert Kennedy following his own assassination.
Editions
Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Aeschyli Tragoediae. Editio maior, Berlin 1914.
Gilbert Murray, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae. Editio Altera, Oxford 1955.
Denys Page, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae, Oxford 1972.
Martin L. West, Aeschyli Tragoediae cum incerti poetae Prometheo, 2nd ed., Stuttgart/Leipzig 1998.
The first translation of the seven plays into English was by Robert Potter in 1779, using blank verse for the iambic trimeters and rhymed verse for the choruses, a convention adopted by most translators for the next century.
Anna Swanwick produced a verse translation in English of all seven surviving plays as The Dramas of Aeschylus in 1886 full text
Stefan Radt (ed.), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Vol. III: Aeschylus (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009) (Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 3).
Alan H. Sommerstein (ed.), Aeschylus, Volume II, Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-bearers. Eumenides. 146 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2009); Volume III, Fragments. 505 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2008).
See also
2876 Aeschylus, an asteroid named for him
Ancient Greek literature
Ancient Greek mythology
Ancient Greek religion
Battle of Marathon
Classical Greece
Dionysia
Music of ancient Greece
Theatre of ancient Greece
"Live by the sword, die by the sword"
Notes
Citations
References
Bierl, A. Die Orestie des Aischylos auf der modernen Bühne: Theoretische Konzeptionen und ihre szenische Realizierung (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1997)
Cairns, D., V. Liapis, Dionysalexandros: Essays on Aeschylus and His Fellow Tragedians in Honour of Alexander F. Garvie (Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales, 2006)
Deforge, B. Une vie avec Eschyle. Vérité des mythes (Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2010)
Lefkowitz, Mary (1981). The Lives of the Greek Poets. University of North Carolina Press
— (2002). Greek Drama and Dramatists. London: Routledge Press.
Summers, David (2007). Vision, Reflection, and Desire in Western Painting. University of North Carolina Press
Thomson, George (1973) Aeschylus and Athens: A Study in the Social Origin of Drama. London: Lawrence and Wishart (4th edition)
Vellacott, Philip, (1961). Prometheus Bound and Other Plays: Prometheus Bound, Seven Against Thebes, and The Persians. New York: Penguin Classics.
Zeitlin, Froma (1982). Under the sign of the shield: semiotics and Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2nd ed. 2009 (Greek studies: interdisciplinary approaches)
Zetlin, Froma (1996). "The dynamics of misogyny: myth and mythmaking in Aeschylus's Oresteia", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 87–119.
Zeitlin, Froma (1996). "The politics of Eros in the Danaid trilogy of Aeschylus", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 123–171.
External links
Selected Poems of Aeschylus
Aeschylus-related materials at the Perseus Digital Library
Complete syntax diagrams at Alpheios
Online English Translations of Aeschylus
Photo of a fragment of The Net-pullers
"Aeschylus, I: Persians" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, II: The Oresteia" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, III: Fragments" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
5th-century BC Greek people
5th-century BC writers
520s BC births
450s BC deaths
Year of birth uncertain
Year of death uncertain
Tragic poets
Ancient Greeks accused of sacrilege
Greek people of the Greco-Persian Wars
Battle of Marathon
Accidental deaths in Italy
Deaths due to animal attacks | false | [
"Blart III: The Boy Who Set Sail on a Questionable Quest is a 2008 children's novel by Dominic Barker. It is the sequel to Blart: The Boy Who Didn't Want to Save the World and Blart II: The Boy Who Was Wanted Dead or Alive - Or Both.\n\nIt was described as \"ridiculously enjoyable\" by Bookseller magazine and as \"hilarious\" by Julia Eccleshare on Love Reading 4 Kids.\n\nPlot summary\nThe book starts the day after Blart II: The Boy Who Was Wanted Dead or Alive - Or Both ends, with Blart about to be murdered in his sleep by two assassins. He reacts while dreaming and manages to knock the two assassins unconscious when the emergency bell, the Gigantic Bell of Disaster, rang. It is a bell that rings only in times of national emergency. (It didn't ring in the past books because its clapper was being serviced.)\n\nBlart rushes to the throne room, along with Sir Beowulf the Knight(Beo for short), who had been newly appointed by the King of Illyria to fulfill Beo's dream of becoming a knight. There, the King and his Queen address the crowd gathered outside for the ringing of the Gigantic Bell of Disaster.\n\nPrincess Lois has been kidnapped an hour ago in the night, thus starting a prophecy about Illyria's doom, aptly titled \"The Chilling Prophecy of Endless Torment\". This prophecy states that if a newly-wed princess goes missing at dead of night for one month, Illyria should BEWARE! Unless the husband of the bride, that is Blart, returns her before the month is up, then all of Illyria would be saved, except for her husband who must die. Obviously Blart refuses to go on a quest to fulfill that prophecy as that would result in his death.\n\nCapablanca the Greatest Sorcerer in the World is recovering from a poison-induced fever from the Guild of Assassins. Thus, he is unable to accompany Blart on this quest.\n\nBeo and Blart, then, interrogate the two assassins in Blart's bedroom, only to find that they have regained consciousness and are escaping. Beo and Blart manage to catch one, Mika, while the other, Uri escapes.\n\nBlart and Beo then drag Mika to Capablanca's room to hear his confession. Capablanca is currently being cured by Lowenthal, the Court Physician, with leeches.\n\nIt turns out that there is another prophecy of doom for Styxia, claiming that the people of the Kingdom of Gregor the Grizzled would rise up in a great revolution, slaughter the royal family and declare itself a republic. Only when Gregor's son, Prince Anatoly, married the heir to the Illyrian throne, that is Princess Lois, would the royal family be saved. But Princess Lois rejected Prince Anatoly's suit. He was determined to persist until he finds out that Princess Lois was married to Blart. (in order to fulfill a prophecy in the previous book)\n\nThus the King decided to kidnap Princess Lois and arrange for a huge bounty to be put on Blart's head for the Guild of Assassins, as well as poisoning Capablanca with a deadly toxin to prevent him from intervening. Beo was not seen to be quite a big problem as Capablanca, and was ignored, much to Beo's indignation.\n\nCapablanca, after hearing Mika's confession, lapsed back into deliriousness.\n\nBeo and Blart then informed the King of the latest news and repeated the last words that Capablanca said: soup, earwig, hamster, promise and suitors. The last two words reminded the King of a plan Capablanca set in place to deal with the prophecy. Each suitor for Princess Lois, before pressing their suit, must make a solemn vow to defend Princess Lois's marriage with all their power. As Princess Lois has rejected 75 suitors, there are 75 noblemen all over the world sworn to defend her marriage. Messengers will be sent to all of them, asking them to bring a ship of fully armed men to the Illyrian harbour to form the greatest fleet ever seen. This armada will be led by Illyria's new flagship and its captain will be Princess Lois's husband, Blart. The armada will set sail to Styxia and lay siege to the capital until the Princess is returned.\n\nBefore they set off, Capablanca gives Blart the Misty Mirror of Miracle, which may sometimes clear and show the user something far away.\n\nAfter a brief fiasco where Blart names the new flagship \"The Golden Pig\", they set off to Styxia.\n\nReferences\n\n2008 British novels\n2008 children's books\n2008 fantasy novels\nChildren's fantasy novels\nBritish children's novels\nBritish fantasy novels\nBritish comedy novels\nNovels by Dominic Barker",
"Umm Kulthum bint Uqba () (c. 610–654) was a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. A verse of the Qur'an, 60:10, was revealed in response to her situation.\n\nEmigration\nBorn in Mecca, she was the daughter of Uqba ibn Abu Mu'ayt and Arwa bint Kurayz; hence Caliph Uthman was her uterine half-brother. Their mother Arwa was a first cousin of prophet Muhammad.\n\nUmm Kulthum's father Uqba was an outspoken opponent of the prophet, but she became a Muslim before 622. She remained in Mecca after the Hijra. Uqba was killed at the Battle of Badr in 624.\n\nAfter the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah in 628, Umm Kulthum left Mecca for Medina in the company of a man from the Khuza'a tribe. Her brothers, Walid and Ammara, pursued her, and she arrived in Medina only one day ahead of them. Her brothers asked prophet Muhammad to return her to them, in accordance with the treaty, which stated that Muslims who escaped from Mecca to Medina should be returned to their families. Umm Kulthum pleaded that \"women are weak\" and that she might not have the strength to remain firm in her faith if she had to live among polytheists. The prophet then announced the new revelation from God:\n\nAfter this prophecy, he pointed out that the word for \"escaped people\" was masculine in the treaty, so it did not apply to women. However, escaped women must be tested for the genuineness of their faith. Umm Kulthum was asked whether she had come to Medina \"for love of Allah and his Apostle and Islam\" or whether she was seeking or escaping a husband or hoping to make money. After she had passed the test, the prophet told her brothers: \"Allah has broken the treaty regarding women by what you know, so leave.\"\n\nOther women then followed Umm Kulthum's example and also left Mecca for Medina.\n\nSubsequent career\nFour men asked for her hand in marriage, and in fact she was to marry all four of them in rotation. She asked her brother Uthman which suitor she should accept, and he advised her to consult the Prophet himself who instructed her to marry Zayd ibn Harithah. She bore him two children- Zayd and Ruqayya. The child Zayd died in infancy, but Ruqayya lived to come under the protection of Uthman. Her first husband died in the battle of Mu'tah.\n\nShe then married Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, with whom she had a tough relationship because of his strict and somewhat violent nature. She asked him for a divorce, but he refused. So \"she pestered him while he was doing wudu for the prayer, and he divorced her with a single divorce. Then she left.\" Zubayr afterwards complained, \"She tricked me, may Allah trick her!\" Prophet Muhammad advised him to \"propose to her again,\" but Zubayr knew that Umm Kulthum probably might not return to him. Soon after their separation, she gave birth to their daughter Zaynab.\n\nHer third husband was Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf. She bore him six children: Muhammad, Ibrahim, Hamid (or Humayd), Ismail, Hamida and Amat ar-Rahman. This marriage lasted over twenty years, until Abd al-Rahman's death in 653/654.\n\nOn being widowed, Umm Kulthum married Amr ibn al-'As, but she died only one month later.\n\nReferences\n\n610s births\n650s deaths\n7th-century Arabs\nFemale Sahabah\nBanu Umayya"
] |
[
"Aeschylus",
"The Suppliants",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt.",
"What happened when they fled?",
"They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection,",
"Did he protect them?",
"Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision, a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king.",
"Did they make it out alive in the story?",
"The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection, and they are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests.",
"Are there more people in the story?",
"Aegyptus,",
"What is his part in the story?",
"Danaus rules Argos. He negotiates a peace settlement with Aegyptus, as a condition of which, his fifty daughters will marry the fifty sons of Aegyptus.",
"Was he a good guy in the story?",
"I don't know.",
"What parts of this article most interested you?",
"forty-nine of the Danaids killed their husbands as ordered; Hypermnestra, however, loved her husband Lynceus, and thus spared his life and helped him to escape.",
"Why were they ordered to kill their husbands?",
"Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle predicting that one of his sons-in-law would kill him;",
"Did the escaped husband ever return to fulfill the prophecy?",
"Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus, and kills him (thus fulfilling the oracle)."
] | C_1974ee6d0d4f446ea4c1aad41c763918_0 | Did he stay with his wife after that? | 11 | Did Lynceus stay with his wife after killing Danaus? | Aeschylus | Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants in 463 BC (Hiketides), which pays tribute to the democratic undercurrents running through Athens in advance of the establishment of a democratic government in 461. In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision, a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king. The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection, and they are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests. The 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3 confirmed a long-assumed (because of The Suppliants' cliffhanger ending) Danaid trilogy, whose constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants, The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. During the course of the war, King Pelasgus has been killed, and Danaus rules Argos. He negotiates a peace settlement with Aegyptus, as a condition of which, his fifty daughters will marry the fifty sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle predicting that one of his sons-in-law would kill him; he therefore orders the Danaids to murder their husbands on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding. In short order, it is revealed that forty-nine of the Danaids killed their husbands as ordered; Hypermnestra, however, loved her husband Lynceus, and thus spared his life and helped him to escape. Angered by his daughter's disobedience, Danaus orders her imprisonment and, possibly, her execution. In the trilogy's climax and denouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus, and kills him (thus fulfilling the oracle). He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other forty-nine Danaids are absolved of their murderous crime, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids. CANNOTANSWER | He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. | Aeschylus (, ; ; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Formerly, characters interacted only with the chorus.
Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived. There is a long-standing debate regarding the authorship of one of them, Prometheus Bound, with some scholars arguing that it may be the work of his son Euphorion. Fragments from other plays have survived in quotations, and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyri. These fragments often give further insights into Aeschylus' work. He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy. His Oresteia is the only extant ancient example. At least one of his plays was influenced by the Persians' second invasion of Greece (480–479 BC). This work, The Persians, is one of very few classical Greek tragedies concerned with contemporary events, and the only one extant. The significance of the war with Persia was so great to Aeschylus and the Greeks that his epitaph commemorates his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon while making no mention of his success as a playwright.
Life
Aeschylus was born in c. 525 BC in Eleusis, a small town about 27 km northwest of Athens, in the fertile valleys of western Attica. Some scholars argue that his date of birth may be based on counting back forty years from his first victory in the Great Dionysia. His family was wealthy and well established. His father, Euphorion, was a member of the Eupatridae, the ancient nobility of Attica. But this might be a fiction invented by the ancients to account for the grandeur of Aeschylus' plays.
As a youth, Aeschylus worked at a vineyard until, according to the 2nd-century AD geographer Pausanias, the god Dionysus visited him in his sleep and commanded him to turn his attention to the nascent art of tragedy. As soon as he woke, he began to write a tragedy, and his first performance took place in 499 BC, when he was 26 years old. He won his first victory at the City Dionysia in 484 BC.
In 510 BC, when Aeschylus was 15 years old, Cleomenes I expelled the sons of Peisistratus from Athens, and Cleisthenes came to power. Cleisthenes' reforms included a system of registration that emphasized the importance of the deme over family tradition. In the last decade of the 6th century, Aeschylus and his family were living in the deme of Eleusis.
The Persian Wars played a large role in Aeschylus' life and career. In 490 BC, he and his brother Cynegeirus fought to defend Athens against the invading army of Darius I of Persia at the Battle of Marathon. The Athenians emerged triumphant, and the victory was celebrated across the city-states of Greece. Cynegeirus was killed while trying to prevent a Persian ship retreating from the shore, for which his countrymen extolled him as a hero.
In 480 BC, Aeschylus was called into military service again, together with his younger brother Ameinias, against Xerxes I's invading forces at the Battle of Salamis. Aeschylus also fought at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. Ion of Chios was a witness for Aeschylus' war record and his contribution in Salamis. Salamis holds a prominent place in The Persians, his oldest surviving play, which was performed in 472 BC and won first prize at the Dionysia.
Aeschylus was one of many Greeks who were initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, an ancient cult of Demeter based in his home town of Eleusis. Initiates gained secret knowledge through these rites, likely concerning the afterlife. Firm details of specific rites are sparse, as members were sworn under the penalty of death not to reveal anything about the Mysteries to non-initiates. Nevertheless, according to Aristotle, Aeschylus was accused of asebeia for revealing some of the cult's secrets on stage.
Other sources claim that an angry mob tried to kill Aeschylus on the spot but he fled the scene. Heracleides of Pontus asserts that the audience tried to stone Aeschylus. Aeschylus took refuge at the altar in the orchestra of the Theater of Dionysus. He pleaded ignorance at his trial. He was acquitted, with the jury sympathetic to the military service of him and his brothers during the Persian Wars. According to the 2nd-century AD author Aelian, Aeschylus' younger brother Ameinias helped to acquit Aeschylus by showing the jury the stump of the hand he had lost at Salamis, where he was voted bravest warrior. The truth is that the award for bravery at Salamis went not to Aeschylus' brother but to Ameinias of Pallene.
Aeschylus travelled to Sicily once or twice in the 470s BC, having been invited by Hiero I, tyrant of Syracuse, a major Greek city on the eastern side of the island. He produced The Women of Aetna during one of these trips (in honor of the city founded by Hieron), and restaged his Persians. By 473 BC, after the death of Phrynichus, one of his chief rivals, Aeschylus was the yearly favorite in the Dionysia, winning first prize in nearly every competition. In 472 BC, Aeschylus staged the production that included the Persians, with Pericles serving as choregos.
Personal life
Aeschylus married and had two sons, Euphorion and Euaeon, both of whom became tragic poets. Euphorion won first prize in 431 BC in competition against both Sophocles and Euripides. A nephew of Aeschylus, Philocles (his sister's son), was also a tragic poet, and won first prize in the competition against Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Aeschylus had at least two brothers, Cynegeirus and Ameinias.
Death
In 458 BC, Aeschylus returned to Sicily for the last time, visiting the city of Gela, where he died in 456 or 455 BC. Valerius Maximus wrote that he was killed outside the city by a tortoise dropped by an eagle (possibly a lammergeier or Cinereous vulture, which do open tortoises for eating by dropping them on hard objects) which had mistaken his head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell. Pliny, in his Naturalis Historiæ, adds that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avoid a prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object, but this story may be legendary and due to a misunderstanding of the iconography on Aeschylus's tomb. Aeschylus' work was so respected by the Athenians that after his death his tragedies were the only ones allowed to be restaged in subsequent competitions. His sons Euphorion and Euæon and his nephew Philocles also became playwrights.
The inscription on Aeschylus' gravestone makes no mention of his theatrical renown, commemorating only his military achievements:
According to Castoriadis, the inscription on his grave signifies the primary importance of "belonging to the City" (polis), of the solidarity that existed within the collective body of citizen-soldiers.
Works
The seeds of Greek drama were sowed in religious festivals for the gods, chiefly Dionysus, the god of wine. During Aeschylus' lifetime, dramatic competitions became part of the City Dionysia, held in spring. The festival opened with a procession which was followed by a competition of boys singing dithyrambs, and all culminated in a pair of dramatic competitions. The first competition Aeschylus would have participated in involved three playwrights each presenting three tragedies and one satyr play. Such format is called a continuous tragic tetralogy. It allowed Aeschylus to explore the human and theological and cosmic dimensions of a mythic sequence, developing it in successive phases. A second competition involving five comedic playwrights followed, and the winners of both competitions were chosen by a panel of judges.
Aeschylus entered many of these competitions, and various ancient sources attribute between seventy and ninety plays to him. Only seven tragedies attributed to him have survived intact: The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliants, the trilogy known as The Oresteia (the three tragedies Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides), and Prometheus Bound (whose authorship is disputed). With the exception of this last play – the success of which is uncertain – all of Aeschylus's extant tragedies are known to have won first prize at the City Dionysia.
The Alexandrian Life of Aeschylus claims that he won the first prize at the City Dionysia thirteen times. This compares favorably with Sophocles' reported eighteen victories (with a substantially larger catalogue, an estimated 120 plays), and dwarfs the five victories of Euripides, who is thought to have written roughly 90 plays.
Trilogies
One hallmark of Aeschylean dramaturgy appears to have been his tendency to write connected trilogies in which each play serves as a chapter in a continuous dramatic narrative. The Oresteia is the only extant example of this type of connected trilogy, but there is evidence that Aeschylus often wrote such trilogies. The satyr plays that followed his tragic trilogies also drew from myth.
The satyr play Proteus, which followed the Oresteia, treated the story of Menelaus' detour in Egypt on his way home from the Trojan War. It is assumed, based on the evidence provided by a catalogue of Aeschylean play titles, scholia, and play fragments recorded by later authors, that three other extant plays of his were components of connected trilogies: Seven Against Thebes was the final play in an Oedipus trilogy, and The Suppliants and Prometheus Bound were each the first play in a Danaid trilogy and Prometheus trilogy, respectively. Scholars have also suggested several completely lost trilogies, based on known play titles. A number of these treated myths about the Trojan War. One, collectively called the Achilleis, comprised Myrmidons, Nereids and Phrygians (alternately, The Ransoming of Hector).
Another trilogy apparently recounted the entrance of the Trojan ally Memnon into the war, and his death at the hands of Achilles (Memnon and The Weighing of Souls being two components of the trilogy). The Award of the Arms, The Phrygian Women, and The Salaminian Women suggest a trilogy about the madness and subsequent suicide of the Greek hero Ajax. Aeschylus seems to have written about Odysseus' return to Ithaca after the war (including his killing of his wife Penelope's suitors and its consequences) in a trilogy consisting of The Soul-raisers, Penelope, and The Bone-gatherers. Other suggested trilogies touched on the myth of Jason and the Argonauts (Argô, Lemnian Women, Hypsipylê), the life of Perseus (The Net-draggers, Polydektês, Phorkides), the birth and exploits of Dionysus (Semele, Bacchae, Pentheus), and the aftermath of the war portrayed in Seven Against Thebes (Eleusinians, Argives (or Argive Women), Sons of the Seven).
Surviving plays
The Persians (472 BC)
The Persians (Persai) is the earliest of Aeschylus' extant plays. It was performed in 472 BC. It was based on Aeschylus' own experiences, specifically the Battle of Salamis. It is unique among surviving Greek tragedies in that it describes a recent historical event. The Persians focuses on the popular Greek theme of hubris and blames Persia's loss on the pride of its king.
It opens with the arrival of a messenger in Susa, the Persian capital, bearing news of the catastrophic Persian defeat at Salamis, to Atossa, the mother of the Persian King Xerxes. Atossa then travels to the tomb of Darius, her husband, where his ghost appears, to explain the cause of the defeat. It is, he says, the result of Xerxes' hubris in building a bridge across the Hellespont, an action which angered the gods. Xerxes appears at the end of the play, not realizing the cause of his defeat, and the play closes to lamentations by Xerxes and the chorus.
Seven Against Thebes (467 BC)
Seven against Thebes (Hepta epi Thebas) was performed in 467 BC. It has the contrasting theme of the interference of the gods in human affairs. Another theme, with which Aeschylus' would continually involve himself, makes its first known appearance in this play, namely that the polis was a key development of human civilization.
The play tells the story of Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of the shamed king of Thebes, Oedipus. Eteocles and Polynices agree to share and alternate the throne of the city. After the first year, Eteocles refuses to step down. Polynices therefore undertakes war. The pair kill each other in single combat, and the original ending of the play consisted of lamentations for the dead brothers. But a new ending was added to the play some fifty years later: Antigone and Ismene mourn their dead brothers, a messenger enters announcing an edict prohibiting the burial of Polynices, and Antigone declares her intention to defy this edict. The play was the third in a connected Oedipus trilogy. The first two plays were Laius and Oedipus. The concluding satyr play was The Sphinx.
The Suppliants (463 BC)
Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants (Hiketides) in 463 BC. The play gives tribute to the democratic undercurrents which were running through Athens and preceding the establishment of a democratic government in 461. The Danaids (50 daughters of Danaus, founder of Argos) flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision (a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king). The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection and are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests.
A Danaid trilogy had long been assumed because of The Suppliants''' cliffhanger ending. This was confirmed by the 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3. The constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants and The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. King Pelasgus was killed during the war, and Danaus rules Argos. Danaus negotiates a settlement with Aegyptus, a condition of which requires his 50 daughters to marry the 50 sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle which predicts that one of his sons-in-law would kill him. He orders the Danaids to murder their husbands therefore on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the day after the wedding.
It is revealed that 49 of the 50 Danaids killed their husbands. Hypermnestra did not kill her husband, Lynceus, and helped him escape. Danaus is angered by his daughter's disobedience and orders her imprisonment and possibly execution. In the trilogy's climax and dénouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus and kills him, thus fulfilling the oracle. He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in Argos. The other 49 Danaids are absolved of their murders, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of the Danaids.
The Oresteia (458 BC)
Besides a few missing lines, the Oresteia of 458 BC is the only complete trilogy of Greek plays by any playwright still extant (of Proteus, the satyr play which followed, only fragments are known). Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers (Choephoroi) and The Eumenides together tell the violent story of the family of Agamemnon, king of Argos.
Agamemnon
Aeschylus begins in Greece, describing the return of King Agamemnon from his victory in the Trojan War, from the perspective of the townspeople (the Chorus) and his wife, Clytemnestra. Dark foreshadowings build to the death of the king at the hands of his wife, who was angry that their daughter Iphigenia was killed so that the gods would restore the winds and allow the Greek fleet to sail to Troy. Clytemnestra was also unhappy that Agamemnon kept the Trojan prophetess Cassandra as his concubine. Cassandra foretells the murder of Agamemnon and of herself to the assembled townsfolk, who are horrified. She then enters the palace knowing that she cannot avoid her fate. The ending of the play includes a prediction of the return of Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who will seek to avenge his father.
The Libation BearersThe Libation Bearers opens with Orestes' arrival at Agamemnon's tomb, from exile in Phocis. Electra meets Orestes there. They plan revenge against Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus. Clytemnestra's account of a nightmare in which she gives birth to a snake is recounted by the chorus. This leads her to order her daughter, Electra, to pour libations on Agamemnon's tomb (with the assistance of libation bearers) in hope of making amends. Orestes enters the palace pretending to bear news of his own death. Clytemnestra calls in Aegisthus to learn the news. Orestes kills them both. Orestes is then beset by the Furies, who avenge the murders of kin in Greek mythology.
The Eumenides
The third play addresses the question of Orestes' guilt. The Furies drive Orestes from Argos and into the wilderness. He makes his way to the temple of Apollo and begs Apollo to drive the Furies away. Apollo had encouraged Orestes to kill Clytemnestra, so he bears some of the guilt for the murder. Apollo sends Orestes to the temple of Athena with Hermes as a guide.
The Furies track him down, and Athena steps in and declares that a trial is necessary. Apollo argues Orestes' case, and after the judges (including Athena) deliver a tie vote, Athena announces that Orestes is acquitted. She renames the Furies The Eumenides (The Good-spirited, or Kindly Ones), and extols the importance of reason in the development of laws. As in The Suppliants, the ideals of a democratic Athens are praised.
Prometheus Bound (date disputed)Prometheus Bound is attributed to Aeschylus by ancient authorities. Since the late 19th century, however, scholars have increasingly doubted this ascription, largely on stylistic grounds. Its production date is also in dispute, with theories ranging from the 480s BC to as late as the 410s.
The play consists mostly of static dialogue. The Titan Prometheus is bound to a rock throughout, which is his punishment from the Olympian Zeus for providing fire to humans. The god Hephaestus and the Titan Oceanus and the chorus of Oceanids all express sympathy for Prometheus' plight. Prometheus is met by Io, a fellow victim of Zeus' cruelty. He prophesies her future travels, revealing that one of her descendants will free Prometheus. The play closes with Zeus sending Prometheus into the abyss because Prometheus will not tell him of a potential marriage which could prove Zeus' downfall.Prometheus Bound seems to have been the first play in a trilogy, the Prometheia. In the second play, Prometheus Unbound, Heracles frees Prometheus from his chains and kills the eagle that had been sent daily to eat Prometheus' perpetually regenerating liver (then believed the source of feeling). We learn that Zeus has released the other Titans which he imprisoned at the conclusion of the Titanomachy, perhaps foreshadowing his eventual reconciliation with Prometheus.
In the trilogy's conclusion, Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, it seems that the Titan finally warns Zeus not to sleep with the sea nymph Thetis, for she is fated to beget a son greater than the father. Not wishing to be overthrown, Zeus marries Thetis off to the mortal Peleus. The product of that union is Achilles, Greek hero of the Trojan War. After reconciling with Prometheus, Zeus probably inaugurates a festival in his honor at Athens.
Lost plays
Of Aeschylus' other plays, only titles and assorted fragments are known. There are enough fragments (along with comments made by later authors and scholiasts) to produce rough synopses for some plays.
Myrmidons
This play was based on books 9 and 16 of the Iliad. Achilles sits in silent indignation over his humiliation at Agamemnon's hands for most of the play. Envoys from the Greek army attempt to reconcile Achilles to Agamemnon, but he yields only to his friend Patroclus, who then battles the Trojans in Achilles' armour. The bravery and death of Patroclus are reported in a messenger's speech, which is followed by mourning.
Nereids
This play was based on books 18 and 19 and 22 of the Iliad. It follows the Daughters of Nereus, the sea god, who lament Patroclus' death. A messenger tells how Achilles (perhaps reconciled to Agamemnon and the Greeks) slew Hector.
Phrygians, or Hector's Ransom
After a brief discussion with Hermes, Achilles sits in silent mourning over Patroclus. Hermes then brings in King Priam of Troy, who wins over Achilles and ransoms his son's body in a spectacular coup de théâtre. A scale is brought on stage and Hector's body is placed in one scale and gold in the other. The dynamic dancing of the chorus of Trojans when they enter with Priam is reported by Aristophanes.
Niobe
The children of Niobe, the heroine, have been slain by Apollo and Artemis because Niobe had gloated that she had more children than their mother, Leto. Niobe sits in silent mourning on stage during most of the play. In the Republic, Plato quotes the line "God plants a fault in mortals when he wills to destroy a house utterly."
These are the remaining 71 plays ascribed to Aeschylus which are known to us:AlcmeneAmymoneThe Archer-WomenThe Argivian WomenThe Argo, also titled The RowersAtalantaAthamasAttendants of the Bridal ChamberAward of the ArmsThe BacchaeThe BassaraeThe Bone-GatherersThe CabeiroiCallistoThe Carians, also titled EuropaCercyonChildren of HerculesCirceThe Cretan WomenCycnusThe DanaidsDaughters of HeliosDaughters of PhorcysThe DescendantsThe EdoniansThe EgyptiansThe EscortsGlaucus of PontusGlaucus of PotniaeHypsipyleIphigeniaIxionLaiusThe Lemnian WomenThe LionLycurgusMemnonThe Men of EleusisThe MessengersThe MyrmidonsThe MysiansNemeaThe Net-DraggersThe Nurses of DionysusOrethyiaPalamedesPenelopePentheusPerrhaibidesPhiloctetesPhineusThe Phrygian WomenPolydectesThe PriestessesPrometheus the Fire-BearerPrometheus the Fire-KindlerPrometheus UnboundProteusSemele, also titled The Water-BearersSisyphus the RunawaySisyphus the Stone-RollerThe Spectators, also titled Athletes of the Isthmian GamesThe SphinxThe Spirit-RaisersTelephusThe Thracian WomenWeighing of SoulsWomen of Aetna (two versions)Women of SalamisXantriaeThe YouthsInfluence
Influence on Greek drama and culture
The theatre was just beginning to evolve when Aeschylus started writing for it. Earlier playwrights such as Thespis had already expanded the cast to include an actor who was able to interact with the chorus. Aeschylus added a second actor, allowing for greater dramatic variety, while the chorus played a less important role. He is sometimes credited with introducing skenographia, or scene-decoration, though Aristotle gives this distinction to Sophocles. Aeschylus is also said to have made the costumes more elaborate and dramatic, and made his actors wear platform boots (cothurni) to make them more visible to the audience. According to a later account of Aeschylus' life, the chorus of Furies in the first performance of the Eumenides were so frightening when they entered that children fainted and patriarchs urinated and pregnant women went into labour.
Aeschylus wrote his plays in verse. No violence is performed onstage. The plays have a remoteness from daily life in Athens, relating stories about the gods, or being set, like The Persians, far away. Aeschylus' work has a strong moral and religious emphasis. The Oresteia trilogy concentrated on humans' position in the cosmos relative to the gods and divine law and divine punishment.
Aeschylus' popularity is evident in the praise that the comic playwright Aristophanes gives him in The Frogs, produced some 50 years after Aeschylus' death. Aeschylus appears as a character in the play and claims, at line 1022, that his Seven against Thebes "made everyone watching it to love being warlike". He claims, at lines 1026–7, that with The Persians he "taught the Athenians to desire always to defeat their enemies." Aeschylus goes on to say, at lines 1039ff., that his plays inspired the Athenians to be brave and virtuous.
Influence outside Greek culture
Aeschylus' works were influential beyond his own time. Hugh Lloyd-Jones draws attention to Richard Wagner's reverence of Aeschylus. Michael Ewans argues in his Wagner and Aeschylus. The Ring and the Oresteia (London: Faber. 1982) that the influence was so great as to merit a direct character by character comparison between Wagner's Ring and Aeschylus's Oresteia. But a critic of that book, while not denying that Wagner read and respected Aeschylus, has described the arguments as unreasonable and forced.
J.T. Sheppard argues in the second half of his Aeschylus and Sophocles: Their Work and Influence that Aeschylus and Sophocles have played a major part in the formation of dramatic literature from the Renaissance to the present, specifically in French and Elizabethan drama. He also claims that their influence went beyond just drama and applies to literature in general, citing Milton and the Romantics.
Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), a trilogy of three plays set in America after the Civil War, is modeled after the Oresteia. Before writing his acclaimed trilogy, O'Neill had been developing a play about Aeschylus, and he noted that Aeschylus "so changed the system of the tragic stage that he has more claim than anyone else to be regarded as the founder (Father) of Tragedy."
During his presidential campaign in 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy quoted the Edith Hamilton translation of Aeschylus on the night of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Kennedy was notified of King's murder before a campaign stop in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was warned not to attend the event due to fears of rioting from the mostly African-American crowd. Kennedy insisted on attending and delivered an impromptu speech that delivered news of King's death. Acknowledging the audience's emotions, Kennedy referred to his own grief at the murder of Martin Luther King and, quoting a passage from the play Agamemnon (in translation), said: "My favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote: 'Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.' What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness; but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black ... Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world." The quotation from Aeschylus was later inscribed on a memorial at the gravesite of Robert Kennedy following his own assassination.
Editions
Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Aeschyli Tragoediae. Editio maior, Berlin 1914.
Gilbert Murray, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae. Editio Altera, Oxford 1955.
Denys Page, Aeschyli Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae, Oxford 1972.
Martin L. West, Aeschyli Tragoediae cum incerti poetae Prometheo, 2nd ed., Stuttgart/Leipzig 1998.
The first translation of the seven plays into English was by Robert Potter in 1779, using blank verse for the iambic trimeters and rhymed verse for the choruses, a convention adopted by most translators for the next century.
Anna Swanwick produced a verse translation in English of all seven surviving plays as The Dramas of Aeschylus in 1886 full text
Stefan Radt (ed.), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Vol. III: Aeschylus (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009) (Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 3).
Alan H. Sommerstein (ed.), Aeschylus, Volume II, Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-bearers. Eumenides. 146 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2009); Volume III, Fragments. 505 (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Loeb Classical Library, 2008).
See also
2876 Aeschylus, an asteroid named for him
Ancient Greek literature
Ancient Greek mythology
Ancient Greek religion
Battle of Marathon
Classical Greece
Dionysia
Music of ancient Greece
Theatre of ancient Greece
"Live by the sword, die by the sword"
Notes
Citations
References
Bierl, A. Die Orestie des Aischylos auf der modernen Bühne: Theoretische Konzeptionen und ihre szenische Realizierung (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1997)
Cairns, D., V. Liapis, Dionysalexandros: Essays on Aeschylus and His Fellow Tragedians in Honour of Alexander F. Garvie (Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales, 2006)
Deforge, B. Une vie avec Eschyle. Vérité des mythes (Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2010)
Lefkowitz, Mary (1981). The Lives of the Greek Poets. University of North Carolina Press
— (2002). Greek Drama and Dramatists. London: Routledge Press.
Summers, David (2007). Vision, Reflection, and Desire in Western Painting. University of North Carolina Press
Thomson, George (1973) Aeschylus and Athens: A Study in the Social Origin of Drama. London: Lawrence and Wishart (4th edition)
Vellacott, Philip, (1961). Prometheus Bound and Other Plays: Prometheus Bound, Seven Against Thebes, and The Persians. New York: Penguin Classics.
Zeitlin, Froma (1982). Under the sign of the shield: semiotics and Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2nd ed. 2009 (Greek studies: interdisciplinary approaches)
Zetlin, Froma (1996). "The dynamics of misogyny: myth and mythmaking in Aeschylus's Oresteia", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 87–119.
Zeitlin, Froma (1996). "The politics of Eros in the Danaid trilogy of Aeschylus", in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 123–171.
External links
Selected Poems of Aeschylus
Aeschylus-related materials at the Perseus Digital Library
Complete syntax diagrams at Alpheios
Online English Translations of Aeschylus
Photo of a fragment of The Net-pullers
"Aeschylus, I: Persians" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, II: The Oresteia" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
"Aeschylus, III: Fragments" from the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
5th-century BC Greek people
5th-century BC writers
520s BC births
450s BC deaths
Year of birth uncertain
Year of death uncertain
Tragic poets
Ancient Greeks accused of sacrilege
Greek people of the Greco-Persian Wars
Battle of Marathon
Accidental deaths in Italy
Deaths due to animal attacks | true | [
"Shakku is a 1988 Maldivian film written and directed by Ahmed Nimal. Produced by Mohamed Saeed under ADFA Films, the film stars Fathimath Rameeza, Asad Shareef and Ahmed Nimal in pivotal roles. During the shooting of the film, Nimal and Rameeza began a romantic relationship and got married soon after the premiere of the film.\n\nPremise\nSameer, a short-tempered and underprivileged young man is accused of hitting an attractive wealthy woman, Zeena to whom he responds recklessly. She later apologizes to him and they reconcile and plan a trip together to his home island. The trip ends with them starting a romantic relationship though he had to stay back in his home island. Meanwhile, Sameer's friend, Nahid a single musician helps Sameer in settling down in his life after his marriage with Zeena.\n\nTheir life was filled with love and romance until Sameer starts suspecting Nahid having an affair with his wife. When he confronts Zeena about her relationship with Nahid, she becomes furious about his trust issues and moves out of their house in despair. Zeena, with the help of her family tries to get back with him. However, Sameer, being the stubborn husband, instead divorces her. Soon after, Zeena realizes that she is pregnant to a child of his. Meanwhile, Sameer becomes clear of all his suspicions but acknowledges that his time had passed. Having lost a devoted wife and a caring friend, Sameer seeks forgiveness from her family. Dejected he relocates to his island followed by another misery.\n\nCast \n Ahmed Nimal as Sameer / Zameer \n Fathimath Rameeza as Zeena\n Asad Shareef as Nahid\n Nazima\n Nafeesa\n Hamid\n Aishath Hanim\n Ahmed Naeem\n Abdulla Zaki\n Fathuhullah\n\nSoundtrack\n\nReception\nUpon release, the film generally received mixed reviews from critics while Ahmed Nimal's and Fathimath Rameeza's chemistry was particularly praised by the critics and audience. The film did \"good business\" at box office.\n\nReferences\n\nMaldivian films\n1988 films",
"Stay More: The World of Donald Harington is a 2013 documentary film about author Donald Harington, produced by Brian Walter based on interviews that Walter conducted with Harington and his wife in 2006–07.\n\nProduction\n\nSynopsis\nIn this documentary, Donald Harington defines the background of Stay More, the fictional Ozark village where Harington's novels are based. Harington shares his childhood memories of the small town of Drakes Creek (the town that was the model for Stay More) and looked back on his uneasy relationships with his parents and the upsetting loss of his hearing at the age of 12. Likewise, Harington reflects the dubious delights of getting his initial novels into print, with their sales on no occasion matching the favorable notices, blending these stories with the humorous perceptions on the writer's life (particularly the writerly penchant for liquor, religion, and sex). What came of this is a bittersweet portrait of an inspired but haunted artist, a writer genuinely rooted in American folk traditions whose triumphs seemed always to be matched by deep disappointments, a novelist who not only blends comic relief into his tragedies but poignant 'tragic relief' into his comedies.\n\nCast\n\nReception\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Stay More at University of Arkansas Press \n \n Q & A with Brian Walter in Arkansas Times\n\nDocumentary films about writers\n2013 films"
] |
[
"Tom Cousineau",
"Professional football career"
] | C_65b0d958f0464578be9c7b39642d5a98_0 | What year did he start playing professional football? | 1 | What year did Tom Cousineau start playing professional football? | Tom Cousineau | Cousineau was drafted first overall in the 1979 NFL Draft by the Buffalo Bills, who acquired the pick as a part of a package of five draft picks from the San Francisco 49ers in a 1978 trade for O.J. Simpson. However, he never played a game for the Bills. He instead signed with the Canadian Football League Montreal Alouettes, who signed him for double the money originally offered by the Bills. Cousineau became a star for the Alouettes, becoming the Grey Cup Most Valuable Player in the 1979 season. He only played in four games in his third season because of an elbow injury while the Alouettes collapsed. In 1982, Cousineau wanted to return to the NFL, choosing to forego two optional years with the Alouettes. The Houston Oilers attempted to sign him, but the Bills (who still held Cousineau's NFL rights) matched the offer. Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell had long been interested in signing him. Cousineau was then traded from the Bills to the Cleveland Browns for a first-round draft choice (14th overall) in the 1983 NFL Draft, plus a second and a third draft choice in subsequent years. That first-round pick was used on future Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed a five-year contract for $2.5 million, the highest contract ever at the time by the Browns. In 1983, Cousineau was arrested in connection with minor collision with a police car on Saint Patrick's Day He was charged with drunk driving, improperly using traffic lanes, and not having his driver's license. He was subsequently found not guilty of the drunk driving charge, but guilty of the moving violation (the driver's license charge was dropped). During Cousineau's four seasons with the Browns, he led the team in tackles for three seasons. He was named a 2nd-team All-NFL by the NEA in 1983, and by the AP in 1984, but never made the Pro Bowl in his career. He was considered an overpaid disappointment in Cleveland, while Bills fans fondly remember the fact that the man who once snubbed them for the CFL was traded for Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed with the San Francisco 49ers as a free agent after the 1985 season where he played two years as a reserve before retiring in 1987. Cousineau finished his NFL career with ten interceptions and 6.5 career sacks. CANNOTANSWER | Cousineau was then traded from the Bills to the Cleveland Browns for a first-round draft choice (14th overall) in the 1983 NFL Draft, | Thomas Michael Cousineau (born May 6, 1957) is an American former college and professional football player who was a linebacker in the Canadian Football League (CFL) and National Football League (NFL) for nine seasons during the 1970s and 1980s. He played college football for Ohio State University, and twice earned All-American honors. He was the first overall pick of the 1979 NFL Draft, and played professionally for the CFL's Montreal Alouettes and the NFL's Cleveland Browns and San Francisco 49ers.
Cousineau is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, elected in the class of 2016. He is also a member of the Ohio State Varsity "O" Hall of Fame, inducted in 1995, and St. Edward High School Hall of Fame. Cousineau was the recipient of the Silver Anniversary Butkus Award in 2003.
Early years
Cousineau was born in Fairview Park, Ohio, to Carol and Tom Cousineau Sr, who was the head football and a wrestling coach at Lakewood (Ohio) High School. Consequently, his mother did not want him to play football under the shadow of his father. Thus, Cousineau played high school football for nearby St. Edward High School, which is several blocks away in Lakewood. He excelled and was one of the most highly recruited football players in the country in his senior year. He graduated in 1975.
Cousineau was also an accomplished wrestler. In 1975, under legendary coach Howard Ferguson, he lost to future NFL player Bob Golic from cross-town all-boys school rival St. Joseph High School in the Ohio state wrestling tournament semifinals in the heavyweight weight class. The match has been called "one of the most memorable," Golic would go on to win the state title and Cousineau would finish in third place. Golic would go to be two-time All-American at heavyweight at Notre Dame. Cousineau and Golic would eventually become teammates in the NFL with the Browns.
College football career
Cousineau attended Ohio State University, where he played for legendary coach Woody Hayes' Ohio State Buckeyes football team from 1975 to 1978. During that span, Ohio State had an overall record of 36-10-2 and 28–4 in the Big Ten, were three-time Big Ten champs. The Buckeyes played four bowl games after each of the seasons he played: in the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Gator Bowl. They were a Top 5 team for 36 weeks over these four years and the No. 1 team in the nation for eight weeks in 1975, and ultimately finished fourth, sixth and 12th in the final Associated Press polls in 1975, 1976 and 1977, respectively.
Cousineau majored in marketing. He was a consensus first-team All-American, breaking the school record with 211 tackles in a single season in 1978, an average of 17.5 a game. He also broke the school record for most tackles in a game with 29 against Penn State in 1978, and was the MVP of the 1977 Orange Bowl.
Cousineau's last game for the Buckeyes was the infamous 1978 Gator Bowl against Clemson, during which Coach Hayes punched Clemson linebacker Charlie Bauman in the final minutes of the game. Hayes was fired the following day for the incident.
Cousineau still holds many of Ohio State's tackling records. As of 2016, he holds six of the top 10 single-game tackling records, 29 single-game tackles (since tied by fellow College Football Hall of Famer Chris Spielman), most solo tackles in a single game, (16 against SMU in 1978). He also ranks second on both the all-time OSU tackle list with 569 (three behind Marcus Marek) and on the career solo tackles list with 259.
He was named an All-American in 1977 and 1978. The Chicago Tribune named him the MVP of the Big Ten in 1978. He graduated from OSU in 1979. In 2016, he became the 25th Ohio State player, along with seven Buckeye coaches, to be named to the College Football Hall of Fame.
Professional football career
Cousineau was drafted first overall in the 1979 NFL Draft by the Buffalo Bills, who acquired the pick as a part of a package of five draft picks from the San Francisco 49ers in a 1978 trade for O. J. Simpson. However, he never played a game for the Bills. He instead signed with the Canadian Football League's Montreal Alouettes, who signed him for double the money originally offered by the Bills. Cousineau became a star for the Alouettes, becoming the Grey Cup Most Valuable Player in the 1979 season. He only played in four games in his third season because of an elbow injury while the Alouettes collapsed.
In 1982, Cousineau wanted to return to the NFL, choosing to forego two optional years with the Alouettes. The Houston Oilers attempted to sign him, but the Bills (who still held Cousineau's NFL rights) matched the offer.
Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell had long been interested in signing him. Cousineau was then traded from the Bills to the Cleveland Browns for a first-round draft choice (14th overall) in the 1983 NFL Draft, plus a second and a third draft choice in subsequent years. That first-round pick was used on future Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed a five-year contract for $2.5 million, the highest contract ever at the time by the Browns.
In 1983, Cousineau was arrested in connection with minor collision with a police car on Saint Patrick's Day He was charged with drunk driving, improperly using traffic lanes, and not having his driver's license. He was subsequently found not guilty of the drunk driving charge, but guilty of the moving violation (the driver's license charge was dropped).
During Cousineau's four seasons with the Browns, he led the team in tackles for three seasons. In the 1983 season, he intercepted 4 passes and was named a 2nd-team All-NFL by the NEA. He was also named 2nd-team all NFL by the AP in 1984, but never made the Pro Bowl in his career. He was considered an overpaid disappointment in Cleveland, while Bills fans fondly remember the fact that the man who once snubbed them for the CFL was traded for Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed with the San Francisco 49ers as a free agent after the 1985 season where he played two years as a reserve before retiring in 1987. Cousineau finished his NFL career with ten interceptions and 6.5 career sacks.
After retiring as a player
St. Edward inducted Cousineau to the school's Athletic Hall of Fame.
He married Lisa June 16, 1990, and has 2 daughters Kyle and Kacey.
On February 8, 2006, Cousineau announced plans to run for a seat in the Ohio House of Representatives as a Republican in the Akron, Ohio area. He won the May primary but lost the November election to Democrat Brian Williams by a margin of 58% to 42%.
On April 20, 2009, Cousineau joined the St. Vincent – St. Mary High School football coaching staff as a linebackers coach.
Cousineau later went on to be the linebackers coach at St. Edward High School (Ohio)
References
External links
Ohio State bio
NFL bio
1957 births
Living people
All-American college football players
American football linebackers
Canadian football linebackers
Cleveland Browns players
National Football League first overall draft picks
Montreal Alouettes players
Ohio State Buckeyes football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Players of American football from Akron, Ohio
Players of Canadian football from Cleveland
San Francisco 49ers players
St. Edward High School (Lakewood, Ohio) alumni
National Football League replacement players
Players of American football from Cleveland | true | [
"Fredrik Strømstad (born 20 January 1982 in Kristiansand) is a Norwegian football player.\n\nCareer\nIn 2002, he was loaned to Bærum SK and helped them win promotion to the Norwegian First Division.\n\nHe signed for the French club Le Mans Union Club 72 on June 13, 2008, and joined the club on July 7 the same year.\n\nAfter spending the 2012 season at a new spell in IK Start, he retired from professional football. He did continue in 2013 with seventh-tier club Tigerberget FK.\n\nNational team\nStrømstad made his debut for the national team in the World Cup qualifier against Belarus in October 2005.\n\nPlaying style\nStrømstad is renowned for his work rate and passing ability, and his stamina. He has been compared to former Norwegian midfielder Erik Mykland. When he played for Start he often linked up with teammate Kristofer Hæstad in midfield.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nStart's bio of Strømstad\n\n1982 births\nLiving people\nNorwegian footballers\nNorway international footballers\nIK Start players\nBærum SK players\nLe Mans FC players\nNorwegian expatriate footballers\nExpatriate footballers in France\nSportspeople from Kristiansand\nEliteserien players\nLigue 1 players\nNorwegian expatriate sportspeople in France\n\nAssociation football midfielders",
"Richard William Evans (born 12 April 1968) is a Welsh former professional footballer who played as a winger. He is a member of the backroom staff with the Belgium national team. He previously played for several football clubs including Cardiff City, Exeter City and Bristol Rovers. Richard Evans is the son of former Swansea City player and Wales international footballer Brian Evans.\n\nCareer\nAfter retiring from playing professional football Evans studied towards a Sports science BSc (Hons) at Loughborough University (1997–1999) and later a Physiotherapy BSc Hons at Brunel University (2002–2006).\n\nSpeaking to the BBC Wales, he said: \"I pursued a career in football after leaving school. When I got to the age of 27 and had played professional and semi-professional football I realised that football wasn't going to provide me with a living after I'd finished my days really.\n\"So whilst I was playing at Lilleshall I did a treatment and management of injuries course held by the FA, and that's what instilled an interest in physiotherapy.\"\n\nPrior to his appointment at Everton, he has held the position of Head Physiotherapist at Swansea City A.F.C. (1999–2009) and also Head of Sport Science at Wigan Athletic (2009–2013). In 2013, he was appointed Head of Performance at Everton Football Club. In August 2016, he joined the Belgium national football team backroom staff.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nLiving people\n1968 births\nWelsh footballers\nAssociation football wingers\nCardiff City F.C. players\nNewport County A.F.C. players\nBristol Rovers F.C. players\nExeter City F.C. players\nYeovil Town F.C. players\nAlumni of Loughborough University\nAlumni of Brunel University London\nSwansea City A.F.C. non-playing staff\nWigan Athletic F.C. non-playing staff\nEverton F.C. non-playing staff"
] |
[
"Tom Cousineau",
"Professional football career",
"What year did he start playing professional football?",
"Cousineau was then traded from the Bills to the Cleveland Browns for a first-round draft choice (14th overall) in the 1983 NFL Draft,"
] | C_65b0d958f0464578be9c7b39642d5a98_0 | what was his position? | 2 | what was Tom Cousineau's position? | Tom Cousineau | Cousineau was drafted first overall in the 1979 NFL Draft by the Buffalo Bills, who acquired the pick as a part of a package of five draft picks from the San Francisco 49ers in a 1978 trade for O.J. Simpson. However, he never played a game for the Bills. He instead signed with the Canadian Football League Montreal Alouettes, who signed him for double the money originally offered by the Bills. Cousineau became a star for the Alouettes, becoming the Grey Cup Most Valuable Player in the 1979 season. He only played in four games in his third season because of an elbow injury while the Alouettes collapsed. In 1982, Cousineau wanted to return to the NFL, choosing to forego two optional years with the Alouettes. The Houston Oilers attempted to sign him, but the Bills (who still held Cousineau's NFL rights) matched the offer. Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell had long been interested in signing him. Cousineau was then traded from the Bills to the Cleveland Browns for a first-round draft choice (14th overall) in the 1983 NFL Draft, plus a second and a third draft choice in subsequent years. That first-round pick was used on future Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed a five-year contract for $2.5 million, the highest contract ever at the time by the Browns. In 1983, Cousineau was arrested in connection with minor collision with a police car on Saint Patrick's Day He was charged with drunk driving, improperly using traffic lanes, and not having his driver's license. He was subsequently found not guilty of the drunk driving charge, but guilty of the moving violation (the driver's license charge was dropped). During Cousineau's four seasons with the Browns, he led the team in tackles for three seasons. He was named a 2nd-team All-NFL by the NEA in 1983, and by the AP in 1984, but never made the Pro Bowl in his career. He was considered an overpaid disappointment in Cleveland, while Bills fans fondly remember the fact that the man who once snubbed them for the CFL was traded for Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed with the San Francisco 49ers as a free agent after the 1985 season where he played two years as a reserve before retiring in 1987. Cousineau finished his NFL career with ten interceptions and 6.5 career sacks. CANNOTANSWER | During Cousineau's four seasons with the Browns, he led the team in tackles for three seasons. | Thomas Michael Cousineau (born May 6, 1957) is an American former college and professional football player who was a linebacker in the Canadian Football League (CFL) and National Football League (NFL) for nine seasons during the 1970s and 1980s. He played college football for Ohio State University, and twice earned All-American honors. He was the first overall pick of the 1979 NFL Draft, and played professionally for the CFL's Montreal Alouettes and the NFL's Cleveland Browns and San Francisco 49ers.
Cousineau is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, elected in the class of 2016. He is also a member of the Ohio State Varsity "O" Hall of Fame, inducted in 1995, and St. Edward High School Hall of Fame. Cousineau was the recipient of the Silver Anniversary Butkus Award in 2003.
Early years
Cousineau was born in Fairview Park, Ohio, to Carol and Tom Cousineau Sr, who was the head football and a wrestling coach at Lakewood (Ohio) High School. Consequently, his mother did not want him to play football under the shadow of his father. Thus, Cousineau played high school football for nearby St. Edward High School, which is several blocks away in Lakewood. He excelled and was one of the most highly recruited football players in the country in his senior year. He graduated in 1975.
Cousineau was also an accomplished wrestler. In 1975, under legendary coach Howard Ferguson, he lost to future NFL player Bob Golic from cross-town all-boys school rival St. Joseph High School in the Ohio state wrestling tournament semifinals in the heavyweight weight class. The match has been called "one of the most memorable," Golic would go on to win the state title and Cousineau would finish in third place. Golic would go to be two-time All-American at heavyweight at Notre Dame. Cousineau and Golic would eventually become teammates in the NFL with the Browns.
College football career
Cousineau attended Ohio State University, where he played for legendary coach Woody Hayes' Ohio State Buckeyes football team from 1975 to 1978. During that span, Ohio State had an overall record of 36-10-2 and 28–4 in the Big Ten, were three-time Big Ten champs. The Buckeyes played four bowl games after each of the seasons he played: in the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Gator Bowl. They were a Top 5 team for 36 weeks over these four years and the No. 1 team in the nation for eight weeks in 1975, and ultimately finished fourth, sixth and 12th in the final Associated Press polls in 1975, 1976 and 1977, respectively.
Cousineau majored in marketing. He was a consensus first-team All-American, breaking the school record with 211 tackles in a single season in 1978, an average of 17.5 a game. He also broke the school record for most tackles in a game with 29 against Penn State in 1978, and was the MVP of the 1977 Orange Bowl.
Cousineau's last game for the Buckeyes was the infamous 1978 Gator Bowl against Clemson, during which Coach Hayes punched Clemson linebacker Charlie Bauman in the final minutes of the game. Hayes was fired the following day for the incident.
Cousineau still holds many of Ohio State's tackling records. As of 2016, he holds six of the top 10 single-game tackling records, 29 single-game tackles (since tied by fellow College Football Hall of Famer Chris Spielman), most solo tackles in a single game, (16 against SMU in 1978). He also ranks second on both the all-time OSU tackle list with 569 (three behind Marcus Marek) and on the career solo tackles list with 259.
He was named an All-American in 1977 and 1978. The Chicago Tribune named him the MVP of the Big Ten in 1978. He graduated from OSU in 1979. In 2016, he became the 25th Ohio State player, along with seven Buckeye coaches, to be named to the College Football Hall of Fame.
Professional football career
Cousineau was drafted first overall in the 1979 NFL Draft by the Buffalo Bills, who acquired the pick as a part of a package of five draft picks from the San Francisco 49ers in a 1978 trade for O. J. Simpson. However, he never played a game for the Bills. He instead signed with the Canadian Football League's Montreal Alouettes, who signed him for double the money originally offered by the Bills. Cousineau became a star for the Alouettes, becoming the Grey Cup Most Valuable Player in the 1979 season. He only played in four games in his third season because of an elbow injury while the Alouettes collapsed.
In 1982, Cousineau wanted to return to the NFL, choosing to forego two optional years with the Alouettes. The Houston Oilers attempted to sign him, but the Bills (who still held Cousineau's NFL rights) matched the offer.
Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell had long been interested in signing him. Cousineau was then traded from the Bills to the Cleveland Browns for a first-round draft choice (14th overall) in the 1983 NFL Draft, plus a second and a third draft choice in subsequent years. That first-round pick was used on future Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed a five-year contract for $2.5 million, the highest contract ever at the time by the Browns.
In 1983, Cousineau was arrested in connection with minor collision with a police car on Saint Patrick's Day He was charged with drunk driving, improperly using traffic lanes, and not having his driver's license. He was subsequently found not guilty of the drunk driving charge, but guilty of the moving violation (the driver's license charge was dropped).
During Cousineau's four seasons with the Browns, he led the team in tackles for three seasons. In the 1983 season, he intercepted 4 passes and was named a 2nd-team All-NFL by the NEA. He was also named 2nd-team all NFL by the AP in 1984, but never made the Pro Bowl in his career. He was considered an overpaid disappointment in Cleveland, while Bills fans fondly remember the fact that the man who once snubbed them for the CFL was traded for Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed with the San Francisco 49ers as a free agent after the 1985 season where he played two years as a reserve before retiring in 1987. Cousineau finished his NFL career with ten interceptions and 6.5 career sacks.
After retiring as a player
St. Edward inducted Cousineau to the school's Athletic Hall of Fame.
He married Lisa June 16, 1990, and has 2 daughters Kyle and Kacey.
On February 8, 2006, Cousineau announced plans to run for a seat in the Ohio House of Representatives as a Republican in the Akron, Ohio area. He won the May primary but lost the November election to Democrat Brian Williams by a margin of 58% to 42%.
On April 20, 2009, Cousineau joined the St. Vincent – St. Mary High School football coaching staff as a linebackers coach.
Cousineau later went on to be the linebackers coach at St. Edward High School (Ohio)
References
External links
Ohio State bio
NFL bio
1957 births
Living people
All-American college football players
American football linebackers
Canadian football linebackers
Cleveland Browns players
National Football League first overall draft picks
Montreal Alouettes players
Ohio State Buckeyes football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Players of American football from Akron, Ohio
Players of Canadian football from Cleveland
San Francisco 49ers players
St. Edward High School (Lakewood, Ohio) alumni
National Football League replacement players
Players of American football from Cleveland | true | [
"Bud Harless (born January 21, 1924 Gilbert, West Virginia, USA - died October 12, 2007) was a NASCAR Grand National Series driver.\n\nCareer\nHe raced for six years and in 28 races (with two finishes in the top ten). Harless' average starting position was 23rd while his average finishing position was 22nd. The number of laps that Harless raced in his career was 4074 - the equivalent of . Total prize winnings for this driver were $6,255 ($ when adjusted for inflation). Harless was also a NASCAR owner who appeared in thirteen different races as a driver/owner and would be one of the earliest drivers to carry the #8 for his vehicle (which was suspended in 2010 due to lack of sponsorship; the last driver using this number was Aric Almirola) in what is now called the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Insider Racing News\n\n1924 births\n2007 deaths\nNASCAR drivers\nNASCAR team owners\nPeople from Gilbert, West Virginia\nRacing drivers from West Virginia",
"Anhurmose was an ancient Egyptian official of the New Kingdom. He was the high priest of Anhur under Merenptah, but started his career as a military man, most likely under king Ramesses II (reigned about 1279–1213 BC).\n\nAnhurmose is mainly known from his tomb at El Mashayikh Lepidotonpolis, near Abydos. The tomb chapel is fully decorated and contains a long biographical inscription. According to this inscription he started his career on a ship, albeit it is not entirely clear what his exact position was there. Later he served in the army and was part of military campaigns. He was scribe of the army and chariotry. The inscription does not mention a king. However, it seems likely that the service in the army was under king Ramesses II, as the second part of career happened under Merenptah. The latter reigned only for about 10 years. The biography states further more that Anhurmose was chosen by god Shu to become high priest of Maat. It remains uncertain what chose by Shu means, perhaps the king appointed him. From other inscriptions in the tomb it is known that his highest position was high priest of Anhur.\n\nTwo wives are named in the tomb: Tawerthetepet and Sekhmetnefret. Two sons are mentioned, they are called Pennub, who was stablemaster and Hui, who was priest of Anhur. The parents of Anhurmose were a woman called Iemweni and a man called Pennub, who was ''scribe of the recruits of the Lord of the Two Lands.\n\nReferences \n\nOfficials of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt\nAncient Egyptian priests"
] |
[
"Tom Cousineau",
"Professional football career",
"What year did he start playing professional football?",
"Cousineau was then traded from the Bills to the Cleveland Browns for a first-round draft choice (14th overall) in the 1983 NFL Draft,",
"what was his position?",
"During Cousineau's four seasons with the Browns, he led the team in tackles for three seasons."
] | C_65b0d958f0464578be9c7b39642d5a98_0 | did he have any other records? | 3 | Did Tom Cousineau have records, besides leading his team for 3 seasons? | Tom Cousineau | Cousineau was drafted first overall in the 1979 NFL Draft by the Buffalo Bills, who acquired the pick as a part of a package of five draft picks from the San Francisco 49ers in a 1978 trade for O.J. Simpson. However, he never played a game for the Bills. He instead signed with the Canadian Football League Montreal Alouettes, who signed him for double the money originally offered by the Bills. Cousineau became a star for the Alouettes, becoming the Grey Cup Most Valuable Player in the 1979 season. He only played in four games in his third season because of an elbow injury while the Alouettes collapsed. In 1982, Cousineau wanted to return to the NFL, choosing to forego two optional years with the Alouettes. The Houston Oilers attempted to sign him, but the Bills (who still held Cousineau's NFL rights) matched the offer. Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell had long been interested in signing him. Cousineau was then traded from the Bills to the Cleveland Browns for a first-round draft choice (14th overall) in the 1983 NFL Draft, plus a second and a third draft choice in subsequent years. That first-round pick was used on future Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed a five-year contract for $2.5 million, the highest contract ever at the time by the Browns. In 1983, Cousineau was arrested in connection with minor collision with a police car on Saint Patrick's Day He was charged with drunk driving, improperly using traffic lanes, and not having his driver's license. He was subsequently found not guilty of the drunk driving charge, but guilty of the moving violation (the driver's license charge was dropped). During Cousineau's four seasons with the Browns, he led the team in tackles for three seasons. He was named a 2nd-team All-NFL by the NEA in 1983, and by the AP in 1984, but never made the Pro Bowl in his career. He was considered an overpaid disappointment in Cleveland, while Bills fans fondly remember the fact that the man who once snubbed them for the CFL was traded for Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed with the San Francisco 49ers as a free agent after the 1985 season where he played two years as a reserve before retiring in 1987. Cousineau finished his NFL career with ten interceptions and 6.5 career sacks. CANNOTANSWER | He was named a 2nd-team All-NFL by the NEA in 1983, and by the AP in 1984, | Thomas Michael Cousineau (born May 6, 1957) is an American former college and professional football player who was a linebacker in the Canadian Football League (CFL) and National Football League (NFL) for nine seasons during the 1970s and 1980s. He played college football for Ohio State University, and twice earned All-American honors. He was the first overall pick of the 1979 NFL Draft, and played professionally for the CFL's Montreal Alouettes and the NFL's Cleveland Browns and San Francisco 49ers.
Cousineau is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, elected in the class of 2016. He is also a member of the Ohio State Varsity "O" Hall of Fame, inducted in 1995, and St. Edward High School Hall of Fame. Cousineau was the recipient of the Silver Anniversary Butkus Award in 2003.
Early years
Cousineau was born in Fairview Park, Ohio, to Carol and Tom Cousineau Sr, who was the head football and a wrestling coach at Lakewood (Ohio) High School. Consequently, his mother did not want him to play football under the shadow of his father. Thus, Cousineau played high school football for nearby St. Edward High School, which is several blocks away in Lakewood. He excelled and was one of the most highly recruited football players in the country in his senior year. He graduated in 1975.
Cousineau was also an accomplished wrestler. In 1975, under legendary coach Howard Ferguson, he lost to future NFL player Bob Golic from cross-town all-boys school rival St. Joseph High School in the Ohio state wrestling tournament semifinals in the heavyweight weight class. The match has been called "one of the most memorable," Golic would go on to win the state title and Cousineau would finish in third place. Golic would go to be two-time All-American at heavyweight at Notre Dame. Cousineau and Golic would eventually become teammates in the NFL with the Browns.
College football career
Cousineau attended Ohio State University, where he played for legendary coach Woody Hayes' Ohio State Buckeyes football team from 1975 to 1978. During that span, Ohio State had an overall record of 36-10-2 and 28–4 in the Big Ten, were three-time Big Ten champs. The Buckeyes played four bowl games after each of the seasons he played: in the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Gator Bowl. They were a Top 5 team for 36 weeks over these four years and the No. 1 team in the nation for eight weeks in 1975, and ultimately finished fourth, sixth and 12th in the final Associated Press polls in 1975, 1976 and 1977, respectively.
Cousineau majored in marketing. He was a consensus first-team All-American, breaking the school record with 211 tackles in a single season in 1978, an average of 17.5 a game. He also broke the school record for most tackles in a game with 29 against Penn State in 1978, and was the MVP of the 1977 Orange Bowl.
Cousineau's last game for the Buckeyes was the infamous 1978 Gator Bowl against Clemson, during which Coach Hayes punched Clemson linebacker Charlie Bauman in the final minutes of the game. Hayes was fired the following day for the incident.
Cousineau still holds many of Ohio State's tackling records. As of 2016, he holds six of the top 10 single-game tackling records, 29 single-game tackles (since tied by fellow College Football Hall of Famer Chris Spielman), most solo tackles in a single game, (16 against SMU in 1978). He also ranks second on both the all-time OSU tackle list with 569 (three behind Marcus Marek) and on the career solo tackles list with 259.
He was named an All-American in 1977 and 1978. The Chicago Tribune named him the MVP of the Big Ten in 1978. He graduated from OSU in 1979. In 2016, he became the 25th Ohio State player, along with seven Buckeye coaches, to be named to the College Football Hall of Fame.
Professional football career
Cousineau was drafted first overall in the 1979 NFL Draft by the Buffalo Bills, who acquired the pick as a part of a package of five draft picks from the San Francisco 49ers in a 1978 trade for O. J. Simpson. However, he never played a game for the Bills. He instead signed with the Canadian Football League's Montreal Alouettes, who signed him for double the money originally offered by the Bills. Cousineau became a star for the Alouettes, becoming the Grey Cup Most Valuable Player in the 1979 season. He only played in four games in his third season because of an elbow injury while the Alouettes collapsed.
In 1982, Cousineau wanted to return to the NFL, choosing to forego two optional years with the Alouettes. The Houston Oilers attempted to sign him, but the Bills (who still held Cousineau's NFL rights) matched the offer.
Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell had long been interested in signing him. Cousineau was then traded from the Bills to the Cleveland Browns for a first-round draft choice (14th overall) in the 1983 NFL Draft, plus a second and a third draft choice in subsequent years. That first-round pick was used on future Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed a five-year contract for $2.5 million, the highest contract ever at the time by the Browns.
In 1983, Cousineau was arrested in connection with minor collision with a police car on Saint Patrick's Day He was charged with drunk driving, improperly using traffic lanes, and not having his driver's license. He was subsequently found not guilty of the drunk driving charge, but guilty of the moving violation (the driver's license charge was dropped).
During Cousineau's four seasons with the Browns, he led the team in tackles for three seasons. In the 1983 season, he intercepted 4 passes and was named a 2nd-team All-NFL by the NEA. He was also named 2nd-team all NFL by the AP in 1984, but never made the Pro Bowl in his career. He was considered an overpaid disappointment in Cleveland, while Bills fans fondly remember the fact that the man who once snubbed them for the CFL was traded for Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed with the San Francisco 49ers as a free agent after the 1985 season where he played two years as a reserve before retiring in 1987. Cousineau finished his NFL career with ten interceptions and 6.5 career sacks.
After retiring as a player
St. Edward inducted Cousineau to the school's Athletic Hall of Fame.
He married Lisa June 16, 1990, and has 2 daughters Kyle and Kacey.
On February 8, 2006, Cousineau announced plans to run for a seat in the Ohio House of Representatives as a Republican in the Akron, Ohio area. He won the May primary but lost the November election to Democrat Brian Williams by a margin of 58% to 42%.
On April 20, 2009, Cousineau joined the St. Vincent – St. Mary High School football coaching staff as a linebackers coach.
Cousineau later went on to be the linebackers coach at St. Edward High School (Ohio)
References
External links
Ohio State bio
NFL bio
1957 births
Living people
All-American college football players
American football linebackers
Canadian football linebackers
Cleveland Browns players
National Football League first overall draft picks
Montreal Alouettes players
Ohio State Buckeyes football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Players of American football from Akron, Ohio
Players of Canadian football from Cleveland
San Francisco 49ers players
St. Edward High School (Lakewood, Ohio) alumni
National Football League replacement players
Players of American football from Cleveland | false | [
"RPM was an American band who had released two albums during the 1980s. RPM's first album was a self-titled album released by EMI America Records in 1982 and included the AOR hit \"A Legend Never Dies\". Eventually, the band was invited to perform for KLOL's \"Rockfest\" at the Astrodome Complex in Houston, Texas.\n\nThe band's second album, Phonogenic, was released by Warner Bros. Records in 1984. A video was produced for the track, \"Man Overboard\". The album did not have any hits as Warner was promoting other albums at the time such as 1984 by Van Halen, Eliminator by ZZ Top, and Purple Rain by Prince.\n\nDiscography\nRPM 1982 (EMI America Records)\nPhonogenic 1984 (Warner Bros. Records)\n\nReferences\n\nWarner Records artists\nMusical groups from Los Angeles\nMusical groups established in 1982\nMusical groups disestablished in 1984",
"The Men's 1500 metre freestyle competition of the swimming events at the 2015 World Aquatics Championships was held on 8 August with the heats and 9 August with the final.\n\nRecords\nPrior to the competition, the existing world and championship records were as follows.\n\nResults\n\nHeats\nThe heats were held at 10:48.\n\nFinal\nThe final was held on 9 August at 18:20.\n\nSun Yang did not swim the final, and he did not tell anyone that he had no intention of swimming. The next man on the list who would have taken his place in the final, was Pál Joensen from the Faroe Islands, but he did not get any message that he could swim in the final, and therefore lane 3 was empty during the final. Sun Yang said after the event that he had felt chest pain after winning the 800 m freestyle. He felt it again shortly before the final of 1500 m free, but he could not say at what time it was.\n\nReferences\n\nMen's 1500 metre freestyle"
] |
[
"Tom Cousineau",
"Professional football career",
"What year did he start playing professional football?",
"Cousineau was then traded from the Bills to the Cleveland Browns for a first-round draft choice (14th overall) in the 1983 NFL Draft,",
"what was his position?",
"During Cousineau's four seasons with the Browns, he led the team in tackles for three seasons.",
"did he have any other records?",
"He was named a 2nd-team All-NFL by the NEA in 1983, and by the AP in 1984,"
] | C_65b0d958f0464578be9c7b39642d5a98_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 4 | Besides Tom Cousineau being named 2nd-team All-NFL are there any other interesting aspects about the article? | Tom Cousineau | Cousineau was drafted first overall in the 1979 NFL Draft by the Buffalo Bills, who acquired the pick as a part of a package of five draft picks from the San Francisco 49ers in a 1978 trade for O.J. Simpson. However, he never played a game for the Bills. He instead signed with the Canadian Football League Montreal Alouettes, who signed him for double the money originally offered by the Bills. Cousineau became a star for the Alouettes, becoming the Grey Cup Most Valuable Player in the 1979 season. He only played in four games in his third season because of an elbow injury while the Alouettes collapsed. In 1982, Cousineau wanted to return to the NFL, choosing to forego two optional years with the Alouettes. The Houston Oilers attempted to sign him, but the Bills (who still held Cousineau's NFL rights) matched the offer. Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell had long been interested in signing him. Cousineau was then traded from the Bills to the Cleveland Browns for a first-round draft choice (14th overall) in the 1983 NFL Draft, plus a second and a third draft choice in subsequent years. That first-round pick was used on future Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed a five-year contract for $2.5 million, the highest contract ever at the time by the Browns. In 1983, Cousineau was arrested in connection with minor collision with a police car on Saint Patrick's Day He was charged with drunk driving, improperly using traffic lanes, and not having his driver's license. He was subsequently found not guilty of the drunk driving charge, but guilty of the moving violation (the driver's license charge was dropped). During Cousineau's four seasons with the Browns, he led the team in tackles for three seasons. He was named a 2nd-team All-NFL by the NEA in 1983, and by the AP in 1984, but never made the Pro Bowl in his career. He was considered an overpaid disappointment in Cleveland, while Bills fans fondly remember the fact that the man who once snubbed them for the CFL was traded for Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed with the San Francisco 49ers as a free agent after the 1985 season where he played two years as a reserve before retiring in 1987. Cousineau finished his NFL career with ten interceptions and 6.5 career sacks. CANNOTANSWER | never made the Pro Bowl in his career. | Thomas Michael Cousineau (born May 6, 1957) is an American former college and professional football player who was a linebacker in the Canadian Football League (CFL) and National Football League (NFL) for nine seasons during the 1970s and 1980s. He played college football for Ohio State University, and twice earned All-American honors. He was the first overall pick of the 1979 NFL Draft, and played professionally for the CFL's Montreal Alouettes and the NFL's Cleveland Browns and San Francisco 49ers.
Cousineau is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, elected in the class of 2016. He is also a member of the Ohio State Varsity "O" Hall of Fame, inducted in 1995, and St. Edward High School Hall of Fame. Cousineau was the recipient of the Silver Anniversary Butkus Award in 2003.
Early years
Cousineau was born in Fairview Park, Ohio, to Carol and Tom Cousineau Sr, who was the head football and a wrestling coach at Lakewood (Ohio) High School. Consequently, his mother did not want him to play football under the shadow of his father. Thus, Cousineau played high school football for nearby St. Edward High School, which is several blocks away in Lakewood. He excelled and was one of the most highly recruited football players in the country in his senior year. He graduated in 1975.
Cousineau was also an accomplished wrestler. In 1975, under legendary coach Howard Ferguson, he lost to future NFL player Bob Golic from cross-town all-boys school rival St. Joseph High School in the Ohio state wrestling tournament semifinals in the heavyweight weight class. The match has been called "one of the most memorable," Golic would go on to win the state title and Cousineau would finish in third place. Golic would go to be two-time All-American at heavyweight at Notre Dame. Cousineau and Golic would eventually become teammates in the NFL with the Browns.
College football career
Cousineau attended Ohio State University, where he played for legendary coach Woody Hayes' Ohio State Buckeyes football team from 1975 to 1978. During that span, Ohio State had an overall record of 36-10-2 and 28–4 in the Big Ten, were three-time Big Ten champs. The Buckeyes played four bowl games after each of the seasons he played: in the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Gator Bowl. They were a Top 5 team for 36 weeks over these four years and the No. 1 team in the nation for eight weeks in 1975, and ultimately finished fourth, sixth and 12th in the final Associated Press polls in 1975, 1976 and 1977, respectively.
Cousineau majored in marketing. He was a consensus first-team All-American, breaking the school record with 211 tackles in a single season in 1978, an average of 17.5 a game. He also broke the school record for most tackles in a game with 29 against Penn State in 1978, and was the MVP of the 1977 Orange Bowl.
Cousineau's last game for the Buckeyes was the infamous 1978 Gator Bowl against Clemson, during which Coach Hayes punched Clemson linebacker Charlie Bauman in the final minutes of the game. Hayes was fired the following day for the incident.
Cousineau still holds many of Ohio State's tackling records. As of 2016, he holds six of the top 10 single-game tackling records, 29 single-game tackles (since tied by fellow College Football Hall of Famer Chris Spielman), most solo tackles in a single game, (16 against SMU in 1978). He also ranks second on both the all-time OSU tackle list with 569 (three behind Marcus Marek) and on the career solo tackles list with 259.
He was named an All-American in 1977 and 1978. The Chicago Tribune named him the MVP of the Big Ten in 1978. He graduated from OSU in 1979. In 2016, he became the 25th Ohio State player, along with seven Buckeye coaches, to be named to the College Football Hall of Fame.
Professional football career
Cousineau was drafted first overall in the 1979 NFL Draft by the Buffalo Bills, who acquired the pick as a part of a package of five draft picks from the San Francisco 49ers in a 1978 trade for O. J. Simpson. However, he never played a game for the Bills. He instead signed with the Canadian Football League's Montreal Alouettes, who signed him for double the money originally offered by the Bills. Cousineau became a star for the Alouettes, becoming the Grey Cup Most Valuable Player in the 1979 season. He only played in four games in his third season because of an elbow injury while the Alouettes collapsed.
In 1982, Cousineau wanted to return to the NFL, choosing to forego two optional years with the Alouettes. The Houston Oilers attempted to sign him, but the Bills (who still held Cousineau's NFL rights) matched the offer.
Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell had long been interested in signing him. Cousineau was then traded from the Bills to the Cleveland Browns for a first-round draft choice (14th overall) in the 1983 NFL Draft, plus a second and a third draft choice in subsequent years. That first-round pick was used on future Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed a five-year contract for $2.5 million, the highest contract ever at the time by the Browns.
In 1983, Cousineau was arrested in connection with minor collision with a police car on Saint Patrick's Day He was charged with drunk driving, improperly using traffic lanes, and not having his driver's license. He was subsequently found not guilty of the drunk driving charge, but guilty of the moving violation (the driver's license charge was dropped).
During Cousineau's four seasons with the Browns, he led the team in tackles for three seasons. In the 1983 season, he intercepted 4 passes and was named a 2nd-team All-NFL by the NEA. He was also named 2nd-team all NFL by the AP in 1984, but never made the Pro Bowl in his career. He was considered an overpaid disappointment in Cleveland, while Bills fans fondly remember the fact that the man who once snubbed them for the CFL was traded for Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed with the San Francisco 49ers as a free agent after the 1985 season where he played two years as a reserve before retiring in 1987. Cousineau finished his NFL career with ten interceptions and 6.5 career sacks.
After retiring as a player
St. Edward inducted Cousineau to the school's Athletic Hall of Fame.
He married Lisa June 16, 1990, and has 2 daughters Kyle and Kacey.
On February 8, 2006, Cousineau announced plans to run for a seat in the Ohio House of Representatives as a Republican in the Akron, Ohio area. He won the May primary but lost the November election to Democrat Brian Williams by a margin of 58% to 42%.
On April 20, 2009, Cousineau joined the St. Vincent – St. Mary High School football coaching staff as a linebackers coach.
Cousineau later went on to be the linebackers coach at St. Edward High School (Ohio)
References
External links
Ohio State bio
NFL bio
1957 births
Living people
All-American college football players
American football linebackers
Canadian football linebackers
Cleveland Browns players
National Football League first overall draft picks
Montreal Alouettes players
Ohio State Buckeyes football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Players of American football from Akron, Ohio
Players of Canadian football from Cleveland
San Francisco 49ers players
St. Edward High School (Lakewood, Ohio) alumni
National Football League replacement players
Players of American football from Cleveland | true | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Tom Cousineau",
"Professional football career",
"What year did he start playing professional football?",
"Cousineau was then traded from the Bills to the Cleveland Browns for a first-round draft choice (14th overall) in the 1983 NFL Draft,",
"what was his position?",
"During Cousineau's four seasons with the Browns, he led the team in tackles for three seasons.",
"did he have any other records?",
"He was named a 2nd-team All-NFL by the NEA in 1983, and by the AP in 1984,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"never made the Pro Bowl in his career."
] | C_65b0d958f0464578be9c7b39642d5a98_0 | who was his coach? | 5 | Who was Tom Cousineau's coach? | Tom Cousineau | Cousineau was drafted first overall in the 1979 NFL Draft by the Buffalo Bills, who acquired the pick as a part of a package of five draft picks from the San Francisco 49ers in a 1978 trade for O.J. Simpson. However, he never played a game for the Bills. He instead signed with the Canadian Football League Montreal Alouettes, who signed him for double the money originally offered by the Bills. Cousineau became a star for the Alouettes, becoming the Grey Cup Most Valuable Player in the 1979 season. He only played in four games in his third season because of an elbow injury while the Alouettes collapsed. In 1982, Cousineau wanted to return to the NFL, choosing to forego two optional years with the Alouettes. The Houston Oilers attempted to sign him, but the Bills (who still held Cousineau's NFL rights) matched the offer. Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell had long been interested in signing him. Cousineau was then traded from the Bills to the Cleveland Browns for a first-round draft choice (14th overall) in the 1983 NFL Draft, plus a second and a third draft choice in subsequent years. That first-round pick was used on future Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed a five-year contract for $2.5 million, the highest contract ever at the time by the Browns. In 1983, Cousineau was arrested in connection with minor collision with a police car on Saint Patrick's Day He was charged with drunk driving, improperly using traffic lanes, and not having his driver's license. He was subsequently found not guilty of the drunk driving charge, but guilty of the moving violation (the driver's license charge was dropped). During Cousineau's four seasons with the Browns, he led the team in tackles for three seasons. He was named a 2nd-team All-NFL by the NEA in 1983, and by the AP in 1984, but never made the Pro Bowl in his career. He was considered an overpaid disappointment in Cleveland, while Bills fans fondly remember the fact that the man who once snubbed them for the CFL was traded for Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed with the San Francisco 49ers as a free agent after the 1985 season where he played two years as a reserve before retiring in 1987. Cousineau finished his NFL career with ten interceptions and 6.5 career sacks. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Thomas Michael Cousineau (born May 6, 1957) is an American former college and professional football player who was a linebacker in the Canadian Football League (CFL) and National Football League (NFL) for nine seasons during the 1970s and 1980s. He played college football for Ohio State University, and twice earned All-American honors. He was the first overall pick of the 1979 NFL Draft, and played professionally for the CFL's Montreal Alouettes and the NFL's Cleveland Browns and San Francisco 49ers.
Cousineau is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, elected in the class of 2016. He is also a member of the Ohio State Varsity "O" Hall of Fame, inducted in 1995, and St. Edward High School Hall of Fame. Cousineau was the recipient of the Silver Anniversary Butkus Award in 2003.
Early years
Cousineau was born in Fairview Park, Ohio, to Carol and Tom Cousineau Sr, who was the head football and a wrestling coach at Lakewood (Ohio) High School. Consequently, his mother did not want him to play football under the shadow of his father. Thus, Cousineau played high school football for nearby St. Edward High School, which is several blocks away in Lakewood. He excelled and was one of the most highly recruited football players in the country in his senior year. He graduated in 1975.
Cousineau was also an accomplished wrestler. In 1975, under legendary coach Howard Ferguson, he lost to future NFL player Bob Golic from cross-town all-boys school rival St. Joseph High School in the Ohio state wrestling tournament semifinals in the heavyweight weight class. The match has been called "one of the most memorable," Golic would go on to win the state title and Cousineau would finish in third place. Golic would go to be two-time All-American at heavyweight at Notre Dame. Cousineau and Golic would eventually become teammates in the NFL with the Browns.
College football career
Cousineau attended Ohio State University, where he played for legendary coach Woody Hayes' Ohio State Buckeyes football team from 1975 to 1978. During that span, Ohio State had an overall record of 36-10-2 and 28–4 in the Big Ten, were three-time Big Ten champs. The Buckeyes played four bowl games after each of the seasons he played: in the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Gator Bowl. They were a Top 5 team for 36 weeks over these four years and the No. 1 team in the nation for eight weeks in 1975, and ultimately finished fourth, sixth and 12th in the final Associated Press polls in 1975, 1976 and 1977, respectively.
Cousineau majored in marketing. He was a consensus first-team All-American, breaking the school record with 211 tackles in a single season in 1978, an average of 17.5 a game. He also broke the school record for most tackles in a game with 29 against Penn State in 1978, and was the MVP of the 1977 Orange Bowl.
Cousineau's last game for the Buckeyes was the infamous 1978 Gator Bowl against Clemson, during which Coach Hayes punched Clemson linebacker Charlie Bauman in the final minutes of the game. Hayes was fired the following day for the incident.
Cousineau still holds many of Ohio State's tackling records. As of 2016, he holds six of the top 10 single-game tackling records, 29 single-game tackles (since tied by fellow College Football Hall of Famer Chris Spielman), most solo tackles in a single game, (16 against SMU in 1978). He also ranks second on both the all-time OSU tackle list with 569 (three behind Marcus Marek) and on the career solo tackles list with 259.
He was named an All-American in 1977 and 1978. The Chicago Tribune named him the MVP of the Big Ten in 1978. He graduated from OSU in 1979. In 2016, he became the 25th Ohio State player, along with seven Buckeye coaches, to be named to the College Football Hall of Fame.
Professional football career
Cousineau was drafted first overall in the 1979 NFL Draft by the Buffalo Bills, who acquired the pick as a part of a package of five draft picks from the San Francisco 49ers in a 1978 trade for O. J. Simpson. However, he never played a game for the Bills. He instead signed with the Canadian Football League's Montreal Alouettes, who signed him for double the money originally offered by the Bills. Cousineau became a star for the Alouettes, becoming the Grey Cup Most Valuable Player in the 1979 season. He only played in four games in his third season because of an elbow injury while the Alouettes collapsed.
In 1982, Cousineau wanted to return to the NFL, choosing to forego two optional years with the Alouettes. The Houston Oilers attempted to sign him, but the Bills (who still held Cousineau's NFL rights) matched the offer.
Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell had long been interested in signing him. Cousineau was then traded from the Bills to the Cleveland Browns for a first-round draft choice (14th overall) in the 1983 NFL Draft, plus a second and a third draft choice in subsequent years. That first-round pick was used on future Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed a five-year contract for $2.5 million, the highest contract ever at the time by the Browns.
In 1983, Cousineau was arrested in connection with minor collision with a police car on Saint Patrick's Day He was charged with drunk driving, improperly using traffic lanes, and not having his driver's license. He was subsequently found not guilty of the drunk driving charge, but guilty of the moving violation (the driver's license charge was dropped).
During Cousineau's four seasons with the Browns, he led the team in tackles for three seasons. In the 1983 season, he intercepted 4 passes and was named a 2nd-team All-NFL by the NEA. He was also named 2nd-team all NFL by the AP in 1984, but never made the Pro Bowl in his career. He was considered an overpaid disappointment in Cleveland, while Bills fans fondly remember the fact that the man who once snubbed them for the CFL was traded for Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed with the San Francisco 49ers as a free agent after the 1985 season where he played two years as a reserve before retiring in 1987. Cousineau finished his NFL career with ten interceptions and 6.5 career sacks.
After retiring as a player
St. Edward inducted Cousineau to the school's Athletic Hall of Fame.
He married Lisa June 16, 1990, and has 2 daughters Kyle and Kacey.
On February 8, 2006, Cousineau announced plans to run for a seat in the Ohio House of Representatives as a Republican in the Akron, Ohio area. He won the May primary but lost the November election to Democrat Brian Williams by a margin of 58% to 42%.
On April 20, 2009, Cousineau joined the St. Vincent – St. Mary High School football coaching staff as a linebackers coach.
Cousineau later went on to be the linebackers coach at St. Edward High School (Ohio)
References
External links
Ohio State bio
NFL bio
1957 births
Living people
All-American college football players
American football linebackers
Canadian football linebackers
Cleveland Browns players
National Football League first overall draft picks
Montreal Alouettes players
Ohio State Buckeyes football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Players of American football from Akron, Ohio
Players of Canadian football from Cleveland
San Francisco 49ers players
St. Edward High School (Lakewood, Ohio) alumni
National Football League replacement players
Players of American football from Cleveland | false | [
"Billie Matthews (March 15, 1930 - December 7, 2001) was an American football coach who was the Offensive Coordinator of the Indianapolis Colts from 1985 to 1986. He was also the San Francisco 49ers Running Backs coach from 1979 to 1982, the Philadelphia Eagles Running Backs coach from 1983 to 1984, the Kansas City Chiefs Running Backs coach from 1987 to 1988, and the Detroit Lions defensive backs and running backs coach from 1989 to 1994.\n\nEarly life\nBillie Matthews was born in Houston Texas on March 15, 1930.\n\nCoaching career\n\nKashmere High School\nHis first coaching position came as the head coach at Kashmere High School. He was the head coach for 12 seasons, from 1959 to 1970.\n\nUCLA Bruins\nMatthews got a job as the defensive backs coach for the UCLA Bruins in 1971. He became the running backs coach the next year and was the coach until 1978.\n\nSan Francisco 49ers\nMatthews got his first NFL coaching job as the Running Backs coach for the San Francisco 49ers. He was coach when they won Super Bowl XVI. He was coach from 1979 to 1982.\n\nPhiladelphia Eagles\nHe was the running backs coach for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1983 to 1984.\n\nIndianapolis Colts\nFrom 1985 to 1986, he was the offensive coordinator and running backs coach for the Indianapolis Colts.\n\nKansas City Chiefs\nFrom 1987 to 1988, he was the running backs coach for the Kansas City Chiefs.\n\nDetroit Lions\nHe was the defensive backs coach from 1989 to 1991 for the Detroit Lions. He switched to running backs coach from 1992 to 1994. For three years, he was the running backs coach of Barry Sanders.\n\nReferences\n\n1930 births\n2001 deaths\nSan Francisco 49ers coaches\nPhiladelphia Eagles coaches\nDetroit Lions coaches\nKansas City Chiefs coaches",
"This is a list of squads selected for the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy.\n\nGroup A\n\nAustralia\nCoach: Darren Lehmann\n\nBangladesh\nCoach: Chandika Hathurusingha\n\nEngland\nCoach: Trevor Bayliss\n\nChris Woakes was ruled out of the rest of the tournament after suffering a side-strain during England's opening match against Bangladesh. Steven Finn was added to the squad as his replacement.\n\nNew Zealand\nCoach: Mike Hesson\n\nGroup B\n\nIndia\nCoach: Anil Kumble\n\nAhead of the tournament Dinesh Karthik replaced Manish Pandey, who was ruled out with a side strain.\n\nPakistan\nCoach: Mickey Arthur\n\nUmar Akmal was included in the provisional squad named by the PCB, but failed a fitness test and was called back from England. Haris Sohail was named as his replacement.\n\nWahab Riaz was ruled out of the tournament with an ankle injury after his team's opening match. He was replaced in the squad by Rumman Raees.\n\nSri Lanka\nCoach: Graham Ford\n\nChamara Kapugedera injured his knee during the tournament and was replaced by Danushka Gunathilaka.\nKusal Perera was ruled out of the tournament with a hamstring injury and was replaced by Dhananjaya de Silva.\n\nSouth Africa\nCoach: Russell Domingo\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n ICC Champions Trophy 2017 Squads on ESPN Cricinfo\n\nICC Champions Trophy squads\n2017 ICC Champions Trophy"
] |
[
"Tom Cousineau",
"Professional football career",
"What year did he start playing professional football?",
"Cousineau was then traded from the Bills to the Cleveland Browns for a first-round draft choice (14th overall) in the 1983 NFL Draft,",
"what was his position?",
"During Cousineau's four seasons with the Browns, he led the team in tackles for three seasons.",
"did he have any other records?",
"He was named a 2nd-team All-NFL by the NEA in 1983, and by the AP in 1984,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"never made the Pro Bowl in his career.",
"who was his coach?",
"I don't know."
] | C_65b0d958f0464578be9c7b39642d5a98_0 | when did he leave the browns? | 6 | When did Tom Cousineau leave the browns? | Tom Cousineau | Cousineau was drafted first overall in the 1979 NFL Draft by the Buffalo Bills, who acquired the pick as a part of a package of five draft picks from the San Francisco 49ers in a 1978 trade for O.J. Simpson. However, he never played a game for the Bills. He instead signed with the Canadian Football League Montreal Alouettes, who signed him for double the money originally offered by the Bills. Cousineau became a star for the Alouettes, becoming the Grey Cup Most Valuable Player in the 1979 season. He only played in four games in his third season because of an elbow injury while the Alouettes collapsed. In 1982, Cousineau wanted to return to the NFL, choosing to forego two optional years with the Alouettes. The Houston Oilers attempted to sign him, but the Bills (who still held Cousineau's NFL rights) matched the offer. Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell had long been interested in signing him. Cousineau was then traded from the Bills to the Cleveland Browns for a first-round draft choice (14th overall) in the 1983 NFL Draft, plus a second and a third draft choice in subsequent years. That first-round pick was used on future Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed a five-year contract for $2.5 million, the highest contract ever at the time by the Browns. In 1983, Cousineau was arrested in connection with minor collision with a police car on Saint Patrick's Day He was charged with drunk driving, improperly using traffic lanes, and not having his driver's license. He was subsequently found not guilty of the drunk driving charge, but guilty of the moving violation (the driver's license charge was dropped). During Cousineau's four seasons with the Browns, he led the team in tackles for three seasons. He was named a 2nd-team All-NFL by the NEA in 1983, and by the AP in 1984, but never made the Pro Bowl in his career. He was considered an overpaid disappointment in Cleveland, while Bills fans fondly remember the fact that the man who once snubbed them for the CFL was traded for Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed with the San Francisco 49ers as a free agent after the 1985 season where he played two years as a reserve before retiring in 1987. Cousineau finished his NFL career with ten interceptions and 6.5 career sacks. CANNOTANSWER | Cousineau was then traded from the Bills to the Cleveland Browns for a first-round draft choice (14th overall) in the 1983 NFL Draft, | Thomas Michael Cousineau (born May 6, 1957) is an American former college and professional football player who was a linebacker in the Canadian Football League (CFL) and National Football League (NFL) for nine seasons during the 1970s and 1980s. He played college football for Ohio State University, and twice earned All-American honors. He was the first overall pick of the 1979 NFL Draft, and played professionally for the CFL's Montreal Alouettes and the NFL's Cleveland Browns and San Francisco 49ers.
Cousineau is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, elected in the class of 2016. He is also a member of the Ohio State Varsity "O" Hall of Fame, inducted in 1995, and St. Edward High School Hall of Fame. Cousineau was the recipient of the Silver Anniversary Butkus Award in 2003.
Early years
Cousineau was born in Fairview Park, Ohio, to Carol and Tom Cousineau Sr, who was the head football and a wrestling coach at Lakewood (Ohio) High School. Consequently, his mother did not want him to play football under the shadow of his father. Thus, Cousineau played high school football for nearby St. Edward High School, which is several blocks away in Lakewood. He excelled and was one of the most highly recruited football players in the country in his senior year. He graduated in 1975.
Cousineau was also an accomplished wrestler. In 1975, under legendary coach Howard Ferguson, he lost to future NFL player Bob Golic from cross-town all-boys school rival St. Joseph High School in the Ohio state wrestling tournament semifinals in the heavyweight weight class. The match has been called "one of the most memorable," Golic would go on to win the state title and Cousineau would finish in third place. Golic would go to be two-time All-American at heavyweight at Notre Dame. Cousineau and Golic would eventually become teammates in the NFL with the Browns.
College football career
Cousineau attended Ohio State University, where he played for legendary coach Woody Hayes' Ohio State Buckeyes football team from 1975 to 1978. During that span, Ohio State had an overall record of 36-10-2 and 28–4 in the Big Ten, were three-time Big Ten champs. The Buckeyes played four bowl games after each of the seasons he played: in the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Gator Bowl. They were a Top 5 team for 36 weeks over these four years and the No. 1 team in the nation for eight weeks in 1975, and ultimately finished fourth, sixth and 12th in the final Associated Press polls in 1975, 1976 and 1977, respectively.
Cousineau majored in marketing. He was a consensus first-team All-American, breaking the school record with 211 tackles in a single season in 1978, an average of 17.5 a game. He also broke the school record for most tackles in a game with 29 against Penn State in 1978, and was the MVP of the 1977 Orange Bowl.
Cousineau's last game for the Buckeyes was the infamous 1978 Gator Bowl against Clemson, during which Coach Hayes punched Clemson linebacker Charlie Bauman in the final minutes of the game. Hayes was fired the following day for the incident.
Cousineau still holds many of Ohio State's tackling records. As of 2016, he holds six of the top 10 single-game tackling records, 29 single-game tackles (since tied by fellow College Football Hall of Famer Chris Spielman), most solo tackles in a single game, (16 against SMU in 1978). He also ranks second on both the all-time OSU tackle list with 569 (three behind Marcus Marek) and on the career solo tackles list with 259.
He was named an All-American in 1977 and 1978. The Chicago Tribune named him the MVP of the Big Ten in 1978. He graduated from OSU in 1979. In 2016, he became the 25th Ohio State player, along with seven Buckeye coaches, to be named to the College Football Hall of Fame.
Professional football career
Cousineau was drafted first overall in the 1979 NFL Draft by the Buffalo Bills, who acquired the pick as a part of a package of five draft picks from the San Francisco 49ers in a 1978 trade for O. J. Simpson. However, he never played a game for the Bills. He instead signed with the Canadian Football League's Montreal Alouettes, who signed him for double the money originally offered by the Bills. Cousineau became a star for the Alouettes, becoming the Grey Cup Most Valuable Player in the 1979 season. He only played in four games in his third season because of an elbow injury while the Alouettes collapsed.
In 1982, Cousineau wanted to return to the NFL, choosing to forego two optional years with the Alouettes. The Houston Oilers attempted to sign him, but the Bills (who still held Cousineau's NFL rights) matched the offer.
Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell had long been interested in signing him. Cousineau was then traded from the Bills to the Cleveland Browns for a first-round draft choice (14th overall) in the 1983 NFL Draft, plus a second and a third draft choice in subsequent years. That first-round pick was used on future Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed a five-year contract for $2.5 million, the highest contract ever at the time by the Browns.
In 1983, Cousineau was arrested in connection with minor collision with a police car on Saint Patrick's Day He was charged with drunk driving, improperly using traffic lanes, and not having his driver's license. He was subsequently found not guilty of the drunk driving charge, but guilty of the moving violation (the driver's license charge was dropped).
During Cousineau's four seasons with the Browns, he led the team in tackles for three seasons. In the 1983 season, he intercepted 4 passes and was named a 2nd-team All-NFL by the NEA. He was also named 2nd-team all NFL by the AP in 1984, but never made the Pro Bowl in his career. He was considered an overpaid disappointment in Cleveland, while Bills fans fondly remember the fact that the man who once snubbed them for the CFL was traded for Jim Kelly. Cousineau signed with the San Francisco 49ers as a free agent after the 1985 season where he played two years as a reserve before retiring in 1987. Cousineau finished his NFL career with ten interceptions and 6.5 career sacks.
After retiring as a player
St. Edward inducted Cousineau to the school's Athletic Hall of Fame.
He married Lisa June 16, 1990, and has 2 daughters Kyle and Kacey.
On February 8, 2006, Cousineau announced plans to run for a seat in the Ohio House of Representatives as a Republican in the Akron, Ohio area. He won the May primary but lost the November election to Democrat Brian Williams by a margin of 58% to 42%.
On April 20, 2009, Cousineau joined the St. Vincent – St. Mary High School football coaching staff as a linebackers coach.
Cousineau later went on to be the linebackers coach at St. Edward High School (Ohio)
References
External links
Ohio State bio
NFL bio
1957 births
Living people
All-American college football players
American football linebackers
Canadian football linebackers
Cleveland Browns players
National Football League first overall draft picks
Montreal Alouettes players
Ohio State Buckeyes football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Players of American football from Akron, Ohio
Players of Canadian football from Cleveland
San Francisco 49ers players
St. Edward High School (Lakewood, Ohio) alumni
National Football League replacement players
Players of American football from Cleveland | true | [
"James Francis Donovan III (born July 17, 1956) is an American radio and television personality who serves as sports director and news anchor for WKYC channel 3 (NBC) in Cleveland, Ohio, and has been the radio voice of the Cleveland Browns Radio Network since 1999.\n\nEarly life and career beginnings\nDonovan was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He is a 1978 graduate of Boston University and began his career as a sports director for WJON radio in St. Cloud, Minnesota. From Minnesota, he moved to Vermont, providing play-by-play basketball and hockey coverage for the Satellite News Channel in Burlington, Vermont. He also did play-by-play and sports anchoring at WVMT radio and WEZF-TV.\n\nHe also served for one season as play-by-play announcer for the Vermont Reds, a Cincinnati Reds minor league baseball team (which coincidentally is now the Akron RubberDucks, a Cleveland Indians minor league team).\n\nWKYC and SportsTime Ohio\nFollowing the death of WKYC weeknight sports anchor Jim Graner in 1976, the Channel 3 sports director job became something of a \"revolving door,\" as at least six replacements (among them Don Schroeder, Tom Ryther, Joe Pelligrino, Jim Mueller and Wayland Boot) came and went over the next decade – this was until Donovan, who had joined the station in 1985 as weekend sports anchor, finally took over in 1986. He has held the post ever since.\n\nIn 2006, channel 3 and SportsTime Ohio - now known as Bally Sports Great Lakes (BSGL) - acquired the local TV rights to the Cleveland Browns. So in addition to his duties on WKYC, Donovan also hosts several Browns themed programs on BSGL.\n\nPlay-by-play\nOn the national level Donovan had called play-by-play for NBC Sports' NFL coverage from 1987 to 1997. He also handled swimming and soccer play-by-play in the 1992 and 1996 Summer Olympics for NBC, and World Cup Soccer in 1994.\n\nIn 1999, when the Cleveland Browns returned to the NFL, Donovan was named as radio play-by-play voice of the team.\n\nAfter WKYC acquired the local, over-the-air television rights to the Cleveland Indians, Donovan served as play-by-play announcer from 2006–2008.\n\nSignature calls\nTen...Five...Touchdown Browns! – when a Browns player scores a touchdown with a clear path to the end zone.\n\nRun William Run! - in reference to William Green 64 yard touchdown run during a Cleveland Browns vs. Atlanta Falcons game in 2002.\n\nIs this how it feels? - when the Browns defeated the New York Jets in Week 3 of the 2018 season, their first victory in 635 days.\n\nChubba Wubba Hubb! - in reference to Nick Chubbs 92 yard touchdown run during an Atlanta Falcons vs Cleveland Browns game in 2018.\n\nMedical leave\nOn May 25, 2011, during the 11 pm newscast, Donovan announced he had been battling leukemia for the last ten years, and that he would be taking a leave of absence to undergo a (what would be a successful) bone marrow transplant.\n\nOn September 11, 2011, Donovan returned to the Browns broadcasting booth in time for their opener against the Cincinnati Bengals. The next night, he returned to the sports anchor chair at WKYC, as well as his hosting duties on STO.\n\nDonovan met with his bone marrow donor on Thanksgiving night in 2013, when Dallas Gentry from Wise, Virginia, visited the Donovan family.\n\nNews anchor\nOn January 16, 2012, Donovan expanded his duties at WKYC as he became the anchor of channel 3's 7 p.m. newscast. He continues in his role as sports anchor at 6 and 11 p.m.\n\nPersonal life\nDonovan, his wife (Cheryl), and daughter (Meghan) live in Hinckley, Ohio.\n\nAwards and honors\nThree-time Lower Great Lakes Emmy Award winner.\n1988 Cleveland Press Club All-Ohio Best Sportscaster. \nCleveland Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame inductee (class of 2005)\nCleveland Press Club Journalism Hall of Fame inductee (class of 2009).\n2016 Cleveland Sports Awards Lifetime Achievement Award\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nCleveland Browns official website\n\nMajor League Baseball broadcasters\nNational Football League announcers\nLiving people\n1956 births\nAmerican television reporters and correspondents\nCleveland Browns announcers\nCleveland Indians announcers\nTelevision anchors from Cleveland\nOlympic Games broadcasters\nAmerican television sports anchors\nAmerican soccer commentators\nPeople from Hinckley, Ohio",
"The 1966 Cleveland Browns season was the team's 17th season with the National Football League.\nThey finished just 9–5, their worst record since 1962, and failed to make the playoffs for the first time since 1963.\n\nSeason summary \nSave for a devastating 16–6 upset loss to a Pittsburgh Steelers team that would finish just 5–8–1, the Browns offense scored points in bunches. In later years, Browns players from that era said the 1966 team had the best offense—even better than the one in 1964, when the club won the NFL championship—and there's evidence to support that contention. The flurry of points started in the opener when the Browns blew out the Washington Redskins 38–14. It continued in a stretch of five straight games in which they lost 34–28 to the St. Louis Cardinals, beat the New York Giants 28–7, routed the Steelers 41–10, turned back the Dallas Cowboys 30–21 and crushed the expansion Atlanta Falcons 49–17.\n\nThen, as they were finishing the season, the Browns outscored the Giants 49–40 and walloped the Cardinals 38–10.\n\nThe Browns scored 403 points in all, averaging a healthy 28.8 per contest. Even in the game that eventually did in their playoff chances—a 33–21 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in the next-to-last week—they were able to score a decent number of points.\nQuarterback Frank Ryan was as good – or better – than he was in any of his previous three seasons as the full-time starter, including 1964, when he helped lead the Browns to the NFL championship. He threw for a career-high 2,974 yards and had better than a 2-to-1 ratio of touchdown passes (29) to interceptions (14). He also posted his second-best quarterback rating at 88.2.\n\nNFL Draft \nThe following were selected in the 1966 NFL Draft.\n\nExhibition schedule \n\nThere was a doubleheader on August 26, 1966 Redskins vs Vikings and Colts vs Browns.\n\nRegular season schedule \n\n A bye week was necessary in , as the league expanded to an odd-number (15) of teams (Atlanta); one team was idle each week.\n\nGame summaries\n\nWeek 1\n\nWeek 6: at Atlanta\n\nWeek 12 at Cowboys\n\nStandings\n\nPersonnel\n\nRoster\n\nStaff/Coaches\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Season summary and stats at Cleveland Browns.com\n\nCleveland\nCleveland Browns seasons\nCleveland Browns"
] |
[
"Stephen Colbert",
"Strangers with Candy"
] | C_50f0971a1da64891b4732fcb58fabe60_0 | What did Colbert study? | 1 | What did Stephen Colbert study? | Stephen Colbert | During the same period, Colbert worked again with Sedaris and Dinello to develop a new comedy series for Comedy Central, Strangers with Candy. Comedy Central picked up the series in 1998 after Colbert had already begun working on The Daily Show. As a result, he accepted a reduced role, filming only around 20 Daily Show segments a year while he worked on the new series. Strangers with Candy was conceived of as a parody of after school specials, following the life of Jerri Blank, a 46-year-old dropout who returns to finish high school after 32 years of life on the street. Most noted by critics for its use of offensive humor, it concluded each episode by delivering to the audience a skewed, politically incorrect moral lesson. Colbert served as a main writer alongside Sedaris and Dinello, and portrayed Jerri's strict but uninformed history teacher, Chuck Noblet, seen throughout the series dispensing inaccurate information to his classes. Colbert has likened this to the character he played on The Daily Show and later The Colbert Report, claiming that he has a very specific niche in portraying "poorly informed, high-status idiot" characters. Another running joke throughout the series was that Noblet, a closeted homosexual, was having a "secret" affair with fellow teacher Geoffrey Jellineck, despite the fact that their relationship was apparent to everyone around them. This obliviousness also appears in Colbert's Daily Show and Colbert Report character. Thirty episodes of Strangers with Candy were made, which aired on Comedy Central in 1999 and 2000. Though its ratings were not remarkable during its initial run, it has been characterized as a cult show with a small but dedicated audience. Colbert reprised his role for a film adaptation, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and had a limited release in 2006. The film received mixed reviews. Colbert also co-wrote the screenplay with Sedaris and Dinello. CANNOTANSWER | Another running joke throughout the series was that Noblet, a closeted homosexual, was having a "secret" affair with fellow teacher Geoffrey Jellineck, | Stephen Tyrone Colbert ( ; born May 13, 1964) is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is best known for hosting the satirical Comedy Central program The Colbert Report from 2005 to 2014 and the CBS talk program The Late Show with Stephen Colbert beginning in September 2015.
Colbert originally studied to be a dramatic actor, but became interested in improvisational theater while attending Northwestern University, where he met Second City director Del Close. Colbert first performed professionally as an understudy for Steve Carell at Second City Chicago, where his troupe mates included Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris, comedians with whom he developed the sketch comedy series Exit 57. He wrote and performed on the short-lived Dana Carvey Show before collaborating with Sedaris and Dinello again on the cult television series Strangers with Candy. He gained attention for his role on the latter as closeted gay history teacher Chuck Noblet.
Colbert's work as a correspondent on Comedy Central's news-parody series The Daily Show gained him wide recognition. In 2005, he left The Daily Show to host The Colbert Report. Following The Daily Shows news-parody concept, The Colbert Report was a parody of personality-driven political opinion shows including The O'Reilly Factor, in which he portrayed a caricatured version of conservative political pundits, earning Colbert an invitation to perform as featured entertainer at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in 2006, which he did in character. This event led to the series became one of Comedy Central's highest-rated series. After ending The Colbert Report, he was hired in 2015 to succeed retiring David Letterman as host of the Late Show on CBS. He hosted the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards in September 2017.
Colbert has won nine Primetime Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and three Peabody Awards. Colbert was named one of Times 100 Most Influential People in 2006 and 2012. Colbert's book, I Am America (And So Can You!), was listed No.1 on The New York Times Best Seller list in 2007.
Early life
Colbert was born in Washington, D.C., the youngest of eleven children in a Catholic family. He spent his early years in Bethesda, Maryland. He grew up in the Charleston suburb of James Island, South Carolina. Colbert and his siblings, in descending order by age, are James III, Edward, Mary, William, Margo, Thomas, Jay, Elizabeth, Paul, Peter, and Stephen. His father, James William Colbert Jr., was an immunologist and medical school dean at Yale University, Saint Louis University, and finally at the Medical University of South Carolina, where, from 1969, he served as the school's first vice president of academic affairs. Stephen's mother, Lorna Elizabeth Colbert (née Tuck), was a homemaker.
In interviews, Colbert has described his parents as devout people who also strongly valued intellectualism, and taught their children it was possible to question the church, and still be Catholic. In an interview, Lorna has described Stephen as rambunctious. As a child, he observed that Southerners were often depicted as being less intelligent than other characters on scripted television; to avoid that stereotype, he taught himself to imitate the speech of American news anchors.
While Colbert sometimes comedically claims his surname is French, he is of 15/16ths Irish ancestry; one of his paternal great-great-grandmothers was of German and English descent. Many of his ancestors emigrated from Ireland to North America in the 19th century before and during the Great Famine. Originally, his surname was pronounced in English; Stephen Colbert's father, James, wanted to pronounce the name , but maintained the pronunciation out of respect for his own father. He offered his children the option to pronounce the name whichever way they preferred. Stephen started using later in life when he transferred to Northwestern University, taking advantage of the opportunity to reinvent himself in a new place where no one knew him. Stephen's brother Edward, an intellectual property attorney, retained ; this was shown in a February 12, 2009, appearance on The Colbert Report, when his second oldest brother asked him, " or ?" Ed responded "", to which Stephen jokingly replied, "See you in Hell".
On September 11, 1974, when Colbert was ten years old, his father and his two brothers nearest in age, Peter and Paul, died in the crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 while it was attempting to land in Charlotte, North Carolina. They were en route to enroll the two boys at Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut. He has discussed the impact on him and his philosophy of grief and suffering. Lorna Colbert relocated the family from James Island to the George Chisolm House, in downtown Charleston and ran the carriage house as a bed and breakfast. Colbert found the transition difficult and did not easily make friends in his new neighborhood. Colbert later described himself during this time as detached, lacking a sense of importance regarding the things with which other children concerned themselves.
He developed a love of science fiction and fantasy novels, especially the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, of which he remains an avid fan. During his adolescence, he also developed an intense interest in fantasy role-playing games, especially Dungeons & Dragons, a pastime which he later characterized as an early experience in acting and improvisation.
Colbert attended Charleston's Episcopal Porter-Gaud School, where he participated in several school plays and contributed to the school newspaper but was not highly motivated academically. During his adolescence, he briefly fronted A Shot in the Dark, a Rolling Stones cover band. When he was younger, he had hoped to study marine biology, but surgery intended to repair a severely perforated eardrum caused him inner ear damage severe enough to preclude a career involving scuba diving, and leaving him deaf in his right ear.
For a while, he was uncertain whether he would attend college, but ultimately he applied and was accepted to Hampden–Sydney College in Virginia, where a friend had also enrolled. Arriving in 1982, he majored in philosophy and continued to participate in plays. He found the curriculum rigorous, but was more focused than he had been in high school and was able to apply himself to his studies. Despite the lack of a significant theater community at Hampden–Sydney, Colbert's interest in acting escalated during this time. After two years, he transferred in 1984 to Northwestern University as a theater major to study performance, emboldened by the realization that he loved performing, even when no one was coming to shows. He graduated from Northwestern's School of Communication in 1986.
Early career in comedy
While at Northwestern, Colbert studied with the intent of becoming a dramatic actor; mostly he performed in experimental plays and was uninterested in comedy. He began performing improvisation while in college, both in the campus improv team No Fun Mud Piranhas and at the Annoyance Theatre in Chicago as a part of Del Close's ImprovOlympic at a time when the project was focused on competitive, long-form improvisation, rather than improvisational comedy. "I wasn't gonna do Second City", Colbert later recalled, "because those Annoyance people looked down on Second City because they thought it wasn't pure improv – there was a slightly snobby, mystical quality to the Annoyance people". After Colbert graduated in 1986, however, he was in need of a job. A friend who was employed at Second City's box office offered him work answering phones and selling souvenirs. Colbert accepted and discovered that Second City employees were entitled to take classes at their training center free of charge. Despite his earlier aversion to the comedy group, he signed up for improvisation classes and enjoyed the experience greatly.
Shortly thereafter, he was hired to perform with Second City's touring company, initially as an understudy for Steve Carell. It was there he met Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello, with whom he often collaborated later in his career. By their retelling, the three comedians did not get along at first – Dinello thought Colbert was uptight, pretentious and cold, while Colbert thought of Dinello as "an illiterate thug" – but the trio became close friends while touring together, discovering that they shared a similar comic sensibility.
When Sedaris and Dinello were offered the opportunity to create a television series for HBO Downtown Productions, Colbert left Second City and relocated to New York to work with them on the sketch comedy show Exit 57. The series debuted on Comedy Central in 1995 and aired through 1996. Although it lasted only 12 episodes, the show received favorable reviews and was nominated for five CableACE Awards in 1995, in categories including best writing, performance, and comedy series.
Television career
The Dana Carvey Show (1996)
Following the cancelation of Exit 57, Colbert worked for six months as a cast member and writer on The Dana Carvey Show, alongside former Second City castmate Steve Carell, and also Robert Smigel, Charlie Kaufman, Louis C.K., and Dino Stamatopoulos, among others. The series, described by one reviewer as "kamikaze satire" in "borderline-questionable taste", had sponsors pull out after its first episode aired and was canceled after seven episodes. Colbert then worked briefly as a freelance writer for Saturday Night Live with Robert Smigel. Smigel brought his animated sketch, The Ambiguously Gay Duo, to SNL from The Dana Carvey Show; Colbert provided the voice of Ace on both series, opposite Steve Carell as Gary. Needing money, he also worked as a script consultant for VH1 and MTV, before taking a job filming humorous correspondent segments for Good Morning America. Only two of the segments he proposed were ever produced and only one aired, but the job led his agent to refer him to The Daily Show's producer, Madeline Smithberg, who hired Colbert on a trial basis in 1997.
Strangers with Candy (1999–2000)
During the same period, Colbert worked again with Sedaris and Dinello to develop a new comedy series for Comedy Central, Strangers with Candy. Comedy Central picked up the series in 1998 after Colbert had already begun working on The Daily Show. As a result, he accepted a reduced role, filming only around 20 Daily Show segments a year while he worked on the new series.
Strangers with Candy was conceived of as a parody of after school specials, following the life of Jerri Blank, a 46-year-old dropout who returns to finish high school after 32 years of life on the street. Most noted by critics for its use of offensive humor, it concluded each episode by delivering to the audience a skewed, politically incorrect moral lesson. Colbert served as a main writer alongside Sedaris and Dinello, and portrayed Jerri's strict but uninformed history teacher, Chuck Noblet, seen throughout the series dispensing inaccurate information to his classes. Colbert has likened this to the character he played on The Daily Show and later The Colbert Report, claiming that he has a very specific niche in portraying "poorly informed, high-status idiot" characters. Another running joke throughout the series was that Noblet, a closeted homosexual, was having a "secret" affair with fellow teacher Geoffrey Jellineck, despite the fact that their relationship was apparent to everyone around them. This obliviousness also appears in Colbert's Daily Show and Colbert Report character.
Thirty episodes of Strangers with Candy were made, which aired on Comedy Central in 1999 and 2000. Though its ratings were not remarkable during its initial run, it has been characterized as a cult show with a small but dedicated audience. Colbert reprised his role for a film adaptation which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and had a limited release in 2006. The film received mixed reviews. Colbert also co-wrote the screenplay with Sedaris and Dinello.
The Daily Show (1997–2005)
Colbert joined the cast of Comedy Central's parody-news series The Daily Show in 1997, when the show was in its second season. Originally one of four correspondents who filmed segments from remote locations in the style of network news field reporters, Colbert was referred to as "the new guy" on-air for his first two years on the show, during which time Craig Kilborn served as host. When Kilborn left the show prior to the 1999 season, Jon Stewart took over hosting duties, also serving as a writer and co-executive producer. From this point, the series gradually began to take on a more political tone and increase in popularity, particularly in the latter part of the 2000 U.S. presidential election season. The roles of the show's correspondents were expanded to include more in-studio segments and international reports, which were almost always done in the studio with the aid of a greenscreen.
Unlike Stewart, who essentially hosted The Daily Show as himself, Colbert developed a correspondent character for his pieces on the series that was a parody of conservative political pundits such as Bill O'Reilly. Colbert has described his correspondent character as "a well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot" and "a fool who has spent a lot of his life playing not the fool – one who is able to cover it at least well enough to deal with the subjects that he deals with". Colbert was frequently pitted against knowledgeable interview subjects, or against Stewart in scripted exchanges, with the resultant dialogue demonstrating the character's lack of knowledge of whatever subject he is discussing. Colbert also made generous use of humorous fallacies of logic in explaining his point of view on any topic. Other Daily Show correspondents have adopted a similar style; former correspondent Rob Corddry recalls that when he and Ed Helms first joined the show's cast in 2002, they "just imitated Stephen Colbert for a year or two". Correspondent Aasif Mandvi has stated "I just decided I was going to do my best Stephen Colbert impression".
Colbert appeared in several recurring segments for The Daily Show, including "Even Stevphen" with Steve Carell, in which both characters were expected to debate a selected topic but instead would unleash their anger at one another. Colbert commonly hosted "This Week in God", a report on topics in the news pertaining to religion, presented with the help of the "God Machine". Colbert filed reports from the floor of the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention as a part of The Daily Show's award-winning coverage of the 2000 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections; many from the latter were included as part of their The Daily Show: Indecision 2004 DVD release. Other pieces that have been named as his signature segments include "Grouse Hunting in Shropshire", in which he reported on the "gayness" of British aristocracy, his mock lionization of a smoking-rights activist and apparent chain-smoker, and his cameo appearances during his faux campaign for president. In several episodes of The Daily Show, Colbert filled in as anchor in the absence of Jon Stewart, including the full week of March 3, 2002, when Stewart was scheduled to host Saturday Night Live. After Colbert left the show, Rob Corddry took over "This Week in God" segments, although a recorded sample of Colbert's voice was still used as the sound effect for the God Machine. Later episodes of The Daily Show have reused older Colbert segments under the label "Klassic Kolbert". Colbert won three Emmys as a writer of The Daily Show in 2004, 2005, and 2006.
The Colbert Report (2005–2014)
Colbert hosted his own television show, The Colbert Report, from October 17, 2005, through December 18, 2014. The Colbert Report was a Daily Show spin-off that parodied the conventions of television news broadcasting, particularly cable-personality political talk shows like The O'Reilly Factor, Hannity, and Glenn Beck. Colbert hosted the show in-character as a blustery right-wing pundit, generally considered to be an extension of his character on The Daily Show. Conceived by co-creators Stewart, Colbert, and Ben Karlin in part as an opportunity to explore "the character-driven news", the series focused less on the day-to-day news style of the Daily Show, instead frequently concentrating on the foibles of the host-character himself.
The concept for The Report was first seen in a series of Daily Show segments which advertised the then-fictional series as a joke. It was later developed by Stewart's Busboy Productions and pitched to Comedy Central, which green-lighted the program; Comedy Central had already been searching for a way to extend the successful Daily Show franchise beyond a half-hour. The series opened to strong ratings, averaging 1.2 million viewers nightly during its first week on the air. Comedy Central signed a long-term contract for The Colbert Report within its first month on the air, when it immediately established itself among the network's highest-rated shows.
Much of Colbert's personal life was reflected in his character on The Colbert Report. With the extended exposure of the character on the show, he often referenced his interest in and knowledge of Catholicism, science fiction, and The Lord of the Rings, as well as using real facts to create his character's history. His alternate persona was also raised in South Carolina, is the youngest of 11 siblings and is married. However, Colbert's actual career history in acting and comedy was often downplayed or even denied outright, and he frequently referred to having attended Dartmouth College (which was at the forefront of the conservative campus movement in the 1980s) rather than his actual alma mater, Northwestern. In July 2012, Colbert added two years to his contract with Comedy Central, extending the run of The Colbert Report until the end of 2014.
The final episode on December 18, 2014, featured a rendition of "We'll Meet Again" and appearances from former guests of the show, including Jon Stewart, Randy Newman, Bryan Cranston, Willie Nelson, Yo-Yo Ma, Mandy Patinkin, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Tom Brokaw, David Gregory, J. J. Abrams, Big Bird, Gloria Steinem, Ken Burns, James Franco, Barry Manilow, Bob Costas, Jeff Daniels, Sam Waterston, Bill de Blasio, Katie Couric, Patrick Stewart, George Lucas, Henry Kissinger, Cookie Monster, Alan Alda, Eliot Spitzer, Vince Gilligan, Paul Krugman, and a text from Bill Clinton, and appearances by Alex Trebek, U.S. and coalition Afghanistan forces, and further characters (a space station astronaut, Santa Claus, Abraham Lincoln, etc.).
The Late Show (since 2015)
On April 10, 2014, CBS announced in a press release that Colbert "will succeed David Letterman as the host of The Late Show, effective when Mr. Letterman retires from the broadcast." On January 12, 2015, CBS announced that Colbert would premiere as the Late Show host on Tuesday, September 8, 2015. The first guest of the new Late Show was George Clooney. The show has a much more political focus than David Letterman's Late Show.
During his tenure as the host of The Late Show, Colbert hosted the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards, broadcast on CBS on September 17, 2017. More recently, he and his Spartina Productions company had inked a deal with CBS Studios.
Politics
2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner
On Saturday, April 29, 2006, Colbert was the featured entertainer for the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. Standing a few yards from U.S. President George W. Bush – in front of an audience the Associated Press called a "Who's Who of power and celebrity" – Colbert delivered a searing routine targeting the president and the media. In his politically conservative character from The Colbert Report, Colbert satirized the George W. Bush Administration and the White House Press Corps with such lines as:
Colbert received a chilly response from the audience. His jokes were often met with silence and muttering, apart from the enthusiastic laughter of a few in the audience. The major media outlets paid little attention to it initially. Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism professor Todd Gitlin claimed that this was because Colbert's routine was as critical of the media as it was of Bush. Richard Cohen, also writing for The Washington Post, responded that the routine was not funny. The video of Colbert's performance became an internet and media sensation, while, in the week following the speech, ratings for The Colbert Report rose by 37% to average just under 1.5 million total viewers per episode. In Time magazine James Poniewozik called it "the political-cultural touchstone issue of 2006". Writing six months later, New York Times columnist Frank Rich referred to Colbert's speech as a "cultural primary" and called it the "defining moment" of the 2006 midterm elections.
2008 presidential bid
Under his fictional persona in The Colbert Report, Colbert dropped hints of a potential presidential run throughout 2007, with speculation intensifying following the release of his book, I Am America (And So Can You!), which was rumored to be a sign that he was indeed testing the waters for a future bid for the White House. On October 16, 2007, he announced his candidacy on his show, stating his intention to run on both the Republican and Democratic platforms, but only as a "favorite son" in his native South Carolina. He later abandoned plans to run as a Republican due to the $35,000 fee required to file for the South Carolina primary; however, he continued to seek a place on the Democratic ballot and on October 28, 2007, campaigned in the South Carolina state capital of Columbia, where he was presented with the key to the city by Mayor Bob Coble.
After announcing his presidential ticket, he asked his viewers to cast their votes by donating to Donorschoose.org, an online charity connecting individuals to classrooms in need.
Colbert's promotion inspired $68,000 in donations to South Carolina classrooms, which benefited over 14,000 low-income students.
Colbert teamed up with Donorschoose.org again in 2008 by asking supporters of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to do the same. As a lead-up to the Pennsylvania primary, he created a "straw poll that makes a difference" by which people could donate to Pennsylvania classroom projects in honor of their favorite candidate.
Colbert viewers donated $185,000 to projects reaching 43,000 students in Pennsylvania public schools.
On November 1, 2007, the South Carolina Democratic Party executive council voted 13–3 to refuse Colbert's application onto the ballot. "The general sense of the council was that he wasn't a serious candidate and that was why he wasn't selected to be on the ballot", stated John Werner, the party's director. Several days later he announced that he was dropping out of the race, saying he did not wish to put the country through an agonizing Supreme Court battle. CNN has reported that Obama supporters pressured the South Carolina Democratic Executive Council to keep Colbert off the ballot. One anonymous member of the council told CNN that former State Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum had placed pressure on them to refuse Colbert's application despite his steady rise in polls.
Though Colbert's real-life presidential campaign had ended, Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada established in an interview on The Colbert Report that Colbert's campaign was still going strong in the fictional Marvel Universe, citing the cover art of a then-recent issue of The Amazing Spider-Man which featured a Colbert campaign billboard in the background. Background appearances of Colbert campaign ads continued to appear in Marvel Comics publications, as late as August 2008's Secret Invasion No.5 (which also features a cameo of an alien Skrull posing as Colbert). In October 2008, Colbert made an extended 8-page appearance webslinging with Spider-Man in The Amazing Spider-Man issue No. 573. Colbert voiced the president of the U.S. in the 2009 film Monsters vs. Aliens.
2009 solidarity with U.S. troops in Iraq War
Stephen Colbert arrived in Baghdad, Iraq, on June 5, 2009, to film a week of shows called "Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando" sponsored by the USO (United Service Organizations). Colbert had a suit tailored for him in the Army Combat Uniform pattern. During the first episode (which featured a cameo appearance from U.S. president Barack Obama), Colbert had his hair cropped in a military style to show his solidarity with the troops. One Army major said that "shaving of the hair is an amazing show of support" that was "very touching." USO Senior Vice President John Hanson said the shows are an important diversion for the troops.
2010 Congressional testimony
On September 24, 2010, Colbert testified in character before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Security. He was invited by committee chairwoman Zoe Lofgren to describe his experience participating in the United Farm Workers' "Take Our Jobs" program, where he spent a day working alongside migrant workers in upstate New York. At the end of his often-humorous testimony, Colbert broke character in responding to a question from Rep. Judy Chu, D-CA, and explained his purpose for being at the hearing:
Democratic committee member John Conyers questioned whether it was appropriate for the comedian to appear before Congress and asked him to leave the hearing. Though Colbert offered to depart at the direction of the committee chairwoman, Lofgren requested that he stay at least until all opening testimony had been completed, whereupon Conyers withdrew his request.
Conservative pundits took aim at Colbert's Congress testimony not long after.
2010 Washington, D.C. rallies
In September 2010, following Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally, a campaign developed that called for Colbert to hold his own rally at the Lincoln Memorial. On the September 10, 2010, episode of the Daily Show and The Colbert Report, Stewart and Colbert made preannouncements of a future event. On September 16, 2010, Stewart and Colbert announced competing rallies on the Washington, D.C., Mall on October 30, 2010, Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity", and Colbert's "March to Keep Fear Alive". Both were eventually merged into the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.
2011 Political Super PAC
In May 2011, Colbert filed a request with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) asking for a media exemption for coverage of his political action committee, ColbertPAC, on The Colbert Report.
In June 2011, during a public meeting, the FEC voted 5–1 to grant The Colbert Report a limited media exemption. The exemption allows unlimited donations of airtime and show resources to promote the Colbert Super PAC without requiring disclosure to the FEC, but only for ads appearing on The Colbert Report. Following the hearing, Colbert formally filed paperwork for the creation of his Super PAC with the FEC secretary.
2012 South Carolina GOP primary
After the 2012 New Hampshire primary, a poll for the subsequent South Carolina primary taken by Public Policy Polling (of 1,112 likely GOP voters, Jan 5–7, 2012) was reported to place Colbert at 5%, one point ahead of Jon Huntsman polling at 4%, in spite of the fact that Colbert was not on the ballot. This poll showed Colbert to be closely behind Rick Perry's 7% and Ron Paul's 8% (with Romney at 27%, Gingrich 23% and Santorum at 18%). On the January 11 episode of The Colbert Report, Colbert asked his audience if he should run for president in South Carolina, to which he received strong applause. He then stated that he would be making a "Major Announcement" during the next day's show. On January 12, Colbert started his show by discussing his role in the presidential campaign, then addressed the law preventing him from being a presidential candidate while running his Super PAC. With the help of his lawyer Trevor Potter, he then signed over control of his Super PAC to Jon Stewart, with the organization title then being referred to as "The Definitely Not Coordinating With Stephen Colbert Super PAC". Immediately after this legal block was out of the way, Colbert announced, "I am forming an exploratory committee to lay the groundwork for my possible candidacy for the President of the United States of South Carolina. I'm doin' it!" He reiterated in the interview portion of that show that "I'm still in the exploratory phase" of his presidential campaign.
On the January 16, 2012, episode, Colbert satirically encouraged his viewers to vote for Herman Cain in the South Carolina primary. As Cain was still on the ballot, despite having recently dropped out of the race, Colbert announced that he would consider any votes cast for Cain to be in direct support of his own possible candidacy.
Other work
Colbert is co-author of the satirical text-and-picture novel Wigfield: The Can Do Town That Just May Not, which was published in 2003 by Hyperion Books. The novel was a collaboration between Colbert, Amy Sedaris, and Paul Dinello, and tells the story of a small town threatened by the impending destruction of a massive dam. The narrative is presented as a series of fictional interviews with the town's residents, accompanied by photos. The three authors toured performing an adaptation of Wigfield on stage the same year the book was released.
Colbert appeared in a small supporting role in the 2005 film adaptation of Bewitched. He has made guest appearances on the television series Curb Your Enthusiasm, Spin City, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and on the first season of the US improvisational comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway?. He voiced the characters of Reducto and Phil Ken Sebben in the Adult Swim's Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, but left the show in 2005 to work on The Colbert Report. His characters were both killed, though he returned to voice Phil for the series finale. Colbert also has provided voices for Cartoon Network's The Venture Bros., Comedy Central's Crank Yankers, and American Dad!, and for Canadian animated comedy series The Wrong Coast. He appeared as Homer Simpson's life coach, Colby Krause, in The Simpsons episode "He Loves to Fly and He D'ohs".
Colbert filled in for Sam Seder on the second episode of The Majority Report on Air America Radio, and has also done reports for The Al Franken Show. He appeared on a track on Wig in a Box, a tribute album for Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Colbert read the part of Leopold Bloom in Bloomsday on Broadway XXIV: Love Literature Language Lust: Leopold's Women Bloom on June 16, 2005, at Symphony Space in New York City. He appeared in a series of TV commercials for General Motors, as a not-too-bright investigator searching for the elusive (and non-existent in real life) "Mr. Goodwrench". He also portrayed the letter Z in Sesame Street: All-Star Alphabet, a 2005 video release.
Colbert is a producer of The 1 Second Film, the world's largest nonprofit collaborative art film. His video request that IMDb list his credit for The1 Second Film ("it is as valid as most of my credits") enabled thousands of the film's producers to be listed in the massive movie database until they were removed in early 2007.
Colbert has released one book associated with The Colbert Report, I Am America (And So Can You!). It was released on October 7, 2007, by Grand Central Publishing. Grand Central Publishing is the successor to Warner Books, which published America (The Book), written by The Daily Show staff. The book contains similar political satire, but was written primarily by Colbert himself rather than as a collaboration with his Colbert Report writing staff.
On November 23, 2008, his Christmas special, A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!, aired on Comedy Central. It was released on DVD in November 2008.
In January 2010, Colbert was named the assistant sports psychologist for the US Olympic speed skating team at the 2010 Winter Olympics. He was also invited to be part of NBC's 2010 Winter Olympics coverage team by Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports. In April 2011, Colbert performed as Harry in the concert-style revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical Company, presented by the New York Philharmonic at the Lincoln Center. The show, featuring Neil Patrick Harris in the starring role, ran for four nights and was filmed for later showings in movie theaters, which began June 15. In May 2011, Colbert joined the Charleston to Bermuda Race yachting race, as captain of the ship "the Spirit of Juno". He finished second, five miles behind leaders "Tucana".
Since 2012, Colbert has collaborated with the Montclair Film Festival, of which his wife is a founder and current president of its board. Every year since its foundation, Colbert has participated by hosting an annual fundraising event and leading Q&As and conversations with directors, writers, journalists, and actors such as: Jon Stewart, Rob Reiner, Steve Carell, J. J. Abrams, David Itzkoff, Ethan Hawke, Rachel Weisz, and Meryl Streep. He is also part of the Montclair Film advisory board.
After the resignation of South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint to run Heritage Foundation, Colbert was named a possible candidate for appointment to the seat being vacated by DeMint, which would have triggered a special election in 2014 to finish out DeMint's term. Although Governor Nikki Haley announced promptly that she had no intention to nominate Colbert to the Senate, a poll showed Colbert as a favorite among South Carolina voters.
Colbert guest-hosted Only in Monroe, a public access television show in Monroe, Michigan, for an episode that aired July 1, 2015. He interviewed the program's regular hosts, and also the rapper Eminem (whom he pretended never to have heard of), and put a humorous slant on the local news and community calendar.
On July 17, 2016, Colbert hijacked the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, while dressed as Caesar Flickerman from The Hunger Games series. After he was taken down from the stage, he commented, "Look, I know I am not supposed to be up here but let's be honest, neither is Donald Trump." Colbert also dressed as Flickerman on his show, prior to the stunt, to announce the candidates who had ended their runs in the 2016 election.
Aside from hosting his talk shows, Colbert has gone on to host other types of shows. Since 2014, Colbert has hosted the Kennedy Center Honors for three consecutive years. In 2017, Colbert hosted the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards.
In 2018 it was reported that Showtime was developing Hello Nancy, a biopic based on the nonfiction book On Her Trail, My Mother, Nancy Dickerson, TV News' First Woman Star by John Dickerson, with Colbert and his wife Evelyn serving as executive producers. The couple also served as executive producers for In & Of Itself, a film version of Derek DelGaudio's off-Broadway show of the same name.
Influences
Colbert has said his comedy influences include: Don Novello, Phil Silvers, Alec Guinness, Bill Cosby, George Carlin, Dean Martin, Jon Stewart, Monty Python, Steve Martin, and David Letterman. In 2017, Colbert said due to the sexual assault allegations made against Cosby, he can no longer listen to his comedy.
Colbert has also cited Jim Gaffigan, Maria Bamford, Joe Pera, John Mulaney, and Eric Andre, as some of his favorite contemporary comedians.
Among comedians who say they were influenced by Colbert are Nathan Fielder, James Corden, Mindy Kaling, Hasan Minhaj, Jordan Klepper, Ziwe Fumudoh, John Mulaney, Derrick Beckles, Julie Klausner, and Billy Eichner.
Personal life
Colbert is a practicing Roman Catholic and used to teach Sunday school. He is an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church Monastery. Colbert is an avid reader and has cited authors: J.R.R. Tolkien, J.D. Salinger, Robertson Davies, George Saunders, Larry Niven, Henry Kuttner and Isaac Asimov as his favorites, among others.
Colbert has been married to Evelyn "Evie" McGee-Colbert since 1993. She is the daughter of prominent Charleston civil litigator Joseph McGee, of the firm Buist Moore Smythe McGee. His wife appeared with him in an episode of Strangers with Candy as his mother. She also had an uncredited cameo as a nurse in the series pilot and a credited one (as his wife Clair) in the film. McGee-Colbert actually met Jon Stewart before she met her future husband in 1990. They met at the world premiere of Hydrogen Jukebox at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston. Colbert later described the first moment he met Evie as being a love at first sight encounter; however, moments after they met, they both realized they had grown up together in Charleston and had many mutual friends.
The couple have three children. They live in Montclair, New Jersey.
During his college and Second City years, Colbert suffered from bouts of depression and anxiety, for which he had to be medicated. In a 2018 interview, Colbert told Rolling Stone:
I needed to be medicated when I was younger to deal with my anxiety that I had thrown my life away by attempting to do something that so few people actually get away with, or succeed at ... Xanax was just lovely. Y'know, for a while. And then I realized that the gears were still smoking. I just couldn't hear them anymore. But I could feel them, I could feel the gearbox heating up and smoke pouring out of me ... I stopped the Xanax after, like, nine days. I went, 'This isn't helping.' So I just suffered through it. I'd sometimes hold the bottle, to go like, 'I could stop this feeling if I wanted, but I'm not going to. Because I know if I stop the feeling, somehow I'm not working through it, like I have got to go through the tunnel with the spiders in it.'
And then one morning I woke up and my skin wasn't on fire, and it took me a while to figure out what it was. I wake up the next morning, I'm perfectly fine, to the point where my body's still humming. I'm a bell that's been rung so hard that I can still feel myself vibrating. But the actual sound was gone [because] I was starting rehearsal that day to create a new show. And then I went, 'Oh, my God, I can never stop performing.' Creating something is what helped me from just spinning apart like an unweighted flywheel. And I haven't stopped since.
Colbert used the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator during a segment of The Late Show, which identified him as an INFP.
Political views
Although, by his own account, he was not particularly political before joining the cast of The Daily Show, Colbert has described himself as a Democrat according to a 2004 interview. In an interview at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard Institute of Politics, he said he has "no problems with Republicans, just Republican policies".
Colbert supports the implementation of the Medicare for All plan introduced by Bernie Sanders, considering it "a sensible fix to Obamacare". When asked about his views on abortion, Colbert positioned himself as pro-choice. On the intersection of faith and politics, Colbert has pointed out that his views are in line with those of Cesar Chávez.
Awards and honors
In 2000, Colbert and the other Daily Show writers were the recipients of three Emmy Awards as writers for The Daily Show and again in 2005 and 2006. In 2005 he was nominated for a Satellite Award for his performance on The Colbert Report and again in 2006. He was also nominated for three Emmys for The Colbert Report in 2006, including Best Performance in a Variety, Musical Program or Special, which he lost to Barry Manilow. Manilow and Colbert would go on to jokingly sign and notarize a revolving biannual custody agreement for the Emmy on The Colbert Report episode aired on October 30, 2006. He lost the same category to Tony Bennett in 2007 and Don Rickles in 2008.
In January 2006, the American Dialect Society named truthiness, which Colbert coined on the premiere episode of The Colbert Report, as its 2005 Word of the Year. Colbert devoted time on five successive episodes to bemoaning the failure of the Associated Press to mention his role in popularizing the word truthiness in its news coverage of the Word of the Year. On December 9, 2006, Merriam-Webster also announced that it selected truthiness as its Word of the Year for 2006. Votes were accepted on their website, and according to poll results, "truthiness" won by a five-to-one margin.
In June 2006, after speaking at the school's commencement ceremony, Colbert received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree from Knox College. Time named Stephen Colbert as one of the 100 most influential people in 2006 and 2012 and in May 2006, New York magazine listed Colbert (and Jon Stewart) as one of its top dozen influential persons in media. Colbert was named Person of the Year by the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado on March 3, 2007, and was also given the Speaker of the Year Award by The Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) on March 24, 2007, for his "drive to expose the rhetorical shortcomings of contemporary political discourse".
Colbert was named the 2nd Sexiest TV News Anchor in September 2006 by Maxim, next to Mélissa Theuriau of France and was the only man featured on the list. In November 2006, he was named a "sexy surprise" by People in the Sexiest Man Alive honors and in the December 2006 issue of GQ he was named one of GQ's "Men of the Year".
In 2012, he was listed as No. 69 on Maxim Magazine's Hot 100, becoming the first man to be included on the list.
Colbert has received three Peabody Awards, in 2007, 2011, and 2020. He was nominated for five TCA Awards for The Colbert Report by the Television Critics Association.
After the Saginaw Spirit defeated the Oshawa Generals in Ontario Junior League Hockey, Oshawa Mayor John Gray declared March 20, 2007 (the mayor's own birthday), Stephen Colbert Day, honoring a previous bet with Stephen. At the event, Mayor Gray referred to the publicity the bet brought the city, remarking, "This is the way to lose a bet".
Colbert was honored for the Gutsiest Move on the Spike TV Guys' Choice Awards on June 13, 2007, for his performance at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. In August 2007, Virgin America named an airplane, "Air Colbert", in his honor. On October 28, 2007, Colbert received the key to the city of Columbia, South Carolina, from Mayor Bob Coble.
On December 20, 2007, Colbert was named Celebrity of the Year by The Associated Press. On April 2, 2008, he received a Peabody Award for The Colbert Report, saying in response, "I proudly accept this award and begrudgingly forgive the Peabody Committee for taking three years to recognize greatness".
In 2008, Colbert won the Emmy Award for writing again, this time as a writer for The Colbert Report. Colbert delivered the Class Day address to the graduating class of Princeton University on June 2, 2008, and accepted the Class of 2008 Understandable Vanity Award, consisting of a sketch of Colbert and a mirror. He also has been announced as the Person of the Year for the 12th annual Webby Awards.
In January 2010, Colbert received the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for his album A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!. He also announced the nominees for Song of the Year while toting a pre-released Apple iPad. Colbert was the 2011 commencement speaker for Northwestern University, and received an honorary degree. In 2013, Colbert again won the Emmy award for writing for The Colbert Report. In 2014, Colbert won the 2014 Best Spoken Word Album for his audiobook America Again: Re-becoming The Greatness We Never Weren't.
In January 2013, Rolling Stone placed him at number 2 in their "The 50 Funniest People Now" list. In December 2014, Paste named his Twitter one of "The 75 Best Twitter Accounts of 2014" ranking it at number 7. Colbert received an honorary degree from Wake Forest University as the 2015 commencement speaker.
In 2015, Colbert was awarded the third highest honor within the Department of the Army Civilian Awards, the Outstanding Civilian Service Award, for substantial contributions to the U.S. Army community.
In 2017 and 2018, Colbert was named one of "The 35 Most Powerful People in New York Media" by The Hollywood Reporter. He was chosen as one of GQ's "Men of the Year" for its December 2017 issue. Colbert was placed at number 32 in Vanity Fair "2018 New Establishment List". Other placements in earlier lists include number 40 in 2017 and number 28 in 2011.
In May 2021, Colbert received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Yale University.
Ben & Jerry's AmeriCone Dream ice cream
In February 2007, Ben & Jerry's unveiled a new ice cream flavor in honor of Colbert, named Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream. Colbert waited until Easter to sample the ice cream because he "gave up sweets for Lent". Colbert donated all proceeds to charity through the new Stephen Colbert AmeriCone Dream Fund, which distributes the money to various causes.
Species named in honor
At least five species have been given scientific names honoring Colbert. In 2008 a species of California trapdoor spider was named Aptostichus stephencolberti. The spider was named for Colbert after he reported on his television series that Jason Bond, a professor of biology at East Carolina University, had named a different species of spider Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi after the Canadian rock star Neil Young, and began to appeal for a species of animal to be named after him. On a later edition of The Colbert Report, Colbert revealed that Bond would name a spider after him, with Colbert claiming, "And all I had to do was shamelessly beg on national television." Other species named for Colbert include a species of Venezuelan diving beetle named Agaporomorphus colberti and a Chilean stonefly named Diamphipnoa colberti, both formally described in 2008. On his 45th birthday, Colbert was sent a framed print of his eponymous beetle by the biologists who named it. In 2014, a species of parasitic wasp from Ecuador, Aleiodes colberti, was named for Colbert, along with newly described species named for celebrities Jon Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, Ellen DeGeneres, and Shakira, and in 2016 a rove beetle, Sonoma colberti, was named after Colbert's on-screen persona.
COLBERT Treadmill
In 2009, NASA engineered a new treadmill for the International Space Station. It was taken to the ISS by the Space Shuttle Discovery during the STS-128 mission in August 2009. The complex machine is now used eight hours daily by astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the space station in order to maintain their muscle mass and bone density while spending long periods of time in a zero-gravity environment. While engineers at NASA were constructing this treadmill, it was simply called T-2 for more than two years. However, on April 14, 2009, NASA renamed it the "Combined Operational Load-Bearing External Resistance Treadmill", or COLBERT. NASA named the treadmill after Colbert, who took an interest during the Node3 naming census for the ISS module, Tranquility.
Colbert urged his followers to post the name "Colbert", which upon completion of the census received the most entries totaling 230,539, some 40,000 votes more than the second-place choice, Serenity. The COLBERT is expected to last the life of the ISS and will have seen about 38,000 miles of running when the Space Station is retired in 2024 or later, but it was also built with a 150,000-mile lifespan (if needed until 2028 or beyond). Colbert realized he was the recipient of an extremely rare honor—the COLBERT (a backronym) is the only piece of NASA-engineered equipment in space that is named after a living human being—when astronaut Sunita Williams came on The Colbert Report to announce that NASA had named the treadmill after him.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theatre
Published works
Colbert, Dinello, Sedaris. Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just May Not (Hyperion, May 19, 2004)
America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction (Warner Books; September 2004)
I Am America (And So Can You!) (Grand Central Publishing; October 9, 2007)
America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't (Grand Central Publishing; October 2, 2012)
I Am a Pole (And So Can You!) (Grand Central Publishing; May 8, 2012)
Stephen Colbert's Midnight Confessions (Simon & Schuster; September 5, 2017)
See also
New Yorkers in journalism
Political satire
References
Further reading
External links
Colbert interview transcript, 60 Minutes. (April 30, 2006)
1964 births
Living people
20th-century American comedians
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20th-century American male actors
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21st-century American male writers
Television producers from New Jersey | true | [
"Frank Lesser is an American author and satirist best known for his work on The Colbert Report.\n\nLife\nAfter attending Brown University, where he wrote for The Brown Jug and concentrated in film, Lesser worked as a production assistant and freelance writer for various Viacom stations. Joining Comedy Central's The Colbert Report as a writer in 2005, Lesser won four Primetime Emmys. Most recently, he has written the satirical book Sad Monsters, and has directed numerous short films. His humor has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate.com, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.\n\nThe Colbert Report\nI met somebody who had just been hired as a writer’s assistant on Colbert. She invited me to a taping and asked what was up. I told her this whole sob story ending with, “I was at the lowest point in my life,” and she said, “Oh well, you know that they’re hiring,” and then sort of didn’t say anything. And then a month later they hired me, although she did say after I got hired, “Yeah, give it a month and a half, you’ll be complaining just as much as you were before.” I think she really nailed the comedy writer mindset. On The Colbert Report Lesser has appeared as different characters, among them a drug lord, a conquistador, and Colbert's \"interview stunt beard.\" During his send-off on the show, Colbert remarked that \"Around the office Frank was known for his intelligence, sensitivity, and his completely unproducible scripts. Seriously, Frank, where are we going to get a hovercraft.\" When asked about his experience writing for The Colbert Report, Lesser said: It’s wonderful when the person who’s in charge is a brilliantly talented, hilarious person. And so in some ways, you don’t feel as bad when they cut your jokes because you’re like, “Okay, well this person knows what they’re talking about,” and in other ways you’re like, “Why doesn’t Stephen Colbert like this joke?”\n\nReferences\n\nAmerican comedy writers\nAmerican satirists\nBrown University alumni\n1980 births\nLiving people\nAmerican male non-fiction writers\n21st-century American non-fiction writers\nWriters from Columbus, Ohio\n21st-century American male writers",
"This is a list of characters from the satirical television program The Colbert Report.\n\nMain characters\n\n Stephen Colbert (played by Stephen Colbert) – Described as a \"well-intentioned, poorly informed high-status idiot,\" the show's host is a blustery, self-obsessed right-wing commentator with a strong distaste for facts. He incorporates aspects of the real Colbert's life and interests, but is modelled primarily as a parody of cable news pundits, particularly Bill O'Reilly.\n The Bullet – The bullet point produces the words that appear on the right side of the screen during the show's \"The Wørd\" segment. It frequently provides comedic asides and counterpoints to what Colbert is saying, occasionally even contradicting or arguing with him. As the real Colbert explains it, often \"the bullet points end up being their own character. Sometimes they're reinforcing my argument, sometimes they're countermanding my argument. It's a textual addition of jokes or satire to the verbal essay I'm doing at the moment.\"\n\nRetired characters\nJimmy (played by Peter Gwinn) – The show's director, who shared his name with real-life Colbert Report director Jim Hoskinson, he was often heard but rarely seen on the show, though Colbert frequently addressed him to ask for video or graphics to be brought up on the screen. He was also a huge fan of the band Rush, to the point of replacing the video of Colbert with a shot of Neil Peart's drum kit on the episode in which Rush appeared as guests.\nWilford Brimley (played by Stephen Colbert) – Colbert's \"Spiritual Advisor\" with whom he occasionally had phone conversations. These conversations usually took place in the middle of the night, with Colbert only half-awake, and end up with Brimley (voiced by Colbert) going off on angry tangents that he usually blames on \"The Diabeetus\".\nChing Chong Ding Dong (played by Stephen Colbert) – Colbert's stereotypical Asian impression, who \"roves\" tea. Colbert (the character) defended himself against criticism for the character by stating that as Ching Chong Ding Dong was merely a fictional character, he was not a racist and he could not be held responsible for what Ding Dong says, a jab at the relationship between Colbert the character and Colbert the actor.\nEsteban Colberto (played by Stephen Colbert) – A Cuban themed version of Colbert who was actually a self-described Mexican. He hosts the Colberto Reporto Gigante and was usually flanked by two dancing chicas. He appeared in numerous immigration-themed segments.\nBenjamin Franklin (played by Ralph Archbold) – The Founding Father made occasional appearances in the show. He first featured in a \"Better Know a District\" spin-off called \"Better Know a Founder\", and later returned as a recurring character when The Colbert Report did four special shows live from Philadelphia's University of Pennsylvania in the run-up to the Democratic Party's 2008 Pennsylvania primary.\nKiller (uncredited) – A roadie for Colbert. Due to his constant scowl, threatening stare, and probable criminal history, he was the only staff member that Colbert was afraid to abuse. He also has been described by Colbert as a \"Demolitions Expert\".\nMeg (played by Meg DeFrancesco) – A female intern on Colbert's staff, she frequently endured sexual harassment and suggestive remarks from him and in a 2008 appearance mentions that she has filed more than five complaints against him.\nThe Professor (uncredited) – A homeless man who was mentioned as Colbert's \"protégé\" from time to time. This mention was usually accompanied by a picture of 'The Professor' howling madly.\nSweetness – Colbert's pistol, \"life partner,\" and the \"co-host\" of \"Trigger Happy\", a segment which dealt with gun-related issues. Colbert claimed that he can hear Sweetness talking to him and would often converse with \"her\" by holding the gun up to his deaf ear and then relaying what \"she\" has supposedly said. Sweetness made a final appearance as the weapon that killed Grimmy with Colbert tossing it away into the possession of a fan. Resembles a Colt Detective Special, Third Issue.\nTad (played by Paul Dinello) – The building manager at Colbert's studio. He hosted several special segments, such as a fire drill, a visit to a bank auction for Randy \"Duke\" Cunningham's assets and a trip to Colbert County, Alabama, to open The Stephen Colbert Museum and Gift Shop.\nGorlock (uncredited) – A luminous green alien in a business suit who only appeared in stills. Gorlock was Colbert's financial adviser, although he did not fill the role particularly well, failing to warn Colbert of impending financial crises despite being from the future. Colbert claimed Gorlock was recommended to him by Tom Cruise, and made his portfolio \"thetan-free\". Gorlock has an associate called \"Hal\", a reference to Arthur C. Clarke's fictional computer character HAL 9000. \nP.K. Winsome (played by Tim Meadows) – (Percy Kittens Winsome) A political commentator, entrepreneur, and black Republican. P.K. sells questionable Barack Obama commemorative merchandise. He was played by former Saturday Night Live cast member Meadows, who also starred with Colbert in an episode of Strangers With Candy. Meadows appeared as Winsome in a pre-taped segment at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, and also voiced him in the audiobook of America Again.\nHomer (played by Kumail Nanjiani) – A Greek man mistaken by Colbert for an Arab terrorist called \"Omar\" and imprisoned in a cell beneath Colbert's desk. He returned to the Report as a member of the staff.\nBarry the Starbucks guy (played by Barry Julien) – A Starbucks barista employed at the Starbucks under Stephen Colbert's desk, who appears in Starbucks related segments.\nAn Audience Member (played by Tom Purcell) – An audience member that Stephen often shot in the knee either on purpose or accidentally.\nTek Jansen – an animated Science Fiction character.\nCharlene – A woman whom Colbert stalked since the 1980s. Although she never physically appeared on the show, she was the subject of two songs Colbert wrote.\nJay the Intern (played by Jay Katsir) – A young man Stephen occasionally mock abused in stories relating to internships and college students.\nHans Beinholtz (played by Erik Frandsen) – The existentialist fictional UN ambassador from Germany. He was portrayed as replying to Colbert's questions and statements with deeply philosophical (and often aggressively depressing) remarks.\n Buddy Cole (played by Scott Thompson) – originally from The Kids in the Hall, he appeared during the week of the 2014 Winter Olympics.\n Randy Ferrar – A fictional Huffington Post writer.\n James – An Asian intern whose name Colbert mispronounced as \"Jah-mes\"\n Grimmy – Colbert's travel agent who appeared in the opening of the \"Cheating Death\" segments and becoming more recurring as the series came to its end. Though intended to be the guest of the final episode, Grimmy accidentally got killed off by Colbert during a last \"Cheating Death\" segment.\n\nAlan (played by Jordan Carlos) – Colbert's former token black friend, he was demoted to \"black acquaintance\" after Colbert saw him march in an anti-war demonstration.\nBobby (played by Eric Drysdale) – A stage manager, played by Colbert Report writer Eric Drysdale. He frequently was called upon to do degrading things or to answer questions from Colbert and was responsible for keeping track of the whereabouts of Colbert's \"son\", Stephen Jr. On the April 21, 2008 show, following Drysdale's departure from the writing staff, it was insinuated that Colbert had eaten Bobby during a commercial break. Bobby's ghost made an appearance on December 11, 2008, where he was again cannibalized by Colbert. On 28 October 2009, Bobby reappeared (in living form) as part of a joke about time travel and the Higgs boson.\nRuss Lieber (played by David Cross) – A satirical liberal radio talk show host from Madison, Wisconsin, and the nemesis of Colbert. He is ultra-sensitive to political correctness, and often worries that his own words might be misconstrued as offensive. Colbert frequently encountered him during the early days of the show. Lieber has appeared several times on the show to debate. He appears to be a satirical take on Al Franken.\nGulpy –An anthropomorphic Gulpzilla soda that Colbert kept as a pet to drink. Gulpy would normally try to kill him, but Colbert later said that they had gone to therapy and were all better. When Michael Bloomberg banned all drinks larger than 16 oz. in New York City, Colbert \"killed\" Gulpy.\nHam Rove – A raw canned ham with glasses that stood in for Republican strategist Karl Rove in various discussions of statements Rove had made or topics like Super PAC's which Rove was related to. After the 2012 election, fearing reprisal for not wielding enough influence with his Colbert Super PAC, Colbert stabbed and killed Ham Rove. Colbert Super PAC's website featured a memorial to Ham Rove, including his list of ingredients.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n The Colbert Report official website\n\nCharacters\nColbert Report characters\nColbert Report characters"
] |
[
"Stephen Colbert",
"Strangers with Candy",
"What did Colbert study?",
"Another running joke throughout the series was that Noblet, a closeted homosexual, was having a \"secret\" affair with fellow teacher Geoffrey Jellineck,"
] | C_50f0971a1da64891b4732fcb58fabe60_0 | What year did he graduate in? | 2 | What year did Stephen Colbert graduate? | Stephen Colbert | During the same period, Colbert worked again with Sedaris and Dinello to develop a new comedy series for Comedy Central, Strangers with Candy. Comedy Central picked up the series in 1998 after Colbert had already begun working on The Daily Show. As a result, he accepted a reduced role, filming only around 20 Daily Show segments a year while he worked on the new series. Strangers with Candy was conceived of as a parody of after school specials, following the life of Jerri Blank, a 46-year-old dropout who returns to finish high school after 32 years of life on the street. Most noted by critics for its use of offensive humor, it concluded each episode by delivering to the audience a skewed, politically incorrect moral lesson. Colbert served as a main writer alongside Sedaris and Dinello, and portrayed Jerri's strict but uninformed history teacher, Chuck Noblet, seen throughout the series dispensing inaccurate information to his classes. Colbert has likened this to the character he played on The Daily Show and later The Colbert Report, claiming that he has a very specific niche in portraying "poorly informed, high-status idiot" characters. Another running joke throughout the series was that Noblet, a closeted homosexual, was having a "secret" affair with fellow teacher Geoffrey Jellineck, despite the fact that their relationship was apparent to everyone around them. This obliviousness also appears in Colbert's Daily Show and Colbert Report character. Thirty episodes of Strangers with Candy were made, which aired on Comedy Central in 1999 and 2000. Though its ratings were not remarkable during its initial run, it has been characterized as a cult show with a small but dedicated audience. Colbert reprised his role for a film adaptation, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and had a limited release in 2006. The film received mixed reviews. Colbert also co-wrote the screenplay with Sedaris and Dinello. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Stephen Tyrone Colbert ( ; born May 13, 1964) is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is best known for hosting the satirical Comedy Central program The Colbert Report from 2005 to 2014 and the CBS talk program The Late Show with Stephen Colbert beginning in September 2015.
Colbert originally studied to be a dramatic actor, but became interested in improvisational theater while attending Northwestern University, where he met Second City director Del Close. Colbert first performed professionally as an understudy for Steve Carell at Second City Chicago, where his troupe mates included Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris, comedians with whom he developed the sketch comedy series Exit 57. He wrote and performed on the short-lived Dana Carvey Show before collaborating with Sedaris and Dinello again on the cult television series Strangers with Candy. He gained attention for his role on the latter as closeted gay history teacher Chuck Noblet.
Colbert's work as a correspondent on Comedy Central's news-parody series The Daily Show gained him wide recognition. In 2005, he left The Daily Show to host The Colbert Report. Following The Daily Shows news-parody concept, The Colbert Report was a parody of personality-driven political opinion shows including The O'Reilly Factor, in which he portrayed a caricatured version of conservative political pundits, earning Colbert an invitation to perform as featured entertainer at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in 2006, which he did in character. This event led to the series became one of Comedy Central's highest-rated series. After ending The Colbert Report, he was hired in 2015 to succeed retiring David Letterman as host of the Late Show on CBS. He hosted the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards in September 2017.
Colbert has won nine Primetime Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and three Peabody Awards. Colbert was named one of Times 100 Most Influential People in 2006 and 2012. Colbert's book, I Am America (And So Can You!), was listed No.1 on The New York Times Best Seller list in 2007.
Early life
Colbert was born in Washington, D.C., the youngest of eleven children in a Catholic family. He spent his early years in Bethesda, Maryland. He grew up in the Charleston suburb of James Island, South Carolina. Colbert and his siblings, in descending order by age, are James III, Edward, Mary, William, Margo, Thomas, Jay, Elizabeth, Paul, Peter, and Stephen. His father, James William Colbert Jr., was an immunologist and medical school dean at Yale University, Saint Louis University, and finally at the Medical University of South Carolina, where, from 1969, he served as the school's first vice president of academic affairs. Stephen's mother, Lorna Elizabeth Colbert (née Tuck), was a homemaker.
In interviews, Colbert has described his parents as devout people who also strongly valued intellectualism, and taught their children it was possible to question the church, and still be Catholic. In an interview, Lorna has described Stephen as rambunctious. As a child, he observed that Southerners were often depicted as being less intelligent than other characters on scripted television; to avoid that stereotype, he taught himself to imitate the speech of American news anchors.
While Colbert sometimes comedically claims his surname is French, he is of 15/16ths Irish ancestry; one of his paternal great-great-grandmothers was of German and English descent. Many of his ancestors emigrated from Ireland to North America in the 19th century before and during the Great Famine. Originally, his surname was pronounced in English; Stephen Colbert's father, James, wanted to pronounce the name , but maintained the pronunciation out of respect for his own father. He offered his children the option to pronounce the name whichever way they preferred. Stephen started using later in life when he transferred to Northwestern University, taking advantage of the opportunity to reinvent himself in a new place where no one knew him. Stephen's brother Edward, an intellectual property attorney, retained ; this was shown in a February 12, 2009, appearance on The Colbert Report, when his second oldest brother asked him, " or ?" Ed responded "", to which Stephen jokingly replied, "See you in Hell".
On September 11, 1974, when Colbert was ten years old, his father and his two brothers nearest in age, Peter and Paul, died in the crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 while it was attempting to land in Charlotte, North Carolina. They were en route to enroll the two boys at Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut. He has discussed the impact on him and his philosophy of grief and suffering. Lorna Colbert relocated the family from James Island to the George Chisolm House, in downtown Charleston and ran the carriage house as a bed and breakfast. Colbert found the transition difficult and did not easily make friends in his new neighborhood. Colbert later described himself during this time as detached, lacking a sense of importance regarding the things with which other children concerned themselves.
He developed a love of science fiction and fantasy novels, especially the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, of which he remains an avid fan. During his adolescence, he also developed an intense interest in fantasy role-playing games, especially Dungeons & Dragons, a pastime which he later characterized as an early experience in acting and improvisation.
Colbert attended Charleston's Episcopal Porter-Gaud School, where he participated in several school plays and contributed to the school newspaper but was not highly motivated academically. During his adolescence, he briefly fronted A Shot in the Dark, a Rolling Stones cover band. When he was younger, he had hoped to study marine biology, but surgery intended to repair a severely perforated eardrum caused him inner ear damage severe enough to preclude a career involving scuba diving, and leaving him deaf in his right ear.
For a while, he was uncertain whether he would attend college, but ultimately he applied and was accepted to Hampden–Sydney College in Virginia, where a friend had also enrolled. Arriving in 1982, he majored in philosophy and continued to participate in plays. He found the curriculum rigorous, but was more focused than he had been in high school and was able to apply himself to his studies. Despite the lack of a significant theater community at Hampden–Sydney, Colbert's interest in acting escalated during this time. After two years, he transferred in 1984 to Northwestern University as a theater major to study performance, emboldened by the realization that he loved performing, even when no one was coming to shows. He graduated from Northwestern's School of Communication in 1986.
Early career in comedy
While at Northwestern, Colbert studied with the intent of becoming a dramatic actor; mostly he performed in experimental plays and was uninterested in comedy. He began performing improvisation while in college, both in the campus improv team No Fun Mud Piranhas and at the Annoyance Theatre in Chicago as a part of Del Close's ImprovOlympic at a time when the project was focused on competitive, long-form improvisation, rather than improvisational comedy. "I wasn't gonna do Second City", Colbert later recalled, "because those Annoyance people looked down on Second City because they thought it wasn't pure improv – there was a slightly snobby, mystical quality to the Annoyance people". After Colbert graduated in 1986, however, he was in need of a job. A friend who was employed at Second City's box office offered him work answering phones and selling souvenirs. Colbert accepted and discovered that Second City employees were entitled to take classes at their training center free of charge. Despite his earlier aversion to the comedy group, he signed up for improvisation classes and enjoyed the experience greatly.
Shortly thereafter, he was hired to perform with Second City's touring company, initially as an understudy for Steve Carell. It was there he met Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello, with whom he often collaborated later in his career. By their retelling, the three comedians did not get along at first – Dinello thought Colbert was uptight, pretentious and cold, while Colbert thought of Dinello as "an illiterate thug" – but the trio became close friends while touring together, discovering that they shared a similar comic sensibility.
When Sedaris and Dinello were offered the opportunity to create a television series for HBO Downtown Productions, Colbert left Second City and relocated to New York to work with them on the sketch comedy show Exit 57. The series debuted on Comedy Central in 1995 and aired through 1996. Although it lasted only 12 episodes, the show received favorable reviews and was nominated for five CableACE Awards in 1995, in categories including best writing, performance, and comedy series.
Television career
The Dana Carvey Show (1996)
Following the cancelation of Exit 57, Colbert worked for six months as a cast member and writer on The Dana Carvey Show, alongside former Second City castmate Steve Carell, and also Robert Smigel, Charlie Kaufman, Louis C.K., and Dino Stamatopoulos, among others. The series, described by one reviewer as "kamikaze satire" in "borderline-questionable taste", had sponsors pull out after its first episode aired and was canceled after seven episodes. Colbert then worked briefly as a freelance writer for Saturday Night Live with Robert Smigel. Smigel brought his animated sketch, The Ambiguously Gay Duo, to SNL from The Dana Carvey Show; Colbert provided the voice of Ace on both series, opposite Steve Carell as Gary. Needing money, he also worked as a script consultant for VH1 and MTV, before taking a job filming humorous correspondent segments for Good Morning America. Only two of the segments he proposed were ever produced and only one aired, but the job led his agent to refer him to The Daily Show's producer, Madeline Smithberg, who hired Colbert on a trial basis in 1997.
Strangers with Candy (1999–2000)
During the same period, Colbert worked again with Sedaris and Dinello to develop a new comedy series for Comedy Central, Strangers with Candy. Comedy Central picked up the series in 1998 after Colbert had already begun working on The Daily Show. As a result, he accepted a reduced role, filming only around 20 Daily Show segments a year while he worked on the new series.
Strangers with Candy was conceived of as a parody of after school specials, following the life of Jerri Blank, a 46-year-old dropout who returns to finish high school after 32 years of life on the street. Most noted by critics for its use of offensive humor, it concluded each episode by delivering to the audience a skewed, politically incorrect moral lesson. Colbert served as a main writer alongside Sedaris and Dinello, and portrayed Jerri's strict but uninformed history teacher, Chuck Noblet, seen throughout the series dispensing inaccurate information to his classes. Colbert has likened this to the character he played on The Daily Show and later The Colbert Report, claiming that he has a very specific niche in portraying "poorly informed, high-status idiot" characters. Another running joke throughout the series was that Noblet, a closeted homosexual, was having a "secret" affair with fellow teacher Geoffrey Jellineck, despite the fact that their relationship was apparent to everyone around them. This obliviousness also appears in Colbert's Daily Show and Colbert Report character.
Thirty episodes of Strangers with Candy were made, which aired on Comedy Central in 1999 and 2000. Though its ratings were not remarkable during its initial run, it has been characterized as a cult show with a small but dedicated audience. Colbert reprised his role for a film adaptation which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and had a limited release in 2006. The film received mixed reviews. Colbert also co-wrote the screenplay with Sedaris and Dinello.
The Daily Show (1997–2005)
Colbert joined the cast of Comedy Central's parody-news series The Daily Show in 1997, when the show was in its second season. Originally one of four correspondents who filmed segments from remote locations in the style of network news field reporters, Colbert was referred to as "the new guy" on-air for his first two years on the show, during which time Craig Kilborn served as host. When Kilborn left the show prior to the 1999 season, Jon Stewart took over hosting duties, also serving as a writer and co-executive producer. From this point, the series gradually began to take on a more political tone and increase in popularity, particularly in the latter part of the 2000 U.S. presidential election season. The roles of the show's correspondents were expanded to include more in-studio segments and international reports, which were almost always done in the studio with the aid of a greenscreen.
Unlike Stewart, who essentially hosted The Daily Show as himself, Colbert developed a correspondent character for his pieces on the series that was a parody of conservative political pundits such as Bill O'Reilly. Colbert has described his correspondent character as "a well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot" and "a fool who has spent a lot of his life playing not the fool – one who is able to cover it at least well enough to deal with the subjects that he deals with". Colbert was frequently pitted against knowledgeable interview subjects, or against Stewart in scripted exchanges, with the resultant dialogue demonstrating the character's lack of knowledge of whatever subject he is discussing. Colbert also made generous use of humorous fallacies of logic in explaining his point of view on any topic. Other Daily Show correspondents have adopted a similar style; former correspondent Rob Corddry recalls that when he and Ed Helms first joined the show's cast in 2002, they "just imitated Stephen Colbert for a year or two". Correspondent Aasif Mandvi has stated "I just decided I was going to do my best Stephen Colbert impression".
Colbert appeared in several recurring segments for The Daily Show, including "Even Stevphen" with Steve Carell, in which both characters were expected to debate a selected topic but instead would unleash their anger at one another. Colbert commonly hosted "This Week in God", a report on topics in the news pertaining to religion, presented with the help of the "God Machine". Colbert filed reports from the floor of the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention as a part of The Daily Show's award-winning coverage of the 2000 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections; many from the latter were included as part of their The Daily Show: Indecision 2004 DVD release. Other pieces that have been named as his signature segments include "Grouse Hunting in Shropshire", in which he reported on the "gayness" of British aristocracy, his mock lionization of a smoking-rights activist and apparent chain-smoker, and his cameo appearances during his faux campaign for president. In several episodes of The Daily Show, Colbert filled in as anchor in the absence of Jon Stewart, including the full week of March 3, 2002, when Stewart was scheduled to host Saturday Night Live. After Colbert left the show, Rob Corddry took over "This Week in God" segments, although a recorded sample of Colbert's voice was still used as the sound effect for the God Machine. Later episodes of The Daily Show have reused older Colbert segments under the label "Klassic Kolbert". Colbert won three Emmys as a writer of The Daily Show in 2004, 2005, and 2006.
The Colbert Report (2005–2014)
Colbert hosted his own television show, The Colbert Report, from October 17, 2005, through December 18, 2014. The Colbert Report was a Daily Show spin-off that parodied the conventions of television news broadcasting, particularly cable-personality political talk shows like The O'Reilly Factor, Hannity, and Glenn Beck. Colbert hosted the show in-character as a blustery right-wing pundit, generally considered to be an extension of his character on The Daily Show. Conceived by co-creators Stewart, Colbert, and Ben Karlin in part as an opportunity to explore "the character-driven news", the series focused less on the day-to-day news style of the Daily Show, instead frequently concentrating on the foibles of the host-character himself.
The concept for The Report was first seen in a series of Daily Show segments which advertised the then-fictional series as a joke. It was later developed by Stewart's Busboy Productions and pitched to Comedy Central, which green-lighted the program; Comedy Central had already been searching for a way to extend the successful Daily Show franchise beyond a half-hour. The series opened to strong ratings, averaging 1.2 million viewers nightly during its first week on the air. Comedy Central signed a long-term contract for The Colbert Report within its first month on the air, when it immediately established itself among the network's highest-rated shows.
Much of Colbert's personal life was reflected in his character on The Colbert Report. With the extended exposure of the character on the show, he often referenced his interest in and knowledge of Catholicism, science fiction, and The Lord of the Rings, as well as using real facts to create his character's history. His alternate persona was also raised in South Carolina, is the youngest of 11 siblings and is married. However, Colbert's actual career history in acting and comedy was often downplayed or even denied outright, and he frequently referred to having attended Dartmouth College (which was at the forefront of the conservative campus movement in the 1980s) rather than his actual alma mater, Northwestern. In July 2012, Colbert added two years to his contract with Comedy Central, extending the run of The Colbert Report until the end of 2014.
The final episode on December 18, 2014, featured a rendition of "We'll Meet Again" and appearances from former guests of the show, including Jon Stewart, Randy Newman, Bryan Cranston, Willie Nelson, Yo-Yo Ma, Mandy Patinkin, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Tom Brokaw, David Gregory, J. J. Abrams, Big Bird, Gloria Steinem, Ken Burns, James Franco, Barry Manilow, Bob Costas, Jeff Daniels, Sam Waterston, Bill de Blasio, Katie Couric, Patrick Stewart, George Lucas, Henry Kissinger, Cookie Monster, Alan Alda, Eliot Spitzer, Vince Gilligan, Paul Krugman, and a text from Bill Clinton, and appearances by Alex Trebek, U.S. and coalition Afghanistan forces, and further characters (a space station astronaut, Santa Claus, Abraham Lincoln, etc.).
The Late Show (since 2015)
On April 10, 2014, CBS announced in a press release that Colbert "will succeed David Letterman as the host of The Late Show, effective when Mr. Letterman retires from the broadcast." On January 12, 2015, CBS announced that Colbert would premiere as the Late Show host on Tuesday, September 8, 2015. The first guest of the new Late Show was George Clooney. The show has a much more political focus than David Letterman's Late Show.
During his tenure as the host of The Late Show, Colbert hosted the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards, broadcast on CBS on September 17, 2017. More recently, he and his Spartina Productions company had inked a deal with CBS Studios.
Politics
2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner
On Saturday, April 29, 2006, Colbert was the featured entertainer for the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. Standing a few yards from U.S. President George W. Bush – in front of an audience the Associated Press called a "Who's Who of power and celebrity" – Colbert delivered a searing routine targeting the president and the media. In his politically conservative character from The Colbert Report, Colbert satirized the George W. Bush Administration and the White House Press Corps with such lines as:
Colbert received a chilly response from the audience. His jokes were often met with silence and muttering, apart from the enthusiastic laughter of a few in the audience. The major media outlets paid little attention to it initially. Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism professor Todd Gitlin claimed that this was because Colbert's routine was as critical of the media as it was of Bush. Richard Cohen, also writing for The Washington Post, responded that the routine was not funny. The video of Colbert's performance became an internet and media sensation, while, in the week following the speech, ratings for The Colbert Report rose by 37% to average just under 1.5 million total viewers per episode. In Time magazine James Poniewozik called it "the political-cultural touchstone issue of 2006". Writing six months later, New York Times columnist Frank Rich referred to Colbert's speech as a "cultural primary" and called it the "defining moment" of the 2006 midterm elections.
2008 presidential bid
Under his fictional persona in The Colbert Report, Colbert dropped hints of a potential presidential run throughout 2007, with speculation intensifying following the release of his book, I Am America (And So Can You!), which was rumored to be a sign that he was indeed testing the waters for a future bid for the White House. On October 16, 2007, he announced his candidacy on his show, stating his intention to run on both the Republican and Democratic platforms, but only as a "favorite son" in his native South Carolina. He later abandoned plans to run as a Republican due to the $35,000 fee required to file for the South Carolina primary; however, he continued to seek a place on the Democratic ballot and on October 28, 2007, campaigned in the South Carolina state capital of Columbia, where he was presented with the key to the city by Mayor Bob Coble.
After announcing his presidential ticket, he asked his viewers to cast their votes by donating to Donorschoose.org, an online charity connecting individuals to classrooms in need.
Colbert's promotion inspired $68,000 in donations to South Carolina classrooms, which benefited over 14,000 low-income students.
Colbert teamed up with Donorschoose.org again in 2008 by asking supporters of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to do the same. As a lead-up to the Pennsylvania primary, he created a "straw poll that makes a difference" by which people could donate to Pennsylvania classroom projects in honor of their favorite candidate.
Colbert viewers donated $185,000 to projects reaching 43,000 students in Pennsylvania public schools.
On November 1, 2007, the South Carolina Democratic Party executive council voted 13–3 to refuse Colbert's application onto the ballot. "The general sense of the council was that he wasn't a serious candidate and that was why he wasn't selected to be on the ballot", stated John Werner, the party's director. Several days later he announced that he was dropping out of the race, saying he did not wish to put the country through an agonizing Supreme Court battle. CNN has reported that Obama supporters pressured the South Carolina Democratic Executive Council to keep Colbert off the ballot. One anonymous member of the council told CNN that former State Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum had placed pressure on them to refuse Colbert's application despite his steady rise in polls.
Though Colbert's real-life presidential campaign had ended, Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada established in an interview on The Colbert Report that Colbert's campaign was still going strong in the fictional Marvel Universe, citing the cover art of a then-recent issue of The Amazing Spider-Man which featured a Colbert campaign billboard in the background. Background appearances of Colbert campaign ads continued to appear in Marvel Comics publications, as late as August 2008's Secret Invasion No.5 (which also features a cameo of an alien Skrull posing as Colbert). In October 2008, Colbert made an extended 8-page appearance webslinging with Spider-Man in The Amazing Spider-Man issue No. 573. Colbert voiced the president of the U.S. in the 2009 film Monsters vs. Aliens.
2009 solidarity with U.S. troops in Iraq War
Stephen Colbert arrived in Baghdad, Iraq, on June 5, 2009, to film a week of shows called "Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando" sponsored by the USO (United Service Organizations). Colbert had a suit tailored for him in the Army Combat Uniform pattern. During the first episode (which featured a cameo appearance from U.S. president Barack Obama), Colbert had his hair cropped in a military style to show his solidarity with the troops. One Army major said that "shaving of the hair is an amazing show of support" that was "very touching." USO Senior Vice President John Hanson said the shows are an important diversion for the troops.
2010 Congressional testimony
On September 24, 2010, Colbert testified in character before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Security. He was invited by committee chairwoman Zoe Lofgren to describe his experience participating in the United Farm Workers' "Take Our Jobs" program, where he spent a day working alongside migrant workers in upstate New York. At the end of his often-humorous testimony, Colbert broke character in responding to a question from Rep. Judy Chu, D-CA, and explained his purpose for being at the hearing:
Democratic committee member John Conyers questioned whether it was appropriate for the comedian to appear before Congress and asked him to leave the hearing. Though Colbert offered to depart at the direction of the committee chairwoman, Lofgren requested that he stay at least until all opening testimony had been completed, whereupon Conyers withdrew his request.
Conservative pundits took aim at Colbert's Congress testimony not long after.
2010 Washington, D.C. rallies
In September 2010, following Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally, a campaign developed that called for Colbert to hold his own rally at the Lincoln Memorial. On the September 10, 2010, episode of the Daily Show and The Colbert Report, Stewart and Colbert made preannouncements of a future event. On September 16, 2010, Stewart and Colbert announced competing rallies on the Washington, D.C., Mall on October 30, 2010, Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity", and Colbert's "March to Keep Fear Alive". Both were eventually merged into the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.
2011 Political Super PAC
In May 2011, Colbert filed a request with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) asking for a media exemption for coverage of his political action committee, ColbertPAC, on The Colbert Report.
In June 2011, during a public meeting, the FEC voted 5–1 to grant The Colbert Report a limited media exemption. The exemption allows unlimited donations of airtime and show resources to promote the Colbert Super PAC without requiring disclosure to the FEC, but only for ads appearing on The Colbert Report. Following the hearing, Colbert formally filed paperwork for the creation of his Super PAC with the FEC secretary.
2012 South Carolina GOP primary
After the 2012 New Hampshire primary, a poll for the subsequent South Carolina primary taken by Public Policy Polling (of 1,112 likely GOP voters, Jan 5–7, 2012) was reported to place Colbert at 5%, one point ahead of Jon Huntsman polling at 4%, in spite of the fact that Colbert was not on the ballot. This poll showed Colbert to be closely behind Rick Perry's 7% and Ron Paul's 8% (with Romney at 27%, Gingrich 23% and Santorum at 18%). On the January 11 episode of The Colbert Report, Colbert asked his audience if he should run for president in South Carolina, to which he received strong applause. He then stated that he would be making a "Major Announcement" during the next day's show. On January 12, Colbert started his show by discussing his role in the presidential campaign, then addressed the law preventing him from being a presidential candidate while running his Super PAC. With the help of his lawyer Trevor Potter, he then signed over control of his Super PAC to Jon Stewart, with the organization title then being referred to as "The Definitely Not Coordinating With Stephen Colbert Super PAC". Immediately after this legal block was out of the way, Colbert announced, "I am forming an exploratory committee to lay the groundwork for my possible candidacy for the President of the United States of South Carolina. I'm doin' it!" He reiterated in the interview portion of that show that "I'm still in the exploratory phase" of his presidential campaign.
On the January 16, 2012, episode, Colbert satirically encouraged his viewers to vote for Herman Cain in the South Carolina primary. As Cain was still on the ballot, despite having recently dropped out of the race, Colbert announced that he would consider any votes cast for Cain to be in direct support of his own possible candidacy.
Other work
Colbert is co-author of the satirical text-and-picture novel Wigfield: The Can Do Town That Just May Not, which was published in 2003 by Hyperion Books. The novel was a collaboration between Colbert, Amy Sedaris, and Paul Dinello, and tells the story of a small town threatened by the impending destruction of a massive dam. The narrative is presented as a series of fictional interviews with the town's residents, accompanied by photos. The three authors toured performing an adaptation of Wigfield on stage the same year the book was released.
Colbert appeared in a small supporting role in the 2005 film adaptation of Bewitched. He has made guest appearances on the television series Curb Your Enthusiasm, Spin City, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and on the first season of the US improvisational comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway?. He voiced the characters of Reducto and Phil Ken Sebben in the Adult Swim's Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, but left the show in 2005 to work on The Colbert Report. His characters were both killed, though he returned to voice Phil for the series finale. Colbert also has provided voices for Cartoon Network's The Venture Bros., Comedy Central's Crank Yankers, and American Dad!, and for Canadian animated comedy series The Wrong Coast. He appeared as Homer Simpson's life coach, Colby Krause, in The Simpsons episode "He Loves to Fly and He D'ohs".
Colbert filled in for Sam Seder on the second episode of The Majority Report on Air America Radio, and has also done reports for The Al Franken Show. He appeared on a track on Wig in a Box, a tribute album for Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Colbert read the part of Leopold Bloom in Bloomsday on Broadway XXIV: Love Literature Language Lust: Leopold's Women Bloom on June 16, 2005, at Symphony Space in New York City. He appeared in a series of TV commercials for General Motors, as a not-too-bright investigator searching for the elusive (and non-existent in real life) "Mr. Goodwrench". He also portrayed the letter Z in Sesame Street: All-Star Alphabet, a 2005 video release.
Colbert is a producer of The 1 Second Film, the world's largest nonprofit collaborative art film. His video request that IMDb list his credit for The1 Second Film ("it is as valid as most of my credits") enabled thousands of the film's producers to be listed in the massive movie database until they were removed in early 2007.
Colbert has released one book associated with The Colbert Report, I Am America (And So Can You!). It was released on October 7, 2007, by Grand Central Publishing. Grand Central Publishing is the successor to Warner Books, which published America (The Book), written by The Daily Show staff. The book contains similar political satire, but was written primarily by Colbert himself rather than as a collaboration with his Colbert Report writing staff.
On November 23, 2008, his Christmas special, A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!, aired on Comedy Central. It was released on DVD in November 2008.
In January 2010, Colbert was named the assistant sports psychologist for the US Olympic speed skating team at the 2010 Winter Olympics. He was also invited to be part of NBC's 2010 Winter Olympics coverage team by Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports. In April 2011, Colbert performed as Harry in the concert-style revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical Company, presented by the New York Philharmonic at the Lincoln Center. The show, featuring Neil Patrick Harris in the starring role, ran for four nights and was filmed for later showings in movie theaters, which began June 15. In May 2011, Colbert joined the Charleston to Bermuda Race yachting race, as captain of the ship "the Spirit of Juno". He finished second, five miles behind leaders "Tucana".
Since 2012, Colbert has collaborated with the Montclair Film Festival, of which his wife is a founder and current president of its board. Every year since its foundation, Colbert has participated by hosting an annual fundraising event and leading Q&As and conversations with directors, writers, journalists, and actors such as: Jon Stewart, Rob Reiner, Steve Carell, J. J. Abrams, David Itzkoff, Ethan Hawke, Rachel Weisz, and Meryl Streep. He is also part of the Montclair Film advisory board.
After the resignation of South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint to run Heritage Foundation, Colbert was named a possible candidate for appointment to the seat being vacated by DeMint, which would have triggered a special election in 2014 to finish out DeMint's term. Although Governor Nikki Haley announced promptly that she had no intention to nominate Colbert to the Senate, a poll showed Colbert as a favorite among South Carolina voters.
Colbert guest-hosted Only in Monroe, a public access television show in Monroe, Michigan, for an episode that aired July 1, 2015. He interviewed the program's regular hosts, and also the rapper Eminem (whom he pretended never to have heard of), and put a humorous slant on the local news and community calendar.
On July 17, 2016, Colbert hijacked the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, while dressed as Caesar Flickerman from The Hunger Games series. After he was taken down from the stage, he commented, "Look, I know I am not supposed to be up here but let's be honest, neither is Donald Trump." Colbert also dressed as Flickerman on his show, prior to the stunt, to announce the candidates who had ended their runs in the 2016 election.
Aside from hosting his talk shows, Colbert has gone on to host other types of shows. Since 2014, Colbert has hosted the Kennedy Center Honors for three consecutive years. In 2017, Colbert hosted the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards.
In 2018 it was reported that Showtime was developing Hello Nancy, a biopic based on the nonfiction book On Her Trail, My Mother, Nancy Dickerson, TV News' First Woman Star by John Dickerson, with Colbert and his wife Evelyn serving as executive producers. The couple also served as executive producers for In & Of Itself, a film version of Derek DelGaudio's off-Broadway show of the same name.
Influences
Colbert has said his comedy influences include: Don Novello, Phil Silvers, Alec Guinness, Bill Cosby, George Carlin, Dean Martin, Jon Stewart, Monty Python, Steve Martin, and David Letterman. In 2017, Colbert said due to the sexual assault allegations made against Cosby, he can no longer listen to his comedy.
Colbert has also cited Jim Gaffigan, Maria Bamford, Joe Pera, John Mulaney, and Eric Andre, as some of his favorite contemporary comedians.
Among comedians who say they were influenced by Colbert are Nathan Fielder, James Corden, Mindy Kaling, Hasan Minhaj, Jordan Klepper, Ziwe Fumudoh, John Mulaney, Derrick Beckles, Julie Klausner, and Billy Eichner.
Personal life
Colbert is a practicing Roman Catholic and used to teach Sunday school. He is an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church Monastery. Colbert is an avid reader and has cited authors: J.R.R. Tolkien, J.D. Salinger, Robertson Davies, George Saunders, Larry Niven, Henry Kuttner and Isaac Asimov as his favorites, among others.
Colbert has been married to Evelyn "Evie" McGee-Colbert since 1993. She is the daughter of prominent Charleston civil litigator Joseph McGee, of the firm Buist Moore Smythe McGee. His wife appeared with him in an episode of Strangers with Candy as his mother. She also had an uncredited cameo as a nurse in the series pilot and a credited one (as his wife Clair) in the film. McGee-Colbert actually met Jon Stewart before she met her future husband in 1990. They met at the world premiere of Hydrogen Jukebox at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston. Colbert later described the first moment he met Evie as being a love at first sight encounter; however, moments after they met, they both realized they had grown up together in Charleston and had many mutual friends.
The couple have three children. They live in Montclair, New Jersey.
During his college and Second City years, Colbert suffered from bouts of depression and anxiety, for which he had to be medicated. In a 2018 interview, Colbert told Rolling Stone:
I needed to be medicated when I was younger to deal with my anxiety that I had thrown my life away by attempting to do something that so few people actually get away with, or succeed at ... Xanax was just lovely. Y'know, for a while. And then I realized that the gears were still smoking. I just couldn't hear them anymore. But I could feel them, I could feel the gearbox heating up and smoke pouring out of me ... I stopped the Xanax after, like, nine days. I went, 'This isn't helping.' So I just suffered through it. I'd sometimes hold the bottle, to go like, 'I could stop this feeling if I wanted, but I'm not going to. Because I know if I stop the feeling, somehow I'm not working through it, like I have got to go through the tunnel with the spiders in it.'
And then one morning I woke up and my skin wasn't on fire, and it took me a while to figure out what it was. I wake up the next morning, I'm perfectly fine, to the point where my body's still humming. I'm a bell that's been rung so hard that I can still feel myself vibrating. But the actual sound was gone [because] I was starting rehearsal that day to create a new show. And then I went, 'Oh, my God, I can never stop performing.' Creating something is what helped me from just spinning apart like an unweighted flywheel. And I haven't stopped since.
Colbert used the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator during a segment of The Late Show, which identified him as an INFP.
Political views
Although, by his own account, he was not particularly political before joining the cast of The Daily Show, Colbert has described himself as a Democrat according to a 2004 interview. In an interview at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard Institute of Politics, he said he has "no problems with Republicans, just Republican policies".
Colbert supports the implementation of the Medicare for All plan introduced by Bernie Sanders, considering it "a sensible fix to Obamacare". When asked about his views on abortion, Colbert positioned himself as pro-choice. On the intersection of faith and politics, Colbert has pointed out that his views are in line with those of Cesar Chávez.
Awards and honors
In 2000, Colbert and the other Daily Show writers were the recipients of three Emmy Awards as writers for The Daily Show and again in 2005 and 2006. In 2005 he was nominated for a Satellite Award for his performance on The Colbert Report and again in 2006. He was also nominated for three Emmys for The Colbert Report in 2006, including Best Performance in a Variety, Musical Program or Special, which he lost to Barry Manilow. Manilow and Colbert would go on to jokingly sign and notarize a revolving biannual custody agreement for the Emmy on The Colbert Report episode aired on October 30, 2006. He lost the same category to Tony Bennett in 2007 and Don Rickles in 2008.
In January 2006, the American Dialect Society named truthiness, which Colbert coined on the premiere episode of The Colbert Report, as its 2005 Word of the Year. Colbert devoted time on five successive episodes to bemoaning the failure of the Associated Press to mention his role in popularizing the word truthiness in its news coverage of the Word of the Year. On December 9, 2006, Merriam-Webster also announced that it selected truthiness as its Word of the Year for 2006. Votes were accepted on their website, and according to poll results, "truthiness" won by a five-to-one margin.
In June 2006, after speaking at the school's commencement ceremony, Colbert received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree from Knox College. Time named Stephen Colbert as one of the 100 most influential people in 2006 and 2012 and in May 2006, New York magazine listed Colbert (and Jon Stewart) as one of its top dozen influential persons in media. Colbert was named Person of the Year by the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado on March 3, 2007, and was also given the Speaker of the Year Award by The Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) on March 24, 2007, for his "drive to expose the rhetorical shortcomings of contemporary political discourse".
Colbert was named the 2nd Sexiest TV News Anchor in September 2006 by Maxim, next to Mélissa Theuriau of France and was the only man featured on the list. In November 2006, he was named a "sexy surprise" by People in the Sexiest Man Alive honors and in the December 2006 issue of GQ he was named one of GQ's "Men of the Year".
In 2012, he was listed as No. 69 on Maxim Magazine's Hot 100, becoming the first man to be included on the list.
Colbert has received three Peabody Awards, in 2007, 2011, and 2020. He was nominated for five TCA Awards for The Colbert Report by the Television Critics Association.
After the Saginaw Spirit defeated the Oshawa Generals in Ontario Junior League Hockey, Oshawa Mayor John Gray declared March 20, 2007 (the mayor's own birthday), Stephen Colbert Day, honoring a previous bet with Stephen. At the event, Mayor Gray referred to the publicity the bet brought the city, remarking, "This is the way to lose a bet".
Colbert was honored for the Gutsiest Move on the Spike TV Guys' Choice Awards on June 13, 2007, for his performance at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. In August 2007, Virgin America named an airplane, "Air Colbert", in his honor. On October 28, 2007, Colbert received the key to the city of Columbia, South Carolina, from Mayor Bob Coble.
On December 20, 2007, Colbert was named Celebrity of the Year by The Associated Press. On April 2, 2008, he received a Peabody Award for The Colbert Report, saying in response, "I proudly accept this award and begrudgingly forgive the Peabody Committee for taking three years to recognize greatness".
In 2008, Colbert won the Emmy Award for writing again, this time as a writer for The Colbert Report. Colbert delivered the Class Day address to the graduating class of Princeton University on June 2, 2008, and accepted the Class of 2008 Understandable Vanity Award, consisting of a sketch of Colbert and a mirror. He also has been announced as the Person of the Year for the 12th annual Webby Awards.
In January 2010, Colbert received the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for his album A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!. He also announced the nominees for Song of the Year while toting a pre-released Apple iPad. Colbert was the 2011 commencement speaker for Northwestern University, and received an honorary degree. In 2013, Colbert again won the Emmy award for writing for The Colbert Report. In 2014, Colbert won the 2014 Best Spoken Word Album for his audiobook America Again: Re-becoming The Greatness We Never Weren't.
In January 2013, Rolling Stone placed him at number 2 in their "The 50 Funniest People Now" list. In December 2014, Paste named his Twitter one of "The 75 Best Twitter Accounts of 2014" ranking it at number 7. Colbert received an honorary degree from Wake Forest University as the 2015 commencement speaker.
In 2015, Colbert was awarded the third highest honor within the Department of the Army Civilian Awards, the Outstanding Civilian Service Award, for substantial contributions to the U.S. Army community.
In 2017 and 2018, Colbert was named one of "The 35 Most Powerful People in New York Media" by The Hollywood Reporter. He was chosen as one of GQ's "Men of the Year" for its December 2017 issue. Colbert was placed at number 32 in Vanity Fair "2018 New Establishment List". Other placements in earlier lists include number 40 in 2017 and number 28 in 2011.
In May 2021, Colbert received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Yale University.
Ben & Jerry's AmeriCone Dream ice cream
In February 2007, Ben & Jerry's unveiled a new ice cream flavor in honor of Colbert, named Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream. Colbert waited until Easter to sample the ice cream because he "gave up sweets for Lent". Colbert donated all proceeds to charity through the new Stephen Colbert AmeriCone Dream Fund, which distributes the money to various causes.
Species named in honor
At least five species have been given scientific names honoring Colbert. In 2008 a species of California trapdoor spider was named Aptostichus stephencolberti. The spider was named for Colbert after he reported on his television series that Jason Bond, a professor of biology at East Carolina University, had named a different species of spider Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi after the Canadian rock star Neil Young, and began to appeal for a species of animal to be named after him. On a later edition of The Colbert Report, Colbert revealed that Bond would name a spider after him, with Colbert claiming, "And all I had to do was shamelessly beg on national television." Other species named for Colbert include a species of Venezuelan diving beetle named Agaporomorphus colberti and a Chilean stonefly named Diamphipnoa colberti, both formally described in 2008. On his 45th birthday, Colbert was sent a framed print of his eponymous beetle by the biologists who named it. In 2014, a species of parasitic wasp from Ecuador, Aleiodes colberti, was named for Colbert, along with newly described species named for celebrities Jon Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, Ellen DeGeneres, and Shakira, and in 2016 a rove beetle, Sonoma colberti, was named after Colbert's on-screen persona.
COLBERT Treadmill
In 2009, NASA engineered a new treadmill for the International Space Station. It was taken to the ISS by the Space Shuttle Discovery during the STS-128 mission in August 2009. The complex machine is now used eight hours daily by astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the space station in order to maintain their muscle mass and bone density while spending long periods of time in a zero-gravity environment. While engineers at NASA were constructing this treadmill, it was simply called T-2 for more than two years. However, on April 14, 2009, NASA renamed it the "Combined Operational Load-Bearing External Resistance Treadmill", or COLBERT. NASA named the treadmill after Colbert, who took an interest during the Node3 naming census for the ISS module, Tranquility.
Colbert urged his followers to post the name "Colbert", which upon completion of the census received the most entries totaling 230,539, some 40,000 votes more than the second-place choice, Serenity. The COLBERT is expected to last the life of the ISS and will have seen about 38,000 miles of running when the Space Station is retired in 2024 or later, but it was also built with a 150,000-mile lifespan (if needed until 2028 or beyond). Colbert realized he was the recipient of an extremely rare honor—the COLBERT (a backronym) is the only piece of NASA-engineered equipment in space that is named after a living human being—when astronaut Sunita Williams came on The Colbert Report to announce that NASA had named the treadmill after him.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theatre
Published works
Colbert, Dinello, Sedaris. Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just May Not (Hyperion, May 19, 2004)
America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction (Warner Books; September 2004)
I Am America (And So Can You!) (Grand Central Publishing; October 9, 2007)
America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't (Grand Central Publishing; October 2, 2012)
I Am a Pole (And So Can You!) (Grand Central Publishing; May 8, 2012)
Stephen Colbert's Midnight Confessions (Simon & Schuster; September 5, 2017)
See also
New Yorkers in journalism
Political satire
References
Further reading
External links
Colbert interview transcript, 60 Minutes. (April 30, 2006)
1964 births
Living people
20th-century American comedians
21st-century American comedians
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American novelists
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century Roman Catholics
American comedy writers
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male novelists
American male stage actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
American media critics
American people of English descent
American people of German descent
American people of Irish descent
American political commentators
American satirists
American television talk show hosts
American television writers
Audiobook narrators
Grammy Award winners
Hampden–Sydney College alumni
Late night television talk show hosts
Male actors from Washington, D.C.
Male feminists
American male television writers
New Jersey Democrats
Northwestern University School of Communication alumni
Peabody Award winners
Male actors from Charleston, South Carolina
People from Bethesda, Maryland
People from Montclair, New Jersey
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Science fiction fans
South Carolina Democrats
Candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election
Webby Award winners
Writers from Charleston, South Carolina
Writers Guild of America Award winners
Screenwriters from Washington, D.C.
Novelists from South Carolina
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers
Catholics from New Jersey
Catholics from Maryland
Catholics from South Carolina
Tolkien fandom
21st-century American male writers
Television producers from New Jersey | false | [
"Thomas Nelson High School is a public high school located in an unincorporated area of Nelson County, Kentucky that has a Bardstown mailing address. Operated by the Nelson County School District and named after American Revolution figure Thomas Nelson, Jr., it was opened in August 2012 to alleviate overcrowding at what had been the district's only regular high school, Nelson County High School.\n\nAlthough the school opened in 2012, it did not graduate its first students until 2014. In its first school year of 2012–13, only 9th through 11th grades attended.\n\nNotes and references\n\nBuildings and structures in Bardstown, Kentucky\nEducational institutions established in 2012\nPublic high schools in Kentucky\nSchools in Nelson County, Kentucky\n2012 establishments in Kentucky",
"Kelle Cruz is an astrophysicist who specializes in studying brown dwarfs. She currently works as an associate professor at Hunter College in New York City. With her study of brown dwarfs, Cruz hopes to better understand planets outside the Solar System and map out the universe, saying, \"I hope that what I’m doing in our little bit of the galaxy is similar to what the explorers did by discovering and mapping the New World and North America.\"\n\nFurther reading\n\nPublications\n 2MASS 22344161+4041387AB: A Wide, Young, Accreting, Low-mass Binary in the LkHa233 Group \n Measuring Tiny Mass Accretion Rates Onto Young Brown Dwarfs. \n Young L. Dwarfs Identified in the Field: A Preliminary Low-Gravity, Optical Spectral Sequence from L0 to L5. \n A Sample of Very Young Field L Dwarfs and Implications for the Brown Dwarf \"Lithium Test\" at Early Ages \n The Brown Dwarf Kinematics Project (BDKP)I. Proper Motions and Tangential Velocities for a Large Sample of Late-type M, L, and T Dwarfs\n\nAwards and honors\n Spitzer Fellowship, 2007 \n NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2004 \n NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, 2001 \n NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (Honorable Mention), 2000 \n APS Corporate Minority Scholar, 1998 & 1999\n\nSee also\n List of astronomers (includes astrophysicists)\n\nReferences\n\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people\nAmerican astrophysicists\nWomen astronomers\nWomen astrophysicists"
] |
[
"Stephen Colbert",
"Strangers with Candy",
"What did Colbert study?",
"Another running joke throughout the series was that Noblet, a closeted homosexual, was having a \"secret\" affair with fellow teacher Geoffrey Jellineck,",
"What year did he graduate in?",
"I don't know."
] | C_50f0971a1da64891b4732fcb58fabe60_0 | What was his first job? | 3 | What was Stephen Colbert's first job? | Stephen Colbert | During the same period, Colbert worked again with Sedaris and Dinello to develop a new comedy series for Comedy Central, Strangers with Candy. Comedy Central picked up the series in 1998 after Colbert had already begun working on The Daily Show. As a result, he accepted a reduced role, filming only around 20 Daily Show segments a year while he worked on the new series. Strangers with Candy was conceived of as a parody of after school specials, following the life of Jerri Blank, a 46-year-old dropout who returns to finish high school after 32 years of life on the street. Most noted by critics for its use of offensive humor, it concluded each episode by delivering to the audience a skewed, politically incorrect moral lesson. Colbert served as a main writer alongside Sedaris and Dinello, and portrayed Jerri's strict but uninformed history teacher, Chuck Noblet, seen throughout the series dispensing inaccurate information to his classes. Colbert has likened this to the character he played on The Daily Show and later The Colbert Report, claiming that he has a very specific niche in portraying "poorly informed, high-status idiot" characters. Another running joke throughout the series was that Noblet, a closeted homosexual, was having a "secret" affair with fellow teacher Geoffrey Jellineck, despite the fact that their relationship was apparent to everyone around them. This obliviousness also appears in Colbert's Daily Show and Colbert Report character. Thirty episodes of Strangers with Candy were made, which aired on Comedy Central in 1999 and 2000. Though its ratings were not remarkable during its initial run, it has been characterized as a cult show with a small but dedicated audience. Colbert reprised his role for a film adaptation, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and had a limited release in 2006. The film received mixed reviews. Colbert also co-wrote the screenplay with Sedaris and Dinello. CANNOTANSWER | During the same period, Colbert worked again with Sedaris and Dinello to develop a new comedy series for Comedy Central, Strangers with Candy. | Stephen Tyrone Colbert ( ; born May 13, 1964) is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is best known for hosting the satirical Comedy Central program The Colbert Report from 2005 to 2014 and the CBS talk program The Late Show with Stephen Colbert beginning in September 2015.
Colbert originally studied to be a dramatic actor, but became interested in improvisational theater while attending Northwestern University, where he met Second City director Del Close. Colbert first performed professionally as an understudy for Steve Carell at Second City Chicago, where his troupe mates included Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris, comedians with whom he developed the sketch comedy series Exit 57. He wrote and performed on the short-lived Dana Carvey Show before collaborating with Sedaris and Dinello again on the cult television series Strangers with Candy. He gained attention for his role on the latter as closeted gay history teacher Chuck Noblet.
Colbert's work as a correspondent on Comedy Central's news-parody series The Daily Show gained him wide recognition. In 2005, he left The Daily Show to host The Colbert Report. Following The Daily Shows news-parody concept, The Colbert Report was a parody of personality-driven political opinion shows including The O'Reilly Factor, in which he portrayed a caricatured version of conservative political pundits, earning Colbert an invitation to perform as featured entertainer at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in 2006, which he did in character. This event led to the series became one of Comedy Central's highest-rated series. After ending The Colbert Report, he was hired in 2015 to succeed retiring David Letterman as host of the Late Show on CBS. He hosted the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards in September 2017.
Colbert has won nine Primetime Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and three Peabody Awards. Colbert was named one of Times 100 Most Influential People in 2006 and 2012. Colbert's book, I Am America (And So Can You!), was listed No.1 on The New York Times Best Seller list in 2007.
Early life
Colbert was born in Washington, D.C., the youngest of eleven children in a Catholic family. He spent his early years in Bethesda, Maryland. He grew up in the Charleston suburb of James Island, South Carolina. Colbert and his siblings, in descending order by age, are James III, Edward, Mary, William, Margo, Thomas, Jay, Elizabeth, Paul, Peter, and Stephen. His father, James William Colbert Jr., was an immunologist and medical school dean at Yale University, Saint Louis University, and finally at the Medical University of South Carolina, where, from 1969, he served as the school's first vice president of academic affairs. Stephen's mother, Lorna Elizabeth Colbert (née Tuck), was a homemaker.
In interviews, Colbert has described his parents as devout people who also strongly valued intellectualism, and taught their children it was possible to question the church, and still be Catholic. In an interview, Lorna has described Stephen as rambunctious. As a child, he observed that Southerners were often depicted as being less intelligent than other characters on scripted television; to avoid that stereotype, he taught himself to imitate the speech of American news anchors.
While Colbert sometimes comedically claims his surname is French, he is of 15/16ths Irish ancestry; one of his paternal great-great-grandmothers was of German and English descent. Many of his ancestors emigrated from Ireland to North America in the 19th century before and during the Great Famine. Originally, his surname was pronounced in English; Stephen Colbert's father, James, wanted to pronounce the name , but maintained the pronunciation out of respect for his own father. He offered his children the option to pronounce the name whichever way they preferred. Stephen started using later in life when he transferred to Northwestern University, taking advantage of the opportunity to reinvent himself in a new place where no one knew him. Stephen's brother Edward, an intellectual property attorney, retained ; this was shown in a February 12, 2009, appearance on The Colbert Report, when his second oldest brother asked him, " or ?" Ed responded "", to which Stephen jokingly replied, "See you in Hell".
On September 11, 1974, when Colbert was ten years old, his father and his two brothers nearest in age, Peter and Paul, died in the crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 while it was attempting to land in Charlotte, North Carolina. They were en route to enroll the two boys at Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut. He has discussed the impact on him and his philosophy of grief and suffering. Lorna Colbert relocated the family from James Island to the George Chisolm House, in downtown Charleston and ran the carriage house as a bed and breakfast. Colbert found the transition difficult and did not easily make friends in his new neighborhood. Colbert later described himself during this time as detached, lacking a sense of importance regarding the things with which other children concerned themselves.
He developed a love of science fiction and fantasy novels, especially the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, of which he remains an avid fan. During his adolescence, he also developed an intense interest in fantasy role-playing games, especially Dungeons & Dragons, a pastime which he later characterized as an early experience in acting and improvisation.
Colbert attended Charleston's Episcopal Porter-Gaud School, where he participated in several school plays and contributed to the school newspaper but was not highly motivated academically. During his adolescence, he briefly fronted A Shot in the Dark, a Rolling Stones cover band. When he was younger, he had hoped to study marine biology, but surgery intended to repair a severely perforated eardrum caused him inner ear damage severe enough to preclude a career involving scuba diving, and leaving him deaf in his right ear.
For a while, he was uncertain whether he would attend college, but ultimately he applied and was accepted to Hampden–Sydney College in Virginia, where a friend had also enrolled. Arriving in 1982, he majored in philosophy and continued to participate in plays. He found the curriculum rigorous, but was more focused than he had been in high school and was able to apply himself to his studies. Despite the lack of a significant theater community at Hampden–Sydney, Colbert's interest in acting escalated during this time. After two years, he transferred in 1984 to Northwestern University as a theater major to study performance, emboldened by the realization that he loved performing, even when no one was coming to shows. He graduated from Northwestern's School of Communication in 1986.
Early career in comedy
While at Northwestern, Colbert studied with the intent of becoming a dramatic actor; mostly he performed in experimental plays and was uninterested in comedy. He began performing improvisation while in college, both in the campus improv team No Fun Mud Piranhas and at the Annoyance Theatre in Chicago as a part of Del Close's ImprovOlympic at a time when the project was focused on competitive, long-form improvisation, rather than improvisational comedy. "I wasn't gonna do Second City", Colbert later recalled, "because those Annoyance people looked down on Second City because they thought it wasn't pure improv – there was a slightly snobby, mystical quality to the Annoyance people". After Colbert graduated in 1986, however, he was in need of a job. A friend who was employed at Second City's box office offered him work answering phones and selling souvenirs. Colbert accepted and discovered that Second City employees were entitled to take classes at their training center free of charge. Despite his earlier aversion to the comedy group, he signed up for improvisation classes and enjoyed the experience greatly.
Shortly thereafter, he was hired to perform with Second City's touring company, initially as an understudy for Steve Carell. It was there he met Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello, with whom he often collaborated later in his career. By their retelling, the three comedians did not get along at first – Dinello thought Colbert was uptight, pretentious and cold, while Colbert thought of Dinello as "an illiterate thug" – but the trio became close friends while touring together, discovering that they shared a similar comic sensibility.
When Sedaris and Dinello were offered the opportunity to create a television series for HBO Downtown Productions, Colbert left Second City and relocated to New York to work with them on the sketch comedy show Exit 57. The series debuted on Comedy Central in 1995 and aired through 1996. Although it lasted only 12 episodes, the show received favorable reviews and was nominated for five CableACE Awards in 1995, in categories including best writing, performance, and comedy series.
Television career
The Dana Carvey Show (1996)
Following the cancelation of Exit 57, Colbert worked for six months as a cast member and writer on The Dana Carvey Show, alongside former Second City castmate Steve Carell, and also Robert Smigel, Charlie Kaufman, Louis C.K., and Dino Stamatopoulos, among others. The series, described by one reviewer as "kamikaze satire" in "borderline-questionable taste", had sponsors pull out after its first episode aired and was canceled after seven episodes. Colbert then worked briefly as a freelance writer for Saturday Night Live with Robert Smigel. Smigel brought his animated sketch, The Ambiguously Gay Duo, to SNL from The Dana Carvey Show; Colbert provided the voice of Ace on both series, opposite Steve Carell as Gary. Needing money, he also worked as a script consultant for VH1 and MTV, before taking a job filming humorous correspondent segments for Good Morning America. Only two of the segments he proposed were ever produced and only one aired, but the job led his agent to refer him to The Daily Show's producer, Madeline Smithberg, who hired Colbert on a trial basis in 1997.
Strangers with Candy (1999–2000)
During the same period, Colbert worked again with Sedaris and Dinello to develop a new comedy series for Comedy Central, Strangers with Candy. Comedy Central picked up the series in 1998 after Colbert had already begun working on The Daily Show. As a result, he accepted a reduced role, filming only around 20 Daily Show segments a year while he worked on the new series.
Strangers with Candy was conceived of as a parody of after school specials, following the life of Jerri Blank, a 46-year-old dropout who returns to finish high school after 32 years of life on the street. Most noted by critics for its use of offensive humor, it concluded each episode by delivering to the audience a skewed, politically incorrect moral lesson. Colbert served as a main writer alongside Sedaris and Dinello, and portrayed Jerri's strict but uninformed history teacher, Chuck Noblet, seen throughout the series dispensing inaccurate information to his classes. Colbert has likened this to the character he played on The Daily Show and later The Colbert Report, claiming that he has a very specific niche in portraying "poorly informed, high-status idiot" characters. Another running joke throughout the series was that Noblet, a closeted homosexual, was having a "secret" affair with fellow teacher Geoffrey Jellineck, despite the fact that their relationship was apparent to everyone around them. This obliviousness also appears in Colbert's Daily Show and Colbert Report character.
Thirty episodes of Strangers with Candy were made, which aired on Comedy Central in 1999 and 2000. Though its ratings were not remarkable during its initial run, it has been characterized as a cult show with a small but dedicated audience. Colbert reprised his role for a film adaptation which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and had a limited release in 2006. The film received mixed reviews. Colbert also co-wrote the screenplay with Sedaris and Dinello.
The Daily Show (1997–2005)
Colbert joined the cast of Comedy Central's parody-news series The Daily Show in 1997, when the show was in its second season. Originally one of four correspondents who filmed segments from remote locations in the style of network news field reporters, Colbert was referred to as "the new guy" on-air for his first two years on the show, during which time Craig Kilborn served as host. When Kilborn left the show prior to the 1999 season, Jon Stewart took over hosting duties, also serving as a writer and co-executive producer. From this point, the series gradually began to take on a more political tone and increase in popularity, particularly in the latter part of the 2000 U.S. presidential election season. The roles of the show's correspondents were expanded to include more in-studio segments and international reports, which were almost always done in the studio with the aid of a greenscreen.
Unlike Stewart, who essentially hosted The Daily Show as himself, Colbert developed a correspondent character for his pieces on the series that was a parody of conservative political pundits such as Bill O'Reilly. Colbert has described his correspondent character as "a well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot" and "a fool who has spent a lot of his life playing not the fool – one who is able to cover it at least well enough to deal with the subjects that he deals with". Colbert was frequently pitted against knowledgeable interview subjects, or against Stewart in scripted exchanges, with the resultant dialogue demonstrating the character's lack of knowledge of whatever subject he is discussing. Colbert also made generous use of humorous fallacies of logic in explaining his point of view on any topic. Other Daily Show correspondents have adopted a similar style; former correspondent Rob Corddry recalls that when he and Ed Helms first joined the show's cast in 2002, they "just imitated Stephen Colbert for a year or two". Correspondent Aasif Mandvi has stated "I just decided I was going to do my best Stephen Colbert impression".
Colbert appeared in several recurring segments for The Daily Show, including "Even Stevphen" with Steve Carell, in which both characters were expected to debate a selected topic but instead would unleash their anger at one another. Colbert commonly hosted "This Week in God", a report on topics in the news pertaining to religion, presented with the help of the "God Machine". Colbert filed reports from the floor of the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention as a part of The Daily Show's award-winning coverage of the 2000 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections; many from the latter were included as part of their The Daily Show: Indecision 2004 DVD release. Other pieces that have been named as his signature segments include "Grouse Hunting in Shropshire", in which he reported on the "gayness" of British aristocracy, his mock lionization of a smoking-rights activist and apparent chain-smoker, and his cameo appearances during his faux campaign for president. In several episodes of The Daily Show, Colbert filled in as anchor in the absence of Jon Stewart, including the full week of March 3, 2002, when Stewart was scheduled to host Saturday Night Live. After Colbert left the show, Rob Corddry took over "This Week in God" segments, although a recorded sample of Colbert's voice was still used as the sound effect for the God Machine. Later episodes of The Daily Show have reused older Colbert segments under the label "Klassic Kolbert". Colbert won three Emmys as a writer of The Daily Show in 2004, 2005, and 2006.
The Colbert Report (2005–2014)
Colbert hosted his own television show, The Colbert Report, from October 17, 2005, through December 18, 2014. The Colbert Report was a Daily Show spin-off that parodied the conventions of television news broadcasting, particularly cable-personality political talk shows like The O'Reilly Factor, Hannity, and Glenn Beck. Colbert hosted the show in-character as a blustery right-wing pundit, generally considered to be an extension of his character on The Daily Show. Conceived by co-creators Stewart, Colbert, and Ben Karlin in part as an opportunity to explore "the character-driven news", the series focused less on the day-to-day news style of the Daily Show, instead frequently concentrating on the foibles of the host-character himself.
The concept for The Report was first seen in a series of Daily Show segments which advertised the then-fictional series as a joke. It was later developed by Stewart's Busboy Productions and pitched to Comedy Central, which green-lighted the program; Comedy Central had already been searching for a way to extend the successful Daily Show franchise beyond a half-hour. The series opened to strong ratings, averaging 1.2 million viewers nightly during its first week on the air. Comedy Central signed a long-term contract for The Colbert Report within its first month on the air, when it immediately established itself among the network's highest-rated shows.
Much of Colbert's personal life was reflected in his character on The Colbert Report. With the extended exposure of the character on the show, he often referenced his interest in and knowledge of Catholicism, science fiction, and The Lord of the Rings, as well as using real facts to create his character's history. His alternate persona was also raised in South Carolina, is the youngest of 11 siblings and is married. However, Colbert's actual career history in acting and comedy was often downplayed or even denied outright, and he frequently referred to having attended Dartmouth College (which was at the forefront of the conservative campus movement in the 1980s) rather than his actual alma mater, Northwestern. In July 2012, Colbert added two years to his contract with Comedy Central, extending the run of The Colbert Report until the end of 2014.
The final episode on December 18, 2014, featured a rendition of "We'll Meet Again" and appearances from former guests of the show, including Jon Stewart, Randy Newman, Bryan Cranston, Willie Nelson, Yo-Yo Ma, Mandy Patinkin, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Tom Brokaw, David Gregory, J. J. Abrams, Big Bird, Gloria Steinem, Ken Burns, James Franco, Barry Manilow, Bob Costas, Jeff Daniels, Sam Waterston, Bill de Blasio, Katie Couric, Patrick Stewart, George Lucas, Henry Kissinger, Cookie Monster, Alan Alda, Eliot Spitzer, Vince Gilligan, Paul Krugman, and a text from Bill Clinton, and appearances by Alex Trebek, U.S. and coalition Afghanistan forces, and further characters (a space station astronaut, Santa Claus, Abraham Lincoln, etc.).
The Late Show (since 2015)
On April 10, 2014, CBS announced in a press release that Colbert "will succeed David Letterman as the host of The Late Show, effective when Mr. Letterman retires from the broadcast." On January 12, 2015, CBS announced that Colbert would premiere as the Late Show host on Tuesday, September 8, 2015. The first guest of the new Late Show was George Clooney. The show has a much more political focus than David Letterman's Late Show.
During his tenure as the host of The Late Show, Colbert hosted the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards, broadcast on CBS on September 17, 2017. More recently, he and his Spartina Productions company had inked a deal with CBS Studios.
Politics
2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner
On Saturday, April 29, 2006, Colbert was the featured entertainer for the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. Standing a few yards from U.S. President George W. Bush – in front of an audience the Associated Press called a "Who's Who of power and celebrity" – Colbert delivered a searing routine targeting the president and the media. In his politically conservative character from The Colbert Report, Colbert satirized the George W. Bush Administration and the White House Press Corps with such lines as:
Colbert received a chilly response from the audience. His jokes were often met with silence and muttering, apart from the enthusiastic laughter of a few in the audience. The major media outlets paid little attention to it initially. Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism professor Todd Gitlin claimed that this was because Colbert's routine was as critical of the media as it was of Bush. Richard Cohen, also writing for The Washington Post, responded that the routine was not funny. The video of Colbert's performance became an internet and media sensation, while, in the week following the speech, ratings for The Colbert Report rose by 37% to average just under 1.5 million total viewers per episode. In Time magazine James Poniewozik called it "the political-cultural touchstone issue of 2006". Writing six months later, New York Times columnist Frank Rich referred to Colbert's speech as a "cultural primary" and called it the "defining moment" of the 2006 midterm elections.
2008 presidential bid
Under his fictional persona in The Colbert Report, Colbert dropped hints of a potential presidential run throughout 2007, with speculation intensifying following the release of his book, I Am America (And So Can You!), which was rumored to be a sign that he was indeed testing the waters for a future bid for the White House. On October 16, 2007, he announced his candidacy on his show, stating his intention to run on both the Republican and Democratic platforms, but only as a "favorite son" in his native South Carolina. He later abandoned plans to run as a Republican due to the $35,000 fee required to file for the South Carolina primary; however, he continued to seek a place on the Democratic ballot and on October 28, 2007, campaigned in the South Carolina state capital of Columbia, where he was presented with the key to the city by Mayor Bob Coble.
After announcing his presidential ticket, he asked his viewers to cast their votes by donating to Donorschoose.org, an online charity connecting individuals to classrooms in need.
Colbert's promotion inspired $68,000 in donations to South Carolina classrooms, which benefited over 14,000 low-income students.
Colbert teamed up with Donorschoose.org again in 2008 by asking supporters of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to do the same. As a lead-up to the Pennsylvania primary, he created a "straw poll that makes a difference" by which people could donate to Pennsylvania classroom projects in honor of their favorite candidate.
Colbert viewers donated $185,000 to projects reaching 43,000 students in Pennsylvania public schools.
On November 1, 2007, the South Carolina Democratic Party executive council voted 13–3 to refuse Colbert's application onto the ballot. "The general sense of the council was that he wasn't a serious candidate and that was why he wasn't selected to be on the ballot", stated John Werner, the party's director. Several days later he announced that he was dropping out of the race, saying he did not wish to put the country through an agonizing Supreme Court battle. CNN has reported that Obama supporters pressured the South Carolina Democratic Executive Council to keep Colbert off the ballot. One anonymous member of the council told CNN that former State Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum had placed pressure on them to refuse Colbert's application despite his steady rise in polls.
Though Colbert's real-life presidential campaign had ended, Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada established in an interview on The Colbert Report that Colbert's campaign was still going strong in the fictional Marvel Universe, citing the cover art of a then-recent issue of The Amazing Spider-Man which featured a Colbert campaign billboard in the background. Background appearances of Colbert campaign ads continued to appear in Marvel Comics publications, as late as August 2008's Secret Invasion No.5 (which also features a cameo of an alien Skrull posing as Colbert). In October 2008, Colbert made an extended 8-page appearance webslinging with Spider-Man in The Amazing Spider-Man issue No. 573. Colbert voiced the president of the U.S. in the 2009 film Monsters vs. Aliens.
2009 solidarity with U.S. troops in Iraq War
Stephen Colbert arrived in Baghdad, Iraq, on June 5, 2009, to film a week of shows called "Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando" sponsored by the USO (United Service Organizations). Colbert had a suit tailored for him in the Army Combat Uniform pattern. During the first episode (which featured a cameo appearance from U.S. president Barack Obama), Colbert had his hair cropped in a military style to show his solidarity with the troops. One Army major said that "shaving of the hair is an amazing show of support" that was "very touching." USO Senior Vice President John Hanson said the shows are an important diversion for the troops.
2010 Congressional testimony
On September 24, 2010, Colbert testified in character before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Security. He was invited by committee chairwoman Zoe Lofgren to describe his experience participating in the United Farm Workers' "Take Our Jobs" program, where he spent a day working alongside migrant workers in upstate New York. At the end of his often-humorous testimony, Colbert broke character in responding to a question from Rep. Judy Chu, D-CA, and explained his purpose for being at the hearing:
Democratic committee member John Conyers questioned whether it was appropriate for the comedian to appear before Congress and asked him to leave the hearing. Though Colbert offered to depart at the direction of the committee chairwoman, Lofgren requested that he stay at least until all opening testimony had been completed, whereupon Conyers withdrew his request.
Conservative pundits took aim at Colbert's Congress testimony not long after.
2010 Washington, D.C. rallies
In September 2010, following Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally, a campaign developed that called for Colbert to hold his own rally at the Lincoln Memorial. On the September 10, 2010, episode of the Daily Show and The Colbert Report, Stewart and Colbert made preannouncements of a future event. On September 16, 2010, Stewart and Colbert announced competing rallies on the Washington, D.C., Mall on October 30, 2010, Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity", and Colbert's "March to Keep Fear Alive". Both were eventually merged into the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.
2011 Political Super PAC
In May 2011, Colbert filed a request with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) asking for a media exemption for coverage of his political action committee, ColbertPAC, on The Colbert Report.
In June 2011, during a public meeting, the FEC voted 5–1 to grant The Colbert Report a limited media exemption. The exemption allows unlimited donations of airtime and show resources to promote the Colbert Super PAC without requiring disclosure to the FEC, but only for ads appearing on The Colbert Report. Following the hearing, Colbert formally filed paperwork for the creation of his Super PAC with the FEC secretary.
2012 South Carolina GOP primary
After the 2012 New Hampshire primary, a poll for the subsequent South Carolina primary taken by Public Policy Polling (of 1,112 likely GOP voters, Jan 5–7, 2012) was reported to place Colbert at 5%, one point ahead of Jon Huntsman polling at 4%, in spite of the fact that Colbert was not on the ballot. This poll showed Colbert to be closely behind Rick Perry's 7% and Ron Paul's 8% (with Romney at 27%, Gingrich 23% and Santorum at 18%). On the January 11 episode of The Colbert Report, Colbert asked his audience if he should run for president in South Carolina, to which he received strong applause. He then stated that he would be making a "Major Announcement" during the next day's show. On January 12, Colbert started his show by discussing his role in the presidential campaign, then addressed the law preventing him from being a presidential candidate while running his Super PAC. With the help of his lawyer Trevor Potter, he then signed over control of his Super PAC to Jon Stewart, with the organization title then being referred to as "The Definitely Not Coordinating With Stephen Colbert Super PAC". Immediately after this legal block was out of the way, Colbert announced, "I am forming an exploratory committee to lay the groundwork for my possible candidacy for the President of the United States of South Carolina. I'm doin' it!" He reiterated in the interview portion of that show that "I'm still in the exploratory phase" of his presidential campaign.
On the January 16, 2012, episode, Colbert satirically encouraged his viewers to vote for Herman Cain in the South Carolina primary. As Cain was still on the ballot, despite having recently dropped out of the race, Colbert announced that he would consider any votes cast for Cain to be in direct support of his own possible candidacy.
Other work
Colbert is co-author of the satirical text-and-picture novel Wigfield: The Can Do Town That Just May Not, which was published in 2003 by Hyperion Books. The novel was a collaboration between Colbert, Amy Sedaris, and Paul Dinello, and tells the story of a small town threatened by the impending destruction of a massive dam. The narrative is presented as a series of fictional interviews with the town's residents, accompanied by photos. The three authors toured performing an adaptation of Wigfield on stage the same year the book was released.
Colbert appeared in a small supporting role in the 2005 film adaptation of Bewitched. He has made guest appearances on the television series Curb Your Enthusiasm, Spin City, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and on the first season of the US improvisational comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway?. He voiced the characters of Reducto and Phil Ken Sebben in the Adult Swim's Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, but left the show in 2005 to work on The Colbert Report. His characters were both killed, though he returned to voice Phil for the series finale. Colbert also has provided voices for Cartoon Network's The Venture Bros., Comedy Central's Crank Yankers, and American Dad!, and for Canadian animated comedy series The Wrong Coast. He appeared as Homer Simpson's life coach, Colby Krause, in The Simpsons episode "He Loves to Fly and He D'ohs".
Colbert filled in for Sam Seder on the second episode of The Majority Report on Air America Radio, and has also done reports for The Al Franken Show. He appeared on a track on Wig in a Box, a tribute album for Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Colbert read the part of Leopold Bloom in Bloomsday on Broadway XXIV: Love Literature Language Lust: Leopold's Women Bloom on June 16, 2005, at Symphony Space in New York City. He appeared in a series of TV commercials for General Motors, as a not-too-bright investigator searching for the elusive (and non-existent in real life) "Mr. Goodwrench". He also portrayed the letter Z in Sesame Street: All-Star Alphabet, a 2005 video release.
Colbert is a producer of The 1 Second Film, the world's largest nonprofit collaborative art film. His video request that IMDb list his credit for The1 Second Film ("it is as valid as most of my credits") enabled thousands of the film's producers to be listed in the massive movie database until they were removed in early 2007.
Colbert has released one book associated with The Colbert Report, I Am America (And So Can You!). It was released on October 7, 2007, by Grand Central Publishing. Grand Central Publishing is the successor to Warner Books, which published America (The Book), written by The Daily Show staff. The book contains similar political satire, but was written primarily by Colbert himself rather than as a collaboration with his Colbert Report writing staff.
On November 23, 2008, his Christmas special, A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!, aired on Comedy Central. It was released on DVD in November 2008.
In January 2010, Colbert was named the assistant sports psychologist for the US Olympic speed skating team at the 2010 Winter Olympics. He was also invited to be part of NBC's 2010 Winter Olympics coverage team by Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports. In April 2011, Colbert performed as Harry in the concert-style revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical Company, presented by the New York Philharmonic at the Lincoln Center. The show, featuring Neil Patrick Harris in the starring role, ran for four nights and was filmed for later showings in movie theaters, which began June 15. In May 2011, Colbert joined the Charleston to Bermuda Race yachting race, as captain of the ship "the Spirit of Juno". He finished second, five miles behind leaders "Tucana".
Since 2012, Colbert has collaborated with the Montclair Film Festival, of which his wife is a founder and current president of its board. Every year since its foundation, Colbert has participated by hosting an annual fundraising event and leading Q&As and conversations with directors, writers, journalists, and actors such as: Jon Stewart, Rob Reiner, Steve Carell, J. J. Abrams, David Itzkoff, Ethan Hawke, Rachel Weisz, and Meryl Streep. He is also part of the Montclair Film advisory board.
After the resignation of South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint to run Heritage Foundation, Colbert was named a possible candidate for appointment to the seat being vacated by DeMint, which would have triggered a special election in 2014 to finish out DeMint's term. Although Governor Nikki Haley announced promptly that she had no intention to nominate Colbert to the Senate, a poll showed Colbert as a favorite among South Carolina voters.
Colbert guest-hosted Only in Monroe, a public access television show in Monroe, Michigan, for an episode that aired July 1, 2015. He interviewed the program's regular hosts, and also the rapper Eminem (whom he pretended never to have heard of), and put a humorous slant on the local news and community calendar.
On July 17, 2016, Colbert hijacked the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, while dressed as Caesar Flickerman from The Hunger Games series. After he was taken down from the stage, he commented, "Look, I know I am not supposed to be up here but let's be honest, neither is Donald Trump." Colbert also dressed as Flickerman on his show, prior to the stunt, to announce the candidates who had ended their runs in the 2016 election.
Aside from hosting his talk shows, Colbert has gone on to host other types of shows. Since 2014, Colbert has hosted the Kennedy Center Honors for three consecutive years. In 2017, Colbert hosted the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards.
In 2018 it was reported that Showtime was developing Hello Nancy, a biopic based on the nonfiction book On Her Trail, My Mother, Nancy Dickerson, TV News' First Woman Star by John Dickerson, with Colbert and his wife Evelyn serving as executive producers. The couple also served as executive producers for In & Of Itself, a film version of Derek DelGaudio's off-Broadway show of the same name.
Influences
Colbert has said his comedy influences include: Don Novello, Phil Silvers, Alec Guinness, Bill Cosby, George Carlin, Dean Martin, Jon Stewart, Monty Python, Steve Martin, and David Letterman. In 2017, Colbert said due to the sexual assault allegations made against Cosby, he can no longer listen to his comedy.
Colbert has also cited Jim Gaffigan, Maria Bamford, Joe Pera, John Mulaney, and Eric Andre, as some of his favorite contemporary comedians.
Among comedians who say they were influenced by Colbert are Nathan Fielder, James Corden, Mindy Kaling, Hasan Minhaj, Jordan Klepper, Ziwe Fumudoh, John Mulaney, Derrick Beckles, Julie Klausner, and Billy Eichner.
Personal life
Colbert is a practicing Roman Catholic and used to teach Sunday school. He is an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church Monastery. Colbert is an avid reader and has cited authors: J.R.R. Tolkien, J.D. Salinger, Robertson Davies, George Saunders, Larry Niven, Henry Kuttner and Isaac Asimov as his favorites, among others.
Colbert has been married to Evelyn "Evie" McGee-Colbert since 1993. She is the daughter of prominent Charleston civil litigator Joseph McGee, of the firm Buist Moore Smythe McGee. His wife appeared with him in an episode of Strangers with Candy as his mother. She also had an uncredited cameo as a nurse in the series pilot and a credited one (as his wife Clair) in the film. McGee-Colbert actually met Jon Stewart before she met her future husband in 1990. They met at the world premiere of Hydrogen Jukebox at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston. Colbert later described the first moment he met Evie as being a love at first sight encounter; however, moments after they met, they both realized they had grown up together in Charleston and had many mutual friends.
The couple have three children. They live in Montclair, New Jersey.
During his college and Second City years, Colbert suffered from bouts of depression and anxiety, for which he had to be medicated. In a 2018 interview, Colbert told Rolling Stone:
I needed to be medicated when I was younger to deal with my anxiety that I had thrown my life away by attempting to do something that so few people actually get away with, or succeed at ... Xanax was just lovely. Y'know, for a while. And then I realized that the gears were still smoking. I just couldn't hear them anymore. But I could feel them, I could feel the gearbox heating up and smoke pouring out of me ... I stopped the Xanax after, like, nine days. I went, 'This isn't helping.' So I just suffered through it. I'd sometimes hold the bottle, to go like, 'I could stop this feeling if I wanted, but I'm not going to. Because I know if I stop the feeling, somehow I'm not working through it, like I have got to go through the tunnel with the spiders in it.'
And then one morning I woke up and my skin wasn't on fire, and it took me a while to figure out what it was. I wake up the next morning, I'm perfectly fine, to the point where my body's still humming. I'm a bell that's been rung so hard that I can still feel myself vibrating. But the actual sound was gone [because] I was starting rehearsal that day to create a new show. And then I went, 'Oh, my God, I can never stop performing.' Creating something is what helped me from just spinning apart like an unweighted flywheel. And I haven't stopped since.
Colbert used the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator during a segment of The Late Show, which identified him as an INFP.
Political views
Although, by his own account, he was not particularly political before joining the cast of The Daily Show, Colbert has described himself as a Democrat according to a 2004 interview. In an interview at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard Institute of Politics, he said he has "no problems with Republicans, just Republican policies".
Colbert supports the implementation of the Medicare for All plan introduced by Bernie Sanders, considering it "a sensible fix to Obamacare". When asked about his views on abortion, Colbert positioned himself as pro-choice. On the intersection of faith and politics, Colbert has pointed out that his views are in line with those of Cesar Chávez.
Awards and honors
In 2000, Colbert and the other Daily Show writers were the recipients of three Emmy Awards as writers for The Daily Show and again in 2005 and 2006. In 2005 he was nominated for a Satellite Award for his performance on The Colbert Report and again in 2006. He was also nominated for three Emmys for The Colbert Report in 2006, including Best Performance in a Variety, Musical Program or Special, which he lost to Barry Manilow. Manilow and Colbert would go on to jokingly sign and notarize a revolving biannual custody agreement for the Emmy on The Colbert Report episode aired on October 30, 2006. He lost the same category to Tony Bennett in 2007 and Don Rickles in 2008.
In January 2006, the American Dialect Society named truthiness, which Colbert coined on the premiere episode of The Colbert Report, as its 2005 Word of the Year. Colbert devoted time on five successive episodes to bemoaning the failure of the Associated Press to mention his role in popularizing the word truthiness in its news coverage of the Word of the Year. On December 9, 2006, Merriam-Webster also announced that it selected truthiness as its Word of the Year for 2006. Votes were accepted on their website, and according to poll results, "truthiness" won by a five-to-one margin.
In June 2006, after speaking at the school's commencement ceremony, Colbert received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree from Knox College. Time named Stephen Colbert as one of the 100 most influential people in 2006 and 2012 and in May 2006, New York magazine listed Colbert (and Jon Stewart) as one of its top dozen influential persons in media. Colbert was named Person of the Year by the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado on March 3, 2007, and was also given the Speaker of the Year Award by The Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) on March 24, 2007, for his "drive to expose the rhetorical shortcomings of contemporary political discourse".
Colbert was named the 2nd Sexiest TV News Anchor in September 2006 by Maxim, next to Mélissa Theuriau of France and was the only man featured on the list. In November 2006, he was named a "sexy surprise" by People in the Sexiest Man Alive honors and in the December 2006 issue of GQ he was named one of GQ's "Men of the Year".
In 2012, he was listed as No. 69 on Maxim Magazine's Hot 100, becoming the first man to be included on the list.
Colbert has received three Peabody Awards, in 2007, 2011, and 2020. He was nominated for five TCA Awards for The Colbert Report by the Television Critics Association.
After the Saginaw Spirit defeated the Oshawa Generals in Ontario Junior League Hockey, Oshawa Mayor John Gray declared March 20, 2007 (the mayor's own birthday), Stephen Colbert Day, honoring a previous bet with Stephen. At the event, Mayor Gray referred to the publicity the bet brought the city, remarking, "This is the way to lose a bet".
Colbert was honored for the Gutsiest Move on the Spike TV Guys' Choice Awards on June 13, 2007, for his performance at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. In August 2007, Virgin America named an airplane, "Air Colbert", in his honor. On October 28, 2007, Colbert received the key to the city of Columbia, South Carolina, from Mayor Bob Coble.
On December 20, 2007, Colbert was named Celebrity of the Year by The Associated Press. On April 2, 2008, he received a Peabody Award for The Colbert Report, saying in response, "I proudly accept this award and begrudgingly forgive the Peabody Committee for taking three years to recognize greatness".
In 2008, Colbert won the Emmy Award for writing again, this time as a writer for The Colbert Report. Colbert delivered the Class Day address to the graduating class of Princeton University on June 2, 2008, and accepted the Class of 2008 Understandable Vanity Award, consisting of a sketch of Colbert and a mirror. He also has been announced as the Person of the Year for the 12th annual Webby Awards.
In January 2010, Colbert received the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for his album A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!. He also announced the nominees for Song of the Year while toting a pre-released Apple iPad. Colbert was the 2011 commencement speaker for Northwestern University, and received an honorary degree. In 2013, Colbert again won the Emmy award for writing for The Colbert Report. In 2014, Colbert won the 2014 Best Spoken Word Album for his audiobook America Again: Re-becoming The Greatness We Never Weren't.
In January 2013, Rolling Stone placed him at number 2 in their "The 50 Funniest People Now" list. In December 2014, Paste named his Twitter one of "The 75 Best Twitter Accounts of 2014" ranking it at number 7. Colbert received an honorary degree from Wake Forest University as the 2015 commencement speaker.
In 2015, Colbert was awarded the third highest honor within the Department of the Army Civilian Awards, the Outstanding Civilian Service Award, for substantial contributions to the U.S. Army community.
In 2017 and 2018, Colbert was named one of "The 35 Most Powerful People in New York Media" by The Hollywood Reporter. He was chosen as one of GQ's "Men of the Year" for its December 2017 issue. Colbert was placed at number 32 in Vanity Fair "2018 New Establishment List". Other placements in earlier lists include number 40 in 2017 and number 28 in 2011.
In May 2021, Colbert received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Yale University.
Ben & Jerry's AmeriCone Dream ice cream
In February 2007, Ben & Jerry's unveiled a new ice cream flavor in honor of Colbert, named Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream. Colbert waited until Easter to sample the ice cream because he "gave up sweets for Lent". Colbert donated all proceeds to charity through the new Stephen Colbert AmeriCone Dream Fund, which distributes the money to various causes.
Species named in honor
At least five species have been given scientific names honoring Colbert. In 2008 a species of California trapdoor spider was named Aptostichus stephencolberti. The spider was named for Colbert after he reported on his television series that Jason Bond, a professor of biology at East Carolina University, had named a different species of spider Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi after the Canadian rock star Neil Young, and began to appeal for a species of animal to be named after him. On a later edition of The Colbert Report, Colbert revealed that Bond would name a spider after him, with Colbert claiming, "And all I had to do was shamelessly beg on national television." Other species named for Colbert include a species of Venezuelan diving beetle named Agaporomorphus colberti and a Chilean stonefly named Diamphipnoa colberti, both formally described in 2008. On his 45th birthday, Colbert was sent a framed print of his eponymous beetle by the biologists who named it. In 2014, a species of parasitic wasp from Ecuador, Aleiodes colberti, was named for Colbert, along with newly described species named for celebrities Jon Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, Ellen DeGeneres, and Shakira, and in 2016 a rove beetle, Sonoma colberti, was named after Colbert's on-screen persona.
COLBERT Treadmill
In 2009, NASA engineered a new treadmill for the International Space Station. It was taken to the ISS by the Space Shuttle Discovery during the STS-128 mission in August 2009. The complex machine is now used eight hours daily by astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the space station in order to maintain their muscle mass and bone density while spending long periods of time in a zero-gravity environment. While engineers at NASA were constructing this treadmill, it was simply called T-2 for more than two years. However, on April 14, 2009, NASA renamed it the "Combined Operational Load-Bearing External Resistance Treadmill", or COLBERT. NASA named the treadmill after Colbert, who took an interest during the Node3 naming census for the ISS module, Tranquility.
Colbert urged his followers to post the name "Colbert", which upon completion of the census received the most entries totaling 230,539, some 40,000 votes more than the second-place choice, Serenity. The COLBERT is expected to last the life of the ISS and will have seen about 38,000 miles of running when the Space Station is retired in 2024 or later, but it was also built with a 150,000-mile lifespan (if needed until 2028 or beyond). Colbert realized he was the recipient of an extremely rare honor—the COLBERT (a backronym) is the only piece of NASA-engineered equipment in space that is named after a living human being—when astronaut Sunita Williams came on The Colbert Report to announce that NASA had named the treadmill after him.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theatre
Published works
Colbert, Dinello, Sedaris. Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just May Not (Hyperion, May 19, 2004)
America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction (Warner Books; September 2004)
I Am America (And So Can You!) (Grand Central Publishing; October 9, 2007)
America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't (Grand Central Publishing; October 2, 2012)
I Am a Pole (And So Can You!) (Grand Central Publishing; May 8, 2012)
Stephen Colbert's Midnight Confessions (Simon & Schuster; September 5, 2017)
See also
New Yorkers in journalism
Political satire
References
Further reading
External links
Colbert interview transcript, 60 Minutes. (April 30, 2006)
1964 births
Living people
20th-century American comedians
21st-century American comedians
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American novelists
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century Roman Catholics
American comedy writers
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male novelists
American male stage actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
American media critics
American people of English descent
American people of German descent
American people of Irish descent
American political commentators
American satirists
American television talk show hosts
American television writers
Audiobook narrators
Grammy Award winners
Hampden–Sydney College alumni
Late night television talk show hosts
Male actors from Washington, D.C.
Male feminists
American male television writers
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Northwestern University School of Communication alumni
Peabody Award winners
Male actors from Charleston, South Carolina
People from Bethesda, Maryland
People from Montclair, New Jersey
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Science fiction fans
South Carolina Democrats
Candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election
Webby Award winners
Writers from Charleston, South Carolina
Writers Guild of America Award winners
Screenwriters from Washington, D.C.
Novelists from South Carolina
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers
Catholics from New Jersey
Catholics from Maryland
Catholics from South Carolina
Tolkien fandom
21st-century American male writers
Television producers from New Jersey | true | [
"Bildad ( Bildaḏ), the Shuhite, was one of Job's three friends who visited the patriarch in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Job. He was a descendant of Shuah, son of Abraham and Keturah (Genesis 25:1 - 25:2), whose family lived in the deserts of Arabia, or a resident of the district. In speaking with Job, his intent was consolation, but he became an accuser, asking Job what he has done to deserve God's wrath.\n\nSpeeches\nThe three speeches of Bildad are contained in Job 8, Job 18 and Job 25. In substance, they were largely an echo of what had been maintained by Eliphaz the Temanite, the first of Job's friends to speak, but charged with somewhat increased vehemence because he deemed Job's words so impious and wrathful. Bildad was the first to attribute Job's calamity to actual wickedness, albeit indirectly, by accusing his children (who were destroyed, Job 1:19) of sin to warrant their punishment (Job 8:4). His brief third speech, just five verses in length, marked the silencing of the friends.\n\nSee also \nEliphaz\nZophar\n Elihu\n Bildad is also the name of one of the owners of the Pequod in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nHebrew Bible people\nBook of Job",
"Job Carr (July 2, 1813 - August 10, 1887) was the founder of Tacoma, Washington, United States.\n\nA Union veteran of the United States Civil War, Carr came west in 1864 to settle on a 168-acre claim in what is now Tacoma.\n\nCarr was the first permanent European American settler in the area. He built a cabin on his claim, which doubled as the United States Post Office when Carr was appointed Postmaster. He was an early promoter of Tacoma as a potential terminus for the Northern Pacific Railroad, and encouraged settlement in the new town.\n\nA replica of his original cabin stands near the original location, and serves as a museum of both Carr and of early Tacoma.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nJob Carr arrives at future site of Tacoma\nJob Carr Cabin Museum\n\n1813 births\n1887 deaths\nPeople from Tacoma, Washington"
] |
[
"Stephen Colbert",
"Strangers with Candy",
"What did Colbert study?",
"Another running joke throughout the series was that Noblet, a closeted homosexual, was having a \"secret\" affair with fellow teacher Geoffrey Jellineck,",
"What year did he graduate in?",
"I don't know.",
"What was his first job?",
"During the same period, Colbert worked again with Sedaris and Dinello to develop a new comedy series for Comedy Central, Strangers with Candy."
] | C_50f0971a1da64891b4732fcb58fabe60_0 | Who got him his first job? | 4 | Who got Stephen Colbert his first job? | Stephen Colbert | During the same period, Colbert worked again with Sedaris and Dinello to develop a new comedy series for Comedy Central, Strangers with Candy. Comedy Central picked up the series in 1998 after Colbert had already begun working on The Daily Show. As a result, he accepted a reduced role, filming only around 20 Daily Show segments a year while he worked on the new series. Strangers with Candy was conceived of as a parody of after school specials, following the life of Jerri Blank, a 46-year-old dropout who returns to finish high school after 32 years of life on the street. Most noted by critics for its use of offensive humor, it concluded each episode by delivering to the audience a skewed, politically incorrect moral lesson. Colbert served as a main writer alongside Sedaris and Dinello, and portrayed Jerri's strict but uninformed history teacher, Chuck Noblet, seen throughout the series dispensing inaccurate information to his classes. Colbert has likened this to the character he played on The Daily Show and later The Colbert Report, claiming that he has a very specific niche in portraying "poorly informed, high-status idiot" characters. Another running joke throughout the series was that Noblet, a closeted homosexual, was having a "secret" affair with fellow teacher Geoffrey Jellineck, despite the fact that their relationship was apparent to everyone around them. This obliviousness also appears in Colbert's Daily Show and Colbert Report character. Thirty episodes of Strangers with Candy were made, which aired on Comedy Central in 1999 and 2000. Though its ratings were not remarkable during its initial run, it has been characterized as a cult show with a small but dedicated audience. Colbert reprised his role for a film adaptation, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and had a limited release in 2006. The film received mixed reviews. Colbert also co-wrote the screenplay with Sedaris and Dinello. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Stephen Tyrone Colbert ( ; born May 13, 1964) is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is best known for hosting the satirical Comedy Central program The Colbert Report from 2005 to 2014 and the CBS talk program The Late Show with Stephen Colbert beginning in September 2015.
Colbert originally studied to be a dramatic actor, but became interested in improvisational theater while attending Northwestern University, where he met Second City director Del Close. Colbert first performed professionally as an understudy for Steve Carell at Second City Chicago, where his troupe mates included Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris, comedians with whom he developed the sketch comedy series Exit 57. He wrote and performed on the short-lived Dana Carvey Show before collaborating with Sedaris and Dinello again on the cult television series Strangers with Candy. He gained attention for his role on the latter as closeted gay history teacher Chuck Noblet.
Colbert's work as a correspondent on Comedy Central's news-parody series The Daily Show gained him wide recognition. In 2005, he left The Daily Show to host The Colbert Report. Following The Daily Shows news-parody concept, The Colbert Report was a parody of personality-driven political opinion shows including The O'Reilly Factor, in which he portrayed a caricatured version of conservative political pundits, earning Colbert an invitation to perform as featured entertainer at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in 2006, which he did in character. This event led to the series became one of Comedy Central's highest-rated series. After ending The Colbert Report, he was hired in 2015 to succeed retiring David Letterman as host of the Late Show on CBS. He hosted the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards in September 2017.
Colbert has won nine Primetime Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and three Peabody Awards. Colbert was named one of Times 100 Most Influential People in 2006 and 2012. Colbert's book, I Am America (And So Can You!), was listed No.1 on The New York Times Best Seller list in 2007.
Early life
Colbert was born in Washington, D.C., the youngest of eleven children in a Catholic family. He spent his early years in Bethesda, Maryland. He grew up in the Charleston suburb of James Island, South Carolina. Colbert and his siblings, in descending order by age, are James III, Edward, Mary, William, Margo, Thomas, Jay, Elizabeth, Paul, Peter, and Stephen. His father, James William Colbert Jr., was an immunologist and medical school dean at Yale University, Saint Louis University, and finally at the Medical University of South Carolina, where, from 1969, he served as the school's first vice president of academic affairs. Stephen's mother, Lorna Elizabeth Colbert (née Tuck), was a homemaker.
In interviews, Colbert has described his parents as devout people who also strongly valued intellectualism, and taught their children it was possible to question the church, and still be Catholic. In an interview, Lorna has described Stephen as rambunctious. As a child, he observed that Southerners were often depicted as being less intelligent than other characters on scripted television; to avoid that stereotype, he taught himself to imitate the speech of American news anchors.
While Colbert sometimes comedically claims his surname is French, he is of 15/16ths Irish ancestry; one of his paternal great-great-grandmothers was of German and English descent. Many of his ancestors emigrated from Ireland to North America in the 19th century before and during the Great Famine. Originally, his surname was pronounced in English; Stephen Colbert's father, James, wanted to pronounce the name , but maintained the pronunciation out of respect for his own father. He offered his children the option to pronounce the name whichever way they preferred. Stephen started using later in life when he transferred to Northwestern University, taking advantage of the opportunity to reinvent himself in a new place where no one knew him. Stephen's brother Edward, an intellectual property attorney, retained ; this was shown in a February 12, 2009, appearance on The Colbert Report, when his second oldest brother asked him, " or ?" Ed responded "", to which Stephen jokingly replied, "See you in Hell".
On September 11, 1974, when Colbert was ten years old, his father and his two brothers nearest in age, Peter and Paul, died in the crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 while it was attempting to land in Charlotte, North Carolina. They were en route to enroll the two boys at Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut. He has discussed the impact on him and his philosophy of grief and suffering. Lorna Colbert relocated the family from James Island to the George Chisolm House, in downtown Charleston and ran the carriage house as a bed and breakfast. Colbert found the transition difficult and did not easily make friends in his new neighborhood. Colbert later described himself during this time as detached, lacking a sense of importance regarding the things with which other children concerned themselves.
He developed a love of science fiction and fantasy novels, especially the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, of which he remains an avid fan. During his adolescence, he also developed an intense interest in fantasy role-playing games, especially Dungeons & Dragons, a pastime which he later characterized as an early experience in acting and improvisation.
Colbert attended Charleston's Episcopal Porter-Gaud School, where he participated in several school plays and contributed to the school newspaper but was not highly motivated academically. During his adolescence, he briefly fronted A Shot in the Dark, a Rolling Stones cover band. When he was younger, he had hoped to study marine biology, but surgery intended to repair a severely perforated eardrum caused him inner ear damage severe enough to preclude a career involving scuba diving, and leaving him deaf in his right ear.
For a while, he was uncertain whether he would attend college, but ultimately he applied and was accepted to Hampden–Sydney College in Virginia, where a friend had also enrolled. Arriving in 1982, he majored in philosophy and continued to participate in plays. He found the curriculum rigorous, but was more focused than he had been in high school and was able to apply himself to his studies. Despite the lack of a significant theater community at Hampden–Sydney, Colbert's interest in acting escalated during this time. After two years, he transferred in 1984 to Northwestern University as a theater major to study performance, emboldened by the realization that he loved performing, even when no one was coming to shows. He graduated from Northwestern's School of Communication in 1986.
Early career in comedy
While at Northwestern, Colbert studied with the intent of becoming a dramatic actor; mostly he performed in experimental plays and was uninterested in comedy. He began performing improvisation while in college, both in the campus improv team No Fun Mud Piranhas and at the Annoyance Theatre in Chicago as a part of Del Close's ImprovOlympic at a time when the project was focused on competitive, long-form improvisation, rather than improvisational comedy. "I wasn't gonna do Second City", Colbert later recalled, "because those Annoyance people looked down on Second City because they thought it wasn't pure improv – there was a slightly snobby, mystical quality to the Annoyance people". After Colbert graduated in 1986, however, he was in need of a job. A friend who was employed at Second City's box office offered him work answering phones and selling souvenirs. Colbert accepted and discovered that Second City employees were entitled to take classes at their training center free of charge. Despite his earlier aversion to the comedy group, he signed up for improvisation classes and enjoyed the experience greatly.
Shortly thereafter, he was hired to perform with Second City's touring company, initially as an understudy for Steve Carell. It was there he met Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello, with whom he often collaborated later in his career. By their retelling, the three comedians did not get along at first – Dinello thought Colbert was uptight, pretentious and cold, while Colbert thought of Dinello as "an illiterate thug" – but the trio became close friends while touring together, discovering that they shared a similar comic sensibility.
When Sedaris and Dinello were offered the opportunity to create a television series for HBO Downtown Productions, Colbert left Second City and relocated to New York to work with them on the sketch comedy show Exit 57. The series debuted on Comedy Central in 1995 and aired through 1996. Although it lasted only 12 episodes, the show received favorable reviews and was nominated for five CableACE Awards in 1995, in categories including best writing, performance, and comedy series.
Television career
The Dana Carvey Show (1996)
Following the cancelation of Exit 57, Colbert worked for six months as a cast member and writer on The Dana Carvey Show, alongside former Second City castmate Steve Carell, and also Robert Smigel, Charlie Kaufman, Louis C.K., and Dino Stamatopoulos, among others. The series, described by one reviewer as "kamikaze satire" in "borderline-questionable taste", had sponsors pull out after its first episode aired and was canceled after seven episodes. Colbert then worked briefly as a freelance writer for Saturday Night Live with Robert Smigel. Smigel brought his animated sketch, The Ambiguously Gay Duo, to SNL from The Dana Carvey Show; Colbert provided the voice of Ace on both series, opposite Steve Carell as Gary. Needing money, he also worked as a script consultant for VH1 and MTV, before taking a job filming humorous correspondent segments for Good Morning America. Only two of the segments he proposed were ever produced and only one aired, but the job led his agent to refer him to The Daily Show's producer, Madeline Smithberg, who hired Colbert on a trial basis in 1997.
Strangers with Candy (1999–2000)
During the same period, Colbert worked again with Sedaris and Dinello to develop a new comedy series for Comedy Central, Strangers with Candy. Comedy Central picked up the series in 1998 after Colbert had already begun working on The Daily Show. As a result, he accepted a reduced role, filming only around 20 Daily Show segments a year while he worked on the new series.
Strangers with Candy was conceived of as a parody of after school specials, following the life of Jerri Blank, a 46-year-old dropout who returns to finish high school after 32 years of life on the street. Most noted by critics for its use of offensive humor, it concluded each episode by delivering to the audience a skewed, politically incorrect moral lesson. Colbert served as a main writer alongside Sedaris and Dinello, and portrayed Jerri's strict but uninformed history teacher, Chuck Noblet, seen throughout the series dispensing inaccurate information to his classes. Colbert has likened this to the character he played on The Daily Show and later The Colbert Report, claiming that he has a very specific niche in portraying "poorly informed, high-status idiot" characters. Another running joke throughout the series was that Noblet, a closeted homosexual, was having a "secret" affair with fellow teacher Geoffrey Jellineck, despite the fact that their relationship was apparent to everyone around them. This obliviousness also appears in Colbert's Daily Show and Colbert Report character.
Thirty episodes of Strangers with Candy were made, which aired on Comedy Central in 1999 and 2000. Though its ratings were not remarkable during its initial run, it has been characterized as a cult show with a small but dedicated audience. Colbert reprised his role for a film adaptation which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and had a limited release in 2006. The film received mixed reviews. Colbert also co-wrote the screenplay with Sedaris and Dinello.
The Daily Show (1997–2005)
Colbert joined the cast of Comedy Central's parody-news series The Daily Show in 1997, when the show was in its second season. Originally one of four correspondents who filmed segments from remote locations in the style of network news field reporters, Colbert was referred to as "the new guy" on-air for his first two years on the show, during which time Craig Kilborn served as host. When Kilborn left the show prior to the 1999 season, Jon Stewart took over hosting duties, also serving as a writer and co-executive producer. From this point, the series gradually began to take on a more political tone and increase in popularity, particularly in the latter part of the 2000 U.S. presidential election season. The roles of the show's correspondents were expanded to include more in-studio segments and international reports, which were almost always done in the studio with the aid of a greenscreen.
Unlike Stewart, who essentially hosted The Daily Show as himself, Colbert developed a correspondent character for his pieces on the series that was a parody of conservative political pundits such as Bill O'Reilly. Colbert has described his correspondent character as "a well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot" and "a fool who has spent a lot of his life playing not the fool – one who is able to cover it at least well enough to deal with the subjects that he deals with". Colbert was frequently pitted against knowledgeable interview subjects, or against Stewart in scripted exchanges, with the resultant dialogue demonstrating the character's lack of knowledge of whatever subject he is discussing. Colbert also made generous use of humorous fallacies of logic in explaining his point of view on any topic. Other Daily Show correspondents have adopted a similar style; former correspondent Rob Corddry recalls that when he and Ed Helms first joined the show's cast in 2002, they "just imitated Stephen Colbert for a year or two". Correspondent Aasif Mandvi has stated "I just decided I was going to do my best Stephen Colbert impression".
Colbert appeared in several recurring segments for The Daily Show, including "Even Stevphen" with Steve Carell, in which both characters were expected to debate a selected topic but instead would unleash their anger at one another. Colbert commonly hosted "This Week in God", a report on topics in the news pertaining to religion, presented with the help of the "God Machine". Colbert filed reports from the floor of the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention as a part of The Daily Show's award-winning coverage of the 2000 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections; many from the latter were included as part of their The Daily Show: Indecision 2004 DVD release. Other pieces that have been named as his signature segments include "Grouse Hunting in Shropshire", in which he reported on the "gayness" of British aristocracy, his mock lionization of a smoking-rights activist and apparent chain-smoker, and his cameo appearances during his faux campaign for president. In several episodes of The Daily Show, Colbert filled in as anchor in the absence of Jon Stewart, including the full week of March 3, 2002, when Stewart was scheduled to host Saturday Night Live. After Colbert left the show, Rob Corddry took over "This Week in God" segments, although a recorded sample of Colbert's voice was still used as the sound effect for the God Machine. Later episodes of The Daily Show have reused older Colbert segments under the label "Klassic Kolbert". Colbert won three Emmys as a writer of The Daily Show in 2004, 2005, and 2006.
The Colbert Report (2005–2014)
Colbert hosted his own television show, The Colbert Report, from October 17, 2005, through December 18, 2014. The Colbert Report was a Daily Show spin-off that parodied the conventions of television news broadcasting, particularly cable-personality political talk shows like The O'Reilly Factor, Hannity, and Glenn Beck. Colbert hosted the show in-character as a blustery right-wing pundit, generally considered to be an extension of his character on The Daily Show. Conceived by co-creators Stewart, Colbert, and Ben Karlin in part as an opportunity to explore "the character-driven news", the series focused less on the day-to-day news style of the Daily Show, instead frequently concentrating on the foibles of the host-character himself.
The concept for The Report was first seen in a series of Daily Show segments which advertised the then-fictional series as a joke. It was later developed by Stewart's Busboy Productions and pitched to Comedy Central, which green-lighted the program; Comedy Central had already been searching for a way to extend the successful Daily Show franchise beyond a half-hour. The series opened to strong ratings, averaging 1.2 million viewers nightly during its first week on the air. Comedy Central signed a long-term contract for The Colbert Report within its first month on the air, when it immediately established itself among the network's highest-rated shows.
Much of Colbert's personal life was reflected in his character on The Colbert Report. With the extended exposure of the character on the show, he often referenced his interest in and knowledge of Catholicism, science fiction, and The Lord of the Rings, as well as using real facts to create his character's history. His alternate persona was also raised in South Carolina, is the youngest of 11 siblings and is married. However, Colbert's actual career history in acting and comedy was often downplayed or even denied outright, and he frequently referred to having attended Dartmouth College (which was at the forefront of the conservative campus movement in the 1980s) rather than his actual alma mater, Northwestern. In July 2012, Colbert added two years to his contract with Comedy Central, extending the run of The Colbert Report until the end of 2014.
The final episode on December 18, 2014, featured a rendition of "We'll Meet Again" and appearances from former guests of the show, including Jon Stewart, Randy Newman, Bryan Cranston, Willie Nelson, Yo-Yo Ma, Mandy Patinkin, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Tom Brokaw, David Gregory, J. J. Abrams, Big Bird, Gloria Steinem, Ken Burns, James Franco, Barry Manilow, Bob Costas, Jeff Daniels, Sam Waterston, Bill de Blasio, Katie Couric, Patrick Stewart, George Lucas, Henry Kissinger, Cookie Monster, Alan Alda, Eliot Spitzer, Vince Gilligan, Paul Krugman, and a text from Bill Clinton, and appearances by Alex Trebek, U.S. and coalition Afghanistan forces, and further characters (a space station astronaut, Santa Claus, Abraham Lincoln, etc.).
The Late Show (since 2015)
On April 10, 2014, CBS announced in a press release that Colbert "will succeed David Letterman as the host of The Late Show, effective when Mr. Letterman retires from the broadcast." On January 12, 2015, CBS announced that Colbert would premiere as the Late Show host on Tuesday, September 8, 2015. The first guest of the new Late Show was George Clooney. The show has a much more political focus than David Letterman's Late Show.
During his tenure as the host of The Late Show, Colbert hosted the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards, broadcast on CBS on September 17, 2017. More recently, he and his Spartina Productions company had inked a deal with CBS Studios.
Politics
2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner
On Saturday, April 29, 2006, Colbert was the featured entertainer for the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. Standing a few yards from U.S. President George W. Bush – in front of an audience the Associated Press called a "Who's Who of power and celebrity" – Colbert delivered a searing routine targeting the president and the media. In his politically conservative character from The Colbert Report, Colbert satirized the George W. Bush Administration and the White House Press Corps with such lines as:
Colbert received a chilly response from the audience. His jokes were often met with silence and muttering, apart from the enthusiastic laughter of a few in the audience. The major media outlets paid little attention to it initially. Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism professor Todd Gitlin claimed that this was because Colbert's routine was as critical of the media as it was of Bush. Richard Cohen, also writing for The Washington Post, responded that the routine was not funny. The video of Colbert's performance became an internet and media sensation, while, in the week following the speech, ratings for The Colbert Report rose by 37% to average just under 1.5 million total viewers per episode. In Time magazine James Poniewozik called it "the political-cultural touchstone issue of 2006". Writing six months later, New York Times columnist Frank Rich referred to Colbert's speech as a "cultural primary" and called it the "defining moment" of the 2006 midterm elections.
2008 presidential bid
Under his fictional persona in The Colbert Report, Colbert dropped hints of a potential presidential run throughout 2007, with speculation intensifying following the release of his book, I Am America (And So Can You!), which was rumored to be a sign that he was indeed testing the waters for a future bid for the White House. On October 16, 2007, he announced his candidacy on his show, stating his intention to run on both the Republican and Democratic platforms, but only as a "favorite son" in his native South Carolina. He later abandoned plans to run as a Republican due to the $35,000 fee required to file for the South Carolina primary; however, he continued to seek a place on the Democratic ballot and on October 28, 2007, campaigned in the South Carolina state capital of Columbia, where he was presented with the key to the city by Mayor Bob Coble.
After announcing his presidential ticket, he asked his viewers to cast their votes by donating to Donorschoose.org, an online charity connecting individuals to classrooms in need.
Colbert's promotion inspired $68,000 in donations to South Carolina classrooms, which benefited over 14,000 low-income students.
Colbert teamed up with Donorschoose.org again in 2008 by asking supporters of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to do the same. As a lead-up to the Pennsylvania primary, he created a "straw poll that makes a difference" by which people could donate to Pennsylvania classroom projects in honor of their favorite candidate.
Colbert viewers donated $185,000 to projects reaching 43,000 students in Pennsylvania public schools.
On November 1, 2007, the South Carolina Democratic Party executive council voted 13–3 to refuse Colbert's application onto the ballot. "The general sense of the council was that he wasn't a serious candidate and that was why he wasn't selected to be on the ballot", stated John Werner, the party's director. Several days later he announced that he was dropping out of the race, saying he did not wish to put the country through an agonizing Supreme Court battle. CNN has reported that Obama supporters pressured the South Carolina Democratic Executive Council to keep Colbert off the ballot. One anonymous member of the council told CNN that former State Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum had placed pressure on them to refuse Colbert's application despite his steady rise in polls.
Though Colbert's real-life presidential campaign had ended, Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada established in an interview on The Colbert Report that Colbert's campaign was still going strong in the fictional Marvel Universe, citing the cover art of a then-recent issue of The Amazing Spider-Man which featured a Colbert campaign billboard in the background. Background appearances of Colbert campaign ads continued to appear in Marvel Comics publications, as late as August 2008's Secret Invasion No.5 (which also features a cameo of an alien Skrull posing as Colbert). In October 2008, Colbert made an extended 8-page appearance webslinging with Spider-Man in The Amazing Spider-Man issue No. 573. Colbert voiced the president of the U.S. in the 2009 film Monsters vs. Aliens.
2009 solidarity with U.S. troops in Iraq War
Stephen Colbert arrived in Baghdad, Iraq, on June 5, 2009, to film a week of shows called "Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando" sponsored by the USO (United Service Organizations). Colbert had a suit tailored for him in the Army Combat Uniform pattern. During the first episode (which featured a cameo appearance from U.S. president Barack Obama), Colbert had his hair cropped in a military style to show his solidarity with the troops. One Army major said that "shaving of the hair is an amazing show of support" that was "very touching." USO Senior Vice President John Hanson said the shows are an important diversion for the troops.
2010 Congressional testimony
On September 24, 2010, Colbert testified in character before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Security. He was invited by committee chairwoman Zoe Lofgren to describe his experience participating in the United Farm Workers' "Take Our Jobs" program, where he spent a day working alongside migrant workers in upstate New York. At the end of his often-humorous testimony, Colbert broke character in responding to a question from Rep. Judy Chu, D-CA, and explained his purpose for being at the hearing:
Democratic committee member John Conyers questioned whether it was appropriate for the comedian to appear before Congress and asked him to leave the hearing. Though Colbert offered to depart at the direction of the committee chairwoman, Lofgren requested that he stay at least until all opening testimony had been completed, whereupon Conyers withdrew his request.
Conservative pundits took aim at Colbert's Congress testimony not long after.
2010 Washington, D.C. rallies
In September 2010, following Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally, a campaign developed that called for Colbert to hold his own rally at the Lincoln Memorial. On the September 10, 2010, episode of the Daily Show and The Colbert Report, Stewart and Colbert made preannouncements of a future event. On September 16, 2010, Stewart and Colbert announced competing rallies on the Washington, D.C., Mall on October 30, 2010, Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity", and Colbert's "March to Keep Fear Alive". Both were eventually merged into the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.
2011 Political Super PAC
In May 2011, Colbert filed a request with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) asking for a media exemption for coverage of his political action committee, ColbertPAC, on The Colbert Report.
In June 2011, during a public meeting, the FEC voted 5–1 to grant The Colbert Report a limited media exemption. The exemption allows unlimited donations of airtime and show resources to promote the Colbert Super PAC without requiring disclosure to the FEC, but only for ads appearing on The Colbert Report. Following the hearing, Colbert formally filed paperwork for the creation of his Super PAC with the FEC secretary.
2012 South Carolina GOP primary
After the 2012 New Hampshire primary, a poll for the subsequent South Carolina primary taken by Public Policy Polling (of 1,112 likely GOP voters, Jan 5–7, 2012) was reported to place Colbert at 5%, one point ahead of Jon Huntsman polling at 4%, in spite of the fact that Colbert was not on the ballot. This poll showed Colbert to be closely behind Rick Perry's 7% and Ron Paul's 8% (with Romney at 27%, Gingrich 23% and Santorum at 18%). On the January 11 episode of The Colbert Report, Colbert asked his audience if he should run for president in South Carolina, to which he received strong applause. He then stated that he would be making a "Major Announcement" during the next day's show. On January 12, Colbert started his show by discussing his role in the presidential campaign, then addressed the law preventing him from being a presidential candidate while running his Super PAC. With the help of his lawyer Trevor Potter, he then signed over control of his Super PAC to Jon Stewart, with the organization title then being referred to as "The Definitely Not Coordinating With Stephen Colbert Super PAC". Immediately after this legal block was out of the way, Colbert announced, "I am forming an exploratory committee to lay the groundwork for my possible candidacy for the President of the United States of South Carolina. I'm doin' it!" He reiterated in the interview portion of that show that "I'm still in the exploratory phase" of his presidential campaign.
On the January 16, 2012, episode, Colbert satirically encouraged his viewers to vote for Herman Cain in the South Carolina primary. As Cain was still on the ballot, despite having recently dropped out of the race, Colbert announced that he would consider any votes cast for Cain to be in direct support of his own possible candidacy.
Other work
Colbert is co-author of the satirical text-and-picture novel Wigfield: The Can Do Town That Just May Not, which was published in 2003 by Hyperion Books. The novel was a collaboration between Colbert, Amy Sedaris, and Paul Dinello, and tells the story of a small town threatened by the impending destruction of a massive dam. The narrative is presented as a series of fictional interviews with the town's residents, accompanied by photos. The three authors toured performing an adaptation of Wigfield on stage the same year the book was released.
Colbert appeared in a small supporting role in the 2005 film adaptation of Bewitched. He has made guest appearances on the television series Curb Your Enthusiasm, Spin City, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and on the first season of the US improvisational comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway?. He voiced the characters of Reducto and Phil Ken Sebben in the Adult Swim's Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, but left the show in 2005 to work on The Colbert Report. His characters were both killed, though he returned to voice Phil for the series finale. Colbert also has provided voices for Cartoon Network's The Venture Bros., Comedy Central's Crank Yankers, and American Dad!, and for Canadian animated comedy series The Wrong Coast. He appeared as Homer Simpson's life coach, Colby Krause, in The Simpsons episode "He Loves to Fly and He D'ohs".
Colbert filled in for Sam Seder on the second episode of The Majority Report on Air America Radio, and has also done reports for The Al Franken Show. He appeared on a track on Wig in a Box, a tribute album for Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Colbert read the part of Leopold Bloom in Bloomsday on Broadway XXIV: Love Literature Language Lust: Leopold's Women Bloom on June 16, 2005, at Symphony Space in New York City. He appeared in a series of TV commercials for General Motors, as a not-too-bright investigator searching for the elusive (and non-existent in real life) "Mr. Goodwrench". He also portrayed the letter Z in Sesame Street: All-Star Alphabet, a 2005 video release.
Colbert is a producer of The 1 Second Film, the world's largest nonprofit collaborative art film. His video request that IMDb list his credit for The1 Second Film ("it is as valid as most of my credits") enabled thousands of the film's producers to be listed in the massive movie database until they were removed in early 2007.
Colbert has released one book associated with The Colbert Report, I Am America (And So Can You!). It was released on October 7, 2007, by Grand Central Publishing. Grand Central Publishing is the successor to Warner Books, which published America (The Book), written by The Daily Show staff. The book contains similar political satire, but was written primarily by Colbert himself rather than as a collaboration with his Colbert Report writing staff.
On November 23, 2008, his Christmas special, A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!, aired on Comedy Central. It was released on DVD in November 2008.
In January 2010, Colbert was named the assistant sports psychologist for the US Olympic speed skating team at the 2010 Winter Olympics. He was also invited to be part of NBC's 2010 Winter Olympics coverage team by Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports. In April 2011, Colbert performed as Harry in the concert-style revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical Company, presented by the New York Philharmonic at the Lincoln Center. The show, featuring Neil Patrick Harris in the starring role, ran for four nights and was filmed for later showings in movie theaters, which began June 15. In May 2011, Colbert joined the Charleston to Bermuda Race yachting race, as captain of the ship "the Spirit of Juno". He finished second, five miles behind leaders "Tucana".
Since 2012, Colbert has collaborated with the Montclair Film Festival, of which his wife is a founder and current president of its board. Every year since its foundation, Colbert has participated by hosting an annual fundraising event and leading Q&As and conversations with directors, writers, journalists, and actors such as: Jon Stewart, Rob Reiner, Steve Carell, J. J. Abrams, David Itzkoff, Ethan Hawke, Rachel Weisz, and Meryl Streep. He is also part of the Montclair Film advisory board.
After the resignation of South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint to run Heritage Foundation, Colbert was named a possible candidate for appointment to the seat being vacated by DeMint, which would have triggered a special election in 2014 to finish out DeMint's term. Although Governor Nikki Haley announced promptly that she had no intention to nominate Colbert to the Senate, a poll showed Colbert as a favorite among South Carolina voters.
Colbert guest-hosted Only in Monroe, a public access television show in Monroe, Michigan, for an episode that aired July 1, 2015. He interviewed the program's regular hosts, and also the rapper Eminem (whom he pretended never to have heard of), and put a humorous slant on the local news and community calendar.
On July 17, 2016, Colbert hijacked the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, while dressed as Caesar Flickerman from The Hunger Games series. After he was taken down from the stage, he commented, "Look, I know I am not supposed to be up here but let's be honest, neither is Donald Trump." Colbert also dressed as Flickerman on his show, prior to the stunt, to announce the candidates who had ended their runs in the 2016 election.
Aside from hosting his talk shows, Colbert has gone on to host other types of shows. Since 2014, Colbert has hosted the Kennedy Center Honors for three consecutive years. In 2017, Colbert hosted the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards.
In 2018 it was reported that Showtime was developing Hello Nancy, a biopic based on the nonfiction book On Her Trail, My Mother, Nancy Dickerson, TV News' First Woman Star by John Dickerson, with Colbert and his wife Evelyn serving as executive producers. The couple also served as executive producers for In & Of Itself, a film version of Derek DelGaudio's off-Broadway show of the same name.
Influences
Colbert has said his comedy influences include: Don Novello, Phil Silvers, Alec Guinness, Bill Cosby, George Carlin, Dean Martin, Jon Stewart, Monty Python, Steve Martin, and David Letterman. In 2017, Colbert said due to the sexual assault allegations made against Cosby, he can no longer listen to his comedy.
Colbert has also cited Jim Gaffigan, Maria Bamford, Joe Pera, John Mulaney, and Eric Andre, as some of his favorite contemporary comedians.
Among comedians who say they were influenced by Colbert are Nathan Fielder, James Corden, Mindy Kaling, Hasan Minhaj, Jordan Klepper, Ziwe Fumudoh, John Mulaney, Derrick Beckles, Julie Klausner, and Billy Eichner.
Personal life
Colbert is a practicing Roman Catholic and used to teach Sunday school. He is an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church Monastery. Colbert is an avid reader and has cited authors: J.R.R. Tolkien, J.D. Salinger, Robertson Davies, George Saunders, Larry Niven, Henry Kuttner and Isaac Asimov as his favorites, among others.
Colbert has been married to Evelyn "Evie" McGee-Colbert since 1993. She is the daughter of prominent Charleston civil litigator Joseph McGee, of the firm Buist Moore Smythe McGee. His wife appeared with him in an episode of Strangers with Candy as his mother. She also had an uncredited cameo as a nurse in the series pilot and a credited one (as his wife Clair) in the film. McGee-Colbert actually met Jon Stewart before she met her future husband in 1990. They met at the world premiere of Hydrogen Jukebox at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston. Colbert later described the first moment he met Evie as being a love at first sight encounter; however, moments after they met, they both realized they had grown up together in Charleston and had many mutual friends.
The couple have three children. They live in Montclair, New Jersey.
During his college and Second City years, Colbert suffered from bouts of depression and anxiety, for which he had to be medicated. In a 2018 interview, Colbert told Rolling Stone:
I needed to be medicated when I was younger to deal with my anxiety that I had thrown my life away by attempting to do something that so few people actually get away with, or succeed at ... Xanax was just lovely. Y'know, for a while. And then I realized that the gears were still smoking. I just couldn't hear them anymore. But I could feel them, I could feel the gearbox heating up and smoke pouring out of me ... I stopped the Xanax after, like, nine days. I went, 'This isn't helping.' So I just suffered through it. I'd sometimes hold the bottle, to go like, 'I could stop this feeling if I wanted, but I'm not going to. Because I know if I stop the feeling, somehow I'm not working through it, like I have got to go through the tunnel with the spiders in it.'
And then one morning I woke up and my skin wasn't on fire, and it took me a while to figure out what it was. I wake up the next morning, I'm perfectly fine, to the point where my body's still humming. I'm a bell that's been rung so hard that I can still feel myself vibrating. But the actual sound was gone [because] I was starting rehearsal that day to create a new show. And then I went, 'Oh, my God, I can never stop performing.' Creating something is what helped me from just spinning apart like an unweighted flywheel. And I haven't stopped since.
Colbert used the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator during a segment of The Late Show, which identified him as an INFP.
Political views
Although, by his own account, he was not particularly political before joining the cast of The Daily Show, Colbert has described himself as a Democrat according to a 2004 interview. In an interview at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard Institute of Politics, he said he has "no problems with Republicans, just Republican policies".
Colbert supports the implementation of the Medicare for All plan introduced by Bernie Sanders, considering it "a sensible fix to Obamacare". When asked about his views on abortion, Colbert positioned himself as pro-choice. On the intersection of faith and politics, Colbert has pointed out that his views are in line with those of Cesar Chávez.
Awards and honors
In 2000, Colbert and the other Daily Show writers were the recipients of three Emmy Awards as writers for The Daily Show and again in 2005 and 2006. In 2005 he was nominated for a Satellite Award for his performance on The Colbert Report and again in 2006. He was also nominated for three Emmys for The Colbert Report in 2006, including Best Performance in a Variety, Musical Program or Special, which he lost to Barry Manilow. Manilow and Colbert would go on to jokingly sign and notarize a revolving biannual custody agreement for the Emmy on The Colbert Report episode aired on October 30, 2006. He lost the same category to Tony Bennett in 2007 and Don Rickles in 2008.
In January 2006, the American Dialect Society named truthiness, which Colbert coined on the premiere episode of The Colbert Report, as its 2005 Word of the Year. Colbert devoted time on five successive episodes to bemoaning the failure of the Associated Press to mention his role in popularizing the word truthiness in its news coverage of the Word of the Year. On December 9, 2006, Merriam-Webster also announced that it selected truthiness as its Word of the Year for 2006. Votes were accepted on their website, and according to poll results, "truthiness" won by a five-to-one margin.
In June 2006, after speaking at the school's commencement ceremony, Colbert received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree from Knox College. Time named Stephen Colbert as one of the 100 most influential people in 2006 and 2012 and in May 2006, New York magazine listed Colbert (and Jon Stewart) as one of its top dozen influential persons in media. Colbert was named Person of the Year by the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado on March 3, 2007, and was also given the Speaker of the Year Award by The Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) on March 24, 2007, for his "drive to expose the rhetorical shortcomings of contemporary political discourse".
Colbert was named the 2nd Sexiest TV News Anchor in September 2006 by Maxim, next to Mélissa Theuriau of France and was the only man featured on the list. In November 2006, he was named a "sexy surprise" by People in the Sexiest Man Alive honors and in the December 2006 issue of GQ he was named one of GQ's "Men of the Year".
In 2012, he was listed as No. 69 on Maxim Magazine's Hot 100, becoming the first man to be included on the list.
Colbert has received three Peabody Awards, in 2007, 2011, and 2020. He was nominated for five TCA Awards for The Colbert Report by the Television Critics Association.
After the Saginaw Spirit defeated the Oshawa Generals in Ontario Junior League Hockey, Oshawa Mayor John Gray declared March 20, 2007 (the mayor's own birthday), Stephen Colbert Day, honoring a previous bet with Stephen. At the event, Mayor Gray referred to the publicity the bet brought the city, remarking, "This is the way to lose a bet".
Colbert was honored for the Gutsiest Move on the Spike TV Guys' Choice Awards on June 13, 2007, for his performance at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. In August 2007, Virgin America named an airplane, "Air Colbert", in his honor. On October 28, 2007, Colbert received the key to the city of Columbia, South Carolina, from Mayor Bob Coble.
On December 20, 2007, Colbert was named Celebrity of the Year by The Associated Press. On April 2, 2008, he received a Peabody Award for The Colbert Report, saying in response, "I proudly accept this award and begrudgingly forgive the Peabody Committee for taking three years to recognize greatness".
In 2008, Colbert won the Emmy Award for writing again, this time as a writer for The Colbert Report. Colbert delivered the Class Day address to the graduating class of Princeton University on June 2, 2008, and accepted the Class of 2008 Understandable Vanity Award, consisting of a sketch of Colbert and a mirror. He also has been announced as the Person of the Year for the 12th annual Webby Awards.
In January 2010, Colbert received the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for his album A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!. He also announced the nominees for Song of the Year while toting a pre-released Apple iPad. Colbert was the 2011 commencement speaker for Northwestern University, and received an honorary degree. In 2013, Colbert again won the Emmy award for writing for The Colbert Report. In 2014, Colbert won the 2014 Best Spoken Word Album for his audiobook America Again: Re-becoming The Greatness We Never Weren't.
In January 2013, Rolling Stone placed him at number 2 in their "The 50 Funniest People Now" list. In December 2014, Paste named his Twitter one of "The 75 Best Twitter Accounts of 2014" ranking it at number 7. Colbert received an honorary degree from Wake Forest University as the 2015 commencement speaker.
In 2015, Colbert was awarded the third highest honor within the Department of the Army Civilian Awards, the Outstanding Civilian Service Award, for substantial contributions to the U.S. Army community.
In 2017 and 2018, Colbert was named one of "The 35 Most Powerful People in New York Media" by The Hollywood Reporter. He was chosen as one of GQ's "Men of the Year" for its December 2017 issue. Colbert was placed at number 32 in Vanity Fair "2018 New Establishment List". Other placements in earlier lists include number 40 in 2017 and number 28 in 2011.
In May 2021, Colbert received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Yale University.
Ben & Jerry's AmeriCone Dream ice cream
In February 2007, Ben & Jerry's unveiled a new ice cream flavor in honor of Colbert, named Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream. Colbert waited until Easter to sample the ice cream because he "gave up sweets for Lent". Colbert donated all proceeds to charity through the new Stephen Colbert AmeriCone Dream Fund, which distributes the money to various causes.
Species named in honor
At least five species have been given scientific names honoring Colbert. In 2008 a species of California trapdoor spider was named Aptostichus stephencolberti. The spider was named for Colbert after he reported on his television series that Jason Bond, a professor of biology at East Carolina University, had named a different species of spider Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi after the Canadian rock star Neil Young, and began to appeal for a species of animal to be named after him. On a later edition of The Colbert Report, Colbert revealed that Bond would name a spider after him, with Colbert claiming, "And all I had to do was shamelessly beg on national television." Other species named for Colbert include a species of Venezuelan diving beetle named Agaporomorphus colberti and a Chilean stonefly named Diamphipnoa colberti, both formally described in 2008. On his 45th birthday, Colbert was sent a framed print of his eponymous beetle by the biologists who named it. In 2014, a species of parasitic wasp from Ecuador, Aleiodes colberti, was named for Colbert, along with newly described species named for celebrities Jon Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, Ellen DeGeneres, and Shakira, and in 2016 a rove beetle, Sonoma colberti, was named after Colbert's on-screen persona.
COLBERT Treadmill
In 2009, NASA engineered a new treadmill for the International Space Station. It was taken to the ISS by the Space Shuttle Discovery during the STS-128 mission in August 2009. The complex machine is now used eight hours daily by astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the space station in order to maintain their muscle mass and bone density while spending long periods of time in a zero-gravity environment. While engineers at NASA were constructing this treadmill, it was simply called T-2 for more than two years. However, on April 14, 2009, NASA renamed it the "Combined Operational Load-Bearing External Resistance Treadmill", or COLBERT. NASA named the treadmill after Colbert, who took an interest during the Node3 naming census for the ISS module, Tranquility.
Colbert urged his followers to post the name "Colbert", which upon completion of the census received the most entries totaling 230,539, some 40,000 votes more than the second-place choice, Serenity. The COLBERT is expected to last the life of the ISS and will have seen about 38,000 miles of running when the Space Station is retired in 2024 or later, but it was also built with a 150,000-mile lifespan (if needed until 2028 or beyond). Colbert realized he was the recipient of an extremely rare honor—the COLBERT (a backronym) is the only piece of NASA-engineered equipment in space that is named after a living human being—when astronaut Sunita Williams came on The Colbert Report to announce that NASA had named the treadmill after him.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theatre
Published works
Colbert, Dinello, Sedaris. Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just May Not (Hyperion, May 19, 2004)
America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction (Warner Books; September 2004)
I Am America (And So Can You!) (Grand Central Publishing; October 9, 2007)
America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't (Grand Central Publishing; October 2, 2012)
I Am a Pole (And So Can You!) (Grand Central Publishing; May 8, 2012)
Stephen Colbert's Midnight Confessions (Simon & Schuster; September 5, 2017)
See also
New Yorkers in journalism
Political satire
References
Further reading
External links
Colbert interview transcript, 60 Minutes. (April 30, 2006)
1964 births
Living people
20th-century American comedians
21st-century American comedians
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American novelists
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century Roman Catholics
American comedy writers
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male novelists
American male stage actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
American media critics
American people of English descent
American people of German descent
American people of Irish descent
American political commentators
American satirists
American television talk show hosts
American television writers
Audiobook narrators
Grammy Award winners
Hampden–Sydney College alumni
Late night television talk show hosts
Male actors from Washington, D.C.
Male feminists
American male television writers
New Jersey Democrats
Northwestern University School of Communication alumni
Peabody Award winners
Male actors from Charleston, South Carolina
People from Bethesda, Maryland
People from Montclair, New Jersey
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Science fiction fans
South Carolina Democrats
Candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election
Webby Award winners
Writers from Charleston, South Carolina
Writers Guild of America Award winners
Screenwriters from Washington, D.C.
Novelists from South Carolina
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers
Catholics from New Jersey
Catholics from Maryland
Catholics from South Carolina
Tolkien fandom
21st-century American male writers
Television producers from New Jersey | false | [
"Paul Machliss (born 1972) is an Australian film and television editor. He has worked on TV series such as Black Books and The IT Crowd, as well as on Edgar Wright's television series Spaced and feature films Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), The World's End (2013), and Baby Driver (2017).\n\nEarly life and career \nMachliss was born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, and is a graduate of Brighton Secondary College. He got his start working as a gofer on Fast Forward, an Australian sketch comedy series. He went to work in a post-production facility, serving as a videotape librarian and operator. While at this job, Machliss taught himself how to use the company's editing suite, allowing him to get a job editing advertisements and corporate videos. He then worked freelance on a trade show in Amsterdam, where he got a permanent job as an editor. From there, he was hired as a freelance editor to work on British television series, including Spaced and Black Books. His work on these series got him a job editing Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, directed by Edgar Wright, in 2010. In 2013, he served as the editor for The World's End, also directed by Wright.\n\nFilmography \nCredits adapted from Machliss' agency website.\n\nFilm\n\nTelevision\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1972 births\nLiving people\nYear of birth uncertain\nAustralian film editors\nBest Editing BAFTA Award winners",
"Green Horse Rustlers () is a 2016 Czech adventure drama film.\n\nPlot\nThe film is about illegal digging of Moldavites. Kača starts to live by illegally digging Moldavites when he has to leave collective farm when it got bankrupt. He convinces his old friend Pavel to help him. Pavel is a geologist who recently got married. His wife Karolína isn't fond of Kača. Pavel quits his job at university when he sees how much he can earn by digging Moldavites. This gets him into conflict with his wife.\n\nCast\n Pavel Liška as Kača\n Marek Adamczyk as Pavel\n Jenovéfa Boková as Karolína\n Gabriela Míčová as Jarmila\n Šárka Vaculíková as Marcela\n Bolek Polívka as Senecký\n\nReception\nThe film has received mostly positive reviews from critics.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n2016 films\n2010s adventure drama films\nCzech films\nCzech adventure drama films\n2010s Czech-language films\n2016 drama films"
] |
[
"Stephen Colbert",
"Strangers with Candy",
"What did Colbert study?",
"Another running joke throughout the series was that Noblet, a closeted homosexual, was having a \"secret\" affair with fellow teacher Geoffrey Jellineck,",
"What year did he graduate in?",
"I don't know.",
"What was his first job?",
"During the same period, Colbert worked again with Sedaris and Dinello to develop a new comedy series for Comedy Central, Strangers with Candy.",
"Who got him his first job?",
"I don't know."
] | C_50f0971a1da64891b4732fcb58fabe60_0 | Did he appear in a TV Show? | 5 | Did Stephen Colbert appear in a TV Show? | Stephen Colbert | During the same period, Colbert worked again with Sedaris and Dinello to develop a new comedy series for Comedy Central, Strangers with Candy. Comedy Central picked up the series in 1998 after Colbert had already begun working on The Daily Show. As a result, he accepted a reduced role, filming only around 20 Daily Show segments a year while he worked on the new series. Strangers with Candy was conceived of as a parody of after school specials, following the life of Jerri Blank, a 46-year-old dropout who returns to finish high school after 32 years of life on the street. Most noted by critics for its use of offensive humor, it concluded each episode by delivering to the audience a skewed, politically incorrect moral lesson. Colbert served as a main writer alongside Sedaris and Dinello, and portrayed Jerri's strict but uninformed history teacher, Chuck Noblet, seen throughout the series dispensing inaccurate information to his classes. Colbert has likened this to the character he played on The Daily Show and later The Colbert Report, claiming that he has a very specific niche in portraying "poorly informed, high-status idiot" characters. Another running joke throughout the series was that Noblet, a closeted homosexual, was having a "secret" affair with fellow teacher Geoffrey Jellineck, despite the fact that their relationship was apparent to everyone around them. This obliviousness also appears in Colbert's Daily Show and Colbert Report character. Thirty episodes of Strangers with Candy were made, which aired on Comedy Central in 1999 and 2000. Though its ratings were not remarkable during its initial run, it has been characterized as a cult show with a small but dedicated audience. Colbert reprised his role for a film adaptation, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and had a limited release in 2006. The film received mixed reviews. Colbert also co-wrote the screenplay with Sedaris and Dinello. CANNOTANSWER | Strangers with Candy | Stephen Tyrone Colbert ( ; born May 13, 1964) is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is best known for hosting the satirical Comedy Central program The Colbert Report from 2005 to 2014 and the CBS talk program The Late Show with Stephen Colbert beginning in September 2015.
Colbert originally studied to be a dramatic actor, but became interested in improvisational theater while attending Northwestern University, where he met Second City director Del Close. Colbert first performed professionally as an understudy for Steve Carell at Second City Chicago, where his troupe mates included Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris, comedians with whom he developed the sketch comedy series Exit 57. He wrote and performed on the short-lived Dana Carvey Show before collaborating with Sedaris and Dinello again on the cult television series Strangers with Candy. He gained attention for his role on the latter as closeted gay history teacher Chuck Noblet.
Colbert's work as a correspondent on Comedy Central's news-parody series The Daily Show gained him wide recognition. In 2005, he left The Daily Show to host The Colbert Report. Following The Daily Shows news-parody concept, The Colbert Report was a parody of personality-driven political opinion shows including The O'Reilly Factor, in which he portrayed a caricatured version of conservative political pundits, earning Colbert an invitation to perform as featured entertainer at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in 2006, which he did in character. This event led to the series became one of Comedy Central's highest-rated series. After ending The Colbert Report, he was hired in 2015 to succeed retiring David Letterman as host of the Late Show on CBS. He hosted the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards in September 2017.
Colbert has won nine Primetime Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and three Peabody Awards. Colbert was named one of Times 100 Most Influential People in 2006 and 2012. Colbert's book, I Am America (And So Can You!), was listed No.1 on The New York Times Best Seller list in 2007.
Early life
Colbert was born in Washington, D.C., the youngest of eleven children in a Catholic family. He spent his early years in Bethesda, Maryland. He grew up in the Charleston suburb of James Island, South Carolina. Colbert and his siblings, in descending order by age, are James III, Edward, Mary, William, Margo, Thomas, Jay, Elizabeth, Paul, Peter, and Stephen. His father, James William Colbert Jr., was an immunologist and medical school dean at Yale University, Saint Louis University, and finally at the Medical University of South Carolina, where, from 1969, he served as the school's first vice president of academic affairs. Stephen's mother, Lorna Elizabeth Colbert (née Tuck), was a homemaker.
In interviews, Colbert has described his parents as devout people who also strongly valued intellectualism, and taught their children it was possible to question the church, and still be Catholic. In an interview, Lorna has described Stephen as rambunctious. As a child, he observed that Southerners were often depicted as being less intelligent than other characters on scripted television; to avoid that stereotype, he taught himself to imitate the speech of American news anchors.
While Colbert sometimes comedically claims his surname is French, he is of 15/16ths Irish ancestry; one of his paternal great-great-grandmothers was of German and English descent. Many of his ancestors emigrated from Ireland to North America in the 19th century before and during the Great Famine. Originally, his surname was pronounced in English; Stephen Colbert's father, James, wanted to pronounce the name , but maintained the pronunciation out of respect for his own father. He offered his children the option to pronounce the name whichever way they preferred. Stephen started using later in life when he transferred to Northwestern University, taking advantage of the opportunity to reinvent himself in a new place where no one knew him. Stephen's brother Edward, an intellectual property attorney, retained ; this was shown in a February 12, 2009, appearance on The Colbert Report, when his second oldest brother asked him, " or ?" Ed responded "", to which Stephen jokingly replied, "See you in Hell".
On September 11, 1974, when Colbert was ten years old, his father and his two brothers nearest in age, Peter and Paul, died in the crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 while it was attempting to land in Charlotte, North Carolina. They were en route to enroll the two boys at Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut. He has discussed the impact on him and his philosophy of grief and suffering. Lorna Colbert relocated the family from James Island to the George Chisolm House, in downtown Charleston and ran the carriage house as a bed and breakfast. Colbert found the transition difficult and did not easily make friends in his new neighborhood. Colbert later described himself during this time as detached, lacking a sense of importance regarding the things with which other children concerned themselves.
He developed a love of science fiction and fantasy novels, especially the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, of which he remains an avid fan. During his adolescence, he also developed an intense interest in fantasy role-playing games, especially Dungeons & Dragons, a pastime which he later characterized as an early experience in acting and improvisation.
Colbert attended Charleston's Episcopal Porter-Gaud School, where he participated in several school plays and contributed to the school newspaper but was not highly motivated academically. During his adolescence, he briefly fronted A Shot in the Dark, a Rolling Stones cover band. When he was younger, he had hoped to study marine biology, but surgery intended to repair a severely perforated eardrum caused him inner ear damage severe enough to preclude a career involving scuba diving, and leaving him deaf in his right ear.
For a while, he was uncertain whether he would attend college, but ultimately he applied and was accepted to Hampden–Sydney College in Virginia, where a friend had also enrolled. Arriving in 1982, he majored in philosophy and continued to participate in plays. He found the curriculum rigorous, but was more focused than he had been in high school and was able to apply himself to his studies. Despite the lack of a significant theater community at Hampden–Sydney, Colbert's interest in acting escalated during this time. After two years, he transferred in 1984 to Northwestern University as a theater major to study performance, emboldened by the realization that he loved performing, even when no one was coming to shows. He graduated from Northwestern's School of Communication in 1986.
Early career in comedy
While at Northwestern, Colbert studied with the intent of becoming a dramatic actor; mostly he performed in experimental plays and was uninterested in comedy. He began performing improvisation while in college, both in the campus improv team No Fun Mud Piranhas and at the Annoyance Theatre in Chicago as a part of Del Close's ImprovOlympic at a time when the project was focused on competitive, long-form improvisation, rather than improvisational comedy. "I wasn't gonna do Second City", Colbert later recalled, "because those Annoyance people looked down on Second City because they thought it wasn't pure improv – there was a slightly snobby, mystical quality to the Annoyance people". After Colbert graduated in 1986, however, he was in need of a job. A friend who was employed at Second City's box office offered him work answering phones and selling souvenirs. Colbert accepted and discovered that Second City employees were entitled to take classes at their training center free of charge. Despite his earlier aversion to the comedy group, he signed up for improvisation classes and enjoyed the experience greatly.
Shortly thereafter, he was hired to perform with Second City's touring company, initially as an understudy for Steve Carell. It was there he met Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello, with whom he often collaborated later in his career. By their retelling, the three comedians did not get along at first – Dinello thought Colbert was uptight, pretentious and cold, while Colbert thought of Dinello as "an illiterate thug" – but the trio became close friends while touring together, discovering that they shared a similar comic sensibility.
When Sedaris and Dinello were offered the opportunity to create a television series for HBO Downtown Productions, Colbert left Second City and relocated to New York to work with them on the sketch comedy show Exit 57. The series debuted on Comedy Central in 1995 and aired through 1996. Although it lasted only 12 episodes, the show received favorable reviews and was nominated for five CableACE Awards in 1995, in categories including best writing, performance, and comedy series.
Television career
The Dana Carvey Show (1996)
Following the cancelation of Exit 57, Colbert worked for six months as a cast member and writer on The Dana Carvey Show, alongside former Second City castmate Steve Carell, and also Robert Smigel, Charlie Kaufman, Louis C.K., and Dino Stamatopoulos, among others. The series, described by one reviewer as "kamikaze satire" in "borderline-questionable taste", had sponsors pull out after its first episode aired and was canceled after seven episodes. Colbert then worked briefly as a freelance writer for Saturday Night Live with Robert Smigel. Smigel brought his animated sketch, The Ambiguously Gay Duo, to SNL from The Dana Carvey Show; Colbert provided the voice of Ace on both series, opposite Steve Carell as Gary. Needing money, he also worked as a script consultant for VH1 and MTV, before taking a job filming humorous correspondent segments for Good Morning America. Only two of the segments he proposed were ever produced and only one aired, but the job led his agent to refer him to The Daily Show's producer, Madeline Smithberg, who hired Colbert on a trial basis in 1997.
Strangers with Candy (1999–2000)
During the same period, Colbert worked again with Sedaris and Dinello to develop a new comedy series for Comedy Central, Strangers with Candy. Comedy Central picked up the series in 1998 after Colbert had already begun working on The Daily Show. As a result, he accepted a reduced role, filming only around 20 Daily Show segments a year while he worked on the new series.
Strangers with Candy was conceived of as a parody of after school specials, following the life of Jerri Blank, a 46-year-old dropout who returns to finish high school after 32 years of life on the street. Most noted by critics for its use of offensive humor, it concluded each episode by delivering to the audience a skewed, politically incorrect moral lesson. Colbert served as a main writer alongside Sedaris and Dinello, and portrayed Jerri's strict but uninformed history teacher, Chuck Noblet, seen throughout the series dispensing inaccurate information to his classes. Colbert has likened this to the character he played on The Daily Show and later The Colbert Report, claiming that he has a very specific niche in portraying "poorly informed, high-status idiot" characters. Another running joke throughout the series was that Noblet, a closeted homosexual, was having a "secret" affair with fellow teacher Geoffrey Jellineck, despite the fact that their relationship was apparent to everyone around them. This obliviousness also appears in Colbert's Daily Show and Colbert Report character.
Thirty episodes of Strangers with Candy were made, which aired on Comedy Central in 1999 and 2000. Though its ratings were not remarkable during its initial run, it has been characterized as a cult show with a small but dedicated audience. Colbert reprised his role for a film adaptation which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and had a limited release in 2006. The film received mixed reviews. Colbert also co-wrote the screenplay with Sedaris and Dinello.
The Daily Show (1997–2005)
Colbert joined the cast of Comedy Central's parody-news series The Daily Show in 1997, when the show was in its second season. Originally one of four correspondents who filmed segments from remote locations in the style of network news field reporters, Colbert was referred to as "the new guy" on-air for his first two years on the show, during which time Craig Kilborn served as host. When Kilborn left the show prior to the 1999 season, Jon Stewart took over hosting duties, also serving as a writer and co-executive producer. From this point, the series gradually began to take on a more political tone and increase in popularity, particularly in the latter part of the 2000 U.S. presidential election season. The roles of the show's correspondents were expanded to include more in-studio segments and international reports, which were almost always done in the studio with the aid of a greenscreen.
Unlike Stewart, who essentially hosted The Daily Show as himself, Colbert developed a correspondent character for his pieces on the series that was a parody of conservative political pundits such as Bill O'Reilly. Colbert has described his correspondent character as "a well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot" and "a fool who has spent a lot of his life playing not the fool – one who is able to cover it at least well enough to deal with the subjects that he deals with". Colbert was frequently pitted against knowledgeable interview subjects, or against Stewart in scripted exchanges, with the resultant dialogue demonstrating the character's lack of knowledge of whatever subject he is discussing. Colbert also made generous use of humorous fallacies of logic in explaining his point of view on any topic. Other Daily Show correspondents have adopted a similar style; former correspondent Rob Corddry recalls that when he and Ed Helms first joined the show's cast in 2002, they "just imitated Stephen Colbert for a year or two". Correspondent Aasif Mandvi has stated "I just decided I was going to do my best Stephen Colbert impression".
Colbert appeared in several recurring segments for The Daily Show, including "Even Stevphen" with Steve Carell, in which both characters were expected to debate a selected topic but instead would unleash their anger at one another. Colbert commonly hosted "This Week in God", a report on topics in the news pertaining to religion, presented with the help of the "God Machine". Colbert filed reports from the floor of the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention as a part of The Daily Show's award-winning coverage of the 2000 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections; many from the latter were included as part of their The Daily Show: Indecision 2004 DVD release. Other pieces that have been named as his signature segments include "Grouse Hunting in Shropshire", in which he reported on the "gayness" of British aristocracy, his mock lionization of a smoking-rights activist and apparent chain-smoker, and his cameo appearances during his faux campaign for president. In several episodes of The Daily Show, Colbert filled in as anchor in the absence of Jon Stewart, including the full week of March 3, 2002, when Stewart was scheduled to host Saturday Night Live. After Colbert left the show, Rob Corddry took over "This Week in God" segments, although a recorded sample of Colbert's voice was still used as the sound effect for the God Machine. Later episodes of The Daily Show have reused older Colbert segments under the label "Klassic Kolbert". Colbert won three Emmys as a writer of The Daily Show in 2004, 2005, and 2006.
The Colbert Report (2005–2014)
Colbert hosted his own television show, The Colbert Report, from October 17, 2005, through December 18, 2014. The Colbert Report was a Daily Show spin-off that parodied the conventions of television news broadcasting, particularly cable-personality political talk shows like The O'Reilly Factor, Hannity, and Glenn Beck. Colbert hosted the show in-character as a blustery right-wing pundit, generally considered to be an extension of his character on The Daily Show. Conceived by co-creators Stewart, Colbert, and Ben Karlin in part as an opportunity to explore "the character-driven news", the series focused less on the day-to-day news style of the Daily Show, instead frequently concentrating on the foibles of the host-character himself.
The concept for The Report was first seen in a series of Daily Show segments which advertised the then-fictional series as a joke. It was later developed by Stewart's Busboy Productions and pitched to Comedy Central, which green-lighted the program; Comedy Central had already been searching for a way to extend the successful Daily Show franchise beyond a half-hour. The series opened to strong ratings, averaging 1.2 million viewers nightly during its first week on the air. Comedy Central signed a long-term contract for The Colbert Report within its first month on the air, when it immediately established itself among the network's highest-rated shows.
Much of Colbert's personal life was reflected in his character on The Colbert Report. With the extended exposure of the character on the show, he often referenced his interest in and knowledge of Catholicism, science fiction, and The Lord of the Rings, as well as using real facts to create his character's history. His alternate persona was also raised in South Carolina, is the youngest of 11 siblings and is married. However, Colbert's actual career history in acting and comedy was often downplayed or even denied outright, and he frequently referred to having attended Dartmouth College (which was at the forefront of the conservative campus movement in the 1980s) rather than his actual alma mater, Northwestern. In July 2012, Colbert added two years to his contract with Comedy Central, extending the run of The Colbert Report until the end of 2014.
The final episode on December 18, 2014, featured a rendition of "We'll Meet Again" and appearances from former guests of the show, including Jon Stewart, Randy Newman, Bryan Cranston, Willie Nelson, Yo-Yo Ma, Mandy Patinkin, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Tom Brokaw, David Gregory, J. J. Abrams, Big Bird, Gloria Steinem, Ken Burns, James Franco, Barry Manilow, Bob Costas, Jeff Daniels, Sam Waterston, Bill de Blasio, Katie Couric, Patrick Stewart, George Lucas, Henry Kissinger, Cookie Monster, Alan Alda, Eliot Spitzer, Vince Gilligan, Paul Krugman, and a text from Bill Clinton, and appearances by Alex Trebek, U.S. and coalition Afghanistan forces, and further characters (a space station astronaut, Santa Claus, Abraham Lincoln, etc.).
The Late Show (since 2015)
On April 10, 2014, CBS announced in a press release that Colbert "will succeed David Letterman as the host of The Late Show, effective when Mr. Letterman retires from the broadcast." On January 12, 2015, CBS announced that Colbert would premiere as the Late Show host on Tuesday, September 8, 2015. The first guest of the new Late Show was George Clooney. The show has a much more political focus than David Letterman's Late Show.
During his tenure as the host of The Late Show, Colbert hosted the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards, broadcast on CBS on September 17, 2017. More recently, he and his Spartina Productions company had inked a deal with CBS Studios.
Politics
2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner
On Saturday, April 29, 2006, Colbert was the featured entertainer for the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. Standing a few yards from U.S. President George W. Bush – in front of an audience the Associated Press called a "Who's Who of power and celebrity" – Colbert delivered a searing routine targeting the president and the media. In his politically conservative character from The Colbert Report, Colbert satirized the George W. Bush Administration and the White House Press Corps with such lines as:
Colbert received a chilly response from the audience. His jokes were often met with silence and muttering, apart from the enthusiastic laughter of a few in the audience. The major media outlets paid little attention to it initially. Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism professor Todd Gitlin claimed that this was because Colbert's routine was as critical of the media as it was of Bush. Richard Cohen, also writing for The Washington Post, responded that the routine was not funny. The video of Colbert's performance became an internet and media sensation, while, in the week following the speech, ratings for The Colbert Report rose by 37% to average just under 1.5 million total viewers per episode. In Time magazine James Poniewozik called it "the political-cultural touchstone issue of 2006". Writing six months later, New York Times columnist Frank Rich referred to Colbert's speech as a "cultural primary" and called it the "defining moment" of the 2006 midterm elections.
2008 presidential bid
Under his fictional persona in The Colbert Report, Colbert dropped hints of a potential presidential run throughout 2007, with speculation intensifying following the release of his book, I Am America (And So Can You!), which was rumored to be a sign that he was indeed testing the waters for a future bid for the White House. On October 16, 2007, he announced his candidacy on his show, stating his intention to run on both the Republican and Democratic platforms, but only as a "favorite son" in his native South Carolina. He later abandoned plans to run as a Republican due to the $35,000 fee required to file for the South Carolina primary; however, he continued to seek a place on the Democratic ballot and on October 28, 2007, campaigned in the South Carolina state capital of Columbia, where he was presented with the key to the city by Mayor Bob Coble.
After announcing his presidential ticket, he asked his viewers to cast their votes by donating to Donorschoose.org, an online charity connecting individuals to classrooms in need.
Colbert's promotion inspired $68,000 in donations to South Carolina classrooms, which benefited over 14,000 low-income students.
Colbert teamed up with Donorschoose.org again in 2008 by asking supporters of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to do the same. As a lead-up to the Pennsylvania primary, he created a "straw poll that makes a difference" by which people could donate to Pennsylvania classroom projects in honor of their favorite candidate.
Colbert viewers donated $185,000 to projects reaching 43,000 students in Pennsylvania public schools.
On November 1, 2007, the South Carolina Democratic Party executive council voted 13–3 to refuse Colbert's application onto the ballot. "The general sense of the council was that he wasn't a serious candidate and that was why he wasn't selected to be on the ballot", stated John Werner, the party's director. Several days later he announced that he was dropping out of the race, saying he did not wish to put the country through an agonizing Supreme Court battle. CNN has reported that Obama supporters pressured the South Carolina Democratic Executive Council to keep Colbert off the ballot. One anonymous member of the council told CNN that former State Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum had placed pressure on them to refuse Colbert's application despite his steady rise in polls.
Though Colbert's real-life presidential campaign had ended, Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada established in an interview on The Colbert Report that Colbert's campaign was still going strong in the fictional Marvel Universe, citing the cover art of a then-recent issue of The Amazing Spider-Man which featured a Colbert campaign billboard in the background. Background appearances of Colbert campaign ads continued to appear in Marvel Comics publications, as late as August 2008's Secret Invasion No.5 (which also features a cameo of an alien Skrull posing as Colbert). In October 2008, Colbert made an extended 8-page appearance webslinging with Spider-Man in The Amazing Spider-Man issue No. 573. Colbert voiced the president of the U.S. in the 2009 film Monsters vs. Aliens.
2009 solidarity with U.S. troops in Iraq War
Stephen Colbert arrived in Baghdad, Iraq, on June 5, 2009, to film a week of shows called "Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando" sponsored by the USO (United Service Organizations). Colbert had a suit tailored for him in the Army Combat Uniform pattern. During the first episode (which featured a cameo appearance from U.S. president Barack Obama), Colbert had his hair cropped in a military style to show his solidarity with the troops. One Army major said that "shaving of the hair is an amazing show of support" that was "very touching." USO Senior Vice President John Hanson said the shows are an important diversion for the troops.
2010 Congressional testimony
On September 24, 2010, Colbert testified in character before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Security. He was invited by committee chairwoman Zoe Lofgren to describe his experience participating in the United Farm Workers' "Take Our Jobs" program, where he spent a day working alongside migrant workers in upstate New York. At the end of his often-humorous testimony, Colbert broke character in responding to a question from Rep. Judy Chu, D-CA, and explained his purpose for being at the hearing:
Democratic committee member John Conyers questioned whether it was appropriate for the comedian to appear before Congress and asked him to leave the hearing. Though Colbert offered to depart at the direction of the committee chairwoman, Lofgren requested that he stay at least until all opening testimony had been completed, whereupon Conyers withdrew his request.
Conservative pundits took aim at Colbert's Congress testimony not long after.
2010 Washington, D.C. rallies
In September 2010, following Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally, a campaign developed that called for Colbert to hold his own rally at the Lincoln Memorial. On the September 10, 2010, episode of the Daily Show and The Colbert Report, Stewart and Colbert made preannouncements of a future event. On September 16, 2010, Stewart and Colbert announced competing rallies on the Washington, D.C., Mall on October 30, 2010, Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity", and Colbert's "March to Keep Fear Alive". Both were eventually merged into the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.
2011 Political Super PAC
In May 2011, Colbert filed a request with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) asking for a media exemption for coverage of his political action committee, ColbertPAC, on The Colbert Report.
In June 2011, during a public meeting, the FEC voted 5–1 to grant The Colbert Report a limited media exemption. The exemption allows unlimited donations of airtime and show resources to promote the Colbert Super PAC without requiring disclosure to the FEC, but only for ads appearing on The Colbert Report. Following the hearing, Colbert formally filed paperwork for the creation of his Super PAC with the FEC secretary.
2012 South Carolina GOP primary
After the 2012 New Hampshire primary, a poll for the subsequent South Carolina primary taken by Public Policy Polling (of 1,112 likely GOP voters, Jan 5–7, 2012) was reported to place Colbert at 5%, one point ahead of Jon Huntsman polling at 4%, in spite of the fact that Colbert was not on the ballot. This poll showed Colbert to be closely behind Rick Perry's 7% and Ron Paul's 8% (with Romney at 27%, Gingrich 23% and Santorum at 18%). On the January 11 episode of The Colbert Report, Colbert asked his audience if he should run for president in South Carolina, to which he received strong applause. He then stated that he would be making a "Major Announcement" during the next day's show. On January 12, Colbert started his show by discussing his role in the presidential campaign, then addressed the law preventing him from being a presidential candidate while running his Super PAC. With the help of his lawyer Trevor Potter, he then signed over control of his Super PAC to Jon Stewart, with the organization title then being referred to as "The Definitely Not Coordinating With Stephen Colbert Super PAC". Immediately after this legal block was out of the way, Colbert announced, "I am forming an exploratory committee to lay the groundwork for my possible candidacy for the President of the United States of South Carolina. I'm doin' it!" He reiterated in the interview portion of that show that "I'm still in the exploratory phase" of his presidential campaign.
On the January 16, 2012, episode, Colbert satirically encouraged his viewers to vote for Herman Cain in the South Carolina primary. As Cain was still on the ballot, despite having recently dropped out of the race, Colbert announced that he would consider any votes cast for Cain to be in direct support of his own possible candidacy.
Other work
Colbert is co-author of the satirical text-and-picture novel Wigfield: The Can Do Town That Just May Not, which was published in 2003 by Hyperion Books. The novel was a collaboration between Colbert, Amy Sedaris, and Paul Dinello, and tells the story of a small town threatened by the impending destruction of a massive dam. The narrative is presented as a series of fictional interviews with the town's residents, accompanied by photos. The three authors toured performing an adaptation of Wigfield on stage the same year the book was released.
Colbert appeared in a small supporting role in the 2005 film adaptation of Bewitched. He has made guest appearances on the television series Curb Your Enthusiasm, Spin City, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and on the first season of the US improvisational comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway?. He voiced the characters of Reducto and Phil Ken Sebben in the Adult Swim's Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, but left the show in 2005 to work on The Colbert Report. His characters were both killed, though he returned to voice Phil for the series finale. Colbert also has provided voices for Cartoon Network's The Venture Bros., Comedy Central's Crank Yankers, and American Dad!, and for Canadian animated comedy series The Wrong Coast. He appeared as Homer Simpson's life coach, Colby Krause, in The Simpsons episode "He Loves to Fly and He D'ohs".
Colbert filled in for Sam Seder on the second episode of The Majority Report on Air America Radio, and has also done reports for The Al Franken Show. He appeared on a track on Wig in a Box, a tribute album for Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Colbert read the part of Leopold Bloom in Bloomsday on Broadway XXIV: Love Literature Language Lust: Leopold's Women Bloom on June 16, 2005, at Symphony Space in New York City. He appeared in a series of TV commercials for General Motors, as a not-too-bright investigator searching for the elusive (and non-existent in real life) "Mr. Goodwrench". He also portrayed the letter Z in Sesame Street: All-Star Alphabet, a 2005 video release.
Colbert is a producer of The 1 Second Film, the world's largest nonprofit collaborative art film. His video request that IMDb list his credit for The1 Second Film ("it is as valid as most of my credits") enabled thousands of the film's producers to be listed in the massive movie database until they were removed in early 2007.
Colbert has released one book associated with The Colbert Report, I Am America (And So Can You!). It was released on October 7, 2007, by Grand Central Publishing. Grand Central Publishing is the successor to Warner Books, which published America (The Book), written by The Daily Show staff. The book contains similar political satire, but was written primarily by Colbert himself rather than as a collaboration with his Colbert Report writing staff.
On November 23, 2008, his Christmas special, A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!, aired on Comedy Central. It was released on DVD in November 2008.
In January 2010, Colbert was named the assistant sports psychologist for the US Olympic speed skating team at the 2010 Winter Olympics. He was also invited to be part of NBC's 2010 Winter Olympics coverage team by Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports. In April 2011, Colbert performed as Harry in the concert-style revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical Company, presented by the New York Philharmonic at the Lincoln Center. The show, featuring Neil Patrick Harris in the starring role, ran for four nights and was filmed for later showings in movie theaters, which began June 15. In May 2011, Colbert joined the Charleston to Bermuda Race yachting race, as captain of the ship "the Spirit of Juno". He finished second, five miles behind leaders "Tucana".
Since 2012, Colbert has collaborated with the Montclair Film Festival, of which his wife is a founder and current president of its board. Every year since its foundation, Colbert has participated by hosting an annual fundraising event and leading Q&As and conversations with directors, writers, journalists, and actors such as: Jon Stewart, Rob Reiner, Steve Carell, J. J. Abrams, David Itzkoff, Ethan Hawke, Rachel Weisz, and Meryl Streep. He is also part of the Montclair Film advisory board.
After the resignation of South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint to run Heritage Foundation, Colbert was named a possible candidate for appointment to the seat being vacated by DeMint, which would have triggered a special election in 2014 to finish out DeMint's term. Although Governor Nikki Haley announced promptly that she had no intention to nominate Colbert to the Senate, a poll showed Colbert as a favorite among South Carolina voters.
Colbert guest-hosted Only in Monroe, a public access television show in Monroe, Michigan, for an episode that aired July 1, 2015. He interviewed the program's regular hosts, and also the rapper Eminem (whom he pretended never to have heard of), and put a humorous slant on the local news and community calendar.
On July 17, 2016, Colbert hijacked the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, while dressed as Caesar Flickerman from The Hunger Games series. After he was taken down from the stage, he commented, "Look, I know I am not supposed to be up here but let's be honest, neither is Donald Trump." Colbert also dressed as Flickerman on his show, prior to the stunt, to announce the candidates who had ended their runs in the 2016 election.
Aside from hosting his talk shows, Colbert has gone on to host other types of shows. Since 2014, Colbert has hosted the Kennedy Center Honors for three consecutive years. In 2017, Colbert hosted the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards.
In 2018 it was reported that Showtime was developing Hello Nancy, a biopic based on the nonfiction book On Her Trail, My Mother, Nancy Dickerson, TV News' First Woman Star by John Dickerson, with Colbert and his wife Evelyn serving as executive producers. The couple also served as executive producers for In & Of Itself, a film version of Derek DelGaudio's off-Broadway show of the same name.
Influences
Colbert has said his comedy influences include: Don Novello, Phil Silvers, Alec Guinness, Bill Cosby, George Carlin, Dean Martin, Jon Stewart, Monty Python, Steve Martin, and David Letterman. In 2017, Colbert said due to the sexual assault allegations made against Cosby, he can no longer listen to his comedy.
Colbert has also cited Jim Gaffigan, Maria Bamford, Joe Pera, John Mulaney, and Eric Andre, as some of his favorite contemporary comedians.
Among comedians who say they were influenced by Colbert are Nathan Fielder, James Corden, Mindy Kaling, Hasan Minhaj, Jordan Klepper, Ziwe Fumudoh, John Mulaney, Derrick Beckles, Julie Klausner, and Billy Eichner.
Personal life
Colbert is a practicing Roman Catholic and used to teach Sunday school. He is an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church Monastery. Colbert is an avid reader and has cited authors: J.R.R. Tolkien, J.D. Salinger, Robertson Davies, George Saunders, Larry Niven, Henry Kuttner and Isaac Asimov as his favorites, among others.
Colbert has been married to Evelyn "Evie" McGee-Colbert since 1993. She is the daughter of prominent Charleston civil litigator Joseph McGee, of the firm Buist Moore Smythe McGee. His wife appeared with him in an episode of Strangers with Candy as his mother. She also had an uncredited cameo as a nurse in the series pilot and a credited one (as his wife Clair) in the film. McGee-Colbert actually met Jon Stewart before she met her future husband in 1990. They met at the world premiere of Hydrogen Jukebox at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston. Colbert later described the first moment he met Evie as being a love at first sight encounter; however, moments after they met, they both realized they had grown up together in Charleston and had many mutual friends.
The couple have three children. They live in Montclair, New Jersey.
During his college and Second City years, Colbert suffered from bouts of depression and anxiety, for which he had to be medicated. In a 2018 interview, Colbert told Rolling Stone:
I needed to be medicated when I was younger to deal with my anxiety that I had thrown my life away by attempting to do something that so few people actually get away with, or succeed at ... Xanax was just lovely. Y'know, for a while. And then I realized that the gears were still smoking. I just couldn't hear them anymore. But I could feel them, I could feel the gearbox heating up and smoke pouring out of me ... I stopped the Xanax after, like, nine days. I went, 'This isn't helping.' So I just suffered through it. I'd sometimes hold the bottle, to go like, 'I could stop this feeling if I wanted, but I'm not going to. Because I know if I stop the feeling, somehow I'm not working through it, like I have got to go through the tunnel with the spiders in it.'
And then one morning I woke up and my skin wasn't on fire, and it took me a while to figure out what it was. I wake up the next morning, I'm perfectly fine, to the point where my body's still humming. I'm a bell that's been rung so hard that I can still feel myself vibrating. But the actual sound was gone [because] I was starting rehearsal that day to create a new show. And then I went, 'Oh, my God, I can never stop performing.' Creating something is what helped me from just spinning apart like an unweighted flywheel. And I haven't stopped since.
Colbert used the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator during a segment of The Late Show, which identified him as an INFP.
Political views
Although, by his own account, he was not particularly political before joining the cast of The Daily Show, Colbert has described himself as a Democrat according to a 2004 interview. In an interview at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard Institute of Politics, he said he has "no problems with Republicans, just Republican policies".
Colbert supports the implementation of the Medicare for All plan introduced by Bernie Sanders, considering it "a sensible fix to Obamacare". When asked about his views on abortion, Colbert positioned himself as pro-choice. On the intersection of faith and politics, Colbert has pointed out that his views are in line with those of Cesar Chávez.
Awards and honors
In 2000, Colbert and the other Daily Show writers were the recipients of three Emmy Awards as writers for The Daily Show and again in 2005 and 2006. In 2005 he was nominated for a Satellite Award for his performance on The Colbert Report and again in 2006. He was also nominated for three Emmys for The Colbert Report in 2006, including Best Performance in a Variety, Musical Program or Special, which he lost to Barry Manilow. Manilow and Colbert would go on to jokingly sign and notarize a revolving biannual custody agreement for the Emmy on The Colbert Report episode aired on October 30, 2006. He lost the same category to Tony Bennett in 2007 and Don Rickles in 2008.
In January 2006, the American Dialect Society named truthiness, which Colbert coined on the premiere episode of The Colbert Report, as its 2005 Word of the Year. Colbert devoted time on five successive episodes to bemoaning the failure of the Associated Press to mention his role in popularizing the word truthiness in its news coverage of the Word of the Year. On December 9, 2006, Merriam-Webster also announced that it selected truthiness as its Word of the Year for 2006. Votes were accepted on their website, and according to poll results, "truthiness" won by a five-to-one margin.
In June 2006, after speaking at the school's commencement ceremony, Colbert received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree from Knox College. Time named Stephen Colbert as one of the 100 most influential people in 2006 and 2012 and in May 2006, New York magazine listed Colbert (and Jon Stewart) as one of its top dozen influential persons in media. Colbert was named Person of the Year by the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado on March 3, 2007, and was also given the Speaker of the Year Award by The Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) on March 24, 2007, for his "drive to expose the rhetorical shortcomings of contemporary political discourse".
Colbert was named the 2nd Sexiest TV News Anchor in September 2006 by Maxim, next to Mélissa Theuriau of France and was the only man featured on the list. In November 2006, he was named a "sexy surprise" by People in the Sexiest Man Alive honors and in the December 2006 issue of GQ he was named one of GQ's "Men of the Year".
In 2012, he was listed as No. 69 on Maxim Magazine's Hot 100, becoming the first man to be included on the list.
Colbert has received three Peabody Awards, in 2007, 2011, and 2020. He was nominated for five TCA Awards for The Colbert Report by the Television Critics Association.
After the Saginaw Spirit defeated the Oshawa Generals in Ontario Junior League Hockey, Oshawa Mayor John Gray declared March 20, 2007 (the mayor's own birthday), Stephen Colbert Day, honoring a previous bet with Stephen. At the event, Mayor Gray referred to the publicity the bet brought the city, remarking, "This is the way to lose a bet".
Colbert was honored for the Gutsiest Move on the Spike TV Guys' Choice Awards on June 13, 2007, for his performance at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. In August 2007, Virgin America named an airplane, "Air Colbert", in his honor. On October 28, 2007, Colbert received the key to the city of Columbia, South Carolina, from Mayor Bob Coble.
On December 20, 2007, Colbert was named Celebrity of the Year by The Associated Press. On April 2, 2008, he received a Peabody Award for The Colbert Report, saying in response, "I proudly accept this award and begrudgingly forgive the Peabody Committee for taking three years to recognize greatness".
In 2008, Colbert won the Emmy Award for writing again, this time as a writer for The Colbert Report. Colbert delivered the Class Day address to the graduating class of Princeton University on June 2, 2008, and accepted the Class of 2008 Understandable Vanity Award, consisting of a sketch of Colbert and a mirror. He also has been announced as the Person of the Year for the 12th annual Webby Awards.
In January 2010, Colbert received the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for his album A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!. He also announced the nominees for Song of the Year while toting a pre-released Apple iPad. Colbert was the 2011 commencement speaker for Northwestern University, and received an honorary degree. In 2013, Colbert again won the Emmy award for writing for The Colbert Report. In 2014, Colbert won the 2014 Best Spoken Word Album for his audiobook America Again: Re-becoming The Greatness We Never Weren't.
In January 2013, Rolling Stone placed him at number 2 in their "The 50 Funniest People Now" list. In December 2014, Paste named his Twitter one of "The 75 Best Twitter Accounts of 2014" ranking it at number 7. Colbert received an honorary degree from Wake Forest University as the 2015 commencement speaker.
In 2015, Colbert was awarded the third highest honor within the Department of the Army Civilian Awards, the Outstanding Civilian Service Award, for substantial contributions to the U.S. Army community.
In 2017 and 2018, Colbert was named one of "The 35 Most Powerful People in New York Media" by The Hollywood Reporter. He was chosen as one of GQ's "Men of the Year" for its December 2017 issue. Colbert was placed at number 32 in Vanity Fair "2018 New Establishment List". Other placements in earlier lists include number 40 in 2017 and number 28 in 2011.
In May 2021, Colbert received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Yale University.
Ben & Jerry's AmeriCone Dream ice cream
In February 2007, Ben & Jerry's unveiled a new ice cream flavor in honor of Colbert, named Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream. Colbert waited until Easter to sample the ice cream because he "gave up sweets for Lent". Colbert donated all proceeds to charity through the new Stephen Colbert AmeriCone Dream Fund, which distributes the money to various causes.
Species named in honor
At least five species have been given scientific names honoring Colbert. In 2008 a species of California trapdoor spider was named Aptostichus stephencolberti. The spider was named for Colbert after he reported on his television series that Jason Bond, a professor of biology at East Carolina University, had named a different species of spider Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi after the Canadian rock star Neil Young, and began to appeal for a species of animal to be named after him. On a later edition of The Colbert Report, Colbert revealed that Bond would name a spider after him, with Colbert claiming, "And all I had to do was shamelessly beg on national television." Other species named for Colbert include a species of Venezuelan diving beetle named Agaporomorphus colberti and a Chilean stonefly named Diamphipnoa colberti, both formally described in 2008. On his 45th birthday, Colbert was sent a framed print of his eponymous beetle by the biologists who named it. In 2014, a species of parasitic wasp from Ecuador, Aleiodes colberti, was named for Colbert, along with newly described species named for celebrities Jon Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, Ellen DeGeneres, and Shakira, and in 2016 a rove beetle, Sonoma colberti, was named after Colbert's on-screen persona.
COLBERT Treadmill
In 2009, NASA engineered a new treadmill for the International Space Station. It was taken to the ISS by the Space Shuttle Discovery during the STS-128 mission in August 2009. The complex machine is now used eight hours daily by astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the space station in order to maintain their muscle mass and bone density while spending long periods of time in a zero-gravity environment. While engineers at NASA were constructing this treadmill, it was simply called T-2 for more than two years. However, on April 14, 2009, NASA renamed it the "Combined Operational Load-Bearing External Resistance Treadmill", or COLBERT. NASA named the treadmill after Colbert, who took an interest during the Node3 naming census for the ISS module, Tranquility.
Colbert urged his followers to post the name "Colbert", which upon completion of the census received the most entries totaling 230,539, some 40,000 votes more than the second-place choice, Serenity. The COLBERT is expected to last the life of the ISS and will have seen about 38,000 miles of running when the Space Station is retired in 2024 or later, but it was also built with a 150,000-mile lifespan (if needed until 2028 or beyond). Colbert realized he was the recipient of an extremely rare honor—the COLBERT (a backronym) is the only piece of NASA-engineered equipment in space that is named after a living human being—when astronaut Sunita Williams came on The Colbert Report to announce that NASA had named the treadmill after him.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theatre
Published works
Colbert, Dinello, Sedaris. Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just May Not (Hyperion, May 19, 2004)
America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction (Warner Books; September 2004)
I Am America (And So Can You!) (Grand Central Publishing; October 9, 2007)
America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't (Grand Central Publishing; October 2, 2012)
I Am a Pole (And So Can You!) (Grand Central Publishing; May 8, 2012)
Stephen Colbert's Midnight Confessions (Simon & Schuster; September 5, 2017)
See also
New Yorkers in journalism
Political satire
References
Further reading
External links
Colbert interview transcript, 60 Minutes. (April 30, 2006)
1964 births
Living people
20th-century American comedians
21st-century American comedians
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American novelists
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century Roman Catholics
American comedy writers
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male novelists
American male stage actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
American media critics
American people of English descent
American people of German descent
American people of Irish descent
American political commentators
American satirists
American television talk show hosts
American television writers
Audiobook narrators
Grammy Award winners
Hampden–Sydney College alumni
Late night television talk show hosts
Male actors from Washington, D.C.
Male feminists
American male television writers
New Jersey Democrats
Northwestern University School of Communication alumni
Peabody Award winners
Male actors from Charleston, South Carolina
People from Bethesda, Maryland
People from Montclair, New Jersey
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Science fiction fans
South Carolina Democrats
Candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election
Webby Award winners
Writers from Charleston, South Carolina
Writers Guild of America Award winners
Screenwriters from Washington, D.C.
Novelists from South Carolina
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers
Catholics from New Jersey
Catholics from Maryland
Catholics from South Carolina
Tolkien fandom
21st-century American male writers
Television producers from New Jersey | true | [
"Kanan Malhotra is an Indian model and television actor.\n\nTelevision career\nIn 2010, he made his television debut in the show Chand Chupa Badal Mein on Star Plus where he played the cameo role of Aditya. He then appeared in the Zee TV show Apno Ke Liye Geeta Ka Dharmayudh as Geeta's Brother. In 2011, he starred as Dhruv Ahluwalia in the Imagine TV television show Sawaare Sabke Sapne... Preeto.\n\nIn 2012, Malhotra rose to fame with his portrayal of Daljeet Singh in the romantic series Rab Se Sohna Isshq on Zee TV. He later bagged the episodic role of Siddharth Kapoor in the episodic drama Pyaar Tune Kya Kiya on Zing. He then went on to appear in several mythological drama series, including Suryaputra Karn on Sony Entertainment Television and Mahakali- Anth hi Aarambh hai & Shani on Colors TV.\n\nIn 2018, he appeared in Colors TV's horror episodic drama Kaun Hai? as Rudrapratap Singh. In the same year, he went on to appear in Colors TV's supernatural series Tantra as Nirvaan Khanna.\nIn 2019, he appeared as Vivek Oberoi in show called Navrangi Re and in the same year he played the role of Bharat in show Ram Siya ke Luv Kush till the show went off-air in 2020.\nFrom 2020, he is playing the role of Lord Vishnu in Devi Adiparashakti.\nHe is currently playing the role of Yudhishthir in Star Bharat serial RadhaKrishn.\n\nPersonal life\nMalhotra met television actress Chahat Khanna in 2010 and they dated for 2 years but the couple had a falling out. after which he began dating his Rab Se Sohna Isshq co-star Ekta Kaul but the couple split up in 2013.\n\nIn 2014, he married Delhi girl Aakanksha Dhingra.\n\nTelevision\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\nPeople from New Delhi\nIndian male television actors\nIndian male soap opera actors\n1987 births\n21st-century Indian male actors",
"Stephen Henry Bear (born 15 January 1990) is an English reality show participant who won Celebrity Big Brother.\n\nCareer\nHis first TV appearance was in 2011 on Shipwrecked. He also went on to appear in the MTV reality show Ex on the Beach in 2015, and then again in 2016. He won the eighteenth series of Celebrity Big Brother in 2016.\n\nCriminal investigation\nBear was arrested in January 2021, following an investigation into the alleged disclosure of sexual photographs without consent. He was charged on 14 May 2021 with voyeurism, disclosing private, sexual photographs and films with intent to cause distress, and harassment without violence.\n\nReality TV appearances\n\nBook\n Bear's Necessities (2017)\n\nReferences\n\n1990 births\nLiving people\nParticipants in British reality television series\nReality show winners\nPeople from Walthamstow\nThe Challenge (TV series) contestants"
] |
[
"Stephen Colbert",
"Strangers with Candy",
"What did Colbert study?",
"Another running joke throughout the series was that Noblet, a closeted homosexual, was having a \"secret\" affair with fellow teacher Geoffrey Jellineck,",
"What year did he graduate in?",
"I don't know.",
"What was his first job?",
"During the same period, Colbert worked again with Sedaris and Dinello to develop a new comedy series for Comedy Central, Strangers with Candy.",
"Who got him his first job?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he appear in a TV Show?",
"Strangers with Candy"
] | C_50f0971a1da64891b4732fcb58fabe60_0 | What show that he was in got canceled? | 6 | What show with Stephen Colbert got cancelled? | Stephen Colbert | During the same period, Colbert worked again with Sedaris and Dinello to develop a new comedy series for Comedy Central, Strangers with Candy. Comedy Central picked up the series in 1998 after Colbert had already begun working on The Daily Show. As a result, he accepted a reduced role, filming only around 20 Daily Show segments a year while he worked on the new series. Strangers with Candy was conceived of as a parody of after school specials, following the life of Jerri Blank, a 46-year-old dropout who returns to finish high school after 32 years of life on the street. Most noted by critics for its use of offensive humor, it concluded each episode by delivering to the audience a skewed, politically incorrect moral lesson. Colbert served as a main writer alongside Sedaris and Dinello, and portrayed Jerri's strict but uninformed history teacher, Chuck Noblet, seen throughout the series dispensing inaccurate information to his classes. Colbert has likened this to the character he played on The Daily Show and later The Colbert Report, claiming that he has a very specific niche in portraying "poorly informed, high-status idiot" characters. Another running joke throughout the series was that Noblet, a closeted homosexual, was having a "secret" affair with fellow teacher Geoffrey Jellineck, despite the fact that their relationship was apparent to everyone around them. This obliviousness also appears in Colbert's Daily Show and Colbert Report character. Thirty episodes of Strangers with Candy were made, which aired on Comedy Central in 1999 and 2000. Though its ratings were not remarkable during its initial run, it has been characterized as a cult show with a small but dedicated audience. Colbert reprised his role for a film adaptation, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and had a limited release in 2006. The film received mixed reviews. Colbert also co-wrote the screenplay with Sedaris and Dinello. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Stephen Tyrone Colbert ( ; born May 13, 1964) is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is best known for hosting the satirical Comedy Central program The Colbert Report from 2005 to 2014 and the CBS talk program The Late Show with Stephen Colbert beginning in September 2015.
Colbert originally studied to be a dramatic actor, but became interested in improvisational theater while attending Northwestern University, where he met Second City director Del Close. Colbert first performed professionally as an understudy for Steve Carell at Second City Chicago, where his troupe mates included Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris, comedians with whom he developed the sketch comedy series Exit 57. He wrote and performed on the short-lived Dana Carvey Show before collaborating with Sedaris and Dinello again on the cult television series Strangers with Candy. He gained attention for his role on the latter as closeted gay history teacher Chuck Noblet.
Colbert's work as a correspondent on Comedy Central's news-parody series The Daily Show gained him wide recognition. In 2005, he left The Daily Show to host The Colbert Report. Following The Daily Shows news-parody concept, The Colbert Report was a parody of personality-driven political opinion shows including The O'Reilly Factor, in which he portrayed a caricatured version of conservative political pundits, earning Colbert an invitation to perform as featured entertainer at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in 2006, which he did in character. This event led to the series became one of Comedy Central's highest-rated series. After ending The Colbert Report, he was hired in 2015 to succeed retiring David Letterman as host of the Late Show on CBS. He hosted the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards in September 2017.
Colbert has won nine Primetime Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and three Peabody Awards. Colbert was named one of Times 100 Most Influential People in 2006 and 2012. Colbert's book, I Am America (And So Can You!), was listed No.1 on The New York Times Best Seller list in 2007.
Early life
Colbert was born in Washington, D.C., the youngest of eleven children in a Catholic family. He spent his early years in Bethesda, Maryland. He grew up in the Charleston suburb of James Island, South Carolina. Colbert and his siblings, in descending order by age, are James III, Edward, Mary, William, Margo, Thomas, Jay, Elizabeth, Paul, Peter, and Stephen. His father, James William Colbert Jr., was an immunologist and medical school dean at Yale University, Saint Louis University, and finally at the Medical University of South Carolina, where, from 1969, he served as the school's first vice president of academic affairs. Stephen's mother, Lorna Elizabeth Colbert (née Tuck), was a homemaker.
In interviews, Colbert has described his parents as devout people who also strongly valued intellectualism, and taught their children it was possible to question the church, and still be Catholic. In an interview, Lorna has described Stephen as rambunctious. As a child, he observed that Southerners were often depicted as being less intelligent than other characters on scripted television; to avoid that stereotype, he taught himself to imitate the speech of American news anchors.
While Colbert sometimes comedically claims his surname is French, he is of 15/16ths Irish ancestry; one of his paternal great-great-grandmothers was of German and English descent. Many of his ancestors emigrated from Ireland to North America in the 19th century before and during the Great Famine. Originally, his surname was pronounced in English; Stephen Colbert's father, James, wanted to pronounce the name , but maintained the pronunciation out of respect for his own father. He offered his children the option to pronounce the name whichever way they preferred. Stephen started using later in life when he transferred to Northwestern University, taking advantage of the opportunity to reinvent himself in a new place where no one knew him. Stephen's brother Edward, an intellectual property attorney, retained ; this was shown in a February 12, 2009, appearance on The Colbert Report, when his second oldest brother asked him, " or ?" Ed responded "", to which Stephen jokingly replied, "See you in Hell".
On September 11, 1974, when Colbert was ten years old, his father and his two brothers nearest in age, Peter and Paul, died in the crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 while it was attempting to land in Charlotte, North Carolina. They were en route to enroll the two boys at Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut. He has discussed the impact on him and his philosophy of grief and suffering. Lorna Colbert relocated the family from James Island to the George Chisolm House, in downtown Charleston and ran the carriage house as a bed and breakfast. Colbert found the transition difficult and did not easily make friends in his new neighborhood. Colbert later described himself during this time as detached, lacking a sense of importance regarding the things with which other children concerned themselves.
He developed a love of science fiction and fantasy novels, especially the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, of which he remains an avid fan. During his adolescence, he also developed an intense interest in fantasy role-playing games, especially Dungeons & Dragons, a pastime which he later characterized as an early experience in acting and improvisation.
Colbert attended Charleston's Episcopal Porter-Gaud School, where he participated in several school plays and contributed to the school newspaper but was not highly motivated academically. During his adolescence, he briefly fronted A Shot in the Dark, a Rolling Stones cover band. When he was younger, he had hoped to study marine biology, but surgery intended to repair a severely perforated eardrum caused him inner ear damage severe enough to preclude a career involving scuba diving, and leaving him deaf in his right ear.
For a while, he was uncertain whether he would attend college, but ultimately he applied and was accepted to Hampden–Sydney College in Virginia, where a friend had also enrolled. Arriving in 1982, he majored in philosophy and continued to participate in plays. He found the curriculum rigorous, but was more focused than he had been in high school and was able to apply himself to his studies. Despite the lack of a significant theater community at Hampden–Sydney, Colbert's interest in acting escalated during this time. After two years, he transferred in 1984 to Northwestern University as a theater major to study performance, emboldened by the realization that he loved performing, even when no one was coming to shows. He graduated from Northwestern's School of Communication in 1986.
Early career in comedy
While at Northwestern, Colbert studied with the intent of becoming a dramatic actor; mostly he performed in experimental plays and was uninterested in comedy. He began performing improvisation while in college, both in the campus improv team No Fun Mud Piranhas and at the Annoyance Theatre in Chicago as a part of Del Close's ImprovOlympic at a time when the project was focused on competitive, long-form improvisation, rather than improvisational comedy. "I wasn't gonna do Second City", Colbert later recalled, "because those Annoyance people looked down on Second City because they thought it wasn't pure improv – there was a slightly snobby, mystical quality to the Annoyance people". After Colbert graduated in 1986, however, he was in need of a job. A friend who was employed at Second City's box office offered him work answering phones and selling souvenirs. Colbert accepted and discovered that Second City employees were entitled to take classes at their training center free of charge. Despite his earlier aversion to the comedy group, he signed up for improvisation classes and enjoyed the experience greatly.
Shortly thereafter, he was hired to perform with Second City's touring company, initially as an understudy for Steve Carell. It was there he met Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello, with whom he often collaborated later in his career. By their retelling, the three comedians did not get along at first – Dinello thought Colbert was uptight, pretentious and cold, while Colbert thought of Dinello as "an illiterate thug" – but the trio became close friends while touring together, discovering that they shared a similar comic sensibility.
When Sedaris and Dinello were offered the opportunity to create a television series for HBO Downtown Productions, Colbert left Second City and relocated to New York to work with them on the sketch comedy show Exit 57. The series debuted on Comedy Central in 1995 and aired through 1996. Although it lasted only 12 episodes, the show received favorable reviews and was nominated for five CableACE Awards in 1995, in categories including best writing, performance, and comedy series.
Television career
The Dana Carvey Show (1996)
Following the cancelation of Exit 57, Colbert worked for six months as a cast member and writer on The Dana Carvey Show, alongside former Second City castmate Steve Carell, and also Robert Smigel, Charlie Kaufman, Louis C.K., and Dino Stamatopoulos, among others. The series, described by one reviewer as "kamikaze satire" in "borderline-questionable taste", had sponsors pull out after its first episode aired and was canceled after seven episodes. Colbert then worked briefly as a freelance writer for Saturday Night Live with Robert Smigel. Smigel brought his animated sketch, The Ambiguously Gay Duo, to SNL from The Dana Carvey Show; Colbert provided the voice of Ace on both series, opposite Steve Carell as Gary. Needing money, he also worked as a script consultant for VH1 and MTV, before taking a job filming humorous correspondent segments for Good Morning America. Only two of the segments he proposed were ever produced and only one aired, but the job led his agent to refer him to The Daily Show's producer, Madeline Smithberg, who hired Colbert on a trial basis in 1997.
Strangers with Candy (1999–2000)
During the same period, Colbert worked again with Sedaris and Dinello to develop a new comedy series for Comedy Central, Strangers with Candy. Comedy Central picked up the series in 1998 after Colbert had already begun working on The Daily Show. As a result, he accepted a reduced role, filming only around 20 Daily Show segments a year while he worked on the new series.
Strangers with Candy was conceived of as a parody of after school specials, following the life of Jerri Blank, a 46-year-old dropout who returns to finish high school after 32 years of life on the street. Most noted by critics for its use of offensive humor, it concluded each episode by delivering to the audience a skewed, politically incorrect moral lesson. Colbert served as a main writer alongside Sedaris and Dinello, and portrayed Jerri's strict but uninformed history teacher, Chuck Noblet, seen throughout the series dispensing inaccurate information to his classes. Colbert has likened this to the character he played on The Daily Show and later The Colbert Report, claiming that he has a very specific niche in portraying "poorly informed, high-status idiot" characters. Another running joke throughout the series was that Noblet, a closeted homosexual, was having a "secret" affair with fellow teacher Geoffrey Jellineck, despite the fact that their relationship was apparent to everyone around them. This obliviousness also appears in Colbert's Daily Show and Colbert Report character.
Thirty episodes of Strangers with Candy were made, which aired on Comedy Central in 1999 and 2000. Though its ratings were not remarkable during its initial run, it has been characterized as a cult show with a small but dedicated audience. Colbert reprised his role for a film adaptation which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and had a limited release in 2006. The film received mixed reviews. Colbert also co-wrote the screenplay with Sedaris and Dinello.
The Daily Show (1997–2005)
Colbert joined the cast of Comedy Central's parody-news series The Daily Show in 1997, when the show was in its second season. Originally one of four correspondents who filmed segments from remote locations in the style of network news field reporters, Colbert was referred to as "the new guy" on-air for his first two years on the show, during which time Craig Kilborn served as host. When Kilborn left the show prior to the 1999 season, Jon Stewart took over hosting duties, also serving as a writer and co-executive producer. From this point, the series gradually began to take on a more political tone and increase in popularity, particularly in the latter part of the 2000 U.S. presidential election season. The roles of the show's correspondents were expanded to include more in-studio segments and international reports, which were almost always done in the studio with the aid of a greenscreen.
Unlike Stewart, who essentially hosted The Daily Show as himself, Colbert developed a correspondent character for his pieces on the series that was a parody of conservative political pundits such as Bill O'Reilly. Colbert has described his correspondent character as "a well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot" and "a fool who has spent a lot of his life playing not the fool – one who is able to cover it at least well enough to deal with the subjects that he deals with". Colbert was frequently pitted against knowledgeable interview subjects, or against Stewart in scripted exchanges, with the resultant dialogue demonstrating the character's lack of knowledge of whatever subject he is discussing. Colbert also made generous use of humorous fallacies of logic in explaining his point of view on any topic. Other Daily Show correspondents have adopted a similar style; former correspondent Rob Corddry recalls that when he and Ed Helms first joined the show's cast in 2002, they "just imitated Stephen Colbert for a year or two". Correspondent Aasif Mandvi has stated "I just decided I was going to do my best Stephen Colbert impression".
Colbert appeared in several recurring segments for The Daily Show, including "Even Stevphen" with Steve Carell, in which both characters were expected to debate a selected topic but instead would unleash their anger at one another. Colbert commonly hosted "This Week in God", a report on topics in the news pertaining to religion, presented with the help of the "God Machine". Colbert filed reports from the floor of the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention as a part of The Daily Show's award-winning coverage of the 2000 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections; many from the latter were included as part of their The Daily Show: Indecision 2004 DVD release. Other pieces that have been named as his signature segments include "Grouse Hunting in Shropshire", in which he reported on the "gayness" of British aristocracy, his mock lionization of a smoking-rights activist and apparent chain-smoker, and his cameo appearances during his faux campaign for president. In several episodes of The Daily Show, Colbert filled in as anchor in the absence of Jon Stewart, including the full week of March 3, 2002, when Stewart was scheduled to host Saturday Night Live. After Colbert left the show, Rob Corddry took over "This Week in God" segments, although a recorded sample of Colbert's voice was still used as the sound effect for the God Machine. Later episodes of The Daily Show have reused older Colbert segments under the label "Klassic Kolbert". Colbert won three Emmys as a writer of The Daily Show in 2004, 2005, and 2006.
The Colbert Report (2005–2014)
Colbert hosted his own television show, The Colbert Report, from October 17, 2005, through December 18, 2014. The Colbert Report was a Daily Show spin-off that parodied the conventions of television news broadcasting, particularly cable-personality political talk shows like The O'Reilly Factor, Hannity, and Glenn Beck. Colbert hosted the show in-character as a blustery right-wing pundit, generally considered to be an extension of his character on The Daily Show. Conceived by co-creators Stewart, Colbert, and Ben Karlin in part as an opportunity to explore "the character-driven news", the series focused less on the day-to-day news style of the Daily Show, instead frequently concentrating on the foibles of the host-character himself.
The concept for The Report was first seen in a series of Daily Show segments which advertised the then-fictional series as a joke. It was later developed by Stewart's Busboy Productions and pitched to Comedy Central, which green-lighted the program; Comedy Central had already been searching for a way to extend the successful Daily Show franchise beyond a half-hour. The series opened to strong ratings, averaging 1.2 million viewers nightly during its first week on the air. Comedy Central signed a long-term contract for The Colbert Report within its first month on the air, when it immediately established itself among the network's highest-rated shows.
Much of Colbert's personal life was reflected in his character on The Colbert Report. With the extended exposure of the character on the show, he often referenced his interest in and knowledge of Catholicism, science fiction, and The Lord of the Rings, as well as using real facts to create his character's history. His alternate persona was also raised in South Carolina, is the youngest of 11 siblings and is married. However, Colbert's actual career history in acting and comedy was often downplayed or even denied outright, and he frequently referred to having attended Dartmouth College (which was at the forefront of the conservative campus movement in the 1980s) rather than his actual alma mater, Northwestern. In July 2012, Colbert added two years to his contract with Comedy Central, extending the run of The Colbert Report until the end of 2014.
The final episode on December 18, 2014, featured a rendition of "We'll Meet Again" and appearances from former guests of the show, including Jon Stewart, Randy Newman, Bryan Cranston, Willie Nelson, Yo-Yo Ma, Mandy Patinkin, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Tom Brokaw, David Gregory, J. J. Abrams, Big Bird, Gloria Steinem, Ken Burns, James Franco, Barry Manilow, Bob Costas, Jeff Daniels, Sam Waterston, Bill de Blasio, Katie Couric, Patrick Stewart, George Lucas, Henry Kissinger, Cookie Monster, Alan Alda, Eliot Spitzer, Vince Gilligan, Paul Krugman, and a text from Bill Clinton, and appearances by Alex Trebek, U.S. and coalition Afghanistan forces, and further characters (a space station astronaut, Santa Claus, Abraham Lincoln, etc.).
The Late Show (since 2015)
On April 10, 2014, CBS announced in a press release that Colbert "will succeed David Letterman as the host of The Late Show, effective when Mr. Letterman retires from the broadcast." On January 12, 2015, CBS announced that Colbert would premiere as the Late Show host on Tuesday, September 8, 2015. The first guest of the new Late Show was George Clooney. The show has a much more political focus than David Letterman's Late Show.
During his tenure as the host of The Late Show, Colbert hosted the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards, broadcast on CBS on September 17, 2017. More recently, he and his Spartina Productions company had inked a deal with CBS Studios.
Politics
2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner
On Saturday, April 29, 2006, Colbert was the featured entertainer for the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. Standing a few yards from U.S. President George W. Bush – in front of an audience the Associated Press called a "Who's Who of power and celebrity" – Colbert delivered a searing routine targeting the president and the media. In his politically conservative character from The Colbert Report, Colbert satirized the George W. Bush Administration and the White House Press Corps with such lines as:
Colbert received a chilly response from the audience. His jokes were often met with silence and muttering, apart from the enthusiastic laughter of a few in the audience. The major media outlets paid little attention to it initially. Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism professor Todd Gitlin claimed that this was because Colbert's routine was as critical of the media as it was of Bush. Richard Cohen, also writing for The Washington Post, responded that the routine was not funny. The video of Colbert's performance became an internet and media sensation, while, in the week following the speech, ratings for The Colbert Report rose by 37% to average just under 1.5 million total viewers per episode. In Time magazine James Poniewozik called it "the political-cultural touchstone issue of 2006". Writing six months later, New York Times columnist Frank Rich referred to Colbert's speech as a "cultural primary" and called it the "defining moment" of the 2006 midterm elections.
2008 presidential bid
Under his fictional persona in The Colbert Report, Colbert dropped hints of a potential presidential run throughout 2007, with speculation intensifying following the release of his book, I Am America (And So Can You!), which was rumored to be a sign that he was indeed testing the waters for a future bid for the White House. On October 16, 2007, he announced his candidacy on his show, stating his intention to run on both the Republican and Democratic platforms, but only as a "favorite son" in his native South Carolina. He later abandoned plans to run as a Republican due to the $35,000 fee required to file for the South Carolina primary; however, he continued to seek a place on the Democratic ballot and on October 28, 2007, campaigned in the South Carolina state capital of Columbia, where he was presented with the key to the city by Mayor Bob Coble.
After announcing his presidential ticket, he asked his viewers to cast their votes by donating to Donorschoose.org, an online charity connecting individuals to classrooms in need.
Colbert's promotion inspired $68,000 in donations to South Carolina classrooms, which benefited over 14,000 low-income students.
Colbert teamed up with Donorschoose.org again in 2008 by asking supporters of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to do the same. As a lead-up to the Pennsylvania primary, he created a "straw poll that makes a difference" by which people could donate to Pennsylvania classroom projects in honor of their favorite candidate.
Colbert viewers donated $185,000 to projects reaching 43,000 students in Pennsylvania public schools.
On November 1, 2007, the South Carolina Democratic Party executive council voted 13–3 to refuse Colbert's application onto the ballot. "The general sense of the council was that he wasn't a serious candidate and that was why he wasn't selected to be on the ballot", stated John Werner, the party's director. Several days later he announced that he was dropping out of the race, saying he did not wish to put the country through an agonizing Supreme Court battle. CNN has reported that Obama supporters pressured the South Carolina Democratic Executive Council to keep Colbert off the ballot. One anonymous member of the council told CNN that former State Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum had placed pressure on them to refuse Colbert's application despite his steady rise in polls.
Though Colbert's real-life presidential campaign had ended, Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada established in an interview on The Colbert Report that Colbert's campaign was still going strong in the fictional Marvel Universe, citing the cover art of a then-recent issue of The Amazing Spider-Man which featured a Colbert campaign billboard in the background. Background appearances of Colbert campaign ads continued to appear in Marvel Comics publications, as late as August 2008's Secret Invasion No.5 (which also features a cameo of an alien Skrull posing as Colbert). In October 2008, Colbert made an extended 8-page appearance webslinging with Spider-Man in The Amazing Spider-Man issue No. 573. Colbert voiced the president of the U.S. in the 2009 film Monsters vs. Aliens.
2009 solidarity with U.S. troops in Iraq War
Stephen Colbert arrived in Baghdad, Iraq, on June 5, 2009, to film a week of shows called "Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando" sponsored by the USO (United Service Organizations). Colbert had a suit tailored for him in the Army Combat Uniform pattern. During the first episode (which featured a cameo appearance from U.S. president Barack Obama), Colbert had his hair cropped in a military style to show his solidarity with the troops. One Army major said that "shaving of the hair is an amazing show of support" that was "very touching." USO Senior Vice President John Hanson said the shows are an important diversion for the troops.
2010 Congressional testimony
On September 24, 2010, Colbert testified in character before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Security. He was invited by committee chairwoman Zoe Lofgren to describe his experience participating in the United Farm Workers' "Take Our Jobs" program, where he spent a day working alongside migrant workers in upstate New York. At the end of his often-humorous testimony, Colbert broke character in responding to a question from Rep. Judy Chu, D-CA, and explained his purpose for being at the hearing:
Democratic committee member John Conyers questioned whether it was appropriate for the comedian to appear before Congress and asked him to leave the hearing. Though Colbert offered to depart at the direction of the committee chairwoman, Lofgren requested that he stay at least until all opening testimony had been completed, whereupon Conyers withdrew his request.
Conservative pundits took aim at Colbert's Congress testimony not long after.
2010 Washington, D.C. rallies
In September 2010, following Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally, a campaign developed that called for Colbert to hold his own rally at the Lincoln Memorial. On the September 10, 2010, episode of the Daily Show and The Colbert Report, Stewart and Colbert made preannouncements of a future event. On September 16, 2010, Stewart and Colbert announced competing rallies on the Washington, D.C., Mall on October 30, 2010, Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity", and Colbert's "March to Keep Fear Alive". Both were eventually merged into the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.
2011 Political Super PAC
In May 2011, Colbert filed a request with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) asking for a media exemption for coverage of his political action committee, ColbertPAC, on The Colbert Report.
In June 2011, during a public meeting, the FEC voted 5–1 to grant The Colbert Report a limited media exemption. The exemption allows unlimited donations of airtime and show resources to promote the Colbert Super PAC without requiring disclosure to the FEC, but only for ads appearing on The Colbert Report. Following the hearing, Colbert formally filed paperwork for the creation of his Super PAC with the FEC secretary.
2012 South Carolina GOP primary
After the 2012 New Hampshire primary, a poll for the subsequent South Carolina primary taken by Public Policy Polling (of 1,112 likely GOP voters, Jan 5–7, 2012) was reported to place Colbert at 5%, one point ahead of Jon Huntsman polling at 4%, in spite of the fact that Colbert was not on the ballot. This poll showed Colbert to be closely behind Rick Perry's 7% and Ron Paul's 8% (with Romney at 27%, Gingrich 23% and Santorum at 18%). On the January 11 episode of The Colbert Report, Colbert asked his audience if he should run for president in South Carolina, to which he received strong applause. He then stated that he would be making a "Major Announcement" during the next day's show. On January 12, Colbert started his show by discussing his role in the presidential campaign, then addressed the law preventing him from being a presidential candidate while running his Super PAC. With the help of his lawyer Trevor Potter, he then signed over control of his Super PAC to Jon Stewart, with the organization title then being referred to as "The Definitely Not Coordinating With Stephen Colbert Super PAC". Immediately after this legal block was out of the way, Colbert announced, "I am forming an exploratory committee to lay the groundwork for my possible candidacy for the President of the United States of South Carolina. I'm doin' it!" He reiterated in the interview portion of that show that "I'm still in the exploratory phase" of his presidential campaign.
On the January 16, 2012, episode, Colbert satirically encouraged his viewers to vote for Herman Cain in the South Carolina primary. As Cain was still on the ballot, despite having recently dropped out of the race, Colbert announced that he would consider any votes cast for Cain to be in direct support of his own possible candidacy.
Other work
Colbert is co-author of the satirical text-and-picture novel Wigfield: The Can Do Town That Just May Not, which was published in 2003 by Hyperion Books. The novel was a collaboration between Colbert, Amy Sedaris, and Paul Dinello, and tells the story of a small town threatened by the impending destruction of a massive dam. The narrative is presented as a series of fictional interviews with the town's residents, accompanied by photos. The three authors toured performing an adaptation of Wigfield on stage the same year the book was released.
Colbert appeared in a small supporting role in the 2005 film adaptation of Bewitched. He has made guest appearances on the television series Curb Your Enthusiasm, Spin City, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and on the first season of the US improvisational comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway?. He voiced the characters of Reducto and Phil Ken Sebben in the Adult Swim's Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, but left the show in 2005 to work on The Colbert Report. His characters were both killed, though he returned to voice Phil for the series finale. Colbert also has provided voices for Cartoon Network's The Venture Bros., Comedy Central's Crank Yankers, and American Dad!, and for Canadian animated comedy series The Wrong Coast. He appeared as Homer Simpson's life coach, Colby Krause, in The Simpsons episode "He Loves to Fly and He D'ohs".
Colbert filled in for Sam Seder on the second episode of The Majority Report on Air America Radio, and has also done reports for The Al Franken Show. He appeared on a track on Wig in a Box, a tribute album for Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Colbert read the part of Leopold Bloom in Bloomsday on Broadway XXIV: Love Literature Language Lust: Leopold's Women Bloom on June 16, 2005, at Symphony Space in New York City. He appeared in a series of TV commercials for General Motors, as a not-too-bright investigator searching for the elusive (and non-existent in real life) "Mr. Goodwrench". He also portrayed the letter Z in Sesame Street: All-Star Alphabet, a 2005 video release.
Colbert is a producer of The 1 Second Film, the world's largest nonprofit collaborative art film. His video request that IMDb list his credit for The1 Second Film ("it is as valid as most of my credits") enabled thousands of the film's producers to be listed in the massive movie database until they were removed in early 2007.
Colbert has released one book associated with The Colbert Report, I Am America (And So Can You!). It was released on October 7, 2007, by Grand Central Publishing. Grand Central Publishing is the successor to Warner Books, which published America (The Book), written by The Daily Show staff. The book contains similar political satire, but was written primarily by Colbert himself rather than as a collaboration with his Colbert Report writing staff.
On November 23, 2008, his Christmas special, A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!, aired on Comedy Central. It was released on DVD in November 2008.
In January 2010, Colbert was named the assistant sports psychologist for the US Olympic speed skating team at the 2010 Winter Olympics. He was also invited to be part of NBC's 2010 Winter Olympics coverage team by Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports. In April 2011, Colbert performed as Harry in the concert-style revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical Company, presented by the New York Philharmonic at the Lincoln Center. The show, featuring Neil Patrick Harris in the starring role, ran for four nights and was filmed for later showings in movie theaters, which began June 15. In May 2011, Colbert joined the Charleston to Bermuda Race yachting race, as captain of the ship "the Spirit of Juno". He finished second, five miles behind leaders "Tucana".
Since 2012, Colbert has collaborated with the Montclair Film Festival, of which his wife is a founder and current president of its board. Every year since its foundation, Colbert has participated by hosting an annual fundraising event and leading Q&As and conversations with directors, writers, journalists, and actors such as: Jon Stewart, Rob Reiner, Steve Carell, J. J. Abrams, David Itzkoff, Ethan Hawke, Rachel Weisz, and Meryl Streep. He is also part of the Montclair Film advisory board.
After the resignation of South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint to run Heritage Foundation, Colbert was named a possible candidate for appointment to the seat being vacated by DeMint, which would have triggered a special election in 2014 to finish out DeMint's term. Although Governor Nikki Haley announced promptly that she had no intention to nominate Colbert to the Senate, a poll showed Colbert as a favorite among South Carolina voters.
Colbert guest-hosted Only in Monroe, a public access television show in Monroe, Michigan, for an episode that aired July 1, 2015. He interviewed the program's regular hosts, and also the rapper Eminem (whom he pretended never to have heard of), and put a humorous slant on the local news and community calendar.
On July 17, 2016, Colbert hijacked the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, while dressed as Caesar Flickerman from The Hunger Games series. After he was taken down from the stage, he commented, "Look, I know I am not supposed to be up here but let's be honest, neither is Donald Trump." Colbert also dressed as Flickerman on his show, prior to the stunt, to announce the candidates who had ended their runs in the 2016 election.
Aside from hosting his talk shows, Colbert has gone on to host other types of shows. Since 2014, Colbert has hosted the Kennedy Center Honors for three consecutive years. In 2017, Colbert hosted the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards.
In 2018 it was reported that Showtime was developing Hello Nancy, a biopic based on the nonfiction book On Her Trail, My Mother, Nancy Dickerson, TV News' First Woman Star by John Dickerson, with Colbert and his wife Evelyn serving as executive producers. The couple also served as executive producers for In & Of Itself, a film version of Derek DelGaudio's off-Broadway show of the same name.
Influences
Colbert has said his comedy influences include: Don Novello, Phil Silvers, Alec Guinness, Bill Cosby, George Carlin, Dean Martin, Jon Stewart, Monty Python, Steve Martin, and David Letterman. In 2017, Colbert said due to the sexual assault allegations made against Cosby, he can no longer listen to his comedy.
Colbert has also cited Jim Gaffigan, Maria Bamford, Joe Pera, John Mulaney, and Eric Andre, as some of his favorite contemporary comedians.
Among comedians who say they were influenced by Colbert are Nathan Fielder, James Corden, Mindy Kaling, Hasan Minhaj, Jordan Klepper, Ziwe Fumudoh, John Mulaney, Derrick Beckles, Julie Klausner, and Billy Eichner.
Personal life
Colbert is a practicing Roman Catholic and used to teach Sunday school. He is an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church Monastery. Colbert is an avid reader and has cited authors: J.R.R. Tolkien, J.D. Salinger, Robertson Davies, George Saunders, Larry Niven, Henry Kuttner and Isaac Asimov as his favorites, among others.
Colbert has been married to Evelyn "Evie" McGee-Colbert since 1993. She is the daughter of prominent Charleston civil litigator Joseph McGee, of the firm Buist Moore Smythe McGee. His wife appeared with him in an episode of Strangers with Candy as his mother. She also had an uncredited cameo as a nurse in the series pilot and a credited one (as his wife Clair) in the film. McGee-Colbert actually met Jon Stewart before she met her future husband in 1990. They met at the world premiere of Hydrogen Jukebox at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston. Colbert later described the first moment he met Evie as being a love at first sight encounter; however, moments after they met, they both realized they had grown up together in Charleston and had many mutual friends.
The couple have three children. They live in Montclair, New Jersey.
During his college and Second City years, Colbert suffered from bouts of depression and anxiety, for which he had to be medicated. In a 2018 interview, Colbert told Rolling Stone:
I needed to be medicated when I was younger to deal with my anxiety that I had thrown my life away by attempting to do something that so few people actually get away with, or succeed at ... Xanax was just lovely. Y'know, for a while. And then I realized that the gears were still smoking. I just couldn't hear them anymore. But I could feel them, I could feel the gearbox heating up and smoke pouring out of me ... I stopped the Xanax after, like, nine days. I went, 'This isn't helping.' So I just suffered through it. I'd sometimes hold the bottle, to go like, 'I could stop this feeling if I wanted, but I'm not going to. Because I know if I stop the feeling, somehow I'm not working through it, like I have got to go through the tunnel with the spiders in it.'
And then one morning I woke up and my skin wasn't on fire, and it took me a while to figure out what it was. I wake up the next morning, I'm perfectly fine, to the point where my body's still humming. I'm a bell that's been rung so hard that I can still feel myself vibrating. But the actual sound was gone [because] I was starting rehearsal that day to create a new show. And then I went, 'Oh, my God, I can never stop performing.' Creating something is what helped me from just spinning apart like an unweighted flywheel. And I haven't stopped since.
Colbert used the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator during a segment of The Late Show, which identified him as an INFP.
Political views
Although, by his own account, he was not particularly political before joining the cast of The Daily Show, Colbert has described himself as a Democrat according to a 2004 interview. In an interview at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard Institute of Politics, he said he has "no problems with Republicans, just Republican policies".
Colbert supports the implementation of the Medicare for All plan introduced by Bernie Sanders, considering it "a sensible fix to Obamacare". When asked about his views on abortion, Colbert positioned himself as pro-choice. On the intersection of faith and politics, Colbert has pointed out that his views are in line with those of Cesar Chávez.
Awards and honors
In 2000, Colbert and the other Daily Show writers were the recipients of three Emmy Awards as writers for The Daily Show and again in 2005 and 2006. In 2005 he was nominated for a Satellite Award for his performance on The Colbert Report and again in 2006. He was also nominated for three Emmys for The Colbert Report in 2006, including Best Performance in a Variety, Musical Program or Special, which he lost to Barry Manilow. Manilow and Colbert would go on to jokingly sign and notarize a revolving biannual custody agreement for the Emmy on The Colbert Report episode aired on October 30, 2006. He lost the same category to Tony Bennett in 2007 and Don Rickles in 2008.
In January 2006, the American Dialect Society named truthiness, which Colbert coined on the premiere episode of The Colbert Report, as its 2005 Word of the Year. Colbert devoted time on five successive episodes to bemoaning the failure of the Associated Press to mention his role in popularizing the word truthiness in its news coverage of the Word of the Year. On December 9, 2006, Merriam-Webster also announced that it selected truthiness as its Word of the Year for 2006. Votes were accepted on their website, and according to poll results, "truthiness" won by a five-to-one margin.
In June 2006, after speaking at the school's commencement ceremony, Colbert received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree from Knox College. Time named Stephen Colbert as one of the 100 most influential people in 2006 and 2012 and in May 2006, New York magazine listed Colbert (and Jon Stewart) as one of its top dozen influential persons in media. Colbert was named Person of the Year by the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado on March 3, 2007, and was also given the Speaker of the Year Award by The Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) on March 24, 2007, for his "drive to expose the rhetorical shortcomings of contemporary political discourse".
Colbert was named the 2nd Sexiest TV News Anchor in September 2006 by Maxim, next to Mélissa Theuriau of France and was the only man featured on the list. In November 2006, he was named a "sexy surprise" by People in the Sexiest Man Alive honors and in the December 2006 issue of GQ he was named one of GQ's "Men of the Year".
In 2012, he was listed as No. 69 on Maxim Magazine's Hot 100, becoming the first man to be included on the list.
Colbert has received three Peabody Awards, in 2007, 2011, and 2020. He was nominated for five TCA Awards for The Colbert Report by the Television Critics Association.
After the Saginaw Spirit defeated the Oshawa Generals in Ontario Junior League Hockey, Oshawa Mayor John Gray declared March 20, 2007 (the mayor's own birthday), Stephen Colbert Day, honoring a previous bet with Stephen. At the event, Mayor Gray referred to the publicity the bet brought the city, remarking, "This is the way to lose a bet".
Colbert was honored for the Gutsiest Move on the Spike TV Guys' Choice Awards on June 13, 2007, for his performance at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. In August 2007, Virgin America named an airplane, "Air Colbert", in his honor. On October 28, 2007, Colbert received the key to the city of Columbia, South Carolina, from Mayor Bob Coble.
On December 20, 2007, Colbert was named Celebrity of the Year by The Associated Press. On April 2, 2008, he received a Peabody Award for The Colbert Report, saying in response, "I proudly accept this award and begrudgingly forgive the Peabody Committee for taking three years to recognize greatness".
In 2008, Colbert won the Emmy Award for writing again, this time as a writer for The Colbert Report. Colbert delivered the Class Day address to the graduating class of Princeton University on June 2, 2008, and accepted the Class of 2008 Understandable Vanity Award, consisting of a sketch of Colbert and a mirror. He also has been announced as the Person of the Year for the 12th annual Webby Awards.
In January 2010, Colbert received the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for his album A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!. He also announced the nominees for Song of the Year while toting a pre-released Apple iPad. Colbert was the 2011 commencement speaker for Northwestern University, and received an honorary degree. In 2013, Colbert again won the Emmy award for writing for The Colbert Report. In 2014, Colbert won the 2014 Best Spoken Word Album for his audiobook America Again: Re-becoming The Greatness We Never Weren't.
In January 2013, Rolling Stone placed him at number 2 in their "The 50 Funniest People Now" list. In December 2014, Paste named his Twitter one of "The 75 Best Twitter Accounts of 2014" ranking it at number 7. Colbert received an honorary degree from Wake Forest University as the 2015 commencement speaker.
In 2015, Colbert was awarded the third highest honor within the Department of the Army Civilian Awards, the Outstanding Civilian Service Award, for substantial contributions to the U.S. Army community.
In 2017 and 2018, Colbert was named one of "The 35 Most Powerful People in New York Media" by The Hollywood Reporter. He was chosen as one of GQ's "Men of the Year" for its December 2017 issue. Colbert was placed at number 32 in Vanity Fair "2018 New Establishment List". Other placements in earlier lists include number 40 in 2017 and number 28 in 2011.
In May 2021, Colbert received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Yale University.
Ben & Jerry's AmeriCone Dream ice cream
In February 2007, Ben & Jerry's unveiled a new ice cream flavor in honor of Colbert, named Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream. Colbert waited until Easter to sample the ice cream because he "gave up sweets for Lent". Colbert donated all proceeds to charity through the new Stephen Colbert AmeriCone Dream Fund, which distributes the money to various causes.
Species named in honor
At least five species have been given scientific names honoring Colbert. In 2008 a species of California trapdoor spider was named Aptostichus stephencolberti. The spider was named for Colbert after he reported on his television series that Jason Bond, a professor of biology at East Carolina University, had named a different species of spider Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi after the Canadian rock star Neil Young, and began to appeal for a species of animal to be named after him. On a later edition of The Colbert Report, Colbert revealed that Bond would name a spider after him, with Colbert claiming, "And all I had to do was shamelessly beg on national television." Other species named for Colbert include a species of Venezuelan diving beetle named Agaporomorphus colberti and a Chilean stonefly named Diamphipnoa colberti, both formally described in 2008. On his 45th birthday, Colbert was sent a framed print of his eponymous beetle by the biologists who named it. In 2014, a species of parasitic wasp from Ecuador, Aleiodes colberti, was named for Colbert, along with newly described species named for celebrities Jon Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, Ellen DeGeneres, and Shakira, and in 2016 a rove beetle, Sonoma colberti, was named after Colbert's on-screen persona.
COLBERT Treadmill
In 2009, NASA engineered a new treadmill for the International Space Station. It was taken to the ISS by the Space Shuttle Discovery during the STS-128 mission in August 2009. The complex machine is now used eight hours daily by astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the space station in order to maintain their muscle mass and bone density while spending long periods of time in a zero-gravity environment. While engineers at NASA were constructing this treadmill, it was simply called T-2 for more than two years. However, on April 14, 2009, NASA renamed it the "Combined Operational Load-Bearing External Resistance Treadmill", or COLBERT. NASA named the treadmill after Colbert, who took an interest during the Node3 naming census for the ISS module, Tranquility.
Colbert urged his followers to post the name "Colbert", which upon completion of the census received the most entries totaling 230,539, some 40,000 votes more than the second-place choice, Serenity. The COLBERT is expected to last the life of the ISS and will have seen about 38,000 miles of running when the Space Station is retired in 2024 or later, but it was also built with a 150,000-mile lifespan (if needed until 2028 or beyond). Colbert realized he was the recipient of an extremely rare honor—the COLBERT (a backronym) is the only piece of NASA-engineered equipment in space that is named after a living human being—when astronaut Sunita Williams came on The Colbert Report to announce that NASA had named the treadmill after him.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theatre
Published works
Colbert, Dinello, Sedaris. Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just May Not (Hyperion, May 19, 2004)
America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction (Warner Books; September 2004)
I Am America (And So Can You!) (Grand Central Publishing; October 9, 2007)
America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't (Grand Central Publishing; October 2, 2012)
I Am a Pole (And So Can You!) (Grand Central Publishing; May 8, 2012)
Stephen Colbert's Midnight Confessions (Simon & Schuster; September 5, 2017)
See also
New Yorkers in journalism
Political satire
References
Further reading
External links
Colbert interview transcript, 60 Minutes. (April 30, 2006)
1964 births
Living people
20th-century American comedians
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21st-century Roman Catholics
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Tolkien fandom
21st-century American male writers
Television producers from New Jersey | false | [
"Vijf tegen Vijf (or 5 tegen 5) was a Dutch game show based on the original American format of Family Feud.\nIn the game, two teams consisting of five contestants play against each other and have to answer questions based on surveys taken by random people from the Netherlands. They have to guess which answer was given by most of the people involved in the survey.\n\nIt was first aired by the VARA in 1983, and the show was hosted by Willem Ruis. However, the show was canceled in 1986 because of the death of Willem Ruis. The VARA revived the series in March 1992 with Peter-Jan Rens as the host, but the show went to the commercial channel RTL 4 in 1993, because host Peter-Jan Rens also went to that channel. Later, the show was sponsored by the Lotto (which also sponsored Weekend Miljonairs). RTL 4 canceled the program in 1998 because there were problems with the rights for the format.\n\nWhen the commercial channel Talpa (now Tien) started in 2005, they began airing new episodes of the show. At Talpa, the show was hosted by singer Gordon Heuckeroth from 2005 to 2006, and later in 2006, Winston Gerschtanowitz became the host. In 2008, RTL 5 began airing reruns of the Talpa episodes.\n\nOn June 6, 2009, Talpa/Tien aired a special edition hosted by Carlo Boszhard. In this episode, celebrities tried to win as much money as possible for charity.\n\nIn 2021, after being off the air for no more than six years, the show now airs on SBS6 with singer Gordon Heuckeroth returning as host.\n\nRules\nThe rules are mostly the same as the other versions, except for a few minor differences. Unlike most other versions, the teams in the Dutch version don't always consist of five family members, but sometimes the teams consist of friends, colleagues, members of a sports team, etc. After four questions (three questions from 1993 to 1998), with only the last question being worth twice the value, the team in the lead won the championship.\n\nWhen the show moved to RTL 4 in 1993, a bonus game was added, which was played at the beginning of the program. In it, every contestant had to answer a question. When one got the number one answer, his or her team would get ƒ1000. If they got the number two answer, the team would get ƒ500, and if they got the number 3 answer, the team would get ƒ250.\n\nFrom 1983 until 1998, the top prize of the show was ƒ5000, which was awarded when a team got over 200 points in the final round. If the team failed to score 200 points, each point earned one Dutch guilder in addition to one guilder per point in the main game. If they had earned additional money in the bonus game, that money would be added to the top prize. After the RTL 4 version ended in 1998, the bonus game was not played anymore.\n\nFrom 2005 and on, the top prize was €5000, which also was awarded when a team got over 200 points in the final round. On the current revival, naming all five top answers in the final doubles the jackpot to €10,000.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Vijf tegen Vijf official website (NL)\n Site from host Peter-Jan Rens with images from and information about the program\n Official website of the 2021 version\n\nDutch game shows\n1983 Dutch television series debuts\n1980s Dutch television series\nFamily Feud\nDutch television series based on American television series\n1980s game shows\n1990s game shows\n2000s game shows\n2010s game shows",
"Return Of The Queen Tour is a headlining tour by American rapper Lil' Kim. The tour, her first since 2010, was launched in support of her promotional singles and to mark her return to the music scene. The tour was first announced in April, 2012. In May, 2012, it was announced that Kim would return to South Africa for 3 dates starting in September. It would mark her second time performing there following her 2011 performance at ZARfest. However, in July, 2012, the company responsible for organising the shows, Hunnypot Entertainment, announced that the dates had been cancelled.\n\nIn total the tour had 22 shows around North America and grossed over $6 million.\n\nBackground\nAfter the release of her first promotional single, \"If You Love Me\" in February, 2012, Kim returned to the spotlight with a performance on Rip the Runway, as well as appearances on MTV's RapFix and Sucka Free. On April 22, the first 11 dates of the tour were announced, with the remaining dates added the following month. She announced the tour via Twitter, saying \"#TeamLilKim I can't stay on long. Got 2 get back 2 the Studio. Love U guys & can't wait to see U on the Tour !!!!\" \n\nThe tour bus Kim used was designed, printed & installed in less than 30 hours.\n\nOpening Acts & Special Guests\nDrita D’Avanzo from Mob Wives (Hosting Bronx show)\nEve, Kelly Rowland, Juelz Santana, Missy Elliott, Mr. Cheeks, Pepa, Cassidy, Fred The Godson, Papoose, Saigon, Babs Bunny, Somaya Reece, Will Traxx, (Some performed with Kim, while some were there to support, Bronx show only) \nTiff Gabana (Albany show only)\nLynguistic Civilians (Vermont show only) \nShawnna (Illinois show only) \nDJ Todd & Nick Fury (Columbus show only)\nNaima Adedapo (Milwaukee show only)\nDJ Green (Minneapolis show only)\nErica P (Cincinnati show only)\nR-Shell, Fieldhouse, Shannon Marie & Prototype XX (Nebraska show only)\nLil' Mama, Apollonia, Natalie Nunn, Somaya Reece (Factory, Hollywood show, support only) \nMicahTron, Ill Camille, Ginger & Ms. Be, hosted by Somaya Reece (San Francisco show only)\nDa Brat, City High, Natalie Nunn, Malaysia Pargo & Laura Govan from Basketball Wives: LA, Shaunie O'Neal, Toni Monroe, Guyana, The Lady of Rage, Kurupt. (Key Club, Hollywood show)\n\nSetlist\n\nAlthough an official setlist for the show was never released, songs performed on the tour included\n\n\"Queen Bitch\"\n\"Black Friday\"\n\"Not Tonight (Remix)\"\n\"The Jump Off\" / \"Mo Money Mo Problems\"\n\"How Many Licks?\"\n\"Get Money\" / \"Gettin' Money (The Get Money Remix)\" \n\"It's All About the Benjamins\"\n\"Quiet Storm (Remix)\"\n\"Lighters Up\"\n\"Let It Go\"\n\"Big Momma Thang\"\n\"Magic Stick\"\n\"Empire State of Mind\"\n\"Not Tonight\"\n\"Crush On You\"\n\"Lady Marmalade\"\n\"Keys To The City\"\n\"Whoa\"\n\nTour dates\n\nCancellations and rescheduled shows\nMay 13, Pensacola show at Vinyl Musical Hall was changed to June 20.\nMay 17, Austin show at Emo's was moved to June 19.\nJune 2, Detroit show at The Fillmore was canceled.\nJune 8, Agoura Hills show was canceled due to fire hazards.\nJune 16, Las Vegas show at Planet Hollywood was canceled.\nJune 22, Hammond show at Horseshoe Hammond was canceled.\nJune 24, Washington, D.C. show at Ibiza's Nightclub was canceled and changed to September 21 at Love Nightclub.\nSeptember, 6th-8th shows in South Africa were canceled.\n\nReception\n\nCritical response\nThe tour received positive reviews.\n\nBillboard gave positive review for the second show of the tour, stating \"As one of her few hometown shows since a sparsely attended gig at Irving Plaza in June 2010, Lil' Kim proved that she can still sting\" though noted \"Despite several awkward pauses where she vanished backstage, the Brooklyn native carried the show, working the enraptured audience with a live band in tow.\" Rashaud Thomas of NBC New York praised the tour, commenting \"From the minute she took the stage, the Queen Bee had her court in a trance, rapping along to every one of her hits... After last night’s performance it’s safe to say she’s on the right track.\"\n\nMTV also gave a good review about the show, saying \"Female MCs, take note: The Queen wants her throne back.\" The Source also wrote an article, saying \"Putting to rest the thought that women in Hip-Hop just can't get along, Kim confirmed that she's already got a record in the bag with Eve and Missy and is still working on her documentary and book.\" Bene Viera from VH1 praised Kim's performance, commenting \"The pint-sized beauty’s performance proved one thing–not that anything needed proving–a legend is a legend. The Queen Bee’s return has arrived, and the fans haven’t gone anywhere. Bow down to the throne.\" while Ernest Hardy of the Los Angeles Times added \"[...] the thing that really girds Kim’s voice and persona is a genuine sweetness that humanizes a steely persona.\"\n\nReferences\n\n2012 concert tours"
] |
[
"Frankie Goes to Hollywood",
"Formation"
] | C_9b7cbe25b8104d2889a0b4289d7030b8_1 | when was the bad formed? | 1 | When was Frankie Goes to Hollywood formed? | Frankie Goes to Hollywood | On the B-side to the group's first single, Johnson explained that the group's name derived from a page from The New Yorker magazine, featuring the headline "Frankie Goes Hollywood" and a picture of Frank Sinatra, although the magazine page Johnson referred to was actually a pop art poster by Guy Peellaert. The original group named "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" dates from 1980. The nucleus of the group emerged from the late 1970s Liverpool punk scene. Lead singer Johnson had played bass with Big in Japan and had also released two solo singles. Local musicians Peter Gill (drums), Jed O'Toole (bass), and O'Toole's cousin Brian Nash (guitar) initially joined Johnson, calling themselves the Sons of Egypt. This line-up secured a number of small local gigs before disbanding. The group was reprised when Johnson joined Mark O'Toole (bass) and Peter "Ped" Gill to form FGTH. During a particularly fluid period of personnel changes, Jed O'Toole joined FGTH on guitar, and a female vocalist, Sonia Mazumder, was also a band member for the first Frankie gig at the Leeds nightclub "The Warehouse", supporting Hambi & The Dance. Paul Rutherford - a member of the headline act who had also sung in seminal Liverpool punk band The Spitfire Boys - apparently got so caught up in Frankie's performance that he effectively replaced Mazumder that very night. The new all-male musical line-up subsequently toured locally with a leather-clad female duo known as "The Leatherpets" and managed to fund promotional videos and demos, despite being eventually turned down by both Arista Records and Phonogram Inc. In October 1982, the group recorded a John Peel Session for BBC Radio 1, comprising the originals "Krisco Kisses", "Two Tribes", "Disneyland", and "The World Is My Oyster". Around this time Jed O'Toole left the group, to be replaced by the returning Brian Nash. In February 1983, the group was invited to record a video for "Relax" by the Channel 4 show The Tube at the Liverpool State Ballroom. After the broadcast, the Peel session was repeated on radio, and a new session recorded for the BBC, comprising "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", "The Only Star in Heaven" and "Relax". These performances, along with a repeat of the Tube video, convinced Trevor Horn to sign the group for his new label, ZTT Records, in May 1983. CANNOTANSWER | The original group named "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" dates from 1980. | Frankie Goes to Hollywood were an English synth-pop band formed in Liverpool in 1980. The group's best-known line-up comprised Holly Johnson (vocals), Paul Rutherford (backing vocals), Peter Gill (drums, percussion), Mark O'Toole (bass guitar) and Brian Nash (guitar).
The group's 1983 debut single "Relax" was banned by the BBC in 1984 while at number six in the charts and subsequently topped the UK Singles Chart for five consecutive weeks, going on to enjoy prolonged chart success throughout that year and ultimately becoming the seventh-best-selling UK single of all time. It also won the 1985 Brit Award for Best British Single. Their debut album, Welcome to the Pleasuredome, reached number one in the UK in 1984 with advanced sales of more than one million. After the follow-up success of "Two Tribes" and "The Power of Love", the group became only the second act in the history of the UK charts to reach number one with their first three singles; the first being fellow Liverpudlians Gerry and the Pacemakers in the 1960s. This record remained unbeaten until the Spice Girls achieved a six-single streak in 1996–1997.
In 1985 the band won the Brit Award for British Breakthrough Act. Associated with the Second British Invasion of the US, they also received Grammy Award and MTV Video Music Award nominations for Best New Artist. Songwriters Johnson, Gill and O'Toole received the 1984 Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for "Two Tribes". In 2015, the song was voted by the British public as the nation's 14th-favourite 1980s number one in a poll for ITV.
History
Formation
On the B-side to the group's first single, Johnson explained that the group's name derived from a page from The New Yorker magazine, featuring the headline "Frankie Goes Hollywood" and a picture of Frank Sinatra, although the magazine page Johnson referred to was actually a pop art poster by Guy Peellaert featuring a newspaper headline above an image of a young Sinatra being mobbed by his fans. The original group named "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" dates from 1980.
The nucleus of the group emerged from the late 1970s Liverpool punk scene. Lead singer Johnson had played bass with Big in Japan and had also released two solo singles. Local musicians Peter Gill (drums), Jed O'Toole (bass), and O'Toole's cousin Brian Nash (guitar) initially joined Johnson, calling themselves Sons and Egypt. This line-up secured a number of small local gigs before disbanding.
The group was reprised when Johnson joined Mark O'Toole (bass) and Peter "Ped" Gill to form FGTH. During a particularly fluid period of personnel changes, Jed O'Toole joined FGTH on guitar, and a female vocalist, Sonia Mazumder, was also a band member for the first Frankie gig at the Leeds nightclub "The Warehouse", supporting Hambi & The Dance. Paul Rutherford—a member of the headline act who had also sung in seminal Liverpool punk band The Spitfire Boys—apparently got so caught up in Frankie's performance that he effectively replaced Mazumder that very night. The new all-male musical line-up subsequently toured locally with a leather-clad female duo known as "The Leatherpets" and managed to fund promotional videos and demos, despite being eventually turned down by both Arista Records and Phonogram Inc. In October 1982, the group recorded a John Peel Session for BBC Radio 1, comprising the originals "Krisco Kisses", "Two Tribes", "Disneyland", and "The World Is My Oyster". Around this time Jed O'Toole left the group, to be replaced by the returning Brian Nash.
Nash said the band looked up to Echo & the Bunnymen, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) and The Teardrop Explodes, adding, "That was music from Liverpool but from our generation. You would see these people walking around town, you'd see Ian McCulloch getting on the bus. I never saw any of the Beatles on the bus."
In February 1983, the group was invited to record a video for "Relax" by the Channel 4 show The Tube at the Liverpool State Ballroom. After the broadcast, the Peel session was repeated on radio, and a new session recorded for the BBC, comprising "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", "The Only Star in Heaven" and "Relax". These performances, along with a repeat of the Tube video, convinced Trevor Horn to sign the group for his new label, ZTT Records, in May 1983.
"Relax"
"Relax" was released by ZTT in October 1983, with production and remix directed by Trevor Horn, received a modicum of airplay, allowing it steady progress into the UK Top 40. Following a debut on the BBC's Top of the Pops on 5 January 1984 while at number 35, the single rose to number six the following week.
On 11 January 1984, BBC Radio 1 disc jockey Mike Read was playing the record on his show when he noticed the front cover design (by Yvonne Gilbert). Read apparently became outraged by the "overtly sexual" nature of both the record sleeve and the printed lyrics, which prompted him to remove the disc from the turntable live on air, branding it "obscene".
Two days later—almost three months after the single's initial release, and just eight days after the group's Top of the Pops appearance—the BBC banned the record from all its TV and radio outlets. "Relax" immediately shot to number one in the UK charts and stayed there for five weeks, during which time the BBC could not feature the nation's best-selling single on Top of the Pops.
The original video was directed by Bernard Rose and depicted a gay S&M parlour where the band members were admired by muscular leathermen, a bleached blonde drag queen, and a large-bodied man dressed as a Roman emperor. The video featured a scene where one of the band members wrestled a live tiger, to the admiration of the clubgoers, and ended where the "emperor" was so excited he shimmied out of his toga. Filmed in the unused East London theatre Wilton's Music Hall, it was promptly banned by both the BBC and MTV, resulting in the production of a substitute video directed by filmmaker Brian De Palma to coincide with the release of his film Body Double. There have been four official music videos for "Relax."
The BBC lifted its ban on "Relax" at the end of 1984 to allow the band to perform it on the Christmas edition of Top of the Pops (it had been, aside from Band Aid the biggest-selling single of the year).
"Two Tribes"
"Relax" remained in the charts when the follow-up, "Two Tribes", was released in May 1984. The anti-conflict song was given an aggressively topical nuclear war slant. Featuring sirens, the unmistakable voice of Patrick Allen (who had voiced the British Government's actual nuclear warning ads, Protect and Survive, two years earlier) and another innovative electronic backing, it went straight into the UK charts at Number One and stayed there for nine weeks (the first single to do so since John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John's "You're the One That I Want" in 1978), with total sales exceeding 1.5 million copies and becoming one of the top 30 best-selling records in the UK ever.
Directed by Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, the video featured lookalikes of Cold War leaders Ronald Reagan and Konstantin Chernenko wrestling in a marquee while band members and others laid bets on the outcome. Ultimately, the audience—consisting of other world leaders—were brought into the fight, and eventually Earth was seen to explode.
"Two Tribes" was a successful single in its own right, but its reign at the top of the charts was made even more notable by the continuing success of its predecessor. "Relax" had made a natural decline down the charts by May 1984, but on the release of "Two Tribes" its sales began to increase again, to the extent that FGTH held the top two spots in the UK charts during July 1984, the first active group to do so since the early 1960s.
The release of "Two Tribes" also coincided with an extensive and iconic T-shirt marketing campaign during the British summer of 1984, featuring such slogans as "Frankie Say War! Hide Yourself" and "Frankie Say Relax Don't Do It!"
"The Power of Love"
FGTH released a third single, "The Power of Love", at the end of 1984. Unlike the earlier singles, this song was a slower-paced ballad, but it also went to Number One in December and making the band the first act for two decades (since Gerry and the Pacemakers, a fellow Liverpool band, in 1963) to achieve chart-toppers with its first three releases. The video (directed once again by Godley & Creme) was not banned on this occasion but still caused trouble for the group—because it depicted a nativity scene (and on its first showing did not feature any members of the band, who were subsequently added as picture framing).
The song's release was preceded by an advertising campaign that, cheekily, declared it to be the band's third number one single, as if this was a fait accompli. The Band Aid project, for which Johnson recorded a message for the B-side, meant that FGTH managed only one week at the top this time before it was replaced by "Do They Know It's Christmas?"
"Welcome to the Pleasuredome"
The title track from FGTH's album, "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", was released as a fourth single in March 1985. Early promotional posters for the single proclaimed it as "their fourth number one", even prior to the single's release. However, the single peaked at Number 2. The twelve-inch singles featured Greek mythology/Samuel Taylor Coleridge spoken introduction. Geoffrey Palmer narrates on the second 12", known as the "fruitness" mix.
Only one new track appeared in the next eighteen months; "Disneyland", was released on the ZTT Records "Zang Tuum Tumb Sampled" album in late 1985.
Return and decline
In 1986, FGTH appeared at the Montreux Rock Festival which was broadcast on UK television. This performance saw the first airings of two future singles, namely "Rage Hard" and "Warriors of the Wasteland". Both versions were different from the versions eventually released. In August 1986, the long-awaited new Frankie Goes to Hollywood single, "Rage Hard", was released, reaching number 4 in the UK. Initially showcased promotionally with songs like "Warriors of the Wasteland", the group's sound had developed a significantly harder edge with a less flamboyant, more nitty-gritty lyrical side. The album, Liverpool, was released in October 1986 and reached UK No. 5. It was generally panned by the music press and chart returns declined rapidly with the follow-up singles "Warriors of the Wasteland" (No. 19) and "Watching the Wildlife" (No. 28). The group meanwhile threatened to implode of its own accord, in the course of a tour promoting the new album. Johnson kept himself markedly separate from the rest of the band when offstage during this period, tensions becoming exacerbated during a backstage altercation between Johnson and O'Toole at Wembley Arena in January 1987, reflecting the generally collapsing relationship between lead singer and the rest of the band. Things were so bad that fellow Liverpudlian singer Pete Wylie was approached to replace Johnson but declined the offer. FGTH completed the tour, but Johnson ultimately left the group thereafter, citing musical estrangement.
Aftermath
In the aftermath of the group split, Johnson was offered a solo recording agreement with MCA Records. However, ZTT, which maintained they had invested heavily in Liverpool (to the extent that the digital recording system used to record the album was very nearly treated as a sixth member of the band on the sleeve of the "Warriors of the Wasteland" single), had other ideas, and promptly sued Johnson in an attempt to hold him to his original contract with the label. Among other things, ZTT believed that as a departing member of FGTH, Johnson was required to release all solo material through the label until the band's original multiple-album agreement was fulfilled. The suit was bitterly fought, exposing the inner workings of the ZTT/Frankie machine to a giddy UK music press.
After two years, the High Court found in Johnson's favour, holding that the highly restrictive terms of the contract constituted an unreasonable restraint of trade. The court case also effectively freed the remaining members of FGTH from their ZTT contract.
Later years
Johnson's solo career at MCA commenced in 1989, with a succession of high-placed singles and the number one album Blast. The remix collection Hollelujah followed, trailed by a second studio album, Dreams That Money Can't Buy. However, Johnson's relations with MCA cooled with this release, and he would ultimately become a reclusive but successful painter, after announcing in 1993 that he was HIV-positive. The following year, Johnson recounted his version of Frankie's history in his autobiography A Bone in My Flute. His self-issued 1999 album Soulstream included a re-recording of "The Power of Love", which was also released as a single.
Paul Rutherford, the other openly gay member of the band, released the partially ABC produced album Oh World and a handful of singles before retiring with his New Zealander partner to Waiheke Island.
The "other three", as Smash Hits labelled them, continued to work together in what turned out to be a vain attempt to resurrect "Frankie" with various singers including Dee Harris from Fashion and Grant Boult (Jeckyl Ice) from The Premise, who had opened the shows on the band's UK and European tours. Under the name Boss Dog, with Boult on vocals, the band were offered a major deal with Virgin Records but on the condition they work as Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Johnson challenged the use of the name and the deal soured. Boult and Brian Nash continued with the material written by The Shuffle Brothers and under the name Low they released "Tearing My Soul Apart" in 1992 on Swanyard Records. As "Nasher", Nash released a 2002 solo album entitled Ripe. Ped worked behind the scenes and scored a top ten hit with the group "Lovestation". Mark O'Toole moved to Florida and played with punk outfit "Trapped by Mormons".
The band's name lived on to the extent that re-issues of "Relax" and "The Power of Love" both returned to the UK Top 10 in 1993. Remixes of "The Power of Love" (which became a dance anthem from its original ballad format) and "Two Tribes" were Top 20 hits again in 2000, while "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" also got commercially successful remix treatment, to the extent of a Top 20 placing four years earlier.
The group's first two singles appeared sixth and 22nd, respectively, in the official all-time UK best-selling singles list issued in 2002.
American impostor group
In 1998, a band calling itself alternately "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" and "The New Frankie Goes to Hollywood Featuring Davey Johnson" began to tour the United States. The band consisted of none of the original members of the band and formed without their knowledge or consent. The impostor band was led by an American using the stage name Davey Johnson, who alternately claimed he was Holly Johnson's brother and had performed as an uncredited session musician on Welcome to the Pleasuredome. The members of the actual band and their producer Trevor Horn refuted both claims. Mark O'Toole, who had been living in Florida, became aware of the band and warned concert promoters not to hire them. Likewise, A Flock of Seagulls frontman Mike Score, who had been a Liverpool acquaintance of the members of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, kicked the impostor band off his tour after discovering they were a fraud. After Holly Johnson contacted the trade magazine Pollstar to confirm that the American-based act was unauthorized, the impostor band was dropped by a booking agent, but continued to be booked by small clubs throughout the southern United States. The fake group continued to perform until at least September 2000, when a feature on the controversy was published in that month's issue of Spin.
Reunion and comeback
In 2003, the VH-1 program Bands Reunited brought Johnson, Rutherford, Gill, Nash, and Mark O'Toole together, in the hope of their agreeing to perform impromptu on the show. However, a reunion performance did not transpire. Both Johnson and Nash had reservations about performing at short notice in the contrived manner dictated by the TV show format.
In 2004, a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Trevor Horn's involvement in the music industry a special concert took place at Wembley Arena in November, featuring three of the original FGTH line-up, Mark O'Toole, Peter (Ped) Gill and Paul Rutherford and another former member, Jed O'Toole. Original vocalist Johnson, who announced via the Internet that he would not be appearing, and guitarist Nash, who declined to appear for his own reasons, did not take part. Jed O'Toole took over guitar duties for the event, whilst an open audition was held for a new singer for the concert. Ryan Molloy was recruited as a result.
The same lineup reunited for a tour in 2005 playing festivals in Europe. They headlined the Big Gay Out festival at Hyde Park in London.
After some confusion with ensuing tour dates, the band posted a warning on their website that many of the tour dates listed by ticket promoters were inaccurate. The band became increasingly focused on the release of a new album during 2007. However, in early April 2007 came the news that Gill, Rutherford, J. O'Toole and Molloy had formed Forbidden Hollywood to play their new songs alongside old FGTH material. This was to avoid legal issues with Holly Johnson over use of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood name. Live dates were announced, but these were cancelled in June 2007.
Personnel
Principal members
Holly Johnson – vocals (1980–1987)
Paul Rutherford – vocals, tambourine (1980–1987, 2004–2007)
Mark O'Toole – vocals, bass (1980–1987, 2004–2007)
Brian Nash – vocals, guitars (1982–1987)
Peter Gill – drums (1980–1987, 2004–2007)
Ryan Molloy – vocals (2004–2007)
Early members
Jed O'Toole – vocals, guitars (1980–1982, 1984, 1987, 2004–2007)
Sonia Mazumder – vocals (1980)
Awards and nominations
{| class=wikitable
|-
! Year !! Awards !! Work !! Category !! Result
|-
| rowspan="4" | 1984
| Ivor Novello Awards
| rowspan="2" | "Two Tribes"
| Best Song Musically And Lyrically
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | NME Awards
| Promo Video
|
|-
| Welcome to the Pleasuredome
| Best Dressed Sleeve
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | "Relax"
| Best Single
|
|-
| rowspan="9" | 1985
| Ivor Novello Awards
| Best Contemporary Song
|
|-
| rowspan="5" | Brit Awards
| Best British Single
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | Themselves
| Best British Newcomer
|
|-
| Best British Group
|
|-
| Welcome to the Pleasuredome
| Best British Album
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | "Two Tribes"
| Best British Single
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | MTV Video Music Awards
| Best New Artist
|
|-
| Best Concept Video
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
| Themselves
| Which Artist is Most Likely to Successfully Headline Arenas for the First time in 1985?
|
|-
| 1986
| Tour
| Small Hall/Club Tour of the Year
|
|-
| 2010
| Q Awards
| "Relax"
| Classic Song
|
Discography
Welcome to the Pleasuredome (1984)
Liverpool (1986)
Computer game
In 1985, a computer game entitled Frankie Goes to Hollywood was developed by Denton Designs and published by Ocean Software. Based on the band's music, imagery and slogans, the objective of the game was to explore the town of Mundanesville to find the Pleasuredome. It also came boxed with an extra cassette with a live version of "Relax" on it.
References
External links
Frankie Goes to Hollywood official website
Brit Award winners
British Hi-NRG groups
Dance-rock musical groups
English new wave musical groups
British synth-pop new wave groups
LGBT-themed musical groups
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups from Liverpool
Musical quintets
Scouse culture of the early 1980s
ZTT Records artists
English synth-pop groups
Dance-pop groups | true | [
"The SpVgg Bad Homburg is a German association football club from the town of Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Hesse.\n\nThe club's greatest success came in 1973 when it won the German amateur football championship, but it also reached the final of this competition on another three occasions. SpVgg also took part in the German Cup on two occasions, in 1977–78 and 1992–93. The club folded in 1999 and reformed soon after and now plays as the SpVgg 05/99 Bomber Bad Homburg.\n\nHistory\n\nThe club was formed as SC Germania 05 Homburg on 20 August 1905 and the club's early history is one of frequent mergers and name changes. In 1906 it was renamed to FC Germania 05 Homburg and, in 1911, it merged with FC 1908 Kirdorf to form Homburger SpVgg 08. The following year another merger, now with FC Phönix 08 Bad Homburg, saw the club renamed to Homburger FV 05. Yet another set of mergers, with Sportclub 1920 Homburg and Homburger Hockeyclub saw it renamed to Homburger Sport-Verein 05, a name it retained when it merged with Vorwärts Homburg in 1930. In 1937 the club merged with Reichsbahn-TuSV 1930 Bad Homburg, a club associated with the German railway, and became Reichsbahn SV 05 Bad Homburg, soon after to be changed to Reichsbahn SG 05 Bad Homburg. It was under this name that it experienced its greatest pre-1945 success, reaching the promotion round to the tier one Gauliga Hessen in 1941.\n\nThe railways club was disbanded after the end of the Second World War and Freie-Sportgemeinschaft Bad Homburg was formed which became the SpVgg 05 Bad Homburg on 1 February 1946. The club became a founding member of the tier three Amateurliga Hessen in 1950 but lasted for only one season before being relegated again. It returned to this level in 1952 for a spell of nine seasons until 1961. It won the league in 1955 which entitled it to participate in the German amateur football championship for the first time. SpVgg went all the way to the final, where it lost to Sportfreunde Siegen 0–5 in front of 15,000 spectators. The club continued to achieve good results in the Amateurliga, coming second in 1958 but was relegated again in 1961.\n\nSpVgg returned to the Amateurliga in 1965 for a five-season spell until 1970 that saw limited success. It made its third return to this league in 1972, now as a much stronger side again, finishing runners-up in its first two seasons back. In 1973 it also played in the German amateur championship again and won the competition courtesy to a 1–0 victory over the reserve team of 1. FC Kaiserslautern. The club qualified for the first round of the 1977–78 DFB-Pokal, the German Cup, but lost 1–2 to FC 08 Homburg. SpVgg remained in the league in 1978 when it was renamed to Amateur-Oberliga Hessen but was relegated in 1979. It continued its yo-yo existence, returning to the league in 1980, relegated again in 1983 and promoted once more in 1987.\n\nSpVgg Bad Homburg's next spell in the league began in 1987 when it played six more seasons in Hesse's highest league. The club finished runners-up in the league on three occasions when a championship would have meant the right to play in the promotion round to the 2. Bundesliga. Instead it qualified for the German amateur championship, a consolation prize, and reached the final twice more, in 1989 and 1992. In 1989 SpVgg lost to Eintracht Trier on penalties, in 1992 to Rot-Weiß Essen after extra time. It qualified for the German Cup for a second time, losing 1–5 to Eintracht Braunschweig in the second round of the 1992–93 edition. The latter two marked the end of the club's successful years, being relegated from the league the following season, in 1993.\n\nSpVgg made one more return to the league, now renamed Oberliga Hessen, in 1998 but lasted for only 16 games before having to withdraw after declaring insolvency. On 26 June 1999 the club was disbanded.\n\nA new club, the SC 99 Bad Homburg was formed on 14 May 1999 with the primary intend of continuing on the youth teams of the insolvent club. A senior side was formed in 2001 with the help of former Bundesliga player Ralf Haub. On 10 May 2007 the club was renamed SpVgg 05/99 Bad Homburg to attract more interest in Bad Homburg by adopting the name of well-known Spielvereinigung. The club continued to play in the mid tiers of amateur football in Hesse. In 2012 it merged with FC Bomber Bad Homburg, a club with a strong youth program but no senior side, to form the current SpVgg 05/99 Bomber Bad Homburg.\n\nHonours\nThe club's honours:\n\nLeague\n German amateur football championship\n Winners: 1973\n Runners-up: (3) 1955, 1989, 1992\n Amateurliga Hessen\n Champions: 1955\n Runners-up: (3) 1958, 1973, 1974\n Amateur-Oberliga Hessen\n Runners-up: (3) 1989, 1990, 1992\n Landesliga Hessen-Süd\n Champions: (3) 1980, 1987, 1998\n Landesliga Hessen-Mitte\n Champions: 1972\n\nCup\n DFB-Pokal\n Participant: 1977–78, 1992–93\n Hesse Cup\n Winners: 1951\n\nRecent seasons\nThe season-by-season performance of the club since reforming in 1999:\n\nWith the introduction of the Regionalligas in 1994 and the 3. Liga in 2008 as the new third tier, below the 2. Bundesliga, all leagues below dropped one tier. Alongside the introduction of the 3. Liga in 2008, a number of football leagues in Hesse were renamed, with the Oberliga Hessen renamed to Hessenliga, the Landesliga to Verbandsliga, the Bezirksoberliga to Gruppenliga and the Bezirksliga to Kreisoberliga.\n\nKey\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official team site \n Das deutsche Fußball-Archiv historical German domestic league tables \n\nFootball clubs in Germany\nFootball clubs in Hesse\nAssociation football clubs established in 1905\n1905 establishments in Germany\nBad Homburg vor der Höhe",
"The market town of Bad Fischau-Brunn is an Austrian municipality in the district of Wiener Neustadt-Land in Lower Austria. It is situated some 50 km south of Vienna at the edge of Viennese Basin.\n\nBad Fischau-Brunn is divided into two Katastralgemeinden: \nBad Fischau\nBrunn an der Schneebergbahn.\n\nHistory\n\nThe oldest traces of settlement in the area of the municipality date back to the Hallstatt culture (8th-6th century BC). A Roman road passed through the area, and the sources of Fischau were already used in the Roman era. The name Fischau was first mentioned in the 9th century. It was mentioned as a market town in 1166, and was site of the mint, too. However, it lost its importance after Wiener Neustadt, founded at the end of the 12th century, became the site of the mint.\n\nExploitation of the mineral springs of Fischau took a rise in 1872, when the spa resort (Kristalltherme) was opened. It was rebuilt and expanded to its current state in 1900. The prefix \"Bad\" (spa town) has been added to the name in 1929. The current market town was formed in 1969 by merging the municipalities of Brunn an der Schneebergbahn and Bad-Fischau.\n\nPopulation\n\nCulture and sites of interest\nThe thermal springs (19 °C), dating from 1900 in its present form. \nThe church, built in the 12th century, received its present classicist shape in 1796-1798.\nThe castle\nThe cave Eisensteinhöhle\n\nReferences\n\nCities and towns in Wiener Neustadt-Land District\nSpa towns in Austria"
] |
[
"Frankie Goes to Hollywood",
"Formation",
"when was the bad formed?",
"The original group named \"Frankie Goes to Hollywood\" dates from 1980."
] | C_9b7cbe25b8104d2889a0b4289d7030b8_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 2 | Besides the band's formation, are there any other interesting aspects about Frankie Goes to Hollywood? | Frankie Goes to Hollywood | On the B-side to the group's first single, Johnson explained that the group's name derived from a page from The New Yorker magazine, featuring the headline "Frankie Goes Hollywood" and a picture of Frank Sinatra, although the magazine page Johnson referred to was actually a pop art poster by Guy Peellaert. The original group named "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" dates from 1980. The nucleus of the group emerged from the late 1970s Liverpool punk scene. Lead singer Johnson had played bass with Big in Japan and had also released two solo singles. Local musicians Peter Gill (drums), Jed O'Toole (bass), and O'Toole's cousin Brian Nash (guitar) initially joined Johnson, calling themselves the Sons of Egypt. This line-up secured a number of small local gigs before disbanding. The group was reprised when Johnson joined Mark O'Toole (bass) and Peter "Ped" Gill to form FGTH. During a particularly fluid period of personnel changes, Jed O'Toole joined FGTH on guitar, and a female vocalist, Sonia Mazumder, was also a band member for the first Frankie gig at the Leeds nightclub "The Warehouse", supporting Hambi & The Dance. Paul Rutherford - a member of the headline act who had also sung in seminal Liverpool punk band The Spitfire Boys - apparently got so caught up in Frankie's performance that he effectively replaced Mazumder that very night. The new all-male musical line-up subsequently toured locally with a leather-clad female duo known as "The Leatherpets" and managed to fund promotional videos and demos, despite being eventually turned down by both Arista Records and Phonogram Inc. In October 1982, the group recorded a John Peel Session for BBC Radio 1, comprising the originals "Krisco Kisses", "Two Tribes", "Disneyland", and "The World Is My Oyster". Around this time Jed O'Toole left the group, to be replaced by the returning Brian Nash. In February 1983, the group was invited to record a video for "Relax" by the Channel 4 show The Tube at the Liverpool State Ballroom. After the broadcast, the Peel session was repeated on radio, and a new session recorded for the BBC, comprising "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", "The Only Star in Heaven" and "Relax". These performances, along with a repeat of the Tube video, convinced Trevor Horn to sign the group for his new label, ZTT Records, in May 1983. CANNOTANSWER | In February 1983, the group was invited to record a video for "Relax" by the Channel 4 show The Tube at the Liverpool State Ballroom. | Frankie Goes to Hollywood were an English synth-pop band formed in Liverpool in 1980. The group's best-known line-up comprised Holly Johnson (vocals), Paul Rutherford (backing vocals), Peter Gill (drums, percussion), Mark O'Toole (bass guitar) and Brian Nash (guitar).
The group's 1983 debut single "Relax" was banned by the BBC in 1984 while at number six in the charts and subsequently topped the UK Singles Chart for five consecutive weeks, going on to enjoy prolonged chart success throughout that year and ultimately becoming the seventh-best-selling UK single of all time. It also won the 1985 Brit Award for Best British Single. Their debut album, Welcome to the Pleasuredome, reached number one in the UK in 1984 with advanced sales of more than one million. After the follow-up success of "Two Tribes" and "The Power of Love", the group became only the second act in the history of the UK charts to reach number one with their first three singles; the first being fellow Liverpudlians Gerry and the Pacemakers in the 1960s. This record remained unbeaten until the Spice Girls achieved a six-single streak in 1996–1997.
In 1985 the band won the Brit Award for British Breakthrough Act. Associated with the Second British Invasion of the US, they also received Grammy Award and MTV Video Music Award nominations for Best New Artist. Songwriters Johnson, Gill and O'Toole received the 1984 Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for "Two Tribes". In 2015, the song was voted by the British public as the nation's 14th-favourite 1980s number one in a poll for ITV.
History
Formation
On the B-side to the group's first single, Johnson explained that the group's name derived from a page from The New Yorker magazine, featuring the headline "Frankie Goes Hollywood" and a picture of Frank Sinatra, although the magazine page Johnson referred to was actually a pop art poster by Guy Peellaert featuring a newspaper headline above an image of a young Sinatra being mobbed by his fans. The original group named "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" dates from 1980.
The nucleus of the group emerged from the late 1970s Liverpool punk scene. Lead singer Johnson had played bass with Big in Japan and had also released two solo singles. Local musicians Peter Gill (drums), Jed O'Toole (bass), and O'Toole's cousin Brian Nash (guitar) initially joined Johnson, calling themselves Sons and Egypt. This line-up secured a number of small local gigs before disbanding.
The group was reprised when Johnson joined Mark O'Toole (bass) and Peter "Ped" Gill to form FGTH. During a particularly fluid period of personnel changes, Jed O'Toole joined FGTH on guitar, and a female vocalist, Sonia Mazumder, was also a band member for the first Frankie gig at the Leeds nightclub "The Warehouse", supporting Hambi & The Dance. Paul Rutherford—a member of the headline act who had also sung in seminal Liverpool punk band The Spitfire Boys—apparently got so caught up in Frankie's performance that he effectively replaced Mazumder that very night. The new all-male musical line-up subsequently toured locally with a leather-clad female duo known as "The Leatherpets" and managed to fund promotional videos and demos, despite being eventually turned down by both Arista Records and Phonogram Inc. In October 1982, the group recorded a John Peel Session for BBC Radio 1, comprising the originals "Krisco Kisses", "Two Tribes", "Disneyland", and "The World Is My Oyster". Around this time Jed O'Toole left the group, to be replaced by the returning Brian Nash.
Nash said the band looked up to Echo & the Bunnymen, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) and The Teardrop Explodes, adding, "That was music from Liverpool but from our generation. You would see these people walking around town, you'd see Ian McCulloch getting on the bus. I never saw any of the Beatles on the bus."
In February 1983, the group was invited to record a video for "Relax" by the Channel 4 show The Tube at the Liverpool State Ballroom. After the broadcast, the Peel session was repeated on radio, and a new session recorded for the BBC, comprising "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", "The Only Star in Heaven" and "Relax". These performances, along with a repeat of the Tube video, convinced Trevor Horn to sign the group for his new label, ZTT Records, in May 1983.
"Relax"
"Relax" was released by ZTT in October 1983, with production and remix directed by Trevor Horn, received a modicum of airplay, allowing it steady progress into the UK Top 40. Following a debut on the BBC's Top of the Pops on 5 January 1984 while at number 35, the single rose to number six the following week.
On 11 January 1984, BBC Radio 1 disc jockey Mike Read was playing the record on his show when he noticed the front cover design (by Yvonne Gilbert). Read apparently became outraged by the "overtly sexual" nature of both the record sleeve and the printed lyrics, which prompted him to remove the disc from the turntable live on air, branding it "obscene".
Two days later—almost three months after the single's initial release, and just eight days after the group's Top of the Pops appearance—the BBC banned the record from all its TV and radio outlets. "Relax" immediately shot to number one in the UK charts and stayed there for five weeks, during which time the BBC could not feature the nation's best-selling single on Top of the Pops.
The original video was directed by Bernard Rose and depicted a gay S&M parlour where the band members were admired by muscular leathermen, a bleached blonde drag queen, and a large-bodied man dressed as a Roman emperor. The video featured a scene where one of the band members wrestled a live tiger, to the admiration of the clubgoers, and ended where the "emperor" was so excited he shimmied out of his toga. Filmed in the unused East London theatre Wilton's Music Hall, it was promptly banned by both the BBC and MTV, resulting in the production of a substitute video directed by filmmaker Brian De Palma to coincide with the release of his film Body Double. There have been four official music videos for "Relax."
The BBC lifted its ban on "Relax" at the end of 1984 to allow the band to perform it on the Christmas edition of Top of the Pops (it had been, aside from Band Aid the biggest-selling single of the year).
"Two Tribes"
"Relax" remained in the charts when the follow-up, "Two Tribes", was released in May 1984. The anti-conflict song was given an aggressively topical nuclear war slant. Featuring sirens, the unmistakable voice of Patrick Allen (who had voiced the British Government's actual nuclear warning ads, Protect and Survive, two years earlier) and another innovative electronic backing, it went straight into the UK charts at Number One and stayed there for nine weeks (the first single to do so since John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John's "You're the One That I Want" in 1978), with total sales exceeding 1.5 million copies and becoming one of the top 30 best-selling records in the UK ever.
Directed by Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, the video featured lookalikes of Cold War leaders Ronald Reagan and Konstantin Chernenko wrestling in a marquee while band members and others laid bets on the outcome. Ultimately, the audience—consisting of other world leaders—were brought into the fight, and eventually Earth was seen to explode.
"Two Tribes" was a successful single in its own right, but its reign at the top of the charts was made even more notable by the continuing success of its predecessor. "Relax" had made a natural decline down the charts by May 1984, but on the release of "Two Tribes" its sales began to increase again, to the extent that FGTH held the top two spots in the UK charts during July 1984, the first active group to do so since the early 1960s.
The release of "Two Tribes" also coincided with an extensive and iconic T-shirt marketing campaign during the British summer of 1984, featuring such slogans as "Frankie Say War! Hide Yourself" and "Frankie Say Relax Don't Do It!"
"The Power of Love"
FGTH released a third single, "The Power of Love", at the end of 1984. Unlike the earlier singles, this song was a slower-paced ballad, but it also went to Number One in December and making the band the first act for two decades (since Gerry and the Pacemakers, a fellow Liverpool band, in 1963) to achieve chart-toppers with its first three releases. The video (directed once again by Godley & Creme) was not banned on this occasion but still caused trouble for the group—because it depicted a nativity scene (and on its first showing did not feature any members of the band, who were subsequently added as picture framing).
The song's release was preceded by an advertising campaign that, cheekily, declared it to be the band's third number one single, as if this was a fait accompli. The Band Aid project, for which Johnson recorded a message for the B-side, meant that FGTH managed only one week at the top this time before it was replaced by "Do They Know It's Christmas?"
"Welcome to the Pleasuredome"
The title track from FGTH's album, "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", was released as a fourth single in March 1985. Early promotional posters for the single proclaimed it as "their fourth number one", even prior to the single's release. However, the single peaked at Number 2. The twelve-inch singles featured Greek mythology/Samuel Taylor Coleridge spoken introduction. Geoffrey Palmer narrates on the second 12", known as the "fruitness" mix.
Only one new track appeared in the next eighteen months; "Disneyland", was released on the ZTT Records "Zang Tuum Tumb Sampled" album in late 1985.
Return and decline
In 1986, FGTH appeared at the Montreux Rock Festival which was broadcast on UK television. This performance saw the first airings of two future singles, namely "Rage Hard" and "Warriors of the Wasteland". Both versions were different from the versions eventually released. In August 1986, the long-awaited new Frankie Goes to Hollywood single, "Rage Hard", was released, reaching number 4 in the UK. Initially showcased promotionally with songs like "Warriors of the Wasteland", the group's sound had developed a significantly harder edge with a less flamboyant, more nitty-gritty lyrical side. The album, Liverpool, was released in October 1986 and reached UK No. 5. It was generally panned by the music press and chart returns declined rapidly with the follow-up singles "Warriors of the Wasteland" (No. 19) and "Watching the Wildlife" (No. 28). The group meanwhile threatened to implode of its own accord, in the course of a tour promoting the new album. Johnson kept himself markedly separate from the rest of the band when offstage during this period, tensions becoming exacerbated during a backstage altercation between Johnson and O'Toole at Wembley Arena in January 1987, reflecting the generally collapsing relationship between lead singer and the rest of the band. Things were so bad that fellow Liverpudlian singer Pete Wylie was approached to replace Johnson but declined the offer. FGTH completed the tour, but Johnson ultimately left the group thereafter, citing musical estrangement.
Aftermath
In the aftermath of the group split, Johnson was offered a solo recording agreement with MCA Records. However, ZTT, which maintained they had invested heavily in Liverpool (to the extent that the digital recording system used to record the album was very nearly treated as a sixth member of the band on the sleeve of the "Warriors of the Wasteland" single), had other ideas, and promptly sued Johnson in an attempt to hold him to his original contract with the label. Among other things, ZTT believed that as a departing member of FGTH, Johnson was required to release all solo material through the label until the band's original multiple-album agreement was fulfilled. The suit was bitterly fought, exposing the inner workings of the ZTT/Frankie machine to a giddy UK music press.
After two years, the High Court found in Johnson's favour, holding that the highly restrictive terms of the contract constituted an unreasonable restraint of trade. The court case also effectively freed the remaining members of FGTH from their ZTT contract.
Later years
Johnson's solo career at MCA commenced in 1989, with a succession of high-placed singles and the number one album Blast. The remix collection Hollelujah followed, trailed by a second studio album, Dreams That Money Can't Buy. However, Johnson's relations with MCA cooled with this release, and he would ultimately become a reclusive but successful painter, after announcing in 1993 that he was HIV-positive. The following year, Johnson recounted his version of Frankie's history in his autobiography A Bone in My Flute. His self-issued 1999 album Soulstream included a re-recording of "The Power of Love", which was also released as a single.
Paul Rutherford, the other openly gay member of the band, released the partially ABC produced album Oh World and a handful of singles before retiring with his New Zealander partner to Waiheke Island.
The "other three", as Smash Hits labelled them, continued to work together in what turned out to be a vain attempt to resurrect "Frankie" with various singers including Dee Harris from Fashion and Grant Boult (Jeckyl Ice) from The Premise, who had opened the shows on the band's UK and European tours. Under the name Boss Dog, with Boult on vocals, the band were offered a major deal with Virgin Records but on the condition they work as Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Johnson challenged the use of the name and the deal soured. Boult and Brian Nash continued with the material written by The Shuffle Brothers and under the name Low they released "Tearing My Soul Apart" in 1992 on Swanyard Records. As "Nasher", Nash released a 2002 solo album entitled Ripe. Ped worked behind the scenes and scored a top ten hit with the group "Lovestation". Mark O'Toole moved to Florida and played with punk outfit "Trapped by Mormons".
The band's name lived on to the extent that re-issues of "Relax" and "The Power of Love" both returned to the UK Top 10 in 1993. Remixes of "The Power of Love" (which became a dance anthem from its original ballad format) and "Two Tribes" were Top 20 hits again in 2000, while "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" also got commercially successful remix treatment, to the extent of a Top 20 placing four years earlier.
The group's first two singles appeared sixth and 22nd, respectively, in the official all-time UK best-selling singles list issued in 2002.
American impostor group
In 1998, a band calling itself alternately "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" and "The New Frankie Goes to Hollywood Featuring Davey Johnson" began to tour the United States. The band consisted of none of the original members of the band and formed without their knowledge or consent. The impostor band was led by an American using the stage name Davey Johnson, who alternately claimed he was Holly Johnson's brother and had performed as an uncredited session musician on Welcome to the Pleasuredome. The members of the actual band and their producer Trevor Horn refuted both claims. Mark O'Toole, who had been living in Florida, became aware of the band and warned concert promoters not to hire them. Likewise, A Flock of Seagulls frontman Mike Score, who had been a Liverpool acquaintance of the members of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, kicked the impostor band off his tour after discovering they were a fraud. After Holly Johnson contacted the trade magazine Pollstar to confirm that the American-based act was unauthorized, the impostor band was dropped by a booking agent, but continued to be booked by small clubs throughout the southern United States. The fake group continued to perform until at least September 2000, when a feature on the controversy was published in that month's issue of Spin.
Reunion and comeback
In 2003, the VH-1 program Bands Reunited brought Johnson, Rutherford, Gill, Nash, and Mark O'Toole together, in the hope of their agreeing to perform impromptu on the show. However, a reunion performance did not transpire. Both Johnson and Nash had reservations about performing at short notice in the contrived manner dictated by the TV show format.
In 2004, a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Trevor Horn's involvement in the music industry a special concert took place at Wembley Arena in November, featuring three of the original FGTH line-up, Mark O'Toole, Peter (Ped) Gill and Paul Rutherford and another former member, Jed O'Toole. Original vocalist Johnson, who announced via the Internet that he would not be appearing, and guitarist Nash, who declined to appear for his own reasons, did not take part. Jed O'Toole took over guitar duties for the event, whilst an open audition was held for a new singer for the concert. Ryan Molloy was recruited as a result.
The same lineup reunited for a tour in 2005 playing festivals in Europe. They headlined the Big Gay Out festival at Hyde Park in London.
After some confusion with ensuing tour dates, the band posted a warning on their website that many of the tour dates listed by ticket promoters were inaccurate. The band became increasingly focused on the release of a new album during 2007. However, in early April 2007 came the news that Gill, Rutherford, J. O'Toole and Molloy had formed Forbidden Hollywood to play their new songs alongside old FGTH material. This was to avoid legal issues with Holly Johnson over use of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood name. Live dates were announced, but these were cancelled in June 2007.
Personnel
Principal members
Holly Johnson – vocals (1980–1987)
Paul Rutherford – vocals, tambourine (1980–1987, 2004–2007)
Mark O'Toole – vocals, bass (1980–1987, 2004–2007)
Brian Nash – vocals, guitars (1982–1987)
Peter Gill – drums (1980–1987, 2004–2007)
Ryan Molloy – vocals (2004–2007)
Early members
Jed O'Toole – vocals, guitars (1980–1982, 1984, 1987, 2004–2007)
Sonia Mazumder – vocals (1980)
Awards and nominations
{| class=wikitable
|-
! Year !! Awards !! Work !! Category !! Result
|-
| rowspan="4" | 1984
| Ivor Novello Awards
| rowspan="2" | "Two Tribes"
| Best Song Musically And Lyrically
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | NME Awards
| Promo Video
|
|-
| Welcome to the Pleasuredome
| Best Dressed Sleeve
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | "Relax"
| Best Single
|
|-
| rowspan="9" | 1985
| Ivor Novello Awards
| Best Contemporary Song
|
|-
| rowspan="5" | Brit Awards
| Best British Single
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | Themselves
| Best British Newcomer
|
|-
| Best British Group
|
|-
| Welcome to the Pleasuredome
| Best British Album
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | "Two Tribes"
| Best British Single
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | MTV Video Music Awards
| Best New Artist
|
|-
| Best Concept Video
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
| Themselves
| Which Artist is Most Likely to Successfully Headline Arenas for the First time in 1985?
|
|-
| 1986
| Tour
| Small Hall/Club Tour of the Year
|
|-
| 2010
| Q Awards
| "Relax"
| Classic Song
|
Discography
Welcome to the Pleasuredome (1984)
Liverpool (1986)
Computer game
In 1985, a computer game entitled Frankie Goes to Hollywood was developed by Denton Designs and published by Ocean Software. Based on the band's music, imagery and slogans, the objective of the game was to explore the town of Mundanesville to find the Pleasuredome. It also came boxed with an extra cassette with a live version of "Relax" on it.
References
External links
Frankie Goes to Hollywood official website
Brit Award winners
British Hi-NRG groups
Dance-rock musical groups
English new wave musical groups
British synth-pop new wave groups
LGBT-themed musical groups
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups from Liverpool
Musical quintets
Scouse culture of the early 1980s
ZTT Records artists
English synth-pop groups
Dance-pop groups | true | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Frankie Goes to Hollywood",
"Formation",
"when was the bad formed?",
"The original group named \"Frankie Goes to Hollywood\" dates from 1980.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In February 1983, the group was invited to record a video for \"Relax\" by the Channel 4 show The Tube at the Liverpool State Ballroom."
] | C_9b7cbe25b8104d2889a0b4289d7030b8_1 | Did they have any other success in any other countries? | 3 | Besides Liverpool, did Frankie Goes to Hollywood have any other success in any other countries? | Frankie Goes to Hollywood | On the B-side to the group's first single, Johnson explained that the group's name derived from a page from The New Yorker magazine, featuring the headline "Frankie Goes Hollywood" and a picture of Frank Sinatra, although the magazine page Johnson referred to was actually a pop art poster by Guy Peellaert. The original group named "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" dates from 1980. The nucleus of the group emerged from the late 1970s Liverpool punk scene. Lead singer Johnson had played bass with Big in Japan and had also released two solo singles. Local musicians Peter Gill (drums), Jed O'Toole (bass), and O'Toole's cousin Brian Nash (guitar) initially joined Johnson, calling themselves the Sons of Egypt. This line-up secured a number of small local gigs before disbanding. The group was reprised when Johnson joined Mark O'Toole (bass) and Peter "Ped" Gill to form FGTH. During a particularly fluid period of personnel changes, Jed O'Toole joined FGTH on guitar, and a female vocalist, Sonia Mazumder, was also a band member for the first Frankie gig at the Leeds nightclub "The Warehouse", supporting Hambi & The Dance. Paul Rutherford - a member of the headline act who had also sung in seminal Liverpool punk band The Spitfire Boys - apparently got so caught up in Frankie's performance that he effectively replaced Mazumder that very night. The new all-male musical line-up subsequently toured locally with a leather-clad female duo known as "The Leatherpets" and managed to fund promotional videos and demos, despite being eventually turned down by both Arista Records and Phonogram Inc. In October 1982, the group recorded a John Peel Session for BBC Radio 1, comprising the originals "Krisco Kisses", "Two Tribes", "Disneyland", and "The World Is My Oyster". Around this time Jed O'Toole left the group, to be replaced by the returning Brian Nash. In February 1983, the group was invited to record a video for "Relax" by the Channel 4 show The Tube at the Liverpool State Ballroom. After the broadcast, the Peel session was repeated on radio, and a new session recorded for the BBC, comprising "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", "The Only Star in Heaven" and "Relax". These performances, along with a repeat of the Tube video, convinced Trevor Horn to sign the group for his new label, ZTT Records, in May 1983. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Frankie Goes to Hollywood were an English synth-pop band formed in Liverpool in 1980. The group's best-known line-up comprised Holly Johnson (vocals), Paul Rutherford (backing vocals), Peter Gill (drums, percussion), Mark O'Toole (bass guitar) and Brian Nash (guitar).
The group's 1983 debut single "Relax" was banned by the BBC in 1984 while at number six in the charts and subsequently topped the UK Singles Chart for five consecutive weeks, going on to enjoy prolonged chart success throughout that year and ultimately becoming the seventh-best-selling UK single of all time. It also won the 1985 Brit Award for Best British Single. Their debut album, Welcome to the Pleasuredome, reached number one in the UK in 1984 with advanced sales of more than one million. After the follow-up success of "Two Tribes" and "The Power of Love", the group became only the second act in the history of the UK charts to reach number one with their first three singles; the first being fellow Liverpudlians Gerry and the Pacemakers in the 1960s. This record remained unbeaten until the Spice Girls achieved a six-single streak in 1996–1997.
In 1985 the band won the Brit Award for British Breakthrough Act. Associated with the Second British Invasion of the US, they also received Grammy Award and MTV Video Music Award nominations for Best New Artist. Songwriters Johnson, Gill and O'Toole received the 1984 Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for "Two Tribes". In 2015, the song was voted by the British public as the nation's 14th-favourite 1980s number one in a poll for ITV.
History
Formation
On the B-side to the group's first single, Johnson explained that the group's name derived from a page from The New Yorker magazine, featuring the headline "Frankie Goes Hollywood" and a picture of Frank Sinatra, although the magazine page Johnson referred to was actually a pop art poster by Guy Peellaert featuring a newspaper headline above an image of a young Sinatra being mobbed by his fans. The original group named "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" dates from 1980.
The nucleus of the group emerged from the late 1970s Liverpool punk scene. Lead singer Johnson had played bass with Big in Japan and had also released two solo singles. Local musicians Peter Gill (drums), Jed O'Toole (bass), and O'Toole's cousin Brian Nash (guitar) initially joined Johnson, calling themselves Sons and Egypt. This line-up secured a number of small local gigs before disbanding.
The group was reprised when Johnson joined Mark O'Toole (bass) and Peter "Ped" Gill to form FGTH. During a particularly fluid period of personnel changes, Jed O'Toole joined FGTH on guitar, and a female vocalist, Sonia Mazumder, was also a band member for the first Frankie gig at the Leeds nightclub "The Warehouse", supporting Hambi & The Dance. Paul Rutherford—a member of the headline act who had also sung in seminal Liverpool punk band The Spitfire Boys—apparently got so caught up in Frankie's performance that he effectively replaced Mazumder that very night. The new all-male musical line-up subsequently toured locally with a leather-clad female duo known as "The Leatherpets" and managed to fund promotional videos and demos, despite being eventually turned down by both Arista Records and Phonogram Inc. In October 1982, the group recorded a John Peel Session for BBC Radio 1, comprising the originals "Krisco Kisses", "Two Tribes", "Disneyland", and "The World Is My Oyster". Around this time Jed O'Toole left the group, to be replaced by the returning Brian Nash.
Nash said the band looked up to Echo & the Bunnymen, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) and The Teardrop Explodes, adding, "That was music from Liverpool but from our generation. You would see these people walking around town, you'd see Ian McCulloch getting on the bus. I never saw any of the Beatles on the bus."
In February 1983, the group was invited to record a video for "Relax" by the Channel 4 show The Tube at the Liverpool State Ballroom. After the broadcast, the Peel session was repeated on radio, and a new session recorded for the BBC, comprising "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", "The Only Star in Heaven" and "Relax". These performances, along with a repeat of the Tube video, convinced Trevor Horn to sign the group for his new label, ZTT Records, in May 1983.
"Relax"
"Relax" was released by ZTT in October 1983, with production and remix directed by Trevor Horn, received a modicum of airplay, allowing it steady progress into the UK Top 40. Following a debut on the BBC's Top of the Pops on 5 January 1984 while at number 35, the single rose to number six the following week.
On 11 January 1984, BBC Radio 1 disc jockey Mike Read was playing the record on his show when he noticed the front cover design (by Yvonne Gilbert). Read apparently became outraged by the "overtly sexual" nature of both the record sleeve and the printed lyrics, which prompted him to remove the disc from the turntable live on air, branding it "obscene".
Two days later—almost three months after the single's initial release, and just eight days after the group's Top of the Pops appearance—the BBC banned the record from all its TV and radio outlets. "Relax" immediately shot to number one in the UK charts and stayed there for five weeks, during which time the BBC could not feature the nation's best-selling single on Top of the Pops.
The original video was directed by Bernard Rose and depicted a gay S&M parlour where the band members were admired by muscular leathermen, a bleached blonde drag queen, and a large-bodied man dressed as a Roman emperor. The video featured a scene where one of the band members wrestled a live tiger, to the admiration of the clubgoers, and ended where the "emperor" was so excited he shimmied out of his toga. Filmed in the unused East London theatre Wilton's Music Hall, it was promptly banned by both the BBC and MTV, resulting in the production of a substitute video directed by filmmaker Brian De Palma to coincide with the release of his film Body Double. There have been four official music videos for "Relax."
The BBC lifted its ban on "Relax" at the end of 1984 to allow the band to perform it on the Christmas edition of Top of the Pops (it had been, aside from Band Aid the biggest-selling single of the year).
"Two Tribes"
"Relax" remained in the charts when the follow-up, "Two Tribes", was released in May 1984. The anti-conflict song was given an aggressively topical nuclear war slant. Featuring sirens, the unmistakable voice of Patrick Allen (who had voiced the British Government's actual nuclear warning ads, Protect and Survive, two years earlier) and another innovative electronic backing, it went straight into the UK charts at Number One and stayed there for nine weeks (the first single to do so since John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John's "You're the One That I Want" in 1978), with total sales exceeding 1.5 million copies and becoming one of the top 30 best-selling records in the UK ever.
Directed by Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, the video featured lookalikes of Cold War leaders Ronald Reagan and Konstantin Chernenko wrestling in a marquee while band members and others laid bets on the outcome. Ultimately, the audience—consisting of other world leaders—were brought into the fight, and eventually Earth was seen to explode.
"Two Tribes" was a successful single in its own right, but its reign at the top of the charts was made even more notable by the continuing success of its predecessor. "Relax" had made a natural decline down the charts by May 1984, but on the release of "Two Tribes" its sales began to increase again, to the extent that FGTH held the top two spots in the UK charts during July 1984, the first active group to do so since the early 1960s.
The release of "Two Tribes" also coincided with an extensive and iconic T-shirt marketing campaign during the British summer of 1984, featuring such slogans as "Frankie Say War! Hide Yourself" and "Frankie Say Relax Don't Do It!"
"The Power of Love"
FGTH released a third single, "The Power of Love", at the end of 1984. Unlike the earlier singles, this song was a slower-paced ballad, but it also went to Number One in December and making the band the first act for two decades (since Gerry and the Pacemakers, a fellow Liverpool band, in 1963) to achieve chart-toppers with its first three releases. The video (directed once again by Godley & Creme) was not banned on this occasion but still caused trouble for the group—because it depicted a nativity scene (and on its first showing did not feature any members of the band, who were subsequently added as picture framing).
The song's release was preceded by an advertising campaign that, cheekily, declared it to be the band's third number one single, as if this was a fait accompli. The Band Aid project, for which Johnson recorded a message for the B-side, meant that FGTH managed only one week at the top this time before it was replaced by "Do They Know It's Christmas?"
"Welcome to the Pleasuredome"
The title track from FGTH's album, "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", was released as a fourth single in March 1985. Early promotional posters for the single proclaimed it as "their fourth number one", even prior to the single's release. However, the single peaked at Number 2. The twelve-inch singles featured Greek mythology/Samuel Taylor Coleridge spoken introduction. Geoffrey Palmer narrates on the second 12", known as the "fruitness" mix.
Only one new track appeared in the next eighteen months; "Disneyland", was released on the ZTT Records "Zang Tuum Tumb Sampled" album in late 1985.
Return and decline
In 1986, FGTH appeared at the Montreux Rock Festival which was broadcast on UK television. This performance saw the first airings of two future singles, namely "Rage Hard" and "Warriors of the Wasteland". Both versions were different from the versions eventually released. In August 1986, the long-awaited new Frankie Goes to Hollywood single, "Rage Hard", was released, reaching number 4 in the UK. Initially showcased promotionally with songs like "Warriors of the Wasteland", the group's sound had developed a significantly harder edge with a less flamboyant, more nitty-gritty lyrical side. The album, Liverpool, was released in October 1986 and reached UK No. 5. It was generally panned by the music press and chart returns declined rapidly with the follow-up singles "Warriors of the Wasteland" (No. 19) and "Watching the Wildlife" (No. 28). The group meanwhile threatened to implode of its own accord, in the course of a tour promoting the new album. Johnson kept himself markedly separate from the rest of the band when offstage during this period, tensions becoming exacerbated during a backstage altercation between Johnson and O'Toole at Wembley Arena in January 1987, reflecting the generally collapsing relationship between lead singer and the rest of the band. Things were so bad that fellow Liverpudlian singer Pete Wylie was approached to replace Johnson but declined the offer. FGTH completed the tour, but Johnson ultimately left the group thereafter, citing musical estrangement.
Aftermath
In the aftermath of the group split, Johnson was offered a solo recording agreement with MCA Records. However, ZTT, which maintained they had invested heavily in Liverpool (to the extent that the digital recording system used to record the album was very nearly treated as a sixth member of the band on the sleeve of the "Warriors of the Wasteland" single), had other ideas, and promptly sued Johnson in an attempt to hold him to his original contract with the label. Among other things, ZTT believed that as a departing member of FGTH, Johnson was required to release all solo material through the label until the band's original multiple-album agreement was fulfilled. The suit was bitterly fought, exposing the inner workings of the ZTT/Frankie machine to a giddy UK music press.
After two years, the High Court found in Johnson's favour, holding that the highly restrictive terms of the contract constituted an unreasonable restraint of trade. The court case also effectively freed the remaining members of FGTH from their ZTT contract.
Later years
Johnson's solo career at MCA commenced in 1989, with a succession of high-placed singles and the number one album Blast. The remix collection Hollelujah followed, trailed by a second studio album, Dreams That Money Can't Buy. However, Johnson's relations with MCA cooled with this release, and he would ultimately become a reclusive but successful painter, after announcing in 1993 that he was HIV-positive. The following year, Johnson recounted his version of Frankie's history in his autobiography A Bone in My Flute. His self-issued 1999 album Soulstream included a re-recording of "The Power of Love", which was also released as a single.
Paul Rutherford, the other openly gay member of the band, released the partially ABC produced album Oh World and a handful of singles before retiring with his New Zealander partner to Waiheke Island.
The "other three", as Smash Hits labelled them, continued to work together in what turned out to be a vain attempt to resurrect "Frankie" with various singers including Dee Harris from Fashion and Grant Boult (Jeckyl Ice) from The Premise, who had opened the shows on the band's UK and European tours. Under the name Boss Dog, with Boult on vocals, the band were offered a major deal with Virgin Records but on the condition they work as Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Johnson challenged the use of the name and the deal soured. Boult and Brian Nash continued with the material written by The Shuffle Brothers and under the name Low they released "Tearing My Soul Apart" in 1992 on Swanyard Records. As "Nasher", Nash released a 2002 solo album entitled Ripe. Ped worked behind the scenes and scored a top ten hit with the group "Lovestation". Mark O'Toole moved to Florida and played with punk outfit "Trapped by Mormons".
The band's name lived on to the extent that re-issues of "Relax" and "The Power of Love" both returned to the UK Top 10 in 1993. Remixes of "The Power of Love" (which became a dance anthem from its original ballad format) and "Two Tribes" were Top 20 hits again in 2000, while "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" also got commercially successful remix treatment, to the extent of a Top 20 placing four years earlier.
The group's first two singles appeared sixth and 22nd, respectively, in the official all-time UK best-selling singles list issued in 2002.
American impostor group
In 1998, a band calling itself alternately "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" and "The New Frankie Goes to Hollywood Featuring Davey Johnson" began to tour the United States. The band consisted of none of the original members of the band and formed without their knowledge or consent. The impostor band was led by an American using the stage name Davey Johnson, who alternately claimed he was Holly Johnson's brother and had performed as an uncredited session musician on Welcome to the Pleasuredome. The members of the actual band and their producer Trevor Horn refuted both claims. Mark O'Toole, who had been living in Florida, became aware of the band and warned concert promoters not to hire them. Likewise, A Flock of Seagulls frontman Mike Score, who had been a Liverpool acquaintance of the members of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, kicked the impostor band off his tour after discovering they were a fraud. After Holly Johnson contacted the trade magazine Pollstar to confirm that the American-based act was unauthorized, the impostor band was dropped by a booking agent, but continued to be booked by small clubs throughout the southern United States. The fake group continued to perform until at least September 2000, when a feature on the controversy was published in that month's issue of Spin.
Reunion and comeback
In 2003, the VH-1 program Bands Reunited brought Johnson, Rutherford, Gill, Nash, and Mark O'Toole together, in the hope of their agreeing to perform impromptu on the show. However, a reunion performance did not transpire. Both Johnson and Nash had reservations about performing at short notice in the contrived manner dictated by the TV show format.
In 2004, a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Trevor Horn's involvement in the music industry a special concert took place at Wembley Arena in November, featuring three of the original FGTH line-up, Mark O'Toole, Peter (Ped) Gill and Paul Rutherford and another former member, Jed O'Toole. Original vocalist Johnson, who announced via the Internet that he would not be appearing, and guitarist Nash, who declined to appear for his own reasons, did not take part. Jed O'Toole took over guitar duties for the event, whilst an open audition was held for a new singer for the concert. Ryan Molloy was recruited as a result.
The same lineup reunited for a tour in 2005 playing festivals in Europe. They headlined the Big Gay Out festival at Hyde Park in London.
After some confusion with ensuing tour dates, the band posted a warning on their website that many of the tour dates listed by ticket promoters were inaccurate. The band became increasingly focused on the release of a new album during 2007. However, in early April 2007 came the news that Gill, Rutherford, J. O'Toole and Molloy had formed Forbidden Hollywood to play their new songs alongside old FGTH material. This was to avoid legal issues with Holly Johnson over use of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood name. Live dates were announced, but these were cancelled in June 2007.
Personnel
Principal members
Holly Johnson – vocals (1980–1987)
Paul Rutherford – vocals, tambourine (1980–1987, 2004–2007)
Mark O'Toole – vocals, bass (1980–1987, 2004–2007)
Brian Nash – vocals, guitars (1982–1987)
Peter Gill – drums (1980–1987, 2004–2007)
Ryan Molloy – vocals (2004–2007)
Early members
Jed O'Toole – vocals, guitars (1980–1982, 1984, 1987, 2004–2007)
Sonia Mazumder – vocals (1980)
Awards and nominations
{| class=wikitable
|-
! Year !! Awards !! Work !! Category !! Result
|-
| rowspan="4" | 1984
| Ivor Novello Awards
| rowspan="2" | "Two Tribes"
| Best Song Musically And Lyrically
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | NME Awards
| Promo Video
|
|-
| Welcome to the Pleasuredome
| Best Dressed Sleeve
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | "Relax"
| Best Single
|
|-
| rowspan="9" | 1985
| Ivor Novello Awards
| Best Contemporary Song
|
|-
| rowspan="5" | Brit Awards
| Best British Single
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | Themselves
| Best British Newcomer
|
|-
| Best British Group
|
|-
| Welcome to the Pleasuredome
| Best British Album
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | "Two Tribes"
| Best British Single
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | MTV Video Music Awards
| Best New Artist
|
|-
| Best Concept Video
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
| Themselves
| Which Artist is Most Likely to Successfully Headline Arenas for the First time in 1985?
|
|-
| 1986
| Tour
| Small Hall/Club Tour of the Year
|
|-
| 2010
| Q Awards
| "Relax"
| Classic Song
|
Discography
Welcome to the Pleasuredome (1984)
Liverpool (1986)
Computer game
In 1985, a computer game entitled Frankie Goes to Hollywood was developed by Denton Designs and published by Ocean Software. Based on the band's music, imagery and slogans, the objective of the game was to explore the town of Mundanesville to find the Pleasuredome. It also came boxed with an extra cassette with a live version of "Relax" on it.
References
External links
Frankie Goes to Hollywood official website
Brit Award winners
British Hi-NRG groups
Dance-rock musical groups
English new wave musical groups
British synth-pop new wave groups
LGBT-themed musical groups
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups from Liverpool
Musical quintets
Scouse culture of the early 1980s
ZTT Records artists
English synth-pop groups
Dance-pop groups | false | [
"Success University, founded in January 2005 by Matt Morris, is a privately held company based in Dallas, Texas. It has also been identified as a pyramid scheme. Success University does not employ any professors and does not have any premises; instead members are offered online courses on topics such as success in business, or physical wellbeing. Members have to pay an introduction fee, and are then encouraged to invite other people to join in exchange for a part of the benefits.\n\nAccording to a study by the Bank of Namibia, Success University presents the features of a pyramid scheme, and they have estimated that about 88% percent of participants eventually make losses, with only a minority—at the top of the pyramid—making benefits. Namibia declared Success University illegal in 2008.\n\nKetan Hirani and Kalpesh Patel introduced the scheme in London in January 2008. Prior to Success University, they have also been involved with several other pyramid schemes run by Robert Fitzpatrick and Gurdeep Singh, including the Omi Club, VIP and MLI schemes. Hirani and Patel have been banned from the University College London campus, following a speech there about Success University.\n\nReferences\n\nPyramid and Ponzi schemes\nEducational institutions established in 2005\nMulti-level marketing companies\nEducation companies established in 2005\nPrivately held companies based in Texas",
"This is a list of chess players who have represented more than one nation in FIDE-sanctioned tournaments. These players underwent a change in national federation affiliation but may not necessarily changed their citizenship in the process but may have to satisfy residency requirements. This excludes players which did not compete in any FIDE-sanctioned event for their previous federation.\n\nTo countries in the Americas\n\nTo countries in Asia\n\nTo countries in Europe\n\nTo countries in Oceania\n\nSee also\nList of sportspeople who competed for more than one nation\nFIDE flag player\n\nReferences\n\nNationality transfers in chess\nNationality transfers in chess\nChess"
] |
[
"Frankie Goes to Hollywood",
"Formation",
"when was the bad formed?",
"The original group named \"Frankie Goes to Hollywood\" dates from 1980.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In February 1983, the group was invited to record a video for \"Relax\" by the Channel 4 show The Tube at the Liverpool State Ballroom.",
"Did they have any other success in any other countries?",
"I don't know."
] | C_9b7cbe25b8104d2889a0b4289d7030b8_1 | Did they record any other hits live? | 4 | Besides touring, did Frankie Goes to Hollywood record any other hits live? | Frankie Goes to Hollywood | On the B-side to the group's first single, Johnson explained that the group's name derived from a page from The New Yorker magazine, featuring the headline "Frankie Goes Hollywood" and a picture of Frank Sinatra, although the magazine page Johnson referred to was actually a pop art poster by Guy Peellaert. The original group named "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" dates from 1980. The nucleus of the group emerged from the late 1970s Liverpool punk scene. Lead singer Johnson had played bass with Big in Japan and had also released two solo singles. Local musicians Peter Gill (drums), Jed O'Toole (bass), and O'Toole's cousin Brian Nash (guitar) initially joined Johnson, calling themselves the Sons of Egypt. This line-up secured a number of small local gigs before disbanding. The group was reprised when Johnson joined Mark O'Toole (bass) and Peter "Ped" Gill to form FGTH. During a particularly fluid period of personnel changes, Jed O'Toole joined FGTH on guitar, and a female vocalist, Sonia Mazumder, was also a band member for the first Frankie gig at the Leeds nightclub "The Warehouse", supporting Hambi & The Dance. Paul Rutherford - a member of the headline act who had also sung in seminal Liverpool punk band The Spitfire Boys - apparently got so caught up in Frankie's performance that he effectively replaced Mazumder that very night. The new all-male musical line-up subsequently toured locally with a leather-clad female duo known as "The Leatherpets" and managed to fund promotional videos and demos, despite being eventually turned down by both Arista Records and Phonogram Inc. In October 1982, the group recorded a John Peel Session for BBC Radio 1, comprising the originals "Krisco Kisses", "Two Tribes", "Disneyland", and "The World Is My Oyster". Around this time Jed O'Toole left the group, to be replaced by the returning Brian Nash. In February 1983, the group was invited to record a video for "Relax" by the Channel 4 show The Tube at the Liverpool State Ballroom. After the broadcast, the Peel session was repeated on radio, and a new session recorded for the BBC, comprising "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", "The Only Star in Heaven" and "Relax". These performances, along with a repeat of the Tube video, convinced Trevor Horn to sign the group for his new label, ZTT Records, in May 1983. CANNOTANSWER | In October 1982, the group recorded a John Peel Session for BBC Radio 1, comprising the originals "Krisco Kisses", "Two Tribes", "Disneyland", and "The World Is My Oyster". | Frankie Goes to Hollywood were an English synth-pop band formed in Liverpool in 1980. The group's best-known line-up comprised Holly Johnson (vocals), Paul Rutherford (backing vocals), Peter Gill (drums, percussion), Mark O'Toole (bass guitar) and Brian Nash (guitar).
The group's 1983 debut single "Relax" was banned by the BBC in 1984 while at number six in the charts and subsequently topped the UK Singles Chart for five consecutive weeks, going on to enjoy prolonged chart success throughout that year and ultimately becoming the seventh-best-selling UK single of all time. It also won the 1985 Brit Award for Best British Single. Their debut album, Welcome to the Pleasuredome, reached number one in the UK in 1984 with advanced sales of more than one million. After the follow-up success of "Two Tribes" and "The Power of Love", the group became only the second act in the history of the UK charts to reach number one with their first three singles; the first being fellow Liverpudlians Gerry and the Pacemakers in the 1960s. This record remained unbeaten until the Spice Girls achieved a six-single streak in 1996–1997.
In 1985 the band won the Brit Award for British Breakthrough Act. Associated with the Second British Invasion of the US, they also received Grammy Award and MTV Video Music Award nominations for Best New Artist. Songwriters Johnson, Gill and O'Toole received the 1984 Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for "Two Tribes". In 2015, the song was voted by the British public as the nation's 14th-favourite 1980s number one in a poll for ITV.
History
Formation
On the B-side to the group's first single, Johnson explained that the group's name derived from a page from The New Yorker magazine, featuring the headline "Frankie Goes Hollywood" and a picture of Frank Sinatra, although the magazine page Johnson referred to was actually a pop art poster by Guy Peellaert featuring a newspaper headline above an image of a young Sinatra being mobbed by his fans. The original group named "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" dates from 1980.
The nucleus of the group emerged from the late 1970s Liverpool punk scene. Lead singer Johnson had played bass with Big in Japan and had also released two solo singles. Local musicians Peter Gill (drums), Jed O'Toole (bass), and O'Toole's cousin Brian Nash (guitar) initially joined Johnson, calling themselves Sons and Egypt. This line-up secured a number of small local gigs before disbanding.
The group was reprised when Johnson joined Mark O'Toole (bass) and Peter "Ped" Gill to form FGTH. During a particularly fluid period of personnel changes, Jed O'Toole joined FGTH on guitar, and a female vocalist, Sonia Mazumder, was also a band member for the first Frankie gig at the Leeds nightclub "The Warehouse", supporting Hambi & The Dance. Paul Rutherford—a member of the headline act who had also sung in seminal Liverpool punk band The Spitfire Boys—apparently got so caught up in Frankie's performance that he effectively replaced Mazumder that very night. The new all-male musical line-up subsequently toured locally with a leather-clad female duo known as "The Leatherpets" and managed to fund promotional videos and demos, despite being eventually turned down by both Arista Records and Phonogram Inc. In October 1982, the group recorded a John Peel Session for BBC Radio 1, comprising the originals "Krisco Kisses", "Two Tribes", "Disneyland", and "The World Is My Oyster". Around this time Jed O'Toole left the group, to be replaced by the returning Brian Nash.
Nash said the band looked up to Echo & the Bunnymen, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) and The Teardrop Explodes, adding, "That was music from Liverpool but from our generation. You would see these people walking around town, you'd see Ian McCulloch getting on the bus. I never saw any of the Beatles on the bus."
In February 1983, the group was invited to record a video for "Relax" by the Channel 4 show The Tube at the Liverpool State Ballroom. After the broadcast, the Peel session was repeated on radio, and a new session recorded for the BBC, comprising "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", "The Only Star in Heaven" and "Relax". These performances, along with a repeat of the Tube video, convinced Trevor Horn to sign the group for his new label, ZTT Records, in May 1983.
"Relax"
"Relax" was released by ZTT in October 1983, with production and remix directed by Trevor Horn, received a modicum of airplay, allowing it steady progress into the UK Top 40. Following a debut on the BBC's Top of the Pops on 5 January 1984 while at number 35, the single rose to number six the following week.
On 11 January 1984, BBC Radio 1 disc jockey Mike Read was playing the record on his show when he noticed the front cover design (by Yvonne Gilbert). Read apparently became outraged by the "overtly sexual" nature of both the record sleeve and the printed lyrics, which prompted him to remove the disc from the turntable live on air, branding it "obscene".
Two days later—almost three months after the single's initial release, and just eight days after the group's Top of the Pops appearance—the BBC banned the record from all its TV and radio outlets. "Relax" immediately shot to number one in the UK charts and stayed there for five weeks, during which time the BBC could not feature the nation's best-selling single on Top of the Pops.
The original video was directed by Bernard Rose and depicted a gay S&M parlour where the band members were admired by muscular leathermen, a bleached blonde drag queen, and a large-bodied man dressed as a Roman emperor. The video featured a scene where one of the band members wrestled a live tiger, to the admiration of the clubgoers, and ended where the "emperor" was so excited he shimmied out of his toga. Filmed in the unused East London theatre Wilton's Music Hall, it was promptly banned by both the BBC and MTV, resulting in the production of a substitute video directed by filmmaker Brian De Palma to coincide with the release of his film Body Double. There have been four official music videos for "Relax."
The BBC lifted its ban on "Relax" at the end of 1984 to allow the band to perform it on the Christmas edition of Top of the Pops (it had been, aside from Band Aid the biggest-selling single of the year).
"Two Tribes"
"Relax" remained in the charts when the follow-up, "Two Tribes", was released in May 1984. The anti-conflict song was given an aggressively topical nuclear war slant. Featuring sirens, the unmistakable voice of Patrick Allen (who had voiced the British Government's actual nuclear warning ads, Protect and Survive, two years earlier) and another innovative electronic backing, it went straight into the UK charts at Number One and stayed there for nine weeks (the first single to do so since John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John's "You're the One That I Want" in 1978), with total sales exceeding 1.5 million copies and becoming one of the top 30 best-selling records in the UK ever.
Directed by Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, the video featured lookalikes of Cold War leaders Ronald Reagan and Konstantin Chernenko wrestling in a marquee while band members and others laid bets on the outcome. Ultimately, the audience—consisting of other world leaders—were brought into the fight, and eventually Earth was seen to explode.
"Two Tribes" was a successful single in its own right, but its reign at the top of the charts was made even more notable by the continuing success of its predecessor. "Relax" had made a natural decline down the charts by May 1984, but on the release of "Two Tribes" its sales began to increase again, to the extent that FGTH held the top two spots in the UK charts during July 1984, the first active group to do so since the early 1960s.
The release of "Two Tribes" also coincided with an extensive and iconic T-shirt marketing campaign during the British summer of 1984, featuring such slogans as "Frankie Say War! Hide Yourself" and "Frankie Say Relax Don't Do It!"
"The Power of Love"
FGTH released a third single, "The Power of Love", at the end of 1984. Unlike the earlier singles, this song was a slower-paced ballad, but it also went to Number One in December and making the band the first act for two decades (since Gerry and the Pacemakers, a fellow Liverpool band, in 1963) to achieve chart-toppers with its first three releases. The video (directed once again by Godley & Creme) was not banned on this occasion but still caused trouble for the group—because it depicted a nativity scene (and on its first showing did not feature any members of the band, who were subsequently added as picture framing).
The song's release was preceded by an advertising campaign that, cheekily, declared it to be the band's third number one single, as if this was a fait accompli. The Band Aid project, for which Johnson recorded a message for the B-side, meant that FGTH managed only one week at the top this time before it was replaced by "Do They Know It's Christmas?"
"Welcome to the Pleasuredome"
The title track from FGTH's album, "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", was released as a fourth single in March 1985. Early promotional posters for the single proclaimed it as "their fourth number one", even prior to the single's release. However, the single peaked at Number 2. The twelve-inch singles featured Greek mythology/Samuel Taylor Coleridge spoken introduction. Geoffrey Palmer narrates on the second 12", known as the "fruitness" mix.
Only one new track appeared in the next eighteen months; "Disneyland", was released on the ZTT Records "Zang Tuum Tumb Sampled" album in late 1985.
Return and decline
In 1986, FGTH appeared at the Montreux Rock Festival which was broadcast on UK television. This performance saw the first airings of two future singles, namely "Rage Hard" and "Warriors of the Wasteland". Both versions were different from the versions eventually released. In August 1986, the long-awaited new Frankie Goes to Hollywood single, "Rage Hard", was released, reaching number 4 in the UK. Initially showcased promotionally with songs like "Warriors of the Wasteland", the group's sound had developed a significantly harder edge with a less flamboyant, more nitty-gritty lyrical side. The album, Liverpool, was released in October 1986 and reached UK No. 5. It was generally panned by the music press and chart returns declined rapidly with the follow-up singles "Warriors of the Wasteland" (No. 19) and "Watching the Wildlife" (No. 28). The group meanwhile threatened to implode of its own accord, in the course of a tour promoting the new album. Johnson kept himself markedly separate from the rest of the band when offstage during this period, tensions becoming exacerbated during a backstage altercation between Johnson and O'Toole at Wembley Arena in January 1987, reflecting the generally collapsing relationship between lead singer and the rest of the band. Things were so bad that fellow Liverpudlian singer Pete Wylie was approached to replace Johnson but declined the offer. FGTH completed the tour, but Johnson ultimately left the group thereafter, citing musical estrangement.
Aftermath
In the aftermath of the group split, Johnson was offered a solo recording agreement with MCA Records. However, ZTT, which maintained they had invested heavily in Liverpool (to the extent that the digital recording system used to record the album was very nearly treated as a sixth member of the band on the sleeve of the "Warriors of the Wasteland" single), had other ideas, and promptly sued Johnson in an attempt to hold him to his original contract with the label. Among other things, ZTT believed that as a departing member of FGTH, Johnson was required to release all solo material through the label until the band's original multiple-album agreement was fulfilled. The suit was bitterly fought, exposing the inner workings of the ZTT/Frankie machine to a giddy UK music press.
After two years, the High Court found in Johnson's favour, holding that the highly restrictive terms of the contract constituted an unreasonable restraint of trade. The court case also effectively freed the remaining members of FGTH from their ZTT contract.
Later years
Johnson's solo career at MCA commenced in 1989, with a succession of high-placed singles and the number one album Blast. The remix collection Hollelujah followed, trailed by a second studio album, Dreams That Money Can't Buy. However, Johnson's relations with MCA cooled with this release, and he would ultimately become a reclusive but successful painter, after announcing in 1993 that he was HIV-positive. The following year, Johnson recounted his version of Frankie's history in his autobiography A Bone in My Flute. His self-issued 1999 album Soulstream included a re-recording of "The Power of Love", which was also released as a single.
Paul Rutherford, the other openly gay member of the band, released the partially ABC produced album Oh World and a handful of singles before retiring with his New Zealander partner to Waiheke Island.
The "other three", as Smash Hits labelled them, continued to work together in what turned out to be a vain attempt to resurrect "Frankie" with various singers including Dee Harris from Fashion and Grant Boult (Jeckyl Ice) from The Premise, who had opened the shows on the band's UK and European tours. Under the name Boss Dog, with Boult on vocals, the band were offered a major deal with Virgin Records but on the condition they work as Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Johnson challenged the use of the name and the deal soured. Boult and Brian Nash continued with the material written by The Shuffle Brothers and under the name Low they released "Tearing My Soul Apart" in 1992 on Swanyard Records. As "Nasher", Nash released a 2002 solo album entitled Ripe. Ped worked behind the scenes and scored a top ten hit with the group "Lovestation". Mark O'Toole moved to Florida and played with punk outfit "Trapped by Mormons".
The band's name lived on to the extent that re-issues of "Relax" and "The Power of Love" both returned to the UK Top 10 in 1993. Remixes of "The Power of Love" (which became a dance anthem from its original ballad format) and "Two Tribes" were Top 20 hits again in 2000, while "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" also got commercially successful remix treatment, to the extent of a Top 20 placing four years earlier.
The group's first two singles appeared sixth and 22nd, respectively, in the official all-time UK best-selling singles list issued in 2002.
American impostor group
In 1998, a band calling itself alternately "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" and "The New Frankie Goes to Hollywood Featuring Davey Johnson" began to tour the United States. The band consisted of none of the original members of the band and formed without their knowledge or consent. The impostor band was led by an American using the stage name Davey Johnson, who alternately claimed he was Holly Johnson's brother and had performed as an uncredited session musician on Welcome to the Pleasuredome. The members of the actual band and their producer Trevor Horn refuted both claims. Mark O'Toole, who had been living in Florida, became aware of the band and warned concert promoters not to hire them. Likewise, A Flock of Seagulls frontman Mike Score, who had been a Liverpool acquaintance of the members of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, kicked the impostor band off his tour after discovering they were a fraud. After Holly Johnson contacted the trade magazine Pollstar to confirm that the American-based act was unauthorized, the impostor band was dropped by a booking agent, but continued to be booked by small clubs throughout the southern United States. The fake group continued to perform until at least September 2000, when a feature on the controversy was published in that month's issue of Spin.
Reunion and comeback
In 2003, the VH-1 program Bands Reunited brought Johnson, Rutherford, Gill, Nash, and Mark O'Toole together, in the hope of their agreeing to perform impromptu on the show. However, a reunion performance did not transpire. Both Johnson and Nash had reservations about performing at short notice in the contrived manner dictated by the TV show format.
In 2004, a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Trevor Horn's involvement in the music industry a special concert took place at Wembley Arena in November, featuring three of the original FGTH line-up, Mark O'Toole, Peter (Ped) Gill and Paul Rutherford and another former member, Jed O'Toole. Original vocalist Johnson, who announced via the Internet that he would not be appearing, and guitarist Nash, who declined to appear for his own reasons, did not take part. Jed O'Toole took over guitar duties for the event, whilst an open audition was held for a new singer for the concert. Ryan Molloy was recruited as a result.
The same lineup reunited for a tour in 2005 playing festivals in Europe. They headlined the Big Gay Out festival at Hyde Park in London.
After some confusion with ensuing tour dates, the band posted a warning on their website that many of the tour dates listed by ticket promoters were inaccurate. The band became increasingly focused on the release of a new album during 2007. However, in early April 2007 came the news that Gill, Rutherford, J. O'Toole and Molloy had formed Forbidden Hollywood to play their new songs alongside old FGTH material. This was to avoid legal issues with Holly Johnson over use of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood name. Live dates were announced, but these were cancelled in June 2007.
Personnel
Principal members
Holly Johnson – vocals (1980–1987)
Paul Rutherford – vocals, tambourine (1980–1987, 2004–2007)
Mark O'Toole – vocals, bass (1980–1987, 2004–2007)
Brian Nash – vocals, guitars (1982–1987)
Peter Gill – drums (1980–1987, 2004–2007)
Ryan Molloy – vocals (2004–2007)
Early members
Jed O'Toole – vocals, guitars (1980–1982, 1984, 1987, 2004–2007)
Sonia Mazumder – vocals (1980)
Awards and nominations
{| class=wikitable
|-
! Year !! Awards !! Work !! Category !! Result
|-
| rowspan="4" | 1984
| Ivor Novello Awards
| rowspan="2" | "Two Tribes"
| Best Song Musically And Lyrically
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | NME Awards
| Promo Video
|
|-
| Welcome to the Pleasuredome
| Best Dressed Sleeve
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | "Relax"
| Best Single
|
|-
| rowspan="9" | 1985
| Ivor Novello Awards
| Best Contemporary Song
|
|-
| rowspan="5" | Brit Awards
| Best British Single
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | Themselves
| Best British Newcomer
|
|-
| Best British Group
|
|-
| Welcome to the Pleasuredome
| Best British Album
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | "Two Tribes"
| Best British Single
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | MTV Video Music Awards
| Best New Artist
|
|-
| Best Concept Video
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
| Themselves
| Which Artist is Most Likely to Successfully Headline Arenas for the First time in 1985?
|
|-
| 1986
| Tour
| Small Hall/Club Tour of the Year
|
|-
| 2010
| Q Awards
| "Relax"
| Classic Song
|
Discography
Welcome to the Pleasuredome (1984)
Liverpool (1986)
Computer game
In 1985, a computer game entitled Frankie Goes to Hollywood was developed by Denton Designs and published by Ocean Software. Based on the band's music, imagery and slogans, the objective of the game was to explore the town of Mundanesville to find the Pleasuredome. It also came boxed with an extra cassette with a live version of "Relax" on it.
References
External links
Frankie Goes to Hollywood official website
Brit Award winners
British Hi-NRG groups
Dance-rock musical groups
English new wave musical groups
British synth-pop new wave groups
LGBT-themed musical groups
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups from Liverpool
Musical quintets
Scouse culture of the early 1980s
ZTT Records artists
English synth-pop groups
Dance-pop groups | true | [
"Live from London is a live album by American country singer-songwriter Bill Anderson. It was released in October 1975 via MCA Records and was produced by Peter Robinson. The record was Anderson's first live album and included over ten tracks. It was recorded in the United Kingdom and was released in the country as well. Anderson would record several more live projects during the course of his music career.\n\nBackground and release\nLive from London was Anderson's first live record. It was recorded at the Hippodome Golden Green, located in London, England. It was recorded officially in front of a live audience in February 1975 and was produced by Peter Robinson. It was Anderson's first album to be produced by somebody other than Owen Bradley, his longtime producer at MCA Records. Also included on the album was Mary Lou Turner and his backing band, The Po' Boys \n\nA total of 14 tracks were included on the album. Included were some of his biggest hits, such as \"Po' Folks,\" \"I Love You Drops\" and \"I Get the Fever.\" Other tracks included were cover versions of songs by other artists, including \"I Still Miss Someone\" by Johnny Cash and \"Poor Sweet Baby\" by Jean Shepard. Dialogue is also included on the album, including a tribute track to the Grand Ole Opry.\n\nThe album was released in October 1975 via MCA Records. It was first issued as a vinyl LP, with tracks on each side of the record. Like some of his other compilations, the record did not reach any chart positions on Billboard upon its release. This included the Top Country Albums chart.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nAll credits are adapted from the liner notes of Live from London.\n\nMusical personnel\n Bill Anderson – lead vocals\n Peter Robinson – producer\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n1975 live albums\nBill Anderson (singer) albums\nMCA Records albums",
"Greatest Hits Live may refer to:\n\nMusic albums\nGreatest Hits Live (2 Plus 1 album)\nGreatest Hits Live (April Wine album)\nGreatest Hits Live 2003, by April Wine\nGreatest Hits Live (Diana Ross album)\nGreatest Hits Live (Diesel album)\nGreatest Hits Live (Earth, Wind & Fire album)\nGreatest Hits Live! (Lita Ford album)\nGreatest Hits Live (Ace Frehley album)\nGreatest Hits Live! (Jaki Graham album)\nGreatest Hits Live (Hall & Oates album)\nGreatest Hits/Live, by Heart\nGreatest Hits Live (The Jets album)\nGreatest Hits Live (Journey album)\nGreatest Hits – Live (Don McLean album)\nGreatest Hits Live (Ramones album)\nGreatest Hits Live (Roy Orbison album)\nGreatest Hits Live! (Sammy Hagar album)\nGreatest Hits Live! (Saxon album)\nGreatest Hits Live (Boz Scaggs album)\nGreatest Hits Live (Carly Simon album)\nGreatest Hits Live (Sham 69 album),\nGreatest Hits Live (Starz album)\nGreatest Hits Live (Stiff Little Fingers album)\nGreatest Hits Live (Strawbs album)\nGreatest Hits Live (Tina Arena album)\nGreatest Hits Live (War album)\nGreatest Hits Live (The Who album)\nGreatest Hits Live (Yes album)\nThe Greatest Hits Live at Wembley Arena, by Atomic Kitten\nGreatest Hits: Live in Amsterdam, The Supremes album\nGreatest Hits: Live at the House of Blues, DJ Quick album\nGreatest Hits Live: The Encore Collection, Eddie Money album\nGreatest Hits Live: Vancouver 1986, Donovan album\n\nTours\nGreatest Hits Live! (tour), a concert tour by The Saturdays\nGreatest Hits Live (Take That), a concert tour by Take That\n\nOther albums\nIn Concert (King Biscuit), America album\nKing Biscuit Flower Hour: Bachman–Turner Overdrive\nKing Biscuit Flower Hour: Greatest Hits Live, Emerson, Lake & Palmer album\n\nSee also\nList of greatest hits albums\nList of albums titled Live"
] |
[
"Frankie Goes to Hollywood",
"Formation",
"when was the bad formed?",
"The original group named \"Frankie Goes to Hollywood\" dates from 1980.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In February 1983, the group was invited to record a video for \"Relax\" by the Channel 4 show The Tube at the Liverpool State Ballroom.",
"Did they have any other success in any other countries?",
"I don't know.",
"Did they record any other hits live?",
"In October 1982, the group recorded a John Peel Session for BBC Radio 1, comprising the originals \"Krisco Kisses\", \"Two Tribes\", \"Disneyland\", and \"The World Is My Oyster\"."
] | C_9b7cbe25b8104d2889a0b4289d7030b8_1 | Were they influences by anyone? | 5 | Were Frankie Goes to Hollywood influences by anyone? | Frankie Goes to Hollywood | On the B-side to the group's first single, Johnson explained that the group's name derived from a page from The New Yorker magazine, featuring the headline "Frankie Goes Hollywood" and a picture of Frank Sinatra, although the magazine page Johnson referred to was actually a pop art poster by Guy Peellaert. The original group named "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" dates from 1980. The nucleus of the group emerged from the late 1970s Liverpool punk scene. Lead singer Johnson had played bass with Big in Japan and had also released two solo singles. Local musicians Peter Gill (drums), Jed O'Toole (bass), and O'Toole's cousin Brian Nash (guitar) initially joined Johnson, calling themselves the Sons of Egypt. This line-up secured a number of small local gigs before disbanding. The group was reprised when Johnson joined Mark O'Toole (bass) and Peter "Ped" Gill to form FGTH. During a particularly fluid period of personnel changes, Jed O'Toole joined FGTH on guitar, and a female vocalist, Sonia Mazumder, was also a band member for the first Frankie gig at the Leeds nightclub "The Warehouse", supporting Hambi & The Dance. Paul Rutherford - a member of the headline act who had also sung in seminal Liverpool punk band The Spitfire Boys - apparently got so caught up in Frankie's performance that he effectively replaced Mazumder that very night. The new all-male musical line-up subsequently toured locally with a leather-clad female duo known as "The Leatherpets" and managed to fund promotional videos and demos, despite being eventually turned down by both Arista Records and Phonogram Inc. In October 1982, the group recorded a John Peel Session for BBC Radio 1, comprising the originals "Krisco Kisses", "Two Tribes", "Disneyland", and "The World Is My Oyster". Around this time Jed O'Toole left the group, to be replaced by the returning Brian Nash. In February 1983, the group was invited to record a video for "Relax" by the Channel 4 show The Tube at the Liverpool State Ballroom. After the broadcast, the Peel session was repeated on radio, and a new session recorded for the BBC, comprising "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", "The Only Star in Heaven" and "Relax". These performances, along with a repeat of the Tube video, convinced Trevor Horn to sign the group for his new label, ZTT Records, in May 1983. CANNOTANSWER | the group's name derived from a page from The New Yorker magazine, featuring the headline "Frankie Goes Hollywood" and a picture of Frank Sinatra, | Frankie Goes to Hollywood were an English synth-pop band formed in Liverpool in 1980. The group's best-known line-up comprised Holly Johnson (vocals), Paul Rutherford (backing vocals), Peter Gill (drums, percussion), Mark O'Toole (bass guitar) and Brian Nash (guitar).
The group's 1983 debut single "Relax" was banned by the BBC in 1984 while at number six in the charts and subsequently topped the UK Singles Chart for five consecutive weeks, going on to enjoy prolonged chart success throughout that year and ultimately becoming the seventh-best-selling UK single of all time. It also won the 1985 Brit Award for Best British Single. Their debut album, Welcome to the Pleasuredome, reached number one in the UK in 1984 with advanced sales of more than one million. After the follow-up success of "Two Tribes" and "The Power of Love", the group became only the second act in the history of the UK charts to reach number one with their first three singles; the first being fellow Liverpudlians Gerry and the Pacemakers in the 1960s. This record remained unbeaten until the Spice Girls achieved a six-single streak in 1996–1997.
In 1985 the band won the Brit Award for British Breakthrough Act. Associated with the Second British Invasion of the US, they also received Grammy Award and MTV Video Music Award nominations for Best New Artist. Songwriters Johnson, Gill and O'Toole received the 1984 Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for "Two Tribes". In 2015, the song was voted by the British public as the nation's 14th-favourite 1980s number one in a poll for ITV.
History
Formation
On the B-side to the group's first single, Johnson explained that the group's name derived from a page from The New Yorker magazine, featuring the headline "Frankie Goes Hollywood" and a picture of Frank Sinatra, although the magazine page Johnson referred to was actually a pop art poster by Guy Peellaert featuring a newspaper headline above an image of a young Sinatra being mobbed by his fans. The original group named "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" dates from 1980.
The nucleus of the group emerged from the late 1970s Liverpool punk scene. Lead singer Johnson had played bass with Big in Japan and had also released two solo singles. Local musicians Peter Gill (drums), Jed O'Toole (bass), and O'Toole's cousin Brian Nash (guitar) initially joined Johnson, calling themselves Sons and Egypt. This line-up secured a number of small local gigs before disbanding.
The group was reprised when Johnson joined Mark O'Toole (bass) and Peter "Ped" Gill to form FGTH. During a particularly fluid period of personnel changes, Jed O'Toole joined FGTH on guitar, and a female vocalist, Sonia Mazumder, was also a band member for the first Frankie gig at the Leeds nightclub "The Warehouse", supporting Hambi & The Dance. Paul Rutherford—a member of the headline act who had also sung in seminal Liverpool punk band The Spitfire Boys—apparently got so caught up in Frankie's performance that he effectively replaced Mazumder that very night. The new all-male musical line-up subsequently toured locally with a leather-clad female duo known as "The Leatherpets" and managed to fund promotional videos and demos, despite being eventually turned down by both Arista Records and Phonogram Inc. In October 1982, the group recorded a John Peel Session for BBC Radio 1, comprising the originals "Krisco Kisses", "Two Tribes", "Disneyland", and "The World Is My Oyster". Around this time Jed O'Toole left the group, to be replaced by the returning Brian Nash.
Nash said the band looked up to Echo & the Bunnymen, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) and The Teardrop Explodes, adding, "That was music from Liverpool but from our generation. You would see these people walking around town, you'd see Ian McCulloch getting on the bus. I never saw any of the Beatles on the bus."
In February 1983, the group was invited to record a video for "Relax" by the Channel 4 show The Tube at the Liverpool State Ballroom. After the broadcast, the Peel session was repeated on radio, and a new session recorded for the BBC, comprising "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", "The Only Star in Heaven" and "Relax". These performances, along with a repeat of the Tube video, convinced Trevor Horn to sign the group for his new label, ZTT Records, in May 1983.
"Relax"
"Relax" was released by ZTT in October 1983, with production and remix directed by Trevor Horn, received a modicum of airplay, allowing it steady progress into the UK Top 40. Following a debut on the BBC's Top of the Pops on 5 January 1984 while at number 35, the single rose to number six the following week.
On 11 January 1984, BBC Radio 1 disc jockey Mike Read was playing the record on his show when he noticed the front cover design (by Yvonne Gilbert). Read apparently became outraged by the "overtly sexual" nature of both the record sleeve and the printed lyrics, which prompted him to remove the disc from the turntable live on air, branding it "obscene".
Two days later—almost three months after the single's initial release, and just eight days after the group's Top of the Pops appearance—the BBC banned the record from all its TV and radio outlets. "Relax" immediately shot to number one in the UK charts and stayed there for five weeks, during which time the BBC could not feature the nation's best-selling single on Top of the Pops.
The original video was directed by Bernard Rose and depicted a gay S&M parlour where the band members were admired by muscular leathermen, a bleached blonde drag queen, and a large-bodied man dressed as a Roman emperor. The video featured a scene where one of the band members wrestled a live tiger, to the admiration of the clubgoers, and ended where the "emperor" was so excited he shimmied out of his toga. Filmed in the unused East London theatre Wilton's Music Hall, it was promptly banned by both the BBC and MTV, resulting in the production of a substitute video directed by filmmaker Brian De Palma to coincide with the release of his film Body Double. There have been four official music videos for "Relax."
The BBC lifted its ban on "Relax" at the end of 1984 to allow the band to perform it on the Christmas edition of Top of the Pops (it had been, aside from Band Aid the biggest-selling single of the year).
"Two Tribes"
"Relax" remained in the charts when the follow-up, "Two Tribes", was released in May 1984. The anti-conflict song was given an aggressively topical nuclear war slant. Featuring sirens, the unmistakable voice of Patrick Allen (who had voiced the British Government's actual nuclear warning ads, Protect and Survive, two years earlier) and another innovative electronic backing, it went straight into the UK charts at Number One and stayed there for nine weeks (the first single to do so since John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John's "You're the One That I Want" in 1978), with total sales exceeding 1.5 million copies and becoming one of the top 30 best-selling records in the UK ever.
Directed by Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, the video featured lookalikes of Cold War leaders Ronald Reagan and Konstantin Chernenko wrestling in a marquee while band members and others laid bets on the outcome. Ultimately, the audience—consisting of other world leaders—were brought into the fight, and eventually Earth was seen to explode.
"Two Tribes" was a successful single in its own right, but its reign at the top of the charts was made even more notable by the continuing success of its predecessor. "Relax" had made a natural decline down the charts by May 1984, but on the release of "Two Tribes" its sales began to increase again, to the extent that FGTH held the top two spots in the UK charts during July 1984, the first active group to do so since the early 1960s.
The release of "Two Tribes" also coincided with an extensive and iconic T-shirt marketing campaign during the British summer of 1984, featuring such slogans as "Frankie Say War! Hide Yourself" and "Frankie Say Relax Don't Do It!"
"The Power of Love"
FGTH released a third single, "The Power of Love", at the end of 1984. Unlike the earlier singles, this song was a slower-paced ballad, but it also went to Number One in December and making the band the first act for two decades (since Gerry and the Pacemakers, a fellow Liverpool band, in 1963) to achieve chart-toppers with its first three releases. The video (directed once again by Godley & Creme) was not banned on this occasion but still caused trouble for the group—because it depicted a nativity scene (and on its first showing did not feature any members of the band, who were subsequently added as picture framing).
The song's release was preceded by an advertising campaign that, cheekily, declared it to be the band's third number one single, as if this was a fait accompli. The Band Aid project, for which Johnson recorded a message for the B-side, meant that FGTH managed only one week at the top this time before it was replaced by "Do They Know It's Christmas?"
"Welcome to the Pleasuredome"
The title track from FGTH's album, "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", was released as a fourth single in March 1985. Early promotional posters for the single proclaimed it as "their fourth number one", even prior to the single's release. However, the single peaked at Number 2. The twelve-inch singles featured Greek mythology/Samuel Taylor Coleridge spoken introduction. Geoffrey Palmer narrates on the second 12", known as the "fruitness" mix.
Only one new track appeared in the next eighteen months; "Disneyland", was released on the ZTT Records "Zang Tuum Tumb Sampled" album in late 1985.
Return and decline
In 1986, FGTH appeared at the Montreux Rock Festival which was broadcast on UK television. This performance saw the first airings of two future singles, namely "Rage Hard" and "Warriors of the Wasteland". Both versions were different from the versions eventually released. In August 1986, the long-awaited new Frankie Goes to Hollywood single, "Rage Hard", was released, reaching number 4 in the UK. Initially showcased promotionally with songs like "Warriors of the Wasteland", the group's sound had developed a significantly harder edge with a less flamboyant, more nitty-gritty lyrical side. The album, Liverpool, was released in October 1986 and reached UK No. 5. It was generally panned by the music press and chart returns declined rapidly with the follow-up singles "Warriors of the Wasteland" (No. 19) and "Watching the Wildlife" (No. 28). The group meanwhile threatened to implode of its own accord, in the course of a tour promoting the new album. Johnson kept himself markedly separate from the rest of the band when offstage during this period, tensions becoming exacerbated during a backstage altercation between Johnson and O'Toole at Wembley Arena in January 1987, reflecting the generally collapsing relationship between lead singer and the rest of the band. Things were so bad that fellow Liverpudlian singer Pete Wylie was approached to replace Johnson but declined the offer. FGTH completed the tour, but Johnson ultimately left the group thereafter, citing musical estrangement.
Aftermath
In the aftermath of the group split, Johnson was offered a solo recording agreement with MCA Records. However, ZTT, which maintained they had invested heavily in Liverpool (to the extent that the digital recording system used to record the album was very nearly treated as a sixth member of the band on the sleeve of the "Warriors of the Wasteland" single), had other ideas, and promptly sued Johnson in an attempt to hold him to his original contract with the label. Among other things, ZTT believed that as a departing member of FGTH, Johnson was required to release all solo material through the label until the band's original multiple-album agreement was fulfilled. The suit was bitterly fought, exposing the inner workings of the ZTT/Frankie machine to a giddy UK music press.
After two years, the High Court found in Johnson's favour, holding that the highly restrictive terms of the contract constituted an unreasonable restraint of trade. The court case also effectively freed the remaining members of FGTH from their ZTT contract.
Later years
Johnson's solo career at MCA commenced in 1989, with a succession of high-placed singles and the number one album Blast. The remix collection Hollelujah followed, trailed by a second studio album, Dreams That Money Can't Buy. However, Johnson's relations with MCA cooled with this release, and he would ultimately become a reclusive but successful painter, after announcing in 1993 that he was HIV-positive. The following year, Johnson recounted his version of Frankie's history in his autobiography A Bone in My Flute. His self-issued 1999 album Soulstream included a re-recording of "The Power of Love", which was also released as a single.
Paul Rutherford, the other openly gay member of the band, released the partially ABC produced album Oh World and a handful of singles before retiring with his New Zealander partner to Waiheke Island.
The "other three", as Smash Hits labelled them, continued to work together in what turned out to be a vain attempt to resurrect "Frankie" with various singers including Dee Harris from Fashion and Grant Boult (Jeckyl Ice) from The Premise, who had opened the shows on the band's UK and European tours. Under the name Boss Dog, with Boult on vocals, the band were offered a major deal with Virgin Records but on the condition they work as Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Johnson challenged the use of the name and the deal soured. Boult and Brian Nash continued with the material written by The Shuffle Brothers and under the name Low they released "Tearing My Soul Apart" in 1992 on Swanyard Records. As "Nasher", Nash released a 2002 solo album entitled Ripe. Ped worked behind the scenes and scored a top ten hit with the group "Lovestation". Mark O'Toole moved to Florida and played with punk outfit "Trapped by Mormons".
The band's name lived on to the extent that re-issues of "Relax" and "The Power of Love" both returned to the UK Top 10 in 1993. Remixes of "The Power of Love" (which became a dance anthem from its original ballad format) and "Two Tribes" were Top 20 hits again in 2000, while "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" also got commercially successful remix treatment, to the extent of a Top 20 placing four years earlier.
The group's first two singles appeared sixth and 22nd, respectively, in the official all-time UK best-selling singles list issued in 2002.
American impostor group
In 1998, a band calling itself alternately "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" and "The New Frankie Goes to Hollywood Featuring Davey Johnson" began to tour the United States. The band consisted of none of the original members of the band and formed without their knowledge or consent. The impostor band was led by an American using the stage name Davey Johnson, who alternately claimed he was Holly Johnson's brother and had performed as an uncredited session musician on Welcome to the Pleasuredome. The members of the actual band and their producer Trevor Horn refuted both claims. Mark O'Toole, who had been living in Florida, became aware of the band and warned concert promoters not to hire them. Likewise, A Flock of Seagulls frontman Mike Score, who had been a Liverpool acquaintance of the members of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, kicked the impostor band off his tour after discovering they were a fraud. After Holly Johnson contacted the trade magazine Pollstar to confirm that the American-based act was unauthorized, the impostor band was dropped by a booking agent, but continued to be booked by small clubs throughout the southern United States. The fake group continued to perform until at least September 2000, when a feature on the controversy was published in that month's issue of Spin.
Reunion and comeback
In 2003, the VH-1 program Bands Reunited brought Johnson, Rutherford, Gill, Nash, and Mark O'Toole together, in the hope of their agreeing to perform impromptu on the show. However, a reunion performance did not transpire. Both Johnson and Nash had reservations about performing at short notice in the contrived manner dictated by the TV show format.
In 2004, a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Trevor Horn's involvement in the music industry a special concert took place at Wembley Arena in November, featuring three of the original FGTH line-up, Mark O'Toole, Peter (Ped) Gill and Paul Rutherford and another former member, Jed O'Toole. Original vocalist Johnson, who announced via the Internet that he would not be appearing, and guitarist Nash, who declined to appear for his own reasons, did not take part. Jed O'Toole took over guitar duties for the event, whilst an open audition was held for a new singer for the concert. Ryan Molloy was recruited as a result.
The same lineup reunited for a tour in 2005 playing festivals in Europe. They headlined the Big Gay Out festival at Hyde Park in London.
After some confusion with ensuing tour dates, the band posted a warning on their website that many of the tour dates listed by ticket promoters were inaccurate. The band became increasingly focused on the release of a new album during 2007. However, in early April 2007 came the news that Gill, Rutherford, J. O'Toole and Molloy had formed Forbidden Hollywood to play their new songs alongside old FGTH material. This was to avoid legal issues with Holly Johnson over use of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood name. Live dates were announced, but these were cancelled in June 2007.
Personnel
Principal members
Holly Johnson – vocals (1980–1987)
Paul Rutherford – vocals, tambourine (1980–1987, 2004–2007)
Mark O'Toole – vocals, bass (1980–1987, 2004–2007)
Brian Nash – vocals, guitars (1982–1987)
Peter Gill – drums (1980–1987, 2004–2007)
Ryan Molloy – vocals (2004–2007)
Early members
Jed O'Toole – vocals, guitars (1980–1982, 1984, 1987, 2004–2007)
Sonia Mazumder – vocals (1980)
Awards and nominations
{| class=wikitable
|-
! Year !! Awards !! Work !! Category !! Result
|-
| rowspan="4" | 1984
| Ivor Novello Awards
| rowspan="2" | "Two Tribes"
| Best Song Musically And Lyrically
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | NME Awards
| Promo Video
|
|-
| Welcome to the Pleasuredome
| Best Dressed Sleeve
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | "Relax"
| Best Single
|
|-
| rowspan="9" | 1985
| Ivor Novello Awards
| Best Contemporary Song
|
|-
| rowspan="5" | Brit Awards
| Best British Single
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | Themselves
| Best British Newcomer
|
|-
| Best British Group
|
|-
| Welcome to the Pleasuredome
| Best British Album
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | "Two Tribes"
| Best British Single
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | MTV Video Music Awards
| Best New Artist
|
|-
| Best Concept Video
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
| Themselves
| Which Artist is Most Likely to Successfully Headline Arenas for the First time in 1985?
|
|-
| 1986
| Tour
| Small Hall/Club Tour of the Year
|
|-
| 2010
| Q Awards
| "Relax"
| Classic Song
|
Discography
Welcome to the Pleasuredome (1984)
Liverpool (1986)
Computer game
In 1985, a computer game entitled Frankie Goes to Hollywood was developed by Denton Designs and published by Ocean Software. Based on the band's music, imagery and slogans, the objective of the game was to explore the town of Mundanesville to find the Pleasuredome. It also came boxed with an extra cassette with a live version of "Relax" on it.
References
External links
Frankie Goes to Hollywood official website
Brit Award winners
British Hi-NRG groups
Dance-rock musical groups
English new wave musical groups
British synth-pop new wave groups
LGBT-themed musical groups
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups from Liverpool
Musical quintets
Scouse culture of the early 1980s
ZTT Records artists
English synth-pop groups
Dance-pop groups | true | [
"Anyone may refer to:\n\n Anyone (band), a band from Southern California formed in 1995\n \"Anyone\" (Roxette song), a 1999 song by Roxette\n \"Anyone\" (Demi Lovato song), a 2020 song by Demi Lovato\n \"Anyone\" (Justin Bieber song), a 2021 song by Justin Bieber\n \"Anyone\", a 1971 song by Sophia Loren from the film The Priest's Wife",
"I Don't Need Anyone may refer to:\n\n\"I Don't Need Anyone\", song by Hamilton Leithauser from Black Hours\n\"I Don’t Need Anyone\", song by soulDecision from No One Does It Better\n\"I Don't Need Anyone\", song by Kylie Minogue from Impossible Princess"
] |
[
"Frankie Goes to Hollywood",
"Formation",
"when was the bad formed?",
"The original group named \"Frankie Goes to Hollywood\" dates from 1980.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In February 1983, the group was invited to record a video for \"Relax\" by the Channel 4 show The Tube at the Liverpool State Ballroom.",
"Did they have any other success in any other countries?",
"I don't know.",
"Did they record any other hits live?",
"In October 1982, the group recorded a John Peel Session for BBC Radio 1, comprising the originals \"Krisco Kisses\", \"Two Tribes\", \"Disneyland\", and \"The World Is My Oyster\".",
"Were they influences by anyone?",
"the group's name derived from a page from The New Yorker magazine, featuring the headline \"Frankie Goes Hollywood\" and a picture of Frank Sinatra,"
] | C_9b7cbe25b8104d2889a0b4289d7030b8_1 | did they ever record with anyone? | 6 | Did Frankie Goes to Hollywood ever record with anyone? | Frankie Goes to Hollywood | On the B-side to the group's first single, Johnson explained that the group's name derived from a page from The New Yorker magazine, featuring the headline "Frankie Goes Hollywood" and a picture of Frank Sinatra, although the magazine page Johnson referred to was actually a pop art poster by Guy Peellaert. The original group named "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" dates from 1980. The nucleus of the group emerged from the late 1970s Liverpool punk scene. Lead singer Johnson had played bass with Big in Japan and had also released two solo singles. Local musicians Peter Gill (drums), Jed O'Toole (bass), and O'Toole's cousin Brian Nash (guitar) initially joined Johnson, calling themselves the Sons of Egypt. This line-up secured a number of small local gigs before disbanding. The group was reprised when Johnson joined Mark O'Toole (bass) and Peter "Ped" Gill to form FGTH. During a particularly fluid period of personnel changes, Jed O'Toole joined FGTH on guitar, and a female vocalist, Sonia Mazumder, was also a band member for the first Frankie gig at the Leeds nightclub "The Warehouse", supporting Hambi & The Dance. Paul Rutherford - a member of the headline act who had also sung in seminal Liverpool punk band The Spitfire Boys - apparently got so caught up in Frankie's performance that he effectively replaced Mazumder that very night. The new all-male musical line-up subsequently toured locally with a leather-clad female duo known as "The Leatherpets" and managed to fund promotional videos and demos, despite being eventually turned down by both Arista Records and Phonogram Inc. In October 1982, the group recorded a John Peel Session for BBC Radio 1, comprising the originals "Krisco Kisses", "Two Tribes", "Disneyland", and "The World Is My Oyster". Around this time Jed O'Toole left the group, to be replaced by the returning Brian Nash. In February 1983, the group was invited to record a video for "Relax" by the Channel 4 show The Tube at the Liverpool State Ballroom. After the broadcast, the Peel session was repeated on radio, and a new session recorded for the BBC, comprising "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", "The Only Star in Heaven" and "Relax". These performances, along with a repeat of the Tube video, convinced Trevor Horn to sign the group for his new label, ZTT Records, in May 1983. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Frankie Goes to Hollywood were an English synth-pop band formed in Liverpool in 1980. The group's best-known line-up comprised Holly Johnson (vocals), Paul Rutherford (backing vocals), Peter Gill (drums, percussion), Mark O'Toole (bass guitar) and Brian Nash (guitar).
The group's 1983 debut single "Relax" was banned by the BBC in 1984 while at number six in the charts and subsequently topped the UK Singles Chart for five consecutive weeks, going on to enjoy prolonged chart success throughout that year and ultimately becoming the seventh-best-selling UK single of all time. It also won the 1985 Brit Award for Best British Single. Their debut album, Welcome to the Pleasuredome, reached number one in the UK in 1984 with advanced sales of more than one million. After the follow-up success of "Two Tribes" and "The Power of Love", the group became only the second act in the history of the UK charts to reach number one with their first three singles; the first being fellow Liverpudlians Gerry and the Pacemakers in the 1960s. This record remained unbeaten until the Spice Girls achieved a six-single streak in 1996–1997.
In 1985 the band won the Brit Award for British Breakthrough Act. Associated with the Second British Invasion of the US, they also received Grammy Award and MTV Video Music Award nominations for Best New Artist. Songwriters Johnson, Gill and O'Toole received the 1984 Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for "Two Tribes". In 2015, the song was voted by the British public as the nation's 14th-favourite 1980s number one in a poll for ITV.
History
Formation
On the B-side to the group's first single, Johnson explained that the group's name derived from a page from The New Yorker magazine, featuring the headline "Frankie Goes Hollywood" and a picture of Frank Sinatra, although the magazine page Johnson referred to was actually a pop art poster by Guy Peellaert featuring a newspaper headline above an image of a young Sinatra being mobbed by his fans. The original group named "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" dates from 1980.
The nucleus of the group emerged from the late 1970s Liverpool punk scene. Lead singer Johnson had played bass with Big in Japan and had also released two solo singles. Local musicians Peter Gill (drums), Jed O'Toole (bass), and O'Toole's cousin Brian Nash (guitar) initially joined Johnson, calling themselves Sons and Egypt. This line-up secured a number of small local gigs before disbanding.
The group was reprised when Johnson joined Mark O'Toole (bass) and Peter "Ped" Gill to form FGTH. During a particularly fluid period of personnel changes, Jed O'Toole joined FGTH on guitar, and a female vocalist, Sonia Mazumder, was also a band member for the first Frankie gig at the Leeds nightclub "The Warehouse", supporting Hambi & The Dance. Paul Rutherford—a member of the headline act who had also sung in seminal Liverpool punk band The Spitfire Boys—apparently got so caught up in Frankie's performance that he effectively replaced Mazumder that very night. The new all-male musical line-up subsequently toured locally with a leather-clad female duo known as "The Leatherpets" and managed to fund promotional videos and demos, despite being eventually turned down by both Arista Records and Phonogram Inc. In October 1982, the group recorded a John Peel Session for BBC Radio 1, comprising the originals "Krisco Kisses", "Two Tribes", "Disneyland", and "The World Is My Oyster". Around this time Jed O'Toole left the group, to be replaced by the returning Brian Nash.
Nash said the band looked up to Echo & the Bunnymen, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) and The Teardrop Explodes, adding, "That was music from Liverpool but from our generation. You would see these people walking around town, you'd see Ian McCulloch getting on the bus. I never saw any of the Beatles on the bus."
In February 1983, the group was invited to record a video for "Relax" by the Channel 4 show The Tube at the Liverpool State Ballroom. After the broadcast, the Peel session was repeated on radio, and a new session recorded for the BBC, comprising "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", "The Only Star in Heaven" and "Relax". These performances, along with a repeat of the Tube video, convinced Trevor Horn to sign the group for his new label, ZTT Records, in May 1983.
"Relax"
"Relax" was released by ZTT in October 1983, with production and remix directed by Trevor Horn, received a modicum of airplay, allowing it steady progress into the UK Top 40. Following a debut on the BBC's Top of the Pops on 5 January 1984 while at number 35, the single rose to number six the following week.
On 11 January 1984, BBC Radio 1 disc jockey Mike Read was playing the record on his show when he noticed the front cover design (by Yvonne Gilbert). Read apparently became outraged by the "overtly sexual" nature of both the record sleeve and the printed lyrics, which prompted him to remove the disc from the turntable live on air, branding it "obscene".
Two days later—almost three months after the single's initial release, and just eight days after the group's Top of the Pops appearance—the BBC banned the record from all its TV and radio outlets. "Relax" immediately shot to number one in the UK charts and stayed there for five weeks, during which time the BBC could not feature the nation's best-selling single on Top of the Pops.
The original video was directed by Bernard Rose and depicted a gay S&M parlour where the band members were admired by muscular leathermen, a bleached blonde drag queen, and a large-bodied man dressed as a Roman emperor. The video featured a scene where one of the band members wrestled a live tiger, to the admiration of the clubgoers, and ended where the "emperor" was so excited he shimmied out of his toga. Filmed in the unused East London theatre Wilton's Music Hall, it was promptly banned by both the BBC and MTV, resulting in the production of a substitute video directed by filmmaker Brian De Palma to coincide with the release of his film Body Double. There have been four official music videos for "Relax."
The BBC lifted its ban on "Relax" at the end of 1984 to allow the band to perform it on the Christmas edition of Top of the Pops (it had been, aside from Band Aid the biggest-selling single of the year).
"Two Tribes"
"Relax" remained in the charts when the follow-up, "Two Tribes", was released in May 1984. The anti-conflict song was given an aggressively topical nuclear war slant. Featuring sirens, the unmistakable voice of Patrick Allen (who had voiced the British Government's actual nuclear warning ads, Protect and Survive, two years earlier) and another innovative electronic backing, it went straight into the UK charts at Number One and stayed there for nine weeks (the first single to do so since John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John's "You're the One That I Want" in 1978), with total sales exceeding 1.5 million copies and becoming one of the top 30 best-selling records in the UK ever.
Directed by Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, the video featured lookalikes of Cold War leaders Ronald Reagan and Konstantin Chernenko wrestling in a marquee while band members and others laid bets on the outcome. Ultimately, the audience—consisting of other world leaders—were brought into the fight, and eventually Earth was seen to explode.
"Two Tribes" was a successful single in its own right, but its reign at the top of the charts was made even more notable by the continuing success of its predecessor. "Relax" had made a natural decline down the charts by May 1984, but on the release of "Two Tribes" its sales began to increase again, to the extent that FGTH held the top two spots in the UK charts during July 1984, the first active group to do so since the early 1960s.
The release of "Two Tribes" also coincided with an extensive and iconic T-shirt marketing campaign during the British summer of 1984, featuring such slogans as "Frankie Say War! Hide Yourself" and "Frankie Say Relax Don't Do It!"
"The Power of Love"
FGTH released a third single, "The Power of Love", at the end of 1984. Unlike the earlier singles, this song was a slower-paced ballad, but it also went to Number One in December and making the band the first act for two decades (since Gerry and the Pacemakers, a fellow Liverpool band, in 1963) to achieve chart-toppers with its first three releases. The video (directed once again by Godley & Creme) was not banned on this occasion but still caused trouble for the group—because it depicted a nativity scene (and on its first showing did not feature any members of the band, who were subsequently added as picture framing).
The song's release was preceded by an advertising campaign that, cheekily, declared it to be the band's third number one single, as if this was a fait accompli. The Band Aid project, for which Johnson recorded a message for the B-side, meant that FGTH managed only one week at the top this time before it was replaced by "Do They Know It's Christmas?"
"Welcome to the Pleasuredome"
The title track from FGTH's album, "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", was released as a fourth single in March 1985. Early promotional posters for the single proclaimed it as "their fourth number one", even prior to the single's release. However, the single peaked at Number 2. The twelve-inch singles featured Greek mythology/Samuel Taylor Coleridge spoken introduction. Geoffrey Palmer narrates on the second 12", known as the "fruitness" mix.
Only one new track appeared in the next eighteen months; "Disneyland", was released on the ZTT Records "Zang Tuum Tumb Sampled" album in late 1985.
Return and decline
In 1986, FGTH appeared at the Montreux Rock Festival which was broadcast on UK television. This performance saw the first airings of two future singles, namely "Rage Hard" and "Warriors of the Wasteland". Both versions were different from the versions eventually released. In August 1986, the long-awaited new Frankie Goes to Hollywood single, "Rage Hard", was released, reaching number 4 in the UK. Initially showcased promotionally with songs like "Warriors of the Wasteland", the group's sound had developed a significantly harder edge with a less flamboyant, more nitty-gritty lyrical side. The album, Liverpool, was released in October 1986 and reached UK No. 5. It was generally panned by the music press and chart returns declined rapidly with the follow-up singles "Warriors of the Wasteland" (No. 19) and "Watching the Wildlife" (No. 28). The group meanwhile threatened to implode of its own accord, in the course of a tour promoting the new album. Johnson kept himself markedly separate from the rest of the band when offstage during this period, tensions becoming exacerbated during a backstage altercation between Johnson and O'Toole at Wembley Arena in January 1987, reflecting the generally collapsing relationship between lead singer and the rest of the band. Things were so bad that fellow Liverpudlian singer Pete Wylie was approached to replace Johnson but declined the offer. FGTH completed the tour, but Johnson ultimately left the group thereafter, citing musical estrangement.
Aftermath
In the aftermath of the group split, Johnson was offered a solo recording agreement with MCA Records. However, ZTT, which maintained they had invested heavily in Liverpool (to the extent that the digital recording system used to record the album was very nearly treated as a sixth member of the band on the sleeve of the "Warriors of the Wasteland" single), had other ideas, and promptly sued Johnson in an attempt to hold him to his original contract with the label. Among other things, ZTT believed that as a departing member of FGTH, Johnson was required to release all solo material through the label until the band's original multiple-album agreement was fulfilled. The suit was bitterly fought, exposing the inner workings of the ZTT/Frankie machine to a giddy UK music press.
After two years, the High Court found in Johnson's favour, holding that the highly restrictive terms of the contract constituted an unreasonable restraint of trade. The court case also effectively freed the remaining members of FGTH from their ZTT contract.
Later years
Johnson's solo career at MCA commenced in 1989, with a succession of high-placed singles and the number one album Blast. The remix collection Hollelujah followed, trailed by a second studio album, Dreams That Money Can't Buy. However, Johnson's relations with MCA cooled with this release, and he would ultimately become a reclusive but successful painter, after announcing in 1993 that he was HIV-positive. The following year, Johnson recounted his version of Frankie's history in his autobiography A Bone in My Flute. His self-issued 1999 album Soulstream included a re-recording of "The Power of Love", which was also released as a single.
Paul Rutherford, the other openly gay member of the band, released the partially ABC produced album Oh World and a handful of singles before retiring with his New Zealander partner to Waiheke Island.
The "other three", as Smash Hits labelled them, continued to work together in what turned out to be a vain attempt to resurrect "Frankie" with various singers including Dee Harris from Fashion and Grant Boult (Jeckyl Ice) from The Premise, who had opened the shows on the band's UK and European tours. Under the name Boss Dog, with Boult on vocals, the band were offered a major deal with Virgin Records but on the condition they work as Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Johnson challenged the use of the name and the deal soured. Boult and Brian Nash continued with the material written by The Shuffle Brothers and under the name Low they released "Tearing My Soul Apart" in 1992 on Swanyard Records. As "Nasher", Nash released a 2002 solo album entitled Ripe. Ped worked behind the scenes and scored a top ten hit with the group "Lovestation". Mark O'Toole moved to Florida and played with punk outfit "Trapped by Mormons".
The band's name lived on to the extent that re-issues of "Relax" and "The Power of Love" both returned to the UK Top 10 in 1993. Remixes of "The Power of Love" (which became a dance anthem from its original ballad format) and "Two Tribes" were Top 20 hits again in 2000, while "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" also got commercially successful remix treatment, to the extent of a Top 20 placing four years earlier.
The group's first two singles appeared sixth and 22nd, respectively, in the official all-time UK best-selling singles list issued in 2002.
American impostor group
In 1998, a band calling itself alternately "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" and "The New Frankie Goes to Hollywood Featuring Davey Johnson" began to tour the United States. The band consisted of none of the original members of the band and formed without their knowledge or consent. The impostor band was led by an American using the stage name Davey Johnson, who alternately claimed he was Holly Johnson's brother and had performed as an uncredited session musician on Welcome to the Pleasuredome. The members of the actual band and their producer Trevor Horn refuted both claims. Mark O'Toole, who had been living in Florida, became aware of the band and warned concert promoters not to hire them. Likewise, A Flock of Seagulls frontman Mike Score, who had been a Liverpool acquaintance of the members of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, kicked the impostor band off his tour after discovering they were a fraud. After Holly Johnson contacted the trade magazine Pollstar to confirm that the American-based act was unauthorized, the impostor band was dropped by a booking agent, but continued to be booked by small clubs throughout the southern United States. The fake group continued to perform until at least September 2000, when a feature on the controversy was published in that month's issue of Spin.
Reunion and comeback
In 2003, the VH-1 program Bands Reunited brought Johnson, Rutherford, Gill, Nash, and Mark O'Toole together, in the hope of their agreeing to perform impromptu on the show. However, a reunion performance did not transpire. Both Johnson and Nash had reservations about performing at short notice in the contrived manner dictated by the TV show format.
In 2004, a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Trevor Horn's involvement in the music industry a special concert took place at Wembley Arena in November, featuring three of the original FGTH line-up, Mark O'Toole, Peter (Ped) Gill and Paul Rutherford and another former member, Jed O'Toole. Original vocalist Johnson, who announced via the Internet that he would not be appearing, and guitarist Nash, who declined to appear for his own reasons, did not take part. Jed O'Toole took over guitar duties for the event, whilst an open audition was held for a new singer for the concert. Ryan Molloy was recruited as a result.
The same lineup reunited for a tour in 2005 playing festivals in Europe. They headlined the Big Gay Out festival at Hyde Park in London.
After some confusion with ensuing tour dates, the band posted a warning on their website that many of the tour dates listed by ticket promoters were inaccurate. The band became increasingly focused on the release of a new album during 2007. However, in early April 2007 came the news that Gill, Rutherford, J. O'Toole and Molloy had formed Forbidden Hollywood to play their new songs alongside old FGTH material. This was to avoid legal issues with Holly Johnson over use of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood name. Live dates were announced, but these were cancelled in June 2007.
Personnel
Principal members
Holly Johnson – vocals (1980–1987)
Paul Rutherford – vocals, tambourine (1980–1987, 2004–2007)
Mark O'Toole – vocals, bass (1980–1987, 2004–2007)
Brian Nash – vocals, guitars (1982–1987)
Peter Gill – drums (1980–1987, 2004–2007)
Ryan Molloy – vocals (2004–2007)
Early members
Jed O'Toole – vocals, guitars (1980–1982, 1984, 1987, 2004–2007)
Sonia Mazumder – vocals (1980)
Awards and nominations
{| class=wikitable
|-
! Year !! Awards !! Work !! Category !! Result
|-
| rowspan="4" | 1984
| Ivor Novello Awards
| rowspan="2" | "Two Tribes"
| Best Song Musically And Lyrically
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | NME Awards
| Promo Video
|
|-
| Welcome to the Pleasuredome
| Best Dressed Sleeve
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | "Relax"
| Best Single
|
|-
| rowspan="9" | 1985
| Ivor Novello Awards
| Best Contemporary Song
|
|-
| rowspan="5" | Brit Awards
| Best British Single
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | Themselves
| Best British Newcomer
|
|-
| Best British Group
|
|-
| Welcome to the Pleasuredome
| Best British Album
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | "Two Tribes"
| Best British Single
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | MTV Video Music Awards
| Best New Artist
|
|-
| Best Concept Video
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
| Themselves
| Which Artist is Most Likely to Successfully Headline Arenas for the First time in 1985?
|
|-
| 1986
| Tour
| Small Hall/Club Tour of the Year
|
|-
| 2010
| Q Awards
| "Relax"
| Classic Song
|
Discography
Welcome to the Pleasuredome (1984)
Liverpool (1986)
Computer game
In 1985, a computer game entitled Frankie Goes to Hollywood was developed by Denton Designs and published by Ocean Software. Based on the band's music, imagery and slogans, the objective of the game was to explore the town of Mundanesville to find the Pleasuredome. It also came boxed with an extra cassette with a live version of "Relax" on it.
References
External links
Frankie Goes to Hollywood official website
Brit Award winners
British Hi-NRG groups
Dance-rock musical groups
English new wave musical groups
British synth-pop new wave groups
LGBT-themed musical groups
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups from Liverpool
Musical quintets
Scouse culture of the early 1980s
ZTT Records artists
English synth-pop groups
Dance-pop groups | false | [
"Ruwida El-Hubti (born 16 April 1989) is an Olympic athlete from Libya. At the 2004 Summer Olympics, she competed in the Women's 400 metres. She finished last in her heat with a time of 1:03.57, almost 11 seconds slower than anyone else in the heat, and the slowest of anyone in the competition. However, she did set a national record.\n\nReferences\n\n1989 births\nLiving people\nOlympic athletes of Libya\nAthletes (track and field) at the 2004 Summer Olympics",
"Pickin' & Fiddlin' is the third album by American bluegrass group The Dillards, recorded with up and coming fiddle player Byron Berline. The album is entirely instrumental, with no vocals. The group had been unhappy with Elektra because they felt pressure from the company not to innovate, as they were beginning to do (and would eventually record on Wheatstraw Suite), and because they felt that Elektra was not doing enough to promote their records. The Dillards chose to record a strictly traditional album with Berline, a friend of the group, because they owed Elektra one more album. Rodney later stated, \"That wasn't a record made for anyone but the traditionals. We got completely hacked to pieces by them. So we said, 'Okay, screw you guys, we'll make an album, and we'll play it right up your ass!,' so we did.\"\n\nTrack listing\n\"Hamilton County\"\n\"Fisher's Hornpipe\"\n\"Paddy on the Turnpike\" (Traditional)\n\"Jazzbow Rag\"\n\"Apple Blossom\" (John Lusk)\n\"Tom & Jerry\"\n\"Cotton Patch\"\n\"Durang's Hornpipe\"\n\"Wagoner\"\n\"Sally Johnson\"\n\"Crazy Creek\" (Tommy Jackson)\n\"Drunken Billy Goat\"\n\"Black Mountain Rag\" (Leslie Keith)\n\"Twinkle, Twinkle\"\n\"Wild John\"\n\"Soppin' the Gravy\"\n\nPersonnel\nThe Dillards with Byron Berline\nByron Berline - fiddle\nRodney Dillard - guitar\nDouglas Dillard - banjo\nMitchell Jayne - bass\nDean Webb - mandolin\nTechnical\nWilliam S. Harvey - cover design\nJim Dickson - cover photography\n\n1965 albums\nElektra Records albums\nThe Dillards albums\nByron Berline albums"
] |
[
"Frankie Goes to Hollywood",
"Formation",
"when was the bad formed?",
"The original group named \"Frankie Goes to Hollywood\" dates from 1980.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In February 1983, the group was invited to record a video for \"Relax\" by the Channel 4 show The Tube at the Liverpool State Ballroom.",
"Did they have any other success in any other countries?",
"I don't know.",
"Did they record any other hits live?",
"In October 1982, the group recorded a John Peel Session for BBC Radio 1, comprising the originals \"Krisco Kisses\", \"Two Tribes\", \"Disneyland\", and \"The World Is My Oyster\".",
"Were they influences by anyone?",
"the group's name derived from a page from The New Yorker magazine, featuring the headline \"Frankie Goes Hollywood\" and a picture of Frank Sinatra,",
"did they ever record with anyone?",
"I don't know."
] | C_9b7cbe25b8104d2889a0b4289d7030b8_1 | Did they record a video? | 7 | Did Frankie Goes to Hollywood record a video? | Frankie Goes to Hollywood | On the B-side to the group's first single, Johnson explained that the group's name derived from a page from The New Yorker magazine, featuring the headline "Frankie Goes Hollywood" and a picture of Frank Sinatra, although the magazine page Johnson referred to was actually a pop art poster by Guy Peellaert. The original group named "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" dates from 1980. The nucleus of the group emerged from the late 1970s Liverpool punk scene. Lead singer Johnson had played bass with Big in Japan and had also released two solo singles. Local musicians Peter Gill (drums), Jed O'Toole (bass), and O'Toole's cousin Brian Nash (guitar) initially joined Johnson, calling themselves the Sons of Egypt. This line-up secured a number of small local gigs before disbanding. The group was reprised when Johnson joined Mark O'Toole (bass) and Peter "Ped" Gill to form FGTH. During a particularly fluid period of personnel changes, Jed O'Toole joined FGTH on guitar, and a female vocalist, Sonia Mazumder, was also a band member for the first Frankie gig at the Leeds nightclub "The Warehouse", supporting Hambi & The Dance. Paul Rutherford - a member of the headline act who had also sung in seminal Liverpool punk band The Spitfire Boys - apparently got so caught up in Frankie's performance that he effectively replaced Mazumder that very night. The new all-male musical line-up subsequently toured locally with a leather-clad female duo known as "The Leatherpets" and managed to fund promotional videos and demos, despite being eventually turned down by both Arista Records and Phonogram Inc. In October 1982, the group recorded a John Peel Session for BBC Radio 1, comprising the originals "Krisco Kisses", "Two Tribes", "Disneyland", and "The World Is My Oyster". Around this time Jed O'Toole left the group, to be replaced by the returning Brian Nash. In February 1983, the group was invited to record a video for "Relax" by the Channel 4 show The Tube at the Liverpool State Ballroom. After the broadcast, the Peel session was repeated on radio, and a new session recorded for the BBC, comprising "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", "The Only Star in Heaven" and "Relax". These performances, along with a repeat of the Tube video, convinced Trevor Horn to sign the group for his new label, ZTT Records, in May 1983. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Frankie Goes to Hollywood were an English synth-pop band formed in Liverpool in 1980. The group's best-known line-up comprised Holly Johnson (vocals), Paul Rutherford (backing vocals), Peter Gill (drums, percussion), Mark O'Toole (bass guitar) and Brian Nash (guitar).
The group's 1983 debut single "Relax" was banned by the BBC in 1984 while at number six in the charts and subsequently topped the UK Singles Chart for five consecutive weeks, going on to enjoy prolonged chart success throughout that year and ultimately becoming the seventh-best-selling UK single of all time. It also won the 1985 Brit Award for Best British Single. Their debut album, Welcome to the Pleasuredome, reached number one in the UK in 1984 with advanced sales of more than one million. After the follow-up success of "Two Tribes" and "The Power of Love", the group became only the second act in the history of the UK charts to reach number one with their first three singles; the first being fellow Liverpudlians Gerry and the Pacemakers in the 1960s. This record remained unbeaten until the Spice Girls achieved a six-single streak in 1996–1997.
In 1985 the band won the Brit Award for British Breakthrough Act. Associated with the Second British Invasion of the US, they also received Grammy Award and MTV Video Music Award nominations for Best New Artist. Songwriters Johnson, Gill and O'Toole received the 1984 Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for "Two Tribes". In 2015, the song was voted by the British public as the nation's 14th-favourite 1980s number one in a poll for ITV.
History
Formation
On the B-side to the group's first single, Johnson explained that the group's name derived from a page from The New Yorker magazine, featuring the headline "Frankie Goes Hollywood" and a picture of Frank Sinatra, although the magazine page Johnson referred to was actually a pop art poster by Guy Peellaert featuring a newspaper headline above an image of a young Sinatra being mobbed by his fans. The original group named "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" dates from 1980.
The nucleus of the group emerged from the late 1970s Liverpool punk scene. Lead singer Johnson had played bass with Big in Japan and had also released two solo singles. Local musicians Peter Gill (drums), Jed O'Toole (bass), and O'Toole's cousin Brian Nash (guitar) initially joined Johnson, calling themselves Sons and Egypt. This line-up secured a number of small local gigs before disbanding.
The group was reprised when Johnson joined Mark O'Toole (bass) and Peter "Ped" Gill to form FGTH. During a particularly fluid period of personnel changes, Jed O'Toole joined FGTH on guitar, and a female vocalist, Sonia Mazumder, was also a band member for the first Frankie gig at the Leeds nightclub "The Warehouse", supporting Hambi & The Dance. Paul Rutherford—a member of the headline act who had also sung in seminal Liverpool punk band The Spitfire Boys—apparently got so caught up in Frankie's performance that he effectively replaced Mazumder that very night. The new all-male musical line-up subsequently toured locally with a leather-clad female duo known as "The Leatherpets" and managed to fund promotional videos and demos, despite being eventually turned down by both Arista Records and Phonogram Inc. In October 1982, the group recorded a John Peel Session for BBC Radio 1, comprising the originals "Krisco Kisses", "Two Tribes", "Disneyland", and "The World Is My Oyster". Around this time Jed O'Toole left the group, to be replaced by the returning Brian Nash.
Nash said the band looked up to Echo & the Bunnymen, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) and The Teardrop Explodes, adding, "That was music from Liverpool but from our generation. You would see these people walking around town, you'd see Ian McCulloch getting on the bus. I never saw any of the Beatles on the bus."
In February 1983, the group was invited to record a video for "Relax" by the Channel 4 show The Tube at the Liverpool State Ballroom. After the broadcast, the Peel session was repeated on radio, and a new session recorded for the BBC, comprising "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", "The Only Star in Heaven" and "Relax". These performances, along with a repeat of the Tube video, convinced Trevor Horn to sign the group for his new label, ZTT Records, in May 1983.
"Relax"
"Relax" was released by ZTT in October 1983, with production and remix directed by Trevor Horn, received a modicum of airplay, allowing it steady progress into the UK Top 40. Following a debut on the BBC's Top of the Pops on 5 January 1984 while at number 35, the single rose to number six the following week.
On 11 January 1984, BBC Radio 1 disc jockey Mike Read was playing the record on his show when he noticed the front cover design (by Yvonne Gilbert). Read apparently became outraged by the "overtly sexual" nature of both the record sleeve and the printed lyrics, which prompted him to remove the disc from the turntable live on air, branding it "obscene".
Two days later—almost three months after the single's initial release, and just eight days after the group's Top of the Pops appearance—the BBC banned the record from all its TV and radio outlets. "Relax" immediately shot to number one in the UK charts and stayed there for five weeks, during which time the BBC could not feature the nation's best-selling single on Top of the Pops.
The original video was directed by Bernard Rose and depicted a gay S&M parlour where the band members were admired by muscular leathermen, a bleached blonde drag queen, and a large-bodied man dressed as a Roman emperor. The video featured a scene where one of the band members wrestled a live tiger, to the admiration of the clubgoers, and ended where the "emperor" was so excited he shimmied out of his toga. Filmed in the unused East London theatre Wilton's Music Hall, it was promptly banned by both the BBC and MTV, resulting in the production of a substitute video directed by filmmaker Brian De Palma to coincide with the release of his film Body Double. There have been four official music videos for "Relax."
The BBC lifted its ban on "Relax" at the end of 1984 to allow the band to perform it on the Christmas edition of Top of the Pops (it had been, aside from Band Aid the biggest-selling single of the year).
"Two Tribes"
"Relax" remained in the charts when the follow-up, "Two Tribes", was released in May 1984. The anti-conflict song was given an aggressively topical nuclear war slant. Featuring sirens, the unmistakable voice of Patrick Allen (who had voiced the British Government's actual nuclear warning ads, Protect and Survive, two years earlier) and another innovative electronic backing, it went straight into the UK charts at Number One and stayed there for nine weeks (the first single to do so since John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John's "You're the One That I Want" in 1978), with total sales exceeding 1.5 million copies and becoming one of the top 30 best-selling records in the UK ever.
Directed by Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, the video featured lookalikes of Cold War leaders Ronald Reagan and Konstantin Chernenko wrestling in a marquee while band members and others laid bets on the outcome. Ultimately, the audience—consisting of other world leaders—were brought into the fight, and eventually Earth was seen to explode.
"Two Tribes" was a successful single in its own right, but its reign at the top of the charts was made even more notable by the continuing success of its predecessor. "Relax" had made a natural decline down the charts by May 1984, but on the release of "Two Tribes" its sales began to increase again, to the extent that FGTH held the top two spots in the UK charts during July 1984, the first active group to do so since the early 1960s.
The release of "Two Tribes" also coincided with an extensive and iconic T-shirt marketing campaign during the British summer of 1984, featuring such slogans as "Frankie Say War! Hide Yourself" and "Frankie Say Relax Don't Do It!"
"The Power of Love"
FGTH released a third single, "The Power of Love", at the end of 1984. Unlike the earlier singles, this song was a slower-paced ballad, but it also went to Number One in December and making the band the first act for two decades (since Gerry and the Pacemakers, a fellow Liverpool band, in 1963) to achieve chart-toppers with its first three releases. The video (directed once again by Godley & Creme) was not banned on this occasion but still caused trouble for the group—because it depicted a nativity scene (and on its first showing did not feature any members of the band, who were subsequently added as picture framing).
The song's release was preceded by an advertising campaign that, cheekily, declared it to be the band's third number one single, as if this was a fait accompli. The Band Aid project, for which Johnson recorded a message for the B-side, meant that FGTH managed only one week at the top this time before it was replaced by "Do They Know It's Christmas?"
"Welcome to the Pleasuredome"
The title track from FGTH's album, "Welcome to the Pleasuredome", was released as a fourth single in March 1985. Early promotional posters for the single proclaimed it as "their fourth number one", even prior to the single's release. However, the single peaked at Number 2. The twelve-inch singles featured Greek mythology/Samuel Taylor Coleridge spoken introduction. Geoffrey Palmer narrates on the second 12", known as the "fruitness" mix.
Only one new track appeared in the next eighteen months; "Disneyland", was released on the ZTT Records "Zang Tuum Tumb Sampled" album in late 1985.
Return and decline
In 1986, FGTH appeared at the Montreux Rock Festival which was broadcast on UK television. This performance saw the first airings of two future singles, namely "Rage Hard" and "Warriors of the Wasteland". Both versions were different from the versions eventually released. In August 1986, the long-awaited new Frankie Goes to Hollywood single, "Rage Hard", was released, reaching number 4 in the UK. Initially showcased promotionally with songs like "Warriors of the Wasteland", the group's sound had developed a significantly harder edge with a less flamboyant, more nitty-gritty lyrical side. The album, Liverpool, was released in October 1986 and reached UK No. 5. It was generally panned by the music press and chart returns declined rapidly with the follow-up singles "Warriors of the Wasteland" (No. 19) and "Watching the Wildlife" (No. 28). The group meanwhile threatened to implode of its own accord, in the course of a tour promoting the new album. Johnson kept himself markedly separate from the rest of the band when offstage during this period, tensions becoming exacerbated during a backstage altercation between Johnson and O'Toole at Wembley Arena in January 1987, reflecting the generally collapsing relationship between lead singer and the rest of the band. Things were so bad that fellow Liverpudlian singer Pete Wylie was approached to replace Johnson but declined the offer. FGTH completed the tour, but Johnson ultimately left the group thereafter, citing musical estrangement.
Aftermath
In the aftermath of the group split, Johnson was offered a solo recording agreement with MCA Records. However, ZTT, which maintained they had invested heavily in Liverpool (to the extent that the digital recording system used to record the album was very nearly treated as a sixth member of the band on the sleeve of the "Warriors of the Wasteland" single), had other ideas, and promptly sued Johnson in an attempt to hold him to his original contract with the label. Among other things, ZTT believed that as a departing member of FGTH, Johnson was required to release all solo material through the label until the band's original multiple-album agreement was fulfilled. The suit was bitterly fought, exposing the inner workings of the ZTT/Frankie machine to a giddy UK music press.
After two years, the High Court found in Johnson's favour, holding that the highly restrictive terms of the contract constituted an unreasonable restraint of trade. The court case also effectively freed the remaining members of FGTH from their ZTT contract.
Later years
Johnson's solo career at MCA commenced in 1989, with a succession of high-placed singles and the number one album Blast. The remix collection Hollelujah followed, trailed by a second studio album, Dreams That Money Can't Buy. However, Johnson's relations with MCA cooled with this release, and he would ultimately become a reclusive but successful painter, after announcing in 1993 that he was HIV-positive. The following year, Johnson recounted his version of Frankie's history in his autobiography A Bone in My Flute. His self-issued 1999 album Soulstream included a re-recording of "The Power of Love", which was also released as a single.
Paul Rutherford, the other openly gay member of the band, released the partially ABC produced album Oh World and a handful of singles before retiring with his New Zealander partner to Waiheke Island.
The "other three", as Smash Hits labelled them, continued to work together in what turned out to be a vain attempt to resurrect "Frankie" with various singers including Dee Harris from Fashion and Grant Boult (Jeckyl Ice) from The Premise, who had opened the shows on the band's UK and European tours. Under the name Boss Dog, with Boult on vocals, the band were offered a major deal with Virgin Records but on the condition they work as Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Johnson challenged the use of the name and the deal soured. Boult and Brian Nash continued with the material written by The Shuffle Brothers and under the name Low they released "Tearing My Soul Apart" in 1992 on Swanyard Records. As "Nasher", Nash released a 2002 solo album entitled Ripe. Ped worked behind the scenes and scored a top ten hit with the group "Lovestation". Mark O'Toole moved to Florida and played with punk outfit "Trapped by Mormons".
The band's name lived on to the extent that re-issues of "Relax" and "The Power of Love" both returned to the UK Top 10 in 1993. Remixes of "The Power of Love" (which became a dance anthem from its original ballad format) and "Two Tribes" were Top 20 hits again in 2000, while "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" also got commercially successful remix treatment, to the extent of a Top 20 placing four years earlier.
The group's first two singles appeared sixth and 22nd, respectively, in the official all-time UK best-selling singles list issued in 2002.
American impostor group
In 1998, a band calling itself alternately "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" and "The New Frankie Goes to Hollywood Featuring Davey Johnson" began to tour the United States. The band consisted of none of the original members of the band and formed without their knowledge or consent. The impostor band was led by an American using the stage name Davey Johnson, who alternately claimed he was Holly Johnson's brother and had performed as an uncredited session musician on Welcome to the Pleasuredome. The members of the actual band and their producer Trevor Horn refuted both claims. Mark O'Toole, who had been living in Florida, became aware of the band and warned concert promoters not to hire them. Likewise, A Flock of Seagulls frontman Mike Score, who had been a Liverpool acquaintance of the members of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, kicked the impostor band off his tour after discovering they were a fraud. After Holly Johnson contacted the trade magazine Pollstar to confirm that the American-based act was unauthorized, the impostor band was dropped by a booking agent, but continued to be booked by small clubs throughout the southern United States. The fake group continued to perform until at least September 2000, when a feature on the controversy was published in that month's issue of Spin.
Reunion and comeback
In 2003, the VH-1 program Bands Reunited brought Johnson, Rutherford, Gill, Nash, and Mark O'Toole together, in the hope of their agreeing to perform impromptu on the show. However, a reunion performance did not transpire. Both Johnson and Nash had reservations about performing at short notice in the contrived manner dictated by the TV show format.
In 2004, a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Trevor Horn's involvement in the music industry a special concert took place at Wembley Arena in November, featuring three of the original FGTH line-up, Mark O'Toole, Peter (Ped) Gill and Paul Rutherford and another former member, Jed O'Toole. Original vocalist Johnson, who announced via the Internet that he would not be appearing, and guitarist Nash, who declined to appear for his own reasons, did not take part. Jed O'Toole took over guitar duties for the event, whilst an open audition was held for a new singer for the concert. Ryan Molloy was recruited as a result.
The same lineup reunited for a tour in 2005 playing festivals in Europe. They headlined the Big Gay Out festival at Hyde Park in London.
After some confusion with ensuing tour dates, the band posted a warning on their website that many of the tour dates listed by ticket promoters were inaccurate. The band became increasingly focused on the release of a new album during 2007. However, in early April 2007 came the news that Gill, Rutherford, J. O'Toole and Molloy had formed Forbidden Hollywood to play their new songs alongside old FGTH material. This was to avoid legal issues with Holly Johnson over use of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood name. Live dates were announced, but these were cancelled in June 2007.
Personnel
Principal members
Holly Johnson – vocals (1980–1987)
Paul Rutherford – vocals, tambourine (1980–1987, 2004–2007)
Mark O'Toole – vocals, bass (1980–1987, 2004–2007)
Brian Nash – vocals, guitars (1982–1987)
Peter Gill – drums (1980–1987, 2004–2007)
Ryan Molloy – vocals (2004–2007)
Early members
Jed O'Toole – vocals, guitars (1980–1982, 1984, 1987, 2004–2007)
Sonia Mazumder – vocals (1980)
Awards and nominations
{| class=wikitable
|-
! Year !! Awards !! Work !! Category !! Result
|-
| rowspan="4" | 1984
| Ivor Novello Awards
| rowspan="2" | "Two Tribes"
| Best Song Musically And Lyrically
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | NME Awards
| Promo Video
|
|-
| Welcome to the Pleasuredome
| Best Dressed Sleeve
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | "Relax"
| Best Single
|
|-
| rowspan="9" | 1985
| Ivor Novello Awards
| Best Contemporary Song
|
|-
| rowspan="5" | Brit Awards
| Best British Single
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | Themselves
| Best British Newcomer
|
|-
| Best British Group
|
|-
| Welcome to the Pleasuredome
| Best British Album
|
|-
| rowspan="3" | "Two Tribes"
| Best British Single
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | MTV Video Music Awards
| Best New Artist
|
|-
| Best Concept Video
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
| Themselves
| Which Artist is Most Likely to Successfully Headline Arenas for the First time in 1985?
|
|-
| 1986
| Tour
| Small Hall/Club Tour of the Year
|
|-
| 2010
| Q Awards
| "Relax"
| Classic Song
|
Discography
Welcome to the Pleasuredome (1984)
Liverpool (1986)
Computer game
In 1985, a computer game entitled Frankie Goes to Hollywood was developed by Denton Designs and published by Ocean Software. Based on the band's music, imagery and slogans, the objective of the game was to explore the town of Mundanesville to find the Pleasuredome. It also came boxed with an extra cassette with a live version of "Relax" on it.
References
External links
Frankie Goes to Hollywood official website
Brit Award winners
British Hi-NRG groups
Dance-rock musical groups
English new wave musical groups
British synth-pop new wave groups
LGBT-themed musical groups
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups from Liverpool
Musical quintets
Scouse culture of the early 1980s
ZTT Records artists
English synth-pop groups
Dance-pop groups | false | [
"\"Big Me\" is the fourth single by the Foo Fighters from their self-titled debut album. Released in the spring of 1996, the song became a crossover hit for the band on pop radio, when it reached #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay.\n\nMusic video\nThe song became well known for its music video, which parodies Mentos advertisements, turning them into commercials for \"Footos,\" with the \"Freshmaker\" slogan being rendered as \"The Fresh Fighter\". The concept came from director Jesse Peretz, who had originally pitched the idea to another band, and the Foo Fighters accepted as according to Dave Grohl, \"We had some difficulty finding a treatment that would suit the song, which is this short, tongue-in-cheek, ridiculously candy-coated pop tune. We didn't want to make this big, pretentious portrait video. We wanted to make fun of ourselves and the song.\" The video made its MTV debut on February 14, 1996, and quickly became a Buzz Bin clip.\n\n\"Big Me\" was nominated for 5 MTV Video Music Awards at the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards, winning only \"Best Group Video\". The video, which parodies the Mentos ad campaign, was filmed on location in Sydney, Australia.\n\nThe video's success led to many fans throwing Mentos at the band whenever they played the song live. For an extended period of time, the band did not play the song live due to this, as Grohl cited: \"We did stop playing that song for a while because, honestly, it's like being stoned. Those little … things are like pebbles – they hurt.\" The band only started to change its mind after Weezer started performing \"Big Me\" during the Foozer tour both bands did together.\n\n2019 Record Store Day re-release\n\nThe \"Big Me\" single was re-released on a 3-inch vinyl for Record Store Day on April 13, 2019. The single is one of several 3-inch Record Store Day re-issues that is playable on special miniature record players.\n\nSingles\nCD single\n\"Big Me\"\n\"Floaty (BBC Evening Session Recording 23 November 1995)\"\n\"Gas Chamber (BBC Evening Session Recording 23 November 1995)\" (Angry Samoans cover)\n\"Alone + Easy Target (BBC Evening Session Recording 23 November 1995)\"\n\n7\" White Vinyl\n\"Big Me\"\n\"Floaty (BBC Evening Sessions Recording 23 November 1995)\n\"Gas Chamber (BBC Evening Sessions Recording 23 November 1995) (Angry Samoans cover)\n\nMaxi CD single\n\"Big Me\"\n\"Winnebago\"\n\"How I Miss You\" (features Dave Grohl's sister Lisa on bass and Mike Nelson on drums)\n\"Podunk\"\n\"Ozone\" (Ace Frehley cover)\n\"For All the Cows\" (live at the Reading Festival, August 26, 1995)\n\"Wattershed\" (live at the Reading Festival, August 26, 1995)\n\n3” Record Store Day 2019 Exclusive Single\n”Big Me”\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nWalmart Soundcheck - Foo Fighters\n\n1995 songs\n1996 singles\nAmerican power pop songs\nJangle pop songs\nFoo Fighters songs\nSongs written by Dave Grohl\nSahara Hotnights songs",
"\"All Night Long\" is a song by a four-piece version of hip-hop group Blazin' Squad, released as a single on June 10, 2006.\n\nBackground\nIn May 2006, it was announced that Rocky-B, Reepa, Spike-E and Melo-D were going to reform, and perform as a four-piece version of Blazin' Squad. They also announced they were to release a new album under new record label, Peach Records. Under Peach Records, they released their first single since reforming, \"All Night Long\", in June 2006. The single was very popular on underground music channels, but did not receive a lot of mainstream airplay. As such, the single peaked at #54 on the UK Singles Chart, which resulted in their record deal being scrapped and a further disbandment. The track was not included on any of the group's albums until the release of their Greatest Hits compilation in June 2009.\n\nMusic video\nThe music video for \"All Night Long\" did not premiere until August 2006, two months after the release of the single, at a total length of two-minutes and fifty-seconds. The video is very similar to the video for the group's previous single \"We Just Be Dreamin'\". It features the four band members performing the song around a swimming pool, surrounded by a gaggle of girls dressed in bikinis and other sexy outfits. The music video received airplay on Starz and Channel AKA, but was never placed on rotation by MTV.\n\nTrack listing\n Digital EP\n \"All Night Long\" (Radio Edit) - 3:02\n \"Whoa!\" - 2:56\n \"All Night Long\" (Si Hulbert's Funkin' Great Mix) - 3:15\n \"All Night Long\" (Platinum Hit The Floor Remix) - 3:40\n\n UK CD #1\n \"All Night Long\" (Radio Edit) - 3:02\n \"Whoa!\" - 2:56\n\n UK CD #2\n \"All Night Long\" (Radio Edit) - 3:02\n \"All Night Long\" (Si Hulbert's Funkin' Great Mix) - 3:15\n \"All Night Long\" (Platinum Hit The Floor Remix) - 3:40\n \"All Night Long\" (Video) - 3:02\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nBlazin' Squad songs\n2006 singles\n2006 songs\nSongs written by Christian Ballard (songwriter)"
] |
[
"Cardiff RFC",
"League rugby"
] | C_52d3e23b46e64bca87c9f84857b00b9c_1 | What is the rugby league? | 1 | What is the rugby league? | Cardiff RFC | In 1990, the unofficial Welsh championship was replaced by a league structure involving promotion and relegation. Cardiff competed in top flight but could only manage a fourth-place finish in 1990-91, and exited the Cup at the quarter-final stage. The season did involve some highlights however, such as beating league runners-up and Cup champions Llanelli 43-0 at the Arms Park and beating league champions Neath 18-4 away in the last game of the season. 1991-92 was possibly the club's worst-ever season, beset with disagreements between coach Alan Phillips and manager John Scott. Cardiff crashed out of the Cup before the quarter-final stage and lost at home to Maesteg and Newbridge in the league. Their final league finish was ninth, which would have led to their relegation but the WRU decided mid-season to switch to a 12-team Premiership, therefore saving Cardiff and Maesteg from relegation. Both Scott and Phillips resigned following the season. Australian Alex Evans took over at Cardiff as coach for the 1992-93 season, bringing in former Arms Park legend Terry Holmes and famous ex-Pontypool front-row member Charlie Faulkner as assistants, and helped a turnaround in the club's fortunes, winning their first seven matches of the season and 20 of their first 22 to top the league in the new year. This run came to an end on 23 January; they were knocked out of the Schweppes Cup by St Peter's, who were fourth from bottom of Division Four. The Blue and Blacks only lost four league games all season though, but were unlucky to be competing against Llanelli in the league, who won the double and were considered the best club team in the UK after beating Australia 13-9. In 1993-94 they slid back to fourth in the league but won the SWALEC Cup (renamed from Schweppes Cup for sponsorship reasons) by beating Llanelli, who'd won the tournament for the last three years running. The score in the final was 15-8, with tries from Mike Rayer and club captain centre Mike Hall and kicks from fly-half Adrian Davies. In 1994-95 Cardiff won the final league title of the amateur era in Wales, as well as reaching the semi-finals of the Cup before going down 16-9 to Swansea. CANNOTANSWER | In 1990, the unofficial Welsh championship was replaced by a league structure involving promotion and relegation. | Cardiff Rugby Football Club () is a rugby union club based in Cardiff, the capital city of Wales. The club was founded in 1876 and played their first few matches at Sophia Gardens, shortly after which relocating to Cardiff Arms Park where they have been based ever since.
They built a reputation as one of the great clubs in world rugby, largely through a series of wins against international touring sides. Cardiff have beaten both South Africa and New Zealand, and Australia have failed to beat the club in six attempts. Through its history Cardiff RFC have provided more players to the Welsh national side and British and Irish Lions than any other Welsh club.
Following the 2003 regionalisation of Welsh rugby, Cardiff RFC created the Cardiff Blues with the RFC team playing in the semi pro Welsh Premier League. The Cardiff RFC section, of the Cardiff Athletic Club, run and administer the team in conjunction with the owners Cardiff Blues.
History
Amateur years
The first recognised team to begin playing rugby in Cardiff was Glamorgan Football Club, formed as a club team while Cardiff was still a town. The team was formed by a group of young men during the 1873/74 season, after a circular letter was sent to interested parties by S. Campell Cory. Playing under the Cheltenham College rules, Glamorgan FC had increased its membership to sixty six by November 1874. 1874 saw Glamorgan's first away game, against Cowbridge Grammar School, and by 1875 the team played its first encounter with Newport. Around 1875, two further clubs came into existence in Cardiff, they were Tredegarville Football Club, whose ranks included Jas. Bush, father of future Cardiff rugby hero Percy Bush; and the Wanderers Football Club whose captain and founder was William David Phillips. Of the three teams, Glamorgan and Wanderers became the most notable, but both teams rarely travelled, and both had difficulty beating the now established clubs of Newport and Swansea. The supporters of both clubs started an agitation in the summer of 1876 for the two clubs to amalgamate, to give Cardiff town a better chance of beating the neighbouring teams. On Friday 22 September 1876 members of the Glamorgan and Wanderers clubs met at the Swiss Hall in Queen Street, Cardiff and decided to make a single club, to be called Cardiff Football Club. The first team captain was Donaldson Selby of Glamorgan and the vice-captain W.D. Phillips of Wanderers. Initially the club strip was black with a white skull and crossbones, but after pressure from the players parents to change what they saw as an inappropriate strip, the team adopted the black and blue of Cambridge University; after club player Thomas William Rees of Caius College brought his university strip to the club.
Cardiff FC played their first fixture on 2 December 1876, versus Newport at Wentloog Marshes. In 1881, Cardiff beat Llanelli to win the South Wales Challenge Cup, though the tournament was scrapped soon after due to persistent crowd trouble.
In 1881, Newport based sports administrator, Richard Mullock, formed the first Welsh international rugby team. Despite the team losing heavily to England, Mullock had chosen four players from Cardiff to represent the team; club captain William David Phillips, vice-captain B. B. Mann, Barry Girling and Leonard Watkins, a reflection on the clubs importance at the time. A month later, on 12 March 1881, Cardiff RFC was one of the eleven clubs present at the formation of the Welsh Rugby Union in Neath.
A notable early player was Frank Hancock. A skilful centre, Hancock first played for Cardiff due to an injury to a first regular. At this time, rugby was played with six backs and nine forwards but Hancock's performance so impressed the selectors that for the next game they selected him as a seventh back and selected only eight forwards. The system was soon adopted by the Welsh national team and the seven backs and eight forwards system exists in rugby to this day. Cardiff RFC and Hancock were jointly recognised by the International Rugby Board in 2011 for this innovation with induction to the IRB Hall of Fame.
In 1898, Cardiff were unofficial club champions of Wales for the first time. One year later, centre Gwyn Nicholls became the first Cardiff player to play for the British and Irish Lions (then only representing the British Isles), and scored a try in both the first and second Tests against Australia. Nicholls would also go on to captain Wales between 1902 and 1906. In 1904, Cardiff players fly-half Percy Bush, centre Rhys Gabe (who later captained Wales in 1907) and Arthur 'Boxer' Harding all went on the Lions tour to Australia and New Zealand (Nicholls was not selected). Bush scored in the first and second test against Australia, as Nicholls had, and thanks to his tries and goal-kicking during the first three Tests, finished as the top Test points scorer. Gabe scored a try in the third test against Australia, while Harding converted a try in the first Test and was the only Lions player to get on the score sheet against New Zealand, after scoring a penalty goal in the game against them at the end of the tour.
In 1905, there were four Cardiff players in the Wales team that famously beat New Zealand: Harding, Nicholls, Bush, Gabe and Bert Winfield, who would go on to captain Wales three years later. After an eight-year wait, Cardiff also managed to win the unofficial Welsh club championship in 1906 (going unbeaten in every game they played apart from against New Zealand) and 1907.
On New Year's Day 1907, Cardiff beat South Africa 17–0, a great achievement considering the national side had been beaten 11–0 by the Boks only a month earlier, and France were thrashed by them 55–6 two days later. The only other team to beat South Africa during their 29-match tour were Scotland.
After this performance, and Wales winning the Five Nations Grand Slam for the first time in 1908, four Cardiff players were selected for the Lions in 1908. Harding was selected as the first Cardiff player to captain the tour and was the only one of the four to have played for the Lions before, the other three being uncapped half-back Willie Morgan, and three-quarters Johnnie Williams and Reggie Gibbs. Gibbs remains the only player to have been capped for Wales at least 10 times and averaged more than a try a game, with 17 tries in 16 caps, and Williams came very close to his record with 17 tries in 17 Tests.
The tour was not a success, with the Lions managing to draw the second Test but losing the first and third by over twenty-five points each. However, Gibbs did manage to score in the first Test. The disappointed players made up for their failure the next year by winning the Grand Slam with Wales for the second time in a row and winning the unofficial championship with Cardiff. Cardiff also beat Australia 24–8 on 28 December 1908.
However, following this, the glory years were largely over for Cardiff and Wales, although Wales did manage to win the Grand Slam in 1911, and Cardiff came within one point of beating South Africa in a 7–6 defeat in 1912. But no Cardiff players were selected for another Lions tour for the next sixteen years, and they would not become Welsh champions again for the best part of three decades.
Between the wars
The First World War certainly had some effect on the club – Johnnie Williams died in the first weeks of the Battle of the Somme, and many other players returned wounded or simply too old to play rugby. Cardiff were forced to turn to younger talent for their team. Jim Sullivan was a prime example of this, making his first appearance for Cardiff at the age of 16 in October 1920, and went on to make 38 appearances over the rest of the season. In December 1920, just after his 17th birthday, he became the youngest player to ever appear for the Barbarians. However, in June 1921 he signed for professional rugby league club Wigan, beginning a new trend of Welsh union players "going north" to play rugby league.
Cardiff rugby finally managed a revival of some sort in the 1930s. Scrum-half Howard Poole, although never capped for Wales, was selected to play for the Lions in 1930, as was Ivor Williams in 1938. The club also won their first unofficial Welsh championship for 28 years in 1937, and managed to retain the title in 1938 and 1939, before the start of the Second World War.
After the Second World War
After the resumption of regular rugby, Cardiff beat Australia 11–3 on 21 November 1947, captained by scrum-half Haydn Tanner and were also unofficial Welsh champions in 1947/48, when Bleddyn Williams set a club record of 41 tries in one season, and 1948/49, when the Blue and Blacks went completely unbeaten against Welsh opposition, only Swansea and Newport succeeding in salvaging draws. The club had a fantastic record against Newport during these years, going 15 games unbeaten against them between 1946 and 1950. Cardiff players helped Wales win their first Grand Slam in nearly forty years in 1950, and later that year supplied five players to the Lions for the first time later that year. The five were fly-half Billy Cleaver, prop Cliff Davies, centre Jack Matthews, scrum-half Rex Willis and Bleddyn Williams, the "Prince of Centres". Williams captained the Lions in the third and fourth Tests against New Zealand. Wales won another Grand Slam in 1952, with much the same side.
In 1952–53, Cardiff won the unofficial Welsh championship again, helped by the rise of prodigiously talented fly-half Cliff Morgan, but the best was still to come. On 21 November 1953, Cardiff faced New Zealand in front of a crowd of 56,000 at the Arms Park and, after a brilliant defensive effort following a 5–0 lead at half-time, hung on to win 8–3. Five Cardiff backs were selected in the Wales team captained by Bleddyn Williams that beat the All Blacks again less than a month later. These two results remain the last time either Cardiff or Wales have beaten New Zealand.
Cardiff repeated their unofficial championship victory two years later in 1955, and had three Lions in the 1955 touring side, notable for not including any of the five that toured in 1950. The three this time were fly-half Morgan, centre Gareth Griffiths and wing Haydn Morris. Morgan, in front of a then-world record crowd of 100,000, helped defeat the South Africans 23–22 with a brilliant try despite an injury to Reg Higgins reducing the Lions to 14 men (no replacements were allowed at this time). After the South Africans squared the series in the second Test, Morgan was made captain for the third Test and inspired the team with a combination a stirring team talk and a great kicking game to a 9–6 victory, ensuring the series could not be lost, after which he was dubbed "Morgan the Magnificent" by the South African press. After his Lions heroics Morgan was made captain of Wales, and helped them win the title (although not the Grand Slam) in 1956.
Australia played against and were defeated by Cardiff for the third time in 1957, 14–11 thanks to two great tries from Gordon Wells, after which a reporter from the Sydney Daily Telegraph wrote "we fell to the world's best rugby union club", and another unofficial championship title was secured in 1957–58, but only second row Bill "Roddy" Evans was selected for the Lions in 1959, although he started four of the six Tests. A downturn in Welsh and Cardiff fortunes occurred around this time, although prop Kingsley Jones and second row Keith Rowlands from the club were still selected for the 1962 Lions tour, and Cardiff managed to come within a point of beating the All Blacks again in 1963, scoring the only try of the game. However, the slump began to end in 1964, when Wales shared the Five Nations title with Scotland, after which Wales won the Triple Crown and the title in 1965, followed by another championship in 1966, although the Grand Slam still eluded them. However, these successes helped Cardiff players centre Ken Jones and prop Howard Norris win places on the Lions tour to New Zealand. Later that year Cardiff beat Australia 14–8, although Wales were not able to repeat the feat a month later, losing 14–11.
The 1968 Lions tour was a historic one, containing a record six Cardiff players, wings Keri Jones and Maurice Richards, prop John O'Shea, (then) centre Gerald Davies, fly-half Barry John and scrum-half Gareth Edwards. While Jones and Richards would soon switch codes to play rugby league and O'Shea's tour would be marred somewhat by being the first Lion ever to be sent off for foul play, Davies, John and Edwards would go on to become legends, although their careers got off to inauspicious starts, the Lions losing three of the Tests again South Africa and only drawing the other one.
On the domestic front, they were denied silverware, as despite being top of the unofficial table for almost the whole season, the loss of their six Lions at the end of the season allowed Llanelli to overtake them. Cardiff again finished second behind Newport the next year, with Richards the only Lion to make more than 20 appearances. However, Wales won the Five Nations title and Triple Crown in 1969, only denied the Grand Slam by a draw in France, only to be whitewashed in three games against New Zealand and Australia in the summer.
The Seventies
1971 however, was the year in which John, Edwards and Davies would write themselves into history. Davies by this time had left for London Welsh, although he would later return. In the spring, they were all ever-presents in Wales's first Grand Slam in 18 years, and in the summer, they were selected for the Lions tour to New Zealand, along with Cardiff teammate John Bevan. The tour remains the only occasion where the Lions have returned victorious from New Zealand. All four Cardiff players started the first Test, and all except Bevan played in the other three Tests. Despite only playing in the first Test, John Bevan became the Lions' record try scorer (including matches against club teams) with 17. Barry John was given the title "King Barry" by the New Zealanders after scoring 30 of the Lions' 48 points, and in him and Edwards, Cardiff could justifiably be said to have the best two half-backs in the world.
1971–72 was the first season where the WRU Challenge Cup was introduced. Cardiff reached the semi-final, before being beaten 16–9 at the Brewery Field by Neath, who went on to beat Llanelli in the final. Unfortunately in 1972 Barry John announced his decision to retire at the age of 27, not liking the celebrity status shoved on him and his family after the Lions tour.
The next season was also disappointing for Cardiff, although fullback John Davies scored a club record of 209 points (in his first season for the club). They were soundly beaten by New Zealand 20–4, only a week after Llanelli had beaten them 9–3. In the Cup, they defeated South Wales Police, Mountain Ash, Ebbw Vale, Blaina and Swansea on their way to the final, but were again outclassed and lost 30–7 to Llanelli. In 1973–74 Cardiff reached the Cup semi-finals for the third year running, but were defeated 9–4 by Aberavon. Gareth Edwards however, led his country to a 24–0 win over Australia in November 1973. In 1974, Gerald Davies decided to return to Cardiff from London Welsh. Edwards and Davies were picked for the 1974 Lions tour to South Africa (although Davies refused to go in protest against apartheid) and Edwards started all four Tests, where the Lions went unbeaten through all 22 matches and would probably have won all their games, but in the final Test the South African referee blew the final whist four minutes early with the scores level and the Lions camped on the South African line.
In 1974–75 Cardiff failed to reach the WRU Challenge Cup semi-finals for the first time, losing 13–12 to Bridgend in the third round, despite not conceding a try in the entire Cup. However, on 1 November 1975, Cardiff met Australia for the fifth time in their history and, for the fifth time defeated them, 14–9, despite the absence of Edwards due to influenza. Both Edwards and Davies represented Wales in the 1976 Five Nations Grand Slam. During 1976–77, Cardiff defeated Pontypool and Aberavon on their way to the Challenge Cup final, where they were beaten 16–15 by Newport. Edwards decided not to go on the 1977 Lions tour, to show loyalty to his company who had let him go on three Lions tours previously. However, another Cardiff scrum-half, uncapped Brynmor Williams was picked, and played in the first three Tests before being injured in the third.
Both Davies and Edwards started for Wales in the 20–16 victory away to Ireland in the 1978 Five Nations that sealed a record three Triple Crowns in as many years, with Edwards also starting the next week and also dropping a goal in the 16–7 victory against France that sealed Wales their third Grand Slam in eight years. This was Gareth Edwards' final match for Wales – he had won 53 consecutive caps, never being dropped or injured, and scored 20 tries. Gerald Davies also retired from Wales after a 19–17 defeat in Sydney – tied with Edwards on 20 tries, scored in 46 caps.
In the 1977–78 club season, Davies had a fantastic game against Pontypool where despite only touching the ball four times due to the dominance of the Pooler pack, he scored four tries, with those being Cardiff's only points in a 16–11 victory. Cardiff's cup run continued to the semi-finals, where they were beaten by Swansea 18–13.
The Eighties
Flanker Stuart Lane, fly-half Gareth Davies, hooker Alan Phillips and scrum-half Terry Holmes from the club were chosen to tour with the Lions to South Africa in 1980, however Davies was the only one to start a Test match. The four went on to help Cardiff finally break their duck and win the WRU Challenge Cup (known as the Schweppes Cup for sponsorship reasons) with a 14–6 victory over Bridgend the following season, with Davies scoring two penalties and tries from centre Neil Hutchings and back-rower Robert Lakin. They repeated the feat in 1982, winning on try count thanks to a score from prop Ian Eidman after a 12–12 draw again against Bridgend, with the other points coming from fly-half David Barry, and also ended a 24-year wait by winning the Unofficial Welsh Championship, thereby completing the club's first (and so far only) league and cup double.
In 1983 Terry Holmes was again picked for the Lions, this time alongside second row Bob Norster. Both players were picked for the first team but Holmes was injured in the first Test and Norster in the second, ending their tours.
Cardiff had been knocked in the quarter-finals of the 1982–83 cup by eventual winners Pontypool, but made it up for it with a third triumph in four years, beating Neath 24–19 in the final with tries from flanker Owen Golding and wing Gerald Cordle and 16 points from Gareth Davies. Then, on 12 October 1984, they beat Australia 16–12, thanks to eight points from Gareth Davies along with a penalty try and a score from Adrian Hadley. The same Australian side went on to complete a "Grand Slam" (beating England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland). Australia haven't played Cardiff RFC since, leaving the club with a perfect record of six wins from six games against the Wallabies (although Cardiff Blues did lose to Australia 31–3 in 2009). 1985 was very nearly another successful year for the club, beating Neath and Pontypool on their way to the Schweppes Cup final where, despite tries from wing Gerald Cordle and captain Alan Phillips alongside two penalties from Gareth Davies, they fell to an agonising 15–14 defeat to Llanelli. After this, Terry Holmes left the club to play rugby league.
The club bounced back immediately however, beating Newport in the final of 1985–86 cup final 28–21, with Adrian Hadley scoring a hat-trick, Holmes's replacement, scrum-half Neil O'Brien, bagging another try and 12 points coming from the boot of fly-half Gareth Davies in his last game for the club against Welsh opposition before retiring. One year later, Cardiff were part of the first Challenge Cup final to go to extra time, with the scores 9–9 after 80 minutes, all Cardiff's points coming from the boot of Davies's replacement, Geraint John. Gerald Cordle scored to break the deadlock but the conversion was missed and Swansea scored a converted try soon after, putting them in the lead. But a late drop goal from full-back Mike Rayer won it for the Arms Park side capping one of the most successful periods in the club's history, with five Schweppes Cup victories in seven years.
In 1987, the first Rugby World Cup was held in New Zealand. Cardiff props Dai Young, Jeff Whitefoot and Steve Blackmore, wing Adrian Hadley, centre Mark Ring and hooker Alan Phillips all were selected in Wales's squad (Young was called up as an injury replacement) which finished third.
Cardiff's success began to tail off towards the end of the 1980s, with Adrian Hadley leaving for rugby league in 1988 and Gerald Cordle following in 89, and they could only manage two Cup quarter-finals and one semi-final appearance in the last three years of the decade. However, both Dai Young and Bob Norster were selected for the Lions tour to Australia in 1989, the only Lions team to come from 1–0 down to win the series. Young followed Hadley and Cordle to rugby league shortly after this, while Whitefoot and Norster both retired in 1990.
League rugby
In 1990, the unofficial Welsh championship was replaced by a league structure involving promotion and relegation. Cardiff competed in top flight but could only manage a fourth-place finish in 1990–91, and exited the Cup at the quarter-final stage. The season did involve some highlights however, such as beating league runners-up and Cup champions Llanelli 43–0 at the Arms Park and beating league champions Neath 18–4 away in the last game of the season.
1991–92 was possibly the club's worst-ever season, beset with disagreements between coach Alan Phillips and manager John Scott. Cardiff crashed out of the Cup before the quarter-final stage and lost at home to Maesteg and Newbridge in the league. Their final league finish was ninth, which would have led to their relegation but the WRU decided mid-season to switch to a 12-team Premiership, therefore saving Cardiff and Maesteg from relegation. Both Scott and Phillips resigned following the season.
Australian Alex Evans took over at Cardiff as coach for the 1992–93 season, bringing in former Arms Park legend Terry Holmes and famous ex-Pontypool front-row member Charlie Faulkner as assistants, and helped a turnaround in the club's fortunes, winning their first seven matches of the season and 20 of their first 22 to top the league in the new year. This run came to an end on 23 January; they were knocked out of the Schweppes Cup by St Peter's, who were fourth from bottom of Division Four. The Blue and Blacks only lost four league games all season though, but were unlucky to be competing against Llanelli in the league, who won the double and were considered the best club team in the UK after beating Australia 13–9.
In 1993–94 they slid back to fourth in the league but won the SWALEC Cup (renamed from Schweppes Cup for sponsorship reasons) by beating Llanelli, who'd won the tournament for the last three years running. The score in the final was 15–8, with tries from Mike Rayer and club captain centre Mike Hall and kicks from fly-half Adrian Davies. In 1994–95 Cardiff won the final league title of the amateur era in Wales, as well as reaching the semi-finals of the Cup before going down 16–9 to Swansea.
Professionalism
With professionalism dawned a new era at Cardiff RFC. It allowed them to sign legendary outside-half Jonathan Davies back from rugby league, and another major change was that there would be a European Cup, sponsored by Heineken, containing teams from France, Ireland, Wales, Italy and Romania (England and Scotland did not join for another year). Cardiff progressed to the knock-out stages in November by drawing with Bordeaux-Begles and beating Ulster. December saw the end of the Alex Evans era, as he departed to return home to Australia. Terry Holmes took charge of the club, and in his first full match the Blue and Blacks beat Leinster away to progress to the first Heineken Cup final. The game was played at Cardiff Arms Park in front of a crowd of 21,800, where despite 18 points from the boot of Adrian Davies, Cardiff were beaten 21–18 by Toulouse after extra time.
Cardiff, despite not losing a league game under Holmes, were runners-up on the domestic front as well, finishing level with Neath on points but coming second on try count. After the end of the 95–96 season Peter Thomas invested money into the club allowing them to sign Rob Howley, Dai Young back from rugby league, Leigh Davies, Gwyn Jones and Justin Thomas for the cost of around £2million. Internationals Mark Ring, Steven Blackmore and the half-backs that had started the Heineken Cup final, Andy Moore and Adrian Davies all departed.
Despite all the new signings, Cardiff lost their first three games of the season, and the 1996/97 season was in many respects worse than the year before – Cardiff were knocked out in the Heineken Cup semi-finals by eventual champions Brive, and in the Welsh Premier Division they fell to third, behind champions Pontypridd and Llanelli. However, after Alex Evans returned to head up the coaching team, that season did lead to some silverware, as Cardiff beat Llanelli 36–26 in the semi-final and Swansea 33–26 in the final of the SWALEC Cup. Grzegorz Kacala and Tony Rees, both forwards part of the Brive team that knocked Cardiff out of the Heineken Cup and went on to win it, were signed for 1997/98 along with Wales internationals Steve Williams and Spencer John (Gareth Thomas also arrived in December from Bridgend).
Despite Cardiff's difficulties, compounded by those of the national team, Howley and Young were both chosen to go on 1997 Lions tour to South Africa. Howley had to return home early due to injury and neither of the two Cardiff players started a Test match.
In the 1997/98 season, Cardiff were Wales's sole representative in the quarter finals of the Heineken Cup, and were beaten away in rematch of the previous year's quarter-final, by Bath, who would go on to win the tournament. However, their domestic cup campaign ended before the quarter final stage, losing 24–9 to Ebbw Vale, and they finished runners up to Swansea in the League. Following this season, Alex Evans left Cardiff for Australia for the second time and Terry Holmes was put back in charge.
Rebel season
Cardiff and Swansea had proposed the formation of a British league, containing the top division English clubs, the two Scottish regional sides (Edinburgh and Glasgow) and four Welsh clubs (seeing as Cardiff had got further than any other Welsh club in every Heineken Cup so far, Swansea were the league champions and they represented the two largest urban areas in Wales, it was assumed two of these clubs would be Cardiff and Swansea).
Both the RFU and the English clubs had agreed to this, but the WRU refused due to an ongoing legal battle with the English clubs over the negotiation of commercial rights (which would lead to the English clubs not participating in the 1998–99 Heineken Cup). Instead, the WRU demanded all top-flight clubs sign 10-year loyalty agreements, where they were guaranteed top-flight status and committed themselves to staying within the Welsh league structure.
Cardiff and Swansea refused to sign these agreements and were expelled from the Welsh Premier Division. The Allied Dunbar Premiership (the English league) teams announced that two teams would have a rest weekend every week allowing them to play friendlies against Cardiff and Swansea. Cardiff's first home match of the season was against Saracens, who'd finished second in the Allied Dunbar Premiership the season before. Cardiff won 40–19 in front of a crowd of 10,021, larger than the entire combined attendance of the Welsh Premier Division that weekend. The club went on to win all their home games, but fell to defeat ten times on their travels.
Although Cardiff and Swansea were both expelled from the Welsh League, they were allowed to continue to compete in the SWALEC Cup against Welsh opposition. Both teams reached the semi-finals, Swansea were to play Cross Keys and Cardiff Llanelli. In the week prior to the game, Cardiff chairman Peter Thomas spoke to the players following a training session, where he emphasised the importance of winning the game, describing it as "the biggest game in the club's history". Cardiff lost 39–10 in a match chief executive Gareth Davies described "The worst performance by a Cardiff side I have ever seen." Six days later, it was announced Terry Holmes would stand down as coach at the end of the season, and Pontypridd and Wales assistant coach Lyn Howells would take charge on a two-year contract.
Swansea went on to beat Llanelli 37–10 in the cup final, but the rebels were still forced to sign loyalty agreements and return to Welsh domestic setup, now including Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Lynn Howells
After the unsuccessful rebel season, Cardiff sign British Lion outside-half Neil Jenkins as well as Wales internationals second-row Craig Quinnell and flanker Martyn Williams. The start of the 1999–2000 season for Cardiff was hampered by them missing 13 first choice players due to the World Cup, and in late September they fell to a humiliating 60–18 defeat away to Llanelli at Stradey Park. However, despite this poor start and failing to win in the first rounds of the Heineken Cup, they progressed to the Heineken Cup quarter-finals, where they were beaten by Llanelli, and clinched the Welsh/Scottish League title with three games remaining, The season is also notable for a club record victory of 116–0 over Duvnant in the Welsh/Scottish League, and the club going unbeaten at home for almost the whole season, before losing 41–40 to Swansea in their very last game of the season (with the title already sewn up). This was Cardiff's first defeat at the Arms Park for over two years, since 13 December 1997, again against Swansea.
During the close season Cardiff lost Leigh Davies to Llanelli but signed South African centre Pieter Muller to replace him. They won their first five Welsh/Scottish League matches, seemingly making certain they would retain their title, especially as Swansea lost three of their first five games. The highlight of the season was in late October, when the Blue and Blacks stunned English Premiership leaders Saracens by defeating them home and away in the Heineken Cup.
The club's great form began to stutter as the millennium drew to a close, but it was in January the wheels really came off. After a magnificent 42–16 victory over Ulster, two yellow cards led Cardiff to defeat in Toulouse, meaning they would have to travel to Gloucester in the quarter-finals. A turgid forward battle resulted in a 21–15 defeat for the Blue and Blacks. Two weeks later they then lost to Bridgend, their first home defeat of the season, meaning Swansea pulled ahead in the title race. Another defeat at Ebbw Vale in March condemned them to a trophyless season.
Following the unsuccessful season Lynn Howells's contract was not renewed and Rudy Joubert was appointed director of rugby. Gareth Thomas also left the club along with nine other players, but Rob Appleyard, Matt Allen and Craig Hudson all joined.
For the 2001 Lions tour, four Cardiff players were picked, Rob Howley, Neil Jenkins, Dai Young and Martyn Williams. Young became the first player to tour for the Lions in three different decades. Howley started the first two Tests, with Williams on the bench in all three, and Jenkins coming on to replace Jonny Wilkinson in the second. Howley was dropped for the third, deciding Test.
Rudy Joubert
2001–02 was the first year of the Celtic League, containing teams from Wales, Ireland and Scotland. The pool stage would begin in mid-August and continue on for a month. Cardiff were drawn into the smaller, seven-team pool (with four teams going through to the quarter-finals).and started their campaign in unconvincing fashion, winning three games but still being knocked out of the competition on points difference.
In the Heineken Cup, rugby league convert Iestyn Harris, signed for £1million scored a hat-trick on his debut in a 46–7 against Glasgow. Overall the club's European form was mediocre however, as despite winning all their home games they failed to register an away win and were eliminated at the pool stage for the first time in their history
On the domestic front, Cardiff again went unbeaten at home until the final game of the season, but again were unable to back it up on the road and finished fourth – their first season out of the top three in a decade.
Dai Young
The off season was all change for Cardiff. Rudy Joubert returned home to South Africa and Dai Young became player-coach of the club. Internationals Rob Howley, Neil Jenkins, Craig Quinnell and Jonathan Humphreys all left the club as well. The Welsh/Scottish League was abolished, returning to just nine Welsh teams in the top-flight, and Celtic League games no longer counted towards the domestic league.
In the first two months of the season, Cardiff managed to improve on their Celtic League record from the previous year, winning four out of seven games and progressing to the knockout stage. The quarter final was away to Edinburgh on 30 November and, despite a dreadful first half performance that saw them 19–6 down at the break, a much improved second half performance saw them record a 26–22 win, and go through to the semi-finals.
Their decent start to the season collapsed after that however, with Cardiff failing to score at home for the first-time in 30 years in a 31–0 defeat in the Heineken Cup against Northampton in December. January was a disastrous month for the club too, with a 32–10 thrashing away to Neath in the Celtic League semi-finals, despite the home team making 12 handling errors in Cardiff's 22. Two weeks later the club's first ever Heineken Cup whitewash was completed with a record 75–25 defeat away to Biarritz.
Domestically, the Blue and Blacks' final season as a top-tier rugby team was less disappointing. They reached the semi-finals of the Cup, although they capitulated in a similar fashion to their Celtic League semi-final, this time 44–10 away to Llanelli. In the League they finished third, 3 points behind Neath and 11 behind Bridgend.
Today
Today, Cardiff RFC Ltd runs two sides.
The Cardiff Blues now back at Cardiff Arms Park after three years playing at Cardiff City Stadium. The professional regional side, Cardiff Blues take part in the Pro14 league, Anglo-Welsh Cup and Heineken Cup. The Cardiff RFC club side take part in the Welsh Premier Division, WRU Challenge Cup and the British and Irish Cup.
Current squad
The Arms Park
Club Rugby games were moved to what was the cricket ground and a new stadium was built in 1969 as a result of an agreement between the Cardiff Athletic Club and the Welsh Rugby Union. On the site of the old Arms Park stadium, a new stadium was built, Welsh National Rugby Ground (also known as The National Stadium). In 1999, a brand new stadium was built in place of the National Stadium, which was named the Millennium Stadium. Cardiff Blues moved from the Arms Park for the 2009/10 season to play at the Cardiff City Stadium in Leckwith, Cardiff – the home of Cardiff City FC. After three seasons Cardiff Blues returned to their 'spiritual home' and will play the majority of future games at their traditional Arms Park home.
Club honours
Heineken Cup runners-up: 1996
Western Mail Welsh Championship winners: 1899, 1907, 1909, 1910, 1938, 1939, 1947, 1949, 1951, 1955, 1956, 1959, 1983
Middlesex 7s winners: 1939
Gala Sevens winners: 1964
Selkirk Sevens winners: 2006
Snelling Sevens winners: 1955, 1966, 1969, 1972, 1976, 1977, 1981, 1983, 1984
Welsh Cup: 1981, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1994, 1997, 2019
Welsh League: 1995
Welsh/Scottish League: 2000
Welsh Premiership: 2009, 2020*
British and Irish Lions
The following former players were selected for the British and Irish Lions touring squads whilst playing for Cardiff RFC. Gareth Thomas was selected for the 2005 Lions tour whilst playing for Toulouse
Wales International Captains
The following former players captained the Wales national rugby union team whilst playing for Cardiff RFC.
Other notable former players
The following players represented Cardiff and were capped at international level, but do not warrant inclusion in the above two lists.
Regional rugby
Since the advent of regional rugby in 2003, a number of Cardiff RFC players have gone on to represent Wales (some while still playing for the club rather than the regional side). The Cardiff club side have also had a number of players selected for Wales at U20 level and the Sevens side.
Games played against international opposition
See also
Rugby in Cardiff
References
Footnotes
External links
Cardiff RFC Former Players Association
Sport in Cardiff
Rugby clubs established in 1876
Welsh rugby union teams
World Rugby Hall of Fame inductees
1876 establishments in Wales | true | [
"Fullback (or full-back) is one of the positions in a rugby league football team. Typically wearing jersey number 1, the fullback is a member of the team's 'back-line' (No. 1-7). The position's name comes from their duty of standing the furthest back in defence, behind the forwards (8-13), half backs (6 and 7) and the three-quarter backs (2-5). Fullbacks are therefore the last line of defence, having to tackle any opposition players and regather the ball from any kicks that make it through their teammates. It is for this reason that the fullback is also referred to as the sweeper or custodian. Being able to secure high bomb kicks is a highly sought quality in fullbacks.\n\nFullback is also one of the most important positions in attack, handling the ball nearly every set of six and often running into open space on the field. Therefore, together with the two half backs and hooker, fullback is one of the four key positions that make up what is referred to as a team's 'spine'. Because the fullback makes the most support runs, players in the fullback role complete more very high-intensity running than any other position.\n\nThe Rugby League International Federation's Laws of the Game state that the 'fullback' is to be numbered 1. However, traditionally players' jersey numbers have varied, and in the modern Super League, each squad's players are assigned individual numbers regardless of position.\n\nNotable fullbacks\n\nFullbacks who feature in their respective nations' rugby league halls of fame are France's Puig Aubert, Australia's Clive Churchill and Charles Fraser, Wales' Jim Sullivan and New Zealand's Des White. Churchill's attacking flair as a player in the 1950s is credited with having changed the role of the fullback. So too is Darren Lockyer's.\n\nSee also\nRugby league positions\nRugby league gameplay\n\nReferences\n\nRugby league positions\nRugby league terminology",
"Hooker is one of the positions in a rugby league football team. Usually wearing jersey or shirt number 9, the hooker is one of the team's forwards. During scrums the hooker plays in the front row, and the position's name comes from their role of 'hooking' or 'raking' the ball back with the foot. For this reason the hooker is sometimes referred to in Australia as the rake.\n\nHookers have a great deal of contact with the ball, as they usually play the role of acting halfback or dummy half, picking the ball up from the play-the-ball that follows a tackle. Hookers therefore have much responsibility in that they then decide what to do with the ball, whether that be to pass it (and to whom), run with it, or occasionally to kick it. Therefore, together with the two halves and , hooker is one of the four key positions that make up what is sometimes called a team's 'spine'. A trend of halves converting into hookers followed the introduction of the 10 metre rule, and many players have switched between these positions in their careers such as Geoff Toovey, Andrew Johns, Craig Gower and Peter Wallace.\n\nThe laws of rugby league state that the hooker is to be numbered 9. However, in some leagues, such as Super League, players can wear shirt numbers which do not have to conform to this system.\n\nOne book published in 1996 stated that in senior rugby league, the hooker and handled the ball more often than any other position. In the 2013 NRL season the top six players with the most tackles were all hookers. Like Ryan Phaff\n\nNotable hookers\nHookers that feature in their nations' rugby league halls of fame are New Zealand's Jock Butterfield and Australia's Ken Kearney, Sandy Pearce, Cameron Smith and Noel Kelly. The most-capped British international hooker was Wales' Tommy Harris.\n\nSee also\nRugby league gameplay\nRugby union positions#Hooker\n\nReferences\n\nRugby league positions\nRugby league terminology"
] |
[
"Cardiff RFC",
"League rugby",
"What is the rugby league?",
"In 1990, the unofficial Welsh championship was replaced by a league structure involving promotion and relegation."
] | C_52d3e23b46e64bca87c9f84857b00b9c_1 | What did the league do after 1990? | 2 | What did the league do after 1990? | Cardiff RFC | In 1990, the unofficial Welsh championship was replaced by a league structure involving promotion and relegation. Cardiff competed in top flight but could only manage a fourth-place finish in 1990-91, and exited the Cup at the quarter-final stage. The season did involve some highlights however, such as beating league runners-up and Cup champions Llanelli 43-0 at the Arms Park and beating league champions Neath 18-4 away in the last game of the season. 1991-92 was possibly the club's worst-ever season, beset with disagreements between coach Alan Phillips and manager John Scott. Cardiff crashed out of the Cup before the quarter-final stage and lost at home to Maesteg and Newbridge in the league. Their final league finish was ninth, which would have led to their relegation but the WRU decided mid-season to switch to a 12-team Premiership, therefore saving Cardiff and Maesteg from relegation. Both Scott and Phillips resigned following the season. Australian Alex Evans took over at Cardiff as coach for the 1992-93 season, bringing in former Arms Park legend Terry Holmes and famous ex-Pontypool front-row member Charlie Faulkner as assistants, and helped a turnaround in the club's fortunes, winning their first seven matches of the season and 20 of their first 22 to top the league in the new year. This run came to an end on 23 January; they were knocked out of the Schweppes Cup by St Peter's, who were fourth from bottom of Division Four. The Blue and Blacks only lost four league games all season though, but were unlucky to be competing against Llanelli in the league, who won the double and were considered the best club team in the UK after beating Australia 13-9. In 1993-94 they slid back to fourth in the league but won the SWALEC Cup (renamed from Schweppes Cup for sponsorship reasons) by beating Llanelli, who'd won the tournament for the last three years running. The score in the final was 15-8, with tries from Mike Rayer and club captain centre Mike Hall and kicks from fly-half Adrian Davies. In 1994-95 Cardiff won the final league title of the amateur era in Wales, as well as reaching the semi-finals of the Cup before going down 16-9 to Swansea. CANNOTANSWER | 1991-92 was possibly the club's worst-ever season, beset with disagreements between coach Alan Phillips and manager John Scott. | Cardiff Rugby Football Club () is a rugby union club based in Cardiff, the capital city of Wales. The club was founded in 1876 and played their first few matches at Sophia Gardens, shortly after which relocating to Cardiff Arms Park where they have been based ever since.
They built a reputation as one of the great clubs in world rugby, largely through a series of wins against international touring sides. Cardiff have beaten both South Africa and New Zealand, and Australia have failed to beat the club in six attempts. Through its history Cardiff RFC have provided more players to the Welsh national side and British and Irish Lions than any other Welsh club.
Following the 2003 regionalisation of Welsh rugby, Cardiff RFC created the Cardiff Blues with the RFC team playing in the semi pro Welsh Premier League. The Cardiff RFC section, of the Cardiff Athletic Club, run and administer the team in conjunction with the owners Cardiff Blues.
History
Amateur years
The first recognised team to begin playing rugby in Cardiff was Glamorgan Football Club, formed as a club team while Cardiff was still a town. The team was formed by a group of young men during the 1873/74 season, after a circular letter was sent to interested parties by S. Campell Cory. Playing under the Cheltenham College rules, Glamorgan FC had increased its membership to sixty six by November 1874. 1874 saw Glamorgan's first away game, against Cowbridge Grammar School, and by 1875 the team played its first encounter with Newport. Around 1875, two further clubs came into existence in Cardiff, they were Tredegarville Football Club, whose ranks included Jas. Bush, father of future Cardiff rugby hero Percy Bush; and the Wanderers Football Club whose captain and founder was William David Phillips. Of the three teams, Glamorgan and Wanderers became the most notable, but both teams rarely travelled, and both had difficulty beating the now established clubs of Newport and Swansea. The supporters of both clubs started an agitation in the summer of 1876 for the two clubs to amalgamate, to give Cardiff town a better chance of beating the neighbouring teams. On Friday 22 September 1876 members of the Glamorgan and Wanderers clubs met at the Swiss Hall in Queen Street, Cardiff and decided to make a single club, to be called Cardiff Football Club. The first team captain was Donaldson Selby of Glamorgan and the vice-captain W.D. Phillips of Wanderers. Initially the club strip was black with a white skull and crossbones, but after pressure from the players parents to change what they saw as an inappropriate strip, the team adopted the black and blue of Cambridge University; after club player Thomas William Rees of Caius College brought his university strip to the club.
Cardiff FC played their first fixture on 2 December 1876, versus Newport at Wentloog Marshes. In 1881, Cardiff beat Llanelli to win the South Wales Challenge Cup, though the tournament was scrapped soon after due to persistent crowd trouble.
In 1881, Newport based sports administrator, Richard Mullock, formed the first Welsh international rugby team. Despite the team losing heavily to England, Mullock had chosen four players from Cardiff to represent the team; club captain William David Phillips, vice-captain B. B. Mann, Barry Girling and Leonard Watkins, a reflection on the clubs importance at the time. A month later, on 12 March 1881, Cardiff RFC was one of the eleven clubs present at the formation of the Welsh Rugby Union in Neath.
A notable early player was Frank Hancock. A skilful centre, Hancock first played for Cardiff due to an injury to a first regular. At this time, rugby was played with six backs and nine forwards but Hancock's performance so impressed the selectors that for the next game they selected him as a seventh back and selected only eight forwards. The system was soon adopted by the Welsh national team and the seven backs and eight forwards system exists in rugby to this day. Cardiff RFC and Hancock were jointly recognised by the International Rugby Board in 2011 for this innovation with induction to the IRB Hall of Fame.
In 1898, Cardiff were unofficial club champions of Wales for the first time. One year later, centre Gwyn Nicholls became the first Cardiff player to play for the British and Irish Lions (then only representing the British Isles), and scored a try in both the first and second Tests against Australia. Nicholls would also go on to captain Wales between 1902 and 1906. In 1904, Cardiff players fly-half Percy Bush, centre Rhys Gabe (who later captained Wales in 1907) and Arthur 'Boxer' Harding all went on the Lions tour to Australia and New Zealand (Nicholls was not selected). Bush scored in the first and second test against Australia, as Nicholls had, and thanks to his tries and goal-kicking during the first three Tests, finished as the top Test points scorer. Gabe scored a try in the third test against Australia, while Harding converted a try in the first Test and was the only Lions player to get on the score sheet against New Zealand, after scoring a penalty goal in the game against them at the end of the tour.
In 1905, there were four Cardiff players in the Wales team that famously beat New Zealand: Harding, Nicholls, Bush, Gabe and Bert Winfield, who would go on to captain Wales three years later. After an eight-year wait, Cardiff also managed to win the unofficial Welsh club championship in 1906 (going unbeaten in every game they played apart from against New Zealand) and 1907.
On New Year's Day 1907, Cardiff beat South Africa 17–0, a great achievement considering the national side had been beaten 11–0 by the Boks only a month earlier, and France were thrashed by them 55–6 two days later. The only other team to beat South Africa during their 29-match tour were Scotland.
After this performance, and Wales winning the Five Nations Grand Slam for the first time in 1908, four Cardiff players were selected for the Lions in 1908. Harding was selected as the first Cardiff player to captain the tour and was the only one of the four to have played for the Lions before, the other three being uncapped half-back Willie Morgan, and three-quarters Johnnie Williams and Reggie Gibbs. Gibbs remains the only player to have been capped for Wales at least 10 times and averaged more than a try a game, with 17 tries in 16 caps, and Williams came very close to his record with 17 tries in 17 Tests.
The tour was not a success, with the Lions managing to draw the second Test but losing the first and third by over twenty-five points each. However, Gibbs did manage to score in the first Test. The disappointed players made up for their failure the next year by winning the Grand Slam with Wales for the second time in a row and winning the unofficial championship with Cardiff. Cardiff also beat Australia 24–8 on 28 December 1908.
However, following this, the glory years were largely over for Cardiff and Wales, although Wales did manage to win the Grand Slam in 1911, and Cardiff came within one point of beating South Africa in a 7–6 defeat in 1912. But no Cardiff players were selected for another Lions tour for the next sixteen years, and they would not become Welsh champions again for the best part of three decades.
Between the wars
The First World War certainly had some effect on the club – Johnnie Williams died in the first weeks of the Battle of the Somme, and many other players returned wounded or simply too old to play rugby. Cardiff were forced to turn to younger talent for their team. Jim Sullivan was a prime example of this, making his first appearance for Cardiff at the age of 16 in October 1920, and went on to make 38 appearances over the rest of the season. In December 1920, just after his 17th birthday, he became the youngest player to ever appear for the Barbarians. However, in June 1921 he signed for professional rugby league club Wigan, beginning a new trend of Welsh union players "going north" to play rugby league.
Cardiff rugby finally managed a revival of some sort in the 1930s. Scrum-half Howard Poole, although never capped for Wales, was selected to play for the Lions in 1930, as was Ivor Williams in 1938. The club also won their first unofficial Welsh championship for 28 years in 1937, and managed to retain the title in 1938 and 1939, before the start of the Second World War.
After the Second World War
After the resumption of regular rugby, Cardiff beat Australia 11–3 on 21 November 1947, captained by scrum-half Haydn Tanner and were also unofficial Welsh champions in 1947/48, when Bleddyn Williams set a club record of 41 tries in one season, and 1948/49, when the Blue and Blacks went completely unbeaten against Welsh opposition, only Swansea and Newport succeeding in salvaging draws. The club had a fantastic record against Newport during these years, going 15 games unbeaten against them between 1946 and 1950. Cardiff players helped Wales win their first Grand Slam in nearly forty years in 1950, and later that year supplied five players to the Lions for the first time later that year. The five were fly-half Billy Cleaver, prop Cliff Davies, centre Jack Matthews, scrum-half Rex Willis and Bleddyn Williams, the "Prince of Centres". Williams captained the Lions in the third and fourth Tests against New Zealand. Wales won another Grand Slam in 1952, with much the same side.
In 1952–53, Cardiff won the unofficial Welsh championship again, helped by the rise of prodigiously talented fly-half Cliff Morgan, but the best was still to come. On 21 November 1953, Cardiff faced New Zealand in front of a crowd of 56,000 at the Arms Park and, after a brilliant defensive effort following a 5–0 lead at half-time, hung on to win 8–3. Five Cardiff backs were selected in the Wales team captained by Bleddyn Williams that beat the All Blacks again less than a month later. These two results remain the last time either Cardiff or Wales have beaten New Zealand.
Cardiff repeated their unofficial championship victory two years later in 1955, and had three Lions in the 1955 touring side, notable for not including any of the five that toured in 1950. The three this time were fly-half Morgan, centre Gareth Griffiths and wing Haydn Morris. Morgan, in front of a then-world record crowd of 100,000, helped defeat the South Africans 23–22 with a brilliant try despite an injury to Reg Higgins reducing the Lions to 14 men (no replacements were allowed at this time). After the South Africans squared the series in the second Test, Morgan was made captain for the third Test and inspired the team with a combination a stirring team talk and a great kicking game to a 9–6 victory, ensuring the series could not be lost, after which he was dubbed "Morgan the Magnificent" by the South African press. After his Lions heroics Morgan was made captain of Wales, and helped them win the title (although not the Grand Slam) in 1956.
Australia played against and were defeated by Cardiff for the third time in 1957, 14–11 thanks to two great tries from Gordon Wells, after which a reporter from the Sydney Daily Telegraph wrote "we fell to the world's best rugby union club", and another unofficial championship title was secured in 1957–58, but only second row Bill "Roddy" Evans was selected for the Lions in 1959, although he started four of the six Tests. A downturn in Welsh and Cardiff fortunes occurred around this time, although prop Kingsley Jones and second row Keith Rowlands from the club were still selected for the 1962 Lions tour, and Cardiff managed to come within a point of beating the All Blacks again in 1963, scoring the only try of the game. However, the slump began to end in 1964, when Wales shared the Five Nations title with Scotland, after which Wales won the Triple Crown and the title in 1965, followed by another championship in 1966, although the Grand Slam still eluded them. However, these successes helped Cardiff players centre Ken Jones and prop Howard Norris win places on the Lions tour to New Zealand. Later that year Cardiff beat Australia 14–8, although Wales were not able to repeat the feat a month later, losing 14–11.
The 1968 Lions tour was a historic one, containing a record six Cardiff players, wings Keri Jones and Maurice Richards, prop John O'Shea, (then) centre Gerald Davies, fly-half Barry John and scrum-half Gareth Edwards. While Jones and Richards would soon switch codes to play rugby league and O'Shea's tour would be marred somewhat by being the first Lion ever to be sent off for foul play, Davies, John and Edwards would go on to become legends, although their careers got off to inauspicious starts, the Lions losing three of the Tests again South Africa and only drawing the other one.
On the domestic front, they were denied silverware, as despite being top of the unofficial table for almost the whole season, the loss of their six Lions at the end of the season allowed Llanelli to overtake them. Cardiff again finished second behind Newport the next year, with Richards the only Lion to make more than 20 appearances. However, Wales won the Five Nations title and Triple Crown in 1969, only denied the Grand Slam by a draw in France, only to be whitewashed in three games against New Zealand and Australia in the summer.
The Seventies
1971 however, was the year in which John, Edwards and Davies would write themselves into history. Davies by this time had left for London Welsh, although he would later return. In the spring, they were all ever-presents in Wales's first Grand Slam in 18 years, and in the summer, they were selected for the Lions tour to New Zealand, along with Cardiff teammate John Bevan. The tour remains the only occasion where the Lions have returned victorious from New Zealand. All four Cardiff players started the first Test, and all except Bevan played in the other three Tests. Despite only playing in the first Test, John Bevan became the Lions' record try scorer (including matches against club teams) with 17. Barry John was given the title "King Barry" by the New Zealanders after scoring 30 of the Lions' 48 points, and in him and Edwards, Cardiff could justifiably be said to have the best two half-backs in the world.
1971–72 was the first season where the WRU Challenge Cup was introduced. Cardiff reached the semi-final, before being beaten 16–9 at the Brewery Field by Neath, who went on to beat Llanelli in the final. Unfortunately in 1972 Barry John announced his decision to retire at the age of 27, not liking the celebrity status shoved on him and his family after the Lions tour.
The next season was also disappointing for Cardiff, although fullback John Davies scored a club record of 209 points (in his first season for the club). They were soundly beaten by New Zealand 20–4, only a week after Llanelli had beaten them 9–3. In the Cup, they defeated South Wales Police, Mountain Ash, Ebbw Vale, Blaina and Swansea on their way to the final, but were again outclassed and lost 30–7 to Llanelli. In 1973–74 Cardiff reached the Cup semi-finals for the third year running, but were defeated 9–4 by Aberavon. Gareth Edwards however, led his country to a 24–0 win over Australia in November 1973. In 1974, Gerald Davies decided to return to Cardiff from London Welsh. Edwards and Davies were picked for the 1974 Lions tour to South Africa (although Davies refused to go in protest against apartheid) and Edwards started all four Tests, where the Lions went unbeaten through all 22 matches and would probably have won all their games, but in the final Test the South African referee blew the final whist four minutes early with the scores level and the Lions camped on the South African line.
In 1974–75 Cardiff failed to reach the WRU Challenge Cup semi-finals for the first time, losing 13–12 to Bridgend in the third round, despite not conceding a try in the entire Cup. However, on 1 November 1975, Cardiff met Australia for the fifth time in their history and, for the fifth time defeated them, 14–9, despite the absence of Edwards due to influenza. Both Edwards and Davies represented Wales in the 1976 Five Nations Grand Slam. During 1976–77, Cardiff defeated Pontypool and Aberavon on their way to the Challenge Cup final, where they were beaten 16–15 by Newport. Edwards decided not to go on the 1977 Lions tour, to show loyalty to his company who had let him go on three Lions tours previously. However, another Cardiff scrum-half, uncapped Brynmor Williams was picked, and played in the first three Tests before being injured in the third.
Both Davies and Edwards started for Wales in the 20–16 victory away to Ireland in the 1978 Five Nations that sealed a record three Triple Crowns in as many years, with Edwards also starting the next week and also dropping a goal in the 16–7 victory against France that sealed Wales their third Grand Slam in eight years. This was Gareth Edwards' final match for Wales – he had won 53 consecutive caps, never being dropped or injured, and scored 20 tries. Gerald Davies also retired from Wales after a 19–17 defeat in Sydney – tied with Edwards on 20 tries, scored in 46 caps.
In the 1977–78 club season, Davies had a fantastic game against Pontypool where despite only touching the ball four times due to the dominance of the Pooler pack, he scored four tries, with those being Cardiff's only points in a 16–11 victory. Cardiff's cup run continued to the semi-finals, where they were beaten by Swansea 18–13.
The Eighties
Flanker Stuart Lane, fly-half Gareth Davies, hooker Alan Phillips and scrum-half Terry Holmes from the club were chosen to tour with the Lions to South Africa in 1980, however Davies was the only one to start a Test match. The four went on to help Cardiff finally break their duck and win the WRU Challenge Cup (known as the Schweppes Cup for sponsorship reasons) with a 14–6 victory over Bridgend the following season, with Davies scoring two penalties and tries from centre Neil Hutchings and back-rower Robert Lakin. They repeated the feat in 1982, winning on try count thanks to a score from prop Ian Eidman after a 12–12 draw again against Bridgend, with the other points coming from fly-half David Barry, and also ended a 24-year wait by winning the Unofficial Welsh Championship, thereby completing the club's first (and so far only) league and cup double.
In 1983 Terry Holmes was again picked for the Lions, this time alongside second row Bob Norster. Both players were picked for the first team but Holmes was injured in the first Test and Norster in the second, ending their tours.
Cardiff had been knocked in the quarter-finals of the 1982–83 cup by eventual winners Pontypool, but made it up for it with a third triumph in four years, beating Neath 24–19 in the final with tries from flanker Owen Golding and wing Gerald Cordle and 16 points from Gareth Davies. Then, on 12 October 1984, they beat Australia 16–12, thanks to eight points from Gareth Davies along with a penalty try and a score from Adrian Hadley. The same Australian side went on to complete a "Grand Slam" (beating England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland). Australia haven't played Cardiff RFC since, leaving the club with a perfect record of six wins from six games against the Wallabies (although Cardiff Blues did lose to Australia 31–3 in 2009). 1985 was very nearly another successful year for the club, beating Neath and Pontypool on their way to the Schweppes Cup final where, despite tries from wing Gerald Cordle and captain Alan Phillips alongside two penalties from Gareth Davies, they fell to an agonising 15–14 defeat to Llanelli. After this, Terry Holmes left the club to play rugby league.
The club bounced back immediately however, beating Newport in the final of 1985–86 cup final 28–21, with Adrian Hadley scoring a hat-trick, Holmes's replacement, scrum-half Neil O'Brien, bagging another try and 12 points coming from the boot of fly-half Gareth Davies in his last game for the club against Welsh opposition before retiring. One year later, Cardiff were part of the first Challenge Cup final to go to extra time, with the scores 9–9 after 80 minutes, all Cardiff's points coming from the boot of Davies's replacement, Geraint John. Gerald Cordle scored to break the deadlock but the conversion was missed and Swansea scored a converted try soon after, putting them in the lead. But a late drop goal from full-back Mike Rayer won it for the Arms Park side capping one of the most successful periods in the club's history, with five Schweppes Cup victories in seven years.
In 1987, the first Rugby World Cup was held in New Zealand. Cardiff props Dai Young, Jeff Whitefoot and Steve Blackmore, wing Adrian Hadley, centre Mark Ring and hooker Alan Phillips all were selected in Wales's squad (Young was called up as an injury replacement) which finished third.
Cardiff's success began to tail off towards the end of the 1980s, with Adrian Hadley leaving for rugby league in 1988 and Gerald Cordle following in 89, and they could only manage two Cup quarter-finals and one semi-final appearance in the last three years of the decade. However, both Dai Young and Bob Norster were selected for the Lions tour to Australia in 1989, the only Lions team to come from 1–0 down to win the series. Young followed Hadley and Cordle to rugby league shortly after this, while Whitefoot and Norster both retired in 1990.
League rugby
In 1990, the unofficial Welsh championship was replaced by a league structure involving promotion and relegation. Cardiff competed in top flight but could only manage a fourth-place finish in 1990–91, and exited the Cup at the quarter-final stage. The season did involve some highlights however, such as beating league runners-up and Cup champions Llanelli 43–0 at the Arms Park and beating league champions Neath 18–4 away in the last game of the season.
1991–92 was possibly the club's worst-ever season, beset with disagreements between coach Alan Phillips and manager John Scott. Cardiff crashed out of the Cup before the quarter-final stage and lost at home to Maesteg and Newbridge in the league. Their final league finish was ninth, which would have led to their relegation but the WRU decided mid-season to switch to a 12-team Premiership, therefore saving Cardiff and Maesteg from relegation. Both Scott and Phillips resigned following the season.
Australian Alex Evans took over at Cardiff as coach for the 1992–93 season, bringing in former Arms Park legend Terry Holmes and famous ex-Pontypool front-row member Charlie Faulkner as assistants, and helped a turnaround in the club's fortunes, winning their first seven matches of the season and 20 of their first 22 to top the league in the new year. This run came to an end on 23 January; they were knocked out of the Schweppes Cup by St Peter's, who were fourth from bottom of Division Four. The Blue and Blacks only lost four league games all season though, but were unlucky to be competing against Llanelli in the league, who won the double and were considered the best club team in the UK after beating Australia 13–9.
In 1993–94 they slid back to fourth in the league but won the SWALEC Cup (renamed from Schweppes Cup for sponsorship reasons) by beating Llanelli, who'd won the tournament for the last three years running. The score in the final was 15–8, with tries from Mike Rayer and club captain centre Mike Hall and kicks from fly-half Adrian Davies. In 1994–95 Cardiff won the final league title of the amateur era in Wales, as well as reaching the semi-finals of the Cup before going down 16–9 to Swansea.
Professionalism
With professionalism dawned a new era at Cardiff RFC. It allowed them to sign legendary outside-half Jonathan Davies back from rugby league, and another major change was that there would be a European Cup, sponsored by Heineken, containing teams from France, Ireland, Wales, Italy and Romania (England and Scotland did not join for another year). Cardiff progressed to the knock-out stages in November by drawing with Bordeaux-Begles and beating Ulster. December saw the end of the Alex Evans era, as he departed to return home to Australia. Terry Holmes took charge of the club, and in his first full match the Blue and Blacks beat Leinster away to progress to the first Heineken Cup final. The game was played at Cardiff Arms Park in front of a crowd of 21,800, where despite 18 points from the boot of Adrian Davies, Cardiff were beaten 21–18 by Toulouse after extra time.
Cardiff, despite not losing a league game under Holmes, were runners-up on the domestic front as well, finishing level with Neath on points but coming second on try count. After the end of the 95–96 season Peter Thomas invested money into the club allowing them to sign Rob Howley, Dai Young back from rugby league, Leigh Davies, Gwyn Jones and Justin Thomas for the cost of around £2million. Internationals Mark Ring, Steven Blackmore and the half-backs that had started the Heineken Cup final, Andy Moore and Adrian Davies all departed.
Despite all the new signings, Cardiff lost their first three games of the season, and the 1996/97 season was in many respects worse than the year before – Cardiff were knocked out in the Heineken Cup semi-finals by eventual champions Brive, and in the Welsh Premier Division they fell to third, behind champions Pontypridd and Llanelli. However, after Alex Evans returned to head up the coaching team, that season did lead to some silverware, as Cardiff beat Llanelli 36–26 in the semi-final and Swansea 33–26 in the final of the SWALEC Cup. Grzegorz Kacala and Tony Rees, both forwards part of the Brive team that knocked Cardiff out of the Heineken Cup and went on to win it, were signed for 1997/98 along with Wales internationals Steve Williams and Spencer John (Gareth Thomas also arrived in December from Bridgend).
Despite Cardiff's difficulties, compounded by those of the national team, Howley and Young were both chosen to go on 1997 Lions tour to South Africa. Howley had to return home early due to injury and neither of the two Cardiff players started a Test match.
In the 1997/98 season, Cardiff were Wales's sole representative in the quarter finals of the Heineken Cup, and were beaten away in rematch of the previous year's quarter-final, by Bath, who would go on to win the tournament. However, their domestic cup campaign ended before the quarter final stage, losing 24–9 to Ebbw Vale, and they finished runners up to Swansea in the League. Following this season, Alex Evans left Cardiff for Australia for the second time and Terry Holmes was put back in charge.
Rebel season
Cardiff and Swansea had proposed the formation of a British league, containing the top division English clubs, the two Scottish regional sides (Edinburgh and Glasgow) and four Welsh clubs (seeing as Cardiff had got further than any other Welsh club in every Heineken Cup so far, Swansea were the league champions and they represented the two largest urban areas in Wales, it was assumed two of these clubs would be Cardiff and Swansea).
Both the RFU and the English clubs had agreed to this, but the WRU refused due to an ongoing legal battle with the English clubs over the negotiation of commercial rights (which would lead to the English clubs not participating in the 1998–99 Heineken Cup). Instead, the WRU demanded all top-flight clubs sign 10-year loyalty agreements, where they were guaranteed top-flight status and committed themselves to staying within the Welsh league structure.
Cardiff and Swansea refused to sign these agreements and were expelled from the Welsh Premier Division. The Allied Dunbar Premiership (the English league) teams announced that two teams would have a rest weekend every week allowing them to play friendlies against Cardiff and Swansea. Cardiff's first home match of the season was against Saracens, who'd finished second in the Allied Dunbar Premiership the season before. Cardiff won 40–19 in front of a crowd of 10,021, larger than the entire combined attendance of the Welsh Premier Division that weekend. The club went on to win all their home games, but fell to defeat ten times on their travels.
Although Cardiff and Swansea were both expelled from the Welsh League, they were allowed to continue to compete in the SWALEC Cup against Welsh opposition. Both teams reached the semi-finals, Swansea were to play Cross Keys and Cardiff Llanelli. In the week prior to the game, Cardiff chairman Peter Thomas spoke to the players following a training session, where he emphasised the importance of winning the game, describing it as "the biggest game in the club's history". Cardiff lost 39–10 in a match chief executive Gareth Davies described "The worst performance by a Cardiff side I have ever seen." Six days later, it was announced Terry Holmes would stand down as coach at the end of the season, and Pontypridd and Wales assistant coach Lyn Howells would take charge on a two-year contract.
Swansea went on to beat Llanelli 37–10 in the cup final, but the rebels were still forced to sign loyalty agreements and return to Welsh domestic setup, now including Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Lynn Howells
After the unsuccessful rebel season, Cardiff sign British Lion outside-half Neil Jenkins as well as Wales internationals second-row Craig Quinnell and flanker Martyn Williams. The start of the 1999–2000 season for Cardiff was hampered by them missing 13 first choice players due to the World Cup, and in late September they fell to a humiliating 60–18 defeat away to Llanelli at Stradey Park. However, despite this poor start and failing to win in the first rounds of the Heineken Cup, they progressed to the Heineken Cup quarter-finals, where they were beaten by Llanelli, and clinched the Welsh/Scottish League title with three games remaining, The season is also notable for a club record victory of 116–0 over Duvnant in the Welsh/Scottish League, and the club going unbeaten at home for almost the whole season, before losing 41–40 to Swansea in their very last game of the season (with the title already sewn up). This was Cardiff's first defeat at the Arms Park for over two years, since 13 December 1997, again against Swansea.
During the close season Cardiff lost Leigh Davies to Llanelli but signed South African centre Pieter Muller to replace him. They won their first five Welsh/Scottish League matches, seemingly making certain they would retain their title, especially as Swansea lost three of their first five games. The highlight of the season was in late October, when the Blue and Blacks stunned English Premiership leaders Saracens by defeating them home and away in the Heineken Cup.
The club's great form began to stutter as the millennium drew to a close, but it was in January the wheels really came off. After a magnificent 42–16 victory over Ulster, two yellow cards led Cardiff to defeat in Toulouse, meaning they would have to travel to Gloucester in the quarter-finals. A turgid forward battle resulted in a 21–15 defeat for the Blue and Blacks. Two weeks later they then lost to Bridgend, their first home defeat of the season, meaning Swansea pulled ahead in the title race. Another defeat at Ebbw Vale in March condemned them to a trophyless season.
Following the unsuccessful season Lynn Howells's contract was not renewed and Rudy Joubert was appointed director of rugby. Gareth Thomas also left the club along with nine other players, but Rob Appleyard, Matt Allen and Craig Hudson all joined.
For the 2001 Lions tour, four Cardiff players were picked, Rob Howley, Neil Jenkins, Dai Young and Martyn Williams. Young became the first player to tour for the Lions in three different decades. Howley started the first two Tests, with Williams on the bench in all three, and Jenkins coming on to replace Jonny Wilkinson in the second. Howley was dropped for the third, deciding Test.
Rudy Joubert
2001–02 was the first year of the Celtic League, containing teams from Wales, Ireland and Scotland. The pool stage would begin in mid-August and continue on for a month. Cardiff were drawn into the smaller, seven-team pool (with four teams going through to the quarter-finals).and started their campaign in unconvincing fashion, winning three games but still being knocked out of the competition on points difference.
In the Heineken Cup, rugby league convert Iestyn Harris, signed for £1million scored a hat-trick on his debut in a 46–7 against Glasgow. Overall the club's European form was mediocre however, as despite winning all their home games they failed to register an away win and were eliminated at the pool stage for the first time in their history
On the domestic front, Cardiff again went unbeaten at home until the final game of the season, but again were unable to back it up on the road and finished fourth – their first season out of the top three in a decade.
Dai Young
The off season was all change for Cardiff. Rudy Joubert returned home to South Africa and Dai Young became player-coach of the club. Internationals Rob Howley, Neil Jenkins, Craig Quinnell and Jonathan Humphreys all left the club as well. The Welsh/Scottish League was abolished, returning to just nine Welsh teams in the top-flight, and Celtic League games no longer counted towards the domestic league.
In the first two months of the season, Cardiff managed to improve on their Celtic League record from the previous year, winning four out of seven games and progressing to the knockout stage. The quarter final was away to Edinburgh on 30 November and, despite a dreadful first half performance that saw them 19–6 down at the break, a much improved second half performance saw them record a 26–22 win, and go through to the semi-finals.
Their decent start to the season collapsed after that however, with Cardiff failing to score at home for the first-time in 30 years in a 31–0 defeat in the Heineken Cup against Northampton in December. January was a disastrous month for the club too, with a 32–10 thrashing away to Neath in the Celtic League semi-finals, despite the home team making 12 handling errors in Cardiff's 22. Two weeks later the club's first ever Heineken Cup whitewash was completed with a record 75–25 defeat away to Biarritz.
Domestically, the Blue and Blacks' final season as a top-tier rugby team was less disappointing. They reached the semi-finals of the Cup, although they capitulated in a similar fashion to their Celtic League semi-final, this time 44–10 away to Llanelli. In the League they finished third, 3 points behind Neath and 11 behind Bridgend.
Today
Today, Cardiff RFC Ltd runs two sides.
The Cardiff Blues now back at Cardiff Arms Park after three years playing at Cardiff City Stadium. The professional regional side, Cardiff Blues take part in the Pro14 league, Anglo-Welsh Cup and Heineken Cup. The Cardiff RFC club side take part in the Welsh Premier Division, WRU Challenge Cup and the British and Irish Cup.
Current squad
The Arms Park
Club Rugby games were moved to what was the cricket ground and a new stadium was built in 1969 as a result of an agreement between the Cardiff Athletic Club and the Welsh Rugby Union. On the site of the old Arms Park stadium, a new stadium was built, Welsh National Rugby Ground (also known as The National Stadium). In 1999, a brand new stadium was built in place of the National Stadium, which was named the Millennium Stadium. Cardiff Blues moved from the Arms Park for the 2009/10 season to play at the Cardiff City Stadium in Leckwith, Cardiff – the home of Cardiff City FC. After three seasons Cardiff Blues returned to their 'spiritual home' and will play the majority of future games at their traditional Arms Park home.
Club honours
Heineken Cup runners-up: 1996
Western Mail Welsh Championship winners: 1899, 1907, 1909, 1910, 1938, 1939, 1947, 1949, 1951, 1955, 1956, 1959, 1983
Middlesex 7s winners: 1939
Gala Sevens winners: 1964
Selkirk Sevens winners: 2006
Snelling Sevens winners: 1955, 1966, 1969, 1972, 1976, 1977, 1981, 1983, 1984
Welsh Cup: 1981, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1994, 1997, 2019
Welsh League: 1995
Welsh/Scottish League: 2000
Welsh Premiership: 2009, 2020*
British and Irish Lions
The following former players were selected for the British and Irish Lions touring squads whilst playing for Cardiff RFC. Gareth Thomas was selected for the 2005 Lions tour whilst playing for Toulouse
Wales International Captains
The following former players captained the Wales national rugby union team whilst playing for Cardiff RFC.
Other notable former players
The following players represented Cardiff and were capped at international level, but do not warrant inclusion in the above two lists.
Regional rugby
Since the advent of regional rugby in 2003, a number of Cardiff RFC players have gone on to represent Wales (some while still playing for the club rather than the regional side). The Cardiff club side have also had a number of players selected for Wales at U20 level and the Sevens side.
Games played against international opposition
See also
Rugby in Cardiff
References
Footnotes
External links
Cardiff RFC Former Players Association
Sport in Cardiff
Rugby clubs established in 1876
Welsh rugby union teams
World Rugby Hall of Fame inductees
1876 establishments in Wales | false | [
"\"What Did I Do to You?\" is a song recorded by British singer Lisa Stansfield for her 1989 album, Affection. It was written by Stansfield, Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, and produced by Devaney and Morris. The song was released as the fourth European single on 30 April 1990. It included three previously unreleased songs written by Stansfield, Devaney and Morris: \"My Apple Heart,\" \"Lay Me Down\" and \"Something's Happenin'.\" \"What Did I Do to You?\" was remixed by Mark Saunders and by the Grammy Award-winning American house music DJ and producer, David Morales. The single became a top forty hit in the European countries reaching number eighteen in Finland, number twenty in Ireland and number twenty-five in the United Kingdom. \"What Did I Do to You?\" was also released in Japan.\n\nIn 2014, the remixes of \"What Did I Do to You?\" were included on the deluxe 2CD + DVD re-release of Affection and on People Hold On ... The Remix Anthology. They were also featured on The Collection 1989–2003 box set (2014), including previously unreleased Red Zone Mix by David Morales.\n\nCritical reception\nThe song received positive reviews from music critics. Matthew Hocter from Albumism viewed it as a \"upbeat offering\". David Giles from Music Week said it is \"beautifully performed\" by Stansfield. A reviewer from Reading Eagle wrote that \"What Did I Do to You?\" \"would be right at home on the \"Saturday Night Fever\" soundtrack.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Philip Richardson, who had previously directed the videos for \"All Around the World\" and \"Live Together\". It features Stansfield with her kiss curls, dressed in a white outfit and performing with her band on a stage in front of a jumping audience. The video was later published on Stansfield's official YouTube channel in November 2009. It has amassed more than 1,6 million views as of October 2021.\n\nTrack listings\n\n European/UK 7\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK/Japanese CD single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n UK 10\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix) – 5:52\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK 12\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 4:22\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 3:19\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:15\n\n UK 12\" promotional single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Anti Poll Tax Dub) – 6:31\n\n Other remixes\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Red Zone Mix) – 7:45\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nLisa Stansfield songs\n1990 singles\nSongs written by Lisa Stansfield\n1989 songs\nArista Records singles\nSongs written by Ian Devaney\nSongs written by Andy Morris (musician)",
"The situation, task, action, result (STAR) format is a technique used by interviewers to gather all the relevant information about a specific capability that the job requires. \n\n Situation: The interviewer wants you to present a recent challenging situation in which you found yourself.\n Task: What were you required to achieve? The interviewer will be looking to see what you were trying to achieve from the situation. Some performance development methods use “Target” rather than “Task”. Job interview candidates who describe a “Target” they set themselves instead of an externally imposed “Task” emphasize their own intrinsic motivation to perform and to develop their performance.\n Action: What did you do? The interviewer will be looking for information on what you did, why you did it and what the alternatives were.\n Results: What was the outcome of your actions? What did you achieve through your actions? Did you meet your objectives? What did you learn from this experience? Have you used this learning since?\n\nThe STAR technique is similar to the SOARA technique.\n\nThe STAR technique is also often complemented with an additional R on the end STARR or STAR(R) with the last R resembling reflection. This R aims to gather insight and interviewee's ability to learn and iterate. Whereas the STAR reveals how and what kind of result on an objective was achieved, the STARR with the additional R helps the interviewer to understand what the interviewee learned from the experience and how they would assimilate experiences. The interviewee can define what they would do (differently, the same, or better) next time being posed with a situation.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nThe ‘STAR’ technique to answer behavioral interview questions\nThe STAR method explained\n\nJob interview"
] |
[
"Cardiff RFC",
"League rugby",
"What is the rugby league?",
"In 1990, the unofficial Welsh championship was replaced by a league structure involving promotion and relegation.",
"What did the league do after 1990?",
"1991-92 was possibly the club's worst-ever season, beset with disagreements between coach Alan Phillips and manager John Scott."
] | C_52d3e23b46e64bca87c9f84857b00b9c_1 | What else happened in 1992? | 3 | Besides the disagreements between coach Alan Phillips and manager John Scott, what else happened in 1992? | Cardiff RFC | In 1990, the unofficial Welsh championship was replaced by a league structure involving promotion and relegation. Cardiff competed in top flight but could only manage a fourth-place finish in 1990-91, and exited the Cup at the quarter-final stage. The season did involve some highlights however, such as beating league runners-up and Cup champions Llanelli 43-0 at the Arms Park and beating league champions Neath 18-4 away in the last game of the season. 1991-92 was possibly the club's worst-ever season, beset with disagreements between coach Alan Phillips and manager John Scott. Cardiff crashed out of the Cup before the quarter-final stage and lost at home to Maesteg and Newbridge in the league. Their final league finish was ninth, which would have led to their relegation but the WRU decided mid-season to switch to a 12-team Premiership, therefore saving Cardiff and Maesteg from relegation. Both Scott and Phillips resigned following the season. Australian Alex Evans took over at Cardiff as coach for the 1992-93 season, bringing in former Arms Park legend Terry Holmes and famous ex-Pontypool front-row member Charlie Faulkner as assistants, and helped a turnaround in the club's fortunes, winning their first seven matches of the season and 20 of their first 22 to top the league in the new year. This run came to an end on 23 January; they were knocked out of the Schweppes Cup by St Peter's, who were fourth from bottom of Division Four. The Blue and Blacks only lost four league games all season though, but were unlucky to be competing against Llanelli in the league, who won the double and were considered the best club team in the UK after beating Australia 13-9. In 1993-94 they slid back to fourth in the league but won the SWALEC Cup (renamed from Schweppes Cup for sponsorship reasons) by beating Llanelli, who'd won the tournament for the last three years running. The score in the final was 15-8, with tries from Mike Rayer and club captain centre Mike Hall and kicks from fly-half Adrian Davies. In 1994-95 Cardiff won the final league title of the amateur era in Wales, as well as reaching the semi-finals of the Cup before going down 16-9 to Swansea. CANNOTANSWER | Australian Alex Evans took over at Cardiff as coach for the 1992-93 season, | Cardiff Rugby Football Club () is a rugby union club based in Cardiff, the capital city of Wales. The club was founded in 1876 and played their first few matches at Sophia Gardens, shortly after which relocating to Cardiff Arms Park where they have been based ever since.
They built a reputation as one of the great clubs in world rugby, largely through a series of wins against international touring sides. Cardiff have beaten both South Africa and New Zealand, and Australia have failed to beat the club in six attempts. Through its history Cardiff RFC have provided more players to the Welsh national side and British and Irish Lions than any other Welsh club.
Following the 2003 regionalisation of Welsh rugby, Cardiff RFC created the Cardiff Blues with the RFC team playing in the semi pro Welsh Premier League. The Cardiff RFC section, of the Cardiff Athletic Club, run and administer the team in conjunction with the owners Cardiff Blues.
History
Amateur years
The first recognised team to begin playing rugby in Cardiff was Glamorgan Football Club, formed as a club team while Cardiff was still a town. The team was formed by a group of young men during the 1873/74 season, after a circular letter was sent to interested parties by S. Campell Cory. Playing under the Cheltenham College rules, Glamorgan FC had increased its membership to sixty six by November 1874. 1874 saw Glamorgan's first away game, against Cowbridge Grammar School, and by 1875 the team played its first encounter with Newport. Around 1875, two further clubs came into existence in Cardiff, they were Tredegarville Football Club, whose ranks included Jas. Bush, father of future Cardiff rugby hero Percy Bush; and the Wanderers Football Club whose captain and founder was William David Phillips. Of the three teams, Glamorgan and Wanderers became the most notable, but both teams rarely travelled, and both had difficulty beating the now established clubs of Newport and Swansea. The supporters of both clubs started an agitation in the summer of 1876 for the two clubs to amalgamate, to give Cardiff town a better chance of beating the neighbouring teams. On Friday 22 September 1876 members of the Glamorgan and Wanderers clubs met at the Swiss Hall in Queen Street, Cardiff and decided to make a single club, to be called Cardiff Football Club. The first team captain was Donaldson Selby of Glamorgan and the vice-captain W.D. Phillips of Wanderers. Initially the club strip was black with a white skull and crossbones, but after pressure from the players parents to change what they saw as an inappropriate strip, the team adopted the black and blue of Cambridge University; after club player Thomas William Rees of Caius College brought his university strip to the club.
Cardiff FC played their first fixture on 2 December 1876, versus Newport at Wentloog Marshes. In 1881, Cardiff beat Llanelli to win the South Wales Challenge Cup, though the tournament was scrapped soon after due to persistent crowd trouble.
In 1881, Newport based sports administrator, Richard Mullock, formed the first Welsh international rugby team. Despite the team losing heavily to England, Mullock had chosen four players from Cardiff to represent the team; club captain William David Phillips, vice-captain B. B. Mann, Barry Girling and Leonard Watkins, a reflection on the clubs importance at the time. A month later, on 12 March 1881, Cardiff RFC was one of the eleven clubs present at the formation of the Welsh Rugby Union in Neath.
A notable early player was Frank Hancock. A skilful centre, Hancock first played for Cardiff due to an injury to a first regular. At this time, rugby was played with six backs and nine forwards but Hancock's performance so impressed the selectors that for the next game they selected him as a seventh back and selected only eight forwards. The system was soon adopted by the Welsh national team and the seven backs and eight forwards system exists in rugby to this day. Cardiff RFC and Hancock were jointly recognised by the International Rugby Board in 2011 for this innovation with induction to the IRB Hall of Fame.
In 1898, Cardiff were unofficial club champions of Wales for the first time. One year later, centre Gwyn Nicholls became the first Cardiff player to play for the British and Irish Lions (then only representing the British Isles), and scored a try in both the first and second Tests against Australia. Nicholls would also go on to captain Wales between 1902 and 1906. In 1904, Cardiff players fly-half Percy Bush, centre Rhys Gabe (who later captained Wales in 1907) and Arthur 'Boxer' Harding all went on the Lions tour to Australia and New Zealand (Nicholls was not selected). Bush scored in the first and second test against Australia, as Nicholls had, and thanks to his tries and goal-kicking during the first three Tests, finished as the top Test points scorer. Gabe scored a try in the third test against Australia, while Harding converted a try in the first Test and was the only Lions player to get on the score sheet against New Zealand, after scoring a penalty goal in the game against them at the end of the tour.
In 1905, there were four Cardiff players in the Wales team that famously beat New Zealand: Harding, Nicholls, Bush, Gabe and Bert Winfield, who would go on to captain Wales three years later. After an eight-year wait, Cardiff also managed to win the unofficial Welsh club championship in 1906 (going unbeaten in every game they played apart from against New Zealand) and 1907.
On New Year's Day 1907, Cardiff beat South Africa 17–0, a great achievement considering the national side had been beaten 11–0 by the Boks only a month earlier, and France were thrashed by them 55–6 two days later. The only other team to beat South Africa during their 29-match tour were Scotland.
After this performance, and Wales winning the Five Nations Grand Slam for the first time in 1908, four Cardiff players were selected for the Lions in 1908. Harding was selected as the first Cardiff player to captain the tour and was the only one of the four to have played for the Lions before, the other three being uncapped half-back Willie Morgan, and three-quarters Johnnie Williams and Reggie Gibbs. Gibbs remains the only player to have been capped for Wales at least 10 times and averaged more than a try a game, with 17 tries in 16 caps, and Williams came very close to his record with 17 tries in 17 Tests.
The tour was not a success, with the Lions managing to draw the second Test but losing the first and third by over twenty-five points each. However, Gibbs did manage to score in the first Test. The disappointed players made up for their failure the next year by winning the Grand Slam with Wales for the second time in a row and winning the unofficial championship with Cardiff. Cardiff also beat Australia 24–8 on 28 December 1908.
However, following this, the glory years were largely over for Cardiff and Wales, although Wales did manage to win the Grand Slam in 1911, and Cardiff came within one point of beating South Africa in a 7–6 defeat in 1912. But no Cardiff players were selected for another Lions tour for the next sixteen years, and they would not become Welsh champions again for the best part of three decades.
Between the wars
The First World War certainly had some effect on the club – Johnnie Williams died in the first weeks of the Battle of the Somme, and many other players returned wounded or simply too old to play rugby. Cardiff were forced to turn to younger talent for their team. Jim Sullivan was a prime example of this, making his first appearance for Cardiff at the age of 16 in October 1920, and went on to make 38 appearances over the rest of the season. In December 1920, just after his 17th birthday, he became the youngest player to ever appear for the Barbarians. However, in June 1921 he signed for professional rugby league club Wigan, beginning a new trend of Welsh union players "going north" to play rugby league.
Cardiff rugby finally managed a revival of some sort in the 1930s. Scrum-half Howard Poole, although never capped for Wales, was selected to play for the Lions in 1930, as was Ivor Williams in 1938. The club also won their first unofficial Welsh championship for 28 years in 1937, and managed to retain the title in 1938 and 1939, before the start of the Second World War.
After the Second World War
After the resumption of regular rugby, Cardiff beat Australia 11–3 on 21 November 1947, captained by scrum-half Haydn Tanner and were also unofficial Welsh champions in 1947/48, when Bleddyn Williams set a club record of 41 tries in one season, and 1948/49, when the Blue and Blacks went completely unbeaten against Welsh opposition, only Swansea and Newport succeeding in salvaging draws. The club had a fantastic record against Newport during these years, going 15 games unbeaten against them between 1946 and 1950. Cardiff players helped Wales win their first Grand Slam in nearly forty years in 1950, and later that year supplied five players to the Lions for the first time later that year. The five were fly-half Billy Cleaver, prop Cliff Davies, centre Jack Matthews, scrum-half Rex Willis and Bleddyn Williams, the "Prince of Centres". Williams captained the Lions in the third and fourth Tests against New Zealand. Wales won another Grand Slam in 1952, with much the same side.
In 1952–53, Cardiff won the unofficial Welsh championship again, helped by the rise of prodigiously talented fly-half Cliff Morgan, but the best was still to come. On 21 November 1953, Cardiff faced New Zealand in front of a crowd of 56,000 at the Arms Park and, after a brilliant defensive effort following a 5–0 lead at half-time, hung on to win 8–3. Five Cardiff backs were selected in the Wales team captained by Bleddyn Williams that beat the All Blacks again less than a month later. These two results remain the last time either Cardiff or Wales have beaten New Zealand.
Cardiff repeated their unofficial championship victory two years later in 1955, and had three Lions in the 1955 touring side, notable for not including any of the five that toured in 1950. The three this time were fly-half Morgan, centre Gareth Griffiths and wing Haydn Morris. Morgan, in front of a then-world record crowd of 100,000, helped defeat the South Africans 23–22 with a brilliant try despite an injury to Reg Higgins reducing the Lions to 14 men (no replacements were allowed at this time). After the South Africans squared the series in the second Test, Morgan was made captain for the third Test and inspired the team with a combination a stirring team talk and a great kicking game to a 9–6 victory, ensuring the series could not be lost, after which he was dubbed "Morgan the Magnificent" by the South African press. After his Lions heroics Morgan was made captain of Wales, and helped them win the title (although not the Grand Slam) in 1956.
Australia played against and were defeated by Cardiff for the third time in 1957, 14–11 thanks to two great tries from Gordon Wells, after which a reporter from the Sydney Daily Telegraph wrote "we fell to the world's best rugby union club", and another unofficial championship title was secured in 1957–58, but only second row Bill "Roddy" Evans was selected for the Lions in 1959, although he started four of the six Tests. A downturn in Welsh and Cardiff fortunes occurred around this time, although prop Kingsley Jones and second row Keith Rowlands from the club were still selected for the 1962 Lions tour, and Cardiff managed to come within a point of beating the All Blacks again in 1963, scoring the only try of the game. However, the slump began to end in 1964, when Wales shared the Five Nations title with Scotland, after which Wales won the Triple Crown and the title in 1965, followed by another championship in 1966, although the Grand Slam still eluded them. However, these successes helped Cardiff players centre Ken Jones and prop Howard Norris win places on the Lions tour to New Zealand. Later that year Cardiff beat Australia 14–8, although Wales were not able to repeat the feat a month later, losing 14–11.
The 1968 Lions tour was a historic one, containing a record six Cardiff players, wings Keri Jones and Maurice Richards, prop John O'Shea, (then) centre Gerald Davies, fly-half Barry John and scrum-half Gareth Edwards. While Jones and Richards would soon switch codes to play rugby league and O'Shea's tour would be marred somewhat by being the first Lion ever to be sent off for foul play, Davies, John and Edwards would go on to become legends, although their careers got off to inauspicious starts, the Lions losing three of the Tests again South Africa and only drawing the other one.
On the domestic front, they were denied silverware, as despite being top of the unofficial table for almost the whole season, the loss of their six Lions at the end of the season allowed Llanelli to overtake them. Cardiff again finished second behind Newport the next year, with Richards the only Lion to make more than 20 appearances. However, Wales won the Five Nations title and Triple Crown in 1969, only denied the Grand Slam by a draw in France, only to be whitewashed in three games against New Zealand and Australia in the summer.
The Seventies
1971 however, was the year in which John, Edwards and Davies would write themselves into history. Davies by this time had left for London Welsh, although he would later return. In the spring, they were all ever-presents in Wales's first Grand Slam in 18 years, and in the summer, they were selected for the Lions tour to New Zealand, along with Cardiff teammate John Bevan. The tour remains the only occasion where the Lions have returned victorious from New Zealand. All four Cardiff players started the first Test, and all except Bevan played in the other three Tests. Despite only playing in the first Test, John Bevan became the Lions' record try scorer (including matches against club teams) with 17. Barry John was given the title "King Barry" by the New Zealanders after scoring 30 of the Lions' 48 points, and in him and Edwards, Cardiff could justifiably be said to have the best two half-backs in the world.
1971–72 was the first season where the WRU Challenge Cup was introduced. Cardiff reached the semi-final, before being beaten 16–9 at the Brewery Field by Neath, who went on to beat Llanelli in the final. Unfortunately in 1972 Barry John announced his decision to retire at the age of 27, not liking the celebrity status shoved on him and his family after the Lions tour.
The next season was also disappointing for Cardiff, although fullback John Davies scored a club record of 209 points (in his first season for the club). They were soundly beaten by New Zealand 20–4, only a week after Llanelli had beaten them 9–3. In the Cup, they defeated South Wales Police, Mountain Ash, Ebbw Vale, Blaina and Swansea on their way to the final, but were again outclassed and lost 30–7 to Llanelli. In 1973–74 Cardiff reached the Cup semi-finals for the third year running, but were defeated 9–4 by Aberavon. Gareth Edwards however, led his country to a 24–0 win over Australia in November 1973. In 1974, Gerald Davies decided to return to Cardiff from London Welsh. Edwards and Davies were picked for the 1974 Lions tour to South Africa (although Davies refused to go in protest against apartheid) and Edwards started all four Tests, where the Lions went unbeaten through all 22 matches and would probably have won all their games, but in the final Test the South African referee blew the final whist four minutes early with the scores level and the Lions camped on the South African line.
In 1974–75 Cardiff failed to reach the WRU Challenge Cup semi-finals for the first time, losing 13–12 to Bridgend in the third round, despite not conceding a try in the entire Cup. However, on 1 November 1975, Cardiff met Australia for the fifth time in their history and, for the fifth time defeated them, 14–9, despite the absence of Edwards due to influenza. Both Edwards and Davies represented Wales in the 1976 Five Nations Grand Slam. During 1976–77, Cardiff defeated Pontypool and Aberavon on their way to the Challenge Cup final, where they were beaten 16–15 by Newport. Edwards decided not to go on the 1977 Lions tour, to show loyalty to his company who had let him go on three Lions tours previously. However, another Cardiff scrum-half, uncapped Brynmor Williams was picked, and played in the first three Tests before being injured in the third.
Both Davies and Edwards started for Wales in the 20–16 victory away to Ireland in the 1978 Five Nations that sealed a record three Triple Crowns in as many years, with Edwards also starting the next week and also dropping a goal in the 16–7 victory against France that sealed Wales their third Grand Slam in eight years. This was Gareth Edwards' final match for Wales – he had won 53 consecutive caps, never being dropped or injured, and scored 20 tries. Gerald Davies also retired from Wales after a 19–17 defeat in Sydney – tied with Edwards on 20 tries, scored in 46 caps.
In the 1977–78 club season, Davies had a fantastic game against Pontypool where despite only touching the ball four times due to the dominance of the Pooler pack, he scored four tries, with those being Cardiff's only points in a 16–11 victory. Cardiff's cup run continued to the semi-finals, where they were beaten by Swansea 18–13.
The Eighties
Flanker Stuart Lane, fly-half Gareth Davies, hooker Alan Phillips and scrum-half Terry Holmes from the club were chosen to tour with the Lions to South Africa in 1980, however Davies was the only one to start a Test match. The four went on to help Cardiff finally break their duck and win the WRU Challenge Cup (known as the Schweppes Cup for sponsorship reasons) with a 14–6 victory over Bridgend the following season, with Davies scoring two penalties and tries from centre Neil Hutchings and back-rower Robert Lakin. They repeated the feat in 1982, winning on try count thanks to a score from prop Ian Eidman after a 12–12 draw again against Bridgend, with the other points coming from fly-half David Barry, and also ended a 24-year wait by winning the Unofficial Welsh Championship, thereby completing the club's first (and so far only) league and cup double.
In 1983 Terry Holmes was again picked for the Lions, this time alongside second row Bob Norster. Both players were picked for the first team but Holmes was injured in the first Test and Norster in the second, ending their tours.
Cardiff had been knocked in the quarter-finals of the 1982–83 cup by eventual winners Pontypool, but made it up for it with a third triumph in four years, beating Neath 24–19 in the final with tries from flanker Owen Golding and wing Gerald Cordle and 16 points from Gareth Davies. Then, on 12 October 1984, they beat Australia 16–12, thanks to eight points from Gareth Davies along with a penalty try and a score from Adrian Hadley. The same Australian side went on to complete a "Grand Slam" (beating England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland). Australia haven't played Cardiff RFC since, leaving the club with a perfect record of six wins from six games against the Wallabies (although Cardiff Blues did lose to Australia 31–3 in 2009). 1985 was very nearly another successful year for the club, beating Neath and Pontypool on their way to the Schweppes Cup final where, despite tries from wing Gerald Cordle and captain Alan Phillips alongside two penalties from Gareth Davies, they fell to an agonising 15–14 defeat to Llanelli. After this, Terry Holmes left the club to play rugby league.
The club bounced back immediately however, beating Newport in the final of 1985–86 cup final 28–21, with Adrian Hadley scoring a hat-trick, Holmes's replacement, scrum-half Neil O'Brien, bagging another try and 12 points coming from the boot of fly-half Gareth Davies in his last game for the club against Welsh opposition before retiring. One year later, Cardiff were part of the first Challenge Cup final to go to extra time, with the scores 9–9 after 80 minutes, all Cardiff's points coming from the boot of Davies's replacement, Geraint John. Gerald Cordle scored to break the deadlock but the conversion was missed and Swansea scored a converted try soon after, putting them in the lead. But a late drop goal from full-back Mike Rayer won it for the Arms Park side capping one of the most successful periods in the club's history, with five Schweppes Cup victories in seven years.
In 1987, the first Rugby World Cup was held in New Zealand. Cardiff props Dai Young, Jeff Whitefoot and Steve Blackmore, wing Adrian Hadley, centre Mark Ring and hooker Alan Phillips all were selected in Wales's squad (Young was called up as an injury replacement) which finished third.
Cardiff's success began to tail off towards the end of the 1980s, with Adrian Hadley leaving for rugby league in 1988 and Gerald Cordle following in 89, and they could only manage two Cup quarter-finals and one semi-final appearance in the last three years of the decade. However, both Dai Young and Bob Norster were selected for the Lions tour to Australia in 1989, the only Lions team to come from 1–0 down to win the series. Young followed Hadley and Cordle to rugby league shortly after this, while Whitefoot and Norster both retired in 1990.
League rugby
In 1990, the unofficial Welsh championship was replaced by a league structure involving promotion and relegation. Cardiff competed in top flight but could only manage a fourth-place finish in 1990–91, and exited the Cup at the quarter-final stage. The season did involve some highlights however, such as beating league runners-up and Cup champions Llanelli 43–0 at the Arms Park and beating league champions Neath 18–4 away in the last game of the season.
1991–92 was possibly the club's worst-ever season, beset with disagreements between coach Alan Phillips and manager John Scott. Cardiff crashed out of the Cup before the quarter-final stage and lost at home to Maesteg and Newbridge in the league. Their final league finish was ninth, which would have led to their relegation but the WRU decided mid-season to switch to a 12-team Premiership, therefore saving Cardiff and Maesteg from relegation. Both Scott and Phillips resigned following the season.
Australian Alex Evans took over at Cardiff as coach for the 1992–93 season, bringing in former Arms Park legend Terry Holmes and famous ex-Pontypool front-row member Charlie Faulkner as assistants, and helped a turnaround in the club's fortunes, winning their first seven matches of the season and 20 of their first 22 to top the league in the new year. This run came to an end on 23 January; they were knocked out of the Schweppes Cup by St Peter's, who were fourth from bottom of Division Four. The Blue and Blacks only lost four league games all season though, but were unlucky to be competing against Llanelli in the league, who won the double and were considered the best club team in the UK after beating Australia 13–9.
In 1993–94 they slid back to fourth in the league but won the SWALEC Cup (renamed from Schweppes Cup for sponsorship reasons) by beating Llanelli, who'd won the tournament for the last three years running. The score in the final was 15–8, with tries from Mike Rayer and club captain centre Mike Hall and kicks from fly-half Adrian Davies. In 1994–95 Cardiff won the final league title of the amateur era in Wales, as well as reaching the semi-finals of the Cup before going down 16–9 to Swansea.
Professionalism
With professionalism dawned a new era at Cardiff RFC. It allowed them to sign legendary outside-half Jonathan Davies back from rugby league, and another major change was that there would be a European Cup, sponsored by Heineken, containing teams from France, Ireland, Wales, Italy and Romania (England and Scotland did not join for another year). Cardiff progressed to the knock-out stages in November by drawing with Bordeaux-Begles and beating Ulster. December saw the end of the Alex Evans era, as he departed to return home to Australia. Terry Holmes took charge of the club, and in his first full match the Blue and Blacks beat Leinster away to progress to the first Heineken Cup final. The game was played at Cardiff Arms Park in front of a crowd of 21,800, where despite 18 points from the boot of Adrian Davies, Cardiff were beaten 21–18 by Toulouse after extra time.
Cardiff, despite not losing a league game under Holmes, were runners-up on the domestic front as well, finishing level with Neath on points but coming second on try count. After the end of the 95–96 season Peter Thomas invested money into the club allowing them to sign Rob Howley, Dai Young back from rugby league, Leigh Davies, Gwyn Jones and Justin Thomas for the cost of around £2million. Internationals Mark Ring, Steven Blackmore and the half-backs that had started the Heineken Cup final, Andy Moore and Adrian Davies all departed.
Despite all the new signings, Cardiff lost their first three games of the season, and the 1996/97 season was in many respects worse than the year before – Cardiff were knocked out in the Heineken Cup semi-finals by eventual champions Brive, and in the Welsh Premier Division they fell to third, behind champions Pontypridd and Llanelli. However, after Alex Evans returned to head up the coaching team, that season did lead to some silverware, as Cardiff beat Llanelli 36–26 in the semi-final and Swansea 33–26 in the final of the SWALEC Cup. Grzegorz Kacala and Tony Rees, both forwards part of the Brive team that knocked Cardiff out of the Heineken Cup and went on to win it, were signed for 1997/98 along with Wales internationals Steve Williams and Spencer John (Gareth Thomas also arrived in December from Bridgend).
Despite Cardiff's difficulties, compounded by those of the national team, Howley and Young were both chosen to go on 1997 Lions tour to South Africa. Howley had to return home early due to injury and neither of the two Cardiff players started a Test match.
In the 1997/98 season, Cardiff were Wales's sole representative in the quarter finals of the Heineken Cup, and were beaten away in rematch of the previous year's quarter-final, by Bath, who would go on to win the tournament. However, their domestic cup campaign ended before the quarter final stage, losing 24–9 to Ebbw Vale, and they finished runners up to Swansea in the League. Following this season, Alex Evans left Cardiff for Australia for the second time and Terry Holmes was put back in charge.
Rebel season
Cardiff and Swansea had proposed the formation of a British league, containing the top division English clubs, the two Scottish regional sides (Edinburgh and Glasgow) and four Welsh clubs (seeing as Cardiff had got further than any other Welsh club in every Heineken Cup so far, Swansea were the league champions and they represented the two largest urban areas in Wales, it was assumed two of these clubs would be Cardiff and Swansea).
Both the RFU and the English clubs had agreed to this, but the WRU refused due to an ongoing legal battle with the English clubs over the negotiation of commercial rights (which would lead to the English clubs not participating in the 1998–99 Heineken Cup). Instead, the WRU demanded all top-flight clubs sign 10-year loyalty agreements, where they were guaranteed top-flight status and committed themselves to staying within the Welsh league structure.
Cardiff and Swansea refused to sign these agreements and were expelled from the Welsh Premier Division. The Allied Dunbar Premiership (the English league) teams announced that two teams would have a rest weekend every week allowing them to play friendlies against Cardiff and Swansea. Cardiff's first home match of the season was against Saracens, who'd finished second in the Allied Dunbar Premiership the season before. Cardiff won 40–19 in front of a crowd of 10,021, larger than the entire combined attendance of the Welsh Premier Division that weekend. The club went on to win all their home games, but fell to defeat ten times on their travels.
Although Cardiff and Swansea were both expelled from the Welsh League, they were allowed to continue to compete in the SWALEC Cup against Welsh opposition. Both teams reached the semi-finals, Swansea were to play Cross Keys and Cardiff Llanelli. In the week prior to the game, Cardiff chairman Peter Thomas spoke to the players following a training session, where he emphasised the importance of winning the game, describing it as "the biggest game in the club's history". Cardiff lost 39–10 in a match chief executive Gareth Davies described "The worst performance by a Cardiff side I have ever seen." Six days later, it was announced Terry Holmes would stand down as coach at the end of the season, and Pontypridd and Wales assistant coach Lyn Howells would take charge on a two-year contract.
Swansea went on to beat Llanelli 37–10 in the cup final, but the rebels were still forced to sign loyalty agreements and return to Welsh domestic setup, now including Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Lynn Howells
After the unsuccessful rebel season, Cardiff sign British Lion outside-half Neil Jenkins as well as Wales internationals second-row Craig Quinnell and flanker Martyn Williams. The start of the 1999–2000 season for Cardiff was hampered by them missing 13 first choice players due to the World Cup, and in late September they fell to a humiliating 60–18 defeat away to Llanelli at Stradey Park. However, despite this poor start and failing to win in the first rounds of the Heineken Cup, they progressed to the Heineken Cup quarter-finals, where they were beaten by Llanelli, and clinched the Welsh/Scottish League title with three games remaining, The season is also notable for a club record victory of 116–0 over Duvnant in the Welsh/Scottish League, and the club going unbeaten at home for almost the whole season, before losing 41–40 to Swansea in their very last game of the season (with the title already sewn up). This was Cardiff's first defeat at the Arms Park for over two years, since 13 December 1997, again against Swansea.
During the close season Cardiff lost Leigh Davies to Llanelli but signed South African centre Pieter Muller to replace him. They won their first five Welsh/Scottish League matches, seemingly making certain they would retain their title, especially as Swansea lost three of their first five games. The highlight of the season was in late October, when the Blue and Blacks stunned English Premiership leaders Saracens by defeating them home and away in the Heineken Cup.
The club's great form began to stutter as the millennium drew to a close, but it was in January the wheels really came off. After a magnificent 42–16 victory over Ulster, two yellow cards led Cardiff to defeat in Toulouse, meaning they would have to travel to Gloucester in the quarter-finals. A turgid forward battle resulted in a 21–15 defeat for the Blue and Blacks. Two weeks later they then lost to Bridgend, their first home defeat of the season, meaning Swansea pulled ahead in the title race. Another defeat at Ebbw Vale in March condemned them to a trophyless season.
Following the unsuccessful season Lynn Howells's contract was not renewed and Rudy Joubert was appointed director of rugby. Gareth Thomas also left the club along with nine other players, but Rob Appleyard, Matt Allen and Craig Hudson all joined.
For the 2001 Lions tour, four Cardiff players were picked, Rob Howley, Neil Jenkins, Dai Young and Martyn Williams. Young became the first player to tour for the Lions in three different decades. Howley started the first two Tests, with Williams on the bench in all three, and Jenkins coming on to replace Jonny Wilkinson in the second. Howley was dropped for the third, deciding Test.
Rudy Joubert
2001–02 was the first year of the Celtic League, containing teams from Wales, Ireland and Scotland. The pool stage would begin in mid-August and continue on for a month. Cardiff were drawn into the smaller, seven-team pool (with four teams going through to the quarter-finals).and started their campaign in unconvincing fashion, winning three games but still being knocked out of the competition on points difference.
In the Heineken Cup, rugby league convert Iestyn Harris, signed for £1million scored a hat-trick on his debut in a 46–7 against Glasgow. Overall the club's European form was mediocre however, as despite winning all their home games they failed to register an away win and were eliminated at the pool stage for the first time in their history
On the domestic front, Cardiff again went unbeaten at home until the final game of the season, but again were unable to back it up on the road and finished fourth – their first season out of the top three in a decade.
Dai Young
The off season was all change for Cardiff. Rudy Joubert returned home to South Africa and Dai Young became player-coach of the club. Internationals Rob Howley, Neil Jenkins, Craig Quinnell and Jonathan Humphreys all left the club as well. The Welsh/Scottish League was abolished, returning to just nine Welsh teams in the top-flight, and Celtic League games no longer counted towards the domestic league.
In the first two months of the season, Cardiff managed to improve on their Celtic League record from the previous year, winning four out of seven games and progressing to the knockout stage. The quarter final was away to Edinburgh on 30 November and, despite a dreadful first half performance that saw them 19–6 down at the break, a much improved second half performance saw them record a 26–22 win, and go through to the semi-finals.
Their decent start to the season collapsed after that however, with Cardiff failing to score at home for the first-time in 30 years in a 31–0 defeat in the Heineken Cup against Northampton in December. January was a disastrous month for the club too, with a 32–10 thrashing away to Neath in the Celtic League semi-finals, despite the home team making 12 handling errors in Cardiff's 22. Two weeks later the club's first ever Heineken Cup whitewash was completed with a record 75–25 defeat away to Biarritz.
Domestically, the Blue and Blacks' final season as a top-tier rugby team was less disappointing. They reached the semi-finals of the Cup, although they capitulated in a similar fashion to their Celtic League semi-final, this time 44–10 away to Llanelli. In the League they finished third, 3 points behind Neath and 11 behind Bridgend.
Today
Today, Cardiff RFC Ltd runs two sides.
The Cardiff Blues now back at Cardiff Arms Park after three years playing at Cardiff City Stadium. The professional regional side, Cardiff Blues take part in the Pro14 league, Anglo-Welsh Cup and Heineken Cup. The Cardiff RFC club side take part in the Welsh Premier Division, WRU Challenge Cup and the British and Irish Cup.
Current squad
The Arms Park
Club Rugby games were moved to what was the cricket ground and a new stadium was built in 1969 as a result of an agreement between the Cardiff Athletic Club and the Welsh Rugby Union. On the site of the old Arms Park stadium, a new stadium was built, Welsh National Rugby Ground (also known as The National Stadium). In 1999, a brand new stadium was built in place of the National Stadium, which was named the Millennium Stadium. Cardiff Blues moved from the Arms Park for the 2009/10 season to play at the Cardiff City Stadium in Leckwith, Cardiff – the home of Cardiff City FC. After three seasons Cardiff Blues returned to their 'spiritual home' and will play the majority of future games at their traditional Arms Park home.
Club honours
Heineken Cup runners-up: 1996
Western Mail Welsh Championship winners: 1899, 1907, 1909, 1910, 1938, 1939, 1947, 1949, 1951, 1955, 1956, 1959, 1983
Middlesex 7s winners: 1939
Gala Sevens winners: 1964
Selkirk Sevens winners: 2006
Snelling Sevens winners: 1955, 1966, 1969, 1972, 1976, 1977, 1981, 1983, 1984
Welsh Cup: 1981, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1994, 1997, 2019
Welsh League: 1995
Welsh/Scottish League: 2000
Welsh Premiership: 2009, 2020*
British and Irish Lions
The following former players were selected for the British and Irish Lions touring squads whilst playing for Cardiff RFC. Gareth Thomas was selected for the 2005 Lions tour whilst playing for Toulouse
Wales International Captains
The following former players captained the Wales national rugby union team whilst playing for Cardiff RFC.
Other notable former players
The following players represented Cardiff and were capped at international level, but do not warrant inclusion in the above two lists.
Regional rugby
Since the advent of regional rugby in 2003, a number of Cardiff RFC players have gone on to represent Wales (some while still playing for the club rather than the regional side). The Cardiff club side have also had a number of players selected for Wales at U20 level and the Sevens side.
Games played against international opposition
See also
Rugby in Cardiff
References
Footnotes
External links
Cardiff RFC Former Players Association
Sport in Cardiff
Rugby clubs established in 1876
Welsh rugby union teams
World Rugby Hall of Fame inductees
1876 establishments in Wales | false | [
"An Englishman in Auschwitz is a 2001 book written by Leon Greenman, a Holocaust survivor. The book details his experiences in the Auschwitz concentration camp.\n\nThe book is a result of the commitment of English-born Greenman to God \"that if he lived, he would let the world know what happened during the war\". In short, the book describes the reminiscences of his days of imprisonment in six concentration camps of the Nazis. Greenman describes the arrival of his family (consisting of himself, his wife, Esther, a Dutchwoman, and their three-year-old son, Barney) at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in these words: The women were separated from the men: Else and Barny were marched about 20 yards away to a queue of women...I tried to watch Else. I could see her clearly against the blue lights. She could see me too for she threw me a kiss and held up our child for me to see. What was going through her mind I will never know. Perhaps she was pleased that the journey had come to an end.\n\nReferences\n\n2001 non-fiction books\nPersonal accounts of the Holocaust",
"Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books"
] |
[
"Cardiff RFC",
"League rugby",
"What is the rugby league?",
"In 1990, the unofficial Welsh championship was replaced by a league structure involving promotion and relegation.",
"What did the league do after 1990?",
"1991-92 was possibly the club's worst-ever season, beset with disagreements between coach Alan Phillips and manager John Scott.",
"What else happened in 1992?",
"Australian Alex Evans took over at Cardiff as coach for the 1992-93 season,"
] | C_52d3e23b46e64bca87c9f84857b00b9c_1 | Did the team turn around after Evans was hired? | 4 | Did the Cardiff RFC team turn around after Alex Evans was hired as a coach? | Cardiff RFC | In 1990, the unofficial Welsh championship was replaced by a league structure involving promotion and relegation. Cardiff competed in top flight but could only manage a fourth-place finish in 1990-91, and exited the Cup at the quarter-final stage. The season did involve some highlights however, such as beating league runners-up and Cup champions Llanelli 43-0 at the Arms Park and beating league champions Neath 18-4 away in the last game of the season. 1991-92 was possibly the club's worst-ever season, beset with disagreements between coach Alan Phillips and manager John Scott. Cardiff crashed out of the Cup before the quarter-final stage and lost at home to Maesteg and Newbridge in the league. Their final league finish was ninth, which would have led to their relegation but the WRU decided mid-season to switch to a 12-team Premiership, therefore saving Cardiff and Maesteg from relegation. Both Scott and Phillips resigned following the season. Australian Alex Evans took over at Cardiff as coach for the 1992-93 season, bringing in former Arms Park legend Terry Holmes and famous ex-Pontypool front-row member Charlie Faulkner as assistants, and helped a turnaround in the club's fortunes, winning their first seven matches of the season and 20 of their first 22 to top the league in the new year. This run came to an end on 23 January; they were knocked out of the Schweppes Cup by St Peter's, who were fourth from bottom of Division Four. The Blue and Blacks only lost four league games all season though, but were unlucky to be competing against Llanelli in the league, who won the double and were considered the best club team in the UK after beating Australia 13-9. In 1993-94 they slid back to fourth in the league but won the SWALEC Cup (renamed from Schweppes Cup for sponsorship reasons) by beating Llanelli, who'd won the tournament for the last three years running. The score in the final was 15-8, with tries from Mike Rayer and club captain centre Mike Hall and kicks from fly-half Adrian Davies. In 1994-95 Cardiff won the final league title of the amateur era in Wales, as well as reaching the semi-finals of the Cup before going down 16-9 to Swansea. CANNOTANSWER | helped a turnaround in the club's fortunes, winning their first seven matches of the season and 20 of their first 22 to top the league | Cardiff Rugby Football Club () is a rugby union club based in Cardiff, the capital city of Wales. The club was founded in 1876 and played their first few matches at Sophia Gardens, shortly after which relocating to Cardiff Arms Park where they have been based ever since.
They built a reputation as one of the great clubs in world rugby, largely through a series of wins against international touring sides. Cardiff have beaten both South Africa and New Zealand, and Australia have failed to beat the club in six attempts. Through its history Cardiff RFC have provided more players to the Welsh national side and British and Irish Lions than any other Welsh club.
Following the 2003 regionalisation of Welsh rugby, Cardiff RFC created the Cardiff Blues with the RFC team playing in the semi pro Welsh Premier League. The Cardiff RFC section, of the Cardiff Athletic Club, run and administer the team in conjunction with the owners Cardiff Blues.
History
Amateur years
The first recognised team to begin playing rugby in Cardiff was Glamorgan Football Club, formed as a club team while Cardiff was still a town. The team was formed by a group of young men during the 1873/74 season, after a circular letter was sent to interested parties by S. Campell Cory. Playing under the Cheltenham College rules, Glamorgan FC had increased its membership to sixty six by November 1874. 1874 saw Glamorgan's first away game, against Cowbridge Grammar School, and by 1875 the team played its first encounter with Newport. Around 1875, two further clubs came into existence in Cardiff, they were Tredegarville Football Club, whose ranks included Jas. Bush, father of future Cardiff rugby hero Percy Bush; and the Wanderers Football Club whose captain and founder was William David Phillips. Of the three teams, Glamorgan and Wanderers became the most notable, but both teams rarely travelled, and both had difficulty beating the now established clubs of Newport and Swansea. The supporters of both clubs started an agitation in the summer of 1876 for the two clubs to amalgamate, to give Cardiff town a better chance of beating the neighbouring teams. On Friday 22 September 1876 members of the Glamorgan and Wanderers clubs met at the Swiss Hall in Queen Street, Cardiff and decided to make a single club, to be called Cardiff Football Club. The first team captain was Donaldson Selby of Glamorgan and the vice-captain W.D. Phillips of Wanderers. Initially the club strip was black with a white skull and crossbones, but after pressure from the players parents to change what they saw as an inappropriate strip, the team adopted the black and blue of Cambridge University; after club player Thomas William Rees of Caius College brought his university strip to the club.
Cardiff FC played their first fixture on 2 December 1876, versus Newport at Wentloog Marshes. In 1881, Cardiff beat Llanelli to win the South Wales Challenge Cup, though the tournament was scrapped soon after due to persistent crowd trouble.
In 1881, Newport based sports administrator, Richard Mullock, formed the first Welsh international rugby team. Despite the team losing heavily to England, Mullock had chosen four players from Cardiff to represent the team; club captain William David Phillips, vice-captain B. B. Mann, Barry Girling and Leonard Watkins, a reflection on the clubs importance at the time. A month later, on 12 March 1881, Cardiff RFC was one of the eleven clubs present at the formation of the Welsh Rugby Union in Neath.
A notable early player was Frank Hancock. A skilful centre, Hancock first played for Cardiff due to an injury to a first regular. At this time, rugby was played with six backs and nine forwards but Hancock's performance so impressed the selectors that for the next game they selected him as a seventh back and selected only eight forwards. The system was soon adopted by the Welsh national team and the seven backs and eight forwards system exists in rugby to this day. Cardiff RFC and Hancock were jointly recognised by the International Rugby Board in 2011 for this innovation with induction to the IRB Hall of Fame.
In 1898, Cardiff were unofficial club champions of Wales for the first time. One year later, centre Gwyn Nicholls became the first Cardiff player to play for the British and Irish Lions (then only representing the British Isles), and scored a try in both the first and second Tests against Australia. Nicholls would also go on to captain Wales between 1902 and 1906. In 1904, Cardiff players fly-half Percy Bush, centre Rhys Gabe (who later captained Wales in 1907) and Arthur 'Boxer' Harding all went on the Lions tour to Australia and New Zealand (Nicholls was not selected). Bush scored in the first and second test against Australia, as Nicholls had, and thanks to his tries and goal-kicking during the first three Tests, finished as the top Test points scorer. Gabe scored a try in the third test against Australia, while Harding converted a try in the first Test and was the only Lions player to get on the score sheet against New Zealand, after scoring a penalty goal in the game against them at the end of the tour.
In 1905, there were four Cardiff players in the Wales team that famously beat New Zealand: Harding, Nicholls, Bush, Gabe and Bert Winfield, who would go on to captain Wales three years later. After an eight-year wait, Cardiff also managed to win the unofficial Welsh club championship in 1906 (going unbeaten in every game they played apart from against New Zealand) and 1907.
On New Year's Day 1907, Cardiff beat South Africa 17–0, a great achievement considering the national side had been beaten 11–0 by the Boks only a month earlier, and France were thrashed by them 55–6 two days later. The only other team to beat South Africa during their 29-match tour were Scotland.
After this performance, and Wales winning the Five Nations Grand Slam for the first time in 1908, four Cardiff players were selected for the Lions in 1908. Harding was selected as the first Cardiff player to captain the tour and was the only one of the four to have played for the Lions before, the other three being uncapped half-back Willie Morgan, and three-quarters Johnnie Williams and Reggie Gibbs. Gibbs remains the only player to have been capped for Wales at least 10 times and averaged more than a try a game, with 17 tries in 16 caps, and Williams came very close to his record with 17 tries in 17 Tests.
The tour was not a success, with the Lions managing to draw the second Test but losing the first and third by over twenty-five points each. However, Gibbs did manage to score in the first Test. The disappointed players made up for their failure the next year by winning the Grand Slam with Wales for the second time in a row and winning the unofficial championship with Cardiff. Cardiff also beat Australia 24–8 on 28 December 1908.
However, following this, the glory years were largely over for Cardiff and Wales, although Wales did manage to win the Grand Slam in 1911, and Cardiff came within one point of beating South Africa in a 7–6 defeat in 1912. But no Cardiff players were selected for another Lions tour for the next sixteen years, and they would not become Welsh champions again for the best part of three decades.
Between the wars
The First World War certainly had some effect on the club – Johnnie Williams died in the first weeks of the Battle of the Somme, and many other players returned wounded or simply too old to play rugby. Cardiff were forced to turn to younger talent for their team. Jim Sullivan was a prime example of this, making his first appearance for Cardiff at the age of 16 in October 1920, and went on to make 38 appearances over the rest of the season. In December 1920, just after his 17th birthday, he became the youngest player to ever appear for the Barbarians. However, in June 1921 he signed for professional rugby league club Wigan, beginning a new trend of Welsh union players "going north" to play rugby league.
Cardiff rugby finally managed a revival of some sort in the 1930s. Scrum-half Howard Poole, although never capped for Wales, was selected to play for the Lions in 1930, as was Ivor Williams in 1938. The club also won their first unofficial Welsh championship for 28 years in 1937, and managed to retain the title in 1938 and 1939, before the start of the Second World War.
After the Second World War
After the resumption of regular rugby, Cardiff beat Australia 11–3 on 21 November 1947, captained by scrum-half Haydn Tanner and were also unofficial Welsh champions in 1947/48, when Bleddyn Williams set a club record of 41 tries in one season, and 1948/49, when the Blue and Blacks went completely unbeaten against Welsh opposition, only Swansea and Newport succeeding in salvaging draws. The club had a fantastic record against Newport during these years, going 15 games unbeaten against them between 1946 and 1950. Cardiff players helped Wales win their first Grand Slam in nearly forty years in 1950, and later that year supplied five players to the Lions for the first time later that year. The five were fly-half Billy Cleaver, prop Cliff Davies, centre Jack Matthews, scrum-half Rex Willis and Bleddyn Williams, the "Prince of Centres". Williams captained the Lions in the third and fourth Tests against New Zealand. Wales won another Grand Slam in 1952, with much the same side.
In 1952–53, Cardiff won the unofficial Welsh championship again, helped by the rise of prodigiously talented fly-half Cliff Morgan, but the best was still to come. On 21 November 1953, Cardiff faced New Zealand in front of a crowd of 56,000 at the Arms Park and, after a brilliant defensive effort following a 5–0 lead at half-time, hung on to win 8–3. Five Cardiff backs were selected in the Wales team captained by Bleddyn Williams that beat the All Blacks again less than a month later. These two results remain the last time either Cardiff or Wales have beaten New Zealand.
Cardiff repeated their unofficial championship victory two years later in 1955, and had three Lions in the 1955 touring side, notable for not including any of the five that toured in 1950. The three this time were fly-half Morgan, centre Gareth Griffiths and wing Haydn Morris. Morgan, in front of a then-world record crowd of 100,000, helped defeat the South Africans 23–22 with a brilliant try despite an injury to Reg Higgins reducing the Lions to 14 men (no replacements were allowed at this time). After the South Africans squared the series in the second Test, Morgan was made captain for the third Test and inspired the team with a combination a stirring team talk and a great kicking game to a 9–6 victory, ensuring the series could not be lost, after which he was dubbed "Morgan the Magnificent" by the South African press. After his Lions heroics Morgan was made captain of Wales, and helped them win the title (although not the Grand Slam) in 1956.
Australia played against and were defeated by Cardiff for the third time in 1957, 14–11 thanks to two great tries from Gordon Wells, after which a reporter from the Sydney Daily Telegraph wrote "we fell to the world's best rugby union club", and another unofficial championship title was secured in 1957–58, but only second row Bill "Roddy" Evans was selected for the Lions in 1959, although he started four of the six Tests. A downturn in Welsh and Cardiff fortunes occurred around this time, although prop Kingsley Jones and second row Keith Rowlands from the club were still selected for the 1962 Lions tour, and Cardiff managed to come within a point of beating the All Blacks again in 1963, scoring the only try of the game. However, the slump began to end in 1964, when Wales shared the Five Nations title with Scotland, after which Wales won the Triple Crown and the title in 1965, followed by another championship in 1966, although the Grand Slam still eluded them. However, these successes helped Cardiff players centre Ken Jones and prop Howard Norris win places on the Lions tour to New Zealand. Later that year Cardiff beat Australia 14–8, although Wales were not able to repeat the feat a month later, losing 14–11.
The 1968 Lions tour was a historic one, containing a record six Cardiff players, wings Keri Jones and Maurice Richards, prop John O'Shea, (then) centre Gerald Davies, fly-half Barry John and scrum-half Gareth Edwards. While Jones and Richards would soon switch codes to play rugby league and O'Shea's tour would be marred somewhat by being the first Lion ever to be sent off for foul play, Davies, John and Edwards would go on to become legends, although their careers got off to inauspicious starts, the Lions losing three of the Tests again South Africa and only drawing the other one.
On the domestic front, they were denied silverware, as despite being top of the unofficial table for almost the whole season, the loss of their six Lions at the end of the season allowed Llanelli to overtake them. Cardiff again finished second behind Newport the next year, with Richards the only Lion to make more than 20 appearances. However, Wales won the Five Nations title and Triple Crown in 1969, only denied the Grand Slam by a draw in France, only to be whitewashed in three games against New Zealand and Australia in the summer.
The Seventies
1971 however, was the year in which John, Edwards and Davies would write themselves into history. Davies by this time had left for London Welsh, although he would later return. In the spring, they were all ever-presents in Wales's first Grand Slam in 18 years, and in the summer, they were selected for the Lions tour to New Zealand, along with Cardiff teammate John Bevan. The tour remains the only occasion where the Lions have returned victorious from New Zealand. All four Cardiff players started the first Test, and all except Bevan played in the other three Tests. Despite only playing in the first Test, John Bevan became the Lions' record try scorer (including matches against club teams) with 17. Barry John was given the title "King Barry" by the New Zealanders after scoring 30 of the Lions' 48 points, and in him and Edwards, Cardiff could justifiably be said to have the best two half-backs in the world.
1971–72 was the first season where the WRU Challenge Cup was introduced. Cardiff reached the semi-final, before being beaten 16–9 at the Brewery Field by Neath, who went on to beat Llanelli in the final. Unfortunately in 1972 Barry John announced his decision to retire at the age of 27, not liking the celebrity status shoved on him and his family after the Lions tour.
The next season was also disappointing for Cardiff, although fullback John Davies scored a club record of 209 points (in his first season for the club). They were soundly beaten by New Zealand 20–4, only a week after Llanelli had beaten them 9–3. In the Cup, they defeated South Wales Police, Mountain Ash, Ebbw Vale, Blaina and Swansea on their way to the final, but were again outclassed and lost 30–7 to Llanelli. In 1973–74 Cardiff reached the Cup semi-finals for the third year running, but were defeated 9–4 by Aberavon. Gareth Edwards however, led his country to a 24–0 win over Australia in November 1973. In 1974, Gerald Davies decided to return to Cardiff from London Welsh. Edwards and Davies were picked for the 1974 Lions tour to South Africa (although Davies refused to go in protest against apartheid) and Edwards started all four Tests, where the Lions went unbeaten through all 22 matches and would probably have won all their games, but in the final Test the South African referee blew the final whist four minutes early with the scores level and the Lions camped on the South African line.
In 1974–75 Cardiff failed to reach the WRU Challenge Cup semi-finals for the first time, losing 13–12 to Bridgend in the third round, despite not conceding a try in the entire Cup. However, on 1 November 1975, Cardiff met Australia for the fifth time in their history and, for the fifth time defeated them, 14–9, despite the absence of Edwards due to influenza. Both Edwards and Davies represented Wales in the 1976 Five Nations Grand Slam. During 1976–77, Cardiff defeated Pontypool and Aberavon on their way to the Challenge Cup final, where they were beaten 16–15 by Newport. Edwards decided not to go on the 1977 Lions tour, to show loyalty to his company who had let him go on three Lions tours previously. However, another Cardiff scrum-half, uncapped Brynmor Williams was picked, and played in the first three Tests before being injured in the third.
Both Davies and Edwards started for Wales in the 20–16 victory away to Ireland in the 1978 Five Nations that sealed a record three Triple Crowns in as many years, with Edwards also starting the next week and also dropping a goal in the 16–7 victory against France that sealed Wales their third Grand Slam in eight years. This was Gareth Edwards' final match for Wales – he had won 53 consecutive caps, never being dropped or injured, and scored 20 tries. Gerald Davies also retired from Wales after a 19–17 defeat in Sydney – tied with Edwards on 20 tries, scored in 46 caps.
In the 1977–78 club season, Davies had a fantastic game against Pontypool where despite only touching the ball four times due to the dominance of the Pooler pack, he scored four tries, with those being Cardiff's only points in a 16–11 victory. Cardiff's cup run continued to the semi-finals, where they were beaten by Swansea 18–13.
The Eighties
Flanker Stuart Lane, fly-half Gareth Davies, hooker Alan Phillips and scrum-half Terry Holmes from the club were chosen to tour with the Lions to South Africa in 1980, however Davies was the only one to start a Test match. The four went on to help Cardiff finally break their duck and win the WRU Challenge Cup (known as the Schweppes Cup for sponsorship reasons) with a 14–6 victory over Bridgend the following season, with Davies scoring two penalties and tries from centre Neil Hutchings and back-rower Robert Lakin. They repeated the feat in 1982, winning on try count thanks to a score from prop Ian Eidman after a 12–12 draw again against Bridgend, with the other points coming from fly-half David Barry, and also ended a 24-year wait by winning the Unofficial Welsh Championship, thereby completing the club's first (and so far only) league and cup double.
In 1983 Terry Holmes was again picked for the Lions, this time alongside second row Bob Norster. Both players were picked for the first team but Holmes was injured in the first Test and Norster in the second, ending their tours.
Cardiff had been knocked in the quarter-finals of the 1982–83 cup by eventual winners Pontypool, but made it up for it with a third triumph in four years, beating Neath 24–19 in the final with tries from flanker Owen Golding and wing Gerald Cordle and 16 points from Gareth Davies. Then, on 12 October 1984, they beat Australia 16–12, thanks to eight points from Gareth Davies along with a penalty try and a score from Adrian Hadley. The same Australian side went on to complete a "Grand Slam" (beating England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland). Australia haven't played Cardiff RFC since, leaving the club with a perfect record of six wins from six games against the Wallabies (although Cardiff Blues did lose to Australia 31–3 in 2009). 1985 was very nearly another successful year for the club, beating Neath and Pontypool on their way to the Schweppes Cup final where, despite tries from wing Gerald Cordle and captain Alan Phillips alongside two penalties from Gareth Davies, they fell to an agonising 15–14 defeat to Llanelli. After this, Terry Holmes left the club to play rugby league.
The club bounced back immediately however, beating Newport in the final of 1985–86 cup final 28–21, with Adrian Hadley scoring a hat-trick, Holmes's replacement, scrum-half Neil O'Brien, bagging another try and 12 points coming from the boot of fly-half Gareth Davies in his last game for the club against Welsh opposition before retiring. One year later, Cardiff were part of the first Challenge Cup final to go to extra time, with the scores 9–9 after 80 minutes, all Cardiff's points coming from the boot of Davies's replacement, Geraint John. Gerald Cordle scored to break the deadlock but the conversion was missed and Swansea scored a converted try soon after, putting them in the lead. But a late drop goal from full-back Mike Rayer won it for the Arms Park side capping one of the most successful periods in the club's history, with five Schweppes Cup victories in seven years.
In 1987, the first Rugby World Cup was held in New Zealand. Cardiff props Dai Young, Jeff Whitefoot and Steve Blackmore, wing Adrian Hadley, centre Mark Ring and hooker Alan Phillips all were selected in Wales's squad (Young was called up as an injury replacement) which finished third.
Cardiff's success began to tail off towards the end of the 1980s, with Adrian Hadley leaving for rugby league in 1988 and Gerald Cordle following in 89, and they could only manage two Cup quarter-finals and one semi-final appearance in the last three years of the decade. However, both Dai Young and Bob Norster were selected for the Lions tour to Australia in 1989, the only Lions team to come from 1–0 down to win the series. Young followed Hadley and Cordle to rugby league shortly after this, while Whitefoot and Norster both retired in 1990.
League rugby
In 1990, the unofficial Welsh championship was replaced by a league structure involving promotion and relegation. Cardiff competed in top flight but could only manage a fourth-place finish in 1990–91, and exited the Cup at the quarter-final stage. The season did involve some highlights however, such as beating league runners-up and Cup champions Llanelli 43–0 at the Arms Park and beating league champions Neath 18–4 away in the last game of the season.
1991–92 was possibly the club's worst-ever season, beset with disagreements between coach Alan Phillips and manager John Scott. Cardiff crashed out of the Cup before the quarter-final stage and lost at home to Maesteg and Newbridge in the league. Their final league finish was ninth, which would have led to their relegation but the WRU decided mid-season to switch to a 12-team Premiership, therefore saving Cardiff and Maesteg from relegation. Both Scott and Phillips resigned following the season.
Australian Alex Evans took over at Cardiff as coach for the 1992–93 season, bringing in former Arms Park legend Terry Holmes and famous ex-Pontypool front-row member Charlie Faulkner as assistants, and helped a turnaround in the club's fortunes, winning their first seven matches of the season and 20 of their first 22 to top the league in the new year. This run came to an end on 23 January; they were knocked out of the Schweppes Cup by St Peter's, who were fourth from bottom of Division Four. The Blue and Blacks only lost four league games all season though, but were unlucky to be competing against Llanelli in the league, who won the double and were considered the best club team in the UK after beating Australia 13–9.
In 1993–94 they slid back to fourth in the league but won the SWALEC Cup (renamed from Schweppes Cup for sponsorship reasons) by beating Llanelli, who'd won the tournament for the last three years running. The score in the final was 15–8, with tries from Mike Rayer and club captain centre Mike Hall and kicks from fly-half Adrian Davies. In 1994–95 Cardiff won the final league title of the amateur era in Wales, as well as reaching the semi-finals of the Cup before going down 16–9 to Swansea.
Professionalism
With professionalism dawned a new era at Cardiff RFC. It allowed them to sign legendary outside-half Jonathan Davies back from rugby league, and another major change was that there would be a European Cup, sponsored by Heineken, containing teams from France, Ireland, Wales, Italy and Romania (England and Scotland did not join for another year). Cardiff progressed to the knock-out stages in November by drawing with Bordeaux-Begles and beating Ulster. December saw the end of the Alex Evans era, as he departed to return home to Australia. Terry Holmes took charge of the club, and in his first full match the Blue and Blacks beat Leinster away to progress to the first Heineken Cup final. The game was played at Cardiff Arms Park in front of a crowd of 21,800, where despite 18 points from the boot of Adrian Davies, Cardiff were beaten 21–18 by Toulouse after extra time.
Cardiff, despite not losing a league game under Holmes, were runners-up on the domestic front as well, finishing level with Neath on points but coming second on try count. After the end of the 95–96 season Peter Thomas invested money into the club allowing them to sign Rob Howley, Dai Young back from rugby league, Leigh Davies, Gwyn Jones and Justin Thomas for the cost of around £2million. Internationals Mark Ring, Steven Blackmore and the half-backs that had started the Heineken Cup final, Andy Moore and Adrian Davies all departed.
Despite all the new signings, Cardiff lost their first three games of the season, and the 1996/97 season was in many respects worse than the year before – Cardiff were knocked out in the Heineken Cup semi-finals by eventual champions Brive, and in the Welsh Premier Division they fell to third, behind champions Pontypridd and Llanelli. However, after Alex Evans returned to head up the coaching team, that season did lead to some silverware, as Cardiff beat Llanelli 36–26 in the semi-final and Swansea 33–26 in the final of the SWALEC Cup. Grzegorz Kacala and Tony Rees, both forwards part of the Brive team that knocked Cardiff out of the Heineken Cup and went on to win it, were signed for 1997/98 along with Wales internationals Steve Williams and Spencer John (Gareth Thomas also arrived in December from Bridgend).
Despite Cardiff's difficulties, compounded by those of the national team, Howley and Young were both chosen to go on 1997 Lions tour to South Africa. Howley had to return home early due to injury and neither of the two Cardiff players started a Test match.
In the 1997/98 season, Cardiff were Wales's sole representative in the quarter finals of the Heineken Cup, and were beaten away in rematch of the previous year's quarter-final, by Bath, who would go on to win the tournament. However, their domestic cup campaign ended before the quarter final stage, losing 24–9 to Ebbw Vale, and they finished runners up to Swansea in the League. Following this season, Alex Evans left Cardiff for Australia for the second time and Terry Holmes was put back in charge.
Rebel season
Cardiff and Swansea had proposed the formation of a British league, containing the top division English clubs, the two Scottish regional sides (Edinburgh and Glasgow) and four Welsh clubs (seeing as Cardiff had got further than any other Welsh club in every Heineken Cup so far, Swansea were the league champions and they represented the two largest urban areas in Wales, it was assumed two of these clubs would be Cardiff and Swansea).
Both the RFU and the English clubs had agreed to this, but the WRU refused due to an ongoing legal battle with the English clubs over the negotiation of commercial rights (which would lead to the English clubs not participating in the 1998–99 Heineken Cup). Instead, the WRU demanded all top-flight clubs sign 10-year loyalty agreements, where they were guaranteed top-flight status and committed themselves to staying within the Welsh league structure.
Cardiff and Swansea refused to sign these agreements and were expelled from the Welsh Premier Division. The Allied Dunbar Premiership (the English league) teams announced that two teams would have a rest weekend every week allowing them to play friendlies against Cardiff and Swansea. Cardiff's first home match of the season was against Saracens, who'd finished second in the Allied Dunbar Premiership the season before. Cardiff won 40–19 in front of a crowd of 10,021, larger than the entire combined attendance of the Welsh Premier Division that weekend. The club went on to win all their home games, but fell to defeat ten times on their travels.
Although Cardiff and Swansea were both expelled from the Welsh League, they were allowed to continue to compete in the SWALEC Cup against Welsh opposition. Both teams reached the semi-finals, Swansea were to play Cross Keys and Cardiff Llanelli. In the week prior to the game, Cardiff chairman Peter Thomas spoke to the players following a training session, where he emphasised the importance of winning the game, describing it as "the biggest game in the club's history". Cardiff lost 39–10 in a match chief executive Gareth Davies described "The worst performance by a Cardiff side I have ever seen." Six days later, it was announced Terry Holmes would stand down as coach at the end of the season, and Pontypridd and Wales assistant coach Lyn Howells would take charge on a two-year contract.
Swansea went on to beat Llanelli 37–10 in the cup final, but the rebels were still forced to sign loyalty agreements and return to Welsh domestic setup, now including Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Lynn Howells
After the unsuccessful rebel season, Cardiff sign British Lion outside-half Neil Jenkins as well as Wales internationals second-row Craig Quinnell and flanker Martyn Williams. The start of the 1999–2000 season for Cardiff was hampered by them missing 13 first choice players due to the World Cup, and in late September they fell to a humiliating 60–18 defeat away to Llanelli at Stradey Park. However, despite this poor start and failing to win in the first rounds of the Heineken Cup, they progressed to the Heineken Cup quarter-finals, where they were beaten by Llanelli, and clinched the Welsh/Scottish League title with three games remaining, The season is also notable for a club record victory of 116–0 over Duvnant in the Welsh/Scottish League, and the club going unbeaten at home for almost the whole season, before losing 41–40 to Swansea in their very last game of the season (with the title already sewn up). This was Cardiff's first defeat at the Arms Park for over two years, since 13 December 1997, again against Swansea.
During the close season Cardiff lost Leigh Davies to Llanelli but signed South African centre Pieter Muller to replace him. They won their first five Welsh/Scottish League matches, seemingly making certain they would retain their title, especially as Swansea lost three of their first five games. The highlight of the season was in late October, when the Blue and Blacks stunned English Premiership leaders Saracens by defeating them home and away in the Heineken Cup.
The club's great form began to stutter as the millennium drew to a close, but it was in January the wheels really came off. After a magnificent 42–16 victory over Ulster, two yellow cards led Cardiff to defeat in Toulouse, meaning they would have to travel to Gloucester in the quarter-finals. A turgid forward battle resulted in a 21–15 defeat for the Blue and Blacks. Two weeks later they then lost to Bridgend, their first home defeat of the season, meaning Swansea pulled ahead in the title race. Another defeat at Ebbw Vale in March condemned them to a trophyless season.
Following the unsuccessful season Lynn Howells's contract was not renewed and Rudy Joubert was appointed director of rugby. Gareth Thomas also left the club along with nine other players, but Rob Appleyard, Matt Allen and Craig Hudson all joined.
For the 2001 Lions tour, four Cardiff players were picked, Rob Howley, Neil Jenkins, Dai Young and Martyn Williams. Young became the first player to tour for the Lions in three different decades. Howley started the first two Tests, with Williams on the bench in all three, and Jenkins coming on to replace Jonny Wilkinson in the second. Howley was dropped for the third, deciding Test.
Rudy Joubert
2001–02 was the first year of the Celtic League, containing teams from Wales, Ireland and Scotland. The pool stage would begin in mid-August and continue on for a month. Cardiff were drawn into the smaller, seven-team pool (with four teams going through to the quarter-finals).and started their campaign in unconvincing fashion, winning three games but still being knocked out of the competition on points difference.
In the Heineken Cup, rugby league convert Iestyn Harris, signed for £1million scored a hat-trick on his debut in a 46–7 against Glasgow. Overall the club's European form was mediocre however, as despite winning all their home games they failed to register an away win and were eliminated at the pool stage for the first time in their history
On the domestic front, Cardiff again went unbeaten at home until the final game of the season, but again were unable to back it up on the road and finished fourth – their first season out of the top three in a decade.
Dai Young
The off season was all change for Cardiff. Rudy Joubert returned home to South Africa and Dai Young became player-coach of the club. Internationals Rob Howley, Neil Jenkins, Craig Quinnell and Jonathan Humphreys all left the club as well. The Welsh/Scottish League was abolished, returning to just nine Welsh teams in the top-flight, and Celtic League games no longer counted towards the domestic league.
In the first two months of the season, Cardiff managed to improve on their Celtic League record from the previous year, winning four out of seven games and progressing to the knockout stage. The quarter final was away to Edinburgh on 30 November and, despite a dreadful first half performance that saw them 19–6 down at the break, a much improved second half performance saw them record a 26–22 win, and go through to the semi-finals.
Their decent start to the season collapsed after that however, with Cardiff failing to score at home for the first-time in 30 years in a 31–0 defeat in the Heineken Cup against Northampton in December. January was a disastrous month for the club too, with a 32–10 thrashing away to Neath in the Celtic League semi-finals, despite the home team making 12 handling errors in Cardiff's 22. Two weeks later the club's first ever Heineken Cup whitewash was completed with a record 75–25 defeat away to Biarritz.
Domestically, the Blue and Blacks' final season as a top-tier rugby team was less disappointing. They reached the semi-finals of the Cup, although they capitulated in a similar fashion to their Celtic League semi-final, this time 44–10 away to Llanelli. In the League they finished third, 3 points behind Neath and 11 behind Bridgend.
Today
Today, Cardiff RFC Ltd runs two sides.
The Cardiff Blues now back at Cardiff Arms Park after three years playing at Cardiff City Stadium. The professional regional side, Cardiff Blues take part in the Pro14 league, Anglo-Welsh Cup and Heineken Cup. The Cardiff RFC club side take part in the Welsh Premier Division, WRU Challenge Cup and the British and Irish Cup.
Current squad
The Arms Park
Club Rugby games were moved to what was the cricket ground and a new stadium was built in 1969 as a result of an agreement between the Cardiff Athletic Club and the Welsh Rugby Union. On the site of the old Arms Park stadium, a new stadium was built, Welsh National Rugby Ground (also known as The National Stadium). In 1999, a brand new stadium was built in place of the National Stadium, which was named the Millennium Stadium. Cardiff Blues moved from the Arms Park for the 2009/10 season to play at the Cardiff City Stadium in Leckwith, Cardiff – the home of Cardiff City FC. After three seasons Cardiff Blues returned to their 'spiritual home' and will play the majority of future games at their traditional Arms Park home.
Club honours
Heineken Cup runners-up: 1996
Western Mail Welsh Championship winners: 1899, 1907, 1909, 1910, 1938, 1939, 1947, 1949, 1951, 1955, 1956, 1959, 1983
Middlesex 7s winners: 1939
Gala Sevens winners: 1964
Selkirk Sevens winners: 2006
Snelling Sevens winners: 1955, 1966, 1969, 1972, 1976, 1977, 1981, 1983, 1984
Welsh Cup: 1981, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1994, 1997, 2019
Welsh League: 1995
Welsh/Scottish League: 2000
Welsh Premiership: 2009, 2020*
British and Irish Lions
The following former players were selected for the British and Irish Lions touring squads whilst playing for Cardiff RFC. Gareth Thomas was selected for the 2005 Lions tour whilst playing for Toulouse
Wales International Captains
The following former players captained the Wales national rugby union team whilst playing for Cardiff RFC.
Other notable former players
The following players represented Cardiff and were capped at international level, but do not warrant inclusion in the above two lists.
Regional rugby
Since the advent of regional rugby in 2003, a number of Cardiff RFC players have gone on to represent Wales (some while still playing for the club rather than the regional side). The Cardiff club side have also had a number of players selected for Wales at U20 level and the Sevens side.
Games played against international opposition
See also
Rugby in Cardiff
References
Footnotes
External links
Cardiff RFC Former Players Association
Sport in Cardiff
Rugby clubs established in 1876
Welsh rugby union teams
World Rugby Hall of Fame inductees
1876 establishments in Wales | true | [
"Robert Oran Evans (born September 7, 1946) is an American college basketball coach. He was most recently the associate head coach with the University of North Texas. Evans served as head men's basketball coach at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) from 1992 to 1998 and Arizona State University from 1998 to 2006.\n\nEarly years\nEvans was born in Hobbs, New Mexico, the son of Gladys (née Spirlin), a home cleaner, and Oscar, a preacher and janitor. Robert was the fourth of seven children, all of whom would go on to graduate college.\n\nEvans played high school basketball at Hobbs High School under legendary coach Ralph Tasker. His senior year he was named co-captain. That year the team made it to the 1964 championship game and Evans was invited to the state all-star game in Albuquerque.\n\nEvans played junior college basketball at what is now Lubbock Christian University where he was named the school's first All-American. Both seasons he played at Lubbock Christian Evans was voted the teams’ best defensive player. In his second year with the team Evans was named team captain. In 1966 Evans earned his associate degree in Arts and Sciences. At Lubbock Christian Evans was teammates with Gerald Turner who would later become Chancellor of the University of Mississippi. Turner was instrumental in Evans’ hiring as head basketball coach in 1992.\n\nEvans transferred to New Mexico State University for the 1966–67 season where he was coached by Lou Henson. He was named team captain and led the Aggies to a 15–11 record and an NCAA Tournament appearance. The next season Evans again captained the team to a 23–6 record and another NCAA Tournament appearance. In 1967 Evans was selected NMSU's most outstanding athlete. In May 1968 Evans earned his bachelor's degree in education.\n\nCoaching career\nAfter his graduation, Evans was hired as an assistant at New Mexico State under Henson. When Henson left for Illinois in 1976, Evans moved to Texas Tech and served for 14 years as an assistant under Gerald Myers. After two years as an assistant at Oklahoma State under Eddie Sutton, Evans was hired at Ole Miss as its first black coach in a major sport.\n\nEvans inherited a program that had been one of the dregs of the Southeastern Conference for decades. The Rebels had not had a winning season in SEC play since 1982–83, and had only finished in the top half of the conference twice in 59 years of conference play. After four years rebuilding the program, the Rebels shocked the SEC by winning consecutive West Division titles in 1997 and 1998 and notching the first 20-win seasons in school history. Ole Miss had been one of the few longstanding members of a \"power conference\" to have never won 20 games in a season.\n\nIn 1998, Evans moved to Arizona State, which was reeling in the wake of a point-shaving scandal. His tenure at Arizona State was not nearly as successful as his tenure at Ole Miss, with only one NCAA appearance in eight seasons He was fired after the 2006 season.\n\nProfessional players coached\nOle Miss\n Ansu Sesay\n\nArizona State\n Ike Diogu\n Eddie House\n Tommy Smith\n Awvee Storey\n\nHead coaching record\n\nReferences\n\n1944 births\nLiving people\nAmerican men's basketball players\nArizona State Sun Devils men's basketball coaches\nBasketball coaches from New Mexico\nBasketball players from New Mexico\nCollege men's basketball head coaches in the United States\nJunior college men's basketball players in the United States\nNew Mexico State Aggies men's basketball coaches\nNew Mexico State Aggies men's basketball players\nOklahoma State Cowboys basketball coaches\nOle Miss Rebels men's basketball coaches\nPeople from Hobbs, New Mexico\nTCU Horned Frogs men's basketball coaches\nTexas Tech Red Raiders basketball coaches",
"Barry Steven Evans (born November 30, 1955) is a former Major League Baseball third baseman. He played all or part of five seasons in the major leagues from until . He was born in Atlanta, Georgia.\n\nPro career\nBarry Evans was drafted by the New York Mets in the 8th round of the June MLB draft out of West Georgia. Evans did not sign with the Mets. He was drafted again he next season, this time by the San Diego Padres in the second round. Evans, upon being drafted, reported to the Padres minor league affiliate in Walla Walla. In his first season of pro ball, Evans batted .358 and slugged 11 home runs for the single A team. The next season, Evans was promoted to San Diego's Double A team in Amarillo. There again, Evans showed his power at the plate by hitting ten home runs, and again batted over .300. The Padres rushed Evans to the big leagues, recalling him from Amarillo to the major league club, thus bypassing the Triple-A level.\n\nOn September 4, 1978, Evans made his major league debut in Atlanta against the Braves. Evans started at third and was part of an infield that included Gene Tenace at first, Mike Champion (baseball) at second, and future hall of famer Ozzie Smith at shortstop. Evans made an impressive debut, getting three hits in six at bats and driving in a run as the Padres easily beat the Braves 8-4, with Gaylord Perry earning his 16th win of the season. While Evans excelled at the plate, he did make an error in his MLB debut.\n\nOverall in his first season in the majors, Evans played in 24 games, batted .267 and drove in four runs. Evans made the Padres in 1979. He played 56 games while serving as an understudy to incumbent third baseman Paul Dade. Evans struggled at the plate. While he did hit his first home run in the majors, he struggled at the plate, hitting only .216. In 1980, Evans played the role of utility infielder, with Luis Salazar taking over the role of back-up third baseman. With the exception of Ozzie Smith, the entire infield saw turn over from the previous season, with former starter Dade reduced to a back-up as well. While Evans appeared in 73 games and his batting average improved, his ability to hit the long ball that he showed in the minors had failed to materialize in the majors. In 1981, Evans appeared in fewer games, with Tim Flannery getting more time as the main utility infielder. Ebven though there were multiple changes again in the Padres infield, Evans failed to capture a starting spot, as Salazar had passed Evans and was now the Padres starting third baseman.\n\nIn 1982, former Oakland A's manager Dick Williams took over as manager of the Padres. While San Diego enjoyed a .500 season, Evans was no longer there. Evans was acquired by the New York Yankees and split his time between the parent club and their Triple-A team, the Columbus Clippers. Evans played in his last major league game, going hitless against the Boston Red Sox. After playing in the minors in 1984, Evans signed with the Philadelphia Phillies in hopes of making it back to the majors. After spending three seasons with The Phillies Triple A team in Maine, Evans retired from baseball in 1986.\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n\nMajor League Baseball third basemen\nSan Diego Padres players\nNew York Yankees players\nWalla Walla Padres players\nHawaii Islanders players\nMaine Guides players\nColumbus Clippers players\nAmarillo Gold Sox players\nBaseball players from Georgia (U.S. state)\n1955 births\nLiving people"
] |
[
"Benjamin Lee Whorf",
"At Yale"
] | C_568bfed194e047a094ff5206bdcac551_1 | what did whorf do at yale | 1 | What did Benjamin Lee Whorf do at yale? | Benjamin Lee Whorf | Until his return from Mexico in 1930 Whorf had been entirely an autodidact in linguistic theory and field methodology, yet he had already made a name for himself in Middle American linguistics. Whorf had met Sapir, the leading US linguist of the day, at professional conferences, and in 1931 Sapir came to Yale from the University of Chicago to take a position as Professor of Anthropology. Alfred Tozzer sent Sapir a copy of Whorf's paper on "Nahuatl tones and saltillo". Sapir replied stating that it "should by all means be published"; however, it was not until 1993 that it was prepared for publication by Lyle Campbell and Frances Karttunen. Whorf took Sapir's first course at Yale on "American Indian Linguistics". He enrolled in a program of graduate studies, nominally working towards a PhD in linguistics, but he never actually attempted to obtain a degree, satisfying himself with participating in the intellectual community around Sapir. At Yale, Whorf joined the circle of Sapir's students that included such luminary linguists as Morris Swadesh, Mary Haas, Harry Hoijer, G. L. Trager and Charles F. Voegelin. Whorf took on a central role among Sapir's students and was well respected. Sapir had a profound influence on Whorf's thinking. Sapir's earliest writings had espoused views of the relation between thought and language stemming from the Humboldtian tradition he acquired through Franz Boas, which regarded language as the historical embodiment of volksgeist, or ethnic world view. But Sapir had since become influenced by a current of logical positivism, such as that of Bertrand Russell and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein, particularly through Ogden and Richards' The Meaning of Meaning, from which he adopted the view that natural language potentially obscures, rather than facilitates, the mind to perceive and describe the world as it really is. In this view, proper perception could only be accomplished through formal logics. During his stay at Yale, Whorf acquired this current of thought partly from Sapir and partly through his own readings of Russell and Ogden and Richards. As Whorf became more influenced by positivist science he also distanced himself from some approaches to language and meaning that he saw as lacking in rigor and insight. One of these was Polish philosopher Alfred Korzybski's General semantics, which was espoused in the US by Stuart Chase. Chase admired Whorf's work and frequently sought out a reluctant Whorf, who considered Chase to be "utterly incompetent by training and background to handle such a subject." Ironically, Chase would later write the foreword for Carroll's collection of Whorf's writings. CANNOTANSWER | Whorf had been entirely an autodidact in linguistic theory and field methodology, | Benjamin Lee Whorf (; April 24, 1897 – July 26, 1941) was an American linguist and fire prevention engineer. Whorf is widely known as an advocate for the idea that differences between the structures of different languages shape how their speakers perceive and conceptualize the world. This principle has frequently been called the “Sapir–Whorf hypothesis”, after him and his mentor Edward Sapir, but Whorf called it the principle of linguistic relativity, because he saw the idea as having implications similar to Einstein’s principle of physical relativity. The idea, however, follows from post-Hegelian 19th-century philosophy, especially from Wilhelm von Humboldt; and from Wilhelm Wundt's Völkerpsychologie.
Throughout his life Whorf was a chemical engineer by profession, but as a young man he took up an interest in linguistics. At first this interest drew him to the study of Biblical Hebrew, but he quickly went on to study the indigenous languages of Mesoamerica on his own. Professional scholars were impressed by his work and in 1930 he received a grant to study the Nahuatl language in Mexico; on his return home he presented several influential papers on the language at linguistics conferences.
This led him to begin studying linguistics with Edward Sapir at Yale University while still maintaining his day job at the Hartford Fire Insurance Company. During his time at Yale he worked on the description of the Hopi language, and the historical linguistics of the Uto-Aztecan languages, publishing many influential papers in professional journals. He was chosen as the substitute for Sapir during his medical leave in 1938. Whorf taught his seminar on "Problems of American Indian Linguistics". In addition to his well-known work on linguistic relativity, he wrote a grammar sketch of Hopi and studies of Nahuatl dialects, proposed a deciphering of Maya hieroglyphic writing, and published the first attempt towards a reconstruction of Uto-Aztecan.
After his death from cancer in 1941 his manuscripts were curated by his linguist friends who also worked to spread the influence of Whorf's ideas on the relation between language, culture and cognition. Many of his works were published posthumously in the first decades after his death. In the 1960s Whorf's views fell out of favor and he became the subject of harsh criticisms by scholars who considered language structure to primarily reflect cognitive universals rather than cultural differences. Critics argued that Whorf's ideas were untestable and poorly formulated and that they were based on badly analyzed or misunderstood data.
In the late 20th century, interest in Whorf's ideas experienced a resurgence, and a new generation of scholars began reading Whorf's works, arguing that previous critiques had only engaged superficially with Whorf's actual ideas, or had attributed to him ideas he had never expressed. The field of linguistic relativity studies remains an active focus of research in psycholinguistics and linguistic anthropology, and continues to generate debate and controversy between proponents of relativism and proponents of universalism. By comparison, Whorf's other work in linguistics, the development of such concepts as the allophone and the cryptotype, and the formulation of "Whorf's law" in Uto-Aztecan historical linguistics, have met with broad acceptance.
Biography
Early life
The son of Harry Church Whorf and Sarah Edna Lee Whorf, Benjamin Lee Whorf was born on April 24, 1897 in Winthrop, Massachusetts. Harry Church Whorf was an artist, intellectual, and designer – first working as a commercial artist and later as a dramatist. Benjamin had two younger brothers, John and Richard, who both went on to become notable artists. John became an internationally renowned painter and illustrator; Richard was an actor in films such as Yankee Doodle Dandy and later an Emmy-nominated television director of such shows as The Beverly Hillbillies. Benjamin was the intellectual of the three and at a young age he conducted chemical experiments with his father's photographic equipment. He was also an avid reader, interested in botany, astrology, and Middle American prehistory. He read William H. Prescott's Conquest of Mexico several times. At the age of 17 he began to keep a copious diary in which he recorded his thoughts and dreams.
Career in fire prevention
Whorf graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1918 with a degree in chemical engineering where his academic performance was of average quality. In 1920 he married Celia Inez Peckham, who became the mother of his three children, Raymond Ben, Robert Peckham and Celia Lee. Around the same time he began work as a fire prevention engineer (an inspector) for the Hartford Fire Insurance Company. He was particularly good at the job and was highly commended by his employers. His job required him to travel to production facilities throughout New England to be inspected. One anecdote describes him arriving at a chemical plant in which he was denied access by the director because he would not allow anyone to see the production procedure which was a trade secret. Having been told what the plant produced, Whorf wrote a chemical formula on a piece of paper, saying to the director: "I think this is what you're doing". The surprised director asked Whorf how he knew about the secret procedure, and he simply answered: "You couldn't do it in any other way."
Whorf helped to attract new customers to the Fire Insurance Company; they favored his thorough inspections and recommendations. Another famous anecdote from his job was used by Whorf to argue that language use affects habitual behavior. Whorf described a workplace in which full gasoline drums were stored in one room and empty ones in another; he said that because of flammable vapor the "empty" drums were more dangerous than those that were full, although workers handled them less carefully to the point that they smoked in the room with "empty" drums, but not in the room with full ones. Whorf argued that by habitually speaking of the vapor-filled drums as empty and by extension as inert, the workers were oblivious to the risk posed by smoking near the "empty drums".
Early interest in religion and language
Whorf was a spiritual man throughout his lifetime although what religion he followed has been the subject of debate. As a young man he produced a manuscript titled "Why I have discarded evolution", causing some scholars to describe him as a devout Methodist, who was impressed with fundamentalism, and perhaps supportive of creationism. However, throughout his life Whorf's main religious interest was theosophy, a nonsectarian organization based on Buddhist and Hindu teachings that promotes the view of the world as an interconnected whole and the unity and brotherhood of humankind "without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or color". Some scholars have argued that the conflict between spiritual and scientific inclinations has been a driving force in Whorf's intellectual development, particularly in the attraction by ideas of linguistic relativity. Whorf said that "of all groups of people with whom I have come in contact, Theosophical people seem the most capable of becoming excited about ideas—new ideas."
Around 1924 Whorf first became interested in linguistics. Originally he analyzed Biblical texts, seeking to uncover hidden layers of meaning. Inspired by the esoteric work La langue hebraïque restituée by Antoine Fabre d'Olivet, he began a semantic and grammatical analysis of Biblical Hebrew. Whorf's early manuscripts on Hebrew and Maya have been described as exhibiting a considerable degree of mysticism, as he sought to uncover esoteric meanings of glyphs and letters.
Early studies in Mesoamerican linguistics
Whorf studied Biblical linguistics mainly at the Watkinson Library (now Hartford Public Library). This library had an extensive collection of materials about Native American linguistics and folklore, originally collected by James Hammond Trumbull. It was at the Watkinson library that Whorf became friends with the young boy, John B. Carroll, who later went on to study psychology under B. F. Skinner, and who in 1956 edited and published a selection of Whorf's essays as Language, Thought and Reality . The collection rekindled Whorf's interest in Mesoamerican antiquity. He began studying the Nahuatl language in 1925, and later, beginning in 1928, he studied the collections of Maya hieroglyphic texts. Quickly becoming conversant with the materials, he began a scholarly dialog with Mesoamericanists such as Alfred Tozzer, the Maya archaeologist at Harvard University, and Herbert Spinden of the Brooklyn Museum.
In 1928 he first presented a paper at the International Congress of Americanists in which he presented his translation of a Nahuatl document held at the Peabody Museum at Harvard. He also began to study the comparative linguistics of the Uto-Aztecan language family, which Edward Sapir had recently demonstrated to be a linguistic family. In addition to Nahuatl, Whorf studied the Piman and Tepecano languages, while in close correspondence with linguist J. Alden Mason.
Field studies in Mexico
Because of the promise shown by his work on Uto-Aztecan, Tozzer and Spinden advised Whorf to apply for a grant with the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) to support his research. Whorf considered using the money to travel to Mexico to procure Aztec manuscripts for the Watkinson library, but Tozzer suggested he spend the time in Mexico documenting modern Nahuatl dialects. In his application Whorf proposed to establish the oligosynthetic nature of the Nahuatl language. Before leaving Whorf presented the paper "Stem series in Maya" at the Linguistic Society of America conference, in which he argued that in the Mayan languages syllables carry symbolic content. The SSRC awarded Whorf the grant and in 1930 he traveled to Mexico City where Professor Robert H Barlow put him in contact with several speakers of Nahuatl to serve as his informants, among whom were Mariano Rojas of Tepoztlán and Luz Jimenez of Milpa Alta. The outcome of the trip to Mexico was Whorf's sketch of Milpa Alta Nahuatl, published only after his death, and an article on a series of Aztec pictograms found at the Tepozteco monument at Tepoztlán, Morelos in which he noted similarities in form and meaning between Aztec and Maya day signs.
At Yale
Until his return from Mexico in 1930 Whorf had been entirely an autodidact in linguistic theory and field methodology, yet he had already made a name for himself in Middle American linguistics. Whorf had met Sapir, the leading US linguist of the day, at professional conferences, and in 1931 Sapir came to Yale from the University of Chicago to take a position as Professor of Anthropology. Alfred Tozzer sent Sapir a copy of Whorf's paper on "Nahuatl tones and saltillo". Sapir replied stating that it "should by all means be published"; however, it was not until 1993 that it was prepared for publication by Lyle Campbell and Frances Karttunen.
Whorf took Sapir's first course at Yale on "American Indian Linguistics". He enrolled in a program of graduate studies, nominally working towards a PhD in linguistics, but he never actually attempted to obtain a degree, satisfying himself with participating in the intellectual community around Sapir. At Yale, Whorf joined the circle of Sapir's students that included such luminary linguists as Morris Swadesh, Mary Haas, Harry Hoijer, G. L. Trager and Charles F. Voegelin. Whorf took on a central role among Sapir's students and was well respected.
Sapir had a profound influence on Whorf's thinking. Sapir's earliest writings had espoused views of the relation between thought and language stemming from the Humboldtian tradition he acquired through Franz Boas, which regarded language as the historical embodiment of volksgeist, or ethnic world view. But Sapir had since become influenced by a current of logical positivism, such as that of Bertrand Russell and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein, particularly through Ogden and Richards' The Meaning of Meaning, from which he adopted the view that natural language potentially obscures, rather than facilitates, the mind to perceive and describe the world as it really is. In this view, proper perception could only be accomplished through formal logics. During his stay at Yale, Whorf acquired this current of thought partly from Sapir and partly through his own readings of Russell and Ogden and Richards. As Whorf became more influenced by positivist science he also distanced himself from some approaches to language and meaning that he saw as lacking in rigor and insight. One of these was Polish philosopher Alfred Korzybski's General semantics, which was espoused in the US by Stuart Chase. Chase admired Whorf's work and frequently sought out a reluctant Whorf, who considered Chase to be "utterly incompetent by training and background to handle such a subject." Ironically, Chase would later write the foreword for Carroll's collection of Whorf's writings.
Work on Hopi and descriptive linguistics
Sapir also encouraged Whorf to continue his work on the historical and descriptive linguistics of Uto-Aztecan. Whorf published several articles on that topic in this period, some of them with G. L. Trager, who had become his close friend. Whorf took a special interest in the Hopi language and started working with Ernest Naquayouma, a speaker of Hopi from Toreva village living in Manhattan, New York. Whorf credited Naquayouma as the source of most of his information on the Hopi language, although in 1938 he took a short field trip to the village of Mishongnovi, on the Second Mesa of the Hopi Reservation in Arizona.
In 1936, Whorf was appointed Honorary Research Fellow in Anthropology at Yale, and he was invited by Franz Boas to serve on the committee of the Society of American Linguistics (later Linguistic Society of America). In 1937, Yale awarded him the Sterling Fellowship. He was a lecturer in Anthropology from 1937 through 1938, replacing Sapir, who was gravely ill. Whorf gave graduate level lectures on "Problems of American Indian Linguistics". In 1938 with Trager's assistance he elaborated a report on the progress of linguistic research at the department of anthropology at Yale. The report includes some of Whorf's influential contributions to linguistic theory, such as the concept of the allophone and of covert grammatical categories. has argued, that in this report Whorf's linguistic theories exist in a condensed form, and that it was mainly through this report that Whorf exerted influence on the discipline of descriptive linguistics.
Final years
In late 1938, Whorf's own health declined. After an operation for cancer he fell into an unproductive period. He was also deeply influenced by Sapir's death in early 1939. It was in the writings of his last two years that he laid out the research program of linguistic relativity. His 1939 memorial article for Sapir, "The Relation of Habitual Thought And Behavior to Language", in particular has been taken to be Whorf's definitive statement of the issue, and is his most frequently quoted piece.
In his last year Whorf also published three articles in the MIT Technology Review titled "Science and Linguistics", "Linguistics as an Exact Science" and "Language and Logic". He was also invited to contribute an article to a theosophical journal, Theosophist, published in Madras, India, for which he wrote "Language, Mind and Reality". In these final pieces he offered a critique of Western science in which he suggested that non-European languages often referred to physical phenomena in ways that more directly reflected aspects of reality than many European languages, and that science ought to pay attention to the effects of linguistic categorization in its efforts to describe the physical world. He particularly criticized the Indo-European languages for promoting a mistaken essentialist world view, which had been disproved by advances in the sciences, whereas he suggested that other languages dedicated more attention to processes and dynamics rather than stable essences. Whorf argued that paying attention to how other physical phenomena are described in the study of linguistics could make valuable contributions to science by pointing out the ways in which certain assumptions about reality are implicit in the structure of language itself, and how language guides the attention of speakers towards certain phenomena in the world which risk becoming overemphasized while leaving other phenomena at risk of being overlooked.
Posthumous reception and legacy
At Whorf's death his friend G. L. Trager was appointed as curator of his unpublished manuscripts. Some of them were published in the years after his death by another of Whorf's friends, Harry Hoijer. In the decade following, Trager and particularly Hoijer did much to popularize Whorf's ideas about linguistic relativity, and it was Hoijer who coined the term "Sapir–Whorf hypothesis" at a 1954 conference. Trager then published an article titled "The systematization of the Whorf hypothesis", which contributed to the idea that Whorf had proposed a hypothesis that should be the basis for a program of empirical research. Hoijer also published studies of Indigenous languages and cultures of the American South West in which Whorf found correspondences between cultural patterns and linguistic ones. The term, even though technically a misnomer, went on to become the most widely known label for Whorf's ideas. According to John A. Lucy "Whorf's work in linguistics was and still is recognized as being of superb professional quality by linguists".
Universalism and anti-Whorfianism
Whorf's work began to fall out of favor less than a decade after his death, and he was subjected to severe criticism from scholars of language, culture and psychology. In 1953 and 1954 psychologists Roger Brown and Eric Lenneberg criticized Whorf for his reliance on anecdotal evidence, formulating a hypothesis to scientifically test his ideas, which they limited to an examination of a causal relation between grammatical or lexical structure and cognition or perception. Whorf himself did not advocate a straight causality between language and thought; instead he wrote that "Language and culture had grown up together"; that both were mutually shaped by the other. Hence, has argued that because the aim of the formulation of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis was to test simple causation, from the outset it failed to test Whorf's ideas.
Focusing on color terminology, with easily discernible differences between perception and vocabulary, Brown and Lenneberg published in 1954 a study of Zuni color terms that slightly support a weak effect of semantic categorization of color terms on color perception. In doing so they began a line of empirical studies that investigated the principle of linguistic relativity.
Empirical testing of the Whorfian hypothesis declined in the 1960s to 1980s as Noam Chomsky began to redefine linguistics and much of psychology in formal universalist terms. Several studies from that period refuted Whorf's hypothesis, demonstrating that linguistic diversity is a surface veneer that masks underlying universal cognitive principles. Many studies were highly critical and disparaging in their language, ridiculing Whorf's analyses and examples or his lack of an academic degree. Throughout the 1980s most mentions of Whorf or of the Sapir–Whorf hypotheses continued to be disparaging, and led to a widespread view that Whorf's ideas had been proven wrong. Because Whorf was treated so severely in the scholarship during those decades, he has been described as "one of the prime whipping boys of introductory texts to linguistics". In the late 1980s, with the advent of cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics some linguists sought to rehabilitate Whorf's reputation, as scholarship began to question whether earlier critiques of Whorf were justified.
By the 1960s analytical philosophers also became aware of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, and philosophers such as Max Black and Donald Davidson published scathing critiques of Whorf's strong relativist viewpoints. Black characterized Whorf's ideas about metaphysics as demonstrating "amateurish crudity". According to Black and Davidson, Whorf's viewpoint and the concept of linguistic relativity meant that translation between languages with different conceptual schemes would be impossible. Recent assessments such as those by Leavitt and Lee, however, consider Black and Davidson's interpretation to be based on an inaccurate characterization of Whorf's viewpoint, and even rather absurd given the time he spent trying to translate between different conceptual schemes. In their view the critiques are based on a lack of familiarity with Whorf's writings; according to these recent Whorf scholars a more accurate description of his viewpoint is that he thought translation to be possible, but only through careful attention to the subtle differences between conceptual schemes.
Eric Lenneberg, Noam Chomsky, and Steven Pinker have also criticized Whorf for failing to be sufficiently clear in his formulation of how language influences thought, and for failing to provide real evidence to support his assumptions. Generally Whorf's arguments took the form of examples that were anecdotal or speculative, and functioned as attempts to show how "exotic" grammatical traits were connected to what were considered equally exotic worlds of thought. Even Whorf's defenders admitted that his writing style was often convoluted and couched in neologisms – attributed to his awareness of language use, and his reluctance to use terminology that might have pre-existing connotations. argues that Whorf was mesmerized by the foreignness of indigenous languages, and exaggerated and idealized them. According to Lakoff, Whorf's tendency to exoticize data must be judged in the historical context: Whorf and the other Boasians wrote at a time in which racism and jingoism were predominant, and when it was unthinkable to many that "savages" had redeeming qualities, or that their languages were comparable in complexity to those of Europe. For this alone Lakoff argues, Whorf can be considered to be "Not just a pioneer in linguistics, but a pioneer as a human being".
Today many followers of universalist schools of thought continue to oppose the idea of linguistic relativity, seeing it as unsound or even ridiculous. For example, Steven Pinker argues in his book The Language Instinct that thought exists prior to language and independently of it, a view also espoused by philosophers of language such as Jerry Fodor, John Locke and Plato. In this interpretation, language is inconsequential to human thought because humans do not think in "natural" language, i.e. any language used for communication. Rather, we think in a meta-language that precedes natural language, which Pinker following Fodor calls "mentalese." Pinker attacks what he calls "Whorf's radical position", declaring, "the more you examine Whorf's arguments, the less sense they make." Scholars of a more "relativist" bent such as John A. Lucy and Stephen C. Levinson have criticized Pinker for misrepresenting Whorf's views and arguing against strawmen.
Resurgence of Whorfianism
Linguistic relativity studies have experienced a resurgence since the 1990s, and a series of favorable experimental results have brought Whorfianism back into favor, especially in cultural psychology and linguistic anthropology. The first study directing positive attention towards Whorf's relativist position was George Lakoff's "Women, Fire and Dangerous Things", in which he argued that Whorf had been on the right track in his focus on differences in grammatical and lexical categories as a source of differences in conceptualization. In 1992 psychologist John A. Lucy published two books on the topic, one analyzing the intellectual genealogy of the hypothesis, arguing that previous studies had failed to appreciate the subtleties of Whorf's thinking; they had been unable to formulate a research agenda that would actually test Whorf's claims. Lucy proposed a new research design so that the hypothesis of linguistic relativity could be tested empirically, and to avoid the pitfalls of earlier studies which Lucy claimed had tended to presuppose the universality of the categories they were studying. His second book was an empirical study of the relation between grammatical categories and cognition in the Yucatec Maya language of Mexico.
In 1996 Penny Lee's reappraisal of Whorf's writings was published, reinstating Whorf as a serious and capable thinker. Lee argued that previous explorations of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis had largely ignored Whorf's actual writings, and consequently asked questions very unlike those Whorf had asked. Also in that year a volume, "Rethinking Linguistic Relativity" edited by John J. Gumperz and Stephen C. Levinson gathered a range of researchers working in psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology to bring renewed attention to the issue of how Whorf's theories could be updated, and a subsequent review of the new direction of the linguistic relativity paradigm cemented the development. Since then considerable empirical research into linguistic relativity has been carried out, especially at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics with scholarship motivating two edited volumes of linguistic relativity studies, and in American Institutions by scholars such as Lera Boroditsky and Dedre Gentner.
In turn universalist scholars frequently dismiss as "dull" or "boring", positive findings of influence of linguistic categories on thought or behavior, which are often subtle rather than spectacular, suggesting that Whorf's excitement about linguistic relativity had promised more spectacular findings than it was able to provide.
Whorf's views have been compared to those of philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and the late Ludwig Wittgenstein, both of whom considered language to have important bearing on thought and reasoning. His hypotheses have also been compared to the views of psychologists such as Lev Vygotsky, whose social constructivism considers the cognitive development of children to be mediated by the social use of language. Vygotsky shared Whorf's interest in gestalt psychology, and he also read Sapir's works. Others have seen similarities between Whorf's work and the ideas of literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, who read Whorf and whose approach to textual meaning was similarly holistic and relativistic. Whorf's ideas have also been interpreted as a radical critique of positivist science.
Work
Linguistic relativity
Whorf is best known as the main proponent of what he called the principle of linguistic relativity, but which is often known as "the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis", named for him and Edward Sapir. Whorf never stated the principle in the form of a hypothesis, and the idea that linguistic categories influence perception and cognition was shared by many other scholars before him. But because Whorf, in his articles, gave specific examples of how he saw the grammatical categories of specific languages related to conceptual and behavioral patterns, he pointed towards an empirical research program that has been taken up by subsequent scholars, and which is often called "Sapir–Whorf studies".
Sources of influence on Whorf's thinking
Whorf and Sapir both drew explicitly on Albert Einstein's principle of general relativity; hence linguistic relativity refers to the concept of grammatical and semantic categories of a specific language providing a frame of reference as a medium through which observations are made. Following an original observation by Boas, Sapir demonstrated that speakers of a given language perceive sounds that are acoustically different as the same, if the sound comes from the underlying phoneme and does not contribute to changes in semantic meaning. Furthermore, speakers of languages are attentive to sounds, particularly if the same two sounds come from different phonemes. Such differentiation is an example of how various observational frames of reference leads to different patterns of attention and perception.
Whorf was also influenced by gestalt psychology, believing that languages require their speakers to describe the same events as different gestalt constructions, which he called "isolates from experience". An example is how the action of cleaning a gun is different in English and Shawnee: English focuses on the instrumental relation between two objects and the purpose of the action (removing dirt); whereas the Shawnee language focuses on the movement—using an arm to create a dry space in a hole. The event described is the same, but the attention in terms of figure and ground are different.
Degree of influence of language on thought
If read superficially, some of Whorf's statements lend themselves to the interpretation that he supported linguistic determinism. For example, in an often-quoted passage Whorf writes:
The statements about the obligatory nature of the terms of language have been taken to suggest that Whorf meant that language completely determined the scope of possible conceptualizations. However neo-Whorfians argue that here Whorf is writing about the terms in which we speak of the world, not the terms in which we think of it. Whorf noted that to communicate thoughts and experiences with members of a speech community speakers must use the linguistic categories of their shared language, which requires moulding experiences into the shape of language to speak them—a process called "thinking for speaking". This interpretation is supported by Whorf's subsequent statement that "No individual is free to describe nature with absolute impartiality, but is constrained by certain modes of interpretation even when he thinks himself most free". Similarly the statement that observers are led to different pictures of the universe has been understood as an argument that different conceptualizations are incommensurable making translation between different conceptual and linguistic systems impossible. Neo-Whorfians argue this to be a misreading since throughout his work one of his main points was that such systems could be "calibrated" and thereby be made commensurable, but only when we become aware of the differences in conceptual schemes through linguistic analysis.
Hopi time
Whorf's study of Hopi time has been the most widely discussed and criticized example of linguistic relativity. In his analysis he argues that there is a relation between how the Hopi people conceptualize time, how they speak of temporal relations, and the grammar of the Hopi language. Whorf's most elaborate argument for the existence of linguistic relativity was based on what he saw as a fundamental difference in the understanding of time as a conceptual category among the Hopi. He argued that the Hopi language, in contrast to English and other SAE languages, does not treat the flow of time as a sequence of distinct countable instances, like "three days" or "five years", but rather as a single process. Because of this difference, the language lacks nouns that refer to units of time. He proposed that the Hopi view of time was fundamental in all aspects of their culture and furthermore explained certain patterns of behavior. In his 1939 memorial essay to Sapir he wrote that “... the Hopi language is seen to contain no words, grammatical forms, construction or expressions that refer directly to what we call 'time', or to past, present, or future...”
Linguist Ekkehart Malotki challenged Whorf's analyses of Hopi temporal expressions and concepts with numerous examples how the Hopi language refers to time. Malotki argues that in the Hopi language the system of tenses consists of future and non-future and that the single difference between the three-tense system of European languages and the Hopi system, is that the latter combines past and present to form a single category.
Malotki's critique was widely cited as the final piece of evidence in refuting Whorf's ideas and his concept of linguistic relativity while other scholars defended the analysis of Hopi, arguing that Whorf's claim was not that Hopi lacked words or categories to describe temporality, but that the Hopi concept of time is altogether different from that of English speakers. Whorf described the Hopi categories of tense, noting that time is not divided into past, present and future, as is common in European languages, but rather a single tense refers to both present and past while another refers to events that have not yet happened and may or may not happen in the future. He also described a large array of stems that he called "tensors" which describes aspects of temporality, but without referring to countable units of time as in English and most European languages.
Contributions to linguistic theory
Whorf's distinction between "overt" (phenotypical) and "covert" (cryptotypical) grammatical categories has become widely influential in linguistics and anthropology. British linguist Michael Halliday wrote about Whorf's notion of the "cryptotype", and the conception of "how grammar models reality", that it would "eventually turn out to be among the major contributions of twentieth century linguistics".
Furthermore, Whorf introduced the concept of the allophone, a word that describes positional phonetic variants of a single superordinate phoneme; in doing so he placed a cornerstone in consolidating early phoneme theory. The term was popularized by G. L. Trager and Bernard Bloch in a 1941 paper on English phonology and went on to become part of standard usage within the American structuralist tradition. Whorf considered allophones to be another example of linguistic relativity. The principle of allophony describes how acoustically different sounds can be treated as reflections of a single phoneme in a language. This sometimes makes the different sound appear similar to native speakers of the language, even to the point that they are unable to distinguish them auditorily without special training. Whorf wrote that: "[allophones] are also relativistic. Objectively, acoustically, and physiologically the allophones of [a] phoneme may be extremely unlike, hence the impossibility of determining what is what. You always have to keep the observer in the picture. What linguistic pattern makes like is like, and what it makes unlike is unlike".(Whorf, 1940)
Central to Whorf's inquiries was the approach later described as metalinguistics by G. L. Trager, who in 1950 published four of Whorf's essays as "Four articles on Metalinguistics". Whorf was crucially interested in the ways in which speakers come to be aware of the language that they use, and become able to describe and analyze language using language itself to do so. Whorf saw that the ability to arrive at progressively more accurate descriptions of the world hinged partly on the ability to construct a metalanguage to describe how language affects experience, and thus to have the ability to calibrate different conceptual schemes. Whorf's endeavors have since been taken up in the development of the study of metalinguistics and metalinguistic awareness, first by Michael Silverstein who published a radical and influential rereading of Whorf in 1979 and subsequently in the field of linguistic anthropology.
Studies of Uto-Aztecan languages
Whorf conducted important work on the Uto-Aztecan languages, which Sapir had conclusively demonstrated as a valid language family in 1915. Working first on Nahuatl, Tepecano, Tohono O'odham he established familiarity with the language group before he met Sapir in 1928. During Whorf's time at Yale he published several articles on Uto-Aztecan linguistics, such as "Notes on the Tübatulabal language". In 1935 he published "The Comparative Linguistics of Uto-Aztecan", and a review of Kroeber's survey of Uto-Aztecan linguistics. Whorf's work served to further cement the foundations of the comparative Uto-Aztecan studies.
The first Native American language Whorf studied was the Uto-Aztecan language Nahuatl which he studied first from colonial grammars and documents, and later became the subject of his first field work experience in 1930. Based on his studies of Classical Nahuatl Whorf argued that Nahuatl was an oligosynthetic language, a typological category that he invented. In Mexico working with native speakers, he studied the dialects of Milpa Alta and Tepoztlán. His grammar sketch of the Milpa Alta dialect of Nahuatl was not published during his lifetime, but it was published posthumously by Harry Hoijer and became quite influential and used as the basic description of "Modern Nahuatl" by many scholars. The description of the dialect is quite condensed and in some places difficult to understand because of Whorf's propensity of inventing his own unique terminology for grammatical concepts, but the work has generally been considered to be technically advanced. He also produced an analysis of the prosody of these dialects which he related to the history of the glottal stop and vowel length in Nahuan languages. This work was prepared for publication by Lyle Campbell and Frances Karttunen in 1993, who also considered it a valuable description of the two endangered dialects, and the only one of its kind to include detailed phonetic analysis of supra-segmental phenomena.
In Uto-Aztecan linguistics one of Whorf's achievements was to determine the reason the Nahuatl language has the phoneme , not found in the other languages of the family. The existence of in Nahuatl had puzzled previous linguists and caused Sapir to reconstruct a phoneme for proto-Uto-Aztecan based only on evidence from Aztecan. In a 1937 paper published in the journal American Anthropologist, Whorf argued that the phoneme resulted from some of the Nahuan or Aztecan languages having undergone a sound change from the original * to in the position before *. This sound law is known as "Whorf's law", considered valid although a more detailed understanding of the precise conditions under which it took place has since been developed.
Also in 1937, Whorf and his friend G. L. Trager, published a paper in which they elaborated on the Azteco-Tanoan language family, proposed originally by Sapir as a family comprising the Uto-Aztecan and the Kiowa-Tanoan languages—(the Tewa and Kiowa languages).
Maya epigraphy
In a series of published and unpublished studies in the 1930s, Whorf argued that Mayan writing was to some extent phonetic. While his work on deciphering the Maya script gained some support from Alfred Tozzer at Harvard, the main authority on Ancient Maya culture, J. E. S. Thompson, strongly rejected Whorf's ideas, saying that Mayan writing lacked a phonetic component and is therefore impossible to decipher based on a linguistic analysis. Whorf argued that it was exactly the reluctance to apply linguistic analysis of Maya languages that had held the decipherment back. Whorf sought for cues to phonetic values within the elements of the specific signs, and never realized that the system was logo-syllabic. Although Whorf's approach to understanding the Maya script is now known to have been misguided, his central claim that the script was phonetic and should be deciphered as such was vindicated by Yuri Knorozov's syllabic decipherment of Mayan writing in the 1950s.
Notes
Commentary notes
References
Sources
External links
B. L. Whorf, .
Benjamin Lee Whorf Papers (MS 822). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.
What Whorf Really Said – Evaluation of Pinker's (1994) critique of Whorf, by Nick Yee
1897 births
1941 deaths
People from Winthrop, Massachusetts
Linguists from the United States
American anthropologists
American Mesoamericanists
MIT School of Engineering alumni
Linguists of Mesoamerican languages
Mesoamerican epigraphers
Mayanists
American translation scholars
20th-century Mesoamericanists
Yale University alumni
Linguists of Aztec–Tanoan languages
Linguists of Uto-Aztecan languages
Linguists of Tanoan languages
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20th-century anthropologists | true | [
"Michael Whorf (April 21, 1932 - November 10, 2020) was an American radio personality based in Detroit, Michigan. He was an announcer and program host on WJR from 1964 to 2003. Whorf was producer and host of the George Foster Peabody Award-winning documentary/narrative program Kaleidoscope, a combination of storytelling, interview, historic recordings and music on a particular topic.\n\nEarly years and family history\nWhorf was born in Brookline, Massachusetts and spent his childhood and teen years in Provincetown, Massachusetts. His father was internationally renowned watercolorist John Whorf. Whorf's sisters Carol Whorf Westcott and Nancy Whorf Kelly were also Provincetown artists, and his brother John was an established applied artist in Hingham. Whorf is nephew of linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf and nephew of actor and television director Richard Whorf.\n\nWhorf graduated from Provincetown High School in 1950. Upon graduation, Whorf enlisted in the United States Air Force where he served as a radio announcer and entertainer on the Armed Forces Network. His tour of duty included assignments at air bases in California, Texas and Morocco.\n\nProfessional history\nAfter his honorable discharge from the Air Force, Whorf worked as an announcer at WOCB in West Yarmouth, Massachusetts and at WCOJ in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, where he met and married his wife Barbara Ann Brown. He later developed the Kaleidoscope predecessor \"Tempo\" while on the air at WTAG in Worcester, Massachusetts. Whorf also worked briefly at WWL in New Orleans, Louisiana before returning to WTAG. Shortly after, he went on to WJR.\n\nThroughout the late 1960s and 1970s, Whorf was part of a line-up of radio personalities known throughout the region including J. P. McCarthy, Karl Haas, Jimmy Launce and MLB Hall of Fame broadcaster Ernie Harwell. Whorf's Kaleidoscope topics ranged from religion to politics, from the arts to sports. Some of Whorf's extended series included oral histories of Native American tribes and a collection of personal interviews with popular American song composers of the 1920s and 1930s entitled \"The Bards of Tinpan Alley\".\n\nWhorf was a published composer. His 1979 Christmas song \"The Man with a Hundred Names\" muses on the many names by which Santa Claus is known worldwide.\n\nIn 1970, Whorf formed the company Mike Whorf Inc. which sold to schools, libraries and individuals cassette tape copies of Kaleidoscope. In the late 1970s and 1980s, he partnered with nephew, author and retired United States Marine Corps Captain Charles \"Charlie\" T. Westcott III on radio dramas and comedies that were featured during the Kaleidoscope hour, including the old-time radio parodies \"Big Jim Small\" and \"Another Man’s Family.\"\n\nWhorf briefly parted from WJR from 1983 to 1984 to serve as program director of classical station WQRS-FM in Detroit. While with WQRS, Whorf created the program \"Quest for Excellence,\" a juried music competition show for young talents broadcast live before a studio audience. Whorf later brought that program to CKLW in Windsor, Ontario and took it with him upon his return to WJR.\n\nWhorf's programs were also broadcast by WVXU-FM, the National Public Radio affiliate station of Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio.\n\nIn addition to his Peabody-winning work on topics including the life and times of Martin Luther King Jr., Whorf also received multiple broadcasting awards from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge.\n\nIn 2008, he was inducted into the Michigan Broadcasting Hall of Fame by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \"Kaleidoscope\" - archive at The Public Radio Exchange.\n \"The Man with a Hundred Names\" - used print copies at Amazon.\n Copyright 1979 Shawnee Press sheet music # EA-7. - contact to get reproduction copyright permission.\n\nPeople from Brookline, Massachusetts\nAmerican radio personalities\nAmerican radio producers\nRadio personalities from Detroit\nRadio personalities from Boston\n1932 births\n2020 deaths",
"The Hopi time controversy is the academic debate about how the Hopi language grammaticalizes the concept of time, and about whether the differences between the ways the English and Hopi languages describe time are an example of linguistic relativity or not. In popular discourse the debate is often framed as a question about whether the Hopi \"had a concept of time,\" despite it now being well established that they do.\n\nThe debate originated in the 1940s when American linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf argued that the Hopi conceptualized time differently from the Standard Average European speaker, and that this difference correlated with grammatical differences between the languages. Whorf argued that Hopi has \"no words, grammatical forms, construction or expressions that refer directly to what we call 'time,'\" and concluded that the Hopi had \"no general notion or intuition of time as a smooth flowing continuum in which everything in the universe proceeds at equal rate, out of a future, through the present, into a past.\" Whorf used the Hopi concept of time as a primary example of his concept of linguistic relativity, which posits that the way in which individual languages encode information about the world, influences and correlates with the cultural world view of the speakers. Whorf's relativist views fell out of favor in linguistics and anthropology in the 1960s, but Whorf's statement lived on in the popular literature often in the form of an urban myth that \"the Hopi have no concept of time.\" In 1983 linguist Ekkehart Malotki published a 600-page study of the grammar of time in the Hopi language, concluding that he had finally refuted Whorf's claims about the language. Malotki's treatise gave hundreds of examples of Hopi words and grammatical forms referring to temporal relations. Malotki's central claim was that the Hopi do indeed conceptualize time as structured in terms of an ego-centered spatial progression from past, through present into the future. He also demonstrated that the Hopi language grammaticalizes tense using a distinction between future and non-future tenses, as opposed to the English tense system, which is usually analyzed as being based on a past/non-past distinction. Many took Malotki's work as a definitive refutation of the linguistic relativity hypothesis. Linguist and specialist in the linguistic typology of tense Bernard Comrie concluded that \"Malotki's presentation and argumentation are devastating.\" Psychologist Steven Pinker, a well-known critic of Whorf and the concept of linguistic relativity, accepted Malotki's claims as having demonstrated Whorf's complete ineptitude as a linguist.\n\nSubsequently, the study of linguistic relativity was revived using new approaches in the 1990s, and Malotki's study came under criticism from relativist linguists and anthropologists, who did not consider the study to invalidate Whorf's claims. The main issue of contention is the interpretation of Whorf's original claims about Hopi, and what exactly it was that he was claiming made Hopi different from what Whorf called \"Standard Average European\" languages. Some consider that the Hopi language may be best described as a tenseless language, and that the distinction between non-future and future posited by Malotki may be better understood as a distinction between realis and irrealis moods. Regardless of exactly how the Hopi concept of time is best analyzed, most specialists agree with Malotki that all humans conceptualize time by an analogy with space, although some recent studies have also questioned this.\n\nThe Hopi language\nThe Hopi language is a Native American language of the Uto-Aztecan language family, which is spoken by some 5,000 Hopi people in the Hopi Reservation in Northeastern Arizona, US.\n\nIn the large Hopi dictionary there is no word exactly corresponding to the English noun \"time.\" Hopi employs different words to refer to \"a duration of time\" (pàasa \"for that long\"), to a point in time (pàasat \"at that time\"), and time as measured by a clock (pahàntawa), as an occasion to do something (hisat or qeni), a turn or the appropriate time for doing something (qeniptsi (noun)), and to have time for something (aw nánaptsiwta (verb)).\n\nTime reference can be marked on verbs using the suffix -ni\nMomoyam piktota, \"The women are/were making piki,\" Women piki-make\nMomoyam piktota-ni, \"The women will be making piki,\" Women piki-make-NIThe -ni suffix is also used in the word naatoniqa which means \"that which will happen yet\" in reference to the future. This word is formed from the adverb naato \"yet,\" the -ni suffix and the clitic -qa that forms a relative clause with the meaning \"that which...\"\n\nThe -ni suffix is also obligatory on the main verb in conditional clauses:\n\nKur nu' pam tuwa nu' wuuvata-ni, \"if I see him I'll run away,\" If I him see I run-NIThe suffix is also used in conditional clauses referring to a past context then often combined with the particle as that carries past tense or counterfactual meaning, or describes unachieved intent:\nPam nuy tuwáq nu' so'on as wayaani, \"If he had seen me I wouldn't have run,\" he me see I Neg Past/Counterfact. run-NI\nNu' saytini, \"I will smile,\" I smile-NI\nNu' as saytini, \"I tried to smile/I should smile/I wanted to smile/I was going to smile,\" I Past/Counterfact. smile\n\nThe suffix -ngwu describes actions taking place habitually or as a general rule.\nTömö' taawa tatkyaqw yámangwu, \"In the winter the sun rises in the southeast\"\n\nBenjamin Lee Whorf\nBenjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1941), a fire prevention engineer by profession, studied Native American linguistics from an early age. He corresponded with many of the greatest scholars of his time, such as Alfred Tozzer at Harvard and Herbert Spinden of the American Museum of Natural History. They were impressed with his work on the linguistics of the Nahuatl language and encouraged him to participate professionally and to undertake field research in Mexico. In 1931 Edward Sapir, the foremost expert on Native American languages, started teaching at Yale, close to where Whorf lived, and Whorf signed up for graduate-level classes with Sapir, becoming one of his most respected students. Whorf took a special interest in the Hopi language and started working with Ernest Naquayouma, a speaker of Hopi from Toreva village on the Second Mesa of the Hopi Reservation in Arizona, who was living in the Manhattan borough of New York City. At this time it was common for linguists to base their descriptions of a language on data from a single speaker. Whorf credited Naquayouma as the source of most of his information on the Hopi language, although in 1938 he took a short field trip to the village of Mishongnovi on the Second Mesa, collecting some additional data.\n\nWhorf published several articles on Hopi grammar, focusing particularly on the ways in which the grammatical categories of Hopi encoded information about events and processes, and how this correlated with aspects of Hopi culture and behavior. After his death his full sketch of Hopi grammar was published by his friend the linguist Harry Hoijer, and some essays on Native American linguistics, many of which had been previously published in academic journals, were published in 1956 in the anthology Language, Thought, and Reality by his friend psychologist John Bissell Carroll.\n\nWhorf on Hopi time\nWhorf's most frequently cited statement regarding Hopi time is the strongly worded introduction of his 1936 paper \"An American Indian model of the Universe,\" which was first published posthumously in Carroll's edited volume. Here he writes that\n\nWhorf argues that in Hopi units of time are not represented by nouns, but by adverbs or verbs. Whorf argues that all Hopi nouns include the notion of a boundary or outline, and that consequently the Hopi language does not refer to abstract concepts with nouns. This, Whorf argues, is encoded in Hopi grammar, which does not allow durations of time to be counted in the same way objects are. So instead of saying, for example, \"three days,\" Hopi would say the equivalent of \"on the third day,\" using ordinal numbers. Whorf argues that the Hopi do not consider the process of time passing to produce another new day, but merely as bringing back the daylight aspect of the world.\n\nHopi as a tenseless language\nWhorf gives slightly different analyses of the grammatical encoding of time in Hopi in his different writings. His first published writing on Hopi grammar was the paper \"The punctual and segmentative aspects of verbs in Hopi,\" published in 1936 in Language, the journal of the Linguistic Society of America. Here Whorf analyzed Hopi as having a tense system with a distinction between three tenses: one used for past or present events (which Whorf calls the Factual tense or present-past); one for future events; and one for events that are generally or universally true (here called usitative). This analysis was repeated in a 1937 letter to J. B. Carroll, who later published it as part of his selected writings under the title \"Discussion of Hopi Linguistics.\"\n\nIn the 1938 paper \"Some verbal categories of Hopi,\" also published in Language, Whorf abandoned the word \"tense\" in the description of Hopi and described the distinction previously called \"tense\" with the label \"assertions.\" Whorf described assertions as a system of categories that describe the speaker's claim of epistemic validity of his own statement. The three \"assertions\" of Hopi described by Whorf are the Reportive, Expective and Nomic forms of the Hopi verb. Whorf acknowledges that these \"translate more or less [as] the English tenses,\" but maintains that these forms do not refer to time or duration, but rather to the speaker's claim of the validity of the statement. The reportive form is unmarked, whereas the expective form is marked with the verbal suffix -ni, and the nomic form with the suffix -ŋʷi. In Whorf's analysis, by using the reportive form the speaker claims that the event has in fact occurred or is still occurring, whereas by using the expective form the speaker describes an expectation of a future event. Whorf says that the expective can be used to describe events in the past, giving the meaning of \"was going to\" or \"would.\"\n\nIn the 1940 article \"Science and Linguistics,\" Whorf gave the same three-way classification based on the speaker's assertion of the validity of his statement: \"The timeless Hopi verb does not distinguish between the present, past and future of the event itself but must always indicate what type of validity the intends the statement to have: a. report of an event .. b. expectation of an event ..; generalization or law about events.\"\n\nIn his full sketch of Hopi grammar published posthumously in 1946, Whorf also described how adverbial particles contributed to the linguistic description of time in Hopi. He posited two subclasses of adverbs called temporals and tensors, which were used in sentences to locate events in time. A central claim in Whorf's work on linguistic relativity was that for the Hopi units of time were not considered objects that can be counted like most of the comparable English words that are described by nouns (a day, an hour etc.). He argued that only the Hopi word for \"year\" was a noun, the words for days and nights were ambivalent between noun and verbs, but that all other cyclic events and periods were described by adverbial particles used as modifiers for the sentence.\n\nWhorf's inspiration from Einsteinian physics\nIn his interpretation of Hopi time Whorf was influenced by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, which was developed in the first decades of the century and impacted the general Zeitgeist. Whorf, an engineer by profession, in fact made occasional reference to physical relativity, and he adopted the term \"linguistic relativity,\" reflecting the general concept of the different but equally valid interpretations of some aspects of physical reality by different observers due to differences in their (for Einstein) physical circumstances or (for Whorf) their psychological-linguistic circumstances.\n\nThe most salient points involve the concepts of simultaneity and spacetime. In his 1905 Special Relativity paper, Einstein maintained that two given events can legitimately be called simultaneous if and only if they take place at the same point in time and''' in the same point in space. No two events which take place at a spatial distance from one another can legitimately be declared to be simultaneous in any absolute sense, for the judgement of simultaneity or non-simultaneity will depend on the physical circumstances (to be exact: the relative motion) of the observers. This difference is no artifact; each of the observers is correct (and is wrong only to the extent he or she insists that another observer is incorrect).\n\nHermann Minkowski, in his seminal 1908 address to the Congress of German Physicists, translated Einstein's 1905 mathematical equations into geometric terms. Minkowski famously declared:\n\n\"Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality.\"\n\nSpatial distance and temporal distance between any two events was now replaced by a single absolute distance in spacetime.\n\nHeynick points to several passages in Whorf's writings on the Hopis which parallel Einsteinian concepts such as:\n\n\"time varies with each observer and does not permit of simultaneity\" (1940)\n\n\"The Hopi metaphysics does not raise the question whether the things at a distant village exist at the same moment as those in one's own village, for it ... says that any 'events' in the distant village can be compared to any events in one's own village only by an interval of magnitude that has both time and space forms in it.\" (c.1936) \n\nThe concept of a \"simultaneous now\" throughout the cosmos was formulated by Aristotle, Newton, and most succinctly in John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690):\n\n\"For this moment is common to all things that are now in being ... they all exist in the same moment of time.\"\n\nWhorf saw this notion as derived from the Standard Average European languages in which these thinkers thought: \"Newtonian space, time, and matter are no intuitions. They are recepts from culture and language. That is where Newton got them.\"\n\nHeynick, who claimed no personal knowledge of the Hopi language, posits alternative weaker and stronger interpretations of the influence of Einsteinian relativity on Whorf's analysis of the Hopi language and the Hopi concept of time. In the weaker version, the (then) new questioning of the nature of time and space brought about by the Einsteinian revolution in physics enabled Whorf to approach the Hopis and their language unburdened by traditional Western concepts and presumptions. The stronger version is that Whorf under the influence of Einstein tended inadvertently to \"read into\" his linguistic and cultural data relativistic concepts where they perhaps were not.\n\nThe myth of the timeless Hopi\nWhorf died in 1941, but his ideas took on their own life in academia and in the popular discourse on Native Americans. In 1958 Stuart Chase—an economist and engineer at MIT who had followed Whorf's ideas with great interest, but whom Whorf himself considered utterly incompetent and incapable of understanding the nuances of his ideas—published \"Some things worth knowing: a generalist's guide to useful knowledge.\" Here he repeated Whorf's claim about Hopi time, but arguing that because of the Hopi view of time as a process, they were better able to understand the concept of time as a fourth dimension. Similarly, even scientists were intrigued by the thought that the idea of spatio-temporal unity that had taken Albert Einstein seven years to ponder, was readily available to the Hopi, simply because of the grammar of their language.\n\nIn 1964 John Greenway published a humorous portrait of American culture, The Inevitable Americans, in which he wrote: \"You have a watch, because Americans are obsessed with time. If you were a Hopi Indian, you would have none, the Hopi have no concept of time.\" And even the 1971 ethnography of the Hopi by Euler and Dobyns claimed that \"The English concept of time is nearly incomprehensible to the Hopi.\" The myth quickly became a staple element of New Age conceptualizations of the Hopi.\n\nMax Black and Helmut Gipper\nIn 1959 philosopher Max Black published a critique of Whorf's arguments in which he argued that the principle of linguistic relativity was obviously wrong because translation between languages is always possible, even when there are no exact correspondences between the single words or concepts in the two languages.\n\nGerman linguist and philosopher Helmut Gipper had studied with the neo-Humboldtian linguist Leo Weisgerber and had a basically Kantian understanding of the relation between language and thought. Immanuel Kant considered the categories of time and space to be universals underlying all human thinking. Whorf's argument that the Hopi do not conceive of time and space as speakers of Indo-European languages do clashed with this basic understanding of cognition. Gipper went to the Hopi reservation to collect data for a general critique of Whorf's principle of linguistic relativity published in 1972. His critique included a refutation of Whorf's Hopi arguments. Gipper showed that the Hopi could refer to time, by juxtaposing Hopi phrases with their German equivalents that used words referring to units of time and to distinctions between past and present. Gipper also argued that several time intervals were described by nouns, and that these nouns could take the role of syntactic subject or object, in contradiction of Whorf's explicit statement. He argues that Whorf's assertion that intervals of time are not counted in the same way as objects is \"questionable.\"\n\nEkkehart Malotki\nEkkehart Malotki studied with Gipper at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität at Münster and his work was a continuation of his mentor's, spurred on by the frequent claims in the popular literature that \"the Hopi have no concept of time.\" Malotki conducted four years of research on the Third Mesa, studying Hopi spatial and temporal reference. He published two large volumes, one in German, Hopi-Raum [Hopi space] and one in English, Hopi Time. For Malotki it was imperative to demonstrate two facts in contradiction of Whorf's claims: 1. that the Hopi language has an abundance of terms, words and constructions that refer to time. 2. that the Hopi do cognitively conceptualize time in analogy with physical space, using spatial metaphors to describe durations and units of time. He also wanted to demonstrate that Whorf misanalyzed several particularities regarding specific Hopi words and expressions. Malotki states that a main goal is to present \"actual Hopi language data,\" since when he was writing very little textual data in Hopi had been published, and Whorf's publications were largely without text examples. Hopi Time opens with a quotation drawn from his extensive field work, which directly challenges Whorf's claim of a lack of temporal terms in the Hopi language: \"Then [pu’] indeed, the following day, quite early in the morning at the hour when people pray to the sun, around that time then [pu’] he woke up the girl again.\"\n\nHopi Time (1983)\nMost of Hopi Time is dedicated to the detailed description of the Hopi usage of words and constructions related to time. Malotki describes in detail the usage of a large amount of linguistic material: temporal adverbs, time units, time counting practices such as the Hopi calendar, the way that days are counted and time is measured.\n\nThe first part of the book describes \"spatio-temporal metaphors;\" in it he shows several deictic adverbs that are used both to reference distance in space and in time, such as the word ep that means both \"there\" and \"then.\" In the second chapter he describes the way in which the Hopi talk about units of time. He argues that in some contexts, specifically those of the ceremonial cycle, the Hopi do count days, using compound words such as payistala \"the third day (of a ceremony)\" composed of the morphemes paayo \"three,\" s \"times,\" and taala' \"day/light,\" meaning literally \"three-times-day.\" He also shows that the Hopi reckon time through the movement of the sun, having distinct words for the different degrees of light during the dawn and dusk periods. He also notes that the feeling of time passing can be described by saying \"the sun moves slowly/quickly.\" Parts 3, 4, 5, and 6 describe Hopi time-keeping practices using the sun relative to the horizon, using the stars, the ceremonial calendar and the use of time-keeping devices such as knotted strings or notched sticks with a mark or knot for every day, sun-hole alignment and shadow observation. The eighth chapter describes the temporal particles that Whorf defined as temporals and tensors. He argues that Whorf's descriptions are vague and alienating.\n\nMalotki on tense in Hopi\nThe concept of Hopi tense is covered in the last part of chapter 9, titled \"miscellaneous,\" and in the conclusion. Malotki follows Gipper in arguing that time is a natural category and that it is naturally experienced in terms of past, present and future, even though many languages do not necessarily grammaticalize all of these distinctions. He analyzes the Hopi -ni suffix as marking the future tense. He argues that since there is no grammatical distinction between past and present, Hopi has a future-nonfuture tense system. Malotki distinguishes between primary and secondary functions of the -ni suffix, arguing that its primary function is temporal reference and that its many modal functions such as imperative, hortative and desiderative are of secondary importance. Malotki does admit that the English and Hopi systems of tense are different since the English system distinguishes past from non-past, whereas Hopi distinguishes future from non-future.\n\nFurther debates\nSubsequent descriptions of Hopi grammar have maintained Malotki's distinction between an unmarked non-future tense and a future tense marked with the -ni suffix, and a habitual aspect marked by the suffix -ngwu. The review by Bernard Comrie, a well-known authority on the linguistic typology of tense and aspect, accepts that Malotki's work demonstrates that the Hopi do have a concept of time and that it is devastating for Whorf's strong claims. But Comrie also notes that Malotki's \"claim that Hopi has a tense system based on the opposition of future and non-future ... strikes me as questionable: given the wide range of modal uses of the so-called future, it is at least plausible that this is a modal rather than temporal distinction, with the result that Hopi would have no tense distinction.\"\n\nLinguists and psychologists who work in the universalist tradition such as Steven Pinker and John McWhorter, have seen Malotki's study as being the final proof that Whorf was an inept linguist and had no significant knowledge or understanding of the Hopi language. This interpretation has been criticized by relativist scholars as unfounded and based on a lack of knowledge of Whorf's work.\n\nIn spite of Malotki's refutation, the myth that \"the Hopi have no concept of time\" lived on in the popular literature. For example, in her 1989 novel Sexing the Cherry, Jeanette Winterson wrote of the Hopi: \"...their language has no grammar in the way we recognize it. And most bizarre of all, they have no tenses for past, present and future. They do not sense time in that way. For them time is one.\" And the myth continues to be an integral part of New Age thinking that draws on stereotypical depictions of \"timeless Hopi culture.\"\n\nSome linguists working on Universals of semantics, such as Anna Wierzbicka and Cliff Goddard, argue that there is a Natural Semantic Metalanguage that has a basic vocabulary of semantic primes including concepts such as . They have argued that Malotki's data show that the Hopi share these primes with English and all other languages, even though it is also clear that the precise way in which these concepts fit into the larger pattern of culture and language practices is different in each language, as illustrated by the differences between Hopi and English.\n\nHistorian of science, G E R Lloyd held that Malotki's investigation \"made it abundantly clear that the Hopi had, and have, no difficulty whatsoever in drawing distinctions between past, present, and future.\" Some investigators of Puebloan astronomical knowledge have taken a compromise position, noting that while Malotki's study of Hopi temporal concepts and timekeeping practices \"has clearly refuted Whorf's assertion that Hopi is a 'timeless' language, and in doing so has destroyed Whorf's strongest example for linguistic relativity, he presents no naively positivist assertion of the total independence of language and thought.\"\n\nMalotki's work has been criticized by relativist scholars for failing to engage with Whorf's actual argument. John A. Lucy argues that Malotki's critique misses the fact that Whorf's point was exactly that the way in which the Hopi language grammatically structurates the representation of time leads to a different conception of time than the English one, not that they do not have one. Lucy notes that when Whorf makes his strong claim about what it is that Hopi lacks, he consistently puts the word \"time\" in scare quotes, and uses the qualifier \"what we call.\" Lucy and others take this as evidence that Whorf was implying specifically that what the Hopi lacked was a concept that corresponds entirely to that denoted by the English word, i.e. he was making a point of showing that the concepts of time were different. Malotki himself acknowledges that the conceptualizations are different, but because he ignores Whorf's use of scare quotes, takes Whorf to be arguing that the Hopi have no concept of time at all.\n\nIn a book review of Hopi Time'', Leanne Hinton echoes Lucy's observation that Malotki wrongly characterizes Whorf's claim that Hopi have no concept of time or cannot express time. She further claims that Malotki's glosses of Hopi often use English terms for time that do not exactly translate time terms (e.g., translating \"three-repetitions\" in Hopi as \"three times\"), thereby \"mak[ing] the error of attributing temporality to any Hopi sentence that translates into English with a temporal term.\" Further, without delineating \"Hopi views of time from the views expressed by English translations\" \"What is meant by the word 'time', and what are the criteria for determining whether or not a concept is temporal\" is never answered by Malotki, thus begging the question.\n\nIn 1991 Penny Lee published a comparison of Malotki and Whorf's analyses of the adverbial word class that Whorf had called \"tensors.\" She argues that Whorf's analysis captured aspects of Hopi grammar that were not captured by simply describing tensors as falling within the class of temporal adverbs.\n\nIn 2006 anthropologist David Dinwoodie published a severe critique of Malotki's work, questioning his methods and his presentation of data as well as his analysis. Dinwoodie argues that Malotki fails to adequately support his claim of having demonstrated that the Hopi have a concept of time \"as we know it.\" He provides ethnographic examples of how some Hopi speakers explain the way they experience the difference between a traditional Hopi way of experiencing time as tied closely to cycles of ritual and natural events, and the Anglo-American concept of clock-time or school-time.\n\nLanguage, time and cognition\nSparked by the Hopi debate about time a number of studies about how different languages grammaticalize tense and conceptualize time have been carried out. Some of these studies in psycholinguistics and cognitive linguistics have found some evidence that there may be significant differences in how speakers of different languages conceptualize time, although not necessarily in the way Whorf claimed for the Hopi. Specifically, it has been shown that some cultural groups conceptualize the flow of time in a direction opposite to what is usual for speakers of English and other Indo-European languages, i.e. that the future is in front of the speaker and the past behind. It has also been well-established since before the controversy that not all languages have a grammatical category of tense: some instead use combinations of adverbs and grammatical aspect to locate events in time.\nLooked at from the perspective of the History of Science, Hopi conceptions of time and space, which underlie their well-developed observational solar calendar, raise the question of how to translate Hopi conceptions into terms intelligible to Western ears.\n\nSee also \n\n Language and thought\n Linguistic determinism\n Linguistic relativity\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\nTime controversy\nPsycholinguistics\nRelativism\nArguments in philosophy of mind\nAnthropological linguistics\nPhilosophy of time\nTime in linguistics\nPhilosophy of language\nLinguistic controversies\nEthnolinguistics\nPhilosophy controversies"
] |
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"Benjamin Lee Whorf",
"At Yale",
"what did whorf do at yale",
"Whorf had been entirely an autodidact in linguistic theory and field methodology,"
] | C_568bfed194e047a094ff5206bdcac551_1 | did he graduate from there | 2 | Did Benjamin Lee Whorf graduate from Yale? | Benjamin Lee Whorf | Until his return from Mexico in 1930 Whorf had been entirely an autodidact in linguistic theory and field methodology, yet he had already made a name for himself in Middle American linguistics. Whorf had met Sapir, the leading US linguist of the day, at professional conferences, and in 1931 Sapir came to Yale from the University of Chicago to take a position as Professor of Anthropology. Alfred Tozzer sent Sapir a copy of Whorf's paper on "Nahuatl tones and saltillo". Sapir replied stating that it "should by all means be published"; however, it was not until 1993 that it was prepared for publication by Lyle Campbell and Frances Karttunen. Whorf took Sapir's first course at Yale on "American Indian Linguistics". He enrolled in a program of graduate studies, nominally working towards a PhD in linguistics, but he never actually attempted to obtain a degree, satisfying himself with participating in the intellectual community around Sapir. At Yale, Whorf joined the circle of Sapir's students that included such luminary linguists as Morris Swadesh, Mary Haas, Harry Hoijer, G. L. Trager and Charles F. Voegelin. Whorf took on a central role among Sapir's students and was well respected. Sapir had a profound influence on Whorf's thinking. Sapir's earliest writings had espoused views of the relation between thought and language stemming from the Humboldtian tradition he acquired through Franz Boas, which regarded language as the historical embodiment of volksgeist, or ethnic world view. But Sapir had since become influenced by a current of logical positivism, such as that of Bertrand Russell and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein, particularly through Ogden and Richards' The Meaning of Meaning, from which he adopted the view that natural language potentially obscures, rather than facilitates, the mind to perceive and describe the world as it really is. In this view, proper perception could only be accomplished through formal logics. During his stay at Yale, Whorf acquired this current of thought partly from Sapir and partly through his own readings of Russell and Ogden and Richards. As Whorf became more influenced by positivist science he also distanced himself from some approaches to language and meaning that he saw as lacking in rigor and insight. One of these was Polish philosopher Alfred Korzybski's General semantics, which was espoused in the US by Stuart Chase. Chase admired Whorf's work and frequently sought out a reluctant Whorf, who considered Chase to be "utterly incompetent by training and background to handle such a subject." Ironically, Chase would later write the foreword for Carroll's collection of Whorf's writings. CANNOTANSWER | never actually attempted to obtain a degree, satisfying himself with participating in the intellectual community around Sapir. | Benjamin Lee Whorf (; April 24, 1897 – July 26, 1941) was an American linguist and fire prevention engineer. Whorf is widely known as an advocate for the idea that differences between the structures of different languages shape how their speakers perceive and conceptualize the world. This principle has frequently been called the “Sapir–Whorf hypothesis”, after him and his mentor Edward Sapir, but Whorf called it the principle of linguistic relativity, because he saw the idea as having implications similar to Einstein’s principle of physical relativity. The idea, however, follows from post-Hegelian 19th-century philosophy, especially from Wilhelm von Humboldt; and from Wilhelm Wundt's Völkerpsychologie.
Throughout his life Whorf was a chemical engineer by profession, but as a young man he took up an interest in linguistics. At first this interest drew him to the study of Biblical Hebrew, but he quickly went on to study the indigenous languages of Mesoamerica on his own. Professional scholars were impressed by his work and in 1930 he received a grant to study the Nahuatl language in Mexico; on his return home he presented several influential papers on the language at linguistics conferences.
This led him to begin studying linguistics with Edward Sapir at Yale University while still maintaining his day job at the Hartford Fire Insurance Company. During his time at Yale he worked on the description of the Hopi language, and the historical linguistics of the Uto-Aztecan languages, publishing many influential papers in professional journals. He was chosen as the substitute for Sapir during his medical leave in 1938. Whorf taught his seminar on "Problems of American Indian Linguistics". In addition to his well-known work on linguistic relativity, he wrote a grammar sketch of Hopi and studies of Nahuatl dialects, proposed a deciphering of Maya hieroglyphic writing, and published the first attempt towards a reconstruction of Uto-Aztecan.
After his death from cancer in 1941 his manuscripts were curated by his linguist friends who also worked to spread the influence of Whorf's ideas on the relation between language, culture and cognition. Many of his works were published posthumously in the first decades after his death. In the 1960s Whorf's views fell out of favor and he became the subject of harsh criticisms by scholars who considered language structure to primarily reflect cognitive universals rather than cultural differences. Critics argued that Whorf's ideas were untestable and poorly formulated and that they were based on badly analyzed or misunderstood data.
In the late 20th century, interest in Whorf's ideas experienced a resurgence, and a new generation of scholars began reading Whorf's works, arguing that previous critiques had only engaged superficially with Whorf's actual ideas, or had attributed to him ideas he had never expressed. The field of linguistic relativity studies remains an active focus of research in psycholinguistics and linguistic anthropology, and continues to generate debate and controversy between proponents of relativism and proponents of universalism. By comparison, Whorf's other work in linguistics, the development of such concepts as the allophone and the cryptotype, and the formulation of "Whorf's law" in Uto-Aztecan historical linguistics, have met with broad acceptance.
Biography
Early life
The son of Harry Church Whorf and Sarah Edna Lee Whorf, Benjamin Lee Whorf was born on April 24, 1897 in Winthrop, Massachusetts. Harry Church Whorf was an artist, intellectual, and designer – first working as a commercial artist and later as a dramatist. Benjamin had two younger brothers, John and Richard, who both went on to become notable artists. John became an internationally renowned painter and illustrator; Richard was an actor in films such as Yankee Doodle Dandy and later an Emmy-nominated television director of such shows as The Beverly Hillbillies. Benjamin was the intellectual of the three and at a young age he conducted chemical experiments with his father's photographic equipment. He was also an avid reader, interested in botany, astrology, and Middle American prehistory. He read William H. Prescott's Conquest of Mexico several times. At the age of 17 he began to keep a copious diary in which he recorded his thoughts and dreams.
Career in fire prevention
Whorf graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1918 with a degree in chemical engineering where his academic performance was of average quality. In 1920 he married Celia Inez Peckham, who became the mother of his three children, Raymond Ben, Robert Peckham and Celia Lee. Around the same time he began work as a fire prevention engineer (an inspector) for the Hartford Fire Insurance Company. He was particularly good at the job and was highly commended by his employers. His job required him to travel to production facilities throughout New England to be inspected. One anecdote describes him arriving at a chemical plant in which he was denied access by the director because he would not allow anyone to see the production procedure which was a trade secret. Having been told what the plant produced, Whorf wrote a chemical formula on a piece of paper, saying to the director: "I think this is what you're doing". The surprised director asked Whorf how he knew about the secret procedure, and he simply answered: "You couldn't do it in any other way."
Whorf helped to attract new customers to the Fire Insurance Company; they favored his thorough inspections and recommendations. Another famous anecdote from his job was used by Whorf to argue that language use affects habitual behavior. Whorf described a workplace in which full gasoline drums were stored in one room and empty ones in another; he said that because of flammable vapor the "empty" drums were more dangerous than those that were full, although workers handled them less carefully to the point that they smoked in the room with "empty" drums, but not in the room with full ones. Whorf argued that by habitually speaking of the vapor-filled drums as empty and by extension as inert, the workers were oblivious to the risk posed by smoking near the "empty drums".
Early interest in religion and language
Whorf was a spiritual man throughout his lifetime although what religion he followed has been the subject of debate. As a young man he produced a manuscript titled "Why I have discarded evolution", causing some scholars to describe him as a devout Methodist, who was impressed with fundamentalism, and perhaps supportive of creationism. However, throughout his life Whorf's main religious interest was theosophy, a nonsectarian organization based on Buddhist and Hindu teachings that promotes the view of the world as an interconnected whole and the unity and brotherhood of humankind "without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or color". Some scholars have argued that the conflict between spiritual and scientific inclinations has been a driving force in Whorf's intellectual development, particularly in the attraction by ideas of linguistic relativity. Whorf said that "of all groups of people with whom I have come in contact, Theosophical people seem the most capable of becoming excited about ideas—new ideas."
Around 1924 Whorf first became interested in linguistics. Originally he analyzed Biblical texts, seeking to uncover hidden layers of meaning. Inspired by the esoteric work La langue hebraïque restituée by Antoine Fabre d'Olivet, he began a semantic and grammatical analysis of Biblical Hebrew. Whorf's early manuscripts on Hebrew and Maya have been described as exhibiting a considerable degree of mysticism, as he sought to uncover esoteric meanings of glyphs and letters.
Early studies in Mesoamerican linguistics
Whorf studied Biblical linguistics mainly at the Watkinson Library (now Hartford Public Library). This library had an extensive collection of materials about Native American linguistics and folklore, originally collected by James Hammond Trumbull. It was at the Watkinson library that Whorf became friends with the young boy, John B. Carroll, who later went on to study psychology under B. F. Skinner, and who in 1956 edited and published a selection of Whorf's essays as Language, Thought and Reality . The collection rekindled Whorf's interest in Mesoamerican antiquity. He began studying the Nahuatl language in 1925, and later, beginning in 1928, he studied the collections of Maya hieroglyphic texts. Quickly becoming conversant with the materials, he began a scholarly dialog with Mesoamericanists such as Alfred Tozzer, the Maya archaeologist at Harvard University, and Herbert Spinden of the Brooklyn Museum.
In 1928 he first presented a paper at the International Congress of Americanists in which he presented his translation of a Nahuatl document held at the Peabody Museum at Harvard. He also began to study the comparative linguistics of the Uto-Aztecan language family, which Edward Sapir had recently demonstrated to be a linguistic family. In addition to Nahuatl, Whorf studied the Piman and Tepecano languages, while in close correspondence with linguist J. Alden Mason.
Field studies in Mexico
Because of the promise shown by his work on Uto-Aztecan, Tozzer and Spinden advised Whorf to apply for a grant with the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) to support his research. Whorf considered using the money to travel to Mexico to procure Aztec manuscripts for the Watkinson library, but Tozzer suggested he spend the time in Mexico documenting modern Nahuatl dialects. In his application Whorf proposed to establish the oligosynthetic nature of the Nahuatl language. Before leaving Whorf presented the paper "Stem series in Maya" at the Linguistic Society of America conference, in which he argued that in the Mayan languages syllables carry symbolic content. The SSRC awarded Whorf the grant and in 1930 he traveled to Mexico City where Professor Robert H Barlow put him in contact with several speakers of Nahuatl to serve as his informants, among whom were Mariano Rojas of Tepoztlán and Luz Jimenez of Milpa Alta. The outcome of the trip to Mexico was Whorf's sketch of Milpa Alta Nahuatl, published only after his death, and an article on a series of Aztec pictograms found at the Tepozteco monument at Tepoztlán, Morelos in which he noted similarities in form and meaning between Aztec and Maya day signs.
At Yale
Until his return from Mexico in 1930 Whorf had been entirely an autodidact in linguistic theory and field methodology, yet he had already made a name for himself in Middle American linguistics. Whorf had met Sapir, the leading US linguist of the day, at professional conferences, and in 1931 Sapir came to Yale from the University of Chicago to take a position as Professor of Anthropology. Alfred Tozzer sent Sapir a copy of Whorf's paper on "Nahuatl tones and saltillo". Sapir replied stating that it "should by all means be published"; however, it was not until 1993 that it was prepared for publication by Lyle Campbell and Frances Karttunen.
Whorf took Sapir's first course at Yale on "American Indian Linguistics". He enrolled in a program of graduate studies, nominally working towards a PhD in linguistics, but he never actually attempted to obtain a degree, satisfying himself with participating in the intellectual community around Sapir. At Yale, Whorf joined the circle of Sapir's students that included such luminary linguists as Morris Swadesh, Mary Haas, Harry Hoijer, G. L. Trager and Charles F. Voegelin. Whorf took on a central role among Sapir's students and was well respected.
Sapir had a profound influence on Whorf's thinking. Sapir's earliest writings had espoused views of the relation between thought and language stemming from the Humboldtian tradition he acquired through Franz Boas, which regarded language as the historical embodiment of volksgeist, or ethnic world view. But Sapir had since become influenced by a current of logical positivism, such as that of Bertrand Russell and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein, particularly through Ogden and Richards' The Meaning of Meaning, from which he adopted the view that natural language potentially obscures, rather than facilitates, the mind to perceive and describe the world as it really is. In this view, proper perception could only be accomplished through formal logics. During his stay at Yale, Whorf acquired this current of thought partly from Sapir and partly through his own readings of Russell and Ogden and Richards. As Whorf became more influenced by positivist science he also distanced himself from some approaches to language and meaning that he saw as lacking in rigor and insight. One of these was Polish philosopher Alfred Korzybski's General semantics, which was espoused in the US by Stuart Chase. Chase admired Whorf's work and frequently sought out a reluctant Whorf, who considered Chase to be "utterly incompetent by training and background to handle such a subject." Ironically, Chase would later write the foreword for Carroll's collection of Whorf's writings.
Work on Hopi and descriptive linguistics
Sapir also encouraged Whorf to continue his work on the historical and descriptive linguistics of Uto-Aztecan. Whorf published several articles on that topic in this period, some of them with G. L. Trager, who had become his close friend. Whorf took a special interest in the Hopi language and started working with Ernest Naquayouma, a speaker of Hopi from Toreva village living in Manhattan, New York. Whorf credited Naquayouma as the source of most of his information on the Hopi language, although in 1938 he took a short field trip to the village of Mishongnovi, on the Second Mesa of the Hopi Reservation in Arizona.
In 1936, Whorf was appointed Honorary Research Fellow in Anthropology at Yale, and he was invited by Franz Boas to serve on the committee of the Society of American Linguistics (later Linguistic Society of America). In 1937, Yale awarded him the Sterling Fellowship. He was a lecturer in Anthropology from 1937 through 1938, replacing Sapir, who was gravely ill. Whorf gave graduate level lectures on "Problems of American Indian Linguistics". In 1938 with Trager's assistance he elaborated a report on the progress of linguistic research at the department of anthropology at Yale. The report includes some of Whorf's influential contributions to linguistic theory, such as the concept of the allophone and of covert grammatical categories. has argued, that in this report Whorf's linguistic theories exist in a condensed form, and that it was mainly through this report that Whorf exerted influence on the discipline of descriptive linguistics.
Final years
In late 1938, Whorf's own health declined. After an operation for cancer he fell into an unproductive period. He was also deeply influenced by Sapir's death in early 1939. It was in the writings of his last two years that he laid out the research program of linguistic relativity. His 1939 memorial article for Sapir, "The Relation of Habitual Thought And Behavior to Language", in particular has been taken to be Whorf's definitive statement of the issue, and is his most frequently quoted piece.
In his last year Whorf also published three articles in the MIT Technology Review titled "Science and Linguistics", "Linguistics as an Exact Science" and "Language and Logic". He was also invited to contribute an article to a theosophical journal, Theosophist, published in Madras, India, for which he wrote "Language, Mind and Reality". In these final pieces he offered a critique of Western science in which he suggested that non-European languages often referred to physical phenomena in ways that more directly reflected aspects of reality than many European languages, and that science ought to pay attention to the effects of linguistic categorization in its efforts to describe the physical world. He particularly criticized the Indo-European languages for promoting a mistaken essentialist world view, which had been disproved by advances in the sciences, whereas he suggested that other languages dedicated more attention to processes and dynamics rather than stable essences. Whorf argued that paying attention to how other physical phenomena are described in the study of linguistics could make valuable contributions to science by pointing out the ways in which certain assumptions about reality are implicit in the structure of language itself, and how language guides the attention of speakers towards certain phenomena in the world which risk becoming overemphasized while leaving other phenomena at risk of being overlooked.
Posthumous reception and legacy
At Whorf's death his friend G. L. Trager was appointed as curator of his unpublished manuscripts. Some of them were published in the years after his death by another of Whorf's friends, Harry Hoijer. In the decade following, Trager and particularly Hoijer did much to popularize Whorf's ideas about linguistic relativity, and it was Hoijer who coined the term "Sapir–Whorf hypothesis" at a 1954 conference. Trager then published an article titled "The systematization of the Whorf hypothesis", which contributed to the idea that Whorf had proposed a hypothesis that should be the basis for a program of empirical research. Hoijer also published studies of Indigenous languages and cultures of the American South West in which Whorf found correspondences between cultural patterns and linguistic ones. The term, even though technically a misnomer, went on to become the most widely known label for Whorf's ideas. According to John A. Lucy "Whorf's work in linguistics was and still is recognized as being of superb professional quality by linguists".
Universalism and anti-Whorfianism
Whorf's work began to fall out of favor less than a decade after his death, and he was subjected to severe criticism from scholars of language, culture and psychology. In 1953 and 1954 psychologists Roger Brown and Eric Lenneberg criticized Whorf for his reliance on anecdotal evidence, formulating a hypothesis to scientifically test his ideas, which they limited to an examination of a causal relation between grammatical or lexical structure and cognition or perception. Whorf himself did not advocate a straight causality between language and thought; instead he wrote that "Language and culture had grown up together"; that both were mutually shaped by the other. Hence, has argued that because the aim of the formulation of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis was to test simple causation, from the outset it failed to test Whorf's ideas.
Focusing on color terminology, with easily discernible differences between perception and vocabulary, Brown and Lenneberg published in 1954 a study of Zuni color terms that slightly support a weak effect of semantic categorization of color terms on color perception. In doing so they began a line of empirical studies that investigated the principle of linguistic relativity.
Empirical testing of the Whorfian hypothesis declined in the 1960s to 1980s as Noam Chomsky began to redefine linguistics and much of psychology in formal universalist terms. Several studies from that period refuted Whorf's hypothesis, demonstrating that linguistic diversity is a surface veneer that masks underlying universal cognitive principles. Many studies were highly critical and disparaging in their language, ridiculing Whorf's analyses and examples or his lack of an academic degree. Throughout the 1980s most mentions of Whorf or of the Sapir–Whorf hypotheses continued to be disparaging, and led to a widespread view that Whorf's ideas had been proven wrong. Because Whorf was treated so severely in the scholarship during those decades, he has been described as "one of the prime whipping boys of introductory texts to linguistics". In the late 1980s, with the advent of cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics some linguists sought to rehabilitate Whorf's reputation, as scholarship began to question whether earlier critiques of Whorf were justified.
By the 1960s analytical philosophers also became aware of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, and philosophers such as Max Black and Donald Davidson published scathing critiques of Whorf's strong relativist viewpoints. Black characterized Whorf's ideas about metaphysics as demonstrating "amateurish crudity". According to Black and Davidson, Whorf's viewpoint and the concept of linguistic relativity meant that translation between languages with different conceptual schemes would be impossible. Recent assessments such as those by Leavitt and Lee, however, consider Black and Davidson's interpretation to be based on an inaccurate characterization of Whorf's viewpoint, and even rather absurd given the time he spent trying to translate between different conceptual schemes. In their view the critiques are based on a lack of familiarity with Whorf's writings; according to these recent Whorf scholars a more accurate description of his viewpoint is that he thought translation to be possible, but only through careful attention to the subtle differences between conceptual schemes.
Eric Lenneberg, Noam Chomsky, and Steven Pinker have also criticized Whorf for failing to be sufficiently clear in his formulation of how language influences thought, and for failing to provide real evidence to support his assumptions. Generally Whorf's arguments took the form of examples that were anecdotal or speculative, and functioned as attempts to show how "exotic" grammatical traits were connected to what were considered equally exotic worlds of thought. Even Whorf's defenders admitted that his writing style was often convoluted and couched in neologisms – attributed to his awareness of language use, and his reluctance to use terminology that might have pre-existing connotations. argues that Whorf was mesmerized by the foreignness of indigenous languages, and exaggerated and idealized them. According to Lakoff, Whorf's tendency to exoticize data must be judged in the historical context: Whorf and the other Boasians wrote at a time in which racism and jingoism were predominant, and when it was unthinkable to many that "savages" had redeeming qualities, or that their languages were comparable in complexity to those of Europe. For this alone Lakoff argues, Whorf can be considered to be "Not just a pioneer in linguistics, but a pioneer as a human being".
Today many followers of universalist schools of thought continue to oppose the idea of linguistic relativity, seeing it as unsound or even ridiculous. For example, Steven Pinker argues in his book The Language Instinct that thought exists prior to language and independently of it, a view also espoused by philosophers of language such as Jerry Fodor, John Locke and Plato. In this interpretation, language is inconsequential to human thought because humans do not think in "natural" language, i.e. any language used for communication. Rather, we think in a meta-language that precedes natural language, which Pinker following Fodor calls "mentalese." Pinker attacks what he calls "Whorf's radical position", declaring, "the more you examine Whorf's arguments, the less sense they make." Scholars of a more "relativist" bent such as John A. Lucy and Stephen C. Levinson have criticized Pinker for misrepresenting Whorf's views and arguing against strawmen.
Resurgence of Whorfianism
Linguistic relativity studies have experienced a resurgence since the 1990s, and a series of favorable experimental results have brought Whorfianism back into favor, especially in cultural psychology and linguistic anthropology. The first study directing positive attention towards Whorf's relativist position was George Lakoff's "Women, Fire and Dangerous Things", in which he argued that Whorf had been on the right track in his focus on differences in grammatical and lexical categories as a source of differences in conceptualization. In 1992 psychologist John A. Lucy published two books on the topic, one analyzing the intellectual genealogy of the hypothesis, arguing that previous studies had failed to appreciate the subtleties of Whorf's thinking; they had been unable to formulate a research agenda that would actually test Whorf's claims. Lucy proposed a new research design so that the hypothesis of linguistic relativity could be tested empirically, and to avoid the pitfalls of earlier studies which Lucy claimed had tended to presuppose the universality of the categories they were studying. His second book was an empirical study of the relation between grammatical categories and cognition in the Yucatec Maya language of Mexico.
In 1996 Penny Lee's reappraisal of Whorf's writings was published, reinstating Whorf as a serious and capable thinker. Lee argued that previous explorations of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis had largely ignored Whorf's actual writings, and consequently asked questions very unlike those Whorf had asked. Also in that year a volume, "Rethinking Linguistic Relativity" edited by John J. Gumperz and Stephen C. Levinson gathered a range of researchers working in psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology to bring renewed attention to the issue of how Whorf's theories could be updated, and a subsequent review of the new direction of the linguistic relativity paradigm cemented the development. Since then considerable empirical research into linguistic relativity has been carried out, especially at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics with scholarship motivating two edited volumes of linguistic relativity studies, and in American Institutions by scholars such as Lera Boroditsky and Dedre Gentner.
In turn universalist scholars frequently dismiss as "dull" or "boring", positive findings of influence of linguistic categories on thought or behavior, which are often subtle rather than spectacular, suggesting that Whorf's excitement about linguistic relativity had promised more spectacular findings than it was able to provide.
Whorf's views have been compared to those of philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and the late Ludwig Wittgenstein, both of whom considered language to have important bearing on thought and reasoning. His hypotheses have also been compared to the views of psychologists such as Lev Vygotsky, whose social constructivism considers the cognitive development of children to be mediated by the social use of language. Vygotsky shared Whorf's interest in gestalt psychology, and he also read Sapir's works. Others have seen similarities between Whorf's work and the ideas of literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, who read Whorf and whose approach to textual meaning was similarly holistic and relativistic. Whorf's ideas have also been interpreted as a radical critique of positivist science.
Work
Linguistic relativity
Whorf is best known as the main proponent of what he called the principle of linguistic relativity, but which is often known as "the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis", named for him and Edward Sapir. Whorf never stated the principle in the form of a hypothesis, and the idea that linguistic categories influence perception and cognition was shared by many other scholars before him. But because Whorf, in his articles, gave specific examples of how he saw the grammatical categories of specific languages related to conceptual and behavioral patterns, he pointed towards an empirical research program that has been taken up by subsequent scholars, and which is often called "Sapir–Whorf studies".
Sources of influence on Whorf's thinking
Whorf and Sapir both drew explicitly on Albert Einstein's principle of general relativity; hence linguistic relativity refers to the concept of grammatical and semantic categories of a specific language providing a frame of reference as a medium through which observations are made. Following an original observation by Boas, Sapir demonstrated that speakers of a given language perceive sounds that are acoustically different as the same, if the sound comes from the underlying phoneme and does not contribute to changes in semantic meaning. Furthermore, speakers of languages are attentive to sounds, particularly if the same two sounds come from different phonemes. Such differentiation is an example of how various observational frames of reference leads to different patterns of attention and perception.
Whorf was also influenced by gestalt psychology, believing that languages require their speakers to describe the same events as different gestalt constructions, which he called "isolates from experience". An example is how the action of cleaning a gun is different in English and Shawnee: English focuses on the instrumental relation between two objects and the purpose of the action (removing dirt); whereas the Shawnee language focuses on the movement—using an arm to create a dry space in a hole. The event described is the same, but the attention in terms of figure and ground are different.
Degree of influence of language on thought
If read superficially, some of Whorf's statements lend themselves to the interpretation that he supported linguistic determinism. For example, in an often-quoted passage Whorf writes:
The statements about the obligatory nature of the terms of language have been taken to suggest that Whorf meant that language completely determined the scope of possible conceptualizations. However neo-Whorfians argue that here Whorf is writing about the terms in which we speak of the world, not the terms in which we think of it. Whorf noted that to communicate thoughts and experiences with members of a speech community speakers must use the linguistic categories of their shared language, which requires moulding experiences into the shape of language to speak them—a process called "thinking for speaking". This interpretation is supported by Whorf's subsequent statement that "No individual is free to describe nature with absolute impartiality, but is constrained by certain modes of interpretation even when he thinks himself most free". Similarly the statement that observers are led to different pictures of the universe has been understood as an argument that different conceptualizations are incommensurable making translation between different conceptual and linguistic systems impossible. Neo-Whorfians argue this to be a misreading since throughout his work one of his main points was that such systems could be "calibrated" and thereby be made commensurable, but only when we become aware of the differences in conceptual schemes through linguistic analysis.
Hopi time
Whorf's study of Hopi time has been the most widely discussed and criticized example of linguistic relativity. In his analysis he argues that there is a relation between how the Hopi people conceptualize time, how they speak of temporal relations, and the grammar of the Hopi language. Whorf's most elaborate argument for the existence of linguistic relativity was based on what he saw as a fundamental difference in the understanding of time as a conceptual category among the Hopi. He argued that the Hopi language, in contrast to English and other SAE languages, does not treat the flow of time as a sequence of distinct countable instances, like "three days" or "five years", but rather as a single process. Because of this difference, the language lacks nouns that refer to units of time. He proposed that the Hopi view of time was fundamental in all aspects of their culture and furthermore explained certain patterns of behavior. In his 1939 memorial essay to Sapir he wrote that “... the Hopi language is seen to contain no words, grammatical forms, construction or expressions that refer directly to what we call 'time', or to past, present, or future...”
Linguist Ekkehart Malotki challenged Whorf's analyses of Hopi temporal expressions and concepts with numerous examples how the Hopi language refers to time. Malotki argues that in the Hopi language the system of tenses consists of future and non-future and that the single difference between the three-tense system of European languages and the Hopi system, is that the latter combines past and present to form a single category.
Malotki's critique was widely cited as the final piece of evidence in refuting Whorf's ideas and his concept of linguistic relativity while other scholars defended the analysis of Hopi, arguing that Whorf's claim was not that Hopi lacked words or categories to describe temporality, but that the Hopi concept of time is altogether different from that of English speakers. Whorf described the Hopi categories of tense, noting that time is not divided into past, present and future, as is common in European languages, but rather a single tense refers to both present and past while another refers to events that have not yet happened and may or may not happen in the future. He also described a large array of stems that he called "tensors" which describes aspects of temporality, but without referring to countable units of time as in English and most European languages.
Contributions to linguistic theory
Whorf's distinction between "overt" (phenotypical) and "covert" (cryptotypical) grammatical categories has become widely influential in linguistics and anthropology. British linguist Michael Halliday wrote about Whorf's notion of the "cryptotype", and the conception of "how grammar models reality", that it would "eventually turn out to be among the major contributions of twentieth century linguistics".
Furthermore, Whorf introduced the concept of the allophone, a word that describes positional phonetic variants of a single superordinate phoneme; in doing so he placed a cornerstone in consolidating early phoneme theory. The term was popularized by G. L. Trager and Bernard Bloch in a 1941 paper on English phonology and went on to become part of standard usage within the American structuralist tradition. Whorf considered allophones to be another example of linguistic relativity. The principle of allophony describes how acoustically different sounds can be treated as reflections of a single phoneme in a language. This sometimes makes the different sound appear similar to native speakers of the language, even to the point that they are unable to distinguish them auditorily without special training. Whorf wrote that: "[allophones] are also relativistic. Objectively, acoustically, and physiologically the allophones of [a] phoneme may be extremely unlike, hence the impossibility of determining what is what. You always have to keep the observer in the picture. What linguistic pattern makes like is like, and what it makes unlike is unlike".(Whorf, 1940)
Central to Whorf's inquiries was the approach later described as metalinguistics by G. L. Trager, who in 1950 published four of Whorf's essays as "Four articles on Metalinguistics". Whorf was crucially interested in the ways in which speakers come to be aware of the language that they use, and become able to describe and analyze language using language itself to do so. Whorf saw that the ability to arrive at progressively more accurate descriptions of the world hinged partly on the ability to construct a metalanguage to describe how language affects experience, and thus to have the ability to calibrate different conceptual schemes. Whorf's endeavors have since been taken up in the development of the study of metalinguistics and metalinguistic awareness, first by Michael Silverstein who published a radical and influential rereading of Whorf in 1979 and subsequently in the field of linguistic anthropology.
Studies of Uto-Aztecan languages
Whorf conducted important work on the Uto-Aztecan languages, which Sapir had conclusively demonstrated as a valid language family in 1915. Working first on Nahuatl, Tepecano, Tohono O'odham he established familiarity with the language group before he met Sapir in 1928. During Whorf's time at Yale he published several articles on Uto-Aztecan linguistics, such as "Notes on the Tübatulabal language". In 1935 he published "The Comparative Linguistics of Uto-Aztecan", and a review of Kroeber's survey of Uto-Aztecan linguistics. Whorf's work served to further cement the foundations of the comparative Uto-Aztecan studies.
The first Native American language Whorf studied was the Uto-Aztecan language Nahuatl which he studied first from colonial grammars and documents, and later became the subject of his first field work experience in 1930. Based on his studies of Classical Nahuatl Whorf argued that Nahuatl was an oligosynthetic language, a typological category that he invented. In Mexico working with native speakers, he studied the dialects of Milpa Alta and Tepoztlán. His grammar sketch of the Milpa Alta dialect of Nahuatl was not published during his lifetime, but it was published posthumously by Harry Hoijer and became quite influential and used as the basic description of "Modern Nahuatl" by many scholars. The description of the dialect is quite condensed and in some places difficult to understand because of Whorf's propensity of inventing his own unique terminology for grammatical concepts, but the work has generally been considered to be technically advanced. He also produced an analysis of the prosody of these dialects which he related to the history of the glottal stop and vowel length in Nahuan languages. This work was prepared for publication by Lyle Campbell and Frances Karttunen in 1993, who also considered it a valuable description of the two endangered dialects, and the only one of its kind to include detailed phonetic analysis of supra-segmental phenomena.
In Uto-Aztecan linguistics one of Whorf's achievements was to determine the reason the Nahuatl language has the phoneme , not found in the other languages of the family. The existence of in Nahuatl had puzzled previous linguists and caused Sapir to reconstruct a phoneme for proto-Uto-Aztecan based only on evidence from Aztecan. In a 1937 paper published in the journal American Anthropologist, Whorf argued that the phoneme resulted from some of the Nahuan or Aztecan languages having undergone a sound change from the original * to in the position before *. This sound law is known as "Whorf's law", considered valid although a more detailed understanding of the precise conditions under which it took place has since been developed.
Also in 1937, Whorf and his friend G. L. Trager, published a paper in which they elaborated on the Azteco-Tanoan language family, proposed originally by Sapir as a family comprising the Uto-Aztecan and the Kiowa-Tanoan languages—(the Tewa and Kiowa languages).
Maya epigraphy
In a series of published and unpublished studies in the 1930s, Whorf argued that Mayan writing was to some extent phonetic. While his work on deciphering the Maya script gained some support from Alfred Tozzer at Harvard, the main authority on Ancient Maya culture, J. E. S. Thompson, strongly rejected Whorf's ideas, saying that Mayan writing lacked a phonetic component and is therefore impossible to decipher based on a linguistic analysis. Whorf argued that it was exactly the reluctance to apply linguistic analysis of Maya languages that had held the decipherment back. Whorf sought for cues to phonetic values within the elements of the specific signs, and never realized that the system was logo-syllabic. Although Whorf's approach to understanding the Maya script is now known to have been misguided, his central claim that the script was phonetic and should be deciphered as such was vindicated by Yuri Knorozov's syllabic decipherment of Mayan writing in the 1950s.
Notes
Commentary notes
References
Sources
External links
B. L. Whorf, .
Benjamin Lee Whorf Papers (MS 822). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.
What Whorf Really Said – Evaluation of Pinker's (1994) critique of Whorf, by Nick Yee
1897 births
1941 deaths
People from Winthrop, Massachusetts
Linguists from the United States
American anthropologists
American Mesoamericanists
MIT School of Engineering alumni
Linguists of Mesoamerican languages
Mesoamerican epigraphers
Mayanists
American translation scholars
20th-century Mesoamericanists
Yale University alumni
Linguists of Aztec–Tanoan languages
Linguists of Uto-Aztecan languages
Linguists of Tanoan languages
Paleolinguists
20th-century linguists
Linguists of indigenous languages of North America
American chemical engineers
20th-century anthropologists | true | [
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"William Arthur Brownell (May 19, 1895 – May 28, 1977) was an American educational psychologist.\n\nEarly life \nBrownell was born in Smethport, Pennsylvania on May 19, 1895. He graduated from Allegheny College in 1917. He received a Ph.D. in 1926 from the University of Chicago.\n\nAcademic career \nFrom 1930 to 1949 he was a professor of educational psychology at Duke University where he did his most important research.\n\nFrom 1950 to his retirement in 1962 he was the Dean of the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Education.\n\nIn 1965 he received the E. L. Thorndike Award.\n\nPersonal life \nHe married Kathryn K. (1903-2001) and they had at least one child.\n\nReferences \n\nAmerican psychologists\n1895 births\n1977 deaths\nUniversity of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Education faculty\nDuke University faculty\n20th-century psychologists"
] |
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"Benjamin Lee Whorf",
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"never actually attempted to obtain a degree, satisfying himself with participating in the intellectual community around Sapir."
] | C_568bfed194e047a094ff5206bdcac551_1 | did he teach there | 3 | Did Benjamin Lee Whorf teach at Yale? | Benjamin Lee Whorf | Until his return from Mexico in 1930 Whorf had been entirely an autodidact in linguistic theory and field methodology, yet he had already made a name for himself in Middle American linguistics. Whorf had met Sapir, the leading US linguist of the day, at professional conferences, and in 1931 Sapir came to Yale from the University of Chicago to take a position as Professor of Anthropology. Alfred Tozzer sent Sapir a copy of Whorf's paper on "Nahuatl tones and saltillo". Sapir replied stating that it "should by all means be published"; however, it was not until 1993 that it was prepared for publication by Lyle Campbell and Frances Karttunen. Whorf took Sapir's first course at Yale on "American Indian Linguistics". He enrolled in a program of graduate studies, nominally working towards a PhD in linguistics, but he never actually attempted to obtain a degree, satisfying himself with participating in the intellectual community around Sapir. At Yale, Whorf joined the circle of Sapir's students that included such luminary linguists as Morris Swadesh, Mary Haas, Harry Hoijer, G. L. Trager and Charles F. Voegelin. Whorf took on a central role among Sapir's students and was well respected. Sapir had a profound influence on Whorf's thinking. Sapir's earliest writings had espoused views of the relation between thought and language stemming from the Humboldtian tradition he acquired through Franz Boas, which regarded language as the historical embodiment of volksgeist, or ethnic world view. But Sapir had since become influenced by a current of logical positivism, such as that of Bertrand Russell and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein, particularly through Ogden and Richards' The Meaning of Meaning, from which he adopted the view that natural language potentially obscures, rather than facilitates, the mind to perceive and describe the world as it really is. In this view, proper perception could only be accomplished through formal logics. During his stay at Yale, Whorf acquired this current of thought partly from Sapir and partly through his own readings of Russell and Ogden and Richards. As Whorf became more influenced by positivist science he also distanced himself from some approaches to language and meaning that he saw as lacking in rigor and insight. One of these was Polish philosopher Alfred Korzybski's General semantics, which was espoused in the US by Stuart Chase. Chase admired Whorf's work and frequently sought out a reluctant Whorf, who considered Chase to be "utterly incompetent by training and background to handle such a subject." Ironically, Chase would later write the foreword for Carroll's collection of Whorf's writings. CANNOTANSWER | Whorf took on a central role among Sapir's students and was well respected. | Benjamin Lee Whorf (; April 24, 1897 – July 26, 1941) was an American linguist and fire prevention engineer. Whorf is widely known as an advocate for the idea that differences between the structures of different languages shape how their speakers perceive and conceptualize the world. This principle has frequently been called the “Sapir–Whorf hypothesis”, after him and his mentor Edward Sapir, but Whorf called it the principle of linguistic relativity, because he saw the idea as having implications similar to Einstein’s principle of physical relativity. The idea, however, follows from post-Hegelian 19th-century philosophy, especially from Wilhelm von Humboldt; and from Wilhelm Wundt's Völkerpsychologie.
Throughout his life Whorf was a chemical engineer by profession, but as a young man he took up an interest in linguistics. At first this interest drew him to the study of Biblical Hebrew, but he quickly went on to study the indigenous languages of Mesoamerica on his own. Professional scholars were impressed by his work and in 1930 he received a grant to study the Nahuatl language in Mexico; on his return home he presented several influential papers on the language at linguistics conferences.
This led him to begin studying linguistics with Edward Sapir at Yale University while still maintaining his day job at the Hartford Fire Insurance Company. During his time at Yale he worked on the description of the Hopi language, and the historical linguistics of the Uto-Aztecan languages, publishing many influential papers in professional journals. He was chosen as the substitute for Sapir during his medical leave in 1938. Whorf taught his seminar on "Problems of American Indian Linguistics". In addition to his well-known work on linguistic relativity, he wrote a grammar sketch of Hopi and studies of Nahuatl dialects, proposed a deciphering of Maya hieroglyphic writing, and published the first attempt towards a reconstruction of Uto-Aztecan.
After his death from cancer in 1941 his manuscripts were curated by his linguist friends who also worked to spread the influence of Whorf's ideas on the relation between language, culture and cognition. Many of his works were published posthumously in the first decades after his death. In the 1960s Whorf's views fell out of favor and he became the subject of harsh criticisms by scholars who considered language structure to primarily reflect cognitive universals rather than cultural differences. Critics argued that Whorf's ideas were untestable and poorly formulated and that they were based on badly analyzed or misunderstood data.
In the late 20th century, interest in Whorf's ideas experienced a resurgence, and a new generation of scholars began reading Whorf's works, arguing that previous critiques had only engaged superficially with Whorf's actual ideas, or had attributed to him ideas he had never expressed. The field of linguistic relativity studies remains an active focus of research in psycholinguistics and linguistic anthropology, and continues to generate debate and controversy between proponents of relativism and proponents of universalism. By comparison, Whorf's other work in linguistics, the development of such concepts as the allophone and the cryptotype, and the formulation of "Whorf's law" in Uto-Aztecan historical linguistics, have met with broad acceptance.
Biography
Early life
The son of Harry Church Whorf and Sarah Edna Lee Whorf, Benjamin Lee Whorf was born on April 24, 1897 in Winthrop, Massachusetts. Harry Church Whorf was an artist, intellectual, and designer – first working as a commercial artist and later as a dramatist. Benjamin had two younger brothers, John and Richard, who both went on to become notable artists. John became an internationally renowned painter and illustrator; Richard was an actor in films such as Yankee Doodle Dandy and later an Emmy-nominated television director of such shows as The Beverly Hillbillies. Benjamin was the intellectual of the three and at a young age he conducted chemical experiments with his father's photographic equipment. He was also an avid reader, interested in botany, astrology, and Middle American prehistory. He read William H. Prescott's Conquest of Mexico several times. At the age of 17 he began to keep a copious diary in which he recorded his thoughts and dreams.
Career in fire prevention
Whorf graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1918 with a degree in chemical engineering where his academic performance was of average quality. In 1920 he married Celia Inez Peckham, who became the mother of his three children, Raymond Ben, Robert Peckham and Celia Lee. Around the same time he began work as a fire prevention engineer (an inspector) for the Hartford Fire Insurance Company. He was particularly good at the job and was highly commended by his employers. His job required him to travel to production facilities throughout New England to be inspected. One anecdote describes him arriving at a chemical plant in which he was denied access by the director because he would not allow anyone to see the production procedure which was a trade secret. Having been told what the plant produced, Whorf wrote a chemical formula on a piece of paper, saying to the director: "I think this is what you're doing". The surprised director asked Whorf how he knew about the secret procedure, and he simply answered: "You couldn't do it in any other way."
Whorf helped to attract new customers to the Fire Insurance Company; they favored his thorough inspections and recommendations. Another famous anecdote from his job was used by Whorf to argue that language use affects habitual behavior. Whorf described a workplace in which full gasoline drums were stored in one room and empty ones in another; he said that because of flammable vapor the "empty" drums were more dangerous than those that were full, although workers handled them less carefully to the point that they smoked in the room with "empty" drums, but not in the room with full ones. Whorf argued that by habitually speaking of the vapor-filled drums as empty and by extension as inert, the workers were oblivious to the risk posed by smoking near the "empty drums".
Early interest in religion and language
Whorf was a spiritual man throughout his lifetime although what religion he followed has been the subject of debate. As a young man he produced a manuscript titled "Why I have discarded evolution", causing some scholars to describe him as a devout Methodist, who was impressed with fundamentalism, and perhaps supportive of creationism. However, throughout his life Whorf's main religious interest was theosophy, a nonsectarian organization based on Buddhist and Hindu teachings that promotes the view of the world as an interconnected whole and the unity and brotherhood of humankind "without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or color". Some scholars have argued that the conflict between spiritual and scientific inclinations has been a driving force in Whorf's intellectual development, particularly in the attraction by ideas of linguistic relativity. Whorf said that "of all groups of people with whom I have come in contact, Theosophical people seem the most capable of becoming excited about ideas—new ideas."
Around 1924 Whorf first became interested in linguistics. Originally he analyzed Biblical texts, seeking to uncover hidden layers of meaning. Inspired by the esoteric work La langue hebraïque restituée by Antoine Fabre d'Olivet, he began a semantic and grammatical analysis of Biblical Hebrew. Whorf's early manuscripts on Hebrew and Maya have been described as exhibiting a considerable degree of mysticism, as he sought to uncover esoteric meanings of glyphs and letters.
Early studies in Mesoamerican linguistics
Whorf studied Biblical linguistics mainly at the Watkinson Library (now Hartford Public Library). This library had an extensive collection of materials about Native American linguistics and folklore, originally collected by James Hammond Trumbull. It was at the Watkinson library that Whorf became friends with the young boy, John B. Carroll, who later went on to study psychology under B. F. Skinner, and who in 1956 edited and published a selection of Whorf's essays as Language, Thought and Reality . The collection rekindled Whorf's interest in Mesoamerican antiquity. He began studying the Nahuatl language in 1925, and later, beginning in 1928, he studied the collections of Maya hieroglyphic texts. Quickly becoming conversant with the materials, he began a scholarly dialog with Mesoamericanists such as Alfred Tozzer, the Maya archaeologist at Harvard University, and Herbert Spinden of the Brooklyn Museum.
In 1928 he first presented a paper at the International Congress of Americanists in which he presented his translation of a Nahuatl document held at the Peabody Museum at Harvard. He also began to study the comparative linguistics of the Uto-Aztecan language family, which Edward Sapir had recently demonstrated to be a linguistic family. In addition to Nahuatl, Whorf studied the Piman and Tepecano languages, while in close correspondence with linguist J. Alden Mason.
Field studies in Mexico
Because of the promise shown by his work on Uto-Aztecan, Tozzer and Spinden advised Whorf to apply for a grant with the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) to support his research. Whorf considered using the money to travel to Mexico to procure Aztec manuscripts for the Watkinson library, but Tozzer suggested he spend the time in Mexico documenting modern Nahuatl dialects. In his application Whorf proposed to establish the oligosynthetic nature of the Nahuatl language. Before leaving Whorf presented the paper "Stem series in Maya" at the Linguistic Society of America conference, in which he argued that in the Mayan languages syllables carry symbolic content. The SSRC awarded Whorf the grant and in 1930 he traveled to Mexico City where Professor Robert H Barlow put him in contact with several speakers of Nahuatl to serve as his informants, among whom were Mariano Rojas of Tepoztlán and Luz Jimenez of Milpa Alta. The outcome of the trip to Mexico was Whorf's sketch of Milpa Alta Nahuatl, published only after his death, and an article on a series of Aztec pictograms found at the Tepozteco monument at Tepoztlán, Morelos in which he noted similarities in form and meaning between Aztec and Maya day signs.
At Yale
Until his return from Mexico in 1930 Whorf had been entirely an autodidact in linguistic theory and field methodology, yet he had already made a name for himself in Middle American linguistics. Whorf had met Sapir, the leading US linguist of the day, at professional conferences, and in 1931 Sapir came to Yale from the University of Chicago to take a position as Professor of Anthropology. Alfred Tozzer sent Sapir a copy of Whorf's paper on "Nahuatl tones and saltillo". Sapir replied stating that it "should by all means be published"; however, it was not until 1993 that it was prepared for publication by Lyle Campbell and Frances Karttunen.
Whorf took Sapir's first course at Yale on "American Indian Linguistics". He enrolled in a program of graduate studies, nominally working towards a PhD in linguistics, but he never actually attempted to obtain a degree, satisfying himself with participating in the intellectual community around Sapir. At Yale, Whorf joined the circle of Sapir's students that included such luminary linguists as Morris Swadesh, Mary Haas, Harry Hoijer, G. L. Trager and Charles F. Voegelin. Whorf took on a central role among Sapir's students and was well respected.
Sapir had a profound influence on Whorf's thinking. Sapir's earliest writings had espoused views of the relation between thought and language stemming from the Humboldtian tradition he acquired through Franz Boas, which regarded language as the historical embodiment of volksgeist, or ethnic world view. But Sapir had since become influenced by a current of logical positivism, such as that of Bertrand Russell and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein, particularly through Ogden and Richards' The Meaning of Meaning, from which he adopted the view that natural language potentially obscures, rather than facilitates, the mind to perceive and describe the world as it really is. In this view, proper perception could only be accomplished through formal logics. During his stay at Yale, Whorf acquired this current of thought partly from Sapir and partly through his own readings of Russell and Ogden and Richards. As Whorf became more influenced by positivist science he also distanced himself from some approaches to language and meaning that he saw as lacking in rigor and insight. One of these was Polish philosopher Alfred Korzybski's General semantics, which was espoused in the US by Stuart Chase. Chase admired Whorf's work and frequently sought out a reluctant Whorf, who considered Chase to be "utterly incompetent by training and background to handle such a subject." Ironically, Chase would later write the foreword for Carroll's collection of Whorf's writings.
Work on Hopi and descriptive linguistics
Sapir also encouraged Whorf to continue his work on the historical and descriptive linguistics of Uto-Aztecan. Whorf published several articles on that topic in this period, some of them with G. L. Trager, who had become his close friend. Whorf took a special interest in the Hopi language and started working with Ernest Naquayouma, a speaker of Hopi from Toreva village living in Manhattan, New York. Whorf credited Naquayouma as the source of most of his information on the Hopi language, although in 1938 he took a short field trip to the village of Mishongnovi, on the Second Mesa of the Hopi Reservation in Arizona.
In 1936, Whorf was appointed Honorary Research Fellow in Anthropology at Yale, and he was invited by Franz Boas to serve on the committee of the Society of American Linguistics (later Linguistic Society of America). In 1937, Yale awarded him the Sterling Fellowship. He was a lecturer in Anthropology from 1937 through 1938, replacing Sapir, who was gravely ill. Whorf gave graduate level lectures on "Problems of American Indian Linguistics". In 1938 with Trager's assistance he elaborated a report on the progress of linguistic research at the department of anthropology at Yale. The report includes some of Whorf's influential contributions to linguistic theory, such as the concept of the allophone and of covert grammatical categories. has argued, that in this report Whorf's linguistic theories exist in a condensed form, and that it was mainly through this report that Whorf exerted influence on the discipline of descriptive linguistics.
Final years
In late 1938, Whorf's own health declined. After an operation for cancer he fell into an unproductive period. He was also deeply influenced by Sapir's death in early 1939. It was in the writings of his last two years that he laid out the research program of linguistic relativity. His 1939 memorial article for Sapir, "The Relation of Habitual Thought And Behavior to Language", in particular has been taken to be Whorf's definitive statement of the issue, and is his most frequently quoted piece.
In his last year Whorf also published three articles in the MIT Technology Review titled "Science and Linguistics", "Linguistics as an Exact Science" and "Language and Logic". He was also invited to contribute an article to a theosophical journal, Theosophist, published in Madras, India, for which he wrote "Language, Mind and Reality". In these final pieces he offered a critique of Western science in which he suggested that non-European languages often referred to physical phenomena in ways that more directly reflected aspects of reality than many European languages, and that science ought to pay attention to the effects of linguistic categorization in its efforts to describe the physical world. He particularly criticized the Indo-European languages for promoting a mistaken essentialist world view, which had been disproved by advances in the sciences, whereas he suggested that other languages dedicated more attention to processes and dynamics rather than stable essences. Whorf argued that paying attention to how other physical phenomena are described in the study of linguistics could make valuable contributions to science by pointing out the ways in which certain assumptions about reality are implicit in the structure of language itself, and how language guides the attention of speakers towards certain phenomena in the world which risk becoming overemphasized while leaving other phenomena at risk of being overlooked.
Posthumous reception and legacy
At Whorf's death his friend G. L. Trager was appointed as curator of his unpublished manuscripts. Some of them were published in the years after his death by another of Whorf's friends, Harry Hoijer. In the decade following, Trager and particularly Hoijer did much to popularize Whorf's ideas about linguistic relativity, and it was Hoijer who coined the term "Sapir–Whorf hypothesis" at a 1954 conference. Trager then published an article titled "The systematization of the Whorf hypothesis", which contributed to the idea that Whorf had proposed a hypothesis that should be the basis for a program of empirical research. Hoijer also published studies of Indigenous languages and cultures of the American South West in which Whorf found correspondences between cultural patterns and linguistic ones. The term, even though technically a misnomer, went on to become the most widely known label for Whorf's ideas. According to John A. Lucy "Whorf's work in linguistics was and still is recognized as being of superb professional quality by linguists".
Universalism and anti-Whorfianism
Whorf's work began to fall out of favor less than a decade after his death, and he was subjected to severe criticism from scholars of language, culture and psychology. In 1953 and 1954 psychologists Roger Brown and Eric Lenneberg criticized Whorf for his reliance on anecdotal evidence, formulating a hypothesis to scientifically test his ideas, which they limited to an examination of a causal relation between grammatical or lexical structure and cognition or perception. Whorf himself did not advocate a straight causality between language and thought; instead he wrote that "Language and culture had grown up together"; that both were mutually shaped by the other. Hence, has argued that because the aim of the formulation of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis was to test simple causation, from the outset it failed to test Whorf's ideas.
Focusing on color terminology, with easily discernible differences between perception and vocabulary, Brown and Lenneberg published in 1954 a study of Zuni color terms that slightly support a weak effect of semantic categorization of color terms on color perception. In doing so they began a line of empirical studies that investigated the principle of linguistic relativity.
Empirical testing of the Whorfian hypothesis declined in the 1960s to 1980s as Noam Chomsky began to redefine linguistics and much of psychology in formal universalist terms. Several studies from that period refuted Whorf's hypothesis, demonstrating that linguistic diversity is a surface veneer that masks underlying universal cognitive principles. Many studies were highly critical and disparaging in their language, ridiculing Whorf's analyses and examples or his lack of an academic degree. Throughout the 1980s most mentions of Whorf or of the Sapir–Whorf hypotheses continued to be disparaging, and led to a widespread view that Whorf's ideas had been proven wrong. Because Whorf was treated so severely in the scholarship during those decades, he has been described as "one of the prime whipping boys of introductory texts to linguistics". In the late 1980s, with the advent of cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics some linguists sought to rehabilitate Whorf's reputation, as scholarship began to question whether earlier critiques of Whorf were justified.
By the 1960s analytical philosophers also became aware of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, and philosophers such as Max Black and Donald Davidson published scathing critiques of Whorf's strong relativist viewpoints. Black characterized Whorf's ideas about metaphysics as demonstrating "amateurish crudity". According to Black and Davidson, Whorf's viewpoint and the concept of linguistic relativity meant that translation between languages with different conceptual schemes would be impossible. Recent assessments such as those by Leavitt and Lee, however, consider Black and Davidson's interpretation to be based on an inaccurate characterization of Whorf's viewpoint, and even rather absurd given the time he spent trying to translate between different conceptual schemes. In their view the critiques are based on a lack of familiarity with Whorf's writings; according to these recent Whorf scholars a more accurate description of his viewpoint is that he thought translation to be possible, but only through careful attention to the subtle differences between conceptual schemes.
Eric Lenneberg, Noam Chomsky, and Steven Pinker have also criticized Whorf for failing to be sufficiently clear in his formulation of how language influences thought, and for failing to provide real evidence to support his assumptions. Generally Whorf's arguments took the form of examples that were anecdotal or speculative, and functioned as attempts to show how "exotic" grammatical traits were connected to what were considered equally exotic worlds of thought. Even Whorf's defenders admitted that his writing style was often convoluted and couched in neologisms – attributed to his awareness of language use, and his reluctance to use terminology that might have pre-existing connotations. argues that Whorf was mesmerized by the foreignness of indigenous languages, and exaggerated and idealized them. According to Lakoff, Whorf's tendency to exoticize data must be judged in the historical context: Whorf and the other Boasians wrote at a time in which racism and jingoism were predominant, and when it was unthinkable to many that "savages" had redeeming qualities, or that their languages were comparable in complexity to those of Europe. For this alone Lakoff argues, Whorf can be considered to be "Not just a pioneer in linguistics, but a pioneer as a human being".
Today many followers of universalist schools of thought continue to oppose the idea of linguistic relativity, seeing it as unsound or even ridiculous. For example, Steven Pinker argues in his book The Language Instinct that thought exists prior to language and independently of it, a view also espoused by philosophers of language such as Jerry Fodor, John Locke and Plato. In this interpretation, language is inconsequential to human thought because humans do not think in "natural" language, i.e. any language used for communication. Rather, we think in a meta-language that precedes natural language, which Pinker following Fodor calls "mentalese." Pinker attacks what he calls "Whorf's radical position", declaring, "the more you examine Whorf's arguments, the less sense they make." Scholars of a more "relativist" bent such as John A. Lucy and Stephen C. Levinson have criticized Pinker for misrepresenting Whorf's views and arguing against strawmen.
Resurgence of Whorfianism
Linguistic relativity studies have experienced a resurgence since the 1990s, and a series of favorable experimental results have brought Whorfianism back into favor, especially in cultural psychology and linguistic anthropology. The first study directing positive attention towards Whorf's relativist position was George Lakoff's "Women, Fire and Dangerous Things", in which he argued that Whorf had been on the right track in his focus on differences in grammatical and lexical categories as a source of differences in conceptualization. In 1992 psychologist John A. Lucy published two books on the topic, one analyzing the intellectual genealogy of the hypothesis, arguing that previous studies had failed to appreciate the subtleties of Whorf's thinking; they had been unable to formulate a research agenda that would actually test Whorf's claims. Lucy proposed a new research design so that the hypothesis of linguistic relativity could be tested empirically, and to avoid the pitfalls of earlier studies which Lucy claimed had tended to presuppose the universality of the categories they were studying. His second book was an empirical study of the relation between grammatical categories and cognition in the Yucatec Maya language of Mexico.
In 1996 Penny Lee's reappraisal of Whorf's writings was published, reinstating Whorf as a serious and capable thinker. Lee argued that previous explorations of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis had largely ignored Whorf's actual writings, and consequently asked questions very unlike those Whorf had asked. Also in that year a volume, "Rethinking Linguistic Relativity" edited by John J. Gumperz and Stephen C. Levinson gathered a range of researchers working in psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology to bring renewed attention to the issue of how Whorf's theories could be updated, and a subsequent review of the new direction of the linguistic relativity paradigm cemented the development. Since then considerable empirical research into linguistic relativity has been carried out, especially at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics with scholarship motivating two edited volumes of linguistic relativity studies, and in American Institutions by scholars such as Lera Boroditsky and Dedre Gentner.
In turn universalist scholars frequently dismiss as "dull" or "boring", positive findings of influence of linguistic categories on thought or behavior, which are often subtle rather than spectacular, suggesting that Whorf's excitement about linguistic relativity had promised more spectacular findings than it was able to provide.
Whorf's views have been compared to those of philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and the late Ludwig Wittgenstein, both of whom considered language to have important bearing on thought and reasoning. His hypotheses have also been compared to the views of psychologists such as Lev Vygotsky, whose social constructivism considers the cognitive development of children to be mediated by the social use of language. Vygotsky shared Whorf's interest in gestalt psychology, and he also read Sapir's works. Others have seen similarities between Whorf's work and the ideas of literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, who read Whorf and whose approach to textual meaning was similarly holistic and relativistic. Whorf's ideas have also been interpreted as a radical critique of positivist science.
Work
Linguistic relativity
Whorf is best known as the main proponent of what he called the principle of linguistic relativity, but which is often known as "the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis", named for him and Edward Sapir. Whorf never stated the principle in the form of a hypothesis, and the idea that linguistic categories influence perception and cognition was shared by many other scholars before him. But because Whorf, in his articles, gave specific examples of how he saw the grammatical categories of specific languages related to conceptual and behavioral patterns, he pointed towards an empirical research program that has been taken up by subsequent scholars, and which is often called "Sapir–Whorf studies".
Sources of influence on Whorf's thinking
Whorf and Sapir both drew explicitly on Albert Einstein's principle of general relativity; hence linguistic relativity refers to the concept of grammatical and semantic categories of a specific language providing a frame of reference as a medium through which observations are made. Following an original observation by Boas, Sapir demonstrated that speakers of a given language perceive sounds that are acoustically different as the same, if the sound comes from the underlying phoneme and does not contribute to changes in semantic meaning. Furthermore, speakers of languages are attentive to sounds, particularly if the same two sounds come from different phonemes. Such differentiation is an example of how various observational frames of reference leads to different patterns of attention and perception.
Whorf was also influenced by gestalt psychology, believing that languages require their speakers to describe the same events as different gestalt constructions, which he called "isolates from experience". An example is how the action of cleaning a gun is different in English and Shawnee: English focuses on the instrumental relation between two objects and the purpose of the action (removing dirt); whereas the Shawnee language focuses on the movement—using an arm to create a dry space in a hole. The event described is the same, but the attention in terms of figure and ground are different.
Degree of influence of language on thought
If read superficially, some of Whorf's statements lend themselves to the interpretation that he supported linguistic determinism. For example, in an often-quoted passage Whorf writes:
The statements about the obligatory nature of the terms of language have been taken to suggest that Whorf meant that language completely determined the scope of possible conceptualizations. However neo-Whorfians argue that here Whorf is writing about the terms in which we speak of the world, not the terms in which we think of it. Whorf noted that to communicate thoughts and experiences with members of a speech community speakers must use the linguistic categories of their shared language, which requires moulding experiences into the shape of language to speak them—a process called "thinking for speaking". This interpretation is supported by Whorf's subsequent statement that "No individual is free to describe nature with absolute impartiality, but is constrained by certain modes of interpretation even when he thinks himself most free". Similarly the statement that observers are led to different pictures of the universe has been understood as an argument that different conceptualizations are incommensurable making translation between different conceptual and linguistic systems impossible. Neo-Whorfians argue this to be a misreading since throughout his work one of his main points was that such systems could be "calibrated" and thereby be made commensurable, but only when we become aware of the differences in conceptual schemes through linguistic analysis.
Hopi time
Whorf's study of Hopi time has been the most widely discussed and criticized example of linguistic relativity. In his analysis he argues that there is a relation between how the Hopi people conceptualize time, how they speak of temporal relations, and the grammar of the Hopi language. Whorf's most elaborate argument for the existence of linguistic relativity was based on what he saw as a fundamental difference in the understanding of time as a conceptual category among the Hopi. He argued that the Hopi language, in contrast to English and other SAE languages, does not treat the flow of time as a sequence of distinct countable instances, like "three days" or "five years", but rather as a single process. Because of this difference, the language lacks nouns that refer to units of time. He proposed that the Hopi view of time was fundamental in all aspects of their culture and furthermore explained certain patterns of behavior. In his 1939 memorial essay to Sapir he wrote that “... the Hopi language is seen to contain no words, grammatical forms, construction or expressions that refer directly to what we call 'time', or to past, present, or future...”
Linguist Ekkehart Malotki challenged Whorf's analyses of Hopi temporal expressions and concepts with numerous examples how the Hopi language refers to time. Malotki argues that in the Hopi language the system of tenses consists of future and non-future and that the single difference between the three-tense system of European languages and the Hopi system, is that the latter combines past and present to form a single category.
Malotki's critique was widely cited as the final piece of evidence in refuting Whorf's ideas and his concept of linguistic relativity while other scholars defended the analysis of Hopi, arguing that Whorf's claim was not that Hopi lacked words or categories to describe temporality, but that the Hopi concept of time is altogether different from that of English speakers. Whorf described the Hopi categories of tense, noting that time is not divided into past, present and future, as is common in European languages, but rather a single tense refers to both present and past while another refers to events that have not yet happened and may or may not happen in the future. He also described a large array of stems that he called "tensors" which describes aspects of temporality, but without referring to countable units of time as in English and most European languages.
Contributions to linguistic theory
Whorf's distinction between "overt" (phenotypical) and "covert" (cryptotypical) grammatical categories has become widely influential in linguistics and anthropology. British linguist Michael Halliday wrote about Whorf's notion of the "cryptotype", and the conception of "how grammar models reality", that it would "eventually turn out to be among the major contributions of twentieth century linguistics".
Furthermore, Whorf introduced the concept of the allophone, a word that describes positional phonetic variants of a single superordinate phoneme; in doing so he placed a cornerstone in consolidating early phoneme theory. The term was popularized by G. L. Trager and Bernard Bloch in a 1941 paper on English phonology and went on to become part of standard usage within the American structuralist tradition. Whorf considered allophones to be another example of linguistic relativity. The principle of allophony describes how acoustically different sounds can be treated as reflections of a single phoneme in a language. This sometimes makes the different sound appear similar to native speakers of the language, even to the point that they are unable to distinguish them auditorily without special training. Whorf wrote that: "[allophones] are also relativistic. Objectively, acoustically, and physiologically the allophones of [a] phoneme may be extremely unlike, hence the impossibility of determining what is what. You always have to keep the observer in the picture. What linguistic pattern makes like is like, and what it makes unlike is unlike".(Whorf, 1940)
Central to Whorf's inquiries was the approach later described as metalinguistics by G. L. Trager, who in 1950 published four of Whorf's essays as "Four articles on Metalinguistics". Whorf was crucially interested in the ways in which speakers come to be aware of the language that they use, and become able to describe and analyze language using language itself to do so. Whorf saw that the ability to arrive at progressively more accurate descriptions of the world hinged partly on the ability to construct a metalanguage to describe how language affects experience, and thus to have the ability to calibrate different conceptual schemes. Whorf's endeavors have since been taken up in the development of the study of metalinguistics and metalinguistic awareness, first by Michael Silverstein who published a radical and influential rereading of Whorf in 1979 and subsequently in the field of linguistic anthropology.
Studies of Uto-Aztecan languages
Whorf conducted important work on the Uto-Aztecan languages, which Sapir had conclusively demonstrated as a valid language family in 1915. Working first on Nahuatl, Tepecano, Tohono O'odham he established familiarity with the language group before he met Sapir in 1928. During Whorf's time at Yale he published several articles on Uto-Aztecan linguistics, such as "Notes on the Tübatulabal language". In 1935 he published "The Comparative Linguistics of Uto-Aztecan", and a review of Kroeber's survey of Uto-Aztecan linguistics. Whorf's work served to further cement the foundations of the comparative Uto-Aztecan studies.
The first Native American language Whorf studied was the Uto-Aztecan language Nahuatl which he studied first from colonial grammars and documents, and later became the subject of his first field work experience in 1930. Based on his studies of Classical Nahuatl Whorf argued that Nahuatl was an oligosynthetic language, a typological category that he invented. In Mexico working with native speakers, he studied the dialects of Milpa Alta and Tepoztlán. His grammar sketch of the Milpa Alta dialect of Nahuatl was not published during his lifetime, but it was published posthumously by Harry Hoijer and became quite influential and used as the basic description of "Modern Nahuatl" by many scholars. The description of the dialect is quite condensed and in some places difficult to understand because of Whorf's propensity of inventing his own unique terminology for grammatical concepts, but the work has generally been considered to be technically advanced. He also produced an analysis of the prosody of these dialects which he related to the history of the glottal stop and vowel length in Nahuan languages. This work was prepared for publication by Lyle Campbell and Frances Karttunen in 1993, who also considered it a valuable description of the two endangered dialects, and the only one of its kind to include detailed phonetic analysis of supra-segmental phenomena.
In Uto-Aztecan linguistics one of Whorf's achievements was to determine the reason the Nahuatl language has the phoneme , not found in the other languages of the family. The existence of in Nahuatl had puzzled previous linguists and caused Sapir to reconstruct a phoneme for proto-Uto-Aztecan based only on evidence from Aztecan. In a 1937 paper published in the journal American Anthropologist, Whorf argued that the phoneme resulted from some of the Nahuan or Aztecan languages having undergone a sound change from the original * to in the position before *. This sound law is known as "Whorf's law", considered valid although a more detailed understanding of the precise conditions under which it took place has since been developed.
Also in 1937, Whorf and his friend G. L. Trager, published a paper in which they elaborated on the Azteco-Tanoan language family, proposed originally by Sapir as a family comprising the Uto-Aztecan and the Kiowa-Tanoan languages—(the Tewa and Kiowa languages).
Maya epigraphy
In a series of published and unpublished studies in the 1930s, Whorf argued that Mayan writing was to some extent phonetic. While his work on deciphering the Maya script gained some support from Alfred Tozzer at Harvard, the main authority on Ancient Maya culture, J. E. S. Thompson, strongly rejected Whorf's ideas, saying that Mayan writing lacked a phonetic component and is therefore impossible to decipher based on a linguistic analysis. Whorf argued that it was exactly the reluctance to apply linguistic analysis of Maya languages that had held the decipherment back. Whorf sought for cues to phonetic values within the elements of the specific signs, and never realized that the system was logo-syllabic. Although Whorf's approach to understanding the Maya script is now known to have been misguided, his central claim that the script was phonetic and should be deciphered as such was vindicated by Yuri Knorozov's syllabic decipherment of Mayan writing in the 1950s.
Notes
Commentary notes
References
Sources
External links
B. L. Whorf, .
Benjamin Lee Whorf Papers (MS 822). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.
What Whorf Really Said – Evaluation of Pinker's (1994) critique of Whorf, by Nick Yee
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American chemical engineers
20th-century anthropologists | true | [
"Lieutenant Richards (fl. 1718, first name unknown, possibly Thomas) was a pirate active in the Caribbean and off the Carolinas. He is best known for sailing alongside Blackbeard (Edward Teach / Thatch).\n\nHistory\n\nRichards was part of Edward Teach's crew while they sailed with Benjamin Hornigold and later aboard the Queen Anne%27s Revenge. Near the Carolinas in early 1717 Teach met up with pirate Stede Bonnet in his 10-gun 60-ton sloop Revenge. Bonnet was a wealthy landowner from Barbados who knew little of seafaring or piracy; at Teach's suggestion (and the request of Bonnet's disgruntled crew) Bonnet came aboard Teach's ship while Teach captained the Revenge. After capturing the 200-ton Concorde and renaming it Queen Anne's Revenge, Teach placed Richards in command of Bonnet's Revenge.\n\nAround Turneffe Teach's fleet was resupplying when they encountered the 8-gun, 80-ton Jamaican logwood hauler Adventure under captain David Herriot. Richards hoisted a black flag and sailed to meet the Adventure, capturing it. Herriott and his crew joined the pirates and Teach placed Israel Hands aboard the Adventure as captain.\n\nNear the Bay of Honduras they captured several sloops and a large ship called Protestant Caesar. Richards and the Revenge secured the sloops, keeping one as a tender. Teach ordered one sloop and the Protestant Caesar burned because they were from Boston, which Teach had a grudge against after several pirates had been tried and hung there. Afterwards they pirated in the Grand Caymans, off Havana, and near the Bahamas, before finally heading to Charles Town.\n\nThere in May 1718 they took several more ships, keeping the crews and ships prisoner. Teach sent Richards and a few others into town with an ultimatum: deliver a chest of medicine or the prisoners would be killed and all the ships burned. Richards and the pirates spend their time drinking and carousing while a prisoner delivered their demands. The town council agreed and sent the medicines to Teach, who looted the ships but released them and the prisoners. Leaving Charles Town, Richards was berated by Teach for failing to burn a ship from Boston.\n\nTeach took his fleet north, where the Queen Anne’s Revenge and another sloop were beached and wrecked at Topsail Inlet. Teach took the fleet's treasure and a small crew and fled in Herriot's Adventure, leaving his former crew and the others stranded. Bonnet soon returned after having sought a pardon; retaking his sloop Revenge, he rescued the others and attempted to chase down Teach but settled for looting other ships instead.\n\nLieutenant Richards’ fate is not recorded. Charles Town merchants, weary of pirate attacks by Teach, Charles Vane, and others, equipped two ships under William Rhett as pirate hunters. Rhett missed Vane but fought and captured Bonnet. Records of Stede Bonnet's trial list all the pirates captured alive by Rhett, and Richards was not among them. Teach was caught and killed near Ocracoke by naval officer Robert Maynard, who apprehended many of his crew. Richards was not among the pirates captured by Maynard either.\n\nRichards’ first name is not known. In depositions given at Stede Bonnet's trial, two different ship captains testified that they had been approached by boats, and hailing them to ask their names, were told “Thomas Richards” before the boat crews announced that they were pirates. “Thomas” may have been Lieutenant Richards’ real name, or an alias, or may have been another of Teach's crew entirely; in official documents he is referred to only as “Richards.”\n\nSee also\nAdmiralty court, in which Bonnet's and Teach's captured crews were tried.\n\nReferences\n\nYear of birth missing\nYear of death missing\n18th-century pirates\nCaribbean pirates\nPirates",
"The Magpie's Nest is an English fairy tale collected by Joseph Jacobs in English Fairy Tales.\n\nSynopsis\nAll the birds came to the magpie, because it was the wisest, and asked it to teach them how to build nests. The magpie started to demonstrate, but each time she did something, another bird concluded that was all there was to it. By the time she was done, only the turtle-dove was left, and it had been paying no attention, but singing \"Take two\". The magpie said that one was enough but looked up and saw that every bird had left. She became angry and would not teach any more.\n\nThat is why birds build their nests differently.\n\nExternal links\nThe Magpie's Nest\n\nEnglish fairy tales"
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"never actually attempted to obtain a degree, satisfying himself with participating in the intellectual community around Sapir.",
"did he teach there",
"Whorf took on a central role among Sapir's students and was well respected."
] | C_568bfed194e047a094ff5206bdcac551_1 | did he receive any awards | 4 | Did Benjamin Lee Whorf receive any awards? | Benjamin Lee Whorf | Until his return from Mexico in 1930 Whorf had been entirely an autodidact in linguistic theory and field methodology, yet he had already made a name for himself in Middle American linguistics. Whorf had met Sapir, the leading US linguist of the day, at professional conferences, and in 1931 Sapir came to Yale from the University of Chicago to take a position as Professor of Anthropology. Alfred Tozzer sent Sapir a copy of Whorf's paper on "Nahuatl tones and saltillo". Sapir replied stating that it "should by all means be published"; however, it was not until 1993 that it was prepared for publication by Lyle Campbell and Frances Karttunen. Whorf took Sapir's first course at Yale on "American Indian Linguistics". He enrolled in a program of graduate studies, nominally working towards a PhD in linguistics, but he never actually attempted to obtain a degree, satisfying himself with participating in the intellectual community around Sapir. At Yale, Whorf joined the circle of Sapir's students that included such luminary linguists as Morris Swadesh, Mary Haas, Harry Hoijer, G. L. Trager and Charles F. Voegelin. Whorf took on a central role among Sapir's students and was well respected. Sapir had a profound influence on Whorf's thinking. Sapir's earliest writings had espoused views of the relation between thought and language stemming from the Humboldtian tradition he acquired through Franz Boas, which regarded language as the historical embodiment of volksgeist, or ethnic world view. But Sapir had since become influenced by a current of logical positivism, such as that of Bertrand Russell and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein, particularly through Ogden and Richards' The Meaning of Meaning, from which he adopted the view that natural language potentially obscures, rather than facilitates, the mind to perceive and describe the world as it really is. In this view, proper perception could only be accomplished through formal logics. During his stay at Yale, Whorf acquired this current of thought partly from Sapir and partly through his own readings of Russell and Ogden and Richards. As Whorf became more influenced by positivist science he also distanced himself from some approaches to language and meaning that he saw as lacking in rigor and insight. One of these was Polish philosopher Alfred Korzybski's General semantics, which was espoused in the US by Stuart Chase. Chase admired Whorf's work and frequently sought out a reluctant Whorf, who considered Chase to be "utterly incompetent by training and background to handle such a subject." Ironically, Chase would later write the foreword for Carroll's collection of Whorf's writings. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Benjamin Lee Whorf (; April 24, 1897 – July 26, 1941) was an American linguist and fire prevention engineer. Whorf is widely known as an advocate for the idea that differences between the structures of different languages shape how their speakers perceive and conceptualize the world. This principle has frequently been called the “Sapir–Whorf hypothesis”, after him and his mentor Edward Sapir, but Whorf called it the principle of linguistic relativity, because he saw the idea as having implications similar to Einstein’s principle of physical relativity. The idea, however, follows from post-Hegelian 19th-century philosophy, especially from Wilhelm von Humboldt; and from Wilhelm Wundt's Völkerpsychologie.
Throughout his life Whorf was a chemical engineer by profession, but as a young man he took up an interest in linguistics. At first this interest drew him to the study of Biblical Hebrew, but he quickly went on to study the indigenous languages of Mesoamerica on his own. Professional scholars were impressed by his work and in 1930 he received a grant to study the Nahuatl language in Mexico; on his return home he presented several influential papers on the language at linguistics conferences.
This led him to begin studying linguistics with Edward Sapir at Yale University while still maintaining his day job at the Hartford Fire Insurance Company. During his time at Yale he worked on the description of the Hopi language, and the historical linguistics of the Uto-Aztecan languages, publishing many influential papers in professional journals. He was chosen as the substitute for Sapir during his medical leave in 1938. Whorf taught his seminar on "Problems of American Indian Linguistics". In addition to his well-known work on linguistic relativity, he wrote a grammar sketch of Hopi and studies of Nahuatl dialects, proposed a deciphering of Maya hieroglyphic writing, and published the first attempt towards a reconstruction of Uto-Aztecan.
After his death from cancer in 1941 his manuscripts were curated by his linguist friends who also worked to spread the influence of Whorf's ideas on the relation between language, culture and cognition. Many of his works were published posthumously in the first decades after his death. In the 1960s Whorf's views fell out of favor and he became the subject of harsh criticisms by scholars who considered language structure to primarily reflect cognitive universals rather than cultural differences. Critics argued that Whorf's ideas were untestable and poorly formulated and that they were based on badly analyzed or misunderstood data.
In the late 20th century, interest in Whorf's ideas experienced a resurgence, and a new generation of scholars began reading Whorf's works, arguing that previous critiques had only engaged superficially with Whorf's actual ideas, or had attributed to him ideas he had never expressed. The field of linguistic relativity studies remains an active focus of research in psycholinguistics and linguistic anthropology, and continues to generate debate and controversy between proponents of relativism and proponents of universalism. By comparison, Whorf's other work in linguistics, the development of such concepts as the allophone and the cryptotype, and the formulation of "Whorf's law" in Uto-Aztecan historical linguistics, have met with broad acceptance.
Biography
Early life
The son of Harry Church Whorf and Sarah Edna Lee Whorf, Benjamin Lee Whorf was born on April 24, 1897 in Winthrop, Massachusetts. Harry Church Whorf was an artist, intellectual, and designer – first working as a commercial artist and later as a dramatist. Benjamin had two younger brothers, John and Richard, who both went on to become notable artists. John became an internationally renowned painter and illustrator; Richard was an actor in films such as Yankee Doodle Dandy and later an Emmy-nominated television director of such shows as The Beverly Hillbillies. Benjamin was the intellectual of the three and at a young age he conducted chemical experiments with his father's photographic equipment. He was also an avid reader, interested in botany, astrology, and Middle American prehistory. He read William H. Prescott's Conquest of Mexico several times. At the age of 17 he began to keep a copious diary in which he recorded his thoughts and dreams.
Career in fire prevention
Whorf graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1918 with a degree in chemical engineering where his academic performance was of average quality. In 1920 he married Celia Inez Peckham, who became the mother of his three children, Raymond Ben, Robert Peckham and Celia Lee. Around the same time he began work as a fire prevention engineer (an inspector) for the Hartford Fire Insurance Company. He was particularly good at the job and was highly commended by his employers. His job required him to travel to production facilities throughout New England to be inspected. One anecdote describes him arriving at a chemical plant in which he was denied access by the director because he would not allow anyone to see the production procedure which was a trade secret. Having been told what the plant produced, Whorf wrote a chemical formula on a piece of paper, saying to the director: "I think this is what you're doing". The surprised director asked Whorf how he knew about the secret procedure, and he simply answered: "You couldn't do it in any other way."
Whorf helped to attract new customers to the Fire Insurance Company; they favored his thorough inspections and recommendations. Another famous anecdote from his job was used by Whorf to argue that language use affects habitual behavior. Whorf described a workplace in which full gasoline drums were stored in one room and empty ones in another; he said that because of flammable vapor the "empty" drums were more dangerous than those that were full, although workers handled them less carefully to the point that they smoked in the room with "empty" drums, but not in the room with full ones. Whorf argued that by habitually speaking of the vapor-filled drums as empty and by extension as inert, the workers were oblivious to the risk posed by smoking near the "empty drums".
Early interest in religion and language
Whorf was a spiritual man throughout his lifetime although what religion he followed has been the subject of debate. As a young man he produced a manuscript titled "Why I have discarded evolution", causing some scholars to describe him as a devout Methodist, who was impressed with fundamentalism, and perhaps supportive of creationism. However, throughout his life Whorf's main religious interest was theosophy, a nonsectarian organization based on Buddhist and Hindu teachings that promotes the view of the world as an interconnected whole and the unity and brotherhood of humankind "without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or color". Some scholars have argued that the conflict between spiritual and scientific inclinations has been a driving force in Whorf's intellectual development, particularly in the attraction by ideas of linguistic relativity. Whorf said that "of all groups of people with whom I have come in contact, Theosophical people seem the most capable of becoming excited about ideas—new ideas."
Around 1924 Whorf first became interested in linguistics. Originally he analyzed Biblical texts, seeking to uncover hidden layers of meaning. Inspired by the esoteric work La langue hebraïque restituée by Antoine Fabre d'Olivet, he began a semantic and grammatical analysis of Biblical Hebrew. Whorf's early manuscripts on Hebrew and Maya have been described as exhibiting a considerable degree of mysticism, as he sought to uncover esoteric meanings of glyphs and letters.
Early studies in Mesoamerican linguistics
Whorf studied Biblical linguistics mainly at the Watkinson Library (now Hartford Public Library). This library had an extensive collection of materials about Native American linguistics and folklore, originally collected by James Hammond Trumbull. It was at the Watkinson library that Whorf became friends with the young boy, John B. Carroll, who later went on to study psychology under B. F. Skinner, and who in 1956 edited and published a selection of Whorf's essays as Language, Thought and Reality . The collection rekindled Whorf's interest in Mesoamerican antiquity. He began studying the Nahuatl language in 1925, and later, beginning in 1928, he studied the collections of Maya hieroglyphic texts. Quickly becoming conversant with the materials, he began a scholarly dialog with Mesoamericanists such as Alfred Tozzer, the Maya archaeologist at Harvard University, and Herbert Spinden of the Brooklyn Museum.
In 1928 he first presented a paper at the International Congress of Americanists in which he presented his translation of a Nahuatl document held at the Peabody Museum at Harvard. He also began to study the comparative linguistics of the Uto-Aztecan language family, which Edward Sapir had recently demonstrated to be a linguistic family. In addition to Nahuatl, Whorf studied the Piman and Tepecano languages, while in close correspondence with linguist J. Alden Mason.
Field studies in Mexico
Because of the promise shown by his work on Uto-Aztecan, Tozzer and Spinden advised Whorf to apply for a grant with the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) to support his research. Whorf considered using the money to travel to Mexico to procure Aztec manuscripts for the Watkinson library, but Tozzer suggested he spend the time in Mexico documenting modern Nahuatl dialects. In his application Whorf proposed to establish the oligosynthetic nature of the Nahuatl language. Before leaving Whorf presented the paper "Stem series in Maya" at the Linguistic Society of America conference, in which he argued that in the Mayan languages syllables carry symbolic content. The SSRC awarded Whorf the grant and in 1930 he traveled to Mexico City where Professor Robert H Barlow put him in contact with several speakers of Nahuatl to serve as his informants, among whom were Mariano Rojas of Tepoztlán and Luz Jimenez of Milpa Alta. The outcome of the trip to Mexico was Whorf's sketch of Milpa Alta Nahuatl, published only after his death, and an article on a series of Aztec pictograms found at the Tepozteco monument at Tepoztlán, Morelos in which he noted similarities in form and meaning between Aztec and Maya day signs.
At Yale
Until his return from Mexico in 1930 Whorf had been entirely an autodidact in linguistic theory and field methodology, yet he had already made a name for himself in Middle American linguistics. Whorf had met Sapir, the leading US linguist of the day, at professional conferences, and in 1931 Sapir came to Yale from the University of Chicago to take a position as Professor of Anthropology. Alfred Tozzer sent Sapir a copy of Whorf's paper on "Nahuatl tones and saltillo". Sapir replied stating that it "should by all means be published"; however, it was not until 1993 that it was prepared for publication by Lyle Campbell and Frances Karttunen.
Whorf took Sapir's first course at Yale on "American Indian Linguistics". He enrolled in a program of graduate studies, nominally working towards a PhD in linguistics, but he never actually attempted to obtain a degree, satisfying himself with participating in the intellectual community around Sapir. At Yale, Whorf joined the circle of Sapir's students that included such luminary linguists as Morris Swadesh, Mary Haas, Harry Hoijer, G. L. Trager and Charles F. Voegelin. Whorf took on a central role among Sapir's students and was well respected.
Sapir had a profound influence on Whorf's thinking. Sapir's earliest writings had espoused views of the relation between thought and language stemming from the Humboldtian tradition he acquired through Franz Boas, which regarded language as the historical embodiment of volksgeist, or ethnic world view. But Sapir had since become influenced by a current of logical positivism, such as that of Bertrand Russell and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein, particularly through Ogden and Richards' The Meaning of Meaning, from which he adopted the view that natural language potentially obscures, rather than facilitates, the mind to perceive and describe the world as it really is. In this view, proper perception could only be accomplished through formal logics. During his stay at Yale, Whorf acquired this current of thought partly from Sapir and partly through his own readings of Russell and Ogden and Richards. As Whorf became more influenced by positivist science he also distanced himself from some approaches to language and meaning that he saw as lacking in rigor and insight. One of these was Polish philosopher Alfred Korzybski's General semantics, which was espoused in the US by Stuart Chase. Chase admired Whorf's work and frequently sought out a reluctant Whorf, who considered Chase to be "utterly incompetent by training and background to handle such a subject." Ironically, Chase would later write the foreword for Carroll's collection of Whorf's writings.
Work on Hopi and descriptive linguistics
Sapir also encouraged Whorf to continue his work on the historical and descriptive linguistics of Uto-Aztecan. Whorf published several articles on that topic in this period, some of them with G. L. Trager, who had become his close friend. Whorf took a special interest in the Hopi language and started working with Ernest Naquayouma, a speaker of Hopi from Toreva village living in Manhattan, New York. Whorf credited Naquayouma as the source of most of his information on the Hopi language, although in 1938 he took a short field trip to the village of Mishongnovi, on the Second Mesa of the Hopi Reservation in Arizona.
In 1936, Whorf was appointed Honorary Research Fellow in Anthropology at Yale, and he was invited by Franz Boas to serve on the committee of the Society of American Linguistics (later Linguistic Society of America). In 1937, Yale awarded him the Sterling Fellowship. He was a lecturer in Anthropology from 1937 through 1938, replacing Sapir, who was gravely ill. Whorf gave graduate level lectures on "Problems of American Indian Linguistics". In 1938 with Trager's assistance he elaborated a report on the progress of linguistic research at the department of anthropology at Yale. The report includes some of Whorf's influential contributions to linguistic theory, such as the concept of the allophone and of covert grammatical categories. has argued, that in this report Whorf's linguistic theories exist in a condensed form, and that it was mainly through this report that Whorf exerted influence on the discipline of descriptive linguistics.
Final years
In late 1938, Whorf's own health declined. After an operation for cancer he fell into an unproductive period. He was also deeply influenced by Sapir's death in early 1939. It was in the writings of his last two years that he laid out the research program of linguistic relativity. His 1939 memorial article for Sapir, "The Relation of Habitual Thought And Behavior to Language", in particular has been taken to be Whorf's definitive statement of the issue, and is his most frequently quoted piece.
In his last year Whorf also published three articles in the MIT Technology Review titled "Science and Linguistics", "Linguistics as an Exact Science" and "Language and Logic". He was also invited to contribute an article to a theosophical journal, Theosophist, published in Madras, India, for which he wrote "Language, Mind and Reality". In these final pieces he offered a critique of Western science in which he suggested that non-European languages often referred to physical phenomena in ways that more directly reflected aspects of reality than many European languages, and that science ought to pay attention to the effects of linguistic categorization in its efforts to describe the physical world. He particularly criticized the Indo-European languages for promoting a mistaken essentialist world view, which had been disproved by advances in the sciences, whereas he suggested that other languages dedicated more attention to processes and dynamics rather than stable essences. Whorf argued that paying attention to how other physical phenomena are described in the study of linguistics could make valuable contributions to science by pointing out the ways in which certain assumptions about reality are implicit in the structure of language itself, and how language guides the attention of speakers towards certain phenomena in the world which risk becoming overemphasized while leaving other phenomena at risk of being overlooked.
Posthumous reception and legacy
At Whorf's death his friend G. L. Trager was appointed as curator of his unpublished manuscripts. Some of them were published in the years after his death by another of Whorf's friends, Harry Hoijer. In the decade following, Trager and particularly Hoijer did much to popularize Whorf's ideas about linguistic relativity, and it was Hoijer who coined the term "Sapir–Whorf hypothesis" at a 1954 conference. Trager then published an article titled "The systematization of the Whorf hypothesis", which contributed to the idea that Whorf had proposed a hypothesis that should be the basis for a program of empirical research. Hoijer also published studies of Indigenous languages and cultures of the American South West in which Whorf found correspondences between cultural patterns and linguistic ones. The term, even though technically a misnomer, went on to become the most widely known label for Whorf's ideas. According to John A. Lucy "Whorf's work in linguistics was and still is recognized as being of superb professional quality by linguists".
Universalism and anti-Whorfianism
Whorf's work began to fall out of favor less than a decade after his death, and he was subjected to severe criticism from scholars of language, culture and psychology. In 1953 and 1954 psychologists Roger Brown and Eric Lenneberg criticized Whorf for his reliance on anecdotal evidence, formulating a hypothesis to scientifically test his ideas, which they limited to an examination of a causal relation between grammatical or lexical structure and cognition or perception. Whorf himself did not advocate a straight causality between language and thought; instead he wrote that "Language and culture had grown up together"; that both were mutually shaped by the other. Hence, has argued that because the aim of the formulation of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis was to test simple causation, from the outset it failed to test Whorf's ideas.
Focusing on color terminology, with easily discernible differences between perception and vocabulary, Brown and Lenneberg published in 1954 a study of Zuni color terms that slightly support a weak effect of semantic categorization of color terms on color perception. In doing so they began a line of empirical studies that investigated the principle of linguistic relativity.
Empirical testing of the Whorfian hypothesis declined in the 1960s to 1980s as Noam Chomsky began to redefine linguistics and much of psychology in formal universalist terms. Several studies from that period refuted Whorf's hypothesis, demonstrating that linguistic diversity is a surface veneer that masks underlying universal cognitive principles. Many studies were highly critical and disparaging in their language, ridiculing Whorf's analyses and examples or his lack of an academic degree. Throughout the 1980s most mentions of Whorf or of the Sapir–Whorf hypotheses continued to be disparaging, and led to a widespread view that Whorf's ideas had been proven wrong. Because Whorf was treated so severely in the scholarship during those decades, he has been described as "one of the prime whipping boys of introductory texts to linguistics". In the late 1980s, with the advent of cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics some linguists sought to rehabilitate Whorf's reputation, as scholarship began to question whether earlier critiques of Whorf were justified.
By the 1960s analytical philosophers also became aware of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, and philosophers such as Max Black and Donald Davidson published scathing critiques of Whorf's strong relativist viewpoints. Black characterized Whorf's ideas about metaphysics as demonstrating "amateurish crudity". According to Black and Davidson, Whorf's viewpoint and the concept of linguistic relativity meant that translation between languages with different conceptual schemes would be impossible. Recent assessments such as those by Leavitt and Lee, however, consider Black and Davidson's interpretation to be based on an inaccurate characterization of Whorf's viewpoint, and even rather absurd given the time he spent trying to translate between different conceptual schemes. In their view the critiques are based on a lack of familiarity with Whorf's writings; according to these recent Whorf scholars a more accurate description of his viewpoint is that he thought translation to be possible, but only through careful attention to the subtle differences between conceptual schemes.
Eric Lenneberg, Noam Chomsky, and Steven Pinker have also criticized Whorf for failing to be sufficiently clear in his formulation of how language influences thought, and for failing to provide real evidence to support his assumptions. Generally Whorf's arguments took the form of examples that were anecdotal or speculative, and functioned as attempts to show how "exotic" grammatical traits were connected to what were considered equally exotic worlds of thought. Even Whorf's defenders admitted that his writing style was often convoluted and couched in neologisms – attributed to his awareness of language use, and his reluctance to use terminology that might have pre-existing connotations. argues that Whorf was mesmerized by the foreignness of indigenous languages, and exaggerated and idealized them. According to Lakoff, Whorf's tendency to exoticize data must be judged in the historical context: Whorf and the other Boasians wrote at a time in which racism and jingoism were predominant, and when it was unthinkable to many that "savages" had redeeming qualities, or that their languages were comparable in complexity to those of Europe. For this alone Lakoff argues, Whorf can be considered to be "Not just a pioneer in linguistics, but a pioneer as a human being".
Today many followers of universalist schools of thought continue to oppose the idea of linguistic relativity, seeing it as unsound or even ridiculous. For example, Steven Pinker argues in his book The Language Instinct that thought exists prior to language and independently of it, a view also espoused by philosophers of language such as Jerry Fodor, John Locke and Plato. In this interpretation, language is inconsequential to human thought because humans do not think in "natural" language, i.e. any language used for communication. Rather, we think in a meta-language that precedes natural language, which Pinker following Fodor calls "mentalese." Pinker attacks what he calls "Whorf's radical position", declaring, "the more you examine Whorf's arguments, the less sense they make." Scholars of a more "relativist" bent such as John A. Lucy and Stephen C. Levinson have criticized Pinker for misrepresenting Whorf's views and arguing against strawmen.
Resurgence of Whorfianism
Linguistic relativity studies have experienced a resurgence since the 1990s, and a series of favorable experimental results have brought Whorfianism back into favor, especially in cultural psychology and linguistic anthropology. The first study directing positive attention towards Whorf's relativist position was George Lakoff's "Women, Fire and Dangerous Things", in which he argued that Whorf had been on the right track in his focus on differences in grammatical and lexical categories as a source of differences in conceptualization. In 1992 psychologist John A. Lucy published two books on the topic, one analyzing the intellectual genealogy of the hypothesis, arguing that previous studies had failed to appreciate the subtleties of Whorf's thinking; they had been unable to formulate a research agenda that would actually test Whorf's claims. Lucy proposed a new research design so that the hypothesis of linguistic relativity could be tested empirically, and to avoid the pitfalls of earlier studies which Lucy claimed had tended to presuppose the universality of the categories they were studying. His second book was an empirical study of the relation between grammatical categories and cognition in the Yucatec Maya language of Mexico.
In 1996 Penny Lee's reappraisal of Whorf's writings was published, reinstating Whorf as a serious and capable thinker. Lee argued that previous explorations of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis had largely ignored Whorf's actual writings, and consequently asked questions very unlike those Whorf had asked. Also in that year a volume, "Rethinking Linguistic Relativity" edited by John J. Gumperz and Stephen C. Levinson gathered a range of researchers working in psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology to bring renewed attention to the issue of how Whorf's theories could be updated, and a subsequent review of the new direction of the linguistic relativity paradigm cemented the development. Since then considerable empirical research into linguistic relativity has been carried out, especially at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics with scholarship motivating two edited volumes of linguistic relativity studies, and in American Institutions by scholars such as Lera Boroditsky and Dedre Gentner.
In turn universalist scholars frequently dismiss as "dull" or "boring", positive findings of influence of linguistic categories on thought or behavior, which are often subtle rather than spectacular, suggesting that Whorf's excitement about linguistic relativity had promised more spectacular findings than it was able to provide.
Whorf's views have been compared to those of philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and the late Ludwig Wittgenstein, both of whom considered language to have important bearing on thought and reasoning. His hypotheses have also been compared to the views of psychologists such as Lev Vygotsky, whose social constructivism considers the cognitive development of children to be mediated by the social use of language. Vygotsky shared Whorf's interest in gestalt psychology, and he also read Sapir's works. Others have seen similarities between Whorf's work and the ideas of literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, who read Whorf and whose approach to textual meaning was similarly holistic and relativistic. Whorf's ideas have also been interpreted as a radical critique of positivist science.
Work
Linguistic relativity
Whorf is best known as the main proponent of what he called the principle of linguistic relativity, but which is often known as "the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis", named for him and Edward Sapir. Whorf never stated the principle in the form of a hypothesis, and the idea that linguistic categories influence perception and cognition was shared by many other scholars before him. But because Whorf, in his articles, gave specific examples of how he saw the grammatical categories of specific languages related to conceptual and behavioral patterns, he pointed towards an empirical research program that has been taken up by subsequent scholars, and which is often called "Sapir–Whorf studies".
Sources of influence on Whorf's thinking
Whorf and Sapir both drew explicitly on Albert Einstein's principle of general relativity; hence linguistic relativity refers to the concept of grammatical and semantic categories of a specific language providing a frame of reference as a medium through which observations are made. Following an original observation by Boas, Sapir demonstrated that speakers of a given language perceive sounds that are acoustically different as the same, if the sound comes from the underlying phoneme and does not contribute to changes in semantic meaning. Furthermore, speakers of languages are attentive to sounds, particularly if the same two sounds come from different phonemes. Such differentiation is an example of how various observational frames of reference leads to different patterns of attention and perception.
Whorf was also influenced by gestalt psychology, believing that languages require their speakers to describe the same events as different gestalt constructions, which he called "isolates from experience". An example is how the action of cleaning a gun is different in English and Shawnee: English focuses on the instrumental relation between two objects and the purpose of the action (removing dirt); whereas the Shawnee language focuses on the movement—using an arm to create a dry space in a hole. The event described is the same, but the attention in terms of figure and ground are different.
Degree of influence of language on thought
If read superficially, some of Whorf's statements lend themselves to the interpretation that he supported linguistic determinism. For example, in an often-quoted passage Whorf writes:
The statements about the obligatory nature of the terms of language have been taken to suggest that Whorf meant that language completely determined the scope of possible conceptualizations. However neo-Whorfians argue that here Whorf is writing about the terms in which we speak of the world, not the terms in which we think of it. Whorf noted that to communicate thoughts and experiences with members of a speech community speakers must use the linguistic categories of their shared language, which requires moulding experiences into the shape of language to speak them—a process called "thinking for speaking". This interpretation is supported by Whorf's subsequent statement that "No individual is free to describe nature with absolute impartiality, but is constrained by certain modes of interpretation even when he thinks himself most free". Similarly the statement that observers are led to different pictures of the universe has been understood as an argument that different conceptualizations are incommensurable making translation between different conceptual and linguistic systems impossible. Neo-Whorfians argue this to be a misreading since throughout his work one of his main points was that such systems could be "calibrated" and thereby be made commensurable, but only when we become aware of the differences in conceptual schemes through linguistic analysis.
Hopi time
Whorf's study of Hopi time has been the most widely discussed and criticized example of linguistic relativity. In his analysis he argues that there is a relation between how the Hopi people conceptualize time, how they speak of temporal relations, and the grammar of the Hopi language. Whorf's most elaborate argument for the existence of linguistic relativity was based on what he saw as a fundamental difference in the understanding of time as a conceptual category among the Hopi. He argued that the Hopi language, in contrast to English and other SAE languages, does not treat the flow of time as a sequence of distinct countable instances, like "three days" or "five years", but rather as a single process. Because of this difference, the language lacks nouns that refer to units of time. He proposed that the Hopi view of time was fundamental in all aspects of their culture and furthermore explained certain patterns of behavior. In his 1939 memorial essay to Sapir he wrote that “... the Hopi language is seen to contain no words, grammatical forms, construction or expressions that refer directly to what we call 'time', or to past, present, or future...”
Linguist Ekkehart Malotki challenged Whorf's analyses of Hopi temporal expressions and concepts with numerous examples how the Hopi language refers to time. Malotki argues that in the Hopi language the system of tenses consists of future and non-future and that the single difference between the three-tense system of European languages and the Hopi system, is that the latter combines past and present to form a single category.
Malotki's critique was widely cited as the final piece of evidence in refuting Whorf's ideas and his concept of linguistic relativity while other scholars defended the analysis of Hopi, arguing that Whorf's claim was not that Hopi lacked words or categories to describe temporality, but that the Hopi concept of time is altogether different from that of English speakers. Whorf described the Hopi categories of tense, noting that time is not divided into past, present and future, as is common in European languages, but rather a single tense refers to both present and past while another refers to events that have not yet happened and may or may not happen in the future. He also described a large array of stems that he called "tensors" which describes aspects of temporality, but without referring to countable units of time as in English and most European languages.
Contributions to linguistic theory
Whorf's distinction between "overt" (phenotypical) and "covert" (cryptotypical) grammatical categories has become widely influential in linguistics and anthropology. British linguist Michael Halliday wrote about Whorf's notion of the "cryptotype", and the conception of "how grammar models reality", that it would "eventually turn out to be among the major contributions of twentieth century linguistics".
Furthermore, Whorf introduced the concept of the allophone, a word that describes positional phonetic variants of a single superordinate phoneme; in doing so he placed a cornerstone in consolidating early phoneme theory. The term was popularized by G. L. Trager and Bernard Bloch in a 1941 paper on English phonology and went on to become part of standard usage within the American structuralist tradition. Whorf considered allophones to be another example of linguistic relativity. The principle of allophony describes how acoustically different sounds can be treated as reflections of a single phoneme in a language. This sometimes makes the different sound appear similar to native speakers of the language, even to the point that they are unable to distinguish them auditorily without special training. Whorf wrote that: "[allophones] are also relativistic. Objectively, acoustically, and physiologically the allophones of [a] phoneme may be extremely unlike, hence the impossibility of determining what is what. You always have to keep the observer in the picture. What linguistic pattern makes like is like, and what it makes unlike is unlike".(Whorf, 1940)
Central to Whorf's inquiries was the approach later described as metalinguistics by G. L. Trager, who in 1950 published four of Whorf's essays as "Four articles on Metalinguistics". Whorf was crucially interested in the ways in which speakers come to be aware of the language that they use, and become able to describe and analyze language using language itself to do so. Whorf saw that the ability to arrive at progressively more accurate descriptions of the world hinged partly on the ability to construct a metalanguage to describe how language affects experience, and thus to have the ability to calibrate different conceptual schemes. Whorf's endeavors have since been taken up in the development of the study of metalinguistics and metalinguistic awareness, first by Michael Silverstein who published a radical and influential rereading of Whorf in 1979 and subsequently in the field of linguistic anthropology.
Studies of Uto-Aztecan languages
Whorf conducted important work on the Uto-Aztecan languages, which Sapir had conclusively demonstrated as a valid language family in 1915. Working first on Nahuatl, Tepecano, Tohono O'odham he established familiarity with the language group before he met Sapir in 1928. During Whorf's time at Yale he published several articles on Uto-Aztecan linguistics, such as "Notes on the Tübatulabal language". In 1935 he published "The Comparative Linguistics of Uto-Aztecan", and a review of Kroeber's survey of Uto-Aztecan linguistics. Whorf's work served to further cement the foundations of the comparative Uto-Aztecan studies.
The first Native American language Whorf studied was the Uto-Aztecan language Nahuatl which he studied first from colonial grammars and documents, and later became the subject of his first field work experience in 1930. Based on his studies of Classical Nahuatl Whorf argued that Nahuatl was an oligosynthetic language, a typological category that he invented. In Mexico working with native speakers, he studied the dialects of Milpa Alta and Tepoztlán. His grammar sketch of the Milpa Alta dialect of Nahuatl was not published during his lifetime, but it was published posthumously by Harry Hoijer and became quite influential and used as the basic description of "Modern Nahuatl" by many scholars. The description of the dialect is quite condensed and in some places difficult to understand because of Whorf's propensity of inventing his own unique terminology for grammatical concepts, but the work has generally been considered to be technically advanced. He also produced an analysis of the prosody of these dialects which he related to the history of the glottal stop and vowel length in Nahuan languages. This work was prepared for publication by Lyle Campbell and Frances Karttunen in 1993, who also considered it a valuable description of the two endangered dialects, and the only one of its kind to include detailed phonetic analysis of supra-segmental phenomena.
In Uto-Aztecan linguistics one of Whorf's achievements was to determine the reason the Nahuatl language has the phoneme , not found in the other languages of the family. The existence of in Nahuatl had puzzled previous linguists and caused Sapir to reconstruct a phoneme for proto-Uto-Aztecan based only on evidence from Aztecan. In a 1937 paper published in the journal American Anthropologist, Whorf argued that the phoneme resulted from some of the Nahuan or Aztecan languages having undergone a sound change from the original * to in the position before *. This sound law is known as "Whorf's law", considered valid although a more detailed understanding of the precise conditions under which it took place has since been developed.
Also in 1937, Whorf and his friend G. L. Trager, published a paper in which they elaborated on the Azteco-Tanoan language family, proposed originally by Sapir as a family comprising the Uto-Aztecan and the Kiowa-Tanoan languages—(the Tewa and Kiowa languages).
Maya epigraphy
In a series of published and unpublished studies in the 1930s, Whorf argued that Mayan writing was to some extent phonetic. While his work on deciphering the Maya script gained some support from Alfred Tozzer at Harvard, the main authority on Ancient Maya culture, J. E. S. Thompson, strongly rejected Whorf's ideas, saying that Mayan writing lacked a phonetic component and is therefore impossible to decipher based on a linguistic analysis. Whorf argued that it was exactly the reluctance to apply linguistic analysis of Maya languages that had held the decipherment back. Whorf sought for cues to phonetic values within the elements of the specific signs, and never realized that the system was logo-syllabic. Although Whorf's approach to understanding the Maya script is now known to have been misguided, his central claim that the script was phonetic and should be deciphered as such was vindicated by Yuri Knorozov's syllabic decipherment of Mayan writing in the 1950s.
Notes
Commentary notes
References
Sources
External links
B. L. Whorf, .
Benjamin Lee Whorf Papers (MS 822). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.
What Whorf Really Said – Evaluation of Pinker's (1994) critique of Whorf, by Nick Yee
1897 births
1941 deaths
People from Winthrop, Massachusetts
Linguists from the United States
American anthropologists
American Mesoamericanists
MIT School of Engineering alumni
Linguists of Mesoamerican languages
Mesoamerican epigraphers
Mayanists
American translation scholars
20th-century Mesoamericanists
Yale University alumni
Linguists of Aztec–Tanoan languages
Linguists of Uto-Aztecan languages
Linguists of Tanoan languages
Paleolinguists
20th-century linguists
Linguists of indigenous languages of North America
American chemical engineers
20th-century anthropologists | false | [
"Below is a list of awards received by Twins since they were formed in 2001 as a cantopop girl group. They average to receive about 2-3 awards in each Hong Kong music awards. Their major accomplishment is in 2007 when they received the Asia Pacific Most Popular Female Artist Award from Jade Solid Gold Top 10 Awards.\n\nBecause of the Edison Chen photo scandal in 2008, Gillian took a short leave from the group. And thus the group did not record any songs or receive any awards between March 2008 to 2009.\n\nCommercial Radio Hong Kong Ultimate Song Chart Awards\nThe Ultimate Song Chart Awards Presentation (叱咤樂壇流行榜頒獎典禮) is a cantopop award ceremony from one of the famous channel in Commercial Radio Hong Kong known as Ultimate 903 (FM 90.3). Unlike other cantopop award ceremonies, this one is judged based on the popularity of the song/artist on the actual radio show.\n\nGlobal Chinese Music Awards\n\nIFPI Hong Kong Sales Awards\nIFPI Awards is given to artists base on the sales in Hong Kong at the end of the year.\n\nJade Solid Gold Top 10 Awards\nThe Jade Solid Gold Songs Awards Ceremony(十大勁歌金曲頒獎典禮) is held annually in Hong Kong since 1984. The awards are based on Jade Solid Gold show on TVB.\n\nMetro Radio Mandarin Music Awards\n\nMetro Showbiz Hit Awards\nThe Metro Showbiz Hit Awards (新城勁爆頒獎禮) is held in Hong Kong annually by Metro Showbiz radio station. It focus mostly in cantopop music.\n\nRTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards\nThe RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards Ceremony(十大中文金曲頒獎音樂會) is held annually in Hong Kong since 1978. The awards are determined by Radio and Television Hong Kong based on the work of all Asian artists (mostly cantopop) for the previous year.\n\nSprite Music Awards\nThe Sprite Music Awards Ceremony is an annual event given by Sprite China for work artists performed in previous years; awards received on 2008 are actually for the work and accomplishment for 2007.\n\nReferences\n\nTwins\nCantopop",
"The Drama-Logue Award was an American theater award established in 1977, given by the publishers of Drama-Logue newspaper, a weekly west-coast theater trade publication. Winners were selected by the publication's theater critics, and would receive a certificate at an annual awards ceremony hosted by Drama-Logue founder Bill Bordy. The awards did not require any voting or agreement among critics; each critic could select as many award winners as they wished. As a result, many awards were issued each year. In some years, the number of winners was larger than the seating capacity of the venue where the ceremony was conducted.\n\nThe award categories included Production, Direction, Musical Direction, Choreography, Writing, Performance, Ensemble Performance, Scenic Design, Sound Design, Lighting Design, Costume Design and Hair & Makeup Design.\n\nAcquisition \nIn May 1998, Backstage West bought the Drama-Logue publication, and the two publications merged. The Drama-Logue Awards were subsequently retired and replaced by the Back Stage West Garland Awards.\n\nReferences\n\nAmerican theater awards\nAwards established in 1977\nAwards disestablished in 1998"
] |
[
"Peter Arnett",
"The Gulf War"
] | C_7576129012b04fe8b0e371c87894f6f8_1 | When did he cover the gulf war? | 1 | When did Peter Arnett cover the gulf war? | Peter Arnett | Arnett worked for CNN for 18 years ending in 1999. During the Gulf War, he became a household name worldwide when he became the only reporter with live coverage directly from Baghdad. His dramatic reports often had air raid sirens blaring and the sound of US bombs exploding in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means -- a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan -- to communicate to the outside world. CNN broadcast Arnett's extended call live for several hours, with a picture of Arnett as video. Soon the other journalists left Iraq, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole remaining reporter. His accounts of civilian damage caused by the bombing were not well received by the coalition war administration, who by their constant use of terms like "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" in their public statements, had tried to project an image that civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House sources would later state that Arnett was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation, and CNN received a letter from 34 members of the United States Congress accusing Arnett of "unpatriotic journalism". Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein. The Gulf War became the first war to be seen truly live on TV, due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks. About halfway through the war the CIA approached Mr. Arnett. They believed that the Iraqi military was operating a high-level communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where Mr. Arnett and a few others from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Mr. Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility. CANNOTANSWER | Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991 | Peter Gregg Arnett (born 13 November 1934) is a New Zealand-born American journalist. He is known for his coverage of the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. He was awarded the 1966 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for his work in Vietnam from 1962 to 1965, mostly reporting for the Associated Press.
Arnett also worked for National Geographic magazine, and later for various television networks, most notably for nearly two decades at CNN. Arnett published a memoir, Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World's War Zones (1994). In March 1997, Arnett interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda. The journalism school at the Southern Institute of Technology in New Zealand was named for Arnett.
Early life
Arnett was born in 1934 in Riverton, in New Zealand's Southland region. His first job as a journalist was with The Southland Times.
Vietnam
During his early years in journalism, Arnett worked in Southeast Asia, largely based in Bangkok. In 1960 he started publishing a small English-language newspaper in Laos. Eventually, he made his way to Vietnam, which the French had abandoned after being defeated at Dien Bien Phu by communists from North Vietnam.
Arnett became a reporter for the Associated Press, based in Saigon in the South, in the years when the United States began to get involved in the civil conflict and through the Vietnam War. On 7 July 1963, in what became known as the Double Seven Day scuffle, he was injured in a widely reported physical altercation between a group of western journalists and South Vietnamese undercover police. The reporters were trying to cover Buddhist protests against the South Vietnamese government. His articles, such as "Death of Supply Column 21," about an event during Operation Starlite in August 1965, resulted in raising the ire of the American government, which had been increasing the number of forces in the region.
Arnett accompanied troops on dozens of missions, including the battle of Hill 875, in November 1967. An American detachment was sent to rescue another unit that was stranded in hostile territory, and the rescuers were nearly killed during the operation. In September 1972, Arnett joined a group of U.S. peace activists, including William Sloane Coffin and David Dellinger, on a trip to Hanoi, North Vietnam, to accept three American prisoners of war for return to the United States.
Arnett wrote in an unvarnished manner when reporting stories of ordinary soldiers and civilians. Arnett's writing was often criticized by administration spokesmen as negative, who wanted to keep reporting of the war positive. General William Westmoreland, President Lyndon B. Johnson and others in power put pressure on the AP to get rid of or transfer Arnett from the region.
In what is considered one of his iconic dispatches, published on 7 February 1968, Arnett wrote about the Battle of Bến Tre: "'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,' a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong." The quotation was gradually altered in subsequent publications, eventually becoming the more familiar, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." The accuracy of the original quotation and its source have often been called into question. Arnett never revealed his source, except to say that it was one of four officers he interviewed that day. US Army Major Phil Cannella, the senior officer present at Bến Tre, suggested that the quotation might have been a distortion of something he said to Arnett. The New Republic at the time attributed the quotation to US Air Force Major Chester L. Brown. In Walter Cronkite's 1971 book, Eye on the World, Arnett reasserted that the quotation was something "one American major said to me in a moment of revelation."
Arnett was one of the last western reporters remaining in Saigon after its fall and capture by the People's Army of Vietnam. Occupying soldiers showed him how they had entered the city.
Arnett wrote the 26-part mini-series documentary, Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War (1980), produced by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
At the time of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Arnett was working for Parade magazine. With a contact named Healy, he entered Afghanistan illegally from Pakistan; both men were dressed in traditional clothing as natives and led by Mujahideen guides. They continued to a Jalalabad hideaway of approximately fifty rebels. The trip came to an end when Healy fell into the Kunar River, ruining the pair's cameras. Later, Arnett would recount the story to journalist Artyom Borovik, who was covering the Soviet side of the war.
Gulf War
Beginning in 1981, Arnett worked for CNN for 18 years, ending in 1999. During the Gulf War, he became a household name worldwide as the only reporter to have live coverage directly from Baghdad, especially during the first 16 hours. His dramatic reports often were accompanied by the sound of air raid sirens blaring and US bombs exploding in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means — a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan — to communicate to the outside world. CNN broadcast Arnett's extended call live for several hours, with a picture of Arnett as video. Soon the other journalists left Iraq, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole remaining reporter.
His accounts of civilian damage caused by the bombing were not well received by the coalition war administration. Its spokesmen had emphasized terms such as "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" in their public statements, in an effort to project keeping civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House sources would later attack Arnett, saying that he was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation.
Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein. Due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks, the Gulf War was the first to be broadcast live on TV.
About halfway through the war, representatives of the CIA approached Arnett. They believed that the Iraqi military was operating a high-level communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where Arnett and other staff from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility.
Interview with Osama Bin Laden
In March 1997, Arnett of CNN interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda, after Bin Laden declared jihad on the United States. Asked by Arnett, "What are your future plans?", Bin Laden said, "You'll see them and hear about them in the media, God willing".
Operation Tailwind
In 1998, Arnett narrated a report on the joint venture (between CNN and Time magazine) program called NewsStand, covering "Operation Tailwind" in Laos in 1970.
The report, titled The Valley of Death, claimed that in 1970, the United States Army had used sarin, a nerve gas, against a group of deserting U.S. soldiers in Laos. The men who allegedly conducted the attack were an elite Green Beret A-Team. The report was expressly approved by both CNN Chairman Tom Johnson and CNN President Rick Kaplan. In response, the Pentagon commissioned another report contradicting that of CNN's. CNN subsequently conducted its own investigation. It concluded that the "journalism [in the Valley of Death] was flawed" and retracted the story. While all 12 men of the Green Beret A-Team were wounded in action during Operation Tailwind, no sarin was involved.
Due to a number of rebuttals claiming the CNN report was flawed, three or more of the individuals responsible were fired or forced to resign. Arnett was reprimanded, and left the network in April 1999, apparently due to "lingering fallout" from Tailwind.
Invasion of Iraq 2003
On assignment for NBC and National Geographic, Arnett went to Iraq in 2003 to cover the U.S. invasion. After a press meeting there, he granted an interview to state-run Iraqi TV on 31 March 2003. In it he said:
Earlier in the interview he said:
When Arnett's remarks sparked a "firestorm of protest", NBC initially defended him, saying he had given the interview as a professional courtesy and that his remarks were "analytical in nature". A day later, though, NBC, MSNBC and National Geographic all severed their relationships with Arnett. In response to Arnett's statement on Iraqi TV, NBC stated:
Arnett responded:
Later that day, Arnett was hired by the British tabloid, The Daily Mirror, which had opposed the war. A couple of days later he also received work from Greek television channel NET television, and Belgian VTM.
Academic career
After retiring as a field reporter in 2007, Arnett lives in Los Angeles.
He also teaches journalism at Shantou University in China. In New Zealand, the Peter Arnett School of Journalism was named for him at the Southern Institute of Technology; the journalism school closed in 2015.
Personal life
In 1964, Arnett married Nina Nguyen, a Vietnamese woman. They had two children, Elsa and Andrew. Nina and Peter separated in 1983, divorced more than 20 years later, then reconciled in 2006.
Elsa Arnett attended Stuyvesant High School in New York and Harvard University. After graduating, she went into journalism, became a reporter, worked for several months on The Washington Post as an intern and then joined The Boston Globe. She worked with her father on his 1994 memoir about his reporting life. Elsa Arnett is married to former White House lawyer John Yoo.
In the 2007 New Year Honours, Arnett was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to journalism.
In popular culture
Peter Arnett appeared in Robert Wiener's book Live from Baghdad. He appeared as a character in the 2002 HBO film of the same name, where he was portrayed by actor Bruce McGill.
The book, as well as the film, features Arnett's work as part of Wiener's crew in Baghdad. Arnett joined the team as tensions between Iraq and the West were escalating toward an imminent military encounter. CNN sent Arnett to Baghdad because of his experience in covering military conflicts. Arnett was part of the live coverage beginning on 16 January 1991, the start of the Gulf War air campaign, where he and colleagues Bernard Shaw and John Holliman kept broadcasting from their Al-Rasheed Hotel room amid extensive aerial bombing by the Western Coalition forces.
Arnett's interview with Bin Laden in 1997 became the subject of the movie 'A War Story' produced for television. Peter's role was played by John Leigh.
Selected works
Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad: 35 Years in the World's War Zones. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Saigon Has Fallen: A Wartime Recollection by the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist. New York: Rosetta Books/Associated Press, 2015
See also
CNN controversies
List of New Zealand television personalities
References
Bibliography
External links
Sully, François, "Associated Press' Peter Arnett testing the first flame thrower captured from the Vietcong in Vietnam", photograph; 8 December 1965. Copyright Healey Library, UMass Boston; via openvault.wgbh.org.
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
War correspondents of the Vietnam War
1934 births
Living people
CNN people
People from Riverton, New Zealand
Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting winners
New Zealand television presenters
New Zealand emigrants to the United States
Officers of the New Zealand Order of Merit
People with acquired American citizenship
Ngāi Tahu
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists | true | [
"The Gulf War Did Not Take Place () is a collection of three short essays by Jean Baudrillard published in the French newspaper Libération and British paper The Guardian between January and March 1991.\n Part 1, \"The Gulf War will not take place\" (La guerre du Golfe n'aura pas lieu) was published in Libération on January 4, 1991.\n Part 2, \"The Gulf War is not really taking place\" (La guerre du Golfe a-t-elle vraiment lieu?) was published in Libération on February 6, 1991, and\n Part 3, \"The Gulf War did not take place\" (La Guerre du Golfe n'a pas eu lieu) was published in Libération on March 29, 1991.\n\nContrary to the title, the author believes that the events and violence of the Gulf War actually took place, whereas the issue is one of interpretation: were the events that took place comparable to how they were presented, and could these events be called a war? The title is a reference to the play The Trojan War Will Not Take Place by Jean Giraudoux (in which characters attempt to prevent what the audience knows is inevitable).\n\nThe essays in Libération and The Guardian were published before, during and after the Gulf War and they were titled accordingly: during the American military and rhetorical buildup as \"The Gulf War Will Not Take Place\"; during military action as \"The Gulf War Is Not Taking Place\", and after action was over, \"The Gulf War Did Not Take Place\". A book of elongated versions of the truncated original articles in French was published in May 1991. The English translation was published in early 1995 translated by Paul Patton.\n\nSummary \nBaudrillard argued the Gulf War was not really a war, but rather an atrocity which masqueraded as a war. Using overwhelming airpower, the American military for the most part did not directly engage in combat with the Iraqi army, and suffered few casualties. Almost nothing was made known about Iraqi deaths. Thus, the fighting \"did not really take place\" from the point of view of the West. Moreover, all that spectators got to know about the war was in the form of propaganda imagery. The closely watched media presentations made it impossible to distinguish between the experience of what truly happened in the conflict, and its stylized, selective misrepresentation through simulacra.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n Baudrillard, Jean (1991) La Guerre du Golfe n'a pas eu lieu, Paris: Galilée.\n Baudrillard, Jean (1995) The Gulf War Did Not Take Place, Bloomington: Indiana University Press\n\n1995 non-fiction books\nBooks by Jean Baudrillard\nEssays about hyperreality\nFrench non-fiction books\nGulf War books",
"The San Antonio and Mexican Gulf Railroad (SA&MG) was a railroad set up in 1850 to connect the city of San Antonio to the Gulf of Mexico. The railroad survived the Civil War and merged with the Indianola Railroad into the Gulf, Western Texas and Pacific Railway in 1871.\n\nHistory of the road\nThe SA&MG was chartered on September 5, 1850, with plans to connect Lavaca, Texas, later changed to Port Lavaca, Texas to San Antonio. Trackwork began in 1856, and a line was completed to Victoria, Texas in April, 1861, when the Civil War broke out. Among the founders of the railroad were German-born railroad engineer Gustav Schleicher and Joseph E. Johnston who was an army officer stationed in San Antonio, who would later be a General in the Confederate army.\n\nTo facilitate the construction of a railroad from the Gulf to San Antonio, the SA&MG received of land from the State.\n\nDuring the Civil War\nConfederate General John B. Magruder ordered the destruction of the San Antonio and Mexican Gulf to prevent its falling into the hands of enemy forces. The railroad was rebuilt by the United States government in 1865-66.\n\nEnd of the road\nThe San Antonio and Mexican Gulf never did connect to the Gulf coast, stopping short in Victoria. On August 4, 1870, the Texas legislature authorized the consolidation of two rail lines, the Indianola Railroad Company and the San Antonio and Mexican Gulf Railroad Company, into a new corporation to be called the Gulf, Western Texas and Pacific Railway.\n\nReferences\n\nDefunct Texas railroads\nRailway companies established in 1850\nRailway companies disestablished in 1871\nPredecessors of the Southern Pacific Transportation Company\n5 ft 6 in gauge railways in the United States"
] |
[
"Peter Arnett",
"The Gulf War",
"When did he cover the gulf war?",
"Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991"
] | C_7576129012b04fe8b0e371c87894f6f8_1 | what are highlites of his coverage there? | 2 | What are highlights of Peter Arnett's coverage in Baghdad from 1991? | Peter Arnett | Arnett worked for CNN for 18 years ending in 1999. During the Gulf War, he became a household name worldwide when he became the only reporter with live coverage directly from Baghdad. His dramatic reports often had air raid sirens blaring and the sound of US bombs exploding in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means -- a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan -- to communicate to the outside world. CNN broadcast Arnett's extended call live for several hours, with a picture of Arnett as video. Soon the other journalists left Iraq, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole remaining reporter. His accounts of civilian damage caused by the bombing were not well received by the coalition war administration, who by their constant use of terms like "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" in their public statements, had tried to project an image that civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House sources would later state that Arnett was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation, and CNN received a letter from 34 members of the United States Congress accusing Arnett of "unpatriotic journalism". Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein. The Gulf War became the first war to be seen truly live on TV, due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks. About halfway through the war the CIA approached Mr. Arnett. They believed that the Iraqi military was operating a high-level communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where Mr. Arnett and a few others from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Mr. Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility. CANNOTANSWER | Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein. | Peter Gregg Arnett (born 13 November 1934) is a New Zealand-born American journalist. He is known for his coverage of the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. He was awarded the 1966 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for his work in Vietnam from 1962 to 1965, mostly reporting for the Associated Press.
Arnett also worked for National Geographic magazine, and later for various television networks, most notably for nearly two decades at CNN. Arnett published a memoir, Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World's War Zones (1994). In March 1997, Arnett interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda. The journalism school at the Southern Institute of Technology in New Zealand was named for Arnett.
Early life
Arnett was born in 1934 in Riverton, in New Zealand's Southland region. His first job as a journalist was with The Southland Times.
Vietnam
During his early years in journalism, Arnett worked in Southeast Asia, largely based in Bangkok. In 1960 he started publishing a small English-language newspaper in Laos. Eventually, he made his way to Vietnam, which the French had abandoned after being defeated at Dien Bien Phu by communists from North Vietnam.
Arnett became a reporter for the Associated Press, based in Saigon in the South, in the years when the United States began to get involved in the civil conflict and through the Vietnam War. On 7 July 1963, in what became known as the Double Seven Day scuffle, he was injured in a widely reported physical altercation between a group of western journalists and South Vietnamese undercover police. The reporters were trying to cover Buddhist protests against the South Vietnamese government. His articles, such as "Death of Supply Column 21," about an event during Operation Starlite in August 1965, resulted in raising the ire of the American government, which had been increasing the number of forces in the region.
Arnett accompanied troops on dozens of missions, including the battle of Hill 875, in November 1967. An American detachment was sent to rescue another unit that was stranded in hostile territory, and the rescuers were nearly killed during the operation. In September 1972, Arnett joined a group of U.S. peace activists, including William Sloane Coffin and David Dellinger, on a trip to Hanoi, North Vietnam, to accept three American prisoners of war for return to the United States.
Arnett wrote in an unvarnished manner when reporting stories of ordinary soldiers and civilians. Arnett's writing was often criticized by administration spokesmen as negative, who wanted to keep reporting of the war positive. General William Westmoreland, President Lyndon B. Johnson and others in power put pressure on the AP to get rid of or transfer Arnett from the region.
In what is considered one of his iconic dispatches, published on 7 February 1968, Arnett wrote about the Battle of Bến Tre: "'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,' a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong." The quotation was gradually altered in subsequent publications, eventually becoming the more familiar, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." The accuracy of the original quotation and its source have often been called into question. Arnett never revealed his source, except to say that it was one of four officers he interviewed that day. US Army Major Phil Cannella, the senior officer present at Bến Tre, suggested that the quotation might have been a distortion of something he said to Arnett. The New Republic at the time attributed the quotation to US Air Force Major Chester L. Brown. In Walter Cronkite's 1971 book, Eye on the World, Arnett reasserted that the quotation was something "one American major said to me in a moment of revelation."
Arnett was one of the last western reporters remaining in Saigon after its fall and capture by the People's Army of Vietnam. Occupying soldiers showed him how they had entered the city.
Arnett wrote the 26-part mini-series documentary, Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War (1980), produced by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
At the time of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Arnett was working for Parade magazine. With a contact named Healy, he entered Afghanistan illegally from Pakistan; both men were dressed in traditional clothing as natives and led by Mujahideen guides. They continued to a Jalalabad hideaway of approximately fifty rebels. The trip came to an end when Healy fell into the Kunar River, ruining the pair's cameras. Later, Arnett would recount the story to journalist Artyom Borovik, who was covering the Soviet side of the war.
Gulf War
Beginning in 1981, Arnett worked for CNN for 18 years, ending in 1999. During the Gulf War, he became a household name worldwide as the only reporter to have live coverage directly from Baghdad, especially during the first 16 hours. His dramatic reports often were accompanied by the sound of air raid sirens blaring and US bombs exploding in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means — a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan — to communicate to the outside world. CNN broadcast Arnett's extended call live for several hours, with a picture of Arnett as video. Soon the other journalists left Iraq, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole remaining reporter.
His accounts of civilian damage caused by the bombing were not well received by the coalition war administration. Its spokesmen had emphasized terms such as "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" in their public statements, in an effort to project keeping civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House sources would later attack Arnett, saying that he was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation.
Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein. Due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks, the Gulf War was the first to be broadcast live on TV.
About halfway through the war, representatives of the CIA approached Arnett. They believed that the Iraqi military was operating a high-level communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where Arnett and other staff from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility.
Interview with Osama Bin Laden
In March 1997, Arnett of CNN interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda, after Bin Laden declared jihad on the United States. Asked by Arnett, "What are your future plans?", Bin Laden said, "You'll see them and hear about them in the media, God willing".
Operation Tailwind
In 1998, Arnett narrated a report on the joint venture (between CNN and Time magazine) program called NewsStand, covering "Operation Tailwind" in Laos in 1970.
The report, titled The Valley of Death, claimed that in 1970, the United States Army had used sarin, a nerve gas, against a group of deserting U.S. soldiers in Laos. The men who allegedly conducted the attack were an elite Green Beret A-Team. The report was expressly approved by both CNN Chairman Tom Johnson and CNN President Rick Kaplan. In response, the Pentagon commissioned another report contradicting that of CNN's. CNN subsequently conducted its own investigation. It concluded that the "journalism [in the Valley of Death] was flawed" and retracted the story. While all 12 men of the Green Beret A-Team were wounded in action during Operation Tailwind, no sarin was involved.
Due to a number of rebuttals claiming the CNN report was flawed, three or more of the individuals responsible were fired or forced to resign. Arnett was reprimanded, and left the network in April 1999, apparently due to "lingering fallout" from Tailwind.
Invasion of Iraq 2003
On assignment for NBC and National Geographic, Arnett went to Iraq in 2003 to cover the U.S. invasion. After a press meeting there, he granted an interview to state-run Iraqi TV on 31 March 2003. In it he said:
Earlier in the interview he said:
When Arnett's remarks sparked a "firestorm of protest", NBC initially defended him, saying he had given the interview as a professional courtesy and that his remarks were "analytical in nature". A day later, though, NBC, MSNBC and National Geographic all severed their relationships with Arnett. In response to Arnett's statement on Iraqi TV, NBC stated:
Arnett responded:
Later that day, Arnett was hired by the British tabloid, The Daily Mirror, which had opposed the war. A couple of days later he also received work from Greek television channel NET television, and Belgian VTM.
Academic career
After retiring as a field reporter in 2007, Arnett lives in Los Angeles.
He also teaches journalism at Shantou University in China. In New Zealand, the Peter Arnett School of Journalism was named for him at the Southern Institute of Technology; the journalism school closed in 2015.
Personal life
In 1964, Arnett married Nina Nguyen, a Vietnamese woman. They had two children, Elsa and Andrew. Nina and Peter separated in 1983, divorced more than 20 years later, then reconciled in 2006.
Elsa Arnett attended Stuyvesant High School in New York and Harvard University. After graduating, she went into journalism, became a reporter, worked for several months on The Washington Post as an intern and then joined The Boston Globe. She worked with her father on his 1994 memoir about his reporting life. Elsa Arnett is married to former White House lawyer John Yoo.
In the 2007 New Year Honours, Arnett was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to journalism.
In popular culture
Peter Arnett appeared in Robert Wiener's book Live from Baghdad. He appeared as a character in the 2002 HBO film of the same name, where he was portrayed by actor Bruce McGill.
The book, as well as the film, features Arnett's work as part of Wiener's crew in Baghdad. Arnett joined the team as tensions between Iraq and the West were escalating toward an imminent military encounter. CNN sent Arnett to Baghdad because of his experience in covering military conflicts. Arnett was part of the live coverage beginning on 16 January 1991, the start of the Gulf War air campaign, where he and colleagues Bernard Shaw and John Holliman kept broadcasting from their Al-Rasheed Hotel room amid extensive aerial bombing by the Western Coalition forces.
Arnett's interview with Bin Laden in 1997 became the subject of the movie 'A War Story' produced for television. Peter's role was played by John Leigh.
Selected works
Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad: 35 Years in the World's War Zones. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Saigon Has Fallen: A Wartime Recollection by the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist. New York: Rosetta Books/Associated Press, 2015
See also
CNN controversies
List of New Zealand television personalities
References
Bibliography
External links
Sully, François, "Associated Press' Peter Arnett testing the first flame thrower captured from the Vietcong in Vietnam", photograph; 8 December 1965. Copyright Healey Library, UMass Boston; via openvault.wgbh.org.
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
War correspondents of the Vietnam War
1934 births
Living people
CNN people
People from Riverton, New Zealand
Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting winners
New Zealand television presenters
New Zealand emigrants to the United States
Officers of the New Zealand Order of Merit
People with acquired American citizenship
Ngāi Tahu
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists | true | [
"In computer science, test coverage is a measure (in percent) of the degree to which the source code of a program is executed when a particular test suite is run. A program with high test coverage has more of its source code executed during testing, which suggests it has a lower chance of containing undetected software bugs compared to a program with low test coverage. Many different metrics can be used to calculate test coverage. Some of the most basic are the percentage of program subroutines and the percentage of program statements called during execution of the test suite.\n\nTest coverage was among the first methods invented for systematic software testing. The first published reference was by Miller and Maloney in Communications of the ACM, in 1963.\n\nCoverage criteria \nTo measure what percentage of code has been executed by a test suite, one or more coverage criteria are used. These are usually defined as rules or requirements, which a test suite must satisfy.\n\nBasic coverage criteria \nThere are a number of coverage criteria, but the main ones are:\n Function coveragehas each function (or subroutine) in the program been called?\n Statement coveragehas each statement in the program been executed?\n Edge coveragehas every edge in the control-flow graph been executed?\n Branch coveragehas each branch (also called the DD-path) of each control structure (such as in if and case statements) been executed? For example, given an if statement, have both the true and false branches been executed? (This is a subset of edge coverage.)\n Condition coveragehas each Boolean sub-expression evaluated both to true and false? (Also called predicate coverage.)\n\nFor example, consider the following C function:\nint foo (int x, int y)\n{\n int z = 0;\n if ((x > 0) && (y > 0))\n {\n z = x;\n }\n return z;\n}\n\nAssume this function is a part of some bigger program and this program was run with some test suite. \n Function coverage will be satisfied if, during this execution, the function foo was called at least once.\n Statement coverage for this function will be satisfied if it was called for example as foo(1,1), because in this case, every line in the function would be executed—including z = x;.\n Branch coverage will be satisfied by tests calling foo(1,1) and foo(0,1) because, in the first case, both if conditions are met and z = x; is executed, while in the second case, the first condition, (x>0), is not satisfied, which prevents the execution of z = x;. \n Condition coverage will be satisfied with tests that call foo(1,0) and foo(0,1). These are necessary because in the first cases, (x>0) evaluates to true, while in the second, it evaluates to false. At the same time, the first case makes (y>0) false, while the second makes it true.\n\nCondition coverage does not necessarily imply branch coverage. For example, consider the following code fragment:\nif a and b then\nCondition coverage can be satisfied by two tests:\n a=true, b=false\n a=false, b=true\nHowever, this set of tests does not satisfy branch coverage since neither case will meet the if condition.\n\nFault injection may be necessary to ensure that all conditions and branches of exception-handling code have adequate coverage during testing.\n\nModified condition/decision coverage \n\nA combination of function coverage and branch coverage is sometimes also called decision coverage. This criterion requires that every point of entry and exit in the program has been invoked at least once, and every decision in the program has taken on all possible outcomes at least once. In this context, the decision is a boolean expression comprising conditions and zero or more boolean operators. This definition is not the same as branch coverage, however, the term decision coverage is sometimes used as a synonym for it.\n\nCondition/decision coverage requires that both decision and condition coverage be satisfied. However, for safety-critical applications (such as avionics software) it is often required that modified condition/decision coverage (MC/DC) be satisfied. This criterion extends condition/decision criteria with requirements that each condition should affect the decision outcome independently.\n\nFor example, consider the following code:\nif (a or b) and c then\nThe condition/decision criteria will be satisfied by the following set of tests:\n a=true, b=true, c=true\n a=false, b=false, c=false\nHowever, the above tests set will not satisfy modified condition/decision coverage, since in the first test, the value of 'b' and in the second test the value of 'c' would not influence the output. So, the following test set is needed to satisfy MC/DC:\n a=false, b=true, c=false\n a=false, b=true, c=true\n a=false, b=false, c=true\n a=true, b=false, c=true\n\nMultiple condition coverage \nThis criterion requires that all combinations of conditions inside each decision are tested. For example, the code fragment from the previous section will require eight tests:\n a=false, b=false, c=false\n a=false, b=false, c=true\n a=false, b=true, c=false\n a=false, b=true, c=true\n a=true, b=false, c=false\n a=true, b=false, c=true\n a=true, b=true, c=false\n a=true, b=true, c=true\n\nParameter value coverage \nParameter value coverage (PVC) requires that in a method taking parameters, all the common values for such parameters be considered. The idea is that all common possible values for a parameter are tested. For example, common values for a string are: 1) null, 2) empty, 3) whitespace (space, tabs, newline), 4) valid string, 5) invalid string, 6) single-byte string, 7) double-byte string. It may also be appropriate to use very long strings. Failure to test each possible parameter value may result in a bug. Testing only one of these could result in 100% code coverage as each line is covered, but as only one of seven options are tested, there is only 14.2% PVC.\n\nOther coverage criteria \nThere are further coverage criteria, which are used less often:\n Linear Code Sequence and Jump (LCSAJ) coverage a.k.a. JJ-Path coverage has every LCSAJ/JJ-path been executed?\n Path coverageHas every possible route through a given part of the code been executed?\n Entry/exit coverageHas every possible call and return of the function been executed?\n Loop coverageHas every possible loop been executed zero times, once, and more than once?\n State coverageHas each state in a finite-state machine been reached and explored?\n Data-flow coverageHas each variable definition and its usage been reached and explored?\n\nSafety-critical or dependable applications are often required to demonstrate 100% of some form of test coverage.\nFor example, the ECSS-E-ST-40C standard demands 100% statement and decision coverage for two out of four different criticality levels; for the other ones, target coverage values are up to negotiation between supplier and customer.\nHowever, setting specific target values - and, in particular, 100% - has been criticized by practitioners for various reasons (cf.)\nMartin Fowler writes: \"I would be suspicious of anything like 100% - it would smell of someone writing tests to make the coverage numbers happy, but not thinking about what they are doing\".\n\nSome of the coverage criteria above are connected. For instance, path coverage implies decision, statement and entry/exit coverage. Decision coverage implies statement coverage, because every statement is part of a branch.\n\nFull path coverage, of the type described above, is usually impractical or impossible. Any module with a succession of decisions in it can have up to paths within it; loop constructs can result in an infinite number of paths. Many paths may also be infeasible, in that there is no input to the program under test that can cause that particular path to be executed. However, a general-purpose algorithm for identifying infeasible paths has been proven to be impossible (such an algorithm could be used to solve the halting problem). Basis path testing is for instance a method of achieving complete branch coverage without achieving complete path coverage.\n\nMethods for practical path coverage testing instead attempt to identify classes of code paths that differ only in the number of loop executions, and to achieve \"basis path\" coverage the tester must cover all the path classes.\n\nIn practice\nThe target software is built with special options or libraries and run under a controlled environment, to map every executed function to the function points in the source code. This allows testing parts of the target software that are rarely or never accessed under normal conditions, and helps reassure that the most important conditions (function points) have been tested. The resulting output is then analyzed to see what areas of code have not been exercised and the tests are updated to include these areas as necessary. Combined with other test coverage methods, the aim is to develop a rigorous, yet manageable, set of regression tests.\n\nIn implementing test coverage policies within a software development environment, one must consider the following:\n\n What are coverage requirements for the end product certification and if so what level of test coverage is required? The typical level of rigor progression is as follows: Statement, Branch/Decision, Modified Condition/Decision Coverage (MC/DC), LCSAJ (Linear Code Sequence and Jump)\n Will coverage be measured against tests that verify requirements levied on the system under test (DO-178B)?\n Is the object code generated directly traceable to source code statements? Certain certifications, (i.e. DO-178B Level A) require coverage at the assembly level if this is not the case: \"Then, additional verification should be performed on the object code to establish the correctness of such generated code sequences\" (DO-178B) para-6.4.4.2.\n\nSoftware authors can look at test coverage results to devise additional tests and input or configuration sets to increase the coverage over vital functions. Two common forms of test coverage are statement (or line) coverage and branch (or edge) coverage. Line coverage reports on the execution footprint of testing in terms of which lines of code were executed to complete the test. Edge coverage reports which branches or code decision points were executed to complete the test. They both report a coverage metric, measured as a percentage. The meaning of this depends on what form(s) of coverage have been used, as 67% branch coverage is more comprehensive than 67% statement coverage.\n\nGenerally, test coverage tools incur computation and logging in addition to the actual program thereby slowing down the application, so typically this analysis is not done in production. As one might expect, there are classes of software that cannot be feasibly subjected to these coverage tests, though a degree of coverage mapping can be approximated through analysis rather than direct testing.\n\nThere are also some sorts of defects which are affected by such tools. In particular, some race conditions or similar real time sensitive operations can be masked when run under test environments; though conversely, some of these defects may become easier to find as a result of the additional overhead of the testing code.\n\nMost professional software developers use C1 and C2 coverage. C1 stands for statement coverage and C2 for branch or condition coverage. With a combination of C1 and C2, it is possible to cover most statements in a code base. Statement coverage would also cover function coverage with entry and exit, loop, path, state flow, control flow and data flow coverage. With these methods, it is possible to achieve nearly 100% code coverage in most software projects.\n\nUsage in industry\nTest coverage is one consideration in the safety certification of avionics equipment. The guidelines by which avionics gear is certified by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is documented in DO-178B and DO-178C.\n\nTest coverage is also a requirement in part 6 of the automotive safety standard ISO 26262 Road Vehicles - Functional Safety.\n\nSee also\n\n Cyclomatic complexity\n Intelligent verification\n Linear Code Sequence and Jump\n Modified Condition/Decision Coverage\n Mutation testing\n Regression testing\n Software metric\n Static code analysis\n White box testing\n Java code coverage tools\n\nReferences\n\nSoftware metrics\nSoftware testing tools",
"Claude R. \"Shug\" McGaughey III (born January 6, 1951) is an American Hall of Fame thoroughbred horse trainer.\n\nMcGaughey began working as a trainer in 1979 and to date has won more than 240 graded stakes races. In 1986, he got his big break when Ogden Phipps hired him to train his stable of horses. In 1988, McGaughey won the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer in the United States. Among his many wins, he has captured the Jockey Club Gold Cup three times, the Travers Stakes four times, and won the 1989 Belmont Stakes with Hall of Fame Champion Easy Goer as well as the 2013 Kentucky Derby with Orb. McGaughey's nine Breeders' Cup victories ranks second to D. Wayne Lukas. Among the other horses he has trained are back-to-back Breeders' Cup Mile winner Lure and Hall of Famer Personal Ensign. McGaughey has accomplished the rare trifecta of training a Breeders' Cup winner, her daughter, and her granddaughter in the troika of Personal Ensign, My Flag and Storm Flag Flying. In 2013 he won his first Kentucky Derby with Orb.\n\nIn 2004, McGaughey was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. At his induction ceremony, he said: \"My deepest debt of gratitude always has been and always will be to the Phipps family\" and \"My affiliation with the Phipps family is one of the great highlights of my life. I wouldn't be here without them.\"\n\nReferences\n Shug McGaughey at the NTRA\n Biography and racing highlites for Claude R. McGaughey III at Keeneland\n \n\nAmerican horse trainers\nUnited States Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame inductees\nEclipse Award winners\n1951 births\nLiving people\nHorse trainers from Lexington, Kentucky"
] |
[
"Peter Arnett",
"The Gulf War",
"When did he cover the gulf war?",
"Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991",
"what are highlites of his coverage there?",
"Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein."
] | C_7576129012b04fe8b0e371c87894f6f8_1 | did he win any awards or recognition for this work? | 3 | Did Peter Arnett win any awards or recognition for his work in Baghdad in 1991? | Peter Arnett | Arnett worked for CNN for 18 years ending in 1999. During the Gulf War, he became a household name worldwide when he became the only reporter with live coverage directly from Baghdad. His dramatic reports often had air raid sirens blaring and the sound of US bombs exploding in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means -- a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan -- to communicate to the outside world. CNN broadcast Arnett's extended call live for several hours, with a picture of Arnett as video. Soon the other journalists left Iraq, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole remaining reporter. His accounts of civilian damage caused by the bombing were not well received by the coalition war administration, who by their constant use of terms like "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" in their public statements, had tried to project an image that civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House sources would later state that Arnett was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation, and CNN received a letter from 34 members of the United States Congress accusing Arnett of "unpatriotic journalism". Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein. The Gulf War became the first war to be seen truly live on TV, due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks. About halfway through the war the CIA approached Mr. Arnett. They believed that the Iraqi military was operating a high-level communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where Mr. Arnett and a few others from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Mr. Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Peter Gregg Arnett (born 13 November 1934) is a New Zealand-born American journalist. He is known for his coverage of the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. He was awarded the 1966 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for his work in Vietnam from 1962 to 1965, mostly reporting for the Associated Press.
Arnett also worked for National Geographic magazine, and later for various television networks, most notably for nearly two decades at CNN. Arnett published a memoir, Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World's War Zones (1994). In March 1997, Arnett interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda. The journalism school at the Southern Institute of Technology in New Zealand was named for Arnett.
Early life
Arnett was born in 1934 in Riverton, in New Zealand's Southland region. His first job as a journalist was with The Southland Times.
Vietnam
During his early years in journalism, Arnett worked in Southeast Asia, largely based in Bangkok. In 1960 he started publishing a small English-language newspaper in Laos. Eventually, he made his way to Vietnam, which the French had abandoned after being defeated at Dien Bien Phu by communists from North Vietnam.
Arnett became a reporter for the Associated Press, based in Saigon in the South, in the years when the United States began to get involved in the civil conflict and through the Vietnam War. On 7 July 1963, in what became known as the Double Seven Day scuffle, he was injured in a widely reported physical altercation between a group of western journalists and South Vietnamese undercover police. The reporters were trying to cover Buddhist protests against the South Vietnamese government. His articles, such as "Death of Supply Column 21," about an event during Operation Starlite in August 1965, resulted in raising the ire of the American government, which had been increasing the number of forces in the region.
Arnett accompanied troops on dozens of missions, including the battle of Hill 875, in November 1967. An American detachment was sent to rescue another unit that was stranded in hostile territory, and the rescuers were nearly killed during the operation. In September 1972, Arnett joined a group of U.S. peace activists, including William Sloane Coffin and David Dellinger, on a trip to Hanoi, North Vietnam, to accept three American prisoners of war for return to the United States.
Arnett wrote in an unvarnished manner when reporting stories of ordinary soldiers and civilians. Arnett's writing was often criticized by administration spokesmen as negative, who wanted to keep reporting of the war positive. General William Westmoreland, President Lyndon B. Johnson and others in power put pressure on the AP to get rid of or transfer Arnett from the region.
In what is considered one of his iconic dispatches, published on 7 February 1968, Arnett wrote about the Battle of Bến Tre: "'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,' a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong." The quotation was gradually altered in subsequent publications, eventually becoming the more familiar, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." The accuracy of the original quotation and its source have often been called into question. Arnett never revealed his source, except to say that it was one of four officers he interviewed that day. US Army Major Phil Cannella, the senior officer present at Bến Tre, suggested that the quotation might have been a distortion of something he said to Arnett. The New Republic at the time attributed the quotation to US Air Force Major Chester L. Brown. In Walter Cronkite's 1971 book, Eye on the World, Arnett reasserted that the quotation was something "one American major said to me in a moment of revelation."
Arnett was one of the last western reporters remaining in Saigon after its fall and capture by the People's Army of Vietnam. Occupying soldiers showed him how they had entered the city.
Arnett wrote the 26-part mini-series documentary, Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War (1980), produced by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
At the time of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Arnett was working for Parade magazine. With a contact named Healy, he entered Afghanistan illegally from Pakistan; both men were dressed in traditional clothing as natives and led by Mujahideen guides. They continued to a Jalalabad hideaway of approximately fifty rebels. The trip came to an end when Healy fell into the Kunar River, ruining the pair's cameras. Later, Arnett would recount the story to journalist Artyom Borovik, who was covering the Soviet side of the war.
Gulf War
Beginning in 1981, Arnett worked for CNN for 18 years, ending in 1999. During the Gulf War, he became a household name worldwide as the only reporter to have live coverage directly from Baghdad, especially during the first 16 hours. His dramatic reports often were accompanied by the sound of air raid sirens blaring and US bombs exploding in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means — a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan — to communicate to the outside world. CNN broadcast Arnett's extended call live for several hours, with a picture of Arnett as video. Soon the other journalists left Iraq, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole remaining reporter.
His accounts of civilian damage caused by the bombing were not well received by the coalition war administration. Its spokesmen had emphasized terms such as "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" in their public statements, in an effort to project keeping civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House sources would later attack Arnett, saying that he was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation.
Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein. Due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks, the Gulf War was the first to be broadcast live on TV.
About halfway through the war, representatives of the CIA approached Arnett. They believed that the Iraqi military was operating a high-level communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where Arnett and other staff from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility.
Interview with Osama Bin Laden
In March 1997, Arnett of CNN interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda, after Bin Laden declared jihad on the United States. Asked by Arnett, "What are your future plans?", Bin Laden said, "You'll see them and hear about them in the media, God willing".
Operation Tailwind
In 1998, Arnett narrated a report on the joint venture (between CNN and Time magazine) program called NewsStand, covering "Operation Tailwind" in Laos in 1970.
The report, titled The Valley of Death, claimed that in 1970, the United States Army had used sarin, a nerve gas, against a group of deserting U.S. soldiers in Laos. The men who allegedly conducted the attack were an elite Green Beret A-Team. The report was expressly approved by both CNN Chairman Tom Johnson and CNN President Rick Kaplan. In response, the Pentagon commissioned another report contradicting that of CNN's. CNN subsequently conducted its own investigation. It concluded that the "journalism [in the Valley of Death] was flawed" and retracted the story. While all 12 men of the Green Beret A-Team were wounded in action during Operation Tailwind, no sarin was involved.
Due to a number of rebuttals claiming the CNN report was flawed, three or more of the individuals responsible were fired or forced to resign. Arnett was reprimanded, and left the network in April 1999, apparently due to "lingering fallout" from Tailwind.
Invasion of Iraq 2003
On assignment for NBC and National Geographic, Arnett went to Iraq in 2003 to cover the U.S. invasion. After a press meeting there, he granted an interview to state-run Iraqi TV on 31 March 2003. In it he said:
Earlier in the interview he said:
When Arnett's remarks sparked a "firestorm of protest", NBC initially defended him, saying he had given the interview as a professional courtesy and that his remarks were "analytical in nature". A day later, though, NBC, MSNBC and National Geographic all severed their relationships with Arnett. In response to Arnett's statement on Iraqi TV, NBC stated:
Arnett responded:
Later that day, Arnett was hired by the British tabloid, The Daily Mirror, which had opposed the war. A couple of days later he also received work from Greek television channel NET television, and Belgian VTM.
Academic career
After retiring as a field reporter in 2007, Arnett lives in Los Angeles.
He also teaches journalism at Shantou University in China. In New Zealand, the Peter Arnett School of Journalism was named for him at the Southern Institute of Technology; the journalism school closed in 2015.
Personal life
In 1964, Arnett married Nina Nguyen, a Vietnamese woman. They had two children, Elsa and Andrew. Nina and Peter separated in 1983, divorced more than 20 years later, then reconciled in 2006.
Elsa Arnett attended Stuyvesant High School in New York and Harvard University. After graduating, she went into journalism, became a reporter, worked for several months on The Washington Post as an intern and then joined The Boston Globe. She worked with her father on his 1994 memoir about his reporting life. Elsa Arnett is married to former White House lawyer John Yoo.
In the 2007 New Year Honours, Arnett was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to journalism.
In popular culture
Peter Arnett appeared in Robert Wiener's book Live from Baghdad. He appeared as a character in the 2002 HBO film of the same name, where he was portrayed by actor Bruce McGill.
The book, as well as the film, features Arnett's work as part of Wiener's crew in Baghdad. Arnett joined the team as tensions between Iraq and the West were escalating toward an imminent military encounter. CNN sent Arnett to Baghdad because of his experience in covering military conflicts. Arnett was part of the live coverage beginning on 16 January 1991, the start of the Gulf War air campaign, where he and colleagues Bernard Shaw and John Holliman kept broadcasting from their Al-Rasheed Hotel room amid extensive aerial bombing by the Western Coalition forces.
Arnett's interview with Bin Laden in 1997 became the subject of the movie 'A War Story' produced for television. Peter's role was played by John Leigh.
Selected works
Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad: 35 Years in the World's War Zones. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Saigon Has Fallen: A Wartime Recollection by the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist. New York: Rosetta Books/Associated Press, 2015
See also
CNN controversies
List of New Zealand television personalities
References
Bibliography
External links
Sully, François, "Associated Press' Peter Arnett testing the first flame thrower captured from the Vietcong in Vietnam", photograph; 8 December 1965. Copyright Healey Library, UMass Boston; via openvault.wgbh.org.
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
War correspondents of the Vietnam War
1934 births
Living people
CNN people
People from Riverton, New Zealand
Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting winners
New Zealand television presenters
New Zealand emigrants to the United States
Officers of the New Zealand Order of Merit
People with acquired American citizenship
Ngāi Tahu
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists | false | [
"This is a list of awards and nominations for composer Alan Menken. Menken has been recognized with multiple awards and nominations for his work in film, theatre, television, and music.\n\nFor his work in film he earned 19 Academy Award nominations winning 8 Oscars for The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), Pocahontas (1995). He also earned 16 Golden Globe Award nominations winning 7 awards. He has earned two British Academy Film Award nominations, and five Critics' Choice Movie Award nominations. For his work in theatre he received five Tony Award nominations winning once, and 2 Laurence Olivier Awards winning once. He also received 24 Grammy Awards winning 11 awards. For his work in television he has earned two Emmy Awards.\n\nMajor associations\n\nAcademy Awards\n 8 wins out of 19 nominations\n\nEmmy Awards\n\nGrammy Awards \n 11 wins out of 24 nominations\n\nTony Awards \n1 win out of 5 nominations\n\nFilm awards\n\nBritish Academy Film Awards\n\nCritics' Choice Awards\n\nGolden Globe Awards\n 7 wins out of 16 nominations\n\nTheater work\n\nDrama Desk Awards \n 1 win out of 6 nominations\n\nDrama League Awards\n\nEvening Standard Award\n\nLaurence Olivier Awards\n1 win out of 2 nominations\n\nNew York Drama Critic Circle Awards\n\nOuter Critics Circle Awards \n3 wins out of 4 nominations\n\nMiscellaenous awards\n\nAnnie Awards\n 1 win out of 4 nominations\n\nBMI Film/TV Awards\n 8 wins out of 8 nominations + Richard Kirk Career Achievement Award\n\nGeorgia Film Critics Association Awards\n\nGolden Raspberry Award \n\nMenken officially accepted this Razzie and has spoken proudly of it in interviews since.\n\nHouston Film Critics Society Awards\n\nInternational Film Music Critics Awards\n1 win out of 3 nominations\n\nOnline Film and Television Awards\n\nPhoenix Film Critics Society Awards\n\nSaturn Awards\n 2 wins out of 5 nominations\n\nSierra Awards\n\nFrench Mickey d'Or \n3 wins out of 9 nominations\n\nSpecial honors\n\n 1993 – Distinguished Alumni Award (given by New York University Association)\n 1998 – Kol Zimrah Award (given by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion)\n 1998 – Colleen Dewhurst Awards: \"in recognition for outstanding contribution to the arts\" (given by Northern Westchester Center for the Arts)\n 2000 – Presidential Medal (given by New York University)\n 2001 – Disney Legend Award\n 2008 – Inductee: NYU Musical Theatre Hall of Fame\n 2008 – Inductee: Songwriter's Hall of Fame\n 2009 – Lifetime Achievement Award (given during the Musical Awards)\n 2010 – Hollywood Walk of Fame Star\n 2011 – Maestro Award (given by Billboard/The Hollywood Reporter Film and TV Conference)\n 2012 – Honors: \"for extraordinary life achievement\" (given by Encompass New Opera Theatre)\n 2013 – The Oscar Hammerstein Award (given by York Theatre Company)\n 2013 – Broadway Junior Honors: \"in recognition for his contribution towards the advancement of musical theatre for young people\"\n 2013 – Freddie G. Award for Musical Achievement (given during Junior Theatre Festival)\n\nReferences\n\nAwards\nMenken, Alan",
"Han Jin-won (, born 1986) is a South Korean screenwriter. He is best known for his work on Parasite as writer, which earned him critical appraisal and recognition including an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay at the 92nd Academy Awards in 2020. He shared this award with Bong Joon-ho, and this made the two of them the first Asian writers to win any screenwriting Academy Award.\n\nFilmography\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1986 births\nLiving people\nBest Original Screenplay Academy Award winners\nBest Original Screenplay BAFTA Award winners\nSouth Korean screenwriters"
] |
[
"Peter Arnett",
"The Gulf War",
"When did he cover the gulf war?",
"Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991",
"what are highlites of his coverage there?",
"Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein.",
"did he win any awards or recognition for this work?",
"I don't know."
] | C_7576129012b04fe8b0e371c87894f6f8_1 | Interesting aspects of the coverage? | 4 | What are interesting aspects of Peter Arnett's coverage in Baghdad in 1991 other than the 16 initial hours? | Peter Arnett | Arnett worked for CNN for 18 years ending in 1999. During the Gulf War, he became a household name worldwide when he became the only reporter with live coverage directly from Baghdad. His dramatic reports often had air raid sirens blaring and the sound of US bombs exploding in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means -- a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan -- to communicate to the outside world. CNN broadcast Arnett's extended call live for several hours, with a picture of Arnett as video. Soon the other journalists left Iraq, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole remaining reporter. His accounts of civilian damage caused by the bombing were not well received by the coalition war administration, who by their constant use of terms like "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" in their public statements, had tried to project an image that civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House sources would later state that Arnett was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation, and CNN received a letter from 34 members of the United States Congress accusing Arnett of "unpatriotic journalism". Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein. The Gulf War became the first war to be seen truly live on TV, due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks. About halfway through the war the CIA approached Mr. Arnett. They believed that the Iraqi military was operating a high-level communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where Mr. Arnett and a few others from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Mr. Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility. CANNOTANSWER | at the time, only CNN possessed the means -- a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan -- to communicate to the outside world. | Peter Gregg Arnett (born 13 November 1934) is a New Zealand-born American journalist. He is known for his coverage of the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. He was awarded the 1966 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for his work in Vietnam from 1962 to 1965, mostly reporting for the Associated Press.
Arnett also worked for National Geographic magazine, and later for various television networks, most notably for nearly two decades at CNN. Arnett published a memoir, Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World's War Zones (1994). In March 1997, Arnett interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda. The journalism school at the Southern Institute of Technology in New Zealand was named for Arnett.
Early life
Arnett was born in 1934 in Riverton, in New Zealand's Southland region. His first job as a journalist was with The Southland Times.
Vietnam
During his early years in journalism, Arnett worked in Southeast Asia, largely based in Bangkok. In 1960 he started publishing a small English-language newspaper in Laos. Eventually, he made his way to Vietnam, which the French had abandoned after being defeated at Dien Bien Phu by communists from North Vietnam.
Arnett became a reporter for the Associated Press, based in Saigon in the South, in the years when the United States began to get involved in the civil conflict and through the Vietnam War. On 7 July 1963, in what became known as the Double Seven Day scuffle, he was injured in a widely reported physical altercation between a group of western journalists and South Vietnamese undercover police. The reporters were trying to cover Buddhist protests against the South Vietnamese government. His articles, such as "Death of Supply Column 21," about an event during Operation Starlite in August 1965, resulted in raising the ire of the American government, which had been increasing the number of forces in the region.
Arnett accompanied troops on dozens of missions, including the battle of Hill 875, in November 1967. An American detachment was sent to rescue another unit that was stranded in hostile territory, and the rescuers were nearly killed during the operation. In September 1972, Arnett joined a group of U.S. peace activists, including William Sloane Coffin and David Dellinger, on a trip to Hanoi, North Vietnam, to accept three American prisoners of war for return to the United States.
Arnett wrote in an unvarnished manner when reporting stories of ordinary soldiers and civilians. Arnett's writing was often criticized by administration spokesmen as negative, who wanted to keep reporting of the war positive. General William Westmoreland, President Lyndon B. Johnson and others in power put pressure on the AP to get rid of or transfer Arnett from the region.
In what is considered one of his iconic dispatches, published on 7 February 1968, Arnett wrote about the Battle of Bến Tre: "'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,' a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong." The quotation was gradually altered in subsequent publications, eventually becoming the more familiar, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." The accuracy of the original quotation and its source have often been called into question. Arnett never revealed his source, except to say that it was one of four officers he interviewed that day. US Army Major Phil Cannella, the senior officer present at Bến Tre, suggested that the quotation might have been a distortion of something he said to Arnett. The New Republic at the time attributed the quotation to US Air Force Major Chester L. Brown. In Walter Cronkite's 1971 book, Eye on the World, Arnett reasserted that the quotation was something "one American major said to me in a moment of revelation."
Arnett was one of the last western reporters remaining in Saigon after its fall and capture by the People's Army of Vietnam. Occupying soldiers showed him how they had entered the city.
Arnett wrote the 26-part mini-series documentary, Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War (1980), produced by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
At the time of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Arnett was working for Parade magazine. With a contact named Healy, he entered Afghanistan illegally from Pakistan; both men were dressed in traditional clothing as natives and led by Mujahideen guides. They continued to a Jalalabad hideaway of approximately fifty rebels. The trip came to an end when Healy fell into the Kunar River, ruining the pair's cameras. Later, Arnett would recount the story to journalist Artyom Borovik, who was covering the Soviet side of the war.
Gulf War
Beginning in 1981, Arnett worked for CNN for 18 years, ending in 1999. During the Gulf War, he became a household name worldwide as the only reporter to have live coverage directly from Baghdad, especially during the first 16 hours. His dramatic reports often were accompanied by the sound of air raid sirens blaring and US bombs exploding in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means — a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan — to communicate to the outside world. CNN broadcast Arnett's extended call live for several hours, with a picture of Arnett as video. Soon the other journalists left Iraq, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole remaining reporter.
His accounts of civilian damage caused by the bombing were not well received by the coalition war administration. Its spokesmen had emphasized terms such as "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" in their public statements, in an effort to project keeping civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House sources would later attack Arnett, saying that he was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation.
Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein. Due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks, the Gulf War was the first to be broadcast live on TV.
About halfway through the war, representatives of the CIA approached Arnett. They believed that the Iraqi military was operating a high-level communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where Arnett and other staff from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility.
Interview with Osama Bin Laden
In March 1997, Arnett of CNN interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda, after Bin Laden declared jihad on the United States. Asked by Arnett, "What are your future plans?", Bin Laden said, "You'll see them and hear about them in the media, God willing".
Operation Tailwind
In 1998, Arnett narrated a report on the joint venture (between CNN and Time magazine) program called NewsStand, covering "Operation Tailwind" in Laos in 1970.
The report, titled The Valley of Death, claimed that in 1970, the United States Army had used sarin, a nerve gas, against a group of deserting U.S. soldiers in Laos. The men who allegedly conducted the attack were an elite Green Beret A-Team. The report was expressly approved by both CNN Chairman Tom Johnson and CNN President Rick Kaplan. In response, the Pentagon commissioned another report contradicting that of CNN's. CNN subsequently conducted its own investigation. It concluded that the "journalism [in the Valley of Death] was flawed" and retracted the story. While all 12 men of the Green Beret A-Team were wounded in action during Operation Tailwind, no sarin was involved.
Due to a number of rebuttals claiming the CNN report was flawed, three or more of the individuals responsible were fired or forced to resign. Arnett was reprimanded, and left the network in April 1999, apparently due to "lingering fallout" from Tailwind.
Invasion of Iraq 2003
On assignment for NBC and National Geographic, Arnett went to Iraq in 2003 to cover the U.S. invasion. After a press meeting there, he granted an interview to state-run Iraqi TV on 31 March 2003. In it he said:
Earlier in the interview he said:
When Arnett's remarks sparked a "firestorm of protest", NBC initially defended him, saying he had given the interview as a professional courtesy and that his remarks were "analytical in nature". A day later, though, NBC, MSNBC and National Geographic all severed their relationships with Arnett. In response to Arnett's statement on Iraqi TV, NBC stated:
Arnett responded:
Later that day, Arnett was hired by the British tabloid, The Daily Mirror, which had opposed the war. A couple of days later he also received work from Greek television channel NET television, and Belgian VTM.
Academic career
After retiring as a field reporter in 2007, Arnett lives in Los Angeles.
He also teaches journalism at Shantou University in China. In New Zealand, the Peter Arnett School of Journalism was named for him at the Southern Institute of Technology; the journalism school closed in 2015.
Personal life
In 1964, Arnett married Nina Nguyen, a Vietnamese woman. They had two children, Elsa and Andrew. Nina and Peter separated in 1983, divorced more than 20 years later, then reconciled in 2006.
Elsa Arnett attended Stuyvesant High School in New York and Harvard University. After graduating, she went into journalism, became a reporter, worked for several months on The Washington Post as an intern and then joined The Boston Globe. She worked with her father on his 1994 memoir about his reporting life. Elsa Arnett is married to former White House lawyer John Yoo.
In the 2007 New Year Honours, Arnett was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to journalism.
In popular culture
Peter Arnett appeared in Robert Wiener's book Live from Baghdad. He appeared as a character in the 2002 HBO film of the same name, where he was portrayed by actor Bruce McGill.
The book, as well as the film, features Arnett's work as part of Wiener's crew in Baghdad. Arnett joined the team as tensions between Iraq and the West were escalating toward an imminent military encounter. CNN sent Arnett to Baghdad because of his experience in covering military conflicts. Arnett was part of the live coverage beginning on 16 January 1991, the start of the Gulf War air campaign, where he and colleagues Bernard Shaw and John Holliman kept broadcasting from their Al-Rasheed Hotel room amid extensive aerial bombing by the Western Coalition forces.
Arnett's interview with Bin Laden in 1997 became the subject of the movie 'A War Story' produced for television. Peter's role was played by John Leigh.
Selected works
Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad: 35 Years in the World's War Zones. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Saigon Has Fallen: A Wartime Recollection by the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist. New York: Rosetta Books/Associated Press, 2015
See also
CNN controversies
List of New Zealand television personalities
References
Bibliography
External links
Sully, François, "Associated Press' Peter Arnett testing the first flame thrower captured from the Vietcong in Vietnam", photograph; 8 December 1965. Copyright Healey Library, UMass Boston; via openvault.wgbh.org.
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
War correspondents of the Vietnam War
1934 births
Living people
CNN people
People from Riverton, New Zealand
Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting winners
New Zealand television presenters
New Zealand emigrants to the United States
Officers of the New Zealand Order of Merit
People with acquired American citizenship
Ngāi Tahu
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists | false | [
"Interesting Times: The Secret of My Success is a 2002 Chinese documentary film by director Duan Jinchuan about China's contemporary politics of democracy and the realities of the one child policy. The director shows how this policy is being implemented in Fanshen, a rural village in Northeast China.\n\nThis film is part of the 2002 series 'Interesting Times' showing different aspects of modern life in China:\nThe secret of my success - shows how Chinese politics are implemented in the countryside.\nThe war of love Directors: Duan Jinchuan & Jiang Yue - is a portrait of a marriage broker.\nXiao’s long march Director: Wu Gong - about the People's Liberation Army.\nThis happy life Director: Jiang Yue - aims to define the concept of political education in China.\n\nAwards\nIDFA Award for best Mid-Length Documentary (2002)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n Interesting times: the secrets of my success documentary online\n\nChinese documentary films\n2002 films\n2002 documentary films\nChinese films\nOne-child policy",
"Loan Life Coverage Ratio\nLLCR is a ratio commonly used in project finance. The ratio is defined as: Net Present Value of Cashflow Available for Debt Service (\"CFADS\") / Outstanding Debt in the period. Financial modelling of LLCR is now a standard metric calculated in a project finance model and has been standardized to a large extent but always needs to be aligned with local practice of the financiers as described in the transaction term sheet.\n\nNPV(CFADS) is measured only up until the maturity of the debt tranche.\n\nThe ratio is one of the aspects used for estimates of the credit quality of a project from a lender's perspective.\n\nRelated ratios are:\nProject Life Coverage Ratio (PLCR) and Reserve Life Coverage Ratio (RLCR).\n\nThe ratio usually is in a range from 1.25 for highly geared infrastructure investment to 2.5 or higher in an investments with more insecure income, such as oil and gas transactions.\n\nSee also\nDebt service coverage ratio\n\nReferences\n\nLoans"
] |
[
"Peter Arnett",
"The Gulf War",
"When did he cover the gulf war?",
"Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991",
"what are highlites of his coverage there?",
"Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein.",
"did he win any awards or recognition for this work?",
"I don't know.",
"Interesting aspects of the coverage?",
"at the time, only CNN possessed the means -- a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan -- to communicate to the outside world."
] | C_7576129012b04fe8b0e371c87894f6f8_1 | anything else important or notable? | 5 | Is there anything else important or notable about Peter Arnett's coverage in Baghdad aside from the 16 initial intense hours? | Peter Arnett | Arnett worked for CNN for 18 years ending in 1999. During the Gulf War, he became a household name worldwide when he became the only reporter with live coverage directly from Baghdad. His dramatic reports often had air raid sirens blaring and the sound of US bombs exploding in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means -- a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan -- to communicate to the outside world. CNN broadcast Arnett's extended call live for several hours, with a picture of Arnett as video. Soon the other journalists left Iraq, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole remaining reporter. His accounts of civilian damage caused by the bombing were not well received by the coalition war administration, who by their constant use of terms like "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" in their public statements, had tried to project an image that civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House sources would later state that Arnett was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation, and CNN received a letter from 34 members of the United States Congress accusing Arnett of "unpatriotic journalism". Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein. The Gulf War became the first war to be seen truly live on TV, due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks. About halfway through the war the CIA approached Mr. Arnett. They believed that the Iraqi military was operating a high-level communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where Mr. Arnett and a few others from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Mr. Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility. CANNOTANSWER | The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Mr. Arnett refused. | Peter Gregg Arnett (born 13 November 1934) is a New Zealand-born American journalist. He is known for his coverage of the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. He was awarded the 1966 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for his work in Vietnam from 1962 to 1965, mostly reporting for the Associated Press.
Arnett also worked for National Geographic magazine, and later for various television networks, most notably for nearly two decades at CNN. Arnett published a memoir, Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World's War Zones (1994). In March 1997, Arnett interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda. The journalism school at the Southern Institute of Technology in New Zealand was named for Arnett.
Early life
Arnett was born in 1934 in Riverton, in New Zealand's Southland region. His first job as a journalist was with The Southland Times.
Vietnam
During his early years in journalism, Arnett worked in Southeast Asia, largely based in Bangkok. In 1960 he started publishing a small English-language newspaper in Laos. Eventually, he made his way to Vietnam, which the French had abandoned after being defeated at Dien Bien Phu by communists from North Vietnam.
Arnett became a reporter for the Associated Press, based in Saigon in the South, in the years when the United States began to get involved in the civil conflict and through the Vietnam War. On 7 July 1963, in what became known as the Double Seven Day scuffle, he was injured in a widely reported physical altercation between a group of western journalists and South Vietnamese undercover police. The reporters were trying to cover Buddhist protests against the South Vietnamese government. His articles, such as "Death of Supply Column 21," about an event during Operation Starlite in August 1965, resulted in raising the ire of the American government, which had been increasing the number of forces in the region.
Arnett accompanied troops on dozens of missions, including the battle of Hill 875, in November 1967. An American detachment was sent to rescue another unit that was stranded in hostile territory, and the rescuers were nearly killed during the operation. In September 1972, Arnett joined a group of U.S. peace activists, including William Sloane Coffin and David Dellinger, on a trip to Hanoi, North Vietnam, to accept three American prisoners of war for return to the United States.
Arnett wrote in an unvarnished manner when reporting stories of ordinary soldiers and civilians. Arnett's writing was often criticized by administration spokesmen as negative, who wanted to keep reporting of the war positive. General William Westmoreland, President Lyndon B. Johnson and others in power put pressure on the AP to get rid of or transfer Arnett from the region.
In what is considered one of his iconic dispatches, published on 7 February 1968, Arnett wrote about the Battle of Bến Tre: "'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,' a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong." The quotation was gradually altered in subsequent publications, eventually becoming the more familiar, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." The accuracy of the original quotation and its source have often been called into question. Arnett never revealed his source, except to say that it was one of four officers he interviewed that day. US Army Major Phil Cannella, the senior officer present at Bến Tre, suggested that the quotation might have been a distortion of something he said to Arnett. The New Republic at the time attributed the quotation to US Air Force Major Chester L. Brown. In Walter Cronkite's 1971 book, Eye on the World, Arnett reasserted that the quotation was something "one American major said to me in a moment of revelation."
Arnett was one of the last western reporters remaining in Saigon after its fall and capture by the People's Army of Vietnam. Occupying soldiers showed him how they had entered the city.
Arnett wrote the 26-part mini-series documentary, Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War (1980), produced by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
At the time of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Arnett was working for Parade magazine. With a contact named Healy, he entered Afghanistan illegally from Pakistan; both men were dressed in traditional clothing as natives and led by Mujahideen guides. They continued to a Jalalabad hideaway of approximately fifty rebels. The trip came to an end when Healy fell into the Kunar River, ruining the pair's cameras. Later, Arnett would recount the story to journalist Artyom Borovik, who was covering the Soviet side of the war.
Gulf War
Beginning in 1981, Arnett worked for CNN for 18 years, ending in 1999. During the Gulf War, he became a household name worldwide as the only reporter to have live coverage directly from Baghdad, especially during the first 16 hours. His dramatic reports often were accompanied by the sound of air raid sirens blaring and US bombs exploding in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means — a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan — to communicate to the outside world. CNN broadcast Arnett's extended call live for several hours, with a picture of Arnett as video. Soon the other journalists left Iraq, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole remaining reporter.
His accounts of civilian damage caused by the bombing were not well received by the coalition war administration. Its spokesmen had emphasized terms such as "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" in their public statements, in an effort to project keeping civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House sources would later attack Arnett, saying that he was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation.
Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein. Due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks, the Gulf War was the first to be broadcast live on TV.
About halfway through the war, representatives of the CIA approached Arnett. They believed that the Iraqi military was operating a high-level communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where Arnett and other staff from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility.
Interview with Osama Bin Laden
In March 1997, Arnett of CNN interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda, after Bin Laden declared jihad on the United States. Asked by Arnett, "What are your future plans?", Bin Laden said, "You'll see them and hear about them in the media, God willing".
Operation Tailwind
In 1998, Arnett narrated a report on the joint venture (between CNN and Time magazine) program called NewsStand, covering "Operation Tailwind" in Laos in 1970.
The report, titled The Valley of Death, claimed that in 1970, the United States Army had used sarin, a nerve gas, against a group of deserting U.S. soldiers in Laos. The men who allegedly conducted the attack were an elite Green Beret A-Team. The report was expressly approved by both CNN Chairman Tom Johnson and CNN President Rick Kaplan. In response, the Pentagon commissioned another report contradicting that of CNN's. CNN subsequently conducted its own investigation. It concluded that the "journalism [in the Valley of Death] was flawed" and retracted the story. While all 12 men of the Green Beret A-Team were wounded in action during Operation Tailwind, no sarin was involved.
Due to a number of rebuttals claiming the CNN report was flawed, three or more of the individuals responsible were fired or forced to resign. Arnett was reprimanded, and left the network in April 1999, apparently due to "lingering fallout" from Tailwind.
Invasion of Iraq 2003
On assignment for NBC and National Geographic, Arnett went to Iraq in 2003 to cover the U.S. invasion. After a press meeting there, he granted an interview to state-run Iraqi TV on 31 March 2003. In it he said:
Earlier in the interview he said:
When Arnett's remarks sparked a "firestorm of protest", NBC initially defended him, saying he had given the interview as a professional courtesy and that his remarks were "analytical in nature". A day later, though, NBC, MSNBC and National Geographic all severed their relationships with Arnett. In response to Arnett's statement on Iraqi TV, NBC stated:
Arnett responded:
Later that day, Arnett was hired by the British tabloid, The Daily Mirror, which had opposed the war. A couple of days later he also received work from Greek television channel NET television, and Belgian VTM.
Academic career
After retiring as a field reporter in 2007, Arnett lives in Los Angeles.
He also teaches journalism at Shantou University in China. In New Zealand, the Peter Arnett School of Journalism was named for him at the Southern Institute of Technology; the journalism school closed in 2015.
Personal life
In 1964, Arnett married Nina Nguyen, a Vietnamese woman. They had two children, Elsa and Andrew. Nina and Peter separated in 1983, divorced more than 20 years later, then reconciled in 2006.
Elsa Arnett attended Stuyvesant High School in New York and Harvard University. After graduating, she went into journalism, became a reporter, worked for several months on The Washington Post as an intern and then joined The Boston Globe. She worked with her father on his 1994 memoir about his reporting life. Elsa Arnett is married to former White House lawyer John Yoo.
In the 2007 New Year Honours, Arnett was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to journalism.
In popular culture
Peter Arnett appeared in Robert Wiener's book Live from Baghdad. He appeared as a character in the 2002 HBO film of the same name, where he was portrayed by actor Bruce McGill.
The book, as well as the film, features Arnett's work as part of Wiener's crew in Baghdad. Arnett joined the team as tensions between Iraq and the West were escalating toward an imminent military encounter. CNN sent Arnett to Baghdad because of his experience in covering military conflicts. Arnett was part of the live coverage beginning on 16 January 1991, the start of the Gulf War air campaign, where he and colleagues Bernard Shaw and John Holliman kept broadcasting from their Al-Rasheed Hotel room amid extensive aerial bombing by the Western Coalition forces.
Arnett's interview with Bin Laden in 1997 became the subject of the movie 'A War Story' produced for television. Peter's role was played by John Leigh.
Selected works
Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad: 35 Years in the World's War Zones. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Saigon Has Fallen: A Wartime Recollection by the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist. New York: Rosetta Books/Associated Press, 2015
See also
CNN controversies
List of New Zealand television personalities
References
Bibliography
External links
Sully, François, "Associated Press' Peter Arnett testing the first flame thrower captured from the Vietcong in Vietnam", photograph; 8 December 1965. Copyright Healey Library, UMass Boston; via openvault.wgbh.org.
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
War correspondents of the Vietnam War
1934 births
Living people
CNN people
People from Riverton, New Zealand
Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting winners
New Zealand television presenters
New Zealand emigrants to the United States
Officers of the New Zealand Order of Merit
People with acquired American citizenship
Ngāi Tahu
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists | false | [
"In baseball, a fair ball is a batted ball that entitles the batter to attempt to reach first base. By contrast, a foul ball is a batted ball that does not entitle the batter to attempt to reach first base. Whether a batted ball is fair or foul is determined by the location of the ball at the appropriate reference point, as follows:\n\n if the ball leaves the playing field without touching anything, the point where the ball leaves the field;\n else, if the ball first lands past first or third base without touching anything, the point where the ball lands;\n else, if the ball rolls or bounces past first or third base without touching anything other than the ground, the point where the ball passes the base;\n else, if the ball touches anything other than the ground (such as an umpire, a player, or any equipment left on the field) before any of the above happens, the point of such touching;\n else (the ball comes to a rest before reaching first or third base), the point where the ball comes to a rest.\n\nIf any part of the ball is on or above fair territory at the appropriate reference point, it is fair; else it is foul. Fair territory or fair ground is defined as the area of the playing field between the two foul lines, and includes the foul lines themselves and the foul poles. However, certain exceptions exist:\n\n A ball that touches first, second, or third base is always fair.\n Under Rule 5.09(a)(7)-(8), if a batted ball touches the batter or his bat while the batter is in the batter's box and not intentionally interfering with the course of the ball, the ball is foul.\n A ball that hits the foul pole without first having touched anything else off the bat is fair.\n Ground rules may provide whether a ball hitting specific objects (e.g. roof, overhead speaker) is fair or foul.\n\nOn a fair ball, the batter attempts to reach first base or any subsequent base, runners attempt to advance and fielders try to record outs. A fair ball is considered a live ball until the ball becomes dead by leaving the field or any other method.\n\nReferences\n\nBaseball rules",
"Say Anything may refer to:\n\nFilm and television\n Say Anything..., a 1989 American film by Cameron Crowe\n \"Say Anything\" (BoJack Horseman), a television episode\n\nMusic\n Say Anything (band), an American rock band\n Say Anything (album), a 2009 album by the band\n \"Say Anything\", a 2012 song by Say Anything from Anarchy, My Dear\n \"Say Anything\" (Marianas Trench song), 2006\n \"Say Anything\" (X Japan song), 1991\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Aimee Mann from Whatever, 1993\n \"Say Anything\", a song by the Bouncing Souls from The Bouncing Souls, 1997\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Good Charlotte from The Young and the Hopeless, 2002\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Girl in Red, 2018\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Will Young from Lexicon, 2019\n \"Say Anything (Else)\", a song by Cartel from Chroma, 2005\n\nOther uses\n Say Anything (party game), a 2008 board game published by North Star Games\n \"Say Anything\", a column in YM magazine\n\nSee also\n Say Something (disambiguation)"
] |
[
"Peter Arnett",
"The Gulf War",
"When did he cover the gulf war?",
"Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991",
"what are highlites of his coverage there?",
"Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein.",
"did he win any awards or recognition for this work?",
"I don't know.",
"Interesting aspects of the coverage?",
"at the time, only CNN possessed the means -- a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan -- to communicate to the outside world.",
"anything else important or notable?",
"The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Mr. Arnett refused."
] | C_7576129012b04fe8b0e371c87894f6f8_1 | what happened next? | 6 | What happened after Peter Arnett refused to leave the hotel that the CIA wanted to bomb? | Peter Arnett | Arnett worked for CNN for 18 years ending in 1999. During the Gulf War, he became a household name worldwide when he became the only reporter with live coverage directly from Baghdad. His dramatic reports often had air raid sirens blaring and the sound of US bombs exploding in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means -- a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan -- to communicate to the outside world. CNN broadcast Arnett's extended call live for several hours, with a picture of Arnett as video. Soon the other journalists left Iraq, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole remaining reporter. His accounts of civilian damage caused by the bombing were not well received by the coalition war administration, who by their constant use of terms like "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" in their public statements, had tried to project an image that civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House sources would later state that Arnett was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation, and CNN received a letter from 34 members of the United States Congress accusing Arnett of "unpatriotic journalism". Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein. The Gulf War became the first war to be seen truly live on TV, due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks. About halfway through the war the CIA approached Mr. Arnett. They believed that the Iraqi military was operating a high-level communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where Mr. Arnett and a few others from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Mr. Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility. CANNOTANSWER | Mr. Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility. | Peter Gregg Arnett (born 13 November 1934) is a New Zealand-born American journalist. He is known for his coverage of the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. He was awarded the 1966 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for his work in Vietnam from 1962 to 1965, mostly reporting for the Associated Press.
Arnett also worked for National Geographic magazine, and later for various television networks, most notably for nearly two decades at CNN. Arnett published a memoir, Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World's War Zones (1994). In March 1997, Arnett interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda. The journalism school at the Southern Institute of Technology in New Zealand was named for Arnett.
Early life
Arnett was born in 1934 in Riverton, in New Zealand's Southland region. His first job as a journalist was with The Southland Times.
Vietnam
During his early years in journalism, Arnett worked in Southeast Asia, largely based in Bangkok. In 1960 he started publishing a small English-language newspaper in Laos. Eventually, he made his way to Vietnam, which the French had abandoned after being defeated at Dien Bien Phu by communists from North Vietnam.
Arnett became a reporter for the Associated Press, based in Saigon in the South, in the years when the United States began to get involved in the civil conflict and through the Vietnam War. On 7 July 1963, in what became known as the Double Seven Day scuffle, he was injured in a widely reported physical altercation between a group of western journalists and South Vietnamese undercover police. The reporters were trying to cover Buddhist protests against the South Vietnamese government. His articles, such as "Death of Supply Column 21," about an event during Operation Starlite in August 1965, resulted in raising the ire of the American government, which had been increasing the number of forces in the region.
Arnett accompanied troops on dozens of missions, including the battle of Hill 875, in November 1967. An American detachment was sent to rescue another unit that was stranded in hostile territory, and the rescuers were nearly killed during the operation. In September 1972, Arnett joined a group of U.S. peace activists, including William Sloane Coffin and David Dellinger, on a trip to Hanoi, North Vietnam, to accept three American prisoners of war for return to the United States.
Arnett wrote in an unvarnished manner when reporting stories of ordinary soldiers and civilians. Arnett's writing was often criticized by administration spokesmen as negative, who wanted to keep reporting of the war positive. General William Westmoreland, President Lyndon B. Johnson and others in power put pressure on the AP to get rid of or transfer Arnett from the region.
In what is considered one of his iconic dispatches, published on 7 February 1968, Arnett wrote about the Battle of Bến Tre: "'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,' a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong." The quotation was gradually altered in subsequent publications, eventually becoming the more familiar, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." The accuracy of the original quotation and its source have often been called into question. Arnett never revealed his source, except to say that it was one of four officers he interviewed that day. US Army Major Phil Cannella, the senior officer present at Bến Tre, suggested that the quotation might have been a distortion of something he said to Arnett. The New Republic at the time attributed the quotation to US Air Force Major Chester L. Brown. In Walter Cronkite's 1971 book, Eye on the World, Arnett reasserted that the quotation was something "one American major said to me in a moment of revelation."
Arnett was one of the last western reporters remaining in Saigon after its fall and capture by the People's Army of Vietnam. Occupying soldiers showed him how they had entered the city.
Arnett wrote the 26-part mini-series documentary, Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War (1980), produced by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
At the time of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Arnett was working for Parade magazine. With a contact named Healy, he entered Afghanistan illegally from Pakistan; both men were dressed in traditional clothing as natives and led by Mujahideen guides. They continued to a Jalalabad hideaway of approximately fifty rebels. The trip came to an end when Healy fell into the Kunar River, ruining the pair's cameras. Later, Arnett would recount the story to journalist Artyom Borovik, who was covering the Soviet side of the war.
Gulf War
Beginning in 1981, Arnett worked for CNN for 18 years, ending in 1999. During the Gulf War, he became a household name worldwide as the only reporter to have live coverage directly from Baghdad, especially during the first 16 hours. His dramatic reports often were accompanied by the sound of air raid sirens blaring and US bombs exploding in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means — a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan — to communicate to the outside world. CNN broadcast Arnett's extended call live for several hours, with a picture of Arnett as video. Soon the other journalists left Iraq, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole remaining reporter.
His accounts of civilian damage caused by the bombing were not well received by the coalition war administration. Its spokesmen had emphasized terms such as "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" in their public statements, in an effort to project keeping civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House sources would later attack Arnett, saying that he was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation.
Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein. Due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks, the Gulf War was the first to be broadcast live on TV.
About halfway through the war, representatives of the CIA approached Arnett. They believed that the Iraqi military was operating a high-level communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where Arnett and other staff from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility.
Interview with Osama Bin Laden
In March 1997, Arnett of CNN interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda, after Bin Laden declared jihad on the United States. Asked by Arnett, "What are your future plans?", Bin Laden said, "You'll see them and hear about them in the media, God willing".
Operation Tailwind
In 1998, Arnett narrated a report on the joint venture (between CNN and Time magazine) program called NewsStand, covering "Operation Tailwind" in Laos in 1970.
The report, titled The Valley of Death, claimed that in 1970, the United States Army had used sarin, a nerve gas, against a group of deserting U.S. soldiers in Laos. The men who allegedly conducted the attack were an elite Green Beret A-Team. The report was expressly approved by both CNN Chairman Tom Johnson and CNN President Rick Kaplan. In response, the Pentagon commissioned another report contradicting that of CNN's. CNN subsequently conducted its own investigation. It concluded that the "journalism [in the Valley of Death] was flawed" and retracted the story. While all 12 men of the Green Beret A-Team were wounded in action during Operation Tailwind, no sarin was involved.
Due to a number of rebuttals claiming the CNN report was flawed, three or more of the individuals responsible were fired or forced to resign. Arnett was reprimanded, and left the network in April 1999, apparently due to "lingering fallout" from Tailwind.
Invasion of Iraq 2003
On assignment for NBC and National Geographic, Arnett went to Iraq in 2003 to cover the U.S. invasion. After a press meeting there, he granted an interview to state-run Iraqi TV on 31 March 2003. In it he said:
Earlier in the interview he said:
When Arnett's remarks sparked a "firestorm of protest", NBC initially defended him, saying he had given the interview as a professional courtesy and that his remarks were "analytical in nature". A day later, though, NBC, MSNBC and National Geographic all severed their relationships with Arnett. In response to Arnett's statement on Iraqi TV, NBC stated:
Arnett responded:
Later that day, Arnett was hired by the British tabloid, The Daily Mirror, which had opposed the war. A couple of days later he also received work from Greek television channel NET television, and Belgian VTM.
Academic career
After retiring as a field reporter in 2007, Arnett lives in Los Angeles.
He also teaches journalism at Shantou University in China. In New Zealand, the Peter Arnett School of Journalism was named for him at the Southern Institute of Technology; the journalism school closed in 2015.
Personal life
In 1964, Arnett married Nina Nguyen, a Vietnamese woman. They had two children, Elsa and Andrew. Nina and Peter separated in 1983, divorced more than 20 years later, then reconciled in 2006.
Elsa Arnett attended Stuyvesant High School in New York and Harvard University. After graduating, she went into journalism, became a reporter, worked for several months on The Washington Post as an intern and then joined The Boston Globe. She worked with her father on his 1994 memoir about his reporting life. Elsa Arnett is married to former White House lawyer John Yoo.
In the 2007 New Year Honours, Arnett was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to journalism.
In popular culture
Peter Arnett appeared in Robert Wiener's book Live from Baghdad. He appeared as a character in the 2002 HBO film of the same name, where he was portrayed by actor Bruce McGill.
The book, as well as the film, features Arnett's work as part of Wiener's crew in Baghdad. Arnett joined the team as tensions between Iraq and the West were escalating toward an imminent military encounter. CNN sent Arnett to Baghdad because of his experience in covering military conflicts. Arnett was part of the live coverage beginning on 16 January 1991, the start of the Gulf War air campaign, where he and colleagues Bernard Shaw and John Holliman kept broadcasting from their Al-Rasheed Hotel room amid extensive aerial bombing by the Western Coalition forces.
Arnett's interview with Bin Laden in 1997 became the subject of the movie 'A War Story' produced for television. Peter's role was played by John Leigh.
Selected works
Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad: 35 Years in the World's War Zones. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Saigon Has Fallen: A Wartime Recollection by the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist. New York: Rosetta Books/Associated Press, 2015
See also
CNN controversies
List of New Zealand television personalities
References
Bibliography
External links
Sully, François, "Associated Press' Peter Arnett testing the first flame thrower captured from the Vietcong in Vietnam", photograph; 8 December 1965. Copyright Healey Library, UMass Boston; via openvault.wgbh.org.
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
War correspondents of the Vietnam War
1934 births
Living people
CNN people
People from Riverton, New Zealand
Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting winners
New Zealand television presenters
New Zealand emigrants to the United States
Officers of the New Zealand Order of Merit
People with acquired American citizenship
Ngāi Tahu
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists | false | [
"What Happens Next may refer to:\n\n What Happens Next? (film), 2012 documentary film about Dan Mangan\nWhat Happens Next? (band), American thrashcore band\n What Happens Next (Gang of Four album), 2015\nWhat Happens Next (Joe Satriani album), 2018\nWhat Happens Next (What Happened Then?), a 1984 album by American hardcore punk band Ill Repute\n\nOther uses\n What Happens Next?: A History of Hollywood Screenwriting, a book by Marc Norman\n\nSee also\n What Comes Next (disambiguation)",
"What Happened to Jones may refer to:\n What Happened to Jones (1897 play), a play by George Broadhurst\n What Happened to Jones (1915 film), a lost silent film\n What Happened to Jones (1920 film), a lost silent film\n What Happened to Jones (1926 film), a silent film comedy"
] |
[
"Peter Arnett",
"The Gulf War",
"When did he cover the gulf war?",
"Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991",
"what are highlites of his coverage there?",
"Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein.",
"did he win any awards or recognition for this work?",
"I don't know.",
"Interesting aspects of the coverage?",
"at the time, only CNN possessed the means -- a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan -- to communicate to the outside world.",
"anything else important or notable?",
"The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Mr. Arnett refused.",
"what happened next?",
"Mr. Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility."
] | C_7576129012b04fe8b0e371c87894f6f8_1 | so how did it turn out? | 7 | So how did the situation with Peter Arnett refusing to leave the hotel the CIA wanted to bomb turn out? | Peter Arnett | Arnett worked for CNN for 18 years ending in 1999. During the Gulf War, he became a household name worldwide when he became the only reporter with live coverage directly from Baghdad. His dramatic reports often had air raid sirens blaring and the sound of US bombs exploding in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means -- a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan -- to communicate to the outside world. CNN broadcast Arnett's extended call live for several hours, with a picture of Arnett as video. Soon the other journalists left Iraq, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole remaining reporter. His accounts of civilian damage caused by the bombing were not well received by the coalition war administration, who by their constant use of terms like "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" in their public statements, had tried to project an image that civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House sources would later state that Arnett was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation, and CNN received a letter from 34 members of the United States Congress accusing Arnett of "unpatriotic journalism". Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein. The Gulf War became the first war to be seen truly live on TV, due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks. About halfway through the war the CIA approached Mr. Arnett. They believed that the Iraqi military was operating a high-level communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where Mr. Arnett and a few others from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Mr. Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Peter Gregg Arnett (born 13 November 1934) is a New Zealand-born American journalist. He is known for his coverage of the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. He was awarded the 1966 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for his work in Vietnam from 1962 to 1965, mostly reporting for the Associated Press.
Arnett also worked for National Geographic magazine, and later for various television networks, most notably for nearly two decades at CNN. Arnett published a memoir, Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World's War Zones (1994). In March 1997, Arnett interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda. The journalism school at the Southern Institute of Technology in New Zealand was named for Arnett.
Early life
Arnett was born in 1934 in Riverton, in New Zealand's Southland region. His first job as a journalist was with The Southland Times.
Vietnam
During his early years in journalism, Arnett worked in Southeast Asia, largely based in Bangkok. In 1960 he started publishing a small English-language newspaper in Laos. Eventually, he made his way to Vietnam, which the French had abandoned after being defeated at Dien Bien Phu by communists from North Vietnam.
Arnett became a reporter for the Associated Press, based in Saigon in the South, in the years when the United States began to get involved in the civil conflict and through the Vietnam War. On 7 July 1963, in what became known as the Double Seven Day scuffle, he was injured in a widely reported physical altercation between a group of western journalists and South Vietnamese undercover police. The reporters were trying to cover Buddhist protests against the South Vietnamese government. His articles, such as "Death of Supply Column 21," about an event during Operation Starlite in August 1965, resulted in raising the ire of the American government, which had been increasing the number of forces in the region.
Arnett accompanied troops on dozens of missions, including the battle of Hill 875, in November 1967. An American detachment was sent to rescue another unit that was stranded in hostile territory, and the rescuers were nearly killed during the operation. In September 1972, Arnett joined a group of U.S. peace activists, including William Sloane Coffin and David Dellinger, on a trip to Hanoi, North Vietnam, to accept three American prisoners of war for return to the United States.
Arnett wrote in an unvarnished manner when reporting stories of ordinary soldiers and civilians. Arnett's writing was often criticized by administration spokesmen as negative, who wanted to keep reporting of the war positive. General William Westmoreland, President Lyndon B. Johnson and others in power put pressure on the AP to get rid of or transfer Arnett from the region.
In what is considered one of his iconic dispatches, published on 7 February 1968, Arnett wrote about the Battle of Bến Tre: "'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,' a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong." The quotation was gradually altered in subsequent publications, eventually becoming the more familiar, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." The accuracy of the original quotation and its source have often been called into question. Arnett never revealed his source, except to say that it was one of four officers he interviewed that day. US Army Major Phil Cannella, the senior officer present at Bến Tre, suggested that the quotation might have been a distortion of something he said to Arnett. The New Republic at the time attributed the quotation to US Air Force Major Chester L. Brown. In Walter Cronkite's 1971 book, Eye on the World, Arnett reasserted that the quotation was something "one American major said to me in a moment of revelation."
Arnett was one of the last western reporters remaining in Saigon after its fall and capture by the People's Army of Vietnam. Occupying soldiers showed him how they had entered the city.
Arnett wrote the 26-part mini-series documentary, Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War (1980), produced by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
At the time of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Arnett was working for Parade magazine. With a contact named Healy, he entered Afghanistan illegally from Pakistan; both men were dressed in traditional clothing as natives and led by Mujahideen guides. They continued to a Jalalabad hideaway of approximately fifty rebels. The trip came to an end when Healy fell into the Kunar River, ruining the pair's cameras. Later, Arnett would recount the story to journalist Artyom Borovik, who was covering the Soviet side of the war.
Gulf War
Beginning in 1981, Arnett worked for CNN for 18 years, ending in 1999. During the Gulf War, he became a household name worldwide as the only reporter to have live coverage directly from Baghdad, especially during the first 16 hours. His dramatic reports often were accompanied by the sound of air raid sirens blaring and US bombs exploding in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means — a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan — to communicate to the outside world. CNN broadcast Arnett's extended call live for several hours, with a picture of Arnett as video. Soon the other journalists left Iraq, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole remaining reporter.
His accounts of civilian damage caused by the bombing were not well received by the coalition war administration. Its spokesmen had emphasized terms such as "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" in their public statements, in an effort to project keeping civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House sources would later attack Arnett, saying that he was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation.
Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein. Due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks, the Gulf War was the first to be broadcast live on TV.
About halfway through the war, representatives of the CIA approached Arnett. They believed that the Iraqi military was operating a high-level communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where Arnett and other staff from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility.
Interview with Osama Bin Laden
In March 1997, Arnett of CNN interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda, after Bin Laden declared jihad on the United States. Asked by Arnett, "What are your future plans?", Bin Laden said, "You'll see them and hear about them in the media, God willing".
Operation Tailwind
In 1998, Arnett narrated a report on the joint venture (between CNN and Time magazine) program called NewsStand, covering "Operation Tailwind" in Laos in 1970.
The report, titled The Valley of Death, claimed that in 1970, the United States Army had used sarin, a nerve gas, against a group of deserting U.S. soldiers in Laos. The men who allegedly conducted the attack were an elite Green Beret A-Team. The report was expressly approved by both CNN Chairman Tom Johnson and CNN President Rick Kaplan. In response, the Pentagon commissioned another report contradicting that of CNN's. CNN subsequently conducted its own investigation. It concluded that the "journalism [in the Valley of Death] was flawed" and retracted the story. While all 12 men of the Green Beret A-Team were wounded in action during Operation Tailwind, no sarin was involved.
Due to a number of rebuttals claiming the CNN report was flawed, three or more of the individuals responsible were fired or forced to resign. Arnett was reprimanded, and left the network in April 1999, apparently due to "lingering fallout" from Tailwind.
Invasion of Iraq 2003
On assignment for NBC and National Geographic, Arnett went to Iraq in 2003 to cover the U.S. invasion. After a press meeting there, he granted an interview to state-run Iraqi TV on 31 March 2003. In it he said:
Earlier in the interview he said:
When Arnett's remarks sparked a "firestorm of protest", NBC initially defended him, saying he had given the interview as a professional courtesy and that his remarks were "analytical in nature". A day later, though, NBC, MSNBC and National Geographic all severed their relationships with Arnett. In response to Arnett's statement on Iraqi TV, NBC stated:
Arnett responded:
Later that day, Arnett was hired by the British tabloid, The Daily Mirror, which had opposed the war. A couple of days later he also received work from Greek television channel NET television, and Belgian VTM.
Academic career
After retiring as a field reporter in 2007, Arnett lives in Los Angeles.
He also teaches journalism at Shantou University in China. In New Zealand, the Peter Arnett School of Journalism was named for him at the Southern Institute of Technology; the journalism school closed in 2015.
Personal life
In 1964, Arnett married Nina Nguyen, a Vietnamese woman. They had two children, Elsa and Andrew. Nina and Peter separated in 1983, divorced more than 20 years later, then reconciled in 2006.
Elsa Arnett attended Stuyvesant High School in New York and Harvard University. After graduating, she went into journalism, became a reporter, worked for several months on The Washington Post as an intern and then joined The Boston Globe. She worked with her father on his 1994 memoir about his reporting life. Elsa Arnett is married to former White House lawyer John Yoo.
In the 2007 New Year Honours, Arnett was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to journalism.
In popular culture
Peter Arnett appeared in Robert Wiener's book Live from Baghdad. He appeared as a character in the 2002 HBO film of the same name, where he was portrayed by actor Bruce McGill.
The book, as well as the film, features Arnett's work as part of Wiener's crew in Baghdad. Arnett joined the team as tensions between Iraq and the West were escalating toward an imminent military encounter. CNN sent Arnett to Baghdad because of his experience in covering military conflicts. Arnett was part of the live coverage beginning on 16 January 1991, the start of the Gulf War air campaign, where he and colleagues Bernard Shaw and John Holliman kept broadcasting from their Al-Rasheed Hotel room amid extensive aerial bombing by the Western Coalition forces.
Arnett's interview with Bin Laden in 1997 became the subject of the movie 'A War Story' produced for television. Peter's role was played by John Leigh.
Selected works
Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad: 35 Years in the World's War Zones. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Saigon Has Fallen: A Wartime Recollection by the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist. New York: Rosetta Books/Associated Press, 2015
See also
CNN controversies
List of New Zealand television personalities
References
Bibliography
External links
Sully, François, "Associated Press' Peter Arnett testing the first flame thrower captured from the Vietcong in Vietnam", photograph; 8 December 1965. Copyright Healey Library, UMass Boston; via openvault.wgbh.org.
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
War correspondents of the Vietnam War
1934 births
Living people
CNN people
People from Riverton, New Zealand
Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting winners
New Zealand television presenters
New Zealand emigrants to the United States
Officers of the New Zealand Order of Merit
People with acquired American citizenship
Ngāi Tahu
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists | false | [
"Gizmo Mantra is the fifth studio album released by Australian rock group Boom Crash Opera. The album was released in November 1997.\n\nReception \n\nKelvin Hayes from All Music said; \"It takes a while to warm up to, and it is a patchy thing even then, but Gizmo is possibly their best work since These Here Are Crazy Times in 1989. Peter Farnan is up to his usual oddball but inventive best on \"Don't Forget to Breathe\" and the excellent \"Welcome to Tomorrow.\" Former writing partner Richard Pleasance helps out on \"Dreaming up a Fire' (a re-take of the earlier hit \"Dancing in the Storm\"). The driving rock of \"(So How Do I Turn You) On\" is a brilliant endgame but for Farnan's musical acrobatics on the tail piece. The set is ruined by carelessness such as the '70s dirge \"All\". Plenty of Gizmo, little sign of a mantra.\"\n\nTrack listing \n \"Wake Up Fine\" – 4:09\n \"Dirt\" – 3:27\n \"Don't Forget to Breathe\" – 4:12\n \"Welcome to Tomorrow\" – 3:41\n \"All\" – 4:14\n \"Walking Disaster\" – 4:07\n \"Funny\" – 3:23\n \"Bad Television\" – 3:27\n \"Ain't I Amazed\" – 4:33\n \"I'm Not Like You\" – 3:51\n \"Dreaming Up a Fire\" – 3:46\n \"(So How Do I Turn You) On\" – 5:31\n\nReferences \n\n1997 albums\nBoom Crash Opera albums\nBertelsmann Music Group albums\nGotham Records albums",
"\"How Did it Ever Come to This?\" was the last single released by the British band Easyworld. It did not appear on their second and final album Kill the Last Romantic, because it had not yet been written. The band's record label Jive decided the band should record a new track as it was felt none of the tracks on the album were suitable for release. The single charted at #50 in September 2004, missing the top 40 after \"Til the Day\" charted at #27 in February. Easyworld announced their split the following week, though this had been decided in July, after lead singer David Ford informed all concerned that he wished to pursue a solo career. The eventual announcement of the band's split came by accident, after Mark Lamarr revealed the news live on Radio 2. The CD single contains a cover of Candi Staton's \"Young Hearts Run Free\" and \"You Can't Tear Polaroids\" which was written and sung by bassist Jo Taylor.\n\nKill the Last Romantic was due to be re-released containing the single, with a heavy promotional campaign behind it. However, Jive was bought out by BMG, which in turn was bought out by Sony, and the ensuing disruption meant that this plan was shelved. After the band's split the three members negotiated a release from their contracts.\n\nTrack listing\n How Did It Ever Come To This?\n Young Hearts Run Free\n You Can't Tear Polaroids\n\n2004 singles\nEasyworld songs"
] |
[
"Peter Arnett",
"The Gulf War",
"When did he cover the gulf war?",
"Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991",
"what are highlites of his coverage there?",
"Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein.",
"did he win any awards or recognition for this work?",
"I don't know.",
"Interesting aspects of the coverage?",
"at the time, only CNN possessed the means -- a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan -- to communicate to the outside world.",
"anything else important or notable?",
"The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Mr. Arnett refused.",
"what happened next?",
"Mr. Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility.",
"so how did it turn out?",
"I don't know."
] | C_7576129012b04fe8b0e371c87894f6f8_1 | what else happened during this time? | 8 | What else happened during Peter Arnett's coverage in Baghdad aside from the initial 16 hours and the CIA wanting to bomb the hotel? | Peter Arnett | Arnett worked for CNN for 18 years ending in 1999. During the Gulf War, he became a household name worldwide when he became the only reporter with live coverage directly from Baghdad. His dramatic reports often had air raid sirens blaring and the sound of US bombs exploding in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means -- a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan -- to communicate to the outside world. CNN broadcast Arnett's extended call live for several hours, with a picture of Arnett as video. Soon the other journalists left Iraq, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole remaining reporter. His accounts of civilian damage caused by the bombing were not well received by the coalition war administration, who by their constant use of terms like "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" in their public statements, had tried to project an image that civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House sources would later state that Arnett was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation, and CNN received a letter from 34 members of the United States Congress accusing Arnett of "unpatriotic journalism". Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein. The Gulf War became the first war to be seen truly live on TV, due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks. About halfway through the war the CIA approached Mr. Arnett. They believed that the Iraqi military was operating a high-level communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where Mr. Arnett and a few others from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Mr. Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility. CANNOTANSWER | The Gulf War became the first war to be seen truly live on TV, due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks. | Peter Gregg Arnett (born 13 November 1934) is a New Zealand-born American journalist. He is known for his coverage of the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. He was awarded the 1966 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for his work in Vietnam from 1962 to 1965, mostly reporting for the Associated Press.
Arnett also worked for National Geographic magazine, and later for various television networks, most notably for nearly two decades at CNN. Arnett published a memoir, Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World's War Zones (1994). In March 1997, Arnett interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda. The journalism school at the Southern Institute of Technology in New Zealand was named for Arnett.
Early life
Arnett was born in 1934 in Riverton, in New Zealand's Southland region. His first job as a journalist was with The Southland Times.
Vietnam
During his early years in journalism, Arnett worked in Southeast Asia, largely based in Bangkok. In 1960 he started publishing a small English-language newspaper in Laos. Eventually, he made his way to Vietnam, which the French had abandoned after being defeated at Dien Bien Phu by communists from North Vietnam.
Arnett became a reporter for the Associated Press, based in Saigon in the South, in the years when the United States began to get involved in the civil conflict and through the Vietnam War. On 7 July 1963, in what became known as the Double Seven Day scuffle, he was injured in a widely reported physical altercation between a group of western journalists and South Vietnamese undercover police. The reporters were trying to cover Buddhist protests against the South Vietnamese government. His articles, such as "Death of Supply Column 21," about an event during Operation Starlite in August 1965, resulted in raising the ire of the American government, which had been increasing the number of forces in the region.
Arnett accompanied troops on dozens of missions, including the battle of Hill 875, in November 1967. An American detachment was sent to rescue another unit that was stranded in hostile territory, and the rescuers were nearly killed during the operation. In September 1972, Arnett joined a group of U.S. peace activists, including William Sloane Coffin and David Dellinger, on a trip to Hanoi, North Vietnam, to accept three American prisoners of war for return to the United States.
Arnett wrote in an unvarnished manner when reporting stories of ordinary soldiers and civilians. Arnett's writing was often criticized by administration spokesmen as negative, who wanted to keep reporting of the war positive. General William Westmoreland, President Lyndon B. Johnson and others in power put pressure on the AP to get rid of or transfer Arnett from the region.
In what is considered one of his iconic dispatches, published on 7 February 1968, Arnett wrote about the Battle of Bến Tre: "'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,' a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong." The quotation was gradually altered in subsequent publications, eventually becoming the more familiar, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." The accuracy of the original quotation and its source have often been called into question. Arnett never revealed his source, except to say that it was one of four officers he interviewed that day. US Army Major Phil Cannella, the senior officer present at Bến Tre, suggested that the quotation might have been a distortion of something he said to Arnett. The New Republic at the time attributed the quotation to US Air Force Major Chester L. Brown. In Walter Cronkite's 1971 book, Eye on the World, Arnett reasserted that the quotation was something "one American major said to me in a moment of revelation."
Arnett was one of the last western reporters remaining in Saigon after its fall and capture by the People's Army of Vietnam. Occupying soldiers showed him how they had entered the city.
Arnett wrote the 26-part mini-series documentary, Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War (1980), produced by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
At the time of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Arnett was working for Parade magazine. With a contact named Healy, he entered Afghanistan illegally from Pakistan; both men were dressed in traditional clothing as natives and led by Mujahideen guides. They continued to a Jalalabad hideaway of approximately fifty rebels. The trip came to an end when Healy fell into the Kunar River, ruining the pair's cameras. Later, Arnett would recount the story to journalist Artyom Borovik, who was covering the Soviet side of the war.
Gulf War
Beginning in 1981, Arnett worked for CNN for 18 years, ending in 1999. During the Gulf War, he became a household name worldwide as the only reporter to have live coverage directly from Baghdad, especially during the first 16 hours. His dramatic reports often were accompanied by the sound of air raid sirens blaring and US bombs exploding in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means — a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan — to communicate to the outside world. CNN broadcast Arnett's extended call live for several hours, with a picture of Arnett as video. Soon the other journalists left Iraq, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole remaining reporter.
His accounts of civilian damage caused by the bombing were not well received by the coalition war administration. Its spokesmen had emphasized terms such as "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" in their public statements, in an effort to project keeping civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House sources would later attack Arnett, saying that he was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation.
Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein. Due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks, the Gulf War was the first to be broadcast live on TV.
About halfway through the war, representatives of the CIA approached Arnett. They believed that the Iraqi military was operating a high-level communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where Arnett and other staff from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility.
Interview with Osama Bin Laden
In March 1997, Arnett of CNN interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda, after Bin Laden declared jihad on the United States. Asked by Arnett, "What are your future plans?", Bin Laden said, "You'll see them and hear about them in the media, God willing".
Operation Tailwind
In 1998, Arnett narrated a report on the joint venture (between CNN and Time magazine) program called NewsStand, covering "Operation Tailwind" in Laos in 1970.
The report, titled The Valley of Death, claimed that in 1970, the United States Army had used sarin, a nerve gas, against a group of deserting U.S. soldiers in Laos. The men who allegedly conducted the attack were an elite Green Beret A-Team. The report was expressly approved by both CNN Chairman Tom Johnson and CNN President Rick Kaplan. In response, the Pentagon commissioned another report contradicting that of CNN's. CNN subsequently conducted its own investigation. It concluded that the "journalism [in the Valley of Death] was flawed" and retracted the story. While all 12 men of the Green Beret A-Team were wounded in action during Operation Tailwind, no sarin was involved.
Due to a number of rebuttals claiming the CNN report was flawed, three or more of the individuals responsible were fired or forced to resign. Arnett was reprimanded, and left the network in April 1999, apparently due to "lingering fallout" from Tailwind.
Invasion of Iraq 2003
On assignment for NBC and National Geographic, Arnett went to Iraq in 2003 to cover the U.S. invasion. After a press meeting there, he granted an interview to state-run Iraqi TV on 31 March 2003. In it he said:
Earlier in the interview he said:
When Arnett's remarks sparked a "firestorm of protest", NBC initially defended him, saying he had given the interview as a professional courtesy and that his remarks were "analytical in nature". A day later, though, NBC, MSNBC and National Geographic all severed their relationships with Arnett. In response to Arnett's statement on Iraqi TV, NBC stated:
Arnett responded:
Later that day, Arnett was hired by the British tabloid, The Daily Mirror, which had opposed the war. A couple of days later he also received work from Greek television channel NET television, and Belgian VTM.
Academic career
After retiring as a field reporter in 2007, Arnett lives in Los Angeles.
He also teaches journalism at Shantou University in China. In New Zealand, the Peter Arnett School of Journalism was named for him at the Southern Institute of Technology; the journalism school closed in 2015.
Personal life
In 1964, Arnett married Nina Nguyen, a Vietnamese woman. They had two children, Elsa and Andrew. Nina and Peter separated in 1983, divorced more than 20 years later, then reconciled in 2006.
Elsa Arnett attended Stuyvesant High School in New York and Harvard University. After graduating, she went into journalism, became a reporter, worked for several months on The Washington Post as an intern and then joined The Boston Globe. She worked with her father on his 1994 memoir about his reporting life. Elsa Arnett is married to former White House lawyer John Yoo.
In the 2007 New Year Honours, Arnett was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to journalism.
In popular culture
Peter Arnett appeared in Robert Wiener's book Live from Baghdad. He appeared as a character in the 2002 HBO film of the same name, where he was portrayed by actor Bruce McGill.
The book, as well as the film, features Arnett's work as part of Wiener's crew in Baghdad. Arnett joined the team as tensions between Iraq and the West were escalating toward an imminent military encounter. CNN sent Arnett to Baghdad because of his experience in covering military conflicts. Arnett was part of the live coverage beginning on 16 January 1991, the start of the Gulf War air campaign, where he and colleagues Bernard Shaw and John Holliman kept broadcasting from their Al-Rasheed Hotel room amid extensive aerial bombing by the Western Coalition forces.
Arnett's interview with Bin Laden in 1997 became the subject of the movie 'A War Story' produced for television. Peter's role was played by John Leigh.
Selected works
Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad: 35 Years in the World's War Zones. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Saigon Has Fallen: A Wartime Recollection by the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist. New York: Rosetta Books/Associated Press, 2015
See also
CNN controversies
List of New Zealand television personalities
References
Bibliography
External links
Sully, François, "Associated Press' Peter Arnett testing the first flame thrower captured from the Vietcong in Vietnam", photograph; 8 December 1965. Copyright Healey Library, UMass Boston; via openvault.wgbh.org.
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
War correspondents of the Vietnam War
1934 births
Living people
CNN people
People from Riverton, New Zealand
Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting winners
New Zealand television presenters
New Zealand emigrants to the United States
Officers of the New Zealand Order of Merit
People with acquired American citizenship
Ngāi Tahu
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists | false | [
"What Happened may refer to:\n\n What Happened (Clinton book), 2017 book by Hillary Clinton\n What Happened (McClellan book), 2008 autobiography by Scott McClellan\n \"What Happened\", a song by Sublime from the album 40oz. to Freedom\n \"What Happened\", an episode of One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)\n\nSee also\nWhat's Happening (disambiguation)",
"An Englishman in Auschwitz is a 2001 book written by Leon Greenman, a Holocaust survivor. The book details his experiences in the Auschwitz concentration camp.\n\nThe book is a result of the commitment of English-born Greenman to God \"that if he lived, he would let the world know what happened during the war\". In short, the book describes the reminiscences of his days of imprisonment in six concentration camps of the Nazis. Greenman describes the arrival of his family (consisting of himself, his wife, Esther, a Dutchwoman, and their three-year-old son, Barney) at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in these words: The women were separated from the men: Else and Barny were marched about 20 yards away to a queue of women...I tried to watch Else. I could see her clearly against the blue lights. She could see me too for she threw me a kiss and held up our child for me to see. What was going through her mind I will never know. Perhaps she was pleased that the journey had come to an end.\n\nReferences\n\n2001 non-fiction books\nPersonal accounts of the Holocaust"
] |
[
"Peter Arnett",
"The Gulf War",
"When did he cover the gulf war?",
"Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991",
"what are highlites of his coverage there?",
"Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein.",
"did he win any awards or recognition for this work?",
"I don't know.",
"Interesting aspects of the coverage?",
"at the time, only CNN possessed the means -- a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan -- to communicate to the outside world.",
"anything else important or notable?",
"The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Mr. Arnett refused.",
"what happened next?",
"Mr. Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility.",
"so how did it turn out?",
"I don't know.",
"what else happened during this time?",
"The Gulf War became the first war to be seen truly live on TV, due to Arnett's reporting from the \"other side\", for a period of five weeks."
] | C_7576129012b04fe8b0e371c87894f6f8_1 | How was this received? | 9 | How was the coverage of the Gulf War on TV covered by Peter Arnett received? | Peter Arnett | Arnett worked for CNN for 18 years ending in 1999. During the Gulf War, he became a household name worldwide when he became the only reporter with live coverage directly from Baghdad. His dramatic reports often had air raid sirens blaring and the sound of US bombs exploding in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means -- a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan -- to communicate to the outside world. CNN broadcast Arnett's extended call live for several hours, with a picture of Arnett as video. Soon the other journalists left Iraq, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole remaining reporter. His accounts of civilian damage caused by the bombing were not well received by the coalition war administration, who by their constant use of terms like "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" in their public statements, had tried to project an image that civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House sources would later state that Arnett was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation, and CNN received a letter from 34 members of the United States Congress accusing Arnett of "unpatriotic journalism". Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein. The Gulf War became the first war to be seen truly live on TV, due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks. About halfway through the war the CIA approached Mr. Arnett. They believed that the Iraqi military was operating a high-level communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where Mr. Arnett and a few others from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Mr. Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility. CANNOTANSWER | 34 members of the United States Congress accusing Arnett of "unpatriotic journalism". | Peter Gregg Arnett (born 13 November 1934) is a New Zealand-born American journalist. He is known for his coverage of the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. He was awarded the 1966 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for his work in Vietnam from 1962 to 1965, mostly reporting for the Associated Press.
Arnett also worked for National Geographic magazine, and later for various television networks, most notably for nearly two decades at CNN. Arnett published a memoir, Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World's War Zones (1994). In March 1997, Arnett interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda. The journalism school at the Southern Institute of Technology in New Zealand was named for Arnett.
Early life
Arnett was born in 1934 in Riverton, in New Zealand's Southland region. His first job as a journalist was with The Southland Times.
Vietnam
During his early years in journalism, Arnett worked in Southeast Asia, largely based in Bangkok. In 1960 he started publishing a small English-language newspaper in Laos. Eventually, he made his way to Vietnam, which the French had abandoned after being defeated at Dien Bien Phu by communists from North Vietnam.
Arnett became a reporter for the Associated Press, based in Saigon in the South, in the years when the United States began to get involved in the civil conflict and through the Vietnam War. On 7 July 1963, in what became known as the Double Seven Day scuffle, he was injured in a widely reported physical altercation between a group of western journalists and South Vietnamese undercover police. The reporters were trying to cover Buddhist protests against the South Vietnamese government. His articles, such as "Death of Supply Column 21," about an event during Operation Starlite in August 1965, resulted in raising the ire of the American government, which had been increasing the number of forces in the region.
Arnett accompanied troops on dozens of missions, including the battle of Hill 875, in November 1967. An American detachment was sent to rescue another unit that was stranded in hostile territory, and the rescuers were nearly killed during the operation. In September 1972, Arnett joined a group of U.S. peace activists, including William Sloane Coffin and David Dellinger, on a trip to Hanoi, North Vietnam, to accept three American prisoners of war for return to the United States.
Arnett wrote in an unvarnished manner when reporting stories of ordinary soldiers and civilians. Arnett's writing was often criticized by administration spokesmen as negative, who wanted to keep reporting of the war positive. General William Westmoreland, President Lyndon B. Johnson and others in power put pressure on the AP to get rid of or transfer Arnett from the region.
In what is considered one of his iconic dispatches, published on 7 February 1968, Arnett wrote about the Battle of Bến Tre: "'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,' a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong." The quotation was gradually altered in subsequent publications, eventually becoming the more familiar, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." The accuracy of the original quotation and its source have often been called into question. Arnett never revealed his source, except to say that it was one of four officers he interviewed that day. US Army Major Phil Cannella, the senior officer present at Bến Tre, suggested that the quotation might have been a distortion of something he said to Arnett. The New Republic at the time attributed the quotation to US Air Force Major Chester L. Brown. In Walter Cronkite's 1971 book, Eye on the World, Arnett reasserted that the quotation was something "one American major said to me in a moment of revelation."
Arnett was one of the last western reporters remaining in Saigon after its fall and capture by the People's Army of Vietnam. Occupying soldiers showed him how they had entered the city.
Arnett wrote the 26-part mini-series documentary, Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War (1980), produced by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
At the time of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Arnett was working for Parade magazine. With a contact named Healy, he entered Afghanistan illegally from Pakistan; both men were dressed in traditional clothing as natives and led by Mujahideen guides. They continued to a Jalalabad hideaway of approximately fifty rebels. The trip came to an end when Healy fell into the Kunar River, ruining the pair's cameras. Later, Arnett would recount the story to journalist Artyom Borovik, who was covering the Soviet side of the war.
Gulf War
Beginning in 1981, Arnett worked for CNN for 18 years, ending in 1999. During the Gulf War, he became a household name worldwide as the only reporter to have live coverage directly from Baghdad, especially during the first 16 hours. His dramatic reports often were accompanied by the sound of air raid sirens blaring and US bombs exploding in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means — a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan — to communicate to the outside world. CNN broadcast Arnett's extended call live for several hours, with a picture of Arnett as video. Soon the other journalists left Iraq, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole remaining reporter.
His accounts of civilian damage caused by the bombing were not well received by the coalition war administration. Its spokesmen had emphasized terms such as "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" in their public statements, in an effort to project keeping civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House sources would later attack Arnett, saying that he was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation.
Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein. Due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks, the Gulf War was the first to be broadcast live on TV.
About halfway through the war, representatives of the CIA approached Arnett. They believed that the Iraqi military was operating a high-level communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where Arnett and other staff from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility.
Interview with Osama Bin Laden
In March 1997, Arnett of CNN interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda, after Bin Laden declared jihad on the United States. Asked by Arnett, "What are your future plans?", Bin Laden said, "You'll see them and hear about them in the media, God willing".
Operation Tailwind
In 1998, Arnett narrated a report on the joint venture (between CNN and Time magazine) program called NewsStand, covering "Operation Tailwind" in Laos in 1970.
The report, titled The Valley of Death, claimed that in 1970, the United States Army had used sarin, a nerve gas, against a group of deserting U.S. soldiers in Laos. The men who allegedly conducted the attack were an elite Green Beret A-Team. The report was expressly approved by both CNN Chairman Tom Johnson and CNN President Rick Kaplan. In response, the Pentagon commissioned another report contradicting that of CNN's. CNN subsequently conducted its own investigation. It concluded that the "journalism [in the Valley of Death] was flawed" and retracted the story. While all 12 men of the Green Beret A-Team were wounded in action during Operation Tailwind, no sarin was involved.
Due to a number of rebuttals claiming the CNN report was flawed, three or more of the individuals responsible were fired or forced to resign. Arnett was reprimanded, and left the network in April 1999, apparently due to "lingering fallout" from Tailwind.
Invasion of Iraq 2003
On assignment for NBC and National Geographic, Arnett went to Iraq in 2003 to cover the U.S. invasion. After a press meeting there, he granted an interview to state-run Iraqi TV on 31 March 2003. In it he said:
Earlier in the interview he said:
When Arnett's remarks sparked a "firestorm of protest", NBC initially defended him, saying he had given the interview as a professional courtesy and that his remarks were "analytical in nature". A day later, though, NBC, MSNBC and National Geographic all severed their relationships with Arnett. In response to Arnett's statement on Iraqi TV, NBC stated:
Arnett responded:
Later that day, Arnett was hired by the British tabloid, The Daily Mirror, which had opposed the war. A couple of days later he also received work from Greek television channel NET television, and Belgian VTM.
Academic career
After retiring as a field reporter in 2007, Arnett lives in Los Angeles.
He also teaches journalism at Shantou University in China. In New Zealand, the Peter Arnett School of Journalism was named for him at the Southern Institute of Technology; the journalism school closed in 2015.
Personal life
In 1964, Arnett married Nina Nguyen, a Vietnamese woman. They had two children, Elsa and Andrew. Nina and Peter separated in 1983, divorced more than 20 years later, then reconciled in 2006.
Elsa Arnett attended Stuyvesant High School in New York and Harvard University. After graduating, she went into journalism, became a reporter, worked for several months on The Washington Post as an intern and then joined The Boston Globe. She worked with her father on his 1994 memoir about his reporting life. Elsa Arnett is married to former White House lawyer John Yoo.
In the 2007 New Year Honours, Arnett was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to journalism.
In popular culture
Peter Arnett appeared in Robert Wiener's book Live from Baghdad. He appeared as a character in the 2002 HBO film of the same name, where he was portrayed by actor Bruce McGill.
The book, as well as the film, features Arnett's work as part of Wiener's crew in Baghdad. Arnett joined the team as tensions between Iraq and the West were escalating toward an imminent military encounter. CNN sent Arnett to Baghdad because of his experience in covering military conflicts. Arnett was part of the live coverage beginning on 16 January 1991, the start of the Gulf War air campaign, where he and colleagues Bernard Shaw and John Holliman kept broadcasting from their Al-Rasheed Hotel room amid extensive aerial bombing by the Western Coalition forces.
Arnett's interview with Bin Laden in 1997 became the subject of the movie 'A War Story' produced for television. Peter's role was played by John Leigh.
Selected works
Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad: 35 Years in the World's War Zones. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Saigon Has Fallen: A Wartime Recollection by the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist. New York: Rosetta Books/Associated Press, 2015
See also
CNN controversies
List of New Zealand television personalities
References
Bibliography
External links
Sully, François, "Associated Press' Peter Arnett testing the first flame thrower captured from the Vietcong in Vietnam", photograph; 8 December 1965. Copyright Healey Library, UMass Boston; via openvault.wgbh.org.
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
War correspondents of the Vietnam War
1934 births
Living people
CNN people
People from Riverton, New Zealand
Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting winners
New Zealand television presenters
New Zealand emigrants to the United States
Officers of the New Zealand Order of Merit
People with acquired American citizenship
Ngāi Tahu
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists | false | [
"How I Knew Her is the first solo studio album by American musician Nataly Dawn of the duo Pomplamoose, released on February 12, 2013 under Nonesuch Records. The album was funded by a Kickstarter campaign which raised over $100,000 and was produced by Pomplamoose half Jack Conte.\n\nReception\nHow I Knew Her was met with \"generally favorable reviews\" from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, this release received an average score of 68, based on 12 reviews.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\n2013 albums\nKickstarter-funded albums",
"\"How Come, How Long\" is a song written, produced and performed by Babyface (Kenneth Edmonds). It was released as the third single from his album The Day. It is a duet with American singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder.\n\nThe lyrics deal with physical abuse, regarding a woman killed by her husband after tremendous physical abuse. This release met with mixed reaction by critics and did not chart on any major charts in United States, finding a better chart performance in United Kingdom, where it became a top ten hit for the performers. This song was nominated twice for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.\n\nSong information\nThe track was written, produced and performed by Babyface as a duet with American singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder, who also co-wrote the song. The lyrics deal with domestic violence and is inspired by the Nicole Brown Simpson case. On the Entertainment Weekly review of The Day, David Browne wrote that this \"domestic-abuse saga\" needed \"tougher music to make its point.\" At the 40th Grammy Awards this song received a nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, which it lost to \"Don't Look Back\" by John Lee Hooker and Van Morrison. The following year, the song received the same nomination with the live version included on Babyface's Unplugged album, losing this time to Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach with their rendition of \"I Still Have That Other Girl\".\n\nMusic video\nThe music video for this song, directed by F. Gary Gray, shows several residents of an apartment building ignoring the shouts, screams, and arguments between a married couple, ending with a twist, showing that the woman killed her abusive husband, ending with her being arrested. This video received a nomination for Best R&B Video at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards, which was awarded to \"I'll Be Missing You\" by Puff Daddy (Sean Combs) featuring Faith Evans and 112. It also was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video, losing to \"Got 'til It's Gone\" by Janet Jackson.\n\nTrack listing\nUS CD single\n\"How Come, How Long\" – 5:11\n\"Every Time I Close My Eyes\" (Timbaland remix) – 4:23\n\nUK CD single (XPCD2161)\n\"How Come, How Long\" (Radio edit) – 4:12\n\nCD maxi single (EPC 664402 2)\n\"How Come, How Long\" (radio edit) – 4:12\n\"How Come, How Long\" (Natty & Slaps remix) – 5:08\n\"How Come, How Long\" (Laws & Craigie remix) – 6:28\n\"Every Time I Close My Eyes\" (Timbaland remix) – 4:55\n\nChart\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nPersonnel\nThe following people contributed to \"How Come, How Long\":\nBabyface — main performer and producer\nStevie Wonder — vocals, harmonica\nTimbaland — producer, remixing\nJimmy Douglas — remixing\nJon Gass — mixing\nBenny Medina — management\nAnton Corbijn — photography\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nSong Lyrics on Rhapsody\nListen to the song\n\n1997 singles\nBabyface (musician) songs\nStevie Wonder songs\nMusic videos directed by F. Gary Gray\nSongs written by Babyface (musician)\nSongs written by Stevie Wonder\nSong recordings produced by Babyface (musician)\nSongs about domestic violence\nContemporary R&B ballads\nVocal duets\nAmerican soft rock songs"
] |
[
"Peter Arnett",
"The Gulf War",
"When did he cover the gulf war?",
"Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991",
"what are highlites of his coverage there?",
"Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein.",
"did he win any awards or recognition for this work?",
"I don't know.",
"Interesting aspects of the coverage?",
"at the time, only CNN possessed the means -- a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan -- to communicate to the outside world.",
"anything else important or notable?",
"The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Mr. Arnett refused.",
"what happened next?",
"Mr. Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility.",
"so how did it turn out?",
"I don't know.",
"what else happened during this time?",
"The Gulf War became the first war to be seen truly live on TV, due to Arnett's reporting from the \"other side\", for a period of five weeks.",
"How was this received?",
"34 members of the United States Congress accusing Arnett of \"unpatriotic journalism\"."
] | C_7576129012b04fe8b0e371c87894f6f8_1 | was he reprimanded? | 10 | Was Peter Arnett reprimanded for his coverage in Baghdad? | Peter Arnett | Arnett worked for CNN for 18 years ending in 1999. During the Gulf War, he became a household name worldwide when he became the only reporter with live coverage directly from Baghdad. His dramatic reports often had air raid sirens blaring and the sound of US bombs exploding in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means -- a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan -- to communicate to the outside world. CNN broadcast Arnett's extended call live for several hours, with a picture of Arnett as video. Soon the other journalists left Iraq, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole remaining reporter. His accounts of civilian damage caused by the bombing were not well received by the coalition war administration, who by their constant use of terms like "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" in their public statements, had tried to project an image that civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House sources would later state that Arnett was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation, and CNN received a letter from 34 members of the United States Congress accusing Arnett of "unpatriotic journalism". Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein. The Gulf War became the first war to be seen truly live on TV, due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks. About halfway through the war the CIA approached Mr. Arnett. They believed that the Iraqi military was operating a high-level communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where Mr. Arnett and a few others from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Mr. Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Peter Gregg Arnett (born 13 November 1934) is a New Zealand-born American journalist. He is known for his coverage of the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. He was awarded the 1966 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for his work in Vietnam from 1962 to 1965, mostly reporting for the Associated Press.
Arnett also worked for National Geographic magazine, and later for various television networks, most notably for nearly two decades at CNN. Arnett published a memoir, Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World's War Zones (1994). In March 1997, Arnett interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda. The journalism school at the Southern Institute of Technology in New Zealand was named for Arnett.
Early life
Arnett was born in 1934 in Riverton, in New Zealand's Southland region. His first job as a journalist was with The Southland Times.
Vietnam
During his early years in journalism, Arnett worked in Southeast Asia, largely based in Bangkok. In 1960 he started publishing a small English-language newspaper in Laos. Eventually, he made his way to Vietnam, which the French had abandoned after being defeated at Dien Bien Phu by communists from North Vietnam.
Arnett became a reporter for the Associated Press, based in Saigon in the South, in the years when the United States began to get involved in the civil conflict and through the Vietnam War. On 7 July 1963, in what became known as the Double Seven Day scuffle, he was injured in a widely reported physical altercation between a group of western journalists and South Vietnamese undercover police. The reporters were trying to cover Buddhist protests against the South Vietnamese government. His articles, such as "Death of Supply Column 21," about an event during Operation Starlite in August 1965, resulted in raising the ire of the American government, which had been increasing the number of forces in the region.
Arnett accompanied troops on dozens of missions, including the battle of Hill 875, in November 1967. An American detachment was sent to rescue another unit that was stranded in hostile territory, and the rescuers were nearly killed during the operation. In September 1972, Arnett joined a group of U.S. peace activists, including William Sloane Coffin and David Dellinger, on a trip to Hanoi, North Vietnam, to accept three American prisoners of war for return to the United States.
Arnett wrote in an unvarnished manner when reporting stories of ordinary soldiers and civilians. Arnett's writing was often criticized by administration spokesmen as negative, who wanted to keep reporting of the war positive. General William Westmoreland, President Lyndon B. Johnson and others in power put pressure on the AP to get rid of or transfer Arnett from the region.
In what is considered one of his iconic dispatches, published on 7 February 1968, Arnett wrote about the Battle of Bến Tre: "'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,' a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong." The quotation was gradually altered in subsequent publications, eventually becoming the more familiar, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." The accuracy of the original quotation and its source have often been called into question. Arnett never revealed his source, except to say that it was one of four officers he interviewed that day. US Army Major Phil Cannella, the senior officer present at Bến Tre, suggested that the quotation might have been a distortion of something he said to Arnett. The New Republic at the time attributed the quotation to US Air Force Major Chester L. Brown. In Walter Cronkite's 1971 book, Eye on the World, Arnett reasserted that the quotation was something "one American major said to me in a moment of revelation."
Arnett was one of the last western reporters remaining in Saigon after its fall and capture by the People's Army of Vietnam. Occupying soldiers showed him how they had entered the city.
Arnett wrote the 26-part mini-series documentary, Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War (1980), produced by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
At the time of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Arnett was working for Parade magazine. With a contact named Healy, he entered Afghanistan illegally from Pakistan; both men were dressed in traditional clothing as natives and led by Mujahideen guides. They continued to a Jalalabad hideaway of approximately fifty rebels. The trip came to an end when Healy fell into the Kunar River, ruining the pair's cameras. Later, Arnett would recount the story to journalist Artyom Borovik, who was covering the Soviet side of the war.
Gulf War
Beginning in 1981, Arnett worked for CNN for 18 years, ending in 1999. During the Gulf War, he became a household name worldwide as the only reporter to have live coverage directly from Baghdad, especially during the first 16 hours. His dramatic reports often were accompanied by the sound of air raid sirens blaring and US bombs exploding in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means — a private phone line connected to neighboring Amman, Jordan — to communicate to the outside world. CNN broadcast Arnett's extended call live for several hours, with a picture of Arnett as video. Soon the other journalists left Iraq, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole remaining reporter.
His accounts of civilian damage caused by the bombing were not well received by the coalition war administration. Its spokesmen had emphasized terms such as "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" in their public statements, in an effort to project keeping civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House sources would later attack Arnett, saying that he was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation.
Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein. Due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks, the Gulf War was the first to be broadcast live on TV.
About halfway through the war, representatives of the CIA approached Arnett. They believed that the Iraqi military was operating a high-level communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where Arnett and other staff from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility.
Interview with Osama Bin Laden
In March 1997, Arnett of CNN interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda, after Bin Laden declared jihad on the United States. Asked by Arnett, "What are your future plans?", Bin Laden said, "You'll see them and hear about them in the media, God willing".
Operation Tailwind
In 1998, Arnett narrated a report on the joint venture (between CNN and Time magazine) program called NewsStand, covering "Operation Tailwind" in Laos in 1970.
The report, titled The Valley of Death, claimed that in 1970, the United States Army had used sarin, a nerve gas, against a group of deserting U.S. soldiers in Laos. The men who allegedly conducted the attack were an elite Green Beret A-Team. The report was expressly approved by both CNN Chairman Tom Johnson and CNN President Rick Kaplan. In response, the Pentagon commissioned another report contradicting that of CNN's. CNN subsequently conducted its own investigation. It concluded that the "journalism [in the Valley of Death] was flawed" and retracted the story. While all 12 men of the Green Beret A-Team were wounded in action during Operation Tailwind, no sarin was involved.
Due to a number of rebuttals claiming the CNN report was flawed, three or more of the individuals responsible were fired or forced to resign. Arnett was reprimanded, and left the network in April 1999, apparently due to "lingering fallout" from Tailwind.
Invasion of Iraq 2003
On assignment for NBC and National Geographic, Arnett went to Iraq in 2003 to cover the U.S. invasion. After a press meeting there, he granted an interview to state-run Iraqi TV on 31 March 2003. In it he said:
Earlier in the interview he said:
When Arnett's remarks sparked a "firestorm of protest", NBC initially defended him, saying he had given the interview as a professional courtesy and that his remarks were "analytical in nature". A day later, though, NBC, MSNBC and National Geographic all severed their relationships with Arnett. In response to Arnett's statement on Iraqi TV, NBC stated:
Arnett responded:
Later that day, Arnett was hired by the British tabloid, The Daily Mirror, which had opposed the war. A couple of days later he also received work from Greek television channel NET television, and Belgian VTM.
Academic career
After retiring as a field reporter in 2007, Arnett lives in Los Angeles.
He also teaches journalism at Shantou University in China. In New Zealand, the Peter Arnett School of Journalism was named for him at the Southern Institute of Technology; the journalism school closed in 2015.
Personal life
In 1964, Arnett married Nina Nguyen, a Vietnamese woman. They had two children, Elsa and Andrew. Nina and Peter separated in 1983, divorced more than 20 years later, then reconciled in 2006.
Elsa Arnett attended Stuyvesant High School in New York and Harvard University. After graduating, she went into journalism, became a reporter, worked for several months on The Washington Post as an intern and then joined The Boston Globe. She worked with her father on his 1994 memoir about his reporting life. Elsa Arnett is married to former White House lawyer John Yoo.
In the 2007 New Year Honours, Arnett was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to journalism.
In popular culture
Peter Arnett appeared in Robert Wiener's book Live from Baghdad. He appeared as a character in the 2002 HBO film of the same name, where he was portrayed by actor Bruce McGill.
The book, as well as the film, features Arnett's work as part of Wiener's crew in Baghdad. Arnett joined the team as tensions between Iraq and the West were escalating toward an imminent military encounter. CNN sent Arnett to Baghdad because of his experience in covering military conflicts. Arnett was part of the live coverage beginning on 16 January 1991, the start of the Gulf War air campaign, where he and colleagues Bernard Shaw and John Holliman kept broadcasting from their Al-Rasheed Hotel room amid extensive aerial bombing by the Western Coalition forces.
Arnett's interview with Bin Laden in 1997 became the subject of the movie 'A War Story' produced for television. Peter's role was played by John Leigh.
Selected works
Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad: 35 Years in the World's War Zones. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Saigon Has Fallen: A Wartime Recollection by the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist. New York: Rosetta Books/Associated Press, 2015
See also
CNN controversies
List of New Zealand television personalities
References
Bibliography
External links
Sully, François, "Associated Press' Peter Arnett testing the first flame thrower captured from the Vietcong in Vietnam", photograph; 8 December 1965. Copyright Healey Library, UMass Boston; via openvault.wgbh.org.
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
War correspondents of the Vietnam War
1934 births
Living people
CNN people
People from Riverton, New Zealand
Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting winners
New Zealand television presenters
New Zealand emigrants to the United States
Officers of the New Zealand Order of Merit
People with acquired American citizenship
Ngāi Tahu
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists | false | [
"Charles Herbert Wilson (February 15, 1917 – July 21, 1984) was a California Democratic politician from the Los Angeles area. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1963 to 1981.\n\nEarly life\nWilson was born in Magna, Utah, and moved with his parents in 1922 to Los Angeles, California. He attended public schools in Los Angeles and Inglewood, where he was later an employee at a bank, from 1935 to 1942.\n\nWilson served as a Staff Sergeant in the United States Army from June 1942 to December 1945, where he gained experience overseas in the European Theater of Operations. He returned home and in 1945 opened his own insurance agency in Los Angeles.\n\nPolitical career\n\nWilson served as a member of the California State Assembly from the 66th District from 1955 to 1963.\n\nHe was elected as a Democrat to the United States House of Representatives, where he served from January 3, 1963, to January 3, 1981. On June 10, 1980, Wilson was reprimanded by the House of Representatives, for financial misconduct stemming from the Koreagate scandal. Wilson was defeated in the 1980 primary election for the Democratic Party nomination to the Ninety-seventh Congress, when he was defeated by former California Lieutenant Governor Mervyn M. Dymally. Wilson is, to date, the last white Congressman to represent the 31st District. This loss was due in part due to the vote of censure by the House of Representatives.\n\nDeath\nWilson resided in Tantallon, Maryland, towards the end of his life, and died in Clinton, Maryland, on July 21, 1984. He is interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery, in Inglewood, California.\n\nSee also\n\nList of federal political scandals in the United States\nList of United States representatives expelled, censured, or reprimanded\nUnification Church\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nJoin California Charles H. Wilson\n\n \n\n1917 births\n1984 deaths\nMembers of the California State Assembly\nMembers of the United States House of Representatives from California\nCensured or reprimanded members of the United States House of Representatives\nBurials at Inglewood Park Cemetery\nUnited States Army personnel of World War II\nUnited States Army soldiers\nCalifornia Democrats\nDemocratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives\n20th-century American politicians\nPeople from Magna, Utah",
"Daniel Bever Crane (January 10, 1936 – May 28, 2019) was an American dentist and a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1983, he was censured by the House for having sex with a 17-year-old page.\n\nHe served as a Republican congressman from 1979 to 1985.\n\nCrane, a native of Cook County, Illinois, attended Chicago public schools. He received his B.A. from Hillsdale College in 1958 and D.D.S. from Indiana University in 1963. After completing graduate work at the University of Michigan in 1964–1965, Crane joined the United States Army in 1965, serving until 1970. He set up a dental practice in Danville, Illinois after completing his service.\n\nHe was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican in 1978. He was re-elected in 1980 and in 1982.\n\nOn July 14, 1983, the House Ethics Committee recommended that Crane and Rep. Gerry Studds (D-MA) be reprimanded for having engaged in sexual relationships with teenagers, specifically a 17-year-old male page for Studds and a 17-year-old female page for Crane. Both men acknowledged the accuracy of the charges. Crane had sexual relations with the girl in 1980. The full House voted to censure the two men. Crane was defeated for re-election in 1984 and returned to dentistry.\n\nHe was the brother of Philip Crane, also a former Republican congressman from Illinois. Both men maintained conservative voting records in Congress.\n\nPersonal life \nCrane's wife Judy (née Miller) died in 2012. They had six children. Daniel Crane died on May 28, 2019, at the age of 83.\n\nSee also \n List of federal political sex scandals in the United States\n List of United States representatives expelled, censured, or reprimanded\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n\n1936 births\n2019 deaths\nAmerican dentists\nHillsdale College alumni\nIllinois Republicans\nIndiana University Bloomington alumni\nMembers of the United States House of Representatives from Illinois\nPoliticians from Chicago\nPeople from Danville, Illinois\nMilitary personnel from Illinois\nUnited States Army officers\nUniversity of Michigan alumni\nRepublican Party members of the United States House of Representatives\n20th-century American politicians\nCensured or reprimanded members of the United States House of Representatives\n20th-century dentists\nConservatism in the United States"
] |
[
"R.E.M.",
"1980-1981: Formation"
] | C_c87fee161031431bbd689ad1d2a8d4e8_1 | Whose idea was it to form R.E.M.? | 1 | Whose idea was it to form the band named R.E.M.? | R.E.M. | In January 1980, Michael Stipe met Peter Buck in Wuxtry Records, the Athens record store where Buck worked. The pair discovered that they shared similar tastes in music, particularly in punk rock and protopunk artists like Patti Smith, Television, and the Velvet Underground. Stipe said, "It turns out that I was buying all the records that [Buck] was saving for himself." Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Mike Mills and Bill Berry, who had played music together since high school and lived together in Georgia. The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that "there was never any grand plan behind any of it". Their still-unnamed band spent a few months rehearsing and played its first show on April 5, 1980, at a friend's birthday party held in a converted Episcopal church in Athens. After considering names like "Twisted Kites", "Cans of Piss", and "Negro Wives", the band settled on "R.E.M." (which is an acronym for rapid eye movement, the dream stage of sleep), which Stipe selected at random from a dictionary. The band members eventually dropped out of school to focus on their developing group. They found a manager in Jefferson Holt, a record store clerk who was so impressed by an R.E.M. performance in his hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that he moved to Athens. R.E.M.'s success was almost immediate in Athens and surrounding areas; the band drew progressively larger crowds for shows, which caused some resentment in the Athens music scene. Over the next year and a half, R.E.M. toured throughout the Southern United States. Touring was arduous because a touring circuit for alternative rock bands did not then exist. The group toured in an old blue van driven by Holt, and lived on a food allowance of $2 each per day. During the summer of 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, "Radio Free Europe", at producer Mitch Easter's Drive-In Studios in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The single was released on the local independent record label Hib-Tone with an initial pressing of one thousand copies, which quickly sold out. Despite its limited pressing, the single garnered critical acclaim, and was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times. CANNOTANSWER | The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that "there was never any grand plan behind any of it". | R.E.M. was an American rock band from Athens, Georgia, formed in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, who were students at the University of Georgia. Liner notes from some of the band's albums list attorney Bertis Downs and manager Jefferson Holt as non-musical members. One of the first alternative rock bands, R.E.M. was noted for Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style; Stipe's distinctive vocal quality, unique stage presence, and obscure lyrics; Mills's melodic bass lines and backing vocals; and Berry's tight, economical drumming style. In the early 1990s, other alternative rock acts such as Nirvana and Pavement viewed R.E.M. as a pioneer of the genre. After Berry left the band in 1997, the band continued its career in the 2000s with mixed critical and commercial success. The band broke up amicably in 2011 with members devoting time to solo projects after having sold more than 85 million albums worldwide and becoming one of the world's best-selling music acts.
R.E.M. released its first single, "Radio Free Europe", in 1981 on the independent record label Hib-Tone. It was followed by the Chronic Town EP in 1982, the band's first release on I.R.S. Records. In 1983, the group released its critically acclaimed debut album, Murmur, and built its reputation over the next few years with similarly acclaimed releases every year from 1984 to 1988: Reckoning, Fables of the Reconstruction, Lifes Rich Pageant, Document and Green, including an intermittent b-side compilation Dead Letter Office. Don Dixon and Mitch Easter produced their first two albums, Joe Boyd handled production on Fables of the Reconstruction and Don Gehman produced Lifes Rich Pageant. Thereafter, R.E.M. settled on Scott Litt as producer for the next 10years during the band's most successful period of their career. They also started co-producing their material and playing other instruments in the studio apart from the main ones they play. With constant touring, and the support of college radio following years of underground success, R.E.M. achieved a mainstream hit with the 1987 single "The One I Love". The group signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1988, and began to espouse political and environmental concerns while playing large arenas worldwide.
R.E.M.'s most commercially successful albums, Out of Time (1991) and Automatic for the People (1992), put them in the vanguard of alternative rock just as it was becoming mainstream. Out of Time received seven nominations at the 34th Annual Grammy Awards, and lead single "Losing My Religion", was R.E.M.'s highest-charting and best-selling hit. Monster (1994) continued its run of success. The band began its first tour in six years to support the album; the tour was marred by medical emergencies suffered by three of the band members. In 1996, R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. for a reported US$80 million, at the time the most expensive recording contract ever. The tour was productive and the band recorded the following album mostly during soundchecks. The resulting record, New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996), is hailed as the band's last great album and the members' favorite, growing in cult status over the years. Berry left the band the following year, and Stipe, Buck, and Mills continued as a musical trio, supplemented by studio and live musicians, such as multi-instrumentalists Scott McCaughey and Ken Stringfellow and drummers Joey Waronker and Bill Rieflin. They also parted ways with their longtime manager Jefferson Holt and band's attorney Bertis Downs assumed managerial duties. Seeking to also renovate their sound, the band stopped working with Scott Litt, co-producer and contributor to six of their studio albums and hired Pat McCarthy as co-producer, who had participated before that as mixer and engineer on their last two albums.
After the electronic experimental direction of Up (1998) that was commercially unsuccessful, Reveal (2001) was referred to as "a conscious return to their classic sound" which received general acclaim. In 2007, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in its first year of eligibility and Berry reunited with the band for the ceremony and to record a cover of John Lennon's "#9 Dream" for the compilation album Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur to benefit Amnesty International's campaign to alleviate the Darfur conflict. Looking for a change of sound after lukewarm reception for Around the Sun (2004), the band collaborated with co-producer Jacknife Lee on their last two studio albums—the well-received Accelerate (2008) and Collapse into Now (2011)—as well as their first live albums after decades of touring. R.E.M. disbanded amicably in September 2011, with former members having continued with various musical projects, and several live and archival albums have since been released.
History
1980–1982: Formation and first releases
In January 1980, Peter Buck met Michael Stipe in Wuxtry Records, the Athens record store where Buck worked. The pair discovered that they shared similar tastes in music, particularly in punk rock and proto-punk artists like Patti Smith, Television, and the Velvet Underground. Stipe said, "It turns out that I was buying all the records that [Buck] was saving for himself." Through mutual friend Kathleen O'Brien, Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Bill Berry and Mike Mills, who had played music together since high school and lived together in Georgia. The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that "there was never any grand plan behind any of it". Their still-unnamed band spent a few months rehearsing in a deconsecrated Episcopal church in Athens, and played its first show on April 5, 1980, supporting the Side Effects at O'Brien's birthday party held in the same church, performing a mix of originals and 1960s and 1970s covers. After considering names such as Cans of Piss, Negro Eyes, and Twisted Kites, the band settled on "R.E.M.", which Stipe selected at random from a dictionary. R.E.M. is well known as an initialism for rapid eye movement, the dream stage of sleep; however, sleep researcher Dr. Rafael Pelayo reports that when his colleague Dr. William Dement, the sleep scientist who coined the term REM, reached out to the band, Dr. Dement was told that the band was named "not after REM sleep".
The band members eventually dropped out of school to focus on their developing group. They found a manager in Jefferson Holt, a record store clerk who was so impressed by an R.E.M. performance in his hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that he moved to Athens. R.E.M.'s success was almost immediate in Athens and surrounding areas; the band drew progressively larger crowds for shows, which caused some resentment in the Athens music scene. Over the next year and a half, R.E.M. toured throughout the Southern United States. Touring was arduous because a touring circuit for alternative rock bands did not then exist. The group toured in an old blue van driven by Holt, and lived on a food allowance of $2 each per day.
During April 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, "Radio Free Europe", at producer Mitch Easter's Drive-In Studios in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Initially distributing it as a four-track demo tape to clubs, record labels and magazines, the single was released in July 1981 on the local independent record label Hib-Tone with an initial pressing of 1,000 copies—600 of which were sent out as promotional copies. The single quickly sold out, and another 6,000 copies were pressed due to popular demand, despite the original pressing leaving off the record label's contact details. Despite its limited pressing, the single garnered critical acclaim, and was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times.
R.E.M. recorded the Chronic Town EP with Mitch Easter in October 1981, and planned to release it on a new indie label named Dasht Hopes. However, I.R.S. Records acquired a demo of the band's first recording session with Easter that had been circulating for months. The band turned down the advances of major label RCA Records in favor of I.R.S., with whom it signed a contract in May 1982. I.R.S. released Chronic Town that August as its first American release. A positive review of the EP by NME praised the songs' auras of mystery, and concluded, "R.E.M. ring true, and it's great to hear something as unforced and cunning as this."
1982–1988: I.R.S. Records and cult success
I.R.S. first paired R.E.M. with producer Stephen Hague to record its debut album. Hague's emphasis on technical perfection left the band unsatisfied, and the band members asked the label to let them record with Easter. I.R.S. agreed to a "tryout" session, allowing the band to return to North Carolina and record the song "Pilgrimage" with Easter and producing partner Don Dixon. After hearing the track, I.R.S. permitted the group to record the album with Dixon and Easter. Because of its bad experience with Hague, the band recorded the album via a process of negation, refusing to incorporate rock music clichés such as guitar solos or then-popular synthesizers, in order to give its music a timeless feel. The completed album, Murmur, was greeted with critical acclaim upon its release in 1983, with Rolling Stone listing the album as its record of the year. The album reached number 36 on the Billboard album chart. A re-recorded version of "Radio Free Europe" was the album's lead single and reached number 78 on the Billboard singles chart in 1983. Despite the acclaim awarded the album, Murmur sold only about 200,000 copies, which I.R.S.'s Jay Boberg felt was below expectations.
R.E.M. made its first national television appearance on Late Night with David Letterman in October 1983, during which the group performed a new, unnamed song. The piece, eventually titled "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)", became the first single from the band's second album, Reckoning (1984), which was also recorded with Easter and Dixon. The album met with critical acclaim; NMEs Mat Snow wrote that Reckoning "confirms R.E.M. as one of the most beautifully exciting groups on the planet". While Reckoning peaked at number 27 on the US album charts—an unusually high chart placing for a college rock band at the time—scant airplay and poor distribution overseas resulted in it charting no higher than number 91 in Britain.
The band's third album, Fables of the Reconstruction (1985), demonstrated a change in direction. Instead of Dixon and Easter, R.E.M. chose producer Joe Boyd, who had worked with Fairport Convention and Nick Drake, to record the album in England. The band members found the sessions unexpectedly difficult, and were miserable due to the cold winter weather and what they considered to be poor food; the situation brought the band to the verge of break-up. The gloominess surrounding the sessions worked its way into the context for the album's themes. Lyrically, Stipe began to create storylines in the mode of Southern mythology, noting in a 1985 interview that he was inspired by "the whole idea of the old men sitting around the fire, passing on ... legends and fables to the grandchildren".
They toured Canada in July and August 1985, and Europe in October of that year, including the Netherlands, England (including one concert at London's Hammersmith Palais), Ireland, Scotland, France, Switzerland, Belgium and West Germany. On October 2, 1985, the group played a concert in Bochum, West Germany, for the German TV show Rockpalast. Stipe had bleached his hair blond during this time. R.E.M. invited California punk band Minutemen to open for them on part of the US tour, and organized a benefit for the family of Minutemen frontman D. Boon who died in a December 1985 car crash shortly after the tour's conclusion. Fables of the Reconstruction performed poorly in Europe and its critical reception was mixed, with some critics regarding it as dreary and poorly recorded. As with the previous records, the singles from Fables of the Reconstruction were mostly ignored by mainstream radio. Meanwhile, I.R.S. was becoming frustrated with the band's reluctance to achieve mainstream success.
For its fourth album, R.E.M. enlisted John Mellencamp's producer Don Gehman. The result, Lifes Rich Pageant (1986), featured Stipe's vocals closer to the forefront of the music. In a 1986 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Peter Buck related, "Michael is getting better at what he's doing, and he's getting more confident at it. And I think that shows up in the projection of his voice." The album improved markedly upon the sales of Fables of the Reconstruction and reached number 21 on the Billboard album chart. The single "Fall on Me" also picked up support on commercial radio. The album was the band's first to be certified gold for selling 500,000 copies. While American college radio remained R.E.M.'s core support, the band was beginning to chart hits on mainstream rock formats; however, the music still encountered resistance from Top 40 radio.
Following the success of Lifes Rich Pageant, I.R.S. issued Dead Letter Office, a compilation of tracks recorded by the band during their album sessions, many of which had either been issued as B-sides or left unreleased altogether. Shortly thereafter, I.R.S. compiled R.E.M.'s music video catalog (except "Wolves, Lower") as the band's first video release, Succumbs.
Don Gehman was unable to produce R.E.M.'s fifth album, so he suggested the group work with Scott Litt. Litt would be the producer for the band's next five albums. Document (1987) featured some of Stipe's most openly political lyrics, particularly on "Welcome to the Occupation" and "Exhuming McCarthy", which were reactions to the conservative political environment of the 1980s under American president Ronald Reagan. Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote in his review of the album, "Document is both confident and defiant; if R.E.M. is about to move from cult-band status to mass popularity, the album decrees that the band will get there on its own terms." Document was R.E.M.'s breakthrough album, and the first single "The One I Love" charted in the Top 20 in the US, UK, and Canada. By January 1988, Document had become the group's first album to sell a million copies. In light of the band's breakthrough, the December 1987 cover of Rolling Stone declared R.E.M. "America's Best Rock & Roll Band".
1988–1997: International breakout and alternative rock stardom
Frustrated that its records did not see satisfactory overseas distribution, R.E.M. left I.R.S. when its contract expired and signed with the major label Warner Bros. Records. Though other labels offered more money, R.E.M. ultimately signed with Warner Bros.—reportedly for an amount between $6 million and $12 million—due to the company's assurance of total creative freedom. (Jay Boberg claimed that R.E.M.'s deal with Warner Bros. was for $22 million, which Peter Buck disputed as "definitely wrong".) In the aftermath of the group's departure, I.R.S. released the 1988 "best of" compilation Eponymous (assembled with input from the band members) to capitalize on assets the company still possessed. The band's 1988 Warner Bros. debut, Green, was recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, and showcased the group experimenting with its sound. The record's tracks ranged from the upbeat first single "Stand" (a hit in the United States), to more political material, like the rock-oriented "Orange Crush" and "World Leader Pretend", which address the Vietnam War and the Cold War, respectively. Green has gone on to sell four million copies worldwide. The band supported the album with its biggest and most visually developed tour to date, featuring back-projections and art films playing on the stage. After the Green tour, the band members unofficially decided to take the following year off, the first extended break in the band's career. In 1990 Warner Bros. issued the music video compilation Pop Screen to collect clips from the Document and Green albums, followed a few months later by the video album Tourfilm featuring live performances filmed during the Green World Tour.
R.E.M. reconvened in mid-1990 to record its seventh album, Out of Time. In a departure from Green, the band members often wrote the music with non-traditional rock instrumentation including mandolin, organ, and acoustic guitar instead of adding them as overdubs later in the creative process. Released in March 1991, Out of Time was the band's first album to top both the US and UK charts. The record eventually sold 4.2 million copies in the US alone, and about 12 million copies worldwide by 1996. The album's lead single "Losing My Religion" was a worldwide hit that received heavy rotation on radio, as did the music video on MTV and VH1. "Losing My Religion" was R.E.M.'s highest-charting single in the US, reaching number four on the Billboard charts. "There've been very few life-changing events in our career because our career has been so gradual," Mills said years later. "If you want to talk about life changing, I think 'Losing My Religion' is the closest it gets". The album's second single, "Shiny Happy People" (one of three songs on the record to feature vocals from Kate Pierson of fellow Athens band the B-52's), was also a major hit, reaching number 10 in the US and number six in the UK. Out of Time garnered R.E.M. seven nominations at the 1992 Grammy Awards, the most nominations of any artist that year. The band won three awards: one for Best Alternative Music Album and two for "Losing My Religion", Best Short Form Music Video and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. R.E.M. did not tour to promote Out of Time; instead the group played a series of one-off shows, including an appearance taped for an episode of MTV Unplugged and released music videos for each song on the video album This Film Is On. The band also performed "Losing My Religion" with members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in Madison, Georgia, at Madison-Morgan Cultural Center as part of MTV's 10th anniversary special.
After spending some months off, R.E.M. returned to the studio in 1991 to record its next album. Late in 1992, the band released Automatic for the People. Though the group had intended to make a harder-rocking album after the softer textures of Out of Time, the somber Automatic for the People "[seemed] to move at an even more agonized crawl", according to Melody Maker. The album dealt with themes of loss and mourning inspired by "that sense of ... turning thirty", according to Buck. Several songs featured string arrangements by former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. Considered by a number of critics (as well as by Buck and Mills) to be the band's best album, Automatic for the People reached numbers one and two on UK and US charts, respectively, and generated the American Top 40 hit singles "Drive", "Man on the Moon", and "Everybody Hurts". The album would sell over fifteen million copies worldwide. As with Out of Time, there was no tour in support of the album. The decision to forgo a tour, in conjunction with Stipe's physical appearance, generated rumors that the singer was dying or HIV-positive, which were vehemently denied by the band.
After the band released two slow-paced albums in a row, R.E.M.'s 1994 album Monster was, as Buck said, "a 'rock' record, with the rock in quotation marks." In contrast to the sound of its predecessors, the music of Monster consisted of distorted guitar tones, minimal overdubs, and touches of 1970s glam rock. Like Out of Time, Monster topped the charts in both the US and UK. The record sold about nine million copies worldwide. The singles "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and "Bang and Blame" were the band's last American Top 40 hits, although all the singles from Monster reached the Top 30 on the British charts. Warner Bros. assembled the music videos from the album as well as those from Automatic for the People for release as Parallel in 1995.
In January 1995, R.E.M. set out on its first tour in six years. The tour was a huge commercial success, but the period was difficult for the group. On March 1, Berry collapsed on stage during a performance in Lausanne, Switzerland, having suffered a brain aneurysm. He had surgery immediately and recovered fully within a month. Berry's aneurysm was only the beginning of a series of health problems that plagued the Monster tour. Mills had to undergo abdominal surgery to remove an intestinal adhesion in July; a month later, Stipe had to have an emergency surgery to repair a hernia. Despite all the problems, the group had recorded the bulk of a new album while on the road. The band brought along eight-track recorders to capture its shows, and used the recordings as the base elements for the album. The final three performances of the tour were filmed at the Omni Coliseum in Atlanta, Georgia and released in home video form as Road Movie.
R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. Records in 1996 for a reported $80 million (a figure the band constantly asserted originated with the media), rumored to be the largest recording contract in history at that point. The group's 1996 album New Adventures in Hi-Fi debuted at number two in the US and number one in the UK. The five million copies of the album sold were a reversal of the group's commercial fortunes of the previous five years. Critical reaction to the album was mostly favorable. In a 2017 retrospective on the band, Consequence of Sound ranked it third out of R.E.M.'s 15 full-length studio albums. The album is Stipe's favorite from R.E.M. and he considers it the band at their peak. Mills says "It usually takes a good few years for me to decide where an album stands in the pantheon of recorded work we've done. This one may be third behind Murmur and Automatic for the People. According to DiscoverMusic: "Arguably less immediate and less accessible[...]New Adventures in Hi-Fi is a sprawling, "White Album"-esque affair clocking in at 65 minutes. However, while it required some time and commitment from the listener, the record's contents were rich, compelling and frequently stunning. Accordingly, the album has continued to lobby for recognition and has long since earned its reputation as R.E.M.'s most unsung LP." While sales were impressive they were below their previous major label records. Time's writer Christopher John Farley argued that the lesser sales of the album were due to the declining commercial power of alternative rock as a whole. That same year, R.E.M. parted ways with manager Jefferson Holt, allegedly due to sexual harassment charges levied against him by a member of the band's home office in Athens. The group's lawyer Bertis Downs assumed managerial duties.
1997–2006: Continuing as three-piece with mixed success
In April 1997, the band convened at Buck's Kauai vacation home to record demos of material intended for the next album. The band sought to reinvent its sound and intended to incorporate drum loops and percussion experiments. Just as the sessions were due to begin in October, Berry decided, after months of contemplation and discussions with Downs and Mills, to tell the rest of the band that he was quitting. Berry told his bandmates that he would not quit if they would break up as a result, so Stipe, Buck, and Mills agreed to carry on as a three-piece with his blessing. Berry publicly announced his departure three weeks later in October 1997. Berry told the press, "I'm just not as enthusiastic as I have been in the past about doing this anymore . . . I have the best job in the world. But I'm kind of ready to sit back and reflect and maybe not be a pop star anymore." Stipe admitted that the band would be different without a major contributor: "For me, Mike, and Peter, as R.E.M., are we still R.E.M.? I guess a three-legged dog is still a dog. It just has to learn to run differently."
The band cancelled its scheduled recording sessions as a result of Berry's departure. "Without Bill it was different, confusing", Mills later said. "We didn't know exactly what to do. We couldn't rehearse without a drummer." The remaining members of R.E.M. resumed work on the album in February 1998 at Toast Studios in San Francisco. The band ended its decade-long collaboration with Scott Litt and hired Pat McCarthy to produce the record. Nigel Godrich was taken on as assistant producer, and drafted in Screaming Trees member Barrett Martin and Beck's touring drummer Joey Waronker. The recording process was tense, and the group came close to disbanding. Bertis Downs called an emergency meeting in which the band members resolved their problems and agreed to continue as a group. Led by the single "Daysleeper", Up (1998) debuted in the top ten in the US and UK. However, the album was a relative failure, selling 900,000 copies in the US by mid-1999 and eventually selling just over two million copies worldwide. While R.E.M.'s American sales were declining, the group's commercial base was shifting to the UK, where more R.E.M. records were sold per capita than any other country and the band's singles regularly entered the Top 20.
A year after Ups release, R.E.M. wrote the instrumental score to the Andy Kaufman biographical film Man on the Moon, a first for the group. The film took its title from the Automatic for the People song of the same name. The song "The Great Beyond" was released as a single from the Man on the Moon soundtrack album. "The Great Beyond" only reached number 57 on the American pop charts, but was the band's highest-charting single ever in the UK, reaching number three in 2000.
R.E.M. recorded the majority of its twelfth album Reveal (2001) in Canada and Ireland from May to October 2000. Reveal shared the "lugubrious pace" of Up, and featured drumming by Joey Waronker, as well as contributions by Scott McCaughey (a co-founder of the band the Minus 5 with Buck), and Ken Stringfellow (founder of the Posies). Global sales of the album were over four million, but in the United States Reveal sold about the same number of copies as Up. The album was led by the single "Imitation of Life", which reached number six in the UK. Writing for Rock's Backpages, The Rev. Al Friston described the album as "loaded with golden loveliness at every twist and turn", in comparison to the group's "essentially unconvincing work on New Adventures in Hi-Fi and Up". Similarly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone called Reveal "a spiritual renewal rooted in a musical one" and praised its "ceaselessly astonishing beauty".
In 2003, Warner Bros. released the compilation album and DVD In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003 and In View: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003, which featured two new songs, "Bad Day" and "Animal". At a 2003 concert in Raleigh, North Carolina, Berry made a surprise appearance, performing backing vocals on "Radio Free Europe". He then sat behind the drum kit for a performance of the early R.E.M. song "Permanent Vacation", marking his first performance with the band since his retirement.
R.E.M. released Around the Sun in 2004. During production of the album in 2002, Stipe said, "[The album] sounds like it's taking off from the last couple of records into unchartered R.E.M. territory. Kind of primitive and howling". After the album's release, Mills said, "I think, honestly, it turned out a little slower than we intended for it to, just in terms of the overall speed of songs." Around the Sun received a mixed critical reception, and peaked at number 13 on the Billboard charts. The first single from the album, "Leaving New York", was a Top 5 hit in the UK. For the record and subsequent tour, the band hired a new full-time touring drummer, Bill Rieflin, who had previously been a member of several industrial music acts such as Ministry and Pigface, and remained in that role for the duration of the band's active years. The video album Perfect Square was released that same year.
2006–2011: Last albums, recognition and breakup
EMI released a compilation album covering R.E.M.'s work during its tenure on I.R.S. in 2006 called And I Feel Fine... The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982–1987 along with the video album When the Light Is Mine: The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982–1987—the label had previously released the compilations The Best of R.E.M. (1991), R.E.M.: Singles Collected (1994), and R.E.M.: In the Attic – Alternative Recordings 1985–1989 (1997). That same month, all four original band members performed during the ceremony for their induction into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. While rehearsing for the ceremony, the band recorded a cover of John Lennon's "#9 Dream" for Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur, a tribute album benefiting Amnesty International. The song—released as a single for the album and the campaign—featured Bill Berry's first studio recording with the band since his departure almost a decade earlier.
In October 2006, R.E.M. was nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its first year of eligibility. The band was one of five nominees accepted into the Hall that year, and the induction ceremony took place in March 2007 at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The group—which was inducted by Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder—performed three songs with Bill Berry; "Gardening at Night", "Man on the Moon" and "Begin the Begin" as well as a cover of "I Wanna Be Your Dog".
Work on the group's fourteenth album commenced in early 2007. The band recorded with producer Jacknife Lee in Vancouver and Dublin, where it played five nights in the Olympia Theatre between June 30 and July 5 as part of a "working rehearsal". R.E.M. Live, the band's first live album (featuring songs from a 2005 Dublin show), was released in October 2007. The group followed this with the 2009 live album Live at The Olympia, which features performances from its 2007 residency. R.E.M. released Accelerate in early 2008. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard charts, and became the band's eighth album to top the British album charts. Rolling Stone reviewer David Fricke considered Accelerate an improvement over the band's previous post-Berry albums, calling it "one of the best records R.E.M. have ever made".
In 2010, R.E.M. released the video album R.E.M. Live from Austin, TX—a concert recorded for Austin City Limits in 2008. The group recorded its fifteenth album, Collapse into Now (2011), with Jacknife Lee in locales including Berlin, Nashville, and New Orleans. For the album, the band aimed for a more expansive sound than the intentionally short and speedy approach implemented on Accelerate. The album debuted at number five on the Billboard 200, becoming the group's tenth album to reach the top ten of the chart. This release fulfilled R.E.M.'s contractual obligations to Warner Bros., and the band began recording material without a contract a few months later with the possible intention of self-releasing the work.
On September 21, 2011, R.E.M. announced via its website that it was "calling it a day as a band". Stipe said that he hoped fans realized it "wasn't an easy decision": "All things must end, and we wanted to do it right, to do it our way." Long-time associate and former Warner Bros. Senior Vice President of Emerging Technology Ethan Kaplan has speculated that shake-ups at the record label influenced the group's decision to disband. The group discussed breaking up for several years, but was encouraged to continue after the lackluster critical and commercial performance of Around the Sun; according to Mills, "We needed to prove, not only to our fans and critics but to ourselves, that we could still make great records." They were also uninterested in the business end of recording as R.E.M. The band members finished their collaboration by assembling the compilation album Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982–2011, which was released in November 2011. The album is the first to collect songs from R.E.M.'s I.R.S. and Warner Bros. tenures, as well as three songs from the group's final studio recordings from post-Collapse into Now sessions. In November, Mills and Stipe did a brief span of promotional appearances in British media, ruling out the option of the group ever reuniting.
2011–present: Post-breakup releases and events
In 2014, Unplugged: The Complete 1991 and 2001 Sessions was released for Record Store Day. Digital download collections of I.R.S. and Warner Bros. rarities followed. Later in the year, the band compiled the video album box set REMTV, which collected their two Unplugged performances along with several other documentaries and live shows, while their record label released the box set 7IN—83–88, made up of 7-inch vinyl singles. In December 2015, the band members agreed to a distribution deal with Concord Bicycle Music to re-release their Warner Bros. albums. Continuing to maintain their copyright and intellectual property legacies, in March 2016, the band signed a new music publishing administration deal with Universal Music Publishing Group, and a year later, the band members left Broadcast Music, Inc., who had represented their performance rights for their entire career, and joined SESAC. The first release after their new publishing status was the 2018 box set R.E.M. at the BBC. Live at the Borderline 1991 followed for 2019's Record Store Day.
On March 24, 2020, session and touring drummer Bill Rieflin, who contributed on the band's last three records, died of cancer after years of battling the disease.
In September 2021, a full decade after disbanding, Stipe reiterated that the band had no intention of regrouping: "We decided when we split up that that would just be really tacky and probably money-grabbing, which might be the impetus for a lot of bands to get back together."
Musical style
R.E.M. has been described as alternative rock, college rock, folk rock, jangle pop, and post-punk. In a 1988 interview, Peter Buck described R.E.M. songs as typically, "Minor key, mid-tempo, enigmatic, semi-folk-rock-balladish things. That's what everyone thinks and to a certain degree, that's true." All songwriting is credited to the entire band, even though individual members are sometimes responsible for writing the majority of a particular song. Each member is given an equal vote in the songwriting process; however, Buck has conceded that Stipe, as the band's lyricist, can rarely be persuaded to follow an idea he does not favor. Among the original line-up, there were divisions of labor in the songwriting process: Stipe would write lyrics and devise melodies, Buck would edge the band in new musical directions, and Mills and Berry would fine-tune the compositions due to their greater musical experience.
Michael Stipe sings in what R.E.M. biographer David Buckley described as "wailing, keening, arching vocal figures". Stipe often harmonizes with Mills in songs; in the chorus for "Stand", Mills and Stipe alternate singing lyrics, creating a dialogue. Early articles about the band focused on Stipe's singing style (described as "mumbling" by The Washington Post), which often rendered his lyrics indecipherable. Creem writer John Morthland wrote in his review of Murmur, "I still have no idea what these songs are about, because neither me nor anyone else I know has ever been able to discern R.E.M.'s lyrics." Stipe commented in 1984, "It's just the way I sing. If I tried to control it, it would be pretty false." Producer Joe Boyd convinced Stipe to begin singing more clearly during the recording of Fables of the Reconstruction.
Stipe later called chorus lyrics of "Sitting Still" from R.E.M. debut album, Murmur, "nonsense", saying in a 1994 online chat, "You all know there aren't words, per se, to a lot of the early stuff. I can't even remember them." In truth, Stipe carefully crafted the lyrics to many early R.E.M. songs. Stipe explained in 1984 that when he started writing lyrics they were like "simple pictures", but after a year he grew tired of the approach and "started experimenting with lyrics that didn't make exact linear sense, and it's just gone from there." In the mid-1980s, as Stipe's pronunciation while singing became clearer, the band decided that its lyrics should convey ideas on a more literal level. Mills explained, "After you've made three records and you've written several songs and they've gotten better and better lyrically the next step would be to have somebody question you and say, are you saying anything? And Michael had the confidence at that point to say yes . . ." Songs like "Cuyahoga" and "Fall on Me" on Lifes Rich Pageant dealt with such concerns as pollution. Stipe incorporated more politically oriented concerns into his lyrics on Document and Green. "Our political activism and the content of the songs was just a reaction to where we were, and what we were surrounded by, which was just abject horror," Stipe said later. "In 1987 and '88 there was nothing to do but be active." Stipe has since explored other lyrical topics. Automatic for the People dealt with "mortality and dying. Pretty turgid stuff", according to Stipe, while Monster critiqued love and mass culture. Musically, Stipe stated that bands like T. Rex and Mott the Hoople "really impacted me".
Peter Buck's style of playing guitar has been singled out by many as the most distinctive aspect of R.E.M.'s music. During the 1980s, Buck's "economical, arpeggiated, poetic" style reminded British music journalists of 1960s American folk rock band the Byrds. Buck has stated "[Byrds guitarist] Roger McGuinn was a big influence on me as a guitar player", but said it was Byrds-influenced bands, including Big Star and the Soft Boys, that inspired him more. Comparisons were also made with the guitar playing of Johnny Marr of alternative rock contemporaries the Smiths. While Buck professed being a fan of the group, he admitted he initially criticized the band simply because he was tired of fans asking him if he was influenced by Marr, whose band had in fact made their debut after R.E.M. Buck generally eschews guitar solos; he explained in 2002, "I know that when guitarists rip into this hot solo, people go nuts, but I don't write songs that suit that, and I am not interested in that. I can do it if I have to, but I don't like it." Mike Mills' melodic approach to bass playing is inspired by Paul McCartney of the Beatles and Chris Squire of Yes; Mills has said, "I always played a melodic bass, like a piano bass in some ways . . . I never wanted to play the traditional locked into the kick drum, root note bass work." Mills has more musical training than his bandmates, which he has said "made it easier to turn abstract musical ideas into reality."
Legacy
R.E.M. was pivotal in the creation and development of the alternative rock genre. AllMusic stated, "R.E.M. mark the point when post-punk turned into alternative rock." In the early 1980s, the musical style of R.E.M. stood in contrast to the post-punk and new wave genres that had preceded it. Music journalist Simon Reynolds noted that the post-punk movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s "had taken whole swaths of music off the menu", particularly that of the 1960s, and that "After postpunk's demystification and New Pop's schematics, it felt liberating to listen to music rooted in mystical awe and blissed-out surrender." Reynolds declared R.E.M., a band that recalled the music of the 1960s with its "plangent guitar chimes and folk-styled vocals" and who "wistfully and abstractly conjured visions and new frontiers for America", one of "the two most important alt-rock bands of the day." With the release of Murmur, R.E.M. had the most impact musically and commercially of the developing alternative genre's early groups, leaving in its wake a number of jangle pop followers.
R.E.M.'s early breakthrough success served as an inspiration for other alternative bands. Spin referred to the "R.E.M. model"—career decisions that R.E.M. made that set guidelines for other underground artists to follow in their own careers. Spin's Charles Aaron wrote that by 1985, "They'd shown how far an underground, punk-inspired rock band could go within the industry without whoring out its artistic integrity in any obvious way. They'd figured out how to buy in, not sellout-in other words, they'd achieved the American Bohemian Dream." Steve Wynn of Dream Syndicate said, "They invented a whole new ballgame for all of the other bands to follow whether it was Sonic Youth or the Replacements or Nirvana or Butthole Surfers. R.E.M. staked the claim. Musically, the bands did different things, but R.E.M. was first to show us you can be big and still be cool." Biographer David Buckley stated that between 1991 and 1994, a period that saw the band sell an estimated 30 million albums, R.E.M. "asserted themselves as rivals to U2 for the title of biggest rock band in the world." Over the course of its career, the band has sold over 85 million records worldwide. Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums stated that "Their catalogue is destined to endure as critics reluctantly accept their considerable importance in the history of rock".
Alternative bands such as Nirvana, Pavement, Radiohead, Coldplay, Pearl Jam (the band's vocalist Eddie Vedder inducted R.E.M. into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame), Live, Stone Temple Pilots, Collective Soul, Alice in Chains, Hootie and the Blowfish and Pwr Bttm have drawn inspiration from R.E.M.'s music. "When I was 15 years old in Richmond, Virginia, they were a very important part of my life," Pavement's Bob Nastanovich said, "as they were for all the members of our band." Pavement's contribution to the No Alternative compilation (1993) was "Unseen Power of the Picket Fence", a song about R.E.M.'s early days. Local H, according to the band's Twitter account, created their name by combining two R.E.M. songs: "Oddfellows Local 151" and "Swan Swan H". Kurt Cobain of Nirvana was a fan of R.E.M., and had unfulfilled plans to collaborate on a musical project with Stipe. Cobain told Rolling Stone in an interview earlier that year, "I don’t know how that band does what they do. God, they’re the greatest. They've dealt with their success like saints, and they keep delivering great music."
During his show at the 40 Watt Club in October 2018, Johnny Marr said: "As a British musician coming out of the indie scene in the early '80s, which I definitely am and am proud to have been, I can't miss this opportunity to acknowledge and pay my respects and honor the guys who put this town on the map for us in England. I'm talking about my comrades in guitar music, R.E.M. The Smiths really respected R.E.M. We had to keep an eye on what those guys were up to. It's an interesting thing for me, as a British musician, and all those guys as British musicians, to come to this place and play for you guys, knowing that it's the roots of Mike Mills and Bill Berry and Michael Stipe and my good friend Peter Buck."
Awards
Campaigning and activism
Throughout R.E.M.'s career, its members sought to highlight social and political issues. According to the Los Angeles Times, R.E.M. was considered to be one of the United States' "most liberal and politically correct rock groups." The band's members were "on the same page" politically, sharing a liberal and progressive outlook. Mills admitted that there was occasionally dissension between band members on what causes they might support, but acknowledged "Out of respect for the people who disagree, those discussions tend to stay in-house, just because we'd rather not let people know where the divisions lie, so people can't exploit them for their own purposes." An example is that in 1990 Buck noted that Stipe was involved with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but the rest of the band were not.
R.E.M. helped raise funds for environmental, feminist and human rights causes, and were involved in campaigns to encourage voter registration. During the Green tour, Stipe spoke on stage to the audiences about a variety of socio-political issues. Through the late 1980s and 1990s, the band (particularly Stipe) increasingly used its media coverage on national television to mention a variety of causes it felt were important. One example is during the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards, Stipe wore a half-dozen white shirts emblazoned with slogans including "rainforest", "love knows no colors", and "handgun control now".
R.E.M. helped raise awareness of Aung San Suu Kyi and human rights violations in Myanmar, when they worked with the Freedom Campaign and the US Campaign for Burma. Stipe himself ran ads for the 1988 election, supporting Democratic presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis over then-Vice President George H. W. Bush. In 2004, the band participated in the Vote for Change tour that sought to mobilize American voters to support Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. R.E.M.'s political stance, particularly coming from a wealthy rock band under contract to a label owned by a multinational corporation, received criticism from former Q editor Paul Du Noyer, who criticized the band's "celebrity liberalism", saying, "It's an entirely pain-free form of rebellion that they're adopting. There's no risk involved in it whatsoever, but quite a bit of shoring up of customer loyalty."
From the late 1980s, R.E.M. was involved in the local politics of its hometown of Athens, Georgia. Buck explained to Sounds in 1987, "Michael always says think local and act local—we have been doing a lot of stuff in our town to try and make it a better place." The band often donated funds to local charities and helped renovate and preserve historic buildings in the town. R.E.M.'s political clout was credited with the narrow election of Athens mayor Gwen O'Looney twice in the 1990s. The band is a member of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism.
Members
Main members
Bill Berry – drums, percussion, backing vocals, occasional bass guitar and keyboards (1980–1997; occasional concert appearances with the band 2003–2007)
Peter Buck – lead guitar, mandolin, banjo, occasional bass guitar and keyboards (1980–2011)
Mike Mills – bass guitar, keyboards, backing vocals and guitar (1980–2011)
Michael Stipe – lead vocals (1980–2011)
Non-musical members
Several publications made by the band such as album liner notes and fan club mailers list attorney Bertis Downs and manager Jefferson Holt as honorary non-musical members; the two joined up with R.E.M. in 1980/1981 and Holt left in 1996.
Touring and session musicians
Buren Fowler – rhythm guitar (1986–1987)
Peter Holsapple – rhythm guitar, keyboards (1989–1991)
Scott McCaughey – rhythm guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, occasional lead guitar (1994–2011)
Nathan December – rhythm and lead guitar (1994–1995)
Joey Waronker – drums, percussion (1998–2002)
Barrett Martin – percussion (1998)
Ken Stringfellow – keyboards, occasional rhythm guitar, bass guitar, backing vocals (1998–2005)
Bill Rieflin – drums, percussion, occasional keyboards and guitar (2003–2011)
Timeline
Production timeline
Touring and session members timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Murmur (1983)
Reckoning (1984)
Fables of the Reconstruction (1985)
Lifes Rich Pageant (1986)
Document (1987)
Green (1988)
Out of Time (1991)
Automatic for the People (1992)
Monster (1994)
New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996)
Up (1998)
Reveal (2001)
Around the Sun (2004)
Accelerate (2008)
Collapse into Now (2011)
See also
List of alternative rock artists
References
Sources
Black, Johnny. Reveal: The Story of R.E.M. Backbeat, 2004.
Buckley, David. R.E.M.: Fiction: An Alternative Biography. Virgin, 2002.
Gray, Marcus. It Crawled from the South: An R.E.M. Companion. Da Capo, 1997. Second edition.
Fletcher, Tony. Remarks Remade: The Story of R.E.M. Omnibus, 2002. .
Platt, John (editor). The R.E.M. Companion: Two Decades of Commentary. Schirmer, 1998.
Sullivan, Denise. Talk About the Passion: R.E.M.: An Oral Biography. Underwood-Miller, 1994.
External links
Dynamic Range DB entry for R.E.M.
1980 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
2011 disestablishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
Alternative rock groups from Georgia (U.S. state)
Brit Award winners
Capitol Records artists
Concord Bicycle Music artists
Grammy Award winners
I.R.S. Records artists
Jangle pop groups
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups disestablished in 2011
Musical groups from Athens, Georgia
New West Records artists
Rhino Records artists
Warner Records artists
Craft Recordings artists
College rock musical groups | true | [
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"New Idea is a long-running Australian weekly magazine aimed at women that is published by Are Media.\n\nHistory\nThe magazine was first published in 1902 by Fitchett Bros. The founder was Thomas Shaw Fitchett. It was subtitled A Women's Home Journal for Australia. In 1911 the magazine was renamed as Everylady’s journal, but in 1928 the title was changed to New Idea. Fitchett Brothers changed the name of their company to Southdown Press (later renamed Pacific Magazines). Following World War II the company was acquired by Keith Murdoch and then became part of the Rupert Murdoch media.\n\nIn June 2006, the magazine was ranked 3rd in Australia in circulation, with an audited circulation of 433,176; it ranked ahead of Reader's Digest. The magazine's readership in 2004 was in excess of 2 million and had increased to 2.364 million in 2005/6; that is the magazine is read by more than 10% of Australia's population. However, in recent years weekly sales figures have dropped to a March 2014 audit of 280,206. In December 2014 readership had halved to 1.265 million,\n\nIn January 2008, it revealed details that Prince Harry was with the British army serving in Afghanistan, in breach of an agreement with the major news organisations. It ran updates on the story on two further occasions. When the United States Drudge Report ran the story on 28 February 2008, the prince was forced to abandon his posting and return to the UK. After the story broke much more widely, New Idea pulled the story from its web site and made itself unavailable for comment to other members of the press. Two months later, the magazine issued an apology for publishing the story. \"We regret this serious lapse of judgment. We sincerely apologise to all our readers, to the servicemen whose lives are at constant risk while serving at home and abroad and to their families and loved ones.\"\n\nNew Idea was criticised on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Media Watch for the use of sensationalist headlines and content.\n\nIn 2016, actress Eliza Szonert threatened to sue New Idea because the magazine refused to pay her an agreed sum of 7000 for a tell-all interview about claiming back her child from an ex-partner living overseas, with the magazine claiming she had lied about entering drug rehabilitation.\n\nAs of 2020, New Idea is published by Are Media, the successor to Bauer Media Australia.\n\nPersonnel\nEditor-in-Chief\n\n Louisa Hatfield 2005–2017\n Frances Sheen 2017–2018\n Emma Nolan 2018-\n\nDeputy editors\n Nene King\n\nSee also\n Health promotion\n List of women's magazines\n List of men's magazines\n List of Australian magazines\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n New Idea\n New Idea TV\n New Idea (New Zealand)\n\n1902 establishments in Australia\nAre Media\nCelebrity magazines\nMagazines established in 1902\nMagazines published in Sydney\nWeekly magazines published in Australia\nWomen's magazines published in Australia"
] |
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"R.E.M.",
"1980-1981: Formation",
"Whose idea was it to form R.E.M.?",
"The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that \"there was never any grand plan behind any of it\"."
] | C_c87fee161031431bbd689ad1d2a8d4e8_1 | Who were the original members? | 2 | Who were the original members of the band R.E.M.? | R.E.M. | In January 1980, Michael Stipe met Peter Buck in Wuxtry Records, the Athens record store where Buck worked. The pair discovered that they shared similar tastes in music, particularly in punk rock and protopunk artists like Patti Smith, Television, and the Velvet Underground. Stipe said, "It turns out that I was buying all the records that [Buck] was saving for himself." Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Mike Mills and Bill Berry, who had played music together since high school and lived together in Georgia. The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that "there was never any grand plan behind any of it". Their still-unnamed band spent a few months rehearsing and played its first show on April 5, 1980, at a friend's birthday party held in a converted Episcopal church in Athens. After considering names like "Twisted Kites", "Cans of Piss", and "Negro Wives", the band settled on "R.E.M." (which is an acronym for rapid eye movement, the dream stage of sleep), which Stipe selected at random from a dictionary. The band members eventually dropped out of school to focus on their developing group. They found a manager in Jefferson Holt, a record store clerk who was so impressed by an R.E.M. performance in his hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that he moved to Athens. R.E.M.'s success was almost immediate in Athens and surrounding areas; the band drew progressively larger crowds for shows, which caused some resentment in the Athens music scene. Over the next year and a half, R.E.M. toured throughout the Southern United States. Touring was arduous because a touring circuit for alternative rock bands did not then exist. The group toured in an old blue van driven by Holt, and lived on a food allowance of $2 each per day. During the summer of 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, "Radio Free Europe", at producer Mitch Easter's Drive-In Studios in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The single was released on the local independent record label Hib-Tone with an initial pressing of one thousand copies, which quickly sold out. Despite its limited pressing, the single garnered critical acclaim, and was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times. CANNOTANSWER | Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Mike Mills and Bill Berry, | R.E.M. was an American rock band from Athens, Georgia, formed in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, who were students at the University of Georgia. Liner notes from some of the band's albums list attorney Bertis Downs and manager Jefferson Holt as non-musical members. One of the first alternative rock bands, R.E.M. was noted for Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style; Stipe's distinctive vocal quality, unique stage presence, and obscure lyrics; Mills's melodic bass lines and backing vocals; and Berry's tight, economical drumming style. In the early 1990s, other alternative rock acts such as Nirvana and Pavement viewed R.E.M. as a pioneer of the genre. After Berry left the band in 1997, the band continued its career in the 2000s with mixed critical and commercial success. The band broke up amicably in 2011 with members devoting time to solo projects after having sold more than 85 million albums worldwide and becoming one of the world's best-selling music acts.
R.E.M. released its first single, "Radio Free Europe", in 1981 on the independent record label Hib-Tone. It was followed by the Chronic Town EP in 1982, the band's first release on I.R.S. Records. In 1983, the group released its critically acclaimed debut album, Murmur, and built its reputation over the next few years with similarly acclaimed releases every year from 1984 to 1988: Reckoning, Fables of the Reconstruction, Lifes Rich Pageant, Document and Green, including an intermittent b-side compilation Dead Letter Office. Don Dixon and Mitch Easter produced their first two albums, Joe Boyd handled production on Fables of the Reconstruction and Don Gehman produced Lifes Rich Pageant. Thereafter, R.E.M. settled on Scott Litt as producer for the next 10years during the band's most successful period of their career. They also started co-producing their material and playing other instruments in the studio apart from the main ones they play. With constant touring, and the support of college radio following years of underground success, R.E.M. achieved a mainstream hit with the 1987 single "The One I Love". The group signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1988, and began to espouse political and environmental concerns while playing large arenas worldwide.
R.E.M.'s most commercially successful albums, Out of Time (1991) and Automatic for the People (1992), put them in the vanguard of alternative rock just as it was becoming mainstream. Out of Time received seven nominations at the 34th Annual Grammy Awards, and lead single "Losing My Religion", was R.E.M.'s highest-charting and best-selling hit. Monster (1994) continued its run of success. The band began its first tour in six years to support the album; the tour was marred by medical emergencies suffered by three of the band members. In 1996, R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. for a reported US$80 million, at the time the most expensive recording contract ever. The tour was productive and the band recorded the following album mostly during soundchecks. The resulting record, New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996), is hailed as the band's last great album and the members' favorite, growing in cult status over the years. Berry left the band the following year, and Stipe, Buck, and Mills continued as a musical trio, supplemented by studio and live musicians, such as multi-instrumentalists Scott McCaughey and Ken Stringfellow and drummers Joey Waronker and Bill Rieflin. They also parted ways with their longtime manager Jefferson Holt and band's attorney Bertis Downs assumed managerial duties. Seeking to also renovate their sound, the band stopped working with Scott Litt, co-producer and contributor to six of their studio albums and hired Pat McCarthy as co-producer, who had participated before that as mixer and engineer on their last two albums.
After the electronic experimental direction of Up (1998) that was commercially unsuccessful, Reveal (2001) was referred to as "a conscious return to their classic sound" which received general acclaim. In 2007, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in its first year of eligibility and Berry reunited with the band for the ceremony and to record a cover of John Lennon's "#9 Dream" for the compilation album Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur to benefit Amnesty International's campaign to alleviate the Darfur conflict. Looking for a change of sound after lukewarm reception for Around the Sun (2004), the band collaborated with co-producer Jacknife Lee on their last two studio albums—the well-received Accelerate (2008) and Collapse into Now (2011)—as well as their first live albums after decades of touring. R.E.M. disbanded amicably in September 2011, with former members having continued with various musical projects, and several live and archival albums have since been released.
History
1980–1982: Formation and first releases
In January 1980, Peter Buck met Michael Stipe in Wuxtry Records, the Athens record store where Buck worked. The pair discovered that they shared similar tastes in music, particularly in punk rock and proto-punk artists like Patti Smith, Television, and the Velvet Underground. Stipe said, "It turns out that I was buying all the records that [Buck] was saving for himself." Through mutual friend Kathleen O'Brien, Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Bill Berry and Mike Mills, who had played music together since high school and lived together in Georgia. The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that "there was never any grand plan behind any of it". Their still-unnamed band spent a few months rehearsing in a deconsecrated Episcopal church in Athens, and played its first show on April 5, 1980, supporting the Side Effects at O'Brien's birthday party held in the same church, performing a mix of originals and 1960s and 1970s covers. After considering names such as Cans of Piss, Negro Eyes, and Twisted Kites, the band settled on "R.E.M.", which Stipe selected at random from a dictionary. R.E.M. is well known as an initialism for rapid eye movement, the dream stage of sleep; however, sleep researcher Dr. Rafael Pelayo reports that when his colleague Dr. William Dement, the sleep scientist who coined the term REM, reached out to the band, Dr. Dement was told that the band was named "not after REM sleep".
The band members eventually dropped out of school to focus on their developing group. They found a manager in Jefferson Holt, a record store clerk who was so impressed by an R.E.M. performance in his hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that he moved to Athens. R.E.M.'s success was almost immediate in Athens and surrounding areas; the band drew progressively larger crowds for shows, which caused some resentment in the Athens music scene. Over the next year and a half, R.E.M. toured throughout the Southern United States. Touring was arduous because a touring circuit for alternative rock bands did not then exist. The group toured in an old blue van driven by Holt, and lived on a food allowance of $2 each per day.
During April 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, "Radio Free Europe", at producer Mitch Easter's Drive-In Studios in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Initially distributing it as a four-track demo tape to clubs, record labels and magazines, the single was released in July 1981 on the local independent record label Hib-Tone with an initial pressing of 1,000 copies—600 of which were sent out as promotional copies. The single quickly sold out, and another 6,000 copies were pressed due to popular demand, despite the original pressing leaving off the record label's contact details. Despite its limited pressing, the single garnered critical acclaim, and was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times.
R.E.M. recorded the Chronic Town EP with Mitch Easter in October 1981, and planned to release it on a new indie label named Dasht Hopes. However, I.R.S. Records acquired a demo of the band's first recording session with Easter that had been circulating for months. The band turned down the advances of major label RCA Records in favor of I.R.S., with whom it signed a contract in May 1982. I.R.S. released Chronic Town that August as its first American release. A positive review of the EP by NME praised the songs' auras of mystery, and concluded, "R.E.M. ring true, and it's great to hear something as unforced and cunning as this."
1982–1988: I.R.S. Records and cult success
I.R.S. first paired R.E.M. with producer Stephen Hague to record its debut album. Hague's emphasis on technical perfection left the band unsatisfied, and the band members asked the label to let them record with Easter. I.R.S. agreed to a "tryout" session, allowing the band to return to North Carolina and record the song "Pilgrimage" with Easter and producing partner Don Dixon. After hearing the track, I.R.S. permitted the group to record the album with Dixon and Easter. Because of its bad experience with Hague, the band recorded the album via a process of negation, refusing to incorporate rock music clichés such as guitar solos or then-popular synthesizers, in order to give its music a timeless feel. The completed album, Murmur, was greeted with critical acclaim upon its release in 1983, with Rolling Stone listing the album as its record of the year. The album reached number 36 on the Billboard album chart. A re-recorded version of "Radio Free Europe" was the album's lead single and reached number 78 on the Billboard singles chart in 1983. Despite the acclaim awarded the album, Murmur sold only about 200,000 copies, which I.R.S.'s Jay Boberg felt was below expectations.
R.E.M. made its first national television appearance on Late Night with David Letterman in October 1983, during which the group performed a new, unnamed song. The piece, eventually titled "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)", became the first single from the band's second album, Reckoning (1984), which was also recorded with Easter and Dixon. The album met with critical acclaim; NMEs Mat Snow wrote that Reckoning "confirms R.E.M. as one of the most beautifully exciting groups on the planet". While Reckoning peaked at number 27 on the US album charts—an unusually high chart placing for a college rock band at the time—scant airplay and poor distribution overseas resulted in it charting no higher than number 91 in Britain.
The band's third album, Fables of the Reconstruction (1985), demonstrated a change in direction. Instead of Dixon and Easter, R.E.M. chose producer Joe Boyd, who had worked with Fairport Convention and Nick Drake, to record the album in England. The band members found the sessions unexpectedly difficult, and were miserable due to the cold winter weather and what they considered to be poor food; the situation brought the band to the verge of break-up. The gloominess surrounding the sessions worked its way into the context for the album's themes. Lyrically, Stipe began to create storylines in the mode of Southern mythology, noting in a 1985 interview that he was inspired by "the whole idea of the old men sitting around the fire, passing on ... legends and fables to the grandchildren".
They toured Canada in July and August 1985, and Europe in October of that year, including the Netherlands, England (including one concert at London's Hammersmith Palais), Ireland, Scotland, France, Switzerland, Belgium and West Germany. On October 2, 1985, the group played a concert in Bochum, West Germany, for the German TV show Rockpalast. Stipe had bleached his hair blond during this time. R.E.M. invited California punk band Minutemen to open for them on part of the US tour, and organized a benefit for the family of Minutemen frontman D. Boon who died in a December 1985 car crash shortly after the tour's conclusion. Fables of the Reconstruction performed poorly in Europe and its critical reception was mixed, with some critics regarding it as dreary and poorly recorded. As with the previous records, the singles from Fables of the Reconstruction were mostly ignored by mainstream radio. Meanwhile, I.R.S. was becoming frustrated with the band's reluctance to achieve mainstream success.
For its fourth album, R.E.M. enlisted John Mellencamp's producer Don Gehman. The result, Lifes Rich Pageant (1986), featured Stipe's vocals closer to the forefront of the music. In a 1986 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Peter Buck related, "Michael is getting better at what he's doing, and he's getting more confident at it. And I think that shows up in the projection of his voice." The album improved markedly upon the sales of Fables of the Reconstruction and reached number 21 on the Billboard album chart. The single "Fall on Me" also picked up support on commercial radio. The album was the band's first to be certified gold for selling 500,000 copies. While American college radio remained R.E.M.'s core support, the band was beginning to chart hits on mainstream rock formats; however, the music still encountered resistance from Top 40 radio.
Following the success of Lifes Rich Pageant, I.R.S. issued Dead Letter Office, a compilation of tracks recorded by the band during their album sessions, many of which had either been issued as B-sides or left unreleased altogether. Shortly thereafter, I.R.S. compiled R.E.M.'s music video catalog (except "Wolves, Lower") as the band's first video release, Succumbs.
Don Gehman was unable to produce R.E.M.'s fifth album, so he suggested the group work with Scott Litt. Litt would be the producer for the band's next five albums. Document (1987) featured some of Stipe's most openly political lyrics, particularly on "Welcome to the Occupation" and "Exhuming McCarthy", which were reactions to the conservative political environment of the 1980s under American president Ronald Reagan. Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote in his review of the album, "Document is both confident and defiant; if R.E.M. is about to move from cult-band status to mass popularity, the album decrees that the band will get there on its own terms." Document was R.E.M.'s breakthrough album, and the first single "The One I Love" charted in the Top 20 in the US, UK, and Canada. By January 1988, Document had become the group's first album to sell a million copies. In light of the band's breakthrough, the December 1987 cover of Rolling Stone declared R.E.M. "America's Best Rock & Roll Band".
1988–1997: International breakout and alternative rock stardom
Frustrated that its records did not see satisfactory overseas distribution, R.E.M. left I.R.S. when its contract expired and signed with the major label Warner Bros. Records. Though other labels offered more money, R.E.M. ultimately signed with Warner Bros.—reportedly for an amount between $6 million and $12 million—due to the company's assurance of total creative freedom. (Jay Boberg claimed that R.E.M.'s deal with Warner Bros. was for $22 million, which Peter Buck disputed as "definitely wrong".) In the aftermath of the group's departure, I.R.S. released the 1988 "best of" compilation Eponymous (assembled with input from the band members) to capitalize on assets the company still possessed. The band's 1988 Warner Bros. debut, Green, was recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, and showcased the group experimenting with its sound. The record's tracks ranged from the upbeat first single "Stand" (a hit in the United States), to more political material, like the rock-oriented "Orange Crush" and "World Leader Pretend", which address the Vietnam War and the Cold War, respectively. Green has gone on to sell four million copies worldwide. The band supported the album with its biggest and most visually developed tour to date, featuring back-projections and art films playing on the stage. After the Green tour, the band members unofficially decided to take the following year off, the first extended break in the band's career. In 1990 Warner Bros. issued the music video compilation Pop Screen to collect clips from the Document and Green albums, followed a few months later by the video album Tourfilm featuring live performances filmed during the Green World Tour.
R.E.M. reconvened in mid-1990 to record its seventh album, Out of Time. In a departure from Green, the band members often wrote the music with non-traditional rock instrumentation including mandolin, organ, and acoustic guitar instead of adding them as overdubs later in the creative process. Released in March 1991, Out of Time was the band's first album to top both the US and UK charts. The record eventually sold 4.2 million copies in the US alone, and about 12 million copies worldwide by 1996. The album's lead single "Losing My Religion" was a worldwide hit that received heavy rotation on radio, as did the music video on MTV and VH1. "Losing My Religion" was R.E.M.'s highest-charting single in the US, reaching number four on the Billboard charts. "There've been very few life-changing events in our career because our career has been so gradual," Mills said years later. "If you want to talk about life changing, I think 'Losing My Religion' is the closest it gets". The album's second single, "Shiny Happy People" (one of three songs on the record to feature vocals from Kate Pierson of fellow Athens band the B-52's), was also a major hit, reaching number 10 in the US and number six in the UK. Out of Time garnered R.E.M. seven nominations at the 1992 Grammy Awards, the most nominations of any artist that year. The band won three awards: one for Best Alternative Music Album and two for "Losing My Religion", Best Short Form Music Video and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. R.E.M. did not tour to promote Out of Time; instead the group played a series of one-off shows, including an appearance taped for an episode of MTV Unplugged and released music videos for each song on the video album This Film Is On. The band also performed "Losing My Religion" with members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in Madison, Georgia, at Madison-Morgan Cultural Center as part of MTV's 10th anniversary special.
After spending some months off, R.E.M. returned to the studio in 1991 to record its next album. Late in 1992, the band released Automatic for the People. Though the group had intended to make a harder-rocking album after the softer textures of Out of Time, the somber Automatic for the People "[seemed] to move at an even more agonized crawl", according to Melody Maker. The album dealt with themes of loss and mourning inspired by "that sense of ... turning thirty", according to Buck. Several songs featured string arrangements by former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. Considered by a number of critics (as well as by Buck and Mills) to be the band's best album, Automatic for the People reached numbers one and two on UK and US charts, respectively, and generated the American Top 40 hit singles "Drive", "Man on the Moon", and "Everybody Hurts". The album would sell over fifteen million copies worldwide. As with Out of Time, there was no tour in support of the album. The decision to forgo a tour, in conjunction with Stipe's physical appearance, generated rumors that the singer was dying or HIV-positive, which were vehemently denied by the band.
After the band released two slow-paced albums in a row, R.E.M.'s 1994 album Monster was, as Buck said, "a 'rock' record, with the rock in quotation marks." In contrast to the sound of its predecessors, the music of Monster consisted of distorted guitar tones, minimal overdubs, and touches of 1970s glam rock. Like Out of Time, Monster topped the charts in both the US and UK. The record sold about nine million copies worldwide. The singles "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and "Bang and Blame" were the band's last American Top 40 hits, although all the singles from Monster reached the Top 30 on the British charts. Warner Bros. assembled the music videos from the album as well as those from Automatic for the People for release as Parallel in 1995.
In January 1995, R.E.M. set out on its first tour in six years. The tour was a huge commercial success, but the period was difficult for the group. On March 1, Berry collapsed on stage during a performance in Lausanne, Switzerland, having suffered a brain aneurysm. He had surgery immediately and recovered fully within a month. Berry's aneurysm was only the beginning of a series of health problems that plagued the Monster tour. Mills had to undergo abdominal surgery to remove an intestinal adhesion in July; a month later, Stipe had to have an emergency surgery to repair a hernia. Despite all the problems, the group had recorded the bulk of a new album while on the road. The band brought along eight-track recorders to capture its shows, and used the recordings as the base elements for the album. The final three performances of the tour were filmed at the Omni Coliseum in Atlanta, Georgia and released in home video form as Road Movie.
R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. Records in 1996 for a reported $80 million (a figure the band constantly asserted originated with the media), rumored to be the largest recording contract in history at that point. The group's 1996 album New Adventures in Hi-Fi debuted at number two in the US and number one in the UK. The five million copies of the album sold were a reversal of the group's commercial fortunes of the previous five years. Critical reaction to the album was mostly favorable. In a 2017 retrospective on the band, Consequence of Sound ranked it third out of R.E.M.'s 15 full-length studio albums. The album is Stipe's favorite from R.E.M. and he considers it the band at their peak. Mills says "It usually takes a good few years for me to decide where an album stands in the pantheon of recorded work we've done. This one may be third behind Murmur and Automatic for the People. According to DiscoverMusic: "Arguably less immediate and less accessible[...]New Adventures in Hi-Fi is a sprawling, "White Album"-esque affair clocking in at 65 minutes. However, while it required some time and commitment from the listener, the record's contents were rich, compelling and frequently stunning. Accordingly, the album has continued to lobby for recognition and has long since earned its reputation as R.E.M.'s most unsung LP." While sales were impressive they were below their previous major label records. Time's writer Christopher John Farley argued that the lesser sales of the album were due to the declining commercial power of alternative rock as a whole. That same year, R.E.M. parted ways with manager Jefferson Holt, allegedly due to sexual harassment charges levied against him by a member of the band's home office in Athens. The group's lawyer Bertis Downs assumed managerial duties.
1997–2006: Continuing as three-piece with mixed success
In April 1997, the band convened at Buck's Kauai vacation home to record demos of material intended for the next album. The band sought to reinvent its sound and intended to incorporate drum loops and percussion experiments. Just as the sessions were due to begin in October, Berry decided, after months of contemplation and discussions with Downs and Mills, to tell the rest of the band that he was quitting. Berry told his bandmates that he would not quit if they would break up as a result, so Stipe, Buck, and Mills agreed to carry on as a three-piece with his blessing. Berry publicly announced his departure three weeks later in October 1997. Berry told the press, "I'm just not as enthusiastic as I have been in the past about doing this anymore . . . I have the best job in the world. But I'm kind of ready to sit back and reflect and maybe not be a pop star anymore." Stipe admitted that the band would be different without a major contributor: "For me, Mike, and Peter, as R.E.M., are we still R.E.M.? I guess a three-legged dog is still a dog. It just has to learn to run differently."
The band cancelled its scheduled recording sessions as a result of Berry's departure. "Without Bill it was different, confusing", Mills later said. "We didn't know exactly what to do. We couldn't rehearse without a drummer." The remaining members of R.E.M. resumed work on the album in February 1998 at Toast Studios in San Francisco. The band ended its decade-long collaboration with Scott Litt and hired Pat McCarthy to produce the record. Nigel Godrich was taken on as assistant producer, and drafted in Screaming Trees member Barrett Martin and Beck's touring drummer Joey Waronker. The recording process was tense, and the group came close to disbanding. Bertis Downs called an emergency meeting in which the band members resolved their problems and agreed to continue as a group. Led by the single "Daysleeper", Up (1998) debuted in the top ten in the US and UK. However, the album was a relative failure, selling 900,000 copies in the US by mid-1999 and eventually selling just over two million copies worldwide. While R.E.M.'s American sales were declining, the group's commercial base was shifting to the UK, where more R.E.M. records were sold per capita than any other country and the band's singles regularly entered the Top 20.
A year after Ups release, R.E.M. wrote the instrumental score to the Andy Kaufman biographical film Man on the Moon, a first for the group. The film took its title from the Automatic for the People song of the same name. The song "The Great Beyond" was released as a single from the Man on the Moon soundtrack album. "The Great Beyond" only reached number 57 on the American pop charts, but was the band's highest-charting single ever in the UK, reaching number three in 2000.
R.E.M. recorded the majority of its twelfth album Reveal (2001) in Canada and Ireland from May to October 2000. Reveal shared the "lugubrious pace" of Up, and featured drumming by Joey Waronker, as well as contributions by Scott McCaughey (a co-founder of the band the Minus 5 with Buck), and Ken Stringfellow (founder of the Posies). Global sales of the album were over four million, but in the United States Reveal sold about the same number of copies as Up. The album was led by the single "Imitation of Life", which reached number six in the UK. Writing for Rock's Backpages, The Rev. Al Friston described the album as "loaded with golden loveliness at every twist and turn", in comparison to the group's "essentially unconvincing work on New Adventures in Hi-Fi and Up". Similarly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone called Reveal "a spiritual renewal rooted in a musical one" and praised its "ceaselessly astonishing beauty".
In 2003, Warner Bros. released the compilation album and DVD In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003 and In View: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003, which featured two new songs, "Bad Day" and "Animal". At a 2003 concert in Raleigh, North Carolina, Berry made a surprise appearance, performing backing vocals on "Radio Free Europe". He then sat behind the drum kit for a performance of the early R.E.M. song "Permanent Vacation", marking his first performance with the band since his retirement.
R.E.M. released Around the Sun in 2004. During production of the album in 2002, Stipe said, "[The album] sounds like it's taking off from the last couple of records into unchartered R.E.M. territory. Kind of primitive and howling". After the album's release, Mills said, "I think, honestly, it turned out a little slower than we intended for it to, just in terms of the overall speed of songs." Around the Sun received a mixed critical reception, and peaked at number 13 on the Billboard charts. The first single from the album, "Leaving New York", was a Top 5 hit in the UK. For the record and subsequent tour, the band hired a new full-time touring drummer, Bill Rieflin, who had previously been a member of several industrial music acts such as Ministry and Pigface, and remained in that role for the duration of the band's active years. The video album Perfect Square was released that same year.
2006–2011: Last albums, recognition and breakup
EMI released a compilation album covering R.E.M.'s work during its tenure on I.R.S. in 2006 called And I Feel Fine... The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982–1987 along with the video album When the Light Is Mine: The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982–1987—the label had previously released the compilations The Best of R.E.M. (1991), R.E.M.: Singles Collected (1994), and R.E.M.: In the Attic – Alternative Recordings 1985–1989 (1997). That same month, all four original band members performed during the ceremony for their induction into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. While rehearsing for the ceremony, the band recorded a cover of John Lennon's "#9 Dream" for Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur, a tribute album benefiting Amnesty International. The song—released as a single for the album and the campaign—featured Bill Berry's first studio recording with the band since his departure almost a decade earlier.
In October 2006, R.E.M. was nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its first year of eligibility. The band was one of five nominees accepted into the Hall that year, and the induction ceremony took place in March 2007 at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The group—which was inducted by Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder—performed three songs with Bill Berry; "Gardening at Night", "Man on the Moon" and "Begin the Begin" as well as a cover of "I Wanna Be Your Dog".
Work on the group's fourteenth album commenced in early 2007. The band recorded with producer Jacknife Lee in Vancouver and Dublin, where it played five nights in the Olympia Theatre between June 30 and July 5 as part of a "working rehearsal". R.E.M. Live, the band's first live album (featuring songs from a 2005 Dublin show), was released in October 2007. The group followed this with the 2009 live album Live at The Olympia, which features performances from its 2007 residency. R.E.M. released Accelerate in early 2008. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard charts, and became the band's eighth album to top the British album charts. Rolling Stone reviewer David Fricke considered Accelerate an improvement over the band's previous post-Berry albums, calling it "one of the best records R.E.M. have ever made".
In 2010, R.E.M. released the video album R.E.M. Live from Austin, TX—a concert recorded for Austin City Limits in 2008. The group recorded its fifteenth album, Collapse into Now (2011), with Jacknife Lee in locales including Berlin, Nashville, and New Orleans. For the album, the band aimed for a more expansive sound than the intentionally short and speedy approach implemented on Accelerate. The album debuted at number five on the Billboard 200, becoming the group's tenth album to reach the top ten of the chart. This release fulfilled R.E.M.'s contractual obligations to Warner Bros., and the band began recording material without a contract a few months later with the possible intention of self-releasing the work.
On September 21, 2011, R.E.M. announced via its website that it was "calling it a day as a band". Stipe said that he hoped fans realized it "wasn't an easy decision": "All things must end, and we wanted to do it right, to do it our way." Long-time associate and former Warner Bros. Senior Vice President of Emerging Technology Ethan Kaplan has speculated that shake-ups at the record label influenced the group's decision to disband. The group discussed breaking up for several years, but was encouraged to continue after the lackluster critical and commercial performance of Around the Sun; according to Mills, "We needed to prove, not only to our fans and critics but to ourselves, that we could still make great records." They were also uninterested in the business end of recording as R.E.M. The band members finished their collaboration by assembling the compilation album Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982–2011, which was released in November 2011. The album is the first to collect songs from R.E.M.'s I.R.S. and Warner Bros. tenures, as well as three songs from the group's final studio recordings from post-Collapse into Now sessions. In November, Mills and Stipe did a brief span of promotional appearances in British media, ruling out the option of the group ever reuniting.
2011–present: Post-breakup releases and events
In 2014, Unplugged: The Complete 1991 and 2001 Sessions was released for Record Store Day. Digital download collections of I.R.S. and Warner Bros. rarities followed. Later in the year, the band compiled the video album box set REMTV, which collected their two Unplugged performances along with several other documentaries and live shows, while their record label released the box set 7IN—83–88, made up of 7-inch vinyl singles. In December 2015, the band members agreed to a distribution deal with Concord Bicycle Music to re-release their Warner Bros. albums. Continuing to maintain their copyright and intellectual property legacies, in March 2016, the band signed a new music publishing administration deal with Universal Music Publishing Group, and a year later, the band members left Broadcast Music, Inc., who had represented their performance rights for their entire career, and joined SESAC. The first release after their new publishing status was the 2018 box set R.E.M. at the BBC. Live at the Borderline 1991 followed for 2019's Record Store Day.
On March 24, 2020, session and touring drummer Bill Rieflin, who contributed on the band's last three records, died of cancer after years of battling the disease.
In September 2021, a full decade after disbanding, Stipe reiterated that the band had no intention of regrouping: "We decided when we split up that that would just be really tacky and probably money-grabbing, which might be the impetus for a lot of bands to get back together."
Musical style
R.E.M. has been described as alternative rock, college rock, folk rock, jangle pop, and post-punk. In a 1988 interview, Peter Buck described R.E.M. songs as typically, "Minor key, mid-tempo, enigmatic, semi-folk-rock-balladish things. That's what everyone thinks and to a certain degree, that's true." All songwriting is credited to the entire band, even though individual members are sometimes responsible for writing the majority of a particular song. Each member is given an equal vote in the songwriting process; however, Buck has conceded that Stipe, as the band's lyricist, can rarely be persuaded to follow an idea he does not favor. Among the original line-up, there were divisions of labor in the songwriting process: Stipe would write lyrics and devise melodies, Buck would edge the band in new musical directions, and Mills and Berry would fine-tune the compositions due to their greater musical experience.
Michael Stipe sings in what R.E.M. biographer David Buckley described as "wailing, keening, arching vocal figures". Stipe often harmonizes with Mills in songs; in the chorus for "Stand", Mills and Stipe alternate singing lyrics, creating a dialogue. Early articles about the band focused on Stipe's singing style (described as "mumbling" by The Washington Post), which often rendered his lyrics indecipherable. Creem writer John Morthland wrote in his review of Murmur, "I still have no idea what these songs are about, because neither me nor anyone else I know has ever been able to discern R.E.M.'s lyrics." Stipe commented in 1984, "It's just the way I sing. If I tried to control it, it would be pretty false." Producer Joe Boyd convinced Stipe to begin singing more clearly during the recording of Fables of the Reconstruction.
Stipe later called chorus lyrics of "Sitting Still" from R.E.M. debut album, Murmur, "nonsense", saying in a 1994 online chat, "You all know there aren't words, per se, to a lot of the early stuff. I can't even remember them." In truth, Stipe carefully crafted the lyrics to many early R.E.M. songs. Stipe explained in 1984 that when he started writing lyrics they were like "simple pictures", but after a year he grew tired of the approach and "started experimenting with lyrics that didn't make exact linear sense, and it's just gone from there." In the mid-1980s, as Stipe's pronunciation while singing became clearer, the band decided that its lyrics should convey ideas on a more literal level. Mills explained, "After you've made three records and you've written several songs and they've gotten better and better lyrically the next step would be to have somebody question you and say, are you saying anything? And Michael had the confidence at that point to say yes . . ." Songs like "Cuyahoga" and "Fall on Me" on Lifes Rich Pageant dealt with such concerns as pollution. Stipe incorporated more politically oriented concerns into his lyrics on Document and Green. "Our political activism and the content of the songs was just a reaction to where we were, and what we were surrounded by, which was just abject horror," Stipe said later. "In 1987 and '88 there was nothing to do but be active." Stipe has since explored other lyrical topics. Automatic for the People dealt with "mortality and dying. Pretty turgid stuff", according to Stipe, while Monster critiqued love and mass culture. Musically, Stipe stated that bands like T. Rex and Mott the Hoople "really impacted me".
Peter Buck's style of playing guitar has been singled out by many as the most distinctive aspect of R.E.M.'s music. During the 1980s, Buck's "economical, arpeggiated, poetic" style reminded British music journalists of 1960s American folk rock band the Byrds. Buck has stated "[Byrds guitarist] Roger McGuinn was a big influence on me as a guitar player", but said it was Byrds-influenced bands, including Big Star and the Soft Boys, that inspired him more. Comparisons were also made with the guitar playing of Johnny Marr of alternative rock contemporaries the Smiths. While Buck professed being a fan of the group, he admitted he initially criticized the band simply because he was tired of fans asking him if he was influenced by Marr, whose band had in fact made their debut after R.E.M. Buck generally eschews guitar solos; he explained in 2002, "I know that when guitarists rip into this hot solo, people go nuts, but I don't write songs that suit that, and I am not interested in that. I can do it if I have to, but I don't like it." Mike Mills' melodic approach to bass playing is inspired by Paul McCartney of the Beatles and Chris Squire of Yes; Mills has said, "I always played a melodic bass, like a piano bass in some ways . . . I never wanted to play the traditional locked into the kick drum, root note bass work." Mills has more musical training than his bandmates, which he has said "made it easier to turn abstract musical ideas into reality."
Legacy
R.E.M. was pivotal in the creation and development of the alternative rock genre. AllMusic stated, "R.E.M. mark the point when post-punk turned into alternative rock." In the early 1980s, the musical style of R.E.M. stood in contrast to the post-punk and new wave genres that had preceded it. Music journalist Simon Reynolds noted that the post-punk movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s "had taken whole swaths of music off the menu", particularly that of the 1960s, and that "After postpunk's demystification and New Pop's schematics, it felt liberating to listen to music rooted in mystical awe and blissed-out surrender." Reynolds declared R.E.M., a band that recalled the music of the 1960s with its "plangent guitar chimes and folk-styled vocals" and who "wistfully and abstractly conjured visions and new frontiers for America", one of "the two most important alt-rock bands of the day." With the release of Murmur, R.E.M. had the most impact musically and commercially of the developing alternative genre's early groups, leaving in its wake a number of jangle pop followers.
R.E.M.'s early breakthrough success served as an inspiration for other alternative bands. Spin referred to the "R.E.M. model"—career decisions that R.E.M. made that set guidelines for other underground artists to follow in their own careers. Spin's Charles Aaron wrote that by 1985, "They'd shown how far an underground, punk-inspired rock band could go within the industry without whoring out its artistic integrity in any obvious way. They'd figured out how to buy in, not sellout-in other words, they'd achieved the American Bohemian Dream." Steve Wynn of Dream Syndicate said, "They invented a whole new ballgame for all of the other bands to follow whether it was Sonic Youth or the Replacements or Nirvana or Butthole Surfers. R.E.M. staked the claim. Musically, the bands did different things, but R.E.M. was first to show us you can be big and still be cool." Biographer David Buckley stated that between 1991 and 1994, a period that saw the band sell an estimated 30 million albums, R.E.M. "asserted themselves as rivals to U2 for the title of biggest rock band in the world." Over the course of its career, the band has sold over 85 million records worldwide. Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums stated that "Their catalogue is destined to endure as critics reluctantly accept their considerable importance in the history of rock".
Alternative bands such as Nirvana, Pavement, Radiohead, Coldplay, Pearl Jam (the band's vocalist Eddie Vedder inducted R.E.M. into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame), Live, Stone Temple Pilots, Collective Soul, Alice in Chains, Hootie and the Blowfish and Pwr Bttm have drawn inspiration from R.E.M.'s music. "When I was 15 years old in Richmond, Virginia, they were a very important part of my life," Pavement's Bob Nastanovich said, "as they were for all the members of our band." Pavement's contribution to the No Alternative compilation (1993) was "Unseen Power of the Picket Fence", a song about R.E.M.'s early days. Local H, according to the band's Twitter account, created their name by combining two R.E.M. songs: "Oddfellows Local 151" and "Swan Swan H". Kurt Cobain of Nirvana was a fan of R.E.M., and had unfulfilled plans to collaborate on a musical project with Stipe. Cobain told Rolling Stone in an interview earlier that year, "I don’t know how that band does what they do. God, they’re the greatest. They've dealt with their success like saints, and they keep delivering great music."
During his show at the 40 Watt Club in October 2018, Johnny Marr said: "As a British musician coming out of the indie scene in the early '80s, which I definitely am and am proud to have been, I can't miss this opportunity to acknowledge and pay my respects and honor the guys who put this town on the map for us in England. I'm talking about my comrades in guitar music, R.E.M. The Smiths really respected R.E.M. We had to keep an eye on what those guys were up to. It's an interesting thing for me, as a British musician, and all those guys as British musicians, to come to this place and play for you guys, knowing that it's the roots of Mike Mills and Bill Berry and Michael Stipe and my good friend Peter Buck."
Awards
Campaigning and activism
Throughout R.E.M.'s career, its members sought to highlight social and political issues. According to the Los Angeles Times, R.E.M. was considered to be one of the United States' "most liberal and politically correct rock groups." The band's members were "on the same page" politically, sharing a liberal and progressive outlook. Mills admitted that there was occasionally dissension between band members on what causes they might support, but acknowledged "Out of respect for the people who disagree, those discussions tend to stay in-house, just because we'd rather not let people know where the divisions lie, so people can't exploit them for their own purposes." An example is that in 1990 Buck noted that Stipe was involved with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but the rest of the band were not.
R.E.M. helped raise funds for environmental, feminist and human rights causes, and were involved in campaigns to encourage voter registration. During the Green tour, Stipe spoke on stage to the audiences about a variety of socio-political issues. Through the late 1980s and 1990s, the band (particularly Stipe) increasingly used its media coverage on national television to mention a variety of causes it felt were important. One example is during the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards, Stipe wore a half-dozen white shirts emblazoned with slogans including "rainforest", "love knows no colors", and "handgun control now".
R.E.M. helped raise awareness of Aung San Suu Kyi and human rights violations in Myanmar, when they worked with the Freedom Campaign and the US Campaign for Burma. Stipe himself ran ads for the 1988 election, supporting Democratic presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis over then-Vice President George H. W. Bush. In 2004, the band participated in the Vote for Change tour that sought to mobilize American voters to support Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. R.E.M.'s political stance, particularly coming from a wealthy rock band under contract to a label owned by a multinational corporation, received criticism from former Q editor Paul Du Noyer, who criticized the band's "celebrity liberalism", saying, "It's an entirely pain-free form of rebellion that they're adopting. There's no risk involved in it whatsoever, but quite a bit of shoring up of customer loyalty."
From the late 1980s, R.E.M. was involved in the local politics of its hometown of Athens, Georgia. Buck explained to Sounds in 1987, "Michael always says think local and act local—we have been doing a lot of stuff in our town to try and make it a better place." The band often donated funds to local charities and helped renovate and preserve historic buildings in the town. R.E.M.'s political clout was credited with the narrow election of Athens mayor Gwen O'Looney twice in the 1990s. The band is a member of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism.
Members
Main members
Bill Berry – drums, percussion, backing vocals, occasional bass guitar and keyboards (1980–1997; occasional concert appearances with the band 2003–2007)
Peter Buck – lead guitar, mandolin, banjo, occasional bass guitar and keyboards (1980–2011)
Mike Mills – bass guitar, keyboards, backing vocals and guitar (1980–2011)
Michael Stipe – lead vocals (1980–2011)
Non-musical members
Several publications made by the band such as album liner notes and fan club mailers list attorney Bertis Downs and manager Jefferson Holt as honorary non-musical members; the two joined up with R.E.M. in 1980/1981 and Holt left in 1996.
Touring and session musicians
Buren Fowler – rhythm guitar (1986–1987)
Peter Holsapple – rhythm guitar, keyboards (1989–1991)
Scott McCaughey – rhythm guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, occasional lead guitar (1994–2011)
Nathan December – rhythm and lead guitar (1994–1995)
Joey Waronker – drums, percussion (1998–2002)
Barrett Martin – percussion (1998)
Ken Stringfellow – keyboards, occasional rhythm guitar, bass guitar, backing vocals (1998–2005)
Bill Rieflin – drums, percussion, occasional keyboards and guitar (2003–2011)
Timeline
Production timeline
Touring and session members timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Murmur (1983)
Reckoning (1984)
Fables of the Reconstruction (1985)
Lifes Rich Pageant (1986)
Document (1987)
Green (1988)
Out of Time (1991)
Automatic for the People (1992)
Monster (1994)
New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996)
Up (1998)
Reveal (2001)
Around the Sun (2004)
Accelerate (2008)
Collapse into Now (2011)
See also
List of alternative rock artists
References
Sources
Black, Johnny. Reveal: The Story of R.E.M. Backbeat, 2004.
Buckley, David. R.E.M.: Fiction: An Alternative Biography. Virgin, 2002.
Gray, Marcus. It Crawled from the South: An R.E.M. Companion. Da Capo, 1997. Second edition.
Fletcher, Tony. Remarks Remade: The Story of R.E.M. Omnibus, 2002. .
Platt, John (editor). The R.E.M. Companion: Two Decades of Commentary. Schirmer, 1998.
Sullivan, Denise. Talk About the Passion: R.E.M.: An Oral Biography. Underwood-Miller, 1994.
External links
Dynamic Range DB entry for R.E.M.
1980 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
2011 disestablishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
Alternative rock groups from Georgia (U.S. state)
Brit Award winners
Capitol Records artists
Concord Bicycle Music artists
Grammy Award winners
I.R.S. Records artists
Jangle pop groups
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups disestablished in 2011
Musical groups from Athens, Georgia
New West Records artists
Rhino Records artists
Warner Records artists
Craft Recordings artists
College rock musical groups | false | [
"The Guess Who are a Canadian rock band, originating as Chad Allan and the Reflections in 1962, and adopting the name The Guess Who in 1965. They were most successful from 1968 to 1975, under the leadership of singer/keyboardist Burton Cummings. During that period they released eleven studio albums, all of which reached the charts in Canada and the United States; their 1970 album American Woman reached no. 1 in Canada and no. 9 in the United States, and five other albums reached the top ten in Canada. They also achieved five number one singles in Canada and two in the United States.\n\nThe band experienced many lineup changes. During the 1968-1975 classic era, Cummings and drummer Garry Peterson were the only consistent members; they were joined by five guitarists and two bassists during those years. Cummings ended the band in 1975 and embarked on a solo career. In the following decades, Cummings and original guitarist Randy Bachman led several one-time reunion shows or short commemorative tours with various former members.\n\nSimultaneously, original bassist Jim Kale led semi-continuous lineups on nostalgia tours with a frequently changing cast of lesser-known sidemen. On some occasions Kale departed temporarily and various entities named The Guess Who performed with no original members. Peterson appeared in both sequences of reunion tours. Kale retired in 2016, and Peterson (the final remaining original member) continues to lead a lineup of The Guess Who to the present day.\n\nThis list article does not include musicians who filled in temporarily for official members.\n\nTimelines\n\nEarly and classic era timeline\n\nTimeline of reunions and nostalgia tours\n\nLineups\n\nPre-Guess Who\n\nThe Guess Who (classic era)\n\nBachman/Cummings-led reunions\n\nKale-led and other reunions\n\nReferences\n\nThe Guess Who members",
"The 2013 Big East Conference men's soccer season is the inaugural season for the newly formed offshoot of the original Big East Conference. The \"new\" Big East consists of the seven members of the original Big East that did not sponsor Division I FBS football (the so-called \"Catholic 7\"), plus invited founding members Butler, Creighton, and Xavier. The FBS schools sold the \"Big East\" name to the \"Catholic 7\" and are operating as the American Athletic Conference under the original Big East charter. Including the history of the original Big East, this will be the 18th season of men's soccer under the \"Big East\" name.\n\nThe defending champions are the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, who moved to the Atlantic Coast Conference.\n\nChanges from 2012 \n\n Butler, Creighton and Xavier were invited by the \"Catholic 7\" to become founding members of the new Big East. \n The FBS schools from the original Big East, along with several new members, are operating as the American Athletic Conference.\n\nSeason outlook\n\nTeams\n\nStadia and locations\n\nStandings\n\nTournament\n\nResults\n\nStatistics\n\nReferences \n\n \n2013 NCAA Division I men's soccer season"
] |
[
"R.E.M.",
"1980-1981: Formation",
"Whose idea was it to form R.E.M.?",
"The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that \"there was never any grand plan behind any of it\".",
"Who were the original members?",
"Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Mike Mills and Bill Berry,"
] | C_c87fee161031431bbd689ad1d2a8d4e8_1 | Did they add anyone else? | 3 | Did the band R.E.M. add anyone else other than Mike Mills and Bill Berry? | R.E.M. | In January 1980, Michael Stipe met Peter Buck in Wuxtry Records, the Athens record store where Buck worked. The pair discovered that they shared similar tastes in music, particularly in punk rock and protopunk artists like Patti Smith, Television, and the Velvet Underground. Stipe said, "It turns out that I was buying all the records that [Buck] was saving for himself." Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Mike Mills and Bill Berry, who had played music together since high school and lived together in Georgia. The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that "there was never any grand plan behind any of it". Their still-unnamed band spent a few months rehearsing and played its first show on April 5, 1980, at a friend's birthday party held in a converted Episcopal church in Athens. After considering names like "Twisted Kites", "Cans of Piss", and "Negro Wives", the band settled on "R.E.M." (which is an acronym for rapid eye movement, the dream stage of sleep), which Stipe selected at random from a dictionary. The band members eventually dropped out of school to focus on their developing group. They found a manager in Jefferson Holt, a record store clerk who was so impressed by an R.E.M. performance in his hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that he moved to Athens. R.E.M.'s success was almost immediate in Athens and surrounding areas; the band drew progressively larger crowds for shows, which caused some resentment in the Athens music scene. Over the next year and a half, R.E.M. toured throughout the Southern United States. Touring was arduous because a touring circuit for alternative rock bands did not then exist. The group toured in an old blue van driven by Holt, and lived on a food allowance of $2 each per day. During the summer of 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, "Radio Free Europe", at producer Mitch Easter's Drive-In Studios in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The single was released on the local independent record label Hib-Tone with an initial pressing of one thousand copies, which quickly sold out. Despite its limited pressing, the single garnered critical acclaim, and was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times. CANNOTANSWER | They found a manager in Jefferson Holt, | R.E.M. was an American rock band from Athens, Georgia, formed in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, who were students at the University of Georgia. Liner notes from some of the band's albums list attorney Bertis Downs and manager Jefferson Holt as non-musical members. One of the first alternative rock bands, R.E.M. was noted for Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style; Stipe's distinctive vocal quality, unique stage presence, and obscure lyrics; Mills's melodic bass lines and backing vocals; and Berry's tight, economical drumming style. In the early 1990s, other alternative rock acts such as Nirvana and Pavement viewed R.E.M. as a pioneer of the genre. After Berry left the band in 1997, the band continued its career in the 2000s with mixed critical and commercial success. The band broke up amicably in 2011 with members devoting time to solo projects after having sold more than 85 million albums worldwide and becoming one of the world's best-selling music acts.
R.E.M. released its first single, "Radio Free Europe", in 1981 on the independent record label Hib-Tone. It was followed by the Chronic Town EP in 1982, the band's first release on I.R.S. Records. In 1983, the group released its critically acclaimed debut album, Murmur, and built its reputation over the next few years with similarly acclaimed releases every year from 1984 to 1988: Reckoning, Fables of the Reconstruction, Lifes Rich Pageant, Document and Green, including an intermittent b-side compilation Dead Letter Office. Don Dixon and Mitch Easter produced their first two albums, Joe Boyd handled production on Fables of the Reconstruction and Don Gehman produced Lifes Rich Pageant. Thereafter, R.E.M. settled on Scott Litt as producer for the next 10years during the band's most successful period of their career. They also started co-producing their material and playing other instruments in the studio apart from the main ones they play. With constant touring, and the support of college radio following years of underground success, R.E.M. achieved a mainstream hit with the 1987 single "The One I Love". The group signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1988, and began to espouse political and environmental concerns while playing large arenas worldwide.
R.E.M.'s most commercially successful albums, Out of Time (1991) and Automatic for the People (1992), put them in the vanguard of alternative rock just as it was becoming mainstream. Out of Time received seven nominations at the 34th Annual Grammy Awards, and lead single "Losing My Religion", was R.E.M.'s highest-charting and best-selling hit. Monster (1994) continued its run of success. The band began its first tour in six years to support the album; the tour was marred by medical emergencies suffered by three of the band members. In 1996, R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. for a reported US$80 million, at the time the most expensive recording contract ever. The tour was productive and the band recorded the following album mostly during soundchecks. The resulting record, New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996), is hailed as the band's last great album and the members' favorite, growing in cult status over the years. Berry left the band the following year, and Stipe, Buck, and Mills continued as a musical trio, supplemented by studio and live musicians, such as multi-instrumentalists Scott McCaughey and Ken Stringfellow and drummers Joey Waronker and Bill Rieflin. They also parted ways with their longtime manager Jefferson Holt and band's attorney Bertis Downs assumed managerial duties. Seeking to also renovate their sound, the band stopped working with Scott Litt, co-producer and contributor to six of their studio albums and hired Pat McCarthy as co-producer, who had participated before that as mixer and engineer on their last two albums.
After the electronic experimental direction of Up (1998) that was commercially unsuccessful, Reveal (2001) was referred to as "a conscious return to their classic sound" which received general acclaim. In 2007, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in its first year of eligibility and Berry reunited with the band for the ceremony and to record a cover of John Lennon's "#9 Dream" for the compilation album Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur to benefit Amnesty International's campaign to alleviate the Darfur conflict. Looking for a change of sound after lukewarm reception for Around the Sun (2004), the band collaborated with co-producer Jacknife Lee on their last two studio albums—the well-received Accelerate (2008) and Collapse into Now (2011)—as well as their first live albums after decades of touring. R.E.M. disbanded amicably in September 2011, with former members having continued with various musical projects, and several live and archival albums have since been released.
History
1980–1982: Formation and first releases
In January 1980, Peter Buck met Michael Stipe in Wuxtry Records, the Athens record store where Buck worked. The pair discovered that they shared similar tastes in music, particularly in punk rock and proto-punk artists like Patti Smith, Television, and the Velvet Underground. Stipe said, "It turns out that I was buying all the records that [Buck] was saving for himself." Through mutual friend Kathleen O'Brien, Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Bill Berry and Mike Mills, who had played music together since high school and lived together in Georgia. The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that "there was never any grand plan behind any of it". Their still-unnamed band spent a few months rehearsing in a deconsecrated Episcopal church in Athens, and played its first show on April 5, 1980, supporting the Side Effects at O'Brien's birthday party held in the same church, performing a mix of originals and 1960s and 1970s covers. After considering names such as Cans of Piss, Negro Eyes, and Twisted Kites, the band settled on "R.E.M.", which Stipe selected at random from a dictionary. R.E.M. is well known as an initialism for rapid eye movement, the dream stage of sleep; however, sleep researcher Dr. Rafael Pelayo reports that when his colleague Dr. William Dement, the sleep scientist who coined the term REM, reached out to the band, Dr. Dement was told that the band was named "not after REM sleep".
The band members eventually dropped out of school to focus on their developing group. They found a manager in Jefferson Holt, a record store clerk who was so impressed by an R.E.M. performance in his hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that he moved to Athens. R.E.M.'s success was almost immediate in Athens and surrounding areas; the band drew progressively larger crowds for shows, which caused some resentment in the Athens music scene. Over the next year and a half, R.E.M. toured throughout the Southern United States. Touring was arduous because a touring circuit for alternative rock bands did not then exist. The group toured in an old blue van driven by Holt, and lived on a food allowance of $2 each per day.
During April 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, "Radio Free Europe", at producer Mitch Easter's Drive-In Studios in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Initially distributing it as a four-track demo tape to clubs, record labels and magazines, the single was released in July 1981 on the local independent record label Hib-Tone with an initial pressing of 1,000 copies—600 of which were sent out as promotional copies. The single quickly sold out, and another 6,000 copies were pressed due to popular demand, despite the original pressing leaving off the record label's contact details. Despite its limited pressing, the single garnered critical acclaim, and was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times.
R.E.M. recorded the Chronic Town EP with Mitch Easter in October 1981, and planned to release it on a new indie label named Dasht Hopes. However, I.R.S. Records acquired a demo of the band's first recording session with Easter that had been circulating for months. The band turned down the advances of major label RCA Records in favor of I.R.S., with whom it signed a contract in May 1982. I.R.S. released Chronic Town that August as its first American release. A positive review of the EP by NME praised the songs' auras of mystery, and concluded, "R.E.M. ring true, and it's great to hear something as unforced and cunning as this."
1982–1988: I.R.S. Records and cult success
I.R.S. first paired R.E.M. with producer Stephen Hague to record its debut album. Hague's emphasis on technical perfection left the band unsatisfied, and the band members asked the label to let them record with Easter. I.R.S. agreed to a "tryout" session, allowing the band to return to North Carolina and record the song "Pilgrimage" with Easter and producing partner Don Dixon. After hearing the track, I.R.S. permitted the group to record the album with Dixon and Easter. Because of its bad experience with Hague, the band recorded the album via a process of negation, refusing to incorporate rock music clichés such as guitar solos or then-popular synthesizers, in order to give its music a timeless feel. The completed album, Murmur, was greeted with critical acclaim upon its release in 1983, with Rolling Stone listing the album as its record of the year. The album reached number 36 on the Billboard album chart. A re-recorded version of "Radio Free Europe" was the album's lead single and reached number 78 on the Billboard singles chart in 1983. Despite the acclaim awarded the album, Murmur sold only about 200,000 copies, which I.R.S.'s Jay Boberg felt was below expectations.
R.E.M. made its first national television appearance on Late Night with David Letterman in October 1983, during which the group performed a new, unnamed song. The piece, eventually titled "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)", became the first single from the band's second album, Reckoning (1984), which was also recorded with Easter and Dixon. The album met with critical acclaim; NMEs Mat Snow wrote that Reckoning "confirms R.E.M. as one of the most beautifully exciting groups on the planet". While Reckoning peaked at number 27 on the US album charts—an unusually high chart placing for a college rock band at the time—scant airplay and poor distribution overseas resulted in it charting no higher than number 91 in Britain.
The band's third album, Fables of the Reconstruction (1985), demonstrated a change in direction. Instead of Dixon and Easter, R.E.M. chose producer Joe Boyd, who had worked with Fairport Convention and Nick Drake, to record the album in England. The band members found the sessions unexpectedly difficult, and were miserable due to the cold winter weather and what they considered to be poor food; the situation brought the band to the verge of break-up. The gloominess surrounding the sessions worked its way into the context for the album's themes. Lyrically, Stipe began to create storylines in the mode of Southern mythology, noting in a 1985 interview that he was inspired by "the whole idea of the old men sitting around the fire, passing on ... legends and fables to the grandchildren".
They toured Canada in July and August 1985, and Europe in October of that year, including the Netherlands, England (including one concert at London's Hammersmith Palais), Ireland, Scotland, France, Switzerland, Belgium and West Germany. On October 2, 1985, the group played a concert in Bochum, West Germany, for the German TV show Rockpalast. Stipe had bleached his hair blond during this time. R.E.M. invited California punk band Minutemen to open for them on part of the US tour, and organized a benefit for the family of Minutemen frontman D. Boon who died in a December 1985 car crash shortly after the tour's conclusion. Fables of the Reconstruction performed poorly in Europe and its critical reception was mixed, with some critics regarding it as dreary and poorly recorded. As with the previous records, the singles from Fables of the Reconstruction were mostly ignored by mainstream radio. Meanwhile, I.R.S. was becoming frustrated with the band's reluctance to achieve mainstream success.
For its fourth album, R.E.M. enlisted John Mellencamp's producer Don Gehman. The result, Lifes Rich Pageant (1986), featured Stipe's vocals closer to the forefront of the music. In a 1986 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Peter Buck related, "Michael is getting better at what he's doing, and he's getting more confident at it. And I think that shows up in the projection of his voice." The album improved markedly upon the sales of Fables of the Reconstruction and reached number 21 on the Billboard album chart. The single "Fall on Me" also picked up support on commercial radio. The album was the band's first to be certified gold for selling 500,000 copies. While American college radio remained R.E.M.'s core support, the band was beginning to chart hits on mainstream rock formats; however, the music still encountered resistance from Top 40 radio.
Following the success of Lifes Rich Pageant, I.R.S. issued Dead Letter Office, a compilation of tracks recorded by the band during their album sessions, many of which had either been issued as B-sides or left unreleased altogether. Shortly thereafter, I.R.S. compiled R.E.M.'s music video catalog (except "Wolves, Lower") as the band's first video release, Succumbs.
Don Gehman was unable to produce R.E.M.'s fifth album, so he suggested the group work with Scott Litt. Litt would be the producer for the band's next five albums. Document (1987) featured some of Stipe's most openly political lyrics, particularly on "Welcome to the Occupation" and "Exhuming McCarthy", which were reactions to the conservative political environment of the 1980s under American president Ronald Reagan. Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote in his review of the album, "Document is both confident and defiant; if R.E.M. is about to move from cult-band status to mass popularity, the album decrees that the band will get there on its own terms." Document was R.E.M.'s breakthrough album, and the first single "The One I Love" charted in the Top 20 in the US, UK, and Canada. By January 1988, Document had become the group's first album to sell a million copies. In light of the band's breakthrough, the December 1987 cover of Rolling Stone declared R.E.M. "America's Best Rock & Roll Band".
1988–1997: International breakout and alternative rock stardom
Frustrated that its records did not see satisfactory overseas distribution, R.E.M. left I.R.S. when its contract expired and signed with the major label Warner Bros. Records. Though other labels offered more money, R.E.M. ultimately signed with Warner Bros.—reportedly for an amount between $6 million and $12 million—due to the company's assurance of total creative freedom. (Jay Boberg claimed that R.E.M.'s deal with Warner Bros. was for $22 million, which Peter Buck disputed as "definitely wrong".) In the aftermath of the group's departure, I.R.S. released the 1988 "best of" compilation Eponymous (assembled with input from the band members) to capitalize on assets the company still possessed. The band's 1988 Warner Bros. debut, Green, was recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, and showcased the group experimenting with its sound. The record's tracks ranged from the upbeat first single "Stand" (a hit in the United States), to more political material, like the rock-oriented "Orange Crush" and "World Leader Pretend", which address the Vietnam War and the Cold War, respectively. Green has gone on to sell four million copies worldwide. The band supported the album with its biggest and most visually developed tour to date, featuring back-projections and art films playing on the stage. After the Green tour, the band members unofficially decided to take the following year off, the first extended break in the band's career. In 1990 Warner Bros. issued the music video compilation Pop Screen to collect clips from the Document and Green albums, followed a few months later by the video album Tourfilm featuring live performances filmed during the Green World Tour.
R.E.M. reconvened in mid-1990 to record its seventh album, Out of Time. In a departure from Green, the band members often wrote the music with non-traditional rock instrumentation including mandolin, organ, and acoustic guitar instead of adding them as overdubs later in the creative process. Released in March 1991, Out of Time was the band's first album to top both the US and UK charts. The record eventually sold 4.2 million copies in the US alone, and about 12 million copies worldwide by 1996. The album's lead single "Losing My Religion" was a worldwide hit that received heavy rotation on radio, as did the music video on MTV and VH1. "Losing My Religion" was R.E.M.'s highest-charting single in the US, reaching number four on the Billboard charts. "There've been very few life-changing events in our career because our career has been so gradual," Mills said years later. "If you want to talk about life changing, I think 'Losing My Religion' is the closest it gets". The album's second single, "Shiny Happy People" (one of three songs on the record to feature vocals from Kate Pierson of fellow Athens band the B-52's), was also a major hit, reaching number 10 in the US and number six in the UK. Out of Time garnered R.E.M. seven nominations at the 1992 Grammy Awards, the most nominations of any artist that year. The band won three awards: one for Best Alternative Music Album and two for "Losing My Religion", Best Short Form Music Video and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. R.E.M. did not tour to promote Out of Time; instead the group played a series of one-off shows, including an appearance taped for an episode of MTV Unplugged and released music videos for each song on the video album This Film Is On. The band also performed "Losing My Religion" with members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in Madison, Georgia, at Madison-Morgan Cultural Center as part of MTV's 10th anniversary special.
After spending some months off, R.E.M. returned to the studio in 1991 to record its next album. Late in 1992, the band released Automatic for the People. Though the group had intended to make a harder-rocking album after the softer textures of Out of Time, the somber Automatic for the People "[seemed] to move at an even more agonized crawl", according to Melody Maker. The album dealt with themes of loss and mourning inspired by "that sense of ... turning thirty", according to Buck. Several songs featured string arrangements by former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. Considered by a number of critics (as well as by Buck and Mills) to be the band's best album, Automatic for the People reached numbers one and two on UK and US charts, respectively, and generated the American Top 40 hit singles "Drive", "Man on the Moon", and "Everybody Hurts". The album would sell over fifteen million copies worldwide. As with Out of Time, there was no tour in support of the album. The decision to forgo a tour, in conjunction with Stipe's physical appearance, generated rumors that the singer was dying or HIV-positive, which were vehemently denied by the band.
After the band released two slow-paced albums in a row, R.E.M.'s 1994 album Monster was, as Buck said, "a 'rock' record, with the rock in quotation marks." In contrast to the sound of its predecessors, the music of Monster consisted of distorted guitar tones, minimal overdubs, and touches of 1970s glam rock. Like Out of Time, Monster topped the charts in both the US and UK. The record sold about nine million copies worldwide. The singles "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and "Bang and Blame" were the band's last American Top 40 hits, although all the singles from Monster reached the Top 30 on the British charts. Warner Bros. assembled the music videos from the album as well as those from Automatic for the People for release as Parallel in 1995.
In January 1995, R.E.M. set out on its first tour in six years. The tour was a huge commercial success, but the period was difficult for the group. On March 1, Berry collapsed on stage during a performance in Lausanne, Switzerland, having suffered a brain aneurysm. He had surgery immediately and recovered fully within a month. Berry's aneurysm was only the beginning of a series of health problems that plagued the Monster tour. Mills had to undergo abdominal surgery to remove an intestinal adhesion in July; a month later, Stipe had to have an emergency surgery to repair a hernia. Despite all the problems, the group had recorded the bulk of a new album while on the road. The band brought along eight-track recorders to capture its shows, and used the recordings as the base elements for the album. The final three performances of the tour were filmed at the Omni Coliseum in Atlanta, Georgia and released in home video form as Road Movie.
R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. Records in 1996 for a reported $80 million (a figure the band constantly asserted originated with the media), rumored to be the largest recording contract in history at that point. The group's 1996 album New Adventures in Hi-Fi debuted at number two in the US and number one in the UK. The five million copies of the album sold were a reversal of the group's commercial fortunes of the previous five years. Critical reaction to the album was mostly favorable. In a 2017 retrospective on the band, Consequence of Sound ranked it third out of R.E.M.'s 15 full-length studio albums. The album is Stipe's favorite from R.E.M. and he considers it the band at their peak. Mills says "It usually takes a good few years for me to decide where an album stands in the pantheon of recorded work we've done. This one may be third behind Murmur and Automatic for the People. According to DiscoverMusic: "Arguably less immediate and less accessible[...]New Adventures in Hi-Fi is a sprawling, "White Album"-esque affair clocking in at 65 minutes. However, while it required some time and commitment from the listener, the record's contents were rich, compelling and frequently stunning. Accordingly, the album has continued to lobby for recognition and has long since earned its reputation as R.E.M.'s most unsung LP." While sales were impressive they were below their previous major label records. Time's writer Christopher John Farley argued that the lesser sales of the album were due to the declining commercial power of alternative rock as a whole. That same year, R.E.M. parted ways with manager Jefferson Holt, allegedly due to sexual harassment charges levied against him by a member of the band's home office in Athens. The group's lawyer Bertis Downs assumed managerial duties.
1997–2006: Continuing as three-piece with mixed success
In April 1997, the band convened at Buck's Kauai vacation home to record demos of material intended for the next album. The band sought to reinvent its sound and intended to incorporate drum loops and percussion experiments. Just as the sessions were due to begin in October, Berry decided, after months of contemplation and discussions with Downs and Mills, to tell the rest of the band that he was quitting. Berry told his bandmates that he would not quit if they would break up as a result, so Stipe, Buck, and Mills agreed to carry on as a three-piece with his blessing. Berry publicly announced his departure three weeks later in October 1997. Berry told the press, "I'm just not as enthusiastic as I have been in the past about doing this anymore . . . I have the best job in the world. But I'm kind of ready to sit back and reflect and maybe not be a pop star anymore." Stipe admitted that the band would be different without a major contributor: "For me, Mike, and Peter, as R.E.M., are we still R.E.M.? I guess a three-legged dog is still a dog. It just has to learn to run differently."
The band cancelled its scheduled recording sessions as a result of Berry's departure. "Without Bill it was different, confusing", Mills later said. "We didn't know exactly what to do. We couldn't rehearse without a drummer." The remaining members of R.E.M. resumed work on the album in February 1998 at Toast Studios in San Francisco. The band ended its decade-long collaboration with Scott Litt and hired Pat McCarthy to produce the record. Nigel Godrich was taken on as assistant producer, and drafted in Screaming Trees member Barrett Martin and Beck's touring drummer Joey Waronker. The recording process was tense, and the group came close to disbanding. Bertis Downs called an emergency meeting in which the band members resolved their problems and agreed to continue as a group. Led by the single "Daysleeper", Up (1998) debuted in the top ten in the US and UK. However, the album was a relative failure, selling 900,000 copies in the US by mid-1999 and eventually selling just over two million copies worldwide. While R.E.M.'s American sales were declining, the group's commercial base was shifting to the UK, where more R.E.M. records were sold per capita than any other country and the band's singles regularly entered the Top 20.
A year after Ups release, R.E.M. wrote the instrumental score to the Andy Kaufman biographical film Man on the Moon, a first for the group. The film took its title from the Automatic for the People song of the same name. The song "The Great Beyond" was released as a single from the Man on the Moon soundtrack album. "The Great Beyond" only reached number 57 on the American pop charts, but was the band's highest-charting single ever in the UK, reaching number three in 2000.
R.E.M. recorded the majority of its twelfth album Reveal (2001) in Canada and Ireland from May to October 2000. Reveal shared the "lugubrious pace" of Up, and featured drumming by Joey Waronker, as well as contributions by Scott McCaughey (a co-founder of the band the Minus 5 with Buck), and Ken Stringfellow (founder of the Posies). Global sales of the album were over four million, but in the United States Reveal sold about the same number of copies as Up. The album was led by the single "Imitation of Life", which reached number six in the UK. Writing for Rock's Backpages, The Rev. Al Friston described the album as "loaded with golden loveliness at every twist and turn", in comparison to the group's "essentially unconvincing work on New Adventures in Hi-Fi and Up". Similarly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone called Reveal "a spiritual renewal rooted in a musical one" and praised its "ceaselessly astonishing beauty".
In 2003, Warner Bros. released the compilation album and DVD In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003 and In View: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003, which featured two new songs, "Bad Day" and "Animal". At a 2003 concert in Raleigh, North Carolina, Berry made a surprise appearance, performing backing vocals on "Radio Free Europe". He then sat behind the drum kit for a performance of the early R.E.M. song "Permanent Vacation", marking his first performance with the band since his retirement.
R.E.M. released Around the Sun in 2004. During production of the album in 2002, Stipe said, "[The album] sounds like it's taking off from the last couple of records into unchartered R.E.M. territory. Kind of primitive and howling". After the album's release, Mills said, "I think, honestly, it turned out a little slower than we intended for it to, just in terms of the overall speed of songs." Around the Sun received a mixed critical reception, and peaked at number 13 on the Billboard charts. The first single from the album, "Leaving New York", was a Top 5 hit in the UK. For the record and subsequent tour, the band hired a new full-time touring drummer, Bill Rieflin, who had previously been a member of several industrial music acts such as Ministry and Pigface, and remained in that role for the duration of the band's active years. The video album Perfect Square was released that same year.
2006–2011: Last albums, recognition and breakup
EMI released a compilation album covering R.E.M.'s work during its tenure on I.R.S. in 2006 called And I Feel Fine... The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982–1987 along with the video album When the Light Is Mine: The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982–1987—the label had previously released the compilations The Best of R.E.M. (1991), R.E.M.: Singles Collected (1994), and R.E.M.: In the Attic – Alternative Recordings 1985–1989 (1997). That same month, all four original band members performed during the ceremony for their induction into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. While rehearsing for the ceremony, the band recorded a cover of John Lennon's "#9 Dream" for Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur, a tribute album benefiting Amnesty International. The song—released as a single for the album and the campaign—featured Bill Berry's first studio recording with the band since his departure almost a decade earlier.
In October 2006, R.E.M. was nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its first year of eligibility. The band was one of five nominees accepted into the Hall that year, and the induction ceremony took place in March 2007 at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The group—which was inducted by Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder—performed three songs with Bill Berry; "Gardening at Night", "Man on the Moon" and "Begin the Begin" as well as a cover of "I Wanna Be Your Dog".
Work on the group's fourteenth album commenced in early 2007. The band recorded with producer Jacknife Lee in Vancouver and Dublin, where it played five nights in the Olympia Theatre between June 30 and July 5 as part of a "working rehearsal". R.E.M. Live, the band's first live album (featuring songs from a 2005 Dublin show), was released in October 2007. The group followed this with the 2009 live album Live at The Olympia, which features performances from its 2007 residency. R.E.M. released Accelerate in early 2008. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard charts, and became the band's eighth album to top the British album charts. Rolling Stone reviewer David Fricke considered Accelerate an improvement over the band's previous post-Berry albums, calling it "one of the best records R.E.M. have ever made".
In 2010, R.E.M. released the video album R.E.M. Live from Austin, TX—a concert recorded for Austin City Limits in 2008. The group recorded its fifteenth album, Collapse into Now (2011), with Jacknife Lee in locales including Berlin, Nashville, and New Orleans. For the album, the band aimed for a more expansive sound than the intentionally short and speedy approach implemented on Accelerate. The album debuted at number five on the Billboard 200, becoming the group's tenth album to reach the top ten of the chart. This release fulfilled R.E.M.'s contractual obligations to Warner Bros., and the band began recording material without a contract a few months later with the possible intention of self-releasing the work.
On September 21, 2011, R.E.M. announced via its website that it was "calling it a day as a band". Stipe said that he hoped fans realized it "wasn't an easy decision": "All things must end, and we wanted to do it right, to do it our way." Long-time associate and former Warner Bros. Senior Vice President of Emerging Technology Ethan Kaplan has speculated that shake-ups at the record label influenced the group's decision to disband. The group discussed breaking up for several years, but was encouraged to continue after the lackluster critical and commercial performance of Around the Sun; according to Mills, "We needed to prove, not only to our fans and critics but to ourselves, that we could still make great records." They were also uninterested in the business end of recording as R.E.M. The band members finished their collaboration by assembling the compilation album Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982–2011, which was released in November 2011. The album is the first to collect songs from R.E.M.'s I.R.S. and Warner Bros. tenures, as well as three songs from the group's final studio recordings from post-Collapse into Now sessions. In November, Mills and Stipe did a brief span of promotional appearances in British media, ruling out the option of the group ever reuniting.
2011–present: Post-breakup releases and events
In 2014, Unplugged: The Complete 1991 and 2001 Sessions was released for Record Store Day. Digital download collections of I.R.S. and Warner Bros. rarities followed. Later in the year, the band compiled the video album box set REMTV, which collected their two Unplugged performances along with several other documentaries and live shows, while their record label released the box set 7IN—83–88, made up of 7-inch vinyl singles. In December 2015, the band members agreed to a distribution deal with Concord Bicycle Music to re-release their Warner Bros. albums. Continuing to maintain their copyright and intellectual property legacies, in March 2016, the band signed a new music publishing administration deal with Universal Music Publishing Group, and a year later, the band members left Broadcast Music, Inc., who had represented their performance rights for their entire career, and joined SESAC. The first release after their new publishing status was the 2018 box set R.E.M. at the BBC. Live at the Borderline 1991 followed for 2019's Record Store Day.
On March 24, 2020, session and touring drummer Bill Rieflin, who contributed on the band's last three records, died of cancer after years of battling the disease.
In September 2021, a full decade after disbanding, Stipe reiterated that the band had no intention of regrouping: "We decided when we split up that that would just be really tacky and probably money-grabbing, which might be the impetus for a lot of bands to get back together."
Musical style
R.E.M. has been described as alternative rock, college rock, folk rock, jangle pop, and post-punk. In a 1988 interview, Peter Buck described R.E.M. songs as typically, "Minor key, mid-tempo, enigmatic, semi-folk-rock-balladish things. That's what everyone thinks and to a certain degree, that's true." All songwriting is credited to the entire band, even though individual members are sometimes responsible for writing the majority of a particular song. Each member is given an equal vote in the songwriting process; however, Buck has conceded that Stipe, as the band's lyricist, can rarely be persuaded to follow an idea he does not favor. Among the original line-up, there were divisions of labor in the songwriting process: Stipe would write lyrics and devise melodies, Buck would edge the band in new musical directions, and Mills and Berry would fine-tune the compositions due to their greater musical experience.
Michael Stipe sings in what R.E.M. biographer David Buckley described as "wailing, keening, arching vocal figures". Stipe often harmonizes with Mills in songs; in the chorus for "Stand", Mills and Stipe alternate singing lyrics, creating a dialogue. Early articles about the band focused on Stipe's singing style (described as "mumbling" by The Washington Post), which often rendered his lyrics indecipherable. Creem writer John Morthland wrote in his review of Murmur, "I still have no idea what these songs are about, because neither me nor anyone else I know has ever been able to discern R.E.M.'s lyrics." Stipe commented in 1984, "It's just the way I sing. If I tried to control it, it would be pretty false." Producer Joe Boyd convinced Stipe to begin singing more clearly during the recording of Fables of the Reconstruction.
Stipe later called chorus lyrics of "Sitting Still" from R.E.M. debut album, Murmur, "nonsense", saying in a 1994 online chat, "You all know there aren't words, per se, to a lot of the early stuff. I can't even remember them." In truth, Stipe carefully crafted the lyrics to many early R.E.M. songs. Stipe explained in 1984 that when he started writing lyrics they were like "simple pictures", but after a year he grew tired of the approach and "started experimenting with lyrics that didn't make exact linear sense, and it's just gone from there." In the mid-1980s, as Stipe's pronunciation while singing became clearer, the band decided that its lyrics should convey ideas on a more literal level. Mills explained, "After you've made three records and you've written several songs and they've gotten better and better lyrically the next step would be to have somebody question you and say, are you saying anything? And Michael had the confidence at that point to say yes . . ." Songs like "Cuyahoga" and "Fall on Me" on Lifes Rich Pageant dealt with such concerns as pollution. Stipe incorporated more politically oriented concerns into his lyrics on Document and Green. "Our political activism and the content of the songs was just a reaction to where we were, and what we were surrounded by, which was just abject horror," Stipe said later. "In 1987 and '88 there was nothing to do but be active." Stipe has since explored other lyrical topics. Automatic for the People dealt with "mortality and dying. Pretty turgid stuff", according to Stipe, while Monster critiqued love and mass culture. Musically, Stipe stated that bands like T. Rex and Mott the Hoople "really impacted me".
Peter Buck's style of playing guitar has been singled out by many as the most distinctive aspect of R.E.M.'s music. During the 1980s, Buck's "economical, arpeggiated, poetic" style reminded British music journalists of 1960s American folk rock band the Byrds. Buck has stated "[Byrds guitarist] Roger McGuinn was a big influence on me as a guitar player", but said it was Byrds-influenced bands, including Big Star and the Soft Boys, that inspired him more. Comparisons were also made with the guitar playing of Johnny Marr of alternative rock contemporaries the Smiths. While Buck professed being a fan of the group, he admitted he initially criticized the band simply because he was tired of fans asking him if he was influenced by Marr, whose band had in fact made their debut after R.E.M. Buck generally eschews guitar solos; he explained in 2002, "I know that when guitarists rip into this hot solo, people go nuts, but I don't write songs that suit that, and I am not interested in that. I can do it if I have to, but I don't like it." Mike Mills' melodic approach to bass playing is inspired by Paul McCartney of the Beatles and Chris Squire of Yes; Mills has said, "I always played a melodic bass, like a piano bass in some ways . . . I never wanted to play the traditional locked into the kick drum, root note bass work." Mills has more musical training than his bandmates, which he has said "made it easier to turn abstract musical ideas into reality."
Legacy
R.E.M. was pivotal in the creation and development of the alternative rock genre. AllMusic stated, "R.E.M. mark the point when post-punk turned into alternative rock." In the early 1980s, the musical style of R.E.M. stood in contrast to the post-punk and new wave genres that had preceded it. Music journalist Simon Reynolds noted that the post-punk movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s "had taken whole swaths of music off the menu", particularly that of the 1960s, and that "After postpunk's demystification and New Pop's schematics, it felt liberating to listen to music rooted in mystical awe and blissed-out surrender." Reynolds declared R.E.M., a band that recalled the music of the 1960s with its "plangent guitar chimes and folk-styled vocals" and who "wistfully and abstractly conjured visions and new frontiers for America", one of "the two most important alt-rock bands of the day." With the release of Murmur, R.E.M. had the most impact musically and commercially of the developing alternative genre's early groups, leaving in its wake a number of jangle pop followers.
R.E.M.'s early breakthrough success served as an inspiration for other alternative bands. Spin referred to the "R.E.M. model"—career decisions that R.E.M. made that set guidelines for other underground artists to follow in their own careers. Spin's Charles Aaron wrote that by 1985, "They'd shown how far an underground, punk-inspired rock band could go within the industry without whoring out its artistic integrity in any obvious way. They'd figured out how to buy in, not sellout-in other words, they'd achieved the American Bohemian Dream." Steve Wynn of Dream Syndicate said, "They invented a whole new ballgame for all of the other bands to follow whether it was Sonic Youth or the Replacements or Nirvana or Butthole Surfers. R.E.M. staked the claim. Musically, the bands did different things, but R.E.M. was first to show us you can be big and still be cool." Biographer David Buckley stated that between 1991 and 1994, a period that saw the band sell an estimated 30 million albums, R.E.M. "asserted themselves as rivals to U2 for the title of biggest rock band in the world." Over the course of its career, the band has sold over 85 million records worldwide. Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums stated that "Their catalogue is destined to endure as critics reluctantly accept their considerable importance in the history of rock".
Alternative bands such as Nirvana, Pavement, Radiohead, Coldplay, Pearl Jam (the band's vocalist Eddie Vedder inducted R.E.M. into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame), Live, Stone Temple Pilots, Collective Soul, Alice in Chains, Hootie and the Blowfish and Pwr Bttm have drawn inspiration from R.E.M.'s music. "When I was 15 years old in Richmond, Virginia, they were a very important part of my life," Pavement's Bob Nastanovich said, "as they were for all the members of our band." Pavement's contribution to the No Alternative compilation (1993) was "Unseen Power of the Picket Fence", a song about R.E.M.'s early days. Local H, according to the band's Twitter account, created their name by combining two R.E.M. songs: "Oddfellows Local 151" and "Swan Swan H". Kurt Cobain of Nirvana was a fan of R.E.M., and had unfulfilled plans to collaborate on a musical project with Stipe. Cobain told Rolling Stone in an interview earlier that year, "I don’t know how that band does what they do. God, they’re the greatest. They've dealt with their success like saints, and they keep delivering great music."
During his show at the 40 Watt Club in October 2018, Johnny Marr said: "As a British musician coming out of the indie scene in the early '80s, which I definitely am and am proud to have been, I can't miss this opportunity to acknowledge and pay my respects and honor the guys who put this town on the map for us in England. I'm talking about my comrades in guitar music, R.E.M. The Smiths really respected R.E.M. We had to keep an eye on what those guys were up to. It's an interesting thing for me, as a British musician, and all those guys as British musicians, to come to this place and play for you guys, knowing that it's the roots of Mike Mills and Bill Berry and Michael Stipe and my good friend Peter Buck."
Awards
Campaigning and activism
Throughout R.E.M.'s career, its members sought to highlight social and political issues. According to the Los Angeles Times, R.E.M. was considered to be one of the United States' "most liberal and politically correct rock groups." The band's members were "on the same page" politically, sharing a liberal and progressive outlook. Mills admitted that there was occasionally dissension between band members on what causes they might support, but acknowledged "Out of respect for the people who disagree, those discussions tend to stay in-house, just because we'd rather not let people know where the divisions lie, so people can't exploit them for their own purposes." An example is that in 1990 Buck noted that Stipe was involved with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but the rest of the band were not.
R.E.M. helped raise funds for environmental, feminist and human rights causes, and were involved in campaigns to encourage voter registration. During the Green tour, Stipe spoke on stage to the audiences about a variety of socio-political issues. Through the late 1980s and 1990s, the band (particularly Stipe) increasingly used its media coverage on national television to mention a variety of causes it felt were important. One example is during the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards, Stipe wore a half-dozen white shirts emblazoned with slogans including "rainforest", "love knows no colors", and "handgun control now".
R.E.M. helped raise awareness of Aung San Suu Kyi and human rights violations in Myanmar, when they worked with the Freedom Campaign and the US Campaign for Burma. Stipe himself ran ads for the 1988 election, supporting Democratic presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis over then-Vice President George H. W. Bush. In 2004, the band participated in the Vote for Change tour that sought to mobilize American voters to support Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. R.E.M.'s political stance, particularly coming from a wealthy rock band under contract to a label owned by a multinational corporation, received criticism from former Q editor Paul Du Noyer, who criticized the band's "celebrity liberalism", saying, "It's an entirely pain-free form of rebellion that they're adopting. There's no risk involved in it whatsoever, but quite a bit of shoring up of customer loyalty."
From the late 1980s, R.E.M. was involved in the local politics of its hometown of Athens, Georgia. Buck explained to Sounds in 1987, "Michael always says think local and act local—we have been doing a lot of stuff in our town to try and make it a better place." The band often donated funds to local charities and helped renovate and preserve historic buildings in the town. R.E.M.'s political clout was credited with the narrow election of Athens mayor Gwen O'Looney twice in the 1990s. The band is a member of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism.
Members
Main members
Bill Berry – drums, percussion, backing vocals, occasional bass guitar and keyboards (1980–1997; occasional concert appearances with the band 2003–2007)
Peter Buck – lead guitar, mandolin, banjo, occasional bass guitar and keyboards (1980–2011)
Mike Mills – bass guitar, keyboards, backing vocals and guitar (1980–2011)
Michael Stipe – lead vocals (1980–2011)
Non-musical members
Several publications made by the band such as album liner notes and fan club mailers list attorney Bertis Downs and manager Jefferson Holt as honorary non-musical members; the two joined up with R.E.M. in 1980/1981 and Holt left in 1996.
Touring and session musicians
Buren Fowler – rhythm guitar (1986–1987)
Peter Holsapple – rhythm guitar, keyboards (1989–1991)
Scott McCaughey – rhythm guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, occasional lead guitar (1994–2011)
Nathan December – rhythm and lead guitar (1994–1995)
Joey Waronker – drums, percussion (1998–2002)
Barrett Martin – percussion (1998)
Ken Stringfellow – keyboards, occasional rhythm guitar, bass guitar, backing vocals (1998–2005)
Bill Rieflin – drums, percussion, occasional keyboards and guitar (2003–2011)
Timeline
Production timeline
Touring and session members timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Murmur (1983)
Reckoning (1984)
Fables of the Reconstruction (1985)
Lifes Rich Pageant (1986)
Document (1987)
Green (1988)
Out of Time (1991)
Automatic for the People (1992)
Monster (1994)
New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996)
Up (1998)
Reveal (2001)
Around the Sun (2004)
Accelerate (2008)
Collapse into Now (2011)
See also
List of alternative rock artists
References
Sources
Black, Johnny. Reveal: The Story of R.E.M. Backbeat, 2004.
Buckley, David. R.E.M.: Fiction: An Alternative Biography. Virgin, 2002.
Gray, Marcus. It Crawled from the South: An R.E.M. Companion. Da Capo, 1997. Second edition.
Fletcher, Tony. Remarks Remade: The Story of R.E.M. Omnibus, 2002. .
Platt, John (editor). The R.E.M. Companion: Two Decades of Commentary. Schirmer, 1998.
Sullivan, Denise. Talk About the Passion: R.E.M.: An Oral Biography. Underwood-Miller, 1994.
External links
Dynamic Range DB entry for R.E.M.
1980 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
2011 disestablishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
Alternative rock groups from Georgia (U.S. state)
Brit Award winners
Capitol Records artists
Concord Bicycle Music artists
Grammy Award winners
I.R.S. Records artists
Jangle pop groups
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups disestablished in 2011
Musical groups from Athens, Georgia
New West Records artists
Rhino Records artists
Warner Records artists
Craft Recordings artists
College rock musical groups | true | [
"Anyone Else may refer to:\n \"Anyone Else\" (Collin Raye song), 1999\n \"Anyone Else\" (Matt Cardle song), 2012",
"Ruwida El-Hubti (born 16 April 1989) is an Olympic athlete from Libya. At the 2004 Summer Olympics, she competed in the Women's 400 metres. She finished last in her heat with a time of 1:03.57, almost 11 seconds slower than anyone else in the heat, and the slowest of anyone in the competition. However, she did set a national record.\n\nReferences\n\n1989 births\nLiving people\nOlympic athletes of Libya\nAthletes (track and field) at the 2004 Summer Olympics"
] |
[
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"1980-1981: Formation",
"Whose idea was it to form R.E.M.?",
"The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that \"there was never any grand plan behind any of it\".",
"Who were the original members?",
"Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Mike Mills and Bill Berry,",
"Did they add anyone else?",
"They found a manager in Jefferson Holt,"
] | C_c87fee161031431bbd689ad1d2a8d4e8_1 | What was their first album? | 4 | What was R.E.M.'s first album? | R.E.M. | In January 1980, Michael Stipe met Peter Buck in Wuxtry Records, the Athens record store where Buck worked. The pair discovered that they shared similar tastes in music, particularly in punk rock and protopunk artists like Patti Smith, Television, and the Velvet Underground. Stipe said, "It turns out that I was buying all the records that [Buck] was saving for himself." Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Mike Mills and Bill Berry, who had played music together since high school and lived together in Georgia. The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that "there was never any grand plan behind any of it". Their still-unnamed band spent a few months rehearsing and played its first show on April 5, 1980, at a friend's birthday party held in a converted Episcopal church in Athens. After considering names like "Twisted Kites", "Cans of Piss", and "Negro Wives", the band settled on "R.E.M." (which is an acronym for rapid eye movement, the dream stage of sleep), which Stipe selected at random from a dictionary. The band members eventually dropped out of school to focus on their developing group. They found a manager in Jefferson Holt, a record store clerk who was so impressed by an R.E.M. performance in his hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that he moved to Athens. R.E.M.'s success was almost immediate in Athens and surrounding areas; the band drew progressively larger crowds for shows, which caused some resentment in the Athens music scene. Over the next year and a half, R.E.M. toured throughout the Southern United States. Touring was arduous because a touring circuit for alternative rock bands did not then exist. The group toured in an old blue van driven by Holt, and lived on a food allowance of $2 each per day. During the summer of 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, "Radio Free Europe", at producer Mitch Easter's Drive-In Studios in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The single was released on the local independent record label Hib-Tone with an initial pressing of one thousand copies, which quickly sold out. Despite its limited pressing, the single garnered critical acclaim, and was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times. CANNOTANSWER | During the summer of 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, "Radio Free Europe", | R.E.M. was an American rock band from Athens, Georgia, formed in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, who were students at the University of Georgia. Liner notes from some of the band's albums list attorney Bertis Downs and manager Jefferson Holt as non-musical members. One of the first alternative rock bands, R.E.M. was noted for Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style; Stipe's distinctive vocal quality, unique stage presence, and obscure lyrics; Mills's melodic bass lines and backing vocals; and Berry's tight, economical drumming style. In the early 1990s, other alternative rock acts such as Nirvana and Pavement viewed R.E.M. as a pioneer of the genre. After Berry left the band in 1997, the band continued its career in the 2000s with mixed critical and commercial success. The band broke up amicably in 2011 with members devoting time to solo projects after having sold more than 85 million albums worldwide and becoming one of the world's best-selling music acts.
R.E.M. released its first single, "Radio Free Europe", in 1981 on the independent record label Hib-Tone. It was followed by the Chronic Town EP in 1982, the band's first release on I.R.S. Records. In 1983, the group released its critically acclaimed debut album, Murmur, and built its reputation over the next few years with similarly acclaimed releases every year from 1984 to 1988: Reckoning, Fables of the Reconstruction, Lifes Rich Pageant, Document and Green, including an intermittent b-side compilation Dead Letter Office. Don Dixon and Mitch Easter produced their first two albums, Joe Boyd handled production on Fables of the Reconstruction and Don Gehman produced Lifes Rich Pageant. Thereafter, R.E.M. settled on Scott Litt as producer for the next 10years during the band's most successful period of their career. They also started co-producing their material and playing other instruments in the studio apart from the main ones they play. With constant touring, and the support of college radio following years of underground success, R.E.M. achieved a mainstream hit with the 1987 single "The One I Love". The group signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1988, and began to espouse political and environmental concerns while playing large arenas worldwide.
R.E.M.'s most commercially successful albums, Out of Time (1991) and Automatic for the People (1992), put them in the vanguard of alternative rock just as it was becoming mainstream. Out of Time received seven nominations at the 34th Annual Grammy Awards, and lead single "Losing My Religion", was R.E.M.'s highest-charting and best-selling hit. Monster (1994) continued its run of success. The band began its first tour in six years to support the album; the tour was marred by medical emergencies suffered by three of the band members. In 1996, R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. for a reported US$80 million, at the time the most expensive recording contract ever. The tour was productive and the band recorded the following album mostly during soundchecks. The resulting record, New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996), is hailed as the band's last great album and the members' favorite, growing in cult status over the years. Berry left the band the following year, and Stipe, Buck, and Mills continued as a musical trio, supplemented by studio and live musicians, such as multi-instrumentalists Scott McCaughey and Ken Stringfellow and drummers Joey Waronker and Bill Rieflin. They also parted ways with their longtime manager Jefferson Holt and band's attorney Bertis Downs assumed managerial duties. Seeking to also renovate their sound, the band stopped working with Scott Litt, co-producer and contributor to six of their studio albums and hired Pat McCarthy as co-producer, who had participated before that as mixer and engineer on their last two albums.
After the electronic experimental direction of Up (1998) that was commercially unsuccessful, Reveal (2001) was referred to as "a conscious return to their classic sound" which received general acclaim. In 2007, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in its first year of eligibility and Berry reunited with the band for the ceremony and to record a cover of John Lennon's "#9 Dream" for the compilation album Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur to benefit Amnesty International's campaign to alleviate the Darfur conflict. Looking for a change of sound after lukewarm reception for Around the Sun (2004), the band collaborated with co-producer Jacknife Lee on their last two studio albums—the well-received Accelerate (2008) and Collapse into Now (2011)—as well as their first live albums after decades of touring. R.E.M. disbanded amicably in September 2011, with former members having continued with various musical projects, and several live and archival albums have since been released.
History
1980–1982: Formation and first releases
In January 1980, Peter Buck met Michael Stipe in Wuxtry Records, the Athens record store where Buck worked. The pair discovered that they shared similar tastes in music, particularly in punk rock and proto-punk artists like Patti Smith, Television, and the Velvet Underground. Stipe said, "It turns out that I was buying all the records that [Buck] was saving for himself." Through mutual friend Kathleen O'Brien, Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Bill Berry and Mike Mills, who had played music together since high school and lived together in Georgia. The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that "there was never any grand plan behind any of it". Their still-unnamed band spent a few months rehearsing in a deconsecrated Episcopal church in Athens, and played its first show on April 5, 1980, supporting the Side Effects at O'Brien's birthday party held in the same church, performing a mix of originals and 1960s and 1970s covers. After considering names such as Cans of Piss, Negro Eyes, and Twisted Kites, the band settled on "R.E.M.", which Stipe selected at random from a dictionary. R.E.M. is well known as an initialism for rapid eye movement, the dream stage of sleep; however, sleep researcher Dr. Rafael Pelayo reports that when his colleague Dr. William Dement, the sleep scientist who coined the term REM, reached out to the band, Dr. Dement was told that the band was named "not after REM sleep".
The band members eventually dropped out of school to focus on their developing group. They found a manager in Jefferson Holt, a record store clerk who was so impressed by an R.E.M. performance in his hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that he moved to Athens. R.E.M.'s success was almost immediate in Athens and surrounding areas; the band drew progressively larger crowds for shows, which caused some resentment in the Athens music scene. Over the next year and a half, R.E.M. toured throughout the Southern United States. Touring was arduous because a touring circuit for alternative rock bands did not then exist. The group toured in an old blue van driven by Holt, and lived on a food allowance of $2 each per day.
During April 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, "Radio Free Europe", at producer Mitch Easter's Drive-In Studios in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Initially distributing it as a four-track demo tape to clubs, record labels and magazines, the single was released in July 1981 on the local independent record label Hib-Tone with an initial pressing of 1,000 copies—600 of which were sent out as promotional copies. The single quickly sold out, and another 6,000 copies were pressed due to popular demand, despite the original pressing leaving off the record label's contact details. Despite its limited pressing, the single garnered critical acclaim, and was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times.
R.E.M. recorded the Chronic Town EP with Mitch Easter in October 1981, and planned to release it on a new indie label named Dasht Hopes. However, I.R.S. Records acquired a demo of the band's first recording session with Easter that had been circulating for months. The band turned down the advances of major label RCA Records in favor of I.R.S., with whom it signed a contract in May 1982. I.R.S. released Chronic Town that August as its first American release. A positive review of the EP by NME praised the songs' auras of mystery, and concluded, "R.E.M. ring true, and it's great to hear something as unforced and cunning as this."
1982–1988: I.R.S. Records and cult success
I.R.S. first paired R.E.M. with producer Stephen Hague to record its debut album. Hague's emphasis on technical perfection left the band unsatisfied, and the band members asked the label to let them record with Easter. I.R.S. agreed to a "tryout" session, allowing the band to return to North Carolina and record the song "Pilgrimage" with Easter and producing partner Don Dixon. After hearing the track, I.R.S. permitted the group to record the album with Dixon and Easter. Because of its bad experience with Hague, the band recorded the album via a process of negation, refusing to incorporate rock music clichés such as guitar solos or then-popular synthesizers, in order to give its music a timeless feel. The completed album, Murmur, was greeted with critical acclaim upon its release in 1983, with Rolling Stone listing the album as its record of the year. The album reached number 36 on the Billboard album chart. A re-recorded version of "Radio Free Europe" was the album's lead single and reached number 78 on the Billboard singles chart in 1983. Despite the acclaim awarded the album, Murmur sold only about 200,000 copies, which I.R.S.'s Jay Boberg felt was below expectations.
R.E.M. made its first national television appearance on Late Night with David Letterman in October 1983, during which the group performed a new, unnamed song. The piece, eventually titled "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)", became the first single from the band's second album, Reckoning (1984), which was also recorded with Easter and Dixon. The album met with critical acclaim; NMEs Mat Snow wrote that Reckoning "confirms R.E.M. as one of the most beautifully exciting groups on the planet". While Reckoning peaked at number 27 on the US album charts—an unusually high chart placing for a college rock band at the time—scant airplay and poor distribution overseas resulted in it charting no higher than number 91 in Britain.
The band's third album, Fables of the Reconstruction (1985), demonstrated a change in direction. Instead of Dixon and Easter, R.E.M. chose producer Joe Boyd, who had worked with Fairport Convention and Nick Drake, to record the album in England. The band members found the sessions unexpectedly difficult, and were miserable due to the cold winter weather and what they considered to be poor food; the situation brought the band to the verge of break-up. The gloominess surrounding the sessions worked its way into the context for the album's themes. Lyrically, Stipe began to create storylines in the mode of Southern mythology, noting in a 1985 interview that he was inspired by "the whole idea of the old men sitting around the fire, passing on ... legends and fables to the grandchildren".
They toured Canada in July and August 1985, and Europe in October of that year, including the Netherlands, England (including one concert at London's Hammersmith Palais), Ireland, Scotland, France, Switzerland, Belgium and West Germany. On October 2, 1985, the group played a concert in Bochum, West Germany, for the German TV show Rockpalast. Stipe had bleached his hair blond during this time. R.E.M. invited California punk band Minutemen to open for them on part of the US tour, and organized a benefit for the family of Minutemen frontman D. Boon who died in a December 1985 car crash shortly after the tour's conclusion. Fables of the Reconstruction performed poorly in Europe and its critical reception was mixed, with some critics regarding it as dreary and poorly recorded. As with the previous records, the singles from Fables of the Reconstruction were mostly ignored by mainstream radio. Meanwhile, I.R.S. was becoming frustrated with the band's reluctance to achieve mainstream success.
For its fourth album, R.E.M. enlisted John Mellencamp's producer Don Gehman. The result, Lifes Rich Pageant (1986), featured Stipe's vocals closer to the forefront of the music. In a 1986 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Peter Buck related, "Michael is getting better at what he's doing, and he's getting more confident at it. And I think that shows up in the projection of his voice." The album improved markedly upon the sales of Fables of the Reconstruction and reached number 21 on the Billboard album chart. The single "Fall on Me" also picked up support on commercial radio. The album was the band's first to be certified gold for selling 500,000 copies. While American college radio remained R.E.M.'s core support, the band was beginning to chart hits on mainstream rock formats; however, the music still encountered resistance from Top 40 radio.
Following the success of Lifes Rich Pageant, I.R.S. issued Dead Letter Office, a compilation of tracks recorded by the band during their album sessions, many of which had either been issued as B-sides or left unreleased altogether. Shortly thereafter, I.R.S. compiled R.E.M.'s music video catalog (except "Wolves, Lower") as the band's first video release, Succumbs.
Don Gehman was unable to produce R.E.M.'s fifth album, so he suggested the group work with Scott Litt. Litt would be the producer for the band's next five albums. Document (1987) featured some of Stipe's most openly political lyrics, particularly on "Welcome to the Occupation" and "Exhuming McCarthy", which were reactions to the conservative political environment of the 1980s under American president Ronald Reagan. Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote in his review of the album, "Document is both confident and defiant; if R.E.M. is about to move from cult-band status to mass popularity, the album decrees that the band will get there on its own terms." Document was R.E.M.'s breakthrough album, and the first single "The One I Love" charted in the Top 20 in the US, UK, and Canada. By January 1988, Document had become the group's first album to sell a million copies. In light of the band's breakthrough, the December 1987 cover of Rolling Stone declared R.E.M. "America's Best Rock & Roll Band".
1988–1997: International breakout and alternative rock stardom
Frustrated that its records did not see satisfactory overseas distribution, R.E.M. left I.R.S. when its contract expired and signed with the major label Warner Bros. Records. Though other labels offered more money, R.E.M. ultimately signed with Warner Bros.—reportedly for an amount between $6 million and $12 million—due to the company's assurance of total creative freedom. (Jay Boberg claimed that R.E.M.'s deal with Warner Bros. was for $22 million, which Peter Buck disputed as "definitely wrong".) In the aftermath of the group's departure, I.R.S. released the 1988 "best of" compilation Eponymous (assembled with input from the band members) to capitalize on assets the company still possessed. The band's 1988 Warner Bros. debut, Green, was recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, and showcased the group experimenting with its sound. The record's tracks ranged from the upbeat first single "Stand" (a hit in the United States), to more political material, like the rock-oriented "Orange Crush" and "World Leader Pretend", which address the Vietnam War and the Cold War, respectively. Green has gone on to sell four million copies worldwide. The band supported the album with its biggest and most visually developed tour to date, featuring back-projections and art films playing on the stage. After the Green tour, the band members unofficially decided to take the following year off, the first extended break in the band's career. In 1990 Warner Bros. issued the music video compilation Pop Screen to collect clips from the Document and Green albums, followed a few months later by the video album Tourfilm featuring live performances filmed during the Green World Tour.
R.E.M. reconvened in mid-1990 to record its seventh album, Out of Time. In a departure from Green, the band members often wrote the music with non-traditional rock instrumentation including mandolin, organ, and acoustic guitar instead of adding them as overdubs later in the creative process. Released in March 1991, Out of Time was the band's first album to top both the US and UK charts. The record eventually sold 4.2 million copies in the US alone, and about 12 million copies worldwide by 1996. The album's lead single "Losing My Religion" was a worldwide hit that received heavy rotation on radio, as did the music video on MTV and VH1. "Losing My Religion" was R.E.M.'s highest-charting single in the US, reaching number four on the Billboard charts. "There've been very few life-changing events in our career because our career has been so gradual," Mills said years later. "If you want to talk about life changing, I think 'Losing My Religion' is the closest it gets". The album's second single, "Shiny Happy People" (one of three songs on the record to feature vocals from Kate Pierson of fellow Athens band the B-52's), was also a major hit, reaching number 10 in the US and number six in the UK. Out of Time garnered R.E.M. seven nominations at the 1992 Grammy Awards, the most nominations of any artist that year. The band won three awards: one for Best Alternative Music Album and two for "Losing My Religion", Best Short Form Music Video and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. R.E.M. did not tour to promote Out of Time; instead the group played a series of one-off shows, including an appearance taped for an episode of MTV Unplugged and released music videos for each song on the video album This Film Is On. The band also performed "Losing My Religion" with members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in Madison, Georgia, at Madison-Morgan Cultural Center as part of MTV's 10th anniversary special.
After spending some months off, R.E.M. returned to the studio in 1991 to record its next album. Late in 1992, the band released Automatic for the People. Though the group had intended to make a harder-rocking album after the softer textures of Out of Time, the somber Automatic for the People "[seemed] to move at an even more agonized crawl", according to Melody Maker. The album dealt with themes of loss and mourning inspired by "that sense of ... turning thirty", according to Buck. Several songs featured string arrangements by former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. Considered by a number of critics (as well as by Buck and Mills) to be the band's best album, Automatic for the People reached numbers one and two on UK and US charts, respectively, and generated the American Top 40 hit singles "Drive", "Man on the Moon", and "Everybody Hurts". The album would sell over fifteen million copies worldwide. As with Out of Time, there was no tour in support of the album. The decision to forgo a tour, in conjunction with Stipe's physical appearance, generated rumors that the singer was dying or HIV-positive, which were vehemently denied by the band.
After the band released two slow-paced albums in a row, R.E.M.'s 1994 album Monster was, as Buck said, "a 'rock' record, with the rock in quotation marks." In contrast to the sound of its predecessors, the music of Monster consisted of distorted guitar tones, minimal overdubs, and touches of 1970s glam rock. Like Out of Time, Monster topped the charts in both the US and UK. The record sold about nine million copies worldwide. The singles "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and "Bang and Blame" were the band's last American Top 40 hits, although all the singles from Monster reached the Top 30 on the British charts. Warner Bros. assembled the music videos from the album as well as those from Automatic for the People for release as Parallel in 1995.
In January 1995, R.E.M. set out on its first tour in six years. The tour was a huge commercial success, but the period was difficult for the group. On March 1, Berry collapsed on stage during a performance in Lausanne, Switzerland, having suffered a brain aneurysm. He had surgery immediately and recovered fully within a month. Berry's aneurysm was only the beginning of a series of health problems that plagued the Monster tour. Mills had to undergo abdominal surgery to remove an intestinal adhesion in July; a month later, Stipe had to have an emergency surgery to repair a hernia. Despite all the problems, the group had recorded the bulk of a new album while on the road. The band brought along eight-track recorders to capture its shows, and used the recordings as the base elements for the album. The final three performances of the tour were filmed at the Omni Coliseum in Atlanta, Georgia and released in home video form as Road Movie.
R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. Records in 1996 for a reported $80 million (a figure the band constantly asserted originated with the media), rumored to be the largest recording contract in history at that point. The group's 1996 album New Adventures in Hi-Fi debuted at number two in the US and number one in the UK. The five million copies of the album sold were a reversal of the group's commercial fortunes of the previous five years. Critical reaction to the album was mostly favorable. In a 2017 retrospective on the band, Consequence of Sound ranked it third out of R.E.M.'s 15 full-length studio albums. The album is Stipe's favorite from R.E.M. and he considers it the band at their peak. Mills says "It usually takes a good few years for me to decide where an album stands in the pantheon of recorded work we've done. This one may be third behind Murmur and Automatic for the People. According to DiscoverMusic: "Arguably less immediate and less accessible[...]New Adventures in Hi-Fi is a sprawling, "White Album"-esque affair clocking in at 65 minutes. However, while it required some time and commitment from the listener, the record's contents were rich, compelling and frequently stunning. Accordingly, the album has continued to lobby for recognition and has long since earned its reputation as R.E.M.'s most unsung LP." While sales were impressive they were below their previous major label records. Time's writer Christopher John Farley argued that the lesser sales of the album were due to the declining commercial power of alternative rock as a whole. That same year, R.E.M. parted ways with manager Jefferson Holt, allegedly due to sexual harassment charges levied against him by a member of the band's home office in Athens. The group's lawyer Bertis Downs assumed managerial duties.
1997–2006: Continuing as three-piece with mixed success
In April 1997, the band convened at Buck's Kauai vacation home to record demos of material intended for the next album. The band sought to reinvent its sound and intended to incorporate drum loops and percussion experiments. Just as the sessions were due to begin in October, Berry decided, after months of contemplation and discussions with Downs and Mills, to tell the rest of the band that he was quitting. Berry told his bandmates that he would not quit if they would break up as a result, so Stipe, Buck, and Mills agreed to carry on as a three-piece with his blessing. Berry publicly announced his departure three weeks later in October 1997. Berry told the press, "I'm just not as enthusiastic as I have been in the past about doing this anymore . . . I have the best job in the world. But I'm kind of ready to sit back and reflect and maybe not be a pop star anymore." Stipe admitted that the band would be different without a major contributor: "For me, Mike, and Peter, as R.E.M., are we still R.E.M.? I guess a three-legged dog is still a dog. It just has to learn to run differently."
The band cancelled its scheduled recording sessions as a result of Berry's departure. "Without Bill it was different, confusing", Mills later said. "We didn't know exactly what to do. We couldn't rehearse without a drummer." The remaining members of R.E.M. resumed work on the album in February 1998 at Toast Studios in San Francisco. The band ended its decade-long collaboration with Scott Litt and hired Pat McCarthy to produce the record. Nigel Godrich was taken on as assistant producer, and drafted in Screaming Trees member Barrett Martin and Beck's touring drummer Joey Waronker. The recording process was tense, and the group came close to disbanding. Bertis Downs called an emergency meeting in which the band members resolved their problems and agreed to continue as a group. Led by the single "Daysleeper", Up (1998) debuted in the top ten in the US and UK. However, the album was a relative failure, selling 900,000 copies in the US by mid-1999 and eventually selling just over two million copies worldwide. While R.E.M.'s American sales were declining, the group's commercial base was shifting to the UK, where more R.E.M. records were sold per capita than any other country and the band's singles regularly entered the Top 20.
A year after Ups release, R.E.M. wrote the instrumental score to the Andy Kaufman biographical film Man on the Moon, a first for the group. The film took its title from the Automatic for the People song of the same name. The song "The Great Beyond" was released as a single from the Man on the Moon soundtrack album. "The Great Beyond" only reached number 57 on the American pop charts, but was the band's highest-charting single ever in the UK, reaching number three in 2000.
R.E.M. recorded the majority of its twelfth album Reveal (2001) in Canada and Ireland from May to October 2000. Reveal shared the "lugubrious pace" of Up, and featured drumming by Joey Waronker, as well as contributions by Scott McCaughey (a co-founder of the band the Minus 5 with Buck), and Ken Stringfellow (founder of the Posies). Global sales of the album were over four million, but in the United States Reveal sold about the same number of copies as Up. The album was led by the single "Imitation of Life", which reached number six in the UK. Writing for Rock's Backpages, The Rev. Al Friston described the album as "loaded with golden loveliness at every twist and turn", in comparison to the group's "essentially unconvincing work on New Adventures in Hi-Fi and Up". Similarly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone called Reveal "a spiritual renewal rooted in a musical one" and praised its "ceaselessly astonishing beauty".
In 2003, Warner Bros. released the compilation album and DVD In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003 and In View: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003, which featured two new songs, "Bad Day" and "Animal". At a 2003 concert in Raleigh, North Carolina, Berry made a surprise appearance, performing backing vocals on "Radio Free Europe". He then sat behind the drum kit for a performance of the early R.E.M. song "Permanent Vacation", marking his first performance with the band since his retirement.
R.E.M. released Around the Sun in 2004. During production of the album in 2002, Stipe said, "[The album] sounds like it's taking off from the last couple of records into unchartered R.E.M. territory. Kind of primitive and howling". After the album's release, Mills said, "I think, honestly, it turned out a little slower than we intended for it to, just in terms of the overall speed of songs." Around the Sun received a mixed critical reception, and peaked at number 13 on the Billboard charts. The first single from the album, "Leaving New York", was a Top 5 hit in the UK. For the record and subsequent tour, the band hired a new full-time touring drummer, Bill Rieflin, who had previously been a member of several industrial music acts such as Ministry and Pigface, and remained in that role for the duration of the band's active years. The video album Perfect Square was released that same year.
2006–2011: Last albums, recognition and breakup
EMI released a compilation album covering R.E.M.'s work during its tenure on I.R.S. in 2006 called And I Feel Fine... The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982–1987 along with the video album When the Light Is Mine: The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982–1987—the label had previously released the compilations The Best of R.E.M. (1991), R.E.M.: Singles Collected (1994), and R.E.M.: In the Attic – Alternative Recordings 1985–1989 (1997). That same month, all four original band members performed during the ceremony for their induction into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. While rehearsing for the ceremony, the band recorded a cover of John Lennon's "#9 Dream" for Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur, a tribute album benefiting Amnesty International. The song—released as a single for the album and the campaign—featured Bill Berry's first studio recording with the band since his departure almost a decade earlier.
In October 2006, R.E.M. was nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its first year of eligibility. The band was one of five nominees accepted into the Hall that year, and the induction ceremony took place in March 2007 at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The group—which was inducted by Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder—performed three songs with Bill Berry; "Gardening at Night", "Man on the Moon" and "Begin the Begin" as well as a cover of "I Wanna Be Your Dog".
Work on the group's fourteenth album commenced in early 2007. The band recorded with producer Jacknife Lee in Vancouver and Dublin, where it played five nights in the Olympia Theatre between June 30 and July 5 as part of a "working rehearsal". R.E.M. Live, the band's first live album (featuring songs from a 2005 Dublin show), was released in October 2007. The group followed this with the 2009 live album Live at The Olympia, which features performances from its 2007 residency. R.E.M. released Accelerate in early 2008. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard charts, and became the band's eighth album to top the British album charts. Rolling Stone reviewer David Fricke considered Accelerate an improvement over the band's previous post-Berry albums, calling it "one of the best records R.E.M. have ever made".
In 2010, R.E.M. released the video album R.E.M. Live from Austin, TX—a concert recorded for Austin City Limits in 2008. The group recorded its fifteenth album, Collapse into Now (2011), with Jacknife Lee in locales including Berlin, Nashville, and New Orleans. For the album, the band aimed for a more expansive sound than the intentionally short and speedy approach implemented on Accelerate. The album debuted at number five on the Billboard 200, becoming the group's tenth album to reach the top ten of the chart. This release fulfilled R.E.M.'s contractual obligations to Warner Bros., and the band began recording material without a contract a few months later with the possible intention of self-releasing the work.
On September 21, 2011, R.E.M. announced via its website that it was "calling it a day as a band". Stipe said that he hoped fans realized it "wasn't an easy decision": "All things must end, and we wanted to do it right, to do it our way." Long-time associate and former Warner Bros. Senior Vice President of Emerging Technology Ethan Kaplan has speculated that shake-ups at the record label influenced the group's decision to disband. The group discussed breaking up for several years, but was encouraged to continue after the lackluster critical and commercial performance of Around the Sun; according to Mills, "We needed to prove, not only to our fans and critics but to ourselves, that we could still make great records." They were also uninterested in the business end of recording as R.E.M. The band members finished their collaboration by assembling the compilation album Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982–2011, which was released in November 2011. The album is the first to collect songs from R.E.M.'s I.R.S. and Warner Bros. tenures, as well as three songs from the group's final studio recordings from post-Collapse into Now sessions. In November, Mills and Stipe did a brief span of promotional appearances in British media, ruling out the option of the group ever reuniting.
2011–present: Post-breakup releases and events
In 2014, Unplugged: The Complete 1991 and 2001 Sessions was released for Record Store Day. Digital download collections of I.R.S. and Warner Bros. rarities followed. Later in the year, the band compiled the video album box set REMTV, which collected their two Unplugged performances along with several other documentaries and live shows, while their record label released the box set 7IN—83–88, made up of 7-inch vinyl singles. In December 2015, the band members agreed to a distribution deal with Concord Bicycle Music to re-release their Warner Bros. albums. Continuing to maintain their copyright and intellectual property legacies, in March 2016, the band signed a new music publishing administration deal with Universal Music Publishing Group, and a year later, the band members left Broadcast Music, Inc., who had represented their performance rights for their entire career, and joined SESAC. The first release after their new publishing status was the 2018 box set R.E.M. at the BBC. Live at the Borderline 1991 followed for 2019's Record Store Day.
On March 24, 2020, session and touring drummer Bill Rieflin, who contributed on the band's last three records, died of cancer after years of battling the disease.
In September 2021, a full decade after disbanding, Stipe reiterated that the band had no intention of regrouping: "We decided when we split up that that would just be really tacky and probably money-grabbing, which might be the impetus for a lot of bands to get back together."
Musical style
R.E.M. has been described as alternative rock, college rock, folk rock, jangle pop, and post-punk. In a 1988 interview, Peter Buck described R.E.M. songs as typically, "Minor key, mid-tempo, enigmatic, semi-folk-rock-balladish things. That's what everyone thinks and to a certain degree, that's true." All songwriting is credited to the entire band, even though individual members are sometimes responsible for writing the majority of a particular song. Each member is given an equal vote in the songwriting process; however, Buck has conceded that Stipe, as the band's lyricist, can rarely be persuaded to follow an idea he does not favor. Among the original line-up, there were divisions of labor in the songwriting process: Stipe would write lyrics and devise melodies, Buck would edge the band in new musical directions, and Mills and Berry would fine-tune the compositions due to their greater musical experience.
Michael Stipe sings in what R.E.M. biographer David Buckley described as "wailing, keening, arching vocal figures". Stipe often harmonizes with Mills in songs; in the chorus for "Stand", Mills and Stipe alternate singing lyrics, creating a dialogue. Early articles about the band focused on Stipe's singing style (described as "mumbling" by The Washington Post), which often rendered his lyrics indecipherable. Creem writer John Morthland wrote in his review of Murmur, "I still have no idea what these songs are about, because neither me nor anyone else I know has ever been able to discern R.E.M.'s lyrics." Stipe commented in 1984, "It's just the way I sing. If I tried to control it, it would be pretty false." Producer Joe Boyd convinced Stipe to begin singing more clearly during the recording of Fables of the Reconstruction.
Stipe later called chorus lyrics of "Sitting Still" from R.E.M. debut album, Murmur, "nonsense", saying in a 1994 online chat, "You all know there aren't words, per se, to a lot of the early stuff. I can't even remember them." In truth, Stipe carefully crafted the lyrics to many early R.E.M. songs. Stipe explained in 1984 that when he started writing lyrics they were like "simple pictures", but after a year he grew tired of the approach and "started experimenting with lyrics that didn't make exact linear sense, and it's just gone from there." In the mid-1980s, as Stipe's pronunciation while singing became clearer, the band decided that its lyrics should convey ideas on a more literal level. Mills explained, "After you've made three records and you've written several songs and they've gotten better and better lyrically the next step would be to have somebody question you and say, are you saying anything? And Michael had the confidence at that point to say yes . . ." Songs like "Cuyahoga" and "Fall on Me" on Lifes Rich Pageant dealt with such concerns as pollution. Stipe incorporated more politically oriented concerns into his lyrics on Document and Green. "Our political activism and the content of the songs was just a reaction to where we were, and what we were surrounded by, which was just abject horror," Stipe said later. "In 1987 and '88 there was nothing to do but be active." Stipe has since explored other lyrical topics. Automatic for the People dealt with "mortality and dying. Pretty turgid stuff", according to Stipe, while Monster critiqued love and mass culture. Musically, Stipe stated that bands like T. Rex and Mott the Hoople "really impacted me".
Peter Buck's style of playing guitar has been singled out by many as the most distinctive aspect of R.E.M.'s music. During the 1980s, Buck's "economical, arpeggiated, poetic" style reminded British music journalists of 1960s American folk rock band the Byrds. Buck has stated "[Byrds guitarist] Roger McGuinn was a big influence on me as a guitar player", but said it was Byrds-influenced bands, including Big Star and the Soft Boys, that inspired him more. Comparisons were also made with the guitar playing of Johnny Marr of alternative rock contemporaries the Smiths. While Buck professed being a fan of the group, he admitted he initially criticized the band simply because he was tired of fans asking him if he was influenced by Marr, whose band had in fact made their debut after R.E.M. Buck generally eschews guitar solos; he explained in 2002, "I know that when guitarists rip into this hot solo, people go nuts, but I don't write songs that suit that, and I am not interested in that. I can do it if I have to, but I don't like it." Mike Mills' melodic approach to bass playing is inspired by Paul McCartney of the Beatles and Chris Squire of Yes; Mills has said, "I always played a melodic bass, like a piano bass in some ways . . . I never wanted to play the traditional locked into the kick drum, root note bass work." Mills has more musical training than his bandmates, which he has said "made it easier to turn abstract musical ideas into reality."
Legacy
R.E.M. was pivotal in the creation and development of the alternative rock genre. AllMusic stated, "R.E.M. mark the point when post-punk turned into alternative rock." In the early 1980s, the musical style of R.E.M. stood in contrast to the post-punk and new wave genres that had preceded it. Music journalist Simon Reynolds noted that the post-punk movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s "had taken whole swaths of music off the menu", particularly that of the 1960s, and that "After postpunk's demystification and New Pop's schematics, it felt liberating to listen to music rooted in mystical awe and blissed-out surrender." Reynolds declared R.E.M., a band that recalled the music of the 1960s with its "plangent guitar chimes and folk-styled vocals" and who "wistfully and abstractly conjured visions and new frontiers for America", one of "the two most important alt-rock bands of the day." With the release of Murmur, R.E.M. had the most impact musically and commercially of the developing alternative genre's early groups, leaving in its wake a number of jangle pop followers.
R.E.M.'s early breakthrough success served as an inspiration for other alternative bands. Spin referred to the "R.E.M. model"—career decisions that R.E.M. made that set guidelines for other underground artists to follow in their own careers. Spin's Charles Aaron wrote that by 1985, "They'd shown how far an underground, punk-inspired rock band could go within the industry without whoring out its artistic integrity in any obvious way. They'd figured out how to buy in, not sellout-in other words, they'd achieved the American Bohemian Dream." Steve Wynn of Dream Syndicate said, "They invented a whole new ballgame for all of the other bands to follow whether it was Sonic Youth or the Replacements or Nirvana or Butthole Surfers. R.E.M. staked the claim. Musically, the bands did different things, but R.E.M. was first to show us you can be big and still be cool." Biographer David Buckley stated that between 1991 and 1994, a period that saw the band sell an estimated 30 million albums, R.E.M. "asserted themselves as rivals to U2 for the title of biggest rock band in the world." Over the course of its career, the band has sold over 85 million records worldwide. Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums stated that "Their catalogue is destined to endure as critics reluctantly accept their considerable importance in the history of rock".
Alternative bands such as Nirvana, Pavement, Radiohead, Coldplay, Pearl Jam (the band's vocalist Eddie Vedder inducted R.E.M. into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame), Live, Stone Temple Pilots, Collective Soul, Alice in Chains, Hootie and the Blowfish and Pwr Bttm have drawn inspiration from R.E.M.'s music. "When I was 15 years old in Richmond, Virginia, they were a very important part of my life," Pavement's Bob Nastanovich said, "as they were for all the members of our band." Pavement's contribution to the No Alternative compilation (1993) was "Unseen Power of the Picket Fence", a song about R.E.M.'s early days. Local H, according to the band's Twitter account, created their name by combining two R.E.M. songs: "Oddfellows Local 151" and "Swan Swan H". Kurt Cobain of Nirvana was a fan of R.E.M., and had unfulfilled plans to collaborate on a musical project with Stipe. Cobain told Rolling Stone in an interview earlier that year, "I don’t know how that band does what they do. God, they’re the greatest. They've dealt with their success like saints, and they keep delivering great music."
During his show at the 40 Watt Club in October 2018, Johnny Marr said: "As a British musician coming out of the indie scene in the early '80s, which I definitely am and am proud to have been, I can't miss this opportunity to acknowledge and pay my respects and honor the guys who put this town on the map for us in England. I'm talking about my comrades in guitar music, R.E.M. The Smiths really respected R.E.M. We had to keep an eye on what those guys were up to. It's an interesting thing for me, as a British musician, and all those guys as British musicians, to come to this place and play for you guys, knowing that it's the roots of Mike Mills and Bill Berry and Michael Stipe and my good friend Peter Buck."
Awards
Campaigning and activism
Throughout R.E.M.'s career, its members sought to highlight social and political issues. According to the Los Angeles Times, R.E.M. was considered to be one of the United States' "most liberal and politically correct rock groups." The band's members were "on the same page" politically, sharing a liberal and progressive outlook. Mills admitted that there was occasionally dissension between band members on what causes they might support, but acknowledged "Out of respect for the people who disagree, those discussions tend to stay in-house, just because we'd rather not let people know where the divisions lie, so people can't exploit them for their own purposes." An example is that in 1990 Buck noted that Stipe was involved with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but the rest of the band were not.
R.E.M. helped raise funds for environmental, feminist and human rights causes, and were involved in campaigns to encourage voter registration. During the Green tour, Stipe spoke on stage to the audiences about a variety of socio-political issues. Through the late 1980s and 1990s, the band (particularly Stipe) increasingly used its media coverage on national television to mention a variety of causes it felt were important. One example is during the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards, Stipe wore a half-dozen white shirts emblazoned with slogans including "rainforest", "love knows no colors", and "handgun control now".
R.E.M. helped raise awareness of Aung San Suu Kyi and human rights violations in Myanmar, when they worked with the Freedom Campaign and the US Campaign for Burma. Stipe himself ran ads for the 1988 election, supporting Democratic presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis over then-Vice President George H. W. Bush. In 2004, the band participated in the Vote for Change tour that sought to mobilize American voters to support Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. R.E.M.'s political stance, particularly coming from a wealthy rock band under contract to a label owned by a multinational corporation, received criticism from former Q editor Paul Du Noyer, who criticized the band's "celebrity liberalism", saying, "It's an entirely pain-free form of rebellion that they're adopting. There's no risk involved in it whatsoever, but quite a bit of shoring up of customer loyalty."
From the late 1980s, R.E.M. was involved in the local politics of its hometown of Athens, Georgia. Buck explained to Sounds in 1987, "Michael always says think local and act local—we have been doing a lot of stuff in our town to try and make it a better place." The band often donated funds to local charities and helped renovate and preserve historic buildings in the town. R.E.M.'s political clout was credited with the narrow election of Athens mayor Gwen O'Looney twice in the 1990s. The band is a member of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism.
Members
Main members
Bill Berry – drums, percussion, backing vocals, occasional bass guitar and keyboards (1980–1997; occasional concert appearances with the band 2003–2007)
Peter Buck – lead guitar, mandolin, banjo, occasional bass guitar and keyboards (1980–2011)
Mike Mills – bass guitar, keyboards, backing vocals and guitar (1980–2011)
Michael Stipe – lead vocals (1980–2011)
Non-musical members
Several publications made by the band such as album liner notes and fan club mailers list attorney Bertis Downs and manager Jefferson Holt as honorary non-musical members; the two joined up with R.E.M. in 1980/1981 and Holt left in 1996.
Touring and session musicians
Buren Fowler – rhythm guitar (1986–1987)
Peter Holsapple – rhythm guitar, keyboards (1989–1991)
Scott McCaughey – rhythm guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, occasional lead guitar (1994–2011)
Nathan December – rhythm and lead guitar (1994–1995)
Joey Waronker – drums, percussion (1998–2002)
Barrett Martin – percussion (1998)
Ken Stringfellow – keyboards, occasional rhythm guitar, bass guitar, backing vocals (1998–2005)
Bill Rieflin – drums, percussion, occasional keyboards and guitar (2003–2011)
Timeline
Production timeline
Touring and session members timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Murmur (1983)
Reckoning (1984)
Fables of the Reconstruction (1985)
Lifes Rich Pageant (1986)
Document (1987)
Green (1988)
Out of Time (1991)
Automatic for the People (1992)
Monster (1994)
New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996)
Up (1998)
Reveal (2001)
Around the Sun (2004)
Accelerate (2008)
Collapse into Now (2011)
See also
List of alternative rock artists
References
Sources
Black, Johnny. Reveal: The Story of R.E.M. Backbeat, 2004.
Buckley, David. R.E.M.: Fiction: An Alternative Biography. Virgin, 2002.
Gray, Marcus. It Crawled from the South: An R.E.M. Companion. Da Capo, 1997. Second edition.
Fletcher, Tony. Remarks Remade: The Story of R.E.M. Omnibus, 2002. .
Platt, John (editor). The R.E.M. Companion: Two Decades of Commentary. Schirmer, 1998.
Sullivan, Denise. Talk About the Passion: R.E.M.: An Oral Biography. Underwood-Miller, 1994.
External links
Dynamic Range DB entry for R.E.M.
1980 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
2011 disestablishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
Alternative rock groups from Georgia (U.S. state)
Brit Award winners
Capitol Records artists
Concord Bicycle Music artists
Grammy Award winners
I.R.S. Records artists
Jangle pop groups
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups disestablished in 2011
Musical groups from Athens, Georgia
New West Records artists
Rhino Records artists
Warner Records artists
Craft Recordings artists
College rock musical groups | false | [
"What If... is the seventh full-length studio album by the American rock band Mr. Big, which was released on January 21, 2011 through Frontiers Records. It was the band's first album since their 2009 reunion, their first album in 10 years since 2001's Actual Size and their first album with the original line-up featuring guitarist Paul Gilbert since 1996's Hey Man.\n\nThe album was recorded between September–October 2010 in a Los Angeles-area studio with producer Kevin Shirley (Iron Maiden, Aerosmith, Rush, Black Country Communion).\n\nThe first single from the album, \"Undertow\", was released on November 27, 2010. A music video was filmed for the single and featured on the special edition DVD of the album The album was supported by a world tour in 2011.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nMr. Big\n Eric Martin – lead vocals\n Paul Gilbert – guitar, backing vocals\n Billy Sheehan – bass guitar, backing vocals\n Pat Torpey – drums, percussion and backing vocals\n\nProduction\nKevin Shirley – producer, mixing\nVanessa Parr – engineer at Village Recorders\nJared Kvitka – engineer at The Cave\nSteve Hall – mastering at Future Disc, Los Angeles\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n 'What If...' Album Review\n WHD Entertainment Website\n\nMr. Big (American band) albums\n2011 albums\nFrontiers Records albums\nAlbums produced by Kevin Shirley",
"What the Future Holds Pt. 2 is the seventh studio album by the British group Steps. The album was released on 10 September 2021 by BMG Rights Management.\n\nBackground\nIn April 2021, Steps announced what was intended to be a deluxe edition of What the Future Holds would now be released as their seventh studio album, What the Future Holds Pt.2. Claire Richards said of the new record, \"we see What the Future Holds Pt. 2 as the perfect companion piece to the original album. The new record is classic Steps but also explores some brand-new sounds.\"\n\nSingles\nThe first single was confirmed as \"Heartbreak in This City\" remix featuring singer and television personality Michelle Visage. It debuted on BBC Radio 2 on 25 February, and made available to stream/download that same day. The single debuted at number 25 on the Official Singles Sales Chart.\n\n\"Take Me for a Ride\" was released on 29 July 2021 as the album's second single. \n\nA cover of \"The Slightest Touch\" was released on 20 August 2021 as the album's third single.\n\nIn November 2021 and during opening night of the arena tour, Lee Latchford-Evans confirmed \"A Hundred Years of Winter\" was the next single. It was released on 19 November 2021.\n\nCommercial performance\nWhat the Future Holds Pt. 2 debuted at number 2 in the UK Albums Charts with 25,000 units sold, only 2,000 copies behind Manic Street Preachers' The Ultra Vivid Lament. This was the second time the two groups competed for number-one position, after their albums This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours and Step One also charted at number 1 and 2, respectively, way back in 1998. This marks Steps' third consecutive number 2 studio album since their reunion in 2012, next to Tears on the Dancefloor and What the Future Holds Pt. 1. \n\nIn Australia, the album debuted at number 11, Steps' highest peak in the country in 23 years, since their debut album Step One peaked at number 5 in 1998.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\n2021 albums\nSteps (group) albums\nPop albums by British artists"
] |
[
"R.E.M.",
"1980-1981: Formation",
"Whose idea was it to form R.E.M.?",
"The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that \"there was never any grand plan behind any of it\".",
"Who were the original members?",
"Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Mike Mills and Bill Berry,",
"Did they add anyone else?",
"They found a manager in Jefferson Holt,",
"What was their first album?",
"During the summer of 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, \"Radio Free Europe\","
] | C_c87fee161031431bbd689ad1d2a8d4e8_1 | Was it successful? | 5 | Was R.E.M.'s first single titled "Radio Free Europe" successful? | R.E.M. | In January 1980, Michael Stipe met Peter Buck in Wuxtry Records, the Athens record store where Buck worked. The pair discovered that they shared similar tastes in music, particularly in punk rock and protopunk artists like Patti Smith, Television, and the Velvet Underground. Stipe said, "It turns out that I was buying all the records that [Buck] was saving for himself." Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Mike Mills and Bill Berry, who had played music together since high school and lived together in Georgia. The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that "there was never any grand plan behind any of it". Their still-unnamed band spent a few months rehearsing and played its first show on April 5, 1980, at a friend's birthday party held in a converted Episcopal church in Athens. After considering names like "Twisted Kites", "Cans of Piss", and "Negro Wives", the band settled on "R.E.M." (which is an acronym for rapid eye movement, the dream stage of sleep), which Stipe selected at random from a dictionary. The band members eventually dropped out of school to focus on their developing group. They found a manager in Jefferson Holt, a record store clerk who was so impressed by an R.E.M. performance in his hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that he moved to Athens. R.E.M.'s success was almost immediate in Athens and surrounding areas; the band drew progressively larger crowds for shows, which caused some resentment in the Athens music scene. Over the next year and a half, R.E.M. toured throughout the Southern United States. Touring was arduous because a touring circuit for alternative rock bands did not then exist. The group toured in an old blue van driven by Holt, and lived on a food allowance of $2 each per day. During the summer of 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, "Radio Free Europe", at producer Mitch Easter's Drive-In Studios in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The single was released on the local independent record label Hib-Tone with an initial pressing of one thousand copies, which quickly sold out. Despite its limited pressing, the single garnered critical acclaim, and was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times. CANNOTANSWER | the single garnered critical acclaim, and was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times. | R.E.M. was an American rock band from Athens, Georgia, formed in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, who were students at the University of Georgia. Liner notes from some of the band's albums list attorney Bertis Downs and manager Jefferson Holt as non-musical members. One of the first alternative rock bands, R.E.M. was noted for Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style; Stipe's distinctive vocal quality, unique stage presence, and obscure lyrics; Mills's melodic bass lines and backing vocals; and Berry's tight, economical drumming style. In the early 1990s, other alternative rock acts such as Nirvana and Pavement viewed R.E.M. as a pioneer of the genre. After Berry left the band in 1997, the band continued its career in the 2000s with mixed critical and commercial success. The band broke up amicably in 2011 with members devoting time to solo projects after having sold more than 85 million albums worldwide and becoming one of the world's best-selling music acts.
R.E.M. released its first single, "Radio Free Europe", in 1981 on the independent record label Hib-Tone. It was followed by the Chronic Town EP in 1982, the band's first release on I.R.S. Records. In 1983, the group released its critically acclaimed debut album, Murmur, and built its reputation over the next few years with similarly acclaimed releases every year from 1984 to 1988: Reckoning, Fables of the Reconstruction, Lifes Rich Pageant, Document and Green, including an intermittent b-side compilation Dead Letter Office. Don Dixon and Mitch Easter produced their first two albums, Joe Boyd handled production on Fables of the Reconstruction and Don Gehman produced Lifes Rich Pageant. Thereafter, R.E.M. settled on Scott Litt as producer for the next 10years during the band's most successful period of their career. They also started co-producing their material and playing other instruments in the studio apart from the main ones they play. With constant touring, and the support of college radio following years of underground success, R.E.M. achieved a mainstream hit with the 1987 single "The One I Love". The group signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1988, and began to espouse political and environmental concerns while playing large arenas worldwide.
R.E.M.'s most commercially successful albums, Out of Time (1991) and Automatic for the People (1992), put them in the vanguard of alternative rock just as it was becoming mainstream. Out of Time received seven nominations at the 34th Annual Grammy Awards, and lead single "Losing My Religion", was R.E.M.'s highest-charting and best-selling hit. Monster (1994) continued its run of success. The band began its first tour in six years to support the album; the tour was marred by medical emergencies suffered by three of the band members. In 1996, R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. for a reported US$80 million, at the time the most expensive recording contract ever. The tour was productive and the band recorded the following album mostly during soundchecks. The resulting record, New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996), is hailed as the band's last great album and the members' favorite, growing in cult status over the years. Berry left the band the following year, and Stipe, Buck, and Mills continued as a musical trio, supplemented by studio and live musicians, such as multi-instrumentalists Scott McCaughey and Ken Stringfellow and drummers Joey Waronker and Bill Rieflin. They also parted ways with their longtime manager Jefferson Holt and band's attorney Bertis Downs assumed managerial duties. Seeking to also renovate their sound, the band stopped working with Scott Litt, co-producer and contributor to six of their studio albums and hired Pat McCarthy as co-producer, who had participated before that as mixer and engineer on their last two albums.
After the electronic experimental direction of Up (1998) that was commercially unsuccessful, Reveal (2001) was referred to as "a conscious return to their classic sound" which received general acclaim. In 2007, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in its first year of eligibility and Berry reunited with the band for the ceremony and to record a cover of John Lennon's "#9 Dream" for the compilation album Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur to benefit Amnesty International's campaign to alleviate the Darfur conflict. Looking for a change of sound after lukewarm reception for Around the Sun (2004), the band collaborated with co-producer Jacknife Lee on their last two studio albums—the well-received Accelerate (2008) and Collapse into Now (2011)—as well as their first live albums after decades of touring. R.E.M. disbanded amicably in September 2011, with former members having continued with various musical projects, and several live and archival albums have since been released.
History
1980–1982: Formation and first releases
In January 1980, Peter Buck met Michael Stipe in Wuxtry Records, the Athens record store where Buck worked. The pair discovered that they shared similar tastes in music, particularly in punk rock and proto-punk artists like Patti Smith, Television, and the Velvet Underground. Stipe said, "It turns out that I was buying all the records that [Buck] was saving for himself." Through mutual friend Kathleen O'Brien, Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Bill Berry and Mike Mills, who had played music together since high school and lived together in Georgia. The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that "there was never any grand plan behind any of it". Their still-unnamed band spent a few months rehearsing in a deconsecrated Episcopal church in Athens, and played its first show on April 5, 1980, supporting the Side Effects at O'Brien's birthday party held in the same church, performing a mix of originals and 1960s and 1970s covers. After considering names such as Cans of Piss, Negro Eyes, and Twisted Kites, the band settled on "R.E.M.", which Stipe selected at random from a dictionary. R.E.M. is well known as an initialism for rapid eye movement, the dream stage of sleep; however, sleep researcher Dr. Rafael Pelayo reports that when his colleague Dr. William Dement, the sleep scientist who coined the term REM, reached out to the band, Dr. Dement was told that the band was named "not after REM sleep".
The band members eventually dropped out of school to focus on their developing group. They found a manager in Jefferson Holt, a record store clerk who was so impressed by an R.E.M. performance in his hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that he moved to Athens. R.E.M.'s success was almost immediate in Athens and surrounding areas; the band drew progressively larger crowds for shows, which caused some resentment in the Athens music scene. Over the next year and a half, R.E.M. toured throughout the Southern United States. Touring was arduous because a touring circuit for alternative rock bands did not then exist. The group toured in an old blue van driven by Holt, and lived on a food allowance of $2 each per day.
During April 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, "Radio Free Europe", at producer Mitch Easter's Drive-In Studios in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Initially distributing it as a four-track demo tape to clubs, record labels and magazines, the single was released in July 1981 on the local independent record label Hib-Tone with an initial pressing of 1,000 copies—600 of which were sent out as promotional copies. The single quickly sold out, and another 6,000 copies were pressed due to popular demand, despite the original pressing leaving off the record label's contact details. Despite its limited pressing, the single garnered critical acclaim, and was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times.
R.E.M. recorded the Chronic Town EP with Mitch Easter in October 1981, and planned to release it on a new indie label named Dasht Hopes. However, I.R.S. Records acquired a demo of the band's first recording session with Easter that had been circulating for months. The band turned down the advances of major label RCA Records in favor of I.R.S., with whom it signed a contract in May 1982. I.R.S. released Chronic Town that August as its first American release. A positive review of the EP by NME praised the songs' auras of mystery, and concluded, "R.E.M. ring true, and it's great to hear something as unforced and cunning as this."
1982–1988: I.R.S. Records and cult success
I.R.S. first paired R.E.M. with producer Stephen Hague to record its debut album. Hague's emphasis on technical perfection left the band unsatisfied, and the band members asked the label to let them record with Easter. I.R.S. agreed to a "tryout" session, allowing the band to return to North Carolina and record the song "Pilgrimage" with Easter and producing partner Don Dixon. After hearing the track, I.R.S. permitted the group to record the album with Dixon and Easter. Because of its bad experience with Hague, the band recorded the album via a process of negation, refusing to incorporate rock music clichés such as guitar solos or then-popular synthesizers, in order to give its music a timeless feel. The completed album, Murmur, was greeted with critical acclaim upon its release in 1983, with Rolling Stone listing the album as its record of the year. The album reached number 36 on the Billboard album chart. A re-recorded version of "Radio Free Europe" was the album's lead single and reached number 78 on the Billboard singles chart in 1983. Despite the acclaim awarded the album, Murmur sold only about 200,000 copies, which I.R.S.'s Jay Boberg felt was below expectations.
R.E.M. made its first national television appearance on Late Night with David Letterman in October 1983, during which the group performed a new, unnamed song. The piece, eventually titled "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)", became the first single from the band's second album, Reckoning (1984), which was also recorded with Easter and Dixon. The album met with critical acclaim; NMEs Mat Snow wrote that Reckoning "confirms R.E.M. as one of the most beautifully exciting groups on the planet". While Reckoning peaked at number 27 on the US album charts—an unusually high chart placing for a college rock band at the time—scant airplay and poor distribution overseas resulted in it charting no higher than number 91 in Britain.
The band's third album, Fables of the Reconstruction (1985), demonstrated a change in direction. Instead of Dixon and Easter, R.E.M. chose producer Joe Boyd, who had worked with Fairport Convention and Nick Drake, to record the album in England. The band members found the sessions unexpectedly difficult, and were miserable due to the cold winter weather and what they considered to be poor food; the situation brought the band to the verge of break-up. The gloominess surrounding the sessions worked its way into the context for the album's themes. Lyrically, Stipe began to create storylines in the mode of Southern mythology, noting in a 1985 interview that he was inspired by "the whole idea of the old men sitting around the fire, passing on ... legends and fables to the grandchildren".
They toured Canada in July and August 1985, and Europe in October of that year, including the Netherlands, England (including one concert at London's Hammersmith Palais), Ireland, Scotland, France, Switzerland, Belgium and West Germany. On October 2, 1985, the group played a concert in Bochum, West Germany, for the German TV show Rockpalast. Stipe had bleached his hair blond during this time. R.E.M. invited California punk band Minutemen to open for them on part of the US tour, and organized a benefit for the family of Minutemen frontman D. Boon who died in a December 1985 car crash shortly after the tour's conclusion. Fables of the Reconstruction performed poorly in Europe and its critical reception was mixed, with some critics regarding it as dreary and poorly recorded. As with the previous records, the singles from Fables of the Reconstruction were mostly ignored by mainstream radio. Meanwhile, I.R.S. was becoming frustrated with the band's reluctance to achieve mainstream success.
For its fourth album, R.E.M. enlisted John Mellencamp's producer Don Gehman. The result, Lifes Rich Pageant (1986), featured Stipe's vocals closer to the forefront of the music. In a 1986 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Peter Buck related, "Michael is getting better at what he's doing, and he's getting more confident at it. And I think that shows up in the projection of his voice." The album improved markedly upon the sales of Fables of the Reconstruction and reached number 21 on the Billboard album chart. The single "Fall on Me" also picked up support on commercial radio. The album was the band's first to be certified gold for selling 500,000 copies. While American college radio remained R.E.M.'s core support, the band was beginning to chart hits on mainstream rock formats; however, the music still encountered resistance from Top 40 radio.
Following the success of Lifes Rich Pageant, I.R.S. issued Dead Letter Office, a compilation of tracks recorded by the band during their album sessions, many of which had either been issued as B-sides or left unreleased altogether. Shortly thereafter, I.R.S. compiled R.E.M.'s music video catalog (except "Wolves, Lower") as the band's first video release, Succumbs.
Don Gehman was unable to produce R.E.M.'s fifth album, so he suggested the group work with Scott Litt. Litt would be the producer for the band's next five albums. Document (1987) featured some of Stipe's most openly political lyrics, particularly on "Welcome to the Occupation" and "Exhuming McCarthy", which were reactions to the conservative political environment of the 1980s under American president Ronald Reagan. Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote in his review of the album, "Document is both confident and defiant; if R.E.M. is about to move from cult-band status to mass popularity, the album decrees that the band will get there on its own terms." Document was R.E.M.'s breakthrough album, and the first single "The One I Love" charted in the Top 20 in the US, UK, and Canada. By January 1988, Document had become the group's first album to sell a million copies. In light of the band's breakthrough, the December 1987 cover of Rolling Stone declared R.E.M. "America's Best Rock & Roll Band".
1988–1997: International breakout and alternative rock stardom
Frustrated that its records did not see satisfactory overseas distribution, R.E.M. left I.R.S. when its contract expired and signed with the major label Warner Bros. Records. Though other labels offered more money, R.E.M. ultimately signed with Warner Bros.—reportedly for an amount between $6 million and $12 million—due to the company's assurance of total creative freedom. (Jay Boberg claimed that R.E.M.'s deal with Warner Bros. was for $22 million, which Peter Buck disputed as "definitely wrong".) In the aftermath of the group's departure, I.R.S. released the 1988 "best of" compilation Eponymous (assembled with input from the band members) to capitalize on assets the company still possessed. The band's 1988 Warner Bros. debut, Green, was recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, and showcased the group experimenting with its sound. The record's tracks ranged from the upbeat first single "Stand" (a hit in the United States), to more political material, like the rock-oriented "Orange Crush" and "World Leader Pretend", which address the Vietnam War and the Cold War, respectively. Green has gone on to sell four million copies worldwide. The band supported the album with its biggest and most visually developed tour to date, featuring back-projections and art films playing on the stage. After the Green tour, the band members unofficially decided to take the following year off, the first extended break in the band's career. In 1990 Warner Bros. issued the music video compilation Pop Screen to collect clips from the Document and Green albums, followed a few months later by the video album Tourfilm featuring live performances filmed during the Green World Tour.
R.E.M. reconvened in mid-1990 to record its seventh album, Out of Time. In a departure from Green, the band members often wrote the music with non-traditional rock instrumentation including mandolin, organ, and acoustic guitar instead of adding them as overdubs later in the creative process. Released in March 1991, Out of Time was the band's first album to top both the US and UK charts. The record eventually sold 4.2 million copies in the US alone, and about 12 million copies worldwide by 1996. The album's lead single "Losing My Religion" was a worldwide hit that received heavy rotation on radio, as did the music video on MTV and VH1. "Losing My Religion" was R.E.M.'s highest-charting single in the US, reaching number four on the Billboard charts. "There've been very few life-changing events in our career because our career has been so gradual," Mills said years later. "If you want to talk about life changing, I think 'Losing My Religion' is the closest it gets". The album's second single, "Shiny Happy People" (one of three songs on the record to feature vocals from Kate Pierson of fellow Athens band the B-52's), was also a major hit, reaching number 10 in the US and number six in the UK. Out of Time garnered R.E.M. seven nominations at the 1992 Grammy Awards, the most nominations of any artist that year. The band won three awards: one for Best Alternative Music Album and two for "Losing My Religion", Best Short Form Music Video and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. R.E.M. did not tour to promote Out of Time; instead the group played a series of one-off shows, including an appearance taped for an episode of MTV Unplugged and released music videos for each song on the video album This Film Is On. The band also performed "Losing My Religion" with members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in Madison, Georgia, at Madison-Morgan Cultural Center as part of MTV's 10th anniversary special.
After spending some months off, R.E.M. returned to the studio in 1991 to record its next album. Late in 1992, the band released Automatic for the People. Though the group had intended to make a harder-rocking album after the softer textures of Out of Time, the somber Automatic for the People "[seemed] to move at an even more agonized crawl", according to Melody Maker. The album dealt with themes of loss and mourning inspired by "that sense of ... turning thirty", according to Buck. Several songs featured string arrangements by former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. Considered by a number of critics (as well as by Buck and Mills) to be the band's best album, Automatic for the People reached numbers one and two on UK and US charts, respectively, and generated the American Top 40 hit singles "Drive", "Man on the Moon", and "Everybody Hurts". The album would sell over fifteen million copies worldwide. As with Out of Time, there was no tour in support of the album. The decision to forgo a tour, in conjunction with Stipe's physical appearance, generated rumors that the singer was dying or HIV-positive, which were vehemently denied by the band.
After the band released two slow-paced albums in a row, R.E.M.'s 1994 album Monster was, as Buck said, "a 'rock' record, with the rock in quotation marks." In contrast to the sound of its predecessors, the music of Monster consisted of distorted guitar tones, minimal overdubs, and touches of 1970s glam rock. Like Out of Time, Monster topped the charts in both the US and UK. The record sold about nine million copies worldwide. The singles "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and "Bang and Blame" were the band's last American Top 40 hits, although all the singles from Monster reached the Top 30 on the British charts. Warner Bros. assembled the music videos from the album as well as those from Automatic for the People for release as Parallel in 1995.
In January 1995, R.E.M. set out on its first tour in six years. The tour was a huge commercial success, but the period was difficult for the group. On March 1, Berry collapsed on stage during a performance in Lausanne, Switzerland, having suffered a brain aneurysm. He had surgery immediately and recovered fully within a month. Berry's aneurysm was only the beginning of a series of health problems that plagued the Monster tour. Mills had to undergo abdominal surgery to remove an intestinal adhesion in July; a month later, Stipe had to have an emergency surgery to repair a hernia. Despite all the problems, the group had recorded the bulk of a new album while on the road. The band brought along eight-track recorders to capture its shows, and used the recordings as the base elements for the album. The final three performances of the tour were filmed at the Omni Coliseum in Atlanta, Georgia and released in home video form as Road Movie.
R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. Records in 1996 for a reported $80 million (a figure the band constantly asserted originated with the media), rumored to be the largest recording contract in history at that point. The group's 1996 album New Adventures in Hi-Fi debuted at number two in the US and number one in the UK. The five million copies of the album sold were a reversal of the group's commercial fortunes of the previous five years. Critical reaction to the album was mostly favorable. In a 2017 retrospective on the band, Consequence of Sound ranked it third out of R.E.M.'s 15 full-length studio albums. The album is Stipe's favorite from R.E.M. and he considers it the band at their peak. Mills says "It usually takes a good few years for me to decide where an album stands in the pantheon of recorded work we've done. This one may be third behind Murmur and Automatic for the People. According to DiscoverMusic: "Arguably less immediate and less accessible[...]New Adventures in Hi-Fi is a sprawling, "White Album"-esque affair clocking in at 65 minutes. However, while it required some time and commitment from the listener, the record's contents were rich, compelling and frequently stunning. Accordingly, the album has continued to lobby for recognition and has long since earned its reputation as R.E.M.'s most unsung LP." While sales were impressive they were below their previous major label records. Time's writer Christopher John Farley argued that the lesser sales of the album were due to the declining commercial power of alternative rock as a whole. That same year, R.E.M. parted ways with manager Jefferson Holt, allegedly due to sexual harassment charges levied against him by a member of the band's home office in Athens. The group's lawyer Bertis Downs assumed managerial duties.
1997–2006: Continuing as three-piece with mixed success
In April 1997, the band convened at Buck's Kauai vacation home to record demos of material intended for the next album. The band sought to reinvent its sound and intended to incorporate drum loops and percussion experiments. Just as the sessions were due to begin in October, Berry decided, after months of contemplation and discussions with Downs and Mills, to tell the rest of the band that he was quitting. Berry told his bandmates that he would not quit if they would break up as a result, so Stipe, Buck, and Mills agreed to carry on as a three-piece with his blessing. Berry publicly announced his departure three weeks later in October 1997. Berry told the press, "I'm just not as enthusiastic as I have been in the past about doing this anymore . . . I have the best job in the world. But I'm kind of ready to sit back and reflect and maybe not be a pop star anymore." Stipe admitted that the band would be different without a major contributor: "For me, Mike, and Peter, as R.E.M., are we still R.E.M.? I guess a three-legged dog is still a dog. It just has to learn to run differently."
The band cancelled its scheduled recording sessions as a result of Berry's departure. "Without Bill it was different, confusing", Mills later said. "We didn't know exactly what to do. We couldn't rehearse without a drummer." The remaining members of R.E.M. resumed work on the album in February 1998 at Toast Studios in San Francisco. The band ended its decade-long collaboration with Scott Litt and hired Pat McCarthy to produce the record. Nigel Godrich was taken on as assistant producer, and drafted in Screaming Trees member Barrett Martin and Beck's touring drummer Joey Waronker. The recording process was tense, and the group came close to disbanding. Bertis Downs called an emergency meeting in which the band members resolved their problems and agreed to continue as a group. Led by the single "Daysleeper", Up (1998) debuted in the top ten in the US and UK. However, the album was a relative failure, selling 900,000 copies in the US by mid-1999 and eventually selling just over two million copies worldwide. While R.E.M.'s American sales were declining, the group's commercial base was shifting to the UK, where more R.E.M. records were sold per capita than any other country and the band's singles regularly entered the Top 20.
A year after Ups release, R.E.M. wrote the instrumental score to the Andy Kaufman biographical film Man on the Moon, a first for the group. The film took its title from the Automatic for the People song of the same name. The song "The Great Beyond" was released as a single from the Man on the Moon soundtrack album. "The Great Beyond" only reached number 57 on the American pop charts, but was the band's highest-charting single ever in the UK, reaching number three in 2000.
R.E.M. recorded the majority of its twelfth album Reveal (2001) in Canada and Ireland from May to October 2000. Reveal shared the "lugubrious pace" of Up, and featured drumming by Joey Waronker, as well as contributions by Scott McCaughey (a co-founder of the band the Minus 5 with Buck), and Ken Stringfellow (founder of the Posies). Global sales of the album were over four million, but in the United States Reveal sold about the same number of copies as Up. The album was led by the single "Imitation of Life", which reached number six in the UK. Writing for Rock's Backpages, The Rev. Al Friston described the album as "loaded with golden loveliness at every twist and turn", in comparison to the group's "essentially unconvincing work on New Adventures in Hi-Fi and Up". Similarly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone called Reveal "a spiritual renewal rooted in a musical one" and praised its "ceaselessly astonishing beauty".
In 2003, Warner Bros. released the compilation album and DVD In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003 and In View: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003, which featured two new songs, "Bad Day" and "Animal". At a 2003 concert in Raleigh, North Carolina, Berry made a surprise appearance, performing backing vocals on "Radio Free Europe". He then sat behind the drum kit for a performance of the early R.E.M. song "Permanent Vacation", marking his first performance with the band since his retirement.
R.E.M. released Around the Sun in 2004. During production of the album in 2002, Stipe said, "[The album] sounds like it's taking off from the last couple of records into unchartered R.E.M. territory. Kind of primitive and howling". After the album's release, Mills said, "I think, honestly, it turned out a little slower than we intended for it to, just in terms of the overall speed of songs." Around the Sun received a mixed critical reception, and peaked at number 13 on the Billboard charts. The first single from the album, "Leaving New York", was a Top 5 hit in the UK. For the record and subsequent tour, the band hired a new full-time touring drummer, Bill Rieflin, who had previously been a member of several industrial music acts such as Ministry and Pigface, and remained in that role for the duration of the band's active years. The video album Perfect Square was released that same year.
2006–2011: Last albums, recognition and breakup
EMI released a compilation album covering R.E.M.'s work during its tenure on I.R.S. in 2006 called And I Feel Fine... The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982–1987 along with the video album When the Light Is Mine: The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982–1987—the label had previously released the compilations The Best of R.E.M. (1991), R.E.M.: Singles Collected (1994), and R.E.M.: In the Attic – Alternative Recordings 1985–1989 (1997). That same month, all four original band members performed during the ceremony for their induction into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. While rehearsing for the ceremony, the band recorded a cover of John Lennon's "#9 Dream" for Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur, a tribute album benefiting Amnesty International. The song—released as a single for the album and the campaign—featured Bill Berry's first studio recording with the band since his departure almost a decade earlier.
In October 2006, R.E.M. was nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its first year of eligibility. The band was one of five nominees accepted into the Hall that year, and the induction ceremony took place in March 2007 at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The group—which was inducted by Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder—performed three songs with Bill Berry; "Gardening at Night", "Man on the Moon" and "Begin the Begin" as well as a cover of "I Wanna Be Your Dog".
Work on the group's fourteenth album commenced in early 2007. The band recorded with producer Jacknife Lee in Vancouver and Dublin, where it played five nights in the Olympia Theatre between June 30 and July 5 as part of a "working rehearsal". R.E.M. Live, the band's first live album (featuring songs from a 2005 Dublin show), was released in October 2007. The group followed this with the 2009 live album Live at The Olympia, which features performances from its 2007 residency. R.E.M. released Accelerate in early 2008. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard charts, and became the band's eighth album to top the British album charts. Rolling Stone reviewer David Fricke considered Accelerate an improvement over the band's previous post-Berry albums, calling it "one of the best records R.E.M. have ever made".
In 2010, R.E.M. released the video album R.E.M. Live from Austin, TX—a concert recorded for Austin City Limits in 2008. The group recorded its fifteenth album, Collapse into Now (2011), with Jacknife Lee in locales including Berlin, Nashville, and New Orleans. For the album, the band aimed for a more expansive sound than the intentionally short and speedy approach implemented on Accelerate. The album debuted at number five on the Billboard 200, becoming the group's tenth album to reach the top ten of the chart. This release fulfilled R.E.M.'s contractual obligations to Warner Bros., and the band began recording material without a contract a few months later with the possible intention of self-releasing the work.
On September 21, 2011, R.E.M. announced via its website that it was "calling it a day as a band". Stipe said that he hoped fans realized it "wasn't an easy decision": "All things must end, and we wanted to do it right, to do it our way." Long-time associate and former Warner Bros. Senior Vice President of Emerging Technology Ethan Kaplan has speculated that shake-ups at the record label influenced the group's decision to disband. The group discussed breaking up for several years, but was encouraged to continue after the lackluster critical and commercial performance of Around the Sun; according to Mills, "We needed to prove, not only to our fans and critics but to ourselves, that we could still make great records." They were also uninterested in the business end of recording as R.E.M. The band members finished their collaboration by assembling the compilation album Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982–2011, which was released in November 2011. The album is the first to collect songs from R.E.M.'s I.R.S. and Warner Bros. tenures, as well as three songs from the group's final studio recordings from post-Collapse into Now sessions. In November, Mills and Stipe did a brief span of promotional appearances in British media, ruling out the option of the group ever reuniting.
2011–present: Post-breakup releases and events
In 2014, Unplugged: The Complete 1991 and 2001 Sessions was released for Record Store Day. Digital download collections of I.R.S. and Warner Bros. rarities followed. Later in the year, the band compiled the video album box set REMTV, which collected their two Unplugged performances along with several other documentaries and live shows, while their record label released the box set 7IN—83–88, made up of 7-inch vinyl singles. In December 2015, the band members agreed to a distribution deal with Concord Bicycle Music to re-release their Warner Bros. albums. Continuing to maintain their copyright and intellectual property legacies, in March 2016, the band signed a new music publishing administration deal with Universal Music Publishing Group, and a year later, the band members left Broadcast Music, Inc., who had represented their performance rights for their entire career, and joined SESAC. The first release after their new publishing status was the 2018 box set R.E.M. at the BBC. Live at the Borderline 1991 followed for 2019's Record Store Day.
On March 24, 2020, session and touring drummer Bill Rieflin, who contributed on the band's last three records, died of cancer after years of battling the disease.
In September 2021, a full decade after disbanding, Stipe reiterated that the band had no intention of regrouping: "We decided when we split up that that would just be really tacky and probably money-grabbing, which might be the impetus for a lot of bands to get back together."
Musical style
R.E.M. has been described as alternative rock, college rock, folk rock, jangle pop, and post-punk. In a 1988 interview, Peter Buck described R.E.M. songs as typically, "Minor key, mid-tempo, enigmatic, semi-folk-rock-balladish things. That's what everyone thinks and to a certain degree, that's true." All songwriting is credited to the entire band, even though individual members are sometimes responsible for writing the majority of a particular song. Each member is given an equal vote in the songwriting process; however, Buck has conceded that Stipe, as the band's lyricist, can rarely be persuaded to follow an idea he does not favor. Among the original line-up, there were divisions of labor in the songwriting process: Stipe would write lyrics and devise melodies, Buck would edge the band in new musical directions, and Mills and Berry would fine-tune the compositions due to their greater musical experience.
Michael Stipe sings in what R.E.M. biographer David Buckley described as "wailing, keening, arching vocal figures". Stipe often harmonizes with Mills in songs; in the chorus for "Stand", Mills and Stipe alternate singing lyrics, creating a dialogue. Early articles about the band focused on Stipe's singing style (described as "mumbling" by The Washington Post), which often rendered his lyrics indecipherable. Creem writer John Morthland wrote in his review of Murmur, "I still have no idea what these songs are about, because neither me nor anyone else I know has ever been able to discern R.E.M.'s lyrics." Stipe commented in 1984, "It's just the way I sing. If I tried to control it, it would be pretty false." Producer Joe Boyd convinced Stipe to begin singing more clearly during the recording of Fables of the Reconstruction.
Stipe later called chorus lyrics of "Sitting Still" from R.E.M. debut album, Murmur, "nonsense", saying in a 1994 online chat, "You all know there aren't words, per se, to a lot of the early stuff. I can't even remember them." In truth, Stipe carefully crafted the lyrics to many early R.E.M. songs. Stipe explained in 1984 that when he started writing lyrics they were like "simple pictures", but after a year he grew tired of the approach and "started experimenting with lyrics that didn't make exact linear sense, and it's just gone from there." In the mid-1980s, as Stipe's pronunciation while singing became clearer, the band decided that its lyrics should convey ideas on a more literal level. Mills explained, "After you've made three records and you've written several songs and they've gotten better and better lyrically the next step would be to have somebody question you and say, are you saying anything? And Michael had the confidence at that point to say yes . . ." Songs like "Cuyahoga" and "Fall on Me" on Lifes Rich Pageant dealt with such concerns as pollution. Stipe incorporated more politically oriented concerns into his lyrics on Document and Green. "Our political activism and the content of the songs was just a reaction to where we were, and what we were surrounded by, which was just abject horror," Stipe said later. "In 1987 and '88 there was nothing to do but be active." Stipe has since explored other lyrical topics. Automatic for the People dealt with "mortality and dying. Pretty turgid stuff", according to Stipe, while Monster critiqued love and mass culture. Musically, Stipe stated that bands like T. Rex and Mott the Hoople "really impacted me".
Peter Buck's style of playing guitar has been singled out by many as the most distinctive aspect of R.E.M.'s music. During the 1980s, Buck's "economical, arpeggiated, poetic" style reminded British music journalists of 1960s American folk rock band the Byrds. Buck has stated "[Byrds guitarist] Roger McGuinn was a big influence on me as a guitar player", but said it was Byrds-influenced bands, including Big Star and the Soft Boys, that inspired him more. Comparisons were also made with the guitar playing of Johnny Marr of alternative rock contemporaries the Smiths. While Buck professed being a fan of the group, he admitted he initially criticized the band simply because he was tired of fans asking him if he was influenced by Marr, whose band had in fact made their debut after R.E.M. Buck generally eschews guitar solos; he explained in 2002, "I know that when guitarists rip into this hot solo, people go nuts, but I don't write songs that suit that, and I am not interested in that. I can do it if I have to, but I don't like it." Mike Mills' melodic approach to bass playing is inspired by Paul McCartney of the Beatles and Chris Squire of Yes; Mills has said, "I always played a melodic bass, like a piano bass in some ways . . . I never wanted to play the traditional locked into the kick drum, root note bass work." Mills has more musical training than his bandmates, which he has said "made it easier to turn abstract musical ideas into reality."
Legacy
R.E.M. was pivotal in the creation and development of the alternative rock genre. AllMusic stated, "R.E.M. mark the point when post-punk turned into alternative rock." In the early 1980s, the musical style of R.E.M. stood in contrast to the post-punk and new wave genres that had preceded it. Music journalist Simon Reynolds noted that the post-punk movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s "had taken whole swaths of music off the menu", particularly that of the 1960s, and that "After postpunk's demystification and New Pop's schematics, it felt liberating to listen to music rooted in mystical awe and blissed-out surrender." Reynolds declared R.E.M., a band that recalled the music of the 1960s with its "plangent guitar chimes and folk-styled vocals" and who "wistfully and abstractly conjured visions and new frontiers for America", one of "the two most important alt-rock bands of the day." With the release of Murmur, R.E.M. had the most impact musically and commercially of the developing alternative genre's early groups, leaving in its wake a number of jangle pop followers.
R.E.M.'s early breakthrough success served as an inspiration for other alternative bands. Spin referred to the "R.E.M. model"—career decisions that R.E.M. made that set guidelines for other underground artists to follow in their own careers. Spin's Charles Aaron wrote that by 1985, "They'd shown how far an underground, punk-inspired rock band could go within the industry without whoring out its artistic integrity in any obvious way. They'd figured out how to buy in, not sellout-in other words, they'd achieved the American Bohemian Dream." Steve Wynn of Dream Syndicate said, "They invented a whole new ballgame for all of the other bands to follow whether it was Sonic Youth or the Replacements or Nirvana or Butthole Surfers. R.E.M. staked the claim. Musically, the bands did different things, but R.E.M. was first to show us you can be big and still be cool." Biographer David Buckley stated that between 1991 and 1994, a period that saw the band sell an estimated 30 million albums, R.E.M. "asserted themselves as rivals to U2 for the title of biggest rock band in the world." Over the course of its career, the band has sold over 85 million records worldwide. Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums stated that "Their catalogue is destined to endure as critics reluctantly accept their considerable importance in the history of rock".
Alternative bands such as Nirvana, Pavement, Radiohead, Coldplay, Pearl Jam (the band's vocalist Eddie Vedder inducted R.E.M. into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame), Live, Stone Temple Pilots, Collective Soul, Alice in Chains, Hootie and the Blowfish and Pwr Bttm have drawn inspiration from R.E.M.'s music. "When I was 15 years old in Richmond, Virginia, they were a very important part of my life," Pavement's Bob Nastanovich said, "as they were for all the members of our band." Pavement's contribution to the No Alternative compilation (1993) was "Unseen Power of the Picket Fence", a song about R.E.M.'s early days. Local H, according to the band's Twitter account, created their name by combining two R.E.M. songs: "Oddfellows Local 151" and "Swan Swan H". Kurt Cobain of Nirvana was a fan of R.E.M., and had unfulfilled plans to collaborate on a musical project with Stipe. Cobain told Rolling Stone in an interview earlier that year, "I don’t know how that band does what they do. God, they’re the greatest. They've dealt with their success like saints, and they keep delivering great music."
During his show at the 40 Watt Club in October 2018, Johnny Marr said: "As a British musician coming out of the indie scene in the early '80s, which I definitely am and am proud to have been, I can't miss this opportunity to acknowledge and pay my respects and honor the guys who put this town on the map for us in England. I'm talking about my comrades in guitar music, R.E.M. The Smiths really respected R.E.M. We had to keep an eye on what those guys were up to. It's an interesting thing for me, as a British musician, and all those guys as British musicians, to come to this place and play for you guys, knowing that it's the roots of Mike Mills and Bill Berry and Michael Stipe and my good friend Peter Buck."
Awards
Campaigning and activism
Throughout R.E.M.'s career, its members sought to highlight social and political issues. According to the Los Angeles Times, R.E.M. was considered to be one of the United States' "most liberal and politically correct rock groups." The band's members were "on the same page" politically, sharing a liberal and progressive outlook. Mills admitted that there was occasionally dissension between band members on what causes they might support, but acknowledged "Out of respect for the people who disagree, those discussions tend to stay in-house, just because we'd rather not let people know where the divisions lie, so people can't exploit them for their own purposes." An example is that in 1990 Buck noted that Stipe was involved with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but the rest of the band were not.
R.E.M. helped raise funds for environmental, feminist and human rights causes, and were involved in campaigns to encourage voter registration. During the Green tour, Stipe spoke on stage to the audiences about a variety of socio-political issues. Through the late 1980s and 1990s, the band (particularly Stipe) increasingly used its media coverage on national television to mention a variety of causes it felt were important. One example is during the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards, Stipe wore a half-dozen white shirts emblazoned with slogans including "rainforest", "love knows no colors", and "handgun control now".
R.E.M. helped raise awareness of Aung San Suu Kyi and human rights violations in Myanmar, when they worked with the Freedom Campaign and the US Campaign for Burma. Stipe himself ran ads for the 1988 election, supporting Democratic presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis over then-Vice President George H. W. Bush. In 2004, the band participated in the Vote for Change tour that sought to mobilize American voters to support Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. R.E.M.'s political stance, particularly coming from a wealthy rock band under contract to a label owned by a multinational corporation, received criticism from former Q editor Paul Du Noyer, who criticized the band's "celebrity liberalism", saying, "It's an entirely pain-free form of rebellion that they're adopting. There's no risk involved in it whatsoever, but quite a bit of shoring up of customer loyalty."
From the late 1980s, R.E.M. was involved in the local politics of its hometown of Athens, Georgia. Buck explained to Sounds in 1987, "Michael always says think local and act local—we have been doing a lot of stuff in our town to try and make it a better place." The band often donated funds to local charities and helped renovate and preserve historic buildings in the town. R.E.M.'s political clout was credited with the narrow election of Athens mayor Gwen O'Looney twice in the 1990s. The band is a member of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism.
Members
Main members
Bill Berry – drums, percussion, backing vocals, occasional bass guitar and keyboards (1980–1997; occasional concert appearances with the band 2003–2007)
Peter Buck – lead guitar, mandolin, banjo, occasional bass guitar and keyboards (1980–2011)
Mike Mills – bass guitar, keyboards, backing vocals and guitar (1980–2011)
Michael Stipe – lead vocals (1980–2011)
Non-musical members
Several publications made by the band such as album liner notes and fan club mailers list attorney Bertis Downs and manager Jefferson Holt as honorary non-musical members; the two joined up with R.E.M. in 1980/1981 and Holt left in 1996.
Touring and session musicians
Buren Fowler – rhythm guitar (1986–1987)
Peter Holsapple – rhythm guitar, keyboards (1989–1991)
Scott McCaughey – rhythm guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, occasional lead guitar (1994–2011)
Nathan December – rhythm and lead guitar (1994–1995)
Joey Waronker – drums, percussion (1998–2002)
Barrett Martin – percussion (1998)
Ken Stringfellow – keyboards, occasional rhythm guitar, bass guitar, backing vocals (1998–2005)
Bill Rieflin – drums, percussion, occasional keyboards and guitar (2003–2011)
Timeline
Production timeline
Touring and session members timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Murmur (1983)
Reckoning (1984)
Fables of the Reconstruction (1985)
Lifes Rich Pageant (1986)
Document (1987)
Green (1988)
Out of Time (1991)
Automatic for the People (1992)
Monster (1994)
New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996)
Up (1998)
Reveal (2001)
Around the Sun (2004)
Accelerate (2008)
Collapse into Now (2011)
See also
List of alternative rock artists
References
Sources
Black, Johnny. Reveal: The Story of R.E.M. Backbeat, 2004.
Buckley, David. R.E.M.: Fiction: An Alternative Biography. Virgin, 2002.
Gray, Marcus. It Crawled from the South: An R.E.M. Companion. Da Capo, 1997. Second edition.
Fletcher, Tony. Remarks Remade: The Story of R.E.M. Omnibus, 2002. .
Platt, John (editor). The R.E.M. Companion: Two Decades of Commentary. Schirmer, 1998.
Sullivan, Denise. Talk About the Passion: R.E.M.: An Oral Biography. Underwood-Miller, 1994.
External links
Dynamic Range DB entry for R.E.M.
1980 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
2011 disestablishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
Alternative rock groups from Georgia (U.S. state)
Brit Award winners
Capitol Records artists
Concord Bicycle Music artists
Grammy Award winners
I.R.S. Records artists
Jangle pop groups
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups disestablished in 2011
Musical groups from Athens, Georgia
New West Records artists
Rhino Records artists
Warner Records artists
Craft Recordings artists
College rock musical groups | true | [
"Merry Legs (1911-1932) was a Tennessee Walking Horse mare who was given foundation registration for her influence as a broodmare. She was also a successful show horse.\n\nLife\nMerry Legs was foaled in April 1911. She was a bay with sabino markings. She was sired by the foundation stallion Black Allan F-1, out of the American Saddlebred mare Nell Dement, registration number F-3, and bred by the early breeder Albert Dement. She was a large mare at maturity, standing high and weighing . Merry Legs was a successful show horse; as a three-year-old, she won the stake class at the Tennessee State Fair. She was also successful as a broodmare, giving birth to 13 foals, among them the well-known Bud Allen, Last Chance, Major Allen, and Merry Boy. For her influence on the breed, she was given the foundation number F-4 when the TWHBEA was formed in 1935. She died in 1932.\n\nReferences\n\nIndividual Tennessee Walking Horses\n1911 animal births\n1932 animal deaths",
"The UCI Road World Championships – Men's team time trial was a world championship for road bicycle racing in the discipline of team time trial (TTT). It is organized by the world governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI).\n\nNational teams (1962–1994)\nA championship for national teams was introduced in 1962 and held until 1994. It was held annually, except that from 1972 onward, the TTT was not held in Olympic years. There were 4 riders per team on a route around 100 kilometres long. Italy is the most successful nation with seven victories.\n\nMedal winners\n\nMedals by nation\n\nMost successful riders\n\nUCI teams (2012–2018)\nThere was a long break until a championship for trade teams was introduced in 2012. There were 6 riders per team. The championship was held up to 2018.\n\nMedal winners\n\nMost successful teams\n\nMost successful riders\n\nReferences \n \n \n\n \nMen's Team Time Trial\nRecurring sporting events established in 1962\nUCI World Tour races\nMen's road bicycle races\nLists of UCI Road World Championships medalists\nRecurring sporting events disestablished in 2018"
] |
[
"R.E.M.",
"1980-1981: Formation",
"Whose idea was it to form R.E.M.?",
"The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that \"there was never any grand plan behind any of it\".",
"Who were the original members?",
"Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Mike Mills and Bill Berry,",
"Did they add anyone else?",
"They found a manager in Jefferson Holt,",
"What was their first album?",
"During the summer of 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, \"Radio Free Europe\",",
"Was it successful?",
"the single garnered critical acclaim, and was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times."
] | C_c87fee161031431bbd689ad1d2a8d4e8_1 | Were there successful singles from the album? | 6 | Were R.E.M.'s successful singles from their first album? | R.E.M. | In January 1980, Michael Stipe met Peter Buck in Wuxtry Records, the Athens record store where Buck worked. The pair discovered that they shared similar tastes in music, particularly in punk rock and protopunk artists like Patti Smith, Television, and the Velvet Underground. Stipe said, "It turns out that I was buying all the records that [Buck] was saving for himself." Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Mike Mills and Bill Berry, who had played music together since high school and lived together in Georgia. The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that "there was never any grand plan behind any of it". Their still-unnamed band spent a few months rehearsing and played its first show on April 5, 1980, at a friend's birthday party held in a converted Episcopal church in Athens. After considering names like "Twisted Kites", "Cans of Piss", and "Negro Wives", the band settled on "R.E.M." (which is an acronym for rapid eye movement, the dream stage of sleep), which Stipe selected at random from a dictionary. The band members eventually dropped out of school to focus on their developing group. They found a manager in Jefferson Holt, a record store clerk who was so impressed by an R.E.M. performance in his hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that he moved to Athens. R.E.M.'s success was almost immediate in Athens and surrounding areas; the band drew progressively larger crowds for shows, which caused some resentment in the Athens music scene. Over the next year and a half, R.E.M. toured throughout the Southern United States. Touring was arduous because a touring circuit for alternative rock bands did not then exist. The group toured in an old blue van driven by Holt, and lived on a food allowance of $2 each per day. During the summer of 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, "Radio Free Europe", at producer Mitch Easter's Drive-In Studios in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The single was released on the local independent record label Hib-Tone with an initial pressing of one thousand copies, which quickly sold out. Despite its limited pressing, the single garnered critical acclaim, and was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | R.E.M. was an American rock band from Athens, Georgia, formed in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, who were students at the University of Georgia. Liner notes from some of the band's albums list attorney Bertis Downs and manager Jefferson Holt as non-musical members. One of the first alternative rock bands, R.E.M. was noted for Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style; Stipe's distinctive vocal quality, unique stage presence, and obscure lyrics; Mills's melodic bass lines and backing vocals; and Berry's tight, economical drumming style. In the early 1990s, other alternative rock acts such as Nirvana and Pavement viewed R.E.M. as a pioneer of the genre. After Berry left the band in 1997, the band continued its career in the 2000s with mixed critical and commercial success. The band broke up amicably in 2011 with members devoting time to solo projects after having sold more than 85 million albums worldwide and becoming one of the world's best-selling music acts.
R.E.M. released its first single, "Radio Free Europe", in 1981 on the independent record label Hib-Tone. It was followed by the Chronic Town EP in 1982, the band's first release on I.R.S. Records. In 1983, the group released its critically acclaimed debut album, Murmur, and built its reputation over the next few years with similarly acclaimed releases every year from 1984 to 1988: Reckoning, Fables of the Reconstruction, Lifes Rich Pageant, Document and Green, including an intermittent b-side compilation Dead Letter Office. Don Dixon and Mitch Easter produced their first two albums, Joe Boyd handled production on Fables of the Reconstruction and Don Gehman produced Lifes Rich Pageant. Thereafter, R.E.M. settled on Scott Litt as producer for the next 10years during the band's most successful period of their career. They also started co-producing their material and playing other instruments in the studio apart from the main ones they play. With constant touring, and the support of college radio following years of underground success, R.E.M. achieved a mainstream hit with the 1987 single "The One I Love". The group signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1988, and began to espouse political and environmental concerns while playing large arenas worldwide.
R.E.M.'s most commercially successful albums, Out of Time (1991) and Automatic for the People (1992), put them in the vanguard of alternative rock just as it was becoming mainstream. Out of Time received seven nominations at the 34th Annual Grammy Awards, and lead single "Losing My Religion", was R.E.M.'s highest-charting and best-selling hit. Monster (1994) continued its run of success. The band began its first tour in six years to support the album; the tour was marred by medical emergencies suffered by three of the band members. In 1996, R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. for a reported US$80 million, at the time the most expensive recording contract ever. The tour was productive and the band recorded the following album mostly during soundchecks. The resulting record, New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996), is hailed as the band's last great album and the members' favorite, growing in cult status over the years. Berry left the band the following year, and Stipe, Buck, and Mills continued as a musical trio, supplemented by studio and live musicians, such as multi-instrumentalists Scott McCaughey and Ken Stringfellow and drummers Joey Waronker and Bill Rieflin. They also parted ways with their longtime manager Jefferson Holt and band's attorney Bertis Downs assumed managerial duties. Seeking to also renovate their sound, the band stopped working with Scott Litt, co-producer and contributor to six of their studio albums and hired Pat McCarthy as co-producer, who had participated before that as mixer and engineer on their last two albums.
After the electronic experimental direction of Up (1998) that was commercially unsuccessful, Reveal (2001) was referred to as "a conscious return to their classic sound" which received general acclaim. In 2007, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in its first year of eligibility and Berry reunited with the band for the ceremony and to record a cover of John Lennon's "#9 Dream" for the compilation album Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur to benefit Amnesty International's campaign to alleviate the Darfur conflict. Looking for a change of sound after lukewarm reception for Around the Sun (2004), the band collaborated with co-producer Jacknife Lee on their last two studio albums—the well-received Accelerate (2008) and Collapse into Now (2011)—as well as their first live albums after decades of touring. R.E.M. disbanded amicably in September 2011, with former members having continued with various musical projects, and several live and archival albums have since been released.
History
1980–1982: Formation and first releases
In January 1980, Peter Buck met Michael Stipe in Wuxtry Records, the Athens record store where Buck worked. The pair discovered that they shared similar tastes in music, particularly in punk rock and proto-punk artists like Patti Smith, Television, and the Velvet Underground. Stipe said, "It turns out that I was buying all the records that [Buck] was saving for himself." Through mutual friend Kathleen O'Brien, Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Bill Berry and Mike Mills, who had played music together since high school and lived together in Georgia. The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that "there was never any grand plan behind any of it". Their still-unnamed band spent a few months rehearsing in a deconsecrated Episcopal church in Athens, and played its first show on April 5, 1980, supporting the Side Effects at O'Brien's birthday party held in the same church, performing a mix of originals and 1960s and 1970s covers. After considering names such as Cans of Piss, Negro Eyes, and Twisted Kites, the band settled on "R.E.M.", which Stipe selected at random from a dictionary. R.E.M. is well known as an initialism for rapid eye movement, the dream stage of sleep; however, sleep researcher Dr. Rafael Pelayo reports that when his colleague Dr. William Dement, the sleep scientist who coined the term REM, reached out to the band, Dr. Dement was told that the band was named "not after REM sleep".
The band members eventually dropped out of school to focus on their developing group. They found a manager in Jefferson Holt, a record store clerk who was so impressed by an R.E.M. performance in his hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that he moved to Athens. R.E.M.'s success was almost immediate in Athens and surrounding areas; the band drew progressively larger crowds for shows, which caused some resentment in the Athens music scene. Over the next year and a half, R.E.M. toured throughout the Southern United States. Touring was arduous because a touring circuit for alternative rock bands did not then exist. The group toured in an old blue van driven by Holt, and lived on a food allowance of $2 each per day.
During April 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, "Radio Free Europe", at producer Mitch Easter's Drive-In Studios in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Initially distributing it as a four-track demo tape to clubs, record labels and magazines, the single was released in July 1981 on the local independent record label Hib-Tone with an initial pressing of 1,000 copies—600 of which were sent out as promotional copies. The single quickly sold out, and another 6,000 copies were pressed due to popular demand, despite the original pressing leaving off the record label's contact details. Despite its limited pressing, the single garnered critical acclaim, and was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times.
R.E.M. recorded the Chronic Town EP with Mitch Easter in October 1981, and planned to release it on a new indie label named Dasht Hopes. However, I.R.S. Records acquired a demo of the band's first recording session with Easter that had been circulating for months. The band turned down the advances of major label RCA Records in favor of I.R.S., with whom it signed a contract in May 1982. I.R.S. released Chronic Town that August as its first American release. A positive review of the EP by NME praised the songs' auras of mystery, and concluded, "R.E.M. ring true, and it's great to hear something as unforced and cunning as this."
1982–1988: I.R.S. Records and cult success
I.R.S. first paired R.E.M. with producer Stephen Hague to record its debut album. Hague's emphasis on technical perfection left the band unsatisfied, and the band members asked the label to let them record with Easter. I.R.S. agreed to a "tryout" session, allowing the band to return to North Carolina and record the song "Pilgrimage" with Easter and producing partner Don Dixon. After hearing the track, I.R.S. permitted the group to record the album with Dixon and Easter. Because of its bad experience with Hague, the band recorded the album via a process of negation, refusing to incorporate rock music clichés such as guitar solos or then-popular synthesizers, in order to give its music a timeless feel. The completed album, Murmur, was greeted with critical acclaim upon its release in 1983, with Rolling Stone listing the album as its record of the year. The album reached number 36 on the Billboard album chart. A re-recorded version of "Radio Free Europe" was the album's lead single and reached number 78 on the Billboard singles chart in 1983. Despite the acclaim awarded the album, Murmur sold only about 200,000 copies, which I.R.S.'s Jay Boberg felt was below expectations.
R.E.M. made its first national television appearance on Late Night with David Letterman in October 1983, during which the group performed a new, unnamed song. The piece, eventually titled "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)", became the first single from the band's second album, Reckoning (1984), which was also recorded with Easter and Dixon. The album met with critical acclaim; NMEs Mat Snow wrote that Reckoning "confirms R.E.M. as one of the most beautifully exciting groups on the planet". While Reckoning peaked at number 27 on the US album charts—an unusually high chart placing for a college rock band at the time—scant airplay and poor distribution overseas resulted in it charting no higher than number 91 in Britain.
The band's third album, Fables of the Reconstruction (1985), demonstrated a change in direction. Instead of Dixon and Easter, R.E.M. chose producer Joe Boyd, who had worked with Fairport Convention and Nick Drake, to record the album in England. The band members found the sessions unexpectedly difficult, and were miserable due to the cold winter weather and what they considered to be poor food; the situation brought the band to the verge of break-up. The gloominess surrounding the sessions worked its way into the context for the album's themes. Lyrically, Stipe began to create storylines in the mode of Southern mythology, noting in a 1985 interview that he was inspired by "the whole idea of the old men sitting around the fire, passing on ... legends and fables to the grandchildren".
They toured Canada in July and August 1985, and Europe in October of that year, including the Netherlands, England (including one concert at London's Hammersmith Palais), Ireland, Scotland, France, Switzerland, Belgium and West Germany. On October 2, 1985, the group played a concert in Bochum, West Germany, for the German TV show Rockpalast. Stipe had bleached his hair blond during this time. R.E.M. invited California punk band Minutemen to open for them on part of the US tour, and organized a benefit for the family of Minutemen frontman D. Boon who died in a December 1985 car crash shortly after the tour's conclusion. Fables of the Reconstruction performed poorly in Europe and its critical reception was mixed, with some critics regarding it as dreary and poorly recorded. As with the previous records, the singles from Fables of the Reconstruction were mostly ignored by mainstream radio. Meanwhile, I.R.S. was becoming frustrated with the band's reluctance to achieve mainstream success.
For its fourth album, R.E.M. enlisted John Mellencamp's producer Don Gehman. The result, Lifes Rich Pageant (1986), featured Stipe's vocals closer to the forefront of the music. In a 1986 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Peter Buck related, "Michael is getting better at what he's doing, and he's getting more confident at it. And I think that shows up in the projection of his voice." The album improved markedly upon the sales of Fables of the Reconstruction and reached number 21 on the Billboard album chart. The single "Fall on Me" also picked up support on commercial radio. The album was the band's first to be certified gold for selling 500,000 copies. While American college radio remained R.E.M.'s core support, the band was beginning to chart hits on mainstream rock formats; however, the music still encountered resistance from Top 40 radio.
Following the success of Lifes Rich Pageant, I.R.S. issued Dead Letter Office, a compilation of tracks recorded by the band during their album sessions, many of which had either been issued as B-sides or left unreleased altogether. Shortly thereafter, I.R.S. compiled R.E.M.'s music video catalog (except "Wolves, Lower") as the band's first video release, Succumbs.
Don Gehman was unable to produce R.E.M.'s fifth album, so he suggested the group work with Scott Litt. Litt would be the producer for the band's next five albums. Document (1987) featured some of Stipe's most openly political lyrics, particularly on "Welcome to the Occupation" and "Exhuming McCarthy", which were reactions to the conservative political environment of the 1980s under American president Ronald Reagan. Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote in his review of the album, "Document is both confident and defiant; if R.E.M. is about to move from cult-band status to mass popularity, the album decrees that the band will get there on its own terms." Document was R.E.M.'s breakthrough album, and the first single "The One I Love" charted in the Top 20 in the US, UK, and Canada. By January 1988, Document had become the group's first album to sell a million copies. In light of the band's breakthrough, the December 1987 cover of Rolling Stone declared R.E.M. "America's Best Rock & Roll Band".
1988–1997: International breakout and alternative rock stardom
Frustrated that its records did not see satisfactory overseas distribution, R.E.M. left I.R.S. when its contract expired and signed with the major label Warner Bros. Records. Though other labels offered more money, R.E.M. ultimately signed with Warner Bros.—reportedly for an amount between $6 million and $12 million—due to the company's assurance of total creative freedom. (Jay Boberg claimed that R.E.M.'s deal with Warner Bros. was for $22 million, which Peter Buck disputed as "definitely wrong".) In the aftermath of the group's departure, I.R.S. released the 1988 "best of" compilation Eponymous (assembled with input from the band members) to capitalize on assets the company still possessed. The band's 1988 Warner Bros. debut, Green, was recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, and showcased the group experimenting with its sound. The record's tracks ranged from the upbeat first single "Stand" (a hit in the United States), to more political material, like the rock-oriented "Orange Crush" and "World Leader Pretend", which address the Vietnam War and the Cold War, respectively. Green has gone on to sell four million copies worldwide. The band supported the album with its biggest and most visually developed tour to date, featuring back-projections and art films playing on the stage. After the Green tour, the band members unofficially decided to take the following year off, the first extended break in the band's career. In 1990 Warner Bros. issued the music video compilation Pop Screen to collect clips from the Document and Green albums, followed a few months later by the video album Tourfilm featuring live performances filmed during the Green World Tour.
R.E.M. reconvened in mid-1990 to record its seventh album, Out of Time. In a departure from Green, the band members often wrote the music with non-traditional rock instrumentation including mandolin, organ, and acoustic guitar instead of adding them as overdubs later in the creative process. Released in March 1991, Out of Time was the band's first album to top both the US and UK charts. The record eventually sold 4.2 million copies in the US alone, and about 12 million copies worldwide by 1996. The album's lead single "Losing My Religion" was a worldwide hit that received heavy rotation on radio, as did the music video on MTV and VH1. "Losing My Religion" was R.E.M.'s highest-charting single in the US, reaching number four on the Billboard charts. "There've been very few life-changing events in our career because our career has been so gradual," Mills said years later. "If you want to talk about life changing, I think 'Losing My Religion' is the closest it gets". The album's second single, "Shiny Happy People" (one of three songs on the record to feature vocals from Kate Pierson of fellow Athens band the B-52's), was also a major hit, reaching number 10 in the US and number six in the UK. Out of Time garnered R.E.M. seven nominations at the 1992 Grammy Awards, the most nominations of any artist that year. The band won three awards: one for Best Alternative Music Album and two for "Losing My Religion", Best Short Form Music Video and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. R.E.M. did not tour to promote Out of Time; instead the group played a series of one-off shows, including an appearance taped for an episode of MTV Unplugged and released music videos for each song on the video album This Film Is On. The band also performed "Losing My Religion" with members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in Madison, Georgia, at Madison-Morgan Cultural Center as part of MTV's 10th anniversary special.
After spending some months off, R.E.M. returned to the studio in 1991 to record its next album. Late in 1992, the band released Automatic for the People. Though the group had intended to make a harder-rocking album after the softer textures of Out of Time, the somber Automatic for the People "[seemed] to move at an even more agonized crawl", according to Melody Maker. The album dealt with themes of loss and mourning inspired by "that sense of ... turning thirty", according to Buck. Several songs featured string arrangements by former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. Considered by a number of critics (as well as by Buck and Mills) to be the band's best album, Automatic for the People reached numbers one and two on UK and US charts, respectively, and generated the American Top 40 hit singles "Drive", "Man on the Moon", and "Everybody Hurts". The album would sell over fifteen million copies worldwide. As with Out of Time, there was no tour in support of the album. The decision to forgo a tour, in conjunction with Stipe's physical appearance, generated rumors that the singer was dying or HIV-positive, which were vehemently denied by the band.
After the band released two slow-paced albums in a row, R.E.M.'s 1994 album Monster was, as Buck said, "a 'rock' record, with the rock in quotation marks." In contrast to the sound of its predecessors, the music of Monster consisted of distorted guitar tones, minimal overdubs, and touches of 1970s glam rock. Like Out of Time, Monster topped the charts in both the US and UK. The record sold about nine million copies worldwide. The singles "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and "Bang and Blame" were the band's last American Top 40 hits, although all the singles from Monster reached the Top 30 on the British charts. Warner Bros. assembled the music videos from the album as well as those from Automatic for the People for release as Parallel in 1995.
In January 1995, R.E.M. set out on its first tour in six years. The tour was a huge commercial success, but the period was difficult for the group. On March 1, Berry collapsed on stage during a performance in Lausanne, Switzerland, having suffered a brain aneurysm. He had surgery immediately and recovered fully within a month. Berry's aneurysm was only the beginning of a series of health problems that plagued the Monster tour. Mills had to undergo abdominal surgery to remove an intestinal adhesion in July; a month later, Stipe had to have an emergency surgery to repair a hernia. Despite all the problems, the group had recorded the bulk of a new album while on the road. The band brought along eight-track recorders to capture its shows, and used the recordings as the base elements for the album. The final three performances of the tour were filmed at the Omni Coliseum in Atlanta, Georgia and released in home video form as Road Movie.
R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. Records in 1996 for a reported $80 million (a figure the band constantly asserted originated with the media), rumored to be the largest recording contract in history at that point. The group's 1996 album New Adventures in Hi-Fi debuted at number two in the US and number one in the UK. The five million copies of the album sold were a reversal of the group's commercial fortunes of the previous five years. Critical reaction to the album was mostly favorable. In a 2017 retrospective on the band, Consequence of Sound ranked it third out of R.E.M.'s 15 full-length studio albums. The album is Stipe's favorite from R.E.M. and he considers it the band at their peak. Mills says "It usually takes a good few years for me to decide where an album stands in the pantheon of recorded work we've done. This one may be third behind Murmur and Automatic for the People. According to DiscoverMusic: "Arguably less immediate and less accessible[...]New Adventures in Hi-Fi is a sprawling, "White Album"-esque affair clocking in at 65 minutes. However, while it required some time and commitment from the listener, the record's contents were rich, compelling and frequently stunning. Accordingly, the album has continued to lobby for recognition and has long since earned its reputation as R.E.M.'s most unsung LP." While sales were impressive they were below their previous major label records. Time's writer Christopher John Farley argued that the lesser sales of the album were due to the declining commercial power of alternative rock as a whole. That same year, R.E.M. parted ways with manager Jefferson Holt, allegedly due to sexual harassment charges levied against him by a member of the band's home office in Athens. The group's lawyer Bertis Downs assumed managerial duties.
1997–2006: Continuing as three-piece with mixed success
In April 1997, the band convened at Buck's Kauai vacation home to record demos of material intended for the next album. The band sought to reinvent its sound and intended to incorporate drum loops and percussion experiments. Just as the sessions were due to begin in October, Berry decided, after months of contemplation and discussions with Downs and Mills, to tell the rest of the band that he was quitting. Berry told his bandmates that he would not quit if they would break up as a result, so Stipe, Buck, and Mills agreed to carry on as a three-piece with his blessing. Berry publicly announced his departure three weeks later in October 1997. Berry told the press, "I'm just not as enthusiastic as I have been in the past about doing this anymore . . . I have the best job in the world. But I'm kind of ready to sit back and reflect and maybe not be a pop star anymore." Stipe admitted that the band would be different without a major contributor: "For me, Mike, and Peter, as R.E.M., are we still R.E.M.? I guess a three-legged dog is still a dog. It just has to learn to run differently."
The band cancelled its scheduled recording sessions as a result of Berry's departure. "Without Bill it was different, confusing", Mills later said. "We didn't know exactly what to do. We couldn't rehearse without a drummer." The remaining members of R.E.M. resumed work on the album in February 1998 at Toast Studios in San Francisco. The band ended its decade-long collaboration with Scott Litt and hired Pat McCarthy to produce the record. Nigel Godrich was taken on as assistant producer, and drafted in Screaming Trees member Barrett Martin and Beck's touring drummer Joey Waronker. The recording process was tense, and the group came close to disbanding. Bertis Downs called an emergency meeting in which the band members resolved their problems and agreed to continue as a group. Led by the single "Daysleeper", Up (1998) debuted in the top ten in the US and UK. However, the album was a relative failure, selling 900,000 copies in the US by mid-1999 and eventually selling just over two million copies worldwide. While R.E.M.'s American sales were declining, the group's commercial base was shifting to the UK, where more R.E.M. records were sold per capita than any other country and the band's singles regularly entered the Top 20.
A year after Ups release, R.E.M. wrote the instrumental score to the Andy Kaufman biographical film Man on the Moon, a first for the group. The film took its title from the Automatic for the People song of the same name. The song "The Great Beyond" was released as a single from the Man on the Moon soundtrack album. "The Great Beyond" only reached number 57 on the American pop charts, but was the band's highest-charting single ever in the UK, reaching number three in 2000.
R.E.M. recorded the majority of its twelfth album Reveal (2001) in Canada and Ireland from May to October 2000. Reveal shared the "lugubrious pace" of Up, and featured drumming by Joey Waronker, as well as contributions by Scott McCaughey (a co-founder of the band the Minus 5 with Buck), and Ken Stringfellow (founder of the Posies). Global sales of the album were over four million, but in the United States Reveal sold about the same number of copies as Up. The album was led by the single "Imitation of Life", which reached number six in the UK. Writing for Rock's Backpages, The Rev. Al Friston described the album as "loaded with golden loveliness at every twist and turn", in comparison to the group's "essentially unconvincing work on New Adventures in Hi-Fi and Up". Similarly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone called Reveal "a spiritual renewal rooted in a musical one" and praised its "ceaselessly astonishing beauty".
In 2003, Warner Bros. released the compilation album and DVD In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003 and In View: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003, which featured two new songs, "Bad Day" and "Animal". At a 2003 concert in Raleigh, North Carolina, Berry made a surprise appearance, performing backing vocals on "Radio Free Europe". He then sat behind the drum kit for a performance of the early R.E.M. song "Permanent Vacation", marking his first performance with the band since his retirement.
R.E.M. released Around the Sun in 2004. During production of the album in 2002, Stipe said, "[The album] sounds like it's taking off from the last couple of records into unchartered R.E.M. territory. Kind of primitive and howling". After the album's release, Mills said, "I think, honestly, it turned out a little slower than we intended for it to, just in terms of the overall speed of songs." Around the Sun received a mixed critical reception, and peaked at number 13 on the Billboard charts. The first single from the album, "Leaving New York", was a Top 5 hit in the UK. For the record and subsequent tour, the band hired a new full-time touring drummer, Bill Rieflin, who had previously been a member of several industrial music acts such as Ministry and Pigface, and remained in that role for the duration of the band's active years. The video album Perfect Square was released that same year.
2006–2011: Last albums, recognition and breakup
EMI released a compilation album covering R.E.M.'s work during its tenure on I.R.S. in 2006 called And I Feel Fine... The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982–1987 along with the video album When the Light Is Mine: The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982–1987—the label had previously released the compilations The Best of R.E.M. (1991), R.E.M.: Singles Collected (1994), and R.E.M.: In the Attic – Alternative Recordings 1985–1989 (1997). That same month, all four original band members performed during the ceremony for their induction into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. While rehearsing for the ceremony, the band recorded a cover of John Lennon's "#9 Dream" for Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur, a tribute album benefiting Amnesty International. The song—released as a single for the album and the campaign—featured Bill Berry's first studio recording with the band since his departure almost a decade earlier.
In October 2006, R.E.M. was nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its first year of eligibility. The band was one of five nominees accepted into the Hall that year, and the induction ceremony took place in March 2007 at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The group—which was inducted by Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder—performed three songs with Bill Berry; "Gardening at Night", "Man on the Moon" and "Begin the Begin" as well as a cover of "I Wanna Be Your Dog".
Work on the group's fourteenth album commenced in early 2007. The band recorded with producer Jacknife Lee in Vancouver and Dublin, where it played five nights in the Olympia Theatre between June 30 and July 5 as part of a "working rehearsal". R.E.M. Live, the band's first live album (featuring songs from a 2005 Dublin show), was released in October 2007. The group followed this with the 2009 live album Live at The Olympia, which features performances from its 2007 residency. R.E.M. released Accelerate in early 2008. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard charts, and became the band's eighth album to top the British album charts. Rolling Stone reviewer David Fricke considered Accelerate an improvement over the band's previous post-Berry albums, calling it "one of the best records R.E.M. have ever made".
In 2010, R.E.M. released the video album R.E.M. Live from Austin, TX—a concert recorded for Austin City Limits in 2008. The group recorded its fifteenth album, Collapse into Now (2011), with Jacknife Lee in locales including Berlin, Nashville, and New Orleans. For the album, the band aimed for a more expansive sound than the intentionally short and speedy approach implemented on Accelerate. The album debuted at number five on the Billboard 200, becoming the group's tenth album to reach the top ten of the chart. This release fulfilled R.E.M.'s contractual obligations to Warner Bros., and the band began recording material without a contract a few months later with the possible intention of self-releasing the work.
On September 21, 2011, R.E.M. announced via its website that it was "calling it a day as a band". Stipe said that he hoped fans realized it "wasn't an easy decision": "All things must end, and we wanted to do it right, to do it our way." Long-time associate and former Warner Bros. Senior Vice President of Emerging Technology Ethan Kaplan has speculated that shake-ups at the record label influenced the group's decision to disband. The group discussed breaking up for several years, but was encouraged to continue after the lackluster critical and commercial performance of Around the Sun; according to Mills, "We needed to prove, not only to our fans and critics but to ourselves, that we could still make great records." They were also uninterested in the business end of recording as R.E.M. The band members finished their collaboration by assembling the compilation album Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982–2011, which was released in November 2011. The album is the first to collect songs from R.E.M.'s I.R.S. and Warner Bros. tenures, as well as three songs from the group's final studio recordings from post-Collapse into Now sessions. In November, Mills and Stipe did a brief span of promotional appearances in British media, ruling out the option of the group ever reuniting.
2011–present: Post-breakup releases and events
In 2014, Unplugged: The Complete 1991 and 2001 Sessions was released for Record Store Day. Digital download collections of I.R.S. and Warner Bros. rarities followed. Later in the year, the band compiled the video album box set REMTV, which collected their two Unplugged performances along with several other documentaries and live shows, while their record label released the box set 7IN—83–88, made up of 7-inch vinyl singles. In December 2015, the band members agreed to a distribution deal with Concord Bicycle Music to re-release their Warner Bros. albums. Continuing to maintain their copyright and intellectual property legacies, in March 2016, the band signed a new music publishing administration deal with Universal Music Publishing Group, and a year later, the band members left Broadcast Music, Inc., who had represented their performance rights for their entire career, and joined SESAC. The first release after their new publishing status was the 2018 box set R.E.M. at the BBC. Live at the Borderline 1991 followed for 2019's Record Store Day.
On March 24, 2020, session and touring drummer Bill Rieflin, who contributed on the band's last three records, died of cancer after years of battling the disease.
In September 2021, a full decade after disbanding, Stipe reiterated that the band had no intention of regrouping: "We decided when we split up that that would just be really tacky and probably money-grabbing, which might be the impetus for a lot of bands to get back together."
Musical style
R.E.M. has been described as alternative rock, college rock, folk rock, jangle pop, and post-punk. In a 1988 interview, Peter Buck described R.E.M. songs as typically, "Minor key, mid-tempo, enigmatic, semi-folk-rock-balladish things. That's what everyone thinks and to a certain degree, that's true." All songwriting is credited to the entire band, even though individual members are sometimes responsible for writing the majority of a particular song. Each member is given an equal vote in the songwriting process; however, Buck has conceded that Stipe, as the band's lyricist, can rarely be persuaded to follow an idea he does not favor. Among the original line-up, there were divisions of labor in the songwriting process: Stipe would write lyrics and devise melodies, Buck would edge the band in new musical directions, and Mills and Berry would fine-tune the compositions due to their greater musical experience.
Michael Stipe sings in what R.E.M. biographer David Buckley described as "wailing, keening, arching vocal figures". Stipe often harmonizes with Mills in songs; in the chorus for "Stand", Mills and Stipe alternate singing lyrics, creating a dialogue. Early articles about the band focused on Stipe's singing style (described as "mumbling" by The Washington Post), which often rendered his lyrics indecipherable. Creem writer John Morthland wrote in his review of Murmur, "I still have no idea what these songs are about, because neither me nor anyone else I know has ever been able to discern R.E.M.'s lyrics." Stipe commented in 1984, "It's just the way I sing. If I tried to control it, it would be pretty false." Producer Joe Boyd convinced Stipe to begin singing more clearly during the recording of Fables of the Reconstruction.
Stipe later called chorus lyrics of "Sitting Still" from R.E.M. debut album, Murmur, "nonsense", saying in a 1994 online chat, "You all know there aren't words, per se, to a lot of the early stuff. I can't even remember them." In truth, Stipe carefully crafted the lyrics to many early R.E.M. songs. Stipe explained in 1984 that when he started writing lyrics they were like "simple pictures", but after a year he grew tired of the approach and "started experimenting with lyrics that didn't make exact linear sense, and it's just gone from there." In the mid-1980s, as Stipe's pronunciation while singing became clearer, the band decided that its lyrics should convey ideas on a more literal level. Mills explained, "After you've made three records and you've written several songs and they've gotten better and better lyrically the next step would be to have somebody question you and say, are you saying anything? And Michael had the confidence at that point to say yes . . ." Songs like "Cuyahoga" and "Fall on Me" on Lifes Rich Pageant dealt with such concerns as pollution. Stipe incorporated more politically oriented concerns into his lyrics on Document and Green. "Our political activism and the content of the songs was just a reaction to where we were, and what we were surrounded by, which was just abject horror," Stipe said later. "In 1987 and '88 there was nothing to do but be active." Stipe has since explored other lyrical topics. Automatic for the People dealt with "mortality and dying. Pretty turgid stuff", according to Stipe, while Monster critiqued love and mass culture. Musically, Stipe stated that bands like T. Rex and Mott the Hoople "really impacted me".
Peter Buck's style of playing guitar has been singled out by many as the most distinctive aspect of R.E.M.'s music. During the 1980s, Buck's "economical, arpeggiated, poetic" style reminded British music journalists of 1960s American folk rock band the Byrds. Buck has stated "[Byrds guitarist] Roger McGuinn was a big influence on me as a guitar player", but said it was Byrds-influenced bands, including Big Star and the Soft Boys, that inspired him more. Comparisons were also made with the guitar playing of Johnny Marr of alternative rock contemporaries the Smiths. While Buck professed being a fan of the group, he admitted he initially criticized the band simply because he was tired of fans asking him if he was influenced by Marr, whose band had in fact made their debut after R.E.M. Buck generally eschews guitar solos; he explained in 2002, "I know that when guitarists rip into this hot solo, people go nuts, but I don't write songs that suit that, and I am not interested in that. I can do it if I have to, but I don't like it." Mike Mills' melodic approach to bass playing is inspired by Paul McCartney of the Beatles and Chris Squire of Yes; Mills has said, "I always played a melodic bass, like a piano bass in some ways . . . I never wanted to play the traditional locked into the kick drum, root note bass work." Mills has more musical training than his bandmates, which he has said "made it easier to turn abstract musical ideas into reality."
Legacy
R.E.M. was pivotal in the creation and development of the alternative rock genre. AllMusic stated, "R.E.M. mark the point when post-punk turned into alternative rock." In the early 1980s, the musical style of R.E.M. stood in contrast to the post-punk and new wave genres that had preceded it. Music journalist Simon Reynolds noted that the post-punk movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s "had taken whole swaths of music off the menu", particularly that of the 1960s, and that "After postpunk's demystification and New Pop's schematics, it felt liberating to listen to music rooted in mystical awe and blissed-out surrender." Reynolds declared R.E.M., a band that recalled the music of the 1960s with its "plangent guitar chimes and folk-styled vocals" and who "wistfully and abstractly conjured visions and new frontiers for America", one of "the two most important alt-rock bands of the day." With the release of Murmur, R.E.M. had the most impact musically and commercially of the developing alternative genre's early groups, leaving in its wake a number of jangle pop followers.
R.E.M.'s early breakthrough success served as an inspiration for other alternative bands. Spin referred to the "R.E.M. model"—career decisions that R.E.M. made that set guidelines for other underground artists to follow in their own careers. Spin's Charles Aaron wrote that by 1985, "They'd shown how far an underground, punk-inspired rock band could go within the industry without whoring out its artistic integrity in any obvious way. They'd figured out how to buy in, not sellout-in other words, they'd achieved the American Bohemian Dream." Steve Wynn of Dream Syndicate said, "They invented a whole new ballgame for all of the other bands to follow whether it was Sonic Youth or the Replacements or Nirvana or Butthole Surfers. R.E.M. staked the claim. Musically, the bands did different things, but R.E.M. was first to show us you can be big and still be cool." Biographer David Buckley stated that between 1991 and 1994, a period that saw the band sell an estimated 30 million albums, R.E.M. "asserted themselves as rivals to U2 for the title of biggest rock band in the world." Over the course of its career, the band has sold over 85 million records worldwide. Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums stated that "Their catalogue is destined to endure as critics reluctantly accept their considerable importance in the history of rock".
Alternative bands such as Nirvana, Pavement, Radiohead, Coldplay, Pearl Jam (the band's vocalist Eddie Vedder inducted R.E.M. into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame), Live, Stone Temple Pilots, Collective Soul, Alice in Chains, Hootie and the Blowfish and Pwr Bttm have drawn inspiration from R.E.M.'s music. "When I was 15 years old in Richmond, Virginia, they were a very important part of my life," Pavement's Bob Nastanovich said, "as they were for all the members of our band." Pavement's contribution to the No Alternative compilation (1993) was "Unseen Power of the Picket Fence", a song about R.E.M.'s early days. Local H, according to the band's Twitter account, created their name by combining two R.E.M. songs: "Oddfellows Local 151" and "Swan Swan H". Kurt Cobain of Nirvana was a fan of R.E.M., and had unfulfilled plans to collaborate on a musical project with Stipe. Cobain told Rolling Stone in an interview earlier that year, "I don’t know how that band does what they do. God, they’re the greatest. They've dealt with their success like saints, and they keep delivering great music."
During his show at the 40 Watt Club in October 2018, Johnny Marr said: "As a British musician coming out of the indie scene in the early '80s, which I definitely am and am proud to have been, I can't miss this opportunity to acknowledge and pay my respects and honor the guys who put this town on the map for us in England. I'm talking about my comrades in guitar music, R.E.M. The Smiths really respected R.E.M. We had to keep an eye on what those guys were up to. It's an interesting thing for me, as a British musician, and all those guys as British musicians, to come to this place and play for you guys, knowing that it's the roots of Mike Mills and Bill Berry and Michael Stipe and my good friend Peter Buck."
Awards
Campaigning and activism
Throughout R.E.M.'s career, its members sought to highlight social and political issues. According to the Los Angeles Times, R.E.M. was considered to be one of the United States' "most liberal and politically correct rock groups." The band's members were "on the same page" politically, sharing a liberal and progressive outlook. Mills admitted that there was occasionally dissension between band members on what causes they might support, but acknowledged "Out of respect for the people who disagree, those discussions tend to stay in-house, just because we'd rather not let people know where the divisions lie, so people can't exploit them for their own purposes." An example is that in 1990 Buck noted that Stipe was involved with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but the rest of the band were not.
R.E.M. helped raise funds for environmental, feminist and human rights causes, and were involved in campaigns to encourage voter registration. During the Green tour, Stipe spoke on stage to the audiences about a variety of socio-political issues. Through the late 1980s and 1990s, the band (particularly Stipe) increasingly used its media coverage on national television to mention a variety of causes it felt were important. One example is during the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards, Stipe wore a half-dozen white shirts emblazoned with slogans including "rainforest", "love knows no colors", and "handgun control now".
R.E.M. helped raise awareness of Aung San Suu Kyi and human rights violations in Myanmar, when they worked with the Freedom Campaign and the US Campaign for Burma. Stipe himself ran ads for the 1988 election, supporting Democratic presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis over then-Vice President George H. W. Bush. In 2004, the band participated in the Vote for Change tour that sought to mobilize American voters to support Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. R.E.M.'s political stance, particularly coming from a wealthy rock band under contract to a label owned by a multinational corporation, received criticism from former Q editor Paul Du Noyer, who criticized the band's "celebrity liberalism", saying, "It's an entirely pain-free form of rebellion that they're adopting. There's no risk involved in it whatsoever, but quite a bit of shoring up of customer loyalty."
From the late 1980s, R.E.M. was involved in the local politics of its hometown of Athens, Georgia. Buck explained to Sounds in 1987, "Michael always says think local and act local—we have been doing a lot of stuff in our town to try and make it a better place." The band often donated funds to local charities and helped renovate and preserve historic buildings in the town. R.E.M.'s political clout was credited with the narrow election of Athens mayor Gwen O'Looney twice in the 1990s. The band is a member of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism.
Members
Main members
Bill Berry – drums, percussion, backing vocals, occasional bass guitar and keyboards (1980–1997; occasional concert appearances with the band 2003–2007)
Peter Buck – lead guitar, mandolin, banjo, occasional bass guitar and keyboards (1980–2011)
Mike Mills – bass guitar, keyboards, backing vocals and guitar (1980–2011)
Michael Stipe – lead vocals (1980–2011)
Non-musical members
Several publications made by the band such as album liner notes and fan club mailers list attorney Bertis Downs and manager Jefferson Holt as honorary non-musical members; the two joined up with R.E.M. in 1980/1981 and Holt left in 1996.
Touring and session musicians
Buren Fowler – rhythm guitar (1986–1987)
Peter Holsapple – rhythm guitar, keyboards (1989–1991)
Scott McCaughey – rhythm guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, occasional lead guitar (1994–2011)
Nathan December – rhythm and lead guitar (1994–1995)
Joey Waronker – drums, percussion (1998–2002)
Barrett Martin – percussion (1998)
Ken Stringfellow – keyboards, occasional rhythm guitar, bass guitar, backing vocals (1998–2005)
Bill Rieflin – drums, percussion, occasional keyboards and guitar (2003–2011)
Timeline
Production timeline
Touring and session members timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Murmur (1983)
Reckoning (1984)
Fables of the Reconstruction (1985)
Lifes Rich Pageant (1986)
Document (1987)
Green (1988)
Out of Time (1991)
Automatic for the People (1992)
Monster (1994)
New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996)
Up (1998)
Reveal (2001)
Around the Sun (2004)
Accelerate (2008)
Collapse into Now (2011)
See also
List of alternative rock artists
References
Sources
Black, Johnny. Reveal: The Story of R.E.M. Backbeat, 2004.
Buckley, David. R.E.M.: Fiction: An Alternative Biography. Virgin, 2002.
Gray, Marcus. It Crawled from the South: An R.E.M. Companion. Da Capo, 1997. Second edition.
Fletcher, Tony. Remarks Remade: The Story of R.E.M. Omnibus, 2002. .
Platt, John (editor). The R.E.M. Companion: Two Decades of Commentary. Schirmer, 1998.
Sullivan, Denise. Talk About the Passion: R.E.M.: An Oral Biography. Underwood-Miller, 1994.
External links
Dynamic Range DB entry for R.E.M.
1980 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
2011 disestablishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
Alternative rock groups from Georgia (U.S. state)
Brit Award winners
Capitol Records artists
Concord Bicycle Music artists
Grammy Award winners
I.R.S. Records artists
Jangle pop groups
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups disestablished in 2011
Musical groups from Athens, Georgia
New West Records artists
Rhino Records artists
Warner Records artists
Craft Recordings artists
College rock musical groups | false | [
"Black and White is the second studio album and major label debut by British hip hop recording artist Wretch 32. The album was released in the United Kingdom on 21 August 2011 through Ministry of Sound, debuting at number four on the UK Albums Chart with first week sales of nearly 25,000 copies. The album follows his independent debut album, Wretchrospective, which was released three years earlier, in 2008. The album spawned six singles over the course of eighteen months, all of which peaked inside the UK top 50, including three top five singles, and a number one single, \"Don't Go\". The album includes collaborations with Ed Sheeran, Daley, Etta Bond and Example.\n\nSingles\n \"Traktor\" was released as the first single released from the album on 16 January 2011. It peaked at number five on the UK Singles Chart, becoming the third most successful single from the album. The track features vocals from L Marshall and was produced by Yogi.\n \"Unorthodox\" was released as the second single from the album on 17 April 2011. It peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart, becoming the second most successful single from the album. The track features vocals from Example.\n \"Don't Go\" was released as the third single from the album on 14 August 2011. It peaked at number one on the UK Singles Chart, becoming the album's most successful single. The track features vocals from upcoming musician and songwriter Josh Kumra.\n \"Forgiveness\" was released as the fourth single from the album on 11 December 2011. It peaked at number 39 on the UK Singles Chart, becoming the least successful single from the album. The track features vocals from Etta Bond, and was produced by Labrinth.\n \"Long Way Home\" was released as a single from the album on 14 February 2012, in promotion of the track's featuring artist, Daley. It was ineligible to chart on the UK Singles Chart, and was simply released in the form of a promotional music video.\n \"Hush Little Baby\" was released as the fifth and final single from the album on 27 May 2012. It peaked at number 35 on the UK Singles Chart, due to little promotion. The track features vocals from singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran.\n\nTrack listing \n\nNotes\n \"Forgiveness\" features uncredited vocals from Labrinth.\n\nSample credits\n \"Black and White\" samples \"Different Strokes\" by Syl Johnson\n \"Unorthodox\" samples \"Fools Gold\" by The Stone Roses.\n \"Hush Little Baby\" adapts lyrics from the lullaby \"Hush, Little Baby\".\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2011 albums\nWretch 32 albums\nMinistry of Sound albums\nAlbums produced by Labrinth",
"\"Rock It\" is the second single from English drum and bass producer Sub Focus's self-titled debut album, released on 26 July 2009. It was Sub Focus' most successful solo single from the album, peaking at number 38 on the UK Singles Chart.\n\nThe B-side, \"Follow the Light\", was also included on Sub Focus's debut album. The song contains vocals from the drum and bass act TC, but the album version uses newer lyrics than the vocal single version. There are also additional vocals from Takura in the single version, but they are based on the same lyrics as the song \"Coming Closer\", the final track of Sub Focus's album (which actually features Takura).\n\nBoth songs on the EP were featured in the 2010 video game Gran Turismo 5.\n\nTrack listing\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\n2009 singles\nSub Focus songs\nRAM Records singles\nSongs written by Sub Focus"
] |
[
"R.E.M.",
"1980-1981: Formation",
"Whose idea was it to form R.E.M.?",
"The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that \"there was never any grand plan behind any of it\".",
"Who were the original members?",
"Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Mike Mills and Bill Berry,",
"Did they add anyone else?",
"They found a manager in Jefferson Holt,",
"What was their first album?",
"During the summer of 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, \"Radio Free Europe\",",
"Was it successful?",
"the single garnered critical acclaim, and was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times.",
"Were there successful singles from the album?",
"I don't know."
] | C_c87fee161031431bbd689ad1d2a8d4e8_1 | What record company produced the album? | 7 | What record company produced R.E.M.'s single titled "Radio Free Europe"? | R.E.M. | In January 1980, Michael Stipe met Peter Buck in Wuxtry Records, the Athens record store where Buck worked. The pair discovered that they shared similar tastes in music, particularly in punk rock and protopunk artists like Patti Smith, Television, and the Velvet Underground. Stipe said, "It turns out that I was buying all the records that [Buck] was saving for himself." Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Mike Mills and Bill Berry, who had played music together since high school and lived together in Georgia. The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that "there was never any grand plan behind any of it". Their still-unnamed band spent a few months rehearsing and played its first show on April 5, 1980, at a friend's birthday party held in a converted Episcopal church in Athens. After considering names like "Twisted Kites", "Cans of Piss", and "Negro Wives", the band settled on "R.E.M." (which is an acronym for rapid eye movement, the dream stage of sleep), which Stipe selected at random from a dictionary. The band members eventually dropped out of school to focus on their developing group. They found a manager in Jefferson Holt, a record store clerk who was so impressed by an R.E.M. performance in his hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that he moved to Athens. R.E.M.'s success was almost immediate in Athens and surrounding areas; the band drew progressively larger crowds for shows, which caused some resentment in the Athens music scene. Over the next year and a half, R.E.M. toured throughout the Southern United States. Touring was arduous because a touring circuit for alternative rock bands did not then exist. The group toured in an old blue van driven by Holt, and lived on a food allowance of $2 each per day. During the summer of 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, "Radio Free Europe", at producer Mitch Easter's Drive-In Studios in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The single was released on the local independent record label Hib-Tone with an initial pressing of one thousand copies, which quickly sold out. Despite its limited pressing, the single garnered critical acclaim, and was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times. CANNOTANSWER | The single was released on the local independent record label Hib-Tone | R.E.M. was an American rock band from Athens, Georgia, formed in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, who were students at the University of Georgia. Liner notes from some of the band's albums list attorney Bertis Downs and manager Jefferson Holt as non-musical members. One of the first alternative rock bands, R.E.M. was noted for Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style; Stipe's distinctive vocal quality, unique stage presence, and obscure lyrics; Mills's melodic bass lines and backing vocals; and Berry's tight, economical drumming style. In the early 1990s, other alternative rock acts such as Nirvana and Pavement viewed R.E.M. as a pioneer of the genre. After Berry left the band in 1997, the band continued its career in the 2000s with mixed critical and commercial success. The band broke up amicably in 2011 with members devoting time to solo projects after having sold more than 85 million albums worldwide and becoming one of the world's best-selling music acts.
R.E.M. released its first single, "Radio Free Europe", in 1981 on the independent record label Hib-Tone. It was followed by the Chronic Town EP in 1982, the band's first release on I.R.S. Records. In 1983, the group released its critically acclaimed debut album, Murmur, and built its reputation over the next few years with similarly acclaimed releases every year from 1984 to 1988: Reckoning, Fables of the Reconstruction, Lifes Rich Pageant, Document and Green, including an intermittent b-side compilation Dead Letter Office. Don Dixon and Mitch Easter produced their first two albums, Joe Boyd handled production on Fables of the Reconstruction and Don Gehman produced Lifes Rich Pageant. Thereafter, R.E.M. settled on Scott Litt as producer for the next 10years during the band's most successful period of their career. They also started co-producing their material and playing other instruments in the studio apart from the main ones they play. With constant touring, and the support of college radio following years of underground success, R.E.M. achieved a mainstream hit with the 1987 single "The One I Love". The group signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1988, and began to espouse political and environmental concerns while playing large arenas worldwide.
R.E.M.'s most commercially successful albums, Out of Time (1991) and Automatic for the People (1992), put them in the vanguard of alternative rock just as it was becoming mainstream. Out of Time received seven nominations at the 34th Annual Grammy Awards, and lead single "Losing My Religion", was R.E.M.'s highest-charting and best-selling hit. Monster (1994) continued its run of success. The band began its first tour in six years to support the album; the tour was marred by medical emergencies suffered by three of the band members. In 1996, R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. for a reported US$80 million, at the time the most expensive recording contract ever. The tour was productive and the band recorded the following album mostly during soundchecks. The resulting record, New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996), is hailed as the band's last great album and the members' favorite, growing in cult status over the years. Berry left the band the following year, and Stipe, Buck, and Mills continued as a musical trio, supplemented by studio and live musicians, such as multi-instrumentalists Scott McCaughey and Ken Stringfellow and drummers Joey Waronker and Bill Rieflin. They also parted ways with their longtime manager Jefferson Holt and band's attorney Bertis Downs assumed managerial duties. Seeking to also renovate their sound, the band stopped working with Scott Litt, co-producer and contributor to six of their studio albums and hired Pat McCarthy as co-producer, who had participated before that as mixer and engineer on their last two albums.
After the electronic experimental direction of Up (1998) that was commercially unsuccessful, Reveal (2001) was referred to as "a conscious return to their classic sound" which received general acclaim. In 2007, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in its first year of eligibility and Berry reunited with the band for the ceremony and to record a cover of John Lennon's "#9 Dream" for the compilation album Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur to benefit Amnesty International's campaign to alleviate the Darfur conflict. Looking for a change of sound after lukewarm reception for Around the Sun (2004), the band collaborated with co-producer Jacknife Lee on their last two studio albums—the well-received Accelerate (2008) and Collapse into Now (2011)—as well as their first live albums after decades of touring. R.E.M. disbanded amicably in September 2011, with former members having continued with various musical projects, and several live and archival albums have since been released.
History
1980–1982: Formation and first releases
In January 1980, Peter Buck met Michael Stipe in Wuxtry Records, the Athens record store where Buck worked. The pair discovered that they shared similar tastes in music, particularly in punk rock and proto-punk artists like Patti Smith, Television, and the Velvet Underground. Stipe said, "It turns out that I was buying all the records that [Buck] was saving for himself." Through mutual friend Kathleen O'Brien, Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Bill Berry and Mike Mills, who had played music together since high school and lived together in Georgia. The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that "there was never any grand plan behind any of it". Their still-unnamed band spent a few months rehearsing in a deconsecrated Episcopal church in Athens, and played its first show on April 5, 1980, supporting the Side Effects at O'Brien's birthday party held in the same church, performing a mix of originals and 1960s and 1970s covers. After considering names such as Cans of Piss, Negro Eyes, and Twisted Kites, the band settled on "R.E.M.", which Stipe selected at random from a dictionary. R.E.M. is well known as an initialism for rapid eye movement, the dream stage of sleep; however, sleep researcher Dr. Rafael Pelayo reports that when his colleague Dr. William Dement, the sleep scientist who coined the term REM, reached out to the band, Dr. Dement was told that the band was named "not after REM sleep".
The band members eventually dropped out of school to focus on their developing group. They found a manager in Jefferson Holt, a record store clerk who was so impressed by an R.E.M. performance in his hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that he moved to Athens. R.E.M.'s success was almost immediate in Athens and surrounding areas; the band drew progressively larger crowds for shows, which caused some resentment in the Athens music scene. Over the next year and a half, R.E.M. toured throughout the Southern United States. Touring was arduous because a touring circuit for alternative rock bands did not then exist. The group toured in an old blue van driven by Holt, and lived on a food allowance of $2 each per day.
During April 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, "Radio Free Europe", at producer Mitch Easter's Drive-In Studios in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Initially distributing it as a four-track demo tape to clubs, record labels and magazines, the single was released in July 1981 on the local independent record label Hib-Tone with an initial pressing of 1,000 copies—600 of which were sent out as promotional copies. The single quickly sold out, and another 6,000 copies were pressed due to popular demand, despite the original pressing leaving off the record label's contact details. Despite its limited pressing, the single garnered critical acclaim, and was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times.
R.E.M. recorded the Chronic Town EP with Mitch Easter in October 1981, and planned to release it on a new indie label named Dasht Hopes. However, I.R.S. Records acquired a demo of the band's first recording session with Easter that had been circulating for months. The band turned down the advances of major label RCA Records in favor of I.R.S., with whom it signed a contract in May 1982. I.R.S. released Chronic Town that August as its first American release. A positive review of the EP by NME praised the songs' auras of mystery, and concluded, "R.E.M. ring true, and it's great to hear something as unforced and cunning as this."
1982–1988: I.R.S. Records and cult success
I.R.S. first paired R.E.M. with producer Stephen Hague to record its debut album. Hague's emphasis on technical perfection left the band unsatisfied, and the band members asked the label to let them record with Easter. I.R.S. agreed to a "tryout" session, allowing the band to return to North Carolina and record the song "Pilgrimage" with Easter and producing partner Don Dixon. After hearing the track, I.R.S. permitted the group to record the album with Dixon and Easter. Because of its bad experience with Hague, the band recorded the album via a process of negation, refusing to incorporate rock music clichés such as guitar solos or then-popular synthesizers, in order to give its music a timeless feel. The completed album, Murmur, was greeted with critical acclaim upon its release in 1983, with Rolling Stone listing the album as its record of the year. The album reached number 36 on the Billboard album chart. A re-recorded version of "Radio Free Europe" was the album's lead single and reached number 78 on the Billboard singles chart in 1983. Despite the acclaim awarded the album, Murmur sold only about 200,000 copies, which I.R.S.'s Jay Boberg felt was below expectations.
R.E.M. made its first national television appearance on Late Night with David Letterman in October 1983, during which the group performed a new, unnamed song. The piece, eventually titled "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)", became the first single from the band's second album, Reckoning (1984), which was also recorded with Easter and Dixon. The album met with critical acclaim; NMEs Mat Snow wrote that Reckoning "confirms R.E.M. as one of the most beautifully exciting groups on the planet". While Reckoning peaked at number 27 on the US album charts—an unusually high chart placing for a college rock band at the time—scant airplay and poor distribution overseas resulted in it charting no higher than number 91 in Britain.
The band's third album, Fables of the Reconstruction (1985), demonstrated a change in direction. Instead of Dixon and Easter, R.E.M. chose producer Joe Boyd, who had worked with Fairport Convention and Nick Drake, to record the album in England. The band members found the sessions unexpectedly difficult, and were miserable due to the cold winter weather and what they considered to be poor food; the situation brought the band to the verge of break-up. The gloominess surrounding the sessions worked its way into the context for the album's themes. Lyrically, Stipe began to create storylines in the mode of Southern mythology, noting in a 1985 interview that he was inspired by "the whole idea of the old men sitting around the fire, passing on ... legends and fables to the grandchildren".
They toured Canada in July and August 1985, and Europe in October of that year, including the Netherlands, England (including one concert at London's Hammersmith Palais), Ireland, Scotland, France, Switzerland, Belgium and West Germany. On October 2, 1985, the group played a concert in Bochum, West Germany, for the German TV show Rockpalast. Stipe had bleached his hair blond during this time. R.E.M. invited California punk band Minutemen to open for them on part of the US tour, and organized a benefit for the family of Minutemen frontman D. Boon who died in a December 1985 car crash shortly after the tour's conclusion. Fables of the Reconstruction performed poorly in Europe and its critical reception was mixed, with some critics regarding it as dreary and poorly recorded. As with the previous records, the singles from Fables of the Reconstruction were mostly ignored by mainstream radio. Meanwhile, I.R.S. was becoming frustrated with the band's reluctance to achieve mainstream success.
For its fourth album, R.E.M. enlisted John Mellencamp's producer Don Gehman. The result, Lifes Rich Pageant (1986), featured Stipe's vocals closer to the forefront of the music. In a 1986 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Peter Buck related, "Michael is getting better at what he's doing, and he's getting more confident at it. And I think that shows up in the projection of his voice." The album improved markedly upon the sales of Fables of the Reconstruction and reached number 21 on the Billboard album chart. The single "Fall on Me" also picked up support on commercial radio. The album was the band's first to be certified gold for selling 500,000 copies. While American college radio remained R.E.M.'s core support, the band was beginning to chart hits on mainstream rock formats; however, the music still encountered resistance from Top 40 radio.
Following the success of Lifes Rich Pageant, I.R.S. issued Dead Letter Office, a compilation of tracks recorded by the band during their album sessions, many of which had either been issued as B-sides or left unreleased altogether. Shortly thereafter, I.R.S. compiled R.E.M.'s music video catalog (except "Wolves, Lower") as the band's first video release, Succumbs.
Don Gehman was unable to produce R.E.M.'s fifth album, so he suggested the group work with Scott Litt. Litt would be the producer for the band's next five albums. Document (1987) featured some of Stipe's most openly political lyrics, particularly on "Welcome to the Occupation" and "Exhuming McCarthy", which were reactions to the conservative political environment of the 1980s under American president Ronald Reagan. Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote in his review of the album, "Document is both confident and defiant; if R.E.M. is about to move from cult-band status to mass popularity, the album decrees that the band will get there on its own terms." Document was R.E.M.'s breakthrough album, and the first single "The One I Love" charted in the Top 20 in the US, UK, and Canada. By January 1988, Document had become the group's first album to sell a million copies. In light of the band's breakthrough, the December 1987 cover of Rolling Stone declared R.E.M. "America's Best Rock & Roll Band".
1988–1997: International breakout and alternative rock stardom
Frustrated that its records did not see satisfactory overseas distribution, R.E.M. left I.R.S. when its contract expired and signed with the major label Warner Bros. Records. Though other labels offered more money, R.E.M. ultimately signed with Warner Bros.—reportedly for an amount between $6 million and $12 million—due to the company's assurance of total creative freedom. (Jay Boberg claimed that R.E.M.'s deal with Warner Bros. was for $22 million, which Peter Buck disputed as "definitely wrong".) In the aftermath of the group's departure, I.R.S. released the 1988 "best of" compilation Eponymous (assembled with input from the band members) to capitalize on assets the company still possessed. The band's 1988 Warner Bros. debut, Green, was recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, and showcased the group experimenting with its sound. The record's tracks ranged from the upbeat first single "Stand" (a hit in the United States), to more political material, like the rock-oriented "Orange Crush" and "World Leader Pretend", which address the Vietnam War and the Cold War, respectively. Green has gone on to sell four million copies worldwide. The band supported the album with its biggest and most visually developed tour to date, featuring back-projections and art films playing on the stage. After the Green tour, the band members unofficially decided to take the following year off, the first extended break in the band's career. In 1990 Warner Bros. issued the music video compilation Pop Screen to collect clips from the Document and Green albums, followed a few months later by the video album Tourfilm featuring live performances filmed during the Green World Tour.
R.E.M. reconvened in mid-1990 to record its seventh album, Out of Time. In a departure from Green, the band members often wrote the music with non-traditional rock instrumentation including mandolin, organ, and acoustic guitar instead of adding them as overdubs later in the creative process. Released in March 1991, Out of Time was the band's first album to top both the US and UK charts. The record eventually sold 4.2 million copies in the US alone, and about 12 million copies worldwide by 1996. The album's lead single "Losing My Religion" was a worldwide hit that received heavy rotation on radio, as did the music video on MTV and VH1. "Losing My Religion" was R.E.M.'s highest-charting single in the US, reaching number four on the Billboard charts. "There've been very few life-changing events in our career because our career has been so gradual," Mills said years later. "If you want to talk about life changing, I think 'Losing My Religion' is the closest it gets". The album's second single, "Shiny Happy People" (one of three songs on the record to feature vocals from Kate Pierson of fellow Athens band the B-52's), was also a major hit, reaching number 10 in the US and number six in the UK. Out of Time garnered R.E.M. seven nominations at the 1992 Grammy Awards, the most nominations of any artist that year. The band won three awards: one for Best Alternative Music Album and two for "Losing My Religion", Best Short Form Music Video and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. R.E.M. did not tour to promote Out of Time; instead the group played a series of one-off shows, including an appearance taped for an episode of MTV Unplugged and released music videos for each song on the video album This Film Is On. The band also performed "Losing My Religion" with members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in Madison, Georgia, at Madison-Morgan Cultural Center as part of MTV's 10th anniversary special.
After spending some months off, R.E.M. returned to the studio in 1991 to record its next album. Late in 1992, the band released Automatic for the People. Though the group had intended to make a harder-rocking album after the softer textures of Out of Time, the somber Automatic for the People "[seemed] to move at an even more agonized crawl", according to Melody Maker. The album dealt with themes of loss and mourning inspired by "that sense of ... turning thirty", according to Buck. Several songs featured string arrangements by former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. Considered by a number of critics (as well as by Buck and Mills) to be the band's best album, Automatic for the People reached numbers one and two on UK and US charts, respectively, and generated the American Top 40 hit singles "Drive", "Man on the Moon", and "Everybody Hurts". The album would sell over fifteen million copies worldwide. As with Out of Time, there was no tour in support of the album. The decision to forgo a tour, in conjunction with Stipe's physical appearance, generated rumors that the singer was dying or HIV-positive, which were vehemently denied by the band.
After the band released two slow-paced albums in a row, R.E.M.'s 1994 album Monster was, as Buck said, "a 'rock' record, with the rock in quotation marks." In contrast to the sound of its predecessors, the music of Monster consisted of distorted guitar tones, minimal overdubs, and touches of 1970s glam rock. Like Out of Time, Monster topped the charts in both the US and UK. The record sold about nine million copies worldwide. The singles "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and "Bang and Blame" were the band's last American Top 40 hits, although all the singles from Monster reached the Top 30 on the British charts. Warner Bros. assembled the music videos from the album as well as those from Automatic for the People for release as Parallel in 1995.
In January 1995, R.E.M. set out on its first tour in six years. The tour was a huge commercial success, but the period was difficult for the group. On March 1, Berry collapsed on stage during a performance in Lausanne, Switzerland, having suffered a brain aneurysm. He had surgery immediately and recovered fully within a month. Berry's aneurysm was only the beginning of a series of health problems that plagued the Monster tour. Mills had to undergo abdominal surgery to remove an intestinal adhesion in July; a month later, Stipe had to have an emergency surgery to repair a hernia. Despite all the problems, the group had recorded the bulk of a new album while on the road. The band brought along eight-track recorders to capture its shows, and used the recordings as the base elements for the album. The final three performances of the tour were filmed at the Omni Coliseum in Atlanta, Georgia and released in home video form as Road Movie.
R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. Records in 1996 for a reported $80 million (a figure the band constantly asserted originated with the media), rumored to be the largest recording contract in history at that point. The group's 1996 album New Adventures in Hi-Fi debuted at number two in the US and number one in the UK. The five million copies of the album sold were a reversal of the group's commercial fortunes of the previous five years. Critical reaction to the album was mostly favorable. In a 2017 retrospective on the band, Consequence of Sound ranked it third out of R.E.M.'s 15 full-length studio albums. The album is Stipe's favorite from R.E.M. and he considers it the band at their peak. Mills says "It usually takes a good few years for me to decide where an album stands in the pantheon of recorded work we've done. This one may be third behind Murmur and Automatic for the People. According to DiscoverMusic: "Arguably less immediate and less accessible[...]New Adventures in Hi-Fi is a sprawling, "White Album"-esque affair clocking in at 65 minutes. However, while it required some time and commitment from the listener, the record's contents were rich, compelling and frequently stunning. Accordingly, the album has continued to lobby for recognition and has long since earned its reputation as R.E.M.'s most unsung LP." While sales were impressive they were below their previous major label records. Time's writer Christopher John Farley argued that the lesser sales of the album were due to the declining commercial power of alternative rock as a whole. That same year, R.E.M. parted ways with manager Jefferson Holt, allegedly due to sexual harassment charges levied against him by a member of the band's home office in Athens. The group's lawyer Bertis Downs assumed managerial duties.
1997–2006: Continuing as three-piece with mixed success
In April 1997, the band convened at Buck's Kauai vacation home to record demos of material intended for the next album. The band sought to reinvent its sound and intended to incorporate drum loops and percussion experiments. Just as the sessions were due to begin in October, Berry decided, after months of contemplation and discussions with Downs and Mills, to tell the rest of the band that he was quitting. Berry told his bandmates that he would not quit if they would break up as a result, so Stipe, Buck, and Mills agreed to carry on as a three-piece with his blessing. Berry publicly announced his departure three weeks later in October 1997. Berry told the press, "I'm just not as enthusiastic as I have been in the past about doing this anymore . . . I have the best job in the world. But I'm kind of ready to sit back and reflect and maybe not be a pop star anymore." Stipe admitted that the band would be different without a major contributor: "For me, Mike, and Peter, as R.E.M., are we still R.E.M.? I guess a three-legged dog is still a dog. It just has to learn to run differently."
The band cancelled its scheduled recording sessions as a result of Berry's departure. "Without Bill it was different, confusing", Mills later said. "We didn't know exactly what to do. We couldn't rehearse without a drummer." The remaining members of R.E.M. resumed work on the album in February 1998 at Toast Studios in San Francisco. The band ended its decade-long collaboration with Scott Litt and hired Pat McCarthy to produce the record. Nigel Godrich was taken on as assistant producer, and drafted in Screaming Trees member Barrett Martin and Beck's touring drummer Joey Waronker. The recording process was tense, and the group came close to disbanding. Bertis Downs called an emergency meeting in which the band members resolved their problems and agreed to continue as a group. Led by the single "Daysleeper", Up (1998) debuted in the top ten in the US and UK. However, the album was a relative failure, selling 900,000 copies in the US by mid-1999 and eventually selling just over two million copies worldwide. While R.E.M.'s American sales were declining, the group's commercial base was shifting to the UK, where more R.E.M. records were sold per capita than any other country and the band's singles regularly entered the Top 20.
A year after Ups release, R.E.M. wrote the instrumental score to the Andy Kaufman biographical film Man on the Moon, a first for the group. The film took its title from the Automatic for the People song of the same name. The song "The Great Beyond" was released as a single from the Man on the Moon soundtrack album. "The Great Beyond" only reached number 57 on the American pop charts, but was the band's highest-charting single ever in the UK, reaching number three in 2000.
R.E.M. recorded the majority of its twelfth album Reveal (2001) in Canada and Ireland from May to October 2000. Reveal shared the "lugubrious pace" of Up, and featured drumming by Joey Waronker, as well as contributions by Scott McCaughey (a co-founder of the band the Minus 5 with Buck), and Ken Stringfellow (founder of the Posies). Global sales of the album were over four million, but in the United States Reveal sold about the same number of copies as Up. The album was led by the single "Imitation of Life", which reached number six in the UK. Writing for Rock's Backpages, The Rev. Al Friston described the album as "loaded with golden loveliness at every twist and turn", in comparison to the group's "essentially unconvincing work on New Adventures in Hi-Fi and Up". Similarly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone called Reveal "a spiritual renewal rooted in a musical one" and praised its "ceaselessly astonishing beauty".
In 2003, Warner Bros. released the compilation album and DVD In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003 and In View: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003, which featured two new songs, "Bad Day" and "Animal". At a 2003 concert in Raleigh, North Carolina, Berry made a surprise appearance, performing backing vocals on "Radio Free Europe". He then sat behind the drum kit for a performance of the early R.E.M. song "Permanent Vacation", marking his first performance with the band since his retirement.
R.E.M. released Around the Sun in 2004. During production of the album in 2002, Stipe said, "[The album] sounds like it's taking off from the last couple of records into unchartered R.E.M. territory. Kind of primitive and howling". After the album's release, Mills said, "I think, honestly, it turned out a little slower than we intended for it to, just in terms of the overall speed of songs." Around the Sun received a mixed critical reception, and peaked at number 13 on the Billboard charts. The first single from the album, "Leaving New York", was a Top 5 hit in the UK. For the record and subsequent tour, the band hired a new full-time touring drummer, Bill Rieflin, who had previously been a member of several industrial music acts such as Ministry and Pigface, and remained in that role for the duration of the band's active years. The video album Perfect Square was released that same year.
2006–2011: Last albums, recognition and breakup
EMI released a compilation album covering R.E.M.'s work during its tenure on I.R.S. in 2006 called And I Feel Fine... The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982–1987 along with the video album When the Light Is Mine: The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982–1987—the label had previously released the compilations The Best of R.E.M. (1991), R.E.M.: Singles Collected (1994), and R.E.M.: In the Attic – Alternative Recordings 1985–1989 (1997). That same month, all four original band members performed during the ceremony for their induction into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. While rehearsing for the ceremony, the band recorded a cover of John Lennon's "#9 Dream" for Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur, a tribute album benefiting Amnesty International. The song—released as a single for the album and the campaign—featured Bill Berry's first studio recording with the band since his departure almost a decade earlier.
In October 2006, R.E.M. was nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its first year of eligibility. The band was one of five nominees accepted into the Hall that year, and the induction ceremony took place in March 2007 at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The group—which was inducted by Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder—performed three songs with Bill Berry; "Gardening at Night", "Man on the Moon" and "Begin the Begin" as well as a cover of "I Wanna Be Your Dog".
Work on the group's fourteenth album commenced in early 2007. The band recorded with producer Jacknife Lee in Vancouver and Dublin, where it played five nights in the Olympia Theatre between June 30 and July 5 as part of a "working rehearsal". R.E.M. Live, the band's first live album (featuring songs from a 2005 Dublin show), was released in October 2007. The group followed this with the 2009 live album Live at The Olympia, which features performances from its 2007 residency. R.E.M. released Accelerate in early 2008. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard charts, and became the band's eighth album to top the British album charts. Rolling Stone reviewer David Fricke considered Accelerate an improvement over the band's previous post-Berry albums, calling it "one of the best records R.E.M. have ever made".
In 2010, R.E.M. released the video album R.E.M. Live from Austin, TX—a concert recorded for Austin City Limits in 2008. The group recorded its fifteenth album, Collapse into Now (2011), with Jacknife Lee in locales including Berlin, Nashville, and New Orleans. For the album, the band aimed for a more expansive sound than the intentionally short and speedy approach implemented on Accelerate. The album debuted at number five on the Billboard 200, becoming the group's tenth album to reach the top ten of the chart. This release fulfilled R.E.M.'s contractual obligations to Warner Bros., and the band began recording material without a contract a few months later with the possible intention of self-releasing the work.
On September 21, 2011, R.E.M. announced via its website that it was "calling it a day as a band". Stipe said that he hoped fans realized it "wasn't an easy decision": "All things must end, and we wanted to do it right, to do it our way." Long-time associate and former Warner Bros. Senior Vice President of Emerging Technology Ethan Kaplan has speculated that shake-ups at the record label influenced the group's decision to disband. The group discussed breaking up for several years, but was encouraged to continue after the lackluster critical and commercial performance of Around the Sun; according to Mills, "We needed to prove, not only to our fans and critics but to ourselves, that we could still make great records." They were also uninterested in the business end of recording as R.E.M. The band members finished their collaboration by assembling the compilation album Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982–2011, which was released in November 2011. The album is the first to collect songs from R.E.M.'s I.R.S. and Warner Bros. tenures, as well as three songs from the group's final studio recordings from post-Collapse into Now sessions. In November, Mills and Stipe did a brief span of promotional appearances in British media, ruling out the option of the group ever reuniting.
2011–present: Post-breakup releases and events
In 2014, Unplugged: The Complete 1991 and 2001 Sessions was released for Record Store Day. Digital download collections of I.R.S. and Warner Bros. rarities followed. Later in the year, the band compiled the video album box set REMTV, which collected their two Unplugged performances along with several other documentaries and live shows, while their record label released the box set 7IN—83–88, made up of 7-inch vinyl singles. In December 2015, the band members agreed to a distribution deal with Concord Bicycle Music to re-release their Warner Bros. albums. Continuing to maintain their copyright and intellectual property legacies, in March 2016, the band signed a new music publishing administration deal with Universal Music Publishing Group, and a year later, the band members left Broadcast Music, Inc., who had represented their performance rights for their entire career, and joined SESAC. The first release after their new publishing status was the 2018 box set R.E.M. at the BBC. Live at the Borderline 1991 followed for 2019's Record Store Day.
On March 24, 2020, session and touring drummer Bill Rieflin, who contributed on the band's last three records, died of cancer after years of battling the disease.
In September 2021, a full decade after disbanding, Stipe reiterated that the band had no intention of regrouping: "We decided when we split up that that would just be really tacky and probably money-grabbing, which might be the impetus for a lot of bands to get back together."
Musical style
R.E.M. has been described as alternative rock, college rock, folk rock, jangle pop, and post-punk. In a 1988 interview, Peter Buck described R.E.M. songs as typically, "Minor key, mid-tempo, enigmatic, semi-folk-rock-balladish things. That's what everyone thinks and to a certain degree, that's true." All songwriting is credited to the entire band, even though individual members are sometimes responsible for writing the majority of a particular song. Each member is given an equal vote in the songwriting process; however, Buck has conceded that Stipe, as the band's lyricist, can rarely be persuaded to follow an idea he does not favor. Among the original line-up, there were divisions of labor in the songwriting process: Stipe would write lyrics and devise melodies, Buck would edge the band in new musical directions, and Mills and Berry would fine-tune the compositions due to their greater musical experience.
Michael Stipe sings in what R.E.M. biographer David Buckley described as "wailing, keening, arching vocal figures". Stipe often harmonizes with Mills in songs; in the chorus for "Stand", Mills and Stipe alternate singing lyrics, creating a dialogue. Early articles about the band focused on Stipe's singing style (described as "mumbling" by The Washington Post), which often rendered his lyrics indecipherable. Creem writer John Morthland wrote in his review of Murmur, "I still have no idea what these songs are about, because neither me nor anyone else I know has ever been able to discern R.E.M.'s lyrics." Stipe commented in 1984, "It's just the way I sing. If I tried to control it, it would be pretty false." Producer Joe Boyd convinced Stipe to begin singing more clearly during the recording of Fables of the Reconstruction.
Stipe later called chorus lyrics of "Sitting Still" from R.E.M. debut album, Murmur, "nonsense", saying in a 1994 online chat, "You all know there aren't words, per se, to a lot of the early stuff. I can't even remember them." In truth, Stipe carefully crafted the lyrics to many early R.E.M. songs. Stipe explained in 1984 that when he started writing lyrics they were like "simple pictures", but after a year he grew tired of the approach and "started experimenting with lyrics that didn't make exact linear sense, and it's just gone from there." In the mid-1980s, as Stipe's pronunciation while singing became clearer, the band decided that its lyrics should convey ideas on a more literal level. Mills explained, "After you've made three records and you've written several songs and they've gotten better and better lyrically the next step would be to have somebody question you and say, are you saying anything? And Michael had the confidence at that point to say yes . . ." Songs like "Cuyahoga" and "Fall on Me" on Lifes Rich Pageant dealt with such concerns as pollution. Stipe incorporated more politically oriented concerns into his lyrics on Document and Green. "Our political activism and the content of the songs was just a reaction to where we were, and what we were surrounded by, which was just abject horror," Stipe said later. "In 1987 and '88 there was nothing to do but be active." Stipe has since explored other lyrical topics. Automatic for the People dealt with "mortality and dying. Pretty turgid stuff", according to Stipe, while Monster critiqued love and mass culture. Musically, Stipe stated that bands like T. Rex and Mott the Hoople "really impacted me".
Peter Buck's style of playing guitar has been singled out by many as the most distinctive aspect of R.E.M.'s music. During the 1980s, Buck's "economical, arpeggiated, poetic" style reminded British music journalists of 1960s American folk rock band the Byrds. Buck has stated "[Byrds guitarist] Roger McGuinn was a big influence on me as a guitar player", but said it was Byrds-influenced bands, including Big Star and the Soft Boys, that inspired him more. Comparisons were also made with the guitar playing of Johnny Marr of alternative rock contemporaries the Smiths. While Buck professed being a fan of the group, he admitted he initially criticized the band simply because he was tired of fans asking him if he was influenced by Marr, whose band had in fact made their debut after R.E.M. Buck generally eschews guitar solos; he explained in 2002, "I know that when guitarists rip into this hot solo, people go nuts, but I don't write songs that suit that, and I am not interested in that. I can do it if I have to, but I don't like it." Mike Mills' melodic approach to bass playing is inspired by Paul McCartney of the Beatles and Chris Squire of Yes; Mills has said, "I always played a melodic bass, like a piano bass in some ways . . . I never wanted to play the traditional locked into the kick drum, root note bass work." Mills has more musical training than his bandmates, which he has said "made it easier to turn abstract musical ideas into reality."
Legacy
R.E.M. was pivotal in the creation and development of the alternative rock genre. AllMusic stated, "R.E.M. mark the point when post-punk turned into alternative rock." In the early 1980s, the musical style of R.E.M. stood in contrast to the post-punk and new wave genres that had preceded it. Music journalist Simon Reynolds noted that the post-punk movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s "had taken whole swaths of music off the menu", particularly that of the 1960s, and that "After postpunk's demystification and New Pop's schematics, it felt liberating to listen to music rooted in mystical awe and blissed-out surrender." Reynolds declared R.E.M., a band that recalled the music of the 1960s with its "plangent guitar chimes and folk-styled vocals" and who "wistfully and abstractly conjured visions and new frontiers for America", one of "the two most important alt-rock bands of the day." With the release of Murmur, R.E.M. had the most impact musically and commercially of the developing alternative genre's early groups, leaving in its wake a number of jangle pop followers.
R.E.M.'s early breakthrough success served as an inspiration for other alternative bands. Spin referred to the "R.E.M. model"—career decisions that R.E.M. made that set guidelines for other underground artists to follow in their own careers. Spin's Charles Aaron wrote that by 1985, "They'd shown how far an underground, punk-inspired rock band could go within the industry without whoring out its artistic integrity in any obvious way. They'd figured out how to buy in, not sellout-in other words, they'd achieved the American Bohemian Dream." Steve Wynn of Dream Syndicate said, "They invented a whole new ballgame for all of the other bands to follow whether it was Sonic Youth or the Replacements or Nirvana or Butthole Surfers. R.E.M. staked the claim. Musically, the bands did different things, but R.E.M. was first to show us you can be big and still be cool." Biographer David Buckley stated that between 1991 and 1994, a period that saw the band sell an estimated 30 million albums, R.E.M. "asserted themselves as rivals to U2 for the title of biggest rock band in the world." Over the course of its career, the band has sold over 85 million records worldwide. Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums stated that "Their catalogue is destined to endure as critics reluctantly accept their considerable importance in the history of rock".
Alternative bands such as Nirvana, Pavement, Radiohead, Coldplay, Pearl Jam (the band's vocalist Eddie Vedder inducted R.E.M. into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame), Live, Stone Temple Pilots, Collective Soul, Alice in Chains, Hootie and the Blowfish and Pwr Bttm have drawn inspiration from R.E.M.'s music. "When I was 15 years old in Richmond, Virginia, they were a very important part of my life," Pavement's Bob Nastanovich said, "as they were for all the members of our band." Pavement's contribution to the No Alternative compilation (1993) was "Unseen Power of the Picket Fence", a song about R.E.M.'s early days. Local H, according to the band's Twitter account, created their name by combining two R.E.M. songs: "Oddfellows Local 151" and "Swan Swan H". Kurt Cobain of Nirvana was a fan of R.E.M., and had unfulfilled plans to collaborate on a musical project with Stipe. Cobain told Rolling Stone in an interview earlier that year, "I don’t know how that band does what they do. God, they’re the greatest. They've dealt with their success like saints, and they keep delivering great music."
During his show at the 40 Watt Club in October 2018, Johnny Marr said: "As a British musician coming out of the indie scene in the early '80s, which I definitely am and am proud to have been, I can't miss this opportunity to acknowledge and pay my respects and honor the guys who put this town on the map for us in England. I'm talking about my comrades in guitar music, R.E.M. The Smiths really respected R.E.M. We had to keep an eye on what those guys were up to. It's an interesting thing for me, as a British musician, and all those guys as British musicians, to come to this place and play for you guys, knowing that it's the roots of Mike Mills and Bill Berry and Michael Stipe and my good friend Peter Buck."
Awards
Campaigning and activism
Throughout R.E.M.'s career, its members sought to highlight social and political issues. According to the Los Angeles Times, R.E.M. was considered to be one of the United States' "most liberal and politically correct rock groups." The band's members were "on the same page" politically, sharing a liberal and progressive outlook. Mills admitted that there was occasionally dissension between band members on what causes they might support, but acknowledged "Out of respect for the people who disagree, those discussions tend to stay in-house, just because we'd rather not let people know where the divisions lie, so people can't exploit them for their own purposes." An example is that in 1990 Buck noted that Stipe was involved with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but the rest of the band were not.
R.E.M. helped raise funds for environmental, feminist and human rights causes, and were involved in campaigns to encourage voter registration. During the Green tour, Stipe spoke on stage to the audiences about a variety of socio-political issues. Through the late 1980s and 1990s, the band (particularly Stipe) increasingly used its media coverage on national television to mention a variety of causes it felt were important. One example is during the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards, Stipe wore a half-dozen white shirts emblazoned with slogans including "rainforest", "love knows no colors", and "handgun control now".
R.E.M. helped raise awareness of Aung San Suu Kyi and human rights violations in Myanmar, when they worked with the Freedom Campaign and the US Campaign for Burma. Stipe himself ran ads for the 1988 election, supporting Democratic presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis over then-Vice President George H. W. Bush. In 2004, the band participated in the Vote for Change tour that sought to mobilize American voters to support Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. R.E.M.'s political stance, particularly coming from a wealthy rock band under contract to a label owned by a multinational corporation, received criticism from former Q editor Paul Du Noyer, who criticized the band's "celebrity liberalism", saying, "It's an entirely pain-free form of rebellion that they're adopting. There's no risk involved in it whatsoever, but quite a bit of shoring up of customer loyalty."
From the late 1980s, R.E.M. was involved in the local politics of its hometown of Athens, Georgia. Buck explained to Sounds in 1987, "Michael always says think local and act local—we have been doing a lot of stuff in our town to try and make it a better place." The band often donated funds to local charities and helped renovate and preserve historic buildings in the town. R.E.M.'s political clout was credited with the narrow election of Athens mayor Gwen O'Looney twice in the 1990s. The band is a member of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism.
Members
Main members
Bill Berry – drums, percussion, backing vocals, occasional bass guitar and keyboards (1980–1997; occasional concert appearances with the band 2003–2007)
Peter Buck – lead guitar, mandolin, banjo, occasional bass guitar and keyboards (1980–2011)
Mike Mills – bass guitar, keyboards, backing vocals and guitar (1980–2011)
Michael Stipe – lead vocals (1980–2011)
Non-musical members
Several publications made by the band such as album liner notes and fan club mailers list attorney Bertis Downs and manager Jefferson Holt as honorary non-musical members; the two joined up with R.E.M. in 1980/1981 and Holt left in 1996.
Touring and session musicians
Buren Fowler – rhythm guitar (1986–1987)
Peter Holsapple – rhythm guitar, keyboards (1989–1991)
Scott McCaughey – rhythm guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, occasional lead guitar (1994–2011)
Nathan December – rhythm and lead guitar (1994–1995)
Joey Waronker – drums, percussion (1998–2002)
Barrett Martin – percussion (1998)
Ken Stringfellow – keyboards, occasional rhythm guitar, bass guitar, backing vocals (1998–2005)
Bill Rieflin – drums, percussion, occasional keyboards and guitar (2003–2011)
Timeline
Production timeline
Touring and session members timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Murmur (1983)
Reckoning (1984)
Fables of the Reconstruction (1985)
Lifes Rich Pageant (1986)
Document (1987)
Green (1988)
Out of Time (1991)
Automatic for the People (1992)
Monster (1994)
New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996)
Up (1998)
Reveal (2001)
Around the Sun (2004)
Accelerate (2008)
Collapse into Now (2011)
See also
List of alternative rock artists
References
Sources
Black, Johnny. Reveal: The Story of R.E.M. Backbeat, 2004.
Buckley, David. R.E.M.: Fiction: An Alternative Biography. Virgin, 2002.
Gray, Marcus. It Crawled from the South: An R.E.M. Companion. Da Capo, 1997. Second edition.
Fletcher, Tony. Remarks Remade: The Story of R.E.M. Omnibus, 2002. .
Platt, John (editor). The R.E.M. Companion: Two Decades of Commentary. Schirmer, 1998.
Sullivan, Denise. Talk About the Passion: R.E.M.: An Oral Biography. Underwood-Miller, 1994.
External links
Dynamic Range DB entry for R.E.M.
1980 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
2011 disestablishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
Alternative rock groups from Georgia (U.S. state)
Brit Award winners
Capitol Records artists
Concord Bicycle Music artists
Grammy Award winners
I.R.S. Records artists
Jangle pop groups
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups disestablished in 2011
Musical groups from Athens, Georgia
New West Records artists
Rhino Records artists
Warner Records artists
Craft Recordings artists
College rock musical groups | false | [
"Incognegro is the independent studio album by American rapper Ludacris. It was released on August 17, 1999, by Ludacris' newly founded indie record label, DTP Entertainment. Recording sessions took place from 1998 to 1999, with Ludacris serving as the record's executive producer, while the additional production was provided by Jermaine Dupri and Organized Noize, among others.\n\nThe album was supported by two singles: \"Ho\" (produced by Bangladesh), and \"What's Your Fantasy\" (featuring Shawnna, produced by Bangladesh).\n\nEvery track would later appear on his second album except for \"Intro\", \"It Wasn't Us\", \"Midnight Train\", & \"Rock and a Hard Place\".\n\nSingles \nThe lead single for his untitled independent album, called \"Ho\" was released on July 15, 1998. The song was produced by American hip hop record producer Bangladesh.\n\nThe second single for Incognegro, \"What's Your Fantasy\" was released on September 12, 2000. The song features guest verse from an American local rapper Shawnna, while the production was also provided by Bangladesh.\n\nCritical reception\n\nTrack listing\n\nChart positions\n\nReferences\n\n2000 debut albums\nLudacris albums\nAlbums produced by Bangladesh (record producer)\nAlbums produced by Jermaine Dupri",
"Owen Morris (born in Caernarfon, Wales) is a Welsh record producer who has worked with rock bands including Oasis, The Fratellis, Ash, The View, Loso and The Verve.\n\nBiography\nMorris started working in the music industry as a sound engineer at Spaceward Studio in Cambridge, England when he was 16. He continued as an engineer until 1994, when he mixed and mastered Oasis's debut album Definitely Maybe. He continued working with Oasis for their subsequent two albums (What's the Story) Morning Glory? (1995) and Be Here Now (1997). Morris appears on the cover of (What's the Story) Morning Glory? holding the album's master tape.\n\nHe went on to produce The Verve album A Northern Soul (1995), Pusherman's \"Floored\" (1996), Ash's 1977 (1996) and the debut UK album, For God's Sake for Thai rock star Sek Loso. In 2000 he recorded and produced Ash's album Free All Angels. He produced The Paddingtons debut album First Comes First, which was released in October 2005 on Poptones Records. In the early summer of 2006 he produced Hats Off to the Buskers, the debut album of Dundee band The View, which reached number one on the UK Albums Chart. Morris also produced the band's second album Which Bitch? released in February 2009.\n\nMorris also mixed several tracks for the Kaiser Chiefs album The Future Is Medieval including the first single, \"Little Shocks\" off their last album. In 2011 he composed and performed the soundtrack for English director Ronnie Thompson's film Tower Block. Since then, he has produced five tracks from Madness's last album and worked with The View, Towns and did a session with the unsigned band Death at Sea. \n\nIn 2013, Morris re-mastered the first three Oasis albums with Ian Cooper for 20th anniversary re-issues.\n\nIn 2014, he has mixed tracks for The Jackals, an album by The Glorious, and also recorded Italian singer Nathalie. Later in 2014 Morris produced albums for the Spanish band Stay and the American band Prehab.\n\nIn February 2015 Morris was back in the UK to produce the debut album of Edinburgh-based rock trio Miracle Glass Company.\n\nIn 2016 Morris produced Birmingham singer songwriter Glenn Smyth debut EP ‘A sense of freedom’. \n\nAccording to a 2020 Rolling Stone article, Morris has retired and currently resides in Costa Rica, in part thanks to royalties for his work on Oasis' (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, particularly the song \"Wonderwall\".\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n MySpace\n Official Site\n\n1968 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Caernarfon\nBritish record producers"
] |
[
"R.E.M.",
"1980-1981: Formation",
"Whose idea was it to form R.E.M.?",
"The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that \"there was never any grand plan behind any of it\".",
"Who were the original members?",
"Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Mike Mills and Bill Berry,",
"Did they add anyone else?",
"They found a manager in Jefferson Holt,",
"What was their first album?",
"During the summer of 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, \"Radio Free Europe\",",
"Was it successful?",
"the single garnered critical acclaim, and was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times.",
"Were there successful singles from the album?",
"I don't know.",
"What record company produced the album?",
"The single was released on the local independent record label Hib-Tone"
] | C_c87fee161031431bbd689ad1d2a8d4e8_1 | What was their second album? | 8 | What was R.E.M.'s second album? | R.E.M. | In January 1980, Michael Stipe met Peter Buck in Wuxtry Records, the Athens record store where Buck worked. The pair discovered that they shared similar tastes in music, particularly in punk rock and protopunk artists like Patti Smith, Television, and the Velvet Underground. Stipe said, "It turns out that I was buying all the records that [Buck] was saving for himself." Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Mike Mills and Bill Berry, who had played music together since high school and lived together in Georgia. The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that "there was never any grand plan behind any of it". Their still-unnamed band spent a few months rehearsing and played its first show on April 5, 1980, at a friend's birthday party held in a converted Episcopal church in Athens. After considering names like "Twisted Kites", "Cans of Piss", and "Negro Wives", the band settled on "R.E.M." (which is an acronym for rapid eye movement, the dream stage of sleep), which Stipe selected at random from a dictionary. The band members eventually dropped out of school to focus on their developing group. They found a manager in Jefferson Holt, a record store clerk who was so impressed by an R.E.M. performance in his hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that he moved to Athens. R.E.M.'s success was almost immediate in Athens and surrounding areas; the band drew progressively larger crowds for shows, which caused some resentment in the Athens music scene. Over the next year and a half, R.E.M. toured throughout the Southern United States. Touring was arduous because a touring circuit for alternative rock bands did not then exist. The group toured in an old blue van driven by Holt, and lived on a food allowance of $2 each per day. During the summer of 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, "Radio Free Europe", at producer Mitch Easter's Drive-In Studios in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The single was released on the local independent record label Hib-Tone with an initial pressing of one thousand copies, which quickly sold out. Despite its limited pressing, the single garnered critical acclaim, and was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | R.E.M. was an American rock band from Athens, Georgia, formed in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, who were students at the University of Georgia. Liner notes from some of the band's albums list attorney Bertis Downs and manager Jefferson Holt as non-musical members. One of the first alternative rock bands, R.E.M. was noted for Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style; Stipe's distinctive vocal quality, unique stage presence, and obscure lyrics; Mills's melodic bass lines and backing vocals; and Berry's tight, economical drumming style. In the early 1990s, other alternative rock acts such as Nirvana and Pavement viewed R.E.M. as a pioneer of the genre. After Berry left the band in 1997, the band continued its career in the 2000s with mixed critical and commercial success. The band broke up amicably in 2011 with members devoting time to solo projects after having sold more than 85 million albums worldwide and becoming one of the world's best-selling music acts.
R.E.M. released its first single, "Radio Free Europe", in 1981 on the independent record label Hib-Tone. It was followed by the Chronic Town EP in 1982, the band's first release on I.R.S. Records. In 1983, the group released its critically acclaimed debut album, Murmur, and built its reputation over the next few years with similarly acclaimed releases every year from 1984 to 1988: Reckoning, Fables of the Reconstruction, Lifes Rich Pageant, Document and Green, including an intermittent b-side compilation Dead Letter Office. Don Dixon and Mitch Easter produced their first two albums, Joe Boyd handled production on Fables of the Reconstruction and Don Gehman produced Lifes Rich Pageant. Thereafter, R.E.M. settled on Scott Litt as producer for the next 10years during the band's most successful period of their career. They also started co-producing their material and playing other instruments in the studio apart from the main ones they play. With constant touring, and the support of college radio following years of underground success, R.E.M. achieved a mainstream hit with the 1987 single "The One I Love". The group signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1988, and began to espouse political and environmental concerns while playing large arenas worldwide.
R.E.M.'s most commercially successful albums, Out of Time (1991) and Automatic for the People (1992), put them in the vanguard of alternative rock just as it was becoming mainstream. Out of Time received seven nominations at the 34th Annual Grammy Awards, and lead single "Losing My Religion", was R.E.M.'s highest-charting and best-selling hit. Monster (1994) continued its run of success. The band began its first tour in six years to support the album; the tour was marred by medical emergencies suffered by three of the band members. In 1996, R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. for a reported US$80 million, at the time the most expensive recording contract ever. The tour was productive and the band recorded the following album mostly during soundchecks. The resulting record, New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996), is hailed as the band's last great album and the members' favorite, growing in cult status over the years. Berry left the band the following year, and Stipe, Buck, and Mills continued as a musical trio, supplemented by studio and live musicians, such as multi-instrumentalists Scott McCaughey and Ken Stringfellow and drummers Joey Waronker and Bill Rieflin. They also parted ways with their longtime manager Jefferson Holt and band's attorney Bertis Downs assumed managerial duties. Seeking to also renovate their sound, the band stopped working with Scott Litt, co-producer and contributor to six of their studio albums and hired Pat McCarthy as co-producer, who had participated before that as mixer and engineer on their last two albums.
After the electronic experimental direction of Up (1998) that was commercially unsuccessful, Reveal (2001) was referred to as "a conscious return to their classic sound" which received general acclaim. In 2007, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in its first year of eligibility and Berry reunited with the band for the ceremony and to record a cover of John Lennon's "#9 Dream" for the compilation album Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur to benefit Amnesty International's campaign to alleviate the Darfur conflict. Looking for a change of sound after lukewarm reception for Around the Sun (2004), the band collaborated with co-producer Jacknife Lee on their last two studio albums—the well-received Accelerate (2008) and Collapse into Now (2011)—as well as their first live albums after decades of touring. R.E.M. disbanded amicably in September 2011, with former members having continued with various musical projects, and several live and archival albums have since been released.
History
1980–1982: Formation and first releases
In January 1980, Peter Buck met Michael Stipe in Wuxtry Records, the Athens record store where Buck worked. The pair discovered that they shared similar tastes in music, particularly in punk rock and proto-punk artists like Patti Smith, Television, and the Velvet Underground. Stipe said, "It turns out that I was buying all the records that [Buck] was saving for himself." Through mutual friend Kathleen O'Brien, Stipe and Buck then met fellow University of Georgia students Bill Berry and Mike Mills, who had played music together since high school and lived together in Georgia. The quartet agreed to collaborate on several songs; Stipe later commented that "there was never any grand plan behind any of it". Their still-unnamed band spent a few months rehearsing in a deconsecrated Episcopal church in Athens, and played its first show on April 5, 1980, supporting the Side Effects at O'Brien's birthday party held in the same church, performing a mix of originals and 1960s and 1970s covers. After considering names such as Cans of Piss, Negro Eyes, and Twisted Kites, the band settled on "R.E.M.", which Stipe selected at random from a dictionary. R.E.M. is well known as an initialism for rapid eye movement, the dream stage of sleep; however, sleep researcher Dr. Rafael Pelayo reports that when his colleague Dr. William Dement, the sleep scientist who coined the term REM, reached out to the band, Dr. Dement was told that the band was named "not after REM sleep".
The band members eventually dropped out of school to focus on their developing group. They found a manager in Jefferson Holt, a record store clerk who was so impressed by an R.E.M. performance in his hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that he moved to Athens. R.E.M.'s success was almost immediate in Athens and surrounding areas; the band drew progressively larger crowds for shows, which caused some resentment in the Athens music scene. Over the next year and a half, R.E.M. toured throughout the Southern United States. Touring was arduous because a touring circuit for alternative rock bands did not then exist. The group toured in an old blue van driven by Holt, and lived on a food allowance of $2 each per day.
During April 1981, R.E.M. recorded its first single, "Radio Free Europe", at producer Mitch Easter's Drive-In Studios in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Initially distributing it as a four-track demo tape to clubs, record labels and magazines, the single was released in July 1981 on the local independent record label Hib-Tone with an initial pressing of 1,000 copies—600 of which were sent out as promotional copies. The single quickly sold out, and another 6,000 copies were pressed due to popular demand, despite the original pressing leaving off the record label's contact details. Despite its limited pressing, the single garnered critical acclaim, and was listed as one of the ten best singles of the year by The New York Times.
R.E.M. recorded the Chronic Town EP with Mitch Easter in October 1981, and planned to release it on a new indie label named Dasht Hopes. However, I.R.S. Records acquired a demo of the band's first recording session with Easter that had been circulating for months. The band turned down the advances of major label RCA Records in favor of I.R.S., with whom it signed a contract in May 1982. I.R.S. released Chronic Town that August as its first American release. A positive review of the EP by NME praised the songs' auras of mystery, and concluded, "R.E.M. ring true, and it's great to hear something as unforced and cunning as this."
1982–1988: I.R.S. Records and cult success
I.R.S. first paired R.E.M. with producer Stephen Hague to record its debut album. Hague's emphasis on technical perfection left the band unsatisfied, and the band members asked the label to let them record with Easter. I.R.S. agreed to a "tryout" session, allowing the band to return to North Carolina and record the song "Pilgrimage" with Easter and producing partner Don Dixon. After hearing the track, I.R.S. permitted the group to record the album with Dixon and Easter. Because of its bad experience with Hague, the band recorded the album via a process of negation, refusing to incorporate rock music clichés such as guitar solos or then-popular synthesizers, in order to give its music a timeless feel. The completed album, Murmur, was greeted with critical acclaim upon its release in 1983, with Rolling Stone listing the album as its record of the year. The album reached number 36 on the Billboard album chart. A re-recorded version of "Radio Free Europe" was the album's lead single and reached number 78 on the Billboard singles chart in 1983. Despite the acclaim awarded the album, Murmur sold only about 200,000 copies, which I.R.S.'s Jay Boberg felt was below expectations.
R.E.M. made its first national television appearance on Late Night with David Letterman in October 1983, during which the group performed a new, unnamed song. The piece, eventually titled "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)", became the first single from the band's second album, Reckoning (1984), which was also recorded with Easter and Dixon. The album met with critical acclaim; NMEs Mat Snow wrote that Reckoning "confirms R.E.M. as one of the most beautifully exciting groups on the planet". While Reckoning peaked at number 27 on the US album charts—an unusually high chart placing for a college rock band at the time—scant airplay and poor distribution overseas resulted in it charting no higher than number 91 in Britain.
The band's third album, Fables of the Reconstruction (1985), demonstrated a change in direction. Instead of Dixon and Easter, R.E.M. chose producer Joe Boyd, who had worked with Fairport Convention and Nick Drake, to record the album in England. The band members found the sessions unexpectedly difficult, and were miserable due to the cold winter weather and what they considered to be poor food; the situation brought the band to the verge of break-up. The gloominess surrounding the sessions worked its way into the context for the album's themes. Lyrically, Stipe began to create storylines in the mode of Southern mythology, noting in a 1985 interview that he was inspired by "the whole idea of the old men sitting around the fire, passing on ... legends and fables to the grandchildren".
They toured Canada in July and August 1985, and Europe in October of that year, including the Netherlands, England (including one concert at London's Hammersmith Palais), Ireland, Scotland, France, Switzerland, Belgium and West Germany. On October 2, 1985, the group played a concert in Bochum, West Germany, for the German TV show Rockpalast. Stipe had bleached his hair blond during this time. R.E.M. invited California punk band Minutemen to open for them on part of the US tour, and organized a benefit for the family of Minutemen frontman D. Boon who died in a December 1985 car crash shortly after the tour's conclusion. Fables of the Reconstruction performed poorly in Europe and its critical reception was mixed, with some critics regarding it as dreary and poorly recorded. As with the previous records, the singles from Fables of the Reconstruction were mostly ignored by mainstream radio. Meanwhile, I.R.S. was becoming frustrated with the band's reluctance to achieve mainstream success.
For its fourth album, R.E.M. enlisted John Mellencamp's producer Don Gehman. The result, Lifes Rich Pageant (1986), featured Stipe's vocals closer to the forefront of the music. In a 1986 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Peter Buck related, "Michael is getting better at what he's doing, and he's getting more confident at it. And I think that shows up in the projection of his voice." The album improved markedly upon the sales of Fables of the Reconstruction and reached number 21 on the Billboard album chart. The single "Fall on Me" also picked up support on commercial radio. The album was the band's first to be certified gold for selling 500,000 copies. While American college radio remained R.E.M.'s core support, the band was beginning to chart hits on mainstream rock formats; however, the music still encountered resistance from Top 40 radio.
Following the success of Lifes Rich Pageant, I.R.S. issued Dead Letter Office, a compilation of tracks recorded by the band during their album sessions, many of which had either been issued as B-sides or left unreleased altogether. Shortly thereafter, I.R.S. compiled R.E.M.'s music video catalog (except "Wolves, Lower") as the band's first video release, Succumbs.
Don Gehman was unable to produce R.E.M.'s fifth album, so he suggested the group work with Scott Litt. Litt would be the producer for the band's next five albums. Document (1987) featured some of Stipe's most openly political lyrics, particularly on "Welcome to the Occupation" and "Exhuming McCarthy", which were reactions to the conservative political environment of the 1980s under American president Ronald Reagan. Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote in his review of the album, "Document is both confident and defiant; if R.E.M. is about to move from cult-band status to mass popularity, the album decrees that the band will get there on its own terms." Document was R.E.M.'s breakthrough album, and the first single "The One I Love" charted in the Top 20 in the US, UK, and Canada. By January 1988, Document had become the group's first album to sell a million copies. In light of the band's breakthrough, the December 1987 cover of Rolling Stone declared R.E.M. "America's Best Rock & Roll Band".
1988–1997: International breakout and alternative rock stardom
Frustrated that its records did not see satisfactory overseas distribution, R.E.M. left I.R.S. when its contract expired and signed with the major label Warner Bros. Records. Though other labels offered more money, R.E.M. ultimately signed with Warner Bros.—reportedly for an amount between $6 million and $12 million—due to the company's assurance of total creative freedom. (Jay Boberg claimed that R.E.M.'s deal with Warner Bros. was for $22 million, which Peter Buck disputed as "definitely wrong".) In the aftermath of the group's departure, I.R.S. released the 1988 "best of" compilation Eponymous (assembled with input from the band members) to capitalize on assets the company still possessed. The band's 1988 Warner Bros. debut, Green, was recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, and showcased the group experimenting with its sound. The record's tracks ranged from the upbeat first single "Stand" (a hit in the United States), to more political material, like the rock-oriented "Orange Crush" and "World Leader Pretend", which address the Vietnam War and the Cold War, respectively. Green has gone on to sell four million copies worldwide. The band supported the album with its biggest and most visually developed tour to date, featuring back-projections and art films playing on the stage. After the Green tour, the band members unofficially decided to take the following year off, the first extended break in the band's career. In 1990 Warner Bros. issued the music video compilation Pop Screen to collect clips from the Document and Green albums, followed a few months later by the video album Tourfilm featuring live performances filmed during the Green World Tour.
R.E.M. reconvened in mid-1990 to record its seventh album, Out of Time. In a departure from Green, the band members often wrote the music with non-traditional rock instrumentation including mandolin, organ, and acoustic guitar instead of adding them as overdubs later in the creative process. Released in March 1991, Out of Time was the band's first album to top both the US and UK charts. The record eventually sold 4.2 million copies in the US alone, and about 12 million copies worldwide by 1996. The album's lead single "Losing My Religion" was a worldwide hit that received heavy rotation on radio, as did the music video on MTV and VH1. "Losing My Religion" was R.E.M.'s highest-charting single in the US, reaching number four on the Billboard charts. "There've been very few life-changing events in our career because our career has been so gradual," Mills said years later. "If you want to talk about life changing, I think 'Losing My Religion' is the closest it gets". The album's second single, "Shiny Happy People" (one of three songs on the record to feature vocals from Kate Pierson of fellow Athens band the B-52's), was also a major hit, reaching number 10 in the US and number six in the UK. Out of Time garnered R.E.M. seven nominations at the 1992 Grammy Awards, the most nominations of any artist that year. The band won three awards: one for Best Alternative Music Album and two for "Losing My Religion", Best Short Form Music Video and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. R.E.M. did not tour to promote Out of Time; instead the group played a series of one-off shows, including an appearance taped for an episode of MTV Unplugged and released music videos for each song on the video album This Film Is On. The band also performed "Losing My Religion" with members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in Madison, Georgia, at Madison-Morgan Cultural Center as part of MTV's 10th anniversary special.
After spending some months off, R.E.M. returned to the studio in 1991 to record its next album. Late in 1992, the band released Automatic for the People. Though the group had intended to make a harder-rocking album after the softer textures of Out of Time, the somber Automatic for the People "[seemed] to move at an even more agonized crawl", according to Melody Maker. The album dealt with themes of loss and mourning inspired by "that sense of ... turning thirty", according to Buck. Several songs featured string arrangements by former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. Considered by a number of critics (as well as by Buck and Mills) to be the band's best album, Automatic for the People reached numbers one and two on UK and US charts, respectively, and generated the American Top 40 hit singles "Drive", "Man on the Moon", and "Everybody Hurts". The album would sell over fifteen million copies worldwide. As with Out of Time, there was no tour in support of the album. The decision to forgo a tour, in conjunction with Stipe's physical appearance, generated rumors that the singer was dying or HIV-positive, which were vehemently denied by the band.
After the band released two slow-paced albums in a row, R.E.M.'s 1994 album Monster was, as Buck said, "a 'rock' record, with the rock in quotation marks." In contrast to the sound of its predecessors, the music of Monster consisted of distorted guitar tones, minimal overdubs, and touches of 1970s glam rock. Like Out of Time, Monster topped the charts in both the US and UK. The record sold about nine million copies worldwide. The singles "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and "Bang and Blame" were the band's last American Top 40 hits, although all the singles from Monster reached the Top 30 on the British charts. Warner Bros. assembled the music videos from the album as well as those from Automatic for the People for release as Parallel in 1995.
In January 1995, R.E.M. set out on its first tour in six years. The tour was a huge commercial success, but the period was difficult for the group. On March 1, Berry collapsed on stage during a performance in Lausanne, Switzerland, having suffered a brain aneurysm. He had surgery immediately and recovered fully within a month. Berry's aneurysm was only the beginning of a series of health problems that plagued the Monster tour. Mills had to undergo abdominal surgery to remove an intestinal adhesion in July; a month later, Stipe had to have an emergency surgery to repair a hernia. Despite all the problems, the group had recorded the bulk of a new album while on the road. The band brought along eight-track recorders to capture its shows, and used the recordings as the base elements for the album. The final three performances of the tour were filmed at the Omni Coliseum in Atlanta, Georgia and released in home video form as Road Movie.
R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. Records in 1996 for a reported $80 million (a figure the band constantly asserted originated with the media), rumored to be the largest recording contract in history at that point. The group's 1996 album New Adventures in Hi-Fi debuted at number two in the US and number one in the UK. The five million copies of the album sold were a reversal of the group's commercial fortunes of the previous five years. Critical reaction to the album was mostly favorable. In a 2017 retrospective on the band, Consequence of Sound ranked it third out of R.E.M.'s 15 full-length studio albums. The album is Stipe's favorite from R.E.M. and he considers it the band at their peak. Mills says "It usually takes a good few years for me to decide where an album stands in the pantheon of recorded work we've done. This one may be third behind Murmur and Automatic for the People. According to DiscoverMusic: "Arguably less immediate and less accessible[...]New Adventures in Hi-Fi is a sprawling, "White Album"-esque affair clocking in at 65 minutes. However, while it required some time and commitment from the listener, the record's contents were rich, compelling and frequently stunning. Accordingly, the album has continued to lobby for recognition and has long since earned its reputation as R.E.M.'s most unsung LP." While sales were impressive they were below their previous major label records. Time's writer Christopher John Farley argued that the lesser sales of the album were due to the declining commercial power of alternative rock as a whole. That same year, R.E.M. parted ways with manager Jefferson Holt, allegedly due to sexual harassment charges levied against him by a member of the band's home office in Athens. The group's lawyer Bertis Downs assumed managerial duties.
1997–2006: Continuing as three-piece with mixed success
In April 1997, the band convened at Buck's Kauai vacation home to record demos of material intended for the next album. The band sought to reinvent its sound and intended to incorporate drum loops and percussion experiments. Just as the sessions were due to begin in October, Berry decided, after months of contemplation and discussions with Downs and Mills, to tell the rest of the band that he was quitting. Berry told his bandmates that he would not quit if they would break up as a result, so Stipe, Buck, and Mills agreed to carry on as a three-piece with his blessing. Berry publicly announced his departure three weeks later in October 1997. Berry told the press, "I'm just not as enthusiastic as I have been in the past about doing this anymore . . . I have the best job in the world. But I'm kind of ready to sit back and reflect and maybe not be a pop star anymore." Stipe admitted that the band would be different without a major contributor: "For me, Mike, and Peter, as R.E.M., are we still R.E.M.? I guess a three-legged dog is still a dog. It just has to learn to run differently."
The band cancelled its scheduled recording sessions as a result of Berry's departure. "Without Bill it was different, confusing", Mills later said. "We didn't know exactly what to do. We couldn't rehearse without a drummer." The remaining members of R.E.M. resumed work on the album in February 1998 at Toast Studios in San Francisco. The band ended its decade-long collaboration with Scott Litt and hired Pat McCarthy to produce the record. Nigel Godrich was taken on as assistant producer, and drafted in Screaming Trees member Barrett Martin and Beck's touring drummer Joey Waronker. The recording process was tense, and the group came close to disbanding. Bertis Downs called an emergency meeting in which the band members resolved their problems and agreed to continue as a group. Led by the single "Daysleeper", Up (1998) debuted in the top ten in the US and UK. However, the album was a relative failure, selling 900,000 copies in the US by mid-1999 and eventually selling just over two million copies worldwide. While R.E.M.'s American sales were declining, the group's commercial base was shifting to the UK, where more R.E.M. records were sold per capita than any other country and the band's singles regularly entered the Top 20.
A year after Ups release, R.E.M. wrote the instrumental score to the Andy Kaufman biographical film Man on the Moon, a first for the group. The film took its title from the Automatic for the People song of the same name. The song "The Great Beyond" was released as a single from the Man on the Moon soundtrack album. "The Great Beyond" only reached number 57 on the American pop charts, but was the band's highest-charting single ever in the UK, reaching number three in 2000.
R.E.M. recorded the majority of its twelfth album Reveal (2001) in Canada and Ireland from May to October 2000. Reveal shared the "lugubrious pace" of Up, and featured drumming by Joey Waronker, as well as contributions by Scott McCaughey (a co-founder of the band the Minus 5 with Buck), and Ken Stringfellow (founder of the Posies). Global sales of the album were over four million, but in the United States Reveal sold about the same number of copies as Up. The album was led by the single "Imitation of Life", which reached number six in the UK. Writing for Rock's Backpages, The Rev. Al Friston described the album as "loaded with golden loveliness at every twist and turn", in comparison to the group's "essentially unconvincing work on New Adventures in Hi-Fi and Up". Similarly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone called Reveal "a spiritual renewal rooted in a musical one" and praised its "ceaselessly astonishing beauty".
In 2003, Warner Bros. released the compilation album and DVD In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003 and In View: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003, which featured two new songs, "Bad Day" and "Animal". At a 2003 concert in Raleigh, North Carolina, Berry made a surprise appearance, performing backing vocals on "Radio Free Europe". He then sat behind the drum kit for a performance of the early R.E.M. song "Permanent Vacation", marking his first performance with the band since his retirement.
R.E.M. released Around the Sun in 2004. During production of the album in 2002, Stipe said, "[The album] sounds like it's taking off from the last couple of records into unchartered R.E.M. territory. Kind of primitive and howling". After the album's release, Mills said, "I think, honestly, it turned out a little slower than we intended for it to, just in terms of the overall speed of songs." Around the Sun received a mixed critical reception, and peaked at number 13 on the Billboard charts. The first single from the album, "Leaving New York", was a Top 5 hit in the UK. For the record and subsequent tour, the band hired a new full-time touring drummer, Bill Rieflin, who had previously been a member of several industrial music acts such as Ministry and Pigface, and remained in that role for the duration of the band's active years. The video album Perfect Square was released that same year.
2006–2011: Last albums, recognition and breakup
EMI released a compilation album covering R.E.M.'s work during its tenure on I.R.S. in 2006 called And I Feel Fine... The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982–1987 along with the video album When the Light Is Mine: The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982–1987—the label had previously released the compilations The Best of R.E.M. (1991), R.E.M.: Singles Collected (1994), and R.E.M.: In the Attic – Alternative Recordings 1985–1989 (1997). That same month, all four original band members performed during the ceremony for their induction into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. While rehearsing for the ceremony, the band recorded a cover of John Lennon's "#9 Dream" for Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur, a tribute album benefiting Amnesty International. The song—released as a single for the album and the campaign—featured Bill Berry's first studio recording with the band since his departure almost a decade earlier.
In October 2006, R.E.M. was nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its first year of eligibility. The band was one of five nominees accepted into the Hall that year, and the induction ceremony took place in March 2007 at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The group—which was inducted by Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder—performed three songs with Bill Berry; "Gardening at Night", "Man on the Moon" and "Begin the Begin" as well as a cover of "I Wanna Be Your Dog".
Work on the group's fourteenth album commenced in early 2007. The band recorded with producer Jacknife Lee in Vancouver and Dublin, where it played five nights in the Olympia Theatre between June 30 and July 5 as part of a "working rehearsal". R.E.M. Live, the band's first live album (featuring songs from a 2005 Dublin show), was released in October 2007. The group followed this with the 2009 live album Live at The Olympia, which features performances from its 2007 residency. R.E.M. released Accelerate in early 2008. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard charts, and became the band's eighth album to top the British album charts. Rolling Stone reviewer David Fricke considered Accelerate an improvement over the band's previous post-Berry albums, calling it "one of the best records R.E.M. have ever made".
In 2010, R.E.M. released the video album R.E.M. Live from Austin, TX—a concert recorded for Austin City Limits in 2008. The group recorded its fifteenth album, Collapse into Now (2011), with Jacknife Lee in locales including Berlin, Nashville, and New Orleans. For the album, the band aimed for a more expansive sound than the intentionally short and speedy approach implemented on Accelerate. The album debuted at number five on the Billboard 200, becoming the group's tenth album to reach the top ten of the chart. This release fulfilled R.E.M.'s contractual obligations to Warner Bros., and the band began recording material without a contract a few months later with the possible intention of self-releasing the work.
On September 21, 2011, R.E.M. announced via its website that it was "calling it a day as a band". Stipe said that he hoped fans realized it "wasn't an easy decision": "All things must end, and we wanted to do it right, to do it our way." Long-time associate and former Warner Bros. Senior Vice President of Emerging Technology Ethan Kaplan has speculated that shake-ups at the record label influenced the group's decision to disband. The group discussed breaking up for several years, but was encouraged to continue after the lackluster critical and commercial performance of Around the Sun; according to Mills, "We needed to prove, not only to our fans and critics but to ourselves, that we could still make great records." They were also uninterested in the business end of recording as R.E.M. The band members finished their collaboration by assembling the compilation album Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982–2011, which was released in November 2011. The album is the first to collect songs from R.E.M.'s I.R.S. and Warner Bros. tenures, as well as three songs from the group's final studio recordings from post-Collapse into Now sessions. In November, Mills and Stipe did a brief span of promotional appearances in British media, ruling out the option of the group ever reuniting.
2011–present: Post-breakup releases and events
In 2014, Unplugged: The Complete 1991 and 2001 Sessions was released for Record Store Day. Digital download collections of I.R.S. and Warner Bros. rarities followed. Later in the year, the band compiled the video album box set REMTV, which collected their two Unplugged performances along with several other documentaries and live shows, while their record label released the box set 7IN—83–88, made up of 7-inch vinyl singles. In December 2015, the band members agreed to a distribution deal with Concord Bicycle Music to re-release their Warner Bros. albums. Continuing to maintain their copyright and intellectual property legacies, in March 2016, the band signed a new music publishing administration deal with Universal Music Publishing Group, and a year later, the band members left Broadcast Music, Inc., who had represented their performance rights for their entire career, and joined SESAC. The first release after their new publishing status was the 2018 box set R.E.M. at the BBC. Live at the Borderline 1991 followed for 2019's Record Store Day.
On March 24, 2020, session and touring drummer Bill Rieflin, who contributed on the band's last three records, died of cancer after years of battling the disease.
In September 2021, a full decade after disbanding, Stipe reiterated that the band had no intention of regrouping: "We decided when we split up that that would just be really tacky and probably money-grabbing, which might be the impetus for a lot of bands to get back together."
Musical style
R.E.M. has been described as alternative rock, college rock, folk rock, jangle pop, and post-punk. In a 1988 interview, Peter Buck described R.E.M. songs as typically, "Minor key, mid-tempo, enigmatic, semi-folk-rock-balladish things. That's what everyone thinks and to a certain degree, that's true." All songwriting is credited to the entire band, even though individual members are sometimes responsible for writing the majority of a particular song. Each member is given an equal vote in the songwriting process; however, Buck has conceded that Stipe, as the band's lyricist, can rarely be persuaded to follow an idea he does not favor. Among the original line-up, there were divisions of labor in the songwriting process: Stipe would write lyrics and devise melodies, Buck would edge the band in new musical directions, and Mills and Berry would fine-tune the compositions due to their greater musical experience.
Michael Stipe sings in what R.E.M. biographer David Buckley described as "wailing, keening, arching vocal figures". Stipe often harmonizes with Mills in songs; in the chorus for "Stand", Mills and Stipe alternate singing lyrics, creating a dialogue. Early articles about the band focused on Stipe's singing style (described as "mumbling" by The Washington Post), which often rendered his lyrics indecipherable. Creem writer John Morthland wrote in his review of Murmur, "I still have no idea what these songs are about, because neither me nor anyone else I know has ever been able to discern R.E.M.'s lyrics." Stipe commented in 1984, "It's just the way I sing. If I tried to control it, it would be pretty false." Producer Joe Boyd convinced Stipe to begin singing more clearly during the recording of Fables of the Reconstruction.
Stipe later called chorus lyrics of "Sitting Still" from R.E.M. debut album, Murmur, "nonsense", saying in a 1994 online chat, "You all know there aren't words, per se, to a lot of the early stuff. I can't even remember them." In truth, Stipe carefully crafted the lyrics to many early R.E.M. songs. Stipe explained in 1984 that when he started writing lyrics they were like "simple pictures", but after a year he grew tired of the approach and "started experimenting with lyrics that didn't make exact linear sense, and it's just gone from there." In the mid-1980s, as Stipe's pronunciation while singing became clearer, the band decided that its lyrics should convey ideas on a more literal level. Mills explained, "After you've made three records and you've written several songs and they've gotten better and better lyrically the next step would be to have somebody question you and say, are you saying anything? And Michael had the confidence at that point to say yes . . ." Songs like "Cuyahoga" and "Fall on Me" on Lifes Rich Pageant dealt with such concerns as pollution. Stipe incorporated more politically oriented concerns into his lyrics on Document and Green. "Our political activism and the content of the songs was just a reaction to where we were, and what we were surrounded by, which was just abject horror," Stipe said later. "In 1987 and '88 there was nothing to do but be active." Stipe has since explored other lyrical topics. Automatic for the People dealt with "mortality and dying. Pretty turgid stuff", according to Stipe, while Monster critiqued love and mass culture. Musically, Stipe stated that bands like T. Rex and Mott the Hoople "really impacted me".
Peter Buck's style of playing guitar has been singled out by many as the most distinctive aspect of R.E.M.'s music. During the 1980s, Buck's "economical, arpeggiated, poetic" style reminded British music journalists of 1960s American folk rock band the Byrds. Buck has stated "[Byrds guitarist] Roger McGuinn was a big influence on me as a guitar player", but said it was Byrds-influenced bands, including Big Star and the Soft Boys, that inspired him more. Comparisons were also made with the guitar playing of Johnny Marr of alternative rock contemporaries the Smiths. While Buck professed being a fan of the group, he admitted he initially criticized the band simply because he was tired of fans asking him if he was influenced by Marr, whose band had in fact made their debut after R.E.M. Buck generally eschews guitar solos; he explained in 2002, "I know that when guitarists rip into this hot solo, people go nuts, but I don't write songs that suit that, and I am not interested in that. I can do it if I have to, but I don't like it." Mike Mills' melodic approach to bass playing is inspired by Paul McCartney of the Beatles and Chris Squire of Yes; Mills has said, "I always played a melodic bass, like a piano bass in some ways . . . I never wanted to play the traditional locked into the kick drum, root note bass work." Mills has more musical training than his bandmates, which he has said "made it easier to turn abstract musical ideas into reality."
Legacy
R.E.M. was pivotal in the creation and development of the alternative rock genre. AllMusic stated, "R.E.M. mark the point when post-punk turned into alternative rock." In the early 1980s, the musical style of R.E.M. stood in contrast to the post-punk and new wave genres that had preceded it. Music journalist Simon Reynolds noted that the post-punk movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s "had taken whole swaths of music off the menu", particularly that of the 1960s, and that "After postpunk's demystification and New Pop's schematics, it felt liberating to listen to music rooted in mystical awe and blissed-out surrender." Reynolds declared R.E.M., a band that recalled the music of the 1960s with its "plangent guitar chimes and folk-styled vocals" and who "wistfully and abstractly conjured visions and new frontiers for America", one of "the two most important alt-rock bands of the day." With the release of Murmur, R.E.M. had the most impact musically and commercially of the developing alternative genre's early groups, leaving in its wake a number of jangle pop followers.
R.E.M.'s early breakthrough success served as an inspiration for other alternative bands. Spin referred to the "R.E.M. model"—career decisions that R.E.M. made that set guidelines for other underground artists to follow in their own careers. Spin's Charles Aaron wrote that by 1985, "They'd shown how far an underground, punk-inspired rock band could go within the industry without whoring out its artistic integrity in any obvious way. They'd figured out how to buy in, not sellout-in other words, they'd achieved the American Bohemian Dream." Steve Wynn of Dream Syndicate said, "They invented a whole new ballgame for all of the other bands to follow whether it was Sonic Youth or the Replacements or Nirvana or Butthole Surfers. R.E.M. staked the claim. Musically, the bands did different things, but R.E.M. was first to show us you can be big and still be cool." Biographer David Buckley stated that between 1991 and 1994, a period that saw the band sell an estimated 30 million albums, R.E.M. "asserted themselves as rivals to U2 for the title of biggest rock band in the world." Over the course of its career, the band has sold over 85 million records worldwide. Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums stated that "Their catalogue is destined to endure as critics reluctantly accept their considerable importance in the history of rock".
Alternative bands such as Nirvana, Pavement, Radiohead, Coldplay, Pearl Jam (the band's vocalist Eddie Vedder inducted R.E.M. into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame), Live, Stone Temple Pilots, Collective Soul, Alice in Chains, Hootie and the Blowfish and Pwr Bttm have drawn inspiration from R.E.M.'s music. "When I was 15 years old in Richmond, Virginia, they were a very important part of my life," Pavement's Bob Nastanovich said, "as they were for all the members of our band." Pavement's contribution to the No Alternative compilation (1993) was "Unseen Power of the Picket Fence", a song about R.E.M.'s early days. Local H, according to the band's Twitter account, created their name by combining two R.E.M. songs: "Oddfellows Local 151" and "Swan Swan H". Kurt Cobain of Nirvana was a fan of R.E.M., and had unfulfilled plans to collaborate on a musical project with Stipe. Cobain told Rolling Stone in an interview earlier that year, "I don’t know how that band does what they do. God, they’re the greatest. They've dealt with their success like saints, and they keep delivering great music."
During his show at the 40 Watt Club in October 2018, Johnny Marr said: "As a British musician coming out of the indie scene in the early '80s, which I definitely am and am proud to have been, I can't miss this opportunity to acknowledge and pay my respects and honor the guys who put this town on the map for us in England. I'm talking about my comrades in guitar music, R.E.M. The Smiths really respected R.E.M. We had to keep an eye on what those guys were up to. It's an interesting thing for me, as a British musician, and all those guys as British musicians, to come to this place and play for you guys, knowing that it's the roots of Mike Mills and Bill Berry and Michael Stipe and my good friend Peter Buck."
Awards
Campaigning and activism
Throughout R.E.M.'s career, its members sought to highlight social and political issues. According to the Los Angeles Times, R.E.M. was considered to be one of the United States' "most liberal and politically correct rock groups." The band's members were "on the same page" politically, sharing a liberal and progressive outlook. Mills admitted that there was occasionally dissension between band members on what causes they might support, but acknowledged "Out of respect for the people who disagree, those discussions tend to stay in-house, just because we'd rather not let people know where the divisions lie, so people can't exploit them for their own purposes." An example is that in 1990 Buck noted that Stipe was involved with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but the rest of the band were not.
R.E.M. helped raise funds for environmental, feminist and human rights causes, and were involved in campaigns to encourage voter registration. During the Green tour, Stipe spoke on stage to the audiences about a variety of socio-political issues. Through the late 1980s and 1990s, the band (particularly Stipe) increasingly used its media coverage on national television to mention a variety of causes it felt were important. One example is during the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards, Stipe wore a half-dozen white shirts emblazoned with slogans including "rainforest", "love knows no colors", and "handgun control now".
R.E.M. helped raise awareness of Aung San Suu Kyi and human rights violations in Myanmar, when they worked with the Freedom Campaign and the US Campaign for Burma. Stipe himself ran ads for the 1988 election, supporting Democratic presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis over then-Vice President George H. W. Bush. In 2004, the band participated in the Vote for Change tour that sought to mobilize American voters to support Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. R.E.M.'s political stance, particularly coming from a wealthy rock band under contract to a label owned by a multinational corporation, received criticism from former Q editor Paul Du Noyer, who criticized the band's "celebrity liberalism", saying, "It's an entirely pain-free form of rebellion that they're adopting. There's no risk involved in it whatsoever, but quite a bit of shoring up of customer loyalty."
From the late 1980s, R.E.M. was involved in the local politics of its hometown of Athens, Georgia. Buck explained to Sounds in 1987, "Michael always says think local and act local—we have been doing a lot of stuff in our town to try and make it a better place." The band often donated funds to local charities and helped renovate and preserve historic buildings in the town. R.E.M.'s political clout was credited with the narrow election of Athens mayor Gwen O'Looney twice in the 1990s. The band is a member of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism.
Members
Main members
Bill Berry – drums, percussion, backing vocals, occasional bass guitar and keyboards (1980–1997; occasional concert appearances with the band 2003–2007)
Peter Buck – lead guitar, mandolin, banjo, occasional bass guitar and keyboards (1980–2011)
Mike Mills – bass guitar, keyboards, backing vocals and guitar (1980–2011)
Michael Stipe – lead vocals (1980–2011)
Non-musical members
Several publications made by the band such as album liner notes and fan club mailers list attorney Bertis Downs and manager Jefferson Holt as honorary non-musical members; the two joined up with R.E.M. in 1980/1981 and Holt left in 1996.
Touring and session musicians
Buren Fowler – rhythm guitar (1986–1987)
Peter Holsapple – rhythm guitar, keyboards (1989–1991)
Scott McCaughey – rhythm guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, occasional lead guitar (1994–2011)
Nathan December – rhythm and lead guitar (1994–1995)
Joey Waronker – drums, percussion (1998–2002)
Barrett Martin – percussion (1998)
Ken Stringfellow – keyboards, occasional rhythm guitar, bass guitar, backing vocals (1998–2005)
Bill Rieflin – drums, percussion, occasional keyboards and guitar (2003–2011)
Timeline
Production timeline
Touring and session members timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Murmur (1983)
Reckoning (1984)
Fables of the Reconstruction (1985)
Lifes Rich Pageant (1986)
Document (1987)
Green (1988)
Out of Time (1991)
Automatic for the People (1992)
Monster (1994)
New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996)
Up (1998)
Reveal (2001)
Around the Sun (2004)
Accelerate (2008)
Collapse into Now (2011)
See also
List of alternative rock artists
References
Sources
Black, Johnny. Reveal: The Story of R.E.M. Backbeat, 2004.
Buckley, David. R.E.M.: Fiction: An Alternative Biography. Virgin, 2002.
Gray, Marcus. It Crawled from the South: An R.E.M. Companion. Da Capo, 1997. Second edition.
Fletcher, Tony. Remarks Remade: The Story of R.E.M. Omnibus, 2002. .
Platt, John (editor). The R.E.M. Companion: Two Decades of Commentary. Schirmer, 1998.
Sullivan, Denise. Talk About the Passion: R.E.M.: An Oral Biography. Underwood-Miller, 1994.
External links
Dynamic Range DB entry for R.E.M.
1980 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
2011 disestablishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
Alternative rock groups from Georgia (U.S. state)
Brit Award winners
Capitol Records artists
Concord Bicycle Music artists
Grammy Award winners
I.R.S. Records artists
Jangle pop groups
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups disestablished in 2011
Musical groups from Athens, Georgia
New West Records artists
Rhino Records artists
Warner Records artists
Craft Recordings artists
College rock musical groups | false | [
"What the Future Holds Pt. 2 is the seventh studio album by the British group Steps. The album was released on 10 September 2021 by BMG Rights Management.\n\nBackground\nIn April 2021, Steps announced what was intended to be a deluxe edition of What the Future Holds would now be released as their seventh studio album, What the Future Holds Pt.2. Claire Richards said of the new record, \"we see What the Future Holds Pt. 2 as the perfect companion piece to the original album. The new record is classic Steps but also explores some brand-new sounds.\"\n\nSingles\nThe first single was confirmed as \"Heartbreak in This City\" remix featuring singer and television personality Michelle Visage. It debuted on BBC Radio 2 on 25 February, and made available to stream/download that same day. The single debuted at number 25 on the Official Singles Sales Chart.\n\n\"Take Me for a Ride\" was released on 29 July 2021 as the album's second single. \n\nA cover of \"The Slightest Touch\" was released on 20 August 2021 as the album's third single.\n\nIn November 2021 and during opening night of the arena tour, Lee Latchford-Evans confirmed \"A Hundred Years of Winter\" was the next single. It was released on 19 November 2021.\n\nCommercial performance\nWhat the Future Holds Pt. 2 debuted at number 2 in the UK Albums Charts with 25,000 units sold, only 2,000 copies behind Manic Street Preachers' The Ultra Vivid Lament. This was the second time the two groups competed for number-one position, after their albums This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours and Step One also charted at number 1 and 2, respectively, way back in 1998. This marks Steps' third consecutive number 2 studio album since their reunion in 2012, next to Tears on the Dancefloor and What the Future Holds Pt. 1. \n\nIn Australia, the album debuted at number 11, Steps' highest peak in the country in 23 years, since their debut album Step One peaked at number 5 in 1998.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\n2021 albums\nSteps (group) albums\nPop albums by British artists",
"White Witch is the title of the second studio album by the group Andrea True Connection. It was released in 1977. The album had two singles: and \"N.Y., You Got Me Dancing\" and \"What's Your Name, What's Your Number\". This was the last album released by the group and the vocalist Andrea True would release a new album as a solo release only in 1980.\n\nBackground and production\nAfter the success of her first album and the gold-certified single More, More, More, the band begun to prepeare for their second release. The album production included studio musicians with a new band assembled for the tour, the second line-up, which included future Kiss guitarist Bruce Kulick, it was also produce by the disco pioneers Michael Zager and Jerry Love.\n\nSingles\nThe first single of the album was \"N.Y., You Got Me Dancing\", it was released in 1977 and became True's second biggest hit, reaching No. 27 on Billboard's pop chart, and #4 on the U.S. club chart, it also peaked #89 in the Canadian RPM's chart. \"What's Your Name, What's Your Number\" was released as the second and last single of the album (and also of the group) in 1978 and reached #9 on the U.S. club chart, #34 in the UK and #56 on the Billboard Hot 100\n\nCritical reception\n\nThe album received mixed reviews from music critics. Alex Henderson from the Allmusic website gave the album two and a half stars out of five in a mixed review which he wrote that \"while White Witch isn't a bad album, it falls short of the excellence her first album, More, More, More.\" He also stated that there are a few gems in the album \"including the Michael Zager-produced \"What's Your Name, What's Your Number\" and the exuberant, Gregg Diamond-produced \"N.Y., You Got Me Dancing\"\" according to him they're both \"exercises in unapologetically campy fun.\" He concluded that the album \"LP is strictly for diehard disco collectors.\"\n\nTrack listing\nsource:\n\nReferences\n\n1977 albums\nAndrea True albums\nBuddah Records albums"
] |
[
"Avenged Sevenfold",
"The death of The Rev and Nightmare (2009-11)"
] | C_c5f13c820f704829ad24abc704485cea_0 | is the death of the rev and nightmare the name of an album? | 1 | Is the death of the rev and nightmare the name of an album by Avenged Sevenfold? | Avenged Sevenfold | In January 2009, M. Shadows confirmed that the band was writing the follow-up to their self-titled fourth album within the upcoming months. They also played at Rock on the Range, from May 16-17, 2009. On April 16, they performed a version of Guns N' Roses' "It's So Easy" onstage with Slash, at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. On December 28, 2009, the band's drummer James "The Rev" Sullivan was found dead at his home at the age of 28. Autopsy results were inconclusive, but on June 9, 2010, the cause of death was revealed to have been an "acute polydrug intoxication due to combined effects of Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Diazepam/Nordiazepam and ethanol". In a statement by the band, they expressed their grief over the death of The Rev and later posted a message from Sullivan's family which expressed their gratitude to his fans for their support. The band members admitted in a number of interviews that they considered disbanding at this point in time. However, on February 17, 2010, Avenged Sevenfold stated that they had entered the studio, along with now-former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, to drum for the album, in place of The Rev. The single "Nightmare" was digitally released on May 18, 2010. A preview for the song was released on May 6, 2010 on Amazon.com, but was removed soon after for unknown reasons. Mixing for the album had been completed in New York City, and Nightmare was finally released worldwide on July 27, 2010. It met with mixed to positive reviews from music critics but was well received by the fans. Nightmare beat sales projections easily, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 with sales of 163,000 units in its first week. After finishing recording, in December, Portnoy and the band posted simultaneous statements on their websites stating that he would not be their replacement for The Rev. However, Portnoy did travel with the band overseas in December 2010 for three shows in Iraq and Kuwait sponsored by the USO. They played for U.S. Soldiers at Camp Adder, Camp Beuhring, and Balad Air Base. On January 20, 2011, Avenged Sevenfold announced via Facebook that former Confide drummer Arin Ilejay would begin touring with them that year. He was not yet considered a full-time member at this point. Avenged Sevenfold performed at the Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals on June 3-5, 2011 alongside other bands such as Alter Bridge, System of a Down, and In Flames. On April 2011, the band headlined the Golden God Awards held by Metal Hammer. The same night the band won three awards for "Best Vocalist" (M. Shadows), "Epiphone Best Guitarist(s)" (Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance) and "Affliction's Album of The Year: " for Nightmare, while Mike Portnoy won the award for "Drum Workshop's Best Drummer" for his work on the album. Avenged Sevenfold headlined the 2011 Uproar Festival with supporting acts Three Days Grace, Seether, Bullet for My Valentine, Escape The Fate, among others. In November and December 2011, the band went on their "Buried Alive" tour with supporting acts Hollywood Undead, Asking Alexandria, and Black Veil Brides. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Avenged Sevenfold (abbreviated as A7X) is an American heavy metal band from Huntington Beach, California, formed in 1999. The band's current lineup consists of lead vocalist M. Shadows, rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist Zacky Vengeance, lead guitarist and backing vocalist Synyster Gates, bassist and backing vocalist Johnny Christ, and drummer Brooks Wackerman.
Avenged Sevenfold is known for its diverse rock sound and dramatic imagery in album covers and merchandise. The band emerged with a metalcore sound on their debut album Sounding the Seventh Trumpet and continued this sound through their second album Waking the Fallen. However, the band's style had evolved by the group's third album and first major label release, City of Evil, into a heavy metal and hard rock style. The band continued to explore new sounds with its self-titled release and enjoyed continued mainstream success before their drummer, James "The Rev" Sullivan, died in 2009. Despite his death, Avenged Sevenfold continued on with the help of drummer Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater), and released and toured in support of their fifth album Nightmare in 2010, which debuted on the top spot of the Billboard 200, their first number one debut.
In 2011 drummer Arin Ilejay joined the band on tours and recording. The band's sixth studio album Hail to the King, which was released in 2013, marked the only Avenged Sevenfold album featuring Ilejay. Hail to the King charted as number 1 on the Billboard 200, the UK Albums chart, as well as the Finnish, Brazilian, Canadian, and Irish charts. In late 2014, Ilejay left the band, and was replaced by former Bad Religion drummer Brooks Wackerman, but the lineup change was not announced to the public until 2015. The band then surprise-released their seventh studio album titled The Stage on October 28, 2016, which debuted as number 4 on the Billboard 200 chart in the US. The Stage is their first conceptual album and it marked another stylistic change for the band, moving towards a progressive metal sound.
To date, Avenged Sevenfold has released seven studio albums, one live album/DVD, two compilation albums and eighteen singles and have sold over 8 million albums worldwide, and their records have received numerous certification awards, including five platinum album awards from their home country's institution (RIAA). They have also created four original songs for the Call of Duty: Black Ops series, all of which were compiled together in the 2018 EP Black Reign. The band were ranked No. 47 on Loudwire's list of Top 50 Metal Bands of All Time.
History
Formation and Sounding the Seventh Trumpet (1999–2002)
Avenged Sevenfold was formed in March 1999 in Huntington Beach, California by Matt Sanders, James Sullivan and Matt Wendt. Although they are not a religious band, Sanders came up with the name as a reference to the story of Cain and Abel from the Bible, which can be found in Genesis 4:24. Shortly after their formation, they were joined by an acquaintance from high school, Zachary Baker, who played in the punk band MPA (short for Mad Porn Action) at the time.
Avenged Sevenfold's first creative output was a three-track-demo recorded in early 1999. In early 2000, they were asked by Sadistic Records to contribute to two compilations. To that end, they recorded two new songs and released them along with the previously recorded songs on a second demo. They sent this demo to the Belgian label Good Life Recordings and were subsequently signed. Afterwards, the band participated in another two compilation albums, their label's GoodLife 4 and Novocaine Records' Scrape III compilations. Around this time, Matt Wendt left for college and Justin Meacham, the previous bassist of Suburban Legends, joined Avenged Sevenfold. In late 2000, the foursome took on their initial stage names – M. Shadows, Zacky Vengeance, Justin Sane and The Rev – and recorded their debut album, Sounding the Seventh Trumpet. In early 2001, lead guitarist and old friend Synyster Gates joined the band and they re-recorded the introductory track "To End the Rapture" for the album's lead-single/EP, Warmness on the Soul, released in April 2001. Although their debut album's release was initially planned for the same month, it was pushed back multiple times and eventually released on July 24, 2001, on Good Life Recordings.
Around August 2001, Meacham attempted suicide by drinking excessive amounts of cough syrup. This event was the reason for Avenged Sevenfold to join the Take Action Tour in 2003. During Meacham's hospitalization, he remained in poor condition and had to leave the band. In an interview, lead singer M. Shadows said of Meacham that "he perma-fried his brain and was in a mental institution for a long time, and when you have someone in your band who does that, it ruins everything that's going on all around you, and it makes you want to do something to prevent it from happening to other people." His replacement was Frank Melcom, stage name Dameon Ash, who performed with the band for the following months, but does not appear on any releases.
On January 18, 2002, Avenged Sevenfold left Good Life Recordings and signed with Hopeless Records. They re-released their debut album on March 19 and also appeared on the Hopelessly Devoted To You Vol. 4 sampler in April. The band started to receive recognition, performing with bands such as Mushroomhead and Shadows Fall. They spent the year touring in support of their debut album and participated in the Vans Warped Tour. In September, Dameon Ash left Avenged Sevenfold and their current bassist Johnny Christ joined them, completing their best known line-up.
Waking the Fallen and City of Evil (2003–2005)
Having found a new bassist, the group released their second studio album titled Waking the Fallen on Hopeless Records in August 2003. The album featured a more refined and mature sound production in comparison to their previous album. The band received profiles in Billboard and The Boston Globe, and again played on the Vans Warped and Take Action tours. In 2004, Avenged Sevenfold toured again on the Vans Warped Tour and recorded a video for their song "Unholy Confessions" which went into rotation on MTV2's Headbangers Ball. Shortly after the release of Waking the Fallen, Avenged Sevenfold left Hopeless Records and were officially signed to Warner Bros. Records on November 1, 2003.
City of Evil, the band's third album and major label debut, was released on June 7, 2005, and debuted at No.30 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 30,000 copies in its first week of release. It utilized a more classic metal sound than Avenged Sevenfold's previous albums, which had been grouped into the metalcore genre. The album is also notable for the absence of screamed and growled vocals; M. Shadows worked with vocal coach Ron Anderson—whose clients have included Axl Rose and Chris Cornell—for months before the album's release to achieve a sound that had "grit while still having the tone". The album received positive reviews from several magazines and websites and is credited for propelling the band into international popularity.
Avenged Sevenfold (2006–2008)
After playing Ozzfest in 2006, Avenged Sevenfold memorably beat out R&B Singers Rihanna and Chris Brown, Panic! at the Disco, Angels & Airwaves and James Blunt for the title of Best New Artist at the MTV Video Music Awards, thanks in part to their Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas-inspired song "Bat Country." They returned to the Vans Warped Tour, this time headlining and then continued on their own "Cities of Evil Tour." In addition, their lead single "Bat Country" reached No.2 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Charts, No.6 on the Billboard Modern Rock Charts and the accompanying video made it to No.1 on MTV's Total Request Live. Propelled by this success, the album sold well and became Avenged Sevenfold's first Gold record. It was later certified platinum in August 2009.
Avenged Sevenfold was invited to join Ozzfest tour on the main stage, alongside other well known rock/heavy metal acts such as DragonForce, Lacuna Coil, Hatebreed, Disturbed and System of a Down for the first time in 2006. That same year they also completed a worldwide tour, including the US, The United Kingdom (as well as mainland Europe), Japan, Australia and New Zealand. After a sixteen-month promotion of City of Evil, the band announced that they were cancelling their Fall 2006 tour to record new music. In the interim, the band released their first DVD titled All Excess on July 17, 2007. All Excess, which debuted as the No.1 DVD in the US, included live performances and backstage footage that spanned the band's eight-year career. Two tribute albums, Strung Out on Avenged Sevenfold: Bat Wings and Broken Strings and Strung Out on Avenged Sevenfold: The String Tribute were also released in October 2007.
On October 30, 2007, Avenged Sevenfold released their self-titled album, the band's fourth studio album. It debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 with over 90,000 copies sold. Two singles, "Critical Acclaim" and "Almost Easy" were released prior to the album's debut. In December 2007, an animated video was made for "A Little Piece of Heaven". Due to the song's controversial subject matter, however, Warner Brothers only released it to registered MVI users over the internet. The third single, "Afterlife" and its video was released in January 2008. Their fourth single, "Dear God", was released on June 15, 2008. Although critical reception was generally mixed the self-titled album went on to sell over 500,000 copies and was awarded "Album of the Year" at the Kerrang! Awards.
Avenged Sevenfold headlined the 2008 Taste of Chaos tour with Atreyu, Bullet for My Valentine, Blessthefall and Idiot Pilot. They used the footage from their last show in Long Beach for Live in the LBC & Diamonds in the Rough, a two-disc B-sides CD and live DVD which was released on September 16, 2008. They also recorded numerous covers, including Pantera's "Walk", Iron Maiden's "Flash of the Blade" and Black Sabbath's "Paranoid".
Death of The Rev and Nightmare (2009–2011)
In January 2009, M. Shadows confirmed that the band was writing the follow-up to their self-titled fourth album within the upcoming months. They also played at Rock on the Range, from May 16–17, 2009. On April 16, they performed a version of Guns N' Roses' "It's So Easy" onstage with Slash, at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. On December 28, 2009, the band's drummer James "The Rev" Sullivan was found dead at his home at the age of 28. Autopsy results were inconclusive, but on June 9, 2010, the cause of death was revealed to have been an "acute polydrug intoxication due to combined effects of Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Diazepam/Nordiazepam and ethanol". In a statement by the band, they expressed their grief over the death of The Rev and later posted a message from Sullivan's family which expressed their gratitude to his fans for their support. The band members admitted in a number of interviews that they considered disbanding at this point in time. However, on February 17, 2010, Avenged Sevenfold stated that they had entered the studio, along with now-former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, to drum for the album, in place of The Rev.
The single "Nightmare" was digitally released on May 18, 2010. A preview for the song was released on May 6, 2010, on Amazon.com, but was removed soon after for unknown reasons. Mixing for the album had been completed in New York City, and Nightmare was finally released worldwide on July 27, 2010. It met with mixed to positive reviews from music critics but was well received by the fans. Nightmare beat sales projections easily, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 with sales of 163,000 units in its first week. After finishing recording, in December, Portnoy and the band posted simultaneous statements on their websites stating that he would not be their replacement for The Rev. However, Portnoy did travel with the band overseas in December 2010 for three shows in Iraq and Kuwait sponsored by the USO. They played for U.S. Soldiers at Camp Adder, Camp Beuhring, and Balad Air Base. On January 20, 2011, Avenged Sevenfold announced via Facebook that former Confide drummer Arin Ilejay would begin touring with them that year. He was not yet considered a full-time member at this point.
Avenged Sevenfold performed at the Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals on June 3–5, 2011 alongside other bands such as Alter Bridge, System of a Down, and In Flames. In April 2011, the band headlined the Golden God Awards held by Metal Hammer. The same night the band won three awards for "Best Vocalist" (M. Shadows), "Epiphone Best Guitarist(s)" (Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance), and "Affliction's Album of The Year" for Nightmare, while Mike Portnoy won the award for "Drum Workshop's Best Drummer" for his work on the album.
Avenged Sevenfold headlined the 2011 Uproar Festival with supporting acts Three Days Grace, Seether, Bullet for My Valentine, Escape the Fate, among others. In November and December 2011, the band went on their "Buried Alive" tour with supporting acts Hollywood Undead, Asking Alexandria, and Black Veil Brides.
Hail to the King and Waking the Fallen: Resurrected (2012–2014)
On April 11, 2012, Avenged Sevenfold won the award for "Best Live Band" and "Most Dedicated Fans" at the Revolver Golden Gods awards.
The band toured through Asia into April and early May, and played at the Orion Music + More, Festival on June 23 and 24 in Atlantic City, New Jersey alongside Metallica and Cage the Elephant among many others.
On September 24, 2012, Avenged Sevenfold released a new song, titled "Carry On"; it was featured in the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II. On November 15, 2012, vocalist M. Shadows said that the band had been working on a new album since the recording of "Carry On" in August 2012. The band began recording material for the album in January 2013. The band then started streaming snippets of the album in May 2013 on their new radio app. There, Arin Ilejay was confirmed as an official band member and replacement of deceased The Rev. M. Shadows said that the album would sound more blues rock-influenced and more like classic rock/metal like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.
The band was confirmed to play at the 2013 Rock in Rio festival on September 22, 2013. On May 24, 2013, the band have announced dates for their European tour with Five Finger Death Punch and Device serving as their support bands.
The album, entitled Hail to the King, was released on August 27, 2013. This is the first Avenged Sevenfold album without any musical contributions from deceased The Rev. The album's lead single and title track was released on July 15, 2013. Hail to the King charted as No. 1 on the US Billboard 200, the UK albums chart, as well as the Finnish, Brazilian, Canadian, and Irish charts, and was commercially and critically acclaimed. The band headlined Monster Energy's Welcome to Rockville two-day music festival in Jacksonville, Florida, April 26–27, 2014, joined by more than 25 rock acts, such as Motörhead, Rob Zombie, Chevelle, Korn, Staind, Alter Bridge, The Cult, Five Finger Death Punch, Volbeat, Black Label Society, and Seether. On June 13, the band headlined the Friday night of Download Festival 2014. The band also headlined the Mayhem Festival 2014 with Korn, Asking Alexandria, and Trivium.
In March 2014, vocalist M. Shadows revealed in an interview with Loudwire that the band had plans in the works to put something out for the overdue 10th anniversary of Waking the Fallen. Waking the Fallen: Resurrected was released August 25, 2014. The reissue charted No. 10 on the US Billboard 200.
Drummer change and The Stage (2015–2017)
In October 2014, M. Shadows confirmed that the band would begin writing their seventh album during mid-2015.
In July 2015 the band announced on their website that they would part ways with drummer Arin Ilejay, due to "creative differences". In October 2015, the band announced on their website that they had been working with a new drummer for over a year, making sure that it was a good fit before making sudden changes. On October 21, in an interview with Kerrang! magazine, guitarist Zacky Vengeance revealed that the band had been working on the new album for the past couple of months and that a couple of songs had already been completely written. On November 4, 2015, the band announced that Brooks Wackerman would replace Arin Ilejay as the drummer for Avenged Sevenfold. In an interview with Kerrang! magazine on December 3, guitarist Zacky Vengeance said that the new album went in all sorts of aggressive and melodic directions and described it as very "aggro".
On January 14, 2016, Billboard reported that Avenged Sevenfold had been sued by Warner Bros. for trying to leave the label. The band later released a statement clarifying that they wanted to leave because a majority of the executives who helped sign the band to Warner Bros were no longer at the label. They also revealed that the band was going to be entering the studio to record their new album very soon, intending to release it later in 2016. On March 31, the band posted a teaser of their upcoming album on their website.
On August 18, 2016, the band performed a free live show for 1500 people in Minnesota, marking it the first live performance with new drummer Brooks Wackerman. The band was announced as support for Metallica with Volbeat in the U.S. Bank Stadium on August 20, 2016, making it the first ever rock show in the stadium. The band was announced as a headliner of Monster Energy Rock Allegiance 2016, along with Alice in Chains, Slayer, The Offspring, Breaking Benjamin and others. Avenged Sevenfold also performed on "Louder Than Life" festival as headliners on October 1, with Slipknot, Slayer, Disturbed, Korn and other artists. On June 21, the band announced a U.S. Fall tour with Volbeat, Killswitch Engage, and Avatar. The band also announced a UK tour for January 2017 with Disturbed and In Flames. Avenged Sevenfold was announced as a headliner of 2016 edition of Knotfest Mexico. The band also announced the European Tour for February and March 2017 along with Disturbed and Chevelle.
On October 3, 2016, the band's logo Deathbat started appearing as a projection in London. After that, Deathbat also started appearing in Berlin, Toronto and Paris, indicating a release of the new album. On October 12, Chris Jericho posted an Instagram photo of the Deathbat logo with a date 12/9/16 underneath it. He then revealed the supposed title of the album, Voltaic Oceans, It was later revealed that the new album would actually be called The Stage, a concept album about artificial intelligence, which was released on October 28, 2016, via Capitol Records. The album was released to generally favorable reviews, and the band decided to make a unique stage production for it, hiring Cirque du Soleil directors for its making.
Avenged Sevenfold was announced as the main support act on Metallica's WorldWired 2017 stadium summer tour in the US and Canada, alongside Volbeat and Gojira. The band also announced a series of 2017 US headlining summer shows of The Stage World Tour, with Volbeat, Motionless in White, and A Day to Remember as special guests across various dates.
On December 22, 2017, the band released a deluxe edition of The Stage that included one new original track, six cover songs, and four live tracks from their European tour earlier that year.
In a December 2017 interview with Billboard, M. Shadows revealed that the band are planning "a big US summer 2018 tour", and that the band would start working on the follow-up to The Stage in late 2018. End of the World tour with Prophets of Rage was later announced for summer 2018. The band was also announced as one of the headliners of 2018's Rock on the Range and Download Festival, in addition to appearing at Hellfest, Graspop Metal Meeting, Rock am Ring and Rock im Park the same year. Due to a blood blister forming in M. Shadows' throat, the band cancelled remaining dates from their summer tour with Prophets of Rage.
Avenged Sevenfold was nominated at 60th Annual Grammy Awards in "Best Rock Song" category for The Stage.
The band released a single titled "Mad Hatter" in September 2018, which was made specifically for the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. It would later be a part of the Black Reign EP released later that month, which comprises all four of the songs Avenged Sevenfold made for the Call of Duty franchise.
Upcoming eighth studio album (2018–present)
In a December 2017 interview with Billboard, M. Shadows revealed that the band are planning "a big US summer 2018 tour", and that the band would start working on the follow-up to The Stage in late 2018. Bassist Johnny Christ in a May 2018 interview confirmed that the band is currently getting ideas and writing in their own studios to start the next record in September or October 2018.
In September 2018, Synyster Gates revealed in an interview with Loudwire that the band has started working on their eighth studio album, saying "It's still early on, but we're working on a bunch of stuff". In March 2019, Zacky Vengeance stated the band would take the rest of the year off tour to concentrate on the upcoming album, saying the band is really focused on the new material. In January 2020, Avenged Sevenfold released "Set Me Free", an unreleased song recorded during the Hail to the King recording sessions. They also announced that the song would be included in a remastered re-release of Live in the LBC & Diamonds in the Rough, released on March 6. A limited edition clear vinyl of Diamonds in the Rough was also released.
Musical style and influences
Members of Avenged Sevenfold cite In Flames, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Slayer, Mr. Bungle, Elton John, Leonard Cohen, At the Gates, Helloween, Dream Theater, Pennywise, NOFX, Pantera, Def Leppard, Guns N' Roses, The Beatles, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones as influences.
The band has been categorized under several genres of heavy and extreme music, primarily heavy metal, alternative metal, hard rock, and, on their album The Stage, progressive metal, with their earlier albums being categorized as metalcore. Avenged Sevenfold's musical style has consistently evolved throughout the duration of the band's career. Initially, the band's debut album Sounding the Seventh Trumpet consisted almost entirely of a metalcore sound. However, there were several deviations from this genre, most notably in "Streets", which shows a punk rock style, and "Warmness on the Soul", which is a piano ballad. On Waking the Fallen, the band displayed a metalcore style once more, but added more clean singing and leaned a bit more towards metal and bit less close to hardcore. In the band's DVD All Excess, producer Andrew Murdock explained this transition: "When I met the band after Sounding the Seventh Trumpet had come out before they had recorded Waking the Fallen, M. Shadows said to me 'This record is screaming. The record we want to make is going to be half-screaming half-singing. I don't want to scream anymore. And the record after that is going to be all singing'."
On Avenged Sevenfold's third album City of Evil, the band chose to outright abandon the metalcore genre, creating a sound consistent with hard rock and heavy metal. Avenged Sevenfold's self-titled album experiments with an even wider array of musical genres than that from City of Evil, most notably in "Dear God", which shows a country style and "A Little Piece of Heaven", which is circled within the influence of Broadway show tunes, using primarily brass instruments and stringed orchestra to take over most of the role of the lead and rhythm guitar. Nightmare contains further deviations, including a piano ballad called "Fiction", progressive metal-oriented track "Save Me" and a heavy metal sound with extreme vocals and heavier instrumentation on "God Hates Us". The band's sixth studio album Hail to the King shows more of a classic metal sound and a riff-oriented approach. On their newest album The Stage, the band explores further into progressive metal, blending it with elements of thrash metal. In the past, Avenged Sevenfold has also been described as screamo and pop punk metal.
Avenged Sevenfold has been criticized for "not being metal enough". In response to this, vocalist M. Shadows said: "we play music for the sake of music, not so that we can be labeled a metal band. That's like telling us we aren't punk enough. Who cares?" Avenged Sevenfold is one of the notable acts of the new wave of American heavy metal.
Band members
Current members
M. Shadows – lead vocals, piano (1999–present)
Zacky Vengeance – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1999–present); lead guitar (1999–2001)
Synyster Gates – lead guitar, piano, backing vocals (2001–present)
Johnny Christ – bass, backing vocals (2002–present)
Brooks Wackerman – drums (2015–present)
Former members
Matt Wendt – bass (1999–2000)
Justin Sane – bass, piano (2000–2001)
Dameon Ash – bass (2001–2002)
The Rev – drums, piano, co-lead vocals (1999–2009; died 2009)
Arin Ilejay – drums (2011–2015)
Session and touring musicians
Mike Portnoy – drums (2010)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Sounding the Seventh Trumpet (2001)
Waking the Fallen (2003)
City of Evil (2005)
Avenged Sevenfold (2007)
Nightmare (2010)
Hail to the King (2013)
The Stage (2016)
Accolades
References
External links
American alternative metal musical groups
American metalcore musical groups
Articles which contain graphical timelines
Capitol Records artists
Hard rock musical groups from California
Heavy metal musical groups from California
Hopeless Records artists
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1999
Musical groups from Orange County, California
Musical quintets
Warner Records artists
1999 establishments in California
Good Life Recordings artists | false | [
"Nightmare is the fifth studio album by American heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold, released on July 27, 2010, through Warner Bros. Records. It was produced by Mike Elizondo, mixed in New York City by audio engineer Andy Wallace, and mastered by Ted Jensen.\n\nNightmare is Avenged Sevenfold's first album to be recorded without Jimmy \"The Rev\" Sullivan performing drums due to his death in December 2009. However, he did write parts that were used for the final recordings, making this the last album he would write on, and his vocal takes are still on the album as a tribute to him. The rest of the drum tracks were handled by Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, who also played with the band for all their tours through the end of 2010. They then hired drummer Arin Ilejay, who played with the band from 2011 to 2015.\n\nThe album debuted at number one in the Billboard 200 in the United States and was certified Platinum by the RIAA. As of December 2016, the album has sold 964,000 copies in the United States. The cover of the album features a tribute to Jimmy \"The Rev\" Sullivan, the tombstone reads \"FOREVER\" with emphasis on \"REV\".\n\nWriting and recording\nIn late 2009, two years after Avenged Sevenfold released their self-titled album, and four years after they had issued their breakthrough studio set, 2005's City of Evil, the band started working on their next record, their \"most personal and epic that will definitely take you on a very dark journey.\" However, as recording was in session, a few casualties arose.\n\nOn December 28, 2009, drummer Jimmy Sullivan (a.k.a. The Rev) passed away. Afterwards, the band suspended work on the album for some time. Not wanting to hire a permanent replacement for The Rev for the time being, the band selected Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater (a major influence on The Rev and the rest of the band) to finish recording the drum tracks for the album:\n\nAfter a couple of months, more notices about the album became available; a short message from Zacky Vengeance was posted on the official Avenged Sevenfold Twitter on April 17, 2010: \"Tracking is complete. There are no words that will ever describe the feeling of listening to this album while driving home alone at 4 am.\"\n\nJohnny Christ stated in an interview with Ultimate Guitar about the writing process and subject matter of Nightmare:\n\nM. Shadows and Synyster Gates, in an interview with The Pulse of Radio, confirmed The Rev's special appearance in the record. According to the band members, he left a couple of vocals (to their fortune, clear and in key) before his death, which they used on the record. With his drum fills and vocals intact, the record showed itself to be the band's last record with The Rev. The same band members revealed some details about the new record in an interview to Hard Drive radio:\n\nRelease and promotion\nThe first single, \"Nightmare\", was released digitally on May 18, 2010. A preview for the song was released on May 6, 2010 on Amazon.com, but was removed soon after for unknown reasons; however, on May 10, 2010, a 30-second audio uncensored sample was again revealed, but this time at SoundCloud and on the band's official website. The same day, the band also posted a video of the song on their official YouTube channel with animated lyrics, which received over 275,000 plays in 24 hours.\n\nOn June 3, 2010, the band revealed a \"Limited Edition\" of Nightmare for pre-order available only on their website, which contains:\n Full Nightmare album on CD.\n Expanded booklet featuring lyric sheets from the band and exclusive artwork.\n Housed in a synthetic leather bound book with special silver-plated Nightmare crest.\n Limited 24″ x 36″ lithograph entitled Death Bat Anatomy, featuring original artwork on special textured paper embossed with a silver colored Death Bat.\n Instant download of the new single, Nightmare.\n\nSince May 27, 2010, the band revealed the album cover piece by piece like a jigsaw puzzle over a period of eighteen days, revealing the complete cover on June 14, 2010, along with the track listing.\n\nOn June 29, 2010, the band made available an iTunes pre-order of the album, which contains:\nFull Nightmare digital album.\nBonus track: \"Lost It All\"\nExclusive photos.\n\"Nightmare\" music video.\nBehind the scenes footage from \"Nightmare\" music video shoot.\nWritten treatment for \"Nightmare\" music video.\n\"Nightmare\" lyric video.\nAudio interview with album producer, Mike Elizondo.\nType-set lyrics with hand-written notes for bonus track, \"Lost It All\".\nSketches of album art concept.\n\nThe song \"Buried Alive\" was posted on the band's Facebook page on July 14, 2010, but experienced loading issues due to a large number of users trying to access the video, and was briefly taken down. The problem was resolved on July 15, 2010, and was posted on YouTube as a lyric video which also contained a small animation.\n\nOn July 21, 2010, the song \"So Far Away\" was released by KROQ radio exclusively for one day.\n\nOn October 19, 2010, the single \"Welcome to the Family\" was released.\n\nOn April 5, 2011, \"So Far Away\" was released, followed by the music video.\n\nIn September 2011, the band announced plans for a music video for their next single, \"Buried Alive\". They tried to get Rob Zombie to direct the video, but he declined due to being focused on another project.\n\nCritical reception\n{{Album ratings\n| MC = 62/100\n| rev1 = 411Mania.com\n| rev1Score = \n| rev2 = Allmusic\n| rev2Score = <ref name=\"Nightmare Overview\">\nNightmare received generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 62, based on 7 professional reviews, which indicates \"generally favorable reviews\".\n\nIn the August 2010 issue of Metal Hammer, Terry Beezer rated the album an eight out of ten. In his review, he had praised the band members for their courage despite the death of The Rev and called it \"the ultimate tribute to a fallen friend.\" He also praised Mike Portnoy for his part in the album and found him a fitting stand-in for The Rev.\n\n411 Mania gave the record a lengthy but highly positive review by giving it a score of 9.0/10. As a conclusion they stated, \"If you're a fan of Avenged Sevenfold, Nightmare is a must-have for you. This album is incredibly moving and is better than any tribute to the late Rev I could have possibly imagined.\"\n\nKerrang! gave the album 4 K's out of 5 concluding: \"Where Avenged [Sevenfold] go from here is still in the lap of the gods. Whatever their future, though, Nightmare marks the point at which the Huntington Beach crew put away childish things and became men. Wherever he is now, their brother must be immensely proud.\"\n\nAccolades\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\n\nAvenged Sevenfold\n M. Shadows – lead vocals, piano\n Zacky Vengeance – rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar, backing vocals\n The Rev – drum arrangement, co-lead vocals on \"Fiction\", growl and opening harmony on \"Save Me\", drums and backing vocals on \"Nightmare\" demo\n Synyster Gates – lead guitar, backing vocals\n Johnny Christ – bass guitar\n\nSession musicians\n Mike Portnoy – drums, percussion\n Brian Haner, Sr. – guitar solo on \"Tonight the World Dies\", additional guitars on \"So Far Away\"\n Sharlotte Gibson – backing vocals on \"Victim\"\n Jessi Collins – backing vocals on \"Fiction\"\n David Palmer – piano on \"Nightmare\", \"Danger Line\", \"Fiction\" and \"Save Me\", keyboards on \"Danger Line\" and \"Save Me\", B3 on \"Tonight the World Dies\" and \"Fiction\"\n Stevie Blacke – strings, string arrangement on \"Nightmare\", \"Danger Line\", \"Buried Alive\", \"So Far Away\", \"Fiction\" and \"Save Me\"\n Stewart Cole – trumpet on \"Danger Line\"\n The Whistler – whistling on \"Danger Line\"\n\nProduction\n Mike Elizondo – producer, keyboards on \"Fiction\"\n Craig Aaronson – A&R\n Brent Arrowood – assistant engineer\n Chad Carlisle – assistant engineer\n D.A. Frizell – illustrations, treatment\n Adam Hawkins – engineer\n Ted Jensen – mastering\n Jodie Levine – production co-ordination, contractor\n Clay Patrick McBride – photography\n Andy Olyphant – A&R\n Paul Suarez – pro-tools\n Jan Petrow – assistant engineer\n Cam Rackman – paintings, portraits\n Rafa Alcantra – art direction, photography, layouts\n Travis Smith – cover art, tray card art\n Joanna Terrasi – production co-ordination, contractor\n Andy Wallace – mixer\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nRelease history\n\nCD\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nWarner Bros. Records\n\nAvenged Sevenfold albums\n2010 albums\nAlbums published posthumously\nWarner Records albums\nAlbums produced by Mike Elizondo\nAlbums with cover art by Travis Smith (artist)",
"\"Nightmare\" is a song by American heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold. It was released on May 18, 2010, as the lead single for their fifth studio album, Nightmare.\n\nOverview\nLyrically, \"Nightmare\" deals with an individual who is damned for his wrongdoings on earth. The song is sung from the point of view of a resident of hell, who may have once been a living person too, mocking the other character and pointing out that it's his own fault he's in hell. It is their first single released without former drummer The Rev, who died on December 28, 2009. The song was released digitally on May 18 and 21, 2010 on the US and worldwide, respectively, on iTunes as well as an animated lyric video on YouTube, which received over 275,000 plays in 24 hours. A preview for the song was released on May 6, 2010 on Amazon.com, but was removed soon after for unknown reasons. However, on May 10, 2010, a 30-second audio uncensored sample was again revealed, but this time at SoundCloud.\n\n\"Nightmare\" was nominated for Best Single at the Kerrang! Awards 2010, but lost to Liquid Confidence by You Me at Six. The song is also one of Avenged Sevenfold's best known, and had been certified Gold by the RIAA.\n\n\"Nightmare\" was released on July 27, 2010 as a downloadable track in Rock Band 2 along with Seize the Day and Scream. It was discovered by fans that the face of Jimmy \"The Rev\" Sullivan, the band's deceased drummer, can be seen on both the single and album cover. \"Nightmare\" is an Easter egg in the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops. It is accessible by completing the \"One Giant Leap\" Achievement or Trophy. The song was released for Rocksmith on October 30, 2012.\n\nReception\nThe song was the No. 1 most added track at Active Rock radio in the US during one week of May 2010 and sold over 23,000 units in its first day. The song became the most Radio Played rock song in the in 2010, with over 35,000 spins. In Burrn! magazine's 2010 Readers Pop Poll, it was chosen as Best Tune.\n\nMusic video\nThe band has filmed a music video for \"Nightmare\". To film the video, they hired the famed video director, Wayne Isham, who has worked with bands such as Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi and Metallica. The video itself was filmed at Linda Vista Community Hospital in Los Angeles, California. The music video premiered on July 17, 2010, on MTV2, at 11 am EST, and on Avenged Sevenfold's website. An unedited version of the video premiered later on that day. The video can be seen on the band's official YouTube page.\n\nThe video depicts lead vocalist M. Shadows about to undergo surgery, when the surgeons take him out of the room on a gurney and wheel him through the hallway of the hospital. Shadows then notices the torn-down former drum kit of the band's deceased drummer, The Rev, when he toured with them to support their record City of Evil. The surgeons move him through halls and he sees the members of Avenged Sevenfold acting mentally insane, such as rhythm guitarist Zacky Vengeance convulsing on the floor in a straitjacket (and later waltzing with a skeleton), lead guitarist Synyster Gates continually banging his bloodied forehead against the window of a door, and bassist Johnny Christ crawling on the ceiling with a skeleton, as well as disturbing images of children playing and soaked in blood. The video shifts between these scenes and scenes of the band performing in a black room with a small amount of background light. Towards the end of the video, M. Shadows begins to fight the gurney, wanting to get off, as they wheel him toward a room being led by two young boys. He cannot get off because he is strapped to it. He is wheeled into a room, where the last drum set The Rev toured with Avenged Sevenfold with is set up with a light behind it, morphed into The Rev's figure.\n\nThe video does not feature Mike Portnoy playing drums; this was decided by Portnoy himself as he wanted it to be all about Avenged Sevenfold and seeing as how The Rev wrote most of the drums for the album. Portnoy thought it would be wrong to have himself in the video. The music video is heavily based on the infamous scene from Jacob's Ladder where Jacob Singer, played by Tim Robbins, is being pulled through a hospital on a stretcher. The band used Jacob's Ladder as inspiration for the video because they knew it was one of The Rev's favorite movies.\n\nMany homages and tributes are shown throughout the video. For instance, The Rev's City of Evil tour drum kit has tarantulas crawling on it, just like in the \"Afterlife\" video, where a spider crawls across The Rev's face (additionally, while filming the \"Afterlife\" video, The Rev stated he had arachnophobia). Another example is during the scene of Zacky Vengeance waltzing with a skeleton. This is also shown in the \"Afterlife\" video, where he is dancing with his then girlfriend (and later wife). Other smaller references to Avenged Sevenfold's videos are The Priest from \"Seize the Day\" and patients faces stretching, like in the \"Bat Country\" video.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Nightmare\" – 6:16\n \"Nightmare\" (Demo) – 6:05\n \"Nightmare\" (Instrumental) – 6:03\n\nPersonnel\n\nAvenged Sevenfold\n M. Shadows – lead vocals\n Zacky Vengeance – rhythm guitar, backing vocals\n The Rev – drum arrangement\n Synyster Gates – lead guitar, backing vocals\n Johnny Christ – bass guitar\n\nSession musicians\n Mike Portnoy – drums\n David Palmer – piano\n Stevie Blacke - string arrangements & strings\n\nProduction\nMike Elizondo – producer, keyboards\nAndy Wallace – mixing\nTed Jensen – mastering\n\nCharts\n\"Nightmare\" debuted and peaked at number 51 on the Billboard Hot 100. However, on the week ending August 14, 2010, the song re-entered at number 83 due to the release of the album.\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\n2010 singles\nAvenged Sevenfold songs\nMusic videos directed by Wayne Isham\nSong recordings produced by Mike Elizondo\n2010 songs\nWarner Records singles\nSongs about nightmares\nSongs about hell\nSongs written by M. Shadows"
] |
[
"Avenged Sevenfold",
"The death of The Rev and Nightmare (2009-11)",
"is the death of the rev and nightmare the name of an album?",
"I don't know."
] | C_c5f13c820f704829ad24abc704485cea_0 | tell me more about what happened between 2009-2011? | 2 | Tell me more about what happened to Avenged Sevenfold, The death of The Rev and Nightmare in 2009-2011? | Avenged Sevenfold | In January 2009, M. Shadows confirmed that the band was writing the follow-up to their self-titled fourth album within the upcoming months. They also played at Rock on the Range, from May 16-17, 2009. On April 16, they performed a version of Guns N' Roses' "It's So Easy" onstage with Slash, at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. On December 28, 2009, the band's drummer James "The Rev" Sullivan was found dead at his home at the age of 28. Autopsy results were inconclusive, but on June 9, 2010, the cause of death was revealed to have been an "acute polydrug intoxication due to combined effects of Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Diazepam/Nordiazepam and ethanol". In a statement by the band, they expressed their grief over the death of The Rev and later posted a message from Sullivan's family which expressed their gratitude to his fans for their support. The band members admitted in a number of interviews that they considered disbanding at this point in time. However, on February 17, 2010, Avenged Sevenfold stated that they had entered the studio, along with now-former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, to drum for the album, in place of The Rev. The single "Nightmare" was digitally released on May 18, 2010. A preview for the song was released on May 6, 2010 on Amazon.com, but was removed soon after for unknown reasons. Mixing for the album had been completed in New York City, and Nightmare was finally released worldwide on July 27, 2010. It met with mixed to positive reviews from music critics but was well received by the fans. Nightmare beat sales projections easily, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 with sales of 163,000 units in its first week. After finishing recording, in December, Portnoy and the band posted simultaneous statements on their websites stating that he would not be their replacement for The Rev. However, Portnoy did travel with the band overseas in December 2010 for three shows in Iraq and Kuwait sponsored by the USO. They played for U.S. Soldiers at Camp Adder, Camp Beuhring, and Balad Air Base. On January 20, 2011, Avenged Sevenfold announced via Facebook that former Confide drummer Arin Ilejay would begin touring with them that year. He was not yet considered a full-time member at this point. Avenged Sevenfold performed at the Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals on June 3-5, 2011 alongside other bands such as Alter Bridge, System of a Down, and In Flames. On April 2011, the band headlined the Golden God Awards held by Metal Hammer. The same night the band won three awards for "Best Vocalist" (M. Shadows), "Epiphone Best Guitarist(s)" (Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance) and "Affliction's Album of The Year: " for Nightmare, while Mike Portnoy won the award for "Drum Workshop's Best Drummer" for his work on the album. Avenged Sevenfold headlined the 2011 Uproar Festival with supporting acts Three Days Grace, Seether, Bullet for My Valentine, Escape The Fate, among others. In November and December 2011, the band went on their "Buried Alive" tour with supporting acts Hollywood Undead, Asking Alexandria, and Black Veil Brides. CANNOTANSWER | In January 2009, M. Shadows confirmed that the band was writing the follow-up to their self-titled fourth album within the upcoming months. | Avenged Sevenfold (abbreviated as A7X) is an American heavy metal band from Huntington Beach, California, formed in 1999. The band's current lineup consists of lead vocalist M. Shadows, rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist Zacky Vengeance, lead guitarist and backing vocalist Synyster Gates, bassist and backing vocalist Johnny Christ, and drummer Brooks Wackerman.
Avenged Sevenfold is known for its diverse rock sound and dramatic imagery in album covers and merchandise. The band emerged with a metalcore sound on their debut album Sounding the Seventh Trumpet and continued this sound through their second album Waking the Fallen. However, the band's style had evolved by the group's third album and first major label release, City of Evil, into a heavy metal and hard rock style. The band continued to explore new sounds with its self-titled release and enjoyed continued mainstream success before their drummer, James "The Rev" Sullivan, died in 2009. Despite his death, Avenged Sevenfold continued on with the help of drummer Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater), and released and toured in support of their fifth album Nightmare in 2010, which debuted on the top spot of the Billboard 200, their first number one debut.
In 2011 drummer Arin Ilejay joined the band on tours and recording. The band's sixth studio album Hail to the King, which was released in 2013, marked the only Avenged Sevenfold album featuring Ilejay. Hail to the King charted as number 1 on the Billboard 200, the UK Albums chart, as well as the Finnish, Brazilian, Canadian, and Irish charts. In late 2014, Ilejay left the band, and was replaced by former Bad Religion drummer Brooks Wackerman, but the lineup change was not announced to the public until 2015. The band then surprise-released their seventh studio album titled The Stage on October 28, 2016, which debuted as number 4 on the Billboard 200 chart in the US. The Stage is their first conceptual album and it marked another stylistic change for the band, moving towards a progressive metal sound.
To date, Avenged Sevenfold has released seven studio albums, one live album/DVD, two compilation albums and eighteen singles and have sold over 8 million albums worldwide, and their records have received numerous certification awards, including five platinum album awards from their home country's institution (RIAA). They have also created four original songs for the Call of Duty: Black Ops series, all of which were compiled together in the 2018 EP Black Reign. The band were ranked No. 47 on Loudwire's list of Top 50 Metal Bands of All Time.
History
Formation and Sounding the Seventh Trumpet (1999–2002)
Avenged Sevenfold was formed in March 1999 in Huntington Beach, California by Matt Sanders, James Sullivan and Matt Wendt. Although they are not a religious band, Sanders came up with the name as a reference to the story of Cain and Abel from the Bible, which can be found in Genesis 4:24. Shortly after their formation, they were joined by an acquaintance from high school, Zachary Baker, who played in the punk band MPA (short for Mad Porn Action) at the time.
Avenged Sevenfold's first creative output was a three-track-demo recorded in early 1999. In early 2000, they were asked by Sadistic Records to contribute to two compilations. To that end, they recorded two new songs and released them along with the previously recorded songs on a second demo. They sent this demo to the Belgian label Good Life Recordings and were subsequently signed. Afterwards, the band participated in another two compilation albums, their label's GoodLife 4 and Novocaine Records' Scrape III compilations. Around this time, Matt Wendt left for college and Justin Meacham, the previous bassist of Suburban Legends, joined Avenged Sevenfold. In late 2000, the foursome took on their initial stage names – M. Shadows, Zacky Vengeance, Justin Sane and The Rev – and recorded their debut album, Sounding the Seventh Trumpet. In early 2001, lead guitarist and old friend Synyster Gates joined the band and they re-recorded the introductory track "To End the Rapture" for the album's lead-single/EP, Warmness on the Soul, released in April 2001. Although their debut album's release was initially planned for the same month, it was pushed back multiple times and eventually released on July 24, 2001, on Good Life Recordings.
Around August 2001, Meacham attempted suicide by drinking excessive amounts of cough syrup. This event was the reason for Avenged Sevenfold to join the Take Action Tour in 2003. During Meacham's hospitalization, he remained in poor condition and had to leave the band. In an interview, lead singer M. Shadows said of Meacham that "he perma-fried his brain and was in a mental institution for a long time, and when you have someone in your band who does that, it ruins everything that's going on all around you, and it makes you want to do something to prevent it from happening to other people." His replacement was Frank Melcom, stage name Dameon Ash, who performed with the band for the following months, but does not appear on any releases.
On January 18, 2002, Avenged Sevenfold left Good Life Recordings and signed with Hopeless Records. They re-released their debut album on March 19 and also appeared on the Hopelessly Devoted To You Vol. 4 sampler in April. The band started to receive recognition, performing with bands such as Mushroomhead and Shadows Fall. They spent the year touring in support of their debut album and participated in the Vans Warped Tour. In September, Dameon Ash left Avenged Sevenfold and their current bassist Johnny Christ joined them, completing their best known line-up.
Waking the Fallen and City of Evil (2003–2005)
Having found a new bassist, the group released their second studio album titled Waking the Fallen on Hopeless Records in August 2003. The album featured a more refined and mature sound production in comparison to their previous album. The band received profiles in Billboard and The Boston Globe, and again played on the Vans Warped and Take Action tours. In 2004, Avenged Sevenfold toured again on the Vans Warped Tour and recorded a video for their song "Unholy Confessions" which went into rotation on MTV2's Headbangers Ball. Shortly after the release of Waking the Fallen, Avenged Sevenfold left Hopeless Records and were officially signed to Warner Bros. Records on November 1, 2003.
City of Evil, the band's third album and major label debut, was released on June 7, 2005, and debuted at No.30 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 30,000 copies in its first week of release. It utilized a more classic metal sound than Avenged Sevenfold's previous albums, which had been grouped into the metalcore genre. The album is also notable for the absence of screamed and growled vocals; M. Shadows worked with vocal coach Ron Anderson—whose clients have included Axl Rose and Chris Cornell—for months before the album's release to achieve a sound that had "grit while still having the tone". The album received positive reviews from several magazines and websites and is credited for propelling the band into international popularity.
Avenged Sevenfold (2006–2008)
After playing Ozzfest in 2006, Avenged Sevenfold memorably beat out R&B Singers Rihanna and Chris Brown, Panic! at the Disco, Angels & Airwaves and James Blunt for the title of Best New Artist at the MTV Video Music Awards, thanks in part to their Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas-inspired song "Bat Country." They returned to the Vans Warped Tour, this time headlining and then continued on their own "Cities of Evil Tour." In addition, their lead single "Bat Country" reached No.2 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Charts, No.6 on the Billboard Modern Rock Charts and the accompanying video made it to No.1 on MTV's Total Request Live. Propelled by this success, the album sold well and became Avenged Sevenfold's first Gold record. It was later certified platinum in August 2009.
Avenged Sevenfold was invited to join Ozzfest tour on the main stage, alongside other well known rock/heavy metal acts such as DragonForce, Lacuna Coil, Hatebreed, Disturbed and System of a Down for the first time in 2006. That same year they also completed a worldwide tour, including the US, The United Kingdom (as well as mainland Europe), Japan, Australia and New Zealand. After a sixteen-month promotion of City of Evil, the band announced that they were cancelling their Fall 2006 tour to record new music. In the interim, the band released their first DVD titled All Excess on July 17, 2007. All Excess, which debuted as the No.1 DVD in the US, included live performances and backstage footage that spanned the band's eight-year career. Two tribute albums, Strung Out on Avenged Sevenfold: Bat Wings and Broken Strings and Strung Out on Avenged Sevenfold: The String Tribute were also released in October 2007.
On October 30, 2007, Avenged Sevenfold released their self-titled album, the band's fourth studio album. It debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 with over 90,000 copies sold. Two singles, "Critical Acclaim" and "Almost Easy" were released prior to the album's debut. In December 2007, an animated video was made for "A Little Piece of Heaven". Due to the song's controversial subject matter, however, Warner Brothers only released it to registered MVI users over the internet. The third single, "Afterlife" and its video was released in January 2008. Their fourth single, "Dear God", was released on June 15, 2008. Although critical reception was generally mixed the self-titled album went on to sell over 500,000 copies and was awarded "Album of the Year" at the Kerrang! Awards.
Avenged Sevenfold headlined the 2008 Taste of Chaos tour with Atreyu, Bullet for My Valentine, Blessthefall and Idiot Pilot. They used the footage from their last show in Long Beach for Live in the LBC & Diamonds in the Rough, a two-disc B-sides CD and live DVD which was released on September 16, 2008. They also recorded numerous covers, including Pantera's "Walk", Iron Maiden's "Flash of the Blade" and Black Sabbath's "Paranoid".
Death of The Rev and Nightmare (2009–2011)
In January 2009, M. Shadows confirmed that the band was writing the follow-up to their self-titled fourth album within the upcoming months. They also played at Rock on the Range, from May 16–17, 2009. On April 16, they performed a version of Guns N' Roses' "It's So Easy" onstage with Slash, at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. On December 28, 2009, the band's drummer James "The Rev" Sullivan was found dead at his home at the age of 28. Autopsy results were inconclusive, but on June 9, 2010, the cause of death was revealed to have been an "acute polydrug intoxication due to combined effects of Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Diazepam/Nordiazepam and ethanol". In a statement by the band, they expressed their grief over the death of The Rev and later posted a message from Sullivan's family which expressed their gratitude to his fans for their support. The band members admitted in a number of interviews that they considered disbanding at this point in time. However, on February 17, 2010, Avenged Sevenfold stated that they had entered the studio, along with now-former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, to drum for the album, in place of The Rev.
The single "Nightmare" was digitally released on May 18, 2010. A preview for the song was released on May 6, 2010, on Amazon.com, but was removed soon after for unknown reasons. Mixing for the album had been completed in New York City, and Nightmare was finally released worldwide on July 27, 2010. It met with mixed to positive reviews from music critics but was well received by the fans. Nightmare beat sales projections easily, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 with sales of 163,000 units in its first week. After finishing recording, in December, Portnoy and the band posted simultaneous statements on their websites stating that he would not be their replacement for The Rev. However, Portnoy did travel with the band overseas in December 2010 for three shows in Iraq and Kuwait sponsored by the USO. They played for U.S. Soldiers at Camp Adder, Camp Beuhring, and Balad Air Base. On January 20, 2011, Avenged Sevenfold announced via Facebook that former Confide drummer Arin Ilejay would begin touring with them that year. He was not yet considered a full-time member at this point.
Avenged Sevenfold performed at the Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals on June 3–5, 2011 alongside other bands such as Alter Bridge, System of a Down, and In Flames. In April 2011, the band headlined the Golden God Awards held by Metal Hammer. The same night the band won three awards for "Best Vocalist" (M. Shadows), "Epiphone Best Guitarist(s)" (Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance), and "Affliction's Album of The Year" for Nightmare, while Mike Portnoy won the award for "Drum Workshop's Best Drummer" for his work on the album.
Avenged Sevenfold headlined the 2011 Uproar Festival with supporting acts Three Days Grace, Seether, Bullet for My Valentine, Escape the Fate, among others. In November and December 2011, the band went on their "Buried Alive" tour with supporting acts Hollywood Undead, Asking Alexandria, and Black Veil Brides.
Hail to the King and Waking the Fallen: Resurrected (2012–2014)
On April 11, 2012, Avenged Sevenfold won the award for "Best Live Band" and "Most Dedicated Fans" at the Revolver Golden Gods awards.
The band toured through Asia into April and early May, and played at the Orion Music + More, Festival on June 23 and 24 in Atlantic City, New Jersey alongside Metallica and Cage the Elephant among many others.
On September 24, 2012, Avenged Sevenfold released a new song, titled "Carry On"; it was featured in the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II. On November 15, 2012, vocalist M. Shadows said that the band had been working on a new album since the recording of "Carry On" in August 2012. The band began recording material for the album in January 2013. The band then started streaming snippets of the album in May 2013 on their new radio app. There, Arin Ilejay was confirmed as an official band member and replacement of deceased The Rev. M. Shadows said that the album would sound more blues rock-influenced and more like classic rock/metal like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.
The band was confirmed to play at the 2013 Rock in Rio festival on September 22, 2013. On May 24, 2013, the band have announced dates for their European tour with Five Finger Death Punch and Device serving as their support bands.
The album, entitled Hail to the King, was released on August 27, 2013. This is the first Avenged Sevenfold album without any musical contributions from deceased The Rev. The album's lead single and title track was released on July 15, 2013. Hail to the King charted as No. 1 on the US Billboard 200, the UK albums chart, as well as the Finnish, Brazilian, Canadian, and Irish charts, and was commercially and critically acclaimed. The band headlined Monster Energy's Welcome to Rockville two-day music festival in Jacksonville, Florida, April 26–27, 2014, joined by more than 25 rock acts, such as Motörhead, Rob Zombie, Chevelle, Korn, Staind, Alter Bridge, The Cult, Five Finger Death Punch, Volbeat, Black Label Society, and Seether. On June 13, the band headlined the Friday night of Download Festival 2014. The band also headlined the Mayhem Festival 2014 with Korn, Asking Alexandria, and Trivium.
In March 2014, vocalist M. Shadows revealed in an interview with Loudwire that the band had plans in the works to put something out for the overdue 10th anniversary of Waking the Fallen. Waking the Fallen: Resurrected was released August 25, 2014. The reissue charted No. 10 on the US Billboard 200.
Drummer change and The Stage (2015–2017)
In October 2014, M. Shadows confirmed that the band would begin writing their seventh album during mid-2015.
In July 2015 the band announced on their website that they would part ways with drummer Arin Ilejay, due to "creative differences". In October 2015, the band announced on their website that they had been working with a new drummer for over a year, making sure that it was a good fit before making sudden changes. On October 21, in an interview with Kerrang! magazine, guitarist Zacky Vengeance revealed that the band had been working on the new album for the past couple of months and that a couple of songs had already been completely written. On November 4, 2015, the band announced that Brooks Wackerman would replace Arin Ilejay as the drummer for Avenged Sevenfold. In an interview with Kerrang! magazine on December 3, guitarist Zacky Vengeance said that the new album went in all sorts of aggressive and melodic directions and described it as very "aggro".
On January 14, 2016, Billboard reported that Avenged Sevenfold had been sued by Warner Bros. for trying to leave the label. The band later released a statement clarifying that they wanted to leave because a majority of the executives who helped sign the band to Warner Bros were no longer at the label. They also revealed that the band was going to be entering the studio to record their new album very soon, intending to release it later in 2016. On March 31, the band posted a teaser of their upcoming album on their website.
On August 18, 2016, the band performed a free live show for 1500 people in Minnesota, marking it the first live performance with new drummer Brooks Wackerman. The band was announced as support for Metallica with Volbeat in the U.S. Bank Stadium on August 20, 2016, making it the first ever rock show in the stadium. The band was announced as a headliner of Monster Energy Rock Allegiance 2016, along with Alice in Chains, Slayer, The Offspring, Breaking Benjamin and others. Avenged Sevenfold also performed on "Louder Than Life" festival as headliners on October 1, with Slipknot, Slayer, Disturbed, Korn and other artists. On June 21, the band announced a U.S. Fall tour with Volbeat, Killswitch Engage, and Avatar. The band also announced a UK tour for January 2017 with Disturbed and In Flames. Avenged Sevenfold was announced as a headliner of 2016 edition of Knotfest Mexico. The band also announced the European Tour for February and March 2017 along with Disturbed and Chevelle.
On October 3, 2016, the band's logo Deathbat started appearing as a projection in London. After that, Deathbat also started appearing in Berlin, Toronto and Paris, indicating a release of the new album. On October 12, Chris Jericho posted an Instagram photo of the Deathbat logo with a date 12/9/16 underneath it. He then revealed the supposed title of the album, Voltaic Oceans, It was later revealed that the new album would actually be called The Stage, a concept album about artificial intelligence, which was released on October 28, 2016, via Capitol Records. The album was released to generally favorable reviews, and the band decided to make a unique stage production for it, hiring Cirque du Soleil directors for its making.
Avenged Sevenfold was announced as the main support act on Metallica's WorldWired 2017 stadium summer tour in the US and Canada, alongside Volbeat and Gojira. The band also announced a series of 2017 US headlining summer shows of The Stage World Tour, with Volbeat, Motionless in White, and A Day to Remember as special guests across various dates.
On December 22, 2017, the band released a deluxe edition of The Stage that included one new original track, six cover songs, and four live tracks from their European tour earlier that year.
In a December 2017 interview with Billboard, M. Shadows revealed that the band are planning "a big US summer 2018 tour", and that the band would start working on the follow-up to The Stage in late 2018. End of the World tour with Prophets of Rage was later announced for summer 2018. The band was also announced as one of the headliners of 2018's Rock on the Range and Download Festival, in addition to appearing at Hellfest, Graspop Metal Meeting, Rock am Ring and Rock im Park the same year. Due to a blood blister forming in M. Shadows' throat, the band cancelled remaining dates from their summer tour with Prophets of Rage.
Avenged Sevenfold was nominated at 60th Annual Grammy Awards in "Best Rock Song" category for The Stage.
The band released a single titled "Mad Hatter" in September 2018, which was made specifically for the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. It would later be a part of the Black Reign EP released later that month, which comprises all four of the songs Avenged Sevenfold made for the Call of Duty franchise.
Upcoming eighth studio album (2018–present)
In a December 2017 interview with Billboard, M. Shadows revealed that the band are planning "a big US summer 2018 tour", and that the band would start working on the follow-up to The Stage in late 2018. Bassist Johnny Christ in a May 2018 interview confirmed that the band is currently getting ideas and writing in their own studios to start the next record in September or October 2018.
In September 2018, Synyster Gates revealed in an interview with Loudwire that the band has started working on their eighth studio album, saying "It's still early on, but we're working on a bunch of stuff". In March 2019, Zacky Vengeance stated the band would take the rest of the year off tour to concentrate on the upcoming album, saying the band is really focused on the new material. In January 2020, Avenged Sevenfold released "Set Me Free", an unreleased song recorded during the Hail to the King recording sessions. They also announced that the song would be included in a remastered re-release of Live in the LBC & Diamonds in the Rough, released on March 6. A limited edition clear vinyl of Diamonds in the Rough was also released.
Musical style and influences
Members of Avenged Sevenfold cite In Flames, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Slayer, Mr. Bungle, Elton John, Leonard Cohen, At the Gates, Helloween, Dream Theater, Pennywise, NOFX, Pantera, Def Leppard, Guns N' Roses, The Beatles, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones as influences.
The band has been categorized under several genres of heavy and extreme music, primarily heavy metal, alternative metal, hard rock, and, on their album The Stage, progressive metal, with their earlier albums being categorized as metalcore. Avenged Sevenfold's musical style has consistently evolved throughout the duration of the band's career. Initially, the band's debut album Sounding the Seventh Trumpet consisted almost entirely of a metalcore sound. However, there were several deviations from this genre, most notably in "Streets", which shows a punk rock style, and "Warmness on the Soul", which is a piano ballad. On Waking the Fallen, the band displayed a metalcore style once more, but added more clean singing and leaned a bit more towards metal and bit less close to hardcore. In the band's DVD All Excess, producer Andrew Murdock explained this transition: "When I met the band after Sounding the Seventh Trumpet had come out before they had recorded Waking the Fallen, M. Shadows said to me 'This record is screaming. The record we want to make is going to be half-screaming half-singing. I don't want to scream anymore. And the record after that is going to be all singing'."
On Avenged Sevenfold's third album City of Evil, the band chose to outright abandon the metalcore genre, creating a sound consistent with hard rock and heavy metal. Avenged Sevenfold's self-titled album experiments with an even wider array of musical genres than that from City of Evil, most notably in "Dear God", which shows a country style and "A Little Piece of Heaven", which is circled within the influence of Broadway show tunes, using primarily brass instruments and stringed orchestra to take over most of the role of the lead and rhythm guitar. Nightmare contains further deviations, including a piano ballad called "Fiction", progressive metal-oriented track "Save Me" and a heavy metal sound with extreme vocals and heavier instrumentation on "God Hates Us". The band's sixth studio album Hail to the King shows more of a classic metal sound and a riff-oriented approach. On their newest album The Stage, the band explores further into progressive metal, blending it with elements of thrash metal. In the past, Avenged Sevenfold has also been described as screamo and pop punk metal.
Avenged Sevenfold has been criticized for "not being metal enough". In response to this, vocalist M. Shadows said: "we play music for the sake of music, not so that we can be labeled a metal band. That's like telling us we aren't punk enough. Who cares?" Avenged Sevenfold is one of the notable acts of the new wave of American heavy metal.
Band members
Current members
M. Shadows – lead vocals, piano (1999–present)
Zacky Vengeance – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1999–present); lead guitar (1999–2001)
Synyster Gates – lead guitar, piano, backing vocals (2001–present)
Johnny Christ – bass, backing vocals (2002–present)
Brooks Wackerman – drums (2015–present)
Former members
Matt Wendt – bass (1999–2000)
Justin Sane – bass, piano (2000–2001)
Dameon Ash – bass (2001–2002)
The Rev – drums, piano, co-lead vocals (1999–2009; died 2009)
Arin Ilejay – drums (2011–2015)
Session and touring musicians
Mike Portnoy – drums (2010)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Sounding the Seventh Trumpet (2001)
Waking the Fallen (2003)
City of Evil (2005)
Avenged Sevenfold (2007)
Nightmare (2010)
Hail to the King (2013)
The Stage (2016)
Accolades
References
External links
American alternative metal musical groups
American metalcore musical groups
Articles which contain graphical timelines
Capitol Records artists
Hard rock musical groups from California
Heavy metal musical groups from California
Hopeless Records artists
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1999
Musical groups from Orange County, California
Musical quintets
Warner Records artists
1999 establishments in California
Good Life Recordings artists | true | [
"\"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" is the title of a number-one R&B single by singer Tevin Campbell. To date, the single is Campbell's biggest hit peaking at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spending one week at number-one on the US R&B chart. The hit song is also Tevin's one and only Adult Contemporary hit, where it peaked at number 43. The song showcases Campbell's four-octave vocal range from a low note of E2 to a D#6 during the bridge of the song.\n\nTrack listings\nUS 7\" vinyl\nA \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (edit) – 4:16\t\nB \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (instrumental) – 5:00\n\n12\" vinyl\nA \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (edit) – 4:16\t\nB \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (album version) – 5:02\n\nUK CD\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" – 4:16\n \"Goodbye\" (7\" Remix Edit) – 3:48\n \"Goodbye\" (Sidub and Listen) – 4:58\n \"Goodbye\" (Tevin's Dub Pt 1 & 2) – 6:53\n\nJapan CD\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" – 4:10\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (instrumental version) – 4:10\n\nGermany CD\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (edit) – 4:10\n \"Just Ask Me\" (featuring Chubb Rock) – 4:07\n \"Tomorrow\" (A Better You, Better Me) – 4:46\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nSee also\nList of number-one R&B singles of 1992 (U.S.)\n\nReferences\n\nTevin Campbell songs\n1991 singles\n1991 songs\nSongs written by Tevin Campbell\nSongs written by Narada Michael Walden\nSong recordings produced by Narada Michael Walden\nWarner Records singles\nContemporary R&B ballads\nPop ballads\nSoul ballads\n1990s ballads",
"\"Tell Me What You Want\" is the fourth single by English R&B band Loose Ends from their first studio album, A Little Spice, and was released in February 1984 by Virgin Records. The single reached number 74 in the UK Singles Chart.\n\nTrack listing\n7” Single: VS658\n \"Tell Me What You Want) 3.35\n \"Tell Me What You Want (Dub Mix)\" 3.34\n\n12” Single: VS658-12\n \"Tell Me What You Want (Extended Version)\" 6.11\n \"Tell Me What You Want (Extended Dub Mix)\" 5.41\n\nU.S. only release - 12” Single: MCA23596 (released 1985)\n \"Tell Me What You Want (U.S. Extended Remix)\" 6.08 *\n \"Tell Me What You Want (U.S. Dub Version)\" 5.18\n\n* The U.S. Extended Remix version was released on CD on the U.S. Version of the 'A Little Spice' album (MCAD27141).\n\nThe Extended Version also featured on Side D of the limited gatefold sleeve version of 'Magic Touch'\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Tell Me What You Want at Discogs.\n\n1984 singles\nLoose Ends (band) songs\nSong recordings produced by Nick Martinelli\nSongs written by Carl McIntosh (musician)\nSongs written by Steve Nichol\n1984 songs\nVirgin Records singles"
] |
[
"Avenged Sevenfold",
"The death of The Rev and Nightmare (2009-11)",
"is the death of the rev and nightmare the name of an album?",
"I don't know.",
"tell me more about what happened between 2009-2011?",
"In January 2009, M. Shadows confirmed that the band was writing the follow-up to their self-titled fourth album within the upcoming months."
] | C_c5f13c820f704829ad24abc704485cea_0 | What was the name of that album? | 3 | What was the name Avenged Sevenfold's fourth album? | Avenged Sevenfold | In January 2009, M. Shadows confirmed that the band was writing the follow-up to their self-titled fourth album within the upcoming months. They also played at Rock on the Range, from May 16-17, 2009. On April 16, they performed a version of Guns N' Roses' "It's So Easy" onstage with Slash, at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. On December 28, 2009, the band's drummer James "The Rev" Sullivan was found dead at his home at the age of 28. Autopsy results were inconclusive, but on June 9, 2010, the cause of death was revealed to have been an "acute polydrug intoxication due to combined effects of Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Diazepam/Nordiazepam and ethanol". In a statement by the band, they expressed their grief over the death of The Rev and later posted a message from Sullivan's family which expressed their gratitude to his fans for their support. The band members admitted in a number of interviews that they considered disbanding at this point in time. However, on February 17, 2010, Avenged Sevenfold stated that they had entered the studio, along with now-former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, to drum for the album, in place of The Rev. The single "Nightmare" was digitally released on May 18, 2010. A preview for the song was released on May 6, 2010 on Amazon.com, but was removed soon after for unknown reasons. Mixing for the album had been completed in New York City, and Nightmare was finally released worldwide on July 27, 2010. It met with mixed to positive reviews from music critics but was well received by the fans. Nightmare beat sales projections easily, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 with sales of 163,000 units in its first week. After finishing recording, in December, Portnoy and the band posted simultaneous statements on their websites stating that he would not be their replacement for The Rev. However, Portnoy did travel with the band overseas in December 2010 for three shows in Iraq and Kuwait sponsored by the USO. They played for U.S. Soldiers at Camp Adder, Camp Beuhring, and Balad Air Base. On January 20, 2011, Avenged Sevenfold announced via Facebook that former Confide drummer Arin Ilejay would begin touring with them that year. He was not yet considered a full-time member at this point. Avenged Sevenfold performed at the Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals on June 3-5, 2011 alongside other bands such as Alter Bridge, System of a Down, and In Flames. On April 2011, the band headlined the Golden God Awards held by Metal Hammer. The same night the band won three awards for "Best Vocalist" (M. Shadows), "Epiphone Best Guitarist(s)" (Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance) and "Affliction's Album of The Year: " for Nightmare, while Mike Portnoy won the award for "Drum Workshop's Best Drummer" for his work on the album. Avenged Sevenfold headlined the 2011 Uproar Festival with supporting acts Three Days Grace, Seether, Bullet for My Valentine, Escape The Fate, among others. In November and December 2011, the band went on their "Buried Alive" tour with supporting acts Hollywood Undead, Asking Alexandria, and Black Veil Brides. CANNOTANSWER | the band's drummer James "The Rev" Sullivan was found dead at his home | Avenged Sevenfold (abbreviated as A7X) is an American heavy metal band from Huntington Beach, California, formed in 1999. The band's current lineup consists of lead vocalist M. Shadows, rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist Zacky Vengeance, lead guitarist and backing vocalist Synyster Gates, bassist and backing vocalist Johnny Christ, and drummer Brooks Wackerman.
Avenged Sevenfold is known for its diverse rock sound and dramatic imagery in album covers and merchandise. The band emerged with a metalcore sound on their debut album Sounding the Seventh Trumpet and continued this sound through their second album Waking the Fallen. However, the band's style had evolved by the group's third album and first major label release, City of Evil, into a heavy metal and hard rock style. The band continued to explore new sounds with its self-titled release and enjoyed continued mainstream success before their drummer, James "The Rev" Sullivan, died in 2009. Despite his death, Avenged Sevenfold continued on with the help of drummer Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater), and released and toured in support of their fifth album Nightmare in 2010, which debuted on the top spot of the Billboard 200, their first number one debut.
In 2011 drummer Arin Ilejay joined the band on tours and recording. The band's sixth studio album Hail to the King, which was released in 2013, marked the only Avenged Sevenfold album featuring Ilejay. Hail to the King charted as number 1 on the Billboard 200, the UK Albums chart, as well as the Finnish, Brazilian, Canadian, and Irish charts. In late 2014, Ilejay left the band, and was replaced by former Bad Religion drummer Brooks Wackerman, but the lineup change was not announced to the public until 2015. The band then surprise-released their seventh studio album titled The Stage on October 28, 2016, which debuted as number 4 on the Billboard 200 chart in the US. The Stage is their first conceptual album and it marked another stylistic change for the band, moving towards a progressive metal sound.
To date, Avenged Sevenfold has released seven studio albums, one live album/DVD, two compilation albums and eighteen singles and have sold over 8 million albums worldwide, and their records have received numerous certification awards, including five platinum album awards from their home country's institution (RIAA). They have also created four original songs for the Call of Duty: Black Ops series, all of which were compiled together in the 2018 EP Black Reign. The band were ranked No. 47 on Loudwire's list of Top 50 Metal Bands of All Time.
History
Formation and Sounding the Seventh Trumpet (1999–2002)
Avenged Sevenfold was formed in March 1999 in Huntington Beach, California by Matt Sanders, James Sullivan and Matt Wendt. Although they are not a religious band, Sanders came up with the name as a reference to the story of Cain and Abel from the Bible, which can be found in Genesis 4:24. Shortly after their formation, they were joined by an acquaintance from high school, Zachary Baker, who played in the punk band MPA (short for Mad Porn Action) at the time.
Avenged Sevenfold's first creative output was a three-track-demo recorded in early 1999. In early 2000, they were asked by Sadistic Records to contribute to two compilations. To that end, they recorded two new songs and released them along with the previously recorded songs on a second demo. They sent this demo to the Belgian label Good Life Recordings and were subsequently signed. Afterwards, the band participated in another two compilation albums, their label's GoodLife 4 and Novocaine Records' Scrape III compilations. Around this time, Matt Wendt left for college and Justin Meacham, the previous bassist of Suburban Legends, joined Avenged Sevenfold. In late 2000, the foursome took on their initial stage names – M. Shadows, Zacky Vengeance, Justin Sane and The Rev – and recorded their debut album, Sounding the Seventh Trumpet. In early 2001, lead guitarist and old friend Synyster Gates joined the band and they re-recorded the introductory track "To End the Rapture" for the album's lead-single/EP, Warmness on the Soul, released in April 2001. Although their debut album's release was initially planned for the same month, it was pushed back multiple times and eventually released on July 24, 2001, on Good Life Recordings.
Around August 2001, Meacham attempted suicide by drinking excessive amounts of cough syrup. This event was the reason for Avenged Sevenfold to join the Take Action Tour in 2003. During Meacham's hospitalization, he remained in poor condition and had to leave the band. In an interview, lead singer M. Shadows said of Meacham that "he perma-fried his brain and was in a mental institution for a long time, and when you have someone in your band who does that, it ruins everything that's going on all around you, and it makes you want to do something to prevent it from happening to other people." His replacement was Frank Melcom, stage name Dameon Ash, who performed with the band for the following months, but does not appear on any releases.
On January 18, 2002, Avenged Sevenfold left Good Life Recordings and signed with Hopeless Records. They re-released their debut album on March 19 and also appeared on the Hopelessly Devoted To You Vol. 4 sampler in April. The band started to receive recognition, performing with bands such as Mushroomhead and Shadows Fall. They spent the year touring in support of their debut album and participated in the Vans Warped Tour. In September, Dameon Ash left Avenged Sevenfold and their current bassist Johnny Christ joined them, completing their best known line-up.
Waking the Fallen and City of Evil (2003–2005)
Having found a new bassist, the group released their second studio album titled Waking the Fallen on Hopeless Records in August 2003. The album featured a more refined and mature sound production in comparison to their previous album. The band received profiles in Billboard and The Boston Globe, and again played on the Vans Warped and Take Action tours. In 2004, Avenged Sevenfold toured again on the Vans Warped Tour and recorded a video for their song "Unholy Confessions" which went into rotation on MTV2's Headbangers Ball. Shortly after the release of Waking the Fallen, Avenged Sevenfold left Hopeless Records and were officially signed to Warner Bros. Records on November 1, 2003.
City of Evil, the band's third album and major label debut, was released on June 7, 2005, and debuted at No.30 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 30,000 copies in its first week of release. It utilized a more classic metal sound than Avenged Sevenfold's previous albums, which had been grouped into the metalcore genre. The album is also notable for the absence of screamed and growled vocals; M. Shadows worked with vocal coach Ron Anderson—whose clients have included Axl Rose and Chris Cornell—for months before the album's release to achieve a sound that had "grit while still having the tone". The album received positive reviews from several magazines and websites and is credited for propelling the band into international popularity.
Avenged Sevenfold (2006–2008)
After playing Ozzfest in 2006, Avenged Sevenfold memorably beat out R&B Singers Rihanna and Chris Brown, Panic! at the Disco, Angels & Airwaves and James Blunt for the title of Best New Artist at the MTV Video Music Awards, thanks in part to their Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas-inspired song "Bat Country." They returned to the Vans Warped Tour, this time headlining and then continued on their own "Cities of Evil Tour." In addition, their lead single "Bat Country" reached No.2 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Charts, No.6 on the Billboard Modern Rock Charts and the accompanying video made it to No.1 on MTV's Total Request Live. Propelled by this success, the album sold well and became Avenged Sevenfold's first Gold record. It was later certified platinum in August 2009.
Avenged Sevenfold was invited to join Ozzfest tour on the main stage, alongside other well known rock/heavy metal acts such as DragonForce, Lacuna Coil, Hatebreed, Disturbed and System of a Down for the first time in 2006. That same year they also completed a worldwide tour, including the US, The United Kingdom (as well as mainland Europe), Japan, Australia and New Zealand. After a sixteen-month promotion of City of Evil, the band announced that they were cancelling their Fall 2006 tour to record new music. In the interim, the band released their first DVD titled All Excess on July 17, 2007. All Excess, which debuted as the No.1 DVD in the US, included live performances and backstage footage that spanned the band's eight-year career. Two tribute albums, Strung Out on Avenged Sevenfold: Bat Wings and Broken Strings and Strung Out on Avenged Sevenfold: The String Tribute were also released in October 2007.
On October 30, 2007, Avenged Sevenfold released their self-titled album, the band's fourth studio album. It debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 with over 90,000 copies sold. Two singles, "Critical Acclaim" and "Almost Easy" were released prior to the album's debut. In December 2007, an animated video was made for "A Little Piece of Heaven". Due to the song's controversial subject matter, however, Warner Brothers only released it to registered MVI users over the internet. The third single, "Afterlife" and its video was released in January 2008. Their fourth single, "Dear God", was released on June 15, 2008. Although critical reception was generally mixed the self-titled album went on to sell over 500,000 copies and was awarded "Album of the Year" at the Kerrang! Awards.
Avenged Sevenfold headlined the 2008 Taste of Chaos tour with Atreyu, Bullet for My Valentine, Blessthefall and Idiot Pilot. They used the footage from their last show in Long Beach for Live in the LBC & Diamonds in the Rough, a two-disc B-sides CD and live DVD which was released on September 16, 2008. They also recorded numerous covers, including Pantera's "Walk", Iron Maiden's "Flash of the Blade" and Black Sabbath's "Paranoid".
Death of The Rev and Nightmare (2009–2011)
In January 2009, M. Shadows confirmed that the band was writing the follow-up to their self-titled fourth album within the upcoming months. They also played at Rock on the Range, from May 16–17, 2009. On April 16, they performed a version of Guns N' Roses' "It's So Easy" onstage with Slash, at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. On December 28, 2009, the band's drummer James "The Rev" Sullivan was found dead at his home at the age of 28. Autopsy results were inconclusive, but on June 9, 2010, the cause of death was revealed to have been an "acute polydrug intoxication due to combined effects of Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Diazepam/Nordiazepam and ethanol". In a statement by the band, they expressed their grief over the death of The Rev and later posted a message from Sullivan's family which expressed their gratitude to his fans for their support. The band members admitted in a number of interviews that they considered disbanding at this point in time. However, on February 17, 2010, Avenged Sevenfold stated that they had entered the studio, along with now-former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, to drum for the album, in place of The Rev.
The single "Nightmare" was digitally released on May 18, 2010. A preview for the song was released on May 6, 2010, on Amazon.com, but was removed soon after for unknown reasons. Mixing for the album had been completed in New York City, and Nightmare was finally released worldwide on July 27, 2010. It met with mixed to positive reviews from music critics but was well received by the fans. Nightmare beat sales projections easily, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 with sales of 163,000 units in its first week. After finishing recording, in December, Portnoy and the band posted simultaneous statements on their websites stating that he would not be their replacement for The Rev. However, Portnoy did travel with the band overseas in December 2010 for three shows in Iraq and Kuwait sponsored by the USO. They played for U.S. Soldiers at Camp Adder, Camp Beuhring, and Balad Air Base. On January 20, 2011, Avenged Sevenfold announced via Facebook that former Confide drummer Arin Ilejay would begin touring with them that year. He was not yet considered a full-time member at this point.
Avenged Sevenfold performed at the Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals on June 3–5, 2011 alongside other bands such as Alter Bridge, System of a Down, and In Flames. In April 2011, the band headlined the Golden God Awards held by Metal Hammer. The same night the band won three awards for "Best Vocalist" (M. Shadows), "Epiphone Best Guitarist(s)" (Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance), and "Affliction's Album of The Year" for Nightmare, while Mike Portnoy won the award for "Drum Workshop's Best Drummer" for his work on the album.
Avenged Sevenfold headlined the 2011 Uproar Festival with supporting acts Three Days Grace, Seether, Bullet for My Valentine, Escape the Fate, among others. In November and December 2011, the band went on their "Buried Alive" tour with supporting acts Hollywood Undead, Asking Alexandria, and Black Veil Brides.
Hail to the King and Waking the Fallen: Resurrected (2012–2014)
On April 11, 2012, Avenged Sevenfold won the award for "Best Live Band" and "Most Dedicated Fans" at the Revolver Golden Gods awards.
The band toured through Asia into April and early May, and played at the Orion Music + More, Festival on June 23 and 24 in Atlantic City, New Jersey alongside Metallica and Cage the Elephant among many others.
On September 24, 2012, Avenged Sevenfold released a new song, titled "Carry On"; it was featured in the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II. On November 15, 2012, vocalist M. Shadows said that the band had been working on a new album since the recording of "Carry On" in August 2012. The band began recording material for the album in January 2013. The band then started streaming snippets of the album in May 2013 on their new radio app. There, Arin Ilejay was confirmed as an official band member and replacement of deceased The Rev. M. Shadows said that the album would sound more blues rock-influenced and more like classic rock/metal like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.
The band was confirmed to play at the 2013 Rock in Rio festival on September 22, 2013. On May 24, 2013, the band have announced dates for their European tour with Five Finger Death Punch and Device serving as their support bands.
The album, entitled Hail to the King, was released on August 27, 2013. This is the first Avenged Sevenfold album without any musical contributions from deceased The Rev. The album's lead single and title track was released on July 15, 2013. Hail to the King charted as No. 1 on the US Billboard 200, the UK albums chart, as well as the Finnish, Brazilian, Canadian, and Irish charts, and was commercially and critically acclaimed. The band headlined Monster Energy's Welcome to Rockville two-day music festival in Jacksonville, Florida, April 26–27, 2014, joined by more than 25 rock acts, such as Motörhead, Rob Zombie, Chevelle, Korn, Staind, Alter Bridge, The Cult, Five Finger Death Punch, Volbeat, Black Label Society, and Seether. On June 13, the band headlined the Friday night of Download Festival 2014. The band also headlined the Mayhem Festival 2014 with Korn, Asking Alexandria, and Trivium.
In March 2014, vocalist M. Shadows revealed in an interview with Loudwire that the band had plans in the works to put something out for the overdue 10th anniversary of Waking the Fallen. Waking the Fallen: Resurrected was released August 25, 2014. The reissue charted No. 10 on the US Billboard 200.
Drummer change and The Stage (2015–2017)
In October 2014, M. Shadows confirmed that the band would begin writing their seventh album during mid-2015.
In July 2015 the band announced on their website that they would part ways with drummer Arin Ilejay, due to "creative differences". In October 2015, the band announced on their website that they had been working with a new drummer for over a year, making sure that it was a good fit before making sudden changes. On October 21, in an interview with Kerrang! magazine, guitarist Zacky Vengeance revealed that the band had been working on the new album for the past couple of months and that a couple of songs had already been completely written. On November 4, 2015, the band announced that Brooks Wackerman would replace Arin Ilejay as the drummer for Avenged Sevenfold. In an interview with Kerrang! magazine on December 3, guitarist Zacky Vengeance said that the new album went in all sorts of aggressive and melodic directions and described it as very "aggro".
On January 14, 2016, Billboard reported that Avenged Sevenfold had been sued by Warner Bros. for trying to leave the label. The band later released a statement clarifying that they wanted to leave because a majority of the executives who helped sign the band to Warner Bros were no longer at the label. They also revealed that the band was going to be entering the studio to record their new album very soon, intending to release it later in 2016. On March 31, the band posted a teaser of their upcoming album on their website.
On August 18, 2016, the band performed a free live show for 1500 people in Minnesota, marking it the first live performance with new drummer Brooks Wackerman. The band was announced as support for Metallica with Volbeat in the U.S. Bank Stadium on August 20, 2016, making it the first ever rock show in the stadium. The band was announced as a headliner of Monster Energy Rock Allegiance 2016, along with Alice in Chains, Slayer, The Offspring, Breaking Benjamin and others. Avenged Sevenfold also performed on "Louder Than Life" festival as headliners on October 1, with Slipknot, Slayer, Disturbed, Korn and other artists. On June 21, the band announced a U.S. Fall tour with Volbeat, Killswitch Engage, and Avatar. The band also announced a UK tour for January 2017 with Disturbed and In Flames. Avenged Sevenfold was announced as a headliner of 2016 edition of Knotfest Mexico. The band also announced the European Tour for February and March 2017 along with Disturbed and Chevelle.
On October 3, 2016, the band's logo Deathbat started appearing as a projection in London. After that, Deathbat also started appearing in Berlin, Toronto and Paris, indicating a release of the new album. On October 12, Chris Jericho posted an Instagram photo of the Deathbat logo with a date 12/9/16 underneath it. He then revealed the supposed title of the album, Voltaic Oceans, It was later revealed that the new album would actually be called The Stage, a concept album about artificial intelligence, which was released on October 28, 2016, via Capitol Records. The album was released to generally favorable reviews, and the band decided to make a unique stage production for it, hiring Cirque du Soleil directors for its making.
Avenged Sevenfold was announced as the main support act on Metallica's WorldWired 2017 stadium summer tour in the US and Canada, alongside Volbeat and Gojira. The band also announced a series of 2017 US headlining summer shows of The Stage World Tour, with Volbeat, Motionless in White, and A Day to Remember as special guests across various dates.
On December 22, 2017, the band released a deluxe edition of The Stage that included one new original track, six cover songs, and four live tracks from their European tour earlier that year.
In a December 2017 interview with Billboard, M. Shadows revealed that the band are planning "a big US summer 2018 tour", and that the band would start working on the follow-up to The Stage in late 2018. End of the World tour with Prophets of Rage was later announced for summer 2018. The band was also announced as one of the headliners of 2018's Rock on the Range and Download Festival, in addition to appearing at Hellfest, Graspop Metal Meeting, Rock am Ring and Rock im Park the same year. Due to a blood blister forming in M. Shadows' throat, the band cancelled remaining dates from their summer tour with Prophets of Rage.
Avenged Sevenfold was nominated at 60th Annual Grammy Awards in "Best Rock Song" category for The Stage.
The band released a single titled "Mad Hatter" in September 2018, which was made specifically for the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. It would later be a part of the Black Reign EP released later that month, which comprises all four of the songs Avenged Sevenfold made for the Call of Duty franchise.
Upcoming eighth studio album (2018–present)
In a December 2017 interview with Billboard, M. Shadows revealed that the band are planning "a big US summer 2018 tour", and that the band would start working on the follow-up to The Stage in late 2018. Bassist Johnny Christ in a May 2018 interview confirmed that the band is currently getting ideas and writing in their own studios to start the next record in September or October 2018.
In September 2018, Synyster Gates revealed in an interview with Loudwire that the band has started working on their eighth studio album, saying "It's still early on, but we're working on a bunch of stuff". In March 2019, Zacky Vengeance stated the band would take the rest of the year off tour to concentrate on the upcoming album, saying the band is really focused on the new material. In January 2020, Avenged Sevenfold released "Set Me Free", an unreleased song recorded during the Hail to the King recording sessions. They also announced that the song would be included in a remastered re-release of Live in the LBC & Diamonds in the Rough, released on March 6. A limited edition clear vinyl of Diamonds in the Rough was also released.
Musical style and influences
Members of Avenged Sevenfold cite In Flames, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Slayer, Mr. Bungle, Elton John, Leonard Cohen, At the Gates, Helloween, Dream Theater, Pennywise, NOFX, Pantera, Def Leppard, Guns N' Roses, The Beatles, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones as influences.
The band has been categorized under several genres of heavy and extreme music, primarily heavy metal, alternative metal, hard rock, and, on their album The Stage, progressive metal, with their earlier albums being categorized as metalcore. Avenged Sevenfold's musical style has consistently evolved throughout the duration of the band's career. Initially, the band's debut album Sounding the Seventh Trumpet consisted almost entirely of a metalcore sound. However, there were several deviations from this genre, most notably in "Streets", which shows a punk rock style, and "Warmness on the Soul", which is a piano ballad. On Waking the Fallen, the band displayed a metalcore style once more, but added more clean singing and leaned a bit more towards metal and bit less close to hardcore. In the band's DVD All Excess, producer Andrew Murdock explained this transition: "When I met the band after Sounding the Seventh Trumpet had come out before they had recorded Waking the Fallen, M. Shadows said to me 'This record is screaming. The record we want to make is going to be half-screaming half-singing. I don't want to scream anymore. And the record after that is going to be all singing'."
On Avenged Sevenfold's third album City of Evil, the band chose to outright abandon the metalcore genre, creating a sound consistent with hard rock and heavy metal. Avenged Sevenfold's self-titled album experiments with an even wider array of musical genres than that from City of Evil, most notably in "Dear God", which shows a country style and "A Little Piece of Heaven", which is circled within the influence of Broadway show tunes, using primarily brass instruments and stringed orchestra to take over most of the role of the lead and rhythm guitar. Nightmare contains further deviations, including a piano ballad called "Fiction", progressive metal-oriented track "Save Me" and a heavy metal sound with extreme vocals and heavier instrumentation on "God Hates Us". The band's sixth studio album Hail to the King shows more of a classic metal sound and a riff-oriented approach. On their newest album The Stage, the band explores further into progressive metal, blending it with elements of thrash metal. In the past, Avenged Sevenfold has also been described as screamo and pop punk metal.
Avenged Sevenfold has been criticized for "not being metal enough". In response to this, vocalist M. Shadows said: "we play music for the sake of music, not so that we can be labeled a metal band. That's like telling us we aren't punk enough. Who cares?" Avenged Sevenfold is one of the notable acts of the new wave of American heavy metal.
Band members
Current members
M. Shadows – lead vocals, piano (1999–present)
Zacky Vengeance – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1999–present); lead guitar (1999–2001)
Synyster Gates – lead guitar, piano, backing vocals (2001–present)
Johnny Christ – bass, backing vocals (2002–present)
Brooks Wackerman – drums (2015–present)
Former members
Matt Wendt – bass (1999–2000)
Justin Sane – bass, piano (2000–2001)
Dameon Ash – bass (2001–2002)
The Rev – drums, piano, co-lead vocals (1999–2009; died 2009)
Arin Ilejay – drums (2011–2015)
Session and touring musicians
Mike Portnoy – drums (2010)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Sounding the Seventh Trumpet (2001)
Waking the Fallen (2003)
City of Evil (2005)
Avenged Sevenfold (2007)
Nightmare (2010)
Hail to the King (2013)
The Stage (2016)
Accolades
References
External links
American alternative metal musical groups
American metalcore musical groups
Articles which contain graphical timelines
Capitol Records artists
Hard rock musical groups from California
Heavy metal musical groups from California
Hopeless Records artists
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1999
Musical groups from Orange County, California
Musical quintets
Warner Records artists
1999 establishments in California
Good Life Recordings artists | true | [
"White Witch is the title of the second studio album by the group Andrea True Connection. It was released in 1977. The album had two singles: and \"N.Y., You Got Me Dancing\" and \"What's Your Name, What's Your Number\". This was the last album released by the group and the vocalist Andrea True would release a new album as a solo release only in 1980.\n\nBackground and production\nAfter the success of her first album and the gold-certified single More, More, More, the band begun to prepeare for their second release. The album production included studio musicians with a new band assembled for the tour, the second line-up, which included future Kiss guitarist Bruce Kulick, it was also produce by the disco pioneers Michael Zager and Jerry Love.\n\nSingles\nThe first single of the album was \"N.Y., You Got Me Dancing\", it was released in 1977 and became True's second biggest hit, reaching No. 27 on Billboard's pop chart, and #4 on the U.S. club chart, it also peaked #89 in the Canadian RPM's chart. \"What's Your Name, What's Your Number\" was released as the second and last single of the album (and also of the group) in 1978 and reached #9 on the U.S. club chart, #34 in the UK and #56 on the Billboard Hot 100\n\nCritical reception\n\nThe album received mixed reviews from music critics. Alex Henderson from the Allmusic website gave the album two and a half stars out of five in a mixed review which he wrote that \"while White Witch isn't a bad album, it falls short of the excellence her first album, More, More, More.\" He also stated that there are a few gems in the album \"including the Michael Zager-produced \"What's Your Name, What's Your Number\" and the exuberant, Gregg Diamond-produced \"N.Y., You Got Me Dancing\"\" according to him they're both \"exercises in unapologetically campy fun.\" He concluded that the album \"LP is strictly for diehard disco collectors.\"\n\nTrack listing\nsource:\n\nReferences\n\n1977 albums\nAndrea True albums\nBuddah Records albums",
"Third Eye Open is a 1992 album by American funk/rock supergroup Hardware. Hardware consists of lead guitarist Stevie Salas, P-Funk bassist Bootsy Collins, and drummer Buddy Miles, formerly of the Band of Gypsys. The album was produced by Bill Laswell and Salas, and was the first release to be part of Laswell's Black Arc Series, which includes Lord of the Harvest by Zillatron, Out of the Dark by O.G. Funk, and Under the 6 by Slave Master.\n\nAlbum history\nWhen the album was first released in Japan on the Polystar label, the band was called The Third Eye and the name of the album was \"Hardware\". When the album secured distribution in the U.S., it was found that another band had owned the name \"The Third Eye\". To avoid any further legal hassles, it was opted that the title of the album and the name of band would simply be switched, thus the name of the band would be Hardware and the title of the album became Third Eye Open.\n\nThe song \"Leakin'\" is a version of a track that appeared on Collins' 1988 album What's Bootsy Doin'?, which featured Salas playing guitar. On this album, the song is credited to Salas, whereas the previous version is credited to Collins, George Clinton and Trey Stone.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nStevie Salas – guitars, vocals\nBootsy Collins – space bass, vocals\nBuddy Miles – drums, fuzz bass, vocals\nGeorge Clinton, Gary \"Mudbone\" Cooper, Bernard Fowler – background vocals\nDavid Friendly, Vince McClean, Matt Stein – digital bollocks\n\nHardware (band) albums\n1992 albums\nAlbums produced by Bill Laswell\nRykodisc albums"
] |
[
"Avenged Sevenfold",
"The death of The Rev and Nightmare (2009-11)",
"is the death of the rev and nightmare the name of an album?",
"I don't know.",
"tell me more about what happened between 2009-2011?",
"In January 2009, M. Shadows confirmed that the band was writing the follow-up to their self-titled fourth album within the upcoming months.",
"What was the name of that album?",
"the band's drummer James \"The Rev\" Sullivan was found dead at his home"
] | C_c5f13c820f704829ad24abc704485cea_0 | what did he die from? | 4 | What did James "The Rev" Sullivan die from? | Avenged Sevenfold | In January 2009, M. Shadows confirmed that the band was writing the follow-up to their self-titled fourth album within the upcoming months. They also played at Rock on the Range, from May 16-17, 2009. On April 16, they performed a version of Guns N' Roses' "It's So Easy" onstage with Slash, at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. On December 28, 2009, the band's drummer James "The Rev" Sullivan was found dead at his home at the age of 28. Autopsy results were inconclusive, but on June 9, 2010, the cause of death was revealed to have been an "acute polydrug intoxication due to combined effects of Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Diazepam/Nordiazepam and ethanol". In a statement by the band, they expressed their grief over the death of The Rev and later posted a message from Sullivan's family which expressed their gratitude to his fans for their support. The band members admitted in a number of interviews that they considered disbanding at this point in time. However, on February 17, 2010, Avenged Sevenfold stated that they had entered the studio, along with now-former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, to drum for the album, in place of The Rev. The single "Nightmare" was digitally released on May 18, 2010. A preview for the song was released on May 6, 2010 on Amazon.com, but was removed soon after for unknown reasons. Mixing for the album had been completed in New York City, and Nightmare was finally released worldwide on July 27, 2010. It met with mixed to positive reviews from music critics but was well received by the fans. Nightmare beat sales projections easily, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 with sales of 163,000 units in its first week. After finishing recording, in December, Portnoy and the band posted simultaneous statements on their websites stating that he would not be their replacement for The Rev. However, Portnoy did travel with the band overseas in December 2010 for three shows in Iraq and Kuwait sponsored by the USO. They played for U.S. Soldiers at Camp Adder, Camp Beuhring, and Balad Air Base. On January 20, 2011, Avenged Sevenfold announced via Facebook that former Confide drummer Arin Ilejay would begin touring with them that year. He was not yet considered a full-time member at this point. Avenged Sevenfold performed at the Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals on June 3-5, 2011 alongside other bands such as Alter Bridge, System of a Down, and In Flames. On April 2011, the band headlined the Golden God Awards held by Metal Hammer. The same night the band won three awards for "Best Vocalist" (M. Shadows), "Epiphone Best Guitarist(s)" (Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance) and "Affliction's Album of The Year: " for Nightmare, while Mike Portnoy won the award for "Drum Workshop's Best Drummer" for his work on the album. Avenged Sevenfold headlined the 2011 Uproar Festival with supporting acts Three Days Grace, Seether, Bullet for My Valentine, Escape The Fate, among others. In November and December 2011, the band went on their "Buried Alive" tour with supporting acts Hollywood Undead, Asking Alexandria, and Black Veil Brides. CANNOTANSWER | "acute polydrug intoxication due to combined effects of Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Diazepam/Nordiazepam and ethanol". | Avenged Sevenfold (abbreviated as A7X) is an American heavy metal band from Huntington Beach, California, formed in 1999. The band's current lineup consists of lead vocalist M. Shadows, rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist Zacky Vengeance, lead guitarist and backing vocalist Synyster Gates, bassist and backing vocalist Johnny Christ, and drummer Brooks Wackerman.
Avenged Sevenfold is known for its diverse rock sound and dramatic imagery in album covers and merchandise. The band emerged with a metalcore sound on their debut album Sounding the Seventh Trumpet and continued this sound through their second album Waking the Fallen. However, the band's style had evolved by the group's third album and first major label release, City of Evil, into a heavy metal and hard rock style. The band continued to explore new sounds with its self-titled release and enjoyed continued mainstream success before their drummer, James "The Rev" Sullivan, died in 2009. Despite his death, Avenged Sevenfold continued on with the help of drummer Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater), and released and toured in support of their fifth album Nightmare in 2010, which debuted on the top spot of the Billboard 200, their first number one debut.
In 2011 drummer Arin Ilejay joined the band on tours and recording. The band's sixth studio album Hail to the King, which was released in 2013, marked the only Avenged Sevenfold album featuring Ilejay. Hail to the King charted as number 1 on the Billboard 200, the UK Albums chart, as well as the Finnish, Brazilian, Canadian, and Irish charts. In late 2014, Ilejay left the band, and was replaced by former Bad Religion drummer Brooks Wackerman, but the lineup change was not announced to the public until 2015. The band then surprise-released their seventh studio album titled The Stage on October 28, 2016, which debuted as number 4 on the Billboard 200 chart in the US. The Stage is their first conceptual album and it marked another stylistic change for the band, moving towards a progressive metal sound.
To date, Avenged Sevenfold has released seven studio albums, one live album/DVD, two compilation albums and eighteen singles and have sold over 8 million albums worldwide, and their records have received numerous certification awards, including five platinum album awards from their home country's institution (RIAA). They have also created four original songs for the Call of Duty: Black Ops series, all of which were compiled together in the 2018 EP Black Reign. The band were ranked No. 47 on Loudwire's list of Top 50 Metal Bands of All Time.
History
Formation and Sounding the Seventh Trumpet (1999–2002)
Avenged Sevenfold was formed in March 1999 in Huntington Beach, California by Matt Sanders, James Sullivan and Matt Wendt. Although they are not a religious band, Sanders came up with the name as a reference to the story of Cain and Abel from the Bible, which can be found in Genesis 4:24. Shortly after their formation, they were joined by an acquaintance from high school, Zachary Baker, who played in the punk band MPA (short for Mad Porn Action) at the time.
Avenged Sevenfold's first creative output was a three-track-demo recorded in early 1999. In early 2000, they were asked by Sadistic Records to contribute to two compilations. To that end, they recorded two new songs and released them along with the previously recorded songs on a second demo. They sent this demo to the Belgian label Good Life Recordings and were subsequently signed. Afterwards, the band participated in another two compilation albums, their label's GoodLife 4 and Novocaine Records' Scrape III compilations. Around this time, Matt Wendt left for college and Justin Meacham, the previous bassist of Suburban Legends, joined Avenged Sevenfold. In late 2000, the foursome took on their initial stage names – M. Shadows, Zacky Vengeance, Justin Sane and The Rev – and recorded their debut album, Sounding the Seventh Trumpet. In early 2001, lead guitarist and old friend Synyster Gates joined the band and they re-recorded the introductory track "To End the Rapture" for the album's lead-single/EP, Warmness on the Soul, released in April 2001. Although their debut album's release was initially planned for the same month, it was pushed back multiple times and eventually released on July 24, 2001, on Good Life Recordings.
Around August 2001, Meacham attempted suicide by drinking excessive amounts of cough syrup. This event was the reason for Avenged Sevenfold to join the Take Action Tour in 2003. During Meacham's hospitalization, he remained in poor condition and had to leave the band. In an interview, lead singer M. Shadows said of Meacham that "he perma-fried his brain and was in a mental institution for a long time, and when you have someone in your band who does that, it ruins everything that's going on all around you, and it makes you want to do something to prevent it from happening to other people." His replacement was Frank Melcom, stage name Dameon Ash, who performed with the band for the following months, but does not appear on any releases.
On January 18, 2002, Avenged Sevenfold left Good Life Recordings and signed with Hopeless Records. They re-released their debut album on March 19 and also appeared on the Hopelessly Devoted To You Vol. 4 sampler in April. The band started to receive recognition, performing with bands such as Mushroomhead and Shadows Fall. They spent the year touring in support of their debut album and participated in the Vans Warped Tour. In September, Dameon Ash left Avenged Sevenfold and their current bassist Johnny Christ joined them, completing their best known line-up.
Waking the Fallen and City of Evil (2003–2005)
Having found a new bassist, the group released their second studio album titled Waking the Fallen on Hopeless Records in August 2003. The album featured a more refined and mature sound production in comparison to their previous album. The band received profiles in Billboard and The Boston Globe, and again played on the Vans Warped and Take Action tours. In 2004, Avenged Sevenfold toured again on the Vans Warped Tour and recorded a video for their song "Unholy Confessions" which went into rotation on MTV2's Headbangers Ball. Shortly after the release of Waking the Fallen, Avenged Sevenfold left Hopeless Records and were officially signed to Warner Bros. Records on November 1, 2003.
City of Evil, the band's third album and major label debut, was released on June 7, 2005, and debuted at No.30 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 30,000 copies in its first week of release. It utilized a more classic metal sound than Avenged Sevenfold's previous albums, which had been grouped into the metalcore genre. The album is also notable for the absence of screamed and growled vocals; M. Shadows worked with vocal coach Ron Anderson—whose clients have included Axl Rose and Chris Cornell—for months before the album's release to achieve a sound that had "grit while still having the tone". The album received positive reviews from several magazines and websites and is credited for propelling the band into international popularity.
Avenged Sevenfold (2006–2008)
After playing Ozzfest in 2006, Avenged Sevenfold memorably beat out R&B Singers Rihanna and Chris Brown, Panic! at the Disco, Angels & Airwaves and James Blunt for the title of Best New Artist at the MTV Video Music Awards, thanks in part to their Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas-inspired song "Bat Country." They returned to the Vans Warped Tour, this time headlining and then continued on their own "Cities of Evil Tour." In addition, their lead single "Bat Country" reached No.2 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Charts, No.6 on the Billboard Modern Rock Charts and the accompanying video made it to No.1 on MTV's Total Request Live. Propelled by this success, the album sold well and became Avenged Sevenfold's first Gold record. It was later certified platinum in August 2009.
Avenged Sevenfold was invited to join Ozzfest tour on the main stage, alongside other well known rock/heavy metal acts such as DragonForce, Lacuna Coil, Hatebreed, Disturbed and System of a Down for the first time in 2006. That same year they also completed a worldwide tour, including the US, The United Kingdom (as well as mainland Europe), Japan, Australia and New Zealand. After a sixteen-month promotion of City of Evil, the band announced that they were cancelling their Fall 2006 tour to record new music. In the interim, the band released their first DVD titled All Excess on July 17, 2007. All Excess, which debuted as the No.1 DVD in the US, included live performances and backstage footage that spanned the band's eight-year career. Two tribute albums, Strung Out on Avenged Sevenfold: Bat Wings and Broken Strings and Strung Out on Avenged Sevenfold: The String Tribute were also released in October 2007.
On October 30, 2007, Avenged Sevenfold released their self-titled album, the band's fourth studio album. It debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 with over 90,000 copies sold. Two singles, "Critical Acclaim" and "Almost Easy" were released prior to the album's debut. In December 2007, an animated video was made for "A Little Piece of Heaven". Due to the song's controversial subject matter, however, Warner Brothers only released it to registered MVI users over the internet. The third single, "Afterlife" and its video was released in January 2008. Their fourth single, "Dear God", was released on June 15, 2008. Although critical reception was generally mixed the self-titled album went on to sell over 500,000 copies and was awarded "Album of the Year" at the Kerrang! Awards.
Avenged Sevenfold headlined the 2008 Taste of Chaos tour with Atreyu, Bullet for My Valentine, Blessthefall and Idiot Pilot. They used the footage from their last show in Long Beach for Live in the LBC & Diamonds in the Rough, a two-disc B-sides CD and live DVD which was released on September 16, 2008. They also recorded numerous covers, including Pantera's "Walk", Iron Maiden's "Flash of the Blade" and Black Sabbath's "Paranoid".
Death of The Rev and Nightmare (2009–2011)
In January 2009, M. Shadows confirmed that the band was writing the follow-up to their self-titled fourth album within the upcoming months. They also played at Rock on the Range, from May 16–17, 2009. On April 16, they performed a version of Guns N' Roses' "It's So Easy" onstage with Slash, at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. On December 28, 2009, the band's drummer James "The Rev" Sullivan was found dead at his home at the age of 28. Autopsy results were inconclusive, but on June 9, 2010, the cause of death was revealed to have been an "acute polydrug intoxication due to combined effects of Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Diazepam/Nordiazepam and ethanol". In a statement by the band, they expressed their grief over the death of The Rev and later posted a message from Sullivan's family which expressed their gratitude to his fans for their support. The band members admitted in a number of interviews that they considered disbanding at this point in time. However, on February 17, 2010, Avenged Sevenfold stated that they had entered the studio, along with now-former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, to drum for the album, in place of The Rev.
The single "Nightmare" was digitally released on May 18, 2010. A preview for the song was released on May 6, 2010, on Amazon.com, but was removed soon after for unknown reasons. Mixing for the album had been completed in New York City, and Nightmare was finally released worldwide on July 27, 2010. It met with mixed to positive reviews from music critics but was well received by the fans. Nightmare beat sales projections easily, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 with sales of 163,000 units in its first week. After finishing recording, in December, Portnoy and the band posted simultaneous statements on their websites stating that he would not be their replacement for The Rev. However, Portnoy did travel with the band overseas in December 2010 for three shows in Iraq and Kuwait sponsored by the USO. They played for U.S. Soldiers at Camp Adder, Camp Beuhring, and Balad Air Base. On January 20, 2011, Avenged Sevenfold announced via Facebook that former Confide drummer Arin Ilejay would begin touring with them that year. He was not yet considered a full-time member at this point.
Avenged Sevenfold performed at the Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals on June 3–5, 2011 alongside other bands such as Alter Bridge, System of a Down, and In Flames. In April 2011, the band headlined the Golden God Awards held by Metal Hammer. The same night the band won three awards for "Best Vocalist" (M. Shadows), "Epiphone Best Guitarist(s)" (Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance), and "Affliction's Album of The Year" for Nightmare, while Mike Portnoy won the award for "Drum Workshop's Best Drummer" for his work on the album.
Avenged Sevenfold headlined the 2011 Uproar Festival with supporting acts Three Days Grace, Seether, Bullet for My Valentine, Escape the Fate, among others. In November and December 2011, the band went on their "Buried Alive" tour with supporting acts Hollywood Undead, Asking Alexandria, and Black Veil Brides.
Hail to the King and Waking the Fallen: Resurrected (2012–2014)
On April 11, 2012, Avenged Sevenfold won the award for "Best Live Band" and "Most Dedicated Fans" at the Revolver Golden Gods awards.
The band toured through Asia into April and early May, and played at the Orion Music + More, Festival on June 23 and 24 in Atlantic City, New Jersey alongside Metallica and Cage the Elephant among many others.
On September 24, 2012, Avenged Sevenfold released a new song, titled "Carry On"; it was featured in the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II. On November 15, 2012, vocalist M. Shadows said that the band had been working on a new album since the recording of "Carry On" in August 2012. The band began recording material for the album in January 2013. The band then started streaming snippets of the album in May 2013 on their new radio app. There, Arin Ilejay was confirmed as an official band member and replacement of deceased The Rev. M. Shadows said that the album would sound more blues rock-influenced and more like classic rock/metal like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.
The band was confirmed to play at the 2013 Rock in Rio festival on September 22, 2013. On May 24, 2013, the band have announced dates for their European tour with Five Finger Death Punch and Device serving as their support bands.
The album, entitled Hail to the King, was released on August 27, 2013. This is the first Avenged Sevenfold album without any musical contributions from deceased The Rev. The album's lead single and title track was released on July 15, 2013. Hail to the King charted as No. 1 on the US Billboard 200, the UK albums chart, as well as the Finnish, Brazilian, Canadian, and Irish charts, and was commercially and critically acclaimed. The band headlined Monster Energy's Welcome to Rockville two-day music festival in Jacksonville, Florida, April 26–27, 2014, joined by more than 25 rock acts, such as Motörhead, Rob Zombie, Chevelle, Korn, Staind, Alter Bridge, The Cult, Five Finger Death Punch, Volbeat, Black Label Society, and Seether. On June 13, the band headlined the Friday night of Download Festival 2014. The band also headlined the Mayhem Festival 2014 with Korn, Asking Alexandria, and Trivium.
In March 2014, vocalist M. Shadows revealed in an interview with Loudwire that the band had plans in the works to put something out for the overdue 10th anniversary of Waking the Fallen. Waking the Fallen: Resurrected was released August 25, 2014. The reissue charted No. 10 on the US Billboard 200.
Drummer change and The Stage (2015–2017)
In October 2014, M. Shadows confirmed that the band would begin writing their seventh album during mid-2015.
In July 2015 the band announced on their website that they would part ways with drummer Arin Ilejay, due to "creative differences". In October 2015, the band announced on their website that they had been working with a new drummer for over a year, making sure that it was a good fit before making sudden changes. On October 21, in an interview with Kerrang! magazine, guitarist Zacky Vengeance revealed that the band had been working on the new album for the past couple of months and that a couple of songs had already been completely written. On November 4, 2015, the band announced that Brooks Wackerman would replace Arin Ilejay as the drummer for Avenged Sevenfold. In an interview with Kerrang! magazine on December 3, guitarist Zacky Vengeance said that the new album went in all sorts of aggressive and melodic directions and described it as very "aggro".
On January 14, 2016, Billboard reported that Avenged Sevenfold had been sued by Warner Bros. for trying to leave the label. The band later released a statement clarifying that they wanted to leave because a majority of the executives who helped sign the band to Warner Bros were no longer at the label. They also revealed that the band was going to be entering the studio to record their new album very soon, intending to release it later in 2016. On March 31, the band posted a teaser of their upcoming album on their website.
On August 18, 2016, the band performed a free live show for 1500 people in Minnesota, marking it the first live performance with new drummer Brooks Wackerman. The band was announced as support for Metallica with Volbeat in the U.S. Bank Stadium on August 20, 2016, making it the first ever rock show in the stadium. The band was announced as a headliner of Monster Energy Rock Allegiance 2016, along with Alice in Chains, Slayer, The Offspring, Breaking Benjamin and others. Avenged Sevenfold also performed on "Louder Than Life" festival as headliners on October 1, with Slipknot, Slayer, Disturbed, Korn and other artists. On June 21, the band announced a U.S. Fall tour with Volbeat, Killswitch Engage, and Avatar. The band also announced a UK tour for January 2017 with Disturbed and In Flames. Avenged Sevenfold was announced as a headliner of 2016 edition of Knotfest Mexico. The band also announced the European Tour for February and March 2017 along with Disturbed and Chevelle.
On October 3, 2016, the band's logo Deathbat started appearing as a projection in London. After that, Deathbat also started appearing in Berlin, Toronto and Paris, indicating a release of the new album. On October 12, Chris Jericho posted an Instagram photo of the Deathbat logo with a date 12/9/16 underneath it. He then revealed the supposed title of the album, Voltaic Oceans, It was later revealed that the new album would actually be called The Stage, a concept album about artificial intelligence, which was released on October 28, 2016, via Capitol Records. The album was released to generally favorable reviews, and the band decided to make a unique stage production for it, hiring Cirque du Soleil directors for its making.
Avenged Sevenfold was announced as the main support act on Metallica's WorldWired 2017 stadium summer tour in the US and Canada, alongside Volbeat and Gojira. The band also announced a series of 2017 US headlining summer shows of The Stage World Tour, with Volbeat, Motionless in White, and A Day to Remember as special guests across various dates.
On December 22, 2017, the band released a deluxe edition of The Stage that included one new original track, six cover songs, and four live tracks from their European tour earlier that year.
In a December 2017 interview with Billboard, M. Shadows revealed that the band are planning "a big US summer 2018 tour", and that the band would start working on the follow-up to The Stage in late 2018. End of the World tour with Prophets of Rage was later announced for summer 2018. The band was also announced as one of the headliners of 2018's Rock on the Range and Download Festival, in addition to appearing at Hellfest, Graspop Metal Meeting, Rock am Ring and Rock im Park the same year. Due to a blood blister forming in M. Shadows' throat, the band cancelled remaining dates from their summer tour with Prophets of Rage.
Avenged Sevenfold was nominated at 60th Annual Grammy Awards in "Best Rock Song" category for The Stage.
The band released a single titled "Mad Hatter" in September 2018, which was made specifically for the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. It would later be a part of the Black Reign EP released later that month, which comprises all four of the songs Avenged Sevenfold made for the Call of Duty franchise.
Upcoming eighth studio album (2018–present)
In a December 2017 interview with Billboard, M. Shadows revealed that the band are planning "a big US summer 2018 tour", and that the band would start working on the follow-up to The Stage in late 2018. Bassist Johnny Christ in a May 2018 interview confirmed that the band is currently getting ideas and writing in their own studios to start the next record in September or October 2018.
In September 2018, Synyster Gates revealed in an interview with Loudwire that the band has started working on their eighth studio album, saying "It's still early on, but we're working on a bunch of stuff". In March 2019, Zacky Vengeance stated the band would take the rest of the year off tour to concentrate on the upcoming album, saying the band is really focused on the new material. In January 2020, Avenged Sevenfold released "Set Me Free", an unreleased song recorded during the Hail to the King recording sessions. They also announced that the song would be included in a remastered re-release of Live in the LBC & Diamonds in the Rough, released on March 6. A limited edition clear vinyl of Diamonds in the Rough was also released.
Musical style and influences
Members of Avenged Sevenfold cite In Flames, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Slayer, Mr. Bungle, Elton John, Leonard Cohen, At the Gates, Helloween, Dream Theater, Pennywise, NOFX, Pantera, Def Leppard, Guns N' Roses, The Beatles, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones as influences.
The band has been categorized under several genres of heavy and extreme music, primarily heavy metal, alternative metal, hard rock, and, on their album The Stage, progressive metal, with their earlier albums being categorized as metalcore. Avenged Sevenfold's musical style has consistently evolved throughout the duration of the band's career. Initially, the band's debut album Sounding the Seventh Trumpet consisted almost entirely of a metalcore sound. However, there were several deviations from this genre, most notably in "Streets", which shows a punk rock style, and "Warmness on the Soul", which is a piano ballad. On Waking the Fallen, the band displayed a metalcore style once more, but added more clean singing and leaned a bit more towards metal and bit less close to hardcore. In the band's DVD All Excess, producer Andrew Murdock explained this transition: "When I met the band after Sounding the Seventh Trumpet had come out before they had recorded Waking the Fallen, M. Shadows said to me 'This record is screaming. The record we want to make is going to be half-screaming half-singing. I don't want to scream anymore. And the record after that is going to be all singing'."
On Avenged Sevenfold's third album City of Evil, the band chose to outright abandon the metalcore genre, creating a sound consistent with hard rock and heavy metal. Avenged Sevenfold's self-titled album experiments with an even wider array of musical genres than that from City of Evil, most notably in "Dear God", which shows a country style and "A Little Piece of Heaven", which is circled within the influence of Broadway show tunes, using primarily brass instruments and stringed orchestra to take over most of the role of the lead and rhythm guitar. Nightmare contains further deviations, including a piano ballad called "Fiction", progressive metal-oriented track "Save Me" and a heavy metal sound with extreme vocals and heavier instrumentation on "God Hates Us". The band's sixth studio album Hail to the King shows more of a classic metal sound and a riff-oriented approach. On their newest album The Stage, the band explores further into progressive metal, blending it with elements of thrash metal. In the past, Avenged Sevenfold has also been described as screamo and pop punk metal.
Avenged Sevenfold has been criticized for "not being metal enough". In response to this, vocalist M. Shadows said: "we play music for the sake of music, not so that we can be labeled a metal band. That's like telling us we aren't punk enough. Who cares?" Avenged Sevenfold is one of the notable acts of the new wave of American heavy metal.
Band members
Current members
M. Shadows – lead vocals, piano (1999–present)
Zacky Vengeance – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1999–present); lead guitar (1999–2001)
Synyster Gates – lead guitar, piano, backing vocals (2001–present)
Johnny Christ – bass, backing vocals (2002–present)
Brooks Wackerman – drums (2015–present)
Former members
Matt Wendt – bass (1999–2000)
Justin Sane – bass, piano (2000–2001)
Dameon Ash – bass (2001–2002)
The Rev – drums, piano, co-lead vocals (1999–2009; died 2009)
Arin Ilejay – drums (2011–2015)
Session and touring musicians
Mike Portnoy – drums (2010)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Sounding the Seventh Trumpet (2001)
Waking the Fallen (2003)
City of Evil (2005)
Avenged Sevenfold (2007)
Nightmare (2010)
Hail to the King (2013)
The Stage (2016)
Accolades
References
External links
American alternative metal musical groups
American metalcore musical groups
Articles which contain graphical timelines
Capitol Records artists
Hard rock musical groups from California
Heavy metal musical groups from California
Hopeless Records artists
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1999
Musical groups from Orange County, California
Musical quintets
Warner Records artists
1999 establishments in California
Good Life Recordings artists | true | [
"Hagen Friedrich Liebing (18 February 1961 – 25 September 2016), nicknamed \"The Incredible Hagen\", was a German musician and journalist, best known as the bassist for the influential punk band Die Ärzte. \n\nIn 1986, drummer Bela B invited him to join Die Ärzte. The two knew each other from early Berlin punk days. The band disbanded in 1988. Liebing tried his hand at journalism shortly thereafter. He wrote several articles for Der Tagesspiegel, and was the senior music editor of Tip Berlin since the mid-1990s. \n\nWhen Die Ärzte reunited in 1993, Liebing did not join them. However, he did join them on stage as a special guest in 2002. In 2003, he published his memoirs The Incredible Hagen – My Years with Die Ärzte. From 2003 to 2010, he headed the Press and Public Relations at the football club Tennis Borussia Berlin. \n\nLiebing died in Berlin on 25 September 2016, after a battle with a brain tumor.\n\nReferences\n\n1961 births\n2016 deaths\nMusicians from Berlin\nGerman male musicians\nGerman journalists\nDeaths from cancer in Germany\nDeaths from brain tumor",
"Gefangen im Schattenreich von Die Ärzte (\"Imprisoned in the netherworld of Die Ärzte\") is the third VHS by German rock band Die Ärzte. It features live and backstage videos. It is the first part of the tour videos from 1993 to 1996.\n\nTrack listing \n \"Super Drei\" (Super three)\n \"Geh mit mir\" (Date me lit. Go with me)\n \"FaFaFa\"\n \"Friedenspanzer\" (Peace tank)\n \"Der Misanthrop\" (The misanthrope)\n \"Teddybär\" (Teddy bear)\n \"2000 Mädchen\" (2,000 girls)\n \"Vermissen, Baby\" (Missing, baby)\n \"Omaboy\" (Grandma boy)\n \"Schunder-Song\"\n \"Ich bin reich\" (I'm rich)\n \"Anneliese Schmidt\"\n \"Westerland\"\n \"Revolution\"\n \"Ist das alles?\" (Is that all?)\n Video clip: \"Hurra\" (Hooray!)\n \"Making of: Quark\"\n\nNoch mehr gefangen im Schattenreich von Die Ärzte \nNoch mehr gefangen im Schattenreich von Die Ärzte (\"Even more imprisoned in the netherworld of Die Ärzte\") is the fourth VHS by the German rock band Die Ärzte. It features the second part of the tour videos from 1993 to 1996.\n\nTrack listing \n \"Making of: Planet Punk\"\n \"Zum Bäcker\" (To the baker)\n \"Mysteryland\"\n \"Making of: 3-Tage-Bart\" (Designer stubble; lit: 3-days-beard)\n \"Trick 17 m.S\"\n \"Elke\"\n \"Die Banane\" (The banana)\n \"Frank'n'Stein\"\n \"Westerland\"\n \"Paul\"\n \"BGS\" (Bundesgrenzschutz - Federal Border Guard)\n \"Making of: Hurra\" (Hooray!)\n \"Die traurige Ballade von Susi Spakowski\"\n \"Die Allerschürfste\" (The Superhottest)\n \"Tour-Charts - Was Die Ärzte so hinter der Bühne singen…\" (Tour charts - What Die Ärzte sing backstage)\n \"Alleine in der Nacht\" (Alone at night)\n \"Sweet Sweet Gwendoline\"\n \"Making of: Schunder-Song\"\n \"Schopenhauer\"\n \"Punk Rock - Die Ärzte als Gesangstrio, das alte deutsche Lieder vorträgt\" (Punk Rock - Die Ärzte as a singing-trio, singing old German songs)\n \"B.S.L.\" (Brutaler, schneller Lärm - Brutal, rapid noise)\n \"Wie am ersten Tag\" (Like the first day)\n \"Blumen\" (Flowers)\n \"Erna P.\"\n \"Vollmilch\" (Whole milk)\n \"Schrei nach Liebe\" (Cry for love)\n \"Rod Loves You\"\n\nVollkommen gefangen im Schattenreich von Die Ärzte \nVollkommen gefangen im Schattenreich von Die Ärzte (\"Completely imprisoned in the netherworld of Die Ärzte\") is the third DVD by German rock band Die Ärzte. It is a DVD sampler of the tour videos from 1993 to 1996.\n\nSong information \nVHS 1\n Track 6, 12 from the EP Zu schön, um wahr zu sein!\n Track 11 from the album Die Ärzte\n Track 7 from the album Ist das alles? (13 Höhepunkte mit den Ärzten)\n Track 13 from the album Das ist nicht die ganze Wahrheit...\n Track 3, 4, 9, 14 from the album Die Bestie in Menschengestalt\n Track 1, 2, 5, 8, 10 from the album Planet Punk\n\nVHS 2\n Track 24 from the single \"Paul\"\n Track 8, 10 from the album Debil\n Track 3, 16, 17 from the album Die Ärzte\n Track 6, 9, 22, 23 from the album Das ist nicht die ganze Wahrheit...\n Track 2, 25 from the album Die Ärzte früher!\n Track 11 from the EP 1, 2, 3, 4 – Bullenstaat!\n Track 14, 19, 26 from the album Die Bestie in Menschengestalt\n Track 5, 7, 13, 21, 27 from the album Planet Punk\n\nChart performance\nVollkommen gefangen im Schattenreich von Die Ärzte peaked at No. 71 in Germany.\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\nDie Ärzte video albums\n1996 video albums\nLive video albums\n1996 live albums"
] |
[
"Avenged Sevenfold",
"The death of The Rev and Nightmare (2009-11)",
"is the death of the rev and nightmare the name of an album?",
"I don't know.",
"tell me more about what happened between 2009-2011?",
"In January 2009, M. Shadows confirmed that the band was writing the follow-up to their self-titled fourth album within the upcoming months.",
"What was the name of that album?",
"the band's drummer James \"The Rev\" Sullivan was found dead at his home",
"what did he die from?",
"\"acute polydrug intoxication due to combined effects of Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Diazepam/Nordiazepam and ethanol\"."
] | C_c5f13c820f704829ad24abc704485cea_0 | was it ruled suicide? | 5 | Was James "The Rev" Sullivan's death ruled a suicide? | Avenged Sevenfold | In January 2009, M. Shadows confirmed that the band was writing the follow-up to their self-titled fourth album within the upcoming months. They also played at Rock on the Range, from May 16-17, 2009. On April 16, they performed a version of Guns N' Roses' "It's So Easy" onstage with Slash, at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. On December 28, 2009, the band's drummer James "The Rev" Sullivan was found dead at his home at the age of 28. Autopsy results were inconclusive, but on June 9, 2010, the cause of death was revealed to have been an "acute polydrug intoxication due to combined effects of Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Diazepam/Nordiazepam and ethanol". In a statement by the band, they expressed their grief over the death of The Rev and later posted a message from Sullivan's family which expressed their gratitude to his fans for their support. The band members admitted in a number of interviews that they considered disbanding at this point in time. However, on February 17, 2010, Avenged Sevenfold stated that they had entered the studio, along with now-former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, to drum for the album, in place of The Rev. The single "Nightmare" was digitally released on May 18, 2010. A preview for the song was released on May 6, 2010 on Amazon.com, but was removed soon after for unknown reasons. Mixing for the album had been completed in New York City, and Nightmare was finally released worldwide on July 27, 2010. It met with mixed to positive reviews from music critics but was well received by the fans. Nightmare beat sales projections easily, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 with sales of 163,000 units in its first week. After finishing recording, in December, Portnoy and the band posted simultaneous statements on their websites stating that he would not be their replacement for The Rev. However, Portnoy did travel with the band overseas in December 2010 for three shows in Iraq and Kuwait sponsored by the USO. They played for U.S. Soldiers at Camp Adder, Camp Beuhring, and Balad Air Base. On January 20, 2011, Avenged Sevenfold announced via Facebook that former Confide drummer Arin Ilejay would begin touring with them that year. He was not yet considered a full-time member at this point. Avenged Sevenfold performed at the Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals on June 3-5, 2011 alongside other bands such as Alter Bridge, System of a Down, and In Flames. On April 2011, the band headlined the Golden God Awards held by Metal Hammer. The same night the band won three awards for "Best Vocalist" (M. Shadows), "Epiphone Best Guitarist(s)" (Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance) and "Affliction's Album of The Year: " for Nightmare, while Mike Portnoy won the award for "Drum Workshop's Best Drummer" for his work on the album. Avenged Sevenfold headlined the 2011 Uproar Festival with supporting acts Three Days Grace, Seether, Bullet for My Valentine, Escape The Fate, among others. In November and December 2011, the band went on their "Buried Alive" tour with supporting acts Hollywood Undead, Asking Alexandria, and Black Veil Brides. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Avenged Sevenfold (abbreviated as A7X) is an American heavy metal band from Huntington Beach, California, formed in 1999. The band's current lineup consists of lead vocalist M. Shadows, rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist Zacky Vengeance, lead guitarist and backing vocalist Synyster Gates, bassist and backing vocalist Johnny Christ, and drummer Brooks Wackerman.
Avenged Sevenfold is known for its diverse rock sound and dramatic imagery in album covers and merchandise. The band emerged with a metalcore sound on their debut album Sounding the Seventh Trumpet and continued this sound through their second album Waking the Fallen. However, the band's style had evolved by the group's third album and first major label release, City of Evil, into a heavy metal and hard rock style. The band continued to explore new sounds with its self-titled release and enjoyed continued mainstream success before their drummer, James "The Rev" Sullivan, died in 2009. Despite his death, Avenged Sevenfold continued on with the help of drummer Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater), and released and toured in support of their fifth album Nightmare in 2010, which debuted on the top spot of the Billboard 200, their first number one debut.
In 2011 drummer Arin Ilejay joined the band on tours and recording. The band's sixth studio album Hail to the King, which was released in 2013, marked the only Avenged Sevenfold album featuring Ilejay. Hail to the King charted as number 1 on the Billboard 200, the UK Albums chart, as well as the Finnish, Brazilian, Canadian, and Irish charts. In late 2014, Ilejay left the band, and was replaced by former Bad Religion drummer Brooks Wackerman, but the lineup change was not announced to the public until 2015. The band then surprise-released their seventh studio album titled The Stage on October 28, 2016, which debuted as number 4 on the Billboard 200 chart in the US. The Stage is their first conceptual album and it marked another stylistic change for the band, moving towards a progressive metal sound.
To date, Avenged Sevenfold has released seven studio albums, one live album/DVD, two compilation albums and eighteen singles and have sold over 8 million albums worldwide, and their records have received numerous certification awards, including five platinum album awards from their home country's institution (RIAA). They have also created four original songs for the Call of Duty: Black Ops series, all of which were compiled together in the 2018 EP Black Reign. The band were ranked No. 47 on Loudwire's list of Top 50 Metal Bands of All Time.
History
Formation and Sounding the Seventh Trumpet (1999–2002)
Avenged Sevenfold was formed in March 1999 in Huntington Beach, California by Matt Sanders, James Sullivan and Matt Wendt. Although they are not a religious band, Sanders came up with the name as a reference to the story of Cain and Abel from the Bible, which can be found in Genesis 4:24. Shortly after their formation, they were joined by an acquaintance from high school, Zachary Baker, who played in the punk band MPA (short for Mad Porn Action) at the time.
Avenged Sevenfold's first creative output was a three-track-demo recorded in early 1999. In early 2000, they were asked by Sadistic Records to contribute to two compilations. To that end, they recorded two new songs and released them along with the previously recorded songs on a second demo. They sent this demo to the Belgian label Good Life Recordings and were subsequently signed. Afterwards, the band participated in another two compilation albums, their label's GoodLife 4 and Novocaine Records' Scrape III compilations. Around this time, Matt Wendt left for college and Justin Meacham, the previous bassist of Suburban Legends, joined Avenged Sevenfold. In late 2000, the foursome took on their initial stage names – M. Shadows, Zacky Vengeance, Justin Sane and The Rev – and recorded their debut album, Sounding the Seventh Trumpet. In early 2001, lead guitarist and old friend Synyster Gates joined the band and they re-recorded the introductory track "To End the Rapture" for the album's lead-single/EP, Warmness on the Soul, released in April 2001. Although their debut album's release was initially planned for the same month, it was pushed back multiple times and eventually released on July 24, 2001, on Good Life Recordings.
Around August 2001, Meacham attempted suicide by drinking excessive amounts of cough syrup. This event was the reason for Avenged Sevenfold to join the Take Action Tour in 2003. During Meacham's hospitalization, he remained in poor condition and had to leave the band. In an interview, lead singer M. Shadows said of Meacham that "he perma-fried his brain and was in a mental institution for a long time, and when you have someone in your band who does that, it ruins everything that's going on all around you, and it makes you want to do something to prevent it from happening to other people." His replacement was Frank Melcom, stage name Dameon Ash, who performed with the band for the following months, but does not appear on any releases.
On January 18, 2002, Avenged Sevenfold left Good Life Recordings and signed with Hopeless Records. They re-released their debut album on March 19 and also appeared on the Hopelessly Devoted To You Vol. 4 sampler in April. The band started to receive recognition, performing with bands such as Mushroomhead and Shadows Fall. They spent the year touring in support of their debut album and participated in the Vans Warped Tour. In September, Dameon Ash left Avenged Sevenfold and their current bassist Johnny Christ joined them, completing their best known line-up.
Waking the Fallen and City of Evil (2003–2005)
Having found a new bassist, the group released their second studio album titled Waking the Fallen on Hopeless Records in August 2003. The album featured a more refined and mature sound production in comparison to their previous album. The band received profiles in Billboard and The Boston Globe, and again played on the Vans Warped and Take Action tours. In 2004, Avenged Sevenfold toured again on the Vans Warped Tour and recorded a video for their song "Unholy Confessions" which went into rotation on MTV2's Headbangers Ball. Shortly after the release of Waking the Fallen, Avenged Sevenfold left Hopeless Records and were officially signed to Warner Bros. Records on November 1, 2003.
City of Evil, the band's third album and major label debut, was released on June 7, 2005, and debuted at No.30 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 30,000 copies in its first week of release. It utilized a more classic metal sound than Avenged Sevenfold's previous albums, which had been grouped into the metalcore genre. The album is also notable for the absence of screamed and growled vocals; M. Shadows worked with vocal coach Ron Anderson—whose clients have included Axl Rose and Chris Cornell—for months before the album's release to achieve a sound that had "grit while still having the tone". The album received positive reviews from several magazines and websites and is credited for propelling the band into international popularity.
Avenged Sevenfold (2006–2008)
After playing Ozzfest in 2006, Avenged Sevenfold memorably beat out R&B Singers Rihanna and Chris Brown, Panic! at the Disco, Angels & Airwaves and James Blunt for the title of Best New Artist at the MTV Video Music Awards, thanks in part to their Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas-inspired song "Bat Country." They returned to the Vans Warped Tour, this time headlining and then continued on their own "Cities of Evil Tour." In addition, their lead single "Bat Country" reached No.2 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Charts, No.6 on the Billboard Modern Rock Charts and the accompanying video made it to No.1 on MTV's Total Request Live. Propelled by this success, the album sold well and became Avenged Sevenfold's first Gold record. It was later certified platinum in August 2009.
Avenged Sevenfold was invited to join Ozzfest tour on the main stage, alongside other well known rock/heavy metal acts such as DragonForce, Lacuna Coil, Hatebreed, Disturbed and System of a Down for the first time in 2006. That same year they also completed a worldwide tour, including the US, The United Kingdom (as well as mainland Europe), Japan, Australia and New Zealand. After a sixteen-month promotion of City of Evil, the band announced that they were cancelling their Fall 2006 tour to record new music. In the interim, the band released their first DVD titled All Excess on July 17, 2007. All Excess, which debuted as the No.1 DVD in the US, included live performances and backstage footage that spanned the band's eight-year career. Two tribute albums, Strung Out on Avenged Sevenfold: Bat Wings and Broken Strings and Strung Out on Avenged Sevenfold: The String Tribute were also released in October 2007.
On October 30, 2007, Avenged Sevenfold released their self-titled album, the band's fourth studio album. It debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 with over 90,000 copies sold. Two singles, "Critical Acclaim" and "Almost Easy" were released prior to the album's debut. In December 2007, an animated video was made for "A Little Piece of Heaven". Due to the song's controversial subject matter, however, Warner Brothers only released it to registered MVI users over the internet. The third single, "Afterlife" and its video was released in January 2008. Their fourth single, "Dear God", was released on June 15, 2008. Although critical reception was generally mixed the self-titled album went on to sell over 500,000 copies and was awarded "Album of the Year" at the Kerrang! Awards.
Avenged Sevenfold headlined the 2008 Taste of Chaos tour with Atreyu, Bullet for My Valentine, Blessthefall and Idiot Pilot. They used the footage from their last show in Long Beach for Live in the LBC & Diamonds in the Rough, a two-disc B-sides CD and live DVD which was released on September 16, 2008. They also recorded numerous covers, including Pantera's "Walk", Iron Maiden's "Flash of the Blade" and Black Sabbath's "Paranoid".
Death of The Rev and Nightmare (2009–2011)
In January 2009, M. Shadows confirmed that the band was writing the follow-up to their self-titled fourth album within the upcoming months. They also played at Rock on the Range, from May 16–17, 2009. On April 16, they performed a version of Guns N' Roses' "It's So Easy" onstage with Slash, at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. On December 28, 2009, the band's drummer James "The Rev" Sullivan was found dead at his home at the age of 28. Autopsy results were inconclusive, but on June 9, 2010, the cause of death was revealed to have been an "acute polydrug intoxication due to combined effects of Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Diazepam/Nordiazepam and ethanol". In a statement by the band, they expressed their grief over the death of The Rev and later posted a message from Sullivan's family which expressed their gratitude to his fans for their support. The band members admitted in a number of interviews that they considered disbanding at this point in time. However, on February 17, 2010, Avenged Sevenfold stated that they had entered the studio, along with now-former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, to drum for the album, in place of The Rev.
The single "Nightmare" was digitally released on May 18, 2010. A preview for the song was released on May 6, 2010, on Amazon.com, but was removed soon after for unknown reasons. Mixing for the album had been completed in New York City, and Nightmare was finally released worldwide on July 27, 2010. It met with mixed to positive reviews from music critics but was well received by the fans. Nightmare beat sales projections easily, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 with sales of 163,000 units in its first week. After finishing recording, in December, Portnoy and the band posted simultaneous statements on their websites stating that he would not be their replacement for The Rev. However, Portnoy did travel with the band overseas in December 2010 for three shows in Iraq and Kuwait sponsored by the USO. They played for U.S. Soldiers at Camp Adder, Camp Beuhring, and Balad Air Base. On January 20, 2011, Avenged Sevenfold announced via Facebook that former Confide drummer Arin Ilejay would begin touring with them that year. He was not yet considered a full-time member at this point.
Avenged Sevenfold performed at the Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals on June 3–5, 2011 alongside other bands such as Alter Bridge, System of a Down, and In Flames. In April 2011, the band headlined the Golden God Awards held by Metal Hammer. The same night the band won three awards for "Best Vocalist" (M. Shadows), "Epiphone Best Guitarist(s)" (Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance), and "Affliction's Album of The Year" for Nightmare, while Mike Portnoy won the award for "Drum Workshop's Best Drummer" for his work on the album.
Avenged Sevenfold headlined the 2011 Uproar Festival with supporting acts Three Days Grace, Seether, Bullet for My Valentine, Escape the Fate, among others. In November and December 2011, the band went on their "Buried Alive" tour with supporting acts Hollywood Undead, Asking Alexandria, and Black Veil Brides.
Hail to the King and Waking the Fallen: Resurrected (2012–2014)
On April 11, 2012, Avenged Sevenfold won the award for "Best Live Band" and "Most Dedicated Fans" at the Revolver Golden Gods awards.
The band toured through Asia into April and early May, and played at the Orion Music + More, Festival on June 23 and 24 in Atlantic City, New Jersey alongside Metallica and Cage the Elephant among many others.
On September 24, 2012, Avenged Sevenfold released a new song, titled "Carry On"; it was featured in the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II. On November 15, 2012, vocalist M. Shadows said that the band had been working on a new album since the recording of "Carry On" in August 2012. The band began recording material for the album in January 2013. The band then started streaming snippets of the album in May 2013 on their new radio app. There, Arin Ilejay was confirmed as an official band member and replacement of deceased The Rev. M. Shadows said that the album would sound more blues rock-influenced and more like classic rock/metal like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.
The band was confirmed to play at the 2013 Rock in Rio festival on September 22, 2013. On May 24, 2013, the band have announced dates for their European tour with Five Finger Death Punch and Device serving as their support bands.
The album, entitled Hail to the King, was released on August 27, 2013. This is the first Avenged Sevenfold album without any musical contributions from deceased The Rev. The album's lead single and title track was released on July 15, 2013. Hail to the King charted as No. 1 on the US Billboard 200, the UK albums chart, as well as the Finnish, Brazilian, Canadian, and Irish charts, and was commercially and critically acclaimed. The band headlined Monster Energy's Welcome to Rockville two-day music festival in Jacksonville, Florida, April 26–27, 2014, joined by more than 25 rock acts, such as Motörhead, Rob Zombie, Chevelle, Korn, Staind, Alter Bridge, The Cult, Five Finger Death Punch, Volbeat, Black Label Society, and Seether. On June 13, the band headlined the Friday night of Download Festival 2014. The band also headlined the Mayhem Festival 2014 with Korn, Asking Alexandria, and Trivium.
In March 2014, vocalist M. Shadows revealed in an interview with Loudwire that the band had plans in the works to put something out for the overdue 10th anniversary of Waking the Fallen. Waking the Fallen: Resurrected was released August 25, 2014. The reissue charted No. 10 on the US Billboard 200.
Drummer change and The Stage (2015–2017)
In October 2014, M. Shadows confirmed that the band would begin writing their seventh album during mid-2015.
In July 2015 the band announced on their website that they would part ways with drummer Arin Ilejay, due to "creative differences". In October 2015, the band announced on their website that they had been working with a new drummer for over a year, making sure that it was a good fit before making sudden changes. On October 21, in an interview with Kerrang! magazine, guitarist Zacky Vengeance revealed that the band had been working on the new album for the past couple of months and that a couple of songs had already been completely written. On November 4, 2015, the band announced that Brooks Wackerman would replace Arin Ilejay as the drummer for Avenged Sevenfold. In an interview with Kerrang! magazine on December 3, guitarist Zacky Vengeance said that the new album went in all sorts of aggressive and melodic directions and described it as very "aggro".
On January 14, 2016, Billboard reported that Avenged Sevenfold had been sued by Warner Bros. for trying to leave the label. The band later released a statement clarifying that they wanted to leave because a majority of the executives who helped sign the band to Warner Bros were no longer at the label. They also revealed that the band was going to be entering the studio to record their new album very soon, intending to release it later in 2016. On March 31, the band posted a teaser of their upcoming album on their website.
On August 18, 2016, the band performed a free live show for 1500 people in Minnesota, marking it the first live performance with new drummer Brooks Wackerman. The band was announced as support for Metallica with Volbeat in the U.S. Bank Stadium on August 20, 2016, making it the first ever rock show in the stadium. The band was announced as a headliner of Monster Energy Rock Allegiance 2016, along with Alice in Chains, Slayer, The Offspring, Breaking Benjamin and others. Avenged Sevenfold also performed on "Louder Than Life" festival as headliners on October 1, with Slipknot, Slayer, Disturbed, Korn and other artists. On June 21, the band announced a U.S. Fall tour with Volbeat, Killswitch Engage, and Avatar. The band also announced a UK tour for January 2017 with Disturbed and In Flames. Avenged Sevenfold was announced as a headliner of 2016 edition of Knotfest Mexico. The band also announced the European Tour for February and March 2017 along with Disturbed and Chevelle.
On October 3, 2016, the band's logo Deathbat started appearing as a projection in London. After that, Deathbat also started appearing in Berlin, Toronto and Paris, indicating a release of the new album. On October 12, Chris Jericho posted an Instagram photo of the Deathbat logo with a date 12/9/16 underneath it. He then revealed the supposed title of the album, Voltaic Oceans, It was later revealed that the new album would actually be called The Stage, a concept album about artificial intelligence, which was released on October 28, 2016, via Capitol Records. The album was released to generally favorable reviews, and the band decided to make a unique stage production for it, hiring Cirque du Soleil directors for its making.
Avenged Sevenfold was announced as the main support act on Metallica's WorldWired 2017 stadium summer tour in the US and Canada, alongside Volbeat and Gojira. The band also announced a series of 2017 US headlining summer shows of The Stage World Tour, with Volbeat, Motionless in White, and A Day to Remember as special guests across various dates.
On December 22, 2017, the band released a deluxe edition of The Stage that included one new original track, six cover songs, and four live tracks from their European tour earlier that year.
In a December 2017 interview with Billboard, M. Shadows revealed that the band are planning "a big US summer 2018 tour", and that the band would start working on the follow-up to The Stage in late 2018. End of the World tour with Prophets of Rage was later announced for summer 2018. The band was also announced as one of the headliners of 2018's Rock on the Range and Download Festival, in addition to appearing at Hellfest, Graspop Metal Meeting, Rock am Ring and Rock im Park the same year. Due to a blood blister forming in M. Shadows' throat, the band cancelled remaining dates from their summer tour with Prophets of Rage.
Avenged Sevenfold was nominated at 60th Annual Grammy Awards in "Best Rock Song" category for The Stage.
The band released a single titled "Mad Hatter" in September 2018, which was made specifically for the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. It would later be a part of the Black Reign EP released later that month, which comprises all four of the songs Avenged Sevenfold made for the Call of Duty franchise.
Upcoming eighth studio album (2018–present)
In a December 2017 interview with Billboard, M. Shadows revealed that the band are planning "a big US summer 2018 tour", and that the band would start working on the follow-up to The Stage in late 2018. Bassist Johnny Christ in a May 2018 interview confirmed that the band is currently getting ideas and writing in their own studios to start the next record in September or October 2018.
In September 2018, Synyster Gates revealed in an interview with Loudwire that the band has started working on their eighth studio album, saying "It's still early on, but we're working on a bunch of stuff". In March 2019, Zacky Vengeance stated the band would take the rest of the year off tour to concentrate on the upcoming album, saying the band is really focused on the new material. In January 2020, Avenged Sevenfold released "Set Me Free", an unreleased song recorded during the Hail to the King recording sessions. They also announced that the song would be included in a remastered re-release of Live in the LBC & Diamonds in the Rough, released on March 6. A limited edition clear vinyl of Diamonds in the Rough was also released.
Musical style and influences
Members of Avenged Sevenfold cite In Flames, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Slayer, Mr. Bungle, Elton John, Leonard Cohen, At the Gates, Helloween, Dream Theater, Pennywise, NOFX, Pantera, Def Leppard, Guns N' Roses, The Beatles, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones as influences.
The band has been categorized under several genres of heavy and extreme music, primarily heavy metal, alternative metal, hard rock, and, on their album The Stage, progressive metal, with their earlier albums being categorized as metalcore. Avenged Sevenfold's musical style has consistently evolved throughout the duration of the band's career. Initially, the band's debut album Sounding the Seventh Trumpet consisted almost entirely of a metalcore sound. However, there were several deviations from this genre, most notably in "Streets", which shows a punk rock style, and "Warmness on the Soul", which is a piano ballad. On Waking the Fallen, the band displayed a metalcore style once more, but added more clean singing and leaned a bit more towards metal and bit less close to hardcore. In the band's DVD All Excess, producer Andrew Murdock explained this transition: "When I met the band after Sounding the Seventh Trumpet had come out before they had recorded Waking the Fallen, M. Shadows said to me 'This record is screaming. The record we want to make is going to be half-screaming half-singing. I don't want to scream anymore. And the record after that is going to be all singing'."
On Avenged Sevenfold's third album City of Evil, the band chose to outright abandon the metalcore genre, creating a sound consistent with hard rock and heavy metal. Avenged Sevenfold's self-titled album experiments with an even wider array of musical genres than that from City of Evil, most notably in "Dear God", which shows a country style and "A Little Piece of Heaven", which is circled within the influence of Broadway show tunes, using primarily brass instruments and stringed orchestra to take over most of the role of the lead and rhythm guitar. Nightmare contains further deviations, including a piano ballad called "Fiction", progressive metal-oriented track "Save Me" and a heavy metal sound with extreme vocals and heavier instrumentation on "God Hates Us". The band's sixth studio album Hail to the King shows more of a classic metal sound and a riff-oriented approach. On their newest album The Stage, the band explores further into progressive metal, blending it with elements of thrash metal. In the past, Avenged Sevenfold has also been described as screamo and pop punk metal.
Avenged Sevenfold has been criticized for "not being metal enough". In response to this, vocalist M. Shadows said: "we play music for the sake of music, not so that we can be labeled a metal band. That's like telling us we aren't punk enough. Who cares?" Avenged Sevenfold is one of the notable acts of the new wave of American heavy metal.
Band members
Current members
M. Shadows – lead vocals, piano (1999–present)
Zacky Vengeance – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1999–present); lead guitar (1999–2001)
Synyster Gates – lead guitar, piano, backing vocals (2001–present)
Johnny Christ – bass, backing vocals (2002–present)
Brooks Wackerman – drums (2015–present)
Former members
Matt Wendt – bass (1999–2000)
Justin Sane – bass, piano (2000–2001)
Dameon Ash – bass (2001–2002)
The Rev – drums, piano, co-lead vocals (1999–2009; died 2009)
Arin Ilejay – drums (2011–2015)
Session and touring musicians
Mike Portnoy – drums (2010)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Sounding the Seventh Trumpet (2001)
Waking the Fallen (2003)
City of Evil (2005)
Avenged Sevenfold (2007)
Nightmare (2010)
Hail to the King (2013)
The Stage (2016)
Accolades
References
External links
American alternative metal musical groups
American metalcore musical groups
Articles which contain graphical timelines
Capitol Records artists
Hard rock musical groups from California
Heavy metal musical groups from California
Hopeless Records artists
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1999
Musical groups from Orange County, California
Musical quintets
Warner Records artists
1999 establishments in California
Good Life Recordings artists | false | [
"Nirupama Pathak was a 22-year-old woman who was found dead in her parents' house in Koderma district in the state of Jharkhand, India on April 29, 2010.\n\nSuspects\nNirupama's mother, Subha Pathak, was suspected of \"honor killing\" her. Nirupama's journalist boyfriend Priyabhansu Ranjan was also accused of abetting her suicide.\n\nCourt verdict\nBased on forensic evidence and a suicide note signed by Nirupama, the court ruled out murder.\n\nReferences\n\nCrime in Jharkhand",
"Lusai or Lue Sai was a king of Lan Xang who ruled for six months, before he committed suicide rather than face assassination by Nang Keo Phimpha. He was the oldest son of Samsenthai who had been passed over by his younger brothers. Lusai succeeded his brother Kham Tam Sa. Before he was king he was appointed as Governor of Muang Kabong. Rather than face assassination, he committed suicide in the palace gardens.\n\nReferences\n\nKings of Lan Xang\nBuddhist monarchs\nYear of birth unknown\n15th-century deaths\n15th-century Laotian people\n15th-century monarchs in Asia\nLaotian Theravada Buddhists\nSuicides in Asia"
] |
[
"Avenged Sevenfold",
"The death of The Rev and Nightmare (2009-11)",
"is the death of the rev and nightmare the name of an album?",
"I don't know.",
"tell me more about what happened between 2009-2011?",
"In January 2009, M. Shadows confirmed that the band was writing the follow-up to their self-titled fourth album within the upcoming months.",
"What was the name of that album?",
"the band's drummer James \"The Rev\" Sullivan was found dead at his home",
"what did he die from?",
"\"acute polydrug intoxication due to combined effects of Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Diazepam/Nordiazepam and ethanol\".",
"was it ruled suicide?",
"I don't know."
] | C_c5f13c820f704829ad24abc704485cea_0 | was the album released in 2009 successful? | 6 | Was the album by Avenged Sevenfold released in 2009 successful? | Avenged Sevenfold | In January 2009, M. Shadows confirmed that the band was writing the follow-up to their self-titled fourth album within the upcoming months. They also played at Rock on the Range, from May 16-17, 2009. On April 16, they performed a version of Guns N' Roses' "It's So Easy" onstage with Slash, at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. On December 28, 2009, the band's drummer James "The Rev" Sullivan was found dead at his home at the age of 28. Autopsy results were inconclusive, but on June 9, 2010, the cause of death was revealed to have been an "acute polydrug intoxication due to combined effects of Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Diazepam/Nordiazepam and ethanol". In a statement by the band, they expressed their grief over the death of The Rev and later posted a message from Sullivan's family which expressed their gratitude to his fans for their support. The band members admitted in a number of interviews that they considered disbanding at this point in time. However, on February 17, 2010, Avenged Sevenfold stated that they had entered the studio, along with now-former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, to drum for the album, in place of The Rev. The single "Nightmare" was digitally released on May 18, 2010. A preview for the song was released on May 6, 2010 on Amazon.com, but was removed soon after for unknown reasons. Mixing for the album had been completed in New York City, and Nightmare was finally released worldwide on July 27, 2010. It met with mixed to positive reviews from music critics but was well received by the fans. Nightmare beat sales projections easily, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 with sales of 163,000 units in its first week. After finishing recording, in December, Portnoy and the band posted simultaneous statements on their websites stating that he would not be their replacement for The Rev. However, Portnoy did travel with the band overseas in December 2010 for three shows in Iraq and Kuwait sponsored by the USO. They played for U.S. Soldiers at Camp Adder, Camp Beuhring, and Balad Air Base. On January 20, 2011, Avenged Sevenfold announced via Facebook that former Confide drummer Arin Ilejay would begin touring with them that year. He was not yet considered a full-time member at this point. Avenged Sevenfold performed at the Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals on June 3-5, 2011 alongside other bands such as Alter Bridge, System of a Down, and In Flames. On April 2011, the band headlined the Golden God Awards held by Metal Hammer. The same night the band won three awards for "Best Vocalist" (M. Shadows), "Epiphone Best Guitarist(s)" (Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance) and "Affliction's Album of The Year: " for Nightmare, while Mike Portnoy won the award for "Drum Workshop's Best Drummer" for his work on the album. Avenged Sevenfold headlined the 2011 Uproar Festival with supporting acts Three Days Grace, Seether, Bullet for My Valentine, Escape The Fate, among others. In November and December 2011, the band went on their "Buried Alive" tour with supporting acts Hollywood Undead, Asking Alexandria, and Black Veil Brides. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Avenged Sevenfold (abbreviated as A7X) is an American heavy metal band from Huntington Beach, California, formed in 1999. The band's current lineup consists of lead vocalist M. Shadows, rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist Zacky Vengeance, lead guitarist and backing vocalist Synyster Gates, bassist and backing vocalist Johnny Christ, and drummer Brooks Wackerman.
Avenged Sevenfold is known for its diverse rock sound and dramatic imagery in album covers and merchandise. The band emerged with a metalcore sound on their debut album Sounding the Seventh Trumpet and continued this sound through their second album Waking the Fallen. However, the band's style had evolved by the group's third album and first major label release, City of Evil, into a heavy metal and hard rock style. The band continued to explore new sounds with its self-titled release and enjoyed continued mainstream success before their drummer, James "The Rev" Sullivan, died in 2009. Despite his death, Avenged Sevenfold continued on with the help of drummer Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater), and released and toured in support of their fifth album Nightmare in 2010, which debuted on the top spot of the Billboard 200, their first number one debut.
In 2011 drummer Arin Ilejay joined the band on tours and recording. The band's sixth studio album Hail to the King, which was released in 2013, marked the only Avenged Sevenfold album featuring Ilejay. Hail to the King charted as number 1 on the Billboard 200, the UK Albums chart, as well as the Finnish, Brazilian, Canadian, and Irish charts. In late 2014, Ilejay left the band, and was replaced by former Bad Religion drummer Brooks Wackerman, but the lineup change was not announced to the public until 2015. The band then surprise-released their seventh studio album titled The Stage on October 28, 2016, which debuted as number 4 on the Billboard 200 chart in the US. The Stage is their first conceptual album and it marked another stylistic change for the band, moving towards a progressive metal sound.
To date, Avenged Sevenfold has released seven studio albums, one live album/DVD, two compilation albums and eighteen singles and have sold over 8 million albums worldwide, and their records have received numerous certification awards, including five platinum album awards from their home country's institution (RIAA). They have also created four original songs for the Call of Duty: Black Ops series, all of which were compiled together in the 2018 EP Black Reign. The band were ranked No. 47 on Loudwire's list of Top 50 Metal Bands of All Time.
History
Formation and Sounding the Seventh Trumpet (1999–2002)
Avenged Sevenfold was formed in March 1999 in Huntington Beach, California by Matt Sanders, James Sullivan and Matt Wendt. Although they are not a religious band, Sanders came up with the name as a reference to the story of Cain and Abel from the Bible, which can be found in Genesis 4:24. Shortly after their formation, they were joined by an acquaintance from high school, Zachary Baker, who played in the punk band MPA (short for Mad Porn Action) at the time.
Avenged Sevenfold's first creative output was a three-track-demo recorded in early 1999. In early 2000, they were asked by Sadistic Records to contribute to two compilations. To that end, they recorded two new songs and released them along with the previously recorded songs on a second demo. They sent this demo to the Belgian label Good Life Recordings and were subsequently signed. Afterwards, the band participated in another two compilation albums, their label's GoodLife 4 and Novocaine Records' Scrape III compilations. Around this time, Matt Wendt left for college and Justin Meacham, the previous bassist of Suburban Legends, joined Avenged Sevenfold. In late 2000, the foursome took on their initial stage names – M. Shadows, Zacky Vengeance, Justin Sane and The Rev – and recorded their debut album, Sounding the Seventh Trumpet. In early 2001, lead guitarist and old friend Synyster Gates joined the band and they re-recorded the introductory track "To End the Rapture" for the album's lead-single/EP, Warmness on the Soul, released in April 2001. Although their debut album's release was initially planned for the same month, it was pushed back multiple times and eventually released on July 24, 2001, on Good Life Recordings.
Around August 2001, Meacham attempted suicide by drinking excessive amounts of cough syrup. This event was the reason for Avenged Sevenfold to join the Take Action Tour in 2003. During Meacham's hospitalization, he remained in poor condition and had to leave the band. In an interview, lead singer M. Shadows said of Meacham that "he perma-fried his brain and was in a mental institution for a long time, and when you have someone in your band who does that, it ruins everything that's going on all around you, and it makes you want to do something to prevent it from happening to other people." His replacement was Frank Melcom, stage name Dameon Ash, who performed with the band for the following months, but does not appear on any releases.
On January 18, 2002, Avenged Sevenfold left Good Life Recordings and signed with Hopeless Records. They re-released their debut album on March 19 and also appeared on the Hopelessly Devoted To You Vol. 4 sampler in April. The band started to receive recognition, performing with bands such as Mushroomhead and Shadows Fall. They spent the year touring in support of their debut album and participated in the Vans Warped Tour. In September, Dameon Ash left Avenged Sevenfold and their current bassist Johnny Christ joined them, completing their best known line-up.
Waking the Fallen and City of Evil (2003–2005)
Having found a new bassist, the group released their second studio album titled Waking the Fallen on Hopeless Records in August 2003. The album featured a more refined and mature sound production in comparison to their previous album. The band received profiles in Billboard and The Boston Globe, and again played on the Vans Warped and Take Action tours. In 2004, Avenged Sevenfold toured again on the Vans Warped Tour and recorded a video for their song "Unholy Confessions" which went into rotation on MTV2's Headbangers Ball. Shortly after the release of Waking the Fallen, Avenged Sevenfold left Hopeless Records and were officially signed to Warner Bros. Records on November 1, 2003.
City of Evil, the band's third album and major label debut, was released on June 7, 2005, and debuted at No.30 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 30,000 copies in its first week of release. It utilized a more classic metal sound than Avenged Sevenfold's previous albums, which had been grouped into the metalcore genre. The album is also notable for the absence of screamed and growled vocals; M. Shadows worked with vocal coach Ron Anderson—whose clients have included Axl Rose and Chris Cornell—for months before the album's release to achieve a sound that had "grit while still having the tone". The album received positive reviews from several magazines and websites and is credited for propelling the band into international popularity.
Avenged Sevenfold (2006–2008)
After playing Ozzfest in 2006, Avenged Sevenfold memorably beat out R&B Singers Rihanna and Chris Brown, Panic! at the Disco, Angels & Airwaves and James Blunt for the title of Best New Artist at the MTV Video Music Awards, thanks in part to their Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas-inspired song "Bat Country." They returned to the Vans Warped Tour, this time headlining and then continued on their own "Cities of Evil Tour." In addition, their lead single "Bat Country" reached No.2 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Charts, No.6 on the Billboard Modern Rock Charts and the accompanying video made it to No.1 on MTV's Total Request Live. Propelled by this success, the album sold well and became Avenged Sevenfold's first Gold record. It was later certified platinum in August 2009.
Avenged Sevenfold was invited to join Ozzfest tour on the main stage, alongside other well known rock/heavy metal acts such as DragonForce, Lacuna Coil, Hatebreed, Disturbed and System of a Down for the first time in 2006. That same year they also completed a worldwide tour, including the US, The United Kingdom (as well as mainland Europe), Japan, Australia and New Zealand. After a sixteen-month promotion of City of Evil, the band announced that they were cancelling their Fall 2006 tour to record new music. In the interim, the band released their first DVD titled All Excess on July 17, 2007. All Excess, which debuted as the No.1 DVD in the US, included live performances and backstage footage that spanned the band's eight-year career. Two tribute albums, Strung Out on Avenged Sevenfold: Bat Wings and Broken Strings and Strung Out on Avenged Sevenfold: The String Tribute were also released in October 2007.
On October 30, 2007, Avenged Sevenfold released their self-titled album, the band's fourth studio album. It debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 with over 90,000 copies sold. Two singles, "Critical Acclaim" and "Almost Easy" were released prior to the album's debut. In December 2007, an animated video was made for "A Little Piece of Heaven". Due to the song's controversial subject matter, however, Warner Brothers only released it to registered MVI users over the internet. The third single, "Afterlife" and its video was released in January 2008. Their fourth single, "Dear God", was released on June 15, 2008. Although critical reception was generally mixed the self-titled album went on to sell over 500,000 copies and was awarded "Album of the Year" at the Kerrang! Awards.
Avenged Sevenfold headlined the 2008 Taste of Chaos tour with Atreyu, Bullet for My Valentine, Blessthefall and Idiot Pilot. They used the footage from their last show in Long Beach for Live in the LBC & Diamonds in the Rough, a two-disc B-sides CD and live DVD which was released on September 16, 2008. They also recorded numerous covers, including Pantera's "Walk", Iron Maiden's "Flash of the Blade" and Black Sabbath's "Paranoid".
Death of The Rev and Nightmare (2009–2011)
In January 2009, M. Shadows confirmed that the band was writing the follow-up to their self-titled fourth album within the upcoming months. They also played at Rock on the Range, from May 16–17, 2009. On April 16, they performed a version of Guns N' Roses' "It's So Easy" onstage with Slash, at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. On December 28, 2009, the band's drummer James "The Rev" Sullivan was found dead at his home at the age of 28. Autopsy results were inconclusive, but on June 9, 2010, the cause of death was revealed to have been an "acute polydrug intoxication due to combined effects of Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Diazepam/Nordiazepam and ethanol". In a statement by the band, they expressed their grief over the death of The Rev and later posted a message from Sullivan's family which expressed their gratitude to his fans for their support. The band members admitted in a number of interviews that they considered disbanding at this point in time. However, on February 17, 2010, Avenged Sevenfold stated that they had entered the studio, along with now-former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, to drum for the album, in place of The Rev.
The single "Nightmare" was digitally released on May 18, 2010. A preview for the song was released on May 6, 2010, on Amazon.com, but was removed soon after for unknown reasons. Mixing for the album had been completed in New York City, and Nightmare was finally released worldwide on July 27, 2010. It met with mixed to positive reviews from music critics but was well received by the fans. Nightmare beat sales projections easily, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 with sales of 163,000 units in its first week. After finishing recording, in December, Portnoy and the band posted simultaneous statements on their websites stating that he would not be their replacement for The Rev. However, Portnoy did travel with the band overseas in December 2010 for three shows in Iraq and Kuwait sponsored by the USO. They played for U.S. Soldiers at Camp Adder, Camp Beuhring, and Balad Air Base. On January 20, 2011, Avenged Sevenfold announced via Facebook that former Confide drummer Arin Ilejay would begin touring with them that year. He was not yet considered a full-time member at this point.
Avenged Sevenfold performed at the Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals on June 3–5, 2011 alongside other bands such as Alter Bridge, System of a Down, and In Flames. In April 2011, the band headlined the Golden God Awards held by Metal Hammer. The same night the band won three awards for "Best Vocalist" (M. Shadows), "Epiphone Best Guitarist(s)" (Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance), and "Affliction's Album of The Year" for Nightmare, while Mike Portnoy won the award for "Drum Workshop's Best Drummer" for his work on the album.
Avenged Sevenfold headlined the 2011 Uproar Festival with supporting acts Three Days Grace, Seether, Bullet for My Valentine, Escape the Fate, among others. In November and December 2011, the band went on their "Buried Alive" tour with supporting acts Hollywood Undead, Asking Alexandria, and Black Veil Brides.
Hail to the King and Waking the Fallen: Resurrected (2012–2014)
On April 11, 2012, Avenged Sevenfold won the award for "Best Live Band" and "Most Dedicated Fans" at the Revolver Golden Gods awards.
The band toured through Asia into April and early May, and played at the Orion Music + More, Festival on June 23 and 24 in Atlantic City, New Jersey alongside Metallica and Cage the Elephant among many others.
On September 24, 2012, Avenged Sevenfold released a new song, titled "Carry On"; it was featured in the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II. On November 15, 2012, vocalist M. Shadows said that the band had been working on a new album since the recording of "Carry On" in August 2012. The band began recording material for the album in January 2013. The band then started streaming snippets of the album in May 2013 on their new radio app. There, Arin Ilejay was confirmed as an official band member and replacement of deceased The Rev. M. Shadows said that the album would sound more blues rock-influenced and more like classic rock/metal like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.
The band was confirmed to play at the 2013 Rock in Rio festival on September 22, 2013. On May 24, 2013, the band have announced dates for their European tour with Five Finger Death Punch and Device serving as their support bands.
The album, entitled Hail to the King, was released on August 27, 2013. This is the first Avenged Sevenfold album without any musical contributions from deceased The Rev. The album's lead single and title track was released on July 15, 2013. Hail to the King charted as No. 1 on the US Billboard 200, the UK albums chart, as well as the Finnish, Brazilian, Canadian, and Irish charts, and was commercially and critically acclaimed. The band headlined Monster Energy's Welcome to Rockville two-day music festival in Jacksonville, Florida, April 26–27, 2014, joined by more than 25 rock acts, such as Motörhead, Rob Zombie, Chevelle, Korn, Staind, Alter Bridge, The Cult, Five Finger Death Punch, Volbeat, Black Label Society, and Seether. On June 13, the band headlined the Friday night of Download Festival 2014. The band also headlined the Mayhem Festival 2014 with Korn, Asking Alexandria, and Trivium.
In March 2014, vocalist M. Shadows revealed in an interview with Loudwire that the band had plans in the works to put something out for the overdue 10th anniversary of Waking the Fallen. Waking the Fallen: Resurrected was released August 25, 2014. The reissue charted No. 10 on the US Billboard 200.
Drummer change and The Stage (2015–2017)
In October 2014, M. Shadows confirmed that the band would begin writing their seventh album during mid-2015.
In July 2015 the band announced on their website that they would part ways with drummer Arin Ilejay, due to "creative differences". In October 2015, the band announced on their website that they had been working with a new drummer for over a year, making sure that it was a good fit before making sudden changes. On October 21, in an interview with Kerrang! magazine, guitarist Zacky Vengeance revealed that the band had been working on the new album for the past couple of months and that a couple of songs had already been completely written. On November 4, 2015, the band announced that Brooks Wackerman would replace Arin Ilejay as the drummer for Avenged Sevenfold. In an interview with Kerrang! magazine on December 3, guitarist Zacky Vengeance said that the new album went in all sorts of aggressive and melodic directions and described it as very "aggro".
On January 14, 2016, Billboard reported that Avenged Sevenfold had been sued by Warner Bros. for trying to leave the label. The band later released a statement clarifying that they wanted to leave because a majority of the executives who helped sign the band to Warner Bros were no longer at the label. They also revealed that the band was going to be entering the studio to record their new album very soon, intending to release it later in 2016. On March 31, the band posted a teaser of their upcoming album on their website.
On August 18, 2016, the band performed a free live show for 1500 people in Minnesota, marking it the first live performance with new drummer Brooks Wackerman. The band was announced as support for Metallica with Volbeat in the U.S. Bank Stadium on August 20, 2016, making it the first ever rock show in the stadium. The band was announced as a headliner of Monster Energy Rock Allegiance 2016, along with Alice in Chains, Slayer, The Offspring, Breaking Benjamin and others. Avenged Sevenfold also performed on "Louder Than Life" festival as headliners on October 1, with Slipknot, Slayer, Disturbed, Korn and other artists. On June 21, the band announced a U.S. Fall tour with Volbeat, Killswitch Engage, and Avatar. The band also announced a UK tour for January 2017 with Disturbed and In Flames. Avenged Sevenfold was announced as a headliner of 2016 edition of Knotfest Mexico. The band also announced the European Tour for February and March 2017 along with Disturbed and Chevelle.
On October 3, 2016, the band's logo Deathbat started appearing as a projection in London. After that, Deathbat also started appearing in Berlin, Toronto and Paris, indicating a release of the new album. On October 12, Chris Jericho posted an Instagram photo of the Deathbat logo with a date 12/9/16 underneath it. He then revealed the supposed title of the album, Voltaic Oceans, It was later revealed that the new album would actually be called The Stage, a concept album about artificial intelligence, which was released on October 28, 2016, via Capitol Records. The album was released to generally favorable reviews, and the band decided to make a unique stage production for it, hiring Cirque du Soleil directors for its making.
Avenged Sevenfold was announced as the main support act on Metallica's WorldWired 2017 stadium summer tour in the US and Canada, alongside Volbeat and Gojira. The band also announced a series of 2017 US headlining summer shows of The Stage World Tour, with Volbeat, Motionless in White, and A Day to Remember as special guests across various dates.
On December 22, 2017, the band released a deluxe edition of The Stage that included one new original track, six cover songs, and four live tracks from their European tour earlier that year.
In a December 2017 interview with Billboard, M. Shadows revealed that the band are planning "a big US summer 2018 tour", and that the band would start working on the follow-up to The Stage in late 2018. End of the World tour with Prophets of Rage was later announced for summer 2018. The band was also announced as one of the headliners of 2018's Rock on the Range and Download Festival, in addition to appearing at Hellfest, Graspop Metal Meeting, Rock am Ring and Rock im Park the same year. Due to a blood blister forming in M. Shadows' throat, the band cancelled remaining dates from their summer tour with Prophets of Rage.
Avenged Sevenfold was nominated at 60th Annual Grammy Awards in "Best Rock Song" category for The Stage.
The band released a single titled "Mad Hatter" in September 2018, which was made specifically for the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. It would later be a part of the Black Reign EP released later that month, which comprises all four of the songs Avenged Sevenfold made for the Call of Duty franchise.
Upcoming eighth studio album (2018–present)
In a December 2017 interview with Billboard, M. Shadows revealed that the band are planning "a big US summer 2018 tour", and that the band would start working on the follow-up to The Stage in late 2018. Bassist Johnny Christ in a May 2018 interview confirmed that the band is currently getting ideas and writing in their own studios to start the next record in September or October 2018.
In September 2018, Synyster Gates revealed in an interview with Loudwire that the band has started working on their eighth studio album, saying "It's still early on, but we're working on a bunch of stuff". In March 2019, Zacky Vengeance stated the band would take the rest of the year off tour to concentrate on the upcoming album, saying the band is really focused on the new material. In January 2020, Avenged Sevenfold released "Set Me Free", an unreleased song recorded during the Hail to the King recording sessions. They also announced that the song would be included in a remastered re-release of Live in the LBC & Diamonds in the Rough, released on March 6. A limited edition clear vinyl of Diamonds in the Rough was also released.
Musical style and influences
Members of Avenged Sevenfold cite In Flames, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Slayer, Mr. Bungle, Elton John, Leonard Cohen, At the Gates, Helloween, Dream Theater, Pennywise, NOFX, Pantera, Def Leppard, Guns N' Roses, The Beatles, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones as influences.
The band has been categorized under several genres of heavy and extreme music, primarily heavy metal, alternative metal, hard rock, and, on their album The Stage, progressive metal, with their earlier albums being categorized as metalcore. Avenged Sevenfold's musical style has consistently evolved throughout the duration of the band's career. Initially, the band's debut album Sounding the Seventh Trumpet consisted almost entirely of a metalcore sound. However, there were several deviations from this genre, most notably in "Streets", which shows a punk rock style, and "Warmness on the Soul", which is a piano ballad. On Waking the Fallen, the band displayed a metalcore style once more, but added more clean singing and leaned a bit more towards metal and bit less close to hardcore. In the band's DVD All Excess, producer Andrew Murdock explained this transition: "When I met the band after Sounding the Seventh Trumpet had come out before they had recorded Waking the Fallen, M. Shadows said to me 'This record is screaming. The record we want to make is going to be half-screaming half-singing. I don't want to scream anymore. And the record after that is going to be all singing'."
On Avenged Sevenfold's third album City of Evil, the band chose to outright abandon the metalcore genre, creating a sound consistent with hard rock and heavy metal. Avenged Sevenfold's self-titled album experiments with an even wider array of musical genres than that from City of Evil, most notably in "Dear God", which shows a country style and "A Little Piece of Heaven", which is circled within the influence of Broadway show tunes, using primarily brass instruments and stringed orchestra to take over most of the role of the lead and rhythm guitar. Nightmare contains further deviations, including a piano ballad called "Fiction", progressive metal-oriented track "Save Me" and a heavy metal sound with extreme vocals and heavier instrumentation on "God Hates Us". The band's sixth studio album Hail to the King shows more of a classic metal sound and a riff-oriented approach. On their newest album The Stage, the band explores further into progressive metal, blending it with elements of thrash metal. In the past, Avenged Sevenfold has also been described as screamo and pop punk metal.
Avenged Sevenfold has been criticized for "not being metal enough". In response to this, vocalist M. Shadows said: "we play music for the sake of music, not so that we can be labeled a metal band. That's like telling us we aren't punk enough. Who cares?" Avenged Sevenfold is one of the notable acts of the new wave of American heavy metal.
Band members
Current members
M. Shadows – lead vocals, piano (1999–present)
Zacky Vengeance – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1999–present); lead guitar (1999–2001)
Synyster Gates – lead guitar, piano, backing vocals (2001–present)
Johnny Christ – bass, backing vocals (2002–present)
Brooks Wackerman – drums (2015–present)
Former members
Matt Wendt – bass (1999–2000)
Justin Sane – bass, piano (2000–2001)
Dameon Ash – bass (2001–2002)
The Rev – drums, piano, co-lead vocals (1999–2009; died 2009)
Arin Ilejay – drums (2011–2015)
Session and touring musicians
Mike Portnoy – drums (2010)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Sounding the Seventh Trumpet (2001)
Waking the Fallen (2003)
City of Evil (2005)
Avenged Sevenfold (2007)
Nightmare (2010)
Hail to the King (2013)
The Stage (2016)
Accolades
References
External links
American alternative metal musical groups
American metalcore musical groups
Articles which contain graphical timelines
Capitol Records artists
Hard rock musical groups from California
Heavy metal musical groups from California
Hopeless Records artists
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1999
Musical groups from Orange County, California
Musical quintets
Warner Records artists
1999 establishments in California
Good Life Recordings artists | false | [
"Maria Arredondo is the first album by Norwegian singer Maria Arredondo, released in Norway on March 17, 2003, with a second edition released on June 30, 2003. The album was the most successful album by Arredondo either in critics or sales. It has 12 songs with the second edition and 5 singles were released. One of the singles, \"In Love With An Angel\", a duet with Christian Ingebrigtsen, was nominated for the 2003 Norwegian Grammy Awards as 'Song Of The Year'.\n\nHistory \nAfter two years recording the songs, Arredondo signed with Universal Music Norway. The album entered the Norwegian Top 40 and Norwegian Topp 30 Norsk at #2 and spent 23 weeks on the charts. It was recorded in Sweden and Norway, and was produced by several well-known Scandinavian producers such as Jonas von Der Burg, Espen Lind, Bluefish, Jonny Sjo, Harry Sommerdahl and Bjørn Erik Pedersen. Several successful songwriters also contributed, including Christian Ingebrigtsen, Jonas von Der Burg, Silje Nergaard, Espen Lind and Harry Sommerdahl. The first single released was \"Can Let Go\". The second single, \"Just A Little Heartache\" was very successful in the radio charts. \"In Love With An Angel\" was the third single and became the first and only #1 single for Arredondo.\n\nThe album was re-released with a new song, \"Hardly Hurts At All\", which was released as a single. The last single from the album was \"A Thousand Nights\". The album went platinum and sold more than 70,000 copies.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nAlbum\n\nSingles\n\nReferences \n\n2003 debut albums\nMaria Arredondo albums\nUniversal Music Norway albums",
"The discography of Vanessa Amorosi, an Australian pop singer, consists of five studio albums, two compilation albums and thirty-three singles. In Australia, Amorosi signed a recording contract with BMG in 1999, she was also signed with Universal from 2006 to 2012.\n\nAmorosi's debut album The Power was released in April 2000. The album reached number one on the Australian albums chart and was certified platinum four times by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). It also went top ten in Germany where it was certified gold. The album's most successful single \"Absolutely Everybody\" was a top ten hit throughout Europe, reaching number seven in the United Kingdom, and remains her most successful single worldwide. In 2001, a compilation of rarities called Turn to Me was released in Australia. Her second album Change was released in Germany in November 2002, but for unknown reasons skipped an Australian release. After several years from the spotlight, Amorosi returned in 2008 with the release of her third album Somewhere in the Real World which debuted at number four in Australia and achieved gold status. The album produced Amorosi's third platinum accredited single \"Perfect\". Her fourth album, Hazardous was released in November 2009 which later was certified Platinum by ARIA. In November 2011, Amorosi was set to release her fifth studio album V, but the album was delayed indefinitely following the commercial under-performance of its two singles \"Gossip\" and \"Amazing\". Amorosi later left Universal Music, leaving the album shelved.\n\nAlbums\n\nStudio albums\n\nExtended plays\n\nCompilation albums \n\nNotes\n a ^ Released in Germany only.\n\nSingles \n\nNotes\n\nMusic videos\n\nGuest Appearances\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\nOfficial website\n\nDiscographies of Australian artists\nPop music discographies"
] |
[
"Lord Voldemort",
"Character development"
] | C_7776d2fc9b234c23939513b312811d39_1 | How did Voldemort's character begin? | 1 | How did Lord Voldemort's character begin? | Lord Voldemort | In a 2001 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry--he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And--so--but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since." In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death." Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. Some literary analysts have considered possible meanings in the name: Philip Nel states that Voldemort is derived from the French for "flight of death", and in a 2002 paper, Nilsen and Nilsen suggest that readers get a "creepy feeling" from the name Voldemort, because of the French word "mort" ("death") within it and that word's association with cognate English words derived from the Latin mors. CANNOTANSWER | Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. | Lord Voldemort (, in the films) is a sobriquet for Tom Marvolo Riddle, a character and the main antagonist in J. K. Rowling's series of Harry Potter novels. The character first appeared in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which was published in 1997, and returned either in person or in flashbacks in each book and its film adaptation in the series except the third, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in which he is only mentioned.
Voldemort is the archenemy of Harry Potter, who according to a prophecy has "the power to vanquish the Dark Lord". He attempts to murder the boy, but instead kills his parents, Lily and James Potter, and leaves Harry with a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. Nearly every witch or wizard dares not utter his name and refers to him instead with such monikers as "You-Know-Who", "He Who Must Not Be Named", or "the Dark Lord". Voldemort's obsession with blood purity signifies his aim to rid the wizarding world of Muggle (non-magical) heritage and to conquer both worlds, Muggle and wizarding, to achieve pure-blood dominance. Through his mother's family, he is the last descendant of the wizard Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He is the leader of the Death Eaters, a group of evil wizards and witches dedicated to ridding the Wizarding World of Muggles and establishing Voldemort as its supreme ruler.
Character development
In a 1999 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter, and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry—he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And—so—but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since."
In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death."
Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. The name Voldemort is derived from the French vol de mort which means "flight of death" or "theft of death".
Appearances
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Voldemort makes his debut in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. In this story, Rowling introduces him as the Dark Lord who tried to kill Harry Potter because the boy was prophesied to destroy him. Voldemort murdered Harry's parents, James and Lily, but as a result of his mother's love and willingness to sacrifice herself for him, baby Harry survived when Voldemort tried to murder him with a Killing Curse. Voldemort was disembodied, and Harry was left with a mysterious, lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead as a result.
In the book, Voldemort unsuccessfully tries to regain his dissolved body by stealing the titular Philosopher's Stone. To achieve his objective, Voldemort uses Professor Quirrell's aid by latching onto the back of the latter's head. However, at the climax of the book, Harry manages to prevent Voldemort from stealing the stone.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
In the second instalment, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Rowling introduces Tom Marvolo Riddle, a manifestation of a teenage Voldemort that resides inside a magical diary found by Ginny Weasley. In this book, Ginny is written as a shy girl with a crush on Harry. Feeling anxious and lonely, she begins to write into the diary and shares her deepest fears with the sympathetic Tom. However, at the climax of the story, when Riddle rearranges the letters in his name to write "I am Lord Voldemort", Riddle is revealed as a magical manifestation of the boy who would later grow up to become the Dark Lord. Riddle states he has grown strong on Ginny's fears and eventually possesses her, using her as a pawn to unlock the Chamber of Secrets, whence a basilisk is set free and petrifies several Hogwarts students. Harry defeats the manifestation of Riddle from the diary and the basilisk. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Albus Dumbledore reveals to Harry that the diary was one of Voldemort's Horcruxes.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Voldemort does not appear in the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, either in person or as a magical manifestation. He is, however, heard when Harry passes out from the harsh effects of a Dementor. Towards the end of the story, Sybill Trelawney, the Divination professor, makes a rare genuine prophecy: "The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight, the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever before. Tonight... before midnight... the servant... will set out... to rejoin... his master..." Though it is initially implied that the prophecy refers to Sirius Black, the book's ostensible antagonist, the servant is eventually revealed to be Peter Pettigrew, who, for the 12 years since Voldemort's fall, has been disguised as Ron's pet rat, Scabbers.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
In the fourth instalment of the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort reappears at the start and the climax of the book. Rowling lets many seemingly unrelated plot elements fall into order. It is revealed that Voldemort's minion Barty Crouch Jr, disguised as Hogwarts professor Mad-Eye Moody, has manipulated the events of the Triwizard Tournament in Harry's favour. Voldemort's goal is to teleport Harry under Dumbledore's watch as a reluctant participant to the Little Hangleton graveyard, where the Riddle family is buried. Harry is captured and, after Pettigrew uses Harry's blood to fulfil a gruesome magical ritual, Voldemort regains his body and is restored to his full power. For the first time in the series, Rowling describes his appearance: "tall and skeletally thin", with a face "whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was as flat as a snake's with slits for nostrils". Rowling writes that his "hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cat's, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness". It was revealed that, while in Albania, Pettigrew had captured the Ministry of Magic official Bertha Jorkins, who was tortured for information about the Ministry. After they learned that Barty Crouch Jr, a faithful Death Eater, had been smuggled out of Azkaban and was privately confined at his father's house, they killed her. With Pettigrew's help, Voldemort creates a small, rudimentary body, corporeal enough to travel and perform magic, and formulated a plan to restore his own body by capturing Harry. A portion of the plan had been overheard by Frank Bryce, a gardener, whom Voldemort then killed. Voldemort then completes his plan and returns to life in his full body as a result of the ritual with Harry's blood. He then summons his Death Eaters to the graveyard to witness the death of Harry as he challenges Harry to a duel. However, when Voldemort duels Harry, their wands become magically locked together due to the twin Phoenix feather cores of the wands. Because of a phenomenon later revealed as Priori Incantatem, ghost-like manifestations of Voldemort's most recent victims (including Harry's parents) then appear and distract Voldemort, allowing Harry just enough time to escape via Portkey with the body of fellow-student, Cedric Diggory, who was murdered by Pettigrew on Voldemort's orders.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Voldemort appears at the climax of the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, having again plotted against Harry. In this book, Harry goes through extreme emotional stress, and according to Rowling, it was necessary to prove that Harry is emotionally vulnerable and thus human, in contrast to his nemesis Voldemort, who is emotionally invulnerable and thus inhuman: "[Harry is] a very human hero, and this is, obviously, there's a contrast, between him, as a very human hero, and Voldemort, who has deliberately dehumanised himself. […] and Harry, therefore, did have to reach a point where he did almost break down." In this book, Voldemort makes liberal use of the Ministry of Magic's refusal to believe that he has returned. Voldemort engineers a plot to free Bellatrix Lestrange and other Death Eaters from Azkaban and then embarks on a scheme to retrieve the full record of a prophecy stored in the Department of Mysteries regarding Harry and himself. He sends a group of Death Eaters to retrieve the prophecy, where the Order of the Phoenix meets them. All but Bellatrix are captured, and Voldemort engages in a ferocious duel with Dumbledore. When Dumbledore gets the upper hand, Voldemort attempts to possess Harry but finds that he cannot; Harry is too full of that which Voldemort finds incomprehensible, and which he detests as weakness: love. Sensing that Dumbledore could win, Voldemort disapparates, but not before the Minister for Magic sees him in person, making his return to life public knowledge in the next book.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Voldemort does not appear in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, although his presence and actions are felt: he once again declares war, and begins to rise to power once more. He murders Amelia Bones of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and begins to target members of the Order of the Phoenix, including Emmeline Vance.
Rowling uses several chapters as exposition to establish Voldemort's backstory. In a series of flashbacks, using the pensieve as a plot device, she reveals that Voldemort was the son of the witch Merope Gaunt and a Muggle called Tom Riddle. Riddle abandoned Merope before their child's birth, soon after which Merope died. After living in an orphanage, young Riddle met Dumbledore, who told him he was a wizard and arranged for him to attend Hogwarts. Riddle was outwardly a model student, but was in reality a psychopath who took sadistic pleasure in using his powers to harm and control people. He eventually murdered his father and grandparents as revenge for abandoning him. The book also discusses Riddle's hatred of Muggles, his obsession with Horcruxes, and his desire to split his soul to achieve immortality. Rowling stated Voldemort's conception under the influence of a love potion symbolises the coercive circumstances under which he was brought into the world.
In the main plot of the book, Voldemort's next step is to engineer an assault on Hogwarts, and to kill Dumbledore. This is accomplished by Draco Malfoy, who arranges transportation of Death Eaters into Hogwarts by a pair of Vanishing Cabinets, which bypass the extensive protective enchantments placed around the school. The cabinets allow Voldemort's Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts, where battle commences and Dumbledore is cornered. Hogwarts professor (and re-doubled agent) Severus Snape uses the Killing Curse against Dumbledore when Draco could not force himself to do so.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort furthers his quest for ultimate power. He disposes of the Minister for Magic and replaces him with Pius Thicknesse, who is under the Imperius Curse. Establishing a totalitarian police state, he has Muggle-borns persecuted and arrested for "stealing magic" from the "pure blood" wizards. After failing to kill Harry with Draco's father Lucius Malfoy's borrowed wand (to avoid the effect of Priori Incantatem), he goes on a murderous search for the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand ever created, seeing it as the weapon he needs to overcome Harry's wand and make him truly invincible. He goes on a quest that takes him out of the country to Gregorovitch's wand shop, where he kills the old wandmaker. His journey also takes him to Nurmengard, the prison where Gellert Grindelwald is kept, and he kills Grindelwald as well. He finally locates the Elder Wand and steals it from Dumbledore's tomb.
Later, Voldemort finds out that Harry and his friends are hunting and destroying his Horcruxes when informed of their heist on the Lestranges' vault at Gringotts in search for Hufflepuff's Cup. After offering the occupants of Hogwarts mercy if they give up Harry, he assembles a large army and launches an invasion of the castle, where Harry is searching for Ravenclaw's Diadem. Voldemort orders his pet snake Nagini to execute Snape, believing it would make him the true master of the Elder Wand, since Snape killed Dumbledore. He then calls an hour's armistice, in exchange for Harry. When Harry willingly walks into Voldemort's camp in the Forbidden Forest, Voldemort strikes him down with the Elder Wand. However, the use of Harry's blood to resurrect Voldemort's body proves to be a major setback: while Harry's blood runs in Voldemort's veins, Harry cannot be killed as his mother's protection lives on now in Voldemort too. Instead, Voldemort destroys the part of his own soul that resides in Harry's body. Voldemort forces Rubeus Hagrid to carry Harry's apparently lifeless body back to the castle as a trophy, sparking another battle during which Nagini, his last Horcrux, is destroyed by Neville Longbottom. The battle then moves into the Great Hall, where Voldemort fights Minerva McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Horace Slughorn simultaneously. Harry then reveals himself and explains to Voldemort that Draco became the true master of the Elder Wand when he disarmed Dumbledore; Harry, in turn, won the wand's allegiance when he took Draco's wand. Refusing to believe this, Voldemort casts the Killing Curse with the Elder Wand while Harry uses a Disarming Charm with Draco's, but the Elder Wand refuses to kill its master and the spell rebounds on Voldemort who, with all of his Horcruxes destroyed, finally dies. His body is laid in a different chamber from all the others who died battling him.
Rowling stated that after his death, Voldemort is forced to exist in the stunted infant-like form that Harry sees in the King's Cross-like Limbo after his confrontation with Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest. Rowling also mentioned that, despite his extreme fear of death, he cannot become a ghost.
Appearances in other material
In Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, it is revealed that Bellatrix gave birth to Voldemort's daughter Delphi in Malfoy Manor before the Battle of Hogwarts. Twenty-two years later, Delphi poses as Cedric's cousin and manipulates Harry and Ginny's second son Albus Severus Potter and his friend, Draco and Astoria Greengrass's son Scorpius Malfoy, into stealing a prototype Time Turner with which she hopes to resurrect her father. Using the Time Turner, Scorpius accidentally creates an alternative timeline where Voldemort killed Harry at the battle and now rules the wizarding world. In an attempt to achieve this future, Delphi travels to Godric's Hollow on the night Voldemort killed Harry's parents, hoping to avert the prophecy that led to her father's downfall. After receiving a message from his son, Harry, together with Ron, Hermione and Draco (who by now has become friends with Harry after they join forces to save their respective sons) transfigures himself into Voldemort so that he can distract Delphi, allowing them to overpower her. The real Voldemort kills Harry's parents as prophesied, and Delphi is sent to Azkaban.
Portrayals within films
Voldemort appears in every Harry Potter film, with the exception of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Several actors have portrayed him in his varying incarnations and ages.
In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Voldemort's manifestation is as a face on the back of Quirrell's head, an effect achieved by computer generated imagery. Ian Hart, the actor who played Quirrell in the same film, provided the voice and the facial source for this character. Voldemort also appears in a scene in the Forbidden Forest where he is seen drinking the blood of a unicorn. As Voldemort's face was altered enough by CG work, and Hart's voice was affected enough, there was no confusion by Hart's playing of the two roles. In that film, he was also shown in a flashback sequence when he arrived at the home of James and Lily Potter to kill them. In this scene Voldemort is played by Richard Bremmer, though his face is never seen. His next appearance would be in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as the 16-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle (portrayed by Christian Coulson).
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort is initially only heard, possessing the scratchy, weak voice heard in the first film. By the film's climax, however, he appears in his physical form for the first time, played by Ralph Fiennes. As in the book, Voldemort is shown clad in dark black robes, being tall and emaciated, with no hair and yellowish teeth; his wand has a white tone and the handle appears to be made of bone; his finger nails are long and pale blue while his toe nails appear to be infected. Unlike in the book, his pupils are not cat-like and his eyes are blue, because producer David Heyman felt that his evil would not be able to be seen and would not fill the audience with fear (his eyes do briefly take on a snake-like appearance when he opens them after turning human, but quickly turn normal). As in the book, the film version of Voldemort has snake-like slit nostrils with the flesh of his nose significantly pressed back. Ralph Fiennes' nose was not covered in makeup on the set, but was digitally removed in post-production. In this first appearance, Voldemort also has a forked tongue, but this element was removed for the subsequent films.
Fiennes stated that he had two weeks to shoot the climactic showdown scene where he is gloating over a terrified Harry, played by Daniel Radcliffe. Fiennes said with a chuckle: "I have no doubt children will be afraid of me now if they weren't before." In preparation, he read the novel Goblet of Fire, but jokingly conceded: "I was only interested in my scene, and I had to go through thousands and thousands of other scenes which I did, dutifully, until I got to my scene and I read it many, many, many, many, many times and that was my research." Fiennes reprised his role as Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2.
Fiennes's nephew, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, portrayed Tom Riddle as a child in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. By the time filming arrived Christian Coulson was 29, and not considered suitable to return as the adolescent Riddle. Thomas James Longley was originally scheduled to take over the role, but last minute renegotiations saw Frank Dillane cast instead.
Characterisation
Outward appearance
After he regains his body in the fourth book, Rowling describes Voldemort as having pale skin, a chalk-white, skull-like face, snake-like slits for nostrils, red eyes and cat-like slits for pupils, a skeletally thin body and long, thin hands with unnaturally long fingers. As mentioned in the first chapter of the seventh book, he also has no hair or lips. Earlier in life, as seen through flashbacks contained in the second and sixth books, Tom Marvolo Riddle was handsome and tall with pale skin, jet black hair, and dark brown eyes. He could charm many people with his looks. The transformation into his monstrous state is believed to have been the result of creating his Horcruxes and becoming less human as he continued to divide his soul. In the films, Voldemort's eyes are blue with round pupils.
Personality
Rowling described Voldemort as "the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years". She elaborated that he is a "raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering", and whose only ambition in life is to become all-powerful and immortal. He is also a sadist who hurts and murders people—especially Muggles—for his own amusement. He has no conscience, feels no remorse or empathy, and does not recognise the worth and humanity of anybody except himself.
He feels no need for human companionship or friendship, and cannot comprehend love or affection for another. He believes he is superior to everyone around him, to the point that he frequently refers to himself in the third person as "Lord Voldemort". Rowling also stated that Voldemort is "incredibly power hungry. Racist, really", and that if Voldemort were to look into the Mirror of Erised, in which one sees one's greatest desire, he would see "Himself, all-powerful and eternal. That's what he wants."
Rowling also stated that Voldemort's conception by influence of Amortentia—a love potion administered by his mother, a witch named Merope Gaunt, to the Muggle Tom Riddle—is related to his inability to understand love; it is "a symbolic way of showing that he came from a loveless union—but of course, everything would have changed if Merope had survived and raised him herself and loved him. The enchantment under which Tom Riddle fathered Voldemort is important because it shows coercion, and there can't be many more prejudicial ways to enter the world than as the result of such a union".
Like most archetypical villains, Voldemort's arrogance leads to his downfall. He also suffers from a pathological fear of death, which he regards as a shameful and ignominious human weakness. According to Rowling, his Boggart would be his own corpse. Rowling also said that the difference between Harry and Voldemort is that Harry accepts mortality, and thus Harry is, in the end, stronger than his nemesis.
Magical abilities and skills
Rowling establishes Voldemort throughout the series as an extremely powerful, intelligent, and ruthless dark wizard, described as the greatest and most powerful Dark Wizard of all time. He is known as one of the greatest Legilimens in the world and a highly accomplished Occlumens; he can read minds and shield his own from penetration. Besides Dumbledore, he is also the only wizard ever known to be able to apparate silently. Voldemort was also said to fear one wizard alone, Dumbledore.
In the final book, Voldemort flies unsupported, something that amazes those who see it. Voldemort, like his ancestral family, the Gaunts, is a Parselmouth, meaning he can converse with serpents. This skill was inherited from his ancestor, Salazar Slytherin. The Gaunt family speak Parseltongue among themselves. This highly unusual trait may be preserved through inbreeding, a practice employed by the Gaunt Family to maintain their blood's purity. When Voldemort attempts to kill Harry his ability to speak Parseltongue is passed to Harry through the small bit of the former's soul. After that bit of soul is destroyed, Harry loses this ability. In a flashback in the sixth novel, Voldemort boasts to Dumbledore during a job interview that he has "pushed the boundaries of magic farther than they had ever before". Dumbledore states that Voldemort's knowledge of magic is more extensive than any wizard alive and that even Dumbledore's most powerful protective spells and charms would likely be insufficient if Voldemort returned to full power. Dumbledore also said that Voldemort was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen. Although Voldemort remains highly accomplished and prodigious in skill, he is enormously lacking and highly inept in the most powerful magic, love. This inability to love and trust others proves to be Voldemort's greatest weakness in the series. Voldemort initially voices scepticism that his own magic might not be the most powerful, but upon returning to power, he admits to his Death Eaters that he had overlooked the ancient and powerful magic which Lily Potter invoked and that would protect Harry from harm.
On her website, Rowling wrote that Voldemort's wand is made of yew, whose sap is poisonous and which symbolises death. It forms a deliberate contrast to Harry's wand, which is made of holly, which she chose because holly is alleged to repel evil.
Rowling establishes in the books that Voldemort is magically connected to Harry via Harry's forehead scar. He disembodies himself when his Killing Curse targeting Harry rebounds on him, leaving the scar on Harry's forehead. In the books, and to a lesser extent in the films, Harry's scar serves as an indicator of Voldemort's presence: it burns when the Dark Lord is near or when Voldemort is feeling murderous or exultant. According to Rowling, by attacking Harry when he was a baby Voldemort gave him "tools [that] no other wizard possessed—the scar and the ability it conferred, a magical window into Voldemort's mind".
Family
Notes: The names 'Thomas' and 'Mary' Riddle are taken from the films. The Potter Family is not shown.
Riddle family
The Riddle family, an old gentry family, consisted of Thomas and Mary Riddle and their son, Tom Riddle, Esq. They owned over half of the valley that the town of Little Hangleton lay in, and Thomas was the most prominent inhabitant of that town. They lived in a large house with fine gardens, but were unpopular amongst the local residents due to their snobbish attitudes. Tom, the only child of Thomas and Mary, was known as a playboy, his main interests being womanizing and horse-riding.
Rowling revealed in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that young Merope Gaunt fell in love with Riddle, peering at him through the windows and bushes at every opportunity. Merope's brother Morfin disapproved of his sister's affection for Tom and hexed him as he rode by, covering him in hives. This breach of wizarding law, and the ensuing violent struggle with Ministry of Magic officials, led to Marvolo and Morfin being imprisoned in Azkaban. As surmised by Dumbledore, once Merope was alone and no longer dominated by her father, she could make her move for Tom. She offered him a drink laced with a love potion, and he became infatuated with her; they soon eloped and, within three months of the marriage, Merope became pregnant. Merope decided to stop giving Tom the love potion, having come to the belief such enchantment of a man was tantamount to slavery. She also revealed her witch status to Tom, believing either that he had fallen in love with her on his own or he would at least stay for their unborn child. She was wrong, and Tom quickly left his pregnant wife and went home to his parents, claiming to have been "hoodwinked" and tricked into marrying Merope. Tom Marvolo Riddle, their son, was born on 31 December 1926 Merope died in childbirth, leaving the baby to grow up alone in an orphanage.
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, it is revealed that Voldemort murdered his father and grandparents, leaving himself the only surviving member of the Riddle family.
House of Gaunt
Most of the exposition of the House of Gaunts background occurs in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, through the medium of Dumbledore's Pensieve. The Gaunts were once a powerful and influential family, and are the last known descendants of Salazar Slytherin. However, a vein of mental instability and violence within the family, reinforced through cousin marriages intended to preserve the pureblood line, had reduced them to poverty and squalor, as shown in the Pensieve's "memory" that Harry and Dumbledore witnessed. Like Salazar Slytherin, the Gaunts spoke Parseltongue. At the time of the story, the Gaunts' only material asset is a ramshackle shanty in Little Hangleton, that stood in a thicket in a valley opposite the Riddle House. Like the Riddles, the Gaunts were also unpopular with the local residents, with a reputation for being vulgar and intimidating.
Marvolo Gaunt was the last family patriarch. He was sentenced to a short term in Azkaban for his and his son's assault upon a Ministry of Magic official; this affected his health and he died soon after returning home. His signet ring passed to his son, Morfin Gaunt, who was convicted of assaulting a Muggle, and later died in Azkaban, convicted this time as a party to the murder of Tom Riddle Jr. and Riddle's parents.
Dumbledore discovers the real culprit while visiting Morfin in Azkaban to gather information about Voldemort. After Dumbledore successfully extracts Morfin's memory of his encounter with his nephew, he tries to use the evidence to have Morfin released, but Morfin dies before the decision can be made. The House of Gaunt ended with Morfin's death.
Merope Gaunt () was the daughter of Marvolo, and sister of Morfin. Harry's first impression of her was that she looked "like the most defeated person he had ever seen". She married Tom Riddle Jr and became pregnant within three months of the wedding. It is suggested that she tricked her husband into loving her by using a love potion, but when she became pregnant, she chose to stop administering the potion. It is implied that Merope had grown tired of living the lie and thought that her husband might have grown to love her, or that he might have stayed for the sake of their unborn child; however, he left her. Desperate, Merope wandered through the streets of London. The only thing she had left was the heavy gold locket that had once belonged to Salazar Slytherin, one of her family's most treasured items, which she sold for a small amount. When she was due to give birth, she stumbled into a Muggle orphanage, where she gave birth to her only son. She died within the next hour.
Gormlaith Gaunt was a 17th-century descendant of Salazar Slytherin, and like Salazar, a Parselmouth. Her wand was that which once belonged to Salazar himself. Educated at Hogwarts, Gormlaith lived in Ireland in the early 1600s. In about 1608, Gormlaith killed her estranged unnamed sister, and her sister's husband, William Sayre (a descendant of the Irish witch Morrigan), and kidnapped their five-year-old daughter, Isolt Sayre, raising her in the neighbouring valley of Coomcallee, or "Hag's Glen", because she felt that her parents' association with Muggles would badly influence Isolt. Fanatical and cruel, Gormlaith used Dark magic to isolate Isolt from others, forbade her a wand, and did not allow her to attend Hogwarts as she herself had, disgusted that it was now filled with Muggle-borns. After twelve years with Gormlaith, Isolt stole Gormlaith's wand and fled to the Colonies and settled in Massachusetts, where she founded the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When Gormlaith learned of the school, she pursued her niece in Massachusetts, where she was killed by Isolt's friend, William the Pukwudgie, with a venom-tipped arrow.
The Gaunts, including Voldemort, are distantly related to Harry because they are descendants of the Peverell brothers.
Reception
Several people have drawn a parallel between Voldemort and some politicians. Rowling has said that Voldemort was "a sort of" Adolf Hitler, and that there is some parallel with Nazism in her books. Rowling also compared Voldemort to Joseph Stalin. Alfonso Cuarón, director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban compared Voldemort to George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein, who he said "...have selfish interests and are very much in love with power. Also, a disregard for the environment. A love for manipulating people." Andrew Slack and the Harry Potter Alliance compare media consolidation in the US to Voldemort's regime in Deathly Hallows and its control over the Daily Prophet and other media saying that "Once Voldemort took over every form of media in the wizarding world, Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix formed an independent media movement called 'Potterwatch'. Now the HP Alliance and Wizard Rock have come together to fight for a Potterwatch movement in the real world to fight back against Big VoldeMedia from further pushing out local and foreign news, minority representation, and the right to a Free Press." Julia Turner of Slate Magazine also noted similarities between the events of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the War on Terror. She said that Voldemort commits acts of terrorism such as destroying bridges, murdering innocents, and forcing children to kill their elders.
Voldemort has also been compared with other characters within fiction, for example Sauron from The Lord of the Rings; they are, during the time when the main plot takes place, seeking to recover their lost power after having been considered dead or at least no longer a threat, and are also so feared that they are sometimes unnamed.
IGN listed Voldemort as their seventh favourite Harry Potter character, calling him "truly frightening".
In popular culture
Several campaigns have used Voldemort to compare his evil to the influence of politicians, large media and corporations. "Lord Voldemort" is a nickname sometimes used for Peter Mandelson. Voldemort is also a recurring theme among wizard rock bands. Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock! is the second album from Harry and the Potters, and the character is mentioned in songs such as "The Dark Lord Lament" and "Flesh, Blood, and Bone".
Voldemort has been parodied in various venues. In The Simpsons 13th season's premiere, "Treehouse of Horror XII", Montgomery Burns appears as "Lord Montymort". A parody of Voldemort appears in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as "Lord Moldybutt", an enemy of Nigel Planter (a parody of Harry). Voldemort also appears in the Potter Puppet Pals sketches by Neil Cicierega. One of the episodes including him was the seventeenth most viewed video of all time as of 2008 and the winner for "Best Comedy" of the year 2007 at YouTube.
"Continuing the Magic", an article in the 21 May 2007 issue of Time, includes mock book covers designed by author Lon Tweeten, laced with pop culture references. One of them, the "Dark Lord of the Dance", shows Voldemort teaming up with Harry on Broadway. In the MAD Magazine parodies of the films, the character is called Lord Druckermort, a backwards reference to the magazine's longtime caricaturist Mort Drucker. In Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1969, a young Tom Marvolo Riddle (introduced as "Tom", whose middle name is a "marvel" and last name is a "conundrum") appears, and becomes the new avatar of Oliver Haddo at the story's conclusion. In A Very Potter Musical, Voldemort is played by actor Joe Walker.
In a segment celebrating British children's literature at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London, an inflatable Voldemort appeared alongside other villains, The Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook, and Cruella de Vil, to haunt children's dreams, before the arrival of a group of over thirty Mary Poppins who descended with their umbrellas to defeat them.
During the 2016 United States elections, Daniel Radcliffe was asked by Sky News journalist Craig Dillon if he would compare Donald Trump to Lord Voldemort; Radcliffe responded, "Trump is worse".
Voldemort appears in The Lego Batman Movie as one of the prisoners in the Phantom Zone that Joker recruits to take over Gotham City. Though Ralph Fiennes is featured in this movie as the voice of the British butler Alfred Pennyworth, he does not reprise his role as Voldemort. Instead, Voldemort is voiced by Eddie Izzard.
Outside of the Harry Potter video games, Voldemort is also a playable character in Lego Dimensions, with archive audio of Fiennes' portrayal in the films used for his voiceovers.
A 2018 Italian fan film titled Voldemort: Origins of the Heir depicts the story of Tom Riddle's rise to power.
Voldemort appears in Space Jam: A New Legacy, in the crowd for the game between the Tune Squad and the Goon Squad.
An upcoming French fan-made short-film titled The House of Gaunt - Lord Voldemort Origins explores the origin story of Voldemort and The Gaunt family.
Notes
References
External links
Lord Voldemort at Harry Potter Lexicon
Fictional characters with disfigurements
Fictional characters with immortality
Fictional characters with spirit possession or body swapping abilities
Fictional dictators
Fictional English people
Fictional hypnotists and indoctrinators
Fictional illeists
Fictional mass murderers
Fictional necromancers
Fictional offspring of rape
Fictional patricides
Fictional terrorists
Fictional torturers
Harry Potter characters
Literary characters introduced in 1997
Male film villains
Male literary villains
Orphan characters in film
Orphan characters in literature
Psychopathy in fiction
Film supervillains | false | [
"Lord Voldemort (, in the films) is a sobriquet for Tom Marvolo Riddle, a character and the main antagonist in J. K. Rowling's series of Harry Potter novels. The character first appeared in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which was published in 1997, and returned either in person or in flashbacks in each book and its film adaptation in the series except the third, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in which he is only mentioned.\n\nVoldemort is the archenemy of Harry Potter, who according to a prophecy has \"the power to vanquish the Dark Lord\". He attempts to murder the boy, but instead kills his parents, Lily and James Potter, and leaves Harry with a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. Nearly every witch or wizard dares not utter his name and refers to him instead with such monikers as \"You-Know-Who\", \"He Who Must Not Be Named\", or \"the Dark Lord\". Voldemort's obsession with blood purity signifies his aim to rid the wizarding world of Muggle (non-magical) heritage and to conquer both worlds, Muggle and wizarding, to achieve pure-blood dominance. Through his mother's family, he is the last descendant of the wizard Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He is the leader of the Death Eaters, a group of evil wizards and witches dedicated to ridding the Wizarding World of Muggles and establishing Voldemort as its supreme ruler.\n\nCharacter development \nIn a 1999 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter, and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. \"The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry—he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And—so—but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since.\"\n\nIn the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: \"Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does.\" In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as \"a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering\". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: \"Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death.\"\n\nThroughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as \"You-Know-Who\" or \"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named\" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a \"taboo\" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. The name Voldemort is derived from the French vol de mort which means \"flight of death\" or \"theft of death\".\n\nAppearances\n\nHarry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone \n\nVoldemort makes his debut in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. In this story, Rowling introduces him as the Dark Lord who tried to kill Harry Potter because the boy was prophesied to destroy him. Voldemort murdered Harry's parents, James and Lily, but as a result of his mother's love and willingness to sacrifice herself for him, baby Harry survived when Voldemort tried to murder him with a Killing Curse. Voldemort was disembodied, and Harry was left with a mysterious, lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead as a result.\n\nIn the book, Voldemort unsuccessfully tries to regain his dissolved body by stealing the titular Philosopher's Stone. To achieve his objective, Voldemort uses Professor Quirrell's aid by latching onto the back of the latter's head. However, at the climax of the book, Harry manages to prevent Voldemort from stealing the stone.\n\nHarry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets \nIn the second instalment, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Rowling introduces Tom Marvolo Riddle, a manifestation of a teenage Voldemort that resides inside a magical diary found by Ginny Weasley. In this book, Ginny is written as a shy girl with a crush on Harry. Feeling anxious and lonely, she begins to write into the diary and shares her deepest fears with the sympathetic Tom. However, at the climax of the story, when Riddle rearranges the letters in his name to write \"I am Lord Voldemort\", Riddle is revealed as a magical manifestation of the boy who would later grow up to become the Dark Lord. Riddle states he has grown strong on Ginny's fears and eventually possesses her, using her as a pawn to unlock the Chamber of Secrets, whence a basilisk is set free and petrifies several Hogwarts students. Harry defeats the manifestation of Riddle from the diary and the basilisk. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Albus Dumbledore reveals to Harry that the diary was one of Voldemort's Horcruxes.\n\nHarry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban \nVoldemort does not appear in the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, either in person or as a magical manifestation. He is, however, heard when Harry passes out from the harsh effects of a Dementor. Towards the end of the story, Sybill Trelawney, the Divination professor, makes a rare genuine prophecy: \"The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight, the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever before. Tonight... before midnight... the servant... will set out... to rejoin... his master...\" Though it is initially implied that the prophecy refers to Sirius Black, the book's ostensible antagonist, the servant is eventually revealed to be Peter Pettigrew, who, for the 12 years since Voldemort's fall, has been disguised as Ron's pet rat, Scabbers.\n\nHarry Potter and the Goblet of Fire \nIn the fourth instalment of the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort reappears at the start and the climax of the book. Rowling lets many seemingly unrelated plot elements fall into order. It is revealed that Voldemort's minion Barty Crouch Jr, disguised as Hogwarts professor Mad-Eye Moody, has manipulated the events of the Triwizard Tournament in Harry's favour. Voldemort's goal is to teleport Harry under Dumbledore's watch as a reluctant participant to the Little Hangleton graveyard, where the Riddle family is buried. Harry is captured and, after Pettigrew uses Harry's blood to fulfil a gruesome magical ritual, Voldemort regains his body and is restored to his full power. For the first time in the series, Rowling describes his appearance: \"tall and skeletally thin\", with a face \"whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was as flat as a snake's with slits for nostrils\". Rowling writes that his \"hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cat's, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness\". It was revealed that, while in Albania, Pettigrew had captured the Ministry of Magic official Bertha Jorkins, who was tortured for information about the Ministry. After they learned that Barty Crouch Jr, a faithful Death Eater, had been smuggled out of Azkaban and was privately confined at his father's house, they killed her. With Pettigrew's help, Voldemort creates a small, rudimentary body, corporeal enough to travel and perform magic, and formulated a plan to restore his own body by capturing Harry. A portion of the plan had been overheard by Frank Bryce, a gardener, whom Voldemort then killed. Voldemort then completes his plan and returns to life in his full body as a result of the ritual with Harry's blood. He then summons his Death Eaters to the graveyard to witness the death of Harry as he challenges Harry to a duel. However, when Voldemort duels Harry, their wands become magically locked together due to the twin Phoenix feather cores of the wands. Because of a phenomenon later revealed as Priori Incantatem, ghost-like manifestations of Voldemort's most recent victims (including Harry's parents) then appear and distract Voldemort, allowing Harry just enough time to escape via Portkey with the body of fellow-student, Cedric Diggory, who was murdered by Pettigrew on Voldemort's orders.\n\nHarry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix \nVoldemort appears at the climax of the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, having again plotted against Harry. In this book, Harry goes through extreme emotional stress, and according to Rowling, it was necessary to prove that Harry is emotionally vulnerable and thus human, in contrast to his nemesis Voldemort, who is emotionally invulnerable and thus inhuman: \"[Harry is] a very human hero, and this is, obviously, there's a contrast, between him, as a very human hero, and Voldemort, who has deliberately dehumanised himself. […] and Harry, therefore, did have to reach a point where he did almost break down.\" In this book, Voldemort makes liberal use of the Ministry of Magic's refusal to believe that he has returned. Voldemort engineers a plot to free Bellatrix Lestrange and other Death Eaters from Azkaban and then embarks on a scheme to retrieve the full record of a prophecy stored in the Department of Mysteries regarding Harry and himself. He sends a group of Death Eaters to retrieve the prophecy, where the Order of the Phoenix meets them. All but Bellatrix are captured, and Voldemort engages in a ferocious duel with Dumbledore. When Dumbledore gets the upper hand, Voldemort attempts to possess Harry but finds that he cannot; Harry is too full of that which Voldemort finds incomprehensible, and which he detests as weakness: love. Sensing that Dumbledore could win, Voldemort disapparates, but not before the Minister for Magic sees him in person, making his return to life public knowledge in the next book.\n\nHarry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince \nVoldemort does not appear in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, although his presence and actions are felt: he once again declares war, and begins to rise to power once more. He murders Amelia Bones of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and begins to target members of the Order of the Phoenix, including Emmeline Vance.\n\nRowling uses several chapters as exposition to establish Voldemort's backstory. In a series of flashbacks, using the pensieve as a plot device, she reveals that Voldemort was the son of the witch Merope Gaunt and a Muggle called Tom Riddle. Riddle abandoned Merope before their child's birth, soon after which Merope died. After living in an orphanage, young Riddle met Dumbledore, who told him he was a wizard and arranged for him to attend Hogwarts. Riddle was outwardly a model student, but was in reality a psychopath who took sadistic pleasure in using his powers to harm and control people. He eventually murdered his father and grandparents as revenge for abandoning him. The book also discusses Riddle's hatred of Muggles, his obsession with Horcruxes, and his desire to split his soul to achieve immortality. Rowling stated Voldemort's conception under the influence of a love potion symbolises the coercive circumstances under which he was brought into the world.\n\nIn the main plot of the book, Voldemort's next step is to engineer an assault on Hogwarts, and to kill Dumbledore. This is accomplished by Draco Malfoy, who arranges transportation of Death Eaters into Hogwarts by a pair of Vanishing Cabinets, which bypass the extensive protective enchantments placed around the school. The cabinets allow Voldemort's Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts, where battle commences and Dumbledore is cornered. Hogwarts professor (and re-doubled agent) Severus Snape uses the Killing Curse against Dumbledore when Draco could not force himself to do so.\n\nHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows \n\nIn Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort furthers his quest for ultimate power. He disposes of the Minister for Magic and replaces him with Pius Thicknesse, who is under the Imperius Curse. Establishing a totalitarian police state, he has Muggle-borns persecuted and arrested for \"stealing magic\" from the \"pure blood\" wizards. After failing to kill Harry with Draco's father Lucius Malfoy's borrowed wand (to avoid the effect of Priori Incantatem), he goes on a murderous search for the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand ever created, seeing it as the weapon he needs to overcome Harry's wand and make him truly invincible. He goes on a quest that takes him out of the country to Gregorovitch's wand shop, where he kills the old wandmaker. His journey also takes him to Nurmengard, the prison where Gellert Grindelwald is kept, and he kills Grindelwald as well. He finally locates the Elder Wand and steals it from Dumbledore's tomb.\n\nLater, Voldemort finds out that Harry and his friends are hunting and destroying his Horcruxes when informed of their heist on the Lestranges' vault at Gringotts in search for Hufflepuff's Cup. After offering the occupants of Hogwarts mercy if they give up Harry, he assembles a large army and launches an invasion of the castle, where Harry is searching for Ravenclaw's Diadem. Voldemort orders his pet snake Nagini to execute Snape, believing it would make him the true master of the Elder Wand, since Snape killed Dumbledore. He then calls an hour's armistice, in exchange for Harry. When Harry willingly walks into Voldemort's camp in the Forbidden Forest, Voldemort strikes him down with the Elder Wand. However, the use of Harry's blood to resurrect Voldemort's body proves to be a major setback: while Harry's blood runs in Voldemort's veins, Harry cannot be killed as his mother's protection lives on now in Voldemort too. Instead, Voldemort destroys the part of his own soul that resides in Harry's body. Voldemort forces Rubeus Hagrid to carry Harry's apparently lifeless body back to the castle as a trophy, sparking another battle during which Nagini, his last Horcrux, is destroyed by Neville Longbottom. The battle then moves into the Great Hall, where Voldemort fights Minerva McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Horace Slughorn simultaneously. Harry then reveals himself and explains to Voldemort that Draco became the true master of the Elder Wand when he disarmed Dumbledore; Harry, in turn, won the wand's allegiance when he took Draco's wand. Refusing to believe this, Voldemort casts the Killing Curse with the Elder Wand while Harry uses a Disarming Charm with Draco's, but the Elder Wand refuses to kill its master and the spell rebounds on Voldemort who, with all of his Horcruxes destroyed, finally dies. His body is laid in a different chamber from all the others who died battling him.\n\nRowling stated that after his death, Voldemort is forced to exist in the stunted infant-like form that Harry sees in the King's Cross-like Limbo after his confrontation with Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest. Rowling also mentioned that, despite his extreme fear of death, he cannot become a ghost.\n\nAppearances in other material\n\nIn Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, it is revealed that Bellatrix gave birth to Voldemort's daughter Delphi in Malfoy Manor before the Battle of Hogwarts. Twenty-two years later, Delphi poses as Cedric's cousin and manipulates Harry and Ginny's second son Albus Severus Potter and his friend, Draco and Astoria Greengrass's son Scorpius Malfoy, into stealing a prototype Time Turner with which she hopes to resurrect her father. Using the Time Turner, Scorpius accidentally creates an alternative timeline where Voldemort killed Harry at the battle and now rules the wizarding world. In an attempt to achieve this future, Delphi travels to Godric's Hollow on the night Voldemort killed Harry's parents, hoping to avert the prophecy that led to her father's downfall. After receiving a message from his son, Harry, together with Ron, Hermione and Draco (who by now has become friends with Harry after they join forces to save their respective sons) transfigures himself into Voldemort so that he can distract Delphi, allowing them to overpower her. The real Voldemort kills Harry's parents as prophesied, and Delphi is sent to Azkaban.\n\nPortrayals within films \n\nVoldemort appears in every Harry Potter film, with the exception of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Several actors have portrayed him in his varying incarnations and ages.\n\nIn Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Voldemort's manifestation is as a face on the back of Quirrell's head, an effect achieved by computer generated imagery. Ian Hart, the actor who played Quirrell in the same film, provided the voice and the facial source for this character. Voldemort also appears in a scene in the Forbidden Forest where he is seen drinking the blood of a unicorn. As Voldemort's face was altered enough by CG work, and Hart's voice was affected enough, there was no confusion by Hart's playing of the two roles. In that film, he was also shown in a flashback sequence when he arrived at the home of James and Lily Potter to kill them. In this scene Voldemort is played by Richard Bremmer, though his face is never seen. His next appearance would be in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as the 16-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle (portrayed by Christian Coulson).\n\nIn Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort is initially only heard, possessing the scratchy, weak voice heard in the first film. By the film's climax, however, he appears in his physical form for the first time, played by Ralph Fiennes. As in the book, Voldemort is shown clad in dark black robes, being tall and emaciated, with no hair and yellowish teeth; his wand has a white tone and the handle appears to be made of bone; his finger nails are long and pale blue while his toe nails appear to be infected. Unlike in the book, his pupils are not cat-like and his eyes are blue, because producer David Heyman felt that his evil would not be able to be seen and would not fill the audience with fear (his eyes do briefly take on a snake-like appearance when he opens them after turning human, but quickly turn normal). As in the book, the film version of Voldemort has snake-like slit nostrils with the flesh of his nose significantly pressed back. Ralph Fiennes' nose was not covered in makeup on the set, but was digitally removed in post-production. In this first appearance, Voldemort also has a forked tongue, but this element was removed for the subsequent films.\n\nFiennes stated that he had two weeks to shoot the climactic showdown scene where he is gloating over a terrified Harry, played by Daniel Radcliffe. Fiennes said with a chuckle: \"I have no doubt children will be afraid of me now if they weren't before.\" In preparation, he read the novel Goblet of Fire, but jokingly conceded: \"I was only interested in my scene, and I had to go through thousands and thousands of other scenes which I did, dutifully, until I got to my scene and I read it many, many, many, many, many times and that was my research.\" Fiennes reprised his role as Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2.\n\nFiennes's nephew, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, portrayed Tom Riddle as a child in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. By the time filming arrived Christian Coulson was 29, and not considered suitable to return as the adolescent Riddle. Thomas James Longley was originally scheduled to take over the role, but last minute renegotiations saw Frank Dillane cast instead.\n\nCharacterisation\n\nOutward appearance \nAfter he regains his body in the fourth book, Rowling describes Voldemort as having pale skin, a chalk-white, skull-like face, snake-like slits for nostrils, red eyes and cat-like slits for pupils, a skeletally thin body and long, thin hands with unnaturally long fingers. As mentioned in the first chapter of the seventh book, he also has no hair or lips. Earlier in life, as seen through flashbacks contained in the second and sixth books, Tom Marvolo Riddle was handsome and tall with pale skin, jet black hair, and dark brown eyes. He could charm many people with his looks. The transformation into his monstrous state is believed to have been the result of creating his Horcruxes and becoming less human as he continued to divide his soul. In the films, Voldemort's eyes are blue with round pupils.\n\nPersonality \nRowling described Voldemort as \"the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years\". She elaborated that he is a \"raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering\", and whose only ambition in life is to become all-powerful and immortal. He is also a sadist who hurts and murders people—especially Muggles—for his own amusement. He has no conscience, feels no remorse or empathy, and does not recognise the worth and humanity of anybody except himself.\nHe feels no need for human companionship or friendship, and cannot comprehend love or affection for another. He believes he is superior to everyone around him, to the point that he frequently refers to himself in the third person as \"Lord Voldemort\". Rowling also stated that Voldemort is \"incredibly power hungry. Racist, really\", and that if Voldemort were to look into the Mirror of Erised, in which one sees one's greatest desire, he would see \"Himself, all-powerful and eternal. That's what he wants.\"\n\nRowling also stated that Voldemort's conception by influence of Amortentia—a love potion administered by his mother, a witch named Merope Gaunt, to the Muggle Tom Riddle—is related to his inability to understand love; it is \"a symbolic way of showing that he came from a loveless union—but of course, everything would have changed if Merope had survived and raised him herself and loved him. The enchantment under which Tom Riddle fathered Voldemort is important because it shows coercion, and there can't be many more prejudicial ways to enter the world than as the result of such a union\".\n\nLike most archetypical villains, Voldemort's arrogance leads to his downfall. He also suffers from a pathological fear of death, which he regards as a shameful and ignominious human weakness. According to Rowling, his Boggart would be his own corpse. Rowling also said that the difference between Harry and Voldemort is that Harry accepts mortality, and thus Harry is, in the end, stronger than his nemesis.\n\nMagical abilities and skills \n\nRowling establishes Voldemort throughout the series as an extremely powerful, intelligent, and ruthless dark wizard, described as the greatest and most powerful Dark Wizard of all time. He is known as one of the greatest Legilimens in the world and a highly accomplished Occlumens; he can read minds and shield his own from penetration. Besides Dumbledore, he is also the only wizard ever known to be able to apparate silently. Voldemort was also said to fear one wizard alone, Dumbledore.\n\nIn the final book, Voldemort flies unsupported, something that amazes those who see it. Voldemort, like his ancestral family, the Gaunts, is a Parselmouth, meaning he can converse with serpents. This skill was inherited from his ancestor, Salazar Slytherin. The Gaunt family speak Parseltongue among themselves. This highly unusual trait may be preserved through inbreeding, a practice employed by the Gaunt Family to maintain their blood's purity. When Voldemort attempts to kill Harry his ability to speak Parseltongue is passed to Harry through the small bit of the former's soul. After that bit of soul is destroyed, Harry loses this ability. In a flashback in the sixth novel, Voldemort boasts to Dumbledore during a job interview that he has \"pushed the boundaries of magic farther than they had ever before\". Dumbledore states that Voldemort's knowledge of magic is more extensive than any wizard alive and that even Dumbledore's most powerful protective spells and charms would likely be insufficient if Voldemort returned to full power. Dumbledore also said that Voldemort was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen. Although Voldemort remains highly accomplished and prodigious in skill, he is enormously lacking and highly inept in the most powerful magic, love. This inability to love and trust others proves to be Voldemort's greatest weakness in the series. Voldemort initially voices scepticism that his own magic might not be the most powerful, but upon returning to power, he admits to his Death Eaters that he had overlooked the ancient and powerful magic which Lily Potter invoked and that would protect Harry from harm.\n\nOn her website, Rowling wrote that Voldemort's wand is made of yew, whose sap is poisonous and which symbolises death. It forms a deliberate contrast to Harry's wand, which is made of holly, which she chose because holly is alleged to repel evil.\n\nRowling establishes in the books that Voldemort is magically connected to Harry via Harry's forehead scar. He disembodies himself when his Killing Curse targeting Harry rebounds on him, leaving the scar on Harry's forehead. In the books, and to a lesser extent in the films, Harry's scar serves as an indicator of Voldemort's presence: it burns when the Dark Lord is near or when Voldemort is feeling murderous or exultant. According to Rowling, by attacking Harry when he was a baby Voldemort gave him \"tools [that] no other wizard possessed—the scar and the ability it conferred, a magical window into Voldemort's mind\".\n\nFamily \n\nNotes: The names 'Thomas' and 'Mary' Riddle are taken from the films. The Potter Family is not shown.\n\nRiddle family \nThe Riddle family, an old gentry family, consisted of Thomas and Mary Riddle and their son, Tom Riddle, Esq. They owned over half of the valley that the town of Little Hangleton lay in, and Thomas was the most prominent inhabitant of that town. They lived in a large house with fine gardens, but were unpopular amongst the local residents due to their snobbish attitudes. Tom, the only child of Thomas and Mary, was known as a playboy, his main interests being womanizing and horse-riding.\n\nRowling revealed in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that young Merope Gaunt fell in love with Riddle, peering at him through the windows and bushes at every opportunity. Merope's brother Morfin disapproved of his sister's affection for Tom and hexed him as he rode by, covering him in hives. This breach of wizarding law, and the ensuing violent struggle with Ministry of Magic officials, led to Marvolo and Morfin being imprisoned in Azkaban. As surmised by Dumbledore, once Merope was alone and no longer dominated by her father, she could make her move for Tom. She offered him a drink laced with a love potion, and he became infatuated with her; they soon eloped and, within three months of the marriage, Merope became pregnant. Merope decided to stop giving Tom the love potion, having come to the belief such enchantment of a man was tantamount to slavery. She also revealed her witch status to Tom, believing either that he had fallen in love with her on his own or he would at least stay for their unborn child. She was wrong, and Tom quickly left his pregnant wife and went home to his parents, claiming to have been \"hoodwinked\" and tricked into marrying Merope. Tom Marvolo Riddle, their son, was born on 31 December 1926 Merope died in childbirth, leaving the baby to grow up alone in an orphanage.\n\nIn Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, it is revealed that Voldemort murdered his father and grandparents, leaving himself the only surviving member of the Riddle family.\n\nHouse of Gaunt \nMost of the exposition of the House of Gaunts background occurs in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, through the medium of Dumbledore's Pensieve. The Gaunts were once a powerful and influential family, and are the last known descendants of Salazar Slytherin. However, a vein of mental instability and violence within the family, reinforced through cousin marriages intended to preserve the pureblood line, had reduced them to poverty and squalor, as shown in the Pensieve's \"memory\" that Harry and Dumbledore witnessed. Like Salazar Slytherin, the Gaunts spoke Parseltongue. At the time of the story, the Gaunts' only material asset is a ramshackle shanty in Little Hangleton, that stood in a thicket in a valley opposite the Riddle House. Like the Riddles, the Gaunts were also unpopular with the local residents, with a reputation for being vulgar and intimidating.\n\nMarvolo Gaunt was the last family patriarch. He was sentenced to a short term in Azkaban for his and his son's assault upon a Ministry of Magic official; this affected his health and he died soon after returning home. His signet ring passed to his son, Morfin Gaunt, who was convicted of assaulting a Muggle, and later died in Azkaban, convicted this time as a party to the murder of Tom Riddle Jr. and Riddle's parents.\n\nDumbledore discovers the real culprit while visiting Morfin in Azkaban to gather information about Voldemort. After Dumbledore successfully extracts Morfin's memory of his encounter with his nephew, he tries to use the evidence to have Morfin released, but Morfin dies before the decision can be made. The House of Gaunt ended with Morfin's death.\n\nMerope Gaunt () was the daughter of Marvolo, and sister of Morfin. Harry's first impression of her was that she looked \"like the most defeated person he had ever seen\". She married Tom Riddle Jr and became pregnant within three months of the wedding. It is suggested that she tricked her husband into loving her by using a love potion, but when she became pregnant, she chose to stop administering the potion. It is implied that Merope had grown tired of living the lie and thought that her husband might have grown to love her, or that he might have stayed for the sake of their unborn child; however, he left her. Desperate, Merope wandered through the streets of London. The only thing she had left was the heavy gold locket that had once belonged to Salazar Slytherin, one of her family's most treasured items, which she sold for a small amount. When she was due to give birth, she stumbled into a Muggle orphanage, where she gave birth to her only son. She died within the next hour.\n\nGormlaith Gaunt was a 17th-century descendant of Salazar Slytherin, and like Salazar, a Parselmouth. Her wand was that which once belonged to Salazar himself. Educated at Hogwarts, Gormlaith lived in Ireland in the early 1600s. In about 1608, Gormlaith killed her estranged unnamed sister, and her sister's husband, William Sayre (a descendant of the Irish witch Morrigan), and kidnapped their five-year-old daughter, Isolt Sayre, raising her in the neighbouring valley of Coomcallee, or \"Hag's Glen\", because she felt that her parents' association with Muggles would badly influence Isolt. Fanatical and cruel, Gormlaith used Dark magic to isolate Isolt from others, forbade her a wand, and did not allow her to attend Hogwarts as she herself had, disgusted that it was now filled with Muggle-borns. After twelve years with Gormlaith, Isolt stole Gormlaith's wand and fled to the Colonies and settled in Massachusetts, where she founded the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When Gormlaith learned of the school, she pursued her niece in Massachusetts, where she was killed by Isolt's friend, William the Pukwudgie, with a venom-tipped arrow.\n\nThe Gaunts, including Voldemort, are distantly related to Harry because they are descendants of the Peverell brothers.\n\nReception \nSeveral people have drawn a parallel between Voldemort and some politicians. Rowling has said that Voldemort was \"a sort of\" Adolf Hitler, and that there is some parallel with Nazism in her books. Rowling also compared Voldemort to Joseph Stalin. Alfonso Cuarón, director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban compared Voldemort to George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein, who he said \"...have selfish interests and are very much in love with power. Also, a disregard for the environment. A love for manipulating people.\" Andrew Slack and the Harry Potter Alliance compare media consolidation in the US to Voldemort's regime in Deathly Hallows and its control over the Daily Prophet and other media saying that \"Once Voldemort took over every form of media in the wizarding world, Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix formed an independent media movement called 'Potterwatch'. Now the HP Alliance and Wizard Rock have come together to fight for a Potterwatch movement in the real world to fight back against Big VoldeMedia from further pushing out local and foreign news, minority representation, and the right to a Free Press.\" Julia Turner of Slate Magazine also noted similarities between the events of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the War on Terror. She said that Voldemort commits acts of terrorism such as destroying bridges, murdering innocents, and forcing children to kill their elders.\n\nVoldemort has also been compared with other characters within fiction, for example Sauron from The Lord of the Rings; they are, during the time when the main plot takes place, seeking to recover their lost power after having been considered dead or at least no longer a threat, and are also so feared that they are sometimes unnamed.\n\nIGN listed Voldemort as their seventh favourite Harry Potter character, calling him \"truly frightening\".\n\nIn popular culture \nSeveral campaigns have used Voldemort to compare his evil to the influence of politicians, large media and corporations. \"Lord Voldemort\" is a nickname sometimes used for Peter Mandelson. Voldemort is also a recurring theme among wizard rock bands. Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock! is the second album from Harry and the Potters, and the character is mentioned in songs such as \"The Dark Lord Lament\" and \"Flesh, Blood, and Bone\".\n\nVoldemort has been parodied in various venues. In The Simpsons 13th season's premiere, \"Treehouse of Horror XII\", Montgomery Burns appears as \"Lord Montymort\". A parody of Voldemort appears in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as \"Lord Moldybutt\", an enemy of Nigel Planter (a parody of Harry). Voldemort also appears in the Potter Puppet Pals sketches by Neil Cicierega. One of the episodes including him was the seventeenth most viewed video of all time as of 2008 and the winner for \"Best Comedy\" of the year 2007 at YouTube.\n\n\"Continuing the Magic\", an article in the 21 May 2007 issue of Time, includes mock book covers designed by author Lon Tweeten, laced with pop culture references. One of them, the \"Dark Lord of the Dance\", shows Voldemort teaming up with Harry on Broadway. In the MAD Magazine parodies of the films, the character is called Lord Druckermort, a backwards reference to the magazine's longtime caricaturist Mort Drucker. In Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1969, a young Tom Marvolo Riddle (introduced as \"Tom\", whose middle name is a \"marvel\" and last name is a \"conundrum\") appears, and becomes the new avatar of Oliver Haddo at the story's conclusion. In A Very Potter Musical, Voldemort is played by actor Joe Walker.\n\nIn a segment celebrating British children's literature at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London, an inflatable Voldemort appeared alongside other villains, The Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook, and Cruella de Vil, to haunt children's dreams, before the arrival of a group of over thirty Mary Poppins who descended with their umbrellas to defeat them.\n\nDuring the 2016 United States elections, Daniel Radcliffe was asked by Sky News journalist Craig Dillon if he would compare Donald Trump to Lord Voldemort; Radcliffe responded, \"Trump is worse\".\n\nVoldemort appears in The Lego Batman Movie as one of the prisoners in the Phantom Zone that Joker recruits to take over Gotham City. Though Ralph Fiennes is featured in this movie as the voice of the British butler Alfred Pennyworth, he does not reprise his role as Voldemort. Instead, Voldemort is voiced by Eddie Izzard.\n\nOutside of the Harry Potter video games, Voldemort is also a playable character in Lego Dimensions, with archive audio of Fiennes' portrayal in the films used for his voiceovers.\n\nA 2018 Italian fan film titled Voldemort: Origins of the Heir depicts the story of Tom Riddle's rise to power.\n\nVoldemort appears in Space Jam: A New Legacy, in the crowd for the game between the Tune Squad and the Goon Squad.\n\nAn upcoming French fan-made short-film titled The House of Gaunt - Lord Voldemort Origins explores the origin story of Voldemort and The Gaunt family.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n Lord Voldemort at Harry Potter Lexicon\n\nFictional characters with disfigurements\nFictional characters with immortality\nFictional characters with spirit possession or body swapping abilities\nFictional dictators\nFictional English people\nFictional hypnotists and indoctrinators\nFictional illeists\nFictional mass murderers\nFictional necromancers\nFictional offspring of rape\nFictional patricides\nFictional terrorists\nFictional torturers\nHarry Potter characters\nLiterary characters introduced in 1997\nMale film villains\nMale literary villains\nOrphan characters in film\nOrphan characters in literature\nPsychopathy in fiction\nFilm supervillains",
"Voldemort is a distributed data store that was designed as a key-value store used by LinkedIn for highly-scalable storage. It is named after the fictional Harry Potter villain Lord Voldemort.\n\nOverview\nVoldemort does not try to satisfy arbitrary relations and the ACID properties, but rather is a big, distributed, persistent hash table.\nA 2012 study comparing systems for storing application performance management data reported that Voldemort, Apache Cassandra, and HBase all offered linear scalability in most cases, with Voldemort having the lowest latency and Cassandra having the highest throughput.\n\nIn the parlance of Eric Brewer's CAP theorem, Voldemort is an AP type system.\n\nVoldemort's creator and primary corporate contributor, LinkedIn, has migrated all of their systems off of Voldemort as of approximately August 2018, with no replacement sponsor .\n\nProperties\nVoldemort uses in-memory caching to eliminate a separate caching tier. It has a storage layer that is possible to emulate. Voldemort reads and writes scale horizontally. The API decides data replication and placement and accommodates a wide range of application-specific strategies.\n\nThe Voldemort distributed data store supports pluggable placement strategies for distribution across data centers. Data is automatically replicated across servers. Data is partitioned meaning a single server contains only a portion of the total data. Each data node is independent to avoid central point of failure. Pluggable serialization allows rich keys and values including lists and tuples with named fields, as well as the integration with common serialisation frameworks such as Avro, Java Serialization, Protocol Buffers, and Thrift. Server failures are handled transparently. Data items are versioned, which maximizes data integrity.\n\nSee also\n\n Distributed data store\n NoSQL\n Riak\n Redis\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Project Voldemort - A distributed database\n Project Voldemort Real Time Discussions\n\nDistributed data stores\nLinkedIn software\nNoSQL\nMicrosoft free software\nSoftware using the Apache license\n2009 software"
] |
[
"Lord Voldemort",
"Character development",
"How did Voldemort's character begin?",
"Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first."
] | C_7776d2fc9b234c23939513b312811d39_1 | Why did rowling do that? | 2 | Why did Rowling wait to flesh out Voldemort's backstory? | Lord Voldemort | In a 2001 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry--he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And--so--but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since." In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death." Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. Some literary analysts have considered possible meanings in the name: Philip Nel states that Voldemort is derived from the French for "flight of death", and in a 2002 paper, Nilsen and Nilsen suggest that readers get a "creepy feeling" from the name Voldemort, because of the French word "mort" ("death") within it and that word's association with cognate English words derived from the Latin mors. CANNOTANSWER | The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position | Lord Voldemort (, in the films) is a sobriquet for Tom Marvolo Riddle, a character and the main antagonist in J. K. Rowling's series of Harry Potter novels. The character first appeared in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which was published in 1997, and returned either in person or in flashbacks in each book and its film adaptation in the series except the third, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in which he is only mentioned.
Voldemort is the archenemy of Harry Potter, who according to a prophecy has "the power to vanquish the Dark Lord". He attempts to murder the boy, but instead kills his parents, Lily and James Potter, and leaves Harry with a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. Nearly every witch or wizard dares not utter his name and refers to him instead with such monikers as "You-Know-Who", "He Who Must Not Be Named", or "the Dark Lord". Voldemort's obsession with blood purity signifies his aim to rid the wizarding world of Muggle (non-magical) heritage and to conquer both worlds, Muggle and wizarding, to achieve pure-blood dominance. Through his mother's family, he is the last descendant of the wizard Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He is the leader of the Death Eaters, a group of evil wizards and witches dedicated to ridding the Wizarding World of Muggles and establishing Voldemort as its supreme ruler.
Character development
In a 1999 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter, and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry—he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And—so—but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since."
In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death."
Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. The name Voldemort is derived from the French vol de mort which means "flight of death" or "theft of death".
Appearances
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Voldemort makes his debut in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. In this story, Rowling introduces him as the Dark Lord who tried to kill Harry Potter because the boy was prophesied to destroy him. Voldemort murdered Harry's parents, James and Lily, but as a result of his mother's love and willingness to sacrifice herself for him, baby Harry survived when Voldemort tried to murder him with a Killing Curse. Voldemort was disembodied, and Harry was left with a mysterious, lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead as a result.
In the book, Voldemort unsuccessfully tries to regain his dissolved body by stealing the titular Philosopher's Stone. To achieve his objective, Voldemort uses Professor Quirrell's aid by latching onto the back of the latter's head. However, at the climax of the book, Harry manages to prevent Voldemort from stealing the stone.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
In the second instalment, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Rowling introduces Tom Marvolo Riddle, a manifestation of a teenage Voldemort that resides inside a magical diary found by Ginny Weasley. In this book, Ginny is written as a shy girl with a crush on Harry. Feeling anxious and lonely, she begins to write into the diary and shares her deepest fears with the sympathetic Tom. However, at the climax of the story, when Riddle rearranges the letters in his name to write "I am Lord Voldemort", Riddle is revealed as a magical manifestation of the boy who would later grow up to become the Dark Lord. Riddle states he has grown strong on Ginny's fears and eventually possesses her, using her as a pawn to unlock the Chamber of Secrets, whence a basilisk is set free and petrifies several Hogwarts students. Harry defeats the manifestation of Riddle from the diary and the basilisk. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Albus Dumbledore reveals to Harry that the diary was one of Voldemort's Horcruxes.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Voldemort does not appear in the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, either in person or as a magical manifestation. He is, however, heard when Harry passes out from the harsh effects of a Dementor. Towards the end of the story, Sybill Trelawney, the Divination professor, makes a rare genuine prophecy: "The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight, the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever before. Tonight... before midnight... the servant... will set out... to rejoin... his master..." Though it is initially implied that the prophecy refers to Sirius Black, the book's ostensible antagonist, the servant is eventually revealed to be Peter Pettigrew, who, for the 12 years since Voldemort's fall, has been disguised as Ron's pet rat, Scabbers.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
In the fourth instalment of the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort reappears at the start and the climax of the book. Rowling lets many seemingly unrelated plot elements fall into order. It is revealed that Voldemort's minion Barty Crouch Jr, disguised as Hogwarts professor Mad-Eye Moody, has manipulated the events of the Triwizard Tournament in Harry's favour. Voldemort's goal is to teleport Harry under Dumbledore's watch as a reluctant participant to the Little Hangleton graveyard, where the Riddle family is buried. Harry is captured and, after Pettigrew uses Harry's blood to fulfil a gruesome magical ritual, Voldemort regains his body and is restored to his full power. For the first time in the series, Rowling describes his appearance: "tall and skeletally thin", with a face "whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was as flat as a snake's with slits for nostrils". Rowling writes that his "hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cat's, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness". It was revealed that, while in Albania, Pettigrew had captured the Ministry of Magic official Bertha Jorkins, who was tortured for information about the Ministry. After they learned that Barty Crouch Jr, a faithful Death Eater, had been smuggled out of Azkaban and was privately confined at his father's house, they killed her. With Pettigrew's help, Voldemort creates a small, rudimentary body, corporeal enough to travel and perform magic, and formulated a plan to restore his own body by capturing Harry. A portion of the plan had been overheard by Frank Bryce, a gardener, whom Voldemort then killed. Voldemort then completes his plan and returns to life in his full body as a result of the ritual with Harry's blood. He then summons his Death Eaters to the graveyard to witness the death of Harry as he challenges Harry to a duel. However, when Voldemort duels Harry, their wands become magically locked together due to the twin Phoenix feather cores of the wands. Because of a phenomenon later revealed as Priori Incantatem, ghost-like manifestations of Voldemort's most recent victims (including Harry's parents) then appear and distract Voldemort, allowing Harry just enough time to escape via Portkey with the body of fellow-student, Cedric Diggory, who was murdered by Pettigrew on Voldemort's orders.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Voldemort appears at the climax of the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, having again plotted against Harry. In this book, Harry goes through extreme emotional stress, and according to Rowling, it was necessary to prove that Harry is emotionally vulnerable and thus human, in contrast to his nemesis Voldemort, who is emotionally invulnerable and thus inhuman: "[Harry is] a very human hero, and this is, obviously, there's a contrast, between him, as a very human hero, and Voldemort, who has deliberately dehumanised himself. […] and Harry, therefore, did have to reach a point where he did almost break down." In this book, Voldemort makes liberal use of the Ministry of Magic's refusal to believe that he has returned. Voldemort engineers a plot to free Bellatrix Lestrange and other Death Eaters from Azkaban and then embarks on a scheme to retrieve the full record of a prophecy stored in the Department of Mysteries regarding Harry and himself. He sends a group of Death Eaters to retrieve the prophecy, where the Order of the Phoenix meets them. All but Bellatrix are captured, and Voldemort engages in a ferocious duel with Dumbledore. When Dumbledore gets the upper hand, Voldemort attempts to possess Harry but finds that he cannot; Harry is too full of that which Voldemort finds incomprehensible, and which he detests as weakness: love. Sensing that Dumbledore could win, Voldemort disapparates, but not before the Minister for Magic sees him in person, making his return to life public knowledge in the next book.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Voldemort does not appear in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, although his presence and actions are felt: he once again declares war, and begins to rise to power once more. He murders Amelia Bones of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and begins to target members of the Order of the Phoenix, including Emmeline Vance.
Rowling uses several chapters as exposition to establish Voldemort's backstory. In a series of flashbacks, using the pensieve as a plot device, she reveals that Voldemort was the son of the witch Merope Gaunt and a Muggle called Tom Riddle. Riddle abandoned Merope before their child's birth, soon after which Merope died. After living in an orphanage, young Riddle met Dumbledore, who told him he was a wizard and arranged for him to attend Hogwarts. Riddle was outwardly a model student, but was in reality a psychopath who took sadistic pleasure in using his powers to harm and control people. He eventually murdered his father and grandparents as revenge for abandoning him. The book also discusses Riddle's hatred of Muggles, his obsession with Horcruxes, and his desire to split his soul to achieve immortality. Rowling stated Voldemort's conception under the influence of a love potion symbolises the coercive circumstances under which he was brought into the world.
In the main plot of the book, Voldemort's next step is to engineer an assault on Hogwarts, and to kill Dumbledore. This is accomplished by Draco Malfoy, who arranges transportation of Death Eaters into Hogwarts by a pair of Vanishing Cabinets, which bypass the extensive protective enchantments placed around the school. The cabinets allow Voldemort's Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts, where battle commences and Dumbledore is cornered. Hogwarts professor (and re-doubled agent) Severus Snape uses the Killing Curse against Dumbledore when Draco could not force himself to do so.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort furthers his quest for ultimate power. He disposes of the Minister for Magic and replaces him with Pius Thicknesse, who is under the Imperius Curse. Establishing a totalitarian police state, he has Muggle-borns persecuted and arrested for "stealing magic" from the "pure blood" wizards. After failing to kill Harry with Draco's father Lucius Malfoy's borrowed wand (to avoid the effect of Priori Incantatem), he goes on a murderous search for the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand ever created, seeing it as the weapon he needs to overcome Harry's wand and make him truly invincible. He goes on a quest that takes him out of the country to Gregorovitch's wand shop, where he kills the old wandmaker. His journey also takes him to Nurmengard, the prison where Gellert Grindelwald is kept, and he kills Grindelwald as well. He finally locates the Elder Wand and steals it from Dumbledore's tomb.
Later, Voldemort finds out that Harry and his friends are hunting and destroying his Horcruxes when informed of their heist on the Lestranges' vault at Gringotts in search for Hufflepuff's Cup. After offering the occupants of Hogwarts mercy if they give up Harry, he assembles a large army and launches an invasion of the castle, where Harry is searching for Ravenclaw's Diadem. Voldemort orders his pet snake Nagini to execute Snape, believing it would make him the true master of the Elder Wand, since Snape killed Dumbledore. He then calls an hour's armistice, in exchange for Harry. When Harry willingly walks into Voldemort's camp in the Forbidden Forest, Voldemort strikes him down with the Elder Wand. However, the use of Harry's blood to resurrect Voldemort's body proves to be a major setback: while Harry's blood runs in Voldemort's veins, Harry cannot be killed as his mother's protection lives on now in Voldemort too. Instead, Voldemort destroys the part of his own soul that resides in Harry's body. Voldemort forces Rubeus Hagrid to carry Harry's apparently lifeless body back to the castle as a trophy, sparking another battle during which Nagini, his last Horcrux, is destroyed by Neville Longbottom. The battle then moves into the Great Hall, where Voldemort fights Minerva McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Horace Slughorn simultaneously. Harry then reveals himself and explains to Voldemort that Draco became the true master of the Elder Wand when he disarmed Dumbledore; Harry, in turn, won the wand's allegiance when he took Draco's wand. Refusing to believe this, Voldemort casts the Killing Curse with the Elder Wand while Harry uses a Disarming Charm with Draco's, but the Elder Wand refuses to kill its master and the spell rebounds on Voldemort who, with all of his Horcruxes destroyed, finally dies. His body is laid in a different chamber from all the others who died battling him.
Rowling stated that after his death, Voldemort is forced to exist in the stunted infant-like form that Harry sees in the King's Cross-like Limbo after his confrontation with Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest. Rowling also mentioned that, despite his extreme fear of death, he cannot become a ghost.
Appearances in other material
In Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, it is revealed that Bellatrix gave birth to Voldemort's daughter Delphi in Malfoy Manor before the Battle of Hogwarts. Twenty-two years later, Delphi poses as Cedric's cousin and manipulates Harry and Ginny's second son Albus Severus Potter and his friend, Draco and Astoria Greengrass's son Scorpius Malfoy, into stealing a prototype Time Turner with which she hopes to resurrect her father. Using the Time Turner, Scorpius accidentally creates an alternative timeline where Voldemort killed Harry at the battle and now rules the wizarding world. In an attempt to achieve this future, Delphi travels to Godric's Hollow on the night Voldemort killed Harry's parents, hoping to avert the prophecy that led to her father's downfall. After receiving a message from his son, Harry, together with Ron, Hermione and Draco (who by now has become friends with Harry after they join forces to save their respective sons) transfigures himself into Voldemort so that he can distract Delphi, allowing them to overpower her. The real Voldemort kills Harry's parents as prophesied, and Delphi is sent to Azkaban.
Portrayals within films
Voldemort appears in every Harry Potter film, with the exception of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Several actors have portrayed him in his varying incarnations and ages.
In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Voldemort's manifestation is as a face on the back of Quirrell's head, an effect achieved by computer generated imagery. Ian Hart, the actor who played Quirrell in the same film, provided the voice and the facial source for this character. Voldemort also appears in a scene in the Forbidden Forest where he is seen drinking the blood of a unicorn. As Voldemort's face was altered enough by CG work, and Hart's voice was affected enough, there was no confusion by Hart's playing of the two roles. In that film, he was also shown in a flashback sequence when he arrived at the home of James and Lily Potter to kill them. In this scene Voldemort is played by Richard Bremmer, though his face is never seen. His next appearance would be in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as the 16-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle (portrayed by Christian Coulson).
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort is initially only heard, possessing the scratchy, weak voice heard in the first film. By the film's climax, however, he appears in his physical form for the first time, played by Ralph Fiennes. As in the book, Voldemort is shown clad in dark black robes, being tall and emaciated, with no hair and yellowish teeth; his wand has a white tone and the handle appears to be made of bone; his finger nails are long and pale blue while his toe nails appear to be infected. Unlike in the book, his pupils are not cat-like and his eyes are blue, because producer David Heyman felt that his evil would not be able to be seen and would not fill the audience with fear (his eyes do briefly take on a snake-like appearance when he opens them after turning human, but quickly turn normal). As in the book, the film version of Voldemort has snake-like slit nostrils with the flesh of his nose significantly pressed back. Ralph Fiennes' nose was not covered in makeup on the set, but was digitally removed in post-production. In this first appearance, Voldemort also has a forked tongue, but this element was removed for the subsequent films.
Fiennes stated that he had two weeks to shoot the climactic showdown scene where he is gloating over a terrified Harry, played by Daniel Radcliffe. Fiennes said with a chuckle: "I have no doubt children will be afraid of me now if they weren't before." In preparation, he read the novel Goblet of Fire, but jokingly conceded: "I was only interested in my scene, and I had to go through thousands and thousands of other scenes which I did, dutifully, until I got to my scene and I read it many, many, many, many, many times and that was my research." Fiennes reprised his role as Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2.
Fiennes's nephew, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, portrayed Tom Riddle as a child in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. By the time filming arrived Christian Coulson was 29, and not considered suitable to return as the adolescent Riddle. Thomas James Longley was originally scheduled to take over the role, but last minute renegotiations saw Frank Dillane cast instead.
Characterisation
Outward appearance
After he regains his body in the fourth book, Rowling describes Voldemort as having pale skin, a chalk-white, skull-like face, snake-like slits for nostrils, red eyes and cat-like slits for pupils, a skeletally thin body and long, thin hands with unnaturally long fingers. As mentioned in the first chapter of the seventh book, he also has no hair or lips. Earlier in life, as seen through flashbacks contained in the second and sixth books, Tom Marvolo Riddle was handsome and tall with pale skin, jet black hair, and dark brown eyes. He could charm many people with his looks. The transformation into his monstrous state is believed to have been the result of creating his Horcruxes and becoming less human as he continued to divide his soul. In the films, Voldemort's eyes are blue with round pupils.
Personality
Rowling described Voldemort as "the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years". She elaborated that he is a "raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering", and whose only ambition in life is to become all-powerful and immortal. He is also a sadist who hurts and murders people—especially Muggles—for his own amusement. He has no conscience, feels no remorse or empathy, and does not recognise the worth and humanity of anybody except himself.
He feels no need for human companionship or friendship, and cannot comprehend love or affection for another. He believes he is superior to everyone around him, to the point that he frequently refers to himself in the third person as "Lord Voldemort". Rowling also stated that Voldemort is "incredibly power hungry. Racist, really", and that if Voldemort were to look into the Mirror of Erised, in which one sees one's greatest desire, he would see "Himself, all-powerful and eternal. That's what he wants."
Rowling also stated that Voldemort's conception by influence of Amortentia—a love potion administered by his mother, a witch named Merope Gaunt, to the Muggle Tom Riddle—is related to his inability to understand love; it is "a symbolic way of showing that he came from a loveless union—but of course, everything would have changed if Merope had survived and raised him herself and loved him. The enchantment under which Tom Riddle fathered Voldemort is important because it shows coercion, and there can't be many more prejudicial ways to enter the world than as the result of such a union".
Like most archetypical villains, Voldemort's arrogance leads to his downfall. He also suffers from a pathological fear of death, which he regards as a shameful and ignominious human weakness. According to Rowling, his Boggart would be his own corpse. Rowling also said that the difference between Harry and Voldemort is that Harry accepts mortality, and thus Harry is, in the end, stronger than his nemesis.
Magical abilities and skills
Rowling establishes Voldemort throughout the series as an extremely powerful, intelligent, and ruthless dark wizard, described as the greatest and most powerful Dark Wizard of all time. He is known as one of the greatest Legilimens in the world and a highly accomplished Occlumens; he can read minds and shield his own from penetration. Besides Dumbledore, he is also the only wizard ever known to be able to apparate silently. Voldemort was also said to fear one wizard alone, Dumbledore.
In the final book, Voldemort flies unsupported, something that amazes those who see it. Voldemort, like his ancestral family, the Gaunts, is a Parselmouth, meaning he can converse with serpents. This skill was inherited from his ancestor, Salazar Slytherin. The Gaunt family speak Parseltongue among themselves. This highly unusual trait may be preserved through inbreeding, a practice employed by the Gaunt Family to maintain their blood's purity. When Voldemort attempts to kill Harry his ability to speak Parseltongue is passed to Harry through the small bit of the former's soul. After that bit of soul is destroyed, Harry loses this ability. In a flashback in the sixth novel, Voldemort boasts to Dumbledore during a job interview that he has "pushed the boundaries of magic farther than they had ever before". Dumbledore states that Voldemort's knowledge of magic is more extensive than any wizard alive and that even Dumbledore's most powerful protective spells and charms would likely be insufficient if Voldemort returned to full power. Dumbledore also said that Voldemort was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen. Although Voldemort remains highly accomplished and prodigious in skill, he is enormously lacking and highly inept in the most powerful magic, love. This inability to love and trust others proves to be Voldemort's greatest weakness in the series. Voldemort initially voices scepticism that his own magic might not be the most powerful, but upon returning to power, he admits to his Death Eaters that he had overlooked the ancient and powerful magic which Lily Potter invoked and that would protect Harry from harm.
On her website, Rowling wrote that Voldemort's wand is made of yew, whose sap is poisonous and which symbolises death. It forms a deliberate contrast to Harry's wand, which is made of holly, which she chose because holly is alleged to repel evil.
Rowling establishes in the books that Voldemort is magically connected to Harry via Harry's forehead scar. He disembodies himself when his Killing Curse targeting Harry rebounds on him, leaving the scar on Harry's forehead. In the books, and to a lesser extent in the films, Harry's scar serves as an indicator of Voldemort's presence: it burns when the Dark Lord is near or when Voldemort is feeling murderous or exultant. According to Rowling, by attacking Harry when he was a baby Voldemort gave him "tools [that] no other wizard possessed—the scar and the ability it conferred, a magical window into Voldemort's mind".
Family
Notes: The names 'Thomas' and 'Mary' Riddle are taken from the films. The Potter Family is not shown.
Riddle family
The Riddle family, an old gentry family, consisted of Thomas and Mary Riddle and their son, Tom Riddle, Esq. They owned over half of the valley that the town of Little Hangleton lay in, and Thomas was the most prominent inhabitant of that town. They lived in a large house with fine gardens, but were unpopular amongst the local residents due to their snobbish attitudes. Tom, the only child of Thomas and Mary, was known as a playboy, his main interests being womanizing and horse-riding.
Rowling revealed in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that young Merope Gaunt fell in love with Riddle, peering at him through the windows and bushes at every opportunity. Merope's brother Morfin disapproved of his sister's affection for Tom and hexed him as he rode by, covering him in hives. This breach of wizarding law, and the ensuing violent struggle with Ministry of Magic officials, led to Marvolo and Morfin being imprisoned in Azkaban. As surmised by Dumbledore, once Merope was alone and no longer dominated by her father, she could make her move for Tom. She offered him a drink laced with a love potion, and he became infatuated with her; they soon eloped and, within three months of the marriage, Merope became pregnant. Merope decided to stop giving Tom the love potion, having come to the belief such enchantment of a man was tantamount to slavery. She also revealed her witch status to Tom, believing either that he had fallen in love with her on his own or he would at least stay for their unborn child. She was wrong, and Tom quickly left his pregnant wife and went home to his parents, claiming to have been "hoodwinked" and tricked into marrying Merope. Tom Marvolo Riddle, their son, was born on 31 December 1926 Merope died in childbirth, leaving the baby to grow up alone in an orphanage.
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, it is revealed that Voldemort murdered his father and grandparents, leaving himself the only surviving member of the Riddle family.
House of Gaunt
Most of the exposition of the House of Gaunts background occurs in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, through the medium of Dumbledore's Pensieve. The Gaunts were once a powerful and influential family, and are the last known descendants of Salazar Slytherin. However, a vein of mental instability and violence within the family, reinforced through cousin marriages intended to preserve the pureblood line, had reduced them to poverty and squalor, as shown in the Pensieve's "memory" that Harry and Dumbledore witnessed. Like Salazar Slytherin, the Gaunts spoke Parseltongue. At the time of the story, the Gaunts' only material asset is a ramshackle shanty in Little Hangleton, that stood in a thicket in a valley opposite the Riddle House. Like the Riddles, the Gaunts were also unpopular with the local residents, with a reputation for being vulgar and intimidating.
Marvolo Gaunt was the last family patriarch. He was sentenced to a short term in Azkaban for his and his son's assault upon a Ministry of Magic official; this affected his health and he died soon after returning home. His signet ring passed to his son, Morfin Gaunt, who was convicted of assaulting a Muggle, and later died in Azkaban, convicted this time as a party to the murder of Tom Riddle Jr. and Riddle's parents.
Dumbledore discovers the real culprit while visiting Morfin in Azkaban to gather information about Voldemort. After Dumbledore successfully extracts Morfin's memory of his encounter with his nephew, he tries to use the evidence to have Morfin released, but Morfin dies before the decision can be made. The House of Gaunt ended with Morfin's death.
Merope Gaunt () was the daughter of Marvolo, and sister of Morfin. Harry's first impression of her was that she looked "like the most defeated person he had ever seen". She married Tom Riddle Jr and became pregnant within three months of the wedding. It is suggested that she tricked her husband into loving her by using a love potion, but when she became pregnant, she chose to stop administering the potion. It is implied that Merope had grown tired of living the lie and thought that her husband might have grown to love her, or that he might have stayed for the sake of their unborn child; however, he left her. Desperate, Merope wandered through the streets of London. The only thing she had left was the heavy gold locket that had once belonged to Salazar Slytherin, one of her family's most treasured items, which she sold for a small amount. When she was due to give birth, she stumbled into a Muggle orphanage, where she gave birth to her only son. She died within the next hour.
Gormlaith Gaunt was a 17th-century descendant of Salazar Slytherin, and like Salazar, a Parselmouth. Her wand was that which once belonged to Salazar himself. Educated at Hogwarts, Gormlaith lived in Ireland in the early 1600s. In about 1608, Gormlaith killed her estranged unnamed sister, and her sister's husband, William Sayre (a descendant of the Irish witch Morrigan), and kidnapped their five-year-old daughter, Isolt Sayre, raising her in the neighbouring valley of Coomcallee, or "Hag's Glen", because she felt that her parents' association with Muggles would badly influence Isolt. Fanatical and cruel, Gormlaith used Dark magic to isolate Isolt from others, forbade her a wand, and did not allow her to attend Hogwarts as she herself had, disgusted that it was now filled with Muggle-borns. After twelve years with Gormlaith, Isolt stole Gormlaith's wand and fled to the Colonies and settled in Massachusetts, where she founded the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When Gormlaith learned of the school, she pursued her niece in Massachusetts, where she was killed by Isolt's friend, William the Pukwudgie, with a venom-tipped arrow.
The Gaunts, including Voldemort, are distantly related to Harry because they are descendants of the Peverell brothers.
Reception
Several people have drawn a parallel between Voldemort and some politicians. Rowling has said that Voldemort was "a sort of" Adolf Hitler, and that there is some parallel with Nazism in her books. Rowling also compared Voldemort to Joseph Stalin. Alfonso Cuarón, director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban compared Voldemort to George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein, who he said "...have selfish interests and are very much in love with power. Also, a disregard for the environment. A love for manipulating people." Andrew Slack and the Harry Potter Alliance compare media consolidation in the US to Voldemort's regime in Deathly Hallows and its control over the Daily Prophet and other media saying that "Once Voldemort took over every form of media in the wizarding world, Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix formed an independent media movement called 'Potterwatch'. Now the HP Alliance and Wizard Rock have come together to fight for a Potterwatch movement in the real world to fight back against Big VoldeMedia from further pushing out local and foreign news, minority representation, and the right to a Free Press." Julia Turner of Slate Magazine also noted similarities between the events of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the War on Terror. She said that Voldemort commits acts of terrorism such as destroying bridges, murdering innocents, and forcing children to kill their elders.
Voldemort has also been compared with other characters within fiction, for example Sauron from The Lord of the Rings; they are, during the time when the main plot takes place, seeking to recover their lost power after having been considered dead or at least no longer a threat, and are also so feared that they are sometimes unnamed.
IGN listed Voldemort as their seventh favourite Harry Potter character, calling him "truly frightening".
In popular culture
Several campaigns have used Voldemort to compare his evil to the influence of politicians, large media and corporations. "Lord Voldemort" is a nickname sometimes used for Peter Mandelson. Voldemort is also a recurring theme among wizard rock bands. Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock! is the second album from Harry and the Potters, and the character is mentioned in songs such as "The Dark Lord Lament" and "Flesh, Blood, and Bone".
Voldemort has been parodied in various venues. In The Simpsons 13th season's premiere, "Treehouse of Horror XII", Montgomery Burns appears as "Lord Montymort". A parody of Voldemort appears in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as "Lord Moldybutt", an enemy of Nigel Planter (a parody of Harry). Voldemort also appears in the Potter Puppet Pals sketches by Neil Cicierega. One of the episodes including him was the seventeenth most viewed video of all time as of 2008 and the winner for "Best Comedy" of the year 2007 at YouTube.
"Continuing the Magic", an article in the 21 May 2007 issue of Time, includes mock book covers designed by author Lon Tweeten, laced with pop culture references. One of them, the "Dark Lord of the Dance", shows Voldemort teaming up with Harry on Broadway. In the MAD Magazine parodies of the films, the character is called Lord Druckermort, a backwards reference to the magazine's longtime caricaturist Mort Drucker. In Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1969, a young Tom Marvolo Riddle (introduced as "Tom", whose middle name is a "marvel" and last name is a "conundrum") appears, and becomes the new avatar of Oliver Haddo at the story's conclusion. In A Very Potter Musical, Voldemort is played by actor Joe Walker.
In a segment celebrating British children's literature at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London, an inflatable Voldemort appeared alongside other villains, The Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook, and Cruella de Vil, to haunt children's dreams, before the arrival of a group of over thirty Mary Poppins who descended with their umbrellas to defeat them.
During the 2016 United States elections, Daniel Radcliffe was asked by Sky News journalist Craig Dillon if he would compare Donald Trump to Lord Voldemort; Radcliffe responded, "Trump is worse".
Voldemort appears in The Lego Batman Movie as one of the prisoners in the Phantom Zone that Joker recruits to take over Gotham City. Though Ralph Fiennes is featured in this movie as the voice of the British butler Alfred Pennyworth, he does not reprise his role as Voldemort. Instead, Voldemort is voiced by Eddie Izzard.
Outside of the Harry Potter video games, Voldemort is also a playable character in Lego Dimensions, with archive audio of Fiennes' portrayal in the films used for his voiceovers.
A 2018 Italian fan film titled Voldemort: Origins of the Heir depicts the story of Tom Riddle's rise to power.
Voldemort appears in Space Jam: A New Legacy, in the crowd for the game between the Tune Squad and the Goon Squad.
An upcoming French fan-made short-film titled The House of Gaunt - Lord Voldemort Origins explores the origin story of Voldemort and The Gaunt family.
Notes
References
External links
Lord Voldemort at Harry Potter Lexicon
Fictional characters with disfigurements
Fictional characters with immortality
Fictional characters with spirit possession or body swapping abilities
Fictional dictators
Fictional English people
Fictional hypnotists and indoctrinators
Fictional illeists
Fictional mass murderers
Fictional necromancers
Fictional offspring of rape
Fictional patricides
Fictional terrorists
Fictional torturers
Harry Potter characters
Literary characters introduced in 1997
Male film villains
Male literary villains
Orphan characters in film
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Psychopathy in fiction
Film supervillains | true | [
"Rowling may refer to:\n\nPeople\n Bill Rowling (1927–1995), former Prime Minister of New Zealand\n Ian Rowling (born 1967), Australian sprint canoeist \n J. K. Rowling (born 1965), British author of the Harry Potter series\n Reese Rowling (1928–2001), American businessman and geologist\n Robert Rowling (born 1953), American businessman\n\nOther uses\n 43844 Rowling, an asteroid named in honor of J.K. Rowling\n\nSee also \n\n Rolling (disambiguation)\n Rollin (disambiguation)\n Rollings\n Tobi Adebayo-Rowling (born 1996), English football player\n Citizens for Rowling, a campaign named after Bill Rowling",
"The Christmas Pig is a Christmas fairy tale novel by J. K. Rowling. The story was published in October 2021. Upon release, the book received positive critical reviews and emerged a bestseller with high pre-sales on Amazon.\n\nPlot\n\nBackground\nRowling's ideas for The Christmas Pig first originated in 2012. She had always wanted to write a Christmas story, and was inspired by a pair of toy pigs her son had as a young child. She completed writing the book in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rowling said that, due to the pandemic, \"I was unusually aware of the need for human connection. I think that's why I kept imagining it being read aloud while working on it, something I've never done with any other book.\" She described the story as \"about being lost and being found, about loving and being loved, about what stays with us and what falls away. It's also about hope and endurance.\"\n\nThe Christmas Pig is illustrated by Jim Field.\n\nRelease and reception\nThe Christmas Pig was published by Hachette Children's Group in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and India, and by Scholastic in the US and Canada. It was the number one bestseller on its first week on sale in the UK, selling 60,010 copies, the 16th book of Rowling's to reach number one in its first week. The novel also topped The New York Timess children's middle grade hardcover bestseller list.\n\nThe Times called the book a \"wonderful, timely\" story. The New York Times stated, \"Rowling has written a marvelously persuasive fantasy for our times, one that looks back to the past in its determination to enlighten and console.\" The Evening Standard called it \"her best since Azkaban\".\n\nReferences\n\n2021 children's books\nBritish fantasy novels\nChristmas novels\nNovels by J. K. Rowling\nBooks about pigs"
] |
[
"Lord Voldemort",
"Character development",
"How did Voldemort's character begin?",
"Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first.",
"Why did rowling do that?",
"The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position"
] | C_7776d2fc9b234c23939513b312811d39_1 | How else is voldemorts character developed? | 3 | Besides fleshing out Voldemort's backstory of being a wizard, how else is Voldemort's character developed? | Lord Voldemort | In a 2001 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry--he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And--so--but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since." In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death." Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. Some literary analysts have considered possible meanings in the name: Philip Nel states that Voldemort is derived from the French for "flight of death", and in a 2002 paper, Nilsen and Nilsen suggest that readers get a "creepy feeling" from the name Voldemort, because of the French word "mort" ("death") within it and that word's association with cognate English words derived from the Latin mors. CANNOTANSWER | When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then | Lord Voldemort (, in the films) is a sobriquet for Tom Marvolo Riddle, a character and the main antagonist in J. K. Rowling's series of Harry Potter novels. The character first appeared in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which was published in 1997, and returned either in person or in flashbacks in each book and its film adaptation in the series except the third, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in which he is only mentioned.
Voldemort is the archenemy of Harry Potter, who according to a prophecy has "the power to vanquish the Dark Lord". He attempts to murder the boy, but instead kills his parents, Lily and James Potter, and leaves Harry with a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. Nearly every witch or wizard dares not utter his name and refers to him instead with such monikers as "You-Know-Who", "He Who Must Not Be Named", or "the Dark Lord". Voldemort's obsession with blood purity signifies his aim to rid the wizarding world of Muggle (non-magical) heritage and to conquer both worlds, Muggle and wizarding, to achieve pure-blood dominance. Through his mother's family, he is the last descendant of the wizard Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He is the leader of the Death Eaters, a group of evil wizards and witches dedicated to ridding the Wizarding World of Muggles and establishing Voldemort as its supreme ruler.
Character development
In a 1999 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter, and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry—he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And—so—but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since."
In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death."
Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. The name Voldemort is derived from the French vol de mort which means "flight of death" or "theft of death".
Appearances
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Voldemort makes his debut in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. In this story, Rowling introduces him as the Dark Lord who tried to kill Harry Potter because the boy was prophesied to destroy him. Voldemort murdered Harry's parents, James and Lily, but as a result of his mother's love and willingness to sacrifice herself for him, baby Harry survived when Voldemort tried to murder him with a Killing Curse. Voldemort was disembodied, and Harry was left with a mysterious, lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead as a result.
In the book, Voldemort unsuccessfully tries to regain his dissolved body by stealing the titular Philosopher's Stone. To achieve his objective, Voldemort uses Professor Quirrell's aid by latching onto the back of the latter's head. However, at the climax of the book, Harry manages to prevent Voldemort from stealing the stone.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
In the second instalment, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Rowling introduces Tom Marvolo Riddle, a manifestation of a teenage Voldemort that resides inside a magical diary found by Ginny Weasley. In this book, Ginny is written as a shy girl with a crush on Harry. Feeling anxious and lonely, she begins to write into the diary and shares her deepest fears with the sympathetic Tom. However, at the climax of the story, when Riddle rearranges the letters in his name to write "I am Lord Voldemort", Riddle is revealed as a magical manifestation of the boy who would later grow up to become the Dark Lord. Riddle states he has grown strong on Ginny's fears and eventually possesses her, using her as a pawn to unlock the Chamber of Secrets, whence a basilisk is set free and petrifies several Hogwarts students. Harry defeats the manifestation of Riddle from the diary and the basilisk. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Albus Dumbledore reveals to Harry that the diary was one of Voldemort's Horcruxes.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Voldemort does not appear in the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, either in person or as a magical manifestation. He is, however, heard when Harry passes out from the harsh effects of a Dementor. Towards the end of the story, Sybill Trelawney, the Divination professor, makes a rare genuine prophecy: "The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight, the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever before. Tonight... before midnight... the servant... will set out... to rejoin... his master..." Though it is initially implied that the prophecy refers to Sirius Black, the book's ostensible antagonist, the servant is eventually revealed to be Peter Pettigrew, who, for the 12 years since Voldemort's fall, has been disguised as Ron's pet rat, Scabbers.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
In the fourth instalment of the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort reappears at the start and the climax of the book. Rowling lets many seemingly unrelated plot elements fall into order. It is revealed that Voldemort's minion Barty Crouch Jr, disguised as Hogwarts professor Mad-Eye Moody, has manipulated the events of the Triwizard Tournament in Harry's favour. Voldemort's goal is to teleport Harry under Dumbledore's watch as a reluctant participant to the Little Hangleton graveyard, where the Riddle family is buried. Harry is captured and, after Pettigrew uses Harry's blood to fulfil a gruesome magical ritual, Voldemort regains his body and is restored to his full power. For the first time in the series, Rowling describes his appearance: "tall and skeletally thin", with a face "whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was as flat as a snake's with slits for nostrils". Rowling writes that his "hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cat's, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness". It was revealed that, while in Albania, Pettigrew had captured the Ministry of Magic official Bertha Jorkins, who was tortured for information about the Ministry. After they learned that Barty Crouch Jr, a faithful Death Eater, had been smuggled out of Azkaban and was privately confined at his father's house, they killed her. With Pettigrew's help, Voldemort creates a small, rudimentary body, corporeal enough to travel and perform magic, and formulated a plan to restore his own body by capturing Harry. A portion of the plan had been overheard by Frank Bryce, a gardener, whom Voldemort then killed. Voldemort then completes his plan and returns to life in his full body as a result of the ritual with Harry's blood. He then summons his Death Eaters to the graveyard to witness the death of Harry as he challenges Harry to a duel. However, when Voldemort duels Harry, their wands become magically locked together due to the twin Phoenix feather cores of the wands. Because of a phenomenon later revealed as Priori Incantatem, ghost-like manifestations of Voldemort's most recent victims (including Harry's parents) then appear and distract Voldemort, allowing Harry just enough time to escape via Portkey with the body of fellow-student, Cedric Diggory, who was murdered by Pettigrew on Voldemort's orders.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Voldemort appears at the climax of the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, having again plotted against Harry. In this book, Harry goes through extreme emotional stress, and according to Rowling, it was necessary to prove that Harry is emotionally vulnerable and thus human, in contrast to his nemesis Voldemort, who is emotionally invulnerable and thus inhuman: "[Harry is] a very human hero, and this is, obviously, there's a contrast, between him, as a very human hero, and Voldemort, who has deliberately dehumanised himself. […] and Harry, therefore, did have to reach a point where he did almost break down." In this book, Voldemort makes liberal use of the Ministry of Magic's refusal to believe that he has returned. Voldemort engineers a plot to free Bellatrix Lestrange and other Death Eaters from Azkaban and then embarks on a scheme to retrieve the full record of a prophecy stored in the Department of Mysteries regarding Harry and himself. He sends a group of Death Eaters to retrieve the prophecy, where the Order of the Phoenix meets them. All but Bellatrix are captured, and Voldemort engages in a ferocious duel with Dumbledore. When Dumbledore gets the upper hand, Voldemort attempts to possess Harry but finds that he cannot; Harry is too full of that which Voldemort finds incomprehensible, and which he detests as weakness: love. Sensing that Dumbledore could win, Voldemort disapparates, but not before the Minister for Magic sees him in person, making his return to life public knowledge in the next book.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Voldemort does not appear in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, although his presence and actions are felt: he once again declares war, and begins to rise to power once more. He murders Amelia Bones of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and begins to target members of the Order of the Phoenix, including Emmeline Vance.
Rowling uses several chapters as exposition to establish Voldemort's backstory. In a series of flashbacks, using the pensieve as a plot device, she reveals that Voldemort was the son of the witch Merope Gaunt and a Muggle called Tom Riddle. Riddle abandoned Merope before their child's birth, soon after which Merope died. After living in an orphanage, young Riddle met Dumbledore, who told him he was a wizard and arranged for him to attend Hogwarts. Riddle was outwardly a model student, but was in reality a psychopath who took sadistic pleasure in using his powers to harm and control people. He eventually murdered his father and grandparents as revenge for abandoning him. The book also discusses Riddle's hatred of Muggles, his obsession with Horcruxes, and his desire to split his soul to achieve immortality. Rowling stated Voldemort's conception under the influence of a love potion symbolises the coercive circumstances under which he was brought into the world.
In the main plot of the book, Voldemort's next step is to engineer an assault on Hogwarts, and to kill Dumbledore. This is accomplished by Draco Malfoy, who arranges transportation of Death Eaters into Hogwarts by a pair of Vanishing Cabinets, which bypass the extensive protective enchantments placed around the school. The cabinets allow Voldemort's Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts, where battle commences and Dumbledore is cornered. Hogwarts professor (and re-doubled agent) Severus Snape uses the Killing Curse against Dumbledore when Draco could not force himself to do so.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort furthers his quest for ultimate power. He disposes of the Minister for Magic and replaces him with Pius Thicknesse, who is under the Imperius Curse. Establishing a totalitarian police state, he has Muggle-borns persecuted and arrested for "stealing magic" from the "pure blood" wizards. After failing to kill Harry with Draco's father Lucius Malfoy's borrowed wand (to avoid the effect of Priori Incantatem), he goes on a murderous search for the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand ever created, seeing it as the weapon he needs to overcome Harry's wand and make him truly invincible. He goes on a quest that takes him out of the country to Gregorovitch's wand shop, where he kills the old wandmaker. His journey also takes him to Nurmengard, the prison where Gellert Grindelwald is kept, and he kills Grindelwald as well. He finally locates the Elder Wand and steals it from Dumbledore's tomb.
Later, Voldemort finds out that Harry and his friends are hunting and destroying his Horcruxes when informed of their heist on the Lestranges' vault at Gringotts in search for Hufflepuff's Cup. After offering the occupants of Hogwarts mercy if they give up Harry, he assembles a large army and launches an invasion of the castle, where Harry is searching for Ravenclaw's Diadem. Voldemort orders his pet snake Nagini to execute Snape, believing it would make him the true master of the Elder Wand, since Snape killed Dumbledore. He then calls an hour's armistice, in exchange for Harry. When Harry willingly walks into Voldemort's camp in the Forbidden Forest, Voldemort strikes him down with the Elder Wand. However, the use of Harry's blood to resurrect Voldemort's body proves to be a major setback: while Harry's blood runs in Voldemort's veins, Harry cannot be killed as his mother's protection lives on now in Voldemort too. Instead, Voldemort destroys the part of his own soul that resides in Harry's body. Voldemort forces Rubeus Hagrid to carry Harry's apparently lifeless body back to the castle as a trophy, sparking another battle during which Nagini, his last Horcrux, is destroyed by Neville Longbottom. The battle then moves into the Great Hall, where Voldemort fights Minerva McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Horace Slughorn simultaneously. Harry then reveals himself and explains to Voldemort that Draco became the true master of the Elder Wand when he disarmed Dumbledore; Harry, in turn, won the wand's allegiance when he took Draco's wand. Refusing to believe this, Voldemort casts the Killing Curse with the Elder Wand while Harry uses a Disarming Charm with Draco's, but the Elder Wand refuses to kill its master and the spell rebounds on Voldemort who, with all of his Horcruxes destroyed, finally dies. His body is laid in a different chamber from all the others who died battling him.
Rowling stated that after his death, Voldemort is forced to exist in the stunted infant-like form that Harry sees in the King's Cross-like Limbo after his confrontation with Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest. Rowling also mentioned that, despite his extreme fear of death, he cannot become a ghost.
Appearances in other material
In Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, it is revealed that Bellatrix gave birth to Voldemort's daughter Delphi in Malfoy Manor before the Battle of Hogwarts. Twenty-two years later, Delphi poses as Cedric's cousin and manipulates Harry and Ginny's second son Albus Severus Potter and his friend, Draco and Astoria Greengrass's son Scorpius Malfoy, into stealing a prototype Time Turner with which she hopes to resurrect her father. Using the Time Turner, Scorpius accidentally creates an alternative timeline where Voldemort killed Harry at the battle and now rules the wizarding world. In an attempt to achieve this future, Delphi travels to Godric's Hollow on the night Voldemort killed Harry's parents, hoping to avert the prophecy that led to her father's downfall. After receiving a message from his son, Harry, together with Ron, Hermione and Draco (who by now has become friends with Harry after they join forces to save their respective sons) transfigures himself into Voldemort so that he can distract Delphi, allowing them to overpower her. The real Voldemort kills Harry's parents as prophesied, and Delphi is sent to Azkaban.
Portrayals within films
Voldemort appears in every Harry Potter film, with the exception of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Several actors have portrayed him in his varying incarnations and ages.
In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Voldemort's manifestation is as a face on the back of Quirrell's head, an effect achieved by computer generated imagery. Ian Hart, the actor who played Quirrell in the same film, provided the voice and the facial source for this character. Voldemort also appears in a scene in the Forbidden Forest where he is seen drinking the blood of a unicorn. As Voldemort's face was altered enough by CG work, and Hart's voice was affected enough, there was no confusion by Hart's playing of the two roles. In that film, he was also shown in a flashback sequence when he arrived at the home of James and Lily Potter to kill them. In this scene Voldemort is played by Richard Bremmer, though his face is never seen. His next appearance would be in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as the 16-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle (portrayed by Christian Coulson).
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort is initially only heard, possessing the scratchy, weak voice heard in the first film. By the film's climax, however, he appears in his physical form for the first time, played by Ralph Fiennes. As in the book, Voldemort is shown clad in dark black robes, being tall and emaciated, with no hair and yellowish teeth; his wand has a white tone and the handle appears to be made of bone; his finger nails are long and pale blue while his toe nails appear to be infected. Unlike in the book, his pupils are not cat-like and his eyes are blue, because producer David Heyman felt that his evil would not be able to be seen and would not fill the audience with fear (his eyes do briefly take on a snake-like appearance when he opens them after turning human, but quickly turn normal). As in the book, the film version of Voldemort has snake-like slit nostrils with the flesh of his nose significantly pressed back. Ralph Fiennes' nose was not covered in makeup on the set, but was digitally removed in post-production. In this first appearance, Voldemort also has a forked tongue, but this element was removed for the subsequent films.
Fiennes stated that he had two weeks to shoot the climactic showdown scene where he is gloating over a terrified Harry, played by Daniel Radcliffe. Fiennes said with a chuckle: "I have no doubt children will be afraid of me now if they weren't before." In preparation, he read the novel Goblet of Fire, but jokingly conceded: "I was only interested in my scene, and I had to go through thousands and thousands of other scenes which I did, dutifully, until I got to my scene and I read it many, many, many, many, many times and that was my research." Fiennes reprised his role as Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2.
Fiennes's nephew, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, portrayed Tom Riddle as a child in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. By the time filming arrived Christian Coulson was 29, and not considered suitable to return as the adolescent Riddle. Thomas James Longley was originally scheduled to take over the role, but last minute renegotiations saw Frank Dillane cast instead.
Characterisation
Outward appearance
After he regains his body in the fourth book, Rowling describes Voldemort as having pale skin, a chalk-white, skull-like face, snake-like slits for nostrils, red eyes and cat-like slits for pupils, a skeletally thin body and long, thin hands with unnaturally long fingers. As mentioned in the first chapter of the seventh book, he also has no hair or lips. Earlier in life, as seen through flashbacks contained in the second and sixth books, Tom Marvolo Riddle was handsome and tall with pale skin, jet black hair, and dark brown eyes. He could charm many people with his looks. The transformation into his monstrous state is believed to have been the result of creating his Horcruxes and becoming less human as he continued to divide his soul. In the films, Voldemort's eyes are blue with round pupils.
Personality
Rowling described Voldemort as "the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years". She elaborated that he is a "raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering", and whose only ambition in life is to become all-powerful and immortal. He is also a sadist who hurts and murders people—especially Muggles—for his own amusement. He has no conscience, feels no remorse or empathy, and does not recognise the worth and humanity of anybody except himself.
He feels no need for human companionship or friendship, and cannot comprehend love or affection for another. He believes he is superior to everyone around him, to the point that he frequently refers to himself in the third person as "Lord Voldemort". Rowling also stated that Voldemort is "incredibly power hungry. Racist, really", and that if Voldemort were to look into the Mirror of Erised, in which one sees one's greatest desire, he would see "Himself, all-powerful and eternal. That's what he wants."
Rowling also stated that Voldemort's conception by influence of Amortentia—a love potion administered by his mother, a witch named Merope Gaunt, to the Muggle Tom Riddle—is related to his inability to understand love; it is "a symbolic way of showing that he came from a loveless union—but of course, everything would have changed if Merope had survived and raised him herself and loved him. The enchantment under which Tom Riddle fathered Voldemort is important because it shows coercion, and there can't be many more prejudicial ways to enter the world than as the result of such a union".
Like most archetypical villains, Voldemort's arrogance leads to his downfall. He also suffers from a pathological fear of death, which he regards as a shameful and ignominious human weakness. According to Rowling, his Boggart would be his own corpse. Rowling also said that the difference between Harry and Voldemort is that Harry accepts mortality, and thus Harry is, in the end, stronger than his nemesis.
Magical abilities and skills
Rowling establishes Voldemort throughout the series as an extremely powerful, intelligent, and ruthless dark wizard, described as the greatest and most powerful Dark Wizard of all time. He is known as one of the greatest Legilimens in the world and a highly accomplished Occlumens; he can read minds and shield his own from penetration. Besides Dumbledore, he is also the only wizard ever known to be able to apparate silently. Voldemort was also said to fear one wizard alone, Dumbledore.
In the final book, Voldemort flies unsupported, something that amazes those who see it. Voldemort, like his ancestral family, the Gaunts, is a Parselmouth, meaning he can converse with serpents. This skill was inherited from his ancestor, Salazar Slytherin. The Gaunt family speak Parseltongue among themselves. This highly unusual trait may be preserved through inbreeding, a practice employed by the Gaunt Family to maintain their blood's purity. When Voldemort attempts to kill Harry his ability to speak Parseltongue is passed to Harry through the small bit of the former's soul. After that bit of soul is destroyed, Harry loses this ability. In a flashback in the sixth novel, Voldemort boasts to Dumbledore during a job interview that he has "pushed the boundaries of magic farther than they had ever before". Dumbledore states that Voldemort's knowledge of magic is more extensive than any wizard alive and that even Dumbledore's most powerful protective spells and charms would likely be insufficient if Voldemort returned to full power. Dumbledore also said that Voldemort was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen. Although Voldemort remains highly accomplished and prodigious in skill, he is enormously lacking and highly inept in the most powerful magic, love. This inability to love and trust others proves to be Voldemort's greatest weakness in the series. Voldemort initially voices scepticism that his own magic might not be the most powerful, but upon returning to power, he admits to his Death Eaters that he had overlooked the ancient and powerful magic which Lily Potter invoked and that would protect Harry from harm.
On her website, Rowling wrote that Voldemort's wand is made of yew, whose sap is poisonous and which symbolises death. It forms a deliberate contrast to Harry's wand, which is made of holly, which she chose because holly is alleged to repel evil.
Rowling establishes in the books that Voldemort is magically connected to Harry via Harry's forehead scar. He disembodies himself when his Killing Curse targeting Harry rebounds on him, leaving the scar on Harry's forehead. In the books, and to a lesser extent in the films, Harry's scar serves as an indicator of Voldemort's presence: it burns when the Dark Lord is near or when Voldemort is feeling murderous or exultant. According to Rowling, by attacking Harry when he was a baby Voldemort gave him "tools [that] no other wizard possessed—the scar and the ability it conferred, a magical window into Voldemort's mind".
Family
Notes: The names 'Thomas' and 'Mary' Riddle are taken from the films. The Potter Family is not shown.
Riddle family
The Riddle family, an old gentry family, consisted of Thomas and Mary Riddle and their son, Tom Riddle, Esq. They owned over half of the valley that the town of Little Hangleton lay in, and Thomas was the most prominent inhabitant of that town. They lived in a large house with fine gardens, but were unpopular amongst the local residents due to their snobbish attitudes. Tom, the only child of Thomas and Mary, was known as a playboy, his main interests being womanizing and horse-riding.
Rowling revealed in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that young Merope Gaunt fell in love with Riddle, peering at him through the windows and bushes at every opportunity. Merope's brother Morfin disapproved of his sister's affection for Tom and hexed him as he rode by, covering him in hives. This breach of wizarding law, and the ensuing violent struggle with Ministry of Magic officials, led to Marvolo and Morfin being imprisoned in Azkaban. As surmised by Dumbledore, once Merope was alone and no longer dominated by her father, she could make her move for Tom. She offered him a drink laced with a love potion, and he became infatuated with her; they soon eloped and, within three months of the marriage, Merope became pregnant. Merope decided to stop giving Tom the love potion, having come to the belief such enchantment of a man was tantamount to slavery. She also revealed her witch status to Tom, believing either that he had fallen in love with her on his own or he would at least stay for their unborn child. She was wrong, and Tom quickly left his pregnant wife and went home to his parents, claiming to have been "hoodwinked" and tricked into marrying Merope. Tom Marvolo Riddle, their son, was born on 31 December 1926 Merope died in childbirth, leaving the baby to grow up alone in an orphanage.
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, it is revealed that Voldemort murdered his father and grandparents, leaving himself the only surviving member of the Riddle family.
House of Gaunt
Most of the exposition of the House of Gaunts background occurs in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, through the medium of Dumbledore's Pensieve. The Gaunts were once a powerful and influential family, and are the last known descendants of Salazar Slytherin. However, a vein of mental instability and violence within the family, reinforced through cousin marriages intended to preserve the pureblood line, had reduced them to poverty and squalor, as shown in the Pensieve's "memory" that Harry and Dumbledore witnessed. Like Salazar Slytherin, the Gaunts spoke Parseltongue. At the time of the story, the Gaunts' only material asset is a ramshackle shanty in Little Hangleton, that stood in a thicket in a valley opposite the Riddle House. Like the Riddles, the Gaunts were also unpopular with the local residents, with a reputation for being vulgar and intimidating.
Marvolo Gaunt was the last family patriarch. He was sentenced to a short term in Azkaban for his and his son's assault upon a Ministry of Magic official; this affected his health and he died soon after returning home. His signet ring passed to his son, Morfin Gaunt, who was convicted of assaulting a Muggle, and later died in Azkaban, convicted this time as a party to the murder of Tom Riddle Jr. and Riddle's parents.
Dumbledore discovers the real culprit while visiting Morfin in Azkaban to gather information about Voldemort. After Dumbledore successfully extracts Morfin's memory of his encounter with his nephew, he tries to use the evidence to have Morfin released, but Morfin dies before the decision can be made. The House of Gaunt ended with Morfin's death.
Merope Gaunt () was the daughter of Marvolo, and sister of Morfin. Harry's first impression of her was that she looked "like the most defeated person he had ever seen". She married Tom Riddle Jr and became pregnant within three months of the wedding. It is suggested that she tricked her husband into loving her by using a love potion, but when she became pregnant, she chose to stop administering the potion. It is implied that Merope had grown tired of living the lie and thought that her husband might have grown to love her, or that he might have stayed for the sake of their unborn child; however, he left her. Desperate, Merope wandered through the streets of London. The only thing she had left was the heavy gold locket that had once belonged to Salazar Slytherin, one of her family's most treasured items, which she sold for a small amount. When she was due to give birth, she stumbled into a Muggle orphanage, where she gave birth to her only son. She died within the next hour.
Gormlaith Gaunt was a 17th-century descendant of Salazar Slytherin, and like Salazar, a Parselmouth. Her wand was that which once belonged to Salazar himself. Educated at Hogwarts, Gormlaith lived in Ireland in the early 1600s. In about 1608, Gormlaith killed her estranged unnamed sister, and her sister's husband, William Sayre (a descendant of the Irish witch Morrigan), and kidnapped their five-year-old daughter, Isolt Sayre, raising her in the neighbouring valley of Coomcallee, or "Hag's Glen", because she felt that her parents' association with Muggles would badly influence Isolt. Fanatical and cruel, Gormlaith used Dark magic to isolate Isolt from others, forbade her a wand, and did not allow her to attend Hogwarts as she herself had, disgusted that it was now filled with Muggle-borns. After twelve years with Gormlaith, Isolt stole Gormlaith's wand and fled to the Colonies and settled in Massachusetts, where she founded the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When Gormlaith learned of the school, she pursued her niece in Massachusetts, where she was killed by Isolt's friend, William the Pukwudgie, with a venom-tipped arrow.
The Gaunts, including Voldemort, are distantly related to Harry because they are descendants of the Peverell brothers.
Reception
Several people have drawn a parallel between Voldemort and some politicians. Rowling has said that Voldemort was "a sort of" Adolf Hitler, and that there is some parallel with Nazism in her books. Rowling also compared Voldemort to Joseph Stalin. Alfonso Cuarón, director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban compared Voldemort to George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein, who he said "...have selfish interests and are very much in love with power. Also, a disregard for the environment. A love for manipulating people." Andrew Slack and the Harry Potter Alliance compare media consolidation in the US to Voldemort's regime in Deathly Hallows and its control over the Daily Prophet and other media saying that "Once Voldemort took over every form of media in the wizarding world, Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix formed an independent media movement called 'Potterwatch'. Now the HP Alliance and Wizard Rock have come together to fight for a Potterwatch movement in the real world to fight back against Big VoldeMedia from further pushing out local and foreign news, minority representation, and the right to a Free Press." Julia Turner of Slate Magazine also noted similarities between the events of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the War on Terror. She said that Voldemort commits acts of terrorism such as destroying bridges, murdering innocents, and forcing children to kill their elders.
Voldemort has also been compared with other characters within fiction, for example Sauron from The Lord of the Rings; they are, during the time when the main plot takes place, seeking to recover their lost power after having been considered dead or at least no longer a threat, and are also so feared that they are sometimes unnamed.
IGN listed Voldemort as their seventh favourite Harry Potter character, calling him "truly frightening".
In popular culture
Several campaigns have used Voldemort to compare his evil to the influence of politicians, large media and corporations. "Lord Voldemort" is a nickname sometimes used for Peter Mandelson. Voldemort is also a recurring theme among wizard rock bands. Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock! is the second album from Harry and the Potters, and the character is mentioned in songs such as "The Dark Lord Lament" and "Flesh, Blood, and Bone".
Voldemort has been parodied in various venues. In The Simpsons 13th season's premiere, "Treehouse of Horror XII", Montgomery Burns appears as "Lord Montymort". A parody of Voldemort appears in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as "Lord Moldybutt", an enemy of Nigel Planter (a parody of Harry). Voldemort also appears in the Potter Puppet Pals sketches by Neil Cicierega. One of the episodes including him was the seventeenth most viewed video of all time as of 2008 and the winner for "Best Comedy" of the year 2007 at YouTube.
"Continuing the Magic", an article in the 21 May 2007 issue of Time, includes mock book covers designed by author Lon Tweeten, laced with pop culture references. One of them, the "Dark Lord of the Dance", shows Voldemort teaming up with Harry on Broadway. In the MAD Magazine parodies of the films, the character is called Lord Druckermort, a backwards reference to the magazine's longtime caricaturist Mort Drucker. In Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1969, a young Tom Marvolo Riddle (introduced as "Tom", whose middle name is a "marvel" and last name is a "conundrum") appears, and becomes the new avatar of Oliver Haddo at the story's conclusion. In A Very Potter Musical, Voldemort is played by actor Joe Walker.
In a segment celebrating British children's literature at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London, an inflatable Voldemort appeared alongside other villains, The Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook, and Cruella de Vil, to haunt children's dreams, before the arrival of a group of over thirty Mary Poppins who descended with their umbrellas to defeat them.
During the 2016 United States elections, Daniel Radcliffe was asked by Sky News journalist Craig Dillon if he would compare Donald Trump to Lord Voldemort; Radcliffe responded, "Trump is worse".
Voldemort appears in The Lego Batman Movie as one of the prisoners in the Phantom Zone that Joker recruits to take over Gotham City. Though Ralph Fiennes is featured in this movie as the voice of the British butler Alfred Pennyworth, he does not reprise his role as Voldemort. Instead, Voldemort is voiced by Eddie Izzard.
Outside of the Harry Potter video games, Voldemort is also a playable character in Lego Dimensions, with archive audio of Fiennes' portrayal in the films used for his voiceovers.
A 2018 Italian fan film titled Voldemort: Origins of the Heir depicts the story of Tom Riddle's rise to power.
Voldemort appears in Space Jam: A New Legacy, in the crowd for the game between the Tune Squad and the Goon Squad.
An upcoming French fan-made short-film titled The House of Gaunt - Lord Voldemort Origins explores the origin story of Voldemort and The Gaunt family.
Notes
References
External links
Lord Voldemort at Harry Potter Lexicon
Fictional characters with disfigurements
Fictional characters with immortality
Fictional characters with spirit possession or body swapping abilities
Fictional dictators
Fictional English people
Fictional hypnotists and indoctrinators
Fictional illeists
Fictional mass murderers
Fictional necromancers
Fictional offspring of rape
Fictional patricides
Fictional terrorists
Fictional torturers
Harry Potter characters
Literary characters introduced in 1997
Male film villains
Male literary villains
Orphan characters in film
Orphan characters in literature
Psychopathy in fiction
Film supervillains | true | [
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[
"Lord Voldemort",
"Character development",
"How did Voldemort's character begin?",
"Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first.",
"Why did rowling do that?",
"The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position",
"How else is voldemorts character developed?",
"When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then"
] | C_7776d2fc9b234c23939513b312811d39_1 | And then what did he do? | 4 | After Voldemort attempted to kill Harry and killed Harry's parents, what did Voldemort do next? | Lord Voldemort | In a 2001 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry--he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And--so--but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since." In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death." Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. Some literary analysts have considered possible meanings in the name: Philip Nel states that Voldemort is derived from the French for "flight of death", and in a 2002 paper, Nilsen and Nilsen suggest that readers get a "creepy feeling" from the name Voldemort, because of the French word "mort" ("death") within it and that word's association with cognate English words derived from the Latin mors. CANNOTANSWER | and then he tried to kill Harry--he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And--so--but for some mysterious reason the curse | Lord Voldemort (, in the films) is a sobriquet for Tom Marvolo Riddle, a character and the main antagonist in J. K. Rowling's series of Harry Potter novels. The character first appeared in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which was published in 1997, and returned either in person or in flashbacks in each book and its film adaptation in the series except the third, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in which he is only mentioned.
Voldemort is the archenemy of Harry Potter, who according to a prophecy has "the power to vanquish the Dark Lord". He attempts to murder the boy, but instead kills his parents, Lily and James Potter, and leaves Harry with a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. Nearly every witch or wizard dares not utter his name and refers to him instead with such monikers as "You-Know-Who", "He Who Must Not Be Named", or "the Dark Lord". Voldemort's obsession with blood purity signifies his aim to rid the wizarding world of Muggle (non-magical) heritage and to conquer both worlds, Muggle and wizarding, to achieve pure-blood dominance. Through his mother's family, he is the last descendant of the wizard Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He is the leader of the Death Eaters, a group of evil wizards and witches dedicated to ridding the Wizarding World of Muggles and establishing Voldemort as its supreme ruler.
Character development
In a 1999 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter, and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry—he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And—so—but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since."
In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death."
Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. The name Voldemort is derived from the French vol de mort which means "flight of death" or "theft of death".
Appearances
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Voldemort makes his debut in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. In this story, Rowling introduces him as the Dark Lord who tried to kill Harry Potter because the boy was prophesied to destroy him. Voldemort murdered Harry's parents, James and Lily, but as a result of his mother's love and willingness to sacrifice herself for him, baby Harry survived when Voldemort tried to murder him with a Killing Curse. Voldemort was disembodied, and Harry was left with a mysterious, lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead as a result.
In the book, Voldemort unsuccessfully tries to regain his dissolved body by stealing the titular Philosopher's Stone. To achieve his objective, Voldemort uses Professor Quirrell's aid by latching onto the back of the latter's head. However, at the climax of the book, Harry manages to prevent Voldemort from stealing the stone.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
In the second instalment, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Rowling introduces Tom Marvolo Riddle, a manifestation of a teenage Voldemort that resides inside a magical diary found by Ginny Weasley. In this book, Ginny is written as a shy girl with a crush on Harry. Feeling anxious and lonely, she begins to write into the diary and shares her deepest fears with the sympathetic Tom. However, at the climax of the story, when Riddle rearranges the letters in his name to write "I am Lord Voldemort", Riddle is revealed as a magical manifestation of the boy who would later grow up to become the Dark Lord. Riddle states he has grown strong on Ginny's fears and eventually possesses her, using her as a pawn to unlock the Chamber of Secrets, whence a basilisk is set free and petrifies several Hogwarts students. Harry defeats the manifestation of Riddle from the diary and the basilisk. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Albus Dumbledore reveals to Harry that the diary was one of Voldemort's Horcruxes.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Voldemort does not appear in the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, either in person or as a magical manifestation. He is, however, heard when Harry passes out from the harsh effects of a Dementor. Towards the end of the story, Sybill Trelawney, the Divination professor, makes a rare genuine prophecy: "The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight, the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever before. Tonight... before midnight... the servant... will set out... to rejoin... his master..." Though it is initially implied that the prophecy refers to Sirius Black, the book's ostensible antagonist, the servant is eventually revealed to be Peter Pettigrew, who, for the 12 years since Voldemort's fall, has been disguised as Ron's pet rat, Scabbers.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
In the fourth instalment of the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort reappears at the start and the climax of the book. Rowling lets many seemingly unrelated plot elements fall into order. It is revealed that Voldemort's minion Barty Crouch Jr, disguised as Hogwarts professor Mad-Eye Moody, has manipulated the events of the Triwizard Tournament in Harry's favour. Voldemort's goal is to teleport Harry under Dumbledore's watch as a reluctant participant to the Little Hangleton graveyard, where the Riddle family is buried. Harry is captured and, after Pettigrew uses Harry's blood to fulfil a gruesome magical ritual, Voldemort regains his body and is restored to his full power. For the first time in the series, Rowling describes his appearance: "tall and skeletally thin", with a face "whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was as flat as a snake's with slits for nostrils". Rowling writes that his "hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cat's, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness". It was revealed that, while in Albania, Pettigrew had captured the Ministry of Magic official Bertha Jorkins, who was tortured for information about the Ministry. After they learned that Barty Crouch Jr, a faithful Death Eater, had been smuggled out of Azkaban and was privately confined at his father's house, they killed her. With Pettigrew's help, Voldemort creates a small, rudimentary body, corporeal enough to travel and perform magic, and formulated a plan to restore his own body by capturing Harry. A portion of the plan had been overheard by Frank Bryce, a gardener, whom Voldemort then killed. Voldemort then completes his plan and returns to life in his full body as a result of the ritual with Harry's blood. He then summons his Death Eaters to the graveyard to witness the death of Harry as he challenges Harry to a duel. However, when Voldemort duels Harry, their wands become magically locked together due to the twin Phoenix feather cores of the wands. Because of a phenomenon later revealed as Priori Incantatem, ghost-like manifestations of Voldemort's most recent victims (including Harry's parents) then appear and distract Voldemort, allowing Harry just enough time to escape via Portkey with the body of fellow-student, Cedric Diggory, who was murdered by Pettigrew on Voldemort's orders.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Voldemort appears at the climax of the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, having again plotted against Harry. In this book, Harry goes through extreme emotional stress, and according to Rowling, it was necessary to prove that Harry is emotionally vulnerable and thus human, in contrast to his nemesis Voldemort, who is emotionally invulnerable and thus inhuman: "[Harry is] a very human hero, and this is, obviously, there's a contrast, between him, as a very human hero, and Voldemort, who has deliberately dehumanised himself. […] and Harry, therefore, did have to reach a point where he did almost break down." In this book, Voldemort makes liberal use of the Ministry of Magic's refusal to believe that he has returned. Voldemort engineers a plot to free Bellatrix Lestrange and other Death Eaters from Azkaban and then embarks on a scheme to retrieve the full record of a prophecy stored in the Department of Mysteries regarding Harry and himself. He sends a group of Death Eaters to retrieve the prophecy, where the Order of the Phoenix meets them. All but Bellatrix are captured, and Voldemort engages in a ferocious duel with Dumbledore. When Dumbledore gets the upper hand, Voldemort attempts to possess Harry but finds that he cannot; Harry is too full of that which Voldemort finds incomprehensible, and which he detests as weakness: love. Sensing that Dumbledore could win, Voldemort disapparates, but not before the Minister for Magic sees him in person, making his return to life public knowledge in the next book.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Voldemort does not appear in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, although his presence and actions are felt: he once again declares war, and begins to rise to power once more. He murders Amelia Bones of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and begins to target members of the Order of the Phoenix, including Emmeline Vance.
Rowling uses several chapters as exposition to establish Voldemort's backstory. In a series of flashbacks, using the pensieve as a plot device, she reveals that Voldemort was the son of the witch Merope Gaunt and a Muggle called Tom Riddle. Riddle abandoned Merope before their child's birth, soon after which Merope died. After living in an orphanage, young Riddle met Dumbledore, who told him he was a wizard and arranged for him to attend Hogwarts. Riddle was outwardly a model student, but was in reality a psychopath who took sadistic pleasure in using his powers to harm and control people. He eventually murdered his father and grandparents as revenge for abandoning him. The book also discusses Riddle's hatred of Muggles, his obsession with Horcruxes, and his desire to split his soul to achieve immortality. Rowling stated Voldemort's conception under the influence of a love potion symbolises the coercive circumstances under which he was brought into the world.
In the main plot of the book, Voldemort's next step is to engineer an assault on Hogwarts, and to kill Dumbledore. This is accomplished by Draco Malfoy, who arranges transportation of Death Eaters into Hogwarts by a pair of Vanishing Cabinets, which bypass the extensive protective enchantments placed around the school. The cabinets allow Voldemort's Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts, where battle commences and Dumbledore is cornered. Hogwarts professor (and re-doubled agent) Severus Snape uses the Killing Curse against Dumbledore when Draco could not force himself to do so.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort furthers his quest for ultimate power. He disposes of the Minister for Magic and replaces him with Pius Thicknesse, who is under the Imperius Curse. Establishing a totalitarian police state, he has Muggle-borns persecuted and arrested for "stealing magic" from the "pure blood" wizards. After failing to kill Harry with Draco's father Lucius Malfoy's borrowed wand (to avoid the effect of Priori Incantatem), he goes on a murderous search for the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand ever created, seeing it as the weapon he needs to overcome Harry's wand and make him truly invincible. He goes on a quest that takes him out of the country to Gregorovitch's wand shop, where he kills the old wandmaker. His journey also takes him to Nurmengard, the prison where Gellert Grindelwald is kept, and he kills Grindelwald as well. He finally locates the Elder Wand and steals it from Dumbledore's tomb.
Later, Voldemort finds out that Harry and his friends are hunting and destroying his Horcruxes when informed of their heist on the Lestranges' vault at Gringotts in search for Hufflepuff's Cup. After offering the occupants of Hogwarts mercy if they give up Harry, he assembles a large army and launches an invasion of the castle, where Harry is searching for Ravenclaw's Diadem. Voldemort orders his pet snake Nagini to execute Snape, believing it would make him the true master of the Elder Wand, since Snape killed Dumbledore. He then calls an hour's armistice, in exchange for Harry. When Harry willingly walks into Voldemort's camp in the Forbidden Forest, Voldemort strikes him down with the Elder Wand. However, the use of Harry's blood to resurrect Voldemort's body proves to be a major setback: while Harry's blood runs in Voldemort's veins, Harry cannot be killed as his mother's protection lives on now in Voldemort too. Instead, Voldemort destroys the part of his own soul that resides in Harry's body. Voldemort forces Rubeus Hagrid to carry Harry's apparently lifeless body back to the castle as a trophy, sparking another battle during which Nagini, his last Horcrux, is destroyed by Neville Longbottom. The battle then moves into the Great Hall, where Voldemort fights Minerva McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Horace Slughorn simultaneously. Harry then reveals himself and explains to Voldemort that Draco became the true master of the Elder Wand when he disarmed Dumbledore; Harry, in turn, won the wand's allegiance when he took Draco's wand. Refusing to believe this, Voldemort casts the Killing Curse with the Elder Wand while Harry uses a Disarming Charm with Draco's, but the Elder Wand refuses to kill its master and the spell rebounds on Voldemort who, with all of his Horcruxes destroyed, finally dies. His body is laid in a different chamber from all the others who died battling him.
Rowling stated that after his death, Voldemort is forced to exist in the stunted infant-like form that Harry sees in the King's Cross-like Limbo after his confrontation with Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest. Rowling also mentioned that, despite his extreme fear of death, he cannot become a ghost.
Appearances in other material
In Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, it is revealed that Bellatrix gave birth to Voldemort's daughter Delphi in Malfoy Manor before the Battle of Hogwarts. Twenty-two years later, Delphi poses as Cedric's cousin and manipulates Harry and Ginny's second son Albus Severus Potter and his friend, Draco and Astoria Greengrass's son Scorpius Malfoy, into stealing a prototype Time Turner with which she hopes to resurrect her father. Using the Time Turner, Scorpius accidentally creates an alternative timeline where Voldemort killed Harry at the battle and now rules the wizarding world. In an attempt to achieve this future, Delphi travels to Godric's Hollow on the night Voldemort killed Harry's parents, hoping to avert the prophecy that led to her father's downfall. After receiving a message from his son, Harry, together with Ron, Hermione and Draco (who by now has become friends with Harry after they join forces to save their respective sons) transfigures himself into Voldemort so that he can distract Delphi, allowing them to overpower her. The real Voldemort kills Harry's parents as prophesied, and Delphi is sent to Azkaban.
Portrayals within films
Voldemort appears in every Harry Potter film, with the exception of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Several actors have portrayed him in his varying incarnations and ages.
In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Voldemort's manifestation is as a face on the back of Quirrell's head, an effect achieved by computer generated imagery. Ian Hart, the actor who played Quirrell in the same film, provided the voice and the facial source for this character. Voldemort also appears in a scene in the Forbidden Forest where he is seen drinking the blood of a unicorn. As Voldemort's face was altered enough by CG work, and Hart's voice was affected enough, there was no confusion by Hart's playing of the two roles. In that film, he was also shown in a flashback sequence when he arrived at the home of James and Lily Potter to kill them. In this scene Voldemort is played by Richard Bremmer, though his face is never seen. His next appearance would be in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as the 16-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle (portrayed by Christian Coulson).
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort is initially only heard, possessing the scratchy, weak voice heard in the first film. By the film's climax, however, he appears in his physical form for the first time, played by Ralph Fiennes. As in the book, Voldemort is shown clad in dark black robes, being tall and emaciated, with no hair and yellowish teeth; his wand has a white tone and the handle appears to be made of bone; his finger nails are long and pale blue while his toe nails appear to be infected. Unlike in the book, his pupils are not cat-like and his eyes are blue, because producer David Heyman felt that his evil would not be able to be seen and would not fill the audience with fear (his eyes do briefly take on a snake-like appearance when he opens them after turning human, but quickly turn normal). As in the book, the film version of Voldemort has snake-like slit nostrils with the flesh of his nose significantly pressed back. Ralph Fiennes' nose was not covered in makeup on the set, but was digitally removed in post-production. In this first appearance, Voldemort also has a forked tongue, but this element was removed for the subsequent films.
Fiennes stated that he had two weeks to shoot the climactic showdown scene where he is gloating over a terrified Harry, played by Daniel Radcliffe. Fiennes said with a chuckle: "I have no doubt children will be afraid of me now if they weren't before." In preparation, he read the novel Goblet of Fire, but jokingly conceded: "I was only interested in my scene, and I had to go through thousands and thousands of other scenes which I did, dutifully, until I got to my scene and I read it many, many, many, many, many times and that was my research." Fiennes reprised his role as Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2.
Fiennes's nephew, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, portrayed Tom Riddle as a child in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. By the time filming arrived Christian Coulson was 29, and not considered suitable to return as the adolescent Riddle. Thomas James Longley was originally scheduled to take over the role, but last minute renegotiations saw Frank Dillane cast instead.
Characterisation
Outward appearance
After he regains his body in the fourth book, Rowling describes Voldemort as having pale skin, a chalk-white, skull-like face, snake-like slits for nostrils, red eyes and cat-like slits for pupils, a skeletally thin body and long, thin hands with unnaturally long fingers. As mentioned in the first chapter of the seventh book, he also has no hair or lips. Earlier in life, as seen through flashbacks contained in the second and sixth books, Tom Marvolo Riddle was handsome and tall with pale skin, jet black hair, and dark brown eyes. He could charm many people with his looks. The transformation into his monstrous state is believed to have been the result of creating his Horcruxes and becoming less human as he continued to divide his soul. In the films, Voldemort's eyes are blue with round pupils.
Personality
Rowling described Voldemort as "the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years". She elaborated that he is a "raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering", and whose only ambition in life is to become all-powerful and immortal. He is also a sadist who hurts and murders people—especially Muggles—for his own amusement. He has no conscience, feels no remorse or empathy, and does not recognise the worth and humanity of anybody except himself.
He feels no need for human companionship or friendship, and cannot comprehend love or affection for another. He believes he is superior to everyone around him, to the point that he frequently refers to himself in the third person as "Lord Voldemort". Rowling also stated that Voldemort is "incredibly power hungry. Racist, really", and that if Voldemort were to look into the Mirror of Erised, in which one sees one's greatest desire, he would see "Himself, all-powerful and eternal. That's what he wants."
Rowling also stated that Voldemort's conception by influence of Amortentia—a love potion administered by his mother, a witch named Merope Gaunt, to the Muggle Tom Riddle—is related to his inability to understand love; it is "a symbolic way of showing that he came from a loveless union—but of course, everything would have changed if Merope had survived and raised him herself and loved him. The enchantment under which Tom Riddle fathered Voldemort is important because it shows coercion, and there can't be many more prejudicial ways to enter the world than as the result of such a union".
Like most archetypical villains, Voldemort's arrogance leads to his downfall. He also suffers from a pathological fear of death, which he regards as a shameful and ignominious human weakness. According to Rowling, his Boggart would be his own corpse. Rowling also said that the difference between Harry and Voldemort is that Harry accepts mortality, and thus Harry is, in the end, stronger than his nemesis.
Magical abilities and skills
Rowling establishes Voldemort throughout the series as an extremely powerful, intelligent, and ruthless dark wizard, described as the greatest and most powerful Dark Wizard of all time. He is known as one of the greatest Legilimens in the world and a highly accomplished Occlumens; he can read minds and shield his own from penetration. Besides Dumbledore, he is also the only wizard ever known to be able to apparate silently. Voldemort was also said to fear one wizard alone, Dumbledore.
In the final book, Voldemort flies unsupported, something that amazes those who see it. Voldemort, like his ancestral family, the Gaunts, is a Parselmouth, meaning he can converse with serpents. This skill was inherited from his ancestor, Salazar Slytherin. The Gaunt family speak Parseltongue among themselves. This highly unusual trait may be preserved through inbreeding, a practice employed by the Gaunt Family to maintain their blood's purity. When Voldemort attempts to kill Harry his ability to speak Parseltongue is passed to Harry through the small bit of the former's soul. After that bit of soul is destroyed, Harry loses this ability. In a flashback in the sixth novel, Voldemort boasts to Dumbledore during a job interview that he has "pushed the boundaries of magic farther than they had ever before". Dumbledore states that Voldemort's knowledge of magic is more extensive than any wizard alive and that even Dumbledore's most powerful protective spells and charms would likely be insufficient if Voldemort returned to full power. Dumbledore also said that Voldemort was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen. Although Voldemort remains highly accomplished and prodigious in skill, he is enormously lacking and highly inept in the most powerful magic, love. This inability to love and trust others proves to be Voldemort's greatest weakness in the series. Voldemort initially voices scepticism that his own magic might not be the most powerful, but upon returning to power, he admits to his Death Eaters that he had overlooked the ancient and powerful magic which Lily Potter invoked and that would protect Harry from harm.
On her website, Rowling wrote that Voldemort's wand is made of yew, whose sap is poisonous and which symbolises death. It forms a deliberate contrast to Harry's wand, which is made of holly, which she chose because holly is alleged to repel evil.
Rowling establishes in the books that Voldemort is magically connected to Harry via Harry's forehead scar. He disembodies himself when his Killing Curse targeting Harry rebounds on him, leaving the scar on Harry's forehead. In the books, and to a lesser extent in the films, Harry's scar serves as an indicator of Voldemort's presence: it burns when the Dark Lord is near or when Voldemort is feeling murderous or exultant. According to Rowling, by attacking Harry when he was a baby Voldemort gave him "tools [that] no other wizard possessed—the scar and the ability it conferred, a magical window into Voldemort's mind".
Family
Notes: The names 'Thomas' and 'Mary' Riddle are taken from the films. The Potter Family is not shown.
Riddle family
The Riddle family, an old gentry family, consisted of Thomas and Mary Riddle and their son, Tom Riddle, Esq. They owned over half of the valley that the town of Little Hangleton lay in, and Thomas was the most prominent inhabitant of that town. They lived in a large house with fine gardens, but were unpopular amongst the local residents due to their snobbish attitudes. Tom, the only child of Thomas and Mary, was known as a playboy, his main interests being womanizing and horse-riding.
Rowling revealed in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that young Merope Gaunt fell in love with Riddle, peering at him through the windows and bushes at every opportunity. Merope's brother Morfin disapproved of his sister's affection for Tom and hexed him as he rode by, covering him in hives. This breach of wizarding law, and the ensuing violent struggle with Ministry of Magic officials, led to Marvolo and Morfin being imprisoned in Azkaban. As surmised by Dumbledore, once Merope was alone and no longer dominated by her father, she could make her move for Tom. She offered him a drink laced with a love potion, and he became infatuated with her; they soon eloped and, within three months of the marriage, Merope became pregnant. Merope decided to stop giving Tom the love potion, having come to the belief such enchantment of a man was tantamount to slavery. She also revealed her witch status to Tom, believing either that he had fallen in love with her on his own or he would at least stay for their unborn child. She was wrong, and Tom quickly left his pregnant wife and went home to his parents, claiming to have been "hoodwinked" and tricked into marrying Merope. Tom Marvolo Riddle, their son, was born on 31 December 1926 Merope died in childbirth, leaving the baby to grow up alone in an orphanage.
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, it is revealed that Voldemort murdered his father and grandparents, leaving himself the only surviving member of the Riddle family.
House of Gaunt
Most of the exposition of the House of Gaunts background occurs in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, through the medium of Dumbledore's Pensieve. The Gaunts were once a powerful and influential family, and are the last known descendants of Salazar Slytherin. However, a vein of mental instability and violence within the family, reinforced through cousin marriages intended to preserve the pureblood line, had reduced them to poverty and squalor, as shown in the Pensieve's "memory" that Harry and Dumbledore witnessed. Like Salazar Slytherin, the Gaunts spoke Parseltongue. At the time of the story, the Gaunts' only material asset is a ramshackle shanty in Little Hangleton, that stood in a thicket in a valley opposite the Riddle House. Like the Riddles, the Gaunts were also unpopular with the local residents, with a reputation for being vulgar and intimidating.
Marvolo Gaunt was the last family patriarch. He was sentenced to a short term in Azkaban for his and his son's assault upon a Ministry of Magic official; this affected his health and he died soon after returning home. His signet ring passed to his son, Morfin Gaunt, who was convicted of assaulting a Muggle, and later died in Azkaban, convicted this time as a party to the murder of Tom Riddle Jr. and Riddle's parents.
Dumbledore discovers the real culprit while visiting Morfin in Azkaban to gather information about Voldemort. After Dumbledore successfully extracts Morfin's memory of his encounter with his nephew, he tries to use the evidence to have Morfin released, but Morfin dies before the decision can be made. The House of Gaunt ended with Morfin's death.
Merope Gaunt () was the daughter of Marvolo, and sister of Morfin. Harry's first impression of her was that she looked "like the most defeated person he had ever seen". She married Tom Riddle Jr and became pregnant within three months of the wedding. It is suggested that she tricked her husband into loving her by using a love potion, but when she became pregnant, she chose to stop administering the potion. It is implied that Merope had grown tired of living the lie and thought that her husband might have grown to love her, or that he might have stayed for the sake of their unborn child; however, he left her. Desperate, Merope wandered through the streets of London. The only thing she had left was the heavy gold locket that had once belonged to Salazar Slytherin, one of her family's most treasured items, which she sold for a small amount. When she was due to give birth, she stumbled into a Muggle orphanage, where she gave birth to her only son. She died within the next hour.
Gormlaith Gaunt was a 17th-century descendant of Salazar Slytherin, and like Salazar, a Parselmouth. Her wand was that which once belonged to Salazar himself. Educated at Hogwarts, Gormlaith lived in Ireland in the early 1600s. In about 1608, Gormlaith killed her estranged unnamed sister, and her sister's husband, William Sayre (a descendant of the Irish witch Morrigan), and kidnapped their five-year-old daughter, Isolt Sayre, raising her in the neighbouring valley of Coomcallee, or "Hag's Glen", because she felt that her parents' association with Muggles would badly influence Isolt. Fanatical and cruel, Gormlaith used Dark magic to isolate Isolt from others, forbade her a wand, and did not allow her to attend Hogwarts as she herself had, disgusted that it was now filled with Muggle-borns. After twelve years with Gormlaith, Isolt stole Gormlaith's wand and fled to the Colonies and settled in Massachusetts, where she founded the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When Gormlaith learned of the school, she pursued her niece in Massachusetts, where she was killed by Isolt's friend, William the Pukwudgie, with a venom-tipped arrow.
The Gaunts, including Voldemort, are distantly related to Harry because they are descendants of the Peverell brothers.
Reception
Several people have drawn a parallel between Voldemort and some politicians. Rowling has said that Voldemort was "a sort of" Adolf Hitler, and that there is some parallel with Nazism in her books. Rowling also compared Voldemort to Joseph Stalin. Alfonso Cuarón, director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban compared Voldemort to George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein, who he said "...have selfish interests and are very much in love with power. Also, a disregard for the environment. A love for manipulating people." Andrew Slack and the Harry Potter Alliance compare media consolidation in the US to Voldemort's regime in Deathly Hallows and its control over the Daily Prophet and other media saying that "Once Voldemort took over every form of media in the wizarding world, Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix formed an independent media movement called 'Potterwatch'. Now the HP Alliance and Wizard Rock have come together to fight for a Potterwatch movement in the real world to fight back against Big VoldeMedia from further pushing out local and foreign news, minority representation, and the right to a Free Press." Julia Turner of Slate Magazine also noted similarities between the events of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the War on Terror. She said that Voldemort commits acts of terrorism such as destroying bridges, murdering innocents, and forcing children to kill their elders.
Voldemort has also been compared with other characters within fiction, for example Sauron from The Lord of the Rings; they are, during the time when the main plot takes place, seeking to recover their lost power after having been considered dead or at least no longer a threat, and are also so feared that they are sometimes unnamed.
IGN listed Voldemort as their seventh favourite Harry Potter character, calling him "truly frightening".
In popular culture
Several campaigns have used Voldemort to compare his evil to the influence of politicians, large media and corporations. "Lord Voldemort" is a nickname sometimes used for Peter Mandelson. Voldemort is also a recurring theme among wizard rock bands. Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock! is the second album from Harry and the Potters, and the character is mentioned in songs such as "The Dark Lord Lament" and "Flesh, Blood, and Bone".
Voldemort has been parodied in various venues. In The Simpsons 13th season's premiere, "Treehouse of Horror XII", Montgomery Burns appears as "Lord Montymort". A parody of Voldemort appears in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as "Lord Moldybutt", an enemy of Nigel Planter (a parody of Harry). Voldemort also appears in the Potter Puppet Pals sketches by Neil Cicierega. One of the episodes including him was the seventeenth most viewed video of all time as of 2008 and the winner for "Best Comedy" of the year 2007 at YouTube.
"Continuing the Magic", an article in the 21 May 2007 issue of Time, includes mock book covers designed by author Lon Tweeten, laced with pop culture references. One of them, the "Dark Lord of the Dance", shows Voldemort teaming up with Harry on Broadway. In the MAD Magazine parodies of the films, the character is called Lord Druckermort, a backwards reference to the magazine's longtime caricaturist Mort Drucker. In Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1969, a young Tom Marvolo Riddle (introduced as "Tom", whose middle name is a "marvel" and last name is a "conundrum") appears, and becomes the new avatar of Oliver Haddo at the story's conclusion. In A Very Potter Musical, Voldemort is played by actor Joe Walker.
In a segment celebrating British children's literature at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London, an inflatable Voldemort appeared alongside other villains, The Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook, and Cruella de Vil, to haunt children's dreams, before the arrival of a group of over thirty Mary Poppins who descended with their umbrellas to defeat them.
During the 2016 United States elections, Daniel Radcliffe was asked by Sky News journalist Craig Dillon if he would compare Donald Trump to Lord Voldemort; Radcliffe responded, "Trump is worse".
Voldemort appears in The Lego Batman Movie as one of the prisoners in the Phantom Zone that Joker recruits to take over Gotham City. Though Ralph Fiennes is featured in this movie as the voice of the British butler Alfred Pennyworth, he does not reprise his role as Voldemort. Instead, Voldemort is voiced by Eddie Izzard.
Outside of the Harry Potter video games, Voldemort is also a playable character in Lego Dimensions, with archive audio of Fiennes' portrayal in the films used for his voiceovers.
A 2018 Italian fan film titled Voldemort: Origins of the Heir depicts the story of Tom Riddle's rise to power.
Voldemort appears in Space Jam: A New Legacy, in the crowd for the game between the Tune Squad and the Goon Squad.
An upcoming French fan-made short-film titled The House of Gaunt - Lord Voldemort Origins explores the origin story of Voldemort and The Gaunt family.
Notes
References
External links
Lord Voldemort at Harry Potter Lexicon
Fictional characters with disfigurements
Fictional characters with immortality
Fictional characters with spirit possession or body swapping abilities
Fictional dictators
Fictional English people
Fictional hypnotists and indoctrinators
Fictional illeists
Fictional mass murderers
Fictional necromancers
Fictional offspring of rape
Fictional patricides
Fictional terrorists
Fictional torturers
Harry Potter characters
Literary characters introduced in 1997
Male film villains
Male literary villains
Orphan characters in film
Orphan characters in literature
Psychopathy in fiction
Film supervillains | false | [
"\"What I Need To Do\" is a song written by Tom Damphier and Bill Luther, and recorded by American country music artist Kenny Chesney. It was released in January 2000 as the fourth and final single from Chesney's 1999 album Everywhere We Go. The song peaked at number 8 in the United States and number 13 in Canada in 2000.\n\nContent\nThe song describes the narrator thinking about \"what [he] need[s] to do\" as he is driving away from his old hometown away from his former lover. He also thinks that he should \"turn [his] car around\" and go back to his lover, then hold her, and then tell her how sorry he is for what he did.\n\nChart positions\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n2000 singles\nKenny Chesney songs\nSong recordings produced by Buddy Cannon\nSong recordings produced by Norro Wilson\nBNA Records singles\nSongs written by Bill Luther (songwriter)\n1999 songs",
"\"What Did I Do to You?\" is a song recorded by British singer Lisa Stansfield for her 1989 album, Affection. It was written by Stansfield, Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, and produced by Devaney and Morris. The song was released as the fourth European single on 30 April 1990. It included three previously unreleased songs written by Stansfield, Devaney and Morris: \"My Apple Heart,\" \"Lay Me Down\" and \"Something's Happenin'.\" \"What Did I Do to You?\" was remixed by Mark Saunders and by the Grammy Award-winning American house music DJ and producer, David Morales. The single became a top forty hit in the European countries reaching number eighteen in Finland, number twenty in Ireland and number twenty-five in the United Kingdom. \"What Did I Do to You?\" was also released in Japan.\n\nIn 2014, the remixes of \"What Did I Do to You?\" were included on the deluxe 2CD + DVD re-release of Affection and on People Hold On ... The Remix Anthology. They were also featured on The Collection 1989–2003 box set (2014), including previously unreleased Red Zone Mix by David Morales.\n\nCritical reception\nThe song received positive reviews from music critics. Matthew Hocter from Albumism viewed it as a \"upbeat offering\". David Giles from Music Week said it is \"beautifully performed\" by Stansfield. A reviewer from Reading Eagle wrote that \"What Did I Do to You?\" \"would be right at home on the \"Saturday Night Fever\" soundtrack.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Philip Richardson, who had previously directed the videos for \"All Around the World\" and \"Live Together\". It features Stansfield with her kiss curls, dressed in a white outfit and performing with her band on a stage in front of a jumping audience. The video was later published on Stansfield's official YouTube channel in November 2009. It has amassed more than 1,6 million views as of October 2021.\n\nTrack listings\n\n European/UK 7\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK/Japanese CD single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n UK 10\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix) – 5:52\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK 12\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 4:22\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 3:19\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:15\n\n UK 12\" promotional single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Anti Poll Tax Dub) – 6:31\n\n Other remixes\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Red Zone Mix) – 7:45\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nLisa Stansfield songs\n1990 singles\nSongs written by Lisa Stansfield\n1989 songs\nArista Records singles\nSongs written by Ian Devaney\nSongs written by Andy Morris (musician)"
] |
[
"Lord Voldemort",
"Character development",
"How did Voldemort's character begin?",
"Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first.",
"Why did rowling do that?",
"The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position",
"How else is voldemorts character developed?",
"When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then",
"And then what did he do?",
"and then he tried to kill Harry--he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And--so--but for some mysterious reason the curse"
] | C_7776d2fc9b234c23939513b312811d39_1 | Can you tell me more about the curse? | 5 | Can you tell me about the curse that Voldemort tried on Harry? | Lord Voldemort | In a 2001 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry--he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And--so--but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since." In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death." Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. Some literary analysts have considered possible meanings in the name: Philip Nel states that Voldemort is derived from the French for "flight of death", and in a 2002 paper, Nilsen and Nilsen suggest that readers get a "creepy feeling" from the name Voldemort, because of the French word "mort" ("death") within it and that word's association with cognate English words derived from the Latin mors. CANNOTANSWER | for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, | Lord Voldemort (, in the films) is a sobriquet for Tom Marvolo Riddle, a character and the main antagonist in J. K. Rowling's series of Harry Potter novels. The character first appeared in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which was published in 1997, and returned either in person or in flashbacks in each book and its film adaptation in the series except the third, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in which he is only mentioned.
Voldemort is the archenemy of Harry Potter, who according to a prophecy has "the power to vanquish the Dark Lord". He attempts to murder the boy, but instead kills his parents, Lily and James Potter, and leaves Harry with a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. Nearly every witch or wizard dares not utter his name and refers to him instead with such monikers as "You-Know-Who", "He Who Must Not Be Named", or "the Dark Lord". Voldemort's obsession with blood purity signifies his aim to rid the wizarding world of Muggle (non-magical) heritage and to conquer both worlds, Muggle and wizarding, to achieve pure-blood dominance. Through his mother's family, he is the last descendant of the wizard Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He is the leader of the Death Eaters, a group of evil wizards and witches dedicated to ridding the Wizarding World of Muggles and establishing Voldemort as its supreme ruler.
Character development
In a 1999 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter, and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry—he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And—so—but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since."
In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death."
Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. The name Voldemort is derived from the French vol de mort which means "flight of death" or "theft of death".
Appearances
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Voldemort makes his debut in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. In this story, Rowling introduces him as the Dark Lord who tried to kill Harry Potter because the boy was prophesied to destroy him. Voldemort murdered Harry's parents, James and Lily, but as a result of his mother's love and willingness to sacrifice herself for him, baby Harry survived when Voldemort tried to murder him with a Killing Curse. Voldemort was disembodied, and Harry was left with a mysterious, lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead as a result.
In the book, Voldemort unsuccessfully tries to regain his dissolved body by stealing the titular Philosopher's Stone. To achieve his objective, Voldemort uses Professor Quirrell's aid by latching onto the back of the latter's head. However, at the climax of the book, Harry manages to prevent Voldemort from stealing the stone.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
In the second instalment, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Rowling introduces Tom Marvolo Riddle, a manifestation of a teenage Voldemort that resides inside a magical diary found by Ginny Weasley. In this book, Ginny is written as a shy girl with a crush on Harry. Feeling anxious and lonely, she begins to write into the diary and shares her deepest fears with the sympathetic Tom. However, at the climax of the story, when Riddle rearranges the letters in his name to write "I am Lord Voldemort", Riddle is revealed as a magical manifestation of the boy who would later grow up to become the Dark Lord. Riddle states he has grown strong on Ginny's fears and eventually possesses her, using her as a pawn to unlock the Chamber of Secrets, whence a basilisk is set free and petrifies several Hogwarts students. Harry defeats the manifestation of Riddle from the diary and the basilisk. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Albus Dumbledore reveals to Harry that the diary was one of Voldemort's Horcruxes.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Voldemort does not appear in the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, either in person or as a magical manifestation. He is, however, heard when Harry passes out from the harsh effects of a Dementor. Towards the end of the story, Sybill Trelawney, the Divination professor, makes a rare genuine prophecy: "The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight, the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever before. Tonight... before midnight... the servant... will set out... to rejoin... his master..." Though it is initially implied that the prophecy refers to Sirius Black, the book's ostensible antagonist, the servant is eventually revealed to be Peter Pettigrew, who, for the 12 years since Voldemort's fall, has been disguised as Ron's pet rat, Scabbers.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
In the fourth instalment of the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort reappears at the start and the climax of the book. Rowling lets many seemingly unrelated plot elements fall into order. It is revealed that Voldemort's minion Barty Crouch Jr, disguised as Hogwarts professor Mad-Eye Moody, has manipulated the events of the Triwizard Tournament in Harry's favour. Voldemort's goal is to teleport Harry under Dumbledore's watch as a reluctant participant to the Little Hangleton graveyard, where the Riddle family is buried. Harry is captured and, after Pettigrew uses Harry's blood to fulfil a gruesome magical ritual, Voldemort regains his body and is restored to his full power. For the first time in the series, Rowling describes his appearance: "tall and skeletally thin", with a face "whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was as flat as a snake's with slits for nostrils". Rowling writes that his "hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cat's, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness". It was revealed that, while in Albania, Pettigrew had captured the Ministry of Magic official Bertha Jorkins, who was tortured for information about the Ministry. After they learned that Barty Crouch Jr, a faithful Death Eater, had been smuggled out of Azkaban and was privately confined at his father's house, they killed her. With Pettigrew's help, Voldemort creates a small, rudimentary body, corporeal enough to travel and perform magic, and formulated a plan to restore his own body by capturing Harry. A portion of the plan had been overheard by Frank Bryce, a gardener, whom Voldemort then killed. Voldemort then completes his plan and returns to life in his full body as a result of the ritual with Harry's blood. He then summons his Death Eaters to the graveyard to witness the death of Harry as he challenges Harry to a duel. However, when Voldemort duels Harry, their wands become magically locked together due to the twin Phoenix feather cores of the wands. Because of a phenomenon later revealed as Priori Incantatem, ghost-like manifestations of Voldemort's most recent victims (including Harry's parents) then appear and distract Voldemort, allowing Harry just enough time to escape via Portkey with the body of fellow-student, Cedric Diggory, who was murdered by Pettigrew on Voldemort's orders.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Voldemort appears at the climax of the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, having again plotted against Harry. In this book, Harry goes through extreme emotional stress, and according to Rowling, it was necessary to prove that Harry is emotionally vulnerable and thus human, in contrast to his nemesis Voldemort, who is emotionally invulnerable and thus inhuman: "[Harry is] a very human hero, and this is, obviously, there's a contrast, between him, as a very human hero, and Voldemort, who has deliberately dehumanised himself. […] and Harry, therefore, did have to reach a point where he did almost break down." In this book, Voldemort makes liberal use of the Ministry of Magic's refusal to believe that he has returned. Voldemort engineers a plot to free Bellatrix Lestrange and other Death Eaters from Azkaban and then embarks on a scheme to retrieve the full record of a prophecy stored in the Department of Mysteries regarding Harry and himself. He sends a group of Death Eaters to retrieve the prophecy, where the Order of the Phoenix meets them. All but Bellatrix are captured, and Voldemort engages in a ferocious duel with Dumbledore. When Dumbledore gets the upper hand, Voldemort attempts to possess Harry but finds that he cannot; Harry is too full of that which Voldemort finds incomprehensible, and which he detests as weakness: love. Sensing that Dumbledore could win, Voldemort disapparates, but not before the Minister for Magic sees him in person, making his return to life public knowledge in the next book.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Voldemort does not appear in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, although his presence and actions are felt: he once again declares war, and begins to rise to power once more. He murders Amelia Bones of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and begins to target members of the Order of the Phoenix, including Emmeline Vance.
Rowling uses several chapters as exposition to establish Voldemort's backstory. In a series of flashbacks, using the pensieve as a plot device, she reveals that Voldemort was the son of the witch Merope Gaunt and a Muggle called Tom Riddle. Riddle abandoned Merope before their child's birth, soon after which Merope died. After living in an orphanage, young Riddle met Dumbledore, who told him he was a wizard and arranged for him to attend Hogwarts. Riddle was outwardly a model student, but was in reality a psychopath who took sadistic pleasure in using his powers to harm and control people. He eventually murdered his father and grandparents as revenge for abandoning him. The book also discusses Riddle's hatred of Muggles, his obsession with Horcruxes, and his desire to split his soul to achieve immortality. Rowling stated Voldemort's conception under the influence of a love potion symbolises the coercive circumstances under which he was brought into the world.
In the main plot of the book, Voldemort's next step is to engineer an assault on Hogwarts, and to kill Dumbledore. This is accomplished by Draco Malfoy, who arranges transportation of Death Eaters into Hogwarts by a pair of Vanishing Cabinets, which bypass the extensive protective enchantments placed around the school. The cabinets allow Voldemort's Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts, where battle commences and Dumbledore is cornered. Hogwarts professor (and re-doubled agent) Severus Snape uses the Killing Curse against Dumbledore when Draco could not force himself to do so.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort furthers his quest for ultimate power. He disposes of the Minister for Magic and replaces him with Pius Thicknesse, who is under the Imperius Curse. Establishing a totalitarian police state, he has Muggle-borns persecuted and arrested for "stealing magic" from the "pure blood" wizards. After failing to kill Harry with Draco's father Lucius Malfoy's borrowed wand (to avoid the effect of Priori Incantatem), he goes on a murderous search for the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand ever created, seeing it as the weapon he needs to overcome Harry's wand and make him truly invincible. He goes on a quest that takes him out of the country to Gregorovitch's wand shop, where he kills the old wandmaker. His journey also takes him to Nurmengard, the prison where Gellert Grindelwald is kept, and he kills Grindelwald as well. He finally locates the Elder Wand and steals it from Dumbledore's tomb.
Later, Voldemort finds out that Harry and his friends are hunting and destroying his Horcruxes when informed of their heist on the Lestranges' vault at Gringotts in search for Hufflepuff's Cup. After offering the occupants of Hogwarts mercy if they give up Harry, he assembles a large army and launches an invasion of the castle, where Harry is searching for Ravenclaw's Diadem. Voldemort orders his pet snake Nagini to execute Snape, believing it would make him the true master of the Elder Wand, since Snape killed Dumbledore. He then calls an hour's armistice, in exchange for Harry. When Harry willingly walks into Voldemort's camp in the Forbidden Forest, Voldemort strikes him down with the Elder Wand. However, the use of Harry's blood to resurrect Voldemort's body proves to be a major setback: while Harry's blood runs in Voldemort's veins, Harry cannot be killed as his mother's protection lives on now in Voldemort too. Instead, Voldemort destroys the part of his own soul that resides in Harry's body. Voldemort forces Rubeus Hagrid to carry Harry's apparently lifeless body back to the castle as a trophy, sparking another battle during which Nagini, his last Horcrux, is destroyed by Neville Longbottom. The battle then moves into the Great Hall, where Voldemort fights Minerva McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Horace Slughorn simultaneously. Harry then reveals himself and explains to Voldemort that Draco became the true master of the Elder Wand when he disarmed Dumbledore; Harry, in turn, won the wand's allegiance when he took Draco's wand. Refusing to believe this, Voldemort casts the Killing Curse with the Elder Wand while Harry uses a Disarming Charm with Draco's, but the Elder Wand refuses to kill its master and the spell rebounds on Voldemort who, with all of his Horcruxes destroyed, finally dies. His body is laid in a different chamber from all the others who died battling him.
Rowling stated that after his death, Voldemort is forced to exist in the stunted infant-like form that Harry sees in the King's Cross-like Limbo after his confrontation with Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest. Rowling also mentioned that, despite his extreme fear of death, he cannot become a ghost.
Appearances in other material
In Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, it is revealed that Bellatrix gave birth to Voldemort's daughter Delphi in Malfoy Manor before the Battle of Hogwarts. Twenty-two years later, Delphi poses as Cedric's cousin and manipulates Harry and Ginny's second son Albus Severus Potter and his friend, Draco and Astoria Greengrass's son Scorpius Malfoy, into stealing a prototype Time Turner with which she hopes to resurrect her father. Using the Time Turner, Scorpius accidentally creates an alternative timeline where Voldemort killed Harry at the battle and now rules the wizarding world. In an attempt to achieve this future, Delphi travels to Godric's Hollow on the night Voldemort killed Harry's parents, hoping to avert the prophecy that led to her father's downfall. After receiving a message from his son, Harry, together with Ron, Hermione and Draco (who by now has become friends with Harry after they join forces to save their respective sons) transfigures himself into Voldemort so that he can distract Delphi, allowing them to overpower her. The real Voldemort kills Harry's parents as prophesied, and Delphi is sent to Azkaban.
Portrayals within films
Voldemort appears in every Harry Potter film, with the exception of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Several actors have portrayed him in his varying incarnations and ages.
In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Voldemort's manifestation is as a face on the back of Quirrell's head, an effect achieved by computer generated imagery. Ian Hart, the actor who played Quirrell in the same film, provided the voice and the facial source for this character. Voldemort also appears in a scene in the Forbidden Forest where he is seen drinking the blood of a unicorn. As Voldemort's face was altered enough by CG work, and Hart's voice was affected enough, there was no confusion by Hart's playing of the two roles. In that film, he was also shown in a flashback sequence when he arrived at the home of James and Lily Potter to kill them. In this scene Voldemort is played by Richard Bremmer, though his face is never seen. His next appearance would be in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as the 16-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle (portrayed by Christian Coulson).
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort is initially only heard, possessing the scratchy, weak voice heard in the first film. By the film's climax, however, he appears in his physical form for the first time, played by Ralph Fiennes. As in the book, Voldemort is shown clad in dark black robes, being tall and emaciated, with no hair and yellowish teeth; his wand has a white tone and the handle appears to be made of bone; his finger nails are long and pale blue while his toe nails appear to be infected. Unlike in the book, his pupils are not cat-like and his eyes are blue, because producer David Heyman felt that his evil would not be able to be seen and would not fill the audience with fear (his eyes do briefly take on a snake-like appearance when he opens them after turning human, but quickly turn normal). As in the book, the film version of Voldemort has snake-like slit nostrils with the flesh of his nose significantly pressed back. Ralph Fiennes' nose was not covered in makeup on the set, but was digitally removed in post-production. In this first appearance, Voldemort also has a forked tongue, but this element was removed for the subsequent films.
Fiennes stated that he had two weeks to shoot the climactic showdown scene where he is gloating over a terrified Harry, played by Daniel Radcliffe. Fiennes said with a chuckle: "I have no doubt children will be afraid of me now if they weren't before." In preparation, he read the novel Goblet of Fire, but jokingly conceded: "I was only interested in my scene, and I had to go through thousands and thousands of other scenes which I did, dutifully, until I got to my scene and I read it many, many, many, many, many times and that was my research." Fiennes reprised his role as Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2.
Fiennes's nephew, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, portrayed Tom Riddle as a child in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. By the time filming arrived Christian Coulson was 29, and not considered suitable to return as the adolescent Riddle. Thomas James Longley was originally scheduled to take over the role, but last minute renegotiations saw Frank Dillane cast instead.
Characterisation
Outward appearance
After he regains his body in the fourth book, Rowling describes Voldemort as having pale skin, a chalk-white, skull-like face, snake-like slits for nostrils, red eyes and cat-like slits for pupils, a skeletally thin body and long, thin hands with unnaturally long fingers. As mentioned in the first chapter of the seventh book, he also has no hair or lips. Earlier in life, as seen through flashbacks contained in the second and sixth books, Tom Marvolo Riddle was handsome and tall with pale skin, jet black hair, and dark brown eyes. He could charm many people with his looks. The transformation into his monstrous state is believed to have been the result of creating his Horcruxes and becoming less human as he continued to divide his soul. In the films, Voldemort's eyes are blue with round pupils.
Personality
Rowling described Voldemort as "the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years". She elaborated that he is a "raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering", and whose only ambition in life is to become all-powerful and immortal. He is also a sadist who hurts and murders people—especially Muggles—for his own amusement. He has no conscience, feels no remorse or empathy, and does not recognise the worth and humanity of anybody except himself.
He feels no need for human companionship or friendship, and cannot comprehend love or affection for another. He believes he is superior to everyone around him, to the point that he frequently refers to himself in the third person as "Lord Voldemort". Rowling also stated that Voldemort is "incredibly power hungry. Racist, really", and that if Voldemort were to look into the Mirror of Erised, in which one sees one's greatest desire, he would see "Himself, all-powerful and eternal. That's what he wants."
Rowling also stated that Voldemort's conception by influence of Amortentia—a love potion administered by his mother, a witch named Merope Gaunt, to the Muggle Tom Riddle—is related to his inability to understand love; it is "a symbolic way of showing that he came from a loveless union—but of course, everything would have changed if Merope had survived and raised him herself and loved him. The enchantment under which Tom Riddle fathered Voldemort is important because it shows coercion, and there can't be many more prejudicial ways to enter the world than as the result of such a union".
Like most archetypical villains, Voldemort's arrogance leads to his downfall. He also suffers from a pathological fear of death, which he regards as a shameful and ignominious human weakness. According to Rowling, his Boggart would be his own corpse. Rowling also said that the difference between Harry and Voldemort is that Harry accepts mortality, and thus Harry is, in the end, stronger than his nemesis.
Magical abilities and skills
Rowling establishes Voldemort throughout the series as an extremely powerful, intelligent, and ruthless dark wizard, described as the greatest and most powerful Dark Wizard of all time. He is known as one of the greatest Legilimens in the world and a highly accomplished Occlumens; he can read minds and shield his own from penetration. Besides Dumbledore, he is also the only wizard ever known to be able to apparate silently. Voldemort was also said to fear one wizard alone, Dumbledore.
In the final book, Voldemort flies unsupported, something that amazes those who see it. Voldemort, like his ancestral family, the Gaunts, is a Parselmouth, meaning he can converse with serpents. This skill was inherited from his ancestor, Salazar Slytherin. The Gaunt family speak Parseltongue among themselves. This highly unusual trait may be preserved through inbreeding, a practice employed by the Gaunt Family to maintain their blood's purity. When Voldemort attempts to kill Harry his ability to speak Parseltongue is passed to Harry through the small bit of the former's soul. After that bit of soul is destroyed, Harry loses this ability. In a flashback in the sixth novel, Voldemort boasts to Dumbledore during a job interview that he has "pushed the boundaries of magic farther than they had ever before". Dumbledore states that Voldemort's knowledge of magic is more extensive than any wizard alive and that even Dumbledore's most powerful protective spells and charms would likely be insufficient if Voldemort returned to full power. Dumbledore also said that Voldemort was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen. Although Voldemort remains highly accomplished and prodigious in skill, he is enormously lacking and highly inept in the most powerful magic, love. This inability to love and trust others proves to be Voldemort's greatest weakness in the series. Voldemort initially voices scepticism that his own magic might not be the most powerful, but upon returning to power, he admits to his Death Eaters that he had overlooked the ancient and powerful magic which Lily Potter invoked and that would protect Harry from harm.
On her website, Rowling wrote that Voldemort's wand is made of yew, whose sap is poisonous and which symbolises death. It forms a deliberate contrast to Harry's wand, which is made of holly, which she chose because holly is alleged to repel evil.
Rowling establishes in the books that Voldemort is magically connected to Harry via Harry's forehead scar. He disembodies himself when his Killing Curse targeting Harry rebounds on him, leaving the scar on Harry's forehead. In the books, and to a lesser extent in the films, Harry's scar serves as an indicator of Voldemort's presence: it burns when the Dark Lord is near or when Voldemort is feeling murderous or exultant. According to Rowling, by attacking Harry when he was a baby Voldemort gave him "tools [that] no other wizard possessed—the scar and the ability it conferred, a magical window into Voldemort's mind".
Family
Notes: The names 'Thomas' and 'Mary' Riddle are taken from the films. The Potter Family is not shown.
Riddle family
The Riddle family, an old gentry family, consisted of Thomas and Mary Riddle and their son, Tom Riddle, Esq. They owned over half of the valley that the town of Little Hangleton lay in, and Thomas was the most prominent inhabitant of that town. They lived in a large house with fine gardens, but were unpopular amongst the local residents due to their snobbish attitudes. Tom, the only child of Thomas and Mary, was known as a playboy, his main interests being womanizing and horse-riding.
Rowling revealed in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that young Merope Gaunt fell in love with Riddle, peering at him through the windows and bushes at every opportunity. Merope's brother Morfin disapproved of his sister's affection for Tom and hexed him as he rode by, covering him in hives. This breach of wizarding law, and the ensuing violent struggle with Ministry of Magic officials, led to Marvolo and Morfin being imprisoned in Azkaban. As surmised by Dumbledore, once Merope was alone and no longer dominated by her father, she could make her move for Tom. She offered him a drink laced with a love potion, and he became infatuated with her; they soon eloped and, within three months of the marriage, Merope became pregnant. Merope decided to stop giving Tom the love potion, having come to the belief such enchantment of a man was tantamount to slavery. She also revealed her witch status to Tom, believing either that he had fallen in love with her on his own or he would at least stay for their unborn child. She was wrong, and Tom quickly left his pregnant wife and went home to his parents, claiming to have been "hoodwinked" and tricked into marrying Merope. Tom Marvolo Riddle, their son, was born on 31 December 1926 Merope died in childbirth, leaving the baby to grow up alone in an orphanage.
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, it is revealed that Voldemort murdered his father and grandparents, leaving himself the only surviving member of the Riddle family.
House of Gaunt
Most of the exposition of the House of Gaunts background occurs in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, through the medium of Dumbledore's Pensieve. The Gaunts were once a powerful and influential family, and are the last known descendants of Salazar Slytherin. However, a vein of mental instability and violence within the family, reinforced through cousin marriages intended to preserve the pureblood line, had reduced them to poverty and squalor, as shown in the Pensieve's "memory" that Harry and Dumbledore witnessed. Like Salazar Slytherin, the Gaunts spoke Parseltongue. At the time of the story, the Gaunts' only material asset is a ramshackle shanty in Little Hangleton, that stood in a thicket in a valley opposite the Riddle House. Like the Riddles, the Gaunts were also unpopular with the local residents, with a reputation for being vulgar and intimidating.
Marvolo Gaunt was the last family patriarch. He was sentenced to a short term in Azkaban for his and his son's assault upon a Ministry of Magic official; this affected his health and he died soon after returning home. His signet ring passed to his son, Morfin Gaunt, who was convicted of assaulting a Muggle, and later died in Azkaban, convicted this time as a party to the murder of Tom Riddle Jr. and Riddle's parents.
Dumbledore discovers the real culprit while visiting Morfin in Azkaban to gather information about Voldemort. After Dumbledore successfully extracts Morfin's memory of his encounter with his nephew, he tries to use the evidence to have Morfin released, but Morfin dies before the decision can be made. The House of Gaunt ended with Morfin's death.
Merope Gaunt () was the daughter of Marvolo, and sister of Morfin. Harry's first impression of her was that she looked "like the most defeated person he had ever seen". She married Tom Riddle Jr and became pregnant within three months of the wedding. It is suggested that she tricked her husband into loving her by using a love potion, but when she became pregnant, she chose to stop administering the potion. It is implied that Merope had grown tired of living the lie and thought that her husband might have grown to love her, or that he might have stayed for the sake of their unborn child; however, he left her. Desperate, Merope wandered through the streets of London. The only thing she had left was the heavy gold locket that had once belonged to Salazar Slytherin, one of her family's most treasured items, which she sold for a small amount. When she was due to give birth, she stumbled into a Muggle orphanage, where she gave birth to her only son. She died within the next hour.
Gormlaith Gaunt was a 17th-century descendant of Salazar Slytherin, and like Salazar, a Parselmouth. Her wand was that which once belonged to Salazar himself. Educated at Hogwarts, Gormlaith lived in Ireland in the early 1600s. In about 1608, Gormlaith killed her estranged unnamed sister, and her sister's husband, William Sayre (a descendant of the Irish witch Morrigan), and kidnapped their five-year-old daughter, Isolt Sayre, raising her in the neighbouring valley of Coomcallee, or "Hag's Glen", because she felt that her parents' association with Muggles would badly influence Isolt. Fanatical and cruel, Gormlaith used Dark magic to isolate Isolt from others, forbade her a wand, and did not allow her to attend Hogwarts as she herself had, disgusted that it was now filled with Muggle-borns. After twelve years with Gormlaith, Isolt stole Gormlaith's wand and fled to the Colonies and settled in Massachusetts, where she founded the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When Gormlaith learned of the school, she pursued her niece in Massachusetts, where she was killed by Isolt's friend, William the Pukwudgie, with a venom-tipped arrow.
The Gaunts, including Voldemort, are distantly related to Harry because they are descendants of the Peverell brothers.
Reception
Several people have drawn a parallel between Voldemort and some politicians. Rowling has said that Voldemort was "a sort of" Adolf Hitler, and that there is some parallel with Nazism in her books. Rowling also compared Voldemort to Joseph Stalin. Alfonso Cuarón, director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban compared Voldemort to George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein, who he said "...have selfish interests and are very much in love with power. Also, a disregard for the environment. A love for manipulating people." Andrew Slack and the Harry Potter Alliance compare media consolidation in the US to Voldemort's regime in Deathly Hallows and its control over the Daily Prophet and other media saying that "Once Voldemort took over every form of media in the wizarding world, Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix formed an independent media movement called 'Potterwatch'. Now the HP Alliance and Wizard Rock have come together to fight for a Potterwatch movement in the real world to fight back against Big VoldeMedia from further pushing out local and foreign news, minority representation, and the right to a Free Press." Julia Turner of Slate Magazine also noted similarities between the events of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the War on Terror. She said that Voldemort commits acts of terrorism such as destroying bridges, murdering innocents, and forcing children to kill their elders.
Voldemort has also been compared with other characters within fiction, for example Sauron from The Lord of the Rings; they are, during the time when the main plot takes place, seeking to recover their lost power after having been considered dead or at least no longer a threat, and are also so feared that they are sometimes unnamed.
IGN listed Voldemort as their seventh favourite Harry Potter character, calling him "truly frightening".
In popular culture
Several campaigns have used Voldemort to compare his evil to the influence of politicians, large media and corporations. "Lord Voldemort" is a nickname sometimes used for Peter Mandelson. Voldemort is also a recurring theme among wizard rock bands. Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock! is the second album from Harry and the Potters, and the character is mentioned in songs such as "The Dark Lord Lament" and "Flesh, Blood, and Bone".
Voldemort has been parodied in various venues. In The Simpsons 13th season's premiere, "Treehouse of Horror XII", Montgomery Burns appears as "Lord Montymort". A parody of Voldemort appears in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as "Lord Moldybutt", an enemy of Nigel Planter (a parody of Harry). Voldemort also appears in the Potter Puppet Pals sketches by Neil Cicierega. One of the episodes including him was the seventeenth most viewed video of all time as of 2008 and the winner for "Best Comedy" of the year 2007 at YouTube.
"Continuing the Magic", an article in the 21 May 2007 issue of Time, includes mock book covers designed by author Lon Tweeten, laced with pop culture references. One of them, the "Dark Lord of the Dance", shows Voldemort teaming up with Harry on Broadway. In the MAD Magazine parodies of the films, the character is called Lord Druckermort, a backwards reference to the magazine's longtime caricaturist Mort Drucker. In Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1969, a young Tom Marvolo Riddle (introduced as "Tom", whose middle name is a "marvel" and last name is a "conundrum") appears, and becomes the new avatar of Oliver Haddo at the story's conclusion. In A Very Potter Musical, Voldemort is played by actor Joe Walker.
In a segment celebrating British children's literature at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London, an inflatable Voldemort appeared alongside other villains, The Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook, and Cruella de Vil, to haunt children's dreams, before the arrival of a group of over thirty Mary Poppins who descended with their umbrellas to defeat them.
During the 2016 United States elections, Daniel Radcliffe was asked by Sky News journalist Craig Dillon if he would compare Donald Trump to Lord Voldemort; Radcliffe responded, "Trump is worse".
Voldemort appears in The Lego Batman Movie as one of the prisoners in the Phantom Zone that Joker recruits to take over Gotham City. Though Ralph Fiennes is featured in this movie as the voice of the British butler Alfred Pennyworth, he does not reprise his role as Voldemort. Instead, Voldemort is voiced by Eddie Izzard.
Outside of the Harry Potter video games, Voldemort is also a playable character in Lego Dimensions, with archive audio of Fiennes' portrayal in the films used for his voiceovers.
A 2018 Italian fan film titled Voldemort: Origins of the Heir depicts the story of Tom Riddle's rise to power.
Voldemort appears in Space Jam: A New Legacy, in the crowd for the game between the Tune Squad and the Goon Squad.
An upcoming French fan-made short-film titled The House of Gaunt - Lord Voldemort Origins explores the origin story of Voldemort and The Gaunt family.
Notes
References
External links
Lord Voldemort at Harry Potter Lexicon
Fictional characters with disfigurements
Fictional characters with immortality
Fictional characters with spirit possession or body swapping abilities
Fictional dictators
Fictional English people
Fictional hypnotists and indoctrinators
Fictional illeists
Fictional mass murderers
Fictional necromancers
Fictional offspring of rape
Fictional patricides
Fictional terrorists
Fictional torturers
Harry Potter characters
Literary characters introduced in 1997
Male film villains
Male literary villains
Orphan characters in film
Orphan characters in literature
Psychopathy in fiction
Film supervillains | false | [
"You Can Hold Me Down is the debut album by William Tell, first released on March 13, 2007 through Universal Records and New Door Records.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Jeannie\" (William Tell) 3:01\n \"Slipping Under (Sing Along to Your Favorite Song)\" (PJ Smith, William Tell) 3:34\n \"Trouble\" (William Tell) 2:55\n \"Fairfax (You’re Still the Same)\" (William Tell) 2:49\n \"Like You, Only Sweeter\" (Darren Tehrani, William Tell) 3:41\n \"Maybe Tonight\" (William Tell, Mike Green) 3:13\n \"Young at Heart\" (William Tell) 2:46\n \"Sounds\" (William Tell, PJ Smith) 3:05\n \"Just For You\" (William Tell, Mike Green) 3:33\n \"You Can Hold Me Down\" (William Tell, Darren Tehrani) 3:23\n\nBest Buy hidden track:\n<li> \"You Can Hold Me Down\" (Tell, Tehrani) – 9:31\n features the hidden track \"After All\", beginning at about 4:30\n\niTunes Store bonus track:\n<li> \"Yesterday is Calling\" (James Bourne, Smith) – 3:43\n\nTarget bonus track:\n<li> \"Young at Heart (Acoustic)\" (Tell) – 2:46\n\nWal-Mart bonus tracks:\n<li> \"This Mess\" – 3:23\n<li> \"Katie (Where'd You Go?)\" – 3:48\n\nPersonnel\nWilliam Tell - vocals, guitars, bass\nBrian Ireland - drums, percussion\nAndrew McMahon - piano\n\nReferences\n\nYou Can Hold Me Down (William Tell album)",
"\"Tell Me There's a Heaven\" is a song by British singer-songwriter Chris Rea, released in 1990 as the third single from his tenth studio album The Road to Hell (1989). It was written by Rea and produced by Rea and Jon Kelly. \"Tell Me There's a Heaven\" reached No. 24 in the UK Singles Chart and remained in the Top 100 for six weeks.\n\nIn 1994, the single was re-issued from Rea's compilation album The Best of Chris Rea. It re-charted at No. 70 in the UK in December 1994. Another re-issue in 2000 saw the song peak at No. 11 on the Ö3 Austria Top 40 chart.\n\nBackground\nRea was inspired to write \"Tell Me There's a Heaven\" after his daughter Josie saw footage of a riot in South Africa on the news, which showed \"this horrible thing of throwing lighted tyres over people\" and \"one guy burning to death\". Rea recalled to Peter Doggett in 2019: \"Joan's [Rea's wife] dad was saying he didn't know what to say to Josie about what she'd seen, so he just said, 'That man has gone to heaven'. And that's how songs happen. I went up to see her and she was safely asleep, so I looked out the window and said to myself, 'Grandad told you there's a heaven, I'd like someone to tell me there's a heaven, too.'\"\n\nIn 1992, the song was used as the soundtrack to a PIF for the NSPCC, juxtaposed with excuses made by child abusers and descriptions of injuries from coroner reports.\n\nCritical reception\nOn its release, Music & Media wrote, \"A slow, gentle and intimate song with some tastefully arranged strings. Perfect for late-night and AC programmers.\" Eleanor Levy of Record Mirror wrote, \"A simple piano backing erupts into a full blown orchestral arrangement as Rea uses a four minute pop song to try to come to terms with the serious subject of child abuse.\" She considered the song to be \"sincere\" and one that avoided being \"over-sentimental\" and \"schmaltzy\", but questioned the suitability of releasing a song \"so obviously written to be heard within the context of an album\" as a single.\n\nIn a review of The Road to Hell, David Law of The Charlatan felt the song \"sums up both Rea's disillusionment and his hopes for the future\", but felt it would have been \"more effective shrouded in simple acoustic guitar and piano\" than the \"John Williams-type soundtrack strings\". Deborah Hornblow of the Hartford Courant described the song as a \"good track\" which \"begs questions a child would ask on seeing the world's unkindness\". John Everson of the Southtown Star considered the song to be \"astounding in emotion and lyrical sweep\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nOriginal release\n7\" single\n \"Tell Me There's a Heaven\" – 6:01\n \"And When She Smiles\" – 3:11\n\n12\" single\n \"Tell Me There's a Heaven\" – 6:01\n \"And When She Smiles\" – 3:11\n \"Curse of the Traveller\" – 6:25\n\nCD single\n \"Tell Me There's a Heaven\" – 6:01\n \"And When She Smiles\" – 3:11\n \"Curse of the Traveller\" – 6:25\n \"Little Blonde Plaits\" – 4:16\n\n1994 release\nCD single\n \"Tell Me There's a Heaven\" – 6:01\n \"Stainsby Girls\" – 4:06\n \"Let's Dance\" – 4:15\n\nCD single (promo release)\n \"Tell Me There's a Heaven\" (Edit) – 4:55\n \"Tell Me There's a Heaven\" (Album Version) – 6:01\n \"Stainsby Girls\" – 4:06\n \"Let's Dance\" – 4:15\n \"Driving Home for Christmas\" – 3:58\n\n2000 release\nCD single\n \"Tell Me There's a Heaven\" – 6:01\n \"Sail Away\" – 4:48\n \"Sandwriting\" – 5:08\n\nPersonnel\nTell Me There's a Heaven\n Chris Rea - vocals, guitars, keyboards\n Max Middleton - keyboards, string arrangement\n Robert Ahwai - bass\n Martin Ditcham - drums, percussion\n\nProduction\n Chris Rea - producer of \"Tell Me There's a Heaven\" and \"And When She Smile\", producer and mixing on \"Curse of the Traveller\", producer of \"Little Blonde Plaits\"\n Jon Kelly - producer of \"Tell Me There's a Heaven\", mixing on \"Curse of the Traveller\"\n Dave Richards - producer of \"And When She Smiles\" and \"Little Blonde Plaits\"\n Neil Amor, Diane BJ Koné - engineers on \"Tell Me There's a Heaven\"\n\nOther\n The Leisure Process - sleeve design\n Christian Charisius - back cover photography\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n1989 songs\n1990 singles\n1994 singles\n2000 singles\nChris Rea songs\nWarner Records singles\nEast West Records singles\nSongs written by Chris Rea"
] |
[
"Lord Voldemort",
"Character development",
"How did Voldemort's character begin?",
"Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first.",
"Why did rowling do that?",
"The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position",
"How else is voldemorts character developed?",
"When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then",
"And then what did he do?",
"and then he tried to kill Harry--he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And--so--but for some mysterious reason the curse",
"Can you tell me more about the curse?",
"for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard,"
] | C_7776d2fc9b234c23939513b312811d39_1 | what happens to the evil wizard? | 6 | What happens to the evil wizard, Voldemort? | Lord Voldemort | In a 2001 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry--he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And--so--but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since." In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death." Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. Some literary analysts have considered possible meanings in the name: Philip Nel states that Voldemort is derived from the French for "flight of death", and in a 2002 paper, Nilsen and Nilsen suggest that readers get a "creepy feeling" from the name Voldemort, because of the French word "mort" ("death") within it and that word's association with cognate English words derived from the Latin mors. CANNOTANSWER | In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. | Lord Voldemort (, in the films) is a sobriquet for Tom Marvolo Riddle, a character and the main antagonist in J. K. Rowling's series of Harry Potter novels. The character first appeared in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which was published in 1997, and returned either in person or in flashbacks in each book and its film adaptation in the series except the third, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in which he is only mentioned.
Voldemort is the archenemy of Harry Potter, who according to a prophecy has "the power to vanquish the Dark Lord". He attempts to murder the boy, but instead kills his parents, Lily and James Potter, and leaves Harry with a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. Nearly every witch or wizard dares not utter his name and refers to him instead with such monikers as "You-Know-Who", "He Who Must Not Be Named", or "the Dark Lord". Voldemort's obsession with blood purity signifies his aim to rid the wizarding world of Muggle (non-magical) heritage and to conquer both worlds, Muggle and wizarding, to achieve pure-blood dominance. Through his mother's family, he is the last descendant of the wizard Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He is the leader of the Death Eaters, a group of evil wizards and witches dedicated to ridding the Wizarding World of Muggles and establishing Voldemort as its supreme ruler.
Character development
In a 1999 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter, and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry—he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And—so—but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since."
In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death."
Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. The name Voldemort is derived from the French vol de mort which means "flight of death" or "theft of death".
Appearances
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Voldemort makes his debut in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. In this story, Rowling introduces him as the Dark Lord who tried to kill Harry Potter because the boy was prophesied to destroy him. Voldemort murdered Harry's parents, James and Lily, but as a result of his mother's love and willingness to sacrifice herself for him, baby Harry survived when Voldemort tried to murder him with a Killing Curse. Voldemort was disembodied, and Harry was left with a mysterious, lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead as a result.
In the book, Voldemort unsuccessfully tries to regain his dissolved body by stealing the titular Philosopher's Stone. To achieve his objective, Voldemort uses Professor Quirrell's aid by latching onto the back of the latter's head. However, at the climax of the book, Harry manages to prevent Voldemort from stealing the stone.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
In the second instalment, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Rowling introduces Tom Marvolo Riddle, a manifestation of a teenage Voldemort that resides inside a magical diary found by Ginny Weasley. In this book, Ginny is written as a shy girl with a crush on Harry. Feeling anxious and lonely, she begins to write into the diary and shares her deepest fears with the sympathetic Tom. However, at the climax of the story, when Riddle rearranges the letters in his name to write "I am Lord Voldemort", Riddle is revealed as a magical manifestation of the boy who would later grow up to become the Dark Lord. Riddle states he has grown strong on Ginny's fears and eventually possesses her, using her as a pawn to unlock the Chamber of Secrets, whence a basilisk is set free and petrifies several Hogwarts students. Harry defeats the manifestation of Riddle from the diary and the basilisk. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Albus Dumbledore reveals to Harry that the diary was one of Voldemort's Horcruxes.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Voldemort does not appear in the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, either in person or as a magical manifestation. He is, however, heard when Harry passes out from the harsh effects of a Dementor. Towards the end of the story, Sybill Trelawney, the Divination professor, makes a rare genuine prophecy: "The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight, the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever before. Tonight... before midnight... the servant... will set out... to rejoin... his master..." Though it is initially implied that the prophecy refers to Sirius Black, the book's ostensible antagonist, the servant is eventually revealed to be Peter Pettigrew, who, for the 12 years since Voldemort's fall, has been disguised as Ron's pet rat, Scabbers.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
In the fourth instalment of the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort reappears at the start and the climax of the book. Rowling lets many seemingly unrelated plot elements fall into order. It is revealed that Voldemort's minion Barty Crouch Jr, disguised as Hogwarts professor Mad-Eye Moody, has manipulated the events of the Triwizard Tournament in Harry's favour. Voldemort's goal is to teleport Harry under Dumbledore's watch as a reluctant participant to the Little Hangleton graveyard, where the Riddle family is buried. Harry is captured and, after Pettigrew uses Harry's blood to fulfil a gruesome magical ritual, Voldemort regains his body and is restored to his full power. For the first time in the series, Rowling describes his appearance: "tall and skeletally thin", with a face "whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was as flat as a snake's with slits for nostrils". Rowling writes that his "hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cat's, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness". It was revealed that, while in Albania, Pettigrew had captured the Ministry of Magic official Bertha Jorkins, who was tortured for information about the Ministry. After they learned that Barty Crouch Jr, a faithful Death Eater, had been smuggled out of Azkaban and was privately confined at his father's house, they killed her. With Pettigrew's help, Voldemort creates a small, rudimentary body, corporeal enough to travel and perform magic, and formulated a plan to restore his own body by capturing Harry. A portion of the plan had been overheard by Frank Bryce, a gardener, whom Voldemort then killed. Voldemort then completes his plan and returns to life in his full body as a result of the ritual with Harry's blood. He then summons his Death Eaters to the graveyard to witness the death of Harry as he challenges Harry to a duel. However, when Voldemort duels Harry, their wands become magically locked together due to the twin Phoenix feather cores of the wands. Because of a phenomenon later revealed as Priori Incantatem, ghost-like manifestations of Voldemort's most recent victims (including Harry's parents) then appear and distract Voldemort, allowing Harry just enough time to escape via Portkey with the body of fellow-student, Cedric Diggory, who was murdered by Pettigrew on Voldemort's orders.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Voldemort appears at the climax of the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, having again plotted against Harry. In this book, Harry goes through extreme emotional stress, and according to Rowling, it was necessary to prove that Harry is emotionally vulnerable and thus human, in contrast to his nemesis Voldemort, who is emotionally invulnerable and thus inhuman: "[Harry is] a very human hero, and this is, obviously, there's a contrast, between him, as a very human hero, and Voldemort, who has deliberately dehumanised himself. […] and Harry, therefore, did have to reach a point where he did almost break down." In this book, Voldemort makes liberal use of the Ministry of Magic's refusal to believe that he has returned. Voldemort engineers a plot to free Bellatrix Lestrange and other Death Eaters from Azkaban and then embarks on a scheme to retrieve the full record of a prophecy stored in the Department of Mysteries regarding Harry and himself. He sends a group of Death Eaters to retrieve the prophecy, where the Order of the Phoenix meets them. All but Bellatrix are captured, and Voldemort engages in a ferocious duel with Dumbledore. When Dumbledore gets the upper hand, Voldemort attempts to possess Harry but finds that he cannot; Harry is too full of that which Voldemort finds incomprehensible, and which he detests as weakness: love. Sensing that Dumbledore could win, Voldemort disapparates, but not before the Minister for Magic sees him in person, making his return to life public knowledge in the next book.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Voldemort does not appear in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, although his presence and actions are felt: he once again declares war, and begins to rise to power once more. He murders Amelia Bones of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and begins to target members of the Order of the Phoenix, including Emmeline Vance.
Rowling uses several chapters as exposition to establish Voldemort's backstory. In a series of flashbacks, using the pensieve as a plot device, she reveals that Voldemort was the son of the witch Merope Gaunt and a Muggle called Tom Riddle. Riddle abandoned Merope before their child's birth, soon after which Merope died. After living in an orphanage, young Riddle met Dumbledore, who told him he was a wizard and arranged for him to attend Hogwarts. Riddle was outwardly a model student, but was in reality a psychopath who took sadistic pleasure in using his powers to harm and control people. He eventually murdered his father and grandparents as revenge for abandoning him. The book also discusses Riddle's hatred of Muggles, his obsession with Horcruxes, and his desire to split his soul to achieve immortality. Rowling stated Voldemort's conception under the influence of a love potion symbolises the coercive circumstances under which he was brought into the world.
In the main plot of the book, Voldemort's next step is to engineer an assault on Hogwarts, and to kill Dumbledore. This is accomplished by Draco Malfoy, who arranges transportation of Death Eaters into Hogwarts by a pair of Vanishing Cabinets, which bypass the extensive protective enchantments placed around the school. The cabinets allow Voldemort's Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts, where battle commences and Dumbledore is cornered. Hogwarts professor (and re-doubled agent) Severus Snape uses the Killing Curse against Dumbledore when Draco could not force himself to do so.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort furthers his quest for ultimate power. He disposes of the Minister for Magic and replaces him with Pius Thicknesse, who is under the Imperius Curse. Establishing a totalitarian police state, he has Muggle-borns persecuted and arrested for "stealing magic" from the "pure blood" wizards. After failing to kill Harry with Draco's father Lucius Malfoy's borrowed wand (to avoid the effect of Priori Incantatem), he goes on a murderous search for the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand ever created, seeing it as the weapon he needs to overcome Harry's wand and make him truly invincible. He goes on a quest that takes him out of the country to Gregorovitch's wand shop, where he kills the old wandmaker. His journey also takes him to Nurmengard, the prison where Gellert Grindelwald is kept, and he kills Grindelwald as well. He finally locates the Elder Wand and steals it from Dumbledore's tomb.
Later, Voldemort finds out that Harry and his friends are hunting and destroying his Horcruxes when informed of their heist on the Lestranges' vault at Gringotts in search for Hufflepuff's Cup. After offering the occupants of Hogwarts mercy if they give up Harry, he assembles a large army and launches an invasion of the castle, where Harry is searching for Ravenclaw's Diadem. Voldemort orders his pet snake Nagini to execute Snape, believing it would make him the true master of the Elder Wand, since Snape killed Dumbledore. He then calls an hour's armistice, in exchange for Harry. When Harry willingly walks into Voldemort's camp in the Forbidden Forest, Voldemort strikes him down with the Elder Wand. However, the use of Harry's blood to resurrect Voldemort's body proves to be a major setback: while Harry's blood runs in Voldemort's veins, Harry cannot be killed as his mother's protection lives on now in Voldemort too. Instead, Voldemort destroys the part of his own soul that resides in Harry's body. Voldemort forces Rubeus Hagrid to carry Harry's apparently lifeless body back to the castle as a trophy, sparking another battle during which Nagini, his last Horcrux, is destroyed by Neville Longbottom. The battle then moves into the Great Hall, where Voldemort fights Minerva McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Horace Slughorn simultaneously. Harry then reveals himself and explains to Voldemort that Draco became the true master of the Elder Wand when he disarmed Dumbledore; Harry, in turn, won the wand's allegiance when he took Draco's wand. Refusing to believe this, Voldemort casts the Killing Curse with the Elder Wand while Harry uses a Disarming Charm with Draco's, but the Elder Wand refuses to kill its master and the spell rebounds on Voldemort who, with all of his Horcruxes destroyed, finally dies. His body is laid in a different chamber from all the others who died battling him.
Rowling stated that after his death, Voldemort is forced to exist in the stunted infant-like form that Harry sees in the King's Cross-like Limbo after his confrontation with Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest. Rowling also mentioned that, despite his extreme fear of death, he cannot become a ghost.
Appearances in other material
In Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, it is revealed that Bellatrix gave birth to Voldemort's daughter Delphi in Malfoy Manor before the Battle of Hogwarts. Twenty-two years later, Delphi poses as Cedric's cousin and manipulates Harry and Ginny's second son Albus Severus Potter and his friend, Draco and Astoria Greengrass's son Scorpius Malfoy, into stealing a prototype Time Turner with which she hopes to resurrect her father. Using the Time Turner, Scorpius accidentally creates an alternative timeline where Voldemort killed Harry at the battle and now rules the wizarding world. In an attempt to achieve this future, Delphi travels to Godric's Hollow on the night Voldemort killed Harry's parents, hoping to avert the prophecy that led to her father's downfall. After receiving a message from his son, Harry, together with Ron, Hermione and Draco (who by now has become friends with Harry after they join forces to save their respective sons) transfigures himself into Voldemort so that he can distract Delphi, allowing them to overpower her. The real Voldemort kills Harry's parents as prophesied, and Delphi is sent to Azkaban.
Portrayals within films
Voldemort appears in every Harry Potter film, with the exception of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Several actors have portrayed him in his varying incarnations and ages.
In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Voldemort's manifestation is as a face on the back of Quirrell's head, an effect achieved by computer generated imagery. Ian Hart, the actor who played Quirrell in the same film, provided the voice and the facial source for this character. Voldemort also appears in a scene in the Forbidden Forest where he is seen drinking the blood of a unicorn. As Voldemort's face was altered enough by CG work, and Hart's voice was affected enough, there was no confusion by Hart's playing of the two roles. In that film, he was also shown in a flashback sequence when he arrived at the home of James and Lily Potter to kill them. In this scene Voldemort is played by Richard Bremmer, though his face is never seen. His next appearance would be in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as the 16-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle (portrayed by Christian Coulson).
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort is initially only heard, possessing the scratchy, weak voice heard in the first film. By the film's climax, however, he appears in his physical form for the first time, played by Ralph Fiennes. As in the book, Voldemort is shown clad in dark black robes, being tall and emaciated, with no hair and yellowish teeth; his wand has a white tone and the handle appears to be made of bone; his finger nails are long and pale blue while his toe nails appear to be infected. Unlike in the book, his pupils are not cat-like and his eyes are blue, because producer David Heyman felt that his evil would not be able to be seen and would not fill the audience with fear (his eyes do briefly take on a snake-like appearance when he opens them after turning human, but quickly turn normal). As in the book, the film version of Voldemort has snake-like slit nostrils with the flesh of his nose significantly pressed back. Ralph Fiennes' nose was not covered in makeup on the set, but was digitally removed in post-production. In this first appearance, Voldemort also has a forked tongue, but this element was removed for the subsequent films.
Fiennes stated that he had two weeks to shoot the climactic showdown scene where he is gloating over a terrified Harry, played by Daniel Radcliffe. Fiennes said with a chuckle: "I have no doubt children will be afraid of me now if they weren't before." In preparation, he read the novel Goblet of Fire, but jokingly conceded: "I was only interested in my scene, and I had to go through thousands and thousands of other scenes which I did, dutifully, until I got to my scene and I read it many, many, many, many, many times and that was my research." Fiennes reprised his role as Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2.
Fiennes's nephew, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, portrayed Tom Riddle as a child in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. By the time filming arrived Christian Coulson was 29, and not considered suitable to return as the adolescent Riddle. Thomas James Longley was originally scheduled to take over the role, but last minute renegotiations saw Frank Dillane cast instead.
Characterisation
Outward appearance
After he regains his body in the fourth book, Rowling describes Voldemort as having pale skin, a chalk-white, skull-like face, snake-like slits for nostrils, red eyes and cat-like slits for pupils, a skeletally thin body and long, thin hands with unnaturally long fingers. As mentioned in the first chapter of the seventh book, he also has no hair or lips. Earlier in life, as seen through flashbacks contained in the second and sixth books, Tom Marvolo Riddle was handsome and tall with pale skin, jet black hair, and dark brown eyes. He could charm many people with his looks. The transformation into his monstrous state is believed to have been the result of creating his Horcruxes and becoming less human as he continued to divide his soul. In the films, Voldemort's eyes are blue with round pupils.
Personality
Rowling described Voldemort as "the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years". She elaborated that he is a "raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering", and whose only ambition in life is to become all-powerful and immortal. He is also a sadist who hurts and murders people—especially Muggles—for his own amusement. He has no conscience, feels no remorse or empathy, and does not recognise the worth and humanity of anybody except himself.
He feels no need for human companionship or friendship, and cannot comprehend love or affection for another. He believes he is superior to everyone around him, to the point that he frequently refers to himself in the third person as "Lord Voldemort". Rowling also stated that Voldemort is "incredibly power hungry. Racist, really", and that if Voldemort were to look into the Mirror of Erised, in which one sees one's greatest desire, he would see "Himself, all-powerful and eternal. That's what he wants."
Rowling also stated that Voldemort's conception by influence of Amortentia—a love potion administered by his mother, a witch named Merope Gaunt, to the Muggle Tom Riddle—is related to his inability to understand love; it is "a symbolic way of showing that he came from a loveless union—but of course, everything would have changed if Merope had survived and raised him herself and loved him. The enchantment under which Tom Riddle fathered Voldemort is important because it shows coercion, and there can't be many more prejudicial ways to enter the world than as the result of such a union".
Like most archetypical villains, Voldemort's arrogance leads to his downfall. He also suffers from a pathological fear of death, which he regards as a shameful and ignominious human weakness. According to Rowling, his Boggart would be his own corpse. Rowling also said that the difference between Harry and Voldemort is that Harry accepts mortality, and thus Harry is, in the end, stronger than his nemesis.
Magical abilities and skills
Rowling establishes Voldemort throughout the series as an extremely powerful, intelligent, and ruthless dark wizard, described as the greatest and most powerful Dark Wizard of all time. He is known as one of the greatest Legilimens in the world and a highly accomplished Occlumens; he can read minds and shield his own from penetration. Besides Dumbledore, he is also the only wizard ever known to be able to apparate silently. Voldemort was also said to fear one wizard alone, Dumbledore.
In the final book, Voldemort flies unsupported, something that amazes those who see it. Voldemort, like his ancestral family, the Gaunts, is a Parselmouth, meaning he can converse with serpents. This skill was inherited from his ancestor, Salazar Slytherin. The Gaunt family speak Parseltongue among themselves. This highly unusual trait may be preserved through inbreeding, a practice employed by the Gaunt Family to maintain their blood's purity. When Voldemort attempts to kill Harry his ability to speak Parseltongue is passed to Harry through the small bit of the former's soul. After that bit of soul is destroyed, Harry loses this ability. In a flashback in the sixth novel, Voldemort boasts to Dumbledore during a job interview that he has "pushed the boundaries of magic farther than they had ever before". Dumbledore states that Voldemort's knowledge of magic is more extensive than any wizard alive and that even Dumbledore's most powerful protective spells and charms would likely be insufficient if Voldemort returned to full power. Dumbledore also said that Voldemort was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen. Although Voldemort remains highly accomplished and prodigious in skill, he is enormously lacking and highly inept in the most powerful magic, love. This inability to love and trust others proves to be Voldemort's greatest weakness in the series. Voldemort initially voices scepticism that his own magic might not be the most powerful, but upon returning to power, he admits to his Death Eaters that he had overlooked the ancient and powerful magic which Lily Potter invoked and that would protect Harry from harm.
On her website, Rowling wrote that Voldemort's wand is made of yew, whose sap is poisonous and which symbolises death. It forms a deliberate contrast to Harry's wand, which is made of holly, which she chose because holly is alleged to repel evil.
Rowling establishes in the books that Voldemort is magically connected to Harry via Harry's forehead scar. He disembodies himself when his Killing Curse targeting Harry rebounds on him, leaving the scar on Harry's forehead. In the books, and to a lesser extent in the films, Harry's scar serves as an indicator of Voldemort's presence: it burns when the Dark Lord is near or when Voldemort is feeling murderous or exultant. According to Rowling, by attacking Harry when he was a baby Voldemort gave him "tools [that] no other wizard possessed—the scar and the ability it conferred, a magical window into Voldemort's mind".
Family
Notes: The names 'Thomas' and 'Mary' Riddle are taken from the films. The Potter Family is not shown.
Riddle family
The Riddle family, an old gentry family, consisted of Thomas and Mary Riddle and their son, Tom Riddle, Esq. They owned over half of the valley that the town of Little Hangleton lay in, and Thomas was the most prominent inhabitant of that town. They lived in a large house with fine gardens, but were unpopular amongst the local residents due to their snobbish attitudes. Tom, the only child of Thomas and Mary, was known as a playboy, his main interests being womanizing and horse-riding.
Rowling revealed in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that young Merope Gaunt fell in love with Riddle, peering at him through the windows and bushes at every opportunity. Merope's brother Morfin disapproved of his sister's affection for Tom and hexed him as he rode by, covering him in hives. This breach of wizarding law, and the ensuing violent struggle with Ministry of Magic officials, led to Marvolo and Morfin being imprisoned in Azkaban. As surmised by Dumbledore, once Merope was alone and no longer dominated by her father, she could make her move for Tom. She offered him a drink laced with a love potion, and he became infatuated with her; they soon eloped and, within three months of the marriage, Merope became pregnant. Merope decided to stop giving Tom the love potion, having come to the belief such enchantment of a man was tantamount to slavery. She also revealed her witch status to Tom, believing either that he had fallen in love with her on his own or he would at least stay for their unborn child. She was wrong, and Tom quickly left his pregnant wife and went home to his parents, claiming to have been "hoodwinked" and tricked into marrying Merope. Tom Marvolo Riddle, their son, was born on 31 December 1926 Merope died in childbirth, leaving the baby to grow up alone in an orphanage.
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, it is revealed that Voldemort murdered his father and grandparents, leaving himself the only surviving member of the Riddle family.
House of Gaunt
Most of the exposition of the House of Gaunts background occurs in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, through the medium of Dumbledore's Pensieve. The Gaunts were once a powerful and influential family, and are the last known descendants of Salazar Slytherin. However, a vein of mental instability and violence within the family, reinforced through cousin marriages intended to preserve the pureblood line, had reduced them to poverty and squalor, as shown in the Pensieve's "memory" that Harry and Dumbledore witnessed. Like Salazar Slytherin, the Gaunts spoke Parseltongue. At the time of the story, the Gaunts' only material asset is a ramshackle shanty in Little Hangleton, that stood in a thicket in a valley opposite the Riddle House. Like the Riddles, the Gaunts were also unpopular with the local residents, with a reputation for being vulgar and intimidating.
Marvolo Gaunt was the last family patriarch. He was sentenced to a short term in Azkaban for his and his son's assault upon a Ministry of Magic official; this affected his health and he died soon after returning home. His signet ring passed to his son, Morfin Gaunt, who was convicted of assaulting a Muggle, and later died in Azkaban, convicted this time as a party to the murder of Tom Riddle Jr. and Riddle's parents.
Dumbledore discovers the real culprit while visiting Morfin in Azkaban to gather information about Voldemort. After Dumbledore successfully extracts Morfin's memory of his encounter with his nephew, he tries to use the evidence to have Morfin released, but Morfin dies before the decision can be made. The House of Gaunt ended with Morfin's death.
Merope Gaunt () was the daughter of Marvolo, and sister of Morfin. Harry's first impression of her was that she looked "like the most defeated person he had ever seen". She married Tom Riddle Jr and became pregnant within three months of the wedding. It is suggested that she tricked her husband into loving her by using a love potion, but when she became pregnant, she chose to stop administering the potion. It is implied that Merope had grown tired of living the lie and thought that her husband might have grown to love her, or that he might have stayed for the sake of their unborn child; however, he left her. Desperate, Merope wandered through the streets of London. The only thing she had left was the heavy gold locket that had once belonged to Salazar Slytherin, one of her family's most treasured items, which she sold for a small amount. When she was due to give birth, she stumbled into a Muggle orphanage, where she gave birth to her only son. She died within the next hour.
Gormlaith Gaunt was a 17th-century descendant of Salazar Slytherin, and like Salazar, a Parselmouth. Her wand was that which once belonged to Salazar himself. Educated at Hogwarts, Gormlaith lived in Ireland in the early 1600s. In about 1608, Gormlaith killed her estranged unnamed sister, and her sister's husband, William Sayre (a descendant of the Irish witch Morrigan), and kidnapped their five-year-old daughter, Isolt Sayre, raising her in the neighbouring valley of Coomcallee, or "Hag's Glen", because she felt that her parents' association with Muggles would badly influence Isolt. Fanatical and cruel, Gormlaith used Dark magic to isolate Isolt from others, forbade her a wand, and did not allow her to attend Hogwarts as she herself had, disgusted that it was now filled with Muggle-borns. After twelve years with Gormlaith, Isolt stole Gormlaith's wand and fled to the Colonies and settled in Massachusetts, where she founded the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When Gormlaith learned of the school, she pursued her niece in Massachusetts, where she was killed by Isolt's friend, William the Pukwudgie, with a venom-tipped arrow.
The Gaunts, including Voldemort, are distantly related to Harry because they are descendants of the Peverell brothers.
Reception
Several people have drawn a parallel between Voldemort and some politicians. Rowling has said that Voldemort was "a sort of" Adolf Hitler, and that there is some parallel with Nazism in her books. Rowling also compared Voldemort to Joseph Stalin. Alfonso Cuarón, director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban compared Voldemort to George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein, who he said "...have selfish interests and are very much in love with power. Also, a disregard for the environment. A love for manipulating people." Andrew Slack and the Harry Potter Alliance compare media consolidation in the US to Voldemort's regime in Deathly Hallows and its control over the Daily Prophet and other media saying that "Once Voldemort took over every form of media in the wizarding world, Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix formed an independent media movement called 'Potterwatch'. Now the HP Alliance and Wizard Rock have come together to fight for a Potterwatch movement in the real world to fight back against Big VoldeMedia from further pushing out local and foreign news, minority representation, and the right to a Free Press." Julia Turner of Slate Magazine also noted similarities between the events of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the War on Terror. She said that Voldemort commits acts of terrorism such as destroying bridges, murdering innocents, and forcing children to kill their elders.
Voldemort has also been compared with other characters within fiction, for example Sauron from The Lord of the Rings; they are, during the time when the main plot takes place, seeking to recover their lost power after having been considered dead or at least no longer a threat, and are also so feared that they are sometimes unnamed.
IGN listed Voldemort as their seventh favourite Harry Potter character, calling him "truly frightening".
In popular culture
Several campaigns have used Voldemort to compare his evil to the influence of politicians, large media and corporations. "Lord Voldemort" is a nickname sometimes used for Peter Mandelson. Voldemort is also a recurring theme among wizard rock bands. Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock! is the second album from Harry and the Potters, and the character is mentioned in songs such as "The Dark Lord Lament" and "Flesh, Blood, and Bone".
Voldemort has been parodied in various venues. In The Simpsons 13th season's premiere, "Treehouse of Horror XII", Montgomery Burns appears as "Lord Montymort". A parody of Voldemort appears in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as "Lord Moldybutt", an enemy of Nigel Planter (a parody of Harry). Voldemort also appears in the Potter Puppet Pals sketches by Neil Cicierega. One of the episodes including him was the seventeenth most viewed video of all time as of 2008 and the winner for "Best Comedy" of the year 2007 at YouTube.
"Continuing the Magic", an article in the 21 May 2007 issue of Time, includes mock book covers designed by author Lon Tweeten, laced with pop culture references. One of them, the "Dark Lord of the Dance", shows Voldemort teaming up with Harry on Broadway. In the MAD Magazine parodies of the films, the character is called Lord Druckermort, a backwards reference to the magazine's longtime caricaturist Mort Drucker. In Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1969, a young Tom Marvolo Riddle (introduced as "Tom", whose middle name is a "marvel" and last name is a "conundrum") appears, and becomes the new avatar of Oliver Haddo at the story's conclusion. In A Very Potter Musical, Voldemort is played by actor Joe Walker.
In a segment celebrating British children's literature at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London, an inflatable Voldemort appeared alongside other villains, The Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook, and Cruella de Vil, to haunt children's dreams, before the arrival of a group of over thirty Mary Poppins who descended with their umbrellas to defeat them.
During the 2016 United States elections, Daniel Radcliffe was asked by Sky News journalist Craig Dillon if he would compare Donald Trump to Lord Voldemort; Radcliffe responded, "Trump is worse".
Voldemort appears in The Lego Batman Movie as one of the prisoners in the Phantom Zone that Joker recruits to take over Gotham City. Though Ralph Fiennes is featured in this movie as the voice of the British butler Alfred Pennyworth, he does not reprise his role as Voldemort. Instead, Voldemort is voiced by Eddie Izzard.
Outside of the Harry Potter video games, Voldemort is also a playable character in Lego Dimensions, with archive audio of Fiennes' portrayal in the films used for his voiceovers.
A 2018 Italian fan film titled Voldemort: Origins of the Heir depicts the story of Tom Riddle's rise to power.
Voldemort appears in Space Jam: A New Legacy, in the crowd for the game between the Tune Squad and the Goon Squad.
An upcoming French fan-made short-film titled The House of Gaunt - Lord Voldemort Origins explores the origin story of Voldemort and The Gaunt family.
Notes
References
External links
Lord Voldemort at Harry Potter Lexicon
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Film supervillains | true | [
"Evil Man may refer to:\n Evil Man, a different recording of Evil Woman by the band Crow\n Evil Man, a song by King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, see Eyes Like the Sky",
"Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard is a 2019 video game by Grace Bruxner and Thomas Bowker. Gameplay revolves around the player's role as Frog Detective, a detective frog who is trying to solve a mystery. It is the sequel to The Haunted Island, a Frog Detective Game.\n\nThe game was greeted to a positive reception.\n\nPlot \nFrog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard begins with Frog Detective receiving a call from the Supervisor. He informs Frog Detective that a new resident has moved into the town of Warlock Woods. The residents of the town decided to greet the newcomer with a welcoming parade. However, someone destroyed the parade decorations and no one knows who did it. Right before the Detective leaves, the Supervisor informs him that the new resident is actually a invisible wizard; which means no one knows what she looks like, and people are excited to find out, and the reason they were planning a parade was because they were hoping to coerce her into becoming visible. \n\nMary tries to extort Frog Detective, in exchange for the phone number of someone she claims to have seen who committed the crime. After doing various tasks, Frog Detective earns the money and gives it to Mary. She reveals it is the phone number of the postman, who may have seen the crime. Frog Detective calls the number and learns that the parcel the mailman was delivering at the time was for someone named Lola, who does not seem to live in the town. He saw someone drop something at the entrance to the town. Once Frog Detective goes to the entrance of the town, they find a pair of glasses, with the name \"The Invisible Wizard\" engraved on them. Frog Detective decides to return the glasses to the Wizard. Frog Detective returns the glasses to the Wizard, who reveals that they are Lola. The Wizard reveals that they were the one who destroyed the parade because they didn't have their glasses, causing them to stumble around, not being able to see anything. The Detective then has the choice to lie, and say \"Evil guy\" did it, or the truth that Lola did. Either way, the townsfolk have a party. Frog Detective then gets a call from the Supervisor, who thanks him on finishing the case. If Frog Detective had lied, he tells the Supervisor that \"Evil guy\" is not real, and the Wizard was the true culprit. Either way, the Supervisor reveals that he has a new crime, that he wants Frog Detective to solve with Lobster Cop, and then tells Frog Detective to head to the train station. After Frog Detective leaves, a mysterious figure steals his notebook. Frog Detective gets on the train, which leads to Cowboy County.\n\nGameplay \nThe Case of the Invisible Wizard is the sequel to The Haunted Island. The gameplay of The Case of the Invisible Wizard is mostly the same as in The Haunted Island, players tend to spend most of their time conversing with other characters, but adds one feature; the notebook, which allows players to keep track of their progress. Players receive a magnifying glass, which has no use besides making things slightly bigger.\n\nDevelopment \nThe Case of the Invisible Wizard was partially funded by the creators of Superhot. Developer Grace Bruxner said that Superhot noticed her \"cool frog game and were like \n'hmmm... what if..... money????? and she \"was like '...ok fine.\n\nReception \n\nAccording to review aggregator Metacritic, the game received \"generally favorable reviews\". Destructoids Kevin Mersereau said the game is \"so dang wholesome and smile-inducing.\"\n\nThe game's writing and humor was praised by reviewers. GameSpots David Wildgoose said that the writing is \"sharp\", and \"goofy without slipping into wackiness, and facetious without sliding into sarcasm.\" Mersereau said that compared to The Haunted Island, the jokes in The Case of the Invisible Wizard are a lot funnier.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nOfficial website\n\n2019 video games\nAdventure games\nDetective video games\nFiction about invisibility\nMacOS games\nVideo games about amphibians\nVideo games developed in Australia\nVideo games with cel-shaded animation\nVideo games about witchcraft\nWindows games"
] |
[
"Lord Voldemort",
"Character development",
"How did Voldemort's character begin?",
"Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first.",
"Why did rowling do that?",
"The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position",
"How else is voldemorts character developed?",
"When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then",
"And then what did he do?",
"and then he tried to kill Harry--he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And--so--but for some mysterious reason the curse",
"Can you tell me more about the curse?",
"for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard,",
"what happens to the evil wizard?",
"In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself."
] | C_7776d2fc9b234c23939513b312811d39_1 | does anything else happen with voldemort in later books? | 7 | Besides trying to kill Harry, does anything else happen with Voldemort in later books? | Lord Voldemort | In a 2001 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry--he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And--so--but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since." In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death." Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. Some literary analysts have considered possible meanings in the name: Philip Nel states that Voldemort is derived from the French for "flight of death", and in a 2002 paper, Nilsen and Nilsen suggest that readers get a "creepy feeling" from the name Voldemort, because of the French word "mort" ("death") within it and that word's association with cognate English words derived from the Latin mors. CANNOTANSWER | Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, | Lord Voldemort (, in the films) is a sobriquet for Tom Marvolo Riddle, a character and the main antagonist in J. K. Rowling's series of Harry Potter novels. The character first appeared in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which was published in 1997, and returned either in person or in flashbacks in each book and its film adaptation in the series except the third, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in which he is only mentioned.
Voldemort is the archenemy of Harry Potter, who according to a prophecy has "the power to vanquish the Dark Lord". He attempts to murder the boy, but instead kills his parents, Lily and James Potter, and leaves Harry with a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. Nearly every witch or wizard dares not utter his name and refers to him instead with such monikers as "You-Know-Who", "He Who Must Not Be Named", or "the Dark Lord". Voldemort's obsession with blood purity signifies his aim to rid the wizarding world of Muggle (non-magical) heritage and to conquer both worlds, Muggle and wizarding, to achieve pure-blood dominance. Through his mother's family, he is the last descendant of the wizard Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He is the leader of the Death Eaters, a group of evil wizards and witches dedicated to ridding the Wizarding World of Muggles and establishing Voldemort as its supreme ruler.
Character development
In a 1999 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter, and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry—he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And—so—but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since."
In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death."
Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. The name Voldemort is derived from the French vol de mort which means "flight of death" or "theft of death".
Appearances
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Voldemort makes his debut in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. In this story, Rowling introduces him as the Dark Lord who tried to kill Harry Potter because the boy was prophesied to destroy him. Voldemort murdered Harry's parents, James and Lily, but as a result of his mother's love and willingness to sacrifice herself for him, baby Harry survived when Voldemort tried to murder him with a Killing Curse. Voldemort was disembodied, and Harry was left with a mysterious, lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead as a result.
In the book, Voldemort unsuccessfully tries to regain his dissolved body by stealing the titular Philosopher's Stone. To achieve his objective, Voldemort uses Professor Quirrell's aid by latching onto the back of the latter's head. However, at the climax of the book, Harry manages to prevent Voldemort from stealing the stone.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
In the second instalment, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Rowling introduces Tom Marvolo Riddle, a manifestation of a teenage Voldemort that resides inside a magical diary found by Ginny Weasley. In this book, Ginny is written as a shy girl with a crush on Harry. Feeling anxious and lonely, she begins to write into the diary and shares her deepest fears with the sympathetic Tom. However, at the climax of the story, when Riddle rearranges the letters in his name to write "I am Lord Voldemort", Riddle is revealed as a magical manifestation of the boy who would later grow up to become the Dark Lord. Riddle states he has grown strong on Ginny's fears and eventually possesses her, using her as a pawn to unlock the Chamber of Secrets, whence a basilisk is set free and petrifies several Hogwarts students. Harry defeats the manifestation of Riddle from the diary and the basilisk. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Albus Dumbledore reveals to Harry that the diary was one of Voldemort's Horcruxes.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Voldemort does not appear in the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, either in person or as a magical manifestation. He is, however, heard when Harry passes out from the harsh effects of a Dementor. Towards the end of the story, Sybill Trelawney, the Divination professor, makes a rare genuine prophecy: "The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight, the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever before. Tonight... before midnight... the servant... will set out... to rejoin... his master..." Though it is initially implied that the prophecy refers to Sirius Black, the book's ostensible antagonist, the servant is eventually revealed to be Peter Pettigrew, who, for the 12 years since Voldemort's fall, has been disguised as Ron's pet rat, Scabbers.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
In the fourth instalment of the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort reappears at the start and the climax of the book. Rowling lets many seemingly unrelated plot elements fall into order. It is revealed that Voldemort's minion Barty Crouch Jr, disguised as Hogwarts professor Mad-Eye Moody, has manipulated the events of the Triwizard Tournament in Harry's favour. Voldemort's goal is to teleport Harry under Dumbledore's watch as a reluctant participant to the Little Hangleton graveyard, where the Riddle family is buried. Harry is captured and, after Pettigrew uses Harry's blood to fulfil a gruesome magical ritual, Voldemort regains his body and is restored to his full power. For the first time in the series, Rowling describes his appearance: "tall and skeletally thin", with a face "whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was as flat as a snake's with slits for nostrils". Rowling writes that his "hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cat's, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness". It was revealed that, while in Albania, Pettigrew had captured the Ministry of Magic official Bertha Jorkins, who was tortured for information about the Ministry. After they learned that Barty Crouch Jr, a faithful Death Eater, had been smuggled out of Azkaban and was privately confined at his father's house, they killed her. With Pettigrew's help, Voldemort creates a small, rudimentary body, corporeal enough to travel and perform magic, and formulated a plan to restore his own body by capturing Harry. A portion of the plan had been overheard by Frank Bryce, a gardener, whom Voldemort then killed. Voldemort then completes his plan and returns to life in his full body as a result of the ritual with Harry's blood. He then summons his Death Eaters to the graveyard to witness the death of Harry as he challenges Harry to a duel. However, when Voldemort duels Harry, their wands become magically locked together due to the twin Phoenix feather cores of the wands. Because of a phenomenon later revealed as Priori Incantatem, ghost-like manifestations of Voldemort's most recent victims (including Harry's parents) then appear and distract Voldemort, allowing Harry just enough time to escape via Portkey with the body of fellow-student, Cedric Diggory, who was murdered by Pettigrew on Voldemort's orders.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Voldemort appears at the climax of the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, having again plotted against Harry. In this book, Harry goes through extreme emotional stress, and according to Rowling, it was necessary to prove that Harry is emotionally vulnerable and thus human, in contrast to his nemesis Voldemort, who is emotionally invulnerable and thus inhuman: "[Harry is] a very human hero, and this is, obviously, there's a contrast, between him, as a very human hero, and Voldemort, who has deliberately dehumanised himself. […] and Harry, therefore, did have to reach a point where he did almost break down." In this book, Voldemort makes liberal use of the Ministry of Magic's refusal to believe that he has returned. Voldemort engineers a plot to free Bellatrix Lestrange and other Death Eaters from Azkaban and then embarks on a scheme to retrieve the full record of a prophecy stored in the Department of Mysteries regarding Harry and himself. He sends a group of Death Eaters to retrieve the prophecy, where the Order of the Phoenix meets them. All but Bellatrix are captured, and Voldemort engages in a ferocious duel with Dumbledore. When Dumbledore gets the upper hand, Voldemort attempts to possess Harry but finds that he cannot; Harry is too full of that which Voldemort finds incomprehensible, and which he detests as weakness: love. Sensing that Dumbledore could win, Voldemort disapparates, but not before the Minister for Magic sees him in person, making his return to life public knowledge in the next book.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Voldemort does not appear in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, although his presence and actions are felt: he once again declares war, and begins to rise to power once more. He murders Amelia Bones of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and begins to target members of the Order of the Phoenix, including Emmeline Vance.
Rowling uses several chapters as exposition to establish Voldemort's backstory. In a series of flashbacks, using the pensieve as a plot device, she reveals that Voldemort was the son of the witch Merope Gaunt and a Muggle called Tom Riddle. Riddle abandoned Merope before their child's birth, soon after which Merope died. After living in an orphanage, young Riddle met Dumbledore, who told him he was a wizard and arranged for him to attend Hogwarts. Riddle was outwardly a model student, but was in reality a psychopath who took sadistic pleasure in using his powers to harm and control people. He eventually murdered his father and grandparents as revenge for abandoning him. The book also discusses Riddle's hatred of Muggles, his obsession with Horcruxes, and his desire to split his soul to achieve immortality. Rowling stated Voldemort's conception under the influence of a love potion symbolises the coercive circumstances under which he was brought into the world.
In the main plot of the book, Voldemort's next step is to engineer an assault on Hogwarts, and to kill Dumbledore. This is accomplished by Draco Malfoy, who arranges transportation of Death Eaters into Hogwarts by a pair of Vanishing Cabinets, which bypass the extensive protective enchantments placed around the school. The cabinets allow Voldemort's Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts, where battle commences and Dumbledore is cornered. Hogwarts professor (and re-doubled agent) Severus Snape uses the Killing Curse against Dumbledore when Draco could not force himself to do so.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort furthers his quest for ultimate power. He disposes of the Minister for Magic and replaces him with Pius Thicknesse, who is under the Imperius Curse. Establishing a totalitarian police state, he has Muggle-borns persecuted and arrested for "stealing magic" from the "pure blood" wizards. After failing to kill Harry with Draco's father Lucius Malfoy's borrowed wand (to avoid the effect of Priori Incantatem), he goes on a murderous search for the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand ever created, seeing it as the weapon he needs to overcome Harry's wand and make him truly invincible. He goes on a quest that takes him out of the country to Gregorovitch's wand shop, where he kills the old wandmaker. His journey also takes him to Nurmengard, the prison where Gellert Grindelwald is kept, and he kills Grindelwald as well. He finally locates the Elder Wand and steals it from Dumbledore's tomb.
Later, Voldemort finds out that Harry and his friends are hunting and destroying his Horcruxes when informed of their heist on the Lestranges' vault at Gringotts in search for Hufflepuff's Cup. After offering the occupants of Hogwarts mercy if they give up Harry, he assembles a large army and launches an invasion of the castle, where Harry is searching for Ravenclaw's Diadem. Voldemort orders his pet snake Nagini to execute Snape, believing it would make him the true master of the Elder Wand, since Snape killed Dumbledore. He then calls an hour's armistice, in exchange for Harry. When Harry willingly walks into Voldemort's camp in the Forbidden Forest, Voldemort strikes him down with the Elder Wand. However, the use of Harry's blood to resurrect Voldemort's body proves to be a major setback: while Harry's blood runs in Voldemort's veins, Harry cannot be killed as his mother's protection lives on now in Voldemort too. Instead, Voldemort destroys the part of his own soul that resides in Harry's body. Voldemort forces Rubeus Hagrid to carry Harry's apparently lifeless body back to the castle as a trophy, sparking another battle during which Nagini, his last Horcrux, is destroyed by Neville Longbottom. The battle then moves into the Great Hall, where Voldemort fights Minerva McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Horace Slughorn simultaneously. Harry then reveals himself and explains to Voldemort that Draco became the true master of the Elder Wand when he disarmed Dumbledore; Harry, in turn, won the wand's allegiance when he took Draco's wand. Refusing to believe this, Voldemort casts the Killing Curse with the Elder Wand while Harry uses a Disarming Charm with Draco's, but the Elder Wand refuses to kill its master and the spell rebounds on Voldemort who, with all of his Horcruxes destroyed, finally dies. His body is laid in a different chamber from all the others who died battling him.
Rowling stated that after his death, Voldemort is forced to exist in the stunted infant-like form that Harry sees in the King's Cross-like Limbo after his confrontation with Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest. Rowling also mentioned that, despite his extreme fear of death, he cannot become a ghost.
Appearances in other material
In Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, it is revealed that Bellatrix gave birth to Voldemort's daughter Delphi in Malfoy Manor before the Battle of Hogwarts. Twenty-two years later, Delphi poses as Cedric's cousin and manipulates Harry and Ginny's second son Albus Severus Potter and his friend, Draco and Astoria Greengrass's son Scorpius Malfoy, into stealing a prototype Time Turner with which she hopes to resurrect her father. Using the Time Turner, Scorpius accidentally creates an alternative timeline where Voldemort killed Harry at the battle and now rules the wizarding world. In an attempt to achieve this future, Delphi travels to Godric's Hollow on the night Voldemort killed Harry's parents, hoping to avert the prophecy that led to her father's downfall. After receiving a message from his son, Harry, together with Ron, Hermione and Draco (who by now has become friends with Harry after they join forces to save their respective sons) transfigures himself into Voldemort so that he can distract Delphi, allowing them to overpower her. The real Voldemort kills Harry's parents as prophesied, and Delphi is sent to Azkaban.
Portrayals within films
Voldemort appears in every Harry Potter film, with the exception of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Several actors have portrayed him in his varying incarnations and ages.
In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Voldemort's manifestation is as a face on the back of Quirrell's head, an effect achieved by computer generated imagery. Ian Hart, the actor who played Quirrell in the same film, provided the voice and the facial source for this character. Voldemort also appears in a scene in the Forbidden Forest where he is seen drinking the blood of a unicorn. As Voldemort's face was altered enough by CG work, and Hart's voice was affected enough, there was no confusion by Hart's playing of the two roles. In that film, he was also shown in a flashback sequence when he arrived at the home of James and Lily Potter to kill them. In this scene Voldemort is played by Richard Bremmer, though his face is never seen. His next appearance would be in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as the 16-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle (portrayed by Christian Coulson).
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort is initially only heard, possessing the scratchy, weak voice heard in the first film. By the film's climax, however, he appears in his physical form for the first time, played by Ralph Fiennes. As in the book, Voldemort is shown clad in dark black robes, being tall and emaciated, with no hair and yellowish teeth; his wand has a white tone and the handle appears to be made of bone; his finger nails are long and pale blue while his toe nails appear to be infected. Unlike in the book, his pupils are not cat-like and his eyes are blue, because producer David Heyman felt that his evil would not be able to be seen and would not fill the audience with fear (his eyes do briefly take on a snake-like appearance when he opens them after turning human, but quickly turn normal). As in the book, the film version of Voldemort has snake-like slit nostrils with the flesh of his nose significantly pressed back. Ralph Fiennes' nose was not covered in makeup on the set, but was digitally removed in post-production. In this first appearance, Voldemort also has a forked tongue, but this element was removed for the subsequent films.
Fiennes stated that he had two weeks to shoot the climactic showdown scene where he is gloating over a terrified Harry, played by Daniel Radcliffe. Fiennes said with a chuckle: "I have no doubt children will be afraid of me now if they weren't before." In preparation, he read the novel Goblet of Fire, but jokingly conceded: "I was only interested in my scene, and I had to go through thousands and thousands of other scenes which I did, dutifully, until I got to my scene and I read it many, many, many, many, many times and that was my research." Fiennes reprised his role as Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2.
Fiennes's nephew, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, portrayed Tom Riddle as a child in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. By the time filming arrived Christian Coulson was 29, and not considered suitable to return as the adolescent Riddle. Thomas James Longley was originally scheduled to take over the role, but last minute renegotiations saw Frank Dillane cast instead.
Characterisation
Outward appearance
After he regains his body in the fourth book, Rowling describes Voldemort as having pale skin, a chalk-white, skull-like face, snake-like slits for nostrils, red eyes and cat-like slits for pupils, a skeletally thin body and long, thin hands with unnaturally long fingers. As mentioned in the first chapter of the seventh book, he also has no hair or lips. Earlier in life, as seen through flashbacks contained in the second and sixth books, Tom Marvolo Riddle was handsome and tall with pale skin, jet black hair, and dark brown eyes. He could charm many people with his looks. The transformation into his monstrous state is believed to have been the result of creating his Horcruxes and becoming less human as he continued to divide his soul. In the films, Voldemort's eyes are blue with round pupils.
Personality
Rowling described Voldemort as "the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years". She elaborated that he is a "raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering", and whose only ambition in life is to become all-powerful and immortal. He is also a sadist who hurts and murders people—especially Muggles—for his own amusement. He has no conscience, feels no remorse or empathy, and does not recognise the worth and humanity of anybody except himself.
He feels no need for human companionship or friendship, and cannot comprehend love or affection for another. He believes he is superior to everyone around him, to the point that he frequently refers to himself in the third person as "Lord Voldemort". Rowling also stated that Voldemort is "incredibly power hungry. Racist, really", and that if Voldemort were to look into the Mirror of Erised, in which one sees one's greatest desire, he would see "Himself, all-powerful and eternal. That's what he wants."
Rowling also stated that Voldemort's conception by influence of Amortentia—a love potion administered by his mother, a witch named Merope Gaunt, to the Muggle Tom Riddle—is related to his inability to understand love; it is "a symbolic way of showing that he came from a loveless union—but of course, everything would have changed if Merope had survived and raised him herself and loved him. The enchantment under which Tom Riddle fathered Voldemort is important because it shows coercion, and there can't be many more prejudicial ways to enter the world than as the result of such a union".
Like most archetypical villains, Voldemort's arrogance leads to his downfall. He also suffers from a pathological fear of death, which he regards as a shameful and ignominious human weakness. According to Rowling, his Boggart would be his own corpse. Rowling also said that the difference between Harry and Voldemort is that Harry accepts mortality, and thus Harry is, in the end, stronger than his nemesis.
Magical abilities and skills
Rowling establishes Voldemort throughout the series as an extremely powerful, intelligent, and ruthless dark wizard, described as the greatest and most powerful Dark Wizard of all time. He is known as one of the greatest Legilimens in the world and a highly accomplished Occlumens; he can read minds and shield his own from penetration. Besides Dumbledore, he is also the only wizard ever known to be able to apparate silently. Voldemort was also said to fear one wizard alone, Dumbledore.
In the final book, Voldemort flies unsupported, something that amazes those who see it. Voldemort, like his ancestral family, the Gaunts, is a Parselmouth, meaning he can converse with serpents. This skill was inherited from his ancestor, Salazar Slytherin. The Gaunt family speak Parseltongue among themselves. This highly unusual trait may be preserved through inbreeding, a practice employed by the Gaunt Family to maintain their blood's purity. When Voldemort attempts to kill Harry his ability to speak Parseltongue is passed to Harry through the small bit of the former's soul. After that bit of soul is destroyed, Harry loses this ability. In a flashback in the sixth novel, Voldemort boasts to Dumbledore during a job interview that he has "pushed the boundaries of magic farther than they had ever before". Dumbledore states that Voldemort's knowledge of magic is more extensive than any wizard alive and that even Dumbledore's most powerful protective spells and charms would likely be insufficient if Voldemort returned to full power. Dumbledore also said that Voldemort was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen. Although Voldemort remains highly accomplished and prodigious in skill, he is enormously lacking and highly inept in the most powerful magic, love. This inability to love and trust others proves to be Voldemort's greatest weakness in the series. Voldemort initially voices scepticism that his own magic might not be the most powerful, but upon returning to power, he admits to his Death Eaters that he had overlooked the ancient and powerful magic which Lily Potter invoked and that would protect Harry from harm.
On her website, Rowling wrote that Voldemort's wand is made of yew, whose sap is poisonous and which symbolises death. It forms a deliberate contrast to Harry's wand, which is made of holly, which she chose because holly is alleged to repel evil.
Rowling establishes in the books that Voldemort is magically connected to Harry via Harry's forehead scar. He disembodies himself when his Killing Curse targeting Harry rebounds on him, leaving the scar on Harry's forehead. In the books, and to a lesser extent in the films, Harry's scar serves as an indicator of Voldemort's presence: it burns when the Dark Lord is near or when Voldemort is feeling murderous or exultant. According to Rowling, by attacking Harry when he was a baby Voldemort gave him "tools [that] no other wizard possessed—the scar and the ability it conferred, a magical window into Voldemort's mind".
Family
Notes: The names 'Thomas' and 'Mary' Riddle are taken from the films. The Potter Family is not shown.
Riddle family
The Riddle family, an old gentry family, consisted of Thomas and Mary Riddle and their son, Tom Riddle, Esq. They owned over half of the valley that the town of Little Hangleton lay in, and Thomas was the most prominent inhabitant of that town. They lived in a large house with fine gardens, but were unpopular amongst the local residents due to their snobbish attitudes. Tom, the only child of Thomas and Mary, was known as a playboy, his main interests being womanizing and horse-riding.
Rowling revealed in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that young Merope Gaunt fell in love with Riddle, peering at him through the windows and bushes at every opportunity. Merope's brother Morfin disapproved of his sister's affection for Tom and hexed him as he rode by, covering him in hives. This breach of wizarding law, and the ensuing violent struggle with Ministry of Magic officials, led to Marvolo and Morfin being imprisoned in Azkaban. As surmised by Dumbledore, once Merope was alone and no longer dominated by her father, she could make her move for Tom. She offered him a drink laced with a love potion, and he became infatuated with her; they soon eloped and, within three months of the marriage, Merope became pregnant. Merope decided to stop giving Tom the love potion, having come to the belief such enchantment of a man was tantamount to slavery. She also revealed her witch status to Tom, believing either that he had fallen in love with her on his own or he would at least stay for their unborn child. She was wrong, and Tom quickly left his pregnant wife and went home to his parents, claiming to have been "hoodwinked" and tricked into marrying Merope. Tom Marvolo Riddle, their son, was born on 31 December 1926 Merope died in childbirth, leaving the baby to grow up alone in an orphanage.
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, it is revealed that Voldemort murdered his father and grandparents, leaving himself the only surviving member of the Riddle family.
House of Gaunt
Most of the exposition of the House of Gaunts background occurs in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, through the medium of Dumbledore's Pensieve. The Gaunts were once a powerful and influential family, and are the last known descendants of Salazar Slytherin. However, a vein of mental instability and violence within the family, reinforced through cousin marriages intended to preserve the pureblood line, had reduced them to poverty and squalor, as shown in the Pensieve's "memory" that Harry and Dumbledore witnessed. Like Salazar Slytherin, the Gaunts spoke Parseltongue. At the time of the story, the Gaunts' only material asset is a ramshackle shanty in Little Hangleton, that stood in a thicket in a valley opposite the Riddle House. Like the Riddles, the Gaunts were also unpopular with the local residents, with a reputation for being vulgar and intimidating.
Marvolo Gaunt was the last family patriarch. He was sentenced to a short term in Azkaban for his and his son's assault upon a Ministry of Magic official; this affected his health and he died soon after returning home. His signet ring passed to his son, Morfin Gaunt, who was convicted of assaulting a Muggle, and later died in Azkaban, convicted this time as a party to the murder of Tom Riddle Jr. and Riddle's parents.
Dumbledore discovers the real culprit while visiting Morfin in Azkaban to gather information about Voldemort. After Dumbledore successfully extracts Morfin's memory of his encounter with his nephew, he tries to use the evidence to have Morfin released, but Morfin dies before the decision can be made. The House of Gaunt ended with Morfin's death.
Merope Gaunt () was the daughter of Marvolo, and sister of Morfin. Harry's first impression of her was that she looked "like the most defeated person he had ever seen". She married Tom Riddle Jr and became pregnant within three months of the wedding. It is suggested that she tricked her husband into loving her by using a love potion, but when she became pregnant, she chose to stop administering the potion. It is implied that Merope had grown tired of living the lie and thought that her husband might have grown to love her, or that he might have stayed for the sake of their unborn child; however, he left her. Desperate, Merope wandered through the streets of London. The only thing she had left was the heavy gold locket that had once belonged to Salazar Slytherin, one of her family's most treasured items, which she sold for a small amount. When she was due to give birth, she stumbled into a Muggle orphanage, where she gave birth to her only son. She died within the next hour.
Gormlaith Gaunt was a 17th-century descendant of Salazar Slytherin, and like Salazar, a Parselmouth. Her wand was that which once belonged to Salazar himself. Educated at Hogwarts, Gormlaith lived in Ireland in the early 1600s. In about 1608, Gormlaith killed her estranged unnamed sister, and her sister's husband, William Sayre (a descendant of the Irish witch Morrigan), and kidnapped their five-year-old daughter, Isolt Sayre, raising her in the neighbouring valley of Coomcallee, or "Hag's Glen", because she felt that her parents' association with Muggles would badly influence Isolt. Fanatical and cruel, Gormlaith used Dark magic to isolate Isolt from others, forbade her a wand, and did not allow her to attend Hogwarts as she herself had, disgusted that it was now filled with Muggle-borns. After twelve years with Gormlaith, Isolt stole Gormlaith's wand and fled to the Colonies and settled in Massachusetts, where she founded the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When Gormlaith learned of the school, she pursued her niece in Massachusetts, where she was killed by Isolt's friend, William the Pukwudgie, with a venom-tipped arrow.
The Gaunts, including Voldemort, are distantly related to Harry because they are descendants of the Peverell brothers.
Reception
Several people have drawn a parallel between Voldemort and some politicians. Rowling has said that Voldemort was "a sort of" Adolf Hitler, and that there is some parallel with Nazism in her books. Rowling also compared Voldemort to Joseph Stalin. Alfonso Cuarón, director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban compared Voldemort to George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein, who he said "...have selfish interests and are very much in love with power. Also, a disregard for the environment. A love for manipulating people." Andrew Slack and the Harry Potter Alliance compare media consolidation in the US to Voldemort's regime in Deathly Hallows and its control over the Daily Prophet and other media saying that "Once Voldemort took over every form of media in the wizarding world, Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix formed an independent media movement called 'Potterwatch'. Now the HP Alliance and Wizard Rock have come together to fight for a Potterwatch movement in the real world to fight back against Big VoldeMedia from further pushing out local and foreign news, minority representation, and the right to a Free Press." Julia Turner of Slate Magazine also noted similarities between the events of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the War on Terror. She said that Voldemort commits acts of terrorism such as destroying bridges, murdering innocents, and forcing children to kill their elders.
Voldemort has also been compared with other characters within fiction, for example Sauron from The Lord of the Rings; they are, during the time when the main plot takes place, seeking to recover their lost power after having been considered dead or at least no longer a threat, and are also so feared that they are sometimes unnamed.
IGN listed Voldemort as their seventh favourite Harry Potter character, calling him "truly frightening".
In popular culture
Several campaigns have used Voldemort to compare his evil to the influence of politicians, large media and corporations. "Lord Voldemort" is a nickname sometimes used for Peter Mandelson. Voldemort is also a recurring theme among wizard rock bands. Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock! is the second album from Harry and the Potters, and the character is mentioned in songs such as "The Dark Lord Lament" and "Flesh, Blood, and Bone".
Voldemort has been parodied in various venues. In The Simpsons 13th season's premiere, "Treehouse of Horror XII", Montgomery Burns appears as "Lord Montymort". A parody of Voldemort appears in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as "Lord Moldybutt", an enemy of Nigel Planter (a parody of Harry). Voldemort also appears in the Potter Puppet Pals sketches by Neil Cicierega. One of the episodes including him was the seventeenth most viewed video of all time as of 2008 and the winner for "Best Comedy" of the year 2007 at YouTube.
"Continuing the Magic", an article in the 21 May 2007 issue of Time, includes mock book covers designed by author Lon Tweeten, laced with pop culture references. One of them, the "Dark Lord of the Dance", shows Voldemort teaming up with Harry on Broadway. In the MAD Magazine parodies of the films, the character is called Lord Druckermort, a backwards reference to the magazine's longtime caricaturist Mort Drucker. In Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1969, a young Tom Marvolo Riddle (introduced as "Tom", whose middle name is a "marvel" and last name is a "conundrum") appears, and becomes the new avatar of Oliver Haddo at the story's conclusion. In A Very Potter Musical, Voldemort is played by actor Joe Walker.
In a segment celebrating British children's literature at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London, an inflatable Voldemort appeared alongside other villains, The Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook, and Cruella de Vil, to haunt children's dreams, before the arrival of a group of over thirty Mary Poppins who descended with their umbrellas to defeat them.
During the 2016 United States elections, Daniel Radcliffe was asked by Sky News journalist Craig Dillon if he would compare Donald Trump to Lord Voldemort; Radcliffe responded, "Trump is worse".
Voldemort appears in The Lego Batman Movie as one of the prisoners in the Phantom Zone that Joker recruits to take over Gotham City. Though Ralph Fiennes is featured in this movie as the voice of the British butler Alfred Pennyworth, he does not reprise his role as Voldemort. Instead, Voldemort is voiced by Eddie Izzard.
Outside of the Harry Potter video games, Voldemort is also a playable character in Lego Dimensions, with archive audio of Fiennes' portrayal in the films used for his voiceovers.
A 2018 Italian fan film titled Voldemort: Origins of the Heir depicts the story of Tom Riddle's rise to power.
Voldemort appears in Space Jam: A New Legacy, in the crowd for the game between the Tune Squad and the Goon Squad.
An upcoming French fan-made short-film titled The House of Gaunt - Lord Voldemort Origins explores the origin story of Voldemort and The Gaunt family.
Notes
References
External links
Lord Voldemort at Harry Potter Lexicon
Fictional characters with disfigurements
Fictional characters with immortality
Fictional characters with spirit possession or body swapping abilities
Fictional dictators
Fictional English people
Fictional hypnotists and indoctrinators
Fictional illeists
Fictional mass murderers
Fictional necromancers
Fictional offspring of rape
Fictional patricides
Fictional terrorists
Fictional torturers
Harry Potter characters
Literary characters introduced in 1997
Male film villains
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Film supervillains | true | [
"Voldemort is a distributed data store that was designed as a key-value store used by LinkedIn for highly-scalable storage. It is named after the fictional Harry Potter villain Lord Voldemort.\n\nOverview\nVoldemort does not try to satisfy arbitrary relations and the ACID properties, but rather is a big, distributed, persistent hash table.\nA 2012 study comparing systems for storing application performance management data reported that Voldemort, Apache Cassandra, and HBase all offered linear scalability in most cases, with Voldemort having the lowest latency and Cassandra having the highest throughput.\n\nIn the parlance of Eric Brewer's CAP theorem, Voldemort is an AP type system.\n\nVoldemort's creator and primary corporate contributor, LinkedIn, has migrated all of their systems off of Voldemort as of approximately August 2018, with no replacement sponsor .\n\nProperties\nVoldemort uses in-memory caching to eliminate a separate caching tier. It has a storage layer that is possible to emulate. Voldemort reads and writes scale horizontally. The API decides data replication and placement and accommodates a wide range of application-specific strategies.\n\nThe Voldemort distributed data store supports pluggable placement strategies for distribution across data centers. Data is automatically replicated across servers. Data is partitioned meaning a single server contains only a portion of the total data. Each data node is independent to avoid central point of failure. Pluggable serialization allows rich keys and values including lists and tuples with named fields, as well as the integration with common serialisation frameworks such as Avro, Java Serialization, Protocol Buffers, and Thrift. Server failures are handled transparently. Data items are versioned, which maximizes data integrity.\n\nSee also\n\n Distributed data store\n NoSQL\n Riak\n Redis\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Project Voldemort - A distributed database\n Project Voldemort Real Time Discussions\n\nDistributed data stores\nLinkedIn software\nNoSQL\nMicrosoft free software\nSoftware using the Apache license\n2009 software",
"The Death Eaters are characters featured in the Harry Potter series of novels and films. They are a terrorist group of wizards and witches, led by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who seek to purify the wizarding community by eliminating wizards and witches born to non-magical parents. They attempt to create a new order within the Ministry of Magic by spreading fear through the wizarding community and murdering those who speak out against them. Their primary opposition is the Order of the Phoenix.\n\nDeath Eaters recognise one another by the Dark Mark, a sigil branded on each of their left forearms that allows Voldemort to summon any of them instantly. Their typical attire includes black hooded robes and masks. The Death Eaters as a group first appeared in the novel Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, although individual members of the group, such as Severus Snape, Lucius Malfoy, and Peter Pettigrew had appeared in earlier books in the series. The group had also been mentioned indirectly in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, when followers of Voldemort were mentioned. They were mentioned the first time directly in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.\n\nSynopsis\n\nPre-Harry Potter \nThe Death Eaters first existed over 11 years before the events of the books, torturing and murdering Muggles (people without magical abilities), as well as anyone who opposed them, including wizards who support Muggles (such as the Weasley family). Around 10 years after the Death Eaters first surfaced, a Seer named Sybill Trelawney made a prophecy about a boy who would have the power to defeat Voldemort forever. The prophecy could have referred to two different boys, Harry Potter or Neville Longbottom; however, Voldemort chose Harry as said in the prophecy, that \"the Dark Lord would mark him as his equal\". As Voldemort was a half-blood, he chose his \"equal\", Harry, whose mother was a Muggle-born witch, instead of Neville, who came from a long line of pure-blooded wizards. Acting on information from James and Lily Potter's Secret-Keeper Peter Pettigrew, Voldemort attempted to complete the prophecy and kill his infant rival. Due to Harry's mother's sacrifice to save her son, Voldemort's deadly curse rebounded off Harry and disembodied Voldemort.\n\nWith Voldemort vanquished after failing to kill Harry Potter, the Death Eaters largely disbanded and vanished. The Ministry rounded many of them up and imprisoned them in the Wizarding prison Azkaban, but some eluded justice by claiming they were bewitched by the Imperius Curse (it is implied that Lucius Malfoy did so) or by turning in other Death Eaters, as Igor Karkaroff did; Harry witnesses Karkaroff's testimony against former Death Eaters in Albus Dumbledore's Pensieve during the course of the series. It appears that very few Death Eaters stood for their fallen master and proudly went to Azkaban for him (like Bellatrix Lestrange), since, in the sixth book, Snape states that if Voldemort had refused to welcome back all those who turned their backs on him when he fell, then he would have very few followers. The Lestranges are the only Death Eaters known to have willingly sacrificed their freedom for Voldemort. Voldemort takes notice of this and claims that they will be rewarded above all others for their great loyalty. Snape's position as a Death Eater is unique – during the books he convinces all (with the exception of Dumbledore) that he is working for whichever side requires it at that time. This is due to his skill at Occlumency allowing him to disguise his true motive – a love for Lily Potter – from Voldemort.\n\nRe-emergence \nEarly in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire a group of Death Eaters rallied after the Quidditch World Cup. They gathered to form a large spectacle and disturbance which spread instant chaos and fear amongst the wizarding community. Their appearance alone created hysteria, and their numbers grew while they tortured Muggles and Muggle-borns on site. It concluded when the Dark Mark was produced in the sky by Barty Crouch Jr, frightening Death Eaters and Ministry officials alike.\nVoldemort, having regained his full strength at the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, summoned his followers to him by touching Peter Pettigrew's Dark Mark. Except for Severus Snape (who was staying at Hogwarts to \"maintain his cover\") and those dead, imprisoned, or afraid to return, the majority returned to his service as Voldemort began his second attempt to claim all power.\n\nVoldemort states at his rebirth, \"And here we have six missing Death Eaters...three dead in my service. One, too cowardly to return...he will pay. One, who I believe has left me forever...he will be killed, of course...and one, who remains my most faithful servant, and who has already reentered my service.\"\nBased on mentions and later happenings in the books, it can be deduced that the one \"too cowardly to return\" is Igor Karkaroff. The one \"who I believe has left me forever\" is Severus Snape, who returns two hours later to explain his absence and convince Voldemort that he is a spy for him. The \"most faithful servant\" is Barty Crouch Jr., who has already been in place at Hogwarts working for Voldemort. The three dead include Evan Rosier, Wilkes and Regulus Black.\n\nThe Minister for Magic (Cornelius Fudge) deluded himself into believing that Voldemort could not have come back and that it was all a lie cooked up by Dumbledore, who Fudge believed had designs on his political office. The Death Eaters use this tactical advantage throughout Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to maintain their secrecy. Because of the Ministry's refusal to remove the Dementors from Azkaban, which Dumbledore advised immediately following Voldemort's return, the Death Eaters recruited the Dementors to their cause and made similar progress with the giants; the Dementors' revolt against the Ministry of Magic also allowed the Death Eaters to bolster their ranks with the mass break-out of several imprisoned Death Eaters, including Bellatrix Lestrange.\n\nIn Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort sent a group of Death Eaters, led by Lucius Malfoy, into the Department of Mysteries, where he expected them to secure a prophecy of vital importance to him: having originally attacked Harry Potter based upon a partial recounting of it, he now wanted to hear the full version to better, or even fully, understand the connection between Harry and himself. The raid on the Department failed, however; Harry Potter and his friends delayed the Death Eaters and kept the prophecy out of their hands, finally destroying it, and were eventually aided by Albus Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix. Dumbledore captured all of the Death Eaters except for Bellatrix, sending Voldemort and her fleeing after a fierce duel with the former, and ending the Death Eaters' enjoyed secrecy. Lucius, who had been important both to the Death Eaters and within the Ministry, was captured and imprisoned. However, the Death Eaters regrouped, assassinating and kidnapping important wizards, killing Muggles, and in general spreading terror and chaos through the Wizarding world. Soon after Lucius' capture, his son Draco Malfoy is given the task of killing Albus Dumbledore, although this task is eventually performed by Severus Snape.\n\nTowards the end of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the Death Eaters attacked Hogwarts for the first time, leading to the death of Albus Dumbledore and injuries to several of the school's defenders. A second, more deadly attack near the conclusion of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows resulted in over 50 deaths, including Voldemort, who died when the Killing Curse he threw at Harry rebounded on him. Voldemort's death signalled the end of all Death Eaters.\n\nIdeology \nVoldemort's Death Eaters practise illegal and dangerous spells known as dark magic. They follow a racist ideology that places pure-blooded wizards at the top of a racial hierarchy, above all other magical or non-magical people and entities. They believe wizards are, as a genealogy book within the story phrases it, \"Nature's Nobility\"; other magical creatures and the non-magical are inferior and should be subjugated. Within the wizarding community, only those who are born to wizard parents are worthy of magical power, despite the fact that parentage does not in fact determine who possess such powers. They categorise wizards according to blood purity; \"pure bloods\" (those with only wizards as parents) out-rank \"half-bloods\" (mixed parentage) and \"mudbloods\", a derogatory name for those born to non-magical parents (Muggles). Death Eaters have also attacked pure-bloods who oppose them. Examples of this are pure-blooded members of the Order of the Phoenix such as Sirius Black, the Prewett brothers, who were murdered because of their loyalties, and the entire Weasley family. Such people are often called \"blood traitors\" by those who subscribe to Death Eater ideologies.\n\nIn reality, the idea of blood purity is a misnomer – Voldemort himself is a half-blood – and it is unlikely that all of them could be pure-bloods, as very few, if any, such people could exist given the small gene pool. In Half-Blood Prince, Rowling depicts the Gaunts as a family who are obsessed with their ancestry and driven to inbreeding to preserve its integrity. Rowling has stated on her website that there are no true pure-blood families left but that those who call themselves such simply strike Muggles, Squibs, and half-bloods from their family records. On the other hand, \"in rare circumstances\" a Muggle-born wizard can become a Death Eater. They are also not above recruiting creatures they deem inferior, as proven by werewolf Fenrir Greyback and the giant clan from continental Europe, as long as they help further the larger Death Eater agenda.\n\nThe Death Eaters seek complete power and control over the entire Wizarding world, wishing to restrict leadership to a small band of pure-bloods. The Death Eaters not only seek the restoration of pure-blood rule over the Wizarding community, but also the eventual subjugation of the Muggle community under Wizarding rule. During their control over the Ministry of Magic, they severely persecuted Muggle-born wizards, sending them to Azkaban for life or feeding them to Dementors.\n\nDeath Eaters and their crimes \n\nThe following characters are Death Eaters identified by name during the series, and the crimes they committed.\n\nNotable Death Eaters\n\nAlecto and Amycus Carrow \nAlecto and Amycus Carrow are siblings who participate in the assault on Hogwarts at the end of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Amycus is described as being squat and lumpy, with a lopsided leer and a wheezy giggle; Alecto is described as a \"stocky little woman\" and shares her brother's squatness and laugh. It is said that after Voldemort's first downfall, they believed that he was gone forever.\n\nIn Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Alecto and Amycus become \"teachers\" at Hogwarts, severely disciplining students who oppose Voldemort. Amycus teaches Defence Against the Dark Arts, but as Neville Longbottom puts it, it becomes just \"The Dark Arts\" in which students are forced to perform the Cruciatus Curse against students who have been assigned to detention. Alecto teaches Muggle Studies, which becomes a compulsory subject, and teaches students that Muggles are like animals. Right before the Battle of Hogwarts, Alecto waits in Ravenclaw Tower on Voldemort's orders, preparing to capture Harry, but is stunned by Luna Lovegood after touching her Dark Mark to summon Voldemort. Amycus, after seeing what happened, tries to conspire with Minerva McGonagall who helped him into the room to offer some Ravenclaw students as sacrifices to Voldemort while planning to use the lie that Ravenclaws had ambushed Alecto and forced her to press her Dark Mark. McGonagall refuses and argues with Amycus, who spits in her face. Enraged at this, Harry casts the Cruciatus Curse, with such power that Amycus passes out. Later, McGonagall places the Imperius Curse on him, then binds him with his sister and places him inside a net.\n\nRalph Ineson plays Amycus, and Suzie Toase appears as Alecto in the films, wherein they are reduced to non-speaking roles. In the second part of the final film, Snape deflects a spell from McGonagall which hits the Carrows, possibly to protect the students from their abuses and to show his allegiance to Dumbledore.\n\nBarty Crouch Jr\n\nBartemius \"Barty\" Crouch, Junior was captured with Bellatrix Lestrange and Rodolphus Lestrange, who tortured Frank and Alice Longbottom, parents of Neville Longbottom, into insanity. His father, Barty Crouch Sr., who headed the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the time, sentenced him to life imprisonment in Azkaban. However, he later rescues his son as a favour to his dying wife. When they visit him in Azkaban, Mrs. Crouch used Polyjuice Potion to switch appearances with her son, enabling him to escape while she remains in his place. When she dies, she is buried under his identity. Crouch Jr. is nursed back to health by Winky, the family's house-elf.\n\nTo prevent him from returning to Voldemort's service, Crouch Sr. controls his son with the Imperius Curse and keeps him hidden under an invisibility cloak. When Bertha Jorkins discovers the truth, the news reaches Voldemort, who rescues Crouch Jr. and puts Crouch Sr. under the Imperius Curse. Crouch Jr. then imprisons Alastor \"Mad-Eye\" Moody, a famous auror, and using Polyjuice Potion, assumes Moody's appearance and position to infiltrate Hogwarts as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Despite not being a real teacher, Crouch Jr. does a fair job and the class learns vast amounts from him, including valuable knowledge related to the three \"unforgivable curses\". Crouch Sr. escapes and, exhausted and delirious from the Imperius Curse, reaches Hogwarts to tell Dumbledore about Voldemort's return; but his loyal Death-Eater son murders him on the castle grounds, transfigures the body into a bone, and buries the bone in freshly turned earth in front of Hagrid's cabin.\n\nThe revived Triwizard Tournament is held at Hogwarts, and Voldemort tasks Crouch Jr. with making sure Harry wins. To do so, he puts Harry's name in the Goblet of Fire, bewitches Viktor Krum to attack Cedric Diggory in the maze, and stuns Fleur Delacour. When Harry and Cedric simultaneously touch the Triwizard Cup, which is a portkey, it transports them to the graveyard in Little Hangleton, home of the Riddle family. There, after killing Cedric, Death Eater Peter Pettigrew uses Harry's blood in a ritual that re-embodies Voldemort. The Dark Lord attempts to kill Harry, but with the help of the ghost-echoes from Voldemort's wand, Harry escapes via the Portkey.\n\nWhen Harry reappears at Hogwarts, the still-disguised Crouch Jr. hopes to succeed where his master failed; but Dumbledore, Snape, and McGonagall foil his plot. Under the effects of Veritaserum, he recounts his plan to them. Although he is closely guarded so he can later repeat his testimony, a Dementor acting as bodyguard to Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge attacks Crouch and sucks out his soul before anyone can stop it. Crouch lives bereft of his memories or sense of self.\n\nHe is played by David Tennant in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.\n\nAntonin Dolohov \nAntonin Dolohov has a long, pale, and twisted face, with a name that suggests he is of Slavic descent. He is confirmed in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to be one of Voldemort's first Death Eaters, being present at the Hog's Head when Voldemort comes to Hogwarts to request a teaching position and hide the diadem Horcrux, c. 1956. This makes him at least sixty years old at the time of the battle in the Department of Mysteries. Dolohov is one of the five Death Eaters who murder Gideon and Fabian Prewett (Molly Weasley's brothers). He also tortures many Muggles and opponents of Voldemort during the first war. Dolohov is imprisoned in Azkaban but escapes during the mass break-out.\n\nHe participates in the battle of the Department of Mysteries, where he causes injury to Hermione, but is imprisoned again, and returns to Azkaban prison. He escapes once more some time before the events of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. He tracks Harry, Ron, and Hermione to a Muggle cafe after they use Voldemort's name (which had recently been made taboo). He and his companion Rowle are stunned, and have their memories erased by Hermione and then are punished by Voldemort. Dolohov participates in the Battle of Hogwarts, killing Remus Lupin, whom Aberforth Dumbledore last sees fighting with him. He is also seen dueling with Dean Thomas until Parvati Patil uses the Body-bind Curse on him. Dolohov and Yaxley are later sent to look for Harry, and they mistakenly thought the boy would not give himself up. When the battle recommences, Professor Flitwick finally defeats him.\n\nHe is portrayed by Arben Bajraktaraj in the film adaptations of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1.\n\nFenrir Greyback \nFenrir Greyback is a werewolf who is involved with the Death Eaters. He works alongside Lord Voldemort because Lord Voldemort promises fairness to werewolves around the country. He does not carry the Dark Mark as he is not a Death Eater. He is known as the most savage werewolf ever to live and is greatly feared throughout the wizarding world. He positions himself close to his victims when the moon is almost full. To fulfil his agenda of creating as many werewolves as possible, Greyback has infected scores of people including the young Remus Lupin, when Lupin's father had angered Greyback. Greyback is known for targeting young children. Unlike most werewolves, Greyback thirsts for blood even in his human form. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Greyback first appears on the night of Dumbledore's death, when he attacks Harry and badly scars Bill Weasley. Although Greyback does not transmit his lycanthropy because he was in human form at the time, Bill is subsequently shown to display a preference for very rare meat.\n\nIn Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Greyback leads a Snatcher gang – Dark wizards looking for Muggle-borns and \"Undesirables\" in exchange for gold. When Harry accidentally uses Voldemort's name after it has been made taboo, Greyback is alerted and his gang attacks their camp. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are kidnapped by the Snatchers and are taken to Malfoy Manor. Bellatrix Lestrange promises Hermione to Greyback in return for his services, but the prisoners fight their way out and escape, Greyback being hit by a triple Stunning Spell. Greyback is the main werewolf within the pack that agrees to aid Voldemort in the Battle of Hogwarts. During the battle, Hermione, using a blasting curse, prevents Greyback from attacking injured Lavender Brown, and a crystal ball thrown by Professor Trelawney stuns him. He rejoins the battle in time for the Death Eaters' last stand, when Ron Weasley and Neville Longbottom combine forces to take him down by magic.\n\nDave Legeno portrayed Greyback in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. He reprised the role in both parts of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.\n\nIgor Karkaroff \nIgor Karkaroff (Cyrillic: Игорь Каркаров) is the Headmaster at Durmstrang Institute, one of the three schools (together with Hogwarts and Beauxbatons Academy) that enter the Triwizard Tournament. As Headmaster, Karkaroff is also one of the judges. He is described as a neat, fussy-looking man with an oily voice and manner who sports a small grey goatee. While unctuously pleasant most of the time, he is capable of violent rage. He is also described as \"a man with yellowish teeth whose smile does not reach his cold stare\". Karkaroff is angered and threatens to withdraw from the tournament when Harry is selected as a fourth champion and second representative for Hogwarts. Although he is talked down and agrees to stay, he nevertheless shows evident favouritism towards the Durmstrang champion, Bulgarian Quidditch player Viktor Krum.\nSirius Black later identifies Karkaroff as a former Death Eater. Karkaroff was captured by Auror Alastor Moody and imprisoned in Azkaban. Karkaroff later told the Ministry of Magic that he had seen the error of his ways, and \"named names\", putting many people in Azkaban in exchange for his freedom. Karkaroff is thus also hated by the Death Eaters. Karkaroff's history gives him a connection with Snape, also a former Death Eater. Karkaroff interrupts a Potions lesson demanding to talk to Snape, and shows him his Dark Mark reappearing. He also apparently has an unpleasant history with Alastor Moody, and tries to avoid him unsuccessfully for the entirety of the tournament, not knowing that it is Barty Crouch Jr. in disguise. At the end of the novel, following Voldemort's return, Karkaroff goes into hiding, leaving behind his student charges at Durmstrang. In the sixth novel, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Remus Lupin states that Karkaroff was found dead in a shack with the Dark Mark hovering over it, an indication that he was killed by other Death Eaters. Lupin also expresses surprise that Karkaroff managed to live even a year after deserting Voldemort and that no one else has been known to avoid capture quite as long.\n\nPredrag Bjelac appeared as Karkaroff in the film adaptation of Goblet of Fire.\n\nBellatrix Lestrange \n\nBellatrix Lestrange (née Black) is the first female Death Eater introduced in the books. Aunt of Draco Malfoy and Nyphadora Tonks. She was introduced in Harry Potter and the Order Of The Phoenix. She is the most faithful member of Voldemort's inner circle. She is described as being highly attractive yet emaciated due to her time in Azkaban. Bellatrix is portrayed as paranoid, insane, sadistic, and fanatically devoted to Voldemort, seeing service to him as the noblest duty for any true wizard or witch. Bellatrix takes an obvious pleasure in acts of torture and cruelty, as demonstrated when she kills her cousin, Sirius Black and niece Nymphadora Tonks, and tortures Hermione and Griphook at Malfoy manor. She is a witch of prodigious ability, as demonstrated by her many victories in duels against other characters, and as noted by Harry in the final book.\n\nDraco Malfoy \n Draco Malfoy is the pure blooded son of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy. He was a notorious bully to Harry Potter and his friends because Hermione has Muggle parents, Draco was also assigned to kill Dumbledore, but his heart told him otherwise and Snape had to do it for him. Draco, like his family, is part of Slytherin house.\n\nLucius Malfoy\nLucius Malfoy is a Death Eater, head of a wealthy pure-blood wizarding family. He lives with his wife Narcissa Malfoy (née Black) and their son Draco at the Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire. Lucius was a school governor of Hogwarts before being sacked, and has very close connections at the Ministry of Magic. To maintain his reputation and influence, he makes donations to the Ministry, to charity, and to St Mungo's Hospital. He was educated at Hogwarts, where he was a prefect in Slytherin House.\n\nHe debuts as the main antagonist in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, in which just before Draco and Harry's second year at Hogwarts, Lucius plants Tom Riddle's diary in Ginny Weasley's potions cauldron while she is shopping for school supplies at Flourish & Blotts, in a plot to use her to reopen the Chamber of Secrets, which would lead to attacks on Muggle-born students.\n\nLucius knows the diary is cleverly enchanted, but is not aware that it is a horcrux containing a part of Voldemort's soul. He is careless with it and punished by Voldemort himself. Lucius intends to use the opening of the Chamber of Secrets by Ginny to discredit her father, Arthur Weasley, and Dumbledore. Lucius' plans are ultimately thwarted with the help of the Malfoys' house-elf Dobby, and Harry, but not before the Chamber is opened and Lucius uses the ensuing terror (and threats to attack their families) to influence the school's Board of Governors to discredit and dismiss Dumbledore as Headmaster.\n\nSubsequently, Harry tricks Lucius into setting Dobby free. Upon this, Lucius attempts to attack Harry with his wand but Dobby disarms him before he can do any harm. Lucius is ultimately stripped of his title as a Hogwarts school governor. Despite his sacking, he still maintains strong ties with the Ministry of Magic.\n\nLucius next appears in the beginning of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire during the Quidditch World Cup, sharing prime seats in the Top Box with Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge. Later in that book, when Voldemort rises again and summons his Death Eaters, Malfoy rejoins him and asserts that he had done everything he could to help his master, who however remains unimpressed. Harry reports Malfoy's declarations to Minister Fudge, who refuses to believe him. Thus, the wealthy Malfoy continues to maintain strong ties with the Ministry.\n\nDuring the climax of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Malfoy is the leader of the Death Eaters who are sent to retrieve the prophecy from Harry in the Hall of Prophecy. Lucius tries several ways to get the prophecy from Harry without breaking it, but the boy and his friends manage to escape from the Hall. Malfoy finally meets him in the Death Chamber, where Harry is about to give it to Malfoy when the Order of the Phoenix breaks into the Ministry and begins to duel with the Death Eaters. Dumbledore himself arrives at the end of the battle and Malfoy is captured and sent to Azkaban.\n\nBy the final book, Voldemort has given Malfoy his freedom, though he looks significantly the worse for wear, having lost Voldemort's favour. Voldemort treats him with great contempt by hijacking his house for Headquarters, and is forcing his son to do dark deeds against his nature, sparking sympathy for the notorious family for the first time in the series. Voldemort borrows Lucius' wand which is accidentally destroyed by Harry Potter. Later in the book, Lucius, along with his wife and sister-in-law, accidentally allow Harry and his friends to escape from Malfoy Manor. Voldemort punishes them severely, eventually putting them under house arrest.\n\nDespite his long-standing position as a Death Eater and Voldemort's advocate of pure-blood supremacy, Lucius decides his love for his family is more important than his involvement in the war. During the Battle of Hogwarts, he pleads with Voldemort to let him onto the battlefield to locate his son. He and the rest of his family are reunited at the end of the book. Following Voldemort's death, Lucius, Narcissa, and Draco all manage to \"weasel their way out\" of being sent to Azkaban due to Narcissa's aiding Harry in the Forbidden Forest.\n\nLucius's ultimate fate after Deathly Hallows is unknown, but actor Jason Isaacs stated in an interview with Syfy Wire that he believes Lucius would not feel like a member of wizarding society again after Voldemort's fall, as society would shun him. Isaacs also states that Lucius would become a shell of his former self, lose the respect of his wife and son, protect himself with his money, and drink himself into an early death.\n\nAccording to Forbes magazine, in 2006, Lucius Malfoy was number 12 on their Forbes Fictional 15 list.\n\nIn the film series, Lucius is portrayed by Jason Isaacs as an adult. Scenes with Tony Coburn as a teenage Lucius were cut from the final movie.\n\nPeter Pettigrew \nPeter Pettigrew, (a.k.a Wormtail), is the only Death Eater known to have been in a House other than Slytherin (Gryffindor) while at Hogwarts. There, he was a close friend of Sirius Black, James Potter, and Remus Lupin, although he was the least intelligent and least talented of the group. With Sirius and James' help, Pettigrew becomes an Animagus, with the ability to transform at will into a rat. After leaving Hogwarts, Pettigrew joins forces with Voldemort, and in exchange for his own life becomes Voldemort's spy within the Order of the Phoenix, of which Pettigrew is a member. When the Potters know that their son, Harry, is Voldemort's target, Sirius suggests to them to use Pettigrew as Secret-Keeper because he does not believe Voldemort would ever suspect a \"weak, talentless thing\" like Pettigrew. Pettigrew betrays the secret to Voldemort, an act that leads to James and Lily's death (and, ironically, Voldemort's near-destruction). Sirius seeks revenge on Pettigrew, but during the confrontation, Pettigrew publicly accuses Sirius of the Potters' deaths, murders twelve Muggles, and cuts off his own index finger before transforming into a rat, thereby framing Sirius for the betrayal of the Potters, as well as for his own murder and that of the bystanders. Despite having done these above treacherous acts, Pettigrew genuinely felt remorse to a certain extent for his betrayal. Pettigrew is (seemingly posthumously) awarded the Order of Merlin, and hides during the next twelve years. Wanting to keep an eye on the wizarding world, he masquerades as a rat, first as Percy Weasley's pet, and then as Ron Weasley's. In this form (named \"Scabbers\" by the family), he is missing a toe from one paw due to the finger he cut off.\n\nAlthough Pettigrew appears in the first two books in the form of Scabbers, his identity is not revealed until Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in which he is the main antagonist. When a photograph of the Weasley family appears in the Daily Prophet newspaper, Sirius recognises Pettigrew's Animagus form and escapes from Azkaban to track him down. The two confront each other in the Shrieking Shack, where Lupin and Black compel Scabbers to resume his human form. Pettigrew confesses his treachery, claiming to have committed it only to save his own life. With Sirius and Lupin about to take their revenge, Harry begs Sirius to turn Pettigrew over to the Ministry of Magic instead, to prove Sirius' innocence. Pettigrew escapes while being led out of the Shack when Lupin transforms into a werewolf. Harry's actions result in Pettigrew owing him a life debt, and Pettigrew had in fact shown gratitude to Harry for sparing his life. This would be the reason behind Pettigrew (fruitlessly) trying to convince Voldemort to use the blood of another wizard when Voldemort wanted to use Harry's blood to restore his corporeal form in the next book.\n\nPettigrew returns to the service of Voldemort, seeking him out in the forests of Albania and helping him to return to a feeble baby's body. He abducts a Ministry of Magic employee named Bertha Jorkins, who is able to provide Voldemort with valuable information. Pettigrew (almost always referred to as \"Wormtail\" hereafter) assists Barty Crouch Jr. in overpowering Mad-Eye Moody, setting up the events in the fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In the climactic confrontation in that book, Pettigrew murders Cedric Diggory on Voldemort's orders, and brews the complex potion to regenerate Voldemort, severing his hand as one of the ingredients. Upon his return to corporeal form, Voldemort replaces Pettigrew's missing hand with a silver one that possesses five intact fingers and great strength. Despite his actions, Pettigrew's fortunes remain low; in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Snape treats him as a servant, and in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows he is tasked with keeping watch over prisoners in the cellar of Malfoy Manor. While Harry and Ron are being kept there, Pettigrew checks on the prisoners and is attacked. Pettigrew begins strangling Harry with the silver hand, but when reminded by Harry that he once saved his life, Pettigrew hesitates for a moment. The silver hand turns against him and strangles him to death as punishment for his moment of pity.\n\nPettigrew is portrayed by Timothy Spall as an adult, and by Charles Hughes as a teenager in the films. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, Pettigrew is not strangled to death by his own silver hand in Malfoy Manor as in the book; he is instead struck by Dobby and collapses. It is unknown whether he was simply stunned or killed. He only appears in a flashback in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.\n\nSeverus Snape \n\nSeverus Snape is characterised as a person of considerable complexity, whose coldly sarcastic and controlled exterior conceals deep emotions and anguish. In the first novel of the series, Snape is a teacher who is hostile from the start toward Harry and is built up to be the primary antagonist until the final chapters. As the series progresses, Snape's portrayal evolves from that of a malicious and partisan teacher to that of a complex, pivotal character of moral ambiguity, whose true loyalties are not revealed until the end. Snape is, as revealed in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, actually a spy in Voldemort's ranks for Dumbledore.\n\nCorban Yaxley \nCorban Yaxley is the brutal-faced Death Eater who is present in the battle in which Snape killed Dumbledore. He is one of the more prominent Death Eaters, and one of Voldemort's spies in the Ministry of Magic. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Yaxley is invited to Malfoy Manor to witness the murder of Charity Burbage, and argues with Snape about the correct date of Harry's departure from the Dursleys', but John Dawlish, an Auror who is tricked by an Order member, gives him incorrect information. Yaxley announces to an impressed assemblage of Death Eaters that he has placed the Imperius Curse upon Pius Thicknesse, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He uses Thicknesse to Imperius the other major department heads and they allow Voldemort to murder Rufus Scrimgeour; thus Thicknesse becomes Minister for Magic.\n\nWhen Harry, Ron, and Hermione, disguised as ministry officials, enter the Ministry to find Slytherin's locket, it is revealed that Yaxley has become Head of Magical Law Enforcement. He also assists Dolores Umbridge in leading the Muggle-Born Registration Commission, and the two seem to have a good relationship, together humiliating the Muggle-borns. Both are immobilised by Harry, but Yaxley recovers and grabs Hermione while she is Apparating her friends to safety. Yaxley arrives with them at Grimmauld Place, allowing him to reveal their headquarters to the Death Eaters, but not to the location that the trio subsequently Apparate to.\n\nHe participates in the Battle of Hogwarts, where he duels with Professor Flitwick and is later seen among those who wait with Voldemort for Harry Potter to come to him, mistakenly believing that Harry would not come within the allotted time. When the battle resumes, he is defeated by George Weasley and Lee Jordan.\n\nPeter Mullan plays Yaxley in the film adaptation of Deathly Hallows.\n\nIn popular culture \n\nMexican heavy metal band Velvet Darkness released the song \"Death Eaters\" in 2015 as part of their debut EP Delusion. It was later rerecorded in 2018 as bonus track for their debut LP Nothing But Glory, and a music video for the song was released in 2019 with a live recording of it.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n The Harry Potter Lexicon item on Death Eaters\n How to pronounce Bellatrix's name at the official Scholastic website\n PotterCast #40: Bag of 'trix – A podcast debating Bellatrix's role in the series\n When Harry Met Osama. Terrorism comes to Hogwarts.\n\nFictional cults\nFictional henchmen\nFictional organized crime groups\nFictional terrorist organizations\nFictional outlaws\nFictional witches\nWizards in fiction\nFictional prison escapees\nFictional murderers\nFictional torturers\nHarry Potter organisations\nLists of villains\nLiterary villains"
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"Lord Voldemort",
"Character development",
"How did Voldemort's character begin?",
"Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first.",
"Why did rowling do that?",
"The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position",
"How else is voldemorts character developed?",
"When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then",
"And then what did he do?",
"and then he tried to kill Harry--he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And--so--but for some mysterious reason the curse",
"Can you tell me more about the curse?",
"for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard,",
"what happens to the evil wizard?",
"In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself.",
"does anything else happen with voldemort in later books?",
"Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: \"Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects,"
] | C_7776d2fc9b234c23939513b312811d39_1 | how is he a bully? | 8 | How is Voldemort a bully? | Lord Voldemort | In a 2001 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry--he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And--so--but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since." In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death." Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. Some literary analysts have considered possible meanings in the name: Philip Nel states that Voldemort is derived from the French for "flight of death", and in a 2002 paper, Nilsen and Nilsen suggest that readers get a "creepy feeling" from the name Voldemort, because of the French word "mort" ("death") within it and that word's association with cognate English words derived from the Latin mors. CANNOTANSWER | She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In | Lord Voldemort (, in the films) is a sobriquet for Tom Marvolo Riddle, a character and the main antagonist in J. K. Rowling's series of Harry Potter novels. The character first appeared in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which was published in 1997, and returned either in person or in flashbacks in each book and its film adaptation in the series except the third, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in which he is only mentioned.
Voldemort is the archenemy of Harry Potter, who according to a prophecy has "the power to vanquish the Dark Lord". He attempts to murder the boy, but instead kills his parents, Lily and James Potter, and leaves Harry with a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. Nearly every witch or wizard dares not utter his name and refers to him instead with such monikers as "You-Know-Who", "He Who Must Not Be Named", or "the Dark Lord". Voldemort's obsession with blood purity signifies his aim to rid the wizarding world of Muggle (non-magical) heritage and to conquer both worlds, Muggle and wizarding, to achieve pure-blood dominance. Through his mother's family, he is the last descendant of the wizard Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He is the leader of the Death Eaters, a group of evil wizards and witches dedicated to ridding the Wizarding World of Muggles and establishing Voldemort as its supreme ruler.
Character development
In a 1999 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter, and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry—he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And—so—but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since."
In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death."
Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. The name Voldemort is derived from the French vol de mort which means "flight of death" or "theft of death".
Appearances
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Voldemort makes his debut in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. In this story, Rowling introduces him as the Dark Lord who tried to kill Harry Potter because the boy was prophesied to destroy him. Voldemort murdered Harry's parents, James and Lily, but as a result of his mother's love and willingness to sacrifice herself for him, baby Harry survived when Voldemort tried to murder him with a Killing Curse. Voldemort was disembodied, and Harry was left with a mysterious, lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead as a result.
In the book, Voldemort unsuccessfully tries to regain his dissolved body by stealing the titular Philosopher's Stone. To achieve his objective, Voldemort uses Professor Quirrell's aid by latching onto the back of the latter's head. However, at the climax of the book, Harry manages to prevent Voldemort from stealing the stone.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
In the second instalment, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Rowling introduces Tom Marvolo Riddle, a manifestation of a teenage Voldemort that resides inside a magical diary found by Ginny Weasley. In this book, Ginny is written as a shy girl with a crush on Harry. Feeling anxious and lonely, she begins to write into the diary and shares her deepest fears with the sympathetic Tom. However, at the climax of the story, when Riddle rearranges the letters in his name to write "I am Lord Voldemort", Riddle is revealed as a magical manifestation of the boy who would later grow up to become the Dark Lord. Riddle states he has grown strong on Ginny's fears and eventually possesses her, using her as a pawn to unlock the Chamber of Secrets, whence a basilisk is set free and petrifies several Hogwarts students. Harry defeats the manifestation of Riddle from the diary and the basilisk. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Albus Dumbledore reveals to Harry that the diary was one of Voldemort's Horcruxes.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Voldemort does not appear in the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, either in person or as a magical manifestation. He is, however, heard when Harry passes out from the harsh effects of a Dementor. Towards the end of the story, Sybill Trelawney, the Divination professor, makes a rare genuine prophecy: "The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight, the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever before. Tonight... before midnight... the servant... will set out... to rejoin... his master..." Though it is initially implied that the prophecy refers to Sirius Black, the book's ostensible antagonist, the servant is eventually revealed to be Peter Pettigrew, who, for the 12 years since Voldemort's fall, has been disguised as Ron's pet rat, Scabbers.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
In the fourth instalment of the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort reappears at the start and the climax of the book. Rowling lets many seemingly unrelated plot elements fall into order. It is revealed that Voldemort's minion Barty Crouch Jr, disguised as Hogwarts professor Mad-Eye Moody, has manipulated the events of the Triwizard Tournament in Harry's favour. Voldemort's goal is to teleport Harry under Dumbledore's watch as a reluctant participant to the Little Hangleton graveyard, where the Riddle family is buried. Harry is captured and, after Pettigrew uses Harry's blood to fulfil a gruesome magical ritual, Voldemort regains his body and is restored to his full power. For the first time in the series, Rowling describes his appearance: "tall and skeletally thin", with a face "whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was as flat as a snake's with slits for nostrils". Rowling writes that his "hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cat's, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness". It was revealed that, while in Albania, Pettigrew had captured the Ministry of Magic official Bertha Jorkins, who was tortured for information about the Ministry. After they learned that Barty Crouch Jr, a faithful Death Eater, had been smuggled out of Azkaban and was privately confined at his father's house, they killed her. With Pettigrew's help, Voldemort creates a small, rudimentary body, corporeal enough to travel and perform magic, and formulated a plan to restore his own body by capturing Harry. A portion of the plan had been overheard by Frank Bryce, a gardener, whom Voldemort then killed. Voldemort then completes his plan and returns to life in his full body as a result of the ritual with Harry's blood. He then summons his Death Eaters to the graveyard to witness the death of Harry as he challenges Harry to a duel. However, when Voldemort duels Harry, their wands become magically locked together due to the twin Phoenix feather cores of the wands. Because of a phenomenon later revealed as Priori Incantatem, ghost-like manifestations of Voldemort's most recent victims (including Harry's parents) then appear and distract Voldemort, allowing Harry just enough time to escape via Portkey with the body of fellow-student, Cedric Diggory, who was murdered by Pettigrew on Voldemort's orders.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Voldemort appears at the climax of the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, having again plotted against Harry. In this book, Harry goes through extreme emotional stress, and according to Rowling, it was necessary to prove that Harry is emotionally vulnerable and thus human, in contrast to his nemesis Voldemort, who is emotionally invulnerable and thus inhuman: "[Harry is] a very human hero, and this is, obviously, there's a contrast, between him, as a very human hero, and Voldemort, who has deliberately dehumanised himself. […] and Harry, therefore, did have to reach a point where he did almost break down." In this book, Voldemort makes liberal use of the Ministry of Magic's refusal to believe that he has returned. Voldemort engineers a plot to free Bellatrix Lestrange and other Death Eaters from Azkaban and then embarks on a scheme to retrieve the full record of a prophecy stored in the Department of Mysteries regarding Harry and himself. He sends a group of Death Eaters to retrieve the prophecy, where the Order of the Phoenix meets them. All but Bellatrix are captured, and Voldemort engages in a ferocious duel with Dumbledore. When Dumbledore gets the upper hand, Voldemort attempts to possess Harry but finds that he cannot; Harry is too full of that which Voldemort finds incomprehensible, and which he detests as weakness: love. Sensing that Dumbledore could win, Voldemort disapparates, but not before the Minister for Magic sees him in person, making his return to life public knowledge in the next book.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Voldemort does not appear in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, although his presence and actions are felt: he once again declares war, and begins to rise to power once more. He murders Amelia Bones of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and begins to target members of the Order of the Phoenix, including Emmeline Vance.
Rowling uses several chapters as exposition to establish Voldemort's backstory. In a series of flashbacks, using the pensieve as a plot device, she reveals that Voldemort was the son of the witch Merope Gaunt and a Muggle called Tom Riddle. Riddle abandoned Merope before their child's birth, soon after which Merope died. After living in an orphanage, young Riddle met Dumbledore, who told him he was a wizard and arranged for him to attend Hogwarts. Riddle was outwardly a model student, but was in reality a psychopath who took sadistic pleasure in using his powers to harm and control people. He eventually murdered his father and grandparents as revenge for abandoning him. The book also discusses Riddle's hatred of Muggles, his obsession with Horcruxes, and his desire to split his soul to achieve immortality. Rowling stated Voldemort's conception under the influence of a love potion symbolises the coercive circumstances under which he was brought into the world.
In the main plot of the book, Voldemort's next step is to engineer an assault on Hogwarts, and to kill Dumbledore. This is accomplished by Draco Malfoy, who arranges transportation of Death Eaters into Hogwarts by a pair of Vanishing Cabinets, which bypass the extensive protective enchantments placed around the school. The cabinets allow Voldemort's Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts, where battle commences and Dumbledore is cornered. Hogwarts professor (and re-doubled agent) Severus Snape uses the Killing Curse against Dumbledore when Draco could not force himself to do so.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort furthers his quest for ultimate power. He disposes of the Minister for Magic and replaces him with Pius Thicknesse, who is under the Imperius Curse. Establishing a totalitarian police state, he has Muggle-borns persecuted and arrested for "stealing magic" from the "pure blood" wizards. After failing to kill Harry with Draco's father Lucius Malfoy's borrowed wand (to avoid the effect of Priori Incantatem), he goes on a murderous search for the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand ever created, seeing it as the weapon he needs to overcome Harry's wand and make him truly invincible. He goes on a quest that takes him out of the country to Gregorovitch's wand shop, where he kills the old wandmaker. His journey also takes him to Nurmengard, the prison where Gellert Grindelwald is kept, and he kills Grindelwald as well. He finally locates the Elder Wand and steals it from Dumbledore's tomb.
Later, Voldemort finds out that Harry and his friends are hunting and destroying his Horcruxes when informed of their heist on the Lestranges' vault at Gringotts in search for Hufflepuff's Cup. After offering the occupants of Hogwarts mercy if they give up Harry, he assembles a large army and launches an invasion of the castle, where Harry is searching for Ravenclaw's Diadem. Voldemort orders his pet snake Nagini to execute Snape, believing it would make him the true master of the Elder Wand, since Snape killed Dumbledore. He then calls an hour's armistice, in exchange for Harry. When Harry willingly walks into Voldemort's camp in the Forbidden Forest, Voldemort strikes him down with the Elder Wand. However, the use of Harry's blood to resurrect Voldemort's body proves to be a major setback: while Harry's blood runs in Voldemort's veins, Harry cannot be killed as his mother's protection lives on now in Voldemort too. Instead, Voldemort destroys the part of his own soul that resides in Harry's body. Voldemort forces Rubeus Hagrid to carry Harry's apparently lifeless body back to the castle as a trophy, sparking another battle during which Nagini, his last Horcrux, is destroyed by Neville Longbottom. The battle then moves into the Great Hall, where Voldemort fights Minerva McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Horace Slughorn simultaneously. Harry then reveals himself and explains to Voldemort that Draco became the true master of the Elder Wand when he disarmed Dumbledore; Harry, in turn, won the wand's allegiance when he took Draco's wand. Refusing to believe this, Voldemort casts the Killing Curse with the Elder Wand while Harry uses a Disarming Charm with Draco's, but the Elder Wand refuses to kill its master and the spell rebounds on Voldemort who, with all of his Horcruxes destroyed, finally dies. His body is laid in a different chamber from all the others who died battling him.
Rowling stated that after his death, Voldemort is forced to exist in the stunted infant-like form that Harry sees in the King's Cross-like Limbo after his confrontation with Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest. Rowling also mentioned that, despite his extreme fear of death, he cannot become a ghost.
Appearances in other material
In Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, it is revealed that Bellatrix gave birth to Voldemort's daughter Delphi in Malfoy Manor before the Battle of Hogwarts. Twenty-two years later, Delphi poses as Cedric's cousin and manipulates Harry and Ginny's second son Albus Severus Potter and his friend, Draco and Astoria Greengrass's son Scorpius Malfoy, into stealing a prototype Time Turner with which she hopes to resurrect her father. Using the Time Turner, Scorpius accidentally creates an alternative timeline where Voldemort killed Harry at the battle and now rules the wizarding world. In an attempt to achieve this future, Delphi travels to Godric's Hollow on the night Voldemort killed Harry's parents, hoping to avert the prophecy that led to her father's downfall. After receiving a message from his son, Harry, together with Ron, Hermione and Draco (who by now has become friends with Harry after they join forces to save their respective sons) transfigures himself into Voldemort so that he can distract Delphi, allowing them to overpower her. The real Voldemort kills Harry's parents as prophesied, and Delphi is sent to Azkaban.
Portrayals within films
Voldemort appears in every Harry Potter film, with the exception of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Several actors have portrayed him in his varying incarnations and ages.
In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Voldemort's manifestation is as a face on the back of Quirrell's head, an effect achieved by computer generated imagery. Ian Hart, the actor who played Quirrell in the same film, provided the voice and the facial source for this character. Voldemort also appears in a scene in the Forbidden Forest where he is seen drinking the blood of a unicorn. As Voldemort's face was altered enough by CG work, and Hart's voice was affected enough, there was no confusion by Hart's playing of the two roles. In that film, he was also shown in a flashback sequence when he arrived at the home of James and Lily Potter to kill them. In this scene Voldemort is played by Richard Bremmer, though his face is never seen. His next appearance would be in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as the 16-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle (portrayed by Christian Coulson).
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort is initially only heard, possessing the scratchy, weak voice heard in the first film. By the film's climax, however, he appears in his physical form for the first time, played by Ralph Fiennes. As in the book, Voldemort is shown clad in dark black robes, being tall and emaciated, with no hair and yellowish teeth; his wand has a white tone and the handle appears to be made of bone; his finger nails are long and pale blue while his toe nails appear to be infected. Unlike in the book, his pupils are not cat-like and his eyes are blue, because producer David Heyman felt that his evil would not be able to be seen and would not fill the audience with fear (his eyes do briefly take on a snake-like appearance when he opens them after turning human, but quickly turn normal). As in the book, the film version of Voldemort has snake-like slit nostrils with the flesh of his nose significantly pressed back. Ralph Fiennes' nose was not covered in makeup on the set, but was digitally removed in post-production. In this first appearance, Voldemort also has a forked tongue, but this element was removed for the subsequent films.
Fiennes stated that he had two weeks to shoot the climactic showdown scene where he is gloating over a terrified Harry, played by Daniel Radcliffe. Fiennes said with a chuckle: "I have no doubt children will be afraid of me now if they weren't before." In preparation, he read the novel Goblet of Fire, but jokingly conceded: "I was only interested in my scene, and I had to go through thousands and thousands of other scenes which I did, dutifully, until I got to my scene and I read it many, many, many, many, many times and that was my research." Fiennes reprised his role as Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2.
Fiennes's nephew, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, portrayed Tom Riddle as a child in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. By the time filming arrived Christian Coulson was 29, and not considered suitable to return as the adolescent Riddle. Thomas James Longley was originally scheduled to take over the role, but last minute renegotiations saw Frank Dillane cast instead.
Characterisation
Outward appearance
After he regains his body in the fourth book, Rowling describes Voldemort as having pale skin, a chalk-white, skull-like face, snake-like slits for nostrils, red eyes and cat-like slits for pupils, a skeletally thin body and long, thin hands with unnaturally long fingers. As mentioned in the first chapter of the seventh book, he also has no hair or lips. Earlier in life, as seen through flashbacks contained in the second and sixth books, Tom Marvolo Riddle was handsome and tall with pale skin, jet black hair, and dark brown eyes. He could charm many people with his looks. The transformation into his monstrous state is believed to have been the result of creating his Horcruxes and becoming less human as he continued to divide his soul. In the films, Voldemort's eyes are blue with round pupils.
Personality
Rowling described Voldemort as "the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years". She elaborated that he is a "raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering", and whose only ambition in life is to become all-powerful and immortal. He is also a sadist who hurts and murders people—especially Muggles—for his own amusement. He has no conscience, feels no remorse or empathy, and does not recognise the worth and humanity of anybody except himself.
He feels no need for human companionship or friendship, and cannot comprehend love or affection for another. He believes he is superior to everyone around him, to the point that he frequently refers to himself in the third person as "Lord Voldemort". Rowling also stated that Voldemort is "incredibly power hungry. Racist, really", and that if Voldemort were to look into the Mirror of Erised, in which one sees one's greatest desire, he would see "Himself, all-powerful and eternal. That's what he wants."
Rowling also stated that Voldemort's conception by influence of Amortentia—a love potion administered by his mother, a witch named Merope Gaunt, to the Muggle Tom Riddle—is related to his inability to understand love; it is "a symbolic way of showing that he came from a loveless union—but of course, everything would have changed if Merope had survived and raised him herself and loved him. The enchantment under which Tom Riddle fathered Voldemort is important because it shows coercion, and there can't be many more prejudicial ways to enter the world than as the result of such a union".
Like most archetypical villains, Voldemort's arrogance leads to his downfall. He also suffers from a pathological fear of death, which he regards as a shameful and ignominious human weakness. According to Rowling, his Boggart would be his own corpse. Rowling also said that the difference between Harry and Voldemort is that Harry accepts mortality, and thus Harry is, in the end, stronger than his nemesis.
Magical abilities and skills
Rowling establishes Voldemort throughout the series as an extremely powerful, intelligent, and ruthless dark wizard, described as the greatest and most powerful Dark Wizard of all time. He is known as one of the greatest Legilimens in the world and a highly accomplished Occlumens; he can read minds and shield his own from penetration. Besides Dumbledore, he is also the only wizard ever known to be able to apparate silently. Voldemort was also said to fear one wizard alone, Dumbledore.
In the final book, Voldemort flies unsupported, something that amazes those who see it. Voldemort, like his ancestral family, the Gaunts, is a Parselmouth, meaning he can converse with serpents. This skill was inherited from his ancestor, Salazar Slytherin. The Gaunt family speak Parseltongue among themselves. This highly unusual trait may be preserved through inbreeding, a practice employed by the Gaunt Family to maintain their blood's purity. When Voldemort attempts to kill Harry his ability to speak Parseltongue is passed to Harry through the small bit of the former's soul. After that bit of soul is destroyed, Harry loses this ability. In a flashback in the sixth novel, Voldemort boasts to Dumbledore during a job interview that he has "pushed the boundaries of magic farther than they had ever before". Dumbledore states that Voldemort's knowledge of magic is more extensive than any wizard alive and that even Dumbledore's most powerful protective spells and charms would likely be insufficient if Voldemort returned to full power. Dumbledore also said that Voldemort was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen. Although Voldemort remains highly accomplished and prodigious in skill, he is enormously lacking and highly inept in the most powerful magic, love. This inability to love and trust others proves to be Voldemort's greatest weakness in the series. Voldemort initially voices scepticism that his own magic might not be the most powerful, but upon returning to power, he admits to his Death Eaters that he had overlooked the ancient and powerful magic which Lily Potter invoked and that would protect Harry from harm.
On her website, Rowling wrote that Voldemort's wand is made of yew, whose sap is poisonous and which symbolises death. It forms a deliberate contrast to Harry's wand, which is made of holly, which she chose because holly is alleged to repel evil.
Rowling establishes in the books that Voldemort is magically connected to Harry via Harry's forehead scar. He disembodies himself when his Killing Curse targeting Harry rebounds on him, leaving the scar on Harry's forehead. In the books, and to a lesser extent in the films, Harry's scar serves as an indicator of Voldemort's presence: it burns when the Dark Lord is near or when Voldemort is feeling murderous or exultant. According to Rowling, by attacking Harry when he was a baby Voldemort gave him "tools [that] no other wizard possessed—the scar and the ability it conferred, a magical window into Voldemort's mind".
Family
Notes: The names 'Thomas' and 'Mary' Riddle are taken from the films. The Potter Family is not shown.
Riddle family
The Riddle family, an old gentry family, consisted of Thomas and Mary Riddle and their son, Tom Riddle, Esq. They owned over half of the valley that the town of Little Hangleton lay in, and Thomas was the most prominent inhabitant of that town. They lived in a large house with fine gardens, but were unpopular amongst the local residents due to their snobbish attitudes. Tom, the only child of Thomas and Mary, was known as a playboy, his main interests being womanizing and horse-riding.
Rowling revealed in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that young Merope Gaunt fell in love with Riddle, peering at him through the windows and bushes at every opportunity. Merope's brother Morfin disapproved of his sister's affection for Tom and hexed him as he rode by, covering him in hives. This breach of wizarding law, and the ensuing violent struggle with Ministry of Magic officials, led to Marvolo and Morfin being imprisoned in Azkaban. As surmised by Dumbledore, once Merope was alone and no longer dominated by her father, she could make her move for Tom. She offered him a drink laced with a love potion, and he became infatuated with her; they soon eloped and, within three months of the marriage, Merope became pregnant. Merope decided to stop giving Tom the love potion, having come to the belief such enchantment of a man was tantamount to slavery. She also revealed her witch status to Tom, believing either that he had fallen in love with her on his own or he would at least stay for their unborn child. She was wrong, and Tom quickly left his pregnant wife and went home to his parents, claiming to have been "hoodwinked" and tricked into marrying Merope. Tom Marvolo Riddle, their son, was born on 31 December 1926 Merope died in childbirth, leaving the baby to grow up alone in an orphanage.
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, it is revealed that Voldemort murdered his father and grandparents, leaving himself the only surviving member of the Riddle family.
House of Gaunt
Most of the exposition of the House of Gaunts background occurs in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, through the medium of Dumbledore's Pensieve. The Gaunts were once a powerful and influential family, and are the last known descendants of Salazar Slytherin. However, a vein of mental instability and violence within the family, reinforced through cousin marriages intended to preserve the pureblood line, had reduced them to poverty and squalor, as shown in the Pensieve's "memory" that Harry and Dumbledore witnessed. Like Salazar Slytherin, the Gaunts spoke Parseltongue. At the time of the story, the Gaunts' only material asset is a ramshackle shanty in Little Hangleton, that stood in a thicket in a valley opposite the Riddle House. Like the Riddles, the Gaunts were also unpopular with the local residents, with a reputation for being vulgar and intimidating.
Marvolo Gaunt was the last family patriarch. He was sentenced to a short term in Azkaban for his and his son's assault upon a Ministry of Magic official; this affected his health and he died soon after returning home. His signet ring passed to his son, Morfin Gaunt, who was convicted of assaulting a Muggle, and later died in Azkaban, convicted this time as a party to the murder of Tom Riddle Jr. and Riddle's parents.
Dumbledore discovers the real culprit while visiting Morfin in Azkaban to gather information about Voldemort. After Dumbledore successfully extracts Morfin's memory of his encounter with his nephew, he tries to use the evidence to have Morfin released, but Morfin dies before the decision can be made. The House of Gaunt ended with Morfin's death.
Merope Gaunt () was the daughter of Marvolo, and sister of Morfin. Harry's first impression of her was that she looked "like the most defeated person he had ever seen". She married Tom Riddle Jr and became pregnant within three months of the wedding. It is suggested that she tricked her husband into loving her by using a love potion, but when she became pregnant, she chose to stop administering the potion. It is implied that Merope had grown tired of living the lie and thought that her husband might have grown to love her, or that he might have stayed for the sake of their unborn child; however, he left her. Desperate, Merope wandered through the streets of London. The only thing she had left was the heavy gold locket that had once belonged to Salazar Slytherin, one of her family's most treasured items, which she sold for a small amount. When she was due to give birth, she stumbled into a Muggle orphanage, where she gave birth to her only son. She died within the next hour.
Gormlaith Gaunt was a 17th-century descendant of Salazar Slytherin, and like Salazar, a Parselmouth. Her wand was that which once belonged to Salazar himself. Educated at Hogwarts, Gormlaith lived in Ireland in the early 1600s. In about 1608, Gormlaith killed her estranged unnamed sister, and her sister's husband, William Sayre (a descendant of the Irish witch Morrigan), and kidnapped their five-year-old daughter, Isolt Sayre, raising her in the neighbouring valley of Coomcallee, or "Hag's Glen", because she felt that her parents' association with Muggles would badly influence Isolt. Fanatical and cruel, Gormlaith used Dark magic to isolate Isolt from others, forbade her a wand, and did not allow her to attend Hogwarts as she herself had, disgusted that it was now filled with Muggle-borns. After twelve years with Gormlaith, Isolt stole Gormlaith's wand and fled to the Colonies and settled in Massachusetts, where she founded the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When Gormlaith learned of the school, she pursued her niece in Massachusetts, where she was killed by Isolt's friend, William the Pukwudgie, with a venom-tipped arrow.
The Gaunts, including Voldemort, are distantly related to Harry because they are descendants of the Peverell brothers.
Reception
Several people have drawn a parallel between Voldemort and some politicians. Rowling has said that Voldemort was "a sort of" Adolf Hitler, and that there is some parallel with Nazism in her books. Rowling also compared Voldemort to Joseph Stalin. Alfonso Cuarón, director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban compared Voldemort to George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein, who he said "...have selfish interests and are very much in love with power. Also, a disregard for the environment. A love for manipulating people." Andrew Slack and the Harry Potter Alliance compare media consolidation in the US to Voldemort's regime in Deathly Hallows and its control over the Daily Prophet and other media saying that "Once Voldemort took over every form of media in the wizarding world, Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix formed an independent media movement called 'Potterwatch'. Now the HP Alliance and Wizard Rock have come together to fight for a Potterwatch movement in the real world to fight back against Big VoldeMedia from further pushing out local and foreign news, minority representation, and the right to a Free Press." Julia Turner of Slate Magazine also noted similarities between the events of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the War on Terror. She said that Voldemort commits acts of terrorism such as destroying bridges, murdering innocents, and forcing children to kill their elders.
Voldemort has also been compared with other characters within fiction, for example Sauron from The Lord of the Rings; they are, during the time when the main plot takes place, seeking to recover their lost power after having been considered dead or at least no longer a threat, and are also so feared that they are sometimes unnamed.
IGN listed Voldemort as their seventh favourite Harry Potter character, calling him "truly frightening".
In popular culture
Several campaigns have used Voldemort to compare his evil to the influence of politicians, large media and corporations. "Lord Voldemort" is a nickname sometimes used for Peter Mandelson. Voldemort is also a recurring theme among wizard rock bands. Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock! is the second album from Harry and the Potters, and the character is mentioned in songs such as "The Dark Lord Lament" and "Flesh, Blood, and Bone".
Voldemort has been parodied in various venues. In The Simpsons 13th season's premiere, "Treehouse of Horror XII", Montgomery Burns appears as "Lord Montymort". A parody of Voldemort appears in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as "Lord Moldybutt", an enemy of Nigel Planter (a parody of Harry). Voldemort also appears in the Potter Puppet Pals sketches by Neil Cicierega. One of the episodes including him was the seventeenth most viewed video of all time as of 2008 and the winner for "Best Comedy" of the year 2007 at YouTube.
"Continuing the Magic", an article in the 21 May 2007 issue of Time, includes mock book covers designed by author Lon Tweeten, laced with pop culture references. One of them, the "Dark Lord of the Dance", shows Voldemort teaming up with Harry on Broadway. In the MAD Magazine parodies of the films, the character is called Lord Druckermort, a backwards reference to the magazine's longtime caricaturist Mort Drucker. In Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1969, a young Tom Marvolo Riddle (introduced as "Tom", whose middle name is a "marvel" and last name is a "conundrum") appears, and becomes the new avatar of Oliver Haddo at the story's conclusion. In A Very Potter Musical, Voldemort is played by actor Joe Walker.
In a segment celebrating British children's literature at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London, an inflatable Voldemort appeared alongside other villains, The Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook, and Cruella de Vil, to haunt children's dreams, before the arrival of a group of over thirty Mary Poppins who descended with their umbrellas to defeat them.
During the 2016 United States elections, Daniel Radcliffe was asked by Sky News journalist Craig Dillon if he would compare Donald Trump to Lord Voldemort; Radcliffe responded, "Trump is worse".
Voldemort appears in The Lego Batman Movie as one of the prisoners in the Phantom Zone that Joker recruits to take over Gotham City. Though Ralph Fiennes is featured in this movie as the voice of the British butler Alfred Pennyworth, he does not reprise his role as Voldemort. Instead, Voldemort is voiced by Eddie Izzard.
Outside of the Harry Potter video games, Voldemort is also a playable character in Lego Dimensions, with archive audio of Fiennes' portrayal in the films used for his voiceovers.
A 2018 Italian fan film titled Voldemort: Origins of the Heir depicts the story of Tom Riddle's rise to power.
Voldemort appears in Space Jam: A New Legacy, in the crowd for the game between the Tune Squad and the Goon Squad.
An upcoming French fan-made short-film titled The House of Gaunt - Lord Voldemort Origins explores the origin story of Voldemort and The Gaunt family.
Notes
References
External links
Lord Voldemort at Harry Potter Lexicon
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Film supervillains | true | [
"The Bully: A Discussion and Activity Story is a 40-page children's story and activity book by Rita Y. Toews published in 2003. The story focuses on giving children a voice as to how bullying makes them feel, and educates parents on how to handle a bully situation in a positive manner. The book can be used in a classroom, one-on-one with a counsellor or with a parent/caregiver.\n\nPlot summary \nJason is bullied at school by a child who demands his lunch every day. His mother is informed by the school that he is often hungry and realizes he is being bullied. She advises Jason they will have to take the problem to the school for help. Jason resists. His mother reminds Jason that if the bully isn't stopped he will continue to bully.\n\nBook layout \nThe story is followed by a question and answer section for children. The questions help children express their feelings about bullies, and the answers provide practical ways to deal with the problem. The illustrations for the story can be used as a colouring book while the subject of bullying is discussed. \n \nThe adult's section of The Bully contains a question and answer portion that informs parents and caregivers about bullying. It also gives effective information for dealing with a bully in a manner that provides a positive role model for children, as well as providing additional resources.\n\nEditions \n (first printing, 2003)\n (second printing, 2005)\n\nSee also \n Bullying\n\nExternal links \n Website\n Reviews\n\nBullying\nEducational psychology\nSociology books",
"The giant bully (Gobiomorphus gobioides), tītarakura, or tīpokopoko (Māori), is a species of fish in the family Eleotridae endemic to New Zealand. This is the largest species of bully and it can reach more than in length, but most are . Adults are generally found near the coast in freshwater, tidal or estuarine habitats. The breeding behavior is poorly known, but the species is considered diadromous and it is suspected that the larvae spend time in the sea.\n\nIt is very similar to the common bully (which can reach up to ), but it has six dorsal spines, where the common bully usually has seven.\n\nReferences\n\ngiant bully\nEndemic freshwater fish of New Zealand\nTaxa named by Achille Valenciennes\ngiant bully"
] |
[
"Lord Voldemort",
"Character development",
"How did Voldemort's character begin?",
"Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first.",
"Why did rowling do that?",
"The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position",
"How else is voldemorts character developed?",
"When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then",
"And then what did he do?",
"and then he tried to kill Harry--he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And--so--but for some mysterious reason the curse",
"Can you tell me more about the curse?",
"for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard,",
"what happens to the evil wizard?",
"In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself.",
"does anything else happen with voldemort in later books?",
"Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: \"Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects,",
"how is he a bully?",
"She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as \"a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering\". In"
] | C_7776d2fc9b234c23939513b312811d39_1 | what real life tyrants? | 9 | What real-life tyrants did Rowling link to Voldemort? | Lord Voldemort | In a 2001 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry--he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And--so--but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since." In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death." Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. Some literary analysts have considered possible meanings in the name: Philip Nel states that Voldemort is derived from the French for "flight of death", and in a 2002 paper, Nilsen and Nilsen suggest that readers get a "creepy feeling" from the name Voldemort, because of the French word "mort" ("death") within it and that word's association with cognate English words derived from the Latin mors. CANNOTANSWER | Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: | Lord Voldemort (, in the films) is a sobriquet for Tom Marvolo Riddle, a character and the main antagonist in J. K. Rowling's series of Harry Potter novels. The character first appeared in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which was published in 1997, and returned either in person or in flashbacks in each book and its film adaptation in the series except the third, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in which he is only mentioned.
Voldemort is the archenemy of Harry Potter, who according to a prophecy has "the power to vanquish the Dark Lord". He attempts to murder the boy, but instead kills his parents, Lily and James Potter, and leaves Harry with a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. Nearly every witch or wizard dares not utter his name and refers to him instead with such monikers as "You-Know-Who", "He Who Must Not Be Named", or "the Dark Lord". Voldemort's obsession with blood purity signifies his aim to rid the wizarding world of Muggle (non-magical) heritage and to conquer both worlds, Muggle and wizarding, to achieve pure-blood dominance. Through his mother's family, he is the last descendant of the wizard Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He is the leader of the Death Eaters, a group of evil wizards and witches dedicated to ridding the Wizarding World of Muggles and establishing Voldemort as its supreme ruler.
Character development
In a 1999 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter, and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry—he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And—so—but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since."
In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death."
Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. The name Voldemort is derived from the French vol de mort which means "flight of death" or "theft of death".
Appearances
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Voldemort makes his debut in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. In this story, Rowling introduces him as the Dark Lord who tried to kill Harry Potter because the boy was prophesied to destroy him. Voldemort murdered Harry's parents, James and Lily, but as a result of his mother's love and willingness to sacrifice herself for him, baby Harry survived when Voldemort tried to murder him with a Killing Curse. Voldemort was disembodied, and Harry was left with a mysterious, lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead as a result.
In the book, Voldemort unsuccessfully tries to regain his dissolved body by stealing the titular Philosopher's Stone. To achieve his objective, Voldemort uses Professor Quirrell's aid by latching onto the back of the latter's head. However, at the climax of the book, Harry manages to prevent Voldemort from stealing the stone.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
In the second instalment, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Rowling introduces Tom Marvolo Riddle, a manifestation of a teenage Voldemort that resides inside a magical diary found by Ginny Weasley. In this book, Ginny is written as a shy girl with a crush on Harry. Feeling anxious and lonely, she begins to write into the diary and shares her deepest fears with the sympathetic Tom. However, at the climax of the story, when Riddle rearranges the letters in his name to write "I am Lord Voldemort", Riddle is revealed as a magical manifestation of the boy who would later grow up to become the Dark Lord. Riddle states he has grown strong on Ginny's fears and eventually possesses her, using her as a pawn to unlock the Chamber of Secrets, whence a basilisk is set free and petrifies several Hogwarts students. Harry defeats the manifestation of Riddle from the diary and the basilisk. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Albus Dumbledore reveals to Harry that the diary was one of Voldemort's Horcruxes.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Voldemort does not appear in the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, either in person or as a magical manifestation. He is, however, heard when Harry passes out from the harsh effects of a Dementor. Towards the end of the story, Sybill Trelawney, the Divination professor, makes a rare genuine prophecy: "The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight, the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever before. Tonight... before midnight... the servant... will set out... to rejoin... his master..." Though it is initially implied that the prophecy refers to Sirius Black, the book's ostensible antagonist, the servant is eventually revealed to be Peter Pettigrew, who, for the 12 years since Voldemort's fall, has been disguised as Ron's pet rat, Scabbers.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
In the fourth instalment of the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort reappears at the start and the climax of the book. Rowling lets many seemingly unrelated plot elements fall into order. It is revealed that Voldemort's minion Barty Crouch Jr, disguised as Hogwarts professor Mad-Eye Moody, has manipulated the events of the Triwizard Tournament in Harry's favour. Voldemort's goal is to teleport Harry under Dumbledore's watch as a reluctant participant to the Little Hangleton graveyard, where the Riddle family is buried. Harry is captured and, after Pettigrew uses Harry's blood to fulfil a gruesome magical ritual, Voldemort regains his body and is restored to his full power. For the first time in the series, Rowling describes his appearance: "tall and skeletally thin", with a face "whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was as flat as a snake's with slits for nostrils". Rowling writes that his "hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cat's, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness". It was revealed that, while in Albania, Pettigrew had captured the Ministry of Magic official Bertha Jorkins, who was tortured for information about the Ministry. After they learned that Barty Crouch Jr, a faithful Death Eater, had been smuggled out of Azkaban and was privately confined at his father's house, they killed her. With Pettigrew's help, Voldemort creates a small, rudimentary body, corporeal enough to travel and perform magic, and formulated a plan to restore his own body by capturing Harry. A portion of the plan had been overheard by Frank Bryce, a gardener, whom Voldemort then killed. Voldemort then completes his plan and returns to life in his full body as a result of the ritual with Harry's blood. He then summons his Death Eaters to the graveyard to witness the death of Harry as he challenges Harry to a duel. However, when Voldemort duels Harry, their wands become magically locked together due to the twin Phoenix feather cores of the wands. Because of a phenomenon later revealed as Priori Incantatem, ghost-like manifestations of Voldemort's most recent victims (including Harry's parents) then appear and distract Voldemort, allowing Harry just enough time to escape via Portkey with the body of fellow-student, Cedric Diggory, who was murdered by Pettigrew on Voldemort's orders.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Voldemort appears at the climax of the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, having again plotted against Harry. In this book, Harry goes through extreme emotional stress, and according to Rowling, it was necessary to prove that Harry is emotionally vulnerable and thus human, in contrast to his nemesis Voldemort, who is emotionally invulnerable and thus inhuman: "[Harry is] a very human hero, and this is, obviously, there's a contrast, between him, as a very human hero, and Voldemort, who has deliberately dehumanised himself. […] and Harry, therefore, did have to reach a point where he did almost break down." In this book, Voldemort makes liberal use of the Ministry of Magic's refusal to believe that he has returned. Voldemort engineers a plot to free Bellatrix Lestrange and other Death Eaters from Azkaban and then embarks on a scheme to retrieve the full record of a prophecy stored in the Department of Mysteries regarding Harry and himself. He sends a group of Death Eaters to retrieve the prophecy, where the Order of the Phoenix meets them. All but Bellatrix are captured, and Voldemort engages in a ferocious duel with Dumbledore. When Dumbledore gets the upper hand, Voldemort attempts to possess Harry but finds that he cannot; Harry is too full of that which Voldemort finds incomprehensible, and which he detests as weakness: love. Sensing that Dumbledore could win, Voldemort disapparates, but not before the Minister for Magic sees him in person, making his return to life public knowledge in the next book.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Voldemort does not appear in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, although his presence and actions are felt: he once again declares war, and begins to rise to power once more. He murders Amelia Bones of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and begins to target members of the Order of the Phoenix, including Emmeline Vance.
Rowling uses several chapters as exposition to establish Voldemort's backstory. In a series of flashbacks, using the pensieve as a plot device, she reveals that Voldemort was the son of the witch Merope Gaunt and a Muggle called Tom Riddle. Riddle abandoned Merope before their child's birth, soon after which Merope died. After living in an orphanage, young Riddle met Dumbledore, who told him he was a wizard and arranged for him to attend Hogwarts. Riddle was outwardly a model student, but was in reality a psychopath who took sadistic pleasure in using his powers to harm and control people. He eventually murdered his father and grandparents as revenge for abandoning him. The book also discusses Riddle's hatred of Muggles, his obsession with Horcruxes, and his desire to split his soul to achieve immortality. Rowling stated Voldemort's conception under the influence of a love potion symbolises the coercive circumstances under which he was brought into the world.
In the main plot of the book, Voldemort's next step is to engineer an assault on Hogwarts, and to kill Dumbledore. This is accomplished by Draco Malfoy, who arranges transportation of Death Eaters into Hogwarts by a pair of Vanishing Cabinets, which bypass the extensive protective enchantments placed around the school. The cabinets allow Voldemort's Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts, where battle commences and Dumbledore is cornered. Hogwarts professor (and re-doubled agent) Severus Snape uses the Killing Curse against Dumbledore when Draco could not force himself to do so.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort furthers his quest for ultimate power. He disposes of the Minister for Magic and replaces him with Pius Thicknesse, who is under the Imperius Curse. Establishing a totalitarian police state, he has Muggle-borns persecuted and arrested for "stealing magic" from the "pure blood" wizards. After failing to kill Harry with Draco's father Lucius Malfoy's borrowed wand (to avoid the effect of Priori Incantatem), he goes on a murderous search for the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand ever created, seeing it as the weapon he needs to overcome Harry's wand and make him truly invincible. He goes on a quest that takes him out of the country to Gregorovitch's wand shop, where he kills the old wandmaker. His journey also takes him to Nurmengard, the prison where Gellert Grindelwald is kept, and he kills Grindelwald as well. He finally locates the Elder Wand and steals it from Dumbledore's tomb.
Later, Voldemort finds out that Harry and his friends are hunting and destroying his Horcruxes when informed of their heist on the Lestranges' vault at Gringotts in search for Hufflepuff's Cup. After offering the occupants of Hogwarts mercy if they give up Harry, he assembles a large army and launches an invasion of the castle, where Harry is searching for Ravenclaw's Diadem. Voldemort orders his pet snake Nagini to execute Snape, believing it would make him the true master of the Elder Wand, since Snape killed Dumbledore. He then calls an hour's armistice, in exchange for Harry. When Harry willingly walks into Voldemort's camp in the Forbidden Forest, Voldemort strikes him down with the Elder Wand. However, the use of Harry's blood to resurrect Voldemort's body proves to be a major setback: while Harry's blood runs in Voldemort's veins, Harry cannot be killed as his mother's protection lives on now in Voldemort too. Instead, Voldemort destroys the part of his own soul that resides in Harry's body. Voldemort forces Rubeus Hagrid to carry Harry's apparently lifeless body back to the castle as a trophy, sparking another battle during which Nagini, his last Horcrux, is destroyed by Neville Longbottom. The battle then moves into the Great Hall, where Voldemort fights Minerva McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Horace Slughorn simultaneously. Harry then reveals himself and explains to Voldemort that Draco became the true master of the Elder Wand when he disarmed Dumbledore; Harry, in turn, won the wand's allegiance when he took Draco's wand. Refusing to believe this, Voldemort casts the Killing Curse with the Elder Wand while Harry uses a Disarming Charm with Draco's, but the Elder Wand refuses to kill its master and the spell rebounds on Voldemort who, with all of his Horcruxes destroyed, finally dies. His body is laid in a different chamber from all the others who died battling him.
Rowling stated that after his death, Voldemort is forced to exist in the stunted infant-like form that Harry sees in the King's Cross-like Limbo after his confrontation with Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest. Rowling also mentioned that, despite his extreme fear of death, he cannot become a ghost.
Appearances in other material
In Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, it is revealed that Bellatrix gave birth to Voldemort's daughter Delphi in Malfoy Manor before the Battle of Hogwarts. Twenty-two years later, Delphi poses as Cedric's cousin and manipulates Harry and Ginny's second son Albus Severus Potter and his friend, Draco and Astoria Greengrass's son Scorpius Malfoy, into stealing a prototype Time Turner with which she hopes to resurrect her father. Using the Time Turner, Scorpius accidentally creates an alternative timeline where Voldemort killed Harry at the battle and now rules the wizarding world. In an attempt to achieve this future, Delphi travels to Godric's Hollow on the night Voldemort killed Harry's parents, hoping to avert the prophecy that led to her father's downfall. After receiving a message from his son, Harry, together with Ron, Hermione and Draco (who by now has become friends with Harry after they join forces to save their respective sons) transfigures himself into Voldemort so that he can distract Delphi, allowing them to overpower her. The real Voldemort kills Harry's parents as prophesied, and Delphi is sent to Azkaban.
Portrayals within films
Voldemort appears in every Harry Potter film, with the exception of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Several actors have portrayed him in his varying incarnations and ages.
In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Voldemort's manifestation is as a face on the back of Quirrell's head, an effect achieved by computer generated imagery. Ian Hart, the actor who played Quirrell in the same film, provided the voice and the facial source for this character. Voldemort also appears in a scene in the Forbidden Forest where he is seen drinking the blood of a unicorn. As Voldemort's face was altered enough by CG work, and Hart's voice was affected enough, there was no confusion by Hart's playing of the two roles. In that film, he was also shown in a flashback sequence when he arrived at the home of James and Lily Potter to kill them. In this scene Voldemort is played by Richard Bremmer, though his face is never seen. His next appearance would be in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as the 16-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle (portrayed by Christian Coulson).
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort is initially only heard, possessing the scratchy, weak voice heard in the first film. By the film's climax, however, he appears in his physical form for the first time, played by Ralph Fiennes. As in the book, Voldemort is shown clad in dark black robes, being tall and emaciated, with no hair and yellowish teeth; his wand has a white tone and the handle appears to be made of bone; his finger nails are long and pale blue while his toe nails appear to be infected. Unlike in the book, his pupils are not cat-like and his eyes are blue, because producer David Heyman felt that his evil would not be able to be seen and would not fill the audience with fear (his eyes do briefly take on a snake-like appearance when he opens them after turning human, but quickly turn normal). As in the book, the film version of Voldemort has snake-like slit nostrils with the flesh of his nose significantly pressed back. Ralph Fiennes' nose was not covered in makeup on the set, but was digitally removed in post-production. In this first appearance, Voldemort also has a forked tongue, but this element was removed for the subsequent films.
Fiennes stated that he had two weeks to shoot the climactic showdown scene where he is gloating over a terrified Harry, played by Daniel Radcliffe. Fiennes said with a chuckle: "I have no doubt children will be afraid of me now if they weren't before." In preparation, he read the novel Goblet of Fire, but jokingly conceded: "I was only interested in my scene, and I had to go through thousands and thousands of other scenes which I did, dutifully, until I got to my scene and I read it many, many, many, many, many times and that was my research." Fiennes reprised his role as Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2.
Fiennes's nephew, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, portrayed Tom Riddle as a child in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. By the time filming arrived Christian Coulson was 29, and not considered suitable to return as the adolescent Riddle. Thomas James Longley was originally scheduled to take over the role, but last minute renegotiations saw Frank Dillane cast instead.
Characterisation
Outward appearance
After he regains his body in the fourth book, Rowling describes Voldemort as having pale skin, a chalk-white, skull-like face, snake-like slits for nostrils, red eyes and cat-like slits for pupils, a skeletally thin body and long, thin hands with unnaturally long fingers. As mentioned in the first chapter of the seventh book, he also has no hair or lips. Earlier in life, as seen through flashbacks contained in the second and sixth books, Tom Marvolo Riddle was handsome and tall with pale skin, jet black hair, and dark brown eyes. He could charm many people with his looks. The transformation into his monstrous state is believed to have been the result of creating his Horcruxes and becoming less human as he continued to divide his soul. In the films, Voldemort's eyes are blue with round pupils.
Personality
Rowling described Voldemort as "the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years". She elaborated that he is a "raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering", and whose only ambition in life is to become all-powerful and immortal. He is also a sadist who hurts and murders people—especially Muggles—for his own amusement. He has no conscience, feels no remorse or empathy, and does not recognise the worth and humanity of anybody except himself.
He feels no need for human companionship or friendship, and cannot comprehend love or affection for another. He believes he is superior to everyone around him, to the point that he frequently refers to himself in the third person as "Lord Voldemort". Rowling also stated that Voldemort is "incredibly power hungry. Racist, really", and that if Voldemort were to look into the Mirror of Erised, in which one sees one's greatest desire, he would see "Himself, all-powerful and eternal. That's what he wants."
Rowling also stated that Voldemort's conception by influence of Amortentia—a love potion administered by his mother, a witch named Merope Gaunt, to the Muggle Tom Riddle—is related to his inability to understand love; it is "a symbolic way of showing that he came from a loveless union—but of course, everything would have changed if Merope had survived and raised him herself and loved him. The enchantment under which Tom Riddle fathered Voldemort is important because it shows coercion, and there can't be many more prejudicial ways to enter the world than as the result of such a union".
Like most archetypical villains, Voldemort's arrogance leads to his downfall. He also suffers from a pathological fear of death, which he regards as a shameful and ignominious human weakness. According to Rowling, his Boggart would be his own corpse. Rowling also said that the difference between Harry and Voldemort is that Harry accepts mortality, and thus Harry is, in the end, stronger than his nemesis.
Magical abilities and skills
Rowling establishes Voldemort throughout the series as an extremely powerful, intelligent, and ruthless dark wizard, described as the greatest and most powerful Dark Wizard of all time. He is known as one of the greatest Legilimens in the world and a highly accomplished Occlumens; he can read minds and shield his own from penetration. Besides Dumbledore, he is also the only wizard ever known to be able to apparate silently. Voldemort was also said to fear one wizard alone, Dumbledore.
In the final book, Voldemort flies unsupported, something that amazes those who see it. Voldemort, like his ancestral family, the Gaunts, is a Parselmouth, meaning he can converse with serpents. This skill was inherited from his ancestor, Salazar Slytherin. The Gaunt family speak Parseltongue among themselves. This highly unusual trait may be preserved through inbreeding, a practice employed by the Gaunt Family to maintain their blood's purity. When Voldemort attempts to kill Harry his ability to speak Parseltongue is passed to Harry through the small bit of the former's soul. After that bit of soul is destroyed, Harry loses this ability. In a flashback in the sixth novel, Voldemort boasts to Dumbledore during a job interview that he has "pushed the boundaries of magic farther than they had ever before". Dumbledore states that Voldemort's knowledge of magic is more extensive than any wizard alive and that even Dumbledore's most powerful protective spells and charms would likely be insufficient if Voldemort returned to full power. Dumbledore also said that Voldemort was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen. Although Voldemort remains highly accomplished and prodigious in skill, he is enormously lacking and highly inept in the most powerful magic, love. This inability to love and trust others proves to be Voldemort's greatest weakness in the series. Voldemort initially voices scepticism that his own magic might not be the most powerful, but upon returning to power, he admits to his Death Eaters that he had overlooked the ancient and powerful magic which Lily Potter invoked and that would protect Harry from harm.
On her website, Rowling wrote that Voldemort's wand is made of yew, whose sap is poisonous and which symbolises death. It forms a deliberate contrast to Harry's wand, which is made of holly, which she chose because holly is alleged to repel evil.
Rowling establishes in the books that Voldemort is magically connected to Harry via Harry's forehead scar. He disembodies himself when his Killing Curse targeting Harry rebounds on him, leaving the scar on Harry's forehead. In the books, and to a lesser extent in the films, Harry's scar serves as an indicator of Voldemort's presence: it burns when the Dark Lord is near or when Voldemort is feeling murderous or exultant. According to Rowling, by attacking Harry when he was a baby Voldemort gave him "tools [that] no other wizard possessed—the scar and the ability it conferred, a magical window into Voldemort's mind".
Family
Notes: The names 'Thomas' and 'Mary' Riddle are taken from the films. The Potter Family is not shown.
Riddle family
The Riddle family, an old gentry family, consisted of Thomas and Mary Riddle and their son, Tom Riddle, Esq. They owned over half of the valley that the town of Little Hangleton lay in, and Thomas was the most prominent inhabitant of that town. They lived in a large house with fine gardens, but were unpopular amongst the local residents due to their snobbish attitudes. Tom, the only child of Thomas and Mary, was known as a playboy, his main interests being womanizing and horse-riding.
Rowling revealed in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that young Merope Gaunt fell in love with Riddle, peering at him through the windows and bushes at every opportunity. Merope's brother Morfin disapproved of his sister's affection for Tom and hexed him as he rode by, covering him in hives. This breach of wizarding law, and the ensuing violent struggle with Ministry of Magic officials, led to Marvolo and Morfin being imprisoned in Azkaban. As surmised by Dumbledore, once Merope was alone and no longer dominated by her father, she could make her move for Tom. She offered him a drink laced with a love potion, and he became infatuated with her; they soon eloped and, within three months of the marriage, Merope became pregnant. Merope decided to stop giving Tom the love potion, having come to the belief such enchantment of a man was tantamount to slavery. She also revealed her witch status to Tom, believing either that he had fallen in love with her on his own or he would at least stay for their unborn child. She was wrong, and Tom quickly left his pregnant wife and went home to his parents, claiming to have been "hoodwinked" and tricked into marrying Merope. Tom Marvolo Riddle, their son, was born on 31 December 1926 Merope died in childbirth, leaving the baby to grow up alone in an orphanage.
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, it is revealed that Voldemort murdered his father and grandparents, leaving himself the only surviving member of the Riddle family.
House of Gaunt
Most of the exposition of the House of Gaunts background occurs in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, through the medium of Dumbledore's Pensieve. The Gaunts were once a powerful and influential family, and are the last known descendants of Salazar Slytherin. However, a vein of mental instability and violence within the family, reinforced through cousin marriages intended to preserve the pureblood line, had reduced them to poverty and squalor, as shown in the Pensieve's "memory" that Harry and Dumbledore witnessed. Like Salazar Slytherin, the Gaunts spoke Parseltongue. At the time of the story, the Gaunts' only material asset is a ramshackle shanty in Little Hangleton, that stood in a thicket in a valley opposite the Riddle House. Like the Riddles, the Gaunts were also unpopular with the local residents, with a reputation for being vulgar and intimidating.
Marvolo Gaunt was the last family patriarch. He was sentenced to a short term in Azkaban for his and his son's assault upon a Ministry of Magic official; this affected his health and he died soon after returning home. His signet ring passed to his son, Morfin Gaunt, who was convicted of assaulting a Muggle, and later died in Azkaban, convicted this time as a party to the murder of Tom Riddle Jr. and Riddle's parents.
Dumbledore discovers the real culprit while visiting Morfin in Azkaban to gather information about Voldemort. After Dumbledore successfully extracts Morfin's memory of his encounter with his nephew, he tries to use the evidence to have Morfin released, but Morfin dies before the decision can be made. The House of Gaunt ended with Morfin's death.
Merope Gaunt () was the daughter of Marvolo, and sister of Morfin. Harry's first impression of her was that she looked "like the most defeated person he had ever seen". She married Tom Riddle Jr and became pregnant within three months of the wedding. It is suggested that she tricked her husband into loving her by using a love potion, but when she became pregnant, she chose to stop administering the potion. It is implied that Merope had grown tired of living the lie and thought that her husband might have grown to love her, or that he might have stayed for the sake of their unborn child; however, he left her. Desperate, Merope wandered through the streets of London. The only thing she had left was the heavy gold locket that had once belonged to Salazar Slytherin, one of her family's most treasured items, which she sold for a small amount. When she was due to give birth, she stumbled into a Muggle orphanage, where she gave birth to her only son. She died within the next hour.
Gormlaith Gaunt was a 17th-century descendant of Salazar Slytherin, and like Salazar, a Parselmouth. Her wand was that which once belonged to Salazar himself. Educated at Hogwarts, Gormlaith lived in Ireland in the early 1600s. In about 1608, Gormlaith killed her estranged unnamed sister, and her sister's husband, William Sayre (a descendant of the Irish witch Morrigan), and kidnapped their five-year-old daughter, Isolt Sayre, raising her in the neighbouring valley of Coomcallee, or "Hag's Glen", because she felt that her parents' association with Muggles would badly influence Isolt. Fanatical and cruel, Gormlaith used Dark magic to isolate Isolt from others, forbade her a wand, and did not allow her to attend Hogwarts as she herself had, disgusted that it was now filled with Muggle-borns. After twelve years with Gormlaith, Isolt stole Gormlaith's wand and fled to the Colonies and settled in Massachusetts, where she founded the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When Gormlaith learned of the school, she pursued her niece in Massachusetts, where she was killed by Isolt's friend, William the Pukwudgie, with a venom-tipped arrow.
The Gaunts, including Voldemort, are distantly related to Harry because they are descendants of the Peverell brothers.
Reception
Several people have drawn a parallel between Voldemort and some politicians. Rowling has said that Voldemort was "a sort of" Adolf Hitler, and that there is some parallel with Nazism in her books. Rowling also compared Voldemort to Joseph Stalin. Alfonso Cuarón, director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban compared Voldemort to George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein, who he said "...have selfish interests and are very much in love with power. Also, a disregard for the environment. A love for manipulating people." Andrew Slack and the Harry Potter Alliance compare media consolidation in the US to Voldemort's regime in Deathly Hallows and its control over the Daily Prophet and other media saying that "Once Voldemort took over every form of media in the wizarding world, Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix formed an independent media movement called 'Potterwatch'. Now the HP Alliance and Wizard Rock have come together to fight for a Potterwatch movement in the real world to fight back against Big VoldeMedia from further pushing out local and foreign news, minority representation, and the right to a Free Press." Julia Turner of Slate Magazine also noted similarities between the events of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the War on Terror. She said that Voldemort commits acts of terrorism such as destroying bridges, murdering innocents, and forcing children to kill their elders.
Voldemort has also been compared with other characters within fiction, for example Sauron from The Lord of the Rings; they are, during the time when the main plot takes place, seeking to recover their lost power after having been considered dead or at least no longer a threat, and are also so feared that they are sometimes unnamed.
IGN listed Voldemort as their seventh favourite Harry Potter character, calling him "truly frightening".
In popular culture
Several campaigns have used Voldemort to compare his evil to the influence of politicians, large media and corporations. "Lord Voldemort" is a nickname sometimes used for Peter Mandelson. Voldemort is also a recurring theme among wizard rock bands. Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock! is the second album from Harry and the Potters, and the character is mentioned in songs such as "The Dark Lord Lament" and "Flesh, Blood, and Bone".
Voldemort has been parodied in various venues. In The Simpsons 13th season's premiere, "Treehouse of Horror XII", Montgomery Burns appears as "Lord Montymort". A parody of Voldemort appears in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as "Lord Moldybutt", an enemy of Nigel Planter (a parody of Harry). Voldemort also appears in the Potter Puppet Pals sketches by Neil Cicierega. One of the episodes including him was the seventeenth most viewed video of all time as of 2008 and the winner for "Best Comedy" of the year 2007 at YouTube.
"Continuing the Magic", an article in the 21 May 2007 issue of Time, includes mock book covers designed by author Lon Tweeten, laced with pop culture references. One of them, the "Dark Lord of the Dance", shows Voldemort teaming up with Harry on Broadway. In the MAD Magazine parodies of the films, the character is called Lord Druckermort, a backwards reference to the magazine's longtime caricaturist Mort Drucker. In Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1969, a young Tom Marvolo Riddle (introduced as "Tom", whose middle name is a "marvel" and last name is a "conundrum") appears, and becomes the new avatar of Oliver Haddo at the story's conclusion. In A Very Potter Musical, Voldemort is played by actor Joe Walker.
In a segment celebrating British children's literature at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London, an inflatable Voldemort appeared alongside other villains, The Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook, and Cruella de Vil, to haunt children's dreams, before the arrival of a group of over thirty Mary Poppins who descended with their umbrellas to defeat them.
During the 2016 United States elections, Daniel Radcliffe was asked by Sky News journalist Craig Dillon if he would compare Donald Trump to Lord Voldemort; Radcliffe responded, "Trump is worse".
Voldemort appears in The Lego Batman Movie as one of the prisoners in the Phantom Zone that Joker recruits to take over Gotham City. Though Ralph Fiennes is featured in this movie as the voice of the British butler Alfred Pennyworth, he does not reprise his role as Voldemort. Instead, Voldemort is voiced by Eddie Izzard.
Outside of the Harry Potter video games, Voldemort is also a playable character in Lego Dimensions, with archive audio of Fiennes' portrayal in the films used for his voiceovers.
A 2018 Italian fan film titled Voldemort: Origins of the Heir depicts the story of Tom Riddle's rise to power.
Voldemort appears in Space Jam: A New Legacy, in the crowd for the game between the Tune Squad and the Goon Squad.
An upcoming French fan-made short-film titled The House of Gaunt - Lord Voldemort Origins explores the origin story of Voldemort and The Gaunt family.
Notes
References
External links
Lord Voldemort at Harry Potter Lexicon
Fictional characters with disfigurements
Fictional characters with immortality
Fictional characters with spirit possession or body swapping abilities
Fictional dictators
Fictional English people
Fictional hypnotists and indoctrinators
Fictional illeists
Fictional mass murderers
Fictional necromancers
Fictional offspring of rape
Fictional patricides
Fictional terrorists
Fictional torturers
Harry Potter characters
Literary characters introduced in 1997
Male film villains
Male literary villains
Orphan characters in film
Orphan characters in literature
Psychopathy in fiction
Film supervillains | true | [
"The Tyrants in Therapy are an American \"punk cabaret\" band, which was formed in Los Angeles, California, United States, in 1983. Having started as a foursome, they have operated, since 1994, with only two members: songwriter, lead singer and producer Michael J; and songwriter and lead singer AbbeAbbe. Over the years, as they have experimented with different sounds, different line-ups and different labels, their music has been received with a mixture of enthusiasm and indifference. From 2001 to 2008, they wrote, produced and starred in a music and comedy television program, Meet The Tyrants in Therapy, which aired on Public-access television cable TV networks.\n\nBand history \nThe Tyrants in Therapy formed in late 1983, as a four-person band. The original members, who adopted nicknames, were: writer, songwriter, producer and former advertising copywriter Michael J (officially Michael Jaye); writer and actress AbbeAbbe (Abbe Kanter); songwriter, background vocalist, drum machine operator and art director Harol Glasscock (Carol Hannan); and songwriter, producer and keyboardist Charlie X (Charles Lamont).\n\nFor the first two years of their existence, the Tyrants in Therapy were financed by music publishers, who allowed them full rein for their creative impulses. The result was a collection of quirky songs such as At the Cowboy Lounge, Communist Reggae, Underground Girl of the World, and In The Shadow of Hitler, which were preoccupied with subjects like gay cowboys, dancing communists and whimsical fascists.\n\nBut the world did not embrace their ironic candor, and so when the band released its first record, the 12\" EP 3 People Nude Below the Waist (featuring scratching by the Knights of the Turntables), in 1984, it flopped. On a dare, the Tyrants in Therapy released another 12-inch record dance single the following year, Paint it Pink (co-produced by Guy Roche), which got club play around the U.S.\n\nThe Tyrants' breakthrough occurred in 1986, with Too Tuff To Cry. The 12-inch single became a hit in Los Angeles’s Hi NRG underground, selling more than 100,000 copies in Southern California and Mexico, and propelling the Tyrants in Therapy into the thick of the national dance music scene.\n\nFor the next few years, the Tyrants in Therapy (as a band, as individuals, and in collaboration with others) continued to release a steady stream of 12-inch singles on various independent Los Angeles labels. Meanwhile, it maintained its unpredictable schedule, playing discos one night and punk and new wave rock clubs the next.\n\nMore success came in 1989, with the release of Big Pink House (written with Terry Shaddick), and then in 1996, with Boy, both of which received significant airplay on urban pop radio around the U.S.\n\nAfter years of frustration with their labels, the Tyrants in Therapy formed their own imprint, Emotional Coathanger Records, in 2000. For a long time, they had felt that their artistic vision was being compromised, as the various labels with which they had associated had made them adopt an increasingly constrictive dance sound. Dismayed that they were being compelled to accept a format that de-emphasized lyrics and message, the Tyrants in Therapy finally assumed full control of the content, production, packaging and promotion of their music.\n\nThat same year, they released their first full-length album, Meet The Tyrants in Therapy, on their new label. Making use of samples and rhythms dating from the 1940s to the 1990s, blending genres such as rock, dance, punk, blues and cabaret, and addressing a dizzying array of topics such as human rights, suicide, lesbianism, pedophilia and cake, the tracks marked a move away from disco and into a style they dubbed “Punk Cabaret”.\n\nIn 2001, the Tyrants in Therapy shot the first episode of their television series, Meet The Tyrants in Therapy. In total, 22 were aired.\n\nIn 2009, they released their second full-length album, High Class Trash. Once again demonstrating the flair and originality for which they are renowned, the Tyrants brought their gifts for melody and irony to a variety of subjects: love, gender, sexuality, climate change, Hollywood and cowboys. It is as unashamedly devoid of political correctness as the rest of their work.\n\nIn 2010, the Tyrants released Dance with The Tyrants: Classic Dance Hits Vol. 1, a compilation of their hard-to-find dance singles.\n\nIn 2012, they returned to the international dance scene with Perfect Love, an EP that opened new territories for the group, including Eastern Europe and Latin America, and which landed at the #1 position on Top80 Radio in Warsaw.\n\nIn 2013, the Tyrants continued their dance music renaissance with two releases. The first was Dance with The Tyrants Vol. 2: The Original 12” Extended Club Mixes. The second was Once Upon A Time, a track produced with Greek DJ/producer Thomas Bainas, and which married the Tyrants’ romantic side with anti-war politics.\n\nPersonnel \nAlthough the Tyrants in Therapy formed in 1983, the first association of the four founding members came in 1977, when Michael J and AbbeAbbe met during an improvisational acting class they were taking in Hollywood. They started dating, before marrying the following year. The next association occurred in 1981, when the couple began writing songs with Charlie X, who had been introduced to them by Jim Callon, the owner of JDC Records and an old college friend of Michael J’s. Glasscock then came on the scene in 1983, after she joined the Beverly Hills advertising agency where Michael J worked.\n\nAt AbbeAbbe’s suggestion, the foursome decided to name themselves the Tyrants in Therapy, and started performing in Los Angeles rock clubs. Besides The Troubadour, none of these clubs- Club 88, Al's Bar, Club Lingerie, Cathay de Grande, Madame Wong’s East and West, Vertigo, The Central, the FM Station, and the Mannikin (in San Diego)- still exist.\n\nAlmost immediately, the Tyrants in Therapy were reduced to a trio, as Charlie X, a working lounge musician, balked at playing for little or no money. In 1985, Glasscock left the band as well, in order to focus on her advertising career. Glasscock was replaced by background vocalist Maureen Mahon, but for the next few years, the position of ‘third Tyrant’ was to become something of a revolving door. Mahon departed after six months due to artistic differences, and her replacement, Anni Celsi, lasted even less time, being fired in 1986 due to attitude problems and her inability to vocally complement AbbeAbbe. Celsi was replaced by Brenda X (Brenda Lavin), but she was deemed to be temperamentally unsuited to the rock and gay clubs in which the Tyrants in Therapy gigged, and in 1986, was asked to leave. Artistic differences led to Stina Hokenson leaving the band in 1987, while her replacement, songwriter and co-lead vocalist Stacy Dunne, left of her own accord the following year when she moved to Nashville. Keyboardist and songwriter Jeff Bennett (grandson of Boyd Bennett) came on the scene in 1991, and in 1993 was joined for a few months by another keyboardist, Marcy Szrama. However, the 2 keyboardist format proved unwieldy, and Szrama was gone by year’s end. In 1994, Bennett also left, in order to pursue his musical studies at CSUN. The last person to fill the position of third Tyrant was songwriter, guitarist and background vocalist Andi Ostrowe; she also lasted just a handful of gigs, before personal problems compelled her to quit in 1994. At that point, Michael J and AbbeAbbe decided to keep the Tyrants in Therapy as a duo.\n\nDiscography \nThe Tyrants in Therapy have released two studio albums, one EP and seven singles. As well, their material has appeared on various dance compilations and bootlegs over the years.\n\nTelevision \nMeet The Tyrants in Therapy was a half-hour comedy and variety show, combining humour and political satire with original Tyrants in Therapy music. From 2001 to 2008, the Tyrants in Therapy wrote, produced, co-directed, edited and starred in 25 episodes, which aired on several Public-access television cable TV networks (including AT&T, Adelphia, Comcast, Charter and Time Warner) in the greater Los Angeles area. Meet The Tyrants in Therapy is currently being broadcast on the Manhattan Neighborhood Network's Lifestyle Channel every Sunday night at midnight (Eastern Standard Time).\n\nThe Tyrants in Therapy’s first recording experience occurred in Adelphia Cable’s Van Nuys Public-access television studio, after AbbeAbbe had suggested that shooting some lip sync footage from the Meet The Tyrants in Therapy studio album might help them secure a new booking agent. The results, although very rough, were encouraging enough to convince the Tyrants in Therapy to book more studio time. This material then became the basis for the Meet The Tyrants in Therapy television program.\n\nAt first, the Tyrants in Therapy directed themselves, but for the third episode, director/choreographer Ceil Gruessing, a friend of AbbeAbbe’s from Antioch College, was enlisted to direct. While problems were encountered with sound, lighting and framing, the Tyrants in Therapy persevered, and went on to work with several other stage directors, including Debra De Liso, Steven Memel, Betsey Cassell, Tanya Kane-Parry and Tracy Winters. And when none of them were available, the Tyrants in Therapy reclaimed sole charge of the directing.\n\nBeginning from episode one, the veteran radio personality and DJ Pierre Gonneau, who had acted as a booking agent for the Tyrants in Therapy during their disco years, became the program’s first host. Known as ‘Lucky Pierre’, his silver hair and resonant French-accented baritone lent him a distinguished air, and allowed him to act the foil to the younger and more vibrant Tyrants in Therapy. However, due to health reasons, he was forced to retire from the program in 2005.\n\nOn De Liso’s recommendation, Gonneau was replaced by the versatile character actor Time Winters, who premiered in the episode Sleeping Olympics. Starring as Dr Theodore von Dongle, he brings an effete brand of Anglophilia to proceedings. His wife, the aforementioned Tracy Winters, is also part of the cast. She plays the role of Louise LaFaux, an uppity and libidinous real estate agent, from whom the Tyrants in Therapy buy a $10 million mansion.\n\nTwo other cast members are Jennifer Taub and Jaxon Duff Gwillim, who are married in real life, and who portray the wedded Shelley and Sheldon Schlumpmeister, a couple of nouveaux riche loudmouths. (Gwillim also occupies the role of Timothy von Dongle, the substitute host.) Czech character actor Oto Brezina has the recurring role of Dr Cabeza, the Tyrants in Therapy’s thick but persistent Buenos Aires-based psychiatrist. Finally, there is the versatile John Voldstad, an old friend of AbbeAbbe’s from high school, who has filled a variety of roles in Meet The Tyrants in Therapy.\n\nSince 2006, the Tyrants in Therapy have been posting excerpts from the program (as well as songs and short films) on the video sites YouTube, Veoh, Metacafe, Dailymotion and Funny or Die.\n\nIn 2007, Meet The Tyrants in Therapy won the West Hollywood Public-access television “Best Outside Program” award.\n\nReferences \n\nAmerican public access television shows\nAmerican dance music groups\nMusical groups from Los Angeles\nPunk rock groups from California",
"Tyrants Blood are a thrash/death metal band from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.\n\nHistory\n\nTyrants Blood was created in 2005 by former members of black metal band Blasphemy, along with members of cult thrash bands Witches Hammer, Infernäl Mäjesty, Omega Crom, and grind act Abuse. In 2006 the band's self-titled first album was released.\n\nIn 2009, with new lead vocalist Brian Langley, who had recently left Infernäl Mäjesty, they released Crushing Onward into Oblivion. and in 2013 \"Into the Kingdom of Graves\". The fast pace of their later albums gained them a reputation as a \"speed metal\" band.\n\nLine-up\nBrian Langley - vocals\nVinnie Borden - bass and vocals\nMarco Banco - guitar(Witches Hammer\\Blasphemy)\nMatt Modder - drums (Abuse\\Crackwhore)\n\nFormer members\nTom Lewko-guitar 2006-2010\nAndrew Russell-vocals 2006-2008(Tyrants Blood ST/2006,Prophecy E.P. 2008)\nShawn Darksoul-vocals 2006\nMike Wetherick-Bass 2006\nKevin O'Driscoll-drums 2006-2007(Tyrants Blood ST 2006)\n\nDiscography\nTyrants Blood (full-length, 2006)\nTyrannous Mutations of Sathanas (split, 2008)\nProphecy (EP, 2008)\nCrushing Onward Into Oblivion (full-length, 2009)\nInto The Kingdom Of Graves (full-length, 2013)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Tyrants Blood @ Encyclopaedia Metallum\n Tyrants Blood Myspace\n Official website\n\nMusical groups from Vancouver\nMusical groups established in 2005\nCanadian death metal musical groups\nCanadian thrash metal musical groups\n2005 establishments in British Columbia"
] |
[
"Lord Voldemort",
"Character development",
"How did Voldemort's character begin?",
"Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first.",
"Why did rowling do that?",
"The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position",
"How else is voldemorts character developed?",
"When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then",
"And then what did he do?",
"and then he tried to kill Harry--he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And--so--but for some mysterious reason the curse",
"Can you tell me more about the curse?",
"for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard,",
"what happens to the evil wizard?",
"In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself.",
"does anything else happen with voldemort in later books?",
"Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: \"Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects,",
"how is he a bully?",
"She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as \"a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering\". In",
"what real life tyrants?",
"Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear:"
] | C_7776d2fc9b234c23939513b312811d39_1 | what is voldemorts fear? | 10 | What is Voldemort's human fear? | Lord Voldemort | In a 2001 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry--he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And--so--but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since." In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death." Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. Some literary analysts have considered possible meanings in the name: Philip Nel states that Voldemort is derived from the French for "flight of death", and in a 2002 paper, Nilsen and Nilsen suggest that readers get a "creepy feeling" from the name Voldemort, because of the French word "mort" ("death") within it and that word's association with cognate English words derived from the Latin mors. CANNOTANSWER | "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death." | Lord Voldemort (, in the films) is a sobriquet for Tom Marvolo Riddle, a character and the main antagonist in J. K. Rowling's series of Harry Potter novels. The character first appeared in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which was published in 1997, and returned either in person or in flashbacks in each book and its film adaptation in the series except the third, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in which he is only mentioned.
Voldemort is the archenemy of Harry Potter, who according to a prophecy has "the power to vanquish the Dark Lord". He attempts to murder the boy, but instead kills his parents, Lily and James Potter, and leaves Harry with a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. Nearly every witch or wizard dares not utter his name and refers to him instead with such monikers as "You-Know-Who", "He Who Must Not Be Named", or "the Dark Lord". Voldemort's obsession with blood purity signifies his aim to rid the wizarding world of Muggle (non-magical) heritage and to conquer both worlds, Muggle and wizarding, to achieve pure-blood dominance. Through his mother's family, he is the last descendant of the wizard Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He is the leader of the Death Eaters, a group of evil wizards and witches dedicated to ridding the Wizarding World of Muggles and establishing Voldemort as its supreme ruler.
Character development
In a 1999 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter, and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry—he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And—so—but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since."
In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death."
Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. The name Voldemort is derived from the French vol de mort which means "flight of death" or "theft of death".
Appearances
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Voldemort makes his debut in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. In this story, Rowling introduces him as the Dark Lord who tried to kill Harry Potter because the boy was prophesied to destroy him. Voldemort murdered Harry's parents, James and Lily, but as a result of his mother's love and willingness to sacrifice herself for him, baby Harry survived when Voldemort tried to murder him with a Killing Curse. Voldemort was disembodied, and Harry was left with a mysterious, lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead as a result.
In the book, Voldemort unsuccessfully tries to regain his dissolved body by stealing the titular Philosopher's Stone. To achieve his objective, Voldemort uses Professor Quirrell's aid by latching onto the back of the latter's head. However, at the climax of the book, Harry manages to prevent Voldemort from stealing the stone.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
In the second instalment, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Rowling introduces Tom Marvolo Riddle, a manifestation of a teenage Voldemort that resides inside a magical diary found by Ginny Weasley. In this book, Ginny is written as a shy girl with a crush on Harry. Feeling anxious and lonely, she begins to write into the diary and shares her deepest fears with the sympathetic Tom. However, at the climax of the story, when Riddle rearranges the letters in his name to write "I am Lord Voldemort", Riddle is revealed as a magical manifestation of the boy who would later grow up to become the Dark Lord. Riddle states he has grown strong on Ginny's fears and eventually possesses her, using her as a pawn to unlock the Chamber of Secrets, whence a basilisk is set free and petrifies several Hogwarts students. Harry defeats the manifestation of Riddle from the diary and the basilisk. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Albus Dumbledore reveals to Harry that the diary was one of Voldemort's Horcruxes.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Voldemort does not appear in the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, either in person or as a magical manifestation. He is, however, heard when Harry passes out from the harsh effects of a Dementor. Towards the end of the story, Sybill Trelawney, the Divination professor, makes a rare genuine prophecy: "The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight, the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever before. Tonight... before midnight... the servant... will set out... to rejoin... his master..." Though it is initially implied that the prophecy refers to Sirius Black, the book's ostensible antagonist, the servant is eventually revealed to be Peter Pettigrew, who, for the 12 years since Voldemort's fall, has been disguised as Ron's pet rat, Scabbers.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
In the fourth instalment of the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort reappears at the start and the climax of the book. Rowling lets many seemingly unrelated plot elements fall into order. It is revealed that Voldemort's minion Barty Crouch Jr, disguised as Hogwarts professor Mad-Eye Moody, has manipulated the events of the Triwizard Tournament in Harry's favour. Voldemort's goal is to teleport Harry under Dumbledore's watch as a reluctant participant to the Little Hangleton graveyard, where the Riddle family is buried. Harry is captured and, after Pettigrew uses Harry's blood to fulfil a gruesome magical ritual, Voldemort regains his body and is restored to his full power. For the first time in the series, Rowling describes his appearance: "tall and skeletally thin", with a face "whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was as flat as a snake's with slits for nostrils". Rowling writes that his "hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cat's, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness". It was revealed that, while in Albania, Pettigrew had captured the Ministry of Magic official Bertha Jorkins, who was tortured for information about the Ministry. After they learned that Barty Crouch Jr, a faithful Death Eater, had been smuggled out of Azkaban and was privately confined at his father's house, they killed her. With Pettigrew's help, Voldemort creates a small, rudimentary body, corporeal enough to travel and perform magic, and formulated a plan to restore his own body by capturing Harry. A portion of the plan had been overheard by Frank Bryce, a gardener, whom Voldemort then killed. Voldemort then completes his plan and returns to life in his full body as a result of the ritual with Harry's blood. He then summons his Death Eaters to the graveyard to witness the death of Harry as he challenges Harry to a duel. However, when Voldemort duels Harry, their wands become magically locked together due to the twin Phoenix feather cores of the wands. Because of a phenomenon later revealed as Priori Incantatem, ghost-like manifestations of Voldemort's most recent victims (including Harry's parents) then appear and distract Voldemort, allowing Harry just enough time to escape via Portkey with the body of fellow-student, Cedric Diggory, who was murdered by Pettigrew on Voldemort's orders.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Voldemort appears at the climax of the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, having again plotted against Harry. In this book, Harry goes through extreme emotional stress, and according to Rowling, it was necessary to prove that Harry is emotionally vulnerable and thus human, in contrast to his nemesis Voldemort, who is emotionally invulnerable and thus inhuman: "[Harry is] a very human hero, and this is, obviously, there's a contrast, between him, as a very human hero, and Voldemort, who has deliberately dehumanised himself. […] and Harry, therefore, did have to reach a point where he did almost break down." In this book, Voldemort makes liberal use of the Ministry of Magic's refusal to believe that he has returned. Voldemort engineers a plot to free Bellatrix Lestrange and other Death Eaters from Azkaban and then embarks on a scheme to retrieve the full record of a prophecy stored in the Department of Mysteries regarding Harry and himself. He sends a group of Death Eaters to retrieve the prophecy, where the Order of the Phoenix meets them. All but Bellatrix are captured, and Voldemort engages in a ferocious duel with Dumbledore. When Dumbledore gets the upper hand, Voldemort attempts to possess Harry but finds that he cannot; Harry is too full of that which Voldemort finds incomprehensible, and which he detests as weakness: love. Sensing that Dumbledore could win, Voldemort disapparates, but not before the Minister for Magic sees him in person, making his return to life public knowledge in the next book.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Voldemort does not appear in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, although his presence and actions are felt: he once again declares war, and begins to rise to power once more. He murders Amelia Bones of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and begins to target members of the Order of the Phoenix, including Emmeline Vance.
Rowling uses several chapters as exposition to establish Voldemort's backstory. In a series of flashbacks, using the pensieve as a plot device, she reveals that Voldemort was the son of the witch Merope Gaunt and a Muggle called Tom Riddle. Riddle abandoned Merope before their child's birth, soon after which Merope died. After living in an orphanage, young Riddle met Dumbledore, who told him he was a wizard and arranged for him to attend Hogwarts. Riddle was outwardly a model student, but was in reality a psychopath who took sadistic pleasure in using his powers to harm and control people. He eventually murdered his father and grandparents as revenge for abandoning him. The book also discusses Riddle's hatred of Muggles, his obsession with Horcruxes, and his desire to split his soul to achieve immortality. Rowling stated Voldemort's conception under the influence of a love potion symbolises the coercive circumstances under which he was brought into the world.
In the main plot of the book, Voldemort's next step is to engineer an assault on Hogwarts, and to kill Dumbledore. This is accomplished by Draco Malfoy, who arranges transportation of Death Eaters into Hogwarts by a pair of Vanishing Cabinets, which bypass the extensive protective enchantments placed around the school. The cabinets allow Voldemort's Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts, where battle commences and Dumbledore is cornered. Hogwarts professor (and re-doubled agent) Severus Snape uses the Killing Curse against Dumbledore when Draco could not force himself to do so.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort furthers his quest for ultimate power. He disposes of the Minister for Magic and replaces him with Pius Thicknesse, who is under the Imperius Curse. Establishing a totalitarian police state, he has Muggle-borns persecuted and arrested for "stealing magic" from the "pure blood" wizards. After failing to kill Harry with Draco's father Lucius Malfoy's borrowed wand (to avoid the effect of Priori Incantatem), he goes on a murderous search for the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand ever created, seeing it as the weapon he needs to overcome Harry's wand and make him truly invincible. He goes on a quest that takes him out of the country to Gregorovitch's wand shop, where he kills the old wandmaker. His journey also takes him to Nurmengard, the prison where Gellert Grindelwald is kept, and he kills Grindelwald as well. He finally locates the Elder Wand and steals it from Dumbledore's tomb.
Later, Voldemort finds out that Harry and his friends are hunting and destroying his Horcruxes when informed of their heist on the Lestranges' vault at Gringotts in search for Hufflepuff's Cup. After offering the occupants of Hogwarts mercy if they give up Harry, he assembles a large army and launches an invasion of the castle, where Harry is searching for Ravenclaw's Diadem. Voldemort orders his pet snake Nagini to execute Snape, believing it would make him the true master of the Elder Wand, since Snape killed Dumbledore. He then calls an hour's armistice, in exchange for Harry. When Harry willingly walks into Voldemort's camp in the Forbidden Forest, Voldemort strikes him down with the Elder Wand. However, the use of Harry's blood to resurrect Voldemort's body proves to be a major setback: while Harry's blood runs in Voldemort's veins, Harry cannot be killed as his mother's protection lives on now in Voldemort too. Instead, Voldemort destroys the part of his own soul that resides in Harry's body. Voldemort forces Rubeus Hagrid to carry Harry's apparently lifeless body back to the castle as a trophy, sparking another battle during which Nagini, his last Horcrux, is destroyed by Neville Longbottom. The battle then moves into the Great Hall, where Voldemort fights Minerva McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Horace Slughorn simultaneously. Harry then reveals himself and explains to Voldemort that Draco became the true master of the Elder Wand when he disarmed Dumbledore; Harry, in turn, won the wand's allegiance when he took Draco's wand. Refusing to believe this, Voldemort casts the Killing Curse with the Elder Wand while Harry uses a Disarming Charm with Draco's, but the Elder Wand refuses to kill its master and the spell rebounds on Voldemort who, with all of his Horcruxes destroyed, finally dies. His body is laid in a different chamber from all the others who died battling him.
Rowling stated that after his death, Voldemort is forced to exist in the stunted infant-like form that Harry sees in the King's Cross-like Limbo after his confrontation with Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest. Rowling also mentioned that, despite his extreme fear of death, he cannot become a ghost.
Appearances in other material
In Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, it is revealed that Bellatrix gave birth to Voldemort's daughter Delphi in Malfoy Manor before the Battle of Hogwarts. Twenty-two years later, Delphi poses as Cedric's cousin and manipulates Harry and Ginny's second son Albus Severus Potter and his friend, Draco and Astoria Greengrass's son Scorpius Malfoy, into stealing a prototype Time Turner with which she hopes to resurrect her father. Using the Time Turner, Scorpius accidentally creates an alternative timeline where Voldemort killed Harry at the battle and now rules the wizarding world. In an attempt to achieve this future, Delphi travels to Godric's Hollow on the night Voldemort killed Harry's parents, hoping to avert the prophecy that led to her father's downfall. After receiving a message from his son, Harry, together with Ron, Hermione and Draco (who by now has become friends with Harry after they join forces to save their respective sons) transfigures himself into Voldemort so that he can distract Delphi, allowing them to overpower her. The real Voldemort kills Harry's parents as prophesied, and Delphi is sent to Azkaban.
Portrayals within films
Voldemort appears in every Harry Potter film, with the exception of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Several actors have portrayed him in his varying incarnations and ages.
In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Voldemort's manifestation is as a face on the back of Quirrell's head, an effect achieved by computer generated imagery. Ian Hart, the actor who played Quirrell in the same film, provided the voice and the facial source for this character. Voldemort also appears in a scene in the Forbidden Forest where he is seen drinking the blood of a unicorn. As Voldemort's face was altered enough by CG work, and Hart's voice was affected enough, there was no confusion by Hart's playing of the two roles. In that film, he was also shown in a flashback sequence when he arrived at the home of James and Lily Potter to kill them. In this scene Voldemort is played by Richard Bremmer, though his face is never seen. His next appearance would be in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as the 16-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle (portrayed by Christian Coulson).
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort is initially only heard, possessing the scratchy, weak voice heard in the first film. By the film's climax, however, he appears in his physical form for the first time, played by Ralph Fiennes. As in the book, Voldemort is shown clad in dark black robes, being tall and emaciated, with no hair and yellowish teeth; his wand has a white tone and the handle appears to be made of bone; his finger nails are long and pale blue while his toe nails appear to be infected. Unlike in the book, his pupils are not cat-like and his eyes are blue, because producer David Heyman felt that his evil would not be able to be seen and would not fill the audience with fear (his eyes do briefly take on a snake-like appearance when he opens them after turning human, but quickly turn normal). As in the book, the film version of Voldemort has snake-like slit nostrils with the flesh of his nose significantly pressed back. Ralph Fiennes' nose was not covered in makeup on the set, but was digitally removed in post-production. In this first appearance, Voldemort also has a forked tongue, but this element was removed for the subsequent films.
Fiennes stated that he had two weeks to shoot the climactic showdown scene where he is gloating over a terrified Harry, played by Daniel Radcliffe. Fiennes said with a chuckle: "I have no doubt children will be afraid of me now if they weren't before." In preparation, he read the novel Goblet of Fire, but jokingly conceded: "I was only interested in my scene, and I had to go through thousands and thousands of other scenes which I did, dutifully, until I got to my scene and I read it many, many, many, many, many times and that was my research." Fiennes reprised his role as Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2.
Fiennes's nephew, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, portrayed Tom Riddle as a child in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. By the time filming arrived Christian Coulson was 29, and not considered suitable to return as the adolescent Riddle. Thomas James Longley was originally scheduled to take over the role, but last minute renegotiations saw Frank Dillane cast instead.
Characterisation
Outward appearance
After he regains his body in the fourth book, Rowling describes Voldemort as having pale skin, a chalk-white, skull-like face, snake-like slits for nostrils, red eyes and cat-like slits for pupils, a skeletally thin body and long, thin hands with unnaturally long fingers. As mentioned in the first chapter of the seventh book, he also has no hair or lips. Earlier in life, as seen through flashbacks contained in the second and sixth books, Tom Marvolo Riddle was handsome and tall with pale skin, jet black hair, and dark brown eyes. He could charm many people with his looks. The transformation into his monstrous state is believed to have been the result of creating his Horcruxes and becoming less human as he continued to divide his soul. In the films, Voldemort's eyes are blue with round pupils.
Personality
Rowling described Voldemort as "the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years". She elaborated that he is a "raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering", and whose only ambition in life is to become all-powerful and immortal. He is also a sadist who hurts and murders people—especially Muggles—for his own amusement. He has no conscience, feels no remorse or empathy, and does not recognise the worth and humanity of anybody except himself.
He feels no need for human companionship or friendship, and cannot comprehend love or affection for another. He believes he is superior to everyone around him, to the point that he frequently refers to himself in the third person as "Lord Voldemort". Rowling also stated that Voldemort is "incredibly power hungry. Racist, really", and that if Voldemort were to look into the Mirror of Erised, in which one sees one's greatest desire, he would see "Himself, all-powerful and eternal. That's what he wants."
Rowling also stated that Voldemort's conception by influence of Amortentia—a love potion administered by his mother, a witch named Merope Gaunt, to the Muggle Tom Riddle—is related to his inability to understand love; it is "a symbolic way of showing that he came from a loveless union—but of course, everything would have changed if Merope had survived and raised him herself and loved him. The enchantment under which Tom Riddle fathered Voldemort is important because it shows coercion, and there can't be many more prejudicial ways to enter the world than as the result of such a union".
Like most archetypical villains, Voldemort's arrogance leads to his downfall. He also suffers from a pathological fear of death, which he regards as a shameful and ignominious human weakness. According to Rowling, his Boggart would be his own corpse. Rowling also said that the difference between Harry and Voldemort is that Harry accepts mortality, and thus Harry is, in the end, stronger than his nemesis.
Magical abilities and skills
Rowling establishes Voldemort throughout the series as an extremely powerful, intelligent, and ruthless dark wizard, described as the greatest and most powerful Dark Wizard of all time. He is known as one of the greatest Legilimens in the world and a highly accomplished Occlumens; he can read minds and shield his own from penetration. Besides Dumbledore, he is also the only wizard ever known to be able to apparate silently. Voldemort was also said to fear one wizard alone, Dumbledore.
In the final book, Voldemort flies unsupported, something that amazes those who see it. Voldemort, like his ancestral family, the Gaunts, is a Parselmouth, meaning he can converse with serpents. This skill was inherited from his ancestor, Salazar Slytherin. The Gaunt family speak Parseltongue among themselves. This highly unusual trait may be preserved through inbreeding, a practice employed by the Gaunt Family to maintain their blood's purity. When Voldemort attempts to kill Harry his ability to speak Parseltongue is passed to Harry through the small bit of the former's soul. After that bit of soul is destroyed, Harry loses this ability. In a flashback in the sixth novel, Voldemort boasts to Dumbledore during a job interview that he has "pushed the boundaries of magic farther than they had ever before". Dumbledore states that Voldemort's knowledge of magic is more extensive than any wizard alive and that even Dumbledore's most powerful protective spells and charms would likely be insufficient if Voldemort returned to full power. Dumbledore also said that Voldemort was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen. Although Voldemort remains highly accomplished and prodigious in skill, he is enormously lacking and highly inept in the most powerful magic, love. This inability to love and trust others proves to be Voldemort's greatest weakness in the series. Voldemort initially voices scepticism that his own magic might not be the most powerful, but upon returning to power, he admits to his Death Eaters that he had overlooked the ancient and powerful magic which Lily Potter invoked and that would protect Harry from harm.
On her website, Rowling wrote that Voldemort's wand is made of yew, whose sap is poisonous and which symbolises death. It forms a deliberate contrast to Harry's wand, which is made of holly, which she chose because holly is alleged to repel evil.
Rowling establishes in the books that Voldemort is magically connected to Harry via Harry's forehead scar. He disembodies himself when his Killing Curse targeting Harry rebounds on him, leaving the scar on Harry's forehead. In the books, and to a lesser extent in the films, Harry's scar serves as an indicator of Voldemort's presence: it burns when the Dark Lord is near or when Voldemort is feeling murderous or exultant. According to Rowling, by attacking Harry when he was a baby Voldemort gave him "tools [that] no other wizard possessed—the scar and the ability it conferred, a magical window into Voldemort's mind".
Family
Notes: The names 'Thomas' and 'Mary' Riddle are taken from the films. The Potter Family is not shown.
Riddle family
The Riddle family, an old gentry family, consisted of Thomas and Mary Riddle and their son, Tom Riddle, Esq. They owned over half of the valley that the town of Little Hangleton lay in, and Thomas was the most prominent inhabitant of that town. They lived in a large house with fine gardens, but were unpopular amongst the local residents due to their snobbish attitudes. Tom, the only child of Thomas and Mary, was known as a playboy, his main interests being womanizing and horse-riding.
Rowling revealed in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that young Merope Gaunt fell in love with Riddle, peering at him through the windows and bushes at every opportunity. Merope's brother Morfin disapproved of his sister's affection for Tom and hexed him as he rode by, covering him in hives. This breach of wizarding law, and the ensuing violent struggle with Ministry of Magic officials, led to Marvolo and Morfin being imprisoned in Azkaban. As surmised by Dumbledore, once Merope was alone and no longer dominated by her father, she could make her move for Tom. She offered him a drink laced with a love potion, and he became infatuated with her; they soon eloped and, within three months of the marriage, Merope became pregnant. Merope decided to stop giving Tom the love potion, having come to the belief such enchantment of a man was tantamount to slavery. She also revealed her witch status to Tom, believing either that he had fallen in love with her on his own or he would at least stay for their unborn child. She was wrong, and Tom quickly left his pregnant wife and went home to his parents, claiming to have been "hoodwinked" and tricked into marrying Merope. Tom Marvolo Riddle, their son, was born on 31 December 1926 Merope died in childbirth, leaving the baby to grow up alone in an orphanage.
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, it is revealed that Voldemort murdered his father and grandparents, leaving himself the only surviving member of the Riddle family.
House of Gaunt
Most of the exposition of the House of Gaunts background occurs in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, through the medium of Dumbledore's Pensieve. The Gaunts were once a powerful and influential family, and are the last known descendants of Salazar Slytherin. However, a vein of mental instability and violence within the family, reinforced through cousin marriages intended to preserve the pureblood line, had reduced them to poverty and squalor, as shown in the Pensieve's "memory" that Harry and Dumbledore witnessed. Like Salazar Slytherin, the Gaunts spoke Parseltongue. At the time of the story, the Gaunts' only material asset is a ramshackle shanty in Little Hangleton, that stood in a thicket in a valley opposite the Riddle House. Like the Riddles, the Gaunts were also unpopular with the local residents, with a reputation for being vulgar and intimidating.
Marvolo Gaunt was the last family patriarch. He was sentenced to a short term in Azkaban for his and his son's assault upon a Ministry of Magic official; this affected his health and he died soon after returning home. His signet ring passed to his son, Morfin Gaunt, who was convicted of assaulting a Muggle, and later died in Azkaban, convicted this time as a party to the murder of Tom Riddle Jr. and Riddle's parents.
Dumbledore discovers the real culprit while visiting Morfin in Azkaban to gather information about Voldemort. After Dumbledore successfully extracts Morfin's memory of his encounter with his nephew, he tries to use the evidence to have Morfin released, but Morfin dies before the decision can be made. The House of Gaunt ended with Morfin's death.
Merope Gaunt () was the daughter of Marvolo, and sister of Morfin. Harry's first impression of her was that she looked "like the most defeated person he had ever seen". She married Tom Riddle Jr and became pregnant within three months of the wedding. It is suggested that she tricked her husband into loving her by using a love potion, but when she became pregnant, she chose to stop administering the potion. It is implied that Merope had grown tired of living the lie and thought that her husband might have grown to love her, or that he might have stayed for the sake of their unborn child; however, he left her. Desperate, Merope wandered through the streets of London. The only thing she had left was the heavy gold locket that had once belonged to Salazar Slytherin, one of her family's most treasured items, which she sold for a small amount. When she was due to give birth, she stumbled into a Muggle orphanage, where she gave birth to her only son. She died within the next hour.
Gormlaith Gaunt was a 17th-century descendant of Salazar Slytherin, and like Salazar, a Parselmouth. Her wand was that which once belonged to Salazar himself. Educated at Hogwarts, Gormlaith lived in Ireland in the early 1600s. In about 1608, Gormlaith killed her estranged unnamed sister, and her sister's husband, William Sayre (a descendant of the Irish witch Morrigan), and kidnapped their five-year-old daughter, Isolt Sayre, raising her in the neighbouring valley of Coomcallee, or "Hag's Glen", because she felt that her parents' association with Muggles would badly influence Isolt. Fanatical and cruel, Gormlaith used Dark magic to isolate Isolt from others, forbade her a wand, and did not allow her to attend Hogwarts as she herself had, disgusted that it was now filled with Muggle-borns. After twelve years with Gormlaith, Isolt stole Gormlaith's wand and fled to the Colonies and settled in Massachusetts, where she founded the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When Gormlaith learned of the school, she pursued her niece in Massachusetts, where she was killed by Isolt's friend, William the Pukwudgie, with a venom-tipped arrow.
The Gaunts, including Voldemort, are distantly related to Harry because they are descendants of the Peverell brothers.
Reception
Several people have drawn a parallel between Voldemort and some politicians. Rowling has said that Voldemort was "a sort of" Adolf Hitler, and that there is some parallel with Nazism in her books. Rowling also compared Voldemort to Joseph Stalin. Alfonso Cuarón, director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban compared Voldemort to George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein, who he said "...have selfish interests and are very much in love with power. Also, a disregard for the environment. A love for manipulating people." Andrew Slack and the Harry Potter Alliance compare media consolidation in the US to Voldemort's regime in Deathly Hallows and its control over the Daily Prophet and other media saying that "Once Voldemort took over every form of media in the wizarding world, Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix formed an independent media movement called 'Potterwatch'. Now the HP Alliance and Wizard Rock have come together to fight for a Potterwatch movement in the real world to fight back against Big VoldeMedia from further pushing out local and foreign news, minority representation, and the right to a Free Press." Julia Turner of Slate Magazine also noted similarities between the events of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the War on Terror. She said that Voldemort commits acts of terrorism such as destroying bridges, murdering innocents, and forcing children to kill their elders.
Voldemort has also been compared with other characters within fiction, for example Sauron from The Lord of the Rings; they are, during the time when the main plot takes place, seeking to recover their lost power after having been considered dead or at least no longer a threat, and are also so feared that they are sometimes unnamed.
IGN listed Voldemort as their seventh favourite Harry Potter character, calling him "truly frightening".
In popular culture
Several campaigns have used Voldemort to compare his evil to the influence of politicians, large media and corporations. "Lord Voldemort" is a nickname sometimes used for Peter Mandelson. Voldemort is also a recurring theme among wizard rock bands. Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock! is the second album from Harry and the Potters, and the character is mentioned in songs such as "The Dark Lord Lament" and "Flesh, Blood, and Bone".
Voldemort has been parodied in various venues. In The Simpsons 13th season's premiere, "Treehouse of Horror XII", Montgomery Burns appears as "Lord Montymort". A parody of Voldemort appears in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as "Lord Moldybutt", an enemy of Nigel Planter (a parody of Harry). Voldemort also appears in the Potter Puppet Pals sketches by Neil Cicierega. One of the episodes including him was the seventeenth most viewed video of all time as of 2008 and the winner for "Best Comedy" of the year 2007 at YouTube.
"Continuing the Magic", an article in the 21 May 2007 issue of Time, includes mock book covers designed by author Lon Tweeten, laced with pop culture references. One of them, the "Dark Lord of the Dance", shows Voldemort teaming up with Harry on Broadway. In the MAD Magazine parodies of the films, the character is called Lord Druckermort, a backwards reference to the magazine's longtime caricaturist Mort Drucker. In Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1969, a young Tom Marvolo Riddle (introduced as "Tom", whose middle name is a "marvel" and last name is a "conundrum") appears, and becomes the new avatar of Oliver Haddo at the story's conclusion. In A Very Potter Musical, Voldemort is played by actor Joe Walker.
In a segment celebrating British children's literature at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London, an inflatable Voldemort appeared alongside other villains, The Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook, and Cruella de Vil, to haunt children's dreams, before the arrival of a group of over thirty Mary Poppins who descended with their umbrellas to defeat them.
During the 2016 United States elections, Daniel Radcliffe was asked by Sky News journalist Craig Dillon if he would compare Donald Trump to Lord Voldemort; Radcliffe responded, "Trump is worse".
Voldemort appears in The Lego Batman Movie as one of the prisoners in the Phantom Zone that Joker recruits to take over Gotham City. Though Ralph Fiennes is featured in this movie as the voice of the British butler Alfred Pennyworth, he does not reprise his role as Voldemort. Instead, Voldemort is voiced by Eddie Izzard.
Outside of the Harry Potter video games, Voldemort is also a playable character in Lego Dimensions, with archive audio of Fiennes' portrayal in the films used for his voiceovers.
A 2018 Italian fan film titled Voldemort: Origins of the Heir depicts the story of Tom Riddle's rise to power.
Voldemort appears in Space Jam: A New Legacy, in the crowd for the game between the Tune Squad and the Goon Squad.
An upcoming French fan-made short-film titled The House of Gaunt - Lord Voldemort Origins explores the origin story of Voldemort and The Gaunt family.
Notes
References
External links
Lord Voldemort at Harry Potter Lexicon
Fictional characters with disfigurements
Fictional characters with immortality
Fictional characters with spirit possession or body swapping abilities
Fictional dictators
Fictional English people
Fictional hypnotists and indoctrinators
Fictional illeists
Fictional mass murderers
Fictional necromancers
Fictional offspring of rape
Fictional patricides
Fictional terrorists
Fictional torturers
Harry Potter characters
Literary characters introduced in 1997
Male film villains
Male literary villains
Orphan characters in film
Orphan characters in literature
Psychopathy in fiction
Film supervillains | true | [
"Aichmophobia () is a kind of specific phobia, the morbid fear of sharp things, such as triangles, stars, squares, pencils, needles, knives, darts, prickly plants (thistles) (weeds), cactus trees, pine needles, broken glass, broken porcelain, sharp pieces of wood, a pointing finger, or even hexagons, or even the sharp end of an umbrella and different sorts of protruding corners or sharp edges in furnitures and building constructions/materials. It is derived from the Greek aichmē (point) and phobos (fear). This fear may also be referred to as belonephobia or enetophobia.\n\nSometimes this general term is used to refer to what is more specifically called fear of needles, or needle phobia (trypanophobia). Fear of needles is the extreme and irrational fear of medical procedures involving injections or hypodermic needles.\n\nNot to be confused with similar condition (Avoidance behavior) the Visual looming syndrome, where the patient does not fear sharp items, but feels pain or discomfort at gazing upon sharp objects nearby.\n\nSee also \n Psychosocial treatment of needle phobia in children\n Visual looming syndrome\n\nReferences \n\nPhobias",
"A one-bit message is a type of communication that has no personalized or specified content, and as such transmits only a single binary bit of information. It signals an intent and a thought, but does not specify what it is. Marc Andreessen describes \"one-bit communication\" as having no content other than that it exists. Examples of one-bit messages in the real world include the sound of car horns, police sirens, and \"open\" signs. Telephone calls which are deliberately terminated before being answered are also an example of one-bit communication.\n\nIn probability\nOne-bit messages can be used to communicate the outcome of situations with two potential outcomes, such as a coin toss.\n\nOnline messaging\nIn the online world one bit messages solve a set of communication initiative problems:\n Fear of initiation: \"How should I kick off the conversation? It's a daunting task.\"\n Fear of rejection: \"What if the other person replies \"sorry, I'm in the middle of something\"?\"\n Fear of inconveniencing someone: \"A messenger shows that the other person is available, but maybe he is actually busy.\"\n Fear of being ignored: \"What if I message her, and she doesn't respond or goes offline immediately?\"\n Topic overload: \"So many topics to talk about, which one should I start with?\"\n Lack of topic: \"I simply want to say to my friend that I thought of her, without anything specific to say.\"\n Fear of a conversation of unpredictable length: \"I have time for a short chat, but how do I cut off if the conversation develops?\"\n Unwillingness to type: \"I'm on my mobile, and don't want to type\"\n Fear of follow-up: \"What if the person I message will want to meet? I don't want to meet him.\"\n\nThere are several platforms that enable sending one bit messages including Yo and the Facebook poke.\n\nReferences\n\nUnits of information"
] |
[
"Lord Voldemort",
"Character development",
"How did Voldemort's character begin?",
"Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first.",
"Why did rowling do that?",
"The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position",
"How else is voldemorts character developed?",
"When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then",
"And then what did he do?",
"and then he tried to kill Harry--he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And--so--but for some mysterious reason the curse",
"Can you tell me more about the curse?",
"for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard,",
"what happens to the evil wizard?",
"In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself.",
"does anything else happen with voldemort in later books?",
"Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: \"Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects,",
"how is he a bully?",
"She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as \"a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering\". In",
"what real life tyrants?",
"Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear:",
"what is voldemorts fear?",
"\"Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death.\""
] | C_7776d2fc9b234c23939513b312811d39_1 | How is voldemort seen by other characters? | 11 | How is Voldemort seen by other characters in the books? | Lord Voldemort | In a 2001 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry--he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And--so--but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since." In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death." Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. Some literary analysts have considered possible meanings in the name: Philip Nel states that Voldemort is derived from the French for "flight of death", and in a 2002 paper, Nilsen and Nilsen suggest that readers get a "creepy feeling" from the name Voldemort, because of the French word "mort" ("death") within it and that word's association with cognate English words derived from the Latin mors. CANNOTANSWER | Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him | Lord Voldemort (, in the films) is a sobriquet for Tom Marvolo Riddle, a character and the main antagonist in J. K. Rowling's series of Harry Potter novels. The character first appeared in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which was published in 1997, and returned either in person or in flashbacks in each book and its film adaptation in the series except the third, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in which he is only mentioned.
Voldemort is the archenemy of Harry Potter, who according to a prophecy has "the power to vanquish the Dark Lord". He attempts to murder the boy, but instead kills his parents, Lily and James Potter, and leaves Harry with a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. Nearly every witch or wizard dares not utter his name and refers to him instead with such monikers as "You-Know-Who", "He Who Must Not Be Named", or "the Dark Lord". Voldemort's obsession with blood purity signifies his aim to rid the wizarding world of Muggle (non-magical) heritage and to conquer both worlds, Muggle and wizarding, to achieve pure-blood dominance. Through his mother's family, he is the last descendant of the wizard Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He is the leader of the Death Eaters, a group of evil wizards and witches dedicated to ridding the Wizarding World of Muggles and establishing Voldemort as its supreme ruler.
Character development
In a 1999 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter, and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry—he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And—so—but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since."
In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death."
Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. The name Voldemort is derived from the French vol de mort which means "flight of death" or "theft of death".
Appearances
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Voldemort makes his debut in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. In this story, Rowling introduces him as the Dark Lord who tried to kill Harry Potter because the boy was prophesied to destroy him. Voldemort murdered Harry's parents, James and Lily, but as a result of his mother's love and willingness to sacrifice herself for him, baby Harry survived when Voldemort tried to murder him with a Killing Curse. Voldemort was disembodied, and Harry was left with a mysterious, lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead as a result.
In the book, Voldemort unsuccessfully tries to regain his dissolved body by stealing the titular Philosopher's Stone. To achieve his objective, Voldemort uses Professor Quirrell's aid by latching onto the back of the latter's head. However, at the climax of the book, Harry manages to prevent Voldemort from stealing the stone.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
In the second instalment, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Rowling introduces Tom Marvolo Riddle, a manifestation of a teenage Voldemort that resides inside a magical diary found by Ginny Weasley. In this book, Ginny is written as a shy girl with a crush on Harry. Feeling anxious and lonely, she begins to write into the diary and shares her deepest fears with the sympathetic Tom. However, at the climax of the story, when Riddle rearranges the letters in his name to write "I am Lord Voldemort", Riddle is revealed as a magical manifestation of the boy who would later grow up to become the Dark Lord. Riddle states he has grown strong on Ginny's fears and eventually possesses her, using her as a pawn to unlock the Chamber of Secrets, whence a basilisk is set free and petrifies several Hogwarts students. Harry defeats the manifestation of Riddle from the diary and the basilisk. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Albus Dumbledore reveals to Harry that the diary was one of Voldemort's Horcruxes.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Voldemort does not appear in the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, either in person or as a magical manifestation. He is, however, heard when Harry passes out from the harsh effects of a Dementor. Towards the end of the story, Sybill Trelawney, the Divination professor, makes a rare genuine prophecy: "The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight, the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever before. Tonight... before midnight... the servant... will set out... to rejoin... his master..." Though it is initially implied that the prophecy refers to Sirius Black, the book's ostensible antagonist, the servant is eventually revealed to be Peter Pettigrew, who, for the 12 years since Voldemort's fall, has been disguised as Ron's pet rat, Scabbers.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
In the fourth instalment of the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort reappears at the start and the climax of the book. Rowling lets many seemingly unrelated plot elements fall into order. It is revealed that Voldemort's minion Barty Crouch Jr, disguised as Hogwarts professor Mad-Eye Moody, has manipulated the events of the Triwizard Tournament in Harry's favour. Voldemort's goal is to teleport Harry under Dumbledore's watch as a reluctant participant to the Little Hangleton graveyard, where the Riddle family is buried. Harry is captured and, after Pettigrew uses Harry's blood to fulfil a gruesome magical ritual, Voldemort regains his body and is restored to his full power. For the first time in the series, Rowling describes his appearance: "tall and skeletally thin", with a face "whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was as flat as a snake's with slits for nostrils". Rowling writes that his "hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cat's, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness". It was revealed that, while in Albania, Pettigrew had captured the Ministry of Magic official Bertha Jorkins, who was tortured for information about the Ministry. After they learned that Barty Crouch Jr, a faithful Death Eater, had been smuggled out of Azkaban and was privately confined at his father's house, they killed her. With Pettigrew's help, Voldemort creates a small, rudimentary body, corporeal enough to travel and perform magic, and formulated a plan to restore his own body by capturing Harry. A portion of the plan had been overheard by Frank Bryce, a gardener, whom Voldemort then killed. Voldemort then completes his plan and returns to life in his full body as a result of the ritual with Harry's blood. He then summons his Death Eaters to the graveyard to witness the death of Harry as he challenges Harry to a duel. However, when Voldemort duels Harry, their wands become magically locked together due to the twin Phoenix feather cores of the wands. Because of a phenomenon later revealed as Priori Incantatem, ghost-like manifestations of Voldemort's most recent victims (including Harry's parents) then appear and distract Voldemort, allowing Harry just enough time to escape via Portkey with the body of fellow-student, Cedric Diggory, who was murdered by Pettigrew on Voldemort's orders.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Voldemort appears at the climax of the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, having again plotted against Harry. In this book, Harry goes through extreme emotional stress, and according to Rowling, it was necessary to prove that Harry is emotionally vulnerable and thus human, in contrast to his nemesis Voldemort, who is emotionally invulnerable and thus inhuman: "[Harry is] a very human hero, and this is, obviously, there's a contrast, between him, as a very human hero, and Voldemort, who has deliberately dehumanised himself. […] and Harry, therefore, did have to reach a point where he did almost break down." In this book, Voldemort makes liberal use of the Ministry of Magic's refusal to believe that he has returned. Voldemort engineers a plot to free Bellatrix Lestrange and other Death Eaters from Azkaban and then embarks on a scheme to retrieve the full record of a prophecy stored in the Department of Mysteries regarding Harry and himself. He sends a group of Death Eaters to retrieve the prophecy, where the Order of the Phoenix meets them. All but Bellatrix are captured, and Voldemort engages in a ferocious duel with Dumbledore. When Dumbledore gets the upper hand, Voldemort attempts to possess Harry but finds that he cannot; Harry is too full of that which Voldemort finds incomprehensible, and which he detests as weakness: love. Sensing that Dumbledore could win, Voldemort disapparates, but not before the Minister for Magic sees him in person, making his return to life public knowledge in the next book.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Voldemort does not appear in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, although his presence and actions are felt: he once again declares war, and begins to rise to power once more. He murders Amelia Bones of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and begins to target members of the Order of the Phoenix, including Emmeline Vance.
Rowling uses several chapters as exposition to establish Voldemort's backstory. In a series of flashbacks, using the pensieve as a plot device, she reveals that Voldemort was the son of the witch Merope Gaunt and a Muggle called Tom Riddle. Riddle abandoned Merope before their child's birth, soon after which Merope died. After living in an orphanage, young Riddle met Dumbledore, who told him he was a wizard and arranged for him to attend Hogwarts. Riddle was outwardly a model student, but was in reality a psychopath who took sadistic pleasure in using his powers to harm and control people. He eventually murdered his father and grandparents as revenge for abandoning him. The book also discusses Riddle's hatred of Muggles, his obsession with Horcruxes, and his desire to split his soul to achieve immortality. Rowling stated Voldemort's conception under the influence of a love potion symbolises the coercive circumstances under which he was brought into the world.
In the main plot of the book, Voldemort's next step is to engineer an assault on Hogwarts, and to kill Dumbledore. This is accomplished by Draco Malfoy, who arranges transportation of Death Eaters into Hogwarts by a pair of Vanishing Cabinets, which bypass the extensive protective enchantments placed around the school. The cabinets allow Voldemort's Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts, where battle commences and Dumbledore is cornered. Hogwarts professor (and re-doubled agent) Severus Snape uses the Killing Curse against Dumbledore when Draco could not force himself to do so.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort furthers his quest for ultimate power. He disposes of the Minister for Magic and replaces him with Pius Thicknesse, who is under the Imperius Curse. Establishing a totalitarian police state, he has Muggle-borns persecuted and arrested for "stealing magic" from the "pure blood" wizards. After failing to kill Harry with Draco's father Lucius Malfoy's borrowed wand (to avoid the effect of Priori Incantatem), he goes on a murderous search for the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand ever created, seeing it as the weapon he needs to overcome Harry's wand and make him truly invincible. He goes on a quest that takes him out of the country to Gregorovitch's wand shop, where he kills the old wandmaker. His journey also takes him to Nurmengard, the prison where Gellert Grindelwald is kept, and he kills Grindelwald as well. He finally locates the Elder Wand and steals it from Dumbledore's tomb.
Later, Voldemort finds out that Harry and his friends are hunting and destroying his Horcruxes when informed of their heist on the Lestranges' vault at Gringotts in search for Hufflepuff's Cup. After offering the occupants of Hogwarts mercy if they give up Harry, he assembles a large army and launches an invasion of the castle, where Harry is searching for Ravenclaw's Diadem. Voldemort orders his pet snake Nagini to execute Snape, believing it would make him the true master of the Elder Wand, since Snape killed Dumbledore. He then calls an hour's armistice, in exchange for Harry. When Harry willingly walks into Voldemort's camp in the Forbidden Forest, Voldemort strikes him down with the Elder Wand. However, the use of Harry's blood to resurrect Voldemort's body proves to be a major setback: while Harry's blood runs in Voldemort's veins, Harry cannot be killed as his mother's protection lives on now in Voldemort too. Instead, Voldemort destroys the part of his own soul that resides in Harry's body. Voldemort forces Rubeus Hagrid to carry Harry's apparently lifeless body back to the castle as a trophy, sparking another battle during which Nagini, his last Horcrux, is destroyed by Neville Longbottom. The battle then moves into the Great Hall, where Voldemort fights Minerva McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Horace Slughorn simultaneously. Harry then reveals himself and explains to Voldemort that Draco became the true master of the Elder Wand when he disarmed Dumbledore; Harry, in turn, won the wand's allegiance when he took Draco's wand. Refusing to believe this, Voldemort casts the Killing Curse with the Elder Wand while Harry uses a Disarming Charm with Draco's, but the Elder Wand refuses to kill its master and the spell rebounds on Voldemort who, with all of his Horcruxes destroyed, finally dies. His body is laid in a different chamber from all the others who died battling him.
Rowling stated that after his death, Voldemort is forced to exist in the stunted infant-like form that Harry sees in the King's Cross-like Limbo after his confrontation with Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest. Rowling also mentioned that, despite his extreme fear of death, he cannot become a ghost.
Appearances in other material
In Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, it is revealed that Bellatrix gave birth to Voldemort's daughter Delphi in Malfoy Manor before the Battle of Hogwarts. Twenty-two years later, Delphi poses as Cedric's cousin and manipulates Harry and Ginny's second son Albus Severus Potter and his friend, Draco and Astoria Greengrass's son Scorpius Malfoy, into stealing a prototype Time Turner with which she hopes to resurrect her father. Using the Time Turner, Scorpius accidentally creates an alternative timeline where Voldemort killed Harry at the battle and now rules the wizarding world. In an attempt to achieve this future, Delphi travels to Godric's Hollow on the night Voldemort killed Harry's parents, hoping to avert the prophecy that led to her father's downfall. After receiving a message from his son, Harry, together with Ron, Hermione and Draco (who by now has become friends with Harry after they join forces to save their respective sons) transfigures himself into Voldemort so that he can distract Delphi, allowing them to overpower her. The real Voldemort kills Harry's parents as prophesied, and Delphi is sent to Azkaban.
Portrayals within films
Voldemort appears in every Harry Potter film, with the exception of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Several actors have portrayed him in his varying incarnations and ages.
In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Voldemort's manifestation is as a face on the back of Quirrell's head, an effect achieved by computer generated imagery. Ian Hart, the actor who played Quirrell in the same film, provided the voice and the facial source for this character. Voldemort also appears in a scene in the Forbidden Forest where he is seen drinking the blood of a unicorn. As Voldemort's face was altered enough by CG work, and Hart's voice was affected enough, there was no confusion by Hart's playing of the two roles. In that film, he was also shown in a flashback sequence when he arrived at the home of James and Lily Potter to kill them. In this scene Voldemort is played by Richard Bremmer, though his face is never seen. His next appearance would be in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as the 16-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle (portrayed by Christian Coulson).
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort is initially only heard, possessing the scratchy, weak voice heard in the first film. By the film's climax, however, he appears in his physical form for the first time, played by Ralph Fiennes. As in the book, Voldemort is shown clad in dark black robes, being tall and emaciated, with no hair and yellowish teeth; his wand has a white tone and the handle appears to be made of bone; his finger nails are long and pale blue while his toe nails appear to be infected. Unlike in the book, his pupils are not cat-like and his eyes are blue, because producer David Heyman felt that his evil would not be able to be seen and would not fill the audience with fear (his eyes do briefly take on a snake-like appearance when he opens them after turning human, but quickly turn normal). As in the book, the film version of Voldemort has snake-like slit nostrils with the flesh of his nose significantly pressed back. Ralph Fiennes' nose was not covered in makeup on the set, but was digitally removed in post-production. In this first appearance, Voldemort also has a forked tongue, but this element was removed for the subsequent films.
Fiennes stated that he had two weeks to shoot the climactic showdown scene where he is gloating over a terrified Harry, played by Daniel Radcliffe. Fiennes said with a chuckle: "I have no doubt children will be afraid of me now if they weren't before." In preparation, he read the novel Goblet of Fire, but jokingly conceded: "I was only interested in my scene, and I had to go through thousands and thousands of other scenes which I did, dutifully, until I got to my scene and I read it many, many, many, many, many times and that was my research." Fiennes reprised his role as Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2.
Fiennes's nephew, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, portrayed Tom Riddle as a child in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. By the time filming arrived Christian Coulson was 29, and not considered suitable to return as the adolescent Riddle. Thomas James Longley was originally scheduled to take over the role, but last minute renegotiations saw Frank Dillane cast instead.
Characterisation
Outward appearance
After he regains his body in the fourth book, Rowling describes Voldemort as having pale skin, a chalk-white, skull-like face, snake-like slits for nostrils, red eyes and cat-like slits for pupils, a skeletally thin body and long, thin hands with unnaturally long fingers. As mentioned in the first chapter of the seventh book, he also has no hair or lips. Earlier in life, as seen through flashbacks contained in the second and sixth books, Tom Marvolo Riddle was handsome and tall with pale skin, jet black hair, and dark brown eyes. He could charm many people with his looks. The transformation into his monstrous state is believed to have been the result of creating his Horcruxes and becoming less human as he continued to divide his soul. In the films, Voldemort's eyes are blue with round pupils.
Personality
Rowling described Voldemort as "the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years". She elaborated that he is a "raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering", and whose only ambition in life is to become all-powerful and immortal. He is also a sadist who hurts and murders people—especially Muggles—for his own amusement. He has no conscience, feels no remorse or empathy, and does not recognise the worth and humanity of anybody except himself.
He feels no need for human companionship or friendship, and cannot comprehend love or affection for another. He believes he is superior to everyone around him, to the point that he frequently refers to himself in the third person as "Lord Voldemort". Rowling also stated that Voldemort is "incredibly power hungry. Racist, really", and that if Voldemort were to look into the Mirror of Erised, in which one sees one's greatest desire, he would see "Himself, all-powerful and eternal. That's what he wants."
Rowling also stated that Voldemort's conception by influence of Amortentia—a love potion administered by his mother, a witch named Merope Gaunt, to the Muggle Tom Riddle—is related to his inability to understand love; it is "a symbolic way of showing that he came from a loveless union—but of course, everything would have changed if Merope had survived and raised him herself and loved him. The enchantment under which Tom Riddle fathered Voldemort is important because it shows coercion, and there can't be many more prejudicial ways to enter the world than as the result of such a union".
Like most archetypical villains, Voldemort's arrogance leads to his downfall. He also suffers from a pathological fear of death, which he regards as a shameful and ignominious human weakness. According to Rowling, his Boggart would be his own corpse. Rowling also said that the difference between Harry and Voldemort is that Harry accepts mortality, and thus Harry is, in the end, stronger than his nemesis.
Magical abilities and skills
Rowling establishes Voldemort throughout the series as an extremely powerful, intelligent, and ruthless dark wizard, described as the greatest and most powerful Dark Wizard of all time. He is known as one of the greatest Legilimens in the world and a highly accomplished Occlumens; he can read minds and shield his own from penetration. Besides Dumbledore, he is also the only wizard ever known to be able to apparate silently. Voldemort was also said to fear one wizard alone, Dumbledore.
In the final book, Voldemort flies unsupported, something that amazes those who see it. Voldemort, like his ancestral family, the Gaunts, is a Parselmouth, meaning he can converse with serpents. This skill was inherited from his ancestor, Salazar Slytherin. The Gaunt family speak Parseltongue among themselves. This highly unusual trait may be preserved through inbreeding, a practice employed by the Gaunt Family to maintain their blood's purity. When Voldemort attempts to kill Harry his ability to speak Parseltongue is passed to Harry through the small bit of the former's soul. After that bit of soul is destroyed, Harry loses this ability. In a flashback in the sixth novel, Voldemort boasts to Dumbledore during a job interview that he has "pushed the boundaries of magic farther than they had ever before". Dumbledore states that Voldemort's knowledge of magic is more extensive than any wizard alive and that even Dumbledore's most powerful protective spells and charms would likely be insufficient if Voldemort returned to full power. Dumbledore also said that Voldemort was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen. Although Voldemort remains highly accomplished and prodigious in skill, he is enormously lacking and highly inept in the most powerful magic, love. This inability to love and trust others proves to be Voldemort's greatest weakness in the series. Voldemort initially voices scepticism that his own magic might not be the most powerful, but upon returning to power, he admits to his Death Eaters that he had overlooked the ancient and powerful magic which Lily Potter invoked and that would protect Harry from harm.
On her website, Rowling wrote that Voldemort's wand is made of yew, whose sap is poisonous and which symbolises death. It forms a deliberate contrast to Harry's wand, which is made of holly, which she chose because holly is alleged to repel evil.
Rowling establishes in the books that Voldemort is magically connected to Harry via Harry's forehead scar. He disembodies himself when his Killing Curse targeting Harry rebounds on him, leaving the scar on Harry's forehead. In the books, and to a lesser extent in the films, Harry's scar serves as an indicator of Voldemort's presence: it burns when the Dark Lord is near or when Voldemort is feeling murderous or exultant. According to Rowling, by attacking Harry when he was a baby Voldemort gave him "tools [that] no other wizard possessed—the scar and the ability it conferred, a magical window into Voldemort's mind".
Family
Notes: The names 'Thomas' and 'Mary' Riddle are taken from the films. The Potter Family is not shown.
Riddle family
The Riddle family, an old gentry family, consisted of Thomas and Mary Riddle and their son, Tom Riddle, Esq. They owned over half of the valley that the town of Little Hangleton lay in, and Thomas was the most prominent inhabitant of that town. They lived in a large house with fine gardens, but were unpopular amongst the local residents due to their snobbish attitudes. Tom, the only child of Thomas and Mary, was known as a playboy, his main interests being womanizing and horse-riding.
Rowling revealed in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that young Merope Gaunt fell in love with Riddle, peering at him through the windows and bushes at every opportunity. Merope's brother Morfin disapproved of his sister's affection for Tom and hexed him as he rode by, covering him in hives. This breach of wizarding law, and the ensuing violent struggle with Ministry of Magic officials, led to Marvolo and Morfin being imprisoned in Azkaban. As surmised by Dumbledore, once Merope was alone and no longer dominated by her father, she could make her move for Tom. She offered him a drink laced with a love potion, and he became infatuated with her; they soon eloped and, within three months of the marriage, Merope became pregnant. Merope decided to stop giving Tom the love potion, having come to the belief such enchantment of a man was tantamount to slavery. She also revealed her witch status to Tom, believing either that he had fallen in love with her on his own or he would at least stay for their unborn child. She was wrong, and Tom quickly left his pregnant wife and went home to his parents, claiming to have been "hoodwinked" and tricked into marrying Merope. Tom Marvolo Riddle, their son, was born on 31 December 1926 Merope died in childbirth, leaving the baby to grow up alone in an orphanage.
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, it is revealed that Voldemort murdered his father and grandparents, leaving himself the only surviving member of the Riddle family.
House of Gaunt
Most of the exposition of the House of Gaunts background occurs in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, through the medium of Dumbledore's Pensieve. The Gaunts were once a powerful and influential family, and are the last known descendants of Salazar Slytherin. However, a vein of mental instability and violence within the family, reinforced through cousin marriages intended to preserve the pureblood line, had reduced them to poverty and squalor, as shown in the Pensieve's "memory" that Harry and Dumbledore witnessed. Like Salazar Slytherin, the Gaunts spoke Parseltongue. At the time of the story, the Gaunts' only material asset is a ramshackle shanty in Little Hangleton, that stood in a thicket in a valley opposite the Riddle House. Like the Riddles, the Gaunts were also unpopular with the local residents, with a reputation for being vulgar and intimidating.
Marvolo Gaunt was the last family patriarch. He was sentenced to a short term in Azkaban for his and his son's assault upon a Ministry of Magic official; this affected his health and he died soon after returning home. His signet ring passed to his son, Morfin Gaunt, who was convicted of assaulting a Muggle, and later died in Azkaban, convicted this time as a party to the murder of Tom Riddle Jr. and Riddle's parents.
Dumbledore discovers the real culprit while visiting Morfin in Azkaban to gather information about Voldemort. After Dumbledore successfully extracts Morfin's memory of his encounter with his nephew, he tries to use the evidence to have Morfin released, but Morfin dies before the decision can be made. The House of Gaunt ended with Morfin's death.
Merope Gaunt () was the daughter of Marvolo, and sister of Morfin. Harry's first impression of her was that she looked "like the most defeated person he had ever seen". She married Tom Riddle Jr and became pregnant within three months of the wedding. It is suggested that she tricked her husband into loving her by using a love potion, but when she became pregnant, she chose to stop administering the potion. It is implied that Merope had grown tired of living the lie and thought that her husband might have grown to love her, or that he might have stayed for the sake of their unborn child; however, he left her. Desperate, Merope wandered through the streets of London. The only thing she had left was the heavy gold locket that had once belonged to Salazar Slytherin, one of her family's most treasured items, which she sold for a small amount. When she was due to give birth, she stumbled into a Muggle orphanage, where she gave birth to her only son. She died within the next hour.
Gormlaith Gaunt was a 17th-century descendant of Salazar Slytherin, and like Salazar, a Parselmouth. Her wand was that which once belonged to Salazar himself. Educated at Hogwarts, Gormlaith lived in Ireland in the early 1600s. In about 1608, Gormlaith killed her estranged unnamed sister, and her sister's husband, William Sayre (a descendant of the Irish witch Morrigan), and kidnapped their five-year-old daughter, Isolt Sayre, raising her in the neighbouring valley of Coomcallee, or "Hag's Glen", because she felt that her parents' association with Muggles would badly influence Isolt. Fanatical and cruel, Gormlaith used Dark magic to isolate Isolt from others, forbade her a wand, and did not allow her to attend Hogwarts as she herself had, disgusted that it was now filled with Muggle-borns. After twelve years with Gormlaith, Isolt stole Gormlaith's wand and fled to the Colonies and settled in Massachusetts, where she founded the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When Gormlaith learned of the school, she pursued her niece in Massachusetts, where she was killed by Isolt's friend, William the Pukwudgie, with a venom-tipped arrow.
The Gaunts, including Voldemort, are distantly related to Harry because they are descendants of the Peverell brothers.
Reception
Several people have drawn a parallel between Voldemort and some politicians. Rowling has said that Voldemort was "a sort of" Adolf Hitler, and that there is some parallel with Nazism in her books. Rowling also compared Voldemort to Joseph Stalin. Alfonso Cuarón, director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban compared Voldemort to George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein, who he said "...have selfish interests and are very much in love with power. Also, a disregard for the environment. A love for manipulating people." Andrew Slack and the Harry Potter Alliance compare media consolidation in the US to Voldemort's regime in Deathly Hallows and its control over the Daily Prophet and other media saying that "Once Voldemort took over every form of media in the wizarding world, Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix formed an independent media movement called 'Potterwatch'. Now the HP Alliance and Wizard Rock have come together to fight for a Potterwatch movement in the real world to fight back against Big VoldeMedia from further pushing out local and foreign news, minority representation, and the right to a Free Press." Julia Turner of Slate Magazine also noted similarities between the events of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the War on Terror. She said that Voldemort commits acts of terrorism such as destroying bridges, murdering innocents, and forcing children to kill their elders.
Voldemort has also been compared with other characters within fiction, for example Sauron from The Lord of the Rings; they are, during the time when the main plot takes place, seeking to recover their lost power after having been considered dead or at least no longer a threat, and are also so feared that they are sometimes unnamed.
IGN listed Voldemort as their seventh favourite Harry Potter character, calling him "truly frightening".
In popular culture
Several campaigns have used Voldemort to compare his evil to the influence of politicians, large media and corporations. "Lord Voldemort" is a nickname sometimes used for Peter Mandelson. Voldemort is also a recurring theme among wizard rock bands. Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock! is the second album from Harry and the Potters, and the character is mentioned in songs such as "The Dark Lord Lament" and "Flesh, Blood, and Bone".
Voldemort has been parodied in various venues. In The Simpsons 13th season's premiere, "Treehouse of Horror XII", Montgomery Burns appears as "Lord Montymort". A parody of Voldemort appears in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as "Lord Moldybutt", an enemy of Nigel Planter (a parody of Harry). Voldemort also appears in the Potter Puppet Pals sketches by Neil Cicierega. One of the episodes including him was the seventeenth most viewed video of all time as of 2008 and the winner for "Best Comedy" of the year 2007 at YouTube.
"Continuing the Magic", an article in the 21 May 2007 issue of Time, includes mock book covers designed by author Lon Tweeten, laced with pop culture references. One of them, the "Dark Lord of the Dance", shows Voldemort teaming up with Harry on Broadway. In the MAD Magazine parodies of the films, the character is called Lord Druckermort, a backwards reference to the magazine's longtime caricaturist Mort Drucker. In Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1969, a young Tom Marvolo Riddle (introduced as "Tom", whose middle name is a "marvel" and last name is a "conundrum") appears, and becomes the new avatar of Oliver Haddo at the story's conclusion. In A Very Potter Musical, Voldemort is played by actor Joe Walker.
In a segment celebrating British children's literature at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London, an inflatable Voldemort appeared alongside other villains, The Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook, and Cruella de Vil, to haunt children's dreams, before the arrival of a group of over thirty Mary Poppins who descended with their umbrellas to defeat them.
During the 2016 United States elections, Daniel Radcliffe was asked by Sky News journalist Craig Dillon if he would compare Donald Trump to Lord Voldemort; Radcliffe responded, "Trump is worse".
Voldemort appears in The Lego Batman Movie as one of the prisoners in the Phantom Zone that Joker recruits to take over Gotham City. Though Ralph Fiennes is featured in this movie as the voice of the British butler Alfred Pennyworth, he does not reprise his role as Voldemort. Instead, Voldemort is voiced by Eddie Izzard.
Outside of the Harry Potter video games, Voldemort is also a playable character in Lego Dimensions, with archive audio of Fiennes' portrayal in the films used for his voiceovers.
A 2018 Italian fan film titled Voldemort: Origins of the Heir depicts the story of Tom Riddle's rise to power.
Voldemort appears in Space Jam: A New Legacy, in the crowd for the game between the Tune Squad and the Goon Squad.
An upcoming French fan-made short-film titled The House of Gaunt - Lord Voldemort Origins explores the origin story of Voldemort and The Gaunt family.
Notes
References
External links
Lord Voldemort at Harry Potter Lexicon
Fictional characters with disfigurements
Fictional characters with immortality
Fictional characters with spirit possession or body swapping abilities
Fictional dictators
Fictional English people
Fictional hypnotists and indoctrinators
Fictional illeists
Fictional mass murderers
Fictional necromancers
Fictional offspring of rape
Fictional patricides
Fictional terrorists
Fictional torturers
Harry Potter characters
Literary characters introduced in 1997
Male film villains
Male literary villains
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Psychopathy in fiction
Film supervillains | true | [
"Bellatrix Lestrange () is a fictional character in the Harry Potter book series written by J. K. Rowling. She evolved from an unnamed periphery character in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire into a major antagonist in subsequent novels. In the final instalment of the story, Rowling established her as Lord Voldemort's \"last, best lieutenant\". Bellatrix was the first female Death Eater introduced in the books, and remained the only woman explicitly identified as such until Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.\n\nShe is portrayed by Helena Bonham Carter in four Harry Potter films, from Order of the Phoenix (2007) to Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011).\n\nName\n\nHer given name derives from Latin as the feminine form of the noun \"warrior\". Like many members of the Black family, Bellatrix is named after a celestial body or astronomic structure, in this case one of the brightest stars in the constellation Orion.\n\nBellatrix's name has been translated into other languages in a variety of ways. Many of the changes accentuate the evil nature of her character, such as the Dutch \"Bellatrix van Detta\".\n\nCharacter background\nBellatrix Black was born to Cygnus and Druella (Rosier) Black in 1951. \n\nBellatrix is related by blood and marriage to many characters in the novels (although in the fifth book it is specified that all pure-blood families are related to each other): she has two younger sisters, Narcissa and Andromeda, and is first cousin to Sirius. She married Rodolphus Lestrange after leaving Hogwarts \"because it was expected of her\" to marry a pure-blood. However, Rowling stated in an interview that Bellatrix truly loved Voldemort. Andromeda married a Muggle-born, Ted Tonks, and was subsequently disowned by the Blacks, whereas Narcissa, conversely, married Lucius Malfoy, heir of a wealthy pure-blood family; thus, Bellatrix is the aunt of both Nymphadora Tonks and Draco Malfoy, respectively. \n\nAt Hogwarts, she, along with her sisters, was sorted into Slytherin. It is suggested in the novels that, as a student, Bellatrix associated with a group of students – including Rodolphus Lestrange, Severus Snape, Avery, Evan Rosier and Wilkes – who nearly all became Death Eaters. It is assumed Bellatrix was at least initially drawn to Lord Voldemort because they both believe in an ideology that favors pure-blood wizards and witches over other members of the community. This elitism, shared by the Malfoy and Lestrange clans, was instilled in Bellatrix since childhood. The Black family motto, toujours pur (French for \"always pure\"), reflects this steadfast belief in blood purity. Bellatrix, her husband, and her brother-in-law, were active Death Eaters during Voldemort's rise to power, and evaded capture and suspicion until after the Dark Lord's downfall.\n\nAppearances\n\nHarry Potter and the Goblet of Fire\nIn this book, Rowling used Albus Dumbledore's Pensieve as a plot device to reveal that Bellatrix, rather than deserting her leader like many other Death Eaters, was part of the group of dark wizards – along with Rodolphus, Rabastan, and Barty Crouch Jr – that tortured well-known aurors Frank and Alice Longbottom in an attempt to gain information about Voldemort's location. For using the Unforgivable Cruciatus Curse to torture the Longbottoms until they went insane, Bellatrix and her three associates were sentenced to life imprisonment in Azkaban. At her trial, Bellatrix proudly and defiantly proclaimed that Voldemort would rise again. Later in that book, during his rebirthing ritual, Voldemort stated that the Lestranges were amongst the most faithful members of his inner circle.\n\nHarry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix\nFourteen years after Voldemort's fall, Bellatrix was one of the many Death Eaters who escaped Azkaban and rejoined him. After escaping from prison, she was present at the Battle of the Department of Mysteries in the climax of the book, in which a group of Death Eaters attempted to steal Sybill Trelawney's prophecy pertaining to Voldemort's downfall. Rowling let Bellatrix prove her magical prowess during the mission when she overpowered her niece Tonks and Kingsley Shacklebolt in one-on-one duels, killed her cousin Sirius by blasting him through the veil in the Death Chamber, and deflected one of Dumbledore's spells as she made her escape. Harry attempted to use the Cruciatus Curse on her in revenge for killing Sirius, but the curse was ineffective due to the lack of real cruelty behind it. Before she could do any more, Bellatrix was joined by her master, who ignored her warning that Dumbledore was in the building. Bellatrix was subdued by Dumbledore in the Ministry of Magic's Atrium while he duelled Voldemort. Voldemort interceded on Bellatrix's behalf, grabbing her and taking her with him as he Disapparated, though not before being glimpsed by Ministry officials.\n\nHarry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince\nAt the beginning of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Bellatrix attempts to keep Narcissa from confiding Draco's secret mission to Snape at Spinner's End. Rowling used the conversation between Snape and Bellatrix to imply that Voldemort is still furious at Bellatrix's failure in the previous book. That conversation also suggests that Bellatrix mistrusts Snape not only because of his low birth, but also for many valid questions about his loyalty to the Dark Lord. Snape surprises Bellatrix by replying to each of her arguments and by agreeing to create an Unbreakable Vow with Narcissa to assist Draco in his mission to kill Dumbledore. Later in the book, it is mentioned by Snape that Bellatrix had been teaching Occlumency to Draco, in an effort to aid him with his mission. In the film, she and Fenrir Greyback arrive at the Burrow, the Weasleys' home, and burn it down. Ginny Weasley and Harry chase after them, with Bellatrix taunting them over her murder of Sirius.\n\nHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows\nThe first chapter of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows implies that Voldemort is still angry with Bellatrix, as evidenced when he makes fun of the fact that her niece Tonks married werewolf Remus Lupin. However, Voldemort gives Bellatrix a chance to \"prune\" her family tree during the Death Eaters' attempt to capture Harry as the boy departs from the Dursleys' home, during which Bellatrix unsuccessfully tries to kill Tonks. In this book, Rowling reveals that Bellatrix is the guardian of Helga Hufflepuff's cup (though she is unaware that it is a Horcrux), which Voldemort has entrusted the Lestranges to keep in their Gringotts vault. Bellatrix and the Malfoys detain Harry, Ron, and Hermione at Malfoy Manor, and Hermione is tortured by Bellatrix when she suspects the trio has broken into her vault, but Dobby appears and saves the prisoners, though not before being hit by a knife thrown by Bellatrix as they disapparate to safety. Later in the book, Harry, Ron, and Hermione use a stray hair of Bellatrix's to disguise Hermione as Bellatrix using Polyjuice Potion, in order to gain access to the Lestrange's Gringotts vault. Though Voldemort apparently punishes Bellatrix and the Malfoys severely for interrupting his Elder Wand side quest only to have Potter escape and steal the cup, she nevertheless fights for her master in the Battle of Hogwarts towards the end of the novel. When the battle resumes inside the Great Hall after Harry's supposed death, Bellatrix simultaneously duels with Hermione, Ginny, and Luna Lovegood, none of whom is a match for Bellatrix, who nearly hits Ginny with a Killing Curse. An enraged Molly Weasley engages Bellatrix in a duel and fires a curse that hits Bellatrix right over the heart, killing her. Rowling revealed that, though there was speculation that Neville would kill Bellatrix, she had always intended Molly to do so because the author wanted to match Bellatrix's obsessive love with Molly's maternal love.\n\nAppearances in other media\n\nHarry Potter and the Cursed Child\nIn this play, which takes place over 19 years after The Deathly Hallows, it is revealed that Bellatrix is the mother of the story's antagonist Delphini, whom she had with Lord Voldemort during their stay at Malfoy Manor prior to the Battle of Hogwarts.\n\nProduction\n\nActress Helen McCrory was originally cast as Bellatrix in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix but dropped out due to pregnancy and was replaced with Helena Bonham Carter. Coincidentally, McCrory was later cast as Bellatrix's sister Narcissa in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, during the filming of which Bonham Carter learned that she was pregnant. McCrory was also cast as Narcissa after Naomi Watts was unavailable for the role. Elizabeth Hurley was also reportedly linked to the role of Bellatrix at one point. While filming the scene in the Department of Mysteries in Order of the Phoenix, Bonham Carter accidentally ruptured the eardrum of Matthew Lewis, the actor who portrayed Neville Longbottom, with her wand.\n\nFamily\n\nBellatrix is a member of the Black Family and is the cousin of Sirius Black. Bellatrix is the daughter of Cygnus and Druella Black and sister to Andromeda (mother of Nymphadora Tonks) and Narcissa (mother of Draco Malfoy).\n\nReception\nIGN listed Bellatrix Lestrange as their tenth top Harry Potter character, and IGN's Joe Utichi listed Bellatrix as his fourth favourite Harry Potter character, calling her the \"most pitiable\" of Voldemort's servants. In NextMovie.com's Harry Potter Mega Poll, Bellatrix was voted as the No. 1 villain in the series. Helena Bonham Carter received much praise for her portrayal of the character. Famed horror author Stephen King was a fan of the character, and claimed that reading Molly Weasley calling the character \"a bitch\" in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was \"the most shocking bitch in recent fiction\" and showed how mature the books had become.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\nHarry Potter characters\nLiterary characters introduced in 2003\nFemale film villains\nFemale literary villains\nFictional British people\nFictional witches\nFictional torturers\nFictional murderers\nFictional female assassins\nFictional prison escapees\nFictional terrorists\nFictional henchmen\nFemale characters in film\nFemale characters in literature",
"Voldemort is a distributed data store that was designed as a key-value store used by LinkedIn for highly-scalable storage. It is named after the fictional Harry Potter villain Lord Voldemort.\n\nOverview\nVoldemort does not try to satisfy arbitrary relations and the ACID properties, but rather is a big, distributed, persistent hash table.\nA 2012 study comparing systems for storing application performance management data reported that Voldemort, Apache Cassandra, and HBase all offered linear scalability in most cases, with Voldemort having the lowest latency and Cassandra having the highest throughput.\n\nIn the parlance of Eric Brewer's CAP theorem, Voldemort is an AP type system.\n\nVoldemort's creator and primary corporate contributor, LinkedIn, has migrated all of their systems off of Voldemort as of approximately August 2018, with no replacement sponsor .\n\nProperties\nVoldemort uses in-memory caching to eliminate a separate caching tier. It has a storage layer that is possible to emulate. Voldemort reads and writes scale horizontally. The API decides data replication and placement and accommodates a wide range of application-specific strategies.\n\nThe Voldemort distributed data store supports pluggable placement strategies for distribution across data centers. Data is automatically replicated across servers. Data is partitioned meaning a single server contains only a portion of the total data. Each data node is independent to avoid central point of failure. Pluggable serialization allows rich keys and values including lists and tuples with named fields, as well as the integration with common serialisation frameworks such as Avro, Java Serialization, Protocol Buffers, and Thrift. Server failures are handled transparently. Data items are versioned, which maximizes data integrity.\n\nSee also\n\n Distributed data store\n NoSQL\n Riak\n Redis\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Project Voldemort - A distributed database\n Project Voldemort Real Time Discussions\n\nDistributed data stores\nLinkedIn software\nNoSQL\nMicrosoft free software\nSoftware using the Apache license\n2009 software"
] |
[
"Lord Voldemort",
"Character development",
"How did Voldemort's character begin?",
"Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first.",
"Why did rowling do that?",
"The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position",
"How else is voldemorts character developed?",
"When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then",
"And then what did he do?",
"and then he tried to kill Harry--he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And--so--but for some mysterious reason the curse",
"Can you tell me more about the curse?",
"for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard,",
"what happens to the evil wizard?",
"In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself.",
"does anything else happen with voldemort in later books?",
"Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: \"Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects,",
"how is he a bully?",
"She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as \"a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering\". In",
"what real life tyrants?",
"Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear:",
"what is voldemorts fear?",
"\"Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death.\"",
"How is voldemort seen by other characters?",
"Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him"
] | C_7776d2fc9b234c23939513b312811d39_1 | What do they refer to him as? | 12 | What do others refer to Voldemort as? | Lord Voldemort | In a 2001 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter (the protagonist of the novels), and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry--he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And--so--but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since." In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death." Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. Some literary analysts have considered possible meanings in the name: Philip Nel states that Voldemort is derived from the French for "flight of death", and in a 2002 paper, Nilsen and Nilsen suggest that readers get a "creepy feeling" from the name Voldemort, because of the French word "mort" ("death") within it and that word's association with cognate English words derived from the Latin mors. CANNOTANSWER | as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, | Lord Voldemort (, in the films) is a sobriquet for Tom Marvolo Riddle, a character and the main antagonist in J. K. Rowling's series of Harry Potter novels. The character first appeared in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which was published in 1997, and returned either in person or in flashbacks in each book and its film adaptation in the series except the third, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in which he is only mentioned.
Voldemort is the archenemy of Harry Potter, who according to a prophecy has "the power to vanquish the Dark Lord". He attempts to murder the boy, but instead kills his parents, Lily and James Potter, and leaves Harry with a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. Nearly every witch or wizard dares not utter his name and refers to him instead with such monikers as "You-Know-Who", "He Who Must Not Be Named", or "the Dark Lord". Voldemort's obsession with blood purity signifies his aim to rid the wizarding world of Muggle (non-magical) heritage and to conquer both worlds, Muggle and wizarding, to achieve pure-blood dominance. Through his mother's family, he is the last descendant of the wizard Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He is the leader of the Death Eaters, a group of evil wizards and witches dedicated to ridding the Wizarding World of Muggles and establishing Voldemort as its supreme ruler.
Character development
In a 1999 interview, Rowling said Voldemort was invented as a nemesis for Harry Potter, and she intentionally did not flesh out Voldemort's backstory at first. "The basic idea [was that Harry] didn't know he was a wizard ... And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. ... When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry—he tried to curse him. ... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And—so—but for some mysterious reason the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since."
In the second book, Rowling establishes that Voldemort hates non-pure-blood wizards, despite being a half-blood himself. In a 2000 interview with the BBC, Rowling described Voldemort as a self-hating bully: "Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does." In the same year, Rowling became more precise about Voldemort. She began to link him to real-life tyrants, describing him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering". In 2004, though, Rowling said that she did not base Voldemort on any real person. In 2006, Rowling told an interviewer that Voldemort at his core has a human fear: the fear of death. She said: "Voldemort's fear is death, ignominious death. I mean, he regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it's a shameful human weakness, as you know. His worst fear is death."
Throughout the series, Rowling establishes that Voldemort is so feared in the wizarding world that it is considered dangerous even to speak his name. Most characters in the novels refer to him as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" rather than say his name aloud. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a "taboo" spell is placed upon the name, such that Voldemort or his followers may trace anyone who utters it. By this means, his followers eventually find and capture Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In the second book, Rowling reveals that I am Lord Voldemort is an anagram of the character's birth name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. According to the author, Voldemort's name is an invented word. The name Voldemort is derived from the French vol de mort which means "flight of death" or "theft of death".
Appearances
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Voldemort makes his debut in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. In this story, Rowling introduces him as the Dark Lord who tried to kill Harry Potter because the boy was prophesied to destroy him. Voldemort murdered Harry's parents, James and Lily, but as a result of his mother's love and willingness to sacrifice herself for him, baby Harry survived when Voldemort tried to murder him with a Killing Curse. Voldemort was disembodied, and Harry was left with a mysterious, lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead as a result.
In the book, Voldemort unsuccessfully tries to regain his dissolved body by stealing the titular Philosopher's Stone. To achieve his objective, Voldemort uses Professor Quirrell's aid by latching onto the back of the latter's head. However, at the climax of the book, Harry manages to prevent Voldemort from stealing the stone.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
In the second instalment, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Rowling introduces Tom Marvolo Riddle, a manifestation of a teenage Voldemort that resides inside a magical diary found by Ginny Weasley. In this book, Ginny is written as a shy girl with a crush on Harry. Feeling anxious and lonely, she begins to write into the diary and shares her deepest fears with the sympathetic Tom. However, at the climax of the story, when Riddle rearranges the letters in his name to write "I am Lord Voldemort", Riddle is revealed as a magical manifestation of the boy who would later grow up to become the Dark Lord. Riddle states he has grown strong on Ginny's fears and eventually possesses her, using her as a pawn to unlock the Chamber of Secrets, whence a basilisk is set free and petrifies several Hogwarts students. Harry defeats the manifestation of Riddle from the diary and the basilisk. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Albus Dumbledore reveals to Harry that the diary was one of Voldemort's Horcruxes.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Voldemort does not appear in the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, either in person or as a magical manifestation. He is, however, heard when Harry passes out from the harsh effects of a Dementor. Towards the end of the story, Sybill Trelawney, the Divination professor, makes a rare genuine prophecy: "The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight, the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever before. Tonight... before midnight... the servant... will set out... to rejoin... his master..." Though it is initially implied that the prophecy refers to Sirius Black, the book's ostensible antagonist, the servant is eventually revealed to be Peter Pettigrew, who, for the 12 years since Voldemort's fall, has been disguised as Ron's pet rat, Scabbers.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
In the fourth instalment of the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort reappears at the start and the climax of the book. Rowling lets many seemingly unrelated plot elements fall into order. It is revealed that Voldemort's minion Barty Crouch Jr, disguised as Hogwarts professor Mad-Eye Moody, has manipulated the events of the Triwizard Tournament in Harry's favour. Voldemort's goal is to teleport Harry under Dumbledore's watch as a reluctant participant to the Little Hangleton graveyard, where the Riddle family is buried. Harry is captured and, after Pettigrew uses Harry's blood to fulfil a gruesome magical ritual, Voldemort regains his body and is restored to his full power. For the first time in the series, Rowling describes his appearance: "tall and skeletally thin", with a face "whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was as flat as a snake's with slits for nostrils". Rowling writes that his "hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cat's, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness". It was revealed that, while in Albania, Pettigrew had captured the Ministry of Magic official Bertha Jorkins, who was tortured for information about the Ministry. After they learned that Barty Crouch Jr, a faithful Death Eater, had been smuggled out of Azkaban and was privately confined at his father's house, they killed her. With Pettigrew's help, Voldemort creates a small, rudimentary body, corporeal enough to travel and perform magic, and formulated a plan to restore his own body by capturing Harry. A portion of the plan had been overheard by Frank Bryce, a gardener, whom Voldemort then killed. Voldemort then completes his plan and returns to life in his full body as a result of the ritual with Harry's blood. He then summons his Death Eaters to the graveyard to witness the death of Harry as he challenges Harry to a duel. However, when Voldemort duels Harry, their wands become magically locked together due to the twin Phoenix feather cores of the wands. Because of a phenomenon later revealed as Priori Incantatem, ghost-like manifestations of Voldemort's most recent victims (including Harry's parents) then appear and distract Voldemort, allowing Harry just enough time to escape via Portkey with the body of fellow-student, Cedric Diggory, who was murdered by Pettigrew on Voldemort's orders.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Voldemort appears at the climax of the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, having again plotted against Harry. In this book, Harry goes through extreme emotional stress, and according to Rowling, it was necessary to prove that Harry is emotionally vulnerable and thus human, in contrast to his nemesis Voldemort, who is emotionally invulnerable and thus inhuman: "[Harry is] a very human hero, and this is, obviously, there's a contrast, between him, as a very human hero, and Voldemort, who has deliberately dehumanised himself. […] and Harry, therefore, did have to reach a point where he did almost break down." In this book, Voldemort makes liberal use of the Ministry of Magic's refusal to believe that he has returned. Voldemort engineers a plot to free Bellatrix Lestrange and other Death Eaters from Azkaban and then embarks on a scheme to retrieve the full record of a prophecy stored in the Department of Mysteries regarding Harry and himself. He sends a group of Death Eaters to retrieve the prophecy, where the Order of the Phoenix meets them. All but Bellatrix are captured, and Voldemort engages in a ferocious duel with Dumbledore. When Dumbledore gets the upper hand, Voldemort attempts to possess Harry but finds that he cannot; Harry is too full of that which Voldemort finds incomprehensible, and which he detests as weakness: love. Sensing that Dumbledore could win, Voldemort disapparates, but not before the Minister for Magic sees him in person, making his return to life public knowledge in the next book.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Voldemort does not appear in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, although his presence and actions are felt: he once again declares war, and begins to rise to power once more. He murders Amelia Bones of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and begins to target members of the Order of the Phoenix, including Emmeline Vance.
Rowling uses several chapters as exposition to establish Voldemort's backstory. In a series of flashbacks, using the pensieve as a plot device, she reveals that Voldemort was the son of the witch Merope Gaunt and a Muggle called Tom Riddle. Riddle abandoned Merope before their child's birth, soon after which Merope died. After living in an orphanage, young Riddle met Dumbledore, who told him he was a wizard and arranged for him to attend Hogwarts. Riddle was outwardly a model student, but was in reality a psychopath who took sadistic pleasure in using his powers to harm and control people. He eventually murdered his father and grandparents as revenge for abandoning him. The book also discusses Riddle's hatred of Muggles, his obsession with Horcruxes, and his desire to split his soul to achieve immortality. Rowling stated Voldemort's conception under the influence of a love potion symbolises the coercive circumstances under which he was brought into the world.
In the main plot of the book, Voldemort's next step is to engineer an assault on Hogwarts, and to kill Dumbledore. This is accomplished by Draco Malfoy, who arranges transportation of Death Eaters into Hogwarts by a pair of Vanishing Cabinets, which bypass the extensive protective enchantments placed around the school. The cabinets allow Voldemort's Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts, where battle commences and Dumbledore is cornered. Hogwarts professor (and re-doubled agent) Severus Snape uses the Killing Curse against Dumbledore when Draco could not force himself to do so.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort furthers his quest for ultimate power. He disposes of the Minister for Magic and replaces him with Pius Thicknesse, who is under the Imperius Curse. Establishing a totalitarian police state, he has Muggle-borns persecuted and arrested for "stealing magic" from the "pure blood" wizards. After failing to kill Harry with Draco's father Lucius Malfoy's borrowed wand (to avoid the effect of Priori Incantatem), he goes on a murderous search for the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand ever created, seeing it as the weapon he needs to overcome Harry's wand and make him truly invincible. He goes on a quest that takes him out of the country to Gregorovitch's wand shop, where he kills the old wandmaker. His journey also takes him to Nurmengard, the prison where Gellert Grindelwald is kept, and he kills Grindelwald as well. He finally locates the Elder Wand and steals it from Dumbledore's tomb.
Later, Voldemort finds out that Harry and his friends are hunting and destroying his Horcruxes when informed of their heist on the Lestranges' vault at Gringotts in search for Hufflepuff's Cup. After offering the occupants of Hogwarts mercy if they give up Harry, he assembles a large army and launches an invasion of the castle, where Harry is searching for Ravenclaw's Diadem. Voldemort orders his pet snake Nagini to execute Snape, believing it would make him the true master of the Elder Wand, since Snape killed Dumbledore. He then calls an hour's armistice, in exchange for Harry. When Harry willingly walks into Voldemort's camp in the Forbidden Forest, Voldemort strikes him down with the Elder Wand. However, the use of Harry's blood to resurrect Voldemort's body proves to be a major setback: while Harry's blood runs in Voldemort's veins, Harry cannot be killed as his mother's protection lives on now in Voldemort too. Instead, Voldemort destroys the part of his own soul that resides in Harry's body. Voldemort forces Rubeus Hagrid to carry Harry's apparently lifeless body back to the castle as a trophy, sparking another battle during which Nagini, his last Horcrux, is destroyed by Neville Longbottom. The battle then moves into the Great Hall, where Voldemort fights Minerva McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Horace Slughorn simultaneously. Harry then reveals himself and explains to Voldemort that Draco became the true master of the Elder Wand when he disarmed Dumbledore; Harry, in turn, won the wand's allegiance when he took Draco's wand. Refusing to believe this, Voldemort casts the Killing Curse with the Elder Wand while Harry uses a Disarming Charm with Draco's, but the Elder Wand refuses to kill its master and the spell rebounds on Voldemort who, with all of his Horcruxes destroyed, finally dies. His body is laid in a different chamber from all the others who died battling him.
Rowling stated that after his death, Voldemort is forced to exist in the stunted infant-like form that Harry sees in the King's Cross-like Limbo after his confrontation with Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest. Rowling also mentioned that, despite his extreme fear of death, he cannot become a ghost.
Appearances in other material
In Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, it is revealed that Bellatrix gave birth to Voldemort's daughter Delphi in Malfoy Manor before the Battle of Hogwarts. Twenty-two years later, Delphi poses as Cedric's cousin and manipulates Harry and Ginny's second son Albus Severus Potter and his friend, Draco and Astoria Greengrass's son Scorpius Malfoy, into stealing a prototype Time Turner with which she hopes to resurrect her father. Using the Time Turner, Scorpius accidentally creates an alternative timeline where Voldemort killed Harry at the battle and now rules the wizarding world. In an attempt to achieve this future, Delphi travels to Godric's Hollow on the night Voldemort killed Harry's parents, hoping to avert the prophecy that led to her father's downfall. After receiving a message from his son, Harry, together with Ron, Hermione and Draco (who by now has become friends with Harry after they join forces to save their respective sons) transfigures himself into Voldemort so that he can distract Delphi, allowing them to overpower her. The real Voldemort kills Harry's parents as prophesied, and Delphi is sent to Azkaban.
Portrayals within films
Voldemort appears in every Harry Potter film, with the exception of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Several actors have portrayed him in his varying incarnations and ages.
In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Voldemort's manifestation is as a face on the back of Quirrell's head, an effect achieved by computer generated imagery. Ian Hart, the actor who played Quirrell in the same film, provided the voice and the facial source for this character. Voldemort also appears in a scene in the Forbidden Forest where he is seen drinking the blood of a unicorn. As Voldemort's face was altered enough by CG work, and Hart's voice was affected enough, there was no confusion by Hart's playing of the two roles. In that film, he was also shown in a flashback sequence when he arrived at the home of James and Lily Potter to kill them. In this scene Voldemort is played by Richard Bremmer, though his face is never seen. His next appearance would be in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as the 16-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle (portrayed by Christian Coulson).
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort is initially only heard, possessing the scratchy, weak voice heard in the first film. By the film's climax, however, he appears in his physical form for the first time, played by Ralph Fiennes. As in the book, Voldemort is shown clad in dark black robes, being tall and emaciated, with no hair and yellowish teeth; his wand has a white tone and the handle appears to be made of bone; his finger nails are long and pale blue while his toe nails appear to be infected. Unlike in the book, his pupils are not cat-like and his eyes are blue, because producer David Heyman felt that his evil would not be able to be seen and would not fill the audience with fear (his eyes do briefly take on a snake-like appearance when he opens them after turning human, but quickly turn normal). As in the book, the film version of Voldemort has snake-like slit nostrils with the flesh of his nose significantly pressed back. Ralph Fiennes' nose was not covered in makeup on the set, but was digitally removed in post-production. In this first appearance, Voldemort also has a forked tongue, but this element was removed for the subsequent films.
Fiennes stated that he had two weeks to shoot the climactic showdown scene where he is gloating over a terrified Harry, played by Daniel Radcliffe. Fiennes said with a chuckle: "I have no doubt children will be afraid of me now if they weren't before." In preparation, he read the novel Goblet of Fire, but jokingly conceded: "I was only interested in my scene, and I had to go through thousands and thousands of other scenes which I did, dutifully, until I got to my scene and I read it many, many, many, many, many times and that was my research." Fiennes reprised his role as Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2.
Fiennes's nephew, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, portrayed Tom Riddle as a child in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. By the time filming arrived Christian Coulson was 29, and not considered suitable to return as the adolescent Riddle. Thomas James Longley was originally scheduled to take over the role, but last minute renegotiations saw Frank Dillane cast instead.
Characterisation
Outward appearance
After he regains his body in the fourth book, Rowling describes Voldemort as having pale skin, a chalk-white, skull-like face, snake-like slits for nostrils, red eyes and cat-like slits for pupils, a skeletally thin body and long, thin hands with unnaturally long fingers. As mentioned in the first chapter of the seventh book, he also has no hair or lips. Earlier in life, as seen through flashbacks contained in the second and sixth books, Tom Marvolo Riddle was handsome and tall with pale skin, jet black hair, and dark brown eyes. He could charm many people with his looks. The transformation into his monstrous state is believed to have been the result of creating his Horcruxes and becoming less human as he continued to divide his soul. In the films, Voldemort's eyes are blue with round pupils.
Personality
Rowling described Voldemort as "the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years". She elaborated that he is a "raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering", and whose only ambition in life is to become all-powerful and immortal. He is also a sadist who hurts and murders people—especially Muggles—for his own amusement. He has no conscience, feels no remorse or empathy, and does not recognise the worth and humanity of anybody except himself.
He feels no need for human companionship or friendship, and cannot comprehend love or affection for another. He believes he is superior to everyone around him, to the point that he frequently refers to himself in the third person as "Lord Voldemort". Rowling also stated that Voldemort is "incredibly power hungry. Racist, really", and that if Voldemort were to look into the Mirror of Erised, in which one sees one's greatest desire, he would see "Himself, all-powerful and eternal. That's what he wants."
Rowling also stated that Voldemort's conception by influence of Amortentia—a love potion administered by his mother, a witch named Merope Gaunt, to the Muggle Tom Riddle—is related to his inability to understand love; it is "a symbolic way of showing that he came from a loveless union—but of course, everything would have changed if Merope had survived and raised him herself and loved him. The enchantment under which Tom Riddle fathered Voldemort is important because it shows coercion, and there can't be many more prejudicial ways to enter the world than as the result of such a union".
Like most archetypical villains, Voldemort's arrogance leads to his downfall. He also suffers from a pathological fear of death, which he regards as a shameful and ignominious human weakness. According to Rowling, his Boggart would be his own corpse. Rowling also said that the difference between Harry and Voldemort is that Harry accepts mortality, and thus Harry is, in the end, stronger than his nemesis.
Magical abilities and skills
Rowling establishes Voldemort throughout the series as an extremely powerful, intelligent, and ruthless dark wizard, described as the greatest and most powerful Dark Wizard of all time. He is known as one of the greatest Legilimens in the world and a highly accomplished Occlumens; he can read minds and shield his own from penetration. Besides Dumbledore, he is also the only wizard ever known to be able to apparate silently. Voldemort was also said to fear one wizard alone, Dumbledore.
In the final book, Voldemort flies unsupported, something that amazes those who see it. Voldemort, like his ancestral family, the Gaunts, is a Parselmouth, meaning he can converse with serpents. This skill was inherited from his ancestor, Salazar Slytherin. The Gaunt family speak Parseltongue among themselves. This highly unusual trait may be preserved through inbreeding, a practice employed by the Gaunt Family to maintain their blood's purity. When Voldemort attempts to kill Harry his ability to speak Parseltongue is passed to Harry through the small bit of the former's soul. After that bit of soul is destroyed, Harry loses this ability. In a flashback in the sixth novel, Voldemort boasts to Dumbledore during a job interview that he has "pushed the boundaries of magic farther than they had ever before". Dumbledore states that Voldemort's knowledge of magic is more extensive than any wizard alive and that even Dumbledore's most powerful protective spells and charms would likely be insufficient if Voldemort returned to full power. Dumbledore also said that Voldemort was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen. Although Voldemort remains highly accomplished and prodigious in skill, he is enormously lacking and highly inept in the most powerful magic, love. This inability to love and trust others proves to be Voldemort's greatest weakness in the series. Voldemort initially voices scepticism that his own magic might not be the most powerful, but upon returning to power, he admits to his Death Eaters that he had overlooked the ancient and powerful magic which Lily Potter invoked and that would protect Harry from harm.
On her website, Rowling wrote that Voldemort's wand is made of yew, whose sap is poisonous and which symbolises death. It forms a deliberate contrast to Harry's wand, which is made of holly, which she chose because holly is alleged to repel evil.
Rowling establishes in the books that Voldemort is magically connected to Harry via Harry's forehead scar. He disembodies himself when his Killing Curse targeting Harry rebounds on him, leaving the scar on Harry's forehead. In the books, and to a lesser extent in the films, Harry's scar serves as an indicator of Voldemort's presence: it burns when the Dark Lord is near or when Voldemort is feeling murderous or exultant. According to Rowling, by attacking Harry when he was a baby Voldemort gave him "tools [that] no other wizard possessed—the scar and the ability it conferred, a magical window into Voldemort's mind".
Family
Notes: The names 'Thomas' and 'Mary' Riddle are taken from the films. The Potter Family is not shown.
Riddle family
The Riddle family, an old gentry family, consisted of Thomas and Mary Riddle and their son, Tom Riddle, Esq. They owned over half of the valley that the town of Little Hangleton lay in, and Thomas was the most prominent inhabitant of that town. They lived in a large house with fine gardens, but were unpopular amongst the local residents due to their snobbish attitudes. Tom, the only child of Thomas and Mary, was known as a playboy, his main interests being womanizing and horse-riding.
Rowling revealed in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that young Merope Gaunt fell in love with Riddle, peering at him through the windows and bushes at every opportunity. Merope's brother Morfin disapproved of his sister's affection for Tom and hexed him as he rode by, covering him in hives. This breach of wizarding law, and the ensuing violent struggle with Ministry of Magic officials, led to Marvolo and Morfin being imprisoned in Azkaban. As surmised by Dumbledore, once Merope was alone and no longer dominated by her father, she could make her move for Tom. She offered him a drink laced with a love potion, and he became infatuated with her; they soon eloped and, within three months of the marriage, Merope became pregnant. Merope decided to stop giving Tom the love potion, having come to the belief such enchantment of a man was tantamount to slavery. She also revealed her witch status to Tom, believing either that he had fallen in love with her on his own or he would at least stay for their unborn child. She was wrong, and Tom quickly left his pregnant wife and went home to his parents, claiming to have been "hoodwinked" and tricked into marrying Merope. Tom Marvolo Riddle, their son, was born on 31 December 1926 Merope died in childbirth, leaving the baby to grow up alone in an orphanage.
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, it is revealed that Voldemort murdered his father and grandparents, leaving himself the only surviving member of the Riddle family.
House of Gaunt
Most of the exposition of the House of Gaunts background occurs in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, through the medium of Dumbledore's Pensieve. The Gaunts were once a powerful and influential family, and are the last known descendants of Salazar Slytherin. However, a vein of mental instability and violence within the family, reinforced through cousin marriages intended to preserve the pureblood line, had reduced them to poverty and squalor, as shown in the Pensieve's "memory" that Harry and Dumbledore witnessed. Like Salazar Slytherin, the Gaunts spoke Parseltongue. At the time of the story, the Gaunts' only material asset is a ramshackle shanty in Little Hangleton, that stood in a thicket in a valley opposite the Riddle House. Like the Riddles, the Gaunts were also unpopular with the local residents, with a reputation for being vulgar and intimidating.
Marvolo Gaunt was the last family patriarch. He was sentenced to a short term in Azkaban for his and his son's assault upon a Ministry of Magic official; this affected his health and he died soon after returning home. His signet ring passed to his son, Morfin Gaunt, who was convicted of assaulting a Muggle, and later died in Azkaban, convicted this time as a party to the murder of Tom Riddle Jr. and Riddle's parents.
Dumbledore discovers the real culprit while visiting Morfin in Azkaban to gather information about Voldemort. After Dumbledore successfully extracts Morfin's memory of his encounter with his nephew, he tries to use the evidence to have Morfin released, but Morfin dies before the decision can be made. The House of Gaunt ended with Morfin's death.
Merope Gaunt () was the daughter of Marvolo, and sister of Morfin. Harry's first impression of her was that she looked "like the most defeated person he had ever seen". She married Tom Riddle Jr and became pregnant within three months of the wedding. It is suggested that she tricked her husband into loving her by using a love potion, but when she became pregnant, she chose to stop administering the potion. It is implied that Merope had grown tired of living the lie and thought that her husband might have grown to love her, or that he might have stayed for the sake of their unborn child; however, he left her. Desperate, Merope wandered through the streets of London. The only thing she had left was the heavy gold locket that had once belonged to Salazar Slytherin, one of her family's most treasured items, which she sold for a small amount. When she was due to give birth, she stumbled into a Muggle orphanage, where she gave birth to her only son. She died within the next hour.
Gormlaith Gaunt was a 17th-century descendant of Salazar Slytherin, and like Salazar, a Parselmouth. Her wand was that which once belonged to Salazar himself. Educated at Hogwarts, Gormlaith lived in Ireland in the early 1600s. In about 1608, Gormlaith killed her estranged unnamed sister, and her sister's husband, William Sayre (a descendant of the Irish witch Morrigan), and kidnapped their five-year-old daughter, Isolt Sayre, raising her in the neighbouring valley of Coomcallee, or "Hag's Glen", because she felt that her parents' association with Muggles would badly influence Isolt. Fanatical and cruel, Gormlaith used Dark magic to isolate Isolt from others, forbade her a wand, and did not allow her to attend Hogwarts as she herself had, disgusted that it was now filled with Muggle-borns. After twelve years with Gormlaith, Isolt stole Gormlaith's wand and fled to the Colonies and settled in Massachusetts, where she founded the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When Gormlaith learned of the school, she pursued her niece in Massachusetts, where she was killed by Isolt's friend, William the Pukwudgie, with a venom-tipped arrow.
The Gaunts, including Voldemort, are distantly related to Harry because they are descendants of the Peverell brothers.
Reception
Several people have drawn a parallel between Voldemort and some politicians. Rowling has said that Voldemort was "a sort of" Adolf Hitler, and that there is some parallel with Nazism in her books. Rowling also compared Voldemort to Joseph Stalin. Alfonso Cuarón, director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban compared Voldemort to George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein, who he said "...have selfish interests and are very much in love with power. Also, a disregard for the environment. A love for manipulating people." Andrew Slack and the Harry Potter Alliance compare media consolidation in the US to Voldemort's regime in Deathly Hallows and its control over the Daily Prophet and other media saying that "Once Voldemort took over every form of media in the wizarding world, Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix formed an independent media movement called 'Potterwatch'. Now the HP Alliance and Wizard Rock have come together to fight for a Potterwatch movement in the real world to fight back against Big VoldeMedia from further pushing out local and foreign news, minority representation, and the right to a Free Press." Julia Turner of Slate Magazine also noted similarities between the events of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the War on Terror. She said that Voldemort commits acts of terrorism such as destroying bridges, murdering innocents, and forcing children to kill their elders.
Voldemort has also been compared with other characters within fiction, for example Sauron from The Lord of the Rings; they are, during the time when the main plot takes place, seeking to recover their lost power after having been considered dead or at least no longer a threat, and are also so feared that they are sometimes unnamed.
IGN listed Voldemort as their seventh favourite Harry Potter character, calling him "truly frightening".
In popular culture
Several campaigns have used Voldemort to compare his evil to the influence of politicians, large media and corporations. "Lord Voldemort" is a nickname sometimes used for Peter Mandelson. Voldemort is also a recurring theme among wizard rock bands. Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock! is the second album from Harry and the Potters, and the character is mentioned in songs such as "The Dark Lord Lament" and "Flesh, Blood, and Bone".
Voldemort has been parodied in various venues. In The Simpsons 13th season's premiere, "Treehouse of Horror XII", Montgomery Burns appears as "Lord Montymort". A parody of Voldemort appears in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as "Lord Moldybutt", an enemy of Nigel Planter (a parody of Harry). Voldemort also appears in the Potter Puppet Pals sketches by Neil Cicierega. One of the episodes including him was the seventeenth most viewed video of all time as of 2008 and the winner for "Best Comedy" of the year 2007 at YouTube.
"Continuing the Magic", an article in the 21 May 2007 issue of Time, includes mock book covers designed by author Lon Tweeten, laced with pop culture references. One of them, the "Dark Lord of the Dance", shows Voldemort teaming up with Harry on Broadway. In the MAD Magazine parodies of the films, the character is called Lord Druckermort, a backwards reference to the magazine's longtime caricaturist Mort Drucker. In Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1969, a young Tom Marvolo Riddle (introduced as "Tom", whose middle name is a "marvel" and last name is a "conundrum") appears, and becomes the new avatar of Oliver Haddo at the story's conclusion. In A Very Potter Musical, Voldemort is played by actor Joe Walker.
In a segment celebrating British children's literature at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London, an inflatable Voldemort appeared alongside other villains, The Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook, and Cruella de Vil, to haunt children's dreams, before the arrival of a group of over thirty Mary Poppins who descended with their umbrellas to defeat them.
During the 2016 United States elections, Daniel Radcliffe was asked by Sky News journalist Craig Dillon if he would compare Donald Trump to Lord Voldemort; Radcliffe responded, "Trump is worse".
Voldemort appears in The Lego Batman Movie as one of the prisoners in the Phantom Zone that Joker recruits to take over Gotham City. Though Ralph Fiennes is featured in this movie as the voice of the British butler Alfred Pennyworth, he does not reprise his role as Voldemort. Instead, Voldemort is voiced by Eddie Izzard.
Outside of the Harry Potter video games, Voldemort is also a playable character in Lego Dimensions, with archive audio of Fiennes' portrayal in the films used for his voiceovers.
A 2018 Italian fan film titled Voldemort: Origins of the Heir depicts the story of Tom Riddle's rise to power.
Voldemort appears in Space Jam: A New Legacy, in the crowd for the game between the Tune Squad and the Goon Squad.
An upcoming French fan-made short-film titled The House of Gaunt - Lord Voldemort Origins explores the origin story of Voldemort and The Gaunt family.
Notes
References
External links
Lord Voldemort at Harry Potter Lexicon
Fictional characters with disfigurements
Fictional characters with immortality
Fictional characters with spirit possession or body swapping abilities
Fictional dictators
Fictional English people
Fictional hypnotists and indoctrinators
Fictional illeists
Fictional mass murderers
Fictional necromancers
Fictional offspring of rape
Fictional patricides
Fictional terrorists
Fictional torturers
Harry Potter characters
Literary characters introduced in 1997
Male film villains
Male literary villains
Orphan characters in film
Orphan characters in literature
Psychopathy in fiction
Film supervillains | true | [
"Kilometer Zero (, translit. Nulevoy kilometr) is a film by Pavel Sanayev, released in Russia on October 25, 2007.\n\nPlot \nKostya and Oleg come to Moscow from Murmansk. Kostya dreams of becoming a professional music video director, Oleg is aiming high to a respectable capital citizen. They make friends and support each other, going, however, their own ways.\n\nBy chance, Oleg and Kostya meet Shepilov, a successful businessman. At a glance he sees Oleg is talented in talking people into doing what they do not need. Shepilov offers Oleg a job with a realty company. The trouble is that Kostya falls in love with Alina, Shepilov's former fiancée, who he still hopes to get back to love him.\n\nShepilov cancels Alina's performance that had to be the crucial one for her further career. However, Kostya makes a video for Alina that soon brings her a contract offer from London.\n\nNow Alina has got to make up her mind for either love or career as the contract forces her to make a break with Kostya. Kostya in his turn gets to choose whether to go to London with Alina or to accept a job offer from a well-known producer and achieve what he dreamed of. Oleg as well must decide what is more important to him — friendship or his respectable status.\n\nOleg finds out the business that made him turn away from his friend is spattered with blood. Oleg is in danger and Kostya is the only one to help him out. But both Kostya and Alina themselves are already chased after as they might witness against Shepilov. So now Kostya does not only have to save himself and the girl her loves, but also his friend who betrayed him.\n\nCast \n Svetlana Khodchenkova as Alina\n Alexander Lymarev as Kostya\n Konstantin Kryukov as Artur\n Ivan Zhidkov as Oleg\n Dmitry Nagiev as Sergey Borisovich\n Yuri Tsurilo as Bondarev\n Elena Sanayeva as Olga Sergeyevna\n Alexander Efimov as Shepilov\n Boris Tenin as Isaev\n Andrey Malakhov (cameo)\n Fedor Bondarchuk (cameo)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\n2007 films\nRussian films\nRussian-language films\nRussian thriller drama films\n2000s thriller drama films\n2007 drama films",
"Be Somebody is a 2016 romantic comedy film, directed by Joshua Caldwell. The film stars Vine blogger Matthew Espinosa as Jordan Jaye, a pop star who disappears from his own tour to escape his demanding mother.\n\nPlot \nJordan Jaye (Matthew Espinosa) is a teenage pop star on tour. While at a pit stop, Jordan gets off the bus, but the bus takes off before he can get back on. As he walks around town, he stops to take a look at a poster until a group of fans sees him and chases him. As he runs away, he bumps into Emily Lowe (Sarah Jeffery), who couldn't care less about Jordan and his status as a star, while she is delivering pizzas. \n\nJordan convinces Emily to give him a ride away. After Emily drives him away, Jordan convinces her to hide him for the night. Emily reluctantly agrees and the two hide out at a bowling ally until Emily's parents go to bed. Emily then sneaks Jordan into her room for the night.\n\nThe following day, Jordan convinces Emily to use her interest in art, and specifically her interest in street art, and share her designs with people by tagging the school. Before they go and do that, they bump into a former friend of Emily's, taking her down a notch. Then, as she has gotten through to her parents (thanks to Jordan), her parents convince them to have a sit-down meal together. Later, as they tag the school, the two bond over their feelings of not knowing what to do with their crafts and their futures.\n\nThey inspire one another to take charge of their own lives. Emily becomes inspired to apply to art school, he gives himself breaks off from his concerts, and in the end, he turns up in a tux and with a limo to accompany her to her prom.\n\nCast\nMatthew Espinosa as Jordan Jaye\nSarah Jeffery as Emily Lowe\nAllison Paige as Jessica\nTava Smiley as Mrs. Jaye\nLaMonica Garrett as Richard Lowe\nCaitlin Keats as Karen Lowe\nMahaley Patel as Kelsey\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nRotten Tomatoes\n\nAmerican romantic comedy films\n2016 romantic comedy films\nAmerican films"
] |
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