Brill Building | |
---|---|
![]() The Brill Building in 2006 | |
Stylistic origins | |
Cultural origins | Late 1950s – early 1960s, New York City |
Typical instruments | |
Derivative forms | |
Other topics | |
Brill Building (also known as Brill Building pop or the Brill Building sound)[1] is a subgenre of pop music[1] that took its name from the Brill Building in New York City, where numerous teams of professional songwriters penned material for girl groups and teen idols during the early 1960s.[2] The term has also become a metonym for the period in which those songwriting teams flourished.[7] In actuality, most hits of the mid-1950s and early 1960s were written elsewhere.[7]
The music conceived at the Brill Building was more sophisticated than other pop styles of the time, combining contemporary sounds with classic Tin Pan Alley songwriting.[1] Productions often featured orchestras and bands with large rhythm and guitar sections,[2] while lyrics focused on idealized romance and adolescent anxieties, only rarely exploring more mature themes.[8]
The genre dominated the American charts in the period between Elvis Presley's Army enlistment in 1958 and the onset of the British Invasion in 1964.[9] It declined thereafter, but demonstrated a continued influence on British and American pop and rock music in subsequent years.[2][3] The genre introduced the concept of professional songwriters to traditional pop and early rock and roll,[3] and helped to inspire the girl group craze of the era.[10] Other reasons for the style's decline was a tendency among writers and producers to duplicate earlier successes, resulting in many records that sounded the same, as well the changing nature of society and consumer markets.[11] Many of the genre's composers went on to further success as part of the singer-songwriter movement later in the 1960s and 1970s.[12]
1960s artists/songwriters
Later artists