Crossover (music)

From ArticleWorld

Crossover is a risky venture that some take in making new music. Even experimental stays within one or two related genre, but to crossover is to pull material from one non related genre and impose it into another. There are few that have done this and many of them have been great musicians.

Crossover as a revamp

In the early years of rock and roll, many songs originally recorded by African-American musicians were re-recorded or remixed by white rock and roll artists in a tonethat was consistent with the rock and roll style. The melody was copied but with lyrics that were more suitable to the new style.

This was popular with a much broader audience. White artists were also more likely to be included in the play lists of popular radio stations. These songs were successful with a different audience and were crossed from genre and audience to another, hence the name crossover.

Many others did this as well, but with classical music. To the audience, it was new music and was enjoyable, to the original composers of this material it was a form of rape of what they created. Not all felt this way, but here were some that grew to dislike this style of writing music.

True Crossover

Some of the rock and roll that was created in the 50s and the 60s used the concept of a genre rather than specific songs. This was to say that they drew from the playing style of classical themes, country ballads, or African-American tempo, and developed a melody that meshed that style with the new style. Sometimes this resulted in a new genre or subgenre of music.

The main challenge was to do this where the music stayed fluid and sounded good to the audience and didn’t lose sight to the theme of the prospective genre that this was destined for.