The Ongoing History of New Music, episode 1027: The history of Celtic rock

Anyone with a passing knowledge of rock is aware of its origins back in the late 1940s and early 1950s when blues, rhythm and blues, western, country, folk, and hillbilly traditions began to mix and match, eventually coalescing into what became known as “rock’n’roll.”

If you’re an alt-rock fan, you’ve heard the story of how all this began with the garage bands of the late 1960s and the punk rock explosion of the mid-70s,

The birth of modern electronic music? It has a rich and complicated origin story that stretches back to at least the 1940s before the technology was cheap enough for young musicians to give things a go in the 1970s.

Ska and reggae? Understanding those sounds and their enduring appeal requires a deep dive into Jamaican culture and politics.

Once we get to the 1980s, things really began to separate, segment, and stratify with the emergence of goth, industrial, punk-funk, hardcore dream pop, and all the various flavours of metal. The last time I check Spotify’s classification system, the platform had sorted music into more than 2,500 different genres. And that number keeps growing.

This program has looked at many of these origin stores—and it’s time that we did another one. If you’ve ever enjoyed a pint in a traditional pub, you’re going to love this. It’s the history of Celtic rock.

Songs heard on this program:

  • Dropkick Murphys, Shipping Up to Boston
  • Horselips, Furniture
  • Thin Lizzy, Whisky in the Jar
  • Runriug, Loch Lomond
  • Edward H. Dafis, Ty Haf
  • The Pogues, Boys from County Hell
  • The Skids, Into the Valley
  • Big Country, In a Big Country
  • Waterboys, Fisherman’s Blues
  • Sinead O’Connor I Am Stretched on Your Grave
  • Cruachan, Cuchulainn

Eric Wilhite has created this playlist.

 

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