Sheffield’s vibrant cultural scene is impressive. It encompasses classical music and dance, theatre, and contemporary arts, but also casinos! In this city, we like Games to win money but not only… The city centre is home to various performance venues, from modern purpose-built theatres to large concert halls and churches. Sheffield has also given birth to many very talented musicians such as Joe Cocker or Arctic Monkeys.
Joe Cocker, the British Blues-Rock Singer Born in Sheffield
Joe Cocker was born in this urban town in South Yorkshire and the steel capital of Europe. In 1982, the singer of “You Can Leave Your Hat On” released a record called Sheffield Steel which paid homage to the South Yorkshire town of 600,000 inhabitants where he lived for more than 20 years. But he is not the only world-famous English musician from this city. It was in the 1980s that Sheffield’s music scene first emerged. With The Human League, ABC or Cabaret Voltaire, the city of Sheffield opened the voice of synthpop in 1980. Dance and electronic stammering mark the beginning of a decade marked by synthesisers, which appropriate musicians from the UK and worldwide.
The Pulp Group, Artists with Sweet and Bitter Candour
Another child prodigy from this dynamic city is the Pulp group. The group will be successful in the 90s. They were compared to “a bridge between Abba and The Fall”, artists with soft candour in their beginnings. Jarvis and his cronies show you what it was like to be a teenager in the 80s in Sheffield in the music video for “Babies”, a song released in 1993.
The Emergence of New Electronic Music in Sheffield
In 1989, the city saw the birth of the Warp Records label. The emergence of new electronic music in Sheffield, such as “Dextrous” by Nightmares On Wax. The label distinguished itself by its search for strange electronic sounds, quickly flirting with what would later be called post-rock. Also, the first signatures of Warp are Autechre, Aphex Twin or even Boards of Canada. Unfortunately, warp Records will permanently leave Sheffield to settle in London in 2000. Too bad for the city!
The Arctic Monkeys Celebrate Their 15 Years of Success
On January 23, 2006, four young boys from the north of England maddened the fans of the country with a first album in the form of “instant classic”. While the four from Sheffield are currently working on a seventh studio album, 2021 also celebrates the 15th anniversary of Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I’m Not, the group’s first record and the first blow of the impact. Internet. The affair was, however, badly embarked on. Wiping the refusals of many record companies, the Arctic Monkeys have created, without knowing it, a little notoriety online. Distributing their demonstrations for free at the exit after their concerts, the group quickly found itself shared on MySpace, the precursor of Facebook and a must-see site at the start of the millennium. Word of mouth works. Enough to catch the eye of Domino Records, who finally signed them, and to fill the 2000 places of the London Astoria. It’s 2005, and online promotion is still marginal, de facto making Alex Turner, Jamie Cook, Matt Helders, and Andy Nicholson genre precursors. They will be positively surprised by the result.
