The Melody Web what each genre heard, and what it passed on

heard passed on Click or tap a node to recenter. Use a connecting line, or Influence, for the story.

Heard

Rebetiko genre · 1900–

Laïko takes rebetiko’s urban bouzouki-song job — strophic verse, café modes, hashish-to-heartbreak lyric — and recodes it as postwar mass popular song.

Influence

Laïko

genre · 1950–

Also called laïká, Greek popular song

Postwar Greek popular song: bouzouki, strophic verse, and a night-club public (Kazantzidis, Bithikotsis). It hears Rebetiko for the urban bouzouki-song job recoded as mass laïko. Empty extra Received/Given is historically checked: skyládiko and later laïko stay on this node. Entechno leftover as an art-popular sibling, not a parent. Greek folk leftover as a refused catch-all. Italian canzone leftover as a parallel popular-song craft, not a parent.

Listen

  1. To agoraki sou Stelios Kazantzidis (1960s)
  2. Ola kala Grigoris Bithikotsis (1960s)
  3. Ta paidia tou Piraia (later popular recoding) Greek popular repertory (1960)
  4. Laïko night-club repertory Athens skyládiko tradition (1970s–80s)
  5. Contemporary laïko Greek popular singers (1990s–)

Passed on

Nothing in the corpus yet that this genre passed on.

Rebetiko → Laïko

melodyinstrumentationfunction and contextstrength: highscholarly consensus1950–1970recordingoralradio

Mechanism

Laïko takes rebetiko’s urban bouzouki-song job — strophic verse, café modes, hashish-to-heartbreak lyric — and recodes it as postwar mass popular song. Strength high. Entechno leftover as an art-popular sibling, not this hop. Turkish makam leftover as rebetiko’s parent, not a second parent of laïko here.

Evidence

Kazantzidis- and Bithikotsis-era popular song keeping bouzouki and rebetiko dance types on the radio (Grove).

Debate

Whether laïko simply is cleaned-up rebetiko. The café/teké school is rebetiko’s; the named mass popular song is the recoding.

Mediators

artist: Stelios Kazantzidis; artist: Vassilis Tsitsanis