The music scene is thriving and significant. In 2010,
PRS for Music announced that Bristol is the 'most musical' city in the UK, based on the number of PRS members born in Bristol relative to its population. From the late 1970s onwards it was home to a crop of cultish bands combining punk, funk, dub and political consciousness, including
The Pop Group, close friends of The Cortinas, who led the city's punk scene from 1976. Bristol's premier fanzine from this time through until early 1978 was Loaded. It featured all of the Bristol bands as well as those who visited the city, some of whom were promoted by the magazine. Ten years later, Bristol was the birthplace of a type of English
hip-hop music called
trip hop or the Bristol Sound, epitomised in the work of artists such as
Tricky,
Portishead,
Smith & Mighty and
Massive Attack. It is also a stronghold of
drum and bass with notable bands like the Mercury Prize winning
Roni Size /Reprazent and
Kosheen as well as the pioneering
DJ Krust and
More Rockers. The
progressive house duo
Way Out West also hails from Bristol. This music is part of the wider Bristol Urban Culture scene which received international media attention in the 1990s and still thrives today. Other forms of popular music also thrive on the city's scene. In the 1980s the city gave birth to thrash metal band
Onslaught who became the first non-American thrash band to sign to a major label. Other notable rockers from Bristol include folk rock outfit
K-Passa, Stackridge, Act of Contrition, Chaos UK, Vice Squad,
Wushcatte, The Claytown Troupe,
Rita Lynch, Herb Garden,
Doreen Doreen,
The Seers,
Pigbag, and
The Blue Aeroplanes. More recently a new wave of Bristol-based bands have been promoting themselves across the UK underground, including
New Rhodes, Santa Dog, Tin Pan Gang, The Private Side, Big Joan, You and the Atom Bomb, Riot:Noise, Two Day Rule,
Alien Trash Bin, Osmium, Hacksaw, Bronze Age Fox and Legends De Early. There is also a left field / experimental music scene in Bristol, which has built on the tradition of Bristol bands like
The Pop Group,
Third Eye Foundation and
Crescent. These musicians are supported by record labels such as Invada, Farm Girl, Blood Red Sound and Super Fi, and promoters such as Qu Junktions, Illegal Seagull, Let the Bastards Grind, Noise Annoys and the, now defunct, Choke (music collective). Despite regular performances and the success of many of its members, this scene tends to be passed over in the national press' view of Bristol music which focuses on Trip Hop, which represents only one aspect of the city's musical culture. Active bands include
Gravenhurst (Warp), Team Brick (Invada), The Heads (Invada),
Gonga (Invada),
Joe Volk (Invada),
Fuck Buttons (ATP – now moved to London), Hunting Lodge (Yosada),
SJ Esau (
Anticon, Twisted Nerve),
Bronnt Industries Kapital (Static Caravan),
Zoon van snooK (
Lo Recordings,
Mush Records), Aut (Fällt), Geisha (Crucial Blast) and Defibrillators (Gravid Hands). Bristol was also a home to
post-rock music, with bands such as
Flying Saucer Attack and
Movietone. Bristol is home to many live music venues including the 2000-seat
Bristol Beacon, which can attract big names, the
Trinity Centre (a community-run converted Church in the Old Market area of Bristol), the
O2 Academy which is part of the national touring circuit for
rock bands, the Anson Rooms (part of the
University of Bristol Union), the Mothers Ruin,
The Thekla, Fiddler's, the Bristol Folk House, Start the Bus, the Hatchet, the Fleece, the Croft, the Cooler and the Louisiana. The city also has a popular jazz and blues scene with
The Old Duke pub being a popular venue for bands such as
Fortune Drive. Internationally recognised jazz and blues musicians active in Bristol include Eddie Martin,
Jim Blomfield and
Andy Sheppard. Other notable supporters of jazz include the
Bristol Jazz Society, the Be-Bop Club and the
East Bristol Jazz Club.
St George's Bristol, on
Brandon Hill, Bristol, is notable for its
jazz along with
classical and
world music performances. The International Classical Season at the Bristol Beacon features regular performances by the
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra as well as other leading British orchestras such as the
Philharmonia Orchestra and visiting orchestras from abroad, including the
Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra,
Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and
Berliner Symphoniker in the 2011–2012 season.
Bristol Choral Society also stages at least three concerts annually at the Colston Hall, as it has since its foundation in 1889. The
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and
Brodsky Quartet, among other internationally renowned ensembles, as well as local groups such as Bristol Bach Choir and the
Bristol Ensemble, regularly perform at
St George's Bristol, which also hosts
BBC Radio Three lunchtime concert series. Bristol University's
Victoria Rooms also have a seasonal programme of classical concerts, and other concerts are frequently staged at
Bristol Cathedral and various Bristol churches. ==Museums and galleries==