36TURKISH ROCK & POP-ROCK
The mainstream rock generation that followed Anadolu rock — arena-scale, radio-shaped, still unmistakably Turkish
WHAT IT IS / WHEN
Where Anadolu rock fused folk and rock in the 1960s and 70s, the generation after 1990 wrote straightforward rock songs in Turkish for a mass audience. Private television and radio arrived in 1990 and created the market almost overnight. Şebnem Ferah came from the all-female metal band Volvox to become the country's biggest rock vocalist; Ogün Sanlısoy, Pinhani, Gripin and Kolpa built careers on the same circuit.
SIGNIFICANT ARTISTS
Şebnem Ferah, Ogün Sanlısoy, Pinhani, Gripin, Kolpa, Yüksek Sadakat, Vega, İkilem, Aylin Aslım, Koray Candemir (of Kargo), and Murat Kekilli, whose "Bu Akşam Ölürüm" is one of the most-covered Turkish songs of the era.
TRIVIA
Şebnem Ferah has written and produced most of her own catalogue and played the Harbiye open-air amphitheatre so consistently that the venue is effectively associated with her; she began in Volvox, an all-woman hard rock band formed in Yalova in the late 1980s when there was essentially no precedent for one in Turkey. Yüksek Sadakat represented Turkey at Eurovision in 2011.
SONIC SIGNATURE
Western rock instrumentation and song form, but melodies that keep the makam-derived contours of Turkish pop — minor with a lowered second, phrases that descend rather than resolve upward. Vocals are the focus and are recorded close and dry. Arrangements often add strings or a bağlama line in the bridge without changing the underlying rock structure.
KEY GEAR
Standard rock rigs — Gibson and Fender guitars, Marshall and Mesa amps — with Turkish studios by the late 1990s running the same Pro Tools and SSL chains as Europe. Bağlama, ney and darbuka appear as colour instruments rather than as the rhythmic basis.
RATIONALE & PRODUCTION
Produced for radio and television first: choruses arrive early, the vocal sits far forward, and the low end is kept tight so the mix survives broadcast compression. Istanbul studios adopted loudness-war mastering aggressively in the 2000s, and records from that decade are noticeably flatter than either the 1990s originals or the current indie wing.
TRACKS IN THIS GENRE
Each control plays a ten-second excerpt of the track, taken from its catalogue preview clip.
- Bu Şehirİkilem
- Hayat Tesadüflerle GülümserKayıp Efsanenin Tuhaf İzleri
- Hadi Beni GüldürOgün Sanlısoy
- Ben Nası Büyük Adam OlucamPinhani
- Böyle Ayrılık OlmazKolpa
- Beni Boş Yere YormaGripin
- Y.o.k.Çilekeş
- KafileYüksek Sadakat
- Senin GibiAylin Aslım
- Unutamam SeniMurat Kekilli
- İsim - ŞehirVega
- Bana Bir SorOgün Sanlısoy
- Ben de ÖzledimOgün Sanlısoy
- SaydımOgün Sanlısoy
- BugünŞebnem Ferah
- Kaybettik SeverkenOgün Sanlısoy
- Gel Öpem SeniMurat Kekilli
- AvaraMurat Kekilli
- İçini DökKoray Candemir
- Beni Yakan AşkınÖzlem Tekin
- Sen AnlaÖzlem Tekin
- Delinin YıldızıVega
- Beşgripin
- SakinleştimPinhani