Anadolu Rock
The 7 Best Anadolu Rock
Tracks of All Time
Istanbul at the end of the sixties, where a generation set Anatolian folk melodies and aşık poetry against fuzz guitar and Hammond organ — microtonal saz lines arranged for a rock band, and often pointed squarely at the state.
- Origin
- Istanbul, Turkey, 1968
- Tempo
- 90–150 BPM
- Also known as
- anatolian rock, turkish psych, anadolu pop
- Tracks
- 7
- Updated
- 2026-08-31
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Number 1: Erkin Koray / Estarabim
1974
From Elektronik Türküler, and the record that settles the argument. Koray built himself an electric saz because no guitar would give him the intervals he wanted.
Number 2: Moğollar / Ince İnce Bir Kar Yağar
1971
A folk song arranged with organ and a rhythm section that keeps threatening to become funk. Moğollar were the scene's most disciplined band and the most studied.
Number 3: Cem Karaca / Yuh Yuh
1977
Karaca sang about workers, migration and hunger until the 1980 coup made Turkey too dangerous for him and he left. The voice is enormous and entirely unornamented.
Number 4: Barış Manço / Dönence
1981
Manço became a children's television presenter, which has obscured what a strange composer he was. Nine minutes, and it earns every one of them.
Number 5: Selda Bağcan / Yaz Gazeteci Yaz
1976
"Write it down, journalist." Selda was imprisoned three times and had her passport confiscated; the fuzz bass on her records is as blunt as the lyrics.
Also on 1976
Number 6: Selda Bağcan / Cemalim
1975
A lament for a dead boy, over a bassline Mos Def later sampled. The clearest evidence that this scene's records travel without any explanation attached.
Number 7: Erkin Koray / Kendim Ettim Kendim Buldum
1973
Koray's guitar tone is filthier here than anything coming out of Britain the same year, and the melody is a straight Anatolian folk line. Both facts at once is the whole genre.