Rock & Roll
Rock music is very complex. In fact "It's stylistic scope is to broad to be encompassed by any single definition (Romanowski, p.1)." The nearest definition suggests a kind of music that represents and speaks for the teenage society. This music is characterized by using a heavy beat. In this essay, I'm going to divide Rock music into four sections: Rock of the 50īs, of the 60īs, of the 70īs and of the 80īs. Within these sections I'm also going to discuss how the music affected the listeners then and now. The first section of this essay is Rock n' Roll of the 1950's, when Rock n' Roll was born. It emerged from rhythm and blues, a music similar to jazz played by African Americans. This kind of music started to attract white teenagers. Disc jockey Alan Freed was the one who introduced this music and later gave it the name of Rock n' Roll. Record companies distributed records played by whites but composed by blacks to be the stars until Bill Haley appeared with his "Rock Around the Clock". In this decade, Elvis Presley introduced a music that was sexual suggestive and outraged adults. In time he changed the style of the music by adopting a country western style. By the end of this decade and the start of the next, Rock n'
Upon speaking with Michael Lynch, who was a teenager during the 60's, he remembers the insanity that was "Beatlemania". Growing up in a rural community that was entirely white Michael found that musicians that were in the genres of Motown, Soul, and Reggae were never played. Radio stations focused on popular white musicians and it wasn't until he moved to New York City in his early twenties that he discovered these types of music. By then Michael felt that his life was already influenced by Rock music and couldn't get into any of the Motown or Soul type music. To this day he finds himself still listening to The Beatles and Bob Dylan. He feels that when choosing new music to listen to he tends to pick artists that sound similar like Billy Joel. Upon speaking with Barbara Bennett, who was a teenager during the 50's, she remembered that her favorite musician was Elvis Presley. Barbara grew up in a urban community and feels that it was a major influence on her choice of music. She recalled that growing up her parents listened to a varying range of music. The most popular was jazz musicians like Billy Holiday and Louie Armstrong. When Elvis became popular his pelvic thrusts enraged her parents due to his sexual innuendoes. Her parents foreboded her to listen to his music which in turn made it more appealing. Towards the end of the 50's she remembers Elvis' music style turning to country. Barbara stated that Elvis turned her on to country music and to this day she enjoys listening to musicians such as Garth Brooks and The Dixie Chicks. In 1963 the renewal of Rock n' Roll came when The Beatles started to play. The Beatles, were for some the best rock group ever. Through the 60's, The Beatles dominated the record industries and with their dominant instrumentation which included electric leads, rhythm, bass guitar, drums and sometimes an electric organ. During the 1960's many other styles of music arose from Rock like Motown, Soul, Jazz-rock, and Folk-rock. Folk-Rock was the most appreciated of this derivations and was first suggested by Bob Dylan. This derivation brought a hard beat and amplification to folk music and to Rock it brought a new poetic style. At the time California was one of the major centers of rock activity and experimentation during. First it was characterize for its surfing music,
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Approximate Word count = 1576
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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