Rock & Roll History, Essay Example

The anonymous contributor of The Chronicles of Higher Education May 1998 issues suggested viewing popular music as something more significant than pure entertainment. He assumes that the role of music in contemporary American society is so serious that it has the potential as an educational and research tool for studying specific social constructs, like gender, race, class and sexuality. During the past century, music has indeed become the barometer, and sometimes, even the catalyzer of certain social processes and phenomena. This paper analyzes the role and function of rock & roll music in forming and functioning of social constructs in the American society, and discusses the possibility of inclusion of the course of history of rock & roll music into the curriculum on the college level.

Two meanings of the term rock & roll exist. The first describes the specific music that emerged and became popular through fifties, and the second is that “rock & roll” is synonymous to “rock”. For the purposes of this paper, the second, broader definition is used.

Nowadays youths’ place in the societal system is characterized by the existence of dozens of subcultures that have formed around this or that musical style; goths, punks, and rockers are, perhaps, the best-known ones. Contemporary adolescent culture can hardly be described without them; nevertheless, the modern version this phenomenon is a product of the cultural and societal transformations that took place in the second half of the twentieth century.

Rock & roll was one of the first genres of so-called “youth music”, which united youngsters across America. Most of the performers were young, as was the significant share of their audience, and their troubles, questions and desires were alike. Rock & roll singers and groups told things adolescents wanted to hear, and the famous ¾ rhythm added energy and liveliness harmony groups lacked. This music brought the spirit of rebelliousness and promoted ideals different from those of the generation of post-war parents.

In fifties, a new sound emerged, which, according to Scaruffi, disintegrated the “old world of ordered notes”, of American-middle class pleasant and relaxing music of “pop-crooners and harmony groups” (8). It was rock & roll, which combined the rhythms of blues, gospel, jazz and folk music. It mirrored the processes of social change that took place at that period both in the United States and all over the world. The emergence of rock & roll, music that erased the borders between the music of the “whites” and “blacks”, praised sexual desire, equality and freedom went along with the introduction of the Martin Luther King’s concept of the color blind society, sexual revolution and pacifist ideology. Rock & roll became the music of the new society and new generation, the post-war baby-boomers.

Though “Innuendo” by Queen was written much later than the March on Washington had taken place, these lines are the accurate description of attitudes towards racial and social discrimination the representatives of the progressive youth held: While we live according to race, colour or creed/While we rule by blind madness and pure greed/Our lives dictated by tradition, superstition, false religion/Through the eons, and on and on. Researching the concept of race and the phenomenon of desegregation through the music perspective reveals that rock & roll mirrored the societal tendency of fusion of cultures, specific for the twentieth-century America.

Another concept specific for the American culture in the middle of the twentieth century is the emergence of the concept of individualism. Along with the improvement of the economic situation within the country, the post-war kids developed the concept of “being different”. Clothes that had always been the attribute of social class became the attribute of the subculture. “Am I along in this generation?” – Patty Smith asks on behalf of all the youngsters that found themselves on the threshold between the two worlds – the realm of their parents, who went through the World War, and the universe, where freedom and equality seemed to be integral. The creators of the brave new world they rejected the moral objectives and stratification patterns offered by their parents, and faced a dilemma: And so I wrestle with the angel/To see who’ll reap the seeds I sow/Am I the driver or the driven/Will I be damned to be forgiven/Is there anybody here but me who needs to know (Grateful Dead, Victim Or The Crime).

Even though, nowadays creating a popular single requires the efforts of dozens of professionals and a considerable sum of money, the cultural value of the produced artifact is usually doubtful. Up to a point this phenomenon is determined by the poor quality of lyrics. Fortunately, this phenomenon was much less widespread through sixtieth and seventieth music, when rock & roll was on the top of the hill. For instance, The Beatle’s songs are still among the most downloaded. No one I think is in my tree/I mean it must be high or low/That is you can’t you know tune in but it’s all right/That is I think it’s not too bad. Millions of people play this recording every day. One of the possible reasons is that this music is much more sincere than most of the lyrics written in 2000th.

Another characteristic phenomenon of rock & roll genre is open talk about sex and sexuality. In fortieth and fifties pop-musicians sang about feelings – love, tenderness, even passion, but their songs did not tell about sex and desire. Rock & roll songs, in their turn, praised sexuality. Love is strong and you’re so sweet /You make me hard you make me weak/Love is strong and you’re so sweet/And some day, babe we got to meet – Rolling Stones sing. Here, the woman is seen as the object of sexual desire; moreover, it is some abstract woman, whom the singer is probably going to meet. This is indicative of the period when sexual desire became separated from its object.

The invention of rock & roll characterized the process of “justifying” sexual desire, and tearing the veil of feelings from it. This tendency was reflected in “free love” movement, when people met in order to give pleasure to each other without taking any obligations.

Rock is sometimes blamed for promoting violence and sexual promiscuity among youngsters. It is indeed that certain rock lyrics contain violent moments. The testimony on the social impact of music violence of the American Academy of Pediatrics, presented by Frank Palumbo before the Senate Subcommittee on oversight of Government Management, Restructuring, and the District of Columbia states that: “Pediatricians with a specialty in adolescent medicine are keenly aware of how crucial music is to a teen’s identity and how it helps them define important social and sub cultural boundaries. One study found that teens listened to music an average of 40 hours per week or more.”

Media influences are crucial determinants of adolescent sexual activity. During past decades, love and sex have become favorite subjects for fiction writers, film directors, musicians, and, especially, TV producers. Tons of information about physical aspects of love splash on TV screens, creating a wicked controversial image – on one side, sex is something prohibited, even dirty, and immensely attractive; on other it is something everyone does. In other words, sexual relationships are depicted as a “forbidden fruit” that everyone has to try. It is well-known that adolescents love to break the rules and violate the prohibitions. Adding the herd instinct, inherent in teenagers, adolescent’s responses to media images are natural: they take their chances and try.

Nevertheless, though there is no doubt that music plays a considerable role in forming the teen’s identity, there always are the factors of greater importance, like family and social conditions. Adolescents with high risks of been engaged in criminal activities and unprotected sex often dwell in low-income households, where the adults’ main concerns are providing their offspring with basic things, like food, clothes, access to medical help and education, and the life they lead is rarely accepted as a positive model by their kids.

This is also true for families where the adults have problems with substance abuse or health-related issues. The reasons for provoking violence and hostility in young Americans are adverse social conditions that deprive some categories of youngsters of chances to get a decent education and job, and make young people feel neglected and powerless over their future.

It would be erroneous to state that music – either rock, rap or any other genre – can be blamed for provoking violence. Music can reflect and strengthen the existing social tendencies, but it is scarcely able of creating a new tendency. The history of popular music in general, and rock & roll in particular should be offered at a college level for social sciences students in order to help them form outright understanding of all the factors that influence social processes and phenomena. When a musical genre is viewed as a social construct that is formed by social agents for specific purposes, it obviously has a place in academia. Moreover, rock & roll is more than a musical genre. It is rather a cultural layer that has influenced most contemporary musical genres and social subcultures. Therefore, getting an insight into the history of rock & roll is indispensable for understanding what cultural processes take place in the contemporary society.

Rock & roll music formed in fifties as the music of the rebellion. It reflected the problems and concerns of the generation of post-war baby boomers – youngsters who refused to adopt the segregationist puritan philosophy of their parents’ generation. Freedom, equality and availability of physical love become the values of rock & roll epoch, and many rock singers did their best to translate these values by their life stories. The generation that gave birth to rock music refused to live in the segregated world, built by their ancestors. They wanted to “make love, not war”, play on the “Strawberry Fields”, and their efforts ended with a “Breakthrough”.

Rock & roll is more than a musical genre; it promotes specific values and norms that have influenced most of the subcultures that exist nowadays. The history of rock & roll should certainly have a place in academia, as it is crucial for understating of the contemporary cultural processes and phenomenon.

Works Cited

Grateful Dead. “Victim Or The Crime”. The Annotated. Web. 15 Nov. 2010.

n.d. More Scholars Focus on Popular Music as a Key to Examining Culture and History. The Chronicle of Higher Education 1 May 1998: A16. Web. 15 Nov. 2010.

Palumbo, F. The Social Impact of Music Violence. Testimony of the American Academy of Pediatrics, 1997. Print.

Patti Smith. “Birdland”. Horses. Web. 15 Nov. 2010.

Queen. “Innuendo”. Innuendo. Web. 16 Nov. 2010.

Rolling Stones. “Love Is Strong”. Voodoo Lounge. Web. 17 Nov. 2010.

Scaruffi, P. A History of Rock Music: 1951-2000. Pine Lake Road: IUniverse, Inc, 2003. Print.

The Beatles. “Strawberry Fields Forever”. Magical Mystery Tour. Web. 15 Nov. 2010.