Andrea+Ortiz

media type="youtube" key="lrXIQQ8PeRs" width="560" height="315" Andrea Ortiz Jeff and PG College Bound 901 June 4th, 2013 Evolution of Rock ‘n’ Roll

The music soared loudly through the club. People screamed and applauded. The band unplugged their instruments, packed up then walked out the door. Then one of the band members turned around and smirked up at the sign at the top of the club, which read “Rock and Roll all Night!” Rock and Roll has changed throughout the decades since the 1950’s. Rock and roll has evolved in the following ways: 1) it has changed people and music culturally, by changing the way people dress, act and what they listen to; 2) it has changed politically, in a sense that Rock was used in protests against laws and the government and 3) finally, rock has evolved socially, from posters to YouTube, and from playing at clubs to full blown out concerts. According to Emmett Smith in, “What is Rock? Rock and Roll Hall of Fame gets Debate Rolling with Every Class?” Rock and roll is a very controversial topic in the music industries. Greg Harris, the president of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame stated, “Rock ‘n’ Roll was never just four skinny guys with guitars. It was always gospel, blues, R&B, jazz, country—it all feeds into rock and roll.” Apparently, everything is a part of rock and roll. Rock and roll has been compared to the Big Bang Theory. Rock and roll was the result musicians received when gospel, blues, R&B, jazz, and country music all came together creating rock. “Rock had always been the spirit of rebellion, the rejection of authority, a spirit of change.” Throughout the decades rock and roll has changed culturally. From Elvis Presley’s looks, dance moves and adults rejecting Rock and Roll, to famous bands and everyone accepting rock and roll. In the 1950’s when rock began to take a huge leap in the music industries many teens loved it but the adults could not agree with it. According to the article, “Teenagers and Rock and Roll In the 1950’s,” it says, “Why did kids like rock music? Because it was different, it was new, and it defied the authority of the adult world. Rock 'n' roll had no boundaries and went against the status quo. It was, in other words, non-conformist in a decade of conformity. And more importantly, kids knew their parents hated the music, so they played it even louder.” Teens wanted to dance, sing and act like their favorite Rock singers such as Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and The Beatles. Adults distasted rock because it went against religion and rules. For example, the way Elvis danced, by swinging his hips and the way he dressed were disliked by a few people because it was a new look. Then there was Chuck Berry and his “Devil Music,” went against people’s religion as in Christianity and Catholicism. This type of music fractured the image of an “All- American Family Lifestyle,” people had going on. In the article, “Rock as a Reflection of Social and Cultural Change,” Simon Frith Jr. stated that, “Rock does not so much influence other music as to colonize them, blurring musical boundaries. Any attempt to establish an objective rock canon is equally doomed to failure; Rock is not their sort of autonomous, rule-bound aesthetic form.” This goes on to show how people thought rock music affected people and other types of music. Though rock was rejected by many adults back then, most people have learned to accept and enjoy it today. Therefore, rock and roll has changed culturally since the 1950’s. At first people were against it due to the way most songs sounded and how the band members dressed and acted. But overtime Rock had also changed people as well.

Rock and roll has also evolved politically since the 1950’s. For example, in the article “People get Ready Music and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s,” Brian Ward states that, “The Southern Civil Rights Movement as powerfully as the freedom songs that provided a stirring musical accompaniment to the campaign for racial justice and equality in the region during the late 1950’s and early 1960’s,” and, “At a time when integration and biracial cooperation were touchstones for the movement, this musical miscegenation -- also apparent in early rock-and-roll music, which boasted black and white artists and black and white fans, and which drew on both black rhythm-and-blues and white country influences -- symbolically reproduced the best hopes of many activists.” This shows how rock helped out during the Civil Rights Movement and how it sort of drew a few black and white singers together to perform the music they liked. Then during the 1960’s-1980’s there was a huge drug bust where most rock artists began doing drugs. In the article “A Legend Looks Back on a Rock ‘n’ Roll ‘Life’,” Keith Richards says, “At the same time, the sentimental Richards is deeply macho and swings some sharp elbows here. He refers to Allen Ginsberg as an “old gasbag,’’ says novelist and LSD popularizer Ken Kesey “has a lot to answer for,’’ and disses Lennon, saying he “couldn’t really keep up’’ when the two were drug competitors in the late ’60s.” This shows that back then famous rock artists use to compete with drugs and would do them a lot. Some artists even got arrested during the Drug Bust period. Today some artists still do drugs illegally, which shows there is hardly a change in that, as for the freedom songs and the Civil Rights Movement, now any race has the freedom to enjoy and do what they want. All this comes to prove that rock and roll has changed politically because during the 1950’s-1960’s rock was used as a musical component for a racial justice campaign and as for the drug bust, people still do it, but fewer artists do it today due to the laws that the government put up. Today, rock is still used for the same reasons, to express and rebel against unfair laws or rules.

Lastly, rock and roll has changed socially throughout the decades. It has evolved socially along with technology. For example, in the article “Rock as a Reflection of Social and Cultural Change,” Simon Frith Jr. asserts that, “Networking sites such as MySpace and YouTube were quickly adopted by rock groups and rock fans whose use of the new promotional possibilities became a model for other entertainment sectors. However the various legal and economic issues are resolved, rock music will certainly be central to 21st-century ways of doing things. Rock, in short, not only reflects (and reflects on) social and cultural change; it is also a social force in its own right.” This shows that rock and artists have depended on the social media and social networking to gain more fans. Another example of how rock evolved socially is in the same article, Simon states that, “Rock is the music that has directly addressed these new conditions and kept faith with the belief that music is a form of human conversation, even as it is mediated by television and radio and by filmmakers and advertisers.” All this evidence shows how much rock has really evolved. Rock went from clubs to big Concerts, social media on television, to websites online like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. Now there is all this technology to add special effects to big concerts and the equipment is all new and improved! In conclusion, these are the 3 main ways that rock and roll has advanced since the 1950’s. It’s advanced culturally in a form where less people hate it and have grown accustomed to it since the 1950’s, which was a time where most adults rejected rock. Rock has also advanced politically because rock has been situated with drug busts and still is situated with social protests. Lastly, rock has changed socially, from clubs, to gatherings, from social media, to concerts and social networking. This is how rock has truly evolved. This topic is very important to the real world and people’s lives because rock has been around for a while and many people listen to it without knowing some of its background. Some people dislike rock and are more interested in rap and all these other genres of music, not knowing that all those other genres of music had created rock itself. Rock is important because it’s the type of music that gives of rebellion and power to most of us. People do not notice this, but that is what most of today is based on, spirit and rebellion.

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