Rockin’ in time provides an analysis of the history of Rock and Roll in American and Britain spanning the birth of the blues until 2004 through five main lenses. The first is the recognition that the origins of Rock and Roll spring from African American (essentially, African) music, and the path that rock and roll has taken in its development reflects the racial inequalities that African Americans had to endure throughout the 20th century. He asserts that “throughout the last 5 decades rock music has helped integrate white and black America” x. Rock and Roll, the child of the blues, for instance, brought to life by pioneers like Little Richard and Chuck Berry, integrated black and white kids in some of the most segregated places in the South, promising a brighter future. However, parents and government officials, fearing that their daughters would be corrupted by African American men, did everything in their power to block white reception of black music, even going so far as to manufacture rock and roll by white people. Later, in the late 50s and early 60s, African Americans were trained and molded physically by Mo-Town producers to be presentable to a white audience. Mo-Town reached its prime because of talent, but also because many people worked to mold the African American singers from the streets into people appropriate for “the white house or buckingham palace”, two places dominated by white men (and the queen); they worked toward integration in favour of white attitudes. This changed, however, with soul in the mid-60s, where women “began wearing natural hairdos” and “newfound African American consciousness” was found, and hiphop in the late 70s (173). Both were strident movements responding to racial inequalities despite the promises that civil rights legislation failed to fulfill. Both movements brought attention to white people and brought some justice to African Americans wanting equality. The second factor that Szatsmary considers is the baby boom generation and its impact on rock and roll. He says, “a dramatic population growth during the post war era provided the audience for an African American inspired rock n roll”. This audience started creating rock & roll, starting with Sun records’ own Elvis Presley, who sang about the things that teens at the time were interested in. As the teenage baby boomers grew they became interested in the politics that Bob Dylan and Joan Baez had to offer, and with the Vietnam War and the stifling patriarchy of the 50s, the hippie generation developed, professing free love and freedom of mind expansion, often through the medium of psychedelic music. After the incident at Kent State in December of 1969 (a bunch of people were shot), the baby boomers became disillusioned with politics and turned inward with smooth sounds, at first, and later the most superficial of all sounds, disco. From there a new generation of counter culturists, the punks first, and then the grunge movement, sprung out of hate for the decidedly apolitical and conservative baby boomers. His third theme is the rollercoaster economic situation which much has reflected. During good times in the USA, post ww2, rock could flourish. He juxtaposes America’s good situation at the end of WW2 with the dire straits that England had to endure as he looks at the musical developments and exchanged between the two countries. During bad times in the USA, namely the 80s, music like industrial and grunge began to develop, emanating a bleak and hopeless tune. The fourth idea he delves into is the developing technology throughout the 20th c that shaped rock n roll, i.e., electric quitars in the 40s, and later synthesizers, which became particularly popular in the 80s with artists like Gary Numan. His 5th and final point of interest is that the increasing popularity of rock and roll turned into an industry. The image of a band determined its audience, and the television shows which featured that band determined the success. Such concerns killed Elvis and gave the Beatles and the Stones their incredible fame. The dawning of MTV made Michael Jackson and Madonna into superstars, and it took 80s electro rapidly to new exposure.
I’ve learned from this book that I can learn a lot about a time period just by knowing the year, listening to the sound and lyrics of music and paying attention to the group being represented by the artist/s. For instance, Aretha Franklin’s RESPECT is all about African Americans needing respect from everyone in the 60s for who they really are, T.Rex’s danceable sounds yet primarily meaningless lyrics reflect glam rock’s embodiment of the decadence and apolitical nature of the 70s as defined by the baby boomers, Throbbing Gristle’s dissonant, hardly musical machine sounds depict society’s decay in the 80s, and house music’s ambient, repetitive, entrancing beat signifies the escapism that British youths sought when unemployment was up to nearly 8 percent in the early 90s. Music is sometimes portrayed as nebulous, on the side of the Dionysian intoxication and chaos, but this book puts some real sense and context into music’s untamed madness for me not just in terms of obvious lyrics but also in the sounds produced. Music is the atmosphere surrounding every moment. So, what can be said about this generation’s music? I don’t even know what the hell is going on because the only movement I can attribute to this generation is indie, and that is so incredibly broad and certainly the bands I’ve heard that are indie don’t speak to me as a living 22 year old. The answer, I believe, lies in the diversity of the internet. We are embarking on a new era of music that probably cannot really be defined until a group of people really explore and prioritize everything available on the internet. Without regulations and access to garage band, we as listeners and creators are exposed to and can expose others to all types of new music for little or no money. We can create virtually anything we want and get it out to a large audience by friending a million people on myspace and publicizing our blogs. A new chapter for this book should be, “rise to stardom via the internet/myspace”. here are a few such stars that you may have heard of, but these are also people who have been signed to major labels and/or featured as reality tv super starts since their debuts on myspace and message boards.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1sHAX2F4PE
Either you know or you hope that these musicians do not accurately represent internet musicians. This is true, and the only reason we know about these people is because major record labels have picked them up and publicized them as rising stars from the uncharted lala land of the internet through magazines, interviews, youtube videos, shameless reruns on mtv, and internet ads. Although it is certain that these stars are only a tiny fraction of self publishing on the web, it is clear also that there is a large percentage of music unaccounted for that some community, be it probably small, is listening to. There is probably no single or collective of musicians that can unify my generation’s tastes. But all the bands popping up on the internet make me think about all the music that was never discovered before technology allowed distribution and even studio quality creation that bypasses major record labels.
It is also interesting that white people, Americans and British people alike, have been impressed with African American music and have progressed musically with a large debt to African American innovations. For instance, the Rolling Stones were obsessed with blues music in England, “not knowing what it meant, just that it was beautiful”, and from there played blues covers which eventually, with the help of managers and record executives, turned into original songs heavily influenced by the blues. (122) With marketing and a great sound, they were able to reach the top in England and near the top in the United States. This is one of many examples throughout the history of Rock n Roll. It is completely justified to assert that music helped in great strides to integrate America. But it is also true that African Americans have been cheated out of success because of racism and a sense of superiority on behalf of white people in the past. It seems as if the white musicians appropriating African American styles were not involved in this racism, surely, but that the people marketing music to the public were the perpetrators. Have these appropriations and restrictions been prevalent recently?
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