Rock And Roll In America Essay, Research Paper

Rock and Roll in American Culture

Rock and Roll is considered one of the truly American musical forms, though many of the most popular performers such as the Beatles come from other countries. For much of the fifties and sixties Rock and Roll was uniquely democratic. It has lots of long-term effects on American life style and culture, such as changing the life style of young people, or bringing black and white people together. Also Rock and Roll became the t voice of American teenagers. [this is 6 different ideas and 6 different possible topics]

By the middle 1950 s Rock and Roll became a large part of music society. [it doesn t start until then] In 1958 with the big rise of Bill Haley (with the song; Rock Around the Clock), Rock and Roll became a major factor in American culture (Ryback, 19). African-American s [spelling] music Rhythm and Blues was the base of rock and roll. It was not called Rock and Roll until Freed raise and rename it (Aquila, 6). [awkward phrasing] [stick to the central point] Certainly the use of renaming Rhythm and Blues helped Rock and Roll to trick the racism [?] and give it access to white radios, which helped Rock and Roll to be listened everywhere. [sentence structure] Also the portable radios and tape players helped this new named old music to go everywhere. [now a paper about music and tech] Although in the mid-50 s BBC administrators limited popular music 22 hours per week (Haney & Cooper, 81), with the rise of Muzak in middle 60 s music played in the public spaces of America. [point not yet established]

[The] Fifties and sixties were the first generation that adopted Rock and Roll, that generation was also called baby boom and rock and roll generation . [sentence structure] For this generation music was omnipresent and [a] touchstone for their life. They were the first generation that grew up with TV, had longer school period. [sentence structure] [unclear] This generation had the chance to have their own dance steps, own songs and own nostalgic (Aquila, 16). This music also opened the ways of communication between adults and teenagers. Adults had to involve with their kids life and understand them, even if they avoid TV and radio use to make parents involve with their kids lives. Between the 1943 and 1963 it was the one-sided cultural imperialism (Haney & Cooper, 90). [again, lots of points and no paper topic]

The anti war movement had theme songs such as Where Have All the Flowers Gone and Soldier Blue . The civil rights movement had many songs including we shall overcome , if I had a Hammer , and Blowing in the Wind . You can find the attitude toward romance, toward cars, toward parents by looking at the music of the late sixties. Rock and Roll has its roots in rhythm and blues with doses of swing, jazz, and country. Between the 1980 s and 1990 s critics have argued that the old pure Rock and Roll had disappeared, and that it had come back. [same problem]

I think in the late twentieth century popular music still has great influence on American culture. Although since the beginning of Rock and Roll reformers have seen the music as morally bad effect to the youth in way of the time or the entire culture. They have tried and will continue to try to censor or judge the lyrics of songs and the mode of performance. Rock and Roll is just a big piece of America and as I see it, Rock and Roll is symbol of freedom of America.

Bibliography:

h Aquila, Richard. 1998. That Old Time Rock and Roll. New York: Schirmer Books.

h Belz, Carl. 1972. The Story of Rock. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University

h Cooper, B. Lee, and Wayne S. Haney. 1995. Rock Music in American Popular Culture. New York: The Haworth Press.

h Rogers, Dave.1982. Rock n Roll. Boston: Routledge &Kegan Paul ltd.

h Ryback, Timothy W.. 1990. Rock Around the Block. New York: Oxford University