Kay Dickinson
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195326635
- eISBN:
- 9780199851676
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195326635.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
This chapter focuses on rock 'n' roll films in the U.S. during the mid-1950s. The story lines of these films, often starring and largely made for teenagers, revolved around the music industry with a ...
More
This chapter focuses on rock 'n' roll films in the U.S. during the mid-1950s. The story lines of these films, often starring and largely made for teenagers, revolved around the music industry with a heavy weighting of musical performances in clubs and television studios, particularly toward the films' denouements. It attempts to explain the reasons behind the popularity of these films and analyzes the film cycle amid in the context of contemporary practices of labor, exploitation, consumer citizenship and decentralization. It also discusses the decentralization and diversification of the media industries and the question of teenage leisure expenditure.Less
This chapter focuses on rock 'n' roll films in the U.S. during the mid-1950s. The story lines of these films, often starring and largely made for teenagers, revolved around the music industry with a heavy weighting of musical performances in clubs and television studios, particularly toward the films' denouements. It attempts to explain the reasons behind the popularity of these films and analyzes the film cycle amid in the context of contemporary practices of labor, exploitation, consumer citizenship and decentralization. It also discusses the decentralization and diversification of the media industries and the question of teenage leisure expenditure.
Uta G. Poiger
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520211384
- eISBN:
- 9780520920088
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520211384.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
When rock 'n' roll crossed the Atlantic to Germany in the second half of the 1950s, it brought only rioting young men and young women into the public eye. Three interconnected concerns shaped East ...
More
When rock 'n' roll crossed the Atlantic to Germany in the second half of the 1950s, it brought only rioting young men and young women into the public eye. Three interconnected concerns shaped East and West German reaction to rock 'n' roll: (1) worries about uncontrolled female sexuality; (2) male aggression; and (3) perceptions of racial difference. The public behavior of female rock 'n' roll fans at dances and concerts and in the streets challenged the traditional norms of female respectability that authorities in East and West Germany had made central to their respective reconstruction efforts. Rock 'n' roll challenged East and West German constructions of national identity because Germans saw it as a black or black-influenced music that undermined gender norms.Less
When rock 'n' roll crossed the Atlantic to Germany in the second half of the 1950s, it brought only rioting young men and young women into the public eye. Three interconnected concerns shaped East and West German reaction to rock 'n' roll: (1) worries about uncontrolled female sexuality; (2) male aggression; and (3) perceptions of racial difference. The public behavior of female rock 'n' roll fans at dances and concerts and in the streets challenged the traditional norms of female respectability that authorities in East and West Germany had made central to their respective reconstruction efforts. Rock 'n' roll challenged East and West German constructions of national identity because Germans saw it as a black or black-influenced music that undermined gender norms.
Paul E. Willis
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691163697
- eISBN:
- 9781400865147
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691163697.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
This chapter explores the musical tastes of the motor-bike boys. Pop music was a manifest and ever-present part of the environment of the motor-bike boys: it pervaded their whole culture. However, ...
More
This chapter explores the musical tastes of the motor-bike boys. Pop music was a manifest and ever-present part of the environment of the motor-bike boys: it pervaded their whole culture. However, the motor-bike boys had very specific tastes that were not part of the current pop music scene, and were not catered for in the on-going mass-media sources. They liked the music of the early rock 'n' roll period between 1955 and 1960, especially that of Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley. By current standards in the commercial market and the pop music provided by mass-media channels, their tastes were at least ten years out of date. By deliberate choice, then, and not by the accident of a passive reception, they chose this music. This reveals the dialectical capacity which early rock 'n' roll had to reflect, resonate, and return something of real value to the motor-bike boys.Less
This chapter explores the musical tastes of the motor-bike boys. Pop music was a manifest and ever-present part of the environment of the motor-bike boys: it pervaded their whole culture. However, the motor-bike boys had very specific tastes that were not part of the current pop music scene, and were not catered for in the on-going mass-media sources. They liked the music of the early rock 'n' roll period between 1955 and 1960, especially that of Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley. By current standards in the commercial market and the pop music provided by mass-media channels, their tastes were at least ten years out of date. By deliberate choice, then, and not by the accident of a passive reception, they chose this music. This reveals the dialectical capacity which early rock 'n' roll had to reflect, resonate, and return something of real value to the motor-bike boys.
Andrew N. Weintraub
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195395662
- eISBN:
- 9780199863549
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195395662.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music, Popular
In the early 1970s, the Indian-based music played in orkes Melayu described in chapters two and three crystallized into “dangdut.” The notion of dangdut as the music of “the people”–the majority of ...
More
In the early 1970s, the Indian-based music played in orkes Melayu described in chapters two and three crystallized into “dangdut.” The notion of dangdut as the music of “the people”–the majority of society–emerged during this era, and it has been a persistent theme ever since. This chapter argues that notions of “the people” were constructed within social discourse, popular print media, and the music itself. The articulation of dangdut and “the people” operates on three intertextual levels: dangdut is the people; (2) dangdut for the people; and (3) dangdut as the people. Musician, composer, record producer, film star, and Islamic proselytiser Rhoma Irama, a dominant force in the early history of dangdut, is central to this chapter. An analysis of his compositions shows the influence of rock ‘n’ roll, Indian film song, pop Indonesia, and hard rock.Less
In the early 1970s, the Indian-based music played in orkes Melayu described in chapters two and three crystallized into “dangdut.” The notion of dangdut as the music of “the people”–the majority of society–emerged during this era, and it has been a persistent theme ever since. This chapter argues that notions of “the people” were constructed within social discourse, popular print media, and the music itself. The articulation of dangdut and “the people” operates on three intertextual levels: dangdut is the people; (2) dangdut for the people; and (3) dangdut as the people. Musician, composer, record producer, film star, and Islamic proselytiser Rhoma Irama, a dominant force in the early history of dangdut, is central to this chapter. An analysis of his compositions shows the influence of rock ‘n’ roll, Indian film song, pop Indonesia, and hard rock.
Andy Bennett
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- April 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195342956
- eISBN:
- 9780199894284
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195342956.003.0003
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
Rock and Roll became an important form of popular music, entering mainstream youth culture by white translators of black music such as Elvis Presley. Youth readily identified with the themes of Rock ...
More
Rock and Roll became an important form of popular music, entering mainstream youth culture by white translators of black music such as Elvis Presley. Youth readily identified with the themes of Rock and Roll, such as rebelling against parents, having fun, and earlier themes of love and romance. Succeeding generations expressed the concerns of youth at the moment. Disenchantment with the war in Vietnam produced the Hippy movement. The economic downturn of the 1970s led to Punk as a voice for the disempowered that later emerged in the form of Grunge. Gender bending and challenges to conventional interpretations of sexuality were expressed in Glam. Soul and Reggae music represented the voices of non-white youth, with Rap emerging in the 1980s and becoming a global influence. Each of these expressions of youth concerns has had a lasting effect on each generation as well as on culture at large.Less
Rock and Roll became an important form of popular music, entering mainstream youth culture by white translators of black music such as Elvis Presley. Youth readily identified with the themes of Rock and Roll, such as rebelling against parents, having fun, and earlier themes of love and romance. Succeeding generations expressed the concerns of youth at the moment. Disenchantment with the war in Vietnam produced the Hippy movement. The economic downturn of the 1970s led to Punk as a voice for the disempowered that later emerged in the form of Grunge. Gender bending and challenges to conventional interpretations of sexuality were expressed in Glam. Soul and Reggae music represented the voices of non-white youth, with Rap emerging in the 1980s and becoming a global influence. Each of these expressions of youth concerns has had a lasting effect on each generation as well as on culture at large.
Ying Xiao
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496812605
- eISBN:
- 9781496812643
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496812605.003.0004
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter observes the conflation of Chinese rock ‘n’ roll music and film at the end of the twentieth century. The chapter begins by probing the genesis of this cinematic-musical alliance on the ...
More
This chapter observes the conflation of Chinese rock ‘n’ roll music and film at the end of the twentieth century. The chapter begins by probing the genesis of this cinematic-musical alliance on the cusp of the late 1980s and early 1990s as demonstrated in “Wang Shuo Hooligan Literature” and its film adaptions such as Mi Jiashan’s The Troubleshooters (1988). It, then, turn to a navigation of Cui Jian, the Godfather of Chinese Rock, tracing his voices, images, personas, and iconographies in Chinese films. Close readings of the films such as Beijing Bastards (1992), Good Morning, Beijing (1990), Roots and Branches (2001), and The Sun Also Rises (2007) suggest that the emergence and evolution of Chinese rock ‘n’ roll film shall be seen as a result of widespread and multifaceted transformations in postsocialist China. At the core of this rock imaginary is the aesthetic of cinema vérité and postsocialist realism. The paradigmatic portrayals of rock kids, social outcasts, urban drifters, and postsocialist flâneur therefore herald a new wave of what Naficy has called an “accented” cinema and independent, transnational film practice, whose trajectory parallels the rise of youth culture and popular music in contemporary China.Less
This chapter observes the conflation of Chinese rock ‘n’ roll music and film at the end of the twentieth century. The chapter begins by probing the genesis of this cinematic-musical alliance on the cusp of the late 1980s and early 1990s as demonstrated in “Wang Shuo Hooligan Literature” and its film adaptions such as Mi Jiashan’s The Troubleshooters (1988). It, then, turn to a navigation of Cui Jian, the Godfather of Chinese Rock, tracing his voices, images, personas, and iconographies in Chinese films. Close readings of the films such as Beijing Bastards (1992), Good Morning, Beijing (1990), Roots and Branches (2001), and The Sun Also Rises (2007) suggest that the emergence and evolution of Chinese rock ‘n’ roll film shall be seen as a result of widespread and multifaceted transformations in postsocialist China. At the core of this rock imaginary is the aesthetic of cinema vérité and postsocialist realism. The paradigmatic portrayals of rock kids, social outcasts, urban drifters, and postsocialist flâneur therefore herald a new wave of what Naficy has called an “accented” cinema and independent, transnational film practice, whose trajectory parallels the rise of youth culture and popular music in contemporary China.
Zhou Xuelin
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622098497
- eISBN:
- 9789882207707
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622098497.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines the development of rock ‘n’ roll music in China and its links with the emergent youth culture. It focuses on how young rebels use their own rock music as a means of reflecting ...
More
This chapter examines the development of rock ‘n’ roll music in China and its links with the emergent youth culture. It focuses on how young rebels use their own rock music as a means of reflecting their changing attitudes, behaviour, and “mood of living.” It examines Tian Zuangzhuang 's Rock Kids, Zhang Yuan 's Beijing Bastards, and Jiang Wen 's In the Heat of the Sun.Less
This chapter examines the development of rock ‘n’ roll music in China and its links with the emergent youth culture. It focuses on how young rebels use their own rock music as a means of reflecting their changing attitudes, behaviour, and “mood of living.” It examines Tian Zuangzhuang 's Rock Kids, Zhang Yuan 's Beijing Bastards, and Jiang Wen 's In the Heat of the Sun.
David E. James
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- December 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199387595
- eISBN:
- 9780199387632
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199387595.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Rock ’n’ roll was initially regarded as a threat that combined aesthetic and social delinquency. Its energies were, however, primary to utopianism of the emerging cultural movements. Just as rock ’n’ ...
More
Rock ’n’ roll was initially regarded as a threat that combined aesthetic and social delinquency. Its energies were, however, primary to utopianism of the emerging cultural movements. Just as rock ’n’ roll displaced the hegemony of the Great American Song book, the rock ’n’ roll musical both displaced and recreated the classic film musical. In developing new techniques for representing musical performance, the fans and entire cultural gestalt that the new music sustained, cinema became second only to records in the creation of a rock ’n’ roll culture. But even as cinema developed audio-visual compositions based on the music—forms of rock ’n’ roll visuality—it also had to confront the competition that rock ’n’ roll posed to itself and other components of the established culture industries.Less
Rock ’n’ roll was initially regarded as a threat that combined aesthetic and social delinquency. Its energies were, however, primary to utopianism of the emerging cultural movements. Just as rock ’n’ roll displaced the hegemony of the Great American Song book, the rock ’n’ roll musical both displaced and recreated the classic film musical. In developing new techniques for representing musical performance, the fans and entire cultural gestalt that the new music sustained, cinema became second only to records in the creation of a rock ’n’ roll culture. But even as cinema developed audio-visual compositions based on the music—forms of rock ’n’ roll visuality—it also had to confront the competition that rock ’n’ roll posed to itself and other components of the established culture industries.
David E. James
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- December 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199387595
- eISBN:
- 9780199387632
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199387595.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Since rock ’n’ roll was expected to be a brief—and very disreputable—fad, the major studios ignored it, and only exploitation producers attempted to cash in. Motivated by Blackboard Jungle’s profits, ...
More
Since rock ’n’ roll was expected to be a brief—and very disreputable—fad, the major studios ignored it, and only exploitation producers attempted to cash in. Motivated by Blackboard Jungle’s profits, Sam Katzman hastily produced Rock Around the Clock (1956); but this time Bill Haley and his Comets actually appeared in the film, both in performance and in the narrative. In the narrative, rock ’n’ roll is presented as essentially dance music that emerges spontaneously in the white rural working class, completely free of generational or ethnic tensions. Rock Around the Clock established generic norms that were quickly reproduced in numerous other films, many of them featuring important black rhythm and blues musicians. In this, they imitated the radio and theater spectaculars organized by Alan Freed, Mr. Rock ’n’ Roll.Less
Since rock ’n’ roll was expected to be a brief—and very disreputable—fad, the major studios ignored it, and only exploitation producers attempted to cash in. Motivated by Blackboard Jungle’s profits, Sam Katzman hastily produced Rock Around the Clock (1956); but this time Bill Haley and his Comets actually appeared in the film, both in performance and in the narrative. In the narrative, rock ’n’ roll is presented as essentially dance music that emerges spontaneously in the white rural working class, completely free of generational or ethnic tensions. Rock Around the Clock established generic norms that were quickly reproduced in numerous other films, many of them featuring important black rhythm and blues musicians. In this, they imitated the radio and theater spectaculars organized by Alan Freed, Mr. Rock ’n’ Roll.
James Wierzbicki
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040078
- eISBN:
- 9780252098277
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040078.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
This chapter discusses the romantic genealogy of rock 'n' roll and how its style resulted from the happy integration of white hillbilly music with black “race music” or, as it came to be known in the ...
More
This chapter discusses the romantic genealogy of rock 'n' roll and how its style resulted from the happy integration of white hillbilly music with black “race music” or, as it came to be known in the 1950s, “rhythm and blues.” Supported by recent scholarship that has delved into the files of record companies, analyses affirm that rock 'n' roll represents a blatant appropriation of black music by white entrepreneurs. A postmodern view might regard rock 'n' roll not even as music, but as simply “a marketing concept that evolved into a lifestyle.” The chapter also analyzes how Bill Haley's recording of “Rock Around the Clock” turned the tide of American popular music in late 1955.Less
This chapter discusses the romantic genealogy of rock 'n' roll and how its style resulted from the happy integration of white hillbilly music with black “race music” or, as it came to be known in the 1950s, “rhythm and blues.” Supported by recent scholarship that has delved into the files of record companies, analyses affirm that rock 'n' roll represents a blatant appropriation of black music by white entrepreneurs. A postmodern view might regard rock 'n' roll not even as music, but as simply “a marketing concept that evolved into a lifestyle.” The chapter also analyzes how Bill Haley's recording of “Rock Around the Clock” turned the tide of American popular music in late 1955.
Matthew F. Delmont
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780520272071
- eISBN:
- 9780520951600
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520272071.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter examines the link between the history of American Bandstand and the rise of rock and roll in Philadelphia through radio, concerts, record hops, talent shows, and local television. More ...
More
This chapter examines the link between the history of American Bandstand and the rise of rock and roll in Philadelphia through radio, concerts, record hops, talent shows, and local television. More specifically, it considers the role of deejays Georgie Woods and Mitch Thomas in popularizing rock and roll in Philadelphia, and how they, along with Dick Clark, capitalized professionally on young people's interest in rock and roll. It first provides a background on Woods and how he staked his claim as Philadelphia's “King of Rock n Roll” through his radio show and his stage shows, along with his involvement in the city's growing civil rights movement. It then turns to Thomas and The Mitch Thomas Show, which highlighted the creative talents of black teenagers while offering a mediated space for interracial association and influenced many of American Bandstand's dancers. It also explores how Clark tapped into the excitement for rock and roll, first as a radio deejay, and later as the host of American Bandstand.Less
This chapter examines the link between the history of American Bandstand and the rise of rock and roll in Philadelphia through radio, concerts, record hops, talent shows, and local television. More specifically, it considers the role of deejays Georgie Woods and Mitch Thomas in popularizing rock and roll in Philadelphia, and how they, along with Dick Clark, capitalized professionally on young people's interest in rock and roll. It first provides a background on Woods and how he staked his claim as Philadelphia's “King of Rock n Roll” through his radio show and his stage shows, along with his involvement in the city's growing civil rights movement. It then turns to Thomas and The Mitch Thomas Show, which highlighted the creative talents of black teenagers while offering a mediated space for interracial association and influenced many of American Bandstand's dancers. It also explores how Clark tapped into the excitement for rock and roll, first as a radio deejay, and later as the host of American Bandstand.
Paul E. Willis
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691163697
- eISBN:
- 9781400865147
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691163697.003.0002
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
This chapter presents the politics and experiences of identity as exercised by the motor-bike boys. It first discusses the author's approach to studying the motor-bike boys' culture at large, by ...
More
This chapter presents the politics and experiences of identity as exercised by the motor-bike boys. It first discusses the author's approach to studying the motor-bike boys' culture at large, by making contact with a motor-bike club in a large English city in 1969, thus producing an account based on general observation, conversations with individuals and groups, participation around the club, often with the group just described, and tape-recorded sessions. It then embarks on a more intimate examination of this particular culture. The world of the motor-bike boys was above all else concrete and unequivocal. They perceived it without ontological insecurity, without existential angst.Less
This chapter presents the politics and experiences of identity as exercised by the motor-bike boys. It first discusses the author's approach to studying the motor-bike boys' culture at large, by making contact with a motor-bike club in a large English city in 1969, thus producing an account based on general observation, conversations with individuals and groups, participation around the club, often with the group just described, and tape-recorded sessions. It then embarks on a more intimate examination of this particular culture. The world of the motor-bike boys was above all else concrete and unequivocal. They perceived it without ontological insecurity, without existential angst.
Coleman Julie
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199567256
- eISBN:
- 9780191595073
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199567256.003.0009
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics, Lexicography
Slang only becomes associated with young people in general during the period covered by this volume. The production of dictionaries of youth slang was fuelled by fears of juvenile delinquency and by ...
More
Slang only becomes associated with young people in general during the period covered by this volume. The production of dictionaries of youth slang was fuelled by fears of juvenile delinquency and by the influence of ‘black’ music on white teenagers. However, many glossaries of youth slang from this period were produced as tools in marketing and advertising campaigns.Less
Slang only becomes associated with young people in general during the period covered by this volume. The production of dictionaries of youth slang was fuelled by fears of juvenile delinquency and by the influence of ‘black’ music on white teenagers. However, many glossaries of youth slang from this period were produced as tools in marketing and advertising campaigns.
David E. James
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- December 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199387595
- eISBN:
- 9780199387632
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199387595.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
In the mid-1950s, rock ’n’ roll amalgamated earlier black and white working-class musical traditions to displace the Great American Songbook’s hegemony over Anglophone popular music. At the same ...
More
In the mid-1950s, rock ’n’ roll amalgamated earlier black and white working-class musical traditions to displace the Great American Songbook’s hegemony over Anglophone popular music. At the same time, the classic musical was both displaced and re-created in a new form of film: the rock ’n’ roll musical. For the next two decades, the genre’s evolution in the United States and the United Kingdom accompanied and sustained the emergence, flowering, and decay of a counterculture. Cinema was second only to records in the production of the new cultural gestalt that the music generated. An ongoing series of films created a mythic history of rock ’n’ roll, becoming the most important means by which both its utopian folk aspirations and its contradictory relation to the alienating agencies of capitalist culture were disseminated and debated. Films about rock ’n’ roll involved innovations in the two key representational elements of the classic musical. To represent the “numbers,” the spectacles of musical performance, cinema created new visual techniques parallel to specific musical innovations, that is, forms of rock ’n’ roll filmic visuality. The narratives, cinema’s stories about rock ’n’ roll musicians and audiences, entailed proposals about its aesthetic and social meanings. By the end of the 1960s, the biracial social projects of the civil rights and other social movements fell into disarray, and the rock ’n’ roll musical splintered into films about separate black and white music: soul and country. This split was accompanied by cinematic narratives of rock ’n’ roll’s demise.Less
In the mid-1950s, rock ’n’ roll amalgamated earlier black and white working-class musical traditions to displace the Great American Songbook’s hegemony over Anglophone popular music. At the same time, the classic musical was both displaced and re-created in a new form of film: the rock ’n’ roll musical. For the next two decades, the genre’s evolution in the United States and the United Kingdom accompanied and sustained the emergence, flowering, and decay of a counterculture. Cinema was second only to records in the production of the new cultural gestalt that the music generated. An ongoing series of films created a mythic history of rock ’n’ roll, becoming the most important means by which both its utopian folk aspirations and its contradictory relation to the alienating agencies of capitalist culture were disseminated and debated. Films about rock ’n’ roll involved innovations in the two key representational elements of the classic musical. To represent the “numbers,” the spectacles of musical performance, cinema created new visual techniques parallel to specific musical innovations, that is, forms of rock ’n’ roll filmic visuality. The narratives, cinema’s stories about rock ’n’ roll musicians and audiences, entailed proposals about its aesthetic and social meanings. By the end of the 1960s, the biracial social projects of the civil rights and other social movements fell into disarray, and the rock ’n’ roll musical splintered into films about separate black and white music: soul and country. This split was accompanied by cinematic narratives of rock ’n’ roll’s demise.
Jonathyne Briggs
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199377060
- eISBN:
- 9780199377091
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199377060.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, Popular, History, Western
This chapter examines the arrival of rock and roll in France during the late 1950s, highlighting the connection between the social changes wrought by the French “economic miracle” and the ascent of ...
More
This chapter examines the arrival of rock and roll in France during the late 1950s, highlighting the connection between the social changes wrought by the French “economic miracle” and the ascent of youth culture in French society. Young French pop stars such as Johnny Hallyday, Françoise Hardy, and Sylvie Vartan—the copains—created a new cultural form, a social relationship that they imagined to be a new type of community for all of France. In the early 1960s, both the communists and the Catholics responded to the challenge by trying to integrate the copains’ image into their own concepts of community. Ultimately, the ideal of the copain could not bridge the divides in French society. Through an examination of rock and roll songs, published interviews, listeners’ letters, and editorials, this chapter reveals how young people, both performers and audiences, attempted to construct a new society through rock and roll.Less
This chapter examines the arrival of rock and roll in France during the late 1950s, highlighting the connection between the social changes wrought by the French “economic miracle” and the ascent of youth culture in French society. Young French pop stars such as Johnny Hallyday, Françoise Hardy, and Sylvie Vartan—the copains—created a new cultural form, a social relationship that they imagined to be a new type of community for all of France. In the early 1960s, both the communists and the Catholics responded to the challenge by trying to integrate the copains’ image into their own concepts of community. Ultimately, the ideal of the copain could not bridge the divides in French society. Through an examination of rock and roll songs, published interviews, listeners’ letters, and editorials, this chapter reveals how young people, both performers and audiences, attempted to construct a new society through rock and roll.
Keila Diehl
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520230439
- eISBN:
- 9780520936003
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520230439.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This chapter analyzes the Tibetan refugee dreams of political independence or autonomy for the homeland. It discusses the idealized romance with the West engaged in by young Tibetan refugees facing ...
More
This chapter analyzes the Tibetan refugee dreams of political independence or autonomy for the homeland. It discusses the idealized romance with the West engaged in by young Tibetan refugees facing limited opportunities in their South Asian settlements and suggests that Western rock-and-roll music was a powerful resource for young Tibetan refugees trying to imagine and pursue personal and political rangzen. It argues that participation in an international pop culture was a way for Tibetan refugees to express solidarity with a wider human struggle through sounds that have a historical relationship with social change.Less
This chapter analyzes the Tibetan refugee dreams of political independence or autonomy for the homeland. It discusses the idealized romance with the West engaged in by young Tibetan refugees facing limited opportunities in their South Asian settlements and suggests that Western rock-and-roll music was a powerful resource for young Tibetan refugees trying to imagine and pursue personal and political rangzen. It argues that participation in an international pop culture was a way for Tibetan refugees to express solidarity with a wider human struggle through sounds that have a historical relationship with social change.
Paul E. Willis
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691163697
- eISBN:
- 9781400865147
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691163697.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
A classic of British cultural studies, this book takes the reader into the worlds of two important 1960s youth cultures — the motor-bike boys and the hippies. The motor-bike boys were working-class ...
More
A classic of British cultural studies, this book takes the reader into the worlds of two important 1960s youth cultures — the motor-bike boys and the hippies. The motor-bike boys were working-class motorcyclists who listened to the early rock 'n' roll of the late 1950s. In contrast, the hippies were middle-class drug users with long hair and a love of progressive music. Both groups were involved in an unequal but heroic fight to produce meaning and their own cultural forms in the face of a larger society dominated by the capitalist media and commercialism. They were pioneers of cultural experimentation, the self-construction of identity, and the curating of the self, which, in different ways, have become so widespread today. This book develops an important and still very contemporary theory and methodology for understanding the constructions of lived and popular culture. Its new preface discusses the ties between the cultural moment explored in the book and today.Less
A classic of British cultural studies, this book takes the reader into the worlds of two important 1960s youth cultures — the motor-bike boys and the hippies. The motor-bike boys were working-class motorcyclists who listened to the early rock 'n' roll of the late 1950s. In contrast, the hippies were middle-class drug users with long hair and a love of progressive music. Both groups were involved in an unequal but heroic fight to produce meaning and their own cultural forms in the face of a larger society dominated by the capitalist media and commercialism. They were pioneers of cultural experimentation, the self-construction of identity, and the curating of the self, which, in different ways, have become so widespread today. This book develops an important and still very contemporary theory and methodology for understanding the constructions of lived and popular culture. Its new preface discusses the ties between the cultural moment explored in the book and today.
Jerry Zolten
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195152722
- eISBN:
- 9780199849536
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195152722.003.0008
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
By the middle 1960s, doo-wop and the early rock 'n' rollers were supplanted by new styles. While many white artists including Bob Dylan and the Beatles were changing rock music, the African American ...
More
By the middle 1960s, doo-wop and the early rock 'n' rollers were supplanted by new styles. While many white artists including Bob Dylan and the Beatles were changing rock music, the African American community brought gospel-inflected Motown and southern soul to the airwaves. The Impressions, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, the Miracles, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, and the Reverend C. L.'s daughter Aretha Franklin were among the genre's pioneers. This generation of performers would also carryon the influence of the Dixie Hummingbirds.Less
By the middle 1960s, doo-wop and the early rock 'n' rollers were supplanted by new styles. While many white artists including Bob Dylan and the Beatles were changing rock music, the African American community brought gospel-inflected Motown and southern soul to the airwaves. The Impressions, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, the Miracles, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, and the Reverend C. L.'s daughter Aretha Franklin were among the genre's pioneers. This generation of performers would also carryon the influence of the Dixie Hummingbirds.
Fabian Holt
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226350370
- eISBN:
- 9780226350400
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226350400.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
The popularity of the motion picture soundtrack O Brother, Where Art Thou? brought an extraordinary amount of attention to bluegrass, but it also drew its share of criticism from some aficionados who ...
More
The popularity of the motion picture soundtrack O Brother, Where Art Thou? brought an extraordinary amount of attention to bluegrass, but it also drew its share of criticism from some aficionados who felt the album's inclusion of more modern tracks misrepresented the genre. This soundtrack, these purists argued, wasn't bluegrass, but “roots music,” a new and, indeed, more overarching category concocted by journalists and marketers. Why is it that popular music genres like these and others are so passionately contested? And how is it that these genres emerge, coalesce, change, and die out? This book provides new understanding as to why we debate music categories, and why those terms are unstable and always shifting. To tackle the full complexity of genres in popular music, the author embarks on a wide-ranging collection of case studies. Here he examines not only the different reactions to O Brother, but also the impact of rock and roll's explosion in the 1950s and 1960s on country music and jazz, and how the jazz and indie music scenes in Chicago have intermingled to expand the borders of their respective genres. Throughout, the author finds that genres are an integral part of musical culture—fundamental both to musical practice and experience, and to the social organization of musical life.Less
The popularity of the motion picture soundtrack O Brother, Where Art Thou? brought an extraordinary amount of attention to bluegrass, but it also drew its share of criticism from some aficionados who felt the album's inclusion of more modern tracks misrepresented the genre. This soundtrack, these purists argued, wasn't bluegrass, but “roots music,” a new and, indeed, more overarching category concocted by journalists and marketers. Why is it that popular music genres like these and others are so passionately contested? And how is it that these genres emerge, coalesce, change, and die out? This book provides new understanding as to why we debate music categories, and why those terms are unstable and always shifting. To tackle the full complexity of genres in popular music, the author embarks on a wide-ranging collection of case studies. Here he examines not only the different reactions to O Brother, but also the impact of rock and roll's explosion in the 1950s and 1960s on country music and jazz, and how the jazz and indie music scenes in Chicago have intermingled to expand the borders of their respective genres. Throughout, the author finds that genres are an integral part of musical culture—fundamental both to musical practice and experience, and to the social organization of musical life.
Todd Decker
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520268883
- eISBN:
- 9780520950061
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520268883.003.0008
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
In 1952, Fred Astaire remarked that “jazz means the blues,” and this chapter examines this comment in practical terms by detailing Astaire's varied use of the twelve-bar blues progression as a ...
More
In 1952, Fred Astaire remarked that “jazz means the blues,” and this chapter examines this comment in practical terms by detailing Astaire's varied use of the twelve-bar blues progression as a musical scaffold for dance making. All the important popular blues-based idioms turn up in his work, from boogie-woogie and swing blues (use of the blues progression by big bands) to 1950s rock and roll and 1960s soul jazz. Astaire danced to popular music, whose structural building blocks are straightforward: thirty-two-bar choruses built on eight-bar phrases in an AABA or ABAC arrangement, twelve-bar blues choruses, introductions, verses, vamps, and big finishes. There was nothing arcane or concealed about the musical forms he deployed: they can be heard easily if we attend just to the music—sometimes hard to do with all that dancing going on. Accompanied on-screen by a group of African American sideline musicians, Astaire created an extended solo dance to “Bugle Call Rag.” His final studio-era solo was a rock-and-roll blues number by Cole Porter.Less
In 1952, Fred Astaire remarked that “jazz means the blues,” and this chapter examines this comment in practical terms by detailing Astaire's varied use of the twelve-bar blues progression as a musical scaffold for dance making. All the important popular blues-based idioms turn up in his work, from boogie-woogie and swing blues (use of the blues progression by big bands) to 1950s rock and roll and 1960s soul jazz. Astaire danced to popular music, whose structural building blocks are straightforward: thirty-two-bar choruses built on eight-bar phrases in an AABA or ABAC arrangement, twelve-bar blues choruses, introductions, verses, vamps, and big finishes. There was nothing arcane or concealed about the musical forms he deployed: they can be heard easily if we attend just to the music—sometimes hard to do with all that dancing going on. Accompanied on-screen by a group of African American sideline musicians, Astaire created an extended solo dance to “Bugle Call Rag.” His final studio-era solo was a rock-and-roll blues number by Cole Porter.
