Hello everyone, I’m back again and
I’m SUPER excited to get into this “Genre History” with all of you, as you can
tell. So before I could learn about the genre’s history, I had to figure out
what kind of music my genre was going to be. So I made my way to the local
record store. I recently go a critique that the music in the past two reviews
were too new and that I should find something older. Well, with this being a
history post, I made my way to the way way way back of the store to the crates
of 50 cent albums, because I am a broke bitch who can’t afford another nice
album. There were 7 people in the record store at that time, so I obviously had
to choose the seventh album. I still think it’s funny that I’ve managed to come
up with these stupid ways to find an album. And that is how I found and beat
up, torn, gross, yet still functional copy of “The Grand Illusion” by Styx.
Rock. I get to do a genre history over rock, this should be fun and not time
consuming at alllllll.
Alright well, let’s get into it
then. Everyone knows about rock, it isn’t one of those unnecessarily specific
niches that no one other than the people who follow it intensely no about. I’d
even be willing to bet that you know all the words to at least one classic rock
song, most likely it’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” or a song by Elvis. Basically,
everyone knows about this genre, but do you know where it came from? That, my
buddy ole pal, is a whole other question.
The genre of rock was a branch of
popular music and then became popular music for a very long time. But where did
this jank-ass rock come from? It actually came from an advancing of technology
and the combination of blues, jazz, and big band with new instruments. One of
the advancements in technology that was made during this time was, wait for it,
the vinyl record, you had to know that was coming. Who would’ve guessed that I
would manage to stick my entire blog’s identity into this post, or as some
would say my “brand” into this post? Well, this shit’s for a grade so I guess
you gotta do what you gotta do.
We’re going to take a step back and
talk about the vinyl side of things here, as if that is the entire point of
this blog, to talk about vinyl. If you never noticed, all early songs pressed
on vinyl are about 3 minutes. At most 3, sometimes less. The reason for this is
in the technology of the time. Records used to be pressed on shellac with
larger grooves than we are used to today. This meant that there was a lot less
area on the record to put information. Along with the wider grooves, that
record spun faster, at about 78 rpm. The combination of these two factors led
to a record only being able to hold about 3 minutes of music on each side,
hence the lack of longer songs. Then there were some improvements made. The
microgroove was created, which is a lot thinner, therefore able to put more
music on each side of the record. Then people started experimenting with
different materials for the record and found that vinyl was the best because it
was more durable. Finally, an improvement in the pressing process led to the
ability to slow down the spinning speed. These breakthroughs led to the album
you know and love today where you can fit a 45 minute album onto a vinyl
record. Pretty cool, huh?
Okay, so here I made for y’all a
mash-up of a couple songs that I think best sums up part of the journey of
rock, I’m lying, I had to make this for the pre-blog post thing for the class
and I’m actually kind of happy with it and it can be a good base to start off
from. I can’t talk about the entirety of rock because of all of the branches it
split into through time, so this track is the journey that I’m going to talk
about. I will say this again. There is no way that I could do a complete genre
history over rock with the time I have nor be able to do it well, also, that is
way too much stuff to figure out. If I get any comments on how this is a scoped
version of the history of rock, I will be annoyed and probably mad, because I
am telling you that right now.
Before we do any discussion of the
genre, I want to really get something very clear, when I describe these bands
and their reputation and sound, I am talking specifically about each song for
the most part, many of them do line up with the reputation of the entire band,
but every band has songs that don’t fit their normal sound or image, I am
talking very generally about each band. Also, almost all of these bands can fit
into other categories, but I am not talking about pop or folk, I am talking
about just rock. With that, I am aware that I am missing a ton of branches of
rock, like I said, I cannot cover them all. If you would like a list of rock
genres I did not cover, you can look somewhere else (thumbs up).
Okay, I’m going to start with “Rock
Around the Clock”. Rock has its roots in big band swing music, which you can
hear in the first song “Rock Around the Clock” by Billy Haley and His Comets.
This was the first “Rock” song to hit number 1 on Billboard’s top 100. There
were obviously many albums before this one that could be considered rock, but the
first number 1 hit is a good place to start. This initial version of rock was
basically big band swing music with more suggestive lyrics and some sprinkling
in of electric guitars and basses. Like I’m talking about some bullshit like
when “rock and roll” literally means sex, like come on, they need to come up
with better euphemisms. This led to the next artist’s big break, Elvis Presley.
This man was the face behind what many of the older generation called “devil
music” for its direct suggestions pertaining to sexual natures. In fact, when
Elvis played on the Ed Sullivan Show, they were only allowed to show the upper
half of his body because of his famous hip shakes and all that shit that was
considered inappropriate for TV at the time. Next up is the cleaned up version
of rock with “The Beach Boys” with their clean fun in the sun. There wasn’t
much substance to their music, it was all about fun and basically the
anti-Elvis. Bob Dylan, who was just recently given the Nobel Peace Prize for
Literature, is up next on the mash-up. Dylan took the ideas of the Beach Boys
and added a deeper purpose. Dylan used music as his medium for social activism.
This was the first time that rock was used for this and commonly accepted by the
audience. I consider this part of rock as the most, for a lack of better terms,
impactful, Bob Dylan actually did shit with his music, which is fucking cool,
but not really part of the rest of these bands.
Ah, the British Invasion, this is a
pretty big turning point in rock as a genre. The Beatles changed the world and
everyone knows it. The first half of their career was what the older generation
could tolerate, they sang about love and adventure and all the idealized things
parents wanted their kids to listen to. Up next is my favorite turn of rock,
the introduction of drugs, and I’m like talking some of those hard core
motherfucking drugs. Don’t get me wrong, I am fully aware of the amount of
drugs rock bands did before this time (Elvis’s death for one) but this is when
drugs became the topic of discussion for a lot of bands. “I am the Walrus” is a
good song that The Beatles wrote while obviously on some kind of drug, god
knows what kind and how many. From then on, in this line of rock history, it’s
a lot of the same ideas. With Eric Clapton literally singing about cocaine and
Pink Floyd’s trippy “Interstellar Overdrive” it is clear that drugs were a part
of these bands’ recipes for success. By the by, if you happen to be on any
conscious altering substance, “Interstellar Overdrive” is a fucking rage and
will change your life, or so I’m told, because drugs are bad for you and you
shouldn’t do them. In my opinion, the man that had more drugs in his system
than blood, Jimi Hendrix is the epitome of this kind of rock, but to be fair he
did create the branch of “Acid Rock” and that shit is lit.
Alright, after that, we leave the
drug world and get to the all-time famous rock song that everyone hates that
they know all the words, “Don’t Stop Believin’” which cuts down on the drugs
mentioned throughout the song. Finally, we get to the album I found in the 50
cent crate with “Come Sail Away” which describes a crazy trip somebody takes
that ranges from sailing away on a boat to going to heaven and ending by meeting
aliens, I’m sure that was some good shit they were smoking. This song may not
say that this is a drug trip, but I think we can be honest with ourselves and
admit that somebody took some acid or something and wrote this song. The Eagles
follow with “Hotel California” which is a mellowed out version of rock similar
to the Beach Boys. This is where we see bands connecting with past bands of
their genre and creating something similar but new. “Renegade” By Styx isn’t
from the album I picked up, but it has a lot of classic ideas of rock in it
that just makes you want to headband. Finally, we have the king of being weird,
David Bowie. This dude is strange, but also just damn cool. I feel like he took
the rulebook for rock and tossed it into a volcano. But even then, he brought
back a lot of ideas from rock before his time. The impact of drugs on his music
is undeniable, but he also took a note from Bob Dylan in this song “Heroes” and
was using music as a medium to show his opinions of the situation of Berlin after
the war.
So basically, rock has an extremely
storied background and there is so much more than I could say in this post, but
rock still lives on and continues to evolve while also keeping its roots.
Well, that’s really all I have for you this time, have a
groovy day.
I’m so sorry for that.
See you on the flip side.
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