It is arguable that by the end of the 20th century, rock had established itself as the world’s dominant form of popular music. It began in the 1950s in the United States spread to other English-speaking countries and throughout Europe in the 1960s. By the 1990s, its global influence was evident (albeit in many different local forms). The structure of the worldwide recording industry, the outlets for foreign record stores, and the playlist strategies of music radio and television all reflected the commercial value of rock at the time. Classical, jazz, easy listening, country, folk, and other types of music were marketed as minority preferences, while rock defined the musical mainstream. As a result, in the second half of the 20th century, it became the most inclusive of musical labels – anything can be “rocked” and, as a result, the most difficult to describe. To answer the question “What is rock?” one must first understand its origins and what made it possible. And to understand the cultural significance of rock, one must first understand how it functions both socially and musically.

What is rock?

Rock meanings are hard to come by, not least because the word has different connotations in British and American usages (the latter being broader in compass). While everyone agrees that rock is “a type of music with a strong beat,” it’s hard to be more specific. “Rock is a type of music with simple songs and a very strong beat that is played and sung, generally loudly, by a small group of people with electric guitars and drums,” according to the Collins Cobuild English Dictionary. However, this definition has so many exceptions that it is practically useless.

Legislators trying to classify mountains for regulatory purposes have had difficulty doing so. “Rock and rock-oriented music,” according to the Canadian government, “is characterized by a heavy rhythm, the use of blues forms, and the inclusion of rock instruments such as an electric guitar, electric bass, organ, or electric piano. ” This means that rock can be formally distinguished from other types of music based on its sound. But in reality, the differences that matter to rock fans and musicians are ideological. The word “rock” was coined to distinguish certain music-making and listening habits from those associated with pop music; the problem was not so much a sound like an attitude. Pop music was described as “all kinds of music characterized by a strong rhythmic element and a reliance on electronic amplification for their sound” by British regulators in 1990. The music industry reacted angrily, arguing that such a term ignored the simple sociological distinction between pop. (“Immediate single-based music aimed at teenagers”) and rock (“album-based music for adults”). The legislators overlooked what made rock music so important in their quest for definitional clarification.

Key rock musicians

For lexicographers and legislators alike, the purpose of the definition is to understand the meaning and keep it in place so that people can use a word correctly – for example, to assign a track to the correct radio outlet (rock, pop, country, jazz ). The problem is that the word “rock” refers to an ever-changing musical practice influenced by several non-musical factors (creativity, sincerity, commerce, and popularity). It makes more sense to approach the historical concept of rock by example. The musicians listed below played an important role in developing rock music. What do they all have in common?

In the mid-1950s, Elvis Presley, a native of Memphis, Tennessee, personified a new form of American popular music. Rock and roll was a guitar-based sound with a heavy (if loose) rhythm that drew equally from African-American and white South American traditions and blues, church music, and country music. Presley’s meteoric rise to national fame demonstrated teenagers’ emerging cultural and economic dominance and teen-oriented media – records, radio, television, and movies.