The style and background of rock music

THE STYLE AND THE BACKGROUND OF ROCK MUSIC 50’-60’

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of other genres such as blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical and other musical sources.

Musically, rock has centred around the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with bass guitar and drums. Typically, rock is song-based music with a 4/4 beat utilizing a verse-chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse and common musical characteristics are difficult to define. 

Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. The dominance of rock by white, male musicians has been seen as one of the key factors shaping the themes explored in rock music. Rock places a higher degree of emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and   an ideology of authenticity   than pop music.

“Hairstyles 1960 of Rock Guys”                             

The 1960s were a time of change in America. Fashions and hairstyles followed social movements. The Beatles and rock music affected the way men styled their hair. Antiwar "hippies" allowed their hair to follow a free-flowing style. From short to long hair, 1960s men's hairstyles reflected the decade that remains a fashion inspiration.

   “COSTUMES & FASHION”

The 1960's began with crew cuts on men and bouffant hairstyles on women.  Men's casual shirts were often plaid and buttoned down the front, while knee-length dresses were required wear for women in most public places.  By mid-decade, miniskirts or hot pants, often worn with go-go boots, were revealing legs, body wear was revealing curves, and women's hair was either very short or long and lanky.  Men's hair became longer and wider, with beards and moustaches.  Men's wear had a renaissance.  Bright colours, double-breasted sports jackets, polyester pants suits with Nehru jackets, and turtlenecks were in vogue.  By the end of the decade, ties, when worn, were up to 5" wide, patterned even when worn with stripes.  Women wore peasant skirts or granny dresses and chunky shoes.  Unisex dressing was popular, featuring bell bottomed jeans, love beads, and embellished t-shirts.  Clothing was as likely to be purchased at surplus stores as boutiques.  Blacks of both genders wore their hair in an afro.

“IDEOLOGY OF ROCK MUSIC”

  Rock 'n' roll can be described in such cohesive terms only if it is more than just a popular consumer entertainment medium: it must be a self-contained "movement," which adherents choose to "join," and by so choosing accept its terms. In turn, rock 'n' roll can only be a movement if all of its widely disparate strains and offshoots are in some way connected to a common, unifying origin. This is in fact true; every rock musician today, from Alabama to Australia, from Sinead O'Connor to Axl Rose, can trace his or her roots directly to a single moment in history, the springboard of all rock music and culture, the explosive events of the mid-1950s that first introduced the idea of rock 'n' roll to the world.

It is the themes and artistic styles of that very special, very brief time, that spawned the movement, and that subsequent artists, from Dylan and the Beatles through Midnight Oil and Public Enemy, have merely refined and redefined. The 1950s were comparatively safe and innocent, and rock 'n' roll established a foundation for the ideals that youth could pursue in such an environment. When issues of race relations, war, sexuality, drugs, ecology, and world hunger arose in later years, rock 'n' roll was forced, like every other ideology, to respond to them. That many of these concerns were of central importance to the kids reared on and revelling in rock 'n' roll as a lifestyle only heightens the significance of their common response, as expressed in and through the music.

What we of the rock generations lack, then, is not a belief system, or a serious foundation for political, social, and creative expression, but simply a willingness to accept that what we have is good enough. Believers in Socialism or Conservatism or Buddhism have no more coherent, sophisticated, or relevant conceptual system of how humans should interact, should respond to common problems and needs, and should understand their place in the universe. 

When listening to countless heartfelt rock anthems, ballads, protests, and love songs, we shared the feeling of purpose and hope contained therein. Then, when looking at the outside world, we have witnessed the frustration, hypocrisy, and despair that so rheadlines and events, and it always seems that rock 'n' roll is very distant from these sad realities. The politicians and power centres--the Establishment--are almost always so un-hip, so far removed from the simple, sincere sentiments of the music. If we listen to the cynics, then this is because rock 'n' roll is kid stuff, and has no place at negotiating tables or decision makers' desks. We prefer not to accept that view, to remain defiantly, naively idealist. We  prefer to assert that not only is rock 'n' roll ideology real and viable, but that maybe its time has come.

“Moments and Feelings”
Since the dawn of the rock age, this music has taken on a crucial role that may have no substitute in the modern era; formal religion has waned as a source of inspiration and comfort, especially for young people, and in many serious respects rock 'n' roll has filled the void, providing a forum for shared experience that approaches the spiritual, and for examining deeper thoughts and questions that the superficial material world seems not to address. Whether the theme is teenage love or the existence of God, this music offers its adherents perhaps their best opportunity to look within themselves while reaching beyond.