The Rock and Roll Music Era Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

The Rock and Roll Music Era - Essay Example This "The Rock and Roll Music Era" essay outlines the origin of this genre and how it became popular. Early rock and roll was a fusion of three leading music genres of the time, and these are pop music, western-country music and Rn’Bs; rock and roll grew to phenomenal heights as songs by rock and roll artists such as Little Richard Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley became instant chart hits throughout the world (Welch, n.d). Socially, the rock and roll era was characterized by widespread racial segregation and high racial intolerance between the blacks and the whites in the American society; race mixing was a huge problem due to the racial hostilities that characterized the American society at the time. Economically, America was still recovering from the pangs of both the civil war and the world wars that had caused massive havoc to its economy; even though the situation was slowly getting better and trade was picking up, the American society was still wary over the potential of a n economic relapse. Politically, the rock and roll era was a period in the American history when there were high political anxieties and fears over the possibility and threat of foreign conspirators even though the world wars had just been concluded and calm had returned in the global society. Culturally, rock and roll was an era defined by a fusion of music cultures i.e. rock and roll is regarded as one of the most influential and phenomenal eras of music especially because it was a fusion of the three most popular forms of music. Rock and roll was also popular all over the world because it emerged along with the rise of television and the highly expressive popular youth culture. Until then, people had listened to music through the radio i.e. WLS 890, a radio station that played the most popular songs of the time, about young love and cars in particular; this station was common among the youth of the time. The youth of this era were very expressive and experimental and their teenage angst coupled with their free spiritedness lifestyle was a perennial source of worry to their parents who were wary of the potential ramifications of teenage rebellion in the hostile American society. These teenagers were fast at picking up the rock and roll mannerisms and influences especiall y fashion by watching TV and imitating the rock and roll superstars in their manner of dressing and their tastes in things