What is rock and roll?

What is rock and roll?

The concept of rock music

The constant suspense

What exactly is rock music?

Long hair, leather jackets, ripped jeans... yes and no;

Guitar, bass, drums... yes and no;

Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Nirvana... Yes, and no;

Youthful freedom, hormonal impulse, deviance... Yes, and no;

Rhythm , lyrics, melody, dreams, truth, feeling, wildness, faith, power, anger... Yes, and no;

...

These are not rock music, it can be said that All, so what is the specific metaphysical definition of rock music? It seems to me now that raising this question is like setting a trap for myself, just like someone who is stupid enough to ask what true love is and whether there is true love in this world. Because there can never be a standard answer. Not all the time! Whenever you find that you are only one step away from touching the edge of the truth, but you don’t know where a fork in the road appears. As long as you take a step forward, you will reach the truth, but this fork in the road will take you away. It leads you back to the original starting point, so your thinking has to start from the beginning again.

History Says

The first work in history to be labeled as rock and roll was "Rock and Roll All Day" recorded by white American musician Bill Haley in the mid-1950s ( Rock Around the Clock). At that time, Bill Haley was wearing a crisp suit and tie, with his hair combed shiny. If such a person walked on the street or stood on the stage today and sang this song, no one would think He is singing rock music, but history defines it as the first rock song. This is not surprising. It turns out that people still think that the sky is round and the earth is square. It turns out that people also think that the earth is the center of the universe! We can think of it as a joke played on us by the times. In this way, any specific definition seems to be relative, because times are changing, and people's fields of understanding are constantly expanding and changing.

The most difficult thing in the world is to define something, because it requires an accurate and concise description. The easiest thing in the world can also be said to be to define something, because you can give a concept according to your own way of understanding and level of understanding. So a long time ago, in the traditional consciousness of Chinese people, long hair and a leather jacket were rock and roll. Then some people think that rock is SOLO on the guitar, bass on the bass, and rhythm on the drums. Nowadays, some people say that rock and roll is a kind of spirit, but some people say that this is wrong. So with more and more doubts, I began to look through relevant books and information, and found the following definitions given by some so-called rock experts:

Grell Marcus is famous far and wide. The author of the rock classic "Mystery Train", he believes that rock and roll is nothing more than "an American culture". For example, Elvis Presley is nothing more than "dramatizing the feeling of being an American and the meaning of this feeling." , values, and the pros and cons of American life.”

Carl Belz, in his book "Rock Story", regarded rock and roll as "folk art", a subconscious slang expression.

Charlie Luter calls rock and roll the "sound of the city" and believes that it is a new musical cry created by urban teenagers.

Jonathan Eisen called rock and roll "a rebellion against the hypocrisy of Western culture...a profound form of subversion" in "Rock of Ages".

Dave Harker used the Marxist theory of class struggle to analyze rock music in "Bang for Your Money" and considered it to be "working class culture"; while Paul Johnson analyzed rock music in "The New Statesman" The emphasis on rock music is a bourgeois conspiracy, the purpose of which is to recruit potential revolutionaries and make them "indulged in it and become numb, lazy and out of touch with reality."

Richard Goldstein believes in "The Poetry of Rock" that the most important feature of rock is still the unbridled squandering of youthful vitality...

Speaking of Here, I am reminded of the African American musician Chuck Berry’s use of his work to define rock music. This is also a work from the early days of rock music in the 1950s, Johnny B, Good. It tells the story of a young man playing guitar who leads to success. It uses narrative techniques to add a very alluring aura to rock music. Rock music can make an ordinary person lead to success and glory. This ordinary person does not need to have any knowledge of music theory or understand music, as long as he has an ideal, as long as he has the courage to sing what he thinks in his heart, as long as he is willing. It is also worth mentioning that on a spacecraft launched by the United States to alien creatures, this song was recorded on a CD as the essence of human civilization to express the achievements of earthly civilization.