Rock music began as “race music”; the middle-class white teenager's middle finger to his conservative parents while listening to music composed by African Americans. It later became a key player in the American countercultural revolution in the 1960s, where then-teenage baby boomers used it once again to express their discontent with mainstream society as well as their efforts to find their own identity apart from that of their parents. . He moved on to nihilistic punk rock, carefree grunge, whiny pop punk, and anything else a teenager might use to abandon and complain about traditional values ​​and try to develop his own values. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Rock music has always been about rebellion, delinquency, transition, and angst. It has always been the music of youth. However, some rock musicians and their fans are no longer in their youth. They are getting old. This article does not claim that these aging fans still cannot be fans of rock music, but it serves to question the value and importance of rock music in their lives while proving that even if fans and musicians age, music does not age. The cultural significance of rock is exclusive to youth. To explain the cultural significance of rock music, I first had to ask myself what rock music is. What makes rock music rock music? It's a question of energy. It's about youthful energy complaining about not being able to get satisfaction while being tired of privileged white adults. Rock's cultural significance is what prompted the FCC to detect Elvis Presley's lower half. This is what caused a riot of angry teenagers outside Moondog's coronation ball. This is what caused Sid Vicious to cut himself on stage with beer bottles. The cultural significance of rock music comes from the fact that people are able to identify with the music and let it shape and change them, as described by a forty-four-year-old self-identified punk. It dictates the rest of your life in a sense. because the phenomenon, whatever happens, has such a fundamental effect on you that it actually changes the course of your life. So while that might have been the case if punk had never existed or if, you know, I was ten years older, maybe I could have missed something, or I would have been led down different paths. But because, you know, it was like punk rock changed his life. Rock music changed his life. It changed your life because as a teenager your life is constantly changing. The adolescent years are years of growth and transition, of identity formation. The interviewee said he could have been led down different paths without punk music. I'm not saying adults can't change their lives, but they should. Teenagers don't have stable lives yet, so they have the ability to let themselves be shaped, which rock music tends to do. To understand the importance of rock music to specifically Western culture and why it is exclusive to youth, the concept of youth must be explored (young people being mostly teenagers and perhaps early twenties). I first investigated the characteristics of adolescence that would be determining factors in their historically consistent consumption of rock music. I also havestudied the characteristics that allow young people to be sensitive to the importance of rock, that is, to identify with rock in a broader sense than just music and allow it to shape their identity. Psychologist Erik Erikson is known for his theory on psychosocial development where he divides life into eight stages; each stage being accompanied by a crisis. During adolescence, the crisis is that of confusion between identity and roles. American psychologist and professor Richard Stevens called this stage "a period of radical change...the ability of the mind to seek its own and others' intentions, the sudden heightened awareness of the roles that society offers for future life." Adolescents are forced to dissociate themselves from the identity that their parents gave them, to find their own identity but also to accept or reject the identity that society gives them. According to Erikson, adolescents grapple with the existential question: “Who am I?” Who can I be? » In addition to the cognitive transitions that adolescents go through, there are also biological aspects, in particular neurological, which explain why rock music affects young people more than adults. During adolescence, the brain has its greatest volume of gray matter, or collection of neuronal bodies. Although basic functions of the cortex, such as interpreting information from the senses, are formed by adolescence, the areas responsible for impulse control and planning are not yet fully mature. However, what is increased (compared to children and adults) are emotional responses, because the brain circuits responsible for these emotional responses also change in the brain. Adolescents are going through a very vulnerable, unstable and yet crucial stage of their lives. The need to find an identity coupled with strong emotions and poor decision-making skills makes adolescents a target for accepting and adopting rock music. So after delving deeper into the concept of youth, I had to look at rock music as a concept to understand how the two were related. Rock music was created under the influence of black jazz and gospel. The improvisational nature of jazz music and the energy that the organist specifically conveys in black Pentecostal churches are charged with emotion and spirituality. However, it is not only the nature of the music that matters, but also the idea behind it. In the 1950s, before the birth of rock and roll, black people had their own music, their own music magazines and their own radio stations. It wasn't like black music wasn't popular among white people, they still listened to it as long as it was a cleaner, simpler version sung by a white artist. For example, Little Richard's 1955 song "Tutti Frutti" is known for its raunchy lyrics and the artistic freedom he used with his voice and piano while performing it. Although the song is regularly named one of the best rock songs by Rolling Stone and Mojo Music Magazine, it peaked at #17 behind Pat Boone's toned-down cover which peaked at #12. It wasn't until the mid-1950s that DJ Alan "Moondog" Freed began playing racial music as well as white music on this radio show that launched rock and roll (a term coined by Freed himself). The realization that their children were listening to raucous music played by African Americans frightened white, middle-class parents. So, in an act of white children rebelling against dominant society by listening to black music, rock and roll was born. THErock and roll caused widespread fear of juvenile delinquency. Parents in the 1950s thought their post-World War II children were lazy, spoiled, and disrespectful. These teenagers no longer needed to work and each had a little pocket money and free time. So, these teenagers, who by nature were already going through an identity crisis, were now bored of money, all they had to do was go buy rock and roll records. This was the beginning of rock's cultural significance and it started with teenagers. It started with young people and it was for young people. The adults felt attacked and were afraid because they could not identify. Because adolescents are so focused on finding an identity that they are relatively open to new things. White, middle-class youth were open to black music, to a new way of passing time, to a new attitude. Adults, on the contrary, are generally not open to new attitudes. In Erikson's adult stage of psychosocial development, the crisis is between generativity and stagnation. They are committed to guiding the next generation and expressing it through socially valued work and discipline. They want to contribute to the common good and feel like productive members of society. They feel like their lives mean something bigger than themselves. According to Erikson, "a person does best at this moment to put aside thoughts of death and balance his certainty with the only happiness that is lasting: to increase, by all that you can give, the good will and higher order in your sector of the world. world. » While teenagers try to be selfish and understand themselves, adults try to be selfless and figure out how to help the next generation. Is the cultural significance of rock music related to whether it is selfish or altruistic? Daryl Hall of Hall and Oates said: “The whole point of rock and roll is a celebration of self. » There are countless rock song lyrics that go along the lines of “do what you want.” However, these are just words. The cultural significance of rock music needs to be explored beyond just how it started and beyond just understanding why teenagers loved it so much. The next question then is: why is this exclusive to young people? I insist again: adults can like rock music. I interviewed adult fans of rock music. However, Johnny Thunders of the New York Dolls said it best when he said, "rock and roll is just an attitude." The cultural significance of rock music lies in this attitude and energy mentioned above. What strengthens attitude and energy is physical contact and friendliness. Live music plays an extremely important role because it explains the cultural significance of rock music by describing the way people use music. It all started in Cleveland, Ohio. March 21, 1952. Moondog's Coronation Ball sold 20,000 tickets in a venue that could barely accommodate 10,000. The lineup was racially mixed, as was the audience. Members of the public were surprised to see that Alan Freed, who organized the event, was white. Black and white teenagers gathered in the room and those who could not enter rioted. The police came. A man was stabbed. The world witnessed its first rock and roll concert. The teenagers in attendance wanted something more than what they heard on their records and on Alan Freed's radio show. They wanted to feel the energy of live music and thefeel with other people; even those outside of their race. Although French sociologist Emile Durkheim wrote The Elementary Forms of Religious Life about religion and primitive religious rituals, these ideas can easily be placed in the context of rock concerts. In fact, the guitarist for Jefferson Airplane once said, "Rock concerts are today's churches." The music places [the audience] on a spiritual plane. The energy felt by spectators on this “spiritual level” is what Durkheim calls “collective effervescence”. Durkheim explains how individuals participating in religious rituals (which in this case would be a rock concert) forgot their individuality because the group gave them an identity. Collective effervescence is the energy that circulates among those who attend rock concerts. It is a shared experience that arouses strong emotions, usually euphoria. I have already highlighted how the search for identity is specific to young people and so the component of eliciting strong emotions in a group context (again, a rock concert) needs to be examined. I spoke with an eighteen-year-old African-American woman who said she had attended over fifty concerts since she was "about twelve years old" about her rock concert experiences and why she continues to attend as many concerts. a lot of these concerts by myself… but I never really feel alone. I'm with a lot of different people and we have different lives but we sing the same song. They just remind me that I'm not alone and everyone is young and I don't know what I'm doing and I don't think anyone else does either... I saw this band called Catfish and the Bottlemen last February. I think their songs aren't very heavy, like they're pissed off about stuff and the girls are driving them crazy but they still love them, they're still trying to get laid and they're drinking and getting high and I guess I identify really like boys drive me crazy and i'm not really trying to fall in love yet, but i like loving people, being angry and just messing around... i remember this guy, he was british and drunk as hell ...screaming, "The catfish and the bottlers!" and he wrapped his arm around me and started swinging so I joined in and we were just screaming and holding each other the other one and when Catfish and the Bottlemen finally came on we were shouting the lyrics together and his friends had come sic and we were all dancing and jumping around it was really stupid... That's why I go to shows. .I feel like it's okay to be stupid because everyone around me is stupid... especially rock concerts because the lyrics aren't serious and it's easy to headbang or rant. jump to the beat. It's just that everything seems easy, like everyone is your friend and everything which I love. That's why I go to so many shows like it's the best feeling in the world where nothing matters but the moment like this guy hugging me while we were both waiting for our favorite band like THAT mattered to me like feeling understood matters. a lot for me. This interview reiterates what I've already said about adolescents and their identity crises as well as their heightened responses to emotional situations. The collective excitement of concerts would affect emotional adolescents more than adults. This interview also explains the importance of rock through music and beyond music. Typically, rock music has a 4/4 drum rhythm, emphasizing the "on" beat and is centered on theelectric guitar. It's simple and energetic, which my interviewee acknowledged when saying how easy it is to access. She also commented on the lyrics and how easy they were to understand. However, it was about something more. She felt understood not only by the lyrics and the group, but also by the people around her. Since this article is about aging and cultural significance, I had to interview an older generation. The information from the two interviews would not only show the differences between younger fans and older fans, but when rock music has similar effects on people of different generations, this historical consistency provides insight into the cultural significance of the music rock and why it is exclusive to young people. So I also interviewed a sixty-nine year old African American man who grew up in Detroit, Michigan about his experiences with live music. We would go to concerts and, uh, so. You liked the records and you saw the artists. It was a lot of fun. When I was arriving, I liked The Temptations… Good solid harmony. Nice soft rhythms. The songs told a story...I went to probably five Temptations shows. I grew up in the Motown era and Motown had a lot of good artists. We got to see all these artists perform. It was a lot of fun and it was a lot of fun. Every time there was a Motown Revue, I went. Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Marvelettes, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Martha and the Vandellas… People were vibrating to the music and dancing. Everyone relaxed. Nothing really wild. Everyone really enjoyed it. The person next to you, you didn't know them but they knew the songs. They were like your brother or your sister, you know? » Even though this interviewee is more than fifty years older than my previous one, his concert experience is relatively the same. He loved music but there was something more. He felt like his family was completely alienated because of the music. This interviewee hasn't been to a concert in forty years and yet he still remembers the feeling of unity. Although my eighteen-year-old interviewee might have been an extreme case with over fifty concerts, every teenager I interviewed about rock music mentioned a live performance by an artist or musician. band they witnessed and why it was important to them and how much it increased their feelings for music. However, like my older fan hadn't been to a concert in forty years and yet he still considers himself a Motown fan. I had to ask him how he listens to music. I listen to the records. You can sit at home and relax. I still play CDs and DVDs. Similarly, a thirty-nine-year-old white Grateful Dead fan (or Deadhead) explained his listening habits and engagement with his favorite band. I have a child and a wife. We own a house. We have a car and all that… I definitely don't go out all the time following the band around the country, but when they come to town, I try to go. Adults listen to and use rock music differently than teenagers. Adults listen to music for music's sake. They still like rock music, but they don't contribute to its cultural significance. They don't embody that rebellious attitude of teenagers. They don't go to concerts anymore. Observing trends in which adults listen to music compared to young people, sociologist Simon Frith noted that "people's greatest investment in popular music is when they].