The Digital Past

For our digital scavenger hunt, we had to find the earliest reference to a genre of music prior to 1990. I chose to do “rock and roll,” mainly because it’s a genre I listen to a lot so I’m curious. The first spike in the appearance of the term “rock and roll,” according to Google Ngram Viewer, began around 1953 and from there has been steadily rising until now. Searching on the ProQuest website, nothing with the words “rock and roll” prior to 1950 were related to anything with music, rather it would be recipes or about working out. The biggest thing I realized while looking for an article was that it was “rock n’ roll,” not “rock and roll.” One of the earliest articles I found on there was called “Rock N’Roll Means Big Business These Days” by Charles Herndon, and it was published on November 19th, 1955. In the article, he speaks that “it’s too loud and the beat’s too heavy” but that a lot of teenagers and young adults listen to it. He goes on to talk how well the genre is doing financially and describes a few artists. Another article I found was “‘Rock N’ Roll’ Stage Show Frantic, Noisy,” published on November 4th, 1955. I found this one funny and interesting because the first paragraph states that “it’s a violent, harsh type of music” and that a lot of parents think it “incites teenagers to do all sorts of crazy things.” That’s still kind of the view today for rock music. So many people think that kids who listen to rock music now are emo, which means they do bad things and are weird. For example, I loved rock music, dyed my hair pink, and went to concerts all the time, so people thought I was emo and would do crazy things. I think that maybe some people do crazy things listening to certain music, but it’s not the music itself that makes them do it. The people in these two articles call it noisy and harsh, which it is. I don’t find rock and roll itself harsh, unless maybe it’s screamo, but it is noisy. So I see where some of the description from back then is coming from, and they probably haven’t had much music like this before, but I don’t necessarily agree. It’s interesting looking at the way things were described in a different time period, especially because I don’t view it that way at all. Not to mention, Elvis Presley was considered Rock and Roll, an icon, and I find his music to be fun. I don’t think it’s harsh or violent, like my rock music would be considered. My rock music,maybe alternative, now is Panic! At the Disco, Sleeping With Sirens, etc. Even bands like Metallica are “louder” than Elvis Presley. It kind of makes me want to know how the people who wrote those articles back then would write one on these bands. Very interesting thing to learn and think about!