The Characteristics of Rock n Roll, a Musical Genre Created in the 1950s

Rock n Roll, characterized by it's pulsating drums, repetitive chord progressions, stepped up tempos, and loud guitars, provided. American teens of the 1950's the perfect excuse to dance crazy new dances, and wear wild new hairstyles. Thought only a fad, Rock n roll continued on to become one of the world's most popular and recognizable music forms.

The explosive events of the mid-1950s 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 later artists have simply refined and redefined. The 1950s were rather 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. Many of these concerns were of central importance to the kids who reared on in rock 'n roll as a lifestyle that only heightens the significance of their common response, as expressed in and through the music.

Music in the 1950s lacked overriding social or political themes, but the energy, vitality, and originality of rock 'n roll is unmatched by almost everything that has come along since. In 1955, rock n roll was still just a vague notion, an alternative term for Rhythm & Blues, and popular as a genre only among covert groups of youth who had discovered the R&B radio stations (http://www.history-of-rock.com/indx.html). For the people who did know about it, however, rock n roll was a channel for young Americans to pour out their emotions. Through songs by artists such as Elvis Presley and Little Richard, teenagers were able to pinpoint their feelings. Among these songs arose a spirit of revolt teenagers weren t children anymore, they were nearly adults. Rock n roll songs gave them the ability to express their near adult-hood minds and bodies.

The effect