(Quick note: The name of the style is usually stylized as either “rock ‘n’ roll” or “rock and roll”. I will be using the first, but some of the sources use the second. I have left the original styling intact in any direct quotes.)

Break out your leather jackets, jeans, and assorted hair products because we’re going to be talking about rock ‘n’ roll. Rock ‘n’ roll is a fusion of blues, rhythm & blues, jazz, country, and a variety of less well known styles. It originally featured either saxophone or piano, but evolved to generally feature the electric guitar (an instrument that it helped to popularize). It generally consists of a 12-bar major chord progression, swing or shuffle rhythm, heavily emphasized backbeat, and a blend of blues and country melodies. (Remember, rock ‘n’ roll is not the same as rock. We will discuss that distinction a little later.)

Like jazz before it, the rise of rock ‘n’ roll was met with outrage and disgust. Frank Sinatra said that “rock and roll is the most brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious form of expression — lewd, sly, in plain fact, dirty — a rancid-smelling aphrodisiac and the martial music of every side-burned delinquent on the face of the earth” (America Rocks and Rolls). It was banned from certain schools and radio stations and was decried by churches as “Satan’s music.” As one author put it, “Because rock and roll originated among the lower classes and a segregated ethnic group, many middle-class whites thought it was tasteless” (America Rocks and Rolls). Also like jazz before it, the resistance was swiftly brushed aside.

Rock ‘n’ roll was incredibly popular. The music of artists like Elvis, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Richie Valens, and Jerry Lee Lewis resonated with a generation of teenagers seeking to rebel against their jazz-loving, conformist parents (read my post on jazz to understand the irony of this). The “side-burned delinquents” Sinatra spoke of became known as greasers (yes, the ones from Grease), but they were not the only rock ‘n’ roll fans. One of the reasons the style was so controversial was that it appealed to both black and white audiences, who would often listen and dance to it together. Some historians credit this with helping to break down racial barriers and playing a role in the success of the civil rights movement (Rock).

It also became very popular overseas, which is where the line between rock ‘n’ roll and rock began to form. In the early 1960s, foreign artists began to release their own takes on American rock ‘n’ roll. Much of this was very similar to the American style, but some of it was different. The face of this newer style was the Beatles, who were a British band that traded in the swing rhythm, piano, and saxophone (remnants of American jazz) for straight eights and vocal harmonies. Some of their early music still had the 12 bar call-and-response verses and swing rhythms that characterized rock ‘n’ roll, but they were moving away from that and towards something new: rock.

After a decade of rock ‘n’ roll, people were ready for a fresh sound. British rock and bands inspired by it spread like wildfire in mid-sixties America. Rock had many of the same elements as its immediate predecessor, and it offered the same rebelliousness as rock ‘n’ roll once had, but it was really something new. As one historian explains it:

The differences between rock ‘n’ roll and rock are aesthetic and generational; there is a strict correspondence between the age cohorts performing the music and their aesthetic tendencies. Rock ‘n’ roll performers, born generally in the mid-1930s, represent the fusion of existing trends in popular music at very particular points of time. Rock performers, born generally from the early 1940s through the 1950s, represent later fusions, of which rock ‘n’ roll is itself a major element. The differences are far more than aesthetic; they represent sensibilities related to cultural evolution, social perceptions and historical events. Within each aesthetic-generational location there are stylistic genres, such as rockabilly, doo-wop during the period of rock ‘n’ roll; country rock, blues rock, acid rock, glam rock, heavy metal, punk, new wave and many others during the period rock era. (The Eclipse of Rock ‘n’ Roll)

Rock is deserving of its own post, and I will get to that at some point, but for now it is enough to know that it is different from rock ‘n’ roll and that it has a more global heritage than its strictly American predecessor.

Works Cited

“America Rocks and Rolls.” Ushistory.org. Independence Hall Association, Web. 17 Nov. 2015. <http://www.ushistory.org/us/53d.asp>.

“The Eclipse of Rock ‘n’ Roll: The Last Music of the ‘Mechanical Age’” Divergences. Web. 17 Nov. 2015. <http://divergences.be/spip.php?article1187&lang=fr>.

“Rock.” America’s Music. Tribeca Film Institute, Web. 17 Nov. 2015. <http://americasmusic.tribecafilminstitute.org/session/view/rock>.

Last week I asked if you would want to read about Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ The Heist, and since a few of you said you would that is what I am writing about this week. My last post focused on albums recorded in home/project studios and how those reflect the culture of our generation. I mentioned in that post that The Heist was both self-produced and self-released. What this means is that Macklemore and Ryan Lewis worked out of their own studio, and occasionally in professional studios that they paid for themselves, to create the album and then distributed it without the backing of a label.

They wrote a song about being independent artists and, rather than try to explain their experience myself, I want to give a few quotes from this song and explain them. This song, called “Can’t Hold Us”, was a Billboard number one hit here in the United States during the summer of 2014; but it seems to be telling their story as if they were looking down from the top of the charts, not on their way there. In the first verse, Macklemore explains that “we did it our way / growin music / I shed my skin and put my bones into everything I record to it.” Here he is explaining that, because they were independent, he and Lewis were free to make their music the way that they wanted to. He also says “Trust me / on my I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T shit / hustler / chasing dreams since I was fourteen / with the four track / bussing.” Here he is telling audiences that they can trust that his music is authentic because he is independent. He then goes on to describe the recording process, saying that he started out working on a four-track (entry level recording system that only stores four tracks) and continued “hustling” to develop his skills as a producer to get to his current level. As a side note, the process of “bussing” in this context is sending the output of three of his four tracks into the fourth to save them as one track and allow him to record more than four tracks. To those who understand the reference, this demonstrates his familiarity with the struggles of entry level audio gear and helps to establish the authenticity of his story. Finally, looking at the success of his music, he says, “labels out here / now they can’t tell me nothing/ we give that to the people / spread it across the country”. This is him saying that, even though labels now want to sign him, he would rather continue to make his own music and “spread it across the country” because he knows, from his success, that his tracks are what people want to hear.

This rejection of the conventional model of music distribution is not, however, the only way in which The Heist reflects our contemporary culture. The album is littered with references to trends and issues that resonate with millennial audiences. The most thorough example of this is the song “Same Love”, which he wrote to promote LGBTQ+ rights. This song includes references to stereotypes of gay men, the political and religious considerations at play in the debate about LGBTQ+ rights, the casual use of the word “gay”, the frequent suicides of gay and transgender teens, and the inherent injustice or prohibiting same-sex marriage. This song also contains two of my favorite lines in all of rap music: “America the brave still fears what we don’t know” and “whatever God you believe in / we come from the same one.” It is worth noting that several of the anti-religious lines in this long would likely have been censored if this album were released by a major label, so the content of the record is a direct result of the process that created it.

I am going to avoid talking about the fact that Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are both white and from Seattle for this week because I plan on doing a post about the appropriation of hip-hop culture another week and somebody requested one about the geographic expansion of rap. These are both important, so don’t think that I have forgotten about them, but I will need to revisit them when I have a chance to talk about them in the detail they deserve.

If you have walked through the HUB in the last few days, you may have noticed signs for an acoustic performance by Iron and Wine that will be happening here at Penn State. To be honest, I was not familiar with his music prior to beginning this blog post, but his name sounded vaguely familiar. Before we delve into the main piece of this post, I want to give you a little background about me. Bear with me, I promise it is relevant.

Over the past five years, I have taken an interest in audio engineering and music production. I have worked in a few studios, built a home studio of my own, and recently began producing for clients. As a home studio enthusiast and aspiring music producer, I frequent a number of forums and blogs that deal with audio engineering. It was on one of these sites that I read about Iron and Wine, which is why his name sounded familiar when I saw it in the HUB.

When Iron and Wine recorded his first album, he did not go through the conventional path of recording in a studio and releasing through a record label. Instead, he recorded this album in his bedroom. You may be thinking, “How can someone produce a commercially successful album in their bedroom?” This is a good question. A few decades ago, this would have been far more expensive than renting studio time the old-fashioned way and it would have required a level of technical expertise that few people had. Today, however, self-producing a record has been made affordable and technically feasible by the rapid increase in computing power and the evolving nature of music.

When I said in the first post that music reflects the culture that creates it, I did not want to limit that to the music itself. We live in a culture in which the Internet and computing technology have opened up new ways of doing a wide range of things. Technology has changed the way we interact with our friends, the way we do business and the way we learn, why should it not change the way we express ourselves? Whether it’s computer-enabled EDM music or a classical quartet recording into a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), computers have changed the way we write, perform, produce and enjoy music.

This “democratization of music” has also impacted the musical mainstream. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ The Heist (which contained Billboard Number 1 hits “Thrift Shop” and “Can’t Hold Us” as well as #11 “Same Love”) was self-produced and self-released. Also, Bon Iver won the 2012 Grammy Awards for Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album for Bon Iver, which was also self-produced. These are just two examples, but there are dozens more. Any artist who launched their career on YouTube or Soundcloud leveraged these technological improvements not only to record their music but to distribute it as well. The Internet has changed music in innumerable ways, and I can’t wait to see how it continues to allow musicians and producers to continue to push their limits and create new sounds, forms and styles of music.

(Sidenote: I reserve the right to analyze The Heist in a later post. There is a lot going on in this album in terms of cultural reflection and it could be really interesting. Is that something you guys would want to read? Let me know in the comments.)

Brian Wilson was sick and tired of having to defend his latest creation. After confronting the skepticism of his band mates, still frustrated by the fact that their latest album had been produced with almost no input from them, Wilson was once again answering for Pet Sounds; this time to executives at Capital Records. The label was considering not releasing the album at all, and Wilson was so fed-up that he attended the last meeting with “a tape player and eight prerecorded, looped responses, including ‘No comment,’ ‘Can you repeat that?’ ‘No’ and ‘Yes.’ Refusing to utter a word, I played the various tapes when appropriate.” Ultimately, Capital reluctantly allowed him to release the album.

If you’re wondering whether or not they made the right decision, this story came from the article in which Rolling Stone declares Pet Sounds the second greatest record of all time. Their greatest record of all time is The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band; which even Paul McCartney admits was heavily influenced by Pet Sounds (McCartney).

Rarely has a record had such a profound impact on the trajectory of music as Pet Sounds. At a time when most of the major innovations in music production and audio engineering were coming from Britain, Wilson’s pioneering use of non-pop instruments and convention-defying harmony helped to redefine pop music. Tony Asher, a cowriter and pianist who worked with Wilson on the album, remembers that he “plucked the (piano) strings with paper clips, bobbi pins and several other things until Brian got the sound that he wanted.”(Abbott 51) On several occasions, Wilson even rerecorded the same tracks, with the same musicians, over and over in different rooms and at different studios until he recreated the sounds he heard in his head (Abbott 53). As Kingsley Abbott puts it in his book, The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds: The Greatest Album of the Twentieth Century, “What made Brian so extraordinary is that he… had the abilities of a singer, player, arranger, and producer combined; none of his competitors on either side of the Atlantic could come close.” (Abbott 55) In fact, Pet Sounds was such an individual effort that the other Beach Boys had almost no involvement with the project until Wilson had already finished recording all of the songs and called them in to record their vocals and harmonies, which he had already written and arranged (Abbott 67).

To the dismay of the Capital Records executives, who had doubted the commercial potential of Pet Sounds from their first listen, the album was a comparative flop. The album was so innovative and subtle that its genius was lost on much of the music buying public, who preferred the Beach Boys’ younger and more danceable surf rock hits. This commercial blow, however, did not diminish the respect and admiration of Wilson’s competitors. The Beatles’ Paul McCartney said that, while he had heard some of the Beach Boys’ earlier albums, “it was Pet Sounds that blew me out of the water… I’ve just bought my kids each a copy of it for their education in life. I figure no one is educated musically ’til they’ve heard that album,” and “I think was probably the big influence that set me thinking when we recorded Pepper.”(McCartney)

Today, most publications place Pet Sounds first or second on any list of the greatest albums of all time. It has also influenced some of the 21^st centuries biggest producers. One of these producers, Ryan Tedder (One Republic, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Adele, Backstreet Boys, Maroon 5, One Direction, etc.), notes that Pet Sounds was one of the earliest influences in his development (“Artist Interview”). As a producer myself, I still employ many of the techniques Wilson pioneered on Pet Sounds in my own work. It is very unusual for any work to have such an enduring impact on its field as Pet Sounds had on music production. If you have never heard it, head over to YouTube and give it a listen: It may still sound familiar.

Works Cited:

A few months ago, Jamaica made headlines by considering the establishment of an “authentic reggae” certification to distinguish between reggae created by Jamaican musicians and producers and that created abroad. This came around the same time that they asked UNESCO (the cultural organization of the United Nations) to designate reggae as “intangible cultural heritage” and while “government officials, lawyers and artists participated in a conference… to hash over ways of giving Jamaica a competitive advantage from reggae, the homegrown music that long ago went global” (“Jamaica Officials, Artists Hold Reggae Conference”). Clearly Jamaican musicians, the Jamaican government, and many of the Jamaican people are willing to go to great lengths to preserve the bond between their homeland and their iconic style of music. But why is this so important to them?

The musical style of reggae has its roots in the Rastafarian movement, a religious and cultural movement that rose to prominence in Jamaica in the 1930s. In the year 1930, a man named Tafari Makonne or Ras Tafari (Ras meaning king) declared that he was a descendant of King David and had been sent by God to lead Jamaicans of African descent to Ethiopia, a move that had previously been called for by the revered Jamaican cultural leader Maces Garvey. In his self-proclaimed role as the savior of the Jamaican people, Ras Tafari took the name Haile Selassie. According to class resources prepared for a course on the Rhetoric of Reggae at the University of Vermont, “The people who listened to this soon began to call themselves Rastafarians. To these new Rasta’s, Ethiopia became their Zion, and Haile Selassie their Messiah”. The most well known attributes of Rastafarianism are that followers often have dreads, smoke ganja (marijuana), and listen to/write reggae music. All of these practices are rooted in their religious beliefs, and reggae is often used in religious worship.

The person most directly responsible for Reggae’s popularity outside of Jamaica is Bob Marley, who co-led a group called The Wailers that brought reggae music and Rasta culture to the United States and Europe. Their success set off a wave of interest in reggae and paved the way for many other acts to follow in their footsteps. Eventually, reggae became associated “with the ‘peace and love’ philosophy of the hippies, an association that would not die away” (Scaruffi).

Reggae is best known for its heavy emphasis on the second and fourth beats of each measure, its staccato guitar hits, its melodic bass lines, and its use of various assorted percussion instruments. The combination of these elements yields a laid-back, distinctive sound that is unique to and immediately recognizable as reggae. If you have some exams coming up and are looking for a way to kick back and relax, or you just want to hear some really great music, I would highly recommend checking out Bob Marley’s “Don’t Worry About a Thing” (or any Bob Marley song for that matter). Especially while its starting to get cold here in State College, it may be nice to feel like you’re in Jamaica for a little while!

When I originally had the idea for this passion blog, my plan was to start with modern music and work backwards. I quickly realized, however, that if I attempted to construct/follow a single storyline spanning centuries of musical development, I would be forced to ignore many styles of music and interesting stories that come with them. Instead, I have decided to make each of these posts more or less self-contained. They will be able to be read in any order and will include as much musical and cultural context as I can find and deem valuable to understanding the work.

To understand the cultural significance of this week’s song, I want to take you back to the year 1926. As Dr. Ken Untiedt explains in his book, First Timers and Old Timers:

Few times, standing so close together, has there been such a sharp line of distinction as that which existed between pre- and post-WWI… The Twenties continued with a material prosperity such as ordinary Americans had not known before. With jobs to be had and good wages, the American people were able to buy cars, radios, phonographs, and a host of labor-saving electrical appliances. They paid to see professional sports. They went to college—and Europe. They borrowed money and they bought things on credit… They lived better than any pre-WWI American society, and they tried to be everything their parents had not.

It was against the backdrop of this cultural revolution that Irving Berlin sat down to write what would ultimately become “ the theme song of that entire decade” (Untiedt): “Blue Skies”.

According to biographer Laurence Bergreen, Berlin composed “Blue Skies” for a friend who was starring in a musical that lacked a closing number. The musical, Betsy, was set to open the following night when singer Belle Baker approached Berlin for the favor; telling him, “even something half-finished by you is better than what I’ve got now, which is nothing!” Berlin finished the song around 6:00 AM and Baker sang it in the show that same night to an “enraptured” audience. The crowd loved the song so much that they demanded twenty-four encores; the twenty-fourth of which featured Berlin himself singing along with Baker (Bergreen).

As one biographer explains it, “’Blue Skies’ was an extraordinary song, the work of a craftsman, who… disguised his intricate artistry under a veneer of utter simplicity.” (Furia) The song combined jazz, a form of musical expression that had come to define the generation, with lyrics that encapsulated the pervasive optimism of the decade. The first verse, in which Berlin explains that “I was blue, just as blue as I could be / Ev’ry day was a cloudy day for me” captures the perceptions of pre-war life, while the ideas that “skies were gray but they’re not gray anymore” and there will be “nothing but blue skies / From now on” speak to the post-war prosperity that Untiedt wrote about.

Just as the song belonged to one quintessential twenties form of expression, jazz, it also found its way into another that arose from the postwar prosperity: movies. In 1927, when The Jazz Singer became the world’s first feature length motion picture with synchronized dialogue, Al Jolsen sang “Blue Skies” as one of six songs featured in the film. The lyrics and story of “Blue Skies” paint a vivid picture of life in post-war America and the state of the collective consciousness. Looking back, modern audiences hear the statement “nothing but blue skies / from now on” and cringe, knowing how soon that optimism will be decimated by the Depression it helped to cause. Even still, “Blue Skies” managed to freeze a moment in time and preserve it for future generations in a way only music can.

Works Cited:

Bergreen, Laurence. “Heartbreak House.” As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin. New York, NY: Viking, 1990. N. pag. Print.

Furia, Philip, and Graham Wood. Irving Berlin: A Life in Song. New York: Schirmer, 1998. Print.

Ogren, Kathy J. The Jazz Revolution: Twenties America & the Meaning of Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Untiedt, Kenneth L. First Timers and Old Timers: The Texas Folklore Society Fire Burns On. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2012. Project MUSE. Web. 14 Sep. 2015. <https://muse.jhu.edu/>.

There is something unique about music. Anyone who has ever listened to music in the gym to get pumped up or before bed to fall asleep knows that it has the power to completely alter our state of mind. It can make us dance; it can make us cry; or it can make us remember times and feelings we had long ago forgotten. Over the last few decades, researchers have even begun to use “music therapy” to help kids with special needs learn linguistic skills, treat PTSD in veterans, and redevelop motor skills in stroke victims.

While these examples illustrate some of the powerful aspects of music, they are all centered around individuals. Where music is most powerful is in its ability to unite communities and preserve cultural identities across geographic and generational barriers. Over the next few weeks, I will be using this blog to further examine this cultural role of music. Music is something that I am truly passionate about, and I look forward to engaging with you over the coming weeks as we explore its role in our lives.