Overview
For a brief time, Rock and Roll seemed almost to be building its own utopia. In late sixties Rock and Roll culture in particular, the walls erected in the wider world – between the races, between men and women, between nations – seemed to collapse. The record collections of the young Rock and Roll audience often included R&B, Hard Rock, Blues, Pop, Jazz, Country, and more. Free Form FM radio mirrored this eclectic but inclusive approach to music by creating inventive playlists unbound by genre. And, then, as the “Fragmentation” crept in, the old walls seemed to reassert themselves. Fan communities, radio formats, and, indeed, even personal record collections came to be defined by genre. Hard lines were drawn. Punks defined themselves in opposition to the fans of arena rock groups like Led Zeppelin. Grunge borrowed from Heavy Metal but, more adamantly still, refused the theater of Heavy Metal. Radio was again split down racial lines. If Rock and Roll culture, in the broad sense, had been connected with youth culture as a whole, and this brought different genres and traditions into dialogue with one another, now Rock and Roll culture grew increasingly fragmented. It wouldn’t mean the end of the music. But some of the promise of late sixties Rock and Roll was, for the moment, compromised.
Chapters
chapter:
Heavy Metal
Heavy Metal was, at first, a fringe genre. It was, in some ways, a part of what this curriculum refers to as the 1970s Fragmentation. Fans of Heavy Metal were often wholly dedicated to the genre, identifying themselves as Metal fans and leaving everything else for everyone else. Belonging...
chapter:
Glam Rock
If the Singer-Songwriters avoided costumes and dance steps and elaborate sets, if they quieted the room down for introspective musings, Glam was the backlash. The theater was back. And there were those among the audience, particularly among the working classes, who wanted their Rock and Roll to be different from everyday...
chapter:
Prog Rock
Perhaps the most ridiculed and reviled of all Rock and Roll related genres, Progressive Rock, or so-called Prog Rock, has often had an uneasy relationship with Rock and Roll audiences and a downright bad relationship with music critics. This chapter will explore the music, its ambitions, and the often...
chapter:
New York Underground
Of the many chapters here, this is among the more diffuse. It looks into the pre-Punk years in New York City, exploring a place where the visual arts, avant garde music, Rock and Roll, and life at the fringes were mixing in unusual ways and throwing off a range...
chapter:
Seventies: Fragmentation Begins
The 1960s were a time of tumult and tragedy but also an era of positive change. In popular music culture, there was a mixing of styles and races and ideas that resulted in extraordinary bills in the concert halls and extraordinary range in the record collections of individual listeners....
chapter:
Punk Rock
The argument carries on: did Punk come from the States or was it England's creation? As this chapter explores, important phases in Punk's development happened on both side of the Atlantic. But no one would be claiming it for their own were it not for the fact that Punk...
chapter:
Eighties New Wave
Among the notable effects of Punk Rock was the general disruption it brought to popular music culture. From the perspective of Punk Rock's advocates, it was a cleansing effect. To that group, Punk was the answer to the fatigue of 1970s mainstream Rock, the excess of 1970s Stadium Rock,...
chapter:
Grunge and Hardcore
Like Punk Rock and Hip Hop, Grunge, at its heart, was a reaction. Rising up amid the sheen of “Hair Metal” acts and other MTV-ready 1980s fare, it brought popular music back down to the street level, at least in its earliest phases. When Jonathan Poneman of Seattle’s Subpop...
chapter:
Hip Hop
No other popular music has reshaped the modern musical landscape as has Hip Hop. If it came out of the Bronx in the 1970s, at a time when New York City was facing tremendous economic and social challenges, it didn't take long for it to make its way to a...
chapter:
Rock Today: The Persistence of an Idea
Since the time of Seventies Fragmentation, Rock and Roll culture has continued to drift from the high point in the 1960s when a deep mixing between audiences allowed for racial and social crosscurrents that were unusual for any time. Though Hip Hop has become the most significant force in...