"Rock" vs. "Pop" music classification

[Lee Moses]

Meanwhile The Beatles didn't play a role in transforming American society, even though they had a huge musical influence.

I don't think any other single band or artist played as significant a role in transforming American society as the Beatles. In part, that was because they had a much larger audience than anyone else, except Elvis. Elvis obviously transformed America overnight, but he didn't maintain a continuous influence in every way like the Beatles did. The Beatles brought the long hair. The Beatles brought a dismissive attitude toward authority (even though others would obviously take it much further). They set the stage for the hippie movement. Without the Beatles, is there even a British invasion?

 

[Killing Floor]

All I know for sure is it's a lot closer than Jazz and Blues. Drives me nutty when people conflate those 2.

 

[Killing Floor]

I don't think any other single band or artist played as significant a role in transforming American society as the Beatles. In part, that was because they had a much larger audience than anyone else, except Elvis. Elvis obviously transformed America overnight, but he didn't maintain a continuous influence in every way like the Beatles did. The Beatles brought the long hair. The Beatles brought a dismissive attitude toward authority (even though others would obviously take it much further). They set the stage for the hippie movement. Without the Beatles, is there even a British invasion?

Without Link Wray there is no Beatles or Rolling Stones or...
People forget who made rock'n'roll actually rock.

 

[rashrader]

Are we having fun yet?

 

[turf3]

Without Link Wray there is no Beatles or Rolling Stones or...
People forget who made rock'n'roll actually rock.

You mean, Louis Jordan, Big Mama Thornton, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, and the Killer?

 

[FilterFunk]

One interesting thing to consider is that when I was a little kid, "pop" music was the sophisticated stuff for grown-ups (Sinatra singing complex and elegant "great American songbook" songs) and "rock" music was idiotic, pre-Dylan, pre-Beatles stuff like "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini." That's ANOTHER reason the old folks hated rock music. (And understandably!)

"pre-Dylan, pre-Beatles stuff" included Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley, Carl Perkins, Elvis, etc.
Lyrically, it wasn't "sophisticated," neither was it intentionally subversive or anti-anything. It was the raw sound and energy, plus the fact that it was considered by many to be subliminally sexual, black "jungle music" (including songs by white artists), that made it seem to some like an assault on American values.

Early rock 'n' roll was so much more than fluff like "Itsy Bitsy...", but it was also not protest music. But perhaps you're only taking about early '60s rock. Even then, I'm pretty sure it can't be boiled down to just "idiotic, pre-Dylan, pre-Beatles stuff".

 

[Killing Floor]

and the Killer

Gary Ridgeway?

 

[OogieWaWa]

I'll take another turn at some oversimplifications and metaphors.

Rock is a steam locomotive, even just chugging along slowly. When it gets rolling along, woohoo! Kick the fire up some more and you can hear the Metal monster come to life.
Pop is a diesel electric. Schmoover, perhaps; more refined, if you actually believe in that sort of thing. It still can be powerful, especially the dance beats on the track seams.

Don't forget it's rock and roll. Rolling is an important part of the formula that folks forget to include. It needs both.

 

[jmlee]

Holmes, I was there for the ride. I know about the trio's previous solo attempts. I bought that first album. I even saw them on their 1970 tour; Scottish band Stone The Crows, with Maggie Bell, opened for them. It actually was at that show that it dawned on me how bogus they were. They were like a Vegas lounge act in counterculture drag. The band themselves weren't session guys, but just regular club musicians knocking around the Sunset Strip. Relying on outside material had fallen by the wayside at that time for the most part, but someone like Joe Cocker certainly still did. However, he seemed to pick songs that suited him, regardless of commercial potential, whereas they always went with calculated obvious material. They didn't have to have a svengali producer calling the shots, they'd been in the game long enough and did it themselves. They were as lightweight as the Grassroots.
Talking about organic, in comparison labelmates Steppenwolf, sharing producer Gabriel Mekler, were raw, earthy, rebellious. They did drug songs, pro("Don't Step On The Grass, Sam"), anti("Snowblind Friend"…one of their few covers), and split the difference("The Pusher"), and railed against the 'Love It Or Leave It' reactionary crowd, calling out the hypocracy of the American myth on "Monster"(TDN would have never risked that). All the while still making great sounding records that fit on AM as well as FM radio.

Holmes?

 

[dougjwray]

I don't think any other single band or artist played as significant a role in transforming American society as the Beatles. In part, that was because they had a much larger audience than anyone else, except Elvis. Elvis obviously transformed America overnight, but he didn't maintain a continuous influence in every way like the Beatles did. The Beatles brought the long hair. The Beatles brought a dismissive attitude toward authority (even though others would obviously take it much further). They set the stage for the hippie movement. Without the Beatles, is there even a British invasion?

Absolutely, and remember the substantial interest in Eastern religion after they went to India?

 

[dougjwray]

"pre-Dylan, pre-Beatles stuff" included Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley, Carl Perkins, Elvis, etc.
Lyrically, it wasn't "sophisticated," neither was it intentionally subversive or anti-anything. It was the raw sound and energy, plus the fact that it was considered by many to be subliminally sexual, black "jungle music" (including songs by white artists), that made it seem to some like an assault on American values.

Early rock 'n' roll was so much more than fluff like "Itsy Bitsy...", but it was also not protest music. But perhaps you're only taking about early '60s rock. Even then, I'm pretty sure it can't be boiled down to just "idiotic, pre-Dylan, pre-Beatles stuff".

All of the early people you mentioned were fantastic. And I guess I did exaggerate. But I compare the "changing of the guard" back then to the negative reaction to disco, 20 years later. I'm really talking about perceptions. Many people in the older generation were aghast to hear even one "Itsy Bitsy" song on the radio, instead of, say, Ella singing a Cole Porter song. And while I think Chuck Berry was a genius lyricist, one of the greatest ever, I really don't think the other guys' "Great Balls of Fire", "Tutti Fruitti", or "Bo Diddley" would have been greeted by old folks as successors to the lyrics of Ira Gershwin, Porter, Johnny Mercer, and the others of that ilk. Again, I'm talking about perceptions at the time. Goodbye, urbane, sophisticated adults in evening wear, hello, scruffy youngsters banging on electric guitars and shouting childish lyrics. A changing of the guard. That's why Herman's Hermits were called "rock" BACK THEN. And that's another reason why the Beatles seemed dangerous. They were obviously going to steamroll the older style into oblivion.

 

[Michedelic]

Holmes?

Urban Dictionary: Holmes
I use that a lot instead of dude, man, chief, Jim, etc. Just an old school jive salutation…
"He's the hairy handed gent who ran amok in Kent
Lately he's been overheard in Mayfair
You better stay away from him he'll rip your lungs out, Jim"

 

[dougjwray]

It's all subjective and these threads are pointless

 

[dougjwray]

1. The Beatles were judged as no threat- they wore cute costumes, matching jackets, sang harmonies, they were "witty" and cute. (They were an unknown threat to the music sales paradigm of the time) If they were a threat would they have gotten on network TV? No way. Johnny Lyden long after outgrowing "Rotten" said, "the written word is a lie". It makes you think. It has layers. That's a threat. The Beatles, being not idiots, were a real threat too. We in the US adopted the whole thing- do it yourself, creativity for it's own sake, and the "jungle" lure of the rock and roll beat, the unleashing of the Orgone energy as William Reich called it. Pandora's Box and all.
2. A British boy with Lots Of Money and Success is perfectly acceptable to mom. Mom will Love visiting the Country Estate. no problemo. Even speaks English sort of. We have the dentists here all ready to go.
3. You are right about Kiss.
4. I'm actually writing to complain about your description of Nick Drake's voice being "almost a whisper". It was a high pitched tenor with a sandy quality.

I'll just reply about Nick Drake: I'm a fan, and wasn't putting him down. I merely exaggerated a bit to emphasize the difference in decibels between him and Kiss.

 

[JW56789]

All the puffery cracks me up: Rebellion and anti-authority are strange bedfellows with offshore tax havens and multi-million dollar homes on several continents. All the 'save the planet' vibe from guys who pay king's ransoms for old guitars made out of wood that's now extinct or severely over-harvested. Please . . . . .

Of course, when I was young, I bought the BS hook, line, and sinker, but somehow they 'didn't die before they got old' ( . . . . well, SOME of the then didn't . . . ) and lived to charge 10-grand for a backstage post-show wine tasting / meet + greet to go with your up front tickets. My, my, my.

The only labels I put on music I LIKE and I DON'T LIKE. All the rest of those labels and discussions about what it ought to be called is just pointless to me.

 

[Paul New]

All of the early people you mentioned were fantastic. And I guess I did exaggerate. But I compare the "changing of the guard" back then to the negative reaction to disco, 20 years later. I'm really talking about perceptions. Many people in the older generation were aghast to hear even one "Itsy Bitsy" song on the radio, instead of, say, Ella singing a Cole Porter song. And while I think Chuck Berry was a genius lyricist, one of the greatest ever, I really don't think the other guys' "Great Balls of Fire", "Tutti Fruitti", or "Bo Diddley" would have been greeted by old folks as successors to the lyrics of Ira Gershwin, Porter, Johnny Mercer, and the others of that ilk. Again, I'm talking about perceptions at the time. Goodbye, urbane, sophisticated adults in evening wear, hello, scruffy youngsters banging on electric guitars and shouting childish lyrics. A changing of the guard. That's why Herman's Hermits were called "rock" BACK THEN. And that's another reason why the Beatles seemed dangerous. They were obviously going to steamroller the older style into oblivion.

There was actually a cultural parallel to "Great Balls Of Fire", etc, going on many years before the music become known as rock. And there was quite a bit of cross-talk between those two aesthetics. Count Basie played both Cole Porter ballads and greasy blues stomps.

It's a much more complicated dynamic than a simple changing of the guard. A big part of what happened to music and "pop" culture in the mid-20th century resulted from the emergence of adolescent america as an massive economic force.

 

[Hounddog409]

Pop = Madonna, boys to men, nsync, etc....all about show, canned beat, not about the music or musicians.

Rock= not pop.

 

[g-dude]

I don't think any other single band or artist played as significant a role in transforming American society as the Beatles. In part, that was because they had a much larger audience than anyone else, except Elvis. Elvis obviously transformed America overnight, but he didn't maintain a continuous influence in every way like the Beatles did. The Beatles brought the long hair. The Beatles brought a dismissive attitude toward authority (even though others would obviously take it much further). They set the stage for the hippie movement. Without the Beatles, is there even a British invasion?

Yes, there's definitely a British Invasion without them.

Heck, Merseybeat died out within the decade.

The Rolling Stones or The Who would have easily made the move across the pond, and both bands were musically relevant for longer than The Beatles.

 

[dougjwray]

There was actually a cultural parallel to "Great Balls Of Fire", etc, going on many years before the music become known as rock. And there was quite a bit of cross-talk between those two aesthetics. Count Basie played both Cole Porter ballads and greasy blues stomps.

It's a much more complicated dynamic than a simple changing of the guard. A big part of what happened to music and "pop" culture in the mid-20th century resulted from the emergence of adolescent america as an massive economic force.

I think we agree. When post-war teens suddenly had buying power, popular music (in the broader sense) was no longer purchased only by adults, and that led to music either made by kids, or written by old cigar-chompers in Times Square offices and aimed at kids' brains. ("It's My Party", "Tell Laura I Love Her", "The Leader of the Pack", etc.)

 

[ElectroVibe]

Interesting that you include REM in the Rock category. I thought they were more like the Byrds. Folk-rock.