Week 2 - What are the strengths and weaknesses of R.A. Peterson's production of culture approach to the birth of rock 'n' roll?

In 1955 R.A. Peterson introduced six factors that were behind the cause of Rock ‘n’ roll. Though behind this production of culture approach there are strengths and weaknesses that favour and hold back this idea. What was happening in society and did happen with laws, technology and industry structure, it gave reason for this emergence of something fresh and innovative. Rock ‘n’ roll arose because the major networks of NBC, CBS and Mutual dropped their hold on everything which gave way for the emergence of new music to be heard. For instance after war in 1947 there was much air time to be filled so smaller radio stations came forward to fill schedules which thus resulted in gramophone records to be utilised. With this flood in the radio market, stations had to stand out by playing a range of music. As Rock ‘n’ roll was a new sound it made any station be prominent from the rest, so Rock ‘n’ roll made stations and therefore itself popular. Draw backs of the approach is that it doesn’t actually address music, and more so Rock ‘n’ roll as a genre. The ideas are based more on culture and society. Rock ‘n’ roll was not the only genre at this time also so why did this approach to the production of culture help Rock 'n' roll to explode in the music scene over others. Finally, Peterson doesn’t explain the feeling of music that Rock ‘n’ roll gave at the time, and why this was so different, therefore he doesn’t use aural understanding (his ears!) of Rock ‘n’ roll to comprehend the genre.

Week1 - What is Popular Music?

Throughout centuries the meaning behind popular has changed. In early 16th Century, what was referred to as popular meant that it was ‘low or base, vulgar, of the common people’ as Raymond Williams (1976) proclaimed, though the term became widely favoured as a synonym for good by the 18th Century. Anahid Kassabian believed ‘popular’ to arise from and of the ‘folk’. Meaning that such people create music for their own enjoyment, creativity or expression which is usually home-made. Although in todays understanding of popular, ‘folk’ appears to be in opposition. With the control of business enterprises surrounding popular music, profit becomes a large motive for musicians. Additionaly the commercial orientation of popular music takes music away from its grassroots ‘folk’ level, and thus its consumption is what makes music popular, as Robert Burnett informs ‘when we speak of popular music we speak of music that is commerically orientated.’ Therefore when music is commercialised, sells, and becomes favoured (whatever the genre) it becomes pop music.