Rock Around The Clock Analysis

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Bill Haley and The Comets, “Rock Around the Clock:”

The 1956 release of Bill Haley and The Comets ‘Rock around the clock’ (written by Max Freedman and James Myers), was originally the B-side to ‘Thirteen women’ gaining little initial interest. This essay will evaluate major themes of the period: events, youth, technology and race to illustrate why Haley has a definite contender for the title of the first rock and roll song. Rock Around the Clock was to prove important being the first rock and roll song to attain a global audience, and an international number one (Stanley, 2014) in both the United Kingdom and the United States of America. After being played over the end credits of MGM film Blackboard Jungle it encapsulated people’s attention …show more content…

Indeed, Haley recording the song in 1952(Millward, 1987).
It is hard to imagine the impact rock and roll had looking at it 50 years later, but it had global influence and Britain started to take …show more content…

‘my first album was ‘Rock around the clock’ (Lee, 2002). The changes in fashion too played a huge part in 50’S Britain where a seventeen-year-old apprentice ‘Terry Hitchen’ remembers Saturday night dances where ‘everybody put a suit on, and a tie, girls tended towards twin set and pearls, shorter skirts and ‘Whirlpool bras’ (Beckett, 2015). Previously girls and boys wore their Sunday best clothes but rock and roll influenced the clothes worn ‘boys very smart in their Teddy boy clothes’ (Beckett, 2015) and girls wearing skirts with lots of lace underneath because they bounced to the sounds of rock and roll when they danced (Beckett, 2015).
American youth culture, it can be argued, had a huge impact on Britain’s youth with cars, casual clothes and drive-in movies seen in films such as ‘The Blackboard Jungle.’ Coupled with Haley’s song played over the end credits the influence ‘was undeniably heady, but not everyone got drunk on it’ (Beckett, 2015). Although, along with commodities such as magazines and T.V without doubt the most influential youth identity was music ‘rock ‘n’ roll effectively its signature tune’ (Bennet,

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