Rock and Roll: The Changing of American Culture

American attitudes and behaviors have shifted and swayed throughout the history of this great country. They are often influenced by things happening in not only our nation, but in the world. Things like world wars, economic upheaval, and even natural disasters. These ever changing shifts in how we view and respond to the world around us change us as a nation. Some of those changes are fleeting, some fade and we revert back to former ways, but one stands out from all the rest. One change, an explosion of our view of cultural norms, burst onto the scene and changed us in a deeper and more meaningful way than ever before. This change was caused by rock and’ roll music. It brought about such deep transformation to our societal views about family, sexuality, and race that even today we are “All Shook Up.”

Rock and’ roll has been credited with the birth of the so called generation gap, the difference in values and attitudes between one generation and another, especially between young people and their parents. It might have broken the last few vestiges of the traditional boundaries of the family, but it was not the instigator of the break itself. What started this shift were the decades following the end of World War II.

World War II ended and a new era began. Before the war, the culture viewed the span of a person’s life in two parts, child and adult. There was not a viewed time frame between them. The war was one of the things that began to divide childhood and adulthood. The term “teenager” was born. “In the 1950s, the Dictionary of American Slang subsequently pointed out, the United States was the only country ‘considering this age group as a separate entity whose influence, fads and fashions are worthy of discussion apart from ...

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...50’s was a time that was primed for change. There were drastic social transformations happening. The people knew they were living in a tumultuous time. Changes were being noted and discussed. This cultural revolution pushed aside all the previous notions of popular music, blended black and white music traditions and sound, and integrated black performers into the musical stardom, all in a whirlwind of historical occurrences. It created music that still lives on to this day. It has inspired a people and influenced a nation. In comparison to other social influences of the twentieth century it stands alone. This revolution influenced and continues to influence American popular culture, this revolution lovingly and passionately known as Rock and Roll.

Works Cited

Altschuler, Glenn C. All Shook Up: How Rock and' Roll Changed America. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003. Print.