How Rock N Roll Changed America

Throughout the centuries music has become an extensive influence on what shapes our cultural ideologies. It has been around since prehistoric times, evolving with the generations, changing styles to fit current trends or outlooks of society. Music has the power to impact younger generations, and to upset older ones as thought by Glenn Altschuler, a professor of Cornell as well as the writer for All Shook Up: How Rock ‘N’ Roll Changed America. Altschuler believed that rock ‘n’ roll impacted America during a crucial time when colored were fighting for civil rights. Rock ‘n’ roll united the youth, tearing a hole through segregation, uniting people of every race, ethnicity, sexuality and gender, all for the sake of a good song. Altschuler proves

Rock ‘n’ roll concerts were not welcomed in the majority of cities, due to the ideas that the youth would created troublesome situations during the shows. Adults were startled and struggling to adjust with the booming population of youth that had tremendously contrasting tastes in music an attitudes. It was thought that rock was turning teenagers into houlagans, “declaring the music of teenagers a tool in a conspiracy to ruin the morals of a generation of America,”(Altschuler), yet rock was actually “helping young Americans construct social identities,” (Altschuler). Concerts brought people of every color together as one, which troubled the older generations, especially those in the south. Rock ‘n’ roll was usually excluded from white neighborhoods, but that did not stop the youth from entering black music stores to purchase rock ‘n’ roll albums. In fact, whites were nearly half of the customers that bought albums were white. During this time period, the black communities began to migrate to the cities, leaving behind only 8 percent of blacks to live in the rural areas according to Altschuler. The migration provoked music such as the Blues or R&B to rise in popularity. Although it wouldn’t be until 1949 that WDIA would “abandon white pop” (Altschuler) completely, and become the first radio in America to exclusively play music produced and meant for blacks. Although this step

They also feared that the adult authorities would no longer have control over the mass population of teenagers with the “availability of condoms and penicillin making promiscuity safe, accepted, and universal” (Altschuler). Rock ‘n’ roll, for the most part, suggested that youth should have relationships before marriage, to influence the young to have greater control over their bodies and sexual expression. While the previous generations were not accustomed to leaving their homes at a young age, finding a single partner that they would marry, teens in the baby boomer generation were given more free reign to explore beyond their parents watchful eyes due to the “factor [that teens had] access to automobiles” (Shi). Although many parents allowed dating, they were banned from having sexual intercourse, which led to early marriages. Alfred Kinsey formed a study for his book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human female (1953) found that over half of women and men would have sexual intercourse before marriage. When the book was published, many were outraged by the information that was within the book. The books were placed in the same boat as rock music, because adults were shook by the ideals that were being given to teens about their sexuality. Few artist tried to undermine the situation of sexuality through their