Rock And Roll Pros And Cons

Joy Meregini

HIST 1301.01

Abagail Laszik

November 7, 2015

America vs Rock-n-Roll

Rock and Roll took storm in America during the 1950s and 1960s. Legendary groups and artists like Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, James Brown, and many more dominated the charts, and captured the spirit during this time period. Although the music was very popular amongst teens of the 1950s and 1960s, to many, it did not leave a positive influence in America. To many Americans rock and roll was responsible for dismantling America 's traditional family, sexual, and racial customs in the 50s and 60s, ultimately allowing the cons to outweigh the pros.

America held very strong views when it came down to

The Beatles 50 Years Later. 2014). The Beatles often took LSD, marijuana, Odyssey, and preludin before and after shows to get high. Many young adults took suit with The Beatles, wanting to escape from the pressures of the real world. So they began to experiment with these drugs duing the 50s and 60s. These drugs led to a disrupted household with the teens starting to rebel against their parents, by being influence by lyrics that spoke about drugs, and letting loose, and breaking the rules. Parents all over the country were beginning to worry. They began to blame Rock-n-Roll for their kids new behaviors, referring to it as brainwashing. Teens began to separate themselves from their parents by adopting new hairstyles and clothes that they had seen on their favorite artists. "Russia 's top anti-drug official Yevgeny Bryun famously claimed at a 2012 press conference The Beatles "introduced the idea of changing one 's psychic state of mind using drugs to the population"(Nelson, 2014). Households were also being disrupted with the role of women changing as more women began to enter into the workforce. Song like "Respect" by Aretha Franklin motivated women to step up to men and to tell them that they deserved to be respected. "Man 's World," written by James Brown made it clear that, although men had control over what went on in the world, they still wouldn 't be where they were if it had not been for women. During the 1950s and 1960s, lyrics by artists and groups also "became more ambiguous, and sexual desire became a more dominant theme"iv(Fred Fedler.Analysis of Popular Music Reveals Emphasis on Sex, De-Emphasis of Romance. Athens. 1982). These lyrics tended to