Module 5 - Motown, the British Invasion, and Rock

The most important factor that I gleaned from reading and listening this week is that by the 1950s, American popular music was extremely diverse, yet all genres seemed to influence each other somewhat.  Rock 'n' Roll as a new genre combined the stylings of R&B, 12-bar blues, and honky tonk country music.  It seemed like rock bands followed a pattern in making their music.

Rock 'n' Roll musician often got their starts by imitating one another by making covers of each other's music.  This was discussed at length in the reading from last module.  We listened to such covers, many of which were originally R&B by African-American artists and were (generally) covered with more success by white artists.  Specifically, we listened to Shake, Rattle, and Roll, which was originally by Big Joe Turner and was covered by Bill Haley and the Comets, Sh-Boom, which was originally by the Chords and was covered by the Crew Cuts, and Mystery Train, which was originally by Junior Parker and was covered by Elvis Presley.  As a child, I remember learning that Roll Over Beethoven was a Chuck Berry song that was covered by the Beatles in their early years.

The next thing that rock artists would do is to copy the stylings of others while writing their own music.  Using typical 12-bar blues phrasing and/or similar chord and song form structures, artists often made their music sound like the music they liked the most.  This made bands recognizable as individual groups within a specific genre or musical style.

Finally, the most advanced artists would being to experiment with music, making new and developed sounds as their knowledge of music and interests in music expanded.  In our listening assignments, I note Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys as a song in this category. Good Vibrations is very experimental.  It does not follow typical song form and is continually surprising to the listener.  Especially in the late 1960s, rock artists got very creative with their experimentation.  I remember my first listen of "Revolution 9" by the Beatles and thinking that it wasn't even music.

Current songwriters often follow patterns like these as well.  Most artists and/or bands begin their careers with making a combination of covers and original songs.  Most recently, I've been listening to Pentatonix, the a capella group that won The Sing-Off a few years ago.  They often post youtube videos of covers they have done.  They are creative in their covering, because they both cover an exact song, imitate the original stylings, and add creative elements that make the song their own.