History of rock as a music genre

Content

ü Introduction………………………………………………………..2

ü General information about rock music….................3-5

· History of rock as a music genre……....................3

· The development of rock in Russia………………….4

· The development of rock in the USA……………….4-5

ü Research part…………………………………………………….6-8

ü My ways out of this problem………………………………7

ü Conclusion………………………………………………………….8

ü Bibliography……………………………………………………….9

Introduction

Rock in Russia is less developed then in the USA. I’m interested in this theme because I like such music, and a big part of Russians are fond of it, but as a result of the bad development of rock Russians listen to foreign singers more then our Russian singers. The aim of my project is to try to find out reasons why this problem appeared, ways how to solve this problem, how to change people’s attitude to it.

In my project I’ll compare a situation in our country with situation in the USA. I’ve decided to choose the USA, their history of developing, attitude of people to it because rock development grows rapidly there, and in fact the USA is native of this music. The greatest ancestors of this music direction partly were born there as stars.

Solution of this problem can help some people to understand that our rock can be on the same level as in the USA, if we will change our attitude to it. Unfortunately in Russia rock has bad reputation.

General information about rock music

History of rock as a music genre

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s in rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music.

Lyrics of rock music often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis.

By the late 1960s, a number of distinct rock music sub-genres had emerged; it included progressive rock, which extended the artistic elements; glam rock, which highlighted showmanship and visual style; and the diverse and enduring major sub-genre of heavy metal, which emphasized volume, power and speed. In fact there are more than 50 directions of rock at the moment.

Rock music has also embodied and served as the vehicle for cultural and social movements, leading to major sub-cultures including mods and rockers in the UK and the "hippie" with emoes, punks, gothes.

Inheriting the folk tradition of the protest song, rock music has been associated with political activism as well as changes in social attitudes.

In other words rock has always had an image as music of protest and hooliganism.

The development of rock in Russia:

First, rock was stated in our country in 60^es.It hasn’t become very popular at first, but new musical direction couldn’t help attracting attention of young generation. Actually, these were just attempts to imitate foreign bands as “The Beatles”. In the end of 70^es first rock festivals were already held. Finally in the end of 80^es particular direction was formed, named “Russian rock”.Itbecame known in the Soviet Union and quickly broke free from its western roots. According to many music critics, its "golden age" years were the 1980s, when the Soviet underground rock bands could release their records officially. The great majority of the bands perform in the Russian language. Such bands as “Acvarium”, “Miphs”, “Tamburin”, “Strange Games”, and “Kino” were formed. They were the first rock bands in Russia. Nowadays there are several bands in our country, which develops in undergrounds, because in our country the most popular music is pop, because of it it’s very difficult for rock singers to make their selves famous.

The development of rock in the USA:

Firstly development of rock in the USA began in 1950 with rock’n’roll. It was under strict interdiction, but as it usually happens it caused just a big interest with people. The most known rock’n’roll singer was Elvis Presley, but when he left the stage interest to genre of rock’n’roll has rapidly gone down. Some time later a new group, the loudest phenomenon in this genre was formed, it was “The Beatles”. I can name also: “Herman’s Hermits”, “Manfred Mann”, “The Hollies”, “The Zombies” and a well know band for everyone “The Rolling Stones”. Owing to the music they played rock appeared as a separate genre. From 60^es people could listen to rock with less difficulty then on 50^es.

Nowadays known fact for everybody is that one of the countries, where rock music develops rapidly and where lots of new singers are born is the USA.