MUS 1013: Rock I: The Historical Origins and Development of Rock Music to 1970

Rock music--powerful, sensual, loud, and full of energy. It has changed the face of modern music. But what is its appeal and its significance within contemporary society, and what cultural values does it reflect? Peter Wicke addresses these issues and offers a stimulating and insightful study of rock music tracing the genesis and influence of this diverse aspect of popular music. Beginning with the advent of rock and roll, Wicke chronicles the development through Elvis Presley, and the Beatles to the current music industry, its performers, and the impact of the music video. The book will be of interest to students of music history, popular culture, and media studies.

Given the long history of feminism and its contested place in popular culture, important, practical questions arise: What effect, if any, have feminist ideas and practices had on the lives of young men and women who grew up with them? How do these individuals negotiate the realities of gender in their daily lives? In Rockin' Out of the Box, Mimi Schippers, employing the crucial feminist insight that gender is a constantly shifting performance and not an essential quality related to sex, explores the gender roles, assumptions, and transgressions of the men and women involved in the alternative hard rock scene. The author focuses on this sizable section of rock music both because it is widely inclusive of men and women and because it explicitly adopted feminism as its point of departure from mainstream music. Schippers uses the innovative term gender maneuvering to explain her observations that gender and sexuality are negotiated and always changing features of social relations. This process, she demonstrates, operates as a cultural practice and as an individual strategy of resistance to socially prescribed gender roles. Schippers, who spent more than two years frequenting alternative hard rock clubs and concerts in Chicago, conducted extensive interviews with fans as well as musicians, including Ian MacKaye of Fugazi, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, Kim Thayil of Soundgarden, Donita Sparks and Jennifer Finch of L7, Kat Bjelland and Lori Barbero of Babes in Toyland, Rose of Poster Children, Louise Post and Nina Gordon of Veruca Salt, and Liz Davis and Valerie Agnew of 7 Year Bitch. As it documents the development of a rock music genre that has so far received little academic attention, this book  also demonstrates how this musical culture contributes to our understanding of the daily practices of gender relations among young people.

Rock music challenges hegemonic orders based on class, gender, nation, ethnicity/race or generation. This volume investigates how rock has played an integral part in the formation of identities and life-styles since the 1950 s. Rock music is used as a wide concept, including different genres, e.g. rock n roll, pop, punk, hip hop and blues. Unlike most other books on rock music, this volume focuses on how rock music becomes a part of everyday life and the formation of identities in a variety of European states such as England, Finland, Sweden and Wales, the USA, and also states that used to be on the other side of the Iron Curtain such as GDR and Czechoslovakia. Thus, it includes a comparative perspective based on temporal as well as spatial aspects that further deepen the understanding of how rock music and society are intertwined. Rockin the Borders is an interdisciplinary volume; the authors represent a variety of backgrounds: History, Ethnology, Folklore, Sociology and Sociology of Music, thus presenting us with an interesting mix of theoretical perspectives and methods."