Little Richard was the Boy George of the 1950s, dahling. Queer as folk.
Well, I’ve mostly been ignorant of modern music, but my little brother got on a major System of a Down kick and played pretty much all their CDs nonstop. I like their sound, and their lyrics have a pleasantly dark humor to them.
'course, the '50s crowd might have a beef with some of the lyrics…
(“Pull my tapeworm out of WHERE?!?” :eek: )
I think the teens would have a harder time with the appearance of the band rather than the sound. Long hair? Coloured hair? Makeup on men? Spandex? There would probably be issues. If you just sent a, lets say Pixies, album back in time, there would probably be some teenagers who would dig it. Especially if it pissed off their parents.
I still think that the chorus to “Head Like a Hole” would be pretty hard for them to handle regardless of the instrumentation. No matter the arrangement, screaming is screaming, really.
True, but were there any flamboyant white singers at that time?
Johnny Ray.
White singers or black, what does it matter?
♫"What’s black-- what’s white–" ♫
Now that’s a song they could have benefited from back in the Jim Crow days.
Remember the furor caused by Elvis who just shook his hips?
So much “modern” music depends on technology to differentiate itself from generic pop or folk tunes it may very well be that a “modern rock” concert in 1955 would be received as much like an alien invasion as anything else.
I can think of a few bands active after 1980 who had the right kind of chops to win over late-1950s audiences. Queen, Cheap Trick, and the Stray Cats come to mind.
OMG how is it that NO ONE mentioned Prince? I mean imagine what 1999 would sound liket o people who didn’t really expect to live to see it. Crazy huh? ALso they would have shot him for the shirts he wore.
I’m justing saying is all. 
Ever see him dance across the stage in high-heel boots? I think he’d give them a run for their money.
I heard a rumor in 1983 that Prince was the son of Little Richard.
He probably would have wondered how you got a whole album on one side of a single, and where was the groove for the needle.
My parents were teens in the late 50s, they really hate most rock music recorded since Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club.
I think a lot of the punk and ska music of the late 70s and early 80s (The Clash, Madness) had chord progressions and rhythms that would have seemed familiar to teens in the 50s. My mom recognized Blondie’s Tide is High as a cover tune when she released it in 81 or 82 and even sang along to my surprise. She enjoyed most New Wave, especially Devo and Modern English. I think the 50s kids would have had trouble with screaming vocals, just like they did when their kids played the same music 25 years later. So that means that Punk, Metal and Industrial would be right out. I think some of the alt-country stuff would have gone over well in 1959.
I bet that someone like Billy Joel or Elton John (minus the costumes maybe?) would go over very well with 50s teens. Bruce Springsteen’s music would likely go over well, if not his lyrics.
That brings up another thought about lyrics. The 60s and especially the Vietnam War followed by Watergate had a HUGE impact on American society as a whole, they changed the way people looked at things. The ideas presented in a lot of lyrics written after the 60s would seem totally foreign to teens of the 50s. (Try to imagine the average teen in 1959 understanding the attitude and the feeling behind the lyrics of Born in the U.S.A. for example. I don’t think s/he could)
A slight hijack, but I’ve always thought it would be so amazing to be able to take a laptop loaded with the most modern music recording and editing software, plugin effects and virtual instruments, and take it back in time to a recording studio in 1950 when they were still working with two tracks.
I don’t know about that, I got into the Pixies five years ago and at first they were too far out for me!
I think they might have been okay with the Smiths, as long as they didn’t hear songs that they’d object to the lyrics to.
Even people who made the most science-fiction type guesses probably would be totally baffled by some of our stuff.
Speaking of science fiction from that era, there was a short story by Fritz Leiber published in 1958 trying to imagine the next big musical craze after rock-‘n’-roll. The title of the story was “Rump-Titty-Titty-Tum-TAH-Tee” which was a rhythm that mysteriously entered the hands of a bongo drummer and an action painter simultaneously. The drummer drummed out this rhythm at the same time the artist splashed paint on the canvas in shapes that matched the rhythm. It caught on in a flash. Soon everybody was boppin’ to the rhythm and a new musical craze was born: “Drum ‘n’ Drag.”
I think Leiber was just enjoying how he could get away with saying “Titty” in print. Twice.
And “rump”
Actually, Marty was playing Hendrix-style.
To the OP- a crowd expecting “Rock & Roll Music” and getting Duran Duran’s “Rio” would be screaming for their heads. However, they would probably be totally bopping along to B-52s “Rock Lobster” and (until they fainted at the lyrics) Cyndi Laupers “She Bop”.
A Led Zep crowd would also have called for the heads of anyone trying to foist off “Sea of Love” on them also G.
It shouldn’t be too hard to find people who have no exposure to modern rock and roll because of geography or religion.
Even so, they wouldn’t have the same musical and cultural background as a 1950s teenager, so what could you conclude?