In a post in another thread, somebody wrote that rock music is distinct from rock and roll music.
Do you agree or disagree?
If you agree that they are two distinct things, do you feel one is a subset of the other? Do you feel that all rock songs are rock and roll songs but not all rock and roll songs are rock songs? Or do you feel that all rock and roll songs are rock songs but not all rock songs are rock and roll songs? (And do you feel that this is one of the most confusing paragraphs ever posted on this board?)
If you feel rock music and rock and roll music are two distinct things, can you give some examples of songs that you feel belong in one genre but don’t belong in the other?
On a related note, do you feel that rock and roll is distinct from rock ‘n’ roll, rock-n-roll, or rock & roll?
Rock is like the genus Homo. Lots of different species that have distinct qualities, but some evolved into others and some turned into dead ends and some interbreeding was possible so that traces of one species still turn up in other species. To push the metaphor over the brink, some aspects of Homo are traceable to the family Hominidae.
In my mind, “rock & roll” is a genre within “rock music,” and which is largely a style of music which (a) was at its peak in the mid-late 1950s, and (b) is more-or-less extinct today as a modern music genre. This seems to more-or-less fit with how musicologists define it.
But, I also recognize that a lot of people use “rock” and “rock & roll” interchangeably, and a whole lot of people have different definitions for what either term actually means, and what “is” and “is not,” as illustrated by the annual voting for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and the outraged whining about “there’s no way that Such-and-Such is rock and roll! They don’t belong in there!!”
Rock n Roll is, at the same time, foundational and subgenre. By the time Rock became the all-encompassing term for teenage popular music, Rock n Roll was a very specific dance-centric form that had already been eclipsed by songs that incorporated more influences and lyrical breadth than its forbearer.
I wanted to have an open discussion of the topic. I felt that if I included my opinions in the OP, the thread might become a discussion of my opinions rather than the broader topic.
That said, my opinion is pretty simple. I feel that “rock” and “rock and roll” are the same thing. The genre started out being called rock and roll but that got shortened to rock. If a song is a rock song it is also a rock and roll song and vice versa.
The Beach Boys released their first single in 1961, a year before The Beatles. I wouldn’t argue that “Surfin’” was modern rock but I also wouldn’t argue that for “Love Me Do.” The week “Love Me Do” was released The Beach Boys had “Surfin’ Safari/409” on the American charts and those are distinctly 60s records.
I agree that the British Invasion reshaped the whole genre and we now date “rock” from “rock and roll” with the appearance of The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Just remember they weren’t first. “Fun, Fun, Fun”, as American rock as there ever was, was released a couple of weeks pre-Sullivan. In 1964, though, all the newspapers called what both of them played as “rock ‘n’’ roll.” The shortened “rock” took a couple of years to be accepted as standard.
And that itself may have changed. Today those songs are mild that on this board you can find people who refuse to say The Beatles made rock music, since real “rock” is heavy metal. What they did was “pop.” Everything looks different in retrospect.
I don’t think the terms mean anything different at all.
Not to say there aren’t subgenres: alt rock prog rock, heavy metal, pop rock, glam rock - just that the terms “rock” and “rock and roll” are identical.
I do feel that helps clear things up. If you say that the British Invasion and Bob Dylan invented Rock music, then you’re saying Rock music didn’t exist prior to 1963. And that, in turn, is saying that what people like Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, and Buddy Holly were doing in the fifties wasn’t Rock music and was a completely separate genre.
I can see the idea that Rock and Roll was a distinct subgenre of Rock (although I personally disagree) but I don’t see the idea that Rock and Roll was completely separate from Rock.
I’ve not got a citation for this but my guess is rock and roll became rock because it’s quicker and easier to say and write, and people are lazy. Simple as that.
There is very little logic to the semantics of popular music labels. They were mostly created to accommodate sales charts. Country and Western used to be two totally different genres (likewise Rhythm and Blues). At one point the labels stopped describing the music but rather described the listener (almost always by race and region).
It’s a matter of style. “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” by Queen is, in my mind, Rock & Roll. It has a throwback sound to it, a style you might easily have heard in the 1950s from Haley, Presley, Berry or Holly.
On the other hand, “Killer Queen” is Rock. It has a style of its time, the 1970s.
I don’t pay much attention to labels. In the words of Mr. William Joel:
“Next phase, new wave , dance craze, anyways
It’s still rock and roll to me.”
Personally, I’m not a big fan of “splitting/adjectivising” genres. But let’s say we identify some grouping of early rock music as “rock and roll.” Chuck Berry, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, whatever. I see at least 2 issues. Do we have to subdivide all of the other poplar music that was done at that time? And how do we describe similar music being made today?
IME, today that sort of music would likely be called rockabilly or boogie woogie. I’m thinking of The Blasters, to name one group. Or Marshall Crenshaw or any number of “pop” singers/groups who sound awfully similar to Buddy Holly to my ears.
My impression is that back then a very wide range of popular music was described as rock and roll. Not just the Chuck Berry/Elvis/Rocket 88 type of songs.
The defining separation for me between Rock n Roll and Rock is when popular music became re-segregated in the mid-1960s after ten-years of being a genre equally performed by and appreciated by white and black alike. Rock went in one direction and R&B in the other.
Those are good examples, and pretty much the way I see it. Rock n’ roll is more stripped down. Take Springsteen, for example. Darkness is a rock album and The River is a rock n’ roll record. With exceptions on both, of course.
ETA: To me, Stray Cats are a rock n’ roll band. Rockabilly is rock n’ roll. Zep is rock.
