A brief history of rock and pop music

You may be wondering when exactly rock / pop music began. There is no clear answer to this. Some might say it started with the advent of rock n roll with Bill Haley and the Comets in 1952. Others would say Elvis, although not the first, but surely the original world superstar. However, none of them were really the first. Rock n roll has its roots in the blues, dating back to the 19th century with black immigrants trying to escape their enslaved lives. Fast forward to the early 20. century and some of the earliest recordings in 78 began to appear. Players of this era, such as Bobby Jo and Robert Johnson, helped form the structure of the early blues.

Robert Johnson had recorded only thirty songs during his short life, as he was prevented from achieving true fame while alive by being poisoned by a jealous husband. He died shortly before being sought out to appear at the 1938 concert ‘Spirituals To Swing’ by record producer John Hammond. As a result, his reputation only took off after Hammond released an album of his recordings for Columbia in the early 1960s. Later exponents of the blues like Muddy Waters and Eric Clapton admitted to borrowing a lot from these early fans.

In the 1950s, artists took the basic style of blues and used electric guitars, drums, and double bass for the first time creating early rock n roll, later known as rockabilly. Hardcore fans like Chuck Berry, Buddy Hollie, and Jerry Lee Lewis were the most famous leads here. Later, Elvis in the US and, to a lesser extent, Cliff Richard (later leading The Shadows) in the UK brought rock n roll to a truly global audience. This paved the way for the beat era of the 60s, which could be considered the true beginning of pop music as we know it today, certainly when it comes to bands.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, most were soloists with only one backing band. With the advent of the beat era, bands dominated with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys of the US taking over the world. Even so, the Beatles later admitted to being heavily influenced by those earlier rock n roll and blues artists. They mostly played rock n roll and blues versions at their pre-fame concerts in Hamburg. in the early 1960s. However, The Beatles were the first band to successfully combine classical music textures with rock n roll to form perfectly crafted pop songs. While bands like The Rolling Stones continued the theme primarily rock n roll,

The Beatles took their finely crafted style further on the seminal album ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band ‘in 1967 using new techniques and studio instruments never used before. They used a new instrument called “Melotron”. This was basically a keyboard that played loop recordings. of real instruments. The most famous sound of this was probably the flute used on the single ‘Strawberry Fields’ recorded at the same time, but which was later removed from the album. However, the Melotron was cumbersome and unreliable and had a rather grainy sound. Even so, it was considered the forerunner of the electronic sampler, invented almost 20 years later. Infinitely more flexible than the Melotron, the sampler helped build the framework for modern pop, dance, and R&B music.

The Beatles album ‘Sgt .. Pepper’ with its innovative recording techniques was preceded the previous year by their album ‘Revolver’. These LPs helped popularize a new wave of music known as acid or psychedelic rock, named after the mind-blowing effects of LSD drugs. Pink Floyd also recorded their debut album ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ in the studio next door at the same time that The Beatles recorded Sgt. Pepper. Pink Floyd was reported to be a direct influence on The Beatles as a result. This new style incorporated new guitar effects such as Fuzz, Anger Flanger, and Delays. These were used in conjunction with early portable synthesizers, such as himself and the mini Moog. invented by Bob Moog.

In the United States, the Beach Boys responded with the LP ‘Pet sounds’ in 1966 and that same year they released the first major psychedelic hit ‘Good Vibrations’. Around this time, the band ‘Jefferson Airplane’ recorded their debut album, which was also the first LP to come out of the new San Francisco music scene. This caught the attention of the record industry and they had two of the first psychedelic hits ‘White Rabbit’ and ‘Somebody to Love’ in 1967.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Jim Morrison teamed up with members of The Psychedelic Rangers and Rick and the Ravens to form ‘The Doors’. They were initially turned down by Columbia, but signed to Electra Records and released their self-titled debut LP in 1967. The album featured the 7-minute single “Light my Fire”, one of the first to break the barrier typical of pop songs. and rock for three minutes.

In Britain, radio transmission was very limited because the BBC was the only organization authorized to broadcast on the continent and only had two pop music programs The Saturday club and Easy Beat Radio Luxembourg partially filled the gap, but it was left to from pirate radio. from Ships at Sea with DJ John Peel ‘, which allowed the new style to reach a mass audience, often eclipsing the BBC in popularity. The BBC responded in the end with the advent of Radio 1 in June 1967. With the existing labor government making pirate radio illegal in Britain several months later, Du’s as John Peel instead of risking arrest joined Radio 1, It had a much more casual and relaxed atmosphere. style as opposed to the serious and conservative approach favored by the BBC until then. This perfectly tailored psychedelic pop and rock and John Peel championed this at his nightly shows. playing new genres of music and introducing new and unsigned bands into Peel sessions. He did this for nearly four decades until his death in 2004.

In the late 1960s, after the breakup of the Beatles, mainstream music was about to change direction once again, both in style and fashion.