Editing Rock and roll (section)

== Cultural influence ==
{{Main|Social effects of rock music}}

Rock and roll influenced lifestyles, fashion, attitudes, and language.<ref>G. C. Altschuler, ''All shook up: how rock 'n' roll changed America'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press US, 2003), p. 121.</ref> In addition, rock and roll may have contributed to the civil rights movement because both African-American and European-American teens enjoyed the music.<ref name="Altshuler2003p35"/>

Many early rock and roll songs dealt with issues of cars, school, dating, and clothing. The lyrics of rock and roll songs described events and conflicts to which most listeners could relate through personal experience. Topics such as sex that had generally been considered taboo began to appear in rock and roll lyrics. This new music tried to break boundaries and express emotions that people were actually feeling but had not discussed openly. An awakening began to take place in American youth culture.<ref name="Schafer, William J 1972">Schafer, William J. ''Rock Music: Where It's Been, What It Means, Where It's Going''. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1972.</ref>

=== Race ===
In the crossover of African-American "race music" to a growing white youth audience, the popularization of rock and roll involved both black performers reaching a white audience and white musicians performing African-American music.<ref>M. Fisher, ''Something in the air: radio, rock, and the revolution that shaped a generation'' (Marc Fisher, 2007), p. 53.</ref> Rock and roll appeared at a time when racial tensions in the United States were entering a new phase, with the beginnings of the [[civil rights]] movement for [[Racial segregation|desegregation]], leading to the [[U.S. Supreme Court]] ruling that abolished the policy of "[[separate but equal]]" in 1954, but leaving a policy which would be extremely difficult to enforce in parts of the United States.<ref>H. Zinn, ''A people's history of the United States: 1492–present'' (Pearson Education, 3rd edn., 2003), p. 450.</ref> The coming together of white youth audiences and [[African American music|black music]] in rock and roll inevitably provoked strong white racist reactions within the US, with many whites condemning its breaking down of barriers based on color.<ref name=Altshuler2003p35/> Many observers saw rock and roll as heralding the way for desegregation, in creating a new form of music that encouraged racial cooperation and shared experience.<ref>M. T. Bertrand, ''Race, rock, and Elvis'' (University of Illinois Press, 2000), pp. 95–6.</ref> Many authors have argued that early rock and roll was instrumental in the way both white and black teenagers identified themselves.<ref>{{cite book
| last = Carson
| first = Mina
| title = Girls Rock!: Fifty Years of Women Making Music
| publisher = Lexington
| year = 2004
| page = 24
}}</ref>

=== Teen culture ===
{{Main|Youth subculture}}
[[File:True Life Romance 3.jpg|thumb|upright|"There's No Romance in Rock and Roll" made the cover of ''True Life Romance'' in 1956.]]
Several rock historians have claimed that rock and roll was one of the first music genres to define an [[age group]].<ref name="padel" /> It gave teenagers a sense of belonging, even when they were alone.<ref name="padel">{{cite book |last=Padel |first=Ruth |title=I'm a Man: Sex, Gods, and Rock 'n' Roll |publisher=Faber and Faber |year=2000 |pages=46–48}}</ref> Rock and roll is often identified with the emergence of teen culture among the first [[baby boomer]] generation, who had greater relative affluence and leisure time and adopted rock and roll as part of a distinct subculture.<ref name=Coleman2007>M. Coleman, L. H. Ganong, K. Warzinik, ''Family Life in Twentieth-Century America'' (Greenwood, 2007), pp. 216–17.</ref> This involved not just music, absorbed via radio, record buying, jukeboxes and TV programs like ''[[American Bandstand]]'', but also extended to film, clothes, hair, cars and motorcycles, and distinctive language. The youth culture exemplified by rock and roll was a recurring source of concern for older generations, who worried about juvenile delinquency and social rebellion, particularly because, to a large extent, rock and roll culture was shared by different racial and social groups.<ref name=Coleman2007 />

In America, that concern was conveyed even in youth cultural artifacts such as [[comic books]]. In "There's No Romance in Rock and Roll" from ''True Life Romance'' (1956), a defiant teen dates a rock and roll-loving boy but drops him for one who likes traditional adult music—to her parents' relief.<ref>{{cite book|last=Nolan|first= Michelle|title=Love on the Racks|publisher=McFarland|date= 2008|page=150|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=ndJ7BwAAQBAJ&pg=PA150|isbn = 9781476604909}}</ref> In Britain, where postwar prosperity was more limited, rock and roll culture became attached to the pre-existing [[Teddy Boy]] movement, largely working class in origin, and eventually to the [[Rocker (subculture)|rockers]].<ref name="D. O'Sullivan, 1974 pp. 38–9" /> "On the white side of the deeply segregated music market", rock and roll became marketed for teenagers, as in [[Dion and the Belmonts]]' "[[A Teenager in Love]]" (1959).<ref>{{cite book |editor1-first=Lisa A. |editor1-last=Lewis |title=The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media |publisher=Routledge |year=1992 |page=98 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=10GznmSA3w4C&q=teenager+in+love |chapter=Beatlemania: Girls just want to have fun|author1-first=Barbara|author1-last=Ehrenreich|author2-first=Elizabeth|author2-last=Hess|author3-first=Gloria|author3-last=Jacobs<!--|pages=84–107-->|isbn=9780415078214}}</ref>

=== Dance styles ===
From its early 1950s beginnings through the early 1960s, rock and roll spawned new [[Novelty and fad dances|dance crazes]]<ref>[http://www.sixtiescity.com/Culture/dance.shtm sixtiescity.com] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120324225234/http://www.sixtiescity.com/Culture/dance.shtm |date=March 24, 2012 }} ''Sixties Dance and Dance Crazes''</ref> including the [[Twist (dance)|twist]]. Teenagers found the syncopated [[backbeat]] rhythm especially suited to reviving Big Band-era [[jitterbug]] dancing. [[Sock hop]]s, school and church gym dances, and home basement dance parties became the rage, and American teens watched [[Dick Clark]]'s ''[[American Bandstand]]'' to keep up on the latest dance and fashion styles.<ref>R. Aquila, ''That old-time rock & roll: a chronicle of an era, 1954–1963'' (University of Illinois Press, 2000), p. 10.</ref> From the mid-1960s on, as "rock and roll" was rebranded as  "rock", later dance genres followed, leading to [[funk]], [[disco]], [[house music|house]], [[techno]], and [[hip hop]].<ref>{{cite book
| last1 = Campbell
| first1 = Michael
|first2=James
 |last2=Brody
 | title = Rock and Roll: An Introduction
| publisher = Schirmer Books
| year = 1999
| location = New York, NY
| pages = 354–55
}}</ref>