British rock

Colegiul Naţional Vasile Alecsandri Galaţi

CANIDATE: STEFAN BOGDAN-IONUT

CLASS: XII-C

Coordinator: Professor Gaiu Cezar

2015

CONTENTS

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THE HISTORY OF BRITI

SH ROCK MUSI

C


Introduction.............................................................................................................................................3

British rock music in the 60’s.............................................................................................................4

British rock music in the 70’s..............................................................................................................4

British rock music in the 80’s.............................................................................................................5

British rock music in the 90’s…………………………………………………....................…………………………..5

British rock music in the 21 century...................................................................................................6

CASE STUDY 1: The Beatles……………………………………………………………………………………………………..7

CASE STUDY 2: Pink Floyd……………………………………………………………………………………………………….7

CASE STUDY 3: Iron Maiden…………………………………………………………………………………………………….8

CASE STUDY 4: The Myth of the Peaceville Three………………………………………………………………….9

CASE STUDY 5: Radiohead……………………………………………………………………………………………………….10

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CASE STUDY 6: Muse...............................................................................................................................11

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….12

Annexes......................................................................................................................................................13

Bibliography..............................................................................................................................................18

Introduction: rock as a reflection of social and cultural change

How, then, should rock’s contribution to music history be judged? One way to answer this is to trace rock’s influences on other musics. Another is to attempt a kind of cultural audit. (What is the ratio of rock masterworks to rock dross?) But such approaches come up against the problem of definition. Rock does not so much influence other musics as colonize them, blurring musical boundaries. Any attempt to establish an objective rock canon is equally doomed to failure; rock is not this sort of autonomous, rule-bound aesthetic form.

Its cultural value must be approached from a different perspective. The question is not How has rock influenced society? but rather How has it reflected society? From the musician’s point of view, for example, the most important change since the 1950s has been in the division of music-making labour. When Elvis Presley became a star, there were clear distinctions between the work of the performer, the writer, the arranger, the session musician, the record producer, and the sound engineer. By the time Public Enemy was recording, such distinctions had broken down from both ends: performers wrote, arranged, and produced their

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own material; engineers made as significant a musical contribution as anyone else to the creation of a recorded sound. Technological developments—multitrack tape recorders, amplifiers, synthesizers, and digital equipment—had changed the meaning of musical instruments; there was no longer a clear distinction between producing a sound and reproducing it.

From a my listener’s point of view too, the distinction between music and noise changed dramatically in the second half of the 20th century. Music became ubiquitous, whether in public places (an accompaniment to every sort of activity), in the home (with a radio, CD player, or cassette player in every room), or in blurring the distinction between public and private use of music (a Walkman, boom box, or karaoke machine). The development of the compact disc only accelerated the process that makes music from any place and any time permanently available. Listening to music no longer refers to a special place or occasion but, rather, a special attention—a decision to focus on a given sound at a given moment.

Therefore, i tried to present in these pages an overview over the history of the British Rock Music. The chapters are divided by time periods and i selected some band which drew in one way my attention over the past few years.

British rock music in the 60’sIn the sixties rock music comes of age and dominates the popular music charts. Elvis

Presley continues to score hits in the early part of the decade, but the music continues to diversify with the folk revival, the Brill Building sound, Phil Spector's wall of sound, girl groups and surf music, all impacting the early part of the decade. The Motown, Stax and Atlantic labels bring more african-american artists back to the forefront of the pop charts. By 1964 American artists are sharing the top of the charts with U.K. bands led by the Beatles(ANNEX 1) and The Rolling Stones. In the U.S. garage bands emerge, inspired by the British Invasion sound.

Music of the United Kingdom developed in the 1960s into one of the leading forms of popular music in the modern world. By the early 1960s the British had developed a viable national music industry and began to produce adapted forms of American music in Beat music and British blues which would be re-exported to America by bands such as The Beatles and Rolling Stones. This helped to make the dominant forms of popular music something of a shared Anglo-American creation, and led to the growing distinction between pop and rock music, which began to develop into diverse and creative sub-genres that would characterise the form throughout the rest of the twentieth century.

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The Beatles dominate the sixties record charts with 6 of the top 10 albums of the decade and 21 of the decades' top 100 singles.

British rock music in the 70’s

The Beatles break up in 1970, but all four members continue to impact the decade with successful solo careers. The early seventies are marked by the deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison who all die at the age of 27. Pyschedelic music declines, but morphs into hard rock, progressive rock and heavy metal. Touring bands move from playing clubs and theaters, to playing sports arenas. Big time bands, many of them formed in the '60's, such as the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd(ANNEX 2) , The Who, Grand Funk and Led Zeppelin travel in private jets and play to thousands in arenas and outdoor stadiums.

Heavy metal music gained a cult following in the 1970s, led by Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple, with their styles later influencing other bands like Judas Priest and Motörhead.

Black Sabbath, formed in 1969, is often credited with inventing the metal genre as well as stoner rock, doom metal, as well as sparking a revolution with much darker lyrics than were the norm in rock at that time.

This diversity of music distribution channels, along with an expanding market allows for a wide variety of new rock styles to emerge. The early seventies are dominated by singer songwriters and soft rock. Glam or Glitter Rock shines briefly in the first half of the seventies. Disco dominates the radio and dance floors in the late seventies. Punk rock, a throwback to sixties garage rock, emerges in the late seventies as a reaction to arena rock, progressive rock and disco. Punk becomes New Wave as bands move beyond guitars and drums, and begin incorporating synthesizers.

British rock music in the 80’sSome of the most successful post-punk bands at the beginning of the decade, such as

Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Psychedelic Furs, also continued their success during the 1980s. Members of Bauhaus and Joy Division explored new stylistic territory as Love and Rockets and New Order respectively.

The second generation of British post-punk bands that broke through in the early 1980s, including The Smiths, The Cure(ANNEX 3), The Fall, The Pop Group, The Mekons, Echo and the Bunnymen and Teardrop Explodes, tended to move away from dark sonic landscapes.

Ireland's U2 incorporated elements of religious imagery together with political commentary into their often anthemic music, and by the late 1980s had become one of the biggest bands in the world

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In the 80's, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal broke into the mainstream, as albums by Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Saxon and Motörhead, reached the British top 10. In 1981, Motörhead(ANNEX 4) became the first of this new breed of metal bands to top the UK charts with No Sleep 'til Hammersmith. These included thrash metal and death metal, both developed in the UK; black metal and power metal, both developed in continental Europe, but influenced by the British band Venom(ANNEX 5); and doom, which was developed in the US, but which soon were adopted by a number of bands from England, including Pagan Altar and Witchfinder General.

British rock music in the 90’sBritpop

Britpop emerged from the British indie scene of the early 1990s and was characterised by bands influenced by British guitar pop and rock music of the 1960s and 1970s. The movement developed as a reaction against various musical and cultural trends in the late 1980s and early 1990s, particularly the grunge phenomenon from the United States. New British groups such as Suede and Blur launched the movement by positioning themselves as opposing musical forces, referencing British guitar music of the past and writing about uniquely British topics and concerns. These bands were soon joined by others including Oasis(ANNEX 6) , Pulp, Supergrass and Elastica. Britpop groups brought British indie rock into the mainstream and formed the backbone of a larger British cultural movement called Cool Britannia. Although its more popular bands were able to spread their commercial success overseas, especially to the United States, the movement largely fell apart by the end of the decade.

Post-rock

Post rock originated in the release of Talk Talk's album Laughing Stock and US band Slint's Spiderland, both in 1991, which produced experimental work influenced by sources as varied as electronica, jazz, and minimalist classical music, often abandoning the traditional song format in favour of instrumental and ambient music.The term was first used to describe the band Bark Psychosis and their album Hex (1994), but was soon employed for bands such as Stereolab, Laika, Disco Inferno and Pram and other acts in America and Canada. Scottish group Mogwai were among some of the influential post-rock groups to arise at the turn of the 21st century.

The new wave of doom metal: Peaceville Three

The Peaceville Three is are term used to describe the three UK bands (My Dying Bride, Anathema and Paradise Lost) who are signed or have been signed to Peaceville Records sometime in their careers. The three bands are regarded as the creators of both the doom metal and gothic metal genres in the early-mid 1990s, particularly with Paradise Lost's 1991 Gothic.

Paradise Lost were the first to form, in 1988. Anathema and My Dying Bride followed suit in 1990, beginning the death/doom genre essentially. That year also saw Paradise Lost's

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Lost Paradise album. In 1991 they followed with the influential Gothic In 1992 My Dying Bride released their first album As The Flower Withers, while 1993 saw their second release Turn Loose the Swans and Anathema's debut Serenades. While Paradise Lost began a synthpop experimentational period in the latter half of the 90's and My Dying Bride also experimented with 1998's 34.788%...Complete, and Anathema verged towards a more rock-orientated sound, My Dying Bride eventually returned to their sound with the follow-up to 34.788%...Complete, 1999's The Light at the End of the World. They remain the only of the three to still be signed with Peaceville Records and the only one to still play doom metal.

British rock music in the 21 century Post-Britpop

Post-Britpop bands such as The Verve, Radiohead, Catatonia and Travis were followed in the 2000s by acts including Snow Patrol, from Northern Ireland and Elbow, Embrace, Starsailor, Doves and Keane from England, with music that was often more melodic and introspective. The most commercially successful band in the milieu were Coldplay(ANNEX 7), whose début album Parachutes (2000) went multi-platinum and helped make them one of the most popular acts in the world by the time of their second album A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002).

Garage rock revival/Post-punk revival

Like many American alternative rock bands, during the late 1990s and early 2000s, several British indie bands emerged, including Franz Ferdinand, The Libertines and Bloc Party, that drew primary inspiration from New Wave and Post-punk groups such as Joy Division, Wire, and Gang of Four, establishing the post-punk revival movement. Other prominent independent rock bands in the 2000s included: Editors, The Fratellis, Placebo(ANNEX 8) , Lostprophets, Razorlight, Kaiser Chiefs, The Kooks and Arctic Monkeys (the last being the most prominent act to owe their success to the use of internet social networking)(ANNEX 9).

CASE STUDY #1:

Beatles (1960 – 1970)

The Beatles were an English rock band that formed in Liverpool, in 1960. With John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, they became widely regarded as the greatest and most influential act of the rock era. Rooted in skiffle, beat and 1950srock and roll, the Beatles later experimented with several genres, ranging from pop ballads to psychedelic and hard rock, often incorporating classical elements in innovative ways. In the early 1960s, their enormous popularity first emerged as "Beatlemania", but as their

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songwriting grew in sophistication they came to be perceived as an embodiment of the ideals shared by the era's sociocultural revolutions.

From 1960, the Beatles built their reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg over a three-year period. Manager Brian Epsteinmoulded them into a professional act and producer George Martin enhanced their musical potential. They gained popularity in the United Kingdom after their first hit, "Love Me Do", in late 1962. They acquired the nickname "the Fab Four" as Beatlemania grew in Britain over the following year, and by early 1964 they had become international stars, leading the "British Invasion" of the United States pop market. From 1965 onwards, the Beatles produced what many critics consider their finest material, including the innovative and widely influential albums Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966), Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), The Beatles ("The White Album", 1968) and

Abbey Road (1969). After their break-up in 1970, they each enjoyed successful musical careers. Lennon was shot and killed in December 1980, and Harrison died of lung cancer in November 2001. McCartney and Starr, the surviving members, remain musically active.

According to the RIAA, the Beatles are the best-selling band in the United States, with 177 million certified units. They have had more number-one albums on the British charts and sold more singles in the UK than any other act. In 2008, the group topped Billboardmagazine's list of the all-time most successful "Hot 100" artists; as of 2014, they hold the record for most number-one hits on the Hot 100 chart with twenty. They have received ten Grammy Awards, an Academy Award for Best Original Score and fifteen Ivor Novello Awards. Collectively included in Time magazine's compilation of the twentieth century's 100 most influential people, they are the best-selling band in history, with estimated sales of over 600 million records worldwide. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Beatles as the greatest artist of all time.

Case Study #2:

Pink Floyd (1965 – 1995; 2005)

Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved international acclaim with their progressive and psychedelic music. Distinguished by their use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, and elaborate live shows, they are one of the most commercially successful and musically influential groups in the history of popular music.

Founded in 1965, Pink Floyd originally consisted of students Syd Barrett, Nick Mason, Roger Waters, and Richard Wright. They first gained popularity performing in London's underground music scene during the late 1960s, and under Barrett's creative leadership they released two charting singles and a successful debut album. David Gilmour joined as a fifth member in December 1967; Barrett left the band in April 1968 due to his deteriorating mental health. After Barrett's departure, Waters became the band's primary lyricist, and by the mid-1970s, their dominant songwriter, devising the original concepts

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behind their critically and commercially acclaimed albums The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals (1977), The Wall (1979) and The Final Cut (1983).

Wright left Pink Floyd in 1979, followed by Waters in 1985. Gilmour and Mason continued as Pink Floyd and Wright subsequently joined them as a paid musician. They continued to record and tour through 1994; two more albums followed, A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987) and The Division Bell (1994). Inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005, as of 2013 they have sold more than 250 million records worldwide, including 74.5 million certified units in the United States.

After nearly two decades of acrimony, Pink Floyd reunited in 2005 for a performance at the global awareness event Live 8. In 2006, Gilmour was interviewed for an article printed in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that declared that Pink Floyd had dissolved. When asked about their future, Gilmour explained that the band was finished making music, and that at the age of 60 he preferred to work on his own. Since then, both he and Waters have repeatedly insisted that they have no plans to reunite with the surviving former members. Barrett died in 2006 and Wright in 2008. In 2011, Gilmour and Mason joined Waters at one of his The Wall Tour shows at The O2 Arena in London.

Case Study #3:

Iron Maiden (formed in 1975)

Taking its name from the medieval torture device, Iron Maiden(ANNEX 10) was part of England's late-Seventies crop of heavy-metal bands that boasted simple guitar riffs, bone-crunching chords and shrieking vocals.

Formed in 1976 by bassist Steve Harris and guitarist Dave Murray, Iron Maiden has had a revolving-door lineup of musicians. The first incarnation of the band was inspired by the do-it-yourself punk ethos, and the group released an EP, The Soundhouse Tapes, on its own label, Rock Hard Records. Iron Maiden, the band's 1980 debut album for major label Capitol Records, was pure, unadulterated, screaming heavy metal. It reached the Top Five in Britain; the following year's Killers went to Number 12. America was slower to embrace the denim- and leather-clad group, which distinguished itself from its peers with unusually literate songs (written by Harris) full of hellish imagery (the melting faces in "Children of the Damned"), with themes borrowed from films ("The Number of the Beast," inspired by The Omen II) and ancient mythology ("Flight of Icarus").

Iron Maiden was one of the few bands of any genre to employ a mascot, a ten-foot rotting corpse named Eddie.

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The Number of the Beast, featuring new vocalist Bruce Dickinson topped the album chart in Britain and initiated a streak of seven consecutive platinum or gold albums in the United States, despite virtually no radio or MTV exposure. The follow-up, 1983's Piece of Mind, reached Number 14 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart, and 1984's Powerslave went to Number 21 on the Billboard 200. No Prayer for the Dying was Maiden's last studio album to go gold in the U.S.; it contained "Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter," a song originally recorded by Dickinson alone for the Nightmare on Elm Street, Part 5 soundtrack. Dickinson's solo version went to Number One in the U.K. Guitarist Adrian Smith, who had joined in 1980, left in 1990 to form A.S.A.P. with drummer Zak Starkey, son of Ringo Starr. Janick Gers replaced Smith. Dickinson left in 1993, replaced by Blaze Bayley.

Iron Maiden weathered its numerous personnel changes without a hitch, continuing to put out albums (three live discs as well as 1995's The X Factor and 1998's Virtual XI), although they weren't as successful as the band's earlier releases. Dickinson – who became a top-rated fencer and swordsman, a published novelist (The Adventures of Lord Iffy Boatrace) and solo singer – reunited with the band in 1999, as did Smith. The revived, Dickinson-fronted Maiden went on to have a second successful career, releasing another string of charting albums including Brave New World (Number 39, 2000), Dance of Death (Number 18, 2003) and A Matter of Life and Death (Number 9, 2006). The group's three-disc greatest-hits album of 1999, Ed Hunter, spawned a namesake Maiden video game.

Case Study #4:

The Myth of the Peaceville Three: Paradise Lost, Anathema, My Dying Bride

For the longest time, the media perpetuated the stereotype of the so-called ‘Peaceville Three’. Specifically My Dying Bride(ANNE11), Anathema(ANNEX 12) and , Paradise Lost(ANNEX 13) as some sort of Super Doom Team set out for the sole purpose of making teenage dudes introspect. To be fair, Decibel’s own Greg Moffitt tried in vain to dispel the myth in a December 2008 Masters of Misery article about the origins of the ‘Peaceville Three’ against the backdrop of Paradise Lost’s 20th anniversary show, which included strangely enough live performances from My Dying Bride and Anathema. Perhaps it was the fact that Peaceville’s most notable and sales-worthy bands were all on the same label from the same country around approximately the same time. As Halmshaw explains in Moffitt’s expertly penned piece, Peaceville didn’t have a master plan to lord over UK’s most precious doom/death metal acts/exports, while the rest of labeldom were left with bottom-feeder acts in Enchantmant, Chorus of Ruin, and Acrimony. As with Paradise Lost, it was with My Dying Bride and Anathema. Goddamned geography.

“It’s an urban myth,” states Mackintosh. “I think Anathema and My Dying Bride formed in 1990 or 1991. We had already been gigging by then. And we had an album. We

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were on vinyl, which was a huge deal back then. And we were already off Peaceville in 1992. We were never really part of the so-called ‘Peaceville Three’. We hadn’t played with My Dying Bride until our 20th anniversary a few years back. I do recall Anathema supporting us in Liverpool. What I remember about that gig was they were very young kids. But, more importantly, we were at the bar and they go into a cover of “Eternal” from the Gothic album. We were thinking, ‘Why’d they cover this song?! We got to go on stage and play the same song!’ They ended up playing it slightly better than us, which was annoying.”

“Basically, from my recollection of the early days the ‘Big 3’ didn’t actually exist in its present form,” My Dying Bride guitarist Andrew Craighan adds. “What I mean was the bands were all there, but kind of oblivious to the other two and very much all were doing their own thing. I never really liked Paradise Lost or Anathema’s earlier stuff to be honest and deliberately never listened to them because of the Peaceville/Northern England Doom connection.”

But therein lay a not-so-quiet rivalry. Not from Paradise Lost’s point of view—“I wouldn’t call it a competition,” Holmes giggles sardonically—but from that of My Dying Bride and Anathema it was game on. In many respects, Peaceville’s younger two felt they had something to prove by constantly measuring their, uh, woebegone worth. To be heavier, more experimental, or possessing and therefore expressing truer emotions; Anathema’s Danny Cavanagh outright accuses the other two of faking it in Moffitt’s exposition. “They viewed us as competition,” Mackintosh confirms, “but we never viewed them as competition. It never even crossed our minds. It wasn’t until years later that I spoke to Andy from My Dying Bride. He said, ‘In every interview they ask us about Paradise Lost.’ I think it used to annoy them. We never got any questions about My Dying Bride.”

“They [Paradise Lost] were our rivals then and us theirs,” Craighan asserts. “So, to us it was competition if anything. Be heavier. Be doomier. Be more morose. More brutal. Anything. So, in that respect they were a great influence on us as they kept us trying to be better at being My Dying Bride, for a while anyway. Once My Dying Bride had kind of clearly become the band it is we stopped taking any notice of them completely. Then, I suppose all three bands quite dramatically went their very own ways.”

Case Study #5:

Radiohead (formed in 1985)

Radiohead(ANNEX 14) are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke (lead vocals, guitar, piano), Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar, keyboards, other instruments), Colin Greenwood (bass), Phil Selway (drums, percussion) and Ed O'Brien (guitar, backing vocals).

Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992. The song was initially unsuccessful, but it became a worldwide hit several months after the release of their debut album, Pablo Honey (1993). Radiohead's popularity rose in the United Kingdom with the release of their second album, The Bends (1995). Radiohead's third album, OK Computer (1997), propelled them to greater international fame. Featuring an expansive sound and

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themes of modern alienation, OK Computer is often acclaimed as one of the landmark records of the 1990s.

Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001) marked a dramatic evolution in Radiohead's musical style, as the group incorporated experimental electronic music, krautrock and jazz influences. Hail to the Thief (2003), a mix of piano and guitar driven rock, electronics and lyrics inspired by war, was the band's final album for their major record label, EMI. Radiohead initially self-released their seventh album In Rainbows (2007) as a digital download for which customers could set their own price, to critical and chart success. Their eighth album, The King of Limbs (2011), was an exploration of rhythm and quieter textures, which the band released independently.

Radiohead have sold more than 30 million albums worldwide, with the band's work being placed highly in both listener polls and critics' lists; they have the distinction of doing so in both the 1990s and 2000s. In 2005, Radiohead were ranked number 73 in Rolling Stone's list of "The Greatest Artists of All Time", while Jonny Greenwood (48th) and Ed O'Brien were both included in Rolling Stone's list of greatest guitarists, and Thom Yorke (66th) in their list of greatest singers. In 2009, Rolling Stone readers voted the group the second best artist of the 2000s.

Case Study #6:

Muse (fromed in 1994)

Muse(ANEEX 15) are an English rock band from Teignmouth, Devon, formed in 1994. The band consists of Matthew Bellamy (lead vocals, lead guitar, piano, keyboards, keytar), Christopher Wolstenholme (bass guitar, vocals, keyboards) and Dominic Howard (drums, percussion, synthesisers). They are known for their energetic and extravagant live performances and their fusion of many music genres, including progressive rock, alternative rock, hard rock, symphonic rock and electronica.

Muse have released six studio albums: Showbiz (1999), Origin of Symmetry (2001), Absolution (2003), Black Holes and Revelations (2006), The Resistance (2009) and The 2nd Law (2012), with one upcoming studio album, Drones (2015). They have also issued four live albums: Hullabaloo Soundtrack (2002), which is also a compilation of B-sides, Absolution Tour (2005), which documents several of the band's performances such as Glastonbury Festival 2004, HAARP (2008), which documents the band's performances at Wembley Stadium in 2007, and Live at Rome Olympic Stadium (2013), shot in 4k and taken from the band's Rome show during The 2nd Law World Tour.

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Black Holes and Revelations earned the band a Mercury Prize nomination and was named the third best album of 2006 by the NME Albums of the Year. Muse have also won numerous music awards including five MTV Europe Music Awards, six Q Awards, eight NME Awards, two Brit Awards—winning "Best British Live Act" twice, an MTV Video Music Award, four Kerrang! Awards and an American Music Award. They were also nominated for five Grammy Awards, of which they won Best Rock Album for The Resistance. As of June 2012, Muse had sold over 15 million albums worldwide.

Their music currently mixes sounds from genres such as electronic music, experimental rock, classical music, rock opera and many others. The band was described as a "trashy three-piece" by Matthew Bellamy on the BBC during 2002. On the band's association with progressive rock, Dominic Howard has said: "I associate it [progressive rock] with 10-minute guitar solos, but I guess we kind of come into the category. A lot of bands are quite ambitious with their music, mixing lots of different styles – and when I see that I think it's great. I've noticed that kind of thing becoming a bit more mainstream."

Conclusion

Rock is the music that has directly addressed these new conditions and kept faith with the belief that music is a form of human conversation, even as it is mediated by television and radio and by filmmakers and advertisers. The rock commitment to access—to doing mass music for oneself—has survived despite the centralization of production and the ever-increasing costs of manufacture, promotion, and distribution. Rock remains the most democratic of mass media—the only one in which voices from the margins of society can still be heard out loud.

Yet, at the beginning of the 21st century, rock and the music industry faced a new crisis. The development of digital technology meant that music could now be stored on easy-to-use digital files, which could in turn be transferred from personal computer to personal computer via the Internet. The resulting legal and corporate disputes about new digital formats such as MP3 and services such as Napster reflected both new commercial opportunities (musical rights holders had visions of making money every time a song was downloaded) and fears (that their songs would be exchanged without any money changing hands at all).

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While the issues here are new, the story line is not. Again, an emergent technology has meant new commercial opportunities being explored and developed by fledgling entrepreneurs before being absorbed and reordered by larger corporations, though these are now as likely to be telecommunications or computer companies as they are music companies. Even more striking is how much the new ways of using the Web have drawn on rock practices.

The many file-sharing services that followed Napster have similarly involved a global network of home “tapers” and have drawn on the rock ideology of DIY, community, and anti-commerce. Networking sites such as MySpace and YouTube were quickly adopted by rock groups and rock fans whose use of the new promotional possibilities became a model for other entertainment sectors. However the various legal and economic issues are resolved, rock music will certainly be central to 21st-century ways of doing things. Rock, in short, not only reflects (and reflects on) social and cultural change; it is also a social force in its own right.

Annexes

Annex 1

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Annex 2

Annnex 3

Annex 4

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Annex 5

Annex 6

Annex 7

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Annex 8

Annex 9

Annex 10

Annex 11

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Annex 12

Annex 13

Annex 14

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Annex 15

Bibliography:www. rock musictimeline.com/

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Rock _music

www.maximum rock .ro

The History of Rock: The Definitive Guide To Rock, Punk, Metal, and Beyond

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http://www.maximumrock.ro/

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_music

http://www.rockmusictimeline.com/

British rock

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