Is rock music a valid form of art?

Rock music appeared in the early 1950 to the amazement of youngsters and the scorn of adults and authority figures everywhere and over more than sixty years has become the soundtrack to the tumultuous times the last century offered. It has evolved from simple blues based rock and roll to more experimental progressive rock in the seventies along with punk rock, hard rock, heavy metal, and glam rock in the eighties to the alternative and indie rock that appeared in the nineties. It has influenced culture and changed the music and performing arts industry but some people still call it a lesser form of art and music and continue to look down on it. Many of its detractors site a simpler musical spectrum than classical music and others mention the demoralizing aspects of rock culture and showmanship. Still rock music has proved its value over time and some of the reasons it is valid to call it a form of art as important as classical music is explored in this particular paper. In the first place rock music is a form of pure expression. From the timeless lyrics and notes The Beatles provided to the emotional and improvised guitar work of Jimmy Hendrix and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd is a testament to human emotion. Rock musicians often come from lower class backgrounds and at first lack a complete music education. This forces them to produce songs more dependant on pure feelings and basic concepts as opposed to the multi instrumentation, arrangement and technical perfection demanded in classical music. While rock musicians often lack these characteristics they employ elements like a powerful drumbeat and a sound bass line and a melody played in the guitar to grasp the audience. Also the lyrical content in rock songs is extremely extensive with bands singing about a variety of themes like: love, friendship, life, fear, sexuality, politics, society and psychology. While rock music is certainly simpler than classical music because of the number of instruments and the complexity of the concepts it is just as able to convey emotion in the listener as easily as or even more so than other forms of music. Other reason is its influence on culture. In the late 1950 Chuck Berry revolutionized the music business with a fast and catchy form of rhythm and blues people later came to call rock and roll. This music was scorned by moral and authority figures as an attempted demoralization of the young minds of America by the amoral and savage African Americans. In the sixties The Beatles basically revolutionized fashion with their long hair and clothing. Latter in that decade The Beatles and other artists provided the music for the civil rights movement and the protests against the war in Vietnam. In the seventies it continued to exert its influence with progressive and art rock bands like pink Floyd and genesis. In the eighties it reached its showbusinnes peak with the advent of big stadium concerts and the live aid event proved that rock could move millions of people and unite them in a common cause. Finally rock music as any form of art and music has an extensive variety of subgenres and styles that share basic concepts and formats but also differ greatly. One of the first variations in rock was the advent of psychedelic bands with a hippie movement inspired image and sound. Then the punk rock movement and its do it yourself basic attitude striped rock to its bare essentials. Progressive rock evolved from psychedelic rock and reached its peak with bands like Pink Floyd and Genesis. Heavy Metal and its various subgenres evolved from the first blues based rock and the from the punk rock concepts

to create a hard and heavy rhythm with a huge guitar riff. Alternative rock and indie rock emerged as a protest against the increasingly commercial music business and featured a simpler sound. Rock music has come a long way from its beginnings deep in the southern USA to its refinement in England and popularity all over the world. It has influenced fashion, movies, literature and everyday life and deserves to not only be considered a valid form of art and music but also the defining form of music of the late 20th century.