Audiences and Marketing - The Search for the Next Elvis

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From the course by University of Rochester

History of Rock, Part One

603 ratings

University of Rochester

History of Rock, Part One

603 ratings

This course, part 1 of a 2-course sequence, examines the history of rock, primarily as it unfolded in the United States, from the days before rock (pre-1955) to the end of the 1960s. This course covers the music of Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Phil Spector, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, and many more artists, with an emphasis both on cultural context and on the music itself. We will also explore how developments in the music business and in technology helped shape the ways in which styles developed. Rock emerged in the mid 1950s as a blending of mainstream pop, rhythm and blues, and country and western--styles that previously had remained relatively separate. This new style became the music of the emerging youth culture and was often associated with teen rebellion. We will follow the story of how this rowdy first wave of rock and roll (1955-59) was tamed in the early 60s but came roaring back with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and then went psychedelic by the end of the decade.

From the lesson

The Demise of Rock and the Promise of Soul (1959-63)

Was this era the dark ages for rock music or was it a golden era cut short by the British invasion? The music of teen idols, the folk revival, early surf music, sweet soul, rockabilly pop, and girl groups. The Brill Building songwriters and the rise of the producer. Playlets and splatter platters.

Audiences and Marketing - The Search for the Next Elvis4:16

The Brill Building Approach to Pop8:05

Producers and Girl Groups9:27

Meet the Instructors

John Covach
Professor of Music and Director
Institute for Popular Music

Welcome to the third week of The History of Rock.

This week, we take a look at the period between 1960 and

the end of 1963, the beginning of 1964.

You may remember that last week, we were talking about that first wave of rock and

roll between 1955 and 1959, 1960.

Talking about people like Chuck Berry and Little Richard, Fats Domino, Bill Haley,

Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, and we asked the question when we got to the end of it,

when rock and roll was in such trouble and a lot of the major figures were

off the scene and there were the big pail investigations.

Would this period that follows,

this period now from '60 through '63 really be a kind of dark ages for

rock n' roll where the music business sort of took everything over and turned it into

something far less interesting and edgy than it had been before.

Or, could it, perhaps, be a time when a bunch of new styles get going that

are fun and interesting and maybe even cut short by the British invasion,

which we'll talk about next week, which arrives in early 1964.

So that's pretty much the issue that we're going to be dealing with in this

week's class.

Let me just give you an overview of some of the things that we'll be talking about

this week and then we'll dive into some of those.

So let's just take a look at what we're going to be talking about this week.

Here's the overview.

The overview idea here besides thinking about whether this is a good period or

a bad period for rock music, is to think about what was going on

in the business as they were trying to put this music together.

And the big idea, I think, to keep in mind, is that this period

is sort of characterized by a search for the next Elvis.

What the business had seen in this period from '55 through

'59 was the build up of this youth market for music.

So people in the music business knew there was plenty of money that could be

made from this market, but now with a lot of the major figures,

the original figures sort of out of the situation.

The question was, well, how could they find the next big thing?

How could they find the next big thing that would be like Elvis and

would have kind of the success that Elvis Presley had?

So they try to budge and they throw a lot of things up against the wall

to see what would stick and here are some of them.

There's a brill building model that dominates pop,

we'll talk a little bit about the brill building in just a minute.

It's a kind of a return to a previous model, that starts to divide singers and

writers, again, the way they had been sort of pre rock n roll.

The Brill Building is both a place and an approach, and we'll talk about that.

But this Brill Building approach, professional songwriters sort of writing

songs to order as hit songs, this kind of thing, produces new teen groups,

so we'll talk about girl groups, we'll talk about teen idols, we'll talk about

how this music is designed specifically to really exploit this new teen market.

Another thing we'll talk about Is the rise of the record producer

in during this period.

The idea that that develops this role had been there previously of a record producer

who really controls the way records are recorded

in the sound of the record in a way that had not been done before Lerber Stoler had

been important in that also Phil Specter.

We'll talk about older teens.

When the kids who had been the teenagers during the Elvis Presley years now move

on, a lot of them move on to folk music.

And folk music becomes the new music of seriousness, a kind of a pop style for

more mature kids and we'll talk about the growth of sweet soul and surf music both.

Both of those new styles that emerge.

And so, if you end up being an advocate for thinking that this is a golden age,

these may be styles that you're interested in advocating for.

And then we'll continue the rock ability story as I promised last time when I told

you that we would return to the Everly Brothers and Ricky Nelson In the next

video so we're here now and take a chance, we'll take a time to look at that.

So let's move on to the next video, we'll start with the Brill Building approach.

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