How Has Rock Music Influenced American Society

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It doesn’t matter if one is fifteen years old or one hundred and fifteen years old, rock music spans all generations, and songs can be recited with ease by many. When rock music is mentioned, a few things that come to mind is Led Zeppelin’s rock ballad “Stairway to Heaven” or Queen’s timeless hits “Bohemian Rhapsody” and their stadium anthem “We Will Rock You.” Younger millennials, while still connecting to Queen’s hits, are listening to newer artists that associate their music to more modern rock such as Imagine Dragons and TWENTY ØNE PILØTS. Nonetheless, rock music has influenced American society. It’s influenced fashion and style, culture, and bridges the gap between generations. Rock music didn’t just influence one group of people, it …show more content…

Today’s older generations that grew up with rock music saw the music and the artists and associated the negative influences with it. Artists like John Lennon and David Bowie and others were seen as druggies and alcoholics and the genre ultimately was frowned upon by some people back then. The negative influence, however, can be seen as a positive, too. Rock artists were able to freely express themselves through the music that they wrote and had no barriers. They were free to write songs that were raw and emotional, even if it meant being associated with sex, drugs, and alcohol. Because of this stigma that rock music was nothing but a terrible influence, many other bands got a bad reputation from it. The generations that grew up with rock music and their interpretations of the music is takes a complete turn when it comes to how today’s younger generations see it. Younger generations don’t see the drugs, sex, and alcohol as a deterrent to liking the music or the artists. If anything, those negative influences are almost non-existent and don’t matter at all. More and more younger people are getting into the genre of rock music and opting to listen to it over newer, mainstream pop

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