What Are The Strengths And Weaknesses of Peterson's Production of Culture Approach to The Birth of Rock n Roll

As with any theory, Richard A. Peterson's 'Production of Culture Approach...' has strengths and weaknesses. Peterson states Elvis Presley and a number of others were a 'growning legion of rockers'. Whilst this can be helpful to those wanting a starting point for rock n roll, many believe you have to look further back to find the real creators, and believe that these artists are cited mainly because of the fact they were the first artists to become successful with rock n roll. His overall idea is that rock n roll broke into the market because the music industry tried to cover it up, and continue to back big band crooner style artists, therefore making rock n roll more rebellious and exciting. Combined with the introduction of 45 rpm records, and making music couldnt have been easier or cheaper. He also states that 'baby-boomers' were partly to be held responsible, and gives six well detailed constraints which provide a starting point for understanding the dynamic of rock n roll. Peterson gives a great in depth overview of rock n roll, but its main problem for some maybe it is too broad.

What Is Popular Music?

What Is Popular Music? Thats a good question. To me, popular music is exactly what it says. In my opinion, it doesnt matter how popular the music is, its the fact that someone likes it that makes it so. It isnt genre specific, so it could be Jazz, Metal, Rock, Pop, whatever. My old exaplanation would have been music that was in the charts, commercial, and generally music that involved the singers having everything done for them, except the vocals which they would record and then use pro-tools to polish up on. Whilst I believe this to still be generally true, I have come to realise that it doesnt have to be any of the above, but these are, to me, general conventions of what makes popular music, but are specifically associated with the genre of pop music, rather than the term. Its important listeners can distinguish between the two.