A Changing Industry: Reformations in Popular Music

“Hard rock was rock’s blues base electrified and upped in volume … heavy metal wanted to be the rock music equivalent of a horror movie—loud, exaggerated, rude, out for thrills only.”

KEN TUCKER,ROCK OF AGES, 1986

As the 1960s began, rock and roll was tamer and “safer,” as reflected in the surf and road music of the Beach Boys and Jan & Dean, but it was also beginning to branch out. For instance, the success of all-female groups, such as the Shangri-Las (“Leader of the Pack”) and the Angels (“My Boyfriend’s Back”), challenged the male-dominated world of early rock and roll. In addition, rock-and-roll music and other popular styles went through cultural reformations that significantly changed the industry, including the international appeal of the “British invasion”; the development of soul and Motown; the political impact of folk-rock; the experimentalism of psychedelic music; the rejection of music’s mainstream by punk, grunge, and alternative rock movements; and the reassertion of black urban style in hip-hop.