Technology's Role in the Birth and Death of Rock and Roll

Abstract

Rock and roll is a child of technology. Without electricity and amplification as its midwife, the music revolution that shook the world would most likely have been stillborn. For rock and roll, on a mainstream axis, technology was also its coffin. Without the electricity to power the guitar-based rhythm and blues, gospel and country sounds, rock and roll would most likely have been perceived as an off-shoot of any of these individual forms. Early methods of amplification and the electric guitar created a set of possibilities for sound and musical interpretation that lasted but a short while. On a mass cultural level, a larger share of the force behind the death of rock and roll enlightenment of the early 1970s falls to the collective impact of the Beatles and George Martin. The generational possibilities for growth and raw energy had changed and could not be retrieved. Although rock and roll never truly disappeared, it also never had the same cultural cachet that it commanded during its first decade or so.