ROCK

also called rock and roll, rock & roll, or rock 'n' roll form of popular music that emerged in the 1950s. It is certainly arguable that by the end of the 20th century rock was the world's dominant form of popular music. Originating in the United States in the 1950s, it spread to English-speaking countries and across Europe in the '60s, and by the '90s its impact was obvious globally (if in many different local guises). Rock's commercial importance was by then reflected in the organization of the multinational recording industry, in the sales racks of international record retailers, and in the playlist policies of music radio and television. If other kinds of musicclassical, jazz, easy listening, country, folk, etc.are marketed as minority interests, rock defines the musical mainstream. And so over the last half of the 20th century it became the most inclusive of musical labelseverything can be rockedand in consequence the hardest to define. To answer the question What is rock? one first has to understand where it came from and what made it possible. And to understand rock's cultural significance one has to understand how it works socially as well as musically. in geology, naturally occurring and coherent aggregate of one or more minerals. Such aggregates constitute the basic unit of which the solid Earth is comprised and typically form recognizable and mappable volumes. Rocks are commonly divided into three major classes according to the processes that resulted in their formation. These classes are (1) igneous rocks, which have solidified from molten material called magma; (2) sedimentary rocks, those consisting of fragments derived from preexisting rocks or of materials precipitated from solutions; and (3) metamorphic rocks, which have been derived from either igneous or sedimentary rocks under conditions that caused changes in mineralogical composition, texture, and internal structure. These three classes, in turn, are subdivided into numerous groups and types on the basis of various factors, the most important of which are chemical, mineralogical, and textural attributes. in geology, naturally occurring and coherent aggregate of one or more minerals. Such aggregates constitute the basic units of which the solid Earth is comprised and typically form recognizable and mappable volumes. Rocks are commonly divided into three major classes according to the processes that resulted in their formation. These classes are (1) igneous rocks, which have solidified from molten material called magma; (2) sedimentary rocks, those consisting of fragments derived from preexisting rocks or of materials precipitated from solutions; and (3) metamorphic rocks, which have been derived from either igneous or sedimentary rocks under conditions that caused changes in mineralogical composition, texture, and internal structure. These three classes, in turn, are subdivided into numerous groups and types on the basis of various factors, the most important of which are chemical, mineralogical, and textural attributes. For the composition, physical properties, formation, and distribution of the major classes of rocks and their subgroupings, see Minerals and Rocks; for petrology, the scientific study of rocks, see Earth Sciences, The: Petrology. Additional reading Standard mineralogical reference works include W.A. Deer, R.A. Howie, and J. Zussman, Rock-forming Minerals, 5 vol. (196263), with a 2nd ed. in progress (1978 ); and Annibale Mottana, Rodolfo Crespi, and Giuseppe Liborio, Simon and Schuster's Guide to Rocks and Minerals (also published as The Macdonald Encyclopedia of Rocks and Minerals, 1978; originally published in Italian, 1977). Useful texts and monographs include Harvey Blatt, Sedimentary Petrology (1982); Richard V. Dietrich and Brian J. Skinner, Rocks and Rock Minerals (1979); Paul C. Hess, Origins of Igneous Rocks (1989); Cornelis Klein, Minerals and Rocks: Exercises in Crystallography, Mineralogy, and Hand Specimen Petrology (1989); and Anthony R. Philpotts, Principles of Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology (1990). Cornelis KleinD.H. Griffiths and R.F. King, Applied Geophysics for Geologists and Engineers: The Elements of Geophysical Prospecting, 2nd ed. (1981); Robert S. Carmichael (ed.), Handbook of Physical Properties of Rocks, 3 vol. (198284), also available in a 1-vol. abridged ed., Practical Handbook of Physical Properties of Rocks and Minerals (1989); Edgar W. Spencer, Introduction to the Structure of the Earth, 3rd ed. (1988); and D.R. Bowes (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology (1989), may also be consulted. Robert S. Carmichael Additional reading General There is an extensive literature on rock that ranges from academic musicology and sociology through every kind of journalism to disposable gossip and poster books. Peter van der Merwe, Origins of the Popular Style (1989, reissued 1992), a scholarly study of pre-20th-century popular music, helps explain why a music first appearing at the margins of Western culture so quickly became the mainstream. Charlie Gillett, The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll, 2nd ed., newly illustrated and expanded (1996), is still the best account of how rock and roll was first shaped in a variety of local American settings. Rock and roll's roots in black and white music are covered in Country: The Music and the Musicians: From the Beginnings to the '90s, 2nd ed. (1994), an informative overview of country music history published by the Country Music Foundation; and Charles Keil, Urban Blues (1966, reissued 1991), an illuminating anthropological study of African-American musical culture in the late 1950s and early 1960s.The development of rock out of rock and roll was as much an ideological as a musical process, and the classic description of that ideologyof why and how rock drew from and came to articulate the contradictory impulses of American popular cultureis Greil Marcus, Mystery Train, 4th rev. ed. (1997), which, in its studies of particular musicians, was the first work to reveal the possibilities of rock criticism; Greil Marcus, Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes (1997), fills the biggest gap in Mystery Train. Simon Frith and Howard Horne, Art into Pop (1987), studies how British rock sensibility was shaped by art school ideas and practices. Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin (eds.), On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word (1990), is a useful anthology of 30 years of scholarly writing on rock, from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The best studies of the rock music industry are Geoffrey Stokes, Star-Making Machinery (1976), a fine and undated piece of reportage on the making and marketing of a Commander Cody LP; Andrew Goodwin, Dancing in the Distraction Factory: Music Television and Popular Culture (1992), a lucid and thoughtful analysis of MTV's impact on rock culture; and Paul Thberge, Any Sound You Can Imagine: Making Music/Consuming Technology (1997), a comprehensive history of the effects of technology on music making, paying particular attention to digital technology. Biographies Peter Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis (1994), is the definitive work on the young Elvis Presley and his influences; Peter Guralnick, Careless Love (1999), provides all one needs to know about Presley's subsequent careerits triumphs and tragedies. Good accounts of the ways in which musicians have tried to make sense of rock's confusion of art, commerce, and politics can be found in the biographies of four musicians who died young: Marc Eliot, Death of a Rebel (1979, reissued 1995), on the muddled life of folk-rock singer-songwriter Phil Ochs; Charles Shaar Murray, Crosstown Traffic (1989), a biography of Jimi Hendrix focusing on issues of race and identity; Dr. Licks, Standing in the Shadows of Motown: The Life and Music of Legendary Bassist James Jamerson (1989), a loving account of the origins and influence of one of rock's most significant rhythmic stylists; and Armond White, Rebel for the Hell of It (1997), on rap star Tupac (2pak) Shakur, an important reflection on music and the state of the American nation at the end of the 20th century. Genres The most enlightening books on particular musical genres are Andrew Holleran, Dancer from the Dance (1978, reissued 1990), a disco novel that captures the disco experience better than any other writing; Dick Hebdige, Cut 'n' Mix: Culture, Identity, and Caribbean Music (1987, reissued 1990), a suggestive application of cultural theory to the remarkable mobility of reggae music; Jon Savage, England's Dreaming: Sex Pistols and Punk Rock (1991; also published as England's Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond, 1992), on music, suburbia, and boredom; David Toop, Rap Attack 2: African Rap to Global Hip Hop, rev. ed. (1991), a well-informed history of hip-hop; Robert Walser, Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music (1993), the most convincing of all the musicological rock studies; Sarah Thornton, Club Cultures: Music, Media, and Subcultural Capital (1995), an intelligent sociology of British dance clubs in the early 1990s; and Simon Reynolds, Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture (1998), a helpful map of a confused music scene. Finally, Evelyn McDonnell and Ann Powers (eds.), Rock She Wrote (1995), is an instructive anthology of rock writing from a female perspective; Mark Slobin, Subcultural Sounds: Micromusics of the West (1993), is an ethnomusicological study which makes clear that all popular musics, rock included, remain local even as they become global, just as in the first days of rock and roll.