Tardis

New to Doctor Who or returning after a break? Check out our guides designed to help you find your way!

READ MORE

Tardis
Advertisement
Tardis

I have to say, I needed to think whether I believe that rock'n'roll and rock music are the same. It's not a trivial matter and it breaks up into the real-world vs. DWU distinctions. So let me deal with the latter as the more (only one) important.

  • The way Rock music is written now, there is no trace of rock'n'roll there. If there is a DWU evidence conflating the two, I do not know of it and it is not presented in the page. Similarly, rock is not mentioned in What He Wants.... The claim in the story is that Robert Johnson was a pioneer of rock'n'roll. Rock is never mentioned. So there seems to be no connection made between the two genres, beyond "rock" being present in both names. However, note that Delta blues is a type of blues, whereas rock'n'roll is not a type of rock if only because it was there first.
  • In the real world, rock music is said to be derived from rock'n'roll but equating them seems like an overreach. To say that prog rock and conceptual rock albums like Thick as a Brick or The Wall are rock'n'roll albums seems like an oversimplification. To call Rammstein music rock'n'roll is somewhat beyond the realm of reasonable, methinks. Rock consists of multiple genres and is very much not restricted to its rock'n'roll origins just like rock'n'roll is separate from its blues origins, which are commented on in the story.

To summarise, taken in the narrow use of the word in the story, I can see how Johnson's blues paved way for the rock'n'roll of Elvis Presley and of the early The Beatles. Even later, more rock-y Beatles fit this connection with difficulty. To say that Johnson's music can be recognised in, I don't know, Another One Bites the Dust is to me far-fetched. Amorkuz 08:13, February 12, 2017 (UTC)

Advertisement