week 2 - What are strengths and weaknesses of Peterson’s production of culture perspective on the birth of Rock and Roll?

In Petersons production of culture perspective, he looks at how rock and roll came about, and why it became such a huge phenomenon, through making 6 key points as to why he thinks it took off. He makes clear and coherent points about artists such as Elvis and Buddy Holly being a big reason for that type of music taking off, as well as the role technology played, like the introduction of records and the radio, and he also looks at the impact that the world war had on the music industry. These are all very well thought out points, and argue well as to why rock and roll took off like it did. However, his argument is also quite weak in places. For example, he fails to look at how rock and roll music came about and how its made, and he also fails to look at how this type of music was used as a way of rebellion by young people in that day and age.

what is popular music?

Popular music is a very wide area of music, and really could describe any type of music that is listened to by people. Popular music literally means that the music is popular. However, its given a different meaning when shortened to pop music. Pop music is seen as a genre of cheesy music listened to by a lot of people. Hence why it is called popular music. However, other types of music, like indie, rock, dance and hip hop etc can also be described as pop music, simply because all of these types of music are popular. Basically, popular music is the majority of music. Most music is listened to by a large number of people and is therefore popular, making it pop music. It is a very broad area, and one that is very often mistaken as simply cheesy bands like westlife and girls aloud, yet it is not, and people like snoop dogg, who you wouldn’t associate with pop music normally, actually do fall under that category.