Assignment 1-3: Article Analysis

       In How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘‘N’’ Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music, Elijah Wald presents a chronicle of twentieth century American popular music that engages the academic and casual reader alike but also challenges many of the accepted truths regarding this topic. However, before discussing how the article acts as ‘‘an alternative history of American popular music,’’ one must come to terms with the first part of his title. Many would view his declaration that the Beatles destroyed rock music as blasphemous and, therefore, even more reason to learn if Wald’s work proves this provocative claim. Anyone looking for a book that discredits the contributions of the Beatles, or even focuses on this group extensively, will be disappointed. The Beatles do not enter into Wald’s narrative until the last paragraph, and even here the author does not set out to prove that they destroyed an entire genre of music. Instead, he notes that the Beatles mark the passing of an era of music. One which he recounts with care over the course of his article. Wald, a musician and the author of numerous books on the blues and folk rock, claims that while ‘‘it is standard practice to write rock history as a story of white musicians building on black foundations’’ the story is much more accurately told as black and white musicians evolving by ‘‘adopting and adapting one another’s styles, shaping a series of genres’’. He begins the work before the turn of the twentieth century with an examination of popular music as evidenced in sheet music, and then devotes half of the text exploring the beginnings of and interrelationships between ragtime, jazz, and swing.


reference
Antinora, S. (2010). How the Beatles Destroyed Rock “N” Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music by Elijah Wald. Journal of Popular Culture, 43(2), 408-409. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5931.2010.00748.x