In the early 1950s a new type of music burst forth which had its roots in blues, gospel, country, and swing.

This new music took the world by storm and it was as controversial as it was successful.

The music has spawned countless variations, some of which are so different

that it's hard to see how it originally evolved. Learn more about the origins of rock and

roll and how it came to dominate music on this episode of that is defining exactly what rock and roll is.

On one hand, you sort of know when you hear it.

However, once you go down the rabbit hole trying to classify modern popular music, you run into a bunch of problems.

Is hip-hop rock and roll? Is techno rock and roll?

Is pop music or heavy metal rock and roll?

Is it all rock and roll or is none of it

rock and roll? For the purpose of this episode I'm going to take the

coward's way out and I'm not going to define it. Instead I'm just going to focus on the early years of rock and roll when it was better

defined and then later on in future episodes I'll focus on some of the various sub-genres of

music that I've just mentioned. To that extent it doesn't matter if techno and

hip-hop are rock and roll as I think they are clearly descended from rock and

roll whether or not they still are today. So with that the term rock and roll comes from the phrase

Rocking and Rolling which was a reference to ships at sea. There are

written references to rocking and rolling being used by seamen in the

early 19th century. In the early

20th century the term rock and roll had found a dual use in African American slang

for partying and dancing and also as a sexual metaphor.

The term rock and roll began appearing in songs in the 1930s.

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