The History of Rock and Roll


What are the different cultures that came together to create one of the most influential musical genres in history?  In this class, you will learn about the different groups that came together in America, their musical styles and instruments, and how ideas blended together and led to Rock and Roll.  This class will also provide an introduction to many different forms of Rock and Roll and artists important in Rock and Roll history.

Learning Activity #1 - Genres

Take a look at the complete list of music styles, types, and genres.   Obviously, there is no way that we can cover an nth of these different types of genres.  So, your job is to pick 5 genres, make a Google slide (maybe more) for each genre.  Each slide needs to contain the following information:

Learning Activity #2- Listening Guide

Listening Guide

Learning Activity #3

Different Cultures Are Coming to America and Bringing Their Music with Them.   

But before we get ahead of ourselves, we need to look back and examine the different musical styles and influences that developed here when Europeans began settling in the Americas and beginning the slave trade.  Soon, these cultures are going to blend to many unique American musical styles.  

Print off the outline map of the United States and shade like the maps on the right labeling the  following regions:

English

French

Scotch/Irish (second map)

Spanish

Then, using the reading underneath the map,  and watch the video to find information about each of the groups, annotate the map with instruments used, themes, or how each culture blended with another.  Put in two annotations per group.


Settlement Patterns by Ethnic Group

Learning Activity #4 -  Coded Lyrics

Singing as a form of communication is deeply rooted in the African American culture. It began with the African slaves who were kidnapped and shipped across the Atlantic during the Middle Passage. Slaves from different countries, tribes and cultures used singing as a way to communicate during the voyage. They were able to look for kin, countrymen and women through song. According to a white shipmate who made four voyages to Africa between 1760 and 1770. “They frequently sing, the men and woman answering another, but what is the subject of their songs [I] cannot say.” Although they could not understand what the Africans were saying the crew did pick up on the sorrowful tone of their songs. 

Music was a way for slaves to express their feelings whether it was sorrow, joy, inspiration or hope. Songs were passed down from generation to generation throughout slavery.   (PBS.org)

In America,  many songs were used to communicate with other slaves the intention to go North. The videos on the left with discuss the "coding". 

Assignment: Once you have watched the videos on the right, make a copy of  the worksheet below and see what the "Codes" were by filling in the blank boxes.  

Coded Lyrics Worksheet

Learning Activity 5 - The Blues 

What were African-American experiences in the South that were expressed in Blues music?  

The Blues

In the beginning, the Blues was a music performed by poor African Americans for audiences of poor African Americans, and a reflection of their common experiences in the Jim Crow South. The Blues were one of the few forums through which poor, rural African Americans of the late 19th and early 20th centuries could articulate their experiences, attitudes, and emotions. They made music about heartbreak, about the challenges of their lives as sharecroppers, about the relentless Mississippi River floods, about the harsh mastery of white landowners.

The Blues was a way for poor African-American slaves to "complain" and bemoan their existence to each other without getting whipped or punished for disrespecting their white masters.  Eventually, even the masters started to enjoy listening to this iconic music, but it was never written for them.  It was always meant as a way to communicate their personal situations and stories to each other.  The Blues emphasized, not only a way to share their troubles, but a form of familiarity with each other as many of their stories were the same. 

The Blues become a huge influence in the creation of Rock and Roll.  

Assignment: Open the document and follow the links to listen to music, view photographs and art work to get a better understanding of the above question. When done, submit the document to Slate 


Learning Activity #6 - Popular Music

Before the rise of popular music, songs circulated by live performances.  But, in the late 1890s,  music became an industry. There are two major changes that happened in society that made regional music available to all.  They were: the production of sheet music and the invention of the phonograph.  The picture below is of Tin Pan Alley - a street in New York City where popular songs were written solely for money making.  

Assignment:  Research five songs from Tin Pan Alley and create a Google slideshow of the most famous popular songs. Use sheet music covers, lyrics, etc. for the graphics.  

Your Google slideshow needs to include:

ONE SLIDE PER SONG (with two graphics per slide)

Submit to Slate when you are done. 

Learning Activity #7 - Jazz - An American Art Form

A complaint of popular music was that it was too sentimental.   From the Smithsonian Museum:

THE NATURE OF JAZZ

Jazz musicians place a high value on finding their own sound and style, and that means, for example, that trumpeter Miles Davis sounds very different than trumpeter Louis Armstrong (whose sound you can hear in Louis's Music Class.) Jazz musicians like to play their songs in their own distinct styles, and so you might listen to a dozen different jazz recordings of the same song, but each will sound different. The musicians' playing styles make each version different, and so do the improvised solos. Jazz is about making something familiar--a familiar song--into something fresh. And about making something shared--a tune that everyone knows--into something personal. Those are just some of the reasons that jazz is a great art form, and why some people consider it "America's classical music."

THE GROWTH OF JAZZ

Jazz developed in the United States in the very early part of the 20th century. New Orleans, near the mouth of the Mississippi River, played a key role in this development. The city's population was more diverse than anywhere else in the South, and people of African, French, Caribbean, Italian, German, Mexican, and American Indian, as well as English, descent interacted with one another. African-American musical traditions mixed with others and gradually jazz emerged from a blend of ragtime, marches, blues, and other kinds of music. At first jazz was mostly for dancing. (In later years, people would sit and listen to it.) After the first recordings of jazz were made in 1917, the music spread widely and developed rapidly. The evolution of jazz was led by a series of brilliant musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington (listen to Ellington in Duke's Music Class), Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis. Jazz developed a series of different styles including traditional jazz, swing (listen, for example, to Benny Carter, who got his start in swing music, in Benny's Music Class) bebop, cool jazz, and jazz-rock, among others. At the same time, jazz spread from the United States to many parts of the world, and today jazz musicians--and jazz festivals--can be found in dozens of nations. Jazz is one of the United States' greatest exports to the world.

What is going on in American History at this time?  There is a LOT going on and it will be your job to explain how Jazz changed American society -particularly after WWI.  I am so sorry for the obnoxiousness of the site linked below - the info is good, but it really needs to be updated.   If you would like, feel free to use any other reputable source.  


Assignment: Use A New Jazz Culture website to explore all of Jazz. You are to create a web diagram.  In the middle of the diagram, write "Effects of Jazz on America."   Then, create 5 webs labeling 5 effects of Jazz.   In a brief paragraph for each effect, explain each effect.  


(The spinning saxophones are a good life lesson, though.  Even though you can, does not mean that you should).

Learning Activity #8 - The Beginning of Rock and Roll - Chuck Berry

Imagine you are an old person living in the 1950s.   Think about what type of music you had heard as a child and during the war years on the radio.   Now, what if you turned on the radio and heard this type of music?

A fun clip from "Back to the Future"

So.. why is this clip funny?  Put yourself in the position of the high school students who have never heard music like this before.  

That is the beginning of the Rock and Roll Revolution.   An interesting thing about this song is that it is about finding success as a Rock and Roll artist.   Below is a recording of the actual Chuck Berry singing Johnny B Goode.  

Berry began to mix Country tunes with R&B tunes, and while it bewildered some members of his largely black audience, it would prove a winning crossover formula, drawing a growing number of white patrons.

In 1955, Berry traveled to Chicago where he met Muddy Waters, who recommended Berry to Chess Records. His first single with the label, "Maybellene" -- a jumping, guitar-driven number based on the song "Ida Red" by Western Swing bandleader Bob Wills -- became a million seller, climbing to No. 1 on Billboard's Rhythm and Blues charts and #5 on the Pop Charts, establishing Berry as an artist with appeal to black and white audiences alike. Berry followed with another smash, "Roll Over Beethoven." 

By the end of the decade, Berry had released a string of iconic songs – “Schools Days,” “Rock and Roll Music,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Johnny B. Goode,” “Back in the U.S.A." – that would be covered by everyone from the Beach Boys to the Grateful Dead, The Beatles to the Rolling Stones. Distinct from Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Fats Domino – all piano players – Berry was a guitar player whose guitar was a central component of his recordings. Gone were the horns, central to much R&B, and gone was the piano as focal point. Guitar-based Rock and Roll had its founding father. The most important thing about Chuck Berry is that, even though white audiences knew he was black, it didn't matter and his records still sold to the general population.  This differs from Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly in that, at first, audiences thought both performers were black when they were not.

Assignment: Chuck Berry is known as the "Father of Rock and Roll."  How did this happen?  Using a reputable source, create a timeline of 10 events from Chuck Berry's career (make sure to include the year).   Provide a brief explanation for each event.  Submit into Slate. Use this document

Learning Activity #9- The Electric Guitar

The electrification of the guitar had an enormous impact on American popular music. As the Country Blues traveled to the industrial North in the 1930s and 40s, pioneers such as T-Bone Walker and Muddy Waters began plugging in their instruments. In the process, they redefined the sound of the Blues. The electric or “urban” Blues in turn helped popular music inch ever closer to the Rock and Roll revolution. 

This instrument took the blues as they were known then and made them harder and grittier and helped lead the way towards the start of the music called Rock and Roll. 

Choose one of the following guitar models:

1.Fender Telecaster

2.Gibson Les Paul

3.Gibson ES-150

4.Les Paul “Log”

5.Rickenbacker Frying Pan

Create a DIGITAL poster advertising the guitar.  Add a color picture and the following information:

 1. What year was this guitar introduced?

2. What company manufactured this guitar?

3. What does the name of the guitar refer to?

4. What materials was the guitar made from?

5. What were some of the technical features of this guitar?

6. What type of music was this guitar best suited for?

SUBMIT TO SLATE WHEN DONE

Learning Activity #10 - Elvis  

The infamous showing on the Ed Sullivan Show that shocked America.  

Segregation in 1950's USA 

At the end of World War II, the United States sat poised on the brink of a Civil Rights movement that would challenge the nation’s inherent racial inequality and push for the integration of the races throughout American society. The second-class status of African Americans was a fact of life throughout the country, but particularly palpable in the Jim Crow South, where segregation prevented African Americans from voting, attending certain schools, sitting alongside whites on public transportation and even drinking from the same water fountains as whites.

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, declaring that state-sponsored segregation in America’s public schools was inherently unconstitutional. Though the decision marked a critical turning point in race relations, it would be many years before its promise of dismantling the machinery of segregation and ensuring full enfranchisement of minorities would begin to bear fruit.

Months after the Brown ruling, 19-year-old Elvis Presley released his first single on Sun Records. The first side was a cover of “That’s All Right,” a 1940s Rhythm and Blues song written and originally recorded by African-American Bluesman Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup. The “B” side of the single was a cover of “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” a 1946 tune written and popularized by Bluegrass musician Bill Monroe.

The single showed that black and white music could live side by side on a 45 RPM slice of vinyl in 1954, even if the men who wrote the songs often could not in public life. In some ways, Elvis’ first single did what the Supreme Court could only dream of doing at that moment, integrating black and white culture in one neat package that would have enormous influence on millions of Americans. 

On the other hand, the fact that this melding of black and white culture was delivered through the voice of a white teenager demonstrates the racial realities of the mid-1950s. White audiences may have been ready for African-American-inspired Rock and Roll, but not necessarily to embrace music actually performed by African-American artists. Indeed, Sam Phillips, who produced Elvis’ first single, is said to have commented, “If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars.” When radio audiences responded enthusiastically to the first airing of Presley's “That’s All Right,” Memphis disc jockey Dewey Phillips went out of his way to let listeners know that Elvis was white.

Elvis is called The King, but his status as a huge influence on Rock and Roll as a musical genre is tenuous at best.  Yes, he played Rock music, but he also sang Gospel, Country and other types of music.  He didn't write his own songs and he didn't have his own band.  As a singer, he broke a lot of ground with his movements on stage and his good looks, but, when push comes to shove, should Elvis Presley be considered a ground breaker of Rock and Roll music or just of race relations?

Assignment: Complete this Google Doc and submit to Slate. 

Learning Activity #11 - Reaction to Rock and Roll

Watch the two videos below.  On a Google doc answer the following questions: 

0000_Rev_Jimmie_Snow_Preaching_Against_Rock_and_Roll_1956.mp4
Newsreel_smashing_records.mp4

Learning Activity #12- British Invasion - The Beatles vs the Stones

The biggest difference between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones is that the Stones put the raunch back in rock & roll. Unlike the Beatles, the Stones came on unsmiling and without manners — the kind of group parents had every right to feel uneasy about. Whereas Brian Epstein transformed his charges from Teddy boys to teddy bears, manager Andrew Loog Oldham encouraged the Stones' delinquent tendencies.

The music of the Rolling Stones was an ice-and-fire contrast to the Beatles. Simmering, blunt edged and angry, it set off the Liverpudlians' sunnier pop visions in a way that perfectly caught the spirit of the times. So where the Beatles were all "All You Need is Love" and "Let it Be", the Rolling Stones were "Sympathy for the Devil" and "Midnight Rambler" (a song about a serial killer).

But first, The Beatles. Another group that faced throngs of screaming girls.  See the trailer for their movie, A Hard Day's Night.

Take a stroll through a couple of Beatles hits.  See what you like -

Their pop phase

Their psychedelic phase

The philosopher phase

Then their solo careers 

See if you can find songs that fit these phases

The Rolling Stones

The Beatles were Pop, The Stones Brought the Blues

From their early days as Blues-obsessed Londoners at the forefront of the British Invasion to their current status as living legends and a top draw on the arena circuit, the Rolling Stones – a.k.a. “The World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band – have proved one of the most influential and enduring bands in Rock.

The Stones began their recording career in 1963 as just one of a legion of young British bands enamored with American Blues and R&B. Although they possessed a charismatic front man in Mick Jagger, a punchy guitar tandem in Keith Richards and Brian Jones, and a solid, swinging rhythm section in bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts, their early releases showed them to be capable but unexceptional interpreters of material by their American roots idols.

It wasn't until Jagger and Richards began writing original songs the following year – at the insistence of their manager, Andrew Loog Oldham -- that the Stones emerged as a creative unit that could stake a serious claim to the Beatles/Stones rivalry that was always raging among fans -- and to the outlaw image the band had already cultivated.  In the summer of 1964, the Rolling Stones released their first self-penned U.S. single, "Tell Me," which also became its first stateside Top 40 hit.  It was followed by such increasingly ambitious Jagger/Richards hits as "The Last Time," "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," "Get Off My Cloud," "19th Nervous Breakdown," "As Tears Go By," "Paint It, Black" and "Ruby Tuesday." In 1966, the Stones met the challenge of the Beatles' adventurous LPs with Aftermath, their first album of all original compositions. 

00_Stones_Satisfaction1965_RRAS.mp4

1. (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction--Including one of the most famous guitar riffs in Rock and Roll history. 

The Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil (Live) - OFFICIAL.mp4

#2. Sympathy for the Devil--Mick Jagger said that this song is not a tribute to Satan, but a scathing critique of the evil of mankind.  There are many historical references including the killing of Robert Kennedy which hadn't happened until after the song was written.  They changed the lyric before release to seem more timely.  See if you can pick out the references. 

Rolling Stones You Can't Always Get What You Want Glastonbury 2013.mp4

#3. You Can't Always Get What You Want--Considered by some to be the best song by the Rolling Stones; considered by others to be the best song of the classic rock era.  You decide... 

The Rolling Stones - Start Me Up - Official Promo.mp4

#4. Start Me Up--One of their most famous songs.  Microsoft paid ten million dollars to use it in their ad campaigns and it is often played at the beginning of sporting events. It also shows that lip-synching is not their specialty. 

Assignment.  After taking some time to explore The Beatles and The Stones,  read the article that tries to conclude whether The Rolling Stones or the Beatles were better.  When you have finished looking over the two musical styles of both bands, create a DIGITAL venn diagram explaining what the bands have in common and what sets them apart. Submit to Slate when done. 

Learning Activity #13 - Motown 

A destination for African Americans coming north during the Great Migration, Detroit had a rich black culture that informed its Blues, R&B, and Soul offerings. And the quality of that music affected the white performers, from Mitch Ryder to Iggy Pop. 

 So many years later, with the American auto industry largely gone, Detroit suffers. The city's music, whether that of the White Stripes, Insane Clown Posse or Eminem, has carried on, but never as it did in the golden age of the city's musical life. 

Assignment: Lesson #13 - Create a Google Slide show of who you feel are the top 10 Motown artists.  Add links to your favorite song of each artist.  One slide per artist. Include a picture of the artist too. Submit to Slate when done.


 

Learning Activity #14 - Rock as Protest  

When one thinks of protest songs - one generally thinks about the protest songs during the Vietnam Era.   But, protest songs started in the United States during colonial times.  But, we are not going to go back that far.  

Create a timeline of protest songs in modern America. Use this Google doc to do that. Submit to Slate.     

Learning Activity #15 - Glam Rock - David Bowie and Queen


By the late 1960s and early 1970s, popular music culture had grown up and grown serious.

Songs from the period, whether James Taylor's "Fire and Rain," Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," or the Eagles' "Desperado," showed artists turning inward and emphasizing musical virtuosity. Singer-songwriters performed to seated houses, but even Rock and Roll audiences had become more passive than participatory. It was a culture that embraced denim, facial hair, and  hippie-ish attire—the trappings of a “laid-back” sensibility—as symbols of their time.

"Glam" became the buzzword for a new teen-focused music that cut through the seriousness and signaled a return to rudimentary Rock and Roll, awash in flamboyant fashions and theatrical posturing. Glam records were sometimes “bubblegum”— unpretentious, adolescent, and fun—but at other times they were groundbreaking artistic works. Its representatives were David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Roxy Music, Slade, Sweet, and others. David Bowie drew on his training in theater and mime to create his Ziggy Stardust persona, an androgynous alien-like humanoid who sang about space exploration and Pop superstardom. Alice Cooper combined horror movie spectacle with Rock and Roll anthems of teen angst, including “I’m Eighteen” and “School’s Out.” Teenagers of the early 1970s reveled in the made-to-shock styles and recordings of their new heroes. The hippie met his match.   

Glam:  a defiant embrace of flash, frivolousness and folly.  It led the way to punk rock.  Can you see it now?  

Queen

A one-of-a-kind foursome that combined Hard-Rock bombast, sing -songy music hall Pop and campy Glam theatricality, Queen rode its unlikely mix of elements to massive worldwide success, reigning as one of the world's most popular bands throughout most of a 20-year career. 

Bohemian Rhapsody - the song that made Queen popular in the United States



Assignment: How was Glam Rock a reaction to the "seriousness" of popular music at the time? Write a short critique (paragraph of 5-7 sentences for each question).  

Learning Activity #16 - Disco

The rise of Disco in the 1970s had an enormous cultural impact on the American audience. It was the music heard on the radio, the music that was danced to. It affected fashion. It affected club culture. It even affected film. The Disco Era - where everyone was encouraged to get up and dance.  

Where Did Disco Come From and Is It Even a Type of Rock and Roll?

Disco's roots were multiple. It had connections to R&B and Funk, but it was also born out of the urban gay culture in New York City. But no matter its roots, it quickly moved into the mainstream with a string of best-selling hits by artists from Donna Summer to the Village People.  

Disco Goes Mainstream 

The phenomenally successful 1977 film Saturday Night Fever took Disco's commercial popularity to surprising heights. The film’s soundtrack produced numerous Top 10 hits and the album sold over 15 million copies. The video below is from the movie Saturday Night Fever, the song is You Should Be Dancing by The Bee Gees.  John Travolta performs one of the most parodied and copied dances ever to appear on a movie screen. 

Assignment - Watch the trailer above for the smash hit, Saturday Night Fever starring John Travolta.  

Then, answer the following questions on a Google Doc

Learning Activity #17 - Hard Rock/Heavy metal - The Beginnings

Assignment: 

Use this Google doc to work through the history of Heavy Metal and to write a music review. 

Learning Activity #18 -  Punk Emerges: The Ramones & The Sex Pistols

Punk Rock -- Disgruntled Youths Take Action

The argument carries on: did Punk come from the States or was it England's creation? As you will learn, important phases in Punk's development happened on both sides of the Atlantic. But no one would be claiming it for their own were it not for the fact that Punk Rock is widely considered among the most influential musical movements of the 20th century. Punk may not have sparked enormous record sales, but in almost every other way it affected popular music's direction and identity.

Above any individual group, however, it's the idea of Punk that remains the most important contribution. Like early Rock and Roll, Punk came along and shook everything up, a reminder that this can happen again and again. Punk Rock music hearkens back to the days of early rock and roll. The songs were all simple and used similar three chord structures. Once again, anyone could play Rock and Roll. 

The message of Punk was thus anti-mainstream, anti-establishment, anti-commercial, and very angry. As did early Hip Hop in the United States, Punk Rock embodied a “Do-It-Yourself” or “DIY” attitude. Many bands were self-produced and self-recorded. The message was simple: anyone could go out and form a band and make music. Punk put Rock and Roll back in the hands of a young, working-class population, and it did this at a moment when they had something to say.

The Ramones -- American's First Punk Band

The Ramones are generally acknowledged as the band that launched the Punk movement. Stripping guitar-driven Rock down to its most basic elements, the four misfits from Forest Hills, Queens, offered an anti-star stance and an anybody-can-do-this message that helped change Rock from an arena-bound spectator sport into a participatory activity, opening the door for countless Punk, New Wave, Hardcore and Indie-Rock combos to follow. 

Armed with three chords and four leather jackets, the Ramones – guitarist Johnny, bassist Dee Dee, drummer Tommy and frontman Joey, all of whom adopted the last name Ramone -- played short, loud, manic-tempoed tunes, hammered home with primitive force. Often kicked into gear by Dee Dee's raw-throated drill-sergeant "one-too-free-faw" count-offs, the Ramones' songs nonetheless maintained a hook-filled sensibility rooted in the band members' love for vintage Bubblegum and British Invasion pop. The band's sonic stance was matched with a street-level surrealism manifested in the cartoonish humor of Joey and Dee Dee's lyrics, which invoked existential confusion, mental illness and romantic travail. They sang about things that weren't often discussed in music; songs like: Beat on the Brat, The KKK Took My Baby Away, Blitzkrieg Bop, I Wanna Be Sedated and Sheena is a Punk Rocker. The band also brought a twinge of nostalgia in songs like: Rock and Roll High School, Howling at the Moon (Sha-la-la), I Wanna Live and I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend. 

The+Ramones+-+Blitzkrieg+Bop+(Live).mp4

The Sex Pistols -- The First British Punk Band

While they may not have invented the genre, the Sex Pistols emerged in the late 1970s as the very face of Punk Rock. Forming in the midst of a harsh economic recession in Britain – and a musical landscape dominated by Prog, Disco and staged arena Rock -- the Pistols were brash, crude, and gleefully provocative, spitting into the face of the British cultural establishment with a howled message of political anarchy and anti-authoritarianism. They were around for only two years and recorded only a single record, but their influence was vast in both the U.S. and the U.K. – the Punk explosion they ignited upended the music business and launched literally thousands of bands. 

sex+pistols-anarchy+in+uk.mp4

Assignment: Open the Google Doc, watch the video and answer the questions. Submit to Slate. 

Learning Activity #19 - Grunge

The 1990s saw the introduction to the grunge movement from Seattle, Washington.  Nirvana wasn't the first Indie band to graduate to the major-label big leagues, nor was it the first Punk-influenced act to enter the Rock mainstream. But with the multi-platinum success of their 1991 album Nevermind and its indelible hit anthem "Smells Like Teen Spirit," the Seattle trio singlehandedly brought the Punk and D.I.Y. ethos to millions of teenagers across America and around the world, while putting “Grunge” – the Pacific Northwestern sub-genre incorporating elements of Punk, Hardcore, Indie Rock, and Heavy Metal – on the mainstream radar. 

Nirvana married Punk's primal energy with infectious Pop songcraft to make music that embodied the era's contradictions. The angst and anxiety of their generation were reflected in Kurt Cobain's alienated lyrics and anguished vocal wail, and in the trio's grinding yet catchy sound. Cobain was an apt icon for his era — charismatic and dynamic, yet ambivalent about his own success and tortured by anger, hurt, and self-doubt. Watch this interview with Cobain to see what feels is identity. 

I remember when this song came out - it blew our minds.   As you compare with some top ten songs of the early 90s, you will come to understand how revolutionary this music was.   Commercial rock had softened into pop.  And grunge brought Rock and Roll back in full force, although in an alternative way.  

Assignment, research the top 100 songs of 1991.  Pick three songs.   Who were the artists, what were the songs, what were the songs about?

Then, compare with grunge.  Find three grunge songs, who are the artists, what are the songs, and what were the songs about? 

Finally, as you compare the topics and characteristics of soft rock to grunge, explain how grunge was so astonishing. 

Performance Task - You will Choose one of the options below

Before you get started, chat with your teacher so you understand the expectations. 

On a Google doc for the "Consider or ask a friend" sections -- you need to answer at least two questions in EACH of these.

Discuss with your teacher which TWO options you will choose for the "Be Creative" sections

Music as a Window to the Past

The Historical Roots of Hip Hop

The Reclamation of the Cowboy