What are the weaknesses in Peterson’s culture perspective of the birth of rock and roll?

I would say that the main reason Peterson’s theory is flawed is because at no point during his research did he look at the music. This could be, in some people’s opinion, the most important factor in the birth of rock and roll. If it wasn’t for the electric guitar and the influence of black music, rock and roll would definitely not exist today. It has been said that rock and roll started with “white people singing black songs” and Peterson doesn’t address this. Another point he fails to include in his theory is the fact that it might have been to do with the timing of when this type of music came about. Say, to do with people’s taste in music and the need for something different from the normal music. When Elvis began gyrating his hips on stage people were shocked but had a need for something exciting and new.

What is Popular Music?

There are many reasons as to why it is very difficult to define “pop music”. What it is that makes something popular is the root to this problem. The first definition I have found for the word popular is “Widely liked or appreciated” (http://www.answers.com/topic/popular). This means that to define one specific genre in music as “popular” would be a very difficult task. First off, if we are looking at people’s tastes in music, different people like different music. This means that what is popular in one group of people can be very different to what is popular in another group. This problem also reaches a dead end where time is concerned. Over time, people change their tastes and different types of music are more popular during different time periods. There is no clear cut way of measuring how popular different artists or different genres of music are. By looking at the number of singles or albums sold, we do not get an accurate account of what people like. This is due to the rise in illegal downloads which means that what music is “popular” cannot be measured.