Very fascinating stuff Your Majesty; it sounds like the case could be made that without Elvis, and unless The Beatles don't somehow still arise, that the corporate, artificial Rock that killed the music -- but also propelled it to a massive audience -- doesn't arise in the first place (or at least not so soon). Does that sound right?
Hmm, I'm not sure I'm sure of how you're interpreting my statements. Then again I'm also trying to figure out how to say what I wanna say right.
I don't mean that Elvis made Rock into a corporate genre, and certainly not the Beatles. I mean that by being so big, perhaps it could be said Elvis made it so the suites got more into the genre and opened the door to them making it theirs, and artificially making marketable artists and groups who could be giant icons and drain the teens of their money. And once the big guys were wiped out from that first wave of rock (I forgot to mention Elvis going into the army in 1958 being the start of his being out of Rock for a while, and the Big Bopper and Richie Valens and Buddy Holly dying), it made it easier for the industry to make artificial groups.
I'm also not equating the Beatles, or anyone else, taking Rock from more a Mogrel form to a more sit down and listen form as corporate and artificial. Those are two completely different topics I'm talking about.
Also, there were people around still doing things who rose to prominence before the Beatles hit America. Roy Orbison and The Everly Brothers, for example. Bob Dylan was on the scene before the Beatles, though he was Folk. And there were certainly others, though I don't remember them. I'm just saying it could be said the Beatles helped greatly to make it so that the industry had a hell of a time dictating and making fake groups and talentless talent, and filling the market with them prominently. The Music industry still did make fake and artificial groups and artsists, as it always has and always will, but the Beatles, by being so big and a hit, helped make it so that real groups were prominent in rock to a greater degree than there would have been without them, and brought in all these other guys not just with the British Invasion, but with American groups like The Byrds, and they injected life blood into Rock making for something of a Second Wave Renaissance. Though maybe that second wave of Rock artists would still come, and that that period where Elvis went into the army and then film and all those other first era icons went away was just a lull that we were already crawling out of with a second generation of rockers when the 60's came. And maybe I'm overstating how devastating that lull period was. The Beatles did certainly bring in a lot of people you would likely not have seen otherwise, though, and certainly did inject a lot of life blood and energy that was lacking in the genre. But maybe Rock wouldn't have been dead for a lack of it if the Beatles never were. Though they also shaped the discussion when it came to Rock, as it were. Though we should also keep in mind never to forget the less prominent artists who were on the scene who went a long way in changing music. For example, Sgt Pepper wasn't just pulled out of the Beatles butts. It was inspired by the Psychedellic groups rising on the West Coast of the US, and that Psychedellic scene overall which was rising and becoming popular. It helped exhibit it to a wider audience and helped popularize it, but it was already there.
Now that I've kinda thread-jacked this for the Beatles, maybe we should move back more towards Rock besides the Beatles for a lack of Elvis.
The reason I do bring in the Beatles is to address that second era after Rock hit a lull when the first era rockers fell away. And since the Beatles were the biggest of that time, they require discussion.
