The age of rock

The period of British musical history, from 1968 to 1984, can be thought of as ‘the age of rock’. The first decade of the rock era was marked by a remarkable expansion of the music market. One of the defining characteristics of rock was that acts sang their own songs. The 1970s relationship of the record industry and rock music was clearly symbiotic: record companies flourished because of the unprecedented popularity of rock; rock reached an unprecedentedly large market because of the activities of record companies. Rock musicians and audiences, publicists and promoters, drew from both folk club and art school accounts of authenticity and creativity, and from the underground and bohemia for their sense of individual and communal self-expression. In simple monetary terms, the rock boom came to an end in 1978. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.