History of Music - Chimezie Ononenyi
Through the world of music, appearance and sexuality definitely played a significant role in Beatles and Elvis’s influence on the popular culture. As Clinton acknowledged, Elvis’s celebrity status skyrocketed just for the fact that parents during his early days on the spot hated his artist image. Similarly, as it has been known throughout history, it is always the things that get banned that usually attract the most attention and curiosity. So obviously kids were fascinated for his celebrity image.
The Beatles took the same approach to growing their celebrity status. Even though they did not include physical movements such as hip swinging like Elvis, their lyrics had just about related sexual content. They also had English accent and shaggy hair cuts, which made them stand out and attract even more attention. People usually are attracted to whatever is new, and in this case, there has never been any artists that had same figure like the Beatles did.
Bob Dylan on the other hand had a different approach: Apart from smoking cigarette on every other scene he was in and always wearing sun shades, he was a very distinguished poet that had a different approach to expressing his music. He used his talent to support political movements, a move that many artists before him never made.
Bloom has his opinions about the effects of rock music but I believe in the popular saying that sex sells. In other words, the Beatles and Elvis’s sexual approach to music sold easily to young people.
When one adds up the fact that these artists appeared soon after the World War II, during the times of revolutionary movements when young people were starting to let go of their highly conservative ways, there was no better way to win the attention of young and sexually curious young men and women than expressing music with sex filled content.