Title: The Blue Suede Shoe Effect
Subtitle: How the Elvis Effect Shaped the Way Our Culture and Music is Today
I am working on the topic of rock music and the “Elvis effect”, because I want to find out what important musical changes have come from it to help my reader understand how today’s music and society was shaped by the music of the 50’s and 60’s.
The topic I have chosen is about rock music and how it came to be what it is today because of Elvis. He was, and still is very influential in many different genres. This paper will address how Elvis is still as, if not, more influential today than he ever was. Even though I have not yet found I tried and true definition of the Elvis effect, what it means to me is the impact he still has on us, how commercialized he has become, and how he paved the way for almost all other preceding musicians, even though he has been dead for 34 years. This topic will also include how Elvis stole his musical ideas from the African American culture because they did not have the money or the means at that time to go fourth and make the music famous themselves. Also, I am going to include how because of his new, controversial music, American society as a whole changed and became more relaxed and less conservative. I can approach this topic by using history, sociology, and questioning. These methods will help me to get deep into my topic and find out how Elvis is a historical icon and how he changed society.
This topic sparked my interest because I have grown up loving music, especially rock, and I have
always been told by my parents and many other people that Elvis started rock music. Since I have had this idea in my head since I was little, I wanted to look into that statement further and figure out how true it actually was. I want to figure out in depth, why Elvis was so influential and how his efforts helped shape what our society is today.
The background to this topic is social segregation. A majority of the youth enjoyed this new genre while older generations did not have this appreciation. Rock and roll could be seen as another divide amongst people, similar to that of religion and politics.
