{
  "slug": "rock-and-roll",
  "name": "Rock and Roll",
  "aliases": [
    "rock 'n' roll",
    "rockabilly",
    "fifties rock"
  ],
  "description": "Rhythm and blues played faster, sold to teenagers, and briefly the most disruptive thing in America. A five-year window in which the record industry discovered a market it did not understand and never fully regained control of.",
  "origin": {
    "place": "Memphis and Chicago",
    "year": 1954
  },
  "lineage": [
    {
      "genre": "rhythm-and-blues",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/rhythm-and-blues/",
      "inherited": "The songs, often literally the same ones. Rock and roll is jump blues with a backbeat pushed forward, a guitar promoted over the saxophone, and a marketing department that had worked out who was buying the records."
    },
    {
      "genre": "blues",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/blues/",
      "inherited": "The form underneath. Almost everything here is still twelve bars and three chords; what changed was the tempo, the volume and the age of the audience."
    },
    {
      "genre": "country",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/country/",
      "inherited": "The other half of rockabilly, and the half usually left out. Presley, Perkins and Lewis were hillbilly acts on hillbilly labels; Sun's whole method was a country singer doing a blues, and the guitar style comes from Nashville rather than from Chicago."
    }
  ],
  "bpm": {
    "min": 130,
    "max": 180
  },
  "updated": "2026-08-30",
  "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/rock-and-roll/",
  "trackCount": 9,
  "curatedBy": [],
  "playlists": {},
  "tracks": [
    {
      "rank": 1,
      "trackKey": "chuck-berry--johnny-b-goode",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/chuck-berry--johnny-b-goode/",
      "title": "Johnny B. Goode",
      "artist": "Chuck Berry",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/chuck-berry/",
      "year": 1958,
      "label": "Chess",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "The opening lick is the genre's national anthem, and the lyric invents the idea of the guitarist as protagonist. Berry wrote the rules and everyone since has been filling in the form.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Chuck%20Berry%20Johnny%20B.%20Goode",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=T_WSXXPQYeY",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 2,
      "trackKey": "little-richard--tutti-frutti",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/little-richard--tutti-frutti/",
      "title": "Tutti Frutti",
      "artist": "Little Richard",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/little-richard/",
      "year": 1955,
      "label": "Specialty",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "The most explosive four seconds of introduction anybody has recorded. The original lyric was unprintable, the cleaned-up version is still barely contained, and nothing has ever sounded this free.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Little%20Richard%20Tutti%20Frutti",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=ivhauEr3KxU",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 3,
      "trackKey": "elvis-presley--thats-all-right",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/elvis-presley--thats-all-right/",
      "title": "That's All Right",
      "artist": "Elvis Presley",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/elvis-presley/",
      "year": 1954,
      "label": "Sun",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "An Arthur Crudup blues, cut almost by accident at the end of a session. Whatever you think of what followed, the performance itself is loose, delighted and completely alive.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Elvis%20Presley%20That's%20All%20Right",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=DCP_g7X31nI",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 4,
      "trackKey": "bo-diddley--bo-diddley",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/bo-diddley--bo-diddley/",
      "title": "Bo Diddley",
      "artist": "Bo Diddley",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/bo-diddley/",
      "year": 1955,
      "label": "Checker",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "A rhythm rather than a song, and the only one on this list that is still being used as a rhythm sixty years later. Named after himself, which was fair.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Bo%20Diddley%20Bo%20Diddley",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=yeZHB3ozglQ",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 5,
      "trackKey": "jerry-lee-lewis--great-balls-of-fire",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/jerry-lee-lewis--great-balls-of-fire/",
      "title": "Great Balls of Fire",
      "artist": "Jerry Lee Lewis",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/jerry-lee-lewis/",
      "year": 1957,
      "label": "Sun",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Piano played as an act of aggression, by someone who genuinely believed he was damning himself by recording it. That tension is audible and it is what makes the record.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Jerry%20Lee%20Lewis%20Great%20Balls%20of%20Fire",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=w6VBlQbf-KU",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 6,
      "trackKey": "eddie-cochran--summertime-blues",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/eddie-cochran--summertime-blues/",
      "title": "Summertime Blues",
      "artist": "Eddie Cochran",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/eddie-cochran/",
      "year": 1958,
      "label": "Liberty",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Two acoustic guitars, handclaps and a complaint. The first great record about teenage powerlessness, and structurally the ancestor of every punk single on this site.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Eddie%20Cochran%20Summertime%20Blues",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=NKLhq2RubiM",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 7,
      "trackKey": "gene-vincent--be-bop-a-lula",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/gene-vincent--be-bop-a-lula/",
      "title": "Be-Bop-A-Lula",
      "artist": "Gene Vincent",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/gene-vincent/",
      "year": 1956,
      "label": "Capitol",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Slap-back echo, a hiccupping vocal and almost no content. Rockabilly at its most atmospheric — the sound is the song and it has aged better than most of the lyrics here.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Gene%20Vincent%20Be-Bop-A-Lula",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=vDU9FP5_B2M",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 8,
      "trackKey": "buddy-holly--peggy-sue",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/buddy-holly--peggy-sue/",
      "title": "Peggy Sue",
      "artist": "Buddy Holly",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/buddy-holly/",
      "year": 1957,
      "label": "Coral",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Jerry Allison's paradiddles on the toms, a guitar tone nobody had bothered with before, and a songwriter who wrote, played and produced. The self-contained band starts here.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Buddy%20Holly%20Peggy%20Sue",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=1sWvwBYEzvE",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 9,
      "trackKey": "bill-haley-and-his-comets--rock-around-the-clock",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/bill-haley-and-his-comets--rock-around-the-clock/",
      "title": "Rock Around the Clock",
      "artist": "Bill Haley & His Comets",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/bill-haley-and-his-comets/",
      "year": 1954,
      "label": "Decca",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Not the best record on this list and comfortably the most consequential. A B-side that a film soundtrack turned into a global event and a moral panic.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Bill%20Haley%20%26%20His%20Comets%20Rock%20Around%20the%20Clock",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgdufzXvjqw",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}