Peter Wicke

The music scene in 1950s Great Britain was largely conservative, shaped by the strictures of the British Broadcast Corporation. In the following selection, Peter Wicke details how the entrance of rock music during that decade had a tremendous cultural impact on British youth, in particular working—class teenagers. He suggests that rock music gave these teenagers a way to develop their own lifestyle and culture, one that stood in sharp contrast to the era's conservative political establishment. Wicke is the director of the Centre for Popular Music Research in the Music Programology at Berlin's Humboldt University.

IN THE FIFTIES THE BRITISH BROADCASTING Corporation (BBC), in its role as the British national cultural institution, . . . possessed almost unlimited authority in all questions of the nation's musical entertainment. The only alternatives to the BBC were...