Rock 'n' Roll Evolution

One of my favourite aspects of rock 'n' roll and its offspring is that it's cannabalistic- every new song is influenced by an older one and will undoubtedly inspire future songs. Sometimes, I like to track the progression of certain ideas and stylistic elements through the generations of songs; almost like a '6 degrees of separation project', except often there's not 6 conduits ;)

I can successfully navigate from Gary Glitter to Nine Inch Nails, for example; though that probably sounds abhorrent to some. I shall demonstrate with YouTube videos below:



Step 1- Gary Glitter's 'Rock 'N' Roll Part 1'- the less popular older sister of what most people know as 'The Hey Song' a.k.a 'Rock 'N' Roll Part 2'. Glitter's classics are all obviously influenced by the early rock 'n' roll hits in terms of ideas and lyrics and to a degree, r'n'b through the use of repetitive beats and rhythms, though he brings his own unique seedy edge to things ;)



Step 2- Iggy Pop's 'Nightclubing', which vaguely samples the 'Rock 'N' Roll' riff: the Wikipedia article for Pop's album 'The Idiot' refers to a source as describing the 'Nightclubbing' sound as "a mischievous quote" of the Glitter song, in fact. On an unrelated note, this is one of my favourite YouTube videos ever; those drag queens are gorgeous and the deliberate crudity of the editing is mesmerising.



Step 3- Nine Inch Nail's 'Closer'; which takes its beat from 'Nightclubbing' (according to the 'The Idiot' Wiki). By this point in the string, the shared sound has been sped up a bit, but the relationship with the two earlier songs is clear.

And for a nice, neat end,



One of the best mash-ups on YouTube and an interesting diversion from the path.