Sugli inizi dell’interpretazione sociologica del rock. Alla ricerca di un nuovo canone estetico

The aim of the paper is to reconstruct the history of the first critical reflections on rock music, which since the early Sixties has become very popular around the world. From the analysis of the main essays emerges that – for a long time – rock music was considered above all a phenomenon of costume and show business, linked to the expressive and cultural manifestations of a new historical subject: young people. As music, however, rock was considered to lack artistic qualities, both in the musical composition and in the lyrics, especially compared to classical music. It was only in the 1980s that philosophers and social scientists showed an interest in the specific characteristics of the aesthetics of the rock music.