Date of Award
2010
Document Type
Honors Thesis (Open Access)
Department
Colby College. American Studies Program
Advisor(s)
Laura Saltz
Abstract
If African Americans heavily influenced the development of rock & roll as a musical genre, why do we picture rock stars as white men with guitars? In this project I examine, with a particular focus on race, how the the visual culture surrounding rock music evolved to where it is today. To do this, I performed a close visual analysis of Rolling Stone Magazine covers from 1967-1980. In this presentation I illustrate Rolling Stone's trend of featuring 'white negroes' on their covers, which allowed the magazine to use the selling power of a white person's face while retaining the attractiveness, sex appeal, and exoticism of black aesthetics and performance styles.
Keywords
rock & roll, musical genre, Rolling Stone, white person's face, sex appeal
Recommended Citation
Block, Erica D., "Race & Rock & Roll: A Visual Analysis of Rolling Stone Cover Photography" (2010). Honors Theses. Paper 597.https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/honorstheses/597
Copyright
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