Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution

Finding myself in a youtube rabbit hole, I discovered this 1967 special with Leonard Bernstein -- "Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution" -- who argued the merits of Pop/Rock music to older people who found the music to be uncompelling, unsophisticated and plain 'ol wrong. As many of you know, Bernstein is one of the most important and very rightfully celebrated American classical composers of the 20th century with a resumé that includes not only making the music for west side story and various other movies and symphonies, but also being the longtime music director of New York Philharmonic. Crazy talented visionary.

This TV special was fascinating and I highly suggest you watch! Bernstein was introduced to a lot of rock music from his kids and though he found much of it trite, he viewed some of it as genius a la Gershwin, Duke Ellington and even Mozart. In this special, he plays and analyzes songs by some of his favorites: The Beatles, Left Bank, 15 year old Janis Ian, The Monkees, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and more and breaks down individual musical components in order to explain why this music was not just palatable, but groundbreaking and very sophisticated art. He also examines rock lyrics, putting forth a then foreign notion that these songwriters were not only making great music, but bonafide poetry -- and maybe even something bigger than that.

It's easy, at age 31, to take for granted that rock 'n roll used to just be thought of as "kid's music." It was folks like Bernstein and Aaron Copland, among others, who held the hand of older generations and helped demystify the magic. It's all stuff I find very interesting -- even moving -- and I hope you feel the same way!