高级英语（上）
Lesson One
Rock
Superstars:What
Do They Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society背景知识（Background knowledge）
Rock Music
A form of popular music that is characterized by a pronounced, amplified beat. Electric guitars are almost always the main instrumental sound source. The modem rock band's basic elements are one or more vocalists, an electric lead guitar and bass guitar and drums. A rhythm guitar is often included, and many bands also use keyboards. "Rock-and-roll" was coined in the mid-1950' s by a Cleveland broadcaster, Alan Freed, to replace "rhythm-and-blues"——a term that Freed thought had too many racial overtones'. (It was being called "race music" in some quarters at the time.)
Rhythm-and-blues
was itself an updated, urbanized stylization of the blues, which had been developed mainly by rural or country-oriented black musicians. When the music was renamed rock-and-roll, it also underwent an elemental change, particularly when white performers saw how eagerly young audiences responded. "White" music——that is essentially conventional popular music with a decided country-and-western flavor——was blended with rhythm-and-blues, and young people continued to hold a proprietary attitude about it. Rock went through its share of phases and participated in a number of pop culture fads.课文要义（Main idea of the text）
The author
focuses on the social influences of the rock music in terms of sociology. By contrasting different attitudes toward the rock among the young and adult audience, the author points out that rock is served as an expression of social ideas, and also provides a debating stage for different ideas. Rock 'n' roll stars express the young generation's viewpoints on various