(1st Week) What are the strengths and weaknesses of Peterson's production of culture perspectives to the birth of rock and roll?

Ricard A. Peterson provides a detailed account of why rock and roll was born, and discusses six main factors to its arrival. These include law, technology, industry structure, occupational career and market. In the early 1950's, the music industry was financially as well as aesthetically committed to the big-band-crooner style of popular music of the time and, because of it's oligopolistic control of the production, distribution and marketing of new music, was able to thwart the marketing of alternative styles.
'With the transfer of network radio programming to television, radio turned to playing records as the cheapest effective form of programming. The arrival of cheap transistor radios and the development of the Top Forty radio-as-dukebox format meant that a much larger number and far wider range of music was exposed to the audience. Using the new durable 45 rpm records, and taking advantage of the developing network of independant record distributors, numerous independant record companies experimented with a wide range of new sounds in an effort to tap the unsatiated market demand.'
All of this is very well and good and definitely contributes to the birth of rock and roll. He does not mention in almost his entire argument the actual product of the birth of rock and roll; the actual music itself. His argument although concise and informative about every other aspect of the emergence of rock music; the major flaw of his argument is the fact that he does not mention the music. He does not mention the excitement or emotions tied in with the emergence of something so new and refreshing; or how ground-breaking a phenomenon ot was. 'The enthusiasm was in no way inspired or directed by commercial agents watching cynically from the sideline and channelling youthful energy into consuming music.'
http://lakjer.dk/erik/musik/rock.html

However, he does dispel the myths of the advent of rock and roll music; namely the arrival of creative individuals, the baby-boomers and the transformation of the commercial culture industry. He gives clear facts about the emergence of rock and roll, but he does so without any heart or soul for the music itself.