What Is Rock And Roll?

Have you Googled Rock And Roll recently? There are thirteen listing on the first page that include four for a Rock And Roll Marathon which is a foot race, not a ridiculously long rock concert, a Rock And Roll food truck (What is a rock and roll food truck?), the Rock And Roll Forever Foundation, a national middle and high school curriculum initiative (?) and a Rock And Roll Confidential blog, which I'm not sure what that is.

Things that actually do have something to do with Rock And Roll is a link for the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Who Shot Rock And Roll, a photography exhibit of rock stars, Rock And Roll Last FM, an Internet radio station (presumably rock music), an article on the history of Rock And Roll in Arizona, the Wikipedia entry for Rock And Roll and a Youtube video for the Led Zeppelin song Rock And Roll.

Half of the listings on the first page of Google for Rock And Roll really don't have anything to do with Rock And Roll music or subculture. They're just brand names like the Rock And Roll Hotel, the Rock And Roll Sports & Bike Shop, and Rock And Roll Economics which are all listings on Google's page two.

Is there anything else in our present day society that has been so thoroughly appropriated for commercial purposes? Sometimes a product so dominates a market that its brand name becomes synonymous with the product itself such as Coke (soft drink), Xerox (photocopy) Kleenex (tissue) and Viagra (boner pill). But Rock And Roll is used to describe practically anything. Stuff like a marathon race and a bicycle shop can be called Rock And Roll? It appears that Rock And Roll has evolved to just mean "cool", whether the product is or isn't doesn't even matter and that's not cool.

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