The (true) definition of 'Rock & Roll'

According to the godfather of punk-journalism, Lester Bangs:



"Rock & roll, as I see it, is the ultimate populist art form, democracy in action, because it's true: anybody can do it. Learn three chords on a guitar and you've got it. Don't worry wheter you can 'sing' or not. Can Neil Young 'sing'? Lou Reed? Bob Dylan? ... For performing rock & roll, or punk rock, or call it any damn thing you please, there's only one thing you need: NERVE. Rock & roll is an attitude, and if you've got the attitude you can do it, no matter what anybody says. Believing that is one of the things punk rock is about. Rock is for everybody, it should be so implicitly anti-eletist that the question of whether somebody's qualified to perform it should never arise. But it did. In the Sixties, of course. And maybe this was one reason why the Sixties may not have been so all-fired great as we gave them credit for. Because in the Sixties, rock & roll began to think of itself as an 'artform'. Rock & roll is not an 'artform'; rock & roll is a raw wail from the bottom of the guts. And like I said, whatever anybody ever called it, punk rock has been around from the beginning -it's just rock honed down to its rawest elements, simple playing with a lot of power and vocalists who may not have much range but have so much conviction and passion it makes up for it ten times over. Because PASSION IS WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT - what all music is about." 



Damn right, Lester!