Customer Reviews

History of Rock & Roll 10: Up From the Underground [VHS]

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This video is the tenth in a 10-video set documenting Rock `n' Roll in America. It's very entertaining and informative, although more on the entertainment side.

This video is okay, especially seeing how difficult a task it must have been to make. I can see it now: "Let's make a 60-minute video on the history of rock from the mid-80s up till now, talking about unrelated subjects like the rise of MTV, music videos, new wave, alternative, hip-hop, and pop influences." It's hard to weave a compelling thread with all that going on.

My favorite parts in this video cover the rise of hip-hop. It's really entertaining: Grandmaster Flash talking about record mixing/sampling, and Run DMC's reaction to hearing they would be on MTV: "The record company people were really excited, but we'd never heard of it. Nobody we knew had cable, so we didn't know, but we were excited `cause they were." What's really entertaining is the side-by-side comparison of what Aerosmith/Run DMC thought of their "Walk This Way" remake. Let me attempt to sum it up.

Aerosmith: "We had never heard of rap music, and these guys were really exciting."
Run DMC: "These guys were like, `what are you doing to our song,' but they couldn't do much because their careers were struggling and they needed the help.'

Unfortunately, the video doesn't bleep out all of the profanity, so this is another video that's not really appropriate for high schoolers, who would learn a lot from this. I think, however, that this is a useful video for those who want to learn more about why hip-hop has become so popular and why rock music is the way it is today.

The video was informative and is leads to an awaking to those, like myself, that had preconcived notions about what rock and roll was and where it came from.