The 1950s: Chuck Berry: in his own words - R & B: a danger to the music business? - Elvis Presley and 'The Craze' - Elvis defends low-down style - Experts propose study of 'Craze' - The rock'n'roll audience - Leiber & Stoller - The history of Chicano rock; The 1960s: Phil Spector and the wall of sound - The Beatles, press confernce, 1964 - 'Beatlemania frightens child expert' - George Martin on the Beatles - Understanding Dylan - Motown - An interview with Wilson Pickett - James Brown - Goodbye surfing hello God: the religious conversion of Brian Wilson - Rock and the counterculture - 'he electric kool-aid acid test - The country boom - Woodstock nation; The 1970s: James Taylor, singer-songwriter - Cock rock: men always seem to end up on top - The art of the hard rock lifestyle - How to be a rock critic - Reggae - Roots and rock: the Marley enigma - Dub and the sound of surprise - Art rock - 'Why don't we call it punk?' - The subculture of British punk - Disco: 4 critics address the musical question; The 1980s: Punk goes hardcore - College rock - Roll over guitar heroes: synthesizers are here - The MTV aesthetic - Post-punk's radical dance fictions - Molly Hatchet - The cult of violence - Heavy metal and the highbrow/lowbrow divide - The real thing: Bruce Springsteen - Hip hop nation - Madonna: a real feminist - Can Madonna justify Madonna?: The 1990s: Is as nasty as they wanna be obscene? - Public Enemy's bomb squad - The death of sampling - Kurt Cobain and the politics of damage - The problem with music - Feminism amplified - Rock aesthetics and musics of the world - Fat Boy Slim explains electronic dance music - Nu metal and Woodstock '99 - Indie pop goes twee; The 2000s: My week on the Avril Lavigne e-team - Punk's earnest new mission - Rip. Burn. Die: the music industry sings the blues - The rap against rockism.