DJ Alan Freed was eventually charged in a 'payola' scandal

A DJ helped popularize the term 'rock 'n' roll' to resell R&B to a broad audience

Cleveland DJ Alan Freed launched his radio show "Moondog's Rock 'n' Roll Party," rebranding R&B records, largely performed by Black artists, as "rock 'n' roll" to appeal to a largely white audience. The name was a double-entendre, describing the sound and the sexual activities it was said to induce.

Although payola was made illegal in 1960, it likely continued on the Billboard charts through the '70s

In his book “Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves,” music journalist Chris Dalla Riva argues that payola, the music industry term for undisclosed paid publicity, likely continued into the 1970s with the Billboard chart. Dalla Riva cites chart irregularities and reports about Bill Wardlow, Billboard’s then director of sales, who was a known booster for disco label Casablanca Records.

Take a look at an early rock 'n' roll artifact

This 1956 jukebox musical, "Rock, Rock, Rock!," is an early example of the burgeoning rock 'n' roll culture—with performances from Chuck Berry, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, D.J. Alan Freed, and several others. It was also a catalyst, sending the new youth culture into theaters around the country.

How underground radio revitalized rock 'n' roll

Early FM was a wasteland and quickly became the domain of amateurs and risk-takers, including many stations and DJs who played music that flew in the face of mainstream trends. This history of the band's scrappy beginnings unpacks how it realigned the rock charts.

The Parents Music Resource Center criticized rock 'n' roll's lyrics in the 1980s

The group, spearheaded by Tipper Gore, the wife of then-Senator and eventual Vice President Al Gore, argued that rock music, especially heavy metal, was having an adverse effect on the country, particularly young children. One of the group's fiercest critics was musician Frank Zappa. In the video below, he appears on a 1986 episode of "Crossfire," arguing about the proposed ban of so-called obscene music.

70 years ago today, city officials in Santa Cruz, California, banned rock 'n' roll to protect its youth from corruption after witnessing a 'provocative' concert the night before.

Sun Records was responsible for some of rock 'n' roll's biggest artists

Memphis' Sun Records was one of the most important labels in American musical history, releasing pivotal records by Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, and countless others.

Watch one of country music's most infamous performances

Jerry Lee Lewis started in the 50s as a supercharged rock ‘n’ roll star. His career imploded when it was revealed he’d married his teenaged cousin. By the time he was invited to the Grand Ole Opry, he’d reinvented himself as a country troubadour and promised to play by the venue’s strict rules. But as this infamous performance shows, Lewis couldn’t help bringing some of his past to the stage, much to the audience’s delight.

How one trial tested the limits of satirical music

The rapper Afroman, who earned jokey hits in the '90s with songs like "Because I Got High," was taken into court by police officers by police officers in Adams County, Ohio, who alleged that he'd defamed them in his songs. The music in question was recorded after those officers raided his house and satirized the situation, often in graphic terms. The rapper beat the case, but not before his satirical songs were analyzed in court.

Rockwell's 'Four Freedoms' raised millions for the US war effort

Rockwell initially pitched the "Four Freedoms" project to the US Ordnance Department, but was rejected. Rockwell's editor at the Saturday Evening Post, however, loved the idea and published the images across four consecutive issues. After they became a sensation, the Saturday Evening Post partnered with the US Department of the Treasury to send the paintings on a 16-date national tour, which raised $133M in war bonds and stamps. Meanwhile, the Office of War Information printed four million sets of the posters with "Buy War Bonds" emblazoned on them.

Ed Sullivan launched Beatlemania in America

By 1964, The Beatles were relative unknowns in the US, due to Capitol's lukewarm support. That changed when they were booked on The Ed Sullivan Show, a popular program that hosted Elvis Presley's breakout performance. The Beatles' appearance introduced them to an American audience.

Tom Petty used bankruptcy to change the music industry

In order to resolve a dispute over how a label was treating him as an artist, he self-produced an album and racked up $500K in debt. The resulting bankruptcy filing allowed him to start a new contract with the label on more favorable terms.

A 1954 Senate subcommittee investigated the comics industry

Comic books were wildly popular in the '50s, especially with children, whom some politicians believed were being corrupted by crime and horror comics. A subcommittee convened and eventually determined that “this Nation cannot afford the calculated risk involved in the continued mass dissemination of crime and horror comic books to children.” The government didn't endorse censorship, but the comics industry did, creating its own Comics Code Authority.

Lenny Bruce was arrested for obscenity seven times

The first was in 1961, after performing at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco. Subsequent arrests were in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. He died of a morphine overdose in 1966, a year and a half after being found guilty of his New York charge.

The 'golden age' studio system often controlled actors' personal lives

The "Big Five" studio system minted stars, but it also tightly controlled their personal lives. Homosexuality, in particular, was seen as a liability. One example is Rock Hudson, a major star in the 1950s and '60s, who was forced into an arranged marriage with his agent's secretary.

Phil Spector’s ‘Wall of Sound’ revolutionized girl groups—and pop music

The method captured a room of live musicians and transmitted the sound into a basement outfitted with more speakers and microphones. That sound was then sent into the central control room, producing a massive recording that sounded unlike anything else in pop music.

Free jazz embraced the avant-garde

Ornette Coleman's 1959 album "The Shape of Jazz to Come" abandoned traditional notions of melody and structure, inadvertently creating "free jazz," a subgenre that embraced absolute musical freedom and gained popularity in the countercultural 1960s.

The quiz show scandals eroded trust in the media

Many viewers were attracted to the shows because they were filled with real people winning real money. After it was exposed that “Dotto,” “Twenty-One,” “The $64,000 Question,” and others had been fixed, the genre struggled to regain viewers’ trust. The government intervened, too: President Eisenhower called the shows’ deception “a terrible thing to do to the American people” and Congress amended the Communications Act in 1960, explicitly outlawing fraudulent game shows.

Why Edwin Armstrong developed FM radio

AM radio was popular but prone to interference and static, which could be frustrating for listeners. In 1933, Armstrong, a Columbia University professor, discovered that a clearer signal could be broadcast by revising how it was captured.

Before the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed was a workaday songwriter

His job at Pickwick Records, a label that churned out budget records for department stores, was to crank out generic pop fare. One of those songs was 1964’s “The Ostrich,” a dance song in the style of Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” and Little Eva’s “The Loco-Motion.”

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

John D. Rockefeller’s father had a nefarious past

William A. Rockefeller Sr. earned his money via various schemes that included pretending to be a doctor to sell “herbal medicines” and posing as a deaf person to peddle for money.

Inside one of the largest US military bribery schemes

Glenn Defense Marine Asia Ltd. sprinkled US Navy officers with gifts, hosted events attended by Navy officers that were staffed by sex workers, and won millions of dollars worth of inflated military contracts to provide food, fuel, and security to Navy aircraft carriers. Leonard "Fat Leonard" Glenn Francis helmed the company. This 35-minute podcast episode is the beginning of a multi-part series sharing Francis' story from his perspective.

One disco producer saw 'Star Wars' four times on its opening weekend and was so inspired that he recorded the album 'Star Wars and Other Intergalactic Funk,' which produced a chart-topping single.

Radio DJ Casey Kasem was the voice of Shaggy on 'Scooby-Doo'

He pioneered the "American Top 40" radio model, but his iconic voice also appeared on "Scooby-Doo Where Are You?," the long-running animated TV show. Interesting: Kasem, a vegan, once quit the role in protest after being pressured to do a Burger King commercial, though he eventually reprised it years later.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

Joseph Pulitzer mainstreamed 'yellow journalism'

One way Joseph Pulitzer revolutionized the newspaper industry by developing an approach to reporting that relied on sensationalism and could be a little loose with the facts. Pulitzer and rival William Randolph Hearst pushed that sensationalism to the next level in their competition to attract readers.

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

Dylan was called 'the voice of his generation,' but rejected the title

By the mid-60s, Dylan made it clear he had no desire to be a spokesman for anyone but himself. He found the title stifling and believed it would prevent him from creating authentic art.

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

Quincy Jones' 'Big Band Bossa Nova' helped introduce bossa nova—a jazz-influenced Brazilian genre—to the US

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

Abraham Lincoln was almost assassinated weeks before his inauguration as he traveled from Illinois to DC through Baltimore in 1861; it took two independent claims for Lincoln to be convinced the threat was real

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

A pickleball's loud 'pop' sound can reach 120 decibels, which is equivalent to a hammer hitting a nail

Hedge funds, the private investment firms that trade a wide swath of financial assets, make money by imposing steep fees on investors and from the fund's investment performance.