All language subtitles for Butterfly.Effect.S01E13_English

- [Narrator] Our history
is no more than a series of

incredible events, each one of
us can influence it's course.

The tiniest of our decisions can

influence the future of mankind.

To know the past is to
anticipate the future.

July 5th, 1954
Nashville Tennessee,

Elvis Presley steps through the

door of the Sun Record Studio.

10 years later hundreds of
hysterical fans are waiting

excitedly, they're at the
very first Beatles concert.

November 19th, 1976
the Sex Pistols release

"Anarchy in the UK",

the song is a truly
anarchist manifesto.

These three different but
intimately connected events

are the founding elements
of the history of rock.

(rock music)

Music is everywhere.

We listen to it in the subway
or when we're out jogging.

It gathers us together
for huge concerts

and sometimes it
provides a helping hand.

Today we can listen
to what we want,

when we want and as we want.

It wasn't always so.

Our story begins in the
United States at the

beginning of the 1950s.

It's the age of the Blues,
the Cold War and segregation.

The United States is living
through a period that is

very different from
the one that we know.

Black and white communities
live apart from each other.

The period is both
rigid and turbulent.

Political tension,
Cold War, segregation,

the struggle for
equal civil rights.

The whites are in a majority,

they are in command
of the country.

The black communities
are in the minority,

one of their only means
of expression, the Blues,

a music born in the
cotton fields and Jazz.

At first they call
it race music,

then the name evolved to
become Rhythm'N'Blues,

more politically correct.

This music is
represented by artists

like BB King or Little Richard.

Black artists playing
for a black community.

But music knows no boundaries

and very quickly whites
will take an interest,

such is the case of Alan Freed.

A radio DJ, he plays black
music, notably the Blues

but not only that,

he broadcasts the first
examples of a new genre.

A music that doesn't
yet have a name,

very quickly they
name it Rock'N'Roll.

Rock'N'Roll is at the
crossroads between two separate

worlds, taking inspiration from
both the Blues and Country,

it's roots are as black
as they are white.

The conservative puritan
world is horrified,

for them the radio
presenter is trying to bring

whites down to the
level of blacks.

Alan Freed will be
subject to many threats.

July 5th, 1954
Nashville Tennessee,

a young truck driver wants
to give his mother a present.

His name is Elvis Presley.

This young man walks through
the door of the Sun Records

Studio to record two songs,

the session costs
him four dollars

and he comes away with a
record to give to his mother.

Rock'N'Roll is about to explode.

- [Narrator] Welcome to
the memory of humanity.

Here we can control time,
analyse and compare billions

of events and alter them to
rewrite history endlessly.

For example, just imagine
that Elvis never went to

Nashville on that
July day in '54.

That he never opened the door
of the Sun Records Studio.

He would never have
known what he'd missed.

This sort of opportunity,
the result of chance

and favorable circumstances
is so rare and surprising

that we can never know
if we have missed one.

Elvis would have continued
with his odd jobs

and now and then singing
for his mother or himself.

The world would have
had a different face,

Rock would have not gone
global, at least not so rapidly.

Most importantly it would
almost certainly have

exclusively remained within
the domain of the black

community with whites
preferring country music.

Rock would have become
the protest music of black

Americans and would probably
have been ghettoized.

We can envisage a militant
Rock in support of

the Black Panthers,
electrifying the racial riots

of the following decades.

Rock would have taken
the place of Rap.

Black communities would express

themselves through Hard Rock.

- [Narrator] Elvis
is Rock'N'Roll.

His voice, his music,
his energy, his career.

In a few years Elvis
turns it all upside down.

No more ballroom dancing, it's
now individual hip gyrating

and provocative gestures.

He is the principal agent
in the popularization

of Rock among the white
American general public.

He will earn 48 gold
discs in 1956 alone.

During the course of his
career he will sell more

than 700 million records and
give more than 1,000 concerts.

The first white man to associate
sex appeal with the new

form of music, he adds a more
dynamic, more forceful sound.

Very quickly his highly
sexual way of dancing

will bring down the
wrath of conservatives.

They tried to get him banned,
they burned his records

in public, they
canceled his concerts.

The church condemns his music.

Parents hate him, kids love him.

And in the '50s kids
become a real social group,

with their high purchasing
power their opinions count.

For a long, long time the
young have classed with taboos

related to sexuality and the
American puritan morality.

For too long they've
been told to behave

and follow their parents model.

In this prosperous post-war
period they need changes,

they want to enjoy life
before they get too old.

For the American young, the
hour of freedom has arrived.

- [Narrator] No Rock
without a guitar.

The history of Rock cannot
be disassociated from

its flagship
instrument, the guitar.

A guitar is a string instrument
consisting of a wooden

sound box and a sound board,

when the strings vibrate
they emit sounds.

It's as simple as that.

You still have to play, Johnny
Cash used it like a rifle.

Elvis made it sound
like never before.

Very quickly it will evolve
and Rock will evolve with it.

At the end of the '50s Leo
Fender markets the first

solid body guitar,
the Broadcaster.

It's a single piece of solid
wood with no sound box,

a cavity dug into the block
holds one or several magnetic

microphones connected by a
cable to an amplifier this new

tool provides a totally
new range of sound.

The electric guitar
becomes the symbol of rock,

liberated from acoustic
constraints it will take on

the most diverse of shapes
and even become a means of

expression itself.

Jimi Hendrix will go as
far as to set his on fire

at the end of one
of his performances.

As he will say, "You
sacrifice the things you love,

"and I love my guitar."

- [Narrator] Elvis breached
the wall of puritan society,

other artists
flooded through it,

like Jerry Lee Lewis
or Chuck Berry.

At the beginning of the '60s
Rock has lost its initial

vitality, it's
behaving more orderly,

more respectable,
more marketable.

Censorship and money
have done their work.

A few resisters like Johnny
Cash continue to defy

the established order
with numbers like,

"Ring of Fire" but even Elvis
whose is now dubbed The King

is no longer the same.

America is hoping to
return to real values,

no more rebel role
models for the young,

it's time for a
well behaved Rock.

Although born in the United
States it's in England

that Rock will find
its second wind.

In 1963 The Beatles hit the
scene with "She Loves You",

the world will
never be the same.

It's a tidal wave.

They're handsome, they're young,
they're tunes are gripping,

it's the start of Beatlemania.

Like many of the Rock bands
that followed they came

from the Liverpool working
classes, those popular districts

are to be come veritable
forges of talent.

Their album "Sgt Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club Band"

is considered to be one of the
best Rock albums of all time.

Their influence will be
decisive on the history of Rock.

In an eight year career
they will record 13 albums,

200 songs and sell more
than 300 million albums,

more than 2 billion
to the present day.

But for The Beatles
there's no provocation,

no rebellion, that will be the
role of The Rolling Stones.

The Stones are not The Beatles,
they will even do all they

can to be seen as
the exact opposite.

Their image of bad boys
priming with arrogance,

rebellion and sexuality very
quickly proves profitable.

Parents hate the band,
so the kids love it.

The number "Satisfaction"
is a revolution.

A perfect synthesis
of the Blues, Rhythm
and Blues and Rock.

Between The Beatles and
The Rolling Stones there's

something for everyone,
Rock begins to spread wide.

It takes on a new dimension.

As well as youth emancipation
the first political

themes begin to emerge,
they start to reject war,

especially the Vietnam War.

These are the first
protest songs.

At the Woodstock Music
Festival on August 15th, 1969

the genius Jimi Hendrix plays
the American national anthem

on an electric guitar.

The incredible sound he manages
to draw out of his guitar

allows him to imitate
the sounds of bombs,

the message is clear.

- [Narrator] Bigger and
bigger, in 1969 Woodstock

is the festival of excess.

At the time there had never
been such fervor for music.

For four days braving the rain
and the mud 450,000 people

will attend the first great
Rock concert of all time.

Nobody anticipated
the size of the event.

The infrastructure was
vastly insufficient,

the organizers are very
quickly overwhelmed.

There will be three deaths,

four miscarriages
and two births.

On the last day only
30,000 are left to watch

Jimi Hendrix's concert,
Woodstock goes down into legend.

Those who came will be
able to say, "I was there."

Years later the monsters
of Rock in Moscow will pass

Woodstock by a mile, 1.6 million
people traveled to listen

to Metallica and AC/DC,
rock craves excess.

Heavier and heavier sound,
ever more extravagant costumes,

increasingly gigantic concerts.

Let's count all the records
sold around the world.

The top three, the only
one's to have sold more

that a billion copies
are by Rock stars.

The first is Elvis Presley.

- [Narrator] Rock
doesn't stop at borders,

it pushes them wide open.

The '70s demand
renewal yet again.

The major bands of the
'60s no longer exist

or have become institutions.

It's time for experiments

and it will go off
in all directions.

Pink Floyd like Velvet
Underground or The Stooges

claim they make art
and not just Rock.

They're looking for new
sounds, adding experimental

instruments, developing
new philosophies.

Artists feel they
need to move forward.

Pink Floyd's progressive
psychedelic Rock offers

a total, highly
immersive spectacle.

It's no longer a
question of music

but of images and experience.

We are a long way
from Elvis's concerts,

where the singer alone was
enough to carry the show.

In 1979 "The Wall" is huge
concert during which a

wall is built, gradually
blocking off the stage.

At end of the show,
the wall collapses.

At the other extreme of
this creative explosion

Rock gets harder.

Returning to it's Blues roots
they add guitar distortion

and aggressively loud vocals.

It's the birth of Hard Rock.

Queen, Aerosmith, Led
Zeppelin, Deep Purple

and of course, AC/DC.

Hard Rock will itself
give birth to Heavy Metal,

even heavier more saturated.

Bands like KISS
or Metallica will

hurl themselves into the arena.

(heavy rock music)

As in the '50s and then the
'60s the Rock of the '70s

will also spark controversy.

- [Narrator] To
create is to dare.

The Rock movement is
continually questionings itself.

Artists are constantly
seeking renewal,

a race to innovation Rock
takes it's inspiration from

Jazz, the Blues and Country.

Country itself is descended
from traditional Irish songs

so there's some bagpipe
DNA in every number

by Elvis or Metallica.

In the end it soon becomes
impossible to use the word

Rock without being simplistic.

There isn't one Rock
but a number of Rocks.

Where artistic creation is
concerned nothing is invented,

everything is inspired
by something else.

If we go far enough back
up the family tree of Rock

we can certainly connect it
to Beethoven's compositions

or classical literature.

So there's a common point
between a Hard Rock fan

and a Renaissance poet.

The history of art is an
uninterrupted series of

creations taking mutual
inspiration, one from another.

Sometimes cultural marriages
can prove to be unexpected.

In 1967 Andy Warhol, a
great figure of Modern Art,

decides to experiment with a
new form of art and produces

the first album by psychedelic
band Velvet Underground.

Pink Floyd had a similar
attitude with painters,

like Pierre Soulages, break
the codes, dare to try

new material, claim a
truly artistic approach.

- [Narrator] Out of
the creative chaos

of the '70s Punk is born.

Oil crisis, massive strikes,
unemployment and inflation,

the rise of the far right.

The young once again
have had enough.

They experienced daily
life as a lead weight,

to them the future is a dead
end and necessarily bleak.

The watch word, no future.

Punk denounces,
criticizes, rejects,

the reactions is brutal,
the music is screamed.

For the Sex Pistols
the scene is too tame,

subjected to what they now
call the Rock Industry.

Opposed to the consumer
society they want pure music,

reject studio arrangement and
prefer raw live performances.

The dirtier then music is
the more they consider it to

be authentic, for the
first time the music counts

for less then the message.

Fashion codes fit the music,
Mohican hair cuts, black ripped

clothing, skulls, bovver
boots and fishnet stockings.

On November 19th, 1976 the
release of "Anarchy in the UK"

by The Sex Pistols is a
truly anarchist manifesto.

The message, anti-conformity
and rejection

of the established order.

Politicians and churchmen rush
to the ramparts yet again.

Naturally this is
the best publicity

the movement could have.

Punk becomes
increasingly popular,

selling more and more
records, more clothing.

In the 1980s the Punk
style is widely adopted

by fashion houses, record
companies and the media,

pushing cynicism to the limit.

The success of Punk dug
the movements own grave.

Opposed to the consumer society
it is finally standardized,

packaged and sold
in supermarkets.

But the young need
a rebel music,

if one dies another takes over.

Today Rock has more
faces then ever,

it's influence
has been spreading

throughout the
world for decades.

What face will it have tomorrow?

But that is another story.

- [Narrator] When it emerges
at the beginning of the '50s

Rock immediately sparks a
strong reaction of rejection

for some and genuine
fascination for others.

To the powers that be
it's amoral, subversive

and rebellious character
constitutes a real threat.

The sudden bursting upon the
public stage of communities

until then kept apart,
revives ancient fears.

But it is also an innocent
form of entertainment.

The first Rock musicians never
seek to disturb public order,

on the contrary they
want to be accepted.

From the '60s Rock artists
will gradually build a

counter-culture, but the
more publicity the movements

attract the closer
their affinity

becomes with the
model they criticize.

Then new voices are raised
to scream their revolt

against the system, louder
and louder until these

early pioneers in turn are taken
up by the consumer society.

The Rock audience then becomes
a consumer of rebellion,

Rock becomes an industry.

You could think that Rock
allowed itself to be perverted

by the very model it
claimed to be fighting.

You could see in it
a sort of cynicism.

You could believe
that Rock is dead.

But that is attribute too
much intention to a music that

from the very first
hip gyrating from Elvis

to the guitar riffs of
AC/DC never claimed anything

more than to please
it's audience.

To provide a breath
of fresh air.

Some landmarks, Rock is a
traditional escape valve

for the young, it didn't
put an end to wars,

it didn't change the world,
it just offered the right

to be young and
to stay that way.

(dramatic music)