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In 1954, “Rock Around the Clock” comes out. It’s a B side and it sells terribly. About 70,000 people buy the record. That’s okay today. It’s absolutely dreadful for the 1950s. But one of the people, one of the 70,000 who bought this record was a fifth grade boy named Peter Ford. And Peter Ford lived out in Los Angeles and his father was Glenn Ford, the famous Hollywood actor. And Glen Ford was in this movie called Blackboard Jungle. And the director of Blackboard Jungle comes over to the Ford’s house one day. And he says, “I need a song to kick off this movie.” And this is a movie about juvenile delinquency, about kids acting appropriately in high school. The father, Glenn, says, “Well, my favorite kind of music is actually Hawaiian folk. So, this is not going to be a very good match. But my son likes these new R&B rock and roll styles. Maybe he’s the right one to ask.”
And this fifth grader, this ten year old boy, Peter Ford, hands Richard Brooks a stack of vinyl. And one vinyl record in that stack includes the song “Rock Around the Clock.” And “Rock Around the Clock” ends up playing at the beginning of Blackboard Jungle, in the middle of Blackboard Jungle, and at the end of Blackboard Jungle. And it is only then, two weeks after Blackboard Jungle comes out, that “Rock Around the Clock” becomes the number one song in the country, the first song that is considered rock and roll to ever hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100, and the second best-selling song of the 20th century.
So, if you’re the sort of person that thinks that quality always succeeds and the answer to popularity in the world is that the good stuff does well and the bad stuff does poorly, if that’s your idea of explaining cultural markets, how in the world do you explain “Rock Around the Clock?” The exact same song was a total flop in 1954, and the hit of the century nine months later. So, I think one explanation would be that it’s all about distribution. And I think that this is a powerful explanation. We can say that, when it was distributed on FM radio, it didn’t quite click for listeners. But, when distributed in the context of Juvenile Delinquents, as a dangerous song, as a new product, that’s when it reached its full potential.
But the other thing I think you can say is that “Rock Around the Clock,” and rock and roll at the time, was ahead of its time. People weren’t ready for it. And so, when it came out in the early 1950s, people didn’t know what to do with it. They didn’t know where to place it. And it needed to be a part of an enormous movie for both young people and old people alike to say, “Maybe it’s time for a changing of the guards. Maybe it’s time for the ignored products to be considered now a part of the mainstream and part of the vanguard.”
And so, I think that there’s lots of examples throughout pop culture history where you see essentially, that an ignored product or a product that seems to have very little pickup, suddenly charges in and people say, “Oh no. It’s time for us to give this a shot now. It’s time for us to give the forgotten product to shot.” And I think it just goes to show that, if you are the sort of creator, the sort of person that’s working on certain products that don’t seem to be doing well, maybe don’t change the product, maybe change the distribution strategy that it finds the right people at the right time, and then that idea will be welcomed.