Selin Rana Özkarahan
Music is a form of art that has influenced people’s minds for generations. It has always been a way for people to express themselves and share their opinions through art. I would like to focus on a specific time in musical history and genre. The music of youth, the music our parents like to address as “loud noise,” a genre that has changed the fate of the world of art, believe it or not. Rock’n roll.
Rock music has often been branded as “the soundtrack to revolution.” Rock music has always influenced artists, whether they be painters, poets, authors or even film directors. It inspired a whole new style of clothing. A new style of painting. It encouraged people to speak out. It changed people’s minds, killed their old selves and made them anew. It is death on two legs. It influenced everything that we call art today. Therefore I believe this music is the heart, the core of the change that has made the world we know.
In 1975 a certain album was released. This album holds a special place in my heart because it has made me who I am today. I heard it once in a movie I went to with my friends really late on a Saturday night. I went into that theatre as a thirteen-year-old child with unruly hair and no idea who I was and came out finally being myself. It was part of the soundtrack of an artistic film. As the colors on screen danced together, I heard the sound of rock and opera mixed together for the first time. It was angelic.
The album was A Night at the Opera by a group called Queen. An album that changed the fate of a band and with that inspired artists all over the world. What made this album so special is the way it took two sides of a spectrum and made them one. Lyrics that reach out to you, written like those of a prophet’s song. Two completely different genres concerning different generations, people with different backgrounds and completely different instruments blending into a perfect harmony. What is so special about music to other artists is that it has a different influence on everyone. I, a young aspiring artist, have never painted the same way after hearing this music. I’ve never written poetry the way I did before. The effects of the music I’ve consumed, the effects of this very album are visible in everything I create and always will be.