Music

Here's what rock 'n' roll looks like according to stock photography

by Mark Teo

As a artform entering its seventh decade, rock ‘n’ roll has countless signifiers: Pompadours. Mohawks. Les Pauls. Stratocasters. Rickenbackers. Top hats. Cigarettes. Stripper poles. Plaid. Ripped jeans. Leather pants. And—well, we could go on. But while it’s impossible to define rock ‘n’ roll—though in-the-wool rockists will surely define it as a “lifestyle… man”—it hasn’t stopped stock photographers. So, partly as a sociological experiment, we took to iStock and Shutterstock to see how, exactly, these services define rock ‘n’ roll. Here’s what we found.