54 pages • 1 hour read
Gordon KormanBorn to Rock
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Cultural Context: Punk Music Culture of the 80s and 2000s
Punk rock, or simply punk, is a music genre that evolved from garage bands and rock and roll of the 60s and 70s as a form of protest music featuring topics like radical politics and sociology in their lyrics. Punk has its origins in both the US and UK music scenes. The 80s brought more wide-ranging success to established bands like the Sex Pistols and the Ramones, as well as a newfound popularity the genre had never seen before. Newcomers like The Clash, Billy Idol, The Misfits, Bad Religion, and Dead Kennedys appeared on charts and were played on rock radio across the nation.
However, punk music has always butted against the mainstream, with punk musicians going out of their way to stir controversy and stoke the fears of suburban parents everywhere with the threat of radicalizing teens against authority. Punk and heavy metal music of the 80s played a large role in the stoking of the Satanic Panic conspiracy theories of the late 80s and 90s; attempts to censor this type of music were widespread. Most successful was the Parents Music Resource Center, founded by Tipper Gore, wife of former Vice President Al Gore; this organization managed a campaign to put warnings on music CDs according to their “Filthy Fifteen” list, which included pop, rock, and metal songs with explicit, violent, or sexual lyrics that the organization felt children should be protected from. In the novel, Leo directly references this in Chapter 5, when he learns that “Those warning labels they put on CDs—all that started because of Purge” (38). By linking Purge to the implementation of these real-life labels, the novel places the fictional band at the center of punk music’s most controversial era.
In the 2000s, when the novel is set, Leo and friends follow the Concussed music festival, which resembles the popular punk, rock, and pop-punk festival of the time, Warped Tour. Warped Tour reached its peak in the mid-2000s, with headliners ranging from contemporary punk bands like Good Charlotte to 80s legends like Bad Religion—this mirrors the Concussed tour’s lineup of 80s legends like Purge, as well as modern bands that carry the punk rock torch for a new generation.
Political Context: Republicanism in the Mid-2000s
In the middle of President George W. Bush’s second term (2004-2008), the nation began to see a shift in the Republican Party. The party’s espoused ideals of patriotism, honesty, and serving the common man gave way as Americans became disenchanted with the years-long war in the Middle East that yielded little transparency and no capture of the people responsible for the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Additionally, the Republican-majority congress faced multiple scandals revolving around insider trading, tax evasion, and mail fraud, leading to a net loss at the 2006 midterms.
In Born to Rock, which takes place in 2006, Leo’s narration carefully avoids discussion of the Republican Party’s values and stances he supports. The only indication of his right-leaning stance comes in Chapter 1, when he explains how helping Congressman DeLuca’s campaign got him interested in politics: Leo saw ideas that “weren’t super conservative; they were common sense” (6).
However, the disdain Leo receives from his oldest friend, Melinda, for his choice to join the Republican Party hints at larger issues. Leo’s narration about the things Melinda believes in contrast to his own beliefs demonstrates how Melinda and others in 2006 interpret the Republican Party: To Melinda, “there was nothing more despicable in this world than corporate profits” (6). Although Leo’s views are never detailed, this comment indirectly implies that Leo views unchecked capitalism as a net good. The dynamic between Melinda and Leo at the beginning of the novel is thus a microcosm of the increasing divide between supporters of America’s major political parties in the mid-2000s.
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By Gordon Korman
