the rise of rock 'n' roll was nonetheless one of the most shocking cultural phenomena of the mid- and late 1950s, especially to people over the age of twenty-five. Like jazz in the 1920s, the new music seemed to separate young Americans from their elders and to usher in the beginnings of a strange and powerful "youth culture." Rock 'n' roll gave millions of young people—especially "teenagers" (a noun that came into widespread use only in 1956)—a sense of common bond: only they could appreciate it.75
