Origins of rock and roll that inspired Alan Freed to coin the phrase "rock and roll" to refer to the music he played. Freed first started playing the music in 1951, and by 1953 the phrase "rock and roll" was becoming used much more widely to market the music beyond its initial black audience. The practitioners of the music were young black artists, appealing to the post-war community's need for excitement, dancing and increasing social freedoms, but the music also became very attractive to white teenagers. As well as "rocking" rhythm and blues songs, such as the massively successful and influential "Rocket 88" recorded by
Rock and Roll Is Dead in Finland, New Zealand and Spain, reaching numbers 10, eight, and five, respectively. In Canada, the song reached number 16. Elsewhere, the song reached the top 40 in Australia, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. The music video for "Rock and Roll Is Dead" was storyboarded by Andrew Trovaioli and directed by Ruven Afanador. The video shows Kravitz performing the song with his band, as well as Kravitz with visual artistic related backgrounds. Kravitz was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for this song in 1996, becoming Kravitz's third nomination in the mentioned category. Rock and Roll