Until the late 1970s rock music in Poland was hidden behind many different labels, such as ‘music of a young generation’, ‘youth music’ or ‘big beat’, usually meaning something, if not pejorative, at least suspicious. Having the flavour of a forbidden fruit, genuine rock functioned quite successfully, mostly through independent circulation, not only as a specific form of art, but, first of all, as a symbol of protest against an existing political and social order (it does not matter if we call it ‘communistic’ or ‘capitalistic’); it was a symbol of independence and freedom.