But those satanic verses sure did exist, and the proof comes tumbling out of Rhino Records' new "Loud, Fast, & Out of Control" box (subtitled "The Wild Sounds of '50s Rock") like silver dollars out of a slot machine. These four CDs are packed with chewy passion candies, bite-sized treats pungent with the urges of youth. This sentimental education holds proof of a dozen different truths (like the joys of sax and the fact that the devil does have the best tunes). The 104 tracks achieve a nearly unanimous standard of vigor and intensity, prodded by unhinged abandon or unmistakably bad intentions and nuanced into profundity by the artists' inscrutable mix of raw talent and dumb luck.

At the time, these records helped teenagers embrace the revolutionary belief that youth is more than a condition on the path to adulthood, and that adulthood might not be the only goal in life. In synch with films of the day ("The Wild One," "Rebel Without a Cause"), they institutionalized the division between parents and their offspring, and gave birth to the generation gap. Rock 'n' roll could be simply -- and definitively -- defined as music kids liked and their parents couldn't stand. It spoke for itself, ignored social convention (including prevailing prejudices), undermined authority and couldn't sit still for as long as it took a record to finish playing.

Today's short-attention-span kids no longer have much reason to value rock's tradition, and they've been rewarded by bands all but oblivious to it. Exposure to MTV, hip-hop, power producers and hit records by rappers, dance acts and style-crossing female singers has evolved a new consumer who, if not quite color-blind, is free of racial brand loyalty to the sound and symbols of electric guitar rock. Songwriting is no longer the dividing line between pop and serious artist. Timeless melodies are no longer the holy ghost of music. Blueprints that once defined music of quality and distinction -- originality, imagination, insight, individuality, creative ambition -- have been erased, copied over. What's left is insipid pop in its purest form -- meaningless, disposable, conformist, reactionary.

In other words, the Backstreet Boys, whose new album, "Millennium," is so controlled that it could probably be launched to the moon. The most popular thing to come out of Florida since oranges is well-crafted, market-tested product, to be sure, but it's hard to hear where the bug-eyed rockers jammed into the Rhino box could have mistakenly sown the seeds that would have sprouted them. Maybe the Backstreeters, who work with a Swedish Ace of Base producer and became overseas stars before bringing it all back home, are just a genetic mutation foisted upon us by the Europop dance machine, a factory uncontaminated by lewd American impulses.

"Loud, Fast, & Out of Control" is a home run in more than one slang sense. Sexually, these tracks get as blatant as prevailing social mores of the '50s could possibly abide -- after all, making records has always been a business, and as such was subject to various forms of oversight. (The set omits several emission-standards: Billy Ward and the Dominoes' "60-Minute Man," Hank Ballard's "Work With Me Annie," Etta James' "Roll With Me, Henry.") While some black musicians of the day prospered in the white world by singing about moon-June romance in smooth harmony, others diverted their church-learned spirit into songs about fucking. Little Richard somehow slurred "you sure like to ball" past potential censors of "Good Golly, Miss Molly." Wynonie Harris brags about his "Lovin' Machine." In a rare state of ardor, the genial Fats Domino declares "I'm Ready" (... and willing and able) "to rock and roll all night" -- and you know he's not gonna confine his nocturnal business to the dance floor. And scarcely hidden between the innocent-sounding kitchen commands of "Shake, Rattle and Roll," Big Joe Turner serves up the wickedly euphemistic "I'm like a one-eyed cat peeping in the seafood store."

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