New Rock City

It’s interesting to imagine how a rock scene in an American metropolitan area would function if a New Rock regime were to take hold. If the scene consists of a group of recluse geniuses, what would fulfill their need for socialization? As absurd as it sounds on the surface, the idea of a “rock salon” is intriguing. It’s difficult to think of Gertrude Stein passing Picasso an acoustic guitar, or Virginia Woolf sharing a spliff with T.S. Eliot, but who knows? The rockist criticism of a rock salon is easy to anticipate— it’s too tame, effete, delicate. But it doesn’t have to be. And as to other forms of socialization, the most obvious question, considering what I’ve already written, is whether bands should make a point of playing live in the cities where they reside. The guiding principle (that recorded rock is usually aesthetically superior to live rock) can be taken to extremes— with this kind of music, hard and fast rules are made to be broken. Who knows?

Another good option for musicians is to become DJs. Every American city has clubs, and club nights; DJ/musicians have the advantage of being able to spin superlative records, without the fuss of trying to duplicate them live. DJs function as mock-curators; to the extent that club-nights can be rigged to feature whatever the respective venues will allow, each club-night works as a kind of “showing.” Because records are what’s being shown, and in a live, social context, the New Rock meets the old halfway. This is especially true if what’s being spun is hometown rock. The club context also takes away the tame/effete ambience of the salon; and, if the tradition of rock debauchery is to be extended (New Rock being more mature, but only 20% more mature, than old-guard standards), this is a good way to do it. As for local press— that’s a tricky one. It depends on the musicians noticing the depth and seriousness of local writing and coverage. If the press corps in a certain vicinity has in it a few earnest rock writers, the relationship can be cordial. If the city press happens to be imbeciles, the more intelligent among the rock musicians will stay away from them. This includes bloggers and Internet presences. In terms of pushing things forward, New Rock scenes might have to accept that it has to happen slowly and in increments. The “hype model” of rock culture probably won’t hold.

The whole idea of New Rock has to do with moving rock forward as an art-form. If it happens, it will require sacrifices, some of them major. There are also potential hitches— if no one, not even the elite, can make much money from rock music anymore, the “rock auteur model” will either involve a trust-fund or an ancillary form of employment. If this seems to land us squarely in Bohemia, so be it. You have to create because you want to create; the poseurs will suddenly have no one to ape. Survival will depend, not on hype but on inspiration; even if New York and L.A. function intermittently to churn out more crap. This is all hypothetical; the old system might find a new way to function. System regeneration in art can be a rapid or sluggish process; and idiosyncrasies often determine new directions. The Gertrude Stein connection is pertinent— the idea that, in rock contexts, aficionados will gain rather than lose power and influence. If these ideas hold at least somewhat, the question for each city is if something coheres— if things fall into place so that a scene develops. Even if participants know that for a long time, no one might notice. And there are plenty of rock venues still operating out of the momentum of the old system, which will die hard, if it does die. New Rock aside, rock in general has to decide what it wants.

Adam Fieled

Solid Craft

Rock has seen its fair share of both solid craftsmen and bad artists. This assertion hinges on how I define craft and art— cultural “crafting” involves making something small, with narrow parameters and ambitions. It’s meant to engage just a few levels, and stylization is often a dominant factor. The most commercial rock and pop music is usually a byproduct of cultural crafting. Take the Neil Diamond song “I’m a Believer,” as covered by the Monkees (or, where the instrumentation is concerned, a bunch of session guys). It’s about new love, it’s catchy and concise, memorable enough to stick in your head; solid craft, and enjoyable if you can accept its narrow parameters. Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne” makes a valiant attempt to be art. It starts from similar terrain— a man/woman relationship— and gets ambitious, connecting the relationship and its implications to religious archetypes and higher ideas of place and time. Serious rock fans, if given a choice, will almost invariably choose the Cohen over the Monkees. The problem question I want to deal with is this— how many of them secretly like the Monkees better?

The higher idea at work here is that, rock snobbery aside, solid craft often beats bad art. Certain scenes have interesting quirks on this level. The Seattle scene around the indie label Subpop in the late 80s and early 90s was heavily invested in the replication of a certain sound— the heavy 70s rock of Aerosmith, the Stooges, Kiss, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath. The Amer-Indie master narrative (a sub-narrative to the generalized rock master narrative) was invested in prior rock artists with more “serious” intentions; not only Big Star and the Velvet Underground but 70s CBGB bands like Television and Talking Heads. Subpop bands never went out of their way to be artsy— they set themselves up as grunge craftsmen just like their musical progenitors. The whole story wouldn’t be remarkable if grunge didn’t become a worldwide phenomenon in the early 90s, and Seattle transform into a world-hub of rock action. The appetite the Seattle scene created was for well-crafted hard rock— no more, no less. One of the few exceptions were the flagship band— Nirvana. Nirvana’s ambition was Beatles-level, rather than Kiss-level; there was too much melody and poetry in their songs for them to be branded hard rock craftsmen.

It’s also interesting to note, as quirks, the structure of the 70s New York CBGB scene, as it evolved— that Blondie’s mordant pop-craft would sell is no surprise; that Talking Heads, in all their post-modern anti-narrative quirkiness, could also break big with the general public is more outré. Were David Byrne’s songs definitively better than Blondie’s? I would argue that, taking craft-intentions and art-intentions into consideration, they were about equal. Blondie’s songs, no matter how unambitious, could make real points; Byrne’s anti-narrative sensibility, however proudly derived from post-modern art, could lead to songs too fragmented (and steeped in the fragmentation impulse) to make much sense. Byrne was anti-narrative without being anti-structural; one reason Talking Heads blew up is because the songs had solid hooks and catchy choruses. You could say that it was Byrne’s craft-ability, rather than his artistic prowess, that made him famous. The strange chiasmus is that art generally has some craft or crafting ability involved in its creation, but the reverse doesn’t work— pure craft employs little art. In terms of what sold their records on a mass level, the art in Talking Heads was a pretense— they were sold by solid craftsmanship.

The best rock writers have moments in which art and craft are perfectly balanced— beyond obvious choices like “Waterloo Sunset,” “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” and “Come as You Are,” obscure gems like the Small Faces “Rene” and the Left Banke’s “Pretty Ballerina” come to mind. It must be said that, for the vast majority of rock records, craft is the bottom line— making small, tightly-wound musical structures and lyrical statements. If rock has produced enough genuine art to be respected by educated minds, it is because at regular junctures lyricists manifest who can effectively mimic the density levels of serious poetry. The music alone isn’t enough.

Adam Fieled

The Road

When Robbie Robertson remarked, in The Last Waltz, that the road is an impossible way to live, it was taken as a poignant moment by rock musicians for whom the rigors of touring were a bane. But the way the music biz is breaking down, bands and performers have less and less of a reason to tour; why tour behind albums and singles that won’t sell? As far as Amer-Indie goes, the old protocol, which involved going on back-to-back or endless tours until everyone at least knew who you are, is getting decimated by the idea that it’s all in vain. How much does touring either improve or detract from rock music and musicians? The question can be spun out and answered in many different ways. Keith Richards has been known to say that the only way a rock band can function is on the stage. But the Beatles certainly functioned after they stopped touring, as did Brian Wilson and XTC, whose approach has always been album oriented. The standard cycle in which most successful rock musicians have always been involved: you write an album, record it, then tour behind it, then write an album, etc, insures that fatigue will be a dominant presence no matter where in the cycle you happen to be. Rock tours are not just grueling; they’re life-taking. If you factor what has already been argued for in Fair Game, that live rock music is overwhelmingly inferior to recorded rock music, would it be any loss if the system of the New Rock made touring less of a standardized protocol and something bands did if and when they felt like it?

To deconstruct further the idea that touring needs to be mandatory, let’s look at another pertinent question: does touring rig things so that you can make a definite connection with your audience? Are those connections superficial or lasting? The minutiae of touring would encourage an inquiring mind to realize that the only connections a touring band could make are brief ones— bands are too involved in making sure the minutiae connects so they can get through their shows in one piece. The idea of meet-and-greets on the road, even for novice indie bands, is strange, because within not that far into the tour fatigue dictates that you don’t want to meet or greet anyone you don’t absolutely have to. The funny thing is that, looked at closely, even superstar bands who are capable of maintaining deluxe accommodations around themselves don’t manage to avoid road wear and tear. The human body just does not like being thrown in a vehicle, jumbo jet or van, and being carted again from place to place over a long period of time, especially when climate and time zone variations are in effect. If what’s being delivered at the shows is not especially remarkable, then again, the system seems illogical and unproductive enough so that, if mercenary interests already needs must be in abeyance, the Andy Partridge/Brian Wilson approach seems both sensible and life-enriching.

One of the points here that is interesting to consider is whether non-touring artists might produce better records, simply through being more focused, more rested, and less concerned about convincing A & R nebbishes. Since the write/record/tour model has never been threatened until recently, there can’t be a definitive answer. But, if we want to call rock music an art-form, a paradigm model focused more on the music and less on an ancillary structure like the standardized rock tour is one that supports rather than detracts from rock music as an art, or even as a high-level craft. It makes the rock biz less of a biz and more of a specialized realm, where these aesthetic ideas (whatever they happen to be) are being developed. Part of these New Rock ideas might need to be adopted by performers out of necessity; as new bands emerge, it will be more and more difficult for them to find a wide enough audience to make a long tour feasible. If bands can’t make enough money to live on the road, there’s little reason for them to go on the road to begin with. Perhaps what we need are a generation of stay-at-home rock geniuses; even if it takes a while for us to recognize who they are, what they’ve achieved, and why their music deserves to be conserved over a long period of time.

Adam Fieled

Regional Rock

While rock aficionados, especially rock aficionados who work at record stores, especially those who work at indie record stores, will always claim to know everything about rock music, there remain patches so obscure and regions so desolate that almost no one is aware of them. For instance, does the history of Philly rock need to be written? Countless bands have been born, lived, and died here, without anyone in the wider world noticing. This brings up another dirty little secret— the rock music business can be very arbitrary. The stuff at the top is not necessarily any better than the stuff at the bottom. Many bands and performers have everything but a sense of luck and timing. All these discrepancies create real snags that lives are destroyed on. One of the big ones is the desire to live like a rock star, even if you aren’t one. If you write songs as good as the Stones, why shouldn’t you be able to live like the Stones? But poverty and drug addiction together create a foundation for extinction. If you can’t get over rock myths and imagery (and many musicians can’t), useful functionality becomes impossible. Then come anonymous deaths. Every major American metropolis has its fair share of rock deaths of this type.

It is blatant hypocrisy: not just the rock press but the entertainment biz press will never admit that this syndrome exists— that what’s at the bottom is often as good as what’s at the top. All kinds of media are invested in creating “auras” around celebrities— the sense that the celebrity in question’s charisma made their fame inevitable and natural. It’s a hoax and a sham. What’s interesting in 2011 is that everyone in rock is in danger of being forgotten. Rock stars who have led privileged lives are having their privileges stripped away— the industry can no longer buttress the perpetuation of their music. The Internet has given those at the bottom a bigger shot at attaining a wide audience than was ever possible before. It’s rock biz class leveling. Now that the base is unsound, the hierarchical levels of superstructure are being broken. The net effect of this is to highlight the regional nature of rock music— scenes in major cities have to feed off of their own momentum. The playing field from city to city might becoming surprisingly level— if the industry presence in Los Angeles and New York doesn’t work as magnetically as it used to (because the industry generally doesn’t function anymore), there’s no reason Philly (or Baltimore or Houston or Phoenix) can’t come into its own.

The myths around rock stardom have to change— if there are no new archetypes, rock people have to face that “mad for it” recklessness will get them killed off very fast. The reality behind the myth is harsh— you can only really be “mad for it” if you’re wearing Pampers. And you needn’t worry about being forgotten, because it will take you a long time to be remembered to begin with. Local myths may replace celebrity ones; in music cities like Memphis, this is already in place. In fact, the Memphis attitude towards popular music has always taken many of these truths for granted— in their Bohemian insistence on doing things their own way, and emphasizing the regional rather than the national or international, Memphis musicians may be considered ahead of their time. Memphis musicians suspected commerciality before suspicion of commerciality became general; now that commerciality is becoming more inaccessible, the regional attitude seems a practical base to work from. It means empowerment for the (conventionally figured) little guys (and gals), and emasculation for the (conventionally figured) big guys (and gals). In some ways, the Internet has turned 2011 into the 60s; it’s a new site for cultural egalitarianism. But the bottom line (and one that will take a long time to sort out) is how good the New Rock is. That will determine whether we are moving forwards or not, and if the new myths will replace the old ones.

Adam Fieled

Rock Merchandise

On American university campuses, in late August or early September (the beginning of the fall semester), poster merchants can be counted on to show up and offer their wares. The rock poster corpus is as intriguing as the classic rock radio corpus. The Stones have always outsold Jimi Hendrix rather drastically; but you will find three Hendrix posters to one Stones; and both Hendrix and the Stones outsell Bob Marley, who takes up 30% more portfolio space than Jimi Hendrix. U2 are often surprisingly absent, but not the Dave Matthews Band, begging the question— who would want to spend the semester staring at Dave Matthews on the wall? Jim Morrison posters often feature quotations from his poetry— and “Rock Heaven” posters often feature Lennon’s head along with Morrison’s and Hendrix’s. Lennon gets his own posters while McCartney doesn’t— often, the “Instant Karma” lyric “we all shine on” is affixed to them. As with the critically acclaimed album corpus, Nirvana and Radiohead are the big Alternative Revolution portfolio participants— some post-Alternative bands, like the Foo Fighters, find their way in too.

But what’s funny about the rock poster corpus is that it often seems to exclude completely the songwriting heavyweights— Dylan might intermittently show up, but no Van, Joni, Lou, Neil, and (the true shocker) Bruce. Where Springsteen is concerned, you’d think the poster merchants might have demographics in mind— that largely middle-class college students wouldn’t go, as blue-collar youths do, for the Boss. But a weird contradiction places Limp Bizkit, Cake, and Sublime into the portfolio, so that the rock poster corpus seems like a confused entity. Even across certain demographic lines, Springsteen sells more records than all three combined. Led Zeppelin dominates Kiss; and certain portfolios even place the more academically acceptable Pink Floyd over Zeppelin. Punk and glam are perpetually underrepresented— and Amer-Indie might as well not even exist. There are determinative quirks— fraternities on American college campuses tend to have a Bob Marley fetish. If there are reasons why American frat-boys find Bob Marley relaxing, it may be because he’s a mascot for marijuana consumption (just as Dave Matthews works for alcohol).

Obviously, the rock poster corpus, like the classic rock radio corpus, is not meant for aficionados. Amer-Indie aficionados tend to have fliers for gigs they’ve played and their own press clippings on their walls; older rock addicts often leave their walls bare. Almost no one, on any level, has their posters framed; framing not being only a middle-class gesture but a middle-aged middle-class gesture. Rock posters become statements of social identity, a way of claiming adherence to certain archetypes. Middling literary types will go for Morrison; those who can pick up a guitar and play a few chords will go for Hendrix. Female rock fans might feel a sense of freeze about the whole rock poster corpus endeavor— sorority girls tend to look elsewhere for decorative materials. The rock poster corpus is almost entirely phallocentric. Even other posters offered, like Marilyn Monroe, appeal to male sexual fantasies. Queerness and multiculturalism are also snubbed. This particular corpus is small and constructed to satisfy a small niche. It’s also more difficult to find these merchants at high-level universities, rather than mid or low-level ones.

Another subtext to these portfolios is that the target audience likes movies and sports as much as music. Rock has its place— Bob Marley (a reggae artist, to be sure, but an adjunct to rock) ranks alongside Reservoir Dogs and Derek Jeter. The American adolescent psyche is complex enough to have compartments— poster merchants know how the compartments fit together. The rock poster corpus is designed to fit alongside other, non-musical corpuses. It’s not self-contained within the bounds of rock culture. It’s for casual fans. As such, the spirit of the corpus is at a tangent to the ostensible spirit of the music. Bob Marley, especially, as a socially significant sign, is reduced to a tawdry caricature. It’s hard to believe Marley could find any common ground with American fraternity brothers. But once a sign is imported into a new context and rewritten, especially a cultural sign, there is often little that can be done. Marley will continue to stare down from fraternity walls, on youths that have grown up with affluence and privilege taken for granted.

Adam Fieled

The Beatles as Killers

The Beatles initiated a revolution in the entertainment industry for one essential reason: their complete and total self-sufficiency. Their early albums contained some cover versions; their singles, which for several years doubled as public calling-cards for them, were uniformly scribed by Lennon-McCartney themselves. Because over the course of the 60s the prestige they gained as two auteur geniuses grew exponentially, the prestige that other entertainment business stalwarts had accrued began to dissipate. This process was augmented by the Beatles phenomenal popularity with the general public. What can be said, for instance, of the Rat Pack after the Beatles? Were Sammy, Deano, and Frank ever the same again? The Rat Pack were put in the sudden, uncomfortable position of needing to justify their existence. From early ’64 to late ’65, the Beatles progressed from “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand” to “Norwegian Wood” and “I’m Looking Through You.” The Rat Pack were never that much about progression; they claimed a certain amount of show ‘biz turf and sought to maintain it. They were dependent on new songs being written for them, and the Beatles made them look like lightweights. Elvis Presley and the first generation rockers were in a not-too-dissimilar position. With the First-Gen crew, the irony is that the Beatles began looking up to them before they shot out past them. Elvis couldn’t produce his own material; Chuck Berry stopped writing songs after a certain point; Little Richard was more of a performer and an entertainer than an auteur. The prestige that marked out the Beatles position in the 60s was as unprecedented as the number of albums they sold. They began as “tycoons of teen” like Phil Spector, and evolved into public artists.

Did the movie business, in competition with the Beatles and the artists that charged into the public milieu after them, ever recover? Where the prestige of the actor or actress was concerned, probably not. Marlon Brando was instantly deemed a revolutionary actor for the rawness of his movements and vocalizations. But, at the end of the day, he was still just mouthing someone else’s words. When the Beatles visited Hollywood, they could be curt with Hollywood folks about these things. And by the mid-60s, whatever prestige Brando might have had was eclipsed by the prestige being awarded to John Lennon and Paul McCartney for the self-sufficient way in which they pushed the Beatles music forward. Rock stars still generally accrue more individual prestige to themselves than actors and actresses; the auteur position of a David Lynch or a Martin Scorsese does generate substantial prestige, but those names fail to resonate with the wide public that Lennon and McCartney did, and still do. Hollywood’s rather ineffective revenge against the burgeoning sophistication of rock music was to ignore it; film music and soundtrack almost never, until “Easy Rider,” had a rock slant; and “Easy Rider” was, in its time, anomalous. Not until the late 70s did rock become fully integrated into the Hollywood machinery; by then, it was admissible to have rock songs in movies. For the last thirty years, soundtrack albums have tended to coalesce around different kinds of popular and rock music, and the integration is complete.

The entertainment business wasn’t the only milieu in which the Beatles were killers. Out in society, on a day to day level, the Beatles began a social revolution specifically around the way men were allowed to wear their hair. “Long-hairs,” following in the Beatles wake, became so common that the idea many small businesses had, of not serving them, had to be thrown out the window. People in society who approved of the Rat Pack sense of masculinity, based on conservative values, had to deal with the Beatles more fluid sense of masculinity. In America, the Beatles (not singlehandedly but substantially) killed off a singular, predominant sense of masculinity. Men could choose to be androgynous; they could also attempt to affix the prestige of the auteur to themselves. In other words, there was a skyrocketing desire among young Americans to be rock stars, “like the Beatles.” The First Gen rockers were entertaining but remained (even Elvis to an extent) marginal; there was no social revolution around Elvis. What the Beatles “meant” as a sign was a new kind of individualism; the media cliché of them as generational spokesmen wouldn’t be there if they didn’t write their own material. Did Frank Sinatra’s generation need a spokesman other than FDR? The Beatles were a novel nuance; a specialized kind of social signifier, for the self-sufficient (or would-be self-sufficient) young like them, who blurred the distinctions between entertainment and art in such a confounding way that even Ned Rorem and Leonard Bernstein, old-style auteur-figures, were impressed.

Bob Dylan did also fulfill this role in a more limited fashion; but, despite having been distinctly influenced by Dylan, the widespread nature of the Beatles success overpowered Dylan’s social position. In many ways, from ’64 to ’70 in America, few others, where youth and individualism were concerned, got a word in edgewise; nor has there been, since then, a youth influence so pervasive and rampant. It’s important to recognize that the Beatles never declared themselves to be generational spokesmen; the media were happy to do it for them. Right-leaning media were also killed off by the Beatles, to the extent that they were forced to cover things that cut against the grain of their ethos. Between media and entertainment business conquests, the Beatles, had they been avaricious for blood, could feel satisfied with what they accomplished. The irony is that the massive social contingent they signified was identified with, among other things, peace and love. But that must have been cold comfort to the Rat Packs and the Elvises, who were forced into a twilight realm instantly, and never really escaped it afterwards. What the Beatles did stuck; and it was a burst of new light that had a good amount of carnage built into it.

Adam Fieled

Portrait Rock City

It is a truism that many people buy rock magazines just to look at the pictures. Looking at demographics, rock does not just appeal to teens and up; children and pre-adolescents are often fans as well. If the writing in rock magazines doesn’t always work, the pictures usually do. Many major rock stars are very adept at creating memorable self-images; and these images become signs to be read by their audience. Rock stars traditionally signify beauty and physical vitality; but rock star beauty has quirks which differentiates it from the TV/movie star version of beauty. For male rock stars, extreme thinness is generally desirable; the frailty of James Dean, rather than the vigor of Steve McQueen. Once the Dean-derivation is established, rock stars have a choice whether to settle in to one style or to keep self-transforming. Changes in musical style are often accompanied by changes in appearance; the rock star physical form becomes an empty site, a canvas.

No one has taken more advantages of these possibilities than David Bowie. In the 70s, Bowie created a series of personas meant to accompany specific self-images. Ziggy Stardust is the most famous. Though the eponymous album fails to cohere as a narrative, the Ziggy image has always been ripe for semiotic analysis. Ziggy, on one level, signifies the conjunction of glamour and alienation, attractiveness and extreme Otherness; in these dichotomies, rock audiences saw a memorable metaphor for deviant sexuality. The words to a song like “Moonage Daydream” combined come-ons and science-fiction imagery; Bowie wanted to have the cake his image created, and eat it, too. What’s important in this case is that the portraits of Bowie in his Ziggy regalia conveyed more than his music or interviews could alone. When Bono thought, in the early 90s, to pull off the same trick, he had a more difficult problem to grapple with than Bowie did. U2 had established their reputation in the 80s as conservative-if-passionate, Christian-if-rockist performers. Expressions of deviance and lust were to be found nowhere in their songs. Looking for a new direction, U2 decided to go post-modern with 91’s Achtung, Baby. They embraced carnality, irony, deviance, and intoxication. The Achtung, Baby songs were meant to signify transformation and rebirth for them. Bono needed to create a new visual signature— he donned black leather, and the kind of spaceman sunglasses that Keith Richards and Brian Jones wore in the late 60s. U2’s vast audience deemed the transformation successful; Bono’s persona, “The Fly,” dominated 92’s Zoo TV tour.

On the other hand, many key rock images have not been interrogated. When John Lennon died, the signifying image left behind was startling— a naked Lennon lying on a carpet, clinging to a clothed Yoko Ono, who didn’t look at him but into the distance. The subtext was plain; Lennon, with his usual candor, was exposing his vulnerable (even infantile) dependency on Yoko Ono. This was the image that adorned Rolling Stone’s cover immediately following Lennon’s death— but no one took the trouble to parse it. Rolling Stone was invested in making Lennon appear like an invulnerably gifted genius. What Bowie, Lennon, and Bono have in common is the recognition that image manipulation can be an art-form, in keeping with the post-modern “surfacy” ethos of visual artist Andy Warhol. Bowie and Lennon were very skillful (even if no one had the guts to decode Lennon’s message); Bono’s moves seemed contrived to many. The general level of rock image manipulation is middling. In the 90s, the images that adorned Nirvana’s album covers were intriguing and memorable, even if Kurt Cobain proved to be an anti-clothes horse. What 90s images often conveyed was lost or threatened innocence; and, to the extent that there was no Bowie in the Alternative crew, image was supposed to be subsumed beneath musical substance. If kids continued to buy Rolling Stone and Spin just to stare at the pictures, it was because the music business hadn’t changed that much. On some levels, it still hasn’t. There will always be an avid appetite for youth and beauty, put into vivid motion by the machinery of fame.

Adam Fieled

All You Need is Lists

Rock music magazines dote on lists. We have seen, in any number of different places, “The 100 Greatest Rock Albums of All Time,” “The 100 Greatest Singles of All Time,” “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time,” etc. Though they often amount to a cheap way to fill up space, these lists are instructive, because they lead us to another corpus, and how the rock master narrative structures the hierarchies of what’s deemed the best rock music. What, for instance, is generally deemed the greatest album of all time? It used to be Sgt. Pepper, but the master narrative shifted from Pepper to Revolver by the 90s. Some lists might put the Stones “Exile on Main Street” or Dylan’s “Blonde on Blonde” at the top. The top 20, beyond more Beatles, Stones, and Dylan, will generally include the following— “The Velvet Underground and Nico,” Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks,” Joni Mitchell’s “Blue,” Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” and (sometimes) Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon.” This creates some discrepancies with the master narrative itself; a perceived heavyweight like Neil Young, because he has produced no definitive albums, can’t get anywhere near the top. You’re more likely to see Nirvana’s “Nevermind” or Radiohead’s “OK Computer.”

The funny part happens after the top 20, once all the requisite classic/classicist spaces have been filled in. Rolling Stone, Spin, Mojo, Uncut and the rest still have 80 spaces to fill in. You can bet they’ll shovel on “Rubber Soul,” “Blood on the Tracks,” “Let it Bleed,” etc— but most of the choices that do something other than consolidate the top 20 seem arbitrary enough to be amusing. At #24, we have Elvis Costello’s “This Year’s Model”; at #46, David Bowie’s “Hunky Dory.” What is the logic behind this? Why does Bowie need to be precisely 22 spaces behind Elvis Costello? Is there a special criteria for 20s, 30s, 40s? Let’s say Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced” is at #35; does Hendrix form a kind of talent wedge between Costello and Bowie? The guys that put these lists together are the guys that do interviews themselves; it would be interesting to have someone speak about how these lists are coordinated. From 50s back, “cult classics” become de rigueur— you might actually see Big Star’s “Radio City” or Nick Drake’s “Bryter Layter.” Who will you never see? Ironically, many of the Titans of the classic rock radio corpus will seldom show up here— Boston, Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, Supertramp, Heart, the Moody Blues, Yes, ELP, Journey, Kansas, John Cougar Mellencamp, Billy Joel, and others.

There are also some discrepancies between American and English publications— English mags will emphasize, not only the Kinks and the Who but the Small Faces and the Zombies. American mags tend to lean more on repeats of Dylan and Springsteen, and perhaps even “Hotel California.” Beyond Nirvana and Radiohead, there have been few decisive movements towards Alternative Revolution albums. The English press will bend over backwards to include Oasis, Pulp, Blur, etc— but the American press remains hostile to them. However, this is all still “100s talk.” When an expanded list is built (500s), brakes are taken off and we see a sudden and generous egalitarianism on display. The goal, of course, is to fill up space (especially during slow seasons), so “500s talk” includes not only Big Star but Badfinger, not only Syd Barrett but Skip Spence, not only the Kinks but Culture Club. The New Romantics generation is funny with rock consonance; dismissed but also cherished as kitsch. The Boomers laughed but hyped them for the requisite amount of time. Now, they are space-fillers for special occasions.

Yet, there is a modicum of integrity at work here. Some sub-genres are so low as to be untouchable. Even with “500s thinking” at work, you won’t find hair metal invited to the party. Bon Jovi, Poison, Motley Crue, Dokken, Europe, and the rest are all carefully avoided. Yet what makes Poison’s “Every Rose Has its’ Thorn” that materially different than the Beatles “Good Day Sunshine” from the greatest album of all time? Is “Yellow Submarine” that much better than Duran Duran? What does “I Want to Tell You” have on Tommy Tutone? Little differences are blown up big to create a larger chasm than is actually there. And few, especially at these magazines, have the balls to thwart the master narrative. The master narrative is, itself, much more intimidating than the Beatles, Stones, and Dylan actually are. People subscribe to notions because they feel they have to. These lists wind up being pure (if redundant) reflections of the master narrative. Eventually, it may be seen that this narrative is a kind of paper dragon. It can’t breathe any real fire because there’s little high thought behind it. All of us have the choice to be dupes or not before it. The choice is yours, don’t be late.

Adam Fieled

Taking On Lester Bangs

It’s not uncommon that master narratives will include meta-narratives about the master narrative itself. Within the corpus of rock writers who created the rock master narrative, who is most often singled out for attention and (sometimes) praise? Lester Bangs is a rock writer who, for the duration of the 70s, was a heavy influence on anyone who decided to write seriously about rock music. He was a jokester, a prankster, but also a kind of floating conscience— a moralizer who wanted to see rock stars do the right thing by the working stiffs who bought their records. Even though the balance between Gonzo and moral elements was uncomfortable, Bangs was a stickler for the “real,” the authentic, and embraced it wherever he found it. His tastes ran to the avant-rock that began to pick up steam in aficionado circles by the early 70s— the Velvet Underground, Iggy and the Stooges, the MC5, and even Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks.” He also embraced what he considered to be good natured kitsch like the Troggs (who became famous for “Wild Thing”). Bangs was most at home writing for Creem magazine, which was, in sales terms, an underling to Rolling Stone, and the finality of whose demise was particularly brutish. It’s very hard to find a vintage issue of Creem anywhere. Nevertheless, much of Bangs’ best writing has been reproduced many times over, in anthologies and collections oriented around just him. He was a genuine personality, no less than Mick Jagger or Jimi Hendrix, and was able to inspire devotion in those who followed him into the volcanic abyss of total rock consonance.

Nothing helped consolidate Bangs’ position more than having Philip Seymour Hoffman play him in the 2000 film “Almost Famous.” The film, written by Rolling Stone stalwart and screenwriter Cameron Crowe, amounts to a Valentine sent to everyone involved in the rock business in the early-to-mid 1970s. It idealizes and views nostalgically the rock lifestyle, complete with sexual and other forms of excess, and the position of a neophyte rock journalist who wants to play with the big boys (and girls). William, the neophyte, stalks Bangs until Bangs deigns to talk to him. Much of what Bangs in the movie says to the William character is negative— that bands are hypocrites, who will act like his friend to get a nice story written, that Bangs himself is a lonely recluse who never goes out, and that (as William doesn’t realize) Bangs is leading him on to believe that the story he’s writing is worthwhile. All this adds up to a very ambiguous portrait. But the movie gilds every possible lily into a pleasing form, and we are meant to see Bangs as a lovable misfit. Possibly, there is some truth to this— that Bangs wanted to be seen as a lovable misfit. But the important judgment, in terms of what Bangs wrote, was how much substance did it contain?

When Bangs would do his morality routine with artists like Lou Reed and the Clash, it was always with the presupposition that these guys, at least in their music (and, as is the case with the Clash, their morality), were genuine. That was where the buck stopped for Bangs. But what, for Bangs (if we decide to take his writing seriously) did “genuine” mean— musical sincerity, lyrical gravitas, a willingness to overlook commercial interests in the hope of changing lives, or a composite of all these things? Bangs never wrote a really rigorous summation of what his rock consonance aesthetic was. That’s the other half of his critical ethos— the idea that he needed to be just winging it, as a kind of Gonzo dilettante. He had to care, but it wouldn’t have been cool to care too much. Gonzo did mean there was ample room in his writing for humor; as when he would rave, with potent ironies in tow, about a new Chicago triple live album. His humor also emerged when he was confronted in person with his musical idols; Bangs going head to head with Lou Reed, and making (according to his own narrative of the event) a complete cretin of himself. Bangs apparently saw himself and his Creem cohorts as inheritors of a Beat sensibility; that his antics added up to a new gloss on Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty. There were some highbrow literary references in Bangs canon, as when he compared Black Sabbath with John Milton. Bangs could occasionally play the middle; with Sabbath/Milton, it was difficult to tell if he was being Gonzo or earnest. That Bangs was at least a competent prose stylist did differentiate his writing from that of other rock scribes. He was fluent, and a natural energy flowed through his sentences and paragraphs. If he has been cast up as a kind of rock Ezra Pound, great aesthete moralizer (and God knows Pound did have, fortunately or not, a Gonzo side), it’s because his prose in grounded in fluent literary ability.

But, ultimately, what remains unredeemed in Bangs is what remains unredeemed in most other rock critics; the sense that he knows literally nothing about music. Most of his pieces amount to semiotic analyses of rock stars’ personas and personalities. He couldn’t write much about the music itself. Bangs at least had a defense for himself on this level; since most rock music was itself musical rubbish, why should he need to know anything about rock as music? It’s hard to argue that most rock music, by most musically proficient standards, is not tripe; but that there is some quality music in the rock corpus which needs to be dealt with as music remained unaddressed, because Bangs and his cohorts were not capable of addressing it. When you swing over from the Chicago triple live album to “Astral Weeks,” Bangs’ writing loses it pungency. Bangs was better at satire than he was at criticism. As such, from a literary standpoint he can be seen as a minor Swiftian. But that he could have an elevated place could only happen in a desolate milieu. And when you rip open a movie like “Almost Famous,” you can see that it would be Bangs’ worst nightmare; a candy heart from Rolling Stone to itself. Bangs’ Gonzo persona was at least memorable, in the movie and in his prose. As such, he does outdistance the other rock critics of the time.

Adam Fieled

The Curious Case of Led Zeppelin

On the surface, Led Zeppelin couldn’t be a bigger rock success story. Commercially, they were a dominant force in 70s rock. They outsold almost everyone. If the critics and the Boomer cognoscenti didn’t like them (they didn’t make the cover of Rolling Stone until 1975, after having been the world’s biggest rock band for a half-dozen years), they wound up influencing many generations of rock musicians that followed them. They were eventually embraced by later generations of critics, who sought to redress the balance of what had been said about Zeppelin the first time around. Yet what makes the Zeppelin story curious is why certain levels took off instantly and why some took time to develop; why things were withheld from Zeppelin while they were around, that have been granted to them since. Master narratives do sometimes reverse themselves; and, by ten years after their demise, the rock master narrative had reversed its negative judgment of Zeppelin (using Rolling Stone, again, as a barometer, which in 1988 produced a piece praising, in sequence, all of Zeppelin’s albums). On the other hand, British rock musicians from the first generation of British rock, especially ones who had become successful before Zeppelin showed up, have maintained an often harshly critical attitude towards them. Pete Townshend called Led Zeppelin a “gross, disgusting object”; Eric Clapton seemingly never forgave the band for ripping off certain blues artists (Zeppelin have been sued for plagiarism by Willie Dixon); while Paul McCartney name-checked Jimmy Page in “Rock Show,” none of the Beatles have spoken of Zeppelin as potential rivals; and Ray Davies has pointedly ignored them.

One simple explanation would be jealousy; within a year of releasing their first album, Led Zeppelin were a massive commercial force; Led Zeppelin II knocked the Beatles’ Abbey Road off the top of the charts. Prime-era Zeppelin even outsold the Stones. The British Invasion big four (Beatles/Stones/Who/Kinks) were all singles bands; by the late 60s, a band like Led Zeppelin could arrive and attain prominence just from touring and word of mouth, without the aid of hit singles. But tremendous success not buttressed by hit singles created a strange dynamic; it meant that Zeppelin had less of a reason to be on TV and a.m. radio. There was no “Ed Sullivan Show” moment for Zeppelin in the States, which could’ve brought them before a large public, other than rock fans (though that contingent in the US populace was substantial). Without more of a show-biz presence, Led Zeppelin rapidly became invisible to the US media. They were out-selling the Beatles, but from underground. Zeppelin never developed a “singles strategy”; as far as the wider media were concerned, they began underground and stayed there. Since what media were attracted to Zeppelin were dealt with roughly, including nascent rock press, a mutual animosity and antagonistic attitude developed. This happened at a moment when the media frenzy around the Stones, particularly, was intense and consistent.

These were unfortunate circumstances, because Led Zeppelin were hitting creative peaks which became instant Bibles for developing rock musicians. Because Jimmy Page could begin with simple riffs which would be spun out by the band in interesting directions, Zeppelin’s best songs mixed simple and complex elements in memorable ways. A genius in the recording studio (one of whose specialties was microphone placement, specifically to preserve echoes and overtones), Page was able with his cohorts to produce a sound of tremendous, layered depth. The sound itself, rather than lyrical or thematic content, was always the predominant emphasis with Zeppelin; how textural elements (even unlikely ones like theramins or violin-bowed electric guitars) combined disparate parts to make wholes. If texture didn’t give the media a ready angle, it magnetized late Boomers like absolutely nothing else. By achievement and impact, Led Zeppelin almost instantly gained “secret Beatles” status; even as rock critics weaned on Dylan and the Beatles sneered. The best 60s rock lyricists were revered and feted like poets; many of them also believed themselves to be such. They were perceived by some to be not only poets but prophets, agents of political change and transformation. Led Zeppelin were perceived to be anti-poets, and apolitical ones at that. The critics of the time couldn’t hear Led Zeppelin, because they were listening for something else. Since those scribes were not particularly musically competent (not only as potential musicians but as listeners), they could only evaluate Zeppelin based on vague prejudices and suppositions. Led Zeppelin could sound harsh and grating to unsympathetic ears; to use the parlance of the time, they were heavy. Many people experienced Zeppelin (and still do) as all-or-nothing; you either get them or you don’t. The media perceived them as musical ogres. Close listeners knew they were equally capable of bucolic folk and balladry.

Why, by the late 80s, did the master narrative need to be reversed? It was because by then, the musical influence of Led Zeppelin had become so pervasive that entire genres had developed from what they initiated. Heavy metal and hard rock of that period, much of which was commercially successful enough that a magazine like Rolling Stone couldn’t afford to ignore it, was firmly grounded in a Zeppelin-derived sound. Because they continued to sell, and because they spawned so many imitators, Led Zeppelin were eventually handed the media crowns that had been worn by the Beatles and Stones. They were, through their influence and classic rock radio, household names; the secret was out. Because drummer John Bonham, an integral part of their sound, had died in 1980, effectively ending the band, the victory must have seemed bittersweet. But it is a testament to the power of a musical vision that once the crown had been placed on Zeppelin, it stayed. They are as engrained into rock history as the Beatles and Stones. As long as the volume on sound-systems can be raised, it is likely to remain that way.

Adam Fieled

Guitar Ecstasy

To my knowledge, a straight line has never been drawn between Jimmy Page and Billy Corgan. Yet, from the first time I heard Gish (which, admittedly, wasn’t until ’94, right around the time I got into Siamese Dream), I had the thought that what Billy Corgan was doing in the recording studio was an extension of what Page was doing in the studio in the 60s and 70s. It’s the artful layering of guitars— what Page used to call the “guitar army”— that constitutes the similarity of Smashing Pumpkins (and I refuse, for sentimental reasons, to call them “the” Smashing Pumpkins) and Led Zeppelin. Layered guitars, if properly used, create compelling textures and fill up massive canvases of space. Is it possible to articulate what these canvases look like if you don’t play guitar yourself? Possibly. But it’s interesting to note that layered guitars have a snake-charmer quality, which can attract millions of fans without anyone being quite aware of what they’re attracted to. You also won’t hear many rock pundits talk at any length about the collusion of studio and six-string the produced the best of Corgan’s and Page’s music. They wouldn’t be able to talk about what happens when you layer a Fender over a Gibson, or, in Page’s case, a Danelectro over strategically miked drums. A further nuance that Corgan shares with Page is the luck to have at their disposal a powerhouse drummer (John Bonham and Jimmy Chamberlain, respectively), to build a rock-solid foundation into their guitar armies.

The whole issue of guitar armies brings up an issue and a sub-genre not often discussed in larger rock magazines— that of “Advanced Rock Guitar” or “Guitar Oriented Rock” music. This sub-genre, which is extensively covered by musician-oriented publications, took off in earnest in the early 80s. The advent, through Eddie Van Halen, of “finger tapping” and other nouveau techniques created a demand, in certain circles, for complete technical proficiency as a basis for rock guitar innovations. By the end of the decade, performers like Steve Vai and Joe Satriani emerged, who were elite technicians, competent to play rock, metal, jazz, or classical, and who appealed to the niche group of other guitar players. General pop consonance (and pop-level record sales) was not their forte. Jimmy Page and Billy Corgan took off from opposite sides of this movement; Page did enough innovative guitar work to set the stage for it (he even used bits of finger tapping in “Heartbreaker” from II), Corgan went through some rigorous training to achieve this level of technical proficiency before migrating more towards song orientation. One of the fascinating aspects of Smashing Pumpkins music, for similarly inclined guitar players, was the brief appearance, here and there, of bits of Vai, Satriani, and the rest. Yet, with a larger vision in mind, Corgan always held back from demonstrations of technical proficiency. The guitar army textures he created served his songs, which melded pop, rock, and metal in such a way that a large audience responded. It is also worth noting that the technicians did not appear to influence the generation preceding them— that Clapton, Beck, Page, and the rest have never (in public) reacted to Malmsteen, Vai, and Satriani. The sub-generic niche they created remains an isolationist one.

Smashing Pumpkins ’93 opus Siamese Dream stands as one of the monuments of the Alternative Revolution. It is the record that made them a household name. It’s also an important musical step forward for rock music, which few critics in the 90s noticed. They chose to dwell, instead, on Corgan’s melancholy lyrics and confrontational persona. But on Siamese Dream, Billy Corgan created a new vocabulary for how a guitar army could be used in a pop-consonant context. On the record, Corgan (with the assistance of James Iha) used octaves in a way that they had never been used before. Corgan’s octaves (usually played on the A and G strings of his guitars, and an octave is the musical equivalent of a “double”) took what Jimi Hendrix did in “Third Stone from the Sun” to the point that they dominated the musical textures of the songs in which they were employed— “Cherub Rock,” “Hummer,” “Rocket,” “Silverfuck,” etc. As a musical gesture in rock, an octave fills up space in such a way that a large expanse of canvas is instantly filled in, and in a satisfyingly rich way— fans were able to feel “enclosed” in the Pumpkins music. It’s a comforting sound, which can lean towards limpness when jazz musicians like George Benson use it. In Corgan’s hands, it both comforts and pulverizes. In that dichotomy (comfort vs. force) is the essence of the Pumpkins’ music. It’s a difficult trick to pull off, especially in the context of an entire album. For its duration, Siamese Dream never really drops the ball. Siamese Dream also begs an intriguing question— would Corgan have gotten to his effective usage of octaves if he hadn’t gotten through at least some Satch/Vai training? Did he have to get complex to get effectively simple later? I think so. Often musical breakthroughs are simple, and seem obvious in retrospect. To the extent that Corgan hasn’t been credited with this musical breakthrough heretofore, it’s appropriate that he is now.

Adam Fieled

Academic Rock

To make a long story short: rock music is not supposed to be academic. Academics are generally considered to be staid conformists by the general public, and the rock cognoscenti. They aren’t sexualized and they certainly don’t use drugs. However, if, on the one hand, rock music is to reinvent itself, it is also old enough to have a rich history. Someone has to preserve the best of what’s passed. Why shouldn’t academia be a valid preservative outlet for rock and other popular music? Rock people who dismiss academia as boring and sterile have generally spent little time there. The prejudice against academia in rock is based on ignorance. However, class will quickly raise its head as an issue, on many levels— because a cadre of academic mandarins, of the middle or upper classes, deciding what lasts and what doesn’t must be abhorrent to a body of musicians and performers largely drawn from the working classes; and because a class migration upwards for listeners of this form of music may or may not be likely. What if, for rock music, the choice is between this and oblivion? Is academia a fate worse than death?

The major repository for obsolescent art-forms is generally academia; and the fact that the old order of the music business is largely obsolescent brings general obsolescence into view. The working classes generally don’t have means to preserve things at high levels; but, after the Beatles, rock music has few precise class affiliations. It is worth noting that the “mandarin” status of academics results from intellectual achievement, rather than from material wealth; academics don’t get paid that much. Successful rock musicians, no matter what class they spring from, tend to make one-hundred times more. But an argument can be made that rock musicians and academics (a surprising number of whom are, in fact, rock fans) should begin to form bonds, some way or other. Trained intellectuals can appreciate rock music on higher levels than average listeners can; if only a small body of rock music offers high levels, form/content wise, to begin with, it can only be perpetuated by those who know how to teach it. Rock music pedagogy doesn’t have to be tepid or pedantic; it can demonstrate the evolution of a popular art-form into a “post-popular art-form.”

How much does rock music deserve cultural recognition? Because a good number of intellectuals are intrigued by rock music (and honorary degrees are often awarded to rock stars), and because middle-class fandom of rock music is now de rigueur, rock is by no means an exclusively working class phenomenon. It does cut across class lines. It is also worth noting that successful rock music from the 60s and 70s has remained far more popular than movies, television shows, and light literature from these periods; kids today, who wouldn’t know Klute or Rosemary’s Baby (though they might know the Brady Bunch), know the Beatles and the Stones. Where higher art-forms are concerned, a forty-five year life-span is moderate; for popular art-forms, its’ phenomenal. That life-span, established by 60s rock, augers well for some kind of preservation to be apropos. Like it or not, there will have to be some mediators. If, as I’ve argued, rock critics aren’t adequate, the nod will most likely have to go to academics. If a new corpus is built, there will be no way to make everyone happy— some will want more punk, or less British Invasion music, or a more heavy emphasis on this or that period or sub-genre. Rock has enough range to produce a multicultural corpus, and one that appeases feminists, queer studies scholars. There are few cultural alliances that rock hasn’t made at some point. Except, of course, with academic culture. Academia has, heretofore, preferred movies over rock music; but if that changes, rock musicians will have to adjust to academic presences and influences.

Adam Fieled

Folkways: Rock Myths

A substantial mythology has developed around rock music over the course of fifty-five years, encompassing modes of production and dissemination, social mores, levels of appreciation or “fandom,” and sub-myths for individual performers. Some of the myths have their basis in facts; others are more or less fallacious. Not all of the fallacious myths involve individual performers; some are more fundamentally engrained into the fabric of the popular music business. One issue worth looking at is the validity or non-validity of live rock music. Are rock performers worth seeing live? It might or might not be questionable to assert that 90% of the time, live rock music is not as exciting or accomplished as recorded rock music. Recording studios allow for more subtlety, nuance, and precision. There are reasons to see trained jazz and classical musicians live— jazz musicians are capable of worthwhile and interesting improvisations, while variations of tonality and timber are audible when symphonies, string quartets, concert pianists perform. Rock concerts serve a social purpose, bringing together those of similar socioeconomic backgrounds, age-groups, and tastes. But what is seen onstage is usually an inferior representation of a recorded performance. Also unlike jazz or classical pieces, rock songs are generally short; the brevity of the songs guarantees that not much momentum can build. As the extension of an art-form into a live, performative realm, live rock music is mostly a failure.

There are some exceptions— performers like David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Kiss, and U2 have sought to create visual spectacles to accompany their performances. U2’s Zoo TV tour in the early 90s was particularly extreme— a post-modern spectacle that saw Bono order a thousand pizzas and call the White House from the stage. Huge montages of catch-phrases and witticisms appeared on massive video monitors to accompany U2’s songs. But as regards most popular rock performers, being “good live” is mostly a myth. The music business has always relied on touring performers as a source of revenue and an outlet for selling merchandise; now that the momentum of the music business has slowed, it can be seen that what propelled it was mostly greed.

What part do critics play in propelling the rock biz machine? For one thing, they validate the notion that rock music is a serious art-form, rather than mere entertainment. Rock critics and biographers do produce books that sell in mass quantities; the Jim Morrison bio “No One Here Gets Out Alive” is a good example. Rock books become another, ancillary form of merchandise. They can consolidate an artist’s position; or, as is the case with Bob Dylan, create an aura of genius. In terms of how substantial rock music criticism has been, the disappointing truth is that almost all of it has been dross. Occasionally, a professor or musicologist will assay rock music; but, for the most part, rock critics have no serious musical or literary training. They can only talk in generalizations about the music— most couldn’t even tell you if a given song were in a major or minor key. They can’t follow chord progressions and don’t know what scales are being used. Key changes, also, go over their heads. So, on a musical level, and from the point of view of a musician, rock criticism is a joke. Exegesis of lyrics is different— most paid rock critics do have college degrees (which most rock stars do not). They can read. But can they read seriously? Not much. They are over-impressed with superficially impressive lyricists and tend to ignore incoherence. Especially if the rock master narrative encourages them to do so. If you suspect, as I do, that the professors and musicologists have crass motivations for getting involved in rock music, it’s hard to escape the notion that no serious rock criticism has emerged as of yet.

Now, to something even more fundamental— what, generally, is the image of the rock star? On a semiotic level, the rock star tends to signify youth, beauty, sexuality, and rebellion. But to what extent are rock stars really rebels? The music business encourages strict conformity to standardized norms— ironically, one of the norms is that the rock star must appear to be rebellious. Yet it is often nothing more than a carefully crafted illusion. Rock stars have to be conformists to succeed in a commercial realm. The ideology that rock stars tend to espouse is the ideology of no ideology— no ideology, but conformity to an image. There are some major exceptions— the Clash, for example, have always gone out of their way to align themselves with a certain strain of Marxist idealism. They have promoted the ascension of the working class to a point of substantial influence and sovereignty in English society. Yet Joe Strummer onstage was an archetypal rock star— sexy, charismatic, and a selling point. The Clash, in other words, had to conform not to conform. Where pure and totalized rebellion is concerned, there have been no pure rebels as rock stars, because as pure rebels they could never have become rock stars to begin with. Rock stars have to kowtow to many systems, that are larger than they are— economic modes of production and dissemination, and a superstructure involving a fickle public.

It would seem to be counterintuitive, but it is a truth— pure rebellion is both more common and more necessary in higher, less commercial art-forms. Because the audience does not include a wide public, and because crass commerciality is less of a concern, higher artists are more free to express wider and more novel realities. And critics of higher art-forms have a harder time getting away with being ill-informed. What’s striking, in 2011, is how little these myths about rock music have been interrogated. The implication is clear— despite a wide public, few higher minds have been drawn to rock music. As such, those drawn into the rock matrix have been too intent on conformity to expose what’s against prevailing systems. If these interrogations begin now, they begin at a time when the rock music business is in sharp decline. This is a chance for rock music to reinvent itself. If there is something durable about this music, it should emerge now. The time clearly spells “stand or fall,” where rock is concerned. And if the best of what rock music is, is to be passed on, weak myths need to be weeded out.

Adam Fieled

What is the rock master narrative?

The master narrative that dictates how people listen to rock music began to form in the 1960s. At the time, popular music attracted a cadre of critical writers who promoted themselves as serious critics of rock music. The presupposition they made was that this form of popular music had graduated from subsisting as a form of entertainment into an art-form. The ethos espoused by these critics (few of whom had serious literary or musical training) was young, fresh, and resolutely anti-academic— the criticism was grounded in generalizations about rock music and moderately close readings of rock lyrics. The hinge into a new era that was seen to be legitimate by these critics (there were multiple hinges, but this was the dominant one) was the corpus of songs produced by Bob Dylan between 1962 and 1968. Dylan’s lyrics aspired to the title of poetry; he was championed by Allen Ginsberg and other Beat writers; he was taken seriously by the New York Times. Respect and veneration for Dylan’s achievements became the first foundational block of the rock master narrative, and it remains largely intact today. Indeed, it is remarkable the extent to which Dylan is still considered oracular by critics, musicians, and journalists. This is true, even if Dylan has been outsold by almost every major rock artist since his emergence. The public have never been as convinced as the aficionados are. Among aficionados, it remains de rigueur to take Dylan’s artistic supremacy for granted.

Among other 60s artists, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones remain fundamentally unchallenged as “major” presences. Where criticism of the Beatles is concerned, it is commonplace to rank the songs of John Lennon over those of Paul McCartney— Lennon’s raw honesty is perceived to trump McCartney’s musical polish. But the Beatles were fundamentally changed by Dylan in a way that Dylan was not changed by the Beatles— as such, the major critical corpus of rock writing has tended to rank Dylan over the Beatles. Considering the extent to which the Beatles outsold Dylan, it is interesting to note that the rock master narrative is angled against the tastes of the general public. For casual listeners of rock music, there is no master narrative. As the vast majority of rock listeners are casual, rock critics sought to listen to the music “seriously,” on higher levels. Yet rock music is a popular art-form— whether or not there are higher levels to be listened to is (for the most part) debatable. If the critics who deemed Dylan’s lyrics poetry had no experience of serious poetry (and few did), than this portion of the master narrative has some loose screws. But, loose screws or not, this portion has become consolidated enough that few major rock figures have dared to criticize Dylan. The Beatles and Dylan are seen to be somewhat on an equal plane; the Rolling Stones, for some reason, are forced to play underling in the trinity. Commercially, they’re wedged between the Beatles and Dylan. While unassailably “major,” Dylan’s supposed grandeur and the Beatles overweening ambition ace them out. Nonetheless, a quirk of the rock master narrative is how many serious listeners will side with the Stones over the Beatles and Dylan. The Stones were edgy and confrontational even past Dylan; they steadily made rock music, rather than building bridges from folk and pop. So the Stones, in the trinity, generate confusion and disruption.

Past this, the second tier of 60s rock contains many artists who rival and sometimes outdistance those in the first— that Ray Davies, in particular, should be relegated to the second tier is interesting. And it must be said that there is a sub-narrative among musicians and critics in the UK which does place Davies squarely at the top. Other sub-narratives include 60s artists like the Velvet Underground, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, and the Who. Lou Reed, the Velvets’ auteur, is a hinge to another facet of the master narrative. This facet has been consolidated over thirty years. It involves a value judgment as to who the “true heavyweights” are, where songwriting is concerned. The stalwarts of the group are usually Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, and Van Morrison. All these artists are white; all emerged in the 60s or 70s. What cemented these artists’ position in the master narrative is the production of a substantial body of work over a long period of time. Commercial success might’ve been intermittent— artistic integrity and success were the mandatory prerequisites. The problem with this portion of the master narrative is that artists who do a quick burst of interesting work and then die or vanish can’t be raised up as heavyweights. Longevity is a superficial system of judgment, which creates a narrative without Kurt Cobain, Alex Chilton, Syd Barrett, Tim and Jeff Buckley, etc.

Importantly, and perhaps not coincidentally, almost the entire rock master narrative has been created by the early Boomers, born in the 40s or early 50s and weaned on Dylan in the 60s. They control the big magazines, and have access to publishers that younger voices don’t have. Because the production of the master narrative came originally from earnest impulses and now emanates from nostalgia, it has lost much of its potency for younger generations. As much as critics from this era attempt to find places for sub-narratives like Punk, Glam, Grunge, and Brit-Pop, the original placement of the trinity holds, and beneath it the “serious heavyweight” grouping. The rock music master narrative keeps a respectful distance from black music, even though black music is largely the basis for rock music. It also functions as a component part of the commercial industry around those it endorses. This is especially relevant where Dylan is concerned; books, movies, television documentaries, and magazine articles are regularly generated to keep Dylan present and accounted for to the general public. Upholders of the rock master narrative do make a group effort to keep Dylan aloft; it is perceived to be a necessary effort.

But the truth is, it is only really necessary if Dylan is a demonstrably superior artist. If he isn’t, the rock master narrative crumbles to bits. The judgment of this master narrative over the next twenty years will be interesting to watch. The Boomers will die off; other generations may create new narratives around rock music. As much as Boomers might prefer otherwise, the fate of Dylan and his music will not be in their hands. The master narrative that follows theirs’ might seem unthinkable to the Boomers, and the Boomer critics whose opinions we might interrogate. It might even be an issue to contend with if rock music deserves another master narrative. If only bits, pieces, and fragments survive, there’s a good chance it doesn’t. The original rock master narrative will be seen as a strange curio to scholars of popular culture, little more. This lesson stands— master narratives have their own strange dynamics, which are difficult to define or control. As they evolve or remain static, they mirror the temperaments of generations. They can then become a hinge to high viewpoints.

Adam Fieled

Thank You Fiends: Big Star's "Third/Sister Lovers"

Narrative cohesion has never been a strength or selling point for rock albums. Concept albums like Tommy and Arthur fall apart upon close analysis; whatever Sgt. Pepper is supposed to add up to, it doesn’t add up to a coherent narrative. What’s intriguing about Big Star’s 1974 opus Third/Sister Lovers is that, if the tracks are placed into a certain order, a coherent narrative does emerge. The pivot point of the narrative is a male protagonist unparalleled in the annals of popular music— a sensitive, androgynous if heterosexual young man, involved to the point of extinction in multiple relationships and contexts. Because the lyrical cohesion of the album is matched by startlingly original music— a compound of White Album-era Beatles, baroque pop like the Left Banke, and deconstructive impulses that really have no precedent but Lou Reed’s Berlin and solo Syd Barrett— Sister Lovers stands out as one of the highlights of the rock era, a masterpiece with its own integrity. Yet this integrity is difficult to find unless the songs are placed in a particular order— and the sequences that have held sway so far are not sufficient. The sequence that is being discussed here will be presented at the end of the piece.

As far as the protagonist of the album is concerned, sensitivity and androgyny are adumbrated by perversity— the first track, “Kizza Me,” has him address “Lesa,” the heroine/anti-heroine of the album, “I want to white out…I want to come on out…I want to feel you, deep inside…” Between word games and graphic sexuality, we know that these characters are romantic, but marginal, artsy, possibly seedy— a subculture underbelly exposed, rather than Bruce Springsteen’s noble savages. The sound of the album is slow, warped, druggy— when the protagonist intones “nothing can hurt me/ nothing can touch me” in “Big Black Car,” we know that this is not only a revelation of obfuscated vulnerability but of intoxication. What’s important for the movement of the narrative is that the protagonist is investigating multiple relationships— we meet Lesa first, then in “O, Dana” we meet Dana and her circle of friends. “O, Dana” is, in fact, a crucial narrative hinge. The lyrics to “O, Dana” amount to a collage of voices; each line seems to represent a new person offering a witticism, lament, interrogation or interjection. Dana appears to be the person in the center who everyone wants, including the protagonist. The most interesting lines accrue to the second bridge— “She’s got a magic wand/ that says, Play with yourself before other ones.” The protagonist reveals numerous things in these lines— that he is, in fact, if not a poet, at least poetic (he thinks in metaphors); that he is aware of Dana’s recalcitrance as he desires her; and that he considers this magic wand a perverse anti-phallic symbol, symbolizing Dana’s reluctance to get involved, even if Lesa has extended her generosity to him on this level. After “O, Dana,” the dichotomy between Lesa and Dana is clear— Lesa, as love-object, is a singular entity, difficult but yielding; Dana is at the center of a frenzied social nexus, where satellites are a part of her persona. One thing Sister Lovers avoids is a direct confrontation between Dana and Lesa; until “Nighttime,” Lesa never vocalizes her discomfort with Dana’s circle. But once all these balls are in the air, it is clear that the Sister Lovers narrative is essentially a love triangle. This applies even if we never see Dana without her friends; not a “she” but a “they.” For the protagonist, the situation amounts to sensory overload.

The centerpiece of the album, where the protagonist is concerned, is “Holocaust.” As a lyric, “Holocaust” is pure portraiture— it shows the protagonist in an emotional, psychological, and physical vacuum. It is also doused, on a level with Faulkner, in a Southern Gothic sensibility— the product of a mercilessly hot climate and the slow lugubriousness it engenders. Beyond the lyrics, the usage of slide guitar as auditory manifestation of psychic torment is particularly effective. It’s a more refined, inventive version of the slide guitar passages in Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird.” The disturbing quality of what could be called the Oedipal passage in the song (“Your mother’s dead/ she said, don’t be afraid/ Your mother’s dead/ You’re on your own/ She’s in her bed”) is born of its ambiguity— is she dead or isn’t she? And the richest lines in the song function as a repeated refrain— “Everybody goes, leaving those who fall behind/ Everybody goes as far as they can/ They don’t just scare.” The viciousness of Dana’s gang could qualify them to be the “everybody”; that the protagonist “just scare(s),” lacks courage in the face of opposition, is something we’ve seen in “Big Black Car.” Yet the extreme sluggishness of the music (which contrasts interestingly with a gorgeous melody) suggests intense, sickly drunkenness. Self-pity could be a constituent element of the music too. What makes the track so chilling is the incredible intimacy conveyed in Alex Chilton’s vocal. The track was mixed and engineered (by John Fry and Jim Dickinson) so that Chilton’s vocal hovers right at the top of the mix. To the extent that Chilton and the protagonist can be conflated, Chilton paints his own self-portrait. It is a profile in utter darkness, even if social contexts rear their heads. The mirror mentioned in the “Holocaust” lyric is itself a potent symbol for the song. Even if the mirror is being gazed into in an unlit room.

The mirror is a symbol— and symbolic material and imagery is strewn haphazardly through Sister Lovers. “Big Black Car” suggests a hearse; we see Lesa’s scarves and blue jeans in “Kangaroo” and “Nighttime”; Beale Street, in Midtown Memphis, manifests in “Dream Lover”; gymnasts and kleptomaniacs are used to suggest Dana’s friends in “You Can’t Have Me”; and, of course, Dana’s anti-phallic magic wand. It is important to note, however, that the relationship between the protagonist and Lesa remains a predominant theme throughout the record. This is consolidated in a run of songs at the end— “Dream Lover,” “Blue Moon,” “Take Care.” These songs seem to represent the protagonist’s final intervention and withdrawal. The final withdrawal is from Lesa; after “Nighttime,” Dana and her crew fade to the back. This is seemingly at Lesa’s instigation. One of the unique aspects of this narrative is that the protagonist is not forced to choose one, but to reject both. By “Take Care,” he sounds utterly exhausted. The album does represent an exhausting journey. And how many rock albums represent this much nuanced movement? Sister Lovers, pieced together this way, has the richness of high art. That it remains a “cult classic” is understandable; the vision of the album is extreme. Ultimately, it has more to do with Sir Philip Sidney than with the Beatles and their contemporaries. It is, for my money, the greatest rock album of all time. That Alex Chilton is seldom mentioned as one of the greatest songwriters in rock history is owing to a master narrative created by underlings. But works of high art are meant to evolve over long periods of time. So some of us hope it will be with Sister Lovers. What time may take from others, it may give to Big Star. Posterity does have a brisk way with treacle.

Adam Fieled

Kizza Me
Thank You Friends
Big Black Car
Jesus Christ
Femme Fatale
O Dana
Holocaust
Nature Boy
Kangaroo
Stroke It Noel
You Can’t Have Me
Nighttime
Dream Lover
Blue Moon
Take Care

Face the Strange: What was Classic Rock Radio?

In terms of structures that coalesce on different levels, rock music has many things in common with other cultural contexts. Rock has produced movements, conglomerations, and different corpuses of work that have manifested at different times. Many of the structural movements around rock music, especially regarding dissemination, have been dictated by mercenary concerns. Rock is, of course, a commercial art-form. One of the more curious developments involving rock music, where dissemination and commercial presentation are concerned, was the rise of “classic rock radio,” that took root and thrived from about 1985-1995. The dissemination of “classic rock” on classic rock radio stations involved the creation and maintenance of a discrete corpus of music— what radio stations deigned “classic.” What’s fascinating about this corpus is how arbitrary it appeared to be— and the demographics that dictated this arbitrary appearance. The first assumption that radio stations made is that, thirty years on, listeners in target groups would have no interest in what were already characterized as “oldies”— first generation rockers like Elvis, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, etc. So, the classic rock corpus wasn’t a lofty bid for comprehensiveness— radio stations were aiming for an audience for whom rock began with the Beatles. The rock music master narrative (which hasn’t, over the long term, proved to be particularly reliable) has always asserted three central sixties titans— the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan. The Beatles and Stones were both so consolidated into the classic rock corpus as to have some predominance; but one quirk of the corpus is that Dylan was almost completely excluded from it. Occasional airplay would be given to “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Positively Fourth Street,” but there was always a better chance of hearing Lynyrd Skynyrd or Foreigner.

Was Dylan that much of a commercial underling as to merit non-inclusion? In this niche, he was. Yet Dylan has been the subject (and this was already established) of dozens of books, serious articles, profiles, and movies. It would be unlikely that a “Don’t Look Back” style documentary would be made about Foreigner. Dylan has always been a media darling; classic rock radio unearthed the dirty little secret that a large mass of the general public does, in fact, prefer Foreigner to Dylan. Yet other occurrences around the classic rock corpus confounded the possibility that all decisions were made in favor of crass commerciality. Dylan was on one side of Foreigner; on the other side would’ve been Kiss, who had by then outsold almost everyone in the classic rock canon. Dylan got bits of intermittent airplay; Kiss got even less. The natural conclusion to be drawn is that the creators of the classic rock corpus found Kiss’s songs not worthy of inclusion. But what the AOR bands (like Foreigner) had over Kiss remains unclear. The Kiss exclusion, considering their sales numbers (and that other hard rock bands like Led Zeppelin received heavy airplay) was baffling. Black Sabbath’s exclusion, considering their low sales profile, made some sense; they may even have been considered too heavy. But the truly droll aspect of the classic rock corpus often manifested in playlists that seem to have been generated on other planets. Try to make sense of a run of songs like this:

Heart, “Magic Man”
David Bowie, “Changes”
Supertramp, “The Logical Song”
Pink Floyd, “Us and Them”
Billy Joel, “The Entertainer”
John Cougar Mellencamp, “Pink Houses”
Led Zeppelin, “D’yer Maker”

It’s not just that the songs are cross-generic— each song is at such a tangent to those before and after that an argument can be made that heterogeneity defined the classic rock corpus. However, the wild extremes represented involved not only genres but values. “Changes” and “Us and Them” are both serious songs that address serious themes; the Mellencamp song seems about half-serious; the rest are kitsch. Thus, the experience of listening to classic rock radio was extreme; you could easily be delivered into the sublime or the ridiculous. The only internal logic seemingly operative was to keep the integrity of the corpus intact. Specific contexts on these stations opened for “adjuncts” to the corpus to appear. The most obvious was late-night— that if you tuned in at 2 am, you might hear Fairport Convention or the Velvets. Another feature accompanied new releases of adjunct artists like Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, and XTC— it was a sign of respect to air the first single a handful of times. But, over the decade that classic rock radio stations were prominent on FM in the States, surprisingly few adjuncts managed to consolidate a place in the corpus, which did manage to retain a good amount of integrity. The happiest experience for these stations was when a corpus stalwart hit a new commercial peak— this happened with Yes and George Harrison in the late 80s. New, successful singles could be incorporated without loss into the corpus. Unsuccessful new singles by high-ranking artists (like the Stones singles from Steel Wheels) would be incorporated for a while as a sign of respect, then discarded.

Things could be amped up owing to the Zeitgeist, as well— the late 80s wound up being a boom-time for Led Zeppelin, whose high stock went up even higher in the corpus. Led Zeppelin were one of the few bands to have entire albums consolidated into the corpus; at any time, you might hear anything from II or IV. Boston’s first album was almost completely consolidated; Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors; the Eagles’ Hotel California. Greatest hits compilations aside, the Beatles and the Stones (for some reason) could boast of no such thing. Zeppelin had an edge as the reigning British band, bar none; but you’d never hear much from III, Physical Graffiti, or (especially) Presence. Another surprising exclusion was post Diver Down Van Halen; the 1984 singles (their biggest hits) were scarcely visible. You could hear the Kinks do “Low Budget” but not “Waterloo Sunset”; and you were more likely to hear early Animals than any Kinks. It could be asserted that the demise of classic rock radio killed off the Animals as anything but “oldies.” Possibly it killed off Eagles’ album tracks too.

All these events are complex and nuanced, if inexplicable. The classic rock corpus was comforting, but my friends and I were made restless by it. By the late 80s, and having missed the Smiths the first go-round, I was deep enough into rock to despair of hearing anything new, produced in my lifetime, as strong as the Beatles, Stones, and the rest. What happened next (the Alternative Revolution) answered that despair in an authoritative enough manner that the classic rock corpus, as a gestalt, was made almost instantly obsolescent. But it remains interesting, for its quirks, and for the way it created an illusion of permanence. Bodies of work, if presented to the public in a regular enough fashion, do seem to hold a sense of inevitability. However, there is nothing natural or permanent about the classic rock canon, and what it left out was as revealing, ultimately, as what was included. It wasn’t “just the crap” or “just the good stuff”; it was some of both, pieced together in such a way that cohesion was never possible. The target market was clearly late Boomers; but early Boomers were still too young to be an oldies crowd, and suburban kids like myself were getting a kind of education too. Was it an education that Nirvana and the rest later erased? For me, not much. If you’ve heard “Feels like the First Time” a thousand times, you’ll never get it out from under your skin.

Adam Fieled