Define "heaven" first. Nicholas xox Jamie Huxley wrote:

"The closest thing to heaven is rock 'n' roll"

Discuss

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Jamie Huxley wrote:

"The closest thing to heaven is rock 'n' roll"

Discuss

not one to shrink from a challenge, although challenging a shrink may be a different matter altogether, here's me chipping in with probably a bit more than tuppence worth... first of all, i'm not even going to start thinking about notions of religious symbolism and reference. i'm not going to start deconstructing notions of 'heaven' in relation to culture, although it may well be a very interesting experiment. i'm going to stick to rock'n'roll. (actually i'm not, obviously...) secondly, i've been thinking a lot recently about the notion of Rock as oppossed to Pop. Actually i've been thinking of it the other way around, but what the hell. Having spent many years being pretty much a resolute supporter of a strain of musical reference which, to greater or lesser extent made a refusal of the genre of 'rock' (see early Kinks, Dexys, Vic Godard, Orange Juice, Postcard, Pale Fountains, the Esurient scene, Sha-La-La etc... ) and which celebrated the appeal of Pop (whilst never going so far as to define in strict delineations what Pop exactly was or was not, which was half the point of course...), i'm afraid i'm always going to have problems with this essentially tired and 'music paper'-led type idea that 'rock'n'roll' is some sacred cow which embodies revolutionary, spiritual enlightenment (okay, so there's a reference to equating culture with spiritual/religious imagery/language... i'm sorry). Vic Godard said something about how rock'n'roll was going well until (something like) 'Whole Lotta Shaking Going On' (tell me the real song, Tim...), and that it was downhill all the way from there. A strange, but strangely natural concept :-) Anyway, i kind of agree with him. See, i think that rock'n'roll in it's natural phase was essentially Pop. No more, no less. Go read Nik Cohn's amazingly inspirational 'awopbopaloobop awapbamboom' for proof, if it's proof that you need. But it started going downhill when it became an industry in and of itself, when it became more than a passing fad of culture, when it became apparent that the cult of teenage was being seen by some as not simply a phase to pass through in the process of becoming an adult, but a state of mind and being to sustain and to use in the creation of new ways of living. A new way to do things. Which was essentially Pop, and so this disintegration of Rock'n'roll into Pop was also it's saviour. So what do i mean by Pop, as oppossed to rock'n'roll then? Well simply this: that the moment to which we return in and through our consumption of culture (and musical culture in particular) is essentially a moment (or sequence of moments that blur into one recognisable period) that embodies the excitement of initial realisations, in other words; the excitement of discovery. It is this feeling which is essentially adolescent, which ties us to the idealisation of teenage, of being 16, which is an arbritrary moment in age, but which nonetheless symbolises this concept as closely as required. I don't mean that we need to read music and culture as having to be about being 16 to be Pop, but rather that, should a piece of music strike the correct chord (as it were!) at a particular moment, then that piece is, for that moment, Pop. It struck me the other night actually as we were coming home from school, listening to the live on radio one version of 'The Clearing' by Arab Strap. It was clear that in so many respects the noise should be described as being Rock, and yet, it was sending the shiver along my spine, making me so excited that i was close to tears, elucidating that essential IT that made me realise that indeed, this was a classic Pop moment. You know; you want to kiss the skies, you want to explode in a pyrothechnic display of other-worldly colour. Just so. Which is, essentially, why Belle & Sebastian are also so resolutely Pop, as opposed to rock'n'roll, despite what some band members might want to argue about their 'rock' influences... because in my book (quite literaly soon, i should hope!), those rock'n'roll icons are actually Pop Icons. Pop Icons because, obviously, the nature of the celebration of personality and artefacts as objects of importance is the personal collection of momentoes. It's the Bruce Dickinson/Paul Morley thing again: "ALL musics will be remembered as simply a collection or gathering of little moments." We might agree on the importance of some moments, we might not. Here we may agree on the repeated listenings to 'Sinister' or 'Tigermilk', the Union Chapel, (or simply the first time you saw them play)... others may agree on 'Stairway to Heaven' and Deep Purple. Yes, even. And to those people, i argue that those moments are Pop, even though they will prefer to call them Rock (and that is their prerogative), if only for the simple fact that the personal nature of music and it's criticism must essentially be derived from the individual voice, the individual experience, the individual emotional response to the stimulant. So: rock'n'roll the closest thing to heaven? NO NO NO. But Pop as Personal Religion? Um, yeah, sure, why not... Oh yeah, and before anyone now starts pointing and accusing me of being overly analytical of all of this, i just want to point out that, as Tim and I both attempted to state earlier this week in the ER thread; i love a musical piece (cultural artefact) BECAUSE I DO. The above type of analysis and (pedantic?) critique is offered because i like to think about reasons for things... i like to have opinions. Also because it's a fun way to spend an hour or so on a sunday morning (whilst listening to Josef K...) no longer dashing quite so much, the duke. -- Tangents On-Line http://www.virtual-pc.com/tangent/ Tangents On-Paper: PO Box 102, Exeter, EX2 4YL, UK tangent@mail.zynet.co.uk ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister@majordomo.net . We're all happy bunnies humming happy bunny tunes. Aren't we? -----------------------------------------------------------------------