Sinister: no more rock and roll for you (long and long winded... ooops)

[the duke of harringay]

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 at mail.zynet.co.uk




-----------------------------------------------------------------------
.     This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list.
.        To send to the list please mail "sinister at 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 at majordomo.net
.    We're all happy bunnies humming happy bunny tunes.  Aren't we?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------