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Listening to the Future. Bill Martin
Читать онлайн.Название Listening to the Future
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780812699449
Автор произведения Bill Martin
Жанр Музыка, балет
Издательство Ingram
But let’s back up a minute. Gracyk’s arguments concerning the way that technology, especially recording technology, affects rock music, right down to its very “ontology” (as he puts it), are insightful, but wouldn’t this argument have to have as its destination a music that is mainly produced with, as Beck Hansen says, “two turntables and a microphone”? In thinking about this, perhaps I am starting to have some sympathy for the “real rock ’n’ roll” types who, among other things, are skeptical of progressive rock for its displacement of the electric guitar from center stage (an issue that I will return to). One doesn’t have to be a Luddite or to think there is no room in rock music for some of the new technical innovations, such as sampling or MIDI (or, earlier, electronic keyboards and synthesizers), to think that there’s a problem when the music, increasingly, is no longer being played by people whom you would ordinarily call “musicians” (though talented technicians they may be).4 Perhaps I am simply expressing a prejudice of the pre-postmodern sensibility however. As Fredric Jameson argues, the thing that allowed for the cult of the “modern artist” (the great genius who could aspire to be the “world’s greatest painter”—“a Picasso” or some such) was the charm of the fact that, in an age of mass production, the artist practiced an older, perhaps even outmoded, craft (see Postmodernism, pp. 305–311).
This is not simply a prejudice, however; it is a considered worry concerning what might happen when, even in the realm of music, people become “mere appendages of the machine” (as Marx put it). In terms of rock music’s deal with the technological devil, however, one might say, “in for a dime, in for a dollar.” When it comes to understanding society and culture in the large, there is a great deal to be said for a structural approach:5 social structures (which include, as Freud demonstrated, structures of the mind) shape what people, whatever their intentions, will be able to do. Social structures set the terms for human intentions and achievements. (This is not to imply that these terms are set univocally or through an absolute determinism.) The originators of rock music—at least, the musicians, as opposed to the technicians and the record company people—brought a sense of rebellion on many levels. But perhaps the commercial and technological terms of global, imperialist, and even postmodern capitalism meant that, despite this intention, what they would create instead was just a new form of distraction, always already coopted by the entertainment industry. After all, these new rock musicians already had at least a few toes in this door (and some jumped in with both feet).
In recent years, it has become especially easy to reach the same conclusions concerning “popular” music that Theodor Adorno reached in the immediate postwar period, namely that this kind of music is simply a product of an emerging “culture industry,” a product designed to distract people from the real conditions of life in global capitalist society. This is music as palliative, salve, drug, distraction, and mere amusement. To the extent that there seems to be a “rebellious element” in this music, it may be that it is no more than what Paul Piccone, extending Adorno’s analysis, called “false negativity.” Piccone’s argument is that the culture industry, as well as the larger capitalist society of which it is a part, actually needs some elements that appear to be rebellious or not simply affirmative of the status quo, for two reasons. First, there has to be some form of entertainment for those who have some inkling that something might be wrong with the way things are. The idea is to channel this feeling into a purely existential realm—such as listening to your records by yourself or with a few similarly alienated friends, thereby, at most, only becoming part of a “taste public” that never gets beyond the minimal social consciousness of there being a few others out there who like some of the same things. Second, the system itself needs to allow some creativity at the margins, in order to regenerate itself—given that it mainly depends on dull, administrative apparatuses (whether these be bureaucracies of the state or corporations) composed of “well-adjusted” individuals who are not supposed to think in any critical or creative way. The system itself needs a new idea from time to time, so it allows a little “free” or “wild” space, though this is carefully controlled and also carefully channeled.
We should note that, for Adorno, most Western classical music is in the same fix—it also tends to be “affirmative,” in the sense of affirming the way things already are. But rock music, especially, is so rigged in advance to be affirmative in this way that Adorno does not see any way out. Now, in Adorno’s scheme, there are only two kinds of music, really: Western classical music, which is compromised most of the time, and “popular music,” which seems fundamentally compromised. There is by now, as the reader might imagine, a great deal of literature dissecting Adorno’s views on this subject.6 My aim here, however, is not to rehearse every one of these issues, but instead to show that the possibility of rock music being something truly important—as opposed to simply being something like the music of our adolescence, whenever that was—does face some real difficulties. And these difficulties do not just come from Adorno, for whom there are at least three shortcomings in his approach to the questions that are relevant here.
First, Adorno undoubtedly was simply too “European,” too steeped in the idea of “high culture,” to have appreciated any music outside of the Western classical canon. In other words, he had a human failing and prejudice here; part of his reaction to jazz, blues, and rock music was merely visceral, and it is unfortunate that he elevated this reaction to the level of a system.
Second, the category of “popular” music is too sweeping, especially when it comes to the role played by the culture industry. Here is where there remains a fundamental difference between the Hollywood film industry, which is at the core of the culture industry, and the making of music: to be a part of the former, one has to move in very big money circles and through a system of “connections” (this is just the tip of the iceberg); to make music, on the other hand, it is still possible to “find yourself an electric guitar, and take some time, and learn how to play.” Undoubtedly, at the “star performer” level, the interconnections between music and the Hollywood core become more concentrated, and this has certainly been driven even further in recent years by the formation of massive entertainment conglomerates and distribution networks. Still, despite the fact that the distinction cannot be made hard and fast, and despite the way that monopoly capital in the entertainment industry continues to erode the distinction, we might all the same make a distinction between “mass culture” and “popular culture.” “Mass culture” has its point of origin and initiation in the culture industry itself—the Hollywood film would be the prime example. “Popular culture” at least begins somewhere closer to the streets—-rap and hip-hop would be examples, but so would early rock and roll. (More on this in a moment.)
Third, and relatedly, Adorno seemingly had blinders on when it came to actual outbreaks of protest and rebellion, and he didn’t see the possibility of experimental music linking up with a real assault on the existing system. Therefore, the idea of a “popular avant-garde” would never have occurred to him.
Again, most of these arguments (and many more) have been made by others—but not this last argument. Allow me to reconnect with my opening claim, from the introduction to this book: this brief, shining moment, where there was the possibility, completely unprecedented, of a “popular avant-garde,” simply came and went so quickly, and with so many forces arrayed against it, that we simply have not taken stock of its significance to this day.
There is an interesting dynamic that shapes this failure to see this particular possibility. I agree with Adorno that there are many factors that make it very, very unlikely that expressions of rock music will transcend what seem to be basic limitations and compromises. In fairness to Adorno, and against some of his interpreters, he never argues that this transcendence is simply impossible. But there is a larger historical issue. Every kind of music emerges and develops against the background of a larger history, society, and culture, and every music stands in some relation (“affirmative,” “negative,” or, more likely, some very complex mixture of these attitudes)