[Note: Here’s the thing — it was more like “gradual school” than graduate school, okay? I ended up dropping out of this program after three years and completing enough coursework for a masters degree. So this paper was the culmination of my time as an academic and I just wanted to see it live somewhere. -hvg]
It is time to take stock of the way that popular music means something to us, and when I say popular music I mean rock&roll as essentially the central form and one of the primary engines to cultural production in this society. This topic, as one of many that can be formulated out of current debates on cultural politics, I would argue is as essential to understanding our immediate and historical situations as any other issue of the day. If we survey the areas in which popular music has served as an ideological battleground we would discover many fecund opportunities as to how these cultural and political debates are played out:
- The tug-of-war that evolved in the 1984 Presidential election campaign over Bruce Springsteen’s Born In The U.S.A. music.
- The second Reagan inaugural address where he promised to “shake, rattle and roll” along through his second term.
- The recent controversies over appropriation of black music by whites, most notably by Paul Simon and the Beastie Boys.
- The hesitancy shown by Jackson Browne to play with the ambiguities of popular music for fear that his meanings will be misinterpreted, as he claims they were on the album Lawyers In Love.
- The chilling effect of the Parents Music Resource Center as they continue to badger and militate for rock&roll censorship. They have helped create the environment where Jello Biafra of the now defunct Dead Kennedys is now on trial for distributing obscene material in their album Frankenchrist and where the FCC recently warned a radio station in California for playing “Makin’ Bacon” by the Pork Dukes because of one listener complaint.
- The issue of Madonna as whore.
- Recent sensationalistic reports of violence at rap and heavy metal concerts and the response of municipalities all over the country to ban or severely restrict public performances/celebrations and/or concerts in public facilities.
- The growing influence of practice of corporate sponsorship of rock&roll music tours and events.
- France attempting to pass laws limiting the amount of English language pop music that can be played on the radio or imported.
What is interesting about the subject of postmodernism and popular music is how it brings into sharp relief particular aspects of cultural production that lie at the very core of most, if not all, of these battles. I would like to mention a few of these in a fairly brief discussion.
Central to any discussion of popular culture is locating the source of meaning in the cultural texts. Clearly the Birmingham School in England has been a major influence for attempting to shift this discussion away from the music producers and towards the consuming community. The theory as enunciated by Dick Hebdige and others is that music by itself has no meaning, that meaning is created from social understanding and experience so that each audience of a particular piece of music helps to create a different meaning for the music. But in this process we must take care, as Bernard Gendron points out, not to obscure or simplify the contributions that Theodor Adorno attempted to make in our understanding of the roles of the music industry and critics in the creation of meaning in rock&roll and in the determination of it as a “readerly” or “writerly” text.
Also connected with these notions of meaning is the ongoing contribution of changing technology within music cultural production. The way that the compact disc player, digital vs. analog recording techniques, the introduction of computer programming and, of course, the use of video reintroduces issues of authenticity and artistic integrity. This seems like recidivism compared to our knowing of the social construction and therefore deconstructability of all cultural texts. Certainly technology has its effects on meaning, but to ascribe it all sorts of bold claims whether positive or negative falls prey to a technological determinism that I fear obscures the other more important debates over meaning.
One of the markers of postmodern culture is that of a text which symbolically transgresses, or formalistically breaks rules. Indeed, it is this very notion of rule-breaking that causes consternation amongst both conservatives and radicals, i.e. those with an investment in a particular program for society. The idea that “anything goes” and “everything is up for grabs” is unsettling when so much of the social foundation is crumbling around us. But let’s remember to keep things in perspective. It isn’t postmodernism that creates a homeless, unemployed population, it isn’t postmodernism that contributes to a frenzied militarism and it isn’t postmodernism that is disintegrating the economy. From an economic rationality that seems completely self-generative we come to understand that rules are its main problem whether they take the form of environmental laws, affirmative action timetables or self-protecting trade measures. Capitalism abhors any rules. Likewise, it seems appropos that postmodernism as a cultural reflection of such a “mood” would adopt rule-breaking as one of its core components. There is nothing guaranteeing subversive qualities in all of this, but that seems to be the point. One could argue that for every huckster making a buck in the current trendiness there is another person being informed in the truly liberatory possibilities of breaking rules. Theft and not property becomes the operative term when appropriation becomes the rule.
So this postmodernism thing, what is it in terms of rock&roll as popular music? Again I go back to the word “mood,” which helps to resist the temptation of the modernist faux pas of periodization. I refer to it as “waiting for the next big thing” when there is every indication that there doesn’t seem to be anything approaching the initial burst of rock&roll music onto the social landscape or the follow-up British Invasion. All that was left to do was to heave one last sigh which occurred roughly between 1976 and 1980. There is a sense of a cultural cul-de-sac, a sort of déjà vu where we seem to go through some of the same cycles of stylization whether it be rockabilly, psychedelia, country-rock, etc, etc. It creates an odd mood or sign of the times in that history seems flattened, it comes back to us through appropriation in a very present-contextualized form that maximizes (?) nostalgia while shaking off the effects of a more critical social context.
Before concluding I want to compare briefly the concept of the street/subway musical performance with notions of postmodern culture. In the same way that terrorism could be seen as a politics of the postmodern one could propose a street musical performance as a form of cultural terrorism. By operating on the premise of a gift relationship, i.e. completely voluntary, non-coercive action, the street musician breaks the rules of economic rationalization and notions of utility. It plays itself off of the increasingly dominant form of exchange in this society, that is the economic exchange. In this way I think that it is subversive to the dominance of economic exchange. By confronting us in public spaces the street performer is positing community in an age of a disappearing social sphere. The street performance posits visibility in an age of invisibility where the very physicalness of the body itself is in question. In a postmodern “mood” where we only seem to register our social visibility in the voting booth (when we choose to do so) or by an economic exchange (where we show up in the monthly report of economic indicators), the street performer becomes visible by positing a possible social, even if for a moment, showing a glimpse of a reconstructed society in everyday life. By becoming visible the street performer is marked by authority for discipline and punishment. Until a January court ruling subway musicians were routinely hassled and fined by MTA officers. Currently there seems to be a truce in these practices.
These public displays of “subversion” if you will also enjoin others in subversive activity. A street/subway performance is reclaiming social time and invites us to do the same. In capitalism time is money so any disruption or counterclaims to this formula is inherently resistant.
But this is a case where resistance is not in the margins of society for in a postmodern “age” there seem to be no margins. Any or all material of society can be picked up, examined and dropped either by the watchful gaze of the media or in the possible exploitative possibilities of capital. Whereas in the Birmingham School where the social context of meaning is located in the subcultural community and therefore discontinuous with the mainstream or popular, I would argue that the street/subway musician should not be seen as marginal—that s/he be seen as continuous with and located within the popular discourse due to the fact that many are professional musicians that attempt to supplement their living in standard economic exchange fashion. Secondly, many of the musicians play to our notions of popular culture. One is more likely to hear “I’ve Got Rhythm” or “Somehwere Over the Rainbow” than an avant-garde minimalist performance piece.
Rock & Roll as popular music during a seemingly postmodern “era” is rife with contradiction, inarticulation and uneasiness with the ambiguity and lessened abilities to explain. I think of Justice Potter Stewart’s comment on one of the most explosive representational issues of our time— pornography. He said, “I can’t describe it, but I know it when I see it.” The same holds for me in coming to understand the role of postmodernism alongside of rock&ROLL as popular music.
Thank you.
