Ain’t no rest for the wicked: Rock’s fight against ‘Mass Culture’
The United States of America, the star-spangled land of the free and the home of the brave, or a wretched hive of scum, villainy, police brutality and crony capitalism. When America stretched her arms of soft power across the oceans to make whatever they enjoyed being the status quo, it also firmly established its use of Billboard magazine’s charts as the international yardstick to measure a western song’s success.
If the Frankfurt school of thought, which criticised media for the ‘sameness’ of the content in a capitalist society, were to see the Billboard charts today, they would be very proud of their critique. The top 3 songs of 2020 were ‘Blinding Lights — The Weeknd’, ‘Circles — Post Malone’ and ‘The Box — Roddy Ricch’. Anyone who has listened to contemporary pop music would know these songs are popular for their catchy music more than their lyrics. Even if one was to pay attention to the lyrics, it is almost always something banal like flaunting money, clout, drugs, and the age-old classic- yearning for love.
The Frankfurt school of thought had also propounded the idea of ‘mass-culture in the mid-20th century, which detailed the importance of technology in perpetuating the production of this sameness of content produced in media. Another bit of critique that hits so true, now more than ever. Access to music has become very easy with the advent of the internet, but the ways in which music gains popularity has taken a surprising turn. Pop music found itself gaining popularity through its usage as backgrounds for short TikTok videos or Instagram reels- its content seldom being more than the same mind-numbing, repetitive trends; which, as the Frankfurt school rightly said, “makes people intellectually inactive”.
Coldplay, which at its peak was the world’s biggest rock band, now finds its 5 seconds of fame in the mainstream every now and then only when they produce a song with more pop elements than rock. For example, the last song that brought them mainstream limelight was ‘Hymn for the Weekend’, its music and lyrics a far cry from Coldplay’s original profound lyrics and alternative rock music. Then their song ‘Paradise’ recently became popular because it was heavy on electronic/dance music sound and that made it perfect for jolly TikTok videos.
While Coldplay languishing in obscurity is another score for the ideas of the Frankfurt school of thought, the fact that Coldplay used to be the world’s most popular band, is a cry of rebellion in the face of capitalist mass-produced content. After all, Rock and roll were all about rebelling.
The Frankfurt school came up with its ideas when Elvis Presley was dominating the stage singing about his beloved while Steve McQueen and John Wayne were glorifying the USA’s wars and saving the girl.
Slowly yet surely, around the time of the Vietnam war, the American youth had developed the seeds of distrust against the systems that ruled them. That was the time for the Civil Rights movement, protesting the war, hippie culture and Rock and roll. Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and many more had immortalised themselves during this period. Their music was loud, brash and lyrics full of dissent against the traditional polite society that had existed up until this period and dissent against the proverbial ‘man’. It was this period that spawned decades filled with Chart-topping Rock songs. It would have surprised the Frankfurt school to see the rise of Rock and its establishment of itself as the mainstream well up until the late 2000s.
But rock could not have survived this long if it had not been constantly reinventing itself every few years. Rock was born as a counterculture and by its constant evolution, it gave rise to a culture of the counterculture that exists even today, even in pop songs.
“Music, basically, is like mathematics. You know, you’re trying to form patterns. Patterns that make you understand what is around you and patterns that help you get through the next day.”
~ Thom Yorke (Vocalist, Radiohead)
There is no better example to describe the evolution of Rock than Radiohead. Radiohead gained their initial success from their first single ‘Creep’. A song about a man’s unrequited love and his under-confidence, self-image issues which make him unable to express his feelings towards his crush. The obsessive and self-deprecating lyrics are complemented by the sombre guitar riffs, later replaced by raging power chords in the last choruses accompanied by Thom Yorke’s famous falsetto. ‘Creep’ put Radiohead on the map. It gained them immense popularity immediately. Anyone who was listening to 90s Rock can still testify to the song’s greatness and mass teenage angst appeal.
Yet, ‘Creep’ is not the kind of music Radiohead ever wanted to make. Thus, using their initial success, they produced their Rock album ‘OK Computer’, which was an instant classic. According to the RollingStone Magazine, ‘OK Computer’ transformed Radiohead from a cult British act into the most important rock band on the planet. They could have released another album in the same sonic vein as ‘OK Computer’ and they would have become the biggest Rock band of the time. But Radiohead, in true Rock fashion, wanted to push music forward and rid themselves of the sameness in their content. And so, Radiohead released ‘Kid A’. An album that sounds bare, austere, devoid of any exciting feelings. Made from disjointed pieces of sampled music from various traditional as well as experimental instruments.
While the world expected an Album of guitar Rock from Radiohead, at a time when rap albums and boy bands were rising to the top, here was an Electronic album created by a Rock band hitting number 1 on the Billboard charts. In 2007, Radiohead did the unthinkable and released their album ‘In Rainbows’ online, without any record label or producer, and said to their audiences, “Pay whatever you want, even $0”. Radiohead made about $3 million from the album, showing that artists don’t need to succumb to pressures of the system or the current norms to create beautiful content that will secure the patronage of their audience, even in the Capitalist West. Another loss for the Frankfurt school of thought.
Radiohead’s music has been used for background scores of many extremely thought-provoking and cerebral movies like ‘The Prestige’, ‘Prisoners’ and ‘Children of Men’ among many. Their music accompanies media that commands us to think, to get more out of what is simply on the surface.
This phenomenon continues even today. Let’s take the example of the relatively newly formed band called ‘Cage the Elephant’. Despite their recent splash in the music industry, they have an extremely diverse discography. Beginning with Punk Rock infused debut album, the band was formed during the twilight years of Punk Rock. Then some fine pop mixed with their Rock in the album ‘Melophobia’. Now, their latest melancholy album ‘Social Cues’.
Cage the Elephant due obvious inspiration from arguably one of the most popular Punk Rock bands, Green Day. Green Day’s song ‘American Idiot’ is all about Television media’s grasp over public minds.
“Don’t want to be an American idiot
One nation controlled by the media
Information age of hysteria
It’s going out to idiot America”
~ ’American Idiot’ by Green Day
Throughout the vast sonic ground they covered, their lyrics have clearly projected their experience of writing music in the current industry.
“They say that we ain’t got the style,
We ain’t got the class,
We ain’t got the tunes that’s goin to put us on the map”
~ ‘In One Ear’ by Cage the Elephant
Even reflecting on how difficult it is to maintain creative freedom in a capitalist system, as the Frankfurt school mentioned. Yet unlike other artists, rock bands were openly calling this system out and constantly defying it.
“Industry, in the street
Let me go, let me be”
~ ‘Telescope’ by Cage the Elephant
Rock has now begun waning, seen once in a blue moon on the top Billboard charts. But it put up a long fight against ‘mass culture’ and gave us some wonderful songs in the process that pulled us out of our intellectually inactive and politically passive mindsets, that we now seem to be returning to.
