Why write
about music anyhow? Trained, critical analysis may help the student to identify
major harmonic and rhythmic functions: this is common enough in historical and
academic writing on classical music and, perhaps to a lesser extent, on jazz.
Towards the opposite pole, journalism being contiguous with advertising,
marketing and PR, there is no surprise when a review of contemporary popular
music merely regurgitates views articulated by the educated cronies of
corporate executives, helping to advance their economic objective.
But why
would a fan of rock and roll strive to distract himself from the Dionysian
ecstasy of the backbeat in order to scribble ineloquently about aesthetic and
sociological prejudices so far removed from the essence and origins of the
music itself?
In short,
why is virtually all writing on rock music so bad?
It would be
all too easy to throw up our hands, shrug our shoulders and say, “Who knows?
And who cares?” as if the topic at hand were merely some vapid form of
entertainment, when in fact, we know better: Rock is not just Art, but, for us,
the epitome of philosophy, the highest and the lowest, first and last, most
modern yet ancient, archaic, primal, Alpha and Omega.
It is also
religion, and unfortunately, whenever religious truths are forced by a scribal
elite upon the ignorant mass, the result is invariably dogma and superstition.
That is the fate of the wisdom of all great men, Darwin and Einstein no less
than Moses or Heraclitus. What, then, is the Covenant of these circumcised rock
and rollers; where lies the Ark?
Legend has
it, the Apostles John, Paul, George and Ringo received from on (very) high, the
most sacred relic of the Philistine rock critic: Sergeant Pepper.
It is
fascinating how the fabulous foursome’s single weakest record became venerated
by the adolescent music press that had been coming up in New York and London at
this time. I suppose too much Sunshine can be blinding as well as enlightening.
One would derive more profit from listening to Magical Mystery Tour (although I concede as an American I am used
to listening to a version featuring several songs that were initially put out
as singles, and may not have been on the original British release.) Better yet,
skip the needle to the last track on The Rolling Stones’ Between the Buttons.
So much for
drugs and rock n’ roll. The modern critic’s true Achilles’ heel, however, is
sex. This obsession proceeds naturally from the fact that he wants desperately
to convince the world, and not least of all himself, that he actually possesses
a libido. It is visually obvious from the covers of publications such as Rolling Stone. It is doubly heinous that
this whole pseudo-culture exploits images of women while simultaneously
pretending to champion liberal values of respect and equality. Actually reading
their propaganda is far more revolting. Simply holding a pen in hand may not
make one a writer, but it is a far better qualification than holding your own
small, flaccid member.
How could
anyone with such a base and vulgar understanding of human sensuality fully appreciate,
much less pontificate on, the sophisticated
and vulgar double-entendres of Chuck Berry, aped but never equaled by Sir Mick
Jagger, and second perhaps only to the immortal Cole Porter?
Rock is
dead. In two decades Hip-Hop will be supplanted by some new form. Then none
will be left to dig rock but archaeologists, sure to replace the grease and
filth of the printing-press with the dry desert dust of academia.
Cambridge, Nov 2018
