sometimes "holding action" pieces get to the heart of a simpler, broader question -- which you've been thinking about so long you can't even see clearly any more
i really like this piece, not because i agree with your judgments in it -- it lays you open much more than usual as being from a different time and space than me -- but exactly because you're laying back a bit and stating the tastes that formed you, without making that being a pretext for immediate plunging back into the thicket of the questions it raises (the latter is what you do, but in doing so you don't always allow space for others to think or breathe, even tho that's yr intention)
I think the difference between Stones and Monkees fans was less to do with class and more to do with age and rebellion. I imagine Monkees fans to be younger and hence quite happy to play the records suitable for mum in the living room. In this same universe, Stones fans are more likely to argue with their mum then storm out in a huff over to Unsuitable Friend's house/the pub to try and get served/behind the bikesheds for a smoke. They've reached that level of adolesence where they don't need parental vetting of their music choices. This goes back to that disreputable chap Elvis & the advent of teenagers, I guess. The Stones have more explicitly adult references (sex/drugs/rocknroll) than the Monkees or the Beatles (who still had references but much subtler!) - if you were desperately trying to feel 'more grown-up' then which would band would you choose to listen to? Even the music itself (louder guitars, harsher sounds) becomes more palatable as the listener matures and can 'handle' it (NB this ties in with piratemoggy's post about small kids
( ... )
That makes perfect sense: in listening to the Stones you were taking an 'older' role than you were when listening to the Monkees. When I listen to Fall Out Boy I'm a great deal more teenage than I am when I listen to Arab Strap, even though I'd never heard any FOB until my twenties and was into Arab Strap most between fourteen and seventeen.
"The sound of the Stones and The Animals-hard rock-gave signals about the apparent social commitments of the people who made the music, put them on the hard left socially no matter what they may have felt as individuals. If The Monkees had sounded like the Stones or The Animals no one would have given a thought to whether or not they wrote and played on their own songs
( ... )
The '60s social change and the political left were perceived to be mixed up together (whether or not the right-left axis is a good way to think about politics and society, this way of thinking was there), and freaks were assumed to be on the political left even when they were fundamentally nonactivist (Berkeley free speech movement morphed from concern with political rights and the right to solicit money for civil rights causes to a general rebellion against in loco parentis and in favor of wilder lifestyles, free speech meaning "fuck" as well as SNCC and CORE). The relationship between the radicals and the freaks was actually often tenuous, even if they looked the same to outsiders, and in 1966 "freaks" hadn't coalesced as a group yet and the Vietnam War wasn't quite the dividing line it was to become in a couple of years. But the rebel hoods and greasers who'd have been naturally attracted to the Stones' and Animals' toughness were ambivalent about the long hair, and hard rock definitely had connotations of taking you to some social
( ... )
So "left" was where the Stones and Animals (and Yardbirds, if I'd have heard them) seemed to be going, which somewhat differentiated them from the hoods and greasers, not all of whom were going to be moved socially to follow the Stones. Of course this map with hard rock on the left didn't hold much beyond 1969, and heavy metal came along to allow kids to go hard without going left.
Re: 2 QuestionskoganbotAugust 6 2007, 15:33:03 UTC
Sorry I didn't respond to these questions straight off, and I don't have time to right now, but briefly
(1) I'm deliberately using the word "class" loosely and problematically, which we discuss a bit here. Briefly, in some circumstances (e.g., a high school) you have to treat groups such as preps and burnouts and freaks as social classes, because it's these classes that structure the school social environment. But you also have to see relationships between these classes and stuff like "middle class" and "working class."
(2) Class not incidental or I wouldn't have mentioned it. What's going on in the culture will have a different impact on different classes, and classes will also evolve their shape and character over time, so a class that consistently creates good music at one time may do much more poorly at another. (Think of an analogy to genres.)
Re: mistaking principles for music?koganbotAugust 10 2007, 20:13:59 UTC
Welcom back! Just wrote a long response and lost it when pressing the wrong button while trying to put the umlauts in Hüsker Dü. But anyway, I love both "Teen Spirit" and "Backstreet's Back," don't buy into either of their social commitments, I don't think, but buy into something: the screaming denial at the end of "Teen Spirit" which for the final 45 seconds is a raving lava flow of intensity. But "Backstreet's Back" is more rock 'n' roll, is basically Bell Biv Devoe and Boyz II Men revved-up through glammy Europop, has a big whomping sound but also those harmonies that go back through doo-wop to the black gospel quartets. Doesn't sound so antiseptic to me, actually, the beats and Nick's aching voice (seems as if he'd listened to Stevie B and the Cover Girls back in the '80s). But I can understand Nathan's reaction, for sure, he being a teenager at the time of "Teen Spirit." Whereas I was nearing 40 and had been in no wave and postpunk bands and had heard scads and scads of Hüsker Dü and Flipper and Black Flag not to mention Guns 'N
( ... )
Comments 20
i really like this piece, not because i agree with your judgments in it -- it lays you open much more than usual as being from a different time and space than me -- but exactly because you're laying back a bit and stating the tastes that formed you, without making that being a pretext for immediate plunging back into the thicket of the questions it raises (the latter is what you do, but in doing so you don't always allow space for others to think or breathe, even tho that's yr intention)
Reply
Reply
Reply
Did listening to one or the other make you feel older/younger?
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
(1) I'm deliberately using the word "class" loosely and problematically, which we discuss a bit here. Briefly, in some circumstances (e.g., a high school) you have to treat groups such as preps and burnouts and freaks as social classes, because it's these classes that structure the school social environment. But you also have to see relationships between these classes and stuff like "middle class" and "working class."
(2) Class not incidental or I wouldn't have mentioned it. What's going on in the culture will have a different impact on different classes, and classes will also evolve their shape and character over time, so a class that consistently creates good music at one time may do much more poorly at another. (Think of an analogy to genres.)
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment