BY SAM GILLIES
During a break at work, I came across an opinion piece that lamented the commercialisation of rebellion in contemporary music. The ABC article ‘Sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll? Give us something new’ concluded with the reflection:
It’s hard to imagine what boundaries are left to break down. Sex, drugs, gender, age, geography, race and class are no longer obstacles; while the internet has liberated musicians from the dominance of record companies. So what’s left to achieve? Will new instruments be invented that create sounds and styles beyond our imagination? Is there a totally new genre or style just around the corner, or is it possible that nothing will ever be better than The Beatles?
Such sentiments appear a common utterance among pop-culture consumers crying out for a new kind of culture shock. Ultimately, I’ve always felt that such an attitude is the result of the assumption that the ’70’s culture wars were a defining model of music’s relationship to culture. They were not.
From as near as we can tell, music has always existed in some form. Musicologists and historians suggest that music may have developed for a number of reasons: communication, communal cohesion, and so on. Like so much of the arts, it’s hard to point to an exact reason for it to exist, aside from the obvious reason that music made early humans feel good and was thusly integrated into their primitive cultures, developing alongside the further development of social practices. Somewhere along the way, music became tied to the practice of religious worship.
In the 12th Century, Pope Gregory undertook a mass codification of music for the practice of worship, and music expanded from a monastic practice to the wider population. For much of Europe, religious worship was synonymous with music. But music was not only the domain of the sacred. In this same period, we see the development of a distinctive and separate secular music. Practiced outside of centres of worship, secular music ranged from the clever to the poetic to the bawdry, embracing love ballads, political satire and other non-religious, culturally important ideas of the period. But the most defining element of secular music is that it was purely for entertainment. Reflection, sure, sometimes. But mostly, it was fun.
When we look at the history of music we can see this continued division between the sacred and the secular and, most importantly, there’s rarely a complaint about these two elements never crossing over. When you think about it, it seems completely illogical to expect to hear ‘Agnus Dei’ performed in a rowdy beer hall, or for declarations of romantic and sexual love to be sung in a place of worship. Today, these divisions have evolved. The role of the sacred in providing significant meaning to our lives has evolved beyond purely worship and, similarly, worship is no longer unquestionably the ideological centre of our philosophies. The sacred has evolved to something greater, the intellectual. The intellectual is concerned with our place in the world, with the human condition. Secular music exists today as well, unabated in the popular and commercial music we consume every day. Its role is fundamentally unchanged – it exists to entertain us. Sure, there is cross-over between the two: we have music that is intellectually entertaining or entertainingly intellectual, but fundamentally these two divisions in music still exist and operate as they always have.
The period of popular music from the 1950’s onward are fascinating because the development in popular music sprung from a revolutionary zeal that was tearing through all aspects of life. There was a massive cultural movement away from the status quo, aided by the copious consumption of mind-expanding substances and a belief that humanity could do something better. The ABC article is correct enough when it states:
Psychedelic music, punk, hip-hop, even the Manchester and grunge “scenes” were born from the struggles against power, authority, rules and restrictions that have largely driven rock music for the past seven decades.
Yes, this period of pop music is fascinating for the incorporation of elements of the intellectual into its modus operandi. That is one of the elements that made it so cool, and it wasn’t just the musicians. The listeners wanted something that was rebellious: rebellion against the status quo was entertainment.
We should remember that everything these artists created was created as entertainment, and that’s great. The world needed The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix – they created a whole range of subsequent artists that continue to entertain us to this day. But their rebellion was entertaining, just as Miley Cyrus hyper-sexualised live performances are entertaining (presumably to someone).
Frustration that popular music today lacks the rebellious fervour of the music of yesteryear, quite simply flies in the face of music history, and is symptomatic of the sort of nostalgic aggrandising of the past that appears all too common in popular music commentators today. The music of:
Elvis, Chuck Berry, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Doors, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, David Bowie, Bob Marley, Bruce Springsteen, Black Sabbath, Sex Pistols, Clash, Ramones, New York Dolls, Kiss…
…and so on was rebellious because it was entertaining. They were entertainers. Yes, some of them picked up on some great elements of the counter-culture, and some of them became more overtly political, but when all is said and done their music existed for entertainment.
Historically speaking, the fact is that our music history is based upon this division between the artists who pursue intellectual and conceptual ideas, and the artists who seek to relate to the commoner, and entertain. This was the case centuries ago, and this is where we are today (the only difference is that the entertainment world has been absorbed by huge profit-driven industries, which consequently gives the more vacuous elements of our musical culture a bigger megaphone). At the end of the day, bands and artists that have become go-to terms for irritating pop-culture – Cyrus, Bieber, One Direction and so on – are here to annoy you because they are entertaining. I’m not saying that I want to listen to them (I don’t), or that there hasn’t been a downturn in overall musicality (realistically, it probably fluctuates depending on the genre. Also, let us not forget that for every Beatles there was The Archies or The Monkees). What I’m saying is, don’t pretend Elvis was anything more than a great entertainer.
Don’t worry, there are plenty of boundaries left to break down. It just doesn’t begin and end with idealistic buzzwords like rebellion, or sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. With a conservative government that seeks to shape the creative arts agenda, alongside with continued revelations of global mass surveillance and a disturbingly prevalent attitude of intolerance, we are far from a new age of enlightenment. The intellectual in our world will continue to respond to the bigger questions. Perhaps, some of these ideas will be picked up by mainstream society and be integrated into our entertainment. That’d be great. But if you want to be challenged, if you want to have your perception of society confronted, or if you want music that is fuelled by experimentalism and innovation, don’t look for it in music designed and seeking only to entertain you.
Today, our musical and cultural innovators are working on the fringes of our communities, attempting to create new works that provide an insight to the human condition. They are performing and exhibiting works in gallery spaces, universities, warehouses, hybrid spaces, and so on. The boundary pushing music is out there – music that challenges the status quo and reflects our changing consumerist culture. There is music that confronts the very idea of what music is, just as rock ‘n’ roll, punk, hip-hop, and grunge once did.
As writers with soapboxes to stand on, we have a responsibility to bring this art to the public’s attention. This is why I’m always disappointed when I read an article that opts for the nostalgic, things-used-to-be-better angle when there is so much great, imaginative and challenging music out there. I guess it’s probably easier to chuck on a Pink Floyd record, sit at home, and write about how music used to mean something. It’s just a shame that such discussions seem to miss the point.
Where do you stand? You can read Simon Tatz’s opinion article for ABC’s The Drum here:http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-14/tatz-sex-drugs-and-rock-n-roll-give-us-something-new/5320138
CutCommon respects the voicing of all opinions surrounding musical and non-musical discussion.
This article reflects the opinion of its author and not necessarily that of CutCommon.
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
