The Politics of Youth Culture: Some Observations on Rock and Roll in American Culture Author(S): Lawrence Grossberg Source: Social Text, No

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The Politics of Youth Culture: Some Observations on Rock and Roll in American Culture Author(s): Lawrence Grossberg Source: Social Text, No. 8 (Winter, 1983-1984), pp. 104-126 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/466325 . Accessed: 06/04/2013 10:43

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This content downloaded from 158.135.1.176 on Sat, 6 Apr 2013 10:43:17 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Politicsof Youth Culture: Some Observations on Rockand Rollin American Culture

LAWRENCEGROSSBERG

INTRODUCTION

The riseand visibilityof youthculture in theUnited States after the Second World War is marked,most prominently,by the emergenceof rock and roll.' Some have arguedthat this reduction of art to commodityis merelythe finalstage in the productionof the human subject as consumer:passive, acriticaland unable to define politicalopposition. Others have argued that rock and roll, preciselyas a formof leisure,has a culturalpolitics based on its representationof the psychological,culturaland politicalaspiration of youth.The alternativequestions that I wishto pose concernthe relations between the heterogenous uses and contextsof rockand roll on the one hand, and the specificityof rock and roll as a culturalform with its own evolvingpolitics on the other.Rock and roll is not onlycharacterized by its musical and stylisticdifferences; it apparentlycan be used in radicallydifferent ways by dif- ferentfans. Contemporarycultural theory-from Williams to Foucault-agrees upon the need to locate any particularcultural text within a specificreconstruction of its historicalcontext.2 However,how does one describesuch reconstructionsand identifythe functionsor effectsof rock and roll withinthem? Furthermore, despite the diversityof the locallyproduced effects of rock and roll, it seemsto constantly reproduceitself as havinga certainunified historical identity. How does one move beyondthe set of reconstructedcontexts to a readingof rock and roll as a cultural form? My approachto thesequestions depends upon two assumptions.First, particular rock and roll textsonly produce effectsinsofar as theyare located withina larger "rock and roll apparatus" throughwhich the music is inflected.This apparatus includesnot onlymusical genres and practices,but stylesof dress,behavior, dance, etc., as well as economicand politicalrelations. Second, the powerof rock and roll is locatedin itsaffectivity, that is, in itsability to produceand organizestructures of desire.But the organizationof desireis always the siteof a strugglefor power, of a resistanceto the regimentationof affectiverelations.3 The culturalpolitics of any momentin the historyof rock and roll is a function,then, of the affectiverelations existingbetween the music and othersocial, cultural,and institutionalfacts. I will use "affectivealliance" to describean organizationof concretematerial practices and events,cultural forms, and social experiencesinto a structurewhich partly determines(always in a strugglewith ideological formations) the historicalpossibili- ties of desire. Thus, not only must the effectsof the rock and roll apparatus be definedcontextually but its effectivityis definedprecisely by its productionof the LawrenceGrossberg teaches English at theUniversity of Illinois,Champaign. 104

This content downloaded from 158.135.1.176 on Sat, 6 Apr 2013 10:43:17 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions AmericanRock 105 materialcontext within which its fans use the music. The rock and roll apparatus organizes the disparate pieces of that contextaccording to certain structuresof affectiveinvestments rather than throughsemantic representations,experiential homologiesor emotionalevocations. Hence, such a descriptionof the effectsof rock and roll is neitherphenomenological nor ideological. In fact,this view of the affectivefunctioning of rock and roll allows us, not only to examinethe concrete politicsof particularmoments of rock and roll but also, to move beyondsuch con- textualismto describethe unityof rock and roll. We can identifythe culturalform withthe structuresby whichthe rock and roll apparatushas consistentlyproduced and positionedits fans withina limitedset of affectivealliances.4 I will suggestfive general characterizations of rock and roll framedwithin the problematicof poweras theorganization of affect.The firstsuggests that the domi- nantaffective context of rock and roll is a temporalrather than a sociological one. While class, race, gender,nationality, subculture and even age may be partlydeter- minativeof specificaffective alliances, the emergenceof rock and roll should be locatedin thecontext of growingup (in theUnited States formy purposes) after the Second World War. The second hypothesiswill propose the particularstructure of oppositionthat constitutes one momentof theunity of rock and roll, its particular affectiveeffectivity. This cannot be sufficientlydescribed as the constitutionof an identityor the productionof a utopian fantasy.Rather, rock and roll inscribesand cathectsa boundarywithin social realitymarked only by its otherness,its existence outside of the affectivepossibilities of hegemonicalliances. In more traditional terms,rock and roll inscribesthe particularmark of postwaralienation upon the surfaceof othersocial structuresof difference.Nevertheless, this mark of difference -its productionand effects-arenot alwaysthe same. The thirdhypothesis suggests a way of describingthe range of effectiveboundaries that rock and roll appears capable of defining.The fourthhypothesis discusses the notionof cooptation,i.e., theprocess by whichrock and rollis appropriatedinto the contextsof the dominant organizationsof affectso thatit loses whateveroppositional force it may have had. Finally,the last hypothesiswill describethe aesthetic-textualpractice of rock and roll as a postmodernistone: a practiceof "excorporation" located at the site of particularcultural contradictions within the hegemony.My conclusionis thatrock and roll is a formof culturalrebellion and neverof politicalrevolution.5

HYPOTHESIS I: ROCK AND ROLL IN THE POST-WAR CONTEXT

Anyreading of rock and roll mustbegin by identifyingthe contextwithin which it is to be located and its relationsidentified. The dominantfeatures are almost alwaysidentified as sociologicalvariables (i.e., thesociological characteristics of the music's producersand consumers).These variables,while often locally significant, must constantlyconfront their own exceptions.Such sociological descriptionsdo not provideconvincing accounts of theemergence and continuedpower of rock and roll; theymust continually appeal to an a prioridefinition of the musicembodied in a particularhistorical moment. For example,the adolescenceof the rock and roll

This content downloaded from 158.135.1.176 on Sat, 6 Apr 2013 10:43:17 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 106 Grossberg audience is obviouslyan importantdeterminant of the musicitself as well as of its culturalpolitics. The frustrations,desires, fears and resentmentsof pubertyprovide much of the energyand manyof the concernsof rock and roll. However, even this apparentlysimple determinationis mediatedby other emotions,experiences and events.And whilethe firstaudience of rock and roll was almostentirely teenagers, thisis no longerthe case. Anotherexample is theplace of class determination.While the class experiencerepresented in rock and roll may functionsignificantly in one context,it maynot functionsimilarly in all musicor contexts.Attempts to generalize Hebdige's readingof punk as working-classmusic mustconfront, not only Frith's argumentthat it emergedout of a largelyart school and "bohemian" context,but also thosecontexts in whichpunk functions in a largelymiddle-class context without anyromanticization of theworking class. The factthat particular forms of rock and roll have specificclass roots or referencesdoes not necessarilydetermine its recep- tion and social effectsin particularcontexts. On the otherhand, thisis not to deny thatthe fact of (class) originmay have specificmediated effects, particularly through local iconographies. Alternatively,if we startwith the assumption that rock and rollis relatedin some way to youth'soften articulated experiences of alienation,powerlessness and boredom, can we locate the contextwithin which these experiences emerge and rockand roll functionsas a specificresponse constituting a "youth culture"? Consider the obvious factthat rock and roll emergedin a particulartemporal context, variously characterizedas late capitalism,post-modernity, etc. The dominantmoments of this post-warcontext have been widelydescribed: the effectsof the war and the holo- caust on the generationof parents;economic prosperityand optimism;the threat of instantand total annihilation(the atomic bomb);6 the cold war and McCarthy- ism withthe resultingpolitical apathy and repression;the rise of suburbiawith its inherentvalorization of repetition;'the developmentof late capitalism(consump- tion society)with its increasinglysophisticated technology for the rationalization and controlof everydaylife; the proliferationof mass media and advertisingtech- niques and theemergence of an aestheticof images;the particularredistributions of social knowledgeas a resultof both televisionand increasingeducational oppor- tunities;the attemptand ultimateinability to deal withthe factof the baby boom; the continuationof an ideologyof individuality,progress, and communication(the AmericanDream); and, to echo Sontag, an increasinglyreceding threshold of the shocking.The resultwas a generationof childrenthat was not onlybored (the Amer- ican Dream turnedout to be boring)and afraid,but lonelyand isolated fromeach otherand theadult world as well. The morethe adult world emphasized their uniqueness and promisedthem paradise, the angrier,more frustrated,and more insecure theygrew.8 These culturaleffects were themselves located withinan even broaderapparatus whose significanceis only now being recognized:they operated in a world characterizedby a steadilyrising rate of change thatdid not allow any appeal to a stable and predictableteleology. There is in factno sense of progresswhich can provide meaningor depth and a sense of inheritance.Both the futureand the past appear increasinglyirrelevant; history has collapsed into the present.The ramificationsof

This content downloaded from 158.135.1.176 on Sat, 6 Apr 2013 10:43:17 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions AmericanRock 107 thisfact are onlynow becomingvisible as we confronta generationthat no longer believesthat their lives will be betterthan those of theirparents, even thoughthe "rhetoricof progress"is stillpresent. Suddenly, "we are obliged to remake from scratchthe foundationof our taste,as of our politicsand our verylives. Old waysof judginglinger (only as) unexaminedhabits, comforting defenses against the recognition of our common lostness."9 As historyloses its sense, it can no longer be a source for the values by whichone chooses and validatesone's actions."? This new sociohistoricalcontext further reinforced youth's conviction of its own uniqueness;indeed it determinedtheir dominant generational needs and perceptions in thefifties and since. If adolescenceis a timewhen one seeksnot onlypleasure but also a viable adult identity,then the collapse of thedeep structureof historyunder- minedthe traditionalmodels. The significanceof Holden Caulfield, JamesDean, Marlon Brando, and the Beats as culturalheroes lies in theirstruggle to achieve some identityconsistent with this new set of experiences.The Beats' turn to the model of the black hipsterpointed the way forthe rock and roll/youthculture. Rock and roll emergesfrom and functionswithin the lives of those generations thathave grownup in thispostwar, postmodern context. It does not simplyrepre- sentand respondto the experiencesof teenagers,or to those of a particularclass. It is not merelymusic of the generationgap. It draws a line throughthat contextby markingone particularhistorical appearance of the generationgap as a permanent one. Similarly,class divisionsare reinscribedand realignedas theyare traversedby theboundary of postmodernity,of thedesires of thosegenerations who have known no otherhistorical moment. Postmodernity is, I shall suggest,not merelyan experience or a representationof experience;it is above all a formof practiceby which affectivealliances are produced, by which otherpractices and eventsare invested withaffect.

HYPOTHESIS 2: THE EFFECTIVITY OF ROCK AND ROLL

If a culturalhistory of rock and roll involvesa reconstructionof the various contextsand affectivealliances withinwhich it is located, it is still possible to de- scribeits generaleffectivity because it is a part of rock and roll's operationto con- tinuouslyreconstruct and reassertits own unity.I have argued that this unityis determinedby the context of postmodernity.Unable to reject,control, or even con- ceptualizethis reality,it becomes both the source of oppressionand the object/ contextof celebrationand fun. Repelled and angeredby the boredom (repetitive- ness) and meaninglessnessof the contemporaryworld, youth celebrates these very conditionsin its leisure(technology, noise, commoditystatus, repetition, fragmentation). Despondencyand pleasure become mutuallyconstitutive. Rock and roll seeks its place withinand against the verypostmodernity that is its conditionof possibility."The fact,if true,that rock and roll may not be experiencedin these termsis less a statementabout rock and roll than about its changingrelationship to the hegemony.12 At its most powerful,rock and roll is about survival.Dave Marsh, rock critic,

This content downloaded from 158.135.1.176 on Sat, 6 Apr 2013 10:43:17 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 108 Grossberg once said that"Rock and rollwas nevergood timemusic. It was alwaysabout beat- ingback bad timesand hardluck, about rejectingdespair. And whenyou do it right, you reallycan't lose."'" In a sense, rock and roll startswith despair: loneliness, anger, fear, and frustration.It is partiallyan individualexperience, the resultof bringingprivate obsessions and desiresinto a worldwe do not control.'4Obviously, desiresmay contradicteach other or theymay contradictreality; in eithercase, desireremains unfulfilled. But talkingin such termsremoves desire-both its productionand organization-fromthe social world.If rockand rollis a responseto an environmentthat is boring,repressive, and crazy, it suggeststhat these structures coincidewithin the regimentation of desirein thecontemporary world. The sensuous (kinesthetic)and sensual natureof rock and roll experienceprovides youth with a materialresponse. It is in thiscontext that the penetrating,driving beat-often read as both sexual and violent-must be examined.As Pete Townshendof the Who has said, "Rock and rollwon't getrid of yourproblems, but it willlet you dance all over them."" We mightbegin to understandhow rock and roll worksby affirmingthat it is above all fun-the productionof pleasures(e.g., in the sheerenergy of the music, the danceable beat, the sexual echoes) and of "formationsof pleasure."'6 Thus, rock and roll can nevertake itselftoo seriously.And yet,it is extremelyself-conscious; it continuouslyreconstitutes and re-encapsulatesitself (e.g., in its intertextu- ality,its self-references,its recreationof its historythrough the incorporationof "covers").'7 The resultis thatirony and contradictionare the dominantfigures in rock and roll's textuality.Rock and roll, to be effective,must constantly deny its own importanceor meaningfulness;it mustfocus the attentionof its audienceson itssurfaces. Its powerlies not in whatit says or meansbut in whatit does withinits culture.I am not suggestinga disjunctionof lyricsand sounds but ratherthat rock and rollcannot be approachedby some textualanalysis of itsmessage. It is not that rock and roll does not producemeaning but ratherthan meaning itself functions in rockand rollto organizedesire. The questionof whatthe lyrics (and otherrepresen- tational featuresof the music) contributescan only be addressedin particularin- stances.When David Susskindasked recordproducer Phil Spectorwhat the mean- ingof thesong "Da Doo Ron Ron" was, Spectorresponded, "It's not whatI say it means. It's whatit makes you feel! Can't you hear the sound of thatrecord, can't you hear that?"'8 What both Spectorand his fans knewwas that the answerto his questionwas no. A boundaryis drawnby the veryexistence of desires(or more accurately,the organizationof affect)that is not available to some. Its oppositionalpower is not theresult of itsoffering a particulardesire that the dominantculture cannot accept, nor of its calling for the unlimitedrealization of desire. Rock and roll does not projectan antinomyof freedomand constraint.Its historyis ratherthe deconstruction of thatantinomy; it plays withthe relationof desireand the regimentationof desireby always limitingits own productionof pleasure. Rock and roll's pleasure servesto marka difference,to inscribeon the surfaceof social realitya boundary betweenus and them;'9it rearticulatesand recathectsa permanentrupture at the pointof theintersection of youthand postmodernity.This markof differenceis not,

This content downloaded from 158.135.1.176 on Sat, 6 Apr 2013 10:43:17 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions AmericanRock 109 however,a simpleboundary between inside and outside,hegemony and revolution. It is rathera stratificationof social space. Rock and roll locates its fans as different even while theyexist withinthe hegemony.The boundaryis inscribedwithin the dominantculture. Rock and roll is an insider'sart which functionsto position its fans as outsiders.This "encapsulation" definesan exteriorityfor itselfinside the dominantculture through particular practices that constitute affective alliances. To use a psychoanalyticmetaphor, rock and roll "incorporates" itselfinto the "belly of the beast." It is "internalizedbut unintegrated,"included within the dominant culturebut "alien to it, inaccessible;... enclosed,entombed, encysted inside."20 Finally,we mustask in whatsense this boundary constitutes a politicalrelation- shipbetween the rock and rollculture and thehegemony. The mostcommon descrip- tionsof rockand roll's powerof affirmationlocate it withinthe attemptto reconsti- tutecommunity in the face of industrialmass society.Thus, if rock and roll appar- entlybegins with private desires, it createscommon experiences out of them.21Rock and rolltransforms the despair of itscontext into an embracingof its possibilitiesas pleasure. But it cannot dismissthe despair. For what rock and roll is inescapably drawnto is theattempt to findmeaning and value in thehistorical moment and in its own existence.The attemptis, of course,the refusal of thepost-war context. And so rock and roll seeks new formsof identity,new values and meaning; yet it must alwaysplace theseback into the contextof a worldwhich undermines all meaning and value. The politicsof rock and roll is not the productionof an identitybut the constantstruggle against such identities, even as it createsand politicizesthem (e.g., the "teenager" constantlyreappears in the historyof rock and roll as a rebellion againstolder generationsof rock and roll fans).22 The politicsof rock and roll must be understoodwithin this tension,caught betweenthe desireto celebratethe new and the desireto escape it, betweendespair and pleasure. The politicsof rock and roll arises fromits articulationof affective alliancesas modes of survivalwithin the postmodernworld. It does not bemoan the deathof olderstructures but seeksto findorganizations of desirethat do not contra- dict the realityin which it findsitself. Rock and roll, at its best, transformsold dreamsinto new realities. It rejectsthat which is outsideof its self-encapsulationnot on politicalgrounds but because theirorganizations of affectare no longerappro- priatein the postmodernworld. It celebratesthe life of the refugee,the immigrant withno roots exceptthose thatthey can constructfor themselvesat the moment, constructionswhich will inevitablycollapse around them.Rock and roll celebrates play-even despairingplay-as the only possibilityfor survival(e.g., Elvis' pink Cadillac, the Beatles' antics,punk's shock tacticsand post-punk'sdissonance). It does not oppose its own ideologicalrepresentations to those of the dominantculture;it locatesitself within the gaps and cracksof thehegemony, the points at which meaningitself collapses into desireand affect.

HYPOTHESIS 3: THE POLITICS OF ROCK AND ROLL

At thispoint, two questionscan be usefullyraised together: the political possibilities of rock and roll's cathexisof a boundary,and the desire for a descriptive

This content downloaded from 158.135.1.176 on Sat, 6 Apr 2013 10:43:17 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 110 Grossberg vocabularyfor distinguishing"genres" withinrock and roll. In fact, one of the importantdeterminants of thesignificance of a particularform of rockand roll is its relationshipto otherforms of rock and roll. At any moment,there are a distinct numberof genresof rock and roll existingwithin a historicallyevolving system of styles.Thus, a readingof rock and roll mustfind a way to talk about the systemof internaldifferences which, operating both synchronicallyand diachronically,con- stitutesits possibilitiesas a unique culturalform. The most commonlyobserved division within rock and roll (and its fans) is betweenthe punk (violent, sexual, and emotional)and thepoet (critical,sensuous, and intellectual).These correspond roughly with the images of working-and middle-class life.In thepopular rock press,23 the concernis oftenwith musical styles and linesof influence.However, it is difficultto see how rock and roll can be circumscribedby any musicalcharacteristics. The fragmentationof themusic has to be complemented by an appreciationof the heterogeneityof listeningpractices: styles, contexts, and functions.For example,the same musiccan be used by differentgroups (e.g., new wave); differentstyles can be used forsimilar functions (e.g., dance or drugmusic); and differentgroups within a commonstyle may yethave differentaudiences (e.g., Beatles,Ramones, REO Speedwagonand dB's all use pop conventionswhile Heart, Styx,and AC/DC are all "heavymetal" bands). Thereis not"only one wayto rock." The diversityof rockand rollcan be describedby specifyingthe waysin whichit has cathecteda boundarybetween Them and Us throughits history.Once again, I am forcedto abstractfrom its concretehistory of organizinglocal effectivealli- ances. I do not claimeither that these forms of inscriptionbelong exclusively to rock and rollor thatthey limit its future possibilities. I proposeto constructa two dimensional schema:the horizontal axis specifiesthe various structures by whichrock and roll differentiatesits culturefrom the other; the vertical axis describesthe different affectivestatuses rock and roll has assignedto its own existence. Rock and rollhas producedthree forms of boundaries:oppositional, alternative, and independent.(There is a fourth-coopted-which I will describein the next section.)Oppositional rock and roll presentsitself as a directchallenge or threatto the dominantculture, perhaps even confrontingthe power of the dominantculture withits own power: "we wantthe world and we wantit now." Alternativerock and rollmounts only an implicitattack on the dominantculture; the factof its existence impliesa potentialsubstitution for the hegemonicorganization of desire:"we want theworld but on our own terms." Independentrock and roll does not presentitself as a challenge,either explicitly or implicitly,to thedominant culture although it may functionas such. It apparentlyexists outside of its relationto the dominantculture; it does not want the world. It seeks to escape, to definea space whichneither im- pingesupon noris impingedupon bythe hegemony: "we wantour world." Without recognizingthese structures of difference,whatever affirmations rock and roll may produceare likelyto be describedindependently of the particularhistorical context. While it is possible that some music may consistentlyproduce the same positive affectsacross differentcontexts, the effectsof the affirmationare bound to change as theirparticular relation to the dominantculture are differentiallycathected. Whatthen is the natureof the affirmativeaffect of rock and roll? I have argued

This content downloaded from 158.135.1.176 on Sat, 6 Apr 2013 10:43:17 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions AmericanRock 111 againstseeing it as the representationof identities;the subject-positionsarticulated by rock and roll are oftenmultiple and contradictory.Rather, it definesparticular affectivestatuses, those it assignsto itsown structuresof desire,for its own culture. By describingitself as a particularstructuration of affect,rock and rolllocates social subjectsin a nonrepresentationalspace. One can identifythree such self-cathexes: visionary,experiential, and critical. Visionaryrock and roll projects itselfas a utopian practice.Its power derives fromits claim to be a stable structureof desire.The particularrock and roll culture livesout thepossibility of a momentof stabilityin theface of changeand regimentation. Whetherthe real audiencesucceeds in actualizingits utopian possibility and the particularcontent of thevision is onlysecondary. It reifiesits own affectivealliance. Experientialrock and roll is more modest; it projectsitself as a temporaryrespite, merelya viable possibilityin the presentcontext. It valorizesits own affirmationof changeand movement.It celebratesthe behaviorsand imagesof its own youthcul- tures,equating its affectivealliance withthe rock and roll apparatusitself. Such an affirmationtends to be neitheras optimisticand pretentiousas thevisionary, nor as pessimisticand self-destructiveas the critical.Finally, a criticalaffirmation denies thatit can produceeven temporaryspaces withinwhich the audience mightcontrol and make senseof itslife. By rejectingany possibility of stabilityand value-includ- ing the valorizationof change itself-it merelyaffirms and valorizes only its own negativity.All thatcan be affirmedis the practiceof critique,the deconstructionof all affectivealliances, includingthat produced by its own inscriptionof the difference betweenThem and Us. The affectivealliance of criticalrock and roll is a self- reflexiveaffirmation of difference,a decathexisof any affirmation. The differencesbetween these three affirmations may become clearerif we considerthe way in whichrepresentations of love functionin each of them.In visionary rockand roll,love functionsgenerally as a universaland stablevalue constitutiveof identityand community.In experientialrock and roll, it oftenserves the same con- stitutivefunction but it is love in its concretesensuality, as real and oftentemporary relationshipsrather than any transcendental,abstract form. Finally, in criticalrock and roll,love is a purelyphysical event with little valid emotionalcontent and which, in the end, is merelyanother affective trap set by the hegemony.25If one seeks examplesof thesethree categories, I am temptedto assign most "acid rock" (e.g., GratefulDead, the laterBeatles) to the first,the bulk of mainstreamrock and roll (e.g., Chuck Berry,the earlyBeatles, Bruce Springsteen)to the second, and punk and post-punk(e.g., Sex Pistols, Gang of Four, Pere Ubu) to the third. The matrixof "stances" thatthese two dimensionsgenerate [see diagram] describesthe possibilitiesof an affectivepolitics offered by rock and roll. It is not a descriptionof musicalstyles nor of a group's intentions.Further, no group or style can be stablylocated withina category;groups can play witha numberof stances simultaneously(e.g., Clash). The affectivestance of particularmusic is, as I have emphasized,locally produced. It may depend on a wide range of determinantsin- cludingthe image of theband and differentdegrees of knowledgeof the lyrics(rock and roll fansoften "float" in and out of the lyrics).Fans of differentmusics (e.g., punkand heavymetal) often place a greatweight on whatappears as minutemusical

This content downloaded from 158.135.1.176 on Sat, 6 Apr 2013 10:43:17 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 112 Grossberg

NEGATION Oppositional Alternative Independent Co-opted TomRobinson GratefulDead DavidBowie VillagePeople Band(late seventies) Beatles (earlyseventies) TedNugent .3 2 JimiHendrix (latesixties) Yes (mid-lateseventies) 3 (latesixties) (mid-seventies) z o Doors ChuckBerry Beatles BobbyVee E (latesixties) (mid-fifties) (earlysixties) (latefifties) BruceSpringsteen Ramones Blondie OhioExpress x (mid-seventies) (mid-seventies) REO Speedwagon(mid-sixties) (lateseventies)

Dexy'sMidnight RollingStones JoyDivision GaryNuman Runners (sixties-seventies)Contortions Devo TonioK SexPistols (lateseventies) (eighties) U Clash (mid-seventies) (lateseventies) Gangof Four (lateseventies) differencesto outsiders.The waysin whichone listensto music,as well as the music one listensto, is a productof alreadydiffering and oftenantagonistic affective alliances. Thus, whilethe emergence of folk-rock(e.g., the Beatle's Rubber Soul) rede- finedthe listeninghabits of particularaudience fractions(one has to listento the lyricsin new ways),it is doubtfulthat younger kids listeningto AM radio foundthe music makingthe same demands on them. Whatthis matrix makes obvious is thatdifferent stances are available as resources at differenttimes and thatsome of themmay dominateor definethe strugglesboth withinthe music itself and betweenthe youthculture and the hegemony.The power of this approach, however,depends on what it allows one to say about particular examples.In the diagram,I have includedwithin each categoryexamples of groups whose musicmight be generallyassociated with that particular affective function. I have furtherspecified a timeframe and, wereI to be moreprecise, I would have to includesome definitionof a particularfraction of the youthculture. Given the limi- tationsof space, I willlimit myself to makingan observationabout threeexamples. First,consider the music of the GratefulDead as it existed for the so-called counterculturein thesecond half of thesixties. Quite obviously,this music projected a visionof a utopianworld which served as an alternativeaffective possibility to the dominantculture. The Dead werea "live" band for whom recordswere simplyan ineffectivemedium. The experienceof a Dead concertwas preciselythat of releasing one's inhibitionsin the contextof a new structureof affectiverelations. One was neverafraid of gettingripped off, and I have oftenheard women say thatthe Dead's werethe onlyconcerts at whichthey felt comfortable dancing with strangers. Now considerthe followingdilemma which has been disputedrecently: the Dead are still

This content downloaded from 158.135.1.176 on Sat, 6 Apr 2013 10:43:17 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions AmericanRock 113 around; theystill have a fanaticalfollowing and most importantly,contemporary "Deadheads" stilldescribe the context of a concertin thesame basic visionaryterms thatwere used overten years ago. Yet manyof theDead's olderfans, and manyfans withstrong political commitments are quite criticalof the Dead today. How does one make sense of thissituation? I suggestthat the solutionlies in recognizingthat the Dead stillproduce a visionaryalliance but thatit is no longereffective as an al- ternativeboundary. Instead, it inscribesits differenceas an independentone which presentsno threatto thedominant culture and hence,serves only as a formof escape ratherthan as an effectivepolitical challenge. Indeed, withthe Dead's turnto coun- tryrock in theearly seventies, their utopian representations have movedprecariously close to liberalindividualism. A second exampleworth discussion is Bruce Springsteen,a rock and roll musi- cian who has a fanaticalfollowing among both critics and fans.For manyof Spring- steen'sfans, his music is both oppositionaland experiential.Rather than a visionof utopianlife, it offersus a senseof movementand energywhich is embodiednot only in thelyrics (with their dominant image of driving)but also in the musicwhich often "drives" one forwardas if in flight(especially through the use of the saxophone). Thereis an explicitattack on the dominantculture which leaves us no alternatives butto run. Therewas, however,a significantchange in his musicand audiencewith therelease of Springsteen'smost successful album, The River.His popularitysoared, the album topped the chartsand even produceda hit single,and he sold out large concertvenues around the country.Springsteen had become a "rock superstar." But as his audience grew,it changed and fragmented.Many of the pre-Riverfans feltuncomfortable with the newerones and sometimesresented them because they did not use and respondto Springsteen'smusic in the same way. The River does, indeed,sound and feeldifferent, and forhis newerfans, the musicwas experiential and independent.It is a reaffirmationof theirvalorization of fun and excess as a formof escape. It providesa space withinwhich they are in temporarycontrol of theirlives. While older fans tend to emphasizeSpringsteen's lyrics, these seem less importantto thenewer (often younger) fans. In fact,there is a clearaffective tension coded into the musical textof The River itself,which often definedthe favorite songsof thevarious audiences. In theterms of mymatrix, the musicmoves between a critical-oppositionalstance and an experiential-independentone. This contradiction has been noted by some criticsas a tensionbetween optimism and pessimism; Springsteenhimself has describedit as realismand idealism.In thiscontext, Spring- steen'slatest album, Nebraska, functioned to reconcilethese contradictory moments only by alienatingitself from the optimismof The River and the musical codes of rock and roll. The pointis thatrock and roll fans, like culturalcritics, tend to expectthat the same music will have the same functionfor the entireaudierce. We tend to forget thatthere is no stable and homogeneousrock and roll audience exceptthat created by the economicsector of the dominantculture through its marketingpractices. To expectdifferent fractions of the youthculture to use the music in the same way, to expectthe music to articulateonly one affectivepossibility is to cooperate in the occlusion of the power of rock and roll. The best rock and roll always allows dif-

This content downloaded from 158.135.1.176 on Sat, 6 Apr 2013 10:43:17 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 114 Grossberg ferentaudiences to locate it withintheir own affectivealliances. The affectivepower of themusic will vary with the context into which it is inscribed,potentially effecting specificreorganizations. Finally,I want to addressbriefly the questionof the currentpopularity of revivals of musicalgenres: for example, the revivalof pop and thesound of the British invasionwhich began in thelate seventies.It is truethat rock and rollhas a particular senseof itsown historicityand thatit oftenseems to returnto thathistory to recap- turea lost senseof affectivepower. But at itsbest, that recuperation of its rootsalso involvesa transformation.Thus, theBeatles in theearly sixties recaptured the power of earlyrock and roll but did so by transformingit both musicallyand affectively (froman alternativeto an independentboundary). This raises what is perhaps the mostdifficult question in rockcriticism (especially within terms of my "affective" readingof rock and roll): how one articulatesthe differencebetween rock and roll witha real sense of energyand defianceand rock and roll that functionsas a weak imitation,merely a commodity(e.g., compare20/20 and the Knack).26 The ability to identifythe effectsof particularrevivals depends upon the priorability to make such discriminations.Similarly, when we considerthe currentrevival of acid rock, we facethe danger of glossingover the affectiverupture which that music produced in its time.The musicis beingmarketed, and oftenfunctions as a way of returning to some imaginarymoment when rock and roll was devoid of despair and political implications,when it was merelyfun. Such questionspoint to the moregeneral issue of the "cooptation" of rock and roll.

HYPOTHESIS 4: THE COOPTATION OF ROCK AND ROLL

Discussionsof cooptationusually focus on thetechniques by whichrock and roll has been exploitedand transformedby the economicsystem and the various "ideological stateapparatuses," especiallythe mass media. By the end of the fifties,the youthmarket was recognizedas an enormoussource of consumerexpenditure. The sheernumbers of the baby boom generationmade thema potentialeconomic and politicalthreat which had to be incorporatedinto the dominantculture. According to mosthistories of rockand roll,this process of exploitationand incorporationhas been going on since the earlyfifties when rock and roll apparentlybecame a com- moditywhich could be produced,marketed, and consumed.But it is also apparently true that each time this has happened, rock and roll breaks out of that coopted stance and reaffirmsits affectivepower, creatingnew sounds and new political stances.Such historiesof rockand roll see it as a cycleof cooptationand renaissance in whichrock and roll constantlyprotests against its own cooptation. This readingis reinforcedby the viewthat the cooptationof new sounds, styles, and stancesseems to take place at an increasinglyrapid rate. We seem today to be caughtin a situationin whichthe vast majority of the rock and roll audienceis inca- pable of makingthe distinctionany more: Sittingaround with my friends one night,I remembersaying that instead of beingthe triumphof our lives, rock and roll might be thegreat tragedy. It hadgiven us a senseof possibilityso richand radicalthat nothing could everfeel as intense-andthen the

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worldwent back to businessas usual,leaving us stranded....As mass-mediafolk culture,rock and roll was always an anomaly.Since the direction of massculture is toward morecontrol and less spontaneity, the record industry has workedceaselessly to suborn rockback into the status quo ofentertainment, and succeeded.Nearly every band that stillthinks rock and roll was meant to changeyour life now labors under the contradic- tionof creating a popular culture that isn't popular any more. Yet they can't give up the dreamof making as biga differenceas Elvisor theBeatles, because their music doesn't makesense any other way. If suchgrand ambitions are meaninglessto themass audience,the attempt is tragicfor them; insofar as we givecredence to theirambition, it's tragicfor us.27

This ratherpessimistic reading of the historyof rock and roll assumesthat it moves betweenfolk and mass art. In orderto challengesuch views,we need to recognize thatthere are two meaningsof rock and roll as product(or commodity):music and records.Although good rockand roll is oftenproduced locally, even out of a local communitywith a set of sharedexperiences, its audience is alwaysmore inclusive. The notionof community(and henceof "folk art") is problematicwhen applied to youthculture for the so-called communityof rock and roll cannot be definedgeo- graphically.But the notion of communityis a spatial one: everydayface-to-face interactionhas been assumedto be the dominantdeterminant of sharedexperience and thecriterion for community. But if temporalityhas replacedspatiality in defining the rock and roll audience,then the music requires widespread dissemination to be shared among the membersof its appropriateaudience. The musical product mustbe reproducedas an object (e.g., a recordor concert)if it is to be available to thosewhom it addresses.The music mustvoluntarily enter into various systemsof economicpractices and hence, accept its existenceas apparentlymass art. This suggestsa verydifferent understanding of cooptationand a differentread- ing of the historyof rock and roll. The problemwith the "folk"/"mass" art view of cooptationis thatit definesit in purelyeconomic terms, as if it were simplythe resultof strategiesimposed on rockand roll fromwithout. It assumesthat rock and rollis cooptedwhen the demandsof the economicsystems of productionand distri- bution are allowed to definethe productionof the music as well as of the object. While such views are partiallycorrect, they ignore a numberof characteristicsof cooptationin rockand roll. First,they ignore the fact that mass distributionis a real part of rock and roll. The appropriateaudience for any particularmusic cannot always be definedahead of time. Second, theyignore the factthat the questionof cooptationis raisedand answeredat specificmoments within the rock and roll culture. It is a distinctionfans make. In fact,the notion of cooptationallows us to see clearlythe existence of rock and roll at the intersectionof youthculture and thehegemony. Rather than assuminga homogeneityof eitherexternal strategies or of internaldifferentiations, we can begin withan analysis of the concreteforms cooptation has assumed at various points in the historyof rock and roll. We can distinguishtwo major differences constitutedwithin rock and roll: an affectiveand an ideologicaldefinition of cooptation.The firstinvolves a differentiationbetween "authentic" and "coopted" rock and rollbased upon theaffective power of themusic itself. The second differentiates

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"authentic" and "coopted" rock and roll in the particularuses of the music based upon its ideologicalrepresentations. I have arguedthat there is a real sense of despair,anger, and frustrationin rock and roll and thatthe rawnessand drivingpower of this energyis inscribedinto a boundaryseparating the rock and roll fan fromothers. Thus, rock and roll is not merelycathartic; it neitherovercomes nor merelyexpresses these emotions.Rock and roll becomes coopted-"complacent"-when it loses that initial sense of its own struggleagainst something and thus,is no longerable to cathecta boundary encapsulatingits fans. For example,the practiceof coveringsongs (i.e., playinga songthat has previouslybeen recorded),albeit an essentialpart of rockand roll, has oftenbut not alwaysresulted in whatcan onlybe describedas musicdeprived of its affectivepower. On the otherhand, thereis some rock and roll that differentiatesits audience fromthose outside its affectivity but whichis, at thesame time,essentially conserva- tive. This occurs most commonlywhen the termsof its affirmationare definedby the ideologyof the dominantculture. Let me describethese types of rock and roll thathave been rejectedas "inauthentic"by large segmentsof the audience at particularmoments. Disco was seenas cooptedutopian music that projects a community of artificiallyconstituted identities where each individualbecomes only a commodity.28The formof heavymetal known as "cock rock" is oftenrejected because it constitutesa communityof males by reaffirmingand exaggeratingmale sexuality and violence.29And older rock fans often reject so-called "teeny-bopper"rock ("high school rock," "bubblegummusic") because it apparentlyreduces rock and rollto mereteenage fun. And sincebeing a teenageris a normalstage in growingup, boththe despairand the pleasureof rock and roll are somethingone will outgrow. Thus cooptationno longerappears only as an externalaction perpetratedupon rock and roll-a hegemonicstrategy which is at best reflectedin the judgmentsof rock and roll fans. It is ratherone formby whichrock and roll producesits own history.Rock and roll constantlymarks differences within itself just as it marksthe differenceof its audience. Cooptationis the mode by whichrock and roll produces itselfanew, rejecting moments of itspast and presentin orderto all themore potently inscribeits own boundary.Coopted rock and roll is no longercapable of inscribing its differenceor thatof its fans,but thisis an affectivecharge made fromone posi- tionwithin the rock and rollapparatus against another. It indicatesan affectivereal- liance,a cathexisof one boundaryand a de-encapsulationof one audienceposition. It is not necessarilyan alterationof the aestheticor ideologicalconstitution of the text,but the productionof new affectivealliances withinthe rock and roll culture. This entailsa verydifferent reading of the historyof rock and roll. Ratherthan a cycleof authenticand cooptedmusic, rock and rollexists as a fracturedunity within whichdifferences of authenticityand cooptationare definedin the constructionof affectivealliances and networksof affiliation.These alliances are always multiple and contradictory.Thus the "cooptedness" of a particularform of rock and roll is a historicallyunstable judgment; it changesin responseto developmentswithin the changingmusical and politicalpossibilities of rock and roll as well as betweendif- ferentaudience fractions.

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But the problemof the commoditystatus of rock and roll stillhaunts the argument.If rock and roll is a commodity,how can it seriouslydifferentiate itself from the dominantculture and fromhegemonic cultural practices? The answerto these questionsrequires a discussionof the particularpractice by which rock and roll appears as a commodityand, at the same time,as a cathexisof difference.30

HYPOTHESIS 5: THE PRACTICE OF ROCK AND ROLL

Whilemany commentators have describedrock and rollas watereddown rhythm and blues(or moreaccurately, a synthesisof blues and whitehillbilly music), I have arguedthat the factof its productionand receptionby whiteyouth involved a real transformationof its musical roots. It located themwithin a different,emergent historicalformation, whose contours I have describedin termsclearly meant to echo theaesthetic of postmodernpractice: a denial of totalityand a subsequentemphasis on discontinuity,fragmentation, and rupture;a denial of depth and a subsequent emphasis on the materialityof surfaces; a denial of teleologyand a subsequent emphasison changeand chanceso thathistory becomes both irrelevant and the very substanceof our existence;a denial of freedomand innocentself-consciousness and a subsequentemphasis on context,determination, and the intertextualityof discur- sive codes. The questionis whetherthe postmodernistfragment, even when it accepts the inevitabilityof its existenceas a commodity,is somethingother than a commodity. The commodityas such is determinedby a representationof totality;it signifiesa fragmentationonly in the contextof a totalizingimpulse. But postmodernpractice denies any such totalizingimpulse. We mightsay that the object in late capitalism functionsin two contexts:an ideological aestheticand a structuralaesthetic. The formerdescribes the way the object is represented;postmodern fragments are appropriatedinto the contextof the commodityby definingthem in purelyeconomic or aesthetic(avant-garde) terms. The "structuralaesthetic" describespostmodern practiceas a demystificationof thecommodity, its aesthetic reduction to a fragment sans contextor significance,a signifierwithout a signified.The object withinlate capitalismthen exists in the space of the contradictionbetween these two practices: an ideologicalmystification which turns it intoa commodityand a structuraldemys- tificationwhich returns it to the materialcontext.3' I can now tryto specifythe particularform of postmodernpractice that charac- terizesrock and roll as an appropriationof hegemonicpractices into its own discourses.If the responseof the hegemonyto resistanceis throughpractices of incor- poration,32then the powerof rock and roll lies in its practiceof "excorporation," operatingat and reproducingthe boundary between youth culture and the dominant culture.Rock and roll removessigns, objects, sounds, styles,etc. fromtheir appar- entlymeaningful existence within the dominant culture and relocatesthem within an affectivealliance of differentiationand resistance,producing a temporarilyimpass- able boundarywithin the dominantculture. Rock and roll is a formof bricolage,a uniquelycapitalist and postmodernpractice. This practiceis a formof resistancefor

This content downloaded from 158.135.1.176 on Sat, 6 Apr 2013 10:43:17 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 118 Grossberg generationswith no faithin revolution.Because its resistanceremains within the politicalspace of the dominantculture, its oppositionis only a "simulacrum" of revolution.Rock and roll's resistance,its politics,is neithera directrejection of the dominantculture nor a utopian negation(fantasy) of the structuresof power. It plays withthe verypractice that the dominantculture uses to resistits resistances: incorporationand excorporationin a continuousdialectic that reproduces the very boundaryof resistance. Thereis anotherway in whichrock and roll plays withcontradictions: its use of musicaland aestheticsensibilities which it findswithin the dominantculture. Rock and roll's developmentand continuedarticulation seem to depend upon its seeking out and exploitingthe contradictionsamongst residual sensibilities,and between theseand postmodernpractice. Rock and roll oftenworks by fusingtwo musical traditions(e.g., blues and hillbillyin the fifties).Furthermore, at any point in its development,there are conflictsbetween alternative ways of integratingthese two traditions:in the fifties,the conflictbetween rockabilly and northernstreet corner music; in the mid-sixties,the conflictbetween folk-rock and a harder,more violent drugrock in the musicof, e.g., the Doors or the VelvetUnderground; in the seventies,the conflict between west-coast mellow rock and midwesthard rock,etc. Thus, rock and roll's practiceinvolves the way in whichit locates itself(as excorporative, as celebratingand fleeingpostmodernity) at the site of the contradictionsbetween more traditionalaesthetic sensibilities: naturalism, romanticism, and modernism. Thus, while rock and roll is determinedby its postmodernpractice, creating "an aestheticsof the fake,"33postmodernism has rarelydefined its dominantsurface sensibility.In orderto explicatethis idea, I wantnow to examinethree moments in the historyof rock and roll. Many commentatorshave pointedto the romanticismof earlyrock and roll-in its populism,its search for communityand its focus on sensationand emotionas opposed to reason and intellect.This romanticregister is certainlyan important sensibilityin muchrock and roll,but it does not sufficientlyaccount for its history. Earlyrock 'n' rollwas not simplyromantic; it was located at thejuncture of romanticismand naturalism.Like naturalism,it painted a supposedlyrepresentational pictureof theworld and like romanticism,it respondedintuitively and emotionally. Like romanticism,it sought to constitutea new structureof social relationships while,like naturalism, the terms in whichit soughtsuch communities of feelingwere takenfrom their immediate concrete environment without appeal to any transcend- ing term. In the mid-sixties,the verydefinition of rock and roll (both musicallyand ideo- logically)changed with the emergenceof a folkmusic (and jazz) based acid rock. This musicwas made possibleby startingwith the basic sound/ideologyof rock and rolland imposingon thata new secondarycontradiction: acid rockis located at the junctureof romanticismand modernism.It is quite noticeablethat a greatdeal of acid rock (especiallyif we excludethe more violentgroups) sounds radicallyunlike anythingthat came before:it is oftenslower, quieter, more contemplative. It brought togethera romanticfolk culture (from the earlysixties) and a self-conscious,experi- mentalmodernist sensibility. Just as thefifties conjunction was made possibleby the coexistenceof black and whitecultures, romanticism and modernismintersected at

This content downloaded from 158.135.1.176 on Sat, 6 Apr 2013 10:43:17 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions AmericanRock 119 themoment of a convergenceof an explicitsociopolitical critique and a drugculture emphasizingmysticism and sensuous consciousness.The counterculture's(and its music's) search for community,its concern for concreteevents, its utopian optimism,its sensuousness, its focuson lifestyleand itsalmost transcendental mysticism certainlylocate it withina romanticsensibility. Yet its concernfor artisticexperi- mentationand formalinnovation (which eventually deteriorates into a concernfor technicalvirtuosity), its sense of its verylifestyle as a constantexperiment, its pro- pensityfor abstraction, its apocalypticrhetoric, its pluralisticabsence of any defining styleand its rejectionof traditionalconventions, its surrealisticand antirepre- sentationalimpulses (with the resulting formalisms), its desireto see beyondillusory surfacesto thedeeper structure, its injunctionto self-consciousnessand its focuson subjectivity,mind, and consciousnesswere all decidedlymodernist. Furthermore, it made aestheticsthe determinant of reality.Like modernism,it was overwhelmedby theworld; yet,it maintaineda sense of its own poweras art and lifestyle.It was art thatwas able to impose meaningand structureon the repressiveworld of chaos; it was art that was transcendent.Acid rock and its cultureaestheticized reality and attemptedto make lifestyleinto politics. But thetranscendence and powerof art was itselfdetermined by the counterculture's mystical romanticism. The eruptionof acid rockplaced it betweenthe romanticvision of itsgoal and a modernistperception of artand reality.34But the acid culture,like all modernists,assumed that the message sentwas thesame as themessage received; they failed to see thatmodernism renders communicationa problematicphenomenon even thoughit is unable to articulate thatproblematic. By failingto negatethe signifiedbehind the surfaceof the signi- fiers,the counterculturewas easily coopted througha varietyof strategieswhich convertedits aestheticinto a commodityof fashion. The "new wave" of thelate seventiesarticulated rock and rollas the veryidea of a juncturalcontradiction,35 thus producingwithin its own discoursecontradictions betweennaturalism, romanticism and modernismon the one hand, and postmod- ernismon the other.While new wave refersto a broad movementcharacterized by (1) a generalrejection of the economicpractices which had engulfedand reshaped rock and roll;36(2) a simultaneousrejection and incorporationof mainstreamrock and roll styleswithin its own discourses;and (3) a similarlyambiguous negation of the dominantculture, whereby "post-punk" refersto particularmusical and affective alliances withit. As John Piccarella has written,"A vision underliesthe ele- gance and outrageousness-theartists are horrifiedby the seductionof the flesh turnedto image and identitydetermined by fetisheven as theycelebrate it."37 New wave began withthe recognition that the possibilitiesof rock and roll had been apparentlyexhausted. It respondedwith a numberof strategiesfor reclaiming both the musicalstyles and affectivepolitical stances of rock and roll. It continued to go back to its own traditionsas rock and roll, but it treatedthem as ruinswhose repetitionreproduces them as different.Reproduction becomes a mode of material transformationjust as Borge's PierreMenard rewritesDon Quixote by reproducing it word forword. New wave understoodthat if thecontext is determining,then the contextuallydetermined effects must be different.The resulthas been a proliferationof revivals,genre exercises and attemptsto revitalizethe stylisticconventions of rock and roll.

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What separated"post-punk" fromthe rest of the new wave was, not only its self-consciouspost-modernism but its refusalof the categoryof rock and roll. It attemptedto explodeits historyby deconstructingit, by decodingand disruptingits conventionsand formswhile new wave recoded themwithin a new context.The resultwas a self-consciousperipheralization of the music.39Further, post-punk is characterizedby an overwhelmingsense of despair,futility, anger, and paranoia in theface of reality(modernism), a denialof anythingapart from that concrete reality (naturalism),a rejectionof the possibilityof orderand community(a rejectionof romanticism),and finally,the recognitionthat even pleasureis suspect. The post- modernemphasis on themateriality of surfaces,on fragmentationand on reflexivity has produced a music of extremes:both rejectingand buildingabsolutely upon a base of technologyand virtuosity;a music built upon images of mechanismand chaos; a formallyminimalist music whose apparentcontent is an almost random collectionof discretefacts; a music that is almost entirelyself-referential and yet, that negatesitself as art in favor of its existenceas materialreality; a music that distrustsits own impulses;that valorizes the unconsciousover eitherconsciousness or experience;and finally,a musicthat refuses to confrontrepression in its totality (or assertthat there are any solutions),choosing instead to detailmoments of local power and desire.40 If modernismattempts to make realityinto art, postmodernismattempts to make rock and roll into everydaylife. It reassertsthe referentialityof naturalism because all of realityis or can be part of its discursivesurface and thatis all thereis. Ratherthan being crypticand intellectual,it is explicitlysurreal and materialist. Rather than communicatingan emotionalinner response to outer phenomena,it describesthe phenomena and leaves the interpretationunsaid because interpretation itselfcannot be trusted.41The resultis a musicthat is oddly detachedand yet furi- ouslyenergetic and affective.While post-punk denies or at least distrustsemotion, its veryattempt to produce a discoursewhich does not depend upon emotionis a powerfulemotional statement (e.g., TalkingHeads, Elvis Costello, and the droning vocals of JoyDivision). And finally,post-punk has no faithin itspowers as art; it is and mustbe suspicousof itself,and so it mustconstantly refuse to locate itself,to become an art or stylewhich can be made into a commodity. If modernismtried to substituteart for politics and reality,postmodernism makes politicsand the realityof everydaylife substitutefor art. Up untilrecently, however,post-punk seems to have largelyavoided a confrontationwith the romantic search for a reconstructedcommunity; it has been describedas music which produces an ever increasingsense of alienation and isolation. But its attemptto articulatea restructuredbody inevitablyled it to the question of postmodernalli- ances, and hence,to replaceitself within the broader possibilities of "new wave." In a varietyof musicalstyles and affectivestances, in the Clash's politicizedrock and roll, in Talking Heads' turnto Africanpolyrhythms as a representationof new social relations,42in theNew York avant-garde's(e.g., GlennBranca, Peter Gordon, and LaurieAnderson) fusion of romanticismand futility,and albeitproblematically, in the "New Romantics," rock and roll has returnedagain to its originalsecondary contradiction:naturalism and romanticismhave reemergedin the formof the re- flexivematerialism of a self-consciouslypostmodernist rock and roll.

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CONCLUSION: THE 80s

I have argued thatthe affectivepolitics of rock and roll dependsupon its particulartemporal context. Rock and roll describes"how a life lived in continual motionmight ideally sound to someone halfin love withand half oppressedby his stateof affairs.""43It appears thatthe contextwithin which rock and roll works for the new generationsof youthis changing:the promiseof a boomingeconomy has been replaced by the threatof continuousrecession; the dominance of the baby boom's attemptto deal withresponsibility and "middle age"; rock and roll as a symbolof rebellionhas been replacedwith its statusas nostalgia.Youth today con- frontsa generationof parentswho werethemselves weaned on rock and roll; it is no longera stigma,a pointof antagonism.The centralityof music in the affectivelife of youthseems to be givingway to a new mediumand a new sound: video-computer technology.While theycontinue to listento rock and roll, it has receded into the backgroundof theiraffective lives. Rock and roll is no longerable to constitutea powerfulaffective boundary between its fans and those who remainoutside of its culture.Youth today seems to have a more temporaryand fluid experienceof the generationgap. Perhaps historyhas taughtthem that one cannotlive in celebration of postmodernity;they seek insteadto celebratemoments of possiblestability. Sur- vival forthis new youthseems to demand adaptationto and escape fromthe hege- monyrather than a responseto the historicalcontext within which they find themselves. These moves away fromrock and roll have been reinforcedby the emergenceof punkand post-punk.Punk called into questionthe affectivepower of rock and roll and its abilityto resistincorporation; post-punk made any affectiveinvestment suspect.If everythingis up forgrabs, then commitment itself, even to rockand roll, is only anotherstyle. Rock and roll in the eightiesis not merelyfragmented; it is constitutedby three vectorsfighting against each other.First, commercial (MOR) music merelyrepro- duces thesurface structures of existingstyles despite the factthat they have lost their affectivepower. Second, newwave rockseems to reaffirmpleasure as resistancebut cannot escape its own desirefor commercialsuccess, and thus,its own complicity withthe dominantculture. Third, post-punkseeks to articulatea pleasureand cathecta boundarythat no longercoincides with the rock and roll culture.These three directionsin rock and roll have createda situationin whichthe affectivealliances surroundingeach, and thus theiraudiences, have littlein common. There is no centeraround whichthey can exist,no point at whichthey can intersect. The resultof thesedevelopments both withinand outside of the music is that, apparently,rock and roll no longergenerally serves the affectivefunctions I have described.For theyounger generations, as well as formany of the baby boomers,it has become backgroundmusic which,even as leisure,can provideno challengeto the dominantorganizations of desire. The resultis that new alliances are being formedand the culturaland politicalramifications of thismoment in the historyof rock and roll may be as powerfuland interestingas those whichemerged with the "birth" of rock and roll in the fifties.Whether it is the "death" of rock and roll remainsto be seen.

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NOTES

The authorwishes to thankthe following people fortheir help: CaryNelson, Van Cagle, Charles Lau- fersweiler,Larry Shore, Jon Crane, Jon Ginoli, Simon Frith,lain Chambers, Dave Marsh, and the studentsof my courses at the Universityof Illinois. 1. I use the term"rock and roll" to includepost-war youth music. The use of "rock and roll," "rock 'n' roll," and "rock" to distinguishdifferent musical styles or historicalperiods would onlyconfuse the rhetoricof my argument.Further, it occasionallyleads to fruitlessif not paradoxical positions: e.g., RobertPalmer, "When Is It Rock and When Rock 'n' Roll? A CriticVentures an Answer," New York Times,August 6, 1978, Section 2. 2. The best theoreticalstatement of thisposition in relationto rock and roll are Simon Frith'sSound Effects:Youth, Leisure and the Politics of Rock 'n' Roll (New York: Pantheon, 1981) and Iain Cham- bers' "Pop Music: A TeachingPerspective," Screen Education, 37 (1981), 35-46. For the implicationsin the practiceof readingevents of youthculture, see Dick Hebdige, Subcultures:The Meaning of Style (London: Methuen, 1979), "Object as Image: The Italian Scooter Cycle," Block 5, 1981, 44-64, and "Posing.. .Threats, Striking... Poses: Youth,Surveillance and Display," SubStance,37/38 (1983), 68-88. 3. See LawrenceGrossberg, "Experience, Signification and Reality:The Boundariesof CulturalSemi- otics," Semiotica,41 (1982), 73-106, for the basis of this positionin a readingof the works of Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. 4. See LawrenceGrossberg, "Teaching the Popular," Journalof AestheticEducation, forthcoming; and "If Rock and Roll Communicates,Why Is It So Noisy?" (paper deliveredat the meetingof the InternationalAssociation for the Study of Popular Music, ReggioEmilio, Italy,September 1983). In the presentpaper, I shall continueto use "rock and roll" to referto the entire"rock and roll apparatus," as well as to the music itself.The particularsense should be clear fromthe context. 5. I shall use theterms "hegemony" and "dominant culture" interchangeablyto referto the process bywhich complex relations of powerare maintainedand adjusted in responseto historicalpressures and theresistances of specificgroups. It is an evolvingset of practicesby which reality is historicallyorganized -invested withparticular structures of meaning,value, and affect-whichthen constitute the limitsof the "natural." It is the ongoingproduction of the consentof the populationto the representationaland affectiveparameters on thepossibilities of livingthat organize the existing structures of power. It is inter- estingto notethat both rock and roll fansand criticsseem to privilegeit in a unique way: not onlyis it an inappropriatetopic foracademic investigation but the very act of suchscholarship is takenas a real threat to the existenceof rock and roll. This argumenthas been made to me recentlyby two of the leading Americanrock and roll critics. 6. See JimCarroll, The BasketballDiaries (New York: Bantam, 1980), for a vividdescription of the effectsof the atomic bomb on youthin the postwarcontext. 7. The use of repetitionnot only distinguishesrock and roll fromother musical forms,but different formsof rock and roll mayuse repetitiondifferently. See Jon Pareles, "The Police Blow Their Cover," Village Voice, January14-20, 1981, p. 87. 8. Rock and roll is repletewith "teenage anthems" that expressthese feelings.Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" and "I'm Bored," Lou Reed's "Rock and Roll Music," and Alice Cooper's "Eighteen" and "Teenage Lament" are just a fewof the more powerfulones. 9. Peter Schjeldjahl, "AppraisingPassions," Village Voice, January7-13, 1981, p. 67. 10. The idea of the irrelevanceof historyis oftenpresented in conjunctionwith the rejectionof aging and the valorizationof youth:"Hope I die beforeI get old" (The Who). It does occasionallyget articulated straightforwardly:"Time is but a joke, change is all we understand"(Todd Rundgren),or more recently,"History's Bunk" bythe Gang of Four. JohnLydon of Public Image Ltd., said in an interview (Esquire,September 1981, p. 83), "I'm tiredof thepast and eventhe future's beginning to seemrepetitive." 11. At its most basic level, the volume (what some would call the noise-and in some contemporary rockand rollit does involvethe use of "noise") of rockand roll representsan act of rebellionagainst the repressionof desire.As BarryHannah observes,"They wantto make war out of peacetime" (Ray [New York: Knopf, 1980], p. 47). Rock and roll was alwayssupposed to elicitreactions of disgustand hatred fromparents and thoseoutside its culture:"I picked up the guitarto blast away the clouds/ But some- body in the nextroom said 'Turn that damn thingdown' " (Alice Cooper).

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12. "The timescall for simple-mindednessand the simplequestion is this: does the music oppose or acquiesce? The Britishbelieve (and the evidencesupports us-REO Speedwagon!) that the American rock audience has givenup, lain down, lets the future-no future-dance all over it. When American rock isn't actuallycheering Reaganism on (booing the blacks, losers, women and gays off stage) it is in retreat,the volumeup, the doors locked, a noise to block out the sound of what's going down outside. WhiteAmerican popular musichas neversounded so selfish,seemed so irrelevant,and thisisn't just my Marxistconceit" (Simon Frith,"Trash Across the Water," New YorkRocker, September1981, p. 8). Whileit is truethat rock and rollhas servedto socializeyouth as consumers,this does not mitigateagainst the possibilityof its embodyingforms of politicalresistance. Many of the criticsof rock and roll (and mass culturein general)write from a transcendentalposition which undermines the attemptto deal with popular music concretely.Adorno, for example, accepts the canonical definitionsof art, cultureand creativitywhile, at the same time,defining opposition as necessarilyutopian. 13. Dave Marsh, Review of SylvainSylvain, Rolling Stone, #315,April 17, 1980, p. 57. 14. This is adapted froman idea originallyproposed by JimMiller. 15. The Who in TheirOwn Words,compiled by Steve Clarke (London: Omnibus, 1979). This idea is common withinthe rock and roll culture: "Like all great rock 'n' roll theypromise sex, truth,the future-and make you want it now! Their passion's an aching affirmation,a defiantblast of love and angerin the teethof reality"(Graham Locke, "Creature fromthe Noordzee," New Musical Express, July11, 1981). 16. As Simon Frithhas argued,no funis innocentand freeof sociopoliticalentanglements. See "Music for Pleasure," ScreenEducation, 34 (Spring, 1980), pp. 50-61. 17. Rock and rolloften consciously refers to othersongs withinits own tradition,making the problem of plagiarismparticularly difficult: e.g., the musicof Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds,or StiffLittle Fin- gers' "Barbed Wire." Thereare manysongs about rock and roll (e.g., "Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay," "It's Only Rock and Roll," "Rock Is Dead"). The historyof rock and roll has been marked by a continuousseries of revivals.Further, a groupis initiallyidentified as muchby the non-originalsongs it plays as by its own music. All of thesegive rock and roll a unique textureas a genreof popular music. 18. GreilMarcus, "Who Put theBomp in theBomp De-Bomp De-Bomp?" in GreilMarcus, ed., Rock and Roll WillStand (Boston: Beacon, n.d.), pp. 6-27. 19. Dick Hebdige sees rockand roll as markingdifference but he locates it withina differentcontext (class culture)and sees it operatingin a differentspace (representational),by creatingidentities. 20. CaryNelson, "The Psychologyof Criticism,or WhatCan Be Said," in GeoffreyH. Hartman,ed., Psychoanalysisand theQuestion of theText (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978),pp. 57-58. 21. "[I]t is hard formost rock criticsto understandthe centraldifference between subcultural politics hereand [in England]: In Britain,you have a nationof conformistsstruggling to findany expressionof individualism(and alwaysdoing it in gangs), whilein America,you have a nationof individualslurching toward community(and also always proceedingin single file)." Personal correspondencefrom Dave Marsh. Anotherdifference between the two countriesis that,if rock and rollis alwaysa responseto boredom and alienation,in theUnited States it is in the contextof relativeeconomic luxury while in England, it is in the contextof relativeeconomic deprivation. 22. The identityof the "teenager" was producedlargely through economic and mass communication practices,as well as in rock and roll. For this generationwas not the TV generation:it was not their medium,they did not controlit, identify with it, or defendit as theirown. Whethercorrectly or not, rock and roll was seen by youthas theirown, whiletelevision, film, and advertisingwere more like foreign intrusionsor foundtechnologies that could be appropriatedand transformed.Much of the music in the fiftiesdealt explicitlywith what it feltlike to be a teenager("Why Must I Be a Teenagerin Love?") and oftenattempted to legitimatethe feelingsof teenagers(e.g., "Not Too Young to Get Married," or the myriadsongs about teenagelove endingin death: e.g., "Leader of the Pack"). Compare theWho's "My Generation"with Generation X's "Your Generation"("Your generationdon't mean a thingto me") or the Deadbeats' "Kill the Hippies." 23. The best popular historiesof rock and roll are CharlesGillett, The Sound of the City (New York: Dutton, 1970),and The RollingStone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, ed. JimMiller (2nd ed., New York: Random House, 1980). On rockcriticism, see PerryMeisel, "Neon Dream, Rock Reality," Village Voice, January21, 1980, p. 44ff; and Greil Marcus, ed., Stranded(New York: Knopf, 1979).

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24. Withthe developmentof new wave and avant-garderock, the "no-wave" groups(Teenage Jesus and the Jerks,DNA, etc.), the jazz-punk fusionof JamesChance and the Contortions,James Blood Ulmer and Material, the dissonantjazz of the Lounge Lizards and the liltingsounds of the Durutti Column and the Love of Life Orchestra,the dissonance and discordanceof Pere Ubu, Half-Japanese Band, Clock DVA, etc., and the experimentalismof Brian Eno, Fred Frith,Glenn Branca, etc., it is impossibleto recognizeany musical parameters.Even the most sacrosanctfeature-the beat- can be violated. The responsethat these bands are no longerplaying rock and roll is based on an ahistorical readingof rock and roll. 25. The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" is theclassic exampleof thetranscendental image of love in visionaryrock. Bruce Springsteen'ssongs providenumerous examples of a more concreteimage of love in experientialrock: "The screendoor slams/Mary's dress waves/ Like a visionshe dances across the porch/As theradio plays/Roy Orbisonsinging for the lonely/ Hey that'sme and I wantyou only/Don't turnme home again/I just can't face myselfalone again/Don't run back inside/Darling you knowjust what I'm here for/So you're scared and you're thinking/That maybewe ain't that young any more/ Show a littlefaith/ There's magicin thenight/ You ain't a beauty,but heyyou're alright/Oh and that's alrightwith me" ("Thunder Road"). Examplesof the rejectionof love in criticalrock abound in post- punk: "Love willget you like a case of anthrax"(Gang of Four); "SometimesI thinkthat love is just a tumor/You've got to cutit out" (Elvis Costello); "We got no feeling/We gotno love/ We got nothingto say/We're thelovers of today" (The OnlyOnes); or JoyDivision's "Love Will Tear Us Apart." Johnny Rottenof the Sex Pistols wentso far as to say "What is sex anyway.Just thirty seconds of squelching noises." 26. Both 20/20and theKnack are Californiagroups that released debut albumsin 1979; both attempt- ed to recreatethe pop sound and sensibilityof the earlysixties. 20/20 was greetedwith critical acclaims whilethe Knack was almostuniversally assaulted by the critics,and yetit was the Knack's album that became a best-seller. 27. Tom Carson, "The David JohansenStory," Village Voice,July 8-15, 1981, p. 49. 28. In comparisonto therejection of disco in themid-seventies, the current diversity of funkstyles and theiracceptance by a broad audience is quite interesting:the streetsounds of rap (GrandmasterFlash), the experimentalfusions of George Clinton, dance music (Earth, Wind and Fire, Defunkt),the white synthesizedfunk of the Human League, CultureClub, and the Tom-Tom Club, the funk-jazzfusion of JamesWhite and the Blacks, and Material,and thepunk-funk of the Bush Tetras. One mightalso point to the continuedpopularity of reggaeand the recentinterest in Africanmusic. 29. "Heavy metal" beganin theseventies as partof a responseto the acid rockof the counter-culture, and the singer-songwritermellow ("wimpy") sound that followedit. It is hard-driving,loud, rhythmic musicwith long ramblingguitar solos. Althoughthe music started with groups like Led Zeppelin,Cream, and JimiHendrix, it quicklytook on a particularlysexual and violentimage-in its lyricsas well as the appearanceand actionsof theband members.The lyricsare generallyabout partying(drinking, fighting, and sex) and womenare reducedto objectsof lustand/or violence. Van Halen, Ted Nugent,and AC/DC are itsleading representatives. An interestingdevelopment occurred in the mid-seventieswith the appearance of more middle-of-the-roadand "art" heavymetal groups(e.g., Rush, Queen, Journey,Styx and evensome includingwomen: Heart, Pat Benatar).More recently,REO Speedwagonhas broughttogether heavymetal and pop conventions.I am uncertainwhether this music is utopian or experientialfor its variousaudiences. One mustalso account forthe existenceof femaleheavy metal fans, especially of that musicwhich is played on AM radio. At one level, as manyfeminists have pointedout, the music com- municatesan obvious message of self-hatred.Yet on anotherlevel, the music organizes an affective alliance in whichthese female fans are located in a positionof affectivepower over men. It is a contra- dictionwhich needs to be furtherexplored. 30. These questions,and thediscussion to follow,are theresult of personalconversations with Fredric Jameson. 31. While postmodernfragments emphasize determination and chance, the commodityexists in the contextof a supposedliberal society which emphasizes freedom and individuality.If both appear to deny history,the latter denies it in the formof a traditionwhich limits us whilethe former denies it as an escha- tologywhich is able to give meaningto our actions and lives. 32. See RaymondWilliams, Culture (n.p.: Fontana, 1981).

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33. The termis Paolo Prato's. For an interestingdiscussion of the similaritiesbetween contemporary rockand rolland themovements in Germanart earlier this century, see GreilMarcus, "The Shock of the Old," New West,March 1981. 34. The mostimportant document of thismovement is the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Its apocalypticfaith in the power of rock and roll and its utopianismof love and individuality/ communityreoccur together throughout the acid rock movement.The experimentalismof the sound was achievedby taking folk rock and makingit into a self-consciousart form.Even the musicalexceptions in thecounterculture reemphasize this conjunctural structure. The VelvetUnderground opposed themselves to both moments,rejecting romantic utopianism in favorof a violentoften self-destructive subculture and rejectingart in favorof energyand emotion.The Doors on theother hand oftenrefused the romanti- cismbut retained much of thefaith in artand experimentation.This contradictionis exemplifiedagain in the acid rock revivalof XTC, JoyDivision, Teardrop Explodes, Echo and the Bunnymen,etc. 35. The relationshipbetween punk, post-punk, and new wave is difficultto specify.It may be thatthe onlyrelations between punk and new wave are theirself-consciousness, their rejection of the rock main- stream,their opposition to the hegemony,and theircommon roots in glitterrock. While post-punk distrustsemotion, punk and new wave use it straightforwardly.While post-punk redefines politics, punk eitheraccepted it (the Clash), transformedit into a question of survival(the Buzzcocks), or embraced nihilism(Richard Hell and the Voidoids), and new wave tendsto avoid it entirely.While punk and new wave reconfirmtheir faith in rock and roll,post-punk problematizes it. While new wave and post-punk are self-consciousof theirmodes of production,punk tendedto see itselfas recapturingthe simplicity, energy,and angerof rockand roll. If post-punkmakes style (and aesthetics)into rebellion, punk and new wave unwittinglyperhaps made rebellioninto style. See Greil Marcus, "Wake Up!", RollingStone, June 24, 1980, pp. 40-44; "Anarchyin theU.K." in The RollingStone IllustratedHistory of Rock and Roll, pp. 451-63. 36. See Greg Shaw, "IndependentAmerica," New YorkRocker, May 1982, pp. 17-19; and Jon Sav- age, "The Punk Process," The Face, November1981, pp. 48-51. 37. JohnPiccarella, "Fashion's FutureFusion Conventions," VillageVoice, January 14, 1980,p. 70. 38. Thus, whenvarious new wave and post-punkmusicians use varioustraditions (e.g., Joe Jackson's use of "jive jazz," Lounge Lizards' use of swing,the SwingingMadisons' cover of "Volare," or the Cramps' miningthe traditionof B-grade horrormovies), it is not nostalgia but a way to explode the categoryof rock. "I've been quoted a lot as saying'I likeboring things.' Well I said it and I meantit. But thatdoesn't mean I'm not boredby them. Of course,what I thinkis boringmust not be the same as what otherpeople thinkis, sinceI could neverstand to watchall themost popular action shows on TV, because they'reessentially the same plots and the same shotsand the same cuts over and over again. Apparently, mostpeople love watchingthe same basic thing,as long as thedetails are different.But I'm just the oppo- site:if I'm goingto sitand watchthe same thingI saw thenight before, I don't wantit to be essentiallythe same-I wantit to be exactlythe same. Because the moreyou look at thesame exact thing,the morethe meaninggoes away, and the betterand emptieryou feel" (Andy Warholand Pat Hackett,Popism: The Warhol '60s [New York: Harcourt,Brace, Jovanovich,1980], p. 50). 39. By a "deconstruction"of rock and roll, I am referringto the attemptby "post-punk" to isolate and negatethe various constitutive conventions and clichesof rock and roll. Such musictends to be con- frontational,intentionally inaccessible, often dissonant and alienating.To varyingdegrees, the following are all involvedin such a project: minimalists(in whichthe rhythmfunctions as pulse ratherthan back- beat: e.g., ThrobbingGristle, Kraftwerk, Robert Fripp); punk-jazz(e.g., DNA) and sound-noiseexperi- ments(e.g., Pere Ubu, The Residents,Half-Japanese Band). On the otherhand, new wave triesto "re- construct"rock and roll througha self-consciousreintegration of various conventionalcodes into the music.Reconstructed rock and roll tendsto be moreaccessible and consonant,alienated and "post-con- frontational."It includesvarious styles: the "extended minimalism" of TalkingHeads and JoyDivision; newwave pop (e.g., XTC, Brains); funkjazz (e.g., Material,James Blood Ulmer); variousself-conscious "posers" (e.g., Lounge Lizards, SwingingMadisons); and experimentsself-consciously redefining the functionsof rock and roll (e.g., Brian Eno's ambientmusic). There are also groups whichexist between the two: e.g., P.I.L., Gang of Four, Suicide, Raincoats. 40. The music of the Gang of Four, Au Pairs, Red Crayola, and Talking Heads could all serve as examples. The political critiqueis presentedby a descriptionof concretecircumstances rather than

This content downloaded from 158.135.1.176 on Sat, 6 Apr 2013 10:43:17 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 126 Grossberg throughany global statement.Thus, in Fear of Music, Talking Heads detail but neverstate their paranoia. This repoliticizationof rock and roll has extendedoutside of new wave itself:recent albums by David Bowie-Scary Monsters-and Peter Gabriel-Peter Gabriel-seem to politicizetheir vision only throughdetail. There are obvious exceptionsto this and some groups do presentgeneral anthemsof rebellion(e.g., Jam's "Going Underground")but even theytend to focustheir political critique in more concreteterms. Other recent examples include the Specials' "Ghost Town," theBush Tetras' "Too Many Creeps," and Bow Wow Wow's "W.O.R.K." 41. I am gratefulto Sally Greenfor this point and forthe comparisonwith early rock and roll on this issue. Talking Heads' "Life DuringWartime" is an excellentexample of this. 42. One of themodes of productionof post-punkinvolves the use of polyvalentstructures: e.g., "har- molodics" fromOrnette Coleman, and polyrhythmsfrom African and Arabianmusical traditions. When combinedwith dissonance, randomness, and assymetry,it resultsin a dense, almost three-dimensional sense of form.For example,listen to the musicof Public Image Ltd. TalkingHeads' album, Remain in Light,uses thesetechniques combined with interlocking and overlappingvocals to create a musicaland social responseto a worldcharacterized by "the gentlecollapsing of everysurface" ("The Overload"). Ratherthan retreating into paranoia, their music seeks to accept and existin sucha world: "I'm walking a line/Divide and dissolve" ("Houses in Motion"), to "Find a littlespace so we can move in between" ("Born Under Punches"). 43. JamesHunter, "Think to the Beat," Village Voice, October21-27, 1981, p. 71.

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