. . . one can change human institutions, but not man; whatever the general effort of a society to render citizens equal and alike, the particular pride of individuals will always seek to escape the [common] level . . . In aristocracies, men are separated from one another by high, immovable . . . . Continue Reading »
The last Songbook post considered rock Fame and its relations to Celebrity and Honorable Ambition with plenty of help from political philosophy, and a little from ALMOST FAMOUS, too; moving back to the film (which is proving rich enough for, look out, two more parts after this!), this part will be . . . . Continue Reading »
We left off the analysis of ALMOST FAMOUS at the key point, where we were about to get into what it says about Rock and Fame. That is a complicated subject, because you need to consider the phenomenon of Fame itself, before you get into what Rock does with it. Bowie’s deliberately sour song is . . . . Continue Reading »
Repo Man is perhaps the least justifiable entry on my list of pop music films . While punk rockers feature in only so many of its scenes, it nonetheless captures the spirit of early 80s So-Cal punk, a spirit of cheerful nihilism . Besides, its plot is almost incidental. Sure, there’s some yarn . . . . Continue Reading »
Both This Is Spinal Tap and Repo Man are cult films that make fun of a rock youth culture, metal and punk respectively. Repo Man is the better of the two (again, my original listing of the best pop music films is chronological , not in terms of quality). One reason is that while This is Spinal Tap . . . . Continue Reading »
As a book on pop-music, Simon Reynolds’ Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past earns a high B, but does not rate among my very favorites, being too beholden to Rock attitudes, and too long-winded for its own good. Some of its detail is welcome—I found Reynold’s . . . . Continue Reading »
The last Songbook post could have been titled What Martha Bayles Has to Learn from Retro Rock n’ Roll. This post could be titled What Retro Rock n’ Roll Has to Learn from Martha Bayles. The basic lesson: the primitivist aesthetic cultivated by many in the retro scenes, and particularly in . . . . Continue Reading »
In previous Songbook posts, I’ve posed rock and roll against rock, and against hard rock in particular. So what about the punk rejection of 70s dinosaur rock? Wasn’t that a return to rock and roll fervor and simplicity? Why have I suggested that punk belongs to Rock more than it does to . . . . Continue Reading »
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