Another Boring Day in Paradise - Rock and Roll and The Empowerment of Everyday Life Author(s) - Lawrence Grossberg

Another Boring Day in Paradise: Rock and Roll and the Empowerment of Everyday Life Author(s): Lawrence Grossberg
Source: Popular Music, Vol. 4, Performers and Audiences (1984), pp. 225-258 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/853365 . Accessed: 17/04/2013 05:29
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Another boringday in paradise:rockand roll life* of everyday and the empowerment

by LAWRENCE GROSSBERG
of courses on thecultural Aboutfive history years ago,I begantoteach the to describe rockand roll.My approachwas simple:I would try thesignificance texts, bytheuniquesynthesis produced interpreting of musical textureand lyricalcontent.Then I would suggest weremediated ofitsaudiences which tothesituation correspondences and of institutional the practices production consumption. through of and respondedto the structure The musicobliquely represented I As of its audience. certain at least of youth sought portions experience becameincreasingly the correspondences moreadequate readings, context: themusichad to be locatedin an overdetermined refracted; exerted as well as class, race, subcultures, unequal age, gender, inrock and roll.Nevertheless, on and wererepresented my pressures that itwas clear tomyreadings, often assented While dissatisfied. they which failed to capture important, something something myreadings to rockand roll'spoweras well as to its connected was intimately cultural politics. I found totheir As I tried torespond discomfort, myself confronting and itsaffectivity. Rock and roll:itsheterogeneity ofrock twofeatures andstylistic characterised is notonly and roll bymusical heterogeneity; its fansdiffer radically amongthemselves theymaylisten although fans seem to use the musicforvery to the same music. Different in and different different ways; theyhave different very purposes what listen tobutwhatis included not boundaries they defining only ofrock and roll.Thus,they tomyattempt thecategory within objected or use of rockand roll as the only one. to defineone experience Sometimes,for example, the meaning of particular lyricswas times and the more other was a commonly, experience significant; one. affective purely
* Parts in slightly in Grossberg ofthisessayhaveappeared, revised 1983A. form, Fora of these arguments, further elaboration see also Grossberg 1983B;Grossberg I wish to thank thefollowing forthcoming. people fortheir help: Van Cagle,Iain DickHebdige,Charles Chambers, Ginoli, JonCrane,SimonFrith, Jon SallyGreen, Dave Marsh, Shore.Pleasenotethat I use the Laufersweiler, CaryNelsonand Larry and roll'toinclude term 'rock music. The post-war, technologically dependent youth 'rock todistinguish and roll', 'rock wouldonly confuse the 'n' roll'and 'rock' attempt I am trying to make. argument
students - as well as the rock and roll fan in me - were noticeably
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ofrockand Thus, ifI wanted to understandtheculturalsignificance roll (assuming thatithas some unitydespite itsheterogeneity), thatis, if I wanted to examine the specificsocial effects of post-war youth music, I had to recognisethatthe affective power ofrockand rollgoes that of leisure itself. Of the observationthatmusic has course, beyond emotional effects is controversial. On the contrary, it hardly powerful is the assumption that musical texts,even with lyrics,functionby - meanings,ideas or cultural representing something experience- that When applied to rockand roll,theassumptiondoes not is problematic. seem false, merelyincomplete: particularinstances of rock and roll audiences and in different may representdifferent thingsfordifferent contexts. Much of the recent writingson rock and roll is similarly incomplete. For example, Frithargues (1981) that rock and roll is a which representsvarious fantasiesabout the formof leisure activity as leisure. The matrix ofthese entirely possibilitiesofa lifeconstituted fantasies is the dialectic of working-class-urban-street culture and culture.Hebdige, coming out of the middle-class-suburban-creative traditionof Britishsubculturalstudies, locates (1979) rock and roll withinthe largercategoryof subculturalstyleswhich representsand of provides an imaginarysolution to the experienced contradictions and Hebdige treatrockand rollas life.BothFrith British working-class a 'representation'located withina contextof class relationships.And of while theyeach capture important aspects of the place and effects neither able one is to account for rockand rollin contemporary culture, of the affective the realityand the generality power ofthe music: 'The most disturbingthing ... is how littlethe establishmentas such acknowledges what is a kind of continuousguerillawarfare. . . Rock or ... is the only medium thatmakes any sense oflife- aesthetically in cited Marcus at all' 1981B, (Frith, p. 124). politically ofrock Each ofthese writers proposes, adjacent to his interpretation that we Frith the and roll,an alternative strategy. proposes study ways in which the audiences use the music, while Hebdige suggests that the effectsof rock and roll depend upon its existenceas a range of practices.Still,though,neitherapproach is able to respond signifying to two significant questions thatI wish to raise:How does one describe ofparticular forms ofrockand roll? effects the specific (and popularity) rockand roll which constitutes How does one describetheconsistency culturalform? as a determinate Nevertheless,myown approach takes Like Frith, I propose to examine each ofthese writers. somethingfrom But ratherthan assuming its audience in rock and roll functionally. advance and asking how individuals, either consciously or unconsciously,use the music, I will focuson theways in whichrockand roll withinwhich itsfansfindthemselves,a produces the materialcontext
and the androll Rock empowerment ofeveryday life
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context defined by affectiveinvestmentsrather than by semantic ofthe Thus, therockand rollfanis a partoftheeffects representations. and of roll itself. concern with rock is the functioning My possibilities opened up between, by and for,the music and its audiences, within the everydaylife of post-war America. Like Hebdige, I propose to treat rockand rollas a set ofpractices, but of than rather of Rock empowerment practices strategic signification. and roll structuresthe space within which desire is invested and pleasures produced. It is thus immediatelyimplicatedin relationsof power and a politics of pleasure. I am concerned with the ways in which rockand rollprovides strategies of survivaland pleasure forits fans, with the ways in which rock and roll is empowered by and empowers particularaudiences in particularcontexts.Rock and roll becomes visible only when it is placed within the context of the production of a networkof empowerment. Such a networkmay be described as an 'affective alliance': an organisation ofconcretematerial practicesand events, culturalformsand social experiencewhichboth the space of our affective in the investments opens up and structures world. My aim then is to describe the parametersof rock and roll's in termsof the productionof affective alliances. empowering effects the basis this of (For position, see Grossberg 1982.) I will propose five general hypotheses to describe rock and roll, framedwithinthe problematicof power as the organisationof desire. The first context ofrockand rollis suggests thatthe dominantaffective a temporal ratherthan a sociological one. While class, race, gender, nationality,subculture and even age may be partlydeterminateof the emergence of rock and roll is enabled withinthe specificeffects, contextof growingup (in the United States formy purposes) after the Second World War. This contextdefinesthe practiceofrockand roll's continued self-production.The second hypothesis argues that the described in ideological power of rock and roll cannot be sufficiently terms:eitheras the constitution of an identity or the productionof a critical rock and roll and inscribes cathectsa boundary Rather, utopia. withinsocial reality markedonlyby its otherness,itsexistenceoutside of the affective possibilitiesof the rulingculture(the hegemony).*In more traditionalterms,rock and roll inscribesthe particularmark of post-war alienation upon the surface of other social structuresof difference. The thirdhypothesisdescribesthe strategic of functioning rock and roll: it brings togetherdisparate fragments of the material
* 'Cathexis' is a psychoanalytical based on an economic that refers term, to metaphor, 'thefact that a certain amount ofpsychic is attached toan ideaortoa group of energy etc.' (. Laplanche and J.B. Pontalis, ideas, to a partof thebody,to an object, The D. Nicholson trans. Smith Language ofPsycho-Analysis, (New York, n.d.) p. 62).
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context oftheeveryday lifeofitsaudienceswithin different rockand roll apparatuses.It is the rockand rollapparatuswhichmaps out and organisation. linesofaffective investment It therefore particular bothlocatesand producesthesitesat whichpleasureis possibleand foritsaudiences;itprovides thestrategies which important through theaudienceis empowered themusical byand empowers apparatus. The fourth describes thediverse ofrockand possibilities hypothesis of 'encapsulation' rollby usingtheconcepts and 'affective alliances' intheprevious twosections. Thefinal discusses hypothesis presented as a significant thenotion of'cooptation' strategy bywhichrockand rollproducesitsown history and reproduces itsaffective power.My willarguethat androll is an historically conclusion rock locatable event inthecontemporary ofeveryday and that context life raisethe changes ofrockand roll. 'disappearance' questionoftheimpending
1. Rock and rollin thepost-war context Hypothesis

thecontext Any readingof rockand rollmustbeginby identifying which itis tobe located within and itsrelations identified. Despitethe toward thedomioverdetermination, gesture increasingly prevalent nantfeatures are almostalwaysidentified as sociological variables, of the music's producersand i.e., the sociologicalcharacteristics consumers.Such variables,while oftenlocally significant, must their confront own The that this is no constantly exceptions. response it that has its and or lost real cultural rock roll (and longer significance to evade theissue. Further, seems merely such sociological politics) accounts oftheemergence and do notprovide descriptions convincing and Is of rock roll. some feature that continued there, then, power ofrockand roll? Ifwe start to all contexts withthe common remains that roll is related in to rock and some way youth's assumption simple and boredom, can we locate ofalienation, powerlessness experiences as whichtheseexperiences and function the context within emerge culture'? specific responsesofa 'youth inthefifties oftherock androll Theadolescence audience, especially is obviously an important determinant butcontinuing today, through The frustrations, as well as ofitscultural ofthemusicitself politics. ofpuberty muchoftheenergy and resentments fears desires, provide and many of the concernsof rock and roll. However,even this is mediatedby otheremotions, simple determination apparently first ofrock was in While the audience androll and events. experiences no holds. And the statement fact certainly longer similarly, teenagers, in rockand rollmayfunction whiletheclass experience represented
in different in one context,it may not function similarly significantly
andthe Rock androll empowerment life ofeveryday
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ofthisfactare onlynow becomingvisibleas present.The ramifications we confront a generationthatno longerbelieves thattheirlives willbe
and in some, it may be generally absent. Attempts to contexts, of as music must Hebdige's reading punk working-class generalise that itemerged confront notonlyFrith's outofa largely art argument butalsothosesituations schooland 'bohemian' inwhich context, punk ina largely functions middle-class context without anyromanticisation class.Thefact oftheworking that forms ofrock androll, and particular and roll ingeneral, havespecific evenperhaps rock classroots does not about its reception and social effects in say anything necessarily Thisofcoursedoes notdenythat contexts. of(class) thefact particular mediated local effects, mayhave specific origin particularly through iconographies. Consider theobviousfact that rock and rollemerged ina bycontrast characterised as latecapitalism, context, variously particular temporal etc.The dominant moments ofthispost-war context post-modernity, theeffects havebeenwidely described: ofthewarand theholocaust on of parents; the generations economic and the prosperity optimism; ofinstant threat and total annihilation (theatomic bomb);thecoldwar and McCarthyism withtheresulting and repression; political apathy the rise of suburbiawithits inherent valorisation of repetition; the of late with its capitalism(consumptionsociety) development for the rationalisation and sophisticated increasingly technology control of everydaylife; the proliferation of mass media and and the of an ofimages; aesthetic advertising techniques emergence the attempt and ultimate to deal with the of fact thebaby inability ofan ideology ofindividuality, and boom;thecontinuation progress communication (the AmericanDream); and, to echo Sontag, an of the shocking. The resultwas a increasingly recedingthreshold ofchildren that was notonlybored(theAmerican Dream generation turned outtobe boring) and afraid, butlonely and isolated from each other and the adult world as well. The more the adult world their children's and promised them emphasised uniqueness paradise, the angrier, morefrustrated and moreinsecure theygrew. These culturaleffects were themselves located withinan even broaderapparatuswhose significance is onlynow beingrecognised: theyoperatedin a worldcharacterised by a steadily risingrateof change.Whatis unique,however (sincethisprocesshad been going on forsome time),is thatchangeincreasingly appearsto be all that thereis; it does not allow any appeal to a stableand predictable Thereis in factno sense of progress whichcan provide teleology. or Boththefuture and the meaning depthand a senseofinheritance. has collapsedinto the irrelevant; past appear increasingly history
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than thatoftheirparents,even thoughthe 'rhetoric better ofprogress' is stillpresent. Suddenly, 'we are obliged to remakefromscratchthe foundationofour taste,as ofour politicsand our verylives. Old ways of judging linger [only as] unexamined habits, comforting defenses our the of common lostness' 1981, against recognition (Schjeldjahl p. 67). loses its sense, itcan no longerbe a source forthevalues by As history which one chooses and validates one's actions.As JohnBergerwrites, thanthe theindividual lifecan changemorequickly Todaywhatsurrounds The timeless has beenabolished and history lifeitself. brief sequenceofthat no longer to thedead: the has becomeephemerality. History paysitsrespect whathas passed through dead are simply ... Thismeansthatthecommon deniedbyeverything whichdefy timeis apparently ofmoments experience have ceased to be windowslooking them.Such moments whichsurrounds which thephrase Theexperience toward thetimeless. across instigates history Andso itsroleis changed: has nowtobe assumedaloneandprivately. ever for itisolates. insteadoftranscending, 1980,p. 89) (Berger As historybecomes mere change - discontinuous,directionlessand of and rupture, meaningless- itis replacedby a sense offragmentation of powerlessness and relativism. oppressive materiality, contextfurther reinforced This new socio-historical youth's conviction of its own uniqueness; indeed it determined their dominant generational needs and perceptions in the fiftiesand since. If adolescence is a time when one seeks not only pleasure but also a ofhistory thenthe collapse of the deep structure viable adult identity, Holden of The models. the traditional undermined significance heroes as cultural the Beats and Brando Marlon Caulfield,JamesDean, withthisnew consistent to achieve some identity lies in theirstruggle set ofexperiences,and theBeats' turnto themodel oftheblackhipster culture. pointed the way forthe rock and roll/youth withinthe lives of those Rock and roll emerges fromand functions generations that have grown up in this post-war, post-modern and respond to theexperiencesof context.It does not simplyrepresent musicofthe class. Itis notmerely a of those nor to particular teenagers, that context a line It draws by markingone through generationgap. the of historical generationgap as a permanent appearance particular and realignedas theyare class divisionsare reinscribed one. Similarly, of the desires of those traversedby the boundary of post-modernity, moment. Posthistorical other known no have who generations modernity is, I shall suggest, not merely an experience nor a ofpracticeby which ofexperience;itis above all a form representation alliances are produced, by which otherpracticesand events affective are invested with affect.
Rock androll and the empowerment ofeveryday life
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Whilemanycommentators havedescribed rock and rollas watered downrhythm and blues(ormoreaccurately, a synthesis ofbluesand I white would that the fact of its and music), hillbilly argue production white involved a real transformation of its musical reception by youth Itlocated them within a different, roots. historical formation, emergent whose contours I have described in terms meant to echo the clearly ofpost-modern aesthetic a denial of and a practice: totality subsequent and rupture; a denial of emphasison discontinuity, fragmentation of surfaces; a depthand a subsequent emphasison the materiality denial of any teleology and a subsequent emphasison changeand chanceso that becomes bothirrelevant and thevery substance history ofourexistence; a denialoffreedom and innocent self-consciousness and a subsequent emphasis on context,determination and the ofdiscursive codes. intertextuality The question is whether thepost-modernist ofmeaning in rejection favour oftheproduction offragments is merely thelogical conclusion ofthecapitalist fetish. In whatsenseis thepost-modernist commodity even when it acceptstheinevitability ofitsexistence as a fragment, otherthana commodity? The commodity in commodity, something latecapitalism exists atthesiteofthecontradiction between modernist and post-modernist cultural The commodity as suchis still practices. determined a of itsignifies a fragmentation by representation totality; ofa totalising not onlyin thecontext impulsewhichgivesmeaning, the to as fashion orexchange only particular object (e.g., status, value) but also to the generalprocess of commodification. Post-modern denies such We practice any totalising impulse. might say thatthe in late functions in the context of an object capitalism ideological aesthetic on the one hand and thatof a structural aesthetic on the other. The former describesthe way the object is represented; are appropriated into the contextof the post-modern fragments them in commodityby defining purely economic or aesthetic terms. This is made easier by post-modernism's (avant-garde) to use capitalist commodities withinits discourse.A propensity structural aesthetic describes as a demystificapost-modern practice tion of the commodity, its aesthetic reduction to a fragment sans context orsignificance, a signifier without a signified. Post-modernism is theaesthetic ofdeconstruction. practice The objectwithinlate capitalism thenexistsin the space of the contradiction between thesetwopractices: an ideological mystification which turns itintoa commodity and a structural which demystification it to thematerial returns context. By their verynature, post-modern
objectscannotbe merelyconsumed unless theyhave been recuperated by being re-presented as commodities. Thus, the post-modern
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and rolldoes notdetermine ofrock aesthetic themusic's as a existence rather but as a constant between commodification commodity struggle and fragmentation. I can now try to specify form ofpost-modern theparticular practice of hegemonic rockand roll as an appropriation thatcharacterises Iftheresponse ofthehegemony to intoitsown discourses. practices of Williams is through resistance (see 1981), practices incorporation of'excorporation', thenthepowerofrockand rolllies in itspractice and the between culture at and youth reproducing boundary operating thehegemonic culture. Rockand rollreverses thedominant practices - bywhich a certain are ofincorporation claiming externality practices relations. Rockand roll of hegemonic withinthe context relocated theirapparently removessigns, objects,sounds, styles,etc. from and relocates them within thedominant culture existence meaningful The and resistance. alliance of differentiation withinan affective and of an undermining of shock - of both recognition resultant - producesa temporarily the within boundary impassable meaning oftheaffective ofthe an encapsulation dominant culture, possibilities form a a of and roll is Rock rockand rollculture. particular bricolage, in a It functions constant and practice. uniquely capitalist post-modern and excorporation (both always occurring play of incorporation The mostobvious a contradictory cultural practice. simultaneously), in rockand roll(which form of irony resultof thisis the particular As of symbolism-dada-surrealism). connectsit with the tradition rock androllfrom its has alwaysseparated has noted,'What Piccarella is of its the essence rootsin blues and country music, youthfulness, In its outlandish direct from ironic distance styles expression. personal tendstowardthe rockshowmanship and exaggerated mannerisms, ofadolescence' self-alienation defensive 1982,p. 83). Rock (Piccarella in with no faith for ofresistance is a form and rollpractice generations a direct - is neither - itspolitics Rockand roll'sresistance revolution. of nora utopiannegation culture ofthedominant (fantasy) rejection thatthe of power. It plays with the verypractice the structures and dominantcultureuses to resistits resistance: incorporation the dialectic that a continuous in very reproduces excorporation remains,however, boundaryof existence.Because its resistance its and economic thepolitical within culture, space ofthedominant Its politicsemergeonly at that is only a 'simulacrum'. revolution Itspractice is nolonger consciousness whenpolitical moment possible. dada withoutthe is surrealismwithoutthe dream/nightmare, ofa political option. representation thispost-modern or even conceptualise control Unable to reject, it becomesboth the sourceof oppressionand the object/ reality,
Rock androll andthe empowerment ofeveryday life
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context ofcelebration and fun.Repelled and angered bytheboredom and dehumanisation of the conmeaningless-ness (repetitiveness), celebrates these conditions in itsleisure world, temporary youth very noise, and fetish, (technology, commodity repetition, fragmentation and become constitusuperficiality). Despondency pleasure mutually tive. Rock and roll seeks its place withinand against the very that is its conditionof possibility. Of course, at post-modernity rock androll has sought as welltoflee that moments, denial impossible of representation. For example,while the subculture of acid-rock thepiecesin a playedwithsignsand objectsas iftheyweremerely bricoleur's also denieditspost-modern game,thatculture practice by of naturalreality. its texts were not appealingto a myth Although in which transparent, they were located withina largercontext resistance was harnessed in theinterests ofa utopian retreat intothe 'natural'life.
2. The powerof rockand roll:affective Hypothesis difference

We might how rockand rollworks beginto understand byaffirming - theproduction that itis, aboveall,fun ofpleasure (e.g., in thesheer ofthe music,thedanceablebeat,thesexualechoes,etc.). In energy the ofa particular fact, most rock androll text is to devastating rejection that it is rock and rollcan nevertakeitself too say 'boring'.Thus, To be effective, itmust seriously. constantly denyitsownsignificance; itmust focus theattention ofitsaudiences onitssurfaces. Itspower lies notin whatit says or meansbutin whatit does in thetextures and contexts ofitsuses. Forin fact, different audiences thesame interpret textsdifferently, and thereseems to be littlecorrelation between semantic I do not mean to suggesta readingsand uses/pleasures. of lyrics and sounds (whichmayoperatein a variety of disjunction relationsto each other)but ratherthat rock and roll cannotbe approachedby some textual analysisof its message.Rockand roll, whether liveorrecorded, is a performance whose'significance' cannot be readoff the'text'.Itis notthat rockand rolldoes notproduceand butrather thatmeaning itself functions in rock manipulate meaning and roll affectively, thatis, to produce and organisedesiresand askedrecord PhilSpector pleasures.WhenDavid Susskind producer what the meaningof the song 'Do Doo Ron Ron' was, Spector that 'It'snotwhatI sayitmeans.It'swhatitmakes responded youfeel! Can'tyouhearthesoundofthat can'tyouhearthat?' record, (Marcus 1969,pp. 11-12).WhatbothSpector and his fansknewwas thatthe
answer to his question was no.
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But of course,on the otherhand, rockand rolldoes take itself butitcontinuously Not onlyis itextremely self-conscious, seriously. in itself its its and re-encapsulates reconstitutes (e.g., intertextuality, ofitshistory theincorporation of itsrecreation self-references, through itis an essential ofrock and 'covers', etc).In fact, signofthepopularity from marks itsdifference other musical itconstantly rollthat cultures, itsownside,notmerely ornot.Rockandroll whether is,from popular which be music is notrock and must of'pop', andthere a subset always roll.Such 'other'musicis 'coopted','sold out', 'bubblegum', 'family etc. entertainment', If the power of rockand roll,then,depends not upon meaning notso muchtowhatone itis related butupon affective investments, of different the drawnby feelsas to the boundary veryexistence Its and of desire poweris notthe pleasure. oppositional organisations that the dominant culture a desire of its result offering particular of pleasure,norof its structure cannotaccept,norof the particular ofdesire.Rockand rollneed not realisation fortheunlimited calling of an offer culture, although ideological critique thedominant always as it certainly at some moments has, aimedat particular repressions and roll rock itself. of well as thevery However, presence repression and andconstraint, since rock offreedom an antinomy does notproject on itself and its fans. Its roll always producesits own constraints the itplayswith ofthat thedeconstruction is rather antinomy; history its of desireand itsregimentation relation by alwayscircumscribing of pleasure. Rock and roll's forthe production own possibilities toinscribe a difference, servestomark to desireand pleasure relation 'them'and 'us'; it a boundary between ofsocialreality on thesurface at the a permanent and recathects rearticulates rupture constantly It and of intersection the of pleasure. youth post-modernity, point - and thegenerations moment historical makesa particular emerging is This rupture withinit - into an apparently rupture. permanent which alliances' of the 'affective production through accomplished intheideological andpleasure; ofdesire control thehegemonic disrupt 'emotional the so-called within visible most are effects these register, life'ofitsfans. between a simple is not,however, ofdifference Thismark boundary its locates Rockand roll andrevolution. insideand outside, hegemony The the even while theyexistwithin hegemony. fansas different is an Rockand roll culture. within thedominant is inscribed boundary This as its fans outsiders. to position insider'sartwhichfunctions be 'encapsulation'may sometimes produced throughideological ordefine thehegemony attack whicheither explicitly representations
alliances. But forthose livingwithinitsaffective an alternative identity
andthe androll Rock empowerment ofeveryday life
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too often cloudthegeneral of stratification theselocalconsiderations an exteriority social space thatrockand rollproduces:it defines for culture that itself inside the dominant through particular practices alliances. constitute affective To use a psycho-analytic rock metaphor, and roll 'incorporates' itselfinto the 'belly of the beast'. It is 'internalised butunintegrated', within included thedominant culture . .. enclosed, inside' but'alientoit,inaccessible; entombed, encysted (Nelson 1978,pp. 57-8). we mustask in what sense thisboundary a constitutes Finally, between the rock and roll culture and the relationship political Themostcommon ofrock and roll'spowerof descriptions hegemony. theattempt to reconstitute in affirmation locateitwithin community mass society. the faceofindustrial Thus,ifrockand rollapparently out of begins with privatedesires,it createscommonexperiences rockand rollin thefifties a community them.Forexample, produced ofteenagers. Butitis arguable that based upontheshared experiences - one whichalwaysreasserts ofthisidentity theproduction and itself of rock and roll fans - is the rebels against older generations ofrock and roll'spolitical thanthesource rather function. dismantling ofrock and rollis nottheproduction ofan identity butthe The politics suchidentities constant couldbe incorporated (which struggle against and politicises even as itcreates them.The culture) by thedominant source of this tensioncan be located in the confrontation with roll Rock and transforms of into the its context despair post-modernity. ofitspossibilities an embracing as pleasure.Butitcannot dismiss the For what rock and roll is drawn into is the inescapably despair. attempt to findmeaningand value in thehistorical moment and in its own existence. The attempt therefusal ofpost-modernity, of is, ofcourse, its own post-war context. And so rockand rollseeks new forms of new values and it must these back meaning; identity, yet alwaysplace intothecontext ofa worldwhichundermines all meaning and value. thatyouth'ssense ofloneliness For example,it is not simply is met withromantic of love condemned to it is failure; myths obviously that rockand rollseekssuchpathsoutofpost-modernity. rather And oftheir immanent thereality thefrustration ofknowing that failure, willfail ourdesires, is partly for therealsense despite they responsible ofdesperation behind theconcern for loveinpop (e.g.,theBeatles; the rockand roll. teenagedeathsongs) and teenage(e.g., Meatloaf) The politics ofrock and rollmust be understood within thistension, tocelebrate between thedesire thenewandthedesire toescape caught ofrockand rollarises it,betweendespairand pleasure.The politics ofaffective from itsarticulation alliances as modesofsurvival within
the post-modern world. It does not bemoan the death of older
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but seeks to find organisations of desire that do not structures in whichitfinds itself. Rockand roll, at itsbest, contradict thereality It rejectsthatwhichis transforms old dreamsinto new realities. butbecause outsideofitsself-encapsulation noton political grounds of affectare no longer appropriatein the their organisations world.Itcelebrates oftherefugee, thelife theimmigrant post-modern forthemselves at the withno rootsexceptthosetheycan construct whichwillinevitably constructions around them. moment, collapse forsurvival the Beatles'antics, (e.g., Elvis'pinkcadillac, possibility Itdoes notoppose shock and tactics dissonance). post-punk's punk's tothoseofthedominant it itsownideological culture: representations ofthehegemony, within thegapsand cracks thepoints at locates itself whichmeaning itself collapsesintodesireand affect.
Rock and roll celebrates play - even despairing play - as the only
alliances 3. The workof rockand roll:affective Hypothesis
The question remains,however,of why rock and roll fans so assumedthatSusskindcould not 'hear' the music.Nor confidently and differences ofboundaries the existence have we acknowledged whatone audiencetakesto be rockand roll,and itscultures: within a I wanttosuggest that as coopted. another and roll, rock maydismiss is it an when for and roll' audience as 'rock exists music only particular locatedin a largerassemblagewhichI will call 'the rockand roll in waysthat themusicis inflected sucha context, apparatus'.Within roll includes rock and The its apparatus functioning. empower specific butalsoeconomic and practices texts notonlymusical determinations, and fans),social images (of performers possibilities, technological of language,movement, aesthetic conventions, relations, apstyles and commitments media and dance, ideological practices, pearance Theapparatus describes itself. oftheapparatus mediarepresentations and diachronic and both which are of taste' synchronic 'cartographies of and non-musical bothmusical whichencompass registers everyday define notonlydo particular life.Forexample, differing apparatuses of rock forms of 'acceptable boundaries music',theyplace different in them affective and roll in different positions;they empower a roll is and constituted rock At different moment, by any ways. orconventions forms andwhilecertain forms ofdifferent number may and in terms oftheir their effects remain common, synchronic change the apparatus.Furthermore, within as defined relations diachronic as newforms arealwayschanging thesepositions appearand disrupt themusicaleconomy.
can be To treatrock and roll as a set of musical textswhose effects
androll and the Rock empowerment ofeveryday life
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is inscribed upon the site of the body; and (3) post-modernity: the
orbe located within readoff their surface theisolated relation between toassumean interpretation musicand fanis already ofitsplacewithin a particular rockand rollapparatus.Instead,themusic'seffects and can be described within the which connects identity only apparatus oftheheterogeneous domains ofsocial,cultural fragments particular and material It is, then,the rockand rollapparatusthat practices. thatinscribes thedifference between'them'and itself, encapsulates 'us'. And it is the apparatuswhichexistsas a bricolage the through of hegemonic themas signsand events.By treating 'excorporation' it reinvests themwithina different of defragments, 'topography sire'. It would be mistaken howeverto see the apparatusas a passive collection ofdiscrete material itis theapparatus itself whichis events; structures of desire,and thus constantly producing ever-changing reproducingitself. The rock and roll apparatus organises the random collection of cathected events and codes that seemingly therock and rollculture. Itis an array ofstrategies with interpenetrate whichyouthorganises its affective existence. Such 'topographies of desire'might thenbe described as 'affective formations' in orderto boththeir affirm relation and irreducibility toideological, and political economic formations. The poweroftherock and rollapparatus, liesnotmainly therefore, inits'theft' ofpartial from the various of domains sociallife, nor objects even in themerefact thatit drawslinesconnecting them.Rather its in lies its and of power foregrounding production particular organisawithin and between thesefragments. Theapparatus is a machine tions lifeby which,in constantly itself, reproducing reshapesouraffective the vectors of its own of desire our material mapping economy upon life.My claimis thatthecontinuity ofrockand rollis constituted by the continued of a three-dimensional which inscription topography describesits 'affective formation'. By operatingat this level of I amignoring about thespecific abstraction, questions fragments upon whichthe apparatusworksat a particular as well as the moment, inflections which these axesoftheapparatus at particular maybe given such moments.Ratherthan lookingat particular and apparatuses I wantto beginby describing theboundaries oftherock formations, and rollapparatus: themoment ofitsemergence, thepossibility ofits therangeofitsvariability, etc. cessation, The rock and roll apparatusaffectively life organiseseveryday to three axes: (1) youth as difference: thesocial according intersecting difference ofgenerations is inscribed field uponthephenomenological ofsocialrelations; ofthebody:thecelebration ofpleasure (2) pleasure
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ofuncertainty is inscribed structure of (thefragment) upon thecircuit I will and comment on of each these. history meaning. briefly therockand rollapparatus is constructed Mostobviously, around ofyouth; and whileitis certainly thecategory truethat'youth' has a of different number inflections, ideological youthis also a material - a bodywhichis and historically body thatcan be locatedsocially bothaffectively and ideologically. and inscribed In fact, traversed the a 'generational has produced rockand rollapparatus which politics' as a politics ofdifference and exclusion, can be described structurally as a politics ofboredom. As I have argued,rather and substantively forits fans,the rockand roll than defining any necessary identity as a boundary whichencapsulates its fansand apparatusfunctions It is thisdifference whichaffectively invests excludestheothers. the of youthwithin theapparatus itself and defines thesiteof category from The 'other' which is excluded theapparatus is not culture. youth a but rather of howeverdefined chronologically by phenomenology a politics boredom.The rock and roll apparatusinstitutionalises of definedonly by its oppositionto boredomas the experience The of celebrates work of the change: reality. politics youth hegemonic ofboredom into transforms thevery structures theapparatus pleasure. and rollapparatus The secondaffective axisoftherock involves its - initstransformation of ofthebodyas thesiteofpleasure celebration and in in of and its the into dance, centrality rhythm identity style, is and sexualpractices. Themusical itself ofsexuality practice courting atthesiteofthebody:itis a music ofbodily intotheapparatus inserted to themusicand its relation material desire.Thereis an immediate movements.This relation,while true of music in general, is in rockand roll.Atitssimplest level,thebodyvibrates foregrounded and thatvibration can be articulated withthe sounds and rhythms, The and eventsto producecomplexeffects. with otherpractices to individuals it its translate affective of music power gives materiality relation is there, intobodies.Thismaterial construct) (an ideological thesiteat toitsfans. Thebodybecomes available within theapparatus, One and desirepotentially redirected. is restructured whichpleasure mightexamine,forexample,the complexand oftencontradictory rockand rolland blackmusicin theUnitedStates between relations at various and so distanced (the factthatit is both so compatible of this axis. moments)in terms of the changinginvestments toarticulate thepossibilities one might itis herethat Furthermore, try rock and rollapparatus. within the sexual ofan oppositional politics to occludetherelations arenotmeant Of course, thesesuggestions and formation of therockand rollapparatus, betweenthe affective
its position within the ideologically (as well as economically and
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structures ofracism and sexism within American produced politically) of the institutional of society.Clearly,many practices production, and distribution, as wellas patterns ofgendered and racial marketing reinforce and reproducehegemonicstructures of consumption, difference and oppression. Forexample, of the feminist many critiques androllarequitelegitimate. ofrock Musical texts andcultures areoften suchinflections own 'pleasure Often, quiterepressive. producetheir of the emotions'which, most commonly, involveexperiences of romanceand self-pity. Here the body is reinscribed as the site of self-hood. On the otherhand, such critiques cannotjustify global oftheaffective condemnations oftherock androll political possibilities Theconcrete ofpleasure' canonly beidentified and apparatus. 'politics evaluated attheleveloftheaffective Further, formation, contextually. desireis at leastconceptually ofideology (inthiscase,of independent itis atleastdifficult tomaintain that thedesires and rhythms gender); of rock and roll are intrinsically gendercoded (see the exchange A. MacKinnonand Ellen Willisin Nelson and betweenCatharine Grossberg forthcoming). The thirdaxis of the rock and roll apparatusforegrounds the contextwithin which it emerged. Whetherit be post-modern understood as theabsenceofa future our by whichwe can organise lives ('The future is a hoax created and by highschoolcounsellors insurance salesmen';'Lifeis hardand thenyou die.') or ofmeaning if there werea meaning tolife, I probably wouldn't ('Even agreewith as one of students the rock and roll is said), it', my apparatus materially structured The rockand rollapparatus by thisabsenceof structure. functions to providestrategies forescaping,denying, celebrating, world. post-modern This thirdaxis reflexively positionsthe rockand roll apparatus within its post-modern contextand constitutes rock and roll's towards its own and Unlike other forms ambiguity importance power. of popular culture,the 'post-modern of rock and roll politics' undermines itsclaim toproduce a stable affective formation. it Rather, in theproduction oftemporary alliances' 'affective which participates celebrate their own instability and superficiality. Whilesuchalliances makeclaimsto totality within their own moment of mayapparently and empowerment, they are decisivelymarkedby theirfluidity and whatifitdid?':John matters, self-deprecation ('Nothing Cougar), and bytheease with which therock and rollapparatus slidesfrom one allianceinto another.In otherwords,the rockand roll apparatus and even celebrates the 'disposibility' of any affective incorporates
alliance without therebysacrificing its own claim to existence. finding pleasure in - in other words, for surviving within - a
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in its oftherock and rollapparatus The existence is, then, precisely an which the of of itself as affective alliance locates sites production and fans. That rock and the music its the between is, empowerment the everyday lifeof its fansby rollapparatusaffectively organises it the various cathecting fragments 'excorporates' along differentially these three axes. The resultis that it locates, for its fans, the Itinvolves of ofintervention and pleasure. theinvestment possibilities to vectors whichare removed worldaccording desirein thematerial It is notthatthedesiresor formation.* affective thehegemonic from thatthe affective but are themselves oppositional rather pleasures its audiences of the rockand rollapparatus investments empowers define a level ofpotential taken with which, topographically, strategies survival. often, and, opposition
of rockand roll 4. The diversity Hypothesis

within rockand roll(and its observed division The mostcommonly
fans) is between the punk - violent,sexual and emotional- and the
These correspond sensuousand intellectual. roughly poet - critical, In thepopular rock and middle-class life. with theimagesofworkingof the different and finds one categorisations descriptions press, and blues,art,folk, and roll(e.g., pop, rhythm in rock musical styles musical linesof is often with The concern metal, etc.). heavy country, to see how rockand rollcan be influence. However,it is difficult And thefragmentation circumscribed by anymusicalcharacteristics. of the of the music has to be complemented by an appreciation For contexts and functions. of styles, practices: listening heterogeneity new be used different music can the same (e.g., groups by example, functions can be used forsimilar (e.g., dance wave); different styles a common within music;drugmusic);and different may style groups audiences(e.g., Beatles,Ramones,REO Speedyet have different and AC/DC are Heart, Styx wagonand dB's all use pop conventions; all 'heavymetal'bands). Thereis not'onlyone way to rock'. withinand the describe the diversity We can, alternatively, of the of rockand rollon thebasis of the considerations difference by power and the work of rock and roll advanced above: first, has cathected and roll therock thewaysinwhich apparatus specifying and second, itshistory; Themand Us through between a boundary by affective in which are thevectors foregrounded particular identifying from the concrete alliances.In both cases, I shall have to abstract I notwishto do alliances. affective of local oftheproduction history
claim, foreitherof these typologies,that theybelong exclusivelyto
* bothmagnitude and direction. I meana quantity having By'vector'
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its future in predictable rockand roll,or thattheylimit possibilities ways. Theinscription ofdifference a twodimensional I proposeto construct schema:thehorizontal axis various structures which rock and roll the its differentiates by specifies thevertical axisdescribes culture from theother; thedifferent affective statusesthatrockand roll has assignedto or investedin its own existence. forms ofboundaries: Rockand rollhas produced three oppositional, and independent. An oppositional alternative inscribes the boundary both and fact ofdifference us them are explicitly; affectively charged. oftheother Itseffectiveness as an enemy. dependsuponthepresence Thusoppositional rockand rollpresents itself as a direct or challenge tothedominant threat evenconfronting thepowerof culture, perhaps with thedominant culture itsownpower.Itmight be expressed inthe phrase 'we want the world and we want it now'. An alternative when theother is inscribed is onlyimplicitly The boundary present. whichtherockand charged enemyis negatively onlyas thatagainst rollculture differentiates itself. Alternative rockand rollmounts an attack on thedominant thefact ofitsexistence culture; implicit implies a potential for substitution thehegemonic ofdesire:'we organisation want the world but on our terms'.An independent boundaryis inscribed is effective whentheother only byitsabsence.Independent rockand rolldoes notpresent itself as a challenge, either or explicitly dominant to the itmayfunction culture as such.It implicitly, although outside ofitsrelation exists tothedominant itdoes culture; apparently notwanttheworld.Itseekstoescape,todefine a spacewhich neither 'we wantour impinges upon noris impinged uponbythehegemony: world'.We canrepresent thesethree structures ofdifference, interms of Us and Them(U and T), as follows: Without U/T,U/(T),U/( ). thesedifferent ofdifference, structures whatever affirmarecognising tionsrockand rollmayproduceare likely to be described indepenoftheparticular historical context. itis possible While that some dently music may consistently the same affects across produce positive different theeffects oftheaffirmations areboundtochange contexts, as their relation to the dominant culture are differentially particular cathected. Whatthenis thenature oftheaffirmative affect ofrockand roll?I have arguedagainstseeingit as therepresentation ofidentities; the
subject-positionsarticulatedby rock and roll are oftenmultipleand affective statusesforitsown Rather,itdefinesparticular contradictory.
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itself culture. as a particular structuration ofaffect, rock Bydescribing and rolllocatessocial in a can One subjects nonrepresentational space. such three and critical. self-cathexes: identify visionary, experiential These are,essentially, describe different forms self-attributions; they of affective to and alliances,modes of affectively relating surviving withinthe world. Again, it is not the contentof the particular thatis effective affirmation (although ideological representation may an itassigns that totheexistence of role)butthestatus play important itsown desires. and roll rock as a utopian itself Itspower projects Visionary practice. from itsclaimtobe a stablestructure ofdesire.The particular derives in thefaceofchangeand regimentation. ofstability moment Whether itsutopian therealaudiencesucceedsinactualising and the possibility content ofthevisionare onlysecondary. The affective and particular itself as powerof the musicdependsupon its constituting political more than just a mode of survival,as a vision of a something affective alliance.Experiential rockand rollis permanent potentially itprojects itself notas a necessary modeofsurvival but moremodest; in thepresent It valorises context. itsown onlyas a viablepossibility itorganises Thealliances which ofchangeand movement. affirmation It and celebrates the behaviours areatbesttemporary images respites. ofitsown youthcultures dancing, sexuality, rhythm) (e.g., driving, and the possibility of stability. Its which deny both regimentation is onlyin the verypleasureof the music,in engulfing affirmation inparticipating within thepractices within themusical oneself context, tendstobe neither as optimistic Suchan affirmation culture. ofyouth not as pessimistic and selfas the visionary, and pretentious A critical affirmation refuses eventheclaim as thecritical. destructive which theaudience itcanproduce that might spaceswithin temporary of and make sense of its life.By rejecting control any possibility valorisation of that the value and including impliedby stability as a mode of its status viable own it undermines itself change as Itsstatus and valorises It affirms survival. onlyitsown negativity. its as to status the the dependsupon onlyresponse reality pleasurable is thepractice ofcritique, Allthatcan be affirmed ofpost-modernity. that ofallaffective thedeconstruction alliances, by including produced betweenthemand us. The of the difference its own inscription affirmation of rockand rollis a self-reflexive of critical affirmation ofanyaffirmation. a decathexis difference, thesetwodimensions of'stances'that The matrix (see Fig. generate and offered ofan affective thepossibilities 1) describes politics byrock
ofmusical stylesnor ofa group's intentions. roll. It is not a description rock and roll culture lives out - in its music - the possibilityof a
and the androll Rock ofeveryday empowerment life

Oppositional JimiHendrix (late sixties) B D Tom Robinson Band (late seventies) NEGATION Alternative GratefulDead (late sixties) U2 (late seventies) Independent
243
David Bowie (early seventies) ElectricLight Orch. Disco (mid-seventies)
z
.
Doors (late sixties) Bruce Springsteen (mid-seventies)
Chuck Berry (mid-fifties) Ramones (late seventies)
Beatles (early sixties) Blondie REO Speedwagon (late seventies)
Clash Tonio K (late seventies)
Sex Pistols (mid-seventies) Gang of Four (late seventies) New Order Aztec Camera (eighties)
JoyDivision (late seventies) Culture Club Orange Juice (eighties)
Figure 1
locatedwithin a category; no groupor stylecan be stably Further, of stancessimultaneously (e.g., the groupscan play witha number stance of particular music is, as I have Clash). The affective emphasised,locallyproduced.It may depend on a wide rangeof theimageofthebandand different determinants of including degrees and in of the roll fans often and out of the 'float' (rock knowledge lyrics musics(e.g. punk and heavymetal)often Fans of different lyrics). on whatappearas minute musical differences to weight place a great one listens tomusic, Thewaysinwhich outsiders. as wellas themusic one listens ofalready and often to,is a product differing antagonistic affective alliances.Thus, whiletheemergence offolk-rock (e.g., the redefined the habits of Beatles' Rubber Soul) listening particular in new ways),itis audiencefractions (one had to listento thelyrics that kidslistening tothemusic doubtful on AM radiofound it younger on the same demands them. making Two consequencesof this approachto rockand roll are worth itpoints totheexistence ofa realambiguity within First, noting. many criticalevaluationsbetween judgementsof musical quality and affective Thishas alwaysbeena dilemma for therock and roll politics.
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culture for thetwoareoften in conflict. The musicoftheBeach itself, series of revivals recent the ska, (e.g., rockabilly, glitter, pop Boys, and psychedelic rock)are potentially good musicwithquestionable On theother effects. hand,punkwas aboutthepossibility, political indeedthenecessity, ofpolitically and rollwhosemusical 'good' rock traditional dubious. Finally,the was, standards, quality by any neo-fascist tendencies of some new wave music(e.g., oi) pose the nature oftheseaffective and the stances questionofthecontent-free thatrockand rollmay succeedin inscribing a powerful possibility affective a regimentation of desireeven by representing boundary moreoppressive thanthatofthehegemony. of of usinga reading Second,thisapproachopens thepossibility rockand rollas a way of understanding and interpreting the more at a particular socialcontext moment. Whatthismatrix makes general obviousis that,at different stancesare availableas times,different and that ordefine thestruggles someofthem resources maydominate both withinthe music and between the youth cultureand the The powerofthisapproach, mustobviously be however, hegemony. it one on of what allows to about the basis say particular judged within In Figure eachcategory 1, I haveincluded examples examples. associatedwith that of groups whose music mightbe generally I havefurther a time frame affective function. and, specified particular I have to ofa would include some definition wereI tobe more precise, of the culture. fraction youth particular alliances Thestructures ofaffective withthisschema.First, it Thereare at leasttwoproblems, however, whichmayexist musics thedifferences between leaves unaddressed Forexample, whiletheSex Pistols thesame position. locatedwithin as 'critical-alternative', this and theGangofFourmaybothbe located roll the and differences between rock the about says nothing roll rock and are effective. within which Second, they apparatuses act as ifthe same musichas the same fans,as well as manycritics, that there is no stableand audience.We forget for itsentire function homogeneousrock and roll audience exceptas it is constructed economic instituof the dominant the marketing practices through tions.Our analysismustallow thatthe same musiccan be located withindifferent apparatusesmay apparatuses,and that different in Fig.1). The ofdifference within thesameposition coexist (as given of and structures of empowerment 'politics pleasure' particular musicwill,therefore, effected dependupontherangeof byparticular
apparatuses withinwhich the music exists.
and the androll Rock life empowerment ofeveryday
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the musicitself cannotbe assigneda socialpower Consequently, from the different affective alliances within which it is apart But such are onlypartly described apparatuses/alliances implicated. their structural vis the We have position by hegemony. already visA alluded to the termswith which particular apparatusescan be but I want to proposea strategy whichwill allow us to identified, thepositive differences betweenmajorforms. schematise Iftherock and roll apparatusis definedby the particular and arrangement of the three axes (youth;the body; post-modernity), inflections different as foregrounding apparatusescan be described particular ones. That is, I propose to locate a significant positivedifference alliances totherelative investment which is according amongaffective madein eachofthethree axes. Itis tempting, and perhaps historically thethree to identify axes with thethree affirmative affective accurate, thebodyand post-modernity withtheutopian, the positions (youth, and thecritical theequation is not However, experiential respectively). a necessaryone and would have the effect of occludingnew Itseemsbest, therefore, possibilities (e.g.,a post-modern utopianism). to treat thetwoschemasas conceptually and concretely independent interactive. The most commoncathexiswithinthe rock and roll apparatus boththeaxis ofyouth(difference) and thatofthebody foregrounds ChuckBerry, ElvisPresley, etc.A secondpossibility is that (pleasure): one of these two becomes, to various degrees, relatively less Whilesoul musicforegrounds the axis of the body and important. need notdirect itsaudienceto invest itsdesireor pleasure,it clearly locateits pleasurein its 'youth'.On the other hand, as manycritics have noted,there is a relative decathexis ofthebodyin muchofthe music directed to and effective fora general'teenage'audience. I wouldalso suggest that muchofthe'acid-rock' ofthecounterculture, and thesinger-songwriter tradition which followed in it,weredefined a of decathexis the of the part by continuing pleasure body (by it towardan ideologically definedconceptof 'love' and deflecting It is not surprising, rockand then,thatboth glitter 'relationship'). which as of the counter-culture's metal, heavy emerged rejections affective recathect theaxisofthebody(and, in fact, define alliances, the axis ofyouthand difference reference to it). by the apparatuses constructed aroundpunk and post-punk Finally, musicsapparently theaxisofpost-modernity. I wouldlike foreground todevelopthisparticular with example, beginning punk.Hebdigehas from theworking-class argued(1979,pp. 62-70)thatpunkemerged of historically racialrelations and ofeconomic experiences changing
pessimism (no work, no future,no meaning) in England. Frithhas
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rejected this view of its origins: 'The pioneering punk-rockers lotwitha good understanding artful themselveswere a self-conscious, and populistcliche;their musicno morereflected ofbothrocktradition in back on conditions the dole than it emerged queue directly spontaneously fromthem' (Frith1981, p. 158). He could also have pointed to the emergence of American punk bands in the midseventies(Television,PattiSmith,Ramones, Residents,etc.) as further evidence for his view of the origins. Frithproposes to read punk of a 'new sort of street instead in the contextof its representation culture ... punk's cultural significancewas derived not from its oftheaesthetics ofunemployment but from itsexploration articulation of proletarianplay' (ibid. p. 267). However, Frithgoes beyond thisto locate punk withinthe historyof rock and roll conventions: had a shockeffect. The original punk texts Theychallenged pop and rock their ofromance, andease. Punks focused conventions on social beauty, lyrics 'n' mocked conventional rock roll declarations and political of subjects, young their own flowofwordswiththeir and power,disrupted imagesand virility as theshock woreoff, that sounds.Itsoonbecame apparent punkwas though, structures anda rhythmic constricted claims, byitsuse ofmelodic byitsrealist weretaken totell-it-like-it-was followed rock base that 'n' roll justbecause they rules- the4:4 beat,shoutedvocals,roughguitar/bass/drums lineup. (Ibid.p. 160) Greil Marcus has similarly argued thatthe Sex Pistols 'used rockand rollas a weapon against itself'(Marcus 1980A,p. 452; see also Marcus 1980B,1981A). Punk recathectedthe boundarybetween rockand roll notmerely what rockand and the outside world precisely by rejecting, but affectively as well. rollhad become economicallyand aesthetically, had and which defined constrained Itrejectedtheaffective possibilities rock and roll, structureswhich I have described as 'utopian' and a set of only its own negativity, constituting 'experiential'.It affirmed 'critical' apparatuses while leaving open the possibilities of its relationto the hegemony. It did this in part, in much the structural same way as disco operated, by an explosion of its own practiceof 'excorporation';anythingcould be incorporatedinto punk (or disco) culture. But, unlike disco, punk made the excorporative practiceof ofeverydaylife. rockand rollthe onlypossible response to thecontext As Hebdige has argued, punk 'deconstructed'all signs, all value and of the world significance.Punk acted out its negative deconstruction ofall taste, theartificiality and ofrockand rollitself.By foregrounding itattempted to decathectanything the riskofall affective investments, Thereis a sense in below itsown surfaces, includingrockand rollitself. which, after punk, one can no longerreasonablybelieve in the 'magic that can set you free'.
androll and the Rock empowerment ofeveryday life
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ofitsorigin ofworking-class or (inthereality Regardless experience the theimageofproletarian was constituted play), punkapparatus by oftheaxisofpost-modernity: itmaderockand roll itsforegrounding intoitsown post-modern Further, disco)often practice. punk(unlike theaxis ofthebodyas thesiteofpleasure, decathected not rejecting love but the musical crescendo is only sexuality (orgasm?) replaced noise.On theother hand,thepunk by pulse,dronesand continuous often continued to invest its in the axis of youth apparatus power intothesitefor theinscription and made thebodyitself ofdifference the But of cathexis difference forced it etc.). clothing, style, (through inyouth ofan implicit faith and consequently, backintothecontext in rockand rollitself. As Marcushas observed, 'Perhapstheonlytrue in in whole was the it all camedowntorock the that, end, story irony more'(Marcus1980A, and roll- nothing less, but nothing p. 455). ofa larger setofpossibilities Butpunkwas part in emerging therock within and itoften functioned them.* and rollculture, Thus,itcould in theUnited thefact haveitsimpact itwas neither States that despite visiblenorpopular. particularly Punk called intoquestionthe affective powerof rockand roll;it to incorporate itsown possibility ofincorporation, and its attempted for survivalwas constantly to proliferate its own only strategy It triedto celebrate rockand rolleven as it excorporative practice. itsconceit. Theeffect ofthepunkapparatus within the acknowledged rockand rollculture has enableda number of different alliancesto around both'oi' and 'hardcore' constructed First, emerge. apparatuses ofpunkand often continue the'shock recathect theaxesof techniques' thatof postyouthand the body, while apparently decathecting the Second,whatI willcall'newwave' apparently modernity. accepts of incorporation and attempts to reclaimthe affective inevitability and roll older rock androll byreviving powerofrock apparatuses (e.g., and uses acid,garage-bands, soul).Third, rockabilly, pop 'post-punk' of rock and in roll to order excavate punk'stechnique deconstructing of rockand roll.Its deconstruction and extendthe limits is always followed by at least a partial reconstruction of rock and roll And finally, conventions. thelimitations ofrock 'new music'refuses and conventions seeks to alienate not itself, only entirely intentionally from thoseoutsideoftherock and rollculture, butfrom that culture as well.t
* There was a momentwhen thisforegrounding ofthepost-modern structure particular of youth's experience was widely visible, in the mid-seventies. Consider the enormous popularityof Pink Floyd's TheWall,as well as songs such as 'Love Stinks', by the J. Geils Band. t It would perhaps be helpful if I gave at least musical examples of these four apparatuses: hardcore (Dead Kennedys, Circle Jerks,Black Flag), oi (Exploited,
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A number of relations exist between these different apparatuses. ofpunk and new wave oftenrecathect Both the continuations the axis ofyouth.New wave and post-punkoften recathect thebody as the site of pleasure (albeit accordingto verydifferent inflections of thataxis), and both post-punkand new music foreground, above all, the axis of On the otherhand, new wave always balances this post-modernity. investment by recathecting at least one of the others, while hardcore/oi appears to invest itself in decathecting the axis of post-modernity. That post-modernity has been describedbyJohn Piccarella:'A vision underliestheelegance and outrageousness- theartists are horrified by the seduction of the fleshturnedto image and identity determined by even as theycelebrateit' (Picarella1980,p. 70). Whatunitesnew fetish wave and post-punk is that both continue to go back to theirown traditions as rock and roll. But such traditions become hollow whose repetitionreproduces them as both the same and fragments different. Such apparatuses are constructedupon the post-modern and therefore, thatreproducrealisationthat contextis determining, tion in a new contextmust produce new effects.In new wave, the ofrevivals,genreexercisesand attempts resulthas been a proliferation conventionsof rockand roll. But it is marked to revitalisethe stylistic which acknowledges its own superficiality and by a reflexivity commodification. As Tom Carson has suggested, canbecomean instant all categories looksuspicious; Whenanyhybrid form, intransition, becausethemusic's musicians aretaking the instead ofpanicking andbuilding as their onedisposable monument fact oftransition point starting itisn't another. Ofcourse, this is happening after to: toambivalence justmusic anti-emotionalism of the smart DOR it's people's lives. For all the militant now in vogue, at its heartis a rock,e.g., B-52's]fodder [dance-oriented that's all the more obvious because even the occasional bewilderment has to be hedgedintoa pose. It's bad enoughto liveby authentic emotion outthedamned areevery bitas butit'sworsewhenyoufind surfaces, things and intractable as manners, art, depths.Everything ambiguous slippery, - is up for toanyofit,and if yourself youdon'thavetocommit grabs; identity you do, you stillwonder. (Carson1980,p. 59) is also trueof post-punk(and perhaps even new While this statement two latter these music), apparatuses attemptto explode rockand roll history by deconstructingits limits and conventions. Post-punk decodes and disruptsthe surfaceof rockand rollbut it also explicitly
Cockney Rejects); new wave (Human League, Echo and the Bunnymen,StrayCats, Elvis Costello, JoeJackson);post-punk(Gang of Four, TalkingHeads, JoyDivision, Public Image Ltd.); new music (Glenn Branca, BrianEno, Laurie Anderson, Lounge Lizards).
androll Rock andthe life empowerment ofeveryday
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is a self-conscious recodesit,unlikenew music.The result periphermusicdeniesanything alisation ofthemusic.Suchpost-modern apart of everyday from the concrete lifeand itsown surfaces, and reality a that even is and an recognises pleasure struggle acquired possibility. on fragmentation ofsurfaces, Its emphasison themateriality and on a which has music its reflexivity produced constantly proliferates investments: a formally minimalist musicwhose apparent content is ofdiscrete an almost random collection facts. than Rather being cryptic it is explicitly and intellectual, surrealand materialist. Rather than an emotional to outer communicating response phenomena,it describesthe phenomena and leaves the interpretation unsaid, cannotbe trusted. because interpretation itself The result is a music and yetfuriously that is oddlydetached and affective. While energetic and newmusic their emotion, denyordistrust post-punk very attempt to producean apparatus whichdoes notdependupon suchaffective affective codes has powerful Heads, Joy consequences (e.g., Talking Division, Glenn Branca, etc.). There are, however, significant differences betweenthesetwopost-modern musicsand their apparis often characterised atuses:whilepost-punk inflection bya particular of the axis of post-modernity whichforegrounds its own sense of new music angerand paranoiain thefaceofreality, despair,futility, ofthepostmodern uses itscathexis axistoobliterate apparently reality in favourof its own surfaces.Second, new music is contentto rockand roll,isolating and negating deconstruct itsvariousconventions and cliches and producingitselfas confrontational, often to the rock inaccessible and roll and It audience), alienating. (especially includestwo majorstrategies: to non-rock and roll (1) appropriate conventions classical and jazz practices, electronic (e.g., avant-garde and performance and to dissonant music); (2) produceintentionally and arhythmic sounds (e.g., DNA, Pere Ubu). On the otherhand, reconstructs itsplacewithin rockand rollbyreintegrating post-punk variousconventional codes (and recathecting axes ofyouthand the a music which is but moreconsonant and alienated, body),creating accessible and less confrontational Heads, Division, (e.g., Talking Joy summarise thisby sayingthatpunk Gang ofFour,XTC). We might topost-modernity with with and, responds anger, post-punk paranoia ofsuperficiality, whilenew alongwithnew wave, witha celebration music retreats into post-modernity. We can, further, locate these within variousapparatuses thedifferent ofrelating tothe possibilities within a 'critical' stance.Although it is an oversimplificahegemony tion, we mightsay thatoi and hardcore punk move betweenan
as an oppositional and an independent position;new wave functions independent (and sometimes an alternative: e.g. Elvis Costello)
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exists as an alternative and apparatus; post-punk largely possibility; itself as a radically new musicpositions independent apparatus. Of course,thesedescriptions treat thesedifferent musicalapparatuses as if theywere distinct when,in actualpractice, theyhave interacted witheach other in a variety ofwaysto producea rangeof concrete affective alliances. I wanttoemphasise that Further, although is a relation between themusics there referred tobythese commonly I havedescribed, terms and theapparatuses therelation isbynomeans The inflections a of musical text will depend necessary. particular on therangeofapparatuses within whichitis located. precisely I willoffer an additional, albeit ofthepossibilities briefer, example foranalysismade availableby mydescriptions ofthedimensions of within and roll:theimportance rock ofBruce in diversity Springsteen Americanrock and roll culture.My argument is, simply,that musichas evolvedin such a way as to makethetwo Springsteen's ofrockand roll'sdiversity difference from the (itsnegative registers hegemonyand its positive cathexisof specificaxes withinthe audience,thishas made his apparatus) parallel.And fora particular musica powerful affective centre of their rockand rollapparatus. has had, since the earlyseventies, a steadily Springsteen growing audience of fanatical fans. Apparently, thataudiencewas largely in collegeafter middle-class thecounterculture. In his earliest youth Park and The records TheInnocent, Wild, (Greetings from Asbury (1973) E Street andthe not locates as the (1974)),Springsteen only Shuffle youth siteforthe investment of pleasure,but detailsan almost dominant arounda particular The utopianexistence imageof youthculture. and music both It is in was,then, utopian oppositional. only the largely with therelease toRunand Darkness mid-seventies ofBorn on however, thatthe powerof his position theEdgeofTown, becomesexplicitly I think, visible.And concomitantly, the musicis locatedwithina more different one widelyaccessibleor more apparatus,perhaps Rather than and itis increasingyouth difference, present. powerfully and movement that in. He the axis the is of invested ly body,sexuality butrather, of utopiancultures a no longerpaintspictures valorises and energy embodiednot onlyin his images sense of movement to do withdriving) but also in the sound, which,often (especially as ifin flight. carried Thus, by the saxophone,drivesone forward cathexis oftheaxisofthebodyismatched bya moveinto Springsteen's
- and stilloppositional - position. an experiential
in Springsteen's moment The most interesting career,however, Withthisalbum,his audience came withthe releaseof TheRiver. he achievedthe statusof a superstar: his album expandedrapidly; hitsingle, he hadhisfirst etc.There was,atthesame toppedthecharts,
251
someantagonism between thefractions ofhisaudience. Both the time, sudden popularity and the relations betweenhis audiencescan be if one sees that,at thatmoment, understood his musicfunctioned withintwo radically different and apparatuses producedradically different affective alliances. The albumcan be heard,in fact, in many as transitional. critics have observed that the album is ways, Many On the one it was into an hand, quite schizophrenic. incorporated and independent experiential apparatus.The musicwas taken,prias an affirmation offunand excess, fans, marily bynew and younger as a form ofescape. The musicitself a space within which provided in temporary control oftheir lives.On theother theyare apparently thealbumcontinued to be locatedas oppositional, hand, forothers, but it appeared increasingly and critical. It seemed to pessimistic celebrate ofour common onlyitsown recognition hopelessness. With thereleaseofNebraska, has notonly his reinforced Springsteen within a critical-oppositional he has increasingly position apparatus, theaxisofpost-modernity as theonly meansofsurvival. foregrounded The albumwas self-produced at home,withcomparatively primitive Itis a solo,acoustic, almost 'folk' album,a self-conscious technology. attemptto remove himselffrompreciselythose rock and roll conventionswhich gained him his 'superstardom'. In fact,the intoan production qualityand the sound embodya kindof retreat almostconfessional, novelistic texture (muchlikehis earlier albums). Nebraska TheRiver's seems, above all, to problematise place within career and its Springsteen's ambiguity. Images of love and hope, which appeared in The Riverin the contradictory contextsof fun/innocence and sadness/anger, have disappeared. Extremes dominatethe iconography: and cops, acts of images of criminals and acts of social norms offer us no no way alternative, despair rigid out and no end to the journey.A rather uncomfortable religious evokesnot salvation, but theimpossibility ofhope, of ever imagery thebloodfrom ourhands.Whether itbe theheroof'Atlantic washing off the likelihood that he has chosenhisowndeathby City', shrugging that dies intoning, 'maybeeverything somedaycomesback',or the narrator oftheclosing scenarios that song,invoking pointtotheonly 'Attheend ofevery hardearnedday,peoplefind somereason reality, to believe',we are leftwiththeinescapable of 'Nebraska': 'I reality guess there's just a meannessin thisworld.'No way out exceptthe out there, listen to mylastprayer/Hi ho lonelycry,'Hey somebody silver-o deliverme fromnowhere.'And yet,two songs later,the is readdressed; no longer an anonymous itisto other, prayer imploring 'Mr. Deejay' and to 'rock'n' roll'that Nebraska turns. Thusthealbum
triesto reconcilethe contradictory momentsof TheRiver by alienating
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Lawrence Grossberg
itself from the latter's valorisation of youth and the body and instead its own 'post-modern'perception. foregrounding as a result,chartedin his musictheevolutionofthe has, Springsteen rock and roll apparatus forat least a part of the largerrock and roll audience. He has remained at the centreof the apparatus, and at the centre of rock and roll itselfforhis audience, only by mapping the affective historyof that audience.
of rockand roll:cooptation 5. The history Hypothesis

Discussions of 'cooptation' usually focus on the techniquesby which rockand roll,youthcultureand the more generalcontextof post-war by the economic experience have been exploited and transformed state and the various 'ideological apparatuses', especially the system theyouthmarket was recognised mass media. By theend ofthefifties, as an enormous source of consumer expenditure,one considered easily manipulatable. Further,the sheer numbers of the baby boom which generationmade thema potentialeconomicand politicalthreat had to be incorporated into the dominant culture. Clearly, this exploitation and incorporation have often been quite successful through a wide variety of strategies that have remained largely unexamined. Accordingto mosthistoriesofrockand roll,thisprocess and at each stage, rockand roll has been going on since thelate fifties, loses its power and becomes a commoditywhich can be produced, truethateach timeit marketedand consumed. Butitis also apparently has happened, rock and roll breaks out of that coopted stance and its affective reaffirms power, creatingnew sounds and new political ofrockand rollis read as a cycleof stances. The resultis thatthehistory in which rockand rollconstantly renaissance and protests cooptation its own cooptation. against This reading is reinforced by the view that the cooptation of new sounds, stylesand stances seems to takeplace at an increasingly rapid rate. We seem today to be caught in a situationin which the vast majorityof the rock and roll audience is incapable of making the between coopted and non-coopted any more: distinction ofbeing that instead I remember onenight, with friends around saying Sitting It had be the and roll ofourlives,rock thetriumph given tragedy. great might could everfeelas so richand radicalthatnothing us a sense of possibility intense- and thenthe worldwentback to businessas usual, leavingus rockand roll was always an folkculture, stranded... As mass-media and less morecontrol is toward ofmassculture Sincethedirection anomaly. back to suborn rock worked has record the ceaselessly industry spontaneity, band that and succeeded. intothestatus every Nearly quo ofentertainment,
253
still thinks to change rockand rollwas meant now laborsunderthe yourlife contradiction ofcreating culture that isn't Yetthey popular popular anymore. can'tgiveup thedreamofmaking as biga difference as Elvisor theBeatles, because theirmusic doesn't make sense any otherway. If such grand ambitions arenowmeaningless tothemassaudience, theattempt is tragic for to their it'stragic for us. them;in so faras we givecredence ambitions, (Carson1981,p. 49) Even worse, one must facethe argumentthatthisprocess is inevitable since cooptation is simultaneous with commercialsuccess. This rather pessimistic reading of the history of rock and roll assumes thatit is a form of mass art. Others argue thatrockand rollis eitherfolkartor the productof individual creativity, but these do not the of and the escape cycle cooptation ultimately pessimistic readingof rock and roll's history.In order to challenge such views, we need to recognise thatthereare two meanings of rock and roll as product (or commodity):music and records.Althoughgood rockand rollis often with a set of shared produced locally, even out of a local community and is as well often the of individual its talent,* experiences, product audience is always more inclusive: some subset of youth who have grown up in an increasingly urbanised, electronic-technological and textures ofthat society- and the music uses the sounds, rhythms common environment.The notion of community(and hence of 'folk art') is problematicwhen applied to youth culture,forthe so-called of rockand rollcannot be definedgeographically.But the community notion ofcommunity is a spatial one: everydayface-to-face interaction has been assumed to be the dominant determinant of shared has experience and the criterionfor community.But if temporality replaced spatialityin definingthe rock and roll audience, then the music requires widespread dissemination to be shared among the members of its appropriate audience. The musical product must be ifitis tobe available to reproducedas an object(e.g., a record)precisely those whom it addresses, to those existingwithinitsboundaries. The music must voluntarily enter into various systems of economic practices,and hence accept its existenceas apparentlymass art. This suggests a very different understandingof cooptation and a different the of of rock and roll.The problemwithboth reading history the 'folk' and the 'mass' art views of cooptation (and this is true of Frith's approach as well) is that they define it in purely economic terms,as ifit were simplythe resultof strategies imposed on rockand rollfrom without.They assume thatrockand rollis coopted when the demands of the economic systemsof productionand distribution are allowed to definethe productionof the music as well as of the object.
* For a critiqueof both the 'folkculture'and 'art' views of rockand roll,see Frith1981.
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Lawrence Grossberg
is tomakerock androll into a commodity, tomakeit Thus,theattempt saleableto an audiencewithout of differences anyacknowledgement within theyouth culture. Whilesuchviewsarepartially correct, they a number of characteristics in of rock and roll. First, ignore 'cooptation' - for thetension within rock and roll massdistribution is a they ignore Theappropriate realpart ofitsfunctioning. audience for anyparticular music cannotalways be definedahead of time(considerthe new alliance made up of 'high school kids, housewivesand listening assorted adult-contemporary types':Considine1981,p. 51). Second, is raised and theyignorethe factthatthe questionof cooptation within answeredat specific moments therockand rollculture. In fact, thenotion ofcooptation allowsus tosee clearly theexistence and rollat theintersection ofyouth culture and thehegemony. ofrock a homogeneity thanassuming ofeither external Rather orof strategies a internal ofcooptation wouldhavetobegin with an formations, study it has takenat variouspointsin the forms analysisof the concrete ofrockand roll.* history Thus cooptationno longerappears only as an external action and a rock roll which is at best upon hegemonic strategy perpetrated in thejudgements of rockand rollfans.To see it in these reflected thecapitalist terms is to setrockand rollagainst modeofproduction, Butinfact, as Frith distribution andconsumption. androll rock argues, To describe certain ofcapitalist rock and is alwaysa form commodity. and contribute toitsnormalisation. rollas cooptedis to acknowledge a de-encapsulation oftheboundary, is a decathexis ofthe Cooptation and an incorporation ofitsaffective alliance into musicand itsculture of desire. Cooptationindicatesan the hegemonicorganisations than an alteration re-alliance of the music rather of the affective ofthetext. is the orideological constitution result aesthetic Cooptation of affect, a restructuring of the affective of a recontextualization and surrounding themusic.Whatmayservein alliances penetrating a variety cathexis under of as a powerful ofdifference one context may, lose or be deprived ofthataffective function. circumstances, is one form of rockand roll'sproduction of its own Cooptation marks differences within itself Rockand rollconstantly justas history. and rollis music thedifference ofitsaudience.Cooptedrock itmarks and thedifference inscribes itsdifference of whichno longer potently
* For example, as soon as therewas an age splitwithinthe rockand rollaudience, the older fans oftendescribed 'teenage rock' as coopted, despite the factthat theyhad alliances. In the seventies,both heavy metaland disco grown up on similaraffective were rejectedby significant portionsoftherockand rollaudience as 'coopted', despite the factthatmany of those who dismissed such music eitherlistenedto comparable music at an earlierpoint in theirlives, or were now listeningto what was essentially the same music.
255
itsfans.And thisis measured from within theculture ofrock and roll. is the mode which rock and roll itself anew, by Cooptation produces of its past and present in orderto all the more moments rejecting potentlyinscribeits own boundary.'Cooptation'is a particular affective chargemade fromone stancewithinrockand roll upon allianceswithinthe corpus and others;it producesnew affective cultures ofrockand roll.This entailsa verydifferent readingofthe and roll. Rather than a of rock of and coopted authentic cycle history rock androllexists as a fractured within which differences music, unity and cooptation are definedin the construction of authenticity of affective alliancesand networks of affiliation. These alliancesare Thus, the 'cooptedness'of a always multipleand contradictory. and roll is an form of rock unstable it historically particular judgement; in within to the musical maychange response developments changing ofrockand roll.It certainly and political possibilities changesas one fractions oftherockand rollaudience. movesbetweenparticular
Conclusion.'Rock and Roll is Dead and We Don't Care' (The Rubinoos)

a fewyears Times a coverstory TheNewYork ago,published Magazine, and rollis all that remains ofthegeneration that rock claiming gap and itsappealtoAmerica's is slowly (Zion1981).IraRobbins, youth losing has mournedthe deathof rockcritic Lester editorof Trouser Press, Bangs:'Therewon'tbe any morelikeyou,butthenmaybeyourera died before 1982, you did' (Robbins p. 46). Bangs,perhapsmorethan theaffective celebrated ofrock androll, andhis critic, politics anyother whenthevery at a moment ofrock and roll deathoccurred possibility In thesameissue ofTrouser has been calledintoquestion. Mick Press,
Farren wrote that 'Rock music faces its biggest threat ...
who neither thearrival ofa generation norrequire desire, witnessing is is goingtohappentorock?' music. The obvious what rock question ofthepossible deathofrock and roll 1982, (Farren p. 52). The rhetoric the has become increasingly such of common, entering pages as New York Rocker and New rock Musical it Express; prestigious journals of conversation and has becomea common rock roll fans topic among as well. This is not the first timethatsuch rhetoric has appeared.It was in theearly to be aside with thearrival common ofthe sixties, only put and inthemid-seventies, to be aside with the arrival Beatles, put again is something and ofpunk.Yetthere moment uniqueaboutthepresent itposes to theaffective of and It is rock not thechallenge roll. power
of a recession on merely an economic crisis that reflectsthe effects
We are
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Lawrence Grossberg
The potential of rockand rollarises leisureexpenditures. rejection from twointerpenetrating vectors: thearrival ofa new simultaneously a source ofrevitalisation for and rock ofyouth, traditionally generation which to thesurface oftherock roll,and thedilemmas punkbrought and rollculture. and rolldependupon theaffective ofrock I havearguedthat politics and roll describes 'howa life context. Rock lived itsparticular temporal in lovewith soundto someonehalf in continual motion might ideally and halfoppressedby thisstateof affairs' (Hunter1981,p. 71). It within which and rollworks thecontext rock for thenew appearsthat is changing: thepromise ofyouth ofa booming generations economy has been replaced by the threatof continuousrecession;the and changehas been ofthebabyboom'simagesofyouth dominance of the baby boom's attemptto deal with replaced by images and 'middle and rollas a symbol ofrebellion age'; rock responsibility with has beenreplaced itsstatus as nostalgia. Youthtoday a confronts were themselves weaned of who on rock and it roll; generation parents a point 'Nice'kidscanmakerock a stigma, ofantagonism. is no longer willcometo see them, and rolland their even support their parents in the of music the affective life efforts. of Further, centrality youth seems to be givingway to new media and new sounds: videoWhile continue tolisten androll, torock it they technologies. computer oftheir emotional livesand leisure. has recededintothebackground that canbe givenofthisdevelopment. Therearetwoaccounts First, a powerful affective rock and roll is no longerable to constitute andthose whoremain between itsfans outside ofitsculture. boundary in some attacked it has Whileitis still becomean quarters, vigorously of and even feature the modern world. It is appreciated accepted the vehemence with which to note for video-games, interesting attacked and the rhetorical similarities are between example, being these attacksand those whichgreetedrockand roll. The second no longer desires a strongly cathected account is that youth boundary, insteadwitha return to a moretemporary and fluid beingsatisfied hastaught ofthegeneration them that history gap. Perhaps experience ofpost-modernity; livein celebration seekinstead to one cannot they Survival forthisnew youth ofpossiblestability. moments celebrate toand escapefrom thehegemony rather seemstodemandadaptation withinwhich theyfind context than a responseto the historical themselves. forit raisesa The question,however,mustremainunanswered ofyouth inpost-modern issue:thestatus muchmore daily problematic
life.That is, theveryhistorical ofyouth emergenceand transformation is part of a larger apparatus of power which takes the body of the
Rockand rolland theempowerment ofeveryday life
257
population as its object ofcontrol.While itis truein one sense thatthe categoryof 'youth' emerges afterthe war, it is equally true thatrock and roll exists at a particularcusp between the rise of youth and its (see Hebdige 1982). problematisation/disappearance There is also a vectorof the contemporary crisiswhich is internalto rock and roll, a vectorwhich can be tracedback to the emergenceof punk and which I have discussed above. Rockand rollin the eightiesis not merely fragmented;it is constitutedby three vectors fighting commercial(MOR) music merelyreproduces against each other.First, of existingstylesdespite the factthattheyhave the surfacestructures lost theiraffective power. Second, new wave rock seeks to reaffirm pleasure as resistancebut cannot escape itsown desire forcommercial withthe dominant and popular success, and thus, its own complicity a pleasure culture.Third,post-punkand new music seek to articulate and cathecta boundarythatno longercoincides withthe rockand roll behind its surfaceand new wave culture. While MOR seeks stability of rock and roll,post-punkand new music appear seeks the stability increasinglyto rejectanythingnot consistentwith theirpost-modern in rockand rollhave createda situation practice.These threedirections affective alliances in which the surroundingeach, and thus their audiences, have littlein common. There is no centrearound which they can exist as fringesor at which they can intersect.They are on moving at increasingvelocities, despite comopposing trajectories, mercialattempts at incorporation and thefactthatsome musicremains shared within all threecontexts. The result of these developments both withinand outside of the music is that,apparently,rockand rollno longergenerallyserves the functionsI have described. For the youngergenerations,as affective well as formanyofthebabyboomers,ithas become backgroundmusic which, even as leisure, can provide no challenge to the dominant its affective organisations of desire. For those who seek to reaffirm the has been The relocated. result is that new boundary power, alliances are being formedand the culturaland politicalramifications of this momentin the history of rockand rollmay be as powerfuland as those which interesting emerged withthe 'birth'ofrockand rollin the fifties. Whetheritis the 'death' ofrockand rollremainstobe seen.
References
tohistory, indefiance oftime', 8-14 J.1980.'In opposition Voice, Berger, Village 89-90 October, pp. and theMuffins 13-19 Carson,T. 1980.'Martha Voice, getdisengaged', Village August,p. 59 1981.'The David Johansen 8-15July, Voice, story', Village p. 49
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Considine, J.D. 1981. 'REO + MOR = heavy metal pop', VillageVoice,8-15 July,p. 57 Press,August, p. 52 Farren,M. 1982. 'Surface noise', Trouser
York) and reality:the boundaries of Grossberg,L. 1982. 'Experience, signification culturalsemiotics', Semiotica, 41, pp. 73-106 1983A.'The politicsof youthculture:some observationson rockand rollin American culture', Social Text,8, Winter1983/4, pp. 104-26 1983B. 'If rock and roll communicates,why is it is noisy? Pleasure and the popular', paper delivered to the internationalconferenceof IASPM, Reggio Emilia, Italy, September and Interpretation Theory 'Teaching the popular', in Criticism, Forthcoming, ed. C. Nelson (Urbana) in theClassroom, theMeaningofStyle(London) Hebdige, D. 1979. Subculture: 1982. 'Posing . . . threats, striking. . . poses: youth, surveillance and 37/38,pp. 68-88 display', SubStance, the beat', VillageVoice,21-7 October to 'Think 1981. Hunter, J. Marcus, G. 1969. 'Who put thebomp in thebomp-de-bompde-bomp?',in Rock and Roll Will Stand,ed. G. Marcus (Boston), pp. 6-27 Roll, ed. J. Miller,2nd edn. (New York), pp. 451-63 1980B. 'Wake-up', RollingStone,24 June,pp. 40-44 1981A. 'The shock of the old', New West,March, p. 113 1981B. 'Etched in tone', New West,September,p. 124 or what can be said?', in Nelson, C. 1978. 'The psychology of criticism,
andthe S. 1981.Sound Leisure Politics 'n' Roll(New Youth, Frith, Effects: ofRock
Rock Illustrated and Stone intheUK', in The 1980A. of Rolling History 'Anarchy
pp. 45-61 Marxism andthe Nelson, C. and Grossberg,L. (eds). Forthcoming. Interpretation ofCulture(Urbana) Piccarella, J. 1980. 'Fashion's futurefusion conventions', Village Voice, 14 January, p. 70 1982. 'Flipper's triumphof the therapeutic',VillageVoice,15 June,p. 83 Press,August, p. 46 Robbins, I. 1982. 'Lip service', Trouser p. 67 Schjeldjahl, P. 1981. 'Appraising passions', VillageVoice,7-13 January, Williams,R. 1981. Culture(London) Zion, S. 1981. 'Outlasting rock', New YorkTimesMagazine,21 June,p. 16
ed. G. H. Hartmen andthe Text, Question (Baltimore), ofthe Psychoanalysis

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Another Boring Day in Paradise: Rock and Roll and the Empowerment of Everyday Life Author(s): Lawrence Grossberg

Another boringday in paradise:rockand roll life* of everyday and the empowerment

students - as well as the rock and roll fan in me - were noticeably

and the androll Rock empowerment ofeveryday life

1. Rock and rollin thepost-war context Hypothesis

andthe Rock androll empowerment life ofeveryday

Rock androll and the empowerment ofeveryday life

Rock androll andthe empowerment ofeveryday life

2. The powerof rockand roll:affective Hypothesis difference

andthe androll Rock empowerment ofeveryday life

alliances 3. The workof rockand roll:affective Hypothesis

androll and the Rock empowerment ofeveryday life

androll Rock andthe empowerment ofeveryday life

of rockand roll 4. The diversity Hypothesis

andthe androll Rock empowerment ofeveryday life

and the androll Rock ofeveryday empowerment life

David Bowie (early seventies) ElectricLight Orch. Disco (mid-seventies)

Doors (late sixties) Bruce Springsteen (mid-seventies)

Chuck Berry (mid-fifties) Ramones (late seventies)

Beatles (early sixties) Blondie REO Speedwagon (late seventies)

Clash Tonio K (late seventies)

JoyDivision (late seventies) Culture Club Orange Juice (eighties)

and the androll Rock life empowerment ofeveryday

androll and the Rock empowerment ofeveryday life

androll Rock andthe life empowerment ofeveryday

Rock androll andthe empowerment ofeveryday life

of rockand roll:cooptation 5. The history Hypothesis

Rock androll andthe empowerment ofeveryday life

andthe androll Rock empowerment ofeveryday life

Conclusion.'Rock and Roll is Dead and We Don't Care' (The Rubinoos)

Rockand rolland theempowerment ofeveryday life

ed. G. H. Hartmen andthe Text, Question (Baltimore), ofthe Psychoanalysis

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