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The Triumph of Vulgarity in a thinker's guide to rock 'n' roll. Rock music mirrors the tradition of nineteenth-century Romaniticsm, Robert Patison says. Whitman's "barbaric yawp" can still be heard in the punk rock of the Ramones, and the spirit that inspired Poe's Eureka lives on in the lyrics of Talking Heads. Rock is vulgar, Pattison notes, and vulgarity is something that high culture has long despised but rarely bothered to define. This book is the first effort since John Ruskin and Aldous Huxley to describe in depth what vulgarity is, and how, with the help of ideas inherent in Romaniticism, it has slipped the constraints imposed on it by refined culture and established its own loud arts. The book disassembles the various myths of rock: its roots in black and folk music; the primacy it accords to feeling and self; the sexual omnipotence of rock stars; the satanic predilictions of rock fans; and rock's high-voltage image of the modern Prometheus wielding an electric guitar. Pattison treats these myths as vulgar counterparts of their originals in refined Romantic art and offers a description and justification of rock's central place in the social and aesthetic structure of modern culture. At a time when rock lyrics have provoked parental outrage and senatorial hearings, The Triumph of Vulgarity is required reading for anyone interested in where rock comes from and how it works.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Chapter 1 The Triumph of Vulgarity: Rock and Romantic Pantheism(p. 3)
• Chapter 2 I Am White, but O, My Soul Is Black: The Origins of Rock in the Romantic Primitive(p. 30)
• Chapter 3 Dreams of Elysian: Blues, Folk, and Rock Pantheism(p. 56)
• Chapter 4 I Formulate Infinity: Feeling, Self, and Growth in Rock's Forever Now(p. 87)
• Chapter 5 The Road of Vulgar Excess: Conventions of Rock Selfhood(p. 111)
• Chapter 6 The Zombie Birdhouse and the Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle: Rock and the World(p. 138)
• Chapter 7 Man and God at Rock 'n' Roll High School: Popular Culture and Its Critics(p. 164)
• Chapter 8 De la Musique Avant Toute Chose: A Rock Aesthetic(p. 188)
• Notes(p. 213)
• Bibliography(p. 239)
• Index(p. 259)

Reseñas proporcionadas por Syndetics

Library Journal Review

This is a provocative, opinionated study about the origins of rock and about rock as an idea. The author sees rock as grounded in the ideology of the American Revolution and as an extension of 19th-century Romanticism. He finds rock foreshadowed in Shelley and in the pantheism of Whitman. At the same time, he dwells on the vulgarity of rock (and youth, democracy, and popular culture), though he admits rock brings intense pleasure to many. He considers rock devoid of logic and perceives the lyrics as ``trite, obscene, and idiotic.'' Nevertheless he has produced a logical critical study, which, for all its paradoxes, many will find valid and stimulating. Recommended for academic collections. Daniel J. Lombardo, Jones Lib., Inc. Amherst, Mass. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

By comparing 20th-century rock music to the traditions of 19th-century romanticism, Pattison addresses the mythology that has grown up around rock music. Pattison's description of rock as blunt, rude, recognizing no class boundaries, and utterly tasteless-in short, vulgar-sets the tone and provides the book's title. Not since Richard Meltzer's The Aesthetics of Rock (1970) has the music Pattison calls the ubiquitous ingredient of American popular culture been examined in quite this way. The text is scholarly and the examples culled from rock's rich history are up to date. Documentation in the footnotes is extensive and the bibliography suggests that the author has sampled broadly of rock's writings. However, mistakes in quoted song lyrics, incorrect artists for cited songs, and erroneous attribution of Trips; Rock Life in the Sixties to Ed Sanders rather than Ellen Sander suggest that Pattison is more familiar with Romanticism than early rock music. Illustrated. Most appropriate for upper-level courses and general readers.-H.A. Keesing, University of Maryland at College Park

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Robert Pattison teaches humanities at Long Island University. His previous books include On Literacy and Tennyson and Tradition.