Another boring day in paradise: rock and roll and the empowerment of everyday life

Abstract

About five years ago, I began to teach courses on the cultural history of rock and roll. My approach was simple: I would try to describe the texts, interpreting the significance produced by the unique synthesis of musical texture and lyrical content. Then I would suggest correspondences to the situation of its audiences which were mediated through the institutional practices of production and consumption. The music obliquely represented and responded to the structure of experience of at least certain portions of its youth audience. As I sought more adequate readings, the correspondences became increasingly refracted; the music had to be located in an overdetermined context: class, race, subcultures, gender, as well as age, exerted unequal pressures on and were represented in rock and roll. Nevertheless, my students – as well as the rock and roll fan in me – were noticeably dissatisfied. While they often assented to my readings, it was clear that my readings failed to capture something important, something which was intimately connected to rock and roll's power as well as to its cultural politics.

Musical Life Stories: Narratives on Health Musicking

“…Jenson (1992) suggests that fandom is a way of making sense of the world in relation to mass media but also in relation to "historical, social and cultural" situatedness (Jenson, 1992, p. 27). Lewis (1992) speaks of fandom as affording a depth of feeling and gratification important in coping with everyday life (Lewis, 1992, p. 1), while Grossberg (1984) suggests fandom offers individual strategies for survival and pleasure. Drawing on the work of Grossberg (1992), Lewis also notes that through participating in fandom fans construct coherent identities for themselves and experience a sense of empowerment (Lewis, 1992, p. 3).…”

“…Indeed, DT's narrative of fandom offers other ways of understanding affect. Grossberg (1984Grossberg ( , 1992) describes fandom as a particular 'affective sensibility'. Through this affective sensibility fans construct a 'lived coherence' by defining not only what sites (practices, pleasures, meanings) matter, but also how they matter (Grossberg, 1992, p. 60).…”

“…(Frith & Goodwin, 1990;Frith, 1996;Negus, 1996 Negus, , 1999Bennett 2001;Shuker, 2001; Straw, 2001, Longhurst, 2007. Fandom is viewed as a means to facilitate self, group and social identity and community whilst also affording personal expression, action, agency and empowerment for people at all stages of their life course (Grossberg, 1984;Lewis, 1992;Cavicchi, 1998;Bennett, 2000;Fast, 2001;Jenkins, 1992 Jenkins, , 1996 Kotarba et al, 2008;Harrington & Bielby, 2010;Fiske, 2010;Bennett & Taylor, 2012). Indeed, those who have studied musical fandom specifically have located it in terms of its affordances for coping with daily life within the modern technological world.…”

“…Indeed, DT's narrative of fandom offers other ways of understanding affect. Grossberg (1984Grossberg ( , 1992 (Grossberg, 1992, p. 60). The investments of fandom thus "empower individuals in a variety of ways", not least because they allow fans to organise moments of stable identity in sites where they feel 'at home' (Grossberg, 1992, p. 59).…”

Rock Music: Dimensions of a Mass Medium — Meaning Production through Popular Music

“…All that is being concluded is that the formation of rock music does not follow the rules of the formation of artistic texts. All relevant investigations have thus far reached the same conclusion and treated the conclusion as a point of departure in searching for alternative theories [see, for example, Chambers (1980 and, and Grossberg (1984)]. A number of approaches have been developed whose theoretical points of departure will now be examined.…”