The 1950s: "Psychopathic Brilliance, Security, Boredom, Elvis Presley,
and the Day the Music Died
America in the 1950s found itself in a unique and transitional period: the post-war industrial boom, as well as the rise in new cultural phenomena and technology established new levels social, political, and economic success. From this, artistic and creative movements in poetry, film, and music rose, embodying characteristics Aristotle would view as tragic. After less than a decade of the public's exposure to celebrities like James Dean, Chuck Berry and Bill Haley, Norman Mailer (1959) identified a growing cultural schism in popular culture, in his essay “The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster”:
...whether the life is criminal or not, the decision is to encourage the psychopath in oneself, to explore that domain of experience where security is boredom and therefore sickness, and one exists in the present, in that enormous present which is without past or future, memory or planned intention, the life where a man must go until he is beat […] The unstated essence of Hip, its psychopathic brilliance quivers with the knowledge that new kinds of victories increase one's power for new kinds of perception; and, defeats, the wrong kind of defeats, attack the body and imprison one's energy until one is jailed in the prison air of other people's habits, other people's defeats, boredom, quiet desperation, and muted icy self-destroying rage. One is Hip or one is Square (the alternative which each new generation coming into American life is beginning to feel), one is a rebel or one conforms (Mailer, 1959, as cited by Charters, 1992, p. 527-528).
While Mailer (1959) sought to identify “psychopathic brilliance” in a new “Hip” pervading culture, record companies' creation of celebrities became quickly calculated, seeking to package and distribute a lucrative version of “muted icy self-destroying rage” through the evolving genre of rock. In part a rejection of domestic security available during the economic prosperity that followed World War II in America, the security that Mailer characterized as being sickeningly boring to the “Hip”-- this rejection, along with racial categorization in music, helped shape the genre of rock. Rhythm and blues record sales came to reflect a host of musicians whose beat and lyrical topics classified them quickly as the opposite of “Square,” to such an extent that record companies sought to redefine rock into a lucrative and acceptable genre.
Few musicians provide as clear an example of Aristotle's foundational elements of tragedy as Elvis Presley: he image was of a creature of Christian goodness, bearing both patriotic and American Southern propriety, both a consistent and inconsistent creative individual who found it 'necessary and probable' to record for his mother a simple recording for Mother's Day, 1953, at Sun Records in Memphis. While scholarship regarding the tragic plot of Elvis' rise and fall in popularity and creativity is extensive, a 1994 essay by Velvet Underground front man and rock icon Lou Reed on Elvis identifies how the identity of the King of Rock and Roll resided “where the Complication and Unraveling are the same” (Aristotle, n.d., Part XVIII, para. 3), amid a mass of contractual obligations and prescribed cultural roles. At the time of this writing, Reed (1994) had himself pursued a career of risks, transformation, and the partial and public unraveling of his identity in his music included work as the creative force behind the Velvet Underground, a series of adventurous solo releases in the 1970s, and notoriety as a producer during the 1980s. Reed (1994) chose to address the deceased Presley directly:
There's no in depth interview with you. Early on you said you wanted to be Dino and you weren't being sarcastic. What are we to think. A lack of certain knowledge leaves things in a pure state. We have your work. The movement from the exciting to the most mundane. A movement from polar opposites. You became exactly what we had all imagined you despised […] I think you saw every dream vanish in a flurry of money and that you were so scared and so much tied up with being Elvis that whoever you were never had a chance and that all you knew was that you were terribly unhappy and that if Elvis-- the Elvis you played at being-- couldn't be happy well then who could. I figure you thought you had less talent than a coon hound, cryin' all the time (Reed, as cited by Sammon, 1994, p. 25-26).
Reed (1994) mentioned “Dino,” identifying a host of popular crooners whose careers were marked by security and record companies' extensive promotion, and who provided: Tony Curtis, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Perry Como, Pat Boone and others offered listeners choices other than the rebellious and uptempo rock music produced during the 1950s. Presley's personal sense of identity was of concern to Reed (1994), and the “flurry of money” that distracted the King of Rock and Roll may further define a relationship between economics and tragedy at work in specific creative individuals. Elvis was not a songwriter, and his personal life was characterized by the results of his fame, which came early in his life and preempted much of his functioning within normal parameters of society: legends of his rental of full movie theaters and amusement parks for his and his family's use help identify the confining nature of early music celebrity.
An unexpected and defining tragedy came as the result of a live collaborative concert tour: promoters grouped together popular acts to attract larger audiences, making each event more lucrative. On February 2, 1959 a plane crashed in rural Iowa, causing the untimely death of the influential electric guitarist and front man for the Crickets, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, an important and defining figure in Chicano and ethnic rock, and the J.P. Richardson, whose recording career as the Big Bopper followed his success as a disc jockey in Texas. Known for his version of “Chantilly Lace,” Richardson sought to extend the scope and abilities of the new genre of music, setting an early world record for consecutive hours spent broadcasting, as well as coining the term “music video,” recording an early prototype of himself (“The Big Bopper,” 2011). The plane crash came only eight months into Valens' career; Holly and Richardson were each not yet thirty. This widely-publicized event, referenced famously in Don McLean's 1971 epic narrative hit “American Pie,” may provide a foundational event by which to assess the genre of rock music and its themes of tragedy.
As the 1950s drew to a close, instrumental rock music gained popularity, as record companies' direct response to the problems associated with rock's controversial lyrical subjects. Trends in popular music had developed in the United States and in the United Kingdom; these two locations would continue to provide rich international and creative relationships and interaction between unique artistic communities.
The 1960s: Hip and Mod Celebrities, Abbey Road Innovations, and Escapism and Excess
Transformations in rock music in the early 1960s reflect a diversification and broadening of the genre: do-wop, British Invasion, 'new crooners' and blues-inflected music. Much scholarship on the Beatles has detailed their embrace of chaotic, excessive and individualistic seriousness, moving from outright-love pop songs like “Eight Days a Week” to the dark rapture of “Helter Skelter” in only a handful of years. If there had been any humor to rock and roll music during rock's formative years, of Bill Haley and Elvis Presley, social revolution and war, 'consistently inconsistent' events exterior to the craft of rock music, promoted among some musicians an embrace of a dark and chaotic transformation in the 1960s.
The influence of the Beatles and Bob Dylan on themes of tragedy in rock music through the 1960s may be informed by a separate theory of comedy not found in Aristotle's Poetics. If tragedy is built of “identity [that] exists where the Complication and Unraveling are the same” (Aristotle, n.d., Part XVIII, para. 3), and thus poetic construction of tragedy regards plot over character, comic dimensions may regard and discuss the efforts of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and Bob Dylan, among others more fully: the embrace of comic themes in rock music may be served by full study of the evolution in the Beatles' catalog alone.
The rise of rock music celebrities and their public choices alongside their artistic choices continued to permit experimentation in instrumentation and lyrical themes. British rock, including the Who, the Hollies, Jimi Hendrix, and others influenced regional communities of rock musicians in the United States (New York City and San Francisco are regarded as two notable areas in this respect). Social and political transformations came to redefine artistic and creative intentions in rock music, and some recordings presented ranged in their responses, from the folk activism of Joan Baez to the black liberation theorist-rock of the Detroit-based MC5. Escapism, its own tragedy, characterized psychedelic music produced by groups as Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, the Byrds and others: as the Beatles' performance of “All You Need Is Love” from Abbey Road Studios represented Britain’s contribution to a satellite broadcast in 1967, new communicative abilities for rock music became more clear.
For many, drugs and indulgence became associated with rock music; the tragic plot of rock music celebrities began to accumulate grim statistics, centered around odd coincidence. The 27 Club is an informal collection of individuals whose passing at age twenty-seven, alongside their involvement with the genre of rock music, provides a poignant example of the genre's tragic themes: “tragedy endeavors, as far as possible, to confine itself to a single revolution of the sun, or but slightly to exceed this limit, whereas the Epic action has no limits of time” (Aristotle, Part V, para. 3). The following recording and performing artists may be regarded within the genre as more Epic than others, if not for their musical contribution, at least for their inclusion in the 27 Club.
Robert Johnson, influential blues guitarist; 1938; cause of death unknown
Brian Jones, founding member of the Rolling Stones, multi-instrumentalist; 1969; “death by misadventure” (coroner's report, as cited by “27 Club,” 2011)
Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, founding member of Canned Heat; 1970; drug overdose
Jimi Hendrix, experimental and influential guitarist; 1970; death caused by asphyxiation related to a combination of sleeping pills and wine
Janis Joplin, vocalist and songwriter; 1970; “probable heroin overdose” (“27 Club,” 2011)
Ron “Pigpen” McKerman, keyboardist, vocalist, founding member of the Grateful Dead; 1973; “gastrointestinal hemorrhage associated with alcoholism” (“27 Club,” 2011)
Jim Morrison, vocalist, songwriter and poet, lead singer of The Doors; 1971; heart failure likely related to heroin use
Writing on the overdose of Janis Joplin, rock critic Lester Bangs reeled in the acceptance of such tragedy across the genre: “it's not just that this kind of early death has become a fact of life that has become disturbing, but that it's been accepted as a given so quickly” (“Lester Bangs,” 2011). The extent to which the celebrities above continue to define a genre of popular music helps identify how tragic celebrities-- their personal agents of thought and character, as Aristotle seeks (Part XVIII, para. 3)-- continue to define an ever-evolving definition of “hip,” popular, cool, common, lucrative, in popular rock music... [full text available at smithforecast.com]
Bibliography
“27 Club.” (2011). Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/27_Club
Aristotle. (n.d.). Poetics. The Internet Classics Archive. Retrieved from http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.mb.txt
Arnott, W. (1985). Aristotle on comedy [Review of Aristotle on Comedy: Towards a Reconstruction of Poetics II by R. Janko]. The New Classical Review, 2 (35). Available from http://www.jstor.org.proxy.myunion.edu/stable/3063307?seq=2
Bangs, L. (2003). Mainlines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader. Ed. J. Morthland. Random House: New York.
Barzun, J. (2002). Of What use the Classics Today?. In A Jacques Barzun Reader. New York: Harper Collins.
“Big Bopper, The.” (2011). Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Bopper
Biker Bar B Q. (2009). Bike Pics. Retrieved from http://www.bikerbarbq.com/bike_pics
Boethius. (2008). The Consolation of Philosophy. Trans. David R. Slavitt. Intro. S. Lerer. Retrieved from http://www.hup.harvard.edu/resources/educators/pdf/BOECON.pdf
Boucher, P. (2008). Pink Floyd founder member Richard Wright dies after cancer battle. In Mail Online. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1056287/Pink-Floyd-founder-member-Richard-Wright-dies-cancer-battle.html
Charters, A., ed. (1992). The Portable Beat Reader. New York: Viking.
Childs, H. (2009, 14 Aug). Music Library: The Flaming Lips. Retrieved from http://www.philebrity.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/happycoyne.jpeg
contactmusic.com. (March 29 2007). John Lennon- Lennon Almost Got Beaten Up At Playboy Mansion. Retrieved from http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/story/lennon-almost-got-beaten-up-at-playboy-mansion_1026561
Cooper, L. (1922). An Aristotelian Theory of Comedy. Harcourt, Brance and Company: New York. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.proxy.myunion.edu/books?id=hZZZAAAAMAAJ&ots=2eQBxrpfgJ&dq=Tractatus%20coislinianus&lr&pg=PP5#v=onepage&q=Tractatus%20coislinianus&f=false
“Dark Side of the Moon, The.” (n.d.) Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Side_of_the_Moon
“Doors, The.” (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doors
Flaming Lips, The. (1997). Zaireeka. [Compact disc]. Burbank: Warner Brothers.
Flaming Lips, The. (1999). The Soft Bulletin. [Compact disc]. Burbank: Warner Brothers.
Harris, C. (2008). Nirvana baby—all grown up—re-creates classic Nevermind cover image. In MTV News. Retrieved from http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1598985/nirvana-baby-recreates-classic-nevermind-cover-image.jhtml#more
Kahn, S. (1999). Kurt Cobain, martyrdom, and the problem of agency. In Studies in Popular Culture. Retrieved from http://pcasacas.org/SiPC/22.3/kahn.html
Leibovitz, A. (1980). Annie Liebovitz Lennon Ono December 1980.jpg. In Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/29/Annie_Leibovitz_Lennon_Ono_December_1980.jpg
Lehner, M. (2007). Nirvana baby talks about the famous album cover. In People. Retrieved from http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20051839,00.html
“Lester Bangs.” (2011). Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_Bangs
LordofNickel. (2011). Jim Morrison passed out on stage. In Photobucket. Retrieved from http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/LordofNickel/jim_morrison_out_on_stage.jpg
Nevermind. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevermind
Nirvana. (1991). Nevermind. [compact disc]. Geffen: New York.
Norman, P. (2008). Lennon's downfall: Had it not been for one last touching act of love, he might still be alive today. In Mail Online. Retrieved http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1072271/Lennons-downfall-Had-touching-act-love-alive-today.html
Kozinn, A. (2008). A fond look at Lennon's 'Lost Weekend'. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/12/arts/12iht-12pang.10978303.html
“Kurt Cobain Nirvana Rare Pictures.” (2011). Kurt Cobain With His Kitten Spinda Bifida.jpg. Retrieved from http://www.kurtcobainnews.com/Kurt-Cobain-Nirvana-Rare-Pictures.html
Patterson, T. (2008). Naked ‘Nirvana baby’ still chasing dollars. In CNN Entertainment. Retrieved from http://articles.cnn.com/2008-12-11/entertainment/nirvana.baby_1_nirvana-grunge-album-marks?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ
Pink Floyd. (1973). The Dark Side of the Moon. [vinyl record]. Capitol: Los Angeles.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. (2011). Induction Process. Retrieved from http://rockhall.com/inductees/induction-process/
SBDCreative. (2011). Sufjan Stevens Age of Adz. Retrieved from http://www.sbdcreative.com.au/brightsparks/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/sufjan_stevens_-.Age_of_Adz.jpg
Time. (2011). A Brief History of Abbey Road Studios. In Photo Essays. Retrieved from: http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1967910_2080584,00.html
Weinstein, D. (1995). Alternative youth: The ironies of recapturing youth culture. In Young, 3, 2-12. doi: 10.1177/110330889500300106
No comments:
Post a Comment