Rules Of The Game #24: The PBSification Of Rock

[koganbot]

Latest column. I look at some of my own ideas and start asking questions, hoping that I'll inspire you to ask questions about them, too.

The Rules Of The Game #24: The PBSification Of Rock

I don't really go deeply into what I think PBSification is, or how we turned rock 'n' roll into something that's "good for you" in a bad, stultifying way. A question: Is PBSification inevitable? Is there a way to praise and preserve the great music of the past (girl groups, soul, etc.) and to recognize and speak for the great music of the present (Ashlee) without ultimately laying a sense of deadening Quality and Significance on it (or a sense of Glorious Frivolity, or some other deadening anti-Significance stance that is really the same thing run through a convolution or two)?

EDIT: Here are links to all but three of my other Rules Of The Game columns (LVW's search results for "Rules of the Game"). Links for the other three (which for some reason didn't get "Rules Of The Game" in their titles), are here: #4, #5, and #8.

UPDATE: I've got all the links here now:

http://koganbot.livejournal.com/179531.html

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that the big unanswered question in the PBSifying story is when - when this might have started, when the realisation of significance took place? 77? 67? 70? What caused it, do you think?

And is PBSification something that happens inevitably when anyone ascribes a particular kind of value to a cultural product? ("art-value" or "good-for-you-value" I guess) Is there a way for something to be good for you and not be PBS?

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I think I might have been born too late to experience anything other than PBSificiation (if I've understood the definition correctly). I latched on to the 'alternative' scene (Korn, Marilyn Manson etc) when I was 13/14 mainly because it was an excuse to swear a lot and avoid having to learn how to wear make-up properly. But it wasn't even shocking to my parents, let alone society at large. There was no dangerous edge to this music outside the confines of the Daily Mail Concerned Mums letters page - it was loud and abrasive but this was nothing new! Perhaps punk has immunised the British public against 'difficult' music just like Madonna has made sechsy videos the industry standard since the early '90s?

[koganbot]

I'd say '64 or '65.

I shy away from saying anything like this is inevitable, especially since that just gives me an excuse to think about what happens in a particular situation.

It seems to me that reading auteurist and academic accounts of The Searchers, and thousands of other movies, helped me get a lot more out of those movies; yet there's something deadening about the whole discourse about classic movies, and to me there's something deadening about the whole discourse of ha ha ha shitty movies that are fun (even if I did like MST3000).

It's certainly better to think about and appreciate and try to understand things and to pass that information on than not to.

I think it would have been fake for rock not to have tried for capital-S Significance, and it would be fake for me not to write about Ashlee, and if Ashlee doesn't walk a million miles to find out what this shit means I'm going to think she's fake.

There's a connection here to upward mobility (which I do not think is inherently a bad thing), something wrong with how it is practiced. Or something.

I don't know, do I? I think my instincts are right here, but I don't know where to take them.

[koganbot]

gives me an excuse NOT to think about what happens in a particular situation, that is

[koganbot]

Back in my fanzine I was saying that "dangerous edge" was just another version of the Protestant Ethic, so even if the dangerous edge were very real and very dangerous it would still be insisting that the music be good for you (or good for the world, by subverting whatever it is that's supposed to be subverted). But then, why should "good for you" and "dangerous edge" end up as bad things? Yet they do (it seems to me).

Oh, and thank you to you and Tom and skyecaptain for willing to talk to me about these things.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I don't think inevitability makes talking about specific situations less interesting. Death is inevitable but approaching or avoiding or trying to delay it makes for interesting situations.

Similarly I wonder if PBSification is something that can be warned of or averted or is describing it only a possibility within a system where it's already happened (since part of it seems to be a certain self-consciousness, and recognising it also requires self-consciousness).

Maybe the deadening effect of the discourse comes from a strong critical explanation killing other possible critical explanations - a reduction of possibilities within a work due to a strengthening of one possibility. When I write what I feel is a good piece of analysis of something I often feel like I've "finished" that thing, I don't look to come back to it again. Or: I decided to become a marketer rather than an astronaut - that not-astronautness deadens me, but also the not-marketerness would deaden me somehow were I not an astronaut.

Something I've noticed in your writing is that you seem to be drawn to discourses where an attempt at least is being made to not close possibilities off (but then getting frustrated with them, because in not closing things off they don't want to chase ideas either)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I think 'good for you' can definitely be a good thing! Taking the (poptimist?) viewpoint, 'good for you' could mean broadening your horizons - listening to music that challenges you and puts your existing thoughts into perspective, refining your palette? Even if this refinement is "jebus the Plain White Ts are awful, now I have a better understanding of why I enjoy 2 Unlimited so much"? Subverting can be awesome, as long as you don't write off the non-subversive stuff. Also - who exactly is determining whether this is 'bad' or 'subversive' (or whatever) at present? The music press? Bloggers? The kidz? I'm fairly certain that *I'm* not...

[Happy to chat! I'm back at work and my brain is functioning again - also I started reading my Pocket Guide To Literary Theory today so WATCH OUT EVERYONE I'll be Derrida-ing it up in no time haha :)]

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

sorry, "were I an astronaut".

[koganbot]

Were I an astronaut, would you love me anyway, would you have my baby?

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

one element of the PBS problem is maybe the question of what drives a critic or reviewer who is not intrinsically confident they are able to get and keep a reader reading by virtue of their WRITING ALONE -- viz "why am i reading abt this movie? bcz i love reading this writer" --> won't produce the PBS effect?

so it's a product of pretexts against the unconfidence possibly produced by the industrial routinisation of the practice of reviewing -- "this is hurried; this is hacky; i have things to say but not sure if i can get to them well" ---> when all else (ie yr "pure" gifts as a writer) fails< reach for it-does-you-good as the locker-in of the reader?

[koganbot]

Of course, broadening one's horizons can become We Are The People Who Broaden Our Horizons which could become burdensome and head us towards PBS but then again I think some amount of PBSification is more interestng than no PBSification, and some amount of dutiful Protestant Ethical this-will-make-me-a-better-person self-whipping may be better than just curiosity and free-play-of-inquiry and joy-of-learning, since PBS implies at least that there is something at stake and something to be lost by failure. I'm thinking of the need for balance (while sitting on the back of my chair), some useful PBS good-for-you pressure, but not overwhelmingly PBS. This is why in my idea of a Department of Dilettante Research I want the "department" to be an open space, which means that the semi-PBS of my own impulses gets input from kibitzers who want more True Seriousness and mockers who want more fun and joy and fizz and gush.

I like Tom's and your ability to make games and polls out of everything, and the possibility of commentary being both serious and frivolous, with the frivolity containing accidental truths and the seriousness being intriguing and fun.

[koganbot]

Pressure goes in two different directions (which I think are both part of an overall PBSishness, though only the first is like the actual PBS): a pressure to use one's prose to advertise the importance of the subject matter, as it were, and at the same time to be fun and exciting so as not to bore the reader.

Most rock writing is a terrible combination of both - a presentation that screams IMPORTANCE and a jokey prose style that screams FUN.

Novelty (part one)

[koganbot]

My brother, Richard, writes:

OK, Frank, you end by saying, "If something vital loses its psychological protections when discovering its own significance, well, why did it need the psychological protection of not knowing its significance? What does it need to be protected from? Is there a grave insecurity that causes us to seek fake significance and flee the real thing?"

1) Let's start by supposing that the attribute we are discussing is not significance at all, but rather novelty. Or more precisely, assume that in artistic endeavors, everything that has more than marginal popularity is significant BECAUSE it is popular - but a new subgenre can only be new once. Under this framework, "loses its psychological protections" merely means "loses its novelty." That's obviously inevitable, it cannot possibly be helped, and we would be well served to avoid pondering deeply about this fact. Stated differently, something that is both new and successful is vital; you have perhaps defined vitality as "the quality of being new and successful in part due to novelty," so by definition this vitality must be lost. This is not per se because of a subgenre learning of its own significance; it is merely because the passage of time perforce removes novelty.

Here's a possibly apt analogy. There is absolutely nothing like falling in love, especially for the first time. Suppose that this leads to a successful courtship followed by a long and happy marriage. (To Frank's readers: this does happen on some occasions.) Well, the couple involved learns full well that it will never duplicate the "vitality" or "significance" of falling in love. Vitality is "lost." Remaining in love is less vital than falling in love. So what?

And in this analogy, the sense of vitality is psychologically legitimate - I am be no means knocking it - and is inextricably linked to the novelty.

2) If all the above has merit, then it is not clear to me that "psychological protection" has much to do with the discussion. Unless, of course, you wish to argue that people only fall in love when they are capable of blinding themselves to mundane reality - and that blinding constitutes a form of psychological protection. (I actually might acceptthat argument.)

Novelty (part two)

[koganbot]

And Richard continues:

3) Insecurity and fake significance? I don't think this follows logically from your predicate. Why is the significance fake just because the novelty/vitality has worn off? Consider the non-artistic world as an example. I imagine that there was a heady sense of vitality during the New Deal, a sense that in some basic ways America was being partly remade for the better. (I know I felt this during the early days of the civil rights movement.) One of the accomplishments of the New Deal was the Social Security Act (which covered more than just the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program). Well, Social Security is no longer new and does not evoke the same psychological "vitality" that it must have during its creation. But in the 140 years of US history before Social Security, being old, or a widow, or an orphan was often synonymous with poverty and often complete destitution. The poverty rate among the elderly, as well as anyone can measure it, was well over 50%. It has now dropped to about 10%, while current data continue to show that without Social Security benefits, close to 50% of the elderly would be living (or dying) in poverty. Very simply, the vast majority of people did not or could not save enough for their old age before the Social Security system was created and they still can't, but now at least they have a mandatory and collective system that is an adequate substitute.

What's my point? It is that Social Security was and still is extremely significant, but it has nowhere near the vitality, "psychological protection," and novelty it initially did. As I said in a different context, so what? And if PBS or a good course in American History wants to explain the past and present significance of Social Security to people who care, or even to people who are more interested in ER or Survivor or efforts to unionize Wal-Mart or Barry Bonds, that probably is a good thing even if an uphill fight. And the virtue of a deeper understanding of the society in which we live, while surely not as psychologically vital as falling in love (or falling in love with the Stones), is nonetheless a real virtue of a different kind. Don't knock it - and don't blame PBSification for this result; it is surely better than forgetting the past.

4) Still, falling in love is grand, and only you can do it; PBS cannot do it for you.

Re: Novelty (part two)

[koganbot]

But I don't see why Richard thinks we can simply replace "significance" with "novelty." If someone sings "I am the world's forgotten boy" when he's a forgotten boy and then years later someone else sings it as if it's the punk national anthem, the difference isn't just that the novelty has worn off but that the song signifies something different.

Re: Novelty (part two)

[koganbot]

And the PBSification of comic books and horror movies etc. means that now we have a lot of justifications and rationalizations that tell us why it is OK for People Like Us to take this stuff seriously. (Not to say that we're unjustified in taking it seriously, mind you.) Again, this is not merely a loss of novelty.

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

I can't remember the last time 'good for you' was used...but yes, obv there are mechanisms at work that makes people think and like and dislike x and y in certain ways - but doesn't this happen in popular music discourse where anything slightly out of place is seen as 'weird' or whatever else.

I kept thinking while reading: "what was so great (perhaps 'open' is a better word) about culture before this PBS cut-off point?"

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

Or "was the culture more open before PBS?"

[koganbot]

Actually I'd say that rock - for instance - was better and maybe more open after the cut-off point (which is a way to duck the question, I'm sure, but I definitely prefer what I know of 1965 and 1966 more than what I know of 1956. Of course, I can argue that indie is wide open right now because you can pretty much play anything from any time in musical history and find a way of working it into indie. But it won't be very good. Except when it is.

Anyhow, I've just completely ducked your question but I have to go take a shower and then run errands.

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

So you're saying things were maybe immediately better -- some kind of high reached in an immediate post-PBS -- followed by a drastic regression as he 70s flowed into the 80s? A two-steps-forward-one-step-backward movement in cultural history?

[joshlanghoff.livejournal.com]

Hi, Frank! I just started a livejournal for the purpose of discussing your use of the word "symbol." Come on over and argue with me! (As you have the time, of course.)