Rock Music and the Working Class
Third in the series of stuff I’ve cut and pasted from my thesis…
One of the important ways in which rock music gains its credibility and authenticity is through an alliegance to the working class, particularly in terms of community and belonging. What these constructions give to the music community is a sense of belonging and solidarity against a common enemy. And the less likely those connections, the more important it is that those myths are mobilised: stadium rock acts from Bon Jovi to Nickelback have relied on narratives about the working-class hero or struggling musician, alone but for his (it is always “his”) trusty guitar, dealing with the trials of life. And the pre-dominantly middle-class audience sing along, sharing in the pathos, and unaware of—or more likely, unconcerned—about the irony of class politics that underlies the production. Even when no real working-class connection is obvious, one can easily be constructed. Consider this quotation from the liner-notes of Melbourne band Jet’s self-titled DVD:
Let’s imagine rock music for a moment, as a natural resource distributed throughout the world. Rare to non-existent in some places, more than abundant in others. And always with the lucky country, Australia fares better than most. Then imagine the coalface of the Australian music scene being situated in the farthermost flung suburban corners of a modern urban sprawl. The cities would be the refineries and the kids, funnily enough, would be the miners.
The resources found are not always consistent with each other. They vary from opaque, delicate and light-driven, to a dirty, commercial bound, industrially-driven commodity. But then, sometimes the ever toiling, always searching dirty-faced sweaty smelly city miners uncover a good old-fashioned four on the floor rock.
JET is such a Rock.
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Notwithstanding rock billionaires like the Rolling Stones, the rock myth frowns upon conspicuous financial achievement, unlike (versions of) hip-hop discourse, where bling is the obligatory signifier of success. I know I’m supposed to have written a thesis on this, but I’m still not clear on the place of the working-class and the portrayal of poverty to the myth. I know that rock constantly alludes to its roots in the blues, and the various versions of rock-revival (think 1970s punk, 1990s grunge) always seem to valorise an underclass, but the adherence to misguided belief in the value and authenticity of poverty seems a little weird.
Thoughts, anyone?
Your Comments
Matthew Smith writes:
“You’re poor / You’re stoned / You’re a slave to a unnameable half forgotten ambition / You’re just another guy on the lost highway / A ramblin’ man / A pirate of love / A rider on the range” – Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes “Rock ‘n’ Roll is Where I Hide”
I think it’s a hero dualism: the hero needs to suffer in order to demonstrate their strength. But also the audience needs to be able to see themselves in the hero.
The middle class might be idolising the working class by associating it with battling heroically to make ones self better. It could be to do with the restricted emotional range of the middle class: working in offices and living in orderly neighbourhoods. The working class are seen as living bigger louder (and more self destructive) lives.
Posted: 21 10 2008 - 15:33 | Permanent link to this comment
Catriona writes:
I’m not entirely certain about the idea of the middle classes’ idolising the working classes in terms of battling for self-improvement, Matt. It may be the word “battling” that triggered this idea in my head—“battling” is so heavily associated with Australian class politics—but class isn’t always so permeable. Right down to the 1960s/1970s in the U. K., class was still a fairly fixed category. (It may still be so now; certainly, the upper classes aren’t particularly permeable.) There’s a huge body of work that centres on the idea that, regardless of possession (or lack thereof) of any of the usual class markers (such as money and education), people would invariably reveal their class origins sooner or later.
But your comment does remind me of a quote from a favourite (British) sit-com, where a character describes Morrissey as “wallowing in teenage angst while displaying a spurious nostalgia for the working classes,” and that seems a fair analysis to me. So it certainly works in that direction: writing from within a comfortable middle-class lifestyle but idolising an imagined (unreal), ‘genuine’ lifestyle in the working classes.
There are some exceptions, and I’d be interested to hear how they fit into the overall pattern.
(I’m ignoring Billy Bragg, here, because his musical roots are more in the folk and punk pattern, both of which—I’m asserting here without proof—tend to be associated more with the working classes or, in the case of the latter, with disaffected youth, which is a group that tends to be measured outside of and separate from class.)
But where would Rage Against The Machine fit in? Zach de la Rocha was a true believer, and it showed not only in the lyrics, but also in the usual markers of success in the music industry: when they were at the height of their international and commercial success, after the release of the eponymous album, the tickets and merchandising prices were insanely low. (And by merchandising, I mean concert T-shirts; I never saw any other associated merchandise.)
While they were also a stadium act at that stage (or at least drew huge crowds), they also performed in cities where the differences between classes is stark and often violent, such as Mexico City, not just in the big cities that give wealthy nations their dominant culture.
Then de la Rocha left, Chris Cornell joined, they rebranded as Audio Slave, and tickets prices more than quadrupled.
Is that just an unusual exception?
Posted: 21 10 2008 - 19:02 | Permanent link to this comment