{"id":217,"date":"2022-06-20T05:14:12","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T05:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journal.rexthestrange.com\/?p=217"},"modified":"2022-08-29T14:38:06","modified_gmt":"2022-08-29T14:38:06","slug":"sociology-pop-culture-music-and-a-generational-epiphany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journal.rexthestrange.com\/index.php\/2022\/06\/20\/sociology-pop-culture-music-and-a-generational-epiphany\/","title":{"rendered":"Sociology, pop-culture, music and a generational epiphany"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/i><\/a><\/span>\n<\/i><\/a><\/span>\n<\/i><\/a><\/span>\n<\/i><\/a><\/span>\n<\/i><\/a><\/span>\n<\/i><\/a><\/span>\n<\/i><\/a><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

What follows is an email that I sent to my father after my visit last year to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio (it’s true, Cleveland rocks). It recently came up during a conversation I was having with my own son. I forwarded it to him and thought that I should share it here, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Recently I was in Ohio for business and I went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland (which I thoroughly recommend; I had one hour before a plane and could easily have spent two days there). I noticed that there were two artists that stood out as iconic and were the only two to have an entire room dedicated just to them: Elvis and The Beatles. No surprises there, but it made me think: what made them so iconic? For The Beatles, it\u2019s pretty enigmatic when you think about it: they weren\u2019t actually particularly good looking and their early music, as the executives at EMI observed at the beginning, wasn\u2019t particularly creative; mostly a rehash of the Rock and Roll hits of the day, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and the like. Both George Martin and Brian Epstein attributed their uniqueness to their personalities and their beat \u2013 a curious thing to say since, at the time their drummer was Pete Best who was very mediocre and, according to George Martin, couldn\u2019t keep the beat very well at all (largely because he often didn\u2019t show up; Ringo often filled in as far back as their days in Germany, making it easy for him to take the role permanently when they got the EMI contract).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps it was because of their Celtic roots. Musicians from the British Isles are disproportionately represented on the Top Ten charts. So much so that local radio station KJAC (The Colorado Sound) once played as one of their top five lists, the top five British acts that aren\u2019t The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd. I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve heard of at least half of these (cute sideline story: Led Zeppelin came up with their name because they thought their music would go down like a lead balloon). I\u2019m waiting to see the Peter Jackson documentary on the Beatles for further insights (it\u2019s eight hours) but, like the English language, the Brits seem to define music. That is true even today. Since the first one with the Beatles in the \u201860s there have been two other notable \u201cBritish Invasions\u201d \u2013 waves of British bands making huge inroads in the United States and elsewhere: one in the \u201880s with names like The Cure and The Clash and the second, only last decade with performers like Coldplay, Oasis and Radiohead. I know most of these names will wash over you but I\u2019ll bet you money I could play songs from any of these bands and you will have heard them over department store loudspeakers or a tinkly elevator version, either here or in Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In searching for examples of other British artists I came across Paste Magazine\u2019s list of 50 Best British Artists of All Time (https:\/\/www.pastemagazine.com\/music\/britain\/pastes-50-favorite-british-artists-of-all-time<\/a>). When I hit on it, I just naturally expected Number 1 to be the Beatles and, of course, it was. For the explanation of why: \u201cThey changed everything\u201d. True, but more in their later years. That doesn\u2019t really explain Beatlemania. I guess the answer is, it was just the whole package: the music, the personalities, the creativity, Brian Epstein, George Martin (the honorary fifth Beatle and one of the reasons why I think you have a really cool middle name) and the mood of the planet all combined to form the perfect storm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elvis, on the other hand, is a different story. I have a theory on what made him popular and it\u2019s more psychosocial for the icons of your generation: the Silent Generation. American journalist Tom Brokaw called the Silent Generation the \u201cGreatest Generation\u201d \u2013 probably a well deserved moniker considering the trials that the Silents had to go through. However, they also earned the name \u201cSilent Generation\u201d because they steadfastly did what was expected of them and didn\u2019t complain. When the Baby-Boomers came around in the \u201860s and \u201870s and started to protest anything that ticked them off (Vietnam, notably, but also Women\u2019s Liberation, civil rights and a few others) the Silent Generation, not surprisingly, didn\u2019t understand it. \u201cWhy are they were doing this?\u201d they asked. Naturally, it created friction \u2013 lots of it (I have vague memories of Joanne and Mom going at each other \u2013 Boomer and Silent; Gordon tells me he has far more vivid memories and Jo, well don\u2019t get her started). \u201cWhy don\u2019t these kids just do what they\u2019re told and \u2018go with the flow\u2019,\u201d seemed to be the cry of the uncomprehending Silent Generation. They seemed to deduce (with some justification) that, as Baby-Boomer gangster Henry Hill quoted his father as saying, \u201ckids today are spoilt and lazy\u201d. True, but an oversimplification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, going with the flow is a double-edged sword. As I have suggested before, the Silent Generation\u2019s silent stance helped the Nazis considerably. As seen in the dialog in \u201cSchindler\u2019s List\u201d, the attitude was to just go along and it would \u201call be over soon.\u201d We, the modern audience, with historical hindsight, see the black irony of these words and, because of this attitude, millions of minorities were put to death with hardly any resistance. On the national scene, the Silent Generation\u2019s \u201cgo with the flow\u201d attitude shows up in Chamberlain\u2019s policy of appeasement (\u201cpeace in our time\u201d, \u201cyeah, sure, Neville\u201d). Conclusion: go with the flow leads to utter disaster and tyranny. And this is not the wisdom of hindsight; Churchill knew, at the time, that appeasement was a mistake and was quite vocal about it. With apologies to Tom Brokaw, the Greatest Generation doesn\u2019t seem so great when viewed under this lens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, perhaps the bigger pitfall of the Silent Generation\u2019s attitude is that emotion cannot be suppressed. Leonard Nimoy is idolized the world over for his portrayal of Spock \u2013 the alien from the extraterrestrial world of Vulcan, where they suppress all emotion and embrace pure logic. We are given the history in the show and discover that after a time when the planet was ravaged by war that driven by intense emotion (notably greed and lust), Surak, the father of Vulcan logic ushered in an era of peace by proclaiming pure logic and shedding the oppression of emotion. While the desirability of suppressing emotion is open to endless debate, the reality is that it\u2019s a hard act to follow. As was seen in several episodes of Star Trek where the Vulcan race was featured (most recently, the first episode of the latest movie franchise) the Vulcans can completely lose it and fly off the handle and when they do it\u2019s ugly, releasing seven years of pent-up energy in a ritual known as \u201cPon farr\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same is true with the Silent Generation. Going with the flow has its limits and it doesn\u2019t matter how much one looks at a situation logically, one will always need emotional release. Something that I have discovered is that emotion always trumps logic. Logic can only win if you can dispense with the emotional component of a situation, thus the phrase \u201ccalmly and rationally discuss\u201d, a near impossibility in the absolute. As long as emotions feature, logic will lose (sadly), and this was Surak\u2019s point. Furthermore, as our imaginary Vulcan friends discovered (or Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the show whose ashes, in tribute, now orbit the Earth had them discover) emotions will not be suppressed. Despite best efforts there is still anger in the Silent Generation struggling to get out; the Silent Generation needed a release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enter The King.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elvis earned the title \u201cThe King of Rock and Roll\u201d because of his raw style, hard-hitting rhythms, characteristic sneer and a seemingly \u201cup-yours\u201d attitude. That, along with his intrinsic talent, sex appeal, and silky voice made him stand out and put him on the top. He took the raw sounds of Rock and Roll, the screaming, naked brat of Big Band Boogie-Woogie and second-cousin to that bastard-child you like called Dixieland Jazz, and set himself (or, Colonel Tom Parker set him up) as it\u2019s spokesperson. And it worked. It spoke to several generations, but most importantly to the one that had been suppressing its true feelings through the cataclysmic conflict of World War II; \u201cthe war\u2019s over\u201d the Silents seemed to be saying, \u201cand we\u2019re not going to take this crap, anymore\u201d. The even-older Edwardian generation (your father\u2019s generation) shrieked in horror at his gyrating hips and raw sexuality from their repressed, post-Victorian standpoint. However, Elvis was just a harbinger of what was to come in the \u201860s and beyond \u2013 he and his contemporaries were just the beginning of rebellion, protest and me-ism. The Baby-Boomers were to take it to new heights but Elvis and co. opened the floodgates and the Silents ate it up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t just Elvis, or just music, for that matter. There was a huge movement towards challenging authority which the Edwardians blamed on the untamed savagery of Rock and Roll. The Hall of Fame has a particularly interesting section on this subject. It\u2019s the first exhibit as you enter the history circuit on the basement floor which goes from these early roots all the way through to the latest performers to be admitted (at least 25 years since their first hit, so the newest additions had their first hit in 2006 or earlier). Youth (your generation when you were a yahoo teenager) had become rebels, without a cause \u2013 some of that leaking, repressed angst can be seen in kitchen sink productions such as A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and, of course, Rebel Without a Cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, in the music industry, it got so out of control that record companies tried to tone down Rock and Roll with acts like Bobby Vee, Rickie Nelson, Frankie Avalon and so forth \u2013 artists with cutesy, diminutive first names: Bobby, Rickie, Frankie, wearing pastel sweater vests and singing bubble-gum pop with sugary smiles and perfect, clean cut hairdos. They tried to usher in a softer, more melodic and less threatening flavour of Rock and Roll, which is indicative of how Elvis and his contemporaries contributed to the definition of the Silent Generation in a completely unrecognized way, so much so that it scared people, but it provided the much needed cathartic release for the repressed Silents. Elvis still touches us musically from beyond the grave and has been cited as one of the biggest influences on the Beatles. We think of the Beatles as Boomers because they led the later Mod movement, but they were actually Silents (young Silents, but Silents, nevertheless) and, like James Dean, at the time no more than teenage thugs (well, John Lennon was – another cute side-story: In the Beatles Anthology, Paul McCartney tells a story of the early days when Lennon stole a guitar at a gig. Perhaps karma, years later he was to have a Gibson electric-acoustic stolen from him. It was later recovered and sold at auction in 2015 for US$2.41M – https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/pop-culture\/music\/john-lennons-stolen-guitar-fetches-2-4-million-auction-n459426<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than just talented performers, \u201850s rockers, and Elvis in particular, showed the true character of the Silent Generation. Perhaps they should be referred to as the Repressed Generation or Generation-V (the Vulcan Generation). Am I simply trashing the Silent Generation? A little but I think the argument is valid and my own generation; Generation X, the mystery generation, the unknown children of the Baby-Boomers, the MTV generation (the first generation to grow up entirely with television), the Neglected Generation (Gen-X has the smallest representative slice in business and health compared to Boomers and Millennials), my generation is certainly not above its own criticism. One example would be the concept of the \u201chelicopter parent\u201d. Millennials and the next generation beyond \u2013 Cheyenne and Alec\u2019s generation; softly dubbed Gen-Y, the iGeneration (because they\u2019re the first generation to be raised entirely on the Internet) or the Zoomers (as Alec termed them, because they were forced to interact by Zoom during the pandemic) \u2013 these are the spoilt and lazy generations, well, for the moment. This is through no fault of their own. It is because of their helicopter Gen-X parents. They will face their own trials, make their own mistakes and pass knowledge on to the as-yet unnamed generations of the future, whom they will dub lazy and spoilt, and comparatively, they will be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The song The Living Years (1988) by Mike and the Mechanics opens with the line: Every generation blames the one before. True, and rightly so, but also, every generation learns from the one before \u2013 their triumphs and their mistakes \u2013 and that\u2019s how progress is made, but that\u2019s a whole separate bundle of laundry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What follows is an email that I sent to my father after my visit last year to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio (it’s true, Cleveland rocks). It recently came up during a conversation I was having with my own son. I forwarded it to him and thought that I should…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal.rexthestrange.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal.rexthestrange.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal.rexthestrange.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal.rexthestrange.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal.rexthestrange.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/journal.rexthestrange.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":236,"href":"https:\/\/journal.rexthestrange.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions\/236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal.rexthestrange.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal.rexthestrange.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal.rexthestrange.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}