“Such a commingling of utopia and hedonism would pervade the sensibilities of rave culture, along with the effects of ecstasy and the corresponding need for unregulated spaces where this new world could be invented- an invention that extended beyond club hours. ‘The whole period just felt so special because no one had a clue what we were doing,’ recalled Mike Pickering, one of Hot’s DJs” (Clover, 55-56).
In Clover’s article 1989, he introduces the concept of year zero- “a shared experience of the subcultures shared participants” (54.) This was a time of musical flux, where people were doing all sorts of interesting new things. Here, it becomes obvious that all these seemingly different categories of music: house/electro, punk, grunge, folk, indie, Britpop, riotgrrrl, industrial, hip-hop, disco, ambient, etc., are inextricably bound together. Does this support or derail Adorno’s critique of mass culture’s vapidity? Is this a lapse into regressive listening or creativity functioning within the system, drawing on a wealth of resources from the past? Where is this culture coming from anyway?
Year zero marks the melding together of many different genres of music, and the melding of this music with drugs. Both grunge and rave are self-loathing genres in their own right: where grunge hates the self and wants to violently destroy it, the rave scene embraces unity: the sameness of everyone. These self-destructive elements of the human condition are only amplified by the alienation resulting from capitalism (which is why people get into a ‘scene’ in the first place). In an ironically vicious cycle, this “unity” and desire for self-destruction is bottled up and sold back to us. In the beginning, when rave was still underground and gaining popularity, it retained the integrity of its ideals. “The blossoming scene, the music’s mutating inventiveness, the rush of e- all of these supplied a sense of abundance, of excess in the experience that hadn’t yet been ordered, managed, made doctrinal” (Clover, 60). However, it was only a matter of time before this beautiful, mindless unity became capitalized upon. By summer 1989, the scene was working its way towards a corporate death. “This was unity as sheer domination” (Clover, 64). What are capitalists supposed to do when drugs go mainstream?
“If the moments of sensual pleasure in the idea, the voice, the instrument are made into fetishes and torn away from any functions which could give them meaning, they meet a response equally isolated, equally far from the meaning of the whole, and equally determined by success in the blind and irrational emotions which form the relationship to music into which those with no relationship enter” (Adorno, 37).
An example of mass produced acid house:
In Clover’s article 1989, he introduces the concept of year zero- “a shared experience of the subcultures shared participants” (54.) This was a time of musical flux, where people were doing all sorts of interesting new things. Here, it becomes obvious that all these seemingly different categories of music: house/electro, punk, grunge, folk, indie, Britpop, riotgrrrl, industrial, hip-hop, disco, ambient, etc., are inextricably bound together. Does this support or derail Adorno’s critique of mass culture’s vapidity? Is this a lapse into regressive listening or creativity functioning within the system, drawing on a wealth of resources from the past? Where is this culture coming from anyway?
Year zero marks the melding together of many different genres of music, and the melding of this music with drugs. Both grunge and rave are self-loathing genres in their own right: where grunge hates the self and wants to violently destroy it, the rave scene embraces unity: the sameness of everyone. These self-destructive elements of the human condition are only amplified by the alienation resulting from capitalism (which is why people get into a ‘scene’ in the first place). In an ironically vicious cycle, this “unity” and desire for self-destruction is bottled up and sold back to us. In the beginning, when rave was still underground and gaining popularity, it retained the integrity of its ideals. “The blossoming scene, the music’s mutating inventiveness, the rush of e- all of these supplied a sense of abundance, of excess in the experience that hadn’t yet been ordered, managed, made doctrinal” (Clover, 60). However, it was only a matter of time before this beautiful, mindless unity became capitalized upon. By summer 1989, the scene was working its way towards a corporate death. “This was unity as sheer domination” (Clover, 64). What are capitalists supposed to do when drugs go mainstream?
“If the moments of sensual pleasure in the idea, the voice, the instrument are made into fetishes and torn away from any functions which could give them meaning, they meet a response equally isolated, equally far from the meaning of the whole, and equally determined by success in the blind and irrational emotions which form the relationship to music into which those with no relationship enter” (Adorno, 37).
An example of mass produced acid house:
In the chapters provided from Joshua Clover's 1989 we see a historical account of the musical styles and scenes in and surrounding 1989. In the second chapter of his book Clover discusses the life of the acid house rave movements, specifically in England. The third chapter of his works considers a concurrent musical style, grunge, an off shot of the earlier punk era. Clover's historical approach to the discussion of music leaves little room for critique of music and as such we see a marked lack of concern in the valuation of music, but rather simply their relation to the historical and musical contexts in which they were produced. While his accounts of both acid house and grunge offer historical arguments the implications Clover draws from each vary. From acid house he constructs an argument regarding the social structures and effects that were produced or fueled by the rave music and culture. The discussion of grunge examines the psychological elements of the music.
1989 enters into conversation with Adorno in several ways. The connections one can form between Clover and Adorno are commonly problematic in that Clover's points vary between validation and negation Adorno's theories. Some of the aspects of 1989 which map well onto Adorno's theory include the concepts of unity, temporality, recognition or “pseudo-activity” which Clover characterizes in one way as “the inward turn”. By examining the following passages and questions we will explore some of these connections.Grunge, the inward turn, break from the fetish or relazation of it?
Is grunge/punk's call to action enough of a turn from the fetishes demand for perfection?
“The new fetish is the flawlessly functioning, metallically brilliant apparatus as such, in which all the cogwheels mesh so perfectly that not the slightest hole remains open for the meaning of the whole. Perfect, immaculate performance in the latest style preserves the work at the price of its definitive reification” (Adorno, 44).
The Imperative logic is straightforward enough: Anyone can do it. Don't bow down before the band; be the band. Don't wait. Don't get stuck at home practicing scales. Raw power is enough. Urgency is enough. Anything more might just make things worse.(Clover, 76).
Do we see a similarity between the unity of mass listeners and ravers as well as one between the solitary listener and the inward turn of grunge?
The opposite type appears to be the eager person who leaves the factory and ‘occupies’ himself with the music in the quiet of his bedroom. He is shy and inhibited, perhaps has no luck with girls, and wants in any case to preserve his own special sphere. He seeks this as a radio ham. At twenty, he is still at the stage of a boy scout working on complicated knots just to please his parents. This type is held in high esteem in radio matters. He patiently builds sets whose most important
parts he must buy ready-made, and scans the air for shortwave secrets, though there are none.(Adorno, 53)
“This then is Bleach's position: at the corner of creep and shame. The coordination of these two is the first brute truth of grunge as an achieved structure of feeling: the unceasing and unstable encounter with one's own undesirability, one's own failing, one's unsuccessfully hidden or managed aberrations. This may be grunge's last truth as well – that which, once lost, leaves nothing behind”(Clover, 82).
Temporality, “Year Zero”, Vengeance
“They would like to ridicule and destroy what yesterday they were intoxicated with, as if in retrospect to revenge themselves for the fact that the ecstasy was not actually such”(Adorno, 56).
How is the temporality of the passage above fulfilled and negated by both grunge and acid house. How does Clover's formation of temporality differ from Adorno?
Nirvana- Lithium
The Timelords - Doctrin the Tardis
In “Self Portrait No. 25,” Greil Marcus presents us with a peculiar review of Bob Dylan's album “Self Portrait.” Structurally, the review is broken up into two voices: a Chorus (a plurality of voices acting as one) and a Soloist. These two voices offer an alternating exposition of “Self Portrait” in twenty-four sections that correspond to the twenty-four of tracks on the album and each voice has its own focus; the Soloist voice examines the album through each track in turn, content and composition of each song, while the chorus examines more broadly the album as a whole but from a variety of voices. The review begins and ends with an exposition from the Chorus, the ending being an additional section (twenty-fifth) not corresponding to a track on the album. But what are we to make of the review, its structure, its format, its content?
In the chorus' twenty-fourth section, the hermeneutical strategy of the “Auteur” is introduced. The auteur interpretation is one that identifies the work of art a development of the artist, that is how well the artist “has developed his personality in relation to previous [works]” (24). It is suggested that the auteur has been the predominant method for interpreting Dylan to date, citing the work of Dylan writer and critic Alan Weberman as an example. In the twenty-fifth and last section—not corresponding to any track on the album—the voice of the chorus continues with the theme of twenty-fourth section, suggesting the that auteurist interpretation, however, is not always useful. No doubt, the auteur can be fun and entertaining, but for those who want “great music” (25) such interpretations do not handle disappointing or non-great music and is in fact limiting both to the artist and listener. The auteur approach is “vapid, and if our own untaught perception of the auteur allows us to be satisfied with it, we degrade our own sensibilities and Dylan's capabilities as an American artist as well” (27).
In the chorus' twenty-fourth section, the hermeneutical strategy of the “Auteur” is introduced. The auteur interpretation is one that identifies the work of art a development of the artist, that is how well the artist “has developed his personality in relation to previous [works]” (24). It is suggested that the auteur has been the predominant method for interpreting Dylan to date, citing the work of Dylan writer and critic Alan Weberman as an example. In the twenty-fifth and last section—not corresponding to any track on the album—the voice of the chorus continues with the theme of twenty-fourth section, suggesting the that auteurist interpretation, however, is not always useful. No doubt, the auteur can be fun and entertaining, but for those who want “great music” (25) such interpretations do not handle disappointing or non-great music and is in fact limiting both to the artist and listener. The auteur approach is “vapid, and if our own untaught perception of the auteur allows us to be satisfied with it, we degrade our own sensibilities and Dylan's capabilities as an American artist as well” (27).
- The Chorus and the Soloist voices both approach the album differently, what are their capabilities and what are their limitations in the review?
- What do the two different approaches of the Chorus and Soloist voices say about the Auteur?
- What's at stake in choosing the Auteur over another method of interpreting when approaching works of art and music?
- What is the significance of “No. 25” in the title and how does it relate to the album?
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