Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / [EP 415] Rewriting the History of Rock with Chuck Klosterman

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[EP 415] Rewriting the History of Rock with Chuck Klosterman · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: If you like a band, what you like about them
0:02
Speaker 1: is their best work. Like, if you like Fleetwood Mac,
0:05
Speaker 1: you like Rumors. You know, if you like Motley Crue,
0:07
Speaker 1: you like Dr. Feelgood or whatever. But if you love
0:10
Speaker 1: a band, you like when things went wrong. Look, if
0:13
Speaker 1: you love Oasis, you want to listen and think about
0:16
Speaker 1: Be Here Now. If you really love Kiss, you want
0:19
Speaker 1: to think about music from The Elder. Because I think
0:21
Speaker 1: that in some ways, in many ways, an individual's failures
0:26
Speaker 1: indicates more about them than their successes do. Success kind
0:30
Speaker 1: of happens the same way for everyone. Every failure is unique.
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Speaker 2: We're totally booked. Rock and roll!
0:35
Speaker 1: Well, I think I'll leave you to your reading. Little
0:39
Speaker 1: hand says it's time to rock and roll. Rock and roll!
0:42
Speaker 1: We are totally booked.
0:48
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Booked on Rock, conversations with authors, musicians,
0:52
Speaker 2: and insiders revealing the stories behind classic rock's greatest songs, albums,
0:56
Speaker 2: and artists. And thanks to everybody who supports the show
0:59
Speaker 2: on Patreon. If you'd like to get every episode into
1:02
Speaker 2: audio and video, commercial free, get the backstage pass now
1:05
Speaker 2: for just $ 5 a month. Link in the show notes
1:07
Speaker 2: or go to BookedOnRock.com. Now on to our guest. What
1:11
Speaker 2: if everything we know about rock history happened differently? Not
1:16
Speaker 2: the songs themselves, but which artists became superstars and which
1:20
Speaker 2: ones faded into obscurity. In his new book, Rock, A
1:24
Speaker 2: Mainstream Alternative History of Alternative Mainstream Music, Chuck Klosterman rewrites
1:29
Speaker 2: popular music history in a wildly imaginative alternate universe where
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Speaker 2: the Velvet Underground rule the world, the Beatles become a
1:37
Speaker 2: cult band, and our entire understanding of what makes music
1:40
Speaker 2: important is turned upside down. Chuck, welcome to the show.
1:44
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me.
1:45
Speaker 2: You know, it's rare I read a book and laugh
1:47
Speaker 2: out loud, but this is one, man. The David Bowie
1:50
Speaker 2: mime album was probably the highlight for me.
1:53
Speaker 1: Well, okay, but David Bowie was a mime for a while.
1:57
Speaker 1: He was a mime, I know. I appreciate you saying that.
2:02
Speaker 1: I do fully realize going into this that so much
2:05
Speaker 1: of the humor in this book is directed at people
2:08
Speaker 1: with an almost sort of unnatural... understanding of rock history,
2:13
Speaker 1: but they've put so much time into understanding what actually
2:16
Speaker 1: happened that in order to appreciate the humor, you haven't
2:19
Speaker 1: said that depth. So I would guess the kind of
2:20
Speaker 1: people who would listen to this show would fit in
2:23
Speaker 1: that category.
2:23
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, you know, I kind of jumped ahead. We'll
2:26
Speaker 2: get into the David Bowie part and all that, but
2:30
Speaker 2: you've spent a lot of your career writing about how
2:32
Speaker 2: we assign meaning and importance to popular culture. Did this
2:35
Speaker 2: book grow out of something that you'd been thinking about
2:38
Speaker 2: for years or the difference between what becomes popular and
2:42
Speaker 2: what eventually gets called important?
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Speaker 1: The short answer would be yes. The long answer would
2:47
Speaker 1: be there wasn't like a moment where I decided, aha,
2:52
Speaker 1: this is how I'm going to do it. It was
2:55
Speaker 1: a slow accidental process where something that me and my
3:01
Speaker 1: friends would do, particularly when I was working at Spin Magazine,
3:04
Speaker 1: is that we would just sort of kind of talk
3:08
Speaker 1: about rock as if it was, you know, a kind
3:12
Speaker 1: of history that was malleable or the idea of talking
3:18
Speaker 1: about songs and taking the lyrics very literally, like not
3:21
Speaker 1: seeing them as interpretive, seeing them as like, what if these,
3:24
Speaker 1: this was like a, a factual reflection of the artist or, or,
3:28
Speaker 1: you know, and then maybe bigger questions like, you know,
3:31
Speaker 1: why does anything get popular? Why do things that seem
3:34
Speaker 1: the same, you know, sonically one has, astronomical success and
3:38
Speaker 1: one just sort of falls into obscurity so it was
3:40
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of things I mean in a way
3:44
Speaker 1: it was just like a lot of jokes about bands
3:47
Speaker 1: I had stored up for 20 years or 30 years
3:51
Speaker 1: and I got into music writing because I thought music
3:57
Speaker 1: writers were very funny Like, in the 90s, there were
4:00
Speaker 1: a lot of people writing about music that was kind
4:04
Speaker 1: of its own separate kind of entertainment. Like, you could
4:07
Speaker 1: be entertained by listening to the record or by reading
4:09
Speaker 1: about it. And I feel like that's kind of been lost. So,
4:13
Speaker 1: I mean, my principal hope with this book is exactly that,
4:17
Speaker 1: that people are entertained by it. They think it's funny,
4:19
Speaker 1: you know? But who knows?
4:21
Speaker 2: And it blurs the line between what's real and what isn't.
4:23
Speaker 2: Like you said, the David Bowie mind thing is real.
4:25
Speaker 2: So sometimes you're not sure... which part of this is
4:28
Speaker 2: actually from is accurate history wise and which isn't, which
4:33
Speaker 2: makes it even more interesting. But when you look at
4:35
Speaker 2: the history of rock music, as we've come to understand
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Speaker 2: it now, how much of that history do you think
4:41
Speaker 2: was inevitable? How much was simply circumstance, timing and luck?
4:45
Speaker 2: I mean, that's in some ways the central question. When
4:48
Speaker 2: we talk about particularly the Beatles, there's this consensus and
4:53
Speaker 2: a universal understanding that they completely change the trajectory of
4:57
Speaker 2: culture in the Western world.
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Speaker 1: That a lot of what we think about what music
5:04
Speaker 1: can do, the potential it has, the individual relationship people
5:08
Speaker 1: have with it, that kind of starts, you know, with
5:11
Speaker 1: the Beatles in 63, 64, you know. And the big question, though,
5:14
Speaker 1: if you're a kind of a rock historian or a
5:17
Speaker 1: rock writer, it always is this. It's like, did it
5:20
Speaker 1: have to be the Beatles or was it going to
5:22
Speaker 1: be someone? In other words, Was something going to happen
5:27
Speaker 1: in the world in the 60s because of the way
5:29
Speaker 1: people were changing and the world was changing that a
5:32
Speaker 1: band was going to come along and sort of become
5:34
Speaker 1: the avatar for that going forward? Or did it have
5:38
Speaker 1: to be the Beatles? And if it's not the Beatles,
5:40
Speaker 1: what happens? Did it have to be sort of the
5:43
Speaker 1: alchemy of those four guys? So this is something, of course,
5:47
Speaker 1: it's like a question. In some ways, I feel like
5:50
Speaker 1: there's always two kind of central questions to writing about
5:54
Speaker 1: rock music. One is, did it have to be the
5:57
Speaker 1: Beatles or was it going to be someone? Or does
6:01
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan have a great voice or a terrible voice?
6:06
Speaker 1: And how you answer those two questions a lot of
6:10
Speaker 1: times I think reflects the way someone's going to think
6:14
Speaker 1: about music in general.
6:15
Speaker 2: But what I always think of with the Beatles is
6:17
Speaker 2: the first thing is, of course, they're extremely talented, gifted musicians,
6:21
Speaker 2: particularly John and and Paul and, and, and as we
6:25
Speaker 2: later find out over the years, George, but you know,
6:28
Speaker 2: there's three television stations, right? I mean, so if the
6:31
Speaker 2: Beatles come out today, are they just, they're just buried
6:34
Speaker 2: in the mix, but.
6:35
Speaker 1: It depends how you look at it. The number of
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Speaker 1: interviews that the Beatles gave in their career is probably
6:43
Speaker 1: less than the number of interviews the strokes gave when
6:49
Speaker 1: they were going to put their second record out where
6:51
Speaker 1: they just did wall to wall press. I mean, look
6:54
Speaker 1: at someone like Taylor Swift. There's certainly more attention, media attention,
6:58
Speaker 1: given to Taylor Swift than the Beatles received at the time. Now,
7:01
Speaker 1: it meant more when the Beatles had that happen. But,
7:05
Speaker 1: you know, if you go back to newspapers in the mid-1960s,
7:11
Speaker 1: it is pretty rare that they have someone who strictly
7:15
Speaker 1: writes about pop music. That was often just something a
7:19
Speaker 1: culture reporter also did. So... Yeah, there were only three channels.
7:23
Speaker 1: So when the Beatles are on Ed Sullivan, that has
7:26
Speaker 1: a kind of saturation that is sort of impossible to imagine.
7:32
Speaker 1: Except that next week, Ed Sullivan had someone else on
7:36
Speaker 1: the week before. So like that experience, the Beatles had
7:40
Speaker 1: wasn't what ended up happening was unique to them. But
7:44
Speaker 1: their entry into the culture was just sort of how
7:46
Speaker 1: things work. I mean, that's what kind of makes this
7:49
Speaker 1: thing complicated. the idea that somehow, you know, there are
7:54
Speaker 1: people who will argue, well, everything is to some degree manufactured. Uh,
7:59
Speaker 1: you know, the, the Beatles had all those screaming girls
8:03
Speaker 1: in the audience, but so did Elvis and probably Elvis
8:06
Speaker 1: Sinatra had it. And Sinatra's management team made sure there
8:10
Speaker 1: were girls there to scream and told them to scream.
8:13
Speaker 1: After a while, it became just the way teenage girls
8:15
Speaker 1: reacted to pop music. So is that, so is that
8:18
Speaker 1: real or unreal? You know, um, it's, uh, I mean,
8:24
Speaker 1: these are the kind of things, I guess, that make
8:27
Speaker 1: me read this book eventually, I guess.
8:29
Speaker 2: The Beatles in the book, they're fascinating because you don't
8:31
Speaker 2: erase their accomplishments. You still have Rubber Soul and Revolver
8:35
Speaker 2: regarded as extraordinary records, but history eventually moves past them.
8:39
Speaker 2: So are you making a distinction between creating great music
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Speaker 2: and becoming historically important?
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Speaker 1: I think there is a distinction. That is true. The
8:48
Speaker 1: Beatles are an interesting role in this because, okay, basically
8:51
Speaker 1: what I did Is I did a history of rock
8:54
Speaker 1: music From 1967 to 2002 And then did a non-fictional
8:59
Speaker 1: Or like a fictional inversion Of that non-fictional story So
9:03
Speaker 1: like I wrote a non-fiction book And then a fiction
9:05
Speaker 1: book on top of it Where I just sort of
9:07
Speaker 1: reversed everything Or moved it, you know, 44 degrees Or
9:13
Speaker 1: sort of just took the way One artist was kind
9:17
Speaker 1: of perceived And moved that perception to someone else The
9:21
Speaker 1: Beatles were tough because it was really hard for me
9:25
Speaker 1: to talk about them like they were bad. That really
9:30
Speaker 1: goes against my natural inclinations. I mean, my two favorite
9:34
Speaker 1: bands are the Beatles and Kiss. And they're just above
9:38
Speaker 1: everyone else. And as a consequence, it was complicated to
9:42
Speaker 1: write about the Beatles in a negative way. And in
9:44
Speaker 1: a sense, the way the book works out, I kind
9:49
Speaker 1: of bring them back later in the 90s and every...
9:51
Speaker 1: But it was... I guess to answer your question, I mean,
9:58
Speaker 1: your question actually has probably... more to do. With specifically
10:01
Speaker 1: the Velvet Underground. Which I sort of. Consider to be like.
10:07
Speaker 1: This pretty important hinge point. Where there was this split.
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Speaker 1: Between bands that were viewed as. Populist and commercial. And
10:16
Speaker 1: bands that were critics bands. Or art bands. bands that
10:20
Speaker 1: were cultic on purpose. I really feel that begins in,
10:24
Speaker 1: in terms of how we discuss rock music with the
10:27
Speaker 1: first Velvet Underground record. So my idea was, well, what
10:31
Speaker 1: if that relationship was swapped? What if instead of, of
10:36
Speaker 1: them being this sort of fringe concern, they became the
10:39
Speaker 1: ultimate concern. Their record was bigger than Thriller. Um, and
10:43
Speaker 1: if that happened, well then everything that came later would
10:46
Speaker 1: also be kind of flipped. Led Zeppelin goes from being
10:49
Speaker 1: a huge band to a critics band, big star becomes
10:53
Speaker 1: something that you see, you know, in arena. And in
10:57
Speaker 1: some ways it's like kind of one joke told over
10:59
Speaker 1: and over again. But like, I tried to tell that
11:02
Speaker 1: joke in many different ways.
11:03
Speaker 2: Well, and you say that no one knows who deserves
11:06
Speaker 2: credit for that album, the velvet underground and Nico, which
11:09
Speaker 2: is in, your story, the most popular album in this world.
11:12
Speaker 2: And so the question is, is one of the larger
11:15
Speaker 2: ideas of the book that cultural history becomes more powerful,
11:19
Speaker 2: not less powerful when we can't fully explain it. Yes.
11:25
Speaker 1: And that was something you, you often hear about bands,
11:29
Speaker 1: particularly from the seventies discussing Led Zeppelin being the clearest
11:32
Speaker 1: example of this, where, you know, one thing that I
11:36
Speaker 1: think that Jimmy Page felt was very important was To
11:40
Speaker 1: Led Zeppelin was that You had no relationship to them
11:45
Speaker 1: Outside of the record And if they came to your
11:48
Speaker 1: town Like you could buy a magazine And you could
11:51
Speaker 1: see the picture of him playing his double neck guitar
11:53
Speaker 1: And you could read stories Or maybe have anecdotal urban
11:57
Speaker 1: legends About them But it wasn't like music in the
12:00
Speaker 1: 80s When MTV existed Or the way music is now
12:03
Speaker 1: with the internet Where there is almost an expectation From
12:07
Speaker 1: the consumer that that they will have a pretty deep
12:10
Speaker 1: understanding of who the artist is and what they're supposed
12:14
Speaker 1: to symbolize, which they then inject into the album and
12:18
Speaker 1: hear something back different. For Led Zeppelin, the goal for him,
12:22
Speaker 1: for Jimmy Page, was that I want people to have
12:24
Speaker 1: no relationship outside of what is coming out of their speakers.
12:30
Speaker 2: Three explanations that you have for why music becomes popular.
12:34
Speaker 2: It's musical construction. It's the ability to transmit emotion, or
12:38
Speaker 2: basically random cultural timing. So when you look at our
12:41
Speaker 2: actual music history, which explanation do you find most convincing?
12:45
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I'm writing that sort of in this,
12:47
Speaker 1: this book is written kind of like a fake encyclopedia.
12:50
Speaker 1: So I'm using kind of almost a formal academic voice
12:53
Speaker 1: to describe these things that, you know, that don't necessarily
12:57
Speaker 1: reflect reality or even my view. But yes, I do
13:00
Speaker 1: talk about how there's like these, there's kind of, there
13:02
Speaker 1: tends to be three ways that people try to explain
13:07
Speaker 1: Transcendent musical greatness They either look at it almost mathematically
13:11
Speaker 1: That it's like that there is Something kind of almost
13:15
Speaker 1: That we're hearing On the surface level But underneath it
13:20
Speaker 1: is sort of The literal construction of how The song
13:23
Speaker 1: is built how long The notes within the Melody are
13:28
Speaker 1: how much separation Is there between the Melody and the
13:32
Speaker 1: rhythm What's the length of the song What are the
13:35
Speaker 1: length of the words what is the word choice It's
13:37
Speaker 1: almost like it's a recipe and it's like it can
13:43
Speaker 1: be deconstructed. You know, you can pull it apart. The
13:46
Speaker 1: second idea is that it was kind of a Leo
13:49
Speaker 1: Tolstoy idea, which is that music's job is to sort
13:52
Speaker 1: of transmit emotion from one person to someone else. That
13:56
Speaker 1: like Paul Westerberg is essentially successful because he can take
13:59
Speaker 1: what's inside of him and make a bunch of people
14:01
Speaker 1: feel it. And it's a completely ephemeral thing. It's impossible
14:05
Speaker 1: to quantify. it is in some ways the idea of
14:08
Speaker 1: almost magic. And if you talk to a musician, you have,
14:12
Speaker 1: it's like even somebody who's really like, like, like Jeff Tweedy,
14:17
Speaker 1: for example, could really deconstruct how a song is built.
14:20
Speaker 1: But if he wanted to tell you how, why the
14:22
Speaker 1: song is great, he would almost be like, it's kind
14:24
Speaker 1: of beyond words. You know, it's like, it's more than words, like,
14:27
Speaker 1: you know, extreme. And then, the third category is that, well,
14:33
Speaker 1: actually there is no hard reality. It is just random.
14:38
Speaker 1: The reason that, you know, um, uh, you know, that
14:42
Speaker 1: Boston's record sold 17 million copies and, uh, a foreigner
14:48
Speaker 1: record did well, but not in the same way. It's
14:51
Speaker 1: like you could flop those. They would say, and it's
14:54
Speaker 1: to this idea somehow that, that it is chance and it's,
14:58
Speaker 1: Factors that are almost entirely Non-musical Now In this book
15:05
Speaker 1: I sort of describe the Velvet Underground Success because remember
15:07
Speaker 1: this book is being written By people who are acting
15:09
Speaker 1: as if we already Know this. I mean that was
15:12
Speaker 1: the tricky Thing about doing a fake history like this
15:14
Speaker 1: I couldn't be shocked by any of the Events. I
15:17
Speaker 1: always had to act like well Of course the Velvet
15:19
Speaker 1: Underground had the biggest record of all time These are
15:21
Speaker 1: the three reasons why It's a little combination of all
15:24
Speaker 1: three But Outside of that, I do think that those ideals,
15:30
Speaker 1: those three types, are what a lot of people unconsciously
15:33
Speaker 1: use to explain why something is big or why something
15:36
Speaker 1: is successful or why they like something. They don't necessarily
15:39
Speaker 1: use the language I use, but they are using one
15:41
Speaker 1: of those three sort of ideas.
15:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're in an alternate universe that you have to
15:45
Speaker 2: stay in while you're writing it, but the reader has
15:47
Speaker 2: to as well. Because a few times I started to
15:49
Speaker 2: slip out of that. I'm like, wait a minute.
15:51
Speaker 1: Remember, this is.
15:53
Speaker 2: You know, we're in this like there's like this invisible
15:55
Speaker 2: shield between this world and the world that this book exists.
15:58
Speaker 1: I mean, I've already had this conversation with somebody who
16:01
Speaker 1: was like loves the Rolling Stones. And they were sort
16:03
Speaker 1: of like, how can it be the Stones end with
16:07
Speaker 1: its only rock and roll? How can be that their
16:09
Speaker 1: last record? You know, and it's it's a hard thing
16:13
Speaker 1: to describe because this is a fictional book with mostly
16:19
Speaker 1: almost entirely non-fictional entities. And when you use non-fictional artists
16:25
Speaker 1: and non-fictional records and non-fictional writers, people are then sort
16:29
Speaker 1: of tied back to the real world. And they want
16:32
Speaker 1: you to explain it in a way that, but like it's,
16:36
Speaker 1: but it's fiction. The thing is in fiction, you know,
16:39
Speaker 1: you can't have coincidences. You can't have things happen arbitrarily.
16:43
Speaker 1: People will accept that in non-fiction. They accept that there
16:45
Speaker 1: are sometimes just strange things that happen that make no sense.
16:49
Speaker 1: But when you're making a fictional story, it all has
16:51
Speaker 1: to fit together. Otherwise, it pushes the people personal way.
16:54
Speaker 2: And the people in the story, they didn't necessarily want
16:56
Speaker 2: the Velvet Underground and Nico itself to become popular. They
17:01
Speaker 2: wanted something like it to become popular.
17:04
Speaker 1: That's sort of the argument, that culture was ready for
17:06
Speaker 1: this to happen. And this kind of became the vessel
17:08
Speaker 1: for it. I mean, one thing that is, you know,
17:13
Speaker 1: I was a little conscious of this when I was
17:16
Speaker 1: writing the book, but became more conscious as I did it.
17:19
Speaker 1: is that the importance of the Velvet Underground now is
17:24
Speaker 1: dependent on them not being successful. Like, if they had
17:28
Speaker 1: been much more successful in the late 60s, not to
17:32
Speaker 1: the extent maybe in the book, but if they had
17:34
Speaker 1: been as big as, say, the Kinks or the Who
17:36
Speaker 1: or something, I don't think that the Village Records would
17:39
Speaker 1: seem as meaningful now as they do. I think that
17:43
Speaker 1: sometimes commercial success sort of stops an artist from being
17:48
Speaker 1: taken seriously by the people who kind of dictate their culture.
17:53
Speaker 2: The goal is to try to balance the two, to
17:55
Speaker 2: become commercially successful.
17:57
Speaker 1: But there's really only a handful of artists, particularly in
18:01
Speaker 1: the 70s, who were really able to do that deftly. Right.
18:03
Speaker 1: To be really big and be perceived as important.
18:07
Speaker 2: I can't think of any offhand, but I can say
18:09
Speaker 2: like R.E.M.
18:10
Speaker 1: In the 80s. I feel like in England, Queen was,
18:15
Speaker 1: Queen was a stadium band that in the, in the,
18:18
Speaker 1: in the European press was really beloved. R.E.M. Well, it's
18:22
Speaker 1: kind of weird because when the, the period that R.E.M.
18:25
Speaker 1: was beloved by critics, they were still a very small band. Right.
18:28
Speaker 2: When they signed the big record deals, when.
18:31
Speaker 1: Yes. Like, you know, really like, like when they tried
18:34
Speaker 1: to make say monster on those records where they were
18:36
Speaker 1: consciously attempting to do like arena rock. I think that they, uh,
18:41
Speaker 1: a lot of the people who love them sort of
18:43
Speaker 1: saw that, well, it was the nineties. So they would
18:45
Speaker 1: say it's kind of a sellout move. They might've even
18:48
Speaker 1: felt felt that about like out of time, you know, uh, even,
18:53
Speaker 1: you know, cause it's, it's not just, I mean, that's,
18:55
Speaker 1: that's always the thing. It's not just the songs. Like it's,
19:00
Speaker 1: it's all the, like it's for the artist. It's just
19:03
Speaker 1: the songs. And to maybe the listener who doesn't know
19:07
Speaker 1: what they're listening to, who just hears it on the radio,
19:09
Speaker 1: it might be just the song. Um, But for everyone
19:11
Speaker 1: in between, everybody who's sort of engaged with this, it's
19:15
Speaker 1: impossible to get away from like the baggage of knowledge.
19:19
Speaker 1: Like the things that you know about this group and
19:22
Speaker 1: what it's supposed to symbolize, what it's supposed to mean.
19:25
Speaker 1: You know, I grew up in North Dakota. I lived
19:28
Speaker 1: in Ohio. And for the first, you know, I lived
19:31
Speaker 1: 24 years, 25 years in North Dakota, then four years
19:36
Speaker 1: in Ohio. And then I moved to New York. And
19:38
Speaker 1: before I moved to New York and started working in
19:40
Speaker 1: the music industry, I had this interesting experience where like
19:43
Speaker 1: I would listen to music, but I was also kind
19:45
Speaker 1: of told what I was supposed to be hearing. Like
19:48
Speaker 1: I was told like, well, this is what Motley Crue
19:50
Speaker 1: is supposed to be and this is what U2 is
19:53
Speaker 1: supposed to be and then I have to have my
19:55
Speaker 1: experience compared to this experience that was explained to me
19:58
Speaker 1: and come up with this sort of third conclusion and
20:01
Speaker 1: that's what this is partially why the book ends in
20:03
Speaker 1: 2002 because that's when I moved to New York and
20:06
Speaker 1: I sort of saw how this process actually works Sgt.
20:09
Speaker 2: Pepper, one of the great disasters of rock history. What
20:12
Speaker 2: made these two specific albums particularly interesting to reverse culturally
20:17
Speaker 2: for you?
20:18
Speaker 1: So Sgt. Pepper was maybe the first time, which I'm
20:22
Speaker 1: talking about in reality, was the first time that before
20:24
Speaker 1: the record even came out, there was this sense that
20:28
Speaker 1: this is going to be important, that this is going
20:30
Speaker 1: to be a meaningful thing. And then the response to
20:33
Speaker 1: it was very much that. I mean, when you look
20:36
Speaker 1: at the early reviews, of sergeant pepper there is this
20:39
Speaker 1: idea that maybe we'll maybe rock is art now like
20:42
Speaker 1: it's no longer just something for kids to consume you
20:45
Speaker 1: know it might be something else um and again in
20:49
Speaker 1: a lot of ways when we talk about say the
20:50
Speaker 1: classic rock era i think it really begins post sergeant
20:54
Speaker 1: pepper i would say it's like from sergeant pepper to
20:57
Speaker 1: appetite for destruction that's kind of what classic rock is
21:00
Speaker 1: in the kind of the way we describe it now
21:02
Speaker 1: or the way radio would describe it um So this
21:05
Speaker 1: idea that Sergeant Pepper killed the Beatles, that their level
21:09
Speaker 1: of imagination, but they had imagined too much, you know,
21:14
Speaker 1: that was, you know, it's kind of a key hinge
21:16
Speaker 1: in this book. Like, I need the Beatles to fail
21:19
Speaker 1: at that point.
21:20
Speaker 2: Lou Reed argues that, and this is one of the
21:22
Speaker 2: other laugh out loud moments in the book, Lou Reed
21:24
Speaker 2: argues that blaming the song Heroin for drug use would
21:26
Speaker 2: be like crediting Run, Run, Run for the jogging craze.
21:30
Speaker 2: Are you poking fun at, sometimes audiences really interpret or
21:35
Speaker 2: act on the work of an artist maybe a bit
21:37
Speaker 2: too much.
21:39
Speaker 1: Well, you know, sure. It's like, in the book he
21:42
Speaker 1: says that because, you know, okay, in the reality of
21:46
Speaker 1: the book, I always feel like I gotta, like, in
21:47
Speaker 1: the reality of the book, heroin does become sort of
21:50
Speaker 1: the casual consumer drug of the 1970s. And it is
21:54
Speaker 1: because of this song. That sort of ushers in this era.
21:57
Speaker 1: But of course, he's not gonna want to accept that.
21:59
Speaker 1: He's gonna want to deny it. You know, but it's
22:02
Speaker 1: always funny when artists try to explain away people's misinterpretation
22:08
Speaker 1: of their songs. Like, you know, the Ozzy Osbourne song,
22:12
Speaker 1: Suicide Solution, he was sued for that song because a kid,
22:17
Speaker 1: you know, like, you know, apparently listened to Suicide Solution
22:21
Speaker 1: and then, you know, blew his head off. And, you know,
22:23
Speaker 1: Ozzy's argument was like, well, that song is actually about
22:26
Speaker 1: Bon Scott of ACDC drinking himself to death. You know,
22:30
Speaker 1: it's like it is not You can't blame me for
22:33
Speaker 1: this kid not knowing what the song is about. And
22:36
Speaker 1: that's a great point. You can't blame someone for other
22:39
Speaker 1: people's misinterpretation. However, I always did think it is called
22:44
Speaker 1: Suicide Solution. The kid listening to that song isn't necessarily
22:48
Speaker 1: a genius to begin with. When artists try to fool...
22:54
Speaker 1: Some artists do do this. They like to sort of
22:57
Speaker 1: put work out that prompts the average person or maybe
23:02
Speaker 1: even the serious person to read too much into the
23:05
Speaker 1: words and to change the meaning. But there is some
23:08
Speaker 1: risk in that. I mean, you know, Charles Manson listened
23:11
Speaker 1: to the White Elk. That's an example of someone misinterpreting
23:14
Speaker 1: a record causing a real problem. Yeah.
23:17
Speaker 2: Well, how much are they trying to fool us and
23:19
Speaker 2: how much are they trying to fool themselves? I'm not
23:23
Speaker 2: taking aim at Ozzy here. I think he was sincere
23:25
Speaker 2: in that, but maybe they're Backpedaling a.
23:28
Speaker 1: Bit once I mean I suppose some of them would
23:31
Speaker 1: say There's no fooling going on here We're not here
23:34
Speaker 1: to fool anyone But it's But again This is partially
23:41
Speaker 1: like not this example Suicide solution but like I love
23:44
Speaker 1: to take lyrics Literally I just I think that there's
23:48
Speaker 1: It's an amusing Pastime you know I mean one of
23:53
Speaker 1: my favorites is always You know in the the, the
23:57
Speaker 1: thin Lizzie song jailbreak. And there's a line in there.
24:01
Speaker 1: It's like tonight, there's going to be a jailbreak somewhere
24:04
Speaker 1: in this town. And I'm like, yeah, maybe the jail.
24:08
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, it's like, it's not going to
24:11
Speaker 1: be a bakery. Why?
24:11
Speaker 2: It's like, but the trick is like, and we did
24:15
Speaker 2: this in my radio days, uh, you know, songs that
24:18
Speaker 2: we played a zillion times, like stairway to heaven. You
24:20
Speaker 2: have to read the lyrics very like, deadpan you know
24:23
Speaker 2: you can't sing them and then it becomes even more
24:25
Speaker 2: humorous when you're just reading it.
24:29
Speaker 1: I mean to a way it's a disservice to the
24:31
Speaker 1: musician in a song lyrics are not supposed to be
24:33
Speaker 1: taken that literally usually I mean there are some examples
24:36
Speaker 1: of this I mean I there are you know there's
24:38
Speaker 1: some singer songwriters I think you know maybe James Taylor
24:41
Speaker 1: or Taylor Swift or somebody like you would say like
24:43
Speaker 1: you should look at my lyrics you know as like
24:46
Speaker 1: artifacts of where I was emotionally at that time but
24:49
Speaker 1: for most people that's not how it is for most
24:51
Speaker 1: musicians especially if they're really skilled. You know, somebody like,
24:55
Speaker 1: you know, if you listen to, say, demos of Billy
24:57
Speaker 1: Joel early songs, he's playing piano and just saying sounds
25:02
Speaker 1: with his, like, he does not care what the words are.
25:05
Speaker 1: The words will come later, and if they fit together, great.
25:08
Speaker 1: But most artists, I think, in the musical world, see
25:12
Speaker 1: themselves as creators of music more so than creators of
25:15
Speaker 1: any message. And there are exceptions, and there are some
25:18
Speaker 1: people who can do both, but, you know.
25:20
Speaker 3: No, Dylan.
25:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's putting music to his poetry, I think.
25:26
Speaker 1: But both those sides are less meaningful if separate. Like,
25:33
Speaker 1: just reading Bob Dylan's lyrics, if you know their music lyrics,
25:39
Speaker 1: you go like, well, that's pretty good for lyrics, but
25:41
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem on the level of what we classify
25:44
Speaker 1: generally as poetry. Right. Someone like Morrissey, who's just a
25:47
Speaker 1: great lyric writer, it is more meaningful with the music
25:51
Speaker 1: behind it because that can sort of scent or kind of,
25:54
Speaker 1: you know, shape the tone and the texture of it.
25:59
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I was always sort of, I
26:02
Speaker 1: think one band who's very musically underrated is the Carpenters.
26:07
Speaker 1: And I think part of the reason I say that
26:08
Speaker 1: is because they did something that a lot of artists
26:12
Speaker 1: now try but aren't going to often succeed at, which
26:15
Speaker 1: is making a happy song that's actually sad. Right. Or
26:18
Speaker 1: a sad founding song that really is joyous. Yeah. Right.
26:22
Speaker 2: The juxtaposition. That's fascinating.
26:24
Speaker 1: Yeah.
26:25
Speaker 2: T-Rex became enormous. Zeppelin, critically adored. Commercial failures. So why
26:31
Speaker 2: those two bands? Why do you use those for reversing
26:34
Speaker 2: the relationship between popularity and critical prestige?
26:37
Speaker 1: Well, you know, okay. So Led Zeppelin is the band
26:41
Speaker 1: of the 70s, I would say. That, you know, in
26:46
Speaker 1: terms of sort of their ubiquity, the quality of the
26:49
Speaker 1: work they put out, they had defined to me what
26:53
Speaker 1: I think of heavy rock of the seventies, you know,
26:57
Speaker 1: they're what, you know, they're the thing, but they not
27:00
Speaker 1: only got negative reviews earlier in their career, but we're
27:04
Speaker 1: sort of obsessed by them. I mean, you know, cause
27:06
Speaker 1: you know, Paige and John Paul Jones had come from
27:09
Speaker 1: the session world. It was like, they were sort of
27:12
Speaker 1: part of the music industry. They were, just constantly enraged
27:16
Speaker 1: by how people were not sort of looking at this
27:19
Speaker 1: music as sophisticated and then they would play to 50
27:22
Speaker 1: 000 people and everyone would be losing their mind and
27:24
Speaker 1: they would go home and read the newspaper and it'd
27:26
Speaker 1: be like they were boring and they how can this
27:28
Speaker 1: be you know so they're so they're like on one
27:31
Speaker 1: they were like on one pole of this like the
27:33
Speaker 1: band that was as big as you could possibly be
27:35
Speaker 1: and sort of dismissed sometimes that the people who wrote
27:38
Speaker 1: about music t-rex was huge in England, but never really
27:43
Speaker 1: succeeded in America. There are some people in America who
27:45
Speaker 1: probably think of him as having one song, like, maybe
27:50
Speaker 1: they know Jeepster, but probably not. He was somebody who,
27:55
Speaker 1: like Dylan, he really emphasized lyrics as well, and his
27:59
Speaker 1: lyrics is very important. But there was almost a comedic
28:02
Speaker 1: element to it. It was sort of like, he's like
28:04
Speaker 1: a kind of elf and kind of weirdo. But in
28:08
Speaker 1: this book, it's like, so Zeppelin now is going to
28:10
Speaker 1: be a band that critics like and appreciate, but only critics.
28:14
Speaker 1: It's too musical for the world at large. Instead, they
28:17
Speaker 1: like T-Rex. And T-Rex, in some ways, I suppose, would
28:23
Speaker 1: almost be viewed as a hard rock version of the
28:26
Speaker 1: Velvet Underground. Some aspects of glam. a band that was
28:32
Speaker 1: really one person, you know, that's sort of why I use,
28:36
Speaker 1: and plus, you know, the thing is, Led Zeppelin and T-Rex,
28:40
Speaker 1: it's now, to someone who likes music from that period,
28:44
Speaker 1: very often likes them both. You know, I don't think
28:48
Speaker 1: that was the way it was in the past. It
28:50
Speaker 1: was not, Led Zeppelin was kind of for everyone, T-Rex
28:55
Speaker 1: was for a certain kind of person. Now, time has
28:58
Speaker 1: sort of moved them slightly closer together.
29:01
Speaker 2: Doug Klossum is the author of Rock, a mainstream alternative
29:04
Speaker 2: history of alternative mainstream music. Talk about NARC, the National
29:08
Speaker 2: Association of Rock Critics.
29:10
Speaker 1: In 1973, there was a collection of rock critics who
29:15
Speaker 1: met in Memphis with the idea of starting a union.
29:19
Speaker 1: It did not work. The main thing anyone remembers from
29:22
Speaker 1: this 1973 Rock Critics Convention is Big Star did perform
29:26
Speaker 1: at it because they were in, you know, they were,
29:29
Speaker 1: Stax was their record label and it was nearby in Memphis.
29:33
Speaker 1: So that's kind of like the story is always how
29:37
Speaker 1: these rock critics tried to form a union. It didn't work.
29:40
Speaker 1: It was this kind of apex for Big Star Who
29:43
Speaker 1: never had a lot of success But has always been
29:45
Speaker 1: beloved by critics Going forward because of this sort of
29:48
Speaker 1: moment In this situation The rock critics meet And it
29:53
Speaker 1: goes perfectly They form a union that becomes extremely powerful
29:57
Speaker 1: More powerful than the Teamsters And then they spend the next,
30:01
Speaker 1: you know, 30 years basically shaping the world so that
30:05
Speaker 1: rock music is everywhere. That's sort of, I mean, with
30:08
Speaker 1: this book is, as it moves through time, it becomes
30:12
Speaker 1: kind of increasingly absurd. And from 67 to 1972, it
30:17
Speaker 1: just seems like an alternative history. Just like, well, what
30:20
Speaker 1: if this happens to this, you know? But from 73 on,
30:23
Speaker 1: where we have this idea that now rock critics are
30:26
Speaker 1: sort of in control of the entire media. That's when
30:29
Speaker 1: things kind of get goofy.
30:31
Speaker 2: Well, Kiss, I didn't realize they were your second favorite band.
30:34
Speaker 2: They're mine behind Van Halen. The shortest possible career you
30:38
Speaker 2: give them in this book. Talk about you. One ignored
30:41
Speaker 2: album after another before they die in a disastrous attempt
30:45
Speaker 2: to fly their stage as a giant kite.
30:47
Speaker 1: I have for decades now argued that if Kiss had
30:54
Speaker 1: only made one record or if they'd made just two records,
30:57
Speaker 1: if they'd made the first one in Hot Ribbon Hell,
31:00
Speaker 1: I think everything we think about Kiss or that other
31:04
Speaker 1: people think about Kiss would be different. They would be
31:07
Speaker 1: seen as like these progenitors of punk rock. They would
31:11
Speaker 1: be seen as like what would have happened if the
31:14
Speaker 1: New York Dolls were more musical. I think they would
31:16
Speaker 1: have been seen as the idea of almost inventing theatrics
31:20
Speaker 1: and rock as opposed to people who capitalize upon. I mean,
31:25
Speaker 1: as a Kiss fan, I'm sure you realize this. One
31:27
Speaker 1: thing that is interesting about Kiss is They make it
31:30
Speaker 1: hard on us. It's not easy to be a Kiss fan.
31:32
Speaker 1: They expect you to accept a lot and to pay
31:36
Speaker 1: a lot and to sort of agree that these things
31:39
Speaker 1: that they're doing are not only reasonable, but like what
31:43
Speaker 1: we want, you know. So, you know, Kiss is kind
31:47
Speaker 1: of a complicated deal. I think that I've had many
31:53
Speaker 1: times in my life when people, you know, they know
31:55
Speaker 1: I'm a rock critic or whatever. write all these books
31:57
Speaker 1: about music, and they'll be like, but you don't really
31:59
Speaker 1: like Kiss. You and I really do like Kiss. It's
32:03
Speaker 1: like the Beatles are my favorite band to listen to,
32:05
Speaker 1: but Kiss is my favorite band to think about.
32:07
Speaker 2: You're way too smart to be a Kiss fan.
32:10
Speaker 1: Someone will say something like that, which they would say
32:13
Speaker 1: about the Stooges or something, as if the Stooges were
32:17
Speaker 1: the collection of brilliance or whatever. I mean, Kiss just has,
32:22
Speaker 1: in some ways, the best and worst possible reputation. in
32:26
Speaker 1: the sense that people feel like they know everything about Kiss,
32:29
Speaker 1: even if they never listen to him. So, in this story,
32:36
Speaker 1: Kiss has a very short career, and as a consequence,
32:38
Speaker 1: they are perceived totally differently. If you die young, like
32:47
Speaker 1: Jeff Buckley or whatever, they look at the Jeff Buckley record, Grace,
32:52
Speaker 1: and I think it's now perceived as maybe one of
32:55
Speaker 1: the most important records from that period I think regardless
32:59
Speaker 1: of how much you like or dislike that record I
33:02
Speaker 1: think anyone would agree that that would not be the
33:05
Speaker 1: case if he had lived and kept making records I
33:07
Speaker 1: mean like people would just say that was another good
33:09
Speaker 1: record I don't think that they would put it in
33:11
Speaker 1: this rarefied almost like spiritual class of things because you
33:16
Speaker 1: know because I mean death is a good business move
33:20
Speaker 1: you can't enjoy it but it's good for how you're supposed.
33:23
Speaker 2: To It is a rock cliche. Dying young creates immortality
33:27
Speaker 2: to its most ridiculous conclusion at times. But, yeah, it's true.
33:33
Speaker 2: Look at Morrison, the 27 Club. Anybody who's 27 when
33:37
Speaker 2: they die, suddenly everybody's interested in what they did. With
33:42
Speaker 2: the Doors, people forgot about the Doors. In the 80s,
33:45
Speaker 2: they were washed up, done, and then all of a
33:48
Speaker 2: sudden they're in that film.
33:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know.
33:51
Speaker 2: Fuck this now, right?
33:53
Speaker 1: No, The Doors.
33:55
Speaker 2: Well, yeah.
33:55
Speaker 1: But once didn't it.
33:58
Speaker 2: Start when The End got played in the apocalypse? Now
34:00
Speaker 2: that kind of.
34:02
Speaker 1: The Doors, and I mentioned this a little bit in
34:04
Speaker 1: the book, an interesting thing happened to them and to
34:08
Speaker 1: some extent also with Creedence Clearwater Revival, although their success
34:13
Speaker 1: was different in a lot of different ways, but both
34:15
Speaker 1: of those artists became very tightly associated with any cinematic
34:21
Speaker 1: depictions of Vietnam. That there was almost this idea that
34:25
Speaker 1: this music was what you would be listening to if
34:28
Speaker 1: you had been over fighting the Vietnam War. And then
34:32
Speaker 1: when Oliver Stone, who did fight in Vietnam, made that
34:36
Speaker 1: movie The Doors in a way that really introduced them
34:40
Speaker 1: back into the culture. I mean, I was at college
34:42
Speaker 1: at the time. And all of a sudden, I mean,
34:45
Speaker 1: it was an overnight flip of the switch that you
34:47
Speaker 1: could just be walking around the campus and you would
34:50
Speaker 1: hear dorm rooms playing The Doors' greatest hits. It completely
34:53
Speaker 1: reintroduced them to the culture. Then in a matter of
34:58
Speaker 1: maybe two or three years, it kind of switched again
35:01
Speaker 1: because the idea became that in some ways, Jim Morrison
35:05
Speaker 1: was the most repugnant of rock stars, the most gratuitous,
35:10
Speaker 1: you know, that the clearest example of like narcissism as
35:15
Speaker 1: a display of performance. And then so the Doors reputation
35:20
Speaker 1: then kind of went down for a while. I don't
35:23
Speaker 1: know if it's going to come back again or if
35:25
Speaker 1: they're just going to be lost. I mean, when I
35:28
Speaker 1: listen to The Doors now, I'm often surprised by, like,
35:32
Speaker 1: how interesting it is. Like, you know, like, because your
35:36
Speaker 1: mind kind of remembers the hits. Like a song like
35:39
Speaker 1: Peace Frog or something. It's not like other music. You know,
35:42
Speaker 1: the use of the organ is not unique, but certainly
35:47
Speaker 1: separate from most other rock.
35:51
Speaker 2: And as you say, things get more absurd as the
35:53
Speaker 2: book goes along. Part one ends with Phil Spector trying
35:55
Speaker 2: to kill Andy Warhol while Fleetwood Mac is making rumors.
35:59
Speaker 2: Where did that idea come from?
36:01
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, Phil Spector's interest in guns is pretty... Well, yeah. Oh, hello. And,
36:09
Speaker 1: you know, because Andy Warhol is technically credited as the
36:13
Speaker 1: producer of the first Velvet Underground record, and because in
36:17
Speaker 1: this reality that Velvet Underground record sells millions and millions
36:22
Speaker 1: of copies, he kind of becomes the super producer of
36:26
Speaker 1: the 70s. He becomes like the Bob Ezrin, Ted Templeton
36:29
Speaker 1: type of guy. Where he's just making all of these records,
36:32
Speaker 1: he's producing them. But he's also Andy Warhol, which means
36:36
Speaker 1: he doesn't actually involve himself in a hands-on way. He's
36:40
Speaker 1: just kind of there. So in this scenario, I imagine
36:43
Speaker 1: him producing the Rumors record, and it's not going well.
36:47
Speaker 1: And then Phil Spector comes in because... he feels that
36:51
Speaker 1: Andy Warhol ruined music because prior to 67, if you
36:58
Speaker 1: go back to like the, the, you know, like the
37:01
Speaker 1: wall of sound Phil Spector era, that was a period
37:04
Speaker 1: where music was very sculpted where, you know, you listen
37:08
Speaker 1: to a Ronette song or whatever. It's like, nothing is
37:11
Speaker 1: accidental here. Like they made, you know, he, he was
37:14
Speaker 1: just this sort of, you know, almost like a Stanley
37:17
Speaker 1: Kubrick type of person in an auditory way. But because
37:22
Speaker 1: in this reality of the book where the Velvet Underground
37:25
Speaker 1: take off, the approach seems to be the producer shouldn't
37:29
Speaker 1: touch the record at all. It should be as natural
37:31
Speaker 1: and organic as possible. So he blames Andy Warhol for
37:34
Speaker 1: this and tries to shoot him.
37:36
Speaker 3: Is Phil Spector the OJ of rock and roll? It's like,
37:39
Speaker 3: it's uncomfortable to talk to him. I mean, you know,
37:42
Speaker 3: they removed the number 32 from the new build stadium.
37:45
Speaker 3: It's like, well, that's kind of strange. Well, you know,
37:47
Speaker 3: I guess they didn't remove it.
37:49
Speaker 1: They just didn't put it in.
37:51
Speaker 2: Like he never existed.
37:53
Speaker 1: It's because it's such a weird thing, you know, Like,
37:56
Speaker 1: I don't like that. Like, for some reason, I think
37:58
Speaker 1: he should be there. But then when I try to
38:00
Speaker 1: describe why he should be there, it does seem like
38:03
Speaker 1: I'm just insane. Like, I'm saying, like, he was, like,
38:07
Speaker 1: you know, 2,000 yards. Yeah. No, he killed two people. Yeah, okay. Like,
38:12
Speaker 1: it's real weird to think that way. But the separation
38:17
Speaker 1: of art from the artist, I mean, you know, when
38:20
Speaker 1: I first got into writing about music, that was seen
38:23
Speaker 1: as the whole job. Like, can you do that? can
38:26
Speaker 1: you write about Marilyn Manson and not think about Marilyn Manson,
38:29
Speaker 1: the figure, just actually give a real, honest, neutral reading
38:33
Speaker 1: of the music? Or like, can you write about a
38:35
Speaker 1: Paul Simon album without having your pre-existing ideas about Paul
38:39
Speaker 1: Simon sort of, you know, kind of get in there?
38:42
Speaker 1: But now it's the opposite. Now, not only are you
38:45
Speaker 1: not supposed to do that, people kind of get mad
38:47
Speaker 1: if you do. Like, you're almost supposed to look at,
38:51
Speaker 1: is this artist a good person with the right politics?
38:54
Speaker 1: And if so, then I will, openly embrace this music.
38:58
Speaker 1: But if they don't, I want to see it as regressive.
39:01
Speaker 1: You know, that's why it's like in some ways I
39:05
Speaker 1: don't do much music writing anymore, because in some ways
39:08
Speaker 1: it's true. It's like it is kind of passed me
39:10
Speaker 1: by in the sense that the way I think about
39:13
Speaker 1: music is no longer in fashion, but the way music
39:16
Speaker 1: is written about. So, you know, by doing this book,
39:19
Speaker 1: in a sense, you know, it's almost like it's giving
39:22
Speaker 1: me the opportunity to work in that old modality. I
39:26
Speaker 1: mean because the book ends in 2002, that old style
39:30
Speaker 1: is how things in the book are considered, you know,
39:32
Speaker 1: how artists are viewed.
39:34
Speaker 2: David Crosby accidentally comes up with the solution to hip
39:37
Speaker 2: hop threatening rock. Don't destroy rap. Simply convince everyone that
39:40
Speaker 2: rap is country music.
39:42
Speaker 1: That seems kind of funny, but that actually one is
39:44
Speaker 1: in some ways, you know, closer to, how the world
39:50
Speaker 1: actually works. I mean, like Ice-T has talked about this
39:53
Speaker 1: a lot, which is that hip-hop and rap is kind
39:57
Speaker 1: of a version of country or Americana music because it's
40:01
Speaker 1: people talking about their personal experience with women, with guns,
40:05
Speaker 1: with violence. You know, I went to Reno and shot
40:09
Speaker 1: a man to watch him die. That's almost like kind
40:12
Speaker 1: of a hip-hop sentiment. So in this world where rock
40:15
Speaker 1: music is everything and these rock critics control everything, They
40:20
Speaker 1: first find a way to stop disco from happening. But
40:22
Speaker 1: hip hop creates a bigger problem. They can see the
40:26
Speaker 1: growing popularity of this with young people. They understand that
40:30
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, there's a real possibility that hip
40:33
Speaker 1: hop could become more popular than rock music. So they're like, well,
40:37
Speaker 1: how do we stop this? And their decision is we
40:41
Speaker 1: need to convince everyone that rap is not connected to rock,
40:46
Speaker 1: but an extension of country music. Because it could be. Yeah, sure.
40:52
Speaker 1: I mean, the only reason that hip-hop music kind of
40:56
Speaker 1: is seen as an extension of rock music, one was
40:58
Speaker 1: because of the samples they used, but also it was
41:01
Speaker 1: because the people who covered rock started covering hip-hop. So
41:04
Speaker 1: they were like, well, we like these two things. We'll
41:07
Speaker 1: put these two genres together. You go to the Rock
41:09
Speaker 1: and Roll Hall of Fame, there's lots of hip-hop in there.
41:11
Speaker 1: but it wouldn't have had to have been that way.
41:13
Speaker 1: They could have said that hip hop actually is closer
41:16
Speaker 1: to the tradition of country music. And in this book,
41:19
Speaker 1: that's what happens because this book rock music is everything.
41:23
Speaker 1: Like it's, it's, it's almost sort of like, I mean,
41:28
Speaker 1: it really is like almost in a dystopian fantasy for
41:33
Speaker 1: people who like rock music. Like what if, what if
41:36
Speaker 1: rock music literally was everywhere? Every store you went into,
41:41
Speaker 1: every restaurant, every school, every post office, every church, what
41:45
Speaker 1: if the only thing that was always there was rock music?
41:50
Speaker 1: Which to me is like a funny idea, but there
41:56
Speaker 1: is part of me that would also like it, I guess. Sure.
41:59
Speaker 2: But beneath the comedy of the Crosby story is the
42:02
Speaker 2: genre is really determined by what audiences collectively agree to
42:06
Speaker 2: call something.
42:08
Speaker 1: That's that's like the one part of that section where
42:10
Speaker 1: like this is like a real idea. Yeah. Which is
42:12
Speaker 1: that people always think like, you know, there'll be a
42:15
Speaker 1: country artist and people be like, well, but Nashville's not
42:19
Speaker 1: accepting her or whatever. You know, why is it she
42:23
Speaker 1: sings with the proper kind of twang or whatever? It's like,
42:26
Speaker 1: you know, the songs are written by people in Nashville.
42:29
Speaker 1: You know, they won't accept this person, but they'll accept
42:31
Speaker 1: this other person. Why is that? And they're always trying
42:34
Speaker 1: to figure out like what musical part is the problem.
42:37
Speaker 1: But that's not how genres are dictated. Genres are dictated
42:41
Speaker 1: by what the pre-existing audience will accept. Like if they
42:45
Speaker 1: see it as country, it is. If people who like
42:48
Speaker 1: hardcore music hear a band like Turnstile, which to me
42:52
Speaker 1: does not seem like hardcore, but the hardcore audience perceives
42:56
Speaker 1: it as such, they're in. That's what kind of dictates
42:59
Speaker 1: these things. So in this book, the argument is if
43:01
Speaker 1: we can convince people that, fans who like country music
43:05
Speaker 1: are the ones who are supposed to be fans of hip-hop,
43:08
Speaker 1: maybe that will just happen.
43:12
Speaker 2: MTV becomes Rockspan. This is interesting because it gets to
43:16
Speaker 2: the point where they devote most of the day to
43:20
Speaker 2: intellectual debates because music is too important to be entertaining.
43:25
Speaker 2: Is that the ultimate end point of taking pop culture
43:27
Speaker 2: too seriously?
43:29
Speaker 1: Well, yeah. My... My thing on that was just like,
43:34
Speaker 1: you know, so I grew up without MTV. I grew
43:40
Speaker 1: up on a farm. We didn't have it. But of course,
43:42
Speaker 1: I was hearing about it all the time because I
43:44
Speaker 1: would read magazines like Hit Parader and Circus. And I
43:47
Speaker 1: would read people like Nikki Sixx saying how he hated MTV.
43:52
Speaker 1: They don't respect metal. You know, and I was like,
43:55
Speaker 1: MTV must suck. You know, they don't like me. Then
43:57
Speaker 1: I finally saw MTV in the summer of 1990. Wow.
44:02
Speaker 2: That middle was.
44:03
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I saw I would see I would
44:05
Speaker 1: see Friday night videos. There was a thing called Night
44:09
Speaker 1: Flight that was on.
44:10
Speaker 2: I remember it.
44:11
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I didn't we'd get cable, but I could
44:14
Speaker 1: sometimes if I was in the town, I can see it.
44:16
Speaker 1: But my town didn't get MTV. So I had seen
44:19
Speaker 1: it here and there. I'd go to Fargo and I'd
44:21
Speaker 1: see it. But with 1990, I thought like I watched
44:24
Speaker 1: it nonstop for like three weeks. And the thing was,
44:27
Speaker 1: metal seemed like all they had played. Like, that's all
44:30
Speaker 1: it was. Like, you know, it was like all those
44:32
Speaker 1: videos were like Dr. Field and were just out of conflict.
44:35
Speaker 1: So I was sort of like, well, so I had
44:38
Speaker 1: this image of what MTV was. Then I thought it
44:40
Speaker 1: was what it actually was. And I think that caused
44:44
Speaker 1: me to sort of come to this idea. It's like,
44:46
Speaker 1: what if MTV decided that, like, you know, we're going
44:50
Speaker 1: to stop showing music videos, which they did, but instead
44:53
Speaker 1: of showing the real world and Singled Out and all
44:56
Speaker 1: those shows, what if we had Susan Santag come on
44:59
Speaker 1: and debate Camille Paglia? What if it became this hyper-intellectual thing?
45:05
Speaker 1: So that's just, again, it's a goofy thing. It's hard
45:08
Speaker 1: when I describe it now on this podcast, even I
45:10
Speaker 1: will say it sounds idiotic as I'm saying it aloud,
45:13
Speaker 1: but I think in the book it's funny.
45:15
Speaker 2: You do make an interesting argument that fans think they
45:19
Speaker 2: own obscure artists. But those artists actually have more freedom
45:23
Speaker 2: because they don't have to satisfy an audience. Do you
45:25
Speaker 2: think fame ultimately gives an artist power or does it
45:28
Speaker 2: take that power away?
45:29
Speaker 1: It gives them power at the beginning and takes it
45:33
Speaker 1: away at the end. What I'm sort of describing in
45:35
Speaker 1: that is that like, you know, if you really like
45:40
Speaker 1: an uncompromising artist, if you're a fan of someone in part,
45:44
Speaker 1: Because they don't play by the rules. And they don't
45:46
Speaker 1: care about success. And they just do what they want.
45:49
Speaker 1: It's a natural expression of who they are. You feel
45:53
Speaker 1: like you have more of an intimate relationship with them.
45:56
Speaker 1: But at the same time. You mean nothing to them either.
45:59
Speaker 1: They're working for themselves. You really believe that they're great.
46:02
Speaker 1: Because they're creating art for themselves. Whether or not you
46:05
Speaker 1: like their work is irrelevant. So if their music changes.
46:09
Speaker 1: Like you know. If they do something that. That. you
46:14
Speaker 1: find unlistenable or objectionable or just not you know they
46:19
Speaker 1: change genres and they make a reggae record or something
46:22
Speaker 1: and you're like I don't like this there's not much
46:24
Speaker 1: you can do like you have to you just be
46:26
Speaker 1: like well I guess I gotta decide that I like
46:28
Speaker 1: this too or I gotta decide that I'm now against
46:31
Speaker 1: this person who I once loved but if it's a
46:33
Speaker 1: mass artist a artist who's making records for millions of
46:39
Speaker 1: people in some ways you do control that person. You're
46:44
Speaker 1: sharing it with millions of other people, but they, in
46:47
Speaker 1: order to be, you know, a Taylor Swift or a
46:50
Speaker 1: Duran Duran or a Peter Frampton or these things that
46:54
Speaker 1: were just huge, they have to give the audience what
46:58
Speaker 1: the audience wants. So in some ways, the most famous musicians,
47:03
Speaker 1: the Michael Jackson level musicians, you know, the, you know, the, the, the, the,
47:09
Speaker 1: Whoever you want to use is your example of like
47:11
Speaker 1: kind of like as big as it gets. They are
47:14
Speaker 1: sort of dictated by their audience to exist in that
47:18
Speaker 1: rarefied space. They have to make things that almost service
47:22
Speaker 1: that audience desire. So in some ways, the freer artist,
47:29
Speaker 1: you know, is not the person who's got unlimited money.
47:32
Speaker 1: It's the person who doesn't care about money. True.
47:35
Speaker 2: Music from the elder with Kiss. look what happened, Van
47:38
Speaker 2: Halen 3, look what happened. If they weren't.
47:43
Speaker 1: Music from the Elder is a particularly interesting example because
47:47
Speaker 1: that is a band who had never gotten critical support
47:53
Speaker 1: or was never really beloved by critics. And they're like,
47:55
Speaker 1: we're going to do this now. We're going to make
47:57
Speaker 1: a record just for them. And then it still didn't work.
48:00
Speaker 1: And that caused them to go even farther the other
48:03
Speaker 1: way and essentially say, anything you do, for critics is
48:08
Speaker 1: bad like you almost have to be against them on
48:12
Speaker 1: purpose you know what i'm saying.
48:13
Speaker 2: Well we can get into a discussion a whole other
48:15
Speaker 2: time on that but i like half if not more
48:17
Speaker 2: than that album okay i'm gonna.
48:19
Speaker 1: Say i don't mind a lot of it if i
48:21
Speaker 1: were listing my favorite my favorite kiss records to listen
48:25
Speaker 1: to now is a 54 year old person it might
48:30
Speaker 1: be number two because it is like it's You know,
48:34
Speaker 1: it's still KISS. It's them doing things that are a
48:38
Speaker 1: little bit outside of their abilities, but they're able to
48:41
Speaker 1: do it. They're able to pull it off. And it's
48:44
Speaker 1: just like, you know, I've said this a lot, but
48:51
Speaker 1: I think it's true. If you like a band, what
48:53
Speaker 1: you like about them is their best work. Like, if
48:56
Speaker 1: you like Fleetwood Mac, you like Rumors. You know, if
48:59
Speaker 1: you like Motley Crue, you like Dr. Feelgood or whatever.
49:02
Speaker 1: But if you love a band, you like when things
49:06
Speaker 1: went wrong, right? Look, if you love Oasis, you want
49:09
Speaker 1: to listen and think about Be Here Now. If you
49:13
Speaker 1: really love Kiss, you want to think about music from
49:15
Speaker 1: The Elder. Because I think that in some ways, in
49:19
Speaker 1: many ways, an individual's failure indicates more about them than
49:26
Speaker 1: their successes do. Success kind of happens the same way
49:29
Speaker 1: for everyone. Every failure is unique.
49:31
Speaker 2: Why is Lenny Kravitz the embodiment of Total Rock in
49:35
Speaker 2: your story?
49:36
Speaker 1: Well, because, okay, so, like, I like Lenny Kravitz. Any
49:40
Speaker 1: artist in this book, maybe with the exception of Gigi Allen,
49:44
Speaker 1: I like them if they're in the book. But Lenny
49:47
Speaker 1: Kravitz was this completely disrespected figure in my memory. It
49:58
Speaker 1: seemed like he was kind of retro. It seemed like
50:00
Speaker 1: he was doing fake versions of other people's music. He
50:02
Speaker 1: was so good looking that it didn't seem like, well,
50:05
Speaker 1: this just happened by accident. He sort of had a
50:08
Speaker 1: coolness about him. And then there was also kind of
50:11
Speaker 1: like a cornyness too about him. But, you know, he
50:13
Speaker 1: was biracial and he was very spiritual, but he was
50:16
Speaker 1: also very sexual. If you were actually trying in a
50:21
Speaker 1: laboratory to make the biggest rock star possible, it would
50:27
Speaker 1: end up coming out like Lenny Kravitz. You'd say like, okay,
50:30
Speaker 1: we want to appeal to white people and black people.
50:32
Speaker 1: We want to appear to women and to men. people
50:35
Speaker 1: who are Christian and also people who are almost like,
50:37
Speaker 1: you know, living on the edge. We want somebody who
50:39
Speaker 1: can play every single instrument well. We don't want them
50:42
Speaker 1: to create anything that in any way is going to
50:44
Speaker 1: be sort of surprising or like not comfortable. Like, you know,
50:48
Speaker 1: Leonard Kravitz, you listen to his records, you're always sort
50:51
Speaker 1: of listening to the records he liked. Now that's true
50:54
Speaker 1: for a lot of artists, but it's very true for him.
50:56
Speaker 1: But in this world, the ability to take all of
50:59
Speaker 1: those things and put it together makes him the ultimate icon.
51:04
Speaker 1: It makes it like what would have happened in that
51:07
Speaker 1: theoretical lab is like what people want in this.
51:11
Speaker 2: So near the end of the book, the working class
51:13
Speaker 2: fan outside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame says
51:15
Speaker 2: he doesn't care whether rock matters to society, only that
51:18
Speaker 2: it matters to him and helps him live with sadness.
51:23
Speaker 2: Is that ultimately the simplest answer to why music matters?
51:26
Speaker 1: It is an interesting thing because, you know, the guy
51:28
Speaker 1: is 48 and he's from New Jersey and he's a
51:32
Speaker 1: working class guy. And he says all the things Bruce
51:36
Speaker 1: Springsteen has said in various interviews throughout his life. So
51:41
Speaker 1: what that person is, to me, in this world, Bruce
51:48
Speaker 1: Springsteen never gets famous. He never succeeds. But he's still
51:51
Speaker 1: Bruce Springsteen. The depth of his soul and his integrity,
51:56
Speaker 1: that's still there, even though he's just working a job.
52:01
Speaker 1: So in a sense, it's almost like What is important
52:06
Speaker 1: about this art form is important to people, even if
52:10
Speaker 1: they don't become the person they're supposed to be. Like,
52:15
Speaker 1: he doesn't make records in this world. There are no
52:18
Speaker 1: Bruce Springsteen records in this world. But Bruce Springsteen is
52:21
Speaker 1: still in this world. And whatever drove him to make
52:26
Speaker 1: Born to Run is the same thing that drives him
52:28
Speaker 1: to work at this car wash.
52:33
Speaker 2: After spending the entire book showing how completely history, critics, institutions,
52:37
Speaker 2: and cultural consensus can change what music means, do you
52:41
Speaker 2: believe that any artist or album has an inherent greatness?
52:45
Speaker 2: Or is greatness ultimately something history teaches us to hear?
52:49
Speaker 1: Boy, that is a hard question. Because, I mean, on
52:56
Speaker 1: some level, there are many records that are great just
52:59
Speaker 1: for what they are. Like, you know, the Van Halen
53:03
Speaker 1: poster behind you, the first Van Halen record, that would
53:07
Speaker 1: be great regardless of its reception. That is highly sophisticated,
53:11
Speaker 1: virtuistic playing that was innovative, that had not been done
53:15
Speaker 1: before in that way, with a vocalist who was not
53:20
Speaker 1: a perfect singer, but completely embodied sort of the vibe
53:24
Speaker 1: the music was trying to get across. Very talented drummer.
53:30
Speaker 1: good enough bass player with great backing vocals that's great
53:34
Speaker 1: even if no if you if you if they made
53:36
Speaker 1: that album and they put it into a safe and
53:39
Speaker 1: nobody listened to it that would still be in my
53:41
Speaker 1: mind a kind of art there are and there are
53:43
Speaker 1: many records like this but what we're talking about in
53:48
Speaker 1: some ways is like a collective greatness that something is
53:53
Speaker 1: great even to people who don't feel the greatness on
53:56
Speaker 1: their own like they know it's great Everybody else says
53:59
Speaker 1: that even if it doesn't touch them in particular, it
54:02
Speaker 1: still means something. And that's a much harder question. I mean,
54:06
Speaker 1: you know, when I listen to say the three Jimi
54:13
Speaker 1: Hendrix records, for example, I sometimes do wonder, what would
54:18
Speaker 1: I think of this if I knew nothing else about him?
54:22
Speaker 1: I didn't know what he looked like. I didn't know
54:24
Speaker 1: who he was. I didn't know that he died. I
54:26
Speaker 1: didn't know this was innovative. To me, they're just records
54:29
Speaker 1: that I just hear playing. Would I be able to
54:34
Speaker 1: appreciate it? And I will admit, I don't know. I'd
54:39
Speaker 1: like to say yes, but I don't know. Because I
54:43
Speaker 1: don't know if people have the ability to control their
54:46
Speaker 1: own thoughts. We think we do. But in some ways,
54:50
Speaker 1: what we think are our original ideas is just the
54:53
Speaker 1: residue of every other idea that was pumped into us.
54:56
Speaker 1: So I can't answer your question. It's kind of, I mean,
54:59
Speaker 1: in some ways, it's maybe at the core of the book.
55:03
Speaker 2: Rock, a mainstream alternative history of alternative mainstream music. It
55:07
Speaker 2: is out on the 22nd of September, right?
55:10
Speaker 1: Yeah.
55:10
Speaker 2: I believe that's where this is. You can find it
55:11
Speaker 2: wherever books are sold. Look for it at your nearest bookstore.
55:14
Speaker 2: You can go to bookdownrock.com to find your nearest independent bookstore. Chuck,
55:18
Speaker 2: people can find you online. I mean, I know you're
55:20
Speaker 2: all over. Where's the best place?
55:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I don't do much social media stuff. You can...
55:25
Speaker 1: You can find me in Portland, Oregon. I'm always around.
55:28
Speaker 2: All right. Chuck, I know you got to run. You
55:29
Speaker 2: got another interview. Thank you so much. This was great.
55:32
Speaker 2: It was a pleasure to have you on the show.
55:33
Speaker 1: For the first time. My pleasure too, man. Thanks a lot.
55:41
Speaker 1: That's it.
55:41
Speaker 2: It's in the books.