Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular MusicFrom Queen Latifa to Count Basie, Madonna to Monk, Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music traces popular music back to its roots in jazz, blues, country, and gospel through the rise in rock 'n' roll and the emergence of heavy metal, punk, and rap. Yet despite the vigor and balance of these musical origins, Martha Bayles argues, something has gone seriously wrong, both with the sound of popular music and the sensibility it expresses. Bayles defends the tough, affirmative spirit of Afro-American music against the strain of artistic modernism she calls 'perverse.' She describes how perverse modernism was grafted onto popular music in the late 1960s, and argues that the result has been a cult of brutality and obscenity that is profoundly anti-musical. Unlike other recent critics of popular music, Bayles does not blame the problem on commerce. She argues that culture shapes the market and not the other way around. Finding censorship of popular music "both a practical and a constitutional impossibility," Bayles insists that "an informed shift in public tastes may be our only hope of reversing the current malignant mood." |
Contents
Introduction | 3 |
Why Music Is the Wild Card | 15 |
The Three Strains of Modernism | 31 |
The Obstacle of Race | 57 |
The Taint of Commerce | 73 |
Jazz as Modernism | 85 |
Part Two From Rock n Roll to Rock | 105 |
The Strange Career of 1950s Rock n Roll | 107 |
Art and Religion 1960s Style | 219 |
Hard Rock Becomes a Hard Place | 243 |
Soul Loses Its Soul | 263 |
Part Four The Triumph of Perversity | 285 |
Their Art Belongs to Dada | 287 |
The Great AvantGarde Swindle | 305 |
High on High Tech | 323 |
Trying to Make it Real Compared to What? | 341 |
Rock n Rollers or Holy Rollers? | 127 |
Reaction and Revitalization | 143 |
Another Country Heard From | 161 |
Blues Blacks and Brits | 177 |
Part Three Inspiration and Polarization | 201 |
The Rise of the Counterculture | 203 |
Other editions - View all
Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music Martha Bayles No preview available - 1994 |
Common terms and phrases
African Afro-American idiom Afro-American music album American art rock artistic audience avant-garde band beat Beatles bebop became began British called CBGB Chicago Chuck Berry counterculture critics cubism dance disco Dylan early electronic Elvis emotional Encyclopedia of Popular European fans film folkies genre Gillett gospel guitar Guralnick hard rock heavy metal Hendrix hip-hop intellectuals jazz musicians label Lennon listeners Little Richard live McLaren mean melody message song modernist moral Motown movie never obscenity Penguin Encyclopedia performers perverse modernism Peter Guralnick playing political popular culture popular music Presley Presley's punk Quoted in ibid racial radical radio rappers record Rhythm & Blues rhythmic rock n Roll New York Rolling Stone sense Sex Pistols sexual singer singing social song Soul Music sound Southern spiritual studio style swing talent thing tion tradition University Press Velvet Underground vocal writes young youth Zappa