Mark Steyn: Twenty years ago today

The New Criterion ^ | November 2007 | Mark Steyn

[neverdem]

We are all rockers now. National Review publishes its own chart of the Fifty Greatest Conservative Rock Songs, notwithstanding that most of the honorees are horrified to find themselves on such a hit parade. The National Review countdown of the All-Time Hot 100 Conservative Gangsta Rap Tracks can’t be far away. Even right-wingers want to get with the beat and no-one wants to look like the wallflower who can’t get a chick to dance with him. To argue against rock and roll is now as quaintly irrelevant as arguing for the divine right of kings. It was twen- ty years ago today, sang the Beatles forty years ago today, that Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play. Well, it was twenty years ago today—1987—that Professor Bloom taught us the band had nothing to say.

I don’t really like the expression “popular culture.” It’s just “culture” now: there is no other. “High culture” is high mainly in the sense we keep it in the attic and dust it off and bring it downstairs every now and then. But don’t worry, not too often. “Classical music,” wrote Bloom, “is now a special taste, like Greek language or pre-Columbian archaeology. Thirty years ago [i.e., now fifty years ago], most middle-class families made some of the old European music a part of the home, partly because they liked it, partly because they thought it was good for the kids.” Not anymore. If you’d switched on TV at the stroke of midnight on December 31, 1999 you’d have seen President and Mrs. Clinton and the massed ranks of American dignitaries ushering in the so-called new millennium to the strains of Tom Jones singing “I’m gonna wait till the midnight hour/ That’s when my love comes tumblin’ down.” Say what you like about JFK, but...

[FreedomPoster]

Ping list ping.

[mtbopfuyn]

And it was 40 years ago that Paul McCartney died...

[goldstategop]

Mark Steyn observes we've become a one-note society. We live our lives in a hurried present wherein we give no notice to the greatness of our past. Our music, literature, films and art have become exhausted. There's no more greatness and originality to draw upon to inspire ourselves and future generations. There's only a stultifying and oppressive sense of enervating boredom. Somehow Alan Bloom hoped we would recover everything we were in danger of losing. Twenty years later, few can make sense of classical music, jazz and the blues or ancient mythology.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[KarlInOhio]

National Review's 50 greatest conservative rock songs: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzZkNDU5MmViNzVjNzkzMDE3NzNlN2MyZjRjYTk4YjE=

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Ballads went away, rag time went away, swing went away but this damn trash appears to be going on forever!

[SergeiRachmaninov]

We are all rockers now.

Sad but true.

Few of us -- certainly not myself -- want be considered completely unhip, although fortunately, some of us are okay with less hipness than others.

[JamesP81]

bttt

[SergeiRachmaninov]

btw...I think it is kinda funny how Bill Bennett -- one of our most self-conscious defenders of traditional values and culture -- works so hard showing how down he was with hip culture in his younger days.

(Frankly, I think his show would be better if could accept that nobody gives a rat's butt what his favorite Motown song was and may even doubt that he was ~ever~ hip, not that there is anything wrong with that.)

[EternalVigilance]

A clear exposition that shows why Mark Steyn is such a great writer:

He actually knows stuff.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

I immersed myself in Renaissance music twenty years ago and have never looked back.

[pineybill]

Renaissance music is incredible - I an very fond of Gabrielli.

[BlessedBeGod]

Ahhhhhhhh, Palestrina..........

[struggle]

WHEN I WAS

[tear gas]

Popular culture used to be very at ease with the inheritance of the past.

It's getting harder and harder to find a radio station that is exclusively devoted to classic Gregorian chants. All that new stuff (beginning with Bach) sucks.

[Gay State Conservative]

National Review's 50 greatest conservative rock songs:

We've sure come a long way from "Wake Up Little Susie" to "Let's Spend The Night Together".eh?

[proudpapa]

I liked these lines best:

“I didn’t mind Senator Kerry when he was being mocked as a flip-flopper, but I find him even less plausible as America’s first flip-flopper hip-hopper.”

and

“When you think about it, “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” makes a much better anthem for seniors than it ever did for rebellious youth.”

[lesser_satan]

The National Review countdown of the All-Time Hot 100 Conservative Gangsta Rap Tracks can’t be far away.

It could happen! Fiddy's a Republican.

[x]

When Bloom was writing rock was probably more important than it is today.

Like a lot of other things it's gotten decentralized and fragmented.

Today, you don't have MTV beaming out videos 24/7.

You have people seeking out performers they like on the Internet.

So popular music isn't quite as much of a mass phenomenon as it once was.

Or maybe I've just gotten older and lost interest.

Anyway, Bloom's analysis is a little dated.

Maybe we're living in a "post-barbarian" epoch -- whatever that might mean.

[RooRoobird20]

“btw...I think it is kinda funny how Bill Bennett — one of our most self-conscious defenders of traditional values and culture — works so hard showing how down he was with hip culture in his younger days.”

I had heard a rumor that he “dated” Janis Joplin & didn’t believe it. Then Bennett made a personal reference to her on his show which seemed to acknowledge that the rumor was true. He said it in a “when-I-was-young-and-stupid-I-was- young-and-stupid” way.

Apparently Bennett was a real wild man in his Democrat hippie days. Yikes.