Posted on 06/17/2004 4:36:59 PM PDT by qam1
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hip-swiveling Elvis, womanizer Mick Jagger and "Material Girl" Madonna may be some of rock 'n' roll's greatest musical icons but as positive role models, they've yet to win many fans.
Think again, argues rock critic Tim Riley. Far from being pilloried as a destructive influence on American youth, Riley says the best rock 'n' roll music celebrated sexual openness, honored tolerance, individualism and social responsibility in a way that helped baby boomers become better partners and better parents.
"Rock actually helped lead the culture toward a healthier, happier paradigm of male-female relations," Riley writes in his book "Fever: How Rock and Roll Transformed Gender in America."
"It depicted the world as a place waiting to be explored and enjoyed rather than as a system of tests to pass or fail," Riley writes.
From Elvis (tender new man) to Tina Turner (rock's first feminist), Bruce Springsteen (father-son angst) to Madonna (aggressive glamour), Riley traces the sexual revolution as seen through rock music with a theory that is as controversial as it is compelling.
Riley was inspired to write "Fever" about 10 years ago when a slew of books including Robert Bly's "Iron John" bemoaned the lack of latter 20th century male role models to guide boys into manhood.
Riley disagreed; "It was so clear to me that I had a whole bunch of male role models who were rock 'n' roll role models, and Bly was missing that."
LOVE ME TENDER
He argues that the lyrics and sheer charisma of the best rock 'n' roll artists challenged and reshaped sexual politics in the United States in a way that left television and film back in the gender Stone Ages.
Remember actor John Wayne, the strong, silent, reigning American male ideal of the mid-Fifties who made a virtue out of burying his feelings? Enter the romantic exuberance of the early Elvis Presley, groaning with desire or pleading for tenderness not just with his hips but his whole persona.
"Elvis swiveling his hips on the Ed Sullivan Show was such a shocking idea back then that Elvis was not thought of in any more complex terms.
But the people who were buying his records and listening closely knew there was a far richer meaning being conveyed. Rock 'n' roll was able to captivate a huge mainstream popular audience. But the powers that be -- the establishment, the parents -- were benignly unaware of a lot of the messages," Riley told Reuters. While on U.S. TV in the early 1970s, the popular Mary Tyler Moore was cheerfully flirting with life as a single woman, singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell in her 1971 album "Blue" was painting vivid portraits of men out of their depth with intelligent women that shattered every relationship stereotype going.
Springsteen's ability to turn coming-of-age stories into poignant or furious songs with mass appeal made him a metaphor for how rock culture could make sense of the bewildering process of manhood, Riley said.
BORN TO RUN
Packaged in three-minute radio snatches, played hundreds of times a week, rock songs expressed the conflicting desires and insecurities of adult relationships. And when those lyrics were wrapped up in performers oozing with charisma, the effect was visceral.
"It is a magic moment that gets captured," Riley said, describing a great rock song. "It's a complete world view all in three minutes. It's a whole big chunk of experience that gets distilled and is alive with meaning."
Offstage, Riley admits his thesis runs into some problems -- like drink, drugs and destructive behavior or what he calls rock 'n' roll stars "acting out an unfiltered appetite for experience."
While admiring the late Kurt Cobain for his angry parody of fame in the music business, he admits that Cobain's wife, Courtney Love, has recently descended into a self-destructive "hurricane of trouble" involving drugs and assault charges.
Mick Jagger has "not had a heroic personal life" but Riley says Jagger's songs about women are more complex and tender than his treatment of women in real life.
"I wanted to write a book about what I saw as heroic role models by drawing a direct line to the text.
"Yes, there are characters who you wouldn't want to model your life after but the songs really tell a very coherent story. I much more trust the artist," he said.
Riley says mainstream movies and TV in the United States have largely caught up with rock 'n' roll culture over the past 50 years "but they haven't caught the spirit of it."
"The exception is 'Sex and the City' which is very direct, very out there with its sexuality.
"But that show existed in rock 'n' roll in Joni Mitchell albums and Rolling Stones records. Big deal, we were there 30 years ago."
Precisely. "Whang Dang Sweet Poontang" has deeply influenced my thoughts on when and how any daughters i have will date in their teens, twenties, or thirties.
They won't.
my BSometer just went "ka-BOOM!"
RAY DAVIES!
Excuse me a moment,I think I'm going to be sick!!!!!!!
I'm not waiting on a lady...I'm just waiting on a friend....
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations (i.e. The Baby Boomers) are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.
Which explains why divorce, domestic abuse, and sexual assault are at all-time highs, and why the gulf between men and women has never been wider.
What world do these self-justifying idiots live in?
"Under My Thumb", "Stupid Girl", yeah, try a little tenderness.
Just how many rock stars have had sexual relations with minors? I'm going broad with the term "rock" and "star". This includes R. Kelly and a member of Peter, Paul, and Mary. Add to that Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Michael Jackson(?) and others. Some "happier paradigm".
How old was Lisa Marie when she started going out with Elvis?
How many musicians are wife beaters? How many of them are former pimps?
I stand corrected, but correct in my recollection about her age.
Is this guy for real?
Little Richard is the prototype of a rock and roller.
Yet more proof that sociology (as well as other -ologies) is merely a make-it-up-as-you-go-along sport.
So I guess according to this guy if it weren't for "Rock Stars" the baby boomers would have been even worse??
How many are or were junkies, cokeheads, speed freaks, burnouts, or drunks? How many are whorechasers, egomaniacs, sociopaths, and victims of arrested development?
If anyone is looking for role models, they could learn more from the janitor at the concert hall than they could from the headliners.
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