The Inscrutability of “Rock” as a Genre and Cultural Mode

Rock of the 2010s — Present

The spirit of rock & roll has located transgression and otherness within the very core of its identity. In class we studied how the emergence of rock destabilized rigid politics of musical genres through artists such as Chuck Berry and Little Richard, in their fusion of pop, country and R&B styles. We also explored how rock music became a diverse platform for sociocultural movement and change, spearheaded by each generation of enthusiasts. From the collectives of rebellious (often white) youth in the 50s, to anti-war discourse and queer expression, I believe that rock music, culture and its subgenres can be understood as responses to the innately political and ambivalent human experience.

Indeed, what can be more punk than challenging the circumstances of one’s birth? I believe rock music is alive and well, and its current iterations have enabled some expansion outside its white, masculine and heteronormative origins. However, I also look towards the prophesied future of further diversity, representation and solidarity, in the spirit of rock and rebellion.

Making the playlist for this assignment was a difficult task, which I take to be a good sign. I first want to bring attention to recent songs by artists with strong ties to the traditions of blues rock. “Broken Bones” by the Icelandic band Kaleo evokes a particularly racialized blues from the American South. The scornful lyrics describe a labourer who has travelled there for work, only to be increasingly disheartened by his reality: “for every hard-earned dollar I make / there stands a white man just to take it away.” In addition to the song’s familiar themes, the drums set a steady, trudging pace that further emphasizes the speaker’s begrudging compliance and growing resentment. Reminiscent of Led Zeppelin, “Broken Bones” features a guitar solo and a non-standard song structure; distanced echoes of the chorus play at the onset before the verse, and the outro is formed by an ‘question-and-answer’ overlap of verse and chorus melodies.

In a similar vein, Rafferty begins “Save Me Some Sunshine” with a burst of fuzzy distortion and feedback, which consequently gives way to a gritty riff that channels the sonic intensity of Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze.” The coarseness of Rafferty’s voice compliments the Pearl Jam-adjacent rigor of the speaker and emphatic heralding of his arrival from “back east.”

Other subgenres of rock that continue to thrive are heavy metal and punk, both of which expand upon the identity of a rebel other. Black Sabbath’s fascination with the demonic and occult comes through in “Will You Still Be There” by Of Mice and Men, who situate the abject other as alienated from the temporal (“if I could turn back time would you still be there”) and spatial constructs of heaven: “dislocating, I lie awake / suffocating in my mistakes / I lost my halo when I fell from grace.” The song consists of other signature metal characteristics, namely the use of vocal fry, a guitar solo bridge or climax, and the aggressive rhythm. Bring Me The Horizon proposes a juxtaposed take of metal themes and elements in “Follow You”, fusing metal with a more subdued, haunting guitar sound. Crooning harmonies deepen the song’s emotional tenor, conveyed in lyrics like “I will follow you through hell / if it meant I could hold your hand” and “you can throw me to the flames.”

In contrast to the above examples, the speaker in Fall Out Boy’s “Centuries” paradoxically operates within society rather than its periphery. The speaker flips the dynamic, rejecting criticism and redirecting it towards the perpetrators of convention: “no, nothing’s wrong with me / the kids are all wrong, the story’s aloof.” The following line “heavy metal rock my heart” articulates rock and rebellion as emerging from within: a visceral act of self-identification or authorship. Accordingly, rock is an unstable musical genre and cultural phenomenon, and the question of “is rock dead?” disproportionately affects marginalized peoples and groups in the industry. By its very nature, the “rock is dead” rhetoric is problematic and contrary to the genre’s unconventional origins. Rather than gatekeeping rock music, culture and identity, I want to explore the new directions in which rock manifests itself.

The last songs in my playlist hopefully underscore the irony embedded in the “rock is dead” rhetoric, while foregrounding how discordant identities actively emerge from the dialogue between past and present, tradition and innovation. Janis Joplin’s emotional delivery and evocation of drug-induced highs is channelled by K.Flay in her song “High Enough.” Familiar guitar riffs and a driving rhythm is paired with synth overtones, providing a grounding landscape for lyrics such as “I used to like liquor to get me inspired / but you look so beautiful, my new supplier” and “don’t try to give me cold water / I don’t wanna sober up / all I see are tomorrows / oh, the stars were made for us.”

Halestorm uses heavy metal and punk elements (e.g. harsh guitar sounds, aggressive pacing and rhythm) to challenge patriarchally-informed gender roles and how these discourses are in part transmitted by intergenerational dynamics: “I’m not the girl in the white dress / I’m not your fairytale princess / I’m sorry mama that I made you cry / someday you’ll know the reason why.” With vocals like Evanescence’s Amy Lee, Halestorm notes the older generation’s resistance to change, singing “so quit denying, yesterday is dying.” Dorothy’s tongue-in-cheek album ROCKISDEAD features calls for femme/female voices to “Raise Hell” and embrace their identity as “Wicked Ones.” Alternatively, the multi-instrumentalist and creative powerhouse Jack Antonoff sings “Don’t Take the Money”: an indie or alternative rock anthem that does not use gendered pronouns in consideration of his queer fans and audience.

The rock music of this decade also reflects the increasing globalization of musical traditions and styles. The Korean band NELL stands as one such testament to rock’s evolving sound and accessibility. Their concept album Newton’s Apple explores the interactive nature of gravity while embodying the overarching storytelling of the Beatles, Radiohead, or more recently Muse (“Psycho” from album Drones). In particular, the song “Fantasy” mixes the ephemera of Korean indie music with extremely catchy guitar riffs and a pulsing drumbeat, whereas “Holding Onto Gravity” illustrates the band’s ability to build tension like Velvet Underground’s “Heroin,” through layers of building guitar riffs and piano chords.

Young the Giant’s album Home of the Strange appeals to western society’s increasing diversity. The band’s mix of ethnicities and lived experiences as first-generation immigrants in “Amerika” gives them a wide range of creative influences, from Franz Kafka’s eponymous work to the promises of the American Dream: “always talking ‘bout one day / in Amerika / it’s the same story, oh / you want glory son.” Frontman Sameer Gadhia, whose family are first-generation immigrants from India, spoke to NPR on how the song stems from “[feeling] like you may or may not belong to the place that you call home, [and] the rug gets pulled under you and you realize that you're different. … I think a lot of young people have their issues with this and … want to whitewash themselves or they feel insecure or embarrassed by their heritage.”

Like any other creative medium, music ultimately occupies a contentious space. In spite of this, I hope to have illustrated how rock continues to thrive, as a genre that equally shapes (and is shaped by) the negotiations of tradition and innovation during a given epoch. I believe that the “rock is dead” narrative ignores the genre’s heritage in lieu of a conservative rhetoric or system of beliefs. Rock music is inherently boundary breaking. The rhetoric that invalidates current music on the pretense of tradition is a disservice to rock as an innovation and cultural phenomenon.

Playlist:

Broken Bones by Kaleo (2016)

Save Me Some Sunshine by Rafferty (2016)

Will You Still Be There by Of Mice and Men (2014)

Follow You by Bring Me The Horizon (2015)

Centuries by Fall Out Boy (2015)

High Enough by K.Flay (2017)

White Dress by Halestorm (2018)

Raise Hell by Dorothy (2016)

Wicked Ones by Dorothy (2016)

Don’t Take The Money by Bleachers/Jack Antonoff (2014)

Psycho by Muse (2015)

Fantasy by NELL (2014)

Holding Onto Gravity by NELL (2014)

Amerika by Young the Giant (2016)

Written for MUSC 323: History of Popular Music, taken in 2020W T1.