So, I was thinking last night as I was driving to work, listening to Tool, wondering what Lester Bangs would think of Tool's 10,000 Days CD. Bangs advocated a particular vision of rock music - loud, nihilistic, sheer pleasure for the sake of pleasure, and never, EVER too far from its roots as an unsophisticated music for the polloi. While not ideological like Simon Firth (who argues that any popular music not rooted in African-American folks musics like jazz and the blues isn't rock), Bangs nevertheless cultivated a particular critical point of view that would write out whole genres from "rock" because they aren't "black" enough. What's interesting, to me at any rate, is these same writers who disdain British progressive rock for its references to European art music, also deplore heavy metal - surely a working-class music if there is any - precisely because it isn't sophisticated enough. Of course, the real problem is the music is seen as "escapist", rather than engaging and protesting working-class conditions. A song like "Iron Man", say, or "Spiral Architect", doesn't deal with the conditions of labor in an industrial society; the bands eponymous song relates a Vincent Price movie of the same name to a paranormal event in the life of bassist Terry "Geezer" Butler. How does this raise the consciousness of the proletariat?
In to the mix over the past couple decades swoops Tool. Dark, brooding, their songs mix elements of traditional heavy metal with a more melodic, one could even say progressive approach to song-writing, with a literate lyricism that elevates their singer, Maynard James Keenan, above the fray of mere screamer to something like a poet. They experiment with odd time-signatures, their rhythms are always slightly off-kilter, their music isn't for dancing or even raging. Rather, it is to sit, more like stoned than not, and listening. In performance, the band keeps relatively still (unlike many rock bands, who perform), even as the lead singer dons masks, wigs, even drag. Their songs deal with homoerotic themes ("Hooker With A Penis"), extreme sexual practices ("Stinkfist"), and even dabbles in what some might consider near-blasphemy ("Eulogy"). A favorite theme is hypocrisy ("The Pot", "Tick"). They even have a song detailing what may have been an encounter with a UFO, or perhaps just a psychotic episode ("Rosetta Stoned").
On Lateralus, however, they actually has some songs that were less negative, less filled with sheer rage at an uncaring universe. The opening song, "The Grudge", offers the opinion that holding a grudge can be like an anchor, dragging us down. The title track offers the view that life is an upward spiral, offering limitless possibilities. Even the equivocal "Parabol/Parabola" which might be about sex, or might be about suicide, offers the view that the one thing that might keep us linked to this life is the intimate connections we forge with other people.
So, I have to wonder, what is so wrong about this? These songs rock, without a doubt. Why can't rock, even the hardest rock, also rise above mere folk music to become something transcendent? Does it cease to be "rock and roll" because the musicians and lyricists take up themes beyond getting laid, dancing, and the general concerns of teenagers?
Furthermore, isn't it possible to be both a popular art form and still challenging to much of our received understanding of the world? Can the two-word descriptor "popular art" actually mean something, with the two words reinforcing one another?
Furthermore, the idea that an aesthetic experience is always "only" one thing - escapist, or political, or social, or what have you - is such a myopic view of any art form. Even the Dadaists in the early part of the 20th century understood the political and social ramifications of their art. At its best, rock offers a view of the world that affirms its basic solidity, the joy of existence, and the possibilities inherent in living one's life truly free. Even the most negative rock has this going for it - it protests the status quo, asking if it is possible to see in the drudgery and horror of existence some possibility for something more.
