[Marxism] Post-Modern Music?

[Terrence McGovern]

[Note: First List Addition Thing Faint Idea of Mode of Operation, Apologies]

............

As is often pointed out by many people [etc. etc. reference reference], art
and literature are products of their times first but I have not often heard
(never heard) an analysis of popular music in this vein.  For instance,
after the nineteen seventies, roughly, the post-modernistic, late
imperialist stereotype of thought became obvious in most of the artistic and
scholarly fields. I'm not sure I need to reference critiques of the
pervasive post-modernism in high scholarship. Once again however, music
seems to have escaped this sort of critique. I happen to be a lover of music
and equally a hater of modern music and my hateful reflections on the
capitalist music industry have led me to become quite aware of a interesting
fact.

[this could take minute to explain]

The music I enjoy (and naturally demand others to enjoy) is Progressive
Rock, which existed for a limited time from about 1967 to 1981, (from
earliest to latest). I believe a short description is in order: Today
Progressive Rock is called "Classic Rock" more often than "Progressive" and
it is indeed very similar in character to "classical music," it is
essentially a reach for complexity and profoundness, instrumentally and
thematically. For example, quite a few songs are over twenty minutes in
length, solos are regularly given in each song by each artist, albums are
themed and lyric writers are held to considerable poetic and literary
standards. There are no all-powerful producers or celebrity stand-ins. Time
signatures are used which are wholly unorthodox, refrains barely see the
light of day... to get on with it, it is virtually the negation
of pop music. I noted first that this "progressive" phenomenon came about at
the height of the period just before post-modernism proper and was literally
birthed in the student protest movement, being anti-establishment as a rule.
Secondly, it shares similar iconoclastic ideals, of "progress"
and that sort of considerate idealism with modernism.
Well, Progressive Rock fell to pieces and now we have Lindsay Lohan singles.
It seems to me that modern music _and not just in lyrics_ is fully
post-modern. Starting with Punk, complex or proud/skilled music has been
denounced as "pretentious" and is replaced by the simplest, honestly the
most vulgar sound bites. I am reminded constantly of the post-modern attack
on "meta-narratives." Essentially they pose a not-much dressed up argument
of pretentiousness to tackle modernist philosophies. The idiocy, the
contorted brutality and baseness of popular music, the emptiness of note and
word, I have come to see it not as "populism" but as an active bourgeois
repudiation of music. The argument returns to the question
of whether "the people" take what they're given or ask for what they take.
That the content modern music is almost perfectly explained by
post-modernism leads me to conclusion similar to that of the WSWS with
regards to historical falsification as an active component in academic work
with today's bourgeoisie.

- Terrence J. McGovern