NP - What rock star will be remembered? Compared to literary field.

[matthew cissell]

Hello all,

   I came across this article about what rock musician/performer will be
remembered in the future:


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/magazine/which-rock-star-will-historians-of-the-future-remember.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Moth-Visible&moduleDetail=inside-nyt-region-5&module=inside-nyt-region&region=inside-nyt-region&WT.nav=inside-nyt-region&_r=0

The author of the piece, Chuck Klosterman, starts off with John Philip
Sousa and marches. He speculates that if asked most people could not name
or could only name Sousa as a composer of marches. He then poses the
question of who will be remembered from rock. He quotes Ted Gioia: “Over
time, critics and historians will play a larger role in deciding whose fame
endures,”
I think a good point is made when he compares Saturday Night Live and Never
Mind the Bollocks. " In 1977, the disco soundtrack to “Saturday Night
Fever” and the Sex Pistols’ “Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex
Pistols” were both released. The soundtrack to “Saturday Night Fever” has
sold more than 15 million copies; it took “Never Mind the Bollocks” 15
years to go platinum. Yet virtually all pop historiographers elevate the
importance of the Pistols above that of the Bee Gees.

Bourdieu might point out that the Bee Gees were clearly oriented toward the
pole of heteronomous production that provides greater economic capital and
that the Sex Pistols were oriented toward the autonomous pole of production
(though not in a dominant position, rather a subversive avant garde one)
that garners more symbolic capital than economic. The two prodcucts have
different life cycles and thus age differently.

    For me it is interesting to read this speculative study of the future
status of rock stars (agents in the field of musical production) over and
against the the literary field. What homologies of structure or strategy
might we find? For Klosterman, Sousa and march are synonomous as (he
suspects) might happen with Bob Marley and reggae. And in literature?

If you're a Deadhead you think people will recognize the grateness of the
Grateful Dead; if you're a Pynchon fan you likely think his writing will
stand out a hundred years hence or more. But is this just our "ilusio" as
Bourdeiu calls it? Vision fogged up by Fanboy feelings? Is this all hollow
speculation of no import? Though the above is speculative in nature I do
not think that the question is doomed to mere speculation.

ciao
mc otis
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20160530/42bf8f7e/attachment.html>