TY - JOUR
AU - BARTEL, CHRISTOPHER
AB - Gracyk, Kania, and Davies all agree that the rock tradition is distinctive for the central place that it gives to the appreciation of recorded tracks. But we should not be led by those arguments to conclude that the central position of the recorded track makes such appreciation the exclusive interest in rock. I argue that both songwriting and live performance are also central to the rock tradition by showing that the practice of recording tracks admits of a diversity of goals and aims that is not exhausted by a concern for track construction. There is a debate between Theodore Gracyk (1996), Stephen Davies (2001), and Andrew Kania (2006) about the nature of the rock tradition. The debate is over the status of recordings as possible works in their own right and their relationship to performances. Gracyk and Kania believe that rock is a tradition that places track construction at its center, while Davies holds that rock is a performance tradition, but one that distinguishes between live performances and studio performances. While Gracyk, Davies, and Kania would all likely agree that songwriting and performing are important and valued activities within rock, the central point that I wish to challenge is that the primary object of artistic interest in rock is a track that has been constructed in a recording studio, which relegates songwriting and performing to the status of secondary activities.1 By placing track construction at the center of rock, this account overlooks the centrality of songwriting and live performance. The general claim I will be arguing for is that rock recording practices are more diverse than the recording‐centered ontology would suggest, as some rock recording practices in fact serve an appreciation for songs and live performances.2 I argue that some musicians employ the practice of recording tracks to serve either their songwriting or live performance skills. The dominant ontology of rock may be correct in its claim that track construction is distinctive of the rock tradition, but this should give us no reason to think that track construction is the exclusive aim of rock or that the importance of track construction relegates songwriting and live performance to a secondary place within rock. Instead, I argue that we should see rock as a tradition that has three activities at its core: songwriting, live performance, and track construction. The value placed on track construction is a feature of rock that distinguishes it from other musical traditions, but this practice does not obscure the value of either songwriting or live performance. In Section I, I present a brief overview of the salient points of the dominant account. In Section II, I briefly consider Franklin Bruno's (2013) recent attempt to challenge that account and spell out the similarities and differences between his account and mine. In Section III, I consider the ways in which the practice of songwriting might be affected by recording technologies. I argue that we should not view the practice of recording in rock as serving only one aim—instead there are at least four different kinds of recording practices—and the differences between these four practices has to do with the ways in which the musicians use recording technology in reference to their songwriting practice. Finally, in Section IV, I challenge the claim that recording practices in rock take priority over our live performance practices. I. The Recording‐Centered Ontology of Rock Arguably the dominant account of the ontology of rock music is Theodore Gracyk's (1996). Gracyk argues (rightly) that it is a distinctive feature of the rock tradition that recorded tracks are “distinct musical work[s] in [their] own right[s]” (17).3 Moreover, the recording is not merely a product of documentation, but rather it becomes the “primary medium” of rock (13). However, to be clear, this is not to claim that the recording is the only musical work recognized within rock. On Gracyk's account, at least two musical works can be heard in a rock recording: the track and the song. As Gracyk says, recorded rock recordings “simultaneously exemplify two different sorts of musical works: the autographic recording and the allographic song” (43; see also 33–34). But, while two works may be present, there is a question remaining about the relationship between them: is one “primary” and the other “secondary,” or are the two works equals in terms of their artistic interest? To put the question another way, we may agree that track construction is central to the aesthetics of rock, but is track construction a central element or the central element?4 On my reading, the answer from Gracyk here is unclear, but he seems to lean toward a strong interpretation. There are two passages that I want to focus on. In the first, alluded to above, Gracyk describes recording as the “primary medium” of rock: “Records, not simply songs or performances, are the relevant object of critical attention” (13). Later Gracyk says: Rock music is not essentially a performing art, however much time rock musicians spend practicing on their instruments or playing live. And while I do not say that it is essentially a recording art, I do contend that recording is the most characteristic medium of rock. (75)5 The question is, how should we interpret these claims? What does it mean to say that recording is the “primary medium” or the “most characteristic” medium of rock? One interpretation would be that Gracyk is making a claim about the distinctive characteristics of rock; but alternatively one could interpret Gracyk as saying that the medium of recording is “primary” in that it takes critical priority over any other medium. There is certainly much evidence for the first interpretation. Indeed, much of Gracyk's aim in his book is to identify that which is distinctive—even revolutionary—of rock. But, Gracyk's comment that recordings “are the relevant object of critical attention” suggests a stronger interpretation. It may be that Gracyk would accept both of these interpretations, as they are certainly not mutually exclusive. Additionally, others have explicitly interpreted Gracyk as arguing that track construction takes critical priority in rock, most notably Kania (2006), which I discuss further below. Moving forward, I follow Kania in interpreting Gracyk as making a claim about the critical priority of rock recordings. Rock musicians aim to capture a distinctive sound in their recordings, and appreciators of rock place high value on that sound—indeed, “[t]he sound of the record is part of the musical work” (Gracyk 1996, 17). Gracyk claims that this emphasis on capturing a distinctive sound informs their songwriting practice. Rock musicians often do not go into the recording studio with song arrangements worked out in advance. Instead they attempt to find their sound through their use of the recording technology, and only then do they craft a song around it (65–66). Musicians aim to sculpt sound by “using the studio as an instrument, emphasizing both specific timbres and the overall recorded sound, creating autographic works that cut across traditional categories of original and reproduction” (62). The process of songwriting that Gracyk describes effectively collapses the distinction between songwriting and arrangement.6 Finally, rock recordings are not documents of a particular live musical performance. Instead, they are (typically) constructed out of multiple takes, overdubbed parts, and possibly from purely non‐live sources (such as sampled sounds that can be triggered by a synthesizer), all of which may be further manipulated and enhanced through analog or digital electronic effects (for example, gating, equalizing, compression, reverberation, echo, and auto‐tuning). Despite agreeing with many of Gracyk's insights, Davies (2001, 30–34) offers two objections to Gracyk's account. First, he claims that Gracyk fails to assign appropriate value to performance skills in the rock tradition. Rock musicians pride themselves on their live performance skills, and rock audiences expect recording artists to be able to play their instruments to a standard commensurate with the playing that is heard on the record. Recordings are important in rock; however, “the approach to recording has its roots in, and presupposes many traditions and values of, live performance, though it supplements these with an arsenal of new devices” (32). Second, Davies holds that the practice of “covering” songs suggests that rock musicians are operating within a performance tradition, one where the differences between two recordings of a song are appreciated for their subtle nuances (31–32). However, while Davies holds that rock audiences value live performance skills, he agrees that rock is not a performing art: “Although rock is often promoted as a performing art, this is no more true than is the myth according to which rock artists are social rebels driven not by money but by creative urges and political concerns” (30). Davies’s account aims to minimize the differences between rock and classical music. According to Davies, in both musical traditions we are talking about works for performance; however, the difference is that rock musicians create works‐for‐studio‐performance while classical composers create works‐for‐live‐performance (34–36). The work in question is a song, which is ontological very thin—songs may consist of little more than a simple melody, harmony, and lyrics (35 and 180).7 Being so ontologically thin, Davies believes that songs are not the main object of interest in the rock tradition. Instead, it is the “fine details of the recorded sound [that is, of the studio performance, that] are of vital interest to an appreciative audience” (34), which is a further point of agreement between Davies and Gracyk. This is not to say that songs are of no artistic value, but rather it is to say that “more interest is taken in the details of the studio performance or interpretation than in the [song] itself” (34). Finally, Kania (2006) attempts to offer an account that accepts Gracyk's claim that rock tracks are the primary object of critical attention while yet seeking to accommodate the importance of live performance that Davies seeks to defend. First, Kania rejects Davies's claim that rock songs are works that are created for studio performance. Instead, Kania says, “while classical and jazz songs are works for performance simpliciter, rock songs are not works, nor are they for anything in particular” (2006, 404). Kania (agreeing with Gracyk) holds that songs are “manifested” in both recordings and live performances; however, songs are not written for either recording or performance. Moreover, songs “are not the, or even a, primary focus of critical attention in rock, and thus are not musical works” (404). Rock tracks, on the other hand, are ontologically thick objects that are able to maintain artistic interest and thus are musical works. Additionally, Kania defends the claim, which he attributes to Gracyk, that rock tracks are the primary objects of critical attention on the grounds that there is an “asymmetric dependence of live rock practices on recorded rock practices” (Kania 2006, 403; see also Gracyk 1996, 69–75). Live rock performances “look to” rock recordings—meaning that the sound of a live performance is dependent on the sound of the recorded track (Kania 2006, 403). Recording musicians aim to achieve a particular sound, and, in live performances, rock musicians can either choose to recreate the sound heard on the record or not; but importantly, rock audiences are aware of this choice and attend to the similarities and differences directly (407). Despite their differences, there are two important ideas that are shared by the above accounts that help to diminish the status of songwriting and live performance within rock. First, all three hold that the construction of tracks is of central importance in rock (the main difference between them being that Gracyk and Kania hold that rock tracks should not be seen as kinds of performances and Davies holds that they should). Importantly for my purposes, this claim leads to a certain view of what happens in the songwriting process: recording technology is utilized in the songwriting process in such a way that changes the very nature of the songwriting process—call this the songwriting process claim. Songs are written in the pursuit of a particular sound, which can only be achieved through the use of recording technology, and are often written in the recording studio on the fly. As Davies says, “Often the piece [that is, the song] is composed collaboratively and in an ad hoc fashion during the process in which the performance is created” (2001, 35). On this view, the songwriting process follows in the service of track construction, not the other way around. This conception of songwriting sees the recording studio as a tool for a specific kind of songwriting—namely, a kind that places the textural qualities of thickly layered constructed tracks above the writing of thin structures consisting of melodies, harmonies, and lyrics. Undeniably, this kind of songwriting practice does happen, and Gracyk and Davies are able to draw on much historical evidence for support. To be clear, I am not claiming that Gracyk, Davies, and Kania each believe that all rock artists and all rock recordings adhere to the kind of songwriting process describe above. Rather the point is that, when songs are written in this way, Gracyk, Davies, and Kania interpret this as meaning that songwriting has taken a backseat to track construction, and, as the constructed track is the primary object of appreciation in rock, then the appreciation of songs and songwriting must be only secondary. The second point is the claim that live performance practices depend in some sense on recording practices—call this the performance dependency claim. Kania defends this point explicitly (as we have seen above). Similarly, Davies claims that “rock stage acts are measured against their recordings, and not vice versa” (2001, 30), and, while Gracyk allows that “live performance is unlikely to become obsolete,” he also speaks of performance as a matter of “packaging” (1996, 78). Thus, live performance is secondary to the importance of recordings. These two claims, I believe, are what drive these theorists to regard songwriting and live performances as secondary concerns in the rock tradition. The process of track construction changes the nature of the songwriting process into a “track construction” process, and the practice of live performance, while important, is dependent on the recording. I argue that there are good reasons to reject both the songwriting process claim and the performance dependency claim. However, before moving on to my own arguments, I want to pause to consider one recent attempt to challenge the primacy of the recorded track. II. Bruno's Defense of Song and Songwriting Franklin Bruno (2013) attempts to defend the practice of songwriting (but not live performance) against the exclusivity of the recording‐centered ontology. His objection to the dominant ontology of rock focuses on the claim—which he attributes to Gracyk, Davies, and Kania—that rock songs are too ontologically thin to maintain much artistic interest. Bruno draws on evidence from a number of sources showing that rock audiences and musicians in fact do treat songs as worthy of attention regardless of their ontological thinness. Musicians seem to choose the songs that they perform because of some artistic interest in those songs, and rock audiences have no difficulty in distinguishing the interest one may take in a song from the interest one may take in a particular performance or recording of that song. In essence, Bruno's strategy is to accept the ontological thinness of rock songs while maintaining that the truth of this metaphysical claim is in no way detrimental to the artistic interest that can be afforded to songs. Bruno argues that there is much evidence to suggest that songwriting is a central practice of the rock tradition. He offers six pieces of “counterevidence” against recording‐centered ontologies (67–68): (a) Many rock musicians are admired (or criticized) for their songwriting abilities. (b) Songs can be appreciated for their own merits independently from the values of the recorded track. (c) The practice of evaluating rock recordings shows an awareness of the relationship between the recording and the song that it is a recording of: rock audiences take notice of the ways in which a recording might complement or detract from the qualities of the song. (d) The highly common practice of recording rock covers suggests an appreciation for the song, not the recorded track. (e) Many rock songs are written by individuals who are not the recording artist. (f) Songs are often recorded as “demo” versions with an interest in outlining their potential as songs. His central argument is that the ontological thinness of songs should not diminish the fact that rock songs can be objects of artistic interest in their own rights, and therefore songwriting too is a valued practice within the rock tradition (70–72). Bruno and I are engaged in projects that have similar goals, though we have slightly different concerns. Bruno wants to draw attention to practices within the rock tradition that are (somewhat) independent of (and potentially overshadowed by) the practice of track construction, while I want to argue that the practice of track construction itself often shows greater concern for songs and live performances than previously admitted. On the whole, I agree with much of the counterevidence that Bruno presents and his interpretations of it—except for (f). While it is certainly true that songwriters will often record rough demo versions of their songs and that those demo versions will aim to outline elements of the song that might be of artistic interest, this piece of counterevidence should be of little concern to those theorists who wish to defend a recording‐centered ontology. In response to (f), the recording‐centered ontologist could simply reply that demos are not finished works, and the evaluative practice within the rock tradition is to focus on recordings that aim for that slick finished sound. Demos lack that polished sound because it is not the goal of such recording projects to construct a track that would be of enduring artistic interest. While (a) through (e) might provide reasonable evidence to challenge the exclusivity of a recording‐centered ontology and defend Bruno's concern for songs, (f) does not. In what follows, I attempt to illustrate how recording practices themselves can be employed in the service of an appreciation of both songwriting and live performance. My account avoids the objection to Bruno's (f) above. I accept the claim that the rock tradition is concerned with the construction of tracks that can be of enduring artistic interest, and demos are not constructed for this purpose. Even still, I argue that the practice of recording in rock is more diverse than the recording‐centered ontologies would suggest. III. Rock Recording Practices And The Songwriting Process Claim The construction and appreciation of rock tracks are two practices that together hold a central role in the tradition of rock. With that claim, I entirely agree. However, in agreement with Bruno, I worry that this claim has been understood in such a way that implies the exclusivity of the recording practice. According to the recording‐centered ontology, rock appears to be a single‐value tradition that happens to have two tag‐a‐long values. In my view, track construction is a central value of rock, but not the central value. I begin by considering the songwriting process claim. When Gracyk talks about the role of recording technology in the songwriting process, he seems to suggest that the concern for track construction has fundamentally changed the nature of the songwriting process. He points to examples like The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, where the bands go into the recording studio (or, in the case of Led Zeppelin, convert a mansion into a live‐in recording studio; Gracyk 1996, 65) with an interest in constructing tracks based on the textural qualities of sound. This interest leads them to write songs that fit the sounds, rather than to record sounds that fit the songs. While this model of songwriting might be true for A‐list bands like Led Zeppelin—whose live performances were big enough to require stadium‐sized venues—or The Beatles—who at one point in their career gave up touring—it is certainly not true for most rock bands, who neither perform in stadiums nor can give up on touring. From the lowly garage band to the cool hipster indie band to the long‐past‐their‐prime‐but‐still‐somehow‐touring band, the vast majority of rock bands do not have the kind of financial resources to spend months experimenting in a recording studio. While it may be true that all rock recording artists will employ the recording technology to some degree, such use of the technology does not fundamentally change the nature of the songwriting process for most bands. Consider the case of the fledgling rock band at the beginning of their career who may be able to scrape together enough money to cheaply record a single, which would be used primarily to promote the band to club owners and booking agents and to sell at gigs. However modest such recordings might be, they can be objects of enduring interest.8 When you can only afford one day in a dingy, cheap studio to record your single, there simply is no time to write songs in the experimental way that Gracyk describes. All decisions need to be made in advance—how many tracks to devote to the drums, whether the bass will be recorded off an amp or through a DI box, whether or not to double the vocals, how much time will be spent on the mix. Often the difference between a successful recording session and a failure comes down to how these questions are answered in advance. For these bands, the purpose of the recording is typically not to achieve a distinctive sound. A cheap single might exhibit enough professional polish to be interesting, but going for a distinctive sound is asking too much. Instead the purpose is typically to showcase the band's songwriting ability, their performance skills, and possibly their live sound. The early demo recordings of The Pixies (2002) sound as if they are studio performances of a single take. Probably they are not. But my point is that the enduring interest those demo recordings hold stems from an interest in the band's distinctive songwriting abilities (in addition to their performing abilities and their live sound), but not in the distinctive sound of the recording. The recording process is able to offer some recording artists the opportunity to achieve that distinctive album sound, and the pursuit of that sound may lead some artists to write songs in the technologically mediated process that Gracyk and Davies describe, but it would be wrong to think that all rock recordings are produced through that process or to believe that the technologically mediated process of songwriting is desirable by all rock bands or that the traditional songwriting process is not valued among rock musicians and audiences. The above points suggest that the uses of recording technology in songwriting can be quite varied. In fact, I suspect that such uses can be classed into four rough kinds, as follows: 1. The garage band. Songs are written by one or more of the band members in advance of any recording and evolve over a period of playing live gigs. The goal of recording is typically to provide a sample of their writing and performing abilities. The sound achieved in the recording would become relevant in those cases where the band's live sound is particularly distinctive. In such cases, there would likely be no significant use of recording technology in the songwriting process. The recording takes on a documentary function. 2. The touring band. Songs are written by one or more of the band members in advance of any recording and evolve over a period of playing live gigs, though that evolution may continue a further step in the recording studio. The need to interpret a song that has been honed through live performance into the medium of a recorded track can lead to some sophisticated use of the recording technology to construct a track that the band may not be able to play live. Despite this, the songwriting process is not fundamentally changed by the use of the recording technology, and the process of recording is best described as a process of reinterpretation or arrangement. 3. The gods‐of‐rock band. Songs are written in the recording studio exclusively. There may be no intention on the part of the songwriters to produce something that could be performed live. While the band members would still be expected to play their instruments in live performances to a sufficiently high standard, the album may make extensive use of sounds produced from sources that could not be part of the live performance. The songwriting process is fundamentally different from those bands characterized by (1) and (2) as there is no evolution of the song through live performances. 4. The Electro band. Many of the sounds employed on the recording may be produced from non‐live sources such that there would be little expectation on the part of the audience that a live performance would not employ playback technology. Moreover, there would be little expectation that a live performance would showcase the musician's performance skills. The technology is not an “aide” to the songwriting process; instead there is no distinction between the acts of songwriting, arranging, and recording, as the song that is written is purely electronic. If our analysis of rock takes The Beatles and Led Zeppelin to be the paradigmatic examples of rock's recording practices, then it is likely that we would see the kind of songwriting practices as described in (3) as being as central to rock as the construction of tracks. However, this would obviously ignore the fact that bands whose songwriting and recording practices are more like those described in (1), (2), and (4) still remain part of the rock tradition. Assuming of course that no one would be tempted to argue that only those rock artists whose practices are described in (3) are genuinely rock artists or that only those artists described by (3) are central to the rock tradition while all others are merely peripheral, we should recognize the variety of recording and songwriting practices in the rock tradition. Alternatively, imagine that our analysis of rock began with the assumption that those bands described in (2) were the paradigmatic examples of the rock tradition. Such an analysis would likely conclude that track construction is not a central concern of rock, that it is instead a songwriting and performance tradition and that the purpose of track construction is to imagine an ideal performance. Of course, this analysis would be misguided because it would ignore many of our actual critical practices, namely, those concerning the construction of tracks as works in their own rights. Again, imagine that our analysis of rock began with the assumption that those bands described in (4)—the most technologically mediated bands—were the paradigmatic examples of the rock tradition (which might be the case at some point in the future). Such an analysis would likely conclude that rock is actually a tradition that places equal emphasis on recording and songwriting, and little value on live performance skills. This analysis too would be misguided because it would ignore the value of live performance that is captured by (1), (2), and (3). It is only if we begin with the assumption that (3) is paradigmatic of rock that we would be tempted to adopt a recording‐centered ontology. Surely this analysis must also be misguided because it ignores the importance of live performance and songwriting that is captured by (1), (2), and (4). Certainly, recordings produced in the manner described in (3) will receive the kind of critical attention that is appropriate to such recordings, but rock audiences do not treat all recordings as if they adhere to (3) or as if (3) is the standard that all recording artists ultimately aim for. Rock audiences are sophisticated enough to recognize the differences between each of the recording practices described above, and often it becomes a matter of debate among rock audiences exactly which of the above practices should be attributed to a recording. As recording technologies become less expensive, more musicians with the status of the garage band are able to employ the techniques of the electro band in both their live and studio performances, and so sensitivity to these differences becomes more important.9 Most importantly, the evaluative standards that members of the rock tradition employ will shift given their knowledge or expectation of where a particular recording falls in reference to the categories defined above. Rock audiences, club owners, band promoters, and booking agents know not to criticize a single produced by a local garage band for its lack of a distinctive sound. They know that the recordings of (for example) Nine Inch Nails are heavily produced and include the use of many non‐live sounds and samples. They know that the sound that one is able to achieve in the case of (2) can be more closely and easily reproduced on stage than the sound that can be achieved in the case of (3). To reiterate, my point is not that theorists of rock are wrong to think that the use of recording technology in the construction of rock tracks and the impact that this technology might have on the songwriting process is distinctive of the rock tradition. My point, however, is that the rock tradition allows for a wide diversity of the uses of technology in the recording and songwriting processes. For the recording artists described in (1) and (2), the songwriting process is not fundamentally changed by the use of the recording technology. IV. Getting Priorities Straight: The Performance Dependency Claim Is it true, as Kania claims, that “live rock practice is dependent on recorded rock, but not the other way around” (2006, 404)? I argue that there are important counterexamples demonstrating that this practice of priority is not universally shared or desired across the rock spectrum. My account will be driven by a discussion of specific examples; however, I do not believe that these examples are merely pesky outliers. Instead, I believe these examples indicate that there is a further diversity within rock practices that a recording‐centered ontology threatens to overlook, examples where the performance dependence claim does not hold. To remind the reader, the performance dependency claim is defended by Kania as an “asymmetric dependence of live rock practices on recorded rock practices” (403). He identifies two sources of this asymmetry. The first, as discussed above, is the way in which live rock performances “look to” rock recordings: the idea that rock musicians will adopt a sound for their live performances that is similar to that of the recorded track as this sound is likely the “considered and enduring result of a long process of artistic experimentation” (407).10 The second point according to Kania is that the rock tradition is, in a sense, dependent on the practice of track construction in a way that it is not dependent on the practice of live performance. Kania offers two hypothetical scenarios: If, due to a highly infectious plague, say, all rock musicians were confined to their studios, the production of rock tracks would continue in much the same way it has for four or five decades. If, on the other hand, a Luddite revolution wiped out all the recording technology, concerts would become the only way of attending to rock music and hence the recreation of a preexisting record's sound could no longer be part of what is aimed for (or rejected) in a live performance. (404) By comparison, classical music is a tradition that places live performances at its center. Works are composed with the intention that they will be played and attended to in a live setting, and classical music recordings aim to reproduce what happens in a live performance. As such, the infectious plague in Kania's first scenario would decimate the central practice of classical music while the Luddite revolution would have little impact (except for theremin players and fans of musique concrète). Before moving on, I want to draw attention to how theoretically loaded Kania's thought experiment is. Specifically, the claim that the hypothetical infectious plague would have no impact on the creation of rock tracks only holds if we restrict ourselves to the A‐list type of bands in the gods‐of‐rock category. For all of those bands who are unable to convert their mansions into recording studios—or who have no mansions to begin with—the rock tradition would come to an end. Kania's thought experiment only supports the asymmetry of the performance dependency claim for these limited cases. Kania has not demonstrated that the appreciation of rock performances is dependent on recordings. Instead, what he has drawn attention to is the easily ignored fact that there are real socioeconomic class divisions within the tradition of rock. Because of its highly limited application, we should reject the terms of this thought experiment. It may be a widespread practice within rock to place high value on the recorded track, to understand that live performances may be less sonically rich by comparison, and for some musicians to “look to” their recordings when performing live. However, there are some important and influential artists within the rock tradition for whom the performance dependency claim does not hold—cases where the dependence is reversed. One important example can be found within punk recordings.11 To be clear, I am not talking about the recordings of all punk bands—I am not talking about The Clash or The Damned or even the Sex Pistols. Rather I am thinking of examples from the hardcore punk movement of the early 1980s: bands like Black Flag, Minor Threat, and Slapshot. These bands are often overlooked in discussions of the aesthetics of rock likely because they never achieved mainstream success. It is an error that we ignore these bands because the stylistic and critical practices that grew up around them played a highly influential role in the later development of rock. Maybe few people have heard these bands, but nearly every fan of rock has heard their influence. Bands like Sonic Youth, Metallica, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers trace their influences back to early hardcore.12 Our theories of rock need to account for hardcore too. Hardcore punk recordings were relatively unsophisticated because the bands lacked the funds to access the big, flashy recording studios. While mainstream rock albums were being recording on 48 or 72 tracks over a period of months in the early 1980s, hardcore albums were recorded on 4 or 8 tracks in a matter of days. This difference between hardcore punk and mainstream rock recording practices shows up in the critical practices of hardcore audiences. While rock critics are expected to pay compliments to the complexity of mainstream rock recordings, such criticism would be anathema to hardcore. Hardcore fans value the raw simplicity of the recordings for their sense of authenticity, immediacy, and honesty. Indeed, the criticism that hardcore recordings lack sophistication and polish simply proves that the critic is not truly hardcore! That lack of sophistication was part of the do‐it‐yourself aesthetic of hardcore.13 According to Tony Cadena of the Adolescents: It's amazing there were any good recordings. What's also amazing is that we managed to get an accurate sound because there'd be somebody who wanted to “fix” us. I remember the first time we were in a studio, I started to sing and the guy turned off the tape machine and started yelling, “You're popping your p's and you've got to watch your s's.” We got to a point where we said, “We're going to do it this way. Just turn the machine on.” They couldn't comprehend raw Rock & Roll. (Blush 2010, 326) Recordings are not the primary objects of critical attention in hardcore; live performances are. According to Mike Watt of the Minutemen, “We didn't tour to promote records, we put out records to promote tours” (Blush 2010, 322). It is instructive that seminal texts documenting the hardcore movement—like Azerrad (2001) and Blush (2010)—offer almost no discussion of hardcore recordings as something worthy of critical attention that is distinct from their role as documents of performances. The artistic interest these writers find in hardcore recordings almost always boils down to their value as documents of the intensity and speed that the musicians can achieve in a live performance. The goal of recordings to act as documents has been explicitly and consistently acknowledged by Ian MacKaye—cofounder of Dischord Records.14 When listening to an album like Minor Threat's eponymous EP, it would be a mistake to try to understand it from the point of view of a recording‐centered ontology. As described above, Gracyk draws attention to the way that many rock recording musicians use “the studio as an instrument,” their goal being to sculpt sound “emphasizing both specific timbres and the overall recorded sound” (1996, 62). But not Minor Threat. If Gracyk is right, then Minor Threat should be viewed as a complete failure due to its poor production quality. In many ways, the album breaks with contemporary recording conventions: the guitars are not doubled, all of the instruments are panned in the center (indeed, the final mix might be in mono), it is difficult to distinguish the drummer's crash cymbal from the hi‐hat, the guitar is overpowering the drums, the vocal mic is maxing out, and the entire mix has a boxy mid‐range quality. More to the point, there is nothing distinctive about the sound of the album that would draw the listener's attention to the medium of the recorded track. Despite these faults—or rather, because of them—the album is a classic of the genre. To make sense of the album's appeal to fans, we cannot hold it up to the aesthetic ideals of track construction. Rather we should take our cue from the fan's critical remarks and see the album as an authentic documentation of the intensity of a Minor Threat performance. The point is this: while the aim of A‐list rock musicians may be to construct tracks and that practice tends to show little concern for whether the track produced could be performed live, the aim of many hardcore musicians is to recreate in the studio an authentic document of the band's performance skills. To put the point another way, the practice of track construction as typified by cases like Led Zeppelin forces a sense of distance between the musicians and their audience: the audience for the track would include people who may never see the band perform live, and tracks may be constructed long before any audience member hears a rendition of the song. Alternatively, hardcore bands saw themselves as part of a movement (e.g., the straight edge and “youth crew” movements) which placed them in community with their audience.15 For that reason, the live experience was central to the community‐building function played by the music. The distance (both physical and metaphorical) between the audience and the band is considerably smaller in hardcore. In this regard, hardcore recordings are (surprisingly) more like classical recordings. If it is true of classical recordings that they “attempt to capture, or simulate, what happens in a live performance situation” (Kania 2006, 403), then the same can be said of hardcore. Lest the reader should feel mislead, I should state that the kind of hardcore recordings discussed here fall into the general tradition of rock recordings in that they too may be constructed out of multiple takes. I am not saying that hardcore recordings make no use of studio production techniques. Nearly all will employ some of the sound editing technology available in the studio. With this in mind, one might worry that hardcore audiences are fooling themselves if they believe that recordings offer any kind of authentic representation of what a live performance might sound like. Hardcore recordings will at least employ some degree of mixing, editing, equalization, and overdubbing. Does this level of studio trickery threaten the recording's authenticity? Do hardcore audiences demand a level of transparency that they cannot have in principle?16 There is a deeply interesting question that could be explored about transparency in recordings and its impact on our evaluative practices. Unfortunately, I cannot go into sufficient detail on that question here, but two small points might suffice for my purposes. First, we should recognize that this problem—if it is a problem—is not unique to hardcore. If issues of transparency arise for hardcore, then the same must be true for other musical traditions that exhibit a similar interest in the recording's authenticity, like classical and jazz. So, if studio recordings of classical or jazz music can ever achieve the authenticity that their audiences demand, then so too can hardcore recordings. Second, Kania has (rightly) argued that “transparency” should not be confused with “accuracy,” which it often is (2009, 27). What hardcore audiences demand is not fidelity to a specific performance. Hardcore performances tend to be noisy and chaotic, and hardcore audiences generally accept that the recording studio removes the performance from that atmosphere. Rather, hardcore audiences praise recordings for capturing the intensity and speed that is expected from live performance. It is a kind of authenticity rather than sonic accuracy that is aimed for, and the minimal studio techniques that are employed in hardcore recordings do not intrude on that authenticity. The general point for my argument is that the sound of a hardcore recording is beholden to the live performance—there is a conscious aim to produce a recording that would be an authentic representation of what could be achieved on stage and in real time. So, pace Kania, at least some rock recordings “look to” the live performances for their sound. There are some artists, bands, and genres within rock for which the performance dependency claim does not hold. Additionally, I do not take the examples presented in this section to be mere isolated examples that are to be explained away as oddities. I focus on hardcore here for three reasons: first, it is what I know; second, the hardcore movement was highly influential on later rock bands; and third, hardcore offers a clear case of a genre where the explicit rejection of track construction was widespread. However, I suspect that there are many other examples of subgenres, or at least individual artists, where one can see a similar rejection of the performance dependence claim. Below are some examples.17 The rejection of the performance dependence claim may be motivated by a number of concerns. For hardcore bands, its rejection is motivated by a disdain for the exploitative practices of a music industry that sets itself up as a gatekeeper that stands between artists and fans. However, other artists may reject the performance dependence claim out of aesthetic or artistic concerns. Think, for instance, of the work of “Lo‐Fi” artists like Liz Phair, Pavement, or Kathleen Hanna's solo album Julie Ruin (1998)—these are artists who favor low‐fidelity recording and production techniques. When talking about these artists, it becomes difficult to maintain that the sound of the live performance looks to the sound of the album or that the album sound is the “considered and enduring result of a long process of artistic experimentation” (Kania 2006, 407). A similar point can be made for rock musicians who embrace a minimalist aesthetic—bands like Low or The White Stripes. For the minimalist rock musician, albums sound like live performances (albeit clean, flawless ones) not because one takes priority over the other, but because the sound that the band aims to achieve can be realized in both media. Examples like these suggest that the rejection of the performance dependence claim need not result in the kind of reversed relationship that we find with hardcore—where live performances take priority over studio recordings—but may instead be nonhierarchical—where live performances and studio recordings are equally valued for their achievement of a similar aesthetic quality. Alternatively, the musical practices of “jam bands”—like the Grateful Dead, Phish, or The New Deal—suggest a rejection of the performance dependence claim for different reasons, as fidelity to a studio album is neither expected nor desired by the bands’ audiences. Like jazz musicians, jam bands place greater value on improvisation rather than album fidelity while yet remaining broadly within the tradition of rock. Why, then, should we think that live performances look to studio albums for improvisational rock bands? Finally, advances in the quality and availability of technologies offer cases where it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain clearly a distinction between the sound of a studio recording and a live performance. With the technology that is employed in the work of DJ's like Fatboy Slim or electronica artists like Moby, the difference in the sound between live performances and studio recordings is dramatically lessened. In these cases, a single performer on stage working with a turntable, synthesizer, and a computer can construct a live sound that is just as acoustically complex as the sound of a studio recording. And the technology is only getting better. So, while hardcore offers the clearest example of the rejection of the performance dependence claim, other examples can be found throughout the diverse recording and performances practices of rock demonstrating that the relationship between studio recordings and live performances is sometimes reversed and is sometimes nonhierarchical. V. Conclusion I have argued above against the claim that the recorded track is the primary object of artistic interest in rock on the grounds that the practice of recording can itself be conceived of as satisfying a variety of interests and projects. It is not the case that all recording artists conceive of themselves primarily as constructing tracks. Instead, many rock musicians conceive of themselves as carrying on a tradition of songwriting that remains largely unchanged by their access to recording technology. Additionally, I have argued that there are important cases in which the supposed priority of recording practices over live performance practices does not hold. The broader conclusion that I would like to draw from this discussion is that we should see rock as a tradition that has three activities at its core: songwriting, live performance, and track construction. Gracyk, Davies, and Kania all have argued in favor of the importance of track construction within rock—and I agree that the tradition of treating constructed tracks as enduring objects of artistic interest is distinctive of rock. However, we should be careful not to conclude that the constructed track is the primary medium of artistic interest in rock. The arguments I presented above each provide reasons for thinking that rock musicians and rock audiences treat songs and live performances as objects that are no less worthy of artistic interest than their recordings. We should avoid making any universal claims here—except perhaps for the negative claim that there is no single practice central to rock that all rock musicians pursue. Instead, there are (at least) three practices central to the rock tradition, and musicians will place varying degrees of emphasis on each—some will pursue all three or will fixate on only one or two, and musicians may abandon one interest and develop a new one at various stages in their careers. While Burt Bacharach has released many of his own albums, he is widely known and loved for the songs that he has written for others. James Brown was a consummate performer, and while he certainly has produced many studio recordings, it is hard to imagine the career of James Brown without his live performances. At one point in their career, R.E.M. gave up on live performance while they continued to produce studio albums, but they certainly did not give up on songwriting. A concern for songs—however ontologically thin—and a concern for live performances—however ephemeral—is no less central to the rock tradition than recordings.18 REFERENCES Azerrad , Michael. 2001 . Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981–1991 . New York : Little, Brown and Company . Blush , Steven. 2010 . American Hardcore: A Tribal History , 2nd ed., edited by George Petros. Port Townsend, WA : Feral House . Bruno , Franklin. 2013 . “ A Case for Song: Against an (Exclusively) Recording‐Centered Ontology of Rock .” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 71 : 65 – 74 . OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Davies , Stephen. 2001 . Musical Works and Performances . Oxford University Press . Gracyk , Theodore. 1996 . Rhythm and Noise: An Aesthetics of Rock . Duke University Press . Kania , Andrew. 2006 . “ Making Tracks: The Ontology of Rock Music .” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 64 : 401 – 414 . OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Kania , Andrew. . 2009 . “ Musical Recordings .” Philosophy Compass 4 : 22 – 38 . OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat MacKaye , Ian. 1999 . “History.” Dischord Records. http://www.dischord.com/history/. Prinz , Jesse. 2014 . “ The Aesthetics of Punk Rock .” Philosophy Compass 9 : 583 – 593 . OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Footnotes 1. Indeed, as Kania says, “live rock performances, while undeniably an important part of the rock world, are not the primary focus of critical attention in that tradition” (2006, 404). Incidentally, I suspect that Davies would likely accept the claim that performance is a primary activity of rock, but he would still resist the claim that songs are appropriate objects of artistic interest. 2. The phrase “recording‐centered ontology” appears in Bruno (2013), but is originally attributed to a paper given by Richard Kraut (see Bruno 2013, 65n2). 3. Additionally, I am following Gracyk in speaking of the “rock tradition” as extending to popular recorded music. As Gracyk says, “rock is popular music of the second half of the twentieth century which is essentially dependent on recording technology for its inception and dissemination” (1996, 13). 4. The phrase “central element of the rock aesthetic” appears in Gracyk's brief discussion of the movement toward treating recordings as works in their own right (1996, 17); however, that discussion does not suggest an answer to my question. 5. In passing it is worth noticing what Gracyk says and does not say here. While Gracyk does not say that rock essentially is a recording art, he does not explicitly deny this either. Rather, what he does explicitly deny is that rock is essentially a performing art. The reason offered is because rock is a musical form in which the audience is often—but not always—removed from the musician's performance on her instrument. “The vast majority of the time, the audience for rock music listens to speakers delivering recordings. Exploring the limitations and possibilities of the recording process, crafting music in those terms, rock's primary materials are often the available recording and playback equipment. Guitars, pianos, voices, and so on became secondary materials. Consequently, rock music is not essentially a performing art” (Gracyk 1996, 74–75). Also notice that Gracyk's resistance to defining rock as essentially a recording art in the passage quoted seems to be in tension with his earlier definition of rock music as “popular music of the second half of the twentieth century which is essentially dependent on recording technology for its inception and dissemination” (13). 6. Thank you to an anonymous reviewer for this journal for pushing me to think about the place of arrangement within the ontology of rock. 7. The distinction between ontological thinness and thickness comes from Davies (2001, 3). Briefly, the distinction between thick and thin corresponds to the relative determinacy or indeterminacy of the essential properties of a work. Songs are ontologically “thin” as they are relatively lacking in specificity, while both performances and recordings are ontologically “thick” as they are maximally specific. 8. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for offering this example. 9. For instance, the early home‐produced recordings of the British electropop artist Little Boots employed instruments and technologies—like the Tenori‐on—that would interestingly see her recordings as plausible instances of either (1) or (4). The difference is whether one considers the Tenori‐on to be an electronic instrument or a piece of recording technology. While I would strongly favor the former interpretation—as the Tenori‐on is something that can be played in live performance—it must be acknowledged that future developments in technology may strain the differences between these categories and lead to further debate. 10. Of course, there are cases where the sound of the live performance differs greatly from that of the recorded track intentionally. In those cases, the live performance still “looks to” the recorded track, as it would be in this way that the audience would understand what is being rejected. 11. A version of the following argument previously appeared on Christy Mag Uidhir's blog Aesthetics for Birds on November 20, 2013. The original blog post can be found here: http://www.aestheticsforbirds.com/2013/11/out-of-step-punk-music-and-ontology-of.html. 12. See Azerrad (2001, 232), Blush (2010, 350), and Blush (2010, 351), respectively. 13. Prinz identifies “amateurism” as an ideal of punk music more broadly, not just hardcore (2014, 586). 14. See Azerrad (2001, 132). See also MacKaye's self‐penned history of Dischord: “Because we have tried to approach the label as a mission of documentation as well as a community‐based entity, we have managed to avoid many of the industry‐standard practices” (1999, 3). 15. “Hardcore established a new definition of musical success: in non‐economic terms. Sociologists would cite this as an example of ‘tribal syndicalism’—unlike money‐oriented economies, HC arose as an objective‐oriented, community‐based culture, like a commune or an armed fortress” (Blush 2010, 319). 16. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this problem. 17. Thank you to the editors of this journal for pushing me to consider these examples more fully. 18. This essay has undergone numerous revisions thanks to many helpful comments. Thanks especially to John Dyck, Christy Mag Uidhir, Shen‐yi Liao, P. D. Magnus, Dan Cavendon‐Taylor, two anonymous referees for this journal, and the editors of this journal for their many helpful comments and suggestions. © The American Society for Aesthetics This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model) © The American Society for Aesthetics
TI - Rock as a Three‐Value Tradition
JF - The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
DO - 10.1111/jaac.12351
DA - 2017-04-26
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/rock-as-a-three-value-tradition-pPyBAiaFPL
SP - 143
EP - 154
VL - 75
IS - 2
DP - DeepDyve
ER -