American Idolatry (christian music, amer. Idol etc.)

[donsu]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HH29Aa01.html


Christianity has foundered in Europe, sunk by the baggage that European Christians carried from their pagan past, leaving the United States as the last Christian country in the industrial world. Idolatry in Europe lived in the folklore and ritual of the old pagan religions that Christianity never quite suppressed. Americans hear barely an echo of the ancient whisper of the European forest. Some readers have asked whether Americans are quite free from idolatry. The answer is: of course not. A good place to start is with American Idol, the televised contest that allows a complete non-entity to become a rock star for a day.

No other nation rejects the notion of a high culture with such vehemence, or celebrates the mediocre with such giddiness. Americans prefer to identify with what is like them, rather than emulate what is better than them. The epitome of its popular culture is a national contest to choose from among random entrants a new singing star, the "American Idol".

-snip-

Americans of earlier generations, in short, listened to music that they admired but could not hope to imitate, because they looked up to a higher plane of culture and technique. Today Americans favor performers with whom they can identify precisely because they have no more technique or culture than the average drunk bellowing into a karaoke machine. Taste descended by degrees. Frank Sinatra sounded more average than Bing Crosby; Elvis Presley more average than Sinatra; The Beatles more average than Elvis; and Bruce Springsteen (or Madonna) about as average as one can get, until American Idol came along to elevate what was certified to average.

-snip-

What requires explanation is how the whining, nasal, querulous style of country music came to dominate national taste with the rock 'n' roll of the 1950s. The species leap from the county fair to The Ed Sullivan Show occurred because the United States, for the first time in its history, had spawned a distinctive youth culture. That is, the postwar generation of American adolescents was the first with sufficient spending power to afford its own culture. Before World War I, adolescents went to work. The years after World War II produced an unprecedented level of affluence, and teenagers for the first time had money to spend on records, instruments and cars. Young people are as resentful as they are narcissistic, and the easily reproduced, droning complaint of country music satisfied both criteria.

-snip-

The culture of resentment runs so deep in the American character that the self-pitying drone of immiserated farmers, amplified by the petulant adolescents of the 1950s as a remonstration against parental authority, now dominates the musical life of American Christians. Not only Christian country, but Christian rock and Christian heavy metal have become mainstream commercial genre. I agree with the minority of Christians who eschew Christian rock as "the music of the devil", although not for the same reasons: it is immaterial whether Christian rock substitutes "Jesus Christ" for "Peggy Sue", permitting its listeners to associate putatively Christian music with secular music with implied sexual content. It is diabolical because the style itself is born of resentment.

There are American Christians who had no choice but to invent their own music, namely the African-American Church, whose spirituals are gems of rough-hewn beauty. It is no coincidence that black church music maintains the closest ties to classical music, and that the pre-eminence of African-American singers on the operatic stage stems from the music training of church choirs.
-snip-
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the snipped parts are interesting too

Christian Resentment .... hhmmm interesting thought

lyrics are the worst - around 1950 I gave up on listening to most music with lyrics.

(nowadays for example I like the music of Saint Karen, like on the piece Bellevue which starts by saying 'I was born in a mental institution' and Human Contact where she sings that she would give up her vibrator for some human contact. lol)

[Jed Dilligan]

1. Some good points, a lot of pomposity.

I doubt the author of the article could credibly impersonate Bruce Springsteen or write one of his songs.

Yes, we have a culture of protracted, aggrieved adolescence in America, but we don't want to hear about it from the Asia Times.

This is mostly an example of what happens when journalists try to analyze culture. They should maybe stick to the news...

[donsu]

4. if we don't want to hear about it from Asia Times who do we want to

hear it from?

[Jed Dilligan]

6. An American, for starters

And one who produces culture instead of one who thumbs his nose at it.

If you don't like the singers on the radio, take singing lessons... see if you can do better.

Or, if there is something better that doesn't get airplay... promote it.

Any amount of looking down on crap culture only increases its appeal to the consumer. Because part of the appeal is flipping off snobs like this author.

The only way to change it is to attract people to a higher-quality product.

[MadHound]

2. While I agree with the author about Christian music, and American Idol

I find the rest of his premise regarding American music, rock and country, to be elitist drivel. First off, where does he think country came from? Oh, yeah, that's right, European folk music. Where does rock come from? A fusion of country, R&B, jazz, gospel and classical.

Sure, some of this music simple, common, low brow. So is some of classical music. However both rock and country have produced works time and again that are pieces of musical genius, so good in fact that they have been nicked by the "high brow" genres for their own.

Sorry, but this is just elitist drivel. In fact it almost sounds like it was written by somebody who wanted to be a rock star and couldn't cut it

[bperci108]

3. Whoever "Spengler" is....

...he/she probably shouldn't give up their day job for a career in journalism; that was almost unreadable in it's condescension and dreadfully turgid composition.

A few good points here and there, bobbing about in a raging sea of bullshit.


:puke:

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. It is axiomatic that 90% of everything is crap.

That certainly includes American pop culture.

And journalism.

[Initech]

7. Trey Parker and Matt Stone did a better job of summing up Christian rock

than this guy ever could!

[MrModerate]

8. What blather . . .

Sort of like wrestling with a jello-man to comment on this, but here goes:

• Christianity has foundered in Europe for about 6,000 reasons, but the leading one has to be irrelevance, not baggage.

• Idolatry of the sort derided here is alive and well all over the world -- pop idols excite their fans from Torento to Taipei, from Copenhagen to Cape Horn. While the superstar singer is presented here as a recent invention, casting back in history reveals an endless line of superstars who excited the public. Mozart? Lily Langtree? Junius Booth? Sarah Bernhardt (the 19th century actress, not the performance artist)? etc., etc. -- and not to mention superstar preachers.

• The "averagizing of popular music" is a phenomenon observed only by the author of the article. Sinatra more average than Crosby? Sinatra emerged when the fan base was just recovering from a world war. If his style is a little grittier, we shouldn't be surprised. The Beatles more average than Elvis? Words don't exist for how silly that sounds. Let's compare apples and asteroids next.

• Country music is more narcissistic than any other kind of popular music? Actually (and this is a non-Country fan talking here), it's rather more tuneful and "pretty" than competing genre, such as rap, hip-hop, rock, etc., etc. Certainly the explosion of all types of subgenres of popular music can be in part attributed to an affluent youth culture. And having said, that, the next question is, of course, "so what?"

• Christian sub-subgenres of popular styles are no more significant than anything else that's sub-sub to a root style. The fact that the author is so resentful of such music (easily avoided by simply not listening to it) tells us a lot about the author, but very little about culture.

• "Preeminence of African-American singers on the operatic stage . . .?" Can this guy even count on his fingers? African Americans are not overrepresented on the operatic stage. It might be true that the musical tradition in black churches is responsible for a lot of really talented people getting their early training in such a milieu, but the results are not quantifiable that way.

Basically, the author is full of it: full of nonsense, full of factoids (i.e., spurious knowledge), and full of himself.

[donsu]

9. but no one commented on 'christian resentment'

nt