Rock studies: A love letter

By now you are well aware that Indiana University offers a wide array of classes on rock and roll. Whatever your tastes are, you're bound to find it here - survey courses from the '50's through the '80's, courses on Captain Beefheart, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Zappa, Hendrix, hip hop, etc. While these classes are often a fun diversion from the student's normal studies, does rock and roll really belong in the classroom? To save suspense, I'll tell you that it does.\nI grapple with the way rock is taught at times, but for the most part, there are important lessons to be taught in the music's history. From how the beast of fame in America reveals itself in the self-destruction of Elvis to the atrocities committed against the Black Panthers and how it relates to hip hop, these are momentous and under-taught sociological issues of the latter-half of the 20th century. More often than not, they are best explained to a student group and most clearly manifested within the context of rock music.\nTo my knowledge, no one has yet significantly picked apart the music on a musical basis either. I remember being in Andy Hollinden's Beach Boys class when he was trying to explain the chord structure of "Warmth of the Sun." The class reaction ranged from boredom to confusion. A class that taught Brian Eno's studio methods or Brian Wilson's arrangements or the way Van Morrison and Frank Sinatra are able to string their vocals across the music seems every bit as interesting, relevant and studious as studying a Rachmaninoff score.\nCompared with the way that film is studied in the university, it is a shame that rock and roll is cast aside as a barbaric waste of time (a stinky aphrodisiac, somebody once said). In a film class I took at IU, each film we watched was accompanied with some piece of criticism. Students need to have rock music, which is around 50 years old now, put into perspective these days, too. Why not, while teaching Elvis, have students read Greil Marcus' chapter on the King in "Mystery Train," or teach Van Morrison's Astral Weeks with Lester Bangs' essay from "Stranded"?\nLike the film studies department, rock music should also be able to be studied without the certain chronological issues it is tied to now. Chicago Tribune rock critic Greg Kot told me, "I think you could take the new Wilco album, study it for a semester, and people would come out of that class as better people or at least better music listeners." A class that could delve into Neil Young's unreleased On The Beach, then James Brown's Live at the Apollo and then Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" would be invaluable. How great would it be to have a term paper that was a critical analysis of Pavement's Slanted and Enchanted?\nFor all the strides that rock and roll has made, academia refuses to accept it as a valid art form. There can be a number of reasons for this. Fernando Orejuela, who teaches a hip-hop culture course, said people's conception of what art is has been the Western European ideology. This sentiment was confirmed when I asked my old humanities professor, Gary Casper, about studying hip hop. He answered, "There, I suppose, the sociological and anthropological elements would dominate discussion since the work fails on both poetic and musical grounds."\nDr. Glenn Gass, professor of the Beatles class, told me that each time he thinks about teaching a class on Bob Dylan, he backs down. He said he didn't want to bring him into the classroom and have discussions about what each line of his lyrics means. Kot also expressed fears of demystification, saying, "Rock is more of a feeling. What can you really get out of looking at a Beefheart or Bob Dylan score?" Hollinden said, "People have this idea that if it is fun, it's not good for you, that it's not a real class."\nThat aside, IU's rock studies program has been progressive. Orejuela's class is absolutely riveting, not only because of his lectures and his contiguous historical method, but also the students' discussions. Gass has the ability to get his students excited about something as insipid as James Taylor, and watching him get worked up about the Beatles is transcendent. Hollinden's cool, irreverent approach reflects his passion for the music, and he has a good revisionist view of the rock canon. \nWith this all said, one of my greatest fears and worst reoccurring nightmares is being in an area densely populated by rock critics. An IU full of pretentious rock snobs given a little bit of mellifluous speech would clearly not be a better IU.