Rock Music Anti-educational

[hsut@purdue-ecn.ARPA (Tsun-Yuk Hsu)]

Really-from: Bill Hsu (hsut@purdue.ARPA)


	I thought the attack on rock music being anti-educational (no first
hand info, just the New York Times article quoted in a previous love-hounds
posting) was silly and uncalled for. What's really sad is the fact that it
came from academia, which is supposed to be RELATIVELY objective and not
jump on the latest political bandwagon. I would like to see some response
from the more open-minded people in academia, maybe that professor somewhere
in the country who runs a history of rock class. (By the way, I had a
music professor whose favorite group is Velvet Underground. Maybe I'll
ask his opinion on that...)

	While it's true that some rock music is anti-educational (actually
this also goes for a lot of classical music, especially romantic operas
that say it's fine to be obsessed with love and sex 24 hours a day and
druggy stuff like the later Stockhausen), anyone who is into music outside
of the Top 40 dreck will be able to put together a list of artists whom
you can't possibly appreciate without extensive reading and research. 
How can you appreciate The Dreaming without some knowledge of history,
anthropology and mythology? Laurie Anderson will be incomprehensible without
acquiantance with and appreciation of the Dada movement and absurdist
drama. And the list goes on: Bauhaus, Residents, Talking Heads, even
dinosaurs like Yes and Genesis.

	Did anyone catch 60 minutes on November 10? There was a article
on Children's Express, a very intelligent and eloquent group of pre-teens
and teens who are reporters and who distribute their stories through UPI.
They were in Washington for the PMRC hearings. There were shots of a 
fundamentalist group marching in the streets protesting (the fundamentalists
had lots of kids holding up placards, talk about brainwashing; I detest
anyone who uses children for political purposes). The Children's Express
reporters were asking the fundamentalists questions on the PMRC hearings.
Finally, one of the reporters (sorry, I forgot his name) got to make a
passionate point against the PMRC. I paraphrase: "I've listened to rock
all my life. I've listened to hard rock, I've listened to soft rock, I've
listened to medium rock. Rock music has had no bad effects on me." (Sorry
if I misquoted.) A future love-hounder, maybe!!!

	

				"Welcome to the outskirts of Jupiter!"

				 Bill Hsu