The Rock Canon: Canonical Values in the Reception of Rock Albums

Carys Wyn Jones

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2008 - Music - 169 pages

Carys Wyn Jones explores the symptomatic reflections of canonical values, terms and mechanisms from the canons of literature and classical music in the reception of rock music.Jones examines the concept of the canon as theorized by scholars in the fields of literary criticism and musicology, before moving on to search for these canonical ideas and ideals in rock music, as represented by ten albums: Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, The Beatles' Revolver, The Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground and Nico, Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St., Patti Smith's Horses, The Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks: Here's the Sex Pistols, and Nirvana's Nevermind. Jones concludes that in the popular reception of rock music we are not only trying to organize the past, but also mediate the present, and any canon of rock music must now negotiate a far more pluralized culture, and possibly accept a greater degree of change than has been evident in the canons of literature and classical music in the last two centuries.

Contents

• Defining the Canon: 5
• Aesthetic Criteria and the Work of Art in the Reception: 25
• Canonical Narratives Structure and the Test of Time: 53
• The Canonical Values of Rock: 77
• Canonical Discourse and the Question of Authority in Rock: 101
• The Rock Canon and the Future of Canons in our Culture: 119
• Appendix: 141
• www acclaimedmusic net: 142
• Virgin 2000: 148
• Bibliography: 153

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Rock Canon: Canonical Values in the Reception of Rock Albums; Ashgate popular and folk music series
• Author: Carys Wyn Jones
• Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2008
• ISBN: 0754662446, 9780754662440
• Length: 169 pages
• Subjects: Music / Genres & Styles / Rock; Music / History & Criticism