Rock and the Pop Narcotic is a 1991 book of popular music criticism by Joe Carducci. (Revised edition 1995.)
Rock and the Pop Narcotic is perhaps the only book of popular music criticism that attempts to achieve a genuine aesthetic of rock music. Other works, such as Richard Meltzer's The Aesthetics of Rock or Simon Frith's Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music, either focus on lyrical content or on the sociology of the music's listeners. Rock and the Pop Narcotic is both a critique of the sociological approach and a polemic in favour of the music's artistic qualities.
Read more about Rock And The Pop Narcotic: The Book's Argument, The Book's Structure, Responses
Famous quotes containing the words rock and, rock, pop and/or narcotic:
“Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“You have constantly urged the idea that you were persecuted because you did not come from West-Point, and you repeat it in these letters. This, my dear general, is I fear, the rock on which you have split.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“There is no comparing the brutality and cynicism of today’s pop culture with that of forty years ago: from High Noon to Robocop is a long descent.”
—Charles Krauthammer (b. 1950)
“Hans Castorp loved music from his heart; it worked upon him much the same way as did his breakfast porter, with deeply soothing, narcotic effect, tempting him to doze.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)