Ulf Lindberg, Gestur Guomundson, Morten Michelson and Hans Weisethaunet, Rock Criticism From the Beginning: Amusers, Bruisers, and Cool-Headed Cruisers. New York, Bern, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Brussels,Vienna and Oxford: Peter Lang, 2005. ￡17.50.369

摘要

Though it has affinities with earlier critical discourse on popular music, particularly that on jazz, rock criticism as it developed in Britain and the US from the 1960s was a new form of popular journalism. Rock criticism brought artistic legitimation to the music and its practitioners. This involved bringing about a shift from entertainment to art, distinguishing rock from pop, establishing it as 'authentic' and at the opposite pole to 'commercial'. It involved the celebration of rock as rebellious or subversive, and of rock musicians as free spirits, autonomous creative subjects in command of their own means of musical and lyrical expression. Rock critics also moved into the terrain of canonicity, paying homage to the milestone achievements, worshipping the masterpiece albums. This is something of a caricature, but the main elements are there. For a detailed and developed account of the formation of rock criticism over the past 40 years or so we can now turn to this well-considered work.