Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vvkck Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T13:31:04.640Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rock and rebellion: subversive effects of Live Aid and ‘Sun City’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Neal Ullestad
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Subversion of satisfaction is the name of the game in pop rock music. The constant changes in artists and sounds perpetually subvert conventional meanings of desire and pleasure, and we ‘can't be satisfied’. Consumer mythologies of style and fashion work to condense the fulfilment of our desires into the act of buying that which is ‘new’, now. Clearly, such change seldom includes any significant disruption of the everyday acceptance of the ‘natural’ order of things. Since meaningful change is a threat to corporate control, it is the superficial change of the subversion of satisfaction – vital to increasing profits, it seems – that has been institutionalised.

Type
Research Article
Information
Popular Music , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , January 1987 , pp. 67 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Books and articles

Barthes, R. 1972. ‘Myth today’, in Mythologies (New York), pp. 109–59Google Scholar
Benjamin, W. 1968. ‘Theses on the philosophy of history’, in Illuminations (New York)Google Scholar
Chambers, I. 1982. ‘Some critical tracks’, Popular Music, 2 (Cambridge), pp. 19–36Google Scholar
Frith, S. 1986. ‘Crappy birthday to punk’, In These Times, 10:21 (04 23–29) (Chicago), p. 20Google Scholar
Gitlin, T. 1980. The Whole World is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left (Berkeley)Google Scholar
Grossberg, L. 1984. ‘Another boring day in paradise: rock and roll and the empowerment of everyday life’, Popular Music, 4 (Cambridge), pp. 225–58Google Scholar
Grossberg, L. 1985. ‘Farm Aid: the politics of music, media and morality’, photocopy (Champaign)Google Scholar
Hall, S. 1977. ‘Culture, the media and the ‘ideological effect’, in Mass Communication and Society, ed. Curran, J., Gurevitch, M. and Woollacott, J. (London), pp. 315–48Google Scholar
Johnson, P. 1984. Marxist Aesthetics (Boston)Google Scholar
Marsh, D. 1986. Rock & Roll Confidential, 32 (01), p. 2Google Scholar
Therborn, G. 1980. ‘The social order of ideologies’, in The Ideology of Power and the Power of Ideology (London)Google Scholar
Williams, R. 1977. Marxism and Literature (Oxford)Google Scholar

Records

Artists United Against Apartheid. 1985. Sun City, Manhattan/Capitol ST53019, produced by Little Steven and Arthur BakerGoogle Scholar
Benatar, Pat. 1983. ‘Love is a Battlefield’, Live from Earth, Chrysalis FV41444Google Scholar
King Dream Chorus & Holiday Crew. 1986. ‘King Holiday’, Mercury/Polygram 884 442–7, produced by Dexter Scott King, Phillip Jones and Kurtis BlowGoogle Scholar
Lennon, John. 1971. ‘Gimme Some Truth’, Imagine, Apple 3379Google Scholar
UB40. 1984. ‘I'm Not Fooled So Easily’, Geffery Morgan…, DEP International/New Claims A&M SP5033Google Scholar