I went back to college to work on my master's degree, and in graduate school I went to a popular coffee shop on its weekly open mic nights. I'd like to say I wasn't the dweeb getting up there playing Wonderwall, but I was that very dweeb at least a couple times.
However, the college had (and still has) a very strong music program, graduating a lot of people who go on to be professional musicians and music teachers. The professor every music major took their core classes from literally wrote the book on African American popular music. On the graduate committee I was voluntold for by my professors, I was responsible for approving unorthodox musical independent study credits. What I'm trying to say is that this was a very good music program, and the music majors were experts in their field before they even got their degrees.
And this definitely showed up in the open mics. My Wonderwalling ass was suddenly the butt rocker next to these kids. They had a jazz band they played in for fun, and it would dabble in everything from reggae to funk for shits and giggles. The closest to butt rock these kids ever got was the stoner kids, who created two or three Sublime cover bands to sound like beach juggalos at the open mics for about two years. They knew chords I couldn't even play. They looked down on me for playing acoustic cover songs, and for working out easier ways to cover certain songs. They would go outside and smoke during my sets.
I should hasten to add; they weren't all like this. The coolest of the bunch was the lead singer of the jazz band and the most successful cover band of the bunch, and she gave me the idea to write this essay. She and I and the English major that ran the open mics for a year are all still friends to this day. She didn't go outside to smoke during my sets. I showed up to listen to her marimba and timpani final. Good times all around.
But who were these music kids? Who goes to a college and studies a field like music? If they're planning to become a music teacher, workers' kids might, sure. But by and large, these were the children of the rich. It was evident in the way that most of them acted, in their cheap sentiment, in their showing off the technical knowledge they had as a form of social credit. They were performative liberals at their most, well, performing.
Although I spent more time than the average person dealing with the musical world, I don't think my experiences are so unique as to be disqualifying. If anything, I think it's given me enough insight about the musical world to class analyze it honestly.
First off, the butt rock. Why do workers enjoy butt rock? The answer seems to be this: butt rock is simple, and it gives the fans what they want. Catchy hooks, solid riffs, choruses that get stuck in your head. You don't need to have a music degree to appreciate every single thing Nickelback is trying to say. No wonder Disturbed is still touring, and will probably tour for years to come: there aren't a whole lot of bands coming up the pipeline doing what they're doing, and their working class fans are more than happy to come out and keep supporting them.
But everything I just said about butt rock is also true about classic rock. Although it's not my favorite genre of all time, I enjoy classic rock and just. Don't. Enjoy butt rock. If I'm listening to the radio in an unfamiliar town, I will happily listen to any classic rock station I come across, but will change the station the moment I hear a Korn jam. Is this just residual classism on my part? Class privilege I haven't yet renounced? Perhaps; I can't rule it out. But I don't think that explains all of it.
The difference between classic rock and butt rock, I think, is that classic rock is what happened when the most talented musicians made catchy music for the masses, and butt rock is what happens when the most talented musicians no longer do so.
Continue on to Part III
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