What is Rock? Why do you ask?

I'm starting this to let some of the steam out of my head of late—steam built up by a cluster of events not terribly significant individually but which together have got me a little bit jazzed (if I can use that word). The first thing was hearing Norway's Death Is Not Glamorous on CiTR one night a couple of weeks ago; here was a hardcore band that hit me straight in the heart, and instantly provoked a reaction: first, the pulse-quickening effect that any decent rock&roll manages; second, an awareness of the sheer unadulterated joy of this music, the unstoppable kick against death and dying, in the largest sense (interestingly, a reaction I had to the song before I knew the name of the band). This is art, I thought, in the simplest, purest sense. It is an organized movement for life and vitality.

Second was my unexpected pleasure at the second season of Rock Star on TV, this time with Supernova instead of INXS. I had kinda enjoyed the first season, but figured it was a one-off, and that they'd never manage to re-capture it again. I was wrong; the new season is better in almost every respect: first, they got rid of the INXS component (a band which has never even come close to producing in me the reaction I describe above), and second, the level of talent they have this year seems considerably higher... some of these folks are seriously talented, making the some of the stuff on this show up there with the best television I have ever seen (Dave Navarro's comment on one of Dilana's performances was, "Wow, did I did I just see that on television?"). I had to ask myself, what was it about this show that works so well? How come this works for me where American Idol and its numerous imitators leave me absolutely cold, when I bother to watch at all? Something about what they're doing on Rock Star is honest —though I hesitate to use that word in conjunction with anything televised. At least... it is immediately obvious whether a given performance is great or it sucks; there's no appeals to relative taste or genre here; it either works or it doesn't. So what is that?

Third up, when I started to think about these first two things, I started to realize how impoverished our collective vocabulary and discourse about rock is. Yes, we have tons of music journalism, but it remains entirely within its own world, unable to make real connections to life beyond. On the other hand, academic sociology of pop culture seems unable to get rock out of its ghetto of quaintness—I think simply by treating it as an object and failing to meaningfully engage with it on a personal—first personal— level. But... I have been through some fairly extensive graduate school and academic experience, and the closest thing I've ever seen to a treatment of what rock music actually meant to somebody or something is the odd Bob Dylan quote in an epigraph somewhere (Dylan has acheived such historic status that I guess he's a legitimate high-culture touchstone). There's maybe a little tiny bit of an in-jokey trend of sneaking Talking Heads quotes into articles that I've noticed (and perhaps even indulged in), but otherwise, there's a clear boundary between what's important now and what you might have embarrassingly been listening to in your youth. Well bollocks to that! I listened to AC/DC and Ozzy Osbourne in my youth, and it damned well made a difference.

And then the little things: I hear the Go-Gos Our Lips are Sealed over the shopping mall musak and think, "gee, that tune really rocked," despite the Go-Go's distant and dubious credibility. I found an interesting thread of discussion about the social impact of rock in latter-day eastern European history (fall of the wall, and all that), but that's pretty isolated. And I try in vain to find a decent way to listen to rock on the internet, and fail: both lastfm and pandora just suck at producing a good "station"—none of the most important qualities seem to come through that medium at all. I've had better luck just listening to the top-charted MySpace bands. My default is to return to CiTR again, as they at least have human DJs that get it. BUt surely there is more...

Anyway, am I crazy? Is this just my own, personal, view of the world? or am I on to something more general here, that might just be possible to talk about in words with more than one syllable? Let me know.