Valuing and Evaluating Popular Music Author(s): Theodore Gracyk Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and

Art Criticism, Vol. 57, No. 2, Aesthetics and Popular Culture (Spring, 1999), pp. 205-220 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/432313 . Accessed: 07/03/2012 19:50
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THEODORE GRACYK

Valuingand EvaluatingPopularMusic

For me this musical phraseis a gesture.It insinuatesitself into my life. I adoptit as my own. -Ludwig Wittgenstein,19481

Not only is rock music (much more thanjazz used to be) an integralpartof the life of many people, but it is a culturalinitiator:to like rock, to like a certainkind of rock ratherthan another,is also a way of life, a mannerof reacting;it is a whole set of tastes and attitudes. -Michel Foucault2

Takingrock music as a paradigmcase of popular music, this essay focuses on two broad issues. First, I examine the evaluationof particularpieces of rock music. Why,for instance,is the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" a great piece of rock, making it better than their "Jiving Sister Fanny"?I want to challenge the emergingorthodoxythatevaluationsof this sort are radically different from typical evaluations of novels, symphonies, paintings, and texts of high culture.3I will arguethatamongthe various propertiesof individualpieces of rock musicsongs, performances,and recordings-aesthetic propertiesplay a significant role in why "Sympathyfor the Devil" is so good, and why "Jiving Sister Fanny"deserves its relativeobscurity. Second, I take up the issue of the comparative value of rock music in general as an institution of contemporary life, as opposed to the high-art traditionsin music thatare generallylumpedtogether as "classical"music. I contend that evaluations of this second sort, of rock taken as a whole, must consider factors that have limited relevance for evaluationsof the first sort. There is more to the value of a kind of music than the aesthetic achievement of its best exemplars. However great"Sympathyfor the Devil" is, and however great of its kind Mozart's "Jupiter"

symphony (No. 41 in C major) is, the relative greatnessof the specific workstells us very little aboutthe comparativevalue of the two kinds of music in general. There remains the additional difficultyof evaluatingan individual'sparticipation in a musicalculture.We must evaluatetaste. Following suggestions of Nick Zangwill, some proceduralassumptionsconstrainmy arguments. The main one is that, as with any account of traditional "we areconcernedto unart, derstand and explain a common human phenomenon."Our main focus is "not works of art themselves, but behavior which involves worksof art. The behaviorin questionis creative and appreciative activity."4Zangwill proposes thata philosophicalaccountof artshouldbe centrally concernedwith a theory of interpretation, and with explainingourbasic behaviorsin desiring and evaluating art. (Intuitions differ about what does and does not count as art,andstarting with a debateaboutwhatcounts as artis going to block a constructivedialogue.)Some will immediately object that "Sympathyfor the Devil" is not a work of art, and not what Zangwill has in mind, so his proceduralconstraintson philosophizing aboutarthave no directbearinghere.5 Rock fans desire to hear rock music. They interpretit and they evaluate it. Indeed,rock's de-

The Journalof Aesthetics andArt Criticism57:2 Spring 1999

206 tractorsaremost likely to dismiss rock eitherbecause they can make only limited sense of such activities, or regardthem as less valuable in relation to rock than in relationto classical music, or believe that they produce undesirableconsequences in the case of rock. Yet the comparison presupposesthatrock fans exhibit the same sorts of behaviorsthat Zangwill identifies for art,and so my overridingconcern is makingbettersense of our "desiresandevaluations" concerningrock. Because my argumentsare only incidentally a "defense"of rock music, my procedureis to ignore the question of whether rock is art, to address the same issues for rock that Zangwill raises for art, and to observe the results. Anothercentralassumptionis that in discussing rock we are primarilyinterestedin recorded music in the popular traditionthat flows from white appropriations African-Americanmuof sics in the 1950s. In discussing creative and appreciative activity in this tradition,the central "works"in rock are commercialrecordings,created for consumption as recorded music. So when I talk about "Sympathyfor the Devil," I mean the recordingthatkicks off the albumBeggars Banquet (1968). I am not discussing the song, "cover"versions of the song, or the song in live performance.6 While these are not incidental variablesin the realmof rock, they arenot the centraloccasions for critical response and critical dialogue. Turningto the first of the two main issues of this piece, to value judgments of specific cases, I want to advance three claims. First, appraisal should not be confused with evaluation.Second, appraisal involves a perception of aesthetic value.7 Third, while the aesthetic dimension of rock music is very important appraisingrock, in it does not exhaust the pluralityof values relevant to evaluations of the music. Because this concession introducesa pluralityof incommensurablestandards into such evaluations,I am entirely skeptical about our ability to defend precise evaluations of particular cases. In this compressed form, my three claims are not very clear, so I will elaboratethem all in terms of a common example.
I. APPRAISING AND EVALUATING

The Journalof Aesthetics andArt Criticism Elvis Costello's third album, Armed Forces (1979). It had appearedin the stores only a day or so before, and althoughI was an avid reader of the popularmusic press, I was not awarethat the albumwas due for release. But there it sat in the front rack of Rasputin's Records on TelegraphAvenue in Berkeley,and because My Aim Is True (1977) and This Year'sModel (1978) were amongmy favoriterecentrecords,I bought Armed Forces without waiting for the critical word on it. My wife and I were on our way to dinnerat a friend's apartment, when we arand rived I asked if I might hear the new Elvis Costello after we had heard the Bob Marley album that was playing on the stereo. I can no longer recall the conversationthatevening, but I do recall my response to Armed Forces, which struckme as surprisinglycomplex and melodic. I was thrilled by my first hearing-it grabbed my ears and pulled me into the music. It was not the sort of music that I expected from Costello, given the first two albums. Upon repeatedhearings,I formulatedan evaluationof ArmedForces: it is a superbanddaring piece of post-punk, and I concur with Dave Marsh'sassessmentthatit is Costello's very best record.8 But as with many books, films, and records,when I play it now, twenty years later,I do not experiencethe thrillI experiencedduring the many playings I gave it over the first few days. This loss of pleasure is not due to any change in my sense of its worth; I certainlydo not suppose that my loss in pleasure correlates with a reappraisal.In many respects I find it more interesting now, hearing details in the music andlyrics thatescaped me in 1979. I mention this decreasein pleasurein orderto note that my accountof rock'svalue is not a simplistichedonism (i.e., the doctrine that pleasure is the measureof all value, so thatthe value of any object is nothing more than its instrumental value in producingpleasure).9I do not want to reduce the value of ArmedForces to the maximumpleasure one might experience when hearing it. There is an important distinctionbetween liking something very much-or even in thinkingthat a greatmanypeople will takepleasurein it-and thinkingthatit is of greatvalue. Ratherthansuppose that Elvis Costello's music is of value simply for its capacity to please, articulatefans of his music are likely to reportthatthey take plea-

I vividly remember the day that I purchased

Gracyk Valuingand EvaluatingPopular Music sure in its achievement.The music does not simply cause pleasure;listeners take pleasure in it, which is psychologically far more complex.10 To make sense of this experience with Armed Forces, I will employ T. J. Diffey's distinction I between aesthetic appraisalsand evaluations." My comparativeclaims-, that is a daring piece of post-punk,and that it is the best of Costello's releases-are evaluationsratherthanappraisals. Evaluationsarefundamentally comparative. Appraisalsare not. We expect differentexperiences and differentamountsof pleasureupon repeated appraisals,but these differences are consistent with a single, relatively stable evaluation of ArmedForces. Diffey rightly emphasizes that some critical judgments stem from an appraisal(aesthetic or otherwise). When this is the case, the critic "doles] not admire on principle."'2In contrast, evaluations can be grounded by principles, so one can admireor condemn a work without experiencingit first-hand.Motivatedby the moralism of Tolstoy's WhatIs Art? I might condemn Thomas Hardy'sJude The Obscurewithoutever reading it, for I know that it is a complex novel that tends to offend Christian sensibilities. By the same token, I personally try to avoid most gangsta rap, reasonably sure that it will be unmelodic and deeply misogynist. However, these criticaljudgmentsarerootedin principles,not in any aesthetic appraisalof the specific novel and any specific instances of such music. When we evaluate works, we orderworks in terms of criteria that can be specified in advance of our exinstanceof the kind perience with any particular of thing we are evaluating, as in J. 0. Urmson's discussion of grading apples in which apples under 2.5 inches in diameter never make the super-grade category.13 In contrastto evaluation,aestheticappraisalis "concerned with the particularwithout being concernedwith other particulars."'14 There is no must stay within priorassumptionthatappraisals boundariesthat can be specified in advance of experiencing the object. One sometimes finds oneself admiringa workthatwas previouslydismissed on principle;althoughon principleI disapproveof "artrock"or "prog"bandslike Yes, I occasionally find myself listening with great pleasure when I encounter them on the radio. Diffey also notes that verbal expressions of ap-

207 praisalsemploy descriptiveterms that are "irreducibly appraisive"(such as "clumsy"and "exciting"). Insteadof looking for specific qualities in the object, appraisalinvolves discovering whatever is to be found in experiencinga particular work. Diffey observes that "we can only look to see what excellence is embodied in a work."'5One aims at understandingit as the particularthing is that it is. But this understanding not simply a cognitive grasp of it; one can often extract its cognitive message from a detailed review of it. Appraisalaims at somethingmore:"it is to savor it at the same time: ... to 'investigate'its pleasurable possibilities.'"6Yet as StephenDavies emphasizes, such an interestin the individualityof a specific musical work does not rule out interest in it "asan individualsomething"and it does not rule out "bringingto one's experienceof that thing a knowledge of the traditionsand conventions within, and againstwhich, it is intendedto be understoodand appreciated."17 Much of my pleasurein ArmedForces stems from its subversion of my expectations,expectationsdependent on listening to it in relationto its place in British rock in the wake of punk. So appraisal does not inspect an object in light of its abilityto satisfy fixed criteriaor a standard thatcan be formulatedin defendingone's evaluation to anotherperson. In contrast,evaluation involves inspecting a work in light of a specific, fixed category and as an exemplar of that category.The important "discovery"is the degree to which the work exemplifies its class.18 In the case of Armed Forces, I have been presuming that the relevant long-playing recording is the Americanconfiguration. The Britishrelease features the track"Sunday'sBest," deleted in order to make room for "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding." (Cataloguing the minutiae of British life as reflected in Sunday tabloids, "Sunday'sBest" was deemed too "English"for American consumption.) To say which configurationis betterwould be to evaluate. Proceedingon principle,the British release would take the prize, since that configuration better reflects its British origins and obeys the principle of fidelity to the author's original wishes. Yet I preferto listen to the Americanversion.

208
II. AESTHETIC VALUE INTEREST AND AESTHETIC

The Journalof Aesthetics andArt Criticism esting twist to Scruton'sargumentis that he reto gards such criticism as perfectly appropriate most recent rock music: there is no attentionto the aesthetic dimension of rock for the simple reason that it does not invite aesthetic interest. of Wheregenuine understanding music involves aesthetic judgment, Scruton offers sociological criticism of popularforms as a mirrorof the response of the rock audience;arguingthat"inour
tradition ... tonality has played the leading role in

Turningto my second point, the act of appraising or appreciatingArmed Forces involves an aesthetic interestin the music, and appreciative listeners discern considerableaesthetic value in it. This proposal flies in the face of prevailing trends in theorizing about popularculture, particularly the work of Pierre Bourdieu, John Fiske, and Dick Hebdige. Like Nelson Goodman,they maintainthatthe value of a workof art of (and,presumably, popularart)is its value as a symbol. In Goodman's formulation,art's "primary purpose is cognition in and for itself," where the viewer delights in the "apprehension and formulationof what is to be communicated" in our use of symbols.'9 While I agree that most popularmusic is of value for its symbolic functions, inviting a cognitive response, I want to dispute the common belief that there is no need to appealto aestheticvalue in accountingfor our interestin such music. Hebdige, for instance, claims that aesthetic analysis of the artifacts of popular culture "misses the point." The clothing and music of everyday life are best regarded"as systems of communication,forms of expression and representation."Any reference to aesthetic appraisal is to be viewed with suspicion, as an attemptto recast popularart into "timeless objects,judged by the immutablecriteriaof traditionalaesthetics" (thatis, to mistakenlytreatthem as high art). For Hebdige and Fiske, the aestheticpleasureof popular art as such is always an approvingresponse to its "signifying practice," as a transgressionof dominantculturalcodes.20For Bourdieu, popular responses to popular culture involve pleasuretakenin the work'scontent,not in its aesthetic achievement,and the pleasure it affordscomes from participating (sometimesliterally,sometimes symbolically)in what it represents. Contendingthatpopulartaste conformsto the "exact opposite of the Kantian aesthetic," Bourdieu holds that successful popular art always subordinatesform (i.e., formal achievement) to function.2' Finally, Roger Scruton lambastes popular music precisely because this brandof sociological criticism makes no room for value distinctions groundedin aesthetic appraisal.The inter-

the building of musical space,"he finds nothing but incompetentinsignificance in "pop song[s] in which the bass-line fails to move; in which an innervoice is mutilated;in which rhythmis generated mechanically." Offering the audience nothing that would sustain musical interest,the music of U2 andNirvanaworksonly if we withhold all aestheticjudgment.Scrutondamns it as "akind of negation of music, a dehumanizingof the spiritof song."22 However, I believe that a good deal of the pleasureof popularmusic is uncoveredthrough aesthetic appraisal,in which the listenerdirectly apprehendsthe music as an object of both perceptual and symbolic interest.The music is apprehended as possessing various excellences and flaws as organized sound, and the listener explores its efficacy as an expressive, representationalobject.As music, it requiresan aesthetic interest:it invites and rewardsan interestin attendingto the unfoldingsoundscape.By an "aesthetic interest,"I mean interesttaken in hearing interand graspingthe music undera particular pretationas the sounds unfold,a type of interest that cannot be taken in the music by someone who does not interpretit in light of other music to which it is linked historically. One's understandingof the musical traditionalters the way the music sounds. But I must caution that my claims should not be takento mean that any sort of unique or detached aesthetic attitude is involved. To defer to critic Greil Marcus, the aesthetic appreciationof ArmedForces involves perceiving its overall sound as "suppressed,claustrophobic, twitching." Although many of the melodies are catchy and hummable, "it's soon clear thatjust below the messy, nervous surface of the music is a very stark and specific vision."23His descriptionof the record makes it clear thathe does not recommendit as entertain-

Gracyk Valuingand EvaluatingPopular Music ment. Its power is relatedto its serioustreatment of complex issues, its majortheme being the insidious effects of "secret, unspeakablerealities of political life" upon our most personal relationships. But its value is largely a matter of Costello's auralchoices in expressing his lyrical themes; in the song "Green Shirt," his voice "bitesout a defense,"then becomes "a sensitive, rushed lover's plaint," culminating in a cry of
"hysteria."24

209 tures.It is not an interestin its exemplificationof artistic values. It is not an interest in a purely sensuouskaleidoscopeof sound(as such, a great deal of rock music is harsh,ugly, and distinctly unpleasant).So what is it? It is the value thatappropriatelyknowledgeable listeners discover in the music when actuallylisteningto it. Whenthe music has a cognitive value, however minimal, an aestheticappraisaltakes accountof how well suited the auralobject is to conveying its cognitive element.Aestheticinterestincludesan interest in the clarityandforce with which the sounds embody the cognitive content.(Clarityandforce are perceived in the listening experience.) The audience is interestedin the sensuous display of content.26 This position on aestheticvalue presumesthat to the people are enculturated understand structure and cognitive importof any given musical tradition. it also presumesthatwe are simply Yet the kind of creatures whose form of life will have a musical dimension.We tell jokes because we have a sense of humor and we develop cuisines because we have complex taste receptors; different cultures and subculturestell different sorts of jokes and develop distinct cuisines, andjokes andfood takeon a significant social meaning. But it is unlikely that we would invest so much, either as individualsor as cultures, into music, entertainment,and cuisine if they were simply valuable as symbols. While symbolic activity is inherentin a humanform of life, as Homo sapiens we are also inherentlyoriented toward our visual and auditorymodes of interactingwith our environment.(A canine aesthetic, in contrast,would be heavily weightedtoward the olfactory.) An interest in how-and how well-the music functionsas music in presenting cognitive insight presupposes an independentinterestin auralexperience.As Wittgenstein observes, "Appreciating music is a manifestationof the life of mankind."27 I now want to push Diffey's very Wittgensteinian languageto its limits: in appraisal,"we can only look to see what excellence is embodied in a work."We do not formalizeour findings and calculate the degree of excellence: we perceive excellence as a featureof the music, in the very same perceptualexperiencethroughwhich we perceive its rhythms,melodies, and even the meanings of the words being sung. WithArmed

It cannotbe denied thatMarcusvalues Armed Forces as an opportunityto reflect on the issues that gradually emerge as one comes to understandit, in short,for its cognitive import.But he also regardsit as an object of aesthetic interest: talking aboutArmedForces is no substitutefor experiencingit. I take it thatMarcuswants us, as readersof his analysis, to listen to the recording and to appraiseit, hearingit anew in light of his suggested interpretation.Yet there is no presumption that this aesthetic appraisalinvolves reflection on the music's conformity to general for standards such music. It will be objected that the receptive listening experience described by Marcus is a cognitive experience;the pleasureof the music dependson its communicating certain themes and its expressively commenting on those themes. In short, it will be arguedthat I have just admitted thatthe "aesthetic" appraisalof ArmedForces is really a "reading" its cognitive import. of In response, I do not see why an aesthetic interest excludes a cognitive interest.For I do not endorse two of the most common approachesto distinguishing aesthetic value from cognitive value. First, I do not believe thatthis is an interest in the music's transcultural transhistoriand cal formalpropertiesapartfrom the materialembodiment of that form. Second, I do not agree with Hebdige that an aesthetic appraisal of Armed Forces necessarily incorporatesan appeal to its artistic value, that is, an explicit or even implicit understandingof it as a work of art.25Relying on such an assumptionwould violate my working hypothesis that we can make sense of our desires and evaluationsconcerning rock without assumingthatrock music is art. I have now narrowedthe groundthatI can occupy in claiming thatthe aestheticvalue of rock is not equivalent to the cognitive purposes it serves. It is not a detachedinterestin pure struc-

210 Forces, we feel the tension in the interplayof the chipper melodies, the staccato punctuation of the percussion, and the dark, ugly mood of the stories Costello narrates: Kafkaby way of Abba. Finally, the American configuration offers the climactic release of the final song, "(What'sSo Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding." In the album's one burst of unmitigatedjoy, Costello eschews the ironyof BrinsleySchwarz's original version of the song. Its surging pulse and exuberantvocal are a burst of sunlight following the darkbile thathas come before.To say that we perceive the excellence embodied in the work is to say that it sounds right; one experiences the rightness of the album's sequencing; one feels how it fits.28 The fact that Armed Forces is the object of positive aesthetic appraisals-in which we take pleasure in the excellence we perceive in itdoes not yet indicate how valuable it is. In this respect my argument differs from that of Richard Shusterman, who provides the most spirited defense of rock music, to date, against the charge of "aesthetic poverty."29Although Shusterman follows Adorno and Horkheimer and castigates most popular music as prepackaged and "wearily familiar,"he argues that at least some rock music is "intensely absorbing" for its high degree of "aestheticquality."After dispensing with some common objections, he makes the positive case that "works of popular artdo in fact display the aestheticvalues its critics reserve exclusively for high art." Specifically, some rock music is aestheticallychallenging, possesses sophisticated and satisfying formal properties (including both unity and complexity), and displays aesthetic autonomy and resistance.30 Shusterman's argumentproves both too little and too much. Armed Forces might reflect the aesthetic values normallyreserved for high art, but it does not follow that it is as valuable as a work of high art. Nor does it follow that it is a work of high art.Workingfrom Dewey's notion of aesthetic experience, Shustermaninterprets "aesthetic quality"so broadlythatit has no essential connection to art. Thus the observationthat Armed Forces manifests a high degree of aesthetic qualityproves nothingaboutits value as a workof art,just as the aestheticmeritsof natural objects and environmentsare unrelatedto their status as works of art. While this consequence

The Journalof Aesthetics andArt Criticism does not trouble me, it undercutsShusterman's proof thatrapmusic is a genuineartform. On the other hand, by agreeing that he must meet the challengeto popularmusic on the terms set by its detractors,Shustermantries to prove too much.As he notes, the bulk of his defense of popular music is an attemptto show that such music meets standardsof excellence set by its critics. Yet he also counterscriticisms rooted in those standards arguingthat successful popuby lar music, particularlywithin the genre of hiphop, "is dedicatedto the defiantviolation of this compartmentalized,trivializing, and eviscerating view of art and the aesthetic."'31 short,he In argues that good popularmusic meets the standards of excellence recognized by traditional aesthetictheory,but it bettersatisfies anotherset of standards,inimical to those traditionalstandards.This position makes the aestheticvalue of popularmusic a mere accident; it is ratherlike preparinga sumptuousmeal and then finding, when challenged,thatit coincidentallyconforms to the standardsof nutritionthat its detractors have denied that it meets. Morerecently,Shusterman emphasizesthe argument that the best popularart is of value as a "defiantinfraction" traditionalaestheticstanof dards;rap's "eclectic cannibalismviolates high modernist conventions of aesthetic purity."32 Rap "warrants particular attentionby suggesting fruitfulways to rethinkthe very natureof art."33 Having promisedto satisfy elitist critics of popular art on their own terms, such argumentsbeg the question. I prefer to admit that it does not matter whetherrock music, or any othersort of popular art, sharesthe specific values of any sort of traditional art.34What mattersis whetherappreciating and evaluatingpopularartand fine artdisplay the same logic of value: what matters is that,amongotherthings,rock is appreciated and valued for its aestheticproperties.Whichproperties arepresentis not pertinentto our attemptsto determine their comparativevalue. The paintings of Jan Vermeer are valued for their restrainedbeauty,their narrativepower, and their allegorical subtlety.The paintingsof JamesMcNeil Whistler are not. It does not follow that Whistler's paintings are flawed, or not art (although his contemporariesoften thought so, as evidenced by his conflicts with John Ruskin). Nor would Whistler'spaintingsbe betterworks

Gracyk Valuingand EvaluatingPopular Music of artfor sharingthe same aestheticpropertiesas those of Vermeer.By analogy, it is largely irrelevant whetherArned Forces, hip-hop, or heavy metal possess the sorts of aestheticqualitiesthat are typical of greatworks of art.In appraisal,we try to come to grips with the music on its own terms, that is, as belonging to one musical tradition ratherthan another. Furthermore, aesthetic value is not the same thing as artisticvalue. Yet Shustermanseems to incorporate any meaning or value that might arise in relationto a song into the categoryof the aesthetic, as if that made a case for its value as art.3 Nor does artistrymake a thing art. There can be artistryin flower arranging,leading to arrangements considerableaesthetic value; I of do not conclude that my local florist creates works of art. Flower arrangingis a traditional form of artin Japan,but my local florist does not participatein that tradition.If we have learned anythingfromArthurDanto, it is thattwo things may be perceptuallyindistinguishable,but only one will be informedby the weight of tradition and theoryrequiredto make it a work of art. At the same time, we must be wary of the trap of supposing that only complex, challenging music is of real aestheticvalue. (Argumentsthat privilege classical music or that defend rock by highlightingits most complex cases seem overly reliant on such an assumption.) Simplicity and directnesscan also be of value, andwe find artistic achievement when such aesthetic qualities are embodied in appropriatemeans. The economy and simplicity of Ernest Hemingway's prose does not indicate a correspondingpoverty in Hemingway'sartistryor cognitive import. Early in the rock era, critic RobertChristgau remarked, "The reason rock has engendered such rhapsodicexcitement ... is not merely that it offers so much, emotionally and intellectually and physically,but thatit does not at first appear to do so."36 R.E.M.'s "EverybodyHurts" and Bob Dylan's "Knockin'On Heaven's Door" are directand simple. They do not paradeany structural complexity, yet they display a mastery of their means of expression. Furthermore,the combination of simple elements can take on a surprisingpower. Within the context of albums or compact disc sequencing, combinations or groupings of songs take on a complexity that cannot be predicted from their qualities when takenas individualsongs. On its own, Costello's

211

cover of "What'sSo Funny"is a blast of uncomplicated, feel-good rock and roll; in the context of Armed Forces, its roaring rejection of easy cynicism is deeply moving, largely in contrast with the bitterness of the self-described "emotional fascism" leading up to it. The virtues of simplicity are too often ignoredin aesthetics.
III. EVALUATING POPULAR MUSIC

My thirdpoint is that the aestheticdimensionof a appraising piece of rock music does not exhaust everythingrelevantin evaluatingit. Ratherobviously, one might value somethingimproperly by regardingit too highly ("JanisJoplin's performance of 'Ball and Chain' is the greatestblues singingever!")or dismissingit too quickly ("Rap is just a load of noise"). I have alreadynoted that Shusterman'spositive recommendationof hiphop relies as much on its oppositional stance as on the density and complexity of its best pieces. As such, an evaluationof hip-hopdemandsconsiderationof the degree to which it is properto value this stance.Similarly,some listenersmight agreeto everythingpositive said aboutCostello's Armed Forces, but might reject it as deeply flawed for what may be read as its racist and misogynist overtones.37So while value may be discovered during the activity of aesthetic appraisal-and to thatextentthe listenermay value the music as music-a favorable evaluation of rock must consider otherdimensions and multiple uses (andusers) of the music. In contrastto Shusterman,John Fiske argues that the value of most populartexts will not be elucidated by the strategies of "highbrowcriticism." Where Shustermanfocuses on popular music with a high degree of structural complexity (thusdismissing or simply ignoringless complex rock music), Fiske makes a case for the value of simple, even facile worksof popularart. A song like Tom Petty's "YouDon't Know How It Feels (To Be Me)" (1994) is simple to the point of cliche, minimizing the authorialuniqueness of the work. Because the "easy"texts of popular music free the audience from any concern with the singularityand creativityof the text, simple works of popularculture "allow for meaningful pertinenciesto be madebetweenthe specificities of everyday life and the ideological norms they embody."138 Fiske emphasizesthatpopularartcan be sim-

212 ple in structureand yet complex in its uses, as diverse listeners make diverse connections between its limited contentand theirown social relations.The audiencefor popularmusic does not treatthe music with psychical distance,disinterestedness, or respect;the music is "livedin"with of a selective focus, sometimesat the foreground experience and sometimes in the backgroundof other activities.39Thus, much of the audience for popular music may know the music of the song, but will only know the words to the chorus. (Think of the many casual listeners who hear"'Scuse me while I kiss this guy"when Jimi Hendrixsings "kiss the sky.") "Oliver'sArmy," the single from Armed Forces, qualifies neatly. It is Costello's best selling single, yet it is unlikely that most of those who danced to it in the clubs or sang along on the radiograspedthatthe title refers to Oliver Cromwelland the song as a whole explores the lingering effects of British militaryimperialismin the post-colonial period. Functionally,"Oliver'sArmy"works as a dance tune, and its melody and arrangementprovide pleasure to casual listeners who have no idea aboutCostello's intentions.For those who grasp the words, the result is an ironic tension. We do a serious disservice to rock when we concentrateon its most complex achievements; simplicity is no less an achievementthan structuraland semiotic complexity.ChadTaylor,guitaristfor the bandLive, identifies Neil Youngas his favorite guitar player. But Taylor's admiration is not directedat Young'svirtuosity:"He is so limited, but there'ssomethingbeautifulabout that kind of simplicity in rock & roll."40Rock embraces the near nonsense of "Wooly Bully" (Sam the Sham, 1965) and "TuttiFrutti"(Little Richard,1956), the direct sentimentsof "IWant To Hold Your Hand" (the Beatles, 1963) and "Delirious" (Prince, 1983), the gravity of "BridgeOver TroubledWater" (Simon and Garfunkel, 1970), and the complexity of montage constructionssuch as Uncle Meat (FrankZappa, 1969) and "Talkin'All That Jazz" (Stetsasonic, 1988). These "texts"of popularmusic are valued for a diversityof reasons, and it is a mistake to suppose that all rock is valuable in the same way (as, say, serious and complex aural constructs)or is used in the same ways by its diverse audiences. In accounting for the behaviors displayed by its fans (theirdesiringand valuing it),

The Journalof Aesthetics andArt Criticism the fundamental point is that people do value it. But they value differentperformers,songs, and recordings for different reasons, and the same ones for differentreasonson differentoccasions. Sometimesrock is valued in acts of aestheticappraisal. Sometimes its aesthetic value takes a back seat to its symbolic value. Recognizingthis diversity,the problemis to avoid evaluatingit by such as appealto a uniformandlimited standard, appraisal of the music's aesthetic dimension. Recognizingthe diversityof standards, questhe tion is whether these standardsare reasonable when consideredfrom an impartialperspective. My intuitionis thatthey generallyare. Earlier, it was claimed that evaluation involves an appeal to standards. When an evaluation involves a comparative judgmentof two objects of the same kind (e.g., that "Sympathyfor the Devil" is betterthan "JivingSister Fanny"), there must also be a reasonableexpectationthat the two will share commensurablevalues; that is, each of the pair can be judged accordingto the degree it possesses the same specifiable features. By far the most promising avenue for identifying such features is by identifying the object'sfunction.41 (This move requiresinspecting the object in light of a specific, fixed category.As Diffey observes, it precludesneitherthe development of new standards,nor taking aesthetic considerationsinto account when making a nonaestheticchoice.) However, it is doubtful that there is either a distinctiveor a unifying functionfor rockmusic. As PeterWicke notes,
Rock'n'roll also broke the conventional functional pattern of popular music forms. Before, popular music had mainly been based on dance and entertainment. Rock had a non-specific accompanying and backgroundfunctionfor all possible activities.42

Rock music has multiple functions, many of themunknownto the musiciansin advanceof the music's use. In other words, "it has a good beat and you can dance to it" does not exhaust the functions for evaluating rock; Jimi Hendrix's Haze"was poorlyreceived on American "Purple Bandstandin 1967 by a review panel of teenagers, yet it is one of rock's most sublime achievements. No one could have predictedin 1977 that Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop (ThinkingAbout

Gracyk Valuingand EvaluatingPopular Music Tomorrow)" would become a theme song of the 1992 presidential campaign. And who would have guessed, in the early years of MTV, that Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" (1984) would accompanya 1997 television commercialfor communications giantAT&Tin order to sell teleconferencingservicesto careerwomen with children?Even withina functionalcategory, such as dance, there is no privileged set of featuresthatwill fulfill thatfunction,for dance is itself a range of quite different things. Chuck Willis was the "Kingof the Stroll"in the 1950s, but his signaturetunes were not functionalif one wanted to dance the handjive or, in subsequent decades,do the twist or the hustleor breakdance. Many of the functions of rock are far less obvious thanprovidingbackground music or a certain sort of dance beat. Although it may appear thatthe adulationand hysteriaof the Beatles' female fans reflected prevailing gender expectations at the height of Beatlemania,in hindsight some of these fans have come to see their adolescent behavioras resistive ratherthan submissive. Behaviors such as declaringallegiance to a "favoriteBeatle" may appearto echo traditional genderexpectationsof paringwith one male; in reality,the young women were actuallyidentifying with the strengthand independenceof pop stars, in a way that they could not identify with theirmale peers.And the screaming,crying, and faintingthatfemale fans displayedin responseto concert and television appearanceswere at odds with the decorum and passivity expected of young ladies; by respondingto males who were safely out of reach, they found a way to act on sexual feelings that they were otherwise expected to deny. In short, the Beatles' music served multiple nonaestheticfunctions for their female fans, some of them distinct from the functions served for male fans.43 This is not to say thatall rock music is equally multifunctional.Greil Marcusrelates being in a bar in Hawaii in 1981: when Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone"came over the FM radio station carriedby the sound system,
feet began moving, conversationsdied. Everyone listened, and everyone looked a bit more alive when the last notes faded.It was a stunningmoment:irrefutable proof that "Like a Rolling Stone" cannot be used as Muzak.44

213 It is not particularlygood for dancing, either; what "Likea Rolling Stone"is mostly good for is listening. Marcus'sanecdoteis an importantreminderthat the appreciation rock music is, at of least some of the time, strikinglyof a piece with the listeningposturethoughtto be most appropriate for seriousmusic. Rock music is not always a backgroundto other activities. GordonGraham offers this descriptionof music's special characof ter: "music is the 'foregrounding' sound, the bringingto primaryattentionsound itself ... and auralexperiencebecomes the focus of interestin its own right."45 Rock fans often listen to their music as the focus of aural interest in its own right, and not because they have been trained underNew Criticism.In the case of music, it is not at all clear thatwe should accept Bourdieu's contention that aesthetic interest is due to the "routinizing" actionof academicinstitutions.46 So far, I have arguedthat individualpieces of rock are valuedfor theiraestheticdimensionand for the many functionsthey performin the context of everydaylife. In eithercase, they are subject to evaluation according to interpersonal standards.In these respects, the appraisaland evaluation of rock parallels the appraisal and evaluationof culturalartifactsthat have the status of high culture.But none of this yet speaksto the questionof how rockmusic faresas a general categoryof music.
IV. THE VALUE OF ROCK IN GENERAL

Music,like every art,exists in, and derivesits life from,a continuous culture.-RogerScruton47 Rock is often dismissed by critics who cannot be botheredto make comparativeevaluationsof individualinstances.RogerScruton,for instance, complainsthatR.E.M. and U2 representa musicdevoidof taste,in whichbeatis the popular and unifyingforce,andharmony melodyhaveatrophied. ... It will always be a sterile and life-negating

force,fromwhichnothing proceeds apart froma habit of distraction.48 Scrutondoes not even acknowledgethatR.E.M. and U2 are two of the most consistently excellent groupsworkingin popularmusic in the last two decades.

214 There is Allan Bloom's famous descriptionof the adolescentrock fan, engaged in a typical appreciativeactivity:
A pubescent child whose body throbs with orgasmic rhythms; whose feelings are made articulate into hymns of onanism or the killing of parents; whose ambition is to win fame and wealth in imitating the drag queen who makes the music.49

The Journalof Aesthetics andArt Criticism mones and their rallying cry, "Gabba Gabba Hey!" Goldman'sposition has the advantageof conforming to Zangwill's suggestion that we focus on the humanbehaviorsdirectedtowardart.Furthermore, his argument grants the central premise of my reply, which is the idea that developing a taste for rock (as one's preferred type of music listening) interfereswith developing a taste for classical music.54 In the words of Samuel Lipman, the "currentweakened condition"of the audiencefor classical music is due to several factors, chief among them "the destruction of classical-music education in elementary and secondaryschools ... [and]the calamitously largeavailabilityof meretriciouspop music."55 I am not aboutto deny thatclassical audiencesare grayingbecause childrencome of age in a world who might saturated with rockmusic. Individuals have been supportersof the classical repertoire are instead replacingtheir scratchedCreamand Led Zeppelin albumswith compact discs, while the next generation of listeners dances to the soundsof techno.Thatis to say, rock is a cultural rival to traditional high culture, replicating within itself a full hierarchyof tastes, from lowbrow to high-brow. But none of this yet makes the case that it is betterto have a taste for classical music thanfor rock. One can recognize their culturalcompetition for the heartsand minds of listenerswithout belittling rock. Two crucial steps must be introduced to get from the recognitionof competition to the conclusion thatrock's popularityis an unfortunatevictory by vulgar philistines.First, we must think that the two types of music fulfill at least some of the same functions (i.e., that they exemplify some commensurablevalues). Second, thatit makesbettersense to support classical music as our means to fulfilling those functions, all things considered. My earlier discussion of aesthetic appraisal goes a long way toward grantingthe first, so I will challenge the second. Even if rock and classical music are similar enough to serve parallel functions, particularly in rewardingan aesthetic interest,the very fact of theirrivalrysuggests thatthey constituterelatively independentmusical cultures.All of my discussion presumes that I have been talking about rock's value to appreciativelisteners, that is, listeners for whom rock sounds like a "natural"musical language.To listen from within a

Bloom believes thatrock "hasone appealonly, a barbaricappeal, to sexual desire."50Rock fans, lost in sexual fantasies, harm themselves in developing a taste for such music. But this is not a criticism that takes such behavior as senseless. Quitethe contrary!It claims to make sense of the rock fan's behavior in a way that Scruton'sdismissal does not. On this basis, Bloom is able to arguethat it would be betterif these music fans devoted themselves to Mozart,whose music has the power to make us "whole." Scruton and Bloom betray little interest in withinrock music. makingvalue discriminations Still, there is no inconsistency in discrediting rock while grantingthe validity of evaluations "internal"to the musical culture (of allowing that Costello's Armed Forces is better than his Goodbye Cruel World).One can know the value in developing a sense of humor while feeling sorryfor someone who only laughs at slapstick. Similarly, one might contend that it is good to learn to aesthetically appraisemusic but unfortunateif one wastes one's time on rock. I will focus on Alan H. Goldman'sversion of this position on rock.51 Arguing that "some tastes (and correlativelysome genres of art) are betterthanothers,"Goldmanconcurswith Scruton and Bloom that rock is the clear loser in comparison with classical music.52 Goldman evaluates kinds of art by examining the sort of responses they can elicit for the ideal listener.A genre or musical form's value is to be measured by looking at the experiences it offers ideal listeners. Generalizing from the value of experiences with individual instances when we consider "the total experience of the works," Goldman contends that those who appreciate Wagner and Mozart have "better taste" than those who prefer rock music. A better taste is a more mature, more discriminatingtaste. It favors rich, challenging works whose significance is "durable."53 much the worse for the RaSo

Gracyk Valuingand EvaluatingPopular Music paradigmis to adjustone's listening to the kind it of music heard,to understand with historically appropriate listening habits, and to listen imaginatively, with the expectations or imaginative to projections appropriate the style of music in question.56It is, in short,to belong to a specific musical culturedemandingdistinctculturalcapital.57 Listening to rock with understanding may demandless culturalcapitalthan listening to WagYet ner's Lohengrinwith understanding. spending a rewardinghour with rock music demands considerablymore culturalcapital than an hour playing jump rope or Go Fish. The situation is not that classical music yields its pleasuresonly to those who acquire the right cultural capital, with no culturalcapitalneeded to enjoy rock.No music is of aesthetic value except in light of appropriateculturalcapital. The phrasing,intonaand other aesthetic proption, instrumentation, erties of a musical performanceare meaningful only to those for whom such featuresmatter.As PatriciaHerzog puts it, musical meaning"exists in an intentionalspace createdby the critical or Music's evaluative interests of the listener."'58 aesthetic value is a function of its use by appropriatelyknowledgeablelisteners. The issue of rock's general value therefore turnson the questionof which culturalcapitalto acquire. Even Goldman's ideal listener must possess cultural capital. But since there are no standard principles underlying all evaluation, and since aesthetic properties are relative to taste, the ideal listener must be quite indifferent concerningwhich culturalcapitalto possess and what sort of taste to develop. Providedthat two musical traditionsoffer varying degrees of challenge and richness "of the perceptual,affective, and cognitive experience they afford,"59 there is no clear difference in their general value as objects for such activity. Provided one does agree with Scruton'sstrategyof stacking the deck by assumingthatonly harmonicallycomplex music can offer such experiences, rock appearsto satisfy the basic needs of the ideal listener. However, the debate about the general value of rock is not carried out among ideal listeners. It is waged by partial listeners. The aesthetic and cognitive rewards of experiencing a particular musical work are only two elements in the broad decision frameneeded to determinethe comparative value of two musical cultures. We must

215 considerfactorsthathave no directrelevancefor comparativeevaluationswithin a tradition.

V. VALUE AS REFLECTIVELY DEFENSIBLE

CHOICE; VALUE AS IMPORTANCE

Measuring value by appeal to an ideal listener ignores the broader sociocultural context in which choices are made. I have no quarrelwith the position that everyone should listen to rich, challengingmusic whose significanceis durable. Mozart's "Jupiter" symphony is of value under such an ideal. Yet nothing at all follows about rock music or aboutpeople who develop a preference for it, or at least nothing follows until we know a good deal moreaboutthe people in question. The final stage of my analysis relates these points to Elizabeth Anderson's distinction between something's value and its importanceto specific persons.60Value can be determinedimpersonally, as when an evaluation determines how well a thing meets standards the sort of for thing thatit is. When guidedby appropriate pnnciples, an evaluation can be grantedby anyone who grasps the standardsinvolved. Computer programsimpersonallyevaluate and rankapplicants for bank loans by crunchingnumbers.Humans can learnto gradeapples apartfrom liking apples. Not liking apples, I might recognize and yet be indifferentto the fact that the apples on sale at the marketare top qualityfruit.Similarly, I know music studentswho learnto analyze and evaluate the scores of Beethoven's piano music while remainingquite indifferentto such music. Evaluationignores questions of who is going to want the things being evaluated(whetherapples or music), whatthey will do with them, andwhat specific situation those persons will occupy when using them. So we have alreadyset the stage for a distinction between value and importance,reflecting the disparity between an impersonal sense of value (in which anyone can agree that a certain thing is of high value) and a personal sense (in which only some people find such things important). Not all valuable things can be equally importantto everyone. We must avoid the hasty inference from a work's being valuable to the conclusion that anyone who listens to music ought to value that music.61 Because different musics involve distinct culturalcapital, the best

216 music of the classical traditionneed not be importantto (or valued by) listeners immersed in anothertradition. Anderson rightly shifts the focus from the thing to the activity of valuing it: an individual's activity of valuing something is justified when doing so meets "atest of interpersonal reflective endorsabilityfrom a suitably impartialpoint of view."62It is not enough to have standardsor principles securing the interpersonaldimension of evaluation. We must also reflectively determine whether it makes sense for the individual to internalize those standardsand to value the things valued. I value ArmedForces. Ought I to value it? It is not the music that needs justification, but my activity of appreciativelistening. Anderson emphasizes that because individuals have "differenttalents, temperaments, interests, opportunities,and relationsto others,"different persons should "adoptor upholddifferent ideals" out of all those that make sense for various persons to adopt.63Let us grantthe value of professional sports. Given the demands of professional basketball,it can be shown that a particular athlete, such as Michael Jordan,is a superb basketball player. Jordan has skills that demandthe admiration those who see how he of contributesto the sport.However,given the concrete situation of her life, it makes little or no sense for a child growing up within a traditional Mayan family in ruralGuatemalato take a personal interestin eitherprofessionalbasketballor in Michael Jordan. Nobody supposes that she should find these things important,despite their very genuine value in accordancewith reasonable standards, she is not suitably situatedto for make any choices relatingto such evaluations. Similarly, standardsfor evaluating rock will only have importancefor those who have a personal investmentin the continuationof thatmusical culture. Many people possess the cultural capital to have rich musical experiences with rock, and insufficient culturalcapital to debate the relative merits of Wagner'sLohengrin and Mozart's"Jupiter" symphony.Critics like Scruton, Lipman,and Bloom fail to evaluatethe rock audiencefrom a suitablyimpartial point of view. Perhaps they confuse their own (quite reasonable) indifferenceto the value of rock with something else, namely rock's relative lack of value. But once we allow thatrockrewardsaestheticinor terest,thereis nothingirrational unreasonable

The Journalof Aesthetics andArt Criticism aboutits importanceto personssuitablysituated to take a personalinterestin it. The same holds for its lack of appealto others (e.g., Wagnerians and Guatemalan peasants).But is this ajustification of populartaste?Not in itself. The remaining step is to block attemptsto justify a taste culture in general. A standard only justified to the deis gree that it makes sense for specific persons to care aboutit, relativeto the actualcircumstances in which their decisions are situated. What remains is to decide whatjustifies a personal investmentin a specific musical culture. Any such justification must consider the circumstancesframingthe decision to listen regularly to a type of music. My sympathiesare with Will Kymlicka'sobservation:"it's only through having a rich and secure cultural structurethat
people can become aware ... of the options avail-

able to them, and intelligently examine their value."64But how often are individualsin a position to choose their musical tastes? Cultural choices always arise against an existing context of choice, and one's culturalheritageis the most basic such context. Options concerning taste generally arise after one has acquiredconsiderable cultural capital. While we may criticize a culture and wish for its improvement,and may criticize an individual'schoices withina culture, thereare seldom reasonsthatwould persuadean impartial judge to endorse a wholesale rejection of an individual's"home"culture.Like it or not, increasingnumbersof people occupy a cultural space dominatedby mass media andinteractions between previouslysegregatedculturesand subcultures. Their tastes are effortlessly informed by mass art and they are well situated to hear, use, appraise, and enjoy rock music. Rock, a polyglot product of that very situation, "naturally" meets the aesthetic and communicative needs of people who want music suitable for multiple,everydayuses in a consumerculture. Because they are committedto the superiority of classical music, rock's critics hold that rock fans should nonethelessinternalizethe values of classical music. As Peter Kivy argues, what is most significant about the classical traditionis the flowering of absolute music.65 Champions of classical music want people to transcendtheir ordinaryexpectationsaboutmusic and its role in everydaylife in orderto reapthe uniquerewards of absolute music. That is, they think it best for everyone to endorse the ideals of autonomous

Gracyk Valuingand EvaluatingPopular Music music and to join them in preferring music whose appealis "timeless,"transcultural, purely musical, and independentof the social situation of the audience. But it is not clear that everyone currently rewarded by the very real merits of popular music will reap an equivalent reward from absolutemusic. The process of acquiringa taste for such music (involving personalinvestment in a new and complex set of evaluative culstandards) flies in the face of contemporary ture.So it is hardlyobvious thatimpartial judges would routinely recommend acquisition of a taste for classical music on that basis. (Appealing to nonuniquerewardsdoes not help, for they are duplicatedby many othermusics.) The acquisition of a taste for the absolute music of the classical tradition remainsan option for many people, but more often as an auxiliary ratherthan as a primarysource of aesthetic reward.Impartial judges would hardlytake the literarymeritsof William Shakespeare, Alexander Pope, and JohnMilton as a reasonfor every college student to major in English literature.At best, a case could be made that everyone in the English-speaking world should have some acquaintance with those authors, if only to be aware of an importantelement of their cultural heritage. Likewise, we might urge some exposure to the instrumentalmusic of Mozart and Beethoven on educatedpersons.But this is a far stretchfrom concludingthateveryone shouldinvest in the culturalcapital that would lead them to preferthose authorsto currentauthorsor classical music to contemporary popularmusic. In sum, an individual's social, practical,and personalconcerns are not relevantto evaluating individualmusical works, but they are quite relevant to evaluating an individual's musical tastes. Music's aesthetic value emerges when one experiences it, yet its rewardsare only accessible to personswho possess appropriate culturalcapitaland to whom such music personally matters.Music's value is thereforea functionof the continuation of a musical culture. On this matter I am in agreement with Scruton: "Our aestheticpreferencesbecome valuesjust as soon as ... they become partof the attemptto create a place for ourselves in the world, and to situate ourselves among our fellows."66We part company on the question of whether the classical traditionis the only satisfactoryapproachto musically situating ourselves. The classical tradi-

217 tion that reigned from the eighteenth century until the dawn of the twentiethis no longer our "natural" musical language.67 Rock is a mass art whose very existence is predicatedon distribution to diverse audiences and across gaps of space and time. Although rock is not the only music that large numbersof people have an opto portunity know well, it is the nearlyubiquitous soundtrackto contemporaryconsumer culture. As such, rockhas a strongerclaim on contemporarytaste than classical. Unfortunately, ease the with which rock is enjoyed (reflectingampleopportunitiesto do so as well as the relative simplicity of the basic forms that must be understood) is misreadas rock's triviality. Argumentsthat champion classical music at the expense of rock are ultimatelycriticisms of popular taste, leaping from the real value of great music to the conclusion that everyone in our culture should value it. Such arguments downplay the degree to which the formationof taste is a function of the situationin which it is to be exercised. Yet elitist critics recognize that rock redirectsculturalenergy away from classical music. Unhappy that many of the musical achievementsof the past do not matterto large numbersof people, theircondescensionis tinged with resentment. But because our choice of in music involves knowledgeableparticipation a form of life, because rock music proparticular vides a vibrantmusical culturethatspeaksto the lived needs of its participants,and because an impartial judge would not advise most people to reordertheir lives to acquirethe culturalcapital that would make classical music significant to theirlives, for most people a tastefor rock music is perfectlyjustified. Yet because there are genuine normsfor distinguishingbetterfrom worse instances of rock, my argumentsdo not imply that all such music is equally good. Mutatis mutandis, I believe that the major points made in this essay can be generalizedto include many other kinds of popularart whose appraisal involves significant interest in aesthetic qualities.68
THEODORE GRACYK

Departmentof Philosophy MoorheadState University Moorhead,Minnesota56563

INTERNET: GRACYK@MHD1.MOORHEAD.MSUS.EDU

218
1. Ludwig Wittgenstein,Cultureand Value,ed. G. H. Von Wright, trans. Peter Winch (University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 73e. 2. Quoted in Michel Foucault and Pierre Boulez, "ContemporaryMusic and the Public,"in Perspectives on Musical Aesthetics, ed. John Rahn (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994), p. 85. From a conversation originally published in 1983. 3. It is not assumedherethattexts of "high"and "low"culture are different sorts of things; instead, it is assumed that "high"and "low"describe two poles of a continuumof culturalpractices. 4. Nick Zangwill, "Groundrules the Philosophyof Art," in Philosophy 70 (1995): 536. Intentionallyor not, Zangwill follows Wittgenstein'ssuggestion: "The word we ought to talk about is 'appreciated.'What does appreciationconsist in?" Ludwig Wittgenstein,Lectures and Conversationson Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief, ed. Cyril Barrett (Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1967), p. 7. 5. See Ronald Shusterman,"In Defense of Elitism,"Philosophy and Literature18 (1994): 242-252. As he puts it, "I love entertainment-but I do not feel so guilty aboutthe fact that I have to find a way of calling it art" (p. 247). 6. Contra Simon Frith, PerformingRites (HarvardUniversity Press, 1996). 7. As with othersortsof perception,this process is fallible: misperceptionis not uncommon. Such value has traditionally been called "intrinsicvalue,"butthis is not a particularly useful way of thinkingabout it. I am a noncognitivistabout the values that we perceive when we perceive good music; I think that such value is a culturally emergent and holistic featureof the music, dependenton the degree of understanding broughtto the listening experience.However,nothingin what follows hinges on my being able to justify these points. 8. ArmedForces is the only Elvis Costello albumto which Marsh gives five of five stars; see The New Rolling Stone Record Guide, eds. Dave Marsh and John Swenson (New York:RandomHouse/Rolling Stone Press, 1983), p. 115. 9. To this degree I agree with Gordon Grahamthat "the tunes Abba used to produce"are generally more pleasurable to hear than is Brahms'sViolin Concerto,but "thisdoes not make them better music." But when Grahamsays that the Brahmspiece is "a superiorpiece of music,"comparedwith Abba's "Dancing Queen," he offers an inappropriate comparison.A good concerto and a good song are very different sorts of things. Employing a more appropriatereference class, a song by Beethoven or Haydn is not so obviously superiorto a song by Elvis Costello or Lennonand McCartney. See GordonGraham,"TheValue of Music," TheJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism53 (1995): 141. 10. Stephen Davies nicely formulates the point: "The pleasureof appreciatingmusic is not some frisson to which the musical work standsmerelyas the cause or occasion, for, whereas such pleasure is indifferentto its cause, the pleasure of appreciatinga musical work ... is not indifferentto the individualityof its object." Stephen Davies, "The Evaluation of Music," in Whatis Music? An Introductionto the Philosophy of Music, ed. Philip Alperson (New York: Haven, 1987; Philadelphia:Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), p. 316. Perhapsit would be betterto speak of one's interest in the music, and how rewardingit is to appreciateit, with pleasureone aspect of that reward.See also Kendall L. Walton, "How Marvelous! Towarda Theory of

The Journalof Aesthetics andArt Criticism

Aesthetic Value," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 51 (1993): 499-5 10. 11. T. J. Diffey, The Republic of Art and Other Essays (New York: Peter Lang, 1991), chap. 12; originally published as "Evaluation Aesthetic Appraisals,"The British and Journal of Aesthetics 7 (1967). 12. Ibid., p. 185. 13. J. 0. Urmson, "On Grading," Mind 59 (1950): 145-169. 14. Diffey, p. 186. 15. Ibid., p. 193. 16. PeterKivy, "WhatMakesAestheticTermsAesthetic?" Philosophyand PhenomenologicalResearch36 (1975): 201. 17. Davies, "TheEvaluationof Music," pp. 314 and 316. Davies's position has had considerableinfluence on my descriptionof aesthetic interest. Some texts are highly unsuitablefor appraisal;althoughI extractinformationfrom telephonebooks on a regularbasis, I would not know how to go about appraisingone. Perhaps specialists in graphicdesign, betterable to consider them as the kind of thing that they are, appraisethem when they use them. 18. Although Diffey does not make the connection, the distinction between appraisaland evaluation has important parallels to Kant's distinctionbetween reflective and determinatejudgmentsin the thirdCritique. 19. Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1976), p. 258, and Ways of Worldmaking (Indianapolis:Hackett, 1978), pp. 57-70. 20. Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (London and New York:Methuen, 1979), p. 129. See also John Fiske, UnderstandingPopular Culture (London and New York:Routledge, 1989), chap. 6; for Fiske, as for Pierre Bourdieu, some of the pleasure is a jouissance of audience participation. ContrastFiske with Rose R. Subotnik,Developing Variations: Style and Ideology in Western Music (Universityof MinnesotaPress, 1991), p. 288; Subotnikcontends thatpopularmusic is valued as an expressionof the "general values"of Westernculturein the late twentiethcentury. 21. PierreBourdieu,Distinction:A Social Critiqueof the Judgementof Taste,trans.RichardNice (Harvard University Press, 1984), p. 5. 22. Roger Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music (Oxford: Clarendon,1997), pp. 239, 501-504. 23. Greil Marcus,Ranters and CrowdPleasers: Punk in Pop Music, 1977-1992 (New York:Doubleday, 1993), pp. 34-35. Since Scrutonregardsthe melodically sophisticated pop of Buddy Holly and the Beatles as differentin kind from the "dehumanizing" music of Nirvana, R.E.M., and U2, he might regardElvis Costello as likewise on the properside of "thedivide between popularand classical culture"(TheAestheticsof Music, p. 501). Since I do not wantto beg any questions by my choice of examples, I must note thatGreil Marcus practicesthe same mode of criticalanalysison music that Scrutonwould surely damn; e.g., discussions of the Clash, Gang of Four,and the Au Pairs are included in Rantersand CrowdPleasers. 24. Marcus,Rantersand CrowdPleasers, pp. 35-36. Contrastthis with anotherCostello record,GoodbyeCruel World (1984), in which an uneven collection of songs is ruinedby a series of cluttered arrangementsand weak vocal performances. 25. Since some worksof artdo not possess aestheticprop-

Gracyk Valuingand EvaluatingPopular Music

erties, aesthetic value will not explicate the value of every work of artas art; conceptualart makes it very clear that we are not going to get very far if we insist that all art is interesting for its aesthetic value. Nor am I persuadedby Malcolm Budd'sargument thatartisticvalue is the intrinsicvalue of the experiencea workoffers, where aestheticvalue is simply one way of realizing artistic value. Budd assumes but does not defend the thesis that there is an essence of artistic value. See Malcolm Budd, Valuesof Art: Pictures, Poetry, and Music (Londonand New York:Penguin, 1995), pp. 1-3. Two writerswho emphasize that art is not limited to objects with aesthetic propertiesare Timothy Binkley, "Piece: Contra Aesthetics," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 35 (1977): 265-277, and Arnold Berleant,Art and Engagement (TempleUniversityPress, 1991). 26. This position is very close to thatof Rose R. Subotnik: "whatthe public hears in [popular]music is what is always heard,not autonomousstructure the sensuous manifestabut tion of particular culturalvalues" (Developing Variations, p. 288). I do not endorse her position thatall popularmusic expresses the same "generalvalues"of Westernculture. 27. Wittgenstein, Cultureand Value, p. 70e. Goodman's subsumptionof aesthetic value undercognitive value strikes me as incorrect,therefore,for neglecting the rewardsof the experience valued simply as an experience, apartfrom any cognitive benefits that might accrue. Goodman'sanalysis of aesthetic value shifts the question to the general cognitive benefits of listening to music. 28. See Wittgenstein, Lectures and Conversations, pp. 5-8. 29. RichardShusterman,"Formand Funk:The Aesthetic Challengeof PopularArt,"TheBritishJournal of Aesthetics 31 (1991): 204. Subsequentreferences are to the expanded version of this essay in Shusterman,PragmatistAesthetics: Living Beauty, RethinkingArt (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1992), pp. 169-200. The rewrittenversion substitutes"shortcomings" for "poverty."I am in complete agreement with Shustermanthat aesthetic experience does not differentiate art from nonart,yet is centralto the point and value of art;I am making the furtherpoint that it is also centralto popular artthat we may not want to regardas full-blown art. 30. Richard Shusterman,Pragmatist Aesthetics, p. 200. Much of his positive argumentcomes in a lengthy analysis of the lyrics of a single example of popular music, Stetsasonic's "Talkin' ThatJazz"(1988); see Shusterman, All pp. 215-235. 31. Ibid., p. 212. 32. RichardShusterman,"ArtInfraction:Goodman,Rap, Pragmatism," AustralasianJournalof Philosophy73 (1995): 269 and 276. Reprintedin Art and Its Messages: Meaning, Morality, and Society, ed. Stephen Davies (Pennsylvania State UniversityPress, 1997), pp. 114-124. 33. RichardShusterman,"RapRemix: Pragmatism,Postmodernism,and OtherIssues in the House," CriticalInquiry 22 (1995): 151. 34. Thus the recent debate between Bruce Baugh and James 0. Youngis largelybeside the point;see Bruce Baugh, to "Prolegomena Any Aesthetics of Rock Music," TheJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism51 (1993): 23-29; James O. Young, "Between Rock and a HarpPlace," and reply by Baugh, "Musicfor the Youngat Heart,"TheJournal of Aesthetics andArt Criticism53 (1995): 78-83. See also Stephen Davies, "Rockversus Classical Music," in this issue.

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has 35. Shusterman more recently clarified his views; see Richard Shusterman,"The End of Aesthetic Experience," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 55 (1997): 29-41. 36. Robert Christgau,Any Old WayYouChoose It: Rock and Other Pop Music, 1967-1973 (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1973), p. 128; from an articleoriginallypublishedin 1970. 37. In character as songs' narrators,Costello uses the phrases "darkies"and "white nigger."See also Ren6e Cox, "A History of Music," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism48 (1990): 395-409. Cox explores her attraction to music of the Rolling Stones in the face of her awarenessthat it denigrateswomen. 38. Fiske, Understanding Popular Culture,p. 120. 39. Ibid., pp. 144-146. 40. Quoted in Robert Doerschuk, "Live: Topping Copper,"Musician 221 (April, 1997): 55. 41. As BarbaraHerrnsteinSmith argues, evaluationsof a work'sfunction(s)arecontingentuponassumptionsaboutan implicitly defined audience in implicitly defined circumstances. BarbaraHerrnsteinSmith, Contingencies of Value (HarvardUniversity Press, 1988), pp. 13-16. I returnto this point in my discussion of evaluatingrock in general. 42. PeterWicke, RockMusic: Culture, Aesthetics,and Sociology, trans.Rachel Fogg (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1990), p. 11. Shustermanmay be arguingfor the same point, as well. 43. See Lisa A. Lewis, GenderPolitics and MTV:Voicing the Difference (Temple University Press, 1990), pp. 152-155. Simon Frith proposes that three social functions are centralto the value of popularmusic: "in the creationof identity,in the managementof feelings, in the organization of time." Simon Frith, "Towardsan Aesthetic of Popular Music," in Music and Society: ThePolitics of Composition, Performance,and Reception,ed. RichardLeppertand Susan McClary (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1987), p. 144. 44. Marcus,Ranters & CrowdPleasers, p. 174. 45. Graham,"TheValue of Music," p. 151. 46. Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Darbel, The Love of Art: European Art Museums and their Public, trans. Caroline Beattie and Nick Merriman (Stanford University Press, 1990), p. 59. 47. Roger Scruton,"Notes on the Meaning of Music," in The Interpretation of Music: Philosophical Essays, ed. Michael Krausz(Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress, 1993), p. 201. 48. Roger Scruton,"The Eclipse of Listening,"The New Criterion15 (1996): 12; reprintedin TheFutureof the European Past, eds. Hilton Kramerand Roger Kimball(Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1997). The same complaint is recapitulated withinrock music, as when a writerwho admiresa good deal of rock music denigrates heavy metal bands: "Ratherthan promotingpersonal autonomy,they foster robotic automatons. ... Most metal music is abysmal,asinine, atrocious,and just plain awful."B. Lee Cooper,"Awarding 'A' Gradeto an Heavy Metal:A Review Essay,"Popular Music and Society 17, no. 3 (1993): 100. 49. Allan Bloom, The Closing of theAmericanMind(New York:Simon and Schuster,1987), p. 75. For a detailedreply, see Theodore Gracyk, Rhythmand Noise: An Aesthetics of Rock (Duke UniversityPress, 1996), chap. 5.

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50. Bloom, p. 73. 51. In largepart,I do so because I sharemoreassumptions with Goldmanthan with Scrutonand Bloom. For instance, I agree with Goldman that we cannot specify principles that mapobjective propertiesof musicalworksto the value of the resultantlistening experiences. 52. Alan H. Goldman, Aesthetic Value (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), pp. 30-31, 172-173; quotationfrom p. 172. 53. A parallel argumenthas been advanced by Herbert Gans. HerbertJ. Gans, Popular Cultureand High Culture: An Analysis and Evaluation of Taste (New York: Basic Books, 1974), pp. 125 and 171 n. 54. I accept this assumptionso long as it does not take the strongerform of holding that a taste for rock is incompatible with a taste for classical. Violin prodigyLeila Josefowicz has recordedBart6k'sSonatafor Solo Violin, yet she has a passion for the music of U2. But most people develop a taste for one kind of music at the expense of all others, a patternthat I will defend. 55. Samuel Lipman,Music and More: Essays 1975-1991 University Press, 1992), p. 17. (Northwestern 56. See Aaron Ridley, Music, Value, and the Passions (CornellUniversityPress, 1995),chap.3, andStephenDavies, Musical Meaningand Expression(CornellUniversityPress, 1994), chap. 7. 57. For a review of the relevant literature,see George H. Lewis, "Who Do You Love? The Dimensions of Musical 2nd ed., ed. Taste,"in Popular Music and Communication, James Lull (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1992), pp. 134-151. The notion of culturalcapitalstems fromBourdieu's Distinction;Bourdieulinks it to formaleducationand subsequentsocial status,but it can be broadlyunderstoodto be educationin and facility with the codes that permitindividuals to gain social status. Empirical studies regularly demonstratethat age is one of the surestindicatorsof musical preferencewithin popularmusic, suggesting that Bourdieu overestimatesthe importanceof formal education and that he makes too few distinctions within popular culture. Because such codes must also be acquired informally, in order to operate within subculturesthat have limited social status, we can also speak of subculturalcapital; see Sarah Thornton, Club Cultures: Music, Media, and Subcultural Capital (WesleyanUniversity Press, 1996). 58. PatriciaHerzog, "MusicCriticismand Musical Meaning," TheJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism53 (1995): of 300. Compare:"Ourinterpretation a work and our experience of its value are mutuallydependent ... simultaneously causing and validatingthemselves and causing and validatHermsteinSmith, Contingenciesof ing each other."Barbara to Value,pp. 10-11. Contrary Zangwill, it is not clear thatan

The Journalof Aesthetics andArt Criticism

is account of interpretation priorto, and the foundationfor, an accountof value. 59. Goldman,p. 150. 60. Elizabeth Anderson, Valuein Ethics and Economics (HarvardUniversity Press, 1993), pp. 7, 23, 48-49. Anderson's distinction parallels Kendall Walton's distinction between internal and externaljudgments of value, capturing the difference between evaluations that only make sense within a given institution (which team is better? which song?) andevaluationsof the institution(is it a good thingto have such an institution?);Walton, "How Marvelous!"pp. 500-504. 61. It is difficult to see what is prescribedin the prescriptive judgment that one ought not to like a certain type of music, unless it also prescribeschanging one's tastes. See Anita Silvers, "Aesthetic'Akrasia':On Disliking Good Art," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 31 (1972): 227-234. 62. ElizabethAnderson,"Repliesto Sturgeonand Piper," Ethics 106 (1996): 549. Appraisingmusic does not invoke so standards, appraisingmusic does not meanendorsingit as a vehicle for the appreciativeactivities of everyone else. As does not directlyinvite reflectionon ourstansuch, appraisal dards. In shifting the focus from a determinationof the work's value to a reasonablenessof valuing it, we can avoid a realist commitmentto the values perceived by knowledgeable listeners.For argumentsagainsta realistconstrualof values, see GilbertHarman,TheNatureof Morality(Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 4-7. Harman'sargumentis an expanded variant of Mackie's "argumentfrom queerness" againstvalues being "partof the fabricof the world."See J. L. Mackie, Ethics: InventingRight and Wrong(New York: PenguinBooks, 1977), pp. 38-42. 63. Anderson, Valuein Ethics, p. 7. and Culture 64. Will Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community, (Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1989), p. 165. 65. Peter Kivy, The Fine Art of Repetition:Essays in the Philosophy of Music (CambridgeUniversity Press, 1993), chaps. I and XIX, and Philosophies of Art:An Essay in Differences (CambridgeUniversity Press, 1997). With his emphasis on instrumentalmusic in the tonal traditionas paradigmatic of the best of "our"tradition,Scrutonwould seem to agree. 66. Scruton,TheAestheticsof Music, p. 370. the 67. See Lipman,Music and More, particularly introduction: "classical music today is in deep trouble"(p. 25), and Subotnik,Developing Variations, chap. 5. 68. I would like to thankKathleenHiggins for her helpful commentson a draftof this paper.