“Tell Everyone We’re Dead”: Underground Rock and Its Canon

Midwest Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology

MIDSEM, Columbus, Ohio, April 30, 2006.

This paper’s title is taken from a song by The Promise Ring.

Abstract

What separates the timeless from the forgotten? Joseph Kerman’s article “A Few Canonic Variations” (1983) suggests that canon formation occurs through musical discourse and not performance, emphasizing that “repertories are determined by performers, canons by critics.” Indeed, the common practice in popular music discourse of discussing canonical albums—glossed as “top influential albums” or “100 greatest albums” by critics—necessarily focuses on non-current music, requiring modes of distribution other than performance. Deluxe reissues of albums by record labels promote critical reevaluation, contributing to this discourse as well.

These practices parallel similar canon formation practices in Western art music (e.g., music encyclopedias, critical editions). In Lydia Goehr’s The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works (1992), canonization results in the ultimate temporal dislocation of musical works. The rock canon, comprised of music that is surrounded by extensive critical discourse, transcends the temporal specificities inherent in popular music. What do critics find transcendent about canonical rock music? How does the emergence of a canon function for underground rock (music distributed primarily through non-commercial radio stations and independent record stores)? This paper approaches these questions through the context of ethnographic work at a non-commercial radio station in Chicago.