Grammy and Grandpa

THERE is an ironic appropriateness in the nickname of the Gramophone Awards that will be given out tomorrow night: the Grammies. First, there is the transparent crsatz casualness typical of that most transparently crsatz industry, the rock 'n' roll business. The name oozes bogus familiarity, a no-big-deal chumminess, as if millions of carefully watched dollars didn't stand or fall by the success of each nomination.

Second, more subliminally, there lies embedded within the semantics of the world the awful truth that there is something old and decaying, something like an aging seductress sagged beyond appeal, something grandmother-like, in the whole sick thing called rock 'n' roll.

"Rock 'n' roll will never die" is a phrase that has been on the lips of more than one rock singer over the course of the last 30 odd years, and it will probably prove true. But the future looks to hold something for more ominous than the death of rock 'n' roll: its preservation. Not preservation in youthful splendor, like Dorian Gray, but in arrested decay--never improving but merely slowed in its collapse to an infinitisimal slouch, like Joan Collins on collagen-fiber complex, showing remnants of past sexiness and vitality but long past the capacity for excercising them.

In its prime, rock 'n' roll was an active rebellion, a reaction to the staid, self-imposed limitations of an earlier era. It was youth made manifest. But neither youth nor rebellion can be sustained forever, the only fertile soil for revolution is oppression, and after the 30 permissive years of the rock 'n' roll era, the soil has been leached of grounds for uprising; only lame and stunted weeds can sprout in the once-rich humus.

So instead of phrases like "I hope I die before I get old" we have a slew of post-30 "artists" spewing out still more songs featuring permutations of the rhyme "fire" and "desire." But they're not the worst. Rock 'n' rollers don't have a pension plan; once they spend their money on drugs, they have to go out and earn some more, and even aging pop icons have the right to work.

THE worst are the visigoths of vapidity that have been catapulted by hypertrophied marketing corportations into the realm of the so-called cutting edge. The search for multi-million record sellers has truly created some strange monsters. Nothing in the cultural history of the Western world, for example, could be weirder than the spectacle of Michael Jackson, a man who has changed his race via countless operations on his face, singing "I'm looking at the man in the mirror/...I'm gonna make a change.." completely seriously. Not only is Michael Jackson a semi-human entity who makes the headlines of the Weekly World News seem downright normal; he is a hero for the youth of America. Think about it. A hero for the children of our country. The man who sleeps in an oxygen tent with monkey and the carcass of the Elephant Man.

True, after Michael Jackson, the rest of rock 'n' roll seems pretty healthy and well-adjusted. But not much. The band that Rolling Stone magazine recently declared as Number 1 in the land, U2, has been unanimously lionized in the media as the most socially-conscious band of our time. In an era in which humming for the Harmonic Convergence is considered an act of social awareness, a phrase such as "socially conscious" must necessarily be taken with a grain of salt. But even so, the phrase is obviously inapplicable to U2, since anyone who can discern a socially redeeming message in U2's incomprehensible lyrics should have a go at deciphering the Democratic candidates' platforms.

It's okay for adolescent fools like the punks in Harvard Square to waste their time in the fantasy world of mockrebellion. But rock 'n' roll has spread its marketing tentacles into the realm of the adult, and its insidious, insipid rhythms have reached into ads for expensive cars, frozen foods, and even dishwasher detergent. It is not rebellion against the establishment; it is the establishment. Youthful fantasy has become reality.

So next time you're watching TV with some friends and the Nike "Revolution" ad comes on without anyone raising a voice of protest, remember: you're not watching a sneaker commercial.

You're watching the death throes of a culture.