9 - Postscript: ‘The Times They Are A-Changing’

Summary

At the end of this overview of the contexts in which rock music has formed and developed into a multiplicity of styles it only remains to draw some sort of conclusion.

My starting-point was the premise that rock music produces new experiences in art, that, within the framework of a highgrade, technology-dependent mass culture, a totally altered relationship between art producer and recipient has asserted itself; that everyday life and creativity, art and media have been brought together in a new context. I have attempted to trace these developments in rock music, considering them from different standpoints and in relation to different aspects. But is that all there is to be found? Is there not also a cultural and political potential concealed in these processes, one which points beyond the horizon of our current plight, one which allows us to recognise political prospects which await us in spite of the constructed experiences and disillusionment over their fulfilment which have taken place?

There is no doubt that the illusions which once assigned to rock music the power to undermine social relations, to explode them and to build a more human, a ‘better’ world in their place have long since faded away. Such a world would in any case have been one of unrestrained masculinity; one which would not even have offered ideals for the other half of humanity, women. The role of women in rock culture was always modelled on the cliches of pubescent male adolescents.