Preface

Summary

Batteries of spotlights pick out the band in multi-coloured light against the darkness of the stage. The hall trembles under the thunderous noise of the fans. The singer steps up to the front of the stage. The music begins to the stamping rhythm of the drums … Scene change: the shadows of young people dance frenetically in the flickering lights of a discotheque. The noise level is deafening. Nothing disturbs their abandonment to the music. The energy which keeps their bodies moving seems inexhaustible … Scene change: a fourteen-year-old boy, eyes closed, wears the booming headphones of a stereo system. The walls around him are papered from top to bottom with posters and stickers. A record revolves on the turntable. Only a light rhythmical rocking of his upper body gives away his absorbed involvement in what is reaching him via connector and cable …

Rock music – who can fail to recognise these descriptions of young fans which are so inextricably bound up with it? But what is it that actually lies behind these descriptions? What does the fascination with this music, reflected in such scenes, consist of? What experience of reality is to be found in the music? What significance and what cultural values are locked up in the hammering, motoric rhythms and the often shrill sounds that are transmitted to a mass audience through the songs?