Reagan Rock and The Cold War.

luka

Well-known member
A particular strain of American rock music which is peculiar to the Cold War. Overblown, belligerent, sweaty without being dirty, a kind of stage sweat. Not sexual.

a counterpart to Soviet noble prole propaganda posters. Muscular. Virile. Stanley Kowalski types with big hair. The dignity of work.

The average American man seemed to think of himself as a combatant, a Cold Warrior.

Barty has suggested alt right politics and trump are a substitute for rock music and it doesn't seem too far fetched to imagine a counterpart to Reagan rock emerging from the Trump era.
 

luka

Well-known member
Eye of the Tiger.

This couldn't possibly have survived the Cold War. It's completely endemic to that period. the propaganda effort. The sense of what it meant to be American.

For a long time all of this was completely beyond the pale for me. It seemed unsalvageable. Ugly. Completely stupid. Regressive. But at a certain point in time something changed and I was able to enjoy it. The ridiculousness of it is it's saving grace. And the hookiness of it.

But I'm not suggesting we debate it's aesthetic merits. Just pointing out the oddness of it and of that time and the parralells between '80s America and today.

Trump's heyday was the '80s presumably?
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
there's that body building aesthetic i'd associate with this stuff. "push it to the limit" speaks to that iron pumping mentality; give me another one, rep till failure.

 

luka

Well-known member
Muscles are part of the militarisation of society. Martial values infiltrating civilian life.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
that hollywood connection. regan himself a creature of hollywood. the two picks so far are both from film soundtracks. arnie and stallone.

propoganda.
 

luka

Well-known member
Part of the reason I started the thread I can't actually think of any good examples it's not my area of expertise
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
that's a very interesting case study in how a soundsworld has its own power completely divorced from intent. bruce can say as much as possible that its a protest song and all that, but at the end of the day a song with that much compression and such big drums can be nothing but an anthem of american exceptionalism.
 

luka

Well-known member
that's a very interesting case study in how a soundsworld has its own power completely divorced from intent. bruce can say as much as possible that its a protest song and all that, but at the end of the day a song with that much compression and such big drums can be nothing but an anthem of american exceptionalism.

Absolutely.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
The opposite of a counter culture. Basically an arm of the government.

the right wing in the states is different from the uk in that it is very much antagonistic to "the man". our conservative party seek to conserve institutions and so forth, whereas republicans (even the name has an anti-autheritarian edge to it) are about the individual and so forth.

reagan rock takes the sonic cues to sticking it to the man developed by counter culture (hendrix et al) and simply redifines who the man is; the soviet union.

with the 'nato left' we were talking about the other day you get that too. nick cohen or christopher hitches see toppling sadam as sticking it to the man.
 
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