Rush, Rock Music, and the Middle Class: Dreaming in Middletown (Profiles in Popular Music)
by Christopher J. McDonald
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Book Summary Information
Author: Christopher J. McDonaldEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-11-02
ISBN: 0253221498
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Book Reviews of Rush, Rock Music, and the Middle Class: Dreaming in Middletown (Profiles in Popular Music)
Book Review: A rich and revealing treatment.
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is a high-level academic monograph, and thus some lay readers may find it difficult. But it is rich in ideas and well worth the read. The author's appreciation of Rush comes through clearly (he remains objective while not attempting to hide that he is a fan), and many of his insights into the band's work are fascinating. Moreover, through the excellent summaries of other scholars' theories about North American and middle-class culture, it has a lot of sociology to teach. Even readers who don't particularly like Rush can learn a lot about the place that "progressive rock" (a label the band itself never cared for, but the least objectionable one there is) occupies in music history, the role that the middle class has had in defining cultural tastes in twentieth-century North America, and the brand of individuality that many middle-class North Americans were reared upon. McDonald's examination of the Ayn Rand fiasco is particularly revealing about discursive differences between North America and Great Britain. (It explains why British critics took umbrage at Rush's particular expression of individualism, while most Americans saw it as nothing out of the ordinary.)
It was all the more gratifying for me, as a fan of Rush since 1981, to have Rush's devotees examined seriously as a "taste community." I hazard to say that many Rush fans will see themselves described in these pages. The elements that made Rush appeal to many - the fantasy-escapism, the fierce individualism, the interest in technology, the love of complex musicianship - is all put in a larger cultural context. This book not only taught me a lot of sociology, but helped me put my own tastes, and those of my class and generation, in a meaningful perspective.
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Summary of Rush, Rock Music, and the Middle Class: Dreaming in Middletown (Profiles in Popular Music)
Canadian progressive rock band Rush was the voice of the suburban middle class. In this book, Chris McDonald assesses the band's impact on popular music and its legacy for legions of fans. McDonald explores the ways in which Rush's critique of suburban life?and its strategies for escape?reflected middle-class aspirations and anxieties, while its performances manifested the dialectic in prog rock between discipline and austerity, and the desire for spectacle and excess. The band's reception reflected the internal struggles of the middle class over cultural status. Critics cavalierly dismissed, or apologetically praised, Rush's music for its middlebrow leanings. McDonald's wide-ranging musical and cultural analysis sheds light on one of the most successful and enduring rock bands of the 1970s and 1980s.
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