FEATURE:
Rolling Stones Gathering No Moss
PHOTO CREDIT: PNW Production/Pexels
Has Rock Become More About Aesthetics and the Personal and Less Political?
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ABOUT halfway through its run…
IN THIS PHOTO: Jacob Fortune-Lloyd (Jan) and Georgia Landers (Gillian/Magda) in Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll/PHOTO CREDIT: Manuel Harlan
at the Hampstead Theatre, Tom Stoppard’s play, Rock ‘n’ Roll, has led me to wonder about modern Rock music and whether it is politically engaged and purposeful. Before I come to that, and for anyone wanted to take in this new work of brilliance from the legendary Stoppard, here are some more details:
“1968: Russian tanks have rolled into Czechoslovakia, and Syd Barrett has been dumped by Pink Floyd. Jan, a visiting postgrad at Cambridge, breaks with his old professor Max, a Marxist philosopher, and heads home to Prague with his suitcase full of “socially negative music”. Rock ’n’ Roll covers the ensuing 21 years in the lives of three generations of Max’s family while Jan is caught in the spiral of dissidence in a Communist police state. But it’s a love story too - and then there’s the music…
Tom Stoppard returns to Hampstead after the triumphant revival of Hapgood (2015). Winner of eight Evening Standard, three Olivier and five Tony Awards, Stoppard’s plays include Leopoldstadt; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Arcadia.
Director Nina Raine also returns to Hampstead where her directing credits include her own play Tiger Country (2011 & 2014) and William Boyd’s Longing (2013).
“Triumphant! Rock ’n’ Roll is arguably Stoppard’s finest play.” The New York Times.
We are grateful to the Rock n Roll Giving Circle who have kindly supported this production:
Ken & Lin Craig
Melanie J. Johnson
David & Carole Warren”.
Tom Stoppard’s play is set in the past. A time when the intranational landscape was perhaps quite bleak. One that was seeing warfare, struggles, and civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated. So much turmoil and bloodshed that was dividing the world. One could say that Rock music of the time was more political and reactive. It was too early for Punk music, through there were artists of the late-1960s that were producing political music. The Rolling Stones did. Bob Dylan too. I will come to The Rolling Stones again in a minute. I think that there was this need for artists to speak about what was happening around them. This was not something new. Billie Holiday talking about lynching and oppression against the Black community in the 1950s. There did seem to be this movement in the 1960s where there was a rise of politically-minded artists. Although Folk and Pop had its representatives (such as The Beatles), I think Rock music was leading the way in that sense. Is that the case now?! It is an interesting question. Tom Stoppard, when speaking with Rolling Stone recently about his play, Rock ‘n’ Roll, asked whether modern Rock was as political or revolutionary as it could and should be:
“The last line of Rock ’n’ Roll is Esme exclaiming that she doesn’t care (“I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.”). It echoes a central concern of the play: whether or not music is genuinely political — and furthermore if musicians as figures of rebellion are actually political themselves or just want to be rock stars. In one off-hand scene, Jan explains why the police hate the Czech band The Plastic People of the Universe. It’s not because they oppose the official policy of the authoritarian state. What drives them crazy about the rock musicians is that they’re indifferent. “They’re not actually ideological, they just want to play their music and they don’t care about communism or anti-communism — they’re musicians, artists, pagans. The police resent them because they don’t care,” Stoppard explains, fully reclining on a sofa on an upper floor of the theatre, adding that, “This thing of ‘I don’t care, I don’t care.’ That is what every generation feels at a certain point.”
He may not be a rock star but in many ways Stoppard, who became an overnight success during the swinging 60s, is the Mick Jagger of theatre. He doesn’t look dissimilar for starters. In the years that followed, Stoppard was pictured in editorials with a shag haircut, snappy style and cigarette in hand, his love life was a hot topic in certain literary and media circles, and he was swiftly known for being prolific and immensely talented. Today, he is still best described as Daphne Merkin once did in the New York Times, looking “like a lounge lizard who reads Flaubert”. His plays are never simple: they’re impressive displays of discourse, a literary fight between science and philosophy, with characters typically existing to be a conduit for ideas rather than as part of human dramas in their own right. The likes of Arcadia and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead have been mainstays of A-level English courses, presumably picked for their brilliance in confusing teens across the country. Stoppard “matters”, Hermione Lee wrote in her 2020 biography of the man, “he will be remembered.”
Before writing for the stage, Stoppard was a freelance culture journalist, exchanging words for free nights out to plays and live music. One day, while he was working at a pop-culture title Scene Magazine, his colleague and future novelist Gordon Williams came into the office with black and white photographs of a little-known band called The Beatles. “It was like someone saying: ‘I have heard the future,’” Stoppard remembers. “Very shortly after that, one was listening to ‘Love Me Do’; before you knew where you were, it was ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and ‘Help’. Before I knew where I was, I was married and listening to ‘Hey Jude’ in my own house outside London near Maidenhead where my wife worked, living a more suburban life.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Matt Humphrey
Despite his passion for music, Stoppard doesn’t have a musical ear and says he usually discovers music through personal recommendations. For instance, Pink Floyd — whose music is also played in Rock ’n’ Roll, and whose members are also now personal contacts of his — became one of his favourite bands after two of his sons continually played them at home when they were younger. “I’m always a bit embarrassed about me and music because I don’t have a musical brain,” Stoppard admits, adding that the speed with which people recognise what a particular song is on University Challenge baffles him. “It’s an odd one because you’d think that if you love something a lot, it will be because you understand what it is. Conversely, you might think if you get to understand something really well, it makes you love it. So, it’s a reciprocal thing, like a loop. But it’s not like that with me. I genuinely love the things I love but I couldn’t hum them, I don’t understand. If I’m actually watching music, I’m staring at the guitarist’s fingers trying to see what’s happening and I never can. Everybody’s got one thing that they wish they’d done, and for me, that’s what it is. Even going into a pub, and there’s somebody banging out music on an upright in a corner in a bar, I feel so envious of the ability to do that.”
Of all his plays, it feels culturally fitting that this one should get a revival in 2023. The vast majority of mainstream rock music over the past decade has been created for aesthetics and feeling rather than for any real engagement with politics and culture. There’s the fact that one of Rock ’n’ Roll’s themes is that of moral exhibitionism: posturing and demonstrating moral superiority has never been more prevalent than in a social media age. But Stoppard says this play is happening now simply because he wanted it to have another life. “Constantly what one gets is ‘Can you explain why this is still relevant?’ And I don’t give a toss about it being relevant,” he says casually. “It’s not the point for me. Theatre is recreational, it takes all kinds of stuff.” Yes, the play is about politics but it’s also about being human, eroticism, time, the poet Sappho, philosophy. Besides, Stoppard just really loves his play”.
You can say that Rock music is alive and well. It is evolving all of the time, so anyone expecting the sort of music that was popular in the 1960s to exist now need to understand artists blend in other sounds and take Rock in new directions. Brands like Rock bands The Last Dinner Party, Nova Twins The Lanthums, and The Snuts are all successful and adding something fresh. Some suggest that the tide is turning. Whilst it is clear that Indie and Rock are seeing new artists enter the fray and make their mark, venues closing and labels being risk-averse, tied to the dominance of Pop and a particular sound being favoured, does mean that Rock music is not as visible or popular as it once was. I do wonder, as the world is more chaotic and frightening than it has been in decades, whether there is a new place and need for a Rock revolution where climate change, the genocide in Gaza and so many other issues needs to be addressed. I am thinking about the band The Rolling Stone and a well-known saying. A rolling stone gathers no moss is a proverb that was first credited to Publilius Syrus, who in his Sententiae states: "People who are always moving, with no roots in one place or another, avoid responsibilities and cares”. It can also mean people pay a price for being always on the move, in that they have no roots in a specific place. Does this apply to music?! Artists releasing new music so often. Always trying to cover new ground and evolve. That word, moss, almost makes me think of model Kate Moss. How there was a period when she was the epitome or Rock chic. A coolness where bands like The Libertines and Razorlight were in vogue.
That sense of being cool and fashionable. All about the aesthetics. Modern Rock is delivering some excellent bands who will stand the test of time. I do worry that there is more concern with a certain cool and look rather than the depth of music. It is commendable that they want to be personal and connect with their fans. Maybe too many songs that are either personal or quite generic. It is great bands such as Nova Twins can address racism and sexism through their music. Big themes are being tackled in Rock. I worry, as Tom Stoppard does, that Rock has tolled to a place that is less about politics and discuss what is happening in the wider world. Maybe bleak to talk about, this year especially should have been a moment where Rock and Hip-Hop artists released albums that addressed concerns. That is not to say that Rock artists lack substance and politics. In terms of imagery and Rock being about the aesthetics, articles like this write how that was the case decades ago. Also, in terms of market, maybe things are not that broad yet. Modern Rock bands are bringing in more young women and girls, though it is the Pop market that still dominates their listening time. In a bid to broaden their fanbase, are artists being selective and focusing more on the personal and less on the political?! That would suggest that women are disinterested in political music. This is patently not true! Rock music is still male-dominated and white. A narrow representation means that you will get a narrow representation of the world. Things are improving in terms of race and gender, though Rock music might not seem like a genre many women feel they are embraced, accepted or seen as equals. There is also this tussle between Rock music being fun and it being serious.
If it too fun, then it is seen as insubstantial and wasting opportunities to speak about something important. It is hard to discuss politics and hard topics when people are not gripped by the sound. At a time when people might want something uplifting, can you pair something like that with dark lyrics?! It is a hard balance that might be a reason why modern Rock is less politics. Baring all of this in mind, I still feel that there needs to be a breakthrough. I can appreciate that there are all sports of reasons why modern Rock is less political than in decades previous. At a time when so many people need to speak out against some pretty weighty and horrific things, the modern Rock climate does not seem to be as attuned to this desire as it should be. Look at many of the artists already tipped for success in 2024 and they are heavily Pop-based. Bands really not getting as much spotlight as they should. Does the industry, labels and venues need to do something?! Do we need more funding for venues so potential political heroes can play and hone their craft?! That is definitely true! It is a little disappointing in such a horrific year that there has not really been much of a Rock revolution. I know songs cannot change the world and reverse oppression and genocide (unfortunately). They can definitely speak to people and engage minds in a way politics cannot. Let’s hope that things change in that sense as we look ahead…
TO a more stable and brighter year.