The Rock Music Imagination

(Hardback)

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The Rock Music Imagination is an exploration of rock artists in their social and artistic contexts, particularly between 1964 and 1980, and of rock music in relation to literature, i.e. creative expression, fantastic imagination, and contemporary fiction about rock. Robert McParland analyzes how rock music touches our imaginative lives by looking at themes that often appear in classic rock music: freedom and liberation, utopia/dystopia, community, rebellion, the outsider, the quest for transcendence, monstrosity, erotic/spiritual love, imaginative vision, and mystery. The Rock Music Imagination examines how the sixties were a pivotal point in rock music history, recognizing the imagination and creativity of blues and jazz artists, folk-rock and hard-rock musicians, female rock musicians, and progressive rock creators. McParland explores blues imagination, countercultural dreams of utopia, rocks critiques of society and images of dystopia, rocks inheritance from romanticism, science fiction and mythic imagination in progressive rock, and rocks global reach and potential to provide hope and humanitarian assistance.

Reviews

The Rock Music Imagination takes on a huge and sprawling topicand doesnt disappoint. McParland maps out the diverse and often complex terrain of the rock music imagination during its height of creativity from 1964-1980. Drawing on multiple theories concerning the creative process, he cuts a path through blues and psychedelic rock, folk rock and prog rock, utopian and dystopian imaginings, science fiction meanderings and humanitarian appeals, and more. It is an ambitious undertaking that not only succeeds but also suggests further lines of inquiry to the serious student of rock music. -- Thomas Kitts, Co-editor of Popular Music and Society and Rock Music Studies
Robert McParlands The Rock Music Imagination explores the roles of creativity, imagination, and emotional expression in the era of classic rock in a manner that is rewarding for the indoctrinated fan and accessible for the uninitiated reader. For those familiar with the subjects, McParland presents novel readings, interpretations, and connections between the popular and less popular, the creative process (produced from within the established commercial recording industry), and literature and related arts. For the newer fan of classic rock music, The Rock Music Imagination provides a primer of introduction that eschews linear and temporal timelines, scenes, and surface relations in favor of creative and imaginative connections between otherwise disconnected artists. Far from the repetitive playlists of classic rock format radio, McParland rescues classic rocks creative influence from the banality of one or two representative songs by nostalgia acts in favor of a web-like analysis of innovators and innovation in one of popular musics greatest golden eras. -- Colin Helb, Elizabethtown College

Author Bio

Robert McParland is professor of English at Felician University.