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Vol. 9
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Gary Kenton
Transmission and Transgression
The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll on Television
PETER LANG
New York • Bern • Berlin
Brussels • Vienna • Oxford • Warsaw
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kenton, Gary, author.
Title: Transmission and transgression: the history of rock ‘n’ roll on television / Gary Kenton.
Description: New York: Peter Lang, 2020.
Series: Visual communication vol. 9 | ISSN 2153-277X
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018028628 | ISBN 978-1-4331-5304-4 (hardback: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4331-5309-9 (paperback: alk. paper) | ISBN 978-1-4331-5310-5 (ebook pdf)
ISBN 978-1-4331-5311-2 (epub) | ISBN 978-1-4331-5312-9 (mobi)
Subjects: LCSH: Rock music on television.
Classification: LCC PN1992.8.M87 K46 | DDC 791.45/6578—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018028628 DOI 10.3726/b14573
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.
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About the author
Gary Kenton began his career as a rock journalist with Fusion and Creem magazines. He subsequently worked in public relations for Warner Bros., Island, and CBS Records, and would later teach students with disabilities. After receiving a master’s degree from Fordham University, he has taught communications at several universities. Some of his recent publications include “Insolent Networks: The Auto-Mated Social Life” in Confronting Technopoly and “‘Come See About Me’: Why the Baby Boomers Liked Stax but Loved Motown” in Baby Boomers and Popular Culture.
About the book
When MTV (Music Television channel) was established in 1981, an executive claimed that they had “integrated the most powerful forces in our two decades, TV and rock ‘n’ roll.” In fact, this problematic relationship began in the mid-1950s, when the advent of rock ‘n’ roll represented a musical and cultural revolution. The backlash against the music and the youth culture from which it emanated, described here as “rockaphobia,” was reflected in a process of adulteration, racism, and co-optation by television programmers, spearheaded by American Bandstand. This interplay between rock ‘n’ roll and television played a significant role in alienating baby boomers from the mainstream, motivating them to create their own countercultural identity. This social migration helped to delineate the boundaries that would be identified in the 1960s as the generation gap.
Transmission and Transgression uses an interdisciplinary approach informed by media ecology, the theoretical framework which recognizes that each communication technology, or medium, creates its own unique environment, independent of content. This analysis allows the author to identify inherent technological and sensory incompatibilities between the medium of television and the cultural practice of rock ‘n’ roll, and to place these tensions within the broader shift of physiological emphasis from the traditional, tribal world dominated by the ear to the modern world which privileges the eye. Even in its remediated, diluted form, rock music has occupied a significant niche on television, and this book is the most comprehensive summary, celebration, and analysis of that history.
“Jean Baudrillard rubs shoulders with Soupy Sales in Gary Kenton’s encyclopedic history and indictment of television’s emasculation of rock ‘n’ roll. Anyone who rushed home from school to watch American Bandstand, stayed up late to catch Midnight Special, or glommed onto MTV will revisit old memories in Transmission and Transgression, find new food for thought, and discover the missing link between Alan Freed and Andy Warhol.” —Ken Emerson, author of Always Magic in the Air
“This book is a superb, welcomed examination of the interrelationship between these two defining media of the boomer generation, but with emphasis on how popular music has impacted the boomers in a more pronounced and profound way than television ever did.” —Thom Gencarelli, co-editor of Baby Boomers and Popular Culture
“Gary Kenton combines a rock journalist’s know-how with scholarly erudition in this engrossing study of the intersection of television and rock ‘n’ roll. ... Transmission and Transgression is a pioneering work of media ecology for anyone wanting to understand rock ‘n’ roll through the lens of the often-disapproving television camera.” —Parke Puterbaugh, author of Phish: The Biography
This eBook can be cited
This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.
This book is dedicated to:
Laura R. Linder
Donna M. Kenton
Malcolm M. Kenton
and Lucille Goldman←v | vi→ ←vi | vii→
chapter
Table of Contents
Chapter One: The Music and the Audience