I Wanna Be Me: Rock Music and the Politics of Identity (Sound Matters)

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 292 pages
• Published by: Temple University Press October 2001
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1566399033
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1566399036
• Book Dimensions: 11.3 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Weighs: 14.9 ounces

From Library Journal
In this follow-up to Rhythm and Noise: An Aesthetics of Rock, Gracyk (philosophy, Minnesota State Univ., Moorhead) proves himself to be an extraordinary cognoscente of rock music. With his knowledgeable and well-presented arguments, he challenges readers to reconsider the stereotypes that many modern titans of cultural studies have slapped on rock music, e.g., that it isn't really music, that it is both sexist and racist, and that its commercial success and easy coziness with the corporate world clearly prove that it is naught but a Machiavellian scheme calculated to separate young fools from their (parents') money. To its great credit, this book also convincingly counters the charges of Timothy Taylor (among others) that Paul Simon's use of South African music and musicians in creating his lauded Graceland is blatant neocolonialist cultural exploitation. Gracyk's extensive evidence includes innumerable examples of African American "pure blues" musicians appropriating the bases of their classics (e.g., Leadbelly's "Goodnight Irene") from "white" rural sources. His credible conclusion? Such cultural blends are a natural and integral process that have always been central to pop music. This book belongs on the shelf of almost every academic library and will also be an outstanding asset to either popular music or cultural studies collections. Bill Piekarski, Angelicus Webdesign, Lackawanna, NY
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description
As someone who feels the emotional power of rock and who writes about it as an Art form, Theodore Gracyk has been praised for launching "plainspoken arguments destined to change the future of rock and roll," (Publishers Weekly). In I Wanna Be Me, his second book about the music he cares so much about, Gracyk grapples with the ways that rock shapeslimits and expandsour notions of who we can be in the world.

Gracyk sees rock as a mass art, open-ended and open to diverse (but not unlimited) interpretations. Recordings reach millions, drawing people together in communities of listeners who respond viscerally to its sound and intellectually to its messages. As an Art form that proclaims its emotional authenticity and resistance to convention, rock music constitutes part of the cultural apparatus from which individuals mold personal and political identities. Going to the heart of this relationship between the music's role in its performers' and fans' self-construction, Gracyk probes questions of gender and appropriation. How can a feminist be a Stones fan or a straight man enjoy the Indigo Girls? Does borrowing music that carries a "racial identity" always add up to exploitation, a charge leveled at Paul Simon's Graceland?

Ranging through forty years of rock History and offering a trove of anecdotes and examples, I Wanna Be Me, like Gracyk's earlier book, "should be cherished, and read, by rockers everywhere" (Salon). --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Reader Reviews
I was excited to read this book. I was lured into picking it up by the great photo of Ani DiFranco on the cover with her dreadlocks, acoustic guitar, and tribal tattoo across her chest, her whole face smiling with the power of the music. Looking through the book I found references to Tori Amos, Soundgarden, X, Frank Zappa, the Riot Grrl movement, The Who, Beastie Boys, The Clash, Peter Gabriel, Chili Peppers, Janis Joplin, Indigo Girls, etc. This and the chapter titles make the book sound like a good cultural analysis of music of the last few decades. Wrong. This entire book reeks of being some college professor's boring and dry dissertation, full of useless vocabulary words and condescending attitude. He should have called this book, "The Rolling Stones are the Best Band Ever, and Nobody Can Appreciate Music As Well as I Can." That would be more apt. The whole book seems not only to be an apportunity to show off his nomenclature, but to refute statements made by an Amiri Baraka, whom he spends several chapters arguing against. Who this person is, we don't know. It is likely a fellow professor whom he has a beef with. Further, I don't think this author can play a lick of music on any instrument, as none of his long-winded diatribes discuss the musicality of any of the songs. He doesn't answer any of the questions the blurb on the back of the book says he does. Here is one of his main conclusions: Feminist fans of the Rolling Stones must find a way to deal with the sexism in their music. Ooooooooh. Nobody figured that out 35 years ago. Here is another conclusion: Many rock and roll songs are constructed like a sexual encounter, that they build and build to a climax or a release. Wow, that's deep. Are guitars also phallic symbols, Theodore? This book is a waste of time, do not bother reading it. For some excellent analysis of Rock Music and the Politics of Identity, I recommend the following books. Mikal Gilmore-NIGHT BEAT: A Shadow History of Rock and Roll Paul Friedlander-ROCK AND ROLL: A Social History THE ROLLING STONE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF ROCK AND ROLL-Edited by Jim Miller I'll be selling my copy of I WANNA BE ME on Ebay soon. Comment | Permalink | (Report this)