'The Inverted Order of Rock and Roll': A Response (from a metalhead)

Now as you can probably tell, my music taste lies towards rock/metal. This is mainly because rock was what I grew up around, as well as it resonating with me more. Probably the main reason is that it sustains interest for me; I tend to find the mainstream lacking in emotion and experimentation - rock and metal can, when done right, offer those things to a good extent.

Earlier in the week I came across an article by someone called Jacob Michael titled The Inverted Order of Rock and Roll, on the subject of rock music. I am writing this dispatch to give my thoughts on the article, which I'll give a link to at the end. (Note that I won't look at everything here, just parts I can pick out).

Firstly I would like to inquire into 'Inverted Order'. What order? Is music suddenly expected to follow a series of instructions? No it is not. The language of sounds knows no barriers, and the way I see it, much of the most interesting music takes the so-called 'rules' and says 'screw this!'. There is no order in music; at least no overall one.

Secondly, why 'rock'? Why not zone into a particular sub-genre? Rock is a broad category with a range of forms. It seems absurd to lump it into one mixture.

Now let's get our teeth into this article more. We open with:

"I am going to depart from what is normally understood as "good sense" here in my opening statement and do something that writers are not usually supposed to do: I am going to admit that I am not thoroughly, 100% convinced of my own thesis."

Nice to see he is honest here, but it does bother me Michael would the proceed to make an entire article on it if he wasn't 100% sure. Then again, it's not clear on the exact percentage, so perhaps he is almost sure. Who knows! :D

"As I indicated in my last article on the subject of rock music, there are many, many reasons which converged in my mind and ultimately led me to purge my home of "the Devil's music."

I presume we're referring to rock here. Damn - never knew Radiohead was Satan spawn.

"I most certainly hold that, while the style itself may not be intrinsically evil, it is certainly an inferior form of music which tends toward musical disorder.

Ah yes, enslaved elitism. Inferiority is subjective, non? And let's say it were not - superiority would likely be judged on a genre's ability to branch out and experiment (take Primus for example, or perhaps Magma, Ween, Mr Bungle), as well as the size of its fanbase. Rock ticks both of these boxes well.

"My hesitancy to condemn the style outright stems mostly from the fact that the style is hard to pin down and define.  There are many, many forms of rock, and some styles that I may classify as "rock" may not be considered as such by others.  There is metal, punk, grunge, hip-hop, rap-rock, alternative rock, pop-rock, folk rock, classic rock, oldies rock, and on and on it goes.  So what makes a particular style classifiable as "rock?"  Certainly Rage Against the Machine is to be considered rock music, but what about Elvis?  Or the Everly Brothers?  Or, to bring us more into modern times, what about Celine Dion, Jewel, Dave Matthews, Usher, or Avril Lavigne?  What about bands who are bringing the "swing" style back into the popular mainstream?"

This raises a point: rock is too diverse to pin down as one entity. By the way, I would
definitely not classify hip-hop as rock.

"I really think what makes rock 'n' roll is a combination of one or more of these elements: the rhythm, the predominant drum beat, the syncopation, the artist involved, the lyrics, and most importantly, what I can only describe as a "rock culture" that pervades this style of music.  It's tough to put your finger on, but there is definitely a spirit of rebellion, or of unbridled liberty, or even of despair that inhabits this style."

Sound definition; it can be put a little better: If it sounds like it can be played by a band having fun on stage, then I'd likely count it as rock.

"Allow me, then, to go down a bit of a rabbit trail here and introduce you to some basic musical training.  Music is extremely ordered; any good student of music will tell you that it is heavily based on mathematics (believe it or not!), which is itself a very structured system.  There are rules to be followed in the process of creating music, and yet, as with all structured systems, there is flexibility.  Some of the rules can be bent.  Some can be broken, if only momentarily.  These occasional deviations add flavor to the composition, but if the exceptions become the rule, you end up with something that is – to borrow some post-conciliar terminology – not "authentic" and "fully" proper to the "inherent dignity" of music."

I can confirm that music is heavily reliant on those, but would I call them rules? Not really. They are but ways to make a song better. To make it more interesting. But they don't have to be followed as such. The article then proceeds to go on a tangent of musical structure, which is a nice addition, so good on him for that. But then we come back to 'b-b-but nAtUrAl oRdEr':

"Now, in a meter like this (which is called 4/4, by the way), there are natural accents.  You may not think of them consciously, but you subconsciously follow these accents, which naturally fall on the first and third beat.  If you were to stop reading for a moment and sing the opening lines to Hail, Holy Queen, you would probably feel those accents: Hail ho-ly queen en-throned a-bove, O Ma-ri-a.

What rock and roll music does to this meter, however, is an inversion of order.  Most rock songs place the heavy drum beat, not on the first and third beats, but on the second and fourth beats.  This inversion creates a continual and unnatural tension in the music, a tension that lasts through the entire song.  Almost everyone knows the rock-anthem by Queen entitled We Will Rock You, even if they've never heard of Queen; the rhythm gets pounded out at some point at nearly every baseball, football, basketball, or hockey game.  You remember it?  Boom-boom-CLAP!  Boom-boom-CLAP!  This is a perfect example of placing the accent on the unnatural beat: one-and TWO, three-and FOUR."

Not wrong, but I don’t see this as unnatural at all. Also, I wouldn't compare vocals with drums: most vocals in rock, as far as I know, followed the accents on the first and third beat as well (not that it matters).

"Already, then, rock and roll is founded upon an inversion of natural order; and as I've said before, a good Catholic ought to be very keen about preserving right order in all things.  Inversion is, it must be said, the calling card of Lucifer.  Everything is inverted in his upside-down world."

?

Well, you heard it hear first guys. Accent the second and fourth beats, and you are in league with the devil. The more you know :P

This doesn't even do anything. What effect does this even have? No negative consequences whatsoever in my opinion.

"Rock and roll also presents us with another inversion of order.  In order to have something that can be properly called "music," you absolutely must have a melody, and in order for that melody to keep moving, you must have rhythm as the undercurrent of the melody.  It is quite literally impossible to have a melody without also having rhythm.  This is the proper order within music: rhythm is the servant of melody."

Not necessarily - although admittedly it helps. Music - in its simplest definition - is simply a collection of sounds. Melody certainly helps as pointed out, but is not required as such.

Rock and roll, however, places heavy emphasis on the rhythm instead of the melody, so much so that in some cases melody can be sacrificed entirely and still be sold on the market as a "song."

Funnily enough, I've only ever seen one example of this, and it wasn't even intended to be or released as a single. I presume it was just a filler track. Thankfully we are given an example, however...

"There is currently a song on the top 40 by a group called D12, which features verses that are entirely spoken over a constant beat, with no melody whatsoever.  Not only is this being called "music," it is wildly popular music (it's in the number two slot on Billboard this week)!  So here again, we have an entirely inverted system of order that serves as the foundation for this style of music."

...the example given isn't rock - it's rap! And even so, rap still uses melody - just not in the traditional sense. It's called flow. Here is a good example. Thus, this argument falls apart.

Now back to my question earlier as to what effect it would have. This gets answered:

"I am a firm believer (as every Catholic should be) that body and soul are very much interrelated.  When the body is suffering, perhaps from some kind of illness or the like, the soul suffers with it.  I don't know about you, but I find it very hard to be "spiritual," to pray, to worship, etc., when I've got the flu.  Grace builds upon nature, and if nature is not functioning properly, the flow of grace will be hindered.  I learned this lesson in a most powerful way when I went to my spiritual director, complaining of a "hit-and-miss" devotional life, and his firm advice was to set myself a daily routine and stick to it.  I had no order in my day-to-day life at the time, and as a result, my spiritual life followed suit; just as I rarely went to bed at night or got up in the morning at consistent times during the week, so also did I rarely pray consistently during the week.  Once I put my physical life back in order, the spiritual life naturally followed suit.

This being the case, let's return to the question: what will be the effect on your spiritual life if your daily routine involves three-to-four hours of listening to music that is, on the whole and in more ways than one, built upon an inversion of order?  The negative effects may be slow in coming, and they may be barely imperceptible, but I am convinced that they are there.  These effects are only intensified when this wrongly-ordered music is coupled with lyrics that subtly provide you with a thorough catechesis in worldly thinking.  I will talk more about this side of rock and roll in the next installment."

As someone who ACTUALLY DOES listen to it, let me tell you that it has no negative impact. If anything, it has a rather positive impact if you're a fan - it allows you to release emotions without inflicting them on others. It won't be the same for everyone, and I respect that.

Also I need to find these other installments, so I can give them a look-in. Michael proceeds to give his opinion on rock's quality, in comparison to his preferred genre, classical.

"Have you ever listened to a stirring aria from an opera?  Listen to one sometime, and take note of what the orchestra is doing.  The music is all over the map!  The strings are zig-zagging in one direction, the woodwinds are meandering in another direction, and the brass is popping in and out with occasional musical exclamation marks.  Subconsciously, your brain is following all of that well-ordered motion, which means your brain is in high-gear.  You're getting an intellectual workout, and you don't even realize it!  Add to this the fact that the emotion of the composer is transmitted to you through the music, which usually means you will, to some extent, absorb that emotion and make it your own.  This is why, if you need energy, you should crank up a rousing Sousa march; alternatively, if you need to wind down and relax, you should put in a reflective Bach air. Sousa's energy becomes your energy; Bach's contemplation becomes your own contemplation."

Now I agree that classical music is built really well. While it is not my preference, no doubt are many of the composers talented. Let's be honest, you have to be if you're gonna write good classical music. A good description, so good on him for that. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for description on rock...

"Now apply these principles to rock and roll.  Where the opera aria features a constantly-moving accompaniment that functions independently of the vocalist, rock music usually features (on a good day) four or five chords, each one sustained for long periods of time before moving to the next chord in the progression."

A generalisation. Predominantly rock tends to revolve around riffs (perhaps I am focusing too much on what I listen here), which do not fit that description.

"The bass guitar tends to just drone the same note over and over."

Has this guy actually...listened to rock? Do Primus do this? RHCP? Megadeth? You mentioned RATM earlier - what about them? I could throw countless examples that disprove this.

By this point I completely give up on the article. The amount of elitism on display really does get on my nerves! It's a shame really, because I have just the rock band for him and those who agree with him - Godspeed You Black Emperor. GY!BE is post-rock, which puts a bigger focus on overall atmosphere. He'd probably like them.

If there's one thing this article shows, it is that elitism sucks. But judge for yourselves.