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Music was an essential—probably the essential—art form of the 1960s. In a way that's hard for anyone who didn't live through the decade to grasp, music once reached deep into every facet of existence, from politics to fashion. It seemed destined to maintain a central role in people's lives forever. Rock 'n' roll was here to stay. Was its promise of eternal revolution one more false utopia? Today, music has retreated to life's interstices, as a form of theater, iPod solipsism, an occasion for nostalgia, or an arena for the uninhibited celebration of personal freedom (usually expressed in portrayals of some sexual act or other). What happened?

Uses Alex Ross's The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century to contemplate the American pop aesthetic, the popularity, or lack thereof, of modern classical music, & the notion that music was never more important as an art form than in the 1960s. Discussion begins with Arnold Schoenberg, who devised the twelve-tone system in the face of a post-Wagnerian assault on tonality & was the unwitting father of rampant serialism. American pop music, exemplified by George Gershwin & Irving Berlin, is briefly considered, drawing on Wilfrid Sheed who cites WWII as marking the collapse of that school. Jazz too had undergone a postwar transformation, embracing the emancipation of dissonance that had spurred Schoenberg to develop his twelve-tone system. Attention turns to the rise of rock-&-roll, addressing its impact on black-white relations in the US & how musicians of both races influenced each other's work. Further, the issue of baby boomer's clinging on to rock music, which was seen as youthful rebellion, is also considered as a way to examine the issue of why we, with all of our different musical tastes separating us, cannot accept our genres as all being music -- as Ross insists, music is music & a choice is not required -- & get along. However, Ross's solution is challenged on the basis of music's singular, social, cultural, & political importance in the 1960s. Rock's cultural significance is seen in its rejection of the emancipation of dissonance, in a sense, its conservatism. After warning that looking to the past too much in trying to navigate the future is a recipe for parody & sentimentality, a call is made for digging deeper into the Western tonal tradition, leading to remarks on melody, harmony, & scales. Modern classical music is seen as universal because its roots are nowhere, the American pop aesthetic is viewed as being rooted in the multiple American traditions, Western tonality, & the universality of the pentatonic scale. Music is seen as universal & elemental, capable of overcoming differences, & might one day be a single language that brings everyone together. D. Edelman