The Triumph of Vulgarity: Rock Music in the Mirror of Romanticism by Robert Pattison (1987)

When I stumbled across Robert Pattison’s book, The Triumph of Vulgarity, I was intrigued, since I had often thought about the “rock n’ roll” sensibilities of Romantic poets such as Byron, Keats, Shelley, and (perhaps most widely acknowledged) Blake. Pattison’s lens of vulgarity, however, was an approach I had not thought of, but it seems viable.

Pattison introduces the notion of the vulgar (and establishes his Western vantage point) with a quote from Horace: “Odi profanum vulgos et arceo” (“I hate the vulgar mob and keep my distance”) (4). He proceeds to explain that, for Horace, and many others throughout history, “[e]verything common is profane” (4) and, therefore, only an enlightened and privileged (monetary and otherwise) few can attain the refinement necessary to escape the “vulgar mob.” “All men are born with the emptiness of vulgarity inside them; few ever fill the void,” attests Pattison, “‘The vulgar is the language of the people, the language ordinary men learn without education” (5). This mentality, according to him, has not changed with the advent of rock; the ideal values have merely been reversed: cultured, elitist = bad; acting on “base” emotions = good. Consequently, he argues, “Rock is the music of triumphant vulgarity” (9), a trait he contends it shares with Romantic ideology, particularly the concept of pantheism.

The notion of rock as “triumphant vulgarity” is compelling and seems natural. That it represents an extension of pantheistic thought, however, comes off a little more forced. The OED defines pantheism as “[a] belief or philosophical theory that God is immanent in or identical with the universe; the doctrine that God is everything and everything is God. Freq. with implications of nature worship or (in a weakened sense) love of nature.” Although such a notion that “worldly” things are good, possibly even divine, rather than a myriad of evil ploys of the devil and perpetual reminders of our “fall from grace,” seems to be somewhat consistent with rock n’ roll ideology, the “love of nature” seems to be a key difference which Pattison does not really address.

The Romantics, undoubtedly, were infatuated with wild, sublime nature, as illustrated by Wordsworth, who describes his younger self as a “worshipper of Nature” (153) in “Tintern Abbey.” Much rock music, however, is devoted to the city, and the “wildlife” shifts from the animals of the forest to the “party animals” in the nightclub or concert hall. This is especially evident in rock’s “odes” to cities, such as Kiss’ “Detroit Rock City” or “The Heart of Rock and Roll” by Huey Lewis and the News, which they, of course, locate in Cleveland, Ohio. These songs are in stark contrast with Romantic odes, which typically reflect upon Nature. While not all rock songs glorify the city (Think Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle” or “London Calling” by The Clash), urbanity seems to have the thematic focal point similar to that which nature holds for the Romantics (and seems to be reflected more in the music of “folk” artists such as Joni Mitchell or Michael Murphy).

While a love of nature may not be a focus of most rock music (although the trend seems to be changing - especially since the publication of Pattison’s book in 1987 - with increasing environmental concerns), the shift in aesthetic tastes accompanying the popularity of rock music over more classical forms seems to parallel those of the Romantic obsession with wilderness as juxtaposed with the desire for the more “tame” gardens characteristic of the Enlightenment (and most prior history as well, harkening back to the ideals of Eden or Arcadia). I was surprised that Pattison hardly delves into this area, as it seems to strengthen his argument of both rock and Romanticism as reflections of “triumphant vulgarity.”

Similarly, another area where it seems Pattison could have emphasized a correlation between rock and Romanticism more is the debate between the sublime and the beautiful. The sublime is something that is innate and evokes a strong emotional response, whereas beauty must be learned and, while it can still induce strong emotions, they tend to be more based on education and experience and, hence, less universal. Stemming from Kant and Burke, this is an area of concern to the Romantics, who often associate the sublime with nature. In this respect, it seems the wild, unbridled passion of rock n’ roll could conceivably be art’s attempt to approach the sublime, whereas more classical forms would be more evocative of the beautiful.

Interestingly, around the time rock n’ roll was being established in the mid-20^th century, there was a similar trend of the frenzied overtaking the conventional in the sciences with what came to be known as chaos theory or nonlinear dynamics. Chaos theory suggests that the previously accepted notions of Newtonian physics and Euclidian geometry were inadequate and that the natural world is much more “chaotic,” but with some underlying order. According to James Gleick, “Where chaos begins, classical science stops. For as long as the world has had physicists inquiring into the laws of nature, it has suffered a special ignorance about disorder in the atmosphere, in the turbulent sea, in the fluctuations of wildlife populations, in the oscillations of the heart and the brain. The irregular side of nature. (Chaos: Making a new Science, 3) Tom Stoppard, inspired by Gleick’s book, picks up on this metaphor in light of Romantic versus Enlightenment aesthetic tastes in his play, Arcadia, in which Valentine, the voice of modern science bridges the gap between science and art: “Then [with nonlinear dynamics] maths left the real world behind, just like modern art, really. Nature was classical, maths was suddenly Picassos. But now nature is having the last laugh. The freaky stuff is turning out to be the mathematics of the natural world” (45). In this regard, rock music (as well as jazz and blues, from which it stems) could be seen as “the music of the natural world” with all its baseness and imperfections intact, which would be regarded by classicists such as Horace (and certainly Adorno) as “freaky stuff.”

Ironically, however, the rise of rock as the music of the “natural” (or common) world is entirely dependent on technology such as electricity and recorded music. This is one of the many paradoxes which Pattison elucidates in his book, another being hostility toward wealth and fame while rock stars attain ample measures of each. He also addresses the frequent hostility toward rock music by Marxist critics, such as Theodor Adorno, who, it seems, should embrace music made and esteemed by the “common” people. Such oxymora, perhaps, are not inconsistent with the overall mentality of rock music, though. Pattison claims, “The vulgarian doesn’t care if his system is logically inconsistent” (170), and this, perhaps, is a good framework for reading The Triumph of Vulgarity, by no means without inconsistencies of its own. The thrust of Pattison’s argument is an investigation of rock music “in the mirror of Romanticism,” yet the poet on whom he most often bases his argument is America’s seminal bard Walt Whitman, not a “Romantic” poet at all. Additionally, he claims in the introduction it is “an American book, and those who believe the British invented or reinvented rock will find little comfort either here or in the facts” (x), yet he likely makes more reference to Brits, such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Clash, and The Sex Pistols, than Americans. And the book is certainly dated (23 years being over a third the lifetime of rock n’ roll, if you accept the ubiquitous date of its creation as July 6, 1954, the day Elvis cut his first record). However, Pattison makes some good observations and provides a different framework for looking at both rock and Romanticism, a pairing which seems to warrant more critical attention.