FEVER:
HOW ROCK'N'ROLL TRANSFORMED
GENDER IN AMERICA
by Tim Riley
St. Martin's Press/Picador USA
June 2005
PRAISE FOR "FEVER": Tim Riley's FEVER combines brainy and audacious cultural analysis with genuine musical understanding -- a combination rare enough to inspire exhilaration. -- Tim Page, author of THE GLENN GOULD READER Mr. Riley is the author of Tell Me Why, which I think is the best book yet written about Beatles songs... In this new book, he goes beyond his unique fusion of technical musical knowledge and stunningly perceptive emotional exegesis of lyrics to a wider-angled social vision that focuses in good part on the glorious complexities -- societal as well as musical -- of the "girl-group" sound, from the Chantels and the Exciters to Chrissie Hynde. Mr. Riley is at his very best when he comes to what Spector and Veronica Bennett (later Veronica Spector) achieved with the Ronettes. Indeed, he writes one of the best single passages I've ever read about one of the ultimate girl-group songs: a passage that focuses on the breathtaking wordless opening of "Be My Baby," with its dangerous heart-arrhythmia of cathartic beats... -- Ron Rosenbaum, THE NEW YORK OBSERVER Tim Riley's FEVER is a fascinating look at the ways rock has shaped how we think about sexual identity in America. Riley presents serious academic points within a rock critic analysis of icons that even a layperson would appreciate. Gender is only the starting off point for Riley though: FEVER also touches upon many of the great albums of the past thirty years -- from the Beatles to Bruce Springsteen -- and Riley uses this framework to bounce off astute, incisive writing. Whether he’s dissecting "Tears of a Clown," or calling Michael Jackson a "product of pop gone crazy," Riley is always witty, acerbic, and smart. -- Charles R. Cross, author of HEAVIER THAN HEAVEN: THE KURT COBAIN STORY |
(from the introduction to FEVER):
THE SECOND HALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, we are told, suffered from a dearth of heroes. From statesmen (John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton) to sports stars (Joe DiMaggio, Daryl Strawberry, O.J. Simpson) to warriors (the entire military-industrial complex responsible for Vietnam, the crooked 2000 Presidential election, and the security breakdown behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks), disillusion reigns. Young men, in particular, have supposedly been forced to struggle into manhood without any positive role models. IRON JOHN, by Robert Bly, and STIFFS, by Susan Faludi, and REAL BOYS, by William S. Pollack and Mary Piphe, all best-sellers, were built on this thesis.
This observation mystifies me. What about rock'n'roll? What about rock'n'roll's role models? The boomers born after World War II, both men and women, learned much of what they know about how to be young, how to seek and earn love, and how to struggle toward adulthood from the popular music they listened to. When a figure as compelling as Ronnie Spector of the Ronettes sang "Be My Baby" in 1963, it expressed the power and sweetness of female desire without shame or false coyness. Women rockers such as Tina Turner and Chrissie Hynde made young women feel that sex was not just for "bad girls," and that at its best sexiness in a woman could express both strength and softness. When a band as potent as the Who made adolescent issues roar, it said to younger men, "We've been there, we know what you're feeling, we're with you." Later, when Bruce Springsteen sang "One Step Up," the song told both men and women, "Marriage is fragile. Protect it."
Young fans who embraced rock'n'roll during those years absolutely saw their rock idols as models for the kinds of men and women they could choose to be if they dared. To the fans, rock stars didn't represent what they did to establishment culture (the lawlessness and decadence of two-dimensional acts from Grand Funk Railroad to Alice Cooper to Guns'N'Roses). The best rock celebrated honesty, intimacy, and openness; it encouraged emotional expressiveness (Joni Mitchell), honored tolerance (from Boy George to Melissa Ethridge), individualism (from Bob Dylan to PJ Harvey), and social responsibility (Bonnie Raitt, U2's Bono, Bruce Springsteen).
Rock stars helped their young fans grow from boys to men and girls to women by exploring and celebrating the nature of that struggle -- the full range of sexual bewilderment, frustration, and longing (from the Who's "I Can't Explain" to Bonnie Raitt's "Nick of Time "). Moreover, the music gave them the simultaneously liberating and frightening realization that they possessed enormous power simply because they were young. These older men and women made listeners feel admired by dedicating their craft to telling their stories...
Author Event:Wordsworth Bookstore, Harvard Square, Thursday, July 15th, 2004, 7-9pm
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ERRATA:
(Or the continuing story of how expensive copy-editors are as useful as house inspectors...)
The train wreck of a name on page 123, "Jackie Lymon," was first discovered by the venerable Bob Merlis, and will be corrected in future editions. Merlis is frittering his life away as a big-time publicist when it's obvious he was born a Strunk. The correct name is "Frankie Lymon."
On page 23 and 27, Jerry "Lieber" should be spelled "Leiber," and on page 27 "Ed Stoller" should be "Mike Stoller"; on page 46, "Ed Stoller" should again read "Mike Stoller."