Moorhead State University philosophy professor Theodore Gracyk tackles a remarkable number of music-related issues, ideas, and personalities in this brief, well-documented study. He unapologetically justifies rock music as a cultural phenomenon unique to the 20th century. "Existing primarily as a social category," writes Gracyk, "rock eludes or supersedes aesthetics" (207). This conclusion is reached after the author has determined that rock recording is a cooperative artistic venture that is distinctively dependent upon technology. It is also an activity that is time-bound, capsuled in a mediated format, both creative and commercial in nature, and fraught with potential misinterpretation. Gracyk manages to dispatch a variety of critics--including Theodor Adorno, Allan Bloom, and Camille Paglia--and to explode numerous production, performing, and lifestyle myths that haunt the rock idiom.

The author asserts, "The genius of rock music has been its ability to maintain musical creativity within a commercial framework" (193). This statement not only disarms critics, but also undermines several silly mythologies about artistic purity promulgated among popular music performers. Gracyk's ability to explore and expose stereotypes, distortions, and half-truths in respect to music, management, and marketing places his sociological perceptions among the ranks of those of Charlie Gillett, Nick Tosches, Peter Guralnick, Simon Frith, and Philip Ennis. There is humor in his observations, too. While Gracyk acknowledges intrinsic and professional drives among rock stars---including creativity and performance quality, he is also quick to identify their more extrinsic and earthy drives as well--getting laid, getting paid, and getting famous.

Gracyk worries that rock music may become a victim of what he labels the natural cycle of invention, change, and obsolescence. "Rock may well be reaching the point of aesthetic fatigue," he speculates (206). His concerns are that individual genius, the necessity of practicing self-discipline, the value of on-the-job mentoring by old pros, and the benefits of studio collaboration with other musicians and technicians are being shifted toward formal academic settings. According to Gracyk, higher education stifles creativity and dynamism by championing cold, traditional systems of history, theory, and texts. Rock needs spontaneity, freedom, flexibility, and magic.

The shortcomings in this marvelous, thoughtful study are few. The lack of a discography is annoying. The persistent downplaying of onstage creativity among such stylistic giants as Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Albert King, Joe Cocker, Solomon Burke, Jackie Wilson, James Brown, and B. B. King is somewhat misleading. However, the entire text bristles with startling ideas that are at first mysterious and then self-evident through Gracyk's skillful explication. This is a seminal study on recorded music.

B. Lee Cooper University of Great Falls

MSUM, October 10, 2002

“I Wanna Be Me,” a book written by Minnesota State University Moorhead philosophy professor Ted Gracyk, has been selected as a co-winner of the 
2002 International Association for the Study of Popular Music-US Book 
Award. 

The announcement will be made at the IASPM annual business meeting in 
Cleveland this weekend. 

Gracyk’s book shares the award with “A Pocketful of Dreams” by Gary 
Giddins. One of the top jazz writers of his generation, Giddins is best-known 
for his longtime work as a columnist for the Village Voice, which he joined in 
1973. His books include “Ridin' On A Blue Note,” “Celebrating Bird”, 
“Satchmo” and “A Pocketful of Dreams,” a biography of Bing Crosby. 

Released last year by Temple University Press (304 pp., $22.95 paperback), 
“I Wanna Be Me” looks at rock as a mass art, drawing people together in
communities of listeners who respond viscerally to its sound and 
intellectually to its message. From the Sex Pistols and Eminem to Bonnie 
Raitt and the Rolling Stones, Gracyk says, rock music contributes to our 
cultural capital. 

In a nutshell, he argues: What you listen to is who you are, but the context 
in which you listen alters what the meaning of what you listen to. 

This is Gracyk’s second book that takes a philosophical look at rock music. 
His first, “Rhythm and Noise: An Aesthetics of Rock,” which reasoned that 
rock music is an art form in its own right, was released in 1996 by Duke 
University Press. 

IASPM-US represents the United States branch of the International 
Association for the Study of Popular Music. It serves as a forum for a range 
of scholarly areas and approaches to popular music, publishing a 
peer-review journal dedicated to research on popular music.