Countercultures - Music, Theory and Scenes

3/28/22, 4:19 PM Countercultures: Music, Theory and Scenes
Volume !
La revue des musiques populaires
9 : 1 | 2012
Contre-cultures n°1
Contre-cultures : théorie & scènes
Introduction
Countercultures: Music, Theory

and Scenes
Contre-cultures : Musiques, Théories et Scènes
Sheila Whiteley
p. 6-16
https://doi.org/10.4000/volume.3572
Traduction(s) :
Contre-cultures : Musiques, Théorie et Scènes [fr]
Entrées d’index
Mots clés : contre-culture / résistance, scènes, gauche (extrême-)
Keywords: counterculture / resistance, scenes, left / far left
Chronologique : 1960-1969, 1970-1979
Genre musical : psychedelic / acid rock, rock music, punk / hardcore punk
Texte intégral
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https://journals.openedition.org/volume/3572?lang=fr&gathStatIcon=true 1/9
Introduction
1 Our first edition of Counterculture(s) and Popular Music offers readers the
opportunity to explore its history and how it has been theorised. It also provides an insight
into the ways in which it emerged and took shape internationally in scenes that embraced
its challenge to the dominant culture. In December, our sister edition, “Utopias, Dystopias,
Anarchy” explores utopias and dystopias and sonic anarchy and freaks, focussing on the
ways in which the 1960s counterculture embraced both an idealistic frame of reference
and one where its emphasis on freedom and beat-hip bohemianism resulted in a
bacchanalian orgy of rape and murder. As Simon Frith knowingly observed, ‘rock can’t just
be consumed, but must be responded to like any other form of art – its tensions and
contradictions engaged and reinterpreted into the listener’s experience’.1 Further
discussions of Counterculture(s) and Popular Music are also being published by Ashgate
in collaboration with Éditions Mélanie Seteun, so confirming its significance as a vital
moment in the continuing history of popular music. As Andy Bennett writes in our
Introductory article, ‘Reappraising Counterculture’, while ‘issues such as the essentially
diverse, heterogeneous nature of both individuals and socio-political and cultural
ideologies’ have been thoroughly explored in relation to ‘subculture’, there has been far
less engagement with the counterculture and, as such, it remains a problematic concept.
2 What has emerged, from the 21 articles published in our three editions of
Countercultures and Popular Music is its non-specificity. ‘It was an entity with a
significant degree of fluidity such that it could incorporate diverse groupings and, thus,
manifest itself differently at specific times and within specific places depending on local
socio-economic, cultural and demographic circumstances’. While the previous lack of
attention given to the 1960s counterculture accounts for our timely intervention, it is also
apparent that there have always been certain issues that have, as yet, to be fully explored,
not least demographic diversity and identity politics within ‘the underlying unity of the
countercultural variety’ (Roszak, 1970: 66). As I wrote in in The Space Between the Notes,
‘Initially there appears to be an underlying tension between the political activism of the
student New Left and the “Fuck the System” bohemianism of the hippies and the yippies.
At a deeper level, however, both extremes were united in their attack on the traditional
institutions that reproduce dominant cultural-ideological relations – the family,
education, media, marriage and the sexual division of labour. There was a shared
emphasis on the freedom to question and experiment, a commitment to personal action,
and an intensive examination of the self’ (Whiteley, 1992: 83) whether pathologically
invasive or creatively expressive. As Theodor Roszak observed at the time, ‘Beat-hip
bohemianism may be too withdrawn from social action to suit New Left Radicalism; but
the withdrawal is a direction the activist can readily understand’. (1970: 66)
3 On re-visiting my earlier research into rock and the counterculture 2, it occurred that
chaos and uncertainty, allied to the impact of noise (inharmonious sound, distortion,
dissonance, and the connotations surrounding discord itself) could be interpreted as
underpinning a revolutionary agenda suggestive of a state of creative anarchy3, which is
arguably distinct from the more soft-focus connotations of ‘All You Need is Love’ and the
pacifist agenda implicit in such slogans as ‘Make Love Not War’.4 If, however, Roszak was
correct in identifying ‘beat-hip bohemianism as an effort to work out the personality and
total life style that follow from New Left social criticism’ (1970: 66), then the forming of
countercultural communities, such as the communes that emerged in, for example,
Naples5, could appear a logical development in ‘providing a particular location for self-
identity’ (Whiteley, 2000, 23). Discord and the darker extremes of ‘noise’ associated with
performers such as The Grateful Dead, Captain Beefheart, Jimi Hendrix and MC5 would
thus come into focus as the first stage in the countercultural agenda of establishing a
relevant and alternative life-style.6 As Jeff Nuttall observed, two of the aims of the
Underground were to ‘release forces into the prevailing culture that would dislocate
society, untie its stabilizing knots of morality, punctuality, servility and property; and [to]
expand the range of human consciousness outside the continuing and ultimately soul-
destroying boundaries of the political utilitarian frame of reference’ (Nuttall, 1970: 249), a
philosophy that resonated with the International Times identification of rock as a political
weapon.7
4 But was this the whole story and is the concept of counterculture still meaningful? It
would appear from the articles that follow that ‘despite the theoretical arguments that can
be raised against the sociological value of counterculture as a meaningful term for
categorising social action, like subculture, the term lives on as a concept in social and
cultural theory… [to] become part of a received, mediated memory’. What emerges from
the articles that appear in Music and Counterculture(s) is that this involved not simply the
utopian but also the dystopian and that while festivals such as those held at Monterey and
Woodstock might appear to embrace the former, the deaths of such iconic figures as Brian
Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, the nihilistic mayhem at Altamont,
and the shadowy figure of Charlie Manson cast a darker light on its underlying agenda,
one that reminds us that ‘pathological issues [are] still very much at large in today’s
world’.
An overview of articles
5 We are privileged to have an opening article by Andy Bennett, whose extensive research
and publications on subcultures, cultures and cultural memory have established his
reputation as a leading international academic on cultural theory. ‘Re-appraising
Counterculture’ re-visits and re-evaluates earlier and on-going instances of counter anti-
hegemonic ideology, practice and belief, and how the emergence of the term in the late
1960s has been re-deployed in more recent decades in relation to other forms of cultural
and socio-political phenomena. As he explains, recent developments in sociological theory
complicate and problematize theories developed in the 1960s, with digital technology, for
example, providing an impetus for new understandings of counterculture. What is
intriguing is the way in which current movements and groups have been referred to as
countercultural, so raising the question of how we position the latter.
Theorising countercultures
6 In many ways, the first subsection of Countercultures and Popular Music extends and
develops many of the issues raised by Bennett, so providing a reflective space in which to
consider different ways of explaining and exploring both the relevance and the diversity
inherent in the concept. Ryan Moore’s opening article, ‘Break on Through: The
Counterculture and the Climax of American Modernism’ investigates the mediating link
between music and 1960s modernism, focusing attention on the shared spirit of
innovation and progress, with the celebration of ‘youth’ providing an iconic symbol of
hope and transformation. With its origins in the free jazz and folk music scenes in New
York at the beginning of the 1960s, Moore’s discussion of Ornette Coleman and Bob Dylan
then moves west to consider the different variations of rock music that emerged from San
Francisco and Los Angeles, ‘the homeland of the counterculture and the terminal point of
American modernization in the 1960s’, identifying LSD and acid rock as symbolic of ‘the
spirit of modernity and its ironies’.
7 Simon Warner also draws attention to the significance of New York in ‘The Banality of
degradation: Andy Warhol, the Velvet Underground and the trash aesthetic.’ As he
successfully argues, Warhol was at the heart of one of the key countercultural gestures of
the era. ‘By stressing surface and the superficial over depth and substance and by rejecting
traditional motivations – issues of moral purpose, social conscience or political ethos, for
instance – the artist and his disciples created an enclosed aesthetic universe that was
profoundly alternative to both the mid-1960s mainstream and also those who would
challenge it in more conventional ways’. Not least, the introspective, amphetamine-
induced music of Warhol’s resident band, the Velvet Underground, was in stark contrast
to both ‘the psychedelic jams of San Francisco and the acid-drenched and dandy stylings
of London.’ ‘marrying instead elements of the high and the low, the cultural leftfield and
the arts underground, harsh rhythms, repetitive drones and minimalist arrangements with
stories of low-life transgression, conjured, at least in part, by the toxic charge of speed and
heroin’. The trash aesthetic associated with Warhol and The Velvet Underground was ‘to
influence artists as diverse as musician Genesis P-Orridge and photographer Cindy
Sherman and even more mainstream examples – from Boy George to RuPaul and k.d.
lang’ and, indeed, earlier performances by David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed where
camp, drag, sexual diversity, gender controversies and violence were an integral and
conscious part of their artistic strategy.
Countercultural scenes: music and place

8 Music played a major role in the way that the counterculture authored space in relation
to articulations of community by providing a shared sense of collective identity. Not least,
the heady mixture of genres provided a socio-cultural-political backdrop for distinctive
musical practices and innovations which, in relation to counterculture ideology, provided
a rich experiential setting in which different groups defined their relationship both to the
local and international dimensions of the movement, so providing a sense of locality,
community and collective identity. As Richard Neville wrote at the time: ‘From Berlin to
Berkeley, from Zurich to Notting Hill, Movement members exchange a gut solidarity,
sharing common aspirations, inspirations, strategy, style, mood and vocabulary. Long hair
is their declaration of independence, pop music their Esperanto and they puff pot in their
peace pipe’ (1971:14) Neville’s identification of what he calls the counterculture’s ‘intense,
spontaneous internationalism’ is explored initially in Giovanni Vacca’s opening article,
“Music and Countercultures in Italy: the Neapolitan Scene” where he focuses attention on
the 1960s, a time when the first seeds of rock ‘n’ roll and the ideology surrounding the
counterculture were penetrating Italian culture. It was a period when British and
American rock stars began to include Italy in their world tours, and Italian rock bands
found a more defined political identity as progressive rock superseded beat. Then, during
the accelerating conflicts of the 1970s a new radical political culture developed. Born
outside the Communist Party, criticism was addressed to 'the system' in all its
articulations: family, education, politics, work, and entertainment. Within this highly-
charged context the folk music revival and the political song assumed a new significance as
popular genres and the classic Neapolitan song were reclaimed and reshaped. As Vacca
explains, the song, in Neapolitan tradition, developed both ‘as an important part of the
identity of the local emerging middle class’ while being ‘taken up and continuously
revisited by the lower classes.’ The strength of these traditions was such that ‘the
Neapolitan song had to be violated, debunked, stripped bare of its stock conventions and
bent to unheard expressive possibilities’ if it was to embrace and reflect the changes
inherent in the countercultural agenda. Vacca’s detailed discussion of Neapolitan bands
that revitalised traditional songs through influences as diverse as jazz, rhythm and blues
(The Showmen), progressive and psychedelic rock (Osanna and Il Balletto di Bronzo) also
focussed on lyrics that encapsulated the two major poles of Italian countercultures: India,
which for many Italian hippies ‘represented the myth of an alternative civilization,
custodian of an ancestral wisdom lost in the industrial world’, and the factory, which was
‘at the centre of theoretical Marxist speculations of the radical left wing born outside the
Communist Party’. Sorrenti’s apocryphal ballad ‘Vorrei incontrati’ (1972), thus
foreshadows the late eighties when the fragmentation of large factories and the re-
allocation of industrial production to countries with a less expensive labour force lead to
growing unemployment and the transformation of what once were working class areas
into a waste land’. The subsequent take over of its derelict buildings as ‘occupied self-
managed social centres’ led to a new Italian music, which incorporated rap, ragamuffin
and reggae and which also brought with it a rediscovery of folk music and the Neapolitan
song. As Vacca concludes, ‘it took three decades for Neapolitan musicians to find their own
way into modern song and popular music and, at the same time, to recover a glorious
tradition’, and today the Neapolitan Song has become a favourite genre by a new
generation of performers.
9 The next two articles explore the significance of punk as countercultural, and its DIY
culture provides a specific insight into Aline Macke’s investigation into ‘Taqwacores: the
emergence of a Muslim-American Counter-Subculture’. The impact of 9/11 Islamophobia
and consequent US military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan on minority Muslim
communities in the U.S. and beyond has caused many to reflect on the resurgence of
extreme-right politics and its impact on human rights both at home and internationally.
As Macke observes, the emergence of Taqwacore, which combines Muslim imagery with
Punk DIY has provided a way of conveying ideas of religious tolerance and identity
through its ironic lyrics and often controversial public statements and, as such, relates to
‘the three core elements of punk: an anti-status quo disposition, a pronounced do-it-
yourself ethos and a desire for disalienation (resistance to the multiple forms of alienation
in modern society). (Dunn, 2011: 27) The re-activation of punk’s subversive potential via
an alternative Muslim counter-discourse has provided a focus for Muslims who reject
traditional authorities (‘There is no Sheikh, there is no Imam. There isn’t anyone who has
a higher authority than you (Allah) in Islam’, as one of the Taqwacore bands, Kominas,
states. It would seem, then, that by drawing on the global cultural field of punk, the
Taqwacore scene is able to articulate its discourse of tolerance and Muslim dignity through
a local frame of reference, informed by regional socio-economic conditions within the
historical context of alienation, and the hostilities relating to Islamophobia.
10 The question ‘what is countercultural’ also raises the issue of whether or not social
conflict and struggle can be mapped onto those cultural practices grounded in particular
forms of leisure, consumption and lifestyle where individuals are able to connect in
pursuit of specific goals and/or participate in a common cause. As Fabien Hein’s article
‘DIY as a countercultural dynamic? The example of the punk rock scene’ suggests,
definition is important. If a counterculture is interpreted as ‘a set of protest or
marginalised movements that form when the development of dominating organizations
accelerate’ (Touraine, 1998: 204), then the characteristic features of authenticity and the
demystification of the cultural production process inherent in the DIY ethics of punk rock
and its pro-active postures would constitute a counterculture.
11 Drawing on research by Laughey (date) and Willis (date), Hein interprets DIY as a form
of work based on self production and, as such, one that constitutes a training ground for
empowerment, with those involved learning new competences, organizing their own
structures, networks, labels, medias, and works, so building up an experience that
transforms the real and the agent itself, as well as an alternative economy. Punk thus
constitutes a structuring field (experiences, values, business etc.) that fosters individual
and collective agency and, as such, is a reflexive, emancipatory pedagogy, not just a means
to evacuate pressure or linger in apathy. Hein’s challenge to earlier writing by Adorno
(date) and Horkheimer (date) is supported by a discussion of the first DIY album (The
Buzzcock’s Spiral Scratch) which demonstrates the pro-active dimension of punk in its
entrepreneurship, recognized earlier by Bourdieu as a ‘countercultural phenomenon’ (ref.
): the product of self-taught agents, who free themselves from the rules of the market
place, producing an alternative market which can, in practice, contest institutions in a
variety of cultural fields. (p. ) This, in turn, raises the issue of authenticity, not least
amongst such iconic bands as The Sex Pistols and The Clash who sold out to major labels,
versus the punk credibility of Crass who created their own label, organized distribution
and sold their cds at half the price of the majors, sharing the proceeds with alternative
communities. While the question of counterculture versus counter-market provides an
insight into the practical efficiency of countercultural dynamics, Hein contends that
Fugazi (date) and Dischord’s (date) pragmatic (non-ideological), short-term (and not
structural) model of struggle provides a relevant criteria for evaluating a counterculture’s
concrete achievements. Its success depends on three dimensions: it concretely transforms
individuals’ everyday lives; it reconciles the question of independence with that of civic
engagement; it offers a generalizable operational model. His conclusion: DIY thus
demonstrates that it is possible to develop a cultural business, aimed at a niche market,
without abandoning punk core values and, as such, can be considered a counterculture.
12 The relationship between subculture and counterculture is further explored in Gildas
Lescop’s article, ‘Skinheads, from Reggae to Rock Against Communism’, where he
wonders how a 1960s working class youth subculture originally fascinated with Jamaican
music was later associated in the 1980s with white supremacist neo-Nazi groups. The
original skinhead movement had grown out of the radicalization of the « mods » whose
trans-class ideology, dandyism and growing interest in psychedelic music were considered
by « hard mods » as contrary to their own culture and social background. Sharing space in
working-class neighbourhoods with Jamaican immigrants, they developed a syncretic
style, combining symbolic elements of British worker pride with violence and a fascination
for the myth of the Jamaican “rude boy”, adopting both the music – reggae, ska,
rocksteady – and elements of their style: the low-slung pants and the shaved head.
However, the predominance of “roots reggae”, mysticism and Rastafarianism in 1970s
Jamaican music and the subsequent segregation it established lead to a decline of this
subculture. While the phenomenon had first exemplified Dick Hebdige’s hypotheses on
the great influence black immigrant culture had on youth subcultures (date of publication,
pp ?), Jamaican culture’s “return” to an (invented) tradition, combined with police
repression (in response to violence in stadiums and the streets) sealed its extinction.
13 A second skinhead generation was born in the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis, once
again from the radicalization of a previous subculture – punk. “Street-punk” bands
criticized punk’s inauthenticity (compromises with capitalism, with the star system…). A
certain number of bands, such as Cock Sparrer and Sham 69, and their “bald punk” fans
constituted the oi! scene, which radicalized street-punk’s cult of violence and proletarian
pride, adding a pro-British, often racist content to that configuration. As Gildas Lescop
very clearly demonstrates, this new generation of skinheads was not, in fact, an emanation
of the original movement, although it did share some of its values (the working-class
pride, the violence). This in no way means that the “originals” were “pure”: Lescop insists
on the importance of homophobic and xenophobic symbolic and physical violence within
the first skinhead movement, but these acts did not get the media coverage the second
generation would attract.
14 The identification of skinheads to neo-Nazi extremists was the result of a double
process. Firstly, a political hijacking, as the young National Front saw in this movement an
opportunity to efficiently disseminate its ideology, in venues and stadiums, thanks to
virile, rowdy young men. Acts of violence between conflicting members of the skinhead
movement increased, as well as those aimed at Pakistani immigrants. As a result, many
bands left the oi! scene; those that remained committed to its radical ideology and attitude
later moved toward “Rock Against Communism” – a new sub-scene, the product of an
active collaboration between Skrewdriver's frontman Ian Stuart and the National Front, as
a response to the Rock Against Racism events. In the mid-1980s, however, the National
Front, looking for respectability and a new image, changed strategies, and the riotous and
untameable skinheads were cut loose in 1986. This brought RAC skinheads to organize
their business according to their own brand of DIY ethics.
15 Secondly, the media reduced the complexity of the skinhead movement to its equation
with neo-Nazi violence, ignoring both its history and multiple facets. There was indeed a
symbolic struggle for authenticity within the broader skinhead movement, with a scene
denouncing both the political and the media manipulation, as well as its racism – groups
such as the SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) fought to reclaim the “Spirit of
69” (the year considered to be the apogee of the original movement), with its cultural
opening and its dress code. A revival vs. a diversion. Yet Lescop’s research reveals the
ambiguity of the relationship between both historical phases of the movement – left-
leaning skinheads also demonstrated, as he writes, “counter-countercultural” values
(values opposed to both the “hegemonic” and the 1960s countercultural discourses):
chauvinism, homophobia, anti-intellectualism, associated to the ideal image of the
working-class man, proved to be reactionary. The movement’s countercultural claims were
thus exhausted in a formal opposition to a fantasized, ambiguous, multiple enemy; not a
class, but a dropout struggle.8
16 I have to admit that I have never considered “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot
Bikini” countercultural, not least as the youth revolts associated with the Counterculture
are, as Roszak, Bennett and other theorists have argued, a sixties phenomenon9. As such, I
was fascinated by Philippe Birgy’s discussion of ‘Yéyé Music and the importation of
American counterculture in the French 1960s’. Not least, I was surprised that a novelty
pop song that explored a young girl’s hesitancy in revealing her scantily-attired body, the
bantering ‘one, two, three four/tell the people what she wore’ and ‘stick around, we’ll tell
you more’ (recited, in the original version, by Trudy Packer) was in any way
countercultural. ‘Itsy Witsy’ was, surely, pop rather than the more controversial and
subversive rock ‘n’ roll genres that were to challenge mainstream culture across the late
1950s and beyond and hardly countercultural in the sense explored in Bennett, Whiteley et
al. However, Birgy’s tantalising title (‘If this story amuses you, we can start again’) invites
a closer reading and his interrogation of ‘the relationship between American youth
counterculture and the Yéyé musical’ provides the reader with a new insights into the
cultural problem associated with Yéyé music within French society and how and why such
tracks as ‘Itsy Witsy…’ and the Nabout Twist (sung by French singer Claude François)
provide a way of re-evaluating Yéyé’s role as an expression of societal/cultural conflicts. As
Birgy explains, Yéyé is characterized by covers of US pop and easy-listening songs and is
too often looked at as a pure result of the cultural hegemony of post-WWII USA’.
17 Written by Paul Vance and Lee Pockniss, ‘Itsy Witsy’ was first performed by Brian
Hyland, reaching No 1 in the US in August 1960, and covered three time in France in 1961.
Identifying the cha-cha rhythm of the verse, Birgy situates the song as a form of exotica
(tropical jazz), relating his analysis to writings by Edward Said (date of publication) and
Julia Kristeva (date of publication) and the tantalizing prospect of what lies veiled beneath
the bikini. The bantering tone of the chorus suggests, in turn, the carnivalesque, so
constructing a comical tone which defuses the song’s claim for a ‘liberated sexuality’. The
three cover versions, which include Johnny Halliday, are then compared before the
discussion of exotica returns in an analysis of ‘Le Nabout twist’ which draws on North
African kinship dances. Birgy then turns to scholarly writings from the review
Communication (1965) on the yéyé phenomenon and concludes that yéyé music
exemplifies the complexity of the cross-cultural exchange process, and the porosity and
irregularities of the frontiers set between mass culture, hegemonic culture and
counterculture before posing a final question: ‘Hasn't Yéyé music conveyed
countercultural claims too, after all?’
I would like to acknowledge and thank my co-editor Jedediah Sklower for his support and
enthusiasm throughout our planning and design of Counterculture(s) and Popular Music.
What could have been a laborious task was instead a joyful exploration of the
countercultures’ history, as well as its diverse manifestations.
Bibliographie
Jacques Attali, Noise: The Political Economy of Music (transl. Brian Massumi), University of
Minnesota Press.
Kevin C. Dunn (2004) ‘”Know Your Rights!: Punk Rock, Globalization, and Human Rights’ pp. 27-
38 in Ian Peddie (ed) Popular Music and Human Rights. Volume 1: British and American Music,
Ashgate.
Richard Neville (1971) Play Power, Paladin
Jeff Nutall (1970) Bomb Culture. Harper Collins
Theodor Roszak (1970) The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society
and its Youthful Opposition. Faber and Faber.
Alain Touraine, (1998), « Contre-culture », in Dictionnaire de la sociologie, Paris, Encyclopaedia
Universalis and Albin Michel, p. 204-410.
Sheila Whiteley (1992) The Space Between the Notes: Rock and the Counterculture. Routledge.
DOI : 10.4324/9780203398364
Sheila Whiteley (2000) Women and Popular Music: Sexuality, Identity and Subjectivity.
Routledge.
DOI : 10.4324/9780203354858
Sheila Whiteley (2013), ‘Kick Out the Jams: Creative Anarchy and Noise in 1960s Rock’, in Nicola
Spelman (ed.), Resonances: Noise and Contemporary Music, Continuum.
Notes
1 Simon Frith, ‘Rock and Popular Culture’ Radical Philosophy, 103. Radical Philosophy Group,
Mathematics Faculty, Open University, Milton Keynes
2 Whiteley, 2013.
3 To an extent, this can be traced back to the romantic anarchism of the Beats, with its interest in
Eastern mysticism, poetry, jazz and drugs and writers Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.
4 Although it is recognised that the fight against middle-class prurience led increasingly towards an
explicit identification of sexual freedom with total freedom which, at its extreme, embraced
pornography (including the so-termed ‘velvet underground’ advertisements for blue movies and
classified ads, and play power’s ‘Female Fuckability Test’ (John Neville (1971) Play Power, London:
Paladin, p.14). As such, while love was fundamental to the philosophy of the counterculture, there
was nevertheless a marked difference between the transcendental spirituality promised to followers
of the Majarishi Mahesh Yogi and the revolutionary liberation of the Yippie Party’s Jerry Rubin and
his symbolic call for patricide.
5 See Giovanni Vacca, Musique et contre-cultures en Italie : la scène napolitaine, pp. in Les Scènes
Contre-Culturelles – Musique & Espace, pp
6 As Jacque Attalli observed, noise contains prophetic powers. ‘It makes audible the new world that
will gradually become visible’. (1985, p.11)
7 The mood is right for us to fight politics with music, because rock is now a media. Sure it’s basically
recreation but because we’ve now applied new rules to the way it’s run, it’s also a weapon’. IT, 56,
1969
8 Thanks to Jedediah Sklower for his thoughtful discussion of Lescop’s article.
9 Albeit drawing on Beat philosophy as discussed earlier.
Pour citer cet article

Référence papier
Sheila Whiteley, « Countercultures: Music, Theory and Scenes », Volume !, 9 : 1 | 2012, 6-16.
Référence électronique
Sheila Whiteley, « Countercultures: Music, Theory and Scenes », Volume ! [En ligne], 9 : 1 | 2012,
mis en ligne le 15 octobre 2012, consulté le 28 mars 2022. URL :
http://journals.openedition.org/volume/3572 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/volume.3572
Auteur
Sheila Whiteley
Sheila Whiteley a publié et dirigé des ouvrages de référence sur les musiques populaires, autour
de questions aussi diverses que le genre, les femmes, la sexualité, les drogues, les scènes et les
contre-cultures (The Space Between the Notes, Sexing the Groove, Music, Space and Place,
Queering the Popular Pitch…). Elle fut Secrétaire Générale de l’IASPM de 1999 à 2001 et obtint la
Chaire de Musiques Populaires à l’université de Salford en 1999 – premier poste dédié à cet objet
d’études. Elle est aujourd’hui Visiting Professor à la Faculty of Creative Industries and Society de
l’université de Southampton Solent, et Visiting Scholar à la Queen’s University (Canada), et à
Hailsham (East Sussex). En 2010, elle fut nommée Professeur émérite à l’université de Salford. Elle
finalise actuellement l’Oxford Handbook of Music and Queerness ainsi qu’un autre ouvrage sur les
musiques populaires et le virtuel.
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