« Assume everything about your musical tastes was reversed = overnight. Everything you once loved, you now hate; every- thing you once hated, you now love. For example, if your favorite band has always been R.E.M., they will suddenly sound awful to you; they will become the band you dislike the most. By the same token, if you've never been remotely interested in the work of Yes and Jethro Tull, those two groups will instantly seem fascinating, If you generally dislike jazz today, you'll generally like jazz tomorrow. If you currently consider the first album by Veruca Salt to be slightly above average, you will abruptly find it to be slightly below average. Everything will become its opposite, but everything will remain in bal- ance (and the rest of your personality will remain unchanged). So— in all ikelinood—you won't love music any less (or any more) than you do right now. There wil stil be artists you love and who make you happy; they will merely be all the artists you currently find unlistenable. Now, | concede that this transformation would make you unhappy. But explain why. ADVANCEMENT Responsibility sits so hard on my shoulder Like a good wine, I'm better as I grow older —Lou Reed, “A Gift” Once in a great while, everything in the world changes at once. This is one of those times. Consider everything you think you know about music. Consider all that you believe to be “good” and all that you believe to be “bad.” Consider the way you view popular cul- ture. And now—today—prepare to cast all those thoughts aside. I’ve got some bad news, my friend: you were wrong 249about everything, But you’re going to evolve. You're going to understand. ‘You are going to Advance. It’s possible that you're currently unaware of Advance- ment Theory; like most renegade fields of cultural study, it exists on the fringes of intellectual society. However, Advance- ment Theory is the future of discourse in this country, As a school of thonght, it’s still young; Advancement emerged just fourteen years ago on the University of South Carolina cam- pus. It is also byzantine: I openly concede that I am merely a wide-eyed frosh in this field of study, and many of its prinei- ples still baffle me. But I am learning, and so will you. It is my assertion that—within the next fifty years—Advancement Theory will be the primary means of understanding rock *n’ roll (and perhaps all artistic ventures). This column is the first step. Prepare to have your paradigm shifted . . . WHAT IS ADVANCEMENT? Advancement is a cultural condition where an Advanced Individual—i.e., a true genius—creates a piece of art that 99 percent of the population perceives as bad. However, this perception is not because the work itself is flawed; this per- ception is because most consumers are not Advanced. Now, do not make the mistake of inferring that this means that everything terrible is actually awesome, or vice versa; that kind of contrarianism has no place in Advancement Theory. The key to Advancement is that Advanced artists (a) do not do what is expected of them, but also (b) do not do the oppo- site of what is expected of them. If an artist simply does the direct opposite of what is anticipated, they are classified as “overt” (more on this later). The bottom line is this: when a legitimate genius does something that seems crazy, it does not mean they suddenly suck; what it means is that they are doing something you cannot understand, because they have Advanced beyond you. : 250WHO IS ADVANCED? Without question, the most Advanced figure of all time is Lou Reed; he is the cornerstone of this idiom. Reed’s single most Advanced moment was in 1986, when he released the song “The Original Wrapper.” However, his recent album Animal Serenade—a two-record live set of songs inspired by Edgar Allan Poe—is almost as crucial. Joe Walsh is highly Advanced (primarily because of the song “Life’s Been Good” and the album title Got Any Gum?). David Byrne's cover of Whitney Houston’s “I Want to Dance with Somebody” is pro- foundly Advanced, as was the David Bowie-Mick Jagger cover of “Dancing in the Streets.” The most Advanced hard- rock album ever made was (Music from) The Elder by KISS, the soundtrack for a movie that does not exist; The Elder also includes several songs cowritten by Lou Reed, which obviously helps. Last year, rapper C-Murder was charged with murder. If you name yourself “C-Murder” before you actually murder someone, consider yourself Advanced. WHO IS NOT ADVANCED? Almost everybody else. Neil Young is not Advanced; his career is built on the premise that he follows no rules, so he cannot Advance beyond his nature. None of the Beatles were Advanced, although Paul McCartney is close. Bob Dylan only flirts with Advancement; in fact, appearing in a Victoria’s Secret commercial might be his most Advanced move ever (Dylan selling bras = Advancement). The Beastie Boys are completely unAdvanced, as are the Killers. However, this does not mean these people can never Advance; that’s always possible. For example, if Radiohead released an album of wordless, mechanized droning, that would be predictable. If Radiohead made a glam record, that would be overt. But if Radiohead recorded an album of blues standards, they would Advance. 251WHAT ARE THE RULES OF ADVANCEMENT? This depends on who you believe. The founders of Advance- ment Theory enforce strict criteria: the Advanced artist must (at some point in their career) wear a black leather jacket with black sunglasses, they must have a mullet, and they must always appear on the cover of their own solo albums. However, virtually no second-generation Advancement theo- rists follow those guidelines. The only thing that everyone seems to agree upon is that Advancement has no relationship whatsoever to irony; if something is done ironically, it cannot be Advanced. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE OVERT? This is an especially confusing point, but it’s essential to the overall theory: if someone is overt, they appear Advanced. However, they are actually the opposite of Advanced, because their seemingly inexplicable decisions are not being driven by inner genius. For example, the Darkness are overt, U2 are overt. When Kurt Cobain collaborated with William S, Bur- roughs in 1992, it defined overtness. However—and here’s the tricky part—you usually need to become overt before you can become Advanced. Liz Phair’s eponymous record was overt, but she is accelerating toward Advancement. Once you achieve Advancement, you can then return to being overt, at which point you are classified as an “Advanced Irri- tant.” The epitome of this is Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music record. (Readers note: I don't fully grasp this part, either.) WHO INVENTED ADVANCEMENT? The first grains of Advancement were discussed by Jason Hartley and Britt Bergman in 1990, inside a Pizza Hut in Columbia, South Carolina; it started as a discussion about clothing. However, the conversation evolved into a debate 252 tenonsover why Reed always performed the song “Walk on the Wild Side” whenever he appeared on Late Night with David Let- terman, even if he was ostensibly promoting a different album. Everything exploded after that. “Geniuses evolve in a way very specific to themselves,” says Hartley, a man widely considered to be the father of Advancement. Hartley is currently the editorial director for Delia’s, a store that sells clothing to teenage girls. (Editor's note: This is a highly Advanced career choice.) “An overt artist puts out material that is ambiguous and can therefore be interpreted by the listener in any way they want. For example, Michael Stipe’s lyrics don’t really mean anything, so any sixteen-year-old can convince himself that those words can mean whatever they want. The Advanced artist never does that.” ARE THERE CRITICS OF ADVANCEMENT? Indeed. Some pundits find Advancement’s circular logic both dogmatic and reductive. “find that Advancement scholars do not foster a spirit of inquiry,” says Rob Sheffield, a six-foot-five-inch writer for Rolling Stone and the owner of many lush sweaters. “It’s really just a way for Advancement theorists to appreciate shitty musie by people they consider to be non-shitty. It allows you to engage with Lou Reed’s music from the 1980s, but not the Hooters or the Outfield. This entire theory is shackled by the Heisenberg principle of self-consciousness.” ‘This is a valid point, possibly. Even Hartley is sometimes stymied by his own discipline. “[ find Sting unlistenable,” admits Hartley. “But I know that Sting is Advanced. He must be super-Advanced, and I just don’t understand him. It’s kind of like when Einstein came up with the Theory of Relativity—there were still parts of that theory that even Einstein could not understand. Those concepts were left for future generations.” 253In other words, it’s really up to us. All of us. Only you can stop forest fires, and only you can advance Advancement. If you eare about rock °n’ roll, you will commit yourself to this project. The truth is out there, and it’s probably wearing sun- glasses. Esquire, 2004 254