Commentary : Couch Potato Rock : Why Passive Music Is Winning Out Over Activist Groups

Pop music may be in worse shape than we thought. The assumption and hope during the conservative mid ‘70s--a time when record companies and radio stations rejected anything that didn’t have a smooth, mainstream edge--was that once pop fans were again exposed to great, adventurous bands, they would lead a revolution and restore rock to the position of sociological influence that the music enjoyed in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

How naive.

The sad reality is that the landmark artists did step forward, but there was no revolution--except on the semi-underground club Commentary and college-radio level, where cult bands of radical ambition and remarkable range flourish almost unnoticed by the mainstream world. The only thing the mass pop-rock audience demanded over the last 10 years was their MTV, a 24-hour music channel that treats pop music as little more than high-gloss entertainment. Welcome to the age of Couch Potato Rock.

The punk assault of the late ‘70s did create enough of a buzz around such invigorating attractions as the Clash and Elvis Costello for record companies to begin signing challenging new acts. But radio stood firm.

Both rock-oriented stations (like the late KMET-FM in Los Angeles) and pop-accented Top 40 stations had built huge ratings and big profits by appealing to the lowest common denominator, and they weren’t about to gamble with their success. They still aren’t.

True, an occasional great record or act will pop up on Top 40 radio stations--Bruce Springsteen, U2 and R.E.M. have all had hit singles in recent weeks. But listeners have been so conditioned to expect banality that a large percentage of the pop audience no longer even understands a good song when it hears one. Consider R.E.M.’s “The One I Love.”

The average pop fan--the target audience of stations like KISS-FM and KPWR-FM in Los Angeles--can be hooked by the appealing sound of a noteworthy record, but the chances are he or she won’t pay enough attention to the words to get the song’s real meaning.

Georgia-based R.E.M. has been widely hailed for at least four years as the best American rock group of the ‘80s, but the group’s music has been mainly celebrated in cult and college radio circles, where an activist audience prizes music that challenges listeners rather than serves as some mildly stimulating background sound.

Even when R.E.M. finally breaks through with a single that sounds accessible enough to fit a Top 40 format, the suspicion is that most listeners let the record slip through their consciousness as if it were simply another air-headed dance record by Expose or Debbie Gibson or the dozens of Madonna sound-alikes.

To most listeners, quite likely, the understanding of the R.E.M. single goes no deeper than the sweet, vaguely romantic instrumental textures and singer Michael Stipe’s opening words: “This one goes out to the one I love.”

Largely unnoticed are the words that follow--the ones that explain that the song’s for “the one I left behind,” the one who was never more than a “simple prop to occupy my mind.”

Asked in a recent Rolling Stone interview about the song’s success, Stipe said: “It’s a brutal kind of song, and I don’t know if a lot of people pick up on that. But I’ve always left myself pretty open to interpretation. It’s probably better that they just think it’s a love song at this point. . . . I don’t know. That song just came up from somewhere, and I recognized it as being real violent and awful.”

R.E.M. isn’t the only victim of Couch Potato Rock. U2’s “With or Without You”--a recent No. 1 single--again sounds like a comforting song. Bono Hewson’s voice has a warm, endearing edge that makes it appear he’s describing his need, when actually he is wrestling with the issue of his own commitment.

Asked about the song early this year in Dublin, Hewson said: “Most rock ‘n’ roll songs look at life from a teen-age perspective. U2 is interested in looking at life on a more complicated level. . . . I want to write love songs that deal with (matters) that reach beyond what happens on Saturday night in the back seat of a Chevrolet.

“I’m interested in the way possessiveness enters a relationship, the things that are gained and must be sacrificed. . . . The way you feel at times that you can’t live with or without someone. I think these are real issues that should be addressed by rock ‘n’ roll bands, and should be heard on the radio.”

Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” was another classic casualty of Couch Potato Rock. Many listeners--including President Reagan’s speech writers--never looked past the rousing chorus-- Born in the U.S.A. / I was born in the U.S.A.-- to listen closely to the verses--a dark, disheartened account of the lingering pain of America’s involvement in Vietnam.

About the misinterpretation of the song, Springsteen said recently: “I opened the paper one day and saw where they had quizzed kids on what different songs meant to them, and they asked them what ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ meant. ‘Well, it’s about my country,’ they answered. Well, that is what it’s about--that’s certainly one of the things it’s about--but if that’s as far in as you go, you’re going to miss it, you know?

“I don’t think people are being taught to think hard enough about things in general--whether it’s about their own lives, politics, the situation in Nicaragua or whatever.” Springsteen added. “Consequently, if you do not learn to do that--if you do not develop the skills to interpret that information--you’re going to be easily manipulated, or you’re going to walk around simply confused and ineffectual and powerless.”

So what’s the problem? Can’t people just enjoy a song? Is there any reason they have to pass a test on its meaning?

The tendency to simply listen to the surfaces of songs underscores the suspicion that rock ‘n’ roll is no longer looked to by the mass pop audience as information or art, but as simply entertainment.

This isn’t a new dividing line.

Rock audiences have always been divided into opposing camps: Call them active and passive, or serious and casual. Pat Boone--white bucks, imitation R&B; and all--may have had almost as many hits as Elvis Presley in the ‘50s, but Presley was the one, everyone agreed, who excited and inspired--just as the Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Doors, Hendrix and Byrds, among others, mattered most in the ‘60s--regardless of how many hits other less vital record makers registered. These were the artists who defined the times with their songs and their ideas.

But rock’s maverick vision was filtered out in the ‘70s as radio programmers began sidestepping artists that dared to be different. This meant, gradually, the loss of black artists (the argument was that white rock fans would mistake any black artist as part of the disco movement and turn to another station), country artists (“What’s that got to do with rock ‘n’ roll?”) and eventually maverick rock (“Rock has become more sophisticated. . . . It’s no longer kids’ stuff. . . . Our advertisers are interested in adults, too, so we’ll find music that appeals to everybody”).

This issue of active vs. passive audiences is not new in other artistic disciplines, but pop music benefited through the ‘50s and ‘60s from its ability to connect its most challenging artists--from Presley and Little Richard to Dylan and the Stones--with the broadest possible audience. It was as if Bergman and Fellini films, at the time, were playing citywide to turnaway crowds.

Today, the activist audience can take comfort when artists like Peter Gabriel, U2, Springsteen and Prince do well, but they are kidding themselves if they don’t also notice that they are outnumbered on the charts by the likes of Whitesnake, Bon Jovi, Ratt, Poison, Motley Crue, Phil Collins and the anonymous dance hits.

For all the excellence of their work and the millions of sales, those excellent artists haven’t been able to reverse the meaningless pop banality of the radio climate. The result is that for the first time since Presley’s arrival, serious, heartfelt, radical rock is a minority force--not only on the pop scene, but within the rock world.

These two separate markets in the rock community means that the power of the best artists--the U2s, R.E.M.’s and Springsteens and Gabriels, not to mention the ones like the Jesus and Mary Chain that don’t even get Top 40 airplay--to effect change has been greatly reduced. How can you expect to make a difference when your songs aren’t even understood?