Happy Rock, Sad Rock

It was refreshing, even almost downright thrilling to read Lorraine Ali’s commentary “Enough Whining! Let’s Get Back to a Little Rock ‘n’ Roll” (Calendar, July 8). So many reviewers tend to equate tristesse with integrity while damning happiness as trivial and shallow. While all art forms seem to wallow in self-pity from time to time, pop music raises self-examination and doubt to an exalted place, jealously protected from the critical eyes of more rational types. Indeed, to suggest as Ali has done, that it’s enough already, not only brings joy to my heart, but also quite nicely bashes one of the sacred cows of “art.”

Pop music, while primarily the domain of the young, is still more about craft and feeling (good and bad) than it is about personal self-loathing. Plus it’s a drag to hear all that squeaking.

GEOFFREY TOZER

Los Angeles

Regarding Ali’s commentary on the loss of the party spirit from rock ‘n’ roll in favor of teen Angst , I couldn’t help thinking about the band that, deliberately or not, converted the one genre into the other.

The Replacements may have been the last, great, sex-vices-and-rock-’n’-roll band in the tradition of KISS and the Stones, and though this year’s average Lollapaloozer probably doesn’t know about them, they were without a doubt the first great Gen-X band. Their sound and their songs begat the lonely anger we hear now in Nirvana and Pearl Jam, but many artists who acknowledge their influence are incapable of, or unwilling to develop the flair for humor and revelry that kept the ‘Mats’ music out of the mire of complete self-pity.

Current rock fans who are thirsty for good-time music about the worst of times should check out the Replacements. There they’ll find rock ‘n’ roll that articulates twentysomething frustrations, but manages to let you want to keep on living.

GARY BONNER

Hollywood

I think it has become apparent that a new sense of masculinity is finally emerging. The frontmen in today’s rock bands are merely attempting to translate the strange twists and turns that have come their way in the post-modern, post-free-love and now-everyone’s-in therapy era.

Ali cites Trent Reznor’s music and lyrics as not being “. . . sexy, they’re afraid.” Perhaps it’s time to deconstruct the sex-machine, rock-star image and allow men to be afraid. The whole “grunge rock” genre was a reaction to the empty and false machismo presented by the ‘80s glam and heavy-metal rockers. I personally am thrilled to see such an encouraging departure.

Perhaps Ali, along with the rest of us, will have to be patient and allow the men of the ‘90s to touch their pain and examine their inner turmoil, self-indulgent and whiny as they may be. If we allow room for stretching and growth now, perhaps the lyrics of the ‘00s will reflect a more honest and emotionally evolved woman and man.

SHANEE EDWARDS

Los Angeles