Academic respect for rock and hip hop?

I've met many people who believe it's only a matter of time before rock and hip hop come into academic respectability the way jazz finally did a couple generations ago. The thinking goes something like this: a new musical movement lowers the cost of entry for participation, drawing disdain from the mainstream establishment. But among this new influx of participants, a select few will find a way to stand out, thus raising overall standards of proficiency. Over time, they'll become so good at what they do that, despite its different aesthetics and approaches, the genre as a whole will win the respect of established musicians. Jazz shares equal footing with classical as serious music now; and as it went with jazz, so it will eventually go for rock and hip hop.

I think comparing jazz to these two populist genres, however, ignores one crucial difference between them: the former, like classical, is product-oriented, while the latter are persona-driven. Classical music wasn't always free of biases regarding those behind the music, of course; in the past, opportunities for Jewish, female, and ethnic composers and performers were severely limited. However, this was symptomatic of the societies which spawned classical music, not the genre itself. Today, few such barriers exist, with many schools and conservatories actively courting females and minorities in the name of diversity. And jazz was a melting pot from the very beginning, since its focus was always on how well you played. Dave Brubeck and Bill Evans, both white men, faced no difficulties in being embraced by the genre's black pioneers.

In rock and hip hop, by contrast, it matters quite a bit who you are, where you're coming from, and how you go about doing things. And I'm not just talking about all the superficial fluff out there; I'm talking about the kind of music that gets critically acclaimed and is undeniably relevant and important to music history. Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet could only ever have been made by young, disaffected black men. The members of Pavement could only ever have been young, unambitious white men. The former were angry about lacking empowerment and demanded to be heard; the latter casually disowned their natural privileges. For both bands, the power and appeal of their music had everything to do with who they were as individuals.

In other words, it's not just fans of Nickelback or Soulja Boy preventing rock and hip hop from joining the ranks of classical and jazz; it's also the Robert Christgaus and Chuck Klostermans of the world, along with people like you and me who recognise that identity is central to the message in these genres. We want to know about Dizzee Rascal's troubled youth, Liz Phair's feminist views, and Daniel Johnston's schizophrenia. Their stories don't just bring these artists to our attention; they actively infuse their music with greater meaning, helping them reach deeper into us. We don't want to see them crowded out by hordes of middle-aged, gray-haired men who possess the advantage of time and money to cultivate superior technical skills and musical craftsmanship.

But this is exactly what would need to happen for rock and hip hop to come into academic respectability as jazz has done. And no fan of rock or hip hop today believes the trade-off would be worth it. So let the academies have their music, and give the masses theirs; interested listeners can make the effort on their own to trek back and forth between the two camps. Because at the end of the day, we really don't want them to meet; we really do want to preserve rock and hip hop as refuges where youth, image and back story will always reign supreme. We just don't want to be caught saying so.