Review

Reviewed Work(s): What to Listen for in Rock: A Stylistic Analysis by Ken Stephenson
Review by: John S. Cotner
Source: American Music , Summer, 2006, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Summer, 2006), pp. 217-220
Published by: University of Illinois Press

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 BOOK REVIEWS

What to Listen for in Rock: A Stylistic Analysis. By Ken Stephenson. New

Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-300-09239 (cloth). Pp. vii,
253. $35.00
The impact of Ken Stephenson's What to Listen for in Rock should not be underes
timated. His major premise appears early in the introduction: "The assumption
that rock is simply a crude extension of common practice music is false. Rock, in
fact, exhibits melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic characteristics that are not found
in any other style" (x). Stephenson situates himself within an ongoing debate
among music scholars such as Walter Everett ("Confessions from Blueberry
Hell, or Pitch Can be a Sticky Substance," in Expression in Pop-Rock Music, ed.
Everett [2000]) and Simon Frith ("Towards an Aesthetic of Popular Music," in
Music and Society, ed. R. Leppert and S. McClary [1987]) concerning the musical
and sociological basis of a rock aesthetic.
In order to substantiate a rock aesthetic based on clear stylistic constraints (what
he coins a "new standard"), Stephenson indulges the potential of a well-formed
canon of post-World War II rock recordings. According to Stephenson's usage, the
term rock refers to "the mainstreams of popular music since 1954, whether they
be classified as rock and roll, rhythm and blues (R&B), soul, country rock, folk
rock, hard rock, and so on" (xiv). His generic definition reflects that of Steussy
and Lipscomb (Rock and Roll [2003]), who view rock as a "flowing together" of
seven musical traditions: popular song, C&W, R&B, classical music, jazz, folk,
and gospel (5). Close to five hundred recordings are cited, most of which conform
to market-driven standards as exemplified through the predominantly white
(mainstream) music industry during the second half of the twentieth century.
Because his term new standard shelves other popular musics that differ from
rock norms (e.g., rap, techno, some current hardcore), Stephenson might have
strengthened his claims about what rock is (as a "body of music") by including
more contemporary examples (e.g., Radiohead, Coldplay, Avril Lavigne), and
establishing plainly what rock is not.
In the introduction, the topic of rock stylistic norms is subsumed within a larger
American Music Summer 2006
? 2006 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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218 American Music, Summer 2006

narrative covering the politics of music analysis in relation to sociological and

historical criticism. Invoking Jean-Jacques Nattiez's (Music and Discourse [1990])
semiotic tripartition (producer/symbolic form /receiver), Stephenson adheres to
a textualist philosophy whereby interpretation begins inductively with explora
tion of the sonic event, what Nattiez terms the "immanent" level of analysis. Like
John Covach ("Popular Music, Unpopular Musicology," in Rethinking Music, ed.
N. Cook and M. Everist [1999]), Stephenson argues that contextual/antiformalist
analysis often fails to link sociocultural meanings with the immanent "material
presence" or "physical trace" of the music. Writes Stephenson, "We have many
monographs about rock that purport to tell us what it means without attempting
to define what it is" (xiii). Stephenson's textualist approach might be criticized by
contemporary thinkers such as Nicholas Cook ("Music Minus One: Rock, Theory,
Performance," Performance Matters 27 [Winter 1996]; "Music as Performance,"
in The Cultural Study of Music, ed. M. Clayton, T. Herbert, and R. Middleton
[2003]) for sidestepping discussion of how performance destabilizes ideas of
authorship, the autonomous artwork, and the notion of a coherent popular music
canon?concepts that remain necessary to the paradigm of modernist music
appreciation.
While Stephenson rejects modernism's view of rock as merely derivative of
common practice, his listening strategies and analytic methods do not diverge
far from those of established music theory pedagogy. Observe, for instance, that
the first six chapters of What to Listen for in Rock focus primarily on pitch rela
tions, rhythm/and song form according to the following arrangement of topics:
1) phrase rhythm, 2) key and mode, 3) cadences, 4) chord types and harmonic
palette, 5) harmonic succession, and 6) form. Absent from these chapters is dis
cussion of equally elemental topics such as loudness and timbre, studio produc
tion versus live performance, or various manners of improvisation. Chapter 7,
"Analyzing a Hit," integrates previous arguments through close analyses of
recordings by the Beach Boys, Duncan Sheik, Chicago, Pink Floyd, the Doobie
Brothers, and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.
An insightful, recurring theme concerns how stylistic norms of rock corroborate
social and aesthetic values synonymous with postmodernism. Drawing on ideas
of Jean-Fran?ois Lyotard (see The Cultural Studies Reader [1993], 170) and others,
Stephenson argues that the harmonic syntax of rock resists modernist principles
of necessity and unity associated with tonal paradigms, replacing these impulses
with cyclic and open-ended patterns that deny development, progression, and
closure. Similarly, lyrics of songs such as Journey's "Wheel in the Sky," as well
as words and music of whole concept albums such as Pink Floyd's Dark Side of
the Moon, match up with rock syntax in ways that corroborate the fragmented
and nonteleological worldview of postmodernity.
Two premises in chapter 1 are essential to rock's postmodern ethos: 1) melodic
and rhythmic cadences do not typically coordinate in ways characteristic of
European common practice; and 2) formal units need not fulfill tonal expecta
tions governed by the V-I harmonic axis. Drawing on Lerdahl and Jackendoff
(A Generative Theory of Tonal Music [1983]) and William Rothstein (Phrase Rhythm
in Tonal Music [1989]), Stephenson addresses technical problems involved in
delineating the relation between rock vocal phrases and hypermeter. He devises
five types of phrase rhythm (2 + 2, extension-overlap, first-downbeat, elision,

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 Book Reviews 219

and 1 + 1) that convincingly demonstrate how rock "shares postmodernism's

rejection of progress toward a goal" (26) by exploiting open-ended and cyclic
harmonic patterns, asymmetrical and unbalanced phraseology, and lyric mes
sages of incertitude.
Two taxonomies serve to organize melodic and harmonic pitch material in What
to Listen for in Rock, effectively quantifying a vast number of rock recordings and
adding legitimacy (or controversy) to an already sedimented narrative in music
journalism and scholarship regarding the notion of a rock canon. In chapter 2, set
theory enables Stephenson to classify melodic material according to three basic
scales: pentatonic, diatonic, and hexatonic. Following an exhaustive expos? on
chord types, he introduces three harmonic "palettes" in chapter 4 that standard
ize statistically common diatonic and chromatic tertian chord vocabulary. Both
systems use conventional strategies to classify pitch structures (pitch-class sets
and Roman numeral harmonic functions), and are accessible enough for use
by musicians with a working knowledge of these tools. Exercises at the end of
the book are effective for individual and class application. Viewed alongside
the theories of Allan Moore (Rock: The Primary Text [1993]), and Walter Everett
("Confessions from Blueberry Hell"), Stephenson's tone systems further reveal
how rock harmony is a unique hybrid of tonal and modal grammars.
An equally salient premise in chapter 4 is that rock vocal melodies, such as
heard in Chuck Berry's "Rock and Roll Music" (ex. 4.1), often feature stable
nonharmonic tones that conflict with the underlying harmony. Stephenson's
approach to melodic consonance and dissonance in rock is worth considering,
for he recognizes that the traditional way of categorizing nonchord tones, added
tones, and chord extensions does not sufficiently explain the phenomenon of me
lodically stable nonchord tones. In fact, by coercing these striking melodic events
into compliance with routine tonal and tertian paradigms, many music theorists
have consistently misrepresented a vital stylistic feature of rock based on blues
practice (see Van Der Merwe, Origins of the Popular Style [1989]). Stephenson's
explanation of rock melody and accompaniment is instructive in this regard.
Chapter 5 makes a case that the twelve-bar blues chord scheme signifies "a
rejection of common-practice progression" (111). What he calls the "antiperi
odic" structure constitutes a "new manner of deploying harmonic patterns in
relation to phrase rhythm" whereby no inherent relationship exists between V
and I across musical phrases and sections. Not just the blues chorus, but chord
patterns associated with late-1950s "soft rock" (e.g., I-vi-IV-V) also contain this
antiperiodic motivation. Vital here is the point that rock harmonic syntax does
not outright discard tonal progression; however, root patterns often contradict
the law of goal-directedness bound up with Classical periodicity. Antiperiodic
phraseology is perhaps the most cogent concept in this text.
As touched on earlier, chapter 7 crystallizes Stephenson's theory of rock
through close readings of seven recorded performances. The first six analyses
illustrate normative rock practices explained in previous chapters, associating
musical patterns and structures directly to lyric messages with mixed results.
His interpretations of "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse" from Pink Floyd's Dark
Side of the Moon are most successful from a semiotic point of view. "The End
less Enigma," an instrumental recording by the English progressive rock band
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, was carefully chosen by the author to delineate the

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220 American Music, Summer 2006

boundaries between rock grammar and, in this case, post-Romantic European

art music. His deduction that "progressive rock is still rock" interests me when
compared with Bruce Baugh's declaration, "To the extent art rock succeeded, it
did so because it was rock, not because it was 'art'" ("Prolegomena to Any Aes
thetic of Rock," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 51, no. 1 [1993]: 25). Ironically,
whereas Stephenson's textualist rock aesthetic relies on tools of formalism and
structural listening, Baugh's similar conclusion derives from an antiformalist
view that the "essence" of any rock aesthetic is not found in abstract musical
structures and idealized listening behaviors, but in bodily responses to (1) the
materiality of tone, (2) rhythm, and (3) loudness as experienced by musicians
and audiences alike. I raise the comparison because it represents a missed op
portunity on the part of Stephenson to address the relation between structural
and nonstructural aspects of style analysis within the context of his conventional
music-theoretical methodology; and, by so doing, make a stronger argument for
close reading of musical texts.
Oftentimes musical examples are confusing in ways that could have been
avoided. For instance, many transcriptions and analytic charts lack useful mark
ers that performers look for in a score, lead sheet, or authorized transcription:
details such as timings, lyrics, cues for instrumental entries. Example 1.12b, an
instance of the first-downbeat model in Chicago's "Look Away," is problematic
because the transcribed passage is actually a composite of passages from differ
ent locations in the song. This problem may distract the listener given that the
example is not heard in the form notated.
What to Listen for in Rock is designed for both academics and rock musicians,
though it seems best suited as an upper-division undergraduate music-theory
textbook. College music teachers will find the book to be a useful resource for
stylistic comparisons between traditional and nontraditional repertoires. Music
theorists will appreciate the intricacies of Stephenson's analyses, which reward
close study and listening, and provide numerous possibilities for relevance in
a classroom setting. Nonacademic readers will most likely require a primer in
tonal harmony and set theory in order to assimilate the specialized theoretical
language. In the interest of building on the common knowledge of rock musi
cians, the author's commentary on song form, instrumentation, rhythm, and
text located in chapter 6 might have been more effective as foundational reading
earlier rather than later in the book.
What to Listen for in Rock reveals the challenge facing music intellectuals to prac
tice what Stephenson calls "a spirit of mutual deference," not only within sub
cultures of scholarship, but also across the political enclaves of music academe.
Further, whereas the text does not go far enough to problematize its conventional
methodology and framing assumptions, this may prove a shrewd stroke, allow
ing for the music theory establishment to assimilate the author's methods into
preexisting music degree curricula. Notwithstanding the mixed reviews What to
Listen for in Rock will undoubtedly receive, Stephenson's work may soon lead to
a general concession among music academicians for the existence of more than
one so-called common practice.
John S. Cotner
Yorktown, Virginia

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