By now, you may be familiar with Stylus Magazine’s School of Rock review. Despite the fact that I love nothing more than to read reviews by critics with an axe to grind (let’s just say that our Josh Timmerman won’t be invited to join Jack Black’s School of Candlepin Bowling team anytime soon), I felt there was something missing from his bilious rancor toward what is a genuinely sweet-natured film (next up: that goddamned Bambi). Thankfully, sometime Stylus-scribe Scott Plagenhoef in his Pitchfork review of The Darkness’s new record helps us out:
“Tellingly, America’s No. 1 movie at the moment, School of Rock, is built on the premise that rock is a relic relegated to history books as something kids need to be taught (after all, they’re not learning about it in the streets).”
Imagine! Something as unlearnably holy as Rach Ünd Roll being taught in the schools!!! To children!! Next, they’ll be telling us that rock really is dead!
I refer once again to Scott Pl:
“When it comes down to it, the best youth culture is dangerous and offbeat and audacious, and currently, rock is none of those things.”
Ah, you gotta love the elitist, circular logic here, which goes something like this: you’ll never really “get” rock if you don’t experience it – but rock’s dead, so good luck trying. It’s enough to make me wish I was at a Zep concert in the 70’s. Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to go see them on their 1975 Physical Graffiti tour because, as my parents told me, I was “only 2.” Close-minded right-wing bastards.
But I’m getting off-track. The whole point of School of Rock is to piss off the Plagenhoefs of the world. Well, maybe pissing them off isn’t the point exactly, but rather to show that, as difficult as it is to swallow for some of us, you actually can teach the stuff – and to kids, no less!
By way of making my point, I direct you to the scene that garrulous fatso Jack Black takes the song that the shy, young guitarist wrote and plays it for the class, line by line. Now, I’ve never been remotely interested in picking up a Tenacious D record, but I have to say: Black’s rendition of the kid’s “I hate school” song really isn’t half bad. I mean, am I rushing out to buy the soundtrack because of it? No. But it’s a perfectly serviceable tune given a hint of legitimate punk sneer in the hands of Black (it’s actually worlds better than the version augmented by the Mooney Suzuki at the film’s climax). For all of Timmerman’s griping about how phony the movie is and the Meatloaf-esque qualities of Black’s musical performance in particular, I think Black acquitted himself quite well here – and in a scene that with the wrong touch could’ve bombed horribly.
But really, that’s just my opinion. Maybe Josh and Scott felt the right thing to do there might’ve been to not even bother playing the kid’s song at all, because, you know, he’d only be fooling the kid into thinking that exercising his creative muscles at a young age was important. And anyway, rock can’t be taught. And as we’ve established, even if it could be, it’s as dead as Kid Rock’s midget.
There’s also the whole issue of, “alright, if rock can’t be taught in schools, how exactly does someone—especially someone as well-versed in pop music as Scott Pl.—learn about it?” (if I’m correct, deadness and all, rock is still considered an active subset of pop). Well, I don’t really know the guy that well, but I’d imagine that like all of us—myself included—he buys records, reads about music in magazines, books and on the Internet, and goes to see some shows. And then he probably goes home, thinks an awful lot about what he just heard/read/saw and at some point shares his opinions with others. Who share theirs with him.
In my mind, that’s kind of like home schooling mixed in with a little group learning to keep you on track – it’s not really done in a vacuum (in my case, I also had a friend I followed around like a puppy-dog because I had the utmost faith in his taste – so I guess I had a tutor, too). Of course, it all would be so much easier to learn if it weren’t so goddamned dead.
But here’s the funny part – neither Scott nor I just sort of kept those opinions to ourselves. You see, as critics, we thrive on sharing them – just like I’m doing right here on this very long blog entry. We shared them with others, so they might learn to hear familiar music a different way. Or maybe they’d learn about the glories of stuff the average listener just doesn’t hear on radio or TV – even approachable stuff like the Buzzcocks or Patti Smith (two names conspicuous for their inclusion in the Rock Family Tree that Black draws on the blackboard). Essentially, we’re self-appointed guerilla teachers. To sort of imply that such academic study “dishonors” rock essentially does away with every word Scott or I have written, every post to message boards like I Love Music we’ve made.
So I don’t know about Scott or Josh, but I actually saw School of Rock at least partly as a film about a guy learning how to communicate his genuine (and expansive, if you trust that blackboard) love for music – and doing it in every bit the gloriously awkward, rumpled manner of the subject he was teaching. I can’t speak for them. But me? I could identify with that.