Rocking Around the Clock: Music Television, Post Modernism and Consumer Culture

E. Ann Kaplan

ISBN 10: 0415030056 / ISBN 13: 9780415030052

Published by Routledge, 1987

Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G0415030056I3N00

Synopsis:

Discusses the history of MTV (Music Television) and rock videos, and discusses their affect on popular culture

From Publishers Weekly: Kaplan (Women and Film), a Rutgers professor of English and film, offers a full-length study of the 24-hour cable channel MTV. Even though the channel airs promotional rock videos in "one nearly continuous advertisement," she notes that its use of avant-garde techniques and Hollywood pastiche have made MTV a popular, postmodernist success. Kaplan examines the business side of MTV, then delves into the rock videos themselves, which she divides into five distinct types (romantic, socially conscious, nihilistic, classical and postmodern). She also considers violence in videos, commenting on Tom Petty's "Don't Come Around Here No More," which many consider typically nasty: "The events do not have the overall investment in a certain kind of desire that the sadistic narrative usually has." In general, Kaplan argues that MTV "utilizes adolescent desire for its own commercial ends." Her conclusions about the long-range implications of MTV and today's "massified youth culture" are perceptive, depressing and probing.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Rocking Around the Clock: Music Television, ...
Publisher: Routledge
Publication Date: 1987
Binding: Paperback
Condition: Good
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket