ABSTRACT
This chapter borrows a theological notion to address the popular tendency to moralize episodes in music history as a battle for supremacy between opposing elements, such as pop and rock, or theatricality and authenticity. Think of the notion of encountering a “crossroads” implicit in, say, the waning of 1950s rock and roll, the “selling out” associated with folk in the 1960s, or the “death” of rock in the 1990s. This chapter argues that historical discussion is less productive when the nuances of music culture are lost to polarizing oversimplification. An either/or approach is overwhelmingly reductive, operating at the expense of attention to valuable detail.
