Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko But Don't Get Stockhausen (Zero Books) [Paperback]

David Stubbs (Author)

Book Description

Series: Zero Books | Publication Date: April 16, 2009

The Tate is the most popular tourist attraction in Europe. Conceptual artists like Tracy Emin and Damien Hirst enjoy celebrity status. Works by 20th century abstract artists like Mark Rothko are selling for record breaking sums at auction, while the millions commanded by works by Andy Warhol and Francis Bacon make headline news. But while the general public has no trouble embracing avant garde and experimental art, there is mass resistance to avant garde and experimental music -- although both were born at the same time and under similar circumstances. And despite the fact that from Schoenberg and Kandinsky onwards, musicians and artists have made repeated efforts to establish a synaesthesia between their two media. In Fear of Music, David Stubbs looks at the parallel histories of modern art and modern music and examines why one is embraced and the other ignored, derided or regarded with bewilderment. Why do people get Rothko and not Stockhausen?

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David Stubbs is a freelance British music journalist and author. Between 2004 and 2006 he was reviews editor for The Wire, the UK based magazine dedicated to avant garde and experimental music of all genres. Between 1987 and 1988 he was staff writer at Melody Maker, before going on to join the staff of the NME. As well as music, he also covers sport, film, literature and TV - his work regularly appears in The Guardian, Arena, The Wire, Uncut and When Saturday Comes.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: O Books, John Hunt (April 16, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1846941792
• ISBN-13: 978-1846941795
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,106,210 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A slim, glib survey of post-1900 aural and visual arts, November 14, 2009

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David Bennett (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko But Don't Get Stockhausen (Zero Books) (Paperback)

The subtitle, of course, could be quibbled with, and even the author admits, "Perhaps the real equivalent for a Rothko is not Stockhausen but an Elgar, or a Vaughn Williams." Still, it's valid to say that there's a level of acceptance of experimental visual art that is denied to experimental music. Why?

It would be interesting to compare your ideas on the question with a thoughtful essay, but this isn't it. Instead, it's mostly made up of a slim and rather useless history of Western music and visual arts since 1900. Here's four pages on Futurism, now here's two pages on Dada, now comes four pages on Varese, now here are my thoughts on Andre Breton and a couple of witticisms on Salvador Dali, here are my thoughts on Free Jazz as it has to do with race in America, here's my grudging nod to the importance of the Beatles, as long as you understand that I'm far too hip for the Beatles, and then the next couple of pages on something else, and a paragraph on something else, and on and on.

Each of these topics is treated with cliches and glib opinions. For example, he gives two paragraphs to Minimalism in the visual arts, blithely dismissing it as "the great, ironic conceit of the rich--the pretense of a lack of possessions...the signifier in music as well as in art of capitalism's pretensions to spirituality, rather than its lack of it." It's such an inadequate and stupid response, accentuated for me by the fact that I'm simultaneously reading Minimalism:Origins by Edward Strickland, a genuine effort to understand the impulses that led to various forms of minimalism in the visual arts and in music. Why read one or two pages by this snotty little kid on ANY of these topics when, with just a little more time and effort, you can read someone who has actual insight, and can offer you ideas you HAVEN'T already heard a thousand times?

At any rate, the question in the book's subtitle is mostly forgotten, except for an enjoyably furious rant in the beginning of the book, and some on-topic musings toward the end. Of all the little three- and four-paragraph bits that make up the book, one that piqued my interest was a little sketch of the BBC in its first couple of decades, trying to bring modern music to its dubious listeners. There is a quote from the Radio Times to the BBC's audience of the time: "Many of you have not even begun to master the art of listening...Many of you have not even begun to try." To me, that's what this book SHOULD have been about--listeners. The audience. How to listen. What it means, and why it's worth it (or not), to acquire a taste for music and art that is an acquired taste. Isn't that what the title promises? It's not what it delivers.

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Waste of time and money, September 8, 2010

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W. White (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko But Don't Get Stockhausen (Zero Books) (Paperback)

I write in the hopes of dissuading any potential buyers from actually wasting their money on this book. The prose is a haphazard and aimless - I haven't a clue what the thesis of this book is supposed to be, and I have a feeling that Mr. Stubbs hasn't either.

To wit [p. 19]:

"The departure from tonality in Cubism and Schoenberg represents the birth of visual and musical modernity. It arose from their two chosen art forms breaking down, in some ominous parallel with civilisation as a whole, under the rules of their own continued 'growth and development'."

Did you have to read that one twice to parse even a grain of meaning from it? Well, the entire book reads in the style of an off-the-cuff undergraduate journalism assignment. Almost every statement in this book comes off as mildly derisive and derogatory, but with no cohesive point-of-view. The only thing I can tell is that I think he likes Stockhausen.

Let me also mention for those of you who are wondering just who would publish this book, the answer is Zero Books, and the name couldn't be more fitting. This book is plagued by some of the most heinous errors in spelling and grammar that I have ever come across in professionally printed material. The coup de grace, however, are the many typesetting errors which insert paragraph indentations in the middle of sentences. Perhaps the work of a malicious editorial staff who were fed up at having to read this garbage.

5.0 out of 5 stars Fear of Art, Love of Music, September 29, 2011

By 

John Carter (Vancouver, British Columbia, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko But Don't Get Stockhausen (Zero Books) (Paperback)

`Fear of Music' made me splutter cartoon bubbles at David Stubbs: "What the!.. Why you!.." It begins with the sub-title "Why People Get Rothko But Don't Get Stockhausen." I mean, that's not true is it? Or if it is then it's like comparing wine with beer, essentially irrelevant. I'd love the opportunity to invite Stubbs for a pint so I can wave my arms about while I tell him how wrong, wrong, WRONG, he (mostly) is. Having said that, this is a book I'd unhesitatingly recommend, especially for anyone teaching art or music at senior high-school or first year university level as it's one of the most stimulating introductions to aesthetics you could wish for.
And in all honesty he's right, more of us probably do "get" more out of Rothko's works, than those of Karlheinz Stockhausen. But would it still be true if the comparison was with Mark Tobey rather than Mark Rothko? Or if Rothko was compared with Gavin Bryars? It's the broader assertion, that modern and post-modern art has greater acceptance than experimental music of a similar period that I, and others, would dispute. There is also the implication -- which in fairness is inferred not stated -- that in the broadest sense the visual arts are held in higher public regard than music. I'd assert this is empirically not true. A decent music blog will have no shortage of hits but a similar quality art site generates tumbleweed. Also how many millionaire visual artists as opposed to musicians has our culture created in the past half century? Is it any easier for a painter or potter to make a name for himself, or even a living, than it is for a musician? Stubbs may rightly say that his book's scope is more specific, yet the duality he sets up in it's title invites such conclusions at the same as it obliquely subverts his thesis, `Fear of Music' after all is an album by Talking Heads, are many titles of a paintings so readily recognisable? Nevertheless this is a book that's coherent, provocative and exceedingly well written (though it could use a copy-edit) Stubbs overview of 20th century experimental music is worth the price of admission alone. That is where his passion lies and it shows. He's curious and knowledgable about art but advocates for music and obviously cares deeply about it. I'm maybe the opposite and, at bottom, it's where our differences lie. After all books on the arts are essentially propositions and disagreeing with them is half the fun. Once again if you want to start an argument in a student bar or energise a classroom then `Fear of Music' is an unbeatable catalyst.