Teenage Nervous Breakdown [Hardcover]

David Walley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 21, 1998

Teenage Nervous Breakdown: Music and Politics in the Post-Elvis Age details how a state of mind - which came out of 1950s-60s high school "American Graffiti" culture and peer group morals - was successfully transformed and commercially exploited. The book shows how, because of this, our lives and our world (if not the nature of American democracy) in the 1990s have been altered in the process. David Walley shrewdly points out that in this post-Elvis age we are hostages to the corrosive effects of an increasingly celebrity-driven consumerism, itself the result of the cumulative effects of the commercial exploitation of high-school peer group dynamics. Animated by a throbbing rock-and-roll beat, this virulent form of consumerism has given rise to a multinational, adolescent-driven corporate consciousness in which MTV (Music Television) has become the virtual Voice of America. The essays in this provocative book illustrate how this "evolution" took place and what has been its dubious contribution to American society. Among the issues at hand, Walley looks archly at the controversial effect MTV has had on national politics, delves into the how and why behind the rebirth of heroin chic, and talks about how rock and roll has affected our sexual selves.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The phenomenon of Elvis Presley is the jumping-off point for Walley's evaluation of post^-World War II American commercial music and how it conquered the world. What started out as a disposable commodity pitched to adolescents eventually metastasized into a culture in which the Czech prime minister sought, and the U.S. secretary of state personally intervened to discourage, the appointment of Frank Zappa as an official "representative on matters of trade, culture and tourism." That a pop musician would be considered for such a position, let alone be the subject of international political pressure, was unthinkable before Elvis. And why, after Elvis, was it thinkable? Well, during Elvis' career, rock and roll became a worldwide attitude as well as "a sonic environment for commerce." That is a sad plight that Walley surveys with pleasant cynicism, winding up considering the fascination with such issues as presidential underwear preferences and the seemingly unending retail warfare that commercial culture fosters. Mike Tribby

About the Author

David Walley is a well-known writer on popular music and culture, and a respected gadfly. He is the author of No Commercial Potential: The Saga of Frank Zappa (1972) and The Ernie Kovacs Phile (1975). --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 260 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; 1 edition (March 21, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306458624
• ISBN-13: 978-0306458620
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,346,207 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Incoherent and rambling, June 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Teenage Nervous Breakdown (Hardcover)

Do you know that old joke, "If you remember the 1960s you probably weren't there"? Walley thinks he remembers.

Looking for a book to use for a class on "Music and Politics," I was excited to come upon this title. What a disappointment. Walley, whose credentials as a historian escape me, says his book is "basically a series of word-jazz rock and roll improvisations and variations" on how rock created "an attitude as well a (sic) sonic environment for commerce." A few chapters have references, but there is little original research or theory. Chapters with more notes offer little more than the ones where Walley supposedly gives his imagination full range.

Walley uses commas like blunt instruments. Consider: "Really, it's just business, forget that other stuff, said the military-industrial complex, which, when the layers of obfuscation and self-serving rhetoric were peeled away and its corporate reports were scrutinized by peace activist historians and economists, was revealed to be the engine that motored the American ecnomy and had been motoring it since the end of World War II." Is this a jazz riff, or just awful writing?

You've also got to wonder about a music "expert" who is shocked that the Beatles "Revolution" is being used to sell "sneakers" (Does anyone younger than 50 still use this term?) today.

Listen to the words: "Revolution" was anti-revolution.

If you are looking for a book which will deal with the impact of commercial forces on the music industry and politics, keep looking. I was hoping for a book which would explore how commercial culture co-opts cutting-edge culture. This is just sludge.

This book makes a post-modernist Ph.D. dissertation read like a model of clarity.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading!, June 5, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Teenage Nervous Breakdown: Music And Politics In The Post-elvis Age (Paperback)

This could be one of the most underrated works in modern social history. Walley has managed the astounding feat of combining first-hand insights and observations with a style that is totally unique -- practically free form. "Teenage Nervous Breakdown" should be required reading for students of sociology, music, or, dare I say, cultural anthropology. In an age when culture is very much a recycled and homogenized ghost of past trends and politics, this collection of essays is a rallying cry for anyone searching for a voice in a thunderstorm of corporatized consumerism and apathy.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Jazz riff? More like broken record., October 24, 2005

By 

Josh (Memphis, Tennessee) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Teenage Nervous Breakdown: Music And Politics In The Post-elvis Age (Paperback)

Found this book in a bin outside a dollar store. Thought the title looked promising. Wrong. It's the most pretentious pile of horse wallop I've tried to read in a long time. If it wasn't such a long drive back to that particular dollar store, I'd throw it back in the bin it came out of.