John Shirley’s cyberpunk story “Freezone” describes a future in which leather-clad “rock classicist[s]” keep alive the traditions of 1960s and ’70s music (Shirley 142). These fundamentalists wage a losing battle against techno performers (”sexless … dancing mannequin[s]”) whose bodies are wired to software that turns stage antics directly into sound (145). The present article explores the real-life context of this cyberpunk story. I intend to show how the discourse of classic rock musicianship was reconfigured in the 1980s and 1990s by music television and computerization/digitalization respectively. I argue that recent media relegate performance practices (real-time playing and singing) traditionally central to rock personas to a secondary status. My argument describes this shift as a change in work-gender identities; specifically, labor practices linked to sex roles. Expertise in classic rock was ideologically associated with a realm of masculine craftsmanship illustrated in displays of musical skill. However, the practices introduced by MTV and computer music (image editing, sampling, programming, computer interfacing, or Internet downloading) mimic the procedures of the corporate world. They turn musical gestures into raw material that can be processed by graphics software, computerized instruments, and information networks. The masculine ideology of classic rock is affected by these changes because it celebrates autonomous working subjects handling musical technology in real time. Even though 1960s and ’70s music was mediated by increasingly sophisticated multi-track recording equipment, it made the live context the testing ground of each performer’s authenticity.
John Shirley’s cyberpunk story “Freezone” describes a future in which leather-clad “rock classicist[s]” keep alive the traditions of 1960s and ’70s music (Shirley 142). These fundamentalists wage a losing battle against techno performers (”sexless … dancing mannequin[s]”) whose bodies are wired to software that turns stage antics directly into sound (145). The present article explores the real-life context of this cyberpunk story. I intend to show how the discourse of classic rock musicianship was reconfigured in the 1980s and 1990s by music television and computerization/digitalization respectively. I argue that recent media relegate performance practices (real-time playing and singing) traditionally central to rock personas to a secondary status. My argument describes this shift as a change in work-gender identities; specifically, labor practices linked to sex roles. Expertise in classic rock was ideologically associated with a realm of masculine craftsmanship illustrated in displays of musical skill. However, the practices introduced by MTV and computer music (image editing, sampling, programming, computer interfacing, or Internet downloading) mimic the procedures of the corporate world. They turn musical gestures into raw material that can be processed by graphics software, computerized instruments, and information networks. The masculine ideology of classic rock is affected by these changes because it celebrates autonomous working subjects handling musical technology in real time. Even though 1960s and ’70s music was mediated by increasingly sophisticated multi-track recording equipment, it made the live context the testing ground of each performer’s authenticity.