Bourdieu describes taste as operating primarily through negation and exclusion: “In matters of taste. In broad outline, Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological analysis of taste explains the way taste works in rock culture. A self-proclaimed rock or rap or opera fan who never dismissed anything as bad would be considered as not really a fan at all.” Frith’s choice of words here is significant: the rock fan will often dismiss hated music as bad, but seldom describe it as being “in bad taste.” Although the word “taste” does not occupy a prominent place in the rock lexicon and occurs very rarely in rock criticism, scholarship, or the banter of fans, the acts of judgment that make up the primary discourses of rock culture reflect taste distinctions. As Simon Frith points out, “This is a necessary part of fandom. In fact, rock culture (in which I include the musicians, their fans, music critics, and the commercial apparatus that defines their interrelations) more or less demands that participants have strong musical preferences and the willingness to declare them. A decade or so later, tee-shirts proclaiming “Disco Sucks” clearly aligned their wearers with what is now called “Rockism” while punk rock aficionados wore anti-Pink Floyd shirts.
It was one or the other, you had to choose, and woe betide any fan of the Beach Boys. I recall that, in the mid-60s, you couldn’t be a fan of both the Beatles and the Stones, at least where I grew up. By reputation, rock fans are among the most opinionated audiences in the world. In saying that rock music has a peculiar relationship to the idea of taste, I don’t mean that rock fans don’t have tastes-obviously, they do. I will begin with some reflections on that relationship, then work my way through them to a consideration of the critical reception accorded Gary Glitter in the mid-1970s. British glam rocker Gary Glitter is one of the few rock performers I’ve ever actually seen described as “tasteless.” Before getting into that, however, I will address rock music’s peculiar relationship to the idea of taste.
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