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| From | "Sager, Greg" <greg.sager@bankofamerica.com> |
| Subject | Re: Big Star and Rosetta Stones |
| Date | Tue, 26 Aug 2003 07:19:05 -0500 |
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> Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 12:18:42 -0500
> From: "Michael Bennett" <mrhonorama@hotmail.com>
> To: audities@smoe.org
> Subject: Big Star and Rosetta Stones
> Message-ID: <Law14-F106VGXLup9qp000580a2@hotmail.com>
>
> I don't think it is possible for Big Star to have recorded any "Rosetta
> Stone", due to the simple fact that Big Star's influence on the
> development
> of the power pop genre is negligible.
>
Mike, while I certainly agree with your well-thought-out treatise
regarding the negligible influence of Big Star upon pre-1980 power pop
(although, post-1980 power pop, I gotta agree with Josh's points), I think
that some of the difficulty that you might be having with my original
statement about "September Gurls" revolves around the term "Rosetta Stone".
The Rosetta Stone was a late discovery (1799, to be exact) that
first allowed archaeologists to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics. For many
centuries, the hieroglyphics inscribed upon the pyramids, crypts, monoliths,
and temples that survived pharaonic Egypt had been a complete mystery. The
Rosetta Stone, then, was a mirror into the distant past that allowed
modernity to see and understand its forebears much more clearly.
That's the sense of the metaphor I used for "September Gurls". The
song is a picture-perfect illustration of power pop in its classic form that
allows us to understand and explain the subgenre better. It's not a
reference to influence upon subsequent songs, because, to extend the
metaphor, the Rosetta Stone didn't influence subsequent inscriptions,
either.
Gregory Sager
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