This Ain't Rock 'n' Roll: Pop Music, the Swastika, and the Third Reich

This Ain't Rock 'n' Roll by Daniel Rachel is, like most of his books, hits on many cylinders but seriously misfires on others. But, also like the others, an uneven ride worth taking.

The strength of this book lies in the roundup of the many examples of rock/pop stars appropriating Nazi symbols and even sometimes rhetoric for both their public persona and their private enjoyment. Many of the instances here will be familiar to music history fans and scholars, but to have them collected in one volume highlights the range of use and abuse. From some that were mostly for shock purposes to some far more difficult to view that way and some that leave almost no doubt that they believed and approved.

I think that each case has to be understood show more separately. Not in a vacuum, certainly context has to be considered, but it is a mistake to simply lump these people into one or two cookie-cutter categories. And that is where Rachel, as usual, goes astray. Intellectual analyses and deep understanding is not his strength. It simply isn't why you pick up one of his books. But he makes broad, demonstrably false statements that generalize far more than he would get away with in a scholarly study. Even though I tend to agree with much of what he both implies and says, I at least understand that I don't "know" these things. He, however, seems to be able to read everyone's minds, even those who are dead, and tell us the truth.

Definitely worth reading and facing the possibility that some of your favorite musicians may not be all that you thought they were. Whether you chalk some of it up to misguided attempts to shock and be different or to blatant disregard for what the hate-inspired symbolism of the Third Reich still means to many people, knowing what these stars have done has to color your perception of them. Hiding from it is certainly a possibility but I think we are better off knowing what they did and coming to terms with it. Might you no longer love an artist you adored? Yes. But you will also learn where you might draw your own line and what kind of person you are. It isn't a positive statement about someone if they support genocide, whether it was almost a century ago or taking place right now. If you can't be consistent, then it isn't genocide you oppose, it is simply which group that suffers that matters to you.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. show less

This Ain’t Rock n Roll details the many rock stars who have dabbled with Nazi imagery or praised Hitler and the Third Reich. Unfolding largely chronologically, we meet a depressing list of figures from Keith Richards in SS uniform and a swastika-wearing, racism-spouting Siouxsie Sioux, through to Kanye West declaring himself a Nazi. Unfortunately, though Rachel tries to give a sense of a developing narrative, it becomes repetitive: a rock star spouts pro-Nazi garbage, they (mostly) refuse to apologise or say they sought to shock, and Rachel reminds us how unacceptable that is.

In some cases, such as an artist praising Hitler as ‘the first rock star’, it’s easy to agree - such statements should have been scrutinised and criticised show more at the time. In other cases though, Rachel seems to argue that referencing the Nazis is artistically invalid unless the audience understands the context is criticism and not celebration. Yet later he praises the “righteous” Holocaust songs of the Manic Street Preachers. How does he know their listeners understood the context? Other arguments are weaker still: the BBC renaming Massive Attack as “Massive” on-air during the Gulf War is used to claim they should have similarly censored the name Joy Division, even though the situations are vastly different. At points, Rachel widens his lens to Nazi-fetishising cinema or books, demonstrating this is more than just a music problem. Rachel could have mitigated his weak analytical skills by interviewing qualified experts, but he never talks to a historian, sociologist, semiotician or any other useful expert. show less