One of the most popular punk rock songs of the 1980s was Suicidal
Tendencies' "Institutionalized," a frantic monologue about what it's like
to be locked up by your parents. These days, however, any self-respecting
punk rock band that called a song "Institutionalized" would probably have
something else in mind: the ever-more-frequent incarceration of rock & roll
itself. How else to speak about the music in a year when it was seemingly
taken into protective custody by TV producers, advertisers, and museum
curators?

In 1995, the republic of rock enjoyed an unprecedented orgy of
self-memorialization. PBS and Time-Life offered lengthy history lessons,
lavish coffee table books poured off the presses, the hall of fame finally
opened its heavy glass doors. And as if that wasn't enough, even the
Beatles decided to hold a virtual reunion (and release a few virtual
songs).

The moral of these stories is that, in America, rebellion is always
rewarded. And it would be hard to find better evidence of this than the
gala opening of the rock & roll hall of fame in Cleveland this September.
As Jimi Hendrix's bitter rendition of the national anthem boomed out of the
P.A., the Republican leaders of Ohio huddled together, their hands pressed
to their hearts. Then Yoko Ono spoke. "You've changed the map of America,"
she chimed. "You've changed the map of the world."

What she meant was that Cleveland, Ohio was now the place where rock & roll
music, and all of its aspirations to entertain, rattle, and mesmerize, had
been given a permanent address, an imposing home where Elvis Presley's
rhinestones, Janis Joplin's love beads, and Alice Cooper's bondage trousers
would be displayed until the end of time. Under the sponsorship of record
companies and local politicians, with the help of I.M. Pei and a special
tax increase earmarked for the occasion, a temple of the familiar had been
built on the shores of Lake Erie; youthful energy had been conserved,
catharsis put under glass.

In some respects, of course, the entire hall of fame enterprise risks
redundancy. Elvis Presley and Jim Morrison already enjoy well-attended
shrines of their own. Every Christmas, shrink-wrapped boxed sets, devoted
to artists great and grotesque, arrive at the record stores. And Hard Rock
Cafes, choking with memorabilia, dot the nation. One might be pardoned for
thinking that there's enough rock history to go around. "Why not just buy
the videos from Time-Life and watch them at home?," asked a visitor to the
hall of fame, not long after observing that he liked the Neil Armstrong
Museum much better.

It's a reasonable question. But Cleveland's newest museum -- as well as the
year's other efforts at rock & roll veneration -- do have their reasons for
existence. Back in 1985, when the organizers first began their monumental
task, the rock mystique was in disrepair. Glossy dance-pop and gloomy
synth-pop dominated the charts; the classics were becoming commercials. In
the British music press, an allegiance to rock music and its alleged values
of passion, authenticity and rebellion was deemed hopelessly retrograde, a
poor substitute for the pleasures of pop, irony, and the dance floor. To
add insult to injury, conservatives like George Will were praising Bruce
Springsteen for his "grand and cheerful affirmations."

Faced with this predicament, the proud rock veterans of the sixties grew
restive. Eager to enshrine their own accomplishments, anxious that their
charter to represent the mainstream of American popular music might be
rescinded, a rock aristocracy of record executives, producers, and one-time
musicians-turned-multinationals gathered in New York to build itself a
fortress. Dollars were raised; banquets prepared.

In the years that followed, as the hall of fame began inducting members
and holding its annual concerts in New York, rock music did enjoy a
periodic sequence of revivals. In 1987, there was the blossoming of Guns
n' Roses; in 1991, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots sulked their
way to stardom, allowing the words "punk rock" to be pronounced on
commercial radio for the first time and establishing that "alternative"
rock could sometimes be just as ordinary as anything else.

Yet while rock music remained a going concern, its fantasies of
earth-shaking social importance meant less and less. The machinery of
stardom was re-engineered by MTV and offered up more disposable goods than
ever. Not surprisingly, the critics groused about it. "Rather than dance to
the music you like, you like the music you can dance to," one of them
wrote.

Actually, there was plenty of good music around, especially if you didn't
insist on getting it from Jim Morrison-style demigod rebels. For instance,
there were the Pet Shop Boys' arch vignettes, Sonic Youth's layers of
noise, My Bloody Valentine's buzzing choirs, a submerged reef of gorgeous
pop from New Zealand. But the hall of fame's mission was never especially
to point to such music; rather, it was to commemorate the music's past and
to secure its aura of spontaneity and rebellion for future generations --
to make the world safe for rock & roll.

It's a delicate task. Choosing his words with careful symmetry, master
builder Jann Wenner explains that the hall celebrates both "the power of
innocence, rebellion, and youth" and that of "maturity, growth, and
perspective." According to its proprietors, the Hall will be the "permanent
collection of rock treasures, the definitive source for the presentation
and interpretation of rock and roll history." It will also be a "museum
that rocks."

In Part Two of "Monumental Rock," the author takes a walking tour through the hall of fame, and finds a few unlikely shrines to punk rock rebellion.

Here's the latest from our reader responses, courtesy of Issa Clubb (issa@voyagerco.com):

" I don't know anyone my age (mid-twenties) who believes the rock-as-ritual argument, with this museum as its new temple. The whole museum thing just seems very silly. We're more caught up in the processes of production; and this museum simply represents the extension of the classic rock radio establishment into architecture. It's just that there are places where concrete is setting, and there are places where tapes are changing hands. "

Let us know what *you* think about rock memorials. Been to the Hall of Fame? We'll be including your comments in this space, so be sure to send in your responses. Just click on the Feedbag icon below and start posting!