We Gotta Get Out of This Place: Popular Conservatism and Postmodern Culture

Consider this paradox: for many people, rock is dead, crushed by the weight of its own success and popularity, little more than of mainstream commercial entertainment. But for many others, especially among the new conservative Right, rock poses a greater threat now than ever before. What is it about rock that makes it so important in contemporary political struggles? Bringing together cultural, political and economic analyses, Lawrence Grossberg offers an original and bold interpretation of the contemporary politics of both rock and popular culture. We Gotta Get Out of This Place explores four histories: the changing role of rock in everyday life; the emergence of an affective and popular conservatism; the crisis of contemporary capitalism; and the apparent inability of the Left to respond to these changes. These critical developments are bound together by their concern with postmodernity, understood as both a structure of everyday life and as a sensibility of popular culture. Everyone wants to get out of this place, but only the Right seems to have found a way to benefit from where we are.