I wonder, I wonder, I wonder ... Elvis Presley. Photograph: Hulton Archive
It's 50-odd years since Elvis told his Mama that it was Alright, and yet still the Great Rock'N'Roll Novel remains defiantly unwritten. Sure, there are countless examples of novels that use specific musical references as scene dressing or as a cultural compass - few things more effectively establish time and character, as well as allowing authors to show off their record collection; and there have been several novels told from a fan's perspective. But I've yet to read a novel that convincingly sums up the experience and the value of making popular music, or that captures the weird, savage compulsion that keeps everyone from Bloc Party to Bob Dylan traipsing around the world, year-in year-out.
There have been some notable contenders: Espedair Street; Great Jones Street; Expresso Bongo; The Ground Beneath Her Feet; The Commitments; Namedropper; Powder. That's before we consider vapid trash like Platinum Logic and Rock Star or less high profile titles such as Alan Arlt's The Carpet Frogs and Michael Turner's Hard Core Logo. Some have been better than others, a few have been excellent, but none have truly convinced. And here's why:
a) Writing about music is hard enough at the best of times; try writing about music that doesn't exist. The basic inescapable flaw in every rock novel is the fact that the reader can't hear the music and thus struggles to identify with the artist. Strip away any audible, self-evident sign of talent - ie the songs - and most rock stars are simply posturing bores. Hardly the stuff of great fiction.
b) Good novelists have a tendency to get sloppy when they write about popular music - it's an exercise in cultural slumming that almost inevitably lends itself to unoriginal plots and indulgent writing. From their names on down - Ormus Cana? Bucky Wunderlick?! - the characters rarely ring true, apparently hell-bent on playing out the author's own fantasies rather than attempting to illuminate what this great rock and roll circus actually means.
c) Rock novels are pitched at an enormously demanding readership. If the atmosphere and language isn't spot on, we turn off. If we don't share the musical tastes of the writer, we struggle to engage: think of Iain Banks' patently awful prog rock band Frozen Gold in Espedair Street. We're so acutely aware of the tiniest rituals of a gig or the peculiarly nuanced language deployed by musicians that an author has to avoid a minefield of cliche while still creating something familiar enough to convince - and that's a tough tightrope to walk.
Perhaps pop music is essentially worthless as an abstract idea and must be experienced at first hand to have value. Can that be true? If so, then maybe the future of rock literature lies in a fusion of fact and fiction; something truly original and thought-provoking that will do for rock and roll novels what Dave Peace's The Damned United did for football books. Or am I missing something?
