Emo vs. 19th century Romanticism: "Hey! Nietzsche! Leave Them Kids Alone!"

Andrew sez,

I've interviewed Australian writer and youth radio host Craig Schuftan, who has just released a new book called 'Hey! Nietzsche! Leave Them Kids Alone!' It's an exciting, discursive analysis, which at its heart compares emo, pop and rock n' roll to the philosophies of the Romantic movement of the nineteenth century.

The two part interview is almost as wide-ranging and certainly as interesting as the book (if I do say so myself). He's a culture sponge and we discuss (among many other things) Nietzsche's philosophy, Weezer's lyrics, ludditism, the create font of melancholy, and whether the anti-depressant generation will have trouble expressing themselves artistically.

My Chimerical Romanticism: Part One (Thanks, Andrew!)

• [SweetCuppinCakes]

  How’d they manage to get Nietzsche’s name wrong on the cover? Or is that on purpose, to prove his point that we gloss over the phenomena of the world and put them in categories they “should” be in, as we’ve been conditioned to, rather than analyze them anew…

• [Tdawwg]

  I think whatever press that published it has a sucky editor-copyeditor, a sad result of our age of digital illiteracy. Who needs accuracy when you have “an exciting, discursive analysis”?

• [Anonymous]

  Great find. Thanks for posting the interview. I wasn’t a huge fan of the interviewer himself (the first half read more like just a list of prepared questions than a conversation) but Craig Schultan was interesting. Looking forward to reading the book.

• [richsamuels]

  Does anyone know where I can get this in the UK? £20 seems a bit steep for a paper back.

• [J France]

  Schuftan on BoingBoing!

  His Culture Club book and radio series (which went dormant for a few years) were highly entertaining, glad to see he’s getting some wider coverage.

• [Anonymous]

  Hey! Thank Boingers for publishing our chat. I’m the ‘Andrew sez’.

  Yes, the typo on the cover was an early mistake. That cover was never printed but must’ve slipped out in the promo stage.

  I’m also sad that the book isn’t up on Amazon. I might have to ask Schuftan why that hasn’t happened as yet. It could have something to do with it being published on ABC books, which is an imprint of our national broadcaster, much like England’s BBC. They seem averse to profit.

  And finally, since I figured people would rather read slabs of Schuftan’s thoughts rather than mine, I trimmed my wandering questions down to the bare essentials, which may make it seem like an email interview at times.

  Regardless, thanks for reading. I can’t recommend this book, or his first one The Culture Club, highly enough.

• [Zandy]

  It is not published in the UK so far as I know. I picked up a copy when I was in Australia last month, am now about a chapter in and enjoying it so far. I believe it is produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, so unless someone decides to start importing it or a UK publisher takes it up the ABC shop will be your only hope.

• [Beanolini]

  I was discussing the link between pop/rock music and Romanticism with a friend just the other day.

  The conclusion we came to was that it’s all down to Beethoven. His casting as the ‘heroic artist’ whose life and music were inextricably linked set the mould for every punk/goth/emo (and launched a billion spurious notions of ‘authenticity’).

• [Zandy]

  OK that is slightly weird – the image on the BoingBoing page (with incorrect spelling) is not the same as the one on the ABC shop site, or the article site, both of which have the correct spelling (as of 17:02 GMT). Must hurry home and see what my dead tree version has on it.

• [Anonymous]

  “One day in the late mid-eighties, I was in my early late-twenties. I had just been dismissed from University after delivering a brilliant lecture on the aggressive influence of German philosophy on rock’n'roll entitled ‘You, Kant, Always Get What You Want.’” – Hedwig Schmidt

• [commuter_dirge]

  You can subscribe to Schuftan’s triple j Culture Club podcast here:

  http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/podcast/culture_club.xml

  Bit-sized bits of what he talks about in the book.

• [richsamuels]

  @zandy

  Thanks for the information; I feared that was the case when I clicked through to the ABC site.

• [Zandy]

  Unfortunately (particularly for the residents) books are expensive in Australia relative to the general cost of living. So if a book is a local imprint and you add in the cost of transport to Europe it is going to cost you a pretty packet.

• [Anonymous]

  is it not up on Amazon yet?