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...... Indeed, it is the common misconception that that which qualifies as popular culture is somehow separate and categorically distinct from cultural content that is sociologically, politically or artistically pertinent. This is to say that it would be difficult for most to accept some sweeping categorical context in which Britney Spears and Bob Dylan exist on the same continuum. Such a conception arises inherently from the critical process which is implied by modernism. This critical process will cause us to recognize one example of music as qualifying for positive artistic and intellectual regard (Dylan) while the same perspective will cause us to perceive the prurient, sophomoric or melodramatic (Spears) as functioning in a far less role of mere entertainment or recreation. This division casts a difficult shadow on our understanding of popular culture, a beast of a thousand stripes and yet beset by unending attempts at straightjacketing by mass media. By casting across this division aspects of popular music in two distinct categories, reflecting either their apparent concurrence with or their declared dissent against hegemonic economic, political and social forces, it is possible to more clearly understand the flux of rock music as a force of modernism and also as

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