The blooming of rock 'n' roll.

IT IS MORE troubling than amusing that at the moment when Rolling Stone shows the President of the United States and the man he appointed chairman of the Republican National Committee rocking out on stage before a national audience, NATIONAL REVIEW chooses to publish an anti-rock screed by a born-again rock hater ["Rock of Ageds," Feb. 24].

That NR tacks against the Zeitgeist is fine. Standing athwart modernity and crying "Stop" is, of course, the point of NATIONAL REVIEW; but that an article condemning rock could be published just as rock is, for example, becoming a force for liberalization behind the Iron Curtain surely is an irony. Rock 'n' roll is synonymous with freedom to young people in Moscow, Warsaw, and Prague. Rock ought to be supported as a weapon of Realpolitik.

But then here is Stuart Goldman trotting out all the tired old arguments against rock. It is, he says, boorish, perverted, concupiscent, lowbrow, lumpen, and unaesthetic. And with the usual Bloomesque flourishes, he blames it on the Rolling Stones.

Goldman claims to have been a rock musician and critic, although he now boasts that "Today I'm as foreign to the world of rock music as a fish out of slime." Somehow, it's a relief. The thought of a fifty-year-old Mick Jagger prancing along the catwalk is somewhat less embarrassing than the notion of Stuart Goldman continuing to be a rock critic.

Let's begin with some of his "facts." He misplaces the Damned, one of the original punk bands, as heavy metal. He says rock 'n' roll is "the most prosperous industry in the world," which surely must be surprising to IBM, Boeing, and Toyota. He claims conservatives cannot love rock, nor can they survive in the music industry, while not mentioning that one of the music industry's great success stories is Miles Copeland IV, son of NR contributor Miles Copeland III. The younger Copeland is the manager of Sting, former manager of the Police (for which his brother was tbe drummer), and founder of IRS Records. Copeland is most certainly a conservative, having, in the 1988 campaign, been a supporter of Jack Kemp.

Mr. Goldman exhibits his depth by saying that rock "died in 1977," which -given that it was precisely at this time that rock was engaging in the catharsis of punk-is akin to saying Florence in the fourteenth century was the end of civilization. He compounds his error by proclaiming that rock broke into two parts in the Sixties, represented by the goody-goody and melodic Beaties and those nasty Rolling Stones. To limit his understanding of rock to a binary system of Beatles and Stones indicates Goldman's shallowness. Where does he mention such contemporaries of the Beatles and the Stones as The Who (rock as vehicle for narrative storytelling), the Kinks (rock as social satire), or even Bob Dylan?

I'll concede Mr. Goldman a couple of points. The rock music most commonly available on the airwaves or through cable television is typically junk. To find the good stuff, one may have to search a bit. But we don't condemn cinema because what's available at our local Spectrum 27 is a steady diet of Porky s XIII and Rambo XI. We don't decry literature just because Judith Krantz and Sidney Sheldon are what hit us in the eye when we walk into Waldenbooks.

SIMILARLY, the great pop music of our age is produced by precisely those labels Goldman has no doubt never heard of Goldman condemns only what he sees, and what he saw on his quick survey of rock music was very limited. Heavy metal is an easy target. It's stupid, gross, and, I suspect, temporary sort of like adolescence. Attacking it as a means of attacking all of rock is like attacking the Reverend AI Sharpton as a means of condemning Baptists.

And where does Goldman deal with Elvis Costello, Lou Reed, the Fall, pop bands like the dBs and garage bands like the Fleshtones? Punkwhich Goldman also completely ignores -ushered in an age in which bands with limited audiences created some of the most thrilling music in the history of rock 'n' roll. Rock didn't die in 1977, it was reborn. And it was reborn in a mode that, more than any other cultural indicator, predicted the rise of Reaganism.

Just as supply-side economics and the rise of Reagan were a back-tothe-roots rebellion against the hippie era and the stultification of the Seventies, so the rise of punk was a return to real rock 'n' roll. Both used classical prescriptions: for the supply-siders, it was the return to low tax rates; for the punk rocker, it was the -return to songs based on three simple chords.

Now, Mr. Goldman's attack comes just as a new Republican President is strapping on his Stratocaster and jamming on stage, sending a signal that Republicans, even conservatives, can quit being so glum and have fun, and can at last come to terms with rock music. While the walls of Communism are toppling to the beat of rock 'n' roll, Mr. Goldman can stay at home re-reading his Bloom and reliving his failed career as a rock star and critic, and seethe.