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Why is there no rock-n-roll on Star Trek?


Every time we see a recital given aboard any ship or star base, it's almost always a 'classical music' recital or performance, never a rock concert. The only exceptions to this musical bias are Riker's penchant for Jazz and Zefram Cochrane playing 'Magic Carpet Ride' during the 'First Contact' launch.



Answer



Roddenberry had a vision of an 'enlightened' humanity, and as a strict matter of keeping up appearances, it's a lot easier to sell people on a post-scarcity technologically affluent culture that listens to Chopin over Chuck Berry. It's a bit of an oversight in the long term, because a person's musical tastes aren't necessarily a pointer to their intelligence, but it's such a TV trope to assume intelligence begets classical taste in music that I suspect that has more to do with it than anything. It's a lot easier to sell the idea that music which has already withstood the test of time (Bizet and Berlioz were 19th century composers, both of which are name-dropped during First Contact) has "made it into space" with the rest of us than, like, Dion DiMucci. In fact, there's a brief quote attributed to the creators of Star Trek who state that it is "more believeable" that classical music continues forward whereas contemporary or popular music ebbs, flows, and eventually fades away.


More of an observation on my part -- I'm going out on a limb here, but I would hazard a guess that a utopian society is a lot less likely to identify with some of the darker tones of popular music from the last 70 years.


It's not as if people stop breaking up with each other or anything. But there are also certain socio-economic circumstances which are more easily expressed in the context of blues-inspired rock music than in a society where no one gets sick or loses their home because they got fired.



"Woke up this morning feeling exemplary --dun daaaa dun da dunt--



My car started right away because everything works perfectly --dun daaaa dun da dunt--


Still happily married because the hardship of financial difficulty never drove me or my spouse to seek the comfort of another person's embrace --dun daaa dun da dunt--...."



There are a handful of indicators towards such an attitude. The small talk between Jellico and Riker concerning the presence of a trombone in his quarters is a little telling of the remnants of 'snooty' early TNG's vision of humans -- we're all high-concept highfalutin brainiacs that immerse ourselves in the high points of art, philosophy, and use phrases like "Is it not the height of hubris..." (Really though, the reaction and body language Jellico employs when Riker says he's a jazz musician -- 'ohhhh ....jazz..... okaaay.')


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