What Is Hip? (John Adams)
The very hip song by that title sung by the group Tower of Power (now almost thirty years ago) raises a lot of intriguing questions. As far as
I can tell, the song's only answer is that "the passing years will show." I had this issue in mind in one of the original tunes I wrote for my
"Jump Shot" CD, entitled "Fuddy-duddy," a now out-of-date term for someone who is out-of-date!
Something (or someone) being "hip" seems to involve a strange balance of being for "the masses" and for "the insiders" at the same time.
Something "hip" seems to have be both non-conformist, in the sense that it is not really "mainstream" or common knowledge, and conformist,
in the sense that some sizeable number of people are being drawn into awareness, participation in, and/or appreciation of the particular thing.
What is the cut-off number for these two groups, those in or out of "the know?" If only one person does or digs one particular thing it might
just be considered flat-out weird! But if everybody is aware then the element of mystery is removed and it is not hip anymore. But is that all
there is too it? Is hipness only a matter of how many people are into it (or in on it, as the case may be)? For example, was having a "pet rock"
every really hip, and if so, at what point did it cease to be? Was it after a certain number of people got into it, or after a certain length of
time? Is there anything intrinsically hip about the pet rock? And haircuts; don't even get me started (only partly because I am going bald)!
One aspect of this topic is observable in the ways that terms and clothing trends evolve in our society. For example, there is an often-repeated
pattern of a term starting in the "African-American" (I don't know if that is the hip term for it now) community, then gradually being adopted
by college students, then high-school students, and by the time junior-high school students start using it (usually because by then it is in
every other TV-ad or movie) the first group or two have two or three new terms for the same thing. The whole process can take five to ten
years, or more. Then just to add to the madness, there can develop a certain hipness in something "COMING BACK IN!" For the past few years I
have noticed that it seems to be cool to say "cool" a lot. Well I for one never stopped using the term! However I was greatly dismayed to run
across the old tambourine I had in first grade (in 1965) and it had the term "Cool Man" hand-written by me in pen on top of it. Of course by
1965, Miles Davis fans had owned their copies of Miles' record "The Birth of the Cool" for about fifteen years!
Maybe Tower of Power was right; maybe something is only truly hip if it lasts. What a paradox: we may only know if something is truly "hip" if
it turns out to be classic! By then those who are chasing after hipness, will be many trends farther down the road and won't have stopped to
notice... unless it "comes back," in which case the pop-culture will have told them to.
For further reading see:
* the lyrics to the Tower of Power tune "What is Hip?" as recorded on "Bump City" and "Live and in Living Color"
* "Dave Barry Turns Forty"
* "Dave Barry Turns Fifty"
* the book of Ecclesiastes (in the bible); ala "nothing new under the sun"
* "Murphy Must Have Been a Musician" by John Adams
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