"Little crimeworn histories": Nick Cave and the Roots-Raves-Rehab Story of Rock Stardom

Abstract

From James Rovira's introduction: "Mark A. McCutcheon shifts the locus of suffering to substance abuse in '"Little crimeworn histories": Nick Cave and the Roots-Raves-Rehab Story of Rock Stardom.' McCutcheon examines the commodification of the Romantic tropes of drug use and of the self-destructive artist using Nick Cave as a case study. The art/commerce opposition established within Romantic texts to emphasize the authenticity of the poet/artist has, according to McCutcheon, become a part of the commerce of the music industry in the form of a Roots-Rave-Rehab narrative that governs discourse about artists’ drug use and recovery. In other words, Romantic tropes have been appropriated to serve capitalist ends. McCutcheon’s chapter considers how Nick Cave both exploits and resists this appropriation using a number of strategies, including an exploitation and modification of the traditional Gothic/Romantic trope of the dead woman" (18).