The Conquest of Cool

Starred review from December 8, 1997
Hoping to tap the youth dollar, in 1968 Columbia Records claimed "The Man Can't Bust Our Music." That same year, a sports-coat manufacturer urged buyers to "Tune in. Turn on. Step out" while so attired. Such ads have become infamous, proof of both capitalism's limitless capacity for co-optation and the counterculture's decline from radicalism to market share. But, as this bristlingly intelligent work documents, the story is a good deal more complicated. Frank, editor of the underground cultural-criticism journal The Baffler, stops short of claiming that advertising invented the counterculture, but he adroitly illuminates the intricacies behind familiar stories about the '60s by revealing how completely these ads, aimed at the hip consumer, harmonized with admen's changing values as well. Indeed, rebellion on Madison Avenue often preceded rebellion on campus. In accessible, muscular prose, Frank traces agencies' revolt against inflated '50s jargon ("Quadra-Power Roadability") and creation of aggressively hip spots that simultaneously mocked consumer culture's empty promises and sold consumption-as-rebellion. Today, that style dominates the marketplace; every ad hastens to preempt viewer skepticism with a sneer of its own--but also assures him or her that "this" product is an exception. Though occasionally repetitive (we don't need to hear every adman's organizational theories), this book is frequently brilliant, an indispensable survival guide for any modern consumer. (Nov.) FYI: Frank and Baffler managing editor Matt Weiland have selected articles from the magazine's first decade in Commodify Your Dissent: Salvos from the Baffler.

November 15, 1997
One of the most damning charges one could make during the 1960s was to accuse "the Establishment" of co-opting the principles or ideals of the so-called counterculture. Frank's look back at this period shows that the question of who subverted whom may be moot. Frank edits the" Baffler," a quarterly published at the University of Chicago that examines popular culture and the "cultural industry." This book, a popularized version of his doctoral dissertation entitled "The Commercialization of Dissent," examines advertising and men's fashion. Frank argues that many executives working in these two industries were themselves products of the counterculture and that, rather than exploit prevailing attitudes and trends, they helped dramatically and permanently transform the face of business. The many examples Frank uses to bolster his case make for a fascinating flashback. ((Reviewed November 15, 1997))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1997, American Library Association.)