Listening for the Secret

the long version

Listening for the Secret is a critical assessment of the Grateful Dead and the distinct culture that grew out of the group's music, politics, and performance. With roots in popular music traditions, improvisation, and the avant-garde, the Grateful Dead is a unique phenomenon through which to better understand the meaning and creation of the counterculture community. Author Ulf Olsson marshals the critical and aesthetic theories of Adorno, Benjamin, Foucault, and others to place the group within a political discourse, focusing on the band's capacity to create a unique social environment. Analyzing the Grateful Dead's music, as well as the forms of subjectivity that the band generated, Olsson examines the wider significance of the politics of improvisation. -- from back cover.