Wait, wait!! You didn't mention Polkamama Masses!

.

The rock Mass seems awkward just at this level: one is overstimulating the senses, just as one might at a bar or club, which may provide an endorphin rush and sense of excitement, but surely isn't very good for promoting chastity, meditation, contemplative prayer, self-denial and so on. Maybe it doesn't matter. But it seems quite an odd variant on Christian spirituality.

(Emphasis added)
In my experience (others may have a difference experience), the Novus Ordo Missae, which is the form of the Mass at which I assume Rock Masses are taking place, isn't good at fostering meditation or contemplative prayer, actually, in my experience, it isn't good at fostering personal prayer, period; what it is good at is fostering communal rote-recitation of liturgical texts--perhaps that was the intention of Bugnini & Co.--and these over-stimulating events, like Rock Masses, Polka Masses, LifeTeen Masses, etc., are an attempt to mask the banality and lack of mysticism with emotionalism. In fact, in my current job, with the current pastor, the Gregorian Chant, polyphony, and traditional hymnody that we sing has much the same effect---there are some days the ars celebrandi is so consistently bad that the chanted Gloria seems more out of place in the whole than does the improvised, wordy, rambling, 9 o'clock news "Prayer" of the Faithful.

I don't know if the Rock Mass, LifeTeen Mass, etc., are 'the problem' or simply the symptom of the problem, namely, a liturgy that is too personal, completely filled with blah-blah, and easily devolves into the Fr. X. Show, because I am beginning to see the 'Gregorian Mass' as having the same propblems.

I don't mean to call the NO a pig, but I sometimes think that the application of chant and polyphony to it is much like the application of lipstick to that animal.

I sang a chant ordinary for an otherwise rock Mass once. That was kind of weird. I wouldn't do it again.

But I think sometimes this problem that we always need to solve is not really solveable. That is, priests celebrating badly, congregants praying badly, musicians singing badly... none of these are fixed by giving them a new liturgy or new hymns or new interior decoration or more snacks or new fashions to wear. If prayer truly comes from the heart, that's God's work, not due to 'renewing' anything. Music or texts or dress can respect or disrespect the reverence due to God, but that's a different issue than 'we can make people holy if we just modify these details in the ritual'.

Perhaps ritual won't make anyone holy. And yet - Jacob Flaherty attested above, in another thread

I was so moved when, at my first TLM, the name 'Jesus' was said at the sermon and instantly a whole sanctuary full of men and boys turned towards the altar and bowed their heads at the name of Jesus. That was the moment I was won over.

To a very large extent the problem is not with the ritual as laid down, it is with the failure to follow what is laid down, or even to know what is laid down. At Midnight Mass the missalette includes the rubric (actually printed in red so that it is visible) "all genuflect at the next three lines", and Father pointed this out before starting the Creed. And yet many people were still caught unawares!

At Midnight Mass the missalette includes the rubric (actually printed in red so that it is visible) "all genuflect at the next three lines", and Father pointed this out before starting the Creed. And yet many people were still caught unawares!

What we got was not only the priest reminding people about the genuflexion before the Creed, but also interrupting the creed to say "Let us pause and kneel" and then, after 'and was made man', "Let us stand and continue".

Hard to say: We had thirty years of the previous guy just reminding us beforehand and everyone just did it, cued by watching the priest and servers. I do know that it annoyed some of the more astute members of the choir. (Though not as much as the welcome address that was inserted between the Gloria and the Collect at Midnight Mass.)

Personally, I am not a fan of this bowing/genuflecting thing. It's like a compromise struck at the Consilium meetings: some wanted to retain the genuflextion in the Creed, others to remove it: so they decided on bowing, except on Christmas and the Annunciation. In my opinion, it should either be a genuflexion all the time or bowing all the time. It's silly; like if they decided to replace the genuflexions after the elevations with a profound bow except on Holy Thursday and Corpus Christi, when you genuflect.

(Apologies for ranting.)