>I had worked this out by reading Marx before I had ever even heard the
>word "postmodern"
You're showing your age. ; )
Now people can work such things out reading Foucault *and* Marx. The idea that Foucault et. al. somehow interferes with people getting Marx is to me one of the most curious things about pomo bashing.
>except in reference to some trend sin musical
>composition!
Perry Anderson's book on postmodernism does a great job of tracing the use of term. One of the earliest uses in the U.S. is in an essay from 1972 by Leo Steinberg on Robert Rauschenberg. Steinberg praises Rauschenberg and calls Clement Greenberg on the carpet.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_7_40/ai_84182762/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1