Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Commodification and Standardization

- Theodor Adorno
• Critical Theory
• Marxist understanding of society
• Criticized capitalism and its control over society
- The Culture Industry
• Produce forms of culture that are commodities: entertainment, lm, radio, music,
etc.

• Commodi cation -> Standardization -> Passivity

• Mass production leads to lack of originality. Leads to passivity and lack of critical
thought
- Pop is standardized in several ways:
• Number of types that are immediately recognizable
• Small # of structures
• Small # of components to each song that are interchangeable
- Pseudo-individualization
• The type of variation that exists between standardized products. Only surface
changes; details may change, overall structure stays the same.
- High vs. Low Culture
• “Serious” vs. Pop Music. Serious=Classical
• Differences: Degree of standardization, level of complexity, market context
- Role of the Listener
• Caught up in a standardized and routine set of responses. The pleasure derived is
super cial and false.

• Individuals who enjoy these pleasures are corrupted by immersion and are open to
the domination of the capitalist system.

1
fi
fi
fi
 Wednesday, January 8, 2014

On Popular Music in Advertising

- The premise of Allen:
• The use of pop music in advertising is growing
• Companies attempt to reach a wider audience with the use of music
• Musicians seem more willing to have their music used for commercial purposes
• In the early 2000’s, Allen saw that pop musicians were more open to accept their
music being used in ads due to the bigger chance for money and due to CD sales
going down

Tin Pan Alley

- Area of Manhattan around 28th st. where much of the sheet music were written
- Proli c Tin Pan Alley performers:
• Irving Berlin
- God Bless America and White Christmas
• Richard Rodgers
• Oscar Hammerstein
• George and Ida Gershwin
• Cole Porter
- The idea was to have a standardized style. Innovation and virtuosity didn’t sell well,
which led to the homogenization of music being produced.
- Originally performed in Vaudeville theatres, then Broadway.
- Music moved from sheet music to 78 rpm records and began the transition from
written music to recorded music
- During the great depression, the radio was preferred to the phonograph.
• Radio was free
- By the mid 1920s, records overtook sheet music sales for the rst time

2
fi
fi
 Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Topic #2 Production and Technology

- Whiteman
• The whole success/failure of an orchestra depended on keeping up with the latest
dance styles

• Usually it’s the music industry that is blamed for the standardization of music, but it
also has to be said that part of that is due to the public’s constantly changing
opinion of music
- “The history of music is, in part, one of a shift from oral performance to notation, then
to music being recorded and stored, and disseminated
- Sound Production
• Positive
- New technologies open up performances bases
- listening is more convenient
- cheaper
- more opportunities
• Negative:
- performances bases not always open to everyone
- Sampling
- The producer being an important part of the music process.
- Sound Recording
• Different sound aesthetics over the years
• New recording technologies have opened up creative possibilities
- Sound formats
• Music as a “thing” (commodity)
• What’s important is making music available to the public
• Desired sound quality
• Convenience

3
 Wednesday, January 22, 2014
• Cost
- Sound Reproduction and Dissemination
• Developments in sound systems correspond to how, when, and where we listen to
music
- Boom boxes
- Walkman
- Disc-man
- Mp3 players
- Phones
• File sharing
- The creative process is more important than the product
- Copyright:
• Right wing politics and older generalization
- Copyleft
• Left wing and newer generation
- Not necessarily true, overgeneralization
- Who has control over the copyright industry
• he says that gov does, but we, the ah people, should
- If everything is free, how will musicians make money?

- Intro to EDM (Electronic Dance Music)

• Rise of 90s EDM begins with fall of disco
- Emerges from disco culture
• DJs developed a number of techniques to create new music
- beat-matching
- beat mixing

4
 Wednesday, January 22, 2014
• Meta-genre
- (Category containing more genres)
• DJ became central to the dance music experience
- Larry Levam and the Paradise Garage
• While disco was still popular, Levam established himself as one of NY’s top dance
DJs

• As it faded, Levan developed his own approach to re-working and combining

records

• This New York approach to dance music is often called Garage

- Ex: The City Peech Boys - “Don’t Make Me Wait” (1982)
- House
• Developed at a Chicago dance club called the warehouse
• Krankie Knuckles brought Levan’s techniques with him (c. 1977)
• By the early 1980’s the Chicago sound was developing.
• Would soon be called “House” music
- Ex: Jesse Saunders’ “On and On” (1983)
• Takes disco’s use of a prominent bass/kick on every beat (Four-to-the- oor beat)
• Heavy electronic synthesizer bass line, electronic drums, effects, funk and pop
samples
- Techno
• The Belleville Three (Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson) began
producing a re ned, futuristic, and sonically sophisticated version of Dance music
that many called “Detroit House”

• Now known as Techno

- Ex: Juan Atkin’s “No UFOs” (1985)
- Jungle/Drum and Bass
• Emerged in the early 1990s

5
fi
fl
 Wednesday, January 22, 2014
• Fast tempo, broken beat drums
• Tracks often used raga vocals
- Ex: Goldie’s “Angel” (1995)
- Electronica
• This sub genre includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed
for a wide range of uses

• This music is not always intended for dancing (unlike most other EDM)
- Ex: Moby’s “Natural Blues”
- Historia Electronica Preface-Simon Reynolds (2001)
• He lays out the parameters that de ne a “ eld of possibility” within which EDM
exists
- Machine Music
- Texture/Rhythm vs. Melody/Harmony
- You’re so physical
- Against interpretation
- Surface v. depth
- Drug me
- This is a journey into Sound
- Faceless Techno Bollocks
- Dean of the auteur
- We bring you the future
- Let’s Submerge
- Site-Speci c
- Only Connect

6
fi
fi
fi
 Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Topic #3 Industry and Commercialization

- The music Industry
• Consists of sound recording companies who develop and market artist and their
music

• Other industries include

- Publishing
- Music retail
- music press
- music hardware
- sound recording and reproduction technology
- tours and concerts
- merchandising, royalties and rights
- The Economic Structure of the Pop Music Industry
• Power centred in the hands of larger, international companies, such as:
- Universal Music Group
- Sony/BMG
- AOL Time-Warner
• Concentration
- The ownership of pop music production is concentrated in the hands of a small
number of companies

• Vertical Integration
- Where concentration of the music and media industries lead to control of the total
production ow, from raw materials to wholesale
- Attempt to control the hardware products to maximize their pro ts
- Large Record Companies v. Independent Labels
• Some critics have observed that periods of concentration have produced a lot of
similar music

7
fl
fi
 Wednesday, January 29, 2014
• Some have observed that this has led to bursts of creativity by the public
- Innovation is therefore linked to independent record labels
- A cycle of innovations and consolidation
• Development of music in the late 1950’s + Britain in the mid-late 1970’s
• This framework has been argued against
- Music production is more complicated
- Webs and networks operating within the music industry
- Interconnections between large and small companies
• Time Warner dropping Interscope over its af liation with Deathrow
- Income from Rights
• Copyright (Intellectual Property Right)
- Performing rights
• For the use of musical material collected on behalf of writers and publishers
when music is performed or broadcast
- Public performance rights
• Paid for the Privilege of broadcasting or playing the actual recording in public
- Mechanical rights
• Paid to the copyright holder every time a particular song or piece of music is
recorded

• Trademark
- A trademark provides a legal shield around the name, slogan, shape, or
character image, and in conjunction with product licensing, makes it possible for
the original proprietor to transfer this sign to second and third parties for a limited
period of time in exchange for royalties
- Branding
• The forging of links of image and perception between arrange of products
• images are transferable between different media

8
fi
 Wednesday, January 29, 2014
- Questions in relation to major labels
• How does concentration affect the range of opportunities available to musicians
and others involved in the production of pop music?

• How does concentration affect the range and nature of products available to
consumers of pop music?

• What role does this play in the creation of meaning in pop music?
- The Music Industry Fight Against Rock n Roll
- What in uenced it:
• Swing Jazz
• Blues
• Country Blues
• R&B
• Ragtime
- Early Pairings of “Rock” and “Roll”
• “The Camp Meeting Jubilee” (1912)
• Trixie Smith, “My Man Rocks Me” (1922)
• Chick Webb and Ella Fitzgerald, “Rock It For Me” (1937)
- The Term “Rock n Roll”
• used to describe the musical style from 1956 onwards
- Pop Films
• Don’t Knock the Rock (1969)
• Rock, Rock, Rock
- The Role of promoters was important in nding a mainstream audience for the new
genre

• Alan Freed
• D.J. Dewey
• Sam Philips (producer and owner of Sun Records)

9
fl
fi
 Wednesday, January 29, 2014
- All Shook Up (Elvis Presley)
- “Great Balls of Fire” (Jerry Lee Lewis)
- “That’ll Be the Day” (Buddy Holly)

- Brackett Reading
• Emergence of Rock n Roll in the 1950s
• ASCAP vs BMI
- ASCAP represented the older people, BMI endorsed the newbies
• Payola
- Practise of record companies paying disc jockeys to play discs more often
- BMI was accused of payola and that’s how RnR got famous
• Dick Clark
- Marketed “Teen Pop”
- Sparsely played black music
- All white audiences
• Alan Freed
- Played a lot of black music to white kids
- Integrated audiences
• “Teen Pop” in the late 50/early 60
- A “softer” version of RnR
- Toned down and “Safer”
- More successful because it’s better for a young, white audience
- Turned into Pop
• Rock n Roll
- Little Richard “Good Golly Miss Molly” (1958)
- Chuck Berry “You Can’t Catch Me” (1956)

10
 Wednesday, January 29, 2014
• Teen Pop
- The Crests “Sixteen Candles” (1958)
- The Platters “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” (1958)

- Relevance to Current Industry Practices:

• What effect does the music industry have in shaping public taste?
• Is the promotion of certain artist and restrictions of others political?
• Who has control of current radio programming?

11
 Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Topic #4 Sampling Meaning and Interpretation

- Sampling
• “Creative” or “Theft”?
• Created hit songs by recycling old hit songs
• Use a sampler to lift a musical sequence and use it
- Strauss was critiquing taking a musical backdrop and using it as the basis for a new
song
- Shuker Chapter 5
• What is a pop music text
- “Text” refers to any media form that is self-contained and conveys cultural
meanings. Ex:

• Recordings
• Album Covers
• Music Videos
• Live Performance
• Textual analysis is concerned with identifying and analyzing the formal qualities of
texts, their structures, and characteristics

• Intertextuality is the idea that a text communicates its meaning only when it is
situated in relation to other texts

• Preferred reading: Dominant messages set within the codes and conventions that
went into the creation of the text
- A song’s meaning is not de nite
- Context plays a large role in how meanings are interpreted
- Cultural meanings are made by consumers
• Three forms of text
- Graphic
• Concert posters

12
fi
 Wednesday, January 29, 2014
• Street yers
• T-shirts
• Packaging of albums
- Contribute to advertising/branding
- Musical
• Musical texts
- Includes the study of both music and lyrics
• Can’t separate music from lyrics
• Musical Analysis
- Tensions in the eld of musicology
- The musical text is best understood when analyzed in its social context
• Lyrical Analysis
- Content analysis deals with the subject matter
- Video
• Music Video
- Music videos are promotional devices
- There is often a pre-occupation with visual style
- Music videos abolish traditional boundaries between an image and its real-life
referent
- Sampling
• The Sugarhill Gang made hip hop prominent
• Sampling has been used to make a link between the past
- Reference a speci c time period or artist/talent

13
fl
fi
fi
 Monday, March 3, 2014

Topic #5
- Genres
• De ned as a category or type, moreover it is a means of classi cation
- Useful for analytical and historical elements
• Organizing element
- Musical characteristics
- Time Periods
- Uses
- Types of listeners
• De ned in part by distinctions made by the music industry
• Standardize codes and conventions
- Musical, lyric, visual, ideological
• These codes are uid
- Dimensions of pop music genres
• Places in the context of historical roots and social context
• Stylistic traits in the music
• Non-musical stylistic traits
• Primary Audience
• The style’s durability
- Genres
• Meta-genres
- Genres
• Subgenres
- Sampling
• Copyright

14
fi
fi
fl
fi
 Monday, March 3, 2014
• Creativity
- Musical Borrowing and Appropriation
• Appropriation
- “The artistic use of another’s work in the creation of a new piece”
- Remaking pop standards
- “The coloured folks been singing it and playing it just like I’m doing now, man, for
more years than I know.” —Elvis

• Appropriation in Art
- Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans
- Authenticity
• Author’s intent
• Style and genre manipulation
• Musical originality
• Pop and rock polarized
- Pop=arti ce
- Rock=authentic
• Allan Moore (2002)
- Authenticity of expression
- Authenticity of experience
- Authenticity of execution
• Authenticity is ascribed to the performance rather than inscribed within it
- Covers
• Originating Moment
• Spectrum of Copies
- Original
- Direct copy

15
fi
 Monday, March 3, 2014
- Minor interpretation
- Major interpretation
- Parody
• Cover Songs
- Appropriation
- Authenticity
- Intertextuality
- Context
• Genre
• Time period
• Gender
• Race
• Location

16
 Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Topic #6—Gender and Sexuality

- What are the norms of masculinity and femininity?
• Transformer commercial: Power and Size
• Barbie commercial: Beautiful hair and sparkling dresses
- Social Constructionism (learned) v. Essentialism (biological)
• Most of our understanding about gender and sexuality is taught through parents,
and social things.

• Set against that all gender actions are from biological factors
• Appearances and behaviours have become norms through years of practise and
acceptance. Have been challenged and contested recently.

• We have to have a norm to measure resistance against.

• Historically masculinity has been marketed as the strong, powerful and dominant
man. It’s an ideal. Hegemonic Masculinity. Maintained through institutions and
idealizations. Naturalized power: coming from the natural order.
- Strength, courage, individuality, sexual potency, aggressiveness, indépendance,
autonomy
- Doesn’t Include: passivity, timidity fragility, delicateness, expressiveness,
emotionality, humility, innocence.
- Women, Pop music, and Porn
• A lot of the mega media companies pro t from the adult entertainment, and pop
• Adult entertainment is pushing to push their image into pop
• Around 1990s we exchanged artistry exchanged for high heels
• The shift isn’t a change in performers’ ideology, but from the ownership groups
• The companies were using music videos as ads for porn.
- Madonna, Authenticity, and Feminism
• One of the rst big pop star to have issues when it comes to feminism and her
image

• At rst considered very super cial

17
fi
fi
fi
fi
 Wednesday, March 12, 2014
• Compared to Cyndi Lauper in the 1980s
- CL: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and She Bop
- Madonna: Like a Virgin and Material Girl
• One of the big issues with Madonna was whether she could control her body and
sexuality while aunting it all about

• She exploited her sexuality, but also explored it and shown different sides of it
• Was Madonna using “Sex to sell” or actually setting a platform for other potential
sexualities

18
fl
 Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Topic #7—Subcultures and Scenes

- Relations between texts and Audiences
• The hypodermic Syringe model
- An early model
- The idea that the audience would accept the messages they received because
they had no alternative sources of opinion
- Essentially being brainwashed by the media
• Producers->Text->Audience
• The 2 way text audience relationship
- At ext may be structured in a particular way, but it may be decoded by the
audience in ways not necessarily determined by the viewer itself

• Fluid interactions between a text, its production, and its reception

- Authors/Producers->audience/Listener and text
- Listener->producer and text
- Text
• Cultivation analysis
- Studies the long term effects of the media on forms of behaviours and attributes
- Culture
• 2 Meanings
- Culture refers to the works and practises of art and intellectual activity
- Culture also refers to a way of life
• These two meanings interact very obviously in pop music
- Subcultures
• Subcultures can be broadly understood as social groups organized around the
shared interests and practices

• Subcultures typically set themselves against the others (larger social group)

19
 Wednesday, March 19, 2014
• Set themselves in opposition to their parent culture
• 2 Components
- Plastic (Dress and music)
- Infrastructural (activities and ritual)
• “There is a symbolic t between the values and lifestyles of a group, its subjective
experience and the musical forms it uses to express or reinforce its focal concerns”
Dick Hebdige

• Subcultures resist the parent culture, even if it’s indirect. Set themselves aside by
ways they act, dress, etc.

• New style of music turns up, subcultures embrace them, and it becomes
mainstream
- Disco
• Disco is:
- A musical style
- A performance site
- A mode of participation and fandom
• It’s not just about the music, it’s about the DJ and the audience
• Initially tied to a number of factors: race, sexuality and particular location
- Catered to gay, african american and latinos in NYC
• Emphasis
- On dancing and the body
- On the DJ
- The Audience
• Songs, and style of musical was important, but the selection and mixing of songs
by the DJ was also an important act

• 3 Main types:
- R&B Disco

20
fi
 Wednesday, March 19, 2014
• Derived from gospel
• Often performed by self contained band who were already associated with funk
- Examples: The Ohio Players, Cool and the Gang, the Commodores
- Euro Disco
• Contained simpler and more chanted vocals
• Baselines were much less syncopated
• Long
• Would sometimes try to usurp the DJ’s role
• Emphasis on the producer in the recording studio
- Pop Disco
• Represented by mainstream pop artists
• More commercial and predominantly white
• Height of Disco
• Important to note disco’s crossover from subculture to mainstream
- Due in part to Saturday Night Fever
- Kopkind, “The Dialectic of Disco: Gay Music Goes Straight”
• Pretty important piece on the disco era, and accurate representation of what the
people though

• Rock vs. Disco

- Disco was thought of as a revolt against Rock
- In the 60’s, lots of people caught on to rock as a means of political commentaries
- By the 70’s they had become mainstream and lots were selling out
• Depersonalized v. Personalized Stars
- Many disco stars were depersonalized: interchangeable music gures
- Changed later in the 70’s
• Physicality, the body, and sex

21
fi
 Wednesday, March 19, 2014
• Camp
- an object or symbol taken out of context and applied to a new situation
- used for the effect of making something sublime or ridiculous
- The Village People: The rst gay->straight crossover group
• A gay group, that thrived in the straight clubs and music scene
- Punk
• A cultural style, an attitude de ned by a rebellion against authority and a deliberate
rejection of middle-class values

• A “back to basics” rebellion against the perceived arti ce and pretension of

corporate rock music

• Popularity of the movement was from 1975-1978

• Punk’s sensibility has continued to in uence alternative values
• A return to the authentic, risk taking spirit of early rock n roll
• Against the standards of commercial fashion, but was a commercial fashion in its
own right

• themes included a challenge towards authority

• Musical feature included amateur aesthetic
• Lyrics stressed ironic or depressed elements of human feelings
• Very overtly political, anti establishment
• Genealogy for the development of Punk
- The Velvet Underground, The Stooges, New York Dolls, Patti Smith, The
Ramones, Sex Pistols, The Clash
- Comparing Punk and Disco
• Both contemporary at the time
• On the surface, they seem very different
• Differences:
- Disco smooth sleek, Punk dense

22
fi
fi
fl
fi
 Wednesday, March 19, 2014
- Punk was thought of as very simplistic, low sound quality
- Disco dancers followed speci c dance movements, while punk was mosh pit
- Disco was part of black music dance styles
- Punk was to deconstruct rock n roll
- Fashion statements
- Viewed one another with surprise
• Similarities
- Shunned from radio initialy, and make counter culture networks
- Contributing to the destruction of western civilization
- Active and sometimes fanatical participation from the audience
- A reaction to mainstream rock
- Most cultural critics of the time describes disco as being escapist, and punk as a
political statement; thought of as more serious than disco
- Rock is describes as more authentic, while pop is more arti cial
- Scenes
• A different approach that often looks at the same ideas as subcultures
• Retained elements of subcultural approach, but moved more towards
understanding the shift of culture

• Focuses on the intersection of music and its physical location

• Focus on the signi cance of locality, and how music can be a gure of locality
• Some of the main areas explored include areas that share certain musical traits, or
where we hear the music and personality of an area replicated in a song

• Thinking of a scene can help with marketing

• Part of the idea is to create a brand name that people can relate to
• A speci c kind of urban cultural context and practice of spacial coding
- Alternative music scenes: uni and college towns, or big cities (Seattle and
Chicago)

23
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
 Wednesday, March 19, 2014
• The formal and informal arrangement of industries, institutions, audiences, and
infrastructures
- Seattle Grunge
• Fused punk, heave metal, and more traditional pop styles
• Subpop Records
• The relative isolation of the area allowed it to foster its own punk scene
• Seattle was the most commercially
• Slow and intense, heavier, more distorted, and created an entirely new sound
- Summary Points
• When we look at music scenes, we see the same process as with subcultures, one
of the things we still see happening, is the adoption of the style and image into the
mainstream

• In 1992-1993, we saw the fashion copying the grunge theme

• Massive co-option of grunge into the mainstream

24
 Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Topic #8—Politics
- Pop Music’s relation to Politics
• Pop or rock as oppositional to established values
- Rock’s status as oppositional became part of its characterization
- Thought of as being counter cultural
- Lots of people would praise rock for building up and blame the companies for
corrupting it
- Tied to notions of authenticity
• Genuine, intimate expression that is not commercialized
• Direct interconnections between rock and politics (Conscious Rock)
- Dead Kennedys: “California Uber Alles”, Eve “Love is Blind”, Florence + the
Machine “Kiss with a Fist”, Eminem “Love the way you lie”,
- Rock is the genre most commonly associated with political music but political
commentary can be found in other genres as well, even with bands and genres
that are commercialized and wouldn’t necessarily be conducive to political
commentary
- Conscious Rock: The contribution of music to organized political music. The
Mega events: movements where international stars pick up causes: africa, rock
against AIDS
- Raise awareness, deepen funds, potentially affect the movement
- A lot of these events were critiqued for being self promoting and euro centric
• Doesn’t necessarily negate the funds raised
• Censorship
- Prior restraint
• A censorship in advance
- Preventing an artist or band from recording in advance
- Restriction
• Direct form of censorship

25
 Wednesday, March 19, 2014
• Placing direct denial on a speci c part
• Most relevant to the North American music section
- Suppression
• Government or legal system intervenes and enforces a moral or political theme
- Dixie Chicks Case Study
• 2003 they were all american girls
• Most popular country band
• First ones to be able to a have a hit song that addressed the issue of war and
appealed to both democrats and republicans

• Position changed in 2003 when the press leaked the anti Bush statement
• Revealed, for the rst time, their political views, and did it on foreign soil
• Many viewed this as unpatriotic
• They were pulled from music stations and there were bomb snif ng dogs at the
concerts

• Toby Keith Feud

- Represented the heart of conservative America
• Not Ready to Make Nice
- When this single/album came out it still wasn’t getting the same airplay as before
- Swept the Grammy’s with this single
• Not an isolated case, but received the most national and media attention
• Spoken political statement, not in the lyrics of a song
• Two ways it’s political
- Actual statement
- Censorship of the song

26
fi
fi
fi
 Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Topic #9—Race
- Blackface Minstrelsy and Vaudeville
• Exaggeration of stereotyped black life in song and speech
• Started by white people blacking their face, but then picked up by black people
• Later depictions depicted black people as lazy
• The classic age was from around 1840-1870, but continued into the 20th century
and even until the 1920

• Very racist practice, and only continued perpetuating the stereotypes

• Eventually recognized as a racist act
• Al Jolson was a famous blackface musician
- The Jazz Singer
- Known for ghting against anti-black on Broadway
- Helped to bring black people into the fray
-
- Stereotypes of “Black” v. “White” music
• Longstandin stereotypes that place black music in the physical realm and white
music in the intellectual realm

• Freedman
- “Sweet” commercial dance band music (White)
• Colder, cleaner and more content
- “Hot” swinging jazz
• Sweeter, and more jazz
- Very much about the newer jazz in contrast to the older jazz
• Main differences
- Swung rhythm
• Hot jazz was more upbeat, syncopated, swung, more emphasis on improv

27
fi
 Wednesday, April 2, 2014
- Essentialism
• Many critics in the rst half of the 20th century believed that black and white
musical traditions were tied to essentialized notions of musical ability

• More recently scholars have discussed the fact that “aptitude for music, or any
other aesthetic expression is not racially predestined”
- Phillip Tag
• Common factors in de nitions of black music
- Race, ethnicity, and the skin colour of the people producing the music
- Geographical, social, and historical locations where the music is produced
• Speci c musical characteristics that tend to be characterized as black
- Blue notes
- Improv
- Call and response
- Rhythm
• By deconstructing these as strictly black, he’s saying there may not actually be
such a thing
- Not saying outright it doesn’t exist, but that we should think about it
- Paul Gilroy
• The notion of black culture is based in social practices and social de nitions
• Certain traditions are black musical traditions in where they came from
- Use of the spectrum from white to black music allows for the discussion of certain
musical styles for their perceived musical conventions

• We see them in descriptions of blues, R&B, rock n roll, then disco, then hip-
hop and rap

• Music aesthetics were separated into black and white for commercial purposes
• Black artist recording for the black market were held to the standards kept by
black people

• Stereotypes of balck music as hyper-sexualized and sensual

28
fi
fi
fi
fi
 Wednesday, April 2, 2014
• In the 1950s many black artist tried to make their music more white to appeal
to the white audience
- Softer, cleaner lyrics, less raspiness in the voice, smoother
• The Platters showed what transformation the black artists needed to do to
appeal to a whit audience

• “Blacker Groups” sang about sexually explicit themes

• “Sweeter groups” about romance
• Raunchier themes came from the blues
• Artist that were safe were able to not project dark sexuality
• Successful crossover needed a good image and white style
• Adult singers stirred deeply rooted white fears about black stereotypes
• In the mid 1950s had a whitening of black R&B to white pop
- Nelson George
• Claimed that R&B in the 1980s lost much of its expressive power because of its
separation from the black community

• Visible presence of white artists in the black community (MTV)

- White pop charts is where you wanted your music to be played to gain the most $
• Were crossover artists selling out?
• Jackson had an “unblack gure” and unthreatening for a black man
- Cosmetic surgery, curled hair
• Prince had the more androgynous appearance
- Performed with more falsetto
- Toyed with heterosexuality
• Retronuevo
- Black music that appreciates its heritage
- An embrace of the past to create passionate, fresh expressions and music

29
fi
 Wednesday, April 2, 2014
- Hip-hop
• Thought of a predominantly african american genre based on its roots
• We’ve moved on; it’s a global phenomenon
- Bitch Bad—Lupe Fiasco
• Commentary on women that explores performative roles and arti cial
• Comments on gender, race, and class
• The two dominant representations of women as hoe and something else combined
into bad bitch

• Setting the time period in the opening of the video

30
fi
 Monday, April 7, 2014

Topic #10—Geography and Globalization

- How can music tied to a particular location or culture
- How is music transported to different locations
-
- Globalization is the process by which the world is increasingly compressed into a
single social and/or cultural system, together with increased social consciousness of
the world as a whole

• Music production is dominated by the US and Britain

• The nature of domestic music manufacturing is affected by the big companies
trying to get in

• At one point people were worried that globalization would destroy local forms
- Glocalization
• Captures the way that globalization is producing new forms of the local attachment
• Views the local as an aspect of globalization
- 4 Patterns of Cultural Transmission:
• Cultural exchange
- 2 or more cultures interact and exchange creatures under fairly loose terms and
conditions
- Reggae, which adopted elements from american soul groups, and then it’s been
fed back into african and american forms

• Cultural Dominance
- 1 form of culture is imposed by a powerful group on a weaker one
- Missionaries in african countries being pushed by colonial authorities to impose
christian values

• Cultural Imperialism
- Cultural dominance is augmented by the transfer of money and/or resources
from the dominated to dominating culture group

31
 Monday, April 7, 2014
- Pro ts made by subsidiaries of the record companies and given to the bigger
companies
- Using the talents of local musicians
• Transculturation
- Comes from the process of globalization
- The result of the worldwide establishment of the transnational corporations in the
eld of culture, the corresponding spread of tech, and the development of
worldwide marketing networks
- Includes a lot of processes that includes a lot of examples
- World/International Music
• Recordings of non-western music and/or
• Music in uenced by/incorporating non-western music
• This term has been around since the 1950s
- Harry Belafonte
• American musician
• Helped to introduce calypso to North American audiences
- Day-O (Banana Boat Song) (1956)
- Jump in the Line (1956)
- Miriam Makebe
• Arguably one of the rst singers to spread South African pop music to a global
audience (1960s)
- Pata Pata (57, though released to american audiences in 67)
- Bob Marley
• Stir it Up (73)
• One Love (77)
- Paul Simon
• Graceland (86)—exposed millions of listeners to African pop music

32
fi
fi
fl
fi
 Monday, April 7, 2014
• Lots of the music recorded with the musicians
• Pro ted from the africans’ talent
- People got into south african music so the musicians pro ted from it
• Broke the anti-apartheid
- Used the musicians, and didn’t include the gov
- A lot of wiring on world music has focused on questions of power and economics
• When western pop stars and corps record and produce recordings with non-
western musicians, who bene ts?

• Are western companies exploiting western consumer’s fascination with the exotic
for pro t

• Is a non-exploitative
- Lipsitz—“Immigration and Assimilation”
• Global Music vs. World Music
• It’s possible to have it non exploitative.
• World music isn’t just music that is produced outside the US, it’s music that borrows
non-western music, but was still attached to the mainstream music industry
- Simon—Borrowing south african styles
- It’s music that usually has a western stamp on it
• Global Music is global collisions or fusions that is produced by immigrants in a
western country
- Not so much the marketing category
- Immigrants in a new culture bring their past into the present
- “The very existence of music demonstrating the interconnectedness between the
culture of immigrants and the culture of their host country helps us to understand
how the actual lived experiences…

• Rai Music
- Important in identity formation, as well as political crisis
- Used to comment on racism in France, but also mundane topics like love

33
fi
fi
fi
fi
 Monday, April 7, 2014
- Some Algerians saw it as too western, but French saw it as too primitive
- Algerian
- Blends Arabic lyrics and instruments with synthesizers, disco arrangements,
blues chord progression, Jamaican reggae and Moroccan gnaw rhythms
- Cheb Khaled-El Harba Wine
• Unof cial anthem in the Rai Revolution
• Bhangra
- Bhangra musicians fuse folk songs from Punjab with disco, pop, hip-hop and
house
- DJs in England mixed Bhangra with other musical styles
• Bhangramuf n wich fuses Jamaican raggamuf n and American hip-hop
with Bhangra

• Apache Indian—Boom Shack-A-Lack

- Stands at the crossroads of punjabi and american in uence in England
- Quite popular in India
• To what extent do we see this model in present day music???
• K’Naan—America
- Using Ethiopian jazz samples and Ethiopian lyrics for the chorus

34
fi
fi
fi
fl