Popular Music Theory

Popular Music Theory

Contents

Intro to Popular Music Theory Postmodernism and Popular Music Social Class and Popular Music Age and Popular Music Gender and Popular Music Post-modern Approaches

Intro to Popular Music Theory

Theory underpinning the study of popular music is particularly

wide-ranging, incorporating aspects of Musicology - Media Studies - Cultural Studies - Gender Studies –History – Economics – Literary Studies

Intro to Popular Music Theory

Traditional musicologists have analysed the composition of popular

music as if it were a classical composition. Howard Goodall, for example compares the Beatles and Mozart.

Intro to Popular Music Theory

Intro to Popular Music Theory

This approach has been criticised by some for neglecting the ‘performative’ and ‘improvisational’ qualities of popular music. Jazz Improvisation Kiss

Intro to Popular Music Theory

In Look! Hear! The uneasy relationship of music and television (2002) Simon Frith argues that the defining feature of popular music is its televisual aesthetic.

Intro to Popular Music Theory

The other side of this are the approaches emanating from the social sciences, which are often labelled the ‘sociology of rock’. Simon Frith, The Sociology of Rock, 1978 Punk 77.

The systematic and scientific study of society and societal behaviour.

Theorist have tended to focus on issues to do with audiences of

popular music and the representation of performers. Age, Race Sex and Class

Intro to Popular Music Theory

Intro to Popular Music Theory

Emanating from this is a school of Media and Cultural Theory known as ‘Madonna Studies’. Influenced by the ‘Queer Theory’ and the work of Foucault Madonna is seen as exemplifying Feminist critiques – particular those of Judith Butler.

Madonna - Open Up Your heart

“Is Madonna a glamorized fuck doll or the queen of parodic critique

”. Pamela Robertson - Guilty Pleasures Feminist Camp from Mae West to Madonna (1996)

Intro to Popular Music Theory

Criticisms of this approach say that it ignores the musical and

aesthetic qualities that make popular music distinct from other media texts. This raises the question have we come full circle?

Intro to Popular Music Theory

Popular Music & Social Class

Popular Music and Postmodernism

Postmodernism: Faith in grand narrative has collapsed (science, religion, history, progress) Identity is fluid – sense of self not fixed Consumerism is a creative endeavour in which the self is constructed. No distinction between the real and the simulated. Convergence of Information Technology and Society.

One of the key theoretical issues in popular music studies is that of post-modernism.

Popular Music and Postmodernism

1930s Recording Studio:Postmodern?

Records: the ultimate simulacrums?

CDS: Less authentic than vinyl?

Some argue that musical recordings are the epitome of the post-modern text because they are copies without originals (simulacrums).

Popular Music and Postmodernism

The music video re-enforces this in its depiction of inauthentic performances and abstract visuals. Queen Robert Palmer

Popular Music and Postmodernism

Others have tried to identify key moments in the history of popular music when it seemed to embody post-modern cultural practice e.g. the advent of sampling in the 1980s. S- Express

Popular Music & Postmodernism

Paul Willis A Social Theory for the Social Meaning of Pop (1973)

Popular Music and Social Class

Paul Willis views popular music culture as an authentic expression of working class youth.

Popular Music and Social Class

High Culture ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Low Culture

Willis challenges received thinking that certain art forms are more valid than others i.e. classical music.

Popular Music and Social Class

He views popular music as a new form of media literacy for groups traditionally marginalized.

Popular Music and Social Class

“(T)he vast majority of young people involved with pop music are working class, and share along with the rest of their class, an inability to articulate their meanings in an abstract verbal manner”. Willis, Paul. E, A Theory for the Social Meaning of Pop, journal (Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, Birmingham), p.3.

Is abstract verbal communication important in pop music? Think of well known songs that actually use very simplistic words or indeed nonsense words or phrases.

The Beatles Oasis

Criticism: This is a rather sentimental and some might say patronising

view of audiences. Also ignores the middle class articulate demographic – many popular music stars, for example, are college graduates. Roxy Music David Bowie

Popular Music and Social Class