Paul E. Willis
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691163697
- eISBN:
- 9781400865147
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691163697.003.0007
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
This chapter reveals the associations between the hippy culture and a certain kind of ‘progressive’ pop music. In sheer quantitative terms, there was a massive interaction between the two. The ...
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This chapter reveals the associations between the hippy culture and a certain kind of ‘progressive’ pop music. In sheer quantitative terms, there was a massive interaction between the two. The hippy's relation to this music was not arbitrary. They deliberately chose their musical environment — post Sergeant Pepper, ‘progressive’ music — and went to great lengths to preserve it and to exclude Top twenty and commercial music. Only specific kinds of music were chosen because they — and not others — were able to hold, develop, and return those meanings and experiences which were important in the hippy culture. Thus, they preferred a music which both attempted timelessness and an abstract, complex shape that could mirror and momentarily complete their attempts to encompass a post-capitalist timeless mysticism.Less
This chapter reveals the associations between the hippy culture and a certain kind of ‘progressive’ pop music. In sheer quantitative terms, there was a massive interaction between the two. The hippy's relation to this music was not arbitrary. They deliberately chose their musical environment — post Sergeant Pepper, ‘progressive’ music — and went to great lengths to preserve it and to exclude Top twenty and commercial music. Only specific kinds of music were chosen because they — and not others — were able to hold, develop, and return those meanings and experiences which were important in the hippy culture. Thus, they preferred a music which both attempted timelessness and an abstract, complex shape that could mirror and momentarily complete their attempts to encompass a post-capitalist timeless mysticism.
Tia DeNora
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195167498
- eISBN:
- 9780199867707
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195167498.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This chapter seeks to counterbalance the influence of T. W. Adorno, particularly evident in the “New” musicology of the 1990s, by proposing an agenda for the sociology of music that is focused firmly ...
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This chapter seeks to counterbalance the influence of T. W. Adorno, particularly evident in the “New” musicology of the 1990s, by proposing an agenda for the sociology of music that is focused firmly on people making music. It outlines a “toolkit” of different empirical approaches for the analysis of music as a social process, focusing on in its role in people's everyday lives and in identity construction. There is discussion of work that has examined the impact of social factors on composition, including that of commercial competition on innovation in pop music; social factors in the construction of musicians' reputations; the relationship between sub-cultural identity and musical taste; and music's role in the social construction of subjectivity. These studies use empirical methods ranging from participant observation, through interviews and the analysis of historical documents, to the more impersonal methods of large-scale social statistics and economic surveys.Less
This chapter seeks to counterbalance the influence of T. W. Adorno, particularly evident in the “New” musicology of the 1990s, by proposing an agenda for the sociology of music that is focused firmly on people making music. It outlines a “toolkit” of different empirical approaches for the analysis of music as a social process, focusing on in its role in people's everyday lives and in identity construction. There is discussion of work that has examined the impact of social factors on composition, including that of commercial competition on innovation in pop music; social factors in the construction of musicians' reputations; the relationship between sub-cultural identity and musical taste; and music's role in the social construction of subjectivity. These studies use empirical methods ranging from participant observation, through interviews and the analysis of historical documents, to the more impersonal methods of large-scale social statistics and economic surveys.
Kay Dickinson
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195326635
- eISBN:
- 9780199851676
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195326635.003.0006
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
This chapter examines a particular type of film and music combination in which pop music stars appear in motion pictures. It suggests that these films exemplify film-music alliances that do not work. ...
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This chapter examines a particular type of film and music combination in which pop music stars appear in motion pictures. It suggests that these films exemplify film-music alliances that do not work. It describes movies in which famous singers with perhaps limited acting capabilities have been well used because their standard personas helpfully overlap with the film roles in which they have been cast or their individual performing talents ease them more naturally into certain roles. It investigates where the failed cross-overs sit within the particular systems of professionalism that privilege flexibility and emotional labor.Less
This chapter examines a particular type of film and music combination in which pop music stars appear in motion pictures. It suggests that these films exemplify film-music alliances that do not work. It describes movies in which famous singers with perhaps limited acting capabilities have been well used because their standard personas helpfully overlap with the film roles in which they have been cast or their individual performing talents ease them more naturally into certain roles. It investigates where the failed cross-overs sit within the particular systems of professionalism that privilege flexibility and emotional labor.
Veit Erlmann
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195123678
- eISBN:
- 9780199868797
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195123678.003.0011
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This chapter focuses on the collaboration between the South African choral isicathamiya group, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and US pop star Paul Simon on the Grammy Award winning album “Graceland” in ...
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This chapter focuses on the collaboration between the South African choral isicathamiya group, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and US pop star Paul Simon on the Grammy Award winning album “Graceland” in 1986. Far from showcasing the vitality of South African musical tradition alone, a track such as “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes” seeks to soften the more strident tonalities of the anti-apartheid struggle by foregrounding collaboration and stylistic closure.Less
This chapter focuses on the collaboration between the South African choral isicathamiya group, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and US pop star Paul Simon on the Grammy Award winning album “Graceland” in 1986. Far from showcasing the vitality of South African musical tradition alone, a track such as “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes” seeks to soften the more strident tonalities of the anti-apartheid struggle by foregrounding collaboration and stylistic closure.
Paul E. Willis
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691163697
- eISBN:
- 9781400865147
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691163697.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
This chapter explores the musical tastes of the motor-bike boys. Pop music was a manifest and ever-present part of the environment of the motor-bike boys: it pervaded their whole culture. However, ...
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This chapter explores the musical tastes of the motor-bike boys. Pop music was a manifest and ever-present part of the environment of the motor-bike boys: it pervaded their whole culture. However, the motor-bike boys had very specific tastes that were not part of the current pop music scene, and were not catered for in the on-going mass-media sources. They liked the music of the early rock 'n' roll period between 1955 and 1960, especially that of Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley. By current standards in the commercial market and the pop music provided by mass-media channels, their tastes were at least ten years out of date. By deliberate choice, then, and not by the accident of a passive reception, they chose this music. This reveals the dialectical capacity which early rock 'n' roll had to reflect, resonate, and return something of real value to the motor-bike boys.Less
This chapter explores the musical tastes of the motor-bike boys. Pop music was a manifest and ever-present part of the environment of the motor-bike boys: it pervaded their whole culture. However, the motor-bike boys had very specific tastes that were not part of the current pop music scene, and were not catered for in the on-going mass-media sources. They liked the music of the early rock 'n' roll period between 1955 and 1960, especially that of Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley. By current standards in the commercial market and the pop music provided by mass-media channels, their tastes were at least ten years out of date. By deliberate choice, then, and not by the accident of a passive reception, they chose this music. This reveals the dialectical capacity which early rock 'n' roll had to reflect, resonate, and return something of real value to the motor-bike boys.
Thilo Tetzlaff
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199272235
- eISBN:
- 9780191699603
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199272235.003.0019
- Subject:
- Law, Philosophy of Law
This chapter examines the relation between global law and global music or pop music. It suggests that any form of legal globalization should be started from a subjective-normative point and that ...
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This chapter examines the relation between global law and global music or pop music. It suggests that any form of legal globalization should be started from a subjective-normative point and that there is a need to look after quite personal normative attitudes because they are linked to the identity of citizens. It contends that popular culture cares about the ideas of normal people and that is what law should do as well.Less
This chapter examines the relation between global law and global music or pop music. It suggests that any form of legal globalization should be started from a subjective-normative point and that there is a need to look after quite personal normative attitudes because they are linked to the identity of citizens. It contends that popular culture cares about the ideas of normal people and that is what law should do as well.
Yiu-Wai Chu
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9789888390571
- eISBN:
- 9789888390298
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888390571.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
Despite its immense popularity in Chinese communities across the globe, Cantopop has been receiving far less attention than that of Chinese film and other genres of popular culture in the academy. ...
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Despite its immense popularity in Chinese communities across the globe, Cantopop has been receiving far less attention than that of Chinese film and other genres of popular culture in the academy. Introducing the origin of Cantopop and its related studies, this chapter underscore the significance of the topic by positioning it in the context of the field of Chinese popular music studies. This chapter positions the book in the wider field of popular music studies, a field that is heavily slanted toward Western popular music. The study of Cantopop has the potential for better projecting Hong Kong’s culture to a wide international audience, which would prove to be very important for Hong Kong Studies.Less
Despite its immense popularity in Chinese communities across the globe, Cantopop has been receiving far less attention than that of Chinese film and other genres of popular culture in the academy. Introducing the origin of Cantopop and its related studies, this chapter underscore the significance of the topic by positioning it in the context of the field of Chinese popular music studies. This chapter positions the book in the wider field of popular music studies, a field that is heavily slanted toward Western popular music. The study of Cantopop has the potential for better projecting Hong Kong’s culture to a wide international audience, which would prove to be very important for Hong Kong Studies.
Jennifer C. Lena
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691150765
- eISBN:
- 9781400840458
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691150765.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
Why do some music styles gain mass popularity while others thrive in small niches? This book explores this question and reveals the attributes that together explain the growth of twentieth-century ...
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Why do some music styles gain mass popularity while others thrive in small niches? This book explores this question and reveals the attributes that together explain the growth of twentieth-century American popular music. Drawing on a vast array of examples from sixty musical styles—ranging from rap and bluegrass to death metal and South Texas polka, and including several created outside the United States—the book uncovers the shared grammar that allows us to understand the cultural language and evolution of popular music. The book discovers four dominant forms—avant-garde, scene-based, industry-based, and traditionalist—and two dominant trajectories that describe how American pop music genres develop. Outside the United States there exists a fifth form: the government-purposed genre, which the book examines in the music of China, Serbia, Nigeria, and Chile. Offering a rare analysis of how music communities operate, the book looks at the shared obstacles and opportunities creative people face and reveals the ways in which people collaborate around ideas, artworks, individuals, and organizations that support their work.Less
Why do some music styles gain mass popularity while others thrive in small niches? This book explores this question and reveals the attributes that together explain the growth of twentieth-century American popular music. Drawing on a vast array of examples from sixty musical styles—ranging from rap and bluegrass to death metal and South Texas polka, and including several created outside the United States—the book uncovers the shared grammar that allows us to understand the cultural language and evolution of popular music. The book discovers four dominant forms—avant-garde, scene-based, industry-based, and traditionalist—and two dominant trajectories that describe how American pop music genres develop. Outside the United States there exists a fifth form: the government-purposed genre, which the book examines in the music of China, Serbia, Nigeria, and Chile. Offering a rare analysis of how music communities operate, the book looks at the shared obstacles and opportunities creative people face and reveals the ways in which people collaborate around ideas, artworks, individuals, and organizations that support their work.
Paul E. Willis
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691163697
- eISBN:
- 9781400865147
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691163697.003.0002
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
This chapter presents the politics and experiences of identity as exercised by the motor-bike boys. It first discusses the author's approach to studying the motor-bike boys' culture at large, by ...
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This chapter presents the politics and experiences of identity as exercised by the motor-bike boys. It first discusses the author's approach to studying the motor-bike boys' culture at large, by making contact with a motor-bike club in a large English city in 1969, thus producing an account based on general observation, conversations with individuals and groups, participation around the club, often with the group just described, and tape-recorded sessions. It then embarks on a more intimate examination of this particular culture. The world of the motor-bike boys was above all else concrete and unequivocal. They perceived it without ontological insecurity, without existential angst.Less
This chapter presents the politics and experiences of identity as exercised by the motor-bike boys. It first discusses the author's approach to studying the motor-bike boys' culture at large, by making contact with a motor-bike club in a large English city in 1969, thus producing an account based on general observation, conversations with individuals and groups, participation around the club, often with the group just described, and tape-recorded sessions. It then embarks on a more intimate examination of this particular culture. The world of the motor-bike boys was above all else concrete and unequivocal. They perceived it without ontological insecurity, without existential angst.
Judith S. Casselberry
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199646821
- eISBN:
- 9780191744853
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199646821.003.0014
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology, Religion and Society
This chapter engages Brown's work through ethnomusicological, performance, and black feminist theories; it argues for 1) reevaluating the significance of gospel and blues in pop/rock musical ...
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This chapter engages Brown's work through ethnomusicological, performance, and black feminist theories; it argues for 1) reevaluating the significance of gospel and blues in pop/rock musical genealogy; 2) rethinking the relationships between raced and gendered bodies and significations of sacred and secular (profane) in popular cultural production and critique; and 3) critiquing epistemology — how we know what we know. This chapter posits that African American music(s), which evolved from religious contexts, blur boundaries between sacred and secular realms in both musical structures and performance processes, providing ‘musico-sacred gateways’ for ongoing engagement with the sacred. At the same time, African American music that developed in ‘secular’ contexts employs a blues metaphysics, which engages the spiritual in sonic and lyrical content. If a portion of pop music's foundation never completely ridded itself of the Divine — and thus was never ‘secular’ — how might we read its transformations?Less
This chapter engages Brown's work through ethnomusicological, performance, and black feminist theories; it argues for 1) reevaluating the significance of gospel and blues in pop/rock musical genealogy; 2) rethinking the relationships between raced and gendered bodies and significations of sacred and secular (profane) in popular cultural production and critique; and 3) critiquing epistemology — how we know what we know. This chapter posits that African American music(s), which evolved from religious contexts, blur boundaries between sacred and secular realms in both musical structures and performance processes, providing ‘musico-sacred gateways’ for ongoing engagement with the sacred. At the same time, African American music that developed in ‘secular’ contexts employs a blues metaphysics, which engages the spiritual in sonic and lyrical content. If a portion of pop music's foundation never completely ridded itself of the Divine — and thus was never ‘secular’ — how might we read its transformations?
Eric Weisbard
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226896168
- eISBN:
- 9780226194370
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226194370.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
The tension between format and genre, pop plasticity on the one hand and rock, soul, country or hip-hop claims of sonic identity on the other, has animated much of the debate around American popular ...
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The tension between format and genre, pop plasticity on the one hand and rock, soul, country or hip-hop claims of sonic identity on the other, has animated much of the debate around American popular music since the counterculture and Black Power era, as demonstrated by such recent terms as “rockism” and “poptimism.” This chapter theorizes that formats, which structure and target cultural eclecticism, have a long history, rooted in blackface minstrelsy, vaudeville, and traditional show business, but also meet the needs of groups left marginalized by all that genre certainty. If genres turn on the folkloric impulse to identify authentic expression, formats allow space for emergent and hybrid voices. Top 40 formats created a commercialized pluralism whose critics were often compromised by their own privilege – racial, gender, class, regional, genre-based, etc. We need musical histories that explore the tension between the logic of formats and the counterlogic of genre. The pay-off will be a new understanding of the centers of American music as being as innovative and complex as the margins.Less
The tension between format and genre, pop plasticity on the one hand and rock, soul, country or hip-hop claims of sonic identity on the other, has animated much of the debate around American popular music since the counterculture and Black Power era, as demonstrated by such recent terms as “rockism” and “poptimism.” This chapter theorizes that formats, which structure and target cultural eclecticism, have a long history, rooted in blackface minstrelsy, vaudeville, and traditional show business, but also meet the needs of groups left marginalized by all that genre certainty. If genres turn on the folkloric impulse to identify authentic expression, formats allow space for emergent and hybrid voices. Top 40 formats created a commercialized pluralism whose critics were often compromised by their own privilege – racial, gender, class, regional, genre-based, etc. We need musical histories that explore the tension between the logic of formats and the counterlogic of genre. The pay-off will be a new understanding of the centers of American music as being as innovative and complex as the margins.
Alf Gabrielsson
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199695225
- eISBN:
- 9780191729775
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199695225.003.0035
- Subject:
- Psychology, Music Psychology, Social Psychology
Chapter 5 gave a considerable number of accounts of strong experiences at pop and rock concerts during the teenage years. The reactions that are described there are also found to a great extent in ...
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Chapter 5 gave a considerable number of accounts of strong experiences at pop and rock concerts during the teenage years. The reactions that are described there are also found to a great extent in the accounts in this chapter, and are thus only commented upon sparingly. During the teenage years, these concerts represented a longed-for and expectant meeting with an idol, with whom the concert goer had previously become acquainted only on a record or in other media. The first account in the chapter is of this type. The idol is one of the absolutely biggest names within pop music, and his performance of well-known tunes gives rise to nostalgia, tears, and total joy. Sometimes the feeling brought up are almost unreal.Less
Chapter 5 gave a considerable number of accounts of strong experiences at pop and rock concerts during the teenage years. The reactions that are described there are also found to a great extent in the accounts in this chapter, and are thus only commented upon sparingly. During the teenage years, these concerts represented a longed-for and expectant meeting with an idol, with whom the concert goer had previously become acquainted only on a record or in other media. The first account in the chapter is of this type. The idol is one of the absolutely biggest names within pop music, and his performance of well-known tunes gives rise to nostalgia, tears, and total joy. Sometimes the feeling brought up are almost unreal.
Edward P. Comentale
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037399
- eISBN:
- 9780252094576
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037399.003.0006
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
This chapter concerns the formal silence that pervades pop music in the late modern era, which both allows for greater experimentation in music and preserves, in the face of complete commercial ...
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This chapter concerns the formal silence that pervades pop music in the late modern era, which both allows for greater experimentation in music and preserves, in the face of complete commercial appropriation, the utopian possibility of some more subtle form of engagement with modernity. It argues that Buddy Holly's music represents the moment when popular music became “pop music,” and moreover that both John Cage and Holly pursued silence to the point of freeing song (and specifically lyrical song) from the expressive demands of identity and tradition. The chapter then draws from Jacques Derrida's Speech and Phenomena to show that Holly's vocals work via a process of “indication” rather than “expression” and thus point toward the very world that they fail to name or include. Finally, this chapter links Holly's music—and pop music in general—to the Pop Art movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s.Less
This chapter concerns the formal silence that pervades pop music in the late modern era, which both allows for greater experimentation in music and preserves, in the face of complete commercial appropriation, the utopian possibility of some more subtle form of engagement with modernity. It argues that Buddy Holly's music represents the moment when popular music became “pop music,” and moreover that both John Cage and Holly pursued silence to the point of freeing song (and specifically lyrical song) from the expressive demands of identity and tradition. The chapter then draws from Jacques Derrida's Speech and Phenomena to show that Holly's vocals work via a process of “indication” rather than “expression” and thus point toward the very world that they fail to name or include. Finally, this chapter links Holly's music—and pop music in general—to the Pop Art movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Pete Dale
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781526120595
- eISBN:
- 9781526138835
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526120595.003.0010
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
The connection between punk and what became known as ‘indie’ were evident in the latter’s commitment to an ethos of DIY. Fanzines were very much part of this, a link that Pete dale makes explicit by ...
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The connection between punk and what became known as ‘indie’ were evident in the latter’s commitment to an ethos of DIY. Fanzines were very much part of this, a link that Pete dale makes explicit by examining the politics and meanings ascribed to music and fanzine production within the indie scene.Less
The connection between punk and what became known as ‘indie’ were evident in the latter’s commitment to an ethos of DIY. Fanzines were very much part of this, a link that Pete dale makes explicit by examining the politics and meanings ascribed to music and fanzine production within the indie scene.
Marc L. Moskowitz
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824833695
- eISBN:
- 9780824870812
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824833695.003.0002
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter examines China's musical history, starting with the birth of Chinese popular music in the East Asian jazz mecca of 1920s Shanghai and tracing musical and cultural developments to the ...
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This chapter examines China's musical history, starting with the birth of Chinese popular music in the East Asian jazz mecca of 1920s Shanghai and tracing musical and cultural developments to the present day. It includes a brief overview of alternative musical genres in the PRC such as Beijing rock and revolutionary opera, among others. It considers the ways in which Taiwan's musical ethos influenced the PRC music industry and how Taiwan's Mandopop has served as a middle zone by introducing Western music and cultural values to the PRC. The chapter concludes by exploring Taiwan pop's role in exporting a very different version of womanhood to the PRC—directly confronting and subverting PRC state attempts at gender erasure from 1949 through the 1970s as well as contemporary masculinist discourse.Less
This chapter examines China's musical history, starting with the birth of Chinese popular music in the East Asian jazz mecca of 1920s Shanghai and tracing musical and cultural developments to the present day. It includes a brief overview of alternative musical genres in the PRC such as Beijing rock and revolutionary opera, among others. It considers the ways in which Taiwan's musical ethos influenced the PRC music industry and how Taiwan's Mandopop has served as a middle zone by introducing Western music and cultural values to the PRC. The chapter concludes by exploring Taiwan pop's role in exporting a very different version of womanhood to the PRC—directly confronting and subverting PRC state attempts at gender erasure from 1949 through the 1970s as well as contemporary masculinist discourse.
Marek Korczynski
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801451546
- eISBN:
- 9780801454813
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801451546.003.0002
- Subject:
- Sociology, Occupations, Professions, and Work
This chapter describes the nature of the workplace at McTells, the firm in which the book's ethnography is situated. It presents an overview of the people who worked at McTells, of the way in which ...
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This chapter describes the nature of the workplace at McTells, the firm in which the book's ethnography is situated. It presents an overview of the people who worked at McTells, of the way in which they regarded their jobs, and of the nature of the “Stayin' Alive” shop floor culture they created and in which their musical culture was nested. The chapter presents two “side steps”: the first focuses on the social history of the radio in the workplace, and the second examines the film Saturday Night Fever (1977). Analysis of the film draws a picture how pop music is structured as primarily antithetical to work.Less
This chapter describes the nature of the workplace at McTells, the firm in which the book's ethnography is situated. It presents an overview of the people who worked at McTells, of the way in which they regarded their jobs, and of the nature of the “Stayin' Alive” shop floor culture they created and in which their musical culture was nested. The chapter presents two “side steps”: the first focuses on the social history of the radio in the workplace, and the second examines the film Saturday Night Fever (1977). Analysis of the film draws a picture how pop music is structured as primarily antithetical to work.
Marc L. Moskowitz
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824833695
- eISBN:
- 9780824870812
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824833695.003.0003
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter discusses Taiwan's musical history and explores the issue of why Taiwan pop is so appealing to Chinese-speaking audiences throughout the world. It focuses on the music's exceptional ...
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This chapter discusses Taiwan's musical history and explores the issue of why Taiwan pop is so appealing to Chinese-speaking audiences throughout the world. It focuses on the music's exceptional hybridity, beginning with foreign influences during Taiwan's colonial history under the Dutch and the Japanese, and continuing with Taiwan's political, cultural, and economic alliance with the United States and the resulting wealth of transnational musical influences from the rest of East Asia and the United States. It is argued that the hyper-hybridity of Mandopop could only have developed in an intensely transnational culture such as Taiwan, in which boundaries of urban/rural, past/present, and outsider/insider are constantly shifting. Paradoxically, it is precisely this hybrid transnationality that defines Taiwan's local culture.Less
This chapter discusses Taiwan's musical history and explores the issue of why Taiwan pop is so appealing to Chinese-speaking audiences throughout the world. It focuses on the music's exceptional hybridity, beginning with foreign influences during Taiwan's colonial history under the Dutch and the Japanese, and continuing with Taiwan's political, cultural, and economic alliance with the United States and the resulting wealth of transnational musical influences from the rest of East Asia and the United States. It is argued that the hyper-hybridity of Mandopop could only have developed in an intensely transnational culture such as Taiwan, in which boundaries of urban/rural, past/present, and outsider/insider are constantly shifting. Paradoxically, it is precisely this hybrid transnationality that defines Taiwan's local culture.
Caspar Battegay
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906764869
- eISBN:
- 9781800343375
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906764869.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter discusses the emergence of pop music as a distinctive musical genre intended for very wide audiences and often controlled by the giants of the music business. It describes how pop is ...
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This chapter discusses the emergence of pop music as a distinctive musical genre intended for very wide audiences and often controlled by the giants of the music business. It describes how pop is characterized by the specific conditions of religious and cultural minorities that are closely linked to African American history, such as jazz, blues, rock 'n' roll, reggae, disco music, soul, and hip hop. It also mentions the British scholar of cultural studies named Paul Gilroy, who defined the production conditions of hip hop as transnational structures of circulation and intercultural exchange. The chapter examines the relationship between the hip hop world and the real world that changed since Gilroy's observations in the 1990s. It talks about the insistence on the diasporic context of the 'Black Atlantic' and its kinship with Jewish modernity that remains pivotal to any pursuit of the diaspora in popular culture.Less
This chapter discusses the emergence of pop music as a distinctive musical genre intended for very wide audiences and often controlled by the giants of the music business. It describes how pop is characterized by the specific conditions of religious and cultural minorities that are closely linked to African American history, such as jazz, blues, rock 'n' roll, reggae, disco music, soul, and hip hop. It also mentions the British scholar of cultural studies named Paul Gilroy, who defined the production conditions of hip hop as transnational structures of circulation and intercultural exchange. The chapter examines the relationship between the hip hop world and the real world that changed since Gilroy's observations in the 1990s. It talks about the insistence on the diasporic context of the 'Black Atlantic' and its kinship with Jewish modernity that remains pivotal to any pursuit of the diaspora in popular culture.
Gavin Hopps
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199646821
- eISBN:
- 9780191744853
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199646821.003.0013
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology, Religion and Society
This chapter is concerned with popular music and its significance for theology, in the light of David Brown's work on the subject in God and Grace of Body. The chapter begins with a consideration of ...
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This chapter is concerned with popular music and its significance for theology, in the light of David Brown's work on the subject in God and Grace of Body. The chapter begins with a consideration of the general status of pop music as an art-form within academia and challenges the pervasive but unexamined assumption that such music is intrinsically trivial. The chapter then offers an overview of Brown's groundbreaking theological examination of pop, rock and hip-hop, the underlying logic of which is revealed to be consonant with the Derridean principle of dissemination as well as Newman's notion of the illative sense. The second part of the chapter is concerned with possible developments, alternative approaches and potential dangers for theological engagement. In particular, it ponders the relevance for popular music of Jean-Luc Marion's conception of the ‘saturated phenomenon’, the literary-critical notion of ‘mouvance’, and Sontag's seminal account of camp. These different approaches, it is argued, may help to explain how pop music, in the words of Jacques Maritain, can give more than it has.Less
This chapter is concerned with popular music and its significance for theology, in the light of David Brown's work on the subject in God and Grace of Body. The chapter begins with a consideration of the general status of pop music as an art-form within academia and challenges the pervasive but unexamined assumption that such music is intrinsically trivial. The chapter then offers an overview of Brown's groundbreaking theological examination of pop, rock and hip-hop, the underlying logic of which is revealed to be consonant with the Derridean principle of dissemination as well as Newman's notion of the illative sense. The second part of the chapter is concerned with possible developments, alternative approaches and potential dangers for theological engagement. In particular, it ponders the relevance for popular music of Jean-Luc Marion's conception of the ‘saturated phenomenon’, the literary-critical notion of ‘mouvance’, and Sontag's seminal account of camp. These different approaches, it is argued, may help to explain how pop music, in the words of Jacques Maritain, can give more than it has.
Marek Korczynski
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801451546
- eISBN:
- 9780801454813
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801451546.003.0009
- Subject:
- Sociology, Occupations, Professions, and Work
This concluding chapter returns to the main themes identified in the previous chapters and reflects on what has been learned from the ethnography of working and musicking. It shows key patterns of ...
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This concluding chapter returns to the main themes identified in the previous chapters and reflects on what has been learned from the ethnography of working and musicking. It shows key patterns of the “Stayin' Alive” culture that can be drawn out into the concept of multitonous musicking, and it points to the resonance of this concept for understanding musicking in other settings experienced as monotonous. The chapter also suggests that some of the important dotted lines between shop floor culture and acts of resistance found at McTells are likely to have significance for other workplaces. In the story of shop floor culture, pop music, and resistance in a blinds factory in the middle of England, there are also important stories about the meaning and role of pop music in contemporary society and about cultural practices and resistance in contemporary workplaces.Less
This concluding chapter returns to the main themes identified in the previous chapters and reflects on what has been learned from the ethnography of working and musicking. It shows key patterns of the “Stayin' Alive” culture that can be drawn out into the concept of multitonous musicking, and it points to the resonance of this concept for understanding musicking in other settings experienced as monotonous. The chapter also suggests that some of the important dotted lines between shop floor culture and acts of resistance found at McTells are likely to have significance for other workplaces. In the story of shop floor culture, pop music, and resistance in a blinds factory in the middle of England, there are also important stories about the meaning and role of pop music in contemporary society and about cultural practices and resistance in contemporary workplaces.
