Theoretical Groundwork

In the next few days I will be posting reading responses to the two books I have read over Semana Santa, the Mexican Easter week.

Cagle, Van M. Reconstructing Pop/Subculture: Art, Rock, and Andy Warhol. Sage Publications: Thousand Oaks, California (1995).

Reconstructing Pop/Subculture ventures into defining moments of pop culture and subculture. Cagle accomplishes this by presenting a study of cultural evolution: what contexts existed when Warhol was developing his art and what his reasons were for certain interesting choices. Cagle examines how David Bowie and glitter rock as a genre were deeply influenced and/or in part created by Warhol’s factory and pop culture itself. The book begins by Cagle explaining his base theoretical set for examination: namely, British cultural theory. Interesting is when Cagle describes research within cultural studies: “The particularity of the question being asked is what matters most; all questions must be guided first by context, second by theory. One cannot, for example, apply a theoretical model in advance, as if all the answers will unfold.” (p 21) I enjoy this philosophy; musings in the theoretical world, at least as far as cultural studies, beckon a multi-faceted approach. We consider the layers of context and work with individual theories or even grand themes of various disciplines to address each context. The approach is fluid; as research proceeds, theoretical frameworks are adopted, adapted, or thrown away.

Cagle adores Dick Hebdige’s subculture theories, especially the notion of how cultural appropriation works. The safety pin in punk music fashion is cited. Its original meaning is safety, and diapers on babies… Hebdige: “…if cultural forms are never rigidly in place, then they can be disentangled, stripped of their coded “layers,” bleached through for their hidden connotations. Second, if commodities are endowed with dominant meanings but never set into place permanently, then they can be “lifted” from dominant discourses and reorganized so as to have oppositional meanings.” (p. 29) So, the safety pin for punk culture ceases to be safe/protective and becomes sharp and visually abrasive.

3/25/07 Entry Seven: Soundtracks

Chapter ten is entitled Marketing Place: Music and tourism

As for Soundtracks, I will end my journal entries with chapter ten. Through examples such as Graceland, Elvis’ home and museum, chapter ten explores how tourism is linked with music through place. The concept is that, again, location determines the authenticity of a music and musical experience. Elvis died in 1977; especially since then Graceland has become a major tourist destination and haunt for the diehard, cultist fans. Graceland is interesting in our discussion as it serves as a blatant example of the mythological power of pop music stardom. It exemplifies the connection of music with place: location here in an extreme sense serves as a place of worship for that performer, decades after the fact…

3/23/07 Entry Six: Soundtracks

Music and space as “dialectic” (p. 192)

This theme becomes quite drastic when we look at how people in power use sound or music to control space. One example our authors give is Wired Radio Inc., a company that “began to transmit specialist programmes that could be subscribed to by businesses. Programs were implemented as early as World War II (p. 194). We know this system of influence well, as it surrounds us in shopping malls, gas stations, workplaces, transit systems, even elevators. It is interesting to consider the amount of architecture involved on a sonic level. Reminiscent of WWII propaganda films and conspiracy-like thoughts on military brainwashing of the psyche, though perhaps not as severe, we are surrounded by a subtle sonic order. Interesting to note is that Connell and Gibson analyze such order or construction at the Mall of America (pp. 196, 197).

Music and sound on the subconscious level perhaps led to an overt marketing of ambient, lounge music and the multitude of soundscape albums (whales, ocean breakers, winds, rains, jungle). In this case one can set the mood; the listener can program him/herself to raise the likelihood of a desired emotional/mental state.

3/22/07 Entry Five: Soundtracks

By chapter seven Soundtracks is discussing the advent of world music in lieu of globalization. What the authors are getting at is the dualistic nature of music, and specifically world music, “perhaps better than any other style it exemplifies how music is simultaneously an agent of mobility and a cultural expression permanently connected to place.” (p. 144) The first looking glass the authors present is that of western pop performers. They have played the role of cultural gatekeeper as based on their power in the media/marketplace have determined how and to what degree the western markets have been exposed to the world of music. An excellent example to be paralleled here is Paul Simon’s Graceland. The authors also touch upon Simon. Simon had the power and authenticity to extract whatever facets of South African musical trends he wished, as he orchestrated the project, employing musicians in session style. This act was not off the radar of negative issues however. Critics have argued this back and forth. |Though praised by fans black and white, praised by some of the sampled musicians, Simon has been scorned by some, being marked as a cultural imperialist. (p. 148-150)

World Music as a marketing category

World music is perhaps best understood on economic terms. It is a sum of what sells based on anthropologists’ notion of the other, or what is exotic. “Its definition depends on the social, political and demographic position of certain minority groups in a particular country.” (p. 153) Can country music therefore be classified as world music if it, for example, comes out of Mongolia? Do we assume it is a mere interpolation of a western world style?

3/20/07 Entry Four: Soundtracks Part two continued

We can take the notion of linking music to location by understanding scenes. The construction thereof is best summarized by thinking of music as “made in specific geographical, socio-economic and political contexts, and lyrics and styles are always likely to reflect the positions of writers and composers within these contexts.” Furthermore, “To understand how musical activities may be shaped by places it is necessary to explore local musical practices, institutions, and behavior.” (p. 90)

Connell and Gibson chart out examples of constructed music scenes. They list many, including the “Nashville” sound, the “Seattle” sound, Goa trance, and the “Liverpool” or “Mersey” sound. These scenes are described as both real and mythical. The scene that founded itself in Detroit, Motown, was typified by the assembly-line atmosphere of the city, hence Motown = Motor town (p 98). How much of the music is determined by the atmosphere of location? Geoff Barrow of the group Portishead responded to the idea of a “Bristol” sound: “The Bristol scene exists mostly in people’s minds.” (p. 101) Do all of the perceived unifying factors of a sound or a scene determine the strength of myth of the scene? Where is the dividing line between social, shared construct (here, the Bristol scene) and the actual culture at location?

The notion of origin

I will briefly note the notion of origin brought up by the authors, though I do not wish at this point to reflect thereupon. Connell and Gibson question the authentic roots of certain music genres, an inherently problematic gesture. We attempt a balance between the tangible historical flow of fact and romantic fascination. When and how did punk rock form? Where does electronic music originate? In the case of punk rock, our romanticist urge takes us to London in the seventies. Yeah, it was the Sex Pistols…maybe the Clash as well. From there we can trace the evolution of the genre. The problem however, is not including or attempting a search for roots around the globe.

“Fetishisation of locality” (p. 143)

3/17/07 Entry Three: Soundtracks Part two (Chapter 4,5,6)

Connell and Gibson look at how lyrics in songs reflect relationships with place. For example, hip-hop lyrics in France parallel those found in the same genre in other urban sectors of the world. The interesting thing is how each performer localizes their lyrics based on the unique circumstances they experience. This means that the political discourse for example will be different in rap from France than that in Japan or the US. Connell and Gibson also discuss other genres such as country music. The analysis here is the same as for hip-hop. Universal themes make up the foundation for country. Location-specific lyrics address local themes.

Interesting to note is the section entitled See the Noise. This scratches the surface of analyzing the culture of music through visual means. How do visuals reinforce the authentic? The authors brush upon visuals from record sleeves, CD jackets, and music videos. Important here are how the musicians are depicted – clothing, paraphernalia – and their depicted location. Codes are constantly at work, such as in hip-hop: “The neighborhood and the ghetto became the focus of funk and then hip-hop cultures, both in a discursive sense…and physically (as the site of ‘authentic’ performances and cultural roots…).” (p. 85)

Entry Two: Soundtracks Part one (introduction-chapter 3)

Fixity-Fluidity in Music and Culture

In the first chapter Connell and Gibson present the premise of their book, roughly, identity of music as found in the relationship between music and space. The authors introduce the binary of “fixity and fluidity” (pp. 9, 10). This theme is revisited throughout the book in its many manifestations; the authors note: “both ‘fixity’ and ‘fluidity’ operate as umbrella terms that reflect a range of spatial practices, tendencies, decisions and physical objects” (p. 9). When we grapple with the issue of authenticity, a central concept to both Soundtracks and my own research, the above binary becomes very interesting. Does the ethnomusicologist look for ‘traditional’ music fixed in place and origin? How does the researcher incorporate the fluidity of music when describing what is authentic and traditional based on fixity? How may we understand the notion of traditional? We are in a state that both complicates and makes interesting such notions. Dare I mention globalization? Simon and Garfunkel’s El Condor Pasa is a song, now decades old, that is a direct interpolation of a South American ‘traditional’ melody. Several days ago, I heard a Mexican version of the said song. Do origins vanish or are they rewritten? Does ownership denote a moment in time, an accreditation of a musical construction to a person?

Back to the binary of fluidity-fixity: authenticity based thereupon may be paralleled to ‘nature’ as notion. Nature is man’s construct, a reaction to the historic departure from the grasslands of Africa. A watered-down version of this evolution: man left the ‘natural’ world but only realized this when thousands of years later looked down from a skyscraper, longing for the past grasslands. Thus, man created nature as a notion, a reaction, a phylogenic spatiality: making space an issue.

Connell and Gibson approach this idea, this return to original space, or region from a venturing out: “Metaphors of hybridity, and of fluid, virtual spaces explain only part of the story; mobility triggers new attempts at fixity – holding on to traditions despite losses of popular appeal, constructing spaces for local expressions…marketing music through place and marketing place through music.” Hence, place as a determinant of authenticity in music is at least in part a construct. The authors further discuss copyright as a “crucial concept underpinning fluidity” as it denotes the diffusion of music. Copyright is one instance of a “cultural gatekeeper” (p. 46).

Chapter three delves further into the diffusion of music. A tension exists between how people (be they creators, owners, audience, researchers of a certain music) approach such diffusion: “Though hybridity took different forms in different places, what some took as a threat to local distinctiveness was interpreted elsewhere in a more positive light and, in some cases, fluidity of musical influences provided blueprints for new reclamations of place” (p. 50). The stress exists between the perceived loss of tradition and the perceived opportunity to create anew…

Connell, John and Gibson, Chris. Soundtracks: Popular music, identity and place. Routledge: London, England (2003)