Pop Music in Culture Week 13 PDF

Preview

Summary

Week 13 notes for this class...

Description

Pop Music in Culture Week 13 Country and Western -Was one of the most popular genres of American music -Data on best-selling albums of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s attests to a steadily increasing dominance by country artists -Mega-success of Taylor Swift indicates the extent to which a contemporary country artist can penetrate even the pop singles charts George Strait, Alan Jackson, and Toby Keith -Born and bred in the South or the Southwest, in the heartlands of country -Come from working-class backgrounds -Country has always tended to be much less of a youth-oriented genre than many other categories of pop music -Recorded songs with lyrics that specifically acknowledged their country backgrounds and country traditions -Present straightforward verse-chorus structures favoring, immediate accessibility over formal innovations or intricacies -Sing in a full-voiced manner, clearly articulating the lyrics -Suggests a strong continuity with honky-tonk -Incorporate a strong backbeat -Strait is the oldest and most traditional-sounding -Keith leans more typically toward a rock-like sound -Jackson is the most versatile Taylor Swift and Fearless -A teen idol and singer/songwriter pop phenomenon, who self-identified as a country artist -Fearless centers around teenage romance and heartbreak -Fearless spent eleven weeks at the top spot in 2008-2009 and spawned eleven hot 100 hit singles -Neither the lyrics nor the music reflect standard country traditions Gretchen Wilson -Presents the most complete contrast imaginable to Taylor Swift -Emerged in her 30s with a fully-formed artistic profile -Subject matter of her songs embraces many standard country subjects -Fiddle and steel guitar players are listed in her album credits but she favors a strong rockoriented sound O Brother Where Art Thou? -Popular Coen brothers’ film emphasizing rural southern acoustic styles -Pushed Bluegrass Music and artists associated with it, into the limelight -Soundtrack encompasses several generations of country artists and recordings Ralph Stanley

-Featured on the movie soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou? -Performed with his brother as the Stanley Brothers beginning in 1946 and produced a body of outstanding bluegrass records -Unaccompanied performance traditional lament O Death is remarkably powerful Allison Krauss -Fiddling champion and bluegrass fan by the time she was 12 -Collaborator on numerous recordings by other artists -Wither her band, Union Station, she forges close connections to traditional bluegrass and creates a distinctive and original development of those connections Latina Superstars Gloria Estefan -Fled Cuba with her family when Fidel Castro and the communists rose to power in the late 1950s -Singer with Miami Sound Machine -Fused pop, disco, and salsa -Alternates among dance-oriented pop, English language love songs, and Spanish-language tracks aimed at an international latin american audience Selena -Known to her fans as The Queen of Tejano (Texas-Mexican) Music -Released a series of popular albums drawing on the traditional accordion band style of TexasMexican music, the romantic ranchera song tradition of Mexico, and a pan-Latin dance music style called cumbia -Shot to death by the president of her Texas fan club -Her death was an event of iconic importance in the lives of her millions of fans World Music -Term world music was first systematically adopted in the late 1980s by independent record label owners and concert promoters -Unequal economic relationships between the West and the rest haunts cross-cultural collaborations -The 1980s saw musicians from Africa, South Asia, the Near East, Eastern Europe, and Latin America touring the US with increasing frequency -King Sunny Ade established a market for so-called Afro-pop music -By 1990 the heading world music first appeared above a Billboard record chart under the broader heading adult alternative albums -World music is a pseudo-genre, incorporating diverse styles

Talking Timbuktu -Produced by the singer and guitarist Ry Cooder

-Won the Grammy Award for Best World Music Recording in 1994 -Sound and sensibility of Talking Timbuktu are derived from the music of Ali Farka Toure -An American listener is likely to be struck by the music’s close affinities with the blues -Features contributions by the blues guitarist and fiddler Clarence Gatemouth Brown -Provides evidence of deep links between African and American music The Face of Love -Features Eddie Vedder and the great Pakistani musician Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan -Based on a simple melody sung first by Khan with lyrics in Urdu and then in English lyrics by Vedder New Trends -Frequency and intensity of references to past decades seem to have intensified in the 2000s -Recent evolution in hip-hop, alternative rock, electronic dance music, and Latin pop seems more continuous and gradual than in previous decades Music and Identity (RACE) -Role of race and ethnicity in American music must be situated within a broader context -Race is more a social fiction than a biological fact but has taken on a powerful life of its own -By-product of the focus on black and white music and musicians is the tendency to forget about Latin American tradition Music and Identity (SEXUALITY) -Central to the history of American popular music -Authorities of various sorts have been concerned to monitor representations of sexuality -Depictions of nonheterosexual relationships have been treated gingerly by the entertainment industry -A number of prominent pop music stars have fashioned personas that seem purposefully to blur public perceptions of their sexual orientation Music and Identity (CLASS) -Expressions of working-class, middle-class, and upper-class identities and experiences runs right through the history of American popular music -Class identity has often bubbled just below the sleek surfaces of American pop music -Popular music is full of references to wealth, poverty, and the effect of economic matters on the human heart

Music and Identity (GENERATIONS) -Popular plays a major role in creating youth cultures -The music industry now draws a broad distinction between kids in the 12-16 age bracket and

young adults in the 17-25 range -Popular music provides us with a unique window onto changing conceptions of adolescence -Popular music is one of the main media through which we learn how to act our age Technology -New technologies open up creative possibilities for musicians and have created a wider range of choices for consumers -New digital technologies allow musicians to excavate the musical past -By the 2000s, personal computers could be transformed into sophisticated home recording studios -iPods, and iPads have replaced PCs as portable recording studios -Auto-Tune has is used to correct a singer’s pitch and create interesting effects -Critics assert that Clear Channel-booked shows at Clear Channel-owned venues is a monopoly -The model of centralizing control in the media landscape continues to trouble artists and their audiences New Devices and Websites -The iPod and other MP3 players dominate the market for portable listening devices -By 2008 Apple’s iTunes store became the top music retailer in the US -Pandora Radio, launched in 2000, offers playlists to listeners based on their own listening preferences -Swedish-based Spotify offers both a free and a paid premium service -Myspace launched in 2003 and thousands of musicians made their recordings available on their Myspace pages -YouTube is a major outlet for popular music -Lady Gaga jump-started her career by posting videos on Myspace Music, and also used YouTube The Music Business and American Idol Pop Stars in the 21st Century -Televised, mass-participatory talent contests present fans with new opportunities to participate in the discovery and promotion pop stars -Blends two popular entertainment formats: the talent contest and so-called reality television -Idols franchise was created by Simon Fuller, a British pop producer/manager/promoter -Provides a window onto the cultural values, perceptions, and aspirations of millions of Americans

Radiohead’s Bodysnatchers -Eclecticism of Radiohead’s business strategy and their desire to resist corporate control is echoed in their musical sensibility -Evokes the trademark edginess and sonic power of Radiohead’s earlier recordings -Begins abruptly with a distorted, bone-crunching electric guitar riff

-Lyric describes the alienation of a person incarcerated within his own body -Reflects the constant demand that musicians harness their creativity to the goal of generating profits Music Business -Touring is increasingly important component of the total profits generated by the music business -Shift toward vertical integration of aspects of the music business has intensified -Online digital sales of music in the US surpassed physical sales for the first time in 2011 -Major music corporations are downsizing Centers and Peripheries -Increasingly difficult to distinguish between the mainstream of popular music and its margins -Recent developments suggest the center/periphery model must be rethought in truly global terms -The US market no longer dominates global sales -Sounds and sensibilities of American popular music will continue exerting a large impact all over the world -Recurring themes of American popular music resonate with millions of listeners worldwide -Global circulation of music continues and extends this centuries old conversation among cultures...