MTV

Interesting New York Times article on the current state of

music video

To read it, you may have to register (which I recommend anyway, as it's where they keep a lot of actual news, as opposed to whatever it is that The Courier Mail thinks they're doing).

Technical error

I've just realised that I had this blog set up so that only those with their own Blogger accounts could post comments.

I've corrected that oversight, so those of who have have been simply itching to interact, lo' these many weeks, may now do so.

(But please keep the swears to a bare minimum)

Fugazi

Sharing the hate

More love

Pavement - 'Major Leagues'

Sharing the love

Sebadoh - 'Skull'

Top 100 videos

Stylus magazine has an online article featuring their list of the

top 100 videos

of all time, with links to YouTube.

Essay submission

Cover sheets can be downloaded from

here

The general essays submission box is
outside the School of Music Office, Room 429, Level 4, Zelman Cowen Building.

Another essay tip

If you're having trouble getting started on a song, here's another way to approach it: think of a potential track as merely being representative of a certain aspect or aspects of post-1977 popular music. It doesn't have to stand as the ultimate explanation of, say, the relationship between popular music and technology; it only has to display a certain amount of representative traits, of which you have been clever enough to indentify and analyse in the appropriate context.

For example, Alper posits 'Living on a Prayer' as being representative of several issues circulating within 1980s commercial music (heavy metal, gender etc), and outlines them accordingly. Katz presents 'Praise You' as an exemplar of issues of technology, copyright and race.

Neither reading offers a definitive theory explaining everything we need to know about popular music; each instead unearths and proposes interesting connections between music and context, which would be a good way to approach this first essay.

Essay hints, tips and cheat codes

* Collect cohesive ideas into readable paragraphs

* Introduction, conclusion (write both last): clearly state your intentions/argument/methodology etc., in the introduction.
Sum up the essay's findings in the conclusion. It's only 1000 words, so keep them brief.

* Please study the difference between commas (,), colons (:), and semi-colons (;).

Example:

Several problems often come to light during the marking of essays, a few of which are as follows: firstly, the use of semi-colons where commas would be more appropriate; secondly, the use of semi-colons where colons would be more appropriate; and, thirdly, a lack of commas in many longer sentences.


* Write 1980s, 1990s—not 80s, 90s, or eighties, nineties

* Songs: ‘Sabotage’, ‘Root Down’
Albums: Ill Communication
Band: Beastie Boys

* Italics/underline for book, film, album & journal titles. Consult a UQ or MLA style guide.


* Double or 1.5 space; in-text references (not footnotes); indented quotes are single spaced, but note that they don’t require italics or quote marks or a smaller font


* Journalism students: this is not a journalism class. Please present your work in a format appropriate for an analytical essay.


* Referencing Websites

Note: internet research, other than online databases in the UQ system or the rare refereed online journal, is only appropriate for the odd fact. Wikipedia-style sites are not acceptable, as there is no onus on them to verify their information. Also, unless you are specifically making a point about fan cultures and their relationship to your chosen music (not that that is the focus of this course), there should be no need to research amateur sites and blogs.

Otherwise:

If you can locate an author name and year, use them in the in-text reference:

According to the All Music Guide, The Brian Jonestown Massacre's debut LP Methodrone was 'shoegazer-influenced' (Ankeny 2006).

If not, use a shortened version of the site's name: (allmusic.com)

Depending on the amount of citation information you can find, the listing
in the bibliography would look like one of these:

Ankeny, Jason 2006, 'The Brian Jonestown Massacre' , Allmusic, http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll, Accessed 22 May.

or

'The Brian Jonestown Massacre' 2006, Allmusic, http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll, Accessed 14 August.

or

Allmusic 2006, http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll, Accessed 14 August.

(Cheat code: on your keyboard, enter the following letters: w,r,i,t,e,a,g,o,o,d,e,s,s,a,y,f,o,r,c,o,r,y)

Week 5 Readings

Please note that the second reading on music video (Carol Vernallis, ‘Connections among music, image, and lyrics’) is not where it should be in the course reader. It was accidentally placed after the two readings on punk rock.

Essay One Criteria

This essay is first and foremost a research project. Most of the research will involve constructing your relevant context or contexts; the other key aspect of research is, of course, choosing and analyzing your musical text (song, or song and video). I would suggest that it might be simpler to choose one of the contexts covered in weeks two to five: postmodernism, gender, technology, industry or video. Several of the readings thus far have suggested templates suitable for your own research and analysis: Alper on postmodernism, Walser on gender, Katz on technology, and Vernallis on video. Also, please consult the list of further reading below for additional research avenues.

Obviously there are two basic methodologies available: one, choose a song/video, analyze it carefully via repeated listening, and see if relevant contexts emerge. This is the type of work we have been attempting in the workshops, on Christina Aguilera, Pavement, Kylie, Sonic Youth, Ronan Keating, Smashing Pumpkins and Guided By Voices. Most likely, all of the above contexts may appear relevant, but as this is only a 1000 word essay, choose the one around which you feel you can construct the most convincing argument

The second methodology—and the one, I would argue, that could lead to a more substantial essay—would be to thoroughly research one of the contexts, and then analyze a song accordingly. This may involve listening to several songs until you find one that adequately reveals its connections to the chosen context.

For those who intend to incorporate the analysis of the video associated with your track, I must stress again the importance of remembering that it is best to think of the video as a supporting text for your song (unless you think you have located a track that you believe was custom-designed to suit visual representation, as many argued about 1980s music). So, in short, you must effectively link the video back to the song and the context you have chosen—a textual film studies analysis of a video is not enough.

Things to remember: you are not writing a street press review or any other type of magazine-style article. This is a properly researched and referenced analytical essay. Lazy internet research is not acceptable, other than for unearthing some necessary facts (names, dates etc.) from official record company or performer websites. Also, you may feel you already know a lot of information about your song and its writer/performer etc, but please remember that you don’t get marks in essays for having a good memory (that’s what exams are for); a good essay displays intelligent research as well as the ability to synthesize that research into a cohesive and well-structured argument.

Lecture / Workshop Schedule

Block 1: Music Industry, Technology and Analysis

Week 1 Introduction/Workshop: General discussion

Week 2 Postmodernism and Music Analysis/Workshop: Analysing music and video

Week 3 Technology/Workshop: Discussion of essay one

Week 4 Industry/Workshop: Discussion of lecture and set readings

Week 5 MTV and Music Video/Workshop: Block 1 exam (6%)

Essay one due Friday 25 August (1000 words; 30%)

Block 2: Music Styles and Genres

Week 6 Punk/Workshop: Discussion of lecture and set readings

Week 7 Hip Hop/Workshop: Discussion of lecture and set readings

Week 8 Metal/Workshop: Discussion of lecture and set readings

Week 9 Dance and Electronica: Workshop: Block 2 exam (7%)


Mid semester break, 25-19 September


Block 3: Outside the Mainstream

Week 10 World music/Workshop: Discussion of essay two

Week 11 Feminism and rock/Workshop: Discussion of lecture and set readings

Week 12 Indie Rock/Workshop: Discussion of lecture and set readings

Week 13 Australian Independent Labels and Globalisation/Workshop: Block 3 exam (7%)

Essay two due Friday, November 3 (2500 words; 50%)

Weekly Readings

Please note: this list includes sections from
Rock Music Styles: A History as well as articles from the course reader.

Week 1, 24 July: Introduction

Hesmondhalgh, David and Negus, Keith. “Popular music studies: meaning, power and value.” Popular Music Studies. Hesmondhalgh, David, and Negus, Keith, eds. London: Arnold, 2002. 1-10.

Billboard. ”Billboard musical milestones.” November 27, 2004. 16-17.

Week 2, 31 July: Postmodernism and Music Analysis

Alper, Garth. “Making sense out of postmodern music?” Popular Music and Society. 24.4 (2000): 1-14.

Walser, Robert. “Forging masculinities: heavy metal sounds and images of gender.” Sound and Vision: The Music Video Reader. Frith, Simon, and Goodwin, Andrew, eds. London: Routledge, 1993. 153-179.

Week 3, 7 August: Technology

Coleman, Mark, “Sudden death of the record.” Playback: From the Victrola to MP3, 100 Years of Music, Machines, and Money. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2003. 155-176.

Katz, Mark. “Music in 1s and 0s: the art and politics of digital sampling.” Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. 137-157.

Week 4, 14 August: Industry

McCourt, Tom, and Rothenbuhler, Eric, “SoundScan and the consolidation of control in the popular music industry.” Media, Culture & Society. 19.2 (1997). 201-218.

Burkart, Patrick. “Loose integration in the popular music industry.” Popular Music and Society. 28.4 (2005). 489-500.

Week 5, 21 August: Music Video

Charlton, “Chapter 21: MTV and superstars of the eighties.” 331-339.

Negus, Keith. “The production of video.” Producing Pop: Culture and Conflict in the Popular Music Industry. London: Edward Arnold, 1992. 93-100.

Vernallis, Carol. “Connections among music, image, and lyrics.” Experiencing Music Video: Aesthetics and Cultural Context. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.175-198.

Week 6, 28 August: Punk

Charlton. “Chapter 17: Punk rock and new wave.” 267-283

Thompson, Stacy. “Market failure: punk economics, early and late.” College Literature. 28.2 (2001). 28-64.

Moore, Ryan. “Postmodernism and punk subculture: cultures of authenticity and deconstruction.” The Communication Review. 7 (2004). 305–327.

Week 7, 4 September: Hip Hop

Charlton. “Chapter 20: Hip hop and rap”. 317-329

Lipsitz, George. “Diasporic noise: history, hip-hop, and the post-colonial politics of sound.” Popular Culture: Production and Consumption. Harrington, C. Lee, and Bielby, Denise D., eds. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2001.180-199.

Katz, Mark. “The turntable as weapon: understanding the DJ battle.” Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. 114-136.

Week 8, 11 September: Metal

Charlton. “American heavy metal.” 244-253.

Walser, Robert. “Mysticism and postmodernism in heavy metal.” Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music. Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1993. 151-171.

Harris, Keith. “‘Roots’?: the relationship between the global and the local within the extreme metal scene.” Popular Music. 19.1 (2000). 13-30.

Week 9, 18 September: Dance and Electronica

Charlton, “Chapter 24: Major trends of the eighties and nineties.” 345-365.

Hesmondalgh, David. “International times: fusions, exoticism, and anti-racism in electronic dance music.” Western Music and Its Others: Difference, Representation, and Appropriation in Music. Born, Georgina, and Hesmondalgh, David, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. 280-304.

Monroe, Alexei. “Thinking about mutation: genres in 1990s electronica.” Living Through Pop. Ed, Blake, Andrew. London: Routledge, 1999.146-158.

Week 10, 2 October: World music

Guilbault, Jocelyne. “World music.” The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock. Frith, Simon, and Straw, Will, and Street, John, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 176-192.

Frith, Simon. “The discourse of world music.” Western Music and Its Others: Difference, Representation, and Appropriation in Music. Born, Georgina, and Hesmondalgh, David, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. 305-322.

Week 11, 9 October: Feminism and rock

Daugherty, Rebecca. “The spirit of '77: punk and the girl revolution.” Women & Music Annual (2002). 27-35.

Schilt, Kristen. “‘A little too ironic’: the appropriation and packaging of riot girl politics by mainstream female musicians.” Popular Music and Society. 26.1 (2003). 5-16.

Week 12, 16 October: Indie Rock

Frank, Tom. “Alternative to what?” Popular Culture: Production and Consumption. Harrington, C. Lee, and Bielby, Denise D., eds. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2001. 94-105.

Hibbett, Ryan. “What is indie rock?” Popular Music and Society. 28.1 (2005). 55-76.

Week 13, 23 October: Australian Independent Labels and Globalisation

Young, Greg. “Communication Australian pop music.” Media International Australia. 79 (1996).103-114.

Letts, Richard. “Appendix 1: Australia” The Effects of Globalisation on Music in Five Contrasting Countries: Australia, Germany, Nigeria, the Philippines and Uruguay. Music Council of Australia Report of a research project for the ManyMusics program of the International Music Council, 2003. 21-33.

Recommended reading/further research

Music Industry

Fink, Michael 1989, Inside the Music Business: Music in Contemporary Life, Schirmer Books, New York.

Laing, Dave 1992, ‘”Sadeness”, Scorpions and single markets: national and transnational trends in European popular music’ in Popular Music, vol.11, iss.2, p.127.

Sanjek, Russell 1996, Pennies From Heaven: The American Popular Music Business in the Twentieth Century, Da Capo Press, New York.

Burnett, Robert 1996, The Global Jukebox: The International Music Industry, Routledge, London.

Sanjek, David 1997, ‘Funkentelechy vs. the Stockholm Syndrome: The place of industrial analysis in popular music studies’ in Popular Music and Society, vol.21, no.1, Spring, p. 73.

Hull, Geoffrey P. 1998, The Recording Industry, Allyn and Bacon, Boston.

Garofalo, Reebee 1999, ‘From Music Publishing to MP3: Music and Industry in the Twentieth Century’, American Music, vol.17, no.3, Autumn, pp. 318-354.

Negus, Keith 1999, Music Genres and Corporate Cultures, Routledge, London.

Frith, Simon 2000, ‘Music industry research: Where now? Where next? Notes from Britain’ in Popular Music, vol.19, no.3, pp.387-393.

Ross, Peter G. 2005, ‘Cycles in Symbol Production Research: Foundations, Applications, and Future Directions’ in Popular Music and Society, vol.28, no.4, October, p.473.

Bishop, Jack 2005, ‘Building international empires of sound: concentrations of power and property in the "global" music market’ in Popular Music and Society, vol.28, iss. 4, p. 443.

Music Technology

Lindeman, Steve 1998, ‘Fix it in the mix’ in Popular Music and Society, Vol.22.

Banerjea, Koushik 2000, ‘Sounds of whose underground? The fine tuning of diaspora in an age of mechanical reproduction’ in Theory, Culture & Society,
vol.17, no.3, pp.64–79.

Den Tandt, Christophe 2004, ‘From craft to corporate interfacing: rock musicianship in the age of music television and computer-programmed music’ in Popular Music & Society, vol.27, no.2, pp.139 –160.

Beer, David 2005, ‘Sooner or later we will melt together: framing the digital in the everyday’ in First Monday, vol.10, no.8, August. http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_8/beer/index.html

Farrugia, Rebekah & Swiss, Thomas 2005, ‘Tracking the DJs: Vinyl Records, Work, and the Debate over New Technologies in Journal of Popular Music Studies, vol.17, iss.1, p.30.

McLeod, Kembrew 2005, ‘MP3s Are Killing Home Taping: The Rise of Internet Distribution and Its Challenge to the Major Label Music Monopoly’
in Popular Music and Society, vol.28, iss.4, p. 521.

Ryan, John & Hughes, Michael 2006, ‘Breaking the decision chain: the fate of creativity in the age of self-production’ in Ayers, Michael D. (ed), Cybersounds: Essays on Virtual Music Culture, Peter Lang, New York.

MTV/Video

Kaplan, E. Ann 1987, Rocking Around the Clock: Music Television, Postmodernism, and Consumer Culture, Routledge, New York.

Goodwin, Andrew 1992, Dancing in the Distraction Factory: Music Television and Popular Culture, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

Banks, Jack 1997, ‘Video in the Machine: The Incorporation of Music Video into the Recording Industry’ in Popular Music, vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 293-309.

Mundy, John 1999, ‘I want my MTV…and my movies with music’ in Popular Music on Screen, Manchester University Press, Manchester, pp.221-247.

Donnelly, K.J. 2005, ‘Music on television 2: pop music’s colonisation of television’ in The Spectre of Sound: Music in Film and Television, BFI, London, pp.134-149.

Charts

Sernoe, Jim 2005, ‘"Now we're on the top, top of the pops": the performance of "non-mainstream" music on Billboard's albums charts, 1981-2001’ in Popular Music and Society, vol. 28, iss. 5, p. 639.

Copyright

Kennedy, Barbara J. 1995, ‘To borrow, beg or steal: a perspective on sampling in musical works’ in Entertainment & Sports Law Journal, vol.2, pp.39-81.

Dominic Free 2002, ‘Beckingham v. Hodgens: the session musician’s claim to music copyright’ in Entertainment Law, vol.1, no.3, Autumn, pp.93–97.

Music and Politics

Cloonan, Martin & Street, John 1997, ‘Politics and popular music: from policing to packaging’ in Parliamentary Affairs, 50.2, pp.223-235.

Hutnyk, John 2000, Music for Euro-Maoists: On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among Pop Stars in Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 17, no.3, pp.136–158.

Cloonan, Martin & Garofalo, Reebee (eds) 2003, Policing Pop, Temple University, Philadelphia.

Harris, John 2003, The Last Party: Britpop, Blair and the Demise of English Rock, Fourth Estate, London.

Popular Music Analysis

Negus, Keith 1996, Popular Music In Theory: An Introduction, Polity Press, Oxford.

Burns, Lori 1997, ‘"Joanie" get angry: k.d. lang's feminist revision’ in Covach, John & Boone, Graeme M. (eds), Understanding Rock: Essays in Musical Analysis, Oxford University Press, New York.

Matula, T. 2000, ‘Contextualizing musical rhetoric: a critical reading of
the Pixies' "Rock Music"’ in Communication Studies, 51, pp.218-237.

Brackett, David 2000, Interpreting Popular Music, University of California Press, Berkeley.

Everett, Walter 2000 (ed), Expression in Pop-Rock Music: A Collection Of Critical and Analytical Essays, Garland, New York.

Moore, Allan F. 2001, Rock, the Primary Text: Developing a Musicology of Rock, Aldershot, U.K.

Shuker, Roy 2001, Understanding Popular Music, Routledge, New York.

Beebe, Roger & Fulbrook, Denise & Saunders, Ben (eds) 2002, Rock Over the Edge: Transformations in Popular Music Culture, Duke University Press, Durham, N.C.

Moore Allan F. (ed) 2003, Analyzing Popular Music, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Frith, Simon (ed) 2004, Popular Music: Critical Concepts In Media And Cultural Studies, Routledge, New York.

Richardson, John 2005, ‘"The Digital Won't Let Me Go": Constructions of the Virtual and the Real in Gorillaz' "Clint Eastwood"’ in Journal of Popular Music Studies, vol.17, iss.1, p.1.

Gender

Ryan, John & Calhoun, Legare H. 1996, ‘Gender or genre? Emotional models in commercial rap and country music’ in Popular Music and Society, vol.20, iss. 2, p. 121.

Postmodernism/Retro/Cover Versions

Plasketes, George 2005, ‘Re-flections on the Cover Age: A Collage of Continuous Coverage in Popular Music’ in Popular Music and Society, vol.28, no.2, p.137.

Gallant, Michael 2006, ‘Retro disco: ooh la la’ in Keyboard, vol.32, iss.2, February, p. 22.

Punk

Waite, Geoffrey 1998, ‘"I was waiting for the communist call", or the future anterior of music and its theory’ in Literature and Psychology, vol.44, no.4.

Osgerby, Bill 1999, ‘Chewing out a rhythm on my bubble-gum: the teenage aesthetic and genealogies of American punk’ in Sabin, Roger (ed), Punk Rock: So What?, Routledge, London, pp.154-169.

Goshert, John Charles 2000, ‘“Punk” after the Pistols: American music, economics, and politics in the 1980s and 1990s’ in Popular Music and Society, vol.24, no.1, pp.85-106.

Hip hop

Norfleet, Dawn M. 2005, ‘Hip-hop and rap’ in Koskoff, Ellen (ed), Music Cultures in the United States: An Introduction, Routledge, New York, pp.360-370.

Thomas Solomon 2005, ‘“Living underground is tough”: authenticity and locality in the hip-hop community in Istanbul,Turkey’ in Popular Music, vol. 24, no.1, pp. 1–20.

Haupt, Adam 2006, ‘The technology of subversion: from digital sampling in hip-hop to the mp3 revolution’ in Ayers, Michael D. (ed), Cybersounds: Essays on Virtual Music Culture, Peter Lang, New York.

Heavy Metal

Weinstein, Deena 2000, Heavy Metal: The Music and Its Culture, Da Capo Press, Boulder, Colorado.

Purcell, Natalie J. 2003, Death metal music : the passion and politics of a subculture, McFarland, Jefferson, N.C.

Industrial

Gunn, Josh 2000, ‘Industrial music for industrial people’ in Lectro Slue: Descriptions and Origins of Industrial Music, MUSC2700 Beyond Rock: Music In The Digital Age Course Reader, 2005.

Dance

Negus, Keith 1992, Producing Pop: Culture and Conflict in the Popular Music Industry, E. Arnold. London.

Loza, Susana 2001, ‘Sampling (hetero)sexuality: diva-ness and discipline in electronic dance music’ in Popular Music, vol. 20, iss.3, p. 349.

World Music

Ling, Jan 2003, ‘Is “world music” the “classic music” of our time?’ in Popular Music, vol. 22, iss. 2, p. 235.

Stokes, Martin 2003, ‘World musics in context: a comprehensive survey of the world's musical cultures’ in Folk Music Journal, vol. 8, iss.3, p. 377.

Van Der Lee, Pedro 1998, ‘Sitars and bossas: World Music influences’ in Popular Music, vol.17, iss.1, p. 45.

Guilbault, Jocelyne 1997, ‘Interpreting world music: A challenge in theory and practice’ in Popular Music, vol.16, iss. 1, p. 31.

Fairley, Jan 1992, ‘European world music charts’ in Popular Music, vol.11, iss. 2, p. 241.

Dent, Alexander Sebastian 2005, ‘Cross-cultural "countries": covers, conjuncture, and the whiff of Nashville in Música Sertaneja (Brazilian Commercial Country Music)’ in Popular Music and Society, vol. 28, iss. 2, p.207.

Steingo, Gavin 2005, ‘South African music after apartheid: Kwaito, the "party politic," and the appropriation of gold as a sign of success’ in Popular Music and Society, vol. 28, iss. 3, p. 333.

Post-rock

Martin, Bill 2002, ‘The transition to post-rock’ in Avant Rock: Experimental Music from the Beatles to Björk, Open Court, Chicago, pp.107-123 (269).

Country Music

Grabe, Maria Elizabeth 1997, ‘Massification revisited: Country music and demography, Popular Music and Society, vol. 21, iss. 4, p. 63.

van Elteren, Mel 1998, ‘Dutch country music: between creative appropriation and mere epigonism’, Popular Music and Society, vol. 22, iss.1, p. 91.

Olson, Ted 2000, ‘Country music at the millennium: Three recent studies of a remarkably resilient musical genre’ in American Music, vol.18, iss. 2, p. 222.

Dechert, S. Renee 2002, ‘Wrong's what i do best: hard country music and contemporary culture’ in Popular Music, vol. 21, iss. 3, p. 384.

Van Sickel, Robert W. 2005, ‘A world without citizenship: on (the absence of) politics and ideology in country music lyrics, 1960-2000’ in Popular Music and Society, vol. 28, iss. 3, p. 313.

Australia

Breen, Marcus 1992, ‘Magpies, lyrebirds and emus: record labels, ownership and orientation’ in Hayward, Philip (ed), From Pop to Punk to Postmodernism: Popular Music and Australian Culture from the 1960s to the 1990s, Allen and Unwin, Sydney.

Wark, McKenzie 1993, ‘Homage to Catatonia: culture, politics and Midnight Oil’ in Frow, John & Morris, Meaghan (eds), Australian Cultural Studies: A Reader, Allen and Unwin, Sydney.

Capling, Ann 1996, ‘Gimme shelter! Global entertainment companies and their stranglehold on Australian music’ in Arena Magazine, 21, February-March, pp.21-23.

Masterton, Andrew & Gillard, Sue 1998, Rocking in the Real World: An Introduction to the Music Industry in Australia, Ausmusic, Melbourne.