Instructor: Andrew Weintraub
Music Building 206 (624-4184)
Office Hours: MW 1-2 pm or by appt.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The goal of this seminar is to provide a critical survey of the major issues addressed and methodologies used in the study of popular music. Traditional approaches in music scholarship have proved inadequate for the study of mass-mediated musics. Readings for this course include works from a wide range of disciplines including musicology, ethnomusicology, sociology, anthropology, communications, cultural studies, history, political science, economics, and music journalism. Our main objective will be to examine ways in which the insights and methods of structuralism, poststructuralism, semiotics, critical theory, feminist criticism, and psychoanalytical theory have been applied to the problem of understanding how meanings are produced, mediated, negotiated, subverted, and celebrated in popular music.

Required Textbooks (available at The Book Center):

Middleton, Richard. 1990. Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press.

Storey, John. 1993. An Introductory Guide to Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. Athens: The University of Georgia Press.

Articles and Books on Reserve in the Music Library

1. Introduction (Jan. 9)

2. On Defining popular music (Jan. 16)

Definition of the topic of study; what is popular music?; what does "popular" mean?; how is popular music related to groups and communities?; quantitative, qualitative, comparative, and political approaches; what kinds of musics have been studied, and by whom?; music establishments and modes of authority.

Adorno, Theodor. 1990 [1941]. "On Popular Music." In On Record: Rock, Pop, and The Written Word. Edited by Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin. New York: Pantheon Books, 301-314.

Baily, John. 1981. "Cross-cultural Perspectives in Popular Music: The Case of Afghanistan." Popular Music 1:105-22.

Cutler, Chris. 1985. "What is Popular Music." In Popular Music Perspectives 2: Papers from the Second International Conference on Popular Music Studies, Reggio, Emilia, September 19-24, 1983. Edited by D. Horn, 3-12.

Fiori, Umberto. 1985. "Popular Music: Theory, Practice, Value." Popular Music Perspectives 2: Papers from the Second International Conference on Popular Music Studies, Reggio, Emilia, September 19-24, 1983. Edited by D. Horn, 13-23.

Hall, Stuart. 1981. "Notes on Deconstructing the Popular." In People's History and Socialist Theory. London:Routledge, 227-40.

Lipsitz, George. 1996. "Creative Misunderstanding in Inter-Cultural Communication." In Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism and the Poetics of Place. London and New York: Verso, 159-170.

Middleton, Richard. 1990. "'Roll over Beethoven'? Sites and soundings on the music-historical map." In Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press, 3-33.

Tagg, Philip. 1982. "Analyzing Popular Music: Theory, Method and Practice." Popular Music 2. 37-48.

3. The Music Industry (Jan. 23)

The creative process and the production of success; the political process and the control and management of musical production; the two theses about the big music industries; regulation of music industries; copyrights; the musicians' status in the corporate industry; cooptation.

Chapple, Steve, and Reebee Garofalo. 1977. Rock 'n' Roll is Here to Pay: The History and Politics of the Music Industry. Chicago:Nelson Hall.

Frith, Simon. 1987. "The Industrialization of Popular Music." In Popular Music and Communication. Edited by James Lull. London: Sage Publications, 53-79.

Frith, Simon. 1987. "Copyright and the Music Business." Popular Music 7(1):57-75.

Garofalo, Reebee. 1987. "How Autonomous is Relative: Popular Music, the Social Formation and Cultural Struggle." Popular Music 7:77-92.

Gronow, Pekka. 1981. "The Record Industry Comes to the Orient." Ethnomusicology 25(2):251-84.

Hennion, Antoine. 1990 [1983]. "The Production of Success: An Antimusicology of the Pop Song." In On Record: Rock, Pop, and The Written Word. Edited by Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin. New York: Pantheon Books, 185-206.

Parker, Martin. 1991. "Reading the Charts--Making Sense with the Hit Parade." Popular Music 10(2).

Peterson, Richard A. and David G. Berger. 1990. "Cycles in Symbol Production: The Case of Popular Music." In On Record: Rock, Pop, and The Written Word. Edited by Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin. New York: Pantheon Books, 140-159.

Porcello, Thomas. 1991. "The Ethics of Digital Audio-Sampling: Engineers' Discourse." Popular Music 10(1):69-84.

Wallis, Roger and Krister Malm. 1984. Big Sounds from Small Peoples: The Music Industry in Small Countries. London: Constable.

*Report on Wallis and Malm DUE

4. Technology (Jan. 30)

The role of technology in popular music; historical context of technology and sound-making; mass culture debates; politics of sampling; rethinking time and space.

Adorno, Theodor. 1978 [1974]. "On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening." In The Essential Frankfurt School Reader. Edited by A. Arato and E. Gebhardt. Oxford University Press, 270-99.

Attali, Jacques. 1985. "Repeating." In Noise: The Political Economy of Music. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 87-132.

Benjamin, Walter. 1968. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." In Illuminations. New York: Shocken, 217-252.

Frith, Simon. 1987. "Art versus Technology: The Strange Case of Popular Music." Media, Culture, and Society 8(3): 263-279.

Goodwin, Andrew. 1990. "Sample and Hold: Pop Music in the Digital Age of Reproduction." In On Record: Rock, Pop, and The Written Word. Edited by Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin. New York: Pantheon Books, 258-274.

Keil, Charles. 1984. "Music Mediated and Live in Japan." Ethnomusicology 27(1):91-96.

Middleton, Richard. 1990. "'It's All Over Now': Popular Music and Mass Culture--Adorno's Theory." In Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press, 34-63.

Middleton, Richard. 1990. "'Over the Rainbow'?: Technology, Politics and Popular Music in an Era Beyond Mass Culture." In Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press, 64-100.

5. Mass Media (Feb. 6)

Mediations; encoding/decoding; music programming and radio formats; constructing an audience; popular music as a media product.

Adorno, Theodor. 1976 [1962]. "Mediation." In Introduction to the Sociology of Music. New York: Seabury.

Berland, Jody. 1990. "Radio Space and Industrial Time: Music Formats, Local Narratives and Technological Mediation." Popular Music 9(2): 179-192.

Frith, Simon. 1981. "Making Records." In Sound Effects: Youth, Leisure, and the Politics of Rock 'n' Roll. New York: Pantheon, 89-129.

Hall, Stuart. 1973. "Coding and Encoding in Television Discourse." In Culture, Media, Language. Edited by Stuart Hall et al. London: Hutchinson.

Hennion, Antoine and Cecile Meadel. 1986. "Programming Music: Radio as Mediator." Media, Culture, and Society 8(3): 281-303.

Manuel, Peter. 1993. "Introduction." In Cassette Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1-20.

Manuel, Peter. 1993. "The Impact of Cassettes on the International Recording Industry." In Cassette Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 21-36.

Martin-Barbero, Jesus. 1993. "The Methods: From Media to Mediations." In Modernization and Mass Mediation in Latin America, 187-245.

6. Implications of Technology for Popular Music Practices/Aesthetics: Musical Value (Feb.13)

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1980. "The Aristocracy of Culture." Media, Culture and Society 2(3), 225-254.

Chambers, Ian. 1982. "Some Critical Tracks." Popular Music 2, 19-36.

Frith, Simon. 1987. "Towards an Aesthetic of Popular Music." In Music and Society: The Politics of Composition, Performance and Reception. Edited by Richard Leppert and Susan McClary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 133-149.

Hatch, Martin. 1985. "Popular Music in Indonesia." In World Music, Politics and Social Change. Edited by Simon Frith.

Middleton, Richard. 1990. "'Lost in Music'?: Pleasure, Value and Ideology in Popular Music." In Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press, 127-171.

Regev, Moti. 1991. "Popular Music Studies: The Issue of Musical Value." (typescript)

*Presentation: Introduce two selected songs or pieces of your choice. This presentation will focus on musical values and the various factors and mediations that come into play in your choices.

7. Implications of Technology for Popular Music Practices/Aesthetics: Cultural Identity (Feb. 20)

Grossberg, Lawrence. 1988. "'You [still] have to Fight for your Right to Party': Music Television as Billboard of Post-Modern Difference." Popular Music 7(3): 315-332.

Hosokawa, Shuhei. 1984. "The Walkman Effect." Popular Music 4(1):165-182.

Rose, Tricia. 1994. Black Noise.

Sutton, R. Anderson. 1985. "Commercial Cassette Recordings of Traditional Music in Java: Implications for Performers and Scholars." World of Music 27(3):23-43.

Szemere, Anna. 1992. "The Politics of Marginality: A Rock Musical Subculture in Socialist Hungary in the Early 1980s." In Rockin' the Boat: Mass Music and Mass Movements. Edited by Reebee Garofalo. Boston: South End Press, 93-114.

Vila, Pablo. 1989. "Argentina's Rock Nacional: The Struggle for Meaning." Latin American Music

Waterman, Christopher. 1990. "'Our Tradition is a very Modern Tradition': Popular Music and the Construction of Pan-Yoruba Identity." Ethnomusicology 34(3):367-379.

Report on Rose DUE

8. The Politics of Representation (Feb. 27)

Dyer, Richard. "In Defense of Disco." InOn Record: Rock, Pop, and The Written Word. Edited by Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin. New York: Pantheon Books, 410-418.

Grenier, Line. 1990. "The Construction of Music as a Social Phenomenon: Implications for Deconstruction." Alternative Musicologies: Special Issue of the Canadian Univeristy Music Review 10(2): 27-47.

Hall, Stuart. 1992. "What is this 'Black' in Black Popular Culture?" In Black Popular Culture . Edited by Gina Dent. Seattle: Bay Press, 21-36.

Keil, Charles. 1994. "Open Letter." Popular Music.

Marcus, Greil. 1990. "Elvis: Presliad." In Mystery Train.

McClary, Susan. 1991. "Introduction. " In Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 3-34.

McClary, Susan. 1991. "Living to Tell: Madonna's Resurrection of the Fleshy." In Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 148-166.

Middleton, Richard. 1990. 'I Heard it Through the Grapevine': Popular Music in Culture." In Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press, 127-171.

Mientjes, Louise. 1990. "Paul Simon's Graceland, South Africa, and the Mediation of Musical Meaning." Ethnomusicology 34(1):37-74.

Tagg, Philip. 1989. "'Black Music, 'Afro-American Music', and 'European Music." Popular Music 8(3): 285-298.

Spring Break (no class)

9. Globalization (March 13)

Hybridity; transculturation; homogenization and innovation; center/periphery; circulation of cultural forms

Appadurai, Arjun. 1990. "Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy." Public Culture 2:1-24.

Berland, Jody. 1992. "Angels Dancing: Cultural Technologies and the Production of Space." In Cultural Studies. Edited by Grossberg et al. New York and London: Routledge, 38-55.

Hall, Stuart. 1991. "The Local and the Global: Globalization and Ethnicity." In Culture, Globalization and the World-System. Edited by Anthony D. King. Binghamton: Department of Art and Art History, State University of New York at Binghamton.

Lipsitz, George. 1996. "Kalfou Danjere." In Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism and the Poetics of Place. London and New York: Verso, 3-21.

Manuel, Peter. 1988. "Perspectives on the Study of Non-Western Popular Musics." In Popular Musics of the Non-Western World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1-23.

Straw, Will. 1991. "Systems of Articulation, Logics of Change: Communities and Scenes in Popular Music." Cultural Studies :368-388.

Taylor, Timothy. 1997. "Popular Musics and Globalization" In Global Pop:World Music, World Markets. New York and London: Routledge, 1-37.

Wallis, Roger and Krister Malm. 1990. "Patterns of Change." In On Record: Rock, Pop, and The Written Word. Edited by Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin. New York: Pantheon Books, 160-180.

10. World Beat and Cultural Imperialism (March 20)

Chambers, Ian. 1991. "Travelling Sounds: Whose Centre, Whose Periphery?"

Feld, Steven. 1988. "Notes on World Beat." Public Culture Bulletin 1(1).

Garofalo, Reebee. 1993. "Whose World, What Beat: The Transnational Music Industry, Identity, and Cultural Imperialism." The World of Music 35(2): 16-32.

Goodwin, Andrew and Joe Gore. 1990. "World Beat and the Cultural Imperialism Debate." Socialist Review 20 (3): 63-80.

Guilbault, Joceylne. 1992. "On Redefining the 'Local' Through World Music" The World of Music 35(2): 33-46.

Laing, Dave. 1986. "The Music Industry and the 'Cultural Imperialism" Thesis." Media, Culture and Society 8: 331-41.

Lipsitz, George. 1996. "Strategic Anti-Essentialism in Popular Music." In Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism and the Poetics of Place. London and New York: Verso, 51-68.

Weintraub, Andrew. 1993. "Jawaiian and Local Cultural Identity in Hawai'i." Perfect Beat: The Journal of Research into Contemporary Music and Popular Culture 1(2): 78-89.

11. TBA (March 27)

Slobin, Mark. 1993. Subcultural Sounds: Micromusics of the West. Hanover and London: Wesleyan University Press.

*Report on Slobin DUE

12. Popular Music Wrestles with Musicology, Anthropology, and Cultural Studies (April 3)

Institutional politics and popular music studies

Cohen, Sara. 1993. "Ethnography and Popular Music Studies." Popular Music 12(2):123-138.

Coplan, David. 1982. "The Urbanization of African Music: Some Theoretical Observations." In Popular Music 2. Edited by Richard Middleton and David Horn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Grenier, Line and Jocelyne Guilbault. 1990. "'Authority' Revisited: The "Other" in Anthropology and Popular Music Studies." Ethnomusicology 34(3):381-397.

McClary, Susan and Robert Walser. 1990. "Start Making Sense: Musicology Wrestles with Rock." In On Record: Rock, Pop, and The Written Word. Edited by Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin. New York: Pantheon Books, 277-292.

Middleton, Richard. 1990. "'Change Gonna Come'?: Popular Music and Musicology." In Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press, 101-126.

13. TBA and Oral Presentations of Term Projects (April 10)

14. Oral Presentations of Term Projects (April 17)
 
 

Course Requirements

Students are expected to participate actively in class discussion, submit book reviews, present oral presentations on selected articles, and to write a final paper to be read in class.

1.1 The term paper should not be longer than 20 pages (excluding title page and bibliography):

a) Focus on a music related to your field of study. Introduce the various issues and methodologies used in the study of the selected music to show how they contrast with or relate to those discussed in class.

b) Other projects are possible with the approval of the instructor.

1.2 On the last day of class, each student will present the results of his or her project. The presentations should follow the format adopted at scholarly conferences and be no longer than 20 minutes.

2. Students will be assigned to read core articles each week from the lists above. Each student will also choose (or be assigned) selected articles from the lists above to present in class. The presentations should relate the reading to themes discussed in class.

3. Each student is required to write three short critical reviews--not to exceed three pages each--on a) Wallis and Malm; b) Rose; and c) Slobin. The reports should be handed in at the beginning of the class on the day the book or article will be discussed.

Grading: Weekly participation/oral presentations on selected articles (20%); 3 critical reviews (10% x 3=30%); presentation on musical value (5%); term paper (35%); final presentation (10%).