SOC3044 Popular Music and Society
Paul Hodkinson
Office Hours: Contact for appointment
Class Hours: Tuesday 10am-1pm TB12B
Assessment 1:
Online participation
20%
Assessment 2:
1000-word explication
30%
Due 26th November 2019 (week 8)
Assessment 3:
1-hour exam
50%
TBC
1
,Week 1 – Keeping it Real? Music and Authenticity:
Bob Dylan – Booed by fans on stage:
Fans felt betrayed by him using electric instruments when they were a fan of him for his folk
music.
Fans weren’t used to it and weren’t expecting it.
Fans believed he was playing that kind of music because he thought he would make more
money rather than his old-style music.
Importance of lyrics – people said they couldn’t hear the words.
What sort of things prompt us to judge music of musicians as real or fake?
Artists that don’t write their own songs are perceived as fake.
It can be subjective, some people will see certain artists as fake and others will see them as a
real.
A change of genre to one that’s more ‘mainstream’ and profitable.
Our version of what is authentic changes.
Authenticity: natural human talent/ability?
Crooning, miming as artificial, fake, dishonest.
Frank Sinatra – called fake because he can’t project his voice naturally.
Shows changes over time – now we don’t see people seeing with a microphone as
problematic at all.
Artists trying to differentiate themselves from other artists by saying that they don’t mime
and never would.
Same discourses as crooning, just a different technology.
Auto-tune – people argue it makes music ‘inauthentic’,
Auto-tune makes music less ‘human’ its like listening to a robot, its not ‘natural’. Repeated
use of ‘human’ and ‘natural’.
Different uses of autotune – not as simple as to say anyone who uses auto-tune is
untalented. Sometimes it can be used in a creative way.
For example Lady Gaga – some of her music is deliberately meant to sound fake. But
artistically it fits in with her music.
Authenticity – Liveness and unique interactive experience:
Unpredictable and spontaneous:
Musician’s Union ‘Keep Music Live’
Recorded music as ‘fake’ and ‘dead’ rather than ‘live’.
No interaction with audience, sounds the same every time.
Benjamin: aura in art = unique, original. Recorded music doesn’t have ‘presence in
time and space’ (Benjamin 1986)
Interactive connection with audience
Some people complain about large scale performances as opposed to smaller more intimate
shows. Watching them on screens you are getting that ‘interactive’ experience of music.
Authenticity – Artistic integrity/self-expression:
As opposed to writing/performance oriented to audience maximisation.
Not speaking from the heart but playing want people want to hear.
As opposed to performing music/lyrics of others.
The Monkees – manufactured boybands; record companies get an idea and audition people
to join the band, they perform songs that other people have written. They decided to write
their second album themselves due to criticism – but it flopped.
Authenticity – Music/musicians embedded in real life:
We like the idea of an organic emergence of musicians.
Oasis as a ‘real working class rock’n’roll band.’ They get contrasted with other bands that are
seen as more fake.
2
, Music deemed to reflect ‘real’ life, struggles, issues. For example it might be lyrics about
where they grew up etc.
Music that represents alternative life values or fights for political change?
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five – seen as true authentic hip hop. Urban poetry with
a political edge.
Accusation that middle class bands and signers might try to sound more working class.
Even some bands that are considered authentic may have manufacturing behind them eg
The Sex Pistols.
Conflicting Authenticities:
Authenticity isn’t an objective thing, it changes between people and over time.
Different versions of authenticity – some artists may be authentic in some respects but
inauthentic in others.
Some people viewed hip hop as inauthentic because it takes sounds from different genres
and mixes them into one, rather than making their own sound.
Contrasting musical worlds:
Ruth Finnegan – ‘The Hidden Musicians’ (1989)
Rock, classical, jazz – each has different versions of musical authenticity.
Artistic fields – cultures that surround different kinds of music/different kinds of art
(Alexander, 2003)
Changing Authenticities and Enculturation – the case of records (Thornton, 1995)
Music without musicians.
Records making music ‘dead’.
Disc Jockey ‘presenting someone else’s talent’. However today DJs aren’t seen this
way.
Recorded music central to identity of event
Transformation of spaces into ‘total environment’ clubs as alternate realities.
Records acquire their own aura – capacity for newness, listening directly to artists
around the world, capacity for archival.
Emergence of cultures centred on manipulated sound. DJ has gone from unskilled
worker to craftsman and artist.
Records seen as more real and authentic, sales have increased in recent years.
Record, was defined as fake but has become ‘enculturated’ an integral part of music
culture. Its now looked back on as an authentic art object.
Conclusion – Authenticity as Discourse and as profitable?
Authenticity as judgment and positioning, not an objective quality?
Critiquing and judging ourselves, why we see certain music as ‘authentic’.
Ironically, constructing artists as authentic is actually a way to sell music.
Eg Blur racing dog album cover – drawing on this idea of working class authenticity.
Firth (1986) music industry is constantly appropriating our ideas of what is real, and trying to
sell music based on this.
Week 1 Reading S, Firth. (1986) Art versus technology: the strange case of popular music.
Media, culture and society, [online] 8(3) pg.263-279. Available at:
https://content.talisaspire.com/surrey/bundles/57dabd984469eed7448b4586 [Accessed
8th October: 2019]
Summary:
All about the idea that technology ruins the ‘authenticity’ of music.
3
, Technology as opposed to nature, community and art.
Technology acting as a ‘barrier’ between audience and artist.
The idea that technology; recordings, synthesisers cant react to the audience.
But there are a ways in which it can be argued that technology brings audiences closer to
artists. For example recordings and microphoned allowed more people to hear certain
artists.
Although many see electronics as increasing capitalist control of the market, it can be argued
that the opposite has happened. For example, electric guitars gave bands the freedom and
travel to perform without the expensive of big bands, and new gate-keepers (DJ’s and A&R)
have less tight control on who they let make music for a living.
Notes:
Pg.263
‘Crooning’ in 1930’s-1940’s made possible by microphones – not seen in a positive light.
Pg.264
Young bad in Coventry rejected for a local battle of the bands because they use a drum
machine instead of a drummer.
Pop and authenticity:
These examples caused by ‘the changing techniques of music making’ show three recurring
issues:
Technology is opposed to nature. The crooners for example could only reach their
audiences artificially, whereas ‘legitimate’ singers could reach their audiences purely
by the power of their voices. Crooning men were accused of ‘emasculating; music.
Pg.265
Technology is opposed to community. Electronic amplification as alienating
performers from their audiences.
Technology is opposed to art. In the battle of the bands example; the idea that a
‘drummer is a musician in a way that the drum machine programmer is not.’
Synthesisers as soulless and lacking individuality.
‘What is at stake in all these arguments is the authenticity or truth of music; the implication
is that technology is somehow false of falsifying.’
Origins of this lie in the mass culture criticism of the 1930s and 1930s.
Pg.266
Rock’n’roll, rhythm’n’blues and punk were all seen as ‘more truthful’ than pop.
Authenticity as a reaction to technology.
‘The continuing core of rock ideology is that raw sounds are more authentic than cooked
sounds.’
Pg.267
Based on the old-fashion model of direct communication; ‘A plays to B and the less
technology lies between them the closer they are, the more honest their relationship and
the fewer the opportunities for manipulation and falsehoods.’
Rock fans – belief that listening to someone’s music means getting to know them. For Folk
fans they say musicians represent them.
Fakery of technology and fakery of commercial manipulation.
Pg.268
Who is the author of these sounds? The publicist can now be a records real author.
These technological changes ‘raise issues of power and manipulation: how does the
ownership of the technical means of production relate to the control of what is produced?
Do technical developments threaten or consolidate such control?’
Technology as undermining music making.
4
Paul Hodkinson
Office Hours: Contact for appointment
Class Hours: Tuesday 10am-1pm TB12B
Assessment 1:
Online participation
20%
Assessment 2:
1000-word explication
30%
Due 26th November 2019 (week 8)
Assessment 3:
1-hour exam
50%
TBC
1
,Week 1 – Keeping it Real? Music and Authenticity:
Bob Dylan – Booed by fans on stage:
Fans felt betrayed by him using electric instruments when they were a fan of him for his folk
music.
Fans weren’t used to it and weren’t expecting it.
Fans believed he was playing that kind of music because he thought he would make more
money rather than his old-style music.
Importance of lyrics – people said they couldn’t hear the words.
What sort of things prompt us to judge music of musicians as real or fake?
Artists that don’t write their own songs are perceived as fake.
It can be subjective, some people will see certain artists as fake and others will see them as a
real.
A change of genre to one that’s more ‘mainstream’ and profitable.
Our version of what is authentic changes.
Authenticity: natural human talent/ability?
Crooning, miming as artificial, fake, dishonest.
Frank Sinatra – called fake because he can’t project his voice naturally.
Shows changes over time – now we don’t see people seeing with a microphone as
problematic at all.
Artists trying to differentiate themselves from other artists by saying that they don’t mime
and never would.
Same discourses as crooning, just a different technology.
Auto-tune – people argue it makes music ‘inauthentic’,
Auto-tune makes music less ‘human’ its like listening to a robot, its not ‘natural’. Repeated
use of ‘human’ and ‘natural’.
Different uses of autotune – not as simple as to say anyone who uses auto-tune is
untalented. Sometimes it can be used in a creative way.
For example Lady Gaga – some of her music is deliberately meant to sound fake. But
artistically it fits in with her music.
Authenticity – Liveness and unique interactive experience:
Unpredictable and spontaneous:
Musician’s Union ‘Keep Music Live’
Recorded music as ‘fake’ and ‘dead’ rather than ‘live’.
No interaction with audience, sounds the same every time.
Benjamin: aura in art = unique, original. Recorded music doesn’t have ‘presence in
time and space’ (Benjamin 1986)
Interactive connection with audience
Some people complain about large scale performances as opposed to smaller more intimate
shows. Watching them on screens you are getting that ‘interactive’ experience of music.
Authenticity – Artistic integrity/self-expression:
As opposed to writing/performance oriented to audience maximisation.
Not speaking from the heart but playing want people want to hear.
As opposed to performing music/lyrics of others.
The Monkees – manufactured boybands; record companies get an idea and audition people
to join the band, they perform songs that other people have written. They decided to write
their second album themselves due to criticism – but it flopped.
Authenticity – Music/musicians embedded in real life:
We like the idea of an organic emergence of musicians.
Oasis as a ‘real working class rock’n’roll band.’ They get contrasted with other bands that are
seen as more fake.
2
, Music deemed to reflect ‘real’ life, struggles, issues. For example it might be lyrics about
where they grew up etc.
Music that represents alternative life values or fights for political change?
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five – seen as true authentic hip hop. Urban poetry with
a political edge.
Accusation that middle class bands and signers might try to sound more working class.
Even some bands that are considered authentic may have manufacturing behind them eg
The Sex Pistols.
Conflicting Authenticities:
Authenticity isn’t an objective thing, it changes between people and over time.
Different versions of authenticity – some artists may be authentic in some respects but
inauthentic in others.
Some people viewed hip hop as inauthentic because it takes sounds from different genres
and mixes them into one, rather than making their own sound.
Contrasting musical worlds:
Ruth Finnegan – ‘The Hidden Musicians’ (1989)
Rock, classical, jazz – each has different versions of musical authenticity.
Artistic fields – cultures that surround different kinds of music/different kinds of art
(Alexander, 2003)
Changing Authenticities and Enculturation – the case of records (Thornton, 1995)
Music without musicians.
Records making music ‘dead’.
Disc Jockey ‘presenting someone else’s talent’. However today DJs aren’t seen this
way.
Recorded music central to identity of event
Transformation of spaces into ‘total environment’ clubs as alternate realities.
Records acquire their own aura – capacity for newness, listening directly to artists
around the world, capacity for archival.
Emergence of cultures centred on manipulated sound. DJ has gone from unskilled
worker to craftsman and artist.
Records seen as more real and authentic, sales have increased in recent years.
Record, was defined as fake but has become ‘enculturated’ an integral part of music
culture. Its now looked back on as an authentic art object.
Conclusion – Authenticity as Discourse and as profitable?
Authenticity as judgment and positioning, not an objective quality?
Critiquing and judging ourselves, why we see certain music as ‘authentic’.
Ironically, constructing artists as authentic is actually a way to sell music.
Eg Blur racing dog album cover – drawing on this idea of working class authenticity.
Firth (1986) music industry is constantly appropriating our ideas of what is real, and trying to
sell music based on this.
Week 1 Reading S, Firth. (1986) Art versus technology: the strange case of popular music.
Media, culture and society, [online] 8(3) pg.263-279. Available at:
https://content.talisaspire.com/surrey/bundles/57dabd984469eed7448b4586 [Accessed
8th October: 2019]
Summary:
All about the idea that technology ruins the ‘authenticity’ of music.
3
, Technology as opposed to nature, community and art.
Technology acting as a ‘barrier’ between audience and artist.
The idea that technology; recordings, synthesisers cant react to the audience.
But there are a ways in which it can be argued that technology brings audiences closer to
artists. For example recordings and microphoned allowed more people to hear certain
artists.
Although many see electronics as increasing capitalist control of the market, it can be argued
that the opposite has happened. For example, electric guitars gave bands the freedom and
travel to perform without the expensive of big bands, and new gate-keepers (DJ’s and A&R)
have less tight control on who they let make music for a living.
Notes:
Pg.263
‘Crooning’ in 1930’s-1940’s made possible by microphones – not seen in a positive light.
Pg.264
Young bad in Coventry rejected for a local battle of the bands because they use a drum
machine instead of a drummer.
Pop and authenticity:
These examples caused by ‘the changing techniques of music making’ show three recurring
issues:
Technology is opposed to nature. The crooners for example could only reach their
audiences artificially, whereas ‘legitimate’ singers could reach their audiences purely
by the power of their voices. Crooning men were accused of ‘emasculating; music.
Pg.265
Technology is opposed to community. Electronic amplification as alienating
performers from their audiences.
Technology is opposed to art. In the battle of the bands example; the idea that a
‘drummer is a musician in a way that the drum machine programmer is not.’
Synthesisers as soulless and lacking individuality.
‘What is at stake in all these arguments is the authenticity or truth of music; the implication
is that technology is somehow false of falsifying.’
Origins of this lie in the mass culture criticism of the 1930s and 1930s.
Pg.266
Rock’n’roll, rhythm’n’blues and punk were all seen as ‘more truthful’ than pop.
Authenticity as a reaction to technology.
‘The continuing core of rock ideology is that raw sounds are more authentic than cooked
sounds.’
Pg.267
Based on the old-fashion model of direct communication; ‘A plays to B and the less
technology lies between them the closer they are, the more honest their relationship and
the fewer the opportunities for manipulation and falsehoods.’
Rock fans – belief that listening to someone’s music means getting to know them. For Folk
fans they say musicians represent them.
Fakery of technology and fakery of commercial manipulation.
Pg.268
Who is the author of these sounds? The publicist can now be a records real author.
These technological changes ‘raise issues of power and manipulation: how does the
ownership of the technical means of production relate to the control of what is produced?
Do technical developments threaten or consolidate such control?’
Technology as undermining music making.
4
