1. Cultural studies: Studying popular culture http://johncmullen.blogspot.com

2. What is Popular Culture? _______________________________________ Popular culture can be defined (cf. Storey): 1. quantitatively: culture of the many - forms widely favored 2. residually: denoting all that is not high culture 3. as being same as mass culture (commercialized) 4. as culture originating from the “people” 5. as culture of resistance Related culture concepts: grassroots, popular, common, mass, é lite, high-middle-low brow

3. Culture: approaches and definitions _______________________________________ E.B. Tylor (1871): Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs, and other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society M. Mead (1960s): Culture is a learned behavior of a society or a subgroup R. Williams (1970s): Culture includes the organization of production, the structure of the family, the structure of institutions which express or govern social relationships, the characteristic forms through which members of the society communicate C. Geertz (1980s): Culture is simply the ensemble of stories we tell ourselves about ourselves

6. Theodor Adorno Adorno was denied a teaching position at a university because he was Jewish. Dialectic of the Enlightenment written 1944, published 1947 One of the first writer to systematically write about popular culture,,, even if from a rather negative standpoint, We will spend some time on Adorno because he was the grandfather of the study of popular culture, even though his opinion about it was very negative

7. Reading Adorno Adorno is a member of the Frankfurt school of philosophers and social critics. These thinkers were (are) influenced by some of the writings of Karl Marx, and also by Freudian ideas; they use these ideas as tools for social criticism. Adordno uses Marx’s idea of “commodity fetishism” to analyze the phenomenon of popular music.

8. More background on Adorno Adorno is not only a philosopher but a musician and composer, a student of Schoenberg’s student Alban Berg. The “popular music” Adorno is writing about is jazz in the late 1930’s. But his ideas are at least as easy to apply to contemporary popular music as they were for the jazz of his day.

9. Adorno’s basic idea Music – both popular and the classical music played in concert halls and on the radio – is driven primarily by commercial interests. “Music, with all the attributes of the ethereal and sublime which are generously accorded it, serves in America today as an advertisement for commodities which one must acquire in order to be able to hear music.”

10. The basic idea (continued) In other words, commercial music exists to sell CD’s, stereos, i-pods and concert tickets rather than these things existing to make music available. Both the music makers and the listeners have become submerged in the commercial process, and neither is really musically free.

11. Commodity fetishism A fetish is a substitute object of desire. So, in the most familiar kind of case, sexual desire might be displaced onto garments worn by the individual whom one cannot, for whatever reason, directly desire or have. Karl Marx said that commodities can be fetishes. In this case, the displaced desire is the desire for freedom, and for the fruits of your labor. Here’s what happens. You are alienated (estranged, separated) from the fruits of your labor. The products you help make are too far from your control for you to recognize them as your own. In return for your labor, you get dollars, which are only a small percentage of the value you have added to the product.

12. Commodity fetishism (continued) “Marx defines the fetish character of the commodity as the veneration of the thing made by oneself which, as exchange value, simultaneously alienates itself from producer to consumer….’the relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labor is presented to them as a social relation existing not between themselves, but between the products of their labors.’”

13. Commodity fetishism (cont.) So instead of a relationship between you and some musicians, who would play for you in exchange for some service you would render to them, there is now a relationship between your dollars and their CD. But the dollars and the CD are part of a capitalist system that is driven by the need to make money, not the need to make and hear good music.

14. Popular (and classical) music as “fetish” What do you really like when you like a popular song, a rap concert, or a performance at the symphony? Not the music, says Adorno. Rather, it’s the (illusory) feeling of your own wealth (when you buy the concert ticket); the feeling of belonging, of being “cool”, when you like what is popular, or of being “individual” when you like “alternative” music or “non-commercial” rap.

15. The Culture Industry “ The culture industry fuses the old and familiar into a new quality. In all its branches, products which are tailored for consumption by masses, and which to a great extent determine the nature of that consumption, are manufactured more or less according to plan ” Adorno in « The Culture Industry reconsidered »

16. “People know what they want because they know what other people want” (Adorno)

17. ...But can it deliver? “The culture industry does not sublimate; it represses. By repeatedly exposing the objects of desire, breasts in a clinging sweater or the naked torso of the athletic hero, it only sublimates the unsublimated forepleasure which habitual deprivation has long since reduced to masochistic semblance” (1117-8).

18. On pop music some of its principal characteristics are: unabating repetition of some particular musical formula comparable to the attitude of a child incessantly uttering the same demand (‘I want to be happy’); the limitation of many melodies to very few tones, comparable to the way in which a small child speaks before he has the full alphabet at his disposal.... Treating adults like children is involved in that representation of fun which is aimed at relieving the strain of their adult responsabilities. Theodor Adorno, Essays on Music (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 445.

19. Jitterbug

20. On music for dancing in order to become a jitterbug or simply to ‘like’ popular music, it does not by any means suffice to give oneself up and to fall into line passively. To become transformed into an insect, man needs that energy which might possibly achieve his transformation into a man. Adorno, Essays on Music, 468.

21. Regressive Listening The commodity system of music requires regressive (i.e., childish) listeners. “Their (our) primitivism is not that of the undeveloped, but of the forcibly retarded. Whenever they have a chance, they display the pinched hatred of those who really sense the other but exclude it in order to live in peace….”

22. A simplistic representation of Adorno’s position

25. Objections to Adorno’s analyses (in particular of popular music) -1. Empirical studies do not support his views “The idea of the industry foisting rubbish more or less at will on a totally passive audience is facile. If it could do so it would, but it can not. Most records are not hits, the industry is notoriously slow in picking up on crazes and audiences soon tire of artists who are hyped into the charts.” Martin Cloonan

26. 2. Adorno only considers reflexive listening to be valuable, but this is a culture-bound judgement. 3. If Adorno was right, then changes in popular music would never accompany real changes in society. Punk and rap for example would not correspond to any social change, 4. He supposes a monumental quantity of false consciousness,

27. The result is that Adorno’s theories are regarded today as ‘largely obsolete and unscientific, in the eyes of the cultural historian who is preoccupied with understanding both systems of production and the development of the symbolic landscape of a given society’. Ludovic Tournès, ‘Reproduire l’œuvre: la nouvelle économie musicale’, in La Culture de Masse en France, ed. Jean-Pierre Rioux and Jean-François Sirinelli (Paris: Fayard, 2002), 221 [Translation: JM].

28. Culture as an object of study _______________________________________ Subject area not clearly defined: all-inclusive notion of culture and study of a range of practices Principles and theories from social sciences disciplines, the humanities, and the arts are adapted to the purposes of cultural analysis Methodologies : textual analysis, ethnography, psychoanalysis, survey research, etc.

29. What is Cultural Studies? _______________________________________ Study of culture rather than society Examines cultural practices in their relationship to power; how power shapes these practices Progressive, radical, political, at the outset

31. Historical background _______________________________________ Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) established in 1964 Working Papers in Cultural Studies in 1972 Forefathers: Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams, E.P. Thompson, Stuart Hall Studied role of popular culture in class-based society in England

32. R. Hoggart & R. Williams _______________________________________ Working class intellectuals  The culture of common people (working class culture) seen as more authentic than middle- and upper-class culture; derives from experience  Against canonical élitism  Mass culture seen as “colonizing”working class culture

34. Hoggart regrets what he sees as the break-up of the old, class culture, lamenting the loss of the close-knit communities and their replacement by the emerging manufactured mass culture. Key features of this are the tabloid newspapers, advertising, and the triumph of Hollywood. These "alien" phenomena, he believes, have colonized local communities and robbed them of their distinctive features.

35. R. Hoggart _______________________________________ Founder of CCCS  The Uses of Literacy (1957) programmatic work; parts of it written as a manifesto  Critical reading of art needs to reveal the “felt quality of life” of a society; art captures the experience of the everyday as the unique

36. 1958 1973 1950

37. R. Williams _______________________________________ Marxist tradition  Culture is an expression of the coherence of organic communities resisting determinism in its various forms  Culture: material, intellectual and spiritual (base and superstructure in the marxist sense),  Centrality of texts that capture “the structure of feeling” of everyday life, the sense of an époque.  He speaks of dominant, residual and emergent ideologies and cultural forms

39. Hebdige subculture Hebdige Subculture: The meaning of style consists of two parts and nine chapters: Part One: Some case studies 1.From culture to hegemony 2. Holiday in the sun: Mister Rotten makes the grade; Boredom in Babylon. 3. Back to Africa; The Rastafarian solution; Reggae and Rastafarianism; Exodus: A double crossing. 4. Hipsters, beats and teddy boys; Home-grown cool: The style of the mods; White skins, black masks; Glam and glitter rock; Bleached roots: Punks and white ‘ethnicity’.

40. Part Two: A reading 5. The function of subculture; Specificity: Two types of teddy boy; The sources of style. 6. Subculture: The unnatural break; Two forms of incorporation. 7. Style as intentional communication; Style as bricolage; Style in revolt: Revolting style. 8. Style as homology; Style as signifying practice. 9. O.K., it’s Culture, but is it Art?

44. Cultural Studies – concerns, continued, _______________________________________ Culture is the terrain on which ideological representations of class, gender, race are enforced, and contested by social groups validating their experience Hegemony explains how society is bound together (without the use of force) under the moral and intellectual leadership of the ruling classes Operates in the realm of representations and consciousness Naturalizes a class ideology and renders it in the form of common sense Intellectuals forge consent in the interest of the ruling class

45. Culture is site of class struggle _______________________________________ Gramsci (1891-1937) - Prison Notebooks

46. Born 1891 One of the founders of the Italian Communist Party in 1921 Imprisoned by the fascist government in 1926 Died in 1937 after 11 years in prison, due to harsh conditions

47. Hegemony _______________________________________ Hegemony relies on negotiation & consent Exercised through ‘authority,’ not physical force Operates through institutions (educational system, media and the family) Competing classes achieve a “compromise equilibrium” Popular culture is an arena of resistance but also of enforcing hegemony Paradoxically, the sphere of culture perceived as non-political although it is a conduit for hegemonic representations

48. The cousins of cultural studies Media studies Gender studies Queer studies Postcolonial studies Popular Music Studies

49. Media studies In the UK, media studies developed in the 1960s. In 1966, the Centre for Mass Communication Research was founded at Leicester University, and degree programmes in media studies began to sprout at polytechnics and other universities during the 1970s and 1980s. Media Studies is now taught all over the UK. It is taught at GCSE and at A level.

50. Media studies example: Reality Television How can we define reality television? What kinds of reality televison have grown up? (Big Brother, Airport, The Voice, Goggle box, Guess whose coming to dinner, Blind date, Undercover boss). What were their predecessors ? (Quiz shows, talent shows, documentaries), What audiences do the different kinds of reality television attract and why ? What are the hidden messages?

52. Gender Studies Gender studies is a field for interdisciplinary study devoted to gender identity and gendered representation as central categories of analysis. Regarding gender, Simone de Beauvoir said: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one.“ This view proposes that in gender studies, the term "gender" should be used to refer to the social and cultural constructions of masculinities and femininities and not to the state of being male or female in its entirety.

55. Postcolonial studies is an academic discipline featuring methods of intellectual discourse that analyze, explain, and respond to the cultural legacies of colonialism and imperialism. Postcolonial studies analyse the politics of knowledge (creation, control, and distribution) by analyzing the functional relations of social and political power that sustain colonialism and neocolonialism—the how and the why of an imperial regime's representations (social, political, cultural) of the imperial colonizer and of the colonized people.

59. Approches which challenge the dominant ideas in cultural studies "My purpose is to examine the biology of selfishness and altruism." "Dawkins presented a version of sociobiology that rested heavily on metaphors drawn from animal behavior, and extrapolated these...One of the weaknesses of the sociobiological approach is that it tends only to seek confirmatory examples from among the huge diversity of animal behavior. Dawkins did not deviate from this tradition.“ Nicky Hayes

60. Evolutionary psychologists hold that behaviors or traits that occur universally in all cultures are good candidates for evolutionary adaptations [5] including the abilities to infer others' emotions, discern kin from non-kin, identify and prefer healthier mates, and cooperate with others. [5] They report successful tests of theoretical predictions related to such topics as infanticide, intelligence, marriage patterns, promiscuity, perception of beauty, bride price, and parental investment. [6]infanticideintelligencemarriagepromiscuitybeautybride priceparental investment [6] Criticism of evolutionary psychology involves questions of testability, cognitive and evolutionary assumptions (such as modular functioning of the brain, and large uncertainty about the ancestral environment), importance of non-genetic and non-adaptive explanations, as well as political and ethical issues due to interpretations of research results. [9] [9] Evolutionary psychology

61. Memetics Memetics attemptes to analyze culture in a way analogous to Darwinian evolution, based on the development of memes (in a particular sense). Memes can be copied, transmitted from one person to another. It is part of a desire to make studies of society and culture quantitative. Semioticians in particular have criticized memetics, considering that the « meme » is a simplisitic and inadequate term for the « si gn » which has been analyze as a triangular relationship between emitter receiver and message.

62. Popular Music Studies A brief introduction (adapted from a talk by Philip Tagg)

63. overview 1. Popular Music — what is it? 2. Popular Music — why study it? 3. Popular music: problems of institutionalisation Aesthetic prejudices Pre-existing modes of institutionalising knowledge and the imperative of interdisciplinarity Scribal and oral traditions, notation and recording Historically defined and ongoing (‘unfinished’) traditions Tendency to replace old canons with new ones 4. Suggestions for the future P Tagg HK 0303

64. ‘Art’, ‘folk’ & ‘popular’: historical flowchart MUSIC (society with minimal division of labour) ART MUSIC (courts, official religion) FOLK MUSIC (slaves & proletariat) ART MUSIC (publicly funded institutions) FOLK MUSIC (rural proletariat) POPULAR MUSIC ( industrial proletariat, middle couches) slavery, feudalism industrial capitalism P Tagg HK 0303

65. Art, Folk, Popular music: distinguishing traits Main current mode of storage and distribution in West oral transmission staff notation audio(visual) recording folk art popular Main current modes of financing production and distribution in West independent of monetary economy public funding, patronage ‘free’ market folk art popular P Tagg HK 0303

66. Summary of popular music’s distinguishing traits a phenomenon of industrialised society no formal training required to make or use until recently excluded from officially sanctioned institutions of learning most commonly stored and transmitted via audio(visual) recording production and distribution most commonly financed acc. to rules of the ‘free’ market cannot be defined in terms of musical structure music that is neither ‘art’ nor ‘folk’ music P Tagg HK 0303

67. Music’s Ubiquity & Omnipresence almost ¼ of our waking life for example (estimates in mins. per day) 35’ music in shops, restaurants, bars, public places, at religious or sporting events, etc. 30’ music on radio 30’ music at work 30’ music by conscious choice (home stereo, personal stereo, concerts, clubs, etc.) 10’ music in video games 5’ music on mobile phones; telephone ‘hold’ music, etc. = 210 minutes = 3½ hours per day 70’ music on TV, DVD, VHS or at movies P Tagg HK 0303

68. Institutional inertia of nomenclature New areas of study must be named and identified, for example: The music of the popular majority (much >51%), until recently excluded from (and still relatively marginalised in) institutionalised music studies in the West, had to be identified with a special qualifier — “popular” when it entered the academy, as if it were the exception, not the rule.

69. Popular Music Studies: dates 1934-1960 1934 275,000 juke boxes installed in USA over next 5 years; Bing Crosby most popular; Muzak corporation founded 1935 75% of BBC air time is music 1936 1 st tape-recorded concert (BASF/AEG) 1937 50% of record releases in USA are swing band recordings 1941 1 st electric blues broadcast in USA 1947 Transistors invented; Fender start producing amplifiers 1949 RCA introduce vinyl 45 rpm records 1950 ‘Hillbilly’ (C&W) accounts for 1/3 of record sales in USA 1951 1 st electric bass produced by Fender 1952 1 st reel-to-reel recorded stereo tapes produced by RCA 1955 Bill Haley: Rock Around The Clock; LP sales > singles Top 40 programming format introduced 1958 Mass production breakthrough for stereo 1960 200 million units of Crosby singing White Christmas (Irving Berlin) sold since 1942 P Tagg HK 0303

70. Popular Music Studies: dates 1963-1984 1963 Philips demonstrate 1 st compact audiocassette The Beatles: She Loves You and 1 st LP 1965 Rolling Stones: Satisfaction; Who: My Generation 1966 Moog synth., Marshall amp., Fender Rhodes piano 1967 Beatles: Sergeant Pepper; Hendrix: Are You Experienced? 1968 Woodstock Festival (300,000 participants) 1971 Popular music starts in higher education at University of Göteborg (Sweden) and Berklee (Boston, USA) 1977 Philips show CDs at Tokyo audio fair 1980 Commercial breakthrough for video; Sony Walkman sells 5 million units in 1 st year (USA) 1981 MTV starts in USA; International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM); 1 st issue of Popular Music (CUP) 1983 CDs launched in USA and UK 1984 Cassette sales overtake vinyl LP sales; Forschungszentrum populäre Musik (Humboldt-Universität, Berlin) founded P Tagg HK 0303

71. Popular Music Studies: dates 1985-2000 mid 1980s: CD ROMs, samplers, MIDI, digital synthesizers 1988 DAT recorders; CD sales overtake vinyl sales; Institute of Popular Music (Liverpool University) founded 1 st professor of Popular Music Studies (Berlin); 1989 recordable CDs available 1992 AoL stock listed on NASDAQ; Sony corp. announce 1 st loss; DCCs & MDs marketed; Michael Jackson’s Thriller 40 mill. units in 10 yrs; Madonna signs 7-yr $700 mill. contract 1994 Viacom buy Paramount (incl. MTV) for $10 billion; Pavarotti’s audio & video sales top 50 million units 1995-… Mergers, ‘restructuring’: thousands lose jobs in music industry; internet distribution increasingly important music business courses (Edinburgh, Liverpool, etc.) 1998 Specifications for DVD agreed 2000 AoL buys Time-Warner (incl. CNN, CompuServe, etc.) 1990 More people recognise Mario than Mickey Mouse from music P Tagg HK 0303

72. Entrance of popular music studies into the academy: dates (1) 1930-32 Musik und Gesellschaft: music educators, ethnomusicologists, composers express social concern about culture in daily life of popular majority in pre-fascist Germany 1940s ‘Motivation research’ (USA): subsequently used to relate target groups to musical taste 1960s [1] Frankfurt school: Adorno, Marcuse, notions of authenticity in counter-culture (Rolling Stone, USA). [2] Cultural Studies: (a) conceptual broadening of ‘culture’; media scholars with background in literary theory, political science, sociology, etc.; (b) realisation of PMus music’s importance in constructing social identity of groups of young people  subcultural theory (Birmingham, UK). [3] The Times: music critic suggests Lennon & McCartney as ‘composers of the year’ (London, 1964). P Tagg HK 0303

73. Entrance of popular music studies into the academy: dates (2) 1970s [1] Colleges of Music start to include PMus (USA, Germany, UK, etc.). 1980s [1] IASPM formed (International Association for the Study of Popular Music) (Amsterdam, 1981) ; [2] 1 st issue of Popular Music (C.U.P.) published. Popular Music Studies identified as interdisciplinary (and interprofessional) area of inquiry. P Tagg HK 0303 1980s-90s [1] Increased presence of PMus in tertiary education (cultural/media studies, music(ology), perf. arts colleges); [2] music business courses established.

74. General types of musical knowledge 1.Music as knowledge (knowledge in music) 2. Metamusical knowledge (about music) P Tagg HK 0303

75. 1. Music as knowledge (knowledge in music) 1a. Constructional competence involves: creating, originating, producing, composing, arranging, performing, etc. institutionalised in: conservatories, colleges of music, etc. 1b. Receptional competence involves: recalling & recognising musical sounds, distinguishing between them and between their culturally specific connotations and functions institutionalised in: ……? P Tagg HK 0303

76. 2. Metamusical knowledge (knowledge about music) 2a. Metatextual discourse involves: ‘music theory’, conventional music analysis, identification and naming elements and patterns of musical structure, etc. institutionalised in: departments of music(ology), colleges of music, etc. 2b. Metacontextual discourse involves: explaining how musical practices relate to culture and society, incl. approaches from semiotics, acoustics, business studies, sociology, anthropology, etc. institutionalised in: departments of social science; literature, media, cultural studies. P Tagg HK 0303

77. Canonic quotes Music excites the body to automatic movement, an exhilaration that defeats boredom and inspires insight… Music gives the body control over itself, granting personal freedom and revealing sexual potential’ (Lull 1992) ‘[T]he power of pop lies not in its meaning but in its noise,… the non-signifying, extra-linguistic elements that defy “content analysis”: the grain of the voice, the materiality of the sound, the biological effect of the rhythm, the fascination of the star’s body’ (Reynolds 1990). ‘Passions must be powerful, the musician’s feelings [must be] unfettered — no mind control,… no clever ideas… (Diderot: Le neveu de Rameau, 1762) [Listening to music the right way means] ‘fully surrendering the spirit to the welling torrent of sensations and disregarding every disturbing thought’… (Wackenroder, 1792)

78. Institutionalisation processes (1) classical musicpopular music startedmid C19 -1970s- education institutions created conservatories, music(ology) depts. media/cultural studies, performing arts colleges canonic heritage European ‘classical’ from C18 & C19 (esp. instr.) first jazz, then Anglo- phone rock/pop conservation tendencies old music increasingly dominates repertoire 1960s: v few re-issues; 1999: 60% of sales back catalogue international mus. Idiom Central European (mainly Germanic) Anglo-N.American global hegemony European colonialismUS corporate capitalism P Tagg HK 0303

79. Institutionalisation processes (2) classical musicpopular music liberties, attitude to pleasure liberation of the ego, emotionality, postponed gratification liberation of the id, corporeality, immediate gratification hegemonic class movement merchant class v. feudal aristocracy & 4 th estate financial/managerial élite v. old capitalism & new lumpenproletariat buzzwords of ‘excellence’ high, sublime, superior, great, art, masterpiece, genius cool, fun, moving, entertaining, hip, sexy, striking examples of state appropriation Händel (mass appeal)  Handel, represents UK state power Olympic Games (London 2012): Dizzee Rascal, Damon Albarn, Paul McCartney, UK knighthoods bestowed Charles Stanford, Hubert Parry, Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan-Williams, Arthur Bliss, William Walton, Michael Tippett Cliff Richard, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Bob Geldof, Elton John, (+ Dame Shirley Bassey ) P Tagg HK 0303