ANTHRO 106 2016 Week One: Genre • • • • • • • Who “controls” popular music? Is popular music characteristically rebellious”? What is passive consumption in relation to popular music? What are “liberating moments” in music history? Can artistry co-exist with commercialism? Does commercialisation preclude an artist from contributing to a culture of resistance? How does the music industry operate? Key concepts • Genre • Frith • Fabbri • Hebdige • Adorno • Hegemony • Resistance • Liberating moments • Music industry What is popular music Phillip Tagg Are commercial success and artistic quality mutually exclusive? Does commercialisation preclude an artist from contributing to a culture of resistance? Do the ‘choices’ ‘given’ to us by corporation and commercial media actually represent true freedom of choice and cultural expression? Or: does Mass Culture = alienated subjectivity GENRE Who creates music genre? How are genre maintained and negotiated? Frith 1996 “Genre Rules” • Record companies • Record Stores • Grammy categories • Radio • Music Magazines Fabbri • • • • • Formal and Technical rules Semiotic rules Behavioural rules Social and ideological rules Commercial and Juridical rules THEORY Theodore Adorno Marxist, Frankfurt school Improvements in technology for workers gives us more free time, those in control fill the emptiness of our free time by selling us pop music Makes art a commodity Artistry cannot co-exist with commercialism Behind any rebellious appearances are stale musical standardisation Ready-mix assembly line for pancakes Decoration of empty time Pop music is passive, therefore an ideal temporary release Pop Music covers up the boredom and angst of people’s purposeless existence Jazz and pop do not fulfill the necessary social role of art in society Hebdige- 1979 University of Birmingham, England CCCS Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies Hebdige showed the central place of popular music in the formation and expression of politically resistant subcultures. Hebdige showed how young people appropriate and adapt elements of mass-produced popular culture to fashion distinct group identities He explored the central place of popular music in the formation and expression of politically resistant subcultures. Challenged the notion of the passivity of consumer Not so pessimistic It is common to identify youth subcultures based on styles of dress, musical tastes, language and forms of behaviour. This position, using a series of ethnographies, is based on the idea of counterhegemonic struggle and the attempts by post-war youth to resolve the social problems and contradictions created by their material conditions. So the stylistic trappings of each subculture form part of a code by which the members communicate with the 'straight' world. Subcultures form in communal and symbolic engagements with the larger system of late industrial culture; they're organized around, but not wholly determined by, age and class, and are expressed in the creation of styles. These styles are not to be read as simply resisting hegemony or as magical resolutions to social tensions. Rather subcultures cobble together (or hybridize) styles out of the images and material culture available to them in the effort to construct identities which will confer on them "relative autonomy" within a social order fractured by class, generational differences, work etc. BUT (Garofalo 1987) Controlling concerns may use music for hegemonic purposes, and listeners may not all use music to resist domination…. But elements of rebellion and conformity exist in the production, distribution and reception of popular music Need to extend beyond the dialectical pessimism of Adorno Beyond the dichotomy of elites/masses The aestheticification and manipulation of the sonic experience of contemporary life To reduce pop history to the struggles of musician or small label heroes versus corporate wolves ignores the fact that: the music industry's strategies of market control have been developed because the market is one the CAN’T CONTROL (Frith 1981) Commercial success and artistic quality are not mutually exclusive Nor does commercialisation necessarily preclude and artist from contributing to a culture of resistance. (Garofalo 1987) • Shifting alliances among class factions • Possibilities for counter hegemonic practise • Relative autonomy from the direct domination of ruling class Posits “liberating moments “ in popular music history: Rock ‘n’ Roll, punk, Black power, and Woodstock To all attempts at social control, music offers a counter-view, a space where rebellion is possible; and that explains music’s immense role in political contestation and subcultures (Middleton 1981) MUSIC INDUSTRY Record labels are often under the control of a corporate umbrella organization called a music group. A music group is typically owned by an international conglomerate holding company, which often has non-music divisions as well. A music group controls and consists of music publishing companies, record (sound recording) manufacturers, record distributors, and record labels. 2013 (Big Three) • Universal Music Group (39%) • Sony Music Entertainment (30%) • • Warner Music Group (19%) Independent labels (12%) Record companies and music publishers that are not under the control of the big four are generally considered to be independent, even if they are large corporations with complex structures. Indie label often refers to only those independent labels that adhere to an arbitrary criteria of corporate structure and size, and some consider an indie label to be almost any label that releases nonmainstream music, regardless of its corporate structure. Independents perform valuable research and development service for the majors Music Charts Here's where your $17 (NZ$ 34.00) goes when you buy a CD: • Retailer: $5 (NZ$ 10.00) • Record label: $4.92 (NZ$ 9.84) • Distributor: $2.40 (NZ$ 4.80) • Giveaways: $1.80 (NZ$ 3.60) • Duplication/recording: $1.10 (NZ$ 2.20) • Artist royalty: 83 cents (NZ$ 1.66) • Songwriter license: 60 cents (NZ$ 1.20) • Producer royalty: 27 cents (NZ$ 0.54) • Musicians union: 8 cents (NZ$ 0.16) • Confessions of a Record Producer (Backbeat Books) by Moses Avalon Courtney Love does the math http://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/ Music industry are the “real” pirates Musicians owe a debt to the record companies for recording and video production costs Rihanna writing story http://musicnovascotia.ca/content/how-much-does-it-cost-make-hit-song Adele song writing http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/magazine-feature/6874217/adele-windfall-her-25songwriters-producers-13-million Videos: Mods and rockers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r61ks18Bd7I Rock ‘n’ roll: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-j2rILarYA Woodstock: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKdsRWhyH30 Punk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf-yvJKG608
