PRESSURE’S ON: VOCAL PRODUCTION, PARALANGUAGE, AND MEANING IN AMERICAN HARDCORE PUNK (1978–86)
Dave Easley, Oklahoma City University (dbeasley@okcu.edu)
2014 Society for Music Theory National Conference, Milwaukee, WI
Figure 1: Paralinguistic features of (a) speech and (b) hardcore vocal production, and (c) paralinguistic markers of intensity in hardcore
(a)
(b)
Primary qualities
pitch, loudness, temporal cues
Qualifiers
voice types: breathy, harsh, tense
Alternants
clicks, inhalations, moans, groans
Differentiators
(c)
limited melodic activity
middle to higher register
loud
2+2 model vs. fast rate of declamation
clipped syllables and words
rising melodic motion
rising register
increasingly loud
slower to faster rate of declamation
increasingly clipped
harsh voice
tense voice
increasingly tense, leading to vocal noise
moans
groans
grunts
n/a
singing vs. heightened speech vs. shouting/screaming
increasingly heightened mode of declamation
sighing, shouting, laughing
Figure 2: Definitions of paralinguistic categories (all from Poyatos 2002 and Lacasse 2010)
Category
Definition
primary qualities
Characteristics of voice that differentiate individuals: timbre, resonance, intensity or volume, tempo, pitch (level, intervals, range), intonation range, syllabic
duration, and rhythm
qualifiers
Modification of verbal utterances. Includes breathing effects (e.g., whispery voice), laryngeal effects (e.g., creaky voice, harsh voice, tense voice), and
others created by pharyngeal control and nasality.
alternants
Vocal sounds that occur independently of verbal utterances. Includes moans, groans, hisses, snorts, etc.
differentiators
Modification of verbal utterances or occurring independently. Includes sound constructs such as laughter, crying, shouting/screaming, sighing, gasping, etc.
“Institutionalized” (Suicidal Tendencies, 1983)
“Bad Attitude” (Articles of Faith, 1982)
Verse 1
Sometimes I try to do things and it just doesn’t work out the
way I wanted to.
I get real frustrated and I try hard to do it and I take my time
and it doesn't work out the way I wanted to.
It’s like I concentrate real hard and it doesn't work out.
Everything I do and everything I try never turns out.
It’s like I need time to figure these things out.
But there’s always someone there going.
Hey Mike, you know we’ve been noticing you’ve been having a
lot of problems lately.
You know, maybe you should get away and maybe you should
talk about it, maybe you’ll feel a lot better.
Verse 1
Bad attitude’s a catch-all phrase
When things don’t work out their way
When you know you’re supposed to stay
Right in your place
***RECORDING STARTS HERE***
And I go, no it’s okay, you know I’ll figure it out, just leave me
alone I’ll figure it out.
You know I’ll just work by myself.
And they go, well you know if you want to talk about it I’ll be
here you know and you’ll probably feel a lot better if you
talk about it. So why don’t you talk about it?
I go, no I don’t want to I’m okay, I’ll figure it out myself and
they just keep bugging me and they just keep bugging me
and it builds up inside and it builds up inside.
Prechorus
So you’re gonna be institutionalized
You’ll come out brainwashed with bloodshot eyes
You won’t have any say
They’ll brainwash you until you see their way.
Chorus
I’m not crazy – in an institution
You’re the one who’s crazy – in an institution
You’re driving me crazy – in an institution
They stuck me in an institution
Said it was the only solution
To give me the needed professional help
To protect me from the enemy – myself.
In the corner be a man
Get away with what you can
As long as you don’t rip them who
Keep you in your place
Prechorus
You know that it’s not right to hate
It must be that you’re born that way
You need some more – indoctrinate
Or else they’ll put you away
Verse 2
Bad attitude’s what they serve you
When their need for you is through
Cause you got that attitude
Keep you in your place
Bad attitude’s what it must be
Because you don’t think just like me
Or want all those handsome things
To keep you in your place
Prechorus
You know that it’s not right to hate
It must be that you’re born that way
You need some more – indoctrinate
Or else they’ll put you away
Chorus
Bad attitude
Verse 3
Bad attitude’s what I’ve been told
Since I was just five years old
And didn’t buy what they had sold
Right in my place
Bad attitude but “be yourself ”
Just enough like someone else
Another soul who needs our help
Awww – go to hell
Prechorus
You know that it’s not right to hate
It must be that you’re born that way
You need some more – indoctrinate
Or else they’ll put you away
Chorus
Bad attitude . . .
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adams, Kyle. 2012. “A Preliminary Study of Articulation and Affect in Rap.” Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Society
for Music Theory, New Orleans, LA.
Blush, Steven. 2010. American Hardcore: A Tribal History. 2nd ed. Port Townsend, WA: Feral House.
Feld, Steven, Aaron A. Fox, Thomas Porcello, and David Samuels. 2004. “Vocal Anthropology: From the Music of Language to the
Language of Song.” In A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology, ed. Alessandro Duranti, 321–345. Malden, MA: Blackwell
Publishing, Ltd.
Gelbart, Matthew. 2003. “Persona and Voice in the Kinks’ Songs of the Late 1960s.” Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 128, no. 2:
200–241.
Heideman, Kate. 2014. “Toward a System of Vocal Timbre Description in Popular Song.” Paper presented at the Annual Conference
of the Society for Music Theory, Milwaukee, WI.
Kreiman, Jody, and Diana Sidtis. 2013. Foundations of Voice Studies: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Voice Production and Perception.
Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Lacasse, Serge. 2010. “The Phonographic Voice: Paralinguistic Features and Phonographic Staging in Popular Music Singing.” In
Recorded Music: Performance, Culture, and Technology, ed. Amanda Bayley, 225–251. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Laver, John. 1980. The Phonetic Description of Voice Quality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
List, George. 1963. “The Boundaries of Speech and Song.” Ethnomusicology 7, no. 1: 1–16.
Malawey, Victoria. 2014. “Vocal Prosody in Popular Music: Cover Versions of ‘Cry Me a River.’” Manuscript obtained from author.
Middleton, Richard. 2000. “Rock Singing.” In The Cambridge Companion to Singing, ed. John Potter, 28–41. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Moore, Allan F. 2012. Song Means: Analysing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Song. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Osborn, Brad. 2013. “Subverting the Verse-Chorus Paradigm: Terminally Climactic Forms in Recent Rock Music.” Music Theory
Spectrum 35, no. 1: 23–47.
Poyatos, Fernando. 1993. Paralanguage: A Linguistic and Interdisciplinary Approach to Interactive Speech and Sound. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins Publishing Company.
–––––. 2002. Nonverbal Communication Across Disciplines, vol. 2, Paralanguage, Kinesics, Silence, Personal, and Environmental Interaction.
Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Rings, Steven. 2013. “A Foreign Sound to Your Ear: Bob Dylan Performs ‘It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),’ 1964–2009.” Music
Theory Online 17, no. 3.
Rockwell, Joti. 2007. “Drive, Lonesomeness, and the Genre of Bluegrass Music.” Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago.
Rachman, Paul. 2007. American Hardcore: The History of American Punk Rock 1980–1986, DVD. Sony Pictures Classics (17094).
Spicer, Mark. 2004. “(Ac)cumulative Form in Pop-Rock Music.” Twentieth-Century Music 1, no. 1: 29–54.
Stephenson, Ken. 2002. What to Listen for in Rock: A Stylistic Analysis. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Summach, Jason. 2012. “Form in Top-20 Rock Music, 1955–89.” Ph.D. diss., Yale University.
Leeuwen, Theo Van. 1999. Speech, Music, Sound. London: Macmillan.
Waksman, Steve. 2009. This Ain’t the Summer of Love: Conflict and Crossover in Heavy Metal and Punk. Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press.
Wennerstrom, Ann K. 2001. The Music of Everyday Speech: Prosody and Discourse Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press.
Woods, Alyssa. 2009. “Rap Vocality and the Construction of Identity.” Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan.
Zak, Albin. 2001. The Poetics of Rock: Cutting Tracks, Making Records. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.