Book•
Urban Rhythms Pop Music and Popular Culture
01 Jan 1985-
About: The article was published on 1985-01-01 and is currently open access. It has received 168 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Popular culture & Popular music.
Citations
More filters
••
TL;DR: The authors argue that the musical tastes and stylistic preferences of youth, rather than being tied to issues of social class, as subculture maintains, are in fact examples of the late modern lifestyles in which notions of identity are ''constructed'' rather than ''given', and ''fluid'' instead of ''fixed''.
Abstract: Despite the criticisms of subcultural theory as a framework for the sociological study of the relationship between youth, music, style and identity, the term `subculture' continues to be widely used in such work. It is a central contention of this article that, as with subcultural theory, the concept of `subculture' is unworkable as an objective analytical tool in sociological work on youth, music and style - that the musical tastes and stylistic preferences of youth, rather than being tied to issues of social class, as subculture maintains, are in fact examples of the late modern lifestyles in which notions of identity are `constructed' rather than `given', and `fluid' rather than `fixed'. Such fluidity, I maintain, is also a characteristic of the forms of collective association which are built around musical and stylistic preference. Using Maffesoli's concept of tribus (tribes) and applying this to an empirical study of the contemporary dance music in Britain, I argue that the musical and stylistic sens...
824 citations
••
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors raise some critical questions about cultural intermediaries as both a descriptive label and analytic concept and argue that while studying the work of cultural intermediary can provide a number of insights, such an approach provides only a partial account of the practices that continue to proliferate in the space between production and consumption.
Abstract: This article raises some critical questions about cultural intermediaries as both a descriptive label and analytic concept. In doing so, it has two main aims. First, it seeks to provide some clarification, critique and suggestions that will assist in the elaboration of this idea and offer possible lines of enquiry for further research. Second, it is argued that whilst studying the work of cultural intermediaries can provide a number of insights, such an approach provides only a partial account of the practices that continue to proliferate in the space between production and consumption. Indeed, in significant ways, a focus on cultural intermediaries reproduces rather than bridges the distance between production and consumption. The paper focuses on three distinct issues. First, some questions are raised about the presumed special significance of cultural intermediaries within the production/consumption relations of contemporary capitalism. Second, how 'creative' and active cultural intermediaries are within processes of cultural production is discussed. Third, specific strategies of inclusion/exclusion adopted by this occupational grouping are highlighted in order to suggest that access to work providing 'symbolic goods and services' is by no means as fluid or open as is sometimes claimed.
420 citations
Cites background from "Urban Rhythms Pop Music and Popular..."
...…value, becoming self-consciously intellectual and respectable; an epoch when various elements of rhythm and blues and rock’n’roll were ‘appropriated’ and ‘rechristened rock or progressive music by its recently enfranchised grammar school, student and hip middle class audience’ (Chambers, 1985: 84)....
[...]
••
23 Dec 2011
TL;DR: Berman as discussed by the authors showed that we cannot interpret the international law of the interwar period without understanding it as a site of Modernist cultural construction and contestation -rather than as a mere adjunct to, or reflection of, cultural developments external to it.
Abstract: This chapter begins by helping the reader to grasp the comprehensive nature of Nathaniel Berman's work, and the subtle perspective that he brings to the legal world when it is confronted by the passions to which nationalism and colonialism give rise. In his work, cultural Modernism interacts with the international law of Danzig; the fantasies surrounding Jerusalem with the concrete political and legal projects for that city; internationalist dreams with the institutional programs for Bosnia and Palestine; and the most industrious international bureaucracy with the most creative and audacious legal imagination. Berman makes use of all of the notions in the course of his work on "imperial ambivalences". His goal is to show that we cannot interpret the international law of the interwar period without understanding it as a site of Modernist cultural construction and contestation - rather than as a mere adjunct to, or reflection of, cultural developments external to it. Keywords:colonialism; cultural Modernism; imperial ambivalences; international law; Nathaniel Berman; nationalism
330 citations
•
TL;DR: The authors examines the history of world music as a discourse narrated in tropes of "enthusiasm" and "anxiety" and questions whether world music creates more artistic humiliation for indigenous traditions or possibilities for new musical resistance or hybridity.
Abstract: How has world music shifted from a remote academic interest to the global commercial marketplace? This article first examines the history of world music as a discourse, narrated in tropes of “enthusiasm” and “anxiety.” It further examines world music as a sphere for interactions and contacts, as well as aesthetic and business practices. These are represented in a case study—a traditional lullaby first recorded in the Solomon Islands by an ethnomusicologist, then subsequently recorded by a major European pop group on a CD that sold millions of copies, and later re-appropriated by a prominent European jazz musician. Finally, the article questions whether world music creates more artistic humiliation for indigenous traditions or possibilities for new musical resistance or hybridity.
263 citations
••
TL;DR: For instance, the authors argues that musical identities and styles are more visibly transient, more audibly in states of constant fission and fusion than ever before, due to the ways cultural separation and social exchange are mutually accelerated by transnational flows of technology, media, and popular culture.
Abstract: 1. Music’s deep connection to social identities has been distinctively intensified by globalization. This intensification is due to the ways cultural separation and social exchange are mutually accelerated by transnational flows of technology, media, and popular culture. The result is that musical identities and styles are more visibly transient, more audibly in states of constant fission and fusion than ever before. 2. Our era is increasingly dominated by fantasies and realizations of sonic virtuality. Not only does contemporary technology make all musical worlds actually or potentially transportable and hearable in all others, but this transportability is something fewer and fewer people take in any way to be remarkable. As sonic virtuality is increasingly naturalized, everyone’s musical world will be felt and experienced as both more definite and more vague, specific yet blurred, particular but general, in place and in motion. 3. It has taken only one hundred years for sound recording technologies to amplify sonic exchange to a point that overwhelms prior and contiguous his-
204 citations
Cites background from "Urban Rhythms Pop Music and Popular..."
...…by the emergence of a professional journal (Popular Music in 1981) and society (IASPM, the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, also 1981) and a succession of influential theoretical texts (for example, Frith 1983; Chambers 1985; Middleton 1990; Shepherd 1991; McClary 1991)....
[...]