A Moore

Authenticity as authentication

This article argues for the prematurity of any dismissal of the notion of authenticity as meaningful within popular music discourse. It synthesises a range of views as to how authenticity is constructed, and offers a tri-partite typology dependent on asking who, rather than what, is being authenticated. It focuses on rock and folk genres, but also argues that the generic nature of the typology makes it applicable to any other genre wherein listeners are concerned to ask whether a musical utterance can be construed as sincere. Preamble ‘Authentic’. ‘Real’. ‘Honest’. ‘Truthful’. ‘With integrity’. ‘Actual’. ‘Genuine’. ‘Essential’. ‘Sincere’. Of all the value terms employed in music discourse, these are perhaps the most loaded. They are familiar from the writings of academic scholars, as will be made plain below. They have been present, in their various ways, in fan and journalistic writing (most notably in the pages of Rolling Stone). In almost all cases, it is music to which these qualifiers can be attached that such writing, and presumably thinking, has prized. Of the terms, it is the first which is most familiar from academic discourse and is, therefore, the one to which I shall reduce the others for the purposes of this article. On occasions, attachment of this term can be justified with close reference to details of sonic design, even if such a process is extremely long-winded: in a previous article, I have demonstrated the viability of just such an approach. 2 Elsewhere, such an attachment is more arbitrary. In the long run, the resultant experiences in these latter cases may be even more analytically interesting in that the influence of the musical text on these occasions may be said to be nil. 3 There are, however, various authenticities, sharing a base assumption about ‘essential(ized), real, actual, essence’ (Taylor 1997, p. 21): they are concisely described in Gilbert and Pearson’s identification of the requirements of a 1980s ‘authentic’ rock, wherein artists must speak the truth of their (and others’) situations. Authenticity was guaranteed by the presence of a specific type of instrumentation . . . [the singer’s] fundamental role was to represent the culture from which he comes. (Gilbert and Pearson 1999, pp. 164–5) The purpose of this article is to explore just some of the ramifications of the term and to offer a globalising perspective analysing the three senses conflated in the above quotation: that artists speak the truth of their own situation; that they speak the truth of the situation of (absent) others; and that they speak the truth of their own culture, thereby representing (present) others. It will do this with primary reference to rock music and to contemporary folk music, although I believe my analysis to be applicable to other genres. Only two other writers appear to have

The so-called ‘flattened seventh’ in rock

This article began, quite simply, as the presentation of a stage in the mapping-out of those harmonic practices which serve to distinguish rock and closely cognate styles (hereafter simply ‘rock’) from those of common-practice tonality on one hand, and jazz on another. It soon became apparent, however, that such a task necessitated some detailed consideration of the means by which the conclusions might be presented and, therefore, some careful consideration of analytic method. To my knowledge, there is as yet very little concern for theorising analytic method in rock music and, therefore, what follows may act as a tentative opening of a difficult debate. The issue at present is, simply, whether or not Schenkerian theory can be adequately applied to this music. My conclusion is that as yet it cannot, and I shall present my findings in that light, but the reasons for my position must, I think, be spelt out. Thereafter, my specific concern will be to investigate varieties of the use of the diatonic ‘flattened seventh’ in rock, which I shall do by focusing in turn on three issues, investigating them through the analysis of particular examples rather than through any larger generalisations.

Patterns of harmony

There are two seemingly self-evident truths concerning the harmonic practices of popular music. The first, which finds clear expression in Adorno, is that such musics harmonic language is both detrimentally limited and static. The harmonic repertoire is considered to consist of a few formulae (Adorno deals with them in terms of standardisation: see Middleton 1990, p. 45ff.), by means of which song-writers string together their songs, uninfluenced by the songs content. For the expert listener, therefore, popular music should be uninteresting: it is only its psycho-economic dimension which makes it worthy of study. This tends also to be the conclusion of established musicology, except that there it is felt such ‘extra-musical’ speculation is best left to the sociologist. The second truth is that the differences between Afro-American-derived styles are material, since our identities are so strongly incorporated in the styles we use: We mark out the differences between genres and styles partly by reference to contrasts in the way this stock of techniques and sounds is used. (Middleton 1990, p. 88) Since harmony is not only at the forefront of traditional analytical investigation, but also forms an important initial focus for songwriters, it may well be assumed that it is therefore an important factor in enabling us to distinguish, for example, ‘rock’ from ‘pop’ from ‘soul’. However, the material reality behind these differences of style has rarely been subject to systematic investigation.

Configuring the sound-box 1965-1972

When a stereophonic track is heard through headphones or over loudspeakers, the image of a virtual performance is created in the mind. This virtual performance, which exists exclusively on the record, can be conceptualised in terms of the ‘sound-box’ (Moore 1993), a four-dimensional virtual space within which sounds can be located through: lateral placement within the stereo field; foreground and background placement due to volume and distortion; height according to sound vibration frequency; and time. From the mid-1960s, the increasing shift from mono to stereo meant that producers and engineers had to contend with the notion and potential of a song’s sonic arrangement or mix, resulting in a disparity of sonic placement and a diverse range of sound-box configurations. By 1972, a normative positioning of sound sources within the sound-box was established, which we term the ‘diagonal mix’. This article focuses on the consolidation of this norm by means of a ‘taxonomy of mixes’ and the utilisation of visual representations which detail the sound-box configurations of a variety of pop/rock, easy listening and psychedelic tracks from 1966 to 1972.

A Hermeneutics of Spatialization for Recorded Song

This article is one of a series exploring the spatialization of sound sources in recorded songs and how they may be understood (see also ‘The Virtual Performance Space in Rock’, twentieth-century music 5/2). Its theoretical basis is multi-faceted, utilizing notions of ecological perception, of the sound-box, of the singers persona, and of interpersonal distance in communication, as well as further concepts from cognitive science. It focuses particularly on image schemata and proxemics , exemplifying them across a range of genres, while also addressing them critically, for instance from a feminist perspective. Finally, it explores how this theoretical basis helps us not only to understand the contribution of spatialization to the interpretation of songs and their meanings, but also to shed light on the role of other musical domains.

Songs for our soils. How soil themes have been represented in popular song

ABSTRACT The soil–culture relationship has been investigated from various points of view. Surprisingly, however, there is a marked absence of papers investigating the way such a fragile resource has been represented in popular song. Many lyrics disclose how such a resource is lived, perceived, represented, and objectified in everyday human life by ordinary people. This paper observes that many of the greatest songwriters and interpreters on the international scene, from all musical genres, have dealt with soil, often from innovative and audacious perspectives. From the prosaic metaphor of the life cycle or as a medium for crops, the soil resource has also been cast as a means of pain, sacrifice, or even redemption. Sometimes seen as a secret world, a helpless creature, treated with a visionary or yet psychedelic approach, the soil has been represented in myriad ways. During the1970s, several protest songs, which had the ability to raise awareness and mobilize millions of people in favor of the environmentalists cause, were based on ideological positions closely connected to soil issues, such as soil sealing and erosion. These (soil) songs are now considered the first environmentalist songs in the history of music. As soil scientists, we have often serious problems in communicating soil issues for a global audience, and, consequently, the worldwide political agenda often shows a dramatic lack of interest in such concerns. It is perhaps surprising that popular songs have still not become more common methods for sharing, educating, and sensitizing ordinary people, students, and scholars from every field of study, about soil concerns. Without trying to claim it as some sort of panacea, popular song (as already understood by ecologists and climatologists) can represent a powerful means of increasing public visibility and awareness about soil resource.