Stan Hawkins

Perspectives in popular musicology: music, Lennox, and meaning in 1990s pop'

IScholars of popular music in the 1990s are increasingly aware that traditional musicology has failed to recognise commercial pop music as a legitimate academic area of study. Intransigence on the part of many Western music institutions towards recognising the field of popular music study is attributable to issues that have been heatedly debated and discussed in most disciplines of popular music study. Even withstanding the expansion of critical approaches in the 1970s, which paved the way forward to the emergence of new musicological discourses by the late 1980s, musicologists engaged in popular music research have continued to feel some sense of isolation from the mainstream for obvious reasons.2 The implications of consumerism, commercialism, trend and hype, with the vigorous endorsement of modernist ideologies, have repeatedly curtailed any serious opportunity for studying popular music in Western music institutions. To start accommodating this area of music within any musicological discourse, scholars active within the field of popular music have had to branch out into new interdisciplinary directions to locate and interpret the ideological strands of meaning that bind pop music to its political, cultural and social context. Musical codes and idiolects are in the first instance culturally derived, with communication processes constructing the cultural norms that determine our cognition and emotional responses to musical sound (Ruud 1986). Any proposal of popular music analysis therefore needs to seek the junctures at which a range of texts interlock with musicology. Similarly, the point at which consumer demand and musical authenticity fuse requires careful consideration; it is the commodification of pop music that continues to problematise the process of its aesthetic evaluation within our Western culture. Taking as a starting point the exploration of music itself, analysts of pop music have had to confront the experiences, ideologies and theories unique to the specific musical style under study. Through the combined effects and increased ramifications of its mediation through the infrastructures of communication technology, pop music functions primarily as an internalised condition of experience within its own unique social environment. By promoting widespread consumption and recognition of styles, fashions and trends, pop art forces and perpetuates mythologies (or realities) that justify its economical, political or social means. A

Prince: harmonic analysis of ‘Anna Stesia’

Musically, it ( Lovesexy ) is probably the most complex and unconventional body of work he (Prince) has ever produced. The dense undergrowth of twists and disjunctures to which even the most structured songs are subjected brings to mind once again the extended jam rehearsal technique Prince has always favoured. (Hill 1989, p. 210)

Remodeling Britney Spears: Matters of Intoxication and Mediation

This article examines a range of perspectives and cluster of discourses that are informed by the reading of one single video, Toxic, performed by pop icon Britney Spears. In our investigation, we seek new directions for audiovisual analysis and attempt to explore the music text alongside symbolic meanings mediated by a video. Of particular interest are the intersection of characters played by the star with constructions of personal narrative, issues of exoticism in music, queering strategies, race and sexuality, audiovisual genealogies, and the relationship of the singing voice to song structure and meaning. We conclude that the musical interpretation of pop videos calls for a mode of analysis that reflects the multivalent and allusive nature of this audiovisual form.

The Sun, the Moon and Stars: Prince Rogers Nelson, 1958–2016

“The sun, the moon and stars don’t seem as far as they did yesterday,” now that Prince has left Planet Earth. From his 23rd studio album, Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, this enchanting hook, from the ...

You Rocked Our World, Michael: Your Moves, Your Look, Your Music, Everything!

The sheer brilliance of the late Michael Jackson’s performances should never be underestimated. Encapsulating a myriad of idioms, styles, and gestures of an era, they are a mix of vulnerable genuineness, weirdness, and ethereality. Jackson transported pop to its most spectacular heights through a lavish display of musicianship that never failed to unite people around the world. Upon Jackson’s death, Susan Fast and I decided to edit a volume of essays that would place his music under a spotlight, one that would help reveal the wealth of markers that inscribe the richness of this artist’s expression. Fast’s poignant obituary article, “Difference that Exceeded Understanding: Remembering Michael Jackson (1958–2009),” which appeared in this journal in May 2010, was a fitting overture to the essays we now present. Sharing much in common with Fast’s critical perspective, all the contributors of this volume celebrate Jackson for his virtuosity as an all-round performer, as much as the features that defined his acts. In sifting through the wealth of submissions we received, we kept in sight a principal objective: to address the issue of musical sound and its relationship to Jackson’s subjectivity. The surprising shortage of scholarly writings on Jackson’s subjectivity was a major driving force behind us seeking out essays that consider Jackson’s creative output through new methodologies applicable to the interdisciplinary analysis of pop. As a result, the articles we offer in this special edition cover a range of interrelated topics, including video genealogies and dance, crossover and corporeality, micro-rhythms and sonic pleasure, musical queering and belonging, Orientalism, produced sound and vocality, black nationalism and rage, and gender, adolescence, and genre. Perhaps what makes these essays unique, at least when situated within the field of popular music studies scholarship, is their celebratory slant. The reader of this collection will note that the focus falls primarily on discovering what made Jackson’s performances and compositions so legendary. Given the sheer amount of negative criticism towards Jackson in the popular press, as much as in academic circles, we, the editors, decided to opt for articles that were commemorative while at the same time rigorously investigative from an interdisciplinary vantage point. This is not to say that the

Introduction: David Bowie (1947–2016)

To coin a term by Deleuze and Guattari, Bowie was an ‘active vitalist’, a subject nothing less or nothing more than a put-on act. Compiled by music and images, he imposed difference and mystified sexual politics. The chilling song, ‘Lazarus’, from his Blackstar album, released two days before his death, became his epitaph, its very prescience cause enough to reflect on Bowie’s creative force, a force that liberated him from the illusions of earthly existence. In this song and its accompanying video all the conditions for self-mythologizing stood out. It would be a stark reminder of how musical performances are trenchant articulations of subjectivity. Bowie’s music defined a unique pop aesthetic. It all started with the song that launched his career, ‘Space Oddity’, played by the BBC in their coverage of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The sound of his voice evoked an eerie quality. A deep sense of loneliness and transcendence exuded from the rapturous tune in this song, paving the way for decades of meticulously produced songs. Something inherently sci-fi about him, impinged on his experimental approach to composition. Elegance and grace defined a poignant musical signature that charted his ever-shifting personas and alter-egos. As one mask fell off, others would appear from underneath. Throughout his career he constantly reinvented his look, his attitude, and his music. Never shirking from experimentation, he defined his songs through a high dose of eccentricity and theatricality. What he did stylistically could never be pinned down. His music became a platform for projecting a sense of individuality at its most extreme. Bowie’s legacy is important for music research frommany perspectives. This is borne out by all the contributions of this current volume. The interdisciplinary course the authors pursue illustrates the diversity in music scholarship today, with essays drawn from musicology, sociology, media studies, philosophy, and ethnography. Keeping in focus the magnitude of Bowie’s oeuvre, the insights on offer pay specific attention to aspects of composition, studio production, performance, and aesthetics at work. If Bowie’s music points to the future, it causes us to ponder over a wide range of issues—the very concepts behind interpretation, ideological predispositions and interactions between songwriters, producers, and musicians. Significantly, the relevance of musical subjectivity emphasizes the quest for newmethods to pursue the aesthetic aims Contemporary Music Review, 2018 Vol. 37, No. 3, 189–192, https://doi.org/10.1080/07494467.2018.1507349