Popular Music Genre Definitions Flashcards
Whats wrong with attempts to define pop music?
Not enough
Too vague
Fit other genres
Theadore Adorno
Doesn’t see pop music as creative or critical
Society has created a generation who don’t understand music
Result of capitalism
Theadore Adorno views on rock
Standerdised and repetitive
Commercial product
Psedo-individualisation
Psedo-individualisation
Impression of something new but isn’t
Control/suppression
Exclusion
1527 France gave music publishing the same rights as music but not pop
Not seen as worth protecting
Why didn’t France include pop music in 1791 law or penal code of 1810
Seen as dangerous
Vehicles of subversion
Late 50s and musical language
Education increased
Especially higher education - new subjects
Birmingham school Central college for cultural studies
Studying what people do and how xukture affects the lives of the working class Broadening the notion of culture - descriptive rather than proscriptive
Issues with 50s critical language
Still seen as a symptom of revolt
Still only useful due to what is said about society
Priority in genre and style
Cultural studies = priority to genre
Musicology = priority to style
Alan Moore and genre/style
Genre = form Style = characteristics/tone
Genre types
Technical
Retrospective
Tribal
Functional
Technical
Distinctions musicians describe in what they do
Retrospective
Descriptions collectors/archives used
Apparent after the event
Tribal
Acquires it’s identity through association with extra musical definitions
Functional
Music that’s identified according to function E.g dance
Franko Fabbri
Genre is a set of musical events (real or possible) whose course is governed by a definite set of socially accepted rules
Franko Fabbri rules
Formal and technical Semiotic Behavioural Social and ideological Economic and judicial
Formal and technical rules
Each genres typical form
Explicit or traditional/inherited
Semiotic rules
Communication Referential Emotional Imperative Phatic Metalinguistic Poetic
Behavioural rules
Practitioners and audience
E. G jazz clap after solos
Economic and judicial rules
Copyright
Performability
Negus music genres and corporate cultures
Music industry likes genre as it defines a market
How music relates to social distinctions - who will buy it?
Culture can take industry by suprise
Industry produces culture
Attempts to identify its market
Who will buy it?
Assumptions define the genre
Audience
