Pop-Rock Music E-Book

Motti Regev

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 433

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Pop music and rock music are often treated as separate genres but the distinction has always been blurred.  Motti Regev argues that pop-rock is best understood as a single musical form defined by the use of electric and electronic instruments, amplification and related techniques. The history of pop-rock extends from the emergence of rock'n'roll in the 1950s to a variety of contemporary fashions and trends – rock, punk, soul, funk, techno, hip hop, indie, metal, pop and many more.

This book offers a highly original account of the emergence of pop-rock music as a global phenomenon in which Anglo-American and many other national and ethnic variants interact in complex ways.  Pop-rock is analysed as a prime instance of 'aesthetic cosmopolitanism' – that is, the gradual formation, in late modernity, of world culture as a single interconnected entity in which different social groupings around the world increasingly share common ground in their aesthetic perceptions, expressive forms and cultural practices.

Drawing on a wide array of examples, this path-breaking book will be of great interest to students and scholars in cultural sociology, media and cultural studies as well as the study of popular music.

Leseprobe

POP-ROCK MUSIC

To Nusi

POP-ROCK MUSIC

Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism in Late Modernity

MOTTI REGEV

polity

Copyright © Motti Regev 2013

The right of Motti Regev to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2013 by Polity Press

Polity Press 65Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press 350Main StreetMalden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-7090-4

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The publisher has used its best endeavors to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website: www.politybooks.com

CONTENTS

Preface

1    Theories and Concepts

Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism: A Theoretical Framework

Characterizing Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism

Theoretical Framework

Rock, Pop, and Popular Music

Structure of the Book

Methodological Note

2    Expressive Isomorphism

Pop-Rock Styles and Genres

Pop-Rock Divas

Rock Auteurs

Progressive Rock

Punk and Metal

Electronic Dance Music

Hip-Hop

Ethnic Rock/New Folk

Dominance of the Musical Public Sphere

Legitimation Discourse

Ritual Classification: Tradition vs. Pop-Rock

Ritual Periodization: The “Birth of Rock”

3    A Field of Cultural Production

Working of the Field

Production of Meaning

Pop-Rock’s Ideology of Art

Mechanisms of Change and Innovation

Avant-Gardism

Commercialism

The Spiral of Expansion

Structure of the Field

National (Sub-)Fields of Pop-Rock Music

4    Long-Term Event of Pop-Rockization

Events

The Musical Event

The Historical Musical Event of Pop-Rock

Agency

Early “Pre-History”

Consecrated Beginning

Consolidation and Rise to Dominance

Diversification, Internationalization, Glorification

5    Aesthetic Cultures

Subcultural Scenes to Aesthetic Cultures

Aesthetic Cultures

Forms of Pop-Rock Knowledge

Early Participation

Global Microstructure

Internet Platforms

The Pop-Rock Intelligentsia

Indie/Alternative Pop-Rock

Alternative Pop-Rock on the Web

An Extended Case: Israeli Cognoscenti

6    Sonic Vocabularies, Spaces, and Bodies

Sonic Vocabularies

Tones and Timbres

Museme Stacks and Strings

Global Electro-Amplified Soundscapes

Aesthetic Cosmopolitan Bodies

Actants of Intercultural Phenomenological Proximity

References

Index

PREFACE

This book grew out of my long time involvement with the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM), a unique academic organization, where I have encountered generations of researchers, listened to and read numerous papers that introduced me to the wealth of national styles and genres of pop-rock music, beyond the Anglo-American axis. Therefore, my thanks go, in the first place, to the individuals – too many to list here by name – who founded IASPM and who kept it going for three decades (as these lines are being written), as well as to all the researchers whose presentations in IASPM conferences ignited my interest and curiosity, and provided the initial knowledge that allowed me to engage in this work.

Numerous individuals have contributed – either in passing or upon my request – tips, ideas, insightful comments and advice, pieces of knowledge and bits of data, as well as hints and inspiration that in intricate and nuanced ways had an effect on the final text. Amongst them, Pertti Alasuutari, Julio Arce, Sarah Baker, Jeroen de Kloet, Fernán del Val, Tia DeNora, Paul DiMaggio, Christine Feldman, Hector Fouce, Dafna Hirsch, Franco Minganti, Richard Peterson, Rosa Reitsamer, Zeev Rosenhek, Roger Martinez Sanmarti, Hyunjoon Shin, Marco Solaroli, Pinhas Stern and Ian Woodward deserve special mention. My thanks to each of the above and to many others to whom I apologize for not mentioning them here.

Many thanks also to my home institution, The Open University of Israel, for being a great academic habitat.

I am greatly indebted to the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Bologna and to the Griffith Centre for Cultural Research at Griffith University (Queensland), whose hospitality and facilities provided the perfect setting for writing substantial parts of this book. Thanks so much to my respective hosts there, Marco Santoro and Andy Bennett, for extending the invitations, keeping great personal and professional company, and providing valuable feedback. Thanks also to Tim Dowd, John Street, and other reviewers, for their comments and endorsement, as well as to Jennifer Jahn, John Thompson, India Darsley, Ian Tuttle and others at Polity for trusting this book and handling it so efficiently.

Work on this book has benefited enormously from conversations and discussion with Natan Sznaider, who embarked me on the cosmopolitan wagon and whose invaluable friendship and collegiality I highly cherish. Similar gratitude goes to Ronen Shamir, for his support and inspiring sociological insights. A special personal gratitude is due to Vered Silber-Varod, for her close friendship and companionship. Finally and primarily, I am deeply grateful to my partner-in-life Irit, and to our daughters Ronny and Noa, for being a never-ending source of vitality and warmth.

Parts of this book have been adapted and reworked from the following previously published articles, for which kind permission has been granted by the publishers:

•  “Cultural Uniqueness and Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism,” European Journal of Social Theory 10(1): 123–38, Copyright © 2007 Sage Publications.

•  “Ethno-National Pop-Rock Music: Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism Made from within,” Cultural Sociology 1(3): 317–41, Copyright © 2007 BSA Publications Ltd® and Sage Publications.

•  “Pop-Rock Music as Expressive Isomorphism: Blurring the National, the Exotic and the Cosmopolitan in Popular Music,” American Behavioral Scientist 55(5): 558–73, Copyright © 2011 Sage Publications.

THEORIES AND CONCEPTS

Miyuki Nakajima is a female singer-songwriter from Japan, who has enjoyed a successful and influential career since the 1970s. In 1979 she wrote and recorded the soft sentimental ballad “Ruju” (“Rouge”). In this song, about 90 seconds into the recording, an instrumental bridge (between verses) opens with a delicate electric guitar solo that soon soars to a dramatic height, to be joined by a full string orchestra before the vocals return. In 1992, the Hong Kong-based, Chinese female singer Faye Wong recorded her version of the song in Cantonese, for her album Coming Home. This version, called “Fragile Woman” (“Jung Ji Sau Soeng Dik Neoi Yan”), slightly dramatizes the string arrangement, but nevertheless retains the electric guitar part in the instrumental bridge. According to conventional narrative, the recording of “Fragile Woman” was the turning point in Faye Wong’s career. Following its enormous success in Hong Kong (and later in mainland China and other countries), and with subsequent albums and performances, she became during the 1990s and into the new century, “the reigning diva of Chinese popular music” (Fung and Curtin 2002), and especially of Cantopop, the soft-sounding pop style associated with Hong Kong. Indeed, while unequivocally labeled “pop” singers by journalistic and academic discourse, this song, and many others by Faye Wong or Miyuki Nakajima, exemplifies the blurred line between “pop” and “rock.” The soaring guitar solo is an emblematic sonic unit that symbolically represents the rock ballad, a song pattern that crystallized in the 1970s as a way to expose the supposedly softer side of hard rock bands. As much as they are sometimes perceived by fans and critics to be opposite categories, “pop” and “rock” are obviously linked together in their sonic textures and in their cultural histories. They form one musical and cultural category that can best be called pop-rock music.

Traveling from Anglo-American hard rock bands to East Asia (and to other parts of the world) and then between female pop singers in the region, the soaring electric guitar solo is but one element among plenty that epitomizes the multidirectional traffic of pop-rock music idioms across the globe, that is, not only from the UK and US to other parts of the world, but also between other countries and regions. Moreover, Faye Wong’s career and stature as a pop musician that represents, not just for her devoted fans, a certain sense of Hong-Kongian or Chinese contemporary identity, a late modern sense of national cultural uniqueness, also epitomizes the widespread position achieved by pop-rock music in many countries. In contrast to its early perception as a major manifestation of cultural imperialism or Americanization, pop-rock styles and genres have gained by the turn of the century extensive legitimacy, both as a form of musical art and as a genuine expression of contemporary indigenous, national, or ethnic culture. This happened partially because of pop-rock’s fusions with, and integration of, folklore and traditional elements. Consider, for example, this quote, by a notable Argentinean music critic and cultural commentator, who refers to stylistic developments in Argentinean rock of the 1990s:

Argentinean rock, where in the 1970s you’d be thrown away from stage by sticks and stones for playing the charanguito [a small guitar-like indigenous instrument, made from the shell of the back of an armadillo], begins to integrate in a natural manner Latin American rhythms, Jamaican rhythms like reggae, and also [Argentinean] folklore and tango. There starts to be a type of rock that has no shame to incorporate other genres, and for me this is richness. It is a new entity. (Alfredo Rosso, in program 8 of the documentary series Quizas Porque: Historia del Rock Nacional [Maybe Because: History of National Rock], first broadcast in Argentina in November–December 2009)