MUSICKING

Monday, August 28

First day of class.

For next class: Upload an introductory selfie video to Moodle.

MUSIC AND IDENTITY

Wednesday, August 30

Dutta, Nayantara. 2022. "Why Do You like the Music You like? Science Weighs In." Washington Post, September 28.  

Crossley, Nick. 2022. Chap. 2 in Connecting Sounds: The Social Life of Music. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.

Hall, Stuart, and Paddy Whannel. 1990 [1964]. "The Young Audience." Pp. 27–37 in On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word, edited by S. Frith and A. Goodwin. New York: Pantheon.

Weekend writing exercise: Discuss a musical act or recording that has shaped the development of your identity.

Monday, September 4

Labor Day: class canceled.

MUSICAL AUTHENTICITIES

Wednesday, September 6

Lecture video: Subculture, neo-tribe, fandom and scene.

Clay, Andreana. 2007. "'I Used to Be Scared of the Dick': Queer Women of Color, Hip-Hop, and Black Masculinity." Pp. 148–65 in Home Girls Make Some Noise! Hip-Hop Feminism Anthology, edited by G. D. Pough, E. Richardson, A. Durham, and R. Raimist. Monroe, CA: Parker Publishing.

Bennett, Andy. 2006. "Punk's Not Dead: The Continuing Significance of Punk Rock for an Older Generation of Fans." Sociology 40(2):219–35.

Weekend writing exercise: Discuss an artist, style, or tradition of music that you strongly dislike.

MUSICAL TASTE AND INEQUALITY

Monday, September 11

Margot Robbie LOVES Heavy Metal: https://youtu.be/4LV2gYCwMlg

Peterson, Richard A. 2002. "Roll Over Beethoven, There’s a New Way to Be Cool." Contexts 1(2):34–39.

Crossley, Connecting Sounds, pp. 154-163. 

Recommended: Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986. "The Forms of Capital." Pp. 241-258 in Handbook of Theory and Research For the Sociology of Education, edited by J.G. Richardson. New York, NY: Greenwood Press.

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF GENRES

Wednesday, September 13

Lena, Jennifer. 2012. "Music Genres." Pp. 1-22 in Banding Together: How Communities Create Genres in Popular Music. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Weekend writing exercise: Discuss the oldest style or performer of music that you enjoy.

WHAT IS (AND ISN'T) POP MUSIC?

Monday, September 18

Sanneh, Kelefa. 2021. "Pop." Chapter 7 in Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres. New York: Penguin.

Crossley, Connecting Sounds, pp. 63-72.

RACE AND GENRE: BLACK COUNTRY MUSIC

Wednesday, September 20

First pair of essays due (through September 27).

Cottom, Tressie McMillan. 2021. "The Black Vanguard in White Utopias." Andscape (blog). December 31, 2021.

Dowling, Marcus K. 2023. "Author Francesca Royster on Black Country Music Fandom in the Modern Era." The Tennessean, February 25.

Weekend writing exercise: Estimate how much you spend per month on all forms of musicking.

CULTURE INDUSTRY: THE MUSIC BUSINESS

Monday, September 25

Lecture video: What was the record industry? 

Adorno, Theodor W. 1990 [1941]. "On Popular Music." Pp. 301–14 in On Record: Rock, Pop and The Written Word, edited by S. Frith and A. Goodwin. New York: Pantheon.  

Crossley, Connecting Sounds, chap. 3.

THE POST-RECORD INDUSTRY

Wednesday, September 27

The College of Rock and Roll Knowledge. 2015. "Steve Lukather Has Some Comments on the State of the Recording Business Today." Facebook, July 6.

McNair, Charles. 2018. "Down Beat." Terry College of Business (blog). November 8, 2018.

Negus, Keith. 2019. "From Creator to Data: The Post-Record Music Industry and the Digital Conglomerates." Media, Culture & Society 41(3):367–84.

Weekend writing exercise: Record your music-listening behavior for 24 hours: whether your listening was primary (music is the main focus of your activity) or secondary (music is subordinated/background to another activity); the location and device for your listening; and any other observations — where you with others, doing what, to music you recognize or not, etc.

Monday, October 2

In-class guest: Mara Schwartz Kuge, founder/president of Superior Music Publishing.

Rogers, Jim. 2013. "Developments Beyond the Digital Realm." Pp. 99-128 in The Death & Life of the Music Industry in the Digital Era. New York: Bloomsbury.

MUSIC DISCOURSE

Wednesday, October 4

Lecture video: What was the music press?

Bangs, Lester. 1988. "Of Pop and Pies and Fun: A Program For Mass Liberation in the Form of a Stooges Review Or, Who’s The Fool." Pp. 31–52 in Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, edited by G. Marcus. New York: Vintage.

Kornhaber, Spencer. 2023. "Hip-Hop's Fiercest Critic." The Atlantic, September 6.

Weekend writing exercise: Based on an article or review from Rocksbackpages, evaluate how the traditional music press treated musical acts and their audiences' interests in them.

LIVE MUSIC 

Monday, October 9

Johnson, Theodore R. 2023. "How the Music of Summer Is Healing the Nation." Washington Post, July 24.

Has anyone ever thrown something at you onstage? https://youtu.be/IB278RcfuW4 

Caramanica, Jon. 2023. "As Objects Fly Onstage, Stars Become Part of the Audience’s Show." New York Times, August 2.

Ferguson, Amber. 2023. "This Festival Is Coachella for Black Influencers. Brands Want In." Washington Post, August 6.

Sisario, Ben. 2023. "How Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Conquered the World." New York Times, August 5.

Toohey, Grace, and Terry Castleman. 2023. "More than Boys and Heartbreak: Taylor Swift’s Music Helps Fans Cope, Grieve, Find Joy." Los Angeles Times. August 7.

Krugman, Paul. 2023. "Is Taylor Swift Underpaid?" New York Times, June 20.

Appiah, Kwame Anthony. 2023. "Can I Resell My Taylor Swift Concert Tickets for Thousands of Dollars?" New York Times, July 5.

Kaplan, Juliana. 2023. "It's not just Taylor Swift. Musicians describe the 'demented struggle' of touring in a shrinking industry where one giant company sells the tickets for most major venues." Business Insider, June 8. 

Gravley, Garrett. 2023. "Live Nation Announced a $1,500 Stipend for Club Acts, But That's Not All Positive News." Dallas Observer, October 2. 

Recommended: Durkheim, Emile. 2003 [1912]. "From The Elementary Forms of Religious Life." Pp. 109–22 in Emile Durkheim: Sociologist of Modernity, edited by M. Emirbayer. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

NIGHTLIFE

Wednesday, October 11

May, Reuben A. Buford. 2015. "Discrimination and Dress Codes in Urban Nightlife." Contexts 14(1):38–43.

Wark, McKenzie. 2023. Pp. 1-10, 22-33, 55-66 in Raving. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Weekend writing exercise: Use ChatGPT (or another generative AI LLM) to write a "biography" of a musical act you know very well. How many prompts does it take before the AI produces errors and faleshoods?

FALL BREAK: October 14-22

Second pair of essays due October 16 (through October 23).

URBAN MUSIC SCENES

Monday, October 23

Gamson, Joshua. 2005. The Fabulous Sylvester: The Legend, The Music, The Seventies in San Francisco. New York: Picador.

Wednesday, October 25

Nevarez, Leonard. 2017. "How the Queen Street West Scene Began." Musical Urbanism (blog), September 11, 2017.

Crossley, Connecting Sounds, pp. 72-83.  

Straw, Will. 2019. "Visibility and Conviviality in Music Scenes." Pp. 21–30 in DIY Cultures and Underground Music Scenes, edited by A. Bennett and P. Guerra. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Weekend writing exercise: Discuss an example of how you experience music through place.

Monday, October 30

Scenes project: presentations.

Wednesday, November 1

Scenes project: presentations, cont.

K-POP

Monday, November 6

Scenes project: paper due (through November 13).

Lie, John. 2014. "Seoul Calling." Chapter 2 in K-Pop: Popular Music, Cultural Amnesia, and Economic Innovation in South Korea. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Wednesday, November 8

BTS and ARMY: A Synergistic Experience in Transcultural Fandom: https://youtu.be/BWgmGnzgLPg 

Petrusich, Amanda. 2020. "K-Pop Fans Defuse Racist Hashtags." The New Yorker, June 5. 

Rashid, Raphael. 2022. "Cyberbullying by K-Pop Fans Must Stop." Medium (blog). June 19. 

Yoon, John, and Mike Ives. 2022. "A K-Pop Star Didn’t High-Five Black Fans. Was It Racism?" New York Times, October 19.

Weekend writing exercise: Discuss a performer or other figure in pop music for whom you (a) have intense emotional affection, (b) are extraordinarily attracted to, or (c) aspire to the persona or lifestyle that they present.

CULTURAL APPROPRIATIONS

Monday, November 13

McCaulley, Esau. 2022. "Does the Meaning of a Song Change Depending on Who Wrote It?" New York Times, December 23.

Harkness, Geoff. 2008. “Hip Hop Culture and America’s Most Taboo Word.” Contexts 7(3):38–42.

Persadie, Ryan. 2019. "Sounding the '6ix': Drake, Cultural Appropriation, and Embodied Caribbeanization." MUSICultures 46(1):52–80.

Powers, Ann. 2023. "Inspiration or Theft? The Rise of Interpolation in the Music Industry." NPR, May 11.

Lawrence, Tim. 2022. "David Mancuso and Louis Vuitton." Tim Lawrence (blog), September 29.

NEW CULTURAL INTERMEDIARIES: INFLUENCERS & ALGORITHMS

Wednesday, November 15

Unterberger, Andrew. 2020. “How TikTok Became Gen Z’s MTV.” Billboard, December 19, 42–43.

Seaver, Nick. 2022. "What Are Listeners Like?" Pp. 72-94 in Computing Taste: Algorithms and the Makers of Music Recommendation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Weekend writing exercise: Discuss your favorite participatory musical trend on social media (example and example).

FUNCTIONAL MUSICS

Monday, November 20

Bull, Michael. 2007. Pp. 1-11, 38-49 in Sound Moves: iPod Culture and Urban Experience. London: Routledge.

Wang, Justin. 2020. "Lofi Hip-Hop Radio: Beats to Relax/Study To." The Word: Tha Stanford Journal of Student Hiphop Research 1(1):10–23.

AI MUSIC

Wednesday, November 22

Tracy, Marc. 2022. "A 'Virtual Rapper' Was Fired. Questions About Art and Tech Remain." New York Times, September 6.

Sousanis, Aurora. 2023. "Harmony or Hype? Exploring the Authenticity Debate as Musicians Experiment with AI." AllMusic (blog), July 12.

Marshall, Elizabeth Dilts. 2023. "Spotify's Daniel Ek Praises AI's Potential to Boost Music Creation – and the Company's Bottom Line." Billboard, April 25.

Weekend writing exercise: Can music be separated from the musician? Can "bad" artists make good music?

THANKSGIVING: Thursday, November 25

MUSIC AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS  

Monday, November 27

Dahir, Abdi Latif. 2021. "'Everything Is Worth Freedom': Uganda's Opposition Leader Faces the Future." New York Times, April 11.

Garofalo, Reebee. 1992. "Popular Music and the Civil Rights Movement." Pp. 231–40 in Rockin’ The Boat: Mass Music and Mass Movements, edited by R. Garofalo. Boston: South End Press.

Little, Joshua Thunder, and Liz Przybylski. 2022. "Hearing Resistance through Wolakota: Lakota Hip Hop and Environmental Activism." MUSICultures 49:45–70.

POLITICAL MUSIC 

Wednesday, November 29

Crossley, Connecting Sounds, chap. 9.

Koch, Kerri, dir. 2005. Don't Need You: The Herstory of Riot Grrrl.

Gordon, Jeremy. 2023. "The Evolution of Steve Albini: 'If the Dumbest Person Is on Your Side, You're on the Wrong Side.'" The Guardian, August 15.

ETHICAL LISTENING

Monday, December 4

Last day of class.

Sunday, December 10 (last day of study period)