Alternate Takes: Critical Responses to Popular Music – serie

Winner of the IASPM Canada Book Prize 2019Honorable Mention for PROSE Award for Excellence in Music and the Performing Arts 2018When Genres Collide is a provocative history that rethinks the relationship between jazz and rock through the lens of the two oldest surviving and most influential American popular music periodicals: Down Beat and Rolling Stone. Writing in 1955, Duke Ellington argued that the new music called rock ‘n’ roll “is the most raucous form of jazz, beyond a doubt.” So why did jazz and rock subsequently become treated as separate genres?The rift between jazz and rock (and jazz and rock scholarship) is based on a set of received assumptions about their fundamental differences, but there are other ways popular music history could have been written. By offering a fresh examination of key historical moments when the trajectories and meanings of jazz and rock intersected, overlapped, or collided, it reveals how music critics constructed an ideological divide between jazz and rock that would be replicated in American musical discourse for decades to follow.Recipient of and Honorable Mention in the PROSE Award, Music & the Performing Arts 2018.

Is there such a thing today as music that's meaningfully new? In our contemporary era of remixing and retro styles, cynics and romantics alike cry "It's all been done before" while record labels and media outlets proclaim that everything is new. Coded into our daily conversations about popular music, newness as an artistic and cultural value is too often taken for granted.Nothing Has Been Done Before instigates a fresh debate about newness in American pop, rock 'n' roll, rap, folk, and R&B made since the turn of the millennium. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach that combines music criticism, philosophy, and the literary essay, Robert Loss follows the stories of a diverse cast of musicians who seek the new by wrestling with the past, navigating the market, and speaking politically. The transgressions of Bob Dylan's "Love and Theft". The pop spectacle of Katy Perry's 2015 Super Bowl halftime show. Protest songs against the war in Iraq. Nothing Has Been Done Before argues that performance heard in a historical context always creates a possibility for newness, whether it's Kendrick Lamar's multi-layered To Pimp a Butterfly, the Afrofuturist visions of Janelle Monáe, or even a Guided By Voices tribute concert in a local dive bar. Provocative and engaging, Nothing Has Been Done Before challenges nothing less than how we hear and think about popular music—its power and its potential.

Is there such a thing today as music that's meaningfully new? In our contemporary era of remixing and retro styles, cynics and romantics alike cry "It's all been done before" while record labels and media outlets proclaim that everything is new. Coded into our daily conversations about popular music, newness as an artistic and cultural value is too often taken for granted.Nothing Has Been Done Before instigates a fresh debate about newness in American pop, rock 'n' roll, rap, folk, and R&B made since the turn of the millennium. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach that combines music criticism, philosophy, and the literary essay, Robert Loss follows the stories of a diverse cast of musicians who seek the new by wrestling with the past, navigating the market, and speaking politically. The transgressions of Bob Dylan's "Love and Theft". The pop spectacle of Katy Perry's 2015 Super Bowl halftime show. Protest songs against the war in Iraq. Nothing Has Been Done Before argues that performance heard in a historical context always creates a possibility for newness, whether it's Kendrick Lamar's multi-layered To Pimp a Butterfly, the Afrofuturist visions of Janelle Monáe, or even a Guided By Voices tribute concert in a local dive bar. Provocative and engaging, Nothing Has Been Done Before challenges nothing less than how we hear and think about popular music—its power and its potential.

Winner of the IASPM Canada Book Prize 2019Honorable Mention for PROSE Award for Excellence in Music and the Performing Arts 2018When Genres Collide is a provocative history that rethinks the relationship between jazz and rock through the lens of the two oldest surviving and most influential American popular music periodicals: Down Beat and Rolling Stone. Writing in 1955, Duke Ellington argued that the new music called rock ‘n’ roll “is the most raucous form of jazz, beyond a doubt.” So why did jazz and rock subsequently become treated as separate genres?The rift between jazz and rock (and jazz and rock scholarship) is based on a set of received assumptions about their fundamental differences, but there are other ways popular music history could have been written. By offering a fresh examination of key historical moments when the trajectories and meanings of jazz and rock intersected, overlapped, or collided, it reveals how music critics constructed an ideological divide between jazz and rock that would be replicated in American musical discourse for decades to follow.Recipient of and Honorable Mention in the PROSE Award, Music & the Performing Arts 2018.

Owning the Masters provides the first in-depth history of sound recording copyright. It is this form of intellectual property that underpins the workings of the recording industry. Rather than being focused on the manufacture of goods, this industry is centred on the creation, exploitation and protection of rights. The development and control of these rights has not been straightforward. This book explores the lobbying activities of record companies: the principal creators, owners and defenders of sound recording copyright. It addresses the counter-activity of recording artists, in particular those who have fought against the legislative and contractual practices of record companies to claim these master rights for themselves. In addition, this book looks at the activities of the listening public, large numbers of whom have been labelled ‘pirates’ for trespassing on these rights. The public has played its own part in shaping copyright legislation. This is an essential subject for an understanding of the economic, artistic and political value of recorded sound.

Owning the Masters provides the first in-depth history of sound recording copyright. It is this form of intellectual property that underpins the workings of the recording industry. Rather than being focused on the manufacture of goods, this industry is centred on the creation, exploitation and protection of rights. The development and control of these rights has not been straightforward. This book explores the lobbying activities of record companies: the principal creators, owners and defenders of sound recording copyright. It addresses the counter-activity of recording artists, in particular those who have fought against the legislative and contractual practices of record companies to claim these master rights for themselves. In addition, this book looks at the activities of the listening public, large numbers of whom have been labelled ‘pirates’ for trespassing on these rights. The public has played its own part in shaping copyright legislation. This is an essential subject for an understanding of the economic, artistic and political value of recorded sound.

For some people, at some times, in some places, on some drugs, dance music can be a gateway to transformative, even transcendent experiences. With the help of skilled DJs, dancers can reach euphoric states, discard their egos, and feel social barriers dissolve. Dance floors can be sites of openness, subversion, and even small-scale acts of political resistance. At a minimum, dance music lightens the burdens of contemporary life. At its best, dance music offers glimpses of better worlds.Yet even where dance music communities are built on principles of resistance and liberation, they nevertheless share the grittier realities of the rest of the world.Dance Music makes the case that dance music is ordinary and that something exceeding the social and spatiotemporal bounds of the dance floor is required for the transformative promise of dance music to be realized.

For some people, at some times, in some places, on some drugs, dance music can be a gateway to transformative, even transcendent experiences. With the help of skilled DJs, dancers can reach euphoric states, discard their egos, and feel social barriers dissolve. Dance floors can be sites of openness, subversion, and even small-scale acts of political resistance. At a minimum, dance music lightens the burdens of contemporary life. At its best, dance music offers glimpses of better worlds.Yet even where dance music communities are built on principles of resistance and liberation, they nevertheless share the grittier realities of the rest of the world.Dance Music makes the case that dance music is ordinary and that something exceeding the social and spatiotemporal bounds of the dance floor is required for the transformative promise of dance music to be realized.

Startup language, culture and strategy--once seen as enemies to the music business--have permeated artists' careers and exerted significant influence over their creative decisions. From Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo as "entertainment software" to Drake’s meme-friendly video for "Hotline Bling" as "open source code," some of the music industry’s biggest celebrities today are openly embracing tech rhetoric and strategy to inform their creative decisions. Tech companies like Napster, Spotify, and Facebook have exerted a significant influence on how artists market and promote their music. But what happens when artists begin to treat themselves as the technology? How does pop culture shift when artists start framing their success and popularity as an entrepreneurial and engineering problem, not just as a cultural or aesthetic problem?Using several actionable case studies across the past 50 years, from David Bowie to 3LAU, this book takes a deep-dive into the music written of, by, and for startup culture--and how this burgeoning creative scene is changing the meaning of artistry.

Startup language, culture and strategy--once seen as enemies to the music business--have permeated artists' careers and exerted significant influence over their creative decisions. From Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo as "entertainment software" to Drake’s meme-friendly video for "Hotline Bling" as "open source code," some of the music industry’s biggest celebrities today are openly embracing tech rhetoric and strategy to inform their creative decisions. Tech companies like Napster, Spotify, and Facebook have exerted a significant influence on how artists market and promote their music. But what happens when artists begin to treat themselves as the technology? How does pop culture shift when artists start framing their success and popularity as an entrepreneurial and engineering problem, not just as a cultural or aesthetic problem?Using several actionable case studies across the past 50 years, from David Bowie to 3LAU, this book takes a deep-dive into the music written of, by, and for startup culture--and how this burgeoning creative scene is changing the meaning of artistry.

The emergence of social media in the early 21st century promised to facilitate new "DIY" cultural approaches, emphasizing participation and democratization. However, in recent years these platforms have been criticized as domineering and exploitative. For DIY musicians in scenes with lengthy histories of cultural resistance, is social media a powerful emancipatory and democratizing tool, or a new corporate antagonist to be resisted?DIY Music explores the significant challenges faced by artists navigating this fraught cultural landscape. How do anti-commercial musicians operate in the competitive, attention-seeking world of social media? How do they deal with a new abundance of data and metrics? How do they present their activity as "cultural resistance"? This book shows that a platform-enabled DIY approach is now the norm for a wide array of cultural practitioners; this "DIY-as-default" landscape threatens to depoliticize the call to "do-it-yourself."

The emergence of social media in the early 21st century promised to facilitate new "DIY" cultural approaches, emphasizing participation and democratization. However, in recent years these platforms have been criticized as domineering and exploitative. For DIY musicians in scenes with lengthy histories of cultural resistance, is social media a powerful emancipatory and democratizing tool, or a new corporate antagonist to be resisted?DIY Music explores the significant challenges faced by artists navigating this fraught cultural landscape. How do anti-commercial musicians operate in the competitive, attention-seeking world of social media? How do they deal with a new abundance of data and metrics? How do they present their activity as "cultural resistance"? This book shows that a platform-enabled DIY approach is now the norm for a wide array of cultural practitioners; this "DIY-as-default" landscape threatens to depoliticize the call to "do-it-yourself."

Just as music has the power to inspire, it has the power to irritate and enrage. Why does certain music annoy us? Why does it force us to leave rooms, invade our personal space and affect us on a visceral level? Based on more than 70 interviews, this book discusses the everyday challenges of living together with unwanted music. It examines issues of taste, individual rights, private and public spaces, violence and the law. The interviews explore various relationships with forced listening and the behaviors that result. Interviewees talk about emotions and reactions to the nuisance caused by music, highlighting matters of otherness, individualism and rights. They discuss experiences with neighbors, at stores, on the street, while commuting and even in their homes - and reveal the complex social interactions mediated by music and sounds in our day-to-day lives.

Just as music has the power to inspire, it has the power to irritate and enrage. Why does certain music annoy us? Why does it force us to leave rooms, invade our personal space and affect us on a visceral level? Based on more than 70 interviews, this book discusses the everyday challenges of living together with unwanted music. It examines issues of taste, individual rights, private and public spaces, violence and the law. The interviews explore various relationships with forced listening and the behaviors that result. Interviewees talk about emotions and reactions to the nuisance caused by music, highlighting matters of otherness, individualism and rights. They discuss experiences with neighbors, at stores, on the street, while commuting and even in their homes - and reveal the complex social interactions mediated by music and sounds in our day-to-day lives.

Drawing on a deep and long-term first-hand engagement with major labels in the early years of the 21st century, this book sheds new light ‘behind the scenes’, at a time of drastic and far-reaching transformation. Refreshingly, it centres not on artists and the most powerful decision-makers but on everyday experiences of work and back-office corporate employees.Doing so reveals the internal activities and conflicts that, while hidden from public view, enable processes of change: from paperwork, data systems, managerial pressures and redundancies to graduate training schemes, departmental politics and shared playlists, providing a new route into understanding the broader cultures and infrastructures of the global recording industry. This oft-forgotten office work tells a different story of contemporary digital music , one more sensitive to the complex intersections that texture the conduct of work and organizational life.