Music Icons Research Articles

Individual celebration of pop music icons: A study of music fans relationships with their object of fandom and associated practices

AbstractThis paper seeks to identify kinds of relationships fans who celebrate their passion individually might have with their music icons and focuses on a better understanding of the content of these relationship (how these fans interact with their music icon and valuable consumption practices associated). It relies on recent works considering fandom as an intensely personal phenomenon that can occur in the absence of a group or social context. The theoretical background builds on subcultures studies, consumption practices related, and the attachment consumers can develop with celebrities or teams. Through a qualitative study with popular music fans who live their passion independently of any community or subculture, findings underline that some fans can intentionally gravitate more toward an individualized (rather than a collective) celebration of his or her object of fandom and that may result in various consumption practices. Also, this research highlights that being a fan does not necessary involve heavy celebrity worship, both terms being indeed not interchangeable, but can end up by valuable practices for both fans and their object of fandom.

Introduction to the special issue: Centering race in the life and work of “The Purple One”

An introduction, exploring the music icon Prince and his racial politics, is presented with topics including his stance on intellectual property and the battle with Warner Bros., his perceived fraught relationship with Black women, the performance of blackness in his life, religion, films, and music, and a foreshadowing of the legacy he has left.

Hip-Hop Culture: A Case Study of Beats by Dre for Entrepreneurship

This case study examines Beats by Dr. Dre on how to infuse the entrepreneurial spirit in today’s college students, given the backdrop of hip-hop culture. In more than 10 years, the legendary music record producer Jimmy Iovine and hip-hop icon Dr. Dre has turned a small subculture success into a multibillion-dollar business. With that growth of Beats by Dre, there are opportunities for universities to learn from this company. Through the lens of hip-hop, readers can observe the characteristics of effective entrepreneurship, which is essential for success in the business world. The result of this investigation is significant because the results can better assist scholars and practitioners on how to inject the entrepreneurial mind-set in young business professionals.

Purple Visions of Blackness: Prince’s Expansion of the Depictions of Black Experiences Through his Music Videos

Childish Gambino’s music video for “This is America,” garnered national headlines for its controversial depictions of the Black experience in America. However the use of music videos by pop music icons depicting the Black experience is not new. Long before Gambino, Prince’s provocative attire, gender fluidity, and suggestive lyrics stretched the boundaries of what it meant to be Black in America. Although the themes of Prince’s music have been analyzed thoroughly, his visual depictions of Blackness have not been considered for exploration. This study uses an exploratory thematic qualitative media content analysis approach to discuss Prince’s depictions of Blackness and Black experiences as depicted in the seven music videos, written and directed by the artist, thus giving him complete artistic control and expression (Altheide & Schneider, 2013; Macnamara, 2005). This project concludes that Prince used his music videos to redefine depictions of Blackness, take political stances, and envision a new future for Black people. Prince’s music videos rebuke the tired troupes of the Black experience and offer an energetic, thought-provoking portrayal of Blackness as being multifaceted and complex, a tradition that has carried on in the music and music videos of Black pop artists who have followed since Prince.

Political Messages in African Music: Assessing Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Lucky Dube and Alpha Blondy

Political communication inquiry principally investigates institutions such as governments and congress, and processes such as elections and political advertising. This study takes a largely unexplored route: An assessment of political messages embedded in music, with a focus on the artistic works of three male African music icons—Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (Nigeria), Lucky Dube (South Africa), and Alpha Blondy (Côte d’Ivoire). Methodologically, a purposive sample of the lyrics of songs by the musicians was textually analyzed to identify the themes and nuances in their political messaging. Framing was the theoretical underpinning. This study determined that all three musicians were vocal against corruption, citizen marginalization, and a cessation of wars and bloodshed in the continent.

TRANSFORMATION OF DOL MUSIC IN THE MUSICALITY OF TABOT RITUAL, BENGKULU CITY

Originally, Dol music was used as means of religious musicality to spread Moslem religion in Bengkulu. As time goes by, through the process of acculturation and assimilation, Dol music becomes a sacred musicality to accompany the ritual procession of Tabot, Sipai tribe (Tabot family) in Bengkulu city. Globalization and the interference of power bring the change complexity of Dol musicality as Tabot ritual music in the socio-culture of Bengkulu society. The aim of this research is to understand and explain the occurrence of Dol music transformation and its implication to the socio-cultural system in Bengkulu society. The approach implemented is cultural studies with qualitative analysis technique. It is applied critical and popular culture theories to uncover the focus of the problem in this study.
 The result shows that Dol music undergoes musical transformation as Tabot ritual music into a secular and profane music, resulting in the expansion of function and form. Therefore, Dol music is legitimized into traditional music icon of Bengkulu, in a wider and freer scale, shifting the Tabot’s popularity and sacred rituals as the “Heritage of the World in The Trust” of Bengkulu’s folk art culture. This has implications for all socio-cultural joints of the people in Bengkulu city, triggering a qualitative change in socio-cultural evolution to the form of divergence. It means that Dol music was originally a sacred/ religious music tradition, developed following the increasingly complex transformation as a mass culture in Bengkulu.

Armadillo World Headquarters by Eddie Wilson, Jesse Sublett

Reviewed by: Armadillo World Headquarters by Eddie Wilson, Jesse Sublett Gary Hartman Armadillo World Headquarters. By Eddie Wilson with Jesse Sublett. (Austin: TSSI Publishing, 2017. Pp. 502. Illustrations, notes, index.) There are few Texas music venues as legendary or influential as the Armadillo World Headquarters, which stood near the intersection of South First Street and Barton Springs Road in South Austin from August 1970 until January 1981. The Armadillo became world famous for the remarkable diversity of the artists who performed there (including Frank Zappa, Taj Mahal, the Pointer Sisters, Bruce Springsteen, Bette Midler, the Ramones, Linda Ronstadt, Willie Nelson, and Bette Midler) and for a broad range of music styles, such as Tejano, gospel, jazz, and reggae. During the 1970s, long before Austin declared itself “The Live Music Capital of the World,” the Armadillo had become the cradle of Austin’s fledgling live music scene. Of course, there had long been a variety of nightclubs throughout the capital city, featuring blues, country, folk, conjunto, rock and roll, and other genres, but the Armadillo brought together these styles and more under one roof. As a result, it arguably did more than any other single venue to spawn the current eclectic live music scene for which Austin is internationally famous. [End Page 130] Eddie Wilson, founder and self-described “head honcho” (75) for most of the Armadillo’s decade-long existence, has written this entertaining and richly detailed memoir (with help from Austin music icon Jesse Sublett) in order to document the nightclub’s unlikely beginnings, its rise to fame, and its eventual demise. Although Wilson focuses his attention primarily on the venue itself and the parade of colorful characters who passed through its doors, he tells the story from a first person point of view, which allows him to provide a level of detail and behind-the-scenes anecdotes in a way that only someone who was intimately involved in the daily affairs of the club could. Actually, it’s a bit misleading to call the Armadillo a nightclub. The original vision that Wilson and the other co-founders had was for a “music and cultural incubator” (3) that would house multiple spaces for a variety of creative endeavors, including art, dance, and event promotions. As it turned out, musical performances attracted the largest audiences, so the Armadillo soon became best known as a live music hall. As the large, barn-like building, which included a cavernous music hall, beer garden, kitchen, business offices, and other rooms, evolved into the epicenter of Austin’s dynamic 1970s’ music scene, Wilson and his associates struggled to make enough money to keep the place open. At the same time, they dealt with a variety of other challenges, ranging from sometimes strained relations with local politicians and law enforcement to floods and competition from other venues that sprang up across Austin, due in part to the vibrant live music world that the Armadillo itself had been vital in creating. Although Wilson does not sugarcoat the many difficulties the venue faced on a daily basis, some of which threatened to shutter it, he maintains a mostly upbeat tone throughout the book. In fact, more often than not, Wilson comes across as grateful for having had the opportunity to be part of a special project that brought joy to countless musicians and fans and helped forge Austin’s identity as a hotbed for musical innovation and experimentation. This book is a fascinating, enlightening, and often amusing account of a legendary hall that helped reshape the music culture not only in Texas but also across the nation. The dozens of excellent photographs and samples of poster art from the Armadillo’s heyday make this already well-written narrative more engaging and provide a multi-dimensional perspective. Armadillo World Headquarters should be required reading for anyone who loves Texas music and wants to learn more about the history of this near-mythic Austin venue. [End Page 131] Gary Hartman Texas State University Copyright © 2018 The Texas State Historical Association

The J/Jota in Jenni

The J/Jota in Jenni Deborah R. Vargas (bio) Jenni Rivera was to banda music as banda music was to the cultural imaginary of 1990s Los Angeles, Mexico.1 Born Dolores Janney Rivera Saavedra on July 2, 1969, in Long Beach, California, to Pedro and Rosa—undocumented immigrants from Sonora and Jalisco, Mexico—Jenni was the eldest of six children.2 As her career unfolded, Jenni was anointed by her fans and the music press alike as "la diva de la banda," and at the time of her passing in December 2012, she was arguably one of the most powerful music icons in Mexican banda, narcocorrido, and ranchera music. In the years before her untimely death, Jenni was gaining recognition by an even wider Spanish-language viewing public through producing and appearing on the television shows I Love Jenni and La Voz, Mexico's version of The Voice. Jenni Rivera had an especially strong fan base among mexicanas across Mexico and Mexican ranchera and narcocorrido music fan bases in cities across the [End Page 26] United States, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Phoenix.3 Mexicanas seemed especially drawn to Rivera's way of openly and assertively recounting the challenges in her life conveyed in her musical and personal narratives. Songs such as "Escándalo" (Scandal), "Las traficantes" (Drug traffickers), and "Mi vida loca" (My crazy life) represented her disregard for following the rules of mujeres decentes, or decent women; rather, she seemed to approach her cultural work in the manner she had worked during her entire life, churning out, cranking out, and calling out. Her approach to making music conveyed struggle and an unrelenting exertion of labor that symbolized a notable Latina welfare-class immigrant tenacity. Her fans adored Jenni for the ways her journey to stardom was flawed and unrefined and for the manner in which she seemed always messy, the vernacular for a life in disorder and chaos. As the outpouring of public grief demonstrated at the time of her death, Jenni had amassed a devoted following, a fandom whose characteristics (mostly Mexican immigrant and working/welfare-class mexicanas) connected with gendered representations produced in Jenni's musical performances, especially the irreverent figures produced in songs like "La Chacalosa" and "Las Malandrinas." These two songs, in particular, emblematized a mexicana subjectivity fashioned through indecent, graceless, and brusque performances of femininity. In fact, Jenni's media representation—produced through her own life narratives in interviews as well as in song—was consistently shaped by suspect discourses. While the 1980s and 1990s especially have been explored in terms of remarkable queer musical sound analysis—ranging from music by Prince, Madonna, and Wham, not to mention the house music that fuels queer clubs and PRIDE festivals—this essay contributes a focus on Spanish-language Mexican musical genres to such studies that overwhelmingly distinguish non-English-language music as other to the discursive construction of US pop music. Here, I consider the potential of queer cultural politics in relationship to popular music by paying particular attention to the ways neoliberalism and Mexican immigration created the context for the emergence of "la diva de la banda" and her aberrant mexicana [End Page 27] femininity. Given the twenty-year anniversary of Cathy Cohen's prominent essay "Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?" I return to Cohen's remarkable theorization of "queer" to consider non-normative mexicana gender and sexuality, made possible by Jenni's music performances, which, drawing from Cohen, we may recognize as "some of whom may fit in the category heterosexual … [yet] are not perceived as normal, moral, or worthy."4 Moreover, constructions of normativity within dominant same-sex civil rights agendas have required us to think of queer sites, performances, vernaculars, and cultural politics in spaces and sites not always marked by same-sex identity categories.5 This essay, then, is a queer gesture to symbolically add the uncompliant femininities of malandrinas, indecentes, and maleducadas to Cohen's queer worlds of punks, bulldaggers, and welfare queens. Rivera, whose irreverent popular cultural representation was shaped as much by song lyrics about shameless women as by personal life dramas (including verbal fights with record industry people and...

Celebrity endorsement of political aspirants and its effects on college students in Lagos

Abstract This article examines two main research questions: what factors justify celebrity endorsement as an election campaign strategy given the increasing doubts associated with celebrity involvement in politics? Did celebrity endorsement of political aspirants influence young adults’ voting behaviour during the 2015 elections in Lagos? Using mixed method approaches, and supported by source credibility and celebrity endorsement debates, a survey was conducted with a sample of 375 students of the Yaba College of Technology. Three semi-structured interviews with members of successful campaign teams were also conducted. Our findings revealed that campaign managers have a huge confidence in the celebrity endorsement strategy for several reasons and would employ the approach in future. Further, the young people interrogated revealed that while two-thirds of them are fans of Nollywood stars and music icons, they were not influenced to vote on the basis of the celebrities’ say-so. These findings are somewhat consistent with extant literature, but suggest the need for further studies regarding how celebrities translate fandom to votes.

The Pilgrim: The Best Story of Paulo Coelho dir. by Daniel Augusto

Reviewed by: The Pilgrim: The Best Story of Paulo Coelho dir. by Daniel Augusto Megwen Loveless The Pilgrim: The Best Story of Paulo Coelho. Augusto, Daniel, dir. Music Box Films, 2015. DVD. This Brazilian/Spanish production tells the life story of author Paulo Coelho, a Brazilian writer whose mystical novels have topped best-seller charts across the world for nearly three decades. The debut fictional biography by director Daniel Augusto, this film features brothers Júlio and Ravel Andrade portraying three different eras in the author's life, pieced together into a chronological kaleidoscope. The plot switches between Paulo's troubled youth in the 1960s, his rebellious years in the 1970s and 80s and his reflective later life as a successful author of international acclaim. While the film has some artistic flaws that might limit its usefulness in the second-language classroom, it still tells a story that many struggling writers might relate to. The overarching message of perseverance in the face of internal psychological struggle and artistic opposition is a positive one, and one that will resonate with students of Latin American literature and culture, particularly those interested in Coelho's work. We meet young Paulo as he is surrendered to a mental institution by bourgeois parents who fear they cannot control him. After two suicide attempts, his hospitalization results in [End Page 319] repeated electroshock therapy, which does little for his perennial apathy and, instead, seems to fuel later acts of defiance. In his post-adolescent life, we see Coelho (now played by older brother Júlio Andrade) unleashed in all his libertine glory, evidently nourishing himself on cocaine, marijuana and other hallucinogens while partaking in exorbitant orgies and traveling the world. It is during this phase that he meets and begins writing with Raul Seixas, an iconoclast rocker who would later become a Brazilian music icon. As his volatile working relationship with Raul evolves, so too does his interest in the occult, a running theme throughout the film. Finally, we encounter Coelho older and wiser, on the eve of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publishing of The Alchemist. In this last iteration, again played by Júlio Andrade in heavy make-up, he has transformed into a headstrong citizen of the world, making his way from a post-surgical recovery bed to Santiago de Compostela to revisit the magical journey of self-discovery that first inspired his book The Pilgrimage. Though the script gives us a realistic synopsis of Coelho's metamorphosis from recalcitrant teen to enlightened sage, his character development is somewhat difficult to follow, largely due to the fragmented narration of the film. While the director may have avoided a staid linear plot line by employing this chronological collage, he leaves the viewer trying to piece together various personality changes into an understanding of a single protagonist over time. The ontological exercise of exploring self-actualization has indeed built the Coelho literary empire, and in that sense the necessity of deconstructing the various narratives of the film is an interesting intellectual challenge that parallels his published works, but perhaps one that not all viewers will have the patience to investigate. The Pilgrim is another chapter in Brazil's tradition of expensive biopic dramas that portray the personal and professional trajectories of famous politicians and artists who struggled in their journeys to success. Certainly, there is ample material through which to tell a redeeming story of triumph over life circumstances: Coelho flirted with death, endured physical and mental torture (both at the hands of psychiatrists and military personnel), experimented with drugs and alternative lifestyles, helped to create rock-and-roll history, and eventually rose to unprecedented literary fame. Still, our window into his experience remains somewhat obscured in the Andrade brothers' treatment of Coelho's introversion. The actors have done perhaps too good a job at depicting his troubled disposition, creating in each of the three representations an impenetrable façade of aloofness, stemming first from the anger of his youth, then from the drug-fueled indifference of his young adult life, and finally from a mystical preocupation that seems to keep his eyes focused on something remote instead of his immediate surroundings. Unlike other...

Allure of the Abroad: Tiffany & Co., Its Cultural Influence, and Consumers

Allure of the Abroad: Tiffany & Co., Its Cultural Influence, and Consumers

Critical Appropriations: African American Women and the Construction of Transnational Identity by Simone C. Drake

Reviewed by: Critical Appropriations: African American Women and the Construction of Transnational Identity by Simone C. Drake Shalini Nadaswaran CRITICAL APPROPRIATIONS: AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF TRANSNATIONAL IDENTITY, by Simone C. Drake. Southern Literary Studies. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2014. 186 pp. $35.00 cloth; $35.00 ebook. Critical Appropriations: African American Women and the Construction of Transnational Identity makes an indelible mark in moving representations of African American women from the periphery to the center, offering fascinating and thorough discussions that conceptualize their transnational identities through transformation and reconstruction. Mapping new directions in black women’s studies through a variety of literary and cultural productions, Simone C. Drake argues for a syncretic blending that shifts away from homogeneity and essentialism. This suggested state of transformation permeates the work, which goes beyond common explorations of motherhood and community. Drake complicates notions of sameness, considering how the social and political positions African American women occupy are shaped while simultaneously examining categories of gender and identity. Drake’s work addresses a pressing need for more imaginative approaches to identity, suggesting that acts of appropriation require a creative openness towards new structures of knowledge, allowing for possibilities of redefinition, of interrogation of values, and of agency. Appropriation here is a powerful idea that contributes to constructing as well as re-imagining formations of subjectivities. This book is broadly framed in accordance with the pluralities of forms and opinions it addresses. Drake’s analysis erodes confining definitions and [End Page 294] boundaries, primarily in the geographical notions of movement, positing that African American women can develop transnational identities without necessarily leaving the United States, an argument that acknowledges the influx and influence of popular culture on these identities. A prime focus of the book is the manner in which advances in modernity and technology influence culture. Drake explores each work of art as constructing varied epistemologies that help to better appreciate complex, transnational blackness. To do this, Critical Appropriations is divided into three parts. Drake begins with gender consciousness among black women in part one, explored through Toni Morrison’s Paradise (1997) and Erna Brodber’s Louisiana (1994). In part two, Drake addresses the transnational feminism and sisterhood found in Beyoncé and Shakira’s “Beautiful Liar” (2007) music video collaboration. Finally, part three considers third-wave feminism and black masculinity in Danzy Senna’s Caucasia (1998), Gayl Jones’s Corregidora (1975), and Kasi Lemmons’s Eve’s Bayou (1994). Collectively, these parts clearly and cogently demonstrate the ways in which black women critically engage with transnationalism while mediating the anxieties and ambivalences produced by these explorations. Drake’s discussion of Beyoncé and Shakira’s collaborative implications offers, in my opinion, the book’s distinctive quality, drawing critical attention to the construction and contestation of transnational identities. Reading Beyoncé’s position as a celebrated music icon, Drake presents a riveting argument on the equivocal space Beyoncé inhabits. On one hand, she has been identified as transnational in transcending different barriers, yet on the other, she has been progressively identified less as a black woman as she has become thinner, lighter, blonder, and her hair straighter. This ambiguity is complex, yet in the “Beautiful Liar” video with Shakira, the appropriation of transnational sisterhood is evoked, not only creating a new identification of female solidarity but also suggesting a shift in understanding black female identities. The two women in the video, after discovering that they are dating the same man, do not fight over him but instead move towards a sisterhood or transnational feminism, restoring “a natural order of things that patriarchy stole from women” and proposing that the intersection of gender and transnational consciousness offers new platforms of identification and empowerment (p. 98). Hence, situating Beyoncé and Shakira’s collaboration in a transnational framework imagines a new way of engagement different from generic race-based reflections. This book is significant in bridging the gaps between African American women’s stories and transnational discourse. A valuable and useful publication, which offers a multiplicity in conceptualizing black women’s identities, Critical Appropriations unarguably adds a rich contribution to scholarly works in this field. To quote from Drake’s conclusion, “there are [End Page 295...

Queens’ diaspora

This article examines Fela!, the Broadway show about Nigerian musical icon Fela Anikulapo Kuti (1938–1997). Anchored by interviews conducted with its cast members, critical viewings of the musical, and a consideration of Kuti's performance repertoire, it reads Fela! through the terms of dance, diaspora, and sexuality. The Queens – Kuti's performance collaborators and wives – raise important questions about movement, nation-making, and authenticity. Rather than the Queens' dance serving as a sign of inherent African female sexuality, this article argues that their movement represents the efficacy of dance to constitute national identities, in spite of being undergirded by a cultural hybridity that characterizes African diasporic expressive cultures.

“I sing out to the youth of the slums”: Morrissey and Class Disgust

In this article, we examine “The Slum Mums,” a song that was written by popular music icon Morrissey about the contempt felt for lone female mothers in the UK under the New Labour government. We hold that the song pre-empted the intensification of gendered and classed disgust discourses which have become even more prevalent in the UK and elsewhere in the current age of austerity. The article demonstrates that popular music can be an important site of counter-hegemonic discourse. Our approach is socio-cultural and contextual and we are also concerned with tracking the emotional and somatic responses this song is capable of generating, particularly in terms of registering an uncomfortable awareness of the realities of gendered discourses of class disgust.

Un pájaro progresivo: Pop Music, Propaganda, and the Struggle for Modernity in Argentina

In the mid-1960s to mid-1970s, North America and Western Europe became cemented as modern liberal democracies, increasingly emphasizing civil liberties, individualism, egalitarianism, and diversity. In the Southern Cone those same modernizing tendencies faced strong opposition from the landed elite and the military, who targeted the counterculture’s young people and staged numerous coups in an attempt to turn back the clock. The propaganda of Argentina’s brutal and humorless Proceso dictatorship attempted to recreate an imaginary past, a caricature of classic ideals such as el angel del hogar and the Latin Honor Code. But its repressive machinery was countered by another “machine,” a rock band headed by Charly Garcia called La Maquina de Hacer Pajaros, who combined music, film, comics, and pop culture icons in a witty discourse that subtly contradicted that of the military government, at a time when any dissent was extremely dangerous. La Maquina, which cartoonist and Garcia contemporary “Crist” described as “ un pajaro progresivo ,” deconstructed the regime’s authoritarian discourse, reconstructing in its place a lyrical depiction of liberal democratic ideals.

The Taiwan Yueqin Folk Music Festival

Abstract The yueqin is a traditional stringed instrument found in East Asian and South East Asian countries. Taiwan yueqins come in various shapes with different timbres and numbers of strings. The Taiwan yueqin minyao xiehui / Taiwan Yueqin Folk Music Association, a group run by Taiwan pop-folk music icon Chen Ming-chang, annually holds Taiwan yueqin minyao ji / Taiwan Yueqin Folk Music Festival, a music festival promoting yueqin songs sung in Taiyu, the language that while is not the official language of what is still known as the Republic of China, is the native language of the Hoklo ethnic majority. Since 2012, the festival has been held held indoors in the Beitou Hot Springs Museum, a building that was constructed during the Japanese colonial period (1895–1945). Also since 2012, the festival is not purely performed by Hoklo Taiwanese. Having been introduced to an aspiring student of shamisen master Kazuo Shibutani by his own student in 2009, Chen Ming-chang now invites Shibutani and his troupe to Taiwan to perform alongside him.

Music in Films on the Middle Ages: Authenticity vs. Fantasy by John Haines (review)

Reviewed by: Music in Films on the Middle Ages: Authenticity vs. Fantasy by John Haines Kevin J. Harty john haines, Music in Films on the Middle Ages: Authenticity vs. Fantasy. New York: Routledge, 2014. Pp. xvii, 239. isbn: 13–978–0–415–82412–5 (hardback—also available as an eBook). $140. To paraphrase Piers Plowman, the study of medieval film has in the past twenty years indeed become a fair field full of folk, which makes John Haines’ Music in Films on the Middle Ages an all that more remarkable and original contribution to such study. Haines, a gifted scholar in the fields of music and of medieval studies, provides the [End Page 173] first detailed catalogue and analysis of the important role that music has played in medieval films since the 1890s. Haines’s monograph discusses some 500 films, some expected and some less than so, to provide what will surely be the definitive work on the important and varied roles that music continues to play in medieval film. The organization of this study groups discussions of films around iconic tonal and visual symbols (what Haines calls musical ‘idéologèmes’ or stereotypes [44]): the bell, the horn call and the trumpet fanfare, court and dance music, the singing minstrel, chant, and the riding warrior. These icons in turn reflect what Haines identifies as the six moods of the Middle Ages: the chivalric, the supernatural, the primitive, the pastoral, the oriental, and the satirical. Thanks to Hugo’s novel Notre Dame de Paris, the bell says ‘Middle Ages’ (26), as Haines demonstrates in films as diverse as Joan the Woman, (several versions of) The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Long Ships, First Knight, Andrei Rublev, and Metropolis, an interesting example of a very different kind of medieval film. In each case, the bell has come to define the ‘the Middle Ages as a blissful, idealized place’ (44). While Haines argues that the bell may ‘be the most important off-screen aural signifier of the Middle Ages in film…the trumpet and the horn are the two most common on-screen musical instruments’ (45). The trumpet suggests the chivalric; the horn, the pastoral. To make his case, Haines examines yet another diverse group of films including The Vikings, The Conqueror, El Cid, and A Knight’s Tale. And again, as with the bell, it is the sound, not the sight, of these two instruments that says the Middle Ages. Much like a bugle call in a film Western, the horn call or trumpet fanfare ‘seizes our attention and prepares us for heroic action to follow’ (66). While the sound of the bell, horn or trumpet may be fleeting, court and dance music in medieval film allows for extended musical moments as Haines shows in Perceval le gallois, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Black Knight (2001), and other films. Such music, however, is rather catholic in its inspiration, reflecting as it does late-twentieth century early music traditions, Celtic folk music, opera, vaudeville, jazz, rock, and soul (87). The singing minstrel may be the most timeless medieval musical icon, and the music and song of the medieval minstrel have as rich a musical pedigree as the horn and trumpet, as well as a clear debt to the blackface songs of American minstrelsy, as King Richard and the Crusaders makes abundantly clear. Haines points out the ubiquity of the minstrel in films ranging from The Flame and the Arrow to Ivanhoe to Snow White and the Huntsman—all of which, as well as any number of other medieval films, are further indebted to the tradition of the singing cowboy. If chant is the most instantly recognizable sound of medieval song, it is, Haines shows, ‘largely an artificial construct, one honed in the last century or so’ (111). Haines distinguishes among good chant (Brother Sun, Sister Moon), dubious chant (The Crusades), and bad chant (The Masque of the Red Death). Chant is, in short, not only ubiquitous, but also multi-faceted in medieval film. Inevitably, the riding warrior comes to the rescue, and the medieval knight ‘riding high on his horse is the supreme embodiment of the Middle Ages’ (133). To make...

Theatre caption presentation system for both hearing impaired and unimpaired

This study proposes a caption-presentation system that enables both the hearing-impaired and unimpaired to simultaneously enjoy theatrical performance. In present day Japan, few theatres employ programs that provide captions for the hearing impaired. The programs that do provide captions only show dialogue and sound (musical note icons), not audience response, which is one of the most important factors in enjoying plays. A majority of the captions that are displayed are set on the outside of the stage; therefore, it is difficult to determine which performer is speaking. To address these issues, we propose, implement and evaluate caption-presentation methods for the hearing impaired, which include support for dialogue, sound effects and audience response. We apply the caption-presentation system to an actual performance held in a theatre. We improve the proposed system based on director feedback, stage structure limitations and interview results about the previous system.

Productive taboos: cultivating spatialized literacy practices

The fifth grade students in this project were part of a yearlong ethnographic study in an urban elementary school. They engaged in a student initiated inquiry project combining bakeries and mysteries, which culminated in the production of an original film. Situated in a socio-spatialized stance on literacy involving networks of participation and interaction in conjunction with Discourses and encoded texts, this study examines the co-construction of lived and ideologically charged spaces. The inquiry project privileged discussion, script writing, and a range of texts as literacy curricular tools, such as everyday texts (cookbooks and TV shows, e.g. Cake Boss) and cultural content (pop music icons Justin Bieber and Michael Jackson). The students, from three ability-grouped classrooms, reimagined their roles within the inquiry group through bargaining for tasks, wearing costumes, and taking on new roles to determine how to interact with one another effectively. Analysis, with an emphasis on the social co-construction of school spaces for literacy practices in current educational settings, highlights the potential for productivity when student engage in literacy work outside of dominant trends of ability grouping, individual work, and compliance. Productive taboos in this study such as collaborative writing, embodying characters, and taking leadership roles fostered flexibility in thinking and engagement in student-initiated projects.

Slicing the Pie: The Search for an Equitable Recorded Music Economy

In November 2014, pop music icon and New York City’s recently anointed ‘Global Welcome Ambassador’ Taylor Swift, perhaps the year’s most ubiquitous American public figure, made headlines by absenting herself from a hip and increasingly popular venue: the Spotify streaming music service. Swift, whose popularity and income were unquestionably propelled by avid listening on terrestrial radio, YouTube and services like Spotify, had fired a warning salvo with a July Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal, in which she stated unequivocally that ‘music should not be free,’ because, in her words, ‘Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for.'This one-two punch set off a firestorm among musicians, music industry executives and music fans, who promptly divided themselves into two opposing camps: Swift’s supporters, who view Spotify and its ilk as exploiters of artistry and debasers of culture, and Spotify’s supporters, who view the service as an exemplar of media economics in the age of digital ubiquity and a bulwark against the deleterious effects of online piracy.Although both camps seem genuinely motivated by a principled love of music and a fundamental belief in some notion of ‘fairness,’ neither side got the story right, though each version contains elements of the truth. In order to understand fully the role of streaming in the evolving recorded music economy and to evaluate whether it’s ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for musicians and fans, it’s necessary to take a broader and more historical perspective, and to understand streaming in contrast to other modes of distribution and market exploitation. Since its inception, the recorded music industry – composed of recording artists, composers, record labels, publishers and a myriad of other stakeholders – has been a tumultuous, ever-changing economic battle royale. Each new law, technology or market shift has presented strategic threats and opportunities enabling some to gain a ‘larger piece of the pie’ while others divvy up the dwindling remains. Yet the market disruptions introduced by digital media at the turn of the twenty-first century have introduced a degree of volatility and uncertainty that makes the previous century’s ups and downs look stable and placid by comparison. One effect of these disruptions has been to intensify the ongoing battle – legacy stakeholders seek to protect their margins and market dominance, rival upstarts wish to carve out their own slices and creative professionals see a long-awaited opportunity to exert some financial autonomy and creative control over the product.To the extent that these disruptions are covered in the press or understood by the general public, the situation is often depicted monochromatically, from the perspective of a given stakeholder. In addition to Swift’s campaign against Spotify, other examples include calls for broadcast royalties for recording artists by musicians like Blake Morgan, campaigns for parity between online and off-line radio royalties by organizations like Pandora and, of course, campaigns for and against peer-to-peer distribution platforms by record labels and technologists.In this chapter, I present a nonpartisan analysis of past, current and proposed methods of ‘slicing the recorded music pie’ in the US marketplace,1 with the aim to clarify exactly what’s at stake, and for whom, and to correct and counteract some of the more vitriolic and less accurate rhetoric that has governed the public debate of these issues thus far. I shall also provide a side-by-side comparison, in the form of a table, depicting the economic rewards for creators, as well as the cultural rewards and economic costs for consumers, of music distributed via various channels. It should be abundantly evident even without such analysis that there is no ‘silver bullet’ utopian scenario in which every party concerned, from artists to labels to consumers, benefits without a corresponding expense on the part of some third party – in other words, there can’t be an infinitely large pie with an infinite number of slices. Nor can there be a single organization or sector that wins out at the expense of all the rest; compromise is inevitable, and the challenge is in shaping its contours, rather than avoiding it.Yet, while no single stakeholder in the recorded music economy can expect to see new laws, policies, economies and technologies conform exclusively to its worldview and agenda, there are still more and less equitable ways to divide the industry’s wealth, and to develop methods to insure its continuing growth and innovation. Consequently, this chapter will conclude with a brief analysis of pending policy proposals, outlining what’s really at stake and for whom.