Musical Subculture Research Articles

Translocational belonging in urban peripheries among the postmigrant generation: San Siro and the trap/drill subculture of Milan

ABSTRACT This article investigates the construction of translocal belongings among postmigrant youth in urban peripheries, by analyzing the latter’s musical subculture treated as expressions of identity for racialized and marginalized young individuals. Focusing on the case of the trap ensemble Seven7oo associated with the San Siro neighborhood of Milan, an intertextual reading of everyday urban spaces, personal narratives, musical and social media content is undertaken to unpack core themes shaping identity constructions of postmigrant youth living in peripheral landscapes. This is done so through the triangulation of ethnographic fieldwork in the neighborhood of San Siro, online ethnography of Seven7oo members and their followers, in-depth interviews, and song lyrics treated as personal testimonies of children of immigrants growing up in marginalized areas of a rich European metropolis. It is argued that three themes are salient across different sources of data, namely a. situated childhood suffering as a glue for translocal collective identity, b. prevalence of translocational bonds against the negation of national belongings, and c. (digital) marketing of fast-track mobility in overcoming stigmatization and marginalization.

Visual kei: visuality, narratives and textuality in a musical sub-culture

This article seeks to show how narrative, textuality, and visuality are essential elements of a music genre, going to reinforce its style as much as its symbolism and perception. The visual kei genre, a popular music style in Japan, is used in the article. Although it is often considered a style of hard rock or heavy metal, the article will emphasize how the use of narratives (the characterization of performers), visuality (fashion, make-up, coloring, etc.) and textuality (lyrics, symbolism, language) make this genre a true sub-culture. Through hermeneutic analysis and taking phenomena as examples, it will show how music can thus become a form of expression of those people who feel excluded from Popular Culture and find in one of these mentioned elements a way to express their identity. It will then show how the sub-culture is inclusive for those people whose identity is not reflected by Popular Culture.

Influence of the Russian Hip-Hop Musical Subculture on the Political Views of Young People

Influence of the Russian Hip-Hop Musical Subculture on the Political Views of Young People

O gótico também é feminino : Igualdade de género numa subcultura musical

Neste texto aborda-se a desigualdade de género no campo cultural, com especial incidência na música. Cruzando diversos estudos que abordam este tema, afigura-se relevante perceber se existem exceções à desigualdade de género no campo musical, algo que algum trabalho feito internacionalmente indicia, como sucede com o caso do gótico. Procurando verificar se esta subcultura constitui, de facto, uma exceção à tendência existente para a desigualdade de género na música, procede-se à análise da composição do cartaz das dez edições do festival Entremuralhas, único festival gótico em Portugal. A observação permite concluir pela existência de uma maior igualdade em termos estatísticos nesta subcultura em comparação com outros géneros musicais ; contudo, não é possível, apenas com estes dados, aferir se essa maior igualdade é efetivamente sentida no dia a dia das mulheres.

Loud, Fast, and Hard: Changing Identities in a Musical Subculture

Loud, Fast, and Hard: Changing Identities in a Musical Subculture

Functioning of borrowed vocabulary in the musical subculture discourse

The article reveals musical discourse as a communicative sphere of activity from a linguistic point of view. The aim of thе study is to consider lexical borrowings in the modern Russian-language musical subculture discourse and determine their functions: nominative, caused by globalization, as well as functions concerning the goals, social characteristics, addresser’ intentions and addressee’s position.

“They’ve Got a Bomb”: Sounding Anti-nuclearism in the Anarcho-punk Movement in Britain, 1978–84

ABSTRACTThis article explores the links and tensions in Britain between a musical subculture at its height of creative energy – anarcho-punk – and the anti-nuclear movement, including the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. It identifies and interrogates the anti-nuclear elements of anarcho-punk, looking at its leading band, Crass. At the center is an exploration of the sounds of Crass’ music and singing voices – termed Crassonics – in the context of anti-nuclearism: if the bomb changed music and art, what did the new music sound like?

‘I love my body’: Depictions of sex and romance in disability music culture

The international disability music scene is a thriving musical subculture consisting of performers self-identifying as disabled who use their performances to explore experiences of living with disability. As a genre predominantly written by, about and for people with disabilities, it provides a space for discourse about life with disability which is largely unmediated by governmental policy, political correctness or able-bodied facilitators. As such, it is a medium through which people with disability are free to express opinions about sex and romance rarely seen in mainstream media. This article examines the ways in which the topics of sexuality and romance are explored within disability music culture. It will focus on four case study songs, I Love My Body (1988) by Johnny Crescendo, Vagina Ain’t Handicapped (2011) by Laura Martinez, Def Deaf Girls (2012) by Sean Forbes and No Goodbyes (2012) by Rory Burnside and Rohan Brooks from Rudely Interrupted. These four songs will be used to explore the themes of body image, cultural expectations of the disabled body, the benefits of dating fellow members of the disability community and relationships. This article also draws on the author’s own experience as a person with disability and a musician in a band that regularly performs on the disability music scene.

The Erotics of an Oil Drum: Queercore, Gay Macho, and the Defiant Sexuality of Extra Fancy's Sinnerman

IN 1996 ATLANTIC RECORDS RELEASED AND almost instantly abandoned an album that asserted uniquely aggressive, macho gay male identity. The songs of Extra Fancy's Sinnerman deal with sadomasochism, violent retribution against gay-bashers, and life with HIV in punk-inflected style that musically reflects the intense aggression of their texts. Extra Fancy first released Sinnerman on the independent label Diablo Musica, but Atlantic immediately picked it up, hoping to use it as catalyst for their new gay marketing division. Eight weeks later the band, along with the division, was dropped, rais[ing] eyebrows among the alternative rock community. (1) Despite Extra Fancy's explicitly homosexual-themed lyrics, only the lead singer of the band was openly gay. Brian Grillo's intimidating muscular body, aggressive stage presence, butch clothing style, and shaved head presented radical gay male image that foregrounded an enraged machismo. His gritty vocal style demonstrated indebtedness to the hardcore-grunge-alternative masculinity of Henry Rollins, Kurt Cobain, and Eddie Vedder as he strutted imposingly on stage, shirtless, banging on fifty-gallon oil drum. Nine years later Extra Fancy was virtually canonized in David Ciminelli and Ken Knox's celebration of the queercore movement, Homocore: The Loud and Raucous Rise of Queer Rock, even as the authors observe that Grillo never had desire to be anything other than performer who rocked--regardless of his sexual orientation. Indeed, in their interview with him he clearly distances himself from the book's subject. Nevertheless, for Ciminelli and Knox, the members of Extra Fancy were once messiahs of the queercore movement. (2) This dissonance invites close consideration of Extra Fancy's constructions of queer identity. The term queercore or homocore can be used to describe number of subcultural and musical practices, but its most common usage--a usage I have found prominent during my localized ethnographic work with Homocore Minneapolis--refers to the channeling of the underground, do-it-yourself ethics associated with punk music and style and their offshoots in order to challenge both heteronormativity and more mainstream images of LGBT life and culture. Despite Grillo's reluctance to associate himself with the queer punk movement, Sinnerman's lyrics explicitly and often graphically address male homosexuality, while its music demonstrates particular variant of the hardcore legacy of queercore style. Still, the privileged place Ciminelli and Knox claim for the band within musical subculture that is in large part defined by fluidity of gender and sexual identity presents significant issues of representation and authority. As Susan McClary notes, the various cultural and artistic discourses at work in society do not simply represent preexisting notions of community and identity but are where the ongoing work of social formation occurs. (3) Extra Fancy challenged some of the most culturally prevalent perceptions about sexual identity and musical gendering during the time in which they were active. This article in part constitutes an attempt--largely driven by Judith Halberstam's call for archiving queer subcultural production, which is frequently and necessarily fleeting--to recover this underappreciated cultural moment, one whose transgressive potential warrants examination. (4) Halberstam describes her conception of queer archive as not simply collection of documentary artifacts but a discursive field and structure of thinking and a theory of cultural relevance, construction of collective memory, and complex record of queer activity. (5) While I wish to place Extra Fancy within the queer archive, I also recognize that this essay necessarily constitutes an initial foray into the explication of the discourses and social structures surrounding the band. Therefore, I primarily approach Extra Fancy from two contextual angles. …

Boys' and girls' constructions of gender through musical composition in the primary school

The purpose of the study is to examine, through interviews and observations, the extent to which 8–10 year old children in a London primary school replicate gendered musical practices and experience gendered musical meanings, and how these may affect their expectations and the specific practices and products of their composition. I also consider how primary school teachers participate in the overarching discourse on gender and music education, by examining their expectations about the nature of girls' and boys' compositions. I analyse my findings in relation to Lucy Green's model of gendered musical meaning and experience. One outcome of the analysis is the development of a concept of ‘female musical subculture’ to interpret girls' and women's participation in the compositional world. Secondly, the findings strongly suggest that in their musical practice, the children in the research are not reproducing ideological assumptions about gendered musical practices, which contradicts how they operate discursively, for their discourse lies within the bounds of gendered musical ideology. Thirdly, the findings also indicate that the teachers are strongly affected by gendered musical ideologies, and have concomitant expectations about the music girls and boys produce.

EDUCATIONAL FUNCTIONS OF YOUTH MUSIC SUBCULTURES IN THE FORMATION OF SPIRITUALITY SENIOR STUDENT

The definite explanation of the conception of subculture has been exposed, and the causes of its origin, its components, and its specific peculiarities have been considered. The educational functions of musical subculture of youth for forming of senior pupil's spirifmillts have been done.

Music Education: Closed or Open?

Music education is not so obviously problematic until it surfaces in schools and colleges, until it becomes and institutionalized. If we want to strum a guitar, get into the plot of a Wagner opera, play a sitar, or sing in a chorus, then finding a teacher, reading a book, or joining a performing group may be all we need to do. There is no need to form a curriculum committee, produce a rationale, or declare a list of objectives. The informal student can copy jazz riffs from recordings, ask friends about fingering or chord patterns, learn by imitation-sitting next to Nelly, or widen musical experience by watching television, listening to the radio, or exploring record shops. Formal instruction may not be necessary. Yet for some, the formal systems may be crucial points of access. For others, the contribution of educational institutions to their personal education will be negligible and could even be negative in effect. In Britain, there is certainly a history of research reporting negative attitudes to in the curriculum compared with other subjects.1 Unlike most if not all other and college curriculum subject areas, in the case of many alternative avenues of access are open. The easy accessibility of from the ends of the earth, high levels of music-specific information technology-including sound generation, recording, and reproduction; these developments along with the rapid dissemination of popular musics compete with conventional curricula in schools. One consequence is that students may have very little time for school music and are likely to see it as a quaint musical subculture. Very early in the twentieth century, Emile Jacques-Dalcroze drew attention to this tendency of education to detach itself from mainstream culture.

ROCK CONCERTS IN HUNGARY IN THE 1980s

In our study we analyse the characteristic features of rock concerts in Hungary during the last years of communist rule. We distinguish between `state rock', a trend similar to pop music, and `concert rock'. During the 1980s we carried out participant observation at rock concerts and conducted interviews with young concert goers. We view rock concerts as scenes from a musical subculture in our study. The effects of two types of rock concerts - hard-rock and underground - relating to the `voice of the rebel' and to the `voice of the conservative' (the revolt against authority manifested in concerts and its role in the socialisation of young people) are analysed, as is the role the concerts played in the lives of the fans. Hard-rock concerts socialised young males for the role of working-class man. Underground concerts, on the other hand, socialised young people for the roles of the intellectual, artist and bourgeois. On the basis of the above findings, we conclude that rock music played a politically progressive role under communism through its function of retaining the values of different social strata.