Popular Music Analysis Research Articles

“Let’s See If We’ve Been Missing Out!”

Contemporary music analysis podcasts are engaged in an ongoing project of deconstructing pop songs and recoding them as valuable cultural objects. In this article, I understand podcasting as an extension of the popular music press and trace the affective strategies hosts use to elevate and evaluate pop songs new and old. I argue that music podcasts have seen a slow but steady departure from the conventions of critical distance and affectless, disembodied engagement to adopt an embodied, emotive response to the music that moves them. Drawing on theories of feminist affect, fan studies, and reactivity, I read the incorporation of fannish affect and the celebration of male creators’ emotive response to pop music as a continuation of a middlebrow sensibility that informs the popular music press writ large. Popular music analysis podcasts, on their surface, are a project of taking pop music seriously. When we scratch this surface, however, what we find is a mixed bag of tactics that seek to affirm the majority white, majority male creators as uniquely positioned to analyze, evaluate, and respond to music, much of which they are encountering considerably after it has already achieved the success that codes these songs as “popular” in the first place.

Uncovering Cultural Capital in Indonesia’s Underground Music Scene: A Discourse

Underground music is considered to have a very strong context in terms of cultural capital. By examining the capital and musical concepts of the underground music scene, it is possible to elaborate and explain the collapse of the regime. So that it raises a reaction to freedom in voicing certain class ideologies. The role of music was finally able to represent the voices of the politicized or oppressed people overpowering, one of which occurred in the New Order. Underground music emerged as a cultural capital which Bourdieu called an artifact in dissecting the problems of the social field. The purpose of this research is to uncover the cultural capital possessed by Underground Music which creates views that open the minds and hearts of representatives of certain classes. This research is carried out by reviewing literature, musicology, and historical records of Underground music, which will be presented and dialogued with the concept of Modal theory from Bourdieu and popular music analysis from David Machin. This research tries to answer the image anxiety that emerges from the dark and loud Underground Music Scene but instead has a sacred context in the development of the socio-cultural situation in Indonesia.

Laurie Anderson’s Transmedia Storytelling

Laurie Anderson’s Transmedia Storytelling

Review: The Sonic Episteme: Acoustic Resonance, Neoliberalism, and Biopolitics, by Robin James

Review: <i>The Sonic Episteme: Acoustic Resonance, Neoliberalism, and Biopolitics</i>, by Robin James

Musical Nuances and the Aesthetic Experience of Popular Music Hooks: Theoretical Considerations and Analytical Approaches

This article discusses the concept of musical nuances from a process-oriented perspective, with a particular emphasis on the aesthetic experience of hooks in Western popular music. First, the text elaborates on the particularities of nuances from the perspective of cognitive psychology. Second, it highlights their importance for musical interpretation, characterization, memorization, and valuation. Third, it critically reflects on analytical approaches to rhythmic and melodic nuances and gets into alternative methods to analyze such microscopic subtleties in the context of musical hooks. Fourth, analytical examples examine nuance-related intricacies in song phrases as processes regarding the aesthetic experience of increasing and decreasing intensity, tension, and motion. Finally, the findings and theoretical considerations are discussed in the broader context of mainstream popular music analysis.

Musemes in affect. Philip Tagg’s model of music analysis

The paper is an attempt to synthesize the most important aspects of a model of popular and film music analysis proposed by British musicologist Philip Tagg. Tagg, using the category of musemes – universal meaning units, isolated from the musical structure of the composition on the basis of criteria established for every given case – examines selected pieces using multi-level semiotic analysis. In his model Tagg takes into account both the importance of the broadly understood cultural context and the intertextuality of the piece. He also emphasizes the role of affect in musical communication, which is necessary to fully understand the meaning of a musical work.

Kuuk, Skrap, and the Resistance Vernacular

How are gendered identities enabled, contested, and performed through Nordic popular music? Building on relevant approaches in popular music analysis, this article offers an investigation into the function/s of language and musical style in enabling and engendering agency and subjectivity via two case studies in Norwegian popular music.&#x0D; Gender and language are crucial factors in this. In a global context of popular music, bands and artists who choose to sing in their local language may be seen to take up marginal positions compared to artists who choose to sing in English, as the choice of language would naturally limit their audience. I argue that this overlooks the efficacy of using one’s local language to express points of view that are relevant on a local level; what is more, it overlooks the possibility of subverting globalized trends and using these to one’s own ends.&#x0D; In this article, I offer close readings of Norwegian-language albums by two all-female groups: the hip-hop duo Kuuk (Live fra Blitz) and the electronica duo Skrap (Atlantis). Applying Russell A. Potter’s (1995) concept of the ‘resistance vernacular’ as it has been expanded and operationalized by Tony Mitchell (2004), I contend that the bands’ use of their local language opens their music to a broader set of possibilities when it comes to subverting gender and genre norms at the same time as it enhances the music’s political potential.&#x0D; Working in discernible genres enables both bands to create music that expresses a feminist stance; in the case of Kuuk, deconstructing and subverting expectations of gendered behaviour through parodying hip-hop misogyny, and in the case of Skrap, drawing on strategic naïvety to steer clear of gender stereotypes.

Popular music analysis too often neglects the analysis of popular music

For more than two decades, a trend in popular music scholarship has been the publication every few years of an edited collection of analytical essays (e.g., Covach and Boone 1997; Moore 2003; Everett 2008). These multi-author volumes sometimes have a specific analytical concern, such as intertextuality (Burns and Lacasse 2018), but more typically they simply bring together a variety of essays written by a variety of authors using a variety of methods to analyse music from a variety of styles. Strategically, the editors of these volumes will pitch this lack of any strong unifying theme as an advantage, asserting that the broad range of approaches gives the reader a sense for the diversity of current perspectives (as in, for example, the preface to Spicer and Covach 2010 or the introduction to von Appen et al. 2015). To be fair, the exclusive focus on analysis, particularly close readings of the ‘text’ itself, makes the chapters of these collections hold together more than, say, the articles in any regular issue of Popular Music. However, with typically only a dozen or so contributions in each volume, these multi-author works often seem like scattershot glimpses into the vast universe of possible analytical approaches and musical styles.

Strategies for Settler Decolonization: Decolonial Pedagogies in a Popular Music Analysis Course

Canadian institutions of higher education are grappling with decolonization, particularly with how to move beyond decolonial and settler colonial theory and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action to practical and specific strategies for meaningful change in the classroom. To that end, this paper offers a case study of a settler instructor’s process of decolonization in a popular music analysis course and describes a variety of methods for decolonizing course design and classroom activities. A discussion of how to apply and adapt the author’s methods for different courses, programs, and local contexts leads to critical reflection on the impact of these changes on student learning and their efficacy in terms of decolonization itself.

Strategies for Settler Decolonization: Decolonial Pedagogies in a Popular Music Analysis Course

Canadian institutions of higher education are grappling with decolonization, particularly with how to move beyond decolonial and settler colonial theory and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action to practical and specific strategies for meaningful change in the classroom. To that end, this paper offers a case study of a settler instructor’s process of decolonization in a popular music analysis course and describes a variety of methods for decolonizing course design and classroom activities. A discussion of how to apply and adapt the author’s methods for different courses, programs, and local contexts leads to critical reflection on the impact of these changes on student learning and their efficacy in terms of decolonization itself.

“Total Trash”

“Total Trash”

“We Can Bring It Back”

Theo Cateforis’s 1993 JPMS essay “‘Total Trash’: Analysis and Post Punk Music” used the sound and the critical reception of a Sonic Youth song to envision a new approach to popular music analysis. Just as the present series reconsiders this journal’s early issues, Cateforis opened his

Music and the Kárahnjúkar Hydropower Plant: Style, Aesthetics, and Environmental Politics in Iceland

ABSTRACT This article bridges ecocriticism and popular music analysis in a close reading of three examples that respond musically to environmental debates in Iceland during the period 2006–2009. Political-environmental tensions in Iceland reached a heated level in the mid 2000s with the construction of the Kárahnjúkar hydropower project, which elicited a string of artistic and musical responses. While considering Valgeir Sigurðsson’s “Grýlukvæði,” Björk’s “Náttúra,” and Sigur Rós’s “Vaka,” this article argues that incorporating textual analysis and interpretation is key in forging an ecocritical study of popular music.

Methods of popular music analysis

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Sour Melodies of Romance? A Critical Analysis of Adele’s Oeuvre

Adele’s rise to prominence in the popular music industry comes with the need to engage her music in an academic context for better understanding and appreciation. It is, perhaps, pertinent to note that the performance of a popular song tends to suggest several meanings which are often derived from the context of the performance. While the understanding of a popular song may vary according to cultural perspectives and influences, popular songs often have intrinsic musical workings and social-cultural identities. Drawing from existing theories and propositions on popular music analysis by several musicologists and sociologists, this article seeks to critically analyze three songs taken from Adele’s three Albums; putting into consideration some basic elements which work together to give her music meanings. In addition, this work attempts to find answers to what Adele’s music could mean in a generic socio-cultural context.

Same As It Ever Was? Musicology Continues to Wrestle with Rock

Popular music studies is approached from a number of disciplinary perspectives. Most recently, musicologists and music theorists have become interested in the analysis of popular music. This has sparked heated debates both within musicology and music theory, and outside it from sociologists and other cultural critics. The author traces some of that debate and argues for a popular music analysis that takes social meanings into account, using language that does not alienate those who are not professional musicians. It is argued that this is of paramount importance, since popular music is one of the most important means through which many people in the West shape their worlds.

Songs for Hands

Song signing has long played an important role in Deaf cultures around the world. Recently, sign-language song translations have crossed over from the Deaf to the hearing world; entire communities of Deaf, hearing, and hard-of-hearing song signers now flourish on YouTube. The resulting videos form multimedia events featuring music, English, American Sign Language (ASL), gestures, pantomime, and even costumes.Artistic song signing presents music analysts with a unique challenge. This paper asks how sign language, gestures, sung words, and music interact to shape our understanding of a given song. Using Stephen Torrence’s video interpretation of the song “Fireflies” by Owl City and other supporting examples, I show how the song signer can represent musical features by altering existing signs or creating new ones. More specifically, I reveal how Torrence represents pitch, timbre, and phrasing through sign alteration and manipulation of the signing space. Additional examples demonstrate multiple methods for articulating phrases in signed songs. The analysis draws on scholarship from ASL literary research, popular music analysis, and studies of music and gesture.

Theory and Method in Popular Music Analysis: Text and Meaning

Theory and Method in Popular Music Analysis: Text and Meaning

Burning Bridges

Popular music analysis, particularly pop-rock analysis, presents several challenges. Despite the repetition and seeming simplicity of the harmonic progressions in many pop-rock songs, analyzing their form can be difficult. One of these difficulties lies in the terminology used to describe the sections within a song. Specifically, the term “bridge” is troublesome because frequently it does not adequately describe the function of the section it represents. Using the music of Irish group U2, this paper defines and illustrates the “interverse,” a new term for the section traditionally called a “bridge” in pop-rock music, one that more accurately describes how the section relates to immediately preceding and succeeding material, as well as how it functions within the song as a whole. In addition to introducing new terminology, this paper also defines, illustrates, and distinguishes among the traditional sections of a pop-rock song, namely the introduction, verse, chorus, refrain, interlude, transition, and conclusion.

Communicative contract analysis: an approach to popular music analysis

AbstractCommunicative contract analysis constructs an analytic methodology, taking musical semiotics as a theoretical basis, to look at the ways in which pieces of popular music define themselves generically, and how they make reference to other genres. By taking the different components of a sound as referential to parent genres or foreign genres, one can tease out these references in hybrid musical forms. The method is then applied to three contemporary works, The Kaiser Chiefs' Ruby, Hadouken!'s That Boy, That Girl and Bjork's Joga, and the pertinent issues raised in these works are discussed.