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Popular Music, Identity & The Media - Bournemouth University

 

From Elvis Presley to Lady Gaga, rock ‘n’ roll has been at the cutting edge of cultural production for over 50 years. In that time it has gone from being viewed as a disposable product of the entertainment industry to a cultural form considered with the same seriousness as Art, Literature, Cinema and Classical Music. Along the way pop music has become synonymous with social change, technological innovation and mass cultural appeal. This option explores the potential of popular music culture with relation to the production of meaning, the potential of commodity and the dynamic of consumption.  This will include an exploration of the influence of Fine Art on popular music, tensions between British and American rock music ideologies; issues of authenticity; and the way in which popular music informs varying contemporary media forms within interactive media, television, film and scriptwriting.  Over the duration of the course there will be an examination of the historical progression of varying media forms including recorded music (vinyl, the CD and mp3), music video, pop radio and the music press.  At the same time a focus will be placed upon the influence of music video culture, in relation to issues of postmodernity, and the advance and fragmentation of contemporary media narratives.

Week 1 - The Myth of the Authentic Self


This opening lecture explores the myth of authenticity in the development of popular music culture from the 1950s to the present day. In this session we explore the role of the musician, the role of the audience and the opportunity for agency amongst the producer and consumers of popular music. Issues of Anglo-American cultural relationships are central to this as is the legacy of African musical forms on the development of American rock mythology.

Week 2 - The Carnivalesque and Popular Music


In this second lecture we focus on alternative accounts of the way in which popular music developed, which emphasise the importance of liminal moments of transition and the more European Carnivalesque sensibility of pop. In this sense it could be argued that popular music culture, regardless of genre, embodies playful and post-modern ideas about the self.

Week 3 - Media Technology and The Televisual Aesthetics of Rock ‘n’ Roll


In the third lecture we focus on the importance of technology in the development of popular music culture. In particular we will consider the significance of communication tools in framing the way in which popular music is conceptualised, from the 7-inch single to the mp3. This lecture will focus also on the role of television and music video in the creation of popular music’s visual sensibility.

Week 4 -Consuming the Past: Popular Music and the Reflexive Construction of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Canon


In the fourth session we look at the way in which the history of popular music has been constructed in dialogue with the consumption of pop product. In part this is a reflection of the ageing demographic of music fans and the proliferation of new media technologies that determine the way in which popular music is consumed. The importance of the intermediaries in this sense cannot be overstated: in particular the music press and the emergence of consumer lifestyle publishing aimed at men.

Week 5 - Post-modernism and Contingent Strategies for Listening


In this final lecture we revisit the ways in which popular music culture embodies post-modern cultural practice. In particular we consider the way in which popular music texts simultaneously embody Romantic, Modernism and Post-modern aesthetic rationales. In this sense the relationship with the audience is defined by series of contingent ‘strategies for listening’ that are also central to the way in which consumers construct narrative(s) of the self.

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