Defining the Urban Ethos

RT0121.indb 1 1/2/07 1:56:32 PM RT0121.indb 2 1/2/07 1:56:33 PM University of Nottingham New York London Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business RT0121.indb 3 1/2/07 1:56:33 PM Routledge Routledge Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group 270 Madison Avenue 2 Park Square New York, NY 10016 Milton Park, Abingdon Oxon OX14 4RN © 2007 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 International Standard Book Number-10: 0-415-97012-1 (Softcover) 0-415-97011-3 (Hardcover) International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-415-97012-9 (Softcover) 978-0-415-97011-2 (Hardcover) No part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Krims, Adam. Music and urban geography / Adam Krims. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-415-97011-3 -- ISBN 0-415-97012-1 1. Music--Social aspects--History. 2. Urban geography. 3. Social history. I. Title. ML3916.K75 2007 780.9173’2--dc22 2006031347 Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at http://www.taylorandfrancis.com and the Routledge Web site at http://www.routledge.com RT0121.indb 4 1/2/07 1:56:33 PM To Dr. Marvin B. Krims, with love and admiration RT0121.indb 5 1/2/07 1:56:33 PM RT0121.indb 6 1/2/07 1:56:33 PM CONTENTS P REFACE IX I NTRODUCT I O N: C HANG I NG C I T I ES AND THE M US I C STUD I ES OF THE P RESENT XIII C HA P TER 1 D EFI N I NG THE U RBAN ETHOS 1 C HA P TER 2 S PACE, P LACE, AND P O P ULAR M US I C I N C URAÇAO AND E LSEWHERE 27 C HA P TER 3 M OURN I NG THE I mp OSS I BLE L I B I D I NAL C I TY I N BOOGIE NIGHTS 61 C HA P TER 4 M ARX I ST M US I C A N A LYS I S AFTER A DORNO 89 C HA P TER 5 M US I C FOR THE D ES I GN -I NTENS I VE C I TY 127 N OTES 163 B I BLI OGRA P HY 181 I NDEX 193 vII RT0121.indb 7 1/2/07 1:56:33 PM RT0121.indb 8 1/2/07 1:56:33 PM PREFACE This book brings together the two disciplines named in its title. My own disciplinary training has been in music theory and musicology, whereas urban geography is a discipline that I adopted by necessity along the way. (I first published an article on classical recordings and urban geography in 2001.) Initially, I pursued academic research in urban geography because I found that it answered a lot of questions that musicologists and music theorists were asking about music, both classical and popular; and since it approached those questions from a totally new perspective, I found that the answers were uniquely con- vincing and coherent. With so many central American, Canadian, and European universities located in major cities, and with so much of the intelligentsia also publishing and broadcasting from those same cities, most music scholars seemed nonetheless little, if at all, inter- ested in how the character of those cities may be shaping how we hear and think about music. Once the urban context of music making, distribution, and consumption is restored, many hoary debates sud- denly sport new profiles. This book draws those profiles and synthe- sizes them into a theoretical framework; it addresses both popular and classical music because (as I found in the course of researching the book) many of the changes happening in the musical world transcend the boundaries that presumably divide the two. IX RT0121.indb 9 1/2/07 1:56:34 PM X PREFACE In the course of presenting some of the work in this book to geographers, I was initially surprised to find that my approach, coming from music theory, actually addressed a number of the questions that they were asking, also in a new light. Although many geographers had studied and published on issues of culture, including expressive culture, a theoretical approach from somebody trained to treat music as a certain kind of object (or activity) actually threw music and space into a new light for many of them. Progressive music scholars such as I are so used to thinking of a “discipline” as a potential pitfall that we sometimes forget that in constructing things, disciplines also enable. Michel Foucault told us this, of course, a long time ago. So this book addresses all these people, and others, as well. It should have something to offer not only music scholars (music theorists, musicologists, and ethnomusicologists) and geographers, but also students and scholars in other disciplines to which music and social aspects of space bear some relevance. This would include people in film (which is particularly addressed in Chapter 3, but also in Chapter 1), cultural studies, critical theory, sociology of culture, literature, drama, art history, and regional studies. The book assumes no background in urban geography but rather introduces most of that pertinent information in its Introduction (and more specifics within the chapters). For teaching purposes, the Introduction and Chapter 1, Chapter 3, and Chapter 5 may be used for advanced undergraduates; Chapter 2 and Chapter 4 are best left for graduate students. Those without a formal music background will have some difficulty understanding parts of Chapter 1, Chapter 2, and Chapter 4, although much even in these chapters will still be accessible. The contributions of my extraordinary friends, colleagues, and relatives to this book are such that their presence hides behind many moments of which the reader could hardly be aware. The former music editor at Routledge, Richard Carlin, offered not only infinite wisdom, but, probably more crucially, infinite patience as due dates flew by. Many thanks to him for nonetheless believing that the book would arrive one fine day. Thanks also to his successor, Constance Ditzel, and to Devon Sherman. Some of the research for this book was funded by a major grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. RT0121.indb 10 1/2/07 1:56:34 PM PREFACE XI Other research support was provided by various research funds at the universities of Nottingham and Alberta. In addition, the University of Alberta provided a research leave that proved critical to writing the bulk of the manuscript. Katarzyna Borkowska provided invaluable assistance with fieldwork in later stages of the research. A great number of colleagues have offered crucial input throughout the years that have steered me away from overt errors. I owe an enor- mous debt to Henry Klumpenhouwer, without whom I very much doubt Chapter 2 of this book would exist. Bonnie Blackburn per- formed a helpful copy edit on an early draft. Along the way, I received crucial theoretical feedback from such extraordinary minds as Robert Adlington, Ian Biddle, Evan Bonds, Jim Buhler, Tim Carter, Andrew Dell’Antonio, Robert Fink, Dan Grimley, Tim Hughes, Brian Hyer, Jean-Marie Jacono, Anahid Kassabian, Henry Klumpenhouwer, Larry Kramer, Andrew Leyshon, David Matless, Allan Moore, Jocelyn Neal, Severine Neff, Max Paddison, Erkki Pekkilä, Patri- cia Schmidt, Allen Scott, Michael Spitzer, Robert Walser, Alastair Williams, and countless others. The remaining faults stem, no doubt, from my obstinacy. My wife, Kasia, and my son, Stéphane, not only gave me constant emotional support throughout the process of writing the manuscript, but they also provided the inspiration and incentive to finish it. My father, Dr. Marvin Krims, lent emotional and moral support without which I would never have had the opportunity to do anything so exotic as to write an academic book. He has also provided constant intellectual and personal companionship; most important, he has served as an inspiration. It is to him that this book is lovingly and gratefully dedicated. Parts of Chapter 4 were previously published as “Marxist Music Analysis Without Adorno: Popular Music and Urban Geography,” in Allan Moore, ed., Analyzing Popular Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). (Reprinted with permission.) Parts of Chapter 5 were previously published as “Marxism, Urban Geography, and Classical Recordings: An Alternative to Cultural Studies,” Music Analysis 20.3 (2001). (Reprinted with permission.) “Much’i Otrabanda,” copyright 2001 by Gilbert Doran. All rights reserved. Used by permission. RT0121.indb 11 1/2/07 1:56:34 PM RT0121.indb 12 1/2/07 1:56:34 PM INTRODUCTION Changing Cities and the Music Studies of the Present The phonogram and video store Fame lies in the central district Cen( - trum) of Amsterdam, on the Kalverstraat, just across from the Dam- rak. The Kalverstraat resembles similar centrally located pedestrian shopping streets in most major Dutch (and other Western European) cities. The storefronts are dominated by retail goods and concentrate on consumer products: clothing stores, bookstores, and sellers of sou- venirs and trinkets predominate, along with cosmetics and, of course, music and video recordings.

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