Sound Travels: Mapping Trajectories ofMusical Recordings / Towards and Within Sites ofMeaning-Making

Karolina Anastazja Anestopoulos Department of Art History and Communication Studies McGill University, Montreal

Feb 2007

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Thesis Abstract

This thesis explores how musical recordings circulate within various sites of metacultural analysis, such as print publications, music , community-based campus radio music programmes and music . Drawing on Theories about cultural production, the circulation of cultural objects, and metaculture (circulation of ideas about cultural objects, rather than the objects themselves), the author traces how an independent discursively positions musical recordings for movement towards and within these meaning­ making spheres. Print music publications and music blogs facilitate recognition and consecration of recordings in different capacities, particularly in relation to music publicity. Community-based campus (c/c) radio and music podcasts situate recordings within new cultural objects - radio texts - that engage with listeners in different ways. In this manner, all sites are stakeholders in shaping the meaning of a musical recording and propel its actual and metacultural circulation along various trajectories.

Résumé du mémoire

Cette thèse explore comment les enregistrements musicaux circulent à travers différents lieux d'analyse métaculturelle, comme les publications imprimées traitant de musique, les blogues musicaux, les émissions de musique des radios communautaires et universitaires ainsi que les baladodiffusions musicales. Basé sur les théories de la création de la culture, de la transmission des objets culturels et métaculturel (la circulation d'idées à propos d'objets culturels plutôt qu'à propos des objets eux-mêmes), l'auteur démontre les méthodes discursivement employées par une étiquette indépendante afin d'encourager le mouvement de ses enregistrements musicaux au sein de ces sphères créatrices de sens. Les publications imprimées et les blogues musicaux facilitent la reconnaissance et la consécration des enregistrements musicaux, notamment à travers la promotion de la musique. Les radios communautaires et universitaires ainsi que les baladodiffusions musicales placent ces enregistrements à l'intérieur d'un nouvel objet culturel- le contenu radiophonique -lesquels attirent l'attention de l'auditoire de différentes façons. Ainsi, tous ces environnements contribuent à donner un sens à l'enregistrement musical et à le propulser, au sens propre et au sens métaculturel, vers ses trajectoires variées.

2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Tbis Master's thesis is dedicated to my dear parents, Lidia and John Anestopoulos, as well as my darling talented sister, Corrine. It is also dedicated to my grandparents Adela & Edmund Komgut and Anastasia & Panagiotis Anestopoulos. l also dedicate this project to my ever­ patient, loving and inspiring partner Kevin Moon, without whom my time in Montreal would have undoubtedly been less joyous and warm. l would like to sincerely thank my thesis supervisor Will Straw for bis understanding, energy, dedication and much-needed encouragement. Thank you to the wonderful professors in the Department of Art History and Communication Studies for unlocking a flood of ideas informing my work in music and radio. Thank you to the fine folks at North America for your understanding and support for my studies. Thank you to the wonderful staff and volunteers at CKUT-FM in Montreal and CHRY-FM in Toronto. You are what make me believe in the power of the voice and inspire me to speak. Thank you in particular to Dalia Cohen who started the joumey with me in 1994. 'Best Kept Secret' will never die. 'Making radio' and geeking out about music are two passions that only bum stronger with time. l would also like to thank those people who took the time to help me with crucial critical feedback on tbis work, namely Erin MacLeod, Aga Trojniak, and Tamara Extian­ Babiuk. l'd like to also extend a heartfelt thank you to my friends for their humour, support and friendsbip.

Last but not least, thank you to the musicmakers, DJs, writers, bloggers, radio hosts, magazines and independent record labels that make sure good music gets out to good people.

3 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Sound Travels: Mapping Trajeclories of Musical Recording.\· Towards and Will/in Sites of Meaning­ JJakillg...... 1 Thesis Abstract 1 Résumé du mémoire ... ." ...... 2 Acknowledgements ...... , ... '" ...... 3 Table ofContents ...... , ...... '" ...... , ...... , ...... , ...... 4 CHAPTER ONE: Introduction and Theoretical Framework ... .. , ... '" ...... 5 Introduction ...... '" ...... , ...... 5 Method ...... 8 Music-making as Field ofCultural Production ...... , ...... 10 Habitus, Taste and Cultural Knowledge ...... 13 Recognition, Legitimization and Consecration ...... '" ...... 14 Lim itations ...... , ...... 16 Circulation ...... , ...... '" ...... '" ...... 17 Metaculture ...... 20 CHAPTER TWO: "Don 't Drink jrom the Mainstream": Record Labels Anticipating Circulation ...... 25 The Label ...... 25 Major vs. Independent ...... 26 Ninja Tune ...... 27 Curatorship, Corporate-ness, and Artistic Creation ...... 28 Culture and Industry ...... 30 The One-sheet ...... 35 Illustrating the Case: ...... 40 Metacultural Sites as Part ofa Meaning-Making Apparatus ...... 43 CHAPTER THREE: Prinl Music and Music Blogs: The Culture ojCriticism ...... 44 Meaning Making ...... 45 Print versus ...... 46 Music Publicity and the Relationship to Print Music Journalism ...... 47 The Publicist ...... 48 Press Attention ...... 49 Discourse and Music Journa/ism ...... 53 Spank Rock and Print Media ...... 54 Blogs: Shifting how Music Circulates ...... 57 Blogs and Metacultural Analysis ...... 59 Spank Rock on the Blogs ...... 64 CHAPTER FOUR: Tuning in 10 the Sounds: Radio and Podcasts ...... 67 Community-Based Campus Radio ...... 68 Music Programming ...... 69 Programming Music: Programming Meaning ...... 72 Extending Influence: The Playlist ...... 74 Spank Rock on CIC Radio in Canada ...... 77 Music Podcasts ...... : ...... 78 Podcasting Spank Rock ...... 83 CONCLUSION ...... 86 ENDNOTES ...... 89 APPENDIX 1: Spank Rock One-sheet...... 92 WORKSCITED ...... 93 Published Print and Online Citations ...... , ...... 93 Blog Citations ...... '" ...... , ...... 96 Citations ...... 96 Additional Bibliography ...... , ...... 97

4 , CHAPTER ONE: - Introduction and Theoretical Foundation

Introduction

My research is concemed with exploring the movements of musical recordings,

specifically those recordings situated within or, more specifically, the non-

major label music-making sphere. 1 am interested in how recordings are discursively

constructed by a cultural broker - the - and what happens to its

influence once the recording is taken up in sites of critique and commentary. 1 propose that,

in turn, the se sites of meaning-making condition the pathways through which musical

recordings travel, both in tangible and metacultural forms, and help to propel the circulation

ofthese recordings within different interpretative communities (Lee and LiPuma 191) and

into popular consciousness.

For this research project, 1 focus on four particular sites ofmeaning-making: print

music publications, music blogs, community-based campus (c/c) radio music programmes,

and music podcasts. Within these sites, the notion of consumption is revised as commentary

whereby recordings are conditioned with notions of value, recognition and, potentially,

consecration. In turn, these sites create new cultural objects - new texts - that enable both the

physical and metacultural forms of the recording to travel in different ways.

The stakeholders within this project are part of the music-making sphere of cultural

production. The artist is the original creator in this artistic-expressive practice; it is the artist

who creates the original text in the form of the musical recording. The independent record

label is the cultural broker, the first tier in producing meaning for a recording positioned as

discourse within its marketing material that aims to outline particular trajectories of the

5 recording' s movement. Print music publications, music blogs, c/c radio music programmes and music podcasts are aIl sites of commentary and, as such, are meaning-making stakeholders.

The reasons why 1 wanted to dedicate my thesis work to the issue of how musical recordings circulate are rooted in my experience. Since childhood, 1 have been obsessed with tracing the movement of recordings, voraciously reading print music publications discussing different styles ofmusic, watching music videos and listening to Top 40 radio and store­ bought records incessantly. In my teens, 1 started volunteering in community-based campus radio and launched a weekly music programme showcasing different kinds of 'underground' electronic and urban music: , , dancefloor , house, , drum 'n bass and so on. My move from "radio listening audience" to "radio Dl" - a fluid shift from music consumer to creator of a radio programme where broadcast content was left in my hands - left an indelible imprint on my psyche. Not only was 1 empowered to publicly share my opinions on what 1 was playing, but 1 also played a role in circulating musical ideas to a listening audience. This notion has fascinated me since 1 first sat behind a microphone, put a record on the turntable and hit the on-air .

Fast forward a few years to my move to Montreal, where 1 landed a position at one of my favorite record labels, Ninja Tune. In 2004, 1 was hired to assist with publicity campaigns for releases and artist tours, and it was a crash course in music publicity: how to discuss and 'pitch' records for press coverage, effectively utilize various avenues of promotion, craft marketing campaigns and the associative literature (the one-sheet, which 1 will discuss in Chapter Two). More importantly, it gave me the opportunity to see everything from start to finish with a recording project from a label' s standpoint.

6 Due to my responsibilities requiring charting the recognition of a recording and documenting where, when, and how it surfaced, 1 became very interested in how a record label situates a recording project on its own frame of reference that may or may not be reiterated in these sites. 1 was also keen to explore how recordings take on the meanings inscribed by those sites and, in turn, move to other places that were never intended by a cultural broker. Print and radio publicity are two realms Ninja Tune had traditionally sought recognition for its artists and recordings within, but is now considering how to reach music blogs and podcasts due to their incredible reach in amassing the audiences it wants to connect with.

1 realize that this research work could be significant in this era of shifting sites of meaning, particularly as the fluidity between consumers and producers becomes even more affirmed. Why does the circulation of musical recordings matter outside of this sphere populated with record labels, c/c radio, and tastemaking? So many artists come and go, moving in and out of fashion, collective tastes shift and morph, yet it is the desire of those in the business of music to understand the whys and hows in order to financially capitalize on successes. Critical recognition bec ornes the cherry on top of financial returns, and barely eclipses the "bottom line" consideration at times. However, to be critically recognized means to be considered a prime moyer in the field of cultural production, whatever the musical microfield one engages with. My discussion holds useful implications for practitioners in any realm of music-making to consider where recordings circulate in order to reach to the audiences they feel should be hearing their respective musical recordings.

7 ,- Method The methodological approach undertaken for this project can be considered under the

rubric of participant observation. Given that participant observation involves "observ[ing] ...

listen[ing ... , and look[ing] for ways in which we might begin to contribute to the dialogue"

(Dewalt and Dewalt, 1), it is an obvious methodological approach in my research. I am a

practitioner who has occupied, and continues to occupy subject positions situated at different

points in the circulatory trajectories taken by musical recordings - c/c radio music

programme producer, Dl, music publicist at an independent record label. Therefore, I am

keenly attuned as a practitioner to consider, for the nature of my thesis research, where and

how recordings move.

I feel that my informed experience within different sites of meaning-making ensures

this research project roots the theoretical conceptions of cultural production within the reality

of music-making practice. My choice of using Ninja Tune and one of their artists, Spank

Rock, to explore these theoretical undercurrents was undoubtedly conditioned by my intimate

relationship with the se entities, enabling me to speak from a point of real experience and to

dialogue with various sources about how the practice of music-making informs the theory,

and vice versa.

Given that blogs and podcasts are relatively newly popularized forms of media, there

is a serious lack of published academic material on these two sites of analysis. Most of my

research is drawn from frrst-person examination ofblogs and podcasts and noting the manner

in which a recording is documented within these sites. I also make use of analysis on the se

phenomena from reputed journal Billboard, online web sites and search

engines, as weIl as newspapers and popular magazines.

8 Most of the research on independent record labels and the practice of music publicity is drawn from my own experience and supplemented by publi shed analyses in selected academic journals, trade journals, newspapers and magazines. Print music publication research is drawn from personal experience with practicing publicity work as weIl as from informal discussions withjournalists and editors. For community-based campus radio research, again, much is drawn from personal experience in 'doing radio', as weIl as published academic analyses of this field of media practice. 1 have consulted publications published by a particular c/c radio station (CKUT) as weIl as charts circulated through a

Canadian c/c radio station music director listserv that 1 have subscribed to since 2004.

In this study, 1 begin with outlining the project's theoretical framework. Using

Bourdieu' s concept of the field of cultural production, 1 examine the benefits and limitations ofthis model for examining how stakeholders are positioned in relation to one another, and how symbolic and cultural capital are significant determinants for a stakeholder's authority to place conditions of value on a musical recording. 1 then look at theories on circulation and metaculture with the aim to establish the parameters of how musical recordings move toward and within sites of meaning-making.

PrincipaIly, recordings move in two ways: in actual form (physical or auraI) and in the idea of the recording, imbued within the commentary laid upon it. Using the accumulated cultural knowledge of its employees - its cultural capital in other words - a record label discursively establishes the meaning of a recording. My argument is that meaning-making sites take up this discourse in unique ways; in this sense, all sites are metacultural. New cultural objects, or texts, are created, exhibiting distinctive combinations of the idea of the recording and the recording itselfmoving tangentially alongside one another. Within sorne

9 sites, like print music publications, the metacultural movement of the recording is stronger than its actual movements. Within music blogs, c/c radio music programmes and music podcasts, metacultural and cultural movement touch in varying degrees. Blogs exhibit more of a definitive distinction between the idea of the recording and the recording itself, due to its role as a discursive 1 written site of analysis for a recording that includes a digital representation of the recording itselfmade available for audience consumption. Both c/c radio programmes and music podcasts combine the auditory with the commentary, and so the metacultural and cultural movement of the recording is fastened more within the creation of the radio tex!, even though the recording circulates through other means of documentation as well. However, all spaces speak to and speak about the object, forming and reforming its meaning as it moves within and between the se sites.

Music-making as Field of Cultural Production

Bourdieu's 'field of cultural production' provides a good conceptual model to articulate the relationships between cultural producers, cultural brokers and sites of meaning­ making. In this concept, social life is fragmented into different fields of social interaction likened to a series of boxes ranging in size from small to large. The field of cultural production is one field amongst other fields of practice (i.e. education, law, and so on), and is comprised of two subfields: the restricted field of production, where art is produced and valued 'for art's sake'; and the large-scale field of production, where art is created for mass consumption and the market. In turn, it is situated within a wider field of power, and both are located within an even larger field of class relations (1993: 38).

10 ,- Although Bourdieu unpacks his theoretical work using literature and art worlds as illustrative examples or specific fields of cultural production, music-making follows similar

patterns in cultural production as the aforementioned aesthetic-expressive practices and can

be considered a field in its own right. Like other fields, this specific field of cultural

production is structured as a space of positions occupied by social agents and institutionsl

fixed in relation to one another through the distribution of cultural and symbolic capital.

Cultural capital is the accumulated cultural knowledge of a social agent. This cultural

knowledge informs their ability to engage with the field. Symbolic capital is a kind of

cultural capital representing the wider recognition and validation of an agent within its field

of engagement and practice. This field is a conflictual space whereby different agents

compete for the authority inherent in recognition, consecration and prestige (Johnson, in

Bourdieu, 1993: 7) and its main defining characteristic. Therefore, this "space of artistic

position-takings" is in flux with newer and established practitioners and meaning-makers

(i.e. podcasters and bloggers as newer, radio hosts and print music joumalists being more

established) struggling for authority, thereby continually reshaping the field by reshaping the

relational dynamics between them. (Bourdieu 1993: 30).

The field, however, is situated within a wider field of power and class relations that

condition these struggles in accordance with two precepts:

1. The heteronomous principle, where stakeholders are more susceptible to influence

from the wider field of power relations (i.e. political and economic power) and

'success' is defined as accruing economic capital.

2. The autonomous principle, where reverence for art-making is celebrated and success

is measured by gains in symbolic capital.

11 The more autonomous the subset of the field, the more it ascribes to a "systemic inversion of the fundamental principles of all ordinary economies" (1993: 38), eschewing financial reward in favour of prestige and peer recognition. However, Bourdieu recognizes that no matter how autonomous a field may become, it "continues to be affected by the laws of the field that encompasses it, those [laws] of economic and political profit." (1993: 3 9) Based on my experiences at Ninja Tune, used as evidentiary material in this thesis, this conclusion is accurate. If one considers Ninja Tune a social agent engaged in a microfield ofbreakbeat­ oriented hybrid music-making, it would seem that while the label appears to operate with disinterest in the market in favour of gaining symbolic capital, it must also consider the market in ensuring its survival. In this light, the sub-fields ofrestricted and large-scale production are more blurred than distinctive.

In this project, 1 am examining what 1 term a "microfield" of music-making centred on a particular collection of musical styles rather than an outlined genre. What 1 term

'-oriented hybrid music' is a collection of musical styles founded on the breakbeat, or drum loop, and fused with a wide range of aesthetic music practices - jazz, hip hop, funk, electronic and rock, among others. This microfield is inhabited by recordings, musicmakers

(the creators) and independent record labels. It is also inhabited by critics, DJs, and writers

(cultural filters) who work in various sites ofmeaning-making, both traditional (i.e. print publications, radio) and new media (i.e. music weblogs, podcasts). The record label operates as the cultural broker, the principal actor mediating between creators and sites ofmeaning­ making, as well as audiences and the wider market. All agents in this particular microfield operate in relation to one another - either explicitly or indirectly - in relation to the label, the creators, and their creative works.

12 Habitus, Taste and Cultural Knowledge

2 To explain how individuals engage with cultural objects , Bourdieu devised the term

'habitus' to explain the "system of dispositions characteristic of the different classes and class fractions"(1984: 5) that generates practices and perceptions upon encountering cultural objects and conditions an individual's response to them. Habitus is developed over time. In regards to the field ofmusic-making, one's ability to seek and retain information on nuances in various musical genres, associate artists to particular musical styles, contextualize recordings within wider social, historical and / or aesthetic frameworks, speak the 'language' of particular musical practices, or know how to use instruments and create music is shaped by that individual's habitus.

In this manner, one's habitus conditions an individual's cultural knowledge about any sort of social practice. For an aesthetic-expressive practice such as music-making, cultural knowledge represents the accumulation of experience and understanding about the nuances of the aforementioned elements. This experience and understanding are drawn from exposure to different sites of music practice and engagement.

Bourdieu equates this cultural competence to a stakeholder's cultural capital. It enables the stakeholder to engage in the field of practice to begin with, and positions them in relation to other stakeholders. One could be considered endowed with more cultural capital through their ability to understand, trace and theorize how links between difIerent spheres of musical production - creation and analysis - are drawn.

Taste unveils an agent's cultural capital, as it "classifies the classifier" (Bourdieu

1984: 6), operating as a means to legitimate social differences (see Bourdieu 1994). While

13 this may be true, for the purposes of this project, taste operates as a form of distinction among stakeholders in the field of music-making to legitimize authority in meaning-making - what 1 consider a major component dictating where and how a recording circulates.

Recognition, Legitimization and Consecration

Recognition, legitimization and consecration are interrelated processes in the field of music-making. According to Michael Patrick Allen and Anne F. Lincoln, cultural consecration is a process through which particular cultural objects and their creators are granted culturallegitimacy or prestige, while other objects and creators are implicitly denied the same (2004: 874). It is an act of "social magic" that produces "discontinuity out of continuity." (Bourdieu, quoted in Allen and Lincoln: 872). In effect, cultural consecration is the act of granting cultural value or culturallegitimacy, and becomes actualized through the level of symbolic capital, or wider recognition or validation, for a social agent and lor cultural object in a particular field.

This symbolic capital is gained in three principal ways that are valued in a hierarchal manner:

1. "Degree specific legitimacy" is the highest degree of recognition, gained from peers

in practice.

2. 'Bourgeois legitimacy" from agents and institutions of the dominant class is the

second degree.

3. "Popular legitimacy" or public acclaim is the lowest degree (Bourdieu, 1993).

When a musical recording is acknowledged among the multitude of other recordings, it is deemed noteworthy within the field of music-making and, in turn, becomes legitimized as

14 culturally significant. Consecration implies sacredness bestowed on the object, and while

Allen and Lincoln unpack this as a formalized legitimization, in the microfield ofbreakbeat­ oriented music-making this operates in more subversive ways, principally through this idea of association with peer-consecrated sites of meaning-making. The stakeholders that create these sites hold more authority in affirming the cultural relevance of a recording and its creator than a formally consecrated institution.

For example, a cover story in a print music publication dedicated to contextualizing and documenting the changes in breakbeat-oriented hybrid music is more significant in the validation of a musical recording than a nomination from music industry award programmes such as the Junos or Grammys. These "institutions of the dominant class" do not possess the same degree of symbolic capital as that aforementioned print music publication. While all are agents of recognition, few within this mÏcrofield are sites of consecration.

It is important to remember here that prestige is principally granted to the creation, the cultural object itself, rather than directly to the artist: a producer is judged for their cultural value by virtue of what they produce. In effect, the processes of legitimization and consecration for stakeholders operate through degrees of association to the cultural object.

Both are legitimizing forces for determining the 'importance' or value of the object, and, consequently, for the stakeholders in association with the object.

Bourdieu notes, "the more consecrated the cultural broker is, the more strongly he

(sic) consecrates a work" (1993: 76). This alludes to the notion that distinction bestowed on cultural objects uncovers a hierarchization in cultural critique. Cultural consecration determines how the reputations of cultural producers and their objects are created and maintained. More importantly, it determines the reputations ofmeaning-making stakeholders.

15 Consequently, the negotiation of cultural value for objects like musical recordings between stakeholders is also a negotiation for authority in cultural value for the stakeholders themselves. A key determinant in the position of a stakeholder in the field of music-making, then, is the degree of symbolic capital it possesses to allow it to grant legitimacy to a musical recording.

Limitations

Although a very useful model for understanding how stakeholder positions are negotiated and how they negotiate value for recordings in a field of music-making and the microfield of my analysis, Bourdieu does not fully address how stakeholders might occupy multiple positions. Within my chosen field of analysis, most stakeholders occupy positions located within both the autonomous subfield of production as weIl as within the subfield of large-scale production. Examples of multiplicity in positionality are found with cultural brokers such as record labels, due to their networked manner of existence. Sorne meaning­ making sites may also occupy multiple positions, such as print music publications that require a degree of economic capital to fund the building of their symbolic capital.

More significantly, the field model is a limited tool that does not account for how cultural objects move among and between stakeholders in the field. The model is good for explaining where agents are positioned and general negotiations of cultural value, but it is weak in explaining how objects move between agents and stakeholders. It is crucial, then, to look to theories that can provide explanatory guideposts for the movement of cultural objects.

In this following section, 1 turn to theories in circulation and metaculture - the circulation of the idea of a cultural object.

16 Circulation

Benjamin Lee and Edward LiPuma consider circulation as a cultural process "with its own forms of abstraction, evaluation, and constraint, which are created by the interactions between specific types of circulating forms and the interpretive communities built around them," shaping what they term "cultures of circulation" (191-2). A culture of circulation can be identified by the objects that circulate though it: textual forms, forms of subjectivity (i.e. citizenship, consumerism, politics) and / or multiple cultural formations (i.e. public sphere, the nation), but this is not exc1usively the case. One must recognize the co-presence of multiple forms in cultures of circulation, assess what motivates these to move across social space, and determine both the "cause and excess" (or context and product) of the se cultural objects (Gaonkar and Povinelli 2003).

The definition provided here helps to shift away from understanding music-making as simply a field, and instead view it as a sphere where recordings move via their engagement with various sites of meaning-making. These meaning-making sites can be considered the visible guideposts in the "interpretive communities." This is an extremely crucial point for understanding how musical recordings follow particular paths of movement. In this sense, the set of practices around music-making, and specifically around breakbeat-oriented hybrid music-making - i.e. criticism, creation, brokering - can be conceptually expanded from a field of practices to a culture of circulation. In this situation, aIl sets of practices help to inform the direction and flow of the music recording.

Jorg Heiser expands on these ideas when stating the following:

... circulation is shorthand for the ways in which the fluctuating relations between forms (from both inside and outside art) co-define the relations between artists and their audience [that] designates not simply the A-to-B distribution of objects and ideas but also the

17 way these gain a life of their own as they pass from hand to hand, house to house, mouth to mouth (79-80).

Herein lies a key element in my research: how the relationships between creators and audiences are established. Circulation as a concept actualizes these relationships to begin with. Without circulation, a musical object would not gain access to the various audiences it encounters through print media coverage, blog postings, radio play, and podcast inclusion.

Dilip Gaonkar and Elizabeth Povinelli expand on the idea of circulation as a repositioned analytical focus, looking at the movement of objects rather than simply their meaning. Circulation is defined here as "an enabling matrix within which social forms, both textual and topical, emerge and are recognizable" (388). The authors emphasize the importance of mapping out the pathways, or the "circulatory matrix", of cultural forms defined as public texts, practices, and events that "carry out the regular ideological work of constituting subjects," both people and publics (386). Such "form-sensitive analysis" is proposed as necessary for examining how cultural objects move in space and between meaning-makers, and stands in contrast to the "meaning-sensitive analysis" that has traditionally been the principal focus in cultural studies. Asking where and how cultural objects circulate orients research methodology towards reading "the sociallife ofthe form rather than offof it" (387, emphasis in original). Gaonkar and Povinelli argue that truly understanding the dynamics of any geographic sphere of public life necessitates understanding the intertwined relationship between flows and forms.

Mapping becomes the principal exercise for understanding how "sociallife is ... composed of interlocking, multifunctional diagrams that act as demanding environments on subjects, texts, and practices" (395). Power differentials between different cultures of circulation, transfigurations of cultural forms that affect understanding within and across

18 different cultural spaces, and the play of supplementarity affecting public recognition; aIl of the se factors shape the paths that cultural forms travel along. As parameters, they affect the object and how it engages with social space. Circulation invites mapping how cultural objects

(in my case, musical recordings) move through society in particularized spheres, thereby shifting the focus from privileging consumption and production as the most interesting points of analysis to recognizing a need to deal with the actual movement of cultural objects themselves.

Gaonkar and PovineIli's arguments are valuable in pointing out a kind of meta­ methodology to questions around circulation. First, terming circulation an "enabling matrix" conjures a mental image of networks of flows of practices, information, objects, people and moments. For my purposes, it redefines the scope ofmusic-making so as to explicitly address the movement and flows of cultural objects and information about them, rather than solely how recordings impact sites of meaning-making. Second, form-sensitive analysis is a very important method for mapping how multiple cultural forms - musical recordings, radio and podcast "texts", as weIl as blog and print publication texts - travel within and across cultural spaces. It is also imperative to investigate what the pathway intersections may look like.

Outlining the parameters of a culture of circulation is extremely useful for understanding and mapping out how and where sites of cultural criticism and cultural brokers are interconnected. It is also a useful means to understand how sonically constituted listening publics or audiences relate to physically defined spaces, to the wider music industry, and to local music scenes. It is important, of course, to analyze meaning imbued in texts, but considering how far and wide cultural forms move across space, 1 think it is also extremely important to understand what constrains and allows such flows, as the se affect interpretive

19 communities significantly. Mapping the flow and movement of cultural objects is an important methodological exercise, and the inspiration for the analysis in the following chapters.

Metaculture

Greg Urban introduces a very useful concept for understanding how cultural objects are propelled in circulation. He terms this 'metaculture', or "culture that is about culture" (3).

Although Urban refers to 'culture' in an overall general everyday sense, in this project 1 will pin the analysis to the sphere of music-making and its interpretive communities.

Urban begins his analysis by focussing on the transmission of culture between point A

(the social individual or group where a particular aspect of culture originates or 'passes through') and point B (the social individual or group where said aspect is perceived) within social space. It is possible to use the example of a musical recording to illustrate his ideas. a represents a discrete and possibly unique thing, the material entity (the recording) within which a cultural element (a set of musical ideas organized into a particular configuration of sounds) is transmitted. (3 represents the remediated material form of a, a sort of copy of the original. Listeners, if they are creators, could gain ideas from a and produce another interpretation. The c1assic example is sampling: portions of music lifted from an original recording, itself an expression of various influences, which are recontextualised and reconfigured into another discrete form. Another example more attuned to this research project considers this phenomenon in terms of one's perception of said recording in general: what may be pleasing to one person may not be considered 'good' to another. In other words,

20 one person processes the information of the organization of musical ideas differently than another.

Urban is most interested in the immaterial elements transmitted in that exchange, in particular the judgement about the relationship between a and ~ in regards to continuity with the past - "historical consciousness" - and change - "innovated consciousness" (182). In this manner, culture has the ability to generate self-understandings or meanings that define the spectre of change or sameness. This judgement is understood as the metacultural meaning of the cultural object; this meaning in turn becomes encoded in another material element. For example, a review about a recording stands in a metacultural relationship to a. Here, an individual interpretation of the ideas of the recording becomes actualized in a critique about the object. In this sense, metaculture represents the idea of a cultural object, and the processing of meaning of said objects by those who encounter them.

The notion of metaculture is significant because it captures the sense of an accelerative force in culture, where both ideas and objects are propelled through time and space.

Accelerative culture cornes to be embodied in particular cultural objects or elements that generate interest because oftheir novelty. This novelty, however, is based in reference to recognizable elements and ultimately "represents a new combination of those manifestations or elements even as it contributes something new to them" (16). Inertial culture recognizes the prior existence of cultural elements that are either copies (in an existential sense where ~ as carrying an abstract form of a) or that prevent new expressions from taking hold (a "habituai inertia" where little resonance with pre-existing a expressions exists). In this sense, metaculture is a form of accelerative culture that pushes ideas and elements forward into

21 futurity-propelled by interest in novel expression, and simultaneously a new combination of pre-existing elements as well as a new contribution to the se elements.

Metaculture and culture, then, are "forms or planes of motion that are dynamically interconnected through representation" (38), and both culture and metaculture have profound effects on reality. Metaculture touches the material world, as it shapes the conditions for the attainment of cultural knowledge with regards to the existence of a cultural object. As a judgement or idea about a thing that is interested in both the connectedness of that object to its past - its roots in how it is constructed - and simultaneously in its future, metaculture has tremendous power in shaping the circulatory matrixes these objects move within.

As metaculture and culture can be viewed as interconnected planes of motion, we can then consider two layers of circulation: the primary layer where cultural objects move, including the physical movement of the object via various channels of movement - physically and sonically - and the secondary layer where the consciousness of cultural objects move in and ofitself. These movements may occur simultaneously or independently.

Circulating consciousness includes the movement of discourse around a cultural object.

Urban uses the reviews of film critics to illustrate principles that are taken up in various meaning-making sites, albeit in particular ways. Reviews carry the consciousness of the music recording, yet become distinct objects themselves (182) and as such, can be considered tangible manifestations of the metacultural circulation of that object.

From this perspective, criticism becomes a metacultural object unto itself and, in turn, circulates independently of the cultural object it is rooted within. Knowledge about the existence of the cultural object and its perceived significance is circulated within this secondary layer of circulation. As Urban notes: "the metaculture of film reviewing is one the

22 culture locked up in films, as cultural objects, gets out ofthe objects and into other people".

Reviews are "evidence for the movement of culture contained in the films - from the original makers of the film to the reviewers, and from there outward to a broader public" (184). This is exactly the key point in this thesis where reviews are concemed. Chapters Two and Three flesh out how this works in relation to music publicity and Chapters Three and Four examine how metaculture informs practitioners in other meaning-making sites, such as print music publications, music blogs, music programmes on c/c radio and music podcasts. AlI operate as metacultural spaces that enable the circulation ofboth the actual recording itself (which cornes into the possession of the listener through downloading and recording), but also as sites of discourse about the recordings themselves. It is not simply the record review, but feature articles and any kind of writing or critique that circulates the idea of the object, rather than the object itself. What is most interesting is the flattening between the idea and the object itself. Metaculture and culture touch.

Metaculture is also a form of retelling, a discourse on outlining what the cultural object does whereby those not immediately disposed to encountering directly for themselves can develop an interest to do so at a point of future availability. In music reviews, writers tend to recount the major topical themes, production techniques and other aesthetic elements of the overall recording. Really good reviews will enable readers to hear the subject of discussion without actually listening to it. In this manner, reviews become discrete objects of their own.

Urban accurately notes that these retellings do become a kind of advertisement for the object in question, but they are also points of critique that enable a dissection of the cultural object to measure its significance in the historical and contemporary trajectory of culture vis-

23 à-vis other recordings and "situate a cultural expression in time" (196). This is very important for following the movement of an object and how one can map its travels. To be an original response to other objects is to be considered a new cultural object. Newness here is assessed in the position of the object as a "response to" rather than a "replica of' the cultural objects that came before it, and the novel way that this may be executed. In this manner, the production of culture is a dialogical exercise. In this case, the new cultural object's worth and cultural significance depends on the nature of response, "not just the fact that it is a response rather than a replica" (197). To be considered innovative and aware of futurity is to be positioned as a higher point of dialogue with objects from the past and in the present - to stand up to the scrutiny oftime in a historical trajectory, "a response to earlier culture, but an original response" (198).

What metaculture can do is help map the movement of cultural objects vis-à-vis one another and across time and space. This is perhaps the most significant point here, connected to cultural recognition and legitimization as other ways to enable cultural objects to move in time and space and vis-à-vis one another. In the following chapters, 1 will outline how the se work in tandem.

24 CHAPTERTWO "Don't Drink From the Mainstream"l: Record Labels Anticipating Circulation

The Label

A record label can be defined, to begin with, as a business that facilitates the creation of musical recordings for the purpose of sales. More accurately, however, record labels are primary cultural brokers in the circulation of musical recordings. They operate as intermediaries between the market for recorded music and the musical creators themselves. A record label takes care of different elements involved in the process where an artis!' s audio work is released into the market-everything from securing manufacturing and distributing the finished product to retail outlets, to developing plans of action for ensuring information about the recording is adequately circulated, to working alongside the artist to discuss timelines for completion of work and its movement in the public sphere.

A1ajorvs.lndependent

It is useful to briefly map out the core differences between what are termed

"major" and "independent" record labels for the purposes of this project. Major labels

(often referred to as "majors") tend to be part of larger, multinational entertainment corporations that incorporate music releases as part oftheir profit-making ventures. These entities broker deals with artists in terms of financial investment. With significant amounts of capital earmarked for promotional use, majors have a pipeline to mainstream media outlets in radio, television and print securing their reach to a mass audience for their artists. Majors also have large distribution networks incorporated under their

25 corporate umbrellas, a significant factor in being able to selllarge numbers of recordings.

Currently, in the global market, there are four major labels: Sony BMG, EMl, Universal

Music Group and Wamer Music. These companies control 80% of commercially released recordings (Wiser, 2004: online).

ln contrast, independent record labels tend to be smaller: their sizes range anywhere from a few artists to a large roster, but what primarily defines them as

"independent" is the disconnect from major label funding or affiliation, and an engagement with independent distribution networks. Economic capital is generated from financial returns on the independent's own releases through direct retail sales or

2 licensing , rather than from a parent company. In the words of Jonathan More, co­ founder ofNinja Tune, an independent label based in , England and Montreal,

Quebec, "[b]eing an independent label means you don't have to worry about selling X million records ... but then again, it means that if something goes wrong it could all go down the pan at any moment" (Hector-Jones 46).

There are several different permutations of independent record labels, everything from bedroom or garage operations with one or two people running daily operations and releasing music sporadically, to larger labels releasing ten or more full-Iength projects a year, with singles released in between. 1 chose Ninja Tune records as the principal focus for this project for a few reasons: 1 have been an employee at the company for two years and have an insider view of its day-to-day operations; 1 have been a fan of their music since the label's inception in 1990; and it offers a good lens through which to examine issues of music circulation by a label that remains in control of its own direction while gaining a degree of wider popular recognition.

26 Ninja Tune

Ninja Tune was launched in 1990 in the by (Matt Black and Jonathan More), a duo who create cut-and-paste music that fuses hip hop withjazz, , and other sounds, and who were considered pioneers of the emerging

UK hip-hop / electro scene in the 1980s. The label began as a means for Coldcut to escape what they viewed as "bullshit music industry practices" and release interesting, underground music free from the restraints placed on artists by major labels. Ninja Tune presented a wide range ofmusic that explored permutations in electronic music and hip hop realms, and the label quickly achieved a level of renown due to its commitment to eclecticism and a constantly growing roster ofvery different-sounding artists. This aesthetic expanded into two imprints (or sub-Iabels): Recordings, oriented towards exploring variants in , was launched in 1996; and Counter Records was launched in 2006 with an ear for more psychedelic takes on electronic and jazz

3 music .

Many independent labels are unlike their multinational counterparts, in that their independence signifies a distance from the motivations of capital accumulation, and suggests an orientation towards the acquisition of symbolic capital. However, an independent label must also tread the line between operating as an autonomous cultural broker and an entity seeking financial gain to reinvest in its work. On the one hand,

Ninja Tune looks to release music curated according to a particular aesthetic. In promotional material written to announce the launch of Counter Records, the newest imprint under the Ninja Tune banner, the company states:

27 For 16 years we've held steadfast to our label mission ofbringing the finest in electronic / hip hop / jazz / etc. to homes and clubs. We've seen the cycle of trends turn over four or five times in all the different territories we deal with (sic). We've been hip, then not-hip, then hip again depending on what the cannon (sic) ofpress and popular underground opinion happens to be clocking at that moment. And all the while we didn't really give a shit what people were thinkinglbuying (sic) and just kept putting out what we knew to be excellent in our field. (Ninja Tune 2006a)

The label proclaims that it "d[oesn't] really give a shit" what people are thinking or buying. However, on the other hand, it must still generate enough funds to maintain its prime directive of releasing records to begin with. In this sense, the label treads the fine line between restricted and heteronomous production. This assessment complicates

Bourdieu's neat and tidy categorizations ofthese fields of production. Recordings are released in accordance with the label's own aesthetic judgment ofwhat is good and what best represents its name and its brand (though independents tend to avoid the more out- and-out corporate discussions ofbranding, an independent's brand is important).

However, the costs of recordings - the artist advance agreed upon by contract, the promotional eosts, employee wages, manufacturing costs, etc. - must be recouped and, ideally, money generated as profit for reinvestment in the business. Economie capital factors into the label's survival. In a sense, there are hopes that a record resonates with enough people - or that it is "popular" enough - that it sells well.

Curatorship, Corporate-ness, and Artistic Creation

An independent label builds its position as a cultural broker worthy of negotiating the value ofmusieal recordings through the collection ofworks it releases. It institutes a kind of 'curatorship' with a deliberate, yet unannouneed, method of selecting recordings

28 that evoke the label's aesthetic code. This code is elicited in the label's practices, in a kind of quality control wherein each release is considered in relationship to other releases as keeping in line with a particular sound, an indetinable 'something' that (ideally) conjures up an association with the label's aesthetic once heard by a music listening public. By working through this practice, the label creates not only a brand in a basic economic sense, but a story for itself as told by the collection of artists it daims on its roster. The ultimate goal is to cement permanent status as a key tastemaker in that particular subfield of musical production, to the point whereby a music-buying audience will come to expect a particular quality (or type) of recording simply by association with the record label that releases it.

Status by association is a principal condition in the relationship between the label as cultural broker and the artist. The artist agrees to entrust his or her creative work with the label, who in turn "exploits the labour of the 'creator' by trading in the 'sacred' and consecrates the [artistic] product by throwing their endorsement behind it" (Bourdieu,

1993: 76). 1 would argue the endorsement of the recording by the record label, represented in the agreement to work on behalf of the artist with the weight of its own tastemaker and cultural status, is the fIfSt level of cultural consecration for musical recordings. It is understood here that the cultural broker's status will move the object along the circulatory matrix both farther and wider than what the artist alone could hope to achieve.

In order for a label to bear status in the industry, it must move beyond self­ definition as a relevant cultural entity and engage with spaces of meaning-making; it must be consecrated through recognition from other agents in the field of music

29 production. This consecration is actively fine-tuned via the practice of publicity and public relations for its recordings. The record label itself is a cultural entity, therefore very deliberate efforts must be made to ensure its brand and its products are situated in as many places as possible so as to register within a wider consciousness in the field, be it on an underground level or even in the mainstream. Image fashioning is an important element for agents that attempt to bridge the precarious demands of 'independence': presenting a disinterest in the commercial economy while at the same time working within its parameters.

Culture and Industry

Keith Negus proposes that "industry produces culture" and "culture produces an industry". These statements supplement the above analysis for unpacking the relationship between record labels (representing the front line of the music industry) and the production of . These ideas reflect the close, interconnected relationship between creators and brokers, a relationship that aims to establish the parameters of how a musical recording will move in spaces of consumption and critique. Suggesting that industry produces culture refers to "how entertainment corporations set up structures of organization and working practices to pro duce identifiable products and 'intellectual properties'" (1998: 359), Negus writes about how particular socially-marked styles of music (rap and salsa) are handled by major labels where resources, staff, artists, and genres are managed by departments which are themselves marked by socio-cultural identity (i.e. urban music division and Latin music division, respectively). In short, the organizational climate and day-to-day operation in a record company shapes how

30 recordings' meanings are created via marketing, as well as the perceptions ofhow they should be disseminated.

The notion that culture produces industry stresses that "production does not take place simply 'within' a corporate environment created according to the requirements of capitalist production but in relation to broader culture formations and practices that may not be directly within the control or understanding of the company" (360). It acknowledges that the record label is situated within broader cultural patterns that ultimately shape the working life of the producers - the artists themselves - and the life of the musical recording, both of which are shaped by social constructions of race, gender, class, and sexuality.

Under this proposaI, record companies' understanding of the world of music production and consumption is established by creating knowledge via multiple forms of research. This enables the company to construct a reality for its products and employ strategies to intervene in it. One clear example is the labelling of social differences as particular market demographics and then employing particular discourses to engage with this 'reality'. In this manner, social culture becomes marketable, deducible, and dividable, a neat and tidy set of arbitrary constructs outlining potential consumers.

Marketing plans are drawn up to predict and reflect how recordings, now understood as products, may move, which then allocates how resources within the label may be mobilized to affect these movements.

Negus' concept of 'genre culture' helps to illustrate how the above proposals exist in this particularized sphere. He writes:

In using the term 'genre culture' .. .1 want to stress the wider sociological and cultural context within which sounds, images, and words are given meaning. My point is that it is through the way in which genres are strategically managed

31 and due to the way this intersects with broader historical, social and cultural formations, that the music industry shapes the possibility for creative practice .. .1 am suggesting that the recording industry has a direct impact on how creativity can be realized, given meaning, and contested (363).

To a degree, this is true: genres continue to be strategically managed by the mainstream recording industry as one of the principal means to maintain well-worn paths of circulation for recordings. For instance, a slickly produced pop song may get played on a

4 top 40 radio station ; a hip hop recording may get written about in a monthly hip hop publication; an electronic music recording will most likely be placed in the "" or "dance" section of a record store. In turn, artists signed to these labels contend with slotting into preconceived categorizations for what they produce. To sorne extent this may affect creativity, boxing artistic thinking into neatly defined parameters.

However, with independent record labels like Ninja Tune, Negus's proposaIs do not entirely fit. These labels have achieved a certain degree of recognition for their artists in the wider mainstream industry with critical acclaim in niche music publications and wider recognition in the mainstream music press5 but they operate in smaller realms of circulation. Ninja Tune may be larger than many independent labels in terms of two headquarters handling European and North American territories and the number of employees (eight in the U.K. office, eight in the North American office), but the company is simply not organized according to socially-marked divisions handling genre-defined projects.

Each employee within the company takes on a particular set of responsibilities for aIl recording projects, regardless of style. These responsibilities include retail management (physical and digital sales), production management (i.e. manufacturing and printing for each title), marketing, video promotion and royalties, press and publicity,

32 graphic design, tour management, and overalliabei coordination and management. The free flow nature of the workspace, in which a small number of people handle multiple tasks, reflects how the cultural object is treated in a marketing sense. As sorne releases may resonate more with a hip hop or electronic sound, the se recordings are encouraged to move to particular sites most likely to pay attention. 1 will come back to this point in a moment with the discussion of the 'one-sheet'. Instead of delineating the treatment of a project by its genre or otherwise categorized grouping, Ninja Tune projects are all treated in the same manner.

Second, genre divisions are less important than a curatorial coherence across a variety of different kinds of music. The label works to establish the terms of creativity and 'what is good' by defining its releases in relation to one another, a kind of self­ reflexive consecration of the significance and meaning for its roster of recordings. What unites its varied releases exploring such typically divergent realms as 'cosmic jazz', quirky electronic music, avant-dancehall, psyche rock and cinematic drum 'n' bass is the artists' use of the breakbeat, or drum loops, and a love of fusion and experimentation.

Such eclecticism is rooted in the cut-and-paste aesthetic of music production borrowed

6 heavily from hip hop culture by fusing samples with new musical ideas , and a particular adherence to the sect of Dl culture prizing a "cosmic soundclash" approach to spinning records, jumping between and scratching slices of different musical histories (see Shapiro and Phillips 1996; Marcus, 1996; Kunzru 1997). In fact, Ninja Tune's raison d'être is to overcome such genre divisions, even though the wider music industry continues to operate by this protocol. As More states: "Ninja Tune, for us, was a process of realizing that you don't have to work within the established rules ... that you can unsubscribe to the

33 newsgroup that is big business and free yourself from the mindset of such interests. Ninja is us [i.e. Coldcut] removing ourselves from that picture" (Hector-Jones 46). In effect, the label became a genre unto itself, constructed through its curatorial approach, to the point where listening audiences have come to expect a Ninja Tune "sound".

Last, it is the cumulative cultural knowledge of aIl employees working at the label that constructs what is considered 'creative', thus creating the parameters for releases

'worthy' ofbearing the Ninja Tune logo. AlI of the employees are attracted to working for the company because they are fans of its music, so they intuitively understand Ninja's

'sound'. AlI are themselves, tirst and foremost, music fans that listen to a wide range of different styles. Sorne are, or were, club and/or independent radio DJs. Various employees are musicmakers themselves, sorne run their own record labels, sorne are artist managers, and sorne organize shows and DJ events.

People who work at Ninja are interested in the culture of music production and the business around it, to varying degrees. The symbolic capital each employee holds in regards to their cultural knowledge is perhaps the company's greatest resource. Market research is not an active, outright pursuit because market research is, in fact, the day-to- day interaction among the employees, discussing new music, debating trends, engaging one another with their opinions on why certain recordings 'work' or not. The employees themselves represent Ninja Tune's audience yet speak from an authorial position regarding what matches the label's sonic aesthetic. This is another manner in which curatorial coherence is maintained: an internal self-checking mechanism. As one of the label' s press releases notes:

Ninja Tune is quite simply a massive collective of passionate music listeners and collectors just putting out what they think sounds good. There is no

34 huge calculated commercial agenda outside of our need/want [sic] to put out good records (Ninja Tune 2006b).

The One-Sheet

Record labels aim to pre-determine, as much as possible, the course of circulation for a musical recording. AlI the time and energy spent in developing a recording into a product - from its inception as a creative idea, to actualization as a completed recording, to its manufacture or preparation for retail - must be boiled down to information that can later circulate, announcing the recording' s existence. The publi city realm of musical production is arguably the most crucial piece of the puzzle for the circulation of musical recordings. H is founded on laying out the parameters where information about a recording can move in order to enable wider reaches of circulation for the actual object itself. In large part, the 'one-sheet' is a tool that aims to circulate particular associative codes to various and increasingly wider spheres of cultural knowledge and meaning.

The one-sheet is the principal device through which information about a recording is crafted. Hs purpose is to shape and sculpt how recordings should be ideally perceived and processed by a listening public and to determine the terms of how it should seep into popular cultural consciousness. Notice the operatives "ideally" and "should" in the preceding statement. As any publicist or record label will tell you, it is impossible to predict how a wider public will perceive a recording and to what extent the outlined parameters will be re-circulated through critiques and discussion. However, the starting point for any publicity campaign is a single piece of paper that maps out an idealized path of movement for a recording.

In simple terms, a one-sheet is a music industry term for a one-page press release and fact sheet about a recording. It contains the following:

35 1. Basic biographical information on the artist

2. Descriptions of the songs found on the recording

3. Brief sidebar notes on previous sales (if applicable)

4. Other significant achievements to date (i.e. slot on a high-profile tour, press attention received thus far for the artist and/or recording)

5. Basic information on who is handling publicity campaigns for press and radio

6. Any announcements of upcoming performances

When a publi city campaign is launched, packages containing a copy of the recording and a photocopied one-sheet are mailed to music journalists, music magazine editors, radio DJs, music directors at radio stations, buyers at distribution companies or retail stores. The one-sheet is sent to anyone deemed by the label and / or the publicist as inhabiting a position of critical authority able to circulate information about the recording itself (i.e. print media), broadcast the recording (i.e. radio), or make that recording available to a wider public sphere.

The physicallayout of the one-sheet represents the label's understanding on the associative nature of the music industry and its penchant for quick information.

Acknowledging that people in today's music industry, as in other fields, have little time to sift through considerable amounts of information, the physicallayout is crucial for imparting guidelines for the recording's perception by the reader. Generally the one­ sheet can be broken down into two main information categories: point form notes and prose-style descriptions (see Appendix 1). Point form notes highlight key, abbreviated information points for consideration, whereas prose-style descriptions will illustrate the se points in a wider context. Clearly, one-sheets are constructed narratives about recordings

36 and their creators, the artists. Using language that evokes particular imagery and translate the sonic properties of the recording (both in lyrical content and production style) into ideas about the recording is key. Ultimately, the one-sheet is the 'public face' of a recording.

One-sheet writing must be provocative, interesting and wry, otherwise the recording itself will be blanketed with a kind of banality. Ideally, the writing must make the recording attractive to anyone reading about it. Doing so means standing out amongst similar compositions from other record labels that aIl make attempts to de scribe recordings in captivating ways. The one-sheet's purpose is to generate more attention from other cultural brokers - critics, DJs, and the like - and increase the likelihood of metacultural circulation within and among different sites of critique and consecration.

A one-sheet narrative is stitched together with different kinds of knowledge; the particular configuration of the sheet itself establishing particular, idealized channels of movement for the recording. In the case of Ninja Tune, one-sheets are created intemally as the most public1y circulated marketing tool for a recording. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the cumulative cultural knowledge ofits employees is one of the label's strongest assets. Marketing is a deliberate practice, but it is done with a kind of intuition of the cultural sphere. Therefore, in a one-sheet, cultural knowledge is employed in very particular ways.

First, the one-sheet sets the recording in a wider cultural context. The first paragraph generally lays the groundwork for situating the recording in a historical trajectory of the development ofparticular styles and genres of music the recording sonically aligns with most. In the song descriptions that follow, references are made to

37 other similar sounding artists who embody sonic touchstones for the recording at hand.

That helps to guide the reader to 'hear' the recording without actually listening to it.

Hesmondhalgh notes that culture, in the domain of independent record production, privileges genre over authorship; the focus is on shifts in style rather than performer identity. On the other hand, the "corporate entertainment industry" positions the artist as a brand "around which meanings can he attached and varied, in accordance with changing audience patterns" (1998: 238). In the case of Ninja Tune, a larger independent label with a significant history of both critical and commercial success, both genre and authorship are simultaneously acknowledged and utilized for the purpose of touching on as many cultural referents as possible.

1 would argue that the latter strategy of understanding both genre evolution and authorship along said evolutionary paths expresses a deeper cultural knowledge. Utilizing its employees' cultural knowledge allows Ninja's recordings to be contextualized in a manner that situates the label itself in an informed position of cultural authority. Drawing from the sampling aesthetic of production that its artists utilize, one-sheets are constructed in a similar fashion. Real moments of interaction with the idea of the recording come from identification with these signposts, or fragments of music' s past( s) and presentes), much the same way that moments of interaction with many ofNinja

Tune's recordings come from evoking memories triggered by identifying the sample or sound of an original recording.

Peter Shapiro and Rachel Phillips touch on a key element of Ninja's aesthetic:

"[w]ith its recontextualization ofthe familiar and its stoner insularity, [the music] becomes the ultimate exercise in self-referentiality: ifyou don't get the jokes ... or catch

38 the references, you're left on your own without a guide to piece together its broken logic"

(19). Similar resonances will be found in the marketing of such recordings as well. To

'get' what the recording is truly about, one must understand the referents or be left out of

, getting' it at all.

Such associations help outline particular sonic touchstones for the reader to construct a mental map of where to situate the recording in the trajectories of musical evolution. However, given that the readers are themselves informed by their own cultural knowledge, the se associations are equally evoked with the purpose of creating an idealized map of circulation for the recording and, ultimately, the artist. Positioning a recording and its creator vis-à-vis recordings and creators that express a kind of aesthetic kinship coaxes the reader of the one-sheet to view the recording alongside various sonic touchstones as significant musical expressions and creators in their own right This practice underscores the label' s intent that such associations to various sonic touchstones will be taken up in the recording's metacultural circulation.

In connection with the above, the one-sheet situates recordings in a manner of

"slight different-ness", even if marketing hyperbole expresses a greatjump in innovation.

Negus raises an interesting point about "slight different-ness", where the right balance between familiarity and newness is the impetus for resource investment from a label, as newness and familiarity are ''10 which audiences and other are responding"

(1998: 363). A delicate negotiation is attempted between the two, and this connects significantly to the issue of taste: the taste of the label, audience, other musicmakers, peers, critics, DJs, and those deemed as arbiters oftaste. Genres become strategically managed from the label perspective, but this is not a one-way determinative process,

39 particularly not today with so many web sites dedicated to discussion and unpacking the significance of recordings and redrawing the lines of genre while doing so.

Illustrating the Case: Spank Rock

Spank Rock is rap-meets-c1ub music-meets-electro group featuring an emcee -

MC Spankrock (Naeem Juwan) - and a producer - Armani XXXchange (Alex Epton).

Their debut album YoYoYoYoYo was released on Ninja Tune imprint Big Dada in April

2006. Spank Rock best represents the Ninja Tune aesthetic of fusing different styles rooted in electronic music and hip hop culture. More significantly, they represent the

"next generation" of Ninja Tune / Big Dada. As a recent signing on the Big Dada imprint, they are exemplary of the curatorial trajectory of the label: music that explores permutations of underground breakbeat-oriented music. Spank Rock allows Ninja Tune /

Big Dada to assert itself as being at the forefront of music' s evolution as strategies of engagement in meaning-making sites shift and change. l had the opportunity to work c10sely on the campaign for this recording project for its duration, and feel that my experience as a participant in sculpting the recording' s circulation adds crucial insight to the processes l outline in this project.

The one-sheet for Spank Rock's debut album presents several different points of association that Ninja Tune employed with the aim for these to be taken up in various meaning-making spaces in specific ways. This was particularly important since, much like the rest of the Ninja Tune roster, Spank Rock could not be neatly positioned in any c1ear genre category; it could not be defined exc1usively as "hip hop" simply because of the , nor as "electronic music" because of a production style that relies heavily on

40 drum machines, nor even as "club music" due to the album's fast, syncopated rhythms.

Instead, the one-sheet needed to employ particular associations to illustrate where Spank:

Rock's music should be situated for metacultural analysis that would guarantee appeal to

Ninja Tune's core audience and, simultaneously, potentially reach a wider listening public.

In the fIfst paragraph, the recording is situated as part of the evolution of hip hop, but with the reiterated point that the reader is about to experience something new, something "genuinely unlike anything you've ever heard before" where "[o]f course there are antecedents but YoYoYoYoYo demands to be approached on its own terms"

7 (Appendix 1) • The reiteration of 'newness' could be constmed as standard marketing hyperbole; however, for the label to maintain its position as a culturally significant curator of future breakbeat-styled music, it must position YoYoYoYoYo in an established musical history whose mIes are being revised by its very release.

Over and over again, the theme of innovation is employed in various ways in

Spank: Rock's one-sheet. Simply calling it such is one method: "Spank: Rock have managed to reconfigure the musicallandscape around them." More significantly, this theme is suggested by the selection of sonic touchstones peppered throughout. Let us look at three main examples. First, MC Spankrock is aligned with another rapper named

Q-Tip, because ofhis "instantly likeable, nasal drawl...(only with more sex rhymes)."

What this evokes is not simply the sound of the lead voice in this group; it also aligns the group with the history ofthis particular artistic figure in hip hop music. Briefly, Q-Tip was an emcee and member of A Tribe Called Quest, considered one of the most groundbreaking and creative hip hop groups ofall time (Patel, 2003). His style ofrapping

41 was distinctive: nasal and laid back but with quick, sharp and insightful rhymes, Q-Tip is considered a gifted storyteller. Comparisons to such lauded talent, is key for positioning

Spank Rock in the same category. The association plants a notion about the potential legacy of Spank Rock in changing how we listen to music, even if the lyrical content focuses more on sex than anything else.

Another example used in the one-sheet is James Brown, the Godfather of Soul himself, the funk music pioneer revered for his groundbreaking musical innovations in the 1960s and 70s. Spank Rock's song "Sweet Talk" is aligned to this consecrated through the statement that it is ''the rawest, dirtiest funk tune you've heard since

James Brown was in his classic period." Again, to evoke the name James Brown not only encourages the reader to expect raw energy rooted in the past, taken up in an interesting, exciting way, but also to position the group as innovators themselves who willleave a mark on music-making as we know it.

Last, the sidebar column explicitly notes that the band was the opening act for

MIA's North American tour. MIA is a UK-based artist who gained a considerable underground following in 2005 due to her fusions of politically-charged imagery and lyrics and musical style expressing hybrids ofhip hop, electronic music, and dancehall reggae (Plagenhoef, 2005: online). Although a contemporaneous example, an association with MIA - particularly in the context of touring with this artist - positions the band as commercially appealing to a similar audience, namely an audience filling 3,000 person venues all over North America.

In all three of the above examples, no context for the cited artists is provided.

One must possess the cultural knowledge to decode what the se names represent, both

42 aurally and historically. More significantly, the referents may or may not get taken up in meaning-making spaces. As the following chapters will outline, the path of the recording and its reception may involve further association with these referents, but the occurrences may be in a manner not intended by the label at the outset.

Metacultural Sites as Part ofa Meaning-Maldng Apparatus

As 1 will show in the coming chapters, sites of metacultural analysis, like print and online music journalism, nowadays do more to unpack the cultural significance and value of a particular recording or set of recordings than any record label could on its OWll. ln other words, sites of meaning-making construct and intervene in the "reality" of music consumption. Effectively, the industry does not have as formulative a role as Negus suggests.

Consumption has become a manner of commentary. In Bourdieu's terms, the cultural value of recordings and, perhaps more importantly, the beliefin this value, is negotiated through the conflicts among agents occupying different positions in this field of cultural production - agents such as the record label, print music writers, blog writers, independent radio DJs and music departments, and podcasters. At the center of these conflicts is how much the recording, its creator (the artist), and its broker (the label) represent creating and circulating 'art for art's sake' versus art for economic gains

(Bourdieu, 1993: 79). The cultural worth of a recording, to be taken up in various sites of commentary, is a negotiated value.

43 CHAPTER THREE Print Music Journalism and Music Blogs: The Culture of Criticism

In this chapter, l will examine print music journalism and music blogs. Print music journalism has been the traditional sphere for meaning-making and value negotiation of musical recordings for at least the last fifty years. Although those in the music industry generally still consider print music publications essential for recognition of recordings and artists, music blogs represent an increasingly important point of insertion into the circulation of information. Blogs enable critical and dialogical interactions between the writer of the blog and his or her (and sometimes their) audience.

Music blogs in particular represent a shift the parameters ofmeaning-making, reaffirming how the circulation of musical recordings is accelerated through sites of critique and commentary, particularly since relationships between producers and consumers are flattened significantly to present an immediate relationship with the object. Although both sites - blogs and print media - maintain levels of curatorship in terms of what each chooses to coyer, blogs represent an evolution in meaning-making. A far deeper dialogical relationship is available where blogs are concemed; where print publications can only daim interactivity through letters', blogs present an immediate opportunity for engagement in the debate over meaning.

Print music journalism and music blogs are sites of consecration and tastemaking, serving as crucial points in the circulatory process for recordings, principally because theircirculation is propelled via commentary. As Urban notes, the metaculture of recordings - the ideas of recordings embedded in critiques - enable the circulation of the actual objects themselves to reach further outposts of awareness. As outlined in the previous chapter, record labels situate recordings within particular frames of cultural

44 knowledge. However, these frames ofknowledge are taken up differently in different spaces of critiques. The one-sheet outlines these frames of knowledge, but critics may or may not continue the trajectory of cultural knowledge as intended.

Meaning-Making

In the field of cultural production, those who analyze, interpret and critique cultural objects occupy 'meaning-making' positions. These positions create the analytical framework for recognition and consecration of cultural objects through particular standards of value vis-à-vis other similar cultural objects. More importantly, meaning­ makers maintain the belief in the validity of this framework. As the value of cultural objects is negotiated, so too is the meaning-maker's authority to recognize the level of cultural significance ofthese works; this authority is "itself a credit-based value"

(Bourdieu, 1993: 78) built from the struggles among an agents within the field for recognition and prestige. However, just as prestige and recognition are not granted directly to creators or their cultural brokers but indirectly through their works, so the same applies to occupiers of meaning-making positions. The cultural significance of particular print music publications and music blogs is a negotiated value amongst these sites determined by the kind of cultural knowledge exhibited through their respective curatorial approaches in music analysis. These sites of meaning-making are also sites of metacultural discourse, where the idea of the cultural object is constructed, discussed, debated, and reiterated in a myriad of different ways.

In his analysis of discourse in journalism, Regev posits that in order for a cultural work to be recognized and consecrated as an artistic work, particular

45 conditions must be met: it should contain a formal-aesthetic sophistication or genuineness imbued with sorne sort of philosophical, social, psychological or emotional meaning; and it must be possible to argue that the creator created this object for art's sake, rather than for a particular usefulness or practicality (1994: 86). In other words, it is the "beHef in the ideology of autonomous art [that] still determines the struggles and defines the prizes in the field of cultural production" (87), the prizes of recognition and potential consecration.

Print versus Blog

Print music journalism and music blogs embark on two very different approaches in meaning making. Print music journalism factors in heavily where a record label's marketing is concemed. It becomes an extension of the marketing strategy; further promotional opportunities can be gained by making use of positive articles and critiques.

Quotations and commentary provide feedback that can be used in future one-sheets or other similar promotion material. For example, Spank Rock's one-sheet was altered so as to include a particularly glowing review from URB magazine, a publication deemed authoritative by Ninja Tune?

How does the label decide the authoritativeness of a publication? First, its physical circulation numbers are key. This simply demonstrates the reach of the publication in terms ofpotential audience. Second, the publication's history in defining the trajectories of various elements of the music industry is of great importance. Rolling

Stone, for example, has historically both observed and shaped the mainstream music industry. In terms of particular styles or genres of music, a magazine like XLR8R presents the wide array of fusions in electronic music. URB, a magazine that provides

46 commentary on all forms of underground music in the electronic, hip hop and rock spheres.

Music blogs, on the other hand, are more self-directed - they do not daim to present any particular trajectory. Instead of presenting a coherent representation of a particular genre of music, the author or authors are simply keen to document analysis, and need not write at the behest of anyone but themselves (though sorne do develop significant followings).

1 will briefly explain the relationship between independent record labels like

Ninja Tune and print music journalism and what the expectations of publicity are for circulating information about an artist and their respective creation, i.e. their recording.

This is best illustrated by detailing how a record label one-sheet circulates to print music publications and journalists.

Music Publicity and the Relationship to Print Music Journalism

Print music journalism is traditionally considered the most prestigious arena of recognition for a musical recording because these sites announce its existence to an interested audience, namely the publication's readership - especially significant when the readership is that of a publication with wide circulation and authoritativeness, as mentioned above. T 0 be selected for critique, briefly mentioned, reviewed or featured in any capacity amongst the swirl of other recordings circulating at any given moment is to be formally recognized in the field of music production. Once the writing is published, a recording is immortalized, however fleeting or cursory its life may be. T 0 write about a recording is to fIfSt recognize it. How it is written about contemporaneously consecrates

47 it, fixing its existence in a particular historical juncture that may possibly be left to the wayside in the detritus of musical production, but has the potential to be revisited with future retrospective analyses.

The Publicist

A music publicist is a crucial component in any record label' s plans to secure recognition or actualize potential contemporaneous consecration for their artists and their creative works. As outlined in Chapter Two, a record label will draw up a one-sheet to construct particular associations about a recording and circulate this information. Music publicists take up the task of directing this information to music press, and gently persuading (i.e. pitching to) print music publication editors, journalists (staff and freelance) and, occasionally, publishers for press coverage.

A publicist is the nexus point between the label and print press, and is hired for two principal reasons: their carefully cultivated working relationships with these press

'gatekeepers' developed over years; and their expertise in engaging in the sort of discourse necessary to bring attention to their client' s projects amidst the noise of other publicists soliciting attention for other artists and recordings. These factors increase the chance for the label, its artists, and their recordings to receive press coverage. Close ties with particular journalists or editors bode better for guaranteeing particular 'results'

( coverage) for a record. A publicist can target pitches for reviews to particular journalists, features to others, and he or she can also encourage editors to consider longer articles or interviews.

48 Being able to speak the language of the publication facilitates these possibilities, requiring the publicist to be culturally knowledgeable and aware of the sonic touchstones laid out from the label's perspective. The publicist, however, also must connect these touchstones back to the publication's own sonic references which one can glean from their coverage. For example, sorne publications favour independent, 'underground' artists and labels over those from majors; others may cover what's happening in popular music culture, which tends to be more focused on recordings and artists with high circulation numbers.

Ultimately, the publicist must condition their promotion of a record in a manner that makes it relevant for a particular publication's readership - how it is the 'same' as other recordings and artists covered in the publication. However, it must also maintain the label's vision ofhow the record is 'new' and a break or deviation from CUITent creative patterns. The publicist must bridge the gap between sameness and newness. How the publicist negotiates this gap and creates pitches is based on a creative interpretation of the one-sheet.

Press Attention

Within the publicity world, there exists an unspoken hierarchy for press attention for a recording. Music reviews are considered the bare minimum for 'acceptable' coverage (i.e. executing sorne degree of critique) as the se are the easiest space commitment for cursory critical analysis that a publication can offer. In a review, a writer will generally cover the basics of a recording project, such as a brief artist background and the sonic composition of the record in reference to genre, style or other artists and

49 musical recordings to provide reader with a sonic context. A review will almost always be injected with the writer's personal opinion on whether the recording is good, bad, banal, how it stands up to other recordings today or past, what it could mean for the artist's career and (ifthey are familiar with the artist's previous body ofwork) how it stands in relevance to the artist' s creative pasto Reviews are the easiest form of critical analysis a recording can potentially receive, and within the music publicity business, this is considered essential for any release.

The next step up in the chain ofprint recognition is the feature story. This takes considerably more persuasion with writers and / or publication editors to secure for a recording project the publicist is 'working' . Here, the publicist must argue for consideration of the project in regards to its cultural relevance, as compared to other contemporaneous musical recordings, and in regards to potential interest in the story behind its artist. F eatures tend to probe beneath the surface of a recording for an in-depth look at the artist's creative process, their creative history, and (ideally) forward provocative analysis on where this recording stands in the trajectory of past and present musical production. This stands in contrast to reviews, where the latter consideration is treated in a cursory fashion, due to brevity of space and limited word counts. Even features have a kind ofhierarchy of importance: will it be a one-page feature or more?

Will a photographer be commissioned for producing photos exclusive to this publication?

Longer pieces and photo shoots signify that the publication is interested enough in the artist to guarantee unique coverage within its pages, both through the (assumed) expertise of the writer and his or her understanding of the wider discourse of music production in this particular realm, and through its visual representation of the artist. AlI of these things

50 categorize the publication's opinion of an artist's cultural relevance; where the recording is granted recognition, this recognition imbues the artist with a certain degree of symbolic capital.

The pinnacle of print music press coverage is the coyer story, the main feature of that publication' s issue for the duration of its life cycle on the stands.3 Coyer stories guarantee a higher likelihood of public recognition for an artist and their respective creative works. F eatures of this kind are typically granted to artists the publication deems to have made an indelible dent in the culturallandscape to warrant wider - and very public - attention for their work. In effect, the subjective view of the editorial staff at a publication determines the highest degree of contemporaneous consecration in print music journalism, where an artist is publicly declared 'significant'. Whether this opinion holds up retrospectively is another matter altogether, given that the majority of music journalism is principally concemed with being 'on the edge of now'. Nevertheless, to achieve such public recognition, however fleeting and momentary, lends a kind of snapshot prestige to the artist and their work.

What is important to remember here is that the extent of recognition and contemporaneous consecration is limited by the degree to which the publication itself is recognized and / or consecrated. Again, the field of cultural production is a useful model to explain publication hierarchy. The field operates as a "site of the struggles for the monopoly of the power to consecrate" (Bourdieu, 1993: 78), the struggle over the cultural capital that defines whose opinions hold more weight than others. In effect, it is a struggle to determine who can be termed 'tastemakers' - culturally significant agents

51 bestowed with trusted authority and expertise in their respective subfields of music production.

In turn, this defines the kind of legitimacy bestowed upon the recording and the artist. As outlined in Chapter One, Bourdieu (1993) identifies three types of recognition: specific legitimacy achieved through recognition by peers; "bourgeois" legitimacy bestowed by agents of the dominant class; and popular legitimacy bestowed on cultural products through popular acclaim. Music publications can bestow legitimacy along all three types of recognition. Writers can act as peers, should they be musicians; they are also classed as authority figures and can therefore bestow legitimacy as "agents of the dominant class." In addition, through the circulation of the publication, the music reviewed or featured can gain popular acclaim.

As noted earlier, a recording or artist's cultural relevance is subjective, conditioned by the tastes of the editorial staff of a publication. While one publication may determine a recording and/or artist to be of crucial importance in the CUITent musical landscape, another publication may not even register the recording on their radar.

Therefore, targeting publicity efforts to "appropriate" publications is another crucial part of the strategy for soliciting print media coverage. This increases the chances of coverage in publications with readership audiences that willlikely be more interested in the information. Publications may fall under the category of "lifestyle" magazines (i.e. trend following in fashion, art, music, etc.), niche publications (dedicated to particular genres or styles of music), or those that coyer the mainstream music industry (, to use an example as cited above).

52 The aim of the record label' s publicity team is to situate recordings such that they will be recognized contemporaneously by the appropriate publications that have readership audiences interested enough in the specific magazine' s curatorship to trust the publication's taste. Bourdieu concisely describes the publicity machine by stating that:

"[c]hoosing the right place ofpublication .. .is vitally important because for each author, each form of production and product, there is a corresponding natural site in the field of production, and producers and products that are not in their right places are more or less bound to fail. AlI the homologies which guarantee a receptive audience and sympathetic critics for producers who have found their place in the structure work in the opposite way for those who have strayed from their natural site" (1993: 95-6). At the end of the day, the label hopes that their promotional activities will translate into sales.

Discourse and Music Journalism

In the above-described sense, music journalism is positioned in the field of cultural production as part of the meaning-making apparatus, interpreting, analyzing and evaluating the cultural significance of musical recordings and, indirectly, the artist "as a discursive strategy of 'proving' their artistry" (Regev 87). In keeping with this, music journalists have developed a discourse around particular sets and subsets of recordings - genres of music, music from a particular label, etc. - in order to establish sorne kind of hierarchical positioning for artists in a race for wider metacultural circulation in the music press sphere.

One of the most interesting things about reviews is how often the language and examples from the label' s one-sheet are taken up in the review itself. Key information is

53 reiterated and this information has often been lifted from the point form section of the one-sheet. The sonic touchstones tend to get taken up again as well. 4

Spank Rock and Prin! Media

In late 2005, Spank Rock was noticed by a couple of publications based on the word-of-mouth buzz swirling around their notorious live shows. Other significant elements that led to recognition include their opening slot with MIA, an up-and-coming innovative electronic artist, a previous single released on another label, and, most significantly, an affiliation with a popular DJ duo from Philadelphia, calIed HolIertronix

(DJs and Low Budget.)

Three publications in particular expressed interest in interviewing Spank Rock earlyon: XLR8R magazine (the writer had seen them perform a few shows, including as openers for MIA), a magazine welI-regarded in circles for thoughtful analysis of electronic music fusions; URB magazine (sarne circumstance, the writer had seen Spank

Rock open for MIA), a publication considered more 'populist' in its approach to covering lesser-known electronic, hip hop and rock music; and SPIN magazine (again, the editor had seen Spank Rock's opening act for MIA in New York), considered one of the more mainstream music publications in North America, with circulation numbers that guaranteed more people would read about Spank Rock. Ninja Tune's publicist for Spank

Rock had come on board in November 2005 and started talking to her connections about this group. AlI three print features on Spank Rock were on the stands at the sarne time, in early 2006.5

54 In an interview printed in XLR8R, writer Jesse Serwer described Spank Rock as the "phenomenon that's been rocking parties up and down the East Coast for the past year"(49). Situating them as a new sonic innovation, he wrote: "there's more thanjust ass and bass in the Spankrock (sic) mix, though ... [their songs] are an ode to the very notion that party music and artistic innovation are not incompatible"(50). In short, Serwer claimed that this music is artistically intelligent, even if the lyrical content may be construed otherwise. Serwer provided references to contemporaneous sonic touchstones for context: " ... with club music on national blast at the same time Spank is arriving - thanks to Hollertronix, NYC' s Aaron LaCrate, and an army of internet cheerleaders - the reference [to breaks] is only natural" (2006: 50). If one does not know who

Hollertronix or Aaron LaCrate are, they are lost as to where Spank Rock fits.

In SPIN magazine's "Noise" section touting ''what's hot" and what to look out for, Julianne Shepherd wrote the following about Spank Rock: "last summer nary a New

York City hipster dance party popped off sans Spank Rock's nasty smack-talking "Put that P***y on Me," with its nasal MC beseeching girls to do that damn thing over the revved up bpm of music. But most people shimmying to its booty-moving beats didn't realize that track came from a former prep-school backpack rapper who strives to be as legendary as David Bowie." (2006: 26). This statement situates the group as an act known to hipsters, a coded definition for discerning listeners. According to the article, these discerning listeners know how to have a good time, and they are open to irony, humour, etc. What Spank Rock provides for this group oflisteners is sonic innovation and party rocking beats. Using the revolutionary David Bowie as a sonic

55 touchstone further underlines Spank Rock as innovative. In effect, Shepherd reaffrrms the claims made in the XLR8R article.

In its January 2006 issue, URB's Tony Ware echoed Shepherd and Serwer by identifying Spank Rock as attractive to a specific group of initiated listeners: "If a new

Hollertronix is like a dungeon master's primer for blockparty bangers," he writes, referencing Dungeons and Dragons - a reference to a 1980s role playing game that underlines Spank Rock's quirkiness - "then Spank Rock will award you one million hit points," he fmishes, demonstrating the dancefloor popularity of the group. In terms of sonic touchstones, Ware references both Diplo and, like Shepherd, David Bowie: "But whether or not you've ... caught Diplo drop one ofSpank Rock's grimy, insistent tracks,

2006 will still be the year to claim you heard it frrst if you wanna be in on the new hotness (sic)"; " .. .like a booty shake done by ESG with David Bowie's abstract phrasing." Since Diplo is considered one of the premiere underground party DJs in North

America, famous for blurring the lines of party music, the fact that Diplo played their song suggests to the reader that Spank Rock will rock the dancefloor. Providing the context of ESG, a seminal Bronx band from the early 80s that created punk funk nowave music, and the avant-garde pop artistry of David Bowie, further situates Spank Rock as an innovative act.

Even the mainstream took Spank Rock seriously. Rolling Stone's review from

June 2006 claims, "Baltimore Club, the city's rarely exported dance-rap style, is built on breakneck beats, eclectic samples and unspeakable raunchiness. [Spank Rock] take aIl three elements to extremes, which might explain why this Charm City set reached the masses. [Producer] Epton attended Baltimore's prestigious Peabody Conservatory and

56 played drums before becoming a Dl, experiences that help explain his ability to perfectly blend and syncopate an endless supply of sound effects and audio clips in double and triple time." Though the oruy reviewer to include Epton's musical background here for consideration, the reviewer, like the writers from URB, XLR8R and Spin situated the recording as "real" music, music to be taken seriously. The review also provides a completely non-nuanced glossing of the sonic context of Baltimore club music.

Blogs: Shi/ting how Music Circulates

1 will now turn to look at music blogs and how the culture of commentary is reshaping how recordings come to be recognized in this sphere, through critique configured around circulating the recordings themselves.

Up to this point, music print journalism has been situated in the fixed point of the pages of magazines. Recently, it has been freed up into the fluid space ofblogs.

According to McIntosh, blogs are a form of participatory journalism that has encouraged questions on "what exactly is a journalist, and who can be called a journalist" (McIntosh,

2005: 386). In effect, blogs have opened up caveats in the flow of information about their subjects in a manner that enables a more open and democratized space for discourse.

Blogs is short-form for "weblogs", an open, intemet-based forum for personal thoughts, diary keeping and analysis on anything from politics to entertainment gossip to underground music. Blogs are self-published and frequently updated personal websites that feature journal-style commentary hyperlinked to news, video and music content.

These online journals discuss everything from politics to personal minutiae to varying art forms, such as music.

57 In effect, blogs can be considered "online diaries for the perpetually opinionated"

(Turenne 2003: online). According to various blog search engines (Technorati.com,

Feedster.com) there are approximately 46.5 to 50 million blogs on the Internet, and this number is growing everyday. As James Wolcott colourfully puts it, "blogs have speedily matured into the most vivifying, talent-swapping, sociaIizing breakthrough in popular journaIism since the burst of coffeehouse periodicals and political pamphleteering in the

18th century" (2004: 144).

Although the exact numbers are not clear, many blogs identify music as the principal subject of discussion. Music blogs take various stylistic forms. Sorne provide information as a mix of record reviews, features and shorter news items, essentially taking on a magazine format. Others are simply journal-style entries consisting of nothing but a few lines about the recording or artist discussed. There are still others that consist of variations of both types. What is consistent throughout aIl styles is the content - links to musical recordings, typicaIly in MP3 format. Generally, the se sites will contain a few links posted regularly, either daily or every so often.6 The links are typically embedded in commentary. What the se sites effectively engage in is meaning making, dealing with both recordings and creators from a very organic, bottom-up perspective. Those writing about music in the se spaces are clearly engaged music listeners impassioned by the desire to share what they listen to and argue for why it excites them (or disgusts them) to others.

Audio recordings are posted as auraI illustrations of the commentary.

Ultimately these sites enable music fans and discerning listeners to share their own personal musical taste and engage in music criticism with editorial freedom and with peer-to-peer immediacy. Blogging champions writing from a more honest subject

58 position, given its more informaI nature and considerations geared towards personal taste rather than any sense of obligation to the identity of a specifie publication as in the case of print media.

Blogs and Metacultural Analysis

Audio blogs enable users to post comments in whatever fashion they like, with links to songs in digital format (typically MP3) as an "audio illustration" oftheir discussion. Audio blogs coyer all sorts of musical genres, with sorne specializing in one or more specifie genres, others focusing on newer material, and still others making it their mission to trace the evolution ofparticular styles, or an artist's career, and so on.

Music blogs hold an interesting place in the field of music production and the system of music circulation. 1 see these operating as points of hyper-acceleration in the movement trajectories of musical recordings. By making commentary available along with the opportunity to access the recording itself (albeit in digital form), blogs engage in a potent kind of metacultural analysis. Instead of critique travelling beyond the path of the actual recording's movement (see Chapter One), critique and circulation become fused. Both the cultural object - i.e. the recording - and its metacultural manifestation - i.e. the ideas about its significance embedded within commentary posited by the writer - move together. Not only are the se anchored in a unique space carved into the information universe, both move through the links that thread blogs together, resulting in a web.

One writer's critique may become littered with hyperlinks where fragments of ideas are expounded upon in a connected blogger' s writing, effectively aligning their site with another space of dialogue. Content from one blog becomes fodder for others,

59 because "in the , thinking and linking are co-dependent verbs" (Wolcott 146).

Interested readers visit these sites to read critiques, perhaps become motivated to download the songs discussed, and may re-circulate that recording and / or the critiques to their own network of interested people, either through their own blogs or other metacultural spaces such as print, radio or podcasts informed by the critiques, simply retain it for personal enjoyment.7 In this respect, music blogs are manifestations ofnew passages where ideas and cultural objects flow and anchor in a variety of configurations and in a variety of spaces. Critiques facilitate the development of counter and spin-off critiques, pulling recordings along for the ride to prove or disprove the validity of these arguments.

As a result, music listening changes. With blogs, information around recordings is laid out in conjunction with the pieces themselves, enabling the reader / listener to understand the context of the musical recording selected in the context of what the blog creator determines as significant. This shifts the sites of cultural power as weIl, as individual blogs become further sites of cultural consecration for musical recordings.

Cultural knowledge within these sites is more fluid than on a radio music pro gram, even when the radio station is a non-commercial community-based campus station. There is no need for an involvement with an institution like a radio station or a publication like a music magazine. Anyone with an opinion or the desire to share music, armed with the technical know-how, can create these new sites to "speak". As blogs become more and more popular, they are becoming more and more accessible. Increasingly, technical know-how is becoming much less of a hindrance to online publishing. This helps to carve new channels of circulation as blogs reference and link one another, and blogs are

60 discussed in more traditional media sites. If listening is "a historico-sociocultural

[phenomenon where] the listener is framed by history, society and culture" (Richard

Leppert, 2004: 27), blogs are shifting how we listen.

Music blogs can be considered spaces of "disintermediation - music fans talking about and distributing tunes to other music fans, with middle men (sic) like record labels and professional journalists cut out of the picture" (Bruno, 2006a: 28). Recordings come to be recognized by the blog creator for a variety of reasons: a desire to expose what they perceive, feel or believe to be the "next new band"; a mission to uncover music in any number of genres that may have been overlooked by critics and / or wider audiences during its initial release; or simply to just make sense of the culturallandscape of music production around them. This particular practice of sense-making actualizes the music blog as a cultural object in its own right. Similar to print music press, music consumption becomes expressed through critique, but because blogs do not need to yield to commercial pressures to continue to function, they can operate within any variant of niche genre, musical style or approach to critique. Even if it is not deliberate, there is a curatorial practice at work with selecting what recordings to discuss and post. Music bloggers configure a recording's meaning using their own subjectivity as the guide.

What makes blogs different from print is that the se sites free music from static recognition that is fixed in print. There is fluidity in idea exchange that does not exist in other spaces. Blogs respond quicker to the musicallandscape than print publications do, and the actual recordings circulate along with information. In contrast, print music publications fix the idea of the recording into either a recognition (i.e. review) or, perhaps contemporaneous consecration (i.e. feature, coyer story). Print music publications

61 provide definitive statements rather than negotiated positions. It is the fluidity of information inherent in blogs that may contribute to why music blogs are still regarded as

"amateur" music journalism (Garrity, 2004), but this journalism has, ironically, become legitimized through recognition in print music media.

With music blogs engaging in new forms of curatorship where recordings are considered for recognition and discussion through unmediated provocation, the blogger becomes a cultural producer through publicly investing in their own set of meanings for the se cultural objects, however banal or inconsequential they may be. Even seemingly random posted collections of songs hold a particular relationship with one another, operating as points of discourse on the wider cultural significance of particular musical recordings and their producers. In effect, the bloggers, representing the audience / consumer, become cultural producers in their own right. They create new cultural objects that, in turn, are circulated.

In the music blogosphere, a recording cornes to be recognized first through a writer' s critique and posted link. It cornes to be legitimized as culturally significant in a dialogical manner, principally through the number ofwriters blogging about it and / or creating links to the site of original recognition. This can be seen as a kind of fusion between specific and popular legitimacy; a fusion of what Bourdieu posits to be diametrically opposed forms oflegitimacy (see Chapter One). Recognition amongst discerning listeners maintain blogs grant sorne authority of opinion among fans. The meaning-making niche presented by blogs lends validity to a selected recording, and this is represented in the number of links connecting one blog to another. Links to the recording itself or its critique signify a peer-recognized significance of that recording and

62 / or the meaning taken up by the writer. Links also indicate a popular legitimacy, or public acclaim, for a recording. In this manner, the forms oflegitimacy exist in a co­ dependent relationship. Peer recognition for a recording and a blogger' s analysis provides public acclaim for both the music and the blogger.

Links then operate simultaneously as principal legitimizing devices for two interconnected cultural objects: the recording and the blog itself. Although other quantifiable factors such as the number of "hits"g and unique visitors in specific timeframes (day, week, month) can measure the popularity of a blog, the number of links indicates the extent to which the opinion or information on a blog is valued, and therefore circulated. A blog not linked to other blogs may escape any wider notice, whereas a blog linked 800 times (a situation enjoyed by such music blogs as GorilIavsBear.com and

9 Stereogum.com ) is vaHdated as an important source of information for other bloggers. In other words, its cultural value is negotiated through its connections to other spaces of meaning-making.

AlI of this is not lost on both independent and mainstream record labels looking to increase exposure for their artists and respective recordings. Music blogs are part of a more autonomous meaning-making apparatus than print music publications. On a blog, critique grows organicalIy out of the subjective tastes of the blog creator rather than as a result of the persuasive mechanism of music publicity. The music blogosphere has become the ultimate word-of-mouth space of information and circulation of recordings. It is now recognized by the industry as "the holy grail of album launch campaigns, and a requirement for marketing both developing and established acts" (Christine Zafiris, quoted in Bruno 2006b: 28).

63 By merging both metacultural analysis with the cultural object itself, blogs are crucial arenas in the digital ecosystem for building attention for recordings. As new cultural brokers, blogs retain a degree of autonomy from the market, but are becoming increasingly utilized for building grassroots influence on it. These spaces have more of an impact in determining the trajectories of circulation for recordings than record labels can hope to achieve in traditional promotional spaces like print music publications.

Spank Rock on the Blogs

While monitoring the results of the promotional campaign for Spank Rock through my work at Ninja Tune, 1 took notes on blog writing about the band. To supplement the se notes for the purpose of this analysis, 1 searched the term "Spank Rock" with the foUowing search engines: Elbo.ws, Hype-Standard.net and Technorati.org. AU three search engines cross-reference any search term within the myriad blogs in their

lO respective extensive databases • Elbo.ws and Hype-Standard.net are termed music blog aggregators, compiling MP3 blogs into a focused database that can be easily subscribed to with newsreader services such as RSS or XML. Technorati.org is a wider database containing information from a variety of blogs, not just music blogs. 1 restricted my search to MP3 postings in Elbo.ws and Hype-Standard.net in order to examine how the music is discussed (if at all) and monitor the number oflinks between blogs. For

T echnorati.org, 1 searched within any reference to "Spank Rock".

The earliest MP3 link for the group is on a blog called "Banana Nutrament", a blog by a Brooklyn-based music fan, typically focused on Brooklyn-related events and music. The entry on Spank Rock dealt with the song "Put That P***y on Me."ll Under

64 the caption "Sorne White Boys Sure to Imitate That" (a lyric taken from the song), the writer, Damell, posts: "Actually l ain't imitating, not even stealing, just sharing. Sharing for the purpose ofyou buying this, or at least being aware ofit." (Banana Nutrament,

2005: online).

The next posting archived is from 10 December 2005 on "Gorilla Vs Bear", a widely read music blog. The writer, Chris, posts the same song, "Put that P***y on Me" with the note that he first heard of the band through their opening slot with M.I.A. Note that this is a point reiterated in Big Dada's one-sheet for Spank Rock. Chris also provides a link to a news item on a posting within the site from 9 Sept 2005 with the note that "the guy has charisma" (GorillavsBear.net, 2005: online), and a further link to the

Big Dada site where it is possible to purchase Spank Rock recordings. According to

Technorati.org, "Gorilla Vs Bear" has 800 blogs linking to it, meaning it wields considerable influence in the circulation of information about music.

Blog postings regarding Spank Rock songs pick up again in early 2006, averaging six links a month, ranging from postings announcing parties where Spank Rock will be playing through to wider commentary on the music itself. The most significant of these postings is found on another widely cited site called "Fluxblog" (according to

Technorati.org, Fluxblog is mentioned in approximately 10-20 posts in other blogs each day) where the bloggers discuss Spank Rock's second single, "Rick Rubin," in this manner: "Spank Rock raps like a nerdier version of Q Tip over an impressive composition mixing the stark video game synth style of The Neptunes with busy, syncopated percussion and odd touches of electronic psychedelia. (Fluxblog, 2006:

65 online). Here we see a rehashing of the comparison made in the record company's one­ sheet.

A third example is a posting from "Music For Robots.com" featuring an MP3 of a remix of Spank Rock' s single "Rick Rubin" - two weeks before it is slated for US release. The commentary ranges from the assurance that the album will be "worth every penny", to comparisons with other music: "can say with a fair amount of certainty that if you're into dancing like a maniac, have enjoyed anything associated with Hollertronix, older-school B'more breaks, or , or even electro, or Slick Rick - there's so many points the se guys hit on here - you won't be disappointed with this boundary-pushing record." This commentary is couched within his personal experience seeing Spank Rock live, where it was "tons of fun" and he prompts others to go (musicforrobots.com 2006: online).

Looking at each of these occurrences on music blogs, it becomes evident that blogs speak about a recording project in a way that still maintains sorne of the reference points provided by the label' s perspective, but they move beyond those references to construct an even more astute summary of what the record sounds like.

66 CHAPTER FOUR: Tuning in to the Sounds: Radio and Podcasts

In this chapter l will look at both community-based campus radio ("clc radio,,)l music programmes (focusing on music programming at CKUT-FM in Montreal), and music podcasts. l will investigate how meaning-making is constructed in these realms and how it enables musical recordings to circulate, albeit in different manners. Like print media and blogs, both c/c radio and podcasts fuse circulation of musical recordings with metacultural analysis.

Circulation in music radio programming is tied to the "local", though a mass- media broadcast perspective is sometimes useful. Individual shows, however, tend to address niches of interest. l chose CKUT to illustrate my arguments as the station is considered one of the most engaging c/c radio stations in Canada, and l have been a volunteer music programmer at the station for three years. Podcasts, on the other hand, circulate musical recordings to very individualized spaces, but potentially to a greater number of listeners overall, due to the availability of podcast texts to a global audience.

One principal feature of both spheres is the fluid relationship between those who produce programming - either on the airwaves or as downloadable files - and those who listen.

The listener is the producer and vice versa. Podcasts are also an actualized extension in the circulation of the radio text, discemible objects in their own right. Music programming on c/c radio also exhibits this function but in a more muted manner.

Currently, however, the principles behind the availability ofpodcasts - principally, time- shifted or selective appointments with a program - are slowly being taken up by c/c music programmmg.

67 Community-Based Campus Radio

Charles Fairchild situates community-based campus radi02 as the institutional expression of a significant ideological challenge to mainstream media discourse, outlining its constituent elements as democratic, participatory, local, and accessible

(2001: 93). Simply put, c/c radio is a non-profit media institution. Both programming and the day-to-day organizational framework of c/c stations function by this core ideology. C/c radio is self-consciously distinct from the dominant media sphere, both as a result of its self-imposed desire to be outside the mainstream and its legal imperative, according to licensing regulations, to operate autonomously from it. By its principles, c/c radio represents the possibility and actuality of an open participatory media practice, defined in part by the fluid relationship between media producers and listening audience, where its listeners are encouraged to "be the media", both as creators of the radio programmes and the content. In this sense, c/c radio is a dialogical institution. Both programming and station management operate in an open manner, where input from volunteers, staff, and community members shape the conditions in which the station operates, making it a processual rather than fixed model of media production. Members of the community in which the station operates produce programming. These individuals are station volunteers provide a certain number ofunpaid hours dedicated to helping the functioning of the station. In this sense, the relationship between producer and audience is extremely fluid, as producers are themselves members of the audience, and potentially vice versa.

68 The Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) outline two general types of programming on community-based campus radio: music and spoken word3 (CRTC 2000: online). Music programming on c/c radio has traditionally been the domain for the exposure of new or overlooked sounds provided to an interested listening audience. Comprised of shows dedicated to exploring particular styles or genres of music, campus and community radio music programming makes a point of playing musical sounds that may be considered aesthetically unpopular and generally ignored in the dominant media sphere, thereby enabling artists experimenting with musical forms to become familiar to interested listeners. This support has been crucial for artists who wish to expand beyond their immediately localized sphere of music practice and reach wider interested audiences, thereby establishing a career path in the finicky business of independent music.

Music Programming

At CKUT, music programming is subdivided into two categories: Community

Access and General Music. The first category delineates programs including music as weIl as news and information that service particular cultural communities in the wider listening public. These programs are coordinated and produced by individuals and groups of individuals from the community-at-Iarge, sorne who must be station volunteers.

Community Access programs are produced on their own initiative with approval from the station' s Programming Committee and with resource support from the music department.

General Music programs, however, are produced and created by the members of the wider listening community and non-staff volunteers. These programs cannot be said

69 to provide a direct community mandate beyond providing alternative musical content and format. The programs are produced through the music department. This means that technical and production training, information, and other resources (i.e. access to artists and record labels for interviews) are facilitated and administered by the Music

Programming and Music Resource coordinators. Most General Music programs feature music in a wide range of genres, either as specialty music focused on one or a particular subset of musical genres, or "open format" where all styles of music are considered for broadcast.

By its very definition, campus and community radio is tied to the local. By its self-identification as an "alternative" mass medium, it operates as a conduit for understanding the contexts and relationships between musical recordings and their creators that are overlooked in mainstream or dominant media spheres. Within c/c radio, this is an outwardly acknowledged and prized differentiation of programming and organizational functioning from an increasingly homogenized and banal mainstream media sphere. It is an alternate model of media making, rather than simply a rhetorical opposition to mainstream media CKUT-FM effectively addresses this within its Mission

Statement, noting: "CKUT functions not only as an alternative to the status quo, but as a viable community resource," mandated to service those in the Montreal community

"whose needs are not being met by mainstream commercial radio". This resource grants airtime to address issues of concern in specific communities and "provid[es] training and facilities where Montreal community members and McGill students can gain knowledge and experience in different facets of radio, namely programming, broadcasting, and management" (CKUT 2003: 19-20). CKUT's programming is the public face of the radio

70 station and CKUT' s Statement of Principles reiterates its differentiation from mainstream media spheres by noting that the station "will present programming of a nature and in a format not normally presented by commercial radio broadcasters or the CBC ... [and] will further promote programming emphasizing local and regional content" (21).

C/c radio operates as a nexus point between independent musicmakers and localized music scenes defined as "cultural space[s] in which a range of musical practices coexist, interacting with each other within a variety of processes of differentiation, and according to widely varying trajectories of change and cross-fertilization" (Straw, 1991:

373). Practices within scenes are not limited to techniques or means of music production, but include wider considerations such as practices of distribution (simply how music as a cultural commodity is circulated between aIl points in the network) and practices of mediation - where such music will be actually heard, rather than heard about (i.e. clubs, specialty radio programs, DJ mix compilations either on CD or streaming on websites, record stores, and so on).

In short, music practices within a particular music scene necessarily include the means for making music physically available as commodities and sonically available as works of art. By connecting musicmakers with listeners or an audience outside of their immediate sphere of influence, music programming on c/c radio stations creates new spaces for interaction between those who are creating music and those interested in listening. In addition, it operates as a "pluralistic social space ... where diversity and difference are positively charged [to] allow individuals so inclined to be slowly ingratiated into a broader social and cultural space [and] find themselves immersed in city-wide industrial and institutional networks which link together a range of media,

71 media outlets and musical fora which serve to deepen the urban sociomusical experience"

(Stahl, 2002: 107-8). Individuals can engage with the wider networks of music practice by engaging directly and indirectly in these unique spaces where ideas, information, and people congregate.

Programming Music: Programming Meaning

Insofar as they broadcast content compiled by music curation, opinion analysis and information-sharing, community-based campus radio music programmers are cultural producers in their own right. A radio show is a cultural object comprised of musical recordings threaded together with commentary in a flow that is immediately experienced by the listener. The radio programme is identified with the station that hosts it by virtue ofbeing broadcast over its airwaves and through ties to station-identified activities as presented in local community events, sponsorships, etc. However, the programme is also a distinct object in its own right, with a uniquely identified listening audience (i.e. an audience that tunes injust for that show but not any others) and clearly defined borders of identity, as defined by the host(s), styles of music played, and the full curation of the pro gram itself. In other words, it is a named entity with a particular aesthetic clearly distinguishing its flow from other music programmes on a station.

Musical recordings make their way to community-based campus radio stations in a wide variety of ways. Artists without a record label may make available their recordings to the station via the music department or specific programmers. This is an immediate way to have radio programmers consider independent artists for airplay. While

72 4 this happens quite a bit , recordings tend to come through record labels or publicity channels more frequently.

As mentioned in Chapter Two, a record label will position a recording vis-à-vis particular associative sonic and ideological touchstones to enable the recording to circulate along a desired trajectory both in actuality (physical purchased ownership of the recording) or consumers that will be more likely to be curious enough to listen to it and, hopefully, purchase it. Recordings are sent to the station's music department alongside the record's one-sheet - the face of the label's marketing for the project, as discussed earlier.

New releases are processed by the music department listening to the recordings, noting the reeording's genre classification, and then are made available as a resource in the new release section of the station's library. These recordings are made available as a resource for aIl volunteers at the station. Publicists and label employees may establish relationships with the music department to get a sense of how the promoted records and artists are doing, and they may even attempt to bribe or coerce the music director to increase the frequency with which a recording gets played on-air (Wilmoth, 2006: online). However, the label's influence on how a recording might be perceived stops dead at the door of the c/c radio music department.

It is neither the c/c music department nor the music director that mold the shows on a cie station. Radio programmes propel the circulation of musical recordings in specific ways. Programmers decide what recordings and other related content are selected for broadcast - it is not the job of the music department nor any other administrative body within the station. Individual taste is the prime determinant. Music programmers on c/c

73 radio are discerning listeners attuned to both the actual and metacultural movements of recordings. In the creation of their programmes, they operate as filters, reconfiguring how actual recordings engage with ideas about their sound.

Programmers encounter recordings in myriad ways, such as through the radio station's 'new release' and archivaI music libraries; personal interactions with artists; and by engaging with various metacultural sites such as print music publications and blogs.

As a creator of the radio text, programmers add to the metacultural circulation of the recording by adding their own interpretation of its cultural significance in relationship with other recordings in the flow of the programme itself. This creates yet another layer of meaning atop of that provided by the record label, print media, and blogs.

Recognition of these recordings in a broadcast sphere imbues them with a cultural legitimacy. This is in line with c/c radio's challenging homogenized content in the mainstream media sphere - a sphere that delegitimizes the se recordings by not recognizing them at all. This act of recognition for these pieces of art is revolutionary for it ensures a diversity of musical ideas on the airwaves, and stands in stark contrast to commercial radio where centralized play lists slot a fixed number of songs (determined as

"hits") for rotation throughout their broadcasting day in order to secure listeners as demographic markets for advertisers (Berland, 1990).

Extending Influence: The Playlist

The circulation of the radio programme itself also helps accelerate the circulation of recordings. Traditionally the radio show circulates beyond the immediate encounter with its particular flow of programming through its playlist: the written record noting

74 which recordings were played within its duration. Playlists can be considered metacultural documents - a record of the existence of the recording, rather than the recording itself - that circulate in two specific ways.

First, these documents inform the station's music department what songs are being played, how often and from which . Information from the music programming playlists are aggregated into a weekly station music chart that ranks recordings by the number oftimes an album's songs receive airplay on different music programmes in that time period. Typically the se charts will reflect actual airplay for new releases.5 These charts are submitted to organizations that compile station charts collected from a particular region, typically nationally, to publish in dedicated print music publications.6 However, sorne programmers send out to or post their programme playlists in a wide variety of sites: emaillistservs; print music publications and blogs, to name a few. Programmers thereby move their radio show outside of its immediately encountered space into purely metacultural spaces. This allows the programmer to mark for a degree of posterity that certain recordings were recognized in a particular regional space. This is done to build authority and status within a particular music-making sphere, in short, to be recognized enough and in turn granted culturallegitimacy through peer recognition.

Radio shows also circulate as independent recorders of the flow of programming on its host radio station. They pro vide the opportunity for archivaI recording, traditionally operated through home-recording radio shows onto tape or CD and circulating the se radio texts among peers interested in similar or different styles ofmusic.7 Since technology has enabled c/c radio stations to broadcast streaming audio over the Internet, sorne listeners have looked to capturing these streams and creating MP3 archives of radio shows for

75 download purposes.8 This taped or downloaded archive is disconnected from the linear flow of the station's programming, although it is very much connected to the station through adherence to programming mandates, on-air protocol and most importantly, the radio station's objective to serve the communities to which it broadcasts.

The radio show here becomes a unique cultural object imbued with the 'local' of the station's identity (for example, advertisements and on-air discussion about upcoming music events, interviews with local musicmakers). As the radio text itself circulates among those interested listeners who may be aware of the station, and in particular the show's, existence, the 'local' is strongly represented in the songs that are played and the commentary about them. These factors imbue the radio show with the ability to localize musical texts through various contextualizations.

With playlists and charts, the 'local' is represented in the songs and artists selected for broadcast. In aggregate chart spaces the local is presented in the record of the station' s submitted chart so to announce and validate what was broadcast in that space very much connected to the community in which it broadcasts to. Although a c/c radio show is experienced immediately and time-shifts due to the se manners, it is taking up the space of podcasting. As has been demonstrated, c/c radio is a rich metacultural space whose very existence relies on the layers of commentary provided by various programmers, music departments, and the record labels that choose to send their recordings to such stations. Further layers of meaning are imbued on recorded texts through their circulation on such stations, further demonstrating the way in which independent music functions as the subject of repeated analyses.

76 Spank Rock on CIC Radio in Canada

ln Spank Rock's case, it is difficult to monitor airplay for recordings beyond looking at station charts, since c/c radio stations play such varied music and have little need to track the songs played beyond assuring content adheres to the rules of the CRTC.

Charts, however, allowed me to track down whether Spank Rock registered enough plays on radio stations to warrant charting. The data 1 used is drawn from the National Campus and Community Radio Association (NCRA) Music Director listserv. 1 have been a member ofthis service since Fa1l2004; it includes the charts of approximately 20 reporting stations from across Canada.

1 monitored station charts submissions for received airplay for Spank Rock to see where the act charted since the release of YoYoYoYoYo in April 2006. The album was played enough times to register on the chart. - on CFUV (University of Victoria),

YoYoYoYoYo was added on 10 April, three days before it was released in Canada. The following week, it charted number ten on the Top 30 chart, and number two on the hip hop chart.

At CHOU (University of Ottawa), during the week ofits Canadian release (the week of April 14), the album charted at number ten on the hip hop chart, meaning lesser spins on overall programmes, but higher spins on shows playing hip hop.

CKXU (University ofLethbridge, AB) and others charted it on the hip hop chart, reaching no higher than five (out of the Top 10). On CKUT (McGill University),

YoYoYoYoYo charts at number twenty-five on the Top 30 and number eight on the Top 10

Beatbox chart. Afterwards, the record fell off the radar. This does not mean that the

77 record ceased to be played at an on the station, just that programmers may have been playing it less frequently as there are newer things to play. 9

Clearly, from the detailing of the chart results for YoYoYoYoYo on Canadian campus radio it is evident that Spank Rock's music entered into the realm of circulation that c/c radio provides.

Music Podcasts

Podcasts have been described as "the natural technological offspring of Web logs or blogs" (Quain 2005). These are individualized spaces where anyone with access to a computer and the Internet, who possesses the technological savvy to download software and upload content, can create any kind of audio composition they desire. Podcasts are digital cultural objects, radiogenic texts, created with the intent of wider circulation. They are created to be posted somewhere in cyberspace - a blog or a website - to be downloaded by interested listeners either manually or automatically through subscription software tapped into information feeds that alert subscribers when new episodes are posted.

This subscription feature distinguishes podcasting from other forms of internet­ based audio practices (Berry 2006; Bruno 2006b; Raine and Madden 2005). The circulation of a given podcast may be limited to a small group of listeners - one's friends, for example - or to larger numbers oflisteners. It is difficult to ascertain definitive figures on how many podcasts are available for download, but according to sorne podcast directories like Podcast AIley.com and iTunes, there are between 26,000 and 35,000 unique podcasts online (podcastalley.com, 2006; iTunes.com, 2006) with approximately

78 29 per cent of the 22 million portable media owners in the V.S. accessing podcasts regularly (Raine and Madden 2005).10

Music podcasts should also be considered the natural technological extension of community-based campus radio music programming as the relationship between producer and discerning music listener / consumer is also extremely fluid. The same type of desire that drives individuals to 'make radio' drives music podcasting. It is about the desire to create an individualized space of meaning-making in the clutter of culture.

Similar to blogging, podcasting is an open sphere in which anyone with the desire to speak back to the culturallandscape around them, armed with the necessary tools - technical know-how and access to digital technology - can do so. The term 'podcast' is etymologically related to 'broadcast', merging the increased popularity of MP3 devices such as Apple's iPod with the notion ofwider dissemination of content. Podcasts are not exclusively tied to the use of the iPod, however; anyone with a computer, an Internet connection and the proper software for playing back MP3 files can access the se recordings. When titled 'shows', 'programmes', and 'episodes' it becomes easy to draw connections between podcasts and radio, where shows are distinctive entities with particular personalities in terms oftheir composition (i.e. music / commentary ratio, styles of music explored, interview subjects, and so on). Actual figures on the number of music podcasts are shaky, but Quain notes: "programs dedicated to music still dominate the podcast universe" (2005: online).

Berry views podcasts as both a converged medium bringing together audio, the

Internet and portable media devices, and a disruptive technology that is prompting a reconsideration of "established practices and preconceptions about audiences,

79 consumption, production and distribution" (144). One principal element of the disruption that is reconfiguring those relationships is the time-shifted nature of podcast listening.

Podcast shows are produced in one time framework and listened to at a later time. This stands in stark contrast to radio, where content production and the act of listening occur simultaneously.ll It changes listening to a practice of convenience from a practice requiring a time appointment. In this respect, listeners are invested with a significant amount of power to choose how and when to listen (145). This also gives more freedom for the producer to create an episode when they choose to, rather than make themselves physically available at a radio station to create their show at specifically appointed times.

In addition, the independent nature of podcasting allows producers to disengage from any broadcast regulations in regards to language, content or the like.

Music podcasts are also loosened from the moorings of the 'local'. Podcasts are cultural objects not necessarily tied to 'place', but rather could be representative of an

"everywhere yet nowhere" space of transmission, rooted in the localism of where the producer is located, but not necessarily defmed in relation to its content. So even though the content of a podcast show could focus exclusively on recordings and artists based in the same geographic location as the podcaster, the podcast itself is not limited to a local audience as it would be with a radio program. By virtue of connecting to podcast directories and circulating information about the show around in different metacultural sites such as blogs, an audience outside of that local space may be more attuned to picking up that pro gram than locallisteners, thereby enabling those recordings to circulate even further than possible on c/c radio. The potential audience reach is massive.

80 Even if we are to follow the logic that 22 million Americans own an MP3 device and approximately 30 % regularly access podcasts (Raine and Madden, 2005), that is approximately seven million people aware of and listening to podcasts in the United

States alone. Those seven million people make up a much larger audience than any campus-based community radio music programme could ever receive.

There are significant limitations for tracking the movement of recordings among podcasts. Quite frankly, producers may or may not document the content of their podcasts alongside where they are made available for download, rendering any accurate tracking of when or where a particular music recording is played nearly impossible unless one listens to podcasts 'most likely' playing the style of music that recording could be categorized alongside. This speaks to the reliance on the printed documentation to validate the existence of musical recordings, in a sense, much in the same manner that both playlists and station chart rankings function.

Another limitation is how podcast directories are catalogued. Similar to blog directories, podcast directories catalogue podcasts only if a podcaster submits theirs for inclusion, which they typically do in order to be searchable and listened to. One can search podcasts according to genre or name of the podcast itself. But it is nearly impossible to search for a specific artist in a podcast unless the producer has gone through the trouble to include the artist or recording project's name in their tags (search terms provided as descriptors for a particular podcast), which is rarely the case. Given these significant limitations on tracking the circulation of particular artists and compositions, it is extremely difficult to discem how information about recordings, as

81 contextualized by an independent record label in the one-sheet, move in the music podcast universe.

However, music podcasts offer a powerful means to enable independent record labels more control over the circulation of the musical recordings on their imprints.

Independent record labels could create podcasts as a dedicated regular programme for showcasing new releases and selections from their overall catalogue. With the use of software applications like Really Simple Syndication (RSS) to enable automatic downloads of new podcasts for subscribers, podcasts have a considerably significant and potentially massive audience reach.

AIso, this would be a promotional channel through which an independent record label could exert the most amount of control over the presentation of its releases.

Commentary could be directly connected to the marketing material of the one-sheet, and artists from the label would be able to contribute exclusive material not available elsewhere, conditioning the podcast as a kind of 'event'. In etfect, a music podcast would

'bring alive' the curatorial direction and personality of the label itself. As ofmid-2006, this has been positioned as a serious consideration for the North American Ninja Tune office to reach out to the CUITent fan base and potentially future fans. I2 Other independent record labels have already embraced the use this technology. 13 It is difficult to gather figures in order to examine what impact, if any, does podcast subscription statistics have on record sales. However, with reaching out to a CUITent and potential fan base that is already web-savvy and into digital technology, it is a potential powerful channel to enable musical recordings to circulate further than c/c radio play.

82 Podcasting Spank Rock

In Spank: Rock's case, it is admittedly difficult to locate podcasts that have or currently include Spank Rock recordings as part of the overall content. However, there are three examptes of recognition 1 noted in the course of campaign for YoYoYoYoYo. On

Dailysonic.com, Spank Rock was the featured artist during their podcast series in late

January 2006 dealing with the subject of Baltimore Club music. The host, Aaron Taylor

Walderman, starts off the show with an excerpt from a Spank Rock mix CD and then proceeds to outlîne the context of 'Baltimore Club music' by citing irrfluential DJs playing the se sounds (Hollertronix, Diplo), its sonic foundations ("sweaty and minimal, supercharged with explicit sexuallyrics") and its historical antecedents (Waldmen, 2006: podcast). He then begins to discuss Spank Rock's place in that musical movement, providing basic background information about its members and then launching into describing their music, stating "if s in your face, putting glitch and on the table at the same time" (Walderman podcast). He then tells listeners to "keep an eye out" for the album, and ends off the podcast by playing a Spank Rock song in its entirety.

Essentially, this podcast takes on a radiogenic form of the blog, and, to my knowledge, was done completely at the behest of the podcaster. 1 would argue that the timing of this podcast relates to increased recognition for Spank Rock in print music magazines issues released in mid-January and on higher profile music blogs (see Chapter

Three). In this sense, the podcast is connected with the wider ebb and flow of information circulation about Spank Rock.

The second and third cases are somewhat related. As 1 briefly noted earlier in the endnotes to this chapter, Ninja Tune UK pro duces a podcast entitled "

83 Podcast", which operates as more of a promotional avenue for Ninja UK's Solid Steel

Radio programme on KISS-FM in London than a marketing vehicle for the label's new releases and back catalogue. Episodes are produced as a continuous DJ mix, rather than a radio-style format with commentary. As it is connected with Ninja Tune, new releases from the label and its imprints are almost always included in the podcast. For the l April

2006 episode, Spank Rock was clearly mentioned at the top of the show as "new music to look out for in this show". This form of recognition can undoubtedly be considered a self­ serving one - to ensure the association between the artist and label, albeit less explicitly.

However, this does enable Spank Rock's music and their name to circulate to subscribers and downloaders who may not be aware of the Big Dada imprint on Ninja Tune, or may not even be aware that the labels are related. This prope1s the music onto people' s computers and portable media devices, and, in doing so, furthers the reach and circulation of the music itself.

The final traceable incident of Spank Rock recognition in the podcast universe is on the fIfSt Mad Decent Radio podcast from l Feb 2006. Mad Decent is a small, independent record label run by Diplo, a DJ based in Philadelphia who is considered one of the most significant tastemaker DJs in the North America. His connection to Spank

Rock is quite personal: he helped connect them with Big Dada, which ultimately landed them a recording contract, as Spank Rock are personal friends and have performed with

Diplo in Philadelphia through his Hollertronix14 parties.

Diplo has curated irregularly posted podcasts since February. A portion of Spank

Rock's single, "Rick Rubin", was included on Diplo's inaugural podcast, but it is part of a wider mix of music interspersed with interviews with musicmakers in Baltimore

84 explaining the roots of Baltimore Club. This particular podcast is significant for recognition because Spank Rock is considered a kind of "next generation" to the

Baltimore Club sound. As well, due to Diplo's astronomical popularity in North America and around the world, anything associated with his name will he noticed. Aligning Spank

Rock within that podcast situates their sound in the history of that particular genre, as weIl as ensures their recording circulates among those interested in Diplo' s curation of music as a Dl

85 CONCLUSION

Throughout the course of this study, 1 have attempted to show that the movement of musical recordings is conditioned by meanings imprinted onto them by different interpretive communities that, in turn, further propel the circulation of the recording. As the cultural broker situated between the original creator - the artist - and the music market, the independent record label discursively constructs the recording to be released into the wider system of circulation, along with the recordin in the form of the one-sheet.

It is an extension of the label's recognized curatorial approach in the microfield of breakbeat-oriented hybrid music-making as well as in the wider field of music-making.

Once that recording leaves the space of the label, it is taken up by different sites of meaning-making. This is achieved in the manner of recognition and valuing. Sites that are themselves consecrated (that is, recognized by other meaning makers, creators, and cultural brokers as culturally significant) enable the circulation of musical recordings to reach more spaces of awareness, in turn circulating further as these are taken up in spaces where consumers become cultural producers in their own right, creating metacultural texts that configure the meaning of recordings in particularized ways.

Music blogs can be considered an extension of print music publications, but without the' gatekeeper' predilection that requires seasoned practitioners - music publicists - to navigate in order to ensure even the most basic degree of recognition (i.e. a review) is granted. Music blogs expand on the metacultural analysis executed in statiç print music publications by positioning both commentary and object together.

86 1 consider this a real break in the conditioned manner of circulation that a record label hopes will occur. 1 believe that independent record labels should be paying more attention to music bloggers than they have up to this point. These are the perfect avenues for reaching a collection of niche audiences, particularly through the very powerful networking capability through linking to other blogs and the quick flow of information and recordings together.

Music podcasts and community-based campus radio music programmes share a similar feature as both creating radio texts: auraI compositions of meaning making for musical recordings that necessarily include both metacultural analysis as weIl as representations of the recordings themselves. These sites also share in common the fluid relationships between producers of metaculture. Consumers, armed with the empowered dynamic of speaking back to the culturallandscape are able to establish personalized meanings for these objects.

ln c/c radio, charts are another important text that circulates; they are the metacultural representation of the fact that recordings were ever imprinted on the airwaves. With podcasts, there is currently no method in which to track how recordings circulate, but with increased subscription numbers and listeners that exist globally, this must be an avenue that record labels and artists investigate as a way in which to circulate recordings so as to achieve wider audiences and wider consecration of musical texts.

This research has prompted me to consider whether one could elicit taws of circulation for particular recordings. Is there a manner in which to predict how a particular category of cultural object - a musical recording - can move in the world? Is it at all possible to lay out a kind of trajectory that follows a particular kind of logic in

87 movement? 1 believe that my analysis, examining different spheres of meaning making and attempting to trace how a recording project moves, could provide a rich foundation for future research initiatives in this area.

As a practitioner within an industry concemed with these issues, 1 know that even a basic framework pointing to the probabilities of more direct cause-and-effect connections that could be tested and proven would enable independent labels, and, ideally, artists themselves, a chance to truly enable their music to be disseminated to as many people as possible. The intention, of course, being that wider recognition would validate recordings with a cultural significance that an audience would gladly support - and the independent record labels could be assured of adequate support, enabling them to continue to produce recordings.

88 ENDNOTES

CHAPTER ONE - Introduction and Theoretical Foundation

Social agents are defined by Johnson as those who "act in concrete social situations governed by set of objective social relations" (Johnson, in Bourdieu 1993: 7) 2 One could think of a cultural object as an entity created by humans as a representation and production of the reality around them: a reality simultaneously both perceived and constructed.

CHAPTER TWO - Don't Drink from the Mainstream: Record Labels Anticipating Circulation

This phrase was used by Ninja Tune in their early marketing literature (see Ninja Tune "Press Resource Pack 1990-2006) 2 Licensing is the practice of selling music for use by other record labels (Le. music compilations) or to various media outlets (namely film, television, and video games). Although this has become a significant revenue stream for independent record labels over the last few years, it is beyond the scope of this project to delve deeper into its position in the circulatory matrix ofmusic and meaning making, and should be taken up in future research. 3 Both the Big Dada and Counter Records imprints fall under the Ninja Tune umbrella. Given that employees ofNinja Tune also work for Big Dada and Counter Records, for the sake of clarity in this paper Ninja Tune will refer to the stable of imprints. 4 Considering issues of payola - payment for playon commercial radio stations managed by major record labels through hiding behind record promotion companies - this may be more the result of promotional efforts rather than simply the result of genre. 5 Please see Blashill2004; Hoard 2004; Salamon, 1998; and 1998. 6 Label founders Coldcut are considered sorne of the most recognized purveyors of cut-and-paste dance music in the 1980s alongside Double D and Steinski and others. 7 AIl references to the Spank Rock YoYoYoYoYo one-sheet will be directed to Appendix 1

CHAPTER THREE Print Music Joumalism and Music BIogs: The Culture ofCriticism

Admittedly, sorne blogs attempt to function in this way and therefore act as extensions ofprint media 2 The quotation was as follows: "If a new Hollertronix mixtape is like a dungeon master's primer for blockparty bangers, then Spank Rock will award you one million hit points." (Ware, 2006) 3 Monthly music publications typically have a shelf life ofthree weeks, and are posted on magazine shelves about 2 weeks from the start of the month of its issue; alternative weeklies are weekly publications usually found in larger urban centers that focus on that city's current news events, community events, and the local music and arts scene. 4 Even the pitches of the publicist are creative interpretations of the one-sheet. In this case it was important to present numerous ways of articulating Spank Rock as an exarnple of living vicariously, bringing the party, etc. A magazine might do the same. A magazine exploring electronic music might, using the one-sheet's musical references, be easily able to position Spank Rock as a new hybrid form of electronica mixed with hiphop music and / or club music. 5 These articles could not draw on information from the Ninja Tune one-sheet for the album, rather had to rely on information circulating about the band - the biography they provided, for example, and their first single released on Money Studies entitled "Put that P***y on Me." 6 To not post frequently renders yOuf blog a non-authority, readers crave new content and one cannot maintain any degree of authority in the music blogosphere content fails to be replenished regularly, dailyeven. 7 Podcasts will be discussed in the following chapter. 8 'Hits' is a slang term for the traffic, or readers, a website receives.

89 9 The statistic here is taken from Technorati.org, a blog search engine, accessed 18 July 2006; this site allows you to search any topic ofyour choosing and displays results listed chronologically from most recent posting. Gorilla vs Bear and Stereogum are two of the most widely read music blogs today. 10 Blogs need to connect with these search engines in order to be searched through them. Typically this is done for free or a small nominal charge, and sometimes on the condition the blog posts a (permanent link) in the sidebar announcing its affiliation to a particular search engine. These are also ever­ evolving databases, where users can also recommend blogs for inclusion. 11 This is the f!Tst song Spank Rock released on another label called Money Studies, and which Ninja Tune picked up for release in advance of their f!Tst single for the Big Dada 1 Ninja Tune, entitled " Backyard Betty."

CHAPTER FOUR - Tuning in to the Sounds: Radio and Podcasts

ln the Campus Radio Policy from 2000, the term "campus 1 community radio station" was changed to "community-based campus station", reflecting a more precise defmition of the station's role for both campus and the community. C/c radio stations in Canada originated as "radio clubs" broadcasting either solely on-campus or to a small field of community. Many c/c stations have now grown to a point where they are broadcasting to a wider listening public(s). 2 1 use the term 'community-based campus radio' (c/c radio) instead of'college radio' as used in the American context to capture the nuance that these radio stations may be physically situated on university campus es, yet their programming services beyond that community. 3 Spoken word programming deals principally with specific topics. It is issue-oriented programming covering community issues as weIl as arts and culture. 4 As cie radio stations are the f!Tst level of media that many artists without a record label may have, many artists tend to direct their projects to radio stations with the hope ofreceiving airplay. 5 At CKUT-FM, playlists are compiled into a Top 30 chart as weIl as specialty music charts: RPM (i.e. electronic music); Jazz; Beatbox (i.e. hip hop); Global (i.e. world music); and LOUD (i.e. metal 1 noise). To view examples ofthese charts, check www.ckut.ca/charts. 6 Earshot! charts account for airplay received by Canadian c/c radio stations and is published in Exc/aim! magazine in Canada; College Music Journal compiles charts received from American c/c radio stations and publishes both individual station charts and aggregated charts in College Music Journal New Music Monthly. 7 1 speak from personal experience about this issue. When 1 was a teenager, 1 could not afford purchasing new music on a regular basis. 1 would record several different kinds of radio programs to listen and get to know the music, and trade amongst my friends listening to different radio shows, so that we could understand different styles of music. 8 The CKUT online programming grid is a wonderful example ofthis: www.ckut.ca/ ~rogramming.php Given that the focus of this paper is on the circulation of recordings within Canada, 1 have limited my analysis to that of Canadian c/c radio stations. It would, however, be interesting to fmd radio charts for the eastem US, particularly Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York (the main spaces in which Spank Rock began their career) to see how the record was being played there. One could then evaluate Spank Rock's circulation in those local spaces.

10 Due to the absence of research into Canadian podcasting statistics and minimal research in the US, 1 found this number significant enough to indicate potential podcast engagement in North America. This number, however, may be significantly higher considering the date of publication and the fact that iPods have become ubiquitous. 11 Although, admittedly, this is changing slightly due to increased availability of radio programme archives as distinctive digital files that may circulate independently of the tlow of the station that originally broadcast it, as outlined in the f!Tst half of this chapter 12 Ninja Tune U.K. creates the "Solid Steel Podcast" twice a month, which is a mix of music including lots of Ninja Tune new releases as weIl as office favourites. However, it is used more as a

90 promotional tool for the "Solid Steel" radio programme on KISS FM in London, England than for solely for the record label. !3 Examples include Stones Throw Records, a well-respected underground Los Angeles-based hip hop label. It has produced the Stones Throw Podcast since late 2004, and Hefty Records, an eclectic electronic music/hip hop label from Chicago producing the Hefty Podcast since late 2005. 14 For more information on Hollertronix, please head to hrtp://www.hollertronix.net

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