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Analyzing Genre in Post-Millennial Popular Music

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City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 9-2018 Analyzing Genre in Post-Millennial Popular Music Thomas Johnson The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2884 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] ANALYZING GENRE IN POST-MILLENNIAL POPULAR MUSIC by THOMAS JOHNSON A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Music in partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2018 © 2018 THOMAS JOHNSON All rights reserved ii Analyzing Genre in Post-Millennial Popular Music by Thomas Johnson This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in music in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ___________________ ____________________________________ Date Eliot Bates Chair of Examining Committee ___________________ ____________________________________ Date Norman Carey Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Mark Spicer, advisor Chadwick Jenkins, first reader Eliot Bates Eric Drott THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii Abstract Analyzing Genre in Post-Millennial Popular Music by Thomas Johnson Advisor: Mark Spicer This dissertation approaches the broad concept of musical classification by asking a simple if ill-defined question: “what is genre in post-millennial popular music?” Alternatively covert or conspicuous, the issue of genre infects music, writings, and discussions of many stripes, and has become especially relevant with the rise of ubiquitous access to a huge range of musics since the fin du millénaire. The dissertation explores not just popular music made after 2000, but popular music as experienced and structured in the new millennium, including aspects from a wide chronological span of styles within popular music. Specifically, with the increase of digital media and the concomitant shifts in popular music creation, distribution, and access, popular music categorization has entered a novel space, with technologies like internet radio, streaming services, digital audio workstations, and algorithmic recommendations providing a new conception of how musical types might be understood and experienced. I attempt to conceptualize this novel space of genre with what I call a genre-thinking or a genreme, a term which is meant to capture the ways that musical categorization infiltrates writings about, experiences of, and the structures connecting genres. This dissertation comprises four main chapters, each of which takes a slightly different perspective and approach towards questions concerning genre in popular music of the post-millennial era. Chapter 1 provides a general survey and summary of music theory’s and musicology’s discourses on musical categorization and genre. After describing the “problem of genre,” I outline the main issues at stake and chief strategies previous authors have employed. This involves describing the closely intertwined facets of the “who” of genre (is a musical category defined by music, a musician, an iv audience, the industry?) and the “how” of genre (is it a contract, a definition, a pattern, a system, an experience?) By asking these questions, I open new approaches to understanding and analyzing genre’s role in both the structure and potential experiences of post-millennial popular music. Chapter 2 takes on the digital compositional practice of mashups—most prevalent in the first decade of the 2000s—in an attempt to understand genre as a crucial element of meaning-formation and creation. Previous mashup scholars have tended to focus on the ironic, subversive, or humorous juxtapositions of the particular samples or artists which get layered together. However, this leaves out the broad, exceptionally potent acts of signification that are possible even when a listener lacks the knowledge of the specific autosonic source materials. By incorporating methodologies from musical semiotics and topic theory, I create a field of “interaction methods” to explain the dynamic relations between samples, exploding the analytical potential for signification and collaboration in mashups. These interaction methods are placed in dialogue with formal analysis to show ways that artists, samples, and genres intermingle in this form of digital musicking. Chapters 3 and 4 then progress chronologically into the second decade of the new millennium, taking a twinned approach to our contemporary world of streaming services and online musical cultures. First, I pursue a brief musicological and sociological exploration of current discourses engaged with genre in the 2010s, outlining the ways that critics, fans, and musicians deploy stylistic terms and musical categories. A somewhat paradoxical position emerges in which genre is both in a state of decline and a state of proliferation, simultaneously atrophying yet employed in increasingly abundant and sophisticated manners. I then describe how this contradictory state fits into sociological research on “omnivorousness” and musical taste. The following chapter investigates how these perceptions and linguistic usages of genre compare to two main ways that Spotify classifies its artists. This quantitative analysis reveals some potential systemic patterns of bias that shed light onto genre’s paradoxical position; whether genre is dead or not depends on who is classifying the music and who v is being classified. These two chapters map out my concept “#genre” which I employ to describe the multivalent genre-thinking we currently inhabit. vi Acknowledgements An acknowledgements section is a strange thing to write. It’s essentially the only sanctioned point in academic scholarship when the personal gushes forth through the gates of objective disciplinary discourses into the open. Like any work that bears only one author’s name, this dissertation would not have been possible without the work and support, both direct and indirect, of countless people (many of whom I’m sure I’ll unfortunately forget to mention.) My committee has had the most explicit influence on the following text, starting with my advisor, Mark Spicer. His peerless guidance and editorial work were matched by his patience, and though I know I wasn’t always the quickest or easiest advisee to work with, Mark bravely encouraged me to explore topics well outside his typical research interests. My first reader, Chadwick Jenkins, provided the most careful, critical reading and commentary I have ever received on my work, and through his prodding and suggestions, I hope my writing has become less rebarbative and my thoughts have become more clear. Eric Drott was an outside reader in name only; in fact, he was as integral to the revisions and direction of the dissertation as anyone, and I look forward to collaborating with him in the future. Finally, Eliot Bates, who agreed at the eleventh hour to serve as chair on this project, helped me see my own project from an ethnomusicological perspective while holding me accountable on important issues that often fall outside music theory’s orbit. I can’t thank my committee enough for their spirited engagement with my dissertation. It was a real treat to have my work considered so carefully by such an esteemed group of scholars. Besides these professors, I must thank Joseph Straus for his mentorship and guidance, William Rothstein for his support and encouragement, Kofi Agawu for his conversations, Michael Klein for his collegiality and introduction to some of the philosophy that influenced my work and ideas, Jeff Taylor for helping me first formulate some of my ideas on genre, Áine Heneghan for her recognition and encouragement of my interest in pursuing analysis of popular music, Stephen Rumph for vii introducing me to topic theory, Jonathan Bernhard for getting me into the field of music theory, John Rahn for unwittingly sending me down a rabbit hole of critical theory, and all my undergrad music and physics professors who helped instill a (hopefully) lifelong commitment to learning, especially Shane Burns, Richard Agee, Stephanie DiCenzo, Michael Grace, Dick Hilt, and Frank Shelton. Too many colleagues at the Graduate Center had an impact on my work and life during the five years it took to complete the degree for me to properly thank. Alex Martin entered the program with me and exited just weeks before I completed, and his support and friendship were integral to my time at CUNY. Aaron Harcus, Noel Torres-Rivera, Daniel Fox, and Megan Lavengood all contributed to my thinking, my writing, and my sanity in various important capacities. My time at CUNY would’ve been much darker without them. I was lucky to be a part of a department that, despite its geographic diffusion, remained committed to solidarity and friendship. Though I risk missing someone, I want to thank (and include some important folks from outside the department): Abby Zhang, Christina Lee, Simon Prosser, Tim Mastic, Michèle Duguay, Kristi Hardman, Toru Momii, Chris McGuinness, Drew Fleming, Ruka Shironishi, Nathan Pell, Sam Englander, Bennett Lin, Josh Navon, Molly Reid, Elizabeth Newton, Elizabeth Fleming, Ji Yeon Lee, Andrew Moylan, Loretta Terrigno, Zach Bernstein, Hyun-Kyung Lee, Ellen Bakulina, Tom Marks, Paula Harper, and Anthony Vine. All of these folks made this project possible in their own ways. In a very pragmatic sense, my time at CUNY would not have been possible without my Graduate Assistantship, which I have both the people of New York and the Professional Staff Congress to thank. Not a week went by in which I didn’t remind myself that I was being supported by the public, and that I had a duty to serve my community in the best of my ability, even from within the confines of our esoteric discipline. I’d be remiss not to thank Tonisha Alexander, the brilliant, professional, efficient “Assistant Program Officer” of the Music Department’s PhD progam at the Graduate Center.
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