Introduction: Listening in on the 21St Century 3

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1 2 Introduction: Listening 3 in on the 21st Century 4 5 Richard Randall and Richard Purcell 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 This anthology is the result of a scholarly collaboration we started in 15 2011. Thanks to the generosity of the Center for the Arts in Society 16 and the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon 17 University we were able create Listening Spaces, an interdisciplinary 18 project to examine the variety of ways people listen to, consume, and 19 produce music in an increasingly digitized world. It was an attempt to 20 combine the methodological and analytical approaches of music theory, 21 musicology, and psychology with the historical materialism of cultural 22 studies. We also conceptualized our project as a way of bridging a 23 practitioner’s emphasis on musical performance with a humanities and 24 social science focus on the objects, cultures and politics human beings 25 create out of music-making. Our approach is not entirely new. This set 26 of concerns is broadly understood as the province of ethnomusicol- 27 ogy, which attends to the above set of interlocking concerns with an 28 anthropological thrust. Since the early 1990s these concerns have also 29 been addressed within the field of sound studies, which, as Jonathan 30 Sterne writes “takes sound as its analytical point of departure or arrival” 31 (Sterne 2011, p. 2). While music is not the central focus of sound stud- 32 ies we were drawn to it precisely because it represented a way to concep- 33 tualize the study of music that truly embraced many mediating formats 34 and scholarly disciplines. 35 Making music the center of our project did expose us to some meth- 36 odological and analytical challenges. The most significant was our 37 attempt to approach music without translating the “classical music 38 ideology” into the very materialist domain of musical inquiry we set out 39 to explore (Taylor 2007, pp. 4–6). The study of popular music within 40 cultural studies can fall into such traps and reify the political and mar- 41 ket derived ideology behind the ideas of “genius” and “masterpiece”

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1 (Taylor 2007, p. 4). We also acknowledge that with the rise of the 2 “Californian ideology” we have increasingly fetishized the devices, 3 software platforms, and other disruptive technological innovations 4 that are increasingly associated with music delivery (Barbrook and 5 Cameron 1995). In other words, given the unprecedented availability 6 of file formats, storage capabilities, mobile devices, and web-based 7 platforms geared towards music playback and production, it would be 8 easy to focus our inquiry on the objects geared towards delivering music. 9 At first glance, such an object-oriented approach makes sense because our 10 interactions with media are often the most recognizable kind of sonic 11 engagements. It is easy to conflate music’s elusive ‘objectness’ with the 12 reifications required for production, distribution, storage, commodifica- 13 tion, and performance. Similarly, it is also tempting and perhaps disci- 14 plinarily convenient to reduce music and the associated experiences to 15 sound and psychoacoustics. The Listening Spaces project revealed to us 16 that even in our increasingly digital world, music remains not a thing, 17 but a lattice of affordances, experiences, and actions that are specific to 18 music. We began to focus on listening as a choice that is either made 19 by us or for us for reasons that span transgressive empowerment to 20 hegemonic oppression. Scholars such as Jacques Attali, Peter Szendy, 21 and Susan McClary have discussed that to listen to music is to make 22 real the promises and qualities it embodies. The project wove together 23 threads from a variety of disciplines and the resulting fabric revealed that 24 musical “listening spaces” are everywhere and each comprises a complex 25 of cultural, psychological, political, and economic meaning. 26 In order to approach these listening space we first needed to under- 27 stand who or what is listening as well as how and why they are listen- 28 ing. Listening is not an idle activity. We are saddled with responsibilities 29 and, as Szendy tells us, rights as listeners (Szendy 2008, p. 4). Listening 30 expresses subjectivity as well as creates it. It also suggests or at least 31 necessitates a certain level of active attention, especially when it comes 32 to music. There is of course the “furniture music” of Satie or the smooth 33 arrangements that play to you while you shop. Style, composition and 34 intent aside, these background musics demand a listener to listen, but 35 at a different threshold of engagement. Yet they all are intended, to 36 borrow a phrase, as forms of accompaniment to activities that for all 37 intents and purposes we think about outside of the musical realm. But 38 what is music? We do not ask this as an empty rhetorical provocation. 39 Rather, taking seriously the activity of listening as accompaniment 40 requires that we become part of an ensemble with our bodies as literal 41 and figurative accompanying instruments.

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1 Here, we looked to Christopher Small’s term “musicking” as a guide 2 to understanding the potentially infinite array of activities that define 3 musical engagement (Small 1998). Central to Small’s argument is that 4 we move away from fetishizing the musical object, whether that be 5 the CD or the musical score, and instead appreciate the rich variety 6 of human musical activity, such as tapping on a table, listening to a 7 portable music player and singing lullabies to soothe a child to sleep. 8 Digital technology has come to mediate many of our intensely personal 9 and communal accompaniments with music. Many have gone from the 10 labor intensive, analog, tactile and at times intensely emotional experi- 11 ence of making a mixtape to dragging and dropping files onto playlists. 12 File-sharing has replaced handing over a piece of vinyl or even burn- 13 ing a CD. Impersonal machines and equations are doing what friends, 14 acquaintances, DJs and record-store owners once did: recommending 15 music for us to listen to and enjoy. When Small wrote Musicking: The 16 Meanings of Performing and Listening (1998) he could not have foreseen 17 the fundamental shift of music’s digital medium from binary codes on 18 a compact disk to discreet file formats on hard drives and servers. There 19 is, of course a very long history of physical formats and copyright to 20 look back on as a guide to our own digitized age. Yet, we also believe 21 that the digital age has presented a set of new activities and questions 22 to what musicking embodied as listening means. 23 We are reminded of Kate Crawford’s call to consider the ways we pay 24 attention online as “practices of listening” (Crawford 2009, p. 525). 25 Of course, when we use music online, whether through the variety of 26 commercially available streaming services, production tools or the files 27 on our physical drives we are obviously engaged in such a practice. Yet, 28 unlike a piece of sheet music, vinyl LP or cassette tape, these new musi- 29 cal objects are actively listening to us, too. Some of this functionality 30 is built into the networked devices and platforms we use. Dedicated 31 services like Spotify, Soundcloud, Google Music and many others are 32 designed to make sharing playlists, individual tracks and DJ sets easier. 33 These functions are also built into social media platforms that are not 34 dedicated to music sharing like Facebook, Google+, Twitter and Vine, 35 which make embedding music into web pages or feeds a very simple 36 affair. The corporations that design these proprietary services are also 37 listening in through the metadata we generate through our musicking 38 activities. And as Edward Snowden has also revealed to us: so is the U.S. 39 Government. 40 By now we also know that the information we both push and pull 41 through our mobile devices and into the Internet also creates a kind of

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1 musical subjectivity; one that is an aggregate of all of our musicking and 2 listening metadata. In turn, algorithms summon this musical doppel- 3 ganger in the form of banner ads, promoted tweets, and recommenda- 4 tions for purchases, Facebook friends, and YouTube videos – all of which 5 demand our musical attention even when or if we log off, or sleep 6 (Crary 2013). This is all to say that as we sought to think with the musi- 7 cally inclined subject positions Szendy and Small offer – listener and 8 musicker – we know that both have to jostle for ontological position 9 with the user; who at least in terms of the commercial Web, is beholden 10 to legally binding contracts and terms of service (not unlike those we 11 implicitly agree to when we purchased vinyl records, cassette tapes or 12 compact disks in the past) that clashes with the “rights” of the listener. 13 The mediation of music, of course, is one of the hallmarks of its 14 absorption into a capitalist economy. Invoking Debord’s idea of the 15 “spectacle,” we see how mediation steers and controls choice. Debord 16 writes “… the bureaucratic economy cannot leave the exploited masses 17 any significant margin of choice, since any other external choice 18 whether it concern food or music, is already a choice to destroy the 19 bureaucracy completely” (Debord 1983, section 64). When listeners 20 are empowered to choose freely, they are simultaneously empowered 21 to operate outside of bureaucratic systems that seek to control and 22 exploit them. In the case of digital technology, listening often has the 23 appearance of increased choices and empowerment, but at the cost of 24 increased mediation. The spectacle of digital technology lulls listen- 25 ers into believing, for example, that Apple’s iTunes store represents an 26 expansion of choices about where to purchase music only to later learn 27 that Apple was systematically deleting non-iTunes-purchased music off 28 of your iPod every time it was connected to the service (Elder 2014). 29 The 21st-century perspectives of listening we are trying to capture in 30 this anthology are twofold. On one hand, we seek to better understand 31 how the increasing digital mediation of our musical experiences conflict 32 with and complement our earlier ways of listening. On the other hand, 33 we want to know how our current epistemological position can help us 34 interpret and understand our past practices. 35 There is no one right way to investigate the significance of listening 36 in the 21st century. This anthology reflects this by seeking a diversity 37 of voices and methods that find meaningful listening spaces in places 38 that we might not expect or have long forgotten about. 21st Century 39 Perspectives on Music, Technology, and Culture is a volume of critical 40 essays concerned with subjects at the confluence of music consump- 41 tion, burgeoning technology, and contemporary culture. Essays within

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1 the collection frame that point of intersection by focusing variously 2 on issues of musical communities and the politics of media; taken as 3 a whole, these essays present a contemporary evaluation of the diverse 4 and changing structures of music delivery and affordance. While sound 5 reproduction and music making has relied on digital technology since 6 the early 20th century, the role of digital technology in how we listen 7 to and become acquainted with commercial music is a fairly recent 8 phenomena. Our anthology is a response to the increasing dominance 9 that digital technology and other delivery platforms have had on how 10 we buy and listen to music in the 21st century. We believe that the so- 11 called digital turn has also changed the nature of what we understand 12 music to be. 13 Our anthology is an attempt to raise specific critiques of current 14 music practices as well as make more explicit the implicit historical 15 materialist critique at the heart of musicking. One way to see technolo- 16 gies such as social networks, streaming-music services, recommendation 17 algorithms, virtual cloud storage, and portable listening devices is an 18 increased democratization of where and how we can have musical expe- 19 riences. While these technologies make music possible everywhere they 20 have also changed the nature of how music and musical activities are 21 commodified and their social meaning. This raises important ethical, 22 socio-political, and philosophical questions. For instance, how do we 23 define musical performance and labor in an age where so much music 24 and musical taste is freely shared online? What is the value of music 25 and musical performance and creation in such a context? What is the 26 fate of certain musical genres (Jazz, Classical, R&B, Hardcore, and Punk 27 for instance) when their respective audiences have become amorphous 28 (in the case of R&B) or seem to be disappearing (Classical and Jazz) 29 in an increasingly digital era? Does radio mean the same thing when 30 streaming music services like Spotify, YouTube, and Beats Music give 31 users more choice and control of what, where, and how they listen? Do 32 things like sound fidelity and detail mean much to listeners given the 33 dominance of compressed file formats like the MP3? How has corporate 34 media consolidation changed the relationship between music and 35 other media forms like cinema and literature? Has the shift away from 36 musical formats like the cassette tape, the transistor radio and vinyl 37 records fundamentally changed how we think of music? Does the trend 38 towards streaming and cloud-based music delivery services raise privacy 39 issues for consumers unforeseen in the history of music? We have col- 40 lected essays engaging with these questions and others that the digital 41 turn in music has challenged us to answer. Some of them also address

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1 how past musical practices can provide a guide for the present. Through 2 them we hope to construct a discussion of universal themes of modern 3 music practices. 4 Carleton Gholz’s “The Scream and Other Tales: Listening for Detroit 5 Radio History with the Vertical File” is one of two essays in this anthol- 6 ogy that take up the relationship between radio and our 21st-century 7 listening practices. Using Susan Douglas’ canonical Listening In as a 8 starting point, Gholz’s contribution uses archival research and oral his- 9 tory to give us a sense of the way terrestrial radio stations shaped the 10 cultural and political imagination of the residents of Detroit, Michigan 11 from 1941 to the present. For Gholz, the archive containing the history 12 of Detroit radio is not only a resource but itself an object of analysis. 13 For a city so vital to American and world music, Gholz wonders why 14 the historical record of its most important radio stations are either 15 absent or in the case of urban contemporary radio station WJLB, which 16 recently located from downtown Detroit to the suburbs of Farmington 17 Hills, contained in “one manila file folder of photocopied promotional 18 materials going back only a few years.” WJBL, which was purchased 19 and relocated by its parent company Clear Channel, creates an occa- 20 sion for Gholz to reflect on the longer history of Detroit radio and 21 its meaning for critics of media and culture. In the aftermath of the 22 Telecommunications Act of 1996, the rise of non-terrestrial radio and 23 Internet-based streaming services, Gholz contemplates what kind of 24 listening space radio is now. While stalwart station WJLB still features 25 live DJ late-night mixes, the rash of corporate consolidations in the 26 wake of the Telecommunications Act has atrophied Detroit terrestrial 27 radio options. 28 Kieran Curran’s essay, “‘On Tape’: Cassette Culture in Edinburgh and 29 Glasgow Now,” presents interviews with a local promoter, a band, an 30 independent label and a fan in both cities, the subject being the seem- 31 ing resurrection of cassette-tape culture in the digital era. He provides an 32 ethnography undertaken in the two largest cities in Scotland (Edinburgh 33 and Glasgow) both of which have vibrant independent music scenes. 34 The questions Curran seeks to answer are: Why is this happening? What 35 issues arise out of the artifact of the “tape itself”? What is the appeal of 36 such an oft-derided format, especially in the context of the proliferation 37 of digital music? Are there unique sonic qualities that are preferable? 38 Is the physical form of the tape somehow more “authentic” feeling 39 than a digital download? He arrives at intriguing insights into the role 40 of the cassette tape in contemporary Scottish music-making, as well as 41 connecting with broader moves internationally back to analog modes

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1 of production and distribution – albeit one that is accompanied by the 2 parallel realization that digital reproduction and distribution must also 3 be incorporated. 4 In “Radio in Transit: Satellite Technology, Cars and the Evolution of 5 Musical Genres” Jeffrey Roessner takes up the radical transformation of 6 radio in the aftermath of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. While 7 the stirrings of satellite radio technology date back to the early 1980s it 8 was not until after a vigorous lobbying campaign that in 1997 the FCC 9 created two satellite digital audio radio licenses to XM Satellite Radio 10 and Sirius. Despite its relatively modest market share, Roessner argues 11 that since its inception music stations on Satellite Radio have mar- 12 keted and structured themselves as a simulacra of the counter-cultural 13 freedom associated with 1960s car radio programming and culture. He 14 writes that satellite stations achieve this by offering Rock Icons as live 15 DJs as well as “radically challenging traditional musical genres…”, until 16 “the notion of genre itself disintegrates through the proliferation of 17 numerous micro-genres.” The effect of this breakdown in genre is to 18 give the illusion of capriciousness and discovery that terrestrial radio 19 offered. Roessner, like Gholz, ends his contribution wondering what 20 the future holds for Satellite Radio in an age of Internet-based music 21 streaming services that offer a more privatized and tailored listening 22 experience. 23 In “The Internet and the Death of Jazz: Race, Improvisation, and 24 the Crisis of Community,” Margret Grebowicz explores the effects of 25 social networking on the jazz scene and how identities of what “jazz is” 26 become inconsistent and uneven, in spite of the meta-level narratives 27 at work in Kickstarter and other initiatives that depend on the logic of 28 a unified, univocal social body. Mediated by these social technologies, 29 She proposes, the jazz scene constitutes an inoperative community 30 in Jean-Luc Nancy’s sense of the words, in which the “with”-ness 31 of being-with-others forecloses the “thing” that the community is. 32 In other words, in the era of social technologies there is no jazz com- 33 munity understood as a thing with particular, describable attributes, 34 but the “we” of jazz consists of social actors being with/against each 35 other in politically productive ways. She draws on Jean-Luc Nancy’s The 36 Inoperative Community and Jacques Derrida’s work on hospitality and 37 democracy to support this thesis. 38 Like many of the books contributors, Richard Purcell’s “A Brief 39 Consideration of the Hip-Hop Biopic” looks at the interaction between 40 the music and labor in the 21st century. Cinema, primarily through the 41 genre of the musical and biopic have created elaborate fantasies that

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1 present music and its related activities as un-alienated labor. Despite 2 the crisis in valuation peer-to-peer and music streaming services have 3 exposed in the late 20th and 21st century, films about musicians and 4 music continue to perpetuate these myths. Purcell’s essay argues that 5 hip-hop “biopics” are a valuable resource in tracing the complicated 6 relationship hip-hop culture – and the arts within neoliberalism – has 7 with creative labor. Most of his essay focuses on the first cycle of fic- 8 tional films explicitly about hip-hop culture; with particular attention 9 paid to Edo Bertoglio’s Downtown 81 (1981), Charlie Ahearn’s Wild Style 10 (1982) and Michael Schultz’s Krush Groove (1985). These films, more 11 than any of this early cycle, represent the shifting values that collectives 12 and creative labor have within hip-hop culture once the priorities of 13 high concept cinema transform cinema into more of a “listening space.” 14 Damon Krukowski has been involved as a musician in the industry for 15 over 25 years. In this time, he has seen unprecedented transformations 16 in how musicians are able to both make music and make money with 17 their music. His essay, “Love Streams,” details his personal experiences 18 coming to terms with the “new music industry” giants of Pandora and 19 Spotify. As a member of the band Galaxy 500, their music is played 20 frequently on these services, but they get almost no royalty money in 21 exchange. He goes on to say that these services are not record companies 22 and do not actually do anything to support the creation or distribution 23 of new music. Ironically, companies like Pandora and Spotify are not in 24 the music business. Rather, he argues, they exist to attract speculative 25 capital. The conclusion is that musicians cannot look towards these new 26 distribution powerhouses for any kind of meaningful support. 27 Richard Randall’s “A Case for Musical Privacy” positions streaming 28 music services as an unprecedented kind of listening space that has seri- 29 ous social and political economic ramifications. His work decodes the 30 importance of music in our lives and how we use music to construct, 31 support, and revise personal and social identities. He locates what 32 Fuchs and others call prosumption in Web 2.0 technologies in general 33 and streaming music services in particular. The connection between 34 prosumption and surveillance has been widely discussed in recent 35 years and Randall argues that listening is not passive but active, and 36 the choices we make in listening have the capacity to reveal important 37 and private personal information. Our naive attitudes about musical 38 listening and musical identities are due, Randall argues, to our mis- 39 placed belief that listening is material engagement. Instead, he asks us 40 to appreciate that music is not a thing, but a fundamental and critical 41 human activity. By focusing on the experience of the listener, Randall’s

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1 essay complements Krukowski’s essay to create a broader critique of 2 streaming music services. 3 Graham Hubbs’ “Digital Music and Public Goods” tackles the central 4 concern at the heart of music and music listening in the 21st century: 5 from where and how we acquire our music. Approaching these concerns 6 from the disciplines of ethics and political philosophy, Hubbs argues 7 that the discourse of piracy that we have traditionally used to describe 8 informal and more organized peer-to-peer networks is antiquated with 9 the ubiquity of digital file formats. This transformation of the musical 10 object into a “spaceless” object has forced us to reconsider older con- 11 cepts of copyright and property rights. Hubbs suggests that this has led 12 to a “partial decommodification” of the music object and our various 13 attitudes concerning the legal status of digital music comes from the 14 fact that digital music lacks the “hallmark features” of private property. 15 Hubbs’ mediation on music format, storage, and property law leads him 16 to declare that music is in fact a public good, which explains why the 17 institutions and ideologies of private property are so poorly equipped to 18 deal with human music making. 19 Jonathan Sterne’s essay “The Preservation Paradox” juxtaposes the 20 power of digital storage and encoding of sound media against its fragil- 21 ity. While digital technology allows for unprecedented ease in the stor- 22 age and collection of sound files, this power, he argues, is an illusion. 23 At issue is the all or nothing identity of digital files. While a damaged 24 vinyl record may play with some scratches and pops, the corrupted data 25 file will not. Digital data, he says, “have a more radical threshold of 26 intelligibility.” One moment they are intelligible, but once their decay 27 becomes palpable, the file is rendered entirely unreadable. In other 28 words, digital files do not age with any grace. “Where analog recordings 29 fade slowly into nothingness,” Sterne writes, “digital recordings fall off 30 a cliff from presence into absence.” 31 Kathy Newman begins “Headphones Are the New Walls: Music in 32 the Workplace in the Digital Age” by asking us “What kind of listen- 33 ing space is an office space?” If you happen to work in an open plan 34 workspace the likely answer is an incredibly noisy one. With the rise 35 of the New Economy and what Andrew Ross has termed “no collar” 36 work, there has been a rapid adoption of more efficient and humane- 37 seeming workplace design. As Newman reminds us, sound is the 38 unruly, anarchic component in the open office plan and her essay 39 explores the multiplicity of ways corporations and workers themselves 40 attempt to strategically manage the office soundscape. Her analysis 41 of over a decade of sociological and organizational behavior research

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1 and mainstream journalistic press accounts of the effects of music at 2 work reveals that behind these strategies lies a similar desire to make 3 the workplace more humane in order to extract even more surplus 4 labor. The sonic self-care workers perform with digital audio players and 5 high-end noise cancelling headphones is just as problematic as the deci- 6 sions made by management to pipe in Justin Bieber to increase typing 7 efficiency. Ultimately, Newman wonders if the battle over the corporate 8 office airwaves and the kinds of power and autonomy held by work- 9 ers across the board is a potential opening for a shift in their class 10 consciousness. 11 Sumanth Gopinath has the unique distinction of being a “ring-tone 12 scholar” having studied the phenomena for a number of years and writ- 13 ten the book, The Ringtone Dialectic. Gopinath’s essay “Researching the 14 Mobile Phone Ringtone: Towards and Beyond The Ringtone Dialectic”, 15 looks back on this program of research and how what was once a 16 $3 billion industry has faded away. He details the technological his- 17 tory of the “ringtone-as-listening space” and its political economy. The 18 ringtone is responsible, he claims, for creating what we now call the 19 “mobile entertainment industry.” An optimistic convergence between 20 mobile technologists and music industry brought claims of a new era 21 of mobile music. The ringtone became so ubiquitous in the mid-2000 22 that composers started to incorporate these sounds into their concert 23 music. These sounds, such as the Nokia Tune or the iPhone Marimba, 24 became part of our everyday experience. His essay details the remark- 25 able decline of this once dominant industry with critical reference to 26 its cultural, political, and economic ramifications. 27 Music does not belong to any one discipline or practice. Our con- 28 tributors represent a wide variety of intellectual and practical engage- 29 ments with music. Each essay offers a unique voice that we hope will 30 connect with each contributor’s community and draw them into our 31 discussion. We hope not only to critique past and current practices, but 32 to also demonstrate that these issues are not the domain of any one 33 particular group of intellectuals or practitioners. 34 35 References 36 37 Barbr ook, R. and Cameron, A. (1995). The Californian Ideology. Science as Culture 38 6.1, 44–72. Crary, J. (2013). 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep. New York: Verso Books. 39 Crawford, K. (2009). Following You: Disciplines of Listening in Social Media. 40 Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 23(4), 525–35. 41 Debord, G. (1983). The Society of the Spectacle. Detroit: Black and Red.

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1 Elder, J. (2014). Apple Deleted Rivals’ Songs from Users’ iPods. Online, 2 3 December. Available from: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/12/03/apple- 3 deleted-rivals-songs-from-users-ipods/ (accessed 31 May 2015). Small, C. (1998). Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening. Hanover: 4 University Press of New England. 5 Sterne, J. (Ed.) (2011). The Sound Studies Reader. New York: Routledge. 6 Szendy, P. (2008). Listening, A History of our Ears. Trans. Charlotte Mandell. New York: 7 Fordham University Press. 8 Taylor, T. D. (2007). Beyond Exoticism: Western Music and the World. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

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1 2 1 3 4 The Scream and Other Tales: 5 6 Listening for Detroit Radio History 7 8 with the Vertical File 9 Carleton Gholz 10 11 12 13 14 We sway the minds of our community and if we can’t 15 stand up for a principle, we don’t need to be on the air. 16 — Martha Jean the Queen (Brown, 1970) 17 18 While [sic] all the daily tales of defaulting cities, pro- 19 posed increases in income taxes for city residents, cuts 20 in services and threatened layoffs, a little non-static 21 music really clears the clutter from the brain, thus per- 22 mitting fresh perspectives to enter. Music can be much 23 more than a part of the décor in an airport waiting 24 room and its values go beyond its use as a substitute 25 for novocain [sic] at the dentist’s office. 26 — Ken Cockrel (Cockrel, 1975) 27 28 “They say radio is war. It may be a physical war, but 29 it’s not a mental war. What gets played here shouldn’t 30 be judged by what’s happening in New York or Los 31 Angeles,” [Mojo] says. “They should take a look at what’s 32 happening here in Detroit, at unemployment. They 33 should count the raggedy cars and the people walking 34 around at 3 a.m. with nowhere to go.” 35 — Electrifying Mojo (Borey, 1982) 36 37 In the E. Azalia Hackley Collection’s “Detroit Radio” subject file at the 38 Detroit Public Library, a handful of newspaper clippings describe a radio 39 strike held on then AM radio station WJLB. The Detroit Free Press, Detroit 40 News, and Michigan Chronicle picked up the story. The first week-long 41 walkout ended just before Christmas 1970 after then black program

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1 director Al Perkins had been fired. (Wittenberg, 1970) Detroit News writer 2 Brogan (1970a) quoted “disc jockey” Martha Jean as saying, “I’ve been 3 in radio 15 years … and I’m still not able to be an individual. … It’s 4 pathetic to have [to] take a black or white side but we’re fighting for 5 everybody in this radio industry. Black disc jockeys are insecure because 6 we have so few places to work.” Strikers asked for support from the 7 AFL-CIO (Wittenberg, 1970) in addition to existing representation by 8 the National Association of Television and Radio Announcers (NATRA) 9 (Brown, 1970). At one point the strikers, who were also supported by 10 the NAACP, moved their picket to WJLB’s Booth Broadcasting owner 11 John L. Booth’s home in the East Side Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe 12 Farms (Detroit News, 1970a). Though a Wayne County Judge declared 13 the picketing illegal (Brogan, 1970b), “sympathizers” eventually joined 14 strikers outside the station’s downtown studios in the Broderick Tower 15 with signs that read “Black management for a black community” and 16 “We don’t need a plantation station!” (Michigan Chronicle, 1970b) The 17 strikers initially “won” the strike, with Perkins reinstated and Norman 18 Miller hired as the first black general manager (Detroit News, 1970b). But 19 by January, black staff understood that promises had not been kept and 20 Miller was General Manager in name only. 21 That’s when the Queen screamed. 22 A Free Press writer wrote, “Startled listeners heard Martha Jean Steinberg, 23 a popular personality who conducts a program of music and phone con- 24 versation under the name of Martha Jean the Queen, gave [sic] a little 25 scream, and then all was silence” (Mackey, 1971). Another Free Press 26 reporter elaborated: “The scream brought a deluge of telephone calls 27 to Detroit police from concerned listeners who feared she [the Queen] 28 had been hurt” (Wendlend, 1971). Steinberg and several others locked 29 themselves into the on-air studios and held a sit-down strike. Another 30 clipping in the file, from the Detroit Free Press, shows a photo, taken by 31 Free Press photographer Dick Tripp, of Al Perkins reading a handwritten 32 note from behind the studio glass, the door blockaded with chairs (see 33 Figure 1.1). 34 Memory of this strike, as well as evidence that it ever happened, is 35 largely gone except within the dusty, yellowed, aging vertical file in an 36 archive established in 1943 and dedicated to blacks in the performing 37 arts. The legacy of the strike – what’s at stake in remembering it today – 38 is at the heart of this chapter. Here I make two related arguments. The 39 first follows radio scholar Newman’s (2000) position that post-war black 40 radio stations (in her research, Memphis station WDIA) provided “a new 41 space for entertainment, information, music, citizenship and ‘goodwill,’”

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1 2 3 Detroit 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Mackey, R. (1971) Employee Sit-In Silences Radio Station for 3 Hours. 12th January. Used by permission of R. (1971) Employee Sit-In Silences Radio Station for 3 Hours. 12th January. Mackey, 38 39 40

41 1.1 Figure Press Free

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The Scream and Other Tales 15

1 and, “led to the increased participation of Memphis African Americans 2 in the mainstream of commercial life of the region” (pp. 76 and 236). 3 Drawing from the Hackley vertical file, I will provide evidence that 4 WJLB participated in creating a similar place for black Detroiters’ enter- 5 tainment, news, and, at times, protest, for over 70 years. At the same 6 time, I extend Newman’s argument by diachronically following the ver- 7 tical file beyond the immediate post-war period into the 21st century. 8 The goal here is to, for the first time, set down an archival spine for an 9 integral history of Detroit black radio history. WJLB, its managers and 10 on-air talent, continue to struggle, as the Queen and her cohort did 11 forty plus years ago, over what exactly radio is as a space of listening not 12 only in Detroit but, through corporate ownership and online-streaming, 13 nationally and internationally. This chapter then presents a provisional 14 narrative that I hope will encourage future research, including my own, 15 on exactly what is at stake in recovering the cultural laboring of radio 16 in a city like Detroit. 17 18 Aural History 19 20 Why is this narrative of the classical network era to the convergence 21 era so ephemeral in Motown, the capital of 20th-century music? The 22 status of the Hackley Collection (HC) used in this chapter, within a 23 150-year-old, underfunded library, and the lack of archives within the 24 station itself, go to the heart of how we listen to our past and present. In 25 recent years, the City of Detroit’s economic struggles, including its cul- 26 tural expressions, have become focal points for discussing the health of 27 the American dream. However, this discussion has rarely strayed from 28 the use of hackneyed factory metaphors, worn out success-and-failure 29 stories, and an ever-narrowing cast of characters. The result is that the 30 common sense understanding of Detroit’s musical and cultural legacy 31 tends to end in 1972 with the departure of Motown Records to Los 32 Angeles, if not even earlier in the aftermath of the rebellion of 1967. 33 In my larger research (2011), as well as my activism as Founder and 34 Executive Director of the Detroit Sound Conservancy, I provide an oral 35 history of Detroit’s post-Motown aural history and in the process make 36 available a new urban imaginary for judging the city’s well-being. To 37 do this I utilize archival research and interviews in order to recover 38 the life stories of a group of Detroiters in their struggle to change 39 and be changed by Detroit’s soundscape during the post-Motown era. 40 A diachronic study, my work starts by revisiting Detroit’s role in the 41 modern soundscape from musicians, dancers, promoters, and critics

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16 Carleton Gholz

1 who experienced the city’s numerous ballrooms and clubs, listened 2 to its charismatic radio DJs, and produced its studio-driven sound. 3 However, I also pay special attention to the emergence of a new sound- 4 scape in the 1970s with a new set of heroes – club DJs – and an audience 5 that both reflected and resisted the racial, sexual, and class hierarchies 6 of the time. Detroiters experienced the impact of this subterranean 7 population in the ensuing years as the genres of disco, hip-hop, house, 8 and techno emerged and the city’s residents mixed together as they had 9 rarely done before or since. This chapter then is one piece of this larger 10 argument. 11 Arnold (2008) argues that the 1996 Telecommunications Act has not 12 increased diversity in ownership or encouraged “localism,” local pro- 13 gramming “in the Public Interest.” He then argues that stations and the 14 Federal Communications Commission need to maintain better records so 15 that communication researchers can hold them accountable to “local- 16 ism,” what Arnold summarizes as “local community standards” (p. 8). 17 This is just one consequence of Detroit’s sonic aporias. The other, broader 18 consequence, is the one already foregrounded by Barlow (1999) in 19 his ground-breaking, primary-source, work on black radio Voice Over. 20 Barlow contends that: 21 22 Especially since the late 1940s, when it emerged as African Americans’ 23 most ubiquitous means of mass communication – surpassing the 24 black press – black radio has been a major force in constructing 25 and sustaining an African American public sphere. It has been the 26 coming-together site for issues and concerns of black culture: lan- 27 guage, music, politics, fashion, gossip, race relations, personality, 28 and community are all part of that mix. Moreover, black radio has 29 been omnipresent on both sides of the color line, part of the shared 30 public memory that dates back to the 1920s and has deep roots in 31 the broader popular culture. (p. xi) 32 33 Despite Barlow’s confident claims, cultural spaces like radio continue to 34 be relegated to the background by those who claim, like Martelle (2012) 35 and Thompson (2001), to want to know what has gone wrong in Detroit 36 and what might happen to change it. By grounding my work in the 37 world’s oldest, still extant but largely undatabased, black performance 38 archive, and a selection from its 275,000 vertical file items (Minor, 2015), 39 I supplement those political-economic findings by dislodging Detroit 40 radio history from the nostalgia genre where it currently resides (Carson, 41 2000).

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The Scream and Other Tales 17

1 Listening in Detroit 2 3 For Douglas (1999), radio splits open the struggles over 20th-century media 4 consumption and production, throwing early media scholars’ preoccu- 5 pation with television into relief and allowing her readers to focus on 6 how radio interacted so significantly with the “American imagination” 7 (p. 20). Douglas’s history of that imaginative dialectic between radio 8 technology and its audiences maps well against Detroit’s regional radio 9 history. Conot (1974), for instance, points out that in the 1920s Detroit 10 had one of the first radio stations in WWJ (p. 226), while a college 11 media text by Hilmes (2014) remembers how populist demagogues like 12 Father Coughlin from the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak made national 13 news and directly impacted the way political voices made their way 14 onto their airwaves in the 1930s (pp. 141–5). And in the 1940s and 15 taking off in the 1950s, black DJs became strong personalities on the 16 air and streets of Detroit, including Martha Jean, whose early career is 17 mentioned by Douglas (1999). In the 1960s and 1970s, Carson (2006) 18 reminds his readers that Detroit stations like WABX were on the cutting 19 edge of FM free form radio. But Detroit also has some unique features. 20 Detroit’s radio frequencies share a border with Canada, reminding us 21 that the emergence of radio in the United States is a transnational and 22 global story. My own parents, who grew up north and east of Detroit in 23 the border city of Port Huron, remember hearing Motown Records in the 24 1960s not from black DJs in Detroit, but white DJs in Canada broadcasting 25 from the “Big 8” studios of CKLW (McNamara, 2004). 26 Perhaps most importantly, Detroit radio has a significant relationship 27 to black history and performance. As Barlow (1999) points out, Detroiter 28 Joe Louis’s rematch victory over Max Schmeling in 1938 caused “instant 29 jubilation” across the country when it was carried on radio nation- 30 ally from New York City (pp. 49–50). But even without the help of the 31 Brown Bomber, the Detroit area had one of the first black-owned radio 32 stations, as Cintron (1982) describes, in WCHB in nearby Inkster and, as 33 documented by Smith (1999), a robust, politically motivated black civic 34 and cultural movement that produced, amongst other things, Motown 35 Records. As I have described before (2009) and document below, in the 36 1960s and 1970s, black program directors, general managers, and on-air 37 talent pushed owners for increased control over management decisions 38 as well as content of stations like WJLB. The result of that radio rebellion 39 was that in the 1980s and 1990s, black DJs were key in disseminating 40 and establishing the sonic signature of contemporary electronic music 41 including disco, house, techno, and hip hop.

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18 Carleton Gholz

1 This makes WJLB a compelling point of entry for an understanding 2 of Detroit as a radio-powered listening space. White-owned yet long 3 associated with the cultivation of a black audience, WJLB’s extended 4 story, from the early years of broadcasting to our contemporary conver- 5 gence era, as glimpsed by the vertical file, serves as a rich site to engage 6 the larger history of Detroit radio and provide a counterpoint to larger 7 national stories and other regional archives. 8 9 1941–1967: “Designed for the Future” 10 11 According to Detroit Free Press (1941b), on March 10, 1941 Governor 12 Van Wagoner would join owner John Booth to commemorate WJLB’s 13 new studios. The paper reported the name of New York “acoustical con- 14 sultant” Sidney Wolf and quoted Booth: “Our broadcasting studios,” he 15 said, “were designed for the future. We will keep abreast of the latest 16 radio developments.” It would eventually broadcast at 1400 AM. 17 As Woodford (1965), Brevard (2001), and Minor (2015) discuss, the 18 E. Azalia Hackley Collection was founded in 1943 by a gift from the 19 Detroit Musicians’ Association and named after E. Azalia Hackley, a vocal- 20 ist, music teacher, and cultural activist from an earlier generation in 21 Detroit. Clippings from before the founding of the collection deemed 22 relevant to the new black-focused Hackley Collection were brought over 23 from the Music and Drama Department’s own vertical file. According to 24 these early clippings, WJLB first began its life as WMBC in 1926. From 25 the start, it was an independent radio station in a pre-network era that 26 as part of its regular programming sought out immigrant populations 27 who had come to Detroit for industrial jobs during World War I. Booth 28 Broadcasting, which took over the station in 1940, was founded in 29 Detroit by John Booth in 1939 but had roots in his father Ralph Herman 30 Booth’s 19th-century newspaper empire. The elder Booth was one of 31 Detroit’s most influential citizens. Along with his brother George, he 32 was part of the early ownership history of the Detroit News as well as 33 a founder of the Detroit Institute of Arts. He also helped establish the 34 Cranbrook Educational Community north of Detroit in Bloomfield 35 Hills. The company would eventually expand beyond Detroit, purchas- 36 ing radio stations throughout Michigan, as well as Ohio and Indiana. 37 According to a promotional brochure, “The Booth American Story” 38 (HC, 1981f), “The sum of these 12 Booth stations is a Great Lakes 39 broadcasting market of more than 10 million people, greater than either 40 New York or Los Angeles. But its roots are precisely responsive programming 41 and community service in each of the seven metropolitan areas.”

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The Scream and Other Tales 19

1 Two interesting moments in these early clippings stand out. The first 2 is the new owners’ early struggles with the initial ethnic programming 3 of the station. John L. Booth, Sr. bought the station in 1940 and named 4 it after himself in 1941, when the station changed its call sign and 5 moved into the then Eaton, now Broderick, Tower that still stands on 6 Grand Circus Park in downtown Detroit. The tower has recently been 7 renovated into luxury apartments and the original studios destroyed. 8 Originally an AM station, a Free Press clipping (Detroit Free Press, 1941a) 9 states that WJLB began broadcasting on FM the same year, and, accord- 10 ing to notes and research by Cintron (1982), beginning with “its first 11 broadcast program oriented toward the Detroit metropolitan black 12 community in 1941, the ‘Interracial Goodwill Hour,’ hosted by Edward 13 R. Baker.” WJLB then was a truly modern station, with cutting edge facil- 14 ities and a progressive programming attitude indebted to the early days 15 of broadcasting and government regulations, like the Communications 16 Act of 1934 described by Hilmes (2014), which attempted to reform 17 early radio’s commercial paradigm. But struggles over management and 18 the programming mission arose from the start. In 1943, a year marked 19 by major race riots in Detroit, the station’s WMBC-era commitment to 20 foreign language broadcasts began to be phased out (Detroit Free Press, 21 1943) even as the company was taken to court. The company was tem- 22 porarily banned for canceling programs which had been broadcasting 23 since the 1930s (Detroit Free Press, 1948). The suits were closed by the 24 spring of 1948 (HC, 1948). 25 The second harbinger moment from the early clippings is the issue 26 of automation. By the 1950s, Booth Broadcasting was applying for tele- 27 vision station licenses in multiple cities in Michigan including Detroit 28 and imagining how new computer-based technologies could help 29 increase efficiency in its radio operations (HC, 1952). In the fall of 1960, 30 staff announcers at the AM WJLB and sister FM station WMZK could see 31 the writing on the wall. A contract between the American Federation of 32 Television and Radio Artists, a part of the ALF-CIO, and the owners of 33 Booth Broadcasting was coming to an end with layoffs of announcers 34 to be replaced by “automated equipment” imminent (HC, 1960d). Local 35 newspapers later elaborated that the strike was over “alleged speedup 36 practices and automation” (HC, 1960c). An article the next day revealed 37 a further issue: seven announcers had been fired without severance pay 38 (HC, 1960b). A Detroit Free Press staff writer described the scene: 39 40 It wasn’t impressive to look at. Just an L-shaped arrangement of gray 41 cabinets, a couple of feet higher than a man, with dials and wheels

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20 Carleton Gholz

1 on them. There was a series of clicks, wheels turned, lights blinked 2 and whirring sounds came out. Those men, keeping close watch, 3 tossed out such words as “programming … spotter … memory tape … 4 relays. The scene was station WJLB offices, high in a downtown 5 Detroit building. (Arnold, 1960, p. 16-A) 6 7 AFTRA was called in. Booth sued the Union (Kirk, 1960). Weeks later, 8 the strike was still on (HC, 1960a). The culmination of the strike is absent 9 from the Hackley file, but the specter of automation would continue 10 to haunt the station. Nevertheless, the strike did not seem to affect the 11 station’s bottom line or long-term prospects. In 1962, journalist Osgood 12 described WJLB as “among the top five independent stations in the 13 nation in commercial sales – and has for four years running” (Osgood, 14 1962). Programming and automation may have caused corporate hic- 15 cups for WJLB in its early years but, according to the file, by the birth 16 of the top 40 era, the station had solidified itself as key outlets for 17 entertainment and news. 18 19 1967–1981: From “Playing it Cool” to the “Sophisticated 20 Black Adult” 21 22 The Hackley file contains a full-page advertisement from the Detroit 23 Free Press in 1966 highlighting the black staff of WJLB. The “Tigeradio 24 1400” staff featured “Frantic” Ernie Durham, “Joltin’” Joe Howard, Jack 25 Surrell, Tom Reed, Jan Forman, “Senator” Bristoe Bryant, Norman 26 Miller, and George White (Detroit Free Press, 1966). In this ad, the sta- 27 tion highlights that “Polish, German and Greek are still spoken nightly, 28 and Sunday has a generous portion of religious programs” (HC, 1966). 29 But in the summer of 1967, a rebellion broke on Detroit’s west side just 30 a mile north of Motown Records and Detroit’s New Center area, then 31 the home of General Motors. The Detroit News reported that the Queen 32 “has put in many hours on the air urging her listeners to ‘play it cool’ 33 and preserve law and order” though it also reported that then white 34 General Manager, Tom Warner, “had received some abusive calls from 35 more militant listeners because of its ‘cool it’ policy” (Detroit News, 1967). 36 In 1968, WJLB dropped its non-black ethnic programming completely 37 (HC, 1981c). Whether this happened because of pressure from black 38 staff or listeners is not clear from the archive. But by 1970, the Queen 39 and others at the station were no longer “playing it cool.” 40 The “scream” strike would end in January 1971 (Wendlend, 1971). 41 The Queen was to host a call-in show with Police Commissioner John

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The Scream and Other Tales 21

1 Nichols – who would later run for Mayor – that would be called “Buzz 2 the Fuzz” (HC, 1971a) but was still on strike when the first broadcast 3 was to take place (HC, 1971b). By the next week, the strike was over, 4 and Nichols took calls while the Queen moderated (Kohn, 1971). WJLB 5 was not the only station plagued with labor strife during this period. 6 According to the clippings, there was an earlier strike at WGPR in 7 February of 1969 (Griffin, 1969) and in 1970, the National Association 8 of Black Media Producers (NABMP) had accused local broadcasters, 9 except for WCHB, WJLB, WGPR, and (Canadian) CKLW, of failing to 10 comply with the Communications Act of 1934 (Ingram, 1970). Local 11 radio and TV stations denied the accusation (Peterson, 1970). 12 What is most compelling about this post-Rebellion period in the 13 clippings file is the sense that these years in Detroit, especially for black 14 audiences, were not merely a time of tumult and strife but also politi- 15 cal and cultural emergence. Detroit was entering a postcolonial period, 16 soon to be solidified when Coleman A. Young became the first black 17 mayor of the city of Detroit in early 1974. Simultaneously, WCHB and 18 WJLB had been joined by WGPR and as evidenced by the clippings in 19 the file, competition for the city’s black audience was robust. By 1973, 20 Free Press writer Watson could confidently say, “[Black radio]’s an insti- 21 tution that will probably be around as long as some folks season their 22 string beans with hamhocks and others use salt” (Watson, 1973). This 23 would include programs dedicated to “serious Black music” (Michigan 24 Chronicle, 1974). During this era, young DJs like Donnie Simpson 25 would become teen hosts of local shows. He had started as a “Teen 26 Reporter” at WJLB in 1970 (Michigan Chronicle, 1970a) and would later 27 become a national radio personality (Michigan Chronicle, 1989b). By 28 1977, John L. Booth II took over “administrative responsibility” for 29 the station and in February 1979 moved the station to new studios on 30 the 20th floor of the City National Bank Building, also known as the 31 Penobscot (HC, 1981c). According to one clipping, the station was so 32 independent of major label influence and other radio networks that by 33 1979, major record labels like MCA were wondering if there had been 34 local payola involved (Griffin, 1979). WJLB had clearly entered its own 35 postcolonial period under Booth II and re-ingratiated itself to the local 36 community. 37 By 1980, internal marketing materials describe the Monday through 38 Saturday lineup at WJLB as “Contemporary music and news and spe- 39 cial features geared to the sophisticated black adult.” On Sunday, that 40 sophisticated programming turned towards “Gospel/spiritual music, 41 church services, community affairs, and public service programming”

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22 Carleton Gholz

1 (HC, 1980b). That same year, the station was financially confident 2 enough to raise money for local children as a promotional device. 3 Norman Miller, less than a decade earlier the subject of a station 4 sit-down strike, was now ensconced internally as management and 5 externally as its public persona. In a letter penned at the beginning of 6 a brochure for a “night with the stars,” Miller made sure to highlight 7 the connection between WJLB’s values and the community. “All of the 8 WJLB family extends a warm, heartfelt thanks to you for your partici- 9 pation. But more important than our thanks and appreciation is that of 10 the young people whose lives you have touched” (HC, 1980a). Miller’s 11 note preceded John Booth II and Mayor Young’s proclamation, as well 12 as ads from national companies like Motown Records, A&M Records, 13 CBS Records, as well as local companies like Simpson’s Wholesale 14 record shop in Detroit and Ami Distributor’s Corp. in nearby Livonia. 15 The “air staff” or “Super Stokers” during this moment were listed as 16 J. Michael McKay, John Edwards, Martha Jean, Claude Young, Lynn 17 Tolliver, and Reuben Yabuku. 18 The station’s apparent stability and success did not come without at 19 times sporadic and drastic personnel changes and ongoing struggles 20 over labor amongst other larger industrial and technological changes 21 in radio. On December 1, 1980, WJLB went to 97.9 FM (HC, 1981c). By 22 May 1981, new DJs had been added to the mix, including Keith Bell and 23 Claude Young. Martha Jean moved to the noon hour (HC, 1981g). The 24 station emphasized its “efforts to meet the needs and interests of Detroit 25 metropolitan black community,” including religious programs overseen 26 by the Queen, editorials by Jim Ingrim and Carl Rowan, a talk show by 27 Sid McCoy, and even a show called “Labor Looks at the Issues,” “hosted 28 by Tom Turner, President of the Detroit chapter of the AFL-CIO” (HC, 29 1981c). But the Queen’s regular noon slot was eventually moved to a far 30 less inspiring 5 am–6 am slot. Cintron (1982) marks this key moment in 31 the history of the station: 32 33 This adjustment signals an overall change in the station’s concept 34 of programming. In addition to rearranging its program schedule 35 and highlighting other disc jockeys such as Claude Young, Keith 36 Bell, and John Edwards, WJLB has begun to play the softer less brash 37 Rhythm and Blues records interspersing them occasionally with cuts 38 that are familiar to or accepted by black audiences but are performed 39 by white artists such as movie theme song “Arthur.” These altera- 40 tions in the stations [sic] overall concept of music programming 41 are based on information gathered by the stations [sic] in-house researchers.

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The Scream and Other Tales 23

1 Cintron continues, by hand, on the back of her notes: 2 3 [WJLB] has its own music researchers on staff to compliment the pro- 4 gram director, and though the station acknowledges the data provided 5 by Arbitron and other similar service it has its own market research- 6 ers and other personnel who do nothing but call and survey listeners. 7 The result is a computerized play list where each record is dictated. 8 This computerization is quite unique. Most black radio stations in 9 Detroit rely solely on the research and creativity of the program 10 director and the input of the respective disc jockeys. 11 The 1980s census reported what many knew already: Detroit’s black 12 population had soared. Marketing material from the Hackley file attests 13 to the influence of black audiences in the “Greater Detroit” area which, 14 according to market maps, spread beyond Detroit’s Wayne County 15 into Oakland and Macomb counties to the north, and Livingston and 16 Washtenaw counties to the west. 17 18 Reach! To get it all in Metro Detroit you need “The Market within the 19 Market – that 63% Black Detroit – the WJLB FM 98 Listener! Latest 20 1980 U.S Census figures show Detroit’s Black population to be more 21 than 758,939 strong. You don’t have Metro Detroit covered if you 22 don’t have the powerful reach of Detroit’s Black Contemporary station – 23 WJLB FM 98. (HC, 1981e) 24 25 Additional marketing sheets discussed the station’s “award winning 26 news” (HC, 1981d) and perhaps most importantly included coverage 27 maps showing how WJLB competed successfully against competitors 28 like the disco-oriented WLBS out of Mt. Clemens (HC, 1981b), the 29 jazz-focused WJZZ (HC, 1981a), and R&B-oriented WGPR (HC, 1981b). 30 By 1981, the station could confidently print flyers that put their top 31 40 records on one side (Al Jarreau’s “We’re In This Love Together” was 32 number 1) with a Nefertiti silhouette on the back advertising a benefit 33 for the Afro-American Museum of Detroit (1981h). As the Hackley folder 34 witnesses, the struggles of stations like WJLB in the 1960s and 1970s 35 made this black cultural appeal possible. Marketing demographics and 36 on-air personalities had made it necessary. 37 38 1982–1999: “Strong Songs” 39 40 And then there was Mojo. 41 There are not many radio DJs, from WJLB or any other local station, who have their own vertical biography file in the Hackley Collection.

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24 Carleton Gholz

1 One of them is the piano playing dee jay Jack Surrell who performed 2 and curated records in Detroit from the early 1950s through the 1960s. 3 He did a tour on WJLB in the mid-1960s and died in 2003 (May, 2003). 4 Another is the Queen herself who, after leaving WJLB, would start her 5 own radio station in Detroit – WQBH – and broadcast through the 1990s, 6 dying in early 2000 (Kiska and Hurt, 2000). But the mysterious Charles 7 “Electrifying Mojo” Johnson’s file seems singular in noticing journalists’ 8 attempts to understand what draws radio audiences to their chosen, 9 ethereal, heroes. Included in the clippings is the extended profile by 10 then Free Press writer W. Kim Heron while Mojo was still at WGPR in the 11 fall of 1981 (Heron, 1981), numerous clippings by Jim McPharlin includ- 12 ing a short piece announcing his imminent move to WJLB in the summer 13 of 1982 (McFarlin, 1982), a feature from Detroit’s then main “alternative 14 paper” the Metro Times (Borey, 1982), a Michigan State University law 15 student’s fan dedication to Mojo (Wofsy, 1983), and consistent check- 16 ins on Mojo’s job status deep in to the 1990s by Michigan Chronicle 17 writer Steve Holsey. 18 Mojo’s moment at WJLB had been precipitated by transitions in local 19 programming. WDRQ went on the air in early 1982 with a focus on 20 “continuous music” and directly challenged WJLB for leading ratings. 21 A number of clippings from the file foreground the battle in the market. In 22 1982, Norman Miller was replaced as General Manager on WJLB by Verna 23 Green. Michigan Chronicle writer Nina Eman drew attention to Green’s lack 24 of experience. “Asked about Ms. Green’s lack of broadcast credentials (she 25 has none), Ms. [Carol] Prince [“WJLB representative”] replied that the new 26 station manager ‘was selected primarily for her management ability. We 27 needed an organizational specialist’” (Eman, 1982). Throughout Detroit, 28 radio stations were changing formats and call signs. Patrick Gilbert of the 29 Detroit Monitor attempted to describe all the shifts, summarizing WJLB’s 30 “personality emphasis, 1982; shift from black to urban progressive with 31 frequency shift from 1400 AM, 1980” (Gilbert, 1982). James Alexander 32 joined the staff as program director in the fall and in November of 1982, 33 Green and WJLB cancelled all church services on Sunday (Walker-Tyson, 34 1982). By 1983 the station was playing more music. Local newspapers 35 played up the competition in their pages (McFarlin, 1983). 36 The rise of new stations like WDRQ as well as continuing competi- 37 tion from WLBS pushed WJLB to buy out its on-air competition from 38 WGPR. What was significant about Mojo was that he was touching a 39 black audience but also, local journalists noted, a “crossover” audience 40 of suburban whites. As Free Press writer Gary Graff reminded his readers, 41

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The Scream and Other Tales 25

1 “It was the area’s black oriented stations that took the new music styles 2 first, and it was the Electrifying Mojo – first at WGPR-FM and now at 3 WJLB-FM – who exposed commercial radio to white acts like the B-52s, 4 Talking Heads and Lene Lovich while the album rockers stuck with Led 5 Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, et al.” (Graff, 1983). 6 By 1985 WJLB was using a new slogan declaring itself the home of 7 “strong songs” and accompanying this language with the image of black 8 male bodybuilders flexing on TV advertisements in response to WDRQ 9 (McFarlin, 1985). But the competition switched formats and Mojo was 10 sent packing at the peak of his powers. In 1988, morning talk personal- 11 ity John Mason from WJLB had become the most popular on-air “dee- 12 jay” for Michigan Chronicle readers behind Rosetta Hines from WJZZ and 13 Clarence “Foody” Rome at WGPR. Writer Steve Holsey noted though 14 the irony that Mojo still came in fourth. 15 16 It is interesting to note that Mojo, who left radio in ’87, still managed 17 to get enough votes to secure fourth place. Detroiter Nazrine White, 18 wrote, “Mojo is missing from the airwaves but he will never be 19 forgotten.” She added, “I miss the Prince songs!” (Holsey, 1988) 20 21 In 1989, Mason would win the survey, receiving a plaque from Holsey 22 (Michigan Chronicle, 1989a). Just a few years later, Holsey would com- 23 ment on Mojo’s departure from another local station in 1992, stating 24 that Mojo “is unique, an oasis in the desert of basic radio sameness” 25 (Holsey, 1992). Mojo would continue to DJ on and off at a number of 26 local stations through the 1990s before vanishing from the Mothership 27 in which he claimed to have been brought. Like the Queen before him, 28 Mojo had mixed entertainment with a powerful appeal to the imagina- 29 tion, and for a few years WJLB had been a willing collaborative outlet. 30 But as the archive notes, the story of black radio in Detroit has always 31 been a search for talent and the tension between that talent and the 32 bottom lines of market share. Despite his extensive fan base, Mojo was 33 not immune to those forces. 34 35 2000–Present: “Long Memories” 36 37 The Hackley archive breaks off in the late 1990s with only a few clippings 38 from the 2000s. By January 1995, the Michigan Chronicle could proudly 39 report to its readers that WJLB had beaten out WJR as the “No. 1 radio sta- 40 tion in the Detroit radio market with adults 12-plus” (Michigan Chronicle, 41

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26 Carleton Gholz

1 1995). In 1997, WCHB moved from jazz to “urban,” hiring a number of 2 ex-WJLB jocks including Electrifying Mojo and Billy T (Garner, 1997). 3 Verna Green would eventually be promoted to general manager for both 4 WMXD and WJLB (Michigan Chronicle, 1997). The file then jumps to 5 2002. The gap is telling. After the Telecommunications Act in 1996, 6 Booth merged with another company and then, after over fifty years, 7 sold WJLB. The station would change a handful of times before eventu- 8 ally landing with Clear Channel in 1999. A few years later, the archive 9 picks up again with an article about the station’s relationship with 10 Eminem. Like Berry Gordy before him, the rapper had realized that to 11 make it in Detroit during the 1990s required that one make it on WJLB. 12 At one point in Eminem’s movie 8 Mile, Eminem re-enacts this moment 13 from his own career when he approached WJLB with his music. 14 Johnathon “DJ Bushman” Dunnings remembered the moment for local 15 journalist John Smyntek. “Cinema verite? Not precisely. Those with 16 long memories will remember that just after the time in which the film 17 is set, WJLB was picketed by local rappers for not playing any of their 18 recordings” (Smyntek, 2002). The Act caused major corporate shifts for 19 local radio and, at the same time, and as I have noted elsewhere, left 20 Detroit’s “Golden Era” rappers off the air (Gholz, 2009). Eminem’s suc- 21 cess allowed a certain amount of nostalgia in his breakout film but the 22 silence in the archive speaks to a more uncomfortable truth. 23 24 Epilogue: Insomnia in Detroit 25 26 I was in Ann Arbor standing on the corner of Stadium and University 27 (1972). It’s where Discount Records used to be. I had just started 28 working at this Rock and Roll radio station, WAAM. I went to Discount 29 Records to pick up some music. When I came out, for a moment in 30 time, I was locked into the scenery. I was thinking about what the 31 mission of radio should be. I saw all of these different cultures, eth- 32 nicities passing by me. I was just standing on the corner watching 33 them. Old people, young people, black people, white people, Native 34 Americans – people from the whole world. I was thinking about how 35 radio stations fight for market share. They look at radio through this 36 narrow prism. I thought about how we might look at things differ- 37 ently. I also thought about the multi-layers of peer pressure and how 38 people are confined to their own little prisons by the people they 39 hang around with and the people they want to please or people 40 they don’t wish to offend in any way. They say to the group, “What 41 would you like for me to do? What would you like to listen to so I’ll

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1 be pleasing in your sight? You like to go here?” This is where I like to 2 go. You like this music? Okay, this is the music I like.” That is them 3 in the daytime, but at night, people don’t have the pressure of their 4 peers. They are forced to be themselves and to take on their own 5 adventures. (The Electrifying Mojo – Patricola, 2005) 6 7 It was cold and damp at 2 am when I started to drive to Farmington Hills. 8 “Dinero,” a young grad from Easter Michigan University let us in. From 9 2 to 3 am there had been pre-recorded mixes by DJ Fingers, but from 10 3 to 5 am there would be Club Insomnia. Marketed as “Two Hours that 11 Will House Your Body,” Insomnia has been going on for over ten years. 12 The DJs on this night are DaNeil Mitchell, Reggie “Hotmix” Harrell, 13 and, the only paid member of the group, Kim “The Spin Doctor” James. 14 Harrell remembers making “pause button mixes” as early as 1978 and 15 sending 30 minute mixes to the Electrifying Mojo to play on his show 16 in the early 1980s. James’ position is “The Mix Show Coordinator” for 17 two Clear Channel stations in Detroit (WJLB and WXMD FM). His first 18 gig was at Henry Ford Community College in 1982. He was paid $50. 19 Missing tonight is regular resident DJ Cent who plays for the queer 20 ballroom community in Detroit (Bailey, 2013, p. 125). It has been over 21 25 years since the Electrifying Mojo was on WJLB but on-air DJs who 22 mix their records live on the air still exist. Barely. 23 In 2009, WJLB moved from its art deco Penobscot Building studios to 24 a western suburb of Detroit called Farmington Hills. After over a decade 25 of consolidation and deregulation within the radio industry, WJLB had 26 been bought and moved by Clear Channel, the station’s owner since 27 1999. In Detroit, Clear Channel owns a number of stations which they 28 consolidated into an anonymous, three story, brown office building 29 across from an old farmer’s cemetery on Haggerty Road just south of 30 13 Mile. In 2010, as I completed work on my dissertation dedicated to 31 Detroit’s music industry after the departure of Motown from Detroit in 32 1972, I made inquiries to find out what had happened to the internal 33 archive of the station. Was there, for instance, a file cabinet dedicated 34 to the station filled with audio tape recordings of old shows, videos of 35 events, or perhaps even an archivist whose job it was to take care of 36 the history of the station so someone like me could hear the history 37 of WJLB? The answer was no. I was asked to come to the station and 38 was handed one manila file folder of photocopied advertising research 39 and promotional materials that focused largely on the previous decade. 40 There was nothing to listen to. Everything, I was led to believe, had 41 been thrown away in the move out of the Penobscot.

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28 Carleton Gholz

1 This experience, among others, pushed me in 2012 to form the Detroit 2 Sound Conservancy (DSC). After a decade of involvement documenting 3 Detroit music history, first as a journalist and fan, later as an academic 4 and media scholar, I realized that the archive itself was a significant 5 story in the telling – or non-telling – of Detroit’s place within moder- 6 nity. I realized that the basic documents to tell that story had been 7 relegated, sometimes literally, to the dustbin. The existence of a jour- 8 nalistic trail of clippings from over 70 years of activism by the Hackley 9 Collection made the episodic story above possible. But they are not 10 enough. Clear Channel may not need the cultural memory of its Detroit 11 holdings, but Detroiters do. We need to hear the Queen’s scream – 12 as well as her invocations to reach out across the airwaves. We need to 13 hear how Claude “Rocker” Young, Sr. got his name, and how his son, 14 years later, channeled those experiences into a new soundscape during 15 the early 1990s. In personal correspondence with former DJ Reuben 16 Yabuku, current marketing executive Lee Robinson, and former General 17 Manager Verna Green, it is clear that there are serious holes in the ver- 18 tical file that I hope to address in the future. Some of these materials, 19 like the early-morning mixes of the Club Insomnia DJs, exist online via 20 Soundcloud. Most still lie in basements, shoeboxes, and milk-crates, 21 or, at the bottom of trash heaps, resulting in a history of Detroit, espe- 22 cially in the era before widespread home taping and cassette use, that 23 is largely mute. Why would Ken Cockrel in 1975, then City Council 24 member, and activist take the time to discuss radio? How did music 25 allow his imagination to think through alternative futures? Based on 26 the archive that exists publically for researchers, the answer is difficult 27 to reconstruct. In part, that’s why I donated a compilation tape of the 28 Electrifying Mojo from my personal collection in 2014 to the DSC to be 29 added to our archive and posted on our website. As of this writing, it has 30 received over 7,000 plays (Detroit Sound Conservancy, 2014). 31 A final note: posting radio shows so that they are, once again, audible, 32 is just part of the activism that lies ahead for groups like the DSC and 33 researchers such as myself. In addition, we must struggle with the archive 34 and not just see it as a transparent window onto the past. An off-handed 35 remark in the Hackley file highlights the conundrum. In the archive there 36 is a Master’s Thesis by former Wayne State Mass Communication masters 37 graduate Esperanza Cintron (the only known copy in World Cat) as well 38 as notes developed for the thesis, with hand-written edits by the author. 39 In her notes, Cintron presents her take on the Queen’s aural signature: 40 41 The Queen’s style is a cross between Dear Abby, Prophet Jones, and Wolfman Jack. She gives advice, prays, preaches, and has played

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1 songs that are guaranteed to make any normal teenager wiggle. 2 A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Ms. Steinberg relies heavy on her 3 husky somewhat diluted southern drawl and an occasional bit of black 4 dialect thrown in for good measure.” (Cintron, 1982) 5 6 The newspaper columnist Dear Abby and rock ‘n’ roll radio wildman 7 Wolfman Jack will likely be familiar to readers. But Prophet Jones was a 8 regional voice with tremendous influence during the time leading up to 9 the rebellion. He is largely unknown outside of Detroit and rarely dis- 10 cussed in Detroit histories. According to historian Tim Retzloff, Jones’s 11 popularity as well as his ambivalent sexuality was much discussed and 12 talked about at the time (Retzloff, 2002). The complete absence of Jones 13 from the Hackley vertical file then – or for that matter DJ Cent – is a 14 significant aporia in the collection and points to the need to queer 15 Detroit’s media histories. Following Retzloff as well as self-proclaimed 16 archival queer Charles Morris (Morris, 2006), I remind the reader that 17 archival work is an active practice and the story I offer here is meant to 18 create the grounds for and call into being such work. In Detroit, at least, 19 we need to read such creative research so that we might still tune in to 20 such “fresh ideas” on the radio. 21 22 References 23 24 Arnold, D. (1960) Robots Move in on Radio. Detroit Free Press. November 13. p. 16–A. Arnold, J. (2008) The Telecommunications Act of 1996 and Diversity: The 25 Effects of Television Broadcasting “in the Public Interest.” Journal of Mass 26 Communications, 2 (2), pp. 1–29. 27 Bailey, M. (2013) Butch Queens Up in Pumps: Gender, Performance, and Ballroom 28 Culture in Detroit. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. 29 Barlow, W. (1999) Voice Over: The Making of Black Radio. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. 30 Borey, S. (1982) Mojo Takes Off. Metro Times. October 28–November 11. 31 Brevard, L. (2001) A Biography of E. Azalia Hackley, 1867–1922. Lewiston, NY: 32 Edward Mellen Press. 33 Brogan, M. (1970a) WJLB Asks Court to Bar Pickets’ “Pressure Tactics.” Detroit 34 News. December 17. Brogan, M. (1970b) Picketing of Home Barred. Detroit News. December 18. 35 Brown, N. (1970) Firing of Black Sparks Walkout. Michigan Chronicle. December 19. 36 Carson, D. (2000) Rockin’ Down the Dial: The Detroit Sound of Radio. Troy, MI: 37 Momentum Books. 38 Carson, D. (2006) Grit Noise and Revolution. Ann Arbor, MI: University of 39 Michigan Press. Cintron, E. (1982) Bell Broadcasting Company: Black Owned and Operated Radio 40 in Detroit, 1954–1981. Master’s thesis. Detroit: Wayne State University. 41 Cockrel, K. (1975) Cockrel’s Comment. Michigan Chronicle. November 8. Conot, R. (1974) American Odyssey. New York: William Morrow.

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1 Detroit Free Press. (1941a) FM Broadcasts Begun by WJLB. May 12. 2 Detroit Free Press. (1941b) New Station to Take WMBC Place Feb. 25. February 14. 3 Detroit Free Press. (1943) Restraint Order Signed in Church Radio Case. December 8. Detroit Free Press. (1948) Writ Halts WJLB Ban on Language Programs. February 28. 4 Detroit Free Press. (1966) A Tiger’s Loose in Detroit! January 16. 5 Detroit News. (1967) How Negro Stations Are Covering Big Story. July 25. 6 Detroit News. (1970a) Radio Strike Gets Backing of NAACP. December 19. 7 Detroit News. (1970b) WJLB Strike Ends. December 25. 8 Detroit Sound Conservancy. (2014) Electrifying Mojo from WJLB (circa 1983). Available from: http://detroitsoundconservancy.org (accessed May 30, 2015). 9 Douglas, S. (1999) Listening In. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 10 Eman, N. (1982) WJLB Denies “Shakeup” Charge. Michigan Chronicle. April 10. 11 Garner, C. (1997) Radio Stations Turn Up the Volume. Michigan Chronicle. July 2–8. 12 Gholz, C. (2009) “Welcome to tha D.”: Making and Remaking Hip Hop Culture in 13 Post-Motown Detroit. In: Hess, M. (ed.), Represent Where I’m From: The Greenwood Guide to American Regional Hip Hop. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. 14 Gholz, C. (2011) “Where the Mix is Perfect”: Voices from the Post-Motown 15 Soundscape. Dissertation. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh. 16 Gilbert, P. (1982) WHYT Won’t Be Crying 96 Tears. Detroit Monitor. September 23. 17 Graff, G. (1983) Blend of Black and White Catches On. Detroit Free Press. July 24. 18 Griffin, R. (1969) WGPR Airs Again Following DJ Strike. Michigan Chronicle. March 1. Griffin, R. (1979) Fired by Recording Promoter. Detroit Free Press. September 25. 19 Hackley Collection. (1948) Judge Drops WJLB Case. March 4. 20 Hackley Collection. (1952) Booth Radio to Apply for TV Outlets. May 2. 21 Hackley Collection. (1960a) Court Lifts Ban at WJLB. December 21. 22 Hackley Collection. (1960b) Radio Union Asks Severance. November 2. 23 Hackley Collection. (1960c) Strike On at 2 Radio Stations. November 1. Hackley Collection. (1960d) Talk Fails in Radio Dispute. October 28. 24 Hackley Collection. (1966) WJLB. May 15. 25 Hackley Collection. (1971a) Nichols Plans Radio Debut. January 19. 26 Hackley Collection. (1971b) Radio Strike Stops Nichols. January 21. 27 Hackley Collection. (1980a) Super Tennis Night. Brochure. August 23. 28 Hackley Collection. (1980b) WJLB General Information. Marketing material. Spring. Hackley Collection. (1981a) Coverage Map of WJLB compared with WGPR. June. 29 Hackley Collection. (1981b) Coverage Map of WJLB compared with WLBS. June 30 Hackley Collection. (1981c) History and Business of WJLB (FM) Detroit. Marketing 31 material. 32 Hackley Collection. (1981d) It’s Award Winning News! Marketing material for 33 WJLB by HR/Stone, Inc. June. Hackley Collection. (1981e) Reach! Marketing material for WJLB by HR/Stone, 34 Inc. June. 35 Hackley Collection. (1981f) The Booth American Story. Promotional brochure. 36 April. 37 Hackley Collection. (1981g) WJLB Program Schedule. Marketing material for 38 WJLB. May. Hackley Collection. (1981h) WJLB Top 40 Flyer. September 21. 39 Heron, W. (1981) The Electrifying Mojo. Detroit Free Press. November 15. 40 Hilmes, M. (2014) Only Connect: A Cultural History of Broadcasting in the United 41 States, 4th edn. Boston, MA: Wadsworth.

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1 Holsey, S. (1988) Readers Make Selections in Favorite Deejay Survey. Michigan 2 Chronicle. March 5. 3 Holsey, S. (1992) Reflections. Michigan Chronicle. September 9–15. Ingram, J. (1970) Black Producers Claim Local Broadcast Bias. Michigan Chronicle. 4 May 2. 5 Kirk, R. (1960) WJLB Sues Union for $300,000 in Strike. Detroit News. November 19. 6 Kiska, T. and Hurt, C. (2000) Martha Jean Was First in the Hearts of her Fans. Detroit 7 News. January 30. 8 Kohn, H. (1971) Nichols’ Show Biz Debut ‘Buzz the Fuzz’ a Big Hit. Detroit Free Press. January 29. 9 Mackey, R. (1971) Employee Sit-In Silences Radio Station for 3 Hours. Detroit Free 10 Press. January 12. 11 Martelle, S. (2012) Detroit: A Biography. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press. 12 May, J. (2003) Jack Surrell: Pianist and Radio Pioneer in Detroit. Detroit Free Press. 13 May 2. McFarlin, J. (1982) A New Pad for the Electrifying Mojo. Detroit News. August 27. 14 McFarlin, J. (1983) Inner City Stalwart Meets Suburban Slick. Detroit News. June 6. 15 McFarlin, J. (1985) WJLB Flexes its Muscle. Detroit News. March 4. 16 McNamara, M. (2004) Radio Revolution: The Rise and Fall of the Big 8 [DVD]. 17 Michigan Chronicle (1970a) WJLB-Radio Teen Reporters Hurdling Generation Gap. 18 December 12. Michigan Chronicle. (1970b) Staffers Continue Picketing at WJLB-Radio. December 19. 19 Michigan Chronicle (1974) New Music Series on WJLB. November 9. 20 Michigan Chronicle. (1989a) John Mason Wins Approval of Chronicle Readers; 21 Places First in Deejay Survey. February 4. 22 Michigan Chronicle. (1989b) Simpson to Host Countdown Show. June 10. 23 Michigan Chronicle. (1995) Dynamic Duo: WJLB and WMXD. January 25–31. Michigan Chronicle. (1997) Hot News from WMXD and WJLB. August 13–19. 24 Minor, R. (2015) Preserving the Black Performance for Posterity. Michigan History. 25 May/June, pp. 50–5. 26 Morris, C. (2006) Archival Queer. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 9 (1), pp. 145–51. 27 Newman, K. (2000) The Forgotten Fifteen Million: Black Radio, the “Negro 28 Market” and the Civil Rights Movement. Radical History Review, pp. 115–35. Osgood, D. (1962) 26th Year Is Marked by WJLB. April 15. 29 Patricola, V. (2005) The Electrifying Mojo. DEQ: Detroit Electronic Quarterly, 3 (Fall). 30 Peterson, B. (1970) Stations Reply to Charges by Blacks. Detroit Free Press. April 30. 31 Retzloff, T. (2002) Seer or Queer? Postwar Fascination with Detroit’s Prophet 32 Jones. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 8 (3), pp. 271–96. 33 Smith, S. (1999) Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Motown. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 34 Smyntek, J. (2002) WJLB, Film Both Benefit From Friendship. Detroit Free Press. 35 November 3. 36 Sommers, C. (2015). Message to C. Gholz, January 9. 37 Thompson, H. (2001) Whose Detroit? Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American 38 City. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Walker-Tyson, J. (1982) WJLB drops broadcasts of all religious services. Detroit 39 Free Press. November 3. 40 Watson, S. (1973) Broadcasting to the Blacks in Detroit’s Melting Pot: Why 41 WCHB Isn’t Quite Like WJLB. Detroit Free Press. January 14.

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1 Wendlend, M. (1971) Pact Puts WJLB Back on Air. Detroit News. January 12. 2 Wittenberg, H. (1970) WJLB’s Striking Blacks Go after Union Backing. December 16. 3 Wofsy, N. (1983) Mojo’s Magic Keeps Workin’ and Workin’. Detroit Free Press. January 2. 4 Woodford, F. (1965) Parnassus on Main Street. Detroit: Wayne State University 5 Press. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

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1 2 2 3 4 ‘On Tape’1: Cassette Culture in 5 6 Edinburgh and Glasgow Now 7 8 Kieran Curran 9 10 11 12 13 14 Introduction 15 16 The following piece is based around my interest in exploring the pecu- 17 liarity of cassettes making a comeback in the present historical context. 18 Related to this is the fact that engagement with and usage of tapes is 19 an aspect of particular sorts of DIY2/experimental music scenes. I chose 20 to approach this subject through a focus on scenes in Glasgow and in 21 Edinburgh; it is based and organised around interviews and observation. 22 Throughout 2013, I spoke with fans, musicians, promoters, record label 23 runners, and all manner of other interrelated permutations of these cate- 24 gories. Underlying these conversations and observations was a sense of 25 why (on a micro level) was the use of tape as a format for releasing music 26 still residually popular amongst independent musicians in the city 27 where I live (Edinburgh) and where I often travel to for gigs (Glasgow). 28 29 ‘There will never be any peace...’ 30 31 It is 11 April 2014 at a small venue just south of the city centre of 32 Edinburgh, The Wee Red Bar. Set within the main quadrangle of what was 33 the formerly autonomous Edinburgh College of Art (now a constituent 34 part of the much larger institution the University of Edinburgh), it is a 35 long-standing location for DIY gigs of variegated genres – dub reggae, 36 indie pop, electro, avant-garde noise amongst others. Tonight, there are 37 about 70 people in attendance (including myself and my friend Lilly) 38 to see a gig headlined by the Flower-Corsano Duo, a venerated noise-rock 39 combo whose sets consist of extensive improvisations between drum- 40 mer Chris Corsano and guitarist Mick Flower. Opening tonight are a band 41 (scratch that: perhaps entity is a better word) called Acrid Lactations,

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34 Kieran Curran

1 based in the Kinning Park area of Glasgow. Their 20-minute set is a 2 composite mesh of buzzing, broken keyboards, trumpet skronk and 3 squeak, signal processed feedback, the clanging of found objects, and 4 the mainly abstract, non-verbal vocalising of its two members – Stuart 5 Arnott and Susan Fitzpatrick. Yet the spectacle of improv noise-making 6 is cut through towards the end of the set, when Susan walks into the 7 crowd (The Wee Red has no stage as such, and the audience are at eye 8 level with performers) and begins to repeatedly sing an improvised (but 9 tuneful) lyric in a parodic, neo-soul voice: 10 11 There will never be any peace, 12 Until God is seated at the conference table… 13 14 Susan throws in intermittent ‘whoos’ and ‘come ons’ into the mix, 15 exhorting the rather stereotypically composed noise music crowd (mainly 16 darkly clad in jeans and shirts, mainly wearing plaid shirts, mainly in 17 their late 20s/early 30s and male) to join in. They look on detachedly, 18 awkwardly, and slightly sullen; predictably, they don’t get involved. The 19 humourous intervention of the popular cultural sphere into a scene akin 20 to Chris Atton’s popular avant-garde (Atton, 2012) exposed some of the 21 generic taboos (i.e. an almost fanatical devotion to no melody!) that 22 improvised music has. Yet the experience of their live performance – 23 and the sense of tension, of incipient laughter, and of the genuinely 24 unexpected – was palpable. 25 I had spoken to Stuart and Susan about cassette culture in Glasgow 26 months prior to this, and Stuart’s record label Total Vermin has been 27 an aesthetically astute user of cassettes as a medium of release. Why 28 (and, indeed, how) would you commemorate the idiosyncrasy of their 29 performance in a live context? And why would you particularly wish to 30 do so on tape? What was the appeal of cassettes to those engaged in the 31 DIY improvised music world? 32 33 Background 34 35 The cassette was invented in 1964, and its success as a format3 36 was boosted by the later development of the Sony Walkman – the 37 first mass-produced, incredibly popular, personalised music playing 38 device. As the predominant medium4 for listening to music in the 39 1980s and 1990s, the Walkman occupies somewhat of a nostalgic 40 place in the collective memories of people of a certain age (such 41 as myself) – soundtracking growing up, and walking to school in

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‘On Tape’ 35

1 temporal increments of magnetic tape, referred by some cultural crit- 2 ics as a potentially liberating micro-narrative of personal experience 3 (Chambers, 1990). Despite its initial transgressive status – as a device 4 which encouraged a public, mobile demonstration of private music 5 listening experience – the legacy of the Walkman is alive in the vast 6 proliferation of phones and MP3 players, most of which allow person- 7 ally curated mixes to be easily accessed and played. Such listening 8 practice is now surely the norm: 9 10 Most human beings adjust, because they must, to altered, even radi- 11 cally altered conditions. This is already marked in the first genera- 12 tion of such shifts. By the second and third generations the initially 13 enforced conditions are likely to have become if not the new social 14 norms – for at many levels of intensity the conditions may still be 15 resented – at least the new social perspective, its everyday common 16 sense. (Williams, 1983, p. 187) 17 18 Tape culture also occupied a key space in 1980s independent music. 19 Snatch Tapes and Statutory Tapes (particularly their ‘Rising from the 20 Red Sand’ compilations) produced collections which were contem- 21 porary documentations of fiercely, aggressively avant-garde industrial 22 music in the early part of the decade. The C86 tape – curated and 23 released by the NME in 1986 – was an apocryphal moment in indie 24 pop history, presented a series of songs by bands such as Bogshed, 25 The Wedding Present and Glasgow’s own The Pastels which became 26 emblematic of a certain ‘shambling’, lo-fi pop ethic. And in their 27 respective variegated, eclectic ways, Olympia, WA’s K Records, Ohio’s 28 Siltbreeze and the Dunedin label Xpressway were iconic indies who 29 released a high percentage of their output on tape. Regardless of these 30 non-commercial victories, sales of tapes bottomed out in the mid- 31 2000s, with various newspaper articles in the UK proclaiming the death 32 of the cassette in 2007.5 33 34 Nostalgia Retro Object Aura 35 36 The creation of an International Cassette Store Day in September 2013 37 seemed to suggest a media zeitgeist moment, and was accompanied by 38 some quite idealistic sentiment. Jen Long – one of the originators of 39 the initiative, and head of her own tape label Kissability – stated that, 40 unlike Record Store Day, her event was “less about supporting shops 41 and more about celebrating the cassette format that has been making

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36 Kieran Curran

1 a comeback for a while” (Long, 2013). This apparently ‘inaugural’ event 2 was somewhat controversial, as Glasgow’s Volcanic Tongue record 3 shop had initiated an (admittedly non-international) event akin to 4 this in 2012. Of course, the unveiling of a cassette store day was not 5 welcomed unequivocally. For instance, some message board comments 6 on a Guardian newspaper article contained a modicum of vituperative, 7 keyboard warrior rage. They also proposed an alternative method of 8 marking the day: 9 10 Cassettes were utter shit ... Cassette store day should involve a mass 11 smashing of the pieces of shit which are left in circulation, it would 12 be carthartic [sic] for me, I know that much. 13 14 In one of my first interviews for this essay, Ali Robertson – one half of 15 Edinburgh improv group Usurper, and mainstay of long-standing tape/ 16 CD-r label and promoter Giant Tank – found the resurgence of interest 17 in tapes to be a bit odd: 18 19 I know a lot of younger folk are putting stuff out on tape, and I find 20 that a bit peculiar. Somebody of my age6 has the nostalgia of dubbing 21 tapes, or taping songs off the radio, and the next generation don’t 22 have that ... I wonder: is it just a fashion thing? I spoke to my mate 23 and said I’m doing this interview about tape culture, and he said: ‘just 24 say you want your album put in Urban Outfitters’. 25 26 For Robertson, there was a potential sense of ‘cool capitalism‘s’ exploita- 27 tive tendencies at work – based on an uncanny ability to transform 28 apparently oppositional, or anti-establishment elements of a historic 29 counter-culture into a heroic ability to maximise profit margins 30 (McGuigan, 2009). In the era of dictaphone tape necklaces and ethi- 31 cally dubious, over-priced t-shirts emblazoned with the BASF logo, Ali 32 Robertson showed a jadedness with regard to the consistent process of 33 extracting surplus value out of anything and everything: 34 35 We’re living through these times of just trying to squeeze every last 36 bit of monetary worth out of stuff. And that’s like that shit – ‘Tapes, 37 hey! Let’s see if we can milk this!’ 38 39 Yet aside from the cynical outlook, Paul Etherington – a long-standing 40 fixture of the Edinburgh indie scene as a fan and sometime DJ – 41 identified a core impulse motivating the tape buyer, gleaned from his

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‘On Tape’ 37

1 experience of decades of going to gigs – that of scarcity, and of perceived 2 uniqueness: 3 4 I think its basically the culture of owning something which is ‘when 5 it’s gone it’s gone’. It all comes down to the limited edition thing. 6 And the only things that are really, truly limited edition now are 7 probably vinyl records, which are expensive to do with runs and 8 everything. CDs are easy to put in your computer and burn. With 9 a cassette – you can’t easily replicate that for someone else … [and] 10 the cost barrier is much lower than it is for vinyl ... you can buy a 11 set of blank tapes and make them yourself ... And my experience as 12 a buyer is that the cassettes go so quickly – you’ve got to get in there 13 sharpish. 14 15 Similarly, Ali spoke of this appeal as a seller of tapes after gigs and at 16 record fairs; their novelty and rarity value make them easier to market: 17 18 A CD is harder to sell than a tape. Not everyone has a tape to 19 tape deck in their house these days (laughter breaks out), whereas 20 everybody has a CD burner. So why would you want one of those? 21 22 Why not take advantage of this incipient demand? Perhaps uncon- 23 sciously aware of soon-to-recur fashions, Unpop was set up in 2009 as a 24 quarterly club night in Edinburgh’s Wee Red Bar by myself, Adam Neil 25 and Amy Baggott. With its roots in the Indiesoc of Edinburgh University, 26 the goal was to put together a night devoted to various strips of indie 27 pop – without too much of a consciously retro aesthetic. We decided to 28 make mixtapes for the early comers to our night, serving as a mix of good 29 tunes that we were into at a given time, and as an artefact or memento of 30 the night. Nostalgia partially informed this for us – all of us had, at one 31 point or another, regularly taped songs off the radio (in Adam’s case, culti- 32 vating an extensive, personal archive of the legendary BBC radio DJ John 33 Peel’s show), or curated our own mixtapes for ourselves or for friends. 34 We bought our tapes from Tapeline, a company based in Leeds and 35 a core component part of the contemporary resurgence of tapes. These 36 folk seemed to supply a vast number of the tapes to independent artists 37 and labels around the UK and Ireland. Adam – the organisational driv- 38 ing force behind Unpop – has had many dealings with the company. 39 Our mixes were given away for free at the beginning of the night, were 40 limited in number (largely due to the painstaking logistics of home 41 taping) and were not available to stream or to buy online. I found that

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38 Kieran Curran

1 their appeal to the club-goers who came along was mainly down to their 2 status as an object – they looked nice, had unique artwork hand-drawn 3 by Amy, and the tapes were in different colours (not just monochrome). 4 It is fair to say that very few of Unpop’s audience actually listened to 5 the things, yet there was definitely a distinct difference in the ritual of 6 listening for those who chose to do so. As Adam put it: 7 8 The medium is important. You listen to a tape very differently than 9 you would listen to a CD or a vinyl record. And people want a physi- 10 cal thing – they’re sick, in some ways, of ‘clicking’ music, and too 11 much music on your hard disk. 12 13 In the age of wholesale streaming of music, the importance of a physical 14 presence is underlined by indie pop label Soft Power,7 run by the hus- 15 band and wife team of Graeme and Bek Galloway, based in Livingston 16 near Edinburgh. In quite idealistic terms, Graeme described to me 17 the manifesto of Soft Power when we met up in the basement of an 18 unnameable Rose Street pub in Edinburgh: 19 20 The premise of Soft Power is that we release music that we love. We 21 don’t really care whether it sells one copy or five hundred copies, but 22 we release physical product. The real thing with us whether it’s vinyl 23 or whether it’s tape is that the buyer of the music gets something that 24 is tactile. Something they can buy, and hold and love and cherish. As 25 opposed to buying and paying for a download, enjoying the music 26 and loving the music but not actually having something that you 27 can have in thirty years’ time. 28 29 The aesthetic dimension to their label is – unsurprisingly perhaps, 30 given the devotion to producing memorable objects – crucial. Graeme 31 describes the process of sleeve design for a particular band, Dublin’s 32 September Girls: 33 34 That was their first release and it was an interesting process because 35 they wanted to use completely sustainable materials, They spent two 36 weeks trying to find the right kind of paper because the girls were 37 really adamant and we were into that. They gave us the artwork, and it 38 was really beautiful and we wanted to make them something special. 39 40 Graeme and Bek’s relationship in its early stages was bound up with 41 tape culture, and sending compilations to each other through the post;

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‘On Tape’ 39

1 the roots of the couple’s relationship lie in exchanging mixtapes with 2 each other through the Royal Mail in the 1980s): 3 4 We used to do mixtapes for each other, and when we were courting 5 we used to send each other tapes – she used to live in Bournemouth 6 and I lived in Scotland. 7 8 The physical manifestation that is the musical object holds a specific 9 appeal for Stuart Arnott (referenced in the introduction to this piece), 10 but – in contrast with Graeme’s perspective – incorporates a reluctance 11 towards being sentimentally attached to it: 12 13 It’s a physical object you interact with, and there’s a mechanical 14 process that’s reproducing the sound. So you do have a more solid 15 relationship with it. It does sound romantic, but I don’t feel like it’s 16 sentimental. I do know people who have tattoos of cassette tapes, 17 and that’s undeniably sentimental. 18 19 This leads into ideas of the appeal of the specific object of the cassette 20 itself. Good Press is a comic book/’zine shop and small gallery space, 21 situated in one part of the iconic Mono store in the Merchant City area 22 of Glasgow city centre. They also sell a small quantity of cassettes. The 23 gallery hosted an exhibition called ‘A History Of’, which invited attend- 24 ees to make their own mix tapes in the space itself, and to add their 25 own specific art-work (or not, depending on taste). It was a success, and 26 somehow timely. A core of what I spoke about with Matt and Jess was 27 to do with the cassette and cassette sleeve design as objects: 28 29 M: They’ve got a spine – that’s a designer’s standpoint – but there are 30 more surfaces on it to look at, it’s like the gatefold record. The thing 31 I instantly think of with a tape is like collage as well – it’s that you see 32 the artwork would be cut and paste and you’d see a dirty line on it. It 33 feels appealing in the same way a record feels appealing. 34 J: CDs suffer from the mass produced nature of CDs. If someone 35 makes a CD they’ll sit next to all your other CDs in the kitchen with 36 stuff from HMV. 37 38 Tapes thus represent a specific ‘feel’ and have a uniqueness; important, 39 given their contemporary currency as more niche, rarefied objects, 40 and despite their (ultimately) mass produced nature. Yet retrospection, 41 romanticism and nostalgia did not figure in Matt and Jess’s take on their

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40 Kieran Curran

1 appeal. Matt spoke of his lack of interest in nostalgia, and hinted at the 2 unpopularity of tapes amongst others: 3 4 I do remember having tapes, but I don’t put that nostalgia down 5 for me personally. I like tapes because of what they look like but 6 I would imagine that nostalgia is prevalent for a lot of people. But 7 let’s say tapes carry on being popular – some people aren’t gonna 8 have that. 9 10 Adam Todd of Edinburgh indie pop band The Spook School had regu- 11 lar exposure to ‘tapes being played in our Dad’s car’, but ‘never really 12 made mixtapes, or had mixtapes made for me by friends’ – his pre- 13 dominant mode of music consumption was through compact disc. Yet 14 the cheapness, portability and ease of tape recording technology was a 15 core aspect of their early music – as well as the unique and appealing 16 sound of live drums, or overdriven, lo-fi, ‘in the red’ guitar recorded 17 to tape. Of course, tapes can present problems as music carriers – 18 finicky tape players ‘eating’ cassettes,8 their deterioration in sound 19 quality over time, and the almost auto-destruction of poorly made 20 tapes snapping or unfurling. Yet this was certainly a constituent part 21 of its appeal. David Keenan – a critical historian of early Industrial and 22 Noise music (England’s Hidden Reverse), regular contributor to The Wire 23 and record store/label owner (Glasgow’s Volcanic Tongue) – noted the 24 specific utility of the format of the cassette for noise music. Cassettes 25 are unpredictable as they are, and manifestly different sonically with 26 every play: 27 28 Noise music can make actually play of accidentals ... pop music, or 29 indie music, does not embrace accidentals – it’s very very deliberate. 30 But the cassette is perfect for noise music – the medium sounds like 31 the music it was being used for. 32 33 When talking with Ali Robertson, I brought up the point of the combi- 34 nation of idealism and craftiness involved in tape production, and the 35 practical nature of the cheapness of the format (a point I’ll return to later): 36 37 I wouldn’t say that tape is the perfect format for everything I’ve ever 38 recorded. I put stuff on tape and I hear the nice warm hiss ... but that 39 drowns out the miniscule click sounds I’m making ... so sometimes 40 it’s gotta be a CD. I was going to say ‘sometimes it’s gotta be vinyl’ – 41 no times has it gotta be vinyl. It’s just too expensive.

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‘On Tape’ 41

1 Many of the conversations I had referred to the appeal of the object – 2 Keenan referred to cassettes having a ‘nice cigarette box size’, and 3 Xpressway cassettes as embodying ‘pure aura’. Ali Robertson com- 4 mented on liking ‘the feel of it’, Graeme to the fact that their tapes have 5 ‘got to look great’. It seems that the specificity of the format underlines 6 the excitement of the quest to amass a collection of meaningful objects – 7 even leading to a conception of an imaginary past. Walter Benjamin’s 8 dissection of the quasi-mystical motives for collecting neatly connects 9 with this: 10 11 The most profound enchantment for the collector is the locking of 12 individual items within a magic circle in which they are fixed as the 13 final thrill, the thrill of acquisition, passes over them ... as he holds 14 them in his hands, he seems to be seeing through them into their 15 distant past as though inspired. (Benjamin, 2000, p. 62) 16 17 Modernism Postmodernism Salvage 18 19 For others – such as Zully Adler,9 an American artist in his early 20s, 20 recently based in Glasgow as a postgraduate student, and head of the label 21 Goaty Tapes – the effect of the contemporary resurgence interest in tapes 22 would be economically minimal. Still, initiatives such as Cassette Store 23 Day could ultimately benefit so-called ‘mom ‘n’ pop’ record stores: 24 25 A tape is just a tape, it’s a commodity, and Urban Outfitters has every 26 right to sell them as anywhere else … if that’s gonna bring in an extra 27 couple hundred extra dollars, by all means ... but at the end of the 28 day, who’s really making money on Cassette Store Day? It’s that indie 29 record store that’s on the precipice of bankruptcy as it is. 30 31 Zully was also somewhat critical of the notion that the whole enterprise 32 was necessarily imbued with youthful nostalgia for an imagined past: 33 34 I think that when we consider older, outmoded technologies we 35 assume that any relationship to them is going to hinge on nostalgia. 36 But at this point, so many technologies have come and gone, and 37 when they’ve gone they haven’t really gone. They haven’t been com- 38 pletely devalorised; they’ve just been devalued – they still exist, they 39 can still be used; we encounter them. So it wouldn’t be a nostalgic 40 thing. Most of the people who are coming to tapes now are people 41 like me and you, who aren’t really old enough to have used them

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42 Kieran Curran

1 and revisit them, and the ones who are old enough have used them 2 straight through, pretty continuously. 3 4 The sense of a continuity in being interested in tapes was something 5 which David Keenan identified when I conversed with him on the topic. 6 He was emphatic in underlining the consistent embrace of tape as both 7 a musical instrument and as a format for releasing music in the often 8 transnationally collaborative avant-garde/noise world. He also pointed 9 to the importance of the record as an object: 10 11 People want something in their hands that they can hold, they want 12 a relationship with the artist again – and I think that’s why that’s 13 come back. But again, historically, noise and avant-garde under- 14 ground music have never stopped using cassettes. We’ve stocked cas- 15 settes in our shop from day one ... cassettes have never gone away, 16 and they never will, because they have something specific to them 17 that is impossible to replicate using any other medium. 18 19 Total Vermin – the aforementioned label run by Stuart Arnott – exempli- 20 fies what Keenan refers to here. Operating since the mid-2000s, they have 21 released approximately 80 tapes, mainly in the sphere of avant-garde, DIY 22 noise-making – these days, their recordings are primarily sold online, and 23 secondarily at the merch table at shows. Arnott has also released runs 24 of CD-rs. The music is generally atonal, somewhat abrasive, but with a 25 playful, subversive and self-deprecating sensibility that is shared with Ali 26 Robertson’s Usurper (indeed, they have frequently collaborated artisti- 27 cally). An example of this is I procured from Stuart – Total Vermin #70, 28 credited to the absurdist (yet somehow timely) pseudonym ‘Lovely 29 Mr Honkey and the Acrid Lactations Jubilee Chorus’. It is a work presented 30 with handmade, slyly subversive art work and neo-dadaist liner notes: 31 32 Syntactic pegs afloat in a semantic void 33 A hand among the pinks and marigolds 34 The mutagenesis of the Booboisie 35 36 Stuart, when based in Manchester, felt a sense of definite crossover between 37 generic categories/scenes (something he feels is the case within Glasgow, 38 as a medium-sized city), and the embrace of tapes felt like an uncontrived: 39 40 A lot of pals also put stuff out on cassettes, sourced from Tapeline ... 41 there was quite a wide range of things happening. Noise, psychedelic

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‘On Tape’ 43

1 stuff, indie. And it didn’t even seem to be a decision that had to be 2 made at that point. Everyone listened to tapes anyway ... My friend 3 Sophie was in a band called Hot Pants Romance, and they put out 4 their first stuff on tape ... and I ‘engineered’ that tape, asking the 5 band to move closer or further away from the built-in microphone 6 to achieve balance! 7 8 David Keenan refers to the pioneering capabilities inherent in broken 9 technology, which points also to the hidden possibilities inherent in 10 apparently obsolete technology: 11 12 Where technology is at its best is where it becomes broken, where it 13 becomes fucked up, where it stops working the way it is supposed to – 14 when it reverses, almost … you can see how Jimi Hendrix – this great 15 modernist – of how he privileged feedback. Feedback was the abso- 16 lute terror of the jobbing musician, of the session hack ... Hendrix 17 elevated this to one of the central building blocks of his entire music. 18 Throbbing Gristle even moreso – they made the mistake the central 19 way they built a language up. Modernism has always done that. 20 21 Keenan’s perspective ties in to an extent with Brian Winston’s identi- 22 fication of the machinations of the media technology industry, serv- 23 ing to restrict ‘the radical potential of the latest development and, at 24 the same, bringing the exploiters of the previous “new thing” into 25 the fold’ (Winston, 1998, p. 13). If radical possibilities have been 26 discarded by the mainstream, then why can’t the underground seize 27 upon these? 28 A belief in the specific possibility of modernist artistic expression 29 is one which Keenan sees as something which can be bound up with 30 refusal; it dovetails with the idea of the sense of the past being a site 31 of unfulfilled promise, an antidote to a retromaniac, inattentive pre- 32 sent (Reynolds, 2010), or as a space in which hauntological ghosts 33 and spectres abound (Fisher, 2014). Tapes are also potentially a site for 34 salvagepunk détournment; a reappropriation and revision of what is 35 apparently detritus (Calder Williams, 2011). Whether this is true or not 36 is, of course, up for debate. Yet, in the context of my interviews here – 37 particularly with those on the indiepop side of the spectrum – I felt a 38 palpable impulse towards homage and recreation. Unpop, The Spook 39 School and Paul Etherington’s taste in music is not one of a modern- 40 ist project to ‘make it new’, but both consciously and unconsciously 41 refers to past genre forms and aesthetics (Jameson, 1990). Our mixtapes

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1 are – to some extent, at least – periodic odes to the likes of C86, or to 2 K Records’ International Pop Underground compilations. This is not 3 to say that innovation is absent, but rather that the motivating fac- 4 tor isn’t formalist progression; perhaps a neat summation would be 5 Paul’s remark on the construction of mixtapes: ‘There’s a craft to it, of 6 stitching it together’. This stitching together of older reference points 7 is reflected in other aesthetics, in a broader sense – the cassette version 8 of Deerhunter’s latest album Monomania, for instance, is quite closely 9 indebted to the graphic design style of Atlantic Records’ cassettes from 10 the 1980s. 11 12 Outsider Internet Economics 13 14 A sense emerged of a definite connection between the embrace of cas- 15 settes and an engagement with a certain form of ‘outsider’ culture. Zully 16 Adler identified the appeal of an ‘eccentric’ home-recorded aesthetic in 17 terms of his Goaty Tapes label: 18 19 I’ve definitely put out my fair share of power electronics, and extremely 20 abstract improvised music ... but I would say the core of the tapes that 21 I’ve released revolves around more eccentric takes on popular genres ... 22 The bands that I usually release – there are all sorts of tag-lines for 23 them – you know, loners, outsiders. And of course these people aren’t 24 loners or outsiders – I talk to them pretty regularly. The point being 25 something attracts me to people working in these intimate settings, 26 and the domestic qualities of the sound that can be transmitted 27 through the music. 28 29 Paul Etherington referred to the appeal of the format as an identification 30 with being ‘in with the out crowd’ – looking at something which has 31 apparently been broadly (or popularly) dismissed or derided and essen- 32 tially rolling with it. David Keenan saw great significance and poign- 33 ance in the specific situatedness of DIY home recordings, particularly in 34 terms of challenging, abrasive noise music: 35 36 You don’t go into this neutral space that is specifically designed 37 for making music. A lot of these guys did make sound and records 38 in their bedrooms. And there’s something compulsive about that, 39 there’s something diaristic about it as well. And I’ve often found that 40 a lot of the great industrial music – it’s not like a performance, but 41 some kind of super personal hermetic broadcast from the other side

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‘On Tape’ 45

1 of lonely ... There’s something very sad and moving about a lot of 2 industrial noise music. I find it emotional – very emotional. 3 4 Separating off from conventional diktats of acceptability brings forth a 5 clandestine felt freedom in the act of creation. Tapes are also away from 6 an assembly line form of production and – due to the often handmade, 7 idiosyncratic nature of their production – become singular avatars of 8 folk art. Keenan again: 9 10 I think of Noise music as pop music’s night-time ... [the cassette] 11 was looked down upon. And so you’re able to get away with more 12 on cassette, ‘cos cassettes weren’t really policed ... you could do it at 13 home, you could cut out any of the industry that was surrounding 14 music at this point ... It flew in the face of the assembly line view 15 of music. Each cassette began as folk art that were different every 16 single time. 17 18 This is an interesting point. Cultural sociologist Nick Prior states that 19 ‘the DIY ethic so cherished by punk rockers is no longer an activist 20 ideology, but a systematic, structural condition of the production of 21 music itself’ (Prior, 2010, p. 404). In practical terms, a recording indus- 22 try in which a vast amount of money is only really spent on a minute 23 quantity of mega-stars at already huge levels of popularity, the DIY 24 model – incorporating, for example, savvy use of relatively cheap home 25 recording equipment, strategic employment of (small) label backing 26 and exploiting music streaming (e.g. Spotify) or downloading sites (e.g. 27 Bandcamp) – makes a lot of sense. One may nowadays be much more 28 liberated from the strictures of the ‘assembly line’, and can engage in 29 choices which leads music to be disseminated in a myriad of formats – 30 including tape. In essence, the oft-acknowledged impetus for punk has 31 opened up possibilities for many non-punk musicians. 32 Related to this, I raised the issue with Zully that I felt that part of the 33 appeal of tapes was down to their niche nature and inaccessibility – few 34 people have tape players anymore, and the obscurity may be attractive. 35 Zully disagreed with the idea that the difficulty in playing the format 36 (nowadays) is what lends it its appeal: 37 38 I don’t think it’s the inaccessibility of the medium itself that draws 39 people to it. I think the medium is more of a conduit, it’s not an end 40 in itself ... it’s everything around the tape that gets people going ... 41 I get asked all the time: ‘why tapes?’ And I don’t ever have a good

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46 Kieran Curran

1 answer, because there’s no one good answer. There’s a constellation 2 of less good answers, that make you deal with it. 3 4 Adler welcomes the democratic engagement which the internet can 5 offer with transnational music scenes with refreshing candour, and 6 doesn’t seek to mystify this process by which music is now dissemi- 7 nated: ‘It’s not exclusive anymore – you can google my name and buy 8 it for six bucks.’ The necessity of somewhat elitist gate-keepers (aka 9 obscure misanthropes in record shops) to culture is less apparent, and 10 this seems a good thing. There is the additional necessity for DIY musi- 11 cians and labels to promote their endeavours through email lists, social 12 media, disseminating online flyers as opposed to the physical etc. For 13 instance, Volcanic Tongue operates a successful, well-liked and well- 14 curated online shop; Unpop has forged connections to other indie pop 15 scenes locally and internationally through networking via all sorts of 16 digital avenues. A laptop computer can serve as the means of produc- 17 ing, distributing and promoting music (Toop, 2004). In addition, the 18 website of Good Press serves to foster and grow their DIY, cross-media 19 endeavours – photographic documentation is actively included online, 20 increasing the appeal of their work: 21 22 J: I feel like there’s a lot of people that have worked with Good Press 23 online, where it’s gone from ‘Yeah we’ll stock books’, and then you 24 find stuff out about their cultures. You can find a lot about it and get 25 interested in it. 26 M: Our online shop and our website is really key to us, We’re keen 27 on it. When we set up the press we wanted to make sure there are 28 photographs of everything we do online. There’s nothing worse than 29 coming across a website where there’s no pictures. 30 31 Yet, despite this, in most of my conversations, there was a desire amongst 32 those interested in cassettes to at least partially disengage from the 33 processes of ever-expanding, ever-present internet communication and 34 exchanges of music. In a context where much of a person’s work is 35 conducted at a computer, this renunciation or resistance is at least 36 meaningful. David Keenan asserted in our conversation: ‘I am definitely 37 pre-internet’. Unpop only distributes mixtapes to the first few people 38 who turn up to the night. Stuart Arnott only puts up short clips of Total 39 Vermin’s music to be heard on their website – to hear the whole thing, you 40 need to buy it at a gig or pay up through Paypal; all of these gestures seek 41 to interrupt the contemporary sense of near immediate, instantaneous

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‘On Tape’ 47

1 access to anything. Stuart is attracted to the idea of tape inaccessibility. 2 Additionally, there is a specifically political dimension to this, over 3 intellectual property and ethics: 4 5 I upload clips of the tapes to Soundcloud, but I’d really like to not 6 do that ... there are political reasons why I choose to do that ... 7 No matter where you host it, somebody is making money from it. 8 Even if you get the most ethical host possible for your files, are you 9 happy for them to take your money and spend it? ... Essentially, 10 somebody is still making money off my work, and the artist’s 11 work. And you lose control of the dissemination of it ... there’s 12 nothing to stop someone downloading my work and re-uploading 13 it somewhere else. 14 15 The sinister elements of file sharing and distribution is also something 16 Arnott is cognisant of (the area is clearly ripe for intensive monetary 17 exploitation, i.e. in the notable, recent case of Megaupload mogul’s 18 Kim Dotcom ostentatious, gangster-esque wealth). Sites of dubious 19 legality can often be tied in with odious industries of a different 20 nature: 21 22 If someone uploads it to a file sharing site, and that sites makes most 23 of their money from advertising pornography. If someone visits that 24 site to download my work, then the people who are profiting from 25 that are pornographers. 26 27 Tapes, unlike CD-rs, resist an easy transfer to digital formats, and 28 thus can exist (to a degree) outwith the darker recesses of the internet. 29 The paralysing nature of near-infinite choice also plays a role – 30 Ali Robertson called attention to this, even in his physical music 31 collection: 32 33 I’ve got thousands of CDs and tapes and records, and I’m thinking 34 ‘I don’t know what to put on’. I’m living in a library here. And it’s a 35 sense of too much choice – and the internet is just too much choice 36 isn’t it? I cannae deal with the overload – I quite like getting things 37 at a slow pace, receiving things. 38 39 Robertson also identified the importance of slower exposure to culture 40 as a means of attempting to wholly absorb music and ideas – speed of 41 life being one of the core experiences of late capitalism (Noys, 2014).

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1 In referring to the significance of the underground magazine Bananaﬁ sh 2 on the development of his musical tastes: 3 4 I’d read about it, obsess about it, 3 years later I would find one thing ... 5 and just devote all my time to this one thing for ages, and really get 6 to know it. Whereas now I meet people who are like *beep* – I know 7 it, *beep* – give me something else. 8 9 However, in conversation, Ali doesn’t suggest that more omnivorous and 10 rapid consumers of music have lost the ability to assimilate music – it 11 is more an example of a different way of listening. By contrast, David 12 Keenan’s extolling of the virtues of the quest to find new music and culture 13 feels a sort of jeremiad in miniature – but an intensely compelling one: 14 15 Part of the fun thing about cassettes was the effort you had to put in 16 to put together knowledge – it was initiatory (Keenan’s emphasis) on 17 a genuine level. You had to write away to these unknown addresses, 18 you had to order through catalogues … Every discovery was a mas- 19 sive thrill; it was a massive commitment ... it was life-changing. 20 Googling something and reading a wikipedia entry does not make 21 you an expert, and has no initiatory effect whatsoever. 22 23 There was also a bizarre partiality at work in the process of seeking 24 out tapes in the past. Rather than encountering music which can be 25 quickly – if perfunctorily, in Keenan’s view – ‘learned about’ online in 26 a few minutes, bootleg tapes were for many years a crucial medium for 27 hearing albums in advance of their official release, as well as live perfor- 28 mances which would have otherwise not been circulated. Ali Robertson 29 relates the experience of finding an advance copy of In Utero by Nirvana: 30 31 I remember going to Dunfermline10 and buying bootleg tapes of the 32 songs that were going to be on In Utero … but they would get the song 33 titles wrong: ‘Serve the Servants’ became ‘Suss a Sundown’. 34 35 In contrast to referencing the vast collective consciousness of the web, 36 experiences like Ali’s point back to an era where misinformation and 37 mistakes were part and parcel of encountering new music; thus, the 38 correct title is brilliantly warped into a sort of absurd, Scottish neolo- 39 gistic phrase. In some ways, these sorts of mistakes signpost interesting 40 misinterpretations and their attendant possibilities, rather than positing 41 a perspective of dry, fact-mongering rationality.

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‘On Tape’ 49

1 Vinyl’s Cheaper (and more Democratic) Cousin 2 3 Cost has been – and continues to be – a key factor in the appeal of 4 tapes. Paul Etherington delineated this well, in terms of the dichotomy 5 between cassette and vinyl consumption: 6 7 I think there’s an element of elitism with vinyl ... vinyl’s quite a 8 privileged medium, where you need a big chunky record player to 9 play it on, the equipment is more unwieldy ... The cassette has been 10 maligned so much, and the record purist will be down on it because 11 they can buy the vinyl, they’ve got the choice – they have 20 quid 12 for a new record, and the space to store it ... The cassette has been 13 the entry-level that gets people listening to music. Yes, vinyl is better 14 quality. But cassettes are something that you can cheaply own and 15 play without all these other barriers to entry ... the vinyl thing is very 16 much a ‘purist’ thing. 17 18 Paul’s remarks point to an element of economic and cultural capital dis- 19 tinction of the vinyl collector versus the tape collector – money, storage 20 space and more specific technological know-how act to remove certain 21 players from the game. Paul identified perhaps a global, transnational 22 aspect to the cassette’s appeal – Awesome Tapes from Africa are an exam- 23 ple of this, as well as the vibrant consumption of tapes in Syria, India 24 and Malaysia (amongst other nations): ‘There’s a universality to the 25 cassette – it’s a worldwide phenomenon ... people don’t care about the 26 sound quality – they just love the songs and they want to hear them.’ 27 Love of the song over what is perceived to be normative standards of 28 fidelity suggest an unlikely connection between the indie pop sphere 29 and non-Western musics. 30 Jess from Good Press suggested that simple economic logic would 31 continue to contribute to a demand for tapes: 32 33 You’re always going to get bands putting out tape, because of the 34 simple fact that putting out your own record is way too expensive, 35 putting out fifty tapes is not. 36 37 This sentiment was echoed across all of the interviews for this piece. 38 Soft Power’s attachment to the tape format has, as earlier stated, an aes- 39 thetic and a romantic dimension to it. But it is also definitely pragmatic, 40 due to the relatively cheap production costs in comparison to vinyl, 41 especially on limited runs – and thus more profitable for the bands

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1 and label. Based on his experience of making mixtapes when younger, 2 Graeme stated that: 3 4 I had a really good technical understanding of tapes, so we kind of 5 held on to that. You can actually manufacture them for less than a 6 quid … [and] if you can retail them for two or three pounds, you 7 can maybe make about 100 pounds on a tape release. But the chasm 8 between that and vinyl ... The reason 7 inches are not popular right 9 now, is that to get a vinyl out you’ll be spending anything from 10 £850 and £1200 that depends whether you do three hundred or five 11 hundred and another colour and that. That’s why we did five tape 12 releases in a row to try and make some money to bridge that gap. 13 14 Tapes thus point to a sense of sustainability in an economic sense – they 15 are, as Ali Robertson put it ‘relatively ethical’ as a physical medium for 16 music.11 Some of Soft Power’s bands have experienced a sense of upward 17 mobility in the indie pop context – after early releases on the label, 18 The Spook School and September Girls are now releasing professionally 19 pressed CD and vinyl records on a bigger independent label, London’s 20 Fortuna Pop. There is a freedom associated with groups operating out- 21 side of a major label context; bands do not necessarily move up or down 22 in a hierarchical context, but sideways. Basically, this could be said to be 23 down to love over money; or – put another way – those who are accorded 24 the higher fulfilment that the ‘psychic wage’ of an artist are thus less 25 materially compensated with actual wages. Zully Adler raised this point 26 in relation to favourite bands of his within the American underground – 27 their working lives are embedded with a degree of free agency: 28 29 I don’t want to sound utopian here ... but their musical project is one 30 that isn’t tethered directly to the imperatives of making money. There 31 are things they want to do and there are different ways they want to do 32 it. Sometimes they can cash in a little bit, and sometimes they won’t – 33 whether the timing’s not right, and whether they just don’t feel like it. 34 35 A perceived degree of casualness imbued the bands that wanted to 36 release their work with Goaty Tapes, as well as an absence of auxiliary 37 label staff getting in the way – a situation which Adler found liberating, 38 enabling design experiments to take hold: 39 40 I came to tapes from a print-making background, and from loving 41 music ... making the covers for tapes was always really fun for me.

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‘On Tape’ 51

1 And I would experiment with different print methods, and making 2 weird designs. And because everybody had such a casual attitude 3 about the enterprise, I had complete creative freedom. I don’t have 4 to put the name of the band on the spine if it doesn’t suit me that 5 night, and people kind of vibe with it. 6 7 None of the people (apart from David Keenan) I spoke to who work with 8 tapes and work in what you could broadly term ‘the music industries’ 9 do so for their living wage – all have other day jobs. Adam Todd is a full- 10 time student as well as a musician – he also performs stand-up comedy. 11 Adam Neil works in a bar, as well as promoting Unpop; Ali Robertson 12 was a long-term member of staff at the now-defunct Edinburgh record 13 shop Avalanche. Thus, ‘amateur’ pragmatism is a core characteristic 14 of tapes appeal – tapes are relatively popular for Arnott, they sell. 15 Robertson’s goal is always to ‘break even’, after having had negative 16 experiences of losing heavy amounts of money by self-financing tours to 17 the US. There is also the option of seeking state subsidy, even in times of 18 apparent widespread austerity. However, this brings about its own prob- 19 lems, as Robertson identifies, management speak does not necessarily 20 come fluently to artists: 21 22 We’re trying to do a tour in the States ... So we’re looking into what 23 sorts of funding are available. And you know, it’s all about ‘Career 24 Development’. The language used is always about a return on your 25 investment, and its impact on your career. Well, it’s not really a 26 career ... ‘What return do you expect on this?’ ‘Smiles from the 27 audience, hopefully.’ 28 29 Andrew Ross refers to this as part of a relatively recent, specific 30 commodification/marketisation of the arts, with work in the newly 31 coined ‘creative industries’ bound up with neoliberal values of the 32 go-getting entrepreneur: 33 34 Leave your safety gear at the door; only the most spunky, agile, and 35 dauntless will prevail. This narrative is little more than an updated 36 version of social Darwinism, but when phrased seductively, it is 37 sufficiently appealing to those who are up for the game. (Ross, 2009, 38 p. 45) 39 40 Precarious conditions underline this reconception of art as a driver of 41 GDP and gentrification, whilst often failing to ensure a modicum of

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1 living standards for practitioners. It frees artists from the rigidity of the 2 division of labour – ‘In a communist society, there are no painters but at 3 most people who engage in painting among other activities’ (Marx and 4 Engels, 1973, p. 71) – yet, bleakly, minus the egalitarian organisation of 5 society, and added market competition. 6 7 Conclusion 8 9 There is a certain romance to tapes – they are finite, as human beings 10 are, and like us are material entities. They soundtrack memories, 11 embodied in an object, and even in compiling mixes are examples of 12 music-making in the Cageian sense of the organisation. Through trad- 13 ing and the economic exchange, they have historically brought people 14 together – and continue to do so. The people I spoke with in Glasgow 15 and Edinburgh alike spoke of the value of the isolated moment – in terms 16 of mixtape making, songwriting, determining the order and sequence 17 of a cassette, the pleasure of experimenting with artwork; all actions 18 which form part of ‘constellation’ (to borrow Zully’s term) of reasons to 19 find use value in tapes. David Toop’s reflections on his early forays into 20 compiling mixes of work from the BBC sound archives in the 1970s have 21 some resonance here: 22 23 Working from a position of no power, no influence, no money, no 24 support, working with abject means, this accumulation of extraor- 25 dinary sound and personal experiment used cassettes to build ways 26 of unlearning and resounding, reaching out to a new listening 27 world. 28 29 Though by no means now technologically limited to tape, the percep- 30 tion of limited (or no) means is one which still binds together many 31 of those interested in tape on a grassroots level. And the concept of 32 personal experiment – even if not necessarily related to a perceived 33 avant-garde project – obviously still holds. 34 Yet – in its encapsulation of the wilfulness inherent in the idea of 35 embracing cassette as a medium for music release in the early part of the 36 21st century – I thought I’d conclude with a joke from Ali Robertson on 37 the residual appeal of the form: 38 39 The reason cassettes are here? People who listen to noise and experi- 40 mental music are the contrariest fuckers out there. Who else would 41 listen to this shit?

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‘On Tape’ 53

1 Notes 2 3 1. The title ‘On Tape’ references the eponymous cult indie pop hit of 1988 by The Pooh Sticks. 4 2. Do-It-Yourself is a term bound up with perceived independence and 5 ‘self-sufficiency’ within cultural production, and often has connotations 6 of authenticity and opposition to the mainstream. This is perhaps surpris- 7 ing, given the term’s parallel, non-musical history as the British synonym 8 of ‘home improvement’. Two key philosophical implications inhere in the concept. On the one hand, it can serve to propagate the image of an isolated, 9 neoliberal subject toiling at home in isolation whilst dreaming of making it 10 big due to her individual effort (or exceptionalism) – work all day and make 11 your magnum opus at night. Yet, contrastingly, there are other, more uto- 12 pian connotations, of active local and trans-global collaboration and crea- 13 tive freedom – ‘DIY culture has always promoted the maxims of anti-elitism and, with new technology, they are truer than ever’ (Spencer, 2008, p. 332). 14 Alas, this does not mean they are owed a living (paraphrasing Crass), and 15 practitioners of this milieu often enjoy scant remuneration. 16 3. The commercial high-water mark of the cassette is way back in 1988 17 (1.4 billion units sold), reminding us of the relatively recent period of its 18 market dominance. 4. To clarify, a myriad of devices (essentially modelled on the Walkman’s tem- 19 plate) by a vast array of different electronics companies reinforced and 20 proliferated this medium of personalised listening. 21 5. Interestingly, for a brief period before the explosion in digital downloading, 22 sales of cassette were larger than sales of vinyl. 23 6. Ali is in his mid-30s. 7. Soft Power tape releases are often accompanied by an MP3 download code, 24 allowing for a listening space to be constructed digitally, whilst the cassette 25 can function purely as an ornament. 26 8. Memorably referenced by the hip-hop artist Nas on his classic 1994 LP 27 Illmatic: ‘Never put me in your box if your shit eats tapes.’ Related to this, 28 a professor of music I spoke to about the format pointed out that ‘the key technology [for tapes] was actually the pencil you inserted in a tape’s hole 29 to turn loose tapes back to order’. 30 9. In the often oppositional positioning of ‘Edinburgh vs Glasgow’ within 31 everyday Scottish culture, the sedateness of Edinburgh’s more ‘middle class’ 32 music scene is juxtaposed with Glasgow’s more edgy, vibrant expressive 33 world. As Ali Robertson commented in our interview: ‘we live in Tartan Disneyland right here ... in Glasgow, because they don’t attract as many 34 tourists, they don’t have to market themselves as “shortbread city”’. On this 35 note, it seems fitting to state that Zully and I conducted this conversation 36 sitting in a dingy doorway on a rainy autumn’s evening on Renfield Lane – 37 sandwiched between two key venues in Glasgow’s DIY music scene (Stereo 38 and The Old Hairdresser’s, respectively). 10. A medium-sized town in Fife (north of the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh), 39 nowadays acting as a sort of commuter belt area for the city of Edinburgh; 40 has produced notable pop bands such as Big Country in the past, and 41 Miracle Strip in the present.

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1 11. Music sociologist Kyle Devine has written fascinatingly on the ethical impli- 2 cations of forms of musical dissemination on the environment in a forth- 3 coming article for Popular Music entitled ‘Decomposed – A Political Ecology of Music’. 4 5 6 Bibliography 7 Atton, C. (2012) Listening to ‘Difficult Albums’: Specialist Music Fans and the 8 ‘Popular Avant-garde’. Popular Music, 31:3. 9 Benjamin, W. (2000) Illuminations. London: Verso. 10 Calder Williams, E. (2011) Combined and Uneven Apocalypse. London: Zero Books. 11 Chambers, I. (1990) A Miniature History of the Walkman. New Formations: A Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics, No. 11, pp. 1–4. 12 Devine, K. (2015) Decomposed – A Political Ecology of Music. Popular Music. 13 Forthcoming. 14 Fisher, M. (2014) Ghosts of my Past. London: Zero Books. 15 Jameson, F. (1990) Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. London: 16 Verso Books. Long, J. (2013) Why We’ve Created Cassette Store Day and Why It’s Not Just 17 Hipster Nonsense. NM. Available at: http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/ 18 why-weve-created-cassette-store-day-and-why-its-not-just-hipster-nonsense 19 Marx, K. and Engels, F. (1973) On Literature and Art. L. Baxandall and S. Morawski 20 (Editors). St Louis/Milwaukee: Telos Press. 21 McGuigan, J. (2009) Cool Capitalism. London: Pluto. Michaels, S. (2013) Inaugural International Cassette Store Day Announced for 22 September. The Guardian. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/ 23 jul/16/international-cassette-store-day-announced-september-2013 24 Noys, B. (2014) Malign Velocities – Accelerationism and Capitalism. London: Zero 25 Books. 26 Prior, N. (2010) The Rise of the New Amateurs – Popular Music, Digital Technology, and the Fate of Cultural Production. In L. Grindstaff, J. R. Hall and 27 L. Ming-Cheng (eds.), The Handbook of Cultural Sociology, 398–407. London: 28 Routledge. 29 Reynolds, S. (2010) Retromania. London: Faber & Faber. 30 Ross, A. (2009) Nice Work if You Can Get It. New York: NYU Press. 31 Spencer, A. (2008) DIY – The Rise of Lo-Fi Culture. London: Marion Boyars. Toop, D. (2004) Ocean of Sound. London: Serpent’s Tail. 32 Toop, D. (2014) Tape Manipulation – The Blank Cassette as Aural Dreamcatcher. 33 The Wire, Issue 363. 34 Williams, R. (1983) Towards 2000. London: Chatto & Windus. 35 Winston, B. (1998) Media, Technology and Society – A History: From the Telegraph to 36 the Internet. London: Routledge. 37 38 39 40 41

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1 2 3 3 4 Radio in Transit: Satellite 5 6 Technology, Cars, and the 7 8 Evolution of Musical Genres 9 Jeffrey Roessner 10 11 12 13 14 In George Lucas’s classic 1973 film American Grafﬁ ti, a major plotline 15 involves a recent high-school graduate, Curt (Richard Dreyfuss), on a quest 16 to locate an attractive blond woman (Suzanne Somers) he has only 17 glimpsed, in passing, in her ethereal white T-bird. Representing escape 18 from the impending pressures of adulthood, career, and responsibility, 19 the woman can only be reached, he ultimately decides, through that 20 signal beacon of youthful fantasy: the radio. Indeed, radio saturates this 21 film in its celebration of 1950s cruising culture, with every nomadic 22 teen in an automobile tuned to the same station, listening to the same 23 deejay (Wolfman Jack) spin the soundtrack to their late adolescence. 24 It’s not surprising, then, that Curt decides to seek salvation at the radio 25 station itself, where he can have his personal request for the woman 26 beamed through the air. In this narrative arc, American Grafﬁ ti weds desire 27 and technology, uniting the wish for transcendence with the thrill of 28 early rock ’n’ roll. In so doing, it establishes radio as a communal force 29 that bonds an irresolute generation, with the deejay as savant, hidden 30 in his lair, conjuring dreams for a subterranean, mobile culture that 31 primarily exists at night, in a car, at the fringes of the adult world. 32 That potent mythology of a radio-equipped automobile as a vehicle for 33 deliverance still grips the contemporary cultural imagination – though 34 technology has significantly changed listening practices. Just as the 35 AM Top-40 format of the 1950s ultimately stagnated and gave way 36 to free-form FM in the mid-60s, so today the hyper-commercialized, 37 demographic-driven FM platform itself is under assault by newer modes 38 of delivery. Satellite radio and online streaming services provide attractive 39 alternatives to the restricted playlists and narrow-casting of over-the-air 40 radio. To be sure, FM still reaches a vast audience. But satellite radio in 41 particular – in the form of SiriusXM – has carved out its market share

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1 by promising a sense of freedom and spontaneity to listeners. Offering 2 expanded playlists that challenge rigid boundaries of genre and format, 3 satellite radio downplays musical subgenres in favor of a proliferation of 4 micro-genres, signaling an important change in the way audiences are 5 constructed and served. And perhaps most important, satellite boasts 6 a human presence with the return of the deejay, spinning songs and 7 providing context for what’s played. Such tactics at once evoke and 8 commodify nostalgia for earlier radio practices, even as they build new 9 audiences. Ultimately, it is in the attempt to recover a 1960s aesthetic 10 of audio serendipity that satellite radio recuperates the automobile as 11 a vital listening space and sells the sounds of freedom, power, and 12 independence. 13 14 *** 15 Contemporary listening spaces are generally premised on the fan’s abil- 16 ity to define his or her own playlists for private enjoyment. From online 17 services such as Spotify to the ultra-portable MP3 player, for example, 18 listeners now choose what they want to hear, when they want to hear it, 19 with technology individualizing the audio experience and breaking down 20 most spatial constraints. This is a privatized contemporary experience: 21 ultra-portability and the ubiquitous white earbuds – or more recently, 22 the bulkier, 1970s-throwback “cans” that attempt both to mark a rejec- 23 tion of Apple’s iPod and to signal another level of consumer indulgence, 24 with the priciest headphones easily costing hundreds of dollars. 25 Regardless of the style or price of headphone, though, the delivery system 26 ensures sonic isolation. Seemingly no locale is an inappropriate listen- 27 ing space while you’re consuming your music privately: walking on the 28 street, riding the bus, lounging in a cafe, or even dining. 29 Given this contemporary context, the car may seem a ridiculously 30 antiquated vehicle in which to deliver music. The automobile is bulky 31 and at least a semi-public space if you’re playing the radio with the 32 windows down or sharing the car with other passengers (Bull, 2003, 33 p. 367). And with radio, there’s always the sense that no matter how 34 alone you feel, there are others out there tuned in, partaking of the 35 same auditory communion. How different that experience is from what 36 is offered by the slim, ever-shrinking and highly portable MP3 player or 37 smart phone. With the move toward privatizing even the most public 38 of spaces, it is no surprise that automobile makers now boast multiple 39 ways of playing a personal music collection in the car. If you want to 40 ditch your clunky CDs and their perennially lost and broken cases, 41 you’ve got plenty of options: from plug-and-play technology for your

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1 iPod to Bluetooth connectivity for your phone, you never have to be 2 without a vast amount of your music – even on the road. 3 Within the context of the rush toward personalization, over-the-air 4 radio – although it remains the dominant mode of music delivery in 5 automobiles – has shown signs of slipping. A 2013 survey by Arbitron 6 and Edison Research revealed that AM/FM radio was used “Almost All of 7 the Time” or “Most of the Time” by 58 percent of listeners, while the CD 8 player claimed 15 percent, the iPod/MP3 player 11 percent, and Satellite 9 Radio 10 percent (Palenchar, 2013).1 So the AM/FM hegemony contin- 10 ues, but perhaps only for a time: the erosion of its audience is clear. 11 A full 21 percent of automobile listeners are predominantly using 12 devices that did not exist before the turn of the century, and their num- 13 bers continue to grow: regarding online listening in general, no matter 14 the location, the percentage of users for one month in 2013 “hit 45 per- 15 cent in the latest survey, or an estimated 120 million Americans. That’s 16 up from the previous year’s 39 percent, 2009’s 27 percent, and 2003’s 17 17 percent” (Palenchar, 2013).2 The ultimate consequences of new 18 technology for listening are, of course, subject to debate (Calem, 2013). 19 How diminished will AM/FM be? Can satellite survive the onslaught 20 by streaming services, scrambling for a spot aboard the infotainment 21 centers of newer automobiles? Will monolithic corporations like Clear 22 Channel maintain a presence by successfully streaming over-the-air 23 content? Though such questions hang over the future of the industry, 24 what’s happening now is evident: the rise of alternative delivery sys- 25 tems represents a direct threat to over-the-air radio, as those stations 26 have been rendered artistically impotent by slick formats, corporate 27 monopolization, and rigid, demographically defined playlists.3 28 With these consumer trends in mind, we can read the history of satel- 29 lite radio, in its broadcast practices and marketing, as an alternative both 30 to traditional AM/FM programming and to streaming services such as 31 Spotify and Pandora. Emerging in the early 2000s, and aimed squarely 32 at audiences in the United States, satellite radio exploited emerging digi- 33 tal technology to reach listeners seeking more diverse audio choices in 34 their cars (Parker, 2008).4 Technology aside, the opportunity for a satel- 35 lite radio market arose in large part from the 1996 Telecommunications 36 Act, which loosened regulations on how many over-the-air stations a 37 company could own in a market. While previously a company could own 38 no more than forty stations nationwide, and no more than two FM and 39 two AM stations in a given market, the 1996 Act removed the national 40 restriction and allowed ownership of eight stations in a larger market, 41 and between five and seven in a smaller one (Polgreen, 1999, p. 9).

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1 By 1999, the law had resulted in dramatic changes: “Of the 4992 sta- 2 tions in the 268 ranked markets almost half” were controlled “by a 3 ‘superduopoly,’ that is, they [were] owned by a company that [had] 4 three or more stations in the market” (Polgreen, 1999, p. 9). The result 5 of such consolidated ownership was a staggering decrease in radio diver- 6 sity. By the early 2000s, for example, radio giant Clear Channel had 7 “acquired more than 1,200 stations in the United States, which took in 8 more than $3 billion, or 20% of the industry dollar volume, in 2001” 9 (Garofalo, 2007, p. 14). Noting that radio has always had to balance 10 commercial interests with audience desires, Lydia Polgreen argues that, 11 nonetheless, “it used to be the case that if listeners didn’t like what they 12 heard on a station, if it was monotonous and repetitive, they could tune 13 away. Now there is just less choice out there” (1999, p. 10). In fact, that 14 very lack of choice set the stage for the birth of satellite radio, predicated 15 on delivering more options than could be found on the increasingly 16 squeezed bandwidth and playlists of over-the-air stations run by media 17 conglomerates. 18 Initially satellite radio services were operated by two companies on two 19 competing systems: Sirus and XM receivers. Despite various attempts to 20 differentiate themselves, and in the context of serious fiscal challenges, 21 both systems functioned as largely commercial-free subscription ser- 22 vices in opposition to over-the-air radio. Merging into one company in 23 2008, SiriusXM in its current iteration now must also distinguish itself 24 from the increasing competition of online services striving to generate 25 ever-more-personalized playlists from vast catalogs of music (Bruno and 26 Tucker, 2008). From its inception, then, satellite radio has been branded 27 and marketed against the backdrop of other delivery platforms. Indeed, 28 such pressures for market share illuminate the approach satellite has 29 taken to everything from genre and format construction to audience 30 identification and presenting, or deejaying, itself. 31 Given the rapid evolution of contemporary listening habits, satel- 32 lite radio makes a major bid for subscribers by exposing the fact that 33 over-the-air radio, with its constricted playlists, might not reflect the 34 identities of some listeners. As David Hendy (2000) notes, “If it is true 35 that through radio we hear what we are, it is also true that to some extent 36 we are what we hear” (p. 214). He goes on to suggest the ways that radio 37 “may exaggerate or even distort certain tastes, or notions of identity, 38 rather than simply reflecting them” (p. 215). The situation leaves lis- 39 teners with several options: agree that the identity offered by a station 40 represents them (“I only listen to Froggy 99.7”), channel surf to maintain 41 the sense of autonomy (“No single station can capture me”), or seek an

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Radio in Transit 59

1 alternate technology for delivering music. In a recent essay, Eric Weisbard 2 (2014) argues against those who would unfairly malign the narrow- 3 ness of over-the-air formats. He suggests that because of flexibility and 4 innovation over time, “The format system has provided a stable means 5 for groups left on the margins of public discourse to sing and feel things 6 together.” Consequently, to disparage radio formatting is not to disparage 7 a “style” of music, but the popular audience that a format constructs. 8 Or put another way, complaining about radio format is actually a thinly 9 disguised complaint about undiscriminating listeners. Weisbard is surely 10 correct to point out the flexible and genre-crossing nature of many radio 11 formats and their complex, evolving appeal; however, his argument 12 doesn’t explain the steady growth of online and satellite listening. Clearly, 13 a significant portion of listeners are indicating that over-the-air radio does 14 not speak adequately to their identities. Moreover, when we consider the 15 number of genres and formats that are simply unavailable on commercial 16 radio, we must question how many marginalized groups are being served. 17 Through the sheer volume of channels, satellite radio complicates 18 standard genre and format equations used by FM to construct audiences.5 19 The Sirius All Access package for listening in your car currently offers 74 20 channels classified as “music” and divided into nine broad categories.6 The 21 list of music genres, followed by the number of channels featuring each, 22 includes: Rock (29), Pop (twelve), Jazz/Standards (8), Country (7), Dance/ 23 Electronica (6), R&B (4), Hip-Hop (3), Christian (3), and Classical (2). 24 (See Figure 3.1.) 25 In addition, multiple channels feature music but are not listed under 26 that category: a host of channels labeled “More,” “Talk & Entertainment,” 27 and “Latino” represent music stations aimed at particular listening audi- 28 ences defined by national or ethnic identity (“Canadian” and “Latino”) 29 or by age (“Kids”). Satellite radio complicates the genre equation here 30 through its system of classification, indicating that it is more important 31 that you are Canadian, say, than that you like alternative music (the 32 Canadian indie rock channel Iceberg is listed under “More”), just as it is 33 crucial to keep adults from accidentally winding their way to the Disney 34 channel in search of “real” rather than kids’ music (the Disney channel 35 is presented as “Talk and Entertainment”). We might note the piquant 36 irony of kids’ music being called “entertainment,” as opposed to ... what, 37 the serious rock listened to by parents? The categorization here replicates 38 a classic generational divide, recalling the dismissal of rock and roll itself 39 as noise: still today, it seems, this kid-stuff isn’t worth calling music.7 40 The biggest complication to genre from satellite radio, however, comes 41 from the sheer volume of channels classified under various headings.

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1 Classical (2) 2 Christian (3) 3% 4% 3 Hip-Hop (3) 4% 4 R&B (4) 5 5% 6 7 Dance/Electronica (6) 8% 8 9 Rock (29) 39% 10 11 12 Country (7) 13 10% 14 15 16 17 Jazz/Standards (8) 18 11% 19 Pop (12) 20 16% 21 Figure 3.1 SiriusXM Ch annels by Genre 22 Data source: SiriusXM.com. 23 24 25 26 With over twice as many “stations” as its nearest competitor, rock itself – 27 at 29 – claims by far the largest share of broadcast space. Such domina- 28 tion of the soundscape is no surprise given rock’s ubiquity.8 But in this 29 context, the umbrella genres may be deployed less to find what we do 30 like than to quickly identify what we don’t want. You might not enjoy 31 all of the stations presented in the name of rock, but at certain times 32 you surely know that you don’t want to hear jazz, classical, or – God for- 33 bid – Christian. From the other point of view, very little seems to hold 34 the rock channels together under any positive stylistic definition of 35 the genre. If listeners gravitate toward the “Jam” or “The Coffeehouse” 36 channels, are they likely to tune in to “Elvis Radio,” “1st Wave,” or 37 “Liquid Metal”? Not very often, one supposes. The listings under rock 38 demonstrate the unstable and contradictory nature both of individual 39 genres, and of the concept of genre as a whole. The motley assortment 40 of styles and audiences are so distinct that the broad generic category 41 becomes relatively useless in defining style or taste.

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1 The 29 satellite rock channels, for example, do not function as sub -genres 2 with a common root. It would be difficult to create a hierarchized history 3 of rock that would show these niche genres developing out of their 4 common parent in any logical or rational way. Such complication partly 5 has to do with the ever-expanding definition of rock, which has come 6 to mean essentially almost any variety of contemporary popular music 7 except country, rap, or in some cases – depending on how you slice it – 8 pop. In this context, it may be more helpful to think of many of the 9 satellite channels as representing micro-genres that have a rhizomatic 10 relationship to broader, and deceptively stable, genre categories such as 11 jazz, country, or rock. In their work A Thousand Plateaus, Gilles Deleuze 12 and Felix Guattari (1987) define the rhizome in contrast to the root and 13 branches ideation of history, which implies linear historical develop- 14 ment that can be traced back to an original root and logically assembled 15 into a coherent evolutionary pattern (p. 5). In contrast, the rhizome – 16 botanically – spreads horizontally underground from nodes, sending 17 out shoots and forming root systems for entirely new plants. The rhi- 18 zome thus evokes multiplicity, an excess that spills over boundaries and 19 disrupts linear, causal history, invoking many points of entry and exit 20 from the system and undermining any notion of an originary moment.9 21 Deleuze and Guattari specifically link the rhizome to music, which they 22 argue has “always sent out lines of flight, like so many ‘transformational 23 multiplicities,’ even overturning the very codes that structure or arbo- 24 rify it; that is why musical form, right down to its ruptures and prolif- 25 erations, is comparable to a weed, a rhizome” (pp. 11–12). A new history 26 of music – in this age of technology – must confront these opposing 27 tendencies: the forces that would “arborify” styles, or domesticate and 28 stabilize them, and the explosion of styles and labeling that overturns 29 those essentialized codes. 30 Offering listeners a multiplicity of choices, satellite radio invokes a rhi- 31 zomatic model of musical propagation, one represented in far more over- 32 whelming detail on the internet. For example, in his data-visualization 33 of popular music at EveryNoise.com, engineer and “data alchemist” 34 Glenn McDonald has employed an algorithm to identify 1306 genres of 35 popular music (Fitzpatrick, 2014; McDonald, n.d.). McDonald presents 36 these genres in a dizzying scatter-plot of titles arrayed across the screen, 37 with no apparent causal relationship. Rather than being organized 38 around branch-lines that suggest clear relationships and an evolution- 39 ary pattern, the micro-genres (from Neue Deutsche Harte and Liquid 40 Funk to Dirty Texas Rap) cluster around stylistic tendencies roughly 41 oriented toward quadrants of the viewing screen. And the micro-genres

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1 represented cut across seemingly sensible boundaries: for example, if 2 you follow the pattern to the British Invasion page, you are confronted 3 with a visualization that includes many American bands – illustrating 4 Deleuze and Guattari’s contention that “any point of a rhizome can be 5 connected to anything other, and must be” (p. 7). The proliferation of cat- 6 egories on satellite radio and in the online environment work in tandem 7 here to redeploy genre categories in a media-saturated culture.10 8 As for satellite radio in particular, it is not just that it presents fuzzy 9 or questionable genre and format boundaries, but that it offers multi- 10 ple, competing definitions of music categories simultaneously. Indeed, 11 the sheer number of channels allows SiriusXM to exploit overlapping 12 categories with little concern for the coherence of its approach to genre 13 or format.11 The listener’s affiliative identity with a channel might be 14 based on any number of different, and differently constructed, appeals. 15 Dialing across the digital spectrum, we see that categories by style of 16 music certainly do exist. But so do categories based on age, ethnicity, 17 nationality, location, and era (the time-period in which the music was 18 released). Six of the first ten channels on the SiriusXM dial walk us logi- 19 cally up the decades: the ’50s on 5, the ’60s on 6, etc. The Disney channel 20 is aimed at children, the Latino stations at an ethnic population, and 21 “New Wave” at an audience with a fondness for a particular historical 22 period (the 1980s) of popular music. Not only do we ostensibly have 23 music for all people, but all kinds of genres and formats for all kinds of peo- 24 ple.12 To discern what you want to listen to requires negotiation of con- 25 flicting constructions of self that are also, of course, subject to change: 26 this afternoon, are you looking for music with a particular mood, a 27 particular sense of national or ethnic character, or do you want to return 28 nostalgically to a time in your life or, indeed, to an “imaginary” time 29 before you were born? The listener decides how to register his or her 30 identity through navigating the multitude of genres, formats, and shows. 31 As listeners personalize their music consumption, even in their cars, 32 it is telling that one of the most compelling iPod functions is shuffle 33 play. Even when enjoying our own collection of MP3s, we still seem 34 to crave the spontaneity and surprise that come from hearing a long- 35 neglected album track or the random digital juxtaposition of distinct 36 bands and genres. Similarly, online services Pandora and Spotify allow 37 users to construct playlists based on song preferences or subscribe to 38 the playlists put together by others or by computer algorithm. Their 39 success lies in giving fans easy access to new music that they might not 40 have heard before – but that nonetheless falls within a spectrum of taste 41 suggested by their listening habits. These services offer what we might

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1 call “controlled serendipity,” or surprise that is not too surprising. The 2 object is to deliver music that fits a certain mood or preference without 3 exceeding certain defined parameters. While perhaps delivering unfa- 4 miliar artists or songs to the listener, the streaming services clearly aim 5 to avoid jarring contrasts that would call attention to themselves. 6 So how does satellite radio attempt to carve out its market as an answer 7 to the limitations of both over-the-air broadcasts and streaming services? 8 Along with the sheer number of channels, formats, and genres it deliv- 9 ers, satellite radio features a large and eclectic playlist. Little Steven’s 10 Underground Garage, for example, was built on a “selected playlist of 11 4,000 songs to illustrate the history of rock ’n’ roll” (Pham, 2012). Such 12 depth of catalog allows for juxtapositions, both between and within 13 channels, that listeners would be hard-pressed to find on over-the-air 14 broadcasts. In a randomly selected one-hour period (December 15, 2014, 15 from 9:00 to 10:00 am), for example, the Underground Garage played 16 Bananarama, The Beatles, The Wolfmen, and Sweet.13 The variety is more 17 limited on channels featuring more restricted formats (e.g., the ’80s on 18 8), of course, but many do consistently deliver surprising song and artist 19 choices. In that same hour, Deep Tracks offered selections by The Grateful 20 Dead, Queen, Genesis, and Ry Cooder; The Loft featured Jerry Lee Lewis, 21 Hall and Oates, and Rufus Wainwright; and even 1st Wave – fairly limited 22 to its era – stretched listener’s ears a bit with a mélange of Devo, David 23 Bowie, and The Smiths. Reflecting on the depth of catalog that allows 24 for such playlists, Little Steven himself says he “always thought that 25 the depository of our entire musical history will end up on SiriusXM” 26 (Pham, 2012). That expansive approach helps deliver a sense of surprise 27 for listeners that is one of SiriusXM’s main appeals. 28 If satellite radio competed simply on the sheer size of playlist, though, 29 that would not provide a competitive edge against streaming services. 30 So along with marketing its versatile approach to audiences and play- 31 lists, satellite radio exposes another weakness of other platforms: the 32 fate of presenters. Except for the yuck-a-minute morning shows featur- 33 ing multiple hosts, over-the-air radio generally has turned the deejay 34 into an endangered species. Describing this marginalization of tradi- 35 tional programmers and presenters, Hendy (2000) notes that a “small 36 handful” of radio staff now “simply manage[s] the ‘intake’ and repack- 37 aging of satellite-delivered syndicated material, and ensure[s] that the 38 various pre-recorded items … are continually re-arranged and updated 39 in a predetermined pattern of ‘spontaneity’ transmitted automatically, 40 with or without a presenter in the studio” (p. 112). Within this rigid 41 format, spontaneity arrives in quotation marks because it has become

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1 a carefully contrived effect, essentially functioning as a simulacrum of 2 real surprise and the delight of hearing something unexpected. And of 3 course, deejays are entirely absent from streaming services. 4 Hendy’s observations are evidenced in the rise of “Jack” stations (and 5 subsequent offshoots and imitators such as “Bob” and “Hank”), which – 6 to be fair – can employ human or computer-driven playlists three or 7 four times the size of traditional stations (1200 versus 300–400 songs) 8 (Davidovich and Silver, 2005). Their marketing angle is the supposedly 9 radical juxtaposition of songs and styles – Bob stations, for example, 10 annoyingly repeat ads promising that “Bob plays anything.” The sta- 11 tions at once anthropomorphize their algorithm by giving it a suppos- 12 edly quirky personality with an average-Joe name, and, bizarrely, suggest 13 that their synthetic “deejay” has thus been freed to “play anything.” 14 What is the implication here? That a human deejay would present a 15 more constricted, more predictable playlist? In making such pseudo- 16 spontaneity its calling card, the “Bob” stations use a computer program 17 to very slightly exceed the rigid temporal, stylistic, and musical bounda- 18 ries of other pop music stations aimed at similar demographics – and 19 then claim that the strategy makes them somehow radical. Only a 20 listener with the most inflexible notion of radio would find these sta- 21 tions – which lean solely on hits and heavily on the 1980s – surprising 22 (Davidovich and Silver, 2005). Yet marketers persist in their attempt to 23 convince listeners that they can somehow recover the serendipity of ear- 24 lier, free-format FM radio through technology, with no more messy issues 25 of the presenter’s “taste” interfering. In a sense, of course, this tactic pre- 26 cisely mirrors that employed by online streaming services, which employ 27 their proprietary formulas for individualizing music consumption.14 28 Amidst the variety of attempts to narrow-cast, satellite responds to 29 both FM and streaming music services through the welcome return of 30 the deejay. Whether you are tuning in to any one of the many shows 31 hosted by celebrity presenters, enjoying the philosophical and historical 32 musings of Little Steven or one of his hosts on the Underground Garage, 33 or enduring the patter of the jocks on Disney – you can often find an 34 actual person spinning tunes and talking to you. A trip across the digi- 35 tal spectrum reveals shows by Tom Petty, Mojo Nixon, Bernie Taupin, 36 Bob Dylan, Cousin Brucie, and more, along with the regular spate of 37 non-celebrity hosts. And these hosts frequently distinguish themselves 38 through their level of personal engagement. Discussing “Little Steven’s 39 Underground Garage,” the two-hour syndicated FM show from which 40 the Underground Garage channel emerged, Ann Johnson (2010) notes 41 “the abundance of historical and musical details about the artists and

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1 songs. In an average two-hour episode, Van Zandt offers over thirty min- 2 utes of commentary” (p. 583). Featuring wry observations, jokes, and artful 3 selection of songs, the Tom Petty show “Buried Treasures,” in fact, became 4 so popular that it now has its own dedicated channel. Such develop- 5 ments suggest a return to the idea that a radio show has a distinctive 6 character and that you might be tempted to make time to listen. This 7 presenter-driven programming is also a revolt against the car radio as 8 background noise, there to provide a steady stream of fairly predict- 9 able sonic wallpaper for your life. The re-emergence of the deejay as 10 a distinctive character functions as part of satellite’s anti-commercial 11 aesthetic: not beholden to a single, restricted demographic profile and 12 the advertisers who want to reach it, SiriusXM has the luxury to offer 13 spontaneous talk by presenters. 14 Revitalizing the presenter, moving toward openness in format, and 15 destabilizing genre categories, satellite radio evokes a clear historical 16 echo. At its advent in the late 1950s, Top-40 AM radio aimed squarely 17 at the burgeoning teen pop market. By the mid-1960s, however, the 18 once-radical Top-40 format had worn itself thin, with its frenzied patter 19 by clock-obsessed deejays and relentless spinning of a narrow range of 20 hits (Douglas, 1999, p. 254). In that context, FM intervened with a radi- 21 cal alternative: deejays who were able to set their playlists, often full of 22 album tracks too long and too obscure for AM stations, and who could 23 spend air-time talking to listeners about mature subjects. In a sense, 24 as the counter-culture came of age, so did its taste for both music and 25 political/social commentary. While young teens still followed the manic 26 hijinks of Top-40 stations, their slightly older brothers and sisters were 27 awakening to a darker reality, involving issues of war, lack of civil rights, 28 and women’s inequality (Fisher, 2007, pp. 134–5). In this sense, FM deliv- 29 ered the soundtrack to the countercultural revolution – and of course, 30 it didn’t hurt that FM was far superior to AM in sound quality as well. 31 In contemporary culture, satellite radio hearkens back to that era of 32 revolution as it breaks with FM formatting. As in the 1960s, it is a new 33 mode of delivery – this time in the form of satellite broadcast – that has 34 allowed for radical shifts in radio practice. With the means to deliver 35 not just one channel but literally hundreds, SiriusXM has the ability to 36 multicast to reach relatively diverse audiences. In this sense the goal of 37 satellite radio is diametrically opposed to commercial radio: rather than 38 trying to reach a narrowly defined audience with a single channel, try to 39 reach as many audiences as you can with as many channels as you can 40 broadcast. Replicating the great moment of freedom at the emergence 41 of FM in the 1960s, satellite radio thus promises an escape both from

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1 commerce and from the seemingly inflexible boundaries of over-the-air 2 radio. In part, then, along with its aura of innovation, SiriusXM grounds 3 its appeal in nostalgia for the lost values of freedom and serendipity 4 associated with radio’s past. 5 Such investment in nostalgia brings contradictions, of course. It is 6 true that satellite broadcast largely does away with what many consider 7 the most annoying feature of over-the-air radio: commercials. But listen- 8 ers have to pay for the privilege of expanding their music horizons 9 and for maintaining the illusion of anti-commercialism. In this respect, 10 SiriusXM has, paradoxically, commodified the anti-consumer aesthetic 11 that drove 1960s free-form FM. The fact that listeners have to pay for 12 something – music on the radio – that has traditionally been free is 13 concealed in automatic monthly payments, minimizing reminders that 14 you actually spend money to avoid advertising. The need to pay for the 15 service also means that the audience does have economic boundaries: 16 if SiriusXM doesn’t run many ads, the company nonetheless has a clear 17 marketing strategy aimed at particular audiences. Given the playlists and 18 the price-tag, the satellite audience must include a large contingent of 19 affluent baby boomers willing to pay for the experience of commercial- 20 free radio that caters extensively to their tastes, whether it be for sports, 21 comedy, talk radio, or the many rock channels that focus on music from 22 their era. These listeners are slightly older, slightly wealthier consum- 23 ers on whom over-the-air stations don’t necessarily focus anyway. The 24 musical side of satellite radio includes restrictions as well, as the micro- 25 genres and eclectic formats certainly aren’t without boundaries: aside 26 perhaps from the Latino channels, SiriusXM hardly offers anything 27 that we would call world music, for example. Finally, and perhaps most 28 problematic, satellite radio works in tandem with FM conglomerates 29 such as Clear Channel to decrease the presence of local culture on 30 the air. If the audience is national or global, what’s lost is the sense of 31 addressing a local community, with its distinctive attractions, politics, 32 economy, and climate.15 Even operating within such contradictions 33 and constraints, however, satellite broadcasting has proved remarkably 34 successful, particularly in the automobile. 35 The listening space provided by the contemporary automobile, of 36 course, cannot be considered aside from its general technological evo- 37 lution. Simply as a means of personal transportation, today’s car offers 38 an increasingly safe and predictable experience. The rear-view cameras, 39 airbags, automatic breaking sensors, and ultra-quiet interiors insulate 40 drivers not only from physical danger and general annoyances but also 41 from many of the sensations and pleasures traditionally associated with

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1 motoring. This separation from the environment will likely find its 2 ultimate expression in self-driving automobiles, which – given program- 3 ming to assess the risks of various roadway scenarios – may ultimately 4 even threaten to take ethical decisions away from drivers (Lin, 2013). It 5 is within this context that listening and being entertained while driving 6 assume crucial roles, both for marketers and consumers. 7 Although many of the physical and psychological associations of driv- 8 ing itself – such as mobility, freedom, adventure – are being constricted, 9 these qualities are simultaneously being reconstituted as an aesthetic 10 experience of the interior space of the automobile.16 Karin Bijsterveld 11 (2010), for example, offers a compelling analysis of the car’s sonic space, 12 engineered precisely to distinguish brands and convey specific emo- 13 tional resonance to consumers (p. 202). In its current design, she argues, 14 the automobile functions as a sanctuary from the assaults of the every- 15 day world and provides a personal acoustic cocoon: in so doing, the car 16 may provide a “last bastion of privacy” as it affords you “control over 17 your acoustic environment” (p. 191). And such auditory privacy and 18 control not only defines the interior space of the car, but also consti- 19 tutes an experience of “personally possessed time” for harried or bored 20 drivers/listeners (Bull, 2003, p. 365). For satellite radio subscribers, the 21 wide swath of channels undergirds this sense of power, since they get 22 to choose, fairly specifically, the type of programming and music that 23 serves their needs in the moment. 24 Still, along with recuperating a sense of control and privacy, satellite 25 radio simultaneously proffers a space of imaginative freedom and explo- 26 ration. While driving the car itself has become a more regimented and 27 controlled experience, the options for listening re-open possibilities for 28 discovery. Describing the appeal of satellite programming, deejay Jim 29 Ladd – a refugee from over-the-air FM – sings the praise of “free form” 30 presenting on SiriusXM: “What was once a creative and rebellious art 31 form has become a boring, repetitive machine. Rock is supposed to be 32 fun. It’s supposed to be unpredictable. And it’s supposed to be a little dan- 33 gerous. And SiriusXM is re-revolutionizing rock radio by giving me more 34 freedom than I’ve ever had” (Pham, 2012). Ladd here succinctly captures 35 the emotional charge packaged in a car equipped with satellite radio: 36 it is fun, unpredictable, and slightly dangerous, infused with a sense of 37 freedom and revolution. Such qualities emerge partly in SiriusXM’s chal- 38 lenge to other platforms: the reinvention of genres and formats, the exten- 39 sive playlists, the deejays supplying context, humor, and deep passion for 40 the music – these elements, and the emotional connections they invoke, 41 allow both the car and the radio to hearken back to a more radical past.

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1 At this historical moment, SiriusXM has staked its claim to an alter- 2 native idea of what radio could be. So far, it has been successful in 3 recruiting new subscribers and has begun aggressively maneuvering 4 into that other, older domain of radio: the home itself. But radio in all 5 its forms faces a murky future. Will a significant number of listeners 6 remain willing to pay for the satellite experience? How will satellite 7 radio fare as the technology for using streaming services in the car 8 becomes more common? How big is the audience that doesn’t neces- 9 sary want to have its taste endlessly confirmed by algorithm-defined 10 playlists? Answers to those questions will only emerge as new listening 11 platforms and habits spread. For now, satellite is banking on its success 12 mixing deejays, deep playlists, and freer formatting. The consequence 13 of such innovative programming has been the birth of the hybrid 14 techno-automobile as a listening space. In its current configuration, 15 equipped with SiriusXm radio, the car not only conjures speed, power, 16 autonomy, and sex, but also the fortuitous joy of discovered music. By 17 wedding the car’s promise of travel and freedom to a sonic landscape, 18 satellite radio sells both a nostalgic recovery of what’s been heard 19 before and the promise of surprising new delights ahead, just a little 20 further down the road. 21 22 Notes 23 1. A more recent study of automobile listening puts the SiriusXM audience at 24 18 percent, versus 67 percent for broadcast radio (Hill, 2014). 25 2. A recent Edison Research and Triton Digital study further revealed that “In 26 2014, 26% of mobile phone users have connected devices to a vehicle, either 27 physically or via Bluetooth, up from 21% in 2013” (Webster, 2014). 3. The most ominous sign for AM/FM broadcasters surely must be what’s hap- 28 pening with the next generation of listeners. A recent Edison study – based on 29 one-day audio diaries – reports that teenagers aged 13–17 spend on average 30 64 minutes per day listening to streaming audio programs, versus 54 minutes 31 per day on over-the-air or streaming AM/FM radio (Hill, 2014). 32 4. In 2014, the chief financial officer of SiriusXM, David Frear, ruled out expansion to European or other world markets given the prohibitive start-up costs 33 as well as the lack of the larger, comparatively more homogenous culture of 34 the United States (Forrester, 2014). 35 5. For a thorough treatment of genre issues and an insightful survey of the 36 critical literature, see Fabian Holt’s Genres in Popular Music (2007). 37 6. The list reflects content on Siriusxm.com as of October 8, 2014. For the purposes of this study, I have used SiriusXM radio and the All Access package. 38 Satellite broadcasts are also available on two other models of radio – Sirius 39 and XM – but the differences between the music offerings are slight. And 40 of course, other listening packages are available with fewer channels; how- 41 ever, I am interested in the categorization of the broadest number of music channels, which the All Access package offers.

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1 7. A further irony: the “Party” category, with eleven channels, exists only 2 online. One imagines thousands of house parties hosted by a whole under- 3 ground of urban, tech-savvy young people, with no cars, raving through the night, listening to the classics, oldies, punk – everything that has been 4 shoveled into this format. 5 8. See Taylor and Morin’s Pew study “Forty Years after Woodstock, a Gentler 6 Generation Gap” (2009), which reports that rock is the favorite genre of 7 every age group in the U.S. except those over 65. 8 9. As Deleuze and Guattari make clear, a fragmented system can nonetheless appeal to a larger sense of an organic – perhaps circular or spiral – whole, 9 while a true multiplicity “has neither subject nor object, only determina- 10 tions, magnitudes, and dimensions that cannot increase in number without 11 the multiplicity changing in nature (the laws of combination therefore 12 increase in number as the multiplicity grows)” (1987, p. 8). 13 10. Fabian Holt places these developments in a larger philosophical context when he contends that “The erosion of cultural hierarchies and the massive 14 increase in the circulation of cultural products have created new forms of 15 categorical complexity and given rise to critical reactions against the large 16 philosophical systems of Western modernity” (2007, p. 6). 17 11. In Simon Frith’s discussion of genre function, he notes the competing and 18 sometimes contradictory work done by genre as employed by artists, record companies, record stores, radio stations, music writers, and fans – in other 19 words, those who are playing, selling, and listening to music (1996, pp. 20 88–9). In the case of satellite radio, we can see the complication of broad 21 genre distinctions as an attempt to serve those fans/audiences who were 22 unhappily affiliated with industry offerings. More cynically, we might see 23 satellite as largely catering to the tastes of older audiences (particularly rockers) in whom the contemporary music scene has lost interest. 24 12. I don’t want to suggest that such proliferation of categories is a new develop- 25 ment, but rather that technology has allowed it to happen in a novel way 26 for a broader spectrum of listeners. Frith, for example, notes how music pub- 27 lishers in the early 20th century employed multiple, sometimes non-musical 28 characteristics in defining an array of labels for types of songs (1996, p. 76). 13. This and all subsequent playlist data comes from dogstarradio.com, the 29 primary site for cataloging what gets played on satellite radio. 30 14. Pandora (n.d.) touts its Music Genome Project, “the most sophisticated 31 taxonomy of musical information ever collected,” in which every song is 32 coded for a host of qualities by live human beings. Does it really matter? This 33 classification system still aims to hit the same target as a digital analysis: a playlist following a particular pattern of mood, tempo, emotional sonority, 34 instrumental style, etc. The premise of all such systems is ultimately con- 35 vergence – how can musical data be sliced so thin that I hear more of what 36 I already know I like? An alternative approach, generally found left of the 37 dial, if at all, might raise the issue of divergence: how do I discover something 38 genuinely different, which exceeds the bounds of my declared tastes? 15. Bill McKibben presents this argument against the flattening effect of satellite 39 radio – as opposed to the multitude of local cultures represented through 40 online radio broadcasts: “Just like the Clear Channel stations, it [satellite] 41 surrenders the thing that makes radio so magical: connection to a community” (2007, p. 134).

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1 16. For a critical reading of this development, see Michael Bull’s overview of 2 the theory that technological products of the culture industry replace “the 3 subject’s sense of the social, community or the sense of place” (2003, p. 363). 4 5 References 6 Bijsterveld, K. (2010) Acoustic Cocooning: How the Car Became a Place to 7 Unwind. Senses & Society 5 (2), pp. 189–211. 8 Bruno, A. and Tucker, K. (2008) Now Comes the Hard Part. Billboard 120 (32), 9 9 September, p. 6. 10 Bull, M. (2003) Soundscapes of the Car: A Critical Study of Automobile 11 Habitation. In: Bull, M. and Black, L. (eds.), The Auditory Culture Reader. Oxford: Berg, pp. 357–74. 12 Calem, R. (2013) The Future of Car Radio. I³ IT is Innovation, 22 October (online). 13 Available from: http://www.ce.org/i3/Features/2013/September-October/The- 14 Future-of-Car-Radio.aspx (accessed 11 December 2014). 15 Davidovich, J. and Silver, M. (2005) Attack of Jack Radio. U.S. News & World 16 Report. 139 (14), 17 October (online). Available from: Academic Search Complete (accessed 24 November 2014). 17 Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1987) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. 18 Trans. B. Massumi. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. 19 Douglas, S. J. (1999) Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination. New York: 20 Random House. 21 Fisher, M. (2007) Something in the Air: Radio, Rock, and the Revolution that Shaped a Generation. New York: Random House. 22 Fitzpatrick, R. (2014) From Charred Death to Deep Filthstep: The 1,264 Genres 23 that Make Modern Music. The Guardian, 4 September (online). Available from: 24 http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/sep/04/-sp-from-charred-death-to- 25 deep-filthstep-the-1264-genres-that-make-modern-music (accessed 24 November 26 2014). Forrester, C. (2014) Sirius-XM Rules Out International Expansion. Advanced 27 Television, 4 June (online). Available from: http://advanced-television.com/2014/ 28 06/04/sirius-xm-rules-out-international-expansion/ (accessed 15 May 2015). 29 Frith, S. (1996) Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music. Cambridge, MA: 30 Harvard University Press. 31 Garofalo, R. (2007) Pop Goes to War, 2001–2004: U.S. Popular Music After 9/11. In: Ritter, J. and Daughtry, M. (eds.), Music in the Post-9/11 World. New York: 32 Routledge, pp. 3–26. 33 Hendy, D. (2000) Radio in the Global Age. Cambridge: Polity. 34 Hill, B. (2014) Edison Research: Share of Ear in the Car. RainNews, 11 November 35 (online). Available from: http://rainnews.com/edison-research-share-of-ear-in- 36 the-car/ (accessed 18 May 2015). Hill, B. (2015) Streaming Audio Now Bigger than AM/FM for Teens: New Edison 37 Research Data. RainNews, 20 January (online). Available from: http://rainnews. 38 com/streaming-audio-now-bigger-than-amfm-for-teens-new-edison-research- 39 data/ (accessed 15 May 2015). 40 Holt, F. (2007) Genres in Popular Music. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago. 41 Johnson, A. (2010) Steven Van Zandt and the Garage Rock Revival. Popular Music and Society 33 (5), pp. 581–95.

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1 Lin, P. (2013) The Ethics of Autonomous Cars. The Atlantic, 8 October (online). 2 Available from: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/the- 3 ethics-of-autonomous-cars/280360/ (accessed 17 December 2014). McDonald, G. (n.d.) Every Noise at Once (online). Available from: http:// 4 everynoise.com/engenremap.html (accessed 25 November 2014). 5 McKibben, B. (2007) Radio Free Everywhere. The Atlantic, December, pp. 130–5. 6 Palenchar, J. (2013) Survey: Online Radio Use in Car Still Growing. Twice, 22 7 April (online). Available from: http://www.twice.com/news/news/survey-online- 8 radio-use-car-still-growing/42411 (accessed 24 November 2014). Pandora (n.d.) About the Music Genome Project (online). Available from: https:// 9 www.pandora.com/about/mgp (accessed 7 December 2014). 10 Parker, S. (2008) XM + Sirius = Satellite Radio Monopoly. Hufﬁ ngton Post, 1 August 11 (online). Available from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-parker/xm- 12 plus-sirius-satellite_b_114678.html (accessed 15 May 2015). 13 Pham, A. (2012) SirusXM’s Winning Niche Playlists. Los Angeles Times, 1 April (online). Available from: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/01/entertainment/ 14 la-ca-sirius-xm-20120401 (accessed 17 December 2014). 15 Polgreen, L. (1999) The Death of Local Radio. Washington Monthly, 1 April, pp. 9–11. 16 SirusXM (n.d.) Channel Lineup (online). Available from: http://www.siriusxm. 17 com/channellineup/ (accessed 8 October 2014). 18 Taylor, P. and Morin, R. (2009) Forty Years after Woodstock, a Gentler Generation Gap. Pew Research Center, 12 August (online). Available from: http://www. 19 pewsocialtrends.org/2009/08/12/forty-years-after-woodstockbra-gentler- 20 generation-gap/ (accessed 30 November 2014). 21 Webster, T. (2014) The Infinite Dial 2014. Edison Research, 5 March. Available from: 22 http://www.edisonresearch.com/the-infinite-dial-2014/ (accessed 11 December 23 2014). Weisbard, E. (2014) Why Do We Keep Having the Same Debates about Pop 24 Songs? The Los Angeles Review of Books, 24 November (online). Available 25 from: http://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/keep-debates-pop-songs (accessed 30 26 November 2014). 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

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1 2 4 3 4 The Internet and the Death 5 6 of Jazz: Race, Improvisation, 7 8 and the Crisis of Community 9 Margret Grebowicz 10 11 12 13 14 In his landmark 1994 study Thinking in Jazz: The Inﬁ nite Art of 15 Improvisation, Paul Berliner describes American jazz as a community 16 cutting across “boundaries defined by age, class, vocation, and ethnic- 17 ity.” This includes the core of the community, those players focused 18 on playing only jazz professionally, as well as more peripheral groups, 19 like professional musicians who play not only jazz but also other gen- 20 res professionally, semi-professional players with day jobs (“weekend 21 warriors”), and jazz fans. “It is their abiding love for the music that 22 binds this diverse population together” (Berliner, 1994, p. 36). Twenty 23 years later, jazz community can no longer be described in such unified 24 terms. Many contemporary musicians and fans are unified around the 25 idea that jazz-the-artform is dead. Perhaps not dead and buried, but 26 at least stuffed in the taxidermic sense, museified in a sort of jazz dio- 27 rama. No example illustrates this better than that of the International 28 Thelonious Monk Competition, held every year for a different instru- 29 ment. A running joke in the scene is that if Thelonious Monk were 30 alive today, he would stand no chance of winning the Monk piano 31 competition, because the music, which was once black, avant-garde 32 music like Monk’s, has become demographically white, aesthetically 33 white-washed, more subject than ever to commercial pressures, and 34 controlled by conservatories. 35 There is no question that jazz is in trouble, and the point of this 36 chapter is not to restate the obvious. The precise cause of that trou- 37 ble is difficult to isolate and even the exact shape of it is not so easy 38 to describe. Esperanza Spalding’s Grammy for Best New Artist, for 39 instance, was for some a reason to celebrate, a sign that the public has 40 finally embraced jazz. For others, it meant merely that her music is in 41 fact commercial, and the awards have once again gone to the sellouts,

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1 while the real jazz players and composers, the ones who challenge us 2 aesthetically, intellectually, and sometimes even politically, continue 3 to wallow in un-Grammied obscurity. For a good dose of the latter, 4 one need only to check in daily with the anonymous blogger who 5 goes by the name “jazzistheworst,” and whose dark, ironic tweets have 6 become a staple of jokes among jazz musicians on social media, like 7 “#FightingForScraps” and “The average age of the Newport Jazz Fest 8 audience is ‘deceased’” (Twitter/jazzistheworst 2015). The author of 9 the blog is a jazz musician, judging by the amount of insider informa- 10 tion, and it is interesting to note that musicians love circulating these 11 tweets and blog entries. In the hands of the players themselves, the 12 pronouncement that jazz is in fact “the worst” has become something 13 like a form of resistance, precisely when the music itself has ceased to 14 be resistant enough. 15 Many deaths of jazz have been announced at the hands of the 16 Internet. Most famously, the Internet means the death of record labels. 17 Anyone can self-produce a record, which means the loss of the old meri- 18 tocratic weeding out mechanism that labels ostensibly provided. Jazz is 19 also dead because artists can no longer count on record sales for a size- 20 able portion of their income. This affects everyone, from bandleaders 21 to side musicians. Incomes are falling steadily, causing more and more 22 players to look for work teaching privately and trying to get university 23 positions, many of which take them away from urban areas, which are 24 the only places to gig. Heated debates about the deaths and rebirths of 25 jazz take place on Facebook, the very place where musicians announce 26 their gigs. But technologies are themselves non-innocent. They do not 27 merely reflect these debates and conversations back to us, but bring to 28 the table their own, built-in imaginaries of community by definition. 29 Thus, as jazz musicians talk to each other about the scene, the fact that 30 they do it as a mode of belonging to social networks matters to the ques- 31 tion of what is said. In what follows, I attempt to map the effects of this 32 on jazz with special attention to the online debates about race in the 33 contemporary scene. My working hypothesis: that the modes of social- 34 ity created by the Internet shape what counts as being-in-community 35 today, which in turn affects the relational aspects of improvisation. This 36 chapter is not a critique of online jazz communities, but of the effects 37 of Internet and social media more generally on this particular form of 38 music today, down to the playing itself. To understand the gentrifica- 39 tion of jazz1 we must look beyond economic factors and the backdrop 40 of American race politics, and more closely at exactly how the Internet 41 shapes social “life.”

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1 Black American Music and Stuff White People Like 2 3 Social media conversations about jazz appear divisive and inflamma- 4 tory. But what counts as agreement and division becomes less obvi- 5 ous with a closer look. For example, rather than alienating people, 6 Jazzistheworst.blogspot.com has engendered a sort of community 7 moment, all of us sharing a laugh at our own expense, a brief reprieve 8 from the alienation and frustration that otherwise marks the jazz musi- 9 cian’s daily experience. A few years before, the YouTube video “Jazz 10 Robots” (2010) went jazz-viral, satirizing the common (and exclusive) 11 lingo jazz musicians continue to use. It was literally a joke that only 12 players could understand. Among the most notorious attempts to 13 stabilize jazz identity on the Internet is the ongoing attempt to race 14 the genre: is jazz today the music of black Americans (as it was “origi- 15 nally”), white Americans (as the music school graduation stats seem to 16 indicate), white Europeans (who famously provide the best audiences 17 and funding for jazz), or some happy postracial collective of all of the 18 above? Blogging, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube provide the stage for 19 this controversy. 20 One notable example is the Nicholas Payton/Wynton Marsalis blog 21 debate about the relationship between the names “jazz” and “black 22 American music” (or “#bam” as Payton calls it). Marsalis has been sort 23 of appointed by Ken Burns (and, some would argue, self-appointed) 24 to be the ambassador of jazz, but specifically of jazz understood as 25 rooted in “the tradition.” As artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, 26 he has consistently failed to represent the music as living and chang- 27 ing, excluding jazz that departs from the tradition in significant ways 28 from his version of the canon. He is famous and celebrated for this 29 by the public at large, but many jazz musicians blame him for the 30 museification of the music and thus for ever-smaller audiences and 31 interest from young people. The typical audience for a Jazz at Lincoln 32 Center concert is elderly, white, and wealthy – a definite sign that 33 jazz is dead, many would argue. Nicholas Payton (2014), on the other 34 hand, describes himself as a black postmodern musician and refuses 35 to use the word “jazz” because of its racist, colonial history. From his 36 website: 37 38 The #BAM movement created by Nicholas states the revolutionary, 39 yet evident, idea that music of the Black American diaspora is more 40 similar than dissimilar. Black American Music speaks of his and all 41 music descending from the Black American experience, including

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1 spirituals, gospel, blues, so-called jazz and soul…. Hailed as The Savior 2 of Archaic Pop, Payton is rooted in tradition, yet isn’t stuck there. 3 4 Both Marsalis and Payton hail from New Orleans and play the trum- 5 pet. At stake in the online disagreement between them is not only the 6 nature and future of jazz, but the nature and future of blackness and 7 the consumption of black culture by white audiences. And although 8 they remain in a sort of public dispute, many would claim that Payton 9 and Marsalis are not at all very different from each other, both carrying 10 on the authority of the black jazz trumpet player, a figure onto which 11 so many fantasies have been projected, and both in fact “stuck” in the 12 tradition. Jazzistheworst (2014) writes that, like Miles Davis, Payton has 13 managed to alienate white audiences: 14 15 Historically, Miles Davis did a great job of alienating the audience by 16 refusing to acknowledge their very existence; playing with his back 17 to them. Today it’s a little harder to maintain that distance while 18 giving Jazz fans access to your life and opinions via social media. I’d 19 like to praise Nicholas Payton for doing a fantastic job at alienating 20 the audience while maintaining an online presence with his blog. By 21 renaming Jazz into “Black American Music”, he’s alienated a whop- 22 ping 85% of the audience; who are white. He also does this brilliantly 23 by accusing anyone and everyone of being racist, while maintaining 24 white people have never added anything through the entire course 25 of Music history. I know for this reason I can’t wait for his upcoming 26 album “Fuck white people” to drop in late 2015. 27 28 But chasing after blackness has had the opposite effect, drawing white 29 audiences more powerfully than ever. On stuffwhitepeoplelike.com 30 (2008), for instance, we learn that white people like “Black music that 31 Black people don’t listen to anymore,” the worst of which is Jazz, 32 followed by The Blues (deftly capitalized by the authors) and old school 33 hip-hop. 34 35 Historically speaking, the music that white people have kept on life 36 support for the longest period of time is Jazz. Every few months, 37 a white person will put on some Jazz and pour themselves a glass 38 of wine or scotch and tell themselves how nice it is. Then they will 39 get bored and watch television or write emails to other white people 40 about how nice it was to listen to Jazz at home. “Last night, I poured 41 myself a glass of Shiraz and put Charlie Parker on the Bose. It was

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1 so relaxing, I wish I had a fireplace.” Listing this activity as one of 2 your favorites is a sure fire way to make progress towards a romantic 3 relationship with a white person. 4 5 Then there’s the issue of the players themselves. The future of jazz is 6 arguably bright white: today’s young players are mainly white men 7 with music degrees. They leave relatively sheltered upper-middle-class 8 suburban childhoods all over America and move to New York City, 9 many with trust funds, to attend very expensive music schools. The 10 film Whiplash (2014) received passionate criticism in jazz circles for 11 being unrepresentative because its protagonist is precisely a young 12 white man studying jazz drumming at a New York City conservatory, 13 surrounded by other white male students and dreaming of following in 14 the footsteps of celebrated, white big band drummer, Buddy Rich. Many 15 objected to how disconnected the students’ learning process was from 16 jazz reality, which is black, small group, and avant garde, but arguably 17 (completely bypassing the drama between the student and his sadistic 18 teacher, as well as the absurd footage of the protagonist’s practice ses- 19 sions), Whiplash depicts today’s jazz conservatory culture, the first stage 20 in the ongoing gentrification of jazz, pretty accurately. 21 But there are fifty shades of white, as one discovers watching the 22 satirical YouTube video series called “Hans Groiner Plays Monk” (2007) 23 in which the white, Jewish jazz pianist Larry Goldings dresses up as an 24 Austrian pianist, who is so offended by the music of Thelonious Monk 25 that he reharmonizes it, thereby removing everything that makes the 26 music gritty, challenging, and rhythmically strange. Reharmonizing 27 standards is a common practice in contemporary jazz, and almost every 28 new record that comes out includes arrangements of known tunes. The 29 videos, which went jazz-viral a few years ago, position the American 30 jazz player (the implicit viewer) as somehow less white than the clown- 31 ish, platinum blond European on display. The implication is that even 32 though jazz musicians and audiences are overwhelmingly white, with 33 Goldings himself as a great example, at least they’re not this white. 34 There is always someone whiter than the white American jazz musician, 35 namely the foreigner, usually European or perhaps Asian, both groups 36 that currently heavily populate the conservatories. 37 Melancholy longing for a lost blackness, a longing whose correlate 38 is an aversive paranoia about whiteness, especially one’s own, is ironi- 39 cally becoming deeper the more we participate in the very technologies 40 which mark this particular neoliberal late capitalist moment. Many 41 white musicians are arguably even more focused on the blackness of jazz

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1 than Wynton and Payton are, blogging about the need to check out the 2 tradition and to learn about its roots, whether those be in Africa or the 3 black church.2 Meanwhile what is emerging in response to this is a sort 4 of safe, gentrified version of black music, which continues to fulfill white 5 fantasies of blackness. For example, Banana Republic chose three musi- 6 cians of color for their 2009 vimeo ad campaign “City Stories,” which 7 was ostensibly supposed to show urban blackness, appeal to young peo- 8 ple, and offer proof that jazz is still hip. They strategically chose three 9 people of color, Esperanza Spalding, Miguel Zenon, and David Sanchez, 10 but all three are light skinned, mixed race people. They are not too 11 black, a point underscored by their being dressed in the whitest, most 12 suburban clothes in the world, namely Banana Republic. And there are 13 several other stories of avant-garde black music completely missing from 14 the conversation, ones not as easily linkable to New Orleans, gospel, 15 commercial funk, R &B, and what counts as black music today: Ornette 16 Coleman, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Sun Ra, George Lewis, and Anthony 17 Braxton are just the first and most immediate names to come to mind. 18 Perhaps because it is historically too connected to the white avant garde, 19 and thus to European art, this African American art music tradition is 20 consistently excluded from today’s debates about jazz and race. 21 Rather than settling any of these issues in the present chapter, I am 22 interested in why we desire to settle them today, perhaps even more 23 strongly than in the past. I suspect this desire is symptomatic of the 24 panic around social life that is connected to Internet technology. 25 In other words, the race conversation is about a lot more than just race. 26 An expression of a desire for a common ancestry, it is also about com- 27 munity (musicians of all races agreeing that the music is “really” black, 28 for example) and thus a shared project, or common values. But for jazz, 29 this crisis of community has special consequences, if Berliner is right 30 that “for almost a century the jazz community has functioned as a large 31 educational system for producing, preserving, and transmitting musi- 32 cal knowledge,” from apprenticeships to jam sessions to the culture of 33 sitting in and finally to professional affiliations (Berliner, 1994, p. 37). 34 Furthermore, since the social is so operative in small group improvised 35 music, anxiety around social life necessarily affects the music itself at 36 the most basic level, the level of the playing. 37 38 Alone Together: Reprise 39 40 What exactly is a community? Crises of community are nothing new. 41 French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy describes community as divided

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1 into two levels, the level of the imaginary and that of the actual labor 2 of community. On the level of the imaginary, all communities are in a 3 sense lost, and striving for greater unification. 4 5 The lost, or broken community can be exemplified in all kinds of 6 ways, by all kinds of paradigms: the natural family, the Athenian city, 7 the Roman Republic, the first Christian community, corporations, 8 communes, or brotherhoods – always it is a matter of a lost age in 9 which community was woven of tight, harmonious, and infrangible 10 bonds and in which above all it played back to itself, through its 11 institutions, its rituals, and its symbols, the representation, indeed the 12 living offering, of its own immanent unity, intimacy, and autonomy. 13 (Nancy, 1991, p. 9) 14 15 That lost age never existed, but the longing for it is built deeply into 16 Western social imaginaries. Today’s crisis in jazz echoes something like 17 this, playing back to itself Berliner’s fantasy of a brotherhood unified by 18 love (if not for each other, then for the music). Alongside the imaginary, 19 we remain engaged in the labor of community, the logic of which must 20 be understood otherwise, he argues. Nancy’s notion of “inoperative 21 community” shows that community is not an entity, but a being-with, 22 a movement of unworking and incompletion. Community can never 23 be anything but incompletion, because only incompletion allows for 24 singularities to be-with each other, rather than being alone. “It is not 25 a matter of making, producing, or instituting a community; nor is it a 26 matter of venerating or fearing within it a sacred power – it is a matter 27 of incompleting its sharing. Sharing is always incomplete or it is beyond 28 completion and incompletion. For a complete sharing implies the dis- 29 appearance of what is shared” (Nancy, 1991, p. 35, emphasis mine). 30 Community is always and by definition open to rearticulation. 31 If Nancy is right that sharing implies the impossibility of comple- 32 tion, we can begin to see how the fantasy of community manifested in 33 today’s social networking culture actually works against the possibility 34 of being-with. Sherri Turkle’s critique of social media, Alone Together: 35 Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (2012), by 36 some happy coincidence named after one of the best-loved standards 37 for musicians to call at jam sessions, describes technologically mediated 38 relationships as relationships “the way we want them,” reminding us 39 that real relationships are unstable, destabilizing, unpredictable, and 40 often painful. In other words, love hurts, but not on the Internet. She 41 argues that contemporary technology reveals, speaks to, and produces

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1 fear of intimacy and what she calls “fatigue with the difficulties of life 2 with people” (Turkle, 2012, p. 10). 3 While Turkle focuses on how technology constructs a particular 4 experience of other people (“the way we want them”), Jonathan Crary’s 5 book 24/7 (2014) zeroes in on the experience of time in late capital- 6 ism, offering a different spin on exactly how the Internet forecloses 7 the possibility of community. The 24/7 non-time of capitalism neces- 8 sarily interferes with any possibility of being-with one another. As the 9 Internet appears to create conditions of sharing finally free of the pesky 10 constraints of human time and human life cycles, simply because any- 11 one can virtually reach out and touch someone anywhere and at any 12 time, these technologies actually impede the possibility of authentic 13 relation, creating instead conditions of radical individualism and the 14 breakdown of the experience of time in common. “Self-fashioning is the 15 work we are all given, and we dutifully comply with the prescription 16 continually to reinvent ourselves and manage our intricate identities” 17 (Crary, 2014, p. 72). We are told that without an online presence, we 18 will disappear, professionally and socially, a threat which, taken to its 19 logical end, results in a society of people hungry for social co-existence, 20 terrified of ceasing to be “in common” with each other, but stuck in a 21 cycle of compulsive self-fashioning, thereby working against the work 22 of being-with. If it may be said that there is a mode of being-with that 23 characterizes Facebook, it is a contradiction: what we share is an inca- 24 pacity to share, as we share the mania for fashioning ourselves. Crary 25 adds to this what he calls 24/7 temporality, the time of late capitalism, 26 “a switched-on universe for which no off-switch exists.” 27 28 Of course, no individual can ever be shopping, gaming, working, blog- 29 ging, downloading, or texting 24/7. However, since no moment, place, 30 or situation now exists in which one can not shop, consume, or exploit 31 networked resources, there is a relentless incursion of the non-time of 32 24/7 into every aspect of social or personal life. There are, for example, 33 almost no circumstances now that can not be recorded or archived as 34 digital imagery or information…. One inhabits a world in which long- 35 standing notions of shared experience atrophy, and yet one never 36 actually attains the gratifications or rewards promised by the most 37 recent technological options. In spite of the omnipresent proclama- 38 tions of compatibility, even harmonization, between human time 39 and the temporalities of networked systems, the lived realities of this 40 relationship are disjunctions, fractures, and continual disequilibrium. 41 (Crary, 2014, pp. 30–1)

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1 To be clear, the issue is not that there is some substratum of authen- 2 tic existence underneath the facades that appear in social networking. 3 Crary is not calling for a return to some more natural, pretechnological 4 existence. But there are aspects of being alive which actively frustrate 5 the logic of Internet circulation, and it is those aspects of being alive that 6 are necessary for intersubjective experience in general, and specifically 7 for the intersubjectivity that improvisation requires. 8 9 Strangers in the Night: Improvisation and Visibility 10 11 Why is “Jazz Robots” funny? Is it because robots can’t improvise, and 12 so we laugh at them? Or is it because everyone sounds the same these 13 days and thus, to quote Kraftwerk, “we are the robots” and the joke is 14 on us? Turkle reminds us that “we insert robots into every narrative 15 of human frailty. People make too many demands; robot demands 16 would be of a more manageable sort. People disappoint, robots will 17 not” (Turkle, 2012, p. 10). Once again, in contrast to Turkle, Crary’s 18 critique has different consequences for jazz than the more obvious 19 point that improvising requires a degree of vulnerability that we ascribe 20 only to humans (correctly or not). His point is that such vulnerability 21 is the result of interaction, of being-with. In fact, one of the strengths 22 of Crary’s critique is that it doesn’t commit him to any claims about 23 what it is to be human, or how exactly humans are not robots. We do 24 not fail at sociality because of the atrophying of some human quality 25 or other, but because of the atrophying of social life itself, a slow death 26 that results specifically from 24/7 visibility. 27 To extend this to jazz, the constant surveillance introduced by social 28 technologies is anathema to the way jazz has historically existed in 29 sites of non-visibility, from the darkness of nightclubs, to the deliberate 30 opacity and inaccessibility of the avant garde. This non-visibility was 31 historically overtly related to questions of race, in ways that may be 32 more productive for debates in the scene today than the well-rehearsed 33 refrain about African origins. Returning to the (as we have seen, con- 34 tested) figure of the black jazz trumpeter, when Miles Davis famously 35 performed with his back to audiences, it was not only an aesthetic or 36 technical choice – because, as every performer knows, it is much more 37 comfortable and intimate to perform facing one’s rhythm section than 38 with one’s back to it – but also a political one. In contrast to images 39 of Louis Armstrong, which indulged white expectations of a certain 40 minstrel-show like, highly visible blackness, Miles literally turned away 41 from the white gaze. He became an icon, of course, but the blackness he

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1 presents is qualitatively different from that presented by images of black 2 musicians prior to the 1940s. This change is inextricably bound to the 3 shift in the music from commodifiable dance music for the enjoyment 4 of white audiences to the coolness and intellectualism of bebop and 5 much of what came afterwards. 6 But the more elusive sense in which visibility and jazz do not mix is 7 really at the heart of my critique: 24/7 visibility is directly incompat- 8 ible with improvisation. By “improvisation,” I do not mean the jazz 9 language that one learns in school and then deploys at jam sessions. 10 I mean that nameless, elusive thing that sometimes, if rarely, comes 11 about during improvising with people. That thing (?) has many names, 12 but for the sake of simplicity I will follow the French philosophers in 13 calling it “the event.” Jean-Francois Lyotard writes that what character- 14 izes an event, the event-ality of events, is not the sense that something 15 big or important is happening, but that everything is suspended and we 16 are left wondering “is it happening?” It is this quality of suspension that 17 is fundamentally incommensurable with visibility and nameability, and 18 is thus incompatible with the Internet. The is it happening?, suspended 19 interminably in question form, is also what makes improvisation irre- 20 ducibly relational. From this perspective, improvising with others is less 21 a matter of aesthetics, and more a matter of ethics. 22 A popular misconception about improvisation is that it results in 23 something unique and completely new. To the contrary, Jacques Derrida 24 (1982) shows that improvisation can take place only in conditions of 25 repetition and recognizability: 26 27 It’s not easy to improvise, it’s the most difficult thing to do. Even 28 when one improvises in front of a camera or microphone, one ven- 29 triloquizes or leaves another to speak in one’s place the schemas and 30 languages that are already there. There are already a great number of 31 prescriptions that are prescribed in our memory and in our culture. 32 All the names are already preprogrammed. It’s already the names that 33 inhibit our ability to ever really improvise. One can’t say whatever 34 one wants, one is obliged more or less to reproduce the stereotypical 35 discourse. 36 37 Because improvisation is possible only by means of the repetition of 38 preexisting language, there is no true self of the soloist to access at that 39 moment. Derrida (1982) continues, “And there, where there is improvi- 40 sation I am not able to see myself. I am blind to myself…. It’s for oth- 41 ers to see. The one who is improvised here, no, I won’t ever see him.”

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1 The true self of the improviser is accessible only to other, and not to 2 herself. Improvisation thus creates something not subject to circulation 3 and exchange, not by creating something absolutely unique in time 4 and space, or something proper to the player (“self-expression”), but 5 something recalcitrant and not subject to disciplinary control. And it 6 is the essential recalcitrance of the improvising self that makes improvisation 7 an experience of sharing, or of the necessary incompleteness that constitutes 8 community. I am at that very moment precisely not able to see myself, 9 and from this follows the possibility of being-with others. 10 Finally, it is not only the self that becomes recalcitrant, but also the 11 environment. Environmental theorist Timothy Morton writes about 12 improvisation as a form of what he calls “the ecological thought,” 13 ecological because it overflows reality, imagines different worlds, and 14 is ruled by the uncanny encounter with strange strangers. In both 15 cases, the point is that something happens which frustrates vision and 16 comprehension, exceeds it, and places us somewhere strange. When 17 improvisation happens, we are not at home. Far from providing an 18 experience of presence, or truth, or authenticity, much less anything 19 like self-expression or “be here now,” improvisation is the fundamental 20 breakdown of the self, the ground, and the world. Morton links this 21 to what he calls “the poetics of anywhere” (Morton, 2010, p. 50). The 22 closer we look at our location – the here – the more we realize that it is 23 shot through with the possibility of being anywhere, and the more we 24 seek to know the stranger, the stranger they appear. 25 26 Concluding Remarks 27 28 Thus, the death of jazz at the hands of the Internet won’t have been 29 about the economic shifts that result from filesharing, and the whiten- 30 ing of jazz won’t have been merely the latest example of how white 31 America steals the best of black culture. Internet sociality, an atrophied 32 sociality that forecloses the interstitial nature of being-with and thus 33 precludes community, is at the heart of the present ostensibly postracial 34 moment. To eulogize jazz by focusing solely on changes in the market 35 is to treat the music as if it remained intact through these social and 36 economic shifts. But it does not remain intact. The deep relational- 37 ity of jazz suffers when the social becomes atrophied, compromised, 38 shallow. Contemporary technologies effect a cultural shift away from 39 investment in non-visibility, incompleteness, opacity, and recalcitrance. 40 Because of this we face a much more serious crisis of community than 41 one gathers from blogs and tweets bemoaning dissensus in the scene or

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1 the loss of black roots, or (usually) both. The more serious crisis is the 2 one faced by improvisation itself, and the real danger to jazz is not that 3 it might die, but its zombie apocalypse, the undeath of jazz, its contin- 4 ued taxidermic, museified, nonliving existence, presented in today’s 5 music market as the real deal. 6 7 Notes 8 9 1. I thank Mark Ferber for this phrase. 10 2. See for instance Bad Plus pianist Ethan Iverson’s (2015) response to Whiplash on his blog “Do The Math,” currently very popular with musicians. 11 12 13 Bibliography 14 Banana Republic. (2009) City Stories (online). Available from: http://vimeo.com/ 15 19938906 (accessed January 1, 2015). 16 Berliner, Paul F. (1994) Thinking in Jazz: The Inﬁ nite Art of Improvisation. Chicago, IL: 17 University of Chicago Press. 18 Crary, J. (2014) 24/7. New York: Verso Books. Derrida, J. (1982) Unpublished Interview (1982) (online). Available from: http:// 19 www.derridathemovie.com/readings.html (accessed January 1, 2015). 20 Groiner, Hans (2007) Hans Groiner: The Music of Thelonious Monk, vol. 1 21 (online). Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51bsCRv6kI0 22 (accessed January 1, 2015). 23 Iverson, E. (2015) The Drum Thing, or a Brief History of Whiplash, or ‘I’m Generalizing Here’ (online). Available from: http://dothemath.typepad.com/ 24 dtm/the-drum-thing.html (accessed March 13, 2015). 25 Jazzistheworst. (2014) How to Become a Successful Jazz Musician in 2015 (online). 26 Available from: http://jazzistheworst.blogspot.com/2014/12/how-to-become- 27 successful-jazz-musician.html (accessed March 14, 2015). 28 Jazzistheworst. (2015) (Online). Available from: http://twitter/jazzistheworst (accessed March 13, 2015). 29 Jazz Robots. (2010) Two jazz musicians talk about their recent gig (online). 30 Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1fWJKaUZ_4 (accessed 31 January 1, 2015). 32 Morton, T. (2010) The Ecological Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 33 Nancy, J.-L. (1991) The Inoperative Community. Trans. Peter Connon et al. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. 34 Payton, Nicholas (2014) (Online). Available at: http://www.nicholaspayton.com/ 35 (accessed January 15, 2014). 36 Stuffwhitepeoplelike. (2008) #116 Black Music That Black People Don’t Listen To 37 Anymore (online). Available from: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/11/18/ 38 116-black-music-that-black-people-dont-listen-to-anymore/ (accessed March 10, 2015). 39 Turkle, Sherry. (2012.) Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology 40 and Less from Each Other. New York: Basic Books. 41 Whiplash (2014). Directed by Damian Chazelle.

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1 2 5 3 4 A Brief Consideration of the 5 6 Hip-Hop Biopic 7 8 Richard Purcell 9 10 11 12 13 14 Introduction 15 16 From the beginning, the moving image and narrative film have played 17 an integral if still under-theorized role in both documenting and creat- 18 ing hip-hop culture; enough so that I think an argument can be made 19 that it is a forgotten “fifth” element of hip-hop (Rose 1994, Chang 20 2006). Cinema, primarily through genres like the musical and subgenres 21 like the biopic construct fantasies about creativity and labor that many 22 hip-hop films invoke (Altman 1989, Feuer 1993, Dyer 2002, Cohan 2005, 23 Knight 2002, Custen 1992, Bingham 2010, Berger 2014). Elements of 24 these genres can be found throughout the history of hip-hop films and 25 I will especially focus on the biopic to draw attention to the way these 26 films – like much of hip-hop culture – demonstrates its complicated rela- 27 tionship to creative labor. As a genre, the biopic (or biographical film) is 28 a creature of the Hollywood studio system. It is a genre that enjoyed an 29 incredible amount of popularity after World War II with an emphasis on 30 narratives of upward social mobility and self-reflexivity about the studio 31 system itself (Vidal 2014, Bingham 2010, Custen 1992). For the purposes 32 of this essay I am interested in a particularly self-reflexive version of the 33 biopic that emerged out the Hollywood musical after WWII. As Rick 34 Altman writes, films like Jolson Sings Again (1949), Singing in the Rain 35 (1952) and The Band Wagon (1953) purposefully foreground the cin- 36 ematic means and materials of production – the actual stars, cinematic 37 conventions and technologies of the studio system – in order to reaffirm 38 Hollywood’s ability to “more convincingly” reproduce the creative self 39 (Altman 1989, p. 252). This moebus strip of authenticity, bent between 40 the cinematic image, musical performance and the industrial forms of 41 entertainment are at the heart of these films. Instead of petering out with

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1 the studio system or the genre of the musical artist biopics have only 2 proliferated in the post studio system era; enough so that we must won- 3 der if they double as biographies of the neoclassical studio system itself 4 (Bingham 2010, Berger 2014, Connor 2015). This is to suggest that the 5 prevalence of the artist biopic within the history of hip-hop films seems 6 a useful way into understanding how artists and the culture industry 7 imagine creative musical labor – especially as it pertains to race – that 8 can be both radical and conservative (Feuer 1993). 9 I am far from the first to focus on the relationship between hip-hop 10 and creative labor. This essay builds on and hopes to add to the work 11 already done by Tricia Rose and Robin D.G. Kelley, who still remain the 12 most important touchstones on the relationship between hip-hop and 13 what we now talk about as creative labor (Rose 1994, Judy 1994b, Kelley 14 1996 and 1998, Boyd 1997, Watkins 1998, Neal 2001). Where Ross’s book 15 and Kelley’s essay are wide-ranging and look at multiple areas where 16 race, “play-labor” (Kelley 1998, p. 197) and political economy intersect 17 I will focus on a small part of hip-hop’s relationship to these matters: 18 filmic representations of hip-hop, artistry and labor. Most of this essay 19 will focus on the first cycle of loosely conceived biopics about hip-hop 20 culture; with particular attention paid to two independent films: Edo 21 Bertoglio’s Downtown 81 (1981) and Charles Ahearn’s Wild Style (1982) as 22 well as one studio feature, Michael Schultz’s Krush Groove (1985), which 23 was produced and distributed by Warner Brothers. These films represent 24 the shifting values that art, authenticity and creative labor have within 25 hip-hop culture; especially once the priorities of high concept cinema 26 transform commercial filmmaking into a delivery system for commercial 27 music and other goods (Wyatt 1994, Prince 2002). By way of a coda I will 28 bringing these concerns into more contemporary hip-hop films, the rise 29 of the sharing economy and the crisis of musical valuation. 30 31 What Is Hip-Hop Cinema? 32 33 Perhaps the first and of course most difficult question to answer is: what 34 is hip-hop? More often than not this is less a concern about the univer- 35 sally recognized as the “four elements” of hip-hop performance: mcing, 36 turntablism, graffiti and breakdancing. Instead it is about finding a cen- 37 tral aesthetic or ideological core to what began as a predominately black 38 and Latino youth culture. For some, hip-hop culture has and continues 39 to play a central role in imagining some continuity between the Civil 40 Rights, the various “power” movement of the 60s and 70s and a youth- 41 centered cultural movement like Hip-hop (Chang 2005, Kitwana 2002,

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1 Rose 1994, Dyson 2007, Forman 2002, Watkins 2005). At the same time, 2 others have chronicled the long, fraught history hip-hop artists have 3 with the free market and neoliberal rhetoric of late-capitalism, which at 4 times flies in the face of more radical liberatory rhetoric (Charnas 2010, 5 Neal 2001, Smith 2012, Spence 2011). These bigger questions about race, 6 aesthetics, ideology and political economy have long been and continue 7 to be a part of the important work of black cinema studies. Surprisingly, 8 despite the scholarly attention given to the films of Spike Lee, the 9 incredibly profitable and influential urban cycle of black cinema in the 10 early to mid-1990s, the crossover of rappers into A-list televisual and 11 feature film entertainment and the role of music videos in marketing 12 what Jeff Chang has accurately called hip-hop as lifestyle, there is still 13 surprisingly little media studies scholarship on the explicit relationship 14 between hip-hop culture and cinema (Monteyne 2013, Watkins 1998, 15 Chang 2006 among others). 16 Like the general discipline of film studies in its nascent decades, black 17 cinema studies was also invested in a multiplicity of historical and ana- 18 lytic pursuits. If one looks through the foundational book length works 19 of academic black cinema studies the contents run the gambit of cin- 20 ema studies concerns: historical and archival work, ideological analysis 21 of commercial and Blaxploitation cinema, world film and the rise of 22 independent cinema (Guerrero 1993, Diawara 1992, Bobo 1998, Bogel 23 2001, Reid 1993, Smith 1997, Cripps 1978, hooks 1996, Yearwood 1982, 24 Rhines 1996. Of paramount importance throughout all these works are 25 the politics of representation since American cinema, which emerged 26 alongside the legacies of black-face minstrelsy throughout the American 27 arts, has long perpetuated racist stereotypes about black humanity 28 (Diawara 1993). It is not as if hip-hop has not crossed paths with the 29 pioneering work done in black cinema studies over the last four decades. 30 But given the intellectual and political priorities of black cinema stud- 31 ies hip-hop has been both a blessing and curse to the politics of black 32 representation and aesthetics (Judy 1994a). 33 Although films about hip-hop are absent from early black cinema stud- 34 ies scholarship Spike Lee was the cypher through which hip-hop appeared 35 (hooks 1996, Diawara 1993, Reid 1993, Guerrero 1993, Massoud 2003, 36 Watkins 1998). Lee provides an important if oblique connection to hip- 37 hop in early black cinema studies yet is often represented as a starting 38 point to sketch the outlines of what has come to be known as hip-hop 39 cinema. The best example of this also appears in one of the most foun- 40 dational works of black cinema studies: S. Craig Watkins’ Representing: 41 Hip-Hop Culture and the Production of Black Cinema (1998). Watkins focuses

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1 on a span of films that runs from Lee’s first feature film, She’s Gotta Have 2 It (1986) to the premier of the Hughes Brothers’ feature Menace II Society 3 (1993). In explaining his periodization, Watkins tells us that from 4 1986 to 1993, “black youth began to mobilize around the resources of 5 the popular media in ways that are simultaneously visible, complex, 6 problematic, and commercially viable” (Watkins, 1998, p. 67). Perhaps 7 most important to Watkins are “the possibilities of collective and sym- 8 bolic action, especially from the social margins of society” (Watkins, 1998, 9 p. 67). Clearly, Watkins wants to draw hip-hop into the possibility of col- 10 lective and symbolic political action that was explicit in the new black 11 realism. When Watkins begins to describe what is particularly “hip- 12 hop” about the films of Lee and Singleton, he reverts to a discourse that 13 reveals his anxiety about the relationship hip-hop has to the powerful 14 forces of corporate commodification (Watkins 1998, p. 171). Hip-hop, 15 primarily through gangsta rap music, becomes a style used and nurtured 16 by movie studios to market films like Boyz n the Hood. Watkins is not 17 alone in grappling with how to define the aesthetic and conventions of 18 hip-hop cinema. More contemporary critics have also struggled to define 19 hip-hop cinematic tropes that, as Jeff Chang writes, reflect “the cultural 20 ideals hip-hop was founded on” (Chang, 2006, p. 306). 21 That Watkins and others have shied away from making any genre 22 claims is to their credit. Genre, as Watkins writes, is a “difficult term to 23 sustain analytically … because the boundaries are so fluid” (Watkins, 24 1998, p. 170). Yet, beyond his passing mention of Michael Schultz’s 25 Krush Groove (1985), there is little attention paid to the important cycle 26 of films that falls slightly before and within the period Watkins cov- 27 ers; a span that runs from independently produced Wild Style to the 28 Def Pictures/New Line Cinema produced Tougher than Leather (1988). 29 All of these films are centered on the elements or performers rooted in 30 the elements of hip-hop culture. The most significant genre question 31 these early hip-hop films raise has to do with the biological category 32 of race. Besides Schultz’s Krush Groove none of these more generically 33 identifiable commercial films are directed by African Americans. Here 34 we can see the conflicted relationship between black cinema studies 35 scholarship and hip-hop cinema as many of these early hip-hop films 36 are arguably teen-exploitation films that attempt to capitalize on the 37 incredible popularity of rap music and break dancing in the mid-1980s 38 (Watkins 1998). Watkins’ elision of these teen films returns us to ques- 39 tions having to do with political economy and its relationship to the 40 politics of representation within commercial entertainment. If the pos- 41 sibilities of collective and symbolic political action is fundamental to

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1 both black cinema and hip-hop then the films of Lee, Singleton and the 2 Hughes Brothers engage these politics in a way that are either absent or 3 politically ambivalent in either more mainstream or independent films 4 produced and directed by non-black people. 5 Kimberly Monteyne’s Hip-Hop on Film: Performance, Culture, Urban Space 6 and Genre Transformation in the 1980s (2013) attempts to address this 7 reading of early hip-hop films by arguing that they have both absorbed 8 and radically changed the long-standing conventions of the classical 9 Hollywood musical. Taking a more semantic/syntactic approach to 10 genre, Monteyne shows that these earlier, more generically stable films 11 are infused with a similar interest in the politics of representation and 12 political economy that Watkins finds in the films of Lee and Singleton. 13 In fact, she suggests that proper attention to hip-hop cinema as a genre 14 has been overshadowed by importance of “New Black Realism” of the 15 late-1980s and 1990s (Monteyne 2013, p. 4). Early hip-hop films reliably 16 feature the presence of at least some, if not all, of hip-hop’s four elements, 17 the use of diegetic musical performance and a narrative culminating 18 in romance as well as a final production number (Monteyne 2013, 19 pp. 5–6). However, while following the “prescribed generic film musical 20 structures and patterns,” hip-hop cinema transforms the rather con- 21 servative ideological elements of the Hollywood musical by presenting 22 a positive, multiethnic and racial representation of American inner city 23 life during the 1980s (Monteyne 2013, p. 6). While Monteyne’s very 24 formalist generic approach rescues these earlier films from the dustbin 25 of cinematic studies history, hip-hop films raise lingering methodologi- 26 cal concerns having to do with genre study, the institutional formation 27 of black cinema studies as well as larger, epistemological and aesthetic 28 questions about hip-hop itself. 29 While I cannot delve into all of these concerns here, for my purpose the 30 most significant has to do with using commercial film as the organizing 31 principle through which to gauge the relationship between hip-hop, cin- 32 ema and questions of black political economy. Despite Watkins’ hesitance 33 to use strict genre identification or Monteyne’s strong adherence to the 34 conventions of the classical Hollywood musical starting the narrative of 35 hip-hop cinema within the history of commercial film ignores the more 36 unruly and ambiguous roots of what we might call hip-hop cinema. A 37 strong case can be made that Gary Weis’ 1979 documentary about South 38 Bronx gang life 80 Blocks from Tiffany’s, Manfred Kirchheimer’s cinema 39 verite homage to subway graffiti Stations of the Elevated (1981) along with 40 Tony Silver’s graffiti classic Style Wars (1983), Edo Bertoglio’s Downtown 81 41 (1981/2000) and most importantly Wild Style (1982) connect the history

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1 of hip-hop to the cinematic legacies of non-narrative, avant garde film- 2 making as well as the fraught cultural politics of the downtown New York 3 arts scene in the late 1970s and 1980s; an aesthetic and political context 4 which the more well-known Wild Style emerges from. These films also 5 suggest that the origins of hip-hop’s cultural and racial politics also lie 6 outside of rap music, which had yet to become a global phenomenon. 7 Weis, Kirchheimer and Silver’s respective films benefited from networks of 8 documentary film distribution and production that shielded them from 9 the pressures of the market place. To a certain extent so did Downtown 10 81 and Wild Style. At the same time they were both produced within 11 an alternative art community that openly grappled with its ambivalent 12 relationship to the commercial art and film market. 13 14 Cinema, Collectivism and Street Art 15 16 Despite the growing commodification of alternative culture and politi- 17 cal conservatism of the 1980s, Julie Ault suggests that it was also the 18 golden age of political art and art collectives (Ault 2002). Some of 19 these groups had their roots in the politicized social formations of 20 the past and present – Maoism, Third Worldism, anarchism amongst 21 others (Moore 2007). At the same time collectives are emblematic of 22 artistic labor itself, which given the institutional, economic and legal 23 circumstances of art making makes such collective endeavors a neces- 24 sity. While noise, Punk and No Wave music were a critical expressive 25 medium in emergent performance and exhibition scene in the Lower 26 East Side, hip-hop was primarily represented through graffiti art and 27 artists. Hip-hop also had a small but important relationship to the 28 underground No Wave/New Cinema and video movement in the late 29 1970s and early 1980s. While not a collective, the No Wave move- 30 ment was an underground music, film and contemporary art scene 31 that emerged on the Lower East Side during the late 1970s through the 32 mid-1980s (Yokobosky 1996). For both its symbolic as well as stylistic 33 value it should be of little surprise that the artists closely associated 34 with the politics of street art would also play central roles in the cinema 35 produced out of this moment. 36 Both Wild Style and Downtown 81 were conceived and shot in the 37 midst of the No Wave boom of the late 1970s and 80s. The embrace of 38 vernacular and pop art mediums and the democratization of recording 39 technology that defined the aesthetics of the alternative art scene was 40 equally important within No Wave cinema. These films, like the other 41 elements of the No-Wave/Punk and collectivist arts scene rejected the

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1 academic formalism of the gallery arts scene as well as the conventions 2 of classical and New Hollywood commercial cinema (Yokobosky 1996). 3 They were also emblematic of the way artistic collectives structured and 4 were used to represent expressive life in New York City during the 1970s 5 and 80s. Two of the most important were Colab (Collaborative Projects) 6 and the Bronx based, Colab affiliated exhibition space Fashion Moda. In 7 June of 1980, months before the production began on Downtown 81 or 8 Wild Style Colab and Fashion Moda produced one of the most important 9 exhibitions of neo-Expressionist, Pop Art and graffiti: the Times Square 10 Show (1980), which most notably – for this essay at least – showcased the 11 art work of Jean Michel Basquiat and renowned Fabulous Five graffiti 12 artists Lee Quinones and Fred Braithwaite; all three of whom would be 13 the featured stars in Downtown 81 and Wild Style. 14 The Times Square Show itself was the culmination of about a decade 15 of important developments throughout New York City’s art world that 16 was also intertwined with New Cinema and the Punk scene in the late 17 1970s. An important precursor to the Times Square Show was an early 18 Colab exhibition, the Real Estate Show, which opened on January 1, 19 1980. As Alan Moore describes it, the Real Estate Show had its roots 20 in the anger many Tribeca artists felt in being gentrified out of their 21 neighborhood (Moore, 2007, p. 328). It also led to the creation of a 22 number of more politicized artist collectives that would necessarily split 23 their time between art, social advocacy and the necessary commercial 24 side of selling art (Moore 2007 and Ault 2002). This model of advocacy, 25 community involvement and commercial art informed the creation of 26 Fashion Moda as well, which was founded in 1978 by Stefan Eins and 27 co-managed with Joe Lewis. Enis and Lewis would exhibit some of the 28 late 20th century’s most important neo-expressionist artists as well as 29 serve as an avenue to connect local graffiti writers, rappers, DJs and 30 break dancers to the burgeoning Lower East Side alterative art com- 31 munity (Castleman 1982, Chalfant and Cooper 1984, Chalfant and 32 Jenkins 2014). Just as important, Moda, like some Lower East Side art 33 collectives, fostered community art projects that included local artists 34 collaborating with residents. One project in particular, spearheaded by 35 John Ahearn (the twin brother of Wild Style director Charlie Ahearn) 36 and Rigoberto Torres, was a series of incredibly popular if controversial 37 sculpture murals of South Bronx residents that appeared on the side of 38 tenement buildings between 1981 and 1985 (Kwon 2002). Even if Moda 39 or the Ahearn–Torres murals were not part of the same ideologically 40 informed politics of some of its contemporary collectives it nonetheless 41 showed the intimate if still complicated relationship between artists, the

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1 neighborhoods they resided in and the gallery space, which had become 2 a mechanism to “show the community to itself” (Kwon, 2002, p. 306). 3 Between the premier of the Times Square Show in June of 1980, the 4 principal shooting of Downtown 81 in December 1980 and the first 5 run of Wild Style in 1982 the “alternative art” network in New York 6 City went through an era-defining expansion. Times Square Show was 7 the catalyst in a three-year run of exhibitions that embodied both the 8 politicized spirit and commercial growth of the alternative art commu- 9 nity in the early 1980s. This spate of artists-run exhibitions, at least for 10 a time, succeeded in obscuring the commodity status of the art itself. 11 In 1981, former Colab member Diego Cortez curated the New York/New 12 Wave show at P.S. 1 in Queens, Charas hosted the 9th Street Survival Show 13 and perhaps most famously was the opening of The Fun Gallery, a small 14 gallery directed by underground film actress Patti Astor. Looking back 15 on the proliferation of galleries and collectives that emerged out of 16 Colab and the Times Square Show, Alan Moore writes that along with the 17 intentional celebration of populist and vernacular art there was a stra- 18 tegic “reaction against government funded alternative art and, at least 19 initially an appropriation of the idea of the gallery fraught with self- 20 consciousness and humor” (Moore, 2007, p. 330). Even the respective 21 locations of the Times Square Show, New York/New Wave and other pop- 22 up galleries and performance art spaces either parodied the traditional 23 business style of SOHO and mid-town galleries or were in buildings 24 and neighborhoods that did not conform to the exhibition aesthetic. 25 Especially in the case of the Times Square Show, these strategies of 26 exhibition – works mounted at the Times Square Show lacked title or the 27 names of the artists – opened up the gallery experience for populations 28 that would not otherwise visit. 29 The Times Square Show also featured the work of an unprecedented 30 number of women and artists of color. Like much of the show profes- 31 sional trained artists like Candice Hill Montgomery intermingled with 32 graffiti writers who in some instances were displaying their work in a gal- 33 lery for the first time (Thompson 2010 and Lippard 1990). Nonetheless, 34 many of these shows, despite being conceptualized and exhibited as 35 critique were “conceived in the commercial terms of the art world” 36 (Moore 2007, p. 330, Lippard 1990, Thompson 2010, Goldstein 1980). 37 As Margo Thompson observes, the ambivalence these artist-run col- 38 lectives felt toward “entrenched art market practices” did not mean 39 they could “afford to turn their backs on their benefactors completely” 40 (Thompson 2010). Given the centrifugal force that art collectives and 41 the music scene exerted, it comes as little surprise that No Wave cinema

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1 also expressed an ambivalent politics towards the market as well. There 2 was a current of political critique of American governmental policy 3 in films like Scott and Beth B’s Black Box and G-Men and others like 4 Rome 78 parodied the conventions of the classical Hollywood epic. 5 Simultaneously, films as diverse as Underground USA (1980), Smithereens 6 (1981) and They Eat Scum (1979) exhibited a level of self-awareness that 7 the Punk and No Wave movements were becoming increasingly com- 8 modified. By the late 1970s and early 80s No Wave cinema, like the 9 gallery arts scene, had reached a crossroads. Many of these films would 10 invoke the conventions of the artist biopic in order to provide a power- 11 ful commentary on the art-world “vacuum” being created by the forces 12 of gentrification and more commercialized galleries (Hoberman 1979). 13 Yet, the black, Latino and Asian people who made up a significant part 14 of the Lower East Side’s population were either absent or primarily 15 relegated to mise en scène. 16 17 Downtown 81, Wild Style and (at) Work 18 19 This is what makes Wild Style as well as Downtown 81 such unique works 20 in the No Wave oeuvre. Both feature protagonists of color and in the 21 case of Wild Style has a primarily black and Latino cast. If one of the 22 central elements of the collectivist art community was an attempt to 23 “show the community to itself” more often than not this was a solip- 24 sistic affair; exhibiting the worst aspect of the “symbiotic” relationships 25 within the No Wave music, cinema and arts scene. (Hoberman 1979) 26 Wild Style and to a certain extent Downtown 81 are perhaps two of the 27 few No Wave films that breaks from this mold. This does not mean 28 Wild Style and Downtown 81 are exempt from this solipsism since both 29 were produced, directed and, in the case of Downtown 81, starred key 30 figures in the No Wave arts community. It also means that these early 31 filmic instances of hip-hop are preoccupied, albeit in different ways, 32 with the conflicts that many within the downtown arts scene grappled 33 with: gentrification, the commodification of the alternative arts com- 34 munity as well as the complex relationship these artists had with the 35 predominately black, Latino and Asian neighborhoods they lived in. 36 Downtown 81 fits the more playful but still self-reflexive and critical 37 attributes of late No Wave/New Cinema films. Although shot in the 38 winter of 1980, the film, written by Glenn O’Brien, directed by Edo 39 Bertogilo and starring a yet to be famous Jean Michel Basquiat, would 40 not see the cinematic light of day until 1999. Downtown 81 was pro- 41 duced and financed by Marisol, a French fashion designer and the Italian

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1 publishing conglomerate Rizzoli to showcase the emergent New Wave/ 2 No Wave scene. The film’s very loose, quixotic plot revolves around 3 Basquiat (playing a fictional version of himself), a post-Punk flaneur 4 who wonders around the Lower East Side attempting to sell a painting 5 in order to pay rent. Basquiat’s travels bring him into contact with some 6 of the then well-known No Wave artists and musicians – who for the 7 most part play themselves. We see Basquiat fall into – and by the end 8 of the film – out of love with a famous Italian fashion model named 9 Beatrice, hitting up walls with some of his most iconic SAMO pieces, 10 attempting to track down his band’s stolen equipment and visit famous 11 No Wave haunts like the Mudd Clubb and the Peppermint Lounge. The 12 film itself is interspersed with both diegetic and non-narrative musi- 13 cal performances by Tuxedomoon, DNA, The Plastics, hip-hoppers like 14 Kool Kyle, and the funk fusion band Kid Creole and the Coconuts. 15 As a No Wave showcase, Downtown 81 reveals the dynamic aesthetic 16 ethos of the New York arts scene. No Wave and Post-Punk musicians 17 intermingle the hip-hoppers, fashion models, scene mavens, painters 18 and sculptors. At the same time O’Brien and Bertoglio turn this show- 19 case into a comedic but critical look at the means of artistic production. 20 Keeping with the nature of No Wave cinema the film’s insider look into 21 No Wave uses Hollywood’s Golden Age musical biopic as a parodic 22 device. After World War II Hollywood musicals began to foreground and 23 undercut what Rick Altman called “the conventions of the show musi- 24 cal syntax only in order to reaffirm them all the more convincingly” 25 (Altman 1987, p. 252). This inevitably led to a revival of the musical 26 through, in part, a return of the artist biopic, which guaranteed the 27 “authenticity of screen biographies … through the paradoxical tech- 28 nique of foregrounding the very technology that supposedly distances 29 the filmed stage star” (Altman, 1987, p. 253). Where the function of 30 the biopic would be to legitimate the myth-making technologies and 31 talents of the Hollywood studio system Downtown 81 does the exact 32 opposite. The film constantly returns the viewer to scenes focused on 33 the frustrations and failure of artistic labor, most of which is centered 34 on Basquiat’s semi-autobiographical early trials and tribulations. He 35 endures homelessness, unwanted or in some cases unfulfilled sexual 36 advances, which are intimately tied to commerce and the semi-celebrity 37 of the art world. When he is finally paid for his painting it is in the form 38 of a check, which of course he cannot cash because he does not have a 39 checking account (Figure 5.1a). 40 Basquiat is not the only “character” who laments the impossible con- 41 ditions of creative labor. One of the most explicit scenes of lament is

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1 a comedic, direct address by musician and painter Walter Steding who 2 exposes the long, alienating production chain of creative labor. He 3 describes dragging music equipment to shows, dealing with cheap club 4 owners, self-important music journalists and eventually duplicitous 5 record labels. Steding, breaking the cinema fourth wall, tells us that “the 6 club owner sees you up on stage having fun and says ‘you’re having up 7 there why should I pay you’ … they do it every time.” The scene ends 8 with a medium, bird’s-eye view (Figure 5.1b) of Steding, head down on 9 a desk muttering “never again, never again, never again....” Yet, at the 10 very end of the scene two of his bandmates appear, cajoling Steding 11 to get ready for band practice. Like a lot of the uncompensated perfor- 12 mances we see in the film, Downtown 81 invites us to knowingly laugh 13 and pity Steding’s despair. Basquiat’s monetary frustrations are finally 14 alleviated at the end not by the benefactors of the art world, a recogni- 15 tion of his talents or by the wealth and celebrity of his supermodel love 16 interest but by a cinematic deus ex machina. After leaving the Mudd 17 Club Basquiat encounters a homeless woman, played by Debbie Harry, 18 who turns out to be his fairy godmother and grants Basquiat a suitcase 19 bursting with cash. The film ends with Basquiat redistributing some of 20 his new-found wealth to some of the homeless on the Lower East Side, 21 paying cash for a Cadillac Eldorado and driving along the Lower East 22 Side as the film fades to the credits. 23 Hip-hop has a strangely ambiguous place in Downtown 81’s biopic 24 nihilism about artistic labor. Within the mise en scène we see Basquiat 25 perform iconic SAMO pieces on buildings and coffee-table books as 26 well as interact with Lee Quinones and Fab 5 Freddy as they paint a 27 building. That early scene immediately segues to Basquiat and Fab 5 28 Freddy entering a basement to dance while Kool Kyle raps. When the 29 credits role we are treated to “Beat-Bop”, a Basquiat produced rap track 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 (a) (b) 39 40 Figure 5.1 Basquiat’s art gets him a check he can’t cash while Steding’s brings 41 despair and little compensation in Bertogilo’s Downtown 81 (1981)

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1 with Rammellzee and K-Rob on vocals. Beyond these traces however, 2 the film’s energies are primarily directed toward the more well-known 3 No Wave musical personalities. Naturally it is hard in the 21st century 4 to separate Basquiat out from the contemporary effort to claim Basquiat 5 as hip-hop. As Franklin Sirmans writes, Basquiat’s early works were an 6 attack on the subject matter “common to rappers and emcees who were 7 then making hip-hop” (Sirmans, 2005, p. 95). Yet there was and still is 8 an equally forceful and at times troubling attempt, spurred by critics and 9 to a certain extent by the artist, to distance him from the authenticating 10 discourse of race and the “street.” While the talk or recognition of race 11 is absent from Downtown 81, the DIY, legitimizing power that street art 12 bestowed to the No Wave scene is not. In this sense hip-hop works to 13 confer authenticity and monetary value within a film and No Wave 14 scene that always lurked on the margins. 15 Throughout Wild Style Ahearn and co-producer Fab 5 Freddy present the 16 South Bronx as a vibrant aesthetic rival to Downtown 81’s playfully jaded 17 Lower East Side. Ahern began to produce and secure funding for Wild Style 18 in the immediate months after the Times Square Show. Given the parallel 19 production dates of Downtown 81 and Wild Style we can see how both films 20 were an extension of the momentum generated by the growing alternative 21 art network and No Wave cinema. Like Downtown 81, Wild Style’s loose 22 narrative, use of non-professional actors in semi-autobiographical roles 23 and knowing use of conventional film genres invoked many of the char- 24 acteristics of No Wave cinema. Wild Style was not Charlie Ahearn’s first 25 feature-length film. Ahearn, one of the founding figures of Colab as well 26 as the New Cinema exhibition collective, produced longer form films like 27 The Brooklyn Bridge at Pearl Street (1977), Twins (1980) and perhaps more 28 importantly his super-8 homage to Bruce Lee, The Deadly Art of Survival, 29 which starred African American martial arts legend Nathan Ingram and 30 featured the graffiti art of Lee Quinones in 1978. Quinones returns in Wild 31 Style, this time playing “Zoro” a principled, yet mysterious graffiti artist 32 who struggles to avoid the encroaching limelight that is being shone on 33 graffiti art from downtown art studios. Ahearn and Fab Five Freddy struc- 34 ture Wild Style in a very similar fashion as Downtown 81. Zoro and Phade 35 (played by Fab 5 Freddy) lead us on a journey from the South Bronx to 36 Manhattan’s Lower East Side and Brooklyn as the film showcases already 37 famous graffiti writers like Lady Pink, Phase, and Zephyr, uptown rap stars 38 and breakdance crews like Grand Master Flash, The Fantastic Freaks, Busy B 39 and The Rock Steady Crew. We run into familiar No Wave gallery owners and 40 scene stalwarts like Glenn O’Brien playing Neal, a stuffy art critic and Patti 41 Astor as Virginia, a journalist who is pursuing a story on Zoro.

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1 Where Downtown 81 leaves us with an ambivalent impression of 2 where hip-hop fits in its parodic attack on unalienated artistic labor, 3 Wild Style does not. Wild Style uses the self-reflexivity of the biopic to 4 reassert a more explicitly decentralized vision of artistic production 5 centered on hip-hop culture, which culminates with the Amphitheater 6 scene at the end of the film. At the same time it is hard not to read 7 the dramatic force of the film – centered on Raymond/Zoro’s fraught 8 relationship between the unalienated but illegal nature of street art and 9 the hopes of being compensated for doing “graffiti on canvas” for the 10 downtown gallery scene – as the place where Wild Style returns us to the 11 ambivalence and concerns with creative labor (Figure 5.2a). While Wild 12 Style is set in the late 1970s the film’s opening shot already conveys a 13 sense of nostalgia about graffiti art. As the film fades in we see a mural 14 with the phrase “Graffiti 1990” in block letters and eventually our main 15 character Zoro begins his slow decent into what we soon find out is a 16 train yard. Barely noticeable near the top of the camera frame we see the 17 phrase “For Old Times” hovering over Zoro (Figure 5.2b). Long before 18 Wild Style was put into production public graffiti was a threatened form 19 of art. Beginning with the consolidation of New York City’s public 20 transportation system into the Metropolitan Transit Authority in 1969 21 and continuing into the first official war on graffiti initiated by Mayor 22 John Lindsay, a drastic transformation in how New York City’s public 23 sphere was taking place. This expansion of the city’s bureaucracy in part 24 allowed for the surveillance, discipline and punishment of graffiti writ- 25 ers through heightened criminalization and prosecution. Criminalizing 26 graffiti coincides with the emergence in New York City’s political 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 (a) (b) 39 40 Figure 5.2 The opening shots of Charlie Ahearn’s Wild Style establish nostalgia 41 for graffiti’s past. Later, Zoro grapples its “post-graffiti” present

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1 discourse of “quality of life” issues, which began in the 1970s around 2 the surveillance and crack down on graffiti writing and was intimately 3 connected to the gentrification of the Lower East Side. 4 New York’s City Hall was not the only threat to the public nature of 5 graffiti art in the late 1970s and early 80s. There is little question that 6 graffiti artists crystallized the radical and political potentiality of street 7 art through their willful appropriation of public spaces, existence out- 8 side of market forces and state authority. The styles associated with 9 graffiti writing would define some of the most well-known artists and 10 highly valued art works to emerge out of the alternative art world. 11 While graffiti transformed the expectations of public art (Schwartzman 12 1985), graffiti’s lack of broad gallery success and “institutional ratifi- 13 cation” has obscured its historical significance to the history of the 14 collective arts (Moore, 2007, p. 330). Instead, the history of graffiti art 15 has been told through its evolution into commercial art (Adams et al. 16 2006). Despite the incredible celebrity and success of Keith Herring and 17 Basquiat the move of graffiti into the gallery space called into question 18 its inherently public and political nature. The same year Wild Style made 19 its debut in the United States the first “Post-Graffiti” symposium was 20 held at the Sidney Janis Gallery in 1983 featuring the work of many of 21 the graffiti artists that appear in Wild Style. Wild Style imagines hip-hop 22 as a collective, symbolically brought together by Zoro’s art, and the film 23 itself, which was shot without a city permit, is itself a radical act of col- 24 lective public art brought together by Ahearn. Yet, we also leave the film 25 with Zoro’s dilemma unresolved, although history would prove that the 26 space for politicized public art, already shrinking by the time Wild Style 27 was released, would quickly evaporate in New York City. 28 29 Post-Graffiti 30 31 It did not very take long for commercial films to quickly follow the 32 success of Wild Style. Canon Pictures released a cycle of “hip-hop” films 33 including Breakin’ and Breakin’ II: Electric Boogaloo (1984) and Rappin 34 (1985). Warner Brothers added to this early 1980s cycle when they 35 released Stan Lathan’s Beat Street (1984) and Krush Groove (1985). Krush 36 Groove’s importance in this corpus of early films cannot be overestimated. 37 While it only grossed $4 million domestically compared to the $36 mil- 38 lion Breakin’ earned the year before, Krush Groove was released just as rap 39 music began to dominate conceptions of what defined hip-hop culture. 40 The historic viability of music and, in particular, American music, as a 41 tradable and easily consumable market commodity on a global scale

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1 explains why rap won out over the ambivalent cultural legitimacy of 2 graffiti as well as what was incorrectly understood as the faddish nature 3 of breakdancing. The growing dominance of rap music was tied as 4 much to its undeniable aesthetic novelty as it was to the serendipity 5 of rap’s emergence during the consolidation of corporate media and 6 entertainment companies on a global scale. For the film industry this 7 same period of the 1970s and 80s brought a renewed interest in creating 8 marketing synergy around their products. Movie soundtracks, 12-inch 9 singles, pay for play, music videos and other forays into music and radio 10 allowed Hollywood studios to extend the pop culture presence of their 11 films (Wyatt 1994). 12 In retrospect Schultz’s Krush Groove was positioned between two 13 burgeoning corporate cultures. The first is the triumph of Hollywood 14 high-concept blockbuster cinema as well as the simultaneous corporate 15 codification of music as the face of hip-hop culture. Krush Groove is 16 for all intents and purposes a biopic, albeit a semi-fictional one about 17 Russell Simmons and Def Jam Recordings’ grass roots emergence into 18 what is now a multi-billion dollar media and music company. Like most 19 early hip-hop films, Krush Groove stars many of the early 1980s most vis- 20 ible hip-hop cultural icons: Run DMC, The Beastie Boys, Dr. Jeckel and 21 Mr. Hyde, L.L. Cool J and the Fat Boys. Krush Groove’s cast is noteworthy 22 because, not unlike Studio era films, it primarily features musical acts 23 signed to Def-Jam Recordings. The most prescient feature of Schultz’s 24 film was the absence of the other “elements” of hip-hop culture, which 25 in spite of the popularity of breakdancing and the fine arts legitimacy 26 of graffiti art, gave viewers a glimpse of hip-hop’s music dominated 27 future. While exalting the value of self-expression, family loyalty and 28 grass-roots, multiracial entrepreneurship, Krush Groove reveals that the 29 image, the voice, as well as the family are absorbed within the hori- 30 zontal organization of the multimedia corporation; versus the decen- 31 tralized if still fraught organization of creative labor in Downtown 81 32 and Wild Style. In the credit sequence we can see the way Krush Grove 33 constructs a visual space that reflects an already commodified listen- 34 ing space. The credits combine extreme long shots, slow tracks and 35 pans that cut between distinctive tourist landmarks like the Manhattan 36 Bridge, United Nations and Empire State Building but perhaps less than 37 recognizable buildings above 125th Street in Harlem (Figure 5.3). The 38 images in these shots straddle the line between the recognizable and 39 nondescript, public and the private spaces that give us a rather generic 40 representation of Manhattan’s skyline. To many this is New York City, 41 or what Manhattan has been turned into after the enormous changes in

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1 the public sphere through slum clearance programs and the restructur- 2 ing of Midtown and the Lower East Side by the state and private capi- 3 tal in the 1970s and 80s. Media campaigns like Mayor Edward Koch’s 4 “I Love New York,” were devised to bring private capital investment 5 back into New York City during the immense fiscal and social crisis it 6 endured throughout the 1970s and into the 80s. 7 The next scene cuts to an interior shot of a recording studio where 8 Run-DMC are recording their 1985, hit “King of Rock” (Figure 5.4a). 9 This self-reflexive moment in the studio is the beginning of a series of 10 scenes that blurs the line between the non-diegetic soundtrack music 11 and the diegetic production of Run-DMC’s song. Non-diegetic music is 12 assumed to be a finished product of post-production yet the supposedly 13 spontaneous musical performance by Run-DMC is in fact lip-synched 14 as we can hear postproduction effects like echoes and multi-tracked 15 ad-libs. As the scene unfolds, Run-DMC’s studio “rehearsal” becomes the 16 soundtrack for the film, leaping between diegetic and non-diegetic realms 17 of signification and reception. Like the already corporatized version of 18 Manhattan’s skyline in the credit sequence, Run-DMC’s lip-synched 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 Figure 5.3 The credit sequence of Michael Schultz’s Krush Groove are filled with 40 iconic images of Manhattan, like this shot of the United Nations as well as the 41 postmodern 1 United Nations Plaza

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1 performance of “King of Rock” is a ready-made musical commodity. 2 Not only do we see their studio performance get pressed into vinyl LPs 3 for distribution (Figure 5.4b) but this sequence which ends with Run- 4 DMC performing “King of Rock” at The Dixie nightclub for audience 5 consumption (Figure 5.4c). 6 Borrowing from the generic conventions of the Hollywood musical, 7 the biopic and the high-concept film, Krush Groove, Breakin’ and Beat 8 Street drag these commercially produced narratives of entertainment 9 from the Hollywood studio era into the cutting edge realm of hip-hop 10 culture. The focus on music generates sonically post-produced spaces 11 for consumption. Krush Groove does this with sound and image, but also 12 through its story’s conflation of familial obligation with corporate struc- 13 turing and success. Within the context of Manhattan’s gentrification 14 the cinematic production of a similarly corporatized space is troubling 15 indeed. Even the Harry Belafonte produced Beat Street, which is an 16 attempt to take the breadth of hip-hop culture and its early associa- 17 tions with black and Latino youth activism seriously, ends where Krush 18 Groove begins; by positioning hip-hop’s musical performance as an 19 already post-produced product that obscures the labor that went into 20 it. It is fitting that in Beat Street we symbolically see the death of graffiti 21 when rival graffiti artists Ramon and Spit die violently while fighting 22 over their subway art. While Beat Street does not necessarily demonize 23 graffiti writing, Ramon’s character is constantly dissuaded from graffiti 24 writing and told to “be a man,” by giving up his life of writing in favor 25 of something that will support his family in the South Bronx. 26 After Krush Groove the terrain of hip-hop culture and cinema changes 27 drastically. By the late 1980s a new relationship was forged between 28 smaller record labels and larger entertainment conglomerates. Small 29 labels were able to keep their independence but were ultimately absorbed 30 by larger media corporations. This restructuring allowed for the emer- 31 gence of niche marketing in both the music and film industry. It is in 32 the 1990s that rap music videos as well as films influenced by hip-hop 33 and starring hip-hop artists really began to flourish. Music videos, as 34 Tricia Rose writes, were an avenue for artists to “animate hip-hop cul- 35 tural styles and aesthetics” (Rose 1994, p. 9). The same could be said 36 for the feature-length films made in the late 1980s and 1990s. Directors 37 like Spike Lee, Ernest Dickerson, John Singleton, Hype Williams, the 38 Hughes Brothers, Reginald Hudlin and many others who grew up with 39 hip-hop drew from its style and music in the early 1990s films like Boyz 40 n the Hood (1991), Menace II Society (1993), New Jack City (1991), Dead 41 Presidents (1995) and Juice (1992). One of the most unique genres to

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 (1985) 13 14 15 16 Krush Groove 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27 (b) (c) 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

38 The “assembly” line of musical post-production in Michael Schultz’s 39 40 41 (a) Figure 5.4 Figure

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1 emerge in the late 1990s were self-financed, straight to video films by 2 artists like Master P and Jay-Z like I’m Bout It (1997) Da Last Don (1998), 3 and Streets Is Watching (1998), a trend that has extended well into the 4 21st century. Instead of producing a soundtrack to support a film these 5 self-financed, low budget, independent movies are feature length films 6 that support album releases. To a certain extent these films are highly 7 evolved forms of the musical commodity, an interesting reversal of the 8 high concept strategy as well as the authenticating discourse of the 9 biopic. While these films extend the aura of the artist into the cinematic 10 realm, it is the album that is the seat of authority, not the revelations of 11 unalienated labor and value that the biopic offers. 12 With the 2009 release of Notorious, George Tillman’s take on the life 13 and tragic death of Christopher Wallace, we see a return of the conven- 14 tional musical biopic in hip-hop cinema. Adapted from Cheo Hodari 15 Coker’s biography, Notorious follows many of the generic narrative and 16 visual conventions found in recent 21st century biopics – particularly 17 those about musicians. Christopher Wallace was one of the most tal- 18 ented and complex figures in rap music yet Notorious is an incredibly 19 conventional genre film, released at the tail end of Hollywood’s biop- 20 ics boom that featured 8-Mile (2002) Walk the Line (2005), Ray (2004), 21 50-Cent’s Get Rich or Die Trying and Craig Brewer’s Hustle and Flow 22 (2005). Like Krush Groove, Notorious presents a grass-roots narrative of 23 Bad Boy Records as a conflation of familial obligation with corporate 24 structure and success. Tillman’s biopic indulges in some nostalgic 25 images of unalienated hip-hop labor in the mise en scène but most 26 forcefully invokes the conventions of the self-reflexive biopic though 27 its direct homage to Krush Groove. We especially see this in an early 28 montage sequence where Christopher “Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace, like 29 Run-DMC in Krush Groove, gives us a spontaneous studio performance of 30 one of B.I.G.’s biggest hits “Juicy.” Like its Krush Groove source material 31 the studio version of “Juicy” ends up providing the soundtrack for the 32 “assembly” line of artistic and industrial labor (Figures 5.5a and b) that 33 ends with the release of Notorious B.I.G’s first album, Ready to Die, in a 34 lavish album release party that fills a cavernous music club. 35 There are subtle but important differences between the Notorious and 36 Krush Groove sequences that suggest how Tillman’s film and more con- 37 temporary biopics in general figure creative labor differently. In Krush 38 Groove, it is stage performance and radio play that legitimate Run- 39 DMC’s status as hit-makers. While the music has already gone through 40 the process of post-production the film still presents them as well as 41 their single as laboring entities. For Notorious, Tillman went for a bit

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1 more sonic verimisilitude within the diegesis (for instance, there is no 2 lip-synching in the studio scene). Notorious B.I.G. does take the stage at 3 the end of this sequence but not to perform a song. Instead he ascends 4 to be crowned “King of Brooklyn” by his manager Sean “Puffy” Combs 5 and in one of the last shots of this sequence we find him on his throne 6 taking in the revelers and fans around him. The same assembly line of 7 production does not end with traditional stage performance but instead 8 with scenography. Notorious B.I.G., unlike Run-DMC, does not have to 9 legitimate himself through performing “Juicy.” We are in an era where 10 intimacy with music, cinema and the biographical self are a function of 11 networked instantaneity (Sheehan 2014). In Notorious this is reflected 12 in the cigar smoking image of Notorious B.I.G. that ends this sequence. 13 There is a tacit understanding here that the artist’s body is always pre- 14 sent and at work; an object of both consumption and production even 15 in leisurely repose (Figure 5.5c). 16 17 Coda: The Artist Is (Ever) Present 18 19 There has been growing backlash against the corporate cooptation of con- 20 cepts that for all intents and purposes have long been associated with the 21 arts. Since the late 1990s economists and sociologists have turned their 22 interest to creativity as well as the revolutionary rearrangement of corpo- 23 rate workplaces and management styles around collectivism. The aspect 24 that most of us experience is the centrality of Web 2.0 in providing a 25 platform to create affect and aggregate our life practices in order to gener- 26 ate surplus value. All of these significant changes to culture and political 27 economy can and have been categorized under the socioeconomic and 28 political conditions of neoliberalism. As Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello 29 point out, we must acknowledge the role that the post-68 emphasis on 30 blurring the line between the aesthetics and politics had on the rise of 31 this “new spirit of capitalism”; one that celebrates the sort of deviance 32 and eccentricity that we usually associate with artistic avant gardes 33 (Boltanski and Chiapello 2007). Perhaps it goes without saying that the 34 present revival of collectivism and those who champion its profit-driven 35 virtues have excised – or perhaps have little idea of – the radical roots 36 of these concepts. Those artists, scholars and cultural critics who have 37 responded to this commodification have not. For every work of willful 38 historical amnesia there are plenty that recall the relationship between 39 collectivism, radical anti-capitalism and the arts. This history has been 40 critical in understanding how the “dark matter” of our collective surplus 41 labor has long been a part of the new economy (Sholette 2011).

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 ends with a different kind of performance for the artistic self 21 22 23 24 Krush Grove 25 26 27 28 (b) (c) 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 (2009) 38 “assembly line” homage to George Tillman’s 39 40 41 Notorious Figure 5.5 Figure in (a)

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1 In a broader sense I hope to add to the current scholarly interest in col- 2 lectivism as well as address what I see as the absence of hip-hop culture 3 in this recent scholarship, especially amongst scholars that have sought 4 to draw connections between collectivism, labor and music (Stahl 2013). 5 Collectives, like in much of the art world, are also a critical part of hip- 6 hop. Some of these represent themselves along lines that invoke the more 7 politically radical roots of some versions of collectivism. More often than 8 not the number of collectives in hip-hop represent a wide array of self- 9 organized entities invoking anything from geographic locations, criminal, 10 anarchic, post-secular, agrarian, labor unions to more vertical modes of 11 corporate organization. It is precisely because of these contradictions, 12 which of course are not generalizable throughout the history of hip-hop 13 nor its discreet artistic elements, that I feel hip-hop has much to offer 14 our contemporary interest in collectivism, music, artistic labor. Hip-hop – 15 perhaps along with Punk and No Wave – is one of the few musical and 16 more generally speaking artistic movements that put collectives and the 17 myths of unalienated artistic labor in the forefront of its art. I suspect that 18 what complicates hip-hop’s inclusion in our more contemporary discus- 19 sions of collectivism and creative labor has much to do with two impor- 20 tant elements within hip-hop. The first is what many perceive as hip-hop’s 21 hyper-entrepreneurial ethos, which in some respects runs counter to the 22 anti-capitalist politics underlying the history of collectivism in the arts 23 (Kelley 1998 and Neal 2001). Secondly, as Okwui Enwezor writes, the his- 24 tory of collectivism in the arts was, in part, a challenge to modernism’s 25 fetishization of the work of art as “the unique object of individual crea- 26 tivity” (Enwezor 2007, p. 223). Again, hip-hop, but especially rap music, 27 derives an incredible amount of legitimacy and authenticity of the author 28 over and against the political and aesthetic legacies the aura surrounding 29 both carries. There should be little surprise that hip-hop artists have held 30 on so tightly to the author function; especially given the long American 31 history of love and theft between African American artists and mainstream 32 American popular culture. The importance of the author is rooted in a 33 very important socio-political context for black and Latino artists, many 34 of whom had been long written out of the neoliberal political and cultural 35 economy beyond their existence as surplus labor. This point is not without 36 it complications either. The kind of ethnographic realism that has been 37 long conferred to rap music (and hip-hop in general) has led to versions of 38 black authenticity that have standardized blackness within the cinematic 39 and musical marketplace. 40 In this essay I have been less interested in making any definitive 41 claims about genre or cycle within cinema then using a discussion of

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1 genre as a way to illuminate the relationship between race, culture, 2 capitalism and the processes of subject making in the late 20th and 3 21st centuries. The artist biopic, I believe, can be useful in this regard. 4 If we contextualize these films within the aesthetic conventions of hip- 5 hop culture we find that this genre long stood in plain sight. The crucial 6 relationship that biographical authenticity – feigned or otherwise – has 7 to the aesthetics, politics and (problematically) successful commercial 8 marketing of hip-hop can be seen as early as Downtown 81. The authen- 9 ticating power of urban representation of blackness becomes much more 10 the case once rap music becomes the dominant face of hip-hop culture. 11 It goes without saying that the bios plays a central role to the kinds of 12 narratives found in hip-hop music. The same can be said about the way 13 hip-hop and its artists have been represented as well as chosen to repre- 14 sent themselves cinematically. Unlike the biopics produced during the 15 height of the studio era these post-studio system films are either por- 16 traits of flawed genius or vexed creative labor, with the two often being 17 synonymous with one another. However, like the post-World War II 18 musical biopic, these tragic geniuses find moral redemption as well as 19 renewed commercial success through the production of the musical 20 and cinematic commodity. Focused as they are on entertainers and 21 entertainment, the 21st century biopic is as much an indication of our 22 cultural obsession with artistry and celebrity as it is a genre through 23 which we can see the continued evolution of the post-studio system. 24 Downtown 81 and Wild Style (1982) suggest the importance hip-hop 25 and No Wave have in helping us chart a cinematic history of our 21st 26 century concerns over the exploitative deployment of creativity within 27 neoliberalism. Many of these early films represent hip-hop’s early rela- 28 tionship with New York City’s downtown pop and high-art culture, 29 which as of late stands in as the ideal image of artist experimentation 30 and freedom. In the last few years hip-hop has become nostalgic for this 31 supposed past. We need only to look at Jay-Z’s “performance art” film 32 “Picasso Baby”; a direct homage to Marina Abramovic, Basquiat and 33 Picasso. Or we can point to Wu-Tang Clan’s decision to release one fine- 34 art “gallery” copy of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin to see that for many 35 established hip-hop musicians, the system (and figures) of monetary 36 and aesthetic value found in high-art gallery culture, is seen as a cor- 37 rective to the radical devaluation of the labor put into music making. 38 What I hope has become clear is that this nostalgia is not well placed. 39 In fact we can see Wild Style’s own sense of nostalgia about the artistic 40 past and uncertainty about the present and future in the very first shot 41 of the film.

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1 If, as Giles Deleuze suggests, a visit to the factory “with its rigid disci- 2 pline” has become “ideal entertainment” in the late 20th century these 3 early films both critique and reify the development of the corporate 4 musical commodity in the late 20th century (Deleuze 1995, p. 72). Is 5 cinema the ideal avenue for such a critique? I think the late works of 6 Deleuze provide us with a possible answer to the use of cinema. Found 7 throughout his interviews and occasional essays from the late 1970s 8 to 80s we can see Deleuze’s mixture of concern and hope over the rise 9 of television and video. His most extensive and lucid comments on 10 the role of cinema in an age of newer media come in “Letter to Serge 11 Daney”, his introduction to Daney’s Cine-Journal (Daney 1986). Cinema, 12 Deleuze tells us, is a unique precisely because it has the potential to cre- 13 ate a “supplement” to nature by either beautifying or spiritualizing it 14 (Deleuze 1986, p. 73). Before we accuse Deleuze of returning us to the 15 romanticist aesthetics of Sir Philip Sidney, Deleuze reminds us of the 16 important intellectual and historical function this supplement provides. 17 The cinematic image preserves events but they are “always out of step 18 with things, because cinematic time isn’t a time that flows on but one 19 that endures and coexists with other times” (Deleuze 1986, p. 74). The 20 aesthetic dimension of cinema reveals this coexistence to us and it is 21 there that a change in human thinking can hopefully take place, where 22 new paths of possibility open up for imagining human existence. 23 Wild Style, Krush Groove and finally more contemporary biopics like 24 Notorious demonstrate a variety of paths that force us to reconsider the 25 history of the biopic. It would be easy to read these hip-hop films as 26 remedying the historic absence of African Americans in the biopic genre 27 or appropriating the syntax and vocabulary of biopic in order to subvert 28 them (Bingham 2010, p. 176). Instead of these politics of representation 29 I suggest that given the staggering level of post-studio media consolida- 30 tion and high-concept cinema in the 21st century, hip-hop’s biopics 31 reveal something about how we conceptualize the creative subject in 32 the late 20th and 21st century. Films like Downtown 81 and Wild Style 33 complicate the redemptive narrative of the biopic. I wonder if this has 34 something to do with how they were produced. Both Downtown 81 and 35 Wild Style have ties to and in part use the screen to imagine a decen- 36 tralized, at times criminal collective artistic labor that is in constant 37 tension with forces of commodification (Moore 2007 and Yokobosky 38 1996). Despite my claim that hip-hop confers a sense of authenticity 39 and value to this collectivist vision, these films are surprisingly silent 40 on race, which was the case with much of the No Wave cinema. On the 41 other hand, the post-studio turn of Beat Street, Krush Grove and Notorious

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1 provide the viewer with a fantasy of black political and collective action 2 within the market place but in the process elides the profoundly violent 3 and criminal contradictions of race, labor and advanced capitalism that 4 hip-hop often willfully foregrounds. 5 6 Bibliography 7 8 Adams, C., Jenkins, S., Rollins, B (2006) “Words and Images: A Roundtable on Hip-Hop Design” in Chang, J. (ed.) Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of 9 Hip-Hop. New York: Basic Civitas. 10 Altman, R. (1987). The American Film Musical. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University 11 Press. 12 Arnold, E., Epps, K., Raimist, R. and Wanguhu, M. (2006) “Put Your Camera 13 Where My Eyes Can See: Hip-Hop Video, Film and Documentary” in Chang, J. (ed.) Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop. New York: Basic Civitas. 14 Ault, J. (2002) Alternative Art, New York, 1965–1985 : A Cultural Politics Book for the 15 Social Text Collective. Minneapolis, MN: Drawing Center. 16 Berger, D. (2014) Projected Art History: Biopics, Celebrity Culture, and the Popularizing 17 of American Art. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. 18 Bingham, D. (2010) Whose Lives Are They Anyway? The Biopic as Contemporary Film Genre. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. 19 Bobo, J. (1998) Black Women Film and Video Artists. New York: Routledge. 20 Bogle, D. (2001) Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive 21 History of Blacks in American Films (4th edn). New York: Continuum. 22 Boltanski, L. and Chiapello, E. (2007) The New Spirit of Capitalism. London; 23 New York: Verso. Boyd, T. (1997) Am I Black Enough for You? Popular Culture from the ’hood and 24 Beyond. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. 25 Brown, T. and Vidal, B. (2014) The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture. New York, 26 NY: Routledge. 27 Castleman, C. (1982) Getting Up: Subway Grafﬁ ti in New York. Cambridge, MA: 28 MIT Press. Chalfant, H. and Cooper, M. (2009) Subway Art: 25th Anniversary Edition (1st 29 Chronicle Books edn). San Francisco: Chronicle Books. 30 Chalfant, H. and Jenkins, S. (2014) Training Days: The Subway Artists Then and 31 Now. London: Thames & Hudson. 32 Chang, J. (2005) Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-hop Generation. New York: 33 St. Martin’s Press. Chang, J. (2006) Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop. New York: Basic 34 Civitas. 35 Charnas, D. (2010) The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-hop. New York: 36 New American Library. 37 Cohan, S. (2005) Incongruous Entertainment: Camp, Cultural Value, and the MGM 38 Musical. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Connor, J. D. (2015) The Studios after the Studios: Neoclassical Hollywood (1970–2010). 39 Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. 40 Cooper, M. (2009) Subway Art: 25th Anniversary Edition (1st Chronicle Books edn). 41 San Francisco: Chronicle Books.

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1 Cripps, T. (1978) Black Film as Genre. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. 2 Custen, G. F. (1992) Bio/pics: How Hollywood Constructed Public History. New 3 Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Daney, S. (1986) Ciné-journal: 1981–1986. Paris: Diffusion, Seuil. 4 Deleuze, G. (1995) “Letter to Serge Daney: Optimism, Pessimism and Travel” in 5 Martin Joughin (trans.) Negotiations, 1972–1990. New York: Columbia University 6 Press. 7 Diawara, M. (1992) African Cinema: Politics and Culture. Bloomington, IN: Indiana 8 University Press. Diawara, M. (ed.) (1993) Black American Cinema. New York: Routledge. 9 Dyer, R. (2002) Only Entertainment (2nd edn). London; New York: Routledge. 10 Dyson, M. E. (2007) Know What I Mean? Reﬂ ections on Hip-hop. New York: Basic 11 Civitas. 12 Enwezor, O. (2007) “The Production of Social Space as Artwork: Protocols of 13 Community in the Work of Le Groupe Amos and Huit Facettes” in Sholette, G. and Stimson, B. (eds.) Collectivism after Modernism: The Art of Social Imagination 14 after 1945. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. 15 Feuer, J. (1993) The Hollywood Musical (2nd edn). Basingstoke: Macmillan. 16 Forman, M. (2002) The ’hood Comes First : Race, Space, and Place in Rap and 17 Hip-hop. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. 18 Goldstein, R. (1980) “The First Radical Art Show of the ‘80s.” Village Voice, June 16: 1, 31–2. 19 Guerrero, E. (1993) Framing Blackness: The African American Image in ﬁ lm. 20 Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. 21 Hoberman, J. (1979) “No Wavelength: The Para-Punk Underground”, Village Voice, 22 May 21. 23 hooks, b. (1996) Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies. New York: Routledge. Judy, R. A. (1994a) “The Question of Nigga Authenticity.” boundary 2. 21 (3): 211–30. 24 Judy, R. A. (1994b) “The New Black Aesthetic and W.E.B. Du Bois, or Hephaestus, 25 Limping.” The Massachusetts Review 35(2): 249–82. 26 Kelley, R. D. (1996) Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class (1st 27 Free Press paperback edn). New York: Distributed by Simon & Schuster. 28 Kelley, R. D. (1998). “Playing for Keeps: Pleasure and Profit on the Post-Industrial Playground” in Lubiano, W. H. (ed.) The House that Race Built: Black Americans, 29 U.S. Terrain. New York: Pantheon Books. 30 Kitwana, B. (2002) The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African 31 American Culture (1st edn). New York: Basic Civitas. 32 Knight, A. (2002) Disintegrating the Musical: Black Performance and American 33 Musical Film. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Kwon, M. (2002) “Sitings of Public Art: Integration versus Intervention” in 34 Ault, J. (ed.) Alternative Art, New York, 1965–1985: A Cultural Politics Book for the 35 Social Text Collective. Minneapolis, MN: Drawing Center. 36 Lippard, L. R. (1990) “Sex and Death and Shock and Schlock: A Long Review of 37 ‘The Times Square Show’ by Anne Ominous” in Risatti, H. (ed.) Post-modern 38 Perspectives: Issues in Contemporary Art. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Massood, P. J. (2003) Black City Cinema: African American Urban Experiences in 39 Film. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. 40 Monteyne, K. (2013) Hip Hop on Film: Performance Culture, Urban Space, and Genre 41 Transformation in the 1980s. Jackson, MI: University Press of Mississippi.

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1 Moore, A. (2002) “Local History: The Art Battle for Bohemia in New York” in 2 Ault, J. (ed.) Alternative Art, New York, 1965–1985: A Cultural Politics Book for the 3 Social Text Collective. Minneapolis, MN: Drawing Center. Moore, A. (2007) “Artist’s Collectives: Focus on New York, 1975–2000” in 4 Sholette, G. and Stimson, B. (ed.) Collectivism after Modernism: The Art of Social 5 Imagination after 1945. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. 6 Neal, M. A. (1999) What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public 7 Culture. New York: Routledge. 8 Neal, M. A. (2001) Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic. New York: Routledge. 9 Prince, S. (2002) A New Pot of Gold: Hollywood under the Electronic Rainbow, 1980–1989. 10 New York: C. Scribner’s. 11 Reid, M. (1993) Redeﬁ ning Black Film. Berkeley, CA: University of California 12 Press. 13 Rhines, J. A. (1996) Black Film, White Money. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. 14 Rose, T. (1994) Black Noise: Pap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. 15 Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. 16 Schwartzman, A. (1985) Street Art. Garden City, NY: Dial Press. 17 Sheehan, R. (2014) “Facebooking the Present: The Biopic and Cultural 18 Instantaneity” in Brown, T. and Vidal, B. (eds.) The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture. New York: Routledge. 19 Sholette, G. (2011) Dark Matter: Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture. 20 New York: PlutoPress. 21 Sirman, F. (2005) “In the Cipher: Basquiat and Hip-Hop Culture” in Basquiat, 22 J.-M., Basquiat. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum. 23 Smith, C. H. (2012) “I Don’t Like to Dream of Getting Paid: Representations of Social Mobility and the Emergence of the Hip-Hop Mogul” in Forman, M. (ed.) 24 That’s the Joint! The Hip-hop Studies Reader (2nd edn). New York: Routledge. 25 Smith, V. (1997). Representing Blackness: Issues in Film and Video. New Brunswick, 26 NJ: Rutgers University Press. 27 Spence, L. K. (2011) Stare in the Darkness: The Limits of Hip-hop and Black Politics. 28 Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Stahl, M. (2013) Unfree Masters: Recording Artists and the Politics of Work. Durham, 29 NC: Duke University Press. 30 Thompson, M. (2010) “The Times Square Show”, in B. Momchedjikova (ed.) 31 “The Urban Feel”, Streetnotes 18. 32 Vidal, B. (2014) “Introduction: The Biopic and its Critical Contexts” in The Biopic 33 in Contemporary Film Culture. New York: Routledge. Watkins, S. C. (1998) Representing: Hip Hop Culture and the Production of Black 34 Cinema. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. 35 Watkins, S. C. (2005) Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the 36 Soul of a Movement. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. 37 Wyatt, J. (1994) High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood. Austin, TX: 38 University of Texas Press. Yearwood, G. (1982) Black Cinema Aesthetics: Issues in Independent Black 39 Filmmaking. Athens, OH: Center for Afro-American Studies, Ohio University. 40 Yokobosky, M. (1996) “No Wave Cinema, 1978–87”, Whitney Museum, New York 41 City.

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1 Filmography 2 3 Beat Street. (1984) Film. Directed by Stan Lathan. [DVD] USA: MGM Home Entertainment. 4 Boyz n the Hood (1991). Film. Directed by John Singleton. [DVD] USA: Sony 5 Pictures Home Entertainment. 6 Breakin’. (1984) Film. Directed by Joel Silberg. [DVD] USA: MGM Home 7 Entertainment. 8 Breakin’ II. (1984) Film. Directed by Sam Firstenberg. [DVD]: MGM Home Entertainment. 9 Da Last Don. (1998) Film. Directed by Master P and Michael Martin. [DVD] USA: 10 No Limit Films. 11 Dead Presidents. (1995). Film. Directed by Albert and Allen Hughes. [DVD] USA: 12 Hollywood Pictures Home Entertainment. 13 Downtown 81. (1981/2000) Film. Directed by Edo Bertoglio. [DVD] USA: Zeitgeist Films. 14 8-Mile. (2002). Film. Directed by Curtis Hanson. [DVD] USA: Universal Studios. 15 80 Blocks from Tiffany’s. (1979) Film. Directed by Gary Weis. [VHS] USA: Above 16 Average Productions. 17 Get Rich or Die Trying (2005). Film. Directed by Jim Sheridan. [DVD] USA: 18 Paramount Pictures. Hustle and Flow. (2005). Film. Directed by Craig Brewer. [DVD] USA: Warner Brothers. 19 I’m Bout It. (1997) Film. Directed by Moon Jones and Master P. [DVD] USA: No 20 Limit Films. 21 Jolson Sings Again. (1949) Film. Directed by Henry Levin. [DVD] USA: Sony 22 Pictures Home Entertainment. 23 Juice. (1992). Film. Directed by Ernest Dickerson. [DVD] USA: Warner Brothers Home Entertainment. 24 Krush Groove. (1985) Film. Directed by Michael Schultz. [DVD] USA: Warner 25 Home Video. 26 Menace II Society. (1993) Film. Directed by Albert and Allen Hughes. [DVD] USA: 27 New Line Home Cinema. 28 New Jack City. (1991). Film. Directed by Mario Van Peebles. [DVD] USA: Warner Home Video. 29 Notorious. (2009). Film. Directed by George Tillman. [DVD] USA: Fox Searchlight. 30 Rappin. (1985) Film. Directed by Joel Silberg. [DVD] USA: MGM Home Entertainment. 31 Ray (2004). Film. Directed by Taylor Hackford. [DVD] USA: Universal Studios. 32 She’s Gotta Have It. (1986) Film. Directed by Spike Lee. [DVD] USA: MGM. 33 Singing in the Rain. (1952) Film. Directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen. [DVD] USA: Warner Home Video. 34 Smithereens. (1981) Film. Directed by Susan Seidleman. [DVD] USA: Blue Underground. 35 Stations of the Elevated. (1981) Film. Directed by Manfred Kirchheimer. [VHS] USA: 36 First Run Features. 37 Streets Is Watching. (1998) Film. Directed by Abdul Malik Abbot. [DVD] USA: 38 Roc-A-Fella Films. Style Wars. (1983) Film. Directed by Tony Silver. [DVD] USA: Public Art Films. 39 The Band Wagon. (1953) Film. Directed by Richard Schickel and Vincente 40 Minnelli. [DVD] USA: Warner Home Video. 41 The Brooklyn Bridge at Pearl Street (1978?). Film. Directed by Charlie Ahearn.

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1 The Deadly Art of Survival (1979). Film. Directed by Charlie Ahearn. [DVD] USA: 2 BRINKDVD. 3 They Eat Scum. (1979) Film. Directed by Nick Zedd. Tougher than Leather. (1988) Film. Directed by Rick Rubin. [VHS] USA: New Line 4 Home Cinema. 5 Twins (1980). Film. Directed by Charlie Ahearn. 6 Underground U.S.A. (1980) Film. Directed by Eric Mitchell. 7 Walk the Line (2005). Film. Directed by James Mangold. [DVD] USA: 20th 8 Century Fox. Wild Style. (1982) Film. Directed by Charlie Ahearn. [DVD] USA: Rhino Films. 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

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1 2 6 3 4 Love Streams1 5 6 Damon Krukowski 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Making Cents 15 16 I’m sure each generation of musicians feels they’ve lived through a time 17 of tremendous change, but the shifts I’ve witnessed in my relatively 18 short music career – from morphing formats to dissolving business 19 models – do seem extraordinary. The first album I made was originally 20 released on LP only, in 1988 – and my next will likely only be pressed 21 on LP again. But in between, the music industry seems to have done 22 everything it could to screw up that simple model of exchange; today it 23 is no longer possible for most of us to earn even a modest wage through 24 our recordings. 25 Not that I am naively nostalgic for the old days – we weren’t paid for 26 that first album, either. (The record label we were signed to at the time, 27 Rough Trade, declared bankruptcy before cutting us even one royalty 28 check.) But the ways in which musicians are screwed have changed 29 qualitatively, from individualized swindles to systemic ones. And with 30 those changes, a potential end-run around the industry’s problems 31 seems less and less possible, even for bands who have managed to hold 32 on to 100 percent of their rights and royalties, as we have. 33 Consider Pandora and Spotify, the streaming music services that are 34 becoming ever more integrated into our daily listening habits. My BMI 35 royalty check arrived recently, reporting songwriting earnings from the 36 first quarter of 2012, and I was glad to see that our music is being listened 37 to via these services. Galaxie 500’s “Tugboat”, for example, was played 38 7,800 times on Pandora that quarter, for which its three songwriters 39 were paid a collective total of 21 cents, or seven cents each. Spotify pays 40 better: For the 5,960 times “Tugboat” was played there, Galaxie 500’s 41 songwriters went collectively into triple digits: $1.05 (35 cents each).

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1 To put this into perspective: Since we own our own recordings, by 2 my calculation it would take songwriting royalties for roughly 312,000 3 plays on Pandora to earn us the profit of one – one – LP sale. (On Spotify, 4 one LP is equivalent to 47,680 plays.) 5 Or to put it in historical perspective: The “Tugboat” 7-inch single, 6 Galaxie 500’s very first release, cost us $980.22 for 1,000 copies – 7 including shipping! (Naomi kept the receipts) – or 98 cents each. I no 8 longer remember what we sold them for, but obviously it was easy to 9 turn at least a couple bucks’ profit on each. Which means we earned 10 more from every one of those 7-inch singles we sold than from the 11 song’s recent 13,760 plays on Pandora and Spotify. Here’s yet another 12 way to look at it: Pressing 1,000 singles in 1988 gave us the earning 13 potential of more than 13 million streams in 2012. (And people say the 14 internet is a bonanza for young bands...) 15 To be fair, because we are singer-songwriters, and because we own all 16 of our rights, these streaming services end up paying us a second royalty, 17 each for a different reason and each through a different channel. Pandora 18 is considered “non-terrestrial radio,” and consequently must pay the 19 musicians who play on the recordings it streams, as well as the song- 20 writers. These musicians’ royalties are collected by SoundExchange, a 21 non-profit organization created by the government when satellite radio 22 came into existence. SoundExchange doesn’t break our earnings down 23 by service per song, but it does tell us that last quarter, Pandora paid a 24 total of $64.17 for use of the entire Galaxie 500 catalogue. We have 64 25 Galaxie 500 recordings registered with them, so that averages neatly to 26 one dollar per track, or another 33 cents for each member of the trio. 27 Pandora in fact considers this additional musicians’ royalty an extra- 28 ordinary financial burden, and they are aggressively lobbying for a 29 new law – it is now a bill before the U.S. Congress – designed to relieve 30 them of it. You can read all about it in a series of helpful blog posts by 31 Ben Sisario of The New York Times,2 or if you prefer your propaganda 32 unmediated, you can listen to Pandora founder Tim Westergren’s own 33 explanation of the Orwellian Internet Radio Fairness Act.3 34 As for Spotify, since it is not considered radio, either of this world 35 or any other, they have a different additional royalty to pay. Like 36 any non-broadcast use of recordings, they require a license from the 37 rights-holder They negotiate this individually with each record label, 38 at terms not made public. I’m happy to make ours public, however: It 39 is the going “indie” rate of $0.005 per play. (Actually, when I do the 40 math, that rate seems to truly pay out at $0.004611 – I hope someone 41 got a bonus for saving the company four-hundredths of a cent on each

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1 stream!) We didn’t negotiate this, exactly; for a band-owned label like 2 ours, it’s take it or leave it. We took it, which means for 5,960 plays of 3 “Tugboat”, Spotify theoretically owes our record label $29.80. 4 I say theoretically, because in practice Spotify’s $0.004611 rate turns 5 out to have a lot of small, invisible print attached to it. It seems this rate 6 is adjusted for each stream, according to an algorithm (not shared by 7 Spotify, at least not with us) that factors in variables such as frequency of 8 play, the outlet that channeled the play to Spotify, the type of subscrip- 9 tion held by the user, and so on. What’s more, try as I might through 10 the documents available to us, I cannot get the number of plays Spotify 11 reports to our record label to equal the number of plays reported by BMI. 12 Bottom line: The payments actually received by our label from Spotify 13 for streams of “Tugboat” in that same quarter, as best I can figure: $9.18. 14 “Well, that’s still not bad,” you might say. (I’m not sure who would 15 really say that, but let’s presume someone might.) After all, these are 16 immaterial goods – it costs us nothing to have our music on these ser- 17 vices: no pressing, no printing, no shipping, no file space to save a paper 18 receipt for 25 years. All true. But immaterial goods turn out to generate 19 equally immaterial income. 20 Which gets to the heart of the problem. When I started making records, 21 the model of economic exchange was exceedingly simple: make some- 22 thing, price it for more than it costs to manufacture, and sell it if you can. 23 It was industrial capitalism, on a 7-inch scale. The model now seems closer 24 to financial speculation. Pandora and Spotify are not selling goods; they 25 are selling access, a piece of the action. Sign on, and we’ll all benefit. (I’m 26 struck by the way that even crowd-sourcing mimics this “investment” 27 model of contemporary capitalism: You buy in to what doesn’t yet exist.) 28 But here’s the rub: Pandora and Spotify are not earning any income 29 from their services, either. In the first quarter of 2012, Pandora – the 30 same company that paid Galaxie 500 a total of $1.21 for their use of 31 “Tugboat” – reported a net loss of more than $20 million. As for Spotify, 32 their latest annual report revealed a loss in 2011 of $56 million. 33 Leaving aside why these companies are bothering to chisel hundredths 34 of a cent from already ridiculously low “royalties,” or paying lobby- 35 ists to work a bill through Congress that would lower those rates even 36 further – let’s instead ask a question they themselves might consider 37 relevant: Why are they in business at all? 38 The answer is capital, which is what Pandora and Spotify have and 39 what they generate. These aren’t record companies; they don’t make 40 records, or anything else – apparently not even income. They exist to 41 attract speculative capital. And for those who have a claim to ownership

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1 of that capital, they are earning millions – in 2012, Pandora’s executives 2 sold $63 million of personal stock in the company. Or as Spotify’s CEO 3 Daniel Ek has put it, “The question of when we’ll be profitable actually 4 feels irrelevant. Our focus is all on growth. That is priority one, two, 5 three, four and five.”4 6 Growth of the music business? I think not. Daniel Ek means growth of 7 his company, that is, its capitalization. Which is the closest I can come 8 to understanding the fundamental change I’ve witnessed in the music 9 industry, from my first LP in 1988 to the one I am working on now. In 10 between, the sale of recorded music has become irrelevant to the domi- 11 nant business models I have to contend with as a working musician. 12 Indeed, music itself seems to be irrelevant to these businesses – it is just 13 another form of information, the same as any other that might entice 14 us to click a link. 15 As businesses, Pandora and Spotify are divorced from music. To me, 16 it’s a short logical step to observe that they are doing nothing for the 17 business of music – except undermining the simple cottage industry of 18 pressing ideas onto vinyl, and selling them for more than they cost to 19 manufacture. I am no Luddite – I am not smashing iPhones or sabo- 20 taging software. In fact, I subscribe to Spotify for $9.99 a month (the 21 equivalent of 680,462 annual plays of “Tugboat”) because I love music, 22 and the access it gives me to music of all kinds is incredible. 23 But I have simply stopped looking to these business models to do any- 24 thing for me financially as a musician. As for sharing our music without 25 a business model of any kind, that’s exactly how I got into this – we 26 called it punk rock. Which is why we are streaming all of our recordings, 27 completely free, on the Bandcamp sites we set up for Galaxie 500 and 28 Damon & Naomi. 29 Which leads to the following modest proposal. 30 31 Free Music 32 33 The last thing I expected to see crop up in accounts of WikiLeaks whistle- 34 blower Bradley Manning‘s ongoing trial was mention of our petty 35 problems in the music business. 36 But lo and behold, when the defense called an expert to testify on the 37 relationship between WikiLeaks and the traditional media – in order to 38 introduce the idea that the controversial site might deserve protection of 39 free speech, just like the newspapers that published its revelations – the 40 witness began by comparing the current situation in journalism to “what 41 we saw in music in the early 2000s.” Yochai Benkler, professor of law at

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1 Harvard and author of an influential paper about journalism called “A Free 2 Irresponsible Press: Wikileaks and the Battle over the Soul of the Networked 3 Fourth Estate” argues that, in the 21st century, the function of the press 4 has expanded beyond 20th-century media outlets of print, radio, and tele- 5 vision, to a “cluster of practices and technologies and organizations that 6 fill that role,” which he calls “the network Fourth Estate” (Benkler, 2011). 7 The court transcript itself is evidence for what Benkler is describing: 8 It’s provided not by the state, nor by a traditional media outlet, but 9 by the non-profit Freedom of the Press Foundation, which has raised 10 more than $100,000 through crowdsourcing to pay for a stenographer. 11 Manning is on trial in a military court, which is not required to keep a 12 record of the proceedings, so Freedom of the Press Foundation is post- 13 ing full transcripts from the trial, which are being released under an 14 Attribution 3.0 Unported Creative Commons license. 15 Follow that link to Creative Commons, and you’ll find yourself 16 enmeshed with music yet again: The Freedom of the Press Foundation is 17 using a license developed with music so much in mind that one of its 18 three terms is the right “to Remix.” Indeed, diligent readers of Pitchfork 19 might remember that, among others, Nine Inch Nails used a Creative 20 Commons license instead of Copyright for their 2008 album Ghosts I-IV 21 (it didn’t help reviewer Tom Breihan like it any better, though). How did 22 musicians and music fans end up entangled with momentous problems 23 like the leaking of government secrets, freedom of the press, and the 24 potential prosecution of whistleblowers as traitors? 25 As Benkler indicates in his testimony, music was the canary in the 26 digital coal mine. In its original free, peer-to-peer form, Napster lasted 27 only two years, from June 1999 to July 2001, but left a changed industry 28 in its wake, and all the many legal and financial and creative ideas since 29 cannot turn back the century. But if music preceded movies, television, 30 books, and journalism down the rabbit hole of peer-to-peer exchange, 31 Benkler reminds us that it wasn’t the first industry to be shaken by fast 32 and cheap digital communication. That distinction belongs to software, 33 which lost its original way of doing business even earlier. 34 In his article, Benkler looks to developments in the software indus- 35 try to point the way for journalism in its new, networked form, and it 36 might serve the music business to do the same. As Benkler puts it, “The 37 defining characteristic of the Net was the decentralization of physical 38 and human capital that it enabled.” In programming, that decentraliza- 39 tion led not only to the creation of open-source software, but to its rapid 40 development in ways that centralized, hierarchical businesses could not 41 necessarily match. Their solution? Software companies developed ways

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1 of using and complementing open-source material, rather than playing 2 whack-a-mole and trying to shut it down. As Benkler puts it, what has 3 emerged in computing is a “collaboration across the boundary between 4 traditional organizational models and new networked models.” 5 Though many have tried, we haven’t really seen this strategy employed 6 in the realm of music. Instead, what seems to have emerged most 7 powerfully for the industry is cooperation between major labels – the 8 epitome of centralized, hierarchical business models – and the comput- 9 ing industry (Apple, Spotify, Pandora). What’s missing from that is the 10 very element that Benkler identifies as the defining characteristic of the 11 Net: decentralized physical and human capital, that is, musicians and 12 music fans. Somehow, we keep being left out of the equation. 13 As others have commented – most recently Thom Yorke and Nigel 14 Godrich – these new models are adept at wringing profits from existing 15 music catalogs, but they don’t do much, if anything, for the financing of 16 new recordings. And it doesn’t take an MBA to see how that doesn’t bode 17 well for the future of the industry. But it must be said: Major labels don’t 18 exactly have a great track record for planning ahead. (Is it something about 19 the personalities drawn to work in our moment-to-moment world of music? 20 If you get a thrill from Jonathan Richman’s “one-two-three-four-five-six!” 21 are you more likely to be someone who saves carefully for retirement, or 22 someone who hopes they die before they get old?) 23 What might be keeping the music industry from developing success- 24 ful new networked models is the centralized holding of a majority of 25 existing music rights in the hands of a very few. Apple, Spotify, Pandora, 26 and all those to come in their wake have only to negotiate with the 27 major labels before launching products that the rest of us have to 28 accept or reject. Using Benkler’s terminology, the “networked models” 29 in music have been relegated to a put-up-or-shut-up role, while the 30 “traditional organizational models” explore their options with partners 31 from outside music altogether. 32 A true 21st-century partnership for the music business would include 33 musicians and music fans in a far more substantive role. “Creating 34 these collaborations is feasible but not trivial,” Benkler acknowledges – 35 there are entrenched interests that resist open-source sharing, and on the 36 networked side there might be resistance to cooperating with what can 37 seem like the enemy. But he points out the advantages to both sides: 38 39 The major incumbents will continue to play an important role as 40 highly visible, relatively closed organizations capable of delivering 41 much wider attention to any given revelation, and to carry on their

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1 operations under relatively controlled conditions. The networked 2 entrants, not individually, but as a network of diverse individuals 3 and organizations, will have an agility, scope, and diversity of sources 4 and pathways such that they will, collectively, be able to collect and 5 capture information on a global scale that would be impossible for 6 any single traditional organization to replicate by itself. 7 8 Benkler is addressing journalism in this statement, but it is easy to map 9 the players in music onto this scenario. The “major incumbents” know 10 who they are. The “network of diverse individuals and organizations” 11 is the rest of us, and our collective abilities in music are tremendous. 12 Musicians and fans shouldn’t trade those abilities for anything less than 13 transforming the industry in their own image, because if there is to be 14 a 21st-century music business, it will be a networked one. 15 One way we could start is to collectively acknowledge that nobody 16 can really claim digital streams as exclusive property. So let them flow 17 freely – from everyone, fans included – instead of only from companies 18 that have cut deals with the copyright holders. Services like Spotify 19 might continue to operate as they are, with their pittance of revenue 20 sharing, but they would have to compete in an open market of free 21 streaming by musicians and fans. What I am envisioning is something 22 like what has developed for music posting via YouTube, but allowed 23 to proliferate throughout the network, without corporate control over 24 context or quality. Perhaps that kind of competition would spark newly 25 cooperative ideas, and take us away from the antagonistic relationship 26 between much of the music business on one hand, and the network of 27 musicians and fans on the other. The century is still young. 28 29 Notes 30 31 1. This essay is adapted from articles originally written for and published by the music website Pitchfork.com in 2012 and 2013. Reproduced with permission. 32 2. http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/author/ben-sisario/?_r=0 33 3. https://web.archive.org/web/20130308075714/http://www.pandora.com/ 34 static/ads/irfa/irfa.html 35 4. https://www.dittomusic.com/blog/spotify-founder-states-that-profitability-is- 36 absolutely-not-a-priority 37 38 Reference 39 Benkler, Y. (2011). Free Irresponsible Press: Wikileaks and the Battle over the Soul 40 of the Networked Fourth Estate, Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review, 41 46, 311–97.

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1 2 7 3 4 A Case for Musical Privacy 5 6 Richard Randall 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Singin’ right to me I can hear the melody 15 The story is there for the takin’ 16 Drivin’ over Kanan, singin’ to my soul 17 There’s people out there turnin’ music into gold 18 John Stewart, “Gold” 19 20 If I didn’t love you, I’d hate you 21 I’m playing your stereogram 22 Singles remind me of kisses 23 Albums remind me of plans 24 Squeeze, “If I didn’t love you” 25 “Every song has a story. What’s yours?” read the subject of an email sent to 26 me by the streaming-music service Spotify (2014a). The email continues: 27 28 Spotify 29 #thatsongwhen 30 Find a song, tell your story, share with the world. 31 32 Nothing triggers a memory quite like a song. You know, that song 33 when weekend mornings meant sugary cereal and cartoons. Or that 34 song when you did everything to win the heart of your playground 35 crush ... So we’re asking – what songs take you back to a special 36 moment? 37 Here are some of the songs you played most in 2014: 38 39 Give Out by Sharon Van Etten 40 Serpents by Sharon Van Etten 41 Leonard by Sharon Van Etten

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1 Does one of them spark a good story? We’d love to hear it. 2 Or explore other stories in the gallery. 3 4 When I saw this list of songs, I knew exactly when I was listening to 5 them, where I was, how I felt, what was going on in my life, and how 6 these songs made me feel. These experiences came back in vivid detail. 7 I probably listened to the song “Give Out” over a hundred times dur- 8 ing this period on my MP3 player, on my computer, and apparently on 9 Spotify. When I saw Spotify’s request that I share why with them and “the 10 world,” I was taken aback. The time in question was emotionally charged 11 and challenging. I felt fragile and disoriented. The song was an anchor 12 for me. It was a point of reference and a constant companion. The song 13 made me feel I wasn’t alone in a way that was safe, private, and confi- 14 dential. To me, sharing the details of this experience would be on par 15 with sharing a private conversation with a therapist or a trusted friend. 16 While this story might seem melodramatic, I share it to highlight 17 the personal and intimate relationship we have with music. Listening 18 to music is an important part of our lives and our listening habits say a 19 lot about who we are, how we feel, and what we believe. Over the past 20 ten years we have seen an unprecedented transformation in how we 21 are able to discover and listen to music. Online streaming-music ser- 22 vices such as Spotify and Pandora comprise a complex of technologic, 23 economic, and critical human issues. Some of these issues are common 24 to streaming-media services in general (e.g. YouTube, Netflix, Hulu) 25 and the Internet, while others are unique to music services. This essay 26 examines streaming-music services (SMuS) from the perspective of the 27 listener. Listening to music online is drastically different from offline 28 listening largely because the economics of online listening create a new 29 model of the “audience commodity” and raise critical privacy issues. 30 The economics of SMuS have been discussed largely as to whether or not 31 artists are fairly compensated for their music or how SMuS represent a 32 new business model for the industry. However, in the context of SMuS, 33 listening becomes a transaction whereby a user’s selection labor is con- 34 verted into a commodity that has exchange-value. Moreover, this essay 35 explores how selection labor reveals personal information we make 36 freely available anytime we make a choice that is recorded by a second 37 party. This essay works to raise awareness of the kinds of transactions 38 we are engaging in and risks we are exposed to when we listen to music 39 online and frames musical identities as something worthy of protection. 40 In order to discuss streaming music services it is important to 41 understand some background and issues of online digital capitalization.

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1 Web 2.0 describes a set of online technologies and practices in which 2 users are encouraged and empowered to generate and share content and 3 make on-demand, selective choices about media consumption (O’Reilly 4 2007). A large part of the political economy of Web 2.0 can be summa- 5 rized by the free labor (Terranova 2000) duality of prosumption and sur- 6 veillance (Fuchs 2012). Prosumption is the combined activity of content 7 production and consumption (Ritzer and Jurgenson 2010). As a form 8 of capitalism, prosumption describes how social networking sites such 9 as Facebook and Twitter work: a Twitter user, for example, produces 10 tweets for others to consume and this user consumes tweets produced 11 by others. The mitigating service, in this case Twitter, is free to the user. 12 In order to make money, however, the service must sell something to 13 someone. The content each user creates is surveilled, aggregated, ana- 14 lyzed, and sold to third parties often for the purposes of advertising in a 15 practice called “behavioral targeting ” (Anderson 2014). In other words, 16 the product Twitter sells is both the labor of the user (in the form of 17 content created to attract and retain other users) and the user (who 18 receives targeted advertisements). Andrejevic writes that “[t]he value 19 accruing to the privatization of network resources is, at least in part, 20 dependent upon the ability to extract productive data from its users – 21 data that can serve as a resource for advertisers, employers, political 22 campaigns, and policing” (2012, p. 160). 23 Sharing personal information is common on online social networks 24 such as Twitter and Facebook. A social network is “an Internet commu- 25 nity where individuals interact, often through profiles that (re)present 26 their public persona (and their networks of connections) to others” 27 (Acquisti and Gross 2006, p. 37). When we participate in these networks, 28 we have a reasonable understanding of how what we share can be and 29 will be used.1 For example, sharing information about a recent vaca- 30 tion will both keep friends and family appraised of your activities and 31 generate targeted advertisements for future travel opportunities. Social 32 networks, search engines, and free email services collect and analyze 33 data ostensibly in order to connect goods and services with consumers 34 who are most likely to purchase them.2 The information generated by 35 our online activity in terms of both content and behavior falls into the 36 category of “Big Data.” Big Data describes data sets that are so large and 37 complex that they resist traditional methods of analysis. It is a $50 billion 38 industry characterized by algorithmic “mining” techniques that search 39 for otherwise obscured patterns in human-generated information (Kelly 40 2014). The goal is often to establish correlations between various fac- 41 tors that allow the assertion of probable behaviors of individuals and

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1 groups. Depending on the analytic goals, Big Data can be used to iden- 2 tify a person as a potential product buyer (behavioral targeting), medical 3 risk, or terrorist threat. The main ethical issue with Big Data is that digi- 4 tal prosumers never know how their data will be used. In his critique of 5 Big Data analytics, Acquisti asks us to: 6 7 Imagine a world in which the collection and analysis of individual 8 health data allow researchers to discover the causes of rare diseases 9 and the cures for common ones. Now, consider the same world, but 10 imagine that employers are able to predict job candidates’ future 11 health conditions from a few data points extracted from the candi- 12 dates’ social network profiles – and then, imagine those employers 13 making hiring decisions based on those predictions, without any 14 candidate’s consent or even awareness. (2014, p. 76) 15 16 Prosumers often acquiesce to data collection by believing that potential 17 benefits outweigh risks. We will get better user experiences, access to 18 goods and services we want, and be shielded from things we don’t want. 19 But Acquisti writes that “[t]he metaphor of a ‘blank check’ has been 20 used to describe the uncertainty associated with privacy costs: disclos- 21 ing personal information is like signing a blank check, which may never 22 be cashed in – or perhaps cashed in at some unpredictable moment in 23 time with an indeterminably low, or high, amount to pay ” (2014, p. 84). 24 A 2014 New York Times article highlights the issue succinctly. A suicide 25 prevention group released an app that allowed Twitter users to monitor 26 the feeds of anyone they follow for key terms that may indicate that a 27 user is a suicide risk. 28 29 A week after the app was introduced on its website, more than 4,000 30 people had activated it, the Samaritans said, and those users were fol- 31 lowing nearly 1.9 million Twitter accounts, with no notification to 32 those being monitored. But just about as quickly, the group faced an 33 outcry from people who said the app, called Samaritans Radar, could 34 identify and prey on the emotionally vulnerable – the very people 35 the app was created to protect. (Singer 2014a) 36 37 The risks of such a surveillance technology were many. For example, 38 stalkers could use the app to identify vulnerable moments of victims 39 and employers could make hiring decisions based on amateur psychi- 40 atric diagnoses. As one health-care professional pointed out, “you can 41 have sophisticated employment consultants who will do the vetting on

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1 people’s psychiatric states, derived from some cockamamie algorithm, 2 on your Twitter account” (Singer 2014a). The well-meaning app was 3 withdrawn once it was clear that its possible nefarious implementation 4 was beyond the control of both the creators and the users being moni- 5 tored. This example highlights the fact that digital users rarely know 6 when or how they are at risk. The Samaritan Radar case is important and 7 unique because the analytic results and means for obtaining them were 8 explicit and designed to be collected and used by the public. It was a 9 transparent transgression that met with immediate condemnation. For 10 proprietary services such as Twitter, Facebook, or Google, however, user 11 agreements are vague, temporary, and voluminous. We are never fully 12 aware of what information is being extracted or how it is or will be used. 13 We are signing a blank check. 14 For streaming media services (SMeS), how users interact with technol- 15 ogy and consume and produce content is somewhat different. While 16 some SMeS, such as YouTube, Soundcloud, MySpace, or Vimeo, allow 17 users to prosume, other services, such as Spotify and Netflix, do not and 18 focus on consumption. Netflix users, for example, do not upload their 19 own content. Revenue is generated by subscriptions to the service 20 (Netflix) or general advertising (Hulu). The service, therefore, functions 21 more like traditional cable or broadcast media. For a SMuS like Spotify or 22 Pandora, users can upload media so long as they can provide evidence 23 of ownership and agree to the service’s terms of use. Still, this is similar 24 to traditional broadcast radio where an individual can send their own 25 recording to a radio station DJ or program manager for them to con- 26 sider including in their rotation. Radio station playlists and programs 27 are intrinsically connected to advertising revenue. The type of music 28 played at a particular time correlates with likely audience demographics 29 determined by surveys. These correlations are used to set advertising 30 rates and sales strategies. This is a classic model of the “audience com- 31 modity” described by Dallas Smythe (McGuigan and Manzerolle 2013. 32 For Smythe, the raison d’être of radio and TV stations was to create and 33 tailor programming in order to develop and retain an audience. The 34 audience becomes a commodity that is sold to advertisers. 35 There is a crucial difference between broadcast radio and SMuS, how- 36 ever.3 In the latter, the traditional “push” design of broadcast radio is 37 replaced with a “pull’’ design where users are able to initiate the delivery 38 of specific songs and playlists (Trecordi and Verticale 2000; Kendall and 39 Kendall 1999). A detailed explanation of push vs pull is beyond the 40 scope of this essay, but it is important to point out that the bidirectional 41 information flow of pull not only facilitated the “on demand” media

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1 revolution, but also of Web 2.0, itself. With the ability for users to make 2 requests and initiate delivery, content providers such as Pandora do not 3 have to create programming for users in the hopes that they will be 4 able to sell their attention to an advertiser. Instead, users create their 5 own programming from a library. The catch is that in all pull technolo- 6 gies, the gateway application, for example Pandora, is also a surveillance 7 device that directly monitors and records each user’s behavior. 8 Online streaming media services have realized that such choices 9 represented a set of collectable and analyzable behaviors that not only 10 allowed providers to refine their own recommendation algorithms and 11 marketing strategies, but also to package and resell these behaviors to 12 third parties. Numerous scholars have critiqued the labor implications 13 of user-generated content and prosumption (Scholz 2012). But the politi- 14 cal economic issues associated with making choices about listening and 15 watching are more subtle. Consuming media has usually been framed as 16 a leisure activity or unproductive labor, that is, labor that does not pro- 17 duce a good with exchange value. However, in the case of SMuS, where 18 listening requires input from a user, behavior resembles something like 19 the subjective immaterial labor that underpins cognitive capitalism 20 (Fuchs 2011). Cognitive capitalism holds that ideas and thoughts can 21 be commodities with use and exchange value. “There is currently exten- 22 sive global competition to attract the best brains,” writes Larsen, and 23 “[k]nowledge becomes a strategic force of production and an important 24 commodity” (2014, p. 161). 25 Related to this is selection power and selection labor. In his book 26 Human Information Retrieval, Julian Warner posits that selection power 27 is “the human ability to make informed choices between objects or 28 representations of objects” (2010, p. 17). Warner is referring to how rec- 29 ommendation algorithms model human behavior. In SMuS, algorithmic 30 recommendation is a crucial part of the listening experience. Given 31 a user’s choice of two songs, for example, an algorithm will choose a 32 third song that it thinks the user will like. It is important for the algo- 33 rithm to be correct because that will improve the quality of the user’s 34 experience and keep them using the service. The user can affirm or 35 deny the selection (e.g. thumbs up or thumbs down), which provides the 36 algorithm with additional information so as to make better decisions in 37 the future. In the case of recommendation, the results of an informa- 38 tion retrieval algorithm, at best, will represent the selection power of an 39 individual or group of individuals. It is a property of human conscious- 40 ness and represents a variety of human experiences and desires. Selection 41 power is produced by selection labor, which can be understood as the

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1 mental work of memorization and recall (Warner 2010, pp. 27 and 31). 2 Psychologically speaking, selection labor would necessarily represent 3 both tacit and explicit knowledge and is therefore only partially expli- 4 cable. Selection labor can be construed as a code for a wide variety of 5 human experiences. When transformed into selection power, these 6 experiences produce outcomes that are desirable for a person, but often 7 not easily predicted by machine. In order for these “selection machines” 8 to do what people do, they observe, record, and analyze behaviors of 9 the users themselves. It is an interesting twist on the free labor issue. 10 User input is used to build algorithms that enhance the service’s user 11 experience by creating a better product. These algorithms are shadowy 12 versions of our experiences and knowledge expressed as selections we 13 actively, but often intuitively, make. The question is: how important is 14 this musical experience and knowledge? 15 Music is often considered entertainment or, as neuroscientist Steven 16 Pinker (1997) has said, “auditory cheesecake,” but we know that it is 17 much more. As a species we have always exhibited distinctly musical 18 behaviors (Mithen 2005). We sing and dance, and we do these activities 19 alone and in groups. We have an innate desire to be musical. As a human 20 universal, music is arguably central to the development and survival 21 of our species. Archeologist Steven Mithen writes that before there 22 was a spoken language, there was an advanced communication system 23 involving complex and holistic vocalizations that enabled our ancestors 24 to hunt, reproduce, and socialize (2005). It is from this system that both 25 language and music were borne. Given an opportunity to fade away in 26 the shadow of language’s formidable ability to communicate thoughts 27 and ideas, music held its ground. The question is: why? One answer is 28 that music allowed us to do things that were important to us, and for 29 which language was not particularly well suited. Language, while great 30 for organizing a hunt, perhaps falls short in expressing the exuberance 31 that comes with its successful conclusion. The importance of music in 32 our lives has not changed over the millennia, even if the way we engage 33 with it has. 34 Erik Clarke writes that “music affords dancing, worship, coordinated 35 working, persuasion, emotional catharsis, marching, foot-tapping, and 36 a myriad other activities of a perfectly tangible kind” (2005, p. 38). 37 Challenging ideas that listening and musical experiences are passive, 38 Joel Krueger argues that music is something we are always seeking. 39 Music, Krueger writes, “is a crucial tool for cultivating and regulating 40 our social life. Without music, our life – including our ability to sensi- 41 tively relate to and communicate with others – would indeed change

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1 dramatically” (2011). These are claims that online social networks 2 would love to make. The music industry never has to create a demand 3 for what it sells, as we will never stop wanting and needing to be musical. 4 They only need to convince us that the product they’re selling and the 5 way we access it is what we want. 6 The materialization of music by means of notation and recording has 7 had a profound influence and effect over musical practice, especially in 8 capitalist economies. Jacques Attali writes that “music, an immaterial 9 pleasure turned commodity, now heralds a society of the sign, of the 10 immaterial up for sale, of social relation unified in money” (1985, p. 4). 11 He argues that material physical formats such as LPs, CDs, musical scores, 12 and piano rolls, allow us to exercise political and financial control over 13 what music is and how it can be used. “Wherever there is music,” he 14 says, “there is money” (Attali 1985, p. 3). 15 Streaming music services eschew the notion of materiality altogether. 16 In its place is the notion of “service.” These services mediate our access 17 to music and in doing so are situated in a position to observe how lis- 18 teners behave. By moving to a service model, companies like Pandora, 19 Spotify, and Rdio provide access to a limited catalog when you want it, 20 where you want it. No need to manage an MP3 collection or purchase 21 and download music. It is pitched as a radio where a user gets to choose 22 the songs. These services have been widely criticized in recent years for 23 the small amount of royalties musicians actually make compared to 24 how frequently their songs get played (Krukowski, Chapter 6 in this 25 volume). The fact is, these services do not seem to make money. They 26 have relied on ads and subscriptions to generate revenue and not one 27 SMuS operating in 2013 made a profit. 28 When we listen to music on a SMuS, we make choices about what 29 we want to hear. These choices reflect who we are, how we feel, what 30 we believe. Our musical tastes have developed over years of personal 31 reflection and social interactions. We have learned how to use music to 32 make ourselves feel better and to create social bonds. Christopher Small 33 coins the term “musicking” as a verb that describes a diverse collection 34 of activities that comprise musical engagement (Small 1998). Small pro- 35 poses that being musical involves not just performing and creating, but 36 also listening and sharing. Listening is not a capricious activity. In fact, 37 listening preferences develop over time and reflect important individual 38 characteristics and social choices that represent who we are. 39 Natasha Singer’s article “Listen to Pandora, and It Listens Back” 40 describes a new solution to an old problem: how can SMuS make money 41 from our desire to be musical (2014b). One solution is to commodify

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1 our musical identity as it is defined by the choices we make when we 2 listen to music online. This is important because most of us don’t think 3 about our musical identity, how important it is, or how much personal 4 information it potentially represents. Singer relays Pandora’s stance that 5 such data collection and analysis will be used for behaviorally targeted 6 advertising similar to practices of Twitter and Facebook. She quotes a 7 Pandora scientist who says, “we have [analysis] down to the individual 8 level, to the specific person who is using Pandora ... [w]e take all of these 9 signals and look at correlations that lead us to come up with magical 10 insights about somebody” (2014b). Singer writes: 11 12 People’s music, movie or book choices may reveal much more than 13 commercial likes and dislikes. Certain product or cultural preferences 14 can give glimpses into consumers’ political beliefs, religious faith, 15 sexual orientation or other intimate issues. That means many organi- 16 zations now are not merely collecting details about where we go and 17 what we buy, but are also making inferences about who we are. (2014b) 18 19 There is considerable evidence to support Singer’s claim. Music psycho- 20 logists have long found clear evidence that what we listen to can 21 accurately predict specific personal demographic details and emotional 22 states. We listen to music for a variety of reasons and how, when, and to 23 what we listen can reveal a lot about who we are, how we feel, our val- 24 ues, and our beliefs. MacDonald et al. (2002) contend that music “plays 25 a fundamental role in the development, negotiation, and maintenance 26 of our personal lives” (2002, p. 462). Research also indicates that for 27 young people music is an important “badge of identity” that promotes 28 development and maintenance of social groups (Hargraves et al. 2002). 29 The “sense of self” is a complex psychological construct that develops 30 over time and is subject to constant revision and modulation. Music 31 plays a significant role in this development. 32 A study by North and Hargrave (2007) found numerous correlations 33 between subjects’ musical preference and lifestyle details including 34 moral and political beliefs, and attitudes about relationships and criminal 35 behavior. Rentfrow and Gosling (2011) found that musical preference 36 is the most common topic of conversation when two people are trying 37 to get to know each other and that people are able to form very accu- 38 rate assessments of the personality of others based only on knowing 39 their musical preferences. Rawlings and Ciancarelli (1997) were able to 40 show clear and distinct associations between gender and personality 41 types (scales measuring extraversion and openness) and musical styles.

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1 Numerous studies explore and find strong connections between listen- 2 ers’ emotional states and musical preferences (Juslin and Sloboda 2010). 3 Moreover, Greasley and Lamont (2006) show that the more important 4 music is to a listener, the stronger these associations are. While results 5 like these are somewhat intuitive, it is unclear whether or not the aver- 6 age SMuS listener is aware that such associations are possible. The case 7 for musical privacy hinges on listeners’ appreciation and valuation of 8 their musical identities and how they can prevent personal information 9 from either being collected against their wishes or being used in ways 10 they do not want. It is reasonable to expect that loss of a loved one, for 11 example, may influence the music you listen to. It is also reasonable to 12 expect that you should be allowed to mourn in private, if you so wish. 13 Pandora’s Privacy Policy is vague about how it uses “Listening Activity” 14 information. The relevant section reads: 15 16 When you use the Service, we keep track of your listening activity, 17 which may include the number and title of songs you have listened 18 to, the songs that you like (thumb up) or dislike (thumb down), the 19 stations you create or listen to, the number of songs you skip, and 20 how long you listen to a station. (Pandora 2013) 21 It does not say that your listening history will be subject to algorithms 22 and classifiers in an attempt to create personality profiles that can be 23 sold and used for reasons you never intended. Nor does Pandora say 24 what they will do with this data, or if personal identities are protected. 25 Spotify is more detailed and explains what they collect and what they 26 do with it. 27 28 When you use the Service, we automatically collect certain informa- 29 tion, including: (i) information about your type of subscription and 30 your interactions with the Service, including with songs, playlists, other 31 Spotify users, Third Party Applications and advertising, products and 32 services which are offered, linked to or made available on the Service. 33 34 To personalise your experience, we may share some informa- 35 tion we have collected about you with providers of Third Party 36 Applications, such as high-level geographic information, your 37 musical preferences, settings and technical data. However, we take 38 precautions to prohibit Third Party Application providers from 39 attempting to identify you by using the information we provide 40 to them or by collecting additional information without your 41 consent. (Spotify 2014b)

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1 While this is more reassuring, Spotify is later very clear that they reserve 2 the right to sell your information. 3 Consumers have the right to clearly understand how their musical 4 identities are being used. More importantly, we have the right to opt out 5 of data collection. While our musical identities may not seem as impor- 6 tant as social security numbers, health records, or banking information, 7 they nevertheless deserve protection. As companies like Pandora and 8 Spotify work to extract, bundle, and sell our information, we need to be 9 aware of what’s at stake. 10 In her analysis of the Jamaican Street Dance, Mann invokes two key 11 concepts: cultural intimacy and the exilic space. Cultural intimacy, Mann 12 writes, “arises from practices that embody both self-knowledge and self- 13 representation, wherein the self is collectively defined. This intimacy 14 allows marginalized people to affirm as positive the shared traits, situa- 15 tions, and actions that are designated negative by broader society” (Mann, 16 forthcoming, p. 4). Cultural intimacy is a set of traits that simultaneously 17 creates closeness within a marginalized group and distance between this 18 group and powerful outsiders who pose a threat to the group (Mann, 19 forthcoming, p. 4). The exilic space allows cultural intimacy by protect- 20 ing the group from being observed and allowing members to act openly 21 in a way that promotes intimacy. Mann examines how “increased vis- 22 ibility on globally networked media platforms can harm marginalized 23 communities and their ability to celebrate their identities through vari- 24 ous performance practices” (Mann, forthcoming, p. 4). She goes on to 25 say, “marginalized people need the power to exclude as much as the 26 power to include” (Mann, forthcoming, p. 4). 27 I argue that opacity of privacy protections in SMuS creates significant 28 ambiguity as to what kind of space online listening really is. In the 29 most dangerous scenario, SMuS listeners might believe they are in an 30 exilic space and act openly and inclusively as members of a marginal- 31 ized group. Greater care needs to be taken to ensure that listeners are 32 aware their behaviors are subject to hegemonic observation with pos- 33 sible damaging consequences. We need to reframe online listening as 34 prosumption, meaning that listeners are generating content as they 35 consume content. This content has exchange-value in that it can be sold, 36 but more importantly this content has the capacity to reveal highly 37 personal and identifying information. 38 Furthermore, making choices about what we listen to is a form of 39 commodifiable labor for which listeners are not compensated. It is 40 the conversion of “leisure time” into “work time” as our personal 41 experiences become products that have use-value (in that they refine

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1 algorithms) and exchange-value (in that they can be sold directly or 2 indirectly to third parties). Listeners become estranged laborers as they 3 are separated from the products they create. Listening to music has 4 become synonymous with consumption largely because we have let our- 5 selves believe that music is a good produced by labor and has a value 6 associated with this labor. It becomes intrinsically connected to formats 7 that reinforce this quality of a private good. Much has been said about 8 how digital formats recast music as a public good by imbuing qualities 9 of non-excludability and non-rivalry. But to confuse music with its 10 medium of transmission (formats or services) is a fallacy of misplaced 11 concreteness and avoids critical humanistic issues. In the case of music 12 we have to resist treating listening as an exercise in material engage- 13 ment, embrace Small’s musicking, and appreciate that music is not a 14 thing, but a fundamental and critical human activity. 15 16 Notes 17 18 1. Significant work has been done in the last ten years to raise public awareness 19 about the implications of sharing information on social networks. In addition, there are frequent stories of people experiencing negative repercussions 20 (e.g. losing a job, being suspended from school) due to comments they have 21 posted online. This highlights an important aspect of prosumptive privacy, 22 which is that users can opt not to produce content they feel would put them 23 at risk. 24 2. There are other reasons as well, such as optimizing a service to enhance user experience and satisfaction. 25 3. It is important to recognize that broadcast radio can stream their content 26 online. In my argument, I am making a clear distinction between any form 27 of media delivery that is essentially push versus those that are pull. Streaming 28 music services as I am discussing them are therefore defined by a user’s ability 29 to initiate content delivery. 30 31 References 32 33 Acquisti, A. (2014) The economics and behavioral economics of privacy. In: Lane, J., Stodden, V., Bender, S. and Nissenbaum, H. (eds.) Privacy, Big Data, and the 34 Public Good: Frameworks for Engagement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 35 Acquisti, A. and Gross, R. (2006) Imagined communities: Awareness, informa- 36 tion sharing, and privacy on the Facebook. In: Privacy Enhancing Technologies 37 (pp. 36–58). Berlin: Springer. 38 Andrejevic, M. (2012) Estranged free labor. In: Scholz, T. (ed.) Digital Labor: The Internet as Playground and Factory. New York: Routledge. 39 Anderson, K. (2014) How does Twitter make money? (online), 5 September. 40 Available from: http://moneymorning.com/2014/09/05/how-does-twitter- 41 make-money/ (accessed 29 May 2015).

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1 Attali, J. (1985) Noise: The Political Economy of Music (Vol. 16). Manchester: 2 Manchester University Press. 3 Clarke, E. F. (2005) Ways of Listening: An Ecological Approach to the Perception of Musical Meaning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 4 Fuchs, C. (2011) Cognitive capitalism or informational capitalism? The role 5 of class in the information economy. In: Peters, M. A. and Bulut, E. (eds.) 6 Cognitive Capitalism, Education, and Digital Labor. New York: Peter Lang. 7 Fuchs, C. (2012) Critique of the political economy of web 2.0 surveillance. In: 8 Fuchs, C., Boersma, K., Albrechtslund, A. and Sandoval, M. (eds.) Internet and Surveillance: The Challenges of Web 2.0 and Social Media (Vol. 16). New York: 9 Routledge. 10 Greasley, A. E. and Lamont, A. M. (2006) Music preference in adulthood: Why 11 do we like the music we do. In: Society for Music Perception & Cognition 12 European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music, Proceedings of the 9th 13 International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (pp. 960–66). Hargreaves, D. J., Miell, D. and MacDonald, R. A. (2002) What are musical identi- 14 ties, and why are they important. In: MacDonald, R. A., Hargreaves, D. J. and 15 Miell, D. (eds.) Musical Identities (Vol. 13). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 16 Juslin, P. N. and Sloboda, J. A. (eds.). (2010) Handbook of Music and Emotion: 17 Theory, Research, Applications. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 18 Kelly, J. (2014) Big Data Vendor Revenue and Market Forecast 2012–2017 (online), 19 February 2013, updated 8 February 2014. Available from: http://wikibon.org/ 19 wiki/v/Big_Data_Vendor_Revenue_and_Market_Forecast_2012-2017 (accessed: 20 29 May 2015). 21 Kendall, J. E. and Kendall, K. E. (1999) Information delivery systems: An exploration 22 of web pull and push technologies. Communications of the AIS, 1(4es): 1. 23 Krueger, J. W. (2011) Doing things with music. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 10(1): 1–22. 24 Larsen, S. N. (2014) Compulsory creativity – a critique of cognitive capitalism. 25 Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, 6(1): 159–77. 26 MacDonald, R. A., Hargreaves, D. J. and Miell, D. (eds.). (2002) Musical Identities 27 (Vol. 13). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 28 Mann, L. (Forthcoming) White faces in intimate places. Communication, Culture & Critique. 29 McGuigan, L. and Manzerolle, V. (eds.) (2013) The Audience Commodity in a digital 30 Age. Berlin: Peter Lang. 31 Mithen, S. J. (2005) The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, 32 and Body. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 33 North, A. C. and Hargreaves, D. J. (2007) Lifestyle correlates of musical preference: 2. Media, leisure time and music. Psychology of Music, 35(2): 179–200. 34 O’Reilly, T. (2007) What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the 35 next generation of software. Communications & Strategies, 1: 17. 36 Pandora (2013) Privacy Policy (online), 17 December. Available from: http:// 37 www.pandora.com/privacy (accessed 29 May 2015). 38 Pinker, S. (1997) How the Mind Works. New York: Norton. Rawlings, D. and Ciancarelli, V. (1997) Music preference and the Five-Factor 39 Model of the NEO Personality Inventory. Psychology of Music, 25(2): 120–32. 40 Rentfrow, P. J., Goldberg, L. R. and Levitin, D. J. (2011) The structure of musical 41 preferences: A five-factor model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(6): 1139–57.

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1 Rentfrow, P. J. and Gosling, S. (2006) Message in a ballad: The role of music 2 preferences in interpersonal perception. Psychological Science 17(3): 236–42. 3 Ritzer, G. and Jurgenson, N. (2010) Production, consumption, prosumption: The nature of capitalism in the age of the digital “prosumer.” Journal of Consumer 4 Culture, 10(1): 13–36. 5 Scholz, T. (ed.) (2012) Digital Labor: The Internet as Playground and Factory. New York: 6 Routledge. 7 Singer, N. (2014a) Risks of using social media to spot signs of mental distress. 8 New York Times, 26 December. Singer, N. (2014b) Listen to Pandora, and it listens back. New York Times, 5 January. 9 Small, C. (1998) Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening. London: 10 Wesleyan University Press. 11 Spotify (2014a) Every song has a story. What’s yours? (e-mail) Message to: 12 Randall, R. 3 October. 13 Spotify (2014b) Privacy Policy (online), 29 April. Available from: https://www. spotify.com/us/legal/privacy-policy/#information (accessed 29 May 2015). 14 Terranova, T. (2000). Free labor: Producing culture for the digital economy. Social 15 Text, 18(2): 33–58. 16 Trecordi, V. and Verticale, G. (2000) An architecture for effective push/pull web 17 surfing. In: Communications, 2000. ICC 2000, 2: 1159–63. 18 Warner, J. (2010) Human Information Retrieval. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

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1 2 8 3 4 Digital Music and Public Goods 5 6 Graham Hubbs 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Introduction 15 16 In the summer of 2000 – which, for purposes of historical orientation, 17 predated the release of both iTunes and the iPod – the file-sharing service 18 Napster found itself in Federal Court accused of contributing to copy- 19 right infringement. Lawyers representing the United States recording 20 industry asserted that Napster had “deliberately buil[t] a business based 21 almost exclusively on piracy” (Menn 2003, p. 234). This characteriza- 22 tion of file-sharing as “piracy” implies that a person who downloaded a 23 digital music file from Napster had thereby committed an act of theft. 24 Napster in its original guise has long since passed, but the idea that 25 peer-to-peer file-sharing is theft lingers on. It can function as a back- 26 ground assumption in debates over the copying of music that is digitally 27 encoded in data files, to which I will refer hereafter simply as “digital 28 music.” Consider the following exchange in 2012 between Emily White 29 and David Lowery. White, who was born in 1991, asserts that she has 30 ripped thousands of songs from friends’ CDs and hard drives but that 31 she has not illegally downloaded any of this music. Although White is 32 concerned about musicians failing to be paid as a result of this sort of 33 music exchange, she seems to think that her file-ripping is not a sort of 34 theft (White 2012). Lowery, who was playing guitar in the band Cracker 35 when White was born, disagrees. He argues that from the artist’s point 36 of view, it does not matter whether songs are copied from an online file- 37 sharing service or offline from a disk drive or CD; either way, the artist 38 fails to be fairly compensated, and the result is a form of theft (Lowery 39 2012). Although White and Lowery disagree on the appropriateness of 40 sharing files with people one knows, both presume that obtaining files 41 via a peer-to-peer network from a stranger is tantamount to theft.

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1 The view shared by White and Lowery here is primarily ethical, not 2 legal. Lowery is clear about this: he describes downloading decisions as 3 “personal ethical issues,” and he characterizes the sharing of music files 4 as a “social injustice” perpetuated against musicians. He does not accuse 5 White of deliberately committing this injustice; rather, he characterizes 6 her as a young person confused by two competing worldviews. One, 7 which he endorses, sees the unauthorized replication of music files as 8 infringing on the rights of musicians to reap the fruits of their artistic 9 labors. He calls the other the “Free Culture movement,” a phrase he adopts 10 from Lawrence Lessig without, somewhat ironically, citation.1 According 11 to Lowery, this worldview seeks to undo the principles that underlie the 12 first view “simply because it is technologically possible for corporations 13 or individuals to exploit artists [sic] work without their permission on 14 a massive scale and globally” (Lowery 2012). Lowery thinks that those 15 who stand to benefit from the use of this technology are advocating a 16 shift in morals, one which, in his view, is wrong. 17 Lowery suggests that many are confused or even brainwashed by the 18 “Free Culture” mentality and therefore do not see the wrong in copy- 19 ing digital music. Describing the state of affairs back in the Napster and 20 immediate post-Napster era, Steve Jobs has a different explanation: 21 “We believe that 80% of people stealing stuff don’t want to be, there’s 22 just no legal alternative” (Issacson 2011, p. 396, quoting Langer 2003). 23 According to this diagnosis, those in the early 2000s who downloaded 24 music from peer-to-peer file-sharing services believed that what they 25 were doing was a form of theft, which they did not want to perform yet 26 were compelled to do so anyway. This characterizes the typical Napster 27 user as motivated by the following trio of desires: the desire for the track 28 she wants to download, the desire to pay either little or nothing for the 29 track, and the desire not to perform an act of theft. Although she believes 30 that downloading music from Napster is theft, her other two desires win 31 out, for there is no way to satisfy all three of her desires simultaneously. 32 One way to think of iTunes – and Jobs appears to have thought of it this 33 way – is as providing a means to satisfy all three desires at once. 34 These are not the only views one might hold regarding the motives 35 behind peer-to-peer file sharing, nor do they necessarily exclude one 36 another. White would appear to fit Jobs’s description quite well: she 37 wants a lot of music, she does not want to pay much or anything for it, 38 and she does not want to steal. She thinks that obtaining music from 39 peer-to-peer networks is stealing, so she does not acquire music this 40 way; she thinks copying files from friends is not stealing, so she goes 41 about doing so. This is all compatible with the “Free Culture” desire to

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1 get music without having to pay (much) for it. Perhaps it is necessary to 2 add Lowery’s idea to Jobs’s to get a full explanation of White’s behavior; 3 perhaps Jobs’s account is sufficient on its own; perhaps some further 4 alternative does better. Whatever the case, Lowery, Jobs, and White her- 5 self all agree that had White assembled her music library via peer-to-peer 6 networks, her activity would have constituted a massive heist. 7 The goal of this essay is to critique this apparently shared assumption. 8 Before proceeding, however, it is worth noting that the very idea of 9 assembling a private music library can seem antiquated given the rise 10 of streaming music services such as Pandora, Spotify, and Apple Music. 11 White, Lowery, and Jobs all seem to think that for an individual to have 12 access to a vast musical library, she would need to possess a private, 13 potentially unnetworked device containing the music files. Streaming 14 music services make such a library available without having to own the 15 relevant files. One suspects that most of the music White spent hours 16 ripping is now available to her via these streaming services;it would 17 be unsurprising if someone five year’s White’s junior found her hours 18 of ripping an old-fashioned waste of time. Mark Mulligan sees the rise 19 of streaming music services as the third phase of digital music, the 20 successor to the first phase of “piracy networks” such as Napster and 21 the subsequent phase of download stores such as Apple’s iTunes Store 22 (Mulligan 2014).2 I will address this third phase at the end of this essay, 23 but my focus here will be on the inclination to characterize the networks 24 of the first phase, which have persisted through the other two phases 25 into the present day, by use of the concept piracy.3 I will argue that 26 the concept theft does not readily apply to digital music that can be 27 obtained from a peer-to-peer network. Such music lacks the hallmark 28 features of private property, so it lacks the features that one would 29 expect something stealable to have. 30 Instead, I will argue, digital music has the hallmark features of what 31 economists call a public good, for digital music in a peer-to-peer network 32 is neither a rivalrous nor an excludable good. It lacks these features 33 because it is, in a sense, spaceless. To be sure, digital music is embodied 34 in what a philosopher would describe as a medium-sized object, such as 35 a disk drive, which takes up space. This embodiment, however, does not 36 preclude a stranger from copying the drive’s music even as its possessor 37 listens to it, if the drive’s files are accessible via a peer-to-peer network. 38 The embodiment is thus practically immaterial. Put another way, digital 39 music in peer-to-peer networks practically occupies no objective space, 40 which I intend literally to mean the space inhabited by medium-sized 41 objects. Descriptions such as these carry an air of paradox, for they

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1 suggest that such music is a spaceless object or exists in an objectless 2 space. What these descriptions are tracking, I hope to show, is the pos- 3 sibility of conceiving of this music as a public good. This in turn affects 4 the normative space in which digital music exists: because this music 5 lacks the hallmark features of private property, the norms that govern 6 the legitimate uses of bits of property do not straightforwardly apply to 7 it. To the extent that listeners find themselves operating with and in 8 these (non-)spaces, it affects their interactions with music. 9 A few framing remarks are in order before proceeding to the main 10 argument. In claiming that digitally networked music files are spaceless, 11 I do not mean to deny the obvious: to obtain these files in the normal 12 way, one’s fingers must type on a keyboard so that two computers 13 interact with one another, which requires a variety of spatial alterations. 14 All manner of spatial changes can cause the download to fail: either 15 computer may be turned off, or either may be destroyed, or the wires 16 involved in the process may be severed, etc. Practical spacelessness is thus 17 possible only if a number of medium-sized objects – computers, wires, 18 etc. – are functioning properly. This does not alter the fact that when 19 they are functioning properly, the music in them has the hallmark fea- 20 tures of a public good, features that distinguish such music from music 21 embodied spatial objects such as, for example, vinyl records or cassette 22 tapes. Jacques Attali discusses the latter sort of music as existing within 23 a network of “repetition,” which allows for the commodification of 24 music (Attali 1985, esp. ch. 4); my argument is that this commodifica- 25 tion depends on a spatiality that, since the rise of Napster, is no longer 26 a necessary feature of recorded music. Put in Attali’s idiom, my claim is 27 that Napster popularized a new form of repetition, spaceless repetition, 28 one of whose effects has been the partial decommodification of music.4 29 The point about space and spacelessness I have just made is rather 30 blunt, which suits the sort of charge it is intended to preclude. There 31 are, however, much more subtle complaints one might make against my 32 talk of spacelessness. Following the work of Jonathan Sterne, one might 33 argue that I am paying insufficient attention to the spatial constraints 34 that have caused the predominant music-file format, the MP3, to have 35 its distinguishing characteristics (Sterne 2012). Alternatively, one might 36 draw on Matthew Kirschenbaum’s work to argue that the spacelessness 37 I discuss is more superficial than practical and that my focus on it 38 obfuscates important technological details underpinning peer-to-peer 39 file sharing (Kirschenbaum 2008). The only adequate response to these 40 and related complaints is the essay’s argument itself; I leave it to the 41 reader to decide its success in the end. I should say up front, though,

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1 that my discussion is meant to capture the way listeners with rudimen- 2 tary technological skills and knowledge interact with digital music files. 3 The value of Sterne’s and Kirschenbaum’s work is, in no small part, to 4 reveal aspects of those interactions to which such listeners may be blind 5 or deaf; my topic pertains to those aspects that are transparent to these 6 listeners. It is my hope, then, that what I offer here will be compatible 7 with the different sort of project that Sterne, Kirschenbaum, and others 8 have pursued. 9 I should also say at the outset that in characterizing digital music as 10 a public good, I do not intend to advance a legal or ethical position 11 regarding digital file-sharing. I do not aim to exonerate, legally or ethi- 12 cally, those who have assembled digital music libraries via peer-to-peer 13 networks. I also am not giving a psychological account of the motives 14 that lead people to share or to copy digital music files. The point of my 15 analysis is simply to highlight those features of digital music relevant to 16 the application of concepts such as property and theft. I will argue that, 17 somewhat paradoxically, the very fact that digital music in peer-to-peer 18 networks lacks the hallmark features of private property can explain the 19 attitude that obtaining such music is theft. Less paradoxically, it can 20 also explain why all digital songs, both networked and non-networked, 21 might come to seem like public goods. This last line of thought, I believe, 22 poses a serious challenge for coherently conceiving of digital music as a 23 private good. If we stop treating digital music as a private good, however, 24 we will need to revise the way we think about compensating musicians 25 for their work. If we want listening spaces to exist, then those who cre- 26 ate them should be able to make a living doing so. For musicians this 27 requires establishing institutions that allow them to live off of their 28 craft.5 If the central argument of this paper is correct, then in the post- 29 Napster age we should not be surprised if traditional institutions of 30 private property fail in this regard. I will conclude with some remarks 31 on alternative institutions that may preserve listening spaces. 32 33 Public Goods 34 35 The immediate forebears of public goods are the mid-20th century econo- 36 mists Paul Samuelson and Richard Musgrave. It is common to regard 37 Samuelson’s work in the 1950s as the foundation of the modern theory 38 of public goods, but it is a paper by Musgrave that supplies what has 39 come to be the textbook definition of the concept.6 Musgrave defines 40 public goods in terms of the following two characteristics: “[t]he first 41 is the characteristic of non-rivalness in consumption, i.e., the existence

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1 of a beneficial consumption externality. The second is the characteristic 2 of non-excludability from consumption. The two are distinct features 3 and need not coincide. Each plays a different role” (Musgrave 1969, 4 p. 126).7 To say that a good is non-rivalrous is to say that one person’s 5 use of that good at a time does not thereby preclude another’s use of 6 it at the same time. Rivalrous goods do not have this characteristic. 7 Shovels, for example, are rivalrous: if I am using a shovel, you can- 8 not, at that moment, use it as well. The music one hears at a concert, 9 by contrast, is non-rivalrous, for my listening to the music does not 10 thereby prevent you from listening to it at the same time. Although 11 the music at a concert is non-rivalrous, it may be excludable; that is, it 12 may be possible to require payment for someone to listen to the music. If 13 the concert is indoors, for example, it may be possible to require that 14 audience members pay an entrance fee, thereby excluding those who are 15 unable to do so. Goods such as these that are non-rivalrous yet excludable 16 are often called toll goods (Ostrom and Ostrom 1977, p. 168). If a good 17 is both non-rivalrous and non-excludable, it is a public good. Abundant 18 natural resources, such as the oxygen in the air, are examples of such 19 goods. This oxygen – at least, if we conceive of it as a mass and not as 20 a collection of individual molecules – is not rivalrous: if we occupy a 21 common space, your breathing the oxygen in the air does not thereby 22 preclude me from also breathing it as well. Because it is impossible for 23 someone to control the oxygen in such a way that he could force us 24 to pay for its use, it is also non-excludable. Its possession of these two 25 features makes it a public good. 26 If one looks up ‘public good’ in an introductory economics textbook, 27 one will find something along the lines of the characterization just pre- 28 sented.8 If instead one looks at the scholarly literature on public goods, 29 all that is to be found is chaos. Garrett Cullity shows that “the only thing 30 definitions of public goods seem to have in common is their involv- 31 ing some subset of the seven features [that Cullity calls] ‘Jointness in 32 Supply’, ‘Nonexcludability’, ‘Jointness in Consumption’, ‘Nonrivalness’, 33 ‘Compulsoriness’, ‘Equality’, and ‘Indivisibility’” (Cullity 1995, p. 33). 34 This diversity of definitions is perhaps unsurprising given the variety 35 of concerns that arise over goods that readily fit under the head ‘public 36 good’. Compare, for example, depletable natural resources and national 37 security, both of which are common examples of public goods. A deplet- 38 able natural resource – for example, the lumber of a forest – may start off 39 non-rivalrous due to its initial abundance but may later be so depleted 40 that it becomes rivalrous (or, worse, non-existent). The worry here is 41 that the resource will suffer the fate of what Garrett Hardin famously

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1 describes as the “tragedy of the commons” (Hardin 1968). The worry 2 about public goods such as national security is not this; rather, it is the 3 problem of funding the good. If a nation’s armed services were funded 4 exclusively through voluntary contributions, a member of that nation 5 could enjoy the security brought by these forces without contribut- 6 ing to their maintenance. Because a person may enjoy a good such as 7 this without having to pay for a share of it, the good gives rise to, as 8 James Buchanan puts it, the “spectre of the free rider” (Buchanan 1964, 9 p. 220).9 A standard solution to the tragedy of the commons is to insti- 10 tutionalize excludability, either through usage fees or quotas; a common 11 solution to the free-rider problem is the development and maintenance 12 of collective-funding institutions, such as a tax system. It should be obvi- 13 ous that concerns about free-riding are relevant to the present discussion – 14 we will address these in Section 4 after we have carefully characterized 15 networked digital music. To develop that characterization with the 16 needed precision, we must first clarify how exactly we will understand 17 rivalry and excludability throughout this essay. I beg the reader’s pardon 18 if this clarificatory process seems tediously didactic. 19 First, for present purposes, to say that a good is rivalrous is not to 20 presuppose that it exists within a system of private property. Return to 21 the shovel: even in a system in which all goods are publicly held, only 22 one person can use a shovel at a time. The same is not obviously true 23 of excludability; if we define the concept in terms of payment for use, we 24 seem to presuppose that the goods in question are bits of private prop- 25 erty. For present purposes, let us explicitly reject this presupposition and 26 define excludability so that its application conditions need not include 27 the existence of private property. On this definition, a good is excludable 28 if a person can act on it in such a way that prevents others from easily 29 being able to use the good. This concept does not admit of rigid defini- 30 tion, for the notion easily being able to use is context-relative (as is, we 31 might note, the economist’s preferred notion of prohibitively costly). To 32 say that a shovel is excludable, then, is for present purposes to say that 33 it is the sort of thing that one person can act on – for example, by put- 34 ting it under lock and key – so as to prevent another from easily using it. 35 Saying just this makes no presuppositions about private property. 36 Unlike public good, the concept private good can only be properly 37 applied within a system of private property. Unlike public goods, private 38 goods can be bought and sold, and when one buys a private good, part of 39 what one buys is the right to exclude others from use of that good. Return 40 as ever to the shovel: suppose you buy it from me and take it home. Your 41 purchase does not alter its rivalrousness – again, this is a non-economic

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1 property of the shovel, and the shovel remains, as ever, only usable by 2 one person at a time. It likewise remains an excludable good, although 3 who can legitimately do the excluding has changed. Once I have sold 4 the shovel, I no longer can legitimately force someone to pay me should 5 she wish to use it; that is now your prerogative. When you hand me 6 money for the shovel, I give away something beyond the mere physical 7 object: I also give you the right to exclude others from its use. 8 In talking of legitimacy and rights, we move from considering the shovel 9 as a brute physical object to one that exists within a specific normative 10 space – here, a space defined by the institution of private property. For sim- 11 ple tools, such as shovels, this move can be easily tracked by contrasting the 12 capacity to exclude from the right to exclude. Suppose I put a shovel that 13 I own under lock and key in an attempt to exclude you from it; suppose 14 that you beat me, take the key, and make off with the shovel. Should this 15 happen, it shows that I did not have the capacity to exclude you from the 16 shovel, but it does not follow that I lacked the right to exclude you. This 17 right to exclude, which can obtain even in the absence of the capacity to 18 exclude, is, arguably, the fundamental norm of private property.10 19 For a normative space that includes the institution of copyright, how- 20 ever, this simple distinction between capacity to exclude and right to 21 exclude will not suffice to demarcate legitimate from illegitimate uses of 22 property. If a bit of private property is copyrighted, then its owner has, 23 at best, a limited right to exclude others from its use. This limited right 24 is perhaps most clearly explicated by distinguishing a bit of copyrighted 25 material from its physical manifestation. Focus presently on books, 26 where the distinction is conspicuous. The copyrighted material is, to a 27 first approximation, the series and organization of letters, numbers, and 28 punctuation marks in the book. The pages and ink that are comprised 29 by the book are its physical manifestation. Should someone buy a copy- 30 righted book, type a copy of it mark for mark on her computer, print 31 what she has typed, and then sell the resulting printing, she would do 32 so without right and therefore violate the copyright. By contrast, she 33 may have the right to sell the physical book she has purchased; this is 34 commonly known as the right of first sale.11 If she has this, then she 35 has the right to exclude others from use of the physical object, but she 36 does not have the right to exclude others from the series and organiza- 37 tion of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks printed on the object’s 38 pages. That right – which, put positively, is the right to profit from the 39 organization of language – belongs to the copyright holder. 40 Let us momentarily set any further thoughts about copyright to the 41 side: we will come back to the topic in due course.12 Instead, let us

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1 now return to rivalrousness and excludability. Note that library books, 2 though they may be legally borrowed for free, are nevertheless rivalrous 3 and excludable objects. That they are rivalrous should be obvious; if 4 I have checked out a book, you cannot read it (unless you read over 5 my shoulder). They are excludable for the same reason that shovels are 6 excludable – either can be put under lock and key. Again, an object is 7 excludable if it is possible for someone to prevent another from easily 8 using it; clearly, books do not lose this property once they enter a 9 library. Although library books are available for the public to read freely, 10 they are not, in the sense that is presently operative, public goods. 11 With these remarks and distinctions in place, let us now turn to our 12 discussion of digital music. 13 14 Space and Old Musical Media 15 16 There is an active philosophical literature on the ontology of music, 17 which attends to the differences between musical compositions, perfor- 18 mances of those compositions, experiences of those performances, and 19 related features of music.13 I shall have nothing to say here about which 20 of these is ‘really’ music. For present purposes, we will define a given piece 21 of recorded music as a specific range of sounds produced by speakers, an 22 amplifier, and a frequency mixer all functioning normally. This defini- 23 tion is hedged by the terms ‘range’ and ‘normally’ to acknowledge that 24 a piece of music may be played louder or softer, with more or less bass or 25 treble, on better or worse speakers, and still be the same music, in virtue 26 of what is common between the diverse sounds produced. Conceived of 27 this way, music is essentially diachronic: it unfolds through time. 28 While music itself is essentially diachronic, it can be, literally, embod- 29 ied in a variety of static media. Vinyl records embody music in etch- 30 ings in the vinyl; cassette tapes embody music in arrangements of ferric 31 oxide; compact discs embody music in a series of polycarbonate bumps. 32 In each of these instances, there is a broader medium in which the 33 music is embodied: the whole vinyl record, the whole reel of cassette 34 tape, the whole compact disc. Each of these is a medium-sized physical 35 body, capable of being carried, thrown, hidden, etc. All of these objects 36 are, qua medium-sized physical bodies, rivalrous. For ease of presenta- 37 tion, focus just on vinyl records; also, let ‘album’ designate a collection 38 of music embodied in any media, and let ‘record’ designate vinyl discs. 39 A record is rivalrous for the same reason that any medium-sized physi- 40 cal body is rivalrous: if I have the record in my possession, you cannot 41 play it (or, for that matter, do anything else with it). Although this

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1 musical embodiment qua object is rivalrous, its proper use – that is, its 2 being played on a phonograph –produces a good that, depending on 3 the circumstances, can be non-rivalrous. If the music is played through 4 headphones, then only the headphone-wearer can listen to it, so it is 5 rivalrous. If, alternatively, it is played through loudspeakers that sit near 6 a window that opens onto a public street, then it is non-rivalrous. 7 So far we have considered the record as an object, and we have con- 8 sidered the music it produces when it is played. Neither of these, how- 9 ever, is the most important way (at least in the context of the present 10 discussion) to conceive of a given musical record, or for that matter 11 any other physical manifestation of an album. Because the music is 12 embodied in an excludable and rivalrous object, the person who owns 13 the record may possess a capacity to listen to the music that others 14 lack. Consider a record I own that you do not. I can listen to its music 15 whenever I want, as long as I have ready access to a phonograph. You 16 cannot do the same unless you get the record. Should I sell my record, 17 I will thereby exchange the ability to listen to its songs whenever I want 18 for the money I receive. As goes the record, so goes this ability – unless, 19 of course, I make a copy of the music on the record. With the advent of 20 domestic cassette recorders, it became possible to make a new embodi- 21 ment of a given bit of music and thereby keep the unlimited ability to 22 listen to it even after selling the original object of embodiment.14 With 23 cassettes, the copies tended to be subpar, but the advent of the domestic 24 compact disc writer allowed one to make copies that to the average 25 listener were acoustically indistinguishable from their source. These 26 copies were new musical embodiments, possessed of all the properties 27 described above: they were, qua objects, rivalrous and excludable, their 28 proper use produced goods that might be rivalrous and excludable (if 29 played on headphones) or not (if played in public on loudspeakers), and 30 in their non-use they contained the possibility of the music recorded on 31 them. The physical embodiment of the music in a medium-sized body 32 resulted in a replication of all of these features. 33 Consider these features now exclusively from the perspective of a per- 34 son who wants to own a given album she does not presently have. Let the 35 year be 1998. If she goes to a store to get the album, she will find herself 36 excluded; she will either need to pay for the album, or she will need to 37 steal it, in which case she risks getting caught for theft. She can avoid 38 both paying and being caught stealing if she either borrows and copies 39 a friend’s copy or arranges for the friend to make a copy. (To be sure, 40 this might violate copyright; again, we will come to this in due course.) 41 There are two things presently worth noting about copying the album.

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1 First, whether she or her friend makes the copy, the result will be a 2 medium-sized object containing the music and possessed of all the meta- 3 physical properties listed above. Second, whether she or her friend makes 4 the copy, while the copy is being made the friend must forfeit the rival- 5 rous good of being able to listen to the album whenever he wants. This is 6 clearest if the friend lends the album, but even if he makes the copy for 7 her, he cannot, while he is making the copy, use the album as he pleases. 8 Should he choose, for example, to listen to tracks in something other than 9 their original order, he will not be making a copy of the album. The album 10 cannot be copied without tacitly acknowledging its rivalrousness or its 11 excludability, so it has the necessary features of a bit of private property. 12 13 Spacelessness and Digital Music 14 15 None of this holds for digital music that is available in a peer-to-peer net- 16 work; such music is neither rivalrous nor excludable. Since the advent of 17 Napster, one need not acquire a medium-sized object in order to acquire 18 the ability to listen to a song or an album one does not have. Should one 19 acquire a bit of digital music from a peer-to-peer network, what one has 20 acquired is, as stated in this essay’s introduction, spaceless, a spaceless 21 copy of a spaceless original.15 The spacelessness of the original allows it 22 to be accessed without depriving its owner of the capacity to listen to it 23 while it is accessed. This spacelessness makes the object non-rivalrous. 24 It does not follow that the object is necessarily thereby non-excludable; 25 one can imagine any number of ways of devising network ‘tollbooths’ 26 to require payment for access. Peer-to-peer sharing networks, however, 27 have no such tollbooths, so the files available in these networks are not 28 excludable. These files thus have the characteristic features of public 29 goods, not of private property, so any music encoded in them likewise 30 has the characteristic features of a public good. 31 With these points in mind, consider anew our character from the 32 previous section, now a decade on in a world with music files available 33 through peer-to-peer networks. She will be excluded from these files if 34 she lacks Internet access, but let us suppose this is not an issue. Suppose 35 that she joins a peer-to-peer file-sharing group online, searches for a 36 song she wants, and finds it. She encounters no rivalry if she seeks to 37 copy the file; indeed, it is possible that the person whose file she is copy- 38 ing is at that moment listening to the music encoded in it. She is not 39 excluded from the file; she can easily obtain it without payment. For 40 her, the file is like the oxygen in the air, a non-rivalrous, non-excludable 41 good. For her, it is a public good, not a bit of private property.

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1 The very fact that digital music in peer-to-peer networks lacks the hall- 2 mark features of private property can, somewhat paradoxically, explain 3 the attitude shared by White, Lowery, and Jobs that obtaining such 4 music is theft. It obviously can explain the opposite idea, that obtain- 5 ing such music is not theft: if the music is not a private good, then it 6 cannot be stolen. The fact that it is neither rivalrous nor excludable, 7 however, is at confusing odds with the more familiar idea of recorded 8 music embodied in a medium-sized object. As noted above, to obtain 9 the listening potential of the music embodied in such an object, one 10 must negotiate its rivalrousness and excludability; within an economic 11 and legal system of private property, this thus requires interacting with 12 a bit of private property. To interact legitimately with a bit of private 13 property that one does not own, one must, with the owner’s permission, 14 temporarily deprive the owner of acting on his right to exclusion. When 15 a person downloads music from a peer-to-peer network, however, she 16 ignores any concerns of exclusion, for, again, music in a peer-to-peer 17 network is not excludable. When music is embodied, the only way to 18 ignore this right is to violate it, which can make any such ignoring seem 19 like a violation, that is, like theft. It is thus that the non-excludability 20 and non-rivalrousness of music in a peer-to-peer network can make it 21 seem like obtaining such music is theft. 22 It is perhaps more conceptually coherent, however, to run the inference 23 in the opposite direction. If a song is readily available in a peer-to-peer 24 network, then the potentiality of that song in any embodiment may be 25 considered a public good. To see why, it will help to mark a distinction 26 commonly drawn by analytic philosophers between type and token. 27 A type is an abstract object; a token is the physical manifestation of 28 some specific type. A recorded song, for example, is a type, and its tokens 29 are the musical events of it being played. Now rivalrous and excludable do 30 not apply to types per se; these concepts do not apply to abstract objects. 31 Nevertheless, we can use phrases such as ‘rivalrous type’ and ‘excludable 32 type’ to refer to types whose tokens are rivalrous and/or excludable. 33 Prior to the existence of digital music, the capacity to generate a song- 34 token of recorded music was necessarily embodied in a medium-sized 35 object, which, as we saw above, is necessarily rivalrous and exclud- 36 able. Song-types and album-types were thus necessarily rivalrous and 37 excludable. This is no longer true for song-types and album-types whose 38 token-potentials – that is, whose digital files – are available in peer-to- 39 peer networks. These song-types and album-types are not necessarily 40 rivalrous and excludable, because their tokens can be generated from 41 files that are, per the argument above, public goods. This by itself does

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1 not show that these types are public-good types; it only shows that 2 they are not necessarily private-good types. If, however, a given song- 3 token can be generated for free and without depriving anyone else 4 of being able, at that very moment, to generate the token, it would 5 seem accurate to conceive of the relevant type as a public-good type. 6 If this is correct, then it would be correspondingly accurate to consider 7 song-potentialities embodied in, for example, CDs as public goods. The 8 physical discs themselves may still be rivalrous and excludable, but the 9 potentialities they embody are not limited by this fact. 10 This shift in rivalrousness and excludability is, I think, a shift in kind, 11 not degree. If it is not already clear, it is the existence of digital music in 12 peer-to-peer networks, not merely the encoding of music in computer 13 files, that marks this change in kind. Were there no digital networks, 14 the encoding of music in computer files would not alter the rivalrousness 15 or excludability of music. The files would not be spaceless; accessing 16 them would require interacting with disk drives qua medium-sized, 17 and so rivalrous and excludable, objects. Once the files are available 18 in a network, however, their physical embodiment does not effectively 19 limit their accessibility. Copying the files does not require interacting 20 with their embodiments as medium-sized physical objects. To think 21 nevertheless of these files as rivalrous and excludable is either confused 22 or metaphorical: digital music just isn’t made of the stuff of normal 23 private property. 24 25 Normative Consequences: Copyright and Compensation 26 after Property 27 28 This last fact has not, however, prevented digital music from being 29 legally classified as private property. In the United States, a digital music 30 file is subject to the same principles of copyright that govern the use 31 of records, cassettes, and CDs.16 Such a file is to be treated as exclud- 32 able, but not generally; it cannot be legitimately used as the basis of a 33 copy, so the file owner does not have the right to exclude others from – 34 that is, to grant others access to – copies made from it. In short, it is 35 to be treated as if it were music embodied in a medium-sized object, 36 subject to the familiar rules and restrictions that apply to such objects. 37 I will not argue that this is conceptually incoherent, although the label 38 ‘copyright’, understood literally in terms of its etymology, is not a per- 39 fect description of the relevant restriction as it applies to digital music. 40 Taken literally, copyright is the right to make copies; what is restricted 41 here, as noted above, is the right to grant access to the basis of a potential copy. There should be no mystery why the literal notion of copyright

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1 has been extended to cover this somewhat different case. The goal is to 2 prevent individuals from obtaining unrestricted access to a bit of musi- 3 cal potential – that is, to a given song-type – without compensating 4 those involved in the production and distribution of the music. One 5 might conceive of such compensation as a matter of “social justice” for 6 musicians, as Lowery does, but this is not necessary; a cynical record 7 label might want to enforce this extended notion of copyright simply in 8 an effort not to lose profits. Whatever the precise motive, the goal is to 9 prevent the public from having free and easy access to digital music.17 10 But if this access cannot, in fact, be effectively controlled via the exten- 11 sion of copyright law, and if we think artists should still be compensated 12 for making music, it may be best to stop thinking about music in terms 13 of private property altogether. As long as digital music is non-rivalrous 14 and non-excludable, we should not be surprised if it proves difficult 15 to fund through the private sale of individual albums and songs. Such 16 funding requires people to ignore how different digital music is from 17 medium-sized objects; indeed, it is remarkable how successful iTunes 18 was in the 21st century’s first decade at habituating people to treat non- 19 rivalrous, non-excludable goods as if they were rivalrous and excludable. 20 The power of Apple is mighty, and I have no basis for suggesting that 21 the model of the iTunes store – which, to return to Mulligan’s multi- 22 phase schema, is the exemplar of the second phase of digital music – 23 will run its course. If, however, a large enough segment of the population 24 comes to treat digital music as it is, non-rivalrous and non-excludable, 25 then means of funding that are sensitive to the public nature of the 26 good will need to be developed. It is of no use here to complain that 27 this depends too heavily on the charity of the listeners; it is just as 28 problematic to depend on listeners to buy something that they can 29 get for free. Apple has managed to get listeners to do this and thus has 30 delayed, perhaps indefinitely, the widespread acknowledgement of the 31 non-rivalrous, non-excludable character of digital music. But brute facts 32 have a way of being recalcitrant to false beliefs – the Earth was spinning 33 around the sun for millennia before Copernicus took note. 34 If we stop pretending that the record is still the center of the musical 35 universe and understand digital music as a public good, we can frame 36 the funding challenge for music as a version of the free-rider problem. 37 Consider the problem as a spectrum of possibilities. In the limiting 38 case, no one pays anything for recorded music, which, in turn, vastly 39 dimini shes the quantity and quality of new music being produced. Let 40 the other end of the spectrum be what presently happens. Many musi- 41 cians are able to earn livings off of recorded music, but many more would be able to if they received compensation for their music that is

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1 freely distributed in peer-to-peer networks. In the limiting case, univer- 2 sal free riding leads to the elimination of the public good of new digital 3 music; the result is parallel to the worst tragedy of the commons. As 4 we move away from the limit, the problem is, as Cullity puts it, one 5 of “objectionable preferential treatment”: “[t]he benefits only exist 6 because others who seek them take it upon themselves to contribute 7 to their production: in taking them [the free-rider] arrogates to herself 8 a privilege – the free enjoyment of benefits – while depending on the 9 renunciation of that privilege by others” (Cullity 1995, pp. 22–3). One 10 possible solution to this problem, as noted earlier, is to establish and 11 to maintain a collective-funding institution, such as a tax system. The 12 case for a music-funding tax would be strong were music a universal and 13 compulsory good, as is national security. National security is universal 14 in that, if one member of a nation enjoys it, all others necessarily do as 15 well; to say it is compulsory is to say that it is impossible to opt out of 16 the good while still remaining within the relevant nation.18 Because peo- 17 ple can (and do) choose not to enjoy the good of digital music, coercive 18 taxation seems an inappropriate means for funding its production. The 19 challenge, then, is to find a way to institutionalize music funding that 20 moves beyond the model of the digital record store without coercing 21 the participation of those who do not enjoy the good. 22 One solution is a voluntary collective-funding scheme, in which 23 money is voluntarily pooled to produce a project without guarantee 24 of reciprocal benefit. There are already models for this, for example, 25 Kickstarter. Frannie Kelley describes Kickstarter as providing a forum for 26 “Internet-based crowd sourcing,” which she characterizes as follows: “[it] 27 works sort of like a bake sale. You pay a little bit more than that cupcake’s 28 market value, and when your friends ask where you got it, you tell them 29 the gym needs a new roof and the 11th grade is raising money to fix it. 30 Album sales are less than half what they were 10 years ago. Your local 31 musician needs a new roof” (Kelley 2012). This analogy misses the mark, 32 but it does so in instructive ways. At a bake sale, a person gives money – 33 albeit, more than the market would demand – for an excludable, rival- 34 rous good, knowing that the profits will contribute to building what, 35 for the students, when they are in the gym, is a non-excludable, non- 36 rivalrous good. A Kickstarter project need not and often does not involve 37 any initial exchange of private good for money; rather, each contributor 38 promises to pay her promised share if the total pledge goal is reached. 39 The initial economic exchange thus need not involve the donor receiv- 40 ing any private good in exchange for the donation. More importantly, 41 the analogy also fails to capture accurately the relation between the

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1 donated monies and what they fund. It is correct in noting that, like the 2 monies raised from selling cupcakes, Kickstarter donations are contribu- 3 tions to a future public good. It is mistaken, however, in depicting the 4 roof as something that belongs to the artist; the roof is the music, and it 5 belongs, as do all other non-rivalrous, non-excludable goods, at once to 6 no one and to everyone. In spite of its confused analogy, Kelley’s remarks 7 helpfully point out a natural solution to some of the problems created by 8 the non-rivalrousness and non-excludability of digital music. If we think 9 of digital music as a public good, then funding it through quasi-public 10 means such as Kickstarter is not only to be expected – it is fitting. Some 11 sort of public model seems a natural solution to the problem, and so it 12 should not be surprising to see Kickstarter filling this void. 13 Another natural solution, at least for these early decades of the 14 Internet era, is to fund musicians through a hybrid advertising/subscrip- 15 tion service. This model fits well with third-phase digital music delivery 16 services, such as that offered by Spotify. Spotify subscribers can select 17 either a free account, in which case they are subjected to occasional 18 advertisements in their streams, or an advertisement-free account for 19 which they pay a monthly fee (Spotify AB, 2015). Listeners choose the 20 songs they listen to, and artists are compensated according to the 21 number of times their songs are played. This hybrid model generates 22 an excludable good that allows free riders to ride, though not for free – 23 those who do not pay with money pay instead with the time that they 24 are subjected to the advertisements. The model has the potential to deal 25 effectively with free riders who, as it were, take their music ride on the 26 streaming service, but if the same ride can be taken freely somewhere 27 else, the problem of free riding persists. At present, the ride can be taken 28 somewhere else: first-phase delivery systems persist, and one may turn 29 to them instead of using a streaming service to obtain the music one 30 wants. As long as this is so, digital music will be a public good, poorly 31 suited to be governed by the institution of private property. 32 33 Notes 34 35 1. See Lessig (2004), which, appropriately, is available online for free. It should 36 be noted that both my use of ‘free’ in the last sentence and Lowery’s use 37 throughout his exchange with White is commercial: it denotes the freedom 38 one enjoys when one gets something without paying anything. This is not the only use of ‘free’ relevant to the present discussion, and it is not the 39 one that primarily concerns Lessig. Lessig is interested in freedom of activ- 40 ity, which need not be understood in commercial terms. Richard Stallman, 41 whose work on open-source software is an inspiration for Lessig’s writing

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1 (Lessig 2004, p. xv), marks this distinction by contrasting the freedom of free 2 speech, which is not necessarily commercial, from that of free beer, which is 3 (Stallman 2002, pp. 43, 59). 2. Mulligan wonders whether 2014 marks the transition to a fourth phase, 4 characterized by curated music services such as Beats Listen. I set aside 5 discussion of this fourth phase, if indeed it be one. 6 3. I shall italicize terms to refer to concepts per se. 7 4. For a close historical study of the commodification of music in early 8 20th-century United States, see Suisman 2009. 5. As with public good, I take the concept institution from economics. The slogan 9 typically attached to this concept is that institutions are “the rules of the 10 game” (see, e.g., North 1990, p. 3, and Searle 2005, pp. 9–10). The idea 11 is that institutions are constituted by norms that govern a given domain. 12 Institutions may be legal or illegal: for example, the institution of human 13 trafficking is the illegal application of the institution of private property to the domain of persons. My claim here will be that the institution of private 14 property is not well suited to govern the domain of digital music. I discuss 15 institutions at greater length in Hubbs, 2014, pp. 67–68. 16 6. For the claim that Samuelson’s work is the foundation of the modern theory 17 of public goods, see Cullity (1995, p. 33), Musgrave (1983, p. 141), and 18 Pickhardt (2006, p. 439). For the argument that Musgrave is the source of our contemporary definition, see Pickhardt (2006, pp. 447–8). 19 7. Musgrave offers this as a definition of “social goods,” which replaces his ear- 20 lier talk of “social wants” (cf. Musgrave 1959, p. 8). “Public good” becomes 21 the dominant term over the course of the 1970s. 22 8. Cf. Krugman and Wells (2012, ch. 17). 23 9. Buchanan appears to be one of the first to use the phrase ‘free rider’ in print, but the problem has long been a concern of those who write about public 24 goods. Consider, for example, the following passage from 1896 by Knut 25 Wicksell, whose work exerted a major influence on Musgrave: “If the individ- 26 ual is to spend his money for private and public uses so that his satisfaction is 27 maximized, he will obviously pay nothing whatsoever for public purposes ... 28 Whether he pays much or little will affect the scope of public services so slightly, that for all practical purposes he himself will not notice it at all” 29 (Wicksell 1958 [1896], p. 81). 30 10. See, for example, the central role that the related concept of just transfer plays 31 in Robert Nozick’s “Justice as Entitlement” theory (Nozick 1974, ch. 7.1). 32 11. In the United States, this right was established by Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus, 33 210 U.S. 339 (1908). The case there concerned whether Bobbs-Merrill, a pub- lisher, could set the price that a merchant could sell its publications to the 34 public even after the merchant had purchased the publications. The Court 35 ruled that copyright protection does not extend to the resale of publications; 36 rather, it only pertains to the first sale. 37 12. Although we will return to the topic, nothing will be said here about the 38 justification of copyright law. For a recent review of some of the central arguments on the matter, see Falgoust (2014). 39 13. See, for example, Bicknell (2009), Davies (1994), Dodd (2007), Gracyk and 40 Kania (2011), Hamilton (2007), Kivy (2002), Levinson (1997), Ridley (2004), 41 and Stock (2007).

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1 14. For more on the disruptive effects of tape recorders, see Attali (1985, pp. 96 ff). 2 15. Perhaps more accurately, this practical spacelessness is a perceived space- 3 lessness. Again, I do not mean to deny that spatial considerations play an important role in determining the size and quality of digital music files. 4 16. The precedent here is established in Mai Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc., 5 991 F.2d 511 (9th Cir. 1993). On the relevance of this case to digital music, 6 see Fantaci (2002, pp. 657–8). 7 17. For more on the application of copyright to digital music, see Vaidhyanathan 8 (2001, ch. 5). 18. The importance of these features to public goods and free riding are 9 discussed throughout Cullity (1995). 10 11 12 References 13 Attali, Jacques. (1985) Noise: The Political Economy of Music. Trans. by Brian Massumi. 14 Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. 15 Bicknell, Jeanette. (2009) Why Music Moves Us. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 16 Buchanan, James. (1964) What Should Economists Do? Southern Economic Journal 17 30: 213–22. 18 Cullity, Garrett. (1995) Moral Free Riding. Philosophy and Public Affairs 24: 3–34. Davies, Stephen. (1994) Musical Meaning and Expression. Ithaca, NY: Cornell 19 University Press. 20 Dodd, Julian. (2007) Works of Music: An Essay in Ontology. Oxford: Oxford 21 University Press. 22 Falgoust, Michael. (2014). The Incentives Argument Revisited: A Millean Account 23 of Copyright. The Southern Journal of Philosophy 52: 163–83. Fantaci, Matthew James. (2002) Digital Dilemma: Could the Digital Millennium 24 Copyright Act Have Inadvertently Exempted Napster and Its Progeny From 25 Liability? Louisiana Law Review 67: 643–71. 26 Gracyk, Theodore and Kania, Andrew (eds.). (2011) The Routledge Companion to 27 Philosophy and Music. New York: Routledge. 28 Hamilton, Andy. (2007) Aesthetics and Music. New York: Continuum. Hardin, Garrett. (1968) The Tragedy of the Commons. Science 162: 1243–8. 29 Hubbs, Graham. (2014) Transparency, Corruption, and Democratic Institutions. 30 Les ateliers de l’éthique / The Ethics Forum 9(1): 65–83. 31 Issacson, Walter. (2011) Steve Jobs. New York: Simon and Schuster. 32 Kelley, Frannie. (2012) Crowd Funding for Musicians Isn’t the Future; It’s the Present. 33 Available at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2012/09/25/161702900/crowd- funding-for-musicians-isnt-the-future-its-the-present (accessed 11 May 2015). 34 Kirschenbaum, Matthew. (2008) Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination. 35 Cambridge, MA: MIT University Press. 36 Kivy, Peter. (2002). Introduction to a Philosophy of Music. Oxford: Oxford University 37 Press. 38 Krugman, Paul and Wells, Robin (eds.) (2012) Economics, 3rd edn. New York: Worth Publishers. 39 Langer, Andy. (2003) The God of Music. Esquire, July. 40 Lessig, Lawrence. (2004) Free Culture. New York: Penguin. Available at: http://www. 41 free-culture.cc/freecontent/ (accessed 11 May 2015).

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1 Levinson, Jerrold. (1997) Music in the Moment. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 2 Lowery, David. (2012) Letter to Emily White at NPR All Songs Considered. 3 Available at: http://thetrichordist.com/2012/06/18/letter-to-emily-white-at-npr- all-songs-considered (accessed 11 May 2015). 4 Menn, Joseph. (2003) All The Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning’s Napster. 5 New York: Crown Business. 6 Mulligan, Mark. (2014). Digital Ascendency: The Future Music Forum Keynote. 7 Available at: http://musicindustryblog.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/digital- 8 ascendency-the-future-music-forum-keynote/ (accessed 11 May 2015). Musgrave, Richard. (1959) Theory of Public Finance: A Study in Public Economy. 9 New York: McGraw Hill. 10 Musgrave, Richard. (1969) Provision for Social Goods. In J. Margolis and H. Guitton 11 (eds.) Public Economics: An Analysis of Public Production and Consumption and 12 their Relations to the Private Sectors, New York: Macmillan. 13 Musgrave, Richard. (1983) Public Goods. In E. C. Brown and R. M. Solow (eds.) Modern Economic Theory, New York: McGraw Hill. 14 North, Douglas. (1990) Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance. 15 New York: Cambridge University Press. 16 Nozick, Robert. (1974) Anarchy, State, Utopia. New York: Basic Books. 17 Ostrom, Vincent and Ostrom, Elinor. (1977) Public Goods and Public Choices: 18 The Emergence of Public Economies and Industry Structures. In E. Savas (ed.) Alternatives for Delivering Public Services: Toward Improved Performance, Boulder, 19 CO: Westview Press. 20 Pickhardt, Michael. (2006) Fifty Years after Samuelson’s ‘The Pure Theory of 21 Public Expenditure’: What are We Left With? Journal of the History of Economic 22 Thought 28: 439–60. 23 Ridley, Aaron. (2004) The Philosophy of Music: Theme and Variations. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 24 Searle, John. (2005) What is an Institution? Journal of Institutional Economics 1: 1–22. 25 Spotify AB. (2015). Spotify Premium. Available at: https://www.spotify.com/us/ 26 premium (accessed 11 May 2015). 27 Stallman, Richard. (2002) Free Software, Free Society. Boston: Free Software Found- 28 ation. Available at: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fsfs/rms-essays.pdf (accessed 11 May 2015). 29 Sterne, Jonathan. (2012) MP3: Meaning of a Format (Sign, Storage, Transmission). 30 Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 31 Stock, Kathlee (ed.). (2007) Philosophers on Music: Experience, Me aning, and Work. 32 Oxford: Oxford University Press. 33 Suisman, David. (2009) Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution in American Music. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 34 Vaidhyanathan, Siva. (2001) Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual 35 Property and How it Threatens Creativity. New York: New York University Press. 36 White, Emily. (2012) I Never Owned Any Music to Begin With. Available at: 37 http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2012/06/16/154863819/i-never-owned- 38 any-music-to-begin-with (accessed 11 May 2015). Wicksell, Knut. (1958 [1896]) A New Principle of Just Taxation. Trans. by 39 J. M. Buchanan in R. A. Musgrave and A. T. Peacock (eds.) Classics in the Theory 40 of Public Finance. London: Macmillan. 41

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1 2 9 3 4 The Preservation Paradox 5 6 Jonathan Sterne 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 The Preservation Paradox 15 16 Perhaps it is historians’ special way of shaking a fist at the image of their 17 own mortality, but every generation must lament that its artifacts, its 18 milieu, will largely be lost to history. One can find countless laments 19 in the early days of recording about what might have been had we 20 just been able to get Lincoln’s voice on a cylinder, or the speeches of 21 some other great leader. But one can just as easily turn to one’s own 22 professional journals, such as the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and 23 Television. Here is Phillip M. Taylor, a historian at Leeds, making the case 24 for “preserving our contemporary communications heritage” in 1995: 25 26 In 2095, when history students look back to our century as we now 27 look back to the nineteenth, they will read that the twentieth cen- 28 tury was indeed different from all that went before it by virtue of the 29 enormous explosion in media and communications technologies. … 30 But when they come to examine the primary sources for this period, 31 they will alas find only a ramshackle patchwork of surviving evidence 32 because we currently lack the foresight, let alone the imagination, 33 to preserve our contemporary media and communications heritage. 34 By not addressing the issue now, we are relegating our future history to 35 relative obscurity and our future historians to sampling and guesswork. 36 (Taylor 1996, p. 420) 37 38 Later in the piece Taylor writes that “even the [British] National Film and 39 Television Archive was only able to preserve just over 25 per cent of the 40 total broadcast output of ITV and Channel 4 in 1993–94. That means 41 75 per cent lost for posterity … only a fragment of our contemporary

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1 record” (Taylor 1996, p. 424). Taylor’s suppositions are relatively straight- 2 forward. We live in a world saturated with media. In some cases, they 3 define contemporary experience. Yet if the goal of history is to recon- 4 struct the lost experience of the past, then if most of the past is lost, 5 there is no hope of recovering that lost experience. The logic seems 6 impeccable, so long as one believe that history is about reconstituting 7 lost experience in its fullness and that the route to this lofty goal is best 8 taken through an archive that approaches some ideal of completeness. 9 Our lives are awash in documents that will be rinsed away long before 10 the historians of 2095 come to examine them. I will disagree with Taylor 11 below, but let us hold on to his assumptions for a moment longer. 12 As it goes for media in general, so it goes for sound recordings, and 13 digital sound recordings in particular. Consider the following broad 14 categories of issues in the preservation of digital music “documents” 15 encountered by archivists: (Lee 2000) digital music documents exist in 16 varying formats, which may correspond to scores, to audio recordings, or 17 “control formats” like MIDI or MAX/MSP algorithms that are essentially 18 performance instructions for computers. The storage media themselves 19 are unstable. Even if an old hard drive or disc were properly preserved, its 20 “readability” is an open question given the wide range of software and 21 operating systems in use at any given time. Even then, issues of intel- 22 ligibility arise: much of what makes digital audio work today relies upon 23 some kind of “metadata,” whether we are talking about the names of 24 songs and albums in CDDB, or the information on preferred tracks 25 and takes in a multitrack recording. As in the case of Van IJzendoorn, 26 the Dutch recording enthusiast who lost the notebook indicating place- 27 ment of songs on long reels of tape (see Bijsterveld and Jacobs 2009), 28 the collection itself is at best laborious to use without a guide. Even that 29 analogy is inexact, since without metadata, digital files may simply be 30 unplayable, or even impossible to identify as sound files: it would be as 31 if Van IJzendoorn not only lost his notebook, but forgot what his audio 32 tapes actually were. Even if all of the technocultural considerations were 33 covered, the archivist would still be confronted with the usual set of 34 archival problems: is the document worth keeping; is it representative 35 or special in some way; and is it worth elevating as an exemplar of some 36 aspect of the past? For an obsessive collector or hobbyist this is perhaps 37 less of an issue than for an institution with limited space and budget and 38 the need for some kind of guiding collections policy. 39 One can only imagine the lamenting historian’s horror at this state of 40 affairs: the world is populated with an unprecedented number of record- 41 ings, yet they exist in countless different formats and with seemingly

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1 endless preservation problems. It’s cruel: we have made recordings more 2 portable and easier to store than ever before, but in so doing we have also 3 made them more ephemeral. Most of them will be lost to posterity, and 4 despite the efforts of archivists, there is really not much we can do about it. 5 But of course, there is more than one way to think about forgetting. 6 Here is Friedrich Nietzsche, who offers a very different perspective on 7 the matter from Taylor’s: 8 9 The person who cannot set himself down on the crest of the moment, 10 forgetting everything from the past, who is not capable of standing 11 on a single point, like a goddess of victory, without dizziness or 12 fear, will never know what happiness is. … A person who wanted 13 to feel utterly and only historically would be like someone who 14 was forced to abstain from sleep or like the beast that is to continue 15 its life only from rumination to constantly repeated rumination. 16 (Nietzsche 1957) 17 18 Nietzsche was writing against what he felt to be a paralyzing historicism 19 that dominated German scholarship in his lifetime. While he is prob- 20 ably not the first or best stop for political or aesthetic advice, Nietzsche 21 does offer a useful reminder that forgetting is also an important part of 22 living. It is perhaps too much to say that historians ought to be happy 23 about forgetting, but in order to do their work, and in order for archives 24 to make sense, in order for a document like a recording to have any 25 historical value, a great deal of forgetting must happen first. 26 Forgetting is both personal and collective. It is sometimes uncon- 27 scious and sometimes willful. Nietzsche ties it to life, Marc Augé (2004) 28 ties it to death and Paul Ricoeur (2004) ties it to forgiveness. The term 29 is broad and unwieldy, but for the purposes of this paper, we may think 30 of the collective forgetting that makes a given recording historical, 31 meaningful or valuable as that which subtends Taylor’s drive toward 32 the impossible task of preserving everything. From the point of view 33 inside archival institutions, selection and memory are willful acts that 34 define the nature and range of objects available in a given collection. 35 But outside the institution, the reality is considerably more messy. Lost 36 master tapes of famous recordings, stacks of unsold compact discs taken 37 to a landfill, or for that matter a poorly documented file on someone’s 38 hard drive are all small moments that may not in themselves constitute 39 a form of willful forgetting, but that certainly in the aggregate lead to 40 forgetting nonetheless. Why are some recordings available to us today 41 and others are not? The answer has much to do with will and selection

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1 choice, but it also has much to do with broader cultural attitudes about 2 recordings and the sound they contain. 3 Countless writers have commented that recording in one way or 4 another destroyed sound’s ephemeral qualities. Sound itself, they write, 5 was rendered durable and repeatable by Edison. Thanks to recording, 6 sound exists in the memories of machines and surfaces as well as the 7 memories of people. Certainly, this is one of the almost magical powers 8 of recording. As Bijsterveld and Jacobs (2009) remind us, it has been a 9 selling point for new recording technologies at different times. And cer- 10 tainly, the possibility of preservation opens up the fantasy of cheating 11 time – and death – through an unbroken chain of preservation. But the 12 fantasy that we can commune with the voices of the dead, that what is 13 recorded today will be preserved forever, is just that: a fantasy. Sound 14 recording marks an extension of ephemerality, not its undoing. The 15 same could be said of any form of recording, whether we are talking 16 about ancient tablets, dusty account files in a file cabinet, tape backups 17 of the university’s mainframe or the CD-R I burned yesterday. Most 18 records available today are simply waiting to become lost records. 19 More and more of my friends – whether or not they are serious about 20 music – are unloading their collections of CDs and LPs, preferring instead 21 to keep their collections readily available on hard drives. In making this 22 simple move, while retaining the music for themselves in the near term, 23 they make it much less likely that any part of their collections will out- 24 live them, given the short lifespan of hard drives. What will happen 25 when this comes to pass and their collections either fade away or disap- 26 pear rapidly? If it happens too soon, they will recognize their loss and 27 perhaps seek to replace the missing music. But the lack of durability also 28 means that their collections are less likely to outlive them, and therefore 29 will not recirculate through various kinds of used markets or through 30 others’ collections. In turn, they will never make it into archives. This 31 process is less a simple kind of forgetting, like forgetting where one 32 left one’s car keys; it is more properly a forgetting of forgetting. Our 33 descendants won’t even know what is missing. 34 In important ways, the “forgetting of forgetting” already structures 35 the history of recording. The preciousness that characterizes all record- 36 ing is perhaps most apparent in surviving early examples of phonog- 37 raphy. Originally used to describe early printed books, especially those 38 from before 1500, media archivists have expanded the term “incunabu- 39 lum” to include early examples of any recording medium. In the case 40 of sound recordings, an incunabulum is any recording from before 1900 41 (Smart 1980, p. 424). Relatively few recordings from this period exist,

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1 and those that do are treated like treasures by archivists. James R. Smart, 2 Library of Congress Archivist puts it thus in a 1980 article: 3 4 They are historic documents in sound which, more than any photo- 5 graph or paragraph, illustrate nineteenth-century performance styles 6 in music, in vaudeville routines, in dramatic readings. They teach us, 7 more than any book can, just what our ancestors enjoyed in popular 8 music, what appealed to their sense of the ridiculous or their sense 9 of the dramatic. (Smart 1980, p. 424). 10 11 Smart’s point here is that old recordings, when they are preserved and 12 properly curated, become living documents of history in the present, 13 a point he makes even more emphatically elsewhere in his essay. Even 14 though no playable recordings exist from the first ten years of sound 15 recording’s history, he writes that 16 17 we now have a large and priceless heritage of recordings reaching 18 back a full ninety years. When one considers that many early per- 19 formers were already fifty years old when they recorded, then it can 20 be realized that we have the means of studying the styles and tech- 21 niques taught as far back as the Civil War. Gladstone and Tennyson, 22 both contemporaries of Abraham Lincoln, are represented on now 23 nearly worn-out recordings, but Pope Leo XIII, born 169 years ago 24 [counting back from 1980], can be heard on two good recordings. 25 (Smart 1980, p. 422) 26 27 For Smart, the rarity of early recordings is paired with the rarity of 28 memory itself. He partakes of an ideology of transparency that has been 29 widely criticized by sound scholars, myself included, and yet it is 30 undeniable that one of the reasons people find recordings precious 31 is because they offer some kind of access to lost or otherwise inacces- 32 sible moments (Williams 1980; Altman 1992; Lastra 2000; Auslander 33 1999; Sterne 2003). The curated recording is a hedge against mortality, 34 the fragility of memory, and the ever-receding substance of history. The 35 interplay between a bit of access and large sections of inaccessibility are 36 precisely what makes the past intriguing, mysterious, and potentially 37 revelatory. Thus, the idea that recordings can provide access to the past 38 requires two important prior conditions: (1) as Smart himself argues, 39 it presupposes that certain recordings will be elevated to the status of 40 official historical documents and curated in an appropriate fashion; and 41 (2) in order for that process to occur, there must be an essential rarity of

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1 recordings from the period. Most recordings must become lost record- 2 ings before any recordings can be elevated as historical documents. 3 Given the wide range of recordings made, the only way for a recording 4 to become rare is if most of the recordings like it are lost. 5 It may seem odd to think that most of the recordings ever made must 6 be lost before any of them can be found and made into historical docu- 7 ments. But in fact the vast majority of recordings in history are lost. For 8 all the grandiloquence about messages to future generations and hearing 9 the voices of the dead, most recordings have (and I would argue, are 10 still) treated by their makers, owners and users as ephemera, as items to 11 be used for a while and then to be disposed of. This has been a funda- 12 mental condition of recording throughout its history. As D.L. LeMahieu 13 wrote of the gramophone in Britain, “popular records became almost as 14 transitory in the market-place as the ephemeral sounds which they pre- 15 served. … Within a few generations, records produced by the thousands 16 and millions became rare items. Many were lost altogether” (LeMahieu 17 1988, p. 89). 18 Sound recording did as much to promote ephemerality as it did to 19 promote permanence in the auditory life of a culture. Inasmuch as we 20 can claim it promoted permanence, sound recording also helped to 21 accelerate the pace of fashion and turnover in popular music. “Songs 22 which a few generations before might have remained popular for 23 decades now rose and fell within a year, or even months” (LeMahieu 24 1988, p. 89). The fundamental classification of recordings as ephemera 25 continues down to the present day, as record collections are routinely 26 mistreated, disposed of, and occasionally recirculated (Keil and Feld 27 1996; Straw 2000). 28 In this way, sound recordings became quite typical modern com- 29 modities, and the fluctuation of their commercial and historical value 30 depends on their mass disposal and disappearance. Michael Thompson’s 31 very interesting book Rubbish Theory chronicles the life-cycles of similar 32 modern commodities. Thompson argues that mass-produced ephemera 33 begin their lives at a relatively stable level of economic value which 34 diminishes over time as they lose the luster of newness and become 35 increasingly common and available. This loss in value eventually results 36 in the object becoming worthless, at which point most of the objects in 37 question are thrown out. Once the object becomes relatively rare – 38 through this process of devaluation and disposal – it can again begin 39 to accrue value for collectors through its oddity or rarity. Thompson is 40 interested in old houses, Victorian keepsakes, consumer packaging, and 41 a whole range of odds and ends because of the relationship between

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1 their symbolic and economic value (Thompson 1979). His thesis applies 2 equally well to the ebb and flow of cultural value for sound record- 3 ings, which were often treated poorly by their owners to begin with, 4 and even when cherished, analog recordings could be worn out and 5 destroyed simply through loving use. Either way, for all the talk of per- 6 manence, the careers of individual recordings followed the pattern of 7 ephemera for most of the technology’s history. 8 Scarcity is a fundamental condition of possibility for historicity, but 9 that scarcity has to be created from a condition of abundance. When 10 history is not struggling with loss, it must struggle with plenitude. That 11 is to say, many recordings must be lost in order for a few recordings to 12 be “found.” And plenitude is on the minds of many archivists today 13 because on first blush, it would seem that we have denser saturation 14 than ever before in the history of sound recording. Over 40,000 albums 15 are released each year, worldwide, and in a given month over 1.5 billion 16 music files are exchanged on the internet. With digital recording, one 17 would think that recording is more plentiful than ever, that in a certain 18 sense it is harder than ever to “lose” recordings. Instead, their ubiquity 19 became the main point of interest: as MP3s became popular in 1999 20 and 2000, writers began to put forward the idea of the internet as a 21 “celestial jukebox” where every recording ever made would be available 22 to anyone, anytime and anywhere (see, e.g., Brown 2000). While this 23 imaginary plenitude of recordings continues to be a selling point for 24 online MP3 services, it also raises new issues of selectivity and indexing. 25 After all, no single person can listen to even a meaningful fraction of 26 everything ever recorded. 27 Consider the case of an illegal recording genre like mashups.1 A mashup 28 is made by combining two or more recordings and beat-matching them 29 in such a way that they “work” together as a new kind of song. Strictly 30 speaking, mashups are illegal because they are made without any kind 31 of permission or sample clearance. Many of them are anonymous and 32 circulate through file sharing services that are of themselves of contro- 33 versial legality in some countries. Although such recordings are available 34 in abundance and for free, I know of no legitimate archival institution 35 that has begun the process of collecting them despite the fact that many 36 music libraries and sound archives – including national archives – now 37 understand the importance of preserving popular music (a key basis for 38 the kinds of cultural memory explored by van Dijck, 2009). 39 In many cases, current selection and collection policies would actively 40 prevent archival institutions like the U.S. Library of Congress from col- 41 lective and cataloging mashups. Thus, an important popular cultural

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1 formation of the current decade will remain largely undocumented. 2 Eventually, many of the currently popular mashups will move out of 3 circulation and perhaps even disappear from most of their owners’ col- 4 lections if they are not cared for and backed up. A few dedicated collec- 5 tors will no doubt keep meticulously organized collections and perhaps, 6 a few decades hence, one such collection will find its way to a major 7 archival institution that exists in a world of more enlightened intel- 8 lectual property laws. This person’s idiosyncratic collection will thus 9 become an important historical resource for anyone interested in what 10 mashups might tell them about the first decade of the 2000s. If this 11 story sounds strange or speculative, consider that the condescension 12 of legitimate archival institutions toward popular culture in the early 13 part of the 20th century meant that they collected nothing for decades. 14 Highly idiosyncratic collections, like the Warshaw Collection at the 15 Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington 16 D.C., have since come to play important roles in current historiography, 17 despite the fact that the collections themselves had no clear logic of 18 acquisition beyond the collectors’ idiosyncratic tastes. 19 Thus, in many ways, the reaction to digital sound recording is a replay 20 of attitudes that emerged a century ago, in the earliest ages of recording. 21 People hail the possibility for keeping, cataloguing and making avail- 22 able all of the world’s music, all of the world’s recorded sound, at the 23 same time they lament the passing of time and the decline of music 24 of the available material into obscurity. These laments often go hand 25 in hand with practices that actually hasten the disappearance of the 26 music itself. In drawing parallels between the turn of the 20th century 27 and our own moment, in deliberately blurring the two periods, Mike 28 Featherstone writes of “an expanding consumer culture and the genesis 29 of world cities that leads to the globalization of culture and the increase 30 in the volume of cultural production and reproduction beyond our 31 capacity to recover the various cultural objects, images and fragments 32 into a framework through which we can make sense of it” (Featherstone 33 2000, p. 163). For Featherstone, the torrents of media ultimately point 34 to “the failure of subjective culture to deal adequately with the problem 35 of selectivity... ” (Featherstone 2000, p. 162). “If everything can poten 36 tially be of significance should not part of the archive fever be to record 37 and document everything, as it could one day be useful? The problem 38 then becomes, not what to put into the archive, but what one dare leave 39 out” (Featherstone 2000, p. 170). 40 Featherstone describes the crux of the problem for collector cultures: 41 there’s too much to collect and not enough of a sense of, or agreement

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1 about, what should be collected. Current criteria for archival selec- 2 tion are quite underdeveloped. For instance, the National Library 3 of Australia’s Guidelines for the Preservation of Digital Heritage are 4 woefully vague, suggesting simply that institutions should preserve 5 materials based on the material’s value in “supporting the mission of 6 the organization taking preservation responsibility”; that since future 7 costs of preservation are unpredictable, it would be “irresponsible” to 8 refuse materials that are difficult to preserve; and that some exemplary 9 ephemera should be included with materials that have clear, obvious 10 importance at the present moment (National Library of Australia 2003). 11 The problem with this approach, as with all archival selection, is that it is 12 not future-proof in any meaningful way. The values that guide archival 13 collecting today may be irrelevant to future users of the same material – 14 certainly this has been the case in the past. When you add the seem- 15 ingly endless permutations of recording formats, software updates 16 and reference-quality standards, even the most basic decisions about 17 preservation become incredibly complex. 18 Perhaps, by accident – or at least by becoming less stable than their 19 analog predecessors – digital recording formats are less aides-memoir than 20 aides-oubliez. They will help us forget. While such a proposition would 21 horrify Taylor, there are other ways to consider the proposition given that 22 more recordings now exist – by far – than at any other time in human his- 23 tory. In his essay “Forgetting is a Feature, Not a Bug,” Liam Bannon argues 24 that with the massive proliferation of information occasioned by digital 25 technologies, design must be oriented toward forgetting as well as remem- 26 bering (Bannon 2006). Though his examples are banal: the self-destructing 27 tape of spy movies, “digital shelters” that jam electronic signals and 28 “sweeper” technologies that would indicate whether a recording device 29 is present, his larger point is that the overemphasis on memory is actu- 30 ally debilitating. He is not alone. In 2005, the artist group monochrom 31 held a “Magnetism Party” to performatively delete data from hard drives, 32 room cards, audio and video cassettes, floppy discs, drivers’ licenses, etc. 33 The performance was a critique of information overload, but as Melanie 34 Swalwell points out, it was merely an extreme version of a more basic 35 bureaucratic imperative to delete. She gives the example of calling records 36 managers of a regional offices of the New Zealand Customs Department in 37 search of a now-defunct system for importing drivers’ licenses (the system 38 was important for her research on the history of the game industry). The 39 managers responded, quite with some delight in their voices, that the sys- 40 tem was lost to history, because “they don’t have to keep anything longer 41 than seven years” (Swalwell 2007, p. 261).

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1 Considering digital technologies primarily in terms of preservation 2 also often begs the question of what exactly is being preserved. Perhaps 3 alluding to personal photography and recordings, Bannon writes that 4 “the issue of what is being preserved when we do make some form of 5 record of an event is also open to question, as usually it is the personal 6 experience of being there that is valued, not simply the visual or aural 7 signal captured by the machine” (Bannon 2006, p. 12). Certainly, a 8 good deal of audio recording (if not most) is now about “the recording 9 itself” and not preserving an external event, but this distinction fades a 10 bit as we telescope forward to the recording’s life in an archive at some 11 future date. Materials in archives live on as evidence, meaning that for 12 historians, they tend to point toward things outside themselves, and 13 thus even the totally self-contained recording that was never meant as 14 a representation of a live event (as much recorded music now is) comes 15 to represent some aspect of “being there” in the history. This is exactly 16 why Taylor is so worried about the loss of television broadcasts: without 17 the mediatic dimension of everyday life, without its flow, Taylor worries 18 that future historians will not be able to accurately capture the sense of 19 “being here” in the present. 20 We can already see this process at work in the preservation of early 21 digital games. Swalwell describes the problems facing the curation of 22 “Malzek,” a 1981 arcade game: 23 24 this game still cannot be played as it was intended: no one has seen it 25 working for 20 years, no one knows the correct colours, collisions are 26 not working, and there is no sound. Anyone can download a copy of 27 this (sort of) mass-produced digital work, but in this case redundancy 28 does not ensure the survival of the game. (Swalwell 2007, p. 264) 29 30 The same conditions apply to digital audio. Not only will metadata be 31 lost, so too may be aspects of the files themselves. Archival specialists 32 also expect that preserving digital sound recordings will require more in 33 resources than preserving their analog counterparts. The added expenses 34 come not from storage itself (since digital storage continues to become 35 cheaper), but rather all the things that come with digital storage: 36 duplication and backup, the need to maintain proper equipment and 37 expertise for “reading” the digital files in whatever format they exist – 38 and all other aspects of infrastructure and maintenance (Russell 1999). 39 Though there are really no data upon which we can rely with abso- 40 lute certainty, estimates for the durability of digital media are relatively 41 low. Unused hard drives fail within a few years and CD-R lifespan is the

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1 subject of a broad international debate. Even optimistic industry esti- 2 mates for the lifespan of compact discs are relatively short by archival 3 standards. A public relations piece for Roxio (a company that makes 4 software for burning CDs and DVDs) estimates the lifespan of a compact 5 disc at 70 to 200 years (Starrett 2000). A 1996 report by Yale preservation 6 librarian Paul Conway argues that there is a general decline in durabil- 7 ity of recorded media over the history of recorded text (Conway 2005). 8 Though he is primarily concerned with written documents, the same 9 reasoning applies to recording: a Berliner zinc or shellac disc will likely 10 be playable long after a compact disc. 11 Apart from the physical issues associated with decay of digital media, 12 there are a variety of other forces that work against any kind of preser- 13 vation. Foremost among these is Digital Rights Management (DRM), a 14 generic name for antipiracy algorithms built into digital files. DRM can 15 limit the number of copies that can be made of a file, or the range of 16 media on which a file can be played (for instance, some compact discs 17 are now released with DRM that will make them unplayable on comput- 18 ers). This is especially problematic for preservation because all archived 19 sound recordings are, sooner or later, “reformatted” because of the 20 speed with which recordings undergo physical decay (Brylawski 2002). 21 DRM that prevents copying and transfer to new formats will effectively 22 render it impossible to recover or preserve digital files beyond the lifes- 23 pans of their original formats, and beyond the lifespans of the compa- 24 nies that control the DRM embedded in the recordings. The lifespan of 25 a recording with DRM is on the order of years, and perhaps decades, not 26 centuries (Gillespie 2007). 27 Although digital technology allows for unprecedented ease in the 28 transfer and stockpiling of recordings, the current condition of pleni- 29 tude is something of an illusion. If early recordings were destined to 30 become lost recordings, digital recordings move in the same directions 31 but they do so more quickly and more fitfully. For while a damaged disc 32 or magnetic tape may yield a little information – it may be possible to 33 hear an old recording through waves of hiss or crackles of a needle as 34 it passes through damaged grooves – digital data have a more radical 35 threshold of intelligibility. One moment they are intelligible, but once 36 their decay becomes palpable, the file is rendered entirely unreadable. 37 In other words, digital files do not age with any grace. Where analog 38 recordings fade slowly into nothingness, digital recordings fall off a cliff 39 from presence into absence. 40 We can go a step further to argue that the very thing that makes 41 digital recordings so convivial, so portable and so easily stored is their

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1 relative ephemerality. It would be wrong to compare digital media 2 with their analog counterparts to argue that digital “dematerializes” 3 recorded sound. On the contrary, the materiality of digital storage is 4 what makes it fragile and ephemeral. The fading ink on the CD-R, the 5 fading magnetic pattern on the surface of a hard drive are banal chemi- 6 cal and physical processes, and not at all related to the “discontinuity” 7 or “disembodiment” attributed to digital audio in other texts (Evans 8 2005; Sterne 2006). 9 So what should we make of a future where most digital recordings 10 will be lost, damaged, unplayable, or separated from their metadata, 11 hopelessly swimming in a potentially infinite universe of meaning? We 12 could follow Taylor’s lament and shed some tears for a future that will 13 never be able to reconstruct the fullness of the present we inhabit. But 14 how much history really does that? The conceit behind Taylor’s account 15 is that the historian is merely a poorer ethnographer, an ethnographer 16 whose subjects cannot talk back. But Taylor confuses a fantasy of his- 17 torical writing with its reality. History deals in fragments, with traces, 18 and whereas the fundamental condition for the ethnographer is some 19 kind of copresence, the fundamental condition for the historian is 20 absence. Most of human history is only available for present analysis 21 in extremely skewed and partial form. We make use of the traces left 22 behind, interpreting them, imposing our own frameworks and ques- 23 tions, and making them speak to our present. As with Bas Jansen’s 24 (2009) account of the mix tape, the referent of historical recordings are 25 not the actual selves behind them so much as what he calls the “what- 26 it-was-like.” Our fate will be no different for the future, and whatever 27 recordings do survive will be part of that history-writing process. They 28 will be open to interpretation and subjected to questions and frame- 29 works we cannot imagine and of which we might not approve – or 30 know to approve. But the future does not need our consent or approval. 31 This is not an abdication of the responsibility to preserve or to remem- 32 ber. It is only an acknowledgement that history, and indeed all forms of 33 memory are first predicated on forgetting. 34 35 Acknowledgements 36 37 Thanks to Jeremy Morris for the title suggestion and important research 38 assistance, to the volume editors for their helpful suggestions, and 39 to Carrie Rentschler for a much-needed read. Additional thanks to 40 Matthew Noble-Olson for help with final edits. 41

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1 Note 2 3 1. This discussion is based on a personal conversation with Samuel Brylawski, former head of the Recorded Sound Division at the Library of Congress 4 and Mark Katz, “The Second Digital Revolution in Music,” Music Library 5 Association Meeting (Pittsburgh, 2007). 6 7 References 8 9 Altman, R. (ed.) (1992) Sound Theory/Sound Practice. New York: Routledge. 10 Augé, M. (2004) Oblivion. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. 11 Auslander, P. (1999) Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture. New York: 12 Routledge. Bannon, L. J. (2006) Forgetting as a Feature, Not a Bug: The Duality of Memory 13 and Implications for Ubiquitous Computing. CoDesign (2)1: 3–15. 14 Bijsterveld, K. and Jacobs, A. (2009) Storing Sound Souvenirs: The Multi-sited 15 Domestication of the Tape Recorder. In Bijsterveld, K. and van Dijck, J. (eds.), 16 Sound Souvenirs: Audio Technologies, Memory and Cultural Practices. Amsterdam: 17 Amsterdam University Press. Brown, J. (2000) The Jukebox Manifesto, Salon.com, 13 November. Available 18 from: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/11/13/jukebox/ (accessed 19 December 12, 2005). 20 Brylawski, S. (2002) Preservation of Digitally Recorded Sound, Building a 21 National Strategy for Preservation: Issues in Digital Media Archiving, ed. 22 Council on Library and Information Resources and the Library of Congress. Washington, D.C.: Council on Library and Information Resources and the 23 Library of Congress. 24 Conway, P. (2005), Preservation in the Digital World, Report. Available from: 25 http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/conway2/ (accessed December 12, 2005). 26 Evans, A. (2005) Sound Ideas: Music, Machines and Experience. Minneapolis, MN: 27 University of Minnesota Press. Featherstone, M. (2000) Archiving Cultures, British Journal of Sociology (51)1: 161–84. 28 Gillespie, T. (2007) Wired Shut: Copyright and the Shape of Digital Culture. 29 Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 30 Jansen, B. (2009). Tape Cassettes and Former Selves: How Mix Tapes Mediate 31 Memories. In Bijsterveld, K. and van Dijck, J. (eds.), Sound Souvenirs: Audio 32 Technologies, Memory and Cultural Practices. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. 33 Katz, M. (2007) The Second Digital Revolution in Music, Music Library Association 34 Meeting. Pittsburgh. 35 Keil, C. and Feld, S. (1996) Music Grooves. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. 36 Lastra, J. (2000) Sound Technology and American Cinema: Perception, Representation, 37 Modernity. New York: Columbia University Press. Lee, B. (2000) Issues Surrounding the Preservation of Digital Music Documents, 38 Archivaria 50: 193–204. 39 LeMahieu, D. L. (1988) A Culture for Democracy: Mass Communication and the 40 Cultivated Mind in Britain between the Wars. New York: Oxford University Press. 41

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1 National Library of Australia (2003) Guidelines for the Preservation of Digital 2 Heritage, UNESCO Information Society Division. 3 Nietzsche, F. W. (1957) The Use and Abuse of History, The Library of Liberal Arts. 2nd rev. edn. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill. 4 Ricoeur, P. (2004) Memory, History, Forgetting. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago 5 Press. 6 Russell, K. (1999) Why Can’t We Preserve Everything? St. Pancras: Cedars Project. 7 Smart, J. R. (1980) Emile Berliner and Nineteenth-Century Disc Recordings. 8 Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress (37)3–4: 422–40. Starrett, B. (2000) Do Compact Discs Degrade?, Roxio Newsletter. Available 9 from: http://www.roxio.com/en/support/discs/dodiscsdegrade.html (accessed 10 December 12, 2005). 11 Sterne, J. (2003) The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction. Durham, NC: 12 Duke University Press. 13 Sterne, J. (2006) The Death and Life of Digital Audio. Interdisciplinary Science Review (31)4: 338–48. 14 Straw, W. (2000) Exhausted Commodities: The Material Culture of Music, 15 Canadian Journal of Communication (25)1: 175–85. 16 Swalwell, M. (2007) The Remembering and the Forgetting of Early Digital Games: 17 From Novelty to Detritus and Back Again. Journal of Visual Culture (6)2: 255–73. 18 Taylor, P. M. (1996). The Case for Preserving Our Contemporary Communications Heritage, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television (16)3: 419–24. 19 Thompson, M. (1979) Rubbish Theory: The Creation and Destruction of Value. New 20 York: Oxford University Press. 21 Van Dijck, J. (2009) Remembering Songs through Telling Stories: Pop Music as a 22 Resource for Memory. In Bijsterveld, K. and van Dijck, J. (eds.), Sound Souvenirs: 23 Audio Technologies, Memory and Cultural Practices. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. 24 Williams, A. (1980) Is Sound Recording Like a Language? Yale French Studies 25 (60)1: 51–66. 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

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1 2 10 3 4 Headphones are the New Walls: 5 6 Music in the Workplace in the 7 8 Digital Age 9 Kathy Newman 10 11 12 13 14 What kind of listening space is an office space? In Mike Judge’s cult clas- 15 sic, Offi ce Space (1999), a lowly worker named Milton Waddam (Stephen 16 Root) is trying to listen to the radio in his shabby cubicle. The film’s 17 handsome anti-hero, Peter (Ron Livingston), is bothered by the sound. 18 19 Peter: Milton? Hi. Uh... Could you turn that down just a little bit? 20 Milton: But I was told that I could listen to the radio at a reasonable 21 volume from 9:00 to 11:00. 22 Peter: Yeah. I know you’re allowed to. I was just thinkin’ maybe like 23 a personal favor, you know. 24 Milton: Well, I-I-I told Bill if Sandra’s going to listen to her headphones 25 while she’s filing, then I should be able to listen to the radio 26 while I’m collating, so I don’t see….ok….why I should have to 27 turn down the radio. Yeah. All right. Ok. I enjoy listening at a 28 reasonable volume...” (Milton turns the radio down) 29 Peter: Thanks Milton. 30 Milton: … from 9:00 to 11:00. 31 32 Offi ce Space, one of the great satires of the modern day workplace, uses 33 humor to highlight the serious annoyances that most workers face every 34 day: egocentric bosses, meaningless memos, rude co-workers, equipment 35 that doesn’t work, and slackers who get promoted. Not everyone goes 36 insane, but, in Offi ce Space, Milton Waddam, with his thick, coke bottle 37 glasses and strange, monotone voice, is the ultimate wounded white- 38 collar worker. He has had his stapler confiscated, his desk moved and his 39 radio turned off so many times he is ready to set the company on fire. 40 But when it comes to being driven mad at the office, Milton’s real 41 life counter parts might not be far behind. Modern-day office workers,

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1 even well-paid managers, are chafing under the latest trends in office 2 management and design: the open plan office. Unexpectedly, one way 3 we can measure their suffering is by assessing the state of music listen- 4 ing in the modern-day workplace. In the now dominant “open plan” 5 workplace, office workers listen to music via headphones, not just 6 because they want to, but, because, in order to maintain their personal 7 space and their sanity, they have to. As one software engineer put it, 8 “Headphones are the new walls” (Tierney 2012). 9 In this chapter I look at the last decade of research on the effects of music 10 at work, as well as the ways in which human resource writers/bloggers 11 and mainstream journalists have used and reported on this research. 12 I argue that while much of the literature seems to be about music, as 13 well as what music-listening practices are best for employees, that most 14 of the findings are more genuinely concerned with what is best for the 15 corporate bottom line. In other words, journalistic accounts of listening 16 to music at work are really about control, or lack thereof, on the part of 17 the modern-day office worker. Questions like, “Is listening to music at 18 work good for workers, psychologically?” And “Is listening to music at 19 work good for workers in terms of increased or improved productivity?” 20 are really questions about how much privacy, autonomy and control are 21 possessed by modern-day workers—including relatively well paid and 22 elite workers on the cutting edge of a new economy. 23 Ultimately, these are questions about power, economy, and class iden- 24 tity. As the economist Michael Zweig has argued, at least 62 percent of 25 Americans can be considered working class on the basis that they lack 26 autonomy, power, and control in the workplace. As more and more 27 knowledge workers are moved to “open plan” workplaces, in which 28 even cubicles are dismantled in favor of an open arrangement of desks 29 and computers without walls or dividers, I am left wondering if now 30 even relatively well-paid professional/managerial workers are losing a 31 crucial share of workplace autonomy, and, possibly, even their class 32 status, in the digital age (Zweig 2011). 33 34 The History of Whistling While You Work 35 36 In the 1990s Marek Korczynski was a professor of sociology at the 37 University of Nottingham with an important book in the field called 38 Social Theory at Work. As a sociologist who was interested in both labor 39 and culture, Korczynski began to notice that very little popular music 40 had lyrics that talked about work – even though most of us spend most 41 of our waking hours on the job. This curiosity spurred him on, and

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1 today Korczynski is both the founder of, as well as the most prolific 2 contributor to, a small but growing field of scholarship that looks at 3 how music and work intersect (Korczynski et al. 2006; Korczynski and 4 Pickering 2013; Korczynski 2014). 5 Korczynski and his colleagues argue that music and work have been 6 intertwined features of human experience for centuries. Korczynski shows 7 that in pre-industrial times work songs were closely associated with a 8 number of kinds of workers, from weavers to farmers, wagon drivers, 9 miners, sailors, peddlers, cobblers and tailors. Korczynski explains that 10 singing helped workers to keep time in the fields, but also at the loom, 11 and even on the bow of a ship. There were two kinds of sea shanties, 12 he explains, “one suited for the hauling of ropes and setting of sails,” 13 and one for working on the ship’s machinery. Each kind of sea shanty 14 had a different rhythm that was matched to a distinct kind of work. 15 Korczynski argues that music and work formed a dialectical bond of 16 what he calls mutual constitution, with the rhythm and pace of one 17 informing the rhythm and pace of the other” (Korczynski 2003). 18 While Korczynski believes that work and music were dialectically 19 related, he leaves open the possibility that there was ambivalence in 20 the meanings made by these pre-industrial works songs. Were these 21 songs of consolation, or songs of recognition? Did they help to ease 22 the burden of work, or did they connect workers to a deeper conscious- 23 ness of their labor? Perhaps, Korczynski suggests, work songs blended 24 work and play in a way that “did not treat them as binary opposites.” 25 Perhaps these work songs helped those who sang them to create a “map 26 of their world” which “allowed a melodious transport from the mate- 27 rial demands of labour while at the same time acknowledging these 28 demands.” As Korczynski sees it, work and play were more integrated 29 during this time period, and there was “pleasure within and through 30 hardship” (Korczynski 2003). 31 At the same time, this dialectal relationship between work and play 32 was relatively fleeting, because, as Korczynski argues, leisure and work 33 were forced to endure a “big split” under industrial capitalism, for two 34 reasons. The first was the urbanization and proletarianization of previ- 35 ously rural workers, as the ways in which the pace of labor was now 36 more often determined by machines and managers than the rhythm 37 of a song. Singing, whistling and talking soon became offenses punish- 38 able by fines or worse. Under the dictates of the efficiency dogma that 39 became known as Taylorism, there was the “increasing repression of … 40 singing, drinking or chatting on the job.” The split between work and 41 play became part of the common sense of the era, as Teddy Roosevelt

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1 opined, “When you play, play hard. When you work, don’t play at all.” 2 But as the century progressed Marxist critics like Theodor Adorno lam- 3 basted such ideas, arguing that, “Work while you work, play while you 4 play – this is a basic rule of repressive self-discipline” (Korczynski 2003; 5 Adorno 2005). 6 Korczynski argues that the second aspect of industrialization that 7 divided music from its connection to work was the commodification of 8 music. From the player piano, to sheet music for sale, to the gramo- 9 phone, and the radio, music increasingly became something workers 10 bought rather than something workers made for themselves. While 11 much research has been done in cultural studies and cultural history to 12 show that working-class cultural producers were integrated into the mar- 13 ket during this period, as performers, songwriters, inventors and entre- 14 preneurs, it is certainly true that the commodification of music eroded, 15 if not eliminated, centuries of organically produced folk song traditions. 16 At the same time, there is much evidence to suggest that the 17 20th-century workplace was not entirely devoid of music. Granted – it 18 was rarely music made by the workers themselves, but, increasingly 19 in both Britain and the US, factory managers piped in radio programs 20 designed specifically for the tastes of factory workers. In the US the infa- 21 mous company Muzak, which was established in 1934, began charging 22 companies for the right to pipe in Muzak’s own special brand of easy 23 listening – pop songs that were rearranged, without vocals, and heavy 24 on the strings. “Only sanitized instrumental arrangements were used, 25 because the absence of lyrics made the music less likely to intrude upon 26 conscious thought” (Owen, 2006). 27 In England the BBC produced a radio show, Music While You Work, 28 which was broadcast three times a day and which featured “light” music, 29 dance music, etc. According to industrial research from the period, the 30 music was not supposed to provide workers with a rhythm by which 31 they could pace their work. Rather, the music was supposed to function 32 “as a means of creating a spirit of cheerfulness and gaiety.” Music While 33 You Work was supposed to relieve workers, especially women who were 34 entering into factory labor as never before, from the monotony and 35 boredom of the factory’s “repetitive tasks.” But the workers were not 36 supposed to be too interested in the music that played while they work. 37 “In 1942, the song ‘Deep in the Heart of Texas’ was banned from the 38 program because it contained a participatory handclapping section that 39 tempted laborers to stop work and join in” (Le Roux 2005). 40 In the 1930s and 1940s there was also a rise in labor union cho- 41 ruses. Unions like the ILGWU used worker choruses for new member

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1 recruitment, member entertainment, and member education. An hour- 2 long song cycle called My Name is Mary Brown, written in the late 1940s 3 by the Northeast choir directors of the ILGWU, was used to accompany 4 a slide show and later an animated short. The song cycle retained a 5 radicalism we don’t normally associate with the 1950s, including a song 6 called “This is a Strike.” Ironically, perhaps, the ILGWU chorus members 7 sang just about everywhere EXCEPT the factory floor. The Eastern PA 8 chorus performed all over the region, at “ethnic and civic clubs, churches, 9 political events … garment factory parties, hospitals, and community 10 agencies” (Wolensky et al. 2002). 11 In the first half of the twentieth century most of the management 12 literature about music in the workplace was focused on working-class 13 men and women – workers who labored in fields and in factories. 14 A famous study was performed in 1972 that found that upbeat, happy 15 music helped factory workers to work more efficiently by boosting their 16 overall mood. But gradually the question began to shift to white-collar 17 workplaces, as human resource managers wanted to know: is playing 18 background music good for office workers? (Fox and Embrey 1972). 19 20 The Justin Bieber Effect 21 22 In the fall of 2014 a group of researchers in England conducted a study 23 that showed that pop music in general, and Justin Bieber in particular, 24 boosted work performance – particularly processing speed – for workers 25 performing a range of repetitive office tasks. “Listening to Jessie J or 26 Justin Bieber could also improve your speed, with 58 percent of partici- 27 pants completing data entry tasks faster while listening to pop songs.” 28 Surprisingly, perhaps, the study also found that “dance music, such 29 as David Guetta,” improved the workers’ proofreading/spell-checking 30 speed. Journalists of all stripes went nuts for this story, telling their read- 31 ers/viewers that if they listened to Justin Bieber they could “improve 32 their careers,” which is not exactly what the study promised. But the 33 study did show that office workers performed more quickly, and, even 34 more accurately, with “Baby, Baby” playing in the background. “The 35 increase in levels of productivity when music is playing is striking,” 36 said Paul Clements, Director of Public Performance Sales, PRS for Music 37 (Zolfagharifard 2014). 38 Of course Public Performance Sales is the company that commissioned 39 the study – and it is a company that sells background music services 40 to workplaces. But Mindlab International, which conducted the study, 41 stands by its research. The 21st century thus far has been a golden

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1 age for “effects of music” research. Studies have shown that music can 2 improve cardiovascular functioning, help cancer patients to feel more 3 hopeful, bring about “positive emotions,” and even “stimulate move- 4 ment” in stroke patients. Music lessons for young people can improve 5 their verbal memory and improve their ability to process sound as they 6 age. In some cases even listening to particular composers, such as 7 Vivaldi, can make listeners more alert and improve their verbal fluency 8 (Morreale 2013). 9 And, according to dozens of additional studies (and not just those 10 bankrolled by music companies), music is also good for us when we 11 work. Music, the studies show, makes us feel happier, and, when we feel 12 happier we are more productive. Music can also calm us while we work, 13 or, more precisely, “lower our perception of tension.” Finally, music, 14 and, especially music we like, can increase our dopamine flow, which, 15 according to one researcher, improves our ability to focus (Lesiuk 2005). 16 Some of these studies claim that one kind of music in particular is 17 best for listening to while working. Classical music has been frequently 18 highlighted as a productivity booster. A famous study on Mozart and 19 task work, now called “The Mozart Effect,” found that children and the 20 elderly performed tasks better when they listened to Mozart, but the 21 study’s findings have been difficult to duplicate. Another study found 22 that radiologists performed better and faster when Baroque music was 23 piped into their offices while on the job. Ironically, perhaps, this study 24 was motivated by an attempt to look at “environmental factors” that 25 could improve the work environment, “given the increased workload 26 of today’s radiologists.” In other words, while hospitals could have 27 chosen to relieve the burden of overwork on their radiologists, instead, 28 Baroque music was seen as a more cost effective solution to the problem 29 (American Roentgen Ray Society 2009; Rauscher et al. 1993).1 30 In some cases the benefits of music are more subtle. One 1993 study 31 showed that workers listening to music in a major key reported higher 32 levels of satisfaction than workers listening to music in a minor key. 33 Other studies have shown that “familiar” music is the best music to 34 stimulate a worker’s intense focus on the job, while, at the same time, 35 other studies show that music with lyrics can be distracting, especially 36 when it comes to retaining or learning new information (Blood and 37 Ferris 1993; Ciotti 2014). 38 But for whom is music in the workplace most beneficial? Most 39 researchers argue that music in the workplace is a boon for work- 40 place efficiency, as opposed to (simply) a boon for the workers them- 41 selves. As Dr. David Lewis, chairman of Mindlab International, which

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1 conducted the 2014 study, explained: “Music is an incredibly power- 2 ful management tool in increasing the efficiency of a workforce…. 3 It can exert a highly beneficial influence over employee morale and 4 motivation, helping enhance output and even boosting a company’s 5 bottom line.” So where does the benefit of music lie? Is music good for 6 boosting our mood? Or is it good for boosting the boss’s bottom line? 7 (Flanagan 2014). 8 There is some alternative research that suggests that listening to music 9 at work can be harmful to employee efficiency. Researchers in Cardiff, 10 England found that study participants who were asked to memorize 11 a list of letters of the alphabet in a particular order performed worse 12 at this task if they were listening to music. The authors of the study, 13 Perham and Vizard, argued that the implications of the study might be 14 greatest for students, who are trying to learn steps in a math problem 15 or trying to memorize elements in the periodic table. Other similar 16 research shows that music at work can be more distracting for introverts 17 (Perham and Vizard 2011). 18 There is one kind of music in the workplace that everyone agrees is 19 terrible: co-workers singing out loud. Countless online forums, chat 20 rooms and discussion sites relay tales of co-workers who sing – as well 21 as burp, fart, sigh, tap, sneeze and eat – in a loud, annoying way. One 22 writer complained about a female co-worker who talked loudly on the 23 phone, and worse. “If she’s not on the phone, she’s always talking 24 loudly with other coworkers. If she isn’t playing with her coworkers, she 25 sings out loud by herself. She even dances from time to time.” Another 26 writer’s co-worker actually whistles at work: “[m]y co-worker is a great 27 whistler (can’t take that away from him), but he must think it’s his job 28 to entertain the masses because his booming singing voice (vibrato 29 and all) and his loud whistling is a karaoke audience’s dream … and 30 co-worker’s nightmare (Yelp conversation 2015; Green 2011). 31 In the end, most of the research on music in the workplace suggests 32 that when workers have the power to choose what they listen to they 33 are more satisfied, and, indeed, at times, more productive. Music that 34 workers do not choose for themselves, such as company provided 35 soundtracks, or the singing of annoying office mates, produce employee 36 dissatisfaction, and even rancor. One of the leading researchers on 37 music at work in the present day, Anneli Haake, agrees with this find- 38 ing: “The key is control … When people choose to listen there can be 39 positive effects – it can be relaxing and help manage other distractions 40 such as noise. But when it’s imposed, they can find it annoying and 41 stressful,” she says (Haake 2011).

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1 iPod, Therefore I Am 2 3 Sound theorist and cultural studies scholar Michael Bull has argued 4 that the iPod, the most ubiquitous of the personal listening devices 5 (PLD), has given office workers greater control and autonomy on the 6 job. Using questionnaires returned to him from a variety of newspapers, 7 including The Guardian and The New York Times, Bull found that iPods 8 improved both the mood and productivity of their owners. iPod wrote 9 about how they used their iPods to keep distractions to a minimum – 10 as their iPod headphones became a kind of “do not disturb” sign for 11 busybody co-workers (Bull 2010). 12 Bull argues that while smart phones connect us to the world, our 13 iPods connect us to ourselves. As one iPod user in Bull’s study explained, 14 “I feel almost cut off from society if I don’t have my mobile, whereas 15 I feel like I’m cut off from a part of myself if I don’t have my iPod.” 16 Another user claimed to feel an “unprecedented level of emotion con- 17 trol” while using the iPod. Another user went so far as to claim that the 18 iPod “keeps me from feeling oppressed by being constantly surrounded 19 by other human beings.” This is a pretty astonishing claim: how many 20 devices can claim to liberate us from oppression? (Bull 2010). 21 Ironically, perhaps, while many employers accept the idea that it is 22 good for their workers to listen to music of their own choosing, employ- 23 ers do not like the iPod. The most commonly cited employer concern 24 about the iPod is safety. There are thousands of articles and reports, 25 including company policy statements and human resource newsletters, 26 which raise concerns about iPods and worker safety. One such article sug- 27 gested that listening to an iPod at 50 percent of its total volume is safe on 28 the job. However, if the work environment itself is noisy, exceeding 85 dB 29 (equivalent to the sound of city traffic from inside your car), “then the 30 worker is required to protect their hearing, and they’d be causing hearing 31 loss if they substituted protection for another sound source” (Main 2011). 32 The second biggest employer concern when it comes to iPods is about 33 how employees respond (or do not respond) to others when they are 34 wearing headphones. Employers frequently make complaints like this 35 one: “I find it very frustrating when you approach an employee’s desk 36 and because they are listening to the iPod, they don’t even know that 37 you are standing there.” Ironically, perhaps, other workers, even those 38 in non-supervisory roles, have also been known to express disdain for 39 their co-workers who use iPods. One office worker commented that 40 every worker should forego the iPod and “do an honest day of work 41 and be proud of it.” Another commented: “If you are paying people to

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1 work they should not use their iPod on work time. We work, then play.” 2 This comment echoes the “work while you work” and “play while you 3 play” dicta that Adorno called “a basic rule of repressive self-discipline” 4 (Bruce 2008; Adorno 2005). 5 While employers often complain about PDLs and headphones, office 6 workers defend them vigorously, as one human resource consultant 7 found when he asked commenters to weigh in. The pro-iPod contingent 8 argued that such devices were crucial to their mental health. One office 9 worker suggested that if someone took his company’s iPod privileges, 10 that someone “[m]ay as well send the little men in white coats, because 11 I am off to the funny farm.” Another worker claimed that, “radio has 12 saved my sanity.” Another worker claimed that the iPod was best for the 13 safety of her co-workers: “If I were not able to listen to classical music at 14 work I would probably kill some of my co-workers. They are constantly 15 talking about their personal lives, which I am not interested in. I use the 16 iPod to block them out” (Bruce 2008). 17 Much of the writing on the pros and cons of iPods at work represents 18 the fight as a generational one. “Digital natives,” especially workers born 19 the decade before the new millennium, argued Pew Research Center’s 20 Lee Rainey in 2006, have grown up with technology and not only want 21 to work with multiple inputs and stimuli – including music – they 22 expect to. Rainey gives the example of a father/son pair who symbolize 23 the difference between digital natives and old fogeys: David Cintz, 22, 24 who attended Cal State, and his father who worked for Hewlett Packard, 25 each has his own level of comfort with technology. The 22-year-old 26 explained the differences between himself and his dad. “He can kick 27 my butt on programming, but I’m the one who works all the time with 28 two monitors on, listening to an i nternet radio station, with multiple 29 IM screens on, or having online phone conversations simultaneously,” 30 notes the younger Cintz. “I’m the one living in the digital world, 31 plugged into more devices. For him, it’s work. For me, it’s lifestyle” 32 (Raine 2006). 33 34 “We Need More Walls, Not Fewer” 35 36 Ironically, perhaps, even some digital natives are chafing under the 37 strain of the most dominant office trend since the Great Recession of 38 2008: the open plan office. This trend involves dismantling the much 39 hated cubicle walls, and replacing them with rows upon rows of open 40 desks and monitors, so that every workplace looks like a stock fund trad- 41 ing floor – and is about as loud, as well. While many human resource

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1 managers are still skeptical about the iPod, over the last ten years, as the 2 “open plan” office has become both trendy and cost-effective, employ- 3 ers have been increasingly permissive about headphones in the work- 4 place. Because, indeed, for many workers, headphones now constitute 5 the only privacy they have. 6 Take this widely publicized Washington Post article titled: “Google Got 7 it Wrong: How the Open Office Is Destroying the Workplace.” In this 8 piece Lindsey Kaufman, a senior ad writer who once had a private office, 9 wrote how she felt downgraded and humiliated when her advertising 10 firm moved to an open plan office in Tribeca and she was forced to work 11 at a long desk surrounded by at least a dozen other people. After endur- 12 ing her first day of a co-worker she described as an “air horn,” as well 13 as the constant noise of background music, co-workers talking, laugh- 14 ing, and yelling, she barely made it until quitting time: “At day’s end, 15 I bid adieu to the 12 pairs of eyes I felt judging my 5:04 p.m. departure 16 time. I beelined to the Beats store to purchase their best noise-cancelling 17 headphones in an unmistakably visible neon blue.” She ended her 18 screed against the open office with a plea for “more walls, not fewer” 19 (Kaufman 2014). 20 The open plan office is likely here to stay. As Lindsay Kaufman pointed 21 out, a report by the International Facility Management Association 22 found that more than 70 percent of companies now use an open office 23 layout for their employees. Open office plans have been implemented at 24 tech giants like Apple and Google, but even some hospitals and schools 25 are moving towards the redesign. Facebook recently bought a 56-acre 26 office park for $400 million, and has widely publicized the fact that 27 Frank Gehry has designed its new headquarters, which includes a single 28 room that is supposed to house 2,800 engineers, set to be finished in 29 2016, as well as a space for 2,000 Facebook employees in Seattle. And, 30 if open offices have allowed companies to shrink their square footage 31 overall, the open office trend has been a boon for office furniture and 32 design sales. A recent defender of the open office plan, Blake Zalcberg, 33 who wrote “It’s Time to Stop the War against the Open Office Plan” 34 in The Hufﬁ ngton Post, is the CEO of an office and school furniture 35 manufacturer (Bishop 2015; Zalcberg 2015). 36 As workplace historians have noted, the open office trend is an old 37 trend that has been made new. The white-collar offices of the early 20th 38 century were also made up of many individuals desks arranged in large, 39 open rooms. Most consider the first modern office space to be Frank 40 Lloyd Wright’s Larkin Administration building for Larkin soap, which 41 was built in 1905 when Wright was only 35 years old. It included a large

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1 atrium of open floor space with desks and people crammed together, 2 surrounded by six stories of inner walls and a skylight. Worker silence 3 was expected and aphorisms were carved into the walls such as, “Honest 4 labor needs no master” (BBC 2013). 5 While Facebook is moving forward with its plans for the largest open 6 office in the world, for the last year most business journalists have 7 lambasted the open office plan as the enemy of worker morale and pro- 8 ductivity. Dozens of articles have been written attacking the open plan 9 office, with headlines like, “Why the Open Office Plan Needs to Die” 10 (Forbes), “Open-Plan Offices Can Be Bad for your Health (The Guardian), 11 and “The Open Office Trap” (The New Yorker). Why are open offices 12 under attack? As white-collar workers have moved from individual 13 offices, to cubicles, to the open office, they have lost hundreds of square 14 feet of personal space. One expert claims that in the 1970s employers 15 budgeted 500–700 square feet per employee, usually in the form of an 16 individual office. The decline since the 1970s has been precipitous; 17 according to Corenet Global, in 2010 the typical employee had 225 18 square feet of personal space, while in 2013 it was estimated to have 19 shrunk to 150 square feet (Vincent 2010). 20 Open offices are supposed to increase communication between 21 employees and make collaboration more effortless. Ironically, however, 22 as employees have been turning to iPods and headphones as a way of 23 coping with their loss of personal space, the communication flow in 24 the open office is even worse than communication during the cubicle 25 era. One worker explains that, “as a creative person I love to collaborate 26 but I love solitude equally as much because distractions for me are very 27 counter productive.” Another worker complains about the “curse” of 28 the headphones: “Because everyone is trying to focus and crank out 29 their work in peace, we have become long rows of people wearing head- 30 phones all day – the exact opposite of the vibrant, collaborative space 31 the open-office layout was meant to promote (Fast Company Staff 2013). 32 When I surveyed what human resource managers thought about head- 33 phones and iPods, it looked on the surface like a fight between employ- 34 ers, who wanted to ban iPods, and employees, who begged for them. 35 But the open plan office has shifted the terrain of struggle. As Lindsay 36 Kaufman’s story suggests, most employers would be happy to let their 37 workers spend $169.99 on a pair of Beats headphones rather than invest 38 in cubicle walls, or, even more costly, walls made of wood and plaster. 39 There are some companies that have nearly abandoned the office 40 concept all together. How many workers are expected to set up shop 41 in Starbucks, or in their own homes, and at what cost? What are

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1 companies saving as they no longer have to install landlines, telephone 2 systems, and receptionists? What costs are workers picking up the new 3 economy? And, most importantly, how much control have white-collar 4 workers ceded in the process? 5 6 The End of the Professional Managerial Class? 7 8 When I started this project I thought I was merely investigating the 9 latest research about the benefits of music in the workplace. I thought 10 of myself as trying to extend the wonderful work of Marek Korczynski 11 and his colleagues, to show how music and work were intertwined in 12 the white-collar office of the present day. But I quickly discovered that 13 the subject of music and work led me to something else: the subject 14 of power and class. As one modern-day worker complained to the Fast 15 Company staff: “[The open office] was designed by psychopathic sadistic 16 elitists that have their own office (Fast Company Staff 2013). 17 Psychotic, sadistic elitists. That’s certainly one way to define the capital- 18 ist class. How do we define other class groupings in the United States? If 19 we ask economist Michael Zweig, he will tell us that the working class 20 is defined by its lack of autonomy and power. In his book The Working 21 Class Majority, Zweig argues that when we use the variables of power 22 and autonomy, as opposed to salary or lifestyle, we will see that the 23 majority of Americans – those who work as white-collar bank tellers, 24 call-center workers, and cashiers; blue-collar machinists, construction 25 workers, and assembly-line workers; pink-collar secretaries, nurses, and 26 home-health-care workers – skilled and unskilled – are working class. 27 Zweig argues that increasingly we should add university adjuncts, low- 28 paid public defenders, teachers who are forced to use scripted curricula, 29 and even doctors that serve low-income communities to the ranks of 30 the working class (Barron 2015). 31 If we use the variables of power and autonomy, where do white-collar 32 workers who have been forced to work in open plan offices fit into our 33 class categories? Surely Lisa Kaufman, the senior copywriter who wrote 34 about her open plan office, is not working class? And what about Dafna 35 Sarnoff, an American Express VP who recently went to work at a smaller 36 tech and marketing company called Yodle? After years with nice perks 37 and even nicer offices, she wondered if she would be given an office 38 when she got to Yodle, and, indeed, she was not. Is it fair to ask: has 39 Dafna Sarnoff experienced downward mobility? (Barron 2015). 40 While it might be too extreme to argue that white-collar workers in 41 an open plan office are working class, it is crucial that we look at what

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1 kinds of power and autonomy workers have forfeited since the 2008 2 recession. Ironically, perhaps, it is the workers who are most central to 3 the new economy – technology and information workers – who are most 4 likely to be working under the panoptic glare of the open-plan office. 5 Though these workers were once safe inside their own offices with walls 6 and doors, or, for a time, out of view behind a cubicle, today the typi- 7 cal white-collar worker, even those who make six figures, are forced to 8 create more metaphorical space between themselves and their nattering, 9 farting, burping, yelling coughing, sneezing, eating, slurping co-workers. 10 To create this virtual space they need high-end noise-cancelling head- 11 phones – which they have to buy for themselves. What workers are lis- 12 tening to on those headphones suddenly seems far less important than 13 the fact that those headphones have become their only shield – their 14 only source of a privacy in a corporate culture gone nearly mad. 15 16 Note 17 18 1. The “Mozart effect,” a term coined by French researcher Alfred Tomatis in his 19 1991 book Pourquoi Mozart? was popularized further by a study published in Nature in 1993. 20 21 22 Bibliography 23 Adorno, T. W. (2005) Minima Moralia: Reﬂ ections on a Damaged Life. New York: 24 Verso. 25 American Roentgen Ray Society (2009) Baroque classical music in the reading room 26 may improve mood and productivity. Science Daily, 26 April. Available from: 27 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090423132615.htm (accessed 3 28 March 2015). Barron, J. T. (2015) As office space shrinks, so does privacy for workers. The New York 29 Times, 22 February. Available from: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/23/ 30 nyregion/as-office-space-shrinks-so-does-privacy-for-workers.html?_r=0 31 (accessed 17 March 2015). 32 BBC (2013) The decline of privacy in open plan offices. The BBC Online, 30 July. 33 Available from: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23502251 (accessed 13 March 2015). 34 Bishop, T. (2015) Facebook confirms big Seattle office lease, space to be 35 designed by Frank Gehry, with room for 2,000 people. GeekWire, 18 February. 36 Available from: http://www.geekwire.com/2015/facebook-confirms-big- 37 new-seattle-office-lease-space-will-be-designed-by-frank-gehryhttp://www. 38 geekwire.com/2015/facebook-confirms-big-new-seattle-office-lease-space-will- be-designed-by-frank-gehry/ (accessed 12 March 2015). 39 Blood, D. J. and Ferris, S. J. (1993) Effects of background music on anxiety, satis- 40 faction with communication, and productivity. Psychological Reports, February, 41 72(1): 171–7.

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1 Bruce, S. (2008) Readers strongly reject ‘no ipods at work’ rule. HR Daily Advisor, 4 2 April. Available from: http://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/2008/04/04/readers-strongly- 3 reject-no-ipods-at-work-rule/ (accessed 12 March 2015). Bull, M. (2007) Sound Moves: iPod Culture and Urban Experience. London: Routledge. 4 Bull, M. (2010) iPod: a personalized sound world for its consumers. Revista 5 Communicar, 17 (34): 55–63. 6 Burns, J. L., Labbe, E., Arke, B., Capeless, K., Cooksey, B. and Steadman, A. (2002) 7 The effects of different types of music on perceived and physiological measures 8 of stress. Journal of Music Therapy, 39 (2): 101–16. Ciotti, G. (2014) How music affects your productivity. Fast Company, 11 July. 9 Available from: http://www.fastcompany.com/3032868/work-smart/how- 10 music-affects-your-productivity (accessed 12 March 2015). 11 CoreNet (2013) CoreNet: office space per worker shrinks to 150 sf. CoreNet Global, 12 6 August. Available from: https://www.google.com/search?q=Office+Space+ 13 Per+Worker+Shrinks+To+150+SF&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 (accessed 17 March 2015). Fast Company Staff (2013) The 10 worst things about working in an open-office – 14 in your words. Fast Company, 2 December. Available from: http://www. 15 fastcompany.com/3022456/dialed/the-10-worst-things-about-working-in-an- 16 open-office-in-your-words (accessed 17 March 2015). 17 Flanagan, J. (2014) Listening to background music can boost productivity. Real 18 Business, 22 October. Available from: http://realbusiness.co.uk/article/28191- listening-to-background-music-can-boost-productivity (accessed 17 March 19 2015). 20 Fox, J. G. and Embrey, E. D. (1972) Music – an aid to productivity. Applied 21 Ergonomics, 3 (4): 202–5. 22 Green, A. (2011) Dealing with annoying co-workers. Ask a Manager Blog, 26 April. 23 Available from: http://www.askamanager.org/2011/04/dealing-with-annoying- coworkers.html (accessed 2 March 2015). 24 Haake, A. B. (2011) Individual music listening in workplace settings: an 25 exploratory survey of offices in the UK. Musicae Scientiae, 15 (1): 107–29. 26 Jenkins, J. S. (2001) The Mozart effect. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 27 94 (4): 170–2. 28 Kaufman, L. (2014) Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace. The Washington Post, 30 December. Available from: http://www. 29 washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/30/google-got-it-wrong- 30 the-open-office-trend-is-destroying-the-workplace/ (accessed 7 March 2015). 31 Korczynski, M. (2003) Music at work: towards a historical overview. Folk Music 32 Journal, 8 (3): 14–34. 33 Korczynski, M. (2014) Songs of the Factory: Pop Music, Culture, and Resistance. Ithaca, NY: IRL Press. 34 Korczynski, M. and Pickering, M. (2013) Rhythms of Labour: Music at Work in 35 Britain. New York: Cambridge University Press. 36 Korczynski, M., Hodson, R. and Edwards, P. K. (2006) Social Theory at Work. New 37 York: Oxford University Press. 38 Le Roux, G. M. (2005) ‘Whistle while you work’: a historical account of some associations among music, work and health. The American Journal of Public 39 Health. 95 (7): 1106–9. 40 Lesiuk, T. (2005) The effect of music listening on work performance. Psychology 41 of Music, 33 (2): 173–91.

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1 Main, S. (2011) Are iPods safe at work? Speaking of Safety blog, 4 January. 2 Available from: http://www.speakingofsafety.ca/2011/01/04/are-ipods-safe-at- 3 work/ (accessed 5 March 2015). Morreale, M. (2013) Scientific proof that music is good for you. CBC Music, 4 Classical. 19 November. Available from: http://music.cbc.ca/#!/genres/Classical/ 5 blogs/2013/11/Scientific-proof-that-music-is-good-for-you (accessed 21 February 6 2015). 7 Ofﬁ ce space (1999) Directed by Mike Judge, Twentieth Century Fox. Los Angeles. 8 Owen, D. (2006) The soundtrack of your life: Muzak in the realm of retail theatre. The New Yorker. 10 April. Available from: http://www.newyorker.com/ 9 magazine/2006/04/10/the-soundtrack-of-your-life (accessed 5 March 2015). 10 Perham, N. and Vizard, J. (2011) Can preference for background music mediate 11 the irrelevant sound effect? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24 (4): 625–31. 12 Raine, L. (2006) New workers, new workplaces: digital ‘natives’ invade the 13 workplace. Pew Research Center, 28 September. Rauscher, F. H., Shaw, G. L. and Ky, C. N. (1993) Music and spatial task 14 performance. Nature 365, 14 October, p. 611. 15 Tierney, J. (2012) From cubicles: cry for quiet pierces office buzz. The New 16 York Times. 19 May. Available from: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/ 17 science/when-buzz-at-your-cubicle-is-too-loud-for-work.html?pagewanted=all 18 (accessed 11 March 2015). Vincent, R. (2010) Office walls are closing in on corporate workers. The Los 19 Angeles Times, 15 December. Available from: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/ 20 dec/15/business/la-fi-office-space-20101215 (accessed 17 March 2015). 21 Wolensky, K. C., Wolensky, N. H. and Wolensky, R. P. (2002) Fighting for the Union 22 Label: The Women’s Garment Industry and the ILGWU in Pennsylvania. Penn 23 State: Penn State Press. Yelp conversation (2015) Annoying habits of co-workers. Available from: http:// 24 www.yelp.com/topic/san-francisco-annoying-habits-of-coworkers (accessed 1 25 March 2015). 26 Zalcberg, B. (2015) It’s time to stop the war against the open office. The Hufﬁ ngton 27 Post, 3 February. Available from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blake- 28 zalcberg/its-time-to-stop-the-war-_b_6598222.html (accessed 13 March 2015). Zolfagharifard, E. (2014) Could listening to Justin Bieber be good for your 29 CAREER? Pop music in the office speeds up work, study claims. The Daily Mail 30 Online, 21 October. Available from: http://tuneage.com/post/100762083547/ 31 pop-music-productivity (accessed 3 March 2015). 32 Zweig, M. (2011) The Working Class Majority: America’s Best Kept Secret. Ithaca, 33 NY: ILR Press. 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

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1 2 11 3 4 Researching the Mobile Phone 5 6 Ringtone: Towards and Beyond 7 8 The Ringtone Dialectic 9 Sumanth Gopinath 10 11 12 13 14 It is a somewhat perverse exercise to write a large book about a very 15 small thing. In The Ringtone Dialectic, I did just that: I investigated the 16 cellphone ringtone, the 30-second or shorter sound (typically, a musical 17 one) that alerts you to an incoming call on your phone (Gopinath, 2013, 18 hereafter RD). The ringtone, however, not only acts as a functional sig- 19 nal but also allows you to customize that signal, permitting you to dis- 20 play your musical taste (or clever irony) to passers-by, to provide a little 21 musical or sonic “treat” to yourself to compensate for the fact that you’re 22 perpetually available to your social and employment network (Licoppe, 23 2008), or to simply differentiate your cellphone from other cellphones 24 crowding the soundscape that you inhabit. As a popular commodity, 25 however, the ringtone collectively became something much bigger than 26 its miniscule constituent components. Common on mobile phones start- 27 ing in the late 1990s, the customization of ringtones became a novelty 28 fad popular among children and teenagers (among others), and once 29 firms got into the business of selling versions of popular songs the 30 ringtone ballooned into a multibillion dollar industry – at one point 31 allegedly providing as much as 10 percent of total global music industry 32 revenue (roughly $3 billion out of $32 billion in 2003). The ringtone 33 is, of course, yesterday’s news: it began attracting significant attention 34 in Europe and East Asia in the late 1990s and in the US by the early 35 2000s, and by the second decade of the new millennium it was said to 36 be “dead” (Anonymous, 2010; RD, pp. xiii–xiv, 3). Today, ringtones pro- 37 vide relatively little income to firms still trying to sell them: by the end 38 of 2012, all ringtones, ringback tones, and other mobile music products 39 (including music videos, full-length digital audio downloads, and other 40 music products purchased through phone-specific portals) amounted 41 to $166.9 million, down more than 80 percent from its peak of nearly

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1 $1 billion in 2008 in the US, and the decline appears to be continuing 2 apace (Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), 2013).1 By 3 the time I began studying the ringtone in 2004 it had yet to peak as an 4 economic and cultural phenomenon; by the time the book was pub- 5 lished in the fall of 2013, the ringtone was a residual phenomenon, long 6 replaced by the app economy that is now inextricable from everyday 7 smartphone and tablet computer use worldwide. 8 The task of scholarship, however, should not necessarily be merely 9 to follow and dissect popular trends – certainly not exclusively, at any 10 rate. Rather, it should illuminate both the unfamiliar and the exceed- 11 ingly familiar; it should aim to explain history not only as it actually was 12 (“wie es eigentlich gewesen” in the 19th-century German historian Leopold 13 Ranke’s famous and problematic dictum2) and attempt to bring it to life 14 (“to make the stone stony,” in Russian formalist critic Viktor Shklovsky’s 15 words3); it should also recognize that facts are never mere facts, but 16 always exist within a conceptual framework, whether explicitly articu- 17 lated or implicitly present. As a now-outdated fad, the ringtone is, like 18 all recently outmoded fashion items, “the most radical anti-aphrodisiac 19 imaginable,” in the words of the Marxist critic Walter Benjamin (1999, p. 20 64; RD, p. 49). The ringtone’s very condition is one of uncool – or, better, 21 of forgettable unimportance – and this allows us, I think, a certain dis- 22 tance from which we might attempt to understand what it actually was 23 and how we might conceptualize it. Now unviable as an economic entity, 24 the ringtone arguably becomes far more viable as an object of historical 25 and cultural inquiry.4 In what follows, I’ll provide a brief description of 26 how I came to research the ringtone and ringtone industry, of the facts 27 that characterize the ringtone and its industry, of my conceptual frame- 28 work for interpreting those facts (which involves a blend of different 29 forms of Marxist cultural, economic, and political theory), and of some 30 of the more surprising findings that resulted from the course of my study. 31 While in graduate school in music theory at Yale University, I partici- 32 pated in a research group led by the Marxist cultural studies scholar 33 Michael Denning; the group, called The Working Group on Culture 34 and Globalization, chose its research projects collaboratively from year 35 to year, and for its first year (fall 2003–spring 2004) we decided that 36 we should undertake a collective project on the cultural dimensions of 37 the “commodity chain” of a single commodity – in other words, look- 38 ing at the commodity in terms of its entire lifespan, from resource 39 extraction to various stages of production to distribution (transport and 40 warehousing) to marketing and sales and finally disposal (Hopkins and 41 Wallerstein, 1977; Gereffi and Korzeniewicz, 1994; Bair, 2009). We had

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1 not decided upon the commodity to investigate, however, and sometime 2 in the spring of 2004 I found myself sitting alone in a computer lab try- 3 ing to think of a commodity particularly worthy of examination, when 4 two undergraduate students walked in, a young woman and a young 5 man. The woman’s cellphone rang with a familiar tune that I couldn’t 6 place and that sounded like the following example.5 (See Figure 11.1.) 7 The man said, “Nice ringtone.” She replied, “Do you know what it is?” 8 He answered, “Yeah, it’s the ‘Cantina Band’ from Star Wars.” I saw that 9 they were flirting over her cellphone’s ringtone – a word I hadn’t even 10 heard before – and I realized that this was a significant social phenom- 11 enon, that the cellphone could be our group’s commodity, and that for 12 my contribution I would study the ringtone. We ended up giving a group 13 panel presentation of several short, 10-minute papers, which we gave 14 at the Cultural Studies Association conference in Boston in early May 15 of that year. The panel was very well received, and later that summer 16 I wrote a long essay on ringtones that I published in First Monday in 17 2005 and that became the basis of the book (Gopinath, 2005). 18 The primary argument of that essay and the book focuses on a simple 19 factual transformation in the ringtone’s very structure. All ringtones 20 are digital files of some kind, but the content of those files has varied 21 quite drastically since the inauguration of the customizable ringtone in 22 the late 1990s. Early ringtones were very simple: they played a single 23 melodic line, performed by a rather primitive synthesizer. This type 24 of ringtone is called a monophonic ringtone – and monophonic here is 25 much more literal than in its music-theoretical sense, in that it means 26 that only a single sound (rather than a single line or melody) may be 27 produced at any one time. Within a few years, phones began to play 28 more complex synthesizer files, in which more than one sound could 29 be produced at the same time; instead of a single beeping melody or 30 sound effect, phones could present synthesized arrangements of whole 31 bands or other musical ensembles, much in the way that many digital 32 keyboard synthesizers or software programs can do. This type of ring- 33 tone is called a polyphonic ringtone. By the early to mid-2000s, higher- 34 end phones were using digital sound files. Initially these were very 35 low-grade files, but in their structure they were essentially the same 36 37 38 39 40 41 Figure 11.1 Mystery ringtone, spring 2004, Yale University

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1 as the widely available MP3 files that are currently the most common 2 media format for listening to recorded music. Today, the only thing that 3 distinguishes any MP3 (or comparable file) from a ringtone is where it 4 is located within a mobile phone’s file directory and the fact that some 5 phones still do not allow ringtones to be longer than 30 or 40 seconds. 6 (Some phones require that ringtones receive a separate file format 7 extension – such as .m4r on the iPhone, a renaming of the standard 8 .m4a for AAC digital files.) 9 This simple series of changes had enormous consequences for the 10 ringtone industry’s development. Chief among these were economic. 11 When the ringtone was a monophonic or polyphonic synthesizer-file 12 adaptation of a pre-existing musical selection, which was by far the 13 most common type of ringtone (as opposed to originally composed 14 ringtones), copyright law understood them to be arrangements of those 15 songs, and hence they were treated like cover songs. This meant that the 16 selection’s or song’s composer (and the company publishing it) received a 17 certain, relatively nominal fee from the companies selling the ringtones 18 (between 8.5 and 10 cents per ringtone sold). In contrast, a ringtone 19 made of a digital sound file not only used a pre-owned song or compo- 20 sition, but also had to license the recording of that song or composi- 21 tion, and hence had to obtain and pay for that recording from a record 22 label. The heyday of monophonic and polyphonic ringtones typically 23 involved smaller companies that jumped into the nascent ringtones 24 market before larger music-business firms thought to do so, and these 25 firms helped to make up the emergent mobile entertainment industry – 26 with such companies also selling other digital products for phones, like 27 phone “wallpaper” (which could customize the display screen of one’s 28 cellphone). The major recording industry labels – like BMG, Universal, 29 Sony/Columbia, Warner, EMI, etc. – were not pleased with this state of 30 affairs as they were cut out of the lion’s share of profits (which instead 31 went to mobile entertainment firms), but they knew that if ringtones 32 became sound files, the legal situation would favor them much more 33 and allow them to squeeze out smaller companies or competitor firms of 34 a much larger size. (In an example of the latter, the Japanese instrument 35 company Yamaha was involved in selling high-quality polyphonic ring- 36 tones and became one of the largest ringtone sales firms in the world 37 in the early to mid-2000s.) Phone manufacturers sought to improve the 38 quality of their ringtones and thus a process of technological conver- 39 gence took place, in which the upgrading of phones’ ringtone formats 40 was motivated by phone handset design engineers’ desires to improve 41 phone performance and by pressure from the recording industry. By the

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1 mid- to late 2000s, firms partnering with or owned by the major record 2 labels were the dominant players in the mobile entertainment industry. 3 Thanks in part to the major labels’ oligopoly control of the sound-file 4 ringtone market, this involved a major hike in the price of ringtones: 5 whereas polyphonic ringtones might cost $.99 or $1.99, sound file 6 ringtones were upwards of $2.99 – far more than the full-length digital 7 sound files (the same product!) that were locked into a price point of 8 $0.99 by sales portals like the iTunes store (RD, pp. 19–26). 9 Small wonder, then, that recording industry spokespersons began to 10 announce that ringtones might actually reverse their industry’s declining 11 fortunes, which had allegedly suffered on account of unauthorized file- 12 sharing. (Others argued that the industry was bloated and flooding the 13 market with substandard products, and that filesharing was a necessary 14 corrective to this situation.) But as overpriced products, sales of sound 15 file ringtones were essentially the result of what technology journalists 16 called a “walled garden”: a mobile phone operating system and file 17 directory that were extremely difficult to access by ordinary consumers, 18 hence making it nearly impossible for them to upload their own digital 19 sound files onto their phones and bypass the entire ringtone industry 20 altogether. Companies like Xingtone developed inexpensive software 21 packages that allowed phone users to upload music from compact discs 22 and digital sound files on their computers without having to pay extra 23 for each individual ringtone. Moreover, starting in 2007 with the advent 24 of Apple’s iPhone and other smartphones, which spurred the ongoing 25 convergence between the telephone and Internet networks, it became 26 easier to exchange and access files on cellphones, and online blogs and 27 reporters conspired to teach consumers how to avoid paying for ring- 28 tones. It wasn’t long before ringtone industry profits began to dwindle, 29 and after receiving additional setbacks on account of the recession of 30 2008–2009, they would simply never recover (RD, pp. 39–52).6 31 Economic shifts, however, were not the only noteworthy effects of 32 the ringtone’s technical transformations – if they can even be called 33 “effects” at all, since the technical shifts themselves were ultimately 34 inseparable from the economic motivations that lay behind them. For 35 example, one of the studies I undertook in the book involved examin- 36 ing how ringtones were made, and I discovered that, like all products, 37 ringtones required a labor force to produce them. It turns out that the 38 labor of making ringtones changed quite drastically as the file formats 39 changed: the skill requirements and labor time involved in making 40 a ringtone became much greater once the ringtone changed from a 41 single, simple beeping melody into a full-blown imitation of a particular

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1 musical recording’s entire instrumental arrangement, as this required a 2 very skilled musician to undertake a fairly extensive exercise in musical 3 transcription. In contrast, once the ringtone became an audio file, all 4 that was required was for someone to excerpt a 30-second audio clip 5 from the original file; unsurprisingly, the payment that workers received 6 per ringtone decreased drastically and fewer workers were needed to 7 maintain comparable volumes of output. In addition to the decreasing 8 wages and employment opportunities that resulted from the sound-file 9 ringtone’s emergence, the character of the work changed, becoming 10 simpler, more rote, less satisfying, and thus deskilled, to invoke Marxist 11 writer Harry Braverman’s charged but vitally important term to describe 12 a general tendency in industrial manufacturing (RD, pp. 57–79). The 13 disappearance of an entire industry had consequences in the lives of the 14 musicians who worked within it. One of my interviewees, Billy Dixon, 15 was a young hip-hop producer who worked for the hip-hop magazine 16 and brand The Source. In the mid-2000s, The Source owned and admin- 17 istered a polyphonic ringtone “channel,” which was a kind of subscrip- 18 tion service that one could purchase via one’s cellphone service plan. 19 In summing up his experiences working in the industry, Dixon noted: 20 21 It affected me heavily actually, during polyphonics, I made nearly 22 zero music of my own. After, for a good while, I did audio tones, and 23 during that phase, only really got into my own music again because 24 I pushed myself. It was hard, taking what I do to create and express, 25 and then doing the same thing without any creativity of my own to 26 make money, for a job. It was confusing, for me anyway. I’ve only just 27 in the last year made a little bit of my own music, so yeah, definitely 28 a large dynamic phased itself through my experience (RD, p. 74). 29 30 The technical-economic changes in the ringtone industry did not only 31 affect its labor practices, however; they were also registered in various 32 aspects of cultural production: popular and classical music, film and 33 tele vision, and art installations and performances.7 To take one exam- 34 ple, I found that an entire subgenre of contemporary classical composi- 35 tions from the early to mid-2000s invoked the Nokia Tune – a melody 36 that was once the most popular ringtone in the world, heard an esti- 37 mated 1.8 billion times per day. Compositions ranged from the rather 38 modest, such as virtuoso pianist Marc-André Hamelin’s The Ringtone 39 Waltz (2006, possibly earlier), which he would play whenever an audi- 40 ence member’s ringtone interrupted his performance, to the more 41 ambitious, such as Italian avant-gardist composer Salvatore Sciarrino’s

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1 remarkable Archeologia del telefono (Archeology of the Telephone) from 2 2005, in which the composer uses traditional acoustic instruments to 3 imitate the sounds of phone signals in order to critique the ways in 4 which they have overtaken our auditory experiences and everyday lives 5 (RD, pp. 103–14). The number of new Nokia Tune compositions peaked 6 just as the monophonic and polyphonic ringtone were giving way to 7 the sound file, and they declined precipitously in the second half of the 8 new millennium’s first decade. One might argue the Nokia Tune became 9 less interesting as a sonic phenomenon to composers once it stopped 10 appearing in its most abrasive and distinctive monophonic guise. 11 Moreover, due to the increased opportunities for phone customization 12 offered by the sound file ringtone, as well as the decline in popularity 13 of Nokia phones themselves (especially once the smartphone became 14 common), the Nokia Tune likely became less important as a sonic refer- 15 ence point – particularly as it came to be effectively replaced by other 16 default ringtones, such as the iPhone’s “Marimba” (RD, pp. 221–26). 17 Finally, one should not overestimate the way in which the quotation of 18 the Nokia Tune wore itself out as a kind of compositional gimmick, the 19 belated use of which would indicate a composer’s being out-of-touch 20 from, rather than aware of, contemporary social realities. 21 In contrast, a more obvious change resulting from the file-format shifts 22 in the ringtone industry can be found in the use of political ringtones. 23 Before the presence of the sound file ringtone, ringtones used by phone 24 owners to signify political allegiances were limited by the inability of 25 a monophonic or polyphonic ringtone to include speech: the primary 26 medium of the politician. Hence, the sound file ringtone provided new 27 opportunities for citizens to include political speech on their phones, 28 which became very common in the mid- to late 2000s. One fascinating 29 subgenre of political ringtones that emerged during this time is what 30 I termed the “political voice-remix ringtone,” in which a sample of a 31 politician speaking, often in an unguarded or unscripted way, was then 32 combined with a dance beat track to create a commentary on a politi- 33 cal event indexed by the speech sample. Two examples: first, in 2005, 34 Philippines President Gloria Arroyo was caught on wiretap, attempting 35 to confirm vote rigging in her favor from an electoral official, named 36 Virgilio Garcillano or “Garci.” A musician connected to a Filipino 37 mobile activism group called TXTPower combined the wiretapped 38 recording with a sample from 50 Cent’s “In Da Club,” and the ringtone 39 became a national phenomenon, downloaded millions of times and 40 a part of the unsuccessful movement to oust Arroyo from power (RD, 41 pp. 152–60). Second, in December 2007, at the Ibero-American Summit

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1 in Santiago, Chile, in the middle of a heated discussion, President King 2 Juan Carlos of Spain told Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez to “shut 3 up”: ¿Por qué no te callas?” The recording made its way into ringtones 4 that were both sold and freely traded throughout the Spanish-speaking 5 world, and had special relevance in Venezuela to the anti-Chávez con- 6 servative opposition (RD, pp. 166–77). With its minimal dance music 7 background combined with the speech sample, this ringtone ended up 8 being quite similar to the Arroyo ringtone, including more “top-down” 9 versions of this ringtone genre, such as ringtones promoted by Barack 10 Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign (RD, pp. 333–4, n. 109). 11 These cultural and social changes, which can be said to result from the 12 technical-economic transformations in the ringtone industry, provided 13 a fascinating glimpse into the way that the economy affects culture. 14 Some phenomena, like Nokia Tune compositions, seemed to disappear 15 or decline as the file format of the ringtone changed; others, like the 16 political ringtone, experienced a new-found relevance and thus could 17 be said to have experienced a reversal of its fortunes. In yet other cases, 18 ringtone practices seemed to become particularized or tailored to the 19 specific national, cultural, and linguistic contexts in which they were 20 embedded, as in (for example) the way that African American popular 21 musicians working in R&B and hip-hop attempted to cash in and com- 22 ment on the ringtone phenomenon by writing songs with “ringtone” 23 in the very title (often with the songs simply being titled “Ringtone”), 24 thereby targeting black consumers of ringtones. The book presents indi- 25 vidual chapters detailing various social and cultural practices accord- 26 ing to the way in which they relate to the industry’s transformation: 27 whether they declined, experienced a positive reversal of fortunes, or 28 became particularized in a specific part of the world (RD, pp. xxi–xxiii, 29 53–6, 129–31, 201–3). I termed this collection of dynamics “the ringtone 30 dialectic,” drawing on a concept in Hegelian and Marxist philosophy 31 used to describe a contradictory unity of incommensurable entities. 32 A dialectical contradiction often contains two definite elements that 33 seem to be opposed to one another, like a decline and a reversal, but a 34 dialectical contradiction can be understood as also containing a resolu- 35 tion to the opposition as well: in our example, the particularization pro- 36 cess, which specifies the ways in which a technology becomes tailored 37 to its context, might be understood as a more general way of what hap- 38 pens to the ringtone in any individual domain, whether it experiences 39 a rise or fall in its fortunes (RD, pp. xv–xviii). 40 The ringtone dialectic, or the collection of relationships between the 41 ringtone industry’s technical-economic shifts (as embodied in file-format

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1 changes) and the cultural and social practices associated with the ring- 2 tone, turns out to be a particular version of a more general dialectic 3 commonly discussed within Marxist cultural theory: the relationship 4 between the economic base and the social, cultural, legal, and political 5 superstructure that seems to be founded upon it. Debates about Marx’s 6 metaphor of the base and superstructure, as well as dogmatic adher- 7 ence to the idea, are replete within the literature and history of Marxist 8 thought, but the key issues appear to hinge upon how strongly the base 9 determines the superstructure and whether the metaphor is of utility at 10 all. I contend that it still has some value – in the capitalist system, the 11 economy has a huge effect on so much of what happens in our lives – 12 and my tentative solution to a complex and long-standing theoretical 13 problem is that one must examine the issue on a case-by-case basis, that 14 one ought not to force the base to appear to mechanically determine 15 what happens in the superstructure, and that one should instead con- 16 tinue to ask the question of how the base affects the superstructure, how 17 economy affects cultural form – the two terms I use to translate “base” 18 and “superstructure” (RD, pp. xviii–xx). 19 The dialectic of base and superstructure is not the only dialectical con- 20 tradiction at play in the book; one can be found within the economy 21 of the ringtone itself: specifically, the emergence of the sound file 22 ringtone both led to great profits for the ringtone industry but its very 23 fungibility and exchangeability led it to destroy the very basis for those 24 same profits. Thus, we find a dialectical contradiction of profit and loss 25 contained within the potentialities of the sound file ringtone itself, a 26 finding that might be somewhat surprising on first glance. In fact, a 27 number of comparable surprises became apparent as I researched the 28 ringtone. Three examples of these are as follows. First, I came to appreci- 29 ate the way in which the ringtone as a form engaged with an extensive 30 prehistory of short-form compositions, on the one hand, and with the 31 sound of functional ringer signals, on the other. These engagements 32 were realized in a wide variety of original ringtones created by Brice 33 Salek for his recording label Ringtone Records. In one amusing and 34 uncanny example, the “Look Mommy Ringtone,” Salek transforms his 35 own voice into a child’s voice, periodically and slowly saying the words 36 “look Mommy, a U.F.O.” in a repetitive, almost signal-like way (RD, 37 pp. 183–200). Second, through circumstantial evidence from Billboard 38 Magazine’s ringtone hit-charts, comments from interlocutors in the ring- 39 tone industry, and information from the Pew Internet & American Life 40 Project from 2010, it quickly became evident to me that the dominant 41 consumers of sound-file ringtones were working-class African Americans.

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1 When one combines this fact with the awareness that ringtones were 2 in many ways a huge rip-off, one might surmise that black consumers 3 disproportionately bore the costs of ringtone consumption and thus 4 helped to artificially boost recording industry profits at a time that 5 they were otherwise flagging (RD, pp. 241–67). Third, I came to appre- 6 ciate the ways in which the technologies used to produce ringtones – 7 specifically, single-oscillator synthesizer, MIDI synthesizer, and digital 8 audio-file playback technologies – appeared in comparable successions 9 in the history of computer music using large mainframe computers, 10 personal computer sound cards, video game consoles, and handheld 11 gaming platforms before they underwent similar transformations on 12 mobile telephones (RD, pp. 14, 54–5). I also found fascinating precursors 13 to the earliest beeping ringtones in various early digital devices such as 14 the digital watch of the late 1970s and early 1980s – some examples of 15 which played ringtone-like melodies.8 16 Despite its very smallness and brevity, the ringtone, then, clearly 17 contained an entire world worthy of study, and even provided one way 18 of analyzing the entire world – although it should go without saying 19 that all of the ringtone world, let alone the world in toto, was by no 20 means represented in the book, which reflects my biases towards the 21 US as a US-American and scholar of the US. But given that the ringtone 22 developed far more quickly in East Asia and Europe than in the US, as 23 a study of global cultural processes the ringtone provides a fascinating 24 lens on a world in which the US, the global hegemon, was not the pri- 25 mary protagonist in the tale. But although one could use this aspect of 26 the ringtone to prognosticate what the future of the world might look 27 like – a future in which the US is not the dominant power – the greater 28 interest for me lies in the fact that the ringtone is a historical pheno- 29 menon, drawing attention to the way that the present immediately 30 becomes past, and the past passes over into the realm of history, which 31 always merits closer study. 32 33 Notes 34 35 1. The figures after 2012 are a bit problematic since the RIAA stopped including 36 music videos, full-track downloads, and “other mobile” in the same category 37 as ringtones and ringbacks – a product of the changing “ecosystem” of mobile 38 sales, which are now not as useful to differentiate from other online sales (given the present continuity between phone and computer access to the 39 Internet for most users, as well as the declining relevance of phone-specific 40 sales portals). Nonetheless, the decreasing trend for ringtone and ringback 41 sales may be beginning to level off somewhat. In 2013, ringtone/ringback

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1 sales were at $98.0 million (a decrease of $68.9 million from 2012), and in 2 2014, they had decreased to $66.5 million (a decrease of $31.5 million from 3 2013). See ibid., and RIAA, 2014. For a chart of ringtone (and other mobile) sales from 2005 to 2011, see RD, p. 51. 4 2. For an informative treatment of Ranke in relation to his dictum, which appar- 5 ently is his translation of a statement of Thucydides and is thus bound up 6 with a classical ideal of history writing, see Grafton (1997, pp. 67–71). 7 3. See Shklovsky (1990, p. 6), in which the sentence is translated as “to make a 8 stone feel stony”; also see Morson (1986, p. 4), in which the translation cited above is used. 9 4. One might argue for this in a couple of ways. For one, the fad’s economic 10 death obviates the need for prognostication, and thereby specious treading 11 into futurology or market reportage. In addition, the closure of the narrative 12 not only makes for a better story but also provides a contained phenomenon 13 and periodization from which one might better examine socioeconomic and cultural dynamics. See, for example, the argument about the “ringtone 14 conjuncture” in RD, p. 273. 15 5. The melody continued to include the first 16 measures (or “A” section) of 16 the tune. My transcription is drawn on the source recording from Star Wars 17 (1977), and I cannot find a recording of the monophonic ringtone version, 18 although I recall it being slightly faster than the original and that the last eighth note of the third measure (F#5) was instead an F5, tied over the barline 19 (and thus slightly simplifying the source melody). 20 6. In addition to the primary factors of technological convergence and the eco- 21 nomic recession, there were two other causes for the decline of the industry. 22 The first was the “Crazy Frog effect,” or a backlash against ringtone subscrip- 23 tion sales scams, which were inaugurated by the Crazy Frog ringtone fad (see RD, pp. 147–9). The second was the decreasing public interest in the 24 fad itself, particularly as ringtones became essentially indistinguishable from 25 other sound files. Indeed, a part of ringtones’ appeal in the monophonic and 26 polyphonic eras, I would argue, was the nostalgic value of their technological 27 primitiveness, reminiscent for example of the rise of 8-bit music cultures. 28 7. Most of the examples discussed in the book can be found at www.theringtone dialectic.com. Although the site is password protected, the password itself is 29 given at the end of the book’s introduction. 30 8. I am currently doing some follow-up research on sound in the digital watch 31 of the late 1970s and 1980s. 32 33 References 34 35 Anonymous (2010) The mobile ringtone is dead: apps define the new decade. 36 Techinstyle.tv (online blog), 31 May. Available at: http://techinstyle.tv/blogs/ 37 the-mobile-ringtone-is-dead-apps-define-the-new-decade/ (accessed 8 June 38 2011 – URL no longer valid). Bair, J. (ed.) (2009) Frontiers of Commodity Chain Research. Stanford, CA: Stanford 39 University Press. 40 Benjamin, W. (1999) The Arcades Project. Translated by Howard Eiland and Kevin 41 McLaughlin. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

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1 Gereffi, G., and Korzeniewicz, M. (eds.) (1994) Commodity Chains and Global 2 Capitalism. Westport, CT: Praeger. 3 Gopinath, S. (2005) Ringtones, or, the auditory logic of globalization. First Monday 10 (12). Available at: http://firstmonday.org/article/view/1295/1215 4 (accessed 16 March 2015). 5 Gopinath, S. (2013) The Ringtone Dialectic: Economy and Cultural Form. Cambridge, 6 MA: MIT Press. 7 Grafton, A. (1997) The Footnote: A Curious History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard 8 University Press. Hopkins, T., and Wallerstein, I. (1977) Patterns of development of the modern 9 world-system. Review, 1(2): 11–45. 10 Licoppe, C. (2008) The mobile phone’s ring. In: Katz, J. (ed.), The Handbook of 11 Mobile Communication Studies, 139–52. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 12 Morson, G. S. (ed.) 1(986) Literature and History: Theoretical Problems and Russian 13 Case Studies. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) (2014) 2013 year-end industry 14 shipment and revenue statistics, form 202-775-0101 (online). Available 15 at: http://riaa.com/media/2463566A-FF96-E0CA-2766-72779A364D01.pdf 16 (accessed 28 May 2015). 17 Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) (2015) 2014 year-end industry 18 shipment and revenue statistics, form 202-775-0101 (online). Available at: http://riaa.com/media/D1F4E3E8-D3E0-FCEE-BB55-FD8B35BC8785.pdf 19 (accessed 28 May 2015). 20 Shklovsky, V. (1990) Theory of Prose. Translated by Benjamin Sher. Champaign, 21 IL: Dalkey Archive Press. 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

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