Reviews Amerikastudien / American Studies 62.1 Barry Shank, The

Reviews ★ Amerikastudien / American Studies 62.1 Barry Shank, The Political Force of Musi- musical act,” he claims, “is one that reveals cal Beauty. (Durham, NC: Duke University the political signifcance of sounds previously Press, 2014), 344 pp. heard as nothing but noise” (3). Shank uses case studies to illustrate how The intricate relationship between popu- the power of music is located in beauty, and lar music and politics has been the subject of how musical beauty comes to life in the act much scholarship since the 1960s. Civil rights of listening. The chosen examples—ranging songs, Riot Grrrl punk music and conscious from Moby’s sampling of Vera Hall’s version rap, among many others, have been the fo- of “Trouble So Hard” on his track “Natural cus of a vast body of research, documenting Blues” to the civil rights movement’s promi- the signifcance of music in social movements nent “We Shall Overcome,” the sounds of throughout U.S. history and beyond. Rock Takemitsu Toro and Yoko Ono, the Velvet and pop music has been hailed as a “weapon Underground’s “Heroin,” poet-rock star Patti of cultural revolution” and as a means to so- Smith, Alarm Will Sound’s concert collage cial transformation,1 while more nuanced 1969, and TV on the Radio’s musical encoun- arguments have acknowledged the music’s ter with Tinariwen, a band of Tuareg musi- intrinsic nature as a mass commodity meant cians, to name just a few—all create “a sonic to be sold and consumed as part of the cul- image of right relations, an audible constella- ture industry.2 A negotiation of conficting tion of mobile forms shifting in time, perform- needs guides many of the questions that have ing and occasionally transforming one’s sense been raised: How does music exert political of the world,” as Shank explains. The choice of infuence? How do pop songs shape political cases, albeit at frst seemingly eclectic, works thought and represent political ideas? How well for Shank’s argument—and makes this does music foster political belonging? Or, put study a deeply personal one, as Shank admits another way: Can sound subvert? in a little caveat: “To be honest, every one of In The Political Force of Musical Beauty, the musical examples I analyze transformed Barry Shank approaches these questions in my sense of the world” (4). While some read- a strikingly new and refreshing way. Shank ers may wish for a less subjective and emotion- steers clear of the popular yet somewhat sim- ally charged sample of case studies and others plistic notion that music serves as vehicle for will search in vain for a discussion of hip hop, political actors to communicate shared po- Shank’s passion for his subject matter is actu- litical ideas and forward an agenda. He show- ally one of the many strengths of this book— cases the agency of music itself, the ways in the author’s grasp, his keen sense of music and which it “enacts its own force, creating shared nuanced understanding of the sensibilities of senses of the world” (2), as he suggests in an musical listening make it both accessible and introductory chapter titled, tongue-in-cheek, highly entertaining to read. “Prelude.” The experience of musical listen- In order to frame the ensuing explorations ing, Shank purports, forms communities char- of the relationship between musical beauty and acterized by difference, not unity—and this political belonging, chapter one (“Listening to pleasurable experience has both aesthetic and the Political”) provides the reader with an ana- political implications. Putting aside the in- lytical framework rooted in aesthetic theory. tentions of the artists and the identity of the Shank, professor of Comparative Studies at listeners, he highlights how music’s political Ohio State University, builds on Jacques Ran- force pertains to its “capacity to combine rela- cière’s concept of “the distribution of the sen- tions of difference into experiences of beauty” sible” in order to explain the relation between (16). The experience of beauty, according to aesthetics and politics (27). Shank links Ran- Shank, is an experience that allows the lis- cière’s concept to philosopher Jean-Luc Nan- tener to recognize the possibility of change, a cy’s observation of musical listening as an “at- change for a “better future”: “a truly aesthetic tentive relationship to meaning that reveals the gaps in symbolizing while it revels in the social 1 John Sinclair, Guitar Army: Street Writ- and embodied sensuousness of its refexive pro- ings/Prison Writings (New York: Douglas cesses” (20). This kind of engagement with the Book Corporation, 1972), 117, music, or sens, as Nancy calls it, manifests itself 2 Simon Frith, Sound Effects: Youth, Lei- in the listeners’ search for meaning—a search sure, and the Politics of Rock’n’Roll (New that demands a reconfguration of the sensible. York: Pantheon, 1981), 6. The experience of musical beauty may lead to Amerikastudien / American Studies 62. Jg., ISSN 0340-2827 © 2017 Universitätsverlag WINTER GmbH, Heidelberg Amerikastudien / American Studies 62.1 ★ Reviews a transformation of the sensible, but doesn’t reading of “A Change Is Gonna Come”—as necessarily lead to palpable political change. always, Shank ascribes as much importance However, according to Shank, it “affects the to musical arrangements (rhythm, key, instru- shape of the common, changing the qualities of mentation, arrangement, timbre) as to lyrical feeling and the possible elements that can be content—the author demonstrates the impor- included in the debate by shifting the sensibil- tance of musical and historical context, espe- ity toward relations that can forge together into cially with regard to soul as a secularized ver- a meaningful (if divided) whole” (28). This is sion of gospel: In continuation with a certain the locus of the political agency of music: A re- anthemic tradition this 1964 soul song’s poten- distribution of the sensible recalibrates the lis- tial is located in the “already existing unity of teners’ sensibilities and creates “communities a political community confrmed by its congre- of listeners oriented toward an object of musi- gational context” which works to transform cal beauty” (260). musical sounds into “musical agents capable of Shank applies his theoretical considerations generating new and expansive inclining com- throughout his book and elegantly interweaves munities united for a moment by a song” (70). philosophical thought with rich case analyses. While the song didn’t require the listener to An excellent case in point is his discussion subscribe to a tangible political agenda—and of electronica artist Moby’s release “Natu- intimate publics are always at risk of sentimen- ral Blues” which features African American tal dilution—, it left no listener unaffected. folk singer Vera Hall’s version of “Trouble So Pop anthems, Shank argues, work “through Hard.” Hall was frst recorded singing “Trou- the power that music has to catch our ear, fx ble So Hard” by John Lomax in the late 1930s, us in place, and get us to listen” (71). and then again in the late 1950s by his son Alan Throughout his study, Shank draws on Lomax. While some critics blamed Moby of an impressive range of musical examples— yet another “theft” of her voice in a world still his discussion of the Velvet Underground’s teeming with racially coded power inequali- drone as a critique of commercial imperatives ties, Shank offers a different interpretation. strikes the reader as particularly salient—to His close reading of “Trouble So Hard,” a song thoroughly develop his argument. The musi- that contains allusions to racism and the rule of cal and historical background he provides for white supremacy, and its recontextualization in each of his case studies are meticulously re- Moby’s 1999 hit song convincingly asserts that searched and designed to elucidate theories, “Natural Blues” unfolds political agency due to terms, and arguments both vividly and in- the fact that it makes the listeners think about depth. The greatest accomplishment of this the production and underlying struggles of the riveting inquiry into the mechanics of popular track. It calls attention to the continuing role of music is, however, Shank’s discussion of ‘mu- racial inequality in U.S. culture and sheds light sical listening’ which he believes to reach far on the necessity “to build political community beyond a close attention to the lyrics or even with the knowledge of that divide, a political the musical score. His emphasis on the impor- community of difference” (37). tance of musical beauty in the emergence of Shank’s analytical skills are on fne display political agency contributes substantially both when he takes on some of the more obviously to aesthetic theory and music studies. political songs in a chapter entitled “The An- The conclusion, or “Coda,” serves as an them and the Condensation of Context”: Na- excellent aggregation of Shank’s insistence on tional hymns like “The Star-Spangled Ban- “beauty as the locus of music’s power” (3) that ner,” the civil rights movement’s prominent lingers in the mind of the reader. Shank ends “We Shall Overcome” and pop anthems like his insightful and dense discussion of music Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” and political belonging with Tinariwen, a Tu- have been the subject of much scholarship, and areg band, and their encounter with indie rock yet Shank’s reading of these songs opens up band TV on the Radio. The vastly different new perspectives. Shank enlists Lauren Ber- musical-political contexts from which these lant’s concept of the intimate public, a term bands originate enable a dialogue between Berlant uses to describe “groups formed in aural imaginaries: Musical beauty creates new and through a sense of shared and ordinary relations in an intimate public and renders a feeling,” in order to explain how “anthems” redistribution of the sensible possible.

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