Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 6-26-2019 1:00 PM The Elements of Production: Myth, Gender, and the "Fundamental Task" of Producing Popular Music Lydia Wilton The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Coates, Norma. The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Popular Music and Culture A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Master of Music © Lydia Wilton 2019 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Musicology Commons Recommended Citation Wilton, Lydia, "The Elements of Production: Myth, Gender, and the "Fundamental Task" of Producing Popular Music" (2019). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 6350. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/6350 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Abstract Using Antoine Hennion’s “anti-musicology”, this research project proposes a methodology for studying music production that empowers production choices as the primary analytical tool. It employs this methodology to analyze Kesha’s Rainbow, Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer, and St. Vincent’s Masseduction according to four, encompassing groups of production elements: musical elements, lyrical elements, personal elements, and narrative elements. All three albums were critical and commercial successes, and analyzing their respective choices offers valuable insight into the practice of successful producers that could not necessarily be captured by methodologies traditionally used for studying production, such as the interview.