DOCSLIB.ORG

A Year in the Life of the Beatles. History, Subjectivity

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
A Year in the Life of the Beatles. History, Subjectivity 1967: A Year In The Life Of The Beatles History, Subjectivity, Music Linda Engebråten Masteroppgave ved Institutt for Musikkvitenskap UNIVERSITETET I OSLO November 2010 Acknowledgements First, I would like to express my gratitude towards my supervisor Stan Hawkins for all his knowledge, support, enthusiasm, and his constructive feedback for my project. We have had many rewarding discussions but we have also shared a few laughs about that special music and time I have been working on. I would also like to thank my fellow master students for both useful academically discussions as much as the more silly music jokes and casual conversations. Many thanks also to Joel F. Glazier and Nancy Cameron for helping me with my English. I thank John, Paul, George, and Ringo for all their great music and for perhaps being the main reason I begun having such a big interest and passion for music, and without whom I may not have pursued a career in a musical direction at all. Many thanks and all my loving to Joakim Krane Bech for all the support and for being so patient with me during the course of this process. Finally, I would like to thank my closest ones: my wonderful and supportive family who have never stopped believing in me. This thesis is dedicated to my grandparents. There are places I'll remember All my life though some have changed. Some forever not for better Some have gone and some remain. All these places have their moments With lovers and friends I still can recall. Some are dead and some are living, In my life I've loved them all. – In My Life, The Beatles Table of contents Introduction........................................................................................................................................1 It was forty years ago today ............................................................................................................1 Real Love - The Beatles and me .......................................................................................................2 Research goals ............................................................................... Feil! Bokmerke er ikke definert. Method ...........................................................................................................................................6 The choice of a small frame .........................................................................................................6 History and historiography ..........................................................................................................6 Music analysis .............................................................................................................................7 Choosing analytical material ......................................................................................................... 10 Literature and resources ............................................................................................................... 11 The thesis’ structure ..................................................................................................................... 12 The Summer of Love ......................................................................................................................... 13 The Haight- Ashbury community ................................................................................................... 14 Decisive moments in the development of the San Francisco hippie scene ................................. 15 60s Counterculture ....................................................................................................................... 17 Hippies as a subculture and as a counterculture ........................................................................ 18 Love is all you need, and you can make love not war with a little help from your friends ........... 19 Feed Your Head: Psychedelia and the psychedelic experience ................................................... 21 The Swinging London scene .......................................................................................................... 22 Decisive happenings and places of the London Scene ................................................................ 26 Popular music: Music with a message ........................................................................................... 30 Rock as art ................................................................................................................................ 31 Eight Miles High: Psychedelic music .............................................................................................. 33 The San Francisco Sound ........................................................................................................... 35 British Psychedelic music ........................................................................................................... 37 Summer of love on a global scale .................................................................................................. 39 Monterey International Pop Festival ............................................................................................. 42 Love’s ending ................................................................................................................................ 46 Revolution, Street Fighting Men, and The Unknown Soldier ...................................................... 46 Legacy: music, love and acid ......................................................................................................... 47 Strawberry Fields Forever ................................................................................................................. 50 Let me take you down… the journey to Strawberry Fields Forever ................................................. 51 That is you can't you know tune in but it's all right… Recording ”Strawberry Fields Forever” ......... 52 The “big edit” ............................................................................................................................ 54 The final version............................................................................................................................ 55 It’s a dream… a progressive dream ................................................................................................ 58 Strawberry Fields Forever and the ideology of rock ....................................................................... 60 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 61 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band .............................................................................................. 62 The album sleeve .......................................................................................................................... 82 Psychedelic Victorian design ......................................................................................................... 87 A splendid time is guaranteed for all! ............................................................................................ 89 All You Need Is Love .......................................................................................................................... 92 Our World ..................................................................................................................................... 93 The writing and recording process of a number one hit ................................................................. 94 An anthemic march ....................................................................................................................... 96 The Performance of All You Need Is Love ...................................................................................... 98 Love on a global scale, irony and camp ........................................................................................ 100 Love Is All You Need .................................................................................................................... 103 Post-Pepper period ......................................................................................................................... 105 It was 43 years ago today (reprise) - Final thoughts ......................................................................... 110 Literature and resources ................................................................................................................. 112 Discography .................................................................................................................................... 121 Games ............................................................................................................................................ 123 Videography ................................................................................................................................... 124 Introduction It was forty years ago today The date is June 18 1967 and all that is left on the stage after Jimi Hendrix‟s performance is a smashed up and burnt guitar. Jimi Hendrix has just shocked the audience at the world‟s first rock festival, The Monterey International Pop Festival. Hendrix‟s performance, including a fiery version of “Wild Thing”, amongst with his unforeseen activities, has contributed to his rising popularity and a longed breakthrough in the US. Many San Francisco based bands also gained huge success, including The Jefferson Airplane,
Load more

Recommended publications
  • A Queer Aes- Thetic Is Suggested in the Nostalgia of Orton’S List of 1930S Singers, Many of Whom Were Sex- Ual Nonconformists
    Orton in Deckchair in Tangier. Courtesy: Orton Collection at the University of Leicester, MS237/5/44 © Orton Estate Rebel playwright Joe Orton was part of a ‘cool customer’, Orton shopped for the landscape of the Swinging Sixties. clothes on Carnaby Street, wore ‘hipster Irreverent black comedies that satirised pants’ and looked – in his own words the Establishment, such as Entertaining – ‘way out’. Although he cast himself Mr Sloane (1964), Loot (1965) and as an iconoclast, Emma Parker suggests What the Butler Saw (first performed that Orton’s record collection reveals a in 1969), contributed to a new different side to the ruffian playwright counterculture. Orton’s representation who furiously pitched himself against of same-sex desire on stage, and polite society. The music that Orton candid account of queer life before listened to in private suggests the same decriminalisation in his posthumously queer ear, or homosexual sensibility, that published diaries, also made him a shaped his plays. Yet, stylistically, this gay icon. Part of the zeitgeist, he was music contradicts his cool public persona photographed with Twiggy, smoked and reputation for riotous dissent. marijuana with Paul McCartney and wrote a screenplay for The Beatles. Described by biographer John Lahr as A Q U E E R EAR Joe Orton and Music 44 Music was important to Joe Orton from an early age. His unpublished teenage diary, kept Issue 37 — Spring 2017 sporadically between 1949 and 1951, shows that he saved desperately for records in the face of poverty. He also lovingly designed and constructed a record cabinet out of wood from his gran’s old dresser.
    [Show full text]
  • BWTB Nov. 13Th Dukes 2016
    1 Playlist Nov. 13th 2016 LIVE! From DUKES in Malibu 9AM / OPEN Three hours non stop uninterrupted Music from JPG&R…as we broadcast LIVE from DUKES in Malibu…. John Lennon – Steel and Glass - Walls And Bridges ‘74 Much like “How Do You Sleep” three years earlier, this is another blistering Lennon track that sets its sights on Allen Klein (who had contributed lyrics to “How Do You Sleep” those few years before). The Beatles - Revolution 1 - The Beatles 2 The first song recorded during the sessions for the “White Album.” At the time of its recording, this slower version was the only version of John Lennon’s “Revolution,” and it carried that titled without a “1” or a “9” in the title. Recording began on May 30, 1968, and 18 takes were recorded. On the final take, the first with a lead vocal, the song continued past the 4 1/2 minute mark and went onto an extended jam. It would end at 10:17 with John shouting to the others and to the control room “OK, I’ve had enough!” The final six minutes were pure chaos with discordant instrumental jamming, plenty of feedback, percussive clicks (which are heard in the song’s introduction as well), and John repeatedly screaming “alright” and moaning along with his girlfriend, Yoko Ono. Ono also spoke random streams of consciousness on the track such as “if you become naked.” This bizarre six-minute section was clipped off the version of what would become “Revolution 1” to form the basis of “Revolution 9.” Yoko’s “naked” line appears in the released version of “Revolution 9” at 7:53.
    [Show full text]
  • The Sunrise Jones // Song List
    THE SUNRISE JONES // SONG LIST c/o Cleveland Music Group - Take on Me - A-ha - Dancing Queen - ABBA - It's A Long Way To The Top - AC/DC - Shook Me All Night Long - AC/DC - Sweet Emotion - Aerosmith - Melissa - Allman Brothers, The - Love Shack - B-52's, The - (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party) - Beastie Boys, The - A Day in the Life - Beatles, The - Abbey Road Medley - Beatles, The - Across The Universe - Beatles, The - Baby You're A Rich Man - Beatles, The - Back in the U.S.S.R. – Beatles, The - Ballad of John and Yoko - Beatles, The - Blackbird - Beatles, The - Birthday - Beatles, The - Can't Buy Me Love - Beatles, The - Come Together - Beatles, The - Day Tripper - Beatles, The - Don't Let Me Down - Beatles, The - Drive My Car - Beatles, The - Eight Days a Week - Beatles, The - Get Back - Beatles, The - Got To Get You Into My Life - Beatles, The - Happiness is a Warm Gun - Beatles, The - Hard Days Night - Beatles, The - Help - Beatles, The - Here Comes The Sun - Beatles, The - Hey Bulldog - Beatles, The - Hey Jude - Beatles, The - I Am The Walrus - Beatles, The - I Feel Fine - Beatles, The - I Saw Her Standing There - Beatles, The - I Want To Hold Your Hand - Beatles, The - I Will - Beatles, The - I’ll Follow The Sun - Beatles, The - I’m Looking Through You - Beatles, - I'm So Tired - Beatles, The - In My Life - Beatles, The - I’ve Got a Feeling - Beatles, The - I’ve Just Seen a Face - Beatles, The - Let It Be - Beatles, The - Love Me Do - Beatles, The - Lucy In The Sky with Diamonds - Beatles, The - Norwegian Wood - Beatles, The - Nowhere Man - Beatles, The - Penny Lane - Beatles, The - Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da - Beatles, The - Oh! Darling - Beatles, The - Revolution - Beatles, The - Rocky Raccoon - Beatles, The - Sgt.
    [Show full text]
  • The Seeds Evil Hoodoo Mp3, Flac, Wma
    The Seeds Evil Hoodoo mp3, flac, wma DOWNLOAD LINKS (Clickable) Genre: Rock Album: Evil Hoodoo Country: UK Released: 2011 Style: Garage Rock, Punk, Psychedelic Rock MP3 version RAR size: 1615 mb FLAC version RAR size: 1208 mb WMA version RAR size: 1920 mb Rating: 4.9 Votes: 361 Other Formats: AHX MP2 AHX AAC ASF MOD MP4 Tracklist Hide Credits Evil Hoodoo (Full Length) A 13:53 Written-By – Daryl Hooper, Sky Saxon Satisfy You (Undubbed) B1 2:03 Written-By – Jan Savage, Sky Saxon Out Of The Question (Version 1, Take 1) B2 3:00 Written-By – Russ Serpent, Sky Saxon Companies, etc. Designed At – 9thPlanet Design Mastered At – Sound Mastering Phonographic Copyright (p) – GNP Crescendo Records, Inc Copyright (c) – Ace Records Ltd. Licensed To – Ace Records Ltd. Marketed By – Ace Distributed By – Ace Lacquer Cut At – SST Brüggemann GmbH Pressed By – MPO Published By – Neil Music Credits Arranged By – The Seeds Bass – Harvey Sharpe (tracks: A, B2), John Paul Manasia (tracks: B1) Compiled By, Research [Archive Research] – Alec Palao Design – Neil Dell Drums – Rick Andridge Executive-Producer – Neil Norman Guitar – Jan Savage Lacquer Cut By – SST Lead Vocals – Sky Saxon Mastered By – Nick Robbins Organ, Piano – Daryl Hooper Producer – Gene Norman (tracks: B1), Jimmie Maddin (tracks: B2), Marcus Tybalt (tracks: A) Notes Record Store Day 2011 release limited to 1000. Barcode and Other Identifiers Barcode (Printed): 0 29667 00717 7 Barcode (String): 029667007177 Label Code: LC 09797 Matrix / Runout (Side A runout, etched): LTDEP010 A SST MPO Matrix / Runout (Side B runout, etched): LTDEP 010 B SST MPO Related Music albums to Evil Hoodoo by The Seeds The Seeds - You're Pushing Too Hard Sky Saxon And The Seeds - Red Planet The Seeds - A Faded Picture The Seeds - A Web Of Sound Saxon - Sky "Sunlight" Saxon & The Original Seeds - Takes & Glories The Seeds Featuring Sky Saxon - You're Pushing Too Hard / Out Of The Question The Seeds - The Seeds Jorge Saxon aka DJ George - Saxon - Rock The Nations The Seeds - Future The Seeds Featuring Sky Saxon - Pushin' Too Hard.
    [Show full text]
  • Identifying Beatles New Zealand 45'S
    Identifying New Zealand Beatles 45's Page Updated 23 De 16 Red and Silver Parlophone Label The Beatles first began hitting it big in New Zealand in the middle of 1963. During the early 1960's, New Zealand Parlophone was issuing singles on a red label with "Parlophone" at the top. The writing on this issue is in silver print. The singles originally issued on this label style were as follows: Songs Catalog Number "Please Please Me"/"Ask Me Why" NZP 3142 "From Me to You"/"Thank You Girl" NZP 3143 "She Loves You"/"I'll Get You" NZP 3148 "I Want to Hold Your Hand"/"This Boy" NZP 3152 "I Saw Her Standing There"/"Love Me Do" NZP 3154 "Can't Buy Me Love"/"You Can't Do That" NZP 3157 "Roll Over Beethoven"/"All My Loving" NZP 3158 "Twist and Shout"/"Boys" NZP 3160 "Money"/"Do You Want to Know a Secret" NZP 3163 "Long Tall Sally"/"I Call Your Name" NZP 3166 "Hard Day's Night"/"Things We Said Today" NZP 3167 "I Should Have Known Better"/"And I Love Her" NZP 3172 "Matchbox"/"I'll Cry Instead" NZP 3173 Red, Silver, and Black Parlophone Label At the end of 1964, the Parlophone label went through a transition period. Black lettering was used for the singles' information on the existing red-and-silver backdrops. Notice that "Parlophone" still appears in silver at the top of the label. The following singles were released originally on this label style. Songs Catalog Number "I Feel Fine"/"She's a Woman" NZP 3175 Red and Black Parlophone Label Once again in 1965, New Zealand Parlophone changed label styles.
    [Show full text]
  • 2017 Abstracts
    Abstracts for the Annual SECAC Meeting in Columbus, Ohio October 25th-28th, 2017 Conference Chair, Aaron Petten, Columbus College of Art & Design Emma Abercrombie, SCAD Savannah The Millennial and the Millennial Female: Amalia Ulman and ORLAN This paper focuses on Amalia Ulman’s digital performance Excellences and Perfections and places it within the theoretical framework of ORLAN’s surgical performance series The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan. Ulman’s performance occurred over a twenty-one week period on the artist’s Instagram page. She posted a total of 184 photographs over twenty-one weeks. When viewed in their entirety and in relation to one another, the photographs reveal a narrative that can be separated into three distinct episodes in which Ulman performs three different female Instagram archetypes through the use of selfies and common Instagram image tropes. This paper pushes beyond the casual connection that has been suggested, but not explored, by art historians between the two artists and takes the comparison to task. Issues of postmodern identity are explored as they relate to the Internet culture of the 1990s when ORLAN began her surgery series and within the digital landscape of the Web 2.0 age that Ulman works in, where Instagram is the site of her performance and the selfie is a medium of choice. Abercrombie situates Ulman’s “image-body” performance within the critical framework of feminist performance practice, using the postmodern performance of ORLAN as a point of departure. J. Bradley Adams, Berry College Controlled Nature Focused on gardens, Adams’s work takes a range of forms and operates on different scales.
    [Show full text]
  • George Harrison
    COPYRIGHT 4th Estate An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.4thEstate.co.uk This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2020 Copyright © Craig Brown 2020 Cover design by Jack Smyth Cover image © Michael Ochs Archives/Handout/Getty Images Craig Brown asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008340001 Ebook Edition © April 2020 ISBN: 9780008340025 Version: 2020-03-11 DEDICATION For Frances, Silas, Tallulah and Tom EPIGRAPHS In five-score summers! All new eyes, New minds, new modes, new fools, new wise; New woes to weep, new joys to prize; With nothing left of me and you In that live century’s vivid view Beyond a pinch of dust or two; A century which, if not sublime, Will show, I doubt not, at its prime, A scope above this blinkered time. From ‘1967’, by Thomas Hardy (written in 1867) ‘What a remarkable fifty years they
    [Show full text]
  • Cannabis (Sub)Culture, the Subcultural Repository, and Networked Mediation
    SIMULATED SESSIONS: CANNABIS (SUB)CULTURE, THE SUBCULTURAL REPOSITORY, AND NETWORKED MEDIATION Nathan J. Micinski A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2014 Committee: Ellen Berry, Advisor Rob Sloane © 2014 Nathan Micinski All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Ellen Berry, Advisor Subcultural theory is traditionally rooted in notions of social deviance or resistance. The criteria for determining who or what qualifies as subcultures, and the most effective ways to study them, are based on these assumptions. This project seeks to address these traditional modes of studying subcultures and discover ways in which their modification may lead to new understandings and ways of studying subcultures in the contemporary moment. This will be done by suggesting a change in the criteria of examining subcultures from that of deviance or resistance to identification with a collection of images, symbols, rituals, and narratives. The importance of this distinction is the ability to utilize the insights that studying subcultures can offer while avoiding the faults inherent in speaking for or at a subculture rather than with or from it. Beyond addressing theoretical concerns, this thesis aims to apply notions of subcultural theory to study the online community of Reddit, in particular, a subset known as r/trees–a virtual repository for those images, symbols, rituals, and narratives of cannabis subculture. R/trees illustrates the life and vibrancy of a unique subcultural entity, which to this point has evaded a cultural studies analysis. To that end, this project advocates for the importance of the cultural studies approach to analyzing cannabis subculture and further, to insert the findings of this study into that gap in the literature.
    [Show full text]
  • Kristine Stiles
    Concerning Consequences STUDIES IN ART, DESTRUCTION, AND TRAUMA Kristine Stiles The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London KRISTINE STILES is the France Family Professor of Art, Art Flistory, and Visual Studies at Duke University. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2016 by Kristine Stiles All rights reserved. Published 2016. Printed in the United States of America 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 12345 ISBN­13: 978­0­226­77451­0 (cloth) ISBN­13: 978­0­226­77453­4 (paper) ISBN­13: 978­0­226­30440­3 (e­book) DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226304403.001.0001 Library of Congress Cataloguing­in­Publication Data Stiles, Kristine, author. Concerning consequences : studies in art, destruction, and trauma / Kristine Stiles, pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978­0­226­77451­0 (cloth : alkaline paper) — ISBN 978­0­226­77453­4 (paperback : alkaline paper) — ISBN 978­0­226­30440­3 (e­book) 1. Art, Modern — 20th century. 2. Psychic trauma in art. 3. Violence in art. I. Title. N6490.S767 2016 709.04'075 —dc23 2015025618 © This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48­1992 (Permanence of Paper). In conversation with Susan Swenson, Kim Jones explained that the drawing on the cover of this book depicts directional forces in "an X­man, dot­man war game." The rectangles represent tanks and fortresses, and the lines are for tank movement, combat, and containment: "They're symbols. They're erased to show movement. 111 draw a tank, or I'll draw an X, and erase it, then re­draw it in a different posmon...
    [Show full text]
  • Cannabis Sativa Native to Central Asia, Cultivated for Thousands of Years for Fiber, Seeds, Medicine, Drug Use
    THC/Marijuana Marijuana/THC Overview (an intoxicant) • Cannabis Sativa native to Central Asia, cultivated for thousands of years for fiber, seeds, medicine, drug use • Main psychoactive ingredient, delta- 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), from resin on unfertilized flowers • 421 chemicals (60-70 cannabinoids) • Psychoactive uses: euphoria, sedative, altered state of consciousness Marijuana Smoke vs. Tobacco Smoke • Which is more harmful? • Each type has more of certain toxins and carcinogens than other • Mitigating factors – Filtration – Additives – Frequency of use – Method of inhalation World Cannabis Highlights • Archaelogical record of hemp cord (~8000 B.C.) • Documentation of medical use in China (~2700 B.C.) • Religious use in India (~2000 B.C.) • Hashish use in Arab world (~1000 A.D.) • Western World learns of psychoactive use (mid 1800s) U.S. Cannabis History • Harvested for hemp in American colonies • Smoking introduced in 1850s by Mexicans and West Indians • Portrayed as evil in 1920s, laws passed to outlaw use • By mid-1930s, considered a “narcotic” • Marijuana Tax Act (1937): made illegal • By 1940 public convinced that it – Induced violent crimes – Led to heroin addiction – Was a great social menace U.S. Cannabis History continued • THC isolated from marijuana (1964) • Hippie era (1960s) • Synthetic marijuana - Marinol (1980) • First cannabinoid receptor isolated and cloned (1990) • Endogenous ligand (anandamide) isolated (1992) • Voters in CA, AZ approve medical use (1996) • Marinol as Schedule 3 (1999) THC Pharmacokinetics • Absorption – Inhaled (smoked) – Oral (tea, food) • Distribution – Peak blood levels in about 10 minutes – Significant depot binding due to high lipid solubility THC Pharmacokinetics continued • Metabolism and Elimination – Metabolized almost entirely by liver – Half-life 20-30+ hours (1-10 days) – More than 24 metabolites, some of which are psychoactive (e.g.
    [Show full text]
  • The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash
    SPOOFS The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash In the 1970s, Eric Idle, a former member of the legendary British com- edy team Monty Python, featured a Beatles parody song called “It Must Be Love” on Rutland Weekend Television, his own television show on BBC-2. The song had been written by Neil Innes, who had previously worked with Monty Python and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. The song was performed by ‘The Rutles’, a Beatles look-alike band featuring Neil Innes as the John Lennon character, and Eric Idle as the Paul McCartney character (vgl. Harry 1985: 69). In October 1976, the parody was shown on America’s NBC TV’s show Saturday Night Live as a se- quel to the running gag of a Beatles reunion for $3,000. The parody went down so well that Eric Idle and Neil Innes decided to produce a feature program about The Rutles for television. Idle, who was a close friend of George Harrison, was allowed to watch Neil Aspinall’s unreleased do- cumentary about The Beatles, called The Long and Winding Road. Aspi- nall’s film featured a bulk of famous footage of The Beatles, from their first televised performance at the Cavern Club in Liverpool to their last group performance on the roof of their Apple business building. Idle u- sed The Long and Winding Road as a model for his fake-documentary about The Rutles and basically re-told the history of The Beatles pro- jected upon this imaginary rock band, adding essential elements of par- ody and the Pythonesque sense of surreal humor.
    [Show full text]
  • Art to Commerce: the Trajectory of Popular Music Criticism
    Art to Commerce: The Trajectory of Popular Music Criticism Thomas Conner and Steve Jones University of Illinois at Chicago [email protected] / [email protected] Abstract This article reports the results of a content and textual analysis of popular music criticism from the 1960s to the 2000s to discern the extent to which criticism has shifted focus from matters of music to matters of business. In part, we believe such a shift to be due likely to increased awareness among journalists and fans of the industrial nature of popular music production, distribution and consumption, and to the disruption of the music industry that began in the late 1990s with the widespread use of the Internet for file sharing. Searching and sorting the Rock’s Backpages database of over 22,000 pieces of music journalism for keywords associated with the business, economics and commercial aspects of popular music, we found several periods during which popular music criticism’s focus on business-related concerns seemed to have increased. The article discusses possible reasons for the increases as well as methods for analyzing a large corpus of popular music criticism texts. Keywords: music journalism, popular music criticism, rock criticism, Rock’s Backpages Though scant scholarship directly addresses this subject, music journalists and bloggers have identified a trend in recent years toward commerce-specific framing when writing about artists, recording and performance. Most music journalists, according to Willoughby (2011), “are writing quasi shareholder reports that chart the movements of artists’ commercial careers” instead of artistic criticism. While there may be many reasons for such a trend, such as the Internet’s rise to prominence not only as a medium for distribution of music but also as a medium for distribution of information about music, might it be possible to discern such a trend? Our goal with the research reported here was an attempt to empirically determine whether such a trend exists and, if so, the extent to which it does.
    [Show full text]