Understanding Popular Music Understanding Popular Music is an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the history and meaning of popular music. It begins with a critical assessment of the different ways in which popular music has been studied and examines the difficulties and debates which surround the analysis of popular culture and popular music. Drawing on the recent work of music scholars and the popular music press, Roy Shuker explores key subjects which shape our experience of music, including music production, the music industry, music policy, fans, audiences and subcultures, the musician as ‘star’, music journalism, and the reception and consumption of popular music. This fully revised and updated second edition includes: • case studies and lyrics of artists such as Shania Twain, S Club 7, The Spice Girls and Fat Boy Slim • the impact of technologies including on-line delivery and the debates over MP3 and Napster • the rise of DJ culture and the changing idea of the ‘musician’ • a critique of gender and sexual politics and the discrimination which exists in the music industry • moral panics over popular music, including the controversies surrounding artists such as Marilyn Manson and Eminem • a comprehensive discography, guide to further reading and directory of websites. Roy Shuker is Associate Professor in Media Studies at Massey University, New Zealand. He is the author of Key Concepts in Popular Music (Routledge 1998). LONDON AND NEW YORK Understanding Popular Music Second edition I Roy Shuker First published 1994 now known or hereafter invented, including by Routledge photocopying and recording, or in any 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Second edition published 2001 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group Shuker, Roy Understanding popular music / Roy Shuker. p. cm. This edition published in the Taylor & Francis Includes bibliographical references and index. e-Library, 2001. 1. Popular music–History and criticism. 2. Popular culture–History–20th century. I. Title. © 1994, 2001 Roy Shuker ML3470 .S54 2001 781.64’0973–dc2100-053356 ISBN0–415–23509–X (hbk) ISBN0–415–23510–3 (pbk) All rights reserved. No part of this book may be ISBN 0-203-18801-2 Master e-book ISBN reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or ISBN 0-203-18924-8 (Glassbook Format) by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, Contents Acknowledgements vii Introduction ix 1 ‘What’s goin’ on?’ 1 Popular culture, popular music, and media literacy 2 ‘Every l’s a winner’ 27 The music industry 3 ‘Pump up the volume’ 51 Technology and popular music 4 ‘We are the world’ 67 State music policy, cultural imperialism, and globalisation 5 ‘On the cover of the Rolling Stone’ 83 The music press 6 ‘I’m just a singer (in a rock ’n’ roll band)’ 99 Making music 7 ‘So you want to be a rock ’n’ roll star?’ 115 Stars and auteurs v CONTENTS 8 ‘Message understood’ 139 Musicology and genre 9 ‘Sweet dreams (are made of this)’ 155 Musical texts 10 ‘U got the look’ 175 Film and television, music video and MTV 11 ‘My generation’ 193 Audiences and fans, scenes and subcultures 12 ‘Pushin’ too hard’ 217 Popular music and cultural politics Conclusion: ‘wrap it up’ 241 Popular music and cultural meaning Appendix 1: chapter/song titles 245 Appendix 2: discography 247 Further resources and bibliography 253 Subject index 277 Name index 279 Song and album title index 284 vi Acknowledgements ‘Black Eyes, Blue Tears’ © 1997 Out of Pocket Productions Ltd (admin. by Zomba Music Publishers Ltd) and used by kind permission of Universal Music Publishing Ltd. ‘Born in the USA’ © Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP) Admin. by Zomba Music Publishers Ltd. ‘Bring It All Back’ © 1999. Words by Eliot Kennedy, Mike Percy, Tim Lever, Rachel Stevens, Hannah Spearritt, Bradley McIntosh, Jonathan Lee, Paul Cattermole, Joanne O’Meara and Tina Barrett. Taken from the song ‘Bring It All Back’. By kind permission of Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishers Ltd, and Music Ltd/BMG Music Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved. ‘Cop Killer’ © 1992 (Ice T/Cunningan). By kind permission of Rhyme Syndicate/Universal/MCA Music Ltd/Universal Music Publishers Ltd. ‘Love in Vain Blues’ Robert Johnson. Words and music by Robert Johnson. © (1978), 1990, 1991 King of Spades Music. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission. ‘My Generation’ © 1965 Fabulous Music Limited, Suite 2.07, Plaza 535, King’s Road, London, SW10 0SZ. International Copyright Secures. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission. ‘Spoonful’ Written by Willie Dixon. © 1960 (renewed) 1988 Hoochie Coochie Music Inc (BMI) (administered by Bug). All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. For more information on Willie Dixon and the blues please contact: The Blues Heaven Foundation, 2120 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL, 60616, Tel: (312) 808 1286, Fax: (312) 8080273. ‘Stand by Your Man’. Print rights controlled by Warner Bros Publications Inc/IMP Ltd. Used by permission of IMP Ltd. vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ‘Wannabe’ (Stannard/Rowe/Brown/Adams/Halliwell/Bunton/Chisholm) © 1994. By kind permission of Universal Music Publishers Ltd. Every effort has been made to contact the owners of copyright material. In the event of a copyright query, please contact the publishers. viii Introduction As was its predecessor, this second edition of Understanding Popular Music is situated in the general field of cultural studies. While there in no sense exists a cultural studies ‘orthodoxy’, there is a general recognition that cultural studies embraces the analysis of institutions, texts, discourses, readings, and audiences, with these all best under- stood in their social, economic, and political context. The cultural studies ‘project’ is eloquently put by Grossberg: ‘Popular culture is a significant and effective part of the material reality of history, effectively shaping the possibilities of our existence. It is this challenge – to understand what it means to “live in popular culture” – that confronts contemporary cultural analysis’ (Grossberg 1992: 69). This project is explored here through the detailed consideration of a central form of contemporary popular culture, popular music, a label which is obviously problem- atic. In the first edition of this book, for convenience, I used the term ‘rock’ as shorthand for the diverse range of popular music genres produced in commodity form for a mass, predominantly youth, market. This led to charges of my being ‘rockist’ (Negus 1996), since fans of genres such as rap, techno, and reggae would hardly equate their preferences with ‘rock’. As indicated by genre divisions used in the music press, popular music has become a broad label encompassing a variety of musical styles and their accompanying record label and retail categorisations. At the same time, the very title of the book led some reviewers to make the obvious point that ‘popular music’ indicated a far greater range of music than ‘rock’ and its associ- ated genres, and would also embrace national contexts other than the ‘Western’ countries I concentrated upon. Recognising these points, but also conscious of the difficulty of finding any acceptable ‘shorthand’ signifier, I have used the term ‘popular music’ in this second edition. My focus remains a narrow one within this, ix INTRODUCTION equating ‘popular music’ with commercially mass produced music for a mass market, and including the variety of genres variously subsumed by terms such as rock ’n’ roll, rock, pop, dance, hip-hop, and R&B. Historically , my discussion of such music is largely restricted to the period since the early 1950s and the emergence of rock ’n’ roll, and geographically limited to the Anglo-American nexus of production and consumption (see the discussion in Chapter 1). I emphasise the historical and contemporary production of popular music, within an international industry, predominantly as recorded music in various formats, or texts; the nature of these texts; and their cultural significance, reception and consumption. These topics are examined principally in relation to their expres- sion in the United States and Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. The United States and the UK are the key historical sites in the development of popular music, and represent the continuing, albeit declining, Anglo-American dominance of the international market. Canada and New Zealand are examples of countries largely incorporated into this hegemony; essentially on the periphery of the global market, they illustrate questions of the status of the local within the internationalisa- tion of popular music. The core question addressed is how meaning is produced in popular music. Cultural interpretations and understandings are embedded in musical texts and performances – records, tapes, music videos, concerts, radio airplay, film soundtracks, and so on. Such meanings are, in one sense, the creations of those engaged in making the music in these diverse forms, but they are also the result of how the consumers of these forms interact with the music. Further, music texts and performances are cultural commodities, produced largely by an international music industry ultimately concerned with maximising profits. Meanings, or, rather, particular sets of cultural understandings, are the result of a complex set of interactions between these different parties. Accordingly, the question of meaning in popular music cannot be read off purely at one level, be it that of the producers, the texts, or the audience. It can only be satisfactorily answered by considering the nature of the production context, including State cultural policy, the texts and their creators, and the consumers of the music and their spatial location. Most importantly, it is necessary to consider the interrelationship of these factors.