Category Archives: Popular music

by | December 5, 2016 · 6:00 am

Women singer-songwriters in the 1990s

P.J. Harvey, Bjork, and Tori Amos in 1994, photographed by John Stoddart.

 

The 1990s saw the emergence of a new kind of female artist, writing songs that focused on intimate topics of sexuality, gender, and the body in an explicit, direct way.

These women explored how everyday life is experienced through the body, and at the center of their songwriting was a specifically female experience, drawing on female agency and power, all experienced through an embodied self. These artists also embraced the confessional history of singer-songwriters, drawing in their audiences with closeness and intimacy through their bodily experiences.

This according to “The female singer-songwriter in the 1990s” by Sarah Boak, an essay included in The Cambridge companion to the singer-songwriter (New York Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp. 257–64).

Below, P.J. Harvey’s Dress, a song discussed in Boak’s essay.

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by | November 8, 2016 · 6:00 am

Tecnocumbia and Ecuadorian identity

 

Peruvian tecnocumbia arrived in Ecuador in the 1990s, and the ensuing tecnocumbia boom fostered a new music scene that revitalized Ecuadorian popular music (EPM) and contested Ecuadorians’ perception of its national music.

Social, economic, and political factors triggered the increasing production and consumption of this music, and EPM, a stigmatized music that was barely heard in the mainstream media in the 1970s and 1980s, came to be perceived as música nacional by the working classes. The historical contexts, social relations, political economies, and physical landscapes that generate and maintain the EPM scene illuminate how working-class musicians, entrepreneurs, and fans from Quito responded to the social and economic crisis in the country that brought about a massive wave of emigration in the late 1990s.

This according to “The Ecuadorian popular music scene in Quito: Contesting the national imaginary” by Ketty Wong, an essay included in Made in Latin America: Studies in popular music (New York: Routledge, 2016, pp. 89–98).

Above and below, Quito native Jaime Enrique Aymara, known as el rey de la tecnocumbia.

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by | November 6, 2016 · 6:00 am

Ray Conniff makes it big

 

In the late 1940s Ray Conniff made an intense study of hit records to discover the key to successful recording.

In 1953 he became musical director for Columbia Records, and in 1955 he was responsible for the arrangements on Don Cherry’s Band of gold, a million seller; the next year he was allowed to produce his own album, ’S wonderful, which sold half a million copies.

Conniff made many LPs that developed the swing-era formula he had devised, starting a trend that was widely copied. His 1966 version of Somewhere my love, an arrangement of the vocal version of Maurice Jarre’s Lara’s theme from the film Doctor Zhivago, became one of the most famous successes in the history of film background music.

This according to “Conniff, Ray” by Reuben and Naomi Musiker (Conductors and composers of popular orchestral music: A biographical and discographical sourcebook [New York: Routledge, 2013] pp. 47–51); this reference work is one of many resources included in RILM music encyclopedias, an ever-expanding full-text compilation of reference works.

Today would have been Conniff’s 100th birthday! Below, Conniff demonstrates his signature use of voices as big-band instruments.

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by | October 27, 2016 · 6:00 am

P-funk tears the roof off

 

In the 1970s George Clinton took funk to a new level when he formulated the P-funk concept, which was defined by a philosophy, attitude, culture, and musical style.

Grounded in the ideology of Black Power, P-funk advocated self-liberation from the social and cultural restrictions of society, creating new social spaces for African Americans to redefine themselves and celebrate their blackness.

P-funk had its own language, fashion, dances, and mythical heroes and villains, who Clinton presented as black science-fiction characters. The mastermind and producer of five P-funk groups, Clinton combined these cultural components to create stories about black people and black life from a black perspective.

This according to “Funk” by Portia K. Maultsby (The Garland encyclopedia of world music III [New York: Routledge, 2013] pp. 680–86); this encyclopedia is one of many resources included in RILM music encyclopedias, an ever-expanding full-text compilation of reference works.

Today is the 40th anniversary of the opening of the P-Funk Earth Tour, whose production budget was the largest amount ever allocated for a black music act to tour at that time. Below, an excerpt from the tour’s performance in Houston shortly after it opened in New Orleans.

BONUS: Wishing for more? Here’s the whole concert.

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by | September 22, 2016 · 6:00 am

Brasiliana: Journal for Brazilian studies

brasiliana

Brasiliana: Journal for Brazilian studies is a dynamic academic forum where scholars from diverse disciplines in humanities and social sciences publish their research, establish academic discussion, exchange ideas, and draw on each others’ research within the field of Brazilian studies.

Brazil is currently establishing itself as an economic and political power within a global context, and the interdisciplinary study of Brazil is emerging at a high academic level. Several universities worldwide are offering programs under the term Brazilian studies, an area that differs from the more common Latin American studies. Academic communities of Brazilianists exchange ideas across universities and collaborate on research projects inside and outside Brazil. This is an academic journal absolutely dedicated to Brazilian studies.

Although the journal was launched by Statsbiblioteket, Aarhus, in 2012, it is new to RILM because vol. IV/1 (August 2015) is the first issue that features musical content.

Below, Vitor Ramil’s Milonga das sete cidades, the subject of one of the issue’s articles.

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by | September 12, 2016 · 6:00 am

Prince and patriarchy

miles davis - prince

Prince’s push-pull interactions with Miles Davis in his 1987 Sign o’ the times tour were emblematic of two interrelated tensions in his career.

One is the question of how wind and brass instruments fit into Prince’s music. His decision to give horns a central place in his 1980s and 1990s bands showed the same curious ambivalence as his relationship to Davis.

The second tension that Prince’s onstage interaction with Davis demonstrated is the issue of patriarchy. Prince spent the 1980s playing the part of the androgynous sexual imp, the 1990s found him engaging the exaggerated machismo of hip hop, and by the 2000s he was sporting natty suits, openly exploring jazz, and avoiding any discussion of queer identity.

These two spheres, the biographical and the musical—Prince’s fraught relationships with masculinity and with the musical styles of his father’s generation—all came together in the bell of Miles Davis’s trumpet. Prince used horns to act out two conflicts at the same time: They enacted the tension between the musical past and the present, and they served symbolically to resolve a conflict between two different versions of traditional masculinity—one violent and hypersexual, the other restrained and mature. Prince was ultimately using his horn section as a tool to leverage his own position in the black musical patriarchy.

This according to “Prince, Miles, and Maceo: Horns, masculinity, and the anxiety of influence” by Griffin Mead Woodworth (Black music research journal XXXIII/2 [fall 2013] pp. 117–150. This issue of Black music research journal, along with many others, is covered in our new RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text collection.

Above, Prince and Miles in 1987.

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by | August 18, 2016 · 6:00 am

Rumba and racial politics

 

The Afro-Cuban music and dance genre rumba has historically been considered una cosa de negros (a black thing) and reviled due to racialized stereotypes that link the practice with el bajo mundo (the low life), excessive alcohol use, and violence. Nevertheless, the socialist government has sought to elevate rumba’s status during the past half century as part of a larger goal of foregrounding and valorizing the African contributions to Cuban identity and culture.

Rumba is the most significant and popular black-identified tradition in Cuba; in addition to its association with blackness, it is often portrayed as a particularly potent symbol of the masses and working-class identity, another reason why the government has aimed to harness rumba to its cultural nationalist discourse.

Despite the discursive valorization of the practice found in much Cuban scholarship and political rhetoric, rumba continues to be identified with a particular and marginalized sector of the population. In many ways, the complex situation of rumba performance conforms to the more general trend of contemporary racial politics on the island.

This according to “National symbol or ‘a black thing’? Rumba and racial politics in Cuba in the era of cultural tourism” by Rebecca Bodenheimer (Black music research journal XXXIII/2 [fall 2013] pp. 177–205). This issue of Black music research journal, along with many others, is covered in our new RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text collection.

Above and below, street performances of rumba.

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by | August 11, 2016 · 6:00 am

Electro hop and Afrofuturism

Uncle Jamm's Army

Most narratives on Los Angeles hip hop begin with gangsta rap, but recordings, videos, news articles, photographs, interviews, fliers, and memories detail a different story.

Electro hop, or techno hop, was the direct precursor to gangsta rap. This multifaceted and complex period emerged in the early 1980s and was developed on the streets of Los Angeles by adolescent black males.

Expanding from mobile disk jockey crews, electro hop artists produced a musical soundscape and cultivated a cultural landscape that drew from both electro funk and hip hop, demonstrating both how intramusical components are linked to extramusical factors and how Afrofuturist concepts (re)envision (sur)realities. Electro hop sounds off on other/outer ways of reconsidering and reinvigorating planet rock.

This according to “Something 2 dance 2: Electro hop in 1980s Los Angeles and its Afrofuturist link” by Gabriela Jiménez (Black music research journal XXXI/1 [Spring 2011] pp. 131–144). This issue of Black music research journal, along with many others, is covered in our new RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text collection.

Above, Uncle Jamm’s Army, a seminal electro hop group, in the 1980s; below, UJA’s signature hit Dial-a-freak.

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by | July 4, 2016 · 6:00 am

Stephen Foster and nostalgia

 

The dates of Stephen Foster’s life bracket the transformation of U.S. culture from a patrician society with a stable hierarchical structure to a democratic society stressing individual responsibility and freedom.

The dynamic interaction of individual alienation, cultural idealism, and popular culture assumed a particularly vivid dimension in music; the portrayal of bittersweet emotions stimulated by the contemplation of something lost to the narrator became the favorite device of 19th-century songwriters.

Nostalgic topics in Foster’s songs include the middle-class domestic woman, the Old South, and traditional Celtic ballads.

This according to “Sound and sentimentality: Nostalgia in the songs of Stephen Foster” by Susan Key (American music XIII/2 [summer 1995] pp. 145–166).

Today is Foster’s 190th birthday! Below, Gentle Annie, one of the songs discussed in the article.

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by | June 20, 2016 · 6:00 am

Detroit, Techno City

Detroit is known internationally as Techno City, named after the dance music genre pioneered by DJ/producers like Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson.

In the 1980s local DJs melded Detroit funk, European synth-pop, and avant-garde composition into a unique futuristic sound. Techno, however, went largely unappreciated in the American marketplace. Mirroring the career trajectory of American jazz musicians in the 1960s, the creators of techno made their living by touring Europe extensively, and became superstars on that continent.

This according to “A tale of two cities” by Mike Rubin (Spin XIV/10 [October 1998] pp. 104–109). Below, Atkins’s Techno city from 1984.

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