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By incorporating a number of theoretical concepts from the field of popular cultural studies and a variety of analyses of songs from different musical genres such as folk, punkrock, reggae and hiphop, this seminar sets out to explore the social, political, and cultural significance of popular music. Understanding popular songs as plurimedial cultural practices which are embedded in a dynamic and complex network of production, mediation and reception, we will not only have a look at the ways in which the lyrical, the musical and the performative dimensions of the sung word interact to create a powerful form of cultural expression which serves a number of functions, e.g. in processes of individual and collective identity formation or as social and political commentary; we will also reflect on the position of popular music within a society’s media system by focusing on a number of, at times, controversially discussed aspects, including the ‘metareferential turn’ in popular culture and its implications for the aesthetics of popular music, the dynamic interplay between fan cultures and stardom, the thin line between authenticity and artificiality, as well as the mutual relationship between tactics of political subversion and strategies and mechanisms of mainstreamization. A reader containing all the texts with which we will deal in this class will be available from the copy shop at Reckhammerweg 4 after the first class meeting. |
