Mark's posts on Race

Judge Dread (The 1970s cockney reggae answer to Eminem)Michael Jackson (1958-2009) (The myth of pop's greatest legend)Michael Jackson's swansong: 'This is It' (2009)'Gangsta Rap', Louis Theroux's Weird Weekend, BBC2 (New Orleans rap and the glamorization of violence)Literacy in the hood (on Fifty Cent's new self-help book 'The 50th Law')Three kings for Christmas 2009 (Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and Orson Welles)Jews, Race and Popular Music (review of Jon Stratton's 2009 bo...

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Michael Jackson (1958-2009)

A couple of days ago I awoke early to hear the shock news that Michael Jackson had died of a heart attack at the age of 50. The Sun's headline that day - "JACKO DEAD" - caught the ambiguities of moment. Jackson had attained royalty status as the 'King of Pop' yet he was also 'Wacko Jacko', the most eccentric celebrity and global icon of our time. Paul Morley squared this circle on BBC 2's Newsnight Review by explaining that Jackson had culturally died, in effect, in the early 1990s, and his celebrity image - "remnants" as Morley put it - had been recycling in the media ever since.Certainly, the late 1980s and early 1990s were a turning point in Michael Jackson's long and fruitful career, or perhaps they were rather a point of inflection, like the middle of David Lynch's strange narrative in...

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"I don't deny history": on necessarily forging a passport to the past

Opening his 1953 novel The Go-Between, Leslie Poles Hartley famously wrote, "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." Hartley's dictum evokes the historian as traveller. He or she takes on the privileged role of both explorer and translator. Sometimes reluctant, sometimes shrewd, this confused interloper relentlessly investigates with the aim of sketching a narrative map to explain the terrain of yester year. In the process they become a tourist of Otherness in a land where eccentric natives necessarily go mute.Having been to a departmental research symposium today, I enjoyed it when my colleague Brian Machin presented a piece on his attempts to trace a family member who died in World War II. In his research Brian found...

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Mark's posts on History

'I Don't Deny History' (Considers historians as ideological agents)Walter Benjamin's 'Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century' (1939) (A good example of history as critical commentary)Public Image Limited - Manchester Academy, 19th December 2009 (A rebel relives his history, again)What are imagined memories? (How do fans use pop's past?)Frank Sidebottom RIP (On the passing of one of Manchester's comedy legends)Popular Music and British Television (Brief review of Ashgate's 2010 edited book)In the Shadow of Your Rattan Cane (Chaplin's Modern Times as a critique of moderni...

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Mark's posts on Gender

Tears, Tiaras and Transsexuals (considers the performativity of male cross-dressing)Kraftwerk (men and machines make music)Florence + the Machine (dark and dreamy feminity at the Manchester Academy)The New York Dolls (aging trash metal legends play Liverpool's O2 Academy)Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll (Ian Dury biopic 2010)Heaven 17: Inside Outsiders Playing to Win (30 years after 'Penthouse and Pavement')Without Fathers: John Lennon and Jim Morrison (review of Lennon Naked and When You're Strange)Metal on Metal: Notes on the Crash in Popular Culture (Cars, technology and masculinity)Don Cherry: Canadian Patriot (Canada's premier hockey commentator)In memory of Mick Karn (1958-2011) (Japan's bass player and his artful play with gender)Marilyn: The Last Sessions (More 4 documentary on Marilyn...

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Tears, Tiaras and Transsexuals

With its focus on the first transsexual beauty contest in Las Vegas, the documentary Tears, Tiaras and Transsexuals aired on Channel 4 last week (17th June) and it weighed in somewhere between a serious exploration of gender realignment and car crash docu-soap television. Though the musical soundtrack was nothing particularly special, I'm doing a post for it here because it had a lot to say about what Judith Butler might have termed the performativity of gender. It also made an interesting comparison to a documentary that the infamous Turner prize-winning artist Grayson Perry (pictured below) made on transvestitism.In Perry's documentary, a focus group of British transvestites sat round explaining how they felt so straight-jacketed by masculinity that they could only express their feminine...

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Other resources

Birmingham Music Archive and Birmingham Music HeritageCelebrity Culture (Andy Miah's 2005 Scottish conference)Discogs (discographies)eBay (memorabila auctions)Experience Music ProjectHome of Metal (archive)IASPM 2005 (conference proceedings)MediaEd (educational documentaries online)MediaActive (special issue on celebrity)Open Content Australia (also see OCR Research Review blog on 'political music')Popsike (record price evaluation database)Raving (DJ History ebook)Society for Music Theory (they have two journals)Spotify (music streaming application)Upstairs at GracelandWolfgang's Vault (streamed concert bootlegs)... please email me if this page requires updati...

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News stories

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.netClubbingFiorucci Made Me Hardcore (clubbing documentary) Music IndustryGoogle v PRS over Youtube (March 2009) ... please email me if this page requires updati...

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Youtubes on punk

The infamous Today interview of December 1976 needs no introduction:Sex Pistols interview with Bill GrundySex Pistols interview with Bill Grudy (with commentary by Steve Jones)Sid Vicious casually imploding on US public access TV, with Nancy taking over:Sid Vicious interview (part 1)Sid Vicious inteview (part 2)PIL were at the forefront of the post-punk movement, with Lydon still posturing in this American interview:PIL on the Tom Synder Show (part 1)PIL on the Tom Synder Show (part 2)... please email me if this page requires updati...

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Youtubes on music and race

'Sharevari' on the Scene show (the missing link between Kraftwerk, disco and Detroit techno)Vanilla Ice on the Arsenio Hall show... please email me if this page requires updati...

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Youtubes on live concerts

In October 1992 singer Sinead O'Connor tore up a photo of the Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live to protest against child abuse in the Catholic Church. Not long after, she was booed at a Bob Dylan tribute concert in New York. The incident in proved that a vast audience could be critical on ideological grounds:Sinead O'Connor heckled at Bob Dylan Anniversary tributeSinead O'Connor interview (about the incident)... please email me if this page requires updati...

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Youtubes on club culture

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.netSit down, stand up (an unusual dance from DC10 club in Ibiza 2007)The Wunderkind DJs (child stars)... please email me if this page requires updati...

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Youtubes on fandom

In 2007 the Chris Crocker phenomenon and its immediate cultural aftermath was a particularly interesting play on fan stereotypes:Chris Crocker on wikipedia (superfandom, gender)Chris Crocker's 'Leave Britney Alone' rant (super-fandom, gender)Chris Crocker's 'Leave Briney Alone' trance mixChris Crocker on Jimmy Kimmel show (super-fandom, gend...

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General scholars homepages

Chas Critcher (moral panics)Jeremy Gilbert (cultural theory)Christina Goulding (ethnography, consumerism, dance)Lawrence Grossberg (cultural studies, hegemonyMatt Hills (fan cultures)Mark Jankovitch (cult fandom, film)Henry Jenkins (fandom)Angela McRobbie (cultural studies, gender)... please email me if this page requires updati...

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Popular homepages and blogs

Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.netHOMEPAGESDave HaslamNelson GeorgeSpencer LeighJon SavageWriters for Rock's Back Pages.BLOGSThe B-SideGreybike (A pop and politics blog)Guardian music blogOnline FandomNew Music Strategies (online music distribution blog)Simon Reynolds... please email me if this page needs updati...

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Recommended readings on fandom

Image: Photography by BJWOK / FreeDigitalPhotos.netHills, M. (2002) Fan Cultures. London: RoutledgeJenkins, H. (1992) Textual Poachers. London: RoutledgeLewis, L. ed. (1993) The Adoring Audience. London: RoutledgePeterson, R. (2000) Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity. Chicago: University of Chicago PressVermorel, F. (1985) Starlust. London: Comet Press.Vermorel, F. (1989) Fandemonium. London: Omnibus PressVermorel, F. (2000) 'Fantastic Voyeur: Lurking on the Dark Side of Biography,' Village Voice Literary Supplement, OctoberSandvoss, C. (2005) Fans: The Mirror of Consumption. Cambridge: Polity Press... please email me if this page needs updati...

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Blogs

Image: Idea go / FreeDigitalPhotos.netPaul Carr (Zappa, rights)Andrew GoodwinRupa HuqHenry JenkinsMark Antony NealeGeoff StahlMark Sumera (music and violence bibliography)Tim WallAlso see...Interactive Culture (Birmingham-based scholars looking at changing media technologies)Interesting music stuff (Conferences, etc, created by University of London music librarian)... Please email me if this page needs updates or additio...

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Music scholars homepages

Apologies in advance for anyone who I have missed - email me for inclusion: Barbara BradbyRob BowmanDavid BrackettShelley BruntMichael BullRobert BurnsDaniel CavicchiMartin CloonanNicola DibbenMark DuffettJan FairleyMurray FormanSimon FrithAndrew GoodwinLine GrenierDai GriffithsJill HalsteadStan HawkinsPaul HodkinsonShane HomanRupa HuqKeith Kahn-HarrisDave HesmondhalghBruce Johnson (and his earlier writing)Henry JohnsonSteve JonesSven-Erik KlinkmannMarion LeonardLee MarshallSusan McLaryKevin McNeillyRichard MiddletonAllan MooreJohn MundyKeith NegusDavid PattieMotti RegevHillegonda Rietveld (and her Myspace)David SanjekJacqueline SpringerGraham St JohnMatt StahlRob StrachanWill StrawJohn StreetPhil TaggJason ToynbeeFred VermorelSteve WaksmanElijah...

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