'Gangsta Rap': Louis Theroux's Weird Weekend, BBC2

I've just been watching a re-run of the Gangsta Rap episode of Louis Theroux's Weird Weekend. Louis is infamous for craftily highlighting the abnormality of his subjects - usually religious fundamentalists, sex cults or celebrity eccentrics - by acting so unassumingly "normal" himself (read: white, middle class) that they appear to tell their own story. Here he is out to spear a bigger fish, the way in which the rap industry sells social dysfunction to America's black community.What the show makes clear, first, is that gangsta rap is promoted by a legitimate industry - a constellation of associated cottage operations (marketing, lyrics, recording, radio, etc). These craft units steer emerging artists towards a market place that demands extreme masculinity, rebellion and violence. They recruit...

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Discussions about academic writing

I recently found this article in which Lindsay Waters (commissioning editor for Harvard University Press) bemoans the focus on books and gimmicks in academia. Instead he celebrates the essay and journal articles as part of the solid groundwork of academic research. (Also see this piece by hi...

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IASPM International Conference 2009 - Some readings

I've just returned from the 2009 IASPM International conference in Liverpool and want to list a few sources mentioned by the many speakers. I will also categorize them...AUDIENCESSalgado-Correia, J. (2008) 'Do Performer and Listener Share the Same Musical Meaning?,' Estudios de Psicología 29, 1, 49-69.Kun, J. (2005) Audiotopia: Music, Race and America. Berkeley: University of California Press.Major, K. (1989) Dear Bruce Springsteen. New York: Vikings Children Books.Mulvey, L. (2005) Death 24 x a Second. London: Reaktion Books.Regev, M. (2007) 'Cultural Uniqueness and Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism,' European Journal of Social Theory 10, 123-138.Staiger, J. (1992) Interpreting Films: Studies in the Historic Reception of American Cinema. Princeton: Princeton University Press.St John, G. (2009) Technomad:...

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Walter Benjamin's 'Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century' (1939)

I've just been reading Benjamin's classic essay and wish to summarize and comment on it here as a piece of critical historical research. The Paris essay is a summary of a vast collection of quotes called 'The Arcades Project' which itself a blueprint for a different history of Paris. In this history Benjamin ignores the grand narratives and collects the detritus and refuse of the past instead, piecing it together to let it tell a story that subverts the recieved version. If the recieved story talks of great men, grand inventions and teleologiocal progress, Benjamin wants to talk about it as an apology for capitalist society. He does this by creating a different history that corrodes capitalism's centre piece: the exchange value of the commodity...

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Great bifurcations: Michael Jackson's posthumous roles and remainders

Already a motion in the US Senate to declare Michael Jackson “an American legend and musical icon (and) a world humanitarian” has been blocked by Republican Peter King who said on Fox News and CNN that Jackson was an alleged pervert, child molester and paedophile. Beyond its interesting racial and party political context (Texan Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee represented Congress and the U.S. Black Caucus at the Jackson memorial on Tuesday) this moment of cultural politics says something important about memory and celebrity in a wider sense. Jackson is not the first hero in popular music to be disputed: on a smaller scale memorials for Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin were both challenged by their home towns. How then should we see this debate?Writing about Elvis in 1990, Lynn Spigel opposed official...

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Mark's posts on Celebrity

Great bifuractions: Michael Jackson's posthumous roles and remaindersThe "Mention Elvis" ruleRonnie James Dio - laid to rest (a heavy metal funeral)Fiske Matters Conference (11th - 12th June 2010, with audios)Faking it (some useful questions to ask about imposters)I Have Admired You for Many Years (Star-fan encounters and the performance of identity)All Watched Over By Machines (Adam Curtiz' BBC2: our emotions as commodities online)Making Things Whole Again - Take That Reunion Events (Anja Lobert and Tim Wise's conference and exhibition on the living culture of 1990s Take That fand...

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A Michael Jackson bibliography

Anthony Neale, M. (2009) ‘Conjuring Michael,’ Blog post - available online: http://newblackman.blogspot.com/ (retrieved 6/7/09)Awkward, M. (1995) ‘“A Slave to the Rhythm”: Essential(ist) Transmutations; Or, the Curious Case of Michael Jackson,’ in Negotiating Difference: Race, Gender and the Politics of Positionality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 175-192.Baudrillard, J. (1993) The Transparency of Evil. London: Verso.Brackett, D. (2002) ‘(In Search of) Musical Meanings: Genres, Categories and Crossover,’ in Hesmondhalgh, D. and Negus, K. eds Popular Music Studies. London: Arnold, pp. 65-84.Dyson, M. (1993) ‘Michael Jackson’s Postmodern Spirituality,’ Reflecting Black: African-American Cultural Criticism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 35-63.Epstein, D. and Steinberg, D....

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Special bibliographies

GENERAL REFERENCESome 2009 pop research booksGlobal Culture (link to a USC course with a valuable reading list)IASPM book reviewsMichael JacksonCONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS / ABSTRACTSIASPM-US & Canada 2006IASPM-US & Canada 2007World Music Days (Hong Kong, 2007: canons, covers, glitch)Rhythm in the Age of Digital Reproduction (Oslo, 2007)IASPM International Conference 2009 (fractions of most topi...

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Kraftwerk - men and machines

On Thursday 2nd July my colleague David Pattie, my friend Jon and I descended on the Manchester Velodrome to see a set by the electro-pop legends, Kraftwerk. With only Ralf Hutter left from the original line-up, they still managed to put on an amazing "performance" - I put the term in speechmarks because with Kraftwerk, you just see four men standing at lecturns clicking away on their laptops. They look like they might be aboard the Starship Enterprize as they call up samples and create their pioneering brand of electronic dance music.Kraftwerk have always faced a dilemma when playing "live": how can such calculated, pre-programmed music also seem spontaneous? They managed to keep the show successfully afloat with several integral gimmicks, the first being the British Olympic team who zipped...

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Fandom and Celebrity - recent bibliographic finds

Some recent sources found when looking for fan-related scholarship:Beebe, R. (2002) 'Mourning Becomes...? Kurt Cobain, Tupac Shakur, and the "Waning of Affect",' in Beebe, R. et al eds Rock Over the Edge: Transformations in Popular Music Cultures. London: Duke University Press, 311-334.Franco, J. (2006) 'Langsters Online: kd lang and the Creation of Internet Fan Communities,' in Holmes, S. and Redmond, S. eds Framing Celebrity: New Directions in Celebrity Culture. London: Routledge, 269-284.Hamilton, M. (2007) 'Searching for the Blues: James McKune, Collectors and a Different Crossroads,' in Weisbard, E. ed Listen Again: A Momentary History of Popular Music. London: Duke University Press, 26-49.Hesmondhalgh, D. (2007) 'Audiences and Everyday Aesthetics: Talking About Good and Bad Music', European...

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Mark's current research projects...

For spring 2011 I am focusing on several projects:a) A book on Elvis Presley for the Equinox series, Icons of Popular Music.b) A textbook on media fandom for Continuum.c) An article on Hitchcock's The Birds for the Journal of Celebrity Culture.d) A conference paper on the reception of Ben Myer's book Richard for the upcoming LitPop conference.e) Guest editing a special issue of Popular Music and Society on fandom.Follow my research on Twit...

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