More articles that might be good models for my own paper on The Floyd:
Hornby, excerpts from Song Book
I really enjoyed the excerpt from Nick Hornby's Song Book. I can see the point he's making about pairing songs with memories. According to Hornby, if you really love a song, you can apply it to every moment of your life. If you attach a certain memory to a song, however, you're really just in love with the memory and not the music. I can see the logic in this argument, but I don't think I agree completely. There are plenty of songs that I associate with different periods of my life. Does that mean I don't truly "love" these songs? Not exactly. I love the songs - I played them over and over during a specific time in my life and now when I play these songs, they remind me of my past experiences. These memories add more meaning to the song for me. I love them even more for that. I appreciate these songs for being able to communicate to me, for being able to move me emotionally.
Klosterman, excerpts from Fargo City Rock
As for Klosterman, I was intrigued by his discussion of "heavy" metal v. "hard" metal. According to Klosterman, "The only drugs that go with 'hard' metal are bottles of booze (and cocaine, if you can afford it...)" (19). On the other hand, marijuana goes well with "heavy" metal. I'm not sure how Klosterman came to this distinction, but it does say something about the fan cultures surrounding metal. There seems to be a lot of connections between drug culture and music culture. I'm interested in exploring this relationship in my own research about Pink Floyd. How did Pink Floyd affect the drug/hippy scene and vice versa?
Negus, “Geographies” in Popular Music Theory
In his chapter, Negus discusses imperialism and the movement of music by drawing on the theories of Lenin and Boyd-Barrett. Negus notes that Lenin's theory sees imperialism as a process, "a competitive struggle between the major capitalist nations and their companies which as a consequence will result in specific imperialist patterns of domination" (167). Negus argues that through this process of imperialism, people in one country become dependent on the "products and services" from another country. Negus then goes on to discuss media imperialism and references Boyd Barrett's four "modes of media imperialism": (1) The shape of the communication vehicle, (2) a set of industrial relationships, (3) a body of values and (4) media content. On page 172, Negus questions how different media products communicate values. He asks, "In what ways do Madonna, Michael Jackson or Bruce Springsteen embody or communicate 'American' values?"
The questions Negus brings up mirror some of the questions that have emerged in my own research. As a group, how did Pink Floyd embody the psychedelic scene during the 1960s? What were their values and how did they express those values through their music? In the second half of the chapter, Negus discusses the relationship between music and place. He questions how people associate a place with a particular musical sound (Woodstock, for example). In exploring this relationship, Negus suggests looking at three things: (1) How the "material circumstances," such as communication networks, allow a particular place to produce specific musical sounds, (2) How instruments, rhythms and voices are symbolic of the identity of a place, and (3) How the music is used to construct a sense of "'spatial rivalry'" (189). This all seems to go back to the idea of worlding, the idea that music is constructed through our social/cultural/political worlds.
I really enjoyed the excerpt from Nick Hornby's Song Book. I can see the point he's making about pairing songs with memories. According to Hornby, if you really love a song, you can apply it to every moment of your life. If you attach a certain memory to a song, however, you're really just in love with the memory and not the music. I can see the logic in this argument, but I don't think I agree completely. There are plenty of songs that I associate with different periods of my life. Does that mean I don't truly "love" these songs? Not exactly. I love the songs - I played them over and over during a specific time in my life and now when I play these songs, they remind me of my past experiences. These memories add more meaning to the song for me. I love them even more for that. I appreciate these songs for being able to communicate to me, for being able to move me emotionally.
Klosterman, excerpts from Fargo City Rock
As for Klosterman, I was intrigued by his discussion of "heavy" metal v. "hard" metal. According to Klosterman, "The only drugs that go with 'hard' metal are bottles of booze (and cocaine, if you can afford it...)" (19). On the other hand, marijuana goes well with "heavy" metal. I'm not sure how Klosterman came to this distinction, but it does say something about the fan cultures surrounding metal. There seems to be a lot of connections between drug culture and music culture. I'm interested in exploring this relationship in my own research about Pink Floyd. How did Pink Floyd affect the drug/hippy scene and vice versa?
Negus, “Geographies” in Popular Music Theory
In his chapter, Negus discusses imperialism and the movement of music by drawing on the theories of Lenin and Boyd-Barrett. Negus notes that Lenin's theory sees imperialism as a process, "a competitive struggle between the major capitalist nations and their companies which as a consequence will result in specific imperialist patterns of domination" (167). Negus argues that through this process of imperialism, people in one country become dependent on the "products and services" from another country. Negus then goes on to discuss media imperialism and references Boyd Barrett's four "modes of media imperialism": (1) The shape of the communication vehicle, (2) a set of industrial relationships, (3) a body of values and (4) media content. On page 172, Negus questions how different media products communicate values. He asks, "In what ways do Madonna, Michael Jackson or Bruce Springsteen embody or communicate 'American' values?"
The questions Negus brings up mirror some of the questions that have emerged in my own research. As a group, how did Pink Floyd embody the psychedelic scene during the 1960s? What were their values and how did they express those values through their music? In the second half of the chapter, Negus discusses the relationship between music and place. He questions how people associate a place with a particular musical sound (Woodstock, for example). In exploring this relationship, Negus suggests looking at three things: (1) How the "material circumstances," such as communication networks, allow a particular place to produce specific musical sounds, (2) How instruments, rhythms and voices are symbolic of the identity of a place, and (3) How the music is used to construct a sense of "'spatial rivalry'" (189). This all seems to go back to the idea of worlding, the idea that music is constructed through our social/cultural/political worlds.
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