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I argue that the ways in which members of the youth generation in Cairo, Egypt consume Arabic-language popular music, and the aesthetic criteria by which they evaluate the worth of various songs and singers, constitute a key component, along with corresponding criteria of political, racial, gendered, and cultural authenticity of Egyptian subjectivity, of a new form of Egyptian gendered national subjectivity in postcolonial modernity. These aesthetic and authenticating criteria are fundamentally interrelated, as one’s consumer preferences within genres of Egyptian popular music are often taken as indicative of the nature of one’s Egyptian subjectivity. For previous generations in postcolonial Egypt, discriminating taste for high modernist aesthetics in popular music, especially the singer Umm Kulthūm, comprised an aspect of desirable cultural modernity and authenticity. This aesthetic has been superseded among contemporary youth by an emphasis on direct emotional evocation as an index of authenticity. Correspondingly, youth in Cairo have come to judge the authenticity of their Egyptian subjectivity against the political subjectivity of their elders’ generations, and the authenticity of their gendered, racial, and cultural subjectivities against those of the West and those of other Arab countries, most particularly Lebanon. / text

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Music journalism has been acknowledged as an important space of mediation between artists and consumers. Journalists and critics have played an historical role in the creation of discourse on popular music and are acknowledged by the music industry as an important referent in promotion strategies. Research on the subject has been mostly focused either on the relationship between music journalism and the wider music industry in which it operates or on its status as a field of cultural production. Little consideration has been given to the role played by music journalists in articulating popular music with wider political, social and cultural concerns. This thesis will examine the case-study of Portuguese popular music journalism. It will address its historical evolution and current status by taking into consideration some dimensions, namely, the wider institutional contexts that frame the status of music journalism and how they work upon it, the ideologies and values realised in journalistic discourse, the journalists’ relationship to the music industry (as represented by record labels/companies and concert promotion companies) and issues of interactivity with readers. The thesis will draw on theories of the public sphere and, to a lesser extent, on Bourdieu’s notions of field, capital and habitus to assess the possibilities for music journalism to create reasoned discourse on popular music and, therefore, contribute to wider debates on the public sphere of culture.

Janelle Monáe is a pop superstar whose Afrofuturist art is paving the way for a new revolution of popular music. An investigation into her oeuvre reveals an artform that ­relies on technological aesthetics and science-fiction narratives as a critical lens through which capitalism and its racist, sexist, homophobic, and hegemonic tendencies are clearly revealed. Monáe displays a masterful understanding of social hierarchy and power imbalances, and uses her music as a form of resistance to those heterosexist, white-supremacist institutions that attempt to reduce Monáe to the profitability of her body and culture. Situating herself as a visible and celebrated queer black musician and activist, Monáe uses her voice to provide political commentary on present-day America, through imagined future dystopias. Her seamless synthesis of black music genres and aesthetics allows for a unified musical project that is accessible, socially informed, powerful, and impactful.

The number of the radio stations reached 208 high at 2008 since they were allowed to apply for the operating licence in 1993, according to statistics of the National Communications Commission. However, the radio stations are facing intense competition with blooming on-line radio stations. Therefore, how to retain loyalty of audience is an important issue for all the radio stations. This study is to explore the correlation of audience personality, life style and the loyalty to the pop-music radio stations. Also it investigates whether a person¡¦s inner-attribute and outer-behavior are related to his loyalty of a pop-music radio station. We used on-line questionnaires and purposive sampling of Kaoshiung residents. We hope that the results of this study would benefit administrative managers for the pop-music radio stations to understand the station¡¦s advantages, the needs of the audiences, and to manage the audiences¡¦ loyalties effectively in the competitive environment. The method of collected data is by using on-line questionnaires and purposive sampling of Kaoshiung residents. Among 241 samples, 236 were effective and 5 samplers were non-listeners to any radio station. After the data anlaysis based on factor theory, the samples were sorted in five different personality traits including agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, openness and neuroticism. The statistical results show that the number of the audiences possessing agreeableness is the greatest, followings conscientiousness, openness, extraversion, and finally neuroticism. Also the audiences emphasize on the achievement pursuit, following amusement, media attentiveness, topicality interest, job emphasis, spending efficiency, and plan deliberation. The audiences possess the loyalty of the radio station which doesn¡¦t show any differences because of diverse personalities or life styles, and the attitude loyalty is higer than the behavior loyalty.

Through an examination of 402 songs that charted in the top 20 of the Billboard year-end charts between the years 1990 and 2009, this dissertation builds upon previous research in form of popular song by addressing the following questions: 1) How might formal sections be identified through melody, harmony, rhythm, instrumentation, and text? 2) How do these sections function and relate to one another and to the song as a whole? 3) How do these sections, and the resulting formal structures, relate to what has been described by previous theorists as normative? 4) What new norms and trends can be observed in popular song forms since 1990? Although many popular songs since 1990 do follow well-established forms, some songwriters and producers change and vary these forms. AAA strophic form, AABA form, Verse-Chorus form, Verse-Chorus with Prechorus and/or Postchorus sections, Verse-Chorus-Bridge form, “Other, with a Chorus” and “Other, without a Chorus” forms are addressed. An increasing number of the songs in each of the above listed forms are based on a repeating harmonic progression or no harmonic progression at all. In such songs, the traditional method of identifying sections and section-functions through harmonic analysis is less useful as an analytical tool, and other musical elements (melody, rhythm, instrumentation, and text) are as important, if not even more so, in determining the form of songs in the sample.

Notre thèse analyse la production artistique de Michael Jackson, en termes commerciaux, stylistiques, visuels, en ciblant les dynamiques et tensions raciales qui innervent ses strates narratives. La première partie porte sur les classements coloristes et la posture ubiquitaire des opus jacksoniens, recontextualisés au sein de la société américaine et de l’industrie du disque racialisée. La deuxième partie analyse les composantes éclectiques et stylistiques de la pop jacksonienne et la manière dont les conventions employées se situent et opèrent face aux constructions catégoristes existantes. Enfin, la troisième partie traite des dynamiques et tensions raciales portées par les productions visuelles (vidéos, image artistique) et les textes, comme autant de fondements identitaires de son potentiel crossover et fédérateur auprès d’un public international et transracial. / Our thesis analyses Michael Jackson’s artistic production, through marketing, stylistic and visual aspects, targeting racial dynamics and tensions which invigorate its narrative layers. The first part is about the colorist charts and the ubiquitous posture of jacksonian opuses, recontextualized against american society and racialized record industry. The second part analyzes the stylistic eclectism of Jackson’s pop music and the way he uses the conventions from the musical and racial categorization. Finally, the third part is about racial dynamics and tensions carried by visual productions (video clip, artistic image) and lyrics, as elements of identity fundations of Jackson’s crossover and his federative appeal to an international and transracial audience.

How did music play a consistent role through various memories? In this memoir, I look at the sweet, the traumatic and troubling. I use specific songs as connections to lost loved ones. I pin the power of music to the loss of three important people in my life: my sister, father, and mother. Who were their musical touchstones? Did I share them? Did music run through them as it has always run through me? The memoir is sandwiched by a brief extended metaphor that props up the conceit that we are entering a live concert performance. It is billed as a "letter to a lost loved one" because it is indeed meant to address that lost one, my sister, my guide. In the opening section I've lost my voice. I eventually reclaim it and vow that I will perhaps meet my sister at some point in the future.