The study of popular music has experienced an astonishing growth in the past two and a half decades; however, the detailed analysis of musical texts has lagged far behind other areas, such as the sociology of the youth audience and analysis of the visual components of music video. This thesis undertakes a survey of recent approaches to popular music at the textual level, before examining the construction of an individual song, the Beach Boys' 1964 recording of "All Summer Long". While many parameters affecting the creation of the cultural significance of the text in question are discussed, ultimately the exegesis serves to problematize larger issues in scholarly work on popular music, particularly the dominance of the paradigms of rupture, rebellion, and authenticity in relation to the historiography and criticism of the formation known as "rock".

This thesis investigates the theory and practice of song criticism from a primarily literary perspective. It maintains that much contemporary song criticism deals inadequately with the complex relationships between verbal, vocal and musical texts that comprise the three basic elements of the modern song. To justify this claim, and to grasp how the current situation might have arisen, the thesis delves into the history of song and traces its developments. It concludes that modern and classical song differ in ways that the "serious vs. popular" debate do not address: autonomy of authorship, frame of reference, and proper context for interpretation. To remedy this situation, the thesis anatomizes modern song and outlines a "top-down" approach to song criticism with lyrics as the primary frame of reference, supplemented by emotive cues found in the music and vocal performance. Concurrently, the anatomy is put into practice, using examples from the unofficial canon of modern song.

The entertainment industry is an impactful part of the U.S. economy. My thesis explores the way Americans consume popular music and how the U.S. economic environment affects the permeability of the music industry to new artists. I use discrete-choice probit models to examine the top 10 weekly singles from the Billboard Hot 100 between 2006 and 2013. I analyze the economic factors and artist characteristics that affect an unestablished artist’s entry into the top 10 of the chart and achievement of the number one chart spot. I also use a Cox proportional hazard model to examine the effects of economic factors and artist characteristics on the number of weeks an artist’s single stays in the top 10 of the Hot 100 chart. I find that having a previous single in the top 100 decreases the predicted probability of a new artist’s song being in the top 10, and having previous singles in the top 10 or top 100 decreases number of weeks an artist’s subsequent single spends in the top 10 of the chart. Additionally, level of GDP per capita increases the number of weeks an artist’s single stays in the top 10 of the chart. Economic well-being perpetuates stability in the consumption of music, and modern culture consumers demonstrate a preference for newness in their endorsement of unestablished artists. As demonstrated by the use of singles between 2006 and 2013, new technologies decrease the costs of engaging with new artists for consumers and allow an artist to achieve success regardless of the artist’s previous success.

No description available.

The confluence of singers, composers and audiences within contemporary Mexican culture, produces a "bolero effect" in which the bolero tradition of the popular love song is established as a complex network of relationships between actors and spaces. The relationships between public discourses about romance, courtship and self identities, is produced and secured by the deployment of a variety of codes and languages that together constitute love as a shared memory. Collective and personal memory are strongly related. The process of interpreting and responding to the bolero is rooted· not only in individual biography but also in the life of the community to which a person belongs, and which provides him/her with frames of reference within which to organise memory, a kind of mental map drawn up by language. The aim of this thesis is to analyse the complex and contradictory interplay between the public presentation and proliferation of the bolero, and the intimate, unique, experience of love. The first part of the thesis explores the public culture of the bolero as it travels along trajectories linking live performance to radio, cinema, records and television. The second part explores the experiences and responses of male and female subjects from two contrasting class locations in contemporary Mexico City.

This thesis sets out to explore, define and analyse the image of the Modern Greek Popular Musician between approximately 1945 and 1990 as expressed in a variety of written texts. The main argument is that there is a mythic approach in the presentation of the aforesaid image within the context 'of prevailing ideological and political concerns in modern Greek culture since the end of the War, and the ongoing influences of Western philhellenic ideals and Greek nationalism. Secondly, it is argued that the recurrence of common images points to an overall image for the popular musician which is composed of a number of general, diachronic images. The general images have been abstracted from a Typology constructed in a succinct and comprehensive way to show the wide variety of images of the popular musician over the last forty-five years. Despite this variety, however, it is argued that there a certain number of general images which are pivotal to any understanding of the overall image of the popular musician and which can be applied to all the case studies (six in total) which have also been included in the discussion and, indeed, to virtually all Modern Greek popular musicians. / Finally, it is argued that the presence of recurring general images of the popular musician (which are neither random nor arbitrary) point to the strong cultural significance of that image. It is suggested that the popular musician is perceived to be a prominent figure in modern Greek culture precisely because there is a need for Culture Heroes in modern Greece; the musician seems to fulfil the relevant criteria by making an important contribution to his/her nation's culture and acting as a role-model for his/her people. Furthermore, it is contended that certain cultural values, beliefs and national preoccupations are expressed and reaffirmed in the image of the popular musician which makes its study all the more important.

This project is an investigation of melodic drum-kit practices in popular and contemporary music. The development of melodic drum-kit playing techniques has helped create a more inclusive role for drum-kit players within ensembles and has increased the potential for drum-kit players to present solo elements in performance. The project artefacts of my research are six compositions presented on CD. They demonstrate performance and compositional techniques that encourage a melodic approach to drum-kit performance. My research involved several methodological approaches these included: a) professional practice-based research, b) music composition and transcription, c) interviews with significant musicians familiar with drum-kit melodic practices and d) elements of autoethnography. I refer to particular drum-kit performance techniques and practices such as mirroring, thinking melodically, spatial relationships between drum-kit instruments and ensemble players, as well as, internalising melodic and harmonic ideas and being in the moment. I have shown in my compositional project that melodic elements in drum-kit performance and composition encourage a broader and more inclusive role for drummers in improvised performance. This is evident in the ensemble versions of compositions submitted as part of this study.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, August, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

Univ., Diss. 2001--São Paulo, 2001.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1992. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [246]-256).