In recent years, the city of Detroit's economic struggles, including its cultural expressions, have become focal points for discussing the health of the American dream. However, this discussion has rarely strayed from the use of hackneyed factory metaphors, worn-out success-and-failure stories, and an ever-narrowing cast of characters. The result is that the common sense understanding of Detroit's musical and cultural legacy tends to end in 1972 with the departure of Motown Records from the city to Los Angeles, if not even earlier in the aftermath of the riot / uprising of 1967. In "'Where The Mix Is Perfect': Voices From The Post-Motown Soundscape," I provide an oral history of Detroit's post-Motown aural history and in the process make available a new urban imaginary for judging the city's wellbeing. To do this I utilize archival research and interviews in order to recover the life stories of a group of Detroiters in their struggle to change and be changed by Detroit's soundscape during the post-Motown era. A diachronic study, my dissertation starts by revisiting Detroit's role in the modern soundscape from musicians, dancers, promoters, and critics who experienced the city's numerous ballrooms and clubs, listened to its charismatic radio DJs, and produced its studio-driven sound. However, as my dissertation proceeds, I pay special attention to the emergence of a new soundscape in the 1970s with a new set of heroes—club DJs—and an audience that both reflected and resisted the racial, sexual, and class hierarchies of the period. Detroiters experienced the impact of this subterranean population in the ensuing years as the genres of disco, hip hop, house, and techno emerged and the city's residents mixed together as they had rarely done before or since.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04192011-113957 |
| Date | 29 June 2011 |
| Creators | Gholz, Carleton |
| Contributors | Brent Malin, Andrew Weintraub, Shanara Reid-Brinkley, William Fusfield, Ronald Zboray |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04192011-113957/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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