The purpose of this blog is to create an outlet for SUU Communication graduate students engaged in the critical analysis of popular culture artifacts to post insightful contributions to our understanding of popular culture.
According to Deanna Sellnow, discursive symbols serve as identifiers of communication. they are units with fixed associations such as words with objects. Non-discursive symbols are beyond words to object associations that humans use to comprehend the tangible human experience. Beyond the tongue to object, rhetoric exists in non discursive manners such as in the nuances of speaking, the tone of voice and body language, to visual art and musical sounds. Musical rhetoric focuses on segments of music that create a persuasive communicated messages. Some examples include:
Intensity and Release Patterns:
In 4:20 - 4:40 the music changes rhythm and sonic ambience. For some reason the first part of the song seems like Frank Ocean is talking out to the universe or deep in the psychedelic suconscious trip. The second part paints a physical ambience because it is more grounded on the bass.
Virtual Time:
In 2:20 - 2:50 the heart to internal dance experience focuses on two different paces of experiencing the sound. The first part is more chamber like and timeless where the buildup builds to the ground and after the drop the feet ground to the Earth.
Virtual Experience:
This whole game ambience sound is very immersive. I like how they expand the virtual experience to physical ones like hearing this type of immersive sound in theme parks.
Please link me examples of incongruent and congruent musical pieces and what they display to the world and how it defines current past and future consumer trends.
How can a person differentiate between music that genuinely enhances an experience and music that is intentionally manipulative? A great example of Sellnow’s theory on paralanguage and nonverbal cues, such as pitch, volume, and rate, is found in the recent scandal involving Hillsong.
Hillsong Church, a Christian megachurch originating in Australia in 1983, is widely known for its influence in the Christian music industry. Hillsong Worship, a Contemporary Christian Music group, operates under the church's umbrella and has produced music that has become synonymous with their brand. Prior to Hillsong Worship, it was uncommon for worship teams to be recognized as mainstream musicians. Hillsong's in-house music label produced chart-topping hits, with some songs staying at the top of the charts for extended periods. Notable songs include Oceans, What a Beautiful Name, and Forever Reign. These songs are incredibly catchy—some would argue, too catchy.
Allegations began to surface that Hillsong used manipulation and hypnosis techniques in their music to increase fundraising and grow church membership. Former church members claimed that the music was designed to evoke feelings that suggested the presence of the Holy Spirit, making emotionality foundational to the church’s success. The music itself created an emotional experience that connected worshippers with the Holy Spirit. The artists used vocal dynamics alongside the lyrical content to enhance the emotional impact of the songs. This strategy contributed to Hillsong's ability to create a worship experience that stood out, attracting enormous audiences.
I am going to introduce you to an artist that some of you may know, but I would be willing to bet that many of you don't. His name is Ben Folds.
For those who are a bit older, Ben had a few hits back in the 2000's with his band at the time called Ben Folds Five. Some of the tracks ended up in movies and on shows. These days, Ben mainly tours on his own, and he is known for doing a combination of solo tours, as well as playing with orchestras of various sizes. The last time I saw him, he played with yMusic, a sextet chamber ensemble.
There are two things about Ben that make him resonate in my musical selection.
The first element is lyrical meaning. When I was younger and listened to him, I didn't place much thought into what his lyrics specifically referred to. I just simply enjoyed his music.
And there's nothing wrong with that. But when I started seeing him live and watching live videos of his, I found that he was keen on explaining the background behind his various songs, often touching on why he wrote them. According to him, they were based on actual events that happened either to him or to others around him.
This resonated majorly with me because it's too often that you have difficulty connecting with a famous person, or feel like they live a normal life on your level. It's not necessarily a direct emotional relation to an event, though. For example, I will be posting two sets of links in this blog involving two songs. The first is titled Brick. According to Folds, the song was written about an experience he had with abortion as a young man. I cannot directly relate to how going through that experience would feel, but understanding the depth of the lyrics makes the song that much more meaningful to me. Here is the first link to the original recording of the song.
The link below directly relates to the second reason Ben Folds resonates to me as an artist. How often do you get to hear an artist you admire perform their work in a completely different setting? In this case, it is with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra.
The second link I am attaching is for a song called Narcolepsy. Again, I loved this song when I was younger, and although I inferred what he was referring to in the lyrics, it was really interesting to hear his take on the track prior to a live performance.
The link below is him performing it with the same orchestra, where he explains his personal meaning for the track prior to playing it.
Due to listening to Ben with a different set of ears, or even multiple sets of ears (depending on who he is playing with) over the past 20 years, I have grown to appreciate him and his body of work much more than I initially had. Being able to assign meaning to his work, as well as hear it through a different dimension has helped enrich this appreciation. Out of all of my favorite artists, I cannot say one has had this specific type of effect on me as a listener.
I have two questions for you as the reader. First, how did hearing separate versions of the songs above resonate with you? Did you have a different emotional feeling when it was played with an orchestra versus the original recording? And did you feel more connected to the second song after he explained its purpose?
Second, have you ever had this type of experience with an artist you enjoy listening to?
Finally, I have attached a bonus video in case you have enjoyed Ben's work. In the video below, Ben creates a song from scratch in ten minutes after giving a lecture at the Kennedy Center. Cheers!
This topic opens a wide range of memories for me, growing
up in the 80’s as a teen it resonates well as I was a staunch lover of
music and a great break dancer in my hometown. Pop, classical, disco, soul and reggae was all part of my kind of music with Pop and soul my favorites,
and it is amazing to note that the ‘Generation X’ my generation ushered in the prelude
to the best era of music. The decade is predominantly considered as the great
decade for music due to the rise of the use of saxophones and synthesizers mixing
into different musical styles accompanying by powerful dancing.
It was fascinating to see saxophone changed the
entire music production when Eddie Grant “Walking on the Sunshine” (1978) set
the stage and then came volumes upon volumes of saxophones empowered music:
George Michaels: Careless Whisper (1984), Diana Ross: Am coming out and upside down
(1980), Chaka Khan: Ain’t nobody (1983), just to name a few among the great music that
revolutionized our world and usher in a variety of dance styles including
break dancing, moon walk, running man etc.
Clearly, American contribution to music pervaded my life during
the eighties and although I still love music my genre has changed to gospel
music. Music has been a medium of communication to me as I can attribute them
to my life stages and preferences but there has been no musical performer as iconic
as Michael Jackson, the king of pop, rock and soul. He was named King of Pop,
rock and soul at the 1989 soul train aware by Elizabeth Taylor: a British
American actor. These unique styles of American popular music emerged early in
the 19thn century, and in the 20th century when the American music
industry developed a series of new forms of music, using elements of blues and
other genres. These popular styles included country, R&B, jazz and rock but
the eighties dominated decades that preceded it. Americans say the 80’s was the
decade with the best decade music. Four in ten Americans (40%) say the 1980’s produced
the best music, followed closely by the 70’s (37%) and 90’s (32%) (Lohr et al.,
2021).
We're all way too familiar with Theodor "Fun Sponge" Adorno (pictured right) at this point. According to His Eminence, if we're not listening to six-part Bach Inventions on our morning commute we are mindless drones enslaved to the sinister culture industry. Clearly, Adorno is just another old guy with a distaste for new ideas. Unfortunately, I don't think this is entirely true.
Adorno argues that popular music is a low-class jumble of recycled, generic material. To him, all popular music is made from a standardized mold hat makes it digestible to a fault. The listener doesn't need to exert any effort to enjoy a popular music composition. He says,
"The composition hears for the listener. This is how popular music divests the listener of his spontaneity and promotes conditioned reflexes. Not only docs it not require his effort to follow its concrete stream; it actually gives him models under which anything concrete still remaining may be subsumed."
I think Adorno makes some good arguments here. There have certainly been many times in my life that I heard a song on the radio that I considered absolutely lifeless. One example is this song by Ylvis called "What Does The Fox Say?" While this song certainly has some comedic value, it's not helping the listener improve themselves in any way. To Adorno, that is simply unacceptable.
The example in the slides of the "Four-Chord Song" all but proves that certain chord progressions and styles of songwriting are replicated over and over again. I also believe that as streaming services become more prevalent, musicians are being encouraged to create shorter songs and albums. Audiences are being conditioned to expect and respond to a certain type of music.
I don't want to pick on Adorno too much, because I think it takes a lot of guts to tell the whole world their taste in music sucks. However, I think Adorno is missing some key points about popular music.
Firstly, I think his idea that edification is the only form of cultural value is just plain wrong. I believe there are many different types of cultural value, and entertainment value is a completely valid example. Even the "Fox Say" song has some educational value for a young child. Hopefully that's enough to satisfy Adorno's elitist views.
Secondly, I think that the intricacies of music theory and music production are something that Adorno isn't factoring in. Many songs seem simple at first glance, but are actually made with great care and attention to detail. Consider "Pet Sounds" by The Beach Boys. While it might sound at surface level like a somewhat pop composition, Brian Wilson is actually challenging the listener by including lots of atypical sounds and harmonies.
Finally, I think while it's true that some popular music is highly generic, there are other artists that operate far outside the norm, and are celebrated for doing so! I mentioned earlier how streaming services like Spotify are encouraging the streamlining of new music to make it more palatable to a large amount of people. The positive side of a large library of music is that there are many artists trying to differentiate themselves and break whatever formula the listener expects. Here's an example of a "weird" artist that have found a lot of success collaborating with Anderson .Paak and even performing on NPR's Tiny Desk series.
I saw another student in this class write about Kendrick Lamar. The fact that Kendrick is winning over more traditional and formulaic is proof that in the proving ground of culture, drivel doesn't always win. I think it takes effort to make good art, and it takes effort to appreciate it. If humans weren't willing to put in that effort, then maybe Adorno would be 100% right. But he's not.
Have you ever listened to the start of a song and realize 20 seconds in that you have completely got the wrong song? If you haven't that is impressive. There are so many hit songs that begin and end with the same tones. There are songs that even use the same lyrics. Adorno says "Listening to popular music is manipulated not only by its promoters but, as it were, by the inherent nature of this music itself, into a system of response mechanisms wholly antagonistic to the ideal of individuality in a free, liberal society." Basically what he is saying is popular music is popular because society says they are. I want to identify several songs that have the same beat or lyrics and have become hit songs.
First example is Mariah Carrey's song called Fantasy came out in 1995. In 2022 the song Big energy came out with using the same beat and even similar lyrics of Mariah Carrey's Fantasy. Both songs were huge hits because of the beat. Interestingly enough the beat is almost exactly the same. This showcases Adorno's theory when he says" In hit music, however, the structure underlying the piece is abstract, existing independent of the specific course of the music. This is basic to the illusion that certain complex harmonies are more easily understandable in popular music than the same harmonies in serious music." He feel "hit" music is more about the understandable harmonies than the complexities of serious music being symphonies. In many ways I feel he is right, Fantasy and Big energy where hit songs because of the simple beat and good jam.
Second Example of songs being the same lyrics would be Fergie's song Glamorous and Jack Harlow's song First Class. Both of these songs have the same lyrics that were originally created by Fergie but both songs were hits. To Adorno's point "hit" songs are simple so simple that using the same lyrics allows everyone to know the song which in turn they will listen to both. My question is for you do you feel we are loosing our creativity and that Adorno was right about "hit" songs or that using old hits for new hits is being creative? Do you feel that all "hits" are the same?
Music is a special kind of art that goes beyond different cultures and time periods. It helps people share their feelings and ideas with one another.It's not just for fun; it can carry important messages. For a long time, music has been a big part of how people express themselves, from the songs sung by ancient people to the modern tracks we hear today. Deanna D. Sellnow studies how music communicates messages that are deeper than just the catchy tunes.
Throughout history, music has been really important in helping to bring about change in society. It has inspired people during big movements, like when people fought for their rights or protested against wars. Danielle Endres and Megan O Byrne explain that music has always been a big part of these movements, from the struggles of enslaved people to labor rights in the early 1900s to more recent protests.This shows how powerful music can be in helping people come together and share their ideas.
Sellnow looks at how songs can express feelings and also argue for certain ideas. This helps us understand how music can send out complex messages and make us think. Studying music is important today because it shows us the power of songs and the clever ways they can communicate important thoughts and feelings.
