Searching on Google Scholar for things in your interest area can be kind of scary. Viz:

Exploring modal subdivisions in alternative music

"The concern of this article is with a particular set of harmonic practices that rock
musicians, particularly those who participate in the domain of guitar-oriented
‘alternative’ rock, have been using with noticeable frequency in the last ten years. I
am also interested in discussing the concept of the power chord (a term I shall explicate
more clearly below)"

Technology and Aesthetics in Popular and Not-so-popular Music

Do we believe the voice proclaiming —man, I feel like a woman“ is really Shania? Does
her voice sound real to us, or real only better? Have we become accustomed to this new
aesthetic of digitized perfection? In ten or twenty years, will it sound as dated as an 80s sax
solo? As multiple takes are recorded, dismantled and reassembled and synthesized, the voice becomes a "shifting centre of a collage of a thousand microperformances.“ Technology has
shattered the connection between performer and performance, as Ian Penman explains in an
essay on amplification and the voice, and "the presumed truth of the voice (as in some scene of
confession of gospel gnosis) cannot be thought of as immutable, as the voice is always now œ via
recording - at a remove from itself."

Theses on Sleater-Kinney

Marx wrote the “Theses on Feuerbach” in 1845 in preparation for The German Ideology, which he coauthored with Friedrich Engels. Engels only discovered the “Theses” after Marx's death, and he regarded them to be “the brilliant germ of the new world outlook.” In postmodernity, outlooks are certainly less sweeping. This article offers a set of cultural materialist theses on the sound of the all-female rock trio, Sleater-Kinney, in a dialogue often faithful to Marx's original work.

Schwarze Netze statt Netzstruempfe? Weibliche Kommunikationsraeume in Jugendkulturen und im Internet

Die Texte der weiblichen Punks drücken u.a. die sexuellen Bedürfnisse der Frauen direkt aus. Sie holen sich das, was sie wollen, notfalls mit körperlicher Gewalt. Sie beschreiben Männer, wie sonst Männer Frauen beschreiben, abtaxierend, abschätzend. Diese aggressive Komponente wird dann vor allem durch die riot grrls wiederbelebt. "I want to fuck you like a dog / Take you home and make you like it."

‘*1/2’ a critique of rock criticism in North America

As a particular type of gatekeeper, rock critics play a significant role in shaping the representations of artists for an admittedly small, but influential, population, as well as establishing an artist's place in music history. In Sound Effects, Simon Frith (1983) maintains that rock critics are ‘opinion leaders’ and are the ‘ideological gatekeepers’ of the community for which they write. Additionally, I argue that rock critics function as Gramscian ‘organic intellectuals’ who articulate the ideas held by the population of which they are a part (Gramsci 1971, pp. 5-14).

GIRL POWER: FEMINISM, GIRLCULTURE AND THE POPULAR MEDIA Ashley Lorrain Smith, BAS

[This is crashing, but there's some good stuff on the Spice Girls. And pro!]

johnny_paulhus

I’ve never really listened to Liz Phair. The White Stripes are up next on my listening list. I’ll get around to Liz sometime in the summer perhaps.

It’s strange to realize just how many people have been entirely UN-influenced by Fight Club. Today the ladies at work asked me if I wanted anything from Wendy’s. “Yeah, I’ll take one of those Chicken B.L.T. salads,” I said (a darn satisfying meal if you haven’t had one yet).

“What kind of dressing do you want?” asked office lady Betsy.

“Oh, they’ll include Honey Mustard dressing,” I said.

“What if they don’t?” she asked.

“Don’t worry they will. It comes as a complete salad hobby kit.”

“Hahaha,” laughed office lady Betsy and the lovely office hottie Emma. “’Hobby kit.’ I like that.”

I didn’t feel like explaining, so I reluctantly took credit for the line, and then I went back to my office and got to thinking: I’m backing out of the banquet that is America. I’ve grabbed my filled plate and quietly excused myself from the table. I sense that the ceiling’s caving in; everyone sees it, but most people deny it...

posted by Mike B. at 4:09 PM 0 comments