Category Archives: Uncategorized

A question that consistently popped into my head while reading the Meintjes article was whether or not visibility trumped authenticity. There were multiple answers given within the article, but the one that stood out most prominently was on pages 55-56: … Continue reading →

In her article “Paul Simon’s Graceland, South Africa, and the Mediation of Musical Meaning,” ethnomusicologist Louise Meintjes invites her readers to consider how Graceland’s meaning and political stakes shift from individual to individual, depending on their positionality in relation to the context of … Continue reading →

In her article “Solidarity, Song, and the Sound Document,” Andrea F. Bohlman expands upon notions of musical textuality we have previously encountered by positioning the concept of “sound document” as a crucial and explicit aspect of their methodology, their overarching argument, and … Continue reading →

In the selected passages we read in Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation, Alexei Yurchak articulates the ways in which Soviet society and culture developed with, and because of, sound technologies, how these sound technologies … Continue reading →

“The literal meaning of these songs was irrelevant. What was important was their Western origin, foreign sound, and unknown references that allowed Soviet fans to imagine worlds that did not have to be linked to any “real” place or circumstances, … Continue reading →

Both “Don’t Shoot” and “This Train Is On Fire” address the very real impact of state-sanctioned war and violence, particularly upon younger generations (in “This Train Is On Fire,” the last verse affirms “…the people who shot our fathers are … Continue reading →

Yurchak discusses that broadcasts in languages other than those spoken in the USSR were jammed (178) and as such the BBC World Service, amongst others, was readily available to Soviet music fans. How do we read this decision? To block … Continue reading →

In the Hebdige article, a useful comparison is made between culture and counter culture: culture is to news photography as subculture is to advertising (Hebdige, 101). I thought this comparison really hits the nail on the head for how audiences … Continue reading →

As I watched Ziggy Stardust, I found myself comparing Bowie’s performative style to Weimar cabaret culture, which we discussed in class a number of weeks ago. Bowie’s frequent costume changes, theatrical makeup, and transgressive exhibitions of sexuality all signaled an … Continue reading →

Whether or not audiences were tolerant of “glam rock’s play with gender,” glam was still seen as “provocative” (48) in the US and Britain – and deliberately so. This provocation was unequivocally political: Auslander notes that in the former, the … Continue reading →