Ch09 Popular Music and Radio

Module Popular Music and Radio Objectives From studying this module you will learn to - understand the value and appeal of studying popular music as a type of media - know the history and evolution of popular rock music related to larger social and cultural forces - understand changes in production formats and how those changes influenced participation with music - understand and define characteristics of different music genres and the evolution of those particular genres - understand how the music industry influences musical tastes through its control of distribution and promotion of certain musicians - understand different types of radio stations and how radio shapes and influences tastes and preferences in music - understand how radio news differs from television news The Value of Studying Popular Music Music is one of the most frequently employed popular media for adolescents devoting approximately four and five hours a day listing to music and watching music videos Christenson Roberts p In a study conducted in when high school students were asked which media they would take with them if they were stranded on a desert island at all grade levels music media was the preferred top choice even over television Roberts Henriksen Uses of music The appeal of music relates to adolescents uses of music Christenson Roberts Dominick for a range of different purposes - information about political or cultural issues or social romantic relationships - diversion relaxation release distraction intensifying mood constituting social relationships either solitary imagined experiences or sharing musical experiences with others - withdrawal or escape into one s own private listening experience - defining personal identities Purposes for Studying Popular Music as Media One of the major challenges for teachers in studying music popular with adolescents is that the meaning of music and the uses of music are constituted by the fact that it has little to do with school Thus as soon as you import popular music as a topic for study in a school context you create an interesting paradox On the one hand students have a strong interest in studying the topic because they devote much of their time to music On the other hand they may resist studying something they associate with their non-school life A second challenge is that students usually know far more about current popular music than you do as a teacher who may not share the same tastes or genre interests of his or her students However music certainly is a school subject and could certainly be studied if given students expertise and interest teachers are willing to let students assume responsibility in co-teaching the a number of different topics related popular music as a media By having students assume responsibility for teaching you are tapping into their expertise in music and not having to pretend that you are an expert on topics in which students generally have more knowledge than yourself It is also the case that the meaning of popular music for many students is that you as an adult may not be expected to have experience or even prefer the types of music preferred by adolescents Students could share or write about their own listening experiences describing reasons for those experiences in terms of genres tastes preferences quality performance and influences of the music industry radio on their music experiences Teen Music Webquest writing about music experiences http www socs k in us schools ovhs branard musicquest htm As with the other media you also want students to be able to analyze and judge the quality of specific aspects of music in terms of lyrics harmony recording quality and performance consistent with the norms operating for certain genres or historical periods Another purpose for studying music is to understand its relationship to larger historical and cultural forces and how it functions to influence historical or cultural events For example rock music during the s played a role in defining the new adolescent counter-culture movement that challenged traditional American values For a lesson on the function of music in society http www media-awareness ca english resources educational lessons secondary music function of music cfm Webquest Patriotism and Protest A Webquest on the Music of the Vietnam Era http www eccentrix com members mrreed wq wq htm Another purpose for studying music is that is a strongly related to adolescent identity construction Since the s popular music particularly rock music has served to define adolescents identities in terms of their using music as a tool for adopting certain styles modes of dress ideological stances language use and ways of socializing with peers Adolescents adopt certain preferred musicians or songs as a means of defining their particular attitudes or tastes related to their identities Adrian North and David Hargreaves examined the relationship between music and adolescent identity and found that adolescents use musical preferences as a badge for defining their identities and judging their peers identities Studies and indicated that older and younger adolescents respectively hold normative expectations about the values and characteristics of fans of particular musical styles Study showed that - and - year olds hold normative expectations which influence their perception of the likely social consequences e g having fewer friends of being a fan of particular musical styles The final study investigated hypotheses generated by the results of Studies - It demonstrated a positive relationship between adolescents' musical preference self-concept self-esteem and normative expectations of the 'typical' fans of musical styles This study also indicated that adolescents favour people who like the same musical style as they do without necessarily denigrating those who do not In conjunction these studies provide empirical support for the notion that musical preference acts as a 'badge of identity' during adolescence which predicts several other aspects of lifestyle and attitude For further reading on adolescent identities and music Gracyk T I wanna be me Rock music and the politics of identity Philadelphia PA Temple University Press MacDonald R Hargreaves D Miell D Musical identities New York Oxford University Press Mallen K Pearce S Youth cultures Texts images and identities New York Praeger McCarthy C Hudak G Miklaucic S Saukko P Eds Sound identities Popular music and the cultural politics of education New York Peter Lang Meadows E Bebop to cool Context ideology and musical identity New York Greenhaven Scott D Perspectives on ideology identity and musical style New York Oxford University Press Young R Ed Music popular culture identities New York Rodopi Development of Recorded Popular Music The earliest recordings of music began with the invention of the recording machine by Thomas Edison in and the recording of live music In the s Les Paul developed the multi-tracking recording method in which additional tracks were added to an original basic track to combine different instruments Rayner Wall Kruger Evolution of different formats This coincided with shifts in different formats from the early rpm disc to the vinyl rpm and rpm discs to cassette video tapes to CDs to DVDs to downloading of music using MP players and burning of one s own CDs Moreover the rise of music videos created a new form that served to promote music With each shift in formats an essential feature is the quality of sound which has been improving through uses of new technologies For ways to understand variations and improvements in sound quality go to the sound quality site http www geocities com CapeCanaveral sound html Music Search information about all types of music http www musicsearch com Music downloads http www mp com http www audiogalaxy com http www artistdirect com Rolling Stone songs from top current albums Fall http stations mp s com stations songs from current billboard t html Information about artists bands http www allmusic com Webquest Guide to Music on the Web http www geocities com SiliconValley Orchard webquest html A Teen s Personal Guide to Music on the Web http www geocities com SiliconValley Orchard webquest html For further reading Moore A Ed Analyzing popular music New York Cambridge University Press Vinet M Evolution of modern popular music A history of blues jazz country R B rock and rap New York Wadem Different Music Genres There are a wide range of different popular music genres http dir yahoo com Entertainment Music Genres http www music indiana edu music resources genres html jazz be-bop rock soul blues country Cajun calypso gospel punk heavy metal hip-hop and rap Each of these genres is continually evolving so it is difficult to define an ideal version of a particular genre Internet Underground Music Archive clips from different genres http www iuma com Webquest select a genre for music for a theme park http www personal psu edu faculty j x jxz Student Webquests Oswald WebFiles webqu html Music Maps this site provides you with image maps of the evolution of certain genres over time with links to sample songs artists http www allmusic com mus maps html History of different genres http www history-of-rock-music com The Seattle EMP Music Museum topics themes artists related to the history of popular music http www emplive com site map index asp The History of Music s to the present lots of useful links http kclibrary nhmccd edu music- html For further reading Starr L Waterman C A American popular music From minstrelsy to MTV New York Oxford University Press O Brien L She bop The definitive history of women in rock pop and soul New York Continuum Press Content of song lyrics These genres have also changed in terms of the content of song lyrics Analysis of lyrics from the s to the present indicates that the focus of lyrics in the s was on love relationships which during the late s shifted to more social and political themes Moreover while there has been a consistent focus on relationships from the s to the present the focus shifted from emphasis of emotional aspects of love to more physical sexual aspects of love Christenson Roberts Students could study song lyrics as a form of poetry examining the uses of figurative language sound pauses and rhythm as well as the underlying ideas and themes By doing oral interpretations of the lyrics they could examine how variations in performance influences the meaning of there lyrics Webquest A Search for Poetry in Music http www washlee arlington k va us staff english saharric Poetry poetryhome html Webquest Song Analysis Webquest http www rbhs w-cook k il us Mancoff song htm Webquest Poetic Devices in Music http www ic sunysb edu Stu kwolansk wquest html Webquest Bringing Lyrics to Life The Multimedia Music Book http php indiana edu ylo music music html Music Theory for Song Writers http members aol com chordmaps Adolescents musical preferences As adolescents age they begin to have more specialized and less centrist preferences for certain music genres Christenson Roberts Students could identify their particular musical preferences in terms of specific artists and genres noting reasons for those preferences Rock music Rock music itself contains a range of different subgenres Top hard rock golden oldies protest rock easy-listening classic rock disco folk rock psychedelic rock metal etc Much of the origins of rock emanate from the blues traditions of the s as well as the spiritual genre that stretches back for centuries In Bill Haley and the Comets produced the first big rock hit Rock Around the Clock a song featured with the popular movie Blackboard Jungle which portrayed a teacher coping with challenges of teaching in an urban school Shuker During the late s and s singers such as Elvis Presley Chuck Berry James Brown and Little Richard popularized their own versions of rock that built on earlier blues spiritual genres The emerging popularity of rock in the s can be attributed to the rise of a new group of adolescents who in contrast to pre-World War II adolescents now had considerable buying power and a lot of leisure time on their hands They began purchasing rpm records creating high demand for new songs and fueled the rise of the rock-radio station geared for adolescents The further popularity of the Beatles and Rolling Stones in the s coupled with the link between rock and political expression in the late s only furthered its popularity with adolescents The popularity of rock for adolescents was also furthered by the moral crises backlash against rock by conservative groups who believed that rock would foster the moral breakdown of youth The very fact that adults objected to rock only added to its popularity as something that adolescents could own as a tool for resisting adult authority and norms The historical development of rock is also related to issues of representations of race Many of the early performers and writers of rock and blues songs were African American These performers and writers were drawing on a long history of uses of gospel blues and jazz that served to express outrage against slavery and the racist denigration of an entire race Initially the music industry attempted to cover black music by having white artists perform what were originally songs written and performed by blacks However as Stanley Baran notes white adolescents wanted the original artists as a means of resisting the adult attempts to silence and mask over black artists The music was central to this antagonism not only because it was gritty and nasty but because it exposed the hypocrisy of adult culture Nowhere was this more apparent than in Alan Freed s rock n roll concert at the Cleveland Arena Although Cleveland was a segregated city Freed opened the set venue to all the fans of his Moondog s Rock and Roll Party radio show A racially mixed crowd of more than teen showed up forcing the cancellation of the concert But the kids parties They sang They cheered Not a single one asked for a refund They had come Black kids and White kids to celebrate their music their culture p The PBS show Rock Roll The TV Series http www pbs org wgbh pages rocknroll rnrtv html organized its episodes around the following era in rock history Renegades introduces viewers to the pioneers of rock The series travels southern backroads to New Orleans Memphis and Nashville and then moves north to Chicago interviewing Little Richard Bo Diddley Chuck Berry Jerry Lee Lewis pioneer disk jockey Hoss Allen and producers Dave Bartholomew Sam Phillips and Phil and Marshall Chess along the way These musical renegades of the ' s reveal how they borrowed from rhythm and blues country gospel and jazz to create a whole new sound - Rock and Roll In the Groove reports on the years between Elvis and the Beatles when the hit single became an intricately crafted work of art and producers songwriters and musicians created studio magic In interviews with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller Ben E King Brian Wilson Carole King Sonny Bono and king of the surf guitar Dick Dale among others this hour recounts the era of sweet soul and girl groups when a new rock genius reigned the producer Shakespeares in the Alley looks at the towering influences of Bob Dylan and the Beatles on rock and roll and at the brief but influential flowering of folk rock inspired by the Dylan Beatles axis in the mid-' s In this hour footage of Dylan and the Fab Four and interviews with Beatles producer George Martin key Dylan session musician Al Kooper Peter Yarrow of Peter Paul and Mary Roger McGuinn and David Crosby of the Byrds and poet Allen Ginsberg Respect chronicles the transformation of black gospel music into a defining sound for all Americans Also soul music's role in the simultaneous quest for African American equality in the ' s On hand to tell the tale Berry Gordy Jr Ray Charles Martha Reeves Mary Wilson Booker T and the MGs Wilson Pickett Maxine Powell of the Motown Charm School Motown choreographer Cholly Atkins and many more The hour journeys from Detroit's Motown Records to the Stax Records in Memphis Last stop the FAME Studio in Muscle Shoals Alabama where Aretha Franklin a Detroit preacher's daughter made musical magic Crossroads traces the blues - another African American tradition that changed the sound of rock and roll - from the Mississippi Delta to Chicago to the UK where this earthy rich sound inspired a host of young British musicians bored with the pop music of the day Van Morrison Eric Burdon of the Animals Eric Clapton John Mayall Keith Richards and Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones and Jeff Beck tell how their stateside hits introduced American rock fans to their own indigenous blues masters like Howlin' Wolf and John Lee Hooker Also in this hour Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant and Jimmy Page on Jimi Hendrix the dawning of the guitar hero and the birth of heavy metal Blues in Technicolor takes viewers on a trip into the psychedelic rock world of the late ' s and early ' s Using interviews with the Byrds the Grateful Dead Jefferson Airplane and Pink Floyd this hour shows how a bohemian folk culture based in San Francisco set off an international explosion of musical experimentation and eclecticism - much of it drug-inspired The Wild Side tours through the rock and roll theatrics of the ' s when bands like the Velvet Underground the Doors and David Bowie brought the decadent dramas of life in the underground into the limelight Take a walk down the darker side of the street in Los Angeles New York Detroit and Berlin with the Doors' Ray Manzarek and producer Paul Rothchild Lou Reed Iggy Pop David Bowie Alice Cooper and Kiss' Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley In Make it Funky soul music stretches to create a rock and roll revolution in rhythm and attitude in the ' s Innovators James Brown Sly and the Family Stone George Clinton and famed bass players Larry Graham and Bootsy Collins take viewers on a tour of funk as the music becomes bolder and more expressive of the realities of black life Filmed in New York San Francisco and Philadelphia the program also examines how funky dance hits blazed a musical trail to the disco craze of the late ' s Punk explores two late s musical innovations that shaped rock and roll through the next decade punk and reggae In New York members of Blondie Talking Heads Television and the Ramones tell how they inadvertently created the cynical urban stripped-down sound that became punk rock In London punk takes off with the Sex Pistols and members of the Wailers and the Clash recall how Jamaican reggae another musical form of rebellion crossed international boundaries deeply influencing punk and pop rock The Perfect Beat begins at a time when megastars like Bruce Springsteen U and Metallica filled arenas around the world and moves on to chronicle the rise of a new musical form rap From the Bronx to Detroit from Chicago to Manchester England from Grandmaster Flash to Run-DMC from De La Soul to British innovators New Order to the Beastie Boys the program traces the evolution of this new sound in the ' s and early ' s The hour shows how superstars like Madonna and Prince folded rap and its funky electronic offshoots techno and house into their music and how MTV ultimately embraced it And the beat goes on In his on-line book and excellent resource Reason to Rock Rock Music as Art Form http www reasontorock com Herb Bowie argues that the following aspects of rock had a particularly strong influence on making rock differ from other forms of music Poetry Plus It is a truism that simply filming a great play does not produce a great film nor would a staged version of a great film make a great play And yet the two forms undeniably share common elements dialogue acting pacing and overall dramatic structure to name but a few The Theme of Liberation The overarching theme of much great rock music is that of liberation breaking free from all sorts of restraints This theme is expressed in the music as well as the words with guitars making sounds never heard before and with song structures that often go beyond the traditional verse-chorus-bridge pop format Recordings as Input to the Creative Process To an unprecedented degree rock musicians learned from and were influenced by music that was recorded and mechanically reproduced rather than performed live in a local venue One result was the British Invasion in the early sixties which saw a whole generation of British bands assault the American airwaves armed with American blues and rock'n roll recordings from which they had learned their trade Recordings as Works of Art Quite naturally this generation of musicians came to view the recording and not the live performance or the musical notation of a song as their primary artistic output The sound of a particular track as captured and edited in a recording studio became more important than any characteristics that could be reproduced by the same band on stage or by other artists performing the same song New Forms of Collaboration Beginning with The Beatles rock saw a new kind of artistic partnership Groups of three four or five individuals learned to work together as an artistic unit writing singing performing and producing their own material with most band members playing multiple and often shifting roles in this process Even when a single singer songwriter emerged great rock was dependent on the kind of collaboration found in film in which a number of individuals playing different roles all contributed to the artistic success of the finished work Electronic Amplification The technical ability to amplify the sound of an instrument particularly a guitar was a key enabler for several other elements mentioned here Thanks to this new-found power a group of musicians previously limited to volumes appropriate for chamber music could now perform to a large hall or even stadium full of listeners Electronic amplification also introduced the ability to distort and shape the sounds of the instruments though techniques such as feedback fuzz-tone wah-wah pedals and countless other techniques This electronic influence over the sounds of the notes provided something worth capturing on a recording something that could not be adequately described through musical notation The Big Beat Rock is known for its distinctive rhythm with a backbeat This simple foundation allowed singers and instrumentalists to lay all sorts of rhythmic variations on top Rock is also known for the strength of its beat providing much of the propulsive power of the music Together these rhythmic elements are used to convey the sense of liberation characteristic of the music and so often expressed in the lyrics as well Analysis of rock music Students could also analyze specific characteristics of rock music in terms of the use of lyrics harmony rhythm and performance - Lyrics In his web-book Reason to Rock Rock Music as Art Form http www reasontorock com Herb Bowie describes some of the aesthetic aspects of rock that could be used to judge the quality of the rock experience For example he examines the uses of language in lyrics associated with a compression of meaning into a few worlds or the uses of rhythm to engage the listener Students could examine how song writers use language to convey their intended meanings Song lyric databases http www lyrics com http www songlyrics co nz http www thesonglyrics com menus rock html http ntl matrix com br pfilho html main index index html http stations mp s com stations songs from current billboard t html http home iae nl users kdv en cds htm They could also examine how writers such a Bob Dylan Marvin Gaye Bruce Springsteen or The Beatles used lyrics to express certain political messages or positions Protest songs of the s http www aldridgeshs qld edu au sose modrespg rockbaby titlepg htm Webquest how rock music was used as social commentary http www kn pacbell com wired fil pages websocialmr html Lesson studying literary aspects of lyrics http www rocklibrary com Education Lesson cfm lesson literary html Webquest Billy Joel s We Didn t Start the Fire http www danville k in us teachers Middle bura Webquest home htm Students could also contrast different interpretations they derive for the same lyrics particularly related to adults objections to what may be perceived as highly suggestive or offensive lyrics For example in a study of the following lyrics Leming cited in Christenson and Roberts p the researcher asked a panel of teachers to interpret the lyrics and then a group of adolescents Physical Olivia Newton John I took you to an intimate restaurant Then to a suggestive movie There s noting left to talk about Less it s horizontally Let s get physical physical I wanna get physical The teachers interpreted these lyrics as focus on the need for sex without a concern for commitment or marriage In the adolescent group perceived the song as advocating sex as promoting physical exercise and and unsure of the intended meaning Leming pp - Material Girl Madonna They can beg and they can plead But they can t see the light That s right Cause the boy with the cold hard cash Is always Mr Right Cause we re living in a material world And I am a material girl The teachers interpreted these lyrics as implying that only well-off suitors deserve women s attention In the adolescent group noted that it promoted materialism as central to relationships as rejecting materialism and as unsure I Want a New Drug Huey Lewis and the News I want a new drug One the won t hurt my head One that won t make my mouth too dry Or make my eyes too red One that won t make me nervous Wondering what to do One that make me feel like I feel When I m with you Some of the teachers interpreted these lyrics literally as having to do with the search for a drug with no side effects other teachers perceived the drug as a metaphor for love of the adolescents perceived it as promoting drug use perceived it as a love song and were unsure Christenson and Roberts note that these findings suggest that not only do adults and adolescent derive different meanings but that all lyrics invite alternative competing meanings given the different purposes agendas attitudes knowledge and assumptions audiences bring to these lyrics This challenges the moral crises critiques of song lyrics as having negative social effects on adolescents a critique that presupposes certain definitive meanings for those lyrics Students could also study the ways in which lyrics address particular social issues studying how they issues are framed through the lyrics In her readingonline org article Song Lyrics as Texts to Develop Critical Literacy http www readingonline org articles art index asp HREF articles lloyd Carol Lloyd identifies various topic addresses by certain songs The Environment Tracy Chapman The Rape of the World Marvin Gaye Mercy Mercy Me U S History Bob Marley Buffalo Soldier Woody Guthrie I Ain t Got No Home Ludlow Massacre Economics Tracy Chapman Subcity Phil Collins Another Day in Paradise John Mellencamp Rain on the Scarecrow Nanci Griffith Trouble in the Fields Woody Guthrie Deportee Plane Wreck at Los Gatos Rage Against the Machine Without a Face U S Government Policies and Practices Country Joe and the Fish Fixin to Die Rag Marvin Gaye What s Going On Racism and Racial Issues They Might Be Giants Your Racist Friend Bruce Hornsby The Way It Is Tracy Chapman Nothin Yet Public Enemy Fight the Power Buffy Sainte-Marie My Country Tis of Thy People You re Dying Robbie Robertson Ghost Dance International Events and Conditions Bob Marley Get Up Stand Up U Sunday Bloody Sunday Little Village Do You Want My Job Harmony Another important element of popular music is harmony A primary appeal of the early doo-wop groups was the harmony of group s singing romantic ballads Listen to some of these doo-wop songs on the doo-wop JukeBox http www thedoowopjukebox com Read the following description of how harmony is achieved through combination of sounds http www emplive com create hrmny lsn whatisharmony asp and then reflect on the harmonies of the doo-wop songs In musical terms harmony has several meanings In a broad sense harmony can mean a combination of musical tones considered to be pleasing In their lesson on harmony the Wilson sisters are singing in two-part harmony Nancy is singing the melody the main tune of the song while Ann is singing harmony In this case harmony means a different tune that goes well with the melody When the Wilsons sing the song in harmony the sound is richer than if they were singing the melody in unison You ll notice that although Nancy is singing lower and Ann is singing higher the tunes they are singing have the same shape and rhythm This is called parallel motion The distance between two different musical tones is called an interval Intervals are numbered according to how many note names they span from one end of the interval to the other For example the interval from A to B is called a second because it encompasses two note names while the interval from A to C is called a third In two-part harmony vocalists often sing a third or a sixth apart as this is a rich and pleasing sound In Even It Up the Wilson sisters are singing a third apart from each other There are different types of seconds thirds fourths and so on These intervals are named according to the exact distance between the two pitches which determines the quality of the sound Although it is somewhat subjective most people steeped in Western music the music that originated in Europe would agree that some intervals have a rather empty or pure sound while others have a fuller richer sound On the other hand other intervals sound clashing or dissonant The interplay between these different types of sounds is what helps to make a piece of music interesting To hear the basic types of intervals used in traditional Western music click the links to the right Although the examples given here are intervals within one octave an octave being the interval between the first and eighth note names for example from C to C intervals can be larger than an octave When three or more musical tones sound simultaneously this is called a chord In Even It Up Nancy is playing chords on the guitar Chords like intervals can either sound consonant not clashing or dissonant Again these classifications are somewhat subjective and relative Other factors that can contribute to feelings of consonance or dissonance include instrumentation volume and special effects In a song or other piece of music dissonant sounds create points of tension and consonant sounds create resolution relative calm Too much consonance can make a piece a bit boring while too much dissonance may make it less accessible for those listeners who prefer a more relaxed sound As with other forms of art musical taste is very personal In a rock song the accompaniment to the melody can come from the vocals the instruments or both as you heard in Even It Up As you hear the song again listen for the parallel motion in the vocals and the general contrasts of consonance and dissonance that keep the music interesting Rhythm Another important element of rock is the use of rhythm accentuated by the uses of the bass guitar and the drums Rhythm was a key element in the uses of rock music for different types of dances bop twist and stroll as well the disco of the s dances popularized on American Bandstand now the subject of the NBC show American Dreams http www nbc com nbc American Dreams ext american bandstand shtml A central element of rhythm is the addition of various instruments over the underlying driving beat of the drums percussions bass guitar To experiment with this process go to the following sites to for adding certain instrument sounds to the basic rhythm http stumac music temple edu mmiweb bluesjam html http www looplabs com The rise of the electric guitar was a major component in the development of rock music Students could trace changes in the evolution of the electric guitar from the s to the s noting how those changes influenced changes in the music of the Beatles Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton years of electronic music http www obsolete com years For a site at the National Museum of American History http www si edu lemelson guitars An engaging site at the Seattle Music Museum EMI provides you with a time line with the development of the electric guitar from the s to the s You can click on the guitar to hear the sound of that guitar as well as albums with songs using this guitar http www emplive com create guit bass asp Performance A final element is the aspect of performance the different ways in which rock bands defined their own unique style and sound through how they performed for live audiences The early s rock stars Elvis Presley James Brown Jerry Lee Lewis Little Richard and others when contrasted to the elaborate road-show arena stage backdrops of the bands employed very simple stage setting but performed themselves in highly dramatic ways emphasizing their own physical appearance sexuality and dance steps The performances of the s bands the Beatles Rolling Stones and The Who as well as Jimi Hendrix Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin continued some of this focus on physical presentation particularly with Mick Jaggar and Janis Joplin but added the element of more focus on musical experimentation sound quality stage shows and large audiences Course at Indiana University on the Beatles http www music indiana edu som courses rock beatles html The performances of the s bands Cream Dobbie Brothers Eagles The Band Gratefull Dead Moody Blues as well as the pop bands the Beach Boys and the Bee Gees focused more on a wider range of different types of songs particularly ballads as well as audience participation With the rise of metal punk bands in the s and s performance shifted towards elaborate road show sets costumes and outrageous acts that appealed to a largely adolescent audience Rock and Roll Hall of Fame teacher resources on the history of rock http www rockhall com programs plans asp lesson plans from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame http www rockhall com programs plans asp Rock n Roll Vault information about the development of rock history http www rocknrollvault com timeline htm History of Rock - http www history-of-rock com non frames htm Rock and the Protest World of the s http www aldridgeshs qld edu au sose modrespg rockbaby titlepg htm Drug Sex and Rock n Roll http www aldridgeshs qld edu au sose modrespg rockbaby titlepg htm Oldies Music of the s to s http www oldiesmusic com index html History of Rock http www scaruffi com music html Top moments in the history of rock http www ew com ew fab music list html Rock n Roll Hall of Fame inductees - http www rockhall com hof allinductees asp Developments of different guitars from hear the sounds of different types of guitars http www emplive com create guit bass asp Significant events in the history of rock http pages prodigy net cousinsteve rock feat htm Course at Indiana University on rock in the s with lots of links http www music indiana edu som courses rock Z html Course at Indiana University on rock in the s and s with lots of links http www music indiana edu som courses rock Z html African-American Music http www richlandone org sams DOBYwebquest outline htm Webquest the history of rock http www coe ufl edu webtech Timemachine music rock Rock htm Webquests studying a particular rock band and forces influencing that band http php ucs indiana edu apriebe webquest html http php ucs indiana edu apriebe webquest html Webquest studying the history of a specific genre http www auburn edu gilbrje WebQuest htm Course Survey of World Pop Music http www csupomona edu dmgrasmick mu Other resources Rocknews http www rocknews com RollingStone http www rollingstone com MuchMusic http www muchmusic com Rock Around the World http www ratw com For further reading Altschuter G All shook up How rock n roll changed America New York Oxford University Press Bogdanov V Woodstra C Erlewine S All music guide to rock The definitive guide to rock pop and soul rd Edition New York Backbeat Crazy Horse K Ed Rip it up The black experience in rock 'n roll New York Palgrave Macmillan Williams P Back to the miracle factory Rock etc 's New York Cambridge University Press A Teacher s Unit The following unit for high school students frames popular music within the larger context of social protest movements The Music of Protest Noah Mass Burnsville High School Burnsville MN Introduction In this unit students analyze popular music as statements of social cultural political and economic protest They begin with an exploration of the meaning of protest both in their lives and in the larger society and how individual protest becomes a protest movement encompassing a group consciousness By researching a protest issue picking apart the elements of protest from selected works of art and crafting their own artistic protest students initiate a personal dialogue with their social world manipulating and critiquing that world so they can more fully understand their place in it This in turn gives them the knowledge and agency to effect change The unit also scaffolds the analysis of text for meaning and purpose the consideration of artist and audience perspective and the translation of abstract knowledge into unique personal art Unit Objectives Students will consider the meaning and function of protest Students will make thematic and formal connections between diverse works of art Students will analyze music and lyrics for meaning Students will research a protest issue Students will create and present their own protest art Students will consider the history of American protest through music Students will relate the issue of protest to their own lives Final Project The final project consists of two parts First students will write a two-page essay about their protest issue that explores the problem its historical antecedents and modern future consequences and proposed solutions Second students will create an original work of art visual aural written etc that could be used to rally support for their issue Materials Music Cooke Sam A Change is Gonna Come Dylan Bob Dear Landlord Hendrix Jimi The Star-Spangled Banner Holliday Billie Strange Fruit Love Signed D C Public Enemy Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos U Sunday Bloody Sunday Books Articles King Jr Martin Luther Letter from a Birmingham Jail Margolick David Strange Fruit Staples Brent Corporate Radio Kills the Protest Music Movies Gimme Shelter Woodstock The Movie Websites http www emplive com http www fortunecity com tinpan parton http www geocities com music-festival http www progress org http www protest net http www rockhall com Day One What is Protest To introduce the notion of protest I will ask the students to free-write for five minutes about one rule family school society culture or law that they believe is unjust and or illegitimate why they consider it so and how they would amend it Students will then share their responses with each other in small groups When the class reconvenes we will discuss how individual protest becomes a larger protest movement How is it that individuals acquire a group consciousness What do they rally around At this point I will hand out selections from Dr Martin Luther King Jr 's Letter from a Birmingham Jail Students will once again break up into groups and each group will receive a short selection from the text For example You may well ask Why direct action Why sit-ins marches and so forth Isn't negotiation a better path You are quite right in calling for negotiation Indeed this is the very purpose of direct action Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored Students will be expected to summarize their excerpt for the entire class discussing how it positions the reader protester witness bystander perpetrator and what its particular purpose might be What does it advocate Why did King address it as an open letter to the community To finish this phase of the lesson I will ask each group to write a letter to their own community addressing one issue that they wrote about in their free-writes Before class ends we will listen to two protest songs loosely framed as letters Dear Landlord by Bob Dylan and Signed D C by Love The lyrics will be projected onto the board so the students can follow along The students will be asked to consider how each song thematically and formally relates to Dr King's letter What connections can be made between the three texts How might one map their similarities For homework students should read all of Dr King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail Day Two The Music of Protest To start class we will listen to Jimi Hendrix's version of The Star-Spangled Banner from Woodstock How can music aside from lyrical content be a form of protest Is Hendrix making a protest statement If so how What aspects of the song suggest a countercultural attitude What associations might people in have made between this piece of music and their world If someone made the same sort of gesture today what associations might we make in response After a full-class discussion of these issues we will watch footage of Hendrix performing the song from Woodstock The Movie How have our perceptions of the song changed now that we've seen actual pictures of the event In small groups I will ask the students to brainstorm adjectives they could use to describe Hendrix his song and the atmosphere on stage and in the crowd at Woodstock that day Students will then individually read a short article about Woodstock and first-hand reminiscences of the concert from The Music Festival Home Page at www geocities com music-festival To demonstrate that the music of protest although certainly associated with the s transcends time and place I will play two song selections from different U S historical periods First we will listen to Strange Fruit as recorded by Billie Holliday This song vividly recalls the lynching of a black man in the American South Southern trees bear a strange fruit Blood on the leaves and blood on the root Black body swinging in the Southern breeze Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees Playing the song again I will ask students to write down the most resonant images and draw any pictures abstract or concrete that come to mind as they listen They will then free-write responses to the song and discuss them in pairs For the second song I will play Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos by the rap group Public Enemy I got a letter from the government the other day I opened and read it It said they were suckers They wanted me for their army or whatever Picture me given' a damn I said never Here is a land that never gave a damn about a brother like me The speaker of this song fantasizes from his jail cell about a prison riot a depiction of violent liberation Students will be asked to consider this song as a protest document How does the song make you feel How might it make someone of a different ethnic group African-American for instance or Asian-American feel Is it dangerous If so to whom How might it relate to Dr King's letter and very specifically to his notion of creating and maintaining tension as a nonviolent protest technique For homework students will read a short excerpt from Strange Fruit Billie Holliday Cafe Society and an Early Cry for Civil Rights by David Margolick They will also be responsible for presenting a personal protest issue at the end of the next class Day Three Protest Research Students will have most of this period to conduct online research related to a specific protest issue that he or she finds personally relevant We will meet in the media center for this purpose Students will be prompted to begin their research at www protest net an internet clearinghouse for protest issues however I will also advise my students that they may choose any issue and need not focus on a political concern Sample issues on the website include Animal Rights Civil Rights Death Penalty Environment Fascism Immigration Globalization Poverty Sexuality and the Third World At this point I will introduce the final project for the unit The project consists of two parts First students will write a two-page essay about their protest issue that explores the problem its historical antecedents and modern future consequences and proposed solutions Second students will create a unique and personal work of art visual aural written etc that could be used to rally support for their issue On Day Four of the unit students will be expected to submit their issue choice Overnight I will confirm or deny choices based solely on their relevance to what we are studying On Day Five students will be expected to submit their choose of medium for the work of art This too will be subject to my approval The project will be due on the last day Day Ten of the unit Near the end of class we will go around the room and each student will present a short synopsis of their protest issue and what they learned about it so far If anyone shares a topic they have the option of combining their talents and writing a four-page paper and creating a more substantial work of art Groups however may be no larger than a pair Day Four Make Your Own Protest Song To begin class we will listen to Sunday Bloody Sunday by U Then students will get into groups and read the poem aloud to each other How should it be read What is the tone How does the music set the tone If we disregard the music how do the lyrics by themselves set the tone Each group will present a dramatic reading to the class Going back to the text students will annotate the text noting the associations conjured by each image How do they relate to a protest theme How do we know this is a protest song Finally students will be asked to consider how and if the song might be improved and also how it might be changed to reflect different circumstances Imagine the song was still a rought draft how might you edit it Written about Northern Ireland how might you rewrite the song to reflect the particular history of the United States What events could we relate to it As a companion activity each group will receive one piece from A Change is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke The entire song a civil rights anthem with religious overtones reads as follows I was born by the river in a little tent And just like the river I've been running ever since It's been a long time coming But I know a change is gonna come It's been too hard living but I'm afraid to die I don't know what's up there beyond the sky It's been a long time coming But I know a change is gonna come I go to the movie and I go downtown Somebody keep telling me Don't hang around It's been a long time coming But I know a change is gonna come Then I go to my brother and I say Brother help me please But he winds up knocking me back down on my knees There've been times that I've thought I couldn't last for long But now I think I'm able to carry on It's been a long time coming But I know a change is gonna come Based on their excerpt each group will write the full lyrics for a protest song It can be either related to a particular issue or general in tone It should incorporate the excerpt and remain true to its spirit however the group decides to interpret that spirit Groups will read their lyrics to the class I will then pass out the true lyrics to the song Each student will free-write about his or her expectations based on their excerpt and how the song did or did not fulfill those expectations Finally we will listen to the Sam Cooke recording For homework students will prepare their proposals for a work of protest art Day Five Gimme Shelter For this class period we will watch excerpts from Gimme Shelter by the Maysles brothers Gimme Shelter is a documentary about the Rolling Stones' concert tour focusing primarily on the disastrous free concert at Altamont Speedway during which the Hells Angels hired as cheap security drunk and stoned and out of control murdered one concertgoer and injured many others In addition the lead singer of Jefferson Airplane Marty Balin was assaulted by a biker Altamont is commonly viewed as the anti-Woodstock a music event associated not with peace and love but rather with debauchery and license and therefore provides an appropriate antidote to the idealism of Jimi Hendrix's performance viewed on Day Two Gimme Shelter shows how the nature and meaning of protest music for example Jefferson Airplane's Volunteers or more complexly the Rolling Stones' Sympathy for the Devil is negotiated between artist and audience It provides a graphic demonstration of what happens when an audience chooses not to accept or does not understand the artist's intended meaning At Altamont protest music became just another reason to party After viewing selected scenes from the movie students will break up into groups and brainstorm reasons why the concert went awry How much control does anyone have over the meaning of their art For Day Six students will prepare a short presentation on one protest song that means something to them They will play a portion of the song and talk about its relevance to their life The one requirement for the assignment is that each student must talk about how the song qualifies as a protest Day Six Protest Song Presentations Students will share their favorite protest songs with the class so that at the end of the unit each student will have a musical bibliography related to the topic I will compile a master list and hand it out on Day Ten Day Seven History in Song Today class will meet in the computer lab so that students can conduct research on the internet Using three websites History in Song http www fortunecity com tinpan parton The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame http www rockhall com Experience Music Project http www emplive com students will explore the history of American popular music and the way that American popular music has embodied aspects of history Students will answer questions such as the following Find a song that addresses the life of a prisoner How is it described Does the song have a political message If so what is that message and how is it communicated What emotions does the song convey about prison life Read the biography of one early blues musician How was he or she shaped and or affected by the historical period in which he or she lived Was he or she treated fairly by his or her time and by history How did his or her music reflect historical circumstances Pick one social cultural event in American history and annotate the songs that grew out of that moment Were they similar in tone and perspective or did they vary How did they interpret the event How accurately did they paint the event for the listener Protest is alive and well in America Find one post- example of protest music Was it popular To what genre does it belong What modern-day protest issues are most prevalent in music Listen to a RealAudio interview with a musician What does he or she say about politics and the political social cultural content of his or her work Do you think the musician places political considerations before artistic ones and is this an effective way to be an artist Does it make for good art Why or why not Day Eight Project Workday At the beginning of class students will meet in small groups to present their research from the previous day Afterwards they will have the remainder of the period to build their projects Students may meet with each other to discuss a shared issue or provide feedback on their essay or work of art I will circulate around the room and meet with whoever needs assistance Those students who want to use a computer either to word-process or conduct web research will be allowed to access the resource room or media lab I will remind students that their works of art must be ready for presentation in two days on Day Ten the final day of the unit Day Nine Protest and Free Speech Students will first read a short essay about message music and social protest written by Andrew Rosenthal and posted to his website at http www people cornell edu pages ajr that begins as follows For many years popular music has been a forum for free speech Ideas that might normally be censored by other media can be expressed though the subtle art of pop-rock music Although the process of using songs as social protest took some time to gain popularity the songs that were produced contain a great deal of emotion and important meaning which can be delivered to the listener through a variety of components Among them are the beat the instruments and of course the lyrics The song is then used to enlighten its audience as to what the writer feels is a problem in society This essay will be juxtaposed with an article by Brent Staples called Corporate Radio Kills the Protest Music available online at www progress org Staples argues that corporate control and consolidation of the airwaves has also consolidated the message that radio-friendly songs may communicate to listeners limiting the range of topics deemed acceptable by the hitmakers For example Pop music played a crucial role in America's debate over the Vietnam War By the late s radio stations across the country were crackling with blatantly political songs that became mainstream hits After the National Guard killed four anti-war demonstrators at Kent State University in Ohio in the spring of Crosby Stills Nash and Young recorded Ohio a song about the horror of the event criticizing President Richard Nixon by name The song was rushed onto the air while sentiment was still high and became both an anti-war anthem and a huge moneymaker A comparable song about President George W Bush's rush to war in Iraq would have no chance today There are plenty of angry people many with prime music-buying demographics But independent radio stations that once would have played edgy political music have been gobbled up by corporations that control hundreds of stations and have no wish to rock the boat After the students have read both articles they will free-write about their favorite radio stations What type s of music do they play What period music do they play What general percentage of the broadcast is music vs talk advertisements How does their particular station rise above all the other competition What makes it the best How often do they repeat songs Is this considered good or bad Do they think the music is programmed locally or nationally why Can they pick out a perspective or viewpoint based on the selection of music Next I will turn on the radio so we can observe and compare different stations I will toggle between students' favorite stations including my own independent Radio K soliciting opinions and observations about quality and quantity Does the music have a political component If not is this a political statement as well and for what Should radio stations be accountable for their choices Do they have any responsibility to the society Should they Is this a free speech issue at all Finally students will meet in groups to design their own ideal radio stations ones that reflect what they want from the medium They will choose genres sample playlists and format Is the morning show for example talk-based humorous or music-only In addition they will consider their mission and write an appropriate statement What are their goals This activity will prompt them to think about how music is controlled and disseminated through our culture and how music is a product of consumer and power relationships Music is not unmediated it is manufactured and produced filtered through a series of social political and economic decisions Day Ten Performance and Presentation Students will present their works of protest art songs poems paintings or sculptures etc to the class See also Webquest Song of Revolution Protest and Solidarity http www montana edu webquest socialstudies grades to popiel Jazz Another important music genre is jazz which as some critics note is one of the most important American art forms of the th century In What is Jazz Dr Billy Taylor noted jazz pianist historian and educator shares glimpses of his extensive knowledge of jazz music from its roots in the African-American slavery experience through the early days of ragtime and onward through swing bop and progressive jazz http town hall org Archives radio Kennedy Taylor Unit Defining Jazz http www pbs org jazz classroom jazzdefinition htm The history of jazz as portrayed in the PBS Ken Burns series on Jazz http www pbs org jazz demonstrates how certain artists continually built on previous artists by refining their techniques and creating new ways of using the trumpet sax bass and drums A key moment in the history of jazz was the Harlem Renaissance and the rise of jazz artists such as Duke Ellington Duke Ellington tour the Smithsonian Museum http archives de-tour ppreview htm During that era writers such as Langston Hughes wrote poetry that was highly influenced by jazz rhythms Unit Jazz and the Harlem Renaissance http www pbs org jazz classroom visualize htm study of poems by Langston Hughes The Weary Blues Red Silk Stockings Juke Box Love Song and song lyrics by Duke Ellington Take The A Train It Don't Mean A Thing Drop Me Off in Harlem Unit Transcending Poetry Jazz Hip hop and Poetry http www pbs org jazz classroom transcend htm studying how poetry jazz hip hop and poetry reflect the culture of the time For an extensive site on the history of jazz with links to a lot of different aspects of jazz http members aol com Jlackritz jazz History Webquests Jazz http success lessons Lesson HFAa L HTM http www angelfire com ga vthomas Jazz Webquest htm Webquest Jazz in the s http wapiti pvs k nm us Computer jazzage htm For further reading Burns K Ward G Jazz A history of America s music New York Knopf Cook R Morton B The Penguin guide to jazz on CD New York Penguin Grindley M Jazz styles History and analysis Upper Saddle River NJ Prentice Hall Michael Jarrett Drifting on a read Jazz as a model for writing Albany NY SUNY Press Soul Motown Another important music genre is that of soul Motown music of the s s as performed by James Brown Ray Charles Jackie Wilson Booker T The MGs Eddie Floyd Wilson Pickett Otis Redding as well as the Motown groups singers The Four Tops Marvin Gaye The Marvelettes The Supremes The Temptations Martha and the Vandellas Mary Wells Stevie Wonder Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and Junior Walker and the All-Stars http www history-of-rock com soul music htm http www motown com classicmotown As illustrated in the documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown the backup band the Funk Brothers played an important role in providing new forms of musical background for the Motown groups through the use of inventive bass guitar and additional percussion violins http www funk com http movies yahoo com shop d hv id cf info Another documentary Only the Strong Survive portrays the a number of important soul singers of the s to the s Wilson Pickett Sam Moore Ann Peebles the late Isaac Hayes Rufus and Carla Thomas Jerry Butler The Chi-Lites and Mary Wilson For a trailer http www apple com trailers miramax onlythestrongsurvive html As illustrated in the shift in the focus in the content on racial conflict in the lyrics of the Temptations and Marvin Gaye s music in the late s and early s the Motown genre eventually began to address the racism facing African-American culture during that period Webquest Memphis Soul Music http www memphis-schools k tn us schools delano es Webquest ' soulquest' htm Wequest Why is Black Gospel Music Still So Popular http tli jefferson k ky us EDTD Projects Downs eportfolio GospelQuest Gospel html For further reading Kempton A McDonald R Kennedy R Boogaloo New York Knopf Merlis B Seay D James E Heart soul A celebration of Black music style in America - New York Watson-Guptill Posner G Motown e-book download Adobe Reader New York Random House Zolten J J Great God a'Mighty - The Dixie Hummingbirds Celebrating the rise of soul gospel music New York Oxford University Press Blues The blues is another important genre that as with rock is grounded in Black song traditions of the Mississippi Delta that migrated to St Louis Kansas City and Chicago in the s s The blues represented a tool for coping with everyday problems with love relationships work family and death It also drew on Black gospel music in terms of its rhythm and style A key focus in studying a blues song is the idea of a lament about a loss or problem in one s life a broken relationship a death or a traumatic change in one s life and how one may deal with this loss or problem Central to the lament is repetition of certain key lyrics or the refrain Having studying the blues genre form students would then write their own blues song about problems or issues in their own lives In Congress declared that year as the Year of the Blues to celebrate the years since the presumed origin of the blues in For an exhibit of the early blues artists at the EMI Seattle Music Museum http www emplive com explore show feature asp For further information on lots of related topics http www nothinbutdablues com http bluesnet hub org http www island net blues Blues discotography information on hundreds of records http www bsnpubs com discog html Webquest history of the blues http olkovikas tripod com bluesquest Unit Using Blues as a Tool for Improvisation http www pbs org jazz classroom bluesimprov htm Webquest Still Got the Blues http olkovikas tripod com bluesquest Webquest on the blues http www fsu edu CandI ENGLISH webquest blues htm For further reading Bogdanov V Woodstra C Erlewine S Eds All music guide to the blues The definitive guide to the blues New York Backbeat Cohn L Nothing but the blues The music and the musicians New York Abbeville Press Guralnick P Santelli R Martin Scorsese presents the blues A musical journey New York Amisted Press Jones L Blues people Negro music in White America New York William Morrow Hip Hop Rap Rap music emerged out of a Hip-Hop culture of the s and s with its emphasis on political expression and resistance through graffiti modes of dress language and social practices In a paper on the evolution of rap Henry Rhodes http www yale edu ynhti curriculum units x html describes how DJ s and street performers created a new forms of musical expression Dick Hebdige in his book Cut N Mix described Jamaican toasting as when the Jamaican disc jockies talked over the music they played This style developed at dances in Jamaica known as blues dances Blues dances were dances which took place in large halls or out in the open in the slum yards Blues dances were a regular feature of ghetto life in Jamaica At these dances black America R B records were played Jamaicans were introduced to these records by black American sailors stationed on the island and by American radio stations in and around Miami which played R B records Some favorite R B artists were Fats Domino Amos Melburn Louis Jordan and Roy Brown There was a great demand for the R B type of music but unfortunately there were no local Jamaican bands which could play this type of music as well as the black American artists As a result sound systems comprised of DJs roadies engineers bouncers which were large mobile discotheques were set up to meet this need The record playing systems of sound systems had to be large so people could hear the bass by which to dance according to Hebdige The major player in the sound systems was the DJ Some notable Jamaican DJs were Duke Reid Sir Coxsone and Prince Buster They were performers as well as DJs For example Duke Reid dressed in a long ermine cloak with a pair of Colt s in cowboy holsters with a cartridge belt strapped across his chest and a loaded shotgun over his shoulder This outfit was topped off with a gilt crown on his head Just as there were to be DJ battles competition in the Bronx they would occur first in Jamaica with one DJ trying to out play another DJ As in both battles here in the U S and Jamaica the competition boiled down to who had the loudest system and the most original records and technique It was not uncommon for things to get out of hand and for fighting to erupt during these DJ battles at the Jamaican blues dances once the crowds got caught up in this frenzy It was said that Duke Reid would bring the crowd under control by firing his shotgun in the air At first Jamaican toasting began when DJs would toast over the music they played with simple slogans to encourage the dancers Some of these simple slogans were Work it Work it and Move it up As toasting became more popular so did the lengths of the toasts One of the first big toasting stars was a Jamaican named U Roy his real name was Ewart Beckford Another technique which developed along side toasting was called dubs Dubbing was when the record engineers would cut back and forth between the vocal and instrumental tracks while adjusting the bass and the treble This technique highlighted the Jamaican toasting even more There are four areas which Jamaican toasting and American rap music have in common First both types of music relied on pre-recorded sounds Second both types of music relied on a strong beat by which they either rapped or toasted American rap music relied on the strong beat of hard funk and Jamaican toasting relied on the beat from the Jamaican rhythms Third in both styles the rapper or toaster spoke their lines in time with the rhythm taken from the records Fourth the content of the raps and toasts were similar in nature For example as there were boast raps insult raps news raps message raps nonsense raps and party raps there also existed toasts that were similar in nature Rhodes notes that rap groups then emerged who had an appeal to a larger audience Run-D M C was the first black rap group to break through to a mass white audience with their albums Run-D M C and King of Rock These albums led the way that rap would travel into the musical mainstream Even though Run-D M C dressed as if they came right off the street corner this was not the case Run and D M C came from middle class families they were never deprived of anything and they never ran with a gang One could never tell this by their dress or from the raps they made Run-D M C records were produced under the Def Jam label which had as one of its founders a Jewish punk rocker named Rick Rubin Russell Simmons Run s brother was to later take control of the Def Jam label in however this can not take away from the fact that this so-called militant rap group was at one time being produced by a white person What is even more startling is that one of the most militant rap groups Public Enemy was also produced by Rick Rubin Just as Run-D M C came from middle-class families so did Public Enemy Members of Public Enemy grew up in suburban Long Island towns with successful middle-class professional parents Hip Hop originated in the s in the Bronx when local neighborhood artists began to play records on record players in new original ways which led to the rise of early Hip Hop stars DJ Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash For an interactive time-line exhibit at the EMI Seattle Music Museum http www emplive com explore hiphop index asp In an article in The Nation January 'Stakes Is High' Conscious Rap Neosoul and the Hip-Hop Generation Jeff Chang notes the shifts from the original Hip-Hop to more recent commercialized versions http www thenation com doc mhtml i s chang Fifteen years ago rappers like Public Enemy KRS-One and Queen Latifah were received as heralds of a new movement Musicians--who like all artists always tend to handle the question What's going on much better than What is to be done --had never been called upon to do so much for their generation Thelonious Monk Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder were never asked to stand in for Thurgood Marshall Fannie Lou Hamer or Stokely Carmichael But the gains of the civil rights and Black Power movements of the s were being rolled back Youths were as fed up with black leadership as they were with white supremacy Politics had failed Culture was to become the hip-hop generation's battlefield and political rap was to be its weapon Today the most cursory glance at the Billboard charts or video shows on Viacom-owned MTV and BET suggests rap has been given over to cocaine-cooking cartoon-watching Rakim-quoting gold-rims-coveting death-worshiping young 'uns One might even ask whether rap has abandoned the revolution Indeed as the central marker of urban youth of color style and authenticity rap music has become the key to the niching of youth culture The hip-hop lifestyle is now available for purchase in every suburban mall Political rap has been repackaged by record companies as merely conscious retooled for a smaller niche as an alternative Instead of drinking Aliz you drink Sprite Instead of Versace you wear Ecko Instead of Jay-Z you listen to the Roots Teen rap party rap gangsta rap political rap--tags that were once a mere music critic's game--are literally serious business Once you put a prefix on an MC's name that's a death trap says Talib Kweli the gifted Brooklyn-born rapper who disdains being called conscious Clearly his music expresses a well-defined politics his rhymes draw from the same well of protest that nourished the Last Poets the Watts Prophets and the Black Arts stalwarts he cites as influences But he argues that marketing labels close his audience's minds to the possibilities of his art When Kweli unveiled a song called Gun Music some fans grumbled No conscious rapper would stoop to rapping about guns they reasoned closing their ears even as Kweli delivered a complicated critique of street-arms fetishism At the same time Kweli worries that being pigeonholed as political will prevent him from being promoted to mass audiences Indeed to be a political rapper in the music industry these days is to be condemned to preach to a very small choir Political rap was actually something of an invention The Bronx community-center dances and block parties where hip-hop began in the early s were not demonstrations for justice they were celebrations of survival Hip-hop culture simply reflected what the people wanted and needed--escape Rappers bragged about living the brand-name high life because they didn't they boasted about getting headlines in the New York Post because they couldn't Then during the burning summer of the first Reagan recession Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five released The Message a dirge by the standards of the day that seethed against the everyday violence of disinvestment Flash was certain the record which was actually an A R-pushed concoction by Duke Bootee and Melle Mel would flop it was too slow and too depressing to rock a party But Sugar Hill Records released the song as a single over his objections and The Message struck the zeitgeist like a bull's-eye Liberal soul and rock critics who had been waiting for exactly this kind of statement from urban America championed it Millions of listeners made it the third platinum rap single Through the mid- s Melle Mel Afrika Bambaataa and Soul Sonic Force Run-DMC and others took up the role of the young black lumpenrapper opposition weighing in on topics like racism nuclear proliferation and apartheid And just as the first Bush stepped into office a new generation began to articulate a distinctly post-civil rights stance Led by Public Enemy rappers like Paris Ice-T X-Clan Poor Righteous Teachers and Brand Nubian displayed the Black Panther Party's media savvy and the Minister Louis Farrakhan's nationalist rage Politics were as explicit as Tipper Gore's advisory stickers As the Gulf War progressed Paris's Bush Killa imagined a Black Power assassination of Bush the Elder while rapping Iraq never called me 'nigger ' Last year he returned to cut an MP -only critique of the war on Afghanistan What Would You Do Rappers' growing confidence with word sound and power was reflected in more slippery and subtle music buttered with Afrodiasporic and polycultural flavor Many of these artists had emerged from vibrant protest movements--New York City's resurgent Black Power movement the swelling campus antiapartheid multiculturalism affirmative action movement local anti-police brutality movements In each of these representation was the cry and the media were a target Rap edutainment came out of the convergence of two very different desires the need for political empowerment and the need to be empowered by images of truth On 's Can I Kick It A Tribe Called Quest's Phife Dawg captured the mood of his audience sweetly and precisely Mr Dinkins will you please be our mayor But while Mayor Dinkins's career quickly hit a tailspin hip-hop rose by making blackness--even radical blackness--the worldwide trading currency of cultural cool In the new global entertainment industry of the s rap became a hot commodity But even as the marketing dollars flowed into youth of color communities major labels searched for ways to capture the authenticity without the militancy Stakes was high as De La Soul famously put it in and labels were loath to accept such disruptions on their investments as those that greeted Ice-T and Body Count's Cop Killer during the ' election season Rhymers kicking sordid tales from the drug wars were no longer journalists or fictionists ironists or moralists They were purveyors of a new lifestyle ghetto cool with all of the products but none of the risk or rage After Dr Dre's pivotal album The Chronic in which a millennial ghettocentric Phil Spector stormed the pop charts with a postrebellion gangsta party that brought together Crip-walking with Tanqueray-sipping the roughnecks hustlers and riders took the stage from the rap revolutionaries backed by the substantial capital of a quickly consolidating music industry Rap music today reflects the paradoxical position of the hip-hop generation If measured by the volume of products created by and sold to them it may appear that youth of color have never been more central to global popular culture Rap is now a billion engine that drives the entire music industry and flexes its muscle across all entertainment platforms Along with its music Jay-Z's not-so-ironically named Roc-A-Fella company peddles branded movies clothing and vodka Hip-hop some academics assert is hegemonic But as the social turmoil described by many contemporary rappers demonstrates this generation of youth of color is as alienated and downpressed as any ever has been And the act of tying music to lifestyle--as synergy-seeking media companies have effectively done--has distorted what marketers call the aspirational aspects of hip-hop while marginalizing its powers of protest Yet the politics have not disappeared from popular rap Some of the most stunning hits in recent years--DMX's Who We Be Trick Daddy's I'm a Thug Scarface's On My Block --have found large audiences by making whole the hip-hop generation's clich of keeping it real being true to one's roots of struggle The video for Nappy Roots' brilliant Po' Folks depicts an expansive vision of rural Kentucky--black and white young and old together living like everything's gon' be OK Scarface's ghettocentric On My Block discards any pretense at apology We've probably done it all fa' sheezy he raps I'll never leave my block my niggas need me For some critics usually older and often black such sentiments seem dangerously close to pathological hymns to debauchery and justifications for thuggery But the hip-hop generation recognizes them as anthems of purpose manifestoes that describe their time and place the same way that Public Enemy's did Most of all these songs and their audiences say we are survivors and we will never forget that In a readingonline org article Ernest Morrell describes how he integrated teaching about hip-hop culture into an English poetry unit http www readingonline org newliteracies lit index asp HREF newliteracies jaal - column Given the social cultural and academic relevance of hip-hop music a colleague and I designed a classroom unit that incorporated hip-hop music and culture into a traditional high school senior English poetry unit We began the unit with an overview of poetry in general attempting to redefine poetry and the poet's role We emphasized the importance of understanding the historical period in which a poem was written in order to come to a deep interpretation In the introductory lecture we laid out all of the historical and literary periods that would be covered in the unit e g the Elizabethan age the Puritan Revolution in England the Civil War and the Post-Industrial Revolution in the United States We placed hip-hop music and the Post-Industrial Revolution right alongside other historical and literary periods so that students could use a period and genre of poetry they were familiar with as a lens to examine the other literary works We also wanted to encourage our students to re-evaluate how they view elements of their popular culture The second major portion of the unit was the group presentation of a poem and a rap song The groups were asked to prepare a justifiable interpretation of their poem and song with relation to their specific historical and literary periods and to analyze the links between the two After a week of preparation each group was given a class period to present its work and have its arguments critiqued by peers In addition to the group presentations students were asked to complete an anthology of poems of which would be presented at a poetry reading Finally students were asked to write a five- to seven-page critical essay on a song of their choice The students generated quality interpretations and made interesting connections between the canonical poems and the rap songs They were also inspired to create their own critical poems to serve as celebration and social commentary Their critical investigations of popular texts brought about oral and written critiques similar to those required by college preparatory English classrooms The students moved beyond critical reading of literary texts to become cultural producers themselves creating and presenting poems that provided critical social commentary and encouraged action for social justice The unit adhered to critical pedagogy because it was situated in the experiences of the students called for critical dialogue and a critical engagement of the text and related the texts to larger social and political issues Jennifer Hardison-Sims provides online resources for students to write their own rap lyrics based on dictionaries and study of rap hip-hop music http teacherweb com ca sandiego hardisonsims HTMLPage stm Rhymerator assistance in creating rhymes http www rockstargames com rhymerator Hiphopbattle groups compete against each other http hiphopbattle com about html A Chum Television Study Guide Hip-Hop Consciousness http www chumlimited com mediaed guidepage much asp studyID Lots of sites related to Hip-Hop culture http www hiphop-directory com General Hip Hop Sites index php The history of hip hop as portrayed on the Seattle EMP Music Museum http www emplive com flash hiphop index html Vibe Magazine http www vibe com Hip-Hop Rap Group sites http www hiphop-directory com Hip Hop and Rap Groups index php http rapmusic com rapmusic http rap about com mbody htm http www b-boys com links html Webquest on Hip Hop culture http php indiana edu jhendon wq k originalintro htm Webquest Is Rap Hip Hop Poetry http asterix ednet lsu edu ylou WebQuest - Shalonda RapWebQuest html Webquest Breakdancing http www ic sunysb edu Stu jmgutier webquest html For further reading Chang J Can't stop Won't stop A history of the hip-hop generation New York St Martin s Press Dimitriadis G Performing identity Performing culture Hip hop as text pedagogy and lived practice New York Peter Lang Green J Ed Rap and hip hop New York Greenhaven essays for students grades and up Krims A Rap music and the poetics of identity New York Cambridge University Press Maxwell I Phat beats Dope rhymes Hip hop down under comin' upper Middletown CT Wesleyan University Press Ramsey G Race music Black cultures from bebop to hip-hop Berkeley CA University of California Press Punk As with Rap music emerging out of the Hip-Hop culture punk music was an expression of adolescent punk culture that resisted traditional middle class consumeristic culture particularly mainstream dress language work habits and music As Charles Oh notes http mt essortment com punkrockhistor rapl htm punk music reflected a challenged to the traditional music industry In the late 's and early 's the music industry rang eerily familiar in its method of promoting trends over music The public was being spoon-fed music that corporations simply intended to make a profit from The backlash to this came to be known internationally as Punk rock In New York in the early 's Young virtually unknown artists like Patti Smith the Velvet Underground and the Dolls of New York changed later to New York Dolls brought about a new style of alternative-bohemian entertainment rooted in a do-it-yourself attitude Short frenetic songs aggressive sometimes confrontational stage presence and angry messages against consumerism hit the stages at venues like New York's CBGB's starting the movement that would be known as punk rock Bands like the Ramones and the Talking Heads would evolve out of the punk rock movement and become influences for those who shared a similar distaste in what was occurring in the music industry Some say the underlying roots of punk was the frustration and anger from being treated as sheep while others say punk stemmed from the politics of boredom It was both Malcolm McLaren has an indelible role in the history of punk rock either beloved or hated for his managerial skills In February of the New York Dolls once a forerunner in punk tried to revive a lagging career by hiring McLaren as their new manager Understanding the value of shock McLaren took the band and reintroduced them as born again communists They draped themselves in communist flags and said catchy phrases like better red than dead Unfortunately for the band they continued to fail Fortunately for McLaren they continued to fail After his attempt with the New York Dolls McLaren relocated to England and teamed up with his friend Bernie Rhodes The two nurtured a band that was arguably their greatest success the Sex Pistols McLaren and the Pistols adopted an anarchistic view of the world that made them instaneous celebrities With spiked hair tattered clothes and safety pins as jewelry they frequented talk shows and publicly badmouthed fellow artists bands and musicians They spoke harshly of the British class system and the subjugation of the working class They made news for concert violence and fighting with fans The Sex Pistols were also as notorious for their brashness as they were for their inability to play their instruments Their shock value not only brought them fame but made them the single most recognizable punk band Therefore many believed that punk rock began with the Pistols while others believed it made punk into a novelty and signified the beginning of the end Despite the internal turmoil in the punk movement punk rock made several things clear to international audiences Punk Rock in its subculture managed to break down many barriers of expression and language It made an indentation in the commericial music industry It provided a fresh alternative to a boring stagnant music scene But most of all punk's legacy lies in its introduction of self employment and activism It illustrated that anyone can do it themself without reliance on the commercial media or the luxury of having financial abundance Against the backdrop of mass consumer conformity the punk rock movement made a statement of individuality that was heard worldwide The history of Punk Heavy Metal music as portrayed on the Seattle EMP Music Museum http www emplive com explore punk chron index asp Histories of punk http www fastnbulbous com punk htm http www punkmusic com home cfm http www punkbands com http www inch com jessamin Female punk bands http directory google com Top Arts Music Styles Rock Punk Riot Grrl Bands and Artists The Punk Page http www thepunkpage com Bryn Chamberlain The Quintessential Punk http www film queensu ca Critical Chamberlain html MusicGirl female aspects of punk music http www musicgirl net punk music punk music html For further reading Greenwald A Nothing feels good Punk rock the Web and the Emo generation New York St Martin's Griffin Folk Music Another genre central to the development of American music is folk music http www folkmusic org made famous by Woody Guthrie Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan Woody Guthrie Foundation http www woodyguthrie org The Songs of Woody Guthrie http www geocities com Nashville guthrie html http www fortunecity com tinpan parton guthrie html Pete Seeger Appreciation Page http home earthlink net jimcapaldi Pete Seeger s Songs http home earthlink net jimcapaldi songsby htm bobdylan com http www bobdylan com index html Bob Dylan s Original Songs http orad dent kyushu-u ac jp dylan song html These three singers consistently expressed populist themes in their music related to the plight of working-class and rural Americans As previously noted Dylan s shift to more electronic forms in the s and s reflected the ways in which folk music shifted somewhat in terms of it s style Folk music also draws on early blues it may difficult to define clear distinctions between early blues and folk music as reflected in the music of Robert Johnson John Lee Hooker and Bessie Smith Contemporary folk singers continue the early traditions of openly addressing social and personal concerns of everyday life as expressed in the songs by Altan the Chieftains Ani DiFranco Ry Cooder Sara McLachlan Wilco John Prine and Los Lobos Sites with lots of links to different aspects of folk music http www mustrad org uk links htm http www jg org folk folkhome html http www explore com folkmusic htm World Folk Music Association http www wfma net index htm eFolkMusic org some free downloads http www efolkmusic org The American Folk Music Community http www coe ufl edu Courses EdTech Vault folk Home htm PBS Tapping the Roots of American Music http www pbs org americanrootsmusic pbs arm into the classroom html The Mudcat Caf for downloading folk music http mudcat org Folk music instruments http www folkusa org Dirty Linen Magazine http www dirtynelson com linen A Mighty Wind parody of a documentary on folk music http amightywindonline warnerbros com Lesson Sing a Tale http www eduplace com rdg hmll gold tales sing html For further reading Filene B Romancing the folk Public memory and American roots music Chapel Hill NC University of North Carolina Press Seeger R Polansky L The Music of American Folk Song and Selected Other Writings on American Folk Music Rochester NY University of Rochester Press Stambler I Stambler L Folk blues The encyclopedia The premier encyclopedia Of American roots music New York Thomas Dunne Books Unterberger R Brend M Turn turn turn The ' s folk-rock revolution New York Backbeat Country music Another genre is that of country music that became increasingly popular during the s s as an expression of Bible Belt working-class cultural values and then the s and s political beliefs Since the s country music has adopted a more popular music style to appeal to a larger market including an increasing number of female country stars The Roughstock History of Country Music site http www roughstock com history notes that country emerged out of earlier forms of bluegrass folk spiritual and cowboy music of the s and s Country Music sites http www cmt com http www cmaworld com Country Music Hall of Fame http www halloffame org Nashville net lots of links to country music sites http www nashville net Entertainment Music Country music musicians http www countrystars com Webquest country music http www pampetty com countrymusic htm For further reading Bogdanov V Woodstra C Erlewine T All music guide to country The definitive guide to country music New York Backbeat Peterson R Creating country music Fabricating authenticity Chicago University of Chicago Press Stambler I Landon G Country music The encyclopedia Boston St Martin s Griffin Wolfe C Classic country Legends of country music New York Routledge Cajun zydeco As with other genres Cajun music emanated out of Louisiana as an expression of Cajun culture The name derives from Acadian the name of the French colonialists who settled in what became Louisiana Zydeco music is a hybrid of cajun and blues music and became increasingly popular in the s and s outside of Louisiana particularly as a form of dance music http www CajunZydeco Net http users erols com ghayman music htm Jim Bradshaw Cajun Music Has Gone Through Many Changes http www lft k la us chs la studies ParishSeries FrenchMusic CajunMusicChanged htm Cascade Zydeco http www cascade-zydeco com BuckWheat Zydeco http www buckwheatzydeco com C J Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band http www concertedefforts com artists cjch asp For further reading Gould P Ancelet B Cajun music and zydeco Baton Rouge LA Louisiana State University Press Koster R Louisiana music A journey from R B to zydeco jazz to country blues to gospel cajun music to swamp pop to carnival music and beyond New Orleans DeCapo Music Videos Music videos have played an important role in both the development and the promotion of music Students could analyze different features of music videos for on-line viewing in terms of Shuker p - mood the overall feeling of nostalgia romanticism despair etc - narrative structure degree to which contains a story versus a non-linear montage - realism versus fantasy - themes loss of innocence love protest etc - performance defined in terms of genre features - portrayal of sexuality gender role stereotyping - focus on promotion of singer - music content Music video producers http www mtv com http www vh com http www channelv com Channel V Asia Pacific http www columbiarecords com Music video clips http www clipland com http www fuse tv launcher php http launch yahoo com musicvideos Another important element of music videos are the intertextual links made to a range of different images and texts that convey the meaning of the video John Fiske studied adolescents responses to Madonna by listening to them reading the letters they write to fanzines or observing their behavior at home or in public The fans words or behavior are texts that need reading theoretically in just the same way as the texts of Madonna do In reading these various texts of Madonna --the music videos movies magazine articles posters etc Fiske goes beyond what I have described as a textual approach to recognize that the signifieds exist not in the text itself but extratextually in the myths countermyths and ideology of their culture This allows him to determine the way the dominate ideology is structured into the text and into the reading subject and those textual features that enable negotiated resisting or oppositional readings to be made He cites the example of -year-old Lucy s response to a Madonna poster She s tarty and seductive but it looks alright when she does it you know what I mean if anyone else did it it would look right tarty a right tart you know but with her its OK it s acceptable with anyone else it would be absolutely outrageous it sounds silly but it s OK with her you know what I mean November For Fiske this response represents Lucy s grappling with the cultural oppositions of patriarchal versus feminist perspectives on sexuality Lucy can only find patriarchal words to describe Madonna s sexuality-- tarty and seductive --but she struggles against the patriarchy inscribed in them At the same time she struggles against the patriarchy inscribed in her own subjectivity The opposition between acceptable and absolutely outrageous not only refers to representations of female sexuality but is an externalization of the tension felt by adolescent girls when trying to come to terms with the contradictions between a positive feminine view of their sexuality and the alien patriarchal one that appears to be the only one offered by the available linguistic and symbolic systems Through her grappling with the conflicting codes of the poster Lucy is defining her gender identity within the context of competing patriarchal and feminist values She also make intertextual links according to learned cultural categories Orr Fiske cites the example of the cultural category of the blond Madonna's music video Material Girl provides us with a case in point it is a parody of Marilyn Monroe's song and dance number Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend in the movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes such an allusion to a specific text is an example of intertextuality for its effectiveness depends upon specific not generalized textual knowledge--a knowledge that incidentally many of Madonna's young girl fans in were unlikely to possess The video's intertextuality refers rather to our culture's image bank of the sexy blonde star and how she plays with men's desire for her and turns it to her advantage Readers therefore associate certain cultural meanings with categories such as the blonde --sexiness power vulnerability youth celebrity etc meanings in this case associated with the cultural practice of defining gender roles Through a range of different textual shifters --record labels movies music videos celebrity magazines etc Madonna evokes the contradictory images of innocent virgin and culturely whore For many adolescent females during her popularity Madonna represents an assertiveness against a patriarchal system--an attitude that I can do what I want an autonomy not always associated with a s image of the blonde as dependent on patriarchy There has also been considerable debate about the content of music videos and the effects of that content on adolescent viewers In his documentary Dreamworlds II http mediaed org videos MediaGenderAndDiversity Dreamworlds Sut Jhally argues that women are represented primarily as sex objects within an adolescent male fantasy world in which alluring women are portrayed as willing and eager to have sex with men He argues that these portrayals are related to male violence towards women and to patriarchic notions of sexuality As noted on the web site description he argues the following points Women in music television inhabit a fantasy landscape a DreamWorld where the norms of femininity are nymphomania and dependence on and subservience to men In this DreamWorld women vastly outnumber men attraction is instant and sex happens without courtship All men are promised sexual gratification including the viewer This dream world is inextricably tied up in the fantasy life of adolescent heterosexual males The adolescent heterosexual male fantasies of seeing women in their underwear looking down women s shirts or up their skirts and engaging in casual and erotic touch with multiple women are played out ad nauseum in plotlines and camerawork These sorts of stories about women s sexuality while undeniably successful from a marketing perspective have consequences in the real world They encourage men to think of women primarily as sexual objects without subjectivity and encourage women to value themselves only if they can attract the gaze or advances of men Just as in adolescent heterosexual male fantasy emotions and humanity take a back seat to a mechanical exploitative orgy Another Education Media Foundation video What a Girl Wants video clip http www mediaed org videos MediaGenderAndDiversity WhatAGirlWants examine the lyrics of Christina Aguilera s song What a Girls Wants http www bestchristina com lyrics selftitle girlwants shtml in relationship to adolescent females self-perceptions of themselves as females Lesson studying music videos http www media-awareness ca english resources educational lessons secondary popular culture pop culture popular music cfm Lesson on images musicians project in music videos CD covers http www media-awareness ca english resources educational lessons secondary music public images cfm Music Video create music videos http www timtv com mv- html Webquest create a music video based on a poem http students itec sfsu edu itec s jnaas producer html For further reading Feineman N Reiss S Thirty frames per second The visionary art of the music video New York Harry N Abrams Gaskell R Make your own music video New York CMP Books Vernallis C Experiencing music video Aesthetics and cultural context New York Columbia University Press Film Music Related to the topic of music videos is the study of music in film or film soundtrack Film music plays an important role in a film by conveying certain meanings associated with the visual action High-paced music is often used to convey a sense of suspense and desperation linked to a chase scene as is the case with the use of music in the Lord of the Rings triology films Certain music may be linked to certain characters in a film as is the case with the use of the Bee Gee s disco music linked to the John Travolta character in Saturday Night Fever In the following discussion Fred Ginsburg describes how different types of music in a soundtrack functions to enhance a film http www equipmentemporium com soundtra htm The dramatic source of music under a scene can be either extraneous or practical Extraneous means that the score is simply there on the soundtrack because the filmmaker put it there to accompany the picture The people in the movie theatre hear it but the characters in the film do not Most music in soundtracks falls under this category In contrast to this some music is initially explained or motivated by some source on screen such as a radio playing a nightclub band or a character musician In these instances the music that the audience hears is also being heard by the characters on screen Sometimes music can creatively overlap both of these categories by starting off as extraneous and then being revealed as practical or vice versa In the course of composing the music at some point the composer and editor will create what is known as a click track This is a soundtrack that consists solely of clicks placed opposite the picture in order to convey cutting rhythm and climax This click track serves to guide the composer and later on the musicians in keeping beat with the film rather than a more arbitrary reference rhythm After the music has been composed the next step is obviously to record it In the case of an orchestral score musicians are assembled and arranged in a large recording studio known as a scoring stage There they view the film on a large screen while hearing the click track in headphones Led by the composer the orchestra performs the selections The music is recorded on multi-track for later mixdown When the score is composed and performed by a single musician as is more often the case on low budget productions the individual composer may be responsible for producing the entire musical soundtrack Employing a portable multi-track recording system in conjunction with video playback he or she will commonly perform and overdub with keyboards synthesizers electronic drums and perhaps a few acoustic instruments Film Music lots of links http www filmmusicmag com Music from the Movies http www musicfromthemovies com Field of Dreams On-line film music journal http www fod-online com Soundtrack links to individual soundtracks http www soundtrack net The Film Music Society lots of links to individual composers http www filmmusicsociety org resources links resources links html John Williams s web site composer of music for movies such as Star Wars Saving Private Ryan Schindler's List Jurassic Park the Indiana Jones trilogy E T The Extra-Terrestrial Close Encounters of the Third Kind Jaws http www johnwilliamscomposer com An NPR interview with John Williams and Leonard Slatkin http www npr org display pages features feature html For lots of links to aspects of film sound http filmsound org For further reading Dickinson K Ed Movie music the film reader New York Routledge Inglis I Ed Popular music and film New York Columbia University Press The Economics of Popular Music Industry The popular music industry and associated distribution promotion radio outlets sell over a billion tapes discs annually in music stores about of that music is rock is African-American oriented contemporary music and is country Baran p Four major conglomerates dominate the industry controlling of the market Baran p - SONY Columbia Epic Records - BMG owned by Bertlesmann RCA Arista - Universal Music owned by Vivendi MCA - Warner AOL Atlantic Electra Warner EML Stanley Baran identifies three problems with the domination of the industry by these conglomerates problems that also parallel those of the film industry also dominated by a few conglomerates - cultural homogenization derivative predictable manufactured groups such as N Sync of the Back Street Boys are favored over seeking out and developing new original local bands - dominance of profits over artistry to pay millions of dollars for superstar performers less-well-known groups are eliminated or not signed particularly controversial groups creating infringement of artistic freedom - promotion overshadows the music groups that marketable and have corporate sponsorship can go on tours to attract a fan following Without fans groups have difficulty obtaining sponsorship The industry also controls radio playlists promoting only their own groups whom they have selected to market These large conglomerates can only control the industry through how they produce and market CDs which have relatively high profit margins They also can afford to sign up major stars and therefore control copyright access to these stars older songs which are re-released in the form of biggest-hits Cds These copyright profits also include uses of songs on the radio in advertising or in films which are also often produced by the same conglomerates an example of the cross-promotion synergy that exists within the multiple units within a larger mega-conglomerate O Sullivan Dutton Rayner The PBS Frontline program The Way the Music Died for a video of the entire program http www pbs org wgbh pages frontline shows music documents the ways in which the conglomerate music industry owners focus primarily on marketing the music as product through the appearance of the musician on an MTV video or album cover photos as opposed to concern about the quality and originality of the music It posits that the decline in album sales from billion in to billion in while influenced by free downloading is also influenced by a decline in the music quality given this focus on marketing big hits by familiar big name musicians as opposed to searching out and fostering new original talent The program tracks the development of a new young singer Sarah Hudson by a small company as contrasted with the expensive promotion of a new band Velvet Revolver made up of musicians from Guns N' Roses and Stone Temple Pilots and sponsored by RCA Records In the end a Velvet Revolver thanks to large-scale promotion is on the top of the Billboard chart while the Sarah Hudson song does not make the chart Music industry promotions http www musicscenenetwork com A Chum Television Study Guide The Recording Industry http www chumlimited com mediaed guidepage much asp studyID The video Money for Nothing The Business of Pop Music see video clip http mediaed org videos CommercialismPoliticsAndMedia MoneyForNothing examines the following question Of the thousands of musicians who perform music today why do some of them become stars and have their music heard by millions while others don t The video also examines the ways in which the industry controls four primary gateways to consumers radio television touring and retail from the curriculum guide Radio The Telecommunications Act removed restrictions on the number of radio stations any one company could own and accelerated the trend of a small number of companies owning the vast majority of stations Because three super corporations own almost all of the radio stations in the country the system is closed independent music is shut out and the result is that deejays have no power and big-market stations around the country all sound the same Major labels have a huge influence on what records radio stations play they work closely with radio stations and pour substantial amounts of money into them to assure that their music is played In the s Congress conducted hearings into payola scandals involving record deejays who took money under the table from record executives in exchange for playing the company s music Today the scenario is much the same except that it s become legal and no longer triggers public discussion about musical or artistic integrity MTV MTV has immense power to advertise music by broadcasting videos that reach million houses in countries on five continents MTV is essentially a -hour infomercial virtually all of its content designed to sell the products of their parent company or the paid advertisers with whom they do business The major record labels have extremely close ties to MTV the two feed off one another MTV s Total Request Live perhaps the most influential television show in the music industry is live but in reality limits what can be requested to a very slim carefully crafted roster of corporate-approved choices To even be in a position to be requested an artist needs plenty of promo money connections and tie-ins by definition excluding truly alternative choices Touring Corporate control is also central when it comes to the business of touring If artists even alternative artists who gain popularity without corporate backing want to play large venues they must pass through the corporate gates This control amounts to huge touring costs which translates into further debt for artists and high ticket prices Webquest On Tour http nanunet lhric org highschl businessdept ontourwebquest index htm Retail Three companies exercise inordinate control over the retail music industry Walmart Best Buy and Transworld These three companies account for the majority of retail music business which gives them tremendous influence over the kinds of music that are produced If Walmart who alone accounts for almost of all music sales decides it will not carry a record because of objectionable content this exerts huge pressure on the major labels to change musical content rather than retailers Similarly with sales at the Walmarts of the retail world determining the national taste for music more diverse tastes are crowded out because they are considered too expensive and risky threatening the livelihood of an entire generation of artists and an entire generation of independent music store owners Webquest music copyright http www edgerton k wi us ms Webquest index html Control of CD content distribution In a study by Arbitron and Edison Media Research as of Summer an estimated million Americans age and older have ever used Internet audio or video broadcasts The study reveals that the percentage of all Americans who currently use Internet audio or video percent is nearly twice the size of what it was three years ago percent For a PDF copy of the study http www arbitron com home content stm One of the major challenges facing the music industry is the large-scale down-loading and sharing of CD content on the Internet a process originated by Napster For a PowerPoint presentation on the nature and issues associated with uses of Napster http www scu edu faculty itrs LMU napster files v document htm When the conglomerates argued that downloading their music represented a form of illegal piracy of copyrighted material and were successful in shutting down Napster other Napster substitutes for free downloading quickly arose KaZaA http www KaZaA com us index htm Gnutella http www Gnutella com Universities are as of under pressure to stop their students from using university computer server space for downloading music they attempted to create their own on-line distribution retailers that would provide custom-made collections as such http www musicmaker com Other commercial outlets also provide sites for pay-for-music The Apple site at a song has been particular popular http www apple com music Other commercial download sites http www mp com http www mtv com music downloads http music lycos com downloads The Recording Industry Association of America industry organization http www riaa com default asp Lesson debating the Napster free downloading issue http www media-awareness ca english resources educational lessons secondary music teaching about napster cfm Webquest the downloading issue http www edgerton k wi us ms Webquest A Chum Television Study Guide The Future of the Music Industry deals with the issues of downloading http www chumlimited com mediaed guidepage much asp studyID Webquest use of the Internet in studying music http www socs k in us schools ovhs branard musicquest htm Promotion distribution of music by the music industry Most of the recorded music available commercially does not succeed in making a profit This is particularly the case with less-well known groups or groups who record on independent labels In there were CDs released but of those CDs sold less than copies Only albums sold more than copies These tended to be big name superstars who are familiar often non-controversial and widely promoted by the industry This means that many new alternative or controversial musicians are not able to make a living from recording music Moreover many have difficulty making money in playing in local clubs or venues because the larger venues or halls are controlled by the same conglomerates who are promoting them The extent to which a single or group musician is successful is often a function of the marketing and distribution provided by large companies who can afford such promotions of CDs One key strategy in doing so is to promote one particular hit song on that CD through releasing that song to radio stations prior to release of the CD particularly on the stations A list of more than times a week It is here that the cross-promotion within corporations such as Clear Channel become important because Clear-Channel-owned radio stations can select those songs it wants to promote by artists whom it is also promoting for its own tours in its own concert venues In Clear Channel bought SFX one of the world s largest live music promotion organizations which owned venues in of the top American markets This meant that Clear Channel now controls not only the promotion of musicians on its radio stations but also on its venues As the Clear Channel web site http cc com notes Clear Channel Entertainment is the power of live entertainment As the world's leading promoter and marketer of live entertainment Clear Channel Entertainment is about providing fun and exciting experiences to millions of entertainment and sports lovers the world over From the Backstreet Boys and U to N Sync and Madonna from Scooby Doo Live and David Copperfield to The Producers and Sweet Smell of Success Supercross and Monster Trucks to the International Hot Rod Association everybody plays a Clear Channel Entertainment stage Clear Channel Entertainment's unparalleled array of events attracts the best and brightest performers on the planet from the most celebrated international superstars to the most innovative new talent Clear Channel Entertainment formerly known as SFX is a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications Inc Clear Channel is a global leader in the out-of home advertising industry with radio and television stations outdoor displays and entertainment venues in countries around the world Including announced transactions Clear Channel operates approximately radio and television stations in the United States and has equity interests in over radio stations internationally Clear Channel also operates approximately outdoor advertising displays including billboards street furniture and transit panels across the world Musicians whose CDs are perceived as controversial are not promoted by Clear Channel Clear Channel radio stations were encouraged to stage pro-war rallies during the Iraq War All of this increased concentration of ownership was fostered by the Telecommunications Act which deregulated ownership rules to allow companies to own more radio stations In an analysis of the impact of these deregulation Jeff Toomey writing in The Nation December http www thenation com doc mhtml i s toomey notes that The act opened the floodgates for ownership consolidation Ten parent companies now dominate the radio spectrum radio listenership and radio revenues controlling two-thirds of both listeners and revenue nationwide Two parent companies in particular--Clear Channel and Viacom--together control percent of listeners and percent of industry revenues Still from to format variety--the average number of formats available in each local market--actually increased in both large and small markets But format variety is not equivalent to true diversity in programming since formats with different names have similar playlists For example alternative top rock and hot adult contemporary are all likely to play songs by the band Creed even though their formats are not the same In fact an analysis of data from charts in Radio and Records and Billboard's Airplay Monitor revealed considerable playlist overlap--as much as percent--between supposedly distinct formats If the FCC or the National Association of Broadcasters are sincerely trying to measure programming diversity doing so on the basis of the number of formats in a given market is a flawed methodology Musicians are also suffering because of deregulation Independent artists have found it increasingly difficult to get airplay in payola-like schemes the Big Five music companies through third-party promoters shell out thousands of dollars per song to the companies that rule the airwaves That's part of why the Future of Music Coalition undertook this research We at the FMC firmly believe that the music industry as it exists today is fundamentally anti-artist In addition to our radio study our projects--including a critique of standard major-label contract clauses a study of musicians and health insurance and a translation of the complicated Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel proceedings that determined the webcasting royalty rates--were conceived as tools for people who are curious about the structures that impede musicians' ability to both live and make a living Understanding radio deregulation is another tool for criticizing such structures We have detailed the connections between concentrated media ownership homogenous radio programming and restricted radio access for musicians Given that knowledge we hope artists will join with other activists and work to restore radio as a public resource for all people Another key factor is the ability to distribute CDs through large retail outlets such as Wal-Mart Sam Goody Musicland as well as on-line retailers Amazon com http www amazon com and clubs such as Columbia House http www columbiahouse com sa ch homepage jsp or BMG http www bmg com One issue with distribution through Wal-Mart is that they will not distribute songs with lyrics they perceive as offensive leading some musicians to change their songs to avoid not be distributed by Wal-Mart Another key factor in promotion are the popularity ratings for songs as evident in various ratings charts such as the Billboard ratings http www billboard com bb charts album index jsp These charts are driven by the relationship of purchases as well as what is mostly frequently played on radios two factors that can also influence each other Thus the degree to which the industry can encourage stations to play their songs can influence sales which is turn influence what songs are selected for the station s playlists Stations themselves are concerned about their own Arbitron popularity ratings which influence charges for advertising ratings they know are based on their ability to play popular songs Control of promotion playlist by Clear Channel One example of the corporate control over what music is played is best illustrated by Clear Channel Corporation headquartered in San Antonio Texas The company owns nearly radio stations and effectively controls the rock radio market It also owns SFX Entertainment the nation's dominant concert-venue owner and touring promoter which also controls bookings at the Target Center And as noted on its Web page http www clearchannel com radio Clear Channel s Premiere Radio Network syndicates more than programs to more than radio stations total Premiere reaches million listeners a week with its network of top names including Rush Limbaugh Dr Laura Schlessinger Rick Dees Casey Kasem Jim Rome Carson Daly and Art Bell Premiere also broadcasts Clear Channel Entertainment concerts and new CD debuts enhancing the synergies between divisions In the Twin Cities Clear Channel owns seven radio stations KDWB KEEY K KFAN KFXN KQQL KOOL KTCZ Cities and WLOL Disney ABC own KQRS and X They control the playlist which rarely includes local bands such as Big Wu Mason Jennings Atmosphere and Dillinger Four In a series of articles on Clear Channel in Salon com http www salon com ent clear channel Eric Boehlert notes the following They're definitely bullies no question about that says Ed Levine chairman of Galaxy Communications whose stations compete with Clear Channel in several upstate New York markets They've truly become the evil empire Like everything else Clear Channel has gone too far gotten too greedy and too powerful As a broadcaster who grew up in the business I don't believe their overall net effect for radio has been positive It's not just the sheer number of stations that upsets so many people Thanks to laissez-faire regulators in Washington Clear Channel quickly has put together a stunning piece of vertical integration in big-money pop culture Last year the company spent billion to purchase SFX Entertainment the nation's dominant concert venue owner and touring promoter Clear Channel also owns a radio research company a format consultancy regional radio news networks an airplay monitoring system syndicated programming radio trade magazines like the Album Network television stations and outdoor billboards worldwide With so many