ASSIGNMENT: Add 6 more songs to your mixtape. You will find a song to illustrate ONE thesis statement per week from Weeks 9-14. The thesis must relate to either the making of the song or the content of the song. You will be graded on the strength of your argument linking song and thesis. Mixtape Side B is worth 20% of your final grade.
To be considered for full credit, your mixtape must include:
A link to a publicly available YouTube, Spotify, or similar playlist with all SIX tracks included;
THREE paragraph statement for each song relating to ONE thesis (below), with at least ONE reading cited;
At least THREE songs derived from your Liner Notes genre.
BONUS: For 3 additional points, record your complete Mixtape (sides A & B) to a cassette with cover art, including your name and track listing.
Submit the assignment by bCourses, inclusive of all the requirements above;
Submit cassette between May 6-8 to my mailbox in the Sociology Department:
Social Sciences Building 410; open from 9a-11am & 1p-3p ONLY.
EXAMPLE STATEMENT:
Week 13, Thesis #1:Momus – “Michelin Man”Links to an external site.
The song Michelin Man by Momus demonstrates how copyright laws based on intellectual property can limit the range of symbols an artist may use, even when used in parody, and thus preventing the emergence of new creative expressions using existing cultural references. After portraying the Michelin Man mascot as a hyper-sexual cyborg, Momus was sued by the Michelin company, and copies of the album were recalled by the label under threat of further lawsuits (Shepherd 1999). Subsequent versions of the album excluded the song and Michelin-themed cover art.
Kembrew McLeod (2005) argues that modern copyright laws have become overly restrictive on pop music. In particular, laws designed to protect musicians and the companies that own their music end up interfering with the very practices which allowed pop music to emerge as the dominant cultural phenomenon of the late 20th and early 21st century. This includes practices such as collage, in the case of sampling, as well as quotation or parody, for example, in Momus’ satirical version of the Michelin Man mascot. Both collage and parody are examples of “fair use” – a legal theory enshrined to protect creators from violating copyright, by stating that reasonable sampling or quotation of copyrighted material may persist without permission of the copyright holder. However, in practice, the cost of litigating copyright cases means that wealthy companies can often win lawsuits through the attrition of impoverished artists, rather than through due process (McLeod 2005: 80).
The case of Michelin Man demonstrates McLeod’s concern that copyright laws turn would-be creators into a captive audience for corporate-approved pop culture (2005: 92). McLeod (2005: 86) argues that fair use protections for sampling allows individuals the agency to create pop culture by remixing (or mashing-up) existing cultural symbols into new arrangements, thus creating new forms of meaning. In this sense, Momus’ use of the Michelin Man figure allowed an effective way to communicate a new idea by placing a familiar character into a different context. However, Momus’ art was suppressed not because it could be mistaken as an official statement by the Michelin company, but simply because it violated Michelin’s desire to maintain a particular image in popular culture. Thus, Michelin could use its wealth and legal power to exploit copyright law to deny fair use and prevent creative expressions that corporate executives dislike.
McLeod, Kembrew. 2005. Confessions of an Intellectual (Property): Danger Mouse, Mickey Mouse, Sonny Bono, and My Long and Winding Path as a Copyright Activist‐Academic. Popular music and Society, 28(1): 79-93.
Shepherd, Fiona. 1999. “The world can change in a matter of Momus.” The Scotsman. ECM Publishers, Inc.
THESIS STATEMENTS (select ONE from each week):
Week 9: Symbols
Symbols work through a dynamic process of encoding and decoding (Hebdige).
Hegemony constrains how symbols can be used but does not define meaning for all audiences (Hebdige).
Symbolic resources restrict the range of identities that an individual may adopt (Bayton).
Week 10: Politics
Communities use symbolic resources to do politics with music (Rose).
Artistic expressions are interpreted differently depending on the author’s identity (Rose).
Social structures provide minority actors with a reduced range of identities (Venrooij).
Week 11: Representations
Audiences consume representations that extend beyond music (Lumumba-Kasongo).
Artists enact a subject position to define collective representations (Lipsitz).
Moral desires for diversity are often undermined by self-serving interests (De Laat and Stuart).
Week 12: Technics
The sound of music includes the artifacts of media technology (Sterne).
Technology shifts power from intermediaries to infrastructure (Siciliano).
Digital platforms encourage the quantification of musical value (Siciliano).
Week 13: Ownership
Intellectual property challenges prior norms of cultural reproduction (McLeod).
The privatization of cultural products threatens musical innovation (McLeod).
Investors purchase and license artistic catalogs based on financial calculation (Greene).
Week 14: Music Sociology
Music is a social practice with no objective form (DeNora).
Genre develops in stages which make it hard to isolate social trends (Lena).
People form emotional attachments to the aesthetic qualities of music (DeNora).
