Consciousness and Commodity: Towards A Critical Theory of Genre in American Popular Music
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47611/jsrhs.v12i4.5756Keywords:
Music Genres, Hillbilly Music, Disco Music, Rap Music, Streaming MusicAbstract
Genre, particularly in the popular music industry, can be understood as a perpetual cycle – from the origin of a new sound or ‘scene,’ recognition by critics and tastemakers, commercialization as a canonized genre, and finally its rejection and/or reinvention by a new generation of artists seeking to establish their own new forms. In America, these musical communities have been most often grounded in racial, regional, or sexual preference identities, as these ties have been the most meaningful to listeners. Over time, the reactionary resistance of these artistic communities and practices produces music that is itself codified as a new product line, confirming the relentless cycle of genre. In this paper, I utilize three case studies ranging from the fabrication of ‘hillbilly’ music in the 1920s, Disco Demolition Night and resistance to the popularity of disco in the late 1970s, and the rise and popularization of hip hop in the 1980s help show different moments on the cycle of genre creation and the resistance that emerges. Finally, this paper will point to indications that the advent of streaming music is leading to the obsolescence of the traditional production of genre.
We are witnessing the rapid rise and fall of new musical non-genres, epitomized by hyperpop, a ‘genre’ that lacks any core common attributes. If genre is a tool to construct the self and, at times, enable communities of resistance, a world without lasting musical genres presents implications and challenges for the future of identity and social change.
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