Nothing Has Been Done Before

Seeking the New in 21st-Century American Popular Music

Inbunden, Engelska, 2017

AvRobert Loss,Matt Brennan

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Is there such a thing today as music that's meaningfully new? In our contemporary era of remixing and retro styles, cynics and romantics alike cry "It's all been done before" while record labels and media outlets proclaim that everything is new. Coded into our daily conversations about popular music, newness as an artistic and cultural value is too often taken for granted.Nothing Has Been Done Before instigates a fresh debate about newness in American pop, rock 'n' roll, rap, folk, and R&B made since the turn of the millennium. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach that combines music criticism, philosophy, and the literary essay, Robert Loss follows the stories of a diverse cast of musicians who seek the new by wrestling with the past, navigating the market, and speaking politically. The transgressions of Bob Dylan's "Love and Theft". The pop spectacle of Katy Perry's 2015 Super Bowl halftime show. Protest songs against the war in Iraq. Nothing Has Been Done Before argues that performance heard in a historical context always creates a possibility for newness, whether it's Kendrick Lamar's multi-layered To Pimp a Butterfly, the Afrofuturist visions of Janelle Monáe, or even a Guided By Voices tribute concert in a local dive bar. Provocative and engaging, Nothing Has Been Done Before challenges nothing less than how we hear and think about popular music—its power and its potential.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2017-11-02
Mått152 x 229 x undefined mm
Vikt558 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SerieAlternate Takes: Critical Responses to Popular Music
Antal sidor288
FörlagBloomsbury Publishing Plc
ISBN9781501322037

Tillhör följande kategorier

Musikböcker inom Kultur
Populärmusik inom Kultur

Prologue: Nothing Has Been Done BeforePart 1: The Past in the PresentRevivals Are Revisions: New Millennial Folk Music Rolls the Dice"Love and Theft": Transgression and the Cultural ArchiveThe Problem of Knowing Too Much: Meta-Rock and the Anxiety of InfluenceSounds Before Our Time: Replicating the Old to Make the NewPart 2: The American WowSpectaglam! Katy Perry and the American WowThe New Digital Empire: Consumerism, Technology, and the NewWe Can Flux: Prince Queers Democracy and the NewKanye's Night at the Museum: The Iconoclast Goes to WorkPower Up: Persona and Anonymity Trouble the American WowPart 3: Shouting at the Hard of HearingOn the Good Side: Anti-War Music in the 2000sShouting at the Hard of Hearing: Springsteen Finds a New AudienceLiving in the Interval: Political Hip Hop, Rap, Revolution, and To Pimp a ButterflyBodies in the River: Tradition and "The Body Electric"Epilogue: Nothing Has Been Done Before, AgainNotesBibliographyAcknowledgments and PermissionsIndex

The ever prized prospect of the ‘new’ excites and nourishes the commercial music industry as much as it does the desire of musicians to shape their own space within its leaky borders. In Nothing Has Been Done Before Robert Loss cuts an idiosyncratic path through late 20th and 21st century popular music, tipping its hat to the renowned and the obscure along the way. Wearing his musical proclivities and political beliefs on his sleeve, Loss visits amongst others the familiar subjects of race, gender, protest song, and the role of technology to frame his hunt for the elusive signs of newness in popular music. His witty, characterful, and occasionally provocative style simultaneously draws you into the conversation of newness and invites critical response.