tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/rock-n-roll-13463/articlesRock 'n' roll – The Conversation2024-02-15T23:16:04Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2222842024-02-15T23:16:04Z2024-02-15T23:16:04ZKiss’s debut album at 50: how the rock legends went from ‘clowns’ to becoming immortalised<p>It has been 50 years since Rock & Roll <a href="https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/kiss">Hall of Famers</a> Kiss launched their thunderock-doused debut album into the pop culture stratosphere. The eponymous album, released on February 18 1974, became a platform-stacked foot in the music industry’s door. </p>
<p>What followed established Kiss as one of the most memorable hard-rock bands of the 1970s and ’80s, with a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1386/ejac.37.1.19_1">globally recognised legacy</a>.</p>
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<h2>The early days</h2>
<p>In 1972, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons shelved their first ever rock outfit following a short stint in a band called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_Lester">Wicked Lester</a>. The pair then <a href="https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/kiss-self-titled-debut-album/">hatched a plan</a> to form a far more aggressive and successful rock band. Drummer Peter Criss and guitarist Ace Frehley were recruited, and the new-generation Fab Four renamed themselves Kiss.</p>
<p>By late <a href="https://www.kissonline.com/history">November of 1973</a>, the band had developed their bombastic live performance style, perfected their makeup and signed a deal with <a href="https://ultimateclassicrock.com/kiss-first-record-contract/">Casablanca Records</a>. Yet they dealt with some rocky beginnings.</p>
<p>Armed with reworked songs from Wicked Lester, Kiss entered New York’s Bell Sound Studios to record their debut. A mere three weeks later the album was complete – but the band quickly realised the studio recordings didn’t capture the essence of their high-energy live shows. As vocalist Paul Stanley <a href="https://loudwire.com/kiss-self-titled-album-anniversary/">told Loudwire</a>:</p>
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<p>What was put down on tape was such a timid fraction of what we were in concert. I didn’t understand it because bands who were our contemporaries had much better-sounding albums.</p>
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<p>They took another blow while shooting the album cover with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/31/obituaries/31brodsky.html">Joel Brodsky</a> when, after a mishap with Criss’s makeup, the band were allegedly handed balloons by the photographer since he thought they were clowns.</p>
<p>Then, soon before the album was released, Warner Brothers pulled its financial backing and <a href="https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-casablanca-records-story">distribution deal from Casablanca Records</a> after witnessing Kiss play a New Year’s eve show. Although it’s said the band’s makeup was the last straw for the label, the show in question also featured Simmons <a href="https://www.loudersound.com/features/kiss-early-years-history">setting his hair alight</a> shortly after throwing a fireball at a fan’s face. </p>
<p>Despite the blunders, the release of the first album set Kiss on a path to becoming immortalised. As Stanley says in his book <a href="https://www.paulstanley.com/face-the-music/">Face The Music</a>:</p>
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<p>For all the minuses I felt about the sound or the cover, we now had a finished album which was the prerequisite for all the other things we wanted to do. We were in the game now.</p>
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<h2>The Kiss sound</h2>
<p>I first heard Kiss as a teenager. I’d just thrift-scored a pair of ’80s-era roller-skates with the band’s logo scrawled on the heels in glitter glue. The salesperson, responsible for the glitter glue, enthusiastically recounted seeing Kiss play VFL Park (now <a href="https://footy.fandom.com/wiki/Waverley_Park">Waverley Park</a> stadium) in 1980 and made me promise I’d listen to them.</p>
<p>Overwhelmed by the band’s expansive discography, and the possibility that their name stood for <a href="https://www.loudersound.com/news/kiss-squash-long-standing-rumour-that-their-band-name-is-a-satanic-acronym-were-smart-but-were-not-that-smart">Knights In Satan’s Service</a>, I thought it best to begin from the start.</p>
<p>With their reputation of on-stage pyrotechnics and gore, I’d expected something more akin to Black Sabbath’s Paranoid than the jangly riffs of Let Me Know or Love Theme From Kiss. A 1978 review by <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/kiss-194584/">Gordon Fletcher</a> for the Rolling Stone also noted this rift. Despite calling the album exceptional, Fletcher described its sound as a cross between Deep Purple and the Doobie Brothers. </p>
<p>Stanley and Simmons have <a href="https://www.guitarworld.com/features/kiss-paul-stanley-gene-simmons-classic-tracks">spoken freely</a> about borrowing heavily from a number of mid-century legends, so it’s no surprise that sonically the album was nothing new. The Rolling Stones’ influence can be heard in the songs Deuce and Strutter, while Led Zeppelin and Neil Young are present in Black Diamond. </p>
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<p>The album initially hadn’t risen higher than #87 on <a href="https://ultimateclassicrock.com/kiss-kiss-debut-album/">Billboard’s album charts</a>. A studio cover of <a href="https://ultimateclassicrock.com/kiss-nothin-to-lose/?trackback=twitter_mobile">Bobby Rydell’s Kissin’ Time</a> was released next as the lead single, but the track only bumped them up to #83. This <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2262575">commercial unviability</a> loomed over Kiss until the release of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alive!_(Kiss_album)">Alive!</a> in 1975. </p>
<h2>Success and beyond</h2>
<p>As the band’s first live album, Alive! bridged the gap between the audacious intensity of Kiss’s performances and the timidness of their studio recordings. Their early tracks were repurposed to let listeners remotely experience the infamous Kiss live spectacle. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFMD7Usflbg&ab_channel=KissVEVO">Rock and Roll All Nite</a> claimed #12 on the <a href="https://loudwire.com/kiss-alive-album-anniversary/">Billboard charts</a>, the platform-stacked foot burst through the door to mainstream success. </p>
<p>Fifty years after Kiss first stepped into Bell Sound Studios, the band played their final sold-out show at Madison Square Garden on December 2 2023. The performance served as a crowning jewel on their End of the Road world tour, a four-year effort with more than 250 live shows. </p>
<p>Promised to be their <a href="https://www.triplem.com.au/story/kiss-add-more-dates-to-their-end-of-the-road-australian-tour-172305">biggest and best shows ever</a>, the farewell became a colossal celebration of the band’s legacy. Theatrical pyrotechnics, fake blood and Stanley’s classic opening line – “you wanted the best, you got the best” – were featured at each performance. </p>
<p>While both Kiss’s anthemic numbers and earlier catalogue were performed in these final shows, the music came second to the celebration of the Kiss live spectacle.</p>
<p>From their carefully designed makeup, to bombastic theatrics and hoards of merchandise, it was Kiss’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1386/ejac.37.1.19_1">brand building</a> that <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-au/Brands+That+Rock%3A+What+Business+Leaders+Can+Learn+from+the+World+of+Rock+and+Roll-p-9780471455172">set them apart</a> and embedded them in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2009.09.006">heritage bracket</a> of popular culture. </p>
<p>Despite the end of their live shows, Kiss endeavours to stay embedded in public memory. Referring to some of the band’s 2,500 licensed products, Simmons recently spoke on <a href="http://www.tommagazine.com.au/2022/08/19/kiss/">what’s next for Kiss</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kiss the entity will continue; what’s happening now is a metamorphosis. The caterpillar is dying, but the butterfly will be born.</p>
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<p>With a <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/kiss-biopic-early-years-netflix-2024-1235291572/">Netflix biopic</a> and holographic <a href="https://www.stereogum.com/2246254/kiss-hologram-era-begins-in-2027/news/">avatars on the way</a>, Stanley and Simmons – the band’s two remaining members – <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/gene-simmons-says-kiss-farewell-tour-is-end-of-the-road-for-the-band-not-the-brand-3541117">have declared Kiss immortal</a>. </p>
<p>Stanley even suggests the Kiss look has become so iconic it’s now bigger than any band member. This means the torch could be passed on to new-generation Kiss members. </p>
<p>Kiss has (quite literally) breathed fire into live rock performance. Now, they’re breathing fire into our expectations of what rock royalty retirement looks like. I have to ask, who – or what – will wear the makeup next? </p>
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Read more:
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlotte Markowitsch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As their debut album turns 50, we look back on Kiss’s larger-than-life career – and forward to what might come next.Charlotte Markowitsch, PhD candidate in popular music studies, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1940572022-11-30T19:09:42Z2022-11-30T19:09:42ZAm I ever gonna see your face again? Nuanced and thoughtful, Kickin’ Down the Door puts The Angels back in the spotlight<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497828/original/file-20221129-18-eez8qv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C4%2C2982%2C1989&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Maslow Entertainment</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When I was a kid, my dad Max took me to basketball games at Melbourne’s Entertainment Centre. I’d wait in my plastic bucket chair as the cheerleaders shook their pom poms and the teams did lay ups. The music was loud, and around the time everyone had found their seats, one song would often come on. </p>
<p>It opened with a wailing, single note guitar, followed by a chunky, palm muted riff, driving along until bursting into the chorus when the vocals would demand “Am I ever gonna see your face again?” And as I licked my lemonade icy pole I’d delight as the whole stadium would <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/australia-culture-blog/2014/apr/15/australian-anthems-the-angels-am-i-ever-gonna-see-your-face-again">chant back</a> “No way, get fucked, fuck off.”</p>
<p>I had no idea the band was called The Angels. I didn’t know they were supposed to be the next AC/DC but didn’t quite “make it”. The intense relationships at their core were lost on me. I was just delighted by how wild it felt, this song the audience owned, breaking rules, answering back. </p>
<p>A new documentary, Kickin’ Down the Door chronicles Australian band The Angels across four decades, from suburban Adelaide to the gloss of <a href="https://themusic.com.au/news/iconic-alberts-music-studios-to-be-torn-down-to-make-way-for-luxury-apartments/wSnS1dTX1tk/08-10-15">Albert Studios</a> and beyond. </p>
<p>The classic Oz rock vibe is omnipresent: dudes, riffs, volume. </p>
<p>But this story’s star quality is how hard it works to showcase the band from both front of house and backstage, offering something far more nuanced than the well-thumbed tale of these national music icons. </p>
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<h2>Finding intensity</h2>
<p>The documentary centres on the songwriting team of the Brewster brothers, vocalist Bernard “Doc” Neeson, and a revolving cast of drummers, bass players and producers. </p>
<p>The themes are what you might like in a documentary about Australian rock ‘n’ roll: journeys to adulthood, mateship, resistance, lashings of hope, dollops of luck. Interviews from the band and their nearest and dearest sidle up against archival footage with cute animations bridging scenes. </p>
<p>There’s the ubiquitous drop-in from a couple of international names to provide cred – thankfully a Bono-free endeavour. There’s a slither of pre-hat Molly Meldrum. The eye candy of 70s and 80s Aussie life abounds.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497830/original/file-20221129-14-5dw5d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The band on stage" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497830/original/file-20221129-14-5dw5d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497830/original/file-20221129-14-5dw5d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497830/original/file-20221129-14-5dw5d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497830/original/file-20221129-14-5dw5d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497830/original/file-20221129-14-5dw5d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497830/original/file-20221129-14-5dw5d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497830/original/file-20221129-14-5dw5d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The film uses archival footage and contemporary interviews.</span>
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<p>The songs are central to Kickin’ Down the Door, but rock ‘n’ roll has always been about theatre, and front man Doc Neeson’s lead in creating an unsettling intensity at live shows lifted The Angels beyond the meat and potatoes of standard Oz rock.</p>
<p>In one scene, the lighting guy talks about how Doc used silence and darkness as a tool of intensity – the antithesis of rock show bombast. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gibson-guitars-sound-of-rock-that-will-never-go-out-of-fashion-96036">Gibson guitars: sound of rock that will never go out of fashion</a>
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<h2>A complex portrait</h2>
<p>Like The Angels did with rock ‘n’ roll, Kickin’ Down the Door offers a key change in the way it positions the people behind the scenes. Director Madeleine Parry has brought together a complex web of relationships pivoting on creative jubilation, obligation, devotion and estrangement.</p>
<p>At an early gig, the Brewsters’ mother is recalled as dancing on a table in a “sea of blokes”. These were her boys, who could do no wrong.</p>
<p>Mothers, girlfriends, wives and children are elevated close to the story’s centre, anchored within the nostalgic rhythm of white suburban Australian life to contrast with the band’s sprint – then marathon – to rock ‘n’ roll stardom. Beyond the band bubble, everyone’s sacrifice is apparent. </p>
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<span class="caption">It’s not just about the band – it’s also about the people around the band.</span>
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<p>“We all supplied the stability while they chased the dream,” says Neeson’s then partner. </p>
<p>In bringing women to the front, Parry frames the main players as multi-dimensional, emotional and expressive. The intensity of volume, riffage and flamboyance sits in dialogue with each band members’ reflections to present the way that “performance” seamlessly slides across gender and genre.</p>
<p>This deep thoughtfulness shines through the dizzying foray of complex legal and financial arrangements bands can be thrown into, setting them up with lifelong debt. </p>
<p>This is the persistent myth of “luck” in rock ‘n’ roll. This myth grinds against the power imbalance inherent in an incredibly competitive, brutal and sometimes hedonistic global business culture. For decades, rock ‘n’ roll has relied on the exploitation of artists who sacrifice family, health, economic security and friendships to have sustainable careers.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497834/original/file-20221129-18-q7dynt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The band today" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497834/original/file-20221129-18-q7dynt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497834/original/file-20221129-18-q7dynt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497834/original/file-20221129-18-q7dynt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497834/original/file-20221129-18-q7dynt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497834/original/file-20221129-18-q7dynt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497834/original/file-20221129-18-q7dynt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497834/original/file-20221129-18-q7dynt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The film skilfully looks at the dark side of rock ‘n’ roll.</span>
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<p>This documentary skilfully weaves the devastation that comes when these pressures evaporate years of work for bands and their teams. </p>
<p>It isn’t so much a story about the big bad music industry swallowing up another Australian wanna be. Rather, it is a well-crafted assemblage of the pervasive way rock ‘n’ roll’s mystique works behind the scenes, prioritising profits over health and wellbeing, and the sustainability of artists and their families. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-artistic-differences-in-a-band-can-be-a-good-thing-110711">Why artistic differences in a band can be a good thing</a>
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<h2>The sonic legacy</h2>
<p>Undoubtedly the biggest names now in Australian guitar driven music – Amyl and the Sniffers, Courtney Barnett, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Tame Impala – are part of the sonic legacy of bands like The Angels. </p>
<p>But they also show a marked shift in how they do business when courting international markets, maintaining elements of independence and control that The Angels had no blueprint for.</p>
<p>This current crop of bands also show we are on the road to far better gender representation of what contemporary rock music looks and sounds like. And in other genres, artists like Baker Boy, Genesis Owusu, Barkaa and Jaguar Jonze continue to contest and take ownership of “the sound” of Australian music. </p>
<p>Incidentally, I never went on to play basketball. I picked up an electric guitar instead. </p>
<p><em>The Angels: Kickin’ Down the Door is in Australian cinemas from today.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194057/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janelle K Johnstone receives funding from the Australia Council and Creative Victoria. </span></em></p>The documentary Kickin’ Down the Door offers something far more nuanced than the well-thumbed tale of these national music icons.Janelle K Johnstone, PhD Candidate, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1667192021-08-24T21:09:59Z2021-08-24T21:09:59ZHow Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts infused one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll bands with a little jazz<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417685/original/file-20210824-17175-1j96hrf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C112%2C4696%2C3547&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Charlie Watts – a humble drummer behind a humble kit.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/drummer-charlie-watts-of-the-rolling-stones-at-a-british-news-photo/72591715?adppopup=true">Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In an era when rock drummers were larger-than-life showmen with big kits and egos to match, Charlie Watts remained the quiet man behind a modest drum set. But Watts wasn’t your typical rock drummer.</p>
<p>Part of the Rolling Stones setup from 1963 until <a href="https://apnews.com/article/rolling-stones-charlie-watts-died-c9551b21e2806b679bd0eeec0bb4ef2b">his death on Aug. 24, 2021</a>, Watts provided the back-beat to their greatest hits by injecting jazz sensibilities – and swing – into the Stones’ sound.</p>
<p>As a <a href="http://people.bu.edu/blues/">musicologist</a> and co-editor of the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-the-rolling-stones/ED42FC0D0D389BCA24024C62306353E4">Cambridge Companion to the Rolling Stones</a> – as well as a fan who has seen the Stones live more than 20 times over the past five decades – I see Watts as being integral to the band’s success.</p>
<p>Like <a href="https://www.inner-magazines.com/music/why-ringo-matters/">Ringo Starr</a> and other drummers who emerged during the 1960s British pop explosion, Watts was influenced by the swing and big band sound that was <a href="https://nationaljazzarchive.org.uk/explore/jazz-timeline/1940s?">hugely popular in the U.K.</a> in the 1940s and 1950s.</p>
<h2>Modest with the sticks</h2>
<p>Watts wasn’t formally trained as a jazz drummer, but jazz musicians like Jelly Roll Morton, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/23/tag-team">were early influences</a>. </p>
<p>In a 2012 interview with the New Yorker, he recalled how their records <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/23/tag-team">informed his playing style</a>.</p>
<p>“I bought a banjo, and I didn’t like the dots on the neck,” Watts said. “So I took the neck off, and at the same time I heard a drummer called Chico Hamilton, who played with Gerry Mulligan, and I wanted to play like that, with brushes. I didn’t have a snare drum, so I put the banjo head on a stand.”</p>
<p>Watts’ first group, the Jo Jones All Stars, were a jazz band. And elements of jazz remained throughout his Stones career, providing Watts with a wide stylistic versatility that was critical to the Stones’ forays beyond blues and rock to country, reggae, disco, funk and even punk.</p>
<p>There was a modesty in his playing that came from his jazz learning. There are no big rock drum solos. He made sure the attention was never on him or his drumming – his role was keeping the songs going forward, giving them movement.</p>
<p>He also didn’t use a big kit – no gongs, no scaffolding. He kept <a href="https://www.gretschdrums.com/artists/charlie-watts">a modest one</a> more typically found in jazz quartets and quintets.</p>
<p>Likewise, Watts’ occasional use of brushes over sticks – such as in “Melody” from 1976’s “Black and Blue” – more explicitly shows his debt to jazz drummers.</p>
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<p>But he didn’t come in with one style. Watts was trained to adapt, while keeping elements of jazz. You can hear it in the R'n’ B of “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrIPxlFzDi0">(I can’t Get No) Satisfaction</a>,” to the infernal samba-like rhythm of “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgnClrx8N2k">Sympathy For The Devil</a>” – two songs in which Watts’ contribution is central.</p>
<p>And a song like “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fa4HUiFJ6c">Can’t You Hear Me Knocking</a>” from 1971’s “Sticky Fingers” develops from one of Keith Richards’ highest caliber riffs into a long concluding instrumental section, unique in the Stones’ song catalog, of Santana-esque Latin jazz, containing some great syncopated rhythmic shots and tasteful hi-hat playing through which Watts drives the different musical sections.</p>
<p>You hear similar elements in “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbmS3tQJ7Os">Gimme Shelter</a>” and other classic Rolling Stones songs – it is perfectly placed drum fills and gestures that make the song and surprise you, always in the background and never dominating.</p>
<h2>Powering the ‘engine room’</h2>
<p>So central was Watts to the Stones that when bassist Bill Wyman retired from the band after the 1989 “Steel Wheels” tour, it was Watts who was tasked with picking his replacement.</p>
<p>He needed a bass player that would fit his style. But his choice of Darryl Jones as Wyman’s replacement was not the only key partnership for Watts. He played off the beat, complementing Richards’ very syncopated, riff-driven guitar style. Watts and Richards set the groove for so many Stones songs, such as “Honky Tonk Women” or “Start Me Up.” If you watched them live, you’d notice Richards looking at Watts at all times – his eyes fixated on the drummer, searching for where the musical accents are, and matching their rhythmic “shots” and off-beats.</p>
<p>Watts did not aspire to be a <a href="https://www.loudersound.com/features/old-school-jazz-and-lacerated-hands-the-secrets-of-led-zeppelins-moby-dick">virtuoso like John Bonham of Led Zeppelin</a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5Up-qHTJdY">The Who’s Keith Moon</a> – there was no drumming excess. From that initial jazz training, he kept his distance from outward gestures.</p>
<p>But for nearly six decades, he was the main occupant, as Richards put it, of the Rolling Stones’ legendary “engine room.”</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166719/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victor Coelho has received research funding from Boston University. </span></em></p>Charlie Watts was the Rolling Stones’ drummer for almost six decades. A scholar of music – and a Stones fan – describes what he brought to the band.Victor Coelho, Professor of Music, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1105592019-02-11T11:44:40Z2019-02-11T11:44:40ZWeezer’s cover album: Is the rock band honoring or exploiting the originals?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258026/original/file-20190208-174861-nms2kt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A cover song can both enhance and diminish the legacy of the original artist.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/man-holding-record-isolated-on-green-564528277?src=_k-lr44K8fS7yyNbgvOWhQ-1-0">PrinceOfLove/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’ve noticed the 1980s hit “Africa” playing on the radio more than usual, you likely weren’t listening to the original version by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTQbiNvZqaY">Toto</a>. Instead, it was probably the recently released cover by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk5Dwg5zm2U">Weezer</a>, which has already been heard over 25 million times on Spotify.</p>
<p>Maybe you know the backstory: A teenage fan started a joke Twitter account, <a href="https://twitter.com/weezerafrica">@weezerafrica</a>, in order to persuade her favorite band to cover her favorite song. Days later, the hashtag #WeezerCoverAfrica went viral, and, after months of virtual prodding, the band indulged the request. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258004/original/file-20190208-174873-1bjfpk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258004/original/file-20190208-174873-1bjfpk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258004/original/file-20190208-174873-1bjfpk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258004/original/file-20190208-174873-1bjfpk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258004/original/file-20190208-174873-1bjfpk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258004/original/file-20190208-174873-1bjfpk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258004/original/file-20190208-174873-1bjfpk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Weezer’s ‘Teal Album’ is entirely made up of cover songs – and the band’s fans love it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/719u61DhWdL._SS500_.jpg">Atlantic Records</a></span>
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<p>To everyone’s surprise, Weezer suddenly had a chart-topping hit – its best performing single <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/weezer/chart-history/hot-100">in a dozen years</a>. And it isn’t even the band’s own song. Now Weezer has released an entire album of covers – a self-titled EP affectionately known as the “Teal Album,” which has already hit <a href="https://www.billboard.com/charts/billboard-200">No. 5 on the Billboard 200</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.coloradocollege.edu/academics/dept/music/people/profile.html?person=banagale_ryan_raul">As a musicologist</a>, Weezer’s successful foray into cover songs made me think about the overall trajectory of the practice.</p>
<p>They’re usually a fun way to memorialize an existing song and pass it along from one generation to the next. But the practice isn’t free of controversy.</p>
<h2>Enriching our collective musical memory</h2>
<p>The editor of a book on cover songs, communication scholar <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Play_it_Again.html?id=7sMts2js234C">George Plasketes</a> writes that covers are “about favorite songs and great songs. Classics and standards.” They show how “musical artifacts are kept culturally alive, repeating as echoes.”</p>
<p>To Plasketes, regardless of what a musician might add or subtract in the process, cover songs capture and convey a collective musical history.</p>
<p>The concept of covering has been around as long as music has been written down. The earliest choirs for Catholic masses often sang versions of earlier Gregorian chants. These “covers” were intended to both teach and entertain – to attract worshippers and spread Christianity. Then, as now, covers circulated culture.</p>
<p>Scholars have identified many categories of cover songs, but people are probably most familiar with two of them: the “straight cover” and the “transformative cover.”</p>
<p>The former, also known as a “karaoke cover,” sounds almost exactly like the original, which is the route taken by Weezer. Such an approach might pay homage to a music influence, like The Beatles’ “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RicaUqd9Hg">Twist and Shout</a>,” which had been popularized by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTaqn8_gMR0">The Isley Brothers</a> but was originally recorded by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsDpc-8iR8g">The Top Notes</a>. </p>
<p>A straight cover can also form a sort of ironic commentary. Cultural theorist Steve Bailey <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0300776032000095486?src=recsys">notes that</a>, while such covers “tend to ridicule the originals,” they also “celebrate the continued vitality … of the music and its importance.” </p>
<p>Certainly, there’s a dose of irony to Weezer’s “Africa” – the band recorded it at the request of fans, not necessarily out of some deep connection to the music or as a nod to Toto’s influence. We can’t be certain, but it seems as if Weezer’s poking fun at the ‘80s hit, while still staying true to the original. </p>
<p>More frequently, covers fall into the transformative category, which is when musicians put their artistic stamp on a song. </p>
<p>Consider a hit such as Whitney Houston’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JWTaaS7LdU">I Will Always Love You</a>.” Houston was able to transform Dolly Parton’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDqqm_gTPjc">original country song</a> into a pop anthem. </p>
<p>Then there’s Aretha Franklin’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FOUqQt3Kg0">Respect</a>,” which famously flipped the gender dynamics of Otis Redding’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvC9V_lBnDQ">original</a> – all of a sudden it was a woman asking “for a little respect when you get home.”</p>
<h2>The contradictions of the cover</h2>
<p>It’s fun to hear one performer emulate another or to experience a familiar song made anew. But the question of “who gets to cover whom” reveals one problematic aspect of the genre. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://theconversation.com/champion-or-copycat-elvis-presleys-ambiguous-relationship-with-black-america-82293">white rock 'n’ rollers usurped black rhythm and blues artists</a> in the 1950s, countless covers became known not as covers, but as the definitive version. </p>
<p>Did you know that Elvis Presley’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eHJ12Vhpyc">Hound Dog</a>” was originally performed by rhythm-and-blues singer <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoHDrzw-RPg">Big Mama Thornton</a>? Or that Bill Haley’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B7xr_EjbzE">Shake, Rattle and Roll</a>” was first recorded by blues shouter <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9wTQsAgktg">Big Joe Turner</a>?</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Elvis Presley covered Big Mama’s ‘Hound Dog’ – and reaped the rewards.</span></figcaption>
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<p>These two versions are especially emblematic of the issue. Not only are the covers safer, less-sexualized renderings geared to a white teenage market, but their subsequent popularity severed the songs’ original associations with their black creators. Elvis and Haley earned millions of dollars off of this appropriation. Few hear “Hound Dog” and think of Big Mama Thornton. </p>
<p>On digital streaming platforms and automated playlists, cover versions of popular songs can still siphon attention and money away from the original. Enter any title from Weezer’s “Teal Album” into Spotify or YouTube and the new recordings sit right next to the originals. At the same time, this side-by-side placement might encourage deeper exploration of our musical past. If you realize that your favorite song is actually a cover, you might be inclined to listen to the original. </p>
<p>But do we need to know the original to appreciate a cover? Or even be aware that a song we know well is a cover to begin with? Listeners unfamiliar with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPz21cDK7dg">Nine Inch Nails</a> might believe Johnny Cash’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt1Pwfnh5pc">Hurt</a>” is originally his. No doubt similar assumptions have been made about Jimi Hendrix’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLV4_xaYynY">All Along the Watchtower</a>,” which is actually a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzanOzyqgas">Bob Dylan</a> tune. <a href="https://youtu.be/fOaMQ-R9YGM?t=292">Many other</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJJGMpxnJkE">artists</a> have also covered “All Along the Watchtower.”</p>
<p>If a song gets repeatedly covered, it could be a sign of its artistic strength. As professor of American literature and culture <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7sMts2js234C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA153#v=onepage&q&f=false">Russell Reising writes</a>, “There’s clearly something about the Dylan original that not only continues to inspire performers but resonates with the socio-political events of our culture.” </p>
<p>Even great originals can possess a degree of unrealized potential just waiting to be discovered by the artists that cover them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110559/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ryan Raul Bañagale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some covers are recorded as a nod to the legacy of the original, only to end up becoming the definitive version of the song.Ryan Raul Bañagale, Crown Family Professor for Innovation in the Arts, Colorado CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/989982018-07-10T10:38:06Z2018-07-10T10:38:06ZRock ‘n’ roll is noise pollution – with ecological implications that can spread through a food web<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226364/original/file-20180705-122250-eoerm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=274%2C203%2C2514%2C1735&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Not interested in your new favorite band.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/tjgehling/33349047406">TJ Gehling</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Despite being <a href="https://www.riaa.com/gold-platinum/?tab_active=top_tallies&ttt=T1A#search_section">one of the best-selling albums of all time</a>, ideology from AC/DC’s “Back in Black” album has gone unchallenged for nearly 40 years. The album’s closing track posited a testable hypothesis, asserting with rock-star confidence that “Rock ‘n’ roll ain’t noise pollution.” Opinions may vary from person to person, but little scientific evidence has been evaluated to determine if rock music is noise pollution … until now. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">AC/DC – ‘Rock And Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution’</span></figcaption>
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<p>My research group <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.4273">recently tested the “AC/DC hypothesis.”</a> Sadly, we report that, at least in some situations, rock ‘n’ roll in fact is noise pollution. </p>
<p>OK, yes, our experiment may sound silly or frivolous. But our hope is to focus a little more attention on how sounds – whether Angus Young’s guitar licks or the steady drone from a busy highway – can affect ecosystems. Our work demonstrates that the effects of noise pollution are not restricted just to the animals directly affected by the sounds, but can alter their behaviors and interactions with other animals and plants, spreading the effects throughout an ecosystem.</p>
<h2>Noise and nature</h2>
<p>Noise pollution has been recognized as an <a href="https://theconversation.com/human-noise-pollution-is-disrupting-parks-and-wild-places-78074">increasing threat for wildlife</a>. For instance, scientists have shown that the sounds of <a href="https://doi.org/10.2981/wlb.00225">mining can affect deer behavior</a>. Noise from <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/how_ocean_noise_pollution_wreaks_havoc_on_marine_life">ocean drilling affects marine life</a>. And sounds from recreational vehicles are a particular <a href="https://home.nps.gov/subjects/sound/noise-sources.htm">concern in natural places</a> – spawning an <a href="https://electrek.co/2018/03/03/tesla-inspired-taiga-electric-snowmobile/">industry of quieter electric alternatives</a>.</p>
<p>Most existing studies focus largely on the direct effects of noise – an animal hears the noise in its environment and is affected. But of course, animals don’t live in isolation. They’re embedded within a tangle of food web interactions with other species. So by affecting even one species, noise pollution – or any other environmental change – may generate indirect effects that spread from individual to individual, and eventually may affect entire communities.</p>
<p>Studying noise pollution and its cascading indirect effects is difficult, especially on large free-roaming animals. To test these interactions, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NuXykqQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">my</a> <a href="https://www.bartonlab.net">research group</a> will often scale-down our experiments and use smaller model systems.</p>
<p>Specifically, we study lady beetles, including <em><a href="https://biocontrol.entomology.cornell.edu/predators/Harmonia.php">Harmonia axyridis</a></em>, the multi-colored Asian lady beetle. Unknown to many, lady beetles are among the most <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/science/ladybugs-aphids-toxic.html">important predators of agricultural pests</a> such as soybean aphids. By voraciously consuming aphids in soybean fields, lady beetles provide natural <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/biological-control-7766">biological control</a> of pests and minimize the amount of pesticides needed on crops. Lady beetles provide an important ecosystem service – anything that disrupts their ability to attack aphids could be perceived as having a negative effect on society.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226395/original/file-20180705-122277-hm38fq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226395/original/file-20180705-122277-hm38fq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226395/original/file-20180705-122277-hm38fq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226395/original/file-20180705-122277-hm38fq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226395/original/file-20180705-122277-hm38fq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226395/original/file-20180705-122277-hm38fq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226395/original/file-20180705-122277-hm38fq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226395/original/file-20180705-122277-hm38fq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The plants in their listening setup.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brandon Barton</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>Firing up the hi-fi in the ecology lab</h2>
<p>With the help of colleagues – and fellow AC/DC fans – <a href="https://www.biology.msstate.edu/people/staff.php?id=vk85">Vince Klink</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=G84D9fQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Marcus Lashley</a>, my team of undergraduate and graduate students sought to determine if noise pollution would decrease lady beetle effectiveness at controlling aphids. Further, we suspected that reducing predation rates on aphids would allow the pest population to explode, which would in turn reduce soybean yield. </p>
<p>First we wanted to figure out what sounds affected lady beetle feeding rates. We placed lady beetle larvae within small enclosures with a known number of aphids to eat, and allowed them to forage either in silence or under loud conditions. We played sounds through computer speakers at maximum volume: 95-100 decibels, approximately equal to a lawn mower or outboard motor.</p>
<p>In addition to AC/DC, we queued up one of our favorite country music albums – “Wanted! The Outlaws” featuring Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and others. We DJ’d a mix of rock music, including Lynyrd Skynyrd, Guns ‘n’ Roses, The Supersuckers, the British folk band Warblefly, and a mix of city sounds such as jackhammers, car horns, and so on.</p>
<p>Our results were good news for country and folk fans – lady beetles agreed that those songs were not noise pollution and continued to attack aphids with the same vigor when serenaded by these genres as they did in silence. However, lady beetles were not fans of AC/DC, the rock mix or city noises, even when played at the same volume as the country and folk treatments. In fact, listening to the “Back in Black” album cut the amount of aphids being eaten during a 16 to 18 hour period almost in half.</p>
<p>At least according to lady beetles, it seemed that rock ‘n’ roll was noise pollution and indirectly benefited agricultural pests. But could it have an effect on soybean plants?</p>
<p>Many researchers have investigated <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S2095-3119(13)60492-X">how music affects plant growth</a> with mixed results. However, when we blasted soybean plants with two weeks of nonstop “Back in Black,” we didn’t see any effect on growth. Similarly, we found no effect of continuous AC/DC on pest abundance when we grew aphids on plants without their predators.</p>
<p>But we were interested in whether there was an interactive effect of rock music and predators on pest and plants. So for two weeks, we watched lady beetles attack aphids, while aphids reproduced and plants grew.</p>
<p>When the plants were grown without music, the predators reduced aphid density to nearly zero. As a consequence, the plants grew strong and healthy in the absence of their pest. In contrast, when plants were grown with “Back in Black” blaring, the lady beetles did not control aphids and the pests’ population size was more than 40 times larger than in the silent condition – from an average of about 4 aphids per plant to more than 180. As a consequences of high pest abundance, the plants in music treatments were 25 percent smaller. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226388/original/file-20180705-122265-1611ax7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226388/original/file-20180705-122265-1611ax7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226388/original/file-20180705-122265-1611ax7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226388/original/file-20180705-122265-1611ax7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226388/original/file-20180705-122265-1611ax7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226388/original/file-20180705-122265-1611ax7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226388/original/file-20180705-122265-1611ax7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226388/original/file-20180705-122265-1611ax7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Without predators to keep pests in check, crops like soybeans would need to be sprayed more.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/unitedsoybean/10060153913">United Soybean Board</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<h2>Cascading effects of noise pollution</h2>
<p>While others have shown that noise pollution can have <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-noise-pollution-is-changing-animal-behaviour-52339">direct effects on organisms and alter their predation rates</a>, our study uniquely demonstrates that these <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.4273">effects can cascade throughout a food web</a>.</p>
<p>We also showed that insects are affected by noise pollution, too. Most previous work in this area focused on large, “sexy” megafauna. But insects provide many ecosystem services that are essential for the healthy functioning of our planet. Disrupting insect behaviors such as pollination or predation can have drastic consequences.</p>
<p>Finally, our work empirically evaluated the AC/DC hypothesis for the first time since its inception in 1980. As fans of AC/DC and rock music, we sadly must disagree with the band and concede that rock ‘n’ roll is noise pollution, at least for lady beetles. Of course, rock music is not really a threat to ecosystems. But because loud music is similar to other real-world instances of noise pollution such as the hum of snowmobiles and the <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/08/13/431982136/drones-increase-heart-rates-of-wild-bears-too-much-stress">buzz of drones overhead</a>, our results serve as a proof-of-concept that sound pollution can have pervasive effects throughout an ecosystem.</p>
<p>What about AC/DC’s other hypothesis, that “rock n roll ain’t gonna die?” As rock lovers, we’re happy to report there’s no evidence to contradict that one.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98998/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brandon Barton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An AC/DC-loving biologist tests the band’s 1980 assertion that “rock ‘n’ roll ain’t noise pollution.” Turns out it can be – and the negative effects of noise can ripple through an ecosystem.Brandon Barton, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, Mississippi State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/925562018-03-05T17:14:35Z2018-03-05T17:14:35ZRolling Stones tour: they may be older but time waits for no one<p>An article in Rolling Stone magazine described the legendary band – its near namesake – as “<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/nothing-lasts-forever-the-rolling-stones-grow-old-19800821">growing old angrily</a>”. Its portrait of Mick Jagger referenced “age lines around his eyes … as old as the weariness and cynicism in his voice”. That was in 1980 when Jagger was in his late 30s. Eleven years, an acrimonious split with Keith Richards and a triumphant comeback later, Q magazine’s review of the band’s live album Flashpoint also placed them in “<a href="https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-rolling-stones-flashpoint">their dotage</a>”.</p>
<p>So as the Stones announce that they are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/feb/26/rolling-stones-uk-tour-dates-tickets">cranking into gear again</a> for their first UK dates in five years (they performed a 12-city European tour in 2017) it’s worth remembering that the debates about how old is too old to rock – and the attendant mixture of <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2379658/Mick-Jagger-70-A-rock-god-No-silly-old-phoney-As-Rolling-Stones-frontman-turns-70-basking-adulation-sell-concerts-historian-provocative-view.html">derision</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p010vkpz">veneration</a> and <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/the-rolling-stones-are-still-on-tour-something-is-very-wrong-with-our-culture-1.3411507">ambivalence</a> – have their own well-worn lineage.</p>
<p>This is as much to do with genre and how it’s authenticated as with age. Jazz and – closer to home for the Stones – blues artists face fewer qualms about staying on the road, even as the fire fades from their performances. John Lee Hooker was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/jun/23/guardianobituaries">recording and touring into his 80s</a> and BB King was just a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/16/arts/music/b-b-king-blues-singer-dies-at-89.html">year short of 90</a> when he played the last shows before his death (having played Glastonbury at 86). Chicago bluesman <a href="https://www.guitarplayer.com/players/buddy-guy-last-man-shredding">Buddy Guy</a> is still touring at the age of 81.</p>
<h2>Crossroads from blues to rock</h2>
<p>The Stones themselves, now closer to their 60th than 50th anniversary, have played heavily of late on their origins as a blues band – their <a href="http://www.metacritic.com/music/blue-and-lonesome/the-rolling-stones/critic-reviews">well-received</a> 2016 album Blue and Lonesome consisted entirely of blues covers. Returning, or retreating, to the blues that influenced them initially seems both a natural and a strategic move. Strategic in that it taps into a lineage of long-running performers that predates rock. But also natural enough given that the blues has been a musical thread throughout their albums and shows.</p>
<p>They emerged in the early 1960s as a blues covers band – and drew heavily on their influences (their very name is taken from a <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/muddy-waters-1915-8211-1983-19830623">Muddy Waters song</a>) as they forged a new identity as the “greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world”. To be fair, they were rather more assiduous in crediting and publicly acknowledging their musical forebears than some of their 1960s contemporaries, (Led Zeppelin, for example) insisting that <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=OPOwUw5UmEEC&pg=PA60&lpg=PA60&dq=rolling+stones+insist+on+howlin+wolf+shindig&source=bl&ots=PiwoH7ls8G&sig=LoNF0pC1EHGfTktMhjlshfqEFo4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiovJufqtTZAhVgGsAKHVRUD6kQ6AEITjAG#v=onepage&q=shindig&f=false">they would only play US TV</a> show <a href="https://youtu.be/gWBS0GX1s9o?t=49s">Shindig</a> if the producers also booked black American bluesman Howlin’ Wolf.</p>
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<p>The key difference, though, is the way in which blues and rock emerged as popular, commercial music genres. Blues emerged from folk forms and was interpreted and authenticated in light of that – as music predicated on life stories and personal stories embedded in a collective tradition. The music went back to the era of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws">Jim Crow</a> segregation laws and, before that, slavery. (BB King’s great grandfather, for instance, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=A_MX7evt8M4C&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=pop+davidson+riley&source=bl&ots=zynV6FqwKe&sig=JfAAa-viQV0Hn4f-dC8GmLL5Ke4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwinos61s9TZAhXIAcAKHfrQBPgQ6AEIPjAG#v=onepage&q=pop%20davidson%20riley&f=false">was born into slavery</a>). It was also subject to heavily <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/popular-music/article/not-just-the-same-old-show-on-my-radio-an-analysis-of-the-role-of-radio-in-the-diffusion-of-black-music-among-whites-in-the-south-of-the-united-states-of-america-1920-to-19601/44474BC5122012991B9EBF9290984986">segregated markets,</a> in the US, both on the live circuit and on radio.</p>
<p>Rock emerged and was sold as youth music, making an appeal to authenticity predicated on a generation gap and sense of rebelliousness – the Stones’ own “Street Fighting Man”, for example. This meant that while there were numerous musical similarities – such as the 12-bar form – some of the social nuances were lost. As author <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ggzjpqWKDxUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=charles+shaar+murray+crosstown+traffic&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi5wrnoutTZAhXDD8AKHcnAA40Q6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=charles%20shaar%20murray%20crosstown%20traffic&f=false">Charles Shaar Murray pointed out</a>, a middle-aged black American man like Muddy Waters in the 1950s and 1960s singing lyrics like “I’m a man” carried the sub-text of not being referred to as “boy”, a common form of racist address. The same song in the hands of a young, white Englishman was shorn of this context.</p>
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<span class="caption">Play that funky music, white boys: The Rolling Stones in 1966.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kungliga_Tennishallen_Stones_1966a.jpg">ingen uppgift via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Artists such as the Stones were more associated with a commercial milieu. Whatever their – doubtless genuine – pronouncements of dedication to the music, they emerged through major labels with large marketing budgets. And rock music’s rebel credentials were somewhat diluted when its stars, including Jagger, started <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/mick-jagger-knighted-20020725">receiving knighthoods</a>.</p>
<h2>Torn and frayed?</h2>
<p>But genres evolve and, as the Stones and others have shown, commercial or not, they can still chart new paths. Rock, like jazz before it (now a music of conservatories), has entered the academy. “Classic” and “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304422X0900045X">heritage</a>” rock are established categories and ways of thinking about, as well as selling, a music that is now situated across three generations’ worth of cultural discourse. </p>
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<p>A key, lasting change brought about by the Stones and Beatles generation of rockers was the centrality of the band as a unit of music making, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19401159.2014.969976">and as a marker of authenticity</a>. As my Newcastle colleague <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-late-voice-9781628920642/">Richard Elliott noted</a>, straightforward derision of ageing artists as mere peddlers of nostalgia is itself a rigidly Romantic view that “fixes rock to a time and an attitude” – without allowing for the twists and turns of both the artists and the <a href="http://livemusicexchange.org/blog/seeing-the-stones-in-2003-why/">lifetimes’ worth of listening and experience</a> their work has informed.</p>
<p>There are numerous of ways dealing with growing old in the limelight, from Randy Newman’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PskygyOhIsM">ironic self-parody</a> to <a href="http://variety.com/2018/music/news/paul-simon-explains-his-retirement-from-touring-1202687425/">Paul Simon’s decision</a> to call a natural end to touring with his voice still strong.</p>
<p>For an act such as the Stones, harking back to their musical roots may be a way of aligning their musical development with its own antecedents, at the same time as allowing for a mode of performance less reliant on the physicality of their younger days. Paying tribute to the past – both their own, and musical history more broadly – is a means of carrying it forward. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbMWdIjArg0">Time may be on their side</a> after all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92556/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council</span></em></p>Why shouldn’t the Stones keep touring in their 70s?Adam Behr, Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/869192017-11-30T19:06:13Z2017-11-30T19:06:13ZFriday essay: the art of the pinch – popular music and appropriation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196826/original/file-20171128-28892-fob7n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Rolling Stones performing in Hamburg during the 'No Filter' European tour: the band's legacy is entwined with the pioneers of black American music.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Morris Mac Matzen/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Everything old is new again. Today the Rolling Stones release <a href="http://www.rollingstones.com">On Air</a>, a collection of much-bootlegged BBC live studio broadcasts taped for a variety of programs between 1963 and 1965. The remastered set provides a rare glimpse of the young musicians playing to order the songs that defined their early hybrid sound and telegraphed – much like <a href="https://youtu.be/NO-HK_csGwk?t=2m39s">The Beatles</a> – their love for African-American music. </p>
<p>The recently restored archival recordings map their transition from astute performers of seminal black American blues and roots music to legitimate codifiers of its (mostly white) bastard offspring. From I Can’t Be Satisfied to (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, from Route 66 to 2120 South Michigan Avenue. Full circle, full steam ahead.</p>
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<p>The release of these archival recordings, following on from last year’s bristling <a href="https://youtu.be/lrIjMzBr-ck">Blue & Lonesome</a> set and the recent <a href="https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-rolling-stones/2017/u-arena-nanterre-france-3e3c5af.html">nostalgia-laden</a> #NoFilter tour are a reminder of how entwined the band’s legacy is with the pioneers of black American music. From their Delta roots to their electric spirit animal offspring - Chicago and West Coast blues, Stax and Motown soul and early Sun and Chess rock ‘n roll - the old masters had cast a wicked spell over the young lads from Dartford. This, of course, is in stark contrast to the saccharine <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/lfsxC11Rjlppn1kDfNxYBc/how-to-listen-to-radio-2-50s">radio programming</a> Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had grown up with in the 1950s in which appropriating another person’s culture and creative output had turned an artistic endeavour into a form of soft-manufacturing. </p>
<p>Music production became a <a href="http://50spopmusic.com/50snoveltysongsmore/50scoverrecordings.html">lucrative industry</a> with straight-edge white performers like <a href="https://youtu.be/ZgdufzXvjqw">Bill Hayley</a>, <a href="https://youtu.be/IEtBdOpM3MY">Perry Como</a> and <a href="https://youtu.be/Z8dx0oE--VI">Pat Boone</a> cutting sanitised versions of <a href="https://youtu.be/jqxNSvFMkag">Little Richard</a>, <a href="https://youtu.be/Y9wTQsAgktg">Big Joe Turner</a> and <a href="https://youtu.be/xbfMlk1PwGU">Fats Domino</a> records when the original renditions were still fighting their way up the pop charts. As Richard explained in the Chuck Berry documentary <a href="http://www.bnd.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/answer-man/article134070984.html">Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Then here come Pat Boone. The white kids wanted mine, ’cause it was real rough and raw, and Pat Boone had this smooth version. And so, the white kids would take mine and put it in the drawer and put his on top of the dresser. I was mad. When Pat Boone covered my record, I was mad, I wanted to get him. I said, ‘I’m goin’ to Nashville to find him’.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Cultural appropriation in a musical context doesn’t have to be at the exclusion of the original artist or the culture from which they carved their path. Pinching musical phrases and stylistic approaches – when done thoughtfully and with a desire to connect with the original work’s unique properties – has always been a part of the <a href="https://austinkleon.com/steal/">art making</a> process. </p>
<p>And yet, as artists like the Stones and the Beatles have demonstrated, it should not be a closed circuit. It should manifest itself as a social and artistic conversation across languages, across media, and across generations - a form of cultural exchange. Although, as Keith Richards discovered when working with Chuck Berry in the late 1980s, getting it right <a href="http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/chuck_berry_takes_keith_richards_to_school_shows_him_how_to_rock_1987.html">ain’t always easy</a>. There is inevitably a price to pay, and Richards more than anyone knows the score. For every lift, there is a link to the past – a debt owed and a palm to grease. With every lick comes a nod and a cheeky wink.</p>
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<h2>A medium of social exchange</h2>
<p>The production of culture is very much informed by the technology that enables it.
The Philadelphia and New York disco movement, for instance, were as much a technological evolution as a dance floor phenomena. Legendary DJs such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankie_Knuckles">Frankie Knuckles</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Levan">Larry Levan</a> would isolate, cut, loop and layer sounds using reel-to-reel tapes to create <a href="https://youtu.be/VFjJo4Id0_k">extended remixes</a> to maximise a track’s <a href="http://www.dummymag.com/lists/the-10-best-original-disco-remixes-according-to-joey-negro">dancefloor credentials</a>.</p>
<p>In much the same way, hip hop culture helped facilitate the emergence of the remix as a technological act via turntablism, scratching and later sampling. Inevitably, pinching the break or the intro or a signature moment and re-purposing it would evolve into an art form. By dropping musical fragments into new material arrangements, disco and hip-hop DJs from <a href="http://www.sfweekly.com/music/allshookdown/hey-dj/jim-hopkins-significance-san-francisco-disco-preservation-society-project/">the Bay</a> to <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/8/11/16130976/44th-anniversary-birth-hip-hop-google-doodle">the Island</a> devised an accessible production methodology that would translate seamlessly into the post-analogue world. </p>
<p>Producers like Danger Mouse (<a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/SoulCoolRecords/danger-mouse-the-grey-album/">The Grey Album</a>) and The Avalanches (<a href="https://youtu.be/qLrnkK2YEcE">Since I Left You</a>) and mash-up artists like Girl Talk (<a href="https://youtu.be/HprWyS25um4">Feed the Animals</a>) and Tom Caruana (<a href="https://tomcaruanamashups.bandcamp.com/album/black-gold-11">Black Gold</a>) are the millennial cut and paste inheritors of this practice.</p>
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<p>The digital remix not only accelerated modes of cultural exchange but made possible an almost infinite splintering of sub genres and associated sub cultures. What makes hip hop culture so important – and this is analogous to the Stones – is that in the beginning, DJs like DJ Kool Herc borrowed from music that was not only underrepresented on mainstream radio, but was made by revered funk and soul artists - the so called “<a href="https://youtu.be/Rm3J5640jXo">the sacred crates</a>. Kool Herc championed records by James Brown, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Castor">The Jimmy Castor Bunch</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymande">Cymande</a> (UK), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incredible_Bongo_Band">The Incredible Bongo Band</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Huey_%26_the_Babysitters">Baby Huey & The Babysitters</a>.</p>
<p>Music is also a medium of social exchange, we can see (and hear) this in the evolution of not only disco and hip hop but also in Jamaican sound system culture of the 1950s. <a href="http://www.mixdownmag.com.au/musicology-history-sound-clash-culture">Sound clashes</a> were inherently socio-political events organised as mass gatherings around big speakers and big sounds and big ideas. In essence, a sound clash was a competition between sound system crews who marshalled speaker stacks, often on the back of trucks, spinning imported American R&B records and later dub plates of exclusive <a href="https://youtu.be/D3DAHAPLaVI">Ska</a> and <a href="https://youtu.be/jPbxW_TAdz0">Rocksteady</a> mixes. It was sonic <a href="https://youtu.be/Emo_R_oiyhw">warfare</a>. DJs and MCs - like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Matchuki">Count Machuki</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coxsone_Dodd">Clement "Coxsone” Dodd</a> - became local superstars who cultivated their own sounds. From Jamaican Sound System culture we can mark the emergence of brand new sonic techniques like scratching (Lee “Scratch” Perry), beat boxing (Machuki), the break (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DJ_Kool_Herc">Kool Herc</a>) and the remix (<a href="http://www.factmag.com/2015/05/19/king-tubby-beginners-guide-dub-reggae/">King Tubby</a>). </p>
<p>These musical innovations became statements of Caribbean identity. Like African and Cuban rhythms that migrated to the Americas, these sounds became migratory too, travelling with West Indian migrants to the UK, leaking into the sonic palette of predominately white groups such as <a href="https://youtu.be/T_srIE-YAb8">Madness</a>, <a href="https://youtu.be/GNglPFYjFGA">The Pretenders</a>, The Specials, <a href="https://youtu.be/zPwMdZOlPo8">The Police</a> and of course <a href="https://youtu.be/nLVJQFJJQjc">The Clash</a>. These would later mutate into more distilled contemporary forms such as Dub, Jungle and Drum & Bass. </p>
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<h2>A cultural awakening</h2>
<p>The release of On Air by the Rolling Stones is indicative of a recurrent theme of the group not only appropriating African American musical stylings, lyrical patterns and performative techniques but pointing audiences to the source. Whether it be in the mimicry of Chuck Berry <a href="https://youtu.be/0Dv_z_99rJg">guitar phrases</a>, the <a href="https://youtu.be/dqiHRYjePBk?t=1m17s">jungle rhythms</a> of Bo Diddley, the vocal mannerisms of Jimmy Reed or the lyrical misogyny of <a href="https://youtu.be/GtRxJDb3vlw">Sonny Boy Williamson</a>, the band has always worn its passion for the source material like <a href="https://youtu.be/gWBS0GX1s9o">a badge of honour</a>. </p>
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<p>The Stones’ breakout tours of the US and Europe (1967-72) are indicative of this dogged commitment to the form. They stacked their support act packages with African American artists such as Taj Mahal (1968), Ike and Tina Turner (upon whom Jagger is <a href="https://www.biography.com/video/tina-turner-mick-jaggers-moves-6816835702">rumoured</a> to have based his raunchy stage persona), BB King (1969), Buddy Guy (1970), and Stevie Wonder (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rolling_Stones_American_Tour_1972#Tour_support_acts">1972</a>). As Guy <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/buddy-guy-on-the-rolling-stones-they-were-so-damn-wild-20150707">remarked recently</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>They were bigger than bubble-gum … when they came to America, they recognized some of the greatest musicians that I had admired – Ike and Tina Turner, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf – and let America know who we were. They let white America know what the blues is. We owe those guys all the thanks in the world. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The American tours of the early 1970s took place in a politically charged atmosphere of racial division, sexual awakening and inter-generational conflict. A time when white American audiences were still reconciling with the notion that culture was a form of identification, of exchange, a mode of storytelling rooted in race, identity, faith, sex and – after Dylan via Guthrie – politics. </p>
<p>It was also a period of cultural awakening, as a rich lineage of African American music - which had given the world fiercely original artists such as Robert Johnson, Billy Holiday, John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Chuck Berry - was now being commodified for new audiences by a new industry and a new genre of musical expression. </p>
<h2>An open source ‘cookbook of rock’</h2>
<p>The musical tool kit the latter artists laid bare – open tunings, a swinging back-beat, bending notes, long form improvisation, call and response, vocal phrasings, urban storytelling, spiritual empowerment, stage theatrics and of course overt sexual bravado were all mutated into this musical progression.</p>
<p>Bands like the Stones, The Animals, Fleetwood Mac, Cream and later Led Zeppelin, The Allman Brothers Band and the Grateful Dead appropriated many of these elements to design an open source Cookbook of Rock – flexible enough that it would facilitate decades of experimentation and manipulation, yet well-enough defined so that it would require devotion and authenticity to pull off a lick with your chops and dignity still intact.</p>
<p>Bo Diddley, the original “guitar slinger” – and by his own admission, “the man” – was one of rock and roll’s true technical innovators who has a very <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/arts/pioneer-of-a-beat-is-still-riffing-for-his-due.html">different take</a> on this. </p>
<p>Speaking to the New York Times in 2003, he made it quite clear who were the beneficiaries of this process: “I opened the door for a lot of people, and they just ran through and left me holding the knob”. </p>
<p>Accusations of appropriation have, of course, dogged Led Zeppelin, with several claims that they lifted song parts and lyrics without <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/4/12/11413242/led-zeppelin-rip-offs">accreditation or acknowledgement</a> (although <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-36611961">a court cleared the band of plagiarism </a>in relation to Stairway to Heaven in 2016). The argument they proffer in their defence, that the pinch was more like a sample and that the result was a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/apr/12/led-zeppelin-other-peoples-records-transformed-borrowed">considerable transformation</a> of the original, is consistent with the conceit of musical appropriation as an artistic prerogative. Yet it would seem that Zeppelin were <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/led-zeppelins-10-boldest-rip-offs-20160622">more brazen than most</a>.</p>
<h2>Cultural forms as fashion accessories</h2>
<p>The brashness of <a href="http://turnmeondeadman.com/led-zeppelin-plagiarism-the-lemon-song/">Page and Plant</a> displays a degree of insensitivity and perhaps white privilege that lies at the heart of the contemporary <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/magazine/is-cultural-appropriation-always-wrong.html">cultural appropriation debate</a>. </p>
<p>We have seen recently – from bindis at <a href="http://www.thegloss.com/fashion/selena-gomez-kendall-jenner-coachella-bindis-photos/">Coachella</a> to American Indian regalia at <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/feathers-not-allowed-at-burning-man-2013-9?r=US&IR=T">Burning Man</a> – how racial and cultural forms have been commodified and trashed as fashion accessories to serve bizarre notions of connectedness, freedom and belonging. Most prominently, this is exploited by art directors and marketing departments to window dress pop music by highly visible major label music acts who probably should know better in the Twenty-Teens.</p>
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<p>Indian and Hindu culture gets the full treatment in the ethno-confused art direction of Coldplay and Beyoncé’s promo clip for the song, <a href="https://youtu.be/YykjpeuMNEk?t=2m56s">Hymn for the Weekend</a>, that portrays <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/96505762/artist-challenges-cultural-appropriation-in-coldplay-and-beyonce-music-video">Indian stereotypes</a> – like “levitating gurus, slum dogs, and throwing coloured powder” – in a manner that, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/feb/01/coldplay-beyonce-hymn-for-the-weekend-cultural-appropriation-india">Rashmee Kumar</a>, stifles critical thinking about India’s social and political climate. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Coldplay’s video romanticizes Hinduism to further exoticize India as a westerners’ paradise unsullied by harsh realities.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We see this time and again in the mish-mash of Asian referencing in productions featuring <a href="https://youtu.be/YqeW9_5kURI?t=2m12s">Major Lazer & DJ Snake</a> (India), <a href="https://youtu.be/cI1A405jBqg?t=30s">Iggy Azalea</a> (India, again) and Katy Perry’s <a href="https://youtu.be/iXqcjgX-I9E">bizarre appearance</a> as a Geisha at the American Music Awards. </p>
<p>Epitomising this trend is John Mayer’s video clip, <a href="https://youtu.be/NyCst7We6Uw?t=46s">Still Feel Like Your Man</a>, a musical performance he <a href="https://splinternews.com/john-mayer-veers-very-close-to-becoming-woke-before-pla-1793859259">confusingly labels</a> “disco dojo” and “ancient Japanese R&B”. Although the clip is emblematic of this creative clumsiness by major artists, the music press at the time went along for the ride. <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/watch-john-mayer-dance-through-colorful-still-feel-like-your-man-video-w475183">Rolling Stone</a> magazine called the clip “colourful” while <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/rock/7751633/john-mayer-still-feel-like-your-man-video">Billboard</a> magazine repeated Mayer’s mixed Japanese metaphor, adding that the Mister Whitmore directed clip is “decorated with kimonos, dancers in panda bear costumes, swordfighting and bamboo trees” despite the obvious contradiction that Panda bears are traditionally from China.</p>
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<p>Music journalist Touré cuts to the chase saying Mayer is “not racist, he is dumb on race”. In just <a href="https://twitter.com/Toure/status/8908255074">one tweet</a> Touré calls out Mayer’s ill-informed approach to not only the video’s production design but even the song’s origins, which evidently have more to do with Katy Perry’s old <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/john-mayer-katy-perry-song-about-hoarding-shampoo-bottles/">shampoo bottles</a> than the origins of global Asian culture. The West’s colonial view of the East however has always been perverted, as Malek Alloula wrote in <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/210962991/Alloula-Malek-The-Colonial-Harem">The Colonial Harem</a> back in 1981, the Orient</p>
<blockquote>
<p>has fascinated and disturbed Europe for a long time. It has been its glittering imaginary and its mirage.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Pop culture is the messiness between the concentric orbits of personal identity and collective history. When appropriation is done well, with a quest for knowledge or to seek out an emotional core or a narrative truth, this messiness can create new meanings and new partnerships. It might even construct new narratives and spawn new beginnings.</p>
<p>When it is done in an ill-informed, shallow, tokenistic manner, it only serves to perpetuate tired yet stubbornly persistent colonial, racial and patriarchal stereotypes.</p>
<h2>An informed practitioner</h2>
<p>Jagger and Richards are not alone in their quest for authenticity and musical integrity. Many productive relationships were forged between African American musicians and their British disciples in the Sixties. Studious artists such as The Beatles, Eric Burdon, Ray Davies, Eric Clapton, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mayall">John Mayall</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Green_(musician)">Peter Green</a> well understood the burden of institutional oppression and the insult of segregation that framed the Blues narrative. Eric Clapton in particular, when not flirting with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrim_(Eric_Clapton_album)">radio schmaltz</a>, has spent a large part of his career trying to perfect the performance stylings and musical arrangements of artists such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_King">Freddy King</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Johnson">Robert Johnson</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_Fulson">Lowell Fulson</a>. </p>
<p>Listen for instance to Clapton’s extraordinary <a href="https://youtu.be/70sPbNJt5ZQ">vocal</a> performance and brutal <a href="https://youtu.be/g_WUdmwC9Y8">guitar</a> playing on his late career electric blues covers album <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Cradle">From the Cradle</a>.</p>
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<p>In the swinging London of the Sixties, Clapton’s chariot swung low, he understood better than anyone the importance of cultural exchange – of being in the moment, of finding the sound, of going deep. For Clapton, the moment had to be real. He devised his own version of the power-trio band format after seeing the Buddy Guy trio tear up a club in London in 1965. </p>
<p>A year later, at the Regent Street Polytechnic, the roles were reversed when he witnessed the <a href="https://youtu.be/KPJgtQwtVVA">Hendrix phenomena</a> first hand. At the bequest of manager Chas Chandler, Hendrix was invited to jam with Clapton’s new outfit, The Cream. However, Hendrix’s incendiary version of <a href="https://youtu.be/hMkdhVQMBHY">Killing Floor</a> shocked Clapton so completely that he retreated backstage, later confronting Chandler with the <a href="https://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/12/hey-jimi">immortal line</a>: “You never told me he was that fucking good.”</p>
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<p>Clapton was knowledgeable enough, however, to understand the lineage back to Buddy Guy and to Otis Rush <a href="https://youtu.be/j082opb4AZo">and the rarefied realm</a> within which these artists operated. Like Clapton before him, Hendrix’s brief London period was very much about research and experimentation. He grabbed what he could – sounds, rooms, gadgets, people, the air itself – to create the colours he saw in his head and by doing so blowing everyone’s mind in the process. </p>
<p>Keith Altham a writer for the New Musical Express at the time, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/aug/08/jimi-hendrix-40th-anniversary-death">remembers Hendrix</a> as </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a magpie. He would take from blues, jazz – only Coltrane could play in that way – and Dylan was the greatest influence. But he’d listen to Mozart, he’d read sci-fi and Asimov and it would all go through his head and come out as Jimi Hendrix.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Today, if Hendrix were to be studying his Masters at the Melbourne Conservatorium, we would call him an informed practitioner. Back then he was a seasoned professional working in relative anonymity in the hotbed of London with the support of Misters Clapton, Chandler, Jones and McCartney.</p>
<p>Today, magpie extraordinaire Bob Dylan – rock’s first <a href="https://theconversation.com/bob-dylans-nobel-speech-a-splendidly-eccentric-performance-78998">poet Laureate</a>, pirate, cowboy, the joker and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/06/bob-dylan-nobel-spark-notes-plagarism/530283/">the thief</a> in the night – has spent the last two decades reverting to the ramshackle rhythm and blues template of the old masters. His Never Ending tour has become a quest for authenticity via a re-imagining of his back catalogue through the DNA of rhythm and blues. Purists take note.</p>
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<p>So, it comes down to this notion of being informed and knowledgeable about the origins of cultural idioms that are being appropriated that defines music making and performance. Its evolution is an often lawless and contested process of cultural and technical mutation - a hack of the circuits, a pinch of the code. </p>
<p>In the first instance, something has to be identified as being worthy of emulation or adaptation, and in turn, something then has to be gained from the act of appropriating it. The art form must evolve, diversify, move forward, or – as the case is with Hendrix – take a giant leap into the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86919/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mitch Goodwin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pinching musical phrases and stylistic approaches has always been a part of art making and can be a respectful exchange. But shallow, ill-informed appropriation only perpetuates tired stereotypes.Mitch Goodwin, Curriculum Design Lab, Faculty of Arts, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/875852017-11-20T23:58:32Z2017-11-20T23:58:32ZThe Oasis brothers: Father’s abuse explains feud, resilience could end it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195512/original/file-20171120-18574-13jlukd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In this 2008 photo, Liam Gallagher of Oasis performs during a concert in Los Angeles. Noel is seen on the screen behind him. The brothers have a notoriously dysfunctional relationship. Could their father's documented abuse of their mother explain the animosity?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Liam Gallagher was in Toronto recently to perform songs from his solo album. As I took in the show, it all came back: The epic battles, still ongoing, between the infamous Liam and his brother Noel of the hugely popular ‘90s rock band, Oasis.</p>
<p>Oasis topped the charts globally with hits that included <em>Champagne Supernova</em> and <em>Wonderwall</em>. I was a fan and still am — the band’s music stands the test of time, and the seemingly endless feuds between Noel and Liam continue to capture our attention.</p>
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<p>But 20 years after they first became rock 'n’ roll megastars, I have another take on the Gallagher brothers through my work as an associate professor of social work at the University of Toronto and lead investigator of <a href="http://makeresiliencematter.ca/">Make Resilience Matter</a>. Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, it is a research, policy and practice initiative about children exposed to domestic violence. </p>
<p>So what does Oasis have to do with it? </p>
<p>We are learning that resilience can help kids “come through the fire” of domestic violence — an important finding, given what the Gallagher brothers faced then, and what children still face today. We are also learning that the Gallagher brothers’ exposure to domestic abuse could go a long way to explaining their continuing animosity towards one another.</p>
<h2>Exposure to domestic violence equals abuse</h2>
<p>Noel and Liam witnessed their father physically and verbally attacking their mother — they still recall her pain and humiliation. Noel <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3166743/Look-anger-Noel-Gallagher-reveals-abuse-suffered-hands-violent-alcoholic-father-worry-parenthood.html">has also talked</a> about being beaten by his father. </p>
<p>However, through this adversity, I suggest that both brothers found escape — and, ultimately, resilience — through their music. Noel himself has stated that, as a teenager, the guitar he found lying around the house took him away from it all. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/jun/04/liam-gallagher-interview-rock-n-roll-saved-my-life-oasis-beady-eye">Music became the brothers’ lifeline.</a> Liam’s performance in Toronto showed that resilience in action. </p>
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<span class="caption">Liam Gallagher performs in Toronto on Nov. 23.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David McDonald Photography</span></span>
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<p>Music, in fact, as one form of healthy escape — along with other factors and processes we’ve identified in our research — can help put children on a pathway to resilience.</p>
<p>Why should we be concerned? </p>
<p>Today in Canada, children as young as infants experience what the Gallagher boys lived through. Exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) is a form of child abuse just like physical, sexual, emotional abuse and neglect. </p>
<p>The frequency of child abuse, including IPV exposure, has been well-established through large-scale studies in North America, such as the ground-breaking <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/index.html">Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study</a> in the United States. In Canada, exposure to IPV is the <a href="http://cwrp.ca/sites/default/files/publications/en/ois-2013_final.pdf">most frequently reported form of abuse</a>
with the latest Canadian census showing <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15379418.2016.1204581">children living with violence</a> in over half a million households.</p>
<h2>Noel credited music as helping him escape</h2>
<p>I shine a light on the Gallagher brothers’ story — as they themselves recount in their <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2oNRM8lhps">recent documentary,</a> <em>Oasis: Supersonic</em>, and through media interviews — not to draw attention to the over-the-top rock star antics portrayed in the media, but to make a point about children, resilience and domestic violence.</p>
<p>Growing up in a social housing estate in Manchester, England, and on probation for truancy and stealing at 13, Noel discovered music, saying that it was his escape from everything, no matter what was going on at home or school.</p>
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<p>Along with music, our research identifies other forms of “escape” such as sports, art, acting, writing and reading. As well, the strength and support of the boys’ mother Peggy, who ultimately left her husband with her sons, reflects another key finding in my research: Children need a safe, supportive adult/caregiver. </p>
<p>Through in-depth interviews with adults about their childhoods affected by IPV, we have gone on to identify <a href="http://makeresiliencematter.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/MRM-Fact-Sheet-Summer2016.pdf">21 ways to resilience.</a></p>
<p>There’s <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3887080/">significant research</a> that tells us children exposed to IPV are more likely to experience trauma, aggression, depression and difficulties managing and expressing their emotions appropriately. </p>
<p>Seeing your mother hurt and living in a fear-filled house where everyone walks on eggshells, as the Gallaghers did, can cast a long shadow into the future: When children are exposed during critical formative years, it not only immediately disrupts important cognitive, social and emotional development, <a href="http://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(07)00349-2/fulltext">it also affects relationships and pathways into adulthood.</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256489861_Siblings_exposed_to_intimate_partner_violence_Linking_sibling_relationship_quality_child_adjustment_problems">Research</a> is also beginning to show — and I will be delving into this more fully in my own research — how sibling relationships can be affected: Some siblings may become over-protective, others may become distant, and still others may be hostile.</p>
<p>The antagonistic relationship between Liam and Noel immediately springs to mind.</p>
<h2>Children can overcome their childhoods</h2>
<p>There is good news, however, for the Gallaghers and others who grew up in homes plagued by domestic violence. Children can overcome significant adversity — many have. But they, and everyone surrounding and supporting them, need to know one thing: Resilience is not innate. It is not something one child has and another doesn’t.</p>
<p>It can be developed and fostered. (Visit our site for a <a href="http://makeresiliencematter.ca/what-we-know/">full definition of resilience, with references</a>.)
Children who experience difficulties — sometimes severe problems — can adopt healthy relational behaviours, recover and follow healthy developmental trajectories.</p>
<p>Through our rigorous study of children and families facing extremely tough challenges surrounding domestic violence, we’ve found that resilience can be actively and intentionally promoted at three levels: The child, the child’s relationships and the context or the community that surrounds the child. </p>
<p>Many of these factors and processes can be developed, taught or strengthened by:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Encouraging a skill or talent;</p></li>
<li><p>Providing outlets and resources for kids to play sports, make music, act, etc.;</p></li>
<li><p>Connecting kids with safe, supportive adults and positive role models;</p></li>
<li><p>Assisting mothers in their efforts to protect their children from further harm by increasing access to support, housing, education, employment;</p></li>
<li><p>Involving supportive extended family;</p></li>
<li><p>Helping children accurately assign responsibility for the abuse and break the cycle of violence.</p></li>
</ol>
<h2>‘Through the fire’</h2>
<p>For good reason, research and practice have focused largely on establishing the scope and addressing negative effects. </p>
<p>Now we’re learning that we need to more fully understand how children navigate their way “through the fire.” By better connecting the dots between children, intimate partner violence and resilience, we will improve how we identify and support resilience factors and processes for each and every child.</p>
<p>As for Liam and Noel Gallagher, there is still hope for their relationship. </p>
<p>Individually, they have navigated tremendous adversity. Despite their feuding via the media, <a href="https://www.spin.com/2017/10/noel-gallagher-liam-gallagher-twitter-accusations-response/">given the desire,</a> the right conditions and skilled intervention, there is still the possibility of reconciliation. Maybe their motivation could be what compels so many of us to do better — for our children.</p>
<p>For the Gallaghers, letting go of the anger and settling their differences might help stop the trauma and violence too often passed down from one generation to another — and encourage and support their own children’s resilience.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ramona Alaggia receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p>The famous feuding Gallagher brothers of the rock band Oasis illustrate what research shows: Kids who grow up in homes where there is domestic violence often grow up to have troubled relationships.Ramona Alaggia, Associate Professor; Factor-Inwentash Chair in Children’s Mental Health, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/822932017-08-14T09:24:28Z2017-08-14T09:24:28ZChampion or copycat? Elvis Presley’s ambiguous relationship with black America<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181771/original/file-20170811-1159-9ek4hf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Unknown photographer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>After Elvis Presley died on August 16, 1977, the African American newspaper, the <a href="https://chicagodefender.com/">Chicago Defender</a> <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/220573/summary">explained that</a>: “When Elvis Presley breathed his last breath and the press hailed him as the ‘King of Rock,’ Ol’ Man River cried out, ‘Naw he ain’t! My friend Chuck Berry is the King of Rock. Presley was merely a Prince who profited from the royal talent of a sovereign ruler vested with tremendous creativity. Had Berry been white, he could have rightly taken [Presley’s] throne and worn his crown well.’”</p>
<p>By contrast, James Brown, the “Godfather of Soul”, declared: “I wasn’t just a fan, I was his brother.” Brown – born dirt-poor in Barnwell, South Carolina, on the other side of the segregated south’s racial divide from Presley, who was born dirt-poor in Tupelo, Mississippi – was reputedly the only entertainer granted private time with Elvis’s body. “Elvis and I are the only true American originals,” Brown insisted. “There’ll never be another like that soul brother.”</p>
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<p>Four decades after his death, how can we reconcile these two apparently contradictory black responses to Elvis? The conventional wisdom casts Elvis as one in a long line of craven white exploiters of black musical culture for whom African Americans had nothing but contempt. In 1989, this orthodoxy was summed up in Public Enemy’s rap anthem Fight the Power: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Elvis was a hero to most,<br>
But he never meant shit to me …<br>
Straight up racist that sucker was,<br>
Simple and plain.</p>
</blockquote>
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<h2>Giving credit</h2>
<p>But the truth is far from “simple and plain”. Elvis’s relationship with and reputation among African Americans was complex, particularly in the mid-1950s when he burst onto the national scene as part of a biracial rock-and-roll phenomenon that erupted just as the campaign against racial segregation in the American south began to gather real momentum. </p>
<p>At that time, the black press proudly pointed out the critical influence of black blues, rhythm-and-blues and gospel music on Presley’s style – not to chastise him for cultural appropriation, but to applaud his impeccable taste at a time when black music was routinely denied mainstream radio and television airtime and often denigrated as immoral and barbaric. </p>
<p>“Presley makes no secret of his respect for the negroes, nor of their influence on his singing. Furthermore, he does not shun them, either in public or private,” <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ibrrPmSpLTAC&pg=PA136&lpg=PA136&dq=Presley+makes+no+secret+of+his+respect+for+the+Negroes,+nor+of+their+influence+on+his+singing.+Furthermore,+he+does+not+shun+them,+either+in+public+or+private&source=bl&ots=8iPdZQEVFQ&sig=pQuTqpR35Fkijj583knL7kHRYIU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiIxcmI7s7VAhVhJ8AKHRptAuQQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=Presley%20makes%20no%20secret%20of%20his%20respect%20for%20the%20Negroes%2C%20nor%20of%20their%20influence%20on%20his%20singing.%20Furthermore%2C%20he%20does%20not%20shun%20them%2C%20either%20in%20public%20or%20private&f=false">reported the now-defunct Tan magazine</a>. </p>
<p>Presley himself was humble about his relationship with black music and musicians:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A lot of people seem to think I started this business. But rock ‘n’ roll was here a long time before I came along. Nobody can sing that kind of music like coloured people. Let’s face it: I can’t sing like Fats Domino can. I know that.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>With good cause, Tan was careful to point out the disparity between Presley’s annual income of more than US$2m and Domino’s annual earnings of US$700,000 earnings. Perhaps disingenuously, however, it did not belabour the racial coordinates of that disparity. Instead, it stressed Presley’s forthright championing of black musicians as part of a narrative that saw many positives in growing young white interest in African American-based musical styles. </p>
<h2>Thank God for Elvis</h2>
<p>While there has never been any necessary or simple correlation between white love of black music and racially progressive politics, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, many black commentators, musicians and fans viewed the emergence of a biracial market for rock-and-roll music performed by black and white singers as a portent of, maybe even a vehicle for, better race relations.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181772/original/file-20170811-1188-scjvac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181772/original/file-20170811-1188-scjvac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181772/original/file-20170811-1188-scjvac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181772/original/file-20170811-1188-scjvac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181772/original/file-20170811-1188-scjvac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181772/original/file-20170811-1188-scjvac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181772/original/file-20170811-1188-scjvac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Elvis and Billy Ward of Billy Ward and his Dominoes (circa 1955).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Williams Family photos</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, there is plenty of evidence that black attitudes towards Elvis were far from uniformly hostile. “I thank God for Elvis Presley. I thank the Lord for sending Elvis to open that door so I could walk down the road, you understand?” commented his contemporary Little Richard in 1970. One of the many black rock-and-rollers who suffered financially from the cover phenomenon – in which white artists took anodyne copies of black songs into the pop charts – Richard appreciated that the whole rock-and-roll phenomenon, with Elvis as its epicentre, had opened up new opportunities for black artists and songwriters to reach a young white audience.</p>
<p>It was not only black musicians who appreciated Elvis. In 1956, Presley was introduced to 9,000 black Memphians at radio station WDIA’s Goodwill Ball. The crowd, waiting to see B.B. King and Ray Charles, went wild when Elvis appeared and police had to rescue the singer from overenthusiastic black fans. On black-oriented radio stations, black DJs routinely programmed Presley and other white rock-and-rollers such as Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and the Everly Brothers alongside Bo Diddley, Little Richard, James Brown, Ruth Brown and Ray Charles because they knew their young black core audience liked those artists. </p>
<p>The late civil rights leader <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=a99LnCcGJ5cC&pg=PA218&lpg=PA218&dq=julian+bond+teddy+bear+elvis&source=bl&ots=P6pCloGASt&sig=nOd0ESZve5TSmMP4YvTit61v6Rw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwisqpC_787VAhWlA8AKHUQIC4oQ6AEILjAC#v=onepage&q=julian%20bond%20teddy%20bear%20elvis&f=false">Julian Bond recalled</a> singing an Elvis song at an ice-breaker event at Atlanta’s prestigious black Morehouse College in 1957: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Three friends of mine and I sang ‘Teddy Bear’ … and I remember thinking it not at all remarkable that we would sing this Elvis Presley song. So here’s these four black young men singing, ‘Just wanna be your Teddy Bear,’ … We just said, “This is OK … this guy is alright.‘ I think my peers thought Elvis Presley, at least in that early stage, was OK.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Even more compelling is the sales evidence. In early 1956, Presley’s breakthrough RCA single Heartbreak Hotel simultaneously topped the traditionally white pop and country music singles charts <em>and</em> the traditionally black rhythm and blues chart. Indeed, Presley had 24 Top 10 rhythm and blues hits between 1956 and November 1963, including four number ones. </p>
<p>To put this into a broader historical context, this was probably the most integrated popular music market in US recording history: 175 Top Ten rhythm and blues singles were cut by more than 120 different white artists while black artists regularly enjoyed pop chart hits. By November 1963, Billboard could no longer differentiate between white and black consumption and suspended its separate black singles chart.</p>
<h2>Cultural appropriation?</h2>
<p>This era of biracial musical creation and consumption has been largely erased from popular memory. It lies buried beneath simplistic parables of white expropriation and exploitation of black culture in which Elvis has become emblematic of centuries of uncompensated and unacknowledged white appropriation of black cultural ingenuity and labour. </p>
<p>There is enormous moral power to this perspective and, to be sure, plenty of evidence of just such exploitation and theft. Nonetheless, it still makes for unpersuasive history and fails to help us to understand the significance of Elvis and the whole biracial rock-and-roll phenomenon that intersected with the dawn of the modern civil rights movement. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181774/original/file-20170811-1159-81j4z5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181774/original/file-20170811-1159-81j4z5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181774/original/file-20170811-1159-81j4z5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181774/original/file-20170811-1159-81j4z5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181774/original/file-20170811-1159-81j4z5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181774/original/file-20170811-1159-81j4z5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181774/original/file-20170811-1159-81j4z5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Timeless classic: Jailhouse Rock.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nat Williams, the dean of black announcers on WDIA, had <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gbixZfCwpkcC&pg=PA167&lpg=PA167&dq=nat+williams+when+they+hardly+let+out+a+squeak+over+B.B.+King,+a+Memphis+cullud+boy&source=bl&ots=2fH2Yu-ssl&sig=gdvmcALyeyyIglC1So6LB06CSqw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjD3Kem8M7VAhWHBcAKHVpHDOEQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=nat%20williams%20when%20they%20hardly%20let%20out%20a%20squeak%20over%20B.B.%20King%2C%20a%20Memphis%20cullud%20boy&f=false">immediately recognised this symbolic linkage</a>. At the Goodwill Ball, Williams had pondered the enthusiasm of black audiences for Elvis, "when they hardly let out a squeak over B.B. King, a Memphis cullud boy”. Williams speculated that this might “reflect a basic integration in attitude and aspiration,” in the black community. </p>
<p>He was right. The piebald charts and radio playlists of the late 1950s and early 1960s, like black admiration for young Elvis, belonged to a particular moment of rising black activism and cautious optimism about the prospects for widespread, meaningful and enduring changes in the pattern of US race relations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82293/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Ward does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Was Elvis the ‘king of cultural appropriation’ or a tireless promoter of African-American music and culture?Brian Ward, Professor in American Studies, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/748612017-03-20T11:45:18Z2017-03-20T11:45:18ZChuck Berry: one of the only musicians with a genuine claim to be the founder of a genre<p>When time travel adventure <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/back-to-the-future-4408">Back to the Future</a> included the conceit of the white 1980s teenager, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1i5coU-0_Q">Marty McFly, inventing rock ‘n’ roll</a>, there was really only one song to hang it on – Chuck Berry’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ROwVrF0Ceg">Johnny B. Goode</a>”. Legendary is an overused adjective in popular culture, but Berry’s passing is a salutary reminder of what a giant in the field actually looked like.</p>
<p>The process by which new genres emerge from previous music forms is complex and muddy, and the boundaries between them porous. So John Lennon may have been exaggerating when he <a href="http://chuckberry.com/about/quotes/">said</a>: “If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry’.” But not by much.</p>
<p>In terms of contributing to the shape of popular music culture in the 20th century and beyond, he had only a handful of peers. He was the keystone for subsequent pivotal figures in the development of rock – The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Hendrix all covered his songs, and his influence is writ large throughout their playing. Likewise, The Beach Boys’ early career was propelled by almost <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s4slliAtQU">note-for-note takes</a> of his riffs and licks.</p>
<p>In fact, both the Beach Boys and Lennon were to fall foul of <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ml/article/92/4/607/1141626/Authorship-and-the-Popular-Song">plagiarism suits</a> pertaining to their use of Berry’s work, and Berry was <a href="http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/73733/judge-dismisses-chuck-berry-royalty-suit">himself sued</a> in 2000 by longtime collaborator – pianist Johnnie Johnson – for a share in the credits to a string of hits like “Roll Over Beethoven” and “No Particular Place to Go”. Johnson’s suit, which concerned 50 songs, was <a href="http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/73733/judge-dismisses-chuck-berry-royalty-suit">dismissed</a> due to the length of time that had elapsed since the songs were written, over which period the songs had become classics. </p>
<h2>Rock, rhythm and jazz</h2>
<p>Although Johnson’s contribution to Berry’s work was significant – Berry had originally joined Johnson’s band as his musical career started to take off – there’s more to the development of a musical form than chord progressions and musical arrangements. Simon Frith <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674661967">has written</a> that genre exists between different sets of conventions in music – how it sounds, how it is performed, how it is sold and its embodied values, or ideology. It is at this intersection that Berry emerges as a focal point in the birth of rock ‘n’ roll.</p>
<p>Musically, he was open about his debt to a range of guitar players, from a range of genres, from Muddy Waters to Carl Hogan and Charlie Christian. But his unique skill was to infuse these with a sense of urgency against a driving backbeat. From details like foregrounding the double-stop (two strings played at once) to the overarching dynamics of his playing, he produced the <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674005471http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674005471">template for the rock guitar solo</a>. His famous “duckwalk” and swinging movements also centralised the guitar solo, and took the guitar centre stage, not just as a musical instrument but also as a visual prop and performance tool.</p>
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<p>As a writer, also, he captured the spirit of his age. His lyricist’s eye allowed him to meld the world weary, hard living concerns of the blues with a narrative style that crystallised the experiences of the first generation growing up in the post war era of American popular cultural dominance. Replete with automobiles, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1oyvAMtFsk">Sears Roebuck sales</a> and jukeboxes, his songs kept one foot in the history of black American musical experience but hooked it to the pop consumption culture of the present. </p>
<p>Treading a tightrope between quasi-comic vignettes (the troublesome seatbelt of “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpitvLeNjuE">No Particular Place To Go</a>”) and emotive punchlines (the absent daughter of “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrbPlr4Wskc">Memphis, Tennessee</a>”), his narratives were also innovative. In the first person but at a knowing, often winking, remove from the action, their echoes could still be heard decades later in the storytelling of rappers.</p>
<h2>Bridging divides</h2>
<p>He was keenly aware, too, of the different audiences in an America that were still deeply segregated. He drew on country as well as blues and jazz, and he had a sharp sense of how to bridge the demographic divide by deliberately modulating his vocal delivery, as he explained in <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Chuck_Berry.html?id=XoM3HAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">his autobiography</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Listening to my idol Nat Cole prompted me to sing sentimental songs with distinction diction. The songs of Muddy Waters impelled me to deliver the down-home blues in the language they came from … When I played hillbilly songs, I stressed my diction so that it was harder and whiter. All in all it was my intention to hold both the black and the white clientele by voicing the different kinds of songs in their customary tongues.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Neither was he beyond addressing the inequities of the racial divide in his music, although his commercial impetus and self-identification as an entertainer first and foremost meant that he did so obliquely, rather than head on. He changed, for example, the semi-autobiographical “Johnny B. Goode” from a “coloured” to a “country” boy <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/popular-music/article/div-classtitlehis-name-was-in-lights-chuck-berryandaposs-johnny-b-goodediv/4BB3485A483F7CE8B74FB35E69DBBE1F">to widen the song’s applicability and appeal</a>.</p>
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<h2>A universal legacy</h2>
<p>Ultimately, Berry’s peak period as a recording artist was relatively short and, also blazing a trail for the moral and legal ambiguities of rock that were to follow, he was arrested in 1959 for transporting a minor across state lines. Despite a <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/chuck-berry-is-arrested-on-mann-act-charges-in-st-louis-missouri">successful appeal</a> against the initial sentence on the grounds of racist comments made by the judge to the all-white jury, he still served two years after a retrial. The break in his career saw recorded music take his pop innovations to the next level, as rock ‘n’ roll, filtered through British acts like The Beatles, burst its creative banks to become the rock of the 1960s. </p>
<p>Berry maintained his appeal as a live performer, despite intermittently shaky performances due to his insistence on touring solo and playing with <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=sZ04AQAAQBAJ&pg=PT236&lpg=PT236&dq=chuck+berry+played+with+pick+up+bands&source=bl&ots=tBXd9XKDvH&sig=4I26gON3d9M-WQwL0SAmofkxq8k&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiPyITH5eTSAhWJL8AKHdPBAeoQ6AEIWjAK#v=onepage&q=chuck%2520berry%2520played%2520with%2520pick%2520up%2520bands&f=false">unrehearsed pick-up bands in every town</a> – a legacy of his early losses on the road, and determination not to be ripped off again. But neither these, nor further legal travails in the 1990s, could undermine his status as a founding father of rock.</p>
<p>When the Voyager space probes were launched in the 1970s, they carried a record representing the various different sounds of human civilisation. In among Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and folk musics from around the world, sits “Johnny B. Goode”. It was a controversial inclusion at the time, with folklorist Alan Lomax arguing that it was “<a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-is-on-voyagers-golden-record-73063839/?no-ist=&page=4">adolescent</a>”. But adolescents grow up, and Berry’s literacy and capacity to straddle musical genres as well as adult and teenage concerns, laid down the groundwork for modern rock and pop. He became the legend that other legends referred back to. </p>
<p>A year after the launch of the Voyager spacecraft, Steve Martin <a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CLd1OAaWwAAmn1i.jpg">mocked up a cover of Time magazine</a> on Saturday Night Live with a response from alien civilizations: “Send more Chuck Berry”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74861/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council</span></em></p>Legendary is an overused adjective in popular culture, but Berry’s passing is a salutary reminder of what a giant in the field actually looked like.Adam Behr, Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/639012016-09-27T08:57:23Z2016-09-27T08:57:23ZTrump slammed by musicians for appropriating music, but pop and politics have a long history<p>As the most fractious US election in living memory enters its final furlong, <a href="http://www.nme.com/news/u2/96591">Bono</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/sep/24/bruce-springsteen-calls-donald-trump-a-moron">Springsteen</a> are the latest music stars to launch broadsides at the Republican candidate. And they’re far from alone. Barbara Streisand lampooned Trump in <a href="http://www.nme.com/news/barbra-streisand/96343">performance</a> and in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/sep/22/barbra-streisand-donald-trump-hillary-clinton">print</a> while his rhetoric has attracted condemnation from <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/16/politics/music-latino-issues-2016-election-get-political/">Latino artists</a> and a <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/yg-talks-summer-protest-anthem-fdt-f--k-donald-trump-w437360">protest song</a> from rapper YG.</p>
<p>However, this time around the musical commentary is perhaps more vociferous than in previous elections and his divisiveness has run up against a wide array of musicians calling for a halt to his use of the pop and rock tunes that are a staple of campaigning.</p>
<p>REM set the tone during the primaries, slamming Trump’s “<a href="http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/rock/6692463/rem-donald-trump-end-world-unauthorized">moronic charade of a campaign</a>” for playing “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0GFRcFm-aY">It’s the End of the World As We Know It</a>” at a rally. Other demurrals came from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/20/queen-protests-donald-trumps-we-are-the-champions-song">Queen</a>, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/elton-john-tells-donald-trump-dont-use-my-music/">Elton John</a>, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-36210829">Rolling Stones</a> and more. Being dead, it seems, is also no hindrance to cross-purposes with the Republican nominee. The estates of <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/george-harrison-estate-blasts-trumps-song-use-at-rnc-w430423">George Harrison</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/arts/music/luciano-pavarotti-donald-trump-soundtrack.html">Luciano Pavarroti</a> described the use of their music as, respectively, “offensive” and “entirely incompatible with the world view offered by the candidate Donald Trump”.</p>
<p>Trump is also the latest in a long line of candidates whose campaign has <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-donald-trump-miserables-deplorables-20160910-snap-story.html">drawn on the soundtrack to Les Misérables</a>, despite its composers never endorsing political uses of their work.</p>
<h2>Electioneering</h2>
<p>There’s a longstanding association between popular music and political campaigns in the US. Campaign songs have been in play from <a href="http://www.folkways.si.edu/oscar-brand/presidential-campaign-songs-1789-1996/childrens-historical/music/album/smithsonian">George Washington’s time onwards</a>, gaining increasing prominence in the 20th century via mass media celebrity endorsements. The trend towards using pre-existing recordings, rather than specially written songs or familiar tunes with new lyrics, was given a fillip in the 1970s when <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxxvi">the 26th Amendment</a> reduced the voting age to 18 and it was <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/dont-stop-thinking-about-the-music-the-politics-of-songs-and-musicians-in-presidential-campaigns/oclc/753632432?page=citation">seen as a means of attracting younger voters</a>. This has sometimes been successful, where an agreement is reached with artists, as with Bill Clinton’s use of Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop”. But more often it leads to the kinds of disavowal piled up around Trump’s campaign.</p>
<p>Rockers and pop stars are often more liberal leaning than their more conservative country counterparts, so the bulk of these have been against Republicans. But there have also been cases of artists not welcoming any political associations. Some have pulled the rug from under the Democrats, as <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20080427151732/http://www.eurweb.com/story/eur41178.cfm">Sam Moore</a> did over Barack Obama’s use of “Hold on I’m Coming”. But as elections get into high gear campaigners looking towards the wider populace seek out classics and big hits with the widest appeal, pushing them towards the aesthetic centre and away from genres that appeal primarily to their political base.</p>
<p>The amorphously aspirational (or angry) tone of many rock and pop songs makes them seem, at first glance – without examination of the artist’s political orientation – apt for either side of a political divide. But this can lead to mismatches. In 1984, Bruce Springsteen disowned the Reagan campaign’s use of “<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-rolling-stone-interview-bruce-springsteen-on-born-in-the-u-s-a-19841206">Born in the USA</a>” – somewhat misguided in the first place since the lyrics of its pumping chorus are bitterly ironic anyway, as the song depicts the poor treatment of Vietnam veterans.</p>
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<h2>A legal matter</h2>
<p>The proliferation of complaints in recent years raises the question of what musicians can actually do to stop their songs appearing in campaigns. </p>
<p>Much depends on the context. Many objections refer to rallies and live events. There isn’t much legal comeback here though if the venues hold the requisite licenses for public use of recordings from the copyright collection agencies ASCAP and BMI. In many of these cases, cease and desist letters or similar warning shots are mostly a matter of making the artists’ disapproval and distance from the campaign a matter of public record. While legal protection in such instances isn’t cast-iron, it’s generally not worth the negative publicity for candidates to carry on once an artist has told them to stop. When <a href="http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1840981_1840998_1840937,00.html">Tom Petty</a> objected to George W Bush using “I Won’t Back Down”, for instance, Bush did just that.</p>
<p>There’s more scope for blocking if a song is used in an advert or promotional material on the internet, where a license is required and the campaign <a href="http://www.ascap.com/%7E/media/files/pdf/advocacy-legislation/political_campaign.pdf">needs permissions</a> from the song’s publisher and perhaps the artist’s record label. Depending on their deals, artists may have some leverage here. Certainly a failure to obtain permission is a breach of copyright and subject to legal recourse, as John McCain found out when <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/12717747/browne-v-mccain-complaint">Jackson Browne sued</a> over the appearance of his song “Running on Empty” in a campaign advert.</p>
<h2>Fair use?</h2>
<p>McCain’s team tried to claim the “<a href="http://www.musiclawupdates.com/?p=1873">fair use</a>” exemption to copyright on the grounds that its use of the song was minimal, not for commercial purposes and unlikely to damage Browne’s financial interests. But Browne had another strand to his case that could be applied more widely, even to campaign rallies – potential reputational damage. The “moral rights” of European copyright provision that offer protection beyond financial concerns aren’t particularly robust in US federal law, but Browne appealed to the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/lanham_act">Lanham Act</a>, a piece of trademark law that protects brands from misrepresentation or confusion arising in consumers due to misleading use. A similar piece of intellectual property legislation in some states, also cited by Browne, is the <a href="http://rightofpublicity.com/brief-history-of-rop">Right of Publicity</a>, protecting the property aspects of a person’s voice and image. </p>
<p>Ultimately, McCain conceded and settled, so although Browne was victorious, the legal minutiae weren’t tested in court. But the case illustrated both a potential opening for artists and peril for politicians willing to push the point. While other priorities on the campaign trail and fear of poor public relations tend to militate against this, the need for popular background music remains.</p>
<p>If politics – as Bill Clinton strategist Paul Begala said – is “<a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/reliable-source/2010/12/who_says_washington_is_hollywo.html">showbusiness for ugly people</a>”, politicians are rarely shy of deploying the work of more straightforward entertainers to burnish their appeal. And as Trump appears impetuous in the face of legal challenges and contemptuous of bad publicity, the familiar sound of musicians crying foul looks likely to continue apace.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63901/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Trump’s divisiveness has seen him run up against a wide array of musicians calling for a halt to his use of the pop and rock tunes.Adam Behr, Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/638462016-08-18T12:38:46Z2016-08-18T12:38:46ZIt’s only rock ‘n’ roll – and sometimes it’s better in mono<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134438/original/image-20160817-3611-1iyo67o.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Snowmanradio</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>While music lovers continue to argue about the relative merits of digital audio and the analogue vinyl disc, another debate is going on about the renaissance of an audio format that most people thought had long since disappeared: mono. Apparently banished during the second half of the 20th century by the advent of two-channel stereo, single-channel monophonic audio is making a reappearance. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.thebeatles.com/monovinyl/">Beatles in Mono</a> vinyl box set was released a couple of years ago, and will now be joined by The <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/rolling-stones-announce-massive-mono-box-set-w433790">Rolling Stones in Mono</a>. </p>
<p>So why this return to what many might think an outmoded and inferior way of reproducing sound? Can there really be anything that these monophonic mixes have to offer in 2016? There are two main issues. Firstly, different mixes produced at different times and possibly by different people will sound different, regardless of whether they are in stereo and/or mono. </p>
<p>A guitar solo, such as McCartney’s on “<a href="http://www.icce.rug.nl/%7Esoundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/t.shtml">Taxman</a>” from 1966’s Revolver, could never be played exactly the same way twice, even if the notes and their approximate durations are the same. In a similar way, the parameters of mixing, even when using the relatively primitive apparatus of 50 years ago, were sufficiently variable that each attempt at creating a mix, even with exactly the same people and technology wouldn’t produce an identical output. </p>
<p>Ryan and Kehew’s detailed study of The Beatles studio work, <a href="http://www.curvebender.com/rtb.html">Recording The Beatles</a>, often makes the point that mono mixes were considered the most important at that time. Draft versions were regularly produced during recording sessions with the band involved, but stereo versions were often left to the very end of the production process with only George Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick present. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134475/original/image-20160817-3587-69bvzf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134475/original/image-20160817-3587-69bvzf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134475/original/image-20160817-3587-69bvzf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134475/original/image-20160817-3587-69bvzf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134475/original/image-20160817-3587-69bvzf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134475/original/image-20160817-3587-69bvzf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134475/original/image-20160817-3587-69bvzf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Beatles in the recording studio with producer George Martin in 1966.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Capitol Records</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Different people working at different times will not produce identical mixes, and the outcomes can be radically different. Mixes have their own aesthetics, they can express musical ideas. As Emerick said: “a mix was a performance by the people on the mixing console”.</p>
<h2>How we hear sound</h2>
<p>The second issue relates to differences in how we perceive mono and stereo sound. Our brains use information from our ears to build a picture of what objects are in our vicinity, their width and position and the acoustic environment in which they reside. This is known as <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/auditory-scene-analysis">auditory scene analysis</a>. </p>
<p>An early stage of this is spectral analysis which separates out sound components at different frequencies. These components are then regrouped according to whether they belong to the same sound source. One of the methods of determining this “belongingness” is by comparing the levels and times of arrival of various components between the two ears to determine whether they come from the same place. Such components have a stronger sense of belongingness, or homogeneity. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134442/original/image-20160817-3608-1ylxui2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134442/original/image-20160817-3608-1ylxui2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134442/original/image-20160817-3608-1ylxui2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134442/original/image-20160817-3608-1ylxui2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134442/original/image-20160817-3608-1ylxui2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134442/original/image-20160817-3608-1ylxui2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134442/original/image-20160817-3608-1ylxui2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">An early Rolling Stones compilation in that newfangled stereo format.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Totally vinyl</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Grouping sounds together in the same space (as is the case with mono) is one way of “glueing” them together, making them sound like they are an integral part of a larger whole. </p>
<p>But if you want to be able to hear the constituent parts of your mix as clearly as possible it’s better if they appear to come from different positions (something that is possible with stereo). Such combinations of sound obscure – or “mask”, in the <a href="http://thepowerofsound.net/psychoacoustics-defined/">psychoacoustic language</a> – each other less. This is known as “binaural release of masking” (binaural because it requires two ears to work) and it helps us hear one person’s speech through the babble of others – the “<a href="http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/03/the-cocktail-party-effect.php">cocktail party effect”</a>.</p>
<p>Of course this can be too revealing, George Harrison recalling that stereo mixes “<a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/arts_ents/13181476.All_you_need_is_____The_Beatles_in_mono_or_stereo_/">ruined the sound from our point of view … it all sounded very naked</a>”. Comparing the mono and stereo mixes of “Taxman”, the McCartney guitar solo demonstrates these aspects of spatial presentation – unfortunately copyright doesn’t allow the two versions to be presented here. </p>
<p>In mono the solo takes (quite literally) centre stage and dominates, its partial masking of the other instruments enhancing its importance. In stereo, although it is at a similar level, it is moved to far right of the auditory scene and the parts in the opposite speaker are not so obscured. We can hear those parts more clearly, but the alpha dominance of the solo is diminished. </p>
<p>Whilst the underlying acoustics and psychoacoustics do not change, responses to the musical art of mixing are subjective. One person’s exciting clump of homogenous sound is another’s muddy mess, one’s revealing heterogeneous spread is another’s diluted smear (“<a href="https://www.beatlesbible.com/songs/revolution/">they took a heavy record and turned it into a piece of ice cream</a>” – John Lennon this time, on the stereo mix of “Revolution”).</p>
<h2>Two ears, one speaker</h2>
<p>When listening in mono there is something to bear in mind. When the same sound emanates from two loudspeakers, the two sound waves interfere with each other creating boosts of sound at some frequencies and reductions at the ears, leading to a subtle but undesirable change in the spectrum of sound. With just one speaker, there is just one wave and so there is no interference (if we ignore the effects of reflections of that wave from walls and other surfaces in the room). </p>
<p>So, by all means enjoy the different quality of sound in mono mixes (and the different approaches taken in those mixes) but, if you are going to have only one channel you really ought to have only one speaker too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63846/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jez Wells does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Beatles have released their early recordings in mono and the Rolling Stones are soon to follow suit. Fans think they sound better.Jez Wells, Lecturer, Department of Music, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/627512016-08-15T13:28:25Z2016-08-15T13:28:25ZAre the Beatles still more misunderstood than Jesus?<p>“We should be wearing targets here,” quipped Paul McCartney as he stepped nervously off a plane at Memphis airport on August 19 1966. </p>
<p>The Beatles arrived in Memphis amid massive controversy. In March, John Lennon had suggested in an interview with Maureen Cleave of the London Evening Standard that the Beatles had grown more popular than Jesus. When his remarks reappeared in the American teen magazine Datebook in August, they sparked a fierce backlash just as the band embarked on its final tour.</p>
<p>Hostility was particularly intense in the American south. In Alabama, DJs Tommy Charles and Doug Layton at the WAQY-Birmingham radio station were first to initiate a “ban-the-Beatles campaign”. Other stations, cities and towns soon followed suit. Starke in Florida had the dubious distinction of being the first place to burn Beatles records and memorabilia. </p>
<p>Similar conflagrations spread quickly across the region. Some of the most pyrotechnical protests involved those formidable guardians of white racial and religious purity, the Ku Klux Klan. In Chester, South Carolina, Klan Grand Dragon Bob Scoggins nailed a Beatles record to a large cross and set it on fire. In Tupelo, Mississippi, Grand Wizard Dale Walton urged teens to “cut their Beatle wigs off” and send them to a “public burning”. In Washington DC and Memphis, Klansmen in full regalia were an ominous presence outside the band’s concerts.</p>
<p>The “Jesus” controversy is <a href="http://ultimateclassicrock.com/john-lennon-beatles-more-popular-than-jesus/">often considered</a> a watershed moment in the Beatles’s career. In the aftermath, they abandoned live shows and, according to biographer Jon Weiner, Lennon took his “first steps towards radical politics”. And yet the controversy remains largely misunderstood and misrepresented in the vast literature on the band. Virtually nobody has explored what kind of publication Datebook, the magazine responsible for circulating the claim, really was. Few commentators have got to grips with the motives of its owner-editor <a href="http://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/local/behind-the-scenes-with-arthur-unger/article_593cc397-53f9-5c45-8ac9-1de3037a2813.html">Art Unger</a>, or considered the role of Danny Fields, later manager of the Ramones, who worked briefly at the magazine in mid-1966.</p>
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<h2>Datebook</h2>
<p>While on Datebook’s payroll, Fields was tasked with revamping its cover for a special “Shout Out!” issue to mark the transition from bi-monthly to monthly publication. That was the issue that featured Lennon’s interview with his infamous quote, “I don’t know which will go first, Christianity or rock’n’roll!” on its cover. Even more prominent was McCartney’s tart comment on US race relations: “It’s a lousy country where anyone black is a dirty nigger!” The cover also advertised articles on LSD, the Vietnam War and the virtues of interracial dating. </p>
<p>This content suggests Datebook was not the “standard teenybop rag” routinely depicted in accounts of the “Jesus” controversy. Most of those accounts also erroneously accuse Datebook – Unger is seldom mentioned by name – of cynically reproducing Lennon’s controversial comments out of context and using the interview without permission.</p>
<p>In fact, Unger had been encouraged to use all four Beatles interviews, which were reproduced in Datebook without any significant changes, by Tony Barrow, the band’s press officer. In March 1966, Barrow wrote to Unger:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think you might be more than interested in a series of ‘in-depth’ pieces which Maureen Cleave is doing on each Beatle for the London Evening Standard. I’m enclosing a clipping showing her piece on John Lennon; I think the style and content is very much in line with the sort of thing DATEBOOK likes to use.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Clearly, Barrow already understood Datebook’s politics. Unger had created a socially engaged magazine dedicated to challenging all manner of prejudice, dogma, and discrimination, even as it dispensed advice about haircare, makeup and dating etiquette. The fact that Unger, like Fields, was gay may have fuelled their determination to nurture more tolerant attitudes among Datebook’s young readers. Nowhere was Datebook’s quietly subversive agenda more clear than in the realm of race relations. </p>
<h2>‘Segregation is a lot of rubbish’</h2>
<p>At the height of the civil rights movement in the south, Datebook often focused on racial and religious intolerance. In 1961, for example, it asked “should you date boys of another race or religion?” and concluded that “across-the-line dating can be a healthy and desirable thing”. That same year Lillian Smith, a leading southern white racial liberal, urged Datebook’s overwhelmingly white female readers to break with the racism of an older generation. The magazine even included contact details for various civil rights groups so that readers could support the movement. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134076/original/image-20160815-15281-1fdn4pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134076/original/image-20160815-15281-1fdn4pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134076/original/image-20160815-15281-1fdn4pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134076/original/image-20160815-15281-1fdn4pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134076/original/image-20160815-15281-1fdn4pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=989&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134076/original/image-20160815-15281-1fdn4pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=989&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134076/original/image-20160815-15281-1fdn4pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=989&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Datebook July edition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brian Ward</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>The Beatles were also aware of Unger’s liberal agenda. They first met him in 1964. Afterwards, their press office regularly supplied Datebook with news scoops and provided extensive access whenever the band toured the US. The band often proved willing accomplices in Unger’s plans. In 1965, Datebook reported a flight from Houston when drummer Ringo had “joined a circle of performers, many of whom were Negroes, and they talked about everything, including race relations, Ringo making his pro-integration feelings very clear”. Ringo insisted: “Segregation is a lot of rubbish. As far as we’re concerned, people are people, no different from each other.”</p>
<p>Understanding the Beatles’s links to Unger and their willingness to speak out on social issues in his magazine long before 1966, changes our perspective on the dramatic events of that summer. Suddenly, they begin to look less like the first chapter in the story of the band’s political awakening and more like an important episode in a much longer tale. Looking back through the pages, not to mention the covers, of Datebook certainly reminds us that Lennon was not the only Beatle with strong opinions on current affairs.</p>
<p>Fifty years on, it is time to stop casting Unger’s decision to reprint Lennon’s interview as the act of the unscrupulous owner of a “cheesy American teen magazine” out for a fast buck. Instead, we need to see it as one phase in his efforts to use Datebook to showcase progressive politics, encourage unconventional opinions, and expose all kinds of prejudice. The Beatles certainly recognised that Unger’s Datebook was very different from other teen publications. And so should we.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62751/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Ward received funding from the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust that supported research on this topic. </span></em></p>The ‘Jesus’ controversy is often considered a watershed moment in the Beatles’s career. And yet it remains largely misunderstood.Brian Ward, Professor in American Studies, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/584202016-07-12T19:44:38Z2016-07-12T19:44:38ZHarder, faster, louder: challenging sexism in the music industry<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130173/original/image-20160712-9289-4rjalu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">After the likes of Joan Jett, Janis Joplin and Debbie Harry, why are women in rock still marginalised?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Triple J’s Hack program recently put together a snapshot of <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/girls-to-the-front/7223798">female participation in the Australian music industry</a>. It showed a predictable picture of women’s continued marginalisation in all roles, whether as performers, songwriters, record company owners or on boards. </p>
<p>Only one in five members of the Australian Performing Rights Association are women, for instance. And 61% of the artists played on Triple J are male-only bands or male solo performers. Artist management is the only industry area with something approaching equal representation. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130153/original/image-20160712-9302-1xlna1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130153/original/image-20160712-9302-1xlna1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130153/original/image-20160712-9302-1xlna1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130153/original/image-20160712-9302-1xlna1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130153/original/image-20160712-9302-1xlna1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130153/original/image-20160712-9302-1xlna1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130153/original/image-20160712-9302-1xlna1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130153/original/image-20160712-9302-1xlna1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Courtney Barnett remains one of the only Australian, female rock musicians making a mark on the international stage.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rberr11 via Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Last month, the line up for the Australian “bush doof” festival, Strawberry Fields was announced. It was <a href="http://www.tonedeaf.com.au/481876/strawberry-fields-female-organiser-responds-to-critics-of-all-male-lineup.htm">exclusively male</a>. The <a href="https://www.residentadvisor.net/event.aspx?850435">news</a> prompted a vigorous debate on social media (“Cool all-male lineup so far bros”, wrote one woman on Facebook,) reigniting discussions about the underrepresentation of women in pop music, and what can be done about it. </p>
<h2>Fighting the canon</h2>
<p>There are many subtle and complex reasons why women find staking a claim in music harder than men. One of these is to do with how the value of music is talked about, and who talks about it. The dominance of (white) men in music criticism is well illustrated by the title of Pitchfork critic Jessica Hooper’s 2015 book <a href="https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/05/jessica-hopper-the-first-collection-of-criticism-b.html">The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic</a>.</p>
<p>Male critics were particularly prevalent in the early days of rock and roll. And these men writing about music have tended to write about men making music.</p>
<p>Some male critics might explicitly think women can’t make good music and exclude them for that reason. For the most part, though, critics do what everyone does – they are drawn more towards music that they relate to because it reflects something about themselves and their life experiences, mirroring their understanding of the world. </p>
<p>This writing, in the 1960s, in particular, established the basis for the canon of popular music – the works that are considered the best in the field – which continues to have an impact today.</p>
<p>While there is no one agreed upon version of the popular music canon, one study examining many different “best of” lists produced by music publications at the turn of the century found they were very homogenous. The <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/3877541?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">researchers reported</a> that the songs in the list:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>have a four-four time, very rarely exceed the time limit of four minutes, were composed by the musicians themselves, are sung in English, played by a ‘classical’ rock formation (drums, bass, guitar, keyboard instruments) and were released on a major label after 1964. The fact that nearly all musicians are white males from the USA … or Great Britain … is striking.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were consecrated as musicians of value by critics in the 1960s, they created a blueprint for what would be thought of as valuable in the future. This means it is easier for bands that are similar to those bands already in the canon to be later included (think Nirvana, Radiohead). It also influences the practices of aspiring musicians. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130141/original/image-20160712-9302-191rinv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130141/original/image-20160712-9302-191rinv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130141/original/image-20160712-9302-191rinv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130141/original/image-20160712-9302-191rinv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130141/original/image-20160712-9302-191rinv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130141/original/image-20160712-9302-191rinv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130141/original/image-20160712-9302-191rinv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130141/original/image-20160712-9302-191rinv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Rolling Stones are credited for pioneering 1960s rock music.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">via Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>For women, questions of representation become important here – if you don’t see anyone like yourself being presented in the canon, it is harder to imagine you can make good music. Thus a male-dominated canon works to exclude potential future women musicians.</p>
<p>Those <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jul/11/taylor-swift-tops-forbes-celebrity-rich-list?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other">women who are successful</a> are more often in the pop genre. Pop success often entails having a highly sexualised image, and is generally not taken seriously by critics.</p>
<p>Young women trying to break into music also have to deal with the way social spaces connected with music are often marked as masculine and policed by men in various ways. </p>
<p>Many women musicians have reported belittling and dismissive attitudes by men in live music venues, music stores and when learning music. It seems few female musicians have not been asked at one time or another whether they’re “with the band”, or if they’re just there to watch their boyfriend, or had their technical or musical abilities called into question. </p>
<p>The experiences shared during the second half of this talk by Jessica Hopper may give some insight into the way being around music is made hard for women.</p>
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<h2>Spotlight on social media</h2>
<p>Recently, however, a new spotlight has been cast on the way ugly, and sometimes criminal sexism is embedded in the music industry. The renewed discussion of feminism in the 2010s and the existence of social media have given women new ways to call attention to the unacceptable behaviour of some men.</p>
<p>The most high-profile recent example has been the case of Ke$ha, who went to court to try to get out of her contract on the basis that her producer had <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/kesha-and-dr-luke-everything-you-need-to-know-to-understand-the-case-20160222">sexually assaulted her</a>. While Ke$ha lost this case, the fallout from it highlighted some positive trends.</p>
<p>First, we saw other high-profile women in the music industry, rallying behind Ke$ha. While there were voices in the media accusing Ke$ha of lying for her own benefit, the support she received from women like <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/taylor-swift-donates-250-000-to-kesha-after-court-ruling-20160222">Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift</a> sent the message that if you speak up, you will be believed. </p>
<p>We have also seen how women speaking out can lead to others speaking up. Earlier this year, for instance, high-profile music PR executive Heathcliffe Berru resigned from the company he’d founded after musician Amber Coffman tweeted about <a href="http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6844211/dirty-projectors-amber-coffman-sexual-harassment-heathcliff-berru-life-or-death-publicist">his inappropriate behaviour towards her</a>. Many other women quickly emerged to tell of similar experiences. </p>
<p>Runaways bassist Jackie Fuchs, meanwhile, released a memoir that detailed her <a href="http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/the-lost-girls/">rape by the manager of the band</a>, Kim Fowley, when she was 16. This led to other women coming forth with similar stories about Fowley. </p>
<p>These accounts paint a picture of men who had been serial abusers for many years, but who were protected by the culture of the industry. (It should be noted that this is by no means unique to the music industry; very similar behaviours by men in positions of power have recently also been highlighted, for example, in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/opinion/sunday/she-wanted-to-do-her-research-he-wanted-to-talk-feelings.html?_r=0">STEM professions and academia</a>).</p>
<p>What has helped short-circuit the protection of abusers in these situations is social media. Social media allows for expressions of belief and support to be publicly performed in new ways. That the circulation of these stories is having actual consequences for men, who for decades have been protected by the homosocial nature of the industry, and the expectation that “girls” were one of the perks you got for being a rock star (or hanging on their coat tails), is important. There is the potential for a cultural change to take place. </p>
<p>This change is driven by feminist activism in the industry as well as by individual women brave enough to speak up about what has happened to them. There exists a long history of women musicians speaking out against sexism (see, for instance, women punks or Riot Grrrl), although lasting, widespread change has proved elusive. </p>
<p>In Melbourne now, the <a href="http://www.listenlistenlisten.org/">LISTEN collective</a> is challenging sexism in the music industry. One project its members have pursued, led by the DJ Katie Pearson, is <a href="http://musicfeeds.com.au/news/victoria-launches-government-taskforce-to-combat-sexual-harassment-at-live-music-events/">working with the Victorian government</a> to change training for security guards in venues to ensure women who are harassed or assaulted are taken seriously and helped appropriately – something that in the past has often not happened.</p>
<p>LISTEN has also been helping women release albums on the LISTEN label and organise gigs. The end goal is to normalise the idea that women have a right to exist in music-related spaces – neither as accessories to men, or as a sexual prize to be scored (willingly or not).</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58420/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Strong is affiliated with LISTEN.</span></em></p>Why are women still marginalised in the rock industry? There are many reasons - from a male dominated music canon to belittling attitudes - but women are speaking up and lobbying for change.Catherine Strong, Lecturer, Music Industry, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/616832016-06-27T16:29:37Z2016-06-27T16:29:37ZJagger and Scorsese have a flop on their hands with Vinyl – here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128265/original/image-20160627-28373-1leo12v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sky</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Plans for a second season of Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger’s TV series, Vinyl, have been <a href="http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/vinyl-cancel-hbo-bobby-cannavale-season-2-scrapped-1201801263/">scrapped by American broadcaster, HBO</a> due to poor viewing audiences. To those who had watched season one, this was anything but surprising. Despite the show’s clear pedigree – nobody could deny the creative credentials and insider knowledge of its producers – and the enormous financial investment, HBO clearly neglected to identify and understand its core market. </p>
<p>The story is based on the heady days of the drug-fuelled rock culture of America’s 1970s record industry. The plot revolves around the exploits of the central character, record label president Richie Finestra, who through a moral maze of soul searching, engages with any and all tactics, legal and illegal, moral and immoral, financially sound and unsound, to save his company without destroying his friends and colleagues along the way. The tragedies that ensue are the cornerstone of each episode’s storyline. </p>
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<p>Those who may have lived through that era, who are now in their 50s and 60s, mostly reference the past through a nostalgic and rose-tinted view, which included hippy ethics and a move towards peace and love, rather than the insider’s reality of the cut, thrust, abuse and violence of the music industry. In this, HBO appears to have misunderstood the 50-plus demographic – which could have been a key audience for this sort of nostalgia-based entertainment. And <a href="http://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/vinyl-season-one-ratings/">ratings show a steady decline</a> in viewers under 50. </p>
<p>There have been other attempts to dramatise the violence and drug culture of the music business. Owen Harrison’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/12/kill-your-friends-review-nicholas-hoult-is-a-poor-mans-patrick-bateman-in-a-tiresome-comedy">2015 adaptation of Kill Your Friends</a>, an exposé of the British pop scene from a business prospective, was well written and directed but also lacked public appeal and did not realise its expectations, even with a theatrical release. The film includes violent elements along with the obligatory sex and drugs that Hollywood naively expects will draw in audiences. </p>
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<p>Perhaps we are now bored with the overexposure of these elements of entertainment and have become ambivalent to the shock tactics used within the genre – as is evidenced in the fantasy television series Game of Thrones where excessive sex and violence including rape and bloody decapitation scenes are the norm. However, what Game of Thrones has that Vinyl does not is the hero/heroine vs villain dynamic. Vinyl doesn’t provide this – we only seem to get the villains. Maybe the music itself has to stand for the hero of the story – certainly Finestra does not have enough audience empathy factor to fulfil the role.</p>
<h2>Background noise</h2>
<p>But what is more relevant is the association and reverence we hold for the music of our youth. Most of us learned the lessons of life and love accompanied by music of our era and hold it in much regard. This music is the bedrock of our lives and, to shatter the illusions of our own life is to attack the fundamental cultural associations of our development. Of course, those fans of the Rolling Stones know of the history, misdemeanours and wild antics of the group, but it is their music that provides the soundtrack to their fan’s youth and not Mick Jagger’s love life or Keith Richards’ exploits with narcotics. </p>
<p>We love our heroes, our rock and pop stars – but mostly, we love our music. This is best illustrated by the often proprietary language we use when referring to music. You can hear music referred to as substantive part of cultural ownership as in: “She always takes her music with her” or, “He enjoys his music.” This demonstrates the bond that we have with music and the attachment or ownership that we impose on it. We don’t want to denigrate the value of music through depictions of murder, sex, drugs and greed. </p>
<p>The commodification of music is necessary for its survival as an industry, but the true value for us is cultural and not its associations with business and the exploitation of markets. When you ask most people in the business side of the industry how they got involved you invariably get the response: “because of the music”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128272/original/image-20160627-8002-1278md0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128272/original/image-20160627-8002-1278md0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128272/original/image-20160627-8002-1278md0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128272/original/image-20160627-8002-1278md0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128272/original/image-20160627-8002-1278md0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128272/original/image-20160627-8002-1278md0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128272/original/image-20160627-8002-1278md0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Showbiz royalty, but their creation has not proven popular.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Televisione Streaming</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So the further separation of music in Vinyl into a business context creates even greater audience alienation – and it is this that HBO has ignored. It may be of academic interest to know how the music industry changed and grew during that period and the personalities, managers, record company moguls and their excesses but this has never been of great interest to the public at large. The lengthy memoir from record company executive Clive Davis, former head of Columbia Records in the 1960s, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/books/review/the-soundtrack-of-my-life-by-clive-davis.html?_r=0">The Soundtrack of My Life</a> was not a bestseller for exactly that reason – its appeal was limited to those whose focus is on the business side of music, rather than the music itself. </p>
<p>Vinyl’ problem is that it demeans and devalues the music which it ought to celebrate as an intrinsic part of the cultural history of pop. Each generation has its music identifier and will look back to the influences that shaped that music. This programme destroys that bond and the artistic and musical values and turns them into depraved and debauched conduits for sex, drugs and rock n’ roll.</p>
<p>Ultimately what HBO has done here is lose the music and from a social prospective, music is representative of youth culture, not business. HBO has missed the point. It is only right that they have pulled plans for a second series.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61683/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Lightman is affiliated with UK Music and sits on the Copyright advisory committee.</span></em></p>This big budget series about the rock business failed to connect with its market.Richard Lightman, Lecturer in Popular Music, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/597202016-06-08T03:54:49Z2016-06-08T03:54:49ZAre pop stars destined to die young?<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/03/arts/music/prince-death-overdose-fentanyl.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news">Prince’s autopsy</a> has determined that the artist died of an accidental overdose of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. The news comes on the heels of the death of former Megadeth drummer Nick Menza, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/05/22/us/ap-us-obit-megadeth-drummer.html">who collapsed on stage and died in late May</a>. </p>
<p>Indeed, it seems as though before we can even finish mourning the loss of one pop star, another falls. There’s no shortage of groundbreaking artists who die prematurely, whether it’s Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley or Hank Williams. </p>
<p>As a physician, I’ve begun to wonder: Is being a superstar incompatible with a long, healthy life? Are there certain conditions that are more likely to cause a star’s demise? And finally, what might be some of the underlying reasons for these early deaths? </p>
<p>To find out the answer to each of these questions, I analyzed the 252 individuals who made Rolling Stone’s list of the <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-artists-of-all-time-19691231">100 greatest artists</a> of the rock & roll era.</p>
<h2>More than their share of accidents</h2>
<p>To date, 82 of the 252 members of this elite group have died. </p>
<p>There were six homicides, which occurred for a range of reasons, from the psychiatric obsession that led to the shooting of John Lennon to the planned “hits” on rappers Tupac Shakur and Jam Master Jay. There’s still <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/sam-cooke-dies-under-suspicious-circumstances-in-la">a good deal of controversy</a> about the shooting of Sam Cooke by a female hotel manager (who was likely protecting a prostitute who had robbed Cooke). Al Jackson Jr., the renowned drummer with Booker T & the MGs, was shot in the back five times in 1975 by a burglar <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/nov/25/al-jackson-jr-memphis-sunset-the-mysterious-death-of-stax-heartbeat">in a case that still baffles authorities</a>.</p>
<p>An accident can happen to anyone, but these artists seem to have more than their share. There were numerous accidental overdoses – Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols at age 21, David Ruffin of the Temptations at 50, The Drifters’ Rudy Lewis at 27, and country great Gram Parsons, who was found dead at 26. </p>
<p>And while your odds of dying in a plane crash are about one in five million, if you’re on Rolling Stone’s list, those odds jump to one in 84: Buddy Holly, Otis Redding and Ronnie Van Zant of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Band all died in airplane accidents while on tour. </p>
<h2>A drink, a smoke and a jolt</h2>
<p>Among the general population, <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_02.pdf">liver-related diseases are behind only 1.4 percent</a> of deaths. Among the Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Artists, however, the rate is three times that. </p>
<p>It’s likely tied to the elevated alcohol and drug use among artists. Liver bile duct cancers – which are extremely rare – happened to two of the top 100, with Ray Manzarek of The Doors and Tommy Ramone of the Ramones both succumbing prematurely from a cancer that normally affects <a href="http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/277393-overview#a6">one in 100,000 people a year</a>. </p>
<p>The vast majority of those on Rolling Stone’s list were born in the 1940s and reached maturity during the 1960s, <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_02.pdf">when tobacco smoking peaked</a>. So not surprisingly, a significant portion of artists died from lung cancer: George Harrison of the Beatles at age 58, Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys at 51, Richard Wright of Pink Floyd at 65, Eddie Kendricks of the Temptations at 52 and Obie Benson of the Four Tops at 69. Throat cancer – also linked with smoking – caused the deaths of country great Carl Perkins at 65 and Levon Helm of The Band at 71.</p>
<p>A good number from the list had heart attacks or heart failure, such as Ian Stewart of the Rolling Stones at 47 and blues greats Muddy Waters at 70, Howlin Wolf at 65, Roy Orbison at 52 and Jackie Wilson at 49. </p>
<p>We recently saw The Eagles’ Glenn Frey succumb to pneumonia, but so did soul singer Jackie Wilson at age 49, nine years after a massive heart attack. James Brown complained of a persistent cough and declining health before he passed at 73, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/26/arts/music/26brown.html?pagewanted=all">with the cause of death listed as congestive heart failure as a result of pneumonia</a>.</p>
<p>Currently, the U.S. is in the midst of an opioid abuse epidemic, with heroin and prescription drug overdoses happening <a href="http://www.asam.org/docs/default-source/advocacy/opioid-addiction-disease-facts-figures.pdf">at historic rates</a>. </p>
<p>But for rock stars, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2760168/">opioid abuse is nothing new</a>. Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Sid Vicious, Gram Parsons, Whitney Houston (who didn’t make the list), Michael Jackson and now Prince all died from accidental opioid overdoses. </p>
<h2>Two key findings</h2>
<p>One of the two shocking findings of this analysis deals with life expectancy. Among those dead, the average age was 49, which is <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html">the same as Chad</a>, the country with the lowest life expectancy in the world. The average American male <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_02.pdf">has a life expectancy of about 76 years</a>. </p>
<p>Factoring in their birth year and a life expectancy of 76 years, only 44 should have died by now. Instead, 82 have. (Incidentally, of the 44 we would have expected to be dead by now, 19 are still alive.)</p>
<p>The second shocking discovery was the sobering and disproportional
occurrence of alcohol- and drug-related deaths. </p>
<p>There was Kurt Cobain’s gunshot suicide while intoxicated and Duane Allman’s drunk driving motorcycle crash. Members of legendary bands like The Who (John Entwistle, 57, and Keith Moon, 32), The Doors (Jim Morrison, 27), The Byrds (Gene Clark, 46, and Michael Clarke, 47) and The Band (Rick Danko, 55, and Richard Manuel, 42) all succumbed to alcohol or drugs.</p>
<p>Others – The Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia and country star Hank Williams – steadily declined from substance abuse while their organs deteriorated. Their official causes of death were heart-related. In truth, the cause may have been more directly related to substance abuse. </p>
<p>In all, alcohol and drugs accounted for at least one in 10 of these great artists’ deaths. </p>
<h2>Does a quest for fame lead to an early demise?</h2>
<p>Many have explored the root causes behind these premature deaths.</p>
<p>One answer may come from dysfunctional childhoods: experiencing physical or sexual abuse, having a depressed parent or having a family broken up by tragedy or divorce. <a href="http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/2/6/e002089.short">An article published</a> in the British Medical Journal found that “adverse childhood experiences” may act as a motivator to become successful and famous as a way to move past childhood trauma. </p>
<p>The authors noted an increased incidence of these adverse childhood experiences among famous artists. Unfortunately, the same adverse experiences also predispose people to depression, drug use, risky behaviors and premature death. </p>
<p>A somewhat similar hypothesis is proposed by the <a href="http://selfdeterminationtheory.org/aspirations-index/">Self Determination Theory</a>, which addresses human motivation through the lens of “intrinsic” versus “extrinsic” life aspirations. People who have intrinsic goals seek inward happiness and contentment. On the other hand, people who possess extrinsic goals focus on material success, fame and wealth – the exact sort of thing attained by these exceptional artists. According to research, people who have extrinsic goals tend to have had less-involved parents and are more likely to experience bouts of depression.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/major-depressive-disorder/association-between-major-mental-disorders-and-geniuses">A good deal of research</a> has also explored the fine line between creative genius and mental illness across a wide range of disciplines. They include authors (<a href="http://www.mcmanweb.com/woolf.html">Virginia Woolf</a> and <a href="http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=490460">Ernest Hemingway</a>), scholars (<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032707001395">Aristotle</a> and <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPSM%2FPSM18_01%2FS0033291700001823a.pdf&code=479300979b92179f454f2789ffa4ab4d">Isaac Newton</a>), <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/blog/post/classical-composers-and-their-maladies">classical composers</a> (Beethoven, Schumann, and Tchaikovsky), painters (<a href="http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/appi.ajp.159.4.519">Van Gogh</a>), sculptors (<a href="http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/199/5/373.full">Michelangelo</a>) and <a href="http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/183/3/255?.full">contemporary musical geniuses</a>. </p>
<p>Psychiatrist Arnold Ludwig, in his meta-analysis of over 1,000 people, “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=6coe7r9iwosC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=a+m+ludwig+price+of+greatness&ots=TJhiaV1tOL&sig=ogU7wt65ZQ96YnvR8EJ1UraWFYg#v=onepage&q=a%20m%20ludwig%20price%20of%20greatness&f=false">The Price of Greatness: Resolving the Creativity and Madness Controversy</a>,” concluded that artists, compared to other professions, were much more likely to have mental illnesses, and were prone to being afflicted with them for longer periods of time.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Cornell psychiatrist William Frosch, author of “<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0010440X87900678">Moods, madness, and music: Major affective disease and musical creativity</a>,” was able to connect the creativity of groundbreaking musical artists to their psychiatric disorders. According to Frosch, their mental illnesses were behind their creative output.</p>
<p>My review also confirmed a greater incidence of mood disorders among these Great 100 rock stars. Numerous studies have shown that depression, bipolar disease and related diagnoses come with <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4102288/">an increased risk</a> <a href="http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=383975">for premature death, suicide and addiction</a>. </p>
<p>By following the relationship between genius and mental illness, mental illness and substance abuse, and then substance abuse, health problems and accidental death, you can see why so many great artists seem almost destined for a premature or drug-induced demise.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59720/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gregory L. Hall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For those on Rolling Stone’s list of 100 Greatest Artists, their life expectancy is on par with the people of Chad, the nation with the lowest life expectancy in the world.Gregory L. Hall, Assistant Clinical Professor, Case Western Reserve UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/530032016-01-12T12:31:40Z2016-01-12T12:31:40ZBowie’s greatest gift? Even his ‘failures’ will echo through the ages<p>The second single from David Bowie’s iconic 1973 album, Aladdin Sane, was called Drive-in-Saturday. Part science-fiction ballad, part-vignette of a young marriage – and all lyrical and musical tour de force, it’s a song Bowie utterly owned on record and in its rare live outings. His TV performance of the song on the Russell Harty Plus show shifted between boyish raunch, fey knowingness and majestically queer authority. </p>
<p>Some 26 years later, introducing the song for a 1999 VH1 Storytellers special, Bowie recounted the following anecdote.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Drive-in-Saturday was actually written as a follow-up single for Mott the Hoople who’s already had some considerable success with another song I’d written for them called All the Young Dudes. Well they in their wisdom had decided that it was time for them to write their own singles so it was given back to me. I was so annoyed that one night in Florida … I got very drunk and shaved my eyebrows off, I was so annoyed they didn’t do this song.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So his apparent ownership of Drive-in-Saturday, if we believe this anecdote, was in fact the result of a rejection by a band whose success he had helped to nurture, a rejection that also led to the unforgettable “look” of the song’s era – those absent eyebrows.</p>
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<p>His bony, hairless brows are a key part of the edgy and uncanny TV performance of the song.</p>
<h2>Not just a starman</h2>
<p>From the start of his career, when his influences were named (often super-explicitly by himself) as Anthony Newley, Jacques Brel, Bob Dylan and Lou Reed of The Velvet Underground, Bowie was as frequently seen as a sponge as he was hailed as a chameleon, one who soaked things up as part of his processes of inquiry and self-challenging.</p>
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<p>It’s easy to forget, though, both the direct influence he had on many artists with whom he worked as co-writer, producer, backing vocalist (Mott the Hoople, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop) and others whom he simply befriended or inspired (Devo, Blondie, Arcade Fire).</p>
<p>Listening to BBC 6 music in the shocked and teary hours after the announcement of the singer’s death, his influence on bands from Ultravox in the 1970s to Suede in the 1990s and Radiohead (in whose new almost-Bond-song Spectre, Bowie’s ghost can almost be heard walking) is audible.</p>
<p>Of Bowie’s many incarnations some were “successful”, some were not, some are the object of knowing, almost compulsory, admiration while some are quietly, keenly forgotten.</p>
<h2>Sources of influence</h2>
<p>But it is, I feel, precisely those “lost” stretches of his career that are in some ways the most powerful sources of influence for artists that succeeded him. On her Instagram account, for example, Madonna posted a photo of herself and Bowie, taken in 1987. </p>
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<p>Madonna’s words that accompany this picture recall Rebel, Rebel, Bowie’s great, rough rock anthem of 1974. In the photo, Bowie is wearing the red pillar-box suit that was one of the costumes for his much-maligned Glass Spider tour, which was on the road at the same time as the Who’s That Girl? tour, Madonna’s early stadium extravaganza. </p>
<p>This image is clearly a backstage shot from Glass Spider and the influence of that tour – which <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/videos/flashback-david-bowie-faces-heat-on-glass-spider-tour-20130827">has been condemned</a> as ill-judged, overblown, oppressively technical – is everywhere in Madonna’s work. If you don’t believe me look at Glass Spider’s opening moments on You Tube and compare them with the performance of Iconic, Madonna’s opening song on her current Rebel Heart tour.</p>
<p>If you are an artist it is one thing to leave cited, cherished and admired work as an acknowledged legacy, but to have your “failures” or your blunders provide the DNA of your craft three decades after you have made them speaks to a level of force and foresight that can only be described as irreplaceable.</p>
<h2>Lasting influence</h2>
<p>Last November, I found myself in the audience at U2’s Innocence and Experience tour and at regular intervals in that amazing show I felt Glass Spider’s use of video, choreography and theatrical narrative being pretty brazenly reproduced.</p>
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<span class="caption">Bowie’s Glass Spider Tour, 1987.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Elmar J. Lordemann</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>Two years after Glass Spider, Bowie formed a collective called Tin Machine and went in exactly the opposite direction to the strained, epic theatricality of 1987. Although Bowie himself spoke more warmly of Tin Machine – and I saw them in the Brixton Academy in 1991; they were awesome! – their pared–down, dark-suited, white-lit rock-combo aesthetic provided, yet again, something that would become the template for some hugely successful bands of the 2000s: Franz Ferdinand, The Killers, even Arctic Monkeys. </p>
<p>At a Johnny Marr gig in Leeds in late 2014, there was also more than a passing whiff of the Bowie of the Tin Machine era.</p>
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<p>As the world grieves for what one writer has described as the “largeness and glory” of Bowie’s “successful” work from Hunky Dory to Blackstar it is both startling and comforting to remember that even Bowie’s “mistakes” provide the structure and inspiration for the music that is the cement of so much of our collective life.</p>
<p>Bowie’s reaction to his rejection by Mott the Hoople suggests that in every failure there is the basis of not only a triumph but of an endlessly cherished signature style.</p>
<p><em>Denis Flannery’s essay: Floating in a most peculiar way: Angels in America, David Bowie, Toneelgroep Amsterdam <a href="https://www.academia.edu/6764865/Floating_in_a_most_peculiar_way_Angels_in_America_David_Bowie_Toneelgroep_Amsterdam">can be read here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53003/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denis Flannery does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How Bowie sprinkled stardust on the work of generations of musicians.Denis Flannery, Senior lecturer in American Literature, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/530132016-01-12T11:06:15Z2016-01-12T11:06:15ZDavid Bowie hasn’t gone – he is forever stored in the here and now<p>It is strange to think of him as dead. He’s the big brother who never stopped bringing home the best stuff. He’s the rockstar who beat the Faustian pact that all those other guys made with youth in the 1960s – as his price, the devil was to make that lot look a bit silly. But not Bowie, who was instead developing the potential for rockstar cool to persist well into old age. </p>
<p>That means a lot to a lot of people. Blues artists, jazz artists, painters, poets and playwrights all get to grow old; their schtick isn’t as wedded to what sociologist Simon Frith calls the passions “<a href="http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9780754626794">of the proletarian weekend</a>” to the degree to which pop and rock are intimately bound.</p>
<p>I wonder why his death made me cry so much. He’s just a millionaire entertainer who lived for nearly his allotted “three-score-and-ten”. Big deal. There’s worse stuff happening. And I didn’t cry when, say, Tony Benn died. He was cool. </p>
<p>No – I realise that I’m crying for myself, because like countless others David Bowie opened up a way of thinking, being and <em>enjoying</em> for me. So knowing he’s not around means that I’m feeling a bit more alone. Like the best kind of best friend has gone. The one who reminded you regularly of how good things could be. Funny how the most fractured, unpredictable character in culture became our North Star in a mad world.</p>
<p>Obits <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/11/david-bowie-gender-maverick-inspiration-pop-art">will chorus</a> the display-cabinet litany of re-invention and costuming, but that never grabbed me about Bowie. I loved him as a singer and writer – and I think his music sounds like Bowie no matter what clothes he was wearing. Madonna reinvents herself, so does Kylie, Steve Coogan and Michael Portillo. These days changing your clothes a lot is encouraged and we’re all a bit “post-modern” and actively branding ourselves. </p>
<h2>So enticing, so inviting</h2>
<p>Bowie was more like an explorer who would return with new spices and amalgams from a different margin of human activity. He was a fan of humans and I recall his friend Coco Schwab saying that he was the world’s best museum companion. I think that’s the thing that reflects out of his work; he loved through curiosity and he loved people. </p>
<p>But he didn’t write love songs. Ever noticed that? I wish he did more songs like Wild Is The Wind (what a singer), but he didn’t write them. Instead he did something more remarkable. </p>
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<p>David Bowie’s songs spoke to the isolation, psychosis and anxieties of the late modern era and he made it sound like a sexy raucous art carnival. He always sang as if he knew something you didn’t, but that was OK, he was letting you in on it. He was the guy that put the heart into cool – but somehow he made it more than coldness. </p>
<p>Bowie didn’t write love songs – instead he took his love of art and people and put that to music. And in a way, Heroes is the greatest love song ever; a modernist, Everyman hymn to the daily empowerment of love – grinding and swaggering hedonistically in that sexy Bowie way.</p>
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<h2>Too late to be grateful</h2>
<p>Sexy is difficult for men. Ever noticed? There are not many pathfinders out there. Last decade’s sexy guy always looks ludicrous; testosterone seems to have corrosive qualities. Bowie mastered the art of looking relaxed across the years and his frame was such that clothes hung from him rather than clung to him. He had become the archetype of English to the bone – a Byronic gentleman with a saturnine allure. </p>
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<p>Yet he managed this while also preening and shrieking and high-kicking in tights, singing operatically about dystopia and beings from outer space. That’s how you do it! I actually think some people are mostly born sexy (good genes) – but whether they learn poise or not determines the outcome. Sexy wasn’t problematic for David Bowie.</p>
<p>His hunger for world spiritualism and art would’ve made him well aware of his own mortality, and in many ways he was dancing with death all along. To Buddhists, peaceful death is the greatest achievement of all and it looks as though Bowie managed that, surrounded by the coolest people – film directors, supermodels and children who loved him. </p>
<p>Perhaps he was, consciously or unconsciously, storing himself in our collective hive-mind over time, cryogenically depositing himself in the songs and images of culture, preserved forever by cool and remembered as fun and generous by all the people who knew him. It’s strange to think of him dead. Maybe he isn’t.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53013/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Davey Ray Moor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The icon has left so much of himself in popular culture, art and fashion.Davey Ray Moor, Course Director MMus Songwriting, Bath Spa UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/529952016-01-11T15:06:11Z2016-01-11T15:06:11ZDavid Bowie: pop star who fell to earth to teach outsiders they can be heroes<p>Two days after releasing his 25th studio album, Blackstar, to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jan/07/david-bowie-blackstar-review-a-spellbinding-break-with-his-past">critical acclaim</a>, David Bowie <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jan/11/david-bowie-dies-at-the-age-of-69">has died at the age of 69</a>. </p>
<p>Even this final act communicates Bowie’s power as a visionary artist who has orchestrated his sonic and visual concepts – as well as his public selves – from beginning to end.</p>
<p>Born David Jones in 1947 in Brixton, the boy who became David Bowie always wanted to be a star. Deeply influenced by Little Richard who combined rock’n’roll music with flamboyant stage shows, Jones performed different styles of music in various bands through the 1960s before he changed his name to Bowie in 1967 and shifted to playing folk music.</p>
<p>Bowie’s first chart success came in 1969 when the BBC played his song Space Oddity during its television broadcast of the moon landing. The song was an early example of Bowie’s ability to tap into the zeitgeist. Over the following few years, Bowie moved to a harder rock sound and absorbed influences from diverse sources including Lindsay Kemp – with whom he studied mime, Japanese kabuki theatre and theatrical traditions of cross-dressing and gender play. Other key influences were his then wife Angie – a model and art student – his glam rock contemporary, Marc Bolan of T Rex, and the pop art guru Andy Warhol. </p>
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<p>Bowie’s time with Andy Warhol, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, and the drag queens and trans people who congregated around Warhol and the New York club Max’s Kansas City had a big impact on him. In 1971, when he was there, New York City was also a hotbed of radical feminism and the gay liberation movement. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107781/original/image-20160111-6986-19vxm0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107781/original/image-20160111-6986-19vxm0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107781/original/image-20160111-6986-19vxm0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107781/original/image-20160111-6986-19vxm0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107781/original/image-20160111-6986-19vxm0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107781/original/image-20160111-6986-19vxm0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107781/original/image-20160111-6986-19vxm0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Bowie with his friends Iggy Pop and Lou Reed.</span>
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<p>The immediacy of the freedom politics around revolutionising gender roles and sexuality energised Bowie and influenced the content of his lyrics and his public presentation.</p>
<h2>Like a leper messiah</h2>
<p>In 1972, six months after London’s first gay pride parade, Bowie created a media sensation when he <a href="http://www.5years.com/oypt.htm">gave a magazine interview</a> stating that he was gay and said in another that <a href="http://www.5years.com/RRDB.HTM">he was bisexual</a>. With brilliant timing he then released the concept album and stage show The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107779/original/image-20160111-6972-o1g8cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107779/original/image-20160111-6972-o1g8cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107779/original/image-20160111-6972-o1g8cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107779/original/image-20160111-6972-o1g8cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107779/original/image-20160111-6972-o1g8cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107779/original/image-20160111-6972-o1g8cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107779/original/image-20160111-6972-o1g8cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107779/original/image-20160111-6972-o1g8cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Ziggy Stardust album cover, 1972.</span>
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<p>Ziggy, Bowie’s defining and culture-changing persona, was an androgynous rock star messiah, come to save the earth from environmental degradation and eventually destroyed by the excesses of ego, hedonism, and fan worship. The song about the title character was a commentary on the phenomenon of rock stardom – Bowie was deconstructing himself and the world of rock while simultaneously carving his own place in it.</p>
<p>Audiences were divided. Was Bowie infusing the corporate rock world with much-needed rebellion or was he a commercial charlatan? Through playing with notions of authenticity and identity, Bowie challenged ideas of normal and natural. He made explicit in popular music that identity could be imagined by individuals, rather than dictated by society. This, for many, was precisely the problem. As <a href="http://www.5years.com/fanletters.htm">one man wrote</a>: “Why on earth do so many turn on to that freak-faced pop-puff David Bowie – one look at him surely makes you want to vomit.”</p>
<p>For others – especially those who felt alienated from dominant ideas about sex roles and sexuality – Bowie’s identity play signalled freedom and belonging. Through Ziggy Stardust and his multiple costume changes, Bowie literally and metaphorically took the closet to the stage, and proudly opened and flaunted it: with a feather boa draped around his neck he sang in a baritone voice “you are not a victim”. </p>
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<p>In doing so, Bowie helped to empower audience members who felt different. By making androgyny and bisexuality fashionable in the public realm, Bowie helped to create a safe zone in which, by dressing up similarly, fans could explore their gender and sexual identities without necessarily being labelled or identified.</p>
<h2>Soul love</h2>
<p>Through shared taste in music and fashion, individuals who had been closeted by social norms were able to form connections and communities regardless of their individual sexual orientation. The experience helped to liberate people’s attitudes. As one fan <a href="http://www.5years.com/paulm.htm">remembered of a Ziggy Stardust concert</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The atmosphere was extraordinary. I cannot recall ever witnessing such strange, exciting and weird surroundings. There were so many outlandish people, men wearing dresses, masses of silver and gold lame – totally outrageous but all good natured.</p>
</blockquote>
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<p>Ziggy Stardust’s androgyny and bisexual persona were significant at a time when homosexuality had just been decriminalised in Britain and some states in Australia, but not in the United States. By making gender and sexual-bending fashionable, Bowie helped to transform a public culture that was steeped in traditional ideas of how males and females should behave and what people’s sexual behaviour should be.</p>
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<p>For his heterosexual female fans, Bowie’s gender-bending and bisexuality presented a newly desirable masculinity stripped of its traditional and off-putting machismo. As rock stars before him had done, Bowie appealed to women who sought a life beyond the suffocating confines of suburban family life. Yet unlike female fans of Elvis, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, Bowie’s female fans dressed like him. </p>
<p>Perhaps Bowie presented to young women the subversive glamour of gender play, giving them hope for new feminine possibilities in an era when gender was changing but no one knew quite what its future would look like.</p>
<p>Bowie’s albums in the 1970s showed how rapidly his own interests and influences changed, from Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs, to Young Americans and Station to Station. In the mid-to-late 1970s he collaborated with Brian Eno on the critically acclaimed Berlin Trilogy, which featured one of his signature songs, Heroes. His 1987 performance of the song at an open-air concert in Berlin has been linked to the successful uprising against the Berlin Wall.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"686498183669743616"}"></div></p>
<h2>We can be heroes</h2>
<p>His biggest commercial success was the 1983 album Let’s Dance, co-produced with Nile Rodgers. The title song’s film clip was unique in its positive <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jul/14/david-bowie-in-australia-an-alien-from-another-planet-who-sang-for-this-one">representation of indigenous Australians</a>. </p>
<p>In 2013, after a ten-year silence, Bowie surprised the world when, without warning, he released – The Next Day, his 24th studio album. It received widespread critical acclaim. And now, after giving us a final album, without warning David Bowie has gone.</p>
<p>Rock and Roll Suicide was the final song on the Ziggy Stardust album and was often performed as the final song of the Ziggy Stardust encore. Nihilism, meaninglessness, mortality and the inevitable end – these were among the themes of this song and the album. </p>
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<p>Yet Ziggy offered a moment of connection and redemption when he exhorted with the passion of an evangelical preacher:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Oh no love you’re not alone…<br>
no matter who or what you’ve been,<br>
no matter when or where you’ve seen…<br>
I’ll help you with the pain…<br>
turn on with me and you’re not alone.“</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In this, in the 1970s and now, Ziggy Stardust forgives and encourages connection, transgression and rebellion in his listeners. For many he has fostered <a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/au/enchanting-david-bowie-9781628923056/">communities of belonging and hope</a>. In his various personas, David Bowie enabled the imagining of new selves. "It was not only music,” <a href="http://www.5years.com/pf.htm">one fan wrote of what Bowie inspired</a>, “it was a way to be.”</p>
<p>His legacy on record sings across time, space, and now mortality with this simple message: “You’re not alone”.</p>
<p>And we’re not.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52995/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Sheehan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bowie’s fast-moving and ground-breaking ideas about sexuality and gender allowed millions of young people to come to terms with their sense of difference.Rebecca Sheehan, Lecturer in US History, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/484132015-10-02T08:38:23Z2015-10-02T08:38:23ZIs ‘The Slants’ racist? Court ruling on band name could upend trademark law<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96997/original/image-20151001-23067-1c7z5q8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What's in a name?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomascbyrd/6221489531/in/photolist-atLL5T-24bBA9-5CmQ5K-247bwv-npcaiR-9Kpzuu-5CmQ4H-8zrv54-8zruLt-8zrurB-8zru6V-8zrtSn-8zrtCP-8zuCQA-cKMqVf-5Cr7P9-8mEvuo-6f3i1A-eiHJrm-4auwWi-9KpDSj-4auwSn-4auwXx-nFtMjU-nFubgW-nFp9yM-nFpfuz-nFmyqF-NACGv-NAaj7-NABSB-NA9Gs-NA9m9-NA8HW-NAAdc-NA7EA-NA7iN-NAyBM-NAy2e-8CXd9H-8CXdEn-4ayztu-4auwTR-8D1p3w-8D1oYC-8D1oVf-8CXi9i-8CXi5e-8D1oJb-8D1oEN">Tommy Byrd/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Beastie Boys were talking about parties, not trademarks, when they sang, “You gotta fight! For your right!” </p>
<p>But even getting a trademark can be a fight in the world of rock ‘n’ roll. Today, October 2, a federal court will consider whether the Asian-American dance rock band <a href="http://www.theslants.com">The Slants</a> has the right to register the name of its band as a trademark. </p>
<p>The problem is trademarks that disparage people cannot be registered. Even if the people supposedly being disparaged want the trademark? Doesn’t that violate their First Amendment right to free expression? </p>
<p>These are the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/07/08/the-redskins-and-the-slants-how-an-asian-american-band-name-case-may-affect-the-redskins-trademark/">questions</a> the court will be considering. How it answers them could permanently reshape trademark law. </p>
<p>This case is the first in decades to squarely address the constitutional question. A decision that disparaging trademarks are entitled to registration would not only overturn the longstanding ban, it could also have big implications for a certain NFL franchise in Washington, DC. </p>
<h2>A disparaging mark?</h2>
<p>The Slants, which formed in 2006 in Portland, Oregon, first tried to register its name as a trademark in 2010. The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) refused registration for “The Slants” on the basis that it disparages people of Asian descent. </p>
<p>Under <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1052">federal law</a>, trademarks that may disparage people, or bring them into contempt, are not permitted registration. NFL’s Washington Redskins, for example, was initially granted a trademark registration for its team name, but that was <a href="http://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/v?pno=92046185&pty=CAN&eno=199">cancelled</a> last June in a landmark decision that deemed it disparaging to Native Americans. </p>
<p>Registration is a valuable branding tool to a trademark owner. While unregistered marks may still be used in the marketplace, registration confers <a href="http://helix-1.uspto.gov/player/BasicFacts_ShouldIRegister_508.html">significant benefits</a>. Registered trademarks enjoy nationwide protection, confer a presumption of validity and, if used continuously for five years, can be challenged in court only on limited grounds. Marks that have been refused registration are not eligible for enforcement. </p>
<p>In order to determine whether a trademark is disparaging to a particular group of people, the USPTO considers what the likely meaning of the mark is, taking into account dictionary definitions, the goods or services the mark represents and how the mark is used in the marketplace. If the trademark is found to refer to a particular group of people, courts ask whether that meaning is disparaging to a substantial composite of that group. </p>
<p>The Slants case is unique because the trademark owner, Simon Tam, is himself Asian, and the band has been widely reported in <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/05/08/404748835/whats-in-a-name-band-founder-fights-government-to-retain-the-slants">interviews</a> as using the mark in an effort to reappropriate the term and empower people of Asian descent. </p>
<p>Indeed, according to a <a href="http://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/ttabvue-85472044-EXA-12.pdf">court filing</a>, the band seemed interested in taking on the “disparaging term” in order to “wrest ‘ownership’ of the term from those who might use it with the intent to disparage.”</p>
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<h2>The minds of consumers</h2>
<p>Generally in trademark law it is <a href="http://tmep.uspto.gov/RDMS/detail/manual/TMEP/Oct2012/TMEP-1200d1e6993.xml#/manual/TMEP/Oct2012/TMEP-1200d1e3042.xml">not the intent</a> of the trademark owner that matters. What matters is what is in the minds of consumers, which is an <a href="http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1793&context=facpub">ever-evolving beast</a>. But this evaluation must be made in the <a href="https://h2o.law.harvard.edu/collages/14542">context of the marketplace</a> for the mark. </p>
<p>What matters in this case, therefore, is not whether the word “slants” disparages people of Asian descent generally. The question is whether persons of Asian descent would find the mark disparaging when used by an Asian-American dance-rock band. Who is using the mark, and in what context, matters. </p>
<p>These are essential parts of the inquiry. Yet, the USPTO failed to consider this context and merely looked at how the word “slants” is disparaging of people of Asian descent in a vacuum. </p>
<p>But this misses the mark, so to speak, in important ways. Specifically, it fails to consider use in the context of the marketplace, including the realities of the role of rock music in society. Art in general, and rock music in particular, often challenge cultural assumptions. </p>
<p>The question is not whether the mark in the abstract is disparaging, but whether it is disparaging as applied to an Asian-American dance rock band – one that publicly advocates for the empowerment of Asian people. The artistic community generally, and rock music specifically, are valuable cultural forces for <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/culture-professionals-network/2014/nov/27/-sp-arts-creativity-alex-poots-ruth-mackenzie">pushing boundaries</a> and questioning the status quo. </p>
<h2>Free expression</h2>
<p>A larger issue in this case, however, is whether this law violates the band’s First Amendment right to free expression. </p>
<p>Government benefits cannot be withheld on a basis that infringes constitutionally protected rights, like freedom of speech. If speech is coming from private individuals or is commercial speech, the government generally cannot discriminate based on a point of view. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if the government is itself speaking, then it may promote a specific viewpoint. Whether something is government speech depends on the degree of control the government exercises over the speech and how the public perceives it. For example, in a recent <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-144_758b.pdf">case</a>, the Supreme Court held that a state could choose whether or not to offer a license plate bearing a Confederate flag because license plate designs were government speech. </p>
<p>While a trademark registration is associated with the government, people are unlikely to perceive it as government speech. Also, courts have repeatedly <a href="http://ipmall.info/hosted_resources/TTAB_Decisions/TTAB_Appeal_74-004391.asp">stated</a> that trademark registration does not constitute the government’s endorsement of a particular trademark. The printing of an American flag on a condom can be registered as a <a href="http://ipmall.info/hosted_resources/TTAB_Decisions/TTAB_Appeal_74-004391.asp">trademark</a>, for example, but it is not government speech. </p>
<p>If the court decides that the prohibition against registering disparaging trademarks is perceived as promoting certain points of view over others, it will be struck down as unconstitutional. That would mean trademarks like “The Slants” and “Washington Redskins” cannot be denied registration simply because they disparage certain groups. </p>
<h2>Music and social change</h2>
<p>The tendency of musicians to extend their art for social change, to make people think and provoke dialogue, is a well-known and valuable aspect of modern culture. </p>
<p>Whether a mark is disparaging must be determined in the context of its use in the marketplace, including the manner of use and the goods and services it represents. </p>
<p>It’s a messy analysis, and necessarily imperfect. But such is the nature of a body of law that seeks to consider the fierce and fickle minds of consumers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48413/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Megan M. Carpenter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A federal court is considering whether the Asian-American rock band has a First Amendment right to the name, despite a law prohibiting disparaging trademarks.Megan M. Carpenter, Professor of Law, Co-Director, Center for Law and Intellectual Property, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/448762015-08-19T10:04:58Z2015-08-19T10:04:58ZThe fate of the metalheads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92185/original/image-20150817-5117-r4mfri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fans cheer on the heavy metal band Motörhead.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/brandi666/4024619966/in/photolist-78Deiq-78DecY-78De4o-78DdUN-78DdLG-5wcBdr-5iBgf4-5iBfmn-5iBf5x-5iFvBJ-5iFv1C-5iBdAg-5iBd5H-5j9Bat-xGasL-6V4jLe-6V4jLn-6V4jKR-aeHxWU-4yehAU-9k6Dkh-9k3vy6-4yefRE-8XpUP8-aeEJb4-6poog9-2kyMBv-5mH6e8-5mMbtm-5iBP3x-aJ3Ydz-aJ3XWr-qbXw8-5mMjoQ-nYHaB-5mMrD3-5mMiXj-5mH1PB-5mMsPE-5mH4AM-5mH34R-nnSRni-7nf5c2-Jbkh7-dBk4F3-dBeAUv-dBk4kj-aJ3YvK-aJ3YsH-aJ3YpT">brandi/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Adults often worry about adolescents who identify with fringe-style cultures, whether it’s emo, hip hop or <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/see-freaky-fiery-photos-from-the-2015-gathering-of-the-juggalos-20150727">juggalos</a>.</p>
<p>But every generation has its own set of musical cliques that draw millions of teenage fans. In the 1980s, heavy metal – a style of music characterized by blistering guitar solos and soaring vocals – was, <a href="http://metal.mit.edu/brief-history-metal">by some measures</a>, the most popular musical genre. </p>
<p>Adults were up in arms. There were <a href="http://www.csicop.org/si/show/scientific_consensus_and_expert_testimony">congressional hearings</a> about heavy metal’s inherent “dangers.” Parents (and their elected representatives) feared that their kids, in identifying with the subculture, might be lured into devil worship, sex or drugs. Tipper Gore and the Parents’ Music Resource Council (PMRC) <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/04/arts/tipper-gore-widens-war-on-rock.html">sought to ban recordings</a>, while artists like Judas Priest were <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/17/arts/2-families-sue-heavy-metal-band-as-having-driven-sons-to-suicide.html">put on trial</a>, blamed for the suicides of two teenagers. </p>
<p>Growing up as a heavy metal groupie in Hollywood in the 1980s, I was certainly exposed to a lot of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. But I was also part of a community of like-minded peers who loved the music and lyrics. My friends and I donned micro-mini skirts, leather jackets over lace bras and stiletto heels. We gave the hypocritical “establishment” the middle finger.</p>
<p>Cut to the present day: I’m a psychology professor and two-time Fulbright Scholar. Did metal affect me? I believe it did. I believe it helped me cope with a very difficult and dysfunctional home life. I found friends and boyfriends and an aggressive style of music that helped me safely vent my anger over my lot in life. </p>
<p>But a few years ago, while I was writing a memoir, I began to wonder: what happened to the metalheads I’d known in the 1980s? I may have emerged relatively unscathed, but had the others become drug-addicted and destitute, like so many parents predicted? </p>
<p>My mentor, social psychologist Howard Friedman, suggested I conduct a study to find out. </p>
<p>Early 1980s research on teenage metalheads suggested that they were more aggressive, more emotionally disturbed and less well-adjusted than non-metal fans. However, <a href="https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/abstract.aspx?ID=144462">other research</a> suggested they were more intelligent or that it was really family dysfunction that led to their poor adjustment. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, no one followed these kids over time; no one had examined what became of them as they reached adulthood. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15298868.2015.1036918?journalCode=psai20#.VdNLbkuJluY">In our study</a>, we used social media networks to recruit people between the ages of 35 and 60 to answer questions about their adolescent years during the 1980s. We reached out to metal groups on Facebook and used “snowball sampling,” in which we had individuals ask their friends to participate, who then asked their friends and so on. (This is a typical method for recruiting specialized or hard-to-find populations.) </p>
<p>We ended up with a sample of 377 people, which included two comparison groups: middle-aged folks who did not like metal in the 1980s and current college students. We needed to be sure that anything we found about the metal group was not also true of other people who grew up in the 1980s or of youth in general. </p>
<p>In the first question, we asked participants what their favorite music was in the 1980s. Those who picked anything but metal (like pop or new wave) were put into a comparison group, as were students. Those who chose metal (like Metallica or Guns-N-Roses) were then asked whether they were groupies, paid musicians or simply fans. Groupies self-identified as sleeping with rock stars and doing anything possible to get backstage. Musicians were not in garage bands but were paid to play.</p>
<p>Then we developed an 85-page questionnaire asking them about personality traits, education, income, marital status, childhood trauma and abuse, past and current sexual behavior, how happy they were as kids and how happy they are now, in addition to a number of other variables.</p>
<p>We expected that the metal groups would be similar to the other middle-aged adults. But we never expected how much <em>better</em> they fared in important ways. </p>
<p>First, some of the stereotypes from the 1980s ended up being generally true of metalheads in their youth. Metal fans took a lot more drugs and engaged in a lot more sex than either comparison group. </p>
<p>In fact, groupies reported some serious drug problems in the 1980s. Groupies also experienced more childhood trauma than other groups. On the whole, the metal group had more adverse childhood experiences and engaged in more risky behaviors than the other two groups. On the other hand, many of the metalheads reported that they found a sense of belonging and acceptance in their musical clique.</p>
<p>What was fascinating, however, was that metalheads also reported being significantly happier in their youth compared to the other two groups. They also reported having significantly fewer regrets about anything they did in their youth. The comparison groups were more impulsive, more likely to experience manic symptoms like hyperactivity and sleeplessness, and were more likely to seek psychological counseling for emotional problems. </p>
<p>And despite politicians’ fears about metalheads not amounting to anything, they ended up, on the whole, not differing on education attained, income, marital status or on any personality traits measured, such as neuroticism. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92184/original/image-20150817-5088-101w699.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92184/original/image-20150817-5088-101w699.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=881&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92184/original/image-20150817-5088-101w699.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=881&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92184/original/image-20150817-5088-101w699.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=881&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92184/original/image-20150817-5088-101w699.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1107&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92184/original/image-20150817-5088-101w699.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1107&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92184/original/image-20150817-5088-101w699.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1107&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Associating with subcultures can offer emotional support and a sense of belonging.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Young_punk_US-c1984.jpg">Tim Schapker/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In response to open-ended questions, the metalheads discussed feeling like they were part of an important social movement, rebelling against the status quo. They were living in the moment, enjoying a hedonistic lifestyle and feeling connected to like-minded peers. They loved the lyrics, the complexity and the intensity of heavy metal music. They felt a sense of freedom and social support as part of the metal clan.</p>
<p>It appears that “fringe” style cultures may actually act as a protective salve for youth: metal, with its ready-made set of beliefs, styles and behaviors, acted as a path to identity formation for many of our subjects. </p>
<p>We hypothesize that this is true for all youth cultures: <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=7YiaFKc2NnIC&oi=fnd&pg=PA123&dq=Spencer,+Fegley,+%26+Harpalani,+2003&ots=419B66wOia&sig=rtLkZZhaT_FRO5zguvMjdpeT1Po#v=onepage&q&f=false">all youth need a sense of belonging</a> to a group that is different from that of their parents, that is their own, one that speaks their own language and <a href="http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.83">convinces them that they matter</a>.</p>
<p>This is especially true for kids like the 1980s metalheads, many of whom had dysfunctional families at home. Social support for the developing adolescent identity is perhaps the most important function any group can provide.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44876/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tasha R. Howe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Parents and politicians once feared heavy metal music would inspire devil worship, reckless sex and rampant drug use. A new study investigates what became of young metal fans.Tasha R. Howe, Professor of Psychology, Humboldt State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/445472015-07-23T09:47:46Z2015-07-23T09:47:46ZThe Grateful Dead were decades ahead of their time<p>Over the Fourth of July weekend, the Grateful Dead performed a farewell series of shows at Chicago’s Soldier Field, celebrating 50 years as a band. </p>
<p>Reading about these final sets brought me back to the 1970s, when I attended a New Hampshire summer camp as a boy. </p>
<p>During those summers, I’d noticed that my counselors were steeped in the culture of the band. It wasn’t just endless discussions of shows, songs, versions of songs and surprising set lists (Would they ever play Dark Star? Would Phil ever sing again?); it was also a dedication to the ethos of understated generosity, environmental stewardship and a nonjudgmental attitude to other people’s lifestyles. </p>
<p>That was the spirit of the band and their fans, known as Deadheads.</p>
<p>Even then, the band was an outlier in a music industry that has always enjoyed a fair dose of control over artists, imaging, marketing and ticket sales. And the almost stereotypical image of the money-grubbing music executive of the midcentury rock-and-roll era (exemplified by Tom Hanks’ character in the 1996 film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs_h7YdIe_k">That Thing You Do</a>) seems, in retrospect, quite accurate. </p>
<p>It may be said that the Dead’s admitted inability to record clean, album-ready tracks caused major labels (and their marketing machines) to ignore the band. Either way, left to their own devices, they poured their efforts into their live shows, and into nearly nonstop touring. They also permitted fans to tape their shows and circulate the music freely.</p>
<p>While these practices seemed like the perfect embodiment of counterculture sensibilities, it was astoundingly prescient. By giving away their music, building a strong communication infrastructure for fans and supporting the rise of a unique fan culture, the Dead built something that weathered the internet-fueled music industry crisis, and the nearly uncontrollable circulation of songs and albums that accompanied it.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/V1ziwjROaRY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Fans – and sometimes entire families – would trail the band from city to city.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the pre-internet days, Deadheads communicated by newsletters, which were either handed out at shows or delivered via snailmail. This growing community even attracted the attention of sociologists, such as UNC-Greensboro’s Rebecca Adams, who brought her students on tour with the band to study its fans and eventually published <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Deadhead-Social-Science-Gonna-Learn/dp/0742502511">a book on the subject</a>. </p>
<p>One of the enduring objects of fascination about the band was their ability to thrive without many album sales (relative to other highly successful bands of the time). </p>
<p>Today, all artists, I would venture to say, understand that the model for success in music is having people hear the music somewhere (anywhere) and attend live shows. The Grateful Dead employed this model years before artists like Moby and Sting licensed their songs for commercials and television shows in order for their music to be heard. </p>
<p>Indeed, The Atlantic published <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/03/management-secrets-of-the-grateful-dead/307918/">an article</a> in 2010 that analyzed not only the band’s business acumen but also their ability to creatively cater to their fan base and reap the steady rewards. </p>
<p>And this is really the key. From the get-go, people were traveling to shows and trailing the group from city to city. Even the Grateful Dead’s approach to live performance was attuned to the fan’s experience: because the band changed its set constantly, because they improvised and worked as a unit of individual musicians, the results were unpredictable, full of tense drama and anticipation.</p>
<p>The audience responded with astounding loyalty and devotion. There was a reason my Deadhead friends’ music collections were piled high: each show was so different. No one collected tapes of live Rolling Stones shows in the same way. Nor did hordes of people tour with other bands in quite the same way.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89387/original/image-20150722-1426-nv1qc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89387/original/image-20150722-1426-nv1qc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89387/original/image-20150722-1426-nv1qc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89387/original/image-20150722-1426-nv1qc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89387/original/image-20150722-1426-nv1qc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89387/original/image-20150722-1426-nv1qc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89387/original/image-20150722-1426-nv1qc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Every Grateful Dead show had an element of intrigue: what would the band pull off?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-99691469/stock-photo-east-rutherford-new-jersey-august-the-grateful-dead-in-concert-in-east-rutherford-new-jersey.html?src=csl_recent_image-1">'Jerry' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As many Grateful Dead fans and historians <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Grateful-Dead-The-Illustrated-Trip/dp/0789499630">point out</a>, a shift occurred in the 1980s, when the Dead released one of their only mainstream hits, the song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOaXTg3nAuY">Touch of Grey</a>. </p>
<p>Soon, new fans started attending the shows – fans who didn’t seem terribly concerned about the overall culture the band’s older followers had cultivated. These “touchheads” (as they were sometimes called) were often disruptive and rowdy, markedly out of step with the basic “vibe” of the older fans. Venues got larger and audiences more diverse as the Grateful Dead’s popularity grew. </p>
<p>But I would argue that this popularity was not simply related to the song Touch of Grey. The arrival of the touchheads marked an important change, not only in the life of the band and its fan base, but in the fate of the counterculture that emerged in the mid- to late 1960s. </p>
<p>The early 1980s were marked by the arrival of a new genre – classic rock – which canonized the sounds and bands that had terrified the parents of the baby boomers on FM radio. This even included some of the more accessible Dead songs like the aforementioned Touch of Grey, along with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcB9wlmnDPY">Casey Jones</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSIajKGHZRk">Uncle John’s Band</a>. </p>
<p>There was no longer the feeling that ‘60s-era groups like the Grateful Dead were creating revolutionary music catering to a group of outsiders. A place had been found in the American cultural landscape that seemed to declaw the movement through what political philosopher Herbert Marcuse has evocatively <a href="http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/pubs/60spubs/65repressivetolerance.htm">called</a> repressive tolerance – the idea that the best way to defuse oppositional activity is not to ban it, but to suppress its subversive characteristics and integrate its tamer aspects into the mainstream. </p>
<p>Furthermore, what may have been a radical democratization of the music industry by the Dead had become emblematic of (ironically and certainly not by design) the Reagan-era championing of entrepreneurship, exemplified by the notion of DIY “bootstrap-pulling” that precludes any need for a social safety net. </p>
<p>If this sounds dangerously like someone claiming the Dead or their fans “sold out,” it should not. In fact, it should give pause to the very idea of “selling out” in the first place.</p>
<p>In the end, the Grateful Dead was often confused with a nostalgic yearning for the 1960s era and its ubiquitous costumes: tie-dye t-shirts, peasant blouses, patchouli oil. </p>
<p>But the Dead were actually pioneers of modern sound technology, early adopters of communication technology and innovators in the marketing business. And the crucial difference from their contemporaries (and many artists today) is that they never controlled the imaginations of their fans.</p>
<p>That a Deadhead culture organically developed was mostly due to the community of fans themselves. There is, really, nothing comparable within the music industry today. </p>
<p>One could cite something like Lady Gaga’s “Little Monsters” fan base as a direct descendant of the the Deadheads, but any attempt to anoint a fan base with a name simply strikes one as a top-down manipulation. </p>
<p>Instead, the ritualized behavior of Rocky Horror Picture Show fans probably most closely compares, in that they completely took charge. As Jerry Garcia once <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx6OAfvlxTs">said</a> to Hugh Hefner on Playboy After Dark, “Haight-Ashbury is just a street. It never was the thing that was going on.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89388/original/image-20150722-1423-177il8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89388/original/image-20150722-1423-177il8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89388/original/image-20150722-1423-177il8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89388/original/image-20150722-1423-177il8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89388/original/image-20150722-1423-177il8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89388/original/image-20150722-1423-177il8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89388/original/image-20150722-1423-177il8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Just a street.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&searchterm=grateful%20dead&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=63353482">'Haight-Ashbury' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In July 1989, I attended a Dead show at Philadelphia’s JFK Stadium. It would be the last concert ever held at JFK, and the band ended up performing in a half-demolished shell of a stadium, which gave the whole show the feeling of being played in the Colosseum. </p>
<p>Beforehand, on a whim, my older brother and I bought a long string of multicolored lollipops at a candy store. They were called “Strip Pops” because they were individually wrapped, but connected to each other. I had the idea that we should black out the “S” and hand them out in the parking lot of JFK Stadium.</p>
<p>They were a hit. (After all, who wouldn’t want a “trip pop”?) My brother also carried a portable stove with him and made free cheeseburgers for anyone who wanted them. </p>
<p>If you tuned into any Dead show, it wasn’t too hard to figure out that whether it was giving away “trip pops” or trading cheeseburgers for lemonade, the same communal acts (often tinged with inside jokes) took place in various forms at Dead shows across the country. </p>
<p>You knew where you were, and for many fans, you knew you were at home on the road. And that’s what the Dead always seemed to be about.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44547/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip W. Scher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the internet era, musical artists freely distribute their songs and encourage fans to attend live shows. The Dead did this for 40 years.Philip W. Scher, Professor of Anthropology and Folkore, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/435312015-06-19T02:38:08Z2015-06-19T02:38:08ZDonald Trump and Neil Young: what that song communicates<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85656/original/image-20150619-32070-1blaa5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C6%2C4046%2C2808&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Neil Young wrote Rockin' in the Free World – but what world is Donald Trump in?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Hans Klaus Techt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The use of Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World (1989) at Donald Trump’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/17/neil-young-donald-trump-keep-on-rockin-in-the-free-world">presidential campaign</a> announcement this week – and the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-18/neil-young-bans-donald-trump-from-using-his-music/6554836">response from Young</a> – provided only the most recent example of an ancient and powerful tactic: the recruitment of music to political ends. </p>
<p>It also demonstrated, again, the perils and pitfalls of doing so without full awareness and critical consideration. Ronald Reagan’s use of Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA was <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/bruce-springsteen-ronald-reagan-107448.html#.VYN1llWqqko">similarly problematic </a> in 1984, and more recently <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-election/9055924/Rapper-KNaan-tells-Mitt-Romney-to-stop-using-his-song.html">Mitt Romney</a> and <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-01-25/dropkick-murphys-to-scott-walker-we-literally-hate-you-">Scott Walker</a> have also faced controversy over their use of music.</p>
<p>Much <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/neil-young-donald-trump-did-not-have-permission-to-use-iconic-song-to-announce-presidential-bid-10326095.html">commentary</a> has focused on issues of permission, legality, the political misappropriation of music and Neil Young’s <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/neil-young-slams-donald-trump-for-using-his-song-says-he-supports-bernie-sanders-20150618-ghqtlx.html">preferred political candidate</a> (self-declared socialist <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/magazine/21Sanders.t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&">Bernie Sanders</a>). Behind that, however, is another story – one more powerful than is commonly acknowledged, and certainly more beautiful.</p>
<p>The irony of a self-declared economic and social conservative using an economically and socially progressive protest song to announce a presidential campaign is obvious. Even the most cursory examination of <a href="http://www.metrolyrics.com/rockin-in-the-free-world-lyrics-neil-young.html">the song’s lyrics</a> and music video (below) reveal themes of homelessness, drug addiction, anti-consumerist sentiment, and an ironic reference to former US president <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/george-bush">George H. Bush’s</a> campaign pledge to create a compassionate citizenry. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PdiCJUysIT0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Neil Young’s Rockin’ In The Free World (1989).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Clearly, on many levels this was a poor match for <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/16/politics/donald-trump-2016-announcement-elections/">the speech</a> Trump was about to give, with its themes of revivifying US military and economic power on a global scale. What is less clear is why Trump or his campaign team opted for this particular song in spite of the obvious. </p>
<p>To be sure, a superficial hearing of the song might discount the lyrics of the verses, and focus on the ostensibly triumphalist chorus (“keep on rockin’ in the free world”). </p>
<p>And while this particular song has already been somewhat misappropriated through <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/neil-young-donald-trump-spar-over-rockin-in-the-free-world-use-20150617">its association</a> with the fall of Communism, the question still remains: why use this particular song, if it is so clearly at odds with the candidate’s general political concerns? </p>
<p>Obliviousness to the song’s text and themes is one possibility, and I will leave it to others to ponder the implications and conclusions that might be drawn about the kinds of people who run for office in the modern era. </p>
<p>Another possibility is that on a more fundamental level, the song communicates in ways that transcend the protest message, making it a worthwhile choice for Trump’s purposes despite the lyrics. And that’s where the power of music becomes apparent.</p>
<h2>Tune in</h2>
<p>Some basic musical knowledge is important. Being able to articulate how music works can enhance our ability to understand its effect on us, and in this case, how it is being used to manipulate us. </p>
<p>In an ideal world, everyone would know two related terms from music theory: major and minor.</p>
<p>Much of music can be talked about without technical terms (pitch and rhythm are as good as universally understood, and can be discussed using words like higher, lower, faster, slower), but the concepts of major and minor harmonic “colours” are not common knowledge. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85654/original/image-20150619-32070-sy8lnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85654/original/image-20150619-32070-sy8lnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85654/original/image-20150619-32070-sy8lnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85654/original/image-20150619-32070-sy8lnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85654/original/image-20150619-32070-sy8lnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85654/original/image-20150619-32070-sy8lnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85654/original/image-20150619-32070-sy8lnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85654/original/image-20150619-32070-sy8lnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Donald Trump’s announcement that he is running to be president. That’s probably not a lyrics sheet in his hand.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Justin Lane</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To express a crude oppositional binary, major key music sounds bright, open and happy to many people, and minor key music sounds darker, more inward or sad to many people. </p>
<p>Of course this dichotomy expands into a complexity of psychological shadings only limited by the full range of human emotions and thoughts – and perhaps not even then. But for the purposes of looking at this song, minor as emotionally negative and major as positive are useful ideas to start with. </p>
<p>At first glance, the musical contribution to the psychology of the song is very clear. The socially dark issues of the verses are accompanied by a repeated pattern that emphasises mostly “dark” E minor chords, low in the electric guitar. </p>
<p>Let’s look at the following, from the song:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I see a woman in the night<br>
With a baby in her hand<br>
Under an old street light<br>
Near a garbage can<br>
Now she puts the kid away, and she’s gone to get a hit</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The gravity of the issues, the despair of the homeless mother’s situation here, followed by the cynical takes on culture and politics in subsequent verses, all find a corollary in the psychologically angst-ridden harmonic and rhythmic grittiness. </p>
<p>But if one takes out the lyrics to the verses, music’s essential intangibility allows different psychological readings. Those same gritty chords, and defiant – almost angry – harmonies, could also suggest a kind of implacable strength, and Trump certainly tried to convey strength in the face of adversity and challenge in his speech. </p>
<p>A perfect fit! It’s this slippery and elusive semantic quality to music that makes it so powerful, as it can be used for multiple purposes and to generate a variety of emotional responses. </p>
<p>The very fact that Trump was able to create an impression of resolve and strength through this music, despite the meaning of the song lyrics, says something about the power of music. Is it the music accompanying the lyrics? Or do the lyrics accompany the music in this context? </p>
<p>The, erm, trump card, however, is the chorus, which bursts free of negativity by reversing the harmonic polarity and emphasising a closely related major key, belting out the words “keep on rockin’ in the free world”. </p>
<p>The darkness of minor followed by the release into major, with reference to rock and the free world, is a kind of musical sugar rush that Trump instinctively knew would stimulate endorphins in listeners, connecting him to positive emotional responses in a fascinating neural process. </p>
<p>Of course the real meaning of the chorus, with its repetition of “keep on rockin’ in the free world”, is far more poignant. </p>
<p>Some may hear a cynical exhortation to Americans to bury their heads in the sand and keep on rockin’ in the (so-called) free world: misappropriation identified, end of story.</p>
<p>And that’s where much commentary might end, which is unfortunate, because there’s more. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85657/original/image-20150619-32070-1dkncnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85657/original/image-20150619-32070-1dkncnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85657/original/image-20150619-32070-1dkncnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85657/original/image-20150619-32070-1dkncnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85657/original/image-20150619-32070-1dkncnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85657/original/image-20150619-32070-1dkncnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85657/original/image-20150619-32070-1dkncnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85657/original/image-20150619-32070-1dkncnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Neil Young won the Allan Waters Humanitarian award in 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Sarah Dea</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are clues that the song is underpinned by a sense of beauty and a desire for the problematic issues to be reconciled within a political context that Young genuinely believes in, even if it might be broken. </p>
<p>I hear a chorus that isn’t cynical, that wants to believe in rockin’ in the free world, but that needs things to be better first. </p>
<p>The tiniest details in music often create the largest emotional response, and for me there are two details in the chorus that are crucial. </p>
<p>Close listening reveals a subtle but meaningful connection between specific words and specific sounds. The first is rockin’, or even more accurately, the syllable “rock”. The word itself evokes the hard-edged raw power of the entire rock’n’roll genre – electric guitars, tough-guy bands and a defiant attitude. </p>
<p>But here the word falls on a pitch that doesn’t belong to the harmony below it; after a series of repeated Gs, in a bar of G major, “rock” falls on an F sharp, anticipating the harmony of the next bar (D). </p>
<p>It’s the momentary dissonance, (lasting only a split second), that changes everything. To me it’s a sweet dissonance, full of yearning, and I find it meaningful that it is combined with the work “rockin’”, the supposed musical antithesis of vulnerability.</p>
<p>The other important moment is “free world”. If the song were truly triumphalist then these words would sound and feel celebratory. </p>
<p>But if you listen closely you might again hear a kind of dissonance. Not a harsh one, a poignant one. </p>
<p>Now that harmony has changed to D, the melody reverts to the pitch G for “free” and descends to E for “world”. Both pitches are dissonant to the harmony of D, but not brutally so. The G is a very common type of suspension that often resolves a certain way (back to the F sharp), but here it doesn’t, it falls further, down an E. </p>
<p>Both notes could be “resolved” within the harmony, but aren’t. This subtly draws attention to the words “free world”, and creates a sense of slight unease around them. The musical effect is that of sad beauty (to my ear at least, and it’s only one’s own ears one can ever base a judgement on), and a sense of unresolved yearning. </p>
<p>I think everyone who hears this song is probably aware of these musical elements on some level, and everyone responds to them differently, sometimes radically so. By articulating my thoughts, I’m doing nothing more important than presenting my response to the music. </p>
<p>The particularities of my response are not as important as the fact that I have a response, that we all probably do, and that it’s worth reflecting on what that response is and what it means to us.</p>
<p>My aim then is to observe how central music is to this whole controversy, and to say that it matters. The centrality of music here speaks to the power politicians ascribe to it (without acknowledging so publicly of course, that might have funding and education implications), and it speaks to the profound and primal power it has over all of us.</p>
<p>Rather than seeing music as secondary to text, as secondary to legal issues, as background entertainment, as a political tool, it becomes clear that music here is something else, something intangible but enormously important. </p>
<p>It’s music that Trump was using to create the impression of power and strength, and the fact that it’s so effective is why Neil Young is so upset – he would have preferred his creativity be used to support a different candidate, if at all. </p>
<p>One last musical comment to conclude: it’s very hard to hear much in the way of strongly characterised major sonorities in this song. The occasional C major chords seem secondary and weaker next to the closely-related but somehow more “politically realistic” (in this context) E minor chords. Also, the G major chorus tends back toward E minor at the end of each phrase. </p>
<p>Overall, the supposedly happy major colours are always ambiguous, tainted. In some ways the musical irony is as powerful as the textual irony: for a song that is supposed to celebrate the announcement of a presidential contender, it is surprisingly tinged by melancholy. </p>
<p>And that melancholy puts the whole event this week into a different, slightly sadder frame. The power of music is there, but as is too often the case, it’s being ignored by a noisy political discourse. </p>
<p>It’s a good reminder to step back and listen, and reflect on how interesting it is that there is something beautiful at the centre of this familiar and unfortunate political story.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43531/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liam Viney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The unauthorised use of Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World at Donald Trump’s presidential campaign launch raises several questions – and gives us something beautiful to ponder.Liam Viney, Piano Performance Fellow , The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/398472015-05-14T10:23:40Z2015-05-14T10:23:40ZU2’s continuing quest for authenticity<p>“We wanted to make a very personal album,” U2’s Bono <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/u2-surprise-album-songs-of-innocence-apple-itunes-free-20140909">told Rolling Stone</a> upon the release of the band’s most recent album, Songs of Innocence. “The whole album is first journeys…geographically, spiritually, sexually. And that’s hard. But we went there.” </p>
<p>Those first journeys also include some of the band’s formative musical influences, including The Ramones and The Clash, who are examples of stripped-back rock and roll par excellence. </p>
<p>Now, the band is slated to embark on its iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE tour in support of the album.</p>
<p>For this tour, the band is certainly scaling back: they’ll be performing in the relative intimacy of arenas. It’s a stark contrast to the record-shattering production of the band’s last tour – called U2 360 – which was seen by about seven million people in huge, open air stadiums and <a href="http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/touring/1176894/u2s-360-tour-gross-736137344">grossed over US$700 million</a>.</p>
<p>On the surface, it may seem as though U2 is suddenly seeking a return to the simpler times of its early years, both in their sound and their performances.</p>
<p>But for those who have followed the band’s career closely, talk of returning to “roots” of some kind when a new record is released is nothing new for U2. If anything, it reveals the well-worn strategy of a band that seeks to remain relevant even as it ages – a pattern of alternating between radical experimentation and mining the myth of authenticity.</p>
<h2>Two poles – sometimes blurred</h2>
<p>The first time this trope was invoked was with 1987’s The Joshua Tree and the follow-up album and documentary film Rattle and Hum. For those albums the band, weaned on 1970s punk, turned back to the American triumvirate – blues, folk and gospel – the deeply “authentic” music they felt they’d missed out on growing up. </p>
<p>In interviews from this time, they began their tendency to, off and on, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_8?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=u2+by+u2&sprefix=u2+by+u2%2Caps%2C223">romanticize “stripped-down” rock and roll</a>.</p>
<p>This backward turn came in the wake of the band’s first project with producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, 1984’s The Unforgettable Fire. </p>
<p>Interestingly, that album’s atmospheric, experimental sound was enthusiastically embraced by the band as an attempt to switch gears from the hard-driving, guitar-oriented, stripped-down rock that characterized 1983’s War.</p>
<p>The live shows that have supported the band’s more experimental albums have been suitably mammoth endeavors, often taking place in outdoor venues, with every technological bell and whistle imaginable in tow.</p>
<p>But the sound of the group’s music doesn’t swing quite as easily between these poles as their discourse around it would suggest. </p>
<p>For example, the atmospheric, experimental influence is present on Songs of Innocence (The Troubles). Meanwhile, the stripped-back sound can be found on the most “out there” album in U2’s oeuvre – 1997’s Pop – in tracks like Wake Up Dead Man and The Playboy Mansion. </p>
<h2>The tension of fame</h2>
<p>So why frame the process of making an album as a kind of recurring existential crisis? One that seems to require a radical rethinking of musical and thematic direction?</p>
<p>One answer to this question comes from what counts as “authentic” in rock culture: the quest narrative – the constant search for “realness,” for what is perceived to be “genuine.” </p>
<p>Led Zeppelin, for example, “reinvented” themselves on their third album, turning to acoustic folk music. The infamous battle between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards over whether to stay true to the band’s blues roots or move in a more contemporary direction began with their 1983 album Undercover. </p>
<p>But U2 is particularly committed to this narrative. Their need for reinvention, the casting off of what came before, the re-examination of directions, the <em>restlessness</em>, can be viewed as part of a discourse that helps construct U2’s rock authenticity.</p>
<p>I’m not suggesting that their quest is disingenuous. But one only has to look at musics other than white rock to see that the terms of authenticity vary with genre, among other things. </p>
<p>In fact, it could be argued that there’s <em>no such thing</em> as authenticity, except in the minds of those who construct the idea. </p>
<p>For the band, however, there is more to this discursive struggle. Rock authenticity is premised on a revolutionary sensibility – a rejection of authority. And rock musicians who become commercially successful often struggle with how to remain true to these ideals.</p>
<p>The strategy of forever searching for a new sound becomes especially important in these circumstances: there’s nothing that shatters respectability like a commercially successful rock band that rests on its laurels.</p>
<p>Returning to one’s “roots,” though, or being on the cutting edge of contemporary music becomes part of the strategy to maintain credibility and relevance in the wake of unprecedented commercial success – to demonstrate that the ideals on which the band was formed are still driving them. </p>
<p>Could this explain why U2 recently made an (intially) covert busking appearance in a New York City subway station?</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aluYo-FSqiw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">U2 recently performed – initially, in disguise – in a New York City subway station.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After all, busking is perhaps the quintessential authentic performance genre – live, unmediated, accessible, risky and non-commercial (if you don’t count the pennies collected in the guitar case).</p>
<h2>Glitzy can be compatible with authentic</h2>
<p>Interestingly, three out of U2’s last four records have been premised on the idea of “going back to roots” or “stripping down the sound.” </p>
<p>And ironically, these albums have been more commercially successful than the last two attempts at sonic experimentation (Pop and No Line on the Horizon). So one wonders – perhaps a bit cynically – if the “returning to roots” discourse is not only a means of reaffirming rock authenticity, but also a way to sell more records. This is as much an observation about critics and fans (for whom the discourse of rock authenticity is religion), than it is about the band.</p>
<p>For my part, I’ve always found U2’s experimental records and some of the gargantuan tours more interesting and more true to the spirit of rock and roll than their trips back to the past. Pop is a sonic masterpiece, as are Zooropa and Achtung, Baby. The last of these, incidentally, was also a very personal album, chronicling, among other things, the shattering effects of divorce (Edge’s) and the complications of being in love. </p>
<p>In fact, the mammoth Zoo TV Tour that supported Achtung, Baby and Zooropa was one of the band’s most politically astute and successfully mounted social commentaries. In a (self-referential) commentary on celebrity, Bono took on the character of the bloated, leather-clad, shade-wearing rock star. And the main premise of the show was a harsh critique of the desensitizing effects of contemporary media.</p>
<p>Thus, contrary to the well-worn dualism in rock between “small and simple equals good” and “big and glitzy equals bad,” some of U2’s most incisive music and social commentary have come out of the latter.</p>
<p>It seems that “small and simple” (if arena shows can actually fall into this category) is where they’ll land on this tour, but there’s already a hint of where the band is going for the next album. In a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/arts/music/u2s-flight-to-now-turbulence-included.html">New York Times essay</a> written on the eve of this tour, Bono had this to say about Songs of Experience, the album that will follow Songs of Innocence: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We’re keeping the discipline on songs and pushing out the parameters of the sound….One of the things that experience has taught us is to be fully in the moment. What’s the moment? Pop music. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>And so the quest continues.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39847/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Fast has received funding from The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada</span></em></p>When bands “return to their roots,” is it a genuine search, or a way to court critics and sell records?Susan Fast, Professor of Cultural Studies, Director, Graduate Program in Gender Studies and Feminist Research, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/376872015-03-13T10:04:50Z2015-03-13T10:04:50Z50 years ago, the Rolling Stones’ first US hit evinced the band’s eclectic style<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74378/original/image-20150310-13550-8ee37m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In 'The Last Time,' the band's country, gospel and blues influences would be put on display. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/15216378955/in/photolist-pbBVki-nQ4ycw-ALuN2-6JYNA-CXFdg-doewSR-6uBoQ-79V6oF-cxXLB5-dddWqU-o7ftqH-pbm4aV-34MJh7-3dv25N-kUkmCX-7U9YAj-kUkkEe-5GNYxp-9ZufnA-5zCnQ-8fNTLu-knSXCD-4dKA9r-knSYBn-3dqzwR-aPJhXi-ftV8Ub-3dsWck-u8oUr-oVFr8B-nWHM3N-o97WZL-eFQ61A-nYEohj-eFJ4sF-9hovqU-nGgUxW-o1xCMc-N5mYX-nYLisZ-nYt2s2-nYDCzh-nYLgfc-nYErK1-CNt9n-nGgyxg-nYDFg9-nYtbEa-o1xERn-nGhJzB">Paul Townsend/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the first weeks of 1964, the Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand” raced up the US charts, giving the Liverpool band its first American hit single and helping to launch the British invasion. At around the same time, the Rolling Stones were enjoying a number-three hit in the UK with “Not Fade Away,” as well as a number-one British EP. The Stones tried – but couldn’t immediately replicate – the Beatles’ stateside success, lagging behind by more than a year. </p>
<p>The decisive breakthrough for Mick, Keith and company came with the release of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” in June of 1965. The song rocketed to the top of the US charts, partly fueled by claims that the lyrics referred to sexual frustration.</p>
<p>But “Satisfaction” was not the Stones’ first top ten single in the US. In March 1965 the band released “The Last Time,” which rose to the number-nine spot stateside, while topping the charts in the UK. Unlike “Satisfaction,” the story of this song is not one of scandal and rebellion, but rather one of admiration and imitation. It possessed stylistic flairs and influences that would ultimately foretell the band’s future stardom. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Lu1NuUJqdC0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Rolling Stones perform ‘The Last Time’ in 1965.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The roots of this Jagger-Richards original can be traced back to “This May Be The Last Time,” a gospel track recorded by the Staple Singers in 1955. A quick listen to the Staple Singers’ record will dispel any doubt over the source of the chorus in the Stones song. The gospel influence would become a central element in the Stones’ original music for years to come, especially in tracks such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=the7gV99YRI">“Shine a Light.”</a> </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/j1jGF-6bFpI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Stones were clearly inspired by Staple Singers’ ‘This May Be the Last Time.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But “The Last Time” is more than a rocked-up gospel reworking. It’s driven by an opening guitar riff that percolates throughout the song, creating a hook that rivals the chorus’s infectiousness. The idea of opening with a guitar riff wouldn’t have been new to fans of Chuck Berry’s music (as the Stones were) or the Shadows (not so much). It’s also worth noting that the Beatles’ <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTr8h4MkSYw">“I Feel Fine”</a> commenced with a catchy guitar lick; released in late 1964, it’s a track that could have inspired the Stones, along with the Staple Singers’ record. </p>
<p>The Stones would employ catchy opening riffs in future hits. In fact, the famous opener to “Satisfaction” may well have been an attempt to repeat the distinctive arranging element of “The Last Time.” And a catchy guitar lick is also used in the band’s next single after “Satisfaction,” “Get Off Of My Cloud.” (Meanwhile, the Beatles led off both “Ticket to Ride” and “Day Tripper” with a guitar hook, making 1965 into an unofficial “Year of the Guitar-Riff Intro.”)</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74366/original/image-20150310-13554-1e8ro6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74366/original/image-20150310-13554-1e8ro6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74366/original/image-20150310-13554-1e8ro6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74366/original/image-20150310-13554-1e8ro6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74366/original/image-20150310-13554-1e8ro6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74366/original/image-20150310-13554-1e8ro6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74366/original/image-20150310-13554-1e8ro6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74366/original/image-20150310-13554-1e8ro6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An advertisement for The Rolling Stones’ 1965 US tour, which promotes ‘The Last Time.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Stones_ad_1965.JPG">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Listeners may also detect a hint of country music in “The Last Time.” Country would play an important role in the band’s developing career (perhaps best captured in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YRdxHHFKvQ">“Dead Flowers”</a>). The Stones covered Hank Snow’s “I’m Moving On” during live shows in early 1965, and even included it on the EP Got LIVE If You Want It in the UK, and the album December’s Children in the US. </p>
<p>But we needn’t look further than the single that preceded “The Last Time” to hear a classic country twang. “Heart of Stone,” released in late 1964, rose to a respectable number 19 in the US charts – while unabashedly tipping its hat to country influences. In fact, a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX0pB1Szgmk">demo of this song</a> contains a prominent pedal steel guitar – a staple of the country sound (though apparently someone deemed it <em>too country</em> for the final version). The demo also contains guitar work by a young session guitarist named Jimmy Page, whose solo Keith Richards copied note for note on the single.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Like ‘The Last Time,’ ‘Heart of Stone’ was infused with country influences.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Stones originally emerged out of the London blues revival scene in 1962, at first playing only cover versions of the blues, soul and 1950s rock music they revered. So it’s only natural that their first original songs would be rooted in the dozens of cover songs the band played and recorded in its nascent years. “The Last Time” is simply a logical extension of the group’s development and range of influences – the sort of compositional modeling has been occurring in music for generations.</p>
<p>But the Rolling Stones’ eclectic range of influences <em>did</em> create a uniquely broad stylistic palette, one that the band drew on as their music expanded and developed throughout the years – and as they went on to enjoy greater success and longevity than most of their contemporaries.</p>
<p>So despite its title, there would ultimately be very little about the band’s first US hit that would happen for the last time.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>To read the story behind the band’s first mega-hit (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, click <a href="http://theconversation.com/i-cant-get-no-satisfaction-50-years-later-the-song-that-almost-never-was-42796">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37687/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Covach does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The band’s first US hit wasn’t ‘Satisfaction.’ Released in March 1965, ‘The Last Time’ possessed stylistic flairs that would predict the band’s future success.John Covach, Director, Institute for Popular Music, University of RochesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.