tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/pop-music-8169/articlesPop music – The Conversation2024-03-13T12:38:21Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2240532024-03-13T12:38:21Z2024-03-13T12:38:21ZHow AI is shaping the music listening habits of Gen Z<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581018/original/file-20240311-22-us2x6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=40%2C16%2C5339%2C3565&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Listening to music from a device creates a protective bubble that can counteract a lack of personal space at school or home.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/physeline-michel-a-member-of-the-haitian-female-soccer-team-news-photo/1213010698?adppopup=true">Pierre Michel Jean/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For four years, we’ve been teaching a class on music and the mind. We’ve asked the students at the start of each semester to complete a short, informal survey on their music education and favorite songs and artists. </p>
<p>Our students’ musical education backgrounds always range from none to more than a decade of lessons and ensembles. But we’ve watched the list of favorite songs and artists get longer and more varied each year. When we ask the entire group about certain songs, it is often the case that no one, save for the person who included it, has heard it.</p>
<p>The findings from these informal classroom surveys are consistent with recent research showing diverse and eclectic musical preferences among adolescents. In a study on <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1056542">the listening habits of Los Angeles middle school students</a>, we found that they appreciate artists representing a range of genres, from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-korean-boy-band-bts-toppled-asian-stereotypes-and-took-america-by-storm-97596">K-pop supergroup BTS</a> to the heavy metal band <a href="https://systemofadown.com/">System of a Down</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-team-of-musicologists-and-computer-scientists-completed-beethovens-unfinished-10th-symphony-168160">to Beethoven</a>.</p>
<p>But what happens when, as we’ve observed, young people don’t know what their peers are listening to? And does it matter that teens aren’t necessarily choosing the music they’re using to understand themselves and the world, let alone that no humans are selecting songs they’re exposed to?</p>
<h2>A shared soundscape goes private</h2>
<p>For centuries, the only way to experience music was to see it live – at small, private performances, in community gatherings or in large concert halls.</p>
<p>Radios and record players transformed how people interacted with music. But because these devices were initially stationary, there was still a social element to listening. You might gather in a friend’s basement to hear hits on the radio, throw a listening party when a new album was released, make a mixtape for your beau or belt out a favorite song on the car radio with your best friend. </p>
<p>Introduced in 1979, <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/walkman-invention-40-years-ago-launched-cultural-revolution-180972552/">the Sony Walkman</a> marked another major turning point in how people listen to music. It became a lot easier for music to be a deeply private and personal experience – even more so with the introduction of the iPod and, later, smartphones. </p>
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<img alt="Photo from the 1950s of three teenage girls relaxing on a carpet listening to records." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581077/original/file-20240311-89474-dtltg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581077/original/file-20240311-89474-dtltg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581077/original/file-20240311-89474-dtltg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581077/original/file-20240311-89474-dtltg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581077/original/file-20240311-89474-dtltg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581077/original/file-20240311-89474-dtltg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581077/original/file-20240311-89474-dtltg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=596&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">Friends used to get together to listen to music far more often than they do today.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/1950s-three-teen-girls-talking-listening-to-music-playing-news-photo/563940019?adppopup=true">H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Listening to music this way isn’t always about what’s pulsing through your headphones. It can also <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02911">cultivate agency</a>: No matter where you are, you are your own DJ, controlling what gets played and when. And if you choose to keep it private, no one can hear it but you. </p>
<p>Particularly for adolescents, this is a big deal. <a href="https://oshkoshnorthstar.org/4858/columns/why-are-teenagers-dependent-on-headphones/">It creates a protective bubble</a> that may counteract a lack of personal space at school or at home.</p>
<p>Young people listen to a lot of music <a href="https://doi.org/10.4103%2Fnah.NAH_65_16">throughout the day</a>, whether it’s while doing homework, training for sports, eating or even sleeping. There’s an <a href="http://st.markgroves.de/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/The-role-of-music-2.pdf">element of mood regulation at play</a>: Songs can divert unpleasant emotions or elicit positive ones, and also encourage reflection during difficult experiences.</p>
<h2>I got ‘algo-rhythm’</h2>
<p>Making a playlist used to mean playing tapes and recording individual songs onto another tape, or waiting for the radio to play a song, hitting “record” on your cassette player to capture it, song by song, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/history-of-mixtapes-future/">until you had a mixtape of your favorite tunes</a>.</p>
<p>Now, listening <a href="https://www.ifpi.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/IFPI-Engaging-With-Music-2023_full-report.pdf">often happens via streaming</a>, where artificial intelligence and social media platforms team up to suggest playlists for you. </p>
<p>While you explore and share music on social media, <a href="https://neemz.medium.com/the-inner-workings-of-spotifys-ai-powered-music-recommendations-how-spotify-shapes-your-playlist-a10a9148ee8d">AI tracks the activity</a> and compares it to data from other listeners; in this way, it hones its predictions about what you might like to hear in the future. </p>
<p>AI is being put to work to know not only what a user wants to hear, but also to predict the next big hit that everyone will listen to. Until recently, AI’s power for predicting hits relied largely on song characteristics like <a href="https://newsroom.spotify.com/2022-11-30/learn-about-those-music-genres-you-may-not-have-heard-of/">bounciness, positiveness and danceability</a>, and hovered at around 50% accuracy.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/frai.2023.1154663">Other studies</a> have analyzed physiological responses to music, like heart rate, which can be gleaned from the biodata on teen’s smartwatches, <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/heres-how-ai-can-predict-hit-songs-with-frightening-accuracy/">to predict top hits</a>.</p>
<p>These studies add to existing concerns about the mining of personal information and data, and there have long been fears that <a href="https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/35791">AI can’t be trusted and will end up manipulating people</a>. When it comes to the way AI influences your listening habits, you might wonder whether you like a song because you truly like it, or whether you only enjoy it because AI has fed you enough similar songs that familiarity has bred appreciation.</p>
<p>Some listeners feel that algorithmic curation causes them to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-almost-feel-like-stuck-in-a-rut-how-streaming-services-changed-the-way-we-listen-to-music-219967">stuck in a listening rut</a>. Their playlists are populated with songs and artists they’ve never heard of before, yet they all sound eerily similar.</p>
<h2>The upside to AI</h2>
<p>In the past, being in a listening rut was something a teenager may not have even noticed.</p>
<p>Exposed to a steady diet of the same songs regularly playing on the radio – and later, <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96869060">on MTV</a> and VH1 – adolescents’ musical consumption was dominated by the “Top-40” artists. Their palettes were sculpted by a widely shared, if perhaps narrow, repertoire of musical knowledge.</p>
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<img alt="Two young women and one young man pose in front of screaming fans." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581003/original/file-20240311-18-gp310p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581003/original/file-20240311-18-gp310p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581003/original/file-20240311-18-gp310p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581003/original/file-20240311-18-gp310p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581003/original/file-20240311-18-gp310p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581003/original/file-20240311-18-gp310p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581003/original/file-20240311-18-gp310p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&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">Jennifer Lopez, Justin Timberlake and Halle Berry appear at MTV Studios in New York’s Times Square for a taping of ‘TRL’ during the network’s ‘Spankin’ New Music Week’ in 2002.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/jennifer-lopez-justin-timberlake-and-halle-berry-during-news-photo/107285046?adppopup=true">KMazur/WireImage via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>AI-generated playlists have disrupted this, and the two of us don’t see that as necessarily a bad thing. A stunning range of music is available to young people, and no longer do radio DJs, ratings and record companies serve as gatekeepers. </p>
<p>Spotify currently <a href="https://gist.github.com/andytlr/4104c667a62d8145aa3a">lists thousands of genres</a> and creates more each year so that, <a href="https://newsroom.spotify.com/2022-11-30/learn-about-those-music-genres-you-may-not-have-heard-of/">as the company explains</a>, they are more “recognizable, representative, and holistic to our listeners and communities.”</p>
<p>Like receiving a cherished gift you never knew you wanted, young people can be exposed to great music – with its accompanying cultural traditions – that they would be less likely to have discovered on their own, whether it’s <a href="https://medium.com/@khushibagwar092/indian-90s-pop-culture-861ad6250d3d">Indian pop music</a>, <a href="https://www.masterclass.com/articles/japanese-rock-music-guide">Japanese rock</a> or <a href="https://www.africanmusiclibrary.org/genre/Juju">Afro-juju</a>, a style of Nigerian popular music.</p>
<p>If teens think their AI-influenced playlists are dull, they still have the ability to search for new music. Just because algorithms and AI can suggest songs, it doesn’t preclude listeners from researching and discovering music on their own, or sharing playlists with friends and relatives.</p>
<p>Anything that exists, they can find. The store is always open.</p>
<h2>Identity, community and music</h2>
<p>Back to our college class: We noticed little overlap among the students. But instead of consuming only from a menu of industry megastars, our students showed a willingness to listen to a variety of genres and subgenres that AI will offer up. </p>
<p>When asked to reveal the most recent song or piece that they had listened to on a specific week, 6% had listened to R&B singer SZA, 2% to singer Renée Rapp, 2% to pop sensation Taylor Swift and 2% to pop rockers The 1975.</p>
<p>The remaining 80-plus selections featured a panoply of genres: <a href="https://electronicmusic.fandom.com/wiki/Computer_music">computer music</a>, rock, pop, rap, country, reggaeton, film music, heavy metal, indie and Latin ballads. </p>
<p>As young people transition from childhood to adulthood, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REP6ZNV0OR4">two seemingly opposing processes become paramount</a>: forming a unique identity, while at the same time becoming part of a community. Music listening and preferences play an important role in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mblJUqyizwg">this process</a>.</p>
<p>AI-generated playlists have the potential to challenge this transition. </p>
<p>So does AI make it easier to differentiate the self, but harder to bond with others? Or does it, instead, offer a broader spectrum for self-exploration and communal connection? </p>
<p>The truth is, no one really knows. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/chatgpt-is-confronting-but-humans-have-always-adapted-to-new-technology-ask-the-mesopotamians-who-invented-writing-199184">Fears of new technologies</a> are commonplace. For example, as scheduled network TV <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-decade-in-television-betteryet-more-atomizedthan-ever-11576620996">fell out of favor</a>, a lot of common ground for discussion and connection disappeared with it. Will 50 million Americans ever again tune in to watch the series finale of a sitcom, <a href="https://theconversation.com/4-reasons-why-well-never-see-another-show-like-friends-123411">as they did for “Friends” in 2004</a>?</p>
<p>If AI is, indeed, contributing to the transformation of adolescents’ communal listening experiences, then AI playlists are more than just a convenient way to discover your next workout tune. They are a revolution worth paying attention to.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224053/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beatriz Ilari received funding from The Fender Play Foundation to carry out the study with Angeleno adolescents that is mentioned in the article. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lynne Snyder 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 past, adolescents’ musical palettes were dominated by the Top-40 artists, creating a widely shared – if perhaps narrow – repertoire of musical knowledge.Beatriz Ilari, Professor of Music Teaching and Learning, University of Southern CaliforniaLynne Snyder, Doctor of Musical Arts Student, University of Southern CaliforniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2240492024-03-05T14:01:24Z2024-03-05T14:01:24ZPublishing Taylor Swift’s flight information: Is it stalking or protected free speech?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579690/original/file-20240304-51556-7v39u5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Taylor Swift, flanked by security guards and Donna Kelce, mother of her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, appears at the Super Bowl in February 2024.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://mapi.associatedpress.com/v2/items/528216703c8548edb732773004b4aed9/preview/AP24043163440642.jpg?wm=api&tag=app_id=1,user_id=904438,org_id=101781">Julio Cortez/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/jack-sweeney/?sh=bc38f2170831">Jack Sweeney, a junior at the University of Central Florida</a>, says the First Amendment gives him the right to <a href="https://twitter.com/Jxck_Sweeney">publish publicly available</a> information about the flight paths of private jets owned by the rich and famous – including Taylor Swift. </p>
<p>Swift’s legal team – and <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/taylor-swift-jack-sweeney-elon-musk-private-jet-flights-1867604">many of her fans</a> – say that Sweeney posting the comings and goings of the singer’s private plane on social media is technological stalking.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/2024/02/07/jack-sweeney-taylor-swift-legal-track-private-jets/72505276007/">Sweeney also tracks the private planes</a> owned or used by Elon Musk, Ron DeSantis, Mark Zuckerburg, Bill Gates, several Russian oligarchs and others, using public data from a global flight tracking website, TheAirTraffic.com. </p>
<p>I am an attorney and a <a href="https://lynngreenky.com/">scholar who has written</a> about the <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/W/bo156864042.html">boundaries of the First Amendment</a>.</p>
<p>My advice to Mr. Sweeney: The First Amendment is a valuable ally, but its protections might not be available to you in this situation.</p>
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<img alt="A blonde woman wears a sequin bodysuit and holds a microphone in one hand. She raises her arm and shows off her muscles." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579688/original/file-20240304-26-axeg2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579688/original/file-20240304-26-axeg2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579688/original/file-20240304-26-axeg2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579688/original/file-20240304-26-axeg2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579688/original/file-20240304-26-axeg2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579688/original/file-20240304-26-axeg2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579688/original/file-20240304-26-axeg2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=610&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">Taylor Swift performs in Inglewood, Calif., on the Eras Tour on Aug. 7, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1584249148/photo/taylor-swift-performs-during-the-eras-tour-concert-at-sofi-stadium.jpg?s=612x612&w=gi&k=20&c=MB2QbNqs8F6MnRY6xXg_qWlfsqEoV2g8xP-iXFfo9cM=">Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>The arguments, explained</h2>
<p>Since December 2023, Swift’s attorneys have sent Sweeney <a href="https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/2024/02/07/jack-sweeney-taylor-swift-legal-track-private-jets/72505276007/">multiple cease-and-desist</a> letters demanding that he stop sharing the real-time and precise information about Swift’s plane’s location. The most recent letter that has been made public accuses Sweeney of “<a href="https://time.com/6692227/taylor-swift-cease-desist-letter-jack-sweeney-jet-tracker-emissions/">intentional, offensive, and outrageous conduct</a>” that threatens her safety and well-being. </p>
<p>Swift’s attorneys warn Sweeney that if he continues to publish her private travel information, she will seek legal action against him. </p>
<p>Sweeney, who is 21 years old, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/college-student-tracks-elon-musk-jet-forbes-30-under-30-2023-11">has gained fame, and perhaps a fortune</a>, over the past few years with this work. He has several hundred thousand followers across multiple social media platforms, including Instagram, Mastodon, Discord, Telegram, X – formerly known as Twitter – and Threads.</p>
<p>Sweeney argues that he is merely reposting public information as a matter of public interest. Sweeney also believes the public has a <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/6/24063220/taylor-swift-jet-public-data-social-media">right to know</a> that Swift and others are “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68248168">trying to hide the bad PR of (carbon) emissions</a>.” </p>
<p>Sweeney insists that his passion for the environment adds constitutional protection to his activities.</p>
<p>Sweeney is correct that the First Amendment offers robust protection to political speech. Over and over again, the Supreme Court has reminded Americans that protecting <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2010/09-751">political speech is necessary for a strong democracy</a> – but even the shield of political speech has its limits.</p>
<p>The First Amendment does not protect <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2002/01-1107">speech that could further a crime</a>. Speech that terrorizes another person, causing them to fear for their life, can be prosecuted. It is no defense that the speaker <a href="https://casetext.com/case/planned-parenthood-v-amer-coalition-of-life">was trying to make a political point</a>.</p>
<h2>The trail of digital data</h2>
<p>Technology makes the act of gathering information easier than ever before. </p>
<p>Corporations and tech-savvy private citizens like Sweeney can forage through the depths of the digital world, finding and publishing information that most people would rather keep confidential. </p>
<p>Today, <a href="https://www.whitecase.com/insight-our-thinking/us-data-privacy-guide">though there are some state and federal privacy protections in place</a>, anyone willing to pay for the data can usually learn about people’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/state-of-privacy-laws-in-us/">buying habits</a> or even where they live, work and play. </p>
<p>Dozens of unregulated companies collect this personal information and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/19/opinion/location-tracking-cell-phone.html">log people’s movements via mobile phones</a>. They then store that information in large data files.</p>
<p>Sweeney claims his First Amendment right to publish information about others is as vast as his technological ability to gather personal information about celebrities and other high-profile people. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1756462148136403257"}"></div></p>
<h2>Tread carefully</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.justice.gov/ovw/stalking">The Department of Justice defines stalking</a> as “a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear for his or her safety or the safety of others or suffer substantial emotional distress.” </p>
<p>If a court determines that Sweeney is stalking Swift – which legally is considered conduct, not speech – his assertion that he is exercising his First Amendment right will not transform his act of publishing flight information into protected speech.</p>
<p>Sometimes, an action or a certain behavior is intended to communicate a message. For example, people have <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1968/21">worn black armbands</a> in the <a href="https://www.aclu.org/documents/tinker-v-des-moines-landmark-supreme-court-ruling-behalf-student-expression">past to protest the Vietnam War</a>. People also have publicly <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1988/88-155">burned the American flag</a> to show their disapproval of different political decisions or policies.</p>
<p>Wearing an armband and burning the American flag are not illegal activities, so the First Amendment protects the messages attached to these behaviors. </p>
<p>But if someone’s behavior used to communicate a message is unlawful or harmful, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1967/232">the First Amendment will not protect the speaker</a>. In other words, a messenger can be held responsible for any conduct that causes harm, even if the behavior was intended as a form of speech.</p>
<p>Sweeney has not been prosecuted or sued for stalking anybody, so no court has determined if he has indeed engaged in that behavior. But if, as Swift contends, <a href="https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/2024/02/06/jet-tracker-taylor-swift-ucf-jack-sweeney-social-media-twitter-x-reddit-mastadon-bluesky/72491332007/">Sweeney’s actions are simply a more sophisticated form of stalking</a>, the First Amendment will not transform his behavior into protected speech. </p>
<p>So, Mr. Sweeney, back to my advice: Tread carefully. </p>
<p>Technology is powerful, but so is people’s right to be free from terror and harm. The First Amendment may not be available to you to defend your behavior even if you cloak it in political speech.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224049/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lynn Greenky 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 college junior who has gained a following by sharing high-profile people’s private flight information says that he is sharing public information. Others, like Taylor Swift, say that he is stalking.Lynn Greenky, Professor Emeritus of Communication and Rhetorical Studies, Syracuse UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2225452024-03-01T13:39:34Z2024-03-01T13:39:34ZBen Shapiro’s hip-hop hypocrisy and white male grievance lands him on top of pop music charts for a brief moment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575372/original/file-20240213-30-rqc3ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro speaks at the 2018 Politicon in Los Angeles.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Over the past decade, conservative commentator and podcaster <a href="https://www.economist.com/open-future/2019/03/28/inside-the-mind-of-ben-shapiro-a-radical-conservative">Ben Shapiro</a> has made a living telling his followers that <a href="https://x.com/benshapiro/status/156246995978293248?s=20">rap isn’t music</a>. </p>
<p>If anyone thinks so, <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/156246995978293248">Shapiro tweeted</a> in 2012, “you’re stupid.”</p>
<p>Shapiro <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSxoLJujM-k">explained his reasoning</a> during a 2019 interview: </p>
<p>“In my view, and in the view of my music theorist father who went to music school, there are three elements to music,” Shapiro said. “There is harmony, there is melody and there is rhythm. Rap only fulfills one of these, the rhythm section.”</p>
<p>As a result, Shapiro concluded, rap is “basically spoken rhythm.”</p>
<p>“It’s not actually a form of music,” he said. “It’s a form of rhythmic speaking.” </p>
<p>Leave it to Shapiro, then, to drop a “rhythmic speaking” song filled with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/dec/30/audiences-dont-want-white-anger-how-white-rap-grew-a-conscience">white grievance</a> during the early days of the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign. </p>
<p>Teaming up with Canadian rapper <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/the-right-wing-troll-rappers-are-coming-1341251/">Tom MacDonald</a>, Shapiro released “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kGpohEpuTE">Facts</a>” in January 2024. Given today’s bitter partisan divide and <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/culture-wars-identity-center-politics-america/story?id=100768380">extremist culture wars</a>, it comes as no surprise that Shapiro’s track quickly found a devoted following. But his racist, anti-rap rap lyrics ultimately repeat the same tired charges right-wing politicians have <a href="https://theconversation.com/scapegoating-rap-hits-new-low-after-july-fourth-mass-shooting-186443">used against hip-hop</a> since its birth over 50 years ago. </p>
<h2>Pop goes racism</h2>
<p>My father isn’t a music theorist. But as a scholar who <a href="https://news.clemson.edu/clemson-doctoral-student-produces-rap-album-for-dissertation-it-goes-viral/">earned a Ph.D. by writing a rap album</a> and continues to release rap music about race and American society as <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/twentieth-century-music/article/abs/leaders-of-the-new-school-music-departments-hiphop-and-the-challenge-of-significant-difference/D6025AE31E4FF60A4A57347CDCE4AC86">my academic work</a>, I knew a hit song filled with racist diatribes like “Facts” was <a href="https://www.theringer.com/rap/2023/8/14/23831167/hip-hop-50th-anniversary-future-of-rap-music-ad-carson-virginia">bound to happen</a>. </p>
<p>It’s not the first time blatant racism has propelled an artist to the top of music charts. </p>
<p>In July 2023, Jason Aldean, a white country singer, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66248807">released a video for “Try That In A Small Town”</a> that was criticized for promoting racial violence. That <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/2024/01/31/ben-shapiro-song-tom-macdonald/">song shot up</a> to No. 1. </p>
<p>In November 2023, a video of country singer Morgan Wallen, who is also white, surfaced and went viral. In the video, he is captured saying, “take care of this p— a– n—.” While Wallen was roundly condemned and apologized for his racist and sexist language, <a href="https://www.theroot.com/despite-morgan-wallens-racist-past-america-is-still-ob-1851059418">his music has also topped the charts</a>. </p>
<p>But to simply call MacDonald and Shapiro’s “Facts” racist would be too quick a dismissal of all that is at play.</p>
<p>By performing over a popular-sounding trap-style beat, Shapiro and MacDonald might lead listeners to overlook their heavy reliance on <a href="https://theconversation.com/everyday-african-american-vernacular-english-is-a-dialect-born-from-conflict-and-creativity-193194">Black vernacular speech</a>, which toes the line between <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/foster-blackface-minstrelsy/">minstrelsy</a> and abject <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/t-magazine/cultural-appropriation.html">cultural appropriation</a>. </p>
<p>Because it’s delivered in the form of a conventional rap song, a listener might even be convinced that the racism and sexism the artists are performing are expectations, and Shapiro and McDonald are just doing what all rappers do. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1750977386676711740"}"></div></p>
<p>It’s a clever gambit. It’s “rapwashing” racism so audiences don’t perceive the obvious intent. </p>
<p>Early in the song, MacDonald tries out a melodic delivery, rap-singing:</p>
<p><em>“This ain’t rap. This ain’t money, cars, and clothes.
We won’t turn your sons into thugs or your daughters into h—.”</em> </p>
<p>The song goes further: </p>
<p><em>“Claim that I’m racist. Yeah, alright.
I’m not ashamed because I’m white.
If every Caucasian’s a bigot, I guess every Muslim’s a terrorist.
Every liberal is right.”</em></p>
<p>For a brief moment, during the last week of January, the song hit No. 1 on the iTunes U.S. chart, which gave Shapiro the audacity, and the apparent receipts, to call himself the “#1 rapper in America.”</p>
<h2>White male grievance</h2>
<p>It’s not surprising that such a large swath of music consumers would find “Facts” entertaining. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A white man dressed in black clothes appears on stage with a band." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578931/original/file-20240229-16-7kl1wv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578931/original/file-20240229-16-7kl1wv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578931/original/file-20240229-16-7kl1wv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578931/original/file-20240229-16-7kl1wv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578931/original/file-20240229-16-7kl1wv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578931/original/file-20240229-16-7kl1wv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578931/original/file-20240229-16-7kl1wv.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hip-hop artist Eminem performs in Los Angeles in 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/inductee-eminem-performs-on-stage-during-the-37th-annual-news-photo/1439523090?adppopup=true">Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Eminem, a white rapper, might be a case study. In the early 2000s, he achieved great success in part because of the way <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-21-mn-28235-story.html">he gave voice</a> to the repressed rage of certain segments of “<a href="https://www.vulture.com/2017/01/eminems-white-america-15-years-later.html">White America</a>.” </p>
<p>But since the presidential election of Donald Trump in 2016, that rage felt all across white America has been politicized and commercialized <a href="https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/11/14/loss-fear-and-rage-are-white-men-rebelling-against-democracy">to such a degree</a> that I believe hip-hop listeners have heard enough of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/dec/30/audiences-dont-want-white-anger-how-white-rap-grew-a-conscience">white grievance</a>. </p>
<p>It also seems white artists like Eminem took notice.</p>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/d3ybbz/lets-all-settle-down-about-eminems-bet-hip-hop-awards-cypher">2017 BET Hip Hop Awards freestyle cypher</a>, Eminem went to great lengths to distance himself from the actions of his fans who seemed to be <a href="https://ew.com/music/2017/10/11/eminem-trump-storm-lyrics/">politically aligned with Trump</a> and <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/alt-right">the alt-right</a>. </p>
<p>Eminem’s freestyle affected his popularity badly enough that he <a href="https://www.thefader.com/2018/08/31/eminem-regret-anti-trump-freestyle-secret-service-interview">later backtracked his remarks</a> and apologized to his Trump-loving fans on a song called “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT150Zl0Ay0">The Ringer</a>” on his 2018 album “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=undRq8xKR8Q">Kamikaze</a>.” </p>
<h2>Hip-hop capitalism</h2>
<p>From its start more than 50 years ago, hip-hop has never been singularly focused <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/is-hip-hop-still-radical-1234950995/">on mainstream measures of success</a> such as Grammy nominations and awards, music industry chart rankings or sold-out concerts. Nor have its cultural practitioners and producers been gender or race exclusive. </p>
<p>In fact, before rap became <a href="https://projects.apnews.com/features/2023/hip-hop-50th-history/getting-the-money.html">an international multibillion dollar industry</a>, early rappers were wary of the mainstream music industry, and many believed it would negatively affect the integrity of the music and culture. </p>
<p>But even early rappers were forced to find a complicated balance between culture and capitalism. </p>
<p>For instance, in the late 1990s, Yasiin Bey, formerly known as <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/yasiin-bey-clarifies-drake-comments-1235593284/">Mos Def</a>, and <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/talib-kweli-social-media_n_639bafffe4b0aeb2ace22f13">Talib Kweli</a> released their first album, “Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A Black man wearing sunglasses is surrounded by a group of other Black men." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578929/original/file-20240229-30-1qku6n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578929/original/file-20240229-30-1qku6n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578929/original/file-20240229-30-1qku6n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578929/original/file-20240229-30-1qku6n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578929/original/file-20240229-30-1qku6n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578929/original/file-20240229-30-1qku6n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578929/original/file-20240229-30-1qku6n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mos Def in New York City before a Black Star concert in 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/mos-def-attends-black-star-in-concert-at-sony-hallon-news-photo/1441918449?adppopup=true">Johnny Nunez/WireImage</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://www.okayplayer.com/originals/yasiin-bey-talib-kweli-black-star-timeline.html">critically acclaimed project</a> was filled with lyrics focused on Black consciousness, the perils of mainstream hip-hop and a kind of <a href="https://colorlines.com/article/yasiin-bey-aka-mos-def-talks-about-his-move-south-africa/">Pan-Africanism</a>. </p>
<p>Their label, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/jul/11/james-murdoch-hip-hop">Rawkus Records</a>, was known for recording and signing several underground rap acts including <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/eminem-blows-up-91979/">Eminem</a>, <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/pharaohe-monch-mental-health-9607525/">Pharoahe Monch</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/24/1189040805/hip-hop-50-chicago">Common</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Zweuggu9IUQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Yasiin Bey, formerly Mos Def, responds to a question about Drake, pop music and hip-hop.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But Rawkus was just as much a part of the music industry as any other record label. </p>
<p>It was co-founded and <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90411108/that-cringe-worthy-rap-on-succession-must-be-a-reference-to-james-murdoch-erstwhile-hip-hop-mogul">financially backed</a> by James Murdoch, a son of the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/rupert-murdoch-billionaire-mogul-helm-global-media-empire-2023-09-21/">media mogul Rupert Murdoch</a>. The label was eventually bought by Murdoch’s News Corp.</p>
<p>Over the past five decades, rap music and hip-hop culture has come to mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.</p>
<p>For Bey, though, the question goes beyond the money or popularity.</p>
<p>“Where’s the message that I can use?” he asked during a 2024 interview. </p>
<p>I would love to believe that racist, sexist, white male grievance rap isn’t where the zeitgeist is in America. </p>
<p>But Ben Shapiro and his conservative followers are betting that it is – at least for a brief moment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222545/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>A.D. Carson 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>Since its birth 50 years ago, hip-hop music has embraced artists of every race and ethnic background. An avowed hip-hop hater might be a step too far.A.D. Carson, Associate Professor of Hip-Hop, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2185552024-02-27T19:52:03Z2024-02-27T19:52:03ZThe ghosts of the past: Pop music is haunted by our anxieties about the future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578067/original/file-20240226-28-10l8gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3888%2C2572&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Wax figures of the Beatles in Madame Tussauds Berlin represent the pop stars in their youth — the two surviving members, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, are in their 80s.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2011, pop music scholar Simon Reynolds was already observing pop culture’s fascination with its own past, noting that “we live in a pop age <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-retro-rock-20110710-story.html">gone loco for retro and crazy for commemoration</a>.”</p>
<p>For Reynolds, this obsession with the past has the potential to bring about the end of pop music culture: “Could it be,” he asks, “that the greatest danger to the future of our music culture is … its past?” </p>
<p>The situation has not improved in the years since Reynolds voiced his concerns. Our fixation on the popular music of previous decades threatens our future by stifling originality.</p>
<p>Thanks to recording technology, and now to more recent developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning, we find ourselves more and more in a spectral present, thoroughly haunted by the ghosts of pop music’s past.</p>
<h2>Ghostly presence</h2>
<p>This type of hauntedness can provoke anxiety. Hauntology, a theoretical concept originating in the work of French philosopher Jacques Derrida, was later <a href="https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/zer0-books/our-books/ghosts-my-life">applied to musicology by critic Mark Fisher</a>. Hauntology is concerned with memory, nostalgia and the nature of being. The present is never simply “present,” and the remnants of our cultural past always linger or return.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/are-you-haunted-by-ghosts-of-the-past-and-phantoms-of-your-future-welcome-to-the-spooky-realm-of-hauntology-191843">Are you haunted by ghosts of the past and phantoms of your future? Welcome to the spooky realm of hauntology</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>A ghost, in literature, folklore and popular culture, is a presence from the past of something or someone that no longer remains. Is a ghost, then, from the past or of the present? As hauntology would insist, a ghost is paradoxically both at the same time.</p>
<p>In November 2023, pop phenomenon the Beatles released a “new” song titled “<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/beatles-new-song-now-and-then-1234868643/">Now and Then</a>.” It received a rapturous reception from fans and critics alike, and was soon topping the charts in the United States and the United Kingdom, becoming the fastest-selling single of 2023.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Beatles’ 2023 track “Now and Then.”</span></figcaption>
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<p>The song features a lead vocal track by the late John Lennon, salvaged from a demo recording he made at home in the late 1970s, just a few years before his murder in 1980. It also includes archival guitar tracks from the late George Harrison.</p>
<p>The two surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, contributed new bass, drum, vocal and guitar parts (McCartney even played a slide guitar solo mimicking Harrison’s sound and style), and producer Giles Martin (son of legendary Beatles’ producer George Martin) provided a string arrangement and a tapestry of background vocals lifted from other iconic Beatles songs.</p>
<p>“Now and Then” was also celebrated for the technological sophistication of its production, and specifically for its use of <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/2/23943290/now-and-then-the-beatles-new-song-ai">artificial intelligence</a>. Using software that could tell the difference between a human voice and other sounds on a recording, Lennon’s voice was isolated and reanimated, allowing McCartney and Starr to perform alongside their long-deceased bandmate. </p>
<h2>Final masterpiece</h2>
<p>“Now and Then,” in addition to being a “new” Beatles tune, is likely also the group’s last: there are no more old recordings to resurrect, and McCartney and Starr are both octogenarians. </p>
<p>Indeed, according to music critics like <em>The Guardian</em>’s Alexis Petridis, “Now and Then” is an emotionally satisfying “act of closure.” It stands on its own as a genuine addition to the Beatles’ catalogue, wrapping up the band’s career and “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/02/the-beatles-now-and-then-review">never stoops to deploying obviously Beatles-y signifiers</a>.”</p>
<p>Music journalist Jem Aswad, writing in <em>Variety</em>, characterizes “Now and Then” as a “<a href="https://variety.com/2023/music/reviews/the-beatles-new-song-now-and-then-review-1235777477/">bittersweet finale</a>.” While Aswad is mildly critical of the song as an “incomplete sketch,” he insists at the same time that any further criticism is just unwarranted sour grapes, concluding that it is “an unexpected pleasure that marks the completion of the group’s last bit of unfinished business.”</p>
<h2>Haunted, ghostly</h2>
<p>Some critics, however, echoing Reynolds’s concerns, found “Now and Then” decidedly less praiseworthy. Josiah Gogarty’s brutal review, published in <em>UnHerd</em>, argues that the song serves as “a sign of our <a href="https://unherd.com/newsroom/the-beatles-now-and-then-is-a-sign-of-our-cultural-doom-loop/">cultural doom loop</a>,” and likened it to a “séance, calling forth the warbling and the jangling of the dead.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1721188264277692580"}"></div></p>
<p>The recording includes McCartney’s count-in at the beginning and some studio chatter from Starr at the end, as if to reassure listeners that the song is a product of living musicians. </p>
<p>At the same time, the song is eerily placeless or ahistorical, caught somewhere between past and present: a haunted, ghostly thing, evidence of a pop culture that has long ceased to evolve. </p>
<h2>Limiting the future</h2>
<p>The problem is the way songs like “Now and Then” are imbued with nostalgia: they threaten the future and limit the possibility of the emergence of new ideas.</p>
<p>Fisher feared the effect of this sort of nostalgia giving rise to “<a href="https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/zer0-books/our-books/ghosts-my-life">a cancelled future</a>.” We can readily imagine such a future, because we already inhabit it: a future of never-ending tours by impossibly decrepit rock bands, countless re-boots of old movies and television shows, the fetishization of all that is vintage. </p>
<p>Even the most stunningly progressive technological developments — such as the AI that made “Now and Then” possible — turns out to serve a regressive purpose, namely to resurrect the Beatles. </p>
<p>A generous take on “Now and Then” would be to view its arrangement and production as capturing and amplifying the meaning of the song lyrics: “Now and then I miss you … I want you to return to me.” These lyrics suggest the presence and absence theorized by hauntology, which is cleverly reflected in the song’s haunted soundscape. </p>
<p>Less generously, “Now and Then,” rather than an act of closure, simply continues an ongoing trend of looking backwards in pop music. It indicates that our insecurities about our future ensure we will remain forever entangled with its ghosts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218555/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Carpenter 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>Artificial intelligence helped produce the Beatles’ 2023 hit “Now and Then.” But despite the sophisticated technology, the song reveals our obsession with the past and our anxieties about the future.Alexander Carpenter, Professor, Musicology, University of AlbertaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2234962024-02-15T11:59:06Z2024-02-15T11:59:06ZI’ve researched Clara Bow – it’s no wonder the actress inspired Taylor Swift’s new album<p>While on stage collecting the award for album of the year (her fourth to date) at the 2024 Grammys earlier this month, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI1l2_zss3k">Taylor Swift announced</a> her 11th album: The Tortured Poets Department. </p>
<p>Moments later, Swift uploaded full details of her new record <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C28vsIzO_bL/?hl=en&img_index=1">to Instagram</a>, including the album artwork and track list. One of the 17 newly revealed tracks is titled Clara Bow. Actress Clara Bow (1905-1965) was the original “It girl”. And she had plenty in common with Swift. Adored and villainised throughout her career, her love life was constantly under scrutiny.</p>
<p>While news outlets instantly set about reporting on the excitement of Swift’s latest album, unveiling her new collaborations and praising her record-setting evening, an opposing maelstrom of hate was already on its way. </p>
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<img alt="Quarter life, a series by The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?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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<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/quarter-life-117947?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">This article is part of Quarter Life</a></strong>, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.</em></p>
<p><em>You may be interested in:</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/valentines-day-research-backed-tips-for-dating-app-success-199059?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Valentine’s Day: research-backed tips for dating app success</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/online-dating-fatigue-why-some-people-are-turning-to-face-to-face-apps-first-184910?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Online dating fatigue – why some people are turning to face-to-face apps first</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/love-island-what-the-show-can-teach-young-people-about-commitment-185459?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Love Island – what the show can teach young people about commitment</a></em></p>
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<p>Headlines branded Swift <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/us-celebrity-news/taylor-swift-branded-disrespectful-brutal-32047022">“disrespectful”</a> and <a href="https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/awards/grammys/taylor-swift-labelled-classless-over-celine-dion-snub-at-the-grammys/news-story/f2a601ccaf089249d41664f887f6d810">“classless”</a> for appearing to snub music legend Celine Dion. SZA fans accused Swift of <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-13046323/drake-grammys-sza-fans-taylor-swift-slam-speech.html">robbing SZA’s</a> SOS of album of the year. Twitter users called her <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniesoteriou/lana-del-rey-clarifies-taylor-swift-grammys-backlash">“disgusting”</a> for bringing her friend and collaborator Lana Del Rey on stage, after she’d lost out on her own award. </p>
<p>The tempestuous response to Swift’s win and subsequent album announcement is a reminder of the constantly fluctuating <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/sep/08/how-taylor-swift-became-the-worlds-biggest-pop-star-again">love/hate relationship</a> with the media that has persisted throughout her career.</p>
<p>While their backgrounds could not be more different, there is a clear experience that both Bow and Swift have shared: unrelenting scrutiny overshadowing their hard work and success.</p>
<h2>Who was Clara Bow?</h2>
<p>Clara Bow was an American silent and early sound film actress, whose tumultuous career spanned from 1922 to 1933. Bow’s best-known film, the 1926 silent romantic comedy It, <a href="https://archive.org/details/filmstarshollywo0000unse/page/8/mode/2up">secured her status</a> as a cultural icon who embodied the youth and liberation of the 1920s’ flapper. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Dxo_99eaEEA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Clips of Clara Bow’s hit movie It (1927) set to a song written about her in the same year, She’s Got It by Harry Reaser.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Bow’s rise to stardom is often framed as a variation on the Cinderella tale. An unassuming girl, brought up in the poverty-stricken tenements of Brooklyn and longing for a chance in the limelight, wins a contest and is catapulted to screen stardom. But that’s not the full story. </p>
<p>This sequence of events, which kick-started the ongoing mythicisation of Bow’s star image, skips over the work Bow herself put in. It erases the labour involved in starting and maintaining her own career. In fact, Bow’s life is bound up with misinformation, speculation and tales of exploitation, abuse and illicit love affairs. </p>
<h2>How Clara Bow inspired Taylor Swift</h2>
<p>During the height of her career, Bow’s love life was a point of constant ridicule in popular film fan magazines. Headlines branding her <a href="https://lantern.mediahist.org/catalog/photoplay3637movi_0471">“empty hearted”</a> and asking <a href="https://lantern.mediahist.org/catalog/silverscreen01unse_0039">“why can’t the It Girl keep her men?”</a> sought to psychoanalyse her broken engagements. The press labelled Bow an <a href="https://lantern.mediahist.org/catalog/silverscreen01unse_0039">“idiot”</a>, and wondered why <a href="https://lantern.mediahist.org/catalog/silverscreen01unse_0039">“no man [had] led her to the altar”</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575420/original/file-20240213-18-7dkgxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Clara Bow in a black and white photo" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575420/original/file-20240213-18-7dkgxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575420/original/file-20240213-18-7dkgxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575420/original/file-20240213-18-7dkgxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575420/original/file-20240213-18-7dkgxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575420/original/file-20240213-18-7dkgxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575420/original/file-20240213-18-7dkgxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575420/original/file-20240213-18-7dkgxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&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">Clara Bow in 1932.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ClaraBow2.1.jpg">D.D.Teoli Jr.</a></span>
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<p>Bow’s reputation as a <a href="https://lantern.mediahist.org/catalog/photoplay3133movi_0769">“girl who burns ‘em up and then leaves ‘em cold”</a> was exacerbated even further when in 1931, she found herself embroiled in scandal. </p>
<p><a href="https://search.worldcat.org/title/star-studies-a-critical-guide/oclc/779873581">At the time</a>, information about the marriages and divorces of celebrities, as well as suggestions of extramarital affairs and sex scandals, were commonplace in the press. </p>
<p>Bow’s assistant and best friend, Daisy DeVoe, was accused of trying to embezzle money from her. A reporter colluded with DeVoe to <a href="https://www.betweenthecovers.com/pages/books/443014/devoe-daisy-as-told-to-frederic-h-girnau/secret-love-life-of-clara-as-told-by-daisy-to-frederic-h-girnau?soldItem=true">accuse Bow of</a>: “Promiscuity and exhibitionism, kinkiness and incest, lesbianism and bestiality, drug addiction and alcoholism, venereal disease and family insanity.” They then tried to <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mm3gQqcl20UC&redir_esc=y">blackmail the actress</a>, asking for USD$25,000 (£19,839) to cease printing the stories.</p>
<p>Before the trial, <a href="https://archive.org/details/clarabowrunninwi0000sten">it was alleged</a> that DeVoe had warned Bow: “I’ve got some letters and telegrams that that won’t do you any good if I turn ‘em over to the papers”. The reporter responsible for the blackmail received an <a href="https://lantern.mediahist.org/catalog/motionpictureher104unse_0604">eight-year suspended sentence</a> and a fine for defaming her. But the trial had already done significant damage to Bow’s image.</p>
<p>In 2017, I visited the Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills, which holds Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences archive. During my research trip, I was able to access the papers of Clara Bow, as well as those who knew her: including notable gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. </p>
<p>Within the archive, there is a letter from Bow to Hopper, revealing her desire to someday write the story of her life – a potential attempt to set the record straight and reclaim the narrative that other people had created. Unfortunately, Bow died before she was able to do so.</p>
<p>Perhaps Swift’s ode to Bow will offer some artistic justice for the often-misrepresented starlet. Or perhaps it will lament Swift’s own inability to control the media narrative. We will find out soon. But it’s not hard to see why Taylor Swift, a modern starlet whose every move is scrutinised and criticised, would find a rich seam of inspiration in the life of Clara Bow. </p>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Voss receives funding from the AHRC-funded Midlands 4 Cities Post-Doctoral Fellowship Programme. </span></em></p>Bow and Swift have shared unrelenting scrutiny, overshadowing their hard work and success.Jennifer Voss, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Humanities and Performing Arts, De Montfort UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2223442024-02-01T20:56:00Z2024-02-01T20:56:00ZBilly Joel is back for an encore − but why did he wait so long to turn the lights back on?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572856/original/file-20240201-25-d4htz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=282%2C89%2C2582%2C1773&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Joel performs at New York City's Madison Square Garden in 2015.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/billy-joel-performs-madison-square-garden-on-january-9-2015-news-photo/461257302?adppopup=true">Myrna Suarez/WireImage via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With the flip of a digital switch, Billy Joel fans have their first new song in 17 years, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hexZ5hwia08">Turn the Lights Back On</a>.” </p>
<p>It has all the markers of a classic Joel ballad: the rhythm and rolling chords of “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx3QmqV2pHg">She’s Always a Woman</a>,” the plea to accept someone “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaA3YZ6QdJU">Just the Way You Are</a>,” the percussive bass and snare of “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVlDSzbrH5M">The Downeaster ‘Alexa</a>.’” There’s even a lick in the piano solo some may recall from “<a href="https://youtu.be/izzM9LXqP-U?si=iyl52C5sQqYD6W9m&t=168">Scenes from an Italian Restaurant</a>” – much slower, yes, but we should all be so lucky to be making new music into our 70s. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The official lyric video for Billy Joel’s ‘Turn the Lights Back On.’</span></figcaption>
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<p>But what does it all add up to? Does this mean that Billy Joel is back? Did he ever go away?</p>
<p>In my scholarship, I explore <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/arranging-gershwin-9780199978380">the legacy of musicians</a> – how their music reverberates and transforms over time, long after the works themselves came into the world.</p>
<p>What makes Joel such an interesting case study is his active role in shaping the life of music that he composed long ago.</p>
<p>Typically, the legacy of an artist of Joel’s stature comes into view after they pass away. But Joel has been in the “legacy making” phase of his career longer than the entirety of many other musician’s careers.</p>
<h2>Creative hibernation</h2>
<p>Between 1970 and 1993, Joel released a new album every 12 to 16 months, composing more than 120 songs. </p>
<p>But he hasn’t released a new album of popular music since 1993’s “River of Dreams.” That album concluded with a song titled “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEtcu-l9wDo">Famous Last Words</a>,” a straightforward rock song with a chorus that repeatedly intones, “These are the last words I have to say.” </p>
<p>From a distance, his fans came to understand this as a retirement from churning out hit albums. Since then, Joel – as timeless as some of his songs might be – has largely been an artist locked in time. </p>
<p>Even though he long ago quit recording new music, Joel has continued to fill stadiums. He toured “Face to Face” with Elton John for several years, and in 2014 he began a monthly residency at Madison Square Garden. That run will conclude <a href="https://www.billyjoel.com/news/billy-joel-announces-final-show-of-madison-square-garden-residency/">when he plays his 150th performance</a> in the iconic venue in July 2024. </p>
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<img alt="A man smiles and faces another man wearing black glasses who's howling with laughter." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572922/original/file-20240201-27-lsl8j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572922/original/file-20240201-27-lsl8j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572922/original/file-20240201-27-lsl8j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572922/original/file-20240201-27-lsl8j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572922/original/file-20240201-27-lsl8j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572922/original/file-20240201-27-lsl8j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572922/original/file-20240201-27-lsl8j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=623&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">Billy Joel and Ray Charles share a laugh in 1993, the year Joel released ‘River of Dreams,’ his most recent album of new music.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/billy-joel-and-ray-charles-during-songwriters-hall-of-fame-news-photo/105403617?adppopup=true">Ron Galella/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>These continual live performances have both extended the longevity of his songs and have allowed new generations to discover and enjoy his back catalog.</p>
<p>He’s sold <a href="https://www.billyjoel.com/biography/">more than 150 million albums</a>. Box sets, anthologies and special collector’s editions have long been a way to maintain and capitalize on an artist’s legacy – look no further than the steady line of <a href="https://variety.com/2022/music/reviews/the-beatles-revolver-deluxe-box-album-review-1235417007">50th anniversary reissues released by The Beatles</a>. In the absence of new music, Columbia Records has worked to maintain Joel’s presence by releasing Joel’s “Greatest Hits: Volume III” (1997) and “My Lives” (2005). </p>
<h2>A star’s last hurrah?</h2>
<p>Now it’s 2024, and Joel has been creatively dormant longer than he was active. </p>
<p>So what’s he doing with “Turn the Lights Back On”? Could a new compilation be in the works?</p>
<p><a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793601810/">I’ve written elsewhere</a> about the arrangement of Joel’s life and career through greatest hits compilations.</p>
<p>To encourage the purchase of these compilations, they’re usually accompanied by the release of new material, whether it’s something from the archives that never made it onto one of his prior albums, or – on special occasions – <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_You_Feel_My_Love">a brand-new song</a>.</p>
<p>But in a streaming era replete with <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2WgQ96x6mlX6RMS2yuSmvp">accessible and customizable playlists</a>, promoting a forthcoming album doesn’t seem to be the motivation here. </p>
<p>Rather, Joel seems to be taking a cue from The Beatles. </p>
<p>Last November, they released “<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-now-and-then-really-a-beatles-song-the-fab-four-always-used-technology-to-create-new-music-216981">Now and Then</a>,” which was marketed as “the last Beatles song.” One month later, Joel wryly suggested during a Madison Square Garden residency concert that he might have something in the pipeline. The news spread via <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@billyjoel/video/7314822303660051758">his first-ever post to TikTok</a>.</p>
<p>In some ways, like “Now and Then,” the release of “Turn the Lights Back On” is a once-in-a-lifetime event – particularly for his younger fans. </p>
<p>Indeed, for millions of people this will be the first time many will have ever had the privilege of hearing a new song by an artist they’ve long admired. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IxMN3cW8DU">In the teaser video announcing this new song</a> on Jan. 22, 2024, you literally see Joel turn the page for this next chapter in his career. If you pay close attention, the page he flips is a waterlogged set of lyrics for “Famous Last Words.” </p>
<p>He’s making good on the promise of the lyrics from that song: “There will be other words some other day, Ain’t that the story of my life?”</p>
<p>Back in the 1990s, he got out of the business of making records <a href="https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-reason-why-billy-joel-stopped-writing-songs/">because he was in a rut</a>. It’s possible that the years hence haven’t been as fulfilling as he’d hoped.</p>
<p>Does “Turn the Lights Back On” hint at what comes next? Is this Joel ready to share new music with the world again? Or is it a wistful plea from a baby boomer artist to be remembered as his star dims? </p>
<p>Perhaps trying to derive meaning is beside the point. As he declares toward the end of the song, “I’m here right now.” </p>
<p>Maybe that’s all any of his fans can ask for.</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to correct the years that have passed since Joel’s last new song. It’s been 17 years, not 15 years.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222344/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>In 1993, Joel sang, ‘These are the last words I have to say.’ What changed?Ryan Raul Bañagale, Associate Professor and Chair of Music, Colorado CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2168732023-11-08T13:58:09Z2023-11-08T13:58:09ZWith Slut! Taylor Swift joins a long history of women fighting slut-shaming in their writing<p>One track stands out on the <a href="https://taylor.lnk.to/1989taylorsversion">rereleased edition</a> of Taylor Swift’s iconic album, 1989. In Slut!, Swift addresses her encounters with <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-slut-shaming-5271893">slut-shaming</a> – behaviour that shames women who are judged to be promiscuous. “But if I’m all dressed up,” the singer muses, “they might as well be looking at us. And if they call me a slut, you know it might be worth it for once”. </p>
<p>“Slut-shaming” is a <a href="https://www.oed.com/dictionary/slut-shame_v?tl=true#:%7E:text=The%20earliest%20known%20use%20of,is%20from%202007%2C%20in%20alt.">relatively modern phrase</a> – but the behaviour itself has scarcely evolved since the 1700s. Back then, the popular vernacular was rife with terms and phrases aimed at degrading women for their supposed sexual indiscretions, painting them as inherently untrustworthy beings ruled by carnal desires. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Taylor Swift’s Slut! from 1989 (Taylor’s Version).</span></figcaption>
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<p>Dictionaries of the age marked women who accidentally exposed their breasts in public (“<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Lexicon_Balatronicum/iDsJAAAAQAAJ?q=pudenda&gbpv=1#f=false">sported blubber</a>”) as well sexually experienced women (<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Lexicon_Balatronicum/iDsJAAAAQAAJ?q=pudenda&gbpv=1#f=false">“mort wap-apaces”</a>) and “beastly, sluttish women” (“<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/A_Dictionary_of_Buckish_Slang_University/gx9TAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1">fusty luggs</a>”). </p>
<p>The role of the popular press in slut-shaming is also long-standing. Newspapers in the 1700s gladly printed letters judging women’s behaviour and fashion choices. Men often wrote under crude pseudonyms like “Bumfiddle”, which are not too dissimilar to those chosen by today’s internet trolls. They penned vehement letters about the way women dressed, slut-shaming them as “cork-rumped devils”. </p>
<h2>The scandalous Lady W</h2>
<p>Stories detailing the supposedly scandalous behaviour of women were regularly featured in newspapers across both urban and rural areas, catering to a societal appetite for salacious content. “Wanton” Lady Seymour Worsley – who was the subject of the 2015 BBC drama <a href="https://www.hallierubenhold.com/books/the-scandalous-lady-w-reprint-of-lady-worsleys-whim-to-accompany-the-bbc2-drama/">The Scandalous Lady W</a> – was a prime target. </p>
<p>In 1782, she drew outrage for her supposedly brazen sexuality. She was shamed for having multiple sexual partners and became the subject of smutty cartoons. James Gillray’s famous <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw63181/Sir-Richard-Worse-than-sly-exposing-his-wifes-bottom---o-fye">caricatures</a> are among of dozens of shaming images <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw63186/Seymour-Dorothy-Lady-Worsley-A-peep-into-Lady-Wys-seraglio">that sought to “expose” Lady Worsley</a>. They accompanied a vicious attempt by her husband to destroy her reputation in court.</p>
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<img alt="Cartoon mocking Lady W's supposed many lovers" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557143/original/file-20231101-28-xb0et6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557143/original/file-20231101-28-xb0et6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557143/original/file-20231101-28-xb0et6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557143/original/file-20231101-28-xb0et6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557143/original/file-20231101-28-xb0et6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557143/original/file-20231101-28-xb0et6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557143/original/file-20231101-28-xb0et6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=535&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">A Peep Into Lady W!!!!!y’s Seraglio by James Gillray (1782).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Trustees of the British Museum</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>Lady Worsley’s story shows the long history of slut-shaming. But it also showcases the long history of women fighting back. Instead of bowing to societal shame, Lady Worsley boldly boasted about her reputation in verse. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IQ0nCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT130&lpg=PT130&dq=%22An+Epistle+from+Lady+Worsley%22&source=bl&ots=Y4U_mf9KpQ&sig=ACfU3U0HNZwD_r26VjfxztK1KLjKXF_qqw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj1lojNwrGCAxWmVkEAHc_-DYQQ6AF6BAgiEAM#v=onepage&q=%22An%20Epistle%20from%20Lady%20Worsley%22&f=false">Her witty poem</a>, An Epistle from L–y W——y to S-r R—–d W—–y (1782), showed that she was unaffected by the public scrutiny and those who tried to slut-shame her. She confirmed she was not “chaste” and didn’t care what the world said about it. She proudly claimed her right to sexual freedom and autonomy – a significant act of defiance in an era that placed immense value on a woman’s chastity and reputation.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Taylor Swift discussing slut shaming in an interview with Zane Lowe.</span></figcaption>
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<p>During the same period, playwright Sophia Lee electrified audiences with her “licentious” comedy <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Chapter_of_Accidents_A_comedy_in_fiv/iNdZAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=the+chapter+of+accidents+as+immoral&pg=PA29&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=the%20chapter%20of%20accidents%20as%20immoral&f=false">The Chapter of Accidents</a> (1780). It used the word “slut”, but had powerful strategies to support its women characters. Their personal and intimate lives were discussed and criticised by others, but in her story, they weren’t ostracised by society or made to become nuns.</p>
<p>Lee objected to the double standards of the day that allowed men to sleep around while bad-mouthing women for the same actions. As a result, her confident characters may get called “slut” for sleeping with their suitors before marriage, but they’re still granted a happy ever after when they reinvent themselves as eligible virgins at the end of the play.</p>
<p>With the release of Slut!, Swift is mirroring these acts of defiance. Like these women who went before her, Swift, too, has successfully rewritten her public persona by openly challenging sexist social attitudes in her work.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?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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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216873/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucy Thompson 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>Men in the 1700s penned vehement letters about the way women dressed, slut-shaming them as “cork-rumped devils”.Lucy Thompson, Lecturer in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Creative Writing, Aberystwyth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2150532023-10-18T19:06:25Z2023-10-18T19:06:25ZIn 2003, one in four Aussie households owned Innocent Eyes. Delta Goodrem deserves a place in our music history<p>I remember when my family bought Innocent Eyes, at a JB Hi-Fi off the Nepean Highway. I was 12 and had just started high school. It was the first time I really understood the power of music; I felt like Delta was imparting words of wisdom through this time of transition. I played that original copy so much it started skipping and I had to buy a replacement. </p>
<p>Delta’s music has continued to define my life. It was the catalyst for lifelong friendships. The music bonded us, but our relationships transformed into something greater. We’ve worked together, travelled the world, and stood by one another on wedding days. </p>
<p>My story is one of many significantly shaped by this record. Innocent Eyes is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums_in_Australia">second highest selling</a> Australian album in Australia of all time, only behind John Farnham’s Whispering Jack. It sold 4.5 million copies worldwide, including 1.2 million in Australia. To put that into context: one in every four Australian households owned a copy. </p>
<p>So why is Delta Goodrem overlooked in Australian music history?</p>
<iframe style="border-radius:12px" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/album/26h1O5W89WLiEzxTztbGfu?utm_source=generator" width="100%" height="152" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" loading="lazy"></iframe>
<h2>A run-away success</h2>
<p>Released 20 years ago, Innocent Eyes achieved unprecedented success, staying at number one for a record-breaking 29 weeks (that’s seven-and-a-half months). She became the <a href="https://www.aria.com.au/charts/2003/singles-chart">first artist</a> to have five number one singles on the Australian charts from a debut album.</p>
<p>At the 2003 ARIA awards, the 18-year-old <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2003-09-22/abc-wins-first-aria-award/1482198">had a record ten nominations</a>, taking home every award she was nominated for, with the exception of album of the year (she twice lost to herself, for a total of seven wins). As Powderfinger accepted for Vulture Street, they joked “Can I see that envelope please? This is truly, completely unexpected”. </p>
<p>In the weeks leading up to the ARIAs, it was unclear whether Delta would attend: her diagnosis with Hodgkin’s lymphoma was front page news. The awards were Delta’s first public appearance in months; the night became an unofficial celebration of her return. </p>
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<p>Delta recently <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/CyC7XaNRwcb/">went through her archives</a> from this time as part of a sold-out 20th anniversary tour, a celebration of an album that captured the hearts and attention of the Australian public in a way that hasn’t been replicated. </p>
<p>This was not a comeback tour. Delta has remained an integral part of the Australian music scene. She’s one of our country’s standout performers, taking to the stage at AFL Grand Finals, Sydney Mardi Gras and the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony (twice). </p>
<p>She has released duets with <a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/1KSYEp78sFWjcmQIPCqLKd">Tony Bennett</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgurkRvgos0">Olivia Newton-John</a>, written songs for <a href="https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/wa/delta-goodrem-teams-up-with-her-idol-celine-dion-ng-8ad32e6bbe66945a66c21d1328aef841">Celine Dion</a>, and <a href="https://youtu.be/8IrVorbjRdk?si=bJjM-0VAGTBymSpy&t=29">filled in for Adele</a> with less than an hour to rehearse. </p>
<p>Delta has mentored artists on The Voice; performed as Grizabella in Cats; her latest film, Love Is In The Air, has been <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Cx9LvrfvBwv/">streamed 12 million times</a>; and she’s achieved five number one albums.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/all-roads-led-back-to-ramsay-street-for-a-cul-de-sac-of-memory-and-nostalgia-a-fitting-neighbours-finale-187774">All roads led back to Ramsay Street for a cul-de-sac of memory and nostalgia: a fitting Neighbours finale</a>
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<h2>But no hall of fame?</h2>
<p>It was <a href="https://www.aria.com.au/awards/news/jet-to-be-inducted-into-aria-hall-of-fame">recently announced</a> Jet would be inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame. Their debut album, Get Born, was also released in 2003, featuring the smash hit Are You Gonna Be My Girl?.</p>
<p>Jet are an incredible Australian rock success story, with <a href="https://www.bmg.com/au/news/BMG-acquires-Jets-recordings-catalogue.html">6.5 million records</a> sold worldwide. </p>
<p>But their impact and legacy doesn’t match Delta’s <a href="https://deltagoodrem.com/pages/about">9 million records</a> sold. Get Born was certified <a href="https://au.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/jet-get-born-tour-48293/">nine-times platinum</a>; Innocent Eyes is <a href="https://deltagoodrem.com/pages/about">23 times platinum</a>. </p>
<p>In the decade to 2010, <a href="https://www.aria.com.au/charts/2000/end-of-decade-albums-chart">she sold more albums in Australia</a> than any other artist – local or international.</p>
<p>Since the hall of fame began in 1988, 80 bands and artists have been celebrated. Only <a href="https://www.aria.com.au/hall-of-fame/">11 have been women</a>. The musical legacy of women <a href="https://www.soapunk.org/resources/All%20the%20girls%20in%20town%20-%20The%20missing%20women%20of%20Australian%20rock.pdf">is not recognised in the same ways</a> as their male counterparts.</p>
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<p>Many “best of” music lists are dominated by male artists. Rolling Stone’s <a href="https://au.rollingstone.com/rolling-stones-200-greatest-australian-albums-of-all-time/">Greatest Australian Albums of All Time</a> only features two females in the top 20 (Kylie and The Go-Betweens). Characteristics of “good” music and artistic integrity often hold masculine connotations. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/sof.2010.0098">This impacts</a> which artists achieve consecrated status. </p>
<p>Innocent Eyes defined a generation of Australians, many who were teenage girls. Popular music and culture with predominantly female audiences is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143001001520">often dismissed</a>. Rock is seen as “authentic” and masterful; pop is not worthy of such acclaim. While “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockism_and_poptimism">poptimism</a>” helped legitimise the genre, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-2017-aria-awards-are-still-off-key-when-it-comes-to-gender-88301">there’s still work to be done</a> to shift these perceptions.</p>
<p>The elevation of Jet but not Delta to the ARIA hall of fame is evidence of how Delta’s talents as a songwriter and musician are underrated. She commands the piano, and has written almost every song she’s released. When speaking with people about why I’ve been a fan for so long, I always explain you have to see her live: Delta’s vocals are phenomenal, she truly connects. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/music-recommendation-algorithms-are-unfair-to-female-artists-but-we-can-change-that-158016">Music recommendation algorithms are unfair to female artists, but we can change that</a>
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<h2>This album means everything</h2>
<p>I’ve been speaking with Delta fans as part of my PhD research on music fandoms. One fan described the album as “going home to my parent’s place […] no matter what is happening in the world, that album is a safe place.”</p>
<p>For many fans, this album means everything. These songs were the soundtrack to our adolescence, and have continued to wrap themselves around us. </p>
<p>“It is truly one of the greatest honours of my life to have written an album that might have meant something to you, or been a part of your life,” Delta said on stage last month.</p>
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<p>At the peak of Innocent Eyes’ success, weeks before her cancer diagnosis, <a href="https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/music/delta-goodrems-secret-fan-weapon-how-she-became-the-queen-of-the-instore-appearance-spending-up-to-14-hours-meeting-her-fans/news-story/163b3a34dd35f7cdcd4ff090998e6f66">8,000 fans descended</a> on Highpoint Shopping Centre. She stayed signing CDs for 14 hours.</p>
<p>Music has a unique ability to <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/volume/4390">document time and construct identity</a>. There is a sense of nostalgia for the time we first heard these songs, and reflections of what they mean to us now.</p>
<p>“Iconic” Australian music often reinforces the pub rock canon, overlooking the significant impact of other songs and artists. </p>
<p>Innocent Eyes – and Delta Goodrem – deserve a place in the cultural memory and legacy of Australian music. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Pattison has previously worked with Delta Goodrem's social media team.</span></em></p>Delta’s music defined the lives of teenage girls like me – but she is still waiting to join the hall of fame.Kate Pattison, PhD Candidate, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2138712023-09-21T04:49:40Z2023-09-21T04:49:40ZHow did Taylor Swift get so popular? She never goes out of style<p>Last week, USA Today/Gannett <a href="https://us231.dayforcehcm.com/CandidatePortal/en-US/gannett/Posting/View/63544">posted a job ad</a> for a Taylor Swift reporter, seeking an experienced journalist and content creator to “capture the music and cultural impact of Taylor Swift”. </p>
<p>It’s not the first time Swift has been the focus of professional and academic work. In 2022, New York University’s Clive Davis Institute <a href="https://variety.com/2022/music/news/taylor-swift-course-nyu-clive-davis-institute-1235170200/">announced a course focused on Swift</a>, taught by Rolling Stone’s Brittany Spanos. They also gave Swift <a href="https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2022/march/Commencement_HDs_2020_2021_2022.html">an honorary doctorate in fine arts</a>, as “one of the most prolific and celebrated artists of her generation”. </p>
<p>Other universities around the world followed with their own dedicated courses, including “<a href="https://www.nme.com/en_au/news/music/taylor-swift-is-the-subject-of-a-new-university-course-3483713">The Psychology of Taylor Swift</a>”, “<a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-songbook-class-offered-university-of-texas-1235130293/">The Taylor Swift Songbook</a>” and “<a href="https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/style/taylor-swift-lyrics-course-belgian-university/index.html">Literature: Taylor’s Version</a>”. </p>
<p>While musicians and celebrities have been the subject of our fascinations for decades, it’s not often they receive such individualised attention. Swift’s impressive career can be studied from multiple perspectives, including marketing, fandom, business and songwriting, to name a few. </p>
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<h2>So why Taylor Swift?</h2>
<p>From a music perspective, Swift has broken a lot of records. Last month, she became the <a href="https://variety.com/2023/music/news/taylor-swift-spotify-record-monthly-listeners-1235707101/">first female artist in Spotify history</a> to reach 100 million monthly listeners.</p>
<p>Swift has achieved 12 number one albums on Billboard, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/17/arts/music/taylor-swift-speak-now-billboard-chart-record.html">the most by a woman artist</a>, overtaking Barbra Streisand earlier this year. </p>
<p>She’s the first and only woman solo artist to win the <a href="https://www.grammy.com/artists/taylor-swift/15450">Album Of The Year Grammy</a> three times, for Fearless (2009), 1989 (2015) and Folklore (2020) – each in a different musical genre. It’s a credit to Swift’s masterful songwriting, and demonstrates her ability to adapt her craft for different audiences. </p>
<p>There is an expectation for female artists to constantly re-invent themselves, something <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/10/interesting-reinvention-taylor-swift-celebrities">Swift reflected on</a> in her Netflix documentary Miss Americana:</p>
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<p>The female artists I know of have to remake themselves like 20 times more than the male artists, or you’re out of a job.</p>
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<p>Over the course of her career, Swift has evolved from an award-winning country music singer to one of the biggest pop stars in the world. Each of her ten original studio albums <a href="https://www.thelist.com/463869/every-taylor-swift-era-explained/">has a distinct theme and aesthetic</a>, which have been celebrated on Swift’s juggernaut Eras Tour. </p>
<p>The tour, which has just wrapped up its first US leg, is set to be the highest-grossing of all time, boosting local travel and tourism revenue along the way. A <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/taylor-swift-eras-tour-boosted-economy-tourism-federal-reserve-how-much-money-made/">recent report estimates</a> the tour could help add a monumental US$5 billion (A$7.8 billion) to the worldwide economy. </p>
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<h2>‘All I do is try, try, try’</h2>
<p>But to measure Swift’s impact by her music alone would be limiting.</p>
<p>Swift has been instrumental in changing the business game for musicians. She’s taken on record labels and streaming services, advocating for better deals for artists. </p>
<p>In 2015, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-33220189">Apple Music changed its payment policies</a> after Swift wrote an <a href="https://www.stereogum.com/1810310/read-taylor-swifts-open-letter-to-apple-music/news/">open letter</a> campaigning for better compensation. </p>
<p>Most notably, she took a stand <a href="https://taylorswift.tumblr.com/post/185958366550/for-years-i-asked-pleaded-for-a-chance-to-own-my">against her former record label</a>, Big Machine Records, after it wouldn’t give her an opportunity to buy back her original master recordings. Her back catalogue was eventually sold to music executive Scooter Braun, kicking off a <a href="https://pitchfork.com/news/taylor-swifts-music-ownership-controversy-with-scooter-braun-what-it-means-and-why-it-matters/">very public feud</a>. </p>
<p>While she’s not the first artist to go after her masters, she’s generated an enormous amount of attention to an issue that’s often overlooked. Of course, Swift is in a position of privilege – she can take risks many other artists can’t afford to. But with this power she’s driving conversations around contracts and the value of music, paving the way for emerging artists. </p>
<p>In an effort to regain control of her earlier work, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/taylor-swift-on-lover-and-haters/">Swift announced</a> she would be re-recording her first six albums. Each re-recorded album has included additional <a href="https://www.insider.com/taylor-swift-fearless-rerecord-release-date-unreleased-songs-2021-2">vault tracks</a>, previously unreleased songs left off the original recordings. </p>
<p>These releases have each been accompanied by a robust promotional campaign, including new merchandise and multiple, limited-edition versions of each record for fans to collect. </p>
<p>The release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) marked the halfway point of this process, which has paid off big time. Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version) and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) <a href="https://www.billboard.com/lists/taylor-swift-taylors-version-stats-chart-numbers/the-equivalent-album-units-gap/">have all performed better</a> than the originals. </p>
<p>This is largely due to the unwavering support from her fans, known as “Swifties”. They’ve embraced the new recordings, shaming anyone who plays the original “stolen” versions. </p>
<h2>The power of Swifties</h2>
<p>Swift’s loyal fandom are known for their high levels of participation and creativity. Fans have spent an extensive amount of time hand-making outfits for concerts, and discussing elaborate theories online. </p>
<p>Swift has a reputation for leaving clues, known as <a href="https://junkee.com/taylor-swift-easter-eggs/219709">Easter eggs</a>, in her lyrics, music videos, social media posts and interviews. There are fan accounts dedicated to analysing these Easter eggs, studying specific number patterns and phrases to uncover hints for what Swift might do next. </p>
<p>Swift and Taylor Nation, a branch of her management team, encourage these behaviours by rewarding fans for their participation. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-does-a-taylor-swift-fan-prove-their-love-money-208177">How does a Taylor Swift fan prove their love? Money</a>
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<p>For the upcoming release of 1989 (Taylor’s Version), Swift has unveiled a series of puzzles on Google, which fans must solve together in order to reveal the names of the upcoming vault tracks.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CxYZik2uv7f","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Swifties collectively <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2023/09/20/taylor-swift-vault-puzzle-1989-tracks/">solved the 33 million</a> (yes, that’s <em>million</em>) puzzles in less than 24 hours. The games played a dual role - not only did <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CxbFSR1RAOv/?img_index=1">Swift announce the vault track titles</a>, but she’s <a href="https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSN1uHN9R/">reclaimed her Google searches</a> in the process. </p>
<p>Swift’s fandom crosses generations. She’s a quintessential millennial, and many fans have grown up with Swift over the past two decades. Some have even started to bring their children along to the concerts, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@folkloreswift_/video/7255857466213158149?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=6972316934294291973">posting videos</a> of them set to the bridge to Long Live. </p>
<p>She’s also found a younger audience on TikTok, a platform <a href="https://sproutsocial.com/insights/tiktok-stats/">predominantly used by Gen Z</a>. Affectionately dubbed “<a href="https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/year-on-tiktok-music-report-2021">SwiftTok</a>” by fans (and now <a href="https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSLokp2rQ/">Swift herself</a>), users post videos to engage with other Swifties and participate in the community. </p>
<p>Swift’s songs are often used in popular trends. The release of Midnights last year had many dancing to <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/a43488940/taylor-swift-surprised-fan-viral-tiktok-dance-bejeweled-eras-tour/">Bejeweled</a> and <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@tatycake/video/7216131364469427499?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=6972316934294291973">Karma</a>, but Swift’s older catalogue has also gotten a good run. A remix of Love Story <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/taylor-swift-tiktok-love-story-remix-disco-lines-1035691/">went viral in 2020</a>, which helped a new generation discover her older music. Most recently, her song August has been used for running on the beach and <a href="https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSLok2jRb/">spinning around</a> with your pets. </p>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-925" class="tc-infographic" height="400px" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/925/cad71d8026910236be1d5880a20a247cdee29c82/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>She’s also closely aligned with young adult shows like The Summer I Turned Pretty, which has <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2023/08/taylor-swift-summer-i-turned-pretty.html">featured 13 of her songs</a> throughout the show’s first two seasons. Swift’s music is so central to the story that <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2023-08-19/summer-i-turned-pretty-music-jenny-han-taylor-swift">author Jenny Han nearly dedicated</a> the second book to her.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1701756729103368346"}"></div></p>
<p>Swift continues to dominate the cultural conversation through her music, business decisions and legions of devoted fans. </p>
<p>Right now, Swift’s popularity is at an all time high, and it could be easy to dismiss this hype as a passing trend. But if these first 17 years are anything to go by, Swift’s proven she’s in it for the long haul, and worthy of our time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213871/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Pattison 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>Taylor Swift is maybe the biggest pop star in the world right now - but how did she get so famous, and how does she remain relevant to a younger audience?Kate Pattison, PhD Candidate, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2130432023-09-08T12:24:07Z2023-09-08T12:24:07ZThe beautiful pessimism at the heart of Jimmy Buffett’s music<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547034/original/file-20230907-11065-dq28ko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C0%2C4397%2C2876&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Buffett's first hit, 'Come Monday,' was written when the artist was deeply depressed and suicidal.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/devore-ca-musician-jimmy-buffett-performs-at-the-1982-us-news-photo/515241080?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/02/arts/jimmy-buffett-dead.html">With the death of Jimmy Buffett</a>, the feathers of his loyal network of fans – affectionately <a href="https://www.fox19.com/story/22856369/the-term-parrot-head-coined-at-kings-island-in-1985/">known as Parrot Heads</a> – collectively drooped. </p>
<p>Over the course of his career, Buffett earned their love by transforming himself into a kind of musical shaman who offered transport from the banalities of everyday life to the bounty of a never-never land of eternal sun, endless sandy beaches and bottomless boat drinks: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/business/media/jimmy-buffetts-margaritaville-is-a-state-of-mind-and-an-empire.html">Margaritaville</a>.</p>
<p>As a young fan in the 1980s and 1990s, I marveled at the power of Buffett’s music to carry his audience to this fantastic utopia, seeing in it nothing more than a bit of harmless fun.</p>
<p>But as I matured <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZAe9GDcAAAAJ&hl=en">and eventually became a professor of philosophy</a>, I came to see Buffett’s music as less an expression of optimistic pleasure-seeking and more a reflection of a profoundly pessimistic assessment of the trials and tribulations of life. Now his work strikes me as a closer companion to the pessimistic conclusions of the 19th-century philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer/">Arthur Schopenhauer</a> than to <a href="https://iep.utm.edu/hedonism/">the hedonism of leisure culture</a>. </p>
<p>I see this hidden pessimism – which underlies most of Buffett’s music – as the key to its enduring power and allure. </p>
<h2>An escape to Saint Somewhere</h2>
<p>Half troubadour and half travel agent, Buffett has long been in the business of selling escape. </p>
<p>Escapism was not only the driving force and centerpiece of his 30 studio albums and the main plotline of his three novels. It was also the heart and soul of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/business/media/jimmy-buffetts-margaritaville-is-a-state-of-mind-and-an-empire.html">his billion-dollar business empire</a>, which included two restaurant chains, <a href="https://www.margaritavillefoods.com/products.html?category=82">a line of frozen dinners</a> and a fleet of hotels and casinos. </p>
<p>These myriad products, as their varied taglines and marketing campaigns tout, promise to carry their consumer away from the monotony of suburbia to the galleys of some imaginary Caribbean Island – “Saint Somewhere,” as Buffett put it in his 1979 hit “<a href="https://genius.com/Jimmy-buffett-boat-drinks-lyrics">Boat Drinks</a>.” </p>
<p>Buffett readily admitted his commitment to supplying his fans with some relief from reality. In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhYrDHUD34c">his 2004 appearance</a> on “60 Minutes,” he gleefully professed, “I sell escapism.” <a href="https://vault.si.com/vault/2007/02/16/the-ballad-of-the-worlds-luckiest-guitar">When interviewed by Sports Illustrated in 2007</a> he said, “I’m just doing my part to add a little more escapism to an otherwise crazy world.” </p>
<p>The question remains, however: Why are people so consistently drawn to Buffett’s special brand of escapism? Or to escapism in general? </p>
<p>Answering this question uncovers the pessimistic heart of Buffett’s work.</p>
<h2>Just a little relief</h2>
<p>Buffett himself ventured an answer to this question in the afterword of his 2004 novel, “<a href="https://www.jimmybuffett.com/books/a-salty-piece-of-land">A Salty Piece of Land</a>”: “… now, more than ever, we don’t just enjoy our escapism – we NEED it.” </p>
<p>For Buffett, escapism was not merely something fun, some fiddling flight of fancy that can be taken up or discarded at will. </p>
<p>It is something essential to our survival – something that, as he put it in his 1974 track “<a href="https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/885165/Trying+to+Reason+With+Hurricane+Season">Trying to Reason with the Hurricane Season</a>,” “cleans [us] out” so that it’s possible to move on with life. </p>
<p>To love the music of Jimmy Buffett, in other words, is not to love life. It is to pessimistically admit that life is difficult and that it needs to be escaped every once in a while just to be endured.</p>
<p>In Buffett’s music one catches a glimpse, however fleeting and even false, of the possibility that somewhere out there, somewhere beyond the persistent struggles and disappointment of life, there lies “somewhere warm,” as he puts it: some utopia where all our fears and anxieties might be wiped away and we can heal from whatever grieves us, whether the heartache of a breakup or the trauma <a href="https://genius.com/Jimmy-buffett-margaritaville-lyrics">of having</a> “[blown] out a flip-flop,” or “stepped on a pop top.”</p>
<p>“When I look out at my audience,” Buffett noted <a href="https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,988920-2,00.html">in a 1998 interview with Time magazine</a>, “I see people who are caring for aging parents and dealing with tough jobs, adolescent kids, and they look like they could use a little relief.” </p>
<p>And that’s what he endeavored to give them: a little relief from the woes and worries of their lives.</p>
<h2>The role of good art and good music</h2>
<p>Buffett’s first big hit, “<a href="https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/885400/Jimmy+Buffett/Come+Monday">Come Monday</a>,” originated from his own need to escape a particularly dark period of life. </p>
<p>“I was deathly depressed and living in Howard Johnson’s in Marin County,” <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/02/entertainment/jimmy-buffett-death/index.html">he confessed to David Letterman in 1983</a>, “and this song kept me from killing myself.” </p>
<p>Fortunately, he explained to Letterman, “it hit, and I was able to pay my rent and get my dog out of the pound.” It was his capacity to respond to the overwhelming difficulties of life in this spirit of comedic melancholia that made Buffett’s music so special. </p>
<p>His songs acknowledge what everyone already knows to be true: that life can be excruciatingly painful and is often too much to bear, but that one must nevertheless <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/114547-you-must-go-on-i-can-t-go-on-i-ll-go">find a way to move on</a>. It is this pessimistic subtext to Buffett’s escapism that made it so achingly irresistible.</p>
<p>In this sense, Buffett’s music exemplifies what the 19th-century pessimistic philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer-aesthetics/">Arthur Schopenhauer thought of as the ultimate power of art</a>. </p>
<p>To Schopenhauer, good art grows from a recognition of the difficulties of life, and it endeavors to respond to them by offering a momentary respite from its otherwise relentless slings and arrows. </p>
<p>For these reasons, Schopenhauer saw in art – and in music, especially – a way of escaping reality, of being carried away into a fantasy land that everyone knows can never exist, but that is nonetheless comforting to contemplate. </p>
<p>The value of art, according to Schopenhauer’s pessimistic perspective, comes from how it creates an imaginary space where one can momentarily hide from reality to summon the courage to continue on – and perhaps to even learn from that hiatus how to laugh at the gallows that confront every living creature.</p>
<p>By this pessimistic measure, Buffett’s music was high art, for what it did so well was to help its listeners to escape the onslaught of modern life and teach them to laugh again – not in hedonistic ignorance of its difficulties, but in spite of them. What Buffett and all of his fans secretly know is that such escapist reveries are not merely an optional lark but a necessary tool for survival. </p>
<p>As Buffett himself put it in his 1977 hit “<a href="https://genius.com/Jimmy-buffett-changes-in-latitudes-changes-in-attitudes-lyrics">Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes</a>,” “If we couldn’t laugh we would all go insane.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213043/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Drew M. Dalton 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 Buffett, escapism was not merely some fiddling flight of fancy. It acknowledged the brutalities and indignities of everyday life.Drew M. Dalton, Professor of Philosophy, Dominican UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2093252023-08-04T12:28:12Z2023-08-04T12:28:12ZTaylor Swift’s Eras Tour is a potent reminder that the internet is not real life<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540883/original/file-20230802-19-bmnrpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=604%2C1233%2C4162%2C2500&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Swift performs at Gillette Stadium on May 19, 2023, in Foxborough, Mass., during her Eras Tour.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/taylor-swift-performs-onstage-during-taylor-swift-the-news-photo/1491637582?adppopup=true">Scott Eisen/TAS23 via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the weeks leading up to June 16, 2023, when I attended the Pittsburgh leg of <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/taylor-swift-gives-bonuses-totaling-215418698.html">Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour</a>, the online chatter about the 33-year-old singer had become draining. </p>
<p>The internet was ablaze with rumors about <a href="https://theconversation.com/rooting-for-the-anti-hero-how-fans-turned-taylor-swifts-short-relationship-with-matty-healy-into-a-political-statement-207108">Swift dating Matty Healy</a>, the lead singer of the English pop-rock band The 1975. Some Swifties – the term used for diehard Taylor Swift fans – berated the pop superstar for dating Healy, who’d become mired in controversy for appearing on a podcast whose hosts <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-1975-matty-healy-ice-spice-apology-1234721163/">made racist comments about the rapper Ice Spice</a>. </p>
<p>As the Pittsburgh leg of the tour approached, I wondered if I were about to dive headfirst into an angry mob of tens of thousands of Swifties. </p>
<p>On the day of the show, Acrisure Stadium was mobbed with 72,000 people, but the Swifties in attendance were far from angry. </p>
<p>In that moment we became deeply connected by our shared love and admiration for Swift’s music. Sociologist Emile Durkheim described this phenomenon as “<a href="https://doi.org/10.15195/v6.a2">collective effervescence</a>,” the unique surge in feeling when large groups of people come together for a shared purpose. </p>
<p>“It was rare, I was there, I was there,” Swift belted out during “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OQBDdNHmXo">All Too Well</a>.” </p>
<p>I was there, too, as life events touched by Swift flashed by: sitting at my first desktop computer as a teenager in Kathmandu, Nepal, replaying “Love Story” on LimeWire; my first week in the U.S., during the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, when <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/8/26/20828559/taylor-swift-kanye-west-2009-mtv-vmas-explained">Kanye West infamously interrupted Swift</a>; how Swift’s eighth studio album, “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/26/arts/music/taylor-swift-folklore-review.html">Folklore</a>,” brought me back to life after it seemed as if the world were on the verge of imploding in 2020. </p>
<h2>Collective delusion</h2>
<p>The Eras Tour was not my first experience of collective effervescence. Nor was it the first time I felt such a strong disconnect between the online and offline worlds. </p>
<p>Right before the pandemic began, there was the painfully quiet fizzling out of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/us/politics/bernie-sanders-drops-out.html">Bernie 2020 movement</a>. As a volunteer for that campaign, I had the remarkable experience of connecting with other Americans who wanted a Bernie Sanders presidency. </p>
<p>I especially appreciated how this role connected me to the people who make up the Nepali diaspora in the U.S. We hoped to improve our immigrant experiences, whether it involved no longer fearing the deportation of loved ones <a href="https://berniesanders.com/issues/">or easier access to health care</a>.</p>
<p>But then repeated news cycles about “<a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-02-19/bernie-sanders-supporters-toxic-online-culture">toxic Bernie Bros</a>” seemed to drain the movement’s momentum. Mainstream media outlets reported that Sanders’ base was <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/04/metro/intractable-bernie-bros-what-they-might-mean-sanders-campaign/">made up of white male cyberbullies</a>. Negative tweets had been amplified, and the words and behaviors of a few Sanders supporters all of a sudden were being portrayed as representative of an entire movement.</p>
<p>The contrast between what was being said online versus my own experiences was jarring: Here I was working to find transportation for 80-year-old Nepali grandmas who didn’t speak English but wanted to vote for Sanders. </p>
<p>Post-election analysis would show that the Bernie Bro <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/myth-white-bernie-bro-has-quietly-vanished-n1276377">trope was entirely constructed</a>; there was no evidence to show that young white men made up a majority of Sanders’ supporters. The movement, in fact, consisted of a diverse <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bernie-sanders-powered-by-diverse-liberal-coalition-forces-a-reckoning-for-democrats/2020/02/23/d6a15766-5641-11ea-9000-f3cffee23036_story.html">coalition of people from marginalized races and genders</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Women clap and hold blue 'Bernie' signs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540887/original/file-20230802-8013-x6v564.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540887/original/file-20230802-8013-x6v564.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540887/original/file-20230802-8013-x6v564.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540887/original/file-20230802-8013-x6v564.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540887/original/file-20230802-8013-x6v564.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540887/original/file-20230802-8013-x6v564.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540887/original/file-20230802-8013-x6v564.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders cheer during a Get Out to Caucus Rally in Las Vegas, Nev., on Feb. 21, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/supporters-hold-bernie-placards-as-democratic-presidential-news-photo/1202571834?adppopup=true">Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A vocal minority sets the agenda</h2>
<p>Online narratives distort real life more often than you might realize. </p>
<p>Research consistently shows that a small minority of people who have social media accounts post the vast majority of content. </p>
<p>In what’s termed the “<a href="https://www.nngroup.com/articles/participation-inequality/">90-9-1 rule</a>,” 90% of users on these websites only “lurk” or read content, 9% of the users reply or re-post with occasional new contributions, and only 1% of the users frequently create new content. </p>
<p>Pioneered by Jakob Neilson, the 90-9-1 rule is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.invent.2014.09.003">one of many theories</a> within internet studies that describe participation rates, and different scholars find support for different variations of this rule. Reddit, for example, has <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/443332/reddit-monthly-visitors/">over 1 billion</a> monthly active users, but according to a 2017 conference paper, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321063802_Predicting_User-Interactions_on_Reddit">an overwhelming majority of Reddit users are lurkers</a>. X, the website and app formerly known as Twitter, had <a href="https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/how-many-users-does-twitter-have">around 350 million</a> users as of 2023; however, research from 2019 found that 75% of its users <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3308560.3316705">were lurkers</a>.</p>
<p>In other words, most of the discussions happening on websites like Reddit and Twitter come from a vocal minority of users – <a href="https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/n5d9j">whose posts are then curated and boosted by algorithms</a>.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, in the past decade, the news media have increasingly constructed narratives about collective reality based on what happens in these websites. </p>
<p>Of course, toxic online behavior exists in all online communities. But it represents the words of a smaller minority of users within the already small minority of people who post content online. Media narratives that emphasize certain groups as toxic based on online behavior – whether they are describing fandom or politics – fall into the trap of confusing the internet with real life.</p>
<p>In the weeks when Swift was dating Healy, a vocal minority of Swifties came head-to-head with <a href="https://whatstrending.com/hosts-of-the-adam-friedland-show-explain-matty-healy-comments-after-they-resurfaced-online/">a vocal minority of Healy’s defenders</a>. Then the celebrity pair ended their relationship, and collective attention moved on from that topic almost immediately. </p>
<p>Several weeks of nonstop debate, attacks and hand-wringing ended up being utterly meaningless – except to social media companies that converted this brief obsession into clicks, engagement and ad revenue.</p>
<p>My forthcoming book, “<a href="https://www.davidson.edu/people/aarushi-bhandari">Attention and Alienation</a>,” brings renewed focus to an increasingly demystified phenomenon: The online <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.5195/JWSR.2023.1100">attention economy</a> maximizes profits by designing <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/beq.2020.32">algorithms that boost engagement</a>, particularly by promoting negativity and outrage.</p>
<h2>Oligarchy of the ‘extremely online’</h2>
<p>Sometimes the consequences of mistaking the internet for real life are dire.</p>
<p>Take reproductive health. Online rage about <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/24/1102305878/supreme-court-abortion-roe-v-wade-decision-overturn">the Supreme Court’s decisions to overturn Roe. v. Wade</a> <a href="https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&geo=US&q=roe%20v%20wade&hl=en-US">peaked within a few days</a> and people moved on to different topics. </p>
<p>Today, reports about reproductive health care take up <a href="https://news.google.com/search?q=roe%20v%20wade&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen">very little news media space</a> compared with garden-variety trending topics <a href="https://news.google.com/search?for=barbenheimer&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen">like “Barbenheimer”</a> – the double blockbuster release of the movies “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” on July 21, 2023.</p>
<p>In the real world, many people continue to suffer from lack of access to lifesaving reproductive health care <a href="https://reproductiverights.org/maps/abortion-laws-by-state/">across the U.S.</a>, while the online chattering class celebrates the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jul/23/barbie-review-greta-gerwig-margot-robbie-ryan-riotous-candy-coloured-feminist-fable">radical feminism of the “Barbie” movie</a>. </p>
<p>Perhaps it’s time to sideline social media and the internet when evaluating the nature of our collective reality. Reality exists outside of our devices, whereas social media algorithms push whatever keeps us tethered to the screen. There is little evidence to support the idea that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/cccr.12097">online discourse represents collective experiences</a>.</p>
<p>That might be easier said than done: <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/06/27/twitter-is-the-go-to-social-media-site-for-u-s-journalists-but-not-for-the-public/">94% of journalists say they</a> use social media for their jobs.</p>
<p>But as an internet researcher – and Taylor Swift fan – I am hopeful that experiences like the Eras Tour will wake up more people to the fact that human beings are more united than social media algorithms would have us believe.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209325/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I was a volunteer for the Bernie 2020 campaign. </span></em></p>Media outlets increasingly construct narratives about collective reality based on what’s happening on social media.Aarushi Bhandari, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Davidson CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2072712023-06-08T12:29:09Z2023-06-08T12:29:09ZAstrud Gilberto spread bossa nova to a welcoming world – but got little love back in Brazil<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530684/original/file-20230607-27-zy6mft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C12%2C4083%2C2920&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Astrud Gilberto backstage at New York City's Birdland Jazz Club in 1964.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/jazz-singer-astrud-gilberto-pose-for-a-portrait-backstage-news-photo/158229367?adppopup=true">Popsie Randolph/Michael Ochs Archives via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Astrud Gilberto didn’t set out to be <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/06/entertainment/astrud-gilberto-death/index.html">an ambassador of bossa nova</a>, the laid-back Brazilian musical genre with rhythms recognizable to music lovers around the world.</p>
<p>According to Gilberto, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/06/arts/music/astrud-gilberto-dead.html">who died on June 5, 2023</a>, at the age of 83, she wasn’t expecting to be on the 1964 recording of “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/olympics/2016/live-updates/rio-games/scores-and-latest-news/the-back-story-on-the-girl-from-ipanema/">The Girl from Ipanema</a>” – the song for which she is best remembered.</p>
<p>At the time of the recording, she wasn’t even a professional singer.</p>
<p>But Gilberto’s breathy singing voice – almost a whisper, with no hint of a vibrato – helped catapult the song, the singer and bossa nova to the forefront of international pop music. </p>
<p>But while she went on to achieve global fame, back home in Brazil, Gilberto was never given the respect that I believe her talent deserved. In 1966, in the only major performance she gave in her home country, she was booed.</p>
<h2>When bossa went big</h2>
<p>Astrud Gilberto and “The Girl from Ipanema” marked a turning point in bossa nova. </p>
<p>The genre had appeared in Rio de Janeiro in 1958, when <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/06/arts/music/joao-gilberto-dead-bossa-nova.html">João Gilberto</a> invented a new beat on his guitar out of the traditional samba. Compared to samba, bossa nova featured a more relaxed rhythm, with an emphasis on harmonic melodies that João Gilberto and composer <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/09/obituaries/antonio-carlos-jobim-composer-dies-at-67.html">Antônio Carlos Jobim</a> had drawn from American jazz.</p>
<p>In 1963, American jazz saxophonist <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/07/obituaries/stan-getz-64-saxophonist-dies-a-melodist-with-his-own-sound.html">Stan Getz</a> invited João Gilberto and Jobim to record a jazz-bossa album with him in New York.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man seated, looking away from the camera, cradling a saxophone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530715/original/file-20230607-15-pwuyaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530715/original/file-20230607-15-pwuyaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530715/original/file-20230607-15-pwuyaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530715/original/file-20230607-15-pwuyaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530715/original/file-20230607-15-pwuyaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530715/original/file-20230607-15-pwuyaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530715/original/file-20230607-15-pwuyaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">American saxophonist Stan Getz, photographed in the mid-1960s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-jazz-musician-stan-getz-sits-outside-on-a-walkway-news-photo/3207831?adppopup=true">Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At that time, jazz in the U.S. was waning in popularity, with other genres, such as rock ‘n’ roll, starting to attract more fans. Getz, in search of a new sound, had had huge success with his 1962 album, “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_Samba">Jazz Samba</a>,” the only jazz album that had ever <a href="https://www.knkx.org/jazz/2022-03-24/celebrating-60-years-of-jazz-samba#:%7E:text=Jazz%20Samba%20is%20the%20only,Group%20(Instrumental)%20in%201963.">hit No. 1 on the Billboard pop charts</a>. The foray in bossa nova with two established stars of the genre was going to be his next move.</p>
<p>By then, many American music lovers were already somewhat familiar with bossa nova. Before Getz’s “Jazz Samba,” the 1959 hit Franco-Brazilian movie “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053146/">Black Orpheus</a>,” with its theme “<a href="https://www.kuvo.org/stories-of-standards-manha-de-carnaval/">Manhã de Carnaval</a>,” had introduced the genre to a global audience – the film won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and a best foreign language Oscar in the U.S. </p>
<p>Jazz singer Tony Bennett was also an <a href="https://bloggingtonybennett.com/tag/bossa-nova/">early champion of the genre</a>, arriving home from a 1961 trip to Rio de Janiero with an armful of bossa records, and he may have inspired Getz to collaborate with some stars of the genre.</p>
<p>João Gilberto arrived to meet Getz at a Manhattan recording studio accompanied by his then-22-year-old wife, Astrud. </p>
<p>What happened next is contested, with Getz claiming credit for suggesting that Astrud sing two tracks: “The Girl From Ipanema” by Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, and “Corcovado” or “Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars” by Jobim only. Astrud spoke English, along with a handful of other languages, in addition to her native Portuguese.</p>
<p>Astrud was, at that time, not a professional singer although she had sung in a couple of clubs in Rio de Janeiro. Nonetheless, she possessed a voice that suited the bossa style. Before bossa nova emerged, the Brazilian “cancioneiro” was dominated by an opera-like way of singing, where the singer imposed an image of grandiose figure to the audience. In the quiet and minimalist revolution of bossa nova, however, the singer’s personality is subdued; the music and the melody take center stage.</p>
<p>In that style, Astrud almost whispers her way through “The Girl From Ipanema” and “Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars.” Getz’s saxophone solos are similarly low-key. There is nothing flashy. It is all about the melody, the rhythm and the harmony.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman bathed in magenta light closes her eyes while singing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530686/original/file-20230607-27-finyvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530686/original/file-20230607-27-finyvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530686/original/file-20230607-27-finyvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530686/original/file-20230607-27-finyvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530686/original/file-20230607-27-finyvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530686/original/file-20230607-27-finyvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530686/original/file-20230607-27-finyvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Astrud Gilberto’s voice was perfectly suited for bossa nova.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/photo-of-astrud-gilberto-news-photo/86103973?adppopup=true">Simon Ritter/Redferns via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And yet the restrained vocals and sax, together with the easy-flowing melody, proved a potent mix. When the track was released as a single in 1964 – with João Gilberto’s Portuguese verses cut out – it became a massive hit. Today, “The Girl from Ipanema” <a href="https://www.npr.org/2012/07/08/156430077/who-is-she-just-one-of-the-most-popular-songs-ever">is the second-most-recorded pop song of all time</a> – bested only by The Beatles’ “Yesterday.” </p>
<p>The album it appeared on, “Getz/Gilberto,” also became world famous, spawning a live follow-up, “Getz/Gilberto #2,” a year later. </p>
<h2>Brazil turns its back</h2>
<p>But the “Gilberto” in the album title was very much João, and not Astrud.</p>
<p>João Gilberto <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/astrud-gilberto-girl-from-ipanema-b2006879.html">was paid US$23,000</a> for the “Getz/Gilberto” session. Getz himself pocketed close to a million dollars from sales. Astrud reportedly received <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/06/06/1180416189/astrud-gilberto-the-girl-from-ipanema-singer-dies-at-83">just $120</a>. She also didn’t make it onto the credits of the original album.</p>
<p>Indeed, as the song grew in popularity, Getz reportedly called Creed Taylor, head of Verve Records, to make sure Astrud <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/singers-and-the-song-ii-9780195122084?cc=us&lang=en&">would not be included in the share of the royalties</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Album cover featuring abstract orange and black painting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530713/original/file-20230607-29-6w4o9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530713/original/file-20230607-29-6w4o9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530713/original/file-20230607-29-6w4o9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530713/original/file-20230607-29-6w4o9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530713/original/file-20230607-29-6w4o9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530713/original/file-20230607-29-6w4o9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530713/original/file-20230607-29-6w4o9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">On the album cover for ‘Getz/Gilberto,’ there’s no mention of Astrud.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/cover-of-the-album-getz-gilberto-by-stan-getz-and-joao-news-photo/158624172?adppopup=true">Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nonetheless, back in Brazil she was portrayed as a “lucky girl” who found overnight fame simply for being in the right place, with the right man, at the right time.</p>
<p>She divorced João in 1964, and the press in Brazil blamed her for the collapse of the marriage, amid rumors of an affair with Getz. No doubt, the misogyny of Brazilian culture at the time played a role. Her son, Marcelo, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-65818566">later recalled in an interview</a> that “Brazil turned its back” on his mother, adding that “She achieved fame abroad at a time when this was considered treasonous by the press.”</p>
<p>Astrud Gilberto went on to have a successful career, releasing 17 original albums from 1964 to 2002 and collaborating with figures such as Quincy Jones, Chet Baker, Stanley Turrentine and George Michael.</p>
<p>Despite her success, she was never accepted as a star back in her native Brazil. In this, she was not alone: The country rarely embraces Brazilians who rise to stardom while living abroad, particularly in the U.S. Before Gilberto, singer <a href="https://www.si.edu/spotlight/latin-music-legends-stamps/carmen-miranda">Carmen Miranda</a> got the same cold shoulder. And Brazilians similarly shunned bossa nova legend <a href="https://www.sfjazz.org/tickets/productions/sergio-mendes-1920/">Sérgio Mendes</a>, who rose to fame in the late 1960s. </p>
<p>Astrud Gilberto ultimately only performed once in her native country after finding fame and emigrating to the United States in the mid-1960s. Despite a career that spanned four decades, Astrud was viewed by many in Brazil as merely João Gilberto’s wife – the girl that got lucky with that one hit record.</p>
<iframe style="border-radius:12px" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/2Ad42omFKALIj6R38Xk95w?utm_source=generator" width="100%" height="380" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" loading="lazy"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207271/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mario Higa 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>During the only major performance she gave in her home country, Gilberto was booed.Mario Higa, Professor of Luso-Hispanic Studies, MiddleburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2034442023-06-05T12:12:54Z2023-06-05T12:12:54ZHow Chinese superfans became a force of nationalist activism in the name of their ‘idols’<p>Thanks to the efforts of their fans, artists like South Korean band BTS have their faces everywhere in China (where they are known as “idols”) – from <a href="https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2022/02/14/entertainment/kpop/idol-birthday-ads-kpop-birthday-advertisement-kpop-birthday-ads/20220214111454364.html">the subway</a>, to <a href="https://www.insider.com/meet-titas-of-bts-where-older-fans-of-bts-can-celebrate-their-favorite-boy-band-2023-1">media articles</a> and <a href="https://essentialhomme.net/bts-the-phenomenon-luxury-brand-collaborations/">brand collaborations.</a></p>
<p>In 2016, Chinese fans of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3725393/">Jackson Yee</a> (aka Yi Yangqianxi), a former member of popular Chinese boy band TFBoys, <a href="https://qz.com/847705/fans-of-chinas-teenage-pop-star-jackson-yi-of-tfboys-floated-a-hot-air-balloon-over-the-thames-to-celebrate-his-birthday">celebrated their idol’s birthday</a> in style. They partied on a cruise in Shanghai, bought a video advert in Times Square and flew <a href="https://qz.com/847705/fans-of-chinas-teenage-pop-star-jackson-yi-of-tfboys-floated-a-hot-air-balloon-over-the-thames-to-celebrate-his-birthday">cake-shaped hot air balloons</a> over London and New York.</p>
<p>As in other east Asian countries, idol fans in China are changing from passive consumers of products to promoters, striving to personally grow their idols’ popularity, reputation and business value. This development <a href="https://ecommercetochina.com/chinese-idol-industry-and-fan-economy/">added an estimated ¥100 billion (£613 million) to the Chinese idol market in 2020</a>.</p>
<p>Research <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741015001216">in 2015</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817731923">2018</a> found that Chinese idol fans now also act as one of the main digital forces in cyber nationalist activism, supporting the Chinese state’s core values, such as <a href="https://chinamediaproject.org/the_ccp_dictionary/positive-energy/">positive energy</a> and patriotism. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2161827">a paper published earlier this year</a> my coauthor <a href="https://www.mmu.ac.uk/staff/profile/dr-ting-luo">Ting Luo</a> and I analysed the ways idol fans co-opted nationalism in their reaction to the COVID pandemic. </p>
<p>We looked at over 6 million posts about the pandemic from December 2019 to December 2020 on Sina Weibo (a twitter-like social media platform in China) that contained promotional messages about idols. Through in-depth interviews with idol fans, we unpacked the ways they engaged with mainstream discourse to publicise and glorify their idols.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"803522174141153280"}"></div></p>
<p>These nationalist expressions are often triggered by political incidents and events. The most notable example is the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429447754">Diba Expedition</a>”. Following the Taiwan election in 2016, fans organised and swamped the Facebook pages of Taiwanese politicians with emojis and memes, for example. </p>
<p>Idol fans are both organised and disciplined. Our evidence shows that they also used discussions around the COVID pandemic to promote their idols.</p>
<h2>How the pandemic influenced fan behaviour</h2>
<p>In Weibo posts, idol fans argued that albums, songs and films by their idols relate to the pandemic. Many claim they made a contribution to pandemic efforts and engaged in charity work in the name of their idols.</p>
<p>These activities are typical of the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877909337863">chart-beating behaviours</a> of fandoms, carried out to boost the popularity of their idols. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="All seven members of BTS pose on a red carpet in white suits." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519836/original/file-20230406-694-pnr39y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519836/original/file-20230406-694-pnr39y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519836/original/file-20230406-694-pnr39y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519836/original/file-20230406-694-pnr39y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519836/original/file-20230406-694-pnr39y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519836/original/file-20230406-694-pnr39y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519836/original/file-20230406-694-pnr39y.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">South Korean boy band BTS are popular with fans in China.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/los-angeles-california-usa-december-6-1582581670">Silvia Elizabeth Pangaro/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Idol fans in our study <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877920904064">and others</a> understand the logic of celebrity ranking lists on Weibo. This is when artists need enough posts, reposts and likes to be on the trending page, upping their profile among the wider public. Fans commonly post and comment on Weibo to create positive images of their idols.</p>
<p>The public images these fans have built are also nationalist. Idols are seen as role models, who make positive contributions to society, even in difficult times. In idol fans’ social media expressions of national pride and compliance to state rules during the pandemic, they posited their idols as loyal to the nation, the people and the party state.</p>
<p>As one fan told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We want to make our idol appear as a high-class artist. To achieve the goal, we need evidence of our idol being invited for and participating in performances/shows by the official media or the state. [Without recognition from the state] no matter how well an idol’s album sells, people would consider the idol no more than an online influencer.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Idol fans often interpret “nationalism” as loyalty to national identity and adherence to the state’s policies and rules. Many of them deliberately demonstrate this understanding in their fan posts on social media. For example, idol fans actively joined the state-directed campaign on China’s National Mourning Day and expressed national pride while quoting their idols in the posts.</p>
<p>They also purposefully respond to political and social events as a way to promote their idols’ nationalist ideals, as shown in the chart below. </p>
<p><strong>‘Nationalist’ posts about idols</strong></p>
<p>In addition to commercial strategies such as subway advertisements, music streaming and crowdfunding, these fans see participation in events organised by the state and official media as recognition by the state.</p>
<p>Such “official stamps” can bring both material benefits and political status and reputation for their idols, ultimately boosting their popularity.</p>
<p>Our research has shown that idol fans engage not only the commercial logic common in Japanese and Korean K-pop/idol culture (more publicity brings more commercial value) but also the political logic propagated by the state in China (more “official stamps” bring more political value and commercial value in return).</p>
<p>The skilful deployment of nationalism strategies in their everyday life prepares idol fans, so that the mantra of “love for idols” can quickly transform into “love for the state”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203444/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yan Wang 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>In social media posts during the pandemic, fans posit their idols as loyal to the nation, the people and the party state.Yan Wang, Lecturer in Digital Sociology, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2063952023-05-25T07:18:39Z2023-05-25T07:18:39ZEmpowerment, individual strength and the many facets of love: why I fell for Tina Turner<p>For singers – amateur and professional alike – the name Tina Turner evokes instant reverence: Turner is a singer’s singer and perhaps the performer’s performer. </p>
<p>A highly successful songwriter, the consummate dancer and fittingly ranked as one of the <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-artists-147446/">100 Greatest Artists of All Time</a> by Rolling Stone magazine, Turner was the ultimate entertainer. </p>
<p>Upon hearing of her death, I was deeply saddened. I immediately recalled the intoxicating power and timbre of her voice, her mesmerising energy and her commanding performances. </p>
<p>I started singing sections of songs such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2T5_seDNZE">Proud Mary</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9Lehkou2Do">River Deep Mountain High</a> and of course iconic original songs, such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I07249JX8w4">Nutbush City Limits</a>. This was an intimate, sentimental, nostalgic and danceable song celebrating Turner’s roots growing up in the small town of Nutbush, Tennessee. </p>
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<h2>Fierce hard work</h2>
<p>My first encounter with Turner’s brilliance and might was hearing her hits of the mid-1980s, with songs like Graham Lyle’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGpFcHTxjZs">What’s Love Got To Do With It</a>, Al Green’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rFB4nj_GRc">Let’s Stay Together</a> and – love it or hate it – the powerful rock ballad <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcm-tOGiva0">We Don’t Need Another Hero</a>, the theme song to Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. </p>
<p>Once introduced, I immersed myself in her extensive back catalogue, soaking in her early 1960s soul, funk and emerging rock tracks. </p>
<p>Today, I flashed back to memories of the physical energy and technical focus and practice it took just attempting to sing any Turner songs in my 20s. </p>
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<p>The degree of difficulty required to perform as Turner did cannot be understated. </p>
<p>To sing with such consistency in such high registers, belting out song after song live with impeccable pitch, breath control, fitness, articulation and rhythmic precision is one thing. To do all of this while dancing with intense pace to highly choreographed routines throughout each show is on a whole other level. </p>
<p>Her performance practice exemplified fierce hard work – with an immense energy and vitality in live performance. </p>
<p>Try singing any of her songs at a Karaoke bar. Very quickly you gain some insight into the technical demands her songs require. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-some-of-the-best-known-tunes-like-happy-birthday-are-the-hardest-to-sing-130933">Why some of the best-known tunes, like 'Happy Birthday,' are the hardest to sing</a>
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<h2>Making songs her own</h2>
<p>For every singer, selecting a repertoire to cover is an ongoing quest. </p>
<p>In a sea of the world’s great songs, Turner selected songs she could make her own. She remodelled every song she sang - realigning them so much that we now think of them as hers first.</p>
<p>There are so many examples. My favourites are Turner’s formidable versions of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIPoC6JlP38">I Can’t Stand the Rain</a> (originally by Ann Peebles), <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC5E8ie2pdM">The Best</a> (Bonnie Tyler) and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4QnalIHlVc">Private Dancer</a> (Mark Knopfler). </p>
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<p>A great deal of the songs Turner was known for through the 1960s were covers. Turner’s forceful and expressive vocal delivery gave new life to these songs, realigning them with her uniquely identifiable sound and choice of vocal register, her phrasing choices and her punctuated rhythmic delivery. </p>
<p>Turner is perhaps less known as a songwriter, but her diverse songwriting demonstrated her skill and thoughtful, well-crafted lyrics. On her 1972 album Feel Good, nine of the ten songs were written by Turner. From 1973 to 1977, Turner composed all the songs on each album. </p>
<p>One of my favourites of her original songs is the power ballad <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l__zi3OtrQ0">Be Tender With Me Baby</a>. It speaks of a request for understanding, of her loneliness and vulnerability, sung with Turner’s intensity. </p>
<p>Across her original songs and covers, Turner’s repertoire spoke of empowerment, individual strength and the many facets of love. Beyond performing, Turner represented inner strength, spiritual depth and resilience against adversity.</p>
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<p>In 1996, when Turner was 57, she recorded her ninth studio album, Wildest Dreams.</p>
<p>One track, Something Beautiful Remains, may not be as familiar as many of her other hits, but it is the song I have kept returning to today. In the chorus, Turner’s lyrics are sadly perfectly fitting:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For every life that fades<br>
Something beautiful remains.</p>
</blockquote>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tina-turner-had-a-history-of-high-blood-pressure-and-kidney-disease-heres-how-one-leads-to-the-other-206392">Tina Turner had a history of high blood pressure and kidney disease. Here's how one leads to the other</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206395/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leigh Carriage 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 legendary singer has died at 83. Her performance practice exemplified fierce hard work.Leigh Carriage, Senior Lecturer in Music, Southern Cross UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2054682023-05-15T00:50:29Z2023-05-15T00:50:29ZEurovision under the shadow of war: how the 2023 contest highlighted humanitarianism, empathy and solidarity<p>In 2022, Ukraine won the Eurovision Song Contest in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraines-eurovision-win-shows-us-that-despite-arguments-to-the-contrary-the-contest-has-always-been-political-182767">landslide victory</a>. Traditionally, the winner hosts the following year but due to the significant security issues posed by the ongoing war with Russia, Ukraine was unable to host.</p>
<p>As the 2022 runners-up, the United Kingdom stepped in to assist with hosting duties. It was the eighth time Eurovision has not been hosted by the winner, and the fifth time the UK has helped out. It is, howeer, the first time the contest has not been hosted by the winner due to an active conflict situation.</p>
<p>The production was a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-ukrainian-culture-secretaries-comment-on-eurovision">collaboration</a> between last year’s Ukrainian winners and the UK hosts, to ensure both were fairly represented throughout. In addition to representation within the show itself – including the genuine co-host chemistry between Ukrainian rock goddess Julia Sanina and British actor Hannah Waddingham – a share of inexpensive <a href="https://eurovision.tv/story/liverpool-2023-tickets-be-made-available-displaced-ukrainians">tickets were reserved for displaced Ukrainians</a> in the UK. </p>
<p>As per tradition, the grand final opened with the previous winners, Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra, performing their winning song. This was followed by the flag parade, which featured past Ukrainian performers, including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqvzDkgok_g">Go_A</a> (2020-21) and the iconic <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfjHJneVonE">Verka Serduchka</a> (2007).</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHkgzsBdUJ0">The postcards</a> – the short videos used to introduce each performance – connected the co-hosts Ukraine and the UK to their performing guests via similar landmarks found in each country, from beaches to national libraries. In line with the year’s theme, “United by Music”, these sought to illustrate we are united by shared experiences.</p>
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<p>The interval act during voting was a medley of songs by Liverpudlian artists, ending with 2019 winner Duncan Laurence performing Gerry and the Pacemakers’ <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIVgOypab1s&list=PLmWYEDTNOGUIDlp5epnDhPH-zPI0KfTQG&index=34">You’ll Never Walk Alone</a>. It, too, aimed to express solidarity with Ukraine.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraines-eurovision-win-shows-us-that-despite-arguments-to-the-contrary-the-contest-has-always-been-political-182767">Ukraine's Eurovision win shows us that despite arguments to the contrary, the contest has always been political</a>
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<h2>The politics of the non-political contest</h2>
<p>The Eurovision Song Contest aims to be non-political. According to reports, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s request to address the audience was <a href="https://www.ebu.ch/news/2023/05/statement-from-the-european-broadcasting-union-on-president-zelensky-and-the-eurovision-song-contest">denied by the European Broadcasting Union</a> because it would contravene their policy that the contest not be used for political ends. </p>
<p>(Representatives for Zelensky <a href="https://apnews.com/article/zelenskyy-barred-from-addressing-eurovision-song-contest-3325627e1d12a720b0b73ce674967ba9">denied claims</a> he had made the request.)</p>
<p>Politicians have appeared on Eurovision before. Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko presented the winner, Greece, with a special award for “the winning song that unites the whole Europe” when <a href="https://youtu.be/5fq1K8aCGbw">the country first hosted in 2005</a>. Appearances by politicians can never be fully divorced from their political context, but they can be tempered by limiting these to an appearance rather than directly addressing the audience on a political issue.</p>
<p>The Eurovision production didn’t ignore the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but focused on framing it through the more acceptable <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraines-eurovision-win-shows-us-that-despite-arguments-to-the-contrary-the-contest-has-always-been-political-182767">values-based politics</a> of humanitarianism, empathy and solidarity.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraines-eurovision-win-shows-us-that-despite-arguments-to-the-contrary-the-contest-has-always-been-political-182767">Ukraine's Eurovision win shows us that despite arguments to the contrary, the contest has always been political</a>
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</p>
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<h2>But what about the performances?</h2>
<p>Austria opened the show with the catchy <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uk64V9h0Ko">Who the Hell is Edgar?</a>, a song <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-the-hell-is-edgar-a-viral-eurovision-song-about-edgar-allan-poe-evokes-a-strange-history-of-mediums-and-creative-possession-205007">critiquing gender bias</a> and artist remuneration in the music industry. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/who-the-hell-is-edgar-a-viral-eurovision-song-about-edgar-allan-poe-evokes-a-strange-history-of-mediums-and-creative-possession-205007">'Who the hell is Edgar?' – a viral Eurovision song about Edgar Allan Poe evokes a strange history of mediums and creative possession</a>
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<p>It’s not the first time Austria has sent an act critical of the music industry. Schmetterlinge’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKEYWa3VoHU">Boom Boom Boomerang</a> in 1977 mocked the commercialisation of the European music industry.</p>
<p>Reigning champions Ukraine placed sixth with Tvorchi’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2oqDpefJ1s">Heart of Steel</a>, while their co-hosts placed second-last – a reversal of fortunes from last year’s second-place finish. </p>
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<p>While the live performance of Mae Muller’s radio-friendly <a href="https://youtu.be/tvJEE2ryCRQ">I Wrote A Song</a> didn’t capture votes, the UK garnered a lot of goodwill for the production itself. It shows why Eurovision is still a good cultural (and political) <a href="https://theconversation.com/eurovision-uk-quitting-the-song-contest-would-only-be-bad-for-brand-britain-117758">investment</a> for them, win or lose.</p>
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<p>In another reversal of fortunes, Norway illustrated the power of the popular vote. Alessandra’s feminist sea shanty, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUHSM_vTqTI">Queen of the Kings</a>, moved from 17th in the jury vote to fifth overall thanks to the audience televote.</p>
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<p>This included four points from the rest of the world. For the first time ever, audiences from non-participating countries were able to vote online for their favourite performances. This vote has the same weight as the votes from a single country. Their points – the maximum 12 points – were awarded to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3mIcCllJXY">Israel</a>. </p>
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<p>While this vote isn’t enough to shift the contest’s outcome, it is a welcome recognition of the contest’s global reach and audience. Eurovision is watched by more than <a href="https://www.statista.com/topics/3431/eurovision-song-contest/#topicOverview">180 million viewers</a> around the world each year.</p>
<p>Finland proved to be a crowd favourite. The arena audience could be heard chanting the chorus throughout the voting. Käärijä’s infectious industrial hyperpop, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6rS8Dv5g-8">Cha Cha Cha</a>, narrates escaping the drudgery of everyday life by hitting the dancefloor with a piña colada. </p>
<p>(It was reported anecdotally many Finnish supermarkets sold out of piña colada ingredients this weekend.) </p>
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<h2>Eurovision powerhouses</h2>
<p>Sweden’s victory with Loreen’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE2Fj0W4jP4">Tattoo</a> is record-breaking. </p>
<p>Loreen is now the second person to win Eurovision twice, the first woman to win twice, and the first <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-gay-world-cup-why-lgbtq-audiences-love-eurovision-205524">LGBTQIA+</a> artist to win twice. She previously won in 2012 with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfo-8z86x80">Euphoria</a>, credited with <a href="https://www.aussievision.net/post/the-story-and-legacy-of-euphoria">changing the artistic direction</a> of the modern Eurovision.</p>
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<p>Sweden now tie with Ireland for the most Eurovision victories, seven. Somewhat auspiciously, the 2024 Eurovision marks the fiftieth anniversary of ABBA’s iconic first win for Sweden in 1974 – again, at a Eurovision hosted by the UK.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-gay-world-cup-why-lgbtq-audiences-love-eurovision-205524">The 'gay world cup': why LGBTQ+ audiences love Eurovision</a>
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<h2>Australia’s fifth appearance</h2>
<p>This year marked another anniversary: the 40th anniversary of the Eurovision broadcast in Australia. It is also the end of Australia’s five-year participation agreement with the European Broadcasting Union.</p>
<p>Western Australian prog-synth band Voyager made a strong case for the continuation with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSoy_mJMlMY&list=PLmWYEDTNOGUIDlp5epnDhPH-zPI0KfTQG&index=11">Promise</a>. They placed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/may/14/voyager-take-australia-to-ninth-place-in-eurovision-grand-final#:%7E:text=Paul%20Clarke%2C%20creative%20director%20of,confident%E2%80%9D%20Australia%20would%20return%20again.">ninth overall</a>, after winning their semi-final.</p>
<p>Fingers crossed Australia will be getting up at 5am next year to support its artists again.</p>
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<p><em>Correction: this article misstated the results of previous Australian Eurovision contestants. This has been corrected.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205468/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jess Carniel 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>Sweden’s Loreen is now the second person to win Eurovision twice, the first woman to win twice, and the first LGBTQIA+ artist to win twice.Jess Carniel, Senior Lecturer in Humanities, University of Southern QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2040722023-05-09T15:30:43Z2023-05-09T15:30:43ZHow to win Eurovision: the secret code of the contest’s winning lyrics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521608/original/file-20230418-20-ol287p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4446%2C2888&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Eurovision Song Contest stage. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/kyiv-ukraine-february-08-2020-scene-1643769724">Review News/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Eurovision Song Contest is one of the few remaining examples of event TV – and UK audiences lap it up. With <a href="https://eurovision.tv/story/eurovision-2022-161-million-viewers#:%7E:text=Ratings%20Rise&text=6.8%20million%20viewers%20on%20average,%2C%20up%2020%25%20on%202021.">8.9 million viewers</a> in 2022, Britain formed the largest audience of all Eurovision markets. And this time around, there’s even a bit of hope for those cheering on the home talent.</p>
<p>Although it’s been 26 years since the UK’s last victory, courtesy of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMYOTEapVpg">Katrina and The Waves in 1997</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU5cJfaX3DI">Sam Ryder’s Space Man</a> marked a return to the runners-up podium last year. The UK has now chalked up a <a href="https://eurovision.tv/story/history-united-kingdom-eurovision-song-contest">record 16</a> second place finishes. But what would it take to go one better and win the whole thing?</p>
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<p>In the late 1940s, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13698230701400296?casa_token=lEt-KarYmnAAAAAA%3APefyqU79sEJ4gsNfH8eeiGkk8NOpyBbGhSG3V9C0hcljpDf50lWmSmEuM3wlOZo7yKcor-jlLWU">philosopher Theodor Adorno</a> suggested that popular music was formulaic. Each song, he argued, was the same length, had the same structure and expressed the same lyrical sentiments.</p>
<p>As curmudgeonly as this might sound (and keeping in mind that he died in 1969, before the likes of Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa really tore up the pop rule book), his point still rings true. And it’s certainly applicable when it comes to successful Eurovision entries.</p>
<p>For a start, Eurovision songs really are the same length, given the rule that makes <a href="https://eurovision.tv/about/rules">the maximum duration three minutes</a>. But there are also notable thematic and structural similarities between songs that fare well in the contest.</p>
<p>Of the last 20 winning songs, 17 have been sung in English, 17 are about relationships, 13 have used the word “love”, 18 have at least one direct address (“I” to “you”) and all 20 have repeated choruses. And it’s this last element that’s the non-negotiable.</p>
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<img alt="Maneskin stand on stage in leather trousers holding their musical instruments aloft." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521620/original/file-20230418-14-a73s39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521620/original/file-20230418-14-a73s39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521620/original/file-20230418-14-a73s39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521620/original/file-20230418-14-a73s39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521620/original/file-20230418-14-a73s39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521620/original/file-20230418-14-a73s39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521620/original/file-20230418-14-a73s39.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eurovision 2021 winners, Maneskin of Italy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/ahoy-rotterdam-netherlands-may-22th-2021-1982762177">Ben Houdijk/Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>If, as sociologist Brian Longhurst says, <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Popular_Music_and_Society/PxnOFDDMZOUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%27The+most+successful,+best+music+is+identified+with+the+most+often+repeated.%27+longhurst&pg=PA7&printsec=frontcover">“the most successful, best music is identified with the most often repeated”</a>, this counts double when it comes to Eurovision. Viewers of the live final only get the one listen and therefore need to bond with a song immediately if they’re to remember it when it comes to the voting.</p>
<p>Psychologist Daniel Levitin says that two of the main elements to making a song memorable are <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Writing_Song_Lyrics/5YpJEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">rhyme and cliches</a>. Although the <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Writing_Song_Lyrics/5YpJEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=fosbraey+cliche&pg=PA89&printsec=frontcover">definition of cliche is ultimately subjective</a> (a cliche to me, for example, may be new and exciting to my 12-year-old), research <a href="https://researchrepository.rmit.edu.au/esploro/outputs/conferenceProceeding/In-your-eyes-identifying-cliches-in-song-lyrics/9921861854601341">from 2012</a> and <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Writing_Better_Lyrics/3B9jDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=pat+pattison+writing&printsec=frontcover">2009</a> has done a decent job in outlining the most-used words and phrases in lyrics.</p>
<p>To win Eurovision, then: sing in first-person, direct English about a relationship, using loads of rhymes and cliches and make sure you repeat the chorus. </p>
<h2>Rating Mae Muller’s Eurovision chances</h2>
<p>What chance, then, of Mae Muller’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRaVGKk4k6k">I Wrote a Song</a> winning in Liverpool this year?</p>
<p>With the song currently on 3.6 stars based on 12,000 ratings on the <a href="https://eurovisionworld.com/eurovision/2023/united-kingdom">Eurovision World website</a> and a somewhat sniffy <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/mar/09/mae-muller-i-wrote-a-song-review-uk-eurovision-entry-alexis-petridis">three-star review</a> in the Guardian, early indicators aren’t great. But when compared with previous champs, things become a little rosier.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Mae Muller’s 2023 Eurovision entry, I Wrote a Song.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I Wrote a Song is an “I” to “you” song. It’s about a relationship. It’s got a catchy chorus. It’s extremely repetitive both lyrically – with only 29% unique words out of its 308 total (the average from the last 20 winners is 36%) – and musically, with a looped, four-chord structure throughout.</p>
<p>I Wrote a Song sits at about an eight or a nine on the cliche-ometer, relying as it does on common phrases like “you did me wrong”, “cried at home” and “spent the night alone”. And it uses a succession of basic, “<a href="https://dial.uclouvain.be/pr/boreal/object/boreal%3A249760/datastream/PDF_01/view">perfect” rhymes</a>, such as Benz/friends, song/wrong, home/alone.</p>
<p>It’s also accessible to a mass audience, with its subjects <a href="https://time.com/5287962/best-breakup-songs/">ending a relationship</a>, feeling down about it and eventually finding the courage to move on, among the most common shared human experiences. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/mar/09/eurovision-2023-uk-entry-announced-as-mae-muller">Muller has said</a>: “I wrote the song … when I was going through a hard time and wanted to feel empowered about relationships.”</p>
<p>Ultimately, Muller’s performance on the night will have a big role in determining how the UK fares. </p>
<p>If a singer is suitably captivating and the song is easy enough to learn, there is an opportunity to get the audience singing along on the night. <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Singing_Out/7D4LEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">This interaction leads to more of a connection</a>, making the song more memorable, which may eventually translate into points.</p>
<p>Muller succeeded in getting the crowd singing along to the chorus at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EMepsNxZUU">LIVE @ Eurovision in Concert in Amsterdam</a> on April 15 (albeit with some coaxing). If she manages to do that in Liverpool, there may yet be a UK winner in the 21st century.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204072/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Glenn Fosbraey 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 UK has now chalked up a record 16 second place finishes. But what would it take to go one better and win the whole thing?Glenn Fosbraey, Associate Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of WinchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2047472023-05-05T01:20:16Z2023-05-05T01:20:16ZInspiration, influence and theft: what the Ed Sheeran case can tell us about 70 years of pop music<p>Earlier today, a US court <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/may/04/ed-sheeran-verdict-not-liable-copyright-lawsuit-marvin-gaye">ruled in favour of singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran</a>, agreeing his song Thinking Out Loud did not breach musical copyright. </p>
<p>The high-profile court case, brought by the estate of soul singer Marvin Gaye, claimed Sheeran’s song was too similar to Gaye’s song Let’s Get It On.</p>
<p>On the stand, Sheeran <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/apr/28/ed-sheeran-sings-in-court-as-part-of-marvin-gaye-copyright-case">defended his songwriting process</a>, stating: “I draw inspiration from a lot from things in my life and family.”</p>
<p>Sheeran’s case brought up some difficult questions around what we understand as inspiration and influence, and what we may hear as theft. </p>
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<p>Musical copyright cases are part of songwriting history. Radiohead’s Creep was found to be <a href="https://entertainment.time.com/2013/08/22/11-suspiciously-sound-alike-songs/slide/the-hollies-the-air-that-i-breathe-1974-vs-radiohead-creep-1992/">too similar</a> to the Hollies’ The Air That I Breathe, and in 2018, Lana Del Rey’s Get Free <a href="https://variety.com/2018/biz/news/lana-del-rey-claims-lawsuit-with-radiohead-is-over-watch-1202736177/">was found to plagiarise Creep</a>. </p>
<p>Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars altered the credits to Uptown Funk to <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/lawsuit-bmg-uptown-funk-royalties-gap-band-heirs-1234660379/">acknowledge the similarity</a> to The Gap Band’s Oops Upside Your Head. </p>
<p>Here in Australia, the flute solo in Men at Work’s Down Under, which quoted the melody of folk song Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree, was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/jul/06/men-at-work-down-under">ruled as plagiarism</a>. </p>
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<p>In this case against Sheeran, the song’s chord progression was at the heart of the claim. The prosecution argued Sheeran’s chord progression was too similar to the chord progression of Gaye’s.</p>
<p>But can we copyright a chord progression if it is used extensively in other pop songs? </p>
<p>Gaye’s song uses four chords that gradually move upward (I-iii-IV-V). These same chords can be heard in the Beach Boys’ I Can Hear Music, the Seekers’ Georgy Girl, the Beatles’ I Feel Fine, in the Motown tune This Old Heart of Mine by the Isley Brothers, Elvis Presley’s Suspicious Minds, Cher’s Believe and ABBA’s Knowing Me Knowing You, among many others. </p>
<p>This chord progression and many others are part of the songwriting toolkit of rock and pop and have been heard continuously over the past 70 years. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-down-under-book-and-film-remind-us-our-copyright-laws-still-unfair-for-artists-44960">The Down Under book and film remind us our copyright law's still unfair for artists</a>
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<hr>
<h2>The 12 bar blues</h2>
<p>A chord progression is the main instrumental part you hear in most pop music, usually played by a guitar, piano or synth. </p>
<p>One of the oldest chord progressions in pop is the 12-bar blues – a looping pattern of three chords that is very identifiable. </p>
<p>As the name suggests, this set of chords stems from early blues and was a way for musicians to easily play together and improvise. A version of this progression can be heard in Muddy Waters’ I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man or John Lee Hooker’s Boom Boom. </p>
<p>You can also hear this progression in a number of other pop songs – listen to verses of Queen’s I Want to Break Free and Kiss by Prince – both use the same chord progression, but sound very different to each other. </p>
<p>More recently, Lizzo’s Better in Colour uses the 12-bar blues in a way that makes an old formula fresh. </p>
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<h2>The ‘doo-wop’ progression</h2>
<p>The “doo-wop” progression has appeared in pop music for close to 80 years, and is named because most doo-wop songs feature this chord progression – it was an essential part of its sound. </p>
<p>You can hear it in 1950s hits such as the Penguins’ Earth Angel and Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers’ Why Do Fools Fall in Love?. </p>
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<p>The strength of these chords means they are used in pop music of all kinds, including ELO’s Telephone Line, Don’t Dream it’s Over by Crowded House, Destiny’s Child’s Say My Name, Blank Space by Taylor Swift, and Flowers by Miley Cyrus. </p>
<p>Despite its consistent use, these chords still cross genres and eras, and still catch our ears. </p>
<p>Comedy act Axis of Awesome use a similar progression in their video for 4 Chords, where they cleverly play almost 50 different songs with a variation on these four simple chords. </p>
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<h2>The I-IV-V (the ‘one, four, five’)</h2>
<p>Perhaps the most common chord progressions in rock and pop are those that use the I, IV and V chords in various combinations.</p>
<p>They’re usually the first three chords you learn on an instrument and open up thousands of songs to play – from the rock and roll of Summertime Blues by Eddie Cochran, the garage rock of Wild Thing by the Troggs, the bubblegum of Hanson’s Mmmbop and the indie rock of Coldplay’s Yellow, to the modern pop of bad guy by Billie Eilish and good 4 u by Olivia Rodrigo. </p>
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<h2>Going forward</h2>
<p>Rock, pop, blues, doo wop and other musical genres can often be defined by their use of repeated chord progressions. These chord progressions are part of a songwriter’s toolkit in a similar way to how an artist may use different paint brushes. </p>
<p>As Sheeran’s lawyer Ilene Farkas <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/may/04/ed-sheeran-verdict-not-liable-copyright-lawsuit-marvin-gaye">noted</a>, chord progressions are: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the letters of the alphabet of music […] these are basic musical building blocks that songwriters now and forever must be free to use. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is how these “building blocks” are used, and in what combinations, that gives us a great variety of pop songs over many decades. The true craft of great pop music is to take these formulas and turn them into something unique (while simultaneously making it sound easy).</p>
<p>The ruling in Sheeran’s case supports the rights of musical artists to continue to use these progressions as part of a songwriter’s toolkit, and to build from the artists who came before them. It also acknowledges that influence and inspiration from previous works are part of the construction of the pop music we love. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-ed-sheerans-court-victory-sounds-good-for-the-music-industry-180997">Why Ed Sheeran's court victory sounds good for the music industry</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204747/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jadey O'Regan 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>A US court has ruled Ed Sheeran isn’t guilty of plagiarism. The ruling supports the rights of musical artists to build from the artists who came before them.Jadey O'Regan, Lecturer in Contemporary Music, Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Co-author of "Hooks in Popular Music" (2022), University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2050072023-05-04T04:08:02Z2023-05-04T04:08:02Z‘Who the hell is Edgar?’ – a viral Eurovision song about Edgar Allan Poe evokes a strange history of mediums and creative possession<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524290/original/file-20230504-26-2hmxgq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=59%2C11%2C2409%2C1105&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Teya and Salena.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">eurovision.tv</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Who the hell is Edgar?” ask Teya and Salena, two young women fronting Austria’s entry to this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. </p>
<p>Replete with dance routine, fake moustaches and a catchy chorus, their viral video and song attributes their success as songwriters to possession by the 19th-century author, poet and gothic celebrity <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edgar-Allan-Poe">Edgar Allan Poe</a> (1809-1849):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There’s a ghost in my body and he is a lyricist<br>
It is Edgar Allan Poe, and I think he can’t resist<br>
Yeah, his brain is in my hand, and it’s moving really fast<br>
Don’t know how he possessed me, but I’m happy that he did<br></p>
</blockquote>
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<h2>Channelling spirits</h2>
<p>Teya and Salena are not the first young women to be possessed by Poe. Their hit song evokes a curious history of alleged posthumous collaborations. In the 1850s and 1860s, a group of <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Gender_and_the_Poetics_of_Reception_in_P/8f828pY-kjcC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=eliza+richards+reception+poe&printsec=frontcover">young female spiritualists</a> wrote and published poetry from the “spirit of Edgar A. Poe”. </p>
<p>These mediums claimed they could channel the spirits of loved ones through possessed speech, musical instruments and automatic writing. They also maintained they could channel the spirits of celebrity ghosts, including recently deceased presidents, global historical figures and well-known writers. </p>
<p>At séances, mediums would surrender their bodily autonomy to allow the deceased to enter and control them. As one member of a Philadelphia spiritualist circle wrote in <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/A_History_of_the_Recent_Developments_in/92EwAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">1851</a>, “the person to be prepared must give up all self-control, all resistance, and resign himself to the entire direction and control of the spirits”. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524234/original/file-20230503-28-3ti6zb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524234/original/file-20230503-28-3ti6zb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524234/original/file-20230503-28-3ti6zb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=844&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524234/original/file-20230503-28-3ti6zb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=844&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524234/original/file-20230503-28-3ti6zb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=844&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524234/original/file-20230503-28-3ti6zb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1060&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524234/original/file-20230503-28-3ti6zb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1060&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524234/original/file-20230503-28-3ti6zb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1060&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edgar Allan Poe (1849).</span>
</figcaption>
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<p>These spirit poets really did believe they had Poe’s “brain in their hands”. Lizzie Doten, a Massachusetts spiritualist lecturer, performed and published six “Poe” poems under the title <a href="https://archive.org/details/poemsfrominnerl00dotegoog">Poems from the Inner Life</a> (1864). In her introduction, Doten describes the “mental intoxication” she experienced in encountering the turbulent spirit of Poe. </p>
<p>Among the six texts is <a href="https://archive.org/details/poemsfrominnerl00dotegoog/page/n138/mode/1up">Resurrexi</a>, a sequel to Poe’s famous 1845 poem <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1065/1065-h/1065-h.htm">The Raven</a>. Borrowing well-known lines and phrases from The Raven, Doten makes use of the hypnotic repetitive sounds and rhymes common to Poe’s poetry. Critics commented that, if mediumship is real, the Resurrexi “is unquestionably the most astonishing thing that Spiritualism has produced”, due to its accurate representation of Poe’s style. </p>
<p>The fever for spirit writing covered several well-known deceased writers and historical figures. Magazines and collections produced “original” posthumous texts on a monthly basis. Spiritualists produced these celebrity ghost writings to demonstrate the authenticity of their practice and the radical possibility of the living and the dead merging consciousnesses. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/depression-and-language-analysing-edgar-allan-poes-writings-to-solve-the-mystery-of-his-death-131421">Depression and language: analysing Edgar Allan Poe's writings to solve the mystery of his death</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The living and the dead</h2>
<p>The posthumous “Poe” poems are not very good, but they attempt to capture the content or style of Poe’s living poems: dramatic and dark lyrics about the loss of loved ones and the crossover between the living and spirit worlds. </p>
<p>They are influenced by the image of Poe as a melancholic loner, tormented by bereavement and alcoholism, and fascinated with the otherworldly. His friend and first biographer Rufus W. Griswold established this image in his <a href="https://www.eapoe.org/papers/misc1827/nyt49100.htm">1849 obituary</a>, in which he reflected that Poe was “a dreamer – dwelling in ideal realms – in heaven or hell”. Poe, wrote Griswold, had a “morbid sensitiveness of feeling, a shadowy and gloomy imagination”.</p>
<p>In his work, Poe continually blurs the boundary between life and death. He asks his readers to consider at what point death truly occurs if the dead can still speak or inhabit the bodies of the living. In <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2151/2151-h/2151-h.htm#chap5.10">Some Words with a Mummy</a> (1845), a group of Egyptologists reanimate a mummy, who speaks to them with an unexpected eloquence. In <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2150/2150-h/2150-h.htm#chap4.8">A Predicament</a> (1839), aspiring author Zenobia narrates her own beheading. </p>
<p>Poe returned to the figure of the dead or dying beautiful woman throughout his career. His poetic and fictional personas yearn to be reunited with departed wives and lovers. The Raven, <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2149/2149-h/2149-h.htm#chap3.28">Ligeia</a> (1838), <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10031/10031-h/10031-h.htm#section3a">Lenore</a> (1843), <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10031/10031-h/10031-h.htm#section2e">Ulalume</a> (1847), and <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10031/10031-h/10031-h.htm#section2g">Annabel Lee</a> (1849) are all explorations of this theme.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524245/original/file-20230504-26-cyqb7v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C3%2C2510%2C1171&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524245/original/file-20230504-26-cyqb7v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C3%2C2510%2C1171&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524245/original/file-20230504-26-cyqb7v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524245/original/file-20230504-26-cyqb7v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524245/original/file-20230504-26-cyqb7v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524245/original/file-20230504-26-cyqb7v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524245/original/file-20230504-26-cyqb7v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524245/original/file-20230504-26-cyqb7v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Teya and Salena.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image: YouTube</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Poe was writing before the spiritualist boom, but he was fascinated with how human consciousness might transcend the boundaries of bodily death. In <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2148/2148-h/2148-h.htm#chap2.6">The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar</a> (1845), a man is placed in a mesmeric trance at the point of death and inexplicably affirms “<a href="https://irishgothichorror.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/isay.pdf%22">I say to you that I am dead!</a>”, after which his body gruesomely disintegrates. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/30030067">Scholars</a> have read this short story as a commentary on writing itself – if someone can communicate from beyond the grave, what might be the possibilities for posthumous authorship or artistic creation? </p>
<p>Today we can bring back the voices of the dead through sampling and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/19/arts/music/ai-drake-the-weeknd-fake.html">even AI</a>. But the dead might also be said to survive in the creative responses they continue to inspire. So when Teya and Salena take to the Eurovision stage in Liverpool next week, their song may be new, but their story of ghostly authorship and spirit possession comes straight from Poe’s work itself.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205007/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hannah Lauren Murray received funding for this research from Arts and Humanities Research Council UK (2014-16).</span></em></p>When Teya and Salena take to the Eurovision stage next week, their song may be new, but their story of ghostly authorship and spirit possession comes straight from Poe’s work.Hannah Lauren Murray, Associate lecturer, Literature, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2007652023-03-03T12:51:03Z2023-03-03T12:51:03ZDavid Bowie: five must-have items for the V&A’s new centre<p>The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64729309">announced</a> the opening of a new David Bowie Centre for the Performing Arts in 2025 at V&A East Storehouse in east London. This follows the news that the museum has acquired – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/feb/23/va-lands-huge-archive-of-david-bowie-memorabilia">through donation</a> – the artist’s fabled archive. </p>
<p>This collection of over 80,000 objects formed the basis of the museum’s 2013 exhibition <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/mar/24/david-bowie-is-exhibition-review">David Bowie Is</a>. It includes personal correspondence, lyric sheets, photographs, costumes, set designs, music awards, films, album artwork, instruments and plans for unrealised projects. </p>
<p>The show’s curators, Victoria Broackes and Geoffrey Marsh, described it as “one of the most, if not the most, complete archive of any pop music artist” of all time, </p>
<iframe style="border-radius:12px" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/4wyp6TmKmF6XnQBXvGnfCO?utm_source=generator" width="100%" height="352" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" loading="lazy"></iframe>
<p>In 2020, I was <a href="https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/english/news/article/1707/the-cambridge-companion-to-david-bowie">commissioned</a> to edit The Cambridge Companion to David Bowie, having long researched <a href="https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/123490/">the artist’s</a> (often ghostly) presence in both <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10486801.2014.885902">contemporary theatre</a> and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10304312.2017.1334384">recent cinema</a>. </p>
<p>Here are my top five Bowie treasures, with a playlist that sounds out his <a href="https://theconversation.com/back-then-and-now-just-who-is-david-bowie-42052">playful curiosity</a> about how we occupy our bodies and <a href="https://theconversation.com/bowie-and-gender-transgression-what-a-drag-44569">genders</a>, his tender sense of our need for beauty and his passionate respect for <a href="https://theconversation.com/bowies-magical-wardrobe-led-his-fans-into-strange-new-musical-landscapes-53120">style</a>. </p>
<h2>1. Jockstrap</h2>
<p>During the 1973 Ziggy Stardust tour, <a href="https://www.snapgalleries.com/portfolio-items/david-bowie-by-masayoshi-sukita/">Masayoshi Sukita</a> photographed a <a href="https://www.snapgalleries.com/product/masayoshi-sukita-david-bowie-gimmie-your-hands/">near-naked Bowie</a> performing before a joyously crazed Japanese crowd, wearing only a <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2005/07/where-have-all-the-jockstraps-gone.html">jockstrap</a>. </p>
<p>This piece of athletic kit, so evocative of <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/304335047.pdf">sport’s homosocial energies</a> and of <a href="https://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/6517/1/Humberstone-older_people_sexualities.phd.pdf">working-class culture</a>, creates an irreverent tension with the androgyny and strangeness of the costumes fashion designer Kansai Yamamoto created for that same tour. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="David Bowie on stage wearing red boxing gloves." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512902/original/file-20230301-16-3ttafv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512902/original/file-20230301-16-3ttafv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512902/original/file-20230301-16-3ttafv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512902/original/file-20230301-16-3ttafv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512902/original/file-20230301-16-3ttafv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512902/original/file-20230301-16-3ttafv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512902/original/file-20230301-16-3ttafv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Diamond Dogs tour in 1974.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/hdport/3329403108/in/photostream/">Hunter Desportes/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bowie was at his most gloriously <a href="https://core.ac.uk/works/9206049">queer</a> when trafficking in images of iconic, traditional (and intensely vulnerable) masculinity. Other notable accessories include the red boxing gloves he wore during live performances of his 1973 track Panic in Detroit and the darker gloves he sports on the cover of 1983’s Let’s Dance.</p>
<h2>2. The 1973 Hammersmith Odeon dressing table</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/c9mq/">Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture</a>, the 1973 Donn Alan Pennebaker documentary about Bowie’s final Ziggy gig, we see the artist preparing for the stage. As he sits in front of a mirrored dressing table, his makeup artist applies rouge, eyeshadow and eyeliner, transforming him from a pallid young man into a feminine icon. </p>
<p>I’d like the new centre to recreate the dressing table: the two bottles of wine (one opened), the white plastic cups, the boxes of tissues, the large tin of hairspray, the container of Johnson & Johnson baby powder, the well-used green ashtray.</p>
<p>This gentle display of the mundane paraphernalia of 1970s femininity speaks to Bowie’s lifelong preoccupation with what English literature expert Shelton Walderp terms an <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/the-aesthetics-of-self-invention">“aesthetics of self-invention”</a>, stretching from Bowie back to Oscar Wilde, and beyond to Shakespeare and Japanese Kabuki theatre. </p>
<h2>3. Bowie’s copy of George Orwell’s 1984 – and other books</h2>
<figure>
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<p>One installation in the 2013 V&A show featured a faceless mannequin with outstretched arms, high, high up in the space. It was draped in a cloak designed by Yamamoto in 1973, a white floor-length garment, made in the <a href="https://www2.ntj.jac.go.jp/unesco/kabuki/en/production/performance1.html">Japanese hikinuki tradition</a> and designed to be ripped off in a speedy onstage costume change. It is covered in red and black <a href="https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2046.html">kanji</a> which translate as “one who spits out words in a fiery manner”. </p>
<p>Suspended around it in the V&A, like so many birds in flight, were 20-odd books from Bowie’s personal library by authors including RD Laing, Vladimir Nabokov and Hubert Selby Jr. </p>
<p>I’d love to see Bowie’s copy of George Orwell’s 1984 feature – a novel I read, aged 12, after I had heard Bowie was writing a musical based on it. Also, anything he owned by French writer Jean Genet, whose name inspired the title of the 1972 single, The Jean Genie, and whose final book, Prisoner of Love (1986) inspired the eponymous song Bowie recorded with Tin Machine in 1989. </p>
<h2>4. The Hedi Slimane three piece suit – and other blue suits</h2>
<p>On 1977’s Sound and Vision, Bowie <a href="https://pure.hud.ac.uk/en/publications/sound-and-vision">famously sang</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Blue, blue, electric blue<br>
That’s the colour of my room </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This sentiment chimes with the filmmaker, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/why-derek-jarman-s-life-was-even-more-influential-than-his-films-9137025.html">Derek Jarman</a>’s own take on the colour (in Chroma: A Book of Colour):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Blue, an open door to the soul<br>
An infinite possibility<br>
Becoming tangible</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bowie greatly admired Jarman, an extract of whose film, <a href="https://mubi.com/films/blue">Blue</a>, was played during the pre-show music for the 1995 Outside tour. Like Jarman, Bowie loved the colour blue, maybe, in part, because he knew how good he looked in it. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AZKcl4-tcuo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>Like he did in the turquoise suit Freddi Burretti designed for his 1973 Life on Mars? video, whose vivid hue echoed Bowie’s eye make-up; or the powder-blue suit designed by Peter Hall that featured regularly on the 1983 Serious Moonlight tour; and the gorgeous petrol-blue three-piece, designed by Hedi Slimane, that he wore on his 2002 Heathen tour. </p>
<h2>5. The white Supro guitar – and other instruments</h2>
<p>One of the most compelling photographs in the David Bowie Is catalogue is of the <a href="https://dshowmusic.com/supro-david-bowie-1961-dual-tone-guitar/">white Supro 1961 Dual Tone</a> electric guitar that Bowie played on his final tour, in support of the 2003 Reality album. The image remains emblematic of Bowie’s dogged commitment to the possibilities, and actual making of music.</p>
<p>Other instruments of note would include the <a href="https://www.kingston.ac.uk/news/article/2028/14-mar-2018-esteemed-music-producer-tony-visconti-shares-tips-on-working-with-artists-including-david-bowie-and/">12-string acoustic guitar</a> he turned to throughout his career; the <a href="https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-david-bowie-song-inspired-by-kyoto-japan/">Japanese koto</a> he plays on the 1977 track Moss Garden; the <a href="https://research.tees.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/6359081/344409.pdf">saxophone</a> he had played since he was a teenager; and the harmonicas that followed him from 1969’s song Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed to 2016’s I Can’t Give Everything Away, the final track on <a href="https://theconversation.com/david-bowies-late-revival-belongs-to-a-grand-tradition-dating-back-to-beethoven-71031">Blackstar</a>, his final album.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200765/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>The artist’s fabled archive spans his entire career, showcasing his playful curiosity, his need for beauty and his respect for style.Denis Flannery, Associate Professor in American Literature, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2000802023-02-21T04:19:41Z2023-02-21T04:19:41ZWhy do we stop exploring new music as we get older?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511036/original/file-20230220-26-oi0unv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C7%2C5160%2C3437&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Haupt</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>According to an estimate from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, an organisation that represents the international music industry, people around the world spend on average <a href="https://www.ifpi.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Engaging-with-Music-2022_full-report-1.pdf">20.1 hours per week</a> listening to music, up from 18.4 hours in 2021. </p>
<p>We have more ways to access music than at any time in history and a whole world of unfamiliar styles to explore.</p>
<p>The thrill of discovering new songs and new sounds can enrich people of all ages. </p>
<p>Except, most of the time, it doesn’t.</p>
<p>Our willingness to explore new or unfamiliar music declines with age. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/2888/chapter-abstract/143505209?redirectedFrom=fulltext">Multiple</a> <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/32719/chapter-abstract/272408599">studies</a> confirm the sentiments of US songwriter and musician Bob Seger:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Today’s music ain’t got the same soul<br>
I like that old time rock ‘n’ roll</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PQswfILThsY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/music-is-the-soundtrack-to-your-life-whats-on-your-playlist-26893">Music is the soundtrack to your life – what's on your playlist? </a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Exploring new music</h2>
<p>Academics use the term “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1029864917697783#bibr27-1029864917697783">open-earedness</a>” to describe our willingness to explore new music. Across our lives this willingness waxes and wanes. </p>
<p>Until around the age of 11, children are generally happy to engage with unfamiliar music. Early adolescence sees a reduction in open-earedness, but is accompanied by an intense increase in interest in music more generally. Open-earedness increases slightly during young adulthood, then declines as we age. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/253337104_Music_Through_the_Ages_Trends_in_Musical_Engagement_and_Preferences_From_Adolescence_Through_Middle_Adulthood">major 2013 study</a> involving more than 250,000 participants confirmed these changing behaviours. It also showed that the significance we ascribe to music after adolescence declines, and the amount of music we listen to reduces from a high point of 20% of our waking time during adolescence, to 13% in adulthood. </p>
<h2>Shifting priorities</h2>
<p>Researchers have different, but generally complementary, theories to account for these population-level trends. Some interpret the observed decline in music engagement in terms of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/253337104_Music_Through_the_Ages_Trends_in_Musical_Engagement_and_Preferences_From_Adolescence_Through_Middle_Adulthood">psychosocial maturation</a>. </p>
<p>Adolescents use music as an identity marker and engage with it to navigate social circles. Adults have developed personalities and established social groups. As such, drivers to engage with new music are lessened. </p>
<p>These same researchers point to age-related changes to hearing acuity – specifically a lowering tolerance for loud and high-frequency sound – as one cause for a reduced interest in new music for some people. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511071/original/file-20230220-16-tsmrfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Teen girl in record store browsing" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511071/original/file-20230220-16-tsmrfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511071/original/file-20230220-16-tsmrfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511071/original/file-20230220-16-tsmrfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511071/original/file-20230220-16-tsmrfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511071/original/file-20230220-16-tsmrfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511071/original/file-20230220-16-tsmrfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511071/original/file-20230220-16-tsmrfc.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">Adolescents use music as an identity marker.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">jamakassi</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21241288/">explanation</a> for the age-based reduction in music consumption simply posits that responsibility-laden adults may have less discretionary time to explore their musical interests than younger people.</p>
<p>Some <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/1029864916633264">scholars question</a> whether there is a straightforward link between the decline in the rate of new music consumption and increasing music intolerance. </p>
<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0305735620915247">Others argue against</a> using chronological age as a predictor for stagnant musical taste without first considering the different ways we process and use music across our lifespan. Teenagers tend to be very aware of what they are listening to. Adults who use <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284331015_Music_in_everyday_life_The_role_of_emotions">music as motivation</a> or accompaniment for activities such as exercise or menial tasks may be less conscious of the extent to which they actually do listen to new music. </p>
<p>There is <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02673843.2011.650182">consensus</a> that people are highly likely to have their taste shaped by the music they first encounter in adolescence. </p>
<p>Adolescence shapes musical taste firstly because our brains are developed to the point where we can fully process what we’re hearing, and secondly because the heightened emotions of puberty create strong and lasting bonds of memory. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/chills-and-thrills-why-some-people-love-music-and-others-dont-24007">Chills and thrills: why some people love music – and others don't</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Soundtrack of our lives</h2>
<p>Neuroscience provides some fascinating insights into how and why our musical tastes develop. We know, for example, infants display an affinity to music they <a href="https://mdpi-res.com/brainsci/brainsci-10-00837/article_deploy/brainsci-10-00837.pdf?version=1605090832">heard in utero</a>. </p>
<p>Also, musical taste boils down to familiarity. In his book <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/This-Your-Brain-Music-Obsession/dp/0452288525">This is Your Brain on Music</a>, neuroscientist Daniel Levitin writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>when we love a piece of music, it reminds us of other music we have heard, and it activates memory traces of emotional times in our lives.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What we think of as our “taste” is simply a dopamine reaction arising from patterns our brain recognises which create the expectation of pleasure based on pleasures past. When we stop actively listening to new or unfamiliar music the link between the musical pattern and pleasure is severed. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511072/original/file-20230220-20-4lfcsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Secondhand compact discs from various decades displayed in a CD rack" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511072/original/file-20230220-20-4lfcsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511072/original/file-20230220-20-4lfcsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511072/original/file-20230220-20-4lfcsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511072/original/file-20230220-20-4lfcsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511072/original/file-20230220-20-4lfcsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511072/original/file-20230220-20-4lfcsm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511072/original/file-20230220-20-4lfcsm.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">Music activates memory traces of emotional times in our lives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Haupt</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It may take a decade or two to get there, but the result is, eventually, “young people’s music” will alienate and bring no pleasure. </p>
<p>So, are we doomed to musical obsolescence as we age? Far from it. <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1029864917718606">Recent research</a> suggests musical taste does not need to calcify but can continue to develop across our lives.</p>
<h2>Expanding our horizons</h2>
<p>Here are some tips if you want to train your musical taste to extend beyond the “old favourites” of youth:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>cultivate different modes of listening including in formal (concerts), focused (solitary), casual (as an accompaniment to other activity) and social settings</p></li>
<li><p>make listening habitual</p></li>
<li><p>be curious about what you’re listening to. You can help your brain form new patterns by knowing something of the story behind the music</p></li>
<li><p>be patient and persistent. Don’t assume because you don’t immediately like an unfamiliar piece that it’s not worth listening to. The more you listen, the better your brain will be at triggering a pleasure response </p></li>
<li><p>find a friend to give you recommendations. There’s a good chance you’ll listen to music suggested to you by someone you like and admire</p></li>
<li><p>keep listening to the music you love, but be willing to revisit long-held beliefs, particularly if you describe your musical taste in the negative (such as “I hate jazz”); it’s likely these attitudes will stifle your joy</p></li>
<li><p>don’t feel you have to keep up with new music trends. We’ve 1,000 years of music to explore.</p></li>
</ol>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511047/original/file-20230220-20-tecjho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511047/original/file-20230220-20-tecjho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511047/original/file-20230220-20-tecjho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511047/original/file-20230220-20-tecjho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511047/original/file-20230220-20-tecjho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511047/original/file-20230220-20-tecjho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511047/original/file-20230220-20-tecjho.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Exploring music in new settings can help expanded your tastes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anthony Delanoix</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If, after making the effort, you still find new popular music hard to bear, take solace from songwriter Ben Folds, who says <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/A-Dream-About-Lightning-Bugs/Ben-Folds/9781925750997">in his memoir</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Good pop music, truly of its moment, should throw older adults off its scent. It should clear the room of boring adults and give the kids some space.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200080/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy McKenry 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>Listening to unfamiliar music can expand your horizons, create new memory bonds and offer fresh pleasures.Timothy McKenry, Professor of Music, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2001292023-02-17T12:22:12Z2023-02-17T12:22:12ZHarry Styles is winning big because his music is a breezy pop antidote to our post-pandemic blues<p>At this year’s Brit Awards, British artist Harry Styles took home the most coveted award of the night, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nU2G1Y8N9E">album of the year</a>, for Harry’s House. He beat the likes of grime artist Stormzy, indie group The 1975 and the other big winners of the night, indie band Wet Leg. Styles also took home the awards for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBLQ3G_TPFE">British artist of the year</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlET3LroFok">song of the year</a> (for As It Was) and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg-wBsERpWE">best pop/R&B act</a>. </p>
<p>Styles swept all categories in which he was nominated. He also found great success at this year’s Grammys, winning three of the six awards he was nominated for, one of which was the ceremony’s most sought-after award, Album of the Year – beating Beyoncé.</p>
<p>Styles has found worldwide success with Harry’s House. It is a well crafted pop record that inspires joy and comfort through its breezy nature. This sort of happy, easy listening is exemplified in the album’s three singles – As It Was, Late Night Talking and Music for a Sushi Restaurant. </p>
<p>It’s difficult to pinpoint what makes a good pop song. The features that come together to make a hit are often elusive to most song writers. The sociologist <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/popular-music/article/production-of-success-an-antimusicology-of-the-pop-song/ED7D255EBFF1A0B5014DB6B68DA87E2B">Antoine Hennion</a> (1983) suggested that it was a combination of musical style and technique, the producer, the media, and the public. All combine to create a successful song. </p>
<p>However, I think this approach makes music clinical, as if it is a formula to be followed. Sometimes what makes a song or an album popular is simply <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20130418-why-does-music-make-us-feel-good">the way it makes us feel</a>.</p>
<h2>Pop perfection?</h2>
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<p>The album’s first single <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5v3kku4y6Q">As It Was</a> leans toward a more pop-focused sound paired with a catchy chorus and euphoric instrumentation, featuring church bells. The lyrics discuss a romantic relationship and mental health issues, while also hinting towards the end of the pandemic. </p>
<p>The song represents people’s need for escape and is purely enjoyable, danceable pop music. <a href="https://variety.com/2022/music/reviews/harry-styles-harrys-house-album-review-1235272417/">Variety</a> called the song an “effortlessly joyful lead single” which “bursts through like the sun after a summer downpour”.</p>
<p>Styles’ second offering, Late Night Talking, also falls into this pop-focused sound. The song discusses the experience of talking about absolutely nothing with someone you have a crush on, something we can all relate to.</p>
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<p>The lyrics sometimes don’t make sense but the punchy chorus is perfect for singing at the top of your lungs with friends. The instrumentation is simple but draws on 80s synth-pop and leaves you with a feeling of nostalgia.</p>
<p>These songs make you want to dance and sing with your friends and I think that is where the magic of this album comes from and why it was received so well by the public. <a href="https://www.nme.com/reviews/harry-styles-new-album-harrys-house-3226209">One reviewer</a> commented that the album was full of “songs that blast to the heart of old-school funk, disco and soul, but never strays into pastiche, homage or cheap retro knock-off territory”. </p>
<p>Harry’s House is simply just fun pop music at the perfect time. We are coming out of a pandemic and are in a cost of living crisis – we need some easy and joyful listening.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiwMDFh_Rog">Music for a Sushi Restaurant</a> best fits into this category of fun, frivolous pop music. The song draws from pop significantly but is accented by jazz-like scatting and horn blasts throughout, again adding to the joyous nature of the song.</p>
<p>The music video echoes the strange lyrics, portraying Styles as a merman who becomes famous for doing performances in this sushi restaurant. But just as his fame is wavering, the restaurant owners become annoyed with his diva-ish behaviour and Styles ends up meeting the sharp end of a cleaver. </p>
<p>The joy of Styles’ music and visual accompaniments solidifies his place as a purveyor of excellent pop music, one of which the British music industry can be proud.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200129/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jack Williams 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>Easy pop delights and it doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.Jack Williams, PhD student in the Department for Music, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1996952023-02-10T13:06:52Z2023-02-10T13:06:52ZBurt Bacharach created music for all the ways men fall in love<p>American composer Burt Bacharach, who <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64587070">has died at the age of 94</a>, is arguably one the greatest songwriters of all time. With hits going back to the 1950s, Bacharach continued working until the age of 92. </p>
<p>Together with lyricist Hal David, Bacharach created some of the most affecting, subtle and poignant songs of the second half of the 20th century. Within the best of them, you can hear an array of intricate characterisations, moving between the intimate and provocative, between easy listening and the more unsettling.</p>
<p>Bacharach was a college-educated composer and classically trained pianist. His highly refined musical technique combined with Hal David’s skills for memorable lyrics with ear-catching rhymes and slippery rhythms to create hit after hit. </p>
<iframe style="border-radius:12px" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/5aXCetVigndLrzE0cWOf0G?utm_source=generator" width="100%" height="352" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" loading="lazy"></iframe>
<p><a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/6y6KOwYsmPXhiOTayBpoBz?autoplay=true">Walk on By</a> (1963) was a massive international hit for Dionne Warwick. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUxn6JLwdDY&ab_channel=CillaBlackVEVO">Anyone Who Had a Heart</a> (1964) and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glpIgnmKrZc&ab_channel=CillaBlackVEVO">Alfie</a> (1966) were Cilla Black’s most compelling work. </p>
<p>Dusty Springfield’s erotically charged <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDMT6uYuDvM&ab_channel=HDFilmTributes">The Look of Love</a> for the James Bond spoof Casino Royale (1967) became better known than the film. Aretha Franklin’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDyiREoBw0o&ab_channel=ArethaFranklin">I Say a Little Prayer</a> (1968) won her a Grammy. Then there was the aching, velvet voice of Karen Carpenter in her brother Richard’s arrangement of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M268Csnue9I&ab_channel=TheCarpenters-Topic">(They Long to be) Close to You</a> (1970). To name only a few.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Tom Jones.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These are multifaceted gems, perfectly cut to present complex musical portraits, which can be vulnerable but also powerful. Bacharach’s talent was not limited to songs for female powerhouses, however. He was a master at conveying musical expressions of the sensitive soul of a man crushed or moved by love. </p>
<h2>Bacharach’s massive range</h2>
<p>There may be little subtlety in Tom Jones hollering <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_New_Pussycat%3F_(song)">What’s New Pussycat?</a>, but other examples of Bacharach’s work show his expressive range with far more nuance. </p>
<p>One of Bacharach’s finest songs is A House is not a Home. It was released in 1964 as the theme song for a film of the same name starring Shelley Winters in which she plays a New York brothel keeper. The show did not survive but the song has, now probably best known as sung by Luther Vandross on his 1981 debut album Never Too Much.</p>
<p>In A House is not a Home, David’s lyrics eschew the seedy locale of the film to evoke an empty home after a breakup. Bacharach’s music offers tones of domesticity and amorous loss. </p>
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<p>The song was performed for the movie by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgwGOAS_Gzk&list=RDrgwGOAS_Gzk&start_radio=1&ab_channel=davidhertzberg1">Brook Benton</a>. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk7CNHHIuH4&ab_channel=DionneWarwick-Topic">Warwick</a> also recorded and released it at the same time, but when performed by Benton it is a rare example of a sentimental song about male longing set in a domestic space. </p>
<p>Bacharach sang A House is not a Home as his own first lead vocal recording on the album Reach Out (1967). It remained one of his favourite songs, as its expressive vulnerability suited his small, sometimes fragile voice.</p>
<p>Vandross’s 1981 interpretation, which both Warwick and Bacharach considered to be definitive, projects a sophisticated, luxuriantly exposed version of sentimental masculinity. It exemplifies how Bacharach and David wrote songs that can communicate experience across boundaries of race and class. </p>
<h2>From Oasis to Elvis Costello</h2>
<p>This ability to write about and reach people across divides is immediately apparent when two versions of Walk on By are compared. </p>
<p>In the opening track of his ground-breaking album Hot Buttered Soul (1969), <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5loAY27W5IY&ab_channel=IsaacHayes-Topic">Isaac Hayes</a> expanded the song into a 12-minute extravaganza. Hayes’s generous unfolding of time and sensuously opulent production succeed because the materials of the original are so rich and suggestive. By contrast, in 1978 The Stranglers produced a version that stripped the song down to its raw expressive essence.</p>
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</figure>
<p>His portrait on the cover of Brit Pop band Oasis’s Definitely Maybe (1994) is a homage to an important musical figure. Bacharach’s influence is most overtly heard in the song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tiqxn3iOmxY&ab_channel=OasisVEVO">Half the World Away</a> (released the same year, but not on the album), which borrows from the opening of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiO3munVSlQ&ab_channel=BurtBacharach-Topic">This Guy’s in Love with You</a> (1968). </p>
<p>The opening is used to set up a song that gently evokes tensions between fondness for and frustrations with home. Half the World Away was perfectly suited for later use as the theme to Caroline Aherne’s sentimental British sofa sitcom, The Royle Family (1998).</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/burt-bacharach-mastered-the-art-of-the-perfect-pop-song-and-that-aint-easy-199660">Burt Bacharach mastered the art of the perfect pop song – and that ain't easy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Among Bacharach’s many collaborations in the later stages of his career, the highest critical acclaim was accorded to the album he co-wrote with Elvis Costello, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iin_ndPOcZU&ab_channel=ElvisCostello-Topic">Painted from Memory</a> (1998). The expressive strain which can often be heard in Costello’s voice complements the yearning qualities of the harmonies and orchestrations, creating perhaps the finest late contribution to Bacharach’s remarkable musical catalogue.</p>
<p>Across these songs, you can hear and picture different types of men and different types of love. Bacharach was able to find a musical language that conveyed each powerfully and for this he will be remembered.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199695/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Downes 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 composer of hits including The Look of Love and What’s New Pussycat? has an impressive back catalogue.Stephen Downes, Chair of Department of Music, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1952872022-12-13T19:52:51Z2022-12-13T19:52:51ZWhat Taylor Swift’s ‘Anti-Hero’ controversy can tell us about fatphobia in feminist politics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499101/original/file-20221205-26-y57tja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3600%2C2457&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Taylor Swift was accused of fatphobia over her 'Anti-Hero' music video.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Taylor Swift recently <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/taylor-swift-should-not-remove-fatphobic-scene-anti-hero-video-rcna54617">removed a scene</a> from her music video, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1kbLwvqugk"><em>Anti-Hero</em></a>, after several <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/gvzx94/fat-positive-activists-explain-what-its-really-like-to-be-fat">fat positivity activists</a> across social media accused the <a href="https://twitter.com/fatfabfeminist/status/1583523413221867520">scene of being fatphobic</a>. </p>
<p>In the scene, Swift’s two selves, the real her and her “anti-hero” character, are in a bathroom. As Swift’s real self stands on a weighting scale, her anti-hero persona peers downward and the word “FAT” appears on the scale. Swift’s face appears disgusted. The scene earned <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-63414044">considerable backlash online</a>. </p>
<p>In response to the video, fat positive therapist <a href="https://twitter.com/theshirarose/status/1583500955818942470?s=20&t=c8ETpLI4xoWvF_vCOR4R0g">Shira Rosenbluth</a> posted on Twitter:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Taylor Swift’s music video, where she looks down at the scale where it says “fat,” is a shitty way to describe her body image struggles. Fat people don’t need to have it reiterated yet again that it’s everyone’s worst nightmare to look like us.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>White celebrity feminism</h2>
<p>As white feminist scholars committed to anti-racist and decolonial practices who work on divisions within feminist politics as they appear in art practices, this is far from an isolated incident of one artist. It reveals divisions about fat positivity within <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.ca/books/White-Feminism/Koa-Beck/9781982134426">white feminism</a>. </p>
<p>White feminism is not just an identity, it is a structure. As women’s studies scholar <a href="https://www.boldtypebooks.com/titles/kyla-schuller/the-trouble-with-white-women/9781645036883/">Kyla Schuller</a> writes, it “attracts people of all sexes, races, sexualities and class backgrounds, though straight white middle-class women have been its primary architects.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499109/original/file-20221205-21-rmkq69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Taylor Swift wearing white on a weighting scale in a bathroom. Her alter-ego looks down at the scale." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499109/original/file-20221205-21-rmkq69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499109/original/file-20221205-21-rmkq69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499109/original/file-20221205-21-rmkq69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499109/original/file-20221205-21-rmkq69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499109/original/file-20221205-21-rmkq69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=760&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499109/original/file-20221205-21-rmkq69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=760&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499109/original/file-20221205-21-rmkq69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=760&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Scene from Taylor Swift’s music video ‘Anti-Hero’. The video was edited to remove the word ‘fat’ after Swift was accused of fatphobia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1kbLwvqugk">(YouTube/Taylor Swift)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fat activists have worked to take <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/197420/fat-so-by-marilyn-wann/9780898159950">power away from the term “fat”</a> and use it as a neutral descriptor. Swift does not believe she is fat, but is illustrating internalized fatphobic messages. According to Swift, fame and public scrutiny of her body was <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/taylor-swift-miss-americana-disordered-eating-body-image">a major contributor to her eating disorder</a>.</p>
<p>Some have raised concerns that Swift’s removal of the scene from the video <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-anti-hero-video-fat-controversy-1234619554/">watered down</a> her feminist message. But how does removing the term “fat” water down a specifically feminist message unless fat is seen to be a feminist issue? </p>
<p>This suggests that fat becomes a feminist issue only in the context of the harms of eating disorders from a white woman’s perspective, within market-friendly celebrity feminism. </p>
<p>Fat activists are criticizing Swift’s video and response for reproducing a depoliticized and individualistic strain of feminism that <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-neoliberalism-colonised-feminism-and-what-you-can-do-about-it-94856">ignores the racial, colonial, ableist and socioeconomic problems</a> behind issues such as eating disorders.</p>
<p>Swift has been able to deflect criticism with the support of fans and media writers who have jumped to her defence to protect her image. </p>
<h2>Erasure of others’ experiences</h2>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/Stoppp_looking/status/1585481003820515330?s=20&t=fnbDCVDMktV5VWSOIRbrhA">Online responses</a> to fat activist critique is telling. Swift’s defenders dismiss and demonize fat activists, aligning them with stereotypes of <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780739114872/The-Embodiment-of-Disobedience-Fat-Black-Womens-Unruly-Political-Bodies">fat women as unruly</a>. </p>
<p>As feminist scholar <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549420985852">Alison Phipps</a> argues, white feminism is an identity deeply invested in victimization, suffering and injury. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1584963631271538688"}"></div></p>
<p>Swift’s silence and her angry defenders reveal a complicity in reproducing <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479886753/fearing-the-black-body/">white supremacist fatphobia</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498759/original/file-20221202-11-x9twvi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover featuring a naked fat black woman." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498759/original/file-20221202-11-x9twvi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498759/original/file-20221202-11-x9twvi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498759/original/file-20221202-11-x9twvi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498759/original/file-20221202-11-x9twvi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498759/original/file-20221202-11-x9twvi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498759/original/file-20221202-11-x9twvi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498759/original/file-20221202-11-x9twvi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&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 Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Penguin Random House)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The rhetoric erases the fatphobia experienced by <a href="https://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity/lizzo-kanye-west-body-shaming/">Black women</a> and other racialized people. As author <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/565139/the-body-is-not-an-apology-second-edition-by-sonya-renee-taylor/">Sonya Renee Taylor writes</a>, “From LGBTQIA bodies, to fat bodies, to women’s bodies, we live under systems that force us to judge, devalue, and discriminate against the bodies of others.”</p>
<p>White feminism upholds the idea that <a href="https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/andi-zeisler/we-were-feminists-once/9781610397735/">feminism is about individual empowerment</a>, letting artists off the hook of answering for the injustices reiterated in their art. Moments like this come up <a href="https://theconversation.com/mask-or-no-mask-stop-using-fat-people-in-political-cartoons-176631">regularly in feminist politics</a> and rejecting a fat activist critique is a missed opportunity for coalition. It reinforces the power of white feminism to gatekeep. </p>
<h2>Feminism and eating disorders</h2>
<p>This division between feminism and fat activism often revolves around conceptualizing the harms of eating disorders. <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520240544/unbearable-weight">Feminists have argued that eating disorders do not exist in a social or cultural vaccuum</a>, but this argument has stopped short at fat acceptance. Fat positivity requires grappling with how our culture is obsessed with thinness, and how it reviles fatness as a way of enforcing and <a href="https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814728758.003.0007">maintaining bodily hierarchies</a>.</p>
<p>Swift’s video echoes many <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJOQOVAoQ9g">other white feminist artists who work out their bad body feelings in public as a way of processing harms of a negative body image</a>. </p>
<p>A running theme in Swift’s work is to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07494467.2021.1976586">mock media misogyny</a>. Since distancing herself from authentic country storytelling, she has moved to a pop persona that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2019.1630160">relishes in her “zany” flaws</a> and talks about the “real person” underneath the persona to remain relatable. Here, fatphobia is a personal flaw rather than a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95935-7_6">systemic social issue</a>. </p>
<p>White feminist responses to fat activist critique reveal the limits of fat positivity in feminism. Women’s studies professor <a href="https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/jfs/vol1/iss1/13/">Talia Welsh articulates how mainstream feminism is of two minds</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[The feminist] ability to reject the demonization of fat in one context and to accept fat’s negative status in another is based in the idea that one view of fat (the bad one) arises from sexism and that the other (the good one) arises from a concern about health. It is wrong to equate a woman’s value with her looks, but it is acceptable to encourage that same woman to lose weight if it would augment her health. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Swift’s permission to express fatphobia in terms of it being detrimental to her health upholds her victim status, thereby centring a thin woman’s pain in discussing fatphobia. </p>
<p>The message received is: feeling positive about one’s body is good, but that good has limits, it is only for those with thin bodies. </p>
<p>Swift has no doubt been the target of beauty culture’s critique, but that culture cannot be divorced from its <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479886753/fearing-the-black-body/">capitalist, colonial and white supremacist roots</a>. In identifying fatphobia as primarily about women’s looks, Swift and others obscure the <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/670607/belly-of-the-beast-by-dashaun-harrison/">structural and material oppression experienced by fat people</a></p>
<p>These divisions in feminism will continue so long as white feminism claims fatphobia as its issue to both define and individually resist.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195287/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>By only discussing fatphobia in the context of eating disorders, Taylor Swift illustrates how deeply individualized and depoliticized white feminism is.Kristin Rodier, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Athabasca UniversityHeather McLean, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies and Human Geography, Athabasca UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1930952022-11-10T19:01:15Z2022-11-10T19:01:15ZFriday essay: Under the Milky Way – how a ‘beautiful accident’ of a song was born and became an anthem<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493973/original/file-20221107-18-qdj82y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C17%2C2964%2C1971&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock (elements of this image furnished by NASA)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Smiths Lake is a languid tidal inlet on the Australian east coast, flanked by gentle slopes of thick, eucalypt rainforest. Since time immemorial, this has been Worimi Aboriginal Country. Across a mile of shallow sandbars, warm seawater flows, twice a day. An eternal planetary rhythm fills and empties the lake.</p>
<p>In daylight hours, pied oyster-catchers wade in search of molluscs. At night, glissando Australian insects buzz and marsupials wobble though the undergrowth. It’s far enough from Sydney to escape metropolitan light pollution. Out on the lake are a billion phosphorescent reflections. Look up. The sky is crowded with stars.</p>
<p>Smiths Lake is where The Church’s Under the Milky Way was written. Steve Kilbey and his then partner, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Champagne">Karin Jansson</a>, were visiting his mother, who lived across from the inlet. </p>
<p>“There were birds and flowers and snakes,” said Kilbey, “she had a big deck you could sit on and see the sea.” After dinner, he snuck outside and smoked a joint. In a cabin in the backyard, he noodled on an old piano, “slightly out of tune. Old childhood toys of my brothers sat on top.” </p>
<p>Kilbey started with an A-minor chord with a bass note an octave down; “being stoned I could hear a world of possibilities in that chord.” From nowhere came a sequence. “Gee the second chord sounds good … on the bass note is a f…ing F-sharp!” The remaining chords fell into sequence seamlessly. “The whole thing may have taken a minute. My chord progression fell out of the sky.”</p>
<p>Jansson heard it and offered encouragement. On the porch, under stars, they sketched out words. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I said, ‘what about “sometimes when this…” and she said, ‘yeah’ that’s good.’ She said, ‘what about “destination,"’ and I said ‘yeah … "Despite your destination."’ We agreed on the lyrics within about three minutes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>After that, Kilbey "didn’t think that much about it. After all, I wrote four or five songs a week. It was just one more.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/C_Z48dHFYLc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<h2>Inside the hit machine</h2>
<p>A year later, in 1987, The Church were ensconced at The Complex in Los Angeles, making the album Starfish. Nine songs had been rehearsed intensively. Another track floated around that manager Mike Lembo wanted recorded. Kilbey had a demo of the song that would become Milky Way on his home eight-track recorder, with little more than bass and acoustic guitar parts. It hadn’t been brought to songwriting sessions because of their more democratic, experimental approach.</p>
<p>“[Producers] Waddy (Wachtel) and Greg (Lanyani) didn’t like it,” remembered Kilbey, “so they said ‘you can go and do that yourself in the little studio in the middle of The Complex.’” </p>
<p>Kilbey thought the track would end up on a solo project or collaboration. His fellow band members Marty Willson-Piper and Peter Koppes “weren’t that interested in it either,” Kilbey recalls, though drummer Richard Ploog liked it a lot. Kilbey’s demo, recalls Koppes, “walked out of the door as a simple cassette … to be manipulated by the most sophisticated piece of machinery in the house.”</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493979/original/file-20221107-19-jd8qq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493979/original/file-20221107-19-jd8qq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493979/original/file-20221107-19-jd8qq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493979/original/file-20221107-19-jd8qq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493979/original/file-20221107-19-jd8qq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493979/original/file-20221107-19-jd8qq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493979/original/file-20221107-19-jd8qq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493979/original/file-20221107-19-jd8qq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Steve Kilbey, California, 1986.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Copyright (c) by Nancy J Price</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of The Complex’s technical whizzes (who went by the name Awesome Welles) loaded the song into a workstation called a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synclavier">Synclavier</a>. An integrated synthesizer, sampler, and sequencer, the Synclavier was the “Rolls Royce” of music gear. It was outrageously expensive. The base system started at $150,000, before add-ons such as a $6,000 sampling card, $25,000 RAM, and $15,000 hard disk (with a then whopping capacity of 320Mb!). </p>
<p>The Synclavier revolutionised production at a time when megastars commanded large recording budgets and spent years in the studio. (One can hear it on Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Dire Straits’s Brothers in Arms, and Paul Simon’s Graceland.) With its sequencing power at their disposal, Kilbey and Welles “mapped out” the song.</p>
<p>“When it was returned to us,” remembers Willson-Piper, “they had constructed a skeleton that needed skin. It had sampled drums and cymbals, sequenced bass, and an odd backwards bagpipe solo in the instrumental section. But even in this form it had something magical about it.”</p>
<p>Session drummer Russ Kunkel was brought in to play the drum part, after Ploog struggled with the Synclavier’s sequencing. Vocals were added, and Willson-Piper and Koppes recorded multiple layers of guitars.</p>
<p>With overdubs wrapped, the song lurked in the background, the “black sheep” of the record, according to Kilbey. “Nobody really liked it that much. Not even me.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493982/original/file-20221107-26-pkbwhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493982/original/file-20221107-26-pkbwhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493982/original/file-20221107-26-pkbwhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493982/original/file-20221107-26-pkbwhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493982/original/file-20221107-26-pkbwhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493982/original/file-20221107-26-pkbwhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493982/original/file-20221107-26-pkbwhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493982/original/file-20221107-26-pkbwhq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Clive Davis in 2007.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then Clive Davis (founder of Arista records), Lembo and Arista staff gathered at The Complex to hear Starfish in its entirety.</p>
<p>“We played them all our favourite tracks,” remembered Kilbey. “I thought Lost or Reptile could be singles, though I had a sinking feeling the album had no single.” Lembo and the Arista people “all nodded in agreement that this was a good album; they weren’t all that jazzed by it, but they certainly weren’t disappointed.”</p>
<p>Then, “through a patina of Californian pot smoke,” as Kilbey describes it, someone said, “Play ‘em Under the Milky Way.”</p>
<p>The song’s acoustic guitars started, and Kilbey’s voice crooned, “Sometimes when this place gets kind of empty.” </p>
<p>Then came bass, drums, synths – the song’s layers accumulating into strident choruses – followed by a wild instrumental. At its conclusion, “the room was silent,” says Kilbey. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Our manager had a very strange look in his eye … ‘I think we can get this song on the radio,’ he said. It was as if you could see the dollar signs in his eyes. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Davis simply said, “That song is a hit.” </p>
<blockquote>
<p>And then, each guy from each department at Arista shook my hand like I had just won the lottery… They said, ‘We’ll make this a hit!’ </p>
<p>The last guy out the door was a young A&R guy I knew, and I said to him ‘Is it really going to be a hit?’ And he said, ‘It will be now those guys have agreed it’s going to be a hit.’</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The urban night</h2>
<p>Music lives and breathes within the spaces of its listening. For centuries, architects designed concert halls to improve orchestral acoustics, cathedrals to wrap choral voices in heavenly reverb. The booming bass and wild echoes of dub reggae were tailored for open-air Jamaican sound systems. Jazz can sound great on record, but in a club, with bodies in close proximity, the very same performance can be unforgettable.</p>
<p>It’s worth thinking about the album Starfish in this light. Starfish was best listened to at night, in a dimly lit room. But 1988, the year it was released, was at the cusp of technological shifts in music. Vinyl record sales peaked that year and then fell from 1989 onward, never to return to dominance. CDs were new, and cassettes commonplace. The age of Walkmans and Discmans had arisen. Many newcomers to The Church enjoyed Starfish through headphones while on a train or walking home at night. It was ideal for this: immersive and intimate music for the nocturnal urbane.</p>
<figure>
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<p>And on Starfish, no track sounded better through headphones than Under the Milky Way. Its chiming 12-string chords and hushed vocals instantly transformed wherever listeners happened to be. Part of the song’s charm is how it unsettles the senses by re-rendering seemingly familiar landscapes in strange light. Banal suburban streets, an economy class seat, or the view from the nighttime bus window are all poignant with Milky Way in one’s ears.</p>
<p>Because of this, when I listen to the song, I’m drawn to think less about starry skies than urban dramas unfolding under the Milky Way tonight. The parallel is with Edward Hopper’s impressionistic paintings of city apartments and diners at night, and their “imaginative transformation of the familiar,” in the words of art critic, <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Edward_Hopper_s_New_York.html?id=aeDPB-ErKUQC&redir_esc=y">Avis Berman</a>. Within bedrooms and offices, train cars and bars, solitary figures ruminate on undisclosed matters. Personal upheavals are implied, but the details withheld.</p>
<p>In similar vein, Milky Way hints at drama but conceals vital clues. According to Kilbey, it was initially “kind of a jazz song … piano chords, smoky, I imagined myself sitting at the bar, everyone drinking, that was the place getting empty.” </p>
<p>Milky Way evoked a dislocated world of transits and transmissions, distance and desire. Its unsettling mix of emotions are what one senses in airport lounges and late-night hotel bars: a certain frisson but also oblique loneliness arising from the city’s fleeting encounters and multitude of temporarily intersecting, but anonymous, lives.</p>
<p>In conjuring such emotions, Milky Way also crystallised a popular culture fascination for the urban night. The most popular TV series at the time was Cheers – set in an evening downtown bar. It was the decade of countless erotic thrillers set at night in nameless condos. Musical confrères included Tom Waits’s Closing Time and Nighthawks at the Diner (the latter a literal referencing of the most famous Hopper painting); Sting’s Moon over Bourbon Street, and Iggy Pop’s Living on the Edge of the Night (on which Waddy Wachtel also played).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493975/original/file-20221107-11-jd8qq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493975/original/file-20221107-11-jd8qq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493975/original/file-20221107-11-jd8qq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493975/original/file-20221107-11-jd8qq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493975/original/file-20221107-11-jd8qq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493975/original/file-20221107-11-jd8qq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493975/original/file-20221107-11-jd8qq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493975/original/file-20221107-11-jd8qq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nighthawks by Edward Hopper, 1942.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/edward-hopper-the-artist-who-evoked-urban-loneliness-and-disappointment-with-beautiful-clarity-77636">Edward Hopper: the artist who evoked urban loneliness and disappointment with beautiful clarity</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Under a starry sky, the lure of something unnameable – the tingle of itchy feet, the scent of curiosity – leads you somewhere “despite your destination”. Rather than a love song, or pining for love, the singer dwells with a “loveless fascination” as “their breath fades with the light.” </p>
<p>Milky Way combines the wistfulness of stargazing with the dissociations of urban life. Words touch emotions, but as with intimacy in the vast metropolis, cerebral meanings remain just out of grasp. It’s an alluring case of what Willson-Piper called “the subjects hidden in the shadows of Kilbey’s words.”</p>
<p>Kilbey repeatedly said in interviews that Milky Way “is not about anything.” Like all his songs, “<a href="https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-church/under-the-milky-way">it’s a blank, abstract canvas for people to lose themselves in</a>.” Still, fans forever quizzed him about its meaning. “There’s no wrong – that’s the thing,” said Kilbey when interviewed about the song three decades later:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If someone says, ‘To me, Under the Milky Way is about the death of my budgerigar, and that’s what gets me through,’ I go, ‘Okay, then that’s what it is.’ If someone says, ‘I think it means the Australian sky at night,’ I go, ‘Good on ya.’ If someone asks, ‘Is that about Milky Way Bar in Amsterdam where people smoke hash?’ I say, ‘Definitely.’</p>
<p>Somewhere, a small voice inside me would say, ‘That isn’t what I had in mind when I was writing it,’ but songs are supposed to be open-ended invitations for you to create your own adventure.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A need, a gnawing longing</h2>
<p>Several compositional nuances enhance the mystery of Milky Way. It’s one of the best examples of Kilbey’s voice – vulnerable, but with unique inflections – captured on record. Softly sung in a lower register, performing it live must have been difficult against the guitar amplifiers. But on record there is space to convey vocal texture.</p>
<p>Much of the song’s charm can be credited to its underlying chords – the piano noodlings that descended into Kilbey’s hands at Smiths Lake. They <a href="https://www.popmatters.com/church-under-the-milky-way">have been described</a> as “questioning, dark, and mysterious — evocative of its starry night title.” </p>
<p>The three notes of the chorus melody “look-ing-for” (E, C, A) form an F-major-seventh arpeggio. “You know I always play F-major-seventh,” once quipped Kilbey, acknowledging its omnipresence.</p>
<p>It evokes what the French call <em>tristesse</em> (also the name of a Church song from the album Heyday): a sadness and melancholy, a gnawing longing. The song’s sense of seduction comes from a single fugitive note, that unexpected F-sharp. It’s played on bass, in the middle of each verse’s ponderous opening line, underneath prominent words: “Sometimes when this <em>place</em> gets kind of empty”; “And it’s <em>some</em>-thing quite peculiar.” </p>
<p>“That’s so important, that magic little F-sharp,” said Kilbey. “It makes all the difference in the world. It doesn’t do what you think it’s going to do. The F-sharp was there on the piano when I wrote it. When I hear it played on the piano, against the A-suspended-fourth, it doesn’t sound that radical, but when you transpose it to two different instruments, then for some reason the magic happens.”</p>
<p>It’s the kind of melancholy jazz note that a piano or fretless bass player might unearth – but one that scarcely registers with guitarists, being difficult to reach while playing an A-suspended-fourth chord at that point in the song. Here it adds an intoxicating allure – suggesting oblique angles and unusual vantage points.</p>
<p>“When it hits that F-sharp, it does something to people,” said Kilbey. “I can feel it up on stage. Strangely enough, I had never heard anyone else do it, up until then. You’d have thought all the intervals would have been used and everyone would have known them. It was just there on the piano when I wrote it. I got lucky with that.”</p>
<p>As for the backward bagpipe solo, there was a 16-bar middle section on Kilbey’s original demo, in which he stuck “these most obvious of chords,” intending to later add “something ambient or electronic … something really strange. It wasn’t gonna be a Church song after all.” Later, at The Complex, a “backwards African bagpipe” effect was inserted as a placeholder, using the Synclavier’s banks of sounds.</p>
<p>Koppes was then encouraged to create a solo using an e-bow – a gadget guitarists use to mimic the sound of a violin bow on strings – which he combined with wah-wah effects. The bagpipes were kept when the producers, band, and management listened back. Disruptive and bizarre, the bagpipes somehow fitted, suggesting circumstances that are twisted and tense. A production quirk gifted the song a memorable climax.</p>
<p>Koppes’s solo instead became the finale to the song (though fragments were retained in the middle-eight and can be heard, lower in the mix, beside the bagpipes). The song’s closing passage, he said, “had a few different takes that Waddy edited for the final compile.” </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493983/original/file-20221107-20-63eoxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493983/original/file-20221107-20-63eoxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493983/original/file-20221107-20-63eoxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493983/original/file-20221107-20-63eoxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493983/original/file-20221107-20-63eoxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493983/original/file-20221107-20-63eoxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493983/original/file-20221107-20-63eoxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493983/original/file-20221107-20-63eoxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&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">Waddy Wachtel in 2009.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>Waddy’s choice included another fugitive note “that was not supposed to be in the actual scale.” But it “was the correct note from <a href="https://hellomusictheory.com/learn/dorian-mode/">the Dorian mode</a>” partially occupying Kilbey’s chord progression. “Maybe therein is part of the magic underlying the song,” said Koppes, “a mercurial key change in there somewhere.”</p>
<p>In Wachtel’s view, “it came down to this mix where there were so many faders on it … Suddenly, the song became this beautiful piece of music … It really worked. It was captivating, haunting.”</p>
<h2>An enduring classic</h2>
<p>Under the Milky Way and Starfish were released simultaneously on February 15, 1988. It took a little while for the world to notice. The single was popular first in Australia, where the band had a following, and on US college radio stations. Momentum grew as Arista’s marketing went into overdrive. “No expense was spared to promote Starfish,” remembers Willson-Piper. This was, after all, “Clive’s signing.”</p>
<p>For Milky Way, a video allegedly costing US$100,000 was made. Filmed in an LA studio, “mirror balls glitter and the sidereal light show spreads bright diamonds over the band’s bemused faces” while, <a href="https://martywillson-piper.com/starfish-2/">Willson-Piper recalls</a>, “the director’s daughter roamed around New York with a picture frame.”</p>
<p>MTV placed it on high rotation. Then mainstream radio picked it up in the big US cities. Unlike the charts nowadays – in which singles and albums tend to peak in their debut week – it took Under the Milky Way nearly two months to enter the Billboard Hot 100, at no 91 on April 9. Only then did it steadily grow. The next week: 78. Then 70, 64, 56, 50, 43, 37. It peaked at 24 on June 18, also reaching no 2 on Billboard’s mainstream rock chart. </p>
<p>The song stayed on the charts for a total of four months. Widespread airplay in the US led to exposure in Europe and South America. There were similar chart trajectories in Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Germany, and Spain. Even the UK, a market notoriously difficult to crack, showed interest. “Everyone wanted The Church on their TV show all over the world,” said Ploog, “every country wanted us to come and play.” The Church finally had a hit.</p>
<p>Its success coincided with other Australian forays into global charts. In 1988, INXS had five US top ten singles from Kick. Icehouse had two US top 20 hits from Man of Colours, and Midnight Oil two from Diesel and Dust. In the UK, Kylie Minogue’s debut spawned four singles in the year-end top 20, including the highest-selling single of 1988. It was as close to an Australian invasion as there would ever be.</p>
<p>Yet musically, The Church had little in common with their Aussie compatriots. More influential was a surge of success among other “indie” bands. There is a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-06/how-1991-saw-the-music-industry-turned-upside-down/13148150">widely held view</a> that alternative music “broke through” to the mainstream in 1991, with the release of Nirvana’s Nevermind, and the onset of grunge. Actually, it was more of a building storm. And if a pivotal phase must be singled out, 1987–8 is a contender. </p>
<p>“A new world was opening up for bands of our ilk,” explained Willson-Piper, “and the alternative scene was beginning to take hold in America.” The Church were “much more in tune with our English contemporaries such as Echo and the Bunnymen and Psychedelic Furs – bands who were steeped in mood and mystery who had enigmatic lead singers.” </p>
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<p>As a global aesthetic category of “alternative” loomed, a growing international audience tired of stadium rock leaned evermore left-of-center and embraced The Church as well.</p>
<p>“We had no idea at the time of how this song would single-handedly write us into the history books,” reflects Willson-Piper. </p>
<p>“Over the years, there’s been some revisionism over that song,” believes Kilbey. “Most people working on it at the time considered it the weakest song on the record; it was the public and Arista that made the damn thing such a hit.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494028/original/file-20221108-23-bwjxqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494028/original/file-20221108-23-bwjxqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494028/original/file-20221108-23-bwjxqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494028/original/file-20221108-23-bwjxqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494028/original/file-20221108-23-bwjxqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494028/original/file-20221108-23-bwjxqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494028/original/file-20221108-23-bwjxqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494028/original/file-20221108-23-bwjxqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Some band members hated Milky Way for a while. If they played it early in a live set, fair-weather audiences scattered shortly thereafter. Kilbey objected to what he saw as undue affection for what was one among hundreds of his songs, a track that an overbearing production team had, in his view, rendered “flat, lifeless and sterile.”</p>
<p>For music critics and flash-in-the-pan fans, everything the band recorded afterward was compared against it. Nevertheless, it did open a new vein of music in their career – softer songs without raucous guitar solos, poignant impressions for late-night contemplation. </p>
<p>Shades reappear on Paradox and Swan Lake (from 1992’s Priest=Aura) and June (from 2003’s Forget Yourself). The song’s jazzy late night bar scene returned on Kilbey solo records and collaborations. On Keeper from 2001’s <a href="https://stevekilbey.bandcamp.com/album/dabble">Dabble</a>, the “Waitress with the short hair is stoned/She drifts amongst the tables,” while on Geneva 4am from <a href="https://stevekilbey.bandcamp.com/album/jack-frost">Jack Frost</a> (the wonderful 1991 collaboration with Grant McLennan from The Go-Betweens), “air hostesses are drinking at the bar/ I heard somebody say, I wish I was in America.”</p>
<p>Eventually, Milky Way seeped into the collective consciousness, becoming a standard. Janine Israel, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/australia-culture-blog/2014/jul/15/the-church-under-the-milky-way-an-accidental-australian-anthem">revisiting it in 2014 for The Guardian</a>, described it as “a song that feels as though it has always existed.”</p>
<p>“It’s a song that has its own life,” says Willson-Piper. “It’s bigger than the band, a song that people who don’t even know the band, know.” Steeped by nostalgia, it became one of those songs people say marked an era.</p>
<p>In Australia especially, Milky Way became canonical – an unofficial “alternative” national anthem (implying the southern cross constellation on the national flag), alongside Wide Open Road by The Triffids and Cattle and Cane by The Go-Betweens.</p>
<p>The band were asked to perform it at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony, and in a 2008 national newspaper poll, Milky Way was <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a_GGL&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fweekend-australian-magazine%2Ftop-of-the-pops--19882008%2Fnews-story%2Fcd8feb84d3b990438a8b7526eabea218&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium&v21=dynamic-groupa-control-noscore&V21spcbehaviour=append">voted the best song of the past 20 years</a> (receiving twice the votes of the second-place entry).</p>
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<p>“It’s a song for all seasons and a song for all occasions,” says Kilbey. “I got lucky. I wrote one of those. The Beatles wrote a lot more.”</p>
<p>“Brides continue to walk down the aisle to it,” observed Israel, “The dying request it at their funerals … Kilbey has lost count of the number of people who’ve told him they lost their virginity to it.”</p>
<p>He has also lost count of the cover versions. The fan website Shadow Cabinet lists all known covers of Church songs; three-quarters are of Milky Way. They include versions by The Killers, Sia, Josh Pyke, Grant-Lee Phillips, and Say Lou Lou (a duo formed by Kilbey and Jansson’s twin daughters, Miranda and Elektra).</p>
<p>“It does confirm my belief that one of the greatest tools when I write is ambiguity,” says Kilbey. “The Killers and Tim Minchin can do a version and Jimmy Little, a guy from a completely different age group and culture, can do a version.”</p>
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<p>Following Little’s cover, it also became an Aboriginal campfire classic and companion to First Nations astronomy, in which the Milky Way and its constellations are spirit beings guiding the way to distant places. Kids in American inner-city public schools sing it in choir. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Public School 22, Staten Island, NY, perform Under the Milky Way.</span></figcaption>
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<p>On YouTube, there are endless amateur covers. “Blow me down with a feather,” says Kilbey, “but everyone and their grandma’s hyaena has done a version! They get the f…ing words wrong,” he jibes, and “they almost always get the chords wrong, they leave out bits.” But “who f…ing cares, It’s that kinda song!”</p>
<p>A beautiful accident, “Milky Way changed everything in our lives,” concluded Kilbey. It propelled their career into an enduring second phase with greater musical confidence.</p>
<p><em>This is an edited extract from <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/churchs-starfish-9781501387012/">The Church’s Starfish</a>, by Chris Gibson (Bloomsbury).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193095/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Gibson receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>It has become an Aboriginal campfire classic. Kids in American inner-city public schools sing it in choir. Chris Gibson unpacks the mystery and enduring appeal of The Church’s Under the Milky Way.Chris Gibson, Professor of Geography, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1911102022-09-29T20:06:47Z2022-09-29T20:06:47ZWhy it’s such a big deal that Alla Pugacheva, ‘the tsarina of Russian pop,’ came out against the war in Ukraine<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486780/original/file-20220927-5931-rw1bvt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=178%2C62%2C3122%2C2645&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Russian President Vladimir Putin greets Alla Pugacheva during a 2014 awards ceremony honoring the pop singer with the Order For Merit to the Fatherland.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/russian-president-vladimir-putin-greets-pop-singer-alla-news-photo/460776614">Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Days before Russian President <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/21/europe/ukraine-russian-referendums-intl-hnk">Vladimir Putin announced</a> hasty referendums in the occupied regions of Ukraine and the conscription of Russian men, Russian singer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alla-Pugacheva">Alla Pugacheva</a> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CipbuA9qzIe/">posted a message decrying the war</a> on Instagram, where she commands 3.5 million followers. </p>
<p>As someone who has followed Pugacheva’s artistic career <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203845035-20/feminism-la-russe-pugacheva%E2%80%93orbakaite-celebrity-construction-family-bonds-olga-partan">and written about</a> her on- and off-stage personas, I knew this was no ordinary anti-war statement. </p>
<p>Despite the fact that Pugacheva is not well known outside of Russia, she is one of the <a href="https://bestsellingalbums.org/artist/14701">top-selling music artists in the world</a> and is arguably the most famous woman in Russia. In opinion polls over the past two decades, she’s routinely selected as one of the most popular Russians – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9434.2007.00454.x">sometimes appearing second only to Putin</a>.</p>
<p>Her fan base encompasses all elements of Russian society, including millions of everyday Russians who, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/03/14/the-war-that-russians-do-not-see">because they rely on Russian state media for information</a>, are particularly susceptible to the Kremlin’s powerful propaganda machine.</p>
<p>In some ways, Pugacheva is a bridge to the past. Belonging to the same generation as Putin, she represents the stability and predictability of the Soviet era. Yet this isn’t the first time she’s leveraged her fame to challenge the political status quo.</p>
<h2>A singer with many masks</h2>
<p>Pugacheva burst onto the Soviet pop culture scene in 1975 with “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arlekino">Arlekino</a>,” a song about a tragicomic clown. With the drama of a jester, she would alternate between laughter and tears, exuberant singing and pantomime. </p>
<p>Pugacheva’s first hit signaled different things to different audiences. The public was enthralled by the catchy tune and her stage presence. Meanwhile, the dissident intelligentsia <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9434.2007.00454.x">interpreted it</a> as a tribute to the plight of artists living in a totalitarian state.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Alla Pugacheva performs ‘Arlekino’ – the song that catapulted her to stardom – in 1975.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Her versatility – and her ability to merge high culture with low culture – would become hallmarks of her art. Though her performing style could be clownish – even grotesque – she became one of the first Russian pop singers to use lyrics drawn from the texts of classical poets such as William Shakespeare and Boris Pasternak. </p>
<p>Her songs, which are a combination of pop, rock, folk and gypsy music, defy categorization, and her performances almost appear to be miniature plays in which Pugacheva – an excellent actor in her own right – demonstrates her gift for assuming a range of characters over the course of a single track.</p>
<h2>Subtle resistance</h2>
<p>Today, millions of Russians still listen and sing along to Pugacheva’s songs.</p>
<p>One of her most popular tracks, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAGlI_2vQpg">Millions of Scarlet Roses</a>,” tells the story of a painter who falls in love with an actress. He sells all his canvases and belongings to buy roses so he can transform the square in front of her window into a sea of roses. </p>
<p>“One who is in love, and seriously so / Will transform his whole life for you into flowers,” Pugacheva sings at the end of the refrain. </p>
<p>Yet if you listen closely enough to some of her songs, you’ll hear skillfully camouflaged political messages. Her hit song “<a href="https://youtu.be/fqvaQqyd3-Y">Kings Can Do Anything</a>” was often interpreted as a cleverly disguised political joke with an underlying message about the illusory power of political leaders. </p>
<p>She <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1467-9434.2007.00454.x">ignored advice</a> not to sing this song at concerts given for government officials, and on several memorable occasions she even pointed out leading government ministers in the audience as she sang the provocative refrain: “Kings can do anything, kings can do anything at all! / But whatever you say, not a single king can marry someone he loves!” </p>
<p>As a cultural icon she also rebelled against patriarchal gender stereotypes. She is a loving mother and grandmother who is happily married to a man 27 years her junior. By continuing to perform into old age, she upends cultural notions of femininity and sexuality, <a href="https://youtu.be/8aDsK8D1Uhg">challenging the traditional image</a> of an asexual Russian “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X2200037X">babushka</a>” dedicated to her progeny.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Portrait of woman with curly blond hair and tears welling in her eyes." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486760/original/file-20220927-24-d4x8wp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486760/original/file-20220927-24-d4x8wp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486760/original/file-20220927-24-d4x8wp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486760/original/file-20220927-24-d4x8wp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486760/original/file-20220927-24-d4x8wp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486760/original/file-20220927-24-d4x8wp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486760/original/file-20220927-24-d4x8wp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&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">For four decades, Pugacheva has pushed up against cultural definitions of womanhood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/alla-pugatschowa-sängerin-1987-news-photo/1174048107?adppopup=true">Willy Spiller/RDB/ullstein bild via Getty Image</a></span>
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<h2>Pop tsarina vs. the ‘new tsar’</h2>
<p>As “<a href="https://theculturetrip.com/europe/russia/articles/what-you-should-know-about-alla-pugacheva-russias-greatest-diva/">the tsarina of Russian pop</a>,” Pugacheva has occasionally felt emboldened enough to express her opposition to a leader whom some call “<a href="https://cepa.org/article/the-false-god-of-tsar-vladimir/">Tsar Vladimir</a>.”</p>
<p>In 2012, she became a spokesperson for the oligarch <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/12/new-jersey-nets-owner-to-run-for-president-of-russia">Mikhail Prokhorov</a> in his unsuccessful presidential campaign against Putin, and in one TV interview she <a href="https://youtu.be/5n_9ovfB1Vw">likened Putin</a> to “the underworld boss of a criminal country.” </p>
<p>Despite her history of speaking out and maintaining a firm distance from the propaganda that imbued Soviet and Russian popular culture, her enduring popularity has compelled the Kremlin <a href="https://www.alamy.com/russian-president-boris-yeltsin-aplaudes-to-pop-singer-alla-pugacheva-as-she-gestures-after-awarding-her-with-the-order-for-service-to-the-motherland-in-the-kremlin-april-15-pugacheva-one-of-the-most-famous-russian-pop-singers-celebrates-her-50th-birthday-on-thursday-mfws-image381990275.html">to repeatedly</a> <a href="https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/fbda328/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2473x3350+0+0/resize/1097x1486!/quality/80/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fee%2Fb7%2Ff9caaf735278e51c568be82b0bcf%2F2d7561c92f1f4c93ace8a0f075ed7931">honor her in public</a>. </p>
<p>Yet as war broke out in Ukraine, Pugacheva remained silent.</p>
<p>Pugacheva’s husband, comedian Maxim Galkin, however, was one of the first Russian celebrities <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CaWghGfspVE/">who openly opposed</a> the Russian invasion, and the couple left Russia with their young children soon after the war started. As the war dragged on, Galkin <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/2022-09-08/ty-article/.premium/kremlin-threatens-comedian-who-fled-to-israel-and-left/00000183-1997-d6f3-a7ff-f9f70bd00000">continued to ridicule the war</a> and highlight the corruption of Putin’s regime on social media. The Kremlin eventually <a href="https://meduza.io/en/news/2022/09/17/maksim-galkin-declared-a-foreign-agent">designated him</a> a “foreign agent.” </p>
<p>In late August, Pugacheva unexpectedly returned to Moscow with her children but without her husband. When a journalist asked her about her plans, she <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_cEX94zjYg">teasingly answered</a>, “I will put things in order. In my head and in your heads.” </p>
<p>On Sept. 18, 2022, she published <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CipbuA9qzIe/">the Instagram post</a>. Addressing the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation, Pugacheva asked it to designate her a “foreign agent” in solidarity with her husband. She added that her husband is “an honest and decent human being, a true and incorruptible Russian patriot who wishes his homeland a flourishing and peaceful life, freedom of speech, and an end to the deaths of our boys for illusory goals that are making our country a pariah and worsening the life of our citizens.” </p>
<p>Reactions ranged from praise for her patriotic bravery to <a href="https://news.rambler.ru/starlife/49368494-na-zayavlenie-pugachevoy-posledovala-burnaya-no-neofitsialnaya-reaktsiya/">accusations of treason</a>. Several Russian news agencies announced that Pugacheva’s statement <a href="https://www.rbc.ru/politics/20/09/2022/6329ba589a794740e4e5861a">discredited the Russian army</a> and that she should be further investigated. In late September, likely to avoid persecution, <a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/10/04/russian-pop-legend-pugacheva-hits-back-at-pro-war-critics-a78971">she fled Russia for Israel</a>.</p>
<p>The satirist Mikhail Zhvanetsky <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6m3pY0UAJI">once said</a>, “The country knows Putin and Pugacheva, and these two are quite sufficient for the country. Alla dearest! She sang in such a way that everyone repeated her, she lives in such a way that everyone repeats her.” </p>
<p>Time will tell whether Pugacheva’s message against the war will resonate with her millions of devoted fans.</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to include the news that Pugacheva fled to Israel.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191110/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Olga Partan 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 opinion polls over the past two decades, she’s routinely selected as one of the most popular Russians – often appearing second only to Vladimir Putin.Olga Partan, Associate Professor of Russian Studies, College of the Holy CrossLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.