music and popular culture in america proiect

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MUSIC AND POPULAR

CULTURE IN

AMERICA

BĂDICI VERONIC

DINCULESCU CRISTIN

NE ŢĂ NDREE

POROJNICU LIN

ŢIULESCU ŞTEF NI



WHAT IS IT?

Pop culture is entertainment, music and sports.

Popular culture is distributed across many forms of mass

including newspapers, magazines, radio, television, movies, m

cheap novels, comics and cartoons, and advertising. It con

cultural art forms, such as opera, classical music and artw

theater and literature.

In mass communication, the term popular culture refers to mes

limited intellectual and aesthetic demands through content th

amuse and entertain audiences.

aesthetic refers to the appreciation of beauty and good taste.



WHERE DID IT COME FROM

• AFTER THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, PEOPLE HAD INCREASED LEISURE TIME. T

DEMAND FOR AMUSEMENT AND ENTERTAINMENT, WHICH PROMPTED GROWTH OF M

• ALSO AFTER THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, THE INCREASED SUPPLY OF GOODS NE

ADVERTISING TO ATTRACT CONSUMERS.

• MASS MEDIA WANTED TO REACH THE LARGEST AUDIENCE POSSIBLE. THAT INFLU

CONTENT OF MASS MEDIA.



WHY DO WE CARE?• WE'RE CONCERNED WITH POPULAR CULTURE BECAUSE:

• IT REACHES ALMOST ALL THE PUBLIC

• IT INFLUENCES HOW WE THINK, DRESS AND ACT

• IT HAS AN ECONOMIC IMPACT ON MEDIA

• IT INFLUENCES CONTENT OF MEDIA

• WE STUDY POPULAR MEDIA ARTIFACTS AND IMAGES TO LEARN ABOUT A C

INSTANCE, HOW WOMEN AND ETHNIC MINORITIES ARE PORTRAYED ON TV OR IN

• ALMOST ALL POPULAR CULTURE HAS AN ENTERTAINMENT FUNCTION. TV AND FIL

THE MEDIA MOST CONCERNED WITH ENTERTAINMENT.

• POPULAR CULTURE INCLUDES MUSIC, SPORTS AND MANY DIFFERENT KINDS O

SERVICES – WORKS SOLD FOR PROFIT THAT ARE INTEGRAL TO THE ECONOMICS OF



THERE IS A THEORY OFPOPULAR CULTURE

There is a theory of popular culture

Elements of the theory:

Privately owned media want profits

They need to attract large numbers of people

Most people are attracted by entertainment that requires limited intelle

Media produces and delivers the content they want – kitsch

Constant production and consumption of kitsch drives out other kinresults in:

Destruction of folk and elite art

Economic exploitation of the public

Diminishing of real-life heroes



HOW DID HEROESCHANGE?

Since the growth of mass media, our heroes have changed.

Before, we had heroes of deed – real people who made a contrib

might be George Washington, Daniel Boone, Susan B. Antho

Charles Lindbergh, Neil Armstrong, Martin Luther King.

In the time of big and influential mass media, we've adopted

famous media-created characters from the entertainment and s

even cartoon figures.

Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, James Bond, Ellen Ripley, Superma

Harry, Nancy Drew, Capt. James T. Kirk. Mad Max, Tarzan, Sp

Hood, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Han Solo etc.



We display little interest in people that affect society throug

instance scientific heroes who discover new things that affect

millions of people and medical heroes who create new proces

health of millions. Can you even name one such person withou

Google?

Many people have argued it is a waste of money to go to the Mo

station. Yet those advances have benefited mankind. On the o

talks about playing and televising the Superbowl as a waste of m

What should we make of Gregory Peck's "Atticus Finch" in the f

novel To Kill a Mockingbird?



NEW TECHNOLOGIES KEEPTHINGS INTERESTING.

Electric record players were developed in the 1920s to replace the win

leading to a spectacular growth in the sale of records.

Radio broadcasting began in 1920 when Pittsburgh station KDKA went o

regular schedule of programs.

Invented in the 1930s and developed during World War II in the first hamagnetic recording tape was used by German intelligence gatherers to ca

radio broadcasts. Later, magnetic tape would be edited by physically cutti

Reel-to-reel tapes could play an hour or more of program content.



MUSIC IS, WELL, THE MUSICOF OUR LIVES.

Music is life's backdrop wherever we go –

in our homes, cars, stores, offices, fa

everywhere.

People of every age enjoy music everyday everywhere.

Music brings out our emotions.

Music makes us feel nostalgic and brings good memories to mind. Listening to son

where we were and what we were doing in better times.

Music is therapeutic. In sick rooms it soothes and helps heal.

Music helps us cope with life.

Music during memorial services helps us grieve.

Music is embedded in Earth's natural rhythms.

Babies in the womb hear music. Later, mothers put them to sleep with lullabies.

Music helps children understand mathematics.

Music is the main content of radio broadcasts.

Films use music for background and to set mood.



SPIRITUAL SONGS OF THESLAVES

• SPIRITUALS WERE RELIGIOUS SONGS CREATED BY AFRICAN SLAVES IN 19TH CENTURY AMERICA.

• INDIGENOUS TO AFRICANS IN THE UNITED STATES, SPIRITUAL SONGS WERE A BLEND OF RELIGIOUS MUSIC FR

RELIGIOUS MUSIC FROM EUROPE. WHILE SPIRITUAL MUSIC DEVELOPED IN THE U.S., THE SPIRITUAL FORM OF MUS

AMONG CHRISTIAN AFRICANS ELSEWHERE – FOR INSTANCE IN THE CARIBBEAN AND LATIN AMERICA.

• THE NAME COMES FROM THE KING JAMES BIBLE EPHESIANS 5:19, "SPEAKING TO YOURSELVES IN PSALMS AND HYM

SONGS, SINGING AND MAKING MELODY IN YOUR HEART TO THE LORD."

• AT THE TIME OF THE CIVIL WAR IN THE 1860S, SPIRITUAL SONGS WERE DESCRIBED AS USED BY SLAVES WHILE SITTIN

PLACE WITH SPIRITUAL SHOUTS USED FOR DANCE MUSIC.



WHAT DO WE MEAN BY POPUMUSIC?

Popular music had its beginnings independent of other mass media

time there were no other audio media, radio stations or record labels.

We have a definition for popular music:

Popular music is composed of musical compositions written o

commercial services and products that can be sold for profit to the

segment of the public.

That's a shade different from the definition of pop music:

Pop music is commercially recorded music, marketed to youth, co

simple love songs using technological innovations to produce new mus

The commercial aspect sets popular music apart from folk songs,

religious music historically related to a need for social gathering or to

and joy of everyday life.



BILLBOARD COVERS THEHITS

Billboard is a weekly American magazine founded in 1894 and devo

industry.

As one of the oldest trade magazines in the world, it publishes music

that track songs and albums in several categories on a weekly basis.

Two of the magazine's best-known charts are the "Billboard Hot 100

sales and radio airplay the top 100 songs of all types, and the "Billboa

album sales.

Other charts survey the rock, country, adult pop, R&B, hip-hop, jazz,

Christian music genres. There also are international charts covering

Brazil, Turkey and Japan.

Would you believe in the second decade of the 21st century there's a

which ranks the artists who are most active on the social networkin

Twitter, Myspace and YouTube? There's even a chart called "Uncha

upcoming artists, who have yet to appear on a Billboard chart.



SINGING THE BLUESDuring the period of ragtime at the end of the 19th century, African

the Deep South also were singing the blues to express their feel

difficult experiences of everyday life.

Their simple rhyming narrative ballads melded work songs, field

and chants with spirituals.

Alabama blues composer and musician William C. Handy ma

accessible to white society. While he wasn't the first to publish

Handy is remembered as the "father of the blues" for having pr

dominant force in American music. In 1912, Handy published

Blues and then in 1914 the Saint Louis Blues, which inspired thestep.

The blues grew in popularity during the 1920s and evolved over the

today it is a permanent fixture on the American music landscape.

of jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll. Louis Armstrong, D

Miles Davis and Bob Dylan are among hundreds of jazz, folk and ro

who have delivered significant blues recordings.



TIN PAN ALLEY

Meanwhile, in the early 1900s, a group of music publishers in Ne

copyrighting songs, printing the scores as sheet music and sel

wholesale to distributors who then would sell them to retailers.

Tin Pan Alley may have started about 1885 in New York City wh

publishers and songwriters set up shop on West 28th Street bet

Sixth Avenue. The block is better known today as Manhattan's F

The offices of those publishers and songwriters together became kAlley.

It's not clear where the name came from. One myth says it was t

made by cheap upright pianos in music publishers' offices playing

at the same time, producing noise that sounded like the banging of



GOSPEL MUSIC WAS AESTHETPRAISE

Gospel music grew out of the blues and the Great Depre

It's a form of music written to express communal s

beliefs about Christian life. A common theme is

worship or thanks to God, Christ or the Holy Spirit.

Gospel music is composed and sung for religious cere

purposes, aesthetic pleasure and entertainment. It i

marketable as a sectarian alternative to secular music.



BOOGIE-WOOGIE WAS FORDANCING

Boogie-woogie was a piano style of blues popular from the late 1

1940s. It brought into play the sounds of multiple pianos and gu

big band, country, western and even gospel forms of music. W

depicted emotions, boogie-woogie was about dancing. It may h

first uptempo popular music.

Again, as with popular music and dancing before, the boogie

criticized as immoral and a threat to the standards of decency.

dancing to it was bad.



JITTERBUG

During World War II, the jitterbug was an immensely popular

to big band swing music. This fast-paced style of dance – als

Lindy Hop, Jive, and East Coast Swing – swept the nation. Cab

popular entertainer associated with the jitterbug.

The word jitterbug had been a slang term for an alcoholic w

suffered the "jitters" or delirium tremens while withdrawin

image of frenzied movements became associated with swing d

In 1944, the U.S. government levied a 30% federal excise tax oclubs. Club owners couldn't afford the tax so "No Dancing

were seen across the country. Later, the jitterbug was adapte

in the 1950s.



DISCO FROM THE PEAK TOTHE PITS

A middle-to-late 1970s popular counterculture form of dance m

swept out of African American, Hispanic or Latino, gay and psyc

New York City and Philadelphia to capture the nation's

heterosexuals and other social clusters came to embrace disco a

became more corporate, aiming at what would sell best. The

emphasis on commercial success and profits.

Most disco music had strings, horns, electric pianos and elec

sometimes flutes forming a lush background sound.

Rolling Stone Magazine published the first article about disco inyear, New York City's station WPIX-FM aired the first disco radio

film Saturday Night Fever with John Travolta and the 1978 film

Friday with The Commodores and Donna Summer pushed the

mainstream popularity.



MTV PLAYS MUSIC VIDEOS ANSPAWNS VJS

MTV was an acronym for Music Television when it was form

network in 1981. The cable channel played music videos int

hosts known as VJs – video jockeys, named after the term disc

MTV had a deep impact on the music industry and popular cu

want my MTV" was seen on other television channels. MTV

artists and fans alike found a home for their music, news a

cable channels included VH1 and CMT. MTV's influence on

debated for years. Its music videos were said to be immoral

standards of decency. Its social activism was denounced. MT

censorship when it removed references to drugs, sex, violence

homophobia and advertising from the music videos it played.

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