Popular Music, Popular Dance and the Consumption of Music Cultures - Essay Example

Popular music, popular dance and the consumption of music/dance cultures I. Introduction At the dawn of the digital age, Marshall McLuhan keenly described the transformation shaping the relationship between popular culture and consumerism in the following words: "We are swiftly moving at present from an era when business was our culture into an era where culture will be our business." Propelled by the development of radio, records, films, and television, business gradually moved into the cultural arena, and then began to change culture from a local and small-time activity into industries with global reach. New technology, combined with the expansion of leisure activity, created and established markets for cultural products and promoted consumption. And, as in other areas in modern business, the entrepreneurs who brought to mass markets recorded music, motion pictures, and paperback books eventually ceded their place to large corporations run by professional managers who produced, packaged, distributed, and promoted cultural products the world over, promoting popular culture. The Popular music and Rave culture dominates the discourse on culture particularly the popular culture. Certain genres of popular music have flickered controversy and opposition and criticisms have been centred on them particularly of their influence on 'youthful values, attitudes and behaviour through the music's (perceived) sexuality and sexism, nihilism and violence, obscenity, black magic and anti-Christian nature.'1 Popular culture in general has historically been the target of censure, condemnation and regulation, because of its intense relationship with consumerism. II. Youth culture The essay examines the relationship between youth, youth behaviours, popular music and the consumption of music-dance cultures. In order to do this we have to examine the school of Marxist thought that is relevant to the debate - the Frankfurt School. The founders of this school of Marxism, including Marcuse, Adorno and Horkheimer were all critical of the development of what they saw as mass culture and mass consumption. The orientation of the school has been towards the linking of modern capitalism with the control exerted by media industries and products over the consumer. Strinati sees it as 'popular culture which is produced by mass production industrial techniques and is marketed for a profit to a mass public of consumers'. Mac Donald was far more critical: it is a debased, trivial culture that voids both the deep realities (sex, death, failure, tragedy) and also the simple, spontaneous pleasures...a narcotised acceptance of mass culture and of the commodities it sells as a substitute for the unsettling and unpredictable...joy, tragedy, wit, change, originality and beauty of real life. These arguments also underline the relationship between popular music, dance and their consumption. Youth culture has been studied from several ideological perspectives on assumptions that they are 'not isolated and untouched by the surrounding culture' . This notion has lead researchers to assume that youth culture is not part of 'growing up', but a phenomenon that occurs as a precipitation of the social, political, cultural and ideological factors. There is not one monolithic youth culture that defines all young people. Popular youth culture embraces a diversity of sub-cultures or "tribes" such as skaters, druggies, snobs, band geeks, Satanists, Jesus freaks, techno-goths, computer dweebs, blacks, Latinos and white trash. Groups distinguish themselves by dress, style, music, body modification practices, race, ethnicity, and language. In her book Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital, 2Thornton refers to the youth cultures based around the raves and dance clubs from the late 1980's to the mid-1990's. The main sociological context of Thornton's study was the approach to the study of youth subcultures developed by the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham in books like Resistance Through Rituals. This approach saw subcultures such as skinheads as expressions of class-based cultures that were rebelling against the dominant ideology of a capitalist state. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s there were a series of what have been called 'spectacular' youth subcultures: mods, rockers, skinheads, punks, and so on. Every subculture had a distinctive style of dress and appearance and particular tastes in music and usually in choice of drugs. Many of these subcultures were analysed by sociologists along the lines suggested by the CCCS - that is, seen as representing a primitive kind of resistance towards capitalism. From the 1980s onwards it became much more difficult to distinguish youth subcultures. Instead, there seemed to be a variety of styles that were short lived and shaped by the music and fashion industries. These could not be seen as authentic expressions of the anger of working-class youth in the way the CCCS had suggested. Thornton's research focuses on a subculture, or cluster of related subcultures, in the late 1980s and 1990s. Thornton takes from Pierre Bourdieu the concept of 'cultural capital' and develops from it the concept of 'subcultural capital'.3 Bourdieu argued that the most privileged groups in society are distinguished by their possession not only of economic capital but also social and cultural capital, and that the class system is perpetuated by these various forms of capital (not just wealth) being passed from one generation to the next. Cultural capital in Britain, for example, might include possession of a particular accent, and having attended an independent rather than a state school. From this Thornton explores the idea that a subculture may also have forms of cultural capital (such as knowledge of the latest music) that give status within the subculture. At the outset Thornton makes a series of points, derived from earlier findings but supported by her own, which establish the importance of club cultures. - Admissions to clubs and other dance events are higher than those to sporting events, cinemas and 'live arts' combined; clubs only go relatively unnoticed because they concern only one particular age group and the activity is mainly after the rest of the population is in bed. - There are few, if any, boundaries of class, race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality in dancing, but relatively firm lower- and upper-age boundaries. Young teenagers are excluded by parental rules about being out late and by lack of money, while older clubbers lose interest as they leave home and enter cohabiting or marriage relationships. - Clubbing is an integral part of growing up, providing a space where the young can act like adults in some ways and can achieve a distinct identity. Clubs are particularly empowering for girls. Dancing is the only out-of-home leisure activity that involves more females than males. - Music is an essential aspect of youth cultures. Young people buy and listen to more music than any other age group III. Culture, culture industry and consumerism Adorno, who was the first to reflect systematically on the relationship between culture and commerce in the capitalist economy, defined culture industry as the complex economic and social processes that transform culture into marketable goods.4 For Hirsch the definition of cultural industries began with defining of cultural products as "non-material goods directed at a public of consumers for whom they generally serve as an aesthetic or expressive, rather than clearly utilitarian function" 5The emphasis on cultural products as defining cultural industries was shared by Lawrence and Phillips who also saw cultural goods as "products that are consumed in an act of interpretation rather than being used in some practical way to solve some practical problem," but they opened the definition further by arguing that cultural products are "goods and services that are valued for their 'meaning.'" Power saw cultural products as a good point of departure, but expanded Hirsch's definition even further. Power argued that cultural industries consist of "economic actors involved in the production of goods and vices whose value is primarily or largely determined by virtue of their aesthetic, semiotic, sensory, or experiential content" The difficulty of defining cultural industries exclusively from the perspective of cultural products is that it promotes the perspective of the consumer over that of the producers who create new products, entrepreneurs who invest in them, and managers who oversee them. Although the subjective experience of consumers is of considerable importance for understanding cultural industries, the perspective that drives this book is that of the individuals and organizations that make up these industries, rather than the individuals and organizations that consume their products. This shift in perspective means that cultural industries are not only defined by the nature of cultural products, but also by the industry system in which they are produced and consumed. In this respect, Towse's definition of cultural industries provides a useful counterbalance to excessive reliance on the intrinsic nature of cultural products as the defining characteristic of cultural industries. As Towse put it: Cultural industries mass-produce goods and services with sufficient artistic content to be considered creative and culturally significant. The essential features are industrial-scale production combined with cultural content. The possibility of mass production is due to the development of technologies- printing, sound recording, photography, film, video, internet, digitilization- and the growth of the cultural industries accordingly gathered force during the twentieth century. To gain insight into how cultural industries operate as industry systems, it is useful to recapitulate what gives rise to cultural industries. Cultural industries emerge as the result of the industrialization of cultural activities that in the past were undertaken for expressive or communicative purpose without an explicit economic motive, or if undertaken for economic purpose took place in craft production, often at the behest of affluent patrons. The industrialization of cultural activity gave rise to the production of cultural goods with the intent of reaching a mass audience. This has a number of consequences that transform the processes of producing and consuming culture. This is particularly noticeable in the music industry where the videos and recordings of major artists such as Michael Jackson and Madonna are consumed simultaneously throughout the world; their sounds and images rapidly communicating across linguistic frontiers and cultural boundaries. Globalisation breaks the link between culture and territory, dissolving distances and creating new imaginary spaces and identities. Popular music, less dependent for its comprehension upon language, education and the acquisition of a sophisticated body of knowledge - is one of the forms of mass communication which has been able to globalise most dramatically; constructing audiences around the commonly shared experience of a cultural event, or an artist's lifestyle and identity, rather than a purely local experience in a discrete time and place. However, while sounds, images and information may be moving across cultural borders more rapidly than in the past, the ability to transmit and receive thee messages is dependent upon access to the means of information production and telecommunication and the distribution of technologies of reception. Globalisation breaks the link between culture and territory for the hegemonic transnational corporations, whose cultural products and information cannot be identified with their national origins in any straightforward way. But globalisation makes the relationship between culture and territory more acute in those regions where these products and messages are perceived as coming from 'outside'; this tension is particularly noticeable in recording industry. The rise of cultural industries goes hand in hand with the emergence of new technologies such as printing, sound recording, photography, film, video, and the Internet. These new technologies give advantage to economies of scale in production, distribution, and marketing. As in other sectors, this leads to large corporate entities whose main business is to create, market, and distribute cultural goods. It also produces new occupations and new skills, and ecology of large and small firms that specialize in creating content and assisting delivery. Cultural industries are in effect the complex interconnections of organizations, individuals, activities, and knowledge that make up industry systems. But as we argue later, these industry systems deserve to be studied in their own right, for what they reveal about cultural industries, and for what they reveal about industries in general. In recent years, a number of manufacturers have realised that there is a possibility of marketing their goods as having specific uses for leisure. The classic examples are the Sony Walkman or sports footwear, but other goods include children's trading cards or Barbie dolls. 6No-one really needs to buy these goods, but a large number of people are willing to buy them because they become associated with leisure values, with freedom, choice, personal development and the general qualities of popular music or sport, such as a sense of personal liberation. Analysis of this association leads to important questions about choice and how it can be cleverly manipulated by leisure companies, as well as setting the context to explain the increased importance of personal leisure in social life. Another is the recording industry. There is no doubt that the world, irrespective of regions is becoming increasingly important to the recording industry, as both a market and cultural space. Already various satellite operators - most notably MTV- are attempting to construct a distinctive identity as part of their broadcasting policies. MTV's aim are avowedly global, and they have moved across the Atlantic in recognition that this continent provides greater opportunities than are currently available in the U.S. In making this move, MTV has introduced a broadcasting system based on its tried and tested formula of seeking large audiences by transmitting the sounds and visions of the major superstars. Like MTV a number of major record companies have publicly espoused an approach to Europe and Asia which promotes the culture-crossing music and images of the global superstars, but maintains an interest in local particularities. BGM's policy is an attempt to regionalise local repertoire and in some cases, to globalise local repertoire: the economics of recouping investment and generating further capital in the music industry demand that the appeal of the local is widened to include surrounding regions, and if possible 'crossed-over' to achieve global status. IV. Conceptualising Youth Cultures and Club Cultures The cultural night lives of young people have provided fertile ground for social researchers. There have been explorations of the character and division of dance scenes, the relationship between femininities, women's clubbing experiences and feminism, clubbing experiences and the relationship between drug use and clubbing What has not been studied so well is how people become clubbers, what practices this entails, what kind of young people invest in this lifestyle, what resources are required to do so, whether this process is gendered as well as if and how this experience has impacted on their sense of identity. Earlier studies portrayed Rave culture as being a social arena where social divisions were put aside and anyone and everyone mixed together. Yet, more recent studies suggest that distinctions do operate between 'mainstream' and 'hip' club scenes, that 'nightlife provision exploits existing cleavages in the youth population, and segregates young adults into particular spaces and places' Given this it seems important to unpack further the nature of boundaries: the divisions between 'us and them': the boundary work that we do and how boundaries are constituted in social interaction. I want to explore this through examining the practices of distinction that seem to be operating within club culture. Thornton7 asserts 'club cultures are taste cultures', but as she also points out, practices of distinction do not just involve taste and cultural hierarchies are numerous What other practices of distinction are involved in identification and differentiation processes, both within and between club scenes It seems unlikely that these processes and practices are wholly elective. Young people's experiences of clubbing, their lifestyle 'choices', need to be contextualised and conceptualised in such a way that recognise that some young people are more able than others to engage in particular styles of life, and consumer and cultural activities, such as clubbing. Boundaries are about both the individual and the collective, notions not new to youth research. Willis suggested that 'becoming' a hippie or a bike boy involved not only cultural knowledge, but also a process of developing group sensibilities, and these sensibilities could be used to identify and differentiate one group from another. The notion of 'becoming' is a way of exploring both individual and group processes: how young people learn to use 'recreational' drugs, learn particular practices, affiliate with a culture, lifestyle or social group and invest in additional forms of identification, as well as encounter cultural barriers that constrain participation and processes of 'becoming'. Symbolic interactionist theories would suggest that notions of what and who you are, as well as what and who you are not, only become meaningful and significant through interaction with others. When social anthropological and symbolic interactionist conceptualisations of boundaries are brought together they can help us understand how people come to form into collective groups, groups that construct shared meanings through interaction. Symbolic boundaries, group life or how 'people do things together', are interactional resources that groups draw upon to create their own boundaries. These notions offer a fruitful way to explore the relationship between the individual and the group, and the divisions between 'us and them' found in the empirical studies exploring the cultural night-lives of young people. Moreover, it may be that identifying as and 'becoming a clubber' may only acquire meaning in relation to and in contrast to those who do not identify as or become 'clubbers'. However, these concepts at times struggle at being able to account for status inequalities that appear to underpin the identifications, differentiations, boundaries and divisions found in this cultural setting. The notion of lifestyle can allow for an analytical exploration of distinctive cultural practices while also acknowledging the wider, more common cultural practices in which the distinctive, collective cultural practices are played out. Although much lifestyle research is concerned about the relationship between young people and the commodities they acquire, lifestyles are not just about using commodities to establish distinctive forms of collective identity'. The notion of lifestyle has also been used to explore the cultural night-lives of young people. The lifestyles of young people can signal to others their taste, knowledge, cultural allegiances and consumer choices to enhance or detract social standing. Clubbing lifestyles it has been suggested can also be thought of as 'experiential consuming', providing sources of identification and space to experience others and 'otherness'. What many lifestyle studies draw attention to is the agency (to varying degrees) of young people constructing their own cultural identities through participation in particular and distinctive lifestyles. The concept and/or its application has been criticised for being voluntaristic; with Roberts calling for clear evidence of 'young people 'placing' each other and defining themselves according to their lifestyles rather than using the old social markers'. Studies show that lifestyles can be means for creating hierarchical distinctions both between and within groups, that they can reflect and legitimise divisions within the social world. However, what we know less about from available research on cultural lifestyles and tribes is whether there exists fragments of older social divisions, or whether they represent the creation of new forms of social hierarchy and distinction. Research of this kind also leaves important questions unexamined: it gives little sense of the processes over time by which young people become involved in urban dance music and then possibly drift into other pursuits and forms of association. Nor does it give a sense of the access or resources required to be/become a Goth or Punk Popular culture is a space in which cultural differences are not about resistance to the power of the ruling class. Rather, groups create distinctions between themselves and others on the basis of subcultural capital. They acquire status within their own social world through possession of subcultural knowledge and through making distinctions between themselves and other groups of young people. This often involves a distinction between their own culture and that of the 'mainstream'. Thornton's respondents were contemptuous of the 'chartpop disco' where 'Sharon and Tracy dance around their handbags'. But this mainstream of 'them' doesn't really exist (after all, the charts are an eclectic mix of many kinds of niche music) and is defined simply as the opposite of 'us'. The earlier tradition had assumed that subcultures began as authentic and subversive expressions of youth, then were taken over by the mass media and turned into commodities. Thornton argues that the media are implicated from the very beginning. Condemnation by the mass media is actively sought, while micro media (flyers, listings, fanzines, pirate radio, e-mail lists, and so on) are the sources of information that can supply subcultural capital. Clubbers produce these, and clubbers turn to them for information. Niche media (mainly the music and style consumer magazines) often try to identify and develop subcultures; New Musical Express was strongly associated first with punk and New Wave and later 'Madchester', while the established magazine that linked itself most closely to clubbing was iD. Subcultural capital relies on the media (but not mass media) which, in turn, means restricted accessibility. Subcultural capital is about 'being in the know'. Thornton also notes how the media make use of sociological discourse and concepts in making sense of club cultures by using terms like 'subculture' and 'moral panic'. V. Conclusion The issues represented by popular music, rave cultures, consumerism and cultural politics are universal. First, technical changes have occurred in areas such as venue design, sound and lighting facilities, etc., enabling larger audiences to participate as immediate consumers of live performance. Secondly, media reproduction technology has extended consumption much further, and has enabled significant new revenue sources for companies to be accessed. Thirdly, rising consumer incomes and changing tastes have maintained some secular growth in demand for the music, dance and the rave. Thus the relationship between popular music, popular dance and the consumption of music/dance cultures has become stronger ever more. Bibliography 1. Adorno, T. (1990), 'On Popular Music' in Simon Frith & Andrew Goodwin (eds.), On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word, London: Routledge 2. Cloonan, M. (1997), 'State of the Nation: "Englishness", pop and politics in the mid 1990s', in Popular Music & Society, 21/2 , Bowling Green State University Press 3. Gauntlett, D. (2004), 'Madonna's Daughters: Girl Power and the Empowered Girl-Pop Breakthrough' in S Fouz-Hernandez and F Jarman-Ivens (eds.) Madonna's Drowned Worlds new approaches to her cultural transformations 1983-2003 , Aldershot: Ashgate 4. 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