Mashup, remix, fandom, intertextuality, music simulacrum - Essay Example

?Encyclopedia Entries Mashup Mashup is a music term that refers to skilful blending of two or more songs to achieve a new coherent composition, usually featuring various music genres. Another terms for a mashup are blend, bootleg, smashup, bastard pop, powermix, cutup and crossover. David J. Gunkel, Aram Sinnreich, Michele H. Jackson, Brian Lamb and Liam McGranaham are some of the authors who have written elaborate and scientific publications on the mashup culture. Although the term first appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in 2000, the history of mashups is debatable. While the notion of a mashup as a 21st century novelty appears viable, the roots of a mashup can be traced to the early 20th century. The installation of Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel in1913 where he combined a stool with a bicycle wheel was a physical symbol for mashup (Levay 22). A mashup is “a fun and adventurous way to make something fresh out of something stale” (Gaylor web). Music mashup characteristics are additionally attributed to musicque concrete, a form of music which evolved in the 1940s, where compositions were not limited to sounds from musical instruments (McLeod 81). The music community have come to a strong consensus on the origin of a mashup. They agree that part of the remix culture (Mashup) originated from Jamaica in the early 1950s Arguably, a remix is an umbrella term encompassing mashup among other music compositions. It is when Jamaican selectors or disc-jockeys composed first metatexts by playing live a series of records in the same key, tempo or theme. This gave grounds for the emergence of hip hop DJs several decades later (Brewster and Broughton 254; Levay 22) Ironically, these roots seem to contradict Sinnreich’s observation that a mashup is associated with white European logic as opposed to the Afro-diasporic hip-hop genre (Sinnreich 195-9). The fact remains that mashup, despite its Jamaican foundations, first gained major popularity in the United Kingdom. The first mashup that gained widespread media attention and broke into the mainstream across the UK was done by The Freelance Hellraiser in 2001. His “A Stroke of Genie-us” combined Christina Aguilera’s “Genie in a Bottle” and The Strokes’ “Hard to Explain.” While a mashup can be done manually, the most common production of mashups occurs digitally. Among the most common software are Ableton Live and Sony’s Acid Pro. They let both professionals and bedroom producers to join a vocal section from one piece with an instrumental section of another to produce one stereo track, which is the basic element of a mashup. Since at present music is recorded using multi-track recording techniques, music labels sometimes release those tracks individually to encourage producers and DJs to create remixes thus contributing to the popularity of the original recording. Works Cited Aram Sinnreich, “Plus ca change’ or Paradigm shift?” University of Massachusetts Press. (2010), 193-208. Brewster, Bill and Broughton, Frank. Last night a dj saved my life: the history of the disc jockey. New York: Grove Press, 1999. Print. David J. Gunkel, “Rethinking the digital remix: Mash-ups and the metaphysics of sound recording.” Popular Music and Society, 31/4 (2008), 489-510. Gaylor, Brett, dir. RIP: A Remix Manifesto. 2008. Web. 25 Jan. 2012 . Jackson, Michele. " The Mash-Up: A New Archetype for Communicatio." Journal of Comupter-Mediated Communication. 14. (2009): 730–734. Web. 25 Jan. 2012.  Lamb, Brian. "Dr. Mashup or, Why Educators Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Remix."EDUCAUSE Review. 2004. Web. 25 Jan. 2012. . McGranahan, Liam. "Bastards and Booties: Production, Copyright, and the Mashup Community." Revista Transcultural de Musica. 14. 2010. Web. 25 Jan. 2012. < http://www.sibetrans.com/trans/a13/bastards-and-booties-production-copyright-and-the-mashup-community> Remix A remix refers to alternative version of a recorded song with added or subtracted elements and or changed music features. Some of the authors who have contributed to the academic debate of a remix include David J. Gunkel, Brett Gaylor, Eduardo Navas. What differentiates a remix from a cover is that a remix uses fragments of the original recording. A remix is done through audio mixing. This gained popularity with the raise of multi-channel recording techniques (Navas web). A remix is considered a worldwide activity driven by creative and efficient modes of exchange of information enhanced by digital technologies that promote the cut and paste practices (Navas web). Remix, same as mashups stemed from the Jamaican culture and then spread to America where it had a lot of impact on the New York music scene in 1970s and 1980s (Gunkel 501-6). Nonetheless, its Jamaican equivalent called version has been firmly grounded in the Jamaican music scene by the late 50s and early 60s (Navas web). There are three main variations of a remix. The first one is extended remix which is a version of a song featuring extended instrumental sections making it longer, thus easier for a DJ to mix it. The first extended remix was by Walter Gibbons who remixed “Ten Percent” by Double Exposure in 1971 (Navas web).The second category of a remix is selective. It is based on adding or subtracting sequences from the original piece. This particular subgenre gave rise to DJs as mainstream music producers. The best known selective remix was made in 1987 by Coldcut of “Paid in Full” by Eric B. & Rakim (Navas web). The third remix variation is reflexive. Its main purpose is to create a whole new aura or feeling of a music composition by cutting or pasting and shortening or lengthening its sequences. However, the original must remain recognizable in spite of these alterations (Navas web). An example of such piece would be “Killing me Softly with His Song” recorded by Roberta Flack in 1973 and the reflexive remix by The Fugees whose rendition of the same title brought the band a Grammy award (Hess 189). Some of the controversies encompassing remix are the questions of originality versus copying or unique aura versus reproducibility. According to Gaylor, those do not always go hand in hand and a remix is not an act of piracy, because of the intertextuality (Gaylor web). Works Cited Gaylor, Brett, dir. RIP: A Remix Manifesto. Vimeo, 2010. Web. 25 Jan. 2012. . Gunkel, David. "Rethinking the digital remix: Mash-ups and the metaphysics of sound recording." Popular Music and Society. Mendeley. 31.4 (2008): 489-510. Print.  Hess, Mickey. Hip Hop in America: A Regional Guide: East Coast and West Coast. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2010. Print. Navas, Eduardo. "Regressive and Reflexive Mashups in Sampling Culture." Mashup Cultures. 2010. Web. 25 Jan. 2012. . Navas, Eduardo. "Remix Defined." Remix Theory. 2006. Web. 25 Jan 2012. . Fan Culture Fan culture is a form of remix culture. Fans are consumers who are also officially or unofficially media producers (Jenkins 136-9). They engage in activities related to particular objects of passion and fascination (Hellekson 6). The most notable authors on the fan culture include Henry Jenkins, Karen Hellekson and Lisa Lewis. Fandom is a common phenomenon found within industrialized societies. It is a direct result of mass production and came into being on a vast scale with the means of communication among the fans, namely the mass media (Lewis 31). For Henry Jenkins, a fan culture is a symbol of participatory culture, which he defines as an opposition to consumer culture. Participatory culture is based on the notion of interactivity among the consumers and creating content. Thus the public becomes the producer. Fandom leads to convergence culture, or fan-specific participatory culture (Jenkins 136-9). Karen Hellekson supplements Jenkins’ concepts by claiming that the fan culture is interactive and highly networked (as opposed to static and read-only) which she believes are the two foundations of the fan culture (Hellekson 6). Fan culture, as well as collaborative learning have intensified and began to offer new ways of interaction and participation with the spread of the Internet in the 1990s and 2000s. Digital tools and their increased availability changed the face of the fan culture. Fandom is no longer limited to being practiced orally and in-person. Indeed, the spectrum of interactions has broadened. Fans can now get involved in the production of videos, music, photography manipulation for instance in photoshop and literary work (fanfic) on a vast scale and receive instant feedback. Rather than going to conventions, fans can now unite in the blogosphere or at bulletin boards or discussion forums (Hellekson 6). The main controversy surrounding the fan culture is frequent copyright infringement. Corporations are particularly vigilant when it comes to fan activity, moving the creative branch to the underground. Out of fear of being sued, fans share password protected videos amongst themselves, publish under pseudonyms or not publish at all. They accept the fact that they will not be compensated, but also not be credited for their work (Jenkins 136-9). It has also impacted academic researchers who cannot legally publish works with illegal materials. Fandom therefore remains underestimated by scholars (Hellekson 6). However, several instances show the power of fan expertise and its acknowledgement by the establishment. Jenkins brings an example of Lucas Arts which prior to releasing its massively-multiplayer game Star Wars, created a website in the early stages of the game development with ideas under consideration for fans to comment upon them. Ordinary users can therefore have a realistic impact on the production process (Jenkins 138). Another example would be the “Serenity” television show which originated from a fanfic called “Firefly.” Works Cited Hellekson, Karen. "Fan studies 101." SFRA Review. 287. (2009): Print. Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press, 2006. Print. Jenkins, Henry. Fans, bloggers, and gamers: exploring participatory culture. New York: New York University Press, 2006. Print. Lewis, Lisa. The Adoring audience: fan culture and popular media. London: Routlege, 1992. Print. Intertextuality Intertextuality refers to referencing or borrowing from other texts through direct or indirect allusions. The chief proponents of intertextuality were Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida and John Fiske. According to Roland Barthes, the world of texts, whether musical, filmic, graphic or written, is a network of references constituted by piracy. It touches upon the idea that everything has already been said and done and each new piece is merely a network of those references, whether committed knowingly or unknowingly (Barthes web). Barthes views texts as allegories of fiction and their performers or authors as mediators. He goes a step further and claims that the term author is in fact vague and that authors are in fact absent (Barthes web). Jacques Derrida supplements this discourse by stressing the nonlinearity of texts. For Derrida, there are no inside or outside references. He views a text as a rich semiolinguistic structure where every word or context can be cited indefinitely. It is therefore a vast assemblage (Landow 8). This touches upon the discourse of piracy and plagiarism. In Barthes’ and Derrida’s views, intellectual property such as music has no viable grounds to be copyrighted. In other words, there is no human agency (Landow 9). John Fiske on the other hand, explored the concepts of vertical and horizontal intertextuality, as first described by Julia Kristeva who first coined the term intertextuality in 1966 (Lack 130). For Fiske, horizontal intertextuality occurs when a text makes an allusion to another text of the same type. This is best seen when a song references to another song for instance, Jonny Lang’s live performance of “Red Light” features a fragment from Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds”. Vertical intertextuality takes place when a song references a different type of text, such as a film or a book for example, “The Number of the Beast” by Iron Maiden starts with a quote from the bible) (Fiske 93-6). Intertextuality may be further subdivided into several categories. First, the notion of reflexivity discusses how self-reflexive or self-conscious the use of intertextuality is. For instance, how aware was the author of a music piece that he was referencing his text to another. Indeed, various artists have denied allegations of referencing to other texts. For example, the guitar in Pearl Jam’s “Given to Fly” sounds like the guitar in Led Zeppelin’s “Going to California”. Moreover, the alteration of sources is another element of intertextuality. It poses the question, how many references are included? Also, how explicit are the references? They may be served as direct quotations, as in mashups or sampling, or indirectly through referencing a theme in a wholly different composition. For instance, in “Birmingham Blues” the Electric Light Orchestra used a riff based on “Rhapsody in Blue” by G. Gershwin. Another feature of intertextuality is the importance of comprehension – how important it is for the audience to recognize the involved intertextuality. This may be steered by the scale or explicitness of adoption. Lastly, structural unboundedness describes how the text is understood in a larger scope. It poses the question, how does the reference tie into the specific genre, style or theme? (Chandler 207). Works Cited Barthes, Roland. "The Death of the Author." Web. 25 Jan. 2012. . Chandler, Daniel. Semiotics: the basics. 2nd. New York: Routlege, 2007. Print. Fiske, John. Television culture. 3rd. London: Routlege, 2009. Print. Lack, Roland-Francois. Intertextuality: Theories and Practices. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990. Print. Landow, George. Hypertext 3.0: critical theory and new media in an era of globalization. 3rd. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. Print. Music Simulacrum Music simulacrum refers to music derived from the copy of the original. A copy of a copy. Among the theorists of simulacrum were Plato, Jean Baudrillard and Peter Manuel. The concept of simulacrum or simulacra in plural, has its roots in Ancient Greece as it always has been the subject of interest to philosophers. Plato in his book “Sophist” distinguishes two types of image making. They include an attempt to copy the original and a faithful reproduction. He describes the first one as purposely done to emphasize its distinctiveness from the original and sometimes to pay homage to the actual piece. It is not meant to imitate the original. Plato gives the example of the Greek statuary and the way they were constructed. They were becoming bigger towards the top for people to see them without the skewed perspective from the bottom. When viewed in scale, they would appear unnatural. Plato’s second type is a sheer attempt to copy the original (Plato 1992). Jean Baudrillard, a more contemporary French philosopher elaborated on Plato’s discourse and distinguished four phases of an image otherwise referred to as orders of simulacra. The first phase is achieved through the representation of reality through art. This is referred to as symbolic order. The second phase which is referred to as first order of simulacra occurs when art distorts reality through its representations. Third phase or simply second order of simulacra occurs when art attempts to conceal the absence of reality. Lastly, third of order of simulacra occurs when art has no relation to reality at all. In other words, full simulacrum takes place in simulations, when the apparent copies have no original (Felluga) These concepts stir the debate on the authenticity of music, bringing in the concepts of intertextuality. When looked at a larger scope, punk rock and hip hop “combine the postmodern techniques of pastiche, bricolage and blank irony with modernist socio-political protest” (Manuel 227). It could therefore be argued that they fall into the first and second orders of simulacra since they either distort the reality to send a particular message or actually report the factual order of being. For example, the well-known song by the Sex Pistols “God Save the Queen” would fall into the first order of simulacra as its lyrics do not reflect the actual political context of England in the 70s. They rather aim to dramatize it and make a statement by calling it a “fascist regime.” The notions of symbol and simulacrum are often intertwined, however according to Manuel, music subcultures “celebrate meaning and meaninglessness, play and nostalgia, pathos and jouissance, in a synthesis that goes much deeper than the paradigmatic dualities of 'tradition and innovation', or 'commercialism and authenticity” (Manuel 227). Works Cited Felluga, Dino. "Modules on Baudrillard: On Simulation. Introductory Guide to Critical Theory”. Purdue University, 2011. Web. 25 Jan 2012. Manuel, Peter. "Music as Symbol, Music as Simulacrum: Postmodern, Pre-Modern, and Modern Aesthetics in Subcultural Popular Musics." Popular Music. 14.2 (1995): 227-239. Print. Plato. Sophist. The internet Classic Archive. 1992. Web. 25 Jan 2012 . Read More