themes and memes: December 2011

Friday, December 16, 2011

Works Cited (Final Research Blog Project

Works Cited

Boyle, Kirk. "Reading the Dialectical Ontology of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou Against the Ontological Monism of Adaptation." Film-Philosophy 11.1 (2009). Online.

Lee, Steve S., and Richard A. Peterson. "Internet-based Virtual Music Scenes: The Case of P2 in Alt.Country Music." Music Scenes: Local, Translocal and Virtual. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP, 2004. 187-204. Print.

Lysloff, Rene T. A. "Musical Life in Softcity: An Internet Ethnography." Music and Technoculture. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2003. Print.

Jetto, Beatrice “Music Blogs, Music Scenes, Subcultural Capital: Emerging Practices in Music Blogs.” New Media & Politics of Online Communities. Oxfordshire, UK: Inter-Disciplinary Press 2010. online

Ryan, John and Richard A. Peterson “Disembodied Muse: Music in the Internet Age” Society Online: the Internet in Context. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004. Print.

Final Research Project Blog Post Announcement

Due to the structural limitations of Blogger, I have posted my Final Research Blog Post on a WordPress Site.

The link is right here:

http://themesandmemes.wordpress.com/

Note on Methodology (Final Research Blog Post)

As a quick methodological note, I am here using the ethnographic form to portray from the perspective of lifeaquaticblog.com how it articulates its aesthetic, and conceives of itself in relation to other virtual and non-virtual entities. It is true that the criticism of this approach could come in two major lines: one that lifeaquaticblog is not the exclusive purveyor of a similar musical aesthetic. To this criticism, I reply that such a notion is not only not important to the ethnographic perspective, but it also renders impossible any sort of scholarship concerning micro-trend blogs of any variety. Few blogs are able to be monopolistic, or exhaustively representative over their content domain. The second anticipated criticism is that the music and photography here can be looked at from an entirely different perspective, as embodying larger genre or meta-stylistic trends. To this criticsm, I suggest that the ethnography approach constitutes a more organic understanding of the blog, and perhaps could dispel some of the artificiality that comes with the causality of genre-labeling by culture broker

One of the problems that studying blogs of this sorts presents is the issue of finding a representative blog. It is true that many blogs are effectively second-wave blogs. What allows one to be first-wave is not always the same, whether its access to newly released music, curatorial prowess, a niche sound. There are lots of distinguishing factors. Nonetheless, I have attempted to avoid this question by focusing on one blog, and attempting to articulate the view from this blog looking out — at other blogs, at music, at people. It is from this perspective that I hope to have began in my thesis.

Finally, certain avenues had to be neglected due to space concerns. The most missed of these is a more thorough account of the different online resources (Soundcloud, Dropbox, Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter) that Life Aquatic uses.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Songs for Final Project (post under construction)

A Musical Analysis of the LifeAquatic Aesthetic:

Everything seems to be evocative of something I faintly remember. The warm and faded color editing, the saturation, the alternating beach and forest themes, the off-angled framing of candid shots of women. Then comes the music, and we go synaesthetic. The washed-out filters, the ambient whirs, the gentle off-kilter beats, the time-worn vocal flourishes. I begin to be overwhelmed by the aesthetic.

Indeed, this aesthetic turns out to be remarkably robust in defining the music of the blog. Not the music style is any way homogenous. In his thinking about the “life aquatic music taste”, Beeler sees a rough spectrum. The left pole of the spectrum consists of music dominated by more ethereal impulses. These songs, while still largely with beats and are generally less hip-hop influenced. Often these songs garner adjectives like “soft”, “ambient”, “minimal”, or phrases like “sun-washed”, “washed out”. These songs depend on certain wash synths, and often samples for “ambient” and “atmospheric” textures. The sampling of water is a particularly common one. The following track is a prime example of the leftmost pole.


Photo


Photo

The right pole of the spectrum is the more hip-hop influenced work, that often features insistent hip-hop beats or faster-paced, more danceable beats (although these are almost always made off-kilter and slightly evocative.) as well as sexually evocative musical motifs like sensuous vocals, or prominent bass Often the use of vocal sampling, and production techniques such as sidechaining distinguish this end. It must remembered, however, that this spectrum is exceedingly rough and in many ways it can be difficult to decide where to place a song on it.

photo

Beyond this spectrum, there are a variety of other sonic touchstones. The songs range in the intensity of the bass, with some of the song featuring assertive lead bass synths in either a slower more hip-hop fashion, or a more sped-up fashion, reminiscent of the “beat scene”. Indeed the chopped female (or male) vocals can appear all over the spectrum. Furthermore, there is great variation in tonality, and overall mood to the tracks. Compare, the sunny tropicalia revival of the Ruspo Capistrano track “Thank God…A Window! (from Sao Paulo) {consider more standard example} to the downright brooding of Galapagoose’s “Ploy”

Beeler’s role in lifeaquatic is of some interest. Beeler, determines only a small fraction of the submissions, thus ensuring his role as both a protector/overseer of the aesthetic, and a quality overseer. Ultimately, the blog itself must be filtered through Beeler. Then again, Jarred describes how his taste often diverges with the “life aquatic taste” and he is forced to limit posts to music that molds to that contour. In our interview, a track he dug, {name} he couldn’t post because it didn’t match the general aesthetic. This presents an interesting question about the ability of listeners to form to possess such a certain a priori formulation of genre, in that the aesthetic sensibility precedes the music itself.

It should be noted that in now way does Beeler, express any proprietary feeling over the music. While he does appear to have some sort of status amongst Australian beatmakers (as well as international beatmakers), he recognizes that the “lifeaquatic music taste” transcends Lifeaquatic. This recognition is justified, seeing how other blogs are able to capture a similar aesthetic (although each with it’s own particular stamp defined by either the structure of the blog itself, or the taste of its curator). What makes lifeaquatic and its associates interesting is how these personal tastes can be magnified upwards and reified into becoming a disemboddied taste. Beatmakers who not know Beeler , often seek out the Lifeaquatic for their tracks because, as Beeler says, they "like my aesthetic".

{include link to the track}

Monday, December 5, 2011

Critical Review Set # 2/ # 4

Elijah Wald in “Polka Contrabandista: Mexican Ballads in a Modern Age” provides a neat introduction to norteña music, specifically the form known as the corrido. She provides first a musical introduction, tracing the genre lineage to a mix of Spanish-American musical forms and central European forms. He then tells the history of corrido, as it moved from its inception to its eulogizing role in the Mexican Revolution up until its initial drop in popularity at the hands of the bolero and romance. Nonetheless, his paper subsequently deals largely with the sudden resurgence of the corrido, and a special form known as the narcocorrido. She performs lyric analysis, discusses the origin of the most famous norteña acts, and ruminates on the nature of its folklore. A significant portion of the article deals with the cultural role of norteña currently. Wald argues that in this respect the form of the corrido functions (or at least sees itself) as both a newspaper and an arbiter of cultural legacy. This latter function is evidenced, Wald points out, by the way traficantes supply corrido writers with funding and details about themselves, in exchange for the immortalization of a good corrido. Wald concludes by noting that despite the moral hazard of its implicit condoning the drug trade, the corrido remains a remarkably resilient and culturally relevant musical form.

Elijah Wald makes an interesting point with regard to the popular attitude displayed in corridos. Towards the traficante heroes of narcocorridos, she writes that “unlike the big agricultural and industrial magnates, they come from the people and spend their money at home” (Wald 226), thus allowing them to be lionized despite the enormous costs of their profession. This juxtaposes sharply against the generally hostile emotions displayed towards fellow Mexicans who immigrated to the United States and found a modicum of financial success (exemplified in “La Jaula de Oro”, a norteña hit by Los Tigres del Norte). This seems to counter the charge that the corridos function like a newspaper, instead suggesting that they are more like nationalistic folk songs. Is this a valid observation?