Musical Borrowing
An Annotated Bibliography

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[+] Abbey, Eric James, and Colin Helb, eds. Hardcore, Punk, and Other Junk: Aggressive Sounds in Contemporary Music. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014.

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular

[+] Adams, Kyle. “What Did Danger Mouse Do?: The Grey Album and Musical Composition in Configurable Culture.” Music Theory Spectrum 37 (Spring 2015): 7-24.

Danger Mouse (producer Brian Burton) recorded a performance of Jay-Z’s The Black Album in his 2004 The Grey Album, which challenges traditional notions of individual authorship. He produced The Grey Album by taking an a cappella recording of Jay-Z’s The Black Album and remixing portions of The Beatles’ The White Album as the instrumental backing. Because a mashup is a combination of two or more recordings onto a single track, it can be difficult to decide what type of art the mashup actually is, or what its creator has really done in making it. The Grey Album differs from A+B mash-ups such as Smells Like Booty (which combines Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit with Destiny’s Child’s Bootylicious) in multiple ways. First, unlike A+B mash-ups, The Grey Album is unequal in its borrowing. The entirety of Jay-Z’s lyrics are preserved, while The Beatles’ music is cut up and reconfigured to fit the lyrics. Second, The Grey Album deliberately obscures the incongruity of its sources. The aim of the album is to reinforce or reinterpret the lyrics, not to use them for comedic effect, and as a result, this borrowing has more in common with art music techniques than with existing popular mash-ups. Because the lyrics are clearly the focus of the album, it is not an independent composition, but rather a performance of The Black Album. Burton’s creative process connects him to the larger tradition of musical borrowing as The Beatles’s music served as Burton’s interpretative tool for his performance of Jay-Z’s album.

Works: Danger Mouse: The Grey Album; Soulwax: Smells Like Booty (8-9); Anonymous: Oops... The Real Slim Shady Did It Again (9); Berio: Sinfonia (11); Greg Gillis/Girl Talk: Feed the Animals (11); John Oswald: Plunderphonic (12).

Sources: Destiny’s Child: Bootylicious (8-9); Nirvana: Smells like Teen Spirit (8-9); Eminem: The Real Slim Shady (9); Britney Spears: Oops! I Did It Again (9); Jay-Z: The Black Album (10-23); The Beatles: The White Album (10-23).

Index Classifications: 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Sarah Kirkman, Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Ahern, Sean. “Let the Shillelagh Fly: The Dropkick Murphys and Irish American Hybridity.” In Hardcore, Punk, and Other Junk: Aggressive Sounds in Contemporary Music, ed. Eric James Abbey and Colin Helb, 21-33. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014.

Celtic punk band the Dropkick Murphys create a hybrid Irish American identity through the appropriation of traditional folk songs and instruments, connecting their real home town of Boston with a fantasized homeland of Ireland. The Dropkick Murphys often perform and record covers of Irish folk songs. Their cover of the ballad The Fields of Athenry, about a man forcibly removed from his homeland, thematically fits in with their original material about the importance of home, family, and nationality, and supports the band’s working-class “underdog” image. Bagpipes, tin whistles, and other elements of traditional Irish folk music are frequently used by the band. In comparison, references to Boston are much more specific in Dropkick Murphys songs. Specific Boston sports teams, public transit lines, music venues, and individuals are mentioned to create a sense of the specific Irish American community of the band’s hometown. The hybrid identity created by the Dropkick Murphys reimagines what it means to be Irish American for a new generation further removed from their familial homeland.

Works: Dropkick Murphys: The Fields of Athenry (24-25), The Wild Rover (25), The Rocky Road to Dublin (25).

Sources: Traditional: The Fields of Athenry (24-25), The Wild Rover (25), The Rocky Road to Dublin (25).

Index Classifications: 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Allsup, Randall Everett. “Sequoias, Mavericks, Open Doors... Composing Joan Tower.” Philosophy of Music Education Review 19, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 24-36.

Joan Tower demonstrates how a composer can remake traditions to carve out a space for her own voice. Tower comes out of the Western art music tradition with Beethoven as her strongest influence. “I couldn’t get [Beethoven] out of my head!” she says, “So I decided to invite him in.” Tower wrestles with Beethoven and allows him to become part of her music rather than an outside antagonist. Beethoven’s most obvious influence on Tower’s wider musical output is the technique of small motivic units organically developing, which can be seen in Tower’s Sequoia for orchestra. Tower claims Beethoven as part of her musical inheritance, but instead of feeling burdened by tradition, she uses it as the impetus for new ideas that are completely her own. Creativity in the arts does not happen in a vacuum free from tradition and cultural influences, but rather it takes place in dialogue with the past and future. In other words, a creative individual recognizes her inheritance and the tradition of which she is a member and makes something new out of older materials.

Works: Joan Tower: Sequoia (26-27, 30-31, 35).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s

Contributed by: Sarah Kirkman

[+] Ansari, Emily Abrams. “The Benign American Exceptionalism of Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man.” The Musical Quarterly 103 (Winter 2020): 246-80.

The enduring success of Aaron Copland’s 1942 Fanfare for the Common Man owes in part to the tension it holds between jingoistic and progressive politics that today appeals to a wide array of audiences and politicians. In its conception, Fanfare conveyed a leftist progressive message, celebrating the “common man” based on a speech by Vice President Henry A. Wallace. Until the 1970s, the piece was mostly understood by audiences as dramatic rather than political or patriotic. After Copland conducted Fanfare alongside overtly patriotic pieces at the 1979 National Symphony Orchestra Fourth of July concert, a more “American” meaning was attached to it, largely sidelining its progressive aspects. The use of Fanfare by both the Bush and Obama administrations suggests an association with benign American exceptionalism, tempering patriotic celebrations with a non-specific progressive element. This reconfiguration of the meaning of Fanfare is also evident in the large number of popular works (film and television soundtracks in particular) that utilize the Fanfare trope: trumpets (or horns) playing leaping triads in martial rhythms juxtaposed with loud drums. This trope is distinct from a generalized fanfare by slower tempo, more adventurous harmony, and often a texturally distinct solo trumpet. Rather than evoking overt militarism as a traditional fanfare would, the Fanfare trope is used to evoke benign exceptionalism. Examples of the Fanfare trope feature prominently in the scores to Superman (1978) and The West Wing (1999-2006). Recent works challenging this idea of exceptionalism include HBO’s Veep, the title sequence of which uses the Fanfare trope satirically in its comedic depiction of self-serving politicians, and Netflix’s House of Cards, which offers a cynical take on American politics with a stripped-down Fanfare trope in its title sequence. Given the show’s War on Terror theme, the trumpet in the title sequence of Homeland can also be understood as a fractured Fanfare trope. The Trump Administration’s avoidance of Fanfare and Fanfare tropes along with a trend of Fanfare performances following Biden’s election demonstrates the piece’s continued relevance in American politics.

Works: Anonymous: score to Strong (2011 Rick Perry campaign ad) (247); Aaron Copland: Symphony No. 3 (251); John Williams: score to Superman (263-64); W. G. Snuffy Walden: score to The West Wing (263-64); David Schwartz: score to Veep (264-65); Jeff Beal: score to House of Cards (264-65); Sean Callery: score to Homeland (265-66); Jerry Goldsmith: score to Air Force One (267).

Sources: Aaron Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man (247, 251, 263-67).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Film

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Arewa, Olufunmilayo B. “Blues Lives: Promise and Perils of Musical Copyright.” Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal 27 (2010): 574-619.

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular

[+] Armstrong, Tom. “One into Three: Context, Method and Motivation in Revising and Reworking Dance Maze for Solo Piano.” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 147 (May 2022): 272-81.

Tom Armstrong’s Dance Maze: Variations for Piano, Duos for Trumpet and Piano, and Solos for Trumpet is a trio of closely related pieces initially composed in 1994 as a solo piano piece and later revised in 2008 and 2017 using techniques described by Tom Johnson in Self-Similar Melodies. The reworked Dance Maze can be performed as a piano and trumpet duo, or the two parts can be detached and played as a piano solo or trumpet solo. In reworking the original Dance Maze for solo piano as Duos for Trumpet and Piano, Armstrong uses the technique of overpainting, in which new material alters the structure of existing material. Subsequent revisions, which Armstrong calls reworkings, are based on Johnson’s Self-Similar techniques, including Infinite Automation (based on the transformation n –> n, n + 1, n + 1^9) and Dragon Curve No. 9 (based on a paper folding fractal). Armstrong’s motivation for reworking Dance Maze was to respond to critiques of the original and to explore open compositional structures.

Works: Tom Armstrong: Dance Maze: Variations for Piano, Duos for Trumpet and Piano, and Solos for Trumpet (272-81)

Sources: Tom Armstrong: Dance Maze for Solo Piano (272-81)

Index Classifications: 2000s

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Baker, Catherine. “Wild Dances and Dying Wolves: Simulation, Essentialization, and National Identity at the Eurovision Song Contest.” Popular Communication 6 (2008): 173–89.

Through the simulation and essentialization of recognizable folk-musical traits, several Eastern European nations competing at the Eurovision Song Contest in the early 2000s were successfully able to represent, misrepresent, or brand the ethnic folk traditions of their home nation. The Eastern European countries that consistently won the contest between 2001 and 2007 played upon Western stereotypes of the East by incorporating stylized national music, instruments, and ethnic musical characteristics into their song entries. In doing so, they created a distinctively alternative sound to the modern musical styles (such as pop, rock, or disco) featured in the Western countries’ entries. In particular, the Ukrainian singer songwriter Ruslana exemplifies this kind of simulation and essentialization, with her winning entry Wild Dances making use of various traditional instruments, folk-inspired performance practices, and stylistic allusions to Hutsul traditional music that she collected during her ethnographic field work in the Carpathian Mountain region. Her entry is both an example of simulation, as she is presenting a commercialized and stylized version of traditional folk music, and an example of essentialization because her entry only represents a small demographic within Ukraine. Other winning entries, such as Željko Joksimovi’s Lane Moje, also incorporate ethnic folk elements and folk musical tropes.

Works: Ruslana: Wild Dances (175-77, 180, 184); Željko Joksimović: Lane Moje (178), Lejla (178), Call Me (178); Boris Novković: Vukovi umiru sami (179-80).

Sources: Damir Lipošek, Vedran Božić, and Husein Hasanefendić: Moja domovina (179-80).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Cynthia Dretel, Matthew G. Leone

[+] Bañagale, Ryan Raul. “Selling Success: Visual Media and Rhapsody in Blue.” In Arranging Gershwin: “Rhapsody in Blue” and the Creation of American Icon, 148-73. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue has been used in many visual contexts such as films, television programs, and advertisements, and in the process has gained a sort of inherent meaning associating it with success, the American Dream, New York, and modernity. The visual usage of the music then capitalizes on these new meanings. It was Woody Allen’s film Manhattan in 1979 where the piece, along with other Gershwin songs, was strongly associated with New York City, later reinforced by Scorsese’s Bringing Out the Dead and Disney’s Fantasia 2000. Tied to the connection with New York, the piece is also an emblem for success. The association with success is then further reaffirmed by the usage of Rhapsody in Blue in United Airlines’s longstanding advertising campaign. At first, the piece was used to evoke class and elegance, but over the course of the ad campaign the piece began to signify the success of an American-based airline as the commercials couched the music in different styles like East Asian and western fiddle two-step. Later advertisements in the early 2000s used Rhapsody to harken back to United’s past during a period of economic downturn and bankruptcy and focus on an uplifting and rebirth of the airline. United also used the music in a physical space in the O’Hare airport terminal to emphasize the “fun” of air travel, though it was far removed from the original work.

Works: Irving Rapper (director): Rhapsody in Blue (149-50); Woody Allen (director): Manhattan (149-53); United Airlines: advertising campaign 1987-present (“Nation’s Business”, “Pacific Song”, “Playing Our Song”, “Mileage Plus”, “Rising”, “It’s Time to Fly”, “Interview”, “Dragon”, “Heart”) (149, 158-73); Eric Goldberg, et al (directors): Fantasia 2000 (149, 153); Martin Scorsese (director): Bringing Out the Dead (153); Mark Kirkland (director): The Simpsons: “Elementary School Musical” (155-56); Brad Falchuk (director): Glee: “New York” (155-56); Baz Luhrmann (director): The Great Gatsby (156-58); Gary Fry: Rhapsody Ambiance (170-72).

Sources: Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue (148-73).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Jazz, Film

Contributed by: Emily Baumgart

[+] Barham, Jeremy. “‘Not Necessarily Mahler’: Remix, Samples and Borrowing in the Age of Wiki.” Contemporary Music Review 33 (April 2014): 128-47.

In 2011, the Berlin Philharmonic held an open competition inviting contributors to create remixes of Mahler’s First Symphony using the orchestra’s recording of the work. Such remixes of structurally extended works can be understood through the “Wiki” philosophy of technologically-driven, open communication of ideas. The over 150 remixes submitted fall into four categories: dubstep-style remixes, remixes that only sampled Mahler, Ambient-style remixes, and unclassifiable, idiosyncratic remixes. The tension between the fragmentary nature of the remix material and Mahler’s larger musical structures is a core issue in understanding them. Most of the remixes played with the cuckoo call motif in some form, further fragmenting an already fragmented element of the musical material. The disregard for hegemonic structure found in the remixes reflects Mahler’s own disregard for stylistic convention.

Works: Weiss Schnur: Gustav Mahler First Symphony (131); Pivotal Movement: Symphony No. 1—Mahler—Berliner Philharmoniker (131); Komponists: Mahler Remix 2 (132); jeff_harrington: Mahler vs. Mahler (132, 143); Silvio Palmieri: Mahler-Palmieri (132, 143); TUNEDIN 52: Eternal (132); BpOlar: Bp Mahler rmx (132); Audhentik: Gustav Mahler—Symphony Nr. 1 (132, 143); Maja Bay: Berliner Philly Remix (132); Geck0ne: Jimi’s Version (132); Clangworks: Victim of the Times (143); giuseppe costa: Mix per Mahler (143); NuttyChunks: First Symphony by Gustav Mahler (chopped and changed by Nutty Chunks) (143); ben.harper: Herr Mahler Died Last Night at 150 (143); Marcus Leadley: Mahler–12 Tone remix (143); NOYJ: Meditation on the First Movement of Mahler’s First Symphony (143).

Sources: Mahler: Symphony No. 1 (131-32, 142-43).

Index Classifications: 2000s

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Bauer, Cornelius. “Adams reloaded: Überlegungen zu John Adams’s aktuellem Komponieren anhand von Son of chamber symphony (2007).” In Musik, Kultur, Wissenschaft, ed. Harmut Möller and Martin Schröder, 81-105. Essen: Die Blaue Eule, 2011.

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s

[+] Behr, Adam, Keith Negus, and John Street. “The Sampling Continuum: Musical Aesthetics and Ethics in the Age of Digital Production.” Journal for Cultural Research 21 (July 2017): 223-40.

In the current “post-sampling” era of digitalized popular music production, the practice of sampling exists withing a spectrum of musical practice, and the intermingling of practices has implications for the legal, moral, and aesthetic aspects of sampling. The basic legality of sampling—is a copyrighted recording cleared to use or not—is a technical question, but often the similarity between a musical work and the source of a sample is marginal at best (unlike in examples of plagiarism). Sampling law also favors copyright holders over the musicians whose contribution is sampled. The morality of sampling is discussed by musicians across genres, with significant overlap in how originality and copying are treated in other forms of musical borrowing. Distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate practices are made through generic codes, but there are grey areas to consider. The wide availability of digital sampling has made the sampling aesthetic a significant part of popular music production. The resulting cultural shift in attitudes toward sampling—post-sampling—is widespread but unevenly realized in moral and legal discourse.

Works: The Verve: Bittersweet Symphony (225-26).

Sources: Rolling Stones: The Last Time (225-26).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Blackburn, Manuella. “The Terminology of Borrowing.” Organised Sound 24 (August 2019): 139-56.

In electroacoustic music compositions, various types of sound and music borrowing are commonly practiced, and a carefully constructed terminology of borrowing would lay the groundwork for a better understanding of the nuances of these practices. First, within electroacoustic music, there is a difference between borrowing a sound recording and borrowing existing music. Composers of electroacoustic music describe their motivations for borrowing with a breadth of terminology. There is also a variety of specific types of borrowing, including sampling, appropriation, stealing, and so on, and the boundaries between them can sometimes be fuzzy. Layers and lineages of borrowing occur when a piece borrows from a source that itself borrows from an even earlier source. Different durations of borrowed material are also distinguishable, and are relevant to the legalities of borrowing. In electroacoustic music, there are distinctive modification and embedding techniques. For example, borrowed material can be reconfigured (changed in some way), disintegrated (broken up and reorganized), or obliterated (no sense of the original work remains). The terminology of borrowing in electroacoustic music is distinct from other typologies of borrowing, and it provides a framework for understanding the differences in borrowing between electroacoustic and instrumental music.

Works: Åke Parmerud: Necropolis: City of the Dead (143); Louis Dufort: Gen_3 (143, 146); Francis Dhomont: Novars (143, 146); Margaret Schedel: After | Applebox (146); Brahms: Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 (146); Pauline Oliveros: Bye Bye Butterfly (149); Vladimir Ussachevsky: Wireless Fantasy (149).

Sources: Wagner: Die Walküre (143), Parsifal (149); Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli (143); J. S. Bach: Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007 (143), Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich, BWV 150 (146); Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 14, Pathétique (143); Francis Dhomont: Novars (143, 146); Pierre Schaeffer: Étude aux objets (143, 146); Machaut: Messe de Nostre Dame (143, 146); Brahms: Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 (146); Puccini: Madama Butterfly (149).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Bohlman, Philip V., and Andrea F. Bohlman. “(Un)Covering Hanns Eisler’s Hollywood Songbook.” Danish Yearbook of Musicology 35 (2007): 13-29.

Hanns Eisler’s works have been going through a resurgence in a post-socialist, post-modern world. Why does his music, particularly Hollywood Songbook, resonate with later audiences? Part of the reason may be that Eisler’s works have a propensity not only to be covered by others but also to begin as covers themselves; bringing the popular music theories of covering into art music may help answer some of these questions about Eisler. The process of covering, regardless of genre, also raises further problems of authorship and authenticity, muddying who is the true author of the work and what the work means for a given time period. Connecting the concept of covers to the concept of performances and performative genres can help alleviate some of these problems.

Eisler’s Hollywood Songbook takes its influence both from Bertold Brecht’s poetry of the same name, the Hollywood Liederbuch, as well as the intangible “Great American Songbook” that many composers claim to reference. All three of these objects are difficult to classify in terms of genre, and thus invite intertextualization, which helps us understand Eisler’s songbook with its references to both exile and modernity borrowed from Brecht’s work and the Great American Songbook. As Eisler’s work itself is a sort of cover of these themes, other artists create their own covers and performances of the work, from popular singers such as Sting to visual artists like Ana Torf. These performative works invite further intertextual readings of both the performance and Eisler’s songbook.

Works: Hanns Eisler: Hollywood Songbook (19-29), Neue deutsche Volkslieder (19); Sting: The Secret Marriage (26-27); Heiner Goebbels: Eislermaterial (26-27); Ana Torf: Performance Art Installation (26-27).

Sources: Hanns Eisler: Hollywood Songbook (25-29).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Film

Contributed by: Emily Baumgart

[+] Bonet, Núria. “Musical Borrowing in Sonification.” Organised Sound 24 (August 2019): 184-94.

Sonification, a process of transmitting information through sound, requires a listener to understand the four components of data, mappings, musical language, and emotional content in order to understand the transmitted message. Musification describes sonification for artistic purposes and sonification subjected to musical constraints. Musical borrowing offers one (albeit uncommon) solution to the challenges of successfully communicating data through sonification. Pitch shifting or tempo shifting recordings of familiar songs to map onto a dataset requires little context for a listener to understand, but they can be musically crude. Núria Bonet’s Wasgiischwashäsch (2017) is an orchestrated sonification piece that modifies Rossini’s William Tell Overture based on temperature data in order to convey the extent of climate change in Switzerland. The first movement of Wasgiischwashäsch maps average annual temperature in Switzerland data onto pitch, intervals, and harmony in the third and fourth movements of William Tell; rises in temperature result in rising pitches for high registers and descending pitches for low registers. The second movement maps the differences between the average annual temperature in Switzerland and the global average annual temperature to tempo; rises in temperature difference result in slower tempos with the final tempo reaching 40 beats per minute. The two datasets are not absolutely mapped to musical parameters, and some artistic liberties have been taken to emphasize the higher-level meaning of the data. Musical humor and familiarity with the source material are factors in making climate change data tangible through this particular musification.

Works: Nùria Bonet: Wasgiischwashäsch (189-92).

Sources: Rossini: William Tell Overture (189-92).

Index Classifications: 2000s

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Bowman, Durrell. “Cut Every Corner: Intertextuality and Parody in the Music of The Simpsons.” MUSICultures 47 (2020): 94-115.

Musical parody in The Simpsons comes in several different forms and is a key component in the show’s function as television’s “king’s fool” or “court jester,” chipping away at authority and risking rebellion. The Simpsons uses music in five main ways: original songs, variations on its title theme, background music cues, references to existing music, and musician guest stars. Danny Elfman’s theme music for The Simpsons draws heavily from 1960s cartoon music, Hoyt Curtin’s theme music for The Jetsons in particular, lending the show a cheeky, self-conscious aesthetic. Frequently, series composer Alf Clausen writes self-deflating genre-parodies of Elfman’s theme for the end-titles, often relating to the content of the episode (for example, aping the 1964 Addams Family theme and adding a theremin for the season 5 Halloween episode, “Treehouse of Horror IV”). Guest stars including Tito Puente and Sonic Youth have also contributed similar end-title parodies. In addition to making fun of itself, The Simpsons parodies music from other TV shows and movies. For example, Cut Every Corner from the season 8 episode “Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious” parodies A Spoonful of Sugar from Disney’s 1964 Mary Poppins, deflating the classic film. Guest stars on The Simpsons are also the target of self-parody, with musicians in particular poking fun at their own music. Musical references in The Simpsons are fluid. The characters’ ages are frozen, but their music comes from a wide range of eras. Music in The Simpsons participates in the show’s self-aware tone and jests at the expense of various kinds of authority.

Works: Danny Elfman: The Simpsons main title theme (98-100); Alf Clausen: soundtrack to The Simpsons (99-109); Alf Clausen, Al Jean, and Mike Reiss: Cut Every Corner (102-3); Jeff Martin: Capitol City (104-5).

Sources: Hoyt Curtin: The Jetsons main title theme (98-100), Meet the Flintstones (102); Danny Elfman: The Simpsons main title theme (99-102); Lee Adams and Charles Strouse: Those Were the Days (102); R. M. and R. B. Sherman: A Spoonful of Sugar (102-3); Johyn Kander and Fred Ebb: New York, New York (104-5); John Mellencamp: Jack and Diane (105); Burt Bacharach and Hal David: (They Long to Be) Close to You (106-7); John Williams: score to Star Wars (107); Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67 (107); Maurice Jarre: score to Witness (108); Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind: score to The Shining (109).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Film

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Bradfield, Geof. “Digging Down in the CBMR Archives: New Music Inspired by Melba Liston’s Scores.” Black Music Research Journal 34 (Spring 2014): 85-95.

An accomplished jazz composer and arranger who is little-known today, Melba Liston was able in her arrangements of existing compositions to render dramatically altered versions of existing works that highlight her own compositional ingenuity—namely, her unique harmonic and melodic language as well as her command of sophisticated motivic material. Her original compositions incorporate elements from other musical traditions, particularly African rhythms. Geof Bradfield’s 2012 composition Melba! takes Liston’s music as a model in a variety of ways. Bradfield sought, through careful analytical study of Liston’s musical scores (drawn from the CBMR archives), to take her use of African rhythms and themes as a model for his own compositions. He also sought to identify works by Liston that he could revise, arrange, or orchestrate. Both of these initiatives began with the analytical study presented here, which has resulted in a musical composition by Bradfield that not only borrows directly from Liston (using fragments of her music as source material), but programmatically celebrates her contribution to jazz. More broadly, Melba! incorporates stylistic elements drawn from a survey of Liston’s original compositions, as well as her collaborations with figures like Dizzy Gillespie and Randy Weston.

Works: Geof Bradfield: Melba!

Sources: Mary Lou Williams: Virgo (87); Melba Liston: “Bantu” from Uhuru Africa (88-92), African Sunrise (89-92), Just Waiting (90-92), Len Sirrah (92); Melba Liston and Elvin Jones: And Then Again (92); Melba Liston and Randy Weston: Cry Me Not (93).

Index Classifications: 2000s, Jazz

Contributed by: Molly Covington

[+] Brooks, Marc. “‘Mad Men’ as a Sonic Symptomatology of Consumer Capitalism.” Music and Letters 102 (December 2021): 317-46.

Critics of Mad Men (AMC, 2007-15) have typically understood the show’s use of music in terms of “getting” an advertisement, but there are examples of musical cues that challenge this puzzle-solving experience and force viewers to critically engage with the symptomatology of consumer capitalism the show presents. In the season one episode “The Marriage of Figaro,” excerpts from Mozart’s opera—Cherubino’s aria Voi che sapete in particular—are heard diegetically (on the radio) and non-diegetically as Don Draper films his daughter’s birthday party. The scene creates a parallel between Cherubino and Don’s yearning for true love, even as it only exists in fantasy in the advertising logic Don (and the show itself) dwells on. In the season two episode “The Mountain King,” the musical selection of George Jones’s hymn-like country song Cup of Loneliness reflects the cycle of (religious) guilt and self-loathing experienced by Don’s protégé Peggy and the kitschy Christian imagery of the ad she produces in the episode. In the season five episode “Lady Lazarus,” Don’s (new) wife suggests he listen to The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows before she quits the ad industry. The song plays over a montage showing the emotional emptiness of various characters’ lives, ending with Don violently ripping the needle off the record. Unlike the first two examples, in which the music resonates with particular symptoms of consumer capitalism, Tomorrow Never Knows suggests a countercultural solution to Don’s feeling of emptiness that Don fears and rejects. Rather than directly instilling a message (as advertising does), these three musical moments allow for open-ended critical interpretation.

Works: Matthew Weiner (showrunner): soundtrack to Mad Men (2, 8-33).

Sources: Colin Meloy (songwriter): The Infanta (2); Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro (8-16); George Jones: Cup of Loneliness (16-25); John Lennon and Paul McCartney: Tomorrow Never Knows (25-33).

Index Classifications: 2000s, Film

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Callahan, Daniel M. “The Gay Divorce of Music and Dance: Choreomusicality and the Early Works of Cage-Cunningham.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 71 (Summer 2018): 439-525.

Merce Cunningham’s early choreography, particularly his collaborations with John Cage and fascination with the music of Erik Satie, demonstrates an interdependence of life and work as well as a marriage between music and dance that are fundamental to understanding his modernist divorce of choreography from music and narrative. The first Cage-Cunningham collaboration, Credo in Us (1942), reflects Cage’s unhappy marriage and blames the bourgeois conventions of American society and their insistence on maintaining the appearance of a happy heterosexual marriage. Cage’s score suggests this with a dismissive call for bourgeois favorites “Beethoven, Sibelius, Shostakovich, or whatever” to be played on a phonograph. Other early Cunningham choreographies, including Cage collaboration Four Walls and his Revivalist solo for Appalachian Spring, also deal with themes of marriage and exhibit clear relationships between dance and music. As Cunningham’s choreography began to meaningfully diverge from its accompanying music, his settings of Satie’s music and collaborations with Cage—for example, Idyllic Song (1944) choreographed to Satie’s Socrate—were still thematically “married” to the music and linked to Cunningham’s erotic dance. When Cage and Cunningham worked to choreograph the remainder of Socrate in 1969 as Second Hand, Satie’s publisher refused performance rights for Cage’s arrangement. Instead, Cage composed a derivative work, Cheap Imitation, that preserved the meter, rhythms, and at times intervallic distance of Socrate while transposing the pitches by consulting the I Ching. The new score was not entirely generated by this procedure, however, as there are clear instances of Cage composing in musical cues for Cunningham’s dance. This relationship between dance and music is clearly different from other Cunningham works such as Split Sides (2003), produced after Cage’s death, in which the dance is entirely independent from the music. Although Cage and Cunningham remained for the most part silent about their sexuality and relationship, analyzing the formal structures of their professional collaborations in light of their personal relationship helps to reveal a fuller understanding of the couple’s life and work.

Works: John Cage (composer) and Merce Cunningham (choreographer): Credo in Us (448-51), Idyllic Song (456, 484-90), Second Hand (496-508); John Cage: Cheap Imitation (496-508); Merce Cunningham (choreographer): Septet (490-94), Split Sides (509-11)

Sources: Erik Satie: Socrate (456, 484-508), Trois morceaux en forme de poire (490-94); Sigur Rós: ba ba ti ki di do (509-11); Radiohead (Colin Greenwood, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O’Brian, Philip Selway, Thom Yorke): Untitled (509-11)

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Christiansen, Paul. “‘And That’s Why You Always Leave a Note!’: Music as Comedic Element in the First Season of the Television Show Arrested Development.” Music and the Moving Image 11 (2018): 19-34.

The first season of Mitchell Hurwitz’s television sitcom Arrested Development, scored by David Schwartz, extensively uses musical humor that falls into six categories: rendering characters’ personalities, comic Othering, comic seriousness, snarky commentary, hidden cultural references, and diegetic ambiguity. Developing a taxonomy of musical humor reveals the complex role music plays in the show’s comedic tone and the subtlety of Schwartz’s musical comedy. Comedy in general and music comedy in particular are relatively unexplored by scholars. Arrested Development, which ran for three seasons in 2003-2006 before a 2013 revival, offers a case study of musical comedy rife with in-jokes, call-backs, and cultural references catalogued by a dedicated online fanbase. One way music is used for comedic effect is by establishing consistent themes for each character that prompt audiences for their typical style of joke. Another type of comedy the show uses is musical exoticism, often exaggerated or ironically commenting on the tropes of exoticism. For instance, a hodge-podge of “Latin” musics (such as mariachi and Spanish guitar) accompanies the Colombian character Marta, an ironic commentary on other characters’ ignorance about the differences between specific Central and South American cultures. A third comedic effect is juxtaposing serious music (classical, folk, or film noir) with the characters’ ineptitudes. A fourth is that pop songs are frequently used to punctuate situations with overtly literal interpretations of their lyrics. A fifth is the use of music to underscore in-jokes that run throughout the series. Finally, the show often blurs the line between diegetic and non-diegetic music, as in a gag in the pilot where a rimshot is played after a joke (as an apparent nondiegetic stinger) and a character on screen turns to look at the off-screen drummer (as though it were diegetic). The art of musical comedy relies on the clever subversion of expectations, and David Schwartz’s musical contribution to Arrested Development deserves acknowledgement for its artistry.

Works: David Schwartz: score to Arrested Development: Season One

Sources: Captain and Tennille: Love Will Keep Us Together (21, 27); Al Green: Free At Last (21, 27); Irving Berlin: I’m a Bad, Bad Man (21); Leroy: Gonna Get Together (21); Britney Spears: I’m Not That Innocent (21, 27); Europe: Final Countdown (21); Johann Sebastian Bach: Italian Concerto, BWV 971 (24); Arlo Guthrie: Alice’s Restaurant (25); Burt Bacharach and Hal David: Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head (27); Turner Overdrive: Taking Care of Business (28); Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg: Over the Rainbow (29)

Index Classifications: 2000s, Film

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Citron, Marcia J. “Opera-Film as Television: Remediation in Tony Britten’s Falstaff.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 70 (Summer 2017): 475-522.

Tony Britten’s 2008 television adaptation of Verdi’s Falstaff reconfigures the opera into a British situation comedy, a radical treatment that suggests a new path for opera films as transformation through remediation. While performances of operas are not a new phenomenon, they tend to capitalize on television’s aesthetic. Britten’s adaptation, however, strips Falstaff of nearly all of its operatic signifiers with its cast of non-opera singers and Britten’s updated English libretto and chamber arrangements of the score. In a context of British television, Falstaff, a television actor in Britten’s adaptation, reads as a familiar kind of sitcom character embodied by Tony Hancock of Hancock’s Half-Hour (1956-60) or more recently David Brent of The Office (2001-3). An example of the changes Britten makes to Verdi’s score is the removal of the textual return at the end of Falstaff’s aria Quand’ero paggio, which minimizes its operatic conventionality. Verdi’s mannered musical style associated with Fontana is justified in Britten’s film through the cinematic trope of the Godfather; Fontana’s overly Italianate scoring is rendered televisually with Italian mobster stereotypes. Britten’s television opera concept works particularly with Falstaff, as it highlights the unique strengths of Verdi’s score. Britten’s chamber arrangement—pared down to nine players and no core string section—still captures Verdi’s textures and mannerisms. The discontinuities and speech-like patter in Verdi’s score are readily adapted into the fast-paced medium of television. Although not all operas would benefit from Britten’s approach to televisual realism, the novelty of his remediation of Falstaff could serve as a model for opera adaptation in the digital age.

Works: Tony Britten (director and arranger): score to Falstaff (486-513)

Sources: Giuseppe Verdi: Falstaff (486-513)

Index Classifications: 2000s, Film

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Cohen, Judah M. "Hip-Hop Judaica: The Politics of Representin' Heebster Heritage." Popular Music 28 (Winter 2009): 1-18.

Musical artists within the Jewish American "hipster" scene (ca. 1986-2006) drew on conventions from rap and hip-hop as a means of negotiating a new Jewish identity. Of the many strategies to draw on the conventions of rap, one common tactic was parody. For instance, parody artist Shlock Rock parodied Aerosmith and Run DMC's Walk This Way (1986) and created Wash This Way, now a song about the Jewish hand-washing ritual. Despite the different lyrics, Shlock Rock's parody borrows vocal inflection, instrumentation, and even attitude. Although humor and parody were common reasons to incorporate rap and hip-hop into Jewish music, the Yeshiva-educated duo Black Hattitude used rap to promote a political and controversial program. Drawing on the stylings of rap, the duo included spoken tracks, took polemical points of view, and sampled artists such as Led Zeppelin. Such music provided a site in which young Jews could simultaneously negotiate a new Jewish identity and preserve and transmit their culture through such change.

Works: Lenny Solomon and Etan Goldman (songwriters), Shlock Rock (performers): Bless On It/Boogie in the Shul [Synagogue] (5), Wash This Way (5); Black Hattitude, R.E.L.I.G.I.O.N (7); Etan G (Etan Goldman): South Side of the Synagogue (8).

Sources: Newcleus: Jam On It/Boogie in the Club (5); Steven Tyler and Joe Perry (songwriters), Aerosmith (performers): Walk This Way (5); Steven Tyler and Joe Perry (songwriters), Run DMC (performers): Walk This Way (5); Led Zeppelin (Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Bonham, and John Paul Jones) and Willie Dixon: Whole Lotta Love (7, endnote 11); Peter Gabriel: Sledgehammer (7, endnote 11); Lenny Solomon (songwriter), Shlock Rock (performers): Yo Yo Yo Yarmulke (8), Recognize the Miracles (8).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Kerry O'Brien

[+] Collins, Karen. “Grand Theft Audio?: Popular Music and Intellectual Property in Video Games.” Music and the Moving Image 1 (Spring 2008): 35-48.

Video games can capitalize on the popularity of source music through the subject or narration of a game, including a popular musician as composer for the game, and licensing popular music for the soundtrack. One of the ways that video game publishers can offset monetary risks is to use well-known intellectual property such as films, music, and musicians and actors. In the case of the audio in video games, this intellectual property could be a well-known voice talent, sound designers, or popular music.

Games with music as the subject or part of the narration, such as PaRappa the Rapper and Guitar Hero have been popular overall with players. These types of games can be divided into three categories: creative games, rhythm-action games (both categories in which music is the primary part of gameplay), and musician-themed games, where musicians or bands appear as characters. Many popular musicians were also involved in the soundtracks for other more general games, as well as recording or rerecording songs for games. Even more popular is to simply license popular music for use in video games. Earlier video games were not as concerned with the music tracks, as they were difficult and time-consuming to program, so many of these games made use of classical music. Once the environment changed and creators needed to address issues of copyright and licensing, there was a stronger tie to the musicians whose music they were borrowing, including cross-media promotions and the sale of game soundtracks. Oftentimes the musicians whose songs are featured gain a boost of popularity from the game.

Works: Milton Bradley (manufacturer): Simon (36); SCEI (manufacturer): PaRappa the Rapper (36); Red Octane and Harmonix (manufacturers): Guitar Hero (36, 38); Atari (manufacturer): Journey’s Escape (37); Midway (manufacturer): Revolution X (37); Sega (manufacturer): Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker (37); Acclaim (manufacturer): Summer Heat Beach Volleyball (37); Vivendi (manufacturer): 50 Cent: Bulletproof (37); Codemasters (manufacturer): Music Generator (38); Harmonix (manufacturer): Frequency (38), Amplitude (38); Nintendo (manufacturer): Donkey Konga (38); Namco (manufacturer): Taiko Drum Master (38); Konami (manufacturer): Dance Dance Revolution (38); Time Warner Interactive (manufacturer): Rise of the Robots (38); id Software (manufacturer): Quake (38-39); SCEE (manufacturer): Wipeout Pure (39); Nintendo (manufacturer): Donkey Kong (40); Atari (manufacturer): Crystal Castles (40); Centuri (manufacturer): Vanguard (40); Sega (manufacturer): Dracula Unleashed (41); DTMC (manufacturer): Adventures of Dr. Franken (41); Blizzard (manufacturer): Rock’N’Roll Racing (41); Psygnosis (manufacturer): Wipeout XL (41); EA Sports (manufacturer): Madden NFL 2003 (41), FIFA 2006 (42); Neversoft (manufacturer): Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland (42); Reflective (manufacturer): Driver: Parallel Lines (42); Sony (manufacturer): SingStar (43).

Sources: Journey: Escape (37), Frontiers (37); Aerosmith: Eat the Rich (37), Sweet Emotion (37), Toys in the Attic (37), Rag Doll (37), Walk this Way (37); Michael Jackson: Thriller (37), Bad (37); Deep Purple: Smoke on the Water (38); Megadeth: Symphony of Destruction (38); Brian May: The Dark (38); Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture (40), Nutcracker Suite (40); Liszt: Mephisto Waltz (40); Anonymous: Turkey in the Straw (40); Scott Joplin: Maple Leaf Rag (40); Queen: “Vultan’s Theme” from Flash Gordon (40); Deep Purple: Highway Star (41); Beethoven: Piano Sonata in C-sharp Minor, Op. 27, No. 2 (“Moonlight”) (41); Carl Orff: Carmina Burana (41); George Thorogood: Bad to the Bone (41); Steppenwolf: Born to be Wild (41); Black Sabbath: Paranoid (41); Good Charlotte: The Anthem (41); Selasee: Run (42).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Film

Contributed by: Emily Baumgart

[+] Crispino, Patricia. “Osvaldo Golijov’s The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind for Klezmer Clarinet and String Quartet, Including an Introduction to Klezmer for Performance.” DM Treatise., Florida State University, 2015.

In The Dreams and Prayers of Issac the Blind for Klezmer Clarinet and String Quartet, Osvaldo Golijov uses musical imitation and quotation to present the history of Judaism. Each of the three movements presents a different language of Judaism: Aramaic in the first movement, Yiddish in the second movement, and Hebrew in the third movement and postlude. In order for music to be considered klezmer, three elements have to be presents: gustn (modal scales), instrumentation (subdivided into melody, harmony, and rhythm sections), and the use of dreydlekh (ornamentation), all of which are present in this piece. In addition, Golijov quotes Jewish prayer tunes and liturgy. The ornamentation in the first movement is a stylistic allusion to klezmer music, and Golijov uses a wide variety of klezmer ornamentations. In the second movement, Golijov quotes the klezmer tune The Old Klezmer Band (also known as Odessa Bulgar). The final movement is an instrumental adaptation of K’vakarat.

Works: Osvaldo Golijov: The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac and the Blind for Klezmer Clarinet and String Quartet, Yiddishbbuk (6), Ayre (8); Giora Feidman: Viva el Klezmer (43).

Sources: Anonymous: Dybbuk (39), Avina Malkeinu (39-40); Giora Feidman: The Old Klezmer Band (Odessa, Bulgar) (43); Anonymous: Mi Sheberakh (44), K’vakarat (45-49).

Index Classifications: 2000s

Contributed by: Nicolette van den Bogerd

[+] Degrassi, Franco. “Some Reflections of Borrowing in Acousmatic Music.” Organised Sound 24 (August 2019): 195-204.

A taxonomy of musical borrowing practices in acousmatic music, addressing material sampling and cultural citation in particular, is useful in understanding the genre. Material sampling involves repurposing an object in a new context and can be further broken down into remix, appropriation, and quoting/sampling. The recognizability of the source material is a key concern in interpreting musical borrowing. Cultural citation is a more nuanced concept than material sampling as it borrows abstract ideas. Intertextuality and intermediality are two concerns in cultural citation that can consciously or unconsciously connect different text or media. Franco Degrassi’s Variations of Evan Parker’s Saxophone Solos (2018) offers a reflexive look at a compositional process involving borrowing. The piece remixes the tracks of Evan Parker’s Saxophone Solos CD (2009, originally released in 1976) via MIDI control and digital looping. Variations is a second remediation of Parker’s live musical performance, the first being the initial studio recording done in 1975. Further investigation into cultural citation and material sampling in acousmatic music, especially as they relate to other forms of media, would yield a more complete understanding of the genre.

Works: Pierre Henry: Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony (196), The 10th Remix (196), Par les grèves (196), Dracula, ou La musique trouve le ciel (196); Luc Ferrari: Strathoven (197); John Cage: Imaginary Landscape No. 5 (197); Bruno Maderna: Ritratto di città (197); Denis Dufour: 2007, PH 27-80 (197); Stockhausen: Telemusik (197-98), Hymnen (197-98); Franco Degrassi: Variations of Evan Parker’s Saxophone Solos (201-2).

Sources: Debussy: Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (196); Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen (196); Iannis Xenakis: Persepolis (196); Evan Parker: Saxophone Solos (201-2).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] DoHaeng, Jung. “Joan Tower’s Piano Concertos Homage to Beethoven (1985), Rapids (1996), and Still/Rapids (2013): A Style Study.” DMA diss., University of Cincinnati, 2014.

Joan Tower blends borrowed material wither her own compositional voice in her piano concertos Homage to Beethoven (1985) and Rapids (1996), which was later revised in 2013 and renamed Still/Rapids. These works are representative of Tower’s mature compositional style beginning in the 1970s as she turned away from a serial techniques towards a more accessible, energy-driven style. Tower characterizes the influences of older composers on her work as fingerprints and states that her most important musical model is Beethoven. J. Peter Burkholder’s categories of borrowing, particularly modeling, paraphrase, and setting, illuminate how Tower manipulates existing material in Homage to Beethoven. Tower acknowledges that her Homage to Beethoven does not sound like the Beethoven piano sonatas it borrows from, but rather shares their same core idea.

Works: Joan Tower: Homage to Beethoven (1, 4, 12, 14-15, 17-51, 78, 93, 95-98, 100-101, 121-23, 125, 127), Still/Rapids (1-2, 12, 15, 104-121, 123, 125, 127), Rapids (1, 3, 12, 14-15, 52-91, 94-106, 125-27), Black Topaz (9, 13, 94, 100), Petruschkates (12, 39, 78, 93, 97), Breakfast Rhythms I and II (13, 50, 92), Tres Lent (93), Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman (93), Fascinating Ribbons (93), Big Steps (93), Fantasy for Clarinet and Piano (101).

Sources: Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 17 in D Minor, Op. 31, No. 2 (“Tempest”) (20-23), Piano Sonata No. 21 in C Major, Op. 53 (“Waldstein”) (23-24, 26, 28, 30-31, 40-42, 95, 101), Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111 (31-33, 101), Piano Sonata No. 13 in E-flat Major, Op. 27, No. 1 (102); Messiaen: Quatuor pour la fin du temps (50, 93); George Crumb: Vox Balaenae (50); Stravinsky: Petrushka (93); Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man (93); George Gershwin: Fascinatin’ Rhythm (93); Debussy: Préludes, Livre 1, Des pas sur la neige (93); Hugh Williams and Jimmy Kennedy: Harbor Lights (101).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s

Contributed by: Sarah Kirkman

[+] Doherty, Seán. “The Mass ‘Transubstantiated’ into Music: Quotation and Allusion in James Macmillan’s Fourth Symphony.” Music &Letters 99 (November 2018): 635-71.

James MacMillan’s use of quotation and allusion in his Fourth Symphony parallels the liturgical order of the Pauline Mass and reflects MacMillan’s approach to Catholic liturgy. The various plainchant and mass movement quotations and allusions MacMillan uses generally follow the order of the mass. The symphony opens with the plainchant introit Os justi meditabitur, which occurs three times throughout the symphony representing the entrance procession, the offertory procession, and the Communion procession. MacMillan quotes the Gloria, Credo, and Sanctus of Robert Carver’s 1506-1513 Mass Dum sacrum mysterium, which MacMillan frames as a touchstone of Scottish Catholic culture against the destructive influence (in MacMillan’s assessment) of the Reformation. The Liturgy of the Word is represented in the symphony by allusions to liturgical-chant formulae punctuated by the Gospel Acclamation Alleluia. For the Liturgy of the Eucharist, MacMillan quotes his own St. Luke Passion, connecting the Passion narrative to its re-enactment in the Mass. MacMillan concludes this self-quotation with an allusion to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, a work that MacMillan also alluded to in several earlier compositions. In doing so, MacMillan reads Tristan as a religious work expressing the theme of transcendence of death through self-sacrifice. Despite MacMillan’s public insistence that the symphony is not programmatic, the quotations and allusions from various Masses provide a clear programmatic structure to the work and demonstrate MacMillan’s subjective reactions to the liturgy.

Works: James MacMillan: Symphony No. 4 (640-65), Piano Sonata (661), Symphony No. 2 (661).

Sources: Anonymous: Os justi meditabitur (640-44), Eucharistic Doxology (643, 648), Missa Deus Genitor alme (643-44, 648-49), Missa de Angelis (647-48), Missa Orbis factor (649-51); Robert Carver: Mass Dum sacrum mysterium (645-51); James MacMillan: St. Luke Passion (656-59); Wagner: Tristan und Isolde (659-63).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Döhl, Frédéric, and Albrecht Riethmüller, eds. Musik aus zweiter Hand: Beiträge zur kompositorischen Autorschaft. Spektrum der Musik 10. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 2017.

Index Classifications: General, 1900s, 2000s, Jazz, Popular

[+] Döhl, Frédéric. “Auf der Anklagebank: Sound Sampling vor dem Bundesgerichtshof (2008, 2012) und dem Bundesverfassungsgericht (2016).” In Musik aus zweiter Hand: Beiträge zur kompositorischen Autorschaft, ed. Frédéric Döhl and Albrecht Riethmüller, 177–211. Spektrum der Musik 10. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 2017.

Index Classifications: General, 1900s, 2000s

[+] Döhl, Frédéric. Mashup in der Musik: Fremdreferenzielles Komponieren, Sound Sampling und Urheberrecht. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2016.

Index Classifications: General, 2000s

[+] Döhl, Frédéric. Zitiern, appropriieren, sampeln: Referenzielle Verfahren in den Gegenwartskünsten. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2014.

Index Classifications: General, 2000s

[+] Exarchos, Michail. “Sample Magic: (Conjuring) Phonographic Ghosts and Meta-Illusions in Contemporary Hip-Hop Production.” Popular Music 38 (January 2019): 33-53.

Supernatural metaphors are often used to describe the practice of phonographic sampling in hip-hop music in both complimentary and critical ways. By studying magic as performance by stage magicians (such as Penn and Teller) rather than as supernatural phenomena, new parallels emerge between how the two practices create their effect. Both hip-hop musicians and stage magicians rely heavily on the manipulation of time to command the attention of their audiences. The structure of an effective magic trick and hip-hop sampling are also similar in how they turn ordinary materials into something extraordinary. For example, several tracks by acclaimed producers J Dilla and Madlib introduce a relatively unmodified sample before demonstrating their skill in manipulating the sample. Exerting control over music recordings (which in turn exert a kind of magical control over sound) is recognized by hip-hop producers and audiences alike as a kind of “magical” effect. Stage magic scholars categorize subgenres based on the relationship between methods (materials), effects, frames, and the contract with the audience. Hip-hip sampling can be similarly categorized, particularly when considering the affordances of different sampling technologies. Phonographs allow for “real” documentary capture of sounds, multitrack recordings allow for “hyper-real” sonic illusions, and sampling technologies allow for “meta-real” juxtapositions of illusions. Examples of “meta-real” practice include tracks that create the illusion of live turntablism, which in turn creates illusions by juxtaposing “hyper-real” music recordings. It is perhaps the creation of impossible soundscapes through sampling that makes hip-hop so moving. The experience of conflict between rational belief and experiential “alief” (to use Szabo Gendler’s term) is crucial to the magical quality of hip-hop music.

Works: Gang Starr (producer DJ Premier): Code of the Streets (36), Deadly Habitz (36); J Dilla: Lightworks (37); Madlib (as The Beat Konductah): Filthy (Untouched) (37); KRS-One and Marley Marl: Musika (43-44)

Sources: Melvin Bliss: Synthetic Substitution (36); Monk Higgins: Little Green Apples (36); Beside: Change the Beat (36); Steve Gray: Beverly Hills (36); Raymond Scott: Lightworks (37); Vivien Goldman: Launderette (37); Thom Bell: A Theme for L.A.’s Team (43-44)

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Fallas, John. "Into the New Century: Recent Holloway and the Poetics of Quotation." Tempo 61, no. 242 (October 2007): 2-10.

Among the various works in his oeuvre, composer Robin Holloway has both affirmed and denied certain instances of musical borrowing, yet Holloway may use more instances of borrowing then he openly acknowledges. For example, he often uses melodic tags, which are short quotations. When melodic tags share similarities, Holloway can play upon the similarities to make the tags more ambiguous. This technique, which can alter meaning, is called "punning." Another technique, "suppressed vocalization," involves setting poetry to melodic lines and then transferring the melodic lines, without words, to instruments. As listeners we are often unaware of such transferences and can only become aware of them if Holloway admits to using the procedure. These two techniques should also be considered in light of Holloway's narrative and extramusical subjects. For instance, the loose narrative base of William Langland's poem Piers Plowman, an allegory of the world as a working field, in the Fourth Concerto for Orchestra led to Holloway's quotation of Eric Coates's song Calling All Workers. Although quotations of Sheherazade and Daphnis et Chloé in the Fourth Concerto do not share themes with Langland's poem, they are favored works of the concerto's commissioner, Michael Tilson Thomas. Investigating relationships such as these, along with Holloway's various borrowing techniques, will help uncover the multiple layers of and connections between his works.

Works: Robin Holloway: Second Concerto for Orchestra (2-5), Fourth Concerto for Orchestra (2, 6-9), Symphony (3-7).

Sources: Hubert Parry: Jerusalem (3-4); Eduardo di Capua: O sole mio (3); Renato Rascel: Arrivederci Roma (3); Sibelius: Symphony No. 4 in A Minor (3); Mahler: Symphony No. 9 in D Major (3-4); Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé (3-4); Richard Strauss: Salome (3-4), Elektra (3-4); Elgar: "Nimrod," Enigma Variations (3-4); Scriabin: Poem of Ecstasy (3-4); Debussy: Jeux (3-4), La Mer (3-4); Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 7 (3-4); Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring (3-4); Robin Holloway: First Concerto for Orchestra (5), En Blanc et Noir (6); Rimsky-Korsakov, Sheherazade (6); Eric Coates, Calling All Workers (6).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s

Contributed by: Laura B. Dallman

[+] Fuller, P. Brooks, and Jesse Abdenour. “It’s Bigger Than Hip-Hop: Sampling and the Emergence of the Market Enhancement Model in Fair Use Case Law.” Journalism &Mass Communication Quarterly 96 (June 2019): 598-622.

The legality of sampling in hip-hop and other musical genres has been understood through two models of copyright law: the “pure market substitute” model and the “market enhancement” model, which better serves the goal of copyright law. Sampling case law in US federal courts hinges on the applicability of fair use, the right to use copyrighted material without permission, which in turn is decided primarily by looking at market harm and transformative use. In hip-hop, the cultural importance of sampling as signifying is at odds with copyright law and the system of licensing, both of which favor copyright holders. Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music (1994) applied a transformative use test to rap group 2 Live Crew’s parody of Roy Orbison’s Oh, Pretty Woman and found it to be fair use. Since then, some courts have used the pure market substitute model, ruling that fragments of sound recordings are protectable derivative elements. Other cases have taken a broader view on fair use, ruling that audiences for different musical genres (hip-hop and jazz in the case of Abilene Music v. Sony Music Entertainment, 2003) are distinct enough that market harm is mitigated. The market enhancement model shifts away from this framework. Some courts have ruled that sampling can enhance the marketability of the original work by exposing it to a new audience. A broader adoption of the market enhancement model would relax strict copyright laws for musicians and other media producers who frequently borrow material. Potential drawbacks of expanded fair use include misuse by large corporations at the expense of artists and minimizing an artist’s ability to claim moral harm. Despite these imperfections, the market enhancement model would help achieve a legal balance between expressive freedom and commercial incentives.

Works: 2 Live Crew: Pretty Woman (600-601); Public Enemy: Fight the Power (602); LMFAO: Party Rock Anthem (609, 612); Ghostface Killah, Raekwon the Chef, and the Alchemist: The Forest (610).

Sources: Roy Orbison: Oh, Pretty Woman (600-601); Rick Ross: Hustlin’ (609, 612); Bob Thiele (as George Douglas) and George David Weiss (songwriters), Louis Armstrong (performer): What a Wonderful World (610).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Glitsos, Laura. “Vaporwave, or Music Optimised for Abandoned Malls.” Popular Music 37 (January 2018): 100-118.

Vaporwave, a genre of surreal music built on collages of background music and highly processed vocals that is popular in online forums, produces an audio-visual aesthetic of remembering for the sake of remembering that can be understood through theories of nostalgia and catharsis. The music of vaporwave artist 18 Carat Affair and discussions of vaporwave music on Reddit forums provide a case study. Vaporwave music is characterized by repetitive structure, slow speed (70-90 beats per minute), self-conscious sampling, and heavy reverb effects. It emerged in the early 2010s as one of many genres of heavily intertextual electronic music circulating exclusively in online networks. The main aesthetic of vaporwave music is memory play through compensatory nostalgia, or nostalgia dealing with fuzzy memory in a landscape of media saturation. The music of 18 Carat Affair exemplifies the vaporwave aesthetic, sampling music from late 1980s and early 1990s consumer entertainment (such as the 1992 Sega Mega Drive videogame Streets of Rage II) and using digital processing to add a veil of lo-fi reverb. There is a deliberately liminal quality to vaporwave’s presentation with artists obfuscating the origins of sampled material and confabulating the sonic past. Vaporwave also often deals with memory play and nostalgia associated with cultural trauma. By digging up the waste products of consumerism—old VHS tapes, advertisements, corporate training videos, and similarly disposable media—vaporwave processes the chronic obsolescence and emptiness of consumer culture. At the heart of vaporwave is the extensive repurposing of Muzak to evoke the lingering unease of the artistically “dead” consumerism often associated with the brand. Vaporwave extends the modernist modes of fractured memory and collage present in the Dada and Surrealist movements of the early twentieth century. The visual style of vaporwave art mimics the collage techniques of Dada, Surrealism, and subversive Video Art from the 1950s-1970s. The visual and musical collage aesthetics of vaporwave constitute a process of remembering deformed by the collective trauma of the collapse of memory in corporate capitalist society.

Works: 18 Carat Affair: Home Box Office (105), New Jack City II (105)

Sources: Bill Conti: Theme from Dynasty (105); Yuzo Koshiro: Soundtrack for Streets of Rage II (105)

Index Classifications: 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Golding, Dan. “Finding Untitled Goose Game’s Dynamic Music in the World of Silent Cinema.” Journal of Sound and Music in Games 2 (January 2021): 1-16.

The soundtrack of indie video game hit Untitled Goose Game (2019, House House) is a dynamic music system that adapts pre-recorded performances of six Debussy Préludes to react in real-time to players’ actions in the game, borrowing aesthetic language from silent film to create a novel approach to video game music. In Untitled Goose Game, the player controls an unruly goose wreaking havoc in an English-style village. The game’s slapstick humor sensibilities, in particular the ways that the music interacts with on-screen action, were inspired by both silent film music and Carl Stalling’s cartoon scores for Disney and Warner Bros. Debussy’s Préludes were selected for the soundtrack because they sounded like early twentieth-century silent film music to the developers, and the dynamic music system was meant to sound like a pianist Mickey-Mousing the player’s actions. To create this effect, the game’s composer, Dan Golding, recorded both “high energy” and “low energy” performances of six Préludes and split them into single-beat stems (the longest only 478 milliseconds). Depending on the players’ actions, either the “high energy” or “low energy” stem could be triggered in succession, rendering virtually infinite possibilities. While the soundtrack for Untitled Goose Game was inspired by cinema and animation, the technical possibilities of video games allowed it to take a different approach to musical adaptation.

Works: Dan Golding: soundtrack to Untitled Goose Game (9-14).

Sources: Debussy: Préludes Book 1, No. 12, Minstrels (9-14); Préludes Book 1, No. 5, Les collines d’Anacapri (9-14); Préludes Book 2, No. 9, Hommage à S. Pickwick Esq. P. P. M. P. C. (9-14); Préludes Book 1, No. 9, La serenade interrompue (9-14); Préludes Book 2, No. 19, Feux d’artifice (9-14).

Index Classifications: 2000s, Film

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Green, Stuart. “The Musical Routes of the Spanish Black Atlantic: The Performance of Identities in the Rap of Frank T and El Chojín.” Popular Music and Society 36, no. 4 (2013): 505-22.

Spain’s rap music scene was influenced by the dramatic increase of immigrants who settled in the country at the beginning of the twenty-first century, particularly immigrants from Africa. Because music is widely considered the most important medium for articulating black identities, the music of Spanish MCs Frank T and El Chojín are effective case studies for us to examine how rap artists carve out identities for themselves and others. Paul Gilroy explores such diasporic trends from Africa across the Atlantic, but his model is not broad enough to include other routes of cultural exchange or non-Anglo-Saxon experiences. Therefore, a more nuanced reading of Gilroy’s idea of a Black Atlantic as the Spanish Black Atlantic makes room for nationality beyond race. The hip-hop performed within this Spanish-black conceptual space is less about creating new texts than about creating new meanings and interpretations of existing texts.

Works: Frank T: An Optimist and a Dreamer (516), To Timeless Music (516), Humor Negro (516), Better Than You, Worse Than You (516), Afrika (517); El Chojín: Things That Happen, That Don’t Happen and That Should Happen (516), He’s Crazy (516), N.E.G.R.O. (516), Sólo para adultos (517), No More (Málaga version) (518); Violadores del Verso: Only Solace Remains (517).

Sources: Louis Armstrong: We Have All the Time in the World (515); Eddie Bo: On Work (516); Anonymous: Damn, Bro’/Bad Luck (516), Skills (516), Things that Happen (516); Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child (Slight Return) (516); The Spinners: It’s a Shame (516); David Axelrod: The Warning Talk (Pt. 4) (516); Galt MacDermot: Harlem by Day (516); Riz Ortolani: Teresa L’illusa (516); Bob Cranshaw and Donald Byrd: House of the Rising Sun (517); Baro´n Ya bu´ k-lu and Frank T: Mama Afreeka (517); Charlie Parker: Cosmic Rays (517); Raphael: No Matter What They Say (518).

Index Classifications: 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Sarah Kirkman

[+] Gunkel, David J. "Rethinking the Digital Remix: Mash-Ups and the Metaphysics of Sound Recording." Popular Music and Society 31 (October 2008): 489-510.

The popularity of the mash-up, a product of what Wired magazine has termed "cut and paste culture," can be evaluated with regard to Plato's Phaedrus. The idea of writing as a method of fixing an original performance maps onto recording technology and its practice of fixing an aural event in a recording. The mash-up manipulates a recording, undermines its originality and authority, manufactures copies from copies, and combines seemingly incompatible components. For example, Danger Mouse's Grey Album mashes the vocal track of Jay-Z's Black Album with instrumental samples from the Beatles' White Album. The mash-up also appears consistent with Theodor Adorno's assertion that most popular music is easily replicated and substitutable. Mash-ups delight in all of the elements deemed negative by Plato, such as plagiarism, inauthenticity, and repetition.

Works: Danger Mouse (Brian Burton): The Grey Album (490, 498, 502); Mark Vidler: Ray of Gob (491, 497-99).

Sources: The Beatles (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr): The White Album [The Beatles] (490, 498); Jay-Z: The Black Album (490, 498); Madonna: Ray of Light (497-99); Sex Pistols: Pretty Vacant (497-99), God Save the Queen (497-499).

Index Classifications: 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Amanda Sewell

[+] Harper, Paula. “Receiving, Remixing, Recuperating ‘Rebecca Black—Friday.’” American Music 38 (Summer 2020): 217-39.

The 2011 viral music video Rebecca Black—Friday, the widespread derision aimed at the video and Black herself, and the later success of “cover” videos that alter Black’s contribution to the song are part of a larger phenomenon in digital pop culture that sees “girlhood” as a problem. The music video, performed by thirteen-year-old Rebecca Black and produced by Ark Music Factory in 2010, first garnered widespread attention in March 2011 after it was posted to sites like the Daily What and Reddit and mocked by users. By the end of March, legacy media outlets were reporting on the trend and the original YouTube video received a record-breaking 1.192 million dislikes. The hyperbolic criticism the video attracted online—its designation as bad music—is due in part to a mismatch between the intent of the performer and the appraisal of the online audience resulting in an instance of what media theorists call context collapse. Much of the abuse was aimed directly or indirectly at Black’s feminine voice, which mirrored gendered critiques of contemporary popular music as vapid, inauthentic, and feminine. Fueled by YouTube’s “Recommended Videos” feature, a body of reaction and cover videos circulated alongside the original. The most successful covers of Friday are genre-reset covers, which effectively aim to solve the problem of the song’s girlishness by erasing or replacing Black’s voice. The reactions to these masculinized cover versions, even when engaging in ironic humor, overwhelmingly regard the song as improved or redeemed with the removal of Black’s vocals. In the aftermath of the song’s viral success, the initial scorn towards Friday has softened to ambivalence and even begrudging affection, and the process by which this happened reveals how girlhood and pop music fit within 2010s viral internet culture.

Works: @Toxin08 (YouTube channel): Rebecca Black—Friday [DUBSTEP Remix] (228-29); @dannydodgeofficial (YouTube channel): Death Metal Friday (229-30); @HeyMikeBauer (YouTube channel): Rebecca Black—Friday, as performed by Bob Dylan (230); Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, and The Roots, featuring Taylor Hicks: Friday (233); Adam Anders and Peer Astrom (arrangers), Glee (TV) cast: Friday (232-33)

Sources: Clarence Jey and Patrice Wilson (performed by Rebecca Black): Friday (227-33)

Index Classifications: 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Haspels, Jan Jaap. "Bruiklenen." Van speelklok tot pierement 59 (June 2006): 8-12.

Index Classifications: 2000s

[+] Heile, Björn. "Uri Caine's Mahler: Jazz, Tradition, and Identity." Twentieth-Century Music 4 (September 2007): 229-55.

Jazz pianist Uri Caine quotes extensively from symphonic and vocal works by composers in the classical or art music tradition. On his albums Dark Flame (2003) and Urlicht/Primal Light (1997), Caine's borrowing from Mahler takes a variety of forms, ranging from quotation of a full piece to selective quotation of important and sequential melodic fragments in order to mimic the structure of Mahler's original in a more condensed form. Mahler is a particularly appropriate source for the jazz artist's borrowing, as the earlier composer's use of "folk" materials provides a model for Caine's own appropriation of musical material to explore Jewish identity. Caine's use of Mahler's music is not simply a matter of performance, or of arrangement for different voices; rather, Caine's borrowing is a reflection upon Mahler, history, and subjectivity. Even so, Caine's borrowing within a jazz context raises valuable questions about the validity of the frequently assumed dichotomy between composition and improvisation.

Works: Uri Caine: Dark Flame (230-31, 237-38, 241, 248, 250-52), Urlicht/Primal Light (230-31, 233, 237-39, 241-42, 248-52).

Sources: Mahler: Symphony No. 5 (237, 238), Symphony No. 1 (237, 242, 247), Symphony No. 2 (238, 250), Des Knaben Wunderhorn (238, 241), Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (238, 250), Das Lied von der Erde (239, 241, 248), Fünf Rückertlieder (241); Anonymous, Frère Jacques (237).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Paul Killinger

[+] Hillman, Roger. “The Great Eclecticism of the Filmmaker Werner Herzog.” In Unsettling Scores: German Film, Music, and Ideology, 136-50. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005.

Unlike many New German filmmakers, director Werner Herzog is not concerned about the historical baggage of twentieth-century Germany but is rather focused on forging new territory for the cinematic image. Similarly, he ignores the reception history of the Western art music he uses, in particular Germanic music. Herzog resists interpretation of his musical choices, despite the variety of music he employs, as well as his diverse treatment of that music. Music is used quite differently in the films Woyzeck (to underscore the transcendence of society), Fitzcarraldo (to enhance artifice and unreality and to underscore Herzog’s self-generated mythos in cinematic history), and Lessons of Darkness (to be a universal, rather than Germanic, herald of death and destruction). In each film, Herzog selects pre-existing music to enhance dramatic and narrative elements specific to the film, but does not engage the historic memory of the music itself.

Works: Werner Herzog (director): Nosferatu (148-49), Woyzeck (139-40), Fitzcarraldo (140-46), Lessons of Darkness (146-50).

Sources: Beethoven: Piano Sonata in E-flat Major, Op. 81a (139); Richard Strauss: Death and Transfiguration (141); Bellini: I Puritani (141, 145-46); Verdi: Un ballo in maschera (141), Requiem (147, 150), Ernani (141-46); Wagner: Die Walküre (141), Parsifal (147-48), Das Rheingold (147-49), Götterdämmerung (147); Grieg: Peer Gynt (147, 149); Mahler: Symphony No. 2 (147, 149); Pärt: Stabat Mater (147); Prokofiev: Sonata for Two Violins, Op. 56 (147); Schubert: Notturno in E-flat Major, Op. 148 (147).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Film

Contributed by: Kate Altizer

[+] Hochhauser, Sharon. “Take Me Down to the Parodies City: How Heavy Metal Swings.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 30 (March 2018): 61-78.

Reflexive parody is a genre of musical comedy that can, through the musical and comedic devices it employs, both honor and satirize an artist or genre of music. Comedy in music often employs musical borrowing, either in small-scale interjections or in large-scale musical structures like quodlibets, medleys, and parodies. Reflexive parodies are distinct in that they re-examine genre conventions by transposing song into a disconnected musical genre. Heavy metal and rat pack swing are two genres often paired together in reflexive parody, creating a vehicle for comedic points about virtue, vice, and masculinity. Richard Cheese (created by Mark Jonathan Davis) and Bud E. Luv (created by Robert Vickers) are two characters that perform “swankified” heavy metal music with an exaggerated rat pack lounge singer persona. In doing so, they strip away the imagery of hegemonic masculinity inherent to heavy metal and replace it with another form of exaggerated masculine imagery associate with 1950s swing. By poking holes in the self-seriousness of heavy metal, Davis and Vickers uncover the underlying musical quality of heavy metal. Humor is created in their acts in several ways. Recognition of the source material is treated as part of the joke, as are interjections of other familiar tunes. Lyrics are not usually altered, as the dissonance of a clean-cut lounge singer voicing brazen profanity is also comedic, but occasional in-character changes are made. Musical quotations from genres beyond heavy metal or swing can also heighten the comedic absurdity. For example, Richard Cheese’s version of Closer by Nine Inch Nails includes snippets of the theme to Sesame Street, Linus and Lucy, and Old MacDonald Had a Farm. Reflexive parody is different from genre reinterpretations in that it relies on the comedic mediator or buffer of the comedian’s persona. Self-reflexive humor, along with the interpretive space it opens up, emerges from the sum of its musical parts.

Works: Beatallica: Sandman (63); “Weird Al” Yankovic: Angry White Boy Polka (63); Tom Lehrer: The Elements (63); Tim Minchin: Beelz (64), Rock and Roll Nerd (64); Barenaked Ladies: Grade 9 (64); Robert Vickers (as Bud E. Luv): Iron Man (70), Paranoid (70), Whole Lotta Love/Free Bird (70); Mark Jonathan Davis (as Richard Cheese): I’m Only Happy When It Rains (70), Enter Sandman (70), Bust A Move (70), People Equals Shit (70-71), Welcome to the Jungle (71), Girls, Girls, Girls (71), Closer (71-72); Lee Presson and the Nails: Mr. Crowley (71).

Sources: The Beatles: Taxman (63); Metallica: Enter Sandman (63, 70); System of a Down: Chop Suey (63); Disturbed: Down With the Sickness (63); Arthur Sullivan (composer), W. S. Gilbert (lyricist): I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General from The Pirates of Penzance (63); Charlie Daniels: The Devil Went Down to Georgia (64); Rush: Tom Sawyer (64); Led Zeppelin: Stairway to Heaven (64); Garbage: I’m Only Happy When It Rains (70); Nacio Herb Brown (composer) and Arthur Freed (lyricist): Singing in the Rain (70); Pat Ballard: Mr. Sandman (70); Slipknot: People Equals Shit (70-71); Guns N’ Roses: Welcome to the Jungle (71); Solomon Linda: The Lion Sleeps Tonight (71); Mötley Crüe: Girls, Girls, Girls (71); Van Morrison: Brown Eyed Girl (71); Ozzy Osbourne Mr. Crowley (71); Europe: The Final Countdown (71); Nine Inch Nails: Closer (71-72); Joe Raposo (composer), Jon Stone, Bruce Hart, and Joe Raposo (lyricists): Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street (71-72); Vince Guaraldi: Linus and Lucy (71-72); Thomas d’Urfey (composer), Frederick Thomas Nettlingham (lyricist): Old MacDonald Had a Farm (71-72).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Huelin, Toby. “Soundtracking the City Break: Library Music in Travel Television.” Music and the Moving Image 15 (Summer 2022): 3-24.

The use of library music (also called production music or stock music) in contemporary travel television shows as analyzed at the level of episode, series, and genre is complex in its communication of meaning, engaging with notions of celebrity and location. A case study of library music in the first season of British travel series Travel Man (Channel 4, 2015-) demonstrates the production process of using library music and offers conceptual tools for its analysis. The conceit of Travel Man is that the host, comedian Richard Ayoade, does not actually like traveling. Most of the music in the show is licensed from Audio Network, a leading British music library company specializing in recorded (as opposed to synthesized) music. After a library track is selected for a particular scene based in part on metadata tags supplied by Audio Network, editors select one of several mixes provided by Audio Network and manipulate the track to fit the specific timing of the scene. The Audio Network track Travelling Circus, composed by Bob Bradley, Adam Dennis, and Chris Egan, is used in several episodes of Travel Man covering trips to Paris, Naples, Brussels, Oslo, Madeira, Ljubljana, and Milan. Travelling Circus is often used in combination with voiceover to signify a broad sense of “travel” rather than any specific location, despite one section containing a stereotypically French accordion melody. In another comedic travel program, Jack Whitehall: Travels with My Father (Netflix, 2017-), this accordion section is used to comedically signify the “French-ness” of a French colonial resort in Vietnam. Throughout the first season of Travel Man, much of the library music, especially tracks used in opening/closing and transitional scenes, falls within the “vintage orchestral” genre, which draws on the style of light orchestral music and studio era Hollywood film scores. In tourist activity scenes, the genres used are much more varied, highlighting Ayoade and his celebrity guest over the location. Another Audio Network track, Paris Afternoon (composed by Joachim Horsley), is used many in British television programs spanning several genres, but its repeated use in travel shows is an example of how the “vintage orchestral” genre has come to signify travel as well as travel show. The self-aware foregrounding of library music as a parody of travel programs in Travel Man demonstrates that the use of library music can be an aesthetic strategy, not just an economic necessity.

Works: Nicola Silk (series director): soundtrack to Travel Man (7-16); Rupert Clague (story producer): soundtrack to Jack Whitehall: Travels with My Father (12)

Sources: Bob Bradley, Adam Dennis, and Chris Egan: Travelling Circus (7-12); Joachim Horsley: Paris Afternoon (16-17)

Index Classifications: 2000s, Film

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Kajikawa, Loren. “‘Young, Scrappy, and Hungry’: Hamilton, Hip Hop, and Race.” American Music 36 (Winter 2018): 467-86.

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s engagement with the history, culture, and aesthetics of hip hop in Hamilton: An American Musical contributes meaningfully to its retelling of the Founders story and its role in the ongoing struggle to define American identity. The reception of Hamilton as a hip hop musical is vitally important to its widespread appeal, but Miranda borrows from a broad swath of American popular music styles to create a diverse sound. In the musical, the character of Alexander Hamilton undergoes a rags-to-riches arc similar to how many hip hop artists present themselves. Hamilton is differentiated musically by his polysyllabic flow, similar to rappers like Big Pun and Rakim. In addition to stylistically borrowing from various hip hop artists, Miranda explicitly references specific lines from famous tracks. For example, the “Ten Duel Commandments” number in Hamilton is modelled on and borrows the opening countdown from the Notorious B.I.G. track “Ten Crack Commandments.” In interviews about this number, Miranda commented on the similarities between Hamilton and Notorious B.I.G. both rapping about the unwritten rules of illegal activity, framing the hip hop “hustler” trope as the embodiment of American enterprise. The intersection of hip hop, multiracial casting, and framing of American history in Hamilton is further contextualized by the neoliberal politics surrounding its creation and premiere. By focusing on politics of diversity and largely ignoring class and economic politics in favor of a message of success following hard work, Hamilton was able to appeal to liberals and conservatives alike. While its message of diversity gained urgency during the Trump administration, Hamilton remains uncritical of neoliberal power structures.

Works: Lin-Manuel Miranda: Hamilton: An American Musical (468-76)

Sources: Mobb Deep: Shook Ones, Pt. 2 (473-74); Notorious B.I.G.: Ten Crack Commandments (474)

Index Classifications: 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Kieme, Roxanne. “Understanding ‘Omaramor’: An Analysis of Golijov’s Tribute to Carlos Gardel.” M.M. project report, California State University, Long Beach, 2017.

In Omaramor, a work for solo cello, Osvaldo Golijov pays tribute to Carlos Gardel by quoting one of Gardel’s most famous tango songs, Mi Buenos Aires querido. The melody of Gardel’s song is used as the foundation for a fantasy, and the influence of various Argentine dances make this piece a twenty-first century tango interpretation for the cello.

Works: Osvaldo Golijov: Omaramor (9-19).

Sources: Carlos Gardel: Mi Buenos Aires querido (3, 9-12, 16); Anonymous: Milonga (5-6).

Index Classifications: 2000s

Contributed by: Nicolette van den Bogerd

[+] Lacasse, Serge. "La musique pop incestueuse: Une introduction à al transphonographie." Circuit: Musiques Contemporaines 18 (2008): 11-26.

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular

[+] Lau, Frederick. “When a Great Nation Emerges: Chinese Music in the World.” In China and the West: Music, Representation, and Reception, ed. Hon-Lun Yang and Michael Saffle, 265-82. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017.

The convenient label of East-West fusion in describing the recent rise of Chinese-inspired new works by Chinese-born American composers like Bright Sheng, Chen Yi, Zhou Long, and Ge Ganru demands reinterpretation. There is no fundamental connection between one’s ethnicity and one’s music; the borrowing of Chinese tunes, timbres or other musical devices merely reflects a matter of compositional choice and aesthetic preference instead of one’s own ethnicity. The composers’ reliance on Chinese materials to evoke a specific form of “Chinese” accent recalls the eighteenth-century artistic practice of chinoiserie, but the nature and perception of current hybrid compositions have totally transformed. Musical encounters between the East and West traces back to the Baroque era when Couperin composed his famous keyboard work “Les Chinois,” but it reveals Europeans’ false impressions of Chinese music. It was not until the turn of the twentieth century when the adoption of European musical tradition took root as a practice in China. According to Western evolutionary conception of music, Chinese music’s monophonic and heterophonic styles are inferior to the complexities of European music, and this attitude persisted into the nineteenth century, when Europeans started visiting China more frequently. The relationship between music and ethnicity is an artificial construct, as these composers employ various extramusical signifying techniques to forge a connection between sound and ideas. They self-consciously make references to China, Chinese ideology and philosophy through their program notes and descriptive titles, evoking a sense of “sonic Chineseness.” Bright Sheng’s Nanking! Nanking! resembles Béla Bartók synthesis procedure whereby he alludes to folk song without direct quotation. A close look at this work reveals that the only instrument that represents China is the pipa, a Chinese instrument.

Works: Bright Sheng: Nanking! Nanking! (277-78).

Sources: Anonymous: Ambush from All Sides (278), The Tyrant Removes His Armor (278).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s

Contributed by: Jingyi Zhang

[+] Long, Michael. Beautiful Monsters: Imagining the Classic in Musical Media. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.

Musicology is in need of generalist methodologies and perspectives for fragments, clichés, and non-sequiturs of classical music that occur in twentieth-century media and culture. Such music is related to the “vernacular imagination,” the shared phenomenon of twentieth-century American (and occasionally European) media audiences in which an artist’s imaginative priorities intersect with the past and with memory. Musicologists can adapt the notion of register, a tool used to locate a work culturally, to study this music in a way that traces the development and intersection of its fluctuating meanings, emphasizing audience reception of an expressive mass media rather than arguing for the absolute value of a musical object.

Works: Barry Manilow: Could it Be Magic (17); Kiss: Great Expectations (17); Billy Joel: This Night (18); DMX: What’s My Name? (34-40); Busta Rhymes: Gimme Some More (34, 38-40); Alan Crosland (director) and Louis Silvers (composer): score to The Jazz Singer (51-55, 73-81, 86, 177); Otto Preminger (director) and David Raksin (composer): score to Laura (42, 44-47, 52, 58-59, 76, 163); Irving Rapper (director) and Max Steiner (composer): score to Now, Voyager (59-60); Victor Fleming (director) and Max Steiner (composer): score to Gone with the Wind (69-70); Gregory La Cava (director) and Max Steiner (composer): score to Symphony of Six Million (86-101); Jefferson Airplane: White Rabbit (122-24); The Doors: Light My Fire (124); Led Zeppelin: Stairway to Heaven (126-27); Procol Harum: A Whiter Shade of Pale (129-39, 149-51); The Swingle Singers: Aria (135-37); Lawrence Kasdan (director) and Meg Kasdan (composer): soundtrack to The Big Chill (152-56); Alfred Hitchcock (director) and Bernard Herrmann (composer): score to Psycho (171-73); Robert Z. Leonard (director): soundtrack to Strange Interlude (181-83); James Whale (director) and Franz Waxman (composer): score to Bride of Frankenstein (190-95); Stephen Herek (director) and Michael Kamen (composer): score to Mr. Holland’s Opus (196-202); William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (directors) and Scott Bradley (music editor): score to Tom and Jerry, no. 29, The Cat Concerto (197-98); Friz Freleng (director): score to Merrie Melodies, episode Rhapsody Rabbit (197, 205); Carlos Santana and Dave Matthews: Love of My Life (214-16); Albert Lewin (director): The Picture of Dorian Gray (216-21); Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody (222-35); Penelope Spheeris (director): soundtrack to Wayne’s World (222-23, 231-32).

Sources: Chopin: Prelude in C minor, Op. 28, No. 20 (17); Beethoven: Piano Sonata in C Minor, Op. 13 (18); Richard Addinsell: Warsaw Concerto (34-35, 41); Bernard Herrmann: score to Psycho (34, 38-40); Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture (51-58), Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74 (59-63); Handel, “Ombra mai fu” from Serse (69-70); Ravel: Bolero (123-24); Johann Sebastian Bach, Air from Suite in D Major, BWV 1068 (133-34), Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140 (133-34, 136-37); Procol Harum: A Whiter Shade of Pale (152-56); George Antheil: Symphony No. 4; Dukas: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (190); Gottfried Huppertz: score to Metropolis (194-95); Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 (198, 204-6); The Toys: Lover’s Concerto (196, 202-9, 213); The Supremes: I Hear a Symphony (196, 202-4, 213); Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90 (214-16); Chopin: Prelude in D Minor, Op. 28, No. 24 (217-21); Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody (222-23); Mascagni: Cavalleria rusticana (227); Richard Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos (227-31).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular, Film

Contributed by: Kate Altizer

[+] Mailänder, Richard. “Neue Klanggewänder für Hymnen: Gedanken zur Melodiesuche und Melodiefindung für das neue GGB (Gebet- und Gesangbuch) am Beispiel der Hymnen.” Singende Kirche 62, no. 2 (2015): 91-92.

Index Classifications: 2000s

[+] Marshall, Wayne. “Giving up Hip-Hop’s Firstborn: A Quest for the Real after the Death of Sampling.” Callaloo 29 (Summer 2006): 868-92.

By examining the criticism and liner notes written by The Roots’ drummer Questlove (Ahmir Thompson), the notion that sampling is what determines authenticity in hip-hop can be questioned. Though Questlove frequently admits that sampling is highly important to hip-hop, he notes that many of the earliest and some of the most successful hip-hop recordings use studio instrumentalists performing “samples” of hit breaks and grooves. He also notes the ability of producers to sample is severely limited by the amount of money required to license many well-known samples. When performing and recording with The Roots, Questlove has sought to recreate the sound and rhythmic character of sampled drums through various studio techniques and playing in a funk-based, relatively invariable fashion. Examples of this can be found on “Dynamite” and “Double Trouble” from Illadelph Halflife. The Roots have also utilized beatboxers Scratch and Rahzel, who can imitate the sounds of samples and record scratching in their beatboxing. Such efforts to mimic sampled sounds on “traditional” instruments demonstrate both the importance of sampling for hip-hop and the desire to explore other avenues of music making while staying true to hip-hop’s essence.

Works: De La Soul: Transmitting Live from Mars (868); Biz Markie: Alone Again (868); Afrika Bambaataa: Planet Rock (874); Grandmaster Flash: The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel (874); Sugar Hill Gang: Rapper’s Delight (874); Yes: Owner of a Lonely Heart (876); Common: Like Water for Chocolate (876); The Roots: Concerto of the Desperado (880).

Sources: Jim McGuinn and Gene Clark (songwriters) and The Turtles (performers): You Showed Me (868); Gilbert O’Sullivan: Alone Again (Naturally) (868); Kraftwerk: Trans-Europe Express (874); Funk Inc.: Kool is Back (876); Lionel Bart: Theme from From Russia with Love (880).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Nathan Landes

[+] Mazulo, Mark. “Remembering Pop: David Lynch and the Sound of the ‘60s.” American Music 23 (Winter 2005): 493-513.

David Lynch uses compilation scores comprising American popular songs to establish individual sound signatures in his films. He is especially attracted to pop songs released during his adolescence that make use of distinctive vocals or mixing, which create a certain peculiarity with the naiveté of a song’s message, sincerity, and compositional elements. Lynch capitalizes on the dualistic nature of these songs by deploying them as historically unproblematic and desired objects of nostalgia, in some instances using them in violent, psychologically deviant, horrifying, and self-consciously staged scenes as passageways to strangeness and the uncanny. Such a use allows audiences to reimagine the history of these songs and the culture that created and consumed them and represents a new employment of the compilation score consistent with his aesthetic of the “ridiculous sublime.” In Mulholland Drive, the pop song I’ve Told Every Little Star represents the film’s theme of duality. In Lost Highway, the use of Lou Reed’s cover of This Magic Moment rather than the well-known pop versions matches the soundscape of the film and is metacommentary on the reception of American popular song. In Twin Peaks, a newly-composed pop song disrupts the security of reality, and in Blue Velvet, pop music complicates multiple layers of diegesis, performance, and reality.

Works: David Lynch (director): soundtrack to Lost Highway (494, 502-3), soundtrack to Eraserhead (494, 499), soundtrack to Blue Velvet (507-9); David Lynch (director) and Angelo Badalamenti (composer): soundtrack to Mulholland Drive (494, 494-501), soundtrack to Twin Peaks (494, 503-6).

Sources: Bill Post and Doree Post: Sixteen Reasons (Why I Love You) (500); Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern: I’ve Told Ev’ry Little Star (500-501); Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman (songwriters) and The Drifters (performers): This Magic Moment (500-502); Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman (songwriters) and Lou Reed (performer): This Magic Moment (502-3); Bobby Vinton: Blue Velvet (507-8); Roy Orbison: In Dreams (508-9).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Film

Contributed by: Kate Altizer

[+] McLeod, Kembrew. "Confessions of an Intellectual (Property): Danger Mouse, Mickey Mouse, Sonny Bono, and My Long and Winding Path as a Copyright Activist-Academic." Popular Music and Society 28 (February 2005): 79-93.

The electronic collage aesthetic, which originated with musique concrète and tape works such as John Cage's Imaginary Landscape No. 5 and Bill Buchanan and Dickie Goodman's The Flying Saucer, finds its modern incarnation in Danger Mouse's The Grey Album, a mash-up of Jay-Z's The Black Album and The Beatles' White Album. The current mash-up phenomenon is made possible by file-sharing software and readily available mixing programs. The Grey Album presents a legal quagmire because the samples were used without permission of EMI, prompting cease-and-desist letters to all those who circulated the album. Current laws only permit covers of songs, and sampling without permission is prohibited. Until copyright laws catch up with the collage aesthetic, the limited legality of fair use rights has the potential to stifle creativity and the free exchange of ideas.

Works: Danger Mouse (Brian Burton): The Grey Album (79-81); Freelance Hellraiser (Roy Kerr): A Stroke of Genie-us (82, 86-87); Soulwax: Smells Like Teen Booty (82, 84); Alan Copeland: Mission: Impossible Theme/Norwegian Wood (85); Negativland: U2 (88); Illegal Art: Sonny Bono is Dead (91), Deconstructing Beck (91).

Sources: The Beatles (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr): The White Album [The Beatles] (79-81); Jay-Z: The Black Album (79-81); Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl, and Krist Novoselic (songwriters), Nirvana (performers): Smells Like Teen Spirit (82, 84); Rob Fusair, Falonte Moore, and Beyoncé Knowles (songwriters), Destiny?s Child (performers): Bootylicious (82, 84); Eminem: Without Me (84-85); Kevin Rowland, Big Jim Paterson, and Billy Adams (songwriters), Dexy's Midnight Runners (performers): Come On Eileen (84-85); U2: I Still Haven?t Found What I?m Looking For (88).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Amanda Sewell

[+] Meyers, John Paul. “The Beatles in Buenos Aires, Muse in Mexico City: Tribute Bands and the Global Consumption of Rock Music.” Ethnomusicology Forum 24 (December 2015): 329–48.

Increasing globalization in the popular music industry, especially with the ease of distributing music recordings, sometimes creates a demand for particular performers in parts of the world they do not directly interact with. In Latin America—Mexico and Argentina in particular—this demand for American and English rock music has led to a thriving culture of tribute bands. These bands serve an important role in Latin American consumption of Anglophone popular music as substitutes or surrogates for the original artist, satisfying the demand for live performances from groups that rarely or never perform in that region. This occurs both with bands that no longer exist, like The Beatles, and with contemporary bands that rarely, if ever, tour Latin American, such as Muse. Attending a tribute band concert provides a way for fans of a particular band to participate in a recreation of an “authentic” live concert, a significant aspect of band–fan interaction.

Tribute bands differ from cover bands in that they perform the music and extra-musical affect of a single band, rather than just performing existing music. This means that tribute bands for Anglophone bands sing in English, even to a Spanish speaking audience. Another difference is that tribute bands often rework recorded music into live performance, which distinguishes them from live performances by the original band. Beatles tribute bands are especially relevant to this point by performing studio albums like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and recorded performances like The Beatles’s Ed Sullivan appearance live. This transformation of a music recording to a live performance is distinct from a band performing its own music in concert. Tribute bands create a live performance proxy for a recorded sound object.

Works: Horus: The Resistance (as recorded by Muse) (334); The Shouts: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (as recorded by The Beatles) (341), All My Loving (as performed by The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show) (341); Dios Salve a La Reina: Somebody to Love, I Want to Break Free, and Crazy Little Thing Called Love (as recorded by Queen) (341-43).

Sources: Muse: The Resistance (334); The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (341), All My Loving (on The Ed Sullivan Show) (341); Queen: Somebody to Love (341-43), I Want to Break Free (341-43), Crazy Little Thing Called Love (341-43).

Index Classifications: 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Miller, Leta. “Beneath the Hybrid Surface: Baban as a Tool for Self-Definition in the Music of Chen Yi.” American Music 37 (Fall 2019): 330-57.

Chinese American composer Chen Yi incorporates elements of traditional Chinese music on the surface level and in the underlying structure of her work to create a unique fusion of styles as exemplified by her use of the Chinese mother-tune Baban. In traditional Chinese music, Baban is classified as a type of qupai, a particular group of named melodies used as the basis for numerous variations. Chen’s 1992 Piano Concerto incorporates Baban in several ways. The melody is quoted in the opening phrase, the rhythmic pattern is frequently articulated by several instruments, and the structural proportions of the piece correspond to the underlying structure of Baban. Since the Piano Concerto, Chen has used Baban in various forms in at least twenty-one pieces. Some of these pieces borrow all or part of the Baban melody. In others Chen creates rhythmic figures based on the Baban rhythmic form. During her brief experimentation with serialism, Chen combined elements of Baban with twelve-tone techniques. While Chen uses many other signifiers of Chinese traditional music in her compositions, Baban holds a special position as a spiritual connection to Chinese history. By utilizing Baban in multiple ways—as a tune, as a rhythmic plan, and as a structure—Chen creates a cross-cultural identity embracing traditional Chinese and Western art music.

Works: Chen Yi: Piano Concerto (336-40), The Golden Flute (340-43), From the Path of Beauty (343-44), Qi (345-46), Chinese Myths Cantata (345-47), Song in Winter (345-48), Si Ji (345-48), Sparkle (349), The Soulful and the Perpetual (349-51), Three Dances from China South (349-52)

Sources: Traditional: Baban (333-52)

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Miyakawa, Felicia M. “Turntablature: Notation, Legitimization, and the Art of the Hip-Hop DJ.” American Music 25 (Spring 2007): 81-105.

Hip-hop DJs take previously recorded material in the form of vinyl LPs and reorganize and alter the recorded sounds to create new music. As DJ techniques and routines have grown increasingly complex, DJs such as DJ A-Trak and DJ Radar and others such as filmmaker John Carluccio have created methods of notating DJs’ musical and technical choices. By examining three forms of scratch notation developed by hip-hop DJs (including the widely-used Turntablist Transcription Methodology, or TTM), various uses for notation can be shown, ranging from idiosyncratic memory-aid to symbolic justification for “art” and “work” status. These uses are linked to those practiced throughout the history of Western art music.

Works: Grandmaster Flash: The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel (90-91); DJ Radar: Antimatter (94), Concerto for Turntable (96-97).

Sources: DJ Babu: Super Duck Breaks (88); DJ Q-Bert: Toasted Marshmallow Feet Breaks (88); Chic: Good Times (91); Queen: Another One Bites the Dust (91).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Nathan Landes

[+] Montano, Ed. “The Sydney Club Scene and the Sampling of Global Electronic Dance Music Culture.” In Sampling Media, ed. David Laderman and Laurel Westrup, 75–86. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

The Sydney electronic dance music (EDM) scene has become increasingly international with increased sampling of overseas content. Sampling as a musical technique has been around for some time, leaving some to argue that it has lost its relevance to the production of new music, instead becoming just a way to repackage old music. However, sampling is still alive and actively engaged in the creation and development of musical scenes, if not the production of individual tracks. With the creation of the internet, transnational sampling between EDM scenes—which refer both to the physical grouping of producers and consumers (Sydney, for instance) and to the collection of shared aesthetics these groups develop—has exploded in scope and ease. This allows scenes that are distant physically to become closer aesthetically. Online EDM sharing sites, such as beatport.com, are faster and cheaper, and they eliminate the need for the mediation of record stores stocking only select music. The Sydney scene in particular relies heavily on internationally sampled music, primarily from British and American producers, to supply the large EDM consumer base. This leads to a unique Sydney scene, created through sampling and remixing other scenes. The Sydney EDM scene is a case study in the application of sampling theories to larger musical entities than just a single work.

Index Classifications: General, 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Morey, Justin and Phillip McIntyre. “The Creative Studio Practice of Contemporary Dance Music Sampling Composers.” Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 6 (2014): 41-60.

Case studies drawn from interviews with contemporary UK-based sampling composers working in several genres of electronic dance music demonstrate the collaborative processes and self-imposed constraints in their creative studio practices. Through incorporating samples, sampling composers effectively co-opt the original songwriters as co-authors, a process with both creative and economic consequences. By convention, songwriters are understood to be those responsible for the creation of the melody, chord progression, and lyrics, but sampling composers often gravitate toward rhythmic or sonic elements that are the domain of (uncredited) performers. Many of the composer interviewed also emphasize listening as a key aspect of their compositional process. Three self-imposed constraints were also regularly discussed. First, many sampling composers preferred to chop samples “by hand,” that is, without the aid of digital quantization and time correction tools. Second, composers created tracks by starting with a sample as the base, building up the other layers, then removing the initial sample, thereby enjoying the creative aspect of sample composition without the hassle of copyright clearance. Third, composers often treated their own recordings as samples. This is especially evident in the songwriting process for the 1982 Talking Heads album Remain in Light, produced by Brian Eno. Increasingly, the compositional approaches of these sampling composers do not differ significantly from songwriters in other popular genres, and advancements in digital sampling technology have not necessarily altered their compositional techniques.

Works: Plan B: Ill Manors (43); Peter Fox: Alles Neu (43)

Sources: Peter Fox: Alles Neu (43); Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 7 (43)

Index Classifications: 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Motzkus, Peter. “Simpsons, Inc. (?!): A Very Short Fascicle on Music’s Dramaturgy and Use in Adult Animation Series.” Kieler Beiträge Zur Filmmusikforschung 15 (December 2020): 65-114.

Adult animation series The Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy share several common categories of musical usage. Since the earliest animated short films in the 1920s, music has been integral to dramaturgy and storytelling in animation. Later, animated sitcoms like The Flintstones and The Jetsons used music in more limited, but no less important ways. While The Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy have developed in different directions, they all use music to spoof American culture and society. The Simpsons tends to use current music references and recomposed soundalikes while Family Guy tends to use older music in its original form. South Park uses music less often, but musical pop culture of Generations X and Y is still a core component of the show. The use of songs in adult animation can be categorized as recitativo, songs that underscore or forward the plot, and aria, action stopping musical numbers. An example of recitativo in Family Guy can be seen in a scene where Lois prepares for a boxing match and the camera cuts to Peter singing Eye of the Tiger ringside, parodying the Rocky film franchise. The aria category of song use is exemplified by another Family Guy scene that cuts away to the entire music video for David Bowie and Mick Jagger’s Dancing in the Street, diverting entirely from the plot of the episode. The opening sequences of each show also demonstrate the importance of music in their respective narrative and comedic identities. Each show occasionally parodies other television opening themes, as South Park does in its multi-episode parody of Game of Thrones, transforming Ramin Djawadi’s opening title music into A Chorus of Wieners. Each show has also done music-centric episodes where characters join a band, for instance, or the episode itself is structured like a mini musical. With these three series becoming major influences in their medium, music has once again become the backbone of animation.

Works: Carl W. Stalling: soundtrack to The Skeleton Dance (71-72); Alf Clausen: soundtrack to The Simpsons (80, 83); Ron Jones and Walter Murphy: soundtrack to Family Guy (89-91); Adam Berry, Scott Nickoley, and Jamie Dunlap: soundtrack to South Park (84-85, 98-100).

Sources: Edvard Grieg: Trolltog, Op. 54, No. 3 (71-72); Bernard Herrmann: soundtrack to Cape Fear (80); Hans Zimmer: soundtrack to Inception (83); Erick Wolfgang Korngold: soundtrack to The Sea Hawk (84); Zach Hemsey: Mind Heist (84-85); Mozart: Eine kleine Nachtmusik (85-6); Survivor: Eye of the Tiger (89-90); William Stevenson (songwriter), David Bowie and Mick Jagger (performers): Dancing In The Street (91); Ramin Djawadi: soundtrack to Game of Thrones (98-100).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular, Film

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Navas, Eduardo. Remix Theory: The Aesthetics of Sampling. New York: SpringerWienNewYork, 2012.

Remix as a discourse (capitalized to distinguish it from remix as a creative technique or genre) affects a wide range of contemporary art and music, and is a pervasive force in modern culture. While there are no set forms of Remix, it is always unoriginal and dependent on existing cultural products. Jacques Attali argues that music precedes political changes and the rise of Remix in the twentieth century confirms this idea. The birth of Remix in 1960s Jamaican dub music led to Remix in all aspects of culture, a facet of Late Capitalism. The history of Remix is broken into four stages—Jamaican dub, New York hip hop, mainstream hip hop, and remix culture—that are related to the history of mechanical reproduction broken into three stages: photography, photomontage, and digital image editing.

Remixes of two techno tracks, Underworld’s Born Slippy (remixed as Born Sleepy) and Kraftwerk’s Tour de France, are examples of a crucial stage in Remix history were Remix becomes cultural discourse rather than just a compositional technique. Underworld’s Born Sleepy .NUXX and Dark + Long (Dark Train) are conceptual remixes of Born Slippy, musically distinct from the original, with the title serving as the main signifier of their connection. Kraftwerk’s Tour de France remixes do something similar by only keeping the lyrics from the original and producing a musically distinct arrangement of the source material. This kind of advanced remix differs from older methods by changing the source so that it is unrecognizable as a remix without extramusical confirmation.

Works: Underworld: Born Sleepy .NUXX (Deep Pan) (68-70), Born Sleepy .NUXX (Darren Price Mix) (68-70), Dark + Long (Dark Train) (68-70); Kraftwerk: Tour de France Étape 1 (71-73), Tour de France Étape 2 (71-73), Tour de France Étape 3 (71-73).

Sources: Underworld: Born Slippy (67-70); Kraftwerk: Tour de France (67-73).

Index Classifications: 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] O’Brien, Michael S. “From Soccer Chant to Sonic Meme: Sound Politics and Parody in Argentina’s ‘Hit of the Summer.’” MUSICultures 47 (2020): 116-38.

A protest chant against Argentine President Mauricio Marci that was called the “hit of the summer” in 2018 is an example of a sonic meme, a phenomenon in which an innocuous melody is re-signified through parody. The melody of the protest chant comes from the opening verse of a 1973 Carnival march by Raul Fernández Shériko Guzmán, Es tiempo de alegrarnos. The tune then became a popular cantito, or soccer chant, with the lyric formula “[opposing player name], la puta que te parió” (son of a whore). During a match in February 2018, a spontaneous chant of Mauricio Marci, la puta que te parió broke out in the stands, naming the sitting president of Argentina. The chant quickly spread among Argentine soccer fans and was sung in stadiums across the country. Classical pianist Juan Roleri inadvertently created a viral video with a Romantic-pastiche fantasia on the Mauricio Marci tune. Subsequently, social media users created iterative videos, combining Roleri’s audio with other video sources. Other users build on Roleri’s basic idea and created versions of Mauricio Marci in other genres and styles, culminating in a brief tarantella version performaned by the César Pavón Orkestra on Argentine public television, causing a scandal and derailing the band’s career. This flurry of iterative creativity makes Mauricio Marci a sonic meme akin to online image-based memes. The memetic transformations of Mauricio Marci demonstrate a kind of musical parody, dressing up profane source material with more respectable trappings. The participatory nature of sonic memes allowed users to protest at a distance in an attenuated form, but Cesar Pavón’s performance on state television shows that parody can be politically dangerous in certain venues.

Works: César Pavón Orkestra: Mauricio Marci, la puta que te parió Tarentella (116-18, 130-32); Anonymous: La puta que te parió Cantito (120-22), Mauricio Marci, la puta que te parió (121-22, 129); Juan Roleri: Mauricio Marci, la puta que te parió Fantasia (124-7, 130).

Sources: Anonymous: Mauricio Marci, la puta que te parió (116-18, 124-7, 130-32); Raul Fernández Shériko Guzmán: Es tiempo de alegrarnos (120-22, 129); Anonymous: La puta que te parió Cantito (121-22).

Index Classifications: 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Odello, Denise. “Performing Tradition: History, Expression, and Meaning in Drum Corps Shows.” Popular Music and Society 39 (2016): 241-58.

Performances by youth drum and bugle corps often reference the history of the tradition as a whole or the history of individual corps, creating an insular form of expression that only cultural insiders can fully understand. Four 2012 performances by drum corps affiliated with Drum Corps International illustrate this insular tradition. The degree to which different corps challenge the established tradition can be controversial, with more expressive complexity faring better competitively than more traditional performances. More traditional, accessible performances often place lower in competition but can become fan favorites. One distinctive characteristic of drum corps performances is their reliance on arrangements of existing pieces that are intertextually linked by a unifying theme or narrative. The 2012 Blue Devils program, Cabaret Voltaire, is an avant-garde drum corps rendition of Dadaism, incorporating a collage of a dozen musical sources. Some pieces (like George Antheil’s Ballet Mécanique and Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies) are related to the Dada theme while others (Don Sebesky’s Bird and Bela in B-Flat) are related to the history of the Blue Devils themselves. The Jersey Surf program, Bridgemania, is a tribute to the defunct Bridgeman drum corps, also from New Jersey. Jersey Surf performed sound-alike arrangements of Bridgeman favorites as well as numbers evoking the fun-loving spirit of the old corps, including LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem. The Madison Scouts program, Reframed, uses Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, which the corps first performed in 1961, as a framing device for other fan favorite pieces from the corps’ history. Phantom Regiment’s Turandot is a relatively straightforward, faithful adaptation of Puccini’s opera within the confines of a twelve-minute drum corps performance. The centerpiece of the program is the aria Nessun Dorma, which the corps had famously performed before in 1991. Each of these performances integrates musical arrangements, visual elements, and drum corps tradition in unique ways that stake out different artistic positions defined by the history of each drum corps.

Works: Blue Devils: Cabaret Voltaire (247-49); Jersey Surf: Bridgemania (249-51); Madison Scouts: Reframed (251-54); Phantom Regiment: Turandot (254-55).

Sources: James Horner: score to Apollo 13 (248); André Souris: Symphonies: V (248); George Antheil: Ballet Mécanique (248); John Adams: Harmonielehre (248); Thomas Adès: Tevot (248); Erik Satie: Gymnopédies (248); George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue (248); Ludovic Bource: score to The Artist (248); Cherry Poppin’ Daddies: Dr. Bones (248); Danny Elfman: score to Corpse Bride (248); Charles Mingus: The Children’s Hour of Dream (248); Don Sebesky: Bird and Bela in B-Flat (248); Allee Willis, David Foster, and Maurice White (songwriters): In the Stone (250); Chuck Mangione: The Land of Make Believe (250); Rossini: William Tell Overture (250-51); Leslie Bircusse and Anthony Newley (songwriters): Pure Imagination (250); David Listenbee, Stefan Gordy, Skyler Gordy, and Peter Schroeder (songwriters): Party Rock Anthem (250-51); Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition (252-53); Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman, and Marvin Hamlisch (songwriters): The Way We Were (252); Bill Holman: Malaga (252-53); Ernesto Lecuona: Malagueña (252-53); Marvin Hamlisch: score to Ice Castles (253); Puccini: Turandot (254-55).

Index Classifications: 2000s

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Oram, Celeste, and Keir GoGwilt. “A Loose Affiliation of Alleluias: Tracing Genealogies of Technique and Power in Creative Practice.” Current Musicology 108 (November 2021): 115-36.

Reflecting on the composition and performance of Celeste Oram’s 2019 violin concerto, a loose affiliation of alleluias, shows various ways that present creative practice is embedded with material histories and networks of cultural power. Important to the compositional process is Ben Spatz’s concept of “technique” as a vector of agency and cultural transmission and Edward Said’s concept of “affiliation,” describing cultural relationships and authority. A loose affiliation features an improvised solo violin part (foregrounding the performer, Keir GoGwilt) and recognizably includes material from Ad superni regis (as recorded in the Codex Calixtinus), Giovanni Gabrieli’s Exaudi me Domine, and The Boy in the Bubble by Paul Simon and Forere Motloheloa. These materials share a common entanglement with imperial power; the hymn to St. James is related to the crusades, Gabrieli’s career amplified the Venetian empire, and Paul Simon’s Graceland album signals issues of race and capital in popular music. The two main ways Oram worked with material from Ad superni regis and Exaudi me Domine for a loose affiliation were by composing additional counterpoint to existing lines and by adopting templates learned from techniques characteristic of the repertoire. For example, in a nod to the compositional process of twelfth-century polyphony, Oram improvised contrapuntal lines over the hymn until arriving at a “keeper” and notating it. GoGwilt’s improvised violin solo also grapples with the material history and cultural power of technique and genre. GoGwilt subverts the military-heroic tropes that permeate the violin concerto as a genre. Ornamentation in violin performance is similarly associated with musical taste and therefore networks of cultural power. By recognizing the historical and cultural underpinning of creative work and framing this as a motivating force, Oram and GoGwilt assert their agency and capacity to transform said culture.

Works: Celeste Oram: a loose affiliation of alleluias (119-30)

Sources: Anonymous (recorded in the Codex Calixtinus): Ad superni regis from Liber Sancti Jacobi (119-124); Giovanni Gabrieli: Exaudi me Domine (120-21, 125-26); Paul Simon and Forore Motloheloa: The Boy in the Bubble (120-21)

Index Classifications: 2000s

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Orosz, Jeremy W. “‘Can’t Touch Me’: Television Cartoons and the Paraphrase of Popular Music.” Contemporary Music Review 33 (April 2014): 223-40.

The composers of long-running animated sitcoms The Simpsons and Family Guy often utilize the technique of copyphrase, or copyright-paraphrase, to unmistakably call to mind specific pieces of music while avoiding charges of copyright infringement. Alf Clausen, series composer for The Simpsons, developed a default copyphrase procedure in the mid-1990s that has served as a model for later television composers. Clausen’s procedure involves preserving the rhythm and phrasing of the target melody but altering the pitches, often inverting the contour. This can be seen in his mock-up of Alan Menken’s Under the Sea in the episode “Homer Badman” (1994) and See My Vest, a copyphrase of Menken’s Be My Guest in “Two Dozen and One Greyhounds” (1995). Family Guy composers Walter Murphy and Ron Jones, influenced by Clausen, frequently use comparable copyphrase techniques in early seasons. The season two premiere alone contains three distinct examples of copyphrase, including an extended parody of I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here (from the musical Annie). A copyphrase parody of MC Hammer’s U Can’t Touch This in the episode “E. Peterbus Unum” even has a direct admission of borrowing when Peter Griffin declares “Hammer, you can’t sue!” mid-song. Two unsuccessful lawsuits brought against Family Guy in the mid-2000s—the first dismissed and the second ruled in the show’s favor—apparently emboldened the producers of The Simpsons and Family Guy to include sharper musical satire in later episodes. In later seasons, the two shows have diverged in their approach to music. A 2008 episode of The Simpsons, “That 90’s Show,” demonstrates the show's continuing engagement with (relatively) recent musical materials with two copyphrases of 1990s grunge songs. Family Guy, on the other hand, has largely abandoned copyphrase in favor of original music. Although The Simpsons could feasibly license existing music, the technique of copyphrase still serves an important aesthetic function maintaining the show’s escapist tone.

Works: Alf Clausen: soundtrack to The Simpsons (224-27, 231-34); Walter Murphy and Ron Jones: soundtrack to Family Guy (227-32)

Sources: Alan Menken (composer) and Howard Ashman (lyricist): Under the Sea (224-25), Be Our Guest (225-26); Falco, Rob Bolland, and Ferdi Bolland: Rock Me Amadeus (226); Charles Strouse (composer) and Martin Charnin (lyricist): I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here (227); Karl Jenkins: Palladio (227); John Williams: score to Star Wars (227-28); MC Hammer: U Can’t Touch This (229); Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman: It’s a Small World (After All) (229-30); Leigh Harline (composer) and Ned Washington (lyricist): When You Wish Upon a Star (230); Joe Hamilton: Carol’s Theme (230-31); Frank Churchill (composer) and Larry Morey (lyricist): Heigh Ho! (231); Kurt Cobain, Nirvana: Rape Me (232-33); Gavin Rossdale, Bush: Glycerin (233)

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular, Film

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Orosz, Jeremy W. “John Williams: Paraphraser or Plagiarist?” Journal of Musicological Research 34 (October 2015): 299-319.

Film composer John Williams is often accused of plagiarism in public discourse, but when analyzing his musical borrowing as stylistic allusion, modeling, and paraphrased quotation, it becomes clear that he is not a plagiarist even in the more conservative Romantic sense. Uncovering musical borrowing in Williams’s film scores poses a challenge as Williams is reticent to admit any influence from other composers, yet the sources for borrowed passages are well known pieces. One example of modeling is the main theme from Jaws (1974), modeled after The Augers of Spring from Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Passages in many other Williams scores—appearing when the hero is in danger—also appear to be modeled on the same section of Rite. Williams also modeled music for at least three films on Howard Hanson’s Symphony No. 2, which was used as a temp track in the production of E.T. (1982). Throughout Williams’s scores there are examples of passages resembling other music, but not enough to make a case for borrowing. One clear example of paraphrase is the love theme from Superman, which shares rhythm, contour, and tempo (but not exact pitches) with a motive from Richard Strauss’s Tod und Verklärung. Two examples of paraphrased themes in E.T. demonstrate Williams’s default procedure: altering the rhythm and meter of a source while only slightly altering the pitches. Williams’s score for Star Wars (1977) contains numerous examples of paraphrase, with passages drawn from Erich Korngold’s score to Kings Row (1942), Rite of Spring, and Gustav Holst’s The Planets. Compared to other film composers working under similar time and creative constraints inherent to the medium, Williams makes a clear effort to distance his paraphrased passages from their source material. William is therefore not guilty of plagiarism or theft. Instead, his creative process places him in the company of countless composers who use pre-existing material as a starting point for a new piece of music.

Works: John Williams: score to Jaws (303-4), score to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (304-5, 309-11), score to Superman (308-9), score to Star Wars (311-16), score to Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (316-17), score to Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (317); Bill Conti: score to The Right Stuff (318-19)

Sources: Igor Stravinsky: Rite of Spring (303-4, 314, 315); Howard Hanson: Symphony No. 2, Op. 30, Romantic (304-5, 310-11); Richard Strauss: Tod und Verklärung (308-9); Antonín Dvořák: Piano Trio No. 4, Op. 90, Dumky (309-10), Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, From the New World (316-17); Erich Wolfgang Korngold: score to Kings Row (313-14); Gustav Holst: The Planets (314-16); Aram Khatchaturian: Gayane (317); Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 (318-19)

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Film

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Petry, Clara-Franziska. “The Pop Music Parody in US-American and German Late-Night Shows.” Kieler Beiträge Zur Filmmusikforschung 15 (December 2020): 212-35.

Parodies of pop music are popular features of late-night TV shows in both the United States and Germany, and their self-referential, autopoietic mode of communication makes parodies a commercial strategy for pop music itself. Such parodies especially flourish on YouTube. For example, the (illegal) YouTube upload of the 2005 Saturday Night Live sketch Lazy Sunday, a parody of The Message by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, became an early hit for the platform. Since its premiere, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon has regularly featured pop music parodies, and has regularly uploaded sketches to its official YouTube channel. The 2015 sketch Wheel of Musical Impressions featuring Ariana Grande and Jimmy Fallon is emblematic of this trend and is built on an unusual parody conceit: instead of altering the lyrics to the songs being parodied, Grande and Fallon alter their vocal timbres to mimic other famous pop singers. In Germany, comedian Jan Böhmermann fills the same pop music parody role as Fallon as host of ZDF Neomagazin Royale. His 2015 music video Ich hab Polizei parodies American gangsta rap by presenting the German police in musical and visual trappings of the genre. Another Böhmermann parody, Eine Deutsche Rapgeschichte, goes further in its parody of German hip hop with numerous references to popular German rap songs and rappers. As a global phenomenon, these late-night show pop music parodies rely on insider knowledge for their appeal and at the same time construct a canon of pop music through performance.

Works: Saturday Night Live: Lazy Sunday (217-18); Jimmy Fallon and Ariana Grande: Wheel of Musical Impressions (220-23); Jan Böhmermann: Eine Deutsche Rapgeschichte (227-29).

Sources: Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five: The Message (217-18); Traditional: Mary Had a Little Lamb (220), The Wheels on the Bus (220-21); The Weeknd: Can’t Feel My Face (221); Advanced Chemistry: Fremd im eigenen Land (227-28); Absolute Beginner featuring Samy Deluxe: Füchse (228); Fanta 4: Die da (229); Zugezogen Maskulin: Endlich wieder Beef (229).

Index Classifications: 2000s, Film

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Powrie, Phil, and Robynn Stilwell, eds. Changing Tunes: The Use of Pre-existing Music in Film. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.

See abstracts for individual chapters by Claudia Gorbman, Mike Cormack, Lars Franke, Ann Davies, Jeongwon Joe, Kristi A. Brown, Vanessa Knights, Raymond Knapp, Ronald Rodman, Phil Powrie, Robynn Stilwell, and Timothy Warner.

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Film

Contributed by: Karen Anton Stafford

[+] Powrie, Phil. "The Fabulous Destiny of the Accordion in French Cinema." In Changing Tunes: The Use of Pre-existing Music in Film, ed. Phil Powrie and Robynn Stilwell, 137-51. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.

The accordion in French cinema is a marker both of the past (including utopian longings for it) and of Frenchness. Three periods of French films that use accordion music exist, and Yann Tiersen's award-winning score for Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amélie), composed mostly of music from Tiersen's own pre-existing albums, offers a glimpse at a possible future period. While Amélie was criticized as a film for presenting a sanitized version of the area in France it depicts, Tiersen's music works against the clean-cut culture. The soundtrack establishes an imaginary sonic architecture built from melancholic retrospection through layers of Tiersen's minimalistic, pre-existing music. The use of Tiersen's accordion music rather than traditional tunes avoids citation of stereotyped music and allows accordion music to be reinvigorated.

Works: Jean-Pierre Jeunet (director), Yann Tiersen (composer): Sound track to Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amélie) (146-51).

Sources: Yann Tiersen: La Valse des monstres (146), La Rue des cascades (146), Le Phare (146), L'Absente (147).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Film

Contributed by: Karen Anton Stafford

[+] Provost, Sarah. “The Dance Hall, Nazi Germany, and Hell: Accruing Meaning through Filmic Uses of Benny Goodman’s ‘Sing Sing Sing.’” Music and the Moving Image 10, no. 2 (Summer 2017): 33-45.

Popular songs can accrue meaning through their place in films. Although the concept of filmic leitmotivs is generally reserved for classical music, it can also apply to uses of popular music. In the case of Benny Goodman’s Sing Sing Sing, the filmic and cross-filmic leitmotivs associate the song not only with the Swing Era in general but also with a feeling of danger and wildness. Neither of these associations comes from the song alone; despite its popularity, the song came at the end of the Swing Era and was not a part of that period’s heyday, and there was no original connotation of danger for the song. The inclusion of Sing Sing Sing began in films with diegetic music, such as its use in dance and concert settings in Hollywood Hotel (1937) and The Benny Goodman Story (1956). These instances help to set up the aural connotation of the music with the essence of the Swing Era. Later uses did not need to be diegetic to evoke these images of the Swing Era, since associations with the music had already entered audience consciousness, and led to mimicked allusions to the song in other films. Later usages with Nazis in Swing Kids (1993) and Hell in Deconstructing Harry (1997) further cement the music’s “dangerous” connotation.

Works: Busby Berkeley (director): Hollywood Hotel (35); Valentine Davies (director): The Benny Goodman Story (36-38); Shinobu Yaguchi (director): Swing Girls (38-39); Thomas Carter (director): Swing Kids (40-41); Michel Hazanavicius (director): The Artist (41); Charles Russell (director): The Mask (41); Anthony Hickox (director): Waxwork (41); Patrice Leconte (director): La Fille sur le Pont (41); Woody Allen (director): New York Stories (41-42), Manhattan Murder Mystery (41-42), Deconstructing Harry (41-43).

Sources: Benny Goodman: Sing Sing Sing (33-43).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Jazz, Film

Contributed by: Emily Baumgart

[+] Redmond, Shana L. “Indivisible: The Nation and Its Anthem in Black Musical Performance.” Black Music Research Journal 35, no. 1 (Spring 2015): 97–118.

René Marie’s performance of the national anthem at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, where she sang lyrics of Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing to the tune of The Star-Spangled Banner, grapples with the experience of race and gender during the dawning of “postracial” America. Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing, written by James Weldon Johnson and Rosamond Johnson in the early twentieth century, became known as the black national anthem during the 1920s and 1930s, as black American communities organized around creating a collective identity and rallying to fight for Civil Rights. Marie’s performance challenged the idea of a “national anthem” by forcing her audience to confront an alternate anthem, and thus an alternate national identity. By singing alternative lyrics to the familiar (and politicized) tune, Marie highlighted this duality in a way that just singing one or the other could not. Anthems as a genre are a living performance of national identity and are not fixed, but are flexible between historical contexts. Marie’s identity as a black woman lent additional weight to her performance, in hearing as well as watching. An earlier correlate to this performance was Marian Anderson’s performance of America in 1939 at the Lincoln Memorial, which expressed both the national unity and the oppression still felt by many people in America at the time. Marie’s performance fundamentally altered the terrain of musical representation as Obama’s nomination altered it politically.

Works: René Marie: Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing (to the tune of The Star-Spangled Banner).

Sources: James Weldon Johnson and Rosamond Johnson: Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing; Francis Scott Key: The Star-Spangled Banner.

Index Classifications: 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Rollefson, J. Griffith. “‘He’s Calling His Flock Now’: Black Music and Postcoloniality from Buddy Bolden’s New Orleans to Sefyu’s Paris.” American Music 33 (Fall 2015): 375-97.

Senegalese-French rapper Sefyu’s 2006 track En noir et blanc is a case study in hip hop’s role as both a product of postcolonial contradictions and a form of cultural politics aimed at combatting postcolonial inequalities. While the track includes musical gestures to Africa, Europe, and America, the featured loop is sampled from Nina Simone’s 1962 recording of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s 1956 song Hey, Buddy Bolden. Sefyu’s sample recalls not only the past of Simone and Ellington, but also the past of New Orleans circa 1900 and Buddy Bolden, the “elusive father of jazz” (in Ted Gioia’s words). The origins of jazz recall further still centuries of syncretic music making since the first African slaves were brought to the Virginia Colony in 1619. Sefyu’s lyrics deal more directly with the complexity and contradictions of cultural and racial identity, with color used as a poetic motif throughout the song. Edward Said’s postcolonial theory stresses the entangled histories of colonizer and colonized, and, together with W. E. B. Du Bois’s concept of double consciousness, it helps listeners to hear the continuities in Black popular music and to escape from notions of American exceptionalism.

Works: Sefyu: En noir et blanc (378-80, 384); Nina Simone (performer): Hey, Buddy Bolden (379)

Sources: Nina Simone (performer): Hey, Buddy Bolden (378-80, 384); Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn: Hey, Buddy Bolden (379)

Index Classifications: 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Rush, Adam. “Oh What a Beautiful Mormon: Rodgers and Hammerstein, Intertextuality, and The Book of Mormon.” Studies in Musical Theater 11, no. 1 (2017): 39–50.

The 2011 musical The Book of Mormon, created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the creators of South Park), and Robert Lopez (co-creator of Avenue Q), is a widely intertextual work, referencing popular culture from Star Wars to The Lion King to The Music Man. The intertextuality goes deeper, however, with structural references to the “Golden Age” musicals of Rogers and Hammerstein. Despite the conspicuously offensive wrapping of The Book of Mormon, the musical relies on the musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein as models for both form and content. The two protagonists in the musical, Elder Price and Elder Cunningham, young missionaries tasked with converting a Ugandan village, mirror the journey taken by Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music in their attempts to do good, and in their ultimate achievement of doing good by bending the rules. The penultimate scene of the musical, “Joseph Smith American Moses,” involves the Ugandans performing their misreading of the Mormon story, which mirrors the “Small House of Uncle Thomas” ballet from The King and I. Both scenes portray a culture confronted with western domination, but The Book of Mormon offers a more mature version by showing a community that creates and defines itself, rather than conforming to a Western one. Any intertextuality is subjective on the part of the reader, but The Book of Mormon is notable in the way it references a wide range of texts in a way that can reach a broader audience.

Works: Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, and Matt Stone (music, lyrics, and book): The Book of Mormon.

Sources: Rodgers and Hammerstein: The Sound of Music (44–45), The King and I (45–47).

Index Classifications: 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Sadoff, Roger H. “The Role of the Music Editor and the ‘Temp Track’ as Blueprint for the Score, Source Music, and Scourse Music of Films.” Popular Music 25 (May 2006): 165-83.

The analysis of film scores must consider not only the finished score but also the various layers of the construction process, including the so-called “temp track,” a temporary soundtrack often comprising cues from existing films or other pre-existing music. The temp track maps the topography of the future score and its relation to the film, and along with its precursor, the compilation score, it is limited in its ability to synchronize with the film by its use of units of pre-existing phrase structures and forms. Despite its limitations and the artistic misgivings of many composers, it is often extremely influential upon the final score. Music editors are thus increasingly powerful and significant in the establishment and perpetuation of musical filmic conventions, acting as surrogate composers.

Works: Antoine Fuqua (director) and Roy Prendergast (music editor): temp track to Tears of the Sun (170-74); Antoine Fuqua (director) and Hans Zimmer (composer): score to Tears of the Sun (172-73); Jonathan Demme (director) and Suzana Peric (music editor): temp track to Philadelphia (176-79); Jonathan Demme (director) and Howard Shore (composer): score to Philadelphia (176-79).

Sources: Alan Silvestri: score to What Lies Beneath (171-72, 174); Bruce Springsteen: Streets of Philadelphia (176-79).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Film

Contributed by: Kate Altizer

[+] Schloss, Joseph. "Elements of Style: Aesthetics of Hip-Hop Composition." In Making Beats: The Art of Sample-Based Hip-Hop, 135-68. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2004.

Interviews with hip-hop deejays, including Mr. Supreme, Domino, Prince Paul, Samson S., and King Otto, reveal that the practice of sampling relies on the practitioner?s ability to "flip a beat," that is, to recast sound material and its meaning. The new juxtaposition of a sample, the internal characteristics of sampled materials, and the relationship between samples within the structure all contribute to the interpretive context for a new recording. Most hip-hop producers interviewed agree that the quality of manipulation is the most important, rather than the quality of the final sound product. A hip-hop producer must preserve, master, and celebrate the ambiguities inherent in sample-based hip-hop.

Works: De La Soul: Say No Go (147-48); Alicia Keys, Jermaine Dupri, and Joshua Thompson (songwriters), Alicia Keys (performer): Girlfriend (151); Guy Berryman, Jon Buckland, Will Champion, and Chris Martin (songwriters), Yesterday's New Quintet (performers): Daylight (158-59); A Tribe Called Quest: Bonita Applebum (158-59).

Sources: Darly Hall, John Oates, and Janna Allen (songwriters), Hall and Oates (performers): I Can't Go For That (147-48); Ol' Dirty Bastard: Brooklyn Zoo (151); Guy Berryman, Jon Buckland, Will Champion, and Chris Martin (songwriters), RAMP (performers): Daylight (158-59).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Amanda Sewell

[+] Schloss, Joseph. Making Beats: The Art of Sample-Based Hip-Hop. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2004.

See annotation for chapter "Elements of Style."

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular

[+] Sheppard, W. Anthony. “Allusion in the Composition of Contemporary Opera.” Cambridge Opera Journal 33 (November 2021): 212-72.

Musical allusions in contemporary postmodern operas are often meaningful and symbolic, shaping audience understanding of characters, plot points, and the work’s relationship to the history of opera. Three stylistically divergent operas—John Adams’s Nixon in China (1987), Louis Andriessen’s La Commedia (2008), and Thomas Adès’s The Exterminating Angel (2016)—demonstrate that allusion-making is rarely just a postmodern game. Postmodern operas that engage in extensive collage, notably John Cage’s five Europeras (1987–91) and John Coriglioni’s The Ghosts of Versailles (1987/1991), address the continuing presence of the operatic past. This approach is extended by later postmodern composers who work extensively in the opera genre. Despite Adams’s claims that Nixon in China is not a work of political satire, his score often undermines characters with satirical effect through musical allusions, particularly to works by Wagner and Stravinsky. Andriessen’s multimedia opera La Commedia alludes to a wide variety of composers and styles (including Stravinsky, Ravel, Wagner, Bebop jazz, nursery rhymes, and twentieth-century medievalism) in degrees of salience ranging from near quotation to suggested resemblance. While the rapid style shifts suggest an air of ironic detachment, Andriessen’s allusions to Fauré’s Requiem (and other requiems) offer a more personal, melancholic sentiment. Likewise, the allusions in Adès’s The Exterminating Angel meaningfully contribute to its surrealist atmosphere by acting as a “force field,” trapping the characters within the confines of the opera. Musical allusions also appear in operas by composers not known for musical borrowing; Philip Glass’s Akhnaten (1983), Shara Nova’s YOU US WE ALL (2013/2015), and Missy Mazzoli’s Song from the Uproar (2012) all contain allusions to Baroque operas. The frequency of allusions in contemporary operas, along with the self-consciousness of opera as a genre, walk a fine line between rewarding knowledgeable audience members and inadvertently suggesting that the genre is out of new ideas.

Works: John Cage: Europeras nos. 1–5 (220-21); John Corigliano: The Ghosts of Versailles (221-26); John Adams: Nixon in China (225-34); Louis Andriessen: La Commedia (234-53); Thomas Adès: The Exterminating Angel (253-59); Philip Glass: Akhnaten (261-63); Shara Nova: YOU US WE ALL (262-67); Missy Mazzoli: Song from the Uproar (266-69).

Sources: Sources: Mozart: Don Giovanni (221), Le nozze di Figaro (222-23); Rossini: L’italiana in Algeri (223), Il barbiere di Siviglia (224); Wagner: Tristan und Isolde (223, 244), Siegfried (227-29), Das Rheingold (230-31), Parsifal (233-34); Traditional: Marlbrough s’en va-t-en guerre (223-34); Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 2 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 10 (224-26); Richard Strauss: Salome (227-29, 258-60); John Stafford Smith (composer), Francis Scott Key (lyricist): The Star-Spangled Banner (230-31); Stravinsky: Perséphone (232-33, 240-41), The Rite of Spring (232-33, 244), Requiem Canticles (250-52); Olivier Messiaen: Turangalîla-Symphonie (243-44); Benjamin Britten: Curlew River (244); Puccini: Madama Butterfly (244); Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story (245-47); Charlie Parker: Bird of Paradise/All the Things You Are (245-47); Maurice Ravel: Introduction et allegro (245-47), La valse (255-57); Claude Debussy: Claire de lune (245-47); Gabriel Fauré: Requiem (247-50); Andrew Lloyd Webber: Requiem (252); J. S. Bach: Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd, BWV 208 (256, 259), Well-Tempered Clavier (264-65); Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique (258); Monteverdi: L’incoronazione di Poppea (261-63), Orfeo (264, 265); Purcell: Dido and Aeneas (268-69).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Shupe, Abigail. “War and the Musical Grotesque in Crumb’s ‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home.’” Music Theory Online 27 (June 2021): 205-28.

George Crumb’s setting of When Johnny Comes Marching Home in his 2004 Winds of Destiny: A Cycle of Civil War Songs, Folk Songs, and Spirituals can be understood in the context of memorialization as a manifestation of public memory that challenges some aspects of war remembrance. When Johnny Comes Marching Home was written in 1863 by Union army bandleader Patrick S. Gilmore and has functioned as a musical memorial and vehicle of critique long before Crumb’s setting. Winds of Destiny was composed during a wave of memorialization in the early 2000s, and combines Civil War imagery with recent American history. The opening verse of Crumb’s setting evoke the belliphonic sounds of military parade with a variety of percussion instruments, and the singer ends the verse with an excited shriek. The second and third verses share the same orchestration with the addition of tubular bells, a significant part of the sonic landscape of the Civil War. The fourth verse starkly contrasts the celebratory mood of the first three with a grotesque, ironic affect. During this verse, the piano plays a quotation of the funeral march from Mahler’s First Symphony, which evokes nostalgia for a (tonal) past in addition to the ritual funeral procession. With his grotesque final verse, Crumb satirizes the established meaning of the song and negates its patriotic glorification of war. Crumb laments rather than valorizes those who die in war, and his use of the grotesque resists the normalization of war by exposing its long-term impact.

Works: George Crumb: Winds of Destiny: A Cycle of Civil War Songs, Folk Songs, and Spirituals (1.1-8, 2.6-8, 3.1-10, 4.1-7, 5.1-5); Morton Gould: American Salute (1.7); Jerry Bilik: Civil War Fantasy (1.7).

Sources: Patrick S. Gilmore: When Johnny Comes Marching Home (1.1-1.8, 2.6, 3.1-10, 5.1-5); William Steffe (composer) and Julia Ward Howe (lyricist): Battle Hymn of the Republic (2.7-2.8); Mahler: Symphony No. 1 in D Major (4.1-7).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Silberman, Peter. “John Harbison’s Use of Music of the Past in Three Selected Compositions.” Gamut: The Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic 6 (2013): 143-92.

John Harbison’s fascination with history manifests itself in his extensive use of borrowed musical material in his compositions, which can be grouped into the categories of misreading, pastiche, and quotation. Twilight Music for violin, horn, and piano, composed in 1984, is an example of misreading in Harbison’s music. In particular, the distinctive trio of instruments points to Brahms’s Trio, Op. 40, which uses the same set. The intervallic motives of a perfect fifth and minor second present in Brahms’s horn part (written for natural horn) appear in Harbison’s horn part as well. Harbison also adapts Brahms’s theme as an unordered verticality in a process called generalization, a common device for adapting tonal music into a post-tonal context. The three Gatsby Etudes, excerpts from Harbison’s 1999 opera The Great Gatsby, evoke the early 1920s through pastiche. Several stylistic markers of ragtime appear throughout the etudes, including the opening gesture of Scott Joplin’s The Entertainer and cadential figures from Maple Leaf Rag. November 19, 1828 for piano and string trio, the title of which refers to Schubert’s death date, is a example of quotation in Harbison’s music. Harbison quotes Schubert’s Allegretto in C Major, D. 346 in its entirety in a rondo alternating with original passages. Each time the Allegretto returns, it is slightly altered, becoming increasingly uncanny as Harbison’s post-tonal style creeps in. Harbison’s use of musical borrowing is noteworthy for its breadth of source material as well as its sophisticated interaction between borrowed and original music.

Works: John Harbison: Twilight Music (147-159), Gatsby Etudes (166-72), November 19, 1828 (173-87).

Sources: Brahms: Trio, Op. 40 (147-59); Scott Joplin: The Entertainer (166-72), Maple Leaf Rag (169-72); Franz Schubert: Allegretto in C Major, D. 346 (173-87).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Stilwell, Robynn. "Vinyl Communion: The Record as Ritual Object in Girls' Rites-of-Passage Films." In Changing Tunes: The Use of Pre-existing Music in Film, ed. Phil Powrie and Robynn Stilwell, 152-66. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.

A recurrent theme in coming-of-age films starring female protagonists is that of feminine interaction with records. The record collector has usually been associated with a masculine stereotype, but in films depicting feminine interactions with records, the inscribed voice of the record expresses the girl's character. A scene depicting a transformational rite in Heavenly Creatures features music that slips between diegetic use of Mario Lanza's Donkey Serenade, the girls' own singing of the song, and a non-diegetic newly composed orchestral version. In The Virgin Suicides, songs from records, while non-diegetic, organize the relationship of a young couple. The record and its music function as a ritual object in the narrative as the girl experiences a coming-of-age transformation.

Works: Terry Zwigoff (director): Sound track to Ghost World (152-53, 158-59); Mark Herman (director): Sound track to Little Voice (159-60); Peter Jackson (director): Sound track to Heavenly Creatures (160-63); Sofia Coppola (director): Sound track to The Virgin Suicides (163-66).

Sources: Skip James: Devil Got My Woman (152); Sammy Cahn and Nicholas Brodszky (songwriters), Mario Lanza (performer): Be My Love (161); Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart (composers), Robert Wright and George "Chet" Forrest (lyrics), Mario Lanza (performer): Donkey Serenade (161-62); Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson (songwriters), Heart (performers): Magic Man (164-65), Crazy On You (165).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Film

Contributed by: Karen Anton Stafford

[+] Szarecki, Artur. “Musicking Assemblages and the Material Contingency of Sound: Mostly Other People Do the Killing’s Re-Enactment of Kind of Blue.” Popular Music and Society 46 (March 2023): 99-116.

New York jazz quartet Mostly Other People Do the Killing (MOPDtK)’s 2014 album Blue, a detailed, note-for-note recreation of Miles Davis’s 1959 album Kind of Blue, calls attention to the sonic materiality of music and encourages listeners to rethink what constitutes a musical work. Founded in 2003, MOPDtK has long taken a playful, irreverent approach to jazz history that exemplifies Fredric Jameson’s conception of postmodernism. In preparing to record Blue, the members of MOPDtK meticulously transcribed each instrumental part and rehearsing the nuances of each Kind of Blue performance to achieve maximum fidelity. The album’s liner notes are a reprint of Jorge Luis Borges’s short story “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” a 1939 spoof of literary criticism concerning a word-for-word recreation of Don Quixote, implying that Blue is a musical actualization of Borges’s premise. This connection supports the assessment that Blue is about the meaning of artistic works and authorship. However, this understanding does not account for the materiality of music specifically. Kind of Blue sounds the way it sounds because of the specific musicians, their specific bodies and experiences, the specific space it was recorded in, and the specific technologies used to record it, all of which contributed to the sonic vibrations that constitute Kind of Blue, and none of which Blue can recreate. From the perspective of musicking assemblages—that is, thinking of music as sonic energy circulating within material arrangements, not rarefied objects—asking if Blue sounds like Kind of Blue is irrelevant; there is no singular musical object “Kind of Blue” to compare to. While there are many possible interpretations of Blue, it can disrupt listening habits and encourage a kind of listening that goes beyond assessing static musical works.

Works: Mostly Other People Do the Killing: Blue (99-114).

Sources: Miles Davis: Kind of Blue (99-114).

Index Classifications: 2000s, Jazz

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Tillet, Salamishah. “Strange Sampling: Nina Simone and Her Hip-Hop Children.” American Quarterly 66 (Spring 2014): 119-37.

Samples of Nina Simone in hip-hop in the 2000s and 2010s enable artists to access her sonic black radicalism, revealing the possibilities and limits of Simone’s contemporary resurgence as a civil rights icon and complicating debates about black women’s role in hip-hop. In 2007, producer Devon “Devo Springsteen” Harris created an instrumental track that sampled Simone’s 1965 recording of Strange Fruit, written by Abel Meeropol in 1936 and made famous by Billy Holiday, that was used in both an unreleased track by Common and in Celebrate by Cassidy. Harris selected Simone’s recording over Holiday’s for the “rawness” of her voice, emphasized by her sparse arrangement revising Franz Schubert’s Der Doppelgänger. Common pairs the Strange Fruit sample with politically engaged lyrics about global black suffering, aligning with Simone’s political black radicalism. Cassidy pairs Simone’s Strange Fruit with a personal narrative of self-reflection and redemption, emphasizing the paradoxical desperation and celebration at the heart of hip-hop. Celebrate was inspired by Get By, a 2002 track by Talib Kweli produced by Kayne West that samples Simone’s 1965 recording of Sinnerman. West extracts three sections from Sinnerman: Simone’s lyrical shout, unmeasured vocalizing, and a portion of her piano solo. These relatively obscure extracts highlight the sound of Simone’s voice and pianism over her lyrical interpretation, drawing on the musical experimentation of Simone’s sonic black radicalism. West also samples Simone in several of his own tracks, which leads to tension between Simone’s political legacy and West’s often sexist lyrics. In Blood on the Leaves, West pairs a pitch-shifted sample of Strange Fruit with deep ambivalence toward women’s sexuality and motherhood. In effect, West uses Strange Fruit to decry his exploitation at the hands of women he hooks up with, not his exploitation by racist institutions. Simone’s musical legacy of radical genre mixing is more relevant to West’s project than her politics. While the practice of sampling Nina Simone by male hip-hop artists risks being read as appropriative, it can also introduce Simone’s radical politics to a new generation of listeners and place her voice at the center of the ongoing struggle for black freedom.

Works: Cassidy, Devon Harris (producer): Celebrate (122, 124-27); Common, Devon Harris (producer): [untitled, unreleased track] (122, 124-26); Abel Meerepol (as Lewis Allen, songwriter), Nina Simone (performer): Strange Fruit (123); Talib Kweli, Kanye West (producer): Get By (128-30); Kanye West: Bad News (129), Blood on the Leaves (129-32); Kayne West and Jaz-Z: New Day (129); Busta Rhymes, Jay-Z, Kweli, Mos Def, Kanye West (producer): Get By (remix) (132-33); Lauryn Hill: Black Rage (133-34)

Sources: Abel Meerepol (as Lewis Allen, songwriter), Nina Simone (performer): Strange Fruit (122-27, 130-32); Franz Schubert: Der Doppelgänger (123); Traditional, Nina Simone (arranger, performer): Sinnerman (128-30, 132-33), See-Line Woman (129); Love: Doggone (128); Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein: My Favorite Things (133-34)

Index Classifications: 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Van Der Merwe, Ann. “Music, the Musical, and Postmodernism in Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge.” Music and the Moving Image 3 (Fall 2010): 31-38.

The complexity of musical meaning in Moulin Rouge demands detailed analysis and a better understanding of how director Baz Luhrmann uses music both literally and figuratively, in order to provide a more well-rounded assessment of the film and its relationship to postmodernism and the Hollywood musical. Luhrmann borrows the complete melody and lyrics of The Sound of Music, but re-orchestrates the accompaniment. In doing so, he relies on listeners’ recognition of this familiar tune to portray Christian as a creative talent. Smells Like Teen Spirit constitutes one of the most daring quotations throughout the entire film. Luhrmann keeps the melody and lyrics intact but endows the quotation with a new contextual meaning, effectively creating a mocking contradiction and parodic simplification of the original’s more complex meaning. Luhrmann’s borrowing of Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend is specially tailored for the leading lady, Satine, and invites comparison to Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Both Satine and Lorelei are beautiful entertainers who depend on their beauty and sexuality to manipulate men, but Satine aspires to be a true actress instead of a prostitute-like figure, so Luhrmann turns the original show-within-a-show production to an entire production based on Satine’s number. Other modifications include changing the original lyrics and singing them more slowly and intentionally than Lorelei’s version. Luhrmann’s borrowing of Elton John’s Your Song once again defines Christian as a man with creative musical talents, as he successfully wins the heart of Satine when he began setting the lyrics to music. It also represents a communicative channel for Christian as he is able to express his thoughts and emotions more clearly using music. Luhrmann’s exaggerated staging of Like a Virgin offers comic relief, and Christian’s musical genius is contrasted with the lack of singing lines on the Duke’s part.

Works: Baz Luhrmann: Moulin Rouge (31-37).

Sources: Rodgers and Hammerstein: The Sound of Music (32-33); Kurt Cobain: Smells Like Teen Spirit (33-34); Jule Styne and Leo Robin: Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend (34-35); Elton John: Your Song (35); Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly: Like a Virgin (35-36); Gordon Matthew Sumner: El Tango de Roxanne (36-37).

Index Classifications: 2000s, Film

Contributed by: Jingyi Zhang

[+] Walser, Robert. “The Polka Mass: Music of Postmodern Ethnicity.” American Music 10 (Summer 1992): 183-202.

Since the 1970s, the Polka Mass, a variant of the Catholic Mass that replaces traditional anthems with Polka songs, has been performed in the United States by Polish, German, Slovenian, and Czech congregations. The words and music draw upon familiar melodies and secular traditions to enhance the sacred occasion. This style of mass was created to respond to tensions from immigrant communities who felt like they were losing their ethnic Catholic identities in America. Oftentimes, the composers and arrangers of Polka Masses either replaced the lyrics of well-known polkas, waltzes, or country songs with standard liturgical texts, or parodied secular texts to adapt them for a sacred setting. Some of the parodies involved simple changes, such as changing the word “sun” to “Son” in Let the Son Shine In. Other parodies, however, could reinterpret an original song into one of sacred devotion, as seen in Gene Retka’s Gathered Together. Some Polka Mass writers even drew upon genres and styles such as tango, country, and bebop, which caused controversy in some churches. For example, the use of the tune from the country song, Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain, by Willie Nelson was justified only when Frank Perkovich claimed that the melody was from the Czech tune Place Oci.

Works: Fr. Frank Perkovich: At This Sacrifice (188-90, 193), Let the Son Shine In (186-87, 191), The Church in the Valley (187); Fr. George Balasko: We Offer Bread and Wine (187); Gene Retka: Song for Meditation (187), Gathered Together (192), Lord, Have Mercy; Christ, Have Mercy; Lord, Have Mercy (189-90), Each and Every Day (191, 198-99).

Sources: Hair: Let the Sunshine In (186); Walter Ostanek: The Barking Dog Polka (187); Walt Solek: Julida Polka (187, 192); Hank Thunander: The Tavern in the Valley (187); Willie Nelson: Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain (188-89, 193); Lil’ Wally Jagiello: Johnny’s Knocking (191, 198-99).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Cynthia Dretel, Matthew G. Leone

[+] Weberberger, Doris. “Maschinelle Variationen über ein eigenes Thema: Selbstbearbeitungsphänomene im Schaffen von Bernhard Lang.” In Arbeit am musikalischen Werk: Zur Dynamik künstlerischen Handelns, ed. Wolfgang Gratzer and Otto Neumaier, 239-51. Rombach Wissenschaften: Reihe Klang-Reden 9. Freiburg im Breisgau: Rombach Verlag, 2013.

Index Classifications: 2000s

[+] Williams, Justin A. “‘This Year’s Model’: Toward a Sloanist Theory of Popular Music Production.” The Musical Quarterly 105 (December 2022): 320-56.

Sloanism, the commercial philosophy of producing and selling an “updated” consumer good before the end of the original product’s life cycle, can be applied to certain practices in the popular music industry whereby existing songs are consciously updated with a new production, new artist, or new genre. Sloanism is named after Alfred P. Sloan, president of General Motors from 1923 to 1956, who pioneered annual models, trade-ins, and planned obsolescence in the automotive industry to drive production and consumption. In the music industry, Sloanism is particularly evident in the 1980s and 1990s due to a confluence between new technologies, genres, and copyright-based commercial strategies. The mid-1980s production team of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken, and Pate Waterman (SAW), whose many hits collectively sold over 40 million records, exemplify musical Sloanism in their repurposing of existing songs. For example, Kylie Minogue’s The Locomotion (1988), produced by SAW, is a Eurobeat cover of Little Eva’s The Loco-Motion (1962). While not strictly a cover song, Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation (1989), produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, is structurally based on Sly and the Family Stone’s Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) (1969). Jam and Lewis similarly update Sly’s funk sound into their synth-heavy style of “new jack swing.” In the 1990s, examples of Sloanism can be found in the trend of “rap cover versions” of older pop songs, wherein the original hook is retained in the chorus, but the verses are replaced with rap vocals. Will Smith is the rapper most strongly associated with this practice; most of his late-1990s hits, including the film tie-ins Men in Black and Wild Wild West, are Sloanist updates. Sloanism as an intertextual category overlaps with—but still crucially differs from—retroism as described by Simon Reynolds. Both deal with cultural fixation on material from the past, but retroism does not differentiate between recreating musical styles and repackaging “upgraded” musical products. While a Sloanist theory of music production only accounts for a specific kind of musical reworking, it demonstrates the relationship between musical material and modes of production.

Sources: Mariah Carey and Walter Afanasieff (songwriters), Mariah Carey (performer): All I Want For Christmas Is You (320-21, 327); Michael McDonald, Ed Sanford, Jerry Leiber, and Mike Stoller (songwriters), Michael McDonald (performer): I Keep Forgettin (328-29); Hank Ballard (songwriter), Chubby Checker (performer): The Twist (330); Gerry Goffin and Carole King (songwriters), Little Eva (performer): The Loco-Motion (331-32); Sly and the Family Stone: Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) (332-34); James Mtune: Juicy Fruit (335); Sting (songwriter), The Police: Every Breath You Take (335); Led Zeppelin: Kashmir (335-36); Patrice Rushen, Freddie Washington, and Terri McFaddin (songwriters), Patrice Rushen (performer): Forget Me Nots (336); Stevie Wonder: I Wish (336); Leon Sylvers, Stephen Shockley, William Skelby (songwriters), The Whispers (performers): And the Beat Goes On (336); Bernard Edwards, Nile Rodgers (songwriters), Sister Sledge (performer): He's the Greatest Dancer (336); Bill Withers and Grover Washington Jr.: Just the Two of Us (336); Charles Fox, Norman Gimbel (songwriters), Roberta Flack (performer): Killing Me Softly with His Song (337).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Williams, Justin A. “‘We Get the Job Done’: Immigrant Discourse and Mixtape Authenticity in The Hamilton Mixtape.” American Music 36 (Winter 2018): 487-506.

The Hamilton Mixtape and its central track, “Immigrants (We Get the Job Done),” engages with issues of “offstage politics” by operating as a space to perform diversity, navigate politics of marginality, and critique immigration policy. The mixtape relies on sampling as a signifier of hip hop authenticity to achieve this aim. In hip hop culture, the idea of a mixtape (an independently released album drawing on a tradition of bootleg tapes) and sonic signifiers of underground hip hop such as record scratching and overt sampling are used to mark authenticity. In Hamilton: An American Musical, Lin-Manuel Miranda uses hip hop’s status as the voice of the marginalized to make a statement about American history. The Hamilton Mixtape extends this project by featuring covers, remixes, and demos of numbers from the musical. The deliberately rough sound of the mixtape connects to the sound of underground hip hop more so than the polished, orchestrated musical. “Immigrants (We Get the Job Done)” is the central track of the mixtape and is titled after a line from “The Battle of Yorktown.” The line, spoken by Hamilton and Lafayette, became a fan-favorite moment in the show amid the immigration discourse sparked by Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The chorus of “Immigrants” samples this line and others from “Yorktown” in an intentionally choppy style to evoke the ethos of underground hip hop. The verses, supplied by rappers K’naan, Show Tha Product, Riz MC, and Residente, deal with issues of immigrant labor and the continuing impact of colonialism. While both The Hamilton Mixtape and Hamilton: An American Musical express critiques of immigration discourse, particularly issues of immigrant labor, the mixtape taps into the sound and voice of the global hip hop movement, moving beyond the American setting of the musical it samples.

Works: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Keinan Warsame (K’naan), Claudia Feliciano (Snow Tha Product), Rizwan Ahmed (Riz MC), René Pérez Joglar (Residente), and Trooko: Immigrants (We Get the Job Done) from The Hamilton Mixtape (493-500)

Sources: Lin-Manuel Miranda: Hamilton: An American Musical (493-500)

Index Classifications: 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Williams, Justin A. “Theoretical Approaches to Quotation in Hip-Hop Recordings.” Contemporary Music Review 33, no. 2 (April 2014): 188-209.

Within hip-hop music and culture, there are many approaches to intertextuality and musical borrowing beyond digital sampling, the analysis of which can better situate hip-hop recordings in wider cultural contexts. Hip-hip music has openly used pre-existing material since its origins, and this practice has been linked to Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s literary concept of Signifyin(g). Intertextuality in hip-hop is generally unconcealed and is often, but not always, textually signaled, or highlighted by an element of the whole recorded text (the instrumental “beat” as well as the lyrical “flow”). One example of textual signaling is the vinyl pops and hiss audible in The Pharcyde’s Passin Me By), which show that the samples composing the beat come from older analog sources. Xzibit’s Symphony in X Major (2002), produced by Rick Rock, provides an illustrative case study of sampling from the classical music canon: Wendy Carlos’s version of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 from Switched on Bach (1968). The two samples used in Symphony in X Major are both autosonic (from an existing recording) and textually signaled with audible artifacts of sampling. One sample is used in the chorus, the other in the verses. The meaning of these samples depends on how specifically a listener identifies the source: classical music, J. S. Bach, the Brandenburg Concerto, or Carlos’s synthesizer recording. Carlos’s recording, more so than Bach’s composition, aligns with the popularity of synth-heavy beats in early 2000s hip-hop and the general practice of re-appropriation. Still, genre or stylistic topic might be more important than the specific source for interpreting a sample. Signifying “classical music” and its cultural status better fits Xzibit’s boastful lyrics. Understanding the meaning of such samples is aided by conceptualizing an imagined community of hip-hop, a particular interpretive community with generic expectations, assumptions, and historical knowledge of hip-hop.

Works: The Pharcyde: Passin Me By (193-95); Dr Dre (producer) and Snoop Doggy Dogg: Who Am I (What’s My Name?) (193-95); Rick Rock (producer) and Xzibit: Symphony in X Major (196-201).

Sources: The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Are You Experienced? (194); Weather Report: 125th Street Congress (194); Skull Snaps: It’s a New Day (194); Quincy Jones: Summer in the City (194); Eddie Russ: Hill Where the Lord Hides (194); Tom Browne: Funkin’ for Jamaica (195); George Clinton: Atomic Dog (195); Parliament: Tear the Roof off the Sucker (Give up the Funk) (195); Wendy Carlos (arranger), J. S. Bach (composer): Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major BWV 1048 (196-201).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Wilson, Imogen. “Music and Queered Temporality in Slave Play.” Current Musicology 106 (July 2020): 9-27.

Jeremy O. Harris’s Slave Play, an exploration of the inherited trauma from slavery in contemporary America, uses popular music to communicate nonverbally its characters’ psychological perspective on their temporal experience. The choice of borrowed pop songs, their use within the play’s narrative, and characters’ intersectional black and queer identities all contribute to the play’s queer temporality, disrupting linear time and dramatizing the lingering trauma of history. The play, drawn in part from Harris’s experience as a black queer man, is about three interracial couples engaging in “Antebellum Sexual Performance Therapy,” an experimental treatment for the three black characters’ obsessive-compulsive disorder. The OCD patients all share the symptom of musical hallucinations, which are heard as metadiegetic music shared between certain (but not all) characters and the audience. For example, Kaneisha’s auditory hallucination is Rihanna’s Work, which first appears with Kaneisha singing and dancing along to it in an antebellum home and costume. In addition to this juxtaposition of time and place, Work reveals other dramatic themes: it lyrically presents the theme of labor, it endears Kaneisha to the audience, it creates a counterpoint to the play’s action, and it foregrounds the experience of being trapped in an unending cycle. Gary’s hallucination is Multi-Love by Unknown Mortal Orchestra, which is featured prominently in a dream ballet where he works through his sexual hang-ups with his husband. Both musical hallucinations deal with issues of queer temporality, disrupting the linear, objective time of the play and emphasizing the characters’ interconnected lived times. The musical hallucinations are deeply embedded in the characters’ internal lives as well as in the audience’s impression of the play as a way to connect with and remember their traumas.

Works: Jeremy O. Harris: Slave Play (9-24)

Sources: Jahron Brathwaite, Matthew Samuels, Allen Ritter, Rubert Thomas Jr., Aubrey Graham, Robyn Fenty, and Monte Moir (songwriters), Rihanna (performer): Work (9-21); Roban Nielson and Kody Nielson (songwriters), Unknown Mortal Orchestra (performer): Multi-Love (21-24)

Index Classifications: 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet

[+] Wood, Abigail. “(De)constructing Yiddishland: Solomon and SoCalled’s ‘HipHopKhasene.’” Ethnomusicology Forum 16 (November 2007): 243-70.

Klezmer music, which is generally associated with old-world Eastern-European Judaism and Yiddish culture, manifests itself as a revived repertory in the work of DJ Sophie Solomon and DJ SoCalled (Josh Dolgin). By creating a fusion of klezmer with hip-hop performance and production techniques (including sampling), the duo constructs a contemporary “Hip Hop Khasene,” or hip-hop wedding, musically reenacting one of the ritual components of the wedding on each track of their 2003 album HipHopKhasene. In doing so, Solomon and SoCalled question concepts of musical and cultural authenticity in the face of changing cultural worlds, and create a sonically constructed contemporary Yiddish identity.

Works: Solomon and SoCalled: HipHopKhasene.

Sources: Abe Schwartz: Sadugerer Chusidl (256).

Index Classifications: 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Nathan Landes

[+] Yri, Kirsten. “Corvus Corax: Medieval Rock, the Minstrel, and Cosmopolitanism as Anti-Nationalism.” Popular Music 38 (October 2019): 361-78.

The German “medieval rock” band Corvus Corax reinterprets texts and music of the Middle Ages as a means of avoiding the problematic connotations of folk (Volk) stemming from Nazi associations. Corvus Corax was formed in the late 1980s at the tail end of Germany’s Ougenweide scene, roughly parallel to English and American folk rock. Despite Ougenweide music’s popularity with student protest movements, the genre still struggled to distance itself from associations with Nazi Volksmusik. Like many Ougenweide groups, Corvus Corax initially drew from Middle High German texts as a further removed folk source Eventually, the band adopted its signature sound and look, blending aesthetics of medieval dance music, heavy metal, punk, and goth. In describing their aesthetic, band members often invoke the idea of the minstrel as the keeper of an oral music tradition. In creating their medieval rock, Corvus Corax borrows from a wide range of medieval to ancient melodies, including a Macedonian Oro, Ottoman song, ancient Chinese emperor hymn, and the Epitaph of Seikilos. Their 2006 “opera” Cantus Buranus is drawn from the same text source as Orff’s Carmina Burana, but strives to cast off the fascist associations by emphasizing the community of vagrants suggested in the text. Corvus Corax uses a universal and cosmopolitan framing of medieval German history as a political statement of inclusion and anti-nationalism.

Works: Corvus Corax: Viator (375), Tritonus (375), Seikilos (375)

Sources: Traditional (Macedonian): Skudrinka (375); Traditional (Ottoman): Neva Cengi Harbi (375); Traditional (Greek): Epitaph of Seikilos (375); Traditional (Chinese): Chou chou sheng (375)

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet



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