“Music Culture and Society”. Scott.B.Derek.Oxford Univesity Press.189.Print.
In an article written by Constant Lambert in “Music Ho!” An Opposition was set to regard what is considered as ‘Real Music’ in 1930’s and a popular binary was set to regard what was considered as ‘Real Music”. The popular binaries were mapped onto a thought of being ‘high brow’( listening to symphonies and operas) or ‘low brow’( listening to dance bands and cinema organs). Thus Paddy Scannell studied the implications this divisions had for the BBC Music department who perceived the need to educate and develop the taste the taste of the general public.
“The Recording Angel” by Evan Eisenberg was considered to distinguish recording live music to claim that “Phonography” deserves to be considered as an art like form like film rather than being considered a poor relation. It becomes an art form because it exploits its creative potetional to manipulate sound by freeing it from social frames such as public concert performances.Bach may not have thought he was composing ‘Musical Works’ and most of jazz and popular music wouldn’t have been conceived this way.
“So much of what Michael Jackson did in music doesn’t seem like the work of a mere mortal”. Pitchfork,2009.
“Jacksons stroke of inspiration was to fuse black RnB and white rock something that is now routine, but had not at that point been attempted by a big name pop act”. The Guardian,2009.
On Popular Music and Post Modernism
“On Popular music and Postmodernism”. Goodwin Andrew. Scott.B.Derek.Oxford University Press.221. Print.
Under post modern perspective we are now living in an era where distinctions between art and mass culture has collapsed. Within the field of contemporary popular music the process of selection, exclusion, celebration and demigration was used by critics, fans and musicians themselves in ways to continue to sustain the operations of forms of cultural capital. In particular there remains a tendency to identify ‘serious’ acts who subvert and undermine the fields of pop respectively in mainstream pop such as (Pet Shop Boys/ New Kids on the Block), Soul ( Michael Jackson/Prince), rock ( Sonic Youth/U2), heavy metal ( Def Leppard/Metallica) and rap (Public Enemy/Mc Hammer). The brufest of conversations with almost every fan of one of the above acts would confirm the arguments about art v/s trash remains rampant within today’s Pop.
The Eclectic Academia 