(Re)authoring the 27 club: Bewildered voices, acousmatic audiophilia and the dangers of listening-in

Abstract

This article considers the limits, layers and potential of vocal mimesis in the creation and performance of a new musical theatre work. Reflecting on the process and production of All That's Left-a musical that performed imagined conversations between pop-culture icons from 'The 27 Club'-I conceptualize voice as a plural space that connects imitation and originality by exposing, negotiating and re-siting the boundaries of mimetic vocality. Specifically, using Hillel Schwartz's The Culture of the Copy (2013) as a basis for discourse, I offer three readings of vocal mimesis as an act that constructs a space of plural and paradoxical possibilities. First, I consider the fidelity of timbral imitation or accent in 'singing like the celebrity', and use Frith (2008) in dialogue with Barthes's concept of the 'grain' (1977) to explore the paradox of vocal bewilderment in performing original versions of celebrities. Second, I reflect on the use of recorded voice, and draw on Chion (1999) and Sterne (2003) to suggest that acoumastic voice unveils the limits of mimesis while allowing a sonic (re)authoring in the process. Third, I consider the audience as transgressors (Connor 2004), and suggest that in listening-in to the ethereal and imagined thoughts of a longdeceased rock star, they themselves perform the very (re)authoring the mimetic voice itself offers.

Baudrillard on Broadway: Bio-musicals, the hyperreal and the cultural politics of simuloquism

“…As part of a larger project on biography, voice and musical theatre, I have written on this subject in an earlier issue of this journal. SeeMacpherson (2016).2 This question is based upon the premise of what Jody Kreiman and Diana Sidtis term the 'credulous audience'-individual audience members who knowingly and willingly acquiesce to suspend disbelief in attending bio-musical performances(2011: 247). Of course, this will not apply to all attendees, and different audience members will have differing levels of attachment and familiarity to the various songs of different artists.…”