Top 40 Democracy

Weisbard, Eric

doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226194370.001.0001

Cited by 65 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…The 1990s saw an intensification of efforts, sometimes in kitsch form, to reclaim elevator music, lounge music, new age music and other musics aiming to evoke mood, or fulfil a function, other than the generation of intense engagement and emotion. 4 The creativity, inventiveness and sophistication of some easy listening and MOR has increasingly been recognised (see Weisbard, 2014). These are just some potential sources for a richer and more varied critical aesthetic that would not dismiss entire swathes of music on masculinist grounds, and that would recognise that the use of music to serve functions does not necessarily or entirely negate its cultural value.…”

Section: Streaming Encourages Bland Unchallenging Musicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Streaming’s Effects on Music Culture: Old Anxieties and New Simplifications

Hesmondhalgh

2021

Cultural Sociology

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This article identifies five key themes, or sets of criticisms, that have emerged in online commentary on the new musical system centred on streaming platforms, and in related academic research: Streaming encourages ‘functional’ rather than meaningful, aesthetic musical experience. Streaming encourages bland, unchallenging music. Streaming makes musical experience passive and distracted, and music recedes into the background (here the article also discusses limitations of the widely used concepts of ‘ubiquitous music’ and ‘ubiquitous listening’). Streaming makes music tracks and songs shorter, and musical experience more fragmented. Streaming discourages and/or limits musical discovery and adventurousness. The article addresses each of these themes in turn, examining the degree to which criticisms of streaming’s effects on musical experience along these lines might be considered valid, and the degree to which they might genuinely enhance critical understanding of contemporary musical experience. It also considers these themes in relation to older forms of evaluation, particularly those that developed in the 20th century in response to the industrialisation of music, and argues that many recent criticisms problematically reproduce older anxieties and assumptions.

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Section: Streaming Encourages Bland Unchallenging Musicmentioning

confidence: 99%