Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-d8cs5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-26T11:32:38.276Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Curating popular music: authority and history, aesthetics and technology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2014

Chris Atton
Chris Atton*
Affiliation:
School of Arts and Creative Industries, Edinburgh Napier University, Merchiston Campus, Edinburgh EH10 5DT, UK E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The practice of curation in popular music may be seen as a form of historical enquiry that works in a similar way to the critical projects of the ‘new museology’. Self-curation can be employed by musicians to re-present their work as a historiographical project of popular music and as an intervention in dominant critical accounts of the musicians' creative practices. The challenge to conventional historiography can be understood as a project of archaeology in the Foucauldian sense, where discourses surrounding objects and their histories may be contested and reinvigorated through a process of recollecting/re-collecting that also recalls Walter Benjamin's challenge to historicism. Using the work of Robert Fripp and King Crimson as an example of musician-curated recordings, I argue that legal and economic control may become a basis for aesthetic control, through which histories of creativity may be rewritten. The act of recollection/re-collection becomes a route through which musicians are able to engage with critical contexts and genre formations, and to contribute actively to the material culture of their own history.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , October 2014 , pp. 413 - 427
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahlkvist, J.A. 2011. ‘What makes rock music “prog”? Fan evaluation and the struggle to define progressive rock’, Popular Music and Society, 34, pp. 639–60Google Scholar
Anderton, C. 2010. ‘A many-headed beast: progressive rock as European meta-genre’, Popular Music, 29, pp. 417–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar
‘antmanbee’ 2008. ‘It all comes flooding back …’, 16 May. https://www.dgmlive.com/word.htm?show=248&reviews=true (accessed 27 June 2013)Google Scholar
Borgo, D. 2002. ‘Negotiating freedom: values and practices in contemporary improvised music’, Black Music Research Journal, 22, pp. 165–88Google Scholar
Brown, L.B. 2000a. ‘Phonography, rock records, and the ontology of recorded music’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 58, pp. 361–72Google Scholar
Brown, L.B. 2000b. ‘Phonography, repetition and spontaneity’, Philosophy and Literature, 24, pp. 111–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, E.F. 2005. Ways of Listening: An Ecological Approach to the Perception of Musical Meaning (Oxford, Oxford University Press)Google Scholar
‘DeVito’ 2008. ‘Return of the beast’, 18 March. https://www.dgmlive.com/word.htm?show=248&reviews=true (accessed 27 June 2013)Google Scholar
Faulkner, R.R., and Becker, H.S. 2009. ‘Do You Know …?’: The Jazz Repertoire in Action (Chicago, IL and London, Chicago University Press)Google Scholar
Foucault, M. 1989. The Archaeology of Knowledge, trans. Sheridan-Smith, A.M. (London, Routledge)Google Scholar
‘freshlet’ 2007. ‘Fire and brimstone deluxe!’, 24 October. https://www.dgmlive.com/word.htm?show=238&reviews=true (accessed 27 June 2013)Google Scholar
Fripp, R. 1997a. ‘Afterword one: prog rock and its criminals’, in booklet accompanying King Crimson, Epitaph. 4-CD boxed set. DGM DGM9607, pp. 42–4Google Scholar
Fripp, R. 1997b. ‘A personal throughview from the guitarist’, in booklet accompanying King Crimson, Epitaph. 4-CD boxed set. DGM9607, pp. 8–19Google Scholar
Fripp, R. 2012. ‘Robert Fripp interviewed by David Singleton’, in booklet accompanying King Crimson, Larks' Tongues in Aspic: The Complete Recordings. 14-CD boxed set. Panegyric KCCBX5, pp. 9–11Google Scholar
Frith, S. 1996. Performing Rites: Evaluating Popular Music (Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glasgow, J. 2007. ‘Hi-fi aesthetics’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 65, pp. 163–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gracyk, T. 2008. ‘Documentation and transformation in musical recordings’, in Recorded Music: Philosophical and Critical Reflections, ed. Dogantan-Dack, D.M. (London, Middlesex University Press), pp. 61–81Google Scholar
Heylin, C. 2003. Bootleg! The Rise and Fall of the Secret Recording Industry (London, Omnibus)Google Scholar
Hegarty, P., and Halliwell, M. 2011. Beyond and Before: Progressive Rock Since the 1960s (New York, Continuum)Google Scholar
Holm-Hudson, K. (ed.) 2002. Progressive Rock Reconsidered (New York, Routledge)Google Scholar
Holm-Hudson, K. 2008. Genesis and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (Aldershot, Ashgate)Google Scholar
Holt, F. 2007. Genre in Popular Music (Chicago, IL and London, University of Chicago Press)Google Scholar
Jones, S. (ed.) 2002. Pop Music and the Press (Philadelphia, PA, Temple University Press)Google Scholar
‘JorgeSouto’ 2007. ‘Myths and legends’, 19 October. https://www.dgmlive.com/word.htm?show=238&reviews=true (accessed 27 June 2013)Google Scholar
Kania, A. 2008. ‘Works, recordings, performances: classical, rock, jazz’, in Recorded Music: Philosophical and Critical Reflections, ed. Dogantan-Dack, D.M. (London, Middlesex University Press), pp. 3–21Google Scholar
Keister, J., and Smith, J.L. 2008. ‘Musical ambition, cultural accreditation and the nasty side of progressive rock’, Popular Music, 27, pp. 433–55Google Scholar
Kreps, C.F. 2003. Liberating Culture: Cross-cultural Perspectives on Museums, Curation, and Heritage Preservation (London, Routledge)Google Scholar
Lambe, S. 2012. Citizens of Hope and Glory: The Story of Progressive Rock (Stroud, Amberley)Google Scholar
Lindberg, U., Gudmundsson, G., Michelsen, M., and Weisethaunet, H. 2005. Rock Criticism from the Beginning: Amusers, Bruisers, and Cool-headed Cruisers (New York, Peter Lang)Google Scholar
Lumley, R. 1988. ‘Introduction’, in The Museum Time-machine: Putting Cultures on Display, ed. Lumley, R. (London, Routledge), pp. 1–23Google Scholar
Macan, E. 1997. Rocking The Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture (New York, Oxford University Press)Google Scholar
Macdonald, S. 1996. ‘Introduction’, in Theorizing Museums: Representing Identity and Diversity in a Changing World, ed. Macdonald, S. and Fyfe, G. (Oxford, Blackwell), pp. 1–18Google Scholar
Marshall, L. 2003. ‘For and against the record industry: an introduction to bootleg collectors and tape traders’, Popular Music, 22, pp. 57–72Google Scholar
Martin, B. 1998. Listening to the Future: The Time of Progressive Rock, 1968-1978 (Chicago, Open Court)Google Scholar
Milner, G. 2009. Perfecting Sound Forever: The Story of Recorded Music (London, Granta)Google Scholar
‘mramnesiac’ 2008. ‘The gig that changed my life’, 22 May. https://www.dgmlive.com/word.htm?show=248&reviews=true (accessed 27 June 2013)Google Scholar
Novak, D. 2008. ‘2.5 x 6 metres of space: Japanese music coffeehouses and experimental practices of listening’, Popular Music, 27, pp. 15–34Google Scholar
‘paulwelsh’ 2007. ‘Good grief’, 20 October. https://www.dgmlive.com/word.htm?show=238&reviews=true (accessed 27 June 2013)Google Scholar
Robison, B. 2002. ‘Somebody is digging my bones: King Crimson's “Dinosaur” as (post)progressive historiography’, in Progressive Rock Reconsidered, ed. Holm-Hudson, K. (New York, Routledge), pp. 221–42Google Scholar
Sherman, D.J., and Rogoff, I. 1994. ‘Introduction: frameworks for critical analysis’, in Museum Culture: Histories, Discourses, Spectacles, ed. Sherman, D.J. and Rogoff, I. (London, Routledge), pp. ix–xxGoogle Scholar
Singleton, D. 2013. ‘David Singleton's Diary, 3 July 2013’. http://www.dgmlive.com/diaries.htm (accessed 3 July 2013)Google Scholar
Smith, S. 2001. In the Court of King Crimson (London, Helter Skelter)Google Scholar
Sterne, J. 2003. The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction (Durham, NC and London, Duke University Press)Google Scholar
Sterne, J. 2012. MP3: The Meaning of a Format (Durham, NC and London, Duke University Press)Google Scholar
‘TheNightWatcher’ 2010. ‘Jamie Muir, the madman behind the found objects drumkit’, 16 May. https://www.dgmlive.com/word.htm?show=238&reviews=true (accessed 27 June 2013)Google Scholar
Toynbee, J. 2000. Making Popular Music: Musicians, Creativity and Institutions (London, Arnold)Google Scholar
Vergo, P. (ed.) 1989. The New Museology (London, Reaktion)Google Scholar
Whyton, T. 2008. ‘Acting on impulse! Recordings and the reification of jazz’, in Recorded Music: Philosophical and Critical Reflections, ed. Dogantan-Dack, D.M. (London, Middlesex University Press), pp. 155–71Google Scholar