Deaville (2006), "Selling the War in Iraq: Television News Music and the Shaping of American Public Opinion"

Deaville (2006) describes the use of music in newscasts, arguing that musical tone and style impacts the framing of issues for its audience. He uses newsrooms' preparations for an impending war following 9/11 as a case study.

1. News divisions began commissioning musical interludes for use in newscasts immediately after 9/11. The music was commissioned specifically as a way of being prepared for the beginning of a war.

2. The songs commissioned were primarily discussed in terms of justice and righteous wars. In some cases, composers even specifically noted that they were playing into a general feeling of America's right to "kick some Arab ass."

3. Deaville (2006) argues that this music thereby worked to frame the war in Iraq in a certain way. Specifically, most of the music was aggressive rather than contemplative. This influences the ways the accompanying news stories are understood by consumers. By framing the news stories with assertive, angry music, viewers are encouraged to read news stories about the war from a pro-war perspective.

McLeod (1999), "Authenticity Within Hip-Hop and Other Cultures Threatened with Assimilation"

McLeod (1999) traces authenticity discourses that surround hip hop performers by using a method similar to content analysis. The center of his argument is the phrase “keeping it real,” which he traces to a variety of sources including interviews, magazine coverage, and recordings. 

1. For McLeod (1999), the increasing market for hip hop in white suburban America threatens to colonize the form’s black cultural roots. Using an anthropological framework, he argues that the historical response to the threat of assimilation has been a vocal reaffirmation of the community, in this case, translating to the spatial politics of “the street,” “the underground,” and the pre-commercial “Old-School” style. 

2. The strength of McLeod’s (1999) piece lies in its thorough analysis of discourses; where many a rock essay references authenticity as though it were above explanation, McLeod (1999) neatly maps the forms and uses of the concept, leaving a methodological trail behind him.

Bayton (1989), "How Women Become Musicians"

Bayont (1989) examines issues of band formation, practice time, and creative process as they pertain to women’s experience. 

1. Female musicians primarily learned to play an instrument after they joined the band, as women were not encouraged to learn music in the aggressive way that men are.

She begins by comparing individual female and male musicians, noting that the women she interviewed only began playing rock instruments after they decided to join a band. This contrasts work on male musicians, a difference Bayton suggests is related to women’s socialization as passive and timid. 

2. Feminist musicians struggled to create a model for their bands that was not leader-centered. 

The essay then tackles the challenges of group performance, focusing on feminist groups in particular. Women she interviewed often discuss issues of leadership, as the feminist model resists authoritarian forms of organization, but the rock model relies on a lead singer to address the audience. 

3. Female musicians found it difficult to negotiate their roles as mother and musician, but found their role as musician to open a positive space in which they could discuss all aspects of their lives.

Finally, Bayton notes the difficulties female musicians face in splitting time between their roles as musician and mother, smartly noting that male rockers, even when they are fathers, rarely experience the same pull. Importantly, though, the all-female band provided a space for women’s dialogue and solidarity, providing emotional and creative support in a safe environment. Thus, the women Bayton interviewed faced a number of obstacles when developing personae as rock musicians, but found the rock band to offer feminist rewards as well.

Hennion (1983), "The Production of Success: An Antimusicology of the Pop Song"

Hennion (1983) reports on his interactions with popular music producers to examine the ways producers attempt to create a profitable product. He moves through a number of categories of consideration (including things like the singer's voice, the melody, the accompaniment, and the story of the lyrics). Hennion (1983) argues that popular songs function as dreams in two ways.

1. Popular music replicates the escapist feeling of a dream.

Popular music offers the escapist feeling of a dream primarily through its storytelling function. Hennion (1983) notes that the most successful popular songs should tell a story that feels simultaneously current and rooted in timeless myth. This effect is enhanced through the background music, which Hennion (1983) argues is often unnoticed by the listener. Elements like fading out within popular music further contribute to the dream-like status of music, since dreams do not end abruptly.

2. Popular music captures the present before politicians and commentators can. Music therefore represents the public's dreams for the future before they fully materialize elsewhere.

Hennion (1983) notes that producers do not tell people what to like. Instead, they offer a number of possible songs, and the public will eventually grasp on to one of them. He understands these various options as choices for the current cultural moment will be defined. The most successful songs are defined and circulated by popular musicians before anyone fully realizes where the culture is going. The song, therefore, co-creates the meaning of the cultural moment.

Adorno (1932), "On Popular Music"

1. Popular music is all the same. It distinguishes itself from classical music by repeating itself. Popular music producers trick us into thinking the music is new by altering minute aspects of melody or voice.

Adorno (1932) argues that popular music is all cut from the same proverbial cloth, distinguishing itself from classical genres by replicating itself endlessly rather than creating new and creative forms. In fact, he argues, popular music goes so far as to create small, internal advances within melodies and voices in order to disguise the fact that all popular music is highly standardized. 

2. This standardization functions as escapism and wish fulfillment, which appeases people.

The purpose, according to Adorno, is to create “a social cement” (p. 311). Listeners feel music first as leisure, which offers a small respite from the “boredom of mechanized labor” (p. 310), and second as a catharsis of wish fulfillment. While this is not an unreasonable analysis, what is problematic about this essay is the way that Adorno (as usual) assumes a totally passive audience, often insinuating the misery of the faceless masses, even arguing that listeners “consume music in order to be allowed to weep” (p. 313). Though it was not the most uplifting piece I read all week, Adorno does make some interesting points which, were the Marxist overdetermination toned down a bit, could be very compelling even 70 years later.