Gabbard (2007), "White Face, Black Noise: Miles Davis and the Soundtrack

1. Soundtrack music has to be ignored to be effective. When Black musicians contribute soundtrack music, their role as a creator is ignored, as the work is in service only to the White film producers and characters.

Gabbard (2007) argues that soundtrack music must be ignored to be effective. Audience awareness of the musical bedding breaks the cinematic illusion. This becomes problematic when one considers the White music industry’s historical cooptation of Black music for its own profit, since using Black cultural forms to enhance all-White film products hides Black musicians from view, exploiting them for the purposes of the White film industry. 

2. Gabbard (2007) uses Miles Davis' contribution to the Pleasantville soundtrack to illustrate his point. Though Davis' music plays an integral role in the characters' transformation, the politics of Whiteness in the film are never interrogated. Davis' songs function only in service of the White characters.

Gabbard's most compelling example involves the snippets of Miles Davis' work that frame characters' emotional and physical awareness in Pleasantville. As the characters learn more about their world, they change from black and white into color, an effect that is enhanced by Davis' music. However, the viewer is not encouraged to acknowledge the jazz bedding: "[films like this] deny personhood to African Americans and keep them off screen at the same time that the films use black music to give depth and romance to their white characters" (275). In short, Davis' cultural work is shelved as a discrete art form, and rechanneled in service of White characters and filmmakers.

Stilwell (2001), "Sound and Empathy: Subjectivity and the Cinematic Soundscape"

Stilwell (2001) uses psychoanalytic theories from feminist film studies to compare film’s visual signs to its musical signs.

1. The visual is a masculine domain, while the aural is a feminine domain.

Stilwell (2001) divides film spectatorship into the masculine look and the feminine sound. Though she is quick to hedge this claim by clarifying that these categories should not be taken as discrete or essential (a problematic aspect of most psychoanalytical theories), her argument stems from the idea that the enveloping nature of sound casts the movie theater as a womb, causing the male gaze to collapse in on itself if the spectator closes her eyes.

2. By emphasizing the aural, films can position themselves to present a feminine experience with which women can more closely identify as spectators.

Stilwell applies the idea to feminist independent film Closet Land. For Stilwell, the film’s feminist spirit is best exemplified by its emphasis on sound, a trait that manifests in a highly emotional experience that prompts the viewer to take on a feminine subjectivity, identifying with the female protagonist and rejecting the masculine space in which she is trapped.

Dawkins (2010), "Close to the Edge: The Representational Tactics of Eminem"

Dawkins (2010) uses de Certeau to examine the dichotomy between Eminem and the black hip hop tradition, arguing that Eminem uses three strategies to bounce between his identity as white outsider and “black” insider. Dawkins’ (2010) primary purpose in the article is to use Eminem as a case study for understanding transracial politics in the popular culture arena. 

1. Eminem redraws the boundary of the Other as women, LGBT people, and rich white men

First, she argues, Eminem marginalizes women, homosexuals, and certain classes of white men in order to redraw the same/Other boundary. By exaggerating the Othered status of these groups, Eminem solidifies his position at the top of the hierarchy through his own hip hop sameness. 

2. Eminem marks himself as unique. He uses this uniqueness to position himself as unique within the Black community in which he wishes to perform.

Second, in carving out this borderland space for his hip hop sameness, Eminem's marketability relies on his uniqueness. This uniqueness becomes a rhetoric of authenticity, as he asserts the existence of a “real Slim Shady” thereby denigrating other white rappers (and Marshall Mathers) as imposters. 

3. Eminem reproduces his position as within the Black community in a variety of platforms. This reinforces the role he has carved for himself.

Third, Dawkins (2010) argues that Eminem disguises the manufacturing of his own sameness by combining a variety of cultural materials and styles into a hip hop brand. He sells his authenticity by endlessly reproducing it. 

Brown (2001), "Ally McBeal's Postmodern Soundtrack"

1. Ally McBeal's soundtrack attaches itself to individual characters. By aligning individual songs with individual characters, Brown (2001) argues, the show's soundtrack humanizes the characters. In particular, Brown (2001) argues, the use of soundtrack surrounding the character of Ally allows the audience to sympathize with her through the songs.

2. The show's use of soul singer Vonda Sheperd onscreen and offscreen enhances this effect. By visually reaffirming Sheperd as the source of the music, the otherwise fragmented show becomes more cohesive. Disparate messages in the show's structure are therefore brought together to form a narrative that aligns with Ally's character.

Stilwell (2007), "The Fantastical Gap Between Diegetic and Non-Diegetic"

Stilwell (2007) problematizes the way soundtrack theory has discussed diegetic and nondiegetic music as discrete categories. Instead, she argues that the boundary between diegetic and nondiegetic is fluid.

1. According to Stilwell (2007), many films stretch the boundary between these categories. These renegotiated forms are dismissed as deviant. Stilwell (2007) argues that instead of understanding these boundary-crossing films as anomalies, film scholars should realize that the inflexibility of these categories limits the range of interpretations available for film analysis.

2. By searching for areas in the borderland between diegetic and nondiegetic, film music scholarship gains a more thorough understanding of the emotional and cognitive work of film music.

Dyer (2012), "Music and Presence in Blaxploitation Cinema"

Soundtrack music is inseparably linked to character and setting through their simultaneously visual and auditory presentation, musical choices can impact the racial tones of a message.

1. Theme songs for Black characters like Shaft align closely to the character's movements. The music seems to come from the setting, which ties the character to the setting.

Examining the interaction of soundtrack and visual imagery in 1970s blaxpoiltation films, Dyer (2012) argues that black characters like Shaft are proverbially married to their Harlem settings through an implication that the funk soundtrack radiates from the space itself. By closely aligning the black star’s movements with the soundtrack, the films indicate that Shaft and other black characters are inextricably tied to the dangerous and economically collapsing settings.

2. White characters do not use movements that align to the music. They therefore are not linked as closely to the space in which they work.

On the other hand, Shaft’s white counterparts move out of time with their soundtracks, emphasizing difference between the music and the character.

3. Music in Blaxploitation cinema implicitly argues who does and does not belong in certain settings. These settings are generally indicative of certain economic positions.

In this way, Dyer (2012) argues, the integration of music and image functions politically to segregate America, defining the appropriate spaces for black Americans through the covert rhetoric of soundtrack.

McClary and Walser (1988), "Start Making Sense!: Musicology Wrestles with Rock"

McClary and Walser (1988) identify the problem with using musicological methods to study rock music.

1. Classical musicologists often deride popular music as a lesser form.

2. McClary and Walser (1988) argue that this is due to the limitations of classical musicology as a method for anything besides classical music. By parsing out the various short-comings of classical music studies, such as the difficulties of notating and explaining nuances of performance and “the sensual power” (p. 289) of music, the authors demonstrate that the problem is not with popular music. Instead, the problem is with shoving popular music into a classical music paradigm. It is not that popular music falls short of some artistic bright line, but that classical musicology lacks the tools to describe the very different traditions of rock and other popular genres.

Goodwin (1988), "Pop Music in the Digital Age of Reproduction"

Goodwin (1988) engages with postmodern musical criticism in this essay. He is particularly concerned with the argument that digitally reproduced music feels inauthentic.

1. Digitally-produced music is not so different from traditionally produced music.

Listeners attempt to negotiate digitally produced music through the same modernist, real framework of musical history. Furthermore, digital reproduction attempts to synthesize the "real" as closely as possible.

2. Postmodern musical criticism tries to stretch digital music into something new.

Goodwin (1988) engages the post-modern argument that sampling represents the fragmentation and disintegration of popular music. He counters this argument by pointing the problems with theorizing in the abstract. Goodwin (1988) argues that the preoccupation with postmodernism in musical culture has resulted in theories that overstate the importance of postmodernism on the listening experience.

Barthes (1977), "The Grain of the Voice"

1. Lyrics and texts are only one part of a vocal performance. The voice itself is another.

Barthes (1977) divides his discussion of vocal performance into two aspects. The phenosong involves the lyrical and melodic aspects of a song. The genosong, on the other hand, involves the physical act of singing and the way that this act impacts and interacts with the lyrical elements.

2. The grain of the voice can be found in the genosong.

Barthes (1977) argues that the best musical performances include what he calls "the grain of the voice." By "grain," Barthes (1977) refers to "hearing a body," in that a roughness comes through in the singing. He notes that trained singers are often encouraged to erase the body from the song,

3. The grain of the voice creates a stronger connection between singer and listener.

For Barthes (1977), the grain of the voice allows listeners to connect with a singer in a more intimate way. He argues that the body's presence in the song creates a sensual connection between the performer and the listener.