In this extended essay, I will explore the subgenre of drill music and how it can possibly be used for the disadvantaged youth to engage with the notion of hope in order to escape their condition. Firstly, I will explore the subgenre of drill music. Looking closely at its history as well as the controversy that surrounds its lyrical content and depictions using the works of Jonathan Ilan and Tricia Rose. Highlighting ‘the street illiterate’ readings as well as the continual scapegoating and alienation of an already marginalised group by both the state and their peers . Then, I will look into the notion of hope with aid from the philosophers Bloch and Marcel, making the link between music, creativity and the utopian dimension and the darker side of positive emotions when living in fear. Finally, I will look at the drill artist Abra Cadabra and his album “Product of My Environment”, this album exemplifies how hope can be encouraged through drill and how the engagement with the notion of hope can free oneself from their unfortunate condition of poverty and oppression.
Tag: music
My project explores the question of authentic existence as part of the music industry. I have chosen to examine the figure of Taylor Swift under the lens of Sartrean existentialism. I will situate Swift’s existence within a framework of Sartre’s existential thought which regards the meaning of the human condition as that which lies in its freedoms. Examining Swift’s own productions, such as her lyrics and her documentaries, will allow me to assess the extent to which she can be said to live authentically through the Sartrean belief that we create our own existence. The nature of the music industry can be thought of as paradoxical – the creativity of music in opposition to the regulations of industry. However, my project will demonstrate how this reflects Sartre’s own understanding of the human condition as existing in a state of nothingness between its facticity and its transcendence. By establishing my understanding of Sartre’s existentialism, through the three principles of being, the Other and bad faith I will be able to apply the figure of Taylor Swift to assess to what extent one can live an authentic existence as part of the music industry.
An insight into the key questions and thinking that surround the philosophy of music; An outline of the relationship between sound, noise, and music; and the changes that have occurred for music and the philosophy of music over recorded history.
My aim when researching and writing this project was to discover if there was a surrealist element to the subgenre of hip-hop called mumble rap, and if there was, what this would mean for both the subgenre in question and the avant-garde surrealist movement. I have done so by analysing various mumble rap songs and surrealist poems as well as discovering if surrealist techniques could be viewed in those songs. Also, I have also analysed the respective shifts within the art forms that each movement operated in. Furthermore, I have used Plato’s ideas in the Republic to understand whether the way Breton turned away from Platonic ideas and attitudes is similar to the way mumble rap artists turned away from conscious rap, which similarly contains mimetic and logical ideas. As well as this, I was interested in discovering what this means for both sub-genres. This is because Andre Breton, the de-facto leader of the early surrealist movement, famously hated the mainstream and mumble rap is a popular style of music. On the other hand, I was interested in how this would affect mumble rap and if they were linked, what the implications of being linked to a well-respected movement would do for a sub-genre often dismissed by critics. In doing this project I have gained a deeper respect and understanding for all the elements involved.
Through this project I will be discussing how the genre of Intelligent Dance music can be perceived as a postmodern genre. I will show this through separating IDM into three categorise; history, sound and culture and through these analysing each through the lens of postmodernity. To define postmodernity I will be using Vattimo and his writing on the end of history with the use of Fisher to gain closer insight to the effects of postmodernity on 21st Culture. IDM offers an interesting opportunity for the visualisation of postmodernity through music, with its very backbone portraying clear characteristics of the postmodern.
The rise of the music streaming service throughout the 21st century stands as a revolutionary change within the world of music. Although only a small number of companies dominate control of the market, the streaming service has succeeded in becoming the world’s most favoured method of music listening. The largest and most popular service is Spotify; a multi-billion-pound corporation that will act as the representative case study for the project. Spotify offers a unique platform of audible content, which gives users access to a vast library spanning the history of music. The main appeal of Spotify sits in their provision of a more affordable, accessible, and technologically advanced mode of listening, which is available to be streamed online through digital devices. This project looks to investigate the platform through the unique application of 20th century cultural critics Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno. Benjamin’s work will be used to introduce how our experience of art changes as technology evolves. His theory on art’s ‘aura’, a concept relating to the presence of an original piece, which withered in the age of mechanical reproduction, will show how the move away from physical collections of music, such as vinyl, has led to a decline in authentic musical experience. Despite this, Benjamin’s work helps provide a balanced overall assessment of Spotify. This balance occurs through his insights upon how new technologies can bring about social change, particularly through the enhancement of accessibility – a useful argument in the context of Spotify’s global network. The primary conceptual focus, Adorno, will build upon the foundation set by Benjamin, through his observations on ‘the culture industry’. This term refers to the commodification of cultural goods, such as television, film and noticeably, music, that occurred at the hands of late capitalism. Adorno claims the movement comes at the jeopardy of all modern culture, as the industry looks to homogenise cultural creation to accommodate for mass production. . Overall, the project will use Adorno’s philosophy to show how Spotify exists as a modern extension of the culture industry; thus, adding to the decline of true artistic expression in contemporary music.
The purpose of my project is to engage with the question ‘is there an ethical relation in art?’ as posed by Emmanuel Levinas in Reality and its Shadow. My aim is twofold, first to demonstrate my belief, using Levinas’ ethico-phenomenological framework, that in the performance of improvised music, at least between bandmates, we find an ethical relation consistent with the one that Levinas outlines in his work. Thus, finding Reality and its Shadow to be inconsistent with Levinas’ system.
My second aim is to expand on this inconsistency to critique Levinas’ system more broadly, outside of his framework and using Maurice Blanchot’s notion of community to do so – the aim of this is to further the case for the ethics, or at least ethical potential, of art as well as a more positive role of art within a community. To do this requires making apparent, what I see as, the shortcomings of and stifling nature of Levinas’ ethical theory.
This project explores the role offence plays in the creation of authentic and progressive discourses. It will be exploring this by looking at misogynistic rap lyrics, investigating the offence these lyrics cause. It will begin by discussing John Stuart Mill and Joel Feinberg in order to demonstrate how offensive rap lyrics offend rather than harm. Then it will discuss the work of Catherine Mackinnon, looking at how a minority of rap lyrics could be defined as pornography and therefore harmful. However, it will then demonstrate how misogynistic rap lyrics should be understood as responding to the world building of pornography. This project will then discuss how rap music also has the potential to challenge the belief system created by pornography. Through discussing Martin Heidegger, we see how misogynistic rap lyrics defy our everyday idle talk, creating a new authentic discourse. This discourse is created through the shock caused by offensive lyrics. We will see how shock has a liberating potential, as demonstrated by Walter Benjamin. Ultimately this project will investigate how rap’s offensive misogynistic lyrics shock us, forcing us to engage with them. This creates a new authentic discourse that allows the rise of progressive voices.
This dissertation looks at he concept of ‘intersectionality:’ the territory of my project. The object of the project is a song by Marlena Shaw: an American jazz, blues and soul singer who began her career in the 1960s. The song is called Woman of the Ghetto and will be used for the purpose of this project as an interpretative work of art that provides a means of understanding intersectionality as a concept. Briefly, intersectionality refers to the way in which individuals belonging to multiple marginalised social groups experience an entirely unique form of discrimination. In other words, a poor black woman like the protagonist of Woman of the Ghetto would experience discrimination in a totally different way than a black man or a white woman or, to some extent, the middle class would. It is perhaps best understood as different layers of discrimination. The Woman of the Ghetto becomes the living embodiment of intersectionality as she sings and scats a first-hand account of the day to day struggles of a poor black woman in 1970s America.
I chose to pair my passion for soul music with an intersectional approach after studying feminist philosophy during the second year of my degree. An introduction to some of the key figures within contemporary feminist philosophy encouraged me to think about issues surrounding the categories of sex and gender differently. Perhaps the most important thing I learned was that the roles men and women have conventionally assumed (so men going out to work to provide for their family and women staying at home to bring up their children) are, with time, undergoing changes. This led me to really reconsider my own lived experience as a young woman. I now can recognise less obvious oppressive sexist values that are more often than not a product of structural oppression as opposed to independent acts of discrimination.
These changes in gender roles have prompted many contemporary feminist philosophers to evaluate assumptions around sex and gender issues. These have influenced my research for this project almost entirely. Simone de Beauvoir was one such influence and I will be using aspects of her work to, again, further my understanding of Woman of the Ghetto as a first-hand account of intersectional oppression. De Beauvoir, in her The Second Sex writes of how women are perceived as ‘Other’ by men and are therefore unable to assume their own subjectivity. This is the source of women’s oppression and in my project I intend to argue that intersectionality is essentially the combination of the othering of women combined with the othering of black people to create a unique double-binded discrimination. I think De Beauvoir’s account of the source of women’s oppression is entirely convincing. She successfully shows how the male monopoly on subjectivity is historically problematic, but also a fundamental flaw in the potential to liberate women. Denying women the subject position necessarily entails a denial of their responsibility for their own actions. It is easy to see how this then becomes problematic for existentialists, as when women are confined to certain gender roles and limited to live out sexist ideals an existentialist would believe that they are living in ‘bad faith’ and ignoring the fact that all human beings are immutably free. I will then provide a discussion on how an intersectional feminism is therefore so crucial for existentialists like de Beauvoir herself in liberating all women, and not just middle-class white ones.
Ultimately finding that there are indeed some limitations to her account of the historical oppression of women, the remaining part of the paper proposes a slight revision of de Beauvoir’s work that takes inspiration from black feminist philosophers including bell hooks and Audre Lorde in order to carve out a space for otherwise unheard black voices. This is necessary for a fully-inclusive feminism that caters for the Woman of the Ghetto and all other women in a similar position.
The so-called ‘cathartic’ elements of art, especially music, have fascinated me in some way for a long time. The strong emotions that can be aroused in the presence of an artwork, or while one is listening to certain music, are very often difficult to comprehend and put into words – such feelings can be said to ‘elude common vocabulary’ (Gabrielsson, 2010, p. 548). Especially since by nature our individual experiences are so subjective, the cathartic or therapeutic nature of art can also be very difficult to make sense of and thus communicate to others, perhaps even yourself. However, there have been and continue to be more sociological and medical articles being published investigating the idea of art therapy, which seem to be gaining traction as sound cases arguing in favour of art therapy. In light of all of this, what this article aims to accomplish is split up into two parts: firstly, I will provide a thorough philosophical foundation for understanding the very idea of artistic catharsis, which will entail a deep and critical exploration into Aristotle’s concept of catharsis and the debates surrounding it; and secondly, once this has been done to a satisfactory level, I aim to transition into a more social and psychological approach by considering the current ways in which art therapy and catharsis are viewed today. This latter half will pay specific attention to the effects of music on various individuals and groups, taking into account the different factors at play that may impact how those individuals or groups experience music, and even several other art forms.
An application of Nietzschean and Bataillean philosophy to the music of Lana del Rey and The Stooges, in order to investigate whether music has the capacity to be transgressive. Specific use of Nietzsche’s concepts of the Apolline and Dionysiac with Bataille’s philosophy of transgression which includes erotism and expenditure.
The first part of my project was to prove that accepting a scientific and medical approach to mental illness was wrong. I used Jean-Paul Sartre’s account of bad faith, in which the human being freely gives up their freedom. I then applied this behaviour to the person who accepts the scientific explanation for the dark thoughts and emotions we experience when suffering from illnesses such as depression and anxiety.
In the second part, I introduced Heidegger’s lecture on the origin of the work of art, and how poetry uncovers truths about the world through its use of
language. Music is also a form of poetry so in contemporary times I believe that accepting the truths presented to us about mental illness by musicians is acting in good faith. I supported this argument with the examples of Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, and Kendrick Lamar. Additionally I analysed a select few examples of medical accounts of mental illness in order to prove that they were an insufficient approach to mental health.
Territory: Russian Late-Romantic Music
Object: Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C-Sharp Minor
Method: Interpretative and Axiological
Aim: I will be using Frolova-Walker’s musicology and Adorno’s musical philsophy to dissect Rachmaninoff’s Prelude and discuss whether it can be understood as a piece of Russian nationalist music.
This project aims to look at the concept of private property within the context of copyright. I will investigate current copyright law in the case of music and examples of copyright infringement. Through these cases, I will question the grounds on which they have been ruled guilty of copyright infringement. With Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines’ (2013) being ruled as infringing the copyright of Marvin Gaye’s ‘Got to Give It Up’ (1977) due to copying the vibe of this song. With the idea of a vibe having not been previously protected by copyright, this challenges our previous understanding of the copyright of music and what it means to own musical property.
I will also discuss the implications copyright has upon the possibility of creativity within the music industry. Copyright law is in place to protect the original creative works of an individual and therefore protecting creativity as a whole. Through questioning whether copyright helps of hinders creativity in music, I will discuss whether copyright does protect creativity as it sets out to do so.
My project aims to question how appropriate the concepts grounding our copyright of music are and call into question whether we need to revise our music copyright system.
The values of disco are often seen to tie neatly into consumerist culture and represent a false, materialistic and escapist attitude to life. In this project, I seek to provide a defence for a genre that had significant power and value for marginalised communities.
I will be referencing texts that discuss popular music and popular culture, focusing on Theodor Adorno, Richard Middleton and Simon Reynolds predominantly, in order to assess how a musical movement can be valued, what disco music can tell us about ourselves, and whether disco music should be taken seriously as a musical genre.
Territory: Music, Culture
Object:
Dance music, in its authentic form, with Disco as it’s predecessor — authenticity established by a continuum from Disco to electronic dance music, cultivating ideological resistance, sonic variation and club cultural context.
Methodology:
Unlike most art forms, dance music achieves its ultimate potential in only a moment of euphoria shared by the cumulative joy of a crowd of people. I aim to prove that in these moments, all aspects of authentic dance music come together to form a unique autonomy in the context of the culture industry. I will do this by identifying, using critical analysis, weaknesses in the theories that will be discussed and presenting dance music’s unique ability to exploit these.
Theory:
The Social Theories of Theodor Adorno in The Dialectic of Enlightenment and G.W.F Hegel in The Philosophy of Right and Philosophy of Mind. Hegel’s theory reinforces the concept of an artistic freedom restricted by the Culture Industry.
Application:
Adorno engages in the idea of ‘autonomous art’ against the culture industry. To an extent, this will remain the position of authentic ‘dance music’;ideologically resistant to the culture industry in the way that Adorno idealises. However, a study into Adorno’s own perception of authentic art, a result of his complex, often pretentious Aesthetic Theory, demonstrates why he doesn’t actually believe autonomy can be anything other than illusory in relation to its social context — Adorno is too negative.
Conclusion:
I have thus presented ‘dance’ music’s authentic features as holding the potential to actualise Adorno’s illusory ideal. Whilst I also understand this cannot be maintained, in brief moments, dance music is at least the perfect representation of Hegel’s utopian union of the subjective and objective, yet also, can achieve an independent utopia.
Money + Love
Can artists make a statement about consumer culture without falling into it themselves?
Territory: Arcade Fire’s album Everything Now
Object: Consumer Culture
Philosophy: Adorno’s The Culture Industry
Where do we place value in music?
TRADTIONALLY TRAINED or CULTURALLY INCLINED
Has music regressed in value? Is music rendered inauthentic by its standardised, repetitive structures?
Of the Origin of the Work of Art VS
On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening
Music “is the becoming and happening of truth…with extraordinary awesomeness”.
“The aim of [music] is the mechanical reproduction of a regressive moment, a castration symbolism. ‘Give up your masculinity, let yourself be castrated,’ the eunuch-like sound of the [boy] band both mocks and proclaims, ‘and you will be rewarded, accepted into a fraternity which shares the mystery of impotence with you, a mystery revealed at the moment of the initiation rite.”
Adorno – MUSIC is OBJECTIVE. Music was at its best in the Classical Period, due to its complexity and its projection as an art form. If you are to disagree with his opinion, it is because you cannot understand the music properly…
Capitalism commodified music, creating an environment of ‘pseudo-subjectivity’. As music began to be attached to pop stars as a commodity, the relevance of artistic talent was eradicated.
Benjamin + Vattimo – MUSIC is NOT SUBJECTIVE or OBJECTIVE.
The age of mass reproduction removed the objectivity of music by eliminating its ‘aura’. With no object, it is impossible for something to be subjective, as there is nothing to be subjective in relation to.
INSTEAD, our age’s MUSIC is INTERPRETIVE, meaning that there is no objective or subjective point of view, only our own interpretation, which is formed due to our historical origins and upbringing.
This project will examine will investigate the philosophical concepts as demonstrated in “The Origin of the Work of Art”. The objective will be to show evidence of Heidegger’s thought in the context of modern music. The essay will involve a philosophical enquiry into modern music-society, using Foucault, Lyotard, Kant and Taylor to compare and contrast Heidegger’s opinion with others.