Postmodernism and Music - due in February 7th Research based task: The focus of your task will be postmodernism

in relation to music. Please read through this sheet carefully before asking me any questions as most of the answers can be found in this document. Theories and questions to help Homage does your chosen artist use other peoples music in a respectful way? Are they bringing a potentially overlooked or forgotten style to a new audience? Pastiche does you chose artist use other peoples music in order to mock it and its fans? Are they attempting to damage the authority of a style of music? Bricolage does your chosen artist use music from different time periods or genres? Does this change the meaning of the original song? Intertextual References does your artist reference other songs (lyrically, melodically, stylistically, visually) in their work? Simulacrum Is your artist real or merely playing a character? For many mainstream artists, their image is just as important as their sound (if not more so), postmodern artists play with ideas of image in the way they re represent themselves. Consumption how does your chosen artist wish their music to be consumed? Is there an artefact (object) that accompanies their music? Creation how does your artist create their music, are they a musician, a songwriter, a composer, Performance does your artist play live? Is there a show to accompany? Is there a style to their videos? What if any interaction is there with their audience? [No strong sense of history or the future. Alienation is abolished by saying, 'Utopia is now' as in raves or music festivals. Even a critic of postmodernism like Hans Magnus Enzensburger has observed, 'consumption as spectacle is in parody form the anticipation of a utopian situation' (1974).] Influence Has your artist influenced the wider world of music (are other artists keen to collaborate, have mainstream artists appropriated their sound)? For the higher grades you will need to have an understanding of music that relates to the following areas: the postmodern sensibility that anything can be considered cool in an ironic I know its bad, but its so bad its good way Work that is created based (entirely or in part) on older material. This incorporates sampling and will take you from the realms of hip hop culture transporting you finally in todays modern fragmented musical landscape. You will have to listen to some of the artists to fully appreciate them and their work. Audiences that are both niche and mainstream. E.g.: Radio 1, 1xtra, BBC6, XFM

All of the above need to have example attached to help them make sense. The examples need to have explanations that place them within a postmodern context. The following essay extract may prove helpful. MUSIC AND POSTMODERNISM Postmodernism celebrates the end of what the French philosopher Jean Franois LYOTARD calls the 'grand narratives' of history - reason, progress and socialism and the dissolving of semiotics into a merely libidinal 'energetics'. Nothing is fixed any more, and ideology is in a war of position, a struggle for space Postmodernist philosophers like Jean Baudrillard emphasise how the barriers between art, literature and a wider political and social life are now non-existent. Bono and Chris Martin (both, ageing male rock stars) become authorities on the environment and development economics). School students know more of the cultural life of their country (TV, films, and above all the internet and its applications) than teachers Possible artists to include in your research: DJ Shadow Lady Gaga M.I.A Vampire Weekend Beastie Boys Lana Del Rey Bjork Danger Mouse Girl Talk Beck 2manyDJs The Arcade Fire

You may look to other artists as well. This is particularly important as it will mean you have a personal input.