Report Dance of Life Popular Culture and Music in the Modern World Essay

Report Dance of Life Popular Culture and Music in the Modern World - Essay Example In so far as music is the focus f this study, it is the contents f popular songs that structure the main arguments, specifically, the political motivations reflected in, and further generated by these songs as they are created, performed, and consumed in varying ways by different social agents. The first chapter is exemplary in its theoretical breadth, incorporating varying discursive modes from Frankfurt theorists, Birmingham School f Cultural Studies, ethnomusicology, media, and popular music' studies. Lockard drawls on different ethnographic examples to substantiate his discussion f the popular culture phenomenon in the contexts f modernity, post-imperialism, and technological mediation. He defines "popular music" as a musical phenomenon that is "disseminated largely by the mass media", and that functions as a social commodity, the production and distribution f which depends on "a clientele able and willing to purchase the commodity" (pp. 18-19). This chapter explores the current situation f popular music studies and examines the significance f such studies (or the lack f it). More importantly, it summarizes the prevailing academic trends in popular music and popular culture research, and serves as an excellent introduction to this field f cultural studies. Book's first chapter is a survey f a variety f philosophical approaches to popular music. Lockard views popular culture as an arena f contradiction and struggle, and potentially, f resistance; he rejects the Frankfurt School's view that it is too standardized and degraded to be f value. The first chapter alone has 212 notes. This density f documentation at times makes for choppy reading, especially in paragraphs that career through several disjointed subjects. Though Lockard has taken pains to discover all f the English-language academic studies f the region's music, he also relies on many journalistic accounts from newspapers, weekly news magazines, and consumer guides to world music. These sources are uneven in quality and often anecdotal in their coverage, and they lack detailed documentation. Further, the nature f the Western press is to seek subjects that are interesting (i.e., outlandish or confrontational) but have a glimmer f familiarity to their audience--topics like teenager rebellion or a third-world Dylan. Lockard provides a well-informed social context in each chapter, and illuminates the historical and contemporary political junctures that have characterized each country from approximately the 1940s to the present. With this rich contextual background, he then proceeds to trace the historical significance f various popular music forms, such as the Kroncong and Dangdut in Indonesia, Pinoy in the Philippines. He pays particular attention to the emergence f the mass media and state control f the media in each country, and also explores various political movements in which musicians played decisive roles. In the process, Lockard examines the social complex created by the intersection f popular music, dictatorship, regionalism, nationalism, religion, mass mediation, and cultural imperialism. Lockard's narrative analyses popular music in local and transnational contexts,