‘A song goes round the world’: the German Schlager, as an organ of experience

Popular Music ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Currid
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Music Practice ◽  
Siegfried Kracauer ◽  
Precise Understanding ◽  
Modern Mass

In recent work in film and cultural studies, the set of social configurations, practices of everyday life, and ideological formations that constitute twentieth-century ‘modernity’ have been increasingly the subject of research and debate. Fuelled by a renewed interest in critical phenomenologies of modernity, most prominently the work of Walter Benjamin and Siegfried Kracauer, scholars have focused the debate on the specific historicity of visual culture in the early years of the twentieth century, in order to illuminate the contradictory and fragmented nature of modern mass cultural experience. Fusing the theoretical traditions of critical theory with the empirical and theoretical interest in contradiction and contestation typical of cultural studies, not only does this debate open new perspectives for considering the problem of mass and/or ‘popular’ visual culture, it can also contribute to rethinking the way we discuss the historicity of popular music. Conversely, a more precise understanding of the historicity of popular music practice in modern mass culture, its institutions and modes of experience, can broaden the scope of this debate beyond the spectacles of visual culture to the ‘attractions’ of the acoustic.

scholarly journals Eternal Middle Ages: Time Models in Modern Mass Culture

2015 ◽  
pp. 38-43
Author(s):  
A. I. Pozharov
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Cultural Artifacts ◽  
Modern Mass ◽  
The Middle Ages

Eternal Middle Ages: Time Models in Modern Mass Culture (by Aleksey Pozharov). Nowadays in the works of mass culture, a remarkable interest in the Middle Ages is noticed. According to many cultural studies, it is not so much the historical Middle Ages reflected in the cultural artifacts as it is the contemporary society set in medieval surroundings. What images and ideas does the modern mass culture deliver? In order to deal with this issue, it’s necessary to consider one of the fundamental concerns of civilization: which model of time is relevant to the contemporary cultural artifacts.

scholarly journals “THE SEAMY SIDE OF THE CITY”: MARGINAL LANDSCAPES AND CONTEMPORARY VISUAL CULTURE

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-87
Author(s):  
OLGA A. LAVRENOVA ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Homeless People ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Urban Landscapes ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Cultural Phenomenon ◽  
Feature Films ◽  
Modern Mass

The topic of people thrown to the sidelines of life is considered in a double frame—in the context of the way the urban space is arranged and in the context of modern visual culture (feature films, video and photo blogs, videos on popular YouTube channels). The most hyped-up type of marginal landscape in modern media is slums. The otherness of such spaces has always been a subject of interest and curiosity, for “gazing”—interpretation, perception and entertainment. In modern mass culture, the “location” of the global south slums is especially trendy. In such exterior, hyper-popular feature films such as Slumdog Millionaire have been shot, causing a new cultural phenomenon—mass slum tourism. This phenomenon seems to be ambiguous from an ethical point of view; but from the point of view of visual culture, it is voyeurism brought to the level of an art and everyday life practice. The second type of marginal urban landscapes is local “invasion” into the decent and institutionalized city space. This art form serves as a “location” for a psychological drama of superfluous people. Features of national identity are most clearly manifested on its seamy side rather than anywhere else. Japanese townships of the homeless, incorporated into central and well-to-do areas, are no strangers to order and aesthetics; while Russian realities—chaos, departure from norms and underground—are completely opposite. Classic films devoted to this issue—Dodes’ka-den by Akira Kurasawa, Promised Heaven by Eldar Ryazanov, The Lady in the Van by Nicholas Hytner—model these seamy spaces and their peculiarities inherent in national culture. Very popular now are YouTube channels about the life of homeless people, which show real characters in their real habitats, introducing marginal spaces into the rank of a hot-topic visual culture. This type of visualization provokes another cultural phenomenon— the perception of marginal loci and their inhabitants as an interactive performance. Interactivity can vary from attacking to fraternization, from preaching to charity. Odd as it may seem, hyper-visualization and aestheticization of social ulcers contributes to their social invisibility. It is a problem, which no one is going to solve anymore; it has become a part of modern culture with its own philosophical and aesthetic arguments—and in a certain sense they act as its justification.

Cancan

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clare Parfitt-Brown
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Early Development ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Social Dance ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Modern Mass

The cancan is a popular dance form closely associated with the Parisian setting in which it emerged and underwent much of its early development. From its origins as a French social dance practice in the early nineteenth century, the dance shifted to a more performative mode of presentation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The nineteenth-century cancan involved both male and female dancers performing either solo or in couples, improvising around the quadrille form. The dance attracted the attention of the writers and artists of an incipient Parisian modernism in the 1830s and 1840s, and this connection was reinvigorated in the 1880s and 1890s, particularly within the bohemian culture that centered on the Moulin Rouge. The familiar stereotype of the cancan as a female kick-line refers primarily to the form of the dance that emerged in the early twentieth century, echoing the development of modern mass culture. Later representations of the cancan, particularly in American films of the 1950s, referenced the Moulin Rouge of the 1890s and its connections with both the cancan and the post-Impressionist modern art of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Transnational sports soundscapes: Soccer announcers and radio in Argentina and Chile, 1920s–60s

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-99
Author(s):  
Pedro Acuña
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Radio History ◽  
Sports Culture ◽  
Cultural Texts ◽  
Sports Films ◽  
Significant Mass

The article contributes to the field of cultural studies and radio history by focusing on soccer (or fútbol), arguably the most significant mass spectacle in twentieth-century Latin America. By exploring the trajectories, iconic voices and styles of sportscasters, the article reconstructs the masculine soundscape of soccer in Argentina and Chile between the 1920s and 1960s. Play-by-play announcers, who ranged from second-rate actors and singers to professional journalists, crafted their own versions of masculinity and nationalism that were central to representing sports culture in an increasingly transnational context. The article pays special attention to the sporting press, audio records and sports films, since many commentators borrowed heavily from other forms of mass culture. Their oral representations of the game, loaded with moral evaluations and political statements, can be seen as cultural texts because they enabled new ways of imagining sports for much larger audiences than those sitting in the stadium.

scholarly journals Vocal and instrumental ensemble "Arnica" is an innovator of Ukrainian popular music of the 1970s

2019 ◽  
pp. 127-141
Author(s):  
Bohdan Kokotaylo
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Objective Evaluation ◽  
Pop Music ◽  
Instrumental Ensemble ◽  
Executive Staff ◽  
Musical Embodiment ◽  
The Right ◽  
Modern Mass

Popular music for various reasons has not yet received proper coverage and objective evaluation in modern Ukrainian musicology. Popular music is often interpreted as a part of musical life that has the right to exist, but is not considered as a part of the professional tradition. However, if we delve into the origins of the genre, we can see that modern mass culture is the result of the natural development of professional music culture, which provides the needs of cultural leisure of broad social groups. Popular music also does not have to be low-cost, unprofessional. A striking example of an innovative and professional approach to the creation of popular music is the activity of the vocal-instrumental ensemble "Arnica" (Lviv, 1970s), which influenced the development of pop music of future generations. The founders of the newly created VIA were V. Vasiliev and L. Zimmer. O. Dutko was the first music director of VIA Arnica. His successor was V. Kit, later - composer, guitarist and singer V. Morozov from "QuoVadis". The executive staff during the existence of VIA was not stable. The peak of popularity dates back to the mid-1970s. The group's repertoire is diverse, it includes both author's and folk songs of lyrical, lyrical-patriotic and humorous content, it combines national culture with current world trends in the development of pop music. The creative work of VIA Arnica is a vivid example of modern popular music of the 60s and 70s of the last century. Through their activities, the musicians not only created high-quality music content that corresponded to the latest aesthetic trends of the time, but also became the expression of the idea of national competitive art. Their hits are marked by the perfect harmony of meaningful poetic text and the most appropriate means of musical embodiment of this content.

scholarly journals Kitsch's casus in modern culture

2019 ◽  
pp. 27-29
Author(s):  
Galina Pavlovna Klimova ◽  
Viktor Petrovich Klimov
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Art History ◽  
Aesthetic Theory ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Modern Mass

The article discusses the phenomenon of kitsch in its modern functioning in modern mass culture. The authors reviewed modern scientific researches in aesthetic theory, art history, and cultural studies.

Foxtrot

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan C. Cook
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Grizzly Bear ◽  
Ballroom Dance ◽  
One Step ◽  
Rock N Roll ◽  
The One ◽  
Current Practices

The foxtrot emerged circa 1914, most likely within African American practices, as a variation on the older duple meter one step popular with dancers since the early years of the twentieth century. The name foxtrot suggests a relationship with earlier trotting animal dances such as the turkey trot or grizzly bear and led to claims that it was the "invention" of the comic Harry Fox. While the one step, at its simplest, consisted of an easy walking step corresponding to each beat of 2/4 meter syncopated up tempo music, foxtrotters varied this duple meter walk through a combination of two slow and four quick steps danced over four beats of music. This combination, along with later variants such as two slow and two quick steps, proved to be extraordinarily versatile as dancers responded to popular music in a variety of tempi and corresponding emotional affects. The foxtrot’s versatility and up-to-date modernity ensured a transatlantic popularity that extended well into the rock ’n’ roll era and remains central to current practices of professional and amateur ballroom dance and Dansport.

scholarly journals “THE SEAMY SIDE OF THE CITY”: MARGINAL LANDSCAPES AND CONTEMPORARY VISUAL CULTURE

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-117
Author(s):  
OLGA A. LAVRENOVA ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Homeless People ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Urban Landscapes ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Cultural Phenomenon ◽  
Feature Films ◽  
Modern Mass

The topic of people thrown to the sidelines of life is considered in a double frame—in the context of the way the urban space is arranged and in the context of modern visual culture (feature films, video and photo blogs, videos on popular YouTube channels). The most hyped-up type of marginal landscape in modern media is slums. The otherness of such spaces has always been a subject of interest and curiosity, for “gazing”—interpretation, perception and entertainment. In modern mass culture, the “location” of the global south slums is especially trendy. In such exterior, hyper-popular feature films such as Slumdog Millionaire have been shot, causing a new cultural phenomenon—mass slum tourism. This phenomenon seems to be ambiguous from an ethical point of view; but from the point of view of visual culture, it is voyeurism brought to the level of an art and everyday life practice. The second type of marginal urban landscapes is local “invasion” into the decent and institutionalized city space. This art form serves as a “location” for a psychological drama of superfluous people. Features of national identity are most clearly manifested on its seamy side rather than anywhere else. Japanese townships of the homeless, incorporated into central and well-to-do areas, are no strangers to order and aesthetics; while Russian realities—chaos, departure from norms and underground—are completely opposite. Classic films devoted to this issue—Dodes’ka-den by Akira Kurasawa, Promised Heaven by Eldar Ryazanov, The Lady in the Van by Nicholas Hytner—model these seamy spaces and their peculiarities inherent in national culture. Very popular now are YouTube channels about the life of homeless people, which show real characters in their real habitats, introducing marginal spaces into the rank of a hot-topic visual culture. This type of visualization provokes another cultural phenomenon— the perception of marginal loci and their inhabitants as an interactive performance. Interactivity can vary from attacking to fraternization, from preaching to charity. Odd as it may seem, hyper-visualization and aestheticization of social ulcers contributes to their social invisibility. It is a problem, which no one is going to solve anymore; it has become a part of modern culture with its own philosophical and aesthetic arguments—and in a certain sense they act as its justification.

New insights into the controversy surrounding marine biological laboratory (Marine Station) facilities in the Firth of Clyde in the early twentieth century

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-170
Author(s):  
P. G. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Marine Biological Laboratory ◽  
Biological Station ◽  
Marine Biological ◽  
Biological Laboratory ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Marine Station ◽  
Regius Professor ◽  
Adjacent Island

Three letters from the Sheina Marshall archive at the former University Marine Biological Station Millport (UMBSM) reveal the pivotal significance of Sheina Marshall's father, Dr John Nairn Marshall, behind the scheme planned by Glasgow University's Regius Professor of Zoology, John Graham Kerr. He proposed to build an alternative marine station facility on Cumbrae's adjacent island of Bute in the Firth of Clyde in the early years of the twentieth century to cater predominantly for marine researchers.

Songs of the spirit from Dufftown

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-54
Author(s):  
Shelagh Noden
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Church Music ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Liturgical Music

Following the Scottish Catholic Relief Act of 1793, Scottish Catholics were at last free to break the silence imposed by the harsh penal laws, and attempt to reintroduce singing into their worship. At first opposed by Bishop George Hay, the enthusiasm for liturgical music took hold in the early years of the nineteenth century, but the fledgling choirs were hampered both by a lack of any tradition upon which to draw, and by the absence of suitable resources. To the rescue came the priest-musician, George Gordon, a graduate of the Royal Scots College in Valladolid. After his ordination and return to Scotland he worked tirelessly in forming choirs, training organists and advising on all aspects of church music. His crowning achievement was the production, at his own expense, of a two-volume collection of church music for the use of small choirs, which remained in use well into the twentieth century.

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