The Pop Music Mainstream

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Wierzbicki
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Pop Music ◽  
World War ◽  
Rock N Roll ◽  
Main Thing

This chapter examines the two most successful commodities in the field of popular music in 1950: “The Tennessee Waltz” and “Goodnight, Irene”—both of which are composed in 3/4 time. In terms of meter alone, these two extraordinarily successful songs stand as much in contrast to the rock 'n' roll music that captured the attention of American teenagers later in the decade as to the swing music that appealed to Americans of diverse age groups in the years leading up to and including World War II. But meter is not the main thing that distinguishes “The Tennessee Waltz,” and “Goodnight, Irene.” Rather than meter, or tempo, or even rhythm, what most distinguishes these songs from earlier and later efforts is their treatment of rhythm.

‘Funky Drummer’: New Orleans, James Brown and the rhythmic transformation of American popular music

Popular Music ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Stewart
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
World War ◽  
Related Development ◽  
American Popular Music ◽  
Rock N Roll ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Reverse Development

The singular style of rhythm & blues (R&B) that emerged from New Orleans in the years after World War II played an important role in the development of funk. In a related development, the underlying rhythms of American popular music underwent a basic, yet generally unacknowledged transition from triplet or shuffle feel (12/8) to even or straight eighth notes (8/8). Many jazz historians have shown interest in the process whereby jazz musicians learned to swing (for example, the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra through Louis Armstrong's 1924 arrival in New York), but there has been little analysis of the reverse development – the change back to ‘straighter’ rhythms. The earliest forms of rock 'n' roll, such as the R&B songs that first acquired this label and styles like rockabilly that soon followed, continued to be predominantly in shuffle rhythms. By the 1960s, division of the beat into equal halves had become common practice in the new driving style of rock, and the occurrence of 12/8 metre relatively scarce. Although the move from triplets to even eighths might be seen as a simplification of metre, this shift supported further subdivision to sixteenth-note rhythms that were exploited in New Orleans R&B and funk.

Rocking the Closet

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent L. Stephens
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Queer Theory ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Pop Music ◽  
World War ◽  
Popular Music Studies ◽  
Sexual Orientations ◽  
Gay Activism

Rocking the Closet: How Little Richard, Johnnie Ray, Liberace, and Johnny Mathias Queered Pop Music examines the way four popular male musicians who emerged in the 1950s, Johnnie Ray, Little Richard, Johnny Mathis, and Liberace challenged post-World War II masculine conventions. Rocking is a critical close reading that fuses queer literary theory, musicology, and popular music studies frameworks to develop its argument. Recent scholarship in queer theory and literary history constitutes a key strand of the book’s discussion of queer ambivalence regarding identity. Notably, the book explores how the four artists challenged male gender and sexual conventions without overtly identifying their respective sexual orientations or necessarily affiliating with gay activism, identity politics, or community tropes. The book outlines the emergence of postwar social expectations of male figures and employs these expectations to define a unique a set of five “queering” tools the four musicians employed in various combinations, to develop their public personae and build audiences. These tools include self-neutering, self-domesticating, spectacularizing, playing the “freak,” and playing the race card. Despite the prevalence of postwar gender norms, their deft use of these tools enabled each artist to develop sexually ambiguous personae and capitalize on the postwar audiences’ attraction to novelty and difference. These “queering” tools endure among contemporary musicians who challenge masculine conventions in popular music.

scholarly journals Made in Yugoslavia: Studies in Popular Music

2021 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 271-282
Author(s):  
Laura Emmery
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
New Wave ◽  
World War ◽  
The West ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
History Of ◽  
Comprehensive Discussion ◽  
Made In

Made in Yugoslavia: Studies in Popular Music (edited by Danijela Špirić Beard and Ljerka Rasmussen) is a fascinating study of how popular music developed in post-World War II Yugoslavia, eventually reaching both unsurpassable popularity in the Balkans and Eastern Europe, and critical acclaim in the West. Through the comprehensive discussion of all popular music trends in Yugoslavia − commercial pop (zabavna-pop), rock, punk, new wave, disco, folk (narodna), and neofolk (novokomponovana) − across all six socialist Yugoslav republics, the reader is given the engrossing socio-cultural and political history of the country, providing the audience with a much-needed and riveting context for understanding the formation and the eventual demise of Tito’s Yugoslavia.

Main Characteristics of Hungarian Twin and Multiple Births in Official Statistics

2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 359-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
András Pári
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Educational Level ◽  
Birth Rate ◽  
Statistical Data ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Mortality Rates ◽  
Multiple Births ◽  
World War ◽  
Live Births ◽  
The Past

Since 1876, statistical data on twin and multiple (TAM) births and deliveries have been registered in Hungary. Although there were some years during this 138-year period when twin births and deliveries were left out of the statistics, the trends can be followed, except for the period of World War II. The trends of twinning over the past four decades are summarized in this article, relying on official statistical data since 1970. Notably, the TAM birth rate rose following the Act CLIV of 1997 on Health. The Act provided state support for assisted reproductive treatments (ART), which spectacularly increased the ratio of twins — and especially of triplets — among live births. The trend has turned around since 2009–2010, and a decreasing era of TAM births seems to have begun. This article discusses some of the main and most interesting findings connected with TAM births, including twinning rates associated with different age groups, educational level, and actual place of residence by mothers, and the number of previous pregnancies of the mother. Ratios of live born males compared with live born females, lengths and weights at birth both among twins and singletons, and infant mortality rates have been calculated from the data. Twinning rates are higher in the western counties, the capital and its suburbs, and lower in the eastern counties.

Dear John

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan L. Carruthers
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Romantic Love ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Letter Writing ◽  
World War ◽  
Emotional Life ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

Are 'Dear John' letters lethal weapons in the hands of men at war? Many US officers, servicemen, veterans, and civilians would say yes. Drawing on personal letters, oral histories, and psychiatric reports, as well as popular music and movies, Susan L. Carruthers shows how the armed forces and civilian society have attempted to weaponize romantic love in pursuit of martial ends, from World War II to today. Yet efforts to discipline feeling have frequently failed. And women have often borne the blame. This sweeping history of emotional life in wartime explores the interplay between letter-writing and storytelling, breakups and breakdowns, and between imploded intimacy and boosted camaraderie. Incorporating vivid personal experiences in lively and engaging prose – variously tragic, comic, and everything in between – this compelling study will change the way we think about wartime relationships.

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