Same old song: an exploration of originality in popular music history
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Date
27/06/2014Item status
Restricted AccessEmbargo end date
31/12/2100Author
Dunnett, Ninian
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Abstract
Originality is an important social and cultural value. In pop music its influence is
comprehensive: it shapes the economics of an industry through copyright law, and
the temperament of musical culture through its place as keystone of the prevailing
Romantic tradition. The concept extends beyond issues of artistic and technical
innovation: a point of origin is fundamental to the stories we tell about pop.
What these stories tell us about ourselves and the way we use music, though, may be
more complex than the orthodoxy allows; while the moderns from Eliot and Frye
through Barthes and Foucault have sliced and diced originality in text, its
interrogation in popular music is overdue. This study seeks to address the social and
cultural context, the implications for individual identity and the issues of creative
intention, status, popularity and profitability that come into play at those moments
when the cultural honours of “originality” are conferred.
Working from archival and textual resources, the research explores the entry of
“black music” into pop culture with the Fisk University Jubilee Singers, who can be
seen both as the source of several cultural streams which remain influential in
popular music, and as the source of a popular mythology which has become detached
from historical fact. It then proceeds to three case studies. The problem of what it
means to start something new is developed in the story of Elvis Presley and the
foundation myth of rock & roll. The professional use of originality is interrogated in
the work of the Beatles, a foursome with a strong claim to be the greatest plagiarists,
if not the greatest originators in pop. And the artistic idea of originality and its
contingencies are addressed through the case of Lou Reed and the changing status of
his album Metal Machine Music. A final chapter assesses the conclusions which can
be made from these explorations, and the implications for future research.