* Essential readings will be accessible through Fronter by the start of the course *
Electronic Dance Music: Technologies, Sounds, and Cultures
27th January Lecture - Historical Overview
Essential Reading
Brewster, B. and Broughton, F. (2000) 'Introduction: You Should Be Dancing' (pp. 1-19) and 'Beginnings (Clubs): Night Train' (page numbers to be advised), in Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: the History of the Disc Jockey. New York: Grove Press.
Optional further reading
Reynolds, S. (2008) Energy Flash: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture. London: Picador.
Shapiro, P. (ed.) Modulation: A History of Electronic Music. New York: Caipirinha Productions.
3rd & 10th February Lectures; 17th February Seminar - CLUB CULTURES
Essential Reading
Bennett, A. (2001) 'Contemporary Dance Music Club and Cultures', in Cultures of Popular Music. Berkshire and New York: Open University Press, pp. 118-135.
Haslam, D. (1997) 'DJ Culture', in Redhead, S. (ed.) The Clubcultures Reader: Readings in Popular Cultural Studies. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 150-61.
Thornton, S. (1995) 'The Distinction of Cultures Without Distinction' in Club Cultures: Music, Media and subcultural Capital. Cambridge: Polity, pp. 1-25.
Optional further reading
Fikentscher, K. (2000) 'The Cult and Culture of the DJ', in You Better Work! A Study of Underground Dance Music in New York City. Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, pp. 33-56.
Gilbert, J. and Pearson, E. (1999) Discographies: Dance music, Culture, and the Politics of Sound. London: Routledge.
Pini, M. (2001) 'Invisible Women in Increasingly Visible Club Cultures', in Club Cultures and Female Subjectivity: The Move from Home to House. New York: Palgrave, pp. 23-58.
Remainder of the Thornton book listed above.
2nd & 9th March Lectures; 16th March Seminar - MUSIC TECHNOLOGIES
Essential Reading
Butler, M. (2006) ' "Everybody Needs a 303, Everybody Loves a Filter" Electronic Dance Music and the Aesthetics of Obsolescence', in Messaris, P. and Humphreys, L. (eds) Digital Media: Transformations in Human Communication, New York: Peter Lang, pp. 111-118.
Farrugia, R. and Swiss, T. (2005) “Tracking the DJs: Vinyl Records, Work, and the Debate over New Technologies”, in Journal of Popular Music Studies, 17(1), pp. 30-44.
Frith, S. (1986) "Art Versus Technology: the Strange Case of Popular Music", in Media, Culture and Society, 8, pp. 263-79.
Optional further reading
Montano, E. (2010) ' "How Do You Know He's Not Playing Pac-Man While He's DJing?" Technology, Formats and the Digital Future of DJ Culture', in Popular Music, 29(3), pp. 397-416.
Prior, N. (2008) "Putting a Glitch in the Field: Bourdieu, Actor Network Theory and Contemporary Music", in Cultural Sociology, 2 (3), pp. 301-319.
Rodgers, T. (2003) "On the Process and Aesthetics of Sampling in Electronic Music Production", in Organised Sound, 8(3), pp. 313-320.
Théberge, P. (1997) Any Sound You Can Imagine: Making Music/Consuming Technology, Hanover and London: Wesleyan University Press, Introduction and chapter 4.
30th March & 6th April Lectures; 13th April Seminar - SOUND & THE SONIC
Essential Reading
Butler, M.J. (2001) ‘Turning the Beat Around: Reinterpretation, Metrical Dissonance, and Asymmetry in Electronic Dance Music’, Music Theory Online, 7(6).
Garcia, L-M. (2005) ‘On and On: Repetition as Process and Pleasure in Electronic Dance Music’, Music Theory Online, 11(4). Available at: http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.05.11.4/mto.05.11.4.garcia.html
Optional further reading
Clarke, E.F. (2005) ‘Music, Motion, and Subjectivity’, in Ways of Listening: An Ecological Approach to the Perception of Musical Meaning. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 64-90.
20th April Lecture; 27th April Seminar - GENRES
Essential Reading
Frith, S. (1996) "Genre Rules", in Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, pp. 75-95.
Holt, F. (2007) "Introduction", in Genre in Popular Music, Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, pp. 1-29.
Lena, J. C. and Peterson, R. A. (2008) "Classification as Culture: Types and Trajectories of Music Genres', in American Sociological Review 73 (5), pp. 697-718.
McLeod, K. (2001) "Genres, subgenres, Sub-subgenres and More: Musical and Social Differentiation Within Electronic / Dance Music Communities", in Journal of Popular Music Studies 13, pp. 59-75.
Optional further reading
Drott, E. (2013) "The End(s) of Genre", in Journal of Music Theory, 57(1), pp. 1-45.
Fabbri, F. and Chambers, I. (1982) "What kind of music?", in Popular Music, 2, pp. 131-43.
Fabbri, F. (1981) "A Theory of Musical Genres: Two Applications", in Horn, D. and Tagg, P. (eds) Popular Music Perspectives, Gothenburg and Exeter: International Association for the Study of Popular Music, pp. 52-81. Available at: http://www.tagg.org/xpdfs/ffabbri81a.pdf
Shuker, R. (2012) "Genre; metagenres ", in Popular Music Culture: the Key Concepts, London: Routledge, page numbers to be advised.