Page 122 - Cultural Studies A Practical Introduction

106 Music

unconscious experience, the self and others. This makes it a particularly
tricky, but also richly rewarding, subject for serious study.
You may have noticed it ’ s a bit awkward, even comical, to consider lyrics
in written form, or to ask things such as “ What is a ‘ groove, ’ exactly, and
how do I go about getting into one? If a groove sets me free, what is oth-

erwise holding me down? What can I find by losing myself in the music?
What is the defi nition of ‘ to rock ’ ? ” The answer to all these questions may
be that if you have to ask, you just don ’ t get it.
Explicating lyrics is such a strange endeavor because in most cases, they
aren ’ t supposed to be read out of context. The message, the sound, and the
contextual experience of listening are tightly bound together. People who
study popular music take it as their task to pry apart the many different
layers of social energies and power relations that combine to make music
a universally meaningful phenomenon, and to hold each of these elements
up to the light of critical scrutiny. Some such as Lawrence Grossberg attend
to music ’ s affective aspects, its ability to record and create feeling states as
well as to foster “ affective alliances ” between like - feeling people in music
subcultures. Others such as Adam Krims attend more to the structure,
form, and content of the music, as if it were a static object or aesthetic
product considered apart from its lived immediacy or its affective
experience.
If we are to comprehend the values, anxieties, and desires of a particular
culture, we must understand the practices that surround the production
and consumption of its music. It is often assumed that scholars are only
interested in important historical events like wars, stock market crashes,
and elections. However, great social movements do not occur in a sphere
removed from artistic and cultural life, which includes popular entertain-
ments like music. Rather, these things are mutually determined and deter-
mining; in other words, changes in political and economic institutions
create changes in art and music, and vice versa. A rock ‘ n ’ roll song may
not be enough to start a political overthrow, but it can help set forces into
motion which eventually coalesce into revolutionary struggle. Similarly,
corruption in the government may seem far removed from a dingy rock
club or an urban block party, but it is the pervasive mood of distrust and

defiance engendered by cynical abuses of power that inspires musicians to
pick up instruments, plug in turntables, and create the art that moves the
masses.
Of course, not all popular music acts as a catalyst for social change.
Indeed, most of it is more concerned with dancing and partying than it is