Studies of opera, film, television, and literature have demonstrated how constructions of madness may be referenced in order to stigmatise but also liberate protagonists in ways that reinforce or challenge contemporaneous notions of normality. But to date very little research has been conducted on how madness is represented in popular music. In an effort to redress this imbalance, Nicola Spelman identifies links between the anti-psychiatry movement and representations of madness in popular music of the 1960s and 1970s, analysing the various ways in which ideas critical of institutional psychiatry are embodied both verbally and musically in specific songs by David Bowie, Lou Reed, Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper, The Beatles, and Elton John. She concentrates on meanings that may be made at the point of reception as a consequence of ideas about madness that were circulating at the time. These ideas are then linked to contemporary conventions of musical expression in order to illustrate certain interpretative possibilities. Supporting evidence comes from popular musicological analysis - incorporating discourse analysis and social semiotics - and investigation of socio-historical context. The uniqueness of the period in question is demonstrated by means of a more generalised overview of songs drawn from a variety of styles and eras that engage with the topic of madness in diverse and often conflicting ways. The conclusions drawn reveal the extent to which anti-psychiatric ideas filtered through into popular culture, offering insights into popular music's ability to question general suppositions about madness alongside its potential to bring issues of men's madness into the public arena as an often neglected topic for discussion.
British Rock Modernism, 1967-1977 explains how the definitive British rock performers of this epoch aimed, not at the youthful rebellion for which they are legendary, but at a highly self-conscious project of commenting on the business in which they were engaged. They did so by ironically appropriating the traditional forms of Victorian music hall. Faulk focuses on the mid to late 1960s, when British rock bands who had already achieved commercial prominence began to aspire to aesthetic distinction. The book discusses recordings such as the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour album, the Kinks' The Village Green Preservation Society, and the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, and television films such as the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour and the Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus that defined rock's early high art moment. Faulk argues that these 'texts' disclose the primary strategies by which British rock groups, mostly comprised of young working and lower middle-class men, made their bid for aesthetic merit by sampling music hall sounds. The result was a symbolically charged form whose main purpose was to unsettle the hierarchy that set traditional popular culture above the new medium. Rock groups engaged with the music of the past in order both to demonstrate the comparative vitality of the new form and signify rock's new art status, compared to earlier British pop music. The book historicizes punk rock as a later development of earlier British rock, rather than a rupture. Unlike earlier groups, the Sex Pistols did not appropriate music hall form in an ironic way, but the band and their manager Malcolm McLaren were obsessed with the meaning of the past for the present in a distinctly modernist fashion. British Rock Modernism also sets the notion of authenticity in a broader context as well, encompassing in this case the revival of the traditional male artist-hero celebrated by British modernist literature. Situating rock in the more extensive history of modern British musical production offers insight into the gendered division of labour that still frames the reception of British popular music. As demonstrated in the opening chapter, focusing on key women singers of the 1960s, the music hall legacy is partly responsible for both privileging male rock groups with the mantle of artist, and with burdening women with stereotypes that relegated women performers to the status of mere 'entertainers'.
The musical and cultural legacy of the Beatles remains complex. In a post-industrial setting in which both popular and traditional heritage tourism have emerged as providers of regular employment on Merseyside, Michael Broken considers how major players in what might be described as a Beatles music tourism industry have constructed new interpretations of the past and placed these in such an order as to re-confirm, re-create and re-work the city as a symbolic place that both authentically and contextually represents the Beatles.
This book explores how, and why, the blues became a central component of English popular music in the 1960s. It is commonly known that many 'British invasion' rock bands were heavily influenced by Chicago and Delta blues styles. But how, exactly, did Britain get the blues? Blues records by African American artists were released in the United States in substantial numbers between 1920 and the late 1930s, but were sold primarily to black consumers in large urban centres and the rural south. How, then, in an era before globalization, when multinational record releases were rare, did English teenagers in the early 1960s encounter the music of Robert Johnson, Blind Boy Fuller, Memphis Minnie, and Barbecue Bob? Roberta Schwartz analyses the transmission of blues records to England, from the first recordings to hit English shores to the end of the sixties. How did the blues, largely banned from the BBC until the mid 1960s, become popular enough to create a demand for re-released material by American artists? When did the British blues subculture begin, and how did it develop? Most significantly, how did the music become a part of the popular consciousness, and how did it change music and expectations? The way that the blues, and various blues styles, were received by critics is a central concern of the book, as their writings greatly affected which artists and recordings were distributed and reified, particularly in the early years of the revival. 'Hot' cultural issues such as authenticity, assimilation, appropriation, and cultural transgression were also part of the revival; these topics and more were interrogated in music periodicals by critics and fans alike, even as English musicians began incorporating elements of the blues into their common musical language. The vinyl record itself, under-represented in previous studies, plays a major part in the story of the blues in Britain. Not only did recordings shape perceptions and listening habits, but which artists were available at any given time also had an enormous impact on the British blues. Schwartz maps the influences on British blues and blues-rock performers and thereby illuminates the stylistic evolution of many genres of British popular music.
The double bass - the preferred bass instrument in popular music during the 1960s - was challenged and subsequently superseded by the advent of a new electric bass instrument. From the mid-1960s and throughout the 1970s, a melismatic and inconsistent approach towards the bass role ensued, which contributed to a major change in how the electric bass was used in performance and perceived in the sonic landscape of mainstream popular music. Investigating the performance practice of the new, melodic role of the electric bass as it appeared (and disappeared) in the 1960s and 1970s, the book turns to the number one songs of the American Billboard Hot 100 charts between 1951 and 1982 as a prime source. Through interviews with players from this era, numerous transcriptions - elaborations of twenty bass related features - are presented. These are juxtaposed with a critical study of four key players, who provide the case-studies for examining the performance practice of the melodic electric bass. This highly original book will be of interest not only to bass players, but also to popular musicologists looking for a way to instigate methodological and theoretical discussions on how to develop popular music analysis.
Barbara Lebrun traces the evolution of 'protest' music in France since 1981, exploring the contradictions that emerge when artists who take their musical production and political commitment 'seriously', cross over to the mainstream, becoming profitable and consensual. Contestation is understood as a discourse shaped by the assumptions and practices of artists, producers, the media and audiences, for whom it makes sense to reject politically reactionary ideas and the dominant taste for commercial pop. Placing music in its economic, historical and ideological context, however, reveals the fragility and instability of these oppositions. The book firstly concentrates on music production in France, the relationships between independent labels, major companies and the state's cultural policies. This section provides the material background for understanding the development of rock alternatif, France's self-styled 'subversive' genre of the 1980s, and explains the specificity of a 'protest' music culture in late-twentieth-century France, in relation to the genre's tradition in the West. The second part looks at representations of a 'protest' identity in relation to discourses of national identity, focusing on two 1990s sub-genres. The first, chanson néo-réaliste, contests modernity through the use of acoustic instruments, but its nostalgic 'protest' raises questions about the artists' real engagement with the present. The second, rock métis, borrows from North African and Latino rhythms and challenges the 'neutral' Frenchness of the Republic, while advocating multiculturalism in problematic ways. A discussion of Manu Chao's career, a French artist who has achieved success abroad, also allows an exploration of the relationship between transnationalism and anti-globalization politics. Finally, the book examines the audiences of French 'protest' music and considers festivals as places of 'non-mainstream' identity negotiation. Based on first-hand interviews, this section highlights the vocabulary of emotions that audiences use to make sense of an 'alternative' performance, unveiling the contradictions that underpin their self-definition as participants in a 'protest' culture. The book contributes to debates on the cultural production of 'resistance' and the representation of post-colonial identities, uncovering the social constructedness of the discourse of 'protest' in France. It pays attention to its nation-specific character while offering a wider reflection on the fluidity of 'subversive' identities, with potential applications across a range of Western music practices.
Kate Bush is widely respected as one of the most unique solo female performers to have ever emerged in the field of popular music. She has achieved that rare combination of great commercial success and critical acclaim, with Hounds of Love considered widely to be her masterpiece. The album regularly features in 'best album' lists, and in the 2004 Observer poll was the highest placed work by a solo female artist. The album allows the author, Ron Moy, the critical opportunity to explore a wide range of issues relating to technology, production, authorship, grain of the voice, iconography, critical and commercial impact, collaboration, gender, sexuality, narrative, and social and cultural context.
2013 BMA Medical Book Awards Highly Commended in Paediatrics An essential resource, covering possible problems expected at birth and common facets of antenatal consultations. Antenatal Consults: A guide for neonatologists and paediatricians is a logically ordered and highly illustrated medical resource, essential for anyone involved in antenatal care. This important book informs the multidisciplinary team - from obstetricians and maternity staff through to materno-foetal medicine specialists and, of course, paediatric and OBGYN trainees. Featuring contributions from leading neonatal specialists in Australia, the book's authoritative contents help arm antenatal staff with advice, information and examples of how to best counsel parents expecting a foetus at risk. With over 50 informative, concise chapters, Antenatal Consults addresses numerous possible problems expected at birth - the most common reasons for an antenatal consultation - combined with advice on how to manage them. These include maternal disorders that may affect the foetus; babies delivering prematurely or with a severe growth restriction; babies with a significant abnormality such as congenital heart disease, spina bifida or gastroschisis; and babies with a skeletal issue, a cleft palate or renal tract problem. Antenatal Consults: A guide for neonatologists and paediatricians is also useful to midwifery, nursing and allied health staff that care for mothers and babies.
At times it appears that a whole industry exists to perpetuate the myth of origin of the Beatles. There certainly exists a popular music (or perhaps 'rock') origin myth concerning this group and the city of Liverpool and this draws in devotees, as if on a pilgrimage, to Liverpool itself. Once 'within' the city, local businesses exist primarily to escort these pilgrims around several almost iconic spaces and places associated with the group. At times it all almost seems 'spiritual'. One might argue however that, like any function myth, the music history of the Liverpool in which the Beatles grew and then departed is not fully represented. Beatles historians and businessmen-alike have seized upon myriad musical experiences and reworked them into a discourse that homogenizes not only the diverse collective articulations that initially put them into place, but also the receptive practices of those travellers willing to listen to a somewhat linear, exclusive narrative. Other Voices therefore exists as a history of the disparate and now partially hidden musical strands that contributed to Liverpool's musical countenance. It is also a critique of Beatles-related institutionalized popular music mythology. Via a critical historical investigation of several thus far partially hidden popular music activities in pre- and post-Second World War Liverpool, Michael Brocken reveals different yet intrinsic musical and socio-cultural processes from within the city of Liverpool. By addressing such 'scenes' as those involving dance bands, traditional jazz, folk music, country and western, and rhythm and blues, together with a consideration of partially hidden key places and individuals, and Liverpool's first 'real' record label, an assemblage of 'other voices' bears witness to an 'other', seldom discussed, Liverpool. By doing so, Brocken – born and raised in Liverpool – asks questions about not only the historicity of the Beatles-Liverpool narrative, but also about the absence of historiography concerning disparate popular music activity within the city of Liverpool. In turn, he questions Liverpool's image as a 'music' city – what does this latter expression really mean? And from what genres of music does this apparently 'natural' musical font spring? Such questions ultimately bear crucially on issues relating to scenes, locality, race and identity, and periodization: all matters currently of great interest to the popular music researcher; in turn the veracity of institutionalized popular music histories is also brought into question.
Filmmakers' fascination with opera dates back to the silent era but it was not until the late 1980s that critical enquiries into the intersection of opera and cinema began to emerge. Jeongwon Joe focusses primarily on the role of opera as soundtrack by exploring the distinct effects opera produces in film, effects which differ from other types of soundtrack music, such as jazz or symphony. These effects are examined from three perspectives: peculiar qualities of the operatic voice; various properties commonly associated with opera, such as excess, otherness or death; and multifaceted tensions between opera and cinema - for instance, opera as live, embodied, high art and cinema as technologically mediated, popular entertainment. Joe argues that when opera excerpts are employed on soundtracks they tend to appear at critical moments of the film, usually associated with the protagonists, and the author explores why it is opera, not symphony or jazz, that accompanies poignant scenes like these. Joe's film analysis focuses on the time period of the post-1970s, which is distinguished by an increase of opera excerpts on soundtracks to blockbuster titles, the commercial recognition of which promoted the production of numerous opera soundtrack CDs in the following years. Joe incorporates an empirical methodology by examining primary sources such as production files, cue-sheets and unpublished interviews with film directors and composers to enhance the traditional hermeneutic approach. The films analysed in her book include Woody Allen’s Match Point, David Cronenberg’s M. Butterfly, and Wong Kar-wai’s 2046.
To Victorian visitors, Ireland was a world of extremes – Luxurious country houses to one-room mud cabins (in 1841 40% of Irish housing was the latter). This thorough and engaging social history of Ireland offers new insights into the ways in which ordinary people lived during this dramatic moment in Ireland's history from 1800-1914. It covers wide range of aspects of everyday lives: from work on the many wealthy country estates to grinding poverty in the towns. It covers the transformative effects of the railway development and Ireland's first tourist boom. Workhouse life and the new Poor Law system which incarcerated entire families behind forbidding walls. Religious divisions, educational boycotts, customs and superstitions.
In early modern England, epitomes-texts promising to pare down, abridge, or sum up the essence of their authoritative sources-provided readers with key historical knowledge without the bulk, expense, or time commitment demanded by greater volumes. Epic poets in turn addressed the habits of reading and thinking that, for better and for worse, were popularized by the publication of predigested works. Analyzing popular texts such as chronicle summaries, abridgements of sacred epic, and abstracts of civil war debate, Chloe Wheatley charts the efflorescence of a lively early modern epitome culture, and demonstrates its impact upon Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Abraham Cowley's Davideis, and John Milton's Paradise Lost. Clearly and elegantly written, this new study presents fresh insight into how poets adapted an important epic convention-the representation of the hero's confrontation with summaries of past and future-to reflect contemporary trends in early modern history writing.
An examination of how religious identity changed in twentieth-century England, using Birmingham as a case-study to illuminate wider trends. The ongoing debate about secularisation and religious change in twentieth-century Britain has paid little attention to the experience of those who swam against the cultural tide and continued to attend church. This study, based on extensive original archive and oral history research, redresses this imbalance with an exploration of church-based Christianity in post-war Birmingham, examining how churchgoers interpreted and responded to the changes that theysaw in family, congregation, neighbourhood and wider society. One important theme is the significance of age and generational identity to patterns of religiosity amidst profound change in attitudes to youth, age and parenting andgrowing evidence of a widening "generation gap" in Christian belief and practice. In addition to offering a new and distinctive perspective on the changing religious identity of late twentieth-century English society, the book also provides a rare case-study in the significance of age and generation in the social and cultural history of modern Britain. Ian Jones is the Director of the Saltley Trust (an educational charity), Birmingham.
War is traditionally considered a male experience. By extension, the genre of war literature is a male-dominated field, and the tale of the battlefield remains the privileged (and only canonised) war story. In Australia, although women have written extensively about their wartime experiences, their voices have been distinctively silenced. Shooting Blanks at the Anzac Legend calls for a re-definition of war literature to include the numerous voices of women writers, and further recommends a re-reading of Australian national literatures, with women’s war writing foregrounded, to break the hold of a male-dominated literary tradition and pass on a vital, but unexplored, women’s tradition. Shooting Blanks at the Anzac Legend examines the rich body of World Wars I and II and Vietnam War literature by Australian women, providing the critical attention and treatment that they deserve. Donna Coates records the reaction of Australian women writers to these conflicts, illuminating the complex role of gender in the interpretation of war and in the cultural history of twentieth-century Australia. By visiting an astonishing number of unfamiliar, non-canonical texts, Shooting Blanks at the Anzac Legend profoundly alters our understanding of how Australian women writers have interpreted war, especially in a nation where the experience of colonising a frontier has spawned enduring myths of identity and statehood.
This book traces the emergence and transformations of asbestos compensation to explore the wider issue of to what extent legal systems have converged in the era of globalization. Examining the mechanism by which asbestos compensation is delivered in Belgium, England, Italy and the United States, as well as the cultural forces and actors which contribute to its emergence and transformations, the book advances our understanding of how law operates within cultural norms, routines, and institutional relations of capitalist societies. With material gathered from 50 interviews and from primary and secondary sources, the author considers law as a cultural phenomenon, national styles of legal culture and the convergence and divergence of legal cultures, and law as a form of institutionalized power.
This work includes a Foreword by Mayur Lakhani, Chairman of Council, Royal College of General Practitioners. General practitioners, as a widely dispersed group, are particularly reliant on e-learning. This book provides an overview of the topic and examines the past, present and future challenges, opportunities and benefits. With chapters devoted to creating a website, running short courses and standards and accreditation, this guide explores both vocational training and continuing professional development. It presents an evidence-based, practical approach for healthcare educators and practitioners with teaching responsibilities, course organisers and healthcare professionals with an interest in e-learning. "Excellent. Leading edge. As a practising GP I know just how hard it can be to keep up to date in a generalist discipline and showing progress. Having access to information is the straightforward bit - processing it and embedding it into clinical practice is the much bigger challenge as this book rightly points out. As a user of e-learning, I know how useful this technique can be if undertaken properly and to a defined standard. I have no doubt that this book will be a valuable contribution, creating an innovative learning culture and society in healthcare." - Mayur Lakhani, in his Foreword.
Confirmation was an important part of the life of the eighteenth-century church which consumed a significant part of the time of bishops, of clergy in their preparation of candidates, and of the candidates themselves in terms of a transition in their Christian life. Yet it has been almost entirely overlooked by scholars. This book aims to fill this void in our understanding, and offers an important contribution and correction of our understanding of the life of the church during the long eighteenth century in both Britain and North America. Tovey addresses two important historical debates: the 'pessimist/optimist' debate on the character and condition of the Church of England in the eighteenth century; and the debate on the 're-enchantment' of the eighteenth century which challenges the secular nature of society in the age of the Enlightenment. Drawing on new developments of the study of visitation returns and episcopal life and on primary research in historical records, Anglican Confirmation goes behind the traditional Tractarian interpretations to uncover the understanding and confidence of the eighteenth-century church in the rite of confirmation. The book will be of interest to eighteenth-century church historians, theologians and liturgists alike.
As the hundredth anniversary approaches, it is timely to reflect not only upon the Great War itself and on the memorials which were erected to ensure it did not slip from national consciousness, but also to reflect upon its rich and substantial cultural legacy. This book examines the heritage of the Great War in contemporary Britain. It addresses how the war maintains a place and value within British society through the usage of phrases, references, metaphors and imagery within popular, media, heritage and political discourse. Whilst the representation of the war within historiography, literature, art, television and film has been examined by scholars seeking to understand the origins of the 'popular memory' of the conflict, these analyses have neglected how and why wider popular debate draws upon a war fought nearly a century ago to express ideas about identity, place and politics. By examining the history, usage and meanings of references to the Great War within local and national newspapers, historical societies, political publications and manifestos, the heritage sector, popular expressions, blogs and internet chat rooms, an analysis of the discourses which structure the remembrance of the war can be created. The book acknowledges the diversity within Britain as different regional and national identities draw upon the war as a means of expression. Whilst utilising the substantial field of heritage studies, this book puts forward a new methodology for assessing cultural heritage and creates an original perspective on the place of the Great War across contemporary British society.
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