For the last fifty years, scholars have routinely analyzed popular music as a site of resistance against the dominant social, political, and economic structures. Typically, the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) founded in 1964 by Stuart Hall and Richard Hoggart explored, on the basis of the subcultural theory developed in the 1920s at the University of Chicago, the appropriation and transformation by working-class and middle-class youth of the commercial products thrown at them by the culture industry, claiming that “popular music is an integral node in the lifeworlds, collective identification, and resistance practices of young people” (Taylor 4). They also examined the “semiological guerilla warfare” (Eco) that resulted when, in turn, the cultural industries appropriated and commodified the sounds and practices released by subcultural youth and converted them into “an exceptionally profitable commodity” (Drake 3).

AFEA 2024 Congress "Power and empowerment" MAY 21-24 2024

Argument

For the last fifty years, scholars have routinely analyzed popular music as a site of resistance against the dominant social, political, and economic structures. Typically, the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) founded in 1964 by Stuart Hall and Richard Hoggart explored, on the basis of the subcultural theory developed in the 1920s at the University of Chicago, the appropriation and transformation by working-class and middle-class youth of the commercial products thrown at them by the culture industry, claiming that “popular music is an integral node in the lifeworlds, collective identification, and resistance practices of young people” (Taylor 4). They also examined the “semiological guerilla warfare” (Eco) that resulted when, in turn, the cultural industries appropriated and commodified the sounds and practices released by subcultural youth and converted them into “an exceptionally profitable commodity” (Drake 3). Initially focusing on young, urban, heterosexual males, researchers gradually dealt with other gender, sexual, social, ethnic, and age groups, but the assumption remained the same: Popular music is a means for conflicting groups to assert and claim power over one another, with, on one side, the representatives of the market economy, including those of the so-called “independent” sector (record companies, ticketing and touring agencies, venues’ owners, journalists, and various other gate-keepers), on another, the artists, both professionals and amateurs, and a third one made up by the fans. Artists themselves invoked “power”, either to fight it, when related to the “powers that be” (Public Enemy, Roger Waters, Kendrick Lamar), or to celebrate it when attributed to “the people” (John Lennon, Patti Smith), when they were not singing “the power of love,” or “le pouvoir de s’aimer” as Gorillaz put it. 

It seems, in fact, that popular music is often understood as a means of gaining power, that resisting and fighting ultimately are its main purpose, that its efficiency as a potent tool for the empowerment of silenced voices need not be questioned. However, the nature of the “power” supposedly gained can remain quite vague: is it a means or an end in itself? A climax or a process?  Does it connect to tangible, economic, and technical gains, or symbolic and moral ones? And one cannot help but wonder what can be accomplished with that power and whether artists and/or their audiences succeed in raising awareness, in forcing lawmakers to pass new legislation, or use it for their own personal purposes, be it gaining fame and money, or mobilizing forces during social struggles, for example. In a word, is it useful to be powerful, to be empowered? And are those notions the same in the context of a complex industry that can have its own agenda? And what happens when the encounter between the artists and the music business is complicated into a triangle by the presence of the public?

This workshop offers an opportunity to address some of these questions, focusing as much on the who, the what, and the how of power struggles and empowerment processes. Proposals are expected, among others, on the following issues:

• Artists’ appropriation of their rights (ownership of masters, setting up of their own publishing companies, etc.)
• The “democratization” of music production (home studios, etc.)
• Online audio distribution platforms (Bandcamp, etc.) vs. audio streaming providers (YouTube, Spotify, Deezer)
• The issue of concentration among venues, tour operators, promoters, radio networks, ticket outlets (Ticketmaster, etc.)
• Censorship and pressure groups
• Media power (mainstream and specialized press, professional and amateur journalism, blogs, etc.)
• Popular music as infrapolitics, “rival geography”, or “hidden transcript”, as in Tricia Rose’s analysis of rap: “Rap music is, in many ways, a hidden transcript. Among other things, it uses cloaked speech and disguised cultural codes to comment on and challenge aspects of current power inequalities” (100).
• The current relevance of the subcultural reading of popular music

Submission guidelines

A 300-word proposal should be sent, together with a short bio-bibliographic note to: paul-thomas.cesari@univ-montp3.fr ; simon.hierle@unilim.fr ; claude.chastagner@univ-montp3.fr

by January 19, 2024.

Selection Committee

• Paul-Thomas Cesari paul-thomas.cesari@univ-montp3.fr
• Simon Hierle simon.hierle@unilim.fr 
• Claude Chastagner claude.chastagner@univ-montp3.fr

Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3, et membres de l’Association Française d’Études Américaines