South Korean Popular Folk Music: The Genre That Defined 1970s Youth Culture

This dissertation offers the first monograph-length exploration of South Korean popular folk—or p'ok'ŭ— music in English. P'ok'ŭ was tied initially to “youth culture” (ch'ŏngnyŏnmunhwa), which refers to the Western-derived musical and leisure activities of university-educated youth, and later to the student movement (haksaengundong), which was quickly expanding after Park Chung Hee initiated the 1972 Yushin constitution that legitimized his de facto dictatorship. I argue that p'ok'ŭ was a genre shaped by censorship due to its popularity among university students, who were also the primary actors protesting Park’s escalating authoritarianism. I examine primary source newspaper reports that document p'ok'ŭ’s less politicized years between 1968 and 1973, when the media applauded its campus-bred amateurism, anti-commercialism, and originality of singer-songwriters, as well as its more politicized years between 1974 and 1975, when Park prohibited the media from reporting on campus demonstrations. I show how government censorship aided p'ok'ŭ singers between 1971 and 1972 when broadcast producers promoted it as the “wholesome” alternative to other banned genres, and illustrate how the infamous blacklisting of 1975 targeted hit p'ok'ŭ songs, framing them as evidence of youth’s blind embrace of “decadent” Western trends.Media portrayals of p'ok'ŭ singers took a turn in 1974 because widespread dissidence spread from the student movement to youth culture. The movement’s nationalist ideology of “people’s democracy” (minjung juŭi), which aimed to draw from the oppressed people in building resistance, instilled in p'ok'ŭ singers a desire to create a Korean aesthetic that harnessed domestic—rather than Japanese or American—culture. I illustrate how p'ok'ŭ came to signify both the romantic sentiment of youth culture and the courageous resistance of the student movement, by analyzing the 1975 film The March of Fools, which depicts how university students navigated the contradictions of a regime that touted an efficient form of nationalist democracy while suppressing freedom of expression. I contend that in such a paradoxical and restrictive environment, p'ok'ŭ underwent a paradoxical and restricted evolution. The government’s blacklisting of over two hundred songs and the Marijuana Incident of December 1975, which stigmatized top p'ok'ŭ singers as marijuana-smoking criminals, brought about the downfall of p'ok'ŭ

The music industry and popular song in 1930s and 1940s Shanghai, a historial and stylistic analysis

In 1930s and 1940s Shanghai, musicians and artists from different cultures and varied backgrounds joined and made the golden age of Shanghai popular song which suggests the beginnings of Chinese popular music in modern times. However, Shanghai popular song has long been neglected in most works about the modern history of Chinese music and remains an unexplored area in Shanghai studies. This study aims to reconstruct a historical view of the Shanghai popular music industry and make a stylistic analysis of its musical products. The research is undertaken at two levels: first, understanding the operating mechanism of the ‘platform’ and second, investigating the components of the ‘products’. By contrasting the hypothetical flowchart of the Shanghai popular music industry, details of the producing, selling and consuming processes are retrieved from various historical sources to reconstruct the industry platform. Through the first level of research, it is found that the rising new media and the flourishing entertainment industry profoundly influenced the development of Shanghai popular song. In addition, social and political changes and changes in business practices and the organisational structure of foreign record companies also contributed to the vast production, popularity and commercial success of Shanghai popular song. From the composition-performance view of song creation, the second level of research reveals that Chinese and Western musical elements both existed in the musical products. The Chinese vocal technique, Western bel canto and instruments from both musical traditions were all found in historical recordings. When ignoring the distinctive nature of pentatonicism but treating Chinese melodies as those on Western scales, Chinese-style tunes could be easily accompanied by chordal harmony. However, the Chinese heterophonic feature was lost in the Western accompaniment texture. Moreover, it is also found that the traditional rules governing the relationship between words and the melody was dismissed in Shanghai popular songwriting. The findings of this study fill in the neglected part in modern history of Chinese music and add to the literature on the under-explored musical area in Shanghai studies. Moreover, this study also demonstrates that against a map illustrating how musical products moved from record companies to consumers along with all other involved participants, the history of popular music can be rediscovered systematically by using songs as evidence, treating media material carefully and tracking down archives and surviving participants

Popular Music in Taiwan: Language, Social Class and National Identity

This project explores how longstanding conflicts in Taiwanese society have been reflected in the development of popular song in Taiwan in the period of martial law from the late 1940s to the late 1980s, and in the light of the periods of colonisation experienced by the country (i.e. Japanese colonial rule from 1895-1945, and the rule of the Chinese Nationalists from 1945-1987). The research methodology employed is sociological as well as historical and ethnomusicological in orientation. It is argued that popular song offers a significant focus for two main reasons: (i) it is a shared medium through which ordinary people interpret and make sense of their everyday life experiences; and (ii) it provides a rich resource in terms of the diversity of linguistic usage in the two main language groups in which popular song is produced in Taiwan – Mandarin Chinese and Minnan-Taiwanese, each of which has come to represent conflicting attitudes to social class and national identity. Genres of popular song like the ‘patriotic popular song’, the ‘campus song’, the love song, ‘dialogue’ songs, and songs of migration and separation are examined and interpreted in relation to the larger historical and political context of this period. The dissertation is organised into two parts. Part I (Chapters One to Three) focuses on how the Chinese Nationalist government propagated a particular version of Chinese cultural hegemony through cultural policies, control of the mass media and the education system, and support for the notion of ‘patriotic popular song’. Part II (Chapters Four and Five) explores the post-war period by examining Taiwanese-language popular song and its musical structures and lyric narratives, together with the starkly contrasting world-view that emerges from these songs. Through an examination of popular songs and their lyrics in the period of martial law it is shown how the split in Taiwanese society is represented in the songs of these years of change – the move from the countryside to the cities, the role of work, the differing social status of immigrant Chinese and indigenous Taiwanese, and the status of women. What emerges from this study is an awareness that the conflict is not only that between the immigrant Chinese and the indigenous Taiwanese communities, but also the conflict of identity within the Taiwanese Minnan-speaking community itself

Thai popular music: The representation of national identities and ideologies within a culture in transition

Thai popular music always reflects and reproduces the concerns of Thai people in changing times especially in regard to issues relating to identity. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the preservation of Thai identity and the ideologies surrounding it and the adoption of Western innovation in Thai popular music. The issues surrounding the identity and ideology of Thais, such as class, gender and ethnicity are explored within the area of Thai popular music. I use ethnography as the major tool for gathering and analysing the research data. Using triangulated ethnographic techniques, involved in-depth interviews, focus group discussion, document analysis and participant observation. including critical listening of the music, watching TV and video music programs. The ethnographic approach is supported by semiotic and discourse analysis especially of the songs\u27 meaning and the comments of the respondents

Rhapsody in Red: Jazz and a Soviet Public Sphere Under Stalin

abstract: This dissertation describes the public sphere that coalesced in the Soviet jazz scene during Josef Stalin’s reign. Scholars debate the extent to which Soviet citizens, especially under Stalin, were coerced into cooperating with the regime through terror; willingly cooperated with the regime out of self-interest; or re-aligned their speech, behavior, and thoughts to conform to Bolshevik ideology and discourse. In all cases, citizens were generally unable to openly express their own opinions on what Soviet society should look like. In this dissertation, I attempt to bridge this gap by analyzing the diverse reactions to jazz music in Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union. I argue that audience engagement with jazz and discussions about the genre in the Soviet press and elsewhere were attempts to grapple with bigger questions of public concern about leisure, morality, ethnicity, cosmopolitanism and patriotism in a socialist society. This jazz public sphere was suppressed in the late 1940s and early 1950s because of Cold War paranoia and fears of foreign influences in Soviet life. In its place, a counterpublic sphere formed, in which jazz enthusiasts expressed views on socialism that were more open and contradictory to official norms. This counterpublic sphere foreshadowed aspects of post-Stalinist Soviet culture. To support my arguments, I employ archival documents such as fan mail and censorship records, periodicals, memoirs, and Stalin-era jazz recordings to determine the themes present in jazz music, how audiences reacted to them, and how these popular reactions overlapped with those of journalists, musicologists, bureaucrats, and composers. This project expands our understanding of when and where public spheres can form, challenges top-down interpretations of Soviet cultural policy, and illuminates the Soviet Union and Russia’s ambivalent relationship with the West and its culture.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation History 201

Ennakoivuus popmusiikin tekemisessä : musiikintekijöiden näkemyksiä, asenteita ja toimintaa.

This thesis is about awareness of change in music, as well as future-oriented thinking, and their role in the creative actions and rationales of pop songwriters. My aim is to build an understanding of foresightfulness in the context of creating pop music. I analyse the ways in which pop songwriters relate to changes in music and music trends, and their attempts to foresee alternative musical futures or to influence them. In addition, I investigate the conceptions, values and beliefs of pop songwriters that relate to trend-spotting and future-oriented thinking. The research materials for the study consist of eight (8) interviews with Finnish professional songwriters in the field of pop music as well as three (3) field observations and the related documentation of songwriting sessions at international songwriting camps known as Song Castle and A-Pop Castle in 2015, 2017 and 2018. The resulting ethnographic research data are subjected to directed content analysis. The concepts directing the analysis derive from futures studies: foresight, future consciousness and attitudes towards the future, as well as from sociological concepts applied in studies of popular music, such as space of possibilities. On the theoretical level my study is built on systematic or confluential approaches to creativity. I investigate the creation of pop music as a psychological, social and cultural action, and domain-specific future consciousness as a component of creativity. More specifically, I bring popular music studies, futures studies and creativity studies together in the context of songwriting, examining foresightfulness as an ability, attitude or action that enhances or restricts creativity and thereby broadening current understanding of the concept. From this perspective, my study contributes to dismantling the opposition between creativity and commerce. My main finding is to show the significant role of future-oriented thinking and foresightfulness in pop songwriting, aspects that are scarcely recognised and explicated by the writers. The “targets” of foresight range from other songwriters and artists to expectations of the audience and of gatekeepers. Music trends are observed individually, but knowledge about them is shared with colleagues, and in this way emerging trends are strengthened collectively. Foreseeing and influencing the future are often inseparable. I also demonstrate how several contradictory conceptions, beliefs and values relate to, or influence foresightfulness among songwriters: their thoughts about the dynamics of change in music, audience expectations, individual abilities and being a songwriter, as well as being a pioneer or maintaining autonomy and honesty. The songwriters struggled with foresight, not least because of the new modes of consumption and fragmentism in musical trends. Some of them felt as if they were losing honesty in their creative process in attempting to follow trends, whereas for others, following and anticipating trends inspired them in their work.Tutkin väitöskirjassani musiikin muutosten huomioimisen ja tulevaisuuteen suuntautuvan ajattelun roolia popmusiikintekijöiden luovassa työskentelyssä ja ajattelussa. Näin rakennan ymmärrystä ennakoivuudesta popmusiikintekemisen kontekstissa. Analysoin niitä tapoja, joilla musiikintekijät asennoituvat musiikin muutoksiin ja musiikkitrendeihin ja ennakoivat vaihtoehtoisia musiikillisia tulevaisuuksia tai pyrkivät vaikuttamaan niihin. Tarkastelen myös musiikintekijöiden käsityksiä, arvoja ja uskomuksia, jotka liittyvät trendien havainnointiin ja tulevaisuuteen suuntautuneeseen ajatteluun. Tutkimukseni aineisto koostuu kahdeksan suomalaisen ammattimaisesti työskentelevän popmusiikintekijän haastattelusta sekä kolmen musiikintekotilanteen havainnoinnista musiikkivientiorganisaatio Music Finlandin järjestämillä Song Castle- ja A Pop Castle -musiikintekoleireillä vuosina 2015, 2017 ja 2018. Lähestyn etnografisin menetelmin hankittua aineistoani etsimällä siitä ennalta määrättyjä teemoja teoriaohjaavan sisällönanalyysin avulla. Analyysiani ohjaavat tulevaisuudentutkimuksen käsitteet ennakointi, tulevaisuustietoisuus ja tulevaisuusasenteet sekä populaarimusiikintutkimukseen sovellettu sosiologinen käsite mahdollisuuksien tila. Teoreettisesti tutkimukseni rakentuu systeemisen luovuuskäsityksen varaan. Tarkastelen musiikin luomista psykologisena, sosiaalisena ja kulttuurisena toimintana sekä toimialakohtaista tulevaisuustietoisuutta luovuuden osa-alueena. Tutkimukseni erityispiirteenä on tuoda populaarimusiikintutkimus, tulevaisuudentutkimus ja luovuustutkimus yhteen popmusiikin tekemisen kontekstissa. Tutkimukseni laajentaa käsitystä luovuudesta tarkastelemalla ennakoivuutta yhtenä luovuutta edistävänä taitona, asenteena tai toimintana. Näin se myös purkaa kaupallisuuden ja luovuuden välistä vastakkainasettelua. Tutkimuksen tärkeimpänä tuloksena osoitan, että tulevaisuuteen suuntautuneella ajattelulla on merkittävä rooli musiikintekemisessä, vaikka se onkin pitkälti tiedostamatonta ja verbalisoimatonta. Ennakoinnin kohteena ovat niin muiden musiikintekijöiden ja artistien tekemiset kuin myös yleisön ja portinvartijoiden odotukset. Trendejä havainnoidaan yksilötasolla, mutta tietoa niistä jaetaan myös kollegoiden kesken, jolloin nousevia ilmiöitä vahvistetaan kollektiivisesti. Tulevaisuuden ennakointi ja siihen vaikuttaminen eivät aina ole erotettavissa toisistaan. Osoitan myös, että useat keskenään ristiriitaiset käsitykset, uskomukset ja arvot liittyvät tai vaikuttavat musiikintekijöiden ennakoivuuteen. Näitä ovat käsitykset musiikin muutosdynamiikasta, yleisön odotuksista, tekijän omista kyvyistä ja omasta asemasta musiikkiteollisuudessa sekä pioneeriuden, autonomisuuden ja rehellisyyden ihanteiden tärkeydestä. Tekijöiden mukaan etenkin musiikkitrendien pirstaloituminen sekä musiikin kulutustapojen muutokset tekevät ennakoinnista vaikeaa. Osa musiikintekijöistä kokee, että musiikkitrendien tarkkailu vie tietyn aitouden luovasta prosessista, mutta toisten työskentelyä trendien seuraaminen ja ennakointi puolestaan inspiroivat

Songs of Survival: Men in 21st Century Popular Music

Songs of Survival: Men in 21st Century Popular Music gathers together 60 essays dealing with a significant selection of male artists and their songs. The aim is to consider what men are saying through their careers, self-presentation, lyrics and videos about masculinity