Meeting 5 – The X Factor as shared heritage
Below is a playlist of the songs chosen for the current series of the X Factor. These songs share one obvious characteristic – that they are sufficiently mainstream to be well-known to the majority of the viewing/listening audience.
The question for discussion is this; do they share musicological or lyric characteristics? If all these songs are, by subjective cultural decisions made by the X Factor production team, defined as ‘classics’, what makes them so? We could look at form (melodic, dynamic, structural and lyric), harmonic patterns, lyric narrative (and narrator character) and storytelling, or cultural factors such as TV ad exposure, movie placement etc.
McIntyre (2008) cites Bourdieu’s assertion that the ‘field’ of song repertoire as heritage provides an ‘ensemble of probable constraints’ which create the context for new work.
[The] possibility of [creative] action occurs within, or is produced in, a field of works. The field of works is a related concept to the domain of knowledge in as much as it is the accumulated cultural work done to this time in a particular field. For contemporary Western popular music, it is the heritage of collected songs and recordings accumulated over the history of the domain of popular music. According to Toynbee (2000), it also includes techniques and codes of production. For Bourdieu (1996), the ‘‘heritage accumulated by collective work presents itself to each agent as a space for possibles, that is as an ensemble of probable constraints which are the condition and the counterpart of a set of possible uses’’ (p. 235). The structure of the field of works thus provides the ground, the antecedent conditions, from which other works spring. This proposition works as an attempt to resolve the agency–structure dichotomy as cultural production, from this perspective, comes about through practice that is both enabled and constrained by the structures of knowledge the creative agent engages with.
- Phillip McIntyre, “Creativity and Cultural Production: A Study of Contemporary Western Popular Music Songwriting,” Creativity Research Journal 20, no. 1 (2008): 40 – 52. Download pdf of full article.
If we accept McIntyre’s assertion that the field exists, and that the X Factor playlist is an example of it, does popular songwriting become self-perpetuating, and ultimately the pop song convergent on particular musical or lyric characteristics? And what characterises artists that have large-scale commercial success but would be unlikely to appear in an X Factor playlist e.g. Björk, Beck, Radiohead (with the possible exception of ‘Creep’)? Why are their songs unappealing to ‘cover version’ artists such as the X Factor ‘cast’? It is easy to assert that there is a musical conservatism to the X Factor’s A&R process, but there is some evidence (e.g. ‘Big Band night’) that it chooses songs that are universally understood as mainstream classics.
X Factor 2009 song playlists
Musical heroes week
- Robbie Williams – Let Me Entertain You
- Coldplay – The Scientist
- Leona Lewis – Footprints In The Sand
- Robbie Williams – No Regrets
- Amy Winehouse – Back To Black
- Justin Timberlake – Cry Me A River
- And I Am Telling You – Jennifer Hudson
- Get It On - T Rex
- Robbie Williams – She’s The One
- Robbie Williams – Rock DJ
- Who’s Loving You – Jackson 5
- Addicted To Love – Tina Turner
Diva week
- If I Were A Boy – Beyonce
- At Last – Beyonce version
- How Will I Know- Whitney Houston
- Where Do Broken Hearts Go- Whitney Houston
- R.E.S.P.E.C.T- Aretha Franklin
- Bleeding Love- Leona Lewis
- I Didn’t Know My Own Strength – Whitney Houston
- Hurt – Christina Aguilera
- Fool in love – Tamyra Gray from American Idol version
- Oops I Did It Again- Britney Spears
- All The Man That I Need- Whitney Houston
Big Band Week
- Proud Mary – Beyonce version
- When You Wish Upon A Star – From Disney’s Pinnochio
- My Funny Valentine – Ella fitzgerald
- Sway – Michael Buble version
- Lloyd – Fly Me To The Moon – Frank Sinatra
- Feeling Good – Muse version
- Angel Of Harlem – U2
- Bewitched – Steve Lawrence
- She Bangs – Ricky Martin
- That’s Life – Frank Sinatra
Rock week
- One – U2
- Somewhere Only We Know – Keane
- Sweet Child O’ Mine – Guns ‘N Roses
- Don’t Stop Believin’ – Journey
- I Kissed A Girl – Katy Perry (Rock version)
- I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing – Aerosmith
- Get Your Rocks Off – Primal Scream
- Come Together – Aerosmith version
- We Will Rock You – Five version (From Brits)
November 12th, 2009 at 7:18 am
Dear all, I hope to get to the session next week, but teach to 12 noon, so it may prove impossibly tight, or I may be late.
It’s an interesting and musical topic, for sure – thanks to Tim and Allan for choosing it – but I recoiled immediately at the passage of prose included, by McIntyre. I didn’t understand it at first, a bad sign. Here’s how I would edit it if submitted by an undergraduate: my edits and comments are parentheses here; bold would be clearer. I also enclose a passage that says much the same, in my view, but more elegantly.
Best, Dai.
McIntyre’s passage with my comments and edits:
[The] possibility of [creative] action occurs within, or is produced in (is there a distinction between ‘occurs within’ and ‘is produced in’?), a field of works. The field of works is a related concept (concept related?) to the domain of knowledge in as much as it (‘it’ dangles: does it refer to ‘the field of works’ or to ‘the domain of knowledge’?) is the accumulated cultural work done to this time (‘done to this time’ is terrible!) in a particular field. For contemporary Western popular music (well, yes, three qualifying adjectives conspire to suggest that he doesn’t really know what he means!), it is the heritage of collected songs and recordings accumulated over the history of the domain of (delete ‘the domain of’?) popular music. According to Toynbee (2000), it (no idea what ‘it’ refers to by this point) also includes techniques and codes of production. For Bourdieu (1996), the ‘‘heritage accumulated by collective (what does ‘collective’ mean here?) work presents itself to each agent a space for possibles (‘possibles’? possible whats?), that is as an ensemble of probable constraints which are (‘is’ rather than ‘are’? And how does something ‘probable’ lead directly to something? Wouldn’t something ‘probable’ be ‘likely to’ lead to something?) the condition and the counterpart of a set of possible uses’’ (p. 235). (I suppose it might be the translation’s fault that Bourdieu’s sentence is so bad. Of course, the laboured use of ‘domain’ and ‘field’ is his fault.) The structure of the field of works thus provides the ground, the antecedent conditions, from which other works spring. This (banal?!) proposition works as an attempt to (delete ‘works as an attempt to’?) resolve the agency–structure dichotomy (I dislike the hyphenated phrase as an attempt to contain a dichotomy) as cultural production (a poor ‘as’ there, dangling between meaning ‘since’ and ‘solve…as a form of’. He actually means ‘since’.), from this perspective, comes about through practice that is both enabled and constrained by the structures of knowledge the creative agent engages with.
T.S. Eliot, ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ (1917) (available on Wikipedia):
‘No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. I mean this as a principle of æsthetic, not merely historical, criticism. The necessity that he shall conform, that he shall cohere, is not one-sided; what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity between the old and the new. Whoever has approved this idea of order, of the form of European, of English literature, will not find it preposterous that the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past. And the poet who is aware of this will be aware of great difficulties and responsibilities.’
November 14th, 2009 at 11:40 am
[grin] thanks Dai. Brutal but reasonable marking!
Or to quote Newton (1676), paraphrasing Bernard of Chartres (John of Salisbury 1159)
“If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants#Attribution_and_meaning
November 14th, 2009 at 11:43 am
I should add that the concept for this session (and the original discussion commentary above) was my own rather than Allan’s/Tim’s (although I did ask Allan to approve it).
I do this not out of a need for personal acknowledgement, but rather to divert blame away from Allan or Tim if the session is unsuccessful
November 18th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
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