John Howland, Hearing Luxe Pop: Glorification, Glamour, and the Middlebrow in American Popular Music (Oakland: University of California Press, 2021), ISBN: 978-0-520-30010-1 (hb), 978-0-520-30011-8 (pb).

IF 0.5 2区艺术学 0 MUSIC

Twentieth-Century Music Pub Date : 2022-03-07 DOI:10.1017/S1478572221000323

Lloyd Whitesell

{"title":"John Howland, Hearing Luxe Pop: Glorification, Glamour, and the Middlebrow in American Popular Music (Oakland: University of California Press, 2021), ISBN: 978-0-520-30010-1 (hb), 978-0-520-30011-8 (pb).","authors":"Lloyd Whitesell","doi":"10.1017/S1478572221000323","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"In his new book, John Howland showcases a set of ‘entertainment practices and aesthetics’ (13) geared towards lushness, glamour, and sophistication, and traces their lineage across genres and generations. One of the refreshing aspects of his approach is the way he takes mass enjoyment seriously as a historical phenomenon, bringing it from the overlooked background to the foreground of interest. Many genre and style histories pivot on subcultural or vanguard innovations and give short shrift to the vast middle-of-the-road sonic terrains with which they commingle and cross-fertilize. Howland takes us to the soft, luscious centre. In this, he participates in the recent advancement of scholarship into middlebrow musical taste and discourse. His cross-genre perspective frees him to appreciate hybrids (e.g., ‘jazz-with-strings’, ‘symphonic soul’, ‘jazz-meets-pop’) and fuzzy adjacencies (‘a large family of “jazzy”, syncopated popular musics’, 85), while shining light on some lesser-known entertainment forms (e.g., ‘the big-band venue of movie theater prologue-revue shows’, 93). Far from resulting in a bland porridge, the impure exchanges and mongrelizations he highlights are multiform and vibrant with stylistic collisions. The book fleshes out a historical narrative, covering four distinct eras:","PeriodicalId":43259,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2022-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Twentieth-Century Music","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478572221000323","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"MUSIC","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

In his new book, John Howland showcases a set of ‘entertainment practices and aesthetics’ (13) geared towards lushness, glamour, and sophistication, and traces their lineage across genres and generations. One of the refreshing aspects of his approach is the way he takes mass enjoyment seriously as a historical phenomenon, bringing it from the overlooked background to the foreground of interest. Many genre and style histories pivot on subcultural or vanguard innovations and give short shrift to the vast middle-of-the-road sonic terrains with which they commingle and cross-fertilize. Howland takes us to the soft, luscious centre. In this, he participates in the recent advancement of scholarship into middlebrow musical taste and discourse. His cross-genre perspective frees him to appreciate hybrids (e.g., ‘jazz-with-strings’, ‘symphonic soul’, ‘jazz-meets-pop’) and fuzzy adjacencies (‘a large family of “jazzy”, syncopated popular musics’, 85), while shining light on some lesser-known entertainment forms (e.g., ‘the big-band venue of movie theater prologue-revue shows’, 93). Far from resulting in a bland porridge, the impure exchanges and mongrelizations he highlights are multiform and vibrant with stylistic collisions. The book fleshes out a historical narrative, covering four distinct eras:

查看原文本刊更多论文

约翰·豪兰德，听到华丽的流行:美化，魅力，和美国流行音乐的中流(奥克兰:加州大学出版社，2021)，ISBN: 978-0-520-30010-1 (hb)， 978-0-520-30011-8 (pb)。

在他的新书中，John Howland展示了一套“娱乐实践和美学”(13)，这些“娱乐实践和美学”倾向于华丽、迷人和精致，并追溯了它们在不同类型和年代的血统。他的方法中一个令人耳目一新的方面是，他把大众享受作为一种历史现象认真对待，把它从被忽视的背景带到人们感兴趣的前景。许多流派和风格的历史都以亚文化或先锋创新为中心，对它们混合和交叉滋养的广阔的中间道路的声音领域不予重视。霍兰德把我们带到了柔软、甜美的中心。在这方面，他参与了最近学术向中庸音乐品味和话语的发展。他的跨流派视角使他能够欣赏混合音乐(例如，“弦乐爵士”、“交响灵魂乐”、“爵士与流行音乐的结合”)和模糊的相邻音乐(“一大群“爵士”、切分音流行音乐”，85)，同时也能欣赏一些不太知名的娱乐形式(例如，“大型乐队在电影院的开场白-讽刺表演”，93)。他所强调的不纯粹的交流和混杂绝不是平淡的粥，而是多种形式的，充满了风格的碰撞。这本书充实了历史叙述，涵盖了四个不同的时代:

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Twentieth-Century Music MUSIC-

CiteScore

0.70

自引率

0.00%

发文量