Rock Music StudiesPub Date : 2022-02-14DOI: 10.1080/19401159.2022.2040178
M. R. Fisher
{"title":"The Beatles: Get Back","authors":"M. R. Fisher","doi":"10.1080/19401159.2022.2040178","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19401159.2022.2040178","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":411779,"journal":{"name":"Rock Music Studies","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126935910","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rock Music StudiesPub Date : 2022-01-26DOI: 10.1080/19401159.2022.2008161
Garth Alper
{"title":"Not Just Derision and Darkness: The Interplay of Lyrics and Music in Steely Dan’s Compositions","authors":"Garth Alper","doi":"10.1080/19401159.2022.2008161","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19401159.2022.2008161","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Steely Dan has long been identified with dark themes. But layers of nuance emerge when the intricate interaction between musical techniques and lyrics is considered. This study argues that even some of the group’s grimmest stories about human nature can be viewed as cautionary tales designed to enlighten the listener. Other compositions, though often sad, are tales of empathy and human kindness. Songs displaying a wide range of thematic tones—from dark to light—are examined through a double lens of words and music to yield four thematic categories: derision, admonition, irony, and sincerity.","PeriodicalId":411779,"journal":{"name":"Rock Music Studies","volume":"121 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122747301","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rock Music StudiesPub Date : 2022-01-07DOI: 10.1080/19401159.2022.2008157
Michael Bruschi
{"title":"“We’ll Build a World Together”: Intimacy, Alienation, and Donald Fagen’s Voice","authors":"Michael Bruschi","doi":"10.1080/19401159.2022.2008157","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19401159.2022.2008157","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Donald Fagen’s voice is Steely Dan’s unifying thread, yet its distinctive sound has persistently eluded scholarly inquiry. In this article, I examine some defining features of Fagen’s voice while unpacking its role in Steely Dan’s enticing soundscapes. These soundscapes have a unique capacity to draw listeners in while simultaneously blinding them to the routinely unsavory goings-on of Steely Dan’s narrative worlds – a paradoxical esthetic ideology I call intimate alienation. I examine how “intimacy” and “alienation” might interact in Fagen’s voice and Steely Dan’s music more generally, particularly as regards their history of controversial engagement with issues of gender and race.","PeriodicalId":411779,"journal":{"name":"Rock Music Studies","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114433855","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rock Music StudiesPub Date : 2022-01-04DOI: 10.1080/19401159.2022.2008163
D. Lavigne
{"title":"The Odyssean Masculinities of Steely Dan’s Aja","authors":"D. Lavigne","doi":"10.1080/19401159.2022.2008163","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19401159.2022.2008163","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT To judge from the liner notes, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen recognized a connection between 1977’s Aja and the Homer’s archaic Greek epic, the Odyssey. This paper offers a reading of the album with the goal of revealing some of the nuances and effects of the intertextual overlap between album and poem. In particular, Odysseus’s masculine performances are used to explore the masculine persona of Aja’s narrating voice, who, like Odysseus, deploys a trickster poetics in navigating their fluctuating song-worlds. Thereby, these singing personae make their strange homes in and through their ambiguous masculine performances.","PeriodicalId":411779,"journal":{"name":"Rock Music Studies","volume":"86 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131180561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rock Music StudiesPub Date : 2021-12-20DOI: 10.1080/19401159.2022.2008165
Michael Borshuk
{"title":"Introduction: Steely Dan at 50","authors":"Michael Borshuk","doi":"10.1080/19401159.2022.2008165","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19401159.2022.2008165","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This essay provides an overview of the many themes that Steely Dan at 50 observes by revisiting the group’s history and distinct musical concept as crafted by Steely Dan’s architects, songwriters Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. Considering Steely Dan’s music and its wide-ranging effects, I historicize their relationship to other genres and their legendary fixation on recording perfection, while I also draw connections to other aspects of the 1970s American culture in which they attained fame. Finally, I contemplate Steely Dan’s relationship to audience across identities, thinking intersectionally to interrogate the slipperiness of their ongoing engagement with race and gender.","PeriodicalId":411779,"journal":{"name":"Rock Music Studies","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121108669","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rock Music StudiesPub Date : 2021-12-03DOI: 10.1080/19401159.2022.2008155
John Gennari
{"title":"Groove, Voice, and Mystery: Reflections on Steely Dan’s Cool","authors":"John Gennari","doi":"10.1080/19401159.2022.2008155","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19401159.2022.2008155","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The distinctive experience of listening to Steely Dan lies in the friction between their impeccable musicianship, lush jazz-soaked harmonies, tight-pocket rhythm sections, plush-deluxe recording techniques, and an acerbic vocal tone delivering enigmatic shards of stories about colorful and creepy characters. This beguiling alchemy of groove, voice, and mystery – what I am calling “Steely Dan cool” – comes from Walter Becker and Donald Fagen’s deep immersion in black music; the soulful Jewish resonance of Fagen’s voice; and a literary sensibility drenched in irony, incongruity, and obliqueness. I explore the intricacies of Becker and Fagen’s cross-racial appropriation; position Steely Dan in relation to the racialized landscape of 1970s popular music; and ponder why Steely Dan cool still resonates despite being relegated to yacht rock playlists.","PeriodicalId":411779,"journal":{"name":"Rock Music Studies","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132620976","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rock Music StudiesPub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.1080/19401159.2022.2010903
Steven L. Hamelman
{"title":"Let It Be 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition","authors":"Steven L. Hamelman","doi":"10.1080/19401159.2022.2010903","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19401159.2022.2010903","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":411779,"journal":{"name":"Rock Music Studies","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131454248","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rock Music StudiesPub Date : 2021-11-25DOI: 10.1080/19401159.2022.2008164
K. Fellezs
{"title":"Those Days Are Gone Forever: Steely Dan’s Grumpy Old White Guys’ Blues","authors":"K. Fellezs","doi":"10.1080/19401159.2022.2008164","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19401159.2022.2008164","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Steely Dan has always been a grumpy old guy’s band. In this essay, I listen to the ways in which Becker and Fagen turn their critical misandry on middle-aged American boomer generation males, adrift in vats of self-pity, marinating in melancholy and regret, and fermenting inexorably into elderly obsolescence. The duo masked their baleful assessment of white masculinist anxieties in music which blended jazz and rock sensibilities painstakingly polished to a smooth glossy aural sheen – all of which articulated an adultification of rock music culture in the 1970s.","PeriodicalId":411779,"journal":{"name":"Rock Music Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129369581","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rock Music StudiesPub Date : 2021-11-16DOI: 10.1080/19401159.2021.2002561
B. Cooper
{"title":"Rocks and The Ballads of Clyde McPhatter","authors":"B. Cooper","doi":"10.1080/19401159.2021.2002561","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19401159.2021.2002561","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":411779,"journal":{"name":"Rock Music Studies","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123363027","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rock Music StudiesPub Date : 2021-11-08DOI: 10.1080/19401159.2021.2002560
H. Lusty
{"title":"The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music Video Analysis","authors":"H. Lusty","doi":"10.1080/19401159.2021.2002560","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19401159.2021.2002560","url":null,"abstract":"history” of mastering (149). With this background, the reader not only gets a better understanding of the changing nature of mastering over the past several decades but also sees how mastering has been a conceptually different practice in different countries. As with the earlier chapters, this one delivers an abundance of useful technical information, and it also explores the duties and the difficulties common at this stage of recording practice. A layperson might otherwise never consider some of the many tasks necessary at this point, such as choosing the correct running order on an album or even deciding the right amount of space to put between the individual tracks. A key factor for mastering is, unsurprisingly, the medium. CDs changed the sounds and goals of mastering common during the height of the vinyl era, then the rise of streaming changed them yet again. As a result, contemporary recordists often find themselves having to create substantially different masters for streaming services, CDs, and vinyl. Understanding Records stands as a very solid introduction to the different phases of recording music, and it has enough specialized material that it may well merit a second reading after one has gained more recording experience. However, the author tries to reach too broad an audience, and he sometimes attempts to thoroughly explain things which many readers simply may not need to know. That being said, he clearly makes the effort to avoid bogging down the reader in dense terminology and is generally successful. Several Spotify playlists, as well as a few YouTube videos, supplement the text and prove very helpful throughout the book. Despite a few flaws, Understanding Records is easy to recommend because it follows through on its provocative first sentence and clarifies what people hear when they listen to a record. As a result, it should help readers unearth new aspects of recordings they thought they already knew.","PeriodicalId":411779,"journal":{"name":"Rock Music Studies","volume":"48 16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131318970","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}