Using Summer Camp + a band of your choice explain how some artists can be called postmodern.

Summer Camp and Queen can be seen as postmodern because they fit into several of the criteria that make them postmodern. They reject the idea of categorised genres, and take influence from the past and present to create something new. 

Postmodernism originated from a rejection of modernism which states we should always look to the future and forget the mistakes of the past. Postmodernists argue that you can not improve and move forward without looking at the past. Beniton’s phrase, “If you look to the future and keep one eye on the past you are blind in one eye but if you keep both eyes on the future and no eyes on the past you are blind in both eyes.” Which backed up by Desiderius Erasmus, who said “In the kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man is King”, goes some way to explaining why postmodernism is such a large part of popular culture in today’s society. In terms of music it allows unpopular genres and the past generations music to be changed and introduced and made popular in current music. This can be done through remixes where a certain sound is taken and changed or simply through bricolage sampling which often gives the sample a new meaning when put into a different context. However there is a fine line between being postmodern by taking previous music to create something new and just copying another artists work. An example of this difference would be Weezer and Led Zeppelin. Weezer use sampling in their song The Greatest Man That Ever Lived as a pastiche to the music that is sampled which is seen as postmodern because they do not try to cover up the sources of their sample. Whereas Led Zeppelin took lyrics and musical styles and passed them off as their own, by not crediting their source or changing the copy enough it is not seen as a postmodern cover but as a rip off of other artists’ work. 

Summer Camp are a current band who are relatively unknown and are not likely to appeal to a large audience because they can be seen as quite niche in their approach to their music. They have a hyper-real approach to their music, for example their website and blog are set in the fictitious town Condale which the band say is the setting for their songs and music videos. The idea being the audience are brought into a different alternative reality to listen to the music which is backed up by the fake nostalgia created by the band through the use of old photographs. The structure of their website with the short samples of songs playing on loops and repeating footage almost makes the audience feel trapped in this hyper real world without much understanding of why this relates to Kramer’s theory of a postmodern artist impressing meaning onto its audience and leaving it open interpretation. They also create a hyper reality by showing the audience what they actually look like on their album artwork. Although this would be acceptable to an audience who are familiar with alter-egos and stage names in pop culture, for example David Bowie who took on the persona of Ziggy Stardust and changed his image, it does not quite work for Summer Camp as the audience are left wandering why they don’t chose to make themselves identifiable. In terms of using bricolage and changing the meaning of something, Summer Camp use all found footage in their music videos Ghost Train and Round The Moon, which was uncopyrighted footage from a Swedish film “En Karlekshistoria”. They changed the context of the footage and made it fit with the rest of their concept of two people from the 80’s. Their heavy influence from the 80’s shows that they do not respect boundaries of the past and present which is seen as postmodern. Also they attempt to make what was cool for a teenager in the 80’s appeal to a modern audience through the feeling of nostalgia. However to a mainstream audience Summer Camp will never be seen as cool because the 80’s are seen as ancient history to a young audience today and even though mainstream pop artists make reference to the 80’s, for example Katy Perry in her music video for Last Friday Night, it is used by a mainstream artist once, they don’t rely entirely on this concept and will be seen as cool for a short period of time then they have to find something new to keep the audience interested.  Even so, it can be argued that Summer Camp are “cool” solely based on the fact they do not appeal to a wide audience. A niche audience will like them because they are influenced by the “uncool” 80’s both in their music and artistic concept, and because they reference fairly unknown subject, “En Karlekshistoria” for example. However some would argue that although this Summer Camp can be called postmodern is approach to music, with heavy influence on the 80’s and nostalgia, is pointless because it is so niche and unfamiliar that it can never appeal to a wider audience. For example the hyper real town of Condale has no meaning because it is a fictitious place which links to Frederic Jameson theory that self-reference has no purpose.

Queen are a rock band that had their high point the 70’s and 80’s and can be seen as postmodern because they rejected sonority, now being labelled as glam rock they helped to create a new direction for rock, incorporating opera and theatrics into the shape of a traditional rock band. The rejection of sonority is seen as a positive aspect of postmodernism in music because it allows diversity and can make an artist appeal to a wider audience than it would if bands stuck within one genre. For example Queen in their early albums took opera, which can be seen as quite elitist and inaccessible to a mass audience, and made it massively popular by mixing it with hard rock which was very big in 70’s. This links to Kirby Ferguson’s theory that everything is a remix because they took influence from British operatic style, influenced by the likes of Gilbert and Sullivan and Noel Coward’s satires, which doesn’t make it original but by putting it with rock they created their own original sound. By putting Victorian opera, which would be seen as very archaic, into the 70’s rock scene it shows they rejected the boundaries of past and present and of elitist and popularist values that in Kramer’s theory make a band postmodern. To add to this they ignore structural unity by changing and adapting their sound from album to album which in time contradicts their initial ideology which Kramer also states is postmodern. For example on several of their early albums; Queen, Queen II, Sheer Heart Attack, A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, they explicitly state they did not use synthesizers not wanting to be mistaken as a soft disco band. They go back on this later in their discography when they use synths in their music which is heavily used in Hot Space. However this contradiction may not have been intended to make an ironic statement but to keep up to date with the movement of the music industry at the time. They changed styles and used a wide range of influences with the singles Another One Bites The Dust and Under Pressure with David Bowie being funk inspired with a heavy bass beat, which sounds very different to Crazy Little Thing Called Love which is almost a homage to 50’s rock n’ roll. Like Summer Camp, for some of their music videos they take found footage and put it into a new context. For example Radio Ga Ga uses scenes from the sci-fi film Metropolis and mix it with footage from previous Queen videos. As a lot of their later work was sci-fi inspired this explains why they used the footage, by referencing Metropolis and their previous work they can be called postmodern as they are making intertextual references to pop culture which includes themselves as they had become quite popular at this point. They also use intertextual references in their I Want To Break Free music video which begins with a parody of Coronation Street with the band dressed as housewives. To some extent Queen can be called postmodern because they used a wide range of genres in their music including genres that can be seen as elitist like opera, and unfamiliar to the UK mainstream audience at the time like funk. They also used intertextual references in their work and rejected structural unity within songs and albums.

I think that postmodernism in music is unlikely to ever really stop because it is a very easy way of producing music, in the sense that sampling, remixing, covering and mashing up songs is quicker and simpler than creating a whole album from scratch. Some believe this will lead to a prosumer dominance in music where people like DJ Audacity, who is a 16 year old boy who takes current songs and mixes them together on his laptop. He has received become very popular and millions of views on YouTube. Although this is an example of someone who does not need the technology and label behind him, mash-ups like this are unlikely to dominate because audiences want the band/ artist star image to go with it. However through Brian Eno’s theory of the Death of Uncool, nothing is seen as outcast through the mixing of genres, through mash-ups and sampling. Frederic Jameson’s criticises postmodernism and says that it just traps the media in endless circular references, in terms of music, there is a concern the use of sampling and covers will wear away the quality and validity of bands. For example 5ive’s cover of We Will Rock You takes a very popular song, tries to make it fit in 00’s music by incorporating hip-hop and rap but fail in making it good as the original is seen as being a lot better.  

In conclusion, Summer Camp and Queen can be called postmodern as they reject modernist rules for structure and genres, by taking sounds from the past and putting it into the present. They both also use found footage in their work which gives the footage a new meaning in a different context. Summer Camp can be seen as postmodern in the way the interact with their audience through the use of hyper reality. Both can be used as examples of postmodernism in music as sampling in their work shows the state of modern day music industry where a majority of music and influence has been borrowed from a previous artist. 

Music and Postmodernism.

Postmodernism in music allows an artist to:

• blend genres & destroy sonority to create something new e.g. Kanye West baroque pop & hip-hop
• Use bricolage - take something old and give it a new meaning e.g. Telephone the song is about not wanting to answer the phone in a club but with the music video it is given a new meaning - becomes dark & sinister
  - Bad examples of this 5ive cover of We Will Rock You cheesy pop too low end culture brings down the quality of the better high end original
  - Radio 1 Live Lounge getting artists to cover other contemporary artists work often from a different genre to create something new

• Hyper reality - stage names and alter-egos allow an artist the freedom to change genres and change their image.
  - Lady Gaga controls her image
  - Summercamp a negative side as the band don't look like the image so unrecognizable to audience
  - Gorillaz animated characters can make production of shows and music videos very expensive
• Sampling - take old songs and create something new

Post-modernism of David Bowie.

Hyper-reality created character Ziggy Stardust to experiment with different genres.

Very influential with music due to wide variety of genres and sounds.
Rejects structure within albums and changes style in every album:

• David Bowie - folk & rock/pop
• Space Odditiy - psychedelic folk/ progressive rock
• The Man Who Sold The World - birth of glam rock
• The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust - rock
• Young Americans - soul/ funk/ rock
• Black Tie White Noise - soul & electronic

He is seen as the founder of mixing genres within pop music with a wide variety of genres and subject matter including; politics, love, drugs and literature, and puts the unexpected into his lyrics with sci-fi themes.


Future Legend:


Love You Til Tuesday:




A good example of his very different styles, apart from his recognizable voice these two songs sound nothing alike.

Post-modernism of Lady Gaga.

Hyper-reality:
Lady Gaga is a stage name which allows her to get away with controversial & shocking outfits and stunts e.g. wearing the meat dress. 
 
Mixing genres:
Incorporates a variety of genres in her work. The Fame/Fame Monster influenced by 70's disco but made modern by using faders and heavy beats which makes it possible to be played in a club. An example of making 70's disco popular to a present day mainstream audience. 





Unconventional popstar:
She doesn't mime and plays instruments in her performances as well as dances and putting on a show. 


Intertextual references:



In her music video for Telephone she uses a lot of intertextual references from various sources:

• References to Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill by using the exact same truck - the Pussy Wagon borrowed from Tarantino
• Title of the video is a reference to Tarantino's Jackie Brown film title
• Diet coke cans as curlers are a reference to Andy Warhol's work including famous Marilyn Monroe picture with blond curls and coke can prints.
• There is a Michael Jackson reference when she leaves the prison she makes a dance move similar to MJ in his video for 
• She makes reference to herself with her Monster-beats headphones, the comment by prison guards about rumors of her being a hermaphrodite and her song Paper Gangsta being played on the radio in the prison
• The kitchen scene is a bricolage of the typical 50's housewife, taking the typical role of a woman in the kitchen and turning it into something sinister by adding poison to the food
• The crime in the diner scene is a reference to Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Post-modernism in music.

Mumford & Sons:
Homage to traditional folk music. Started on indie folk scene - a niche audience. Now has wide appeal to mainstream and niche audiences.
Intertexutality: Quotes from Shakespeare, Of Mice and Men, East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath. Makes what is seen as high end, elitist culture accessible and is sung by teenagers who might not necessary know the reference.

Other PM folk music:
Gogol Bordello - gypsy punk band who mix punk and folk music together two things that you wouldn't expect to work together.


The Pogues:
Founded celtic punk. Mixed traditional folk music using tin whistle, violins, banjos and accordion with punk rock with guitar, bass and drums.  They covered traditional Irish folk songs e,g, Paddy on the Railway and Irish Rover as well as writing original songs.


2 Many DJ's:
Levi-Strauss' theory of addition, subtraction, substitution and transposition. They take two songs from completely different genres and eras and mix them together.
Push It - hip hop & No Fun - punk


It appeals to a niche audience as people want to test their own knowledge of the what the two songs are and how it has been mixed together but also to a more mainstream audience for people who just like the beat of the remixes.


Hurts:
Synth pop duo. Pay homage to 80's synth pop music - 


DJ Danger Mouse:
Mixed Jay-Z's Black Album and The Beatles' White Album to create a Grey album. Bricolage of 60's pop and 2000's hip-hop. 





Eminem:
Pastiche in his songs. "The Real Slim Shady" mocking celebrities

Without Me:
Though I'm not the first king of controversy
I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley
To do black music so selfishly
And use it to get myself wealthy
"Hey" there's a concept that works
Twenty million other white rappers emerge
But no matter how many fish in the sea
It will be so empty without me

Points out copycat culture of music and addresses his critics.

 Gorillaz:
Hyper-reality the band are shown as their animated characters which allows them freedom and can not be pinned down to one specific genre. They have used rock, dub, hip-hop, electronic and pop within their music.
Feel Good Inc is a bricolage with sampling of different sounds, laughter and older material with the crackling symbolising analogue sound.



In terms of live performance the actual band are not seen by the audience they use visuals to show the animated characters mime while the real band play live out of sight. This reverses the idea of the high culture because mainstream pop artists are expected to mime while a band who play instruments and singing live are not expected to mime. 


Devo:
80's synth group. Incorporate genres: punk, art rock, post-punk, new wave
http://youtu.be/Xbt30UnzRWw Whip It video is a pastiche of traditional old American west. Also in the video they pay homage to Kraftwerk, influencial synth group with the hats.


Tenacious D:
A parody mock rock band who have become a real band due to popularity who play shows & festivals. Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny film is a comedy parody of rock and roll lifestyle of the band - take the mick out of themselves and metal bands at the same time. 



Kanye West:
Mixes a wide range of genres and creates different sounding albums. Soul, RnB, baroque pop, trip-hop, arena rock, folk, alternative, electronic, synth pop & classical. Avoids totalising form. 


Uses sampling in his work - Woods by Bon Iver used in Lost in the World / Harder, Bettter, Faster, Stronger used in Stronger. 
His collaboration with Jay-Z for Otis uses sampling from Otis Redding's Try a Little Tenderness
On his debut album The College Dropout 14/21 tracks contain sampling from a wide variety of artists e.g. Aretha Franklin, 2Pac, Chaka Khan, Lauryn Hill & Marvin Gaye


Uses intertextual references in his work:
References Evel Knievel in one of his music videos which lead to a lawsuit against him.


Makes political and social statements in his work:
In Breathe In, Breathe Out he talks about the materialistic nature of society and this link with the hip-hop genre. In Jesus Walks he talks about the lack of religion in hip-hop "They say you can rap about anything except Jesus, that means guns, sex, lies, video tapes. But if I talk about God my record won't get played." this can be seen as ironic because in other work the topics are just about sex and drugs and religion is scarce in his work. 

Post-modernism of Queen.

"My mission is to bring ballet to the masses" - Freddie Mercury

Rejection of elitist & popularist division:

• Brian May - astrophysicist & musician
• Classical music, opera - Gilbert & Sullivan style and theatrical influence mixed with hard rock in music and live performances
• Outrageous costume - very theatrical, leotards.

Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon:

Barcelona with Montserrat Caballe:


Brighton Rock Solo:

The Millionaire Waltz:


Another One Bites The Dust:


Crazy Little Thing Called Love:


Contradiction: Explicitly pointed out that no synths were used on early albums but used them later when their music developed.


Ignoring structure within songs - Bohemian Rhapsody
Three songs combined into one. Taking inspiration from opera structure of composed in continuous act. Vocals layered to sound like choir of voices. Call and response style. 
Elitist music made popular - stayed at number 1 for 14 weeks. Top British single of all time.





Ignored "hierarchy" of music press & put messages into song:

• Famously didn't give many interviews
• Freddie had been called a prat by NME 
• News of the World album - We Will Rock You & We Are The Champions audience participation 
• Death on Two Legs - dedicated to ex-manager, Norman Sheffield

I Want To Break Free Music Video: 
Parody of Coronation Street



Radio Ga Ga Music Video:
Bricolage of scenes from sci-fi film Metropolis and footage from other Queen videos



Bricolage in songs commissioned for films: Flash from Flash Gordon, A Kind of Magic from Highlander.


Covers since:

• Another One Bites the Dust with Wyclef Jean:

• We Will Rock You with Five:

We Will Rock You Musical:
Is set in the future where computerized pop has taken over and rebellious kids are outcast.

Brian May, Roger Taylor and Ben Elton wrote the musical which features Queen songs, some lyrics where changed and the meaning changed to fit to the story. It pays homage to the rock n' roll era at the same time is a pastiche taking the mick out of the fashion and culture and also out of Queen themselves making references to Queen songs and characteristics. Also to musicians that came from before and after Queen's time.


Rip off:

Apply Theories of Narrative to One of Your Coursework Products.

The music video for Good Life by OneRepublic follows Andrew Goodwin's theory of a relationship between the visuals and music by amplifying the meaning of the lyrics through a narrative. The narrative follows a linear structure, typical of mainstream pop music videos. To some extent the music video follows Steve Archer's theory that videos tend to only suggest storyline and focus on fragments of the lyrics, in this music video the lyrics become the focus during the lip syncing clips the rest of the time it is used to narrate the story. Like most pop videos the lead singer is the main character in the video who acts as both the narrator, through lip syncing, and protagonist as part of the plot with his connection with Katie.  As there are only two characters in the music video, Propp's theory of character roles does not really apply to it, however Bank is clearly the hero of the story as the lead singer of the band. The roles of the characters in the narrative conforms to Mulvey's theory of the male gaze as Katie is viewed passively because she does not connect to the audience by making eye contact with the camera, Bank on the other hand can be seen as a subject rather than an object because he looks directly at the audience while singing. Similarly Schwichtenberg's theory that "action in the story is dominated by males who do things and females who passively react or wait for something to happen" applies to the narrative however there is a contradiction because Katie is the more active character being seen walking around and searching for her freedom, Bank is the more passive in the sense he is always in the same setting. However again Katie is viewed as being passive because she does not interact with the audience were as Bank does making him more of a subject than an object to watch. 


In terms of the narrative it follows David Bordwell's theory of fabula, changing meaning from viewer to viewer, the relationship between the two characters is not explicitly explained which leaves it up to audience interpretation. Like most pop videos it relies on the audience having an understanding that the subjects are romantically involved with the plot revolving around getting together, being together or breaking up. Therefore the link between Katie and Bank is seen by most viewers as a breakup as the couple are not seen together, it appears that Katie is the one to leave as the shot of Bank's phone with pictures of her implies to the audience he is missing her. This is an example of Roland Barthes' theory of codes this being a semantic code explaining their break up through connotation rather than explaining it explicitly. Katie's floating dress is an example of symbolic code to signify to the audience she is a country girl who looks very out of place in the city. With the London shots especially the crowded fast pace shots are cultural codes that the audience understand as claustrophobic to Katie because of pre-knowledge of city life. This is also the same for the country shots as the audience understand this is seen as a more relaxed lifestyle due to cultural understanding. The city and country contrast is an example of Levi-Strauss' binary opposites which also symbolises Katie's mood. Using post-production the city and Bank singing is shot in black and white which contrasts and signifies her freedom in the country away from the city and Bank in the country shots which are in colour. Todorov’s theory of restored equilibrium at the end of narratives also applies to our music video as Katie is show in the country where she belongs having escaped from the depression of the city.