Country Music and the Souls of White Folk

Nunn, Erich

doi:10.1353/crt.2010.0000

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 18 publications

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“…37 This 'whitening' of Appalachian folk can be seen in biographies of Rodgers, including his wife's My Husband, Jimmie Rodgers (1935), in which he is described as having an "Irish heart" or "soul," suggesting he descended from a grand tradition of Celtic folk and deprecating his connections to Black musicians. 38 Appalachian music once flowed across the boundaries between the white and Black communities of the region. As represented by its biggest star, it had become firmly racialized.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consciousness and Commodity: Towards A Critical Theory of Genre in American Popular Music

Glick

2023

J Stud Res

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Genre, particularly in the popular music industry, can be understood as a perpetual cycle – from the origin of a new sound or ‘scene,’ recognition by critics and tastemakers, commercialization as a canonized genre, and finally its rejection and/or reinvention by a new generation of artists seeking to establish their own new forms. In America, these musical communities have been most often grounded in racial, regional, or sexual preference identities, as these ties have been the most meaningful to listeners. Over time, the reactionary resistance of these artistic communities and practices produces music that is itself codified as a new product line, confirming the relentless cycle of genre. In this paper, I utilize three case studies ranging from the fabrication of ‘hillbilly’ music in the 1920s, Disco Demolition Night and resistance to the popularity of disco in the late 1970s, and the rise and popularization of hip hop in the 1980s help show different moments on the cycle of genre creation and the resistance that emerges. Finally, this paper will point to indications that the advent of streaming music is leading to the obsolescence of the traditional production of genre. We are witnessing the rapid rise and fall of new musical non-genres, epitomized by hyperpop, a ‘genre’ that lacks any core common attributes. If genre is a tool to construct the self and, at times, enable communities of resistance, a world without lasting musical genres presents implications and challenges for the future of identity and social change.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consciousness and Commodity: Towards A Critical Theory of Genre in American Popular Music

Glick

2023

J Stud Res

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Consciousness and commodity: towards a critical theory of genre in American popular music

Glick

2024

Culture, Theory and Critique

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Styling Authenticity in Country Music

Werner,

Ledermann

2024

Languages

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Country music has become commercially successful both in the US and worldwide. It is perceived as a genre that values authenticity, which may be reflected in the choice of linguistic features, with (White) Southern American English (SAE) serving as the “default” variety. Given the recent diversification of the genre, the question arises whether the use of SAE features is still considered obligatory as a kind of “supralocal norm”. This study compared the lyrics of 600 highly successful songs by male and female artists from White Southern, Black Southern, and White non-Southern backgrounds. The aim was to test (i) whether morphosyntactic SAE features are used to index authenticity in the sense of having become enregistered for this music genre and (ii) whether non-Southerners engage in the styling of relevant markers. It emerged that non-Southerners use more of these features than their Southern counterparts, providing preliminary evidence for “genre fitting” as a means of indexing authenticity. However, there is only one marker that qualifies as a core Country feature used across all artist groups, namely negative concord. As this item arguably is better categorized as vernacular universal, SAE morphosyntax appears to have largely lost its indexical function in Country, while accent features are still vital to establishing cultural authenticity.

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Country Music and the Souls of White Folk

Cited by 3 publications

References 18 publications

Consciousness and Commodity: Towards A Critical Theory of Genre in American Popular Music

Consciousness and Commodity: Towards A Critical Theory of Genre in American Popular Music

Consciousness and commodity: towards a critical theory of genre in American popular music

Styling Authenticity in Country Music

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