Consider the importance of MTV in the careers of so many musicians who rose to fame in the 1980s. For this discussion, choose either Michael Jackson or Madonna, both of whom were consid
Consider the importance of MTV in the careers of so many musicians who rose to fame in the 1980s. For this discussion, choose either Michael Jackson or Madonna, both of whom were considered multifaceted performers who rise to stardom was the direct result of MTV. Use the mashup tool to post one of their videos and respond to the following:
- Do you think that the importance of the visual medium, in this case, MTV, was a positive or negative development in the music industry?
- Were there any controversies associated with the video you chose? If so, what were they?
- Do you think that music videos help encourage performing artists to be more multifaceted? Or do you think that it detracts from the quality of the music by placing so much emphasis on non-musical elements?
In response to at least three of your peers, do you agree or disagree with your peers’ evaluation of the musician and music video chosen? Explain why or why not. When sharing your musical selections with the class, you may use the mashup tool for YouTube. If you are uncomfortable with that or would like to post a traditional text response, that is acceptable as well. Below are the Mashup direction should you choose to use that option. Using Mashup is NOT mandatory.
Unit 7
Readings and Resources
Textbook or eBook:
Campbell, M. (2019). Popular music in America. 5th ed. Cengage Learning.
This unit addresses the new sounds and rhythms of rock in the 80s and more commercially dominant music sounds of “Pop” music in this decade. You will read about the positive and negative implications of MTV and how the emergence of the music video brought about changes in the consumption of music.
· Chapter 18: Beyond Rock in the 1980s (pgs. 332-355)
CH. 77
Beyond Rock
77-1 New Directions in the 1980s
The eighties brought new sounds as well as new looks to rock-era music. Much of the commercially dominant music of the eighties sounds as if it could not have been created before 1980, for at least two reasons. One was the use of sounds and rhythms that were not common currency, or even available through much of the 1970s. The other was the integration of style elements from what had been “outsider” styles in the 1970s.
77-2 New Sounds and Rhythms
Advances in electronic synthesis opened up a broad new palette of sounds to the musicians of the 1980s. Digital technology made both the replication of existing timbres and the creation of new timbres easier. It also streamlined the enhancement of conventional sounds through various effects. As a result, music that did not incorporate synthesized sounds became the exception rather than the rule. These sounds are integral to the distinctive styles of acts as diverse as U2 and Madonna.
The music of the 1980s also stands out because of new rhythms. Three were widely used: the energized rock beat derived from punk; adaptations of the afterbeat rhythms of reggae; and, most commonly, the sixteen-beat rhythms first heard in funk, black pop, and disco. These took various forms, often in combination, as in the relentlessly pulsing rhythms in the music of U2 and the syncopated, dance-oriented rhythms in Madonna’s music. As a result, the timeless rock groove of the Stones and others was less common in the middle ground music of the eighties than these new, more active rhythms.
77-3 “Insider/Outsider” Fusions
Punk and disco seem about as easy to blend as oil and water. As they emerged in the late seventies, they seemed to demarcate contrasting ideologies and musical approaches. Punk was real, whereas disco, as experienced in a club, was an escape into a timeless world. Punk was about grit; disco was about glitter. Punk bands hammered out a concentrated rock rhythm on conventional rock instruments; disco featured DJs mixing a string of recordings, most of which combined a strong beat with active sixteen-beat rhythms. The lyrics of punk songs usually said something; disco lyrics often descended into banality.
However, in Christgau’s Record Guide, a 1990 survey of 3,000 recordings from the eighties, Robert Christgau, the “dean of American rock critics,” cited “post-punk/post-disco fusion” as a key development of the decade. He described a synthesis of the two in DOR, or dance-oriented rock , an umbrella term used by DJs in 1980s disco pools to identify an array of eighties styles. Because pools helped spur the sale of nonradio records, some acts made sure there were dance-oriented tracks on their albums.
The fusion of disparate inside/outside styles was nothing new in rock; it had been common practice from the start. However, the innovations resulting from the fusions of the eighties were different from those of the previous generation, for at least three reasons. First, the eighties was the first generation of rock music (and, for that matter, twentieth-century popular music) that was not nurtured by the blues. Second, the outside styles came from within rock-era music. Third, because of the blending of rock styles, the boundaries between rock, rhythm and blues, and pop became more fluid and transparent; the list of the top artists of the eighties hints at that.
Finally, another fusion profoundly affected the dissemination of music. Sound, image, and movement came together in a newly emergent genre—the music video—that became a staple on a new network—MTV—in a new medium, cable television.
77-4 MTV and Music Videos
Cable TV is almost as old as commercial broadcasting. The first cable TV services were launched in 1948; a well-situated antenna brought television signals to homes in remote rural regions. There was some growth during the fifties and sixties, but cable TV as we currently know it didn’t get off the ground until the latter part of the seventies. Two key developments—the launching of communications satellites and significant deregulation of the broadcast industry—made cable television economically feasible. The Cable Act of 1984 effectively deregulated the television industry and in its wake, the cable industry wired the nation. With new revenues came new and more varied programming.
Cable changed the economics of the television industry and transformed it in the process. Networks relied exclusively on advertising for their revenue; the signal was free. Cable TV services charged subscribers a fee and passed on a percentage of that fee to the channels that they offered their subscribers. This new source of revenue made possible the fragmentation of the television market. A network that could command only 1 or 2 percent of the market would have no chance for success against the major networks; but that same 1 or 2 percent of the cable market could provide enough income to make the network viable.
Among the first of these new cable networks was MTV . The network began broadcasting in 1981. Symbolically, the first music video that MTV broadcast was “Video Killed the Radio Star.” The original format of the network was analogous to Top 40–style radio stations. Videos replaced songs, and VJs (video jockeys) assumed a role similar to radio disc jockeys.
Perhaps because cable originally serviced mainly rural parts of the country, MTV took an AOR-type approach to programming. For the first couple of years, programming targeted a young, white audience. Bands were almost exclusively white—Duran Duran, a British pop group with a keen visual sense, was one of the early MTV bands. Black acts cried “racism” with some justification.
It was Michael Jackson who broke MTV’s color barrier. The demand for his spectacular music videos was so overwhelming that the network changed its policy. MTV started VH1 in 1985 and diversified its programming in several ways, adding documentaries, cartoons, and talk shows. In particular, its segments on rap helped bring that genre out of the inner city.
MTV has affected both consumers and creators. The network became a key tastemaker for young people around the world. It has influenced not only what they listen to but also many other aspects of youth culture: dress, looks, body language, vocabulary, and attitudes. However, its most significant contribution was providing an outlet for music videos.
Rock had been a look as well as a sound from the start, but it wasn’t until the late sixties that the idea of using videos as a promotional tool took hold. At the same time, live performances were captured on video or film. Documentaries of the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock in 1969 remain treasures. Further experiments, especially by new wave acts like Devo, moved closer to the integration of sound and image that characterizes contemporary music video. With the arrival of MTV, the music video became a key component of the music industry.
The music video inverted the conventional relationship among story, image, and sound. In musical theater and film musicals, songs were written for the story, ideally enhancing those moments when the emotions a character felt were too much for mere words. In early music videos, the relationship was the opposite: The visual element was designed to enhance the song. Now the music video is such an essential component of pop success that acts create song and video as an integrated whole. In either form, it is a relatively new expressive medium.
The most obvious, and most widely discussed, consequence of music videos was the suddenly increased emphasis on the look of an act, and the look of the video, as a determinant of success. The two artists who leveraged this new, integrated medium to gain overwhelming commercial success were Michael Jackson and Madonna.
CH. 78
Pop in the Eighties
78-1 Pop in the 1980s
The early eighties ushered in a new generation of pop stars. The stars and their music were dramatically different from the music of the previous decade in several respects. Race, gender, and even sexual preference were nonissues. The leading pop acts of the 1980s were Michael Jackson, Prince, and Madonna. None of them is a white male. Both Jackson and Madonna were multifaceted entertainers. After them, it was no longer enough to be just a good singer or musician; one had to be able to move well, although no one topped Michael Jackson in skill or imagination. Video and film became essential components of stardom. Michael Jackson’s videos broke the color barrier on MTV, and video and film were essential in boosting both Prince and Madonna to superstardom. The three set the tone for the pop music videos of the next decades. Their music was a melting pot. Although the new pop of the eighties and beyond connects most directly to the black pop tradition of the sixties and seventies, the music was certainly open to other influences: disco, punk, reggae, funk, Latin music, dance music, and rap. Synthesizers played an increasingly important role, as rhythm instruments, extra percussion, and string and horn analogs.
This new pop was unprecedentedly popular. Michael Jackson’s Thriller album easily surpassed the sales of the previous best-selling album. As Robert Christgau pointed out, the sheer sales volume of Thriller was part of its significance. Prince and Madonna also had impressive sales figures.
Precisely because its artists drew from so many sources, there was no single “middle ground” style. It was not defined by a distinctive kind of beat keeping, like punk; or a rhythmic feel, like funk; or a special sound quality, like the distortion of heavy metal. Instead, a set of principles, rather than specific musical features, defined the music that topped the charts during the eighties. The songs typically have intelligible lyrics that tell a story—usually about love or its absence or about a slice of life. They are set to a singable melody. The melody in turn is embedded in a rich, riff-laden texture. Most layers—if not all—are played on synthesizers. The songs typically have a good beat, easy to find and danceable, neither too monotonous nor too ambiguous. These features are embodied in the music of Michael Jackson, and especially the nine tracks on Thriller.
78-2 Michael Jackson
Berry Gordy’s vision was a black pop style whose appeal transcended the black community. One branch of its legacy was the post-eighties pop middle ground marked out by Michael Jackson (1958–2009). Jackson is the most direct link between Motown and 1980s pop. As a member of The Jackson 5, he was part of Motown’s last great act. As a solo performer in the late seventies and early eighties, he went beyond Motown by helping to define the new pop middle ground musically, reviving the all-around performer and establishing the music video as a new, integrated mode of expression. Most spectacularly, his dancing went far beyond the stylized choreography of the Motown acts.
Although only 24 when Thriller (1982) was released, Michael Jackson had been a professional entertainer for three-fourths of his life and a star for half of it. He had released solo singles in the early seventies, but Jackson’s solo career didn’t take off until 1978, when he starred in the film The Wiz. During the filming, he met composer/arranger/producer Quincy Jones, who collaborated with him on Off the Wall (1979), his first major album, and Thriller. Jones’s skill and creativity proved to be the ideal complement to Jackson’s abilities.
Jackson was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. MTV had gone on the air in 1981; Thriller was released a year later. Jackson helped transform the music video from a song-with-video into a mini-film that used a song as the focal point; for example, the video of “Thriller” is over twice the length of the track on the album. Jackson made it work through his exuberant dancing.
Listening Cue
“Thriller” (1982)
Rod Temperton
Michael Jackson, vocal.
STYLE 1980s middle ground pop ⋅ FORM Verse/chorus
Listen For …
INSTRUMENTATION
Lead and backup vocals, electronic analogs to conventional instruments (bass, horns, percussion, chord instruments) percussion, guitar; nonmusical sounds, spoken commentary
PERFORMANCE STYLE
Jackson’s light, not-scary voice balanced by Price’s macabre “rap”
RHYTHM
Active rhythms at march/disco tempo: bass riff at rock-beat speed; busy sixteen-beat percussion parts, fast horn riffs; many riffs syncopated
MELODY
Short title-phrase riff at chorus; verse = longer phrase
TEXTURE
Dense texture formed mainly from layers of riffs: bass, mid-range, vocal, higher range horn-like riffs; sustained sounds behind riffs
Remember …
EXTENSIVE ELECTRONICS
Electronic versions of conventional instruments: bass riff throughout, plus horn-like riffs, sustained chords
EXPANSIVE FORM
In both audio track and video, instrumental interlude; in video, allows the action/dance scene to unfold
MOTOWN INFLUENCE
Bright rhythms, bass-heavy texture, melodic saturation, and verse/chorus form build on Motown formula
Listen to this selection in the unit playlist.
“Thriller” exhibits several distinctive characteristics of post-1980 pop. One is the extensive use of electronic instruments in combination with conventional instruments. Among the most prominent electronic sounds are the repeated bass riff, the sustained harmonies behind Michael’s vocals, and the brash chords of the opening, all played on synthesizers. The basic rhythm grows out of disco. We hear a strong backbeat, a relentless bass-drum thump on each beat, and several layers of percussion marking off a sixteen-beat rhythm. However, the other instrumental parts, especially those played on rhythm section instruments or their electronic counterparts, create a texture that is denser and more complex than that heard in a conventional disco song. Jackson’s vocal line is simply one strand in the texture; in the verse, it is in the forefront, but in the chorus sections the backup vocals and instruments playing the title-phrase riff all but drown him out. It floats on the busy rhythms and riffs that provide much of the song’s momentum—indeed, in the video, the basic rhythm track sustains the flow through the graveyard scene, and, after a short break, through the first part of the extended dance number that is the heart of the video.
Although only three of the tracks were shot as music videos, all of the songs on Thriller have a distinct identity. There is considerable contrast from song to song, as the musical settings capture the tone and content of the lyric. For example, the hard-edged riffs that open “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” anticipate the lyric’s schoolyard-style provocation. The punk-inspired beat and Eddie Van Halen’s guitar underscore the message of “Beat It.” The loping rhythm (a shuffle beat on top of a rock beat), the use of pre-rock pop harmony, and the soft synth sounds reinforce the friendly rivalry between Michael and Paul McCartney in “The Girl Is Mine,” and a setting that mixes an open middle range—just a simple synthesizer riff—with the irritation of a persistent bass riff and percussion sound, characterizes the emptiness of the groupie-style relationship in “Billie Jean.” Both the songs and Quincy Jones’s masterful settings give the album an expressive range that compensates for the one-dimensional quality of Jackson’s singing.
There is no doubt that Thriller would have been a successful album without the videos. But it also seems certain that the videos, and the fact that the songs were so “video-ready,” played a crucial role in its overwhelming success. Thriller was the crowning achievement of Jackson’s career; nothing before or since matched its success.
78-3 Madonna
In Renaissance-era Italian, madonna was originally a variant of mia donna, or “my lady.” The term eventually came to refer more specifically to Mary, the mother of Jesus. For example, the phrase “madonna and child” identifies those works of art that depict Mary with the infant Jesus. In the eighties, “Madonna” acquired a more contemporary image: the pop star whose given name was enough to identify her to the world at large.
Madonna (born Madonna Ciccone, 1958) was born the same year as Michael Jackson. In 1978, while Jackson was starring in The Wiz, Madonna moved to New York to further her career as a dancer. She soon became active in the club scene, while she struggled to pay the rent. However, her star rose quickly. Her first records, released in the early eighties, gained her a following, mainly among clubbers. Although these songs didn’t cross over, they created enough of a buzz that she received a contract to record her first album, Madonna, which was released in 1983.
In 1984, she took one of the many bold steps that have characterized her career, releasing the video of “Like a Virgin.” Shot in Venice, Italy, the video rapidly juxtaposes images of Madonna in a white wedding dress with her in street clothes and a provocative evening dress—attire that suggests she is anything but a virgin. The video established a formula that would set the tone for her subsequent work: combine provocative, shocking, and controversial themes and images with bright, accessible music.
Madonna combined provocative, shocking and controversial themes and images with bright, accessible music.
Listening Cue
“Like a Prayer” (1989)
Madonna,
Patrick Leonard
Madonna, vocal.
STYLE 1980s middle ground pop ⋅ FORM Verse/chorus
Listen For …
INSTRUMENTATION
Vocal, choir, organ, guitar, multiple percussion instruments, bass, keyboards
PERFORMANCE STYLE
Madonna’s straightforward, plain singing; guitar distortion
RHYTHM
Busy sixteen-beat rhythms at dance tempo
MELODY
Abundance of riffs in verse and chorus
TEXTURE
Contrast between sustained harmonies under vocal and active, dense, percussion-rich texture
Remember …
SIMPLE SONG/POP HOOK
Simple melody offers easy point of entry
CONTRASTS
Striking contrasts in sound, rhythm, and texture: melody plus sustained chords form dense texture, with Madonna, choir, and lots of rhythm, including distorted guitar
FROM PRAYER TO POP
Melody, choir, organ connect to religious service; pop sections have no religious overtones musically
Listen to this selection in the unit playlist.
Among her most controversial projects of the eighties was the video for “Like a Prayer.” The song was the title track from her 1989 album of the same name. The video conflates religious images (e.g., a scene in which she grasps a knife, and it cuts her in a way that evokes the stigmata of the crucified Christ); symbols of racism (burning crosses); numerous incongruities and impossibilities (a black gospel choir in a Catholic chapel; the statue of a black saint who comes to life, then doubles as the black man wrongly accused of murdering a woman); and the one constant—Madonna in a revealing dress. All of this outraged numerous religious groups, who threatened to boycott Pepsi, which had recruited Madonna as a spokesperson. The controversy served as free publicity—the album topped the charts.
The video for “Like a Prayer” dramatically evidences the emergence of the music video as an entity distinct from the song that spawned it and from other expressive forms that merge song, image, and movement. The messages of the song—among them, that racism is wrong, that we are all brothers and sisters in Christ, and Madonna is sexy—come through mainly in the rapidfire series of images/scenes/song fragments. There is little sense of continuity in the narrative, visually or in the lyric, and there are long stretches where Madonna makes no attempt to sing in the video, even as we hear her voice in the song. This shows the rapid evolution of the music video, not only in Madonna’s own work but also in the medium overall. It has moved well beyond simply capturing a live performance, as was the case in “Everybody,” her first video; at this point in her career and in the brief history of the medium, such videos seem a distant memory.
Musically, Madonna’s winning formula has been to combine a simple, catchy melody with trendy sounds and rhythms and skillful production. The melody of “Like a Prayer” flows in gently undulating phrases, with little or no syncopation. When isolated from its setting, the melody bears a closer resemblance to a children’s song or a folk melody than to a dance-inspired song from the eighties. And like a folk melody, it is easily absorbed and remembered. The support for this melody oscillates between sustained chords sung by a choir and played on an organ, and a Caribbean-flavored background that bears a striking resemblance to Steve Winwood’s 1986 No. 1 hit “Higher Love.” As with much post-1980 pop, the active accompaniment is dense, rhythmically active, and rich in both electronic and conventional instrumental sounds. The steady flow of Madonna’s melody connects the dance-like sections with those sections containing only sustained harmonies and extremely light percussion sounds. “Like a Prayer” breaks no new ground musically, but it does merge disparate and seemingly contradictory musical features into an effective song, just as the video does.
The most ground-breaking aspect of Madonna’s career has been her ascension to a position of complete control of her career: writing her songs, producing her recordings, choreographing her performances, and making the key decisions about every aspect of production and promotion. This owes more to her ambition, business acumen, and chutzpah than it does to her musical talent. In achieving elite celebrity status—single-name recognition, tabloid fodder for the better part of two decades—as she directed her career, she has become a role model for a new generation of women performers.
Many have found her public persona liberating. Without question, her success added a new dimension to sexual equality within the pop music business. Women, or at least women like her, no longer had to be front persons for men. Cynical observers have dismissed the provocative images that she presents, such as those encountered in the “Like a Prayer” video, as attention-getting stunts whose shock value obscures a lack of talent and imagination. It is true that Madonna is not spectacularly creative in any artistic dimension of the music business. She is not Michael Jackson’s equal as a dancer, Prince’s equal as a songwriter or an instrumentalist, or Tina Turner’s equal as a vocalist. However, to dismiss her talents out of hand would be to ignore the sense of conviction with which Madonna presents these controversial juxtapositions and to dismiss their role in challenging value systems that have grown rigid over time.
Neither Jackson nor Madonna has been a musical innovator. Their most influential and innovative contributions have come in other areas: the reintegration of song and expressive dance; their role in establishing the music video as a new expressive medium; their sheer star power; and in Madonna’s case, her business acumen. All have become key components of popular music since the mid-1980s.
CH. 79
Post-Punk/Post-Disco Fusions: The Music of Prince
79-1 “Sign ‘O’ the Times”
“Sign ‘O’ the Times,” one of three singles from the album to chart, presents a bleak vision of contemporary life: gangs, AIDS, drugs, and natural disasters, interlaced with anecdotal accounts of the fallout from drug use. The music is correspondingly bleak. The track begins with an intricate rhythm formed from a syncopated synthesizer riff and two electronically generated percussion sounds, and this texture continues throughout the song. The repetition seems purposeful; it seems to suggest a despair that knows no end. It substitutes for a standard rhythm section and supports Prince’s vocal in the verse section. Other consistent elements include a strong backbeat and a synthesized bass riff that often provides a response to the vocal line. Funky, jazz-influenced guitar figures, then sustained synthesizer chords, which provide the first harmonic change, highlight the buildup to the crux of the song: one finds release only in death. To underscore this difficult idea, Prince brings the music back to the empty sound of the opening—an abrupt and disconcerting return to reality. Only a blues-tinged guitar solo, again over the relentless synthesizer riffs and intricate percussion rhythms, provides relief from the misery portrayed in the lyric. This is interrupted by percussion sounds that evoke the fire of a machine gun.
“Sign ‘O’ the Times” gains its impact as much from what’s missing as from what’s present. There is no rhythm guitar, no bass line, and no routine timekeeping on a drum set. There is no hook at the highpoint of the chorus to latch onto. There are no familiar chord progressions and few other clues that help us navigate through the song. The rhythms are complex, as in funk, but disciplined; the texture is spare, not dense. These features help create a sound world that is as vivid and powerful as a black and white photograph of a gray day in the ghetto.
“Sign ‘O’ the Times” shows how Prince mixed disparate elements into a coherent and effective whole. From punk, via rap, he took reality—there is no fantasy, or escape, in this song. From funk, he took complex layered rhythms, which he pared down to convey the mood of the song. He adapted blues-influenced rock guitar to the context, supporting it unconventionally with the minimalist synthesizer riffs and rhythms.
Almost any other Prince song will sound quite different in many respects; that is one reason for his commercial and critical success. The most consistent elements are likely to be the mix of synthesized and conventional instruments; an open-sounding, intricately worked-out texture that puts a different spin on the conventional interplay between regular timekeeping and syncopated patterns; and a few distinctive features that help set the song apart from the sources that inspired it. In this song, it is the absence of bass and drum set and the rich sustained harmonies in the first part of the chorus. But the
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