Uploaded July 2019 | Updated September 2026, 9 hours ago
crosstowntraffic2018.wordpress.com
This presentation took place as part of the conference Crosstown Traffic: Popular Music Theory and Practice, which was hosted by The University of Huddersfield from September 3 - 5 2018. This event combined the IASPM UK&Ireland Biennial Conference, the 13th Art of Record Production Conference (ARP), an ISMMS conference, and the additional participation of Dancecult.
A recurrent theme within popular music studies has been discussion of how the field can integrate different disciplines and professions, for example exploring both music and its context; involving both practitioners and researchers; and encouraging interdisciplinary and collaborative work. Many different issues make such approaches challenging, and various different popular music focused subject organisations have developed somewhat independently of one another. This conference brought four such groups together, to exchange knowledge, collaborate, and encourage crosstalk.
/// SUPPORT
Popular Music Studies Research Group (PMSRG), University of Huddersfield research.hud.ac.uk/pmsrg/#
Centre for Music, Culture and Identity (CMCI), University of Huddersfield
research.hud.ac.uk/institutes-centres/cmci
The International Association for the Study of Popular Music UK and Ireland Branch (IASPM UK & Ireland)
iaspm.org.uk
Association for the Study of the Art of Record Production (ASARP)
artofrecordproduction.com
Dancecult Research Network (DRN) studies into electronic dance music culture
dancecult-research.net
International Society for Metal Music Studies (ISMMS)
metalstudies.org
/// ORGANIZERS
IASPM UK&I: Rupert Till
ARP: Katia Isakoff, Shara Rambarran
ISMMS: Karl Spracklen
Dancecult: Graham St. John
University of Huddersfield: Jan Herbst, Austin Moore, Lisa Colton, Toby Martin, Catherine Haworth, Mark Mynett
/// CREDITS
This online project was edited, collated, and made available online by Chris McConnell, Jack Zissell, and Colin Frank.
/// PRESENTATION DETAILS
The Cyclic Loop vs. The Pop Drop: Hip-hop and EDM Repetition in Contemporary Pop Music
Anders Reuter – PhD Fellow at University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Art and Cultural Studies, Section of Musicology.
Email: andersreuter@hum.ku.dk
/// ABSTRACT
While the differences between hip-hop, EDM and contemporary pop are increasingly hard to define, hip-hop and EDM seem to represent different kinds of repetition. This paper will investigate historical, cultural and technological differences between loop techniques of hip-hop and EDM, and subsequently how they are applied in pop music. Musical form is traditionally shaped through a dialectic teleological exchange of dynamics to build tension. Hip-hop usually deflates teleology and replaces dynamic shifts with cyclic, goalless, processual staging of sample-based loops. Dynamic changes are few, and when they do occur, they are abrupt and sudden. Almost overtly teleological, EDM is based on a constant play with dynamics by exchanging loops, sweeps, effects, space and texture. An example of this in pop is the so-called Pop Drop, where EDM’s climactic Drop is used as a post-chorus or chorus. The paper will furthermore discuss how the circular hip-hop loops afford attention and almost fetishisation of detail in the processual juxtaposition of samples. EDM’s linearity is on the other hand more a staging of gradual shifts. This is by large realized with sound synthesis and a ‘four-on-the-floor’ bass drum that pushes a quantized grid of rhythmical regularity forward. Conversely, hip-hop’s more sample-based loops are often based on irregularities in both the repetition of the loop and in the timing of the sound objects within the loop. The paper will use different musical examples and literature addressing hip-hop, EDM and music technology (among others, Schloss 2004, Solberg 2014, Brøvig-Hanssen and Danielsen 2016, Zagorski-Thomas 2014).
crosstowntraffic2018.wordpress.com
This presentation took place as part of the conference Crosstown Traffic: Popular Music Theory and Practice, which was hosted by The University of Huddersfield from September 3 - 5 2018. This event combined the IASPM UK&Ireland Biennial Conference, the 13th Art of Record Production Conference (ARP), an ISMMS conference, and the additional participation of Dancecult.
A recurrent theme within popular music studies has been discussion of how the field can integrate different disciplines and professions, for example exploring both music and its context; involving both practitioners and researchers; and encouraging interdisciplinary and collaborative work. Many different issues make such approaches challenging, and various different popular music focused subject organisations have developed somewhat independently of one another. This conference brought four such groups together, to exchange knowledge, collaborate, and encourage crosstalk.
/// SUPPORT
Popular Music Studies Research Group (PMSRG), University of Huddersfield research.hud.ac.uk/pmsrg/#
Centre for Music, Culture and Identity (CMCI), University of Huddersfield
research.hud.ac.uk/institutes-centres/cmci
The International Association for the Study of Popular Music UK and Ireland Branch (IASPM UK & Ireland)
iaspm.org.uk
Association for the Study of the Art of Record Production (ASARP)
artofrecordproduction.com
Dancecult Research Network (DRN) studies into electronic dance music culture
dancecult-research.net
International Society for Metal Music Studies (ISMMS)
metalstudies.org
/// ORGANIZERS
IASPM UK&I: Rupert Till
ARP: Katia Isakoff, Shara Rambarran
ISMMS: Karl Spracklen
Dancecult: Graham St. John
University of Huddersfield: Jan Herbst, Austin Moore, Lisa Colton, Toby Martin, Catherine Haworth, Mark Mynett
/// CREDITS
This online project was edited, collated, and made available online by Chris McConnell, Jack Zissell, and Colin Frank.
/// PRESENTATION DETAILS
The Cyclic Loop vs. The Pop Drop: Hip-hop and EDM Repetition in Contemporary Pop Music
Anders Reuter – PhD Fellow at University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Art and Cultural Studies, Section of Musicology.
Email: andersreuter@hum.ku.dk
/// ABSTRACT
While the differences between hip-hop, EDM and contemporary pop are increasingly hard to define, hip-hop and EDM seem to represent different kinds of repetition. This paper will investigate historical, cultural and technological differences between loop techniques of hip-hop and EDM, and subsequently how they are applied in pop music. Musical form is traditionally shaped through a dialectic teleological exchange of dynamics to build tension. Hip-hop usually deflates teleology and replaces dynamic shifts with cyclic, goalless, processual staging of sample-based loops. Dynamic changes are few, and when they do occur, they are abrupt and sudden. Almost overtly teleological, EDM is based on a constant play with dynamics by exchanging loops, sweeps, effects, space and texture. An example of this in pop is the so-called Pop Drop, where EDM’s climactic Drop is used as a post-chorus or chorus. The paper will furthermore discuss how the circular hip-hop loops afford attention and almost fetishisation of detail in the processual juxtaposition of samples. EDM’s linearity is on the other hand more a staging of gradual shifts. This is by large realized with sound synthesis and a ‘four-on-the-floor’ bass drum that pushes a quantized grid of rhythmical regularity forward. Conversely, hip-hop’s more sample-based loops are often based on irregularities in both the repetition of the loop and in the timing of the sound objects within the loop. The paper will use different musical examples and literature addressing hip-hop, EDM and music technology (among others, Schloss 2004, Solberg 2014, Brøvig-Hanssen and Danielsen 2016, Zagorski-Thomas 2014).
