Uploaded August 2019 | Updated September 2026, 17 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
Songs as Systems: Objects, Ecologies, Weather, Viruses
Dr. Richard Elliott - Newcastle University, United Kingdom.
Email: richard.elliott1@ncl.ac.uk
/// ABSTRACT
Recent years have witnessed an intense interest in the roles played by objects in the world. Drawing on the differences and commonalities of Bruno Latour’s actor network theory, Bill Brown’s ‘thing theory’, Graham Harman’s speculative realism and the ‘new materialisms’ proposed by Diana Coole and Samantha Frost, my current research develops a musical analysis that both connects with recent object-centred scholarship and overcomes existing musicological distinctions between music as thing and music as process. This paper focuses on the ways in which systems-related approaches have been applied to the production and reception of pop songs in recent years. Concept albums such as Björk’s Biophilia (2011) and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s The Kid (2017) are marked by organic approaches to electronic sound that create new song forms. These forms may best be understood in meteorological terms, as weather systems or ecosystems that model an affective fragility and fluidity. Of equal interest, and in seeming contrast, are viral metaphors which focus on the durability of song forms, where song is understood as something that not only sings the singer, but also retains a survival instinct that outlasts specific human and nonhuman songholders by showing adaptability to non-traditional forms. I will illustrate these ideas through analyses of songs by Björk, Smith, FKA twigs, Grimes, David Sylvian and James Blake. I will propose a systems-based song analysis as an alternative to earlier approaches while also suggesting that the materiality of song offers new ways of considering object-centred philosophy.
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
Songs as Systems: Objects, Ecologies, Weather, Viruses
Dr. Richard Elliott - Newcastle University, United Kingdom.
Email: richard.elliott1@ncl.ac.uk
/// ABSTRACT
Recent years have witnessed an intense interest in the roles played by objects in the world. Drawing on the differences and commonalities of Bruno Latour’s actor network theory, Bill Brown’s ‘thing theory’, Graham Harman’s speculative realism and the ‘new materialisms’ proposed by Diana Coole and Samantha Frost, my current research develops a musical analysis that both connects with recent object-centred scholarship and overcomes existing musicological distinctions between music as thing and music as process. This paper focuses on the ways in which systems-related approaches have been applied to the production and reception of pop songs in recent years. Concept albums such as Björk’s Biophilia (2011) and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s The Kid (2017) are marked by organic approaches to electronic sound that create new song forms. These forms may best be understood in meteorological terms, as weather systems or ecosystems that model an affective fragility and fluidity. Of equal interest, and in seeming contrast, are viral metaphors which focus on the durability of song forms, where song is understood as something that not only sings the singer, but also retains a survival instinct that outlasts specific human and nonhuman songholders by showing adaptability to non-traditional forms. I will illustrate these ideas through analyses of songs by Björk, Smith, FKA twigs, Grimes, David Sylvian and James Blake. I will propose a systems-based song analysis as an alternative to earlier approaches while also suggesting that the materiality of song offers new ways of considering object-centred philosophy.
