Uploaded August 2019 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour 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
Popular Song and the Poetics of Experience
Dr. Ross Cole - University of Cambridge
Email: rgc30@cam.ac.uk
/// ABSTRACT
The singer-songwriter idiom has tended to attract irreconcilable readings in academia and the popular press: as literary craft and as unmediated self-expression, respectively. I offer a rapprochement between these two poles via autobiographical theory, suggesting that singer-songwriters become active readers of their own experience and thought, transforming it to the extent that we hear material as confessional precisely because it is the result of imagination, calculation, and virtuosic performance. I ground this argument in a close reading of Vic Chesnutt’s 2009 album At the Cut, negotiating the difficult question of how far his wide-ranging lyrical reflections on suicide, family, and spirituality should be heard in relation to his own experiences and untimely death. Situating these songs within what Joseph Roach terms an ‘Orphic’ tradition of performance, I conclude that such work traverses and obscures the interstices between art and life.
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
Popular Song and the Poetics of Experience
Dr. Ross Cole - University of Cambridge
Email: rgc30@cam.ac.uk
/// ABSTRACT
The singer-songwriter idiom has tended to attract irreconcilable readings in academia and the popular press: as literary craft and as unmediated self-expression, respectively. I offer a rapprochement between these two poles via autobiographical theory, suggesting that singer-songwriters become active readers of their own experience and thought, transforming it to the extent that we hear material as confessional precisely because it is the result of imagination, calculation, and virtuosic performance. I ground this argument in a close reading of Vic Chesnutt’s 2009 album At the Cut, negotiating the difficult question of how far his wide-ranging lyrical reflections on suicide, family, and spirituality should be heard in relation to his own experiences and untimely death. Situating these songs within what Joseph Roach terms an ‘Orphic’ tradition of performance, I conclude that such work traverses and obscures the interstices between art and life.
