'I'm gonna do something': moving beyond talk in the museum (original) (raw)
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Patti Smith: female neo-Beat sensibility and the development of punk
2018
This dissertation examines how Patti Smith came to prominence in the 1970s and revived the spirit of the Beat Generation via poetry, performance, and music, with the intention to save rock and roll from falling into the conformist condition of society. Reflecting on how she infused her work with an innovative Beat, female yet gender-bending sensibility, this project ponders on her sense of responsibility over rock and roll, and dissects the achievements of her revolution. The social, cultural, and political atmosphere of the late 1940s and of the 1950s, ruled by conformity, materialism, and a sense of alienation, is analysed, particularly in its association with the birth of the Beat literary movement. Following this, an examination of the general feeling of failure of the countercultural movement of the 1960s is made in concomitance with a survey of the psychological and artistic development of Patti Smith. This research draws upon primary sources like memoirs, poetry books, and interviews, but also on secondary sources such as theoretical books, biographies, and scholarly journal articles. This focus on Patti Smith as a revolutionary in the 1970s presents how failed movements can be consequential later on through other means, presenting finally Smith as a neo-Beat rock and roll poet/artist, who has bent gender norms and revitalized the spirit of insurgence that had been lost in the previous decade.
Words from the New World: Adventure and Memory in Patti Smith’s Late Voice
Patti Smith: Outside (edited by Claude Chastagner), 2015
Patti Smith’s late work is invariably connected by critics and fans to the work of her ‘classic’ era (the 1970s punk scene) and the extent to which recent work lives up to, develops or exceeds that on which the artist’s reputation was based. Smith herself has been no stranger to such memory work, via her involvement in biographical projects such as her book Just Kids and the film Dream of Life. Her musical output since the 1990s has been characterized by memory work, not least in a number of pieces written in response to the passing of friends and family. Yet this work is complemented by an embrace of new beginnings and adventure, often achieved by returning to places, themes and styles Smith has explored before but looking for fresh angles and new perspectives. This essay explores the dynamic of adventure and memory via analysis of Smith’s 2012 album Banga, in which this dynamic is played out in informative ways. I focus on the music of Banga too, and on the different voices utilised by Smith. In the second part of the essay, I consider the canonisation of Smith and her work in light of what I term ‘late chronicles’, a series of documents and events over the past fifteen years that have seen Smith’s work fixed into the rock canon and have provided further context to situate her work and her many cultural reference points. I finish with some further observations on Banga, filtered through the knowledge we have of Smith from the late chronicles that preceded it.
Such stuff as dreams are made on-Year of the Monkey (2019)-Patti Smith-London: Bloomsbury
Centre fir Contemporary Literature Birkbeck University of London, 2019
Smith dreams and writes, writes and dreams, walks, sleepwalks, questions and converses with all manner of signs in her latest memoir. (London: Bloomsbury, 2019). Drawing on events of the last year she spent with her close friends Sandy Pearlman and Sam Shepard, she revisits focal points in her career, enclosures previously visited, landscapes she had never seen but feels lured to, and recreates conversations that have never (and may) not take place in the realm of the real, all under the auspicious protection of the year of the monkey (2016) in the lunar calendar.
Patti Smith made her way to New York City in 1967 following a failed stint at teachers' college and a period of factory work in New Jersey, both of which left her disenchanted and dissatisfied. In New York, she contributed to the vibrant arts scene as a stage actress, an artist, a journalist, a spoken-word poet, and, most notably, a rock n' roll singer. Patti Smith became a prominent contributor to the emerging Eastern Manhattan music scene - a scene that would eventually be referred to as the New York punk scene - when she was the first of this breed of Manhattan rock musician to be signed to a major label. No narrative regarding the success of Patti Smith is complete without a description of her androgynous appearance, nor her markedly feminine appropriation of a rock n’ roll style vocal technique; one which combines her history of theatre, spoken word poetry, and her personal experiences of womanhood to produce something both hauntingly personal and unignorably distinct. I argue that Patti Smith performs this style of androgyny as both an inadvertent response to the gendered hierarchies of rock music, and as a form of resistance to the limitations of prescribed femininity in musical performance. Her self-styled androgyny, which recalls the appearances of rock icons from the previous decade, and her re-imagination of rock n’ roll standards customarily performed by male entertainers, challenged perceptions of the limited potentials of gender in rock n' roll while also allowing her to carve a space both for herself within them. Analyses of excerpts from Smith's 2010 memoir Just Kids, the studio recording of her first single "Hey Joe", and her 1978 performance of "Horses" on BBC-2's Old Grey Whistle Test, as well as a consideration of the existing discourses regarding the performance of androgyny in rock n' roll, will construct an understanding of how Smith engaged directly with the limited traditions of rock n' roll by at times locating herself directly within them, while simultaneously subverting them through her feminine appropriations and celebrations of her own freedom and authenticity.
(Several ideas to split into more traditional research but for now...) This essay is a reflective study on the postmodern performance of the group known as Pussy Riot who, in February of 2012, stormed a Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow to stage their Punk Prayer song. English-language social media sites quickly spread information about the short performance and legal court proceedings after the event increased its notoriety. The essay argues that Performance Studies and Spiritual Culture are necessary for youth in a highly diverse world so that their multimodal designs do not land them in prison. The study employs Gale’s “Madness of Methodology” (2018) to trouble and fracture “traditionally accepted academic practice.” It operationalizes Fredric Jameson’s idea of pastiche from the cultural critic’s essay Postmodernism and Consumer Society (1983) to comment on the happening—a designed theatrical event intended to appear unplanned. Three elements of multimodal communication run throughout analysis: costume/fashion, music, and language particularly naming. Two examples of Slavic language speakers’ performances are discussed to consider the feminist and (anti-) religious themes in the Punk Prayer happening within the context of the Russian Federation’s Spiritual Culture curriculum that was implemented also in 2012 after three pilot years and conversations with the international teaching community including the author.
Amanda Palmer: Creating an Inclusive Space for Women in Music,
This Masters Dissertation investigates American singer-songwriter Amanda Palmer’s work in order to determine how she generates an inclusive space for women in music through her artistic discourse on femininity and her interactive dialogue with her fans. To achieve this, the dissertation is based upon the different platforms that Palmer uses to interact with her fan base, including her songs, performances, and online presence. A selection of feminist authors will be used to analyse Palmer’s contributions. By looking at her work through a feminist lens, this thesis will examine which tools Palmer uses to promote an inclusive musical space and which existing demands her contributions address. While many popular culture blogs and articles exist on this topic, no scholarly output per say has been published, making this research unique in its contribution to the field of popular cultural studies and sexuality studies. Chapter one will discuss the methodology used for this investigation. Following a literature review section focusing on women, music and the media, the third chapter will discuss feminist theory directly relating to Palmer’s discourses on femininity. Chapter four will look into the role of music as an open space enabling women to celebrate femininity through which a sense of collective identity is generated. The following chapter will be an analysis of the lyrics and performances of Amanda Palmer, with a focus on femininity. The final chapter will demonstrate how Amanda Palmer’s artistic output and social interaction generates and fosters a narrative of femininity, which in turn feeds her own musical production.
Voicing experience: female indie musicians 'calling out' sexism
In the last three years, a number of prominent female performers from the indie rock genre have " called out " misogynistic behavior in the music industry and by music fans. This short article examines public statements made by Lauren Mayberry (CHVRCHES), Amber Coffman (Dirty Projectors) and Bethany Cosentino (Best Coast) and the impact these statements had on their audiences, the male perpetrators of harassment, and wider feminist discourses. Indie music subculture is found to be an invisible contributor to the " calling out " process, associating these musicians with authentic and direct communication and contributing to the authority these statements command. Small number of free downloads available for those without university library access: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/aKujxtzUXkZRcWqcYwkV/full
Make Some Noise, Drari: Embodied Listening and Counterpublic Formations in Moroccan Hip Hop
Anthropological Quarterly, 2014
This article focuses on one aspect of Moroccan hip hop performance, rappers' "stage talk" (Bealle 1993), to argue that performers and audiences co-construct a counterpublic with both discursive and affective powers through their responses to music and sound. I show that hip hop musicians' stage talk simultaneously educates and disciplines the audience, providing models of "authentic" hip hop comportment while orienting the audience's listening in a manner consistent with the position on music most prevalent among Moroccan Muslims. This article argues that learning through listening together enables practitioners to create a hip hop counterpublic that is at once ethical and open to wide variations in expressions of piety. In the context of spiritual and cultural traditions in which embodied listening does significant ethical work, learning to participate in the discourse that performers' stage talk invokes allows musicians and audience members alike to undertake the affective work necessary to form a counterpublic, however ephemeral, with its own comportment, expressions, and values. However, an analysis of live hip hop performances shows that the emergent hip hop counterpublic joins its structural critiques to personal responsibility, shifting the response to these issues from the terrain of the political to that of the personal. By casting solutions to these problems