Grunge: Music and Memory
2013; International Association for the Study of Popular Music; Volume: 3; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.5429/2079-3871(2013)v3i2.14en
ISSN2079-3871
Autores Tópico(s)Horticultural and Viticultural Research
ResumoUpon hearing the word "grunge" most people under 50 would describe images of flannel, eyeliner, and shaggy hair coupled with attitudinal apathy.Maybe that's what they know to be true, or perhaps it's what the media has led them to believe.This is the starting point for Grunge: Music and Memory which, as part of its quest to triangulate the relationship between culture, memory and power, contrasts the ways in which grunge music has been constructed through various media forms versus the public's collective memory.Based on author Catherine Strong's doctoral thesis, the book explores the elements and perspectives of how grunge has been remembered by active participants in 1990s grunge culture, and how the discourses of grunge challenged societal norms in the vigorous power-play between the emergence and co-option of popular culture.Strong compiled data from the media -principally from the UK magazine New Musical Express (NME) -to map journalists' reactions, from the recognition of grunge to its demise soon after Kurt Cobain's death, and beyond this in anniversary specials occurring periodically in print media (e.g.Rolling Stone, Record Collector, Mojo, and Spin).The ideals and narratives found here are compared to accounts from a sample of Australian adults who identify as fans of grunge, and it is here that an interesting contrast is identified.After setting these foundations in the introductory chapter, Chapter 2 comprises a dense literature survey pared into two sections.The first section does two things: at once it situates grunge literature in the greater field of popular music studies while also describing what the academic writing on grunge has (or has forgotten) to say on the subject.This extends to concepts such as authenticity, commercialism and politics and the ways in which they conflicted with the ideology of grunge culture.The second section gives a brief overview of several popular theories and definitions of collective memory, through which Strong defines the applications of and exceptions to her own use of the term "collective memories" for the remainder of the book.The rise and fall of grunge as presented in the media is considered in Chapter 3, relating specifically to the case of Nirvana who have been promoted by various media sources as the most successful grunge band, due to their apparent overnight success as well as the prominent death of lead singer Kurt Cobain, among other reasons noted in this chapter.The cultural location of grunge is framed by Strong through the use of Pierre Bourdieu's field theory, which conceptualises tastes and cultures in a way that is
Referência(s)