Lady Gaga, Capitalism, and 1984

Hakanen’s article Counting Down to Number One : The Evolution of the Meaning of Popular Music was a really fascinating article. I liked how it drew many different disciplines together to assess and dissect such an omnipresent facet of our musical culture. I’m not much of a TV person anymore, but David Letterman’s top ten lists were always a favorite of mine. I also used to fairly avidly follow some of the BillBoard charts. My first radio job was at a station that played a mishmash of country hits and ‘popular’ hits, and subscribed to BillBoard. I read it every week and also read several old books that were around that would have the top 100 BillBoard hits for a certain year and a description, artist biography and other releveant information. Most of them were from the 1980’s. It may have been 1998, but I was my high school’s expert on 1984’s number one hit songs.

One of the things that I felt I learned from the article was not specific to music. The author mentioned the theory behind the counterfeit and its relationship to class. This really resonated with me, and I would love to know more about it. It reminded me of several articles I’ve read in newspaper in the past few years about fashion counterfeit. Upscale designers are angry that the replication of their styles is becoming easier. I understand this for the most part – designers are one of the few jobs that really seem to be artistic and they can make a living from it. Who doesn’t want to be credited for their work? On the other hand, many of the designers who are being copied do not make clothing that is affordable or accessible. Their items, regardless of any artistic value, are symbols of status. At least part of that anger may be that anyone can look like they have the money/desire/fashion sense to buy a certain designer’s item. And, as copies get better and better, who can tell who has the real thing? Again, I’m not much of a TV person, but it reminds me of an episode of the American version of Ugly Betty where Betty somehow gets a very fancy handbag. Her co-workers are jealous, and through some sort of manipulations, she ends up with two bags – one real and one fake. She gives one to a co-worker and keeps one for herself. I don’t remember if it was clear who got which bag, but that was kind of the moral, too. Sometimes the idea of something is worth more than the thing. I also wonder if any of the anger from musicians about unpaid for access to music might be related to previous status given to music owners or consumers?

I disagree with Kakanen’s assertion that “ musicians had little interest in composing their own music because of lack of financial incentive” (p. 102). I think some people make music for music’s sake. Even if they weren’t being paid, I am sure there were people writing music for their own pleasure or the pleasure of others. Also, I think this stands in stark contrast to the argument in The Future of Music that musicians only make music for the sake of music. Neither is entirely correct. People make music for so many reasons that to generalize is offensive, especially if you do not support the generalization with a coherent argument.

The article had an incredible, succinct history of song publishing, music radio & royalty payments. It was such a strong condemnation of the capitalist system and what industrialization has done to music that it almost made me want to stop listening to Lady Gaga out of principle. Almost. Then, the article Analyzing Popular Music made me want to listen to it and discuss her!