{"id":9148,"date":"2013-12-20T12:06:04","date_gmt":"2013-12-20T12:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog-journals.internal\/?p=9148"},"modified":"2014-01-17T17:05:15","modified_gmt":"2014-01-17T17:05:15","slug":"history-without-royalty-queen-and-the-strata-of-the-popular-music-canon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/2013\/12\/20\/history-without-royalty-queen-and-the-strata-of-the-popular-music-canon\/","title":{"rendered":"History without royalty? Queen and the strata of the popular music canon"},"content":{"rendered":"
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My article, \u2018History without royalty?\u00a0 Queen and the strata of the popular music canon\u2019<\/a><\/strong>, published in Popular Music<\/i><\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(32.3), investigates canonisation processes in popular music, using Queen as a case study.\u00a0 The \u2018popular music canon\u2019 has been discussed in popular music studies for over a decade now, and canonisation is not always welcome. \u00a0For example, Philip Tagg and Allan Moore have pointed out that classical musicology has been negatively affected by the canon of \u2018great works\u2019 by white male composers and its elitist claim for cultural hegemony.\u00a0Accordingly they have demanded for popular music scholars to be self-reflective and aware of the effect of their work on canonisation.\u00a0 However, this requires cognisance of both the criteria of canonicity and the processes by which canons are established.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Following a discussion of the prevalent models of canon formation that have been applied in popular music studies so far, I argue that the criteria of canonicity are essentially the same in popular music as in the \u2018classical\u2019 arts, i.e., transcendence, historical importance and \u2018greatness\u2019, except that the latter is measured by \u2018authenticity\u2019 in popular music.\u00a0 The application of these criteria to popular music acts differs depending on people\u2019s frame of reference as well as their knowledge and relationship to music.\u00a0 In order to account for these differences, I propose a model that distinguishes between three large strata in the popular music canon, the mainstream, critical and academic canons.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The reception history of Queen constitutes a particularly suitable case study for the analysis of canon formation processes and the relative importance of the three criteria of canonicity due to the discrepancies between the academic and mainstream view of the band and the changes that have taken place in the critical reception of Queen during the last 40 years.\u00a0 Detailed analysis reveals the relative importance and relationship between the three criteria of canonicity, of which \u2018authenticity\u2019 is the most complex and, at least initially, the most influential.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It seems to me that it can be useful for scholars to be aware of the dichotomy that arises from the dismissal of commercially successful acts in popular music studies based on the application of value criteria derived from the \u2018classical\u2019 arts \u2013 despite the fact that the field started out with a focus on the music of the \u2018lower\u2019 strata of society rather than that of the cultural elite.<\/p>\n

In addition, an awareness of the discrepancies between the mainstream and academic canons may be useful since the field started out with a focus on the music of the \u2018lower\u2019 strata of society rather than that of the cultural elite. Indeed, the view of music history, whether classical or popular, as a succession of revolutionary moments is too narrow \u2013 history comprises not only the chronicling of the opposition to the mainstream, but also that of the mainstream itself.<\/p>\n

Access the full article free of charge for a limited period here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My article, \u2018History without royalty?\u00a0 Queen and the strata of the popular music canon\u2019, published in Popular Music\u00a0(32.3), investigates canonisation processes in popular music, using Queen as a case study.\u00a0 The \u2018popular music canon\u2019 has been discussed in popular music studies for over a decade now, and canonisation is not always welcome. \u00a0For example, Philip […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":9149,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,14],"tags":[905,902,629,904,906,903,901],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-9148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanities","category-music-and-drama","tag-allan-moore","tag-anne-desler","tag-canon","tag-canonisation","tag-freddie-mercury","tag-popular-music","tag-queen"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9148"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}