November 2008
26 posts
A Swing and Another Hit
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/31/AR2008033102857.html
This Washington Post article dives into the Washington Nationals’ song choices at their stadium. It talks about how the Nationals came about their choices as well as why certain songs remain crowd pleasers. It specifically cites some pop songs that have fizzled out in terms of maintaining popularity with...
Right music a crowd pleaser
Right music a crowd pleaserBYLINE: MULROONEY PaulSECTION: FEATURES; GENERAL; HIGHER EDUCATION; Pg. 7
This article came on the heels of a case study conducted in New Zealand. A team of researchers wanted to examine the effects of certain types of music on fans congregated at a rugby game. As it turns out, music with positive lyrics and a quicker backbeat led to the most positive reactions while...
Making all the right noises; Music and sport share...
Making all the right noises; Music and sport share acres of common ground, writes Martin GreigBYLINE: Martin GreigSECTION: SPORT; Pg. 32
“The challenge: to investigate the crossover between music and sport through themes of innovation and creativity. To the closed mind, sport and music may appear to be mutually exclusive concepts, but a scratching of the surface reveals acres of common...
EA's Steve Schnur Explains The Hype Behind The...
Jul. 8, 2008 (Kotaku delivered by Newstex)
This is basically a transcript of the interview I posted earlier from EA’s executive, where he talks about the positive relationship between video games (Madden NFL, in particular) and musicians. This also has some opinion thrown in, and the author seems to agree with Schnur. In what’s described as a win-win-win situation, the article...
G2: Arts: Music: On your marks, get set, compose!:...
G2: Arts: Music: On your marks, get set, compose!: Music and musicians made the Olympics what they are todayBYLINE: Anthony BatemanSECTION: GUARDIAN FEATURES PAGES; Pg. 28This article from the London Guardian discusses the impact music has had on the Olympic Games throughout history. As the world was preparing for the Beijing Games, Bateman talks about all the previous opening and closing...
Maximum Music Exposure in Video Games
http://www.artistshousemusic.org/videos/maximum+music+exposure+in+video+games
This link leads to a video clip of an EA video game executive talking about the exposure an artist receives when their song is included in a video game. As EA manufactures and distributes the Madden NFL title, this certainly caught my attention.
An interesting point he made was that having a song on the Madden...
Relationship between exercise heart rate and music...
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3397/is_/ai_n29281161
This article is a bit more technical than I’d like, but it does a great deal of research into the effect music has on those that are exercising. This has more to do with how the music would effect athletes and not the fans necessarily, but this does mention the crossing over of the two genres of entertainment. This obviously...
Jay-Z, James relationship should worry Cavs
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-lebronjayz022508&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
Yet another article on the negative stigma that comes from the NBA and hip hop realm relationship. As my research appears to be dictating, I think I’m going to be focusing on this bond a little more than originally intended. It is certainly the strongest relationship between the two worlds, and is worth...
Game changer; Is Tony Parker's musical debut...
Game changer; Is Tony Parker’s musical debut merely another NBA vanity project or America’s introduction to French hip-hop? Solis, M.. Current. San Antonio, Tex.: Mar 1-Mar 7, 2006. pg. 12
Unlike Allen Iverson’s attempt at a rap career with “40 Bars” (which can be found in an earlier post on this site,) fellow NBAer Tony Parker released a rap album in French that...
"We are the Champions": Masculinities, Sports and...
“We are the Champions”: Masculinities, Sports and Popular Music Ken McLeod. Popular Music and Society. Bowling Green: Dec 2006. Vol. 29, Iss. 5; pg. 531, 18 pgs
This article points out something that I hadn’t even thought to even give a second thought to. McLeod mentions the irony of an iconic gay frontman, in this case Queen’s Freddie Mercury, being the voice behind...
Liveness
Out of all of the chapters that we’ve had to read from The Popular Music Studies Reader, I feel that Auslander’s “Liveness” is the closest in terms of relation to my scope of focus. Part of his subtitle (the anxiety of stimulation) is really what I’m attempting to describe at least in the introductory passages of my essay. We all know that music is an integral part of...
The Soundtracking of America
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/03/bottum.htm
When we initially read Bottum’s article for class, I didn’t give it much thought and kinda just lumped it in with Hornby and Klosterman’s articles in terms of style. I don’t know why I did that because it turns out this could be a more valuable resource to me than I had previously anticipated. My point in the final is...
Hip-Hop Culture Contributes to NBA's Bad Rap
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11188-2004Nov24.html
I think that this article is similar to the documentary on hip-hop that we watched for class a week or so ago. It’s not that hip hop itself is bad, but some of the misogynistic and/or violent messages that come across in the songs have a lot to do with the negative image that is on display (or was at the time). This article...
Creating a Great Sports Anthem May Not Be as Easy...
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/85929/creating_a_great_sports_anthem_may.html?page=3&cat=33
I wanted to respond to this article in a more in-depth fashion. I think that the author has a valid point. He describes that the things that make an anthem good is a hard hitting backbeat and some trash-talking lyrics. That’s what made “The Super Bowl Shuffle” connect with...
Websurf Links
Here are a few of the links I found during the Google search portion of the assignment
http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2007/06/15/weekend-rock-list-best-sports-anthems-of-all-time/
I’m not a fan of really any of “Rolling Stone”s lists, but this is as good a place to start as any.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_in_professional_wrestling
I know we’re not...
Class Blog Posts Part 2
September 29, 2008
As I am planning to do something similar for my midterm, by response will focus on the Hornby and Klosterman excerpts. To me, what makes music truly transcendent is the ability to pair it with a specific memory. Would I care for “We Will Rock You” as much if it didn’t instantly conjure up thoughts of the stadium rocking along to the back beat? Doubtful. These...
Class Blog Posts Part 1
Here is a sampling of my posts from the class blog that relate to my research topic (new thoughts in italics):
November 5, 2008
Focusing on Auslander’s chapter, I found myself nodding in agreement with his early assertion that the video screen, JumboTron, TitanTron, or whatever you want to call it has become a piece of the live performance in its own right. It’s so very true....
Textbook Entries Part 2
The “Popular Music Studies Reader” is the book I will most likely be going to the most in terms of citing class material. There were a few chapters that made me think in terms of my genre as opposed to the overall message if that makes any sense. One such chapter was Auslander’s “Liveness” which discussed all the different aspects the audience is subjected to at live...
Textbook Entries Part 1
For the November 6 in class assignment, one portion of sources we were supposed to check out were from the assigned readings in our textbooks from the class and some other web articles. Looking back over the list, I saw a few of these blasts from the past that I could use to my advantage when the paper rolls around. As my scope of focus is “sports anthems”, there aren’t too many...
October 2008
4 posts
Opinion on the Hip Hop Image in the NBA →
This article comes from the Los Angeles Times and it discusses the overall vibe of the NBA. A few of the players interviewed for the piece definitely agree with the assessment of the correlation between a hip hop and NBA lifestyle. The article goes on to discuss why this image could very well be a bad thing for the NBA in terms of marketing because some of the themes in rap music are not exactly...
NBA Dress Code →
I am well aware that we are not allowed to cite Wikipedia in our final papers, but this is not really a source so much as an outline of one of the topics I’d like to hit in my final paper. On this page, the NBA’s new dress code is outlined in detail. This was done by the league as a way to get away from it’s “thuggish, hip hop” image and to try and become more...
