- United Kingdom
Ellis Jones
University of Leeds, School of Music, Faculty Member
- Cardiff University, School of Music, AlumnusOxford Brookes University, Music, Alumnus, and 3 moreadd
Existing scholarship considering the relationship between “DIY” music and popular music has tended to focus on how and why the former differs from the latter. This paper generates new insights into the specific character of DIY music by... more
Existing scholarship considering the relationship between “DIY” music and popular music has tended to focus on how and why the former differs from the latter. This paper generates new insights into the specific character of DIY music by inverting that focus, asking instead, why is DIY quite so similar to popular music? I stress the under-acknowledged similarities between the “core units” of popular music culture and DIY music in order to theorise their relationship as fundamentally ambivalent. I then apply this theoretical framework across three historical case studies – UK post-punk, US post-hardcore indie, and riot grrrl.
Research Interests:
This article employs Stuart Hall’s concept of ‘articulation’ to show how, in the mid-2000s, a loose coalition of tech activists and commentators worked to position mashup music as ‘the sound of the Internet’. Key aesthetic characteristics... more
This article employs Stuart Hall’s concept of ‘articulation’ to show how, in the mid-2000s, a loose coalition of tech activists and commentators worked to position mashup music as ‘the sound of the Internet’. Key aesthetic characteristics of mashups were utilized to present Web 2.0 as a specific kind of democratic, participatory media environment – one that had the power to dethrone old social institutions, and to render various kinds of borders and boundaries redundant. This short-lived articulation between mashup and the Internet has had significant benefits for contemporary platforms that have made their fortune on user participation; it has been less beneficial for the longevity of mashup as a genre. Thus, this article inverts the standard presentation of mashup music and network technologies. Generally presented as a musical culture that needed the Internet, mashup can be more fruitfully understood as a music culture that the Internet needed. This reformulation provides cause to question our contemporary relationship to ‘digital optimism’ more generally.
Research Interests:
We examine two 'producer-oriented' audio distribution platforms, SoundCloud and Bandcamp, that have been important repositories for the hopes of musicians, commentators and audiences that digital technologies and cultural platforms might... more
We examine two 'producer-oriented' audio distribution platforms, SoundCloud and Bandcamp, that have been important repositories for the hopes of musicians, commentators and audiences that digital technologies and cultural platforms might promote democratisation of the cultural industries, and we compare their achievements and limitations in this respect. We show that the emancipatory elements enshrined in SoundCloud's 'bottom-up' abundance are compromised by two elements that underpin the platform: the problematic 'culture of connectivity' of the social media systems to which it must remain integrally linked, and the systems of intellectual property that the firm has been increasingly compelled to enforce. By contrast, it seems that Bandcamp has been relatively stable in financial terms while being at odds with some key aspects of 'platformization', and we explore the possibility that some of the platform's apparent success may derive from how its key features makes it attractive to indie musicians and fans drawn to an independent ethos. Nevertheless, we argue, even while in some respects Bandcamp acts more effectively as an 'alternative' than does SoundCloud, the former is also congruent economically and discursively with how platforms capitalise on the activity of self-managing, self-auditing, specialist, worker-users.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, public response was characterised by an inability to accept the reality of the situation. Contemporary cultural theorists Jean Baudrillard and Slavoj Zizek have... more
In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, public response was characterised by an inability to accept the reality of the situation. Contemporary cultural theorists Jean Baudrillard and Slavoj Zizek have suggested that the bombing of the World Trade Centre in particular constituted a symbolic destruction of an entire construction of reality. William Basinski's ambient music series The Disintegration Loops was released in this context, becoming part of a post-9/11 cultural discourse that allowed emotional response to take shape. This essay draws on Kant's theory of the sublime (as expanded upon by Thomas Weiskel) in order to examine how the relationship between noise and silence in The Disintegration Loops offers a means by which to deconstruct the sublime 'blockage' of 9/11; it presents change as a dialectical process, rather than as an incomprehensible single event.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
[Essay awarded the IASPM Andrew Goodwin Memorial Prize 2017] In this essay I consider the relationships between the working conditions of pop musicians, the songs they create, and the way that we use pop music to understand our own... more
[Essay awarded the IASPM Andrew Goodwin Memorial Prize 2017]
In this essay I consider the relationships between the working conditions of pop musicians, the songs they create, and the way that we use pop music to understand our own (working) life. I do this by examining three recent pop songs, by Lorde, Sam Smith, and Jessie J, and identifying how their own position of "negotiated autonomy" in the music industry is capable of speaking to a more generalised "enterprise discourse" within the gig economy. By connecting the rich literature on conditions of creative work to an analysis of the cultural texts that emanate from them, I hope to offer a fresh understanding of pop music's capacity to shape our lives, emphasising how it might be complicit with problematic forms of “self-government” that are highly compatible with a "society of control".
In this essay I consider the relationships between the working conditions of pop musicians, the songs they create, and the way that we use pop music to understand our own (working) life. I do this by examining three recent pop songs, by Lorde, Sam Smith, and Jessie J, and identifying how their own position of "negotiated autonomy" in the music industry is capable of speaking to a more generalised "enterprise discourse" within the gig economy. By connecting the rich literature on conditions of creative work to an analysis of the cultural texts that emanate from them, I hope to offer a fresh understanding of pop music's capacity to shape our lives, emphasising how it might be complicit with problematic forms of “self-government” that are highly compatible with a "society of control".
Research Interests:
On their 2003 album Hell Hath No Fury, U.S. rap group Clipse describe an extravagant lifestyle defined by material wealth, and ownership of sports cars, private jets, and jewellery, paid for with money gained through drug dealing. In this... more
On their 2003 album Hell Hath No Fury, U.S. rap group Clipse describe an extravagant lifestyle defined by material wealth, and ownership of sports cars, private jets, and jewellery, paid for with money gained through drug dealing. In this paper it is argued that their construction of multiple, contradictory identities throughout the album is a means by which to locate themselves in a position of power over various social groups. Clipse state that their material wealth grants them social parity with more 'respectable' wealthy members of their neighbourhood, suggesting that all money is equal regardless of its source. But Clipse's primary income source (drug dealing) gives them a greater authenticity and cultural power over rappers who rely on their music for income. Their attitude towards aspiration in their black, urban U.S. community is equally contradictory, and contains contrasting definitions on what constitutes black cultural success. Clipse's commodities are not valued for their practical functionality but perform a symbolic role in the construction of identity; they find their purpose not in ownership, but in the description of ownership, and Clipse's music therefore acts as the site where identity is realised.
Research Interests:
We examine two 'producer-oriented' audio distribution platforms, SoundCloud and Bandcamp, that have been important repositories for the hopes of musicians, commentators and audiences that digital technologies and cultural platforms might... more
We examine two 'producer-oriented' audio distribution platforms, SoundCloud and Bandcamp, that have been important repositories for the hopes of musicians, commentators and audiences that digital technologies and cultural platforms might promote democratisation of the cultural industries, and we compare their achievements and limitations in this respect. We show that the emancipatory elements enshrined in SoundCloud's 'bottom-up' abundance are compromised by two elements that underpin the platform: the problematic 'culture of connectivity' of the social media systems to which it must remain integrally linked, and the systems of intellectual property that the firm has been increasingly compelled to enforce. By contrast, it seems that Bandcamp has been relatively stable in financial terms while being at odds with some key aspects of 'platformization', and we explore the possibility that some of the platform's apparent success may derive from how its key features makes it attractive to indie musicians and fans drawn to an independent ethos. Nevertheless, we argue, even while in some respects Bandcamp acts more effectively as an 'alternative' than does SoundCloud, the former is also congruent economically and discursively with how platforms capitalise on the activity of self-managing, self-auditing, specialist, worker-users.
Research Interests:
The emergence of social media in the early 21st century promised to facilitate new "DIY" cultural approaches, emphasizing participation and democratization. However, in recent years these platforms have been criticized as domineering and... more
The emergence of social media in the early 21st century promised to facilitate new "DIY" cultural approaches, emphasizing participation and democratization. However, in recent years these platforms have been criticized as domineering and exploitative. For DIY musicians in scenes with lengthy histories of cultural resistance, is social media a powerful emancipatory and democratizing tool, or a new corporate antagonist to be resisted?
DIY Music explores the significant challenges faced by artists navigating this fraught cultural landscape. How do anti-commercial musicians operate in the competitive, attention-seeking world of social media? How do they deal with a new abundance of data and metrics? How do they present their activity as "cultural resistance"? This book shows that a platform-enabled DIY approach is now the norm for a wide array of cultural practitioners; this "DIY-as-default" landscape threatens to depoliticize the call to "do-it-yourself."
DIY Music explores the significant challenges faced by artists navigating this fraught cultural landscape. How do anti-commercial musicians operate in the competitive, attention-seeking world of social media? How do they deal with a new abundance of data and metrics? How do they present their activity as "cultural resistance"? This book shows that a platform-enabled DIY approach is now the norm for a wide array of cultural practitioners; this "DIY-as-default" landscape threatens to depoliticize the call to "do-it-yourself."