It’s difficult to locate the exact starting point of Postmodern Jukebox, as Scott Bradlee acknowl... more It’s difficult to locate the exact starting point of Postmodern Jukebox, as Scott Bradlee acknowledged in a speech to the members of Oxford Union on the 8th of March 2017. Indeed, whilst the first recorded video on the Postmodern Jukebox YouTube channel features a younger Bradlee playing the jazz standard ‘A Night in Tunisia’ (2009a) on keyboard in his living room, it was not until the second video, ‘Classic 80s Hits… Interpreted for Ragtime Piano’ (2009b), that Bradlee initiated what later came to be Postmodern Jukebox’s ‘unique selling point’: covering mainstream late-twentieth and twenty-first century pop music in various ‘retro’ styles. Postmodern Jukebox went on to expand dramatically in size, progressing from a Bradlee and a singer, to a small band, to a loose collective with rotating guest singers, and finally to a group of freelance musicians, known as the ‘PMJ Family’ which is large enough to sustain multiple concurrent global tours. Yet the immense success of Postmodern Jukebox and their global appeal would be inconceivable without digital technologies: it was through the viral success of videos such as ‘Thrift Shop (Vintage ‘Grandpa Style’ Macklemore Cover)’ (2013) and ‘All About That [Upright] Bass’ (2014a) that Postmodern Jukebox was brought to international attention, and these videos remain the primary way through which their fans are first introduced to and consume their content today. The following dissertation aims to explore the effects of digital technologies on music consumption patterns and the socialities thereby engendered amongst British fans of Postmodern Jukebox through a digital ethnography of Postmodern Jukebox’s online presences, semi-structured interviews with Postmodern Jukebox fans, and fieldwork at two separate events: a Postmodern Jukebox concert at Hammersmith Apollo, London, and a talk given by Scott Bradlee at the Oxford Union. In doing so, I will establish three key ideas: (1) the consumption of Postmodern Jukebox’s music and the socialities that are there entailed is mediated not only by technologies of the early 2000s, such as Web 2.0 and the subsequent Social Networking Sites, but also specifically digital features such as the collecting of metadata about cultural products, recommendation algorithms which factor in this metadata; (2) whilst this consumption takes place within Madianou & Miller’s (2013) environment of polymedia, listeners not only choose the platform on, device through and format in which they listen to this music based relational technological affordances and socio-cultural perceptions thereof, but may also decide to ‘disuse’ a given platform based on negative socio-cultural perceptions; and (3) the varying modes or genres of consumption within this environment of polymedia, whilst all modes of ‘fandom’, result in distinct, yet overlapping and concurrent socialities.
Kaija Saariaho’s NoaNoa (1992) for flute and electronics calls upon the flautist to vocalise word... more Kaija Saariaho’s NoaNoa (1992) for flute and electronics calls upon the flautist to vocalise words and isolated consonants whilst playing; the prominence of these vocalisations is altered both by the indexical properties of the performer’s voice and their decision to whisper, speak or sing. Through a phenomenological analysis of two separate recordings of NoaNoa informed by Ferrara’s 1984 analysis of Varèse’s Poème électronique, this paper examines the effect this differing prominence has on the metamorphosis of flute and voice, the perception of text, and the synthesis of stasis and movement.
Although the utility of Social Networking Sites (henceforth SNSs) in creating, as opposed to main... more Although the utility of Social Networking Sites (henceforth SNSs) in creating, as opposed to maintaining, relationships is disputed, Nancy Baym’s 2012 article ‘Fans or Friends’ claims that SNSs can afford musicians the platform to create and maintain friendships with their fans. However, the economic potential of these fans’ online profiles has been hitherto neglected in previous scholarship. This study uses data from 128 blogs run by fans whom Swift has interacted with to examine how they propagate not only Swift’s name, image, and content, but also her reputation as a reciprocal friend. Overall, the study found that fans profiles were indeed likely to act as a social advertisement for Swift, regardless of whether or not their response from Swift was unique and whether or not they had received multiple responses. These findings suggest that, contrary to Baym’s assertions, the power differential in celebrity-fan relationships is very much still present online. Furthermore, the relatively insular nature of Swift’s Tumblr fandom may contradict, or at least nuance, Georgina Born’s 2013 conception of fleeting and dynamic virtual communities.
It’s difficult to locate the exact starting point of Postmodern Jukebox, as Scott Bradlee acknowl... more It’s difficult to locate the exact starting point of Postmodern Jukebox, as Scott Bradlee acknowledged in a speech to the members of Oxford Union on the 8th of March 2017. Indeed, whilst the first recorded video on the Postmodern Jukebox YouTube channel features a younger Bradlee playing the jazz standard ‘A Night in Tunisia’ (2009a) on keyboard in his living room, it was not until the second video, ‘Classic 80s Hits… Interpreted for Ragtime Piano’ (2009b), that Bradlee initiated what later came to be Postmodern Jukebox’s ‘unique selling point’: covering mainstream late-twentieth and twenty-first century pop music in various ‘retro’ styles. Postmodern Jukebox went on to expand dramatically in size, progressing from a Bradlee and a singer, to a small band, to a loose collective with rotating guest singers, and finally to a group of freelance musicians, known as the ‘PMJ Family’ which is large enough to sustain multiple concurrent global tours. Yet the immense success of Postmodern Jukebox and their global appeal would be inconceivable without digital technologies: it was through the viral success of videos such as ‘Thrift Shop (Vintage ‘Grandpa Style’ Macklemore Cover)’ (2013) and ‘All About That [Upright] Bass’ (2014a) that Postmodern Jukebox was brought to international attention, and these videos remain the primary way through which their fans are first introduced to and consume their content today. The following dissertation aims to explore the effects of digital technologies on music consumption patterns and the socialities thereby engendered amongst British fans of Postmodern Jukebox through a digital ethnography of Postmodern Jukebox’s online presences, semi-structured interviews with Postmodern Jukebox fans, and fieldwork at two separate events: a Postmodern Jukebox concert at Hammersmith Apollo, London, and a talk given by Scott Bradlee at the Oxford Union. In doing so, I will establish three key ideas: (1) the consumption of Postmodern Jukebox’s music and the socialities that are there entailed is mediated not only by technologies of the early 2000s, such as Web 2.0 and the subsequent Social Networking Sites, but also specifically digital features such as the collecting of metadata about cultural products, recommendation algorithms which factor in this metadata; (2) whilst this consumption takes place within Madianou & Miller’s (2013) environment of polymedia, listeners not only choose the platform on, device through and format in which they listen to this music based relational technological affordances and socio-cultural perceptions thereof, but may also decide to ‘disuse’ a given platform based on negative socio-cultural perceptions; and (3) the varying modes or genres of consumption within this environment of polymedia, whilst all modes of ‘fandom’, result in distinct, yet overlapping and concurrent socialities.
Kaija Saariaho’s NoaNoa (1992) for flute and electronics calls upon the flautist to vocalise word... more Kaija Saariaho’s NoaNoa (1992) for flute and electronics calls upon the flautist to vocalise words and isolated consonants whilst playing; the prominence of these vocalisations is altered both by the indexical properties of the performer’s voice and their decision to whisper, speak or sing. Through a phenomenological analysis of two separate recordings of NoaNoa informed by Ferrara’s 1984 analysis of Varèse’s Poème électronique, this paper examines the effect this differing prominence has on the metamorphosis of flute and voice, the perception of text, and the synthesis of stasis and movement.
Although the utility of Social Networking Sites (henceforth SNSs) in creating, as opposed to main... more Although the utility of Social Networking Sites (henceforth SNSs) in creating, as opposed to maintaining, relationships is disputed, Nancy Baym’s 2012 article ‘Fans or Friends’ claims that SNSs can afford musicians the platform to create and maintain friendships with their fans. However, the economic potential of these fans’ online profiles has been hitherto neglected in previous scholarship. This study uses data from 128 blogs run by fans whom Swift has interacted with to examine how they propagate not only Swift’s name, image, and content, but also her reputation as a reciprocal friend. Overall, the study found that fans profiles were indeed likely to act as a social advertisement for Swift, regardless of whether or not their response from Swift was unique and whether or not they had received multiple responses. These findings suggest that, contrary to Baym’s assertions, the power differential in celebrity-fan relationships is very much still present online. Furthermore, the relatively insular nature of Swift’s Tumblr fandom may contradict, or at least nuance, Georgina Born’s 2013 conception of fleeting and dynamic virtual communities.
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Papers by Alice Rose
The following dissertation aims to explore the effects of digital technologies on music consumption patterns and the socialities thereby engendered amongst British fans of Postmodern Jukebox through a digital ethnography of Postmodern Jukebox’s online presences, semi-structured interviews with Postmodern Jukebox fans, and fieldwork at two separate events: a Postmodern Jukebox concert at Hammersmith Apollo, London, and a talk given by Scott Bradlee at the Oxford Union. In doing so, I will establish three key ideas: (1) the consumption of Postmodern Jukebox’s music and the socialities that are there entailed is mediated not only by technologies of the early 2000s, such as Web 2.0 and the subsequent Social Networking Sites, but also specifically digital features such as the collecting of metadata about cultural products, recommendation algorithms which factor in this metadata; (2) whilst this consumption takes place within Madianou & Miller’s (2013) environment of polymedia, listeners not only choose the platform on, device through and format in which they listen to this music based relational technological affordances and socio-cultural perceptions thereof, but may also decide to ‘disuse’ a given platform based on negative socio-cultural perceptions; and (3) the varying modes or genres of consumption within this environment of polymedia, whilst all modes of ‘fandom’, result in distinct, yet overlapping and concurrent socialities.
The following dissertation aims to explore the effects of digital technologies on music consumption patterns and the socialities thereby engendered amongst British fans of Postmodern Jukebox through a digital ethnography of Postmodern Jukebox’s online presences, semi-structured interviews with Postmodern Jukebox fans, and fieldwork at two separate events: a Postmodern Jukebox concert at Hammersmith Apollo, London, and a talk given by Scott Bradlee at the Oxford Union. In doing so, I will establish three key ideas: (1) the consumption of Postmodern Jukebox’s music and the socialities that are there entailed is mediated not only by technologies of the early 2000s, such as Web 2.0 and the subsequent Social Networking Sites, but also specifically digital features such as the collecting of metadata about cultural products, recommendation algorithms which factor in this metadata; (2) whilst this consumption takes place within Madianou & Miller’s (2013) environment of polymedia, listeners not only choose the platform on, device through and format in which they listen to this music based relational technological affordances and socio-cultural perceptions thereof, but may also decide to ‘disuse’ a given platform based on negative socio-cultural perceptions; and (3) the varying modes or genres of consumption within this environment of polymedia, whilst all modes of ‘fandom’, result in distinct, yet overlapping and concurrent socialities.