Music 2II3 Popular Culture: Post World War 2
Lecture 7 7/17/2013 2:54:00 PM
Radio and Records (82-85)
Crossovers and Covers (85-86)
Bill Haley, Pat Boone, and the "Whitening" of Rhythm and Blues (92-94)
Elvis Presley’s Visual Appeal (100-101)
Adults in the Room: Brill Building and Aldon Publishing (114-115)
Teen Idols for Idle Teens (115-116)
Producers in the Brill Building / Phil Spector and the Wall of Sound (130-135)
Rock n roll independent labels paying bribes – wasn’t new
Independent paying more bribes than major labels
Alan freed – support independent rock n roll
Dick Clark (American Bandstand)
being an ideal example/model of how the music industry should be
outcomes “smelling like roses”
outcomes very different than Alan freed relating to payola
actually did more illegal things than Alan Freed
why? Because of his relationship “American bandstand” – teens
dancing to records/hit songs
o singer would come out and lip-sync
very popular – weekly audience of 20 million viewers by the time it was
approaching in between years
huge hit during in between years
host was dick clark
basically socially acceptable behaviour
it was about how the teenagers looked?
o The boys were always clean cut – wearing suits
o the girls were classy – wearing dresses below the knees
o never see inter racial couples
o black couples would be at the back of the room
o if slow dancing – very respectful
o interviewing the kids – always educated, smart, get careers
key was kids will do exactly what their parents did or what
their parents told them they should do
need to behave like adults and look like adults o social media message – acceptable were dresses for girls, and
suits for men – suppose to dress like adults
o tight pencil skirt was considered unacceptable
o important because of the fear of rock n roll, integration and
juvenile delinquency– what the music will do to our youth
American bandstand tied socially acceptable behaviour with the
music that was being broadcasted, which was produced by the
industry in the major label of the division of labour
much of the music is being produced by a new generation of style
songwriters – it has to be in the right style – tin pan alley “style” – which
is now a new sound of pop music
dance craze
o a style of song where the lyrics told you how to dance
o key strategy of American bandstand – so kids would actually
watch the show in order to learn the moves of popular dances
o example: chubby checkers – king of twist, not from major label
company
o shows how effective the whole strategy was
Twist – wrote in 1950
o Hank ballard originally wrote the Twist –wrote 3 or 4 times
o Dick clark first saw black kids doing it and was interested in it
o Couldn’t change it enough, so just did it again
o Chubby checkers took over
o old white middle class people dancing to the twist
o everyone does it – if you’re in, you “do” the twist
showed that certain songs when they are presented by certain ways, if
everyone likes it they become trendy, people do not appear
threatened – even though its rock n roll
now its completely safe, right music
cameo records co president – dick clark – president of all of the
records and companies
chubby checkers got his name from dick clarks wife – she liked fat
domino
anti trust law -- very thing that payola was looking for – to earn money
from other networks
key part in the in between years o dick clark made -- teen idols
primarily a whole collection of young white men, a lot
named bobby
o popularized by american bandstand
o just had to be good looking (In a way mothers would go “awh,
hes so cute”) – non threatening
o they did not have to be able to sing
o example: Fabian was lucky enough for no one to notice he cant
sing at all
o crafted and shaped by people within major labels
o new medias like TV were perfect for their popularization
o visual appeal was what made them famous and successful -- TV
was key, it would promote them
where were these songs coming from?
o Almost as if TPA had been reborn
o New York was once again centre of the music industry
o The Brill Building -- centre of this new TPA style production
most successful of Brill Building was – Don Krishnar/ Al Nevins – had a
music publishing company called Aldon Music
how it worked?
A bunch of little rooms, in each cubby hole there were pianos, a desk
and a couple of chairs
songwriters in groups of threes wrote in the small rooms for 7 to 8 hours
at the end of the day, they would come back to offices and play what
they have written that day to Don and Al
pop top ten at least half of them were from Brill Building, at times all of
them would be from the Brill Building
key why dick clark got off of bail
Their success was based on the new media of television
visual appeal of the artists – its not how good they sing, how good they
look – did they perform well
back to payola – what happened to dick clark?
o Cleared by the committee despite clear conflict of interest:
Why? – used television to link division of labour pop music
with social behaviour Big shift of technology starts in the in between years
Technological Changes
step back in WW2
astonishing things about the war in Europe (1939 to 1945) – is that Nazi
Germany lost – they shouldn’t have lost
reason they did lose was because of their leader .. Altdorf Hitler
o constantly overruling generals
nazis invented, space light, V2 (first rocket to go in air), jet aircrafts
(faster than any allies had)
magnetophone:
o jack mullin: sergent in US army –needs to find it, knew the nazis
had it
o discovers a magnetophone in western Germany in a radio show
at the end of WW2
o it was a reel to reel tape recorder -- which was invented by the
nazis
o TDK – corporation company of nazi germany
o he demonstrated one to Bing Crosby – 1947
he was always looking for ways to play
weekly radio show
before this, the only way to record was on discs which
weren’t great on sound quality
o record a show live and replay it back live and have no
background noise, no worries about scratches, skips
o once one act is done another comes back again
o editing comes into effect – you can snip sections
o tape up the two sections together
o leads to the invention of the laugh track, by snipping it
o bing invests in the founding of Ampex
first company in the states to manufacture reel to reel
tape recorders
in 1948, Bing give one of the first commercially produced reel to reel
tape recorders to Les Paul
Les Paul (1915 to 2009) o Performing recording musician
o Great post war TPA star
o crossed a lot of different styles
o jazz, pop, country
o had a TV and radio show
had a show about a man obsessed with recording with his
wife Mary
o les hated the sound of the guitar – particula
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