Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Social aspects of Alternative rock music'

Portland has a rich, active, and fluid music culture which is constantly being (re)created and (re)defined by a loose network of local musicians who write, record, produce, promote, distribute, and perform their music locally (and sometimes regionally, nationally, and internationally) and local residents, or audiences, who engage in local musical practices. Independent ("indie") local music making in Portland, which is embedded in DIY (do it yourself) values, creates alternative cultural places and landscapes in the city and is one medium through which some people represent themselves in the community. These residents not only perform, consume, promote, and distribute local music, they also (re)create places to host musical expressions. They have built alternative and democratic cultural landscapes, or culturescapes, in the city. Involved Portlanders strive to make live music performances accessible and affordable to all people, demonstrating through musical practices that the city is a shared space and represents a diversity of people, thoughts, values, and cultural preferences. Using theoretical tools from critical research about the economic, spatial, and social role of cultures in cities, particularly music, and ethnographic research of the Portland music scene, including participant observations and in-depth interviews with Portland musicians and other involved residents, this research takes a critical approach to examining ways in which manifestations of independent music are democratic cultural experiences that influence the city's cultural identity and are a medium through which a loosely defined group of Portlanders represent their cultural values and right to the city. In particular, it focuses on how local musical practices, especially live performances, (re)create alternative spaces within the city for musical expressions and influence the city's cultural landscapes, as well as differences between DIY independent music in Portland and its commodified forms and musicians and products produced by global music industry.

Both the counterculture and its music will be examined using the concepts of heteronomy, autonomy, and theonomy and their dialectical relationship according to Paul Tillich's theory of religion and culture. The main themes beneath the emergence of the counterculture will be outlined, and the ways in which the dominant culture of the time may be considered what Tillich describes as a heteronomous phenomenon will be presented. The historical significance of the counterculture will then be demonstrated in terms of Tillich's concept of kairos. Through examination of the lyrics of some of the most popular songs between 1965 and 1970, the years during which the movement was at its height, the ways in which the counterculture may be seen as autonomous protest will be discussed. This will be followed by an examination of theonomous elements apparent in the song lyrics and an evaluation of the movement in terms of the Tillichian dialectic.

Twenty-five years of independent, underground, or punk rock music-making in St. John's, Newfoundland, have been defined by geographic isolation. In tracing a historical record of the small city's punk/indie scene, this project seeks to evaluate recent academic discussion surrounding the role of collectivity in artistic 'independence' and examine the impact of prevailing international aesthetics and changing communication technologies on local practice. The self-containment and self-sufficiency of the St. John's music community, largely the product of the city's isolated position on the extreme eastern tip of a large island off the east coast of North America, provide a unique backdrop against which to foreground a discussion of the distance between indie/punk rhetoric and reality. I contend that 'scene' in popular and academic use refers to the casual aggregation occasioned by similar interest and shared location, while 'community' hints at effort, co-operation and productive support.

Judith Butler’s writings on gender ostensibly changed the way gender is considered with regard to an individual’s subjectivity. Her writings expressed a discursive parameter that changed the theoretical standpoint of gender from that of performance, to that of performativity. In short, the notion of gender became understood as a power mechanism operating within society that compels individuals along the heteronormal binary tracts of male or female, man or woman. Within the strata of popular culture, this binarism is seemingly ritualized and repeated, incessantly. This treatise examines how rock music, as a popular and widespread mode of popular music, exemplifies gender binarism through a notable ndrocentrism. The research will examine how gender performativity operates within the taxonomy of rock music, and how the message communicated by rock music becomes translated into a listener’s subjectivity.

I am concerned with the performance of subversive ... narratives ... the performance of possibilities aims to create ... a ... space where unjust systems and processes are identified and interrogated. (Madison 280). If a woman cannot feel comfortable in her own body, she has no home. (Winterson, J; The Guardian 29.03.2013). Black metal is beyond music. It exceeds its function of musical genre. It radiates with its sepulchral fire on every side of culture [...] Black metal is the suffering body that illustrates, in the same spring, all the human darkness as much as its vital impetus. (Lesourd 41-42). Representation matters. Growing up there were only two women in famous metal bands that I would have considered role models; Jo Bench from Bolt Thrower (UK) and Sean Ysseult from White Zombie (US). This lack or under-representation of women in metal was always obvious to me and has stayed with me as I have developed as a metal musician. Women fans that see women musicians on stage, creates a paradigm of connection; that representation means something. Judith Butler states ‘on the one hand, representation serves as the operative term within a political process that seeks to extend visibility and legitimacy to women as political subjects; on the other hand, representation is the normative function of language which is said either to reveal or distort what is assumed to be true about the category of women’ (1). Butler references de Beauvoir, Kristeva, Irigaray, Foucault and Wittig regarding the lack of category of women, that ‘woman does not have a sex’ (Irigaray qtd. in Butler 1) and that ‘strictly speaking, “women” cannot be said to exist’ (Kristeva qtd. in Butler 1). If this is to be understood in relation to my research, my embodied subjectivity as performative text, regardless of its reception suggests that my autoethnographic position acts as a counter to women’s lack of category. If there is a lack of category, then there is something important happening to ‘woman as subject’. This research seeks to analyse ‘woman as subject’ in female black metal performance by using interpretive performance autoethnography and psychoanalysis. As the guitarist and front woman with the black metal band Denigrata, my involvement has meant that the journey to find my home rests within the blackened heart of musical performance. Interpretive performance autoethnography provides the analytical frame that helps identify the ways in which patriarchal modes of address and engagement inform and frame ‘woman as subject’ in female black metal performance.

Since 1998, Perth bands have had a strong presence within the Australian music scene. Primarily, each year between 1998 and 2009, songs by indie pop/rock acts from Perth have charted within national broadcaster triple j’s Hottest 100 countdown. Many of the albums from which these songs have been taken have sold in excess of 35,000 copies, and a number of successful and recognised Perth bands have toured with the nation’s largest music festival, the Big Day Out as well as their own high profile national tours. At the same time, Perth’s local indie pop/rock music industry has undergone tremendous growth and development, becoming more integrated into this nationally focused industry while also making significant inroads internationally. This research comprises 40 in-depth qualitative research interviews with 48 musicians and key industry players from Perth’s indie pop/rock music industry and scene. It presents a socio-culturally based examination to explore its evolution over the past decade. This is presented through an examination of the personal experiences of those involved in development of the local industry and who experienced, or witnessed an increase in success and recognition of Perth bands in national, and at times international, contexts. Broadly, this research explores the repercussions the shift in attitude toward Perth’s indie pop/rock music industry and scene as being worthy of national attention and recognition. In particular, it discusses the implications this has on the functioning of this industry as well as the careers of those within it. Further, this study examines what it means to be a musician and/ or music industry member in and from Perth along with the attitudes toward supporting local music product locally and its attempts to connect with audiences beyond the state. Within this, an examination of the influence of the city’s geographical isolation on the functioning of the local industry and on the ability for musicians to connect with audiences beyond the state is presented alongside an exploration of the role of social networks and the structure of the community of practice evident in this local industry. Additionally, the notions of creativity and creative process, core-periphery, and place and space are examined in relation to the functioning of this industry in business and creative contexts. Underwriting this is an examination of the shifts in the national and international music industries and associated music culture. These shifts all at once influenced the validity for Perth music to enter the national market and impacted upon the ongoing integration of this local industry within the national and international markets.

The mediation of popular musicians in the twentieth century results in the construction of cultural formations-mass mediated pop musician icons-that are, to various degrees, weighted down by the ideologies and concerns of those who receive them as mediated texts. In passing judgment on these cultural icons, the public engages in a massive act of reading, and in the process the icons become sites of personal and cultural signification. This study examines the nature of signification in and through mass mediated popular music icons by exploring the processes by which popular music icons are produced, circulated, and read as texts; and it examines, when appropriate, the significant content of these icons.

by Wong Yan Chau, Christina.
Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 175-186).
Chapter I. --- Introduction --- p.2
Chapter II. --- Historical Background --- p.5
Chapter III. --- A Review of the Related Literature --- p.14
Chapter A. --- The Culture Industry Approach --- p.15
Chapter B. --- The Liberal-Pluralist Approach --- p.26
Chapter C. --- The Technological Approach --- p.31
Chapter IV. --- The Theoretical Perspective --- p.36
Chapter V. --- Methodological Approach to Study --- p.42
Chapter A. --- Content Analysis of Lyrical Messages --- p.42
Chapter 1. --- Method --- p.42
Chapter 2. --- Data --- p.43
Chapter 3. --- Analytic Framework of the Textual Analysis --- p.45
Chapter B. --- Analysis of Rock Music within Hegemony --- p.48
Chapter 1. --- Method --- p.48
Chapter 2. --- Data --- p.50
Chapter VI. --- Meanings in Rock Music --- p.52
Chapter A. --- Themes in each fictional mode --- p.52
Chapter B. --- Thematic content of Rock Music --- p.54
Chapter 1. --- The Ironic Mode --- p.54
Chapter 2. --- The Mimetic Mode --- p.64
Chapter a. --- Phenomena of Identity Crisis --- p.64
Chapter i. --- Loss of direction --- p.65
Chapter ii. --- Roots-seeking --- p.68
Chapter iii. --- Alternating identity --- p.69
Chapter iv. --- Alienation --- p.71
Breakaway --- p.71
A Stranger in the City --- p.74
Chapter b. --- Outlook on Life --- p.76
Chapter c. --- Social Problems --- p.79
Chapter i. --- War --- p.79
Chapter ii. --- Incivility --- p.81
Chapter d. --- The Experience of Growing Up --- p.82
Chapter i. --- Anti-patriarchism --- p.82
Chapter ii. --- Wandering --- p.83
Chapter iii. --- The Loss of Childhood --- p.84
Chapter e. --- Love --- p.85
Chapter i. --- Yearning for love --- p.85
Chapter ii. --- Frustrations with love --- p.86
Chapter iii. --- Wild love --- p.88
Chapter iv. --- Inauthentic love --- p.90
Chapter 3. --- The Leadership Mode --- p.93
Chapter a. --- The Exploratory Spirit --- p.93
Chapter b. --- Individuality and Non-Conformity --- p.96
Chapter c. --- The Authentic Self --- p.98
Chapter 4. --- The Romantic Mode --- p.102
Chapter a. --- Nostalgia for a Glorious Past --- p.102
Chapter b. --- Anarchy in the Demonic World --- p.105
Chapter c. --- Union with nature --- p.107
Chapter d. --- The Pastoral Utopia --- p.111
Chapter e. --- Fictional Characters and Objects Speaking --- p.112
Chapter 5. --- The Mythic Mode --- p.117
Chapter C. --- The World View of Rock Music --- p.120
Chapter VII. --- The Relations of Rock Music to Hegemony --- p.125
Chapter A. --- Messages of Rock and the Hegemony --- p.125
Chapter B. --- Music as a Contested Terrain --- p.130
Chapter 1. --- The Hegemonic Power: Cooptation and Marginalization --- p.130
Chapter 2. --- The Deviant Culture: Struggle by Means of adaptation and negotiation --- p.140
Chapter VIII. --- Conclusion --- p.155
Chapter IX. --- Limitations of the Study --- p.158
Chapter X. --- Future Studies on Rock Music --- p.161
Notes --- p.165
Bibliography --- p.175
Discography --- p.185
Appendix 1. The Sample of Rock Songs --- p.187

Apart from politics and market, ideology was a significant factor in the realm of rock music. Upholding an ideology that focused on individuality and autonomy, and epousing a set of aesthetic value that placed emphases on live performance: how to maintain a balance between autonomy from politics and adaptation to market tastes became a question for both rock artists and the culture industry, a topic of which will be examined in the dissertation.
At the same time, this paper examined the struggle of rock artists against the official constraints and prohibitive coding via rock lyrics, the visual, the music, the body as well as the theatrical performance.
Finally, this paper explores how rock artists and the rock industry turned to alternative spaces for projecting their causes: the Internet, the underground music network and the realm of piracy, spaces where interferences from both the state and the market were minimum.
It also took as its study why rock music was a noise in the market and how rock labels contested for a space in the market which had been plagued by piracy and lack of protection for intellectual property rights. It at the same time explored the ways rock companies attempted to make the books balanced in operating the rock music business in a market where rock fans only constituted a marginal audience.
It looked at how the government imposed control and prohibition on the publishing, performance and dissemination of rock music which it perceived as an alien noise. For this, interviews had been held with personnel from the official apparatuses, the culture industry, the mass media as well as the rock artists and musicians, in a way to understand why rock was rarely heard on the radio or performed on television; why rock music became a term rarely appeared in the official press; and why rock was not allowed to mingle with official discourse like party songs or national anthem; and in what ways the contents of songs as well as the visuals on album covers were censored; and how the government controlled the speech, acts and dress of rock artists on stage.
This paper concludes with the view that despite the many constraints encountered by rock music in the realm of both the state and the market, rock music as a cultural space did not totally lose its freedom, autonomy or integrity. It adopted a mode of communication which is hinged on the non-verbal, the second-order signification, the hidden and the symbolic. It utilised a strategy which avoids direct antagonism with the political regime, and sought outlets for its own messages and meanings.
This paper started by examining how rock music had been transformed into a genre distinguished with its ideology and aesthetics in a socialist country where politics and economy weighed equally significant.
This study took rock music as a cultural space that reflected a larger political and economic environment in China, where it had been marginalized and segregated as a noise by both the state and the market.
Wong Yan Chau Christina.
"September 2006."
Adviser: Joseph Man Chan.
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-03, Section: A, page: 0783.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006.
Includes bibliographical references.
Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.
Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.
Abstracts in English and Chinese.
School code: 1307.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--York University, 2000. Graduate Programme in Sociology.
Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 379-409). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ67936.

This thesis introduces the reader to rock music in Durban from 1963 to 1985, tracing the development of rock in Durban from rock'n'roll to hard core punk. Although the thesis is historically orientated, it also endeavours to show the relationship of rock music in Durban to three central themes, viz: the relationship of rock in Durban to the socio-political realities of apartheid in South Africa; the role of women in local rock, and the identity crisis experienced by white, English-speaking South Africans. Each of these themes is explored in a separate chapter, with Chapter Two providing the bulk of historical data on which the remaining chapters are based. Besides the important goal of documenting a forgotten and ignored rock history, one central concern pervades this work. In every chapter, the conclusions reached all point to the identity crisis experienced both by South African rock audiences and the rock musicians themselves. The constant hankering after international (and specifically British) rock music trends both by audiences and fans is symptomatic of a culture in crisis, and it is the search for the reasons for this identity crisis that dominate this work. The global/local debate and its relationship to rock in South Africa has been a useful theoretical tool in the unravelling of the identity crisis mentioned above. Chapter Four focusses on the role of women in the Durban rock scene and documents the difficulties experienced by women who were rock musicians in Durban. This is a small contribution to the increasing field of womens' studies, and I have attempted to relate the role of women in rock in Durban to other studies in this field.
Thesis (M.Mus.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1995.

Lee Ying Chuen.
Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1999.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-110).
Abstracts in English and Chinese.
Chapter Chapter One --- Introduction --- p.6
Chapter Chapter Two --- Literature Review --- p.13
Chapter Chapter Three --- Mapping the Local Sound Scape --- p.29
Chapter Chapter Four --- Blackbird: A living Song --- p.54
Chapter Chapter Five --- Freedom of Art as Freedom of Life --Cultural Discourse as Political Activity --- p.80
Chapter Chapter Six --- Concluding Remarks --- p.95
Postscript --- p.98
Appendix --- p.101
References --- p.104

張武宜.
"2013年9月".
"2013 nian 9 yue".
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 229-239).
Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.
Abstract in Chinese and English.
Zhang Wuyi.

The focus of this sociological research is on the five most popular and commercially successful Australian indie music festivals: Livid, Big Day Out, the Falls festival, Homebake, and Splendour in the Grass. The three key features of Australian indie music festivals are, firstly, that they are multi-staged ticketed outdoor events, with clearly defined yet temporal boundaries. Secondly, the festivals have a youth-orientated focus yet are open to all ages. Finally, the festivals are primarily dominated by indie-guitar culture and music. My aim is to investigate how these music festivals are able to strike an apparently paradoxical balance between the creation of a temporal community, or network of festivalgoers, and the commodity of the festivals themselves. My research methodology utilises a postmodern approach to ethnography, which has allowed me to investigate the festivalgoers as an ‘insider researcher.’ Data was collected through a series of participant observations at Australian indie music festivals which included the use of photographs and field notes. In addition I conducted nineteen semi-structured interviews and two focus groups with festivalgoers and festival organisers. The thesis adopts a post-subcultural approach to investigating the festivalgoers as an ideal type of a neo-tribal grouping. Post-subculture theory deals with the dynamic, heterogeneous and fickle nature of contemporary alliances and individuals’ feelings of group ‘in-betweeness’ in late capitalist/ global consumer society. I argue that Maffesoli’s theory of neo-tribalism can shine new light on the relationships between youth, music and style. Music festivals are anchoring places for neo-tribal groupings like the festivalgoers as well as a commercialised event. An analysis of the festivalgoers’ ritual clothing (t-shirts as commodities), leads to the conclusion that the festivalgoers use t-shirts to engage in a process of identification. T-shirts, I argue, are an example of a linking image which creates both a sense of individualism as well as a connection to a collective identity or sociality. Through a case study of moshing and audience behaviour it is discovered that the festivalgoers develop neo-tribal sociality and identification with each other through their participation in indie music festivals. Although pleasure seems to be the foremost significant dimension of participating in these festivals, the festivalgoers nevertheless appear to have developed an innate sense of togetherness and neo-tribal sociality. The intensity and demanding experience of attending a festival fosters the opportunity for a sense of connectedness and belonging to develop among festivalgoers.
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Text in Afrikaans
Die doel van hierdie studie is om op die liedtekste van die kunstenaars, Bok van Blerk, Fokofpolisiekar, The Buckfever Underground (en Toast Coetzer) en Karen Zoid te fokus en om te bepaal wat hulle funksie in die eietydse Afrikaanse kultuurlandskap is, en wat hulle rol in die definiëring van kulturele identiteit is. In hierdie studie sal daar ook klem gelê word op die sosiopolitieke faktore wat tot die opbloei van die Afrikaanse musiekbedryf gelei het. Deur die analise van dié kunstenaars se lirieke, sal ek vasstel of hulle wel betekenisvolle werk van literêre gehalte lewer. Ek het spesifiek hierdie musikante gekies omdat hulle jong eietydse musikante is.
The purpose of this study is to focus on the song texts of artists, Karen Zoid, Fokofpolisiekar, The Buckfever Underground (and Toast Coetzer) and Bok van Blerk and to determine their function in today’s cultural reality, and whether these musicians and their music have an influence on today’s youth and their search for a Cultural Identity. This study will also focus on the socio-political factors that led to the rise of the Afrikaans Music Industry. By analyzing these artists’ lyrics, I want to determine whether they are significant works of literary quality. These musicians were chosen because they are regarded as young contemporary musicians.
Afrikaans & Theory of Literature
M.A. (Afrikaans)