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theoriesontheory · 3 years

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Hyperpop - a folk tradition for the 21st Century

Note for SAE: This blog was written for assessment based on the module guide instructions, not the formal instructions as discussed with Toby Wren

“Folk music is any style of music which represents a community and can be sung or played by people who may or may not be trained musicians, using the instruments available to them.” (Ruehl, 2019)

“This is popular culture as folk culture: a culture of the people for the people.” (Storey, 2014)

If you played the word association game with one-hundred fans of music and gave them the words “folk” and “hyperpop” respectively I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who would associate one with the other immediately. In the 20th and 21st century folk became a term used to describe any mainstream music that wasn’t rock or later ‘pop’. In play lists now it is often coupled with the words “indie” or “acoustic” or “chilled”. But the roots of the folk tradition lie in music that was popular because it was shareable, it was a group experience that was easy to participate in.We see that folk music is still popular now with the sea shanty trend becoming a massive thing on tik tok.

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With so many people spending more time on the internet for entertainment, information and communication there has been a rise of ‘sub-cultures’ or new communities bonded by shared experience, taste or interest. (Bennet, 2014) It is from these emerging communities that hyperpop grows and develops as folk sound of a generation. Hyperpop as a genre has its roots in the soundcloud community, being used as a term in the nightcore remix scene. (Enis, 2020) One of the things that makes hyperpop so unique is that while it serves as a genre tag, what that tag can mean is extraordinarily broad. In an interview one half of hyperpop taste makers 100gecs said that for them, certain Brittany Spears songs could go on a Hyperpop playlist. (Patel, 2020) In the same interview the interviewer described hyperpop as a stacking of multiple genres at their peak, extremely relatable, nostalgic and hooky. (ibid.)

I think the strongest thing that ties hyperpop to the folk tradition is it’s use of popular culture references in its production. Looking at a list of samples used by 100gecs (whosampled, n.d.) there are so many well known elements like minecraft sounds, Drake songs, Alt rock from the mid 2000s, a funk and soul instrumental from the 60s, anime sounds, the list of references covers all parts of pop culture in a way that is so reflective of the ‘gen z’/‘zoomer’ mentality. Now with unprecedented access to media from throughout space and time the current internet culture is a global one with references from as early as recorded media and as recent as when you are reading this. Additionally, with the internet and forums and message boards dedicated to the collection and distribution of samples and sounds, any producer with a DAW, a couple hours on YouTube and an idea could take the same samples and use them in a completely different way, using the same elements to express a completely new and unique perspective.

Underlying this is another element of the folk tradition that works to hold the music together, that is the recognisable form. While in the folk tradition songs were structured around easy to remember lyrics, stories and simple melodies and were typically short and repeatable (Nettl, 2007) the way we consume music has changed. Since 1949 and the birth of the 45 for music to be playable on the radio it needs to be around three and a half minuets long (McKinney, 2015) and will probably be in verse chorus form, with a catchy chorus that will be rememberable. (Bell, n.d.). Within these forms there are many other features we come to expect from pop music, a standard kick on the 1 and 3, snare on the 2 and 4, predominantly major tonalities and harmonically diatonic, although this is becoming less common. So, while hyperpop is a combination of many sounds, those sounds are organised and recognisable and fit in a form that we understand.

Another element that places the genre firmly in the folk tradition is that it is a real expression. This conclusion is based on the definition of folk music being made by and for the people. (Storey, 2014) My initial response to the genre when I discovered it through memes was to write it off. As a ‘smart musician’ I looked down on it because I thought it was like just eating cake not a balanced diet. I was living with the self-imposed idea that making art had to be hard and complex and that using extended harmony and using incredible metaphors made me better than other musicians. I was wrong for so many reasons. Firstly, when I approached the genre with no social or class based bias, I began to understand. Just because something is the obvious choice doesn’t mean it’s the wrong one. Pop music is popular for a reason, particularly music that is made with the intention of dancing or partying there are rhythms and patterns that are tried and true. And second, I discovered that underneath all the ‘hyper’ tonality were real stories and emotions and experiences that felt so real and human in contrast to their setting. Hyperpop being such a broad umbrella means that it is the place where people who don’t fit neatly into other genres or scenes can feel connected. When asked what they view their role as leaders of the genre was 100gecs replied with promoting accessibility within the genre, for people who are underappreciated but making the music they like to have and audience and a community. (Patel, 2020) In my listening to hyperpop playlists and artists recommended to my by my friends I have heard songs on topics ranging from love, heartbreak, feeling great about yourself, hating yourself, being high, being sober, loving both of those things, making food, walking a dog, being angry at someone. If there is an experience to be expressed, you can express it in hyperpop.

Side note: I think that the use of autotune and heavy vocal distortions lowers the barrier to entry, now artists can use their voice as an instrument when in the traditional way of thinking about singing they weren’t deemed ‘good enough’

In the same way there are no real rules to sing a folk song in a pub or with your family, there are no real rules about writing hyperpop, the music can be coupled with every emotion and serves to take it to the extreme.

The last tie that holds hyperpop in the folk tradition is the way it is spread. While folk would traditionally be passed from family member to family member or friend to friend, often learned through doing. Hyperpop found it’s rise in meme culture of the internet. 100gecs gained most of their mainstream notoriety through being shared in a facebook music meme group, where internet reviewer and indie taste setter Anthony Fantano found them and gave them a review on his channel leading to millions of people discovering the music. Beyond this, the band’s image is incredibly well tailored to the zoomer, ‘possitive nihilistic’, ‘nothing matters lets party’ mentality, presenting as both over and underproduced, low-fi, oversaturated and almost intentionally bad. This makes it captivating and almost funny to audiences. The band have spoken against this, saying they’re not trying to be ironic but rather just having fun (Mylrea, 2020). But whether or not the easily memeable nature of the music is intentional or not, it is undeniable to say that it means the music is spread and heard on a much wider basis than it would have otherwise.

Hyperpop will probably never be widely called ‘folk music’ but I think that there are enough similarities that the argument is there to be made. Hyperpop as a genre shares its use of recognisable elements from the new ‘internet culture’ that are controlled in a recognisable form, its use of real and relatable expression and the way it is spread through our new community meeting places with the traditional folk tradition, making it the latest in a long list of music sub-genres to be for the people, from the people.

References:

Bell, E. (n.d.). Anatomy of a Song: The Three Most Common Song Forms. Musical-U. https://www.musical-u.com/learn/anatomy-of-a-song-the-three-most-common-song-forms/

Bennet, A. (2014). Youth Culture and the Internet: A subcultural or post-subcultural phenomena? In W. Osgerby (Ed.), Subcultures, Popular Music and Social Change. Cambridge Scholars. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sae/reader.action?docID=1790933

Nettl, B. (2020, December 3). Folk music. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/art/folk-music

McKinney, K. (2015, Jan 30). A hit song is usually 3 to 5 minuets long. Here’s why. Vox. https://www.vox.com/2014/8/18/6003271/why-are-songs-3-minutes-long

Mylrea, H. (2020, July 10). 100 Gecs: “People think we’ve staked our entire career on the fact that we can be ironic”. NME. https://www.nme.com/en_au/features/music-interviews/100-gecs-interview-1000-gecs-and-the-tree-of-clues-charli-xcx-pc-music-minecraft-2706029

Patel, P. (Interviewer). (2020, November). Pitchfork Review: 100 Gecs and the Mystery of Hyperpop. [Audio Podcast]. Get Wired. https://open.spotify.com/episode/1UnB4gNxTsInfjur0iVXEP?si=NXGfknGtTqSId4z-XhKNeg&dl_branch=1

Ruehl, K. (2019, Febuary 13). What Exactly is Folk Music? Banjos, Jugbands and More. liveaboutdotcom. https://www.liveabout.com/what-is-folk-music-1322534

#Critical Theories #hyperop #100gecs #academic writing #CIM402.1

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dawin-journal-anja-nash · 5 years

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Parade: Christopher Mathews

Subject of piece and details:

· Title: ‘Parade’ (a dance for TV)

· There is a triple casting- A quartet with stage hands (that performing the singing)

· Based on Playwright Samuel Beckett’s piece ‘Quad’ (A Play for TV), using the floor pattern (S. Beckett is rethinking society and the use of maths and possibilities when utilising and deconstructing a work)

· Disney Culture

· Incorporating the idea of music videos, vogueing and catwalks

Disney Culture:

· ‘Princess Culture’ contrast ‘Lads Culture’

· Dream- like

· Commercialisation and European Fairy-tales

· Internalisation: ‘the action of accepting or absorbing an idea, opinion, belief, etc. so that it becomespart of your character’ (Cambridge Dictionary, 2018)

· Capitalism

· Homogenised: ‘Changed so that all the parts or features becomes the same or very similar’ (Cambridge Dictionary, 2018)

· Fairy-tale- Poor women to be picked and saved by wealthy men

· The afternoon and evening parade at Disney- Dancers perform between floats to maintain order and automation to reflect a magic- like world that is in fact incredibly detailed choreography (This removes any individuality of each person)

Music:

· Slave to the rhythm by Michael Jackson

· Love (Remix) by Lana Del Ray, Ft. Empress Of, DJDS

· Supercut by Lorde, Ft. Run the Jewes

Set design:

· Square taped out with fluorescent pink tape

· Light panels on the floor along the tape

· A projection (of the cast not performing) presenting a music video style movement to the camera

Costumes:

· Colours- involving colours of princesses

· Use of props such as an apple for Snow White

· Possible Head wear for section two to emphasise the Disney-like character in the ‘rap’ section

Official statement:

Parade is a commentary on the current Disney Princess Culture. We explore the typical walk seen on catwalks today and the happy, over exaggerated mannerisms of Disney princesses, with inspirationalso taken from court dance. We work with formations inspired by the work Quad by Samuel Beckett and the use of live singing during the piece.

Personal Further Research: (Conventions of Fairy Tales, 2016)

Fairy tales consist of:

-short stories

-A Moral Message (Truth over Lies)

-A happy ending (Love conquers)

-Good overcoming evil (Good is rewarded)

A fairy tale structure:

Begins with ‘Once upon a time’

Ends with ‘And they all lived happily ever after’

Characters involved:

Heroine/ Hero

Villain/ evil

A companion (usually magical or an animal)

The Magic involved:

· They overcome obstacles and evil by using good to succeed

Snow White (Hamilton E.L., 2018)

The princess that I play the role of within the piece is Snow White.

· The Walt Disney film was released in 1937

· Originally German brothers released the story named a Grimm Fairy-tale (Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm). They were German Scholars who collected folktales from women telling the stories down generations and they published the ‘Nursery and household tales’ collection in 1812.

· Originally it involved violence, incest and sex

· Snow White was seven years old

· The Queen eats what she believes is the guts of Snow White

· The Dwarves chase the Queen into the woods and off of a cliff, as lightning hits her whereas in the book she dances to her death

I have learnt that you can use a spatial pattern as a starting point for a piece which is not an aspect I have strongly considered before. I have also learnt that repetition can be more interesting than constant change as it is the intricate developments throughout the piece that can draw the audience in.

Bibliography:

Cambridge Dictionary (2018) English Dictionary. Cambridge University Press. Available at: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ [Accessed 5 November 2018]

Conventions of Fairy Tales (2016) Fairy Tales: Conventions of Fairy Tales, George A. Spiva Library. Available at: libguides.mssu.edu/c.php?g=185298&p=1223898 [Accessed 7 October 2018]

Hamilton E.L. (2018) The Vintage News, Walt Disney softened the original Snow White story, leaving out the evil queen eating internal organs and dancing to her death in iron- hot shoes. Available at: https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/04/18/snow-white-story/ [Accessed 7 October 2018]

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micaramel · 7 years

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Artist: Joseph Grigely

Venue: García, Madrid

Exhibition Title: Reiteración

Date: May 27 – July 8, 2017

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.

Images:

Images courtesy of García, Madrid

Press Release:

A project by Carlos Fernández-Pello.

Editorial variations and the boundaries of text have long been an interest of Joseph Grigely´s (Massachusetts, USA, 1956). As a visual artist and textual scholar, deaf from the age of 10, Grigely´s work has surrounded two core concepts since the early 1990s: on the one hand a systematic compilation of other people’s things, which he later edits in the form of archives and diverse narrations. On the other, giving shape to text´s inadvertent material while looking at the ways it intervenes in the dissemination and production of cultural artifacts.

Reiteración is the artist´s first solo exhibition in a Spanish gallery, and only his fourth time in our country in sixteen years; with his first appearance in 2001, in the Espai 13 of Regàs, Barenblit and Montornés. The reasons behind this irregular presence, as usual, are various and varied, but perhaps, at the heart of them all, is the linguistic character of his work.

Revolving around a premise as basic as this — that, when we have to read, language hinders the diffusion of a specific work or artist — I have been speculating with Grigely for a couple of years about the possibility of “translating” one of his historic Conversation Pieces. That is to say, what would happen if we translated a work of art, not at a catalogue or gallery text level, but at one equal to the conditions of the work itself; like a replica without being one; like forgery but with permission; like a remix without the mashup; in short, like a Spanish reiteration and edition of an object which hangs on the wall, yet keeps much of the behavior of a book.

The result of this speculation is the piece Untitled Conversations (Translated), 2017, which belongs to the wider collection, “conversation with the hearing”; a huge archive of notes from his exchanges with those of us that are not familiar with sign language, which Grigely has been compiling for decades. This seems simple but there is a catch: although Grigely is incapable of hearing anything, he is, in contrast, a remarkably good speaker. This shifts the condition of hearing disability to one of descriptive ability: it is not that he cannot express himself fully but the “listeners” who sees their participation limited to short sentences, drawings and monosyllables which often seem insufficient. Thus, language reveals itself in all its materiality as a resistant medium, physical, slow and silent, which simultaneously spurs on descriptive ingenuity and registers the conversation in the shape of small textual Polaroids.

The piece Inside the Outside, 2013 amplifies this material dimension of speech and its dissymmetry to the referent. It reminds us, in a way, of the historic Untitled Conversation (Speech is shaped breath) , 1995, in which an anonymous Frank G., tells Grigely that, “speech is shaped air.” The blown glass piece is also an almost identical reiteration of Duchamp´s famous Air de Paris (1919), which, in turn, also had to be reconstructed in 1949, raising doubts as to whether the origin of the air was still Parisian or not. In our case, we can be sure that the air inside is from the state of Colorado.

The work on display in Reiteración gravitates towards this idea: the unique work of art is not autonomous, but the product of multiple makers working together and apart across time. For the artist, the work is not singular but plural. Or rather, its singularity is just one more of the multiple possible versions of the work, not the only one. Each exhibition implies an instance of itself which always adds a discordant note: each reiteration implies a subtle discrepancy which can be material, temporal, or even ontological; in other words, it can change what the work was, is and will be. Grigely reminds us that the Shakespeare we know today is the Shakespeare of the performers who memorized and transcribed his texts; of printers who have printed and reprinted them, and of those translators who reshaped his work into different languages. For Grigely, Shakespeare is not as much a person as he is a process.

The Madrid version of Horizontal Storage Rack, 2014/2017, a piece originally produced for the Amy Vogel: A Paraperspective exhibition at Cleve Carney Art Gallery, Illinois, would work along these same lines. The rack was then used to display different pieces by artist Amy Vogel at different “editorial” stages; either previously exhibited pieces, works in progress, corrected or never seen before. Back then, the piece reflected on this para-literary idea that the work is never static, even when it pretends to be so: it always moves from one state to another, from one place to another and, even as a piece “in holding” or “in storage”, it continues to produce a specific meaning. The process would not just be what the artist says it does. It is also what the work does not do.

The horizontal shelf, now empty, acquires yet another meaning in its new iteration precisely by not doing anything other than being, exchanging its role as an exhibition support for that of the merely exhibited object. The entire structure has been reconstructed from a reproduction which is nothing but the translucent polyurethane copy of one of the original legs. How weak the materiality of the reference is: barely a trace of volume, this sculptural nod to tracing paper is what anchors the rack to the floor and prevents it from collapsing, making it float. As elusive and as solid as a ghost, Horizontal Storage Rack becomes analogous to the Shakespeare described by Grigely: its exhibition is now not as much a work as it is a process.

However this score is no longer one of meaning, rhythm or praxis. It is not even a performative one. It is the score of useless mutation, of biological whim and of damp genetics; of the “great passiveness of things without reason” which Rancière´s great parataxis underlines. It is not a score in the fashion of Sol LeWitt, Dora García or Tino Seghal, appropriately circumscribed by conditions that predict or provoke, due to their artistic nature, chaos and interaction. On the contrary, Horizontal Storage Rack did not foresee itself being anything other than what it was; and yet it ends up being so, perhaps temporarily, fruit of the fortuitous (or planned) exchange between two (or more) people, producing endless plastic (and sexual) genres. Just as a flower inserts itself in another, (just as a parentheses inserts itself in text), as a parallel material and time. As reconstructor of the piece it is not I that pollinates the flower but the structure that inserts itself like a bee in my studio, in my tools and my resources, giving birth to an indefinite number of species. As authors of the piece, Vogel and Grigely are now founding myths, ghosts which anchor and elevate a structure which would otherwise break down into a mere exercise in DIY.

The gender that breaks down here is that of the process itself as a genre of contemporary art; the process as a narrative genre, which becomes, logically, even more queer because it is never fully abandoned: altering (or not) the state of a particular work of art, which can, at any moment, go back to being (or not) what it once was (a storage rack) or, better still, end up being what it was predestined to support (a dismantled stored artwork).

It is not surprising that Grigely is above all an archivist, a methodical collector of things and a creator of mundane constellations. From a huge collection of obituaries to a whole archive of leaflets and exhibition paraphernalia of Hans Ulrich Obrist, a close friend of his, without forgetting the aforementioned collection of more than 65,000 notes from conversations held with “listeners” or the personal archive of the critic Gregory Battcock. All of this constitutes a museum of minutiae; marginalia and leftovers of an ignored world which, when related, when condensed to a point of total saturation, begin, just as droplets of water, to rain meaning.

Of all of these collections the most recent would be the one related to flies for fly-fishing. Not only because it is one of his personal hobbie (he has been fishing since the age of 5 and tying flies since he was 13) but because it also allows us to understand the way in which textual materiality mimics itself and copulates with the body, its movement and formal impulses. Over the last two years Grigely has been reconstructing the archive of the American fisherwoman, entrepreneur and legendary tier, Carrie G Stevens. A native of the state of Maine, Stevens (1882-1970) became very popular during the first half of the twentieth century as a innovator of flies known as streamers, which imitate baitfish upon which trout and landlocked salmon feed. Her legendary patterns, while based on previous streamer designs, simplified their structure and made them more lifelike as hydrodynamic forms. The archive is being shown for the first time in this exhibition although the theme is by no means new for the author.

I have often been able to speak with Grigely about how the flies would be a sublime synthesis of editorial work; not only do they function as literary works, as works of fiction for fish, looking to be interpreted by these as something which they are not: something edible. They are also the product of a mashup of different materials. Made up almost always of bird feathers, deer and bear fur, silk thread and silver tinsel; all coordinated to produce an illusion of identity, of unique beings, which allows a fish to be deceived, if only partly and momentarily. The Stevens flies are, like artworks, ghost texts written with truths, meant to be ingested; provoking, in turn, phantom deaths which can, sometimes, become real.

These projects are in collaboration with Amy Vogel, Emma Cole, Jeremy Pellington, Kayle Nilan, Carrie Stevens and Thomas Browne.

Text by Carlos Fernández-Pello.

Grigely has participated in exhibitions at the Kunstverein in Hamburg in Germany, at the Fundación Joan Miró in Barcelona, at Tate Liverpool, UK, at the Whitney Biennial, at Centre Pompidou Metz, CAPC Bordeaux, Francia, PS1 in Nwe York or Serpentine Gallery In London. His work can be found in collections such as Whitney Musseum, MoMA, Tate Modern, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdan, Kunsthaus Zurich or the Louisiana Museum of Modern Artin Denmarck.

Link: Joseph Grigely at García

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from Contemporary Art Daily http://bit.ly/2tFXupB

#micaramel

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