Euroacademia Conferences
Europe Inside-Out: Europe and Europeanness Exposed to Plural Observers (9th Edition)April 24 - 25, 2020
Identities and Identifications: Politicized Uses of Collective Identities (9th Edition)June 12 - 13, 2020
8th Forum of Critical Studies: Asking Big Questions AgainJanuary 24 - 25, 2020
Re-Inventing Eastern Europe (7th Edition)December 13 - 14, 2019
The European Union and the Politicization of Europe (8th Edition)October 25 - 26, 2019
Identities and Identifications: Politicized Uses of Collective Identities (8th Edition)June 28 - 29, 2019
The European Union and the Politicization of Europe (7th Edition)January 25 - 26, 2019- 7th Forum of Critical Studies: Asking Big Questions AgainNovember 23 - 24, 2018
Europe Inside-Out: Europe and Europeanness Exposed to Plural Observers (8th Edition)September 28 - 30, 2018- Identities and Identifications: Politicized Uses of Collective Identities (7th Edition)June 14 - 15, 2018
Identity Transfers Between Artists Figures and Music Signifiers. A Socio-musical Study of the Creation of Stars in Popular Music
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Presentation speakers
- Christophe Magis, Université Paris VIII, France
Abstract:
Most researchers working on the cultural industries have stated that the field is characterized by a tight control of the marketing and distribution phases of production and a loose control of the creation phases, concluding in low (if any) phenomenon of creation’s determination by marketing (Hesmondhalgh, 2007). This communication aims to question this statement focusing on the identity relations between the figure of stars and their music in the popular music sphere. In popular music, the singer is himself an important part of the song he sings, alongside lyrics and music: he intervenes at the level of the song’s «character» (Hennion, 1982). Of course, the different levels of lyrics, music and character are in constant relations inside each different song and tend to give coherence to a singer’s work (Lahusen, 1996). The construction of Stars – which has a preeminent role in the music business (Curien & Moreau, 2006), as in the rest of the cultural industries (Ryan, 1992) – is based on this «character» level of songs, in relation to lyrics and music. Thus, concentrating on the album «Le Coeur d’un Homme» released in 2007 by the French popular singer Johnny Hallyday we would like to show how the figure of the Star is developed in the music business as cristallysing specific values, most of which are related to identity. These values are claimed in the discourses created for the promotion of the album (websites, TV-show, promotional material) in connection with identitarian signifiers to be found within lyrics and within music, especially in the work of arrangement (as a musicological analysis will show). This presentation will then analyze these complex movements between the public identity of the artist as a Star used to sell records, and the music to be heard in the offered album to see how, finally, the rest of the textual levels of songs (lyrics and music) serve this publicity operating as a reservoir of identity signifiers.
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