THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO

POPULAR MUSIC ANALYSIS

The Routledge Companion to Popular Music Analysis: Expanding Approaches widens the scope of ana-
lytical approaches for popular music This study endeavors to create a new analytical paradigm for
examining popular music by taking the perspective of developments in contemporary art music as
a point of departure to open up multiple new paradigms.
“Expanded approaches” for popular music analysis is broadly defined as any compositional,
analytical, or theoretical concept outside the domain of common practice tonality that shapes the
pitch-class structures, form, timbre, rhythm, or aesthetics of various forms of popular music. The
essays in this collection investigate a variety of analytical, theoretical, historical, and aesthetic com-
monalities popular music shares with 20th and 21st century art music. From rock and pop to hip
hop and rap, dance and electronica, from the 1930s to present day, this companion explores these
connections in five parts:

· Establishing and Expanding Analytical Frameworks

· Technology and Timbre
· Rhythm, Pitch, and Harmony
· Form and Structure
· Critical Frameworks: Analytical, Formal, Structural, and Political

With contributions by established scholars and promising emerging scholars in music theory and
historical musicology from North America, Europe, and Australia, The Routledge Companion to
Popular Music Analysis: Expanding Approaches offers nuanced and detailed perspectives that address
the relationships between concert and popular music.
Ciro Scotto is Associate Professor and Chair of the Music Theory Department at Ohio University, US.
Kenneth Smith is Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Liverpool, UK.
John Brackett is Music Instructor at Vance-Granville Community College, US.

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 THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO MUSIC,
MIND, AND WELL-BEING
Edited by Penelope Gouk, James Kennaway, Jacomien Prins,
and Wiebke Thormählen

Routledge Music Companions offer thorough, high-quality surveys and assessments of major
topics in the study of music. All entries in each companion are specially commissioned
and written by leading scholars in the field. Clear, accessible, and cutting-edge, these com-
panions are the ideal resource for advanced undergraduates, postgraduate students, and
researchers alike.

The Routledge Companion to Jazz Studies

Edited by Nicholas Gebhardt, Nichole Rustin-Paschal, and Tony Whyton

The Routledge Companion to Popular Music Analysis

Expanding Approaches
Edited by Ciro Scotto, Kenneth Smith, and John Brackett

The Routledge Companion to the Study of Local Musicking

Edited by Suzel A. Reily and Katherine Brucher

The Routledge Companion to Music Cognition

Edited by Richard Ashley and Renee Timmers

The Routledge Companion to Screen Music and Sound

Edited by Miguel Mera, Ronald Sadoff, and Ben Winters

The Routledge Companion to Embodied Music Interaction

Edited by Micheline Lesaffre, Pieter-Jan Maes, and Marc Leman

The Routledge Companion to Music, Technology, and Education

Edited by Andrew King, Evangelos Himonides, and S. Alex Ruthmann

The Routledge Companion to Sounding Art

Edited by Marcel Cobussen,Vincent Meelberg, and Barry Truax

The Routledge Companion to Music and Visual Culture

Edited by Tim Shephard and Anne Leonard

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 THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION
TO POPULAR MUSIC ANALYSIS
Expanding Approaches

Edited by
Ciro Scotto, Kenneth Smith, and John Brackett

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 First published 2019
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Taylor & Francis
The right of Ciro Scotto, Kenneth Smith, and John Brackett to be
identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors
for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Scotto, Ciro. | Smith, Kenneth M. | Brackett, John Lowell.
Title: The Routledge companion to popular music analysis:
expanding approaches / edited by Ciro Scotto, Kenneth Smith,
John Brackett.
Description: New York: Routledge, 2018. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018022353 (print) | LCCN 2018025025
(ebook) | ISBN 9781315544700 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138683112
(hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: Popular music–Analysis, appreciation. | Popular
music–History and criticism. | Musical analysis.
Classification: LCC MT146 (ebook) | LCC MT146 .R72 2018
(print) | DDC 781.64/117–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018022353
ISBN: 978-1-138-68311-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-54470-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

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 CONTENTS

List of figures viii

List of tables xiv
Preface xvi

PART 1
Establishing and Expanding Analytical Frameworks 1

1 Some Practical Issues in the Aesthetic Analysis of Popular Music 3

Christopher Doll

2 Style as Analysis 15
Phil Ford

3 Thank You for the Music 29

Giles Hooper

4 Listening to the Sound Music Makes 45

Allan F. Moore

5 Analyse This: Types and Tactics of Self-Referential Songs 58

Bethany Lowe with Freya Jarman

6 A-ha’s “Take on Me”: Melody,Vocal Compulsion, and Rotoscoping 77

Stan Hawkins and Jon Mikkel Broch Ålvik

7 Interpreting Transmedia and Multimodal Narratives: Steven Wilson’s

“The Raven That Refused to Sing” 95
Lori Burns

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 Contents

PART 2
Technology and Timbre 115

8 Analysing the Product of Recorded Musical Activity 117

Simon Zagorski-Thomas

9 The Production of Timbre: Analyzing the Sonic Signatures of

Tool’s Æ nima (1996) 133
Kevin Osborn and Brad Osborn

10 “What Music Isn’t Ambient in the 21st Century?”: A Design-Oriented

Approach to Analyzing and Interpreting Ambient Music Recordings 144
Victor Szabo

11 Electronically Modified Voices as Expressing the (Post)Human

Condition in Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories (2013) 159
Jane Piper Clendinning

PART 3
Rhythm, Pitch, and Harmony 177

12 Pulse as Dynamic Attending: Analysing Beat Bin Metre

in Neo Soul Grooves 179
Anne Danielsen

13 Rhythmic Functions in Pop-Rock Music 190

Nicole Biamonte

14 The Aesthetics of Drone 207

Jonathan W. Bernard

15 A Tonal Axis to Grind: The Central Dyad in Sonic

Youth’s Divergent Textures 221
David Heetderks

16 Chromatic Linear Progressions in Popular Music 235

Neil Newton

17 System 7 249
Ciro Scotto

18 Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s ‘Toccata’ and the

Cyborg Essence of Alberto Ginastera 265
Kevin Holm-Hudson

vi

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 Contents

PART 4
Form and Structure 275

19 Yes, the Psychedelic-Symphonic Cover, and “Every Little Thing” 277

John Covach

20 ‘Silence in the Studio!’: Collage as Retransition in Pink Floyd’s

‘Atom Heart Mother Suite’ 291
Shaugn O’Donnell

21 “Weed Crumbles into Glitter”: Representing a

Marijuana High in Frank Ocean’s Blonde 300
John Brackett

22 Form and Time in Trout Mask Replica 315

Peter Silberman

PART 5
Critical Frameworks: Analytical, Formal, Structural, and Political 333

23 New Music in a Borderless World 335

Marianna Ritchey

24 Here Lies Love and the Politics of Disco-Opera 347

Áine Mangaoang

25 The Love Detective: Cybernetic Cycles and the Mysteries

of Desire in Arab Strap 364
Stephen Overy and Kenneth Smith

26 Unending Eruptions: White-Collar Metal Appropriations of Classical

Complexity, Experimentation, Elitism, and Cultural Legitimization 378
Eric Smialek and Méi-Ra St-Laurent

27 Hearing Postmemory: Anne Frank in Neutral Milk Hotel’s

In the Aeroplane over the Sea 400
Michael Spitzer

28 “Poet-Composers”: Art and Legitimacy in the

Singer-Songwriter Movement 416
Christa Anne Bentley

Notes on Contributors 427

Index 434

vii

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