PODCAST

Sound Philosophy

Chadwick Jenkins

A podcast exploring philosophical and interpretive approaches to the history of popular music.

music music history

All Episodes

01:00:51

037--Progressive Rock and (Kantian) Form

Sound Philosophy ·

2021/10/12

This episode examines form in popular music and especially Progressive Rock by first investigating the distinction between extensional and intensional form (as presented by Andrew Chester) and glossing that as the distinction between "trekking" and "dwelling." The second segment targets some specific issues in Immanuel Kant's understanding of aesthetic form. The third segment turns to the adaptation of classical music by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, and what that reveals about Prog Rock's approach to

01:04:52

036--The Transcendental Aesthetic of Space and Time...

Sound Philosophy ·

2021/09/18

This episode examines Kant's Transcendental Aesthetic to reveal some of the strange properties of space and time. It then turns to the nada Brahma of Hindustani philosophical tradition and the writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan to discuss the creation of space and time from the unstruck sound and how that makes music a special conduit to the truth. The last segment turns to Hindustani music and how its formal and performative elements enact a path of transcendence beyond space and time (and our

01:11:58

035--Shortcut to Transcendence: The US Reception of...

Sound Philosophy ·

2021/08/20

This episode begins by examining the relationship between music and nature. It then explores the Chandogya Upanishad and Hindustani Classical Music for insights into nature, humankind, and music. The final segment turns to the U.S. reception of the music of Ravi Shankar and discusses how that reception over the course of the 50s and 60s reflected a growing concern with spirituality and the search for a shortcut to transcendence.

00:52:14

033-Singer-Songwriters of the 1970s and the Problem...

Sound Philosophy ·

2021/08/18

This episode investigates the move from the communitarian spirit of the 1960s to the "Me Decade" of the 1970s. I explore some historical and cultural reasons for this shift, employing ideas from Tom Wolfe and Immanuel Kant. I then look at the dialectic between an intentionally inauthentic notion of the self (personae) and an authentic self as it unfolded in the music of the 1970s, particularly among the singer-songwriters. The last segment addresses the style of that music--caught between folk music

01:17:55

032- Kant's Syntheses and the Ontologies of Music

Sound Philosophy ·

2021/03/09

This is a companion episode to the previous discussion of Kant's Three Syntheses. Here I use the three syntheses as a means for exploring some intriguing elements of the nature of music. Music, I suggest, has a very special relationship to space and time; that is, music produces an Imaginary (in Kant's sense) of space and time (the first synthesis). Music also presents fascinating problems in coming to grips with our ability to forge continuity among representations (the second synthesis); this

01:11:24

031--Kant's Three Syntheses and the Album

Sound Philosophy ·

2021/03/02

This episode explores the three syntheses Immanuel Kant describes in his Critique of Pure Reason. The first synthesis designates locations within time and space; the second finds associations to draw perceptions together in order; the third applies concepts to percepts. The four basic concepts are number (the whole and its parts), quality (the features of an object), modality (its mode of existence--whether real or fictional and many other states in between), and relation (how the object fits in the

01:03:34

030- The "First Death" of Hip Hop and "Rapper's Delight"

Sound Philosophy ·

2021/02/08

In this episode, I am joined by Matt Carter and Eric Taxier to discuss "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugar Hill Gang, which historian Jeff Chang refers to as the "first death of hip hop." I begin by outlining the inevitability of narrative and interpretation to history--that there is no "just the facts" approach to history, no matter how hard we try. I then suggest that Jeff Chang tells a story of death and resurrection (and a shift from authenticity to increased inauthenticity) while someone like Dan

00:50:52

029-Bossa Nova and Middle-Class Melancholy

Sound Philosophy ·

2021/01/31

This episode begins by asking the deceptively difficult question: what is the middle class? Moreover, what is the middle class's relationship to music? In the second segment, I discuss the rise of the middle class in Brazil alongside the increasing popularity of the samba, along with middle-class criticisms of the Afro-Brazilian genre and Brazilian representation abroad as embodied by Carmen Miranda. In the third segment, I delve into the musical characteristics of Bossa Nova and the manner in which

01:12:24

028-DJ Kool Herc, Deconstruction, and Synecdoche

Sound Philosophy ·

2021/01/20

In this episode, I am joined by Matt Carter and Eric Taxier to discuss DJ Kool Herc, his park parties, and his Merry-Go-Round technique--a method of extending the break of a song and linking it to other breaks. We discuss the issues of liveness (just what is "live" at a hip hop party using pre-recorded materials?), the art of DJing seen from the perspective of Jacques Derrida's deconstruction (that is, DJing as a series of reversals), and the break as a kind of synecdoche (a part that stands in for

00:42:09

027-The Problem with Payola

Sound Philosophy ·

2021/01/19

This episode examines the Congressional hearings on payola at the end of 1959 and 1960. I explore the history of payola briefly as a major part of the radio broadcast landscape. I then compare payola to common promotional practices in the advertisement and marketing of other types of commercial products and ask why it is that people might feel that things are different when it comes to music. Is this a confusion of the parameters of music’s status as a mass art?

01:00:44

026- Feeling Otherwise: Music, Commodity, and Streaming

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/11/24

This episode explores the commodity structure of music as it has evolved from the beginning of the sheet music industry to today’s streaming environment. The second segment employs ideas from Nietzsche and Raymond Williams to articulate the way in which we feel our way in relation to the world and suggests that music contributes to our affective standing. The last segment looks at Guy Debord’s notion of the Society of the Spectacle and examines how we have moved from being to having to appearing. I

00:56:45

025- Digitalization and the Ontology of Music

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/11/18

This episode examines how the digitalization of music has changed the mode of being (the ontology) of music. We examine the shift in music from something performed to something recorded and then to digitalization. We then examine some lawsuits concerning digital sampling and their implications and then some opportunities artists have exploited in the digital album.

00:55:50

024-Graffiti and the Aesthetics of Transgression

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/11/13

In this episode I am joined by Matt Carter to discuss the aesthetics and civics of graffiti art, or writing. We begin with the important transition in the 1960s from older forms of graffiti to modern graffiti art, examine the integral nature of transgression to the aesthetics of the art, consider the importance of writing and the signature, and conclude by discussing the question of the ownership of public space. Episode art comes from: By derivative work: Jemandanderes (talk)Seen_bode_ny.jpg:

00:59:59

023- On Distance, Nietzsche, and Conscious Rap

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/11/11

This episode delves into a passage from Nietzsche's Gay Science on giving style to one's life to demonstrate that his view of style is not superficial but rather substantive. This giving of style creates an orbit of several of Nietzsche's most important conceptions: the need for an Ultimate (the Death of God), the dialectic between Apollo and Dionysus, the need for distance or abstraction, the importance of aesthetics, becoming what you are, and the eternal recurrence. To further examine the issue

01:00:03

021--The Carter Family and the Death of God

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/11/02

This episode looks at how early country music, particularly that of the Carter Family, dealt with the position of the South after the Civil War into the early decades of the 20th century. I discuss the ideologies of the New South and the Lost Cause and how that relates to country music's concern with tradition. I then turn to a reading of Nietzsche's notion of the "death of God" to reveal that Nietzsche's primary concern wasn't with atheism but rather with the loss of an "ultimate" value that

00:54:11

020 Ralph Peer and the Bristol Sessions

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/10/22

In this episode, I explore the business innovations of Ralph Peer: his ability to profit from the mechanical right guaranteed by the 1909 Copyright Act, his exploitation of under-explored markets, and his innovations in marketing country musicians as pop stars. This leads to a discussion of the famous Bristol Sessions and the music of Jimmie Rodgers and, especially, the Carter Family.

00:39:33

019 Appalachia, Disaster Songs, and Fiddling...

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/10/20

This episodes examines country music as a popular (mass culture) entertainment prior to the Bristol Sessions of 1927. I investigate three contributing streams into the country music scene: Appalachian music, disaster songs, and the fiddling music of the string bands. I tease out certain contradictions in each in order to demonstrate that country music is an "invented tradition" that relies upon the past but reinvents that past into an image useful to its own concern with creation.

00:54:47

018-Crossing Over: Billboard, Nietzsche, and the...

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/10/13

In this episode I discuss phenomenon of the crossover, employing an eccentric reading of Nietzsche to elucidate one element of the success of Motown and the Supremes. We begin by discussing the way Billboard created its charts, the ways in which those charts changed over time, the crossover phenomenon of the Rock n' Roll era, and the suspension of the R&B chart during 1964 and its impact on Black music. The second segment discusses Nietzsche's concept of the overman and the role he sees

00:49:12

017-Motown, Black Uplift, and Fordism

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/10/08

In this episode I discuss the business model Berry Gordy employed for Motown records, including the influences of Booker T. Washington and the Fordist model. What are the advantages and disadvantages to applying these business models to the creation of music?

00:37:53

016-Booker T. at the Crossroads: Country Blues

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/10/08

This episode discusses the image of the crossroads as a central metaphor not only for the blues but for the Black condition at the turn of the 20th century. I then discuss the musical roots of the blues, the relationship of the blues to the ideals of Booker T. Washington, and the manner in which the blues navigates the liminal space between the religious and the secular, the communal and the individual, the inside and the outside.

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