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E-book
Author Howland, John, 1964- author

Title Hearing Luxe Pop : glorification, glamour, and the middlebrow in American popular music / John Howland
Published Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2021]
©2021

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Description 1 online resource (x, 381 pages)
Series California studies in music, sound, and media ; 2
California studies in music, sound, and media ; 2.
Contents Introduction : from Paul Whiteman, to Barry White, man -- Hearing Luxe Pop : Jay Z, Isaac Hayes, and the six degrees of symphonic soul -- The (symphonic) Jazz age, musical vaudeville, and "glorified" entertainments -- Jazz with strings : between Jazz and the great American songbook -- Defining populuxe : capitol records and the swinging early Hi-Fi era -- Phil Spector, early 1960s "teenage symphonies," and the fabulous lower middlebrow -- Mining AM (white) gold : the 1960s MOR-pop foundations of 1970s soft rock -- Isaac Hayes and Hot Buttered (Orchestral) Soul, from psychedelic to progressive -- From sophistisoul to disco : Barry White and the fall of Luxe Pop
Summary "Hearing Luxe Pop explores a deluxe-production aesthetic that has long thrived in American popular music. John Howland presents an alternative music history that centers on shifts in timbre and sound through innovative uses of media, orchestration, and arranging. He travels from symphonic jazz to the Great American Songbook; teenage symphonies of the Motown label and 1960s girl groups to the emerging "countrypolitan" sound of Nashville; the sunshine pop and baroque pop of the Beach Boys to the blending of soul and funk into 1970s disco; the hip-hop-with-orchestra events of Jay-Z and Kanye West to indie rock bands with the Brooklyn Philharmonic. The luxe aesthetic merges popular-music idioms with lush string orchestrations, big-band instrumentation, and symphonic instruments. This book attunes readers to hearing the discourses that gathered around the music and its associated images, and in turn examines pop's relations to aspirational consumer culture, spectacle, theatricality, glamour, sophistication, cosmopolitanism, and "classy" lifestyles"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on June 09, 2021)
Subject Popular music -- United States -- History and criticism
Popular music -- Production and direction -- United States -- History -- 20th century
Popular music -- United States -- 20th century -- Philosophy and aesthetics
Instrumentation and orchestration -- United States -- History -- 20th century
Arrangement (Music) -- United States -- History -- 20th century
MUSIC / History & Criticism
Arrangement (Music)
Instrumentation and orchestration
Popular music
Popular music -- Philosophy and aesthetics
United States
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc.
History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2020044268
ISBN 9780520971646
0520971647