The Musical World(s) of Queen

This chapter begins from the premise that’s Queen idiolect or ‘sound’ was distinct in popular music. Using the concept of ‘style planets’, the idiolect characteristics are connected to numerous and varied stylistic sources including 1970s hard rock, 1970s Baroque pop, 1960s pop, soul, and pre-WWII American popular song. These influences are identified in the textural structures, performance gestures, and harmonic choices. Using the concept of ‘musical worlding’, it is suggested that a hypothetical listener might regard Queen’s idiolect as predominantly placed within the world of hard rock, but made to sound distinct and unique because of the integration of seemingly incongruous style influences within their songs. This analysis is conducted with primary reference to ‘We Are the Champions’

The Persistence of Memory

Though out of vogue in the twenty-first century, the jingle was a mainstay of radio and television advertising in the late twentieth century. What made it so popular was its affinity with popular music with which it was contemporaneous. This chapter draws upon linear diagram analysis to highlight the structural similarities of commercial jingles with American popular songs. Citing works on form in American popular song by Allen Forte and John Covach, and the “beginning-middle-ending” paradigms of William Caplin and Kofi Agawu, the chapter demonstrates how the musical structure of jingles such as “See the U.S.A. in Your Chevrolet,” “Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm Is There,” and others resemble American popular songs of their time. The success of these jingles lies not only in their structural similarity with these popular songs but also in the audience’s ability to reimagine the complete structure of the tunes and to draw upon a collective cultural memory of intertextuality—what Papson calls “alreadyness”—to these advertising texts.

Eubie Blake

The book tells the story of one of the key composers of 20th-century American popular song. Through his music, Eubie Blake rose from the slums of Baltimore to the heights of Broadway success. His show Shuffle Along was the first African American show to win a major white audience, becoming the tenth most popular show of the 1920s. The show introduced future black stars—including Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, and Florence Mills—and the syncopated chorus line, and introduced jazz-styled music to Broadway. Blake’s composing skills were matched by his piano mastery. Even in the Depression, Eubie continued composing innovative new works. At 61, he studied the Schillinger Method to expand his harmonic knowledge and ability to compose beyond the confines of traditional popular song. Blake’s persistence in maintaining his ties to ragtime and Broadway paid off in the late 1960s, when he was rediscovered due to new recordings and personal appearances. In the last decade of his life he influenced an entirely new generation of pianists and composers from the jazz and classical worlds. This is the first biography to explore the wealth of personal records, interviews, and deep research to illuminate Blake’s life and impact on over 100 years of American culture. It tells the true story of African American performers struggling to achieve recognition and success in the popular music world at a time of deep racism. Blake’s career blazed a path for countless others to rise above the limitations previously faced by blacks in the popular music world.

Popular Song and Working-Class Culture

This chapter considers the ways that popular songs, circulated via inexpensive sheet music and as printed song sheets that contained only lyrics, reflect the worldview and aspirations of working-class populations in the United States. It shows that when read against theatrical trade newspapers, men’s sporting newspapers, and daily newspapers catering to working men, a richer and more complex view of working-class culture emerges from these songs. Songs reinforced a sense of class cohesion, and articulated class values and working-class gender construction. They also reflected the integration of ethnic groups such as Germans and Irish into American culture, and reinforced social hierarchies based on race, gender, immigrant status, and proficiency with language. While the characters depicted in American popular song were often unique to the United States, the fact that they came from a shared tradition of English humor allowed them to travel globally.

Strains of Japonisme in Tin Pan Alley, on Broadway, and in the Parlor

This chapter focuses on the representation of Japan and the Japanese in American popular song and musical theater from 1860 to 1930. The representation of African Americans and of European immigrants in American popular song has received much attention. Comparatively little work has been undertaken on Tin Pan Alley’s engagement with Asians and Asian Americans. Through style and content analysis, the author identifies particular features that served as “Japanese” markers in the music, lyrics, and cover art of these songs. Musical interest in Japanese subjects directly reflected developments in political history and in American conceptions of race. The impact of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, and of the Russo-Japanese War is identified. The chapter is based on a collection of some 375 pieces with Japanese subjects–including parlor songs, show tunes, and piano dances and novelty pieces–that were published between 1890 and 1930 in the U.S.

Korngold and His World

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957) was the last compositional prodigy to emerge from the Austro-German tradition of Mozart and Mendelssohn. He was lauded in his youth by everyone from Mahler to Puccini and his auspicious career in the early 1900s spanned chamber music, opera, and musical theater. Today, he is best known for his Hollywood film scores, composed between 1935 and 1947. From his prewar operas in Vienna to his pathbreaking contributions to American film, this book provides a substantial reassessment of Korngold's life and accomplishments. Korngold struggled to reconcile the musical language of his Viennese upbringing with American popular song and cinema, and was forced to adapt to a new life after wartime emigration to Hollywood. The book examines Korngold's operas and film scores, the critical reception of his music, and his place in the milieus of both the Old and New Worlds. It also features numerous historical documents—many previously unpublished and in first-ever English translations—including essays by the composer as well as memoirs by his wife, Luzi Korngold, and his father, the renowned music critic Julius Korngold.