Hong Kong Informal Education Research Centre

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• Hong Kong Informal Education Research Centre
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What is popular music?

• Definitions placing emphasis on popular
• Definitions based on the commercial nature of
  popular music embracing genres perceived as
  commercially oriented
• Identifications by general musical and
  non-musical characteristics

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Major Popular Music Genres

• Jazz
• R B
• Rocknroll
• Punk
• Hip Hop / Rap
• etc

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Song Structure

• Verse
• roughly corresponds with a poetic stanza
• Chorus
• the refrain of a song which assumes a higher
  level of dynamics and activity, often with added
  instrumentation
• Bridge
• a bridge is an interlude that connects two parts
  of that song, building a harmonic connection
  between those parts.

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History of popular music in HK

• 1950s - 70s - Dominated by Cantonese operas,
  movie theme songs Western pop songs
• Early 70s - Marked by Mandarin pop songs from
  Taiwan ?????
• Mid to late 70s - Raise of Canto pop - TV drama
  theme songs
• Early 80s - Taiwanese Folk songs raise of young
  Canto pop idols
• Mid 80s - Emergence of local Mega stars
• Late 80s - Revisit of Band Sound
• Ref Wong Chi Wah, the Forty years of Canto pop,
  Hong Kong Joint , 1990

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Signs in popular music

• Lyrics
• Musical structure
• Musical Genre
• Performer
• Tie-in products
• Distributor/ Record company
• etc

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Stars

• Characteristics of an idol/ star
• Stars image - embodied in 4 media textual areas
  - promotion, publicity, films, and criticisms
• Stars as commodity
• Concept of star texts
• the collection of cultural artifacts such as
  actual performances, promotional material, media
  coverage and texts by fans and other audiences
  that constitute our understandings of the stars

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Stardom

• Many believe that most stars (especially in the
  time of mass media) are above all produced and
  ride on the wave of a social-cultural trend or
  contest to generate profit
• A certain quality of an individual personality by
  virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men
  and treated as endowed with supernatural,
  superhuman or at least superficially exceptional
  qualities

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Identification

• The media mirrors what the society is concerned
  with and offers the possibility of identification
  and inspiration
• Emotional affinity
• Self-identification
• Imitation
• Projection
• Tudor, Andrew. Image and influence, p. 80-82

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Culture Industry

• All forms of popular culture carry the purpose
  to ensure the continued obedience of the masses
  to market interests
• Filled leisure time with amusements to distract
  the consumers from the boredom of their
  increasingly automated work
• Consumers hence fail to recognise the reality of
  their exploitation and to consider resisting the
  economic and social system.
• Adorno, T., Horkheimer, M. Dialectic of
  Enlightenment. London Verso. (1979)