Commercial song1. Issue 3 (9th October 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Eco, Umberto
• Is Part Of: Popular music. Volume 36:Issue 3(2017)
• Page Start: 340
• Page End: 352
• Publication Date: 2017-10-09
• Subjects: Popular music -- Periodicals; 780.4205
• DOI: 10.1017/S026114301700006X
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0261-1430

Abstract

Abstract : The authors of this book present four complementary approaches to the issue of commercial song, i.e. of that 'gastronomic' music produced by the music industry in order to meet trends that the industry itself discovers (and feeds) in the national market. The fact that they have restricted the focus of their inquiry to 'gastronomic' music already suggests the polemic attitude of their studies: considering that the whole family of 'bad music' – music aimed at satisfying needs by definition trivial, superficial, immediate, short-lived and vulgar – is examined and accused here, the reader might think that the authors have employed a considerable number of pages to convince us of something we never doubted. Yet the authors felt the need to establish – albeit by means of analyses that are at times animated and angry – the historical and structural foundations of such musical sleaze.