Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T14:14:24.742Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reflections on the challenges of exhibiting popular music at the beginning of the 21st century through a case study of ‘A Magia do Vinil’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 October 2017

Alcina Cortez
Alcina Cortez*
Affiliation:
INET-md, Instituto de Etnomusicologia, Música e Dança, Lisboa, Portugal
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper sets out to reflect on the implications of the heritagisation of popular music by museums. ‘Heritage’ is not something that holds intrinsic value but rather represents a social construction that produces difference by adding value to specific objects within particular social dynamics. This means that heritagisation processes operant in museums prove highly susceptible to ideological distortion and hence require scrutiny. Studying the case of the Portuguese exhibition A Magia do Vinil, a Música que Mudou a Sociedade, I analyse two specific domains: the concepts and the narrative deployed to address popular music discursively; and the objects selected for exhibition, in conjunction with the interactive practices they foster with audiences. This case study demonstrates how popular music heritagisation practices may largely correspond with those approaches taken by conventional art exhibitions – not only through the uncritical discourses they reproduce concerning their subject matter, but also through the idea that vision is the means for engaging museumgoers.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , October 2017 , pp. 370 - 392
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bal, Mieke. 2011. ‘Exposing the public’, in A Companion to Museum Studies. Blackwell Companions in Cultural Studies, ed. Macdonald, S. (Malden), pp. 525–42Google Scholar
Bennett, A. 2009. ‘“Heritage rock”: rock music, representation and heritage discourse’, Poetics, 37, pp. 474–89Google Scholar
Bhatia, V.K., Flowerdew, J., and Jones, R.H. 2010 [2008]. ‘Approaches to discourse analysis’, in Advances in Discourse Studies, ed. Bhatia, V.K., Flowerdew, J. and Jones, R.H. (London: Routledge), pp. 1–17 Google Scholar
Bijsterveld, K., and Dijck, J.V. 2009. Sound Souvenirs, Memory and Cultural Practices (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press)Google Scholar
Bohlman, P.V. 1988. The Study of Folk Music in the Modern World (Bloomington, UN: Indiana University Press)Google Scholar
Bohlman, P.V. 2001[1999]. Ontologies of Music, in Rethinking Music, ed. Cook, N. and Everist, M. (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 17–34 Google Scholar
Brandellero, A., and Janssen, S. 2014. ‘Popular music as cultural heritage: scoping out the field of practice’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 20/3, pp. 224–40Google Scholar
Bubaris, N. 2014. ‘Sound in museums – museums in sound’, Museum Management and Curatorship, 29/4, pp. 391–402 Google Scholar
Bustam, M.R. 2011. ‘Analysing clause by Halliday's transitivity system’, Jurnal Ilmu Sastra, 6/1, pp. 22–34.Google Scholar
Castelo-Branco, S., and Cidra, R. 2010. ‘Música popular’, in Enciclopédia da Música em Portugal no Século XX, vol. III: L-P, directed by Castelo-Branco, Salwa (Lisbon, Temas e Debates, Círculo de Leitores), pp. 875–78Google Scholar
Clarke, E.F. 2012. ‘What's going on: music, psychology, and ecological theory’, in The Cultural Study of Music, a Critical Introduction, ed. Clayton, M., Herbert, T. and Middleton, R. (New York: Routledge), pp. 333–42.Google Scholar
Cohen, S., Knifton, R., Leonard, M., and Roberts, L. (eds). 2015. Sites of Popular Music Heritage, Memories, Histories, Places (New York and London, Routledge)Google Scholar
DeNora, T. 2000. Music in Everyday Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)Google Scholar
Edge, K. 2000. ‘Music in the museum: some problems in collecting and interpreting the technologies of pop’, Popular Musicology Online, 3. http://www.popular-musicology-online.com/issues/03/edge.html (accessed October 2011)Google Scholar
Eggins, S., and Martin, J.R. 1997. ‘Genres and registers of discourse’, in Discourse as Structure and Process. Discourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary Introduction, vol. 1, ed. van Dijk, T.A. (London: Sage), pp 230–56Google Scholar
Ferguson, L., MacLulich, C., and Ravelli, L. 1995. Meanings and Messages, Language Guidelines for Museums Exhibitions (Sydney: Australian Museum)Google Scholar
Gouveia, C.A.M. 2008. ‘Texto narrativo’, in Diversidade Linguística na Escola Portuguesa, ed. Mateus, M.H.M., Pereira, D. and Fischer, G. (Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian)Google Scholar
Halliday, M.A.K., and Hasan, R. 1985. Language, Context, and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective (Victoria: Deakin University Press)Google Scholar
Hartley, J. 2011. Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, The Key Concepts (Oxfordshire: Routledge)Google Scholar
Hesmondhalgh, D. 2013. Why Music Matters (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell)Google Scholar
Holton, K.D.C. 2002. ‘Bearing material witness to musical sound: Fado's L94 museum debut’, Luso-Brazilian Review, 39/2, Special Issue: Portuguese Cultural Studies, pp. 107–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Juchartz, L., and Rishoi, C. 2006. ‘Rock collection: history and ideology at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’, The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 19/2–3, pp. 311–32Google Scholar
Karja, A. 2006. ‘A prescribed alternative mainstream: popular music and canon formation’, Popular Music, 25/1, pp. 3–19 Google Scholar
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. 1995. ‘Theorizing heritage’, Ethnomusicology, 39/3, pp. 367–80Google Scholar
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. 2004. ‘Intangible heritage as metacultural production’, Museum International, 56/1–2, pp. 52–65 Google Scholar
Leonard, M. 2007. ‘Constructing histories through material culture: popular music, museums and collecting’, Popular Music History, 2/2, pp. 147–67Google Scholar
Leonard, M. 2010. ‘Exhibiting popular music: museum audiences, inclusion and social history’, Journal of New Music Research, 39/2, pp. 171–81Google Scholar
Leonard, M. 2014. ‘Staging the Beatles: ephemerality, materiality and the production of authenticity in the museum’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 20/4, p. 357–75Google Scholar
Leonard, M. 2015. ‘Engaging nostalgia: popular music and memory in museums’, in Sites of Popular Music Heritage, ed. Cohen, S., Knifton, R., Leonard, M. and Roberts, L. (New York: Routledge), pp. 160–73Google Scholar
Lord, B. 2006. ‘Foucault's museum: difference, representation, and genealogy’, Museum and Society, 4/1, pp. 11–14 Google Scholar
Macdonald, S. 2011. ‘Expanding museum studies: an introduction’, in A Companion to Museum Studies. Blackwell Companions in Cultural Studies, ed. Macdonald, S. (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell), pp. 1–12 Google Scholar
Macdonald, S. 2013. Memorylands, Heritage and Identity in Europe Today (London: Routledge)Google Scholar
McDowell, S. 2008. ‘Heritage, memory and identity’, in The Ashgate Research Companion to Heritage and Identity, ed. Graham, B. and Howard, P. (Hampshire: Ashgate)Google Scholar
Mikula, M. 2008. Key Concepts in Cultural Studies. Palgrave Key Concepts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan)Google Scholar
Mortensen, C.H. 2012. ‘A museological approach: radio as intangible heritage’, Sound Effects, An Interdisciplinary Journal of Sound and Sound Experience, 2/2, 22–33 Google Scholar
Mortensen, C.H., and Vestergaard, V. 2013. ‘Embodied tuning: interfacing Danish radio heritage’, Journal of Interactive Humanities, 1/1, pp. 23–36 Google Scholar
O'Keeffe, T. 2013. ‘Performance, materiality, and heritage: what does an archaeology of popular music look like?’, Journal of Popular Music Studies, 25/1, pp. 91–113.Google Scholar
Pearce, S.M. 1994. Interpreting Objects and Collections (London: Routledge)Google Scholar
Ravelli, L. 1996. ‘Making language accessible: successful text writing for museum visitors’, Linguistics and Education, 8, pp. 367–87Google Scholar
Ravelli, L. 2006. Museum Texts, Communication Frameworks (New York: Routledge)Google Scholar
Ravelli, L. 2007. ‘Genre and the museum exhibition’, Linguistics and the Human Sciences, 2/2, pp. 299–317 Google Scholar
Reynolds, S. 2011. Retromania. Pop Culture's Addiction to its Own Past (London: Faber and Faber)Google Scholar
Roberts, L. 2012. ‘Talkin bout my generation: popular music and the culture of heritage’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 20/3, pp. 262–80Google Scholar
Roberts, L., and Cohen, S. 2013. ‘Unauthorising popular music heritage: outline of a critical framework’, Journal of Heritage Studies, 20/3, pp. 241–61Google Scholar
Sarjala, J. 2002. Miten Tutkia Musiikin Historia? (Helsinki, Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura)Google Scholar
Schaeffer, P. 2005 [1966]. ‘Acousmatics’, in Audio Culture, Readings in Modern Culture, ed. Cox, C. and Warner, D. (New York: Continuum)Google Scholar
Serrell, B. 1996. Exhibit Labels, An Interpretative Approach (Walnut Creek: Altamira Press)Google Scholar
Shuker, R. 2001. Understanding Popular Music (New York: Taylor and Francis Group)Google Scholar
Straw, W. 2012. ‘Music and material culture’, in The Cultural Study of Music, a Critical Introduction, ed. Clayton, M., Herbert, T. and Middleton, R. (New York: Routledge), pp. 227–36Google Scholar
Strinati, D. 2004 [1995]. An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture (London)Google Scholar
Toynbee, J. 2000. Making Popular Music, Musicians, Creativity and Institutions (New York: Routledge)Google Scholar
Tschmuk, P. 2006. Creativity and Innovation in the Music Industry (Dordrecht: Springer)Google Scholar
Turino, T. 2008. Music as Social Life, The Politics of Participation (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press)Google Scholar
Turino, T. 2009. ‘Four fields of music making and sustainable living’, World of Music, 51/1, Special Issue, pp. 95–117 Google Scholar