The Routledge Companion to Popular Music and Humor

Description

An essential part of human expression, humor plays a role in all forms of art, and humorous and comedic aspects have always been part of popular music. For the first time, The Routledge Companion to Popular Music and Humor draws together scholarship exploring how the element of humor interacts with the artistic and social aspects of the musical experience. Discussing humor in popular music across eras from Tin Pan Alley to the present, and examining the role of humor in different musical genres, case studies of artists, and media forms, this volume is a groundbreaking collection that provides a go-to reference for scholars in music, popular culture, and media studies. While most scholars, when considering humor’s place in popular music, tend to focus on more "literate" forms, the contributors in this collection seek to fill in the gaps by surveying all kinds of humor, critical theories, and popular musics. Across eight parts, the essays in this collection explore topics both highbrow and low, including: Parody and satire Humor in rock and global music Gender, sexuality, and politics The music mockumentary Novelty songs Humor has long been a fixture of the popular music soundscape, whether on stage, in performance, on record, or on film. The Routledge Companion to Popular Music and Humor covers it all, presenting itself as the most comprehensive treatment of the topic to date. About the Author Thomas M. Kitts is Professor of English at St. John's University, NY, USA, author of a recent book on John Fogerty, and coeditor of Popular Music and Society and Rock Music Studies. Nick Baxter-Moore is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film, Brock University, St Catharine’s, Ontario, Canada. Tags: Music, General, History & Criticism, Genres & Styles, Pop Vocal, Instruction & Study, Theory Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright page Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Popular Music and Humor: An introduction Part 1 Historical Antecedents 1 Humor in Early Twentieth-Century Sheet Music: Problems of Contexts and Receptions 2 What Might Have Been left Behind: Popular African-American Female Singers in an Age of liberal Reform 3 Jazz Humor from a Musical Perspective 4 Rubes, Rednecks, and Novelty Songs: The Comedic Tradition in Country Music Part 2 Humor in Rock Music Genres 5 Grumbly Grimblies, Frozen Dogs, and Other Boojums: Eccentricity from Chaucer to Carroll in English Psychedelia 6 The Clown Figure in 1970s Rock Music 7 Humor in Metal Music 8 “Anarchy in Woolworths”: Punk Comedy and Humor 9 “Mommy’s Dead”: The Gallows Humor of Hardcore Punk 10 Hip Hop’s Sophisticated Comedy 11 “The Earth is doomed”: Geek Rock, Humor, and the End of the World Part 3 Humor in Global Music 12 From Kaiso to Get on Bad: Humor in Trinidad’s Calypso and Soca Music 13 “Call de Contracta!”: Humor, innovation, and Competition in Jamaican Music 14 Play and irony in the Kwaito Music of Postapartheid South Africa 15 Humor in Ugandan Popular Music 16 Absurdity and Nostalgia: Humor in K-Pop 17 Negotiating Blackness in French Rural Spaces: Kamini’s Hip-Hop Comedy Part 4 Selected Artists I: Humor in Popular Music 18 The “Sly Wit” of Chuck Berry 19 The British Invasion of the Wild West: Country Parody in the Rolling Stones and Other British Bands 20 “I never said I was tasteful”: Lou Reed and the Classic Philosophy of Humor 21 Randy Newman’s Satirical Vision and the Myth of America 22 “You ain’t laughing, are you?”: Humor, Misery, and the Replacements Part 5 Selected Artists II: Comedy in Popular Music 23 The Coasters: Funny and Not So Funny 24 Lonnie Donegan: From Trad Jazz to King of Skiffle and Variety Star 25 Mountain Butterfly: Dolly Parton’s Transformational Persona in American Country Music 26 The Wacky and Zany World of Flo & Eddie 27 “Dare to Be Stupid”: Covering “Weird Al” Yankovic 28 The Aquabats! Defeating Evil One Show at a Time! Part 6 The Music Mockumentary 29 “It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever”: A Genealogy of the Music Mockumentary 30 “We Must Be Flipping Out”: Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels as a Carnivalesque Subversion of Pop Music 31 All You Need Is Cash: Skewering a legend with the Prefab Four 32 This Chapter Goes to Eleven: This Is Spinal Tap and the Blurring of Authenticity and Fabrication Part 7 Popular Music and Humor on Screen 33 “Goodnight to the rock ’n’ roll era”: Pavement and the Negotiation of Ambivalence in 1994 34 Looking for the Joke with a Microscope: The Intersection of Music and Humor in Repo Man 35 Humor in the “Booty Video”: Female Artists Talk Back Through the Hip-Hop Intertext 36 Of Shreds, Spoofs, and Participatory Cultures: Parodies of Popular Music Videos in Web 2.0 Contexts Part 8 Gender, Sexuality, and Politics 37 Ethnic Parody in the Age of Fracture 38 “Don’t I look like a Halle Berry poster?”: Humor and Irony in Women’s Hip Hop 39 We Don’t Know How Lucky We Are: Masculine Humor in New Zealand Popular Music 40 From “Tsar Nikolai, Go F*ck Your Mother!” to “Putin, Go F*ck Yourself!”: Musical Humor in Oppressive Regimes 41 After the Laughter: Al-Manawahly’s Songs and the Poetics of Subversive Humor in Egypt 42 “(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding”: Humor in Protest Music Coda: Unintentional Humor in Popular Music Notes on Contributors Index