Hearing Luxe Pop: Glorification, Glamour, and the Middlebrow in American Popular MusicHearing Luxe Pop explores a deluxe-production aesthetic that has long thrived in American popular music, in which popular-music idioms are merged with lush string orchestrations and big-band instrumentation. John Howland presents an alternative music history that centers on shifts in timbre and sound through innovative uses of orchestration and arranging, traveling from symphonic jazz to the Great American Songbook, the teenage symphonies of Motown to the “countrypolitan” sound of Nashville, the sunshine pop of the Beach Boys to the blending of soul and funk into 1970s disco, and Jay-Z’s hip-hop-orchestra events to indie rock bands performing with the Brooklyn Philharmonic. This book attunes readers to hear the discourses gathered around the music and its associated images as it examines pop’s relations to aspirational consumer culture, theatricality, sophistication, cosmopolitanism, and glamorous lifestyles. |
Contents
| 11 | |
Between Jazz and | 84 |
and the Swinging Early HiFi Era | 114 |
The 1960s MORPop | 187 |
Isaac Hayes and Hot Buttered Orchestral Soul | 237 |
and the Fall of Luxe Pop | 281 |
Other editions - View all
Hearing Luxe Pop: Glorification, Glamour, and the Middlebrow in American ... John Howland Limited preview - 2021 |
Hearing Luxe Pop: Glorification, Glamour, and the Middlebrow in American ... John Howland Limited preview - 2021 |
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic album American arrangements artists aspirational audience baroque pop Barry White bass Beach Boys beat Beatles big band Billboard Black brass Capitol Carpenters central chapter charts chorus cinematic classical commercial concert critics crooner dance disco discourse drums early easy listening ensemble entertainment example film funk genre glamour groove guitar harmonic Hayes's heard highbrow Hollywood hybrid Ibid idioms instrumental Isaac Hayes Jay-Z jazz-pop latter Love lush luxe pop luxe-pop magazine mainstream melody midcentury middlebrow mixed mood music Motown musicians Nelson Riddle Nitzsche notes orchestral pop Paul Whiteman performance Pet Sounds piano popular music populuxe postwar production progressive soul psychedelic psychedelic soul radio recordings release rhythm section Riddle rock-pop Ronettes scoring Sinatra solo song sophistication sophistisoul sound Spector strings studio style stylistic sunshine pop swing symphonic jazz symphonic soul taste textures theme tion track tradition trends trumpet underscores violins vocal voice Whiteman York