Post-modernism and Music

The focus of your task will be post-modernism in relation to music. You will need to have an understanding of music that relates to the following:

The post modern sensibility that anything can be considered cool in an ironic-'I know it's bad, but it's so bad it's good'-way.
For a while after the 90's boybands were seen as cheesy and uncool but now they have made a come back, if somewhat reinvented. McFly, for example, have now donned instruments and have made their songs a little heavier. The Wanted have gone for a heavier R&B sound and an edgier look. With the 'death of uncool' and people's tastes constantly changing there isn't such a divide between what is cool and what isn't anymore, it's all down to taste and you can brush off any embarrassment by just calling it ironic.

Work that is created based (entirely or in part) on older material. This incorporates sampling and will take you from the realms of hip hop culture transporting you finally in today's modern fragmented music landscape. You will have to listen to some artists to fully appreciate them and their work.

A lot of artists use existing ideas as a basis to their work, whether it be through sampling or to gain a particular theme to connote certain things. Within hip hop the song 'Champions' by Dame Dash, Kanye West and others samples Queen's 'We Are The Champions'. Kanye's other well known song 'Gold Digger' samples three songs, Ray Charles' 'I Got a Woman', Thunder and Lightning's 'Bumpin' Bus Stop' and Mase's  'Another Story to Tell'. A lot of 'mainstream' music is known to have sampled and remixed songs, for example, The Black Eyed Peas, Britney Spears and Swedish House Mafia but other genres of music have used sampling too. Gothic rock band 'Evanescence' use a sample of from Mozart's 1791 Requiem, a very different approach but still sampling.   

Note the legal issues surrounding sampling (Led Zepplin 'borrowed' heavily from old bluesmen and it took years for the songwriters to be credited and paid royalties. The same group took a hard-line stance initially to be sampled by hip hop groups.

Audiences that are both niche and mainstream. E.g. Radio 1, 1Xtra, BBC6, XFM. 

A few years ago the mainstream music scene was mostly made up of hip hop and pop music but more recently the mainstream market seems to have branched out. There is now a wider and more eclectic sound to what we here on the radio, with folk influences of Mumford and Sons and the more experimental R&B sounds of Frank Ocean the 'mainstream' has developed meaning that itself and the more niche audiences mix as different music becomes more of a norm.  

The ways in which people engage and listen to music. E.g. iPod, DAB, mobile phones.

Part of the reason behind people's taste's expanding and mainstream music changing may be because we can listen to music practically anywhere and at any time now. If a friend wants you to listen to something it's easy enough for them to get out their iPod or phone. With DAB radio's you can instantly know what song is playing and who it's by which makes it easier to become interested in an artist or band. Also, music can be a very private thing, if you have your headphones in then you can be listening to whatever you want and nobody can judge you for it meaning you can individually enjoy music and not always be swayed by other's opinions.