Listen Like This: Audiovisual Argument in Rockumentary

<p>Rockumentaries are commodities that construct authoritative interpretations of popular music history, shaping how we come to know, value, hear, consume, and identify with popular music and those who create it. The arguments rockumentaries make, and the ways they make them, are the subject of this dissertation. Rather than position rockumentary as a genre, I investigate it as a set of representational tendencies to be examined in relation to stardom, authenticity, fandom, the culture industry, and the music(ians) these films represent. My introduction argues that rockumentaries operate according to what I call the <em>offstage pattern</em>, a dialectical structure in which onstage and offstage spaces constitute one another as spectacular and intimate, respectively. The offstage pattern exploits our desire for privileged access to stars and the industries in which they work, selling us the idea that there exists some more real, more authentic reality that the rockumentary will uniquely allow us to see and hear. In my three chapters I take a thematic approach to rockumentary production, developing analytical methods rooted in the work I understand rockumentaries themselves to be performing. Specifically, I investigate how rockumentaries (de)mystify musical work, represent “trainwrecks,” and make psychogeographical arguments. Throughout, I focus especially on the ways rockumentaries use music in constructing their arguments, how they encourage us not only to listen <em>to </em>this, but listen <em>like </em>this.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Music

Grantor

The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York

Year dc:date.available

2021

Author dc:creator

• Eckenroth, Lindsey

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Amy Herzog

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Mark Spicer
• Landon Palmer
• Stephanie Jensen-Moulton

• Film and Media Studies
• Music
• Musicology
• Performance Studies
• popular music
• documentary film
• rock stardom
• psychogeography
• creative work
• trainwreck

Repository record dc:identifier

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4476

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:academicworks.cuny.edu:gc_etds-5557