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Killing Me Softly with His Song: An Initial Investigation into the Use of Popular Music as a Toolof Oppression
Author(s): Martin Cloonan and Bruce JohnsonSource: Popular Music, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Jan., 2002), pp. 27-39Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/853585Accessed: 21-12-2015 17:00 UTC
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Popular Music
(2002)
Volume 21/1.
Copyright ) 2002
Cambridge
University
Press,pp. 27-39.
DOI:10.1017/SO261143002002027
rinted n
the United
Kingdom
i l l i n g
m
s o f t l y
w i t h
h i s s o n g
n
i n i t i a l
investig tion
i n t o t h
u s
o f
popul r
m u s i c
s
t o o l
o f
oppression
MARTIN
CLOONAN
and
BRUCE
JOHNSON
Abstract
Popular
music
studies generally
celebrate he
power of music
to
empowerthe
constructionof
individ-
ual and
social identities,
a site of
positive
self-realisation.
But such an
approach
risks
overlookinga
significant
element
in the
musical transaction.
How, for
example,
did the
inhabitants of lericho
feel?
Or
President
Noriega when
musically
besieged by US
troops in
Panama City?
Or street kids
in
Wollongong,New
South Wales,
driven
out of
shopping malls by the
strategic
broadcastingof Frank
Sinatra
recordings?Every
time we
applaud the
deploymentof music
as a
way of
articulating physical,
cognitive and
cultural territory,
we are also
applauding the potential
or actual
displacementor even
destruction of
other
identities. On
occasions that
displacementmay well
be conducted as
an act of
extreme violence:
music as pain.
This negative
side of
the
territorialismof music,
however,
receives
little
attention in popular
music
studies, even
though it is
potentially the
dark
side of any
musical
transaction.In
attemptingto
redress the
balance,this
article is a
'trailer' or
a joint
investigation into
the
use of popular
music as a
weapon. It
represents
our initial
attempts to think
throughsome of
the
issues
surrounding
popular
music and its use
as a tool of
repressionand the
deliberate
nflicting of
pain.
Introduction
The
origins of
this
research lie in a
paper
given by
BruceJohnson
at the
IASPM
1999
conference in Sydney
in which
he outlined
the
origins of
Westernmusic
in
Australia.
During the
introduction o
the talk,
Bruce
describedsome
of the
violence
upon
which
the prison
colony in
Australia
was
established. In
particular,he
high-
lighted
the
routine
floggings which
were meted out
for
petty offences
and the
mech-
anical,
dispassionateway
in which
such
floggings and
the suffering
of the
victims
were
logged.
Of some
significance was
the fact
that one
of the
offences for
which
brutal
punishmentwould
be inflicted
was the
singing of
songs,
particularlyby
Irish
nationalistswho had
been
sent to the
colony for
rebelling
against
Britishrule.
Such darkepisodes have theirparallels n much morerecenttimes.Theedited
collection
by
Svanibor
Pettan (1998),
Music,
Politicsand War
n
Croatia,
ontains
many
referencesto the
ways in which
popularmusic
was used to
accompanyand
inflict
pain in
the wars in
the former
Yugoslavia.We
have not, as
yet, found
any
recorded
instances of
music
being used to
accompany
the torture
of
convicts in
Australia,but
we are
interested
in the ways
in which
popular
music might
be used
27
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28 Martin Cloonan and Bruce Johnson
both as a source of pain and to accompany
the inflictingof pain. To sum
up, we
have become intrigued
by a darker
side of the use of popular music.
As we exploredthe primaryand
secondary iterature,we were generally
con-
firmed n a long-standing mpressionregardinga strongprevailingcurrent n popu-
lar music studies.
In their efforts
to establish popular music as a credible
arena
of academic study
(something which
we wholeheartedlysupport), popular
music
academics have
generally tended to underplay the
negative impact of
popular
music. Some double
standards have
been deployed as a consequence,as an
eager-
ness to celebrateany apparentcomplicity
of popular music
in producing successful
revolutions againstrepressive political
and culturalregimeshas been accompanied
by scornful denials of any causal links
which suggest that
pop might produce acts
of criminalityand terror.There has
been a tendency to
representpopularmusic as
a redemptive and emancipatory orce
which opposes conservative and historically
entrenchedmusic discourses, but to deny or ignore its darkerside.
Whatever
else makes up the tapestry of popular
music studies, one
thread
seems virtually
unbroken throughout
its weave: that popular music is universally
a 'good thing'.
The attempt by popular music academics
to give intellectual
legi-
timation to theirsubjecthas had a tendency
to drift into
blanket moral legitimation.
In the context of the whole body of
popular music studies, few have seemed
pre-
pared to do the
dirty on pop. This
often represents the outer limits to
critical
engagement with
larger cultural politics, and in many
ways produces homologies
with the dubious
discursive economies against which
the critical disciplines
of
popular music studies were originally
mobilised. Among other conundrums,
this
prompts the question put by KeithNegus (1996, p. 33):Will such studies become
the site of a vacuous
celebrationof consumerism?
Thus the
origins of the currentarticle ay in these
two strands of thinking:on
the one hand, a
recognitionthat music has accompanied,
and even been the
instru-
ment of, appalling acts of inhumanity
and repression;
on the other, a feeling that
this obvious and
unequivocal truth is largely ignored
as being inconvenient to a
scholarly community
often more concernedwith an almost
complacentcelebration
of its topic. And as foreshadowed above,
this is not a small
matter- every triumph
achieved by music is at someone's
expense. Indeed, frequentlythe purpose
of the
triumph is the
humiliation and even brutalisationof the
defeated.
The rest of the paper sets out some initial thoughts on the use of music as a
tool of oppression.We begin with some
remarksabout the
use of sound, thensketch
a preliminarytaxonomy of music
functioning in various
ways and to different
degrees as a form of oppression.
That oppression may
fall anywhere on a con-
tinuum between discomfort which
is incidental to the
intended function of the
music, to the deliberatedeployment
of music as an instrumentof pain. Within
that
scheme, musicmay simply accompany
he discomfort/painor be the primary
cause
of it, either physicallyor psychologically.
We then proceedto some of the
concep-
tual approaches
which might help to develop our thinking.
We conclude with
furtherexampleswhich serve to highlight
the complexitiesof the issues with
which
we wish to engage.
The use of sound
Preparing o cross
the Rhone as he
began his invasion of Italy in 218 BC, Hannibal's
army was confronted
by Gallic warriors
who 'came surgingto the river bank,
how-
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Killingme softlywith his song
29
ling and singing as their custom
was, shaking their shields above
their heads and
brandishingtheir spears' (Livy
1965, p. 67). Hannibaleasily defeated
these singing
warriors, but he was less successful
with the Romans sixteen
years later at the
battle of Zamathat ended his campaign.Accordingto Livy, musicwas a significant
presence in this defeat:
There were...
factors which seem trivial to recall,
but proved of great importanceat the
time of action. The Roman war-cry
was louder and more terrifyingbecause
it was in unison,
whereas the cries
from the Carthaginian ide were
discordant,coming
as they did from a
mixed assortment
of peoples with a variety of mother
tongues. (ibid., p. 661-2)
Thus the
use of music, thatis the use of particular
orms of sound, has histori-
cally formed
part of the act of war. And of course,
the object of
war is to inflict the
utmost pain
upon the enemy.
Thus the association of (popular)
music with the
inflicting of pain has a long historical
ineage.One of the best-known
stories of the
Old Testament
s how foshua
Fit The Battleof Jericho',with the
sounding of trum-
pets, 'and the
walls came tumbling down'. In
addition, we can
see that sound has
been used in related ways in
more peaceable times.
Sound and
territory
Sound is an
ancient markerof physical and psychic
territorial dentity.
As a familiar
example, a Cockney
is traditionally omeone born
within the sound
of Bow Bells.In
an ocularcentric
ociety, our
willed imaginariesare primarilyvisual
(our 'visions',
'perspectives','points of view'), yet it is sound which is actually and historically
the more flexiblemode of negotiation.
With minorvariations,
our visible presence
is fixed and
finite. The horizons of sound are,
of course, much
more flexible. That
flexibility was
illustrated even as this section
of the paper was written. It was
in
the Finnish
city of Joensuu on MidsummerEve,
and a mile or two
away, beside the
lake, therewas a rock concert
which could not
be seen, but it could be heard. As
it
was heard it was possible to
discern each band defining its own
acoustic horizons
and aural textures in different
ways. This was most obvious
simply in terms
of
volume, as successive groups
receded and advancedin the soundscape.
Unlike
our visible presence,we can constantly
and instantlymodify the radius
and characterof our acoustic presence so that it is a powerful tool for political
negotiation,
a way of taking control in defiance
of physical space.
From the trum-
pets of Joshua's
army at Jerichoto the loudspeakers
of US Marines
blasting AC/
DC at the besieged
General Noriega (see below),
sound has been used to flood
spaces with
power, to oppressand conquer:both
Hitler and F.R.Leavis understood
the relationship
between moderndemagoguery
and the microphone.
One of
the defining featuresof modernity
is the rising level of noise, and
in
particular ts use as a way of
situating ourselves in society. It can
be a background
in which we
may conceal ourselves. In October
1999 it was reported
that the BBC
was about to
install a noise machinein its finance
department o circulatea 'muzak'
of chatter, laughter
and general office noise,
because workers feel exposed and
oppressed by
the ambient silence (SydneyMorning
Herald,15 October 1999). More
often, it is sound
itself that is used to oppress, to
take up public spaceat the expense
of others.l Sound thus becomes
an invasion of
personal space. In response to this,
there have been moves to
create mobile-phone-freezones on
public transport
(Dasey 2000).
In Britain, ong-distanceVirgin trains
now incorporate
a 'QuietCoach'
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30
Martin
Cloonan
ndBruce ohnson
within
which
mobile phones
are banned
and
personal stereos
discouraged.
From
mobilephones
to stereos
lies the continuum
oiningsound
with music,
and
to travel
along
that spectrum
s
to tracesound
on its way
to being
music.
Sound
becoming
music
Apart
from speech
itself,
music
is the most
sophisticated
form
of acculturated
sound.
Music is to sound
what
place is
to space.
Most human
sounds made
for
their
own
sake are on
the way to
being music
and, as
such, are potential
means
of
territorial
oppression.
In many
regions
in the
era prior to
electricalamplification,
recording,
and industrial-strength
i-fi systems,
one
of the most pervasive
ways
of
projecting
power through
a form
of music
was public
bells: reportedly
banned
in
Turkey
because
of their
abilityto
rouse the populace,
and regarded
by the Chinese
as the highest of all forms of torment(Corbin1999,pp. 195,305).Parishbells were
recognised
as
important
weapons
in everyday
confrontations
hat
defined larger
historical
processes
in the rise
of
modernity(See
Corbin1999,
passim).
In
nineteenth-century
France,campanarian
practices
defined
points
of conflict
between
contending
classes:the
common
versus the
elite, secular
arm
versus the
clergy,
the urban
versus the
rural,and textual
versus auditory
cultures.
While these
bells
were
oftenaccompaniments
o
violence
andbloodshed,
they
might also simply
be acoustic
confrontations
over
controlover
the soundscape
either
for its
own sake,
or
where different
regimes
of time and
space contended
for
ascendancy.
Whatever
the
case, the taking
control
of the
bells, at what
time, and in
what manner,
became
such powerful forms of public intimidation,humiliationand defiance,that many
communities
found
theirbells
stolen,buried,
destroyed,
or their
bell towers
locked.
Let
us turn,however,
to sounds
which may
be
regarded ess
ambiguously
as music.
Music
and oppression
The
earlierquotation
from Livy reminds
us that
music has
always
been deployed
to
inflame and
intimidate.
Greek
galley oarsmen
around
400 BC
had a range
of
chants, ncluding
one for battle
(Proctor
1992,p.
6). WhenRichard
arrived
n Sicily
to join the crusades,his 'resoundingtrumpetsand loud hornsstruckfearand dread
into
the souls
of the citizens'
(ibid.,
p. 9). Ships
of the Spanish
Armada
in
1588
carriedtrumpeters,
drummers
and fife
players whose
battle
orders were
to play
incessantly
to
enliven their
own
men and frighten
the enemy
(ibid.,p. 14).
Music
in
itself
could become
the site
of contestation,
as
in the battle
between seventeenth-
century
trade rivals,
the Dutchnavy
and
the Portuguese-held
ortress
at
Macao:
The ships
drew off at sunset,
but celebrated
he expected
victory
by blowing trumpets
and
beating
drums
all night. Not
to be outdone
by this
bravado,Lopo
Sarmento
de Carvalho
ordered
similar
martialrejoicings
o be
made on the
city's bulwarks.
(ibid., . 33)
These
are
fairly schematic
models:
nation
versus nation,
tribe versus
tribe,
with
musical
meaningsunambiguous
andagreed.
Meanings,
and especially
musical
ones, however,
are often constructed
n
conflicting
ways.
When Christopher
Col-
umbus
attempted
to communicate
amicably
with the natives
of Trinidad,
he
ordered
his ship's
musicians
to play. The
natives,
however,
interpreted
this
as a
prelude
to battle,
and
repliedwith
volleys of
arrows(ibid.,
p. 55).
One man's
meat
continues
to be
anotherman's
poison.
In April
2000 it was
reported
that the Israel
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Killing
me softly
withhis song
31
Symphony
Orchestra
s still
encountering
resistance
o its
wish to perform
Wagner:
'The
time
is ripe to distinguish
between
art
and ideology',
said the orchestra's
director
Mendi
Rotan.
Its secretary-general,
Avi Shoshani,
however,
insists
that 50
years on this
will still
cause 'agony,
sorrow
and pain for
holocaust
survivors'.
(Sydney
MorningHerald,
10
April
2000)
For
at leastone
holocaust
survivor,
the distinction
between
'art'
and 'ideology'
was not
tenable,and
he
fought sonic
pain with
sonic sabotage.
During what
was
reportedly
'the first
performance
n Israel
of a
work by Richard
Wagner'
(by the
Rishon
Letzion
Symphony
Orchestra),
an
eighty-year-old
Polish
survivor
of the
death
camps
in the
audience
persistently
swung
a large plastic
rattle
around
his
head
until ejected
by an usher
(Katzenell
2000).
These examples
are all
based on
live
music. In
the
era of the
modern mass
media, technology
has amplified
the
projection
of private
musical
tastesinto
the public
sphere,
thus collapsing
a distinc-
tion that could be much more effectivelymaintainedin a pre-urban,pre-industrial
era.
Part of the
clamour
of modernity
is a
public sonic
brawling,
as urban
space
becomes
a site
of acoustic
conflict.
Thisis underpinned
by the politics
of
modernity:
increasingly
portable
noise in increasingly
densely
packed spaces.
British
MP Robert
Key wishes
to ban the
broadcasting
of recorded
music
in
public
places
(http://www.robertkey.com/pr/prO01.htm#),
and he
is supported
by
a
2,500 member
lobby group
called
Pipedown
(of whom
more below).
Pipedown
citefigures
which
suggest
that thirty-four
per
centof a
surveygroup
activelydislike
muzak,
whereas thirty
per cent
like
it, and that
youth are less
likely
to object
to it
than
older people
(Herbert2000).
It may
be that
this is to
do with generationally
distinct thresholdsof acoustictolerance.In a conversationwith one of the authors
(8 May
2000), the
Director
of the
Australian
Acoustic
Laboratories
reported
a
measurable
decline
in hearing
acuity among
younger
Australians.
However,
differing
responses
to muzak
may also
depend on
exactly
what the
muzak
is. This
is one of
the several
lines of enquiry
suggested by
the foregoing,
raising
then the question
of how
to
study in more
detail the
negative functions
of
music.
This obviously
overlaps
with a range
of
issues, including
ethics,
aesthetics
and
physiology,
and
we return
to this issue
later.However,
we now wish
to sketch
an initial
model.
Music
and the
inflicting
of pain:
a preliminary
axonomy
A broad
division can
be
seen to exist
between pain
which is
incidentally
caused
by
music (such
as loud
music played
in
an adjacent
room or building)
and
occasions
on which
pain is integral
to the playing
of music.
Note, however,
that the divide
caneasily
be breached,
as
on occasions
when car
stereosare
deliberately
played
too
loudly.
But let
us put more
flesh on
the bones
of these
ideas.
Pain
as incidental
Examples of the inflicting of pain as incidental to the purpose of music might
include
a loud CD
playerin an
adjacent
lat or the
irritating
sound of a
loud
walk-
man on
public
transport.
At the extremes,
this could
involve
being
exposed to
any
music which
the listener
finds
annoying
or even torturous.
For
example,
back in
the
1860s, 'torturous'
was exactly
the phrase
used
by a British
criticto describe
the
music produced
by a touring
Japanese
music
group (Mihara
1998,
p. 134).
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32 Martin Cloonan and Bruce Johnson
In the majorityof cases in this category, the primary purpose of the music is
not to inflict pain, but pain is neverthelessbeing felt. Note, however, the potential
at least to move from this state towards one where pain becomes integral to the
process - so that it is possible to move from a position where the music is inciden-
tally annoying neighbours to one where the whole purpose of the music is to annoy
neighbours. Thus, when residents of Trinidad Crescent in Poole, England, pet-
itioned their local council in 1993 in an effort to prevent their neighbour, Mary
Carruthers, rom playing Jim Reeves' records at full blast night and day, one of the
residents commented that: 'The way I saw it, they were out to annoy the whole
neighbourhood' Weale 1993).
In fact, recent years in the UK have seen various attempts to legislate against
so-called 'nuisance'neighbours and the noise which emanates from them. This has
resulted in a number of Acts which cover noise, including the 1990 Environmental
Health Act, the 1996 Noise Act and the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act. Under such
Acts, local authorities can move against perpetratorsof noise, issue abatement
orders, and subsequently seize and confiscate equipment if the abatement orders
are not complied with. This will generally nvolve a court case which may also lead
to fines and even imprisonment in severe cases. However, some critics have
attacked these Acts as inadequatebecause they rely on victims gathering evidence
and reportinga numberof incidents and because anti-noisemeasures are dispersed
throughout a number of disparate Acts, ratherthan being brought together in one
piece of legislation (Symons 2000, p. 2).
Meanwhile,the question of anti-socialneighbourswas an issue in the 2001 UK
general election as the ruling LabourGovernmentwas concerned that not enough
complaints were coming via existing mechanisms aimed at countering anti-social
behaviour and was contemplating further reforms (Travis 2001). The UK govern-
ment also has a Noise Forum which meets three times a year and discusses,
amongst other things, domestic noise (Gibson 1999, p. 2). Complaints about noisy
neighbours have escalated in recent years (Victor 1994) and by 1993 were running
at over 100,000a year in the UK (Vidal 1993, p. 3). Moreover, amplified music is
heavily implicated n this and around a third of complaintsabout noise concernthe
playing of loud music (Taylor1993).
The rise of sound recordingand amplification echnologies has of course pro-
vided a major platform from which 'nuisance noise' has been projected.It is not
simply that amplification ncreased he level of noise. In addition, t enabled particu-
lar kinds of noise to be projected,and in a way that violated the sense of the accept-
able boundaries between private and public spaces. Complaints about noise are
more often based on the intrusionof the private nto the public, than about loudness
as such (mobile phones and personal sound systems are not really a phenomenon
of 'loudness').
The development of the use of the microphoneas a performanceaccessory n
the early 1930s was condemned in some quarters.However, this was not simply
(and not at all at first) because it produced loud music - it was, after all, originally
used purely to bring singers who were too soft up to a level commensuratewith
big bands in large and noisy leisure venues. Rather, it was the characterof the
singing which the microphone now enabled to be disseminated publicly: timbres
and tones that were not regardedas part of the repertoireof approved public sing-
ing, but which were associated with private and non-musicaldomains, as in 'a low
moaning sound, as of animals in pain. . . the soft singing of a mother to her child',
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Killingme softlywith his song
33
or what
came to be called
crooning,'with its nauseating
chromatic lides and
verbal
twaddle
. . . revoltingnoises', its 'distorted
and
often unlovely vowel sounds'
(cited
in Johnson
2000, pp. 95-7). The complaint
is not that the
music is too
loud, but
that vocal practices associatedwith private conduct were intrudinginto the public
sphere.2
As
many of the
foregoing examples indicate,
the termsused to describe
these
unwelcome
forms of music frequently
nvoke the idea of pain.
Describing
the loud
music which
led to her setting up
the Campaign for Peace
and Quiet (now the
Noise Network), Val
Gibson (2000,p. 1) wrote
that: 'Enduringthe thump,
thump,
thump of
the bass beat
was like torture'.She also
noted that this music
was used
deliberately
to annoy her (Noise Network
2000).In another case,
Helen Stephens
of
Stocktonon Tees was
sentenced to a week in
prison for what was described
in
court as
the 'psychological
torture'of repeatedly
playing WhitneyHouston's
'I Will
Always Love You' at maximum volume (Vidal 1993, p. 2). It is interestingto note
here that
the final straw for her neighbours
was the repeated
laying of
the song.
Thus what is a key
component of many popular
music styles, repetition
(Potter
1998, p.
38), is also the
key to the pain inflicted
in many of these cases.
Opponents
of noise are not
taking matters lying down,
as pressure groups
have been
set up to combat the
growth of nuisance caused
by noise. One is the
Noise Network which
seeks to restrain
advertisementsfor
music players which
urge buyers to 'turn
up the music'
and which boast of their
product's ability to
'annoy the neighbours'
(Noise Network 2000).
Another is the campaign
against
piped music,
Pipedown, cited earlier,
which campaignsfor
the restoration
of free-
dom of choice and 'the
real value of music', a
reflection of its
claim that all music
is devalued when it
is used for marketing. Pipedown
has a number of
celebrity
supporters
ncludingSimon Rattle,
JulianLloydWebber,Lesley
Garrettand
George
Melly. It
has claimedsuccess in removing
piped music from
Gatwick and persuad-
ing Tescos and Sainsburys
not to introduce it.
It also reports
a MORIsurvey from
January1997 in which
seventeen
per cent of people cited piped
music as the one
thing which they detested
about
modern life (Pipedown 2000).
Pipedown and the
Noise Network
are now
part of the United Kingdom
Noise Association
which met
Environment
MinisterMichael Meacher
n September2000 to
examine a
number of
issues including piped music (www.superscript.co.uk/tnn/).
Such
campaignsand noise-related
ncidentsare often portrayed
n newspaper
and other
media reportsin somewhat
jocularways, and it
has been reportedthat
complaints
about noise
in the UK have been treated
ightheartedlyby local
authorit-
ies (Symons
2000, p.
2). But the seriousness of
the issue is illustrated by
some of
the problems
which
noise has been held to contribute
o: deafness, tinitus,
strokes
migraines, peptic ulcers,
colitis and
hypertension (Vidal
1993, p. 2) as well, of
course,
as stress. In fact,
noise can be, literally,
a deadly serious problem,
in which
popular music is implicated.
For example, in the
mid-199Osdisputes about
noise
were held to cause around
five deaths a year (Gibson
1999,
p. 3; Victor 1994)and a
number of suicides (Symons 2000, p. 3). Not all of these cases involved popular
music, but
many did and they stand
in marked
contrast to the uncritically
cel-
ebratory one of many
journalisticand academic
accounts of
popular music. While
such incidents move
us towards the
darker side of popular
music usage, in most
of the cases here the
pain caused
appears, at least initially,
to have been uninten-
tional. This is not always
the case.
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34
Martin Cloonan and Bruce Johnson
Pain as integral o the purpose
f music
Pain can be integral to
the purpose of
music in a number of ways
including
those of making
propaganda, torturing
and punishing. Pain can be
associated
with propaganda in an attempt to place one's feelings 'Right In The Fuhrer's
Face'. Thus
the object of the pain is to
boost morale, and the means by
which
morale is boosted consists
of demeaning the enemy.
Pettan (1998, p. 17) reports
that many songs written
for, and sung at, the front
during the war in
Croatia
were
deliberately designed
to provoke a response from
the enemy, which they
often did.
Another example is the way
in which neo-nazi texts and
so-called
hate music seek to
demean ethnic minorities. The pain
here is the insult to
which the
enemy is subjected.
A differentform of
propagandising
can be located in the
appropriationof the
term noise
by those involved in
marginalised music
scenes. Thus Public Enemy
urged fans to 'BringTheNoise'; there is also a heavy metal recordcompany called
Noise, a
fanzine called
Addicted To Noise, a band called
Orgy of Noise, and numer-
ous other
examples. The point here is that
an 'in your face' approach o
making or
writing
about music is used deliberately
to alienate those not sharing
the same
musical
tastes, as a means of
demarcation. The negative term 'noise'
is re-
appropriatedhere and worn
as a badge of pride.
This attitude can also
incorporate the sonic
aggression of those
whose car
stereos are
played loudly
enough to disrupt the
soundscape. A certainrebel chic
has been
attached to the
use of noise in popular music.
In the 1970s,American
guitar-heroTed Nugent emphasised his macho image with advertisements or his
live show which contained
the declaration:
If it's too loud you're too
old'. This
lineage can
be traced to more contemporary
bands such as Leftfieldwho
take great
pride in the loudness of
their gigs (Martin
2000). Thus there are contexts
within
which a certain amount of
pain is integralto the very
enjoymentof the music and
this has
been a cause of concern for the
authorities.As has been noted
elsewhere
(Cloonan
1996,p. 184),the
battle to controlpopular music
has also involved a battle
to control
noise volume at
gigs.
While
in such instances the pain is
only part of the object, there
are also
contexts in
which the primary purpose
of the music is to cause or
heighten
pain. At its most extreme, this can involve the use of music as a means of
torture.
Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch have both
reported
incidents
from the wars in the former
Yugoslavia
where music was used to
accompany
torture (cited by
Pettan 1998,p.l8). In one
prisoner camp, a detainee
reported
that Croat prisoners were forced
to stand adopting a Serb
salute and,
in the
words of one
prisoner, 'to sing Chetnik
songs... We had to wait to
sunrise in such a position;
those who sat or collapsed
from
exhaustion were
taken out
and never came back' (cited
ibid.). In other
instances, Croat prisoners
were forced to repeatedly
sing the Yugoslav national
anthem, to the accompani-
ment of beatings. The last
verse of the anthem, which
speaks of
those who
betray the homeland being damned, had to be particularly emphasised (cited
ibid.).
In June2000 it was
reported that a young female
member of the Movement
for
DemocraticChange in
the Midlandsprovince of
Zimbabwe was visited by sup-
portersof
the ruling
ZANU-PFparty who accused her of
belonging to a partywhich
wanted to 'give Zimbabwe
back to the
whites'. As a punishment,the
following day,
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Killingme softlywith his song
35
300 people
frog-marched
her and her husband
to a tree, tied them to it
and beat
them for
five hours
with machetes, batons and
axe handles. Part of this
process
involved
the prisoners
being forcedto chant ZANU-PF
slogansand to sing
its liber-
ation songs (www.mdczimbabwe.com/free/ aiO00608txt.htm).he inflictingof pain
was also central to the
US army playing ear-busting
music to General Noriega
as
their troopsblockaded
the VaticanEmbassy n
PanamaCity
in December1989.The
music was selected to
be repetitiveand loud,
although it also included
a number
of topical
pieces such
as 'No Placeto Run' and
'You'reno Good'. In this
case there
was also
an aestheticdimension to
the attack,as Noriega was
an opera lover (Potter
1998, pp.
37-8).
While
it would
be possible to cite other examples
(as, for example,
Endnote 1
below), we also need
to think about
how to study the use
of popular music as a
tool of repression.
On the face of it,
popular music studies
as they relateto music
affect and form would seem to be a point of departure.While these obviously
suggest themselves as
constructive
lines of enquiry, we feel
that there are also
others which would
complement the
investigation.
Possibilitiesfor studying
music
as pain
1. Soundscape
tudiesand
acoustic cology
The raw
materialsof sonic oppression
are the components
of the public soundscape
and the
balances between them. In
terms of social
function, the music
throbbing
from a car radio with its windows down, has at least as much and perhapsmore
in common
with aircraft
or constructionsite noise,
as with the same music
played
in moretraditionally
authorisedcircumstances.
Such music is,
literally,trafficnoise,
part of the
soundscape of urban
modernity. It is not so much
that it is
music in
particular
that is fundamental to
its oppressiveness, as that
it indiscriminately
floods the public space.
Soundscape
studies also bring
to bear the insight that oppressive
noise
cannot
be reductively equated
simply with volume, but
is more to do with a overall
bal-
ance, an
'acoustic ecology'.
As noted above, factors
other than volume,
such as
repetitivenessand the
projectionof inappropriate
as in private)
sounds can cause
pain. In
the complaint
that some of the uses of
sound devalue music, there
is also
an aesthetic
component,
yet soundscape studies
remind us that even something
such as 'ugliness' has
to be understood as part
of a larger
ecology, and it is not
necessarily
a socially undesirable
sonic oppression:
some sounds, such
as alarms,
have to
be unpleasant.
It therefore
seems useful to
bring to bear
soundscapemethodologies,
includ-
ing phenomenological
approaches
related to ethnography,
rather than
an exclus-
ively hermeneutic
approach.3
2. Music
therapy
The English
warship 'Mary Rose'
flounderedoff Spithead in
1545, and was exca-
vated amid great publicity
in 1982.
One of the little-noted,but
fascinating,recover-
ies was
a number of musical instruments,
ncluding
a shawm. The fact that
this was
found in the surgeon's
cabin has been
interpretedas a reminder
that music therapy
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11/14
36 Martin
Cloonan and Bruce Johnson
has had some
kind of formal existence
for
many centuries (Proctor
1992, p. 55).
Fromthe rather
un-clinical
statementthat music
hathcharmsto
soothe,
music ther-
apy has produced
insights which
may well
be instructive in
the study of the
relationshipbetween music and psychopathology, ncluding that
the experienceof
music can be the
very opposite of
soothing.
On the contrary,
as the Gauls facing
Hannibalknew,
it can be physiologically
arousing:
t was found
that Herbertvon
Karajanwas physiologically
morearoused (heartbeat,
espiration)
when conducting
a slow passage
of music than when
he was
landing his own
jet aircraft(Ansdell
1995,p. 5). A parallel
arousaleffect
is reported
n the extraordinary
esultsachieved
by music therapists
on comatose
patients (ibid.,
p. 136).
Some further
directions:
musicand public
order
We believe that soundscape studies and music therapy may be fruitfulmethods
for taking
forward
some of the issues
which we have
raised, and they
converge
in our
concluding
examples of the
negative impact
of music.
The locus here is
public
space, and in particular
railway stations and
shopping malls.
Music is
deployed in such
spaces for reasons
that are neither
overtly
commercial(i.e. not
to advertise
or
sell something)
nor aesthetic (i.e.
not as
a focused object of
aesthetic
pleasure), although
such music
draws on
both of these as
part of its
ends
and means.
It also involves
the use of music
in the enforcement
of public
order
and responsibility
n ways
which were highlighted
in the reaction
to raves
in Britainwhere
new laws were
brought in to control
raves
partly in an effort
to regain controlof the acoustic environmentof the English countryside(Cloonan
1996,
pp. 206-11).
Attempts to establish
control of public
spaces
through the deployment
of
music are more
common
than we might
at first imagine, and
national anthems
seem
to crop up rather
frequentlyin this
connection.
One example is
the use of
the
National Anthem in
Beatles concerts
during their
Australian tour
in 1964.
When
the crowd became
over-enthusiastic
at the conclusion
of the shows,
the
management
would play the National
Anthem, and
the rowdy
audience would
dutifully
rise to
its feet and stand
silently, while the
Fab Four made their
escape
via the stage door
(Baker1982, p.
96). In a related
example from
February2000,
it was reported that, following their embarrassingperformancein the African
Cup
of Nations,
the members of
the Ivory Coast
Soccer team, the
Elephants,
were
incarcerated
on theirreturn
home, and required
to perform
militarytraining
(BBC
2000). In
one unconfirmed
radio report, their
humiliationwas climaxed
by
requiring
them
to sing the national
anthem before
a public
gathering. Such
a
punishment
is not unique:
in the
Finnish daily, Helsingin
Sanomat 10
February
2000),
it was reported
that jay-walkers
in the Philippines
were being
fined on
the spot
and forced to
sing the
national anthem.
Our finalexample
of music and
enforcement nvolves
the sanitisation
of public
spaces.In the late
1990stherewere
occasional
and briefreports
n local and provin-
cial newspapers that in the industrialcity of Wollongong,south of Sydney, shop-
ping
malls found that piping
FrankSinatra
over the
speakersdispersed
loitering
gangs
of youths. Although
barely noted at
the time,
the idea has recently
been
adapted
with apparently
great success in railway
stationsnotoriously
susceptible
to vandalism.
Over a six-week
period in early
2000,Beethoven,
Mozart,
Bach and
Brahmswere
piped onto five Sydney
metropolitan
train stations,
resulting in an
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Killingme
softlywith his
song 37
overall
seventy-five
per cent reduction in
vandalism, and completely
eliminating it
at two stations. It is
now planned to pipe
the same
music into railway carriages
themselves (Rogers
2000;
Sun-HeraldSydney],30 April
2000).
Conclusion
Finally,
here is a recent example
of the convergence of
music, politics
and pain, one
which
situates this
question very much in the
mundane realm of the
everyday. In
Australia in 2000,
the most culturally
reactionarygovernment in forty
years was
trying to introduce
radical tax reform. There
was a debate as to
whether its multi-
million
dollarpublicity
campaign was
politicalpropagandathat should
be funded
by the
party, or a
public education project
to be funded from the
public purse.
For
what appears to be the
majority, he
campaign, its slogans and its
music were
profoundlyoffensive. The music was Joe Cocker'sversion of 'UnchainMy Heart'.
At the end of the
commercial,a voice-over
informed the
television audience that
'This
message was
spoken and sung by
(whichever politician
narrated) and Joe
Cocker'.Cocker
attempted(unsuccessfully)to
have his name removed.
As a jingle
for one of the
world's most
right-wing anglophone
governments, the use of his
music
in this way
caused him 'pain'.
If music is to
be deployed to serve the
same, often
punitive,functions as other
mechanisms of public control,
and as a TrojanHorse for
policy proclamationand
indoctrination, then
there are some
interesting and even
alarming implications.
These
can be prefaced with a
question that might at first
seem
frivolous, until it is
situated in largerissues which have emerged regardingintellectualproperty, and
the politics of the
social constructions of
meaning. Did the US
marines pay any
royalties when they used music
to implementstate policy
in Panama?4Apart from
copyright
considerations, should the public
deployment
of music as law enforce-
ment
then be subject to the
same statutory
constraintsrelating to,
for example,
rights
of entry,
invasion of private space,
human rights scrutinies,
dentity disclos-
ures?
Music is one of the most
invasive expressive forms,
and there is
legislation to
prevent citizens
from imposing
it upon one another.
What legislation constrains
governments?Who controls this
function, and
by what rights?Where
does it stand,
forexample under
the
Westminster eparation-of-powers
rinciple: s it in the juris-
dictionof the courts or of the politicalexecutive?
If
the 'pain' of a Joe Cocker
song being appropriated
as a right wing political
message seems
something morelike 'irritation',
nd the case
seemsrelatively nnocu-
ous, it
is perhapsprecisely this
scale which
should signal more clearly
some of the
broadersocial
implicationsof theconvergence.
The bulletins
from the formerYugos-
lavia
are outrageousexamples of
state-sanctioned error,but they are
also remote
from the everyday
lives of most people. For
First World
and anglophone cultural
researchers, hey are ghastly
dramatisationsof a hideous
'other',against
which we
may
rail in justifiableanger . . .
and then go backto living
lives which areso relatively
tranquilas to appear
o requireno outrageor
interrogation.Popularmusic
studies are
tellingus about thepositiveenergies latent n the mundane,but themundane as well
as thebanal may also
be the locus of evil.
Oppressionand
inequityfrequently nvade
a society through
apparently
unremarkablehifts that seem
harmlessatthe time. Dis-
empowermentand
oppressioncan be brutally
mposedthrough state
terror,but they
are
quietly naturalised through
the channels of everyday
life and
through means
barely
registeredat
the moment of their
mplementation.Andmusic is one
of themost
pervasive
experiencesof everyday
life.
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38 Martin Cloonan and Bruce Johnson
Endnotes
1. Control of public soundscape has been a
common concernof authoritarian egimes, and
the Indexon Censorship as reporteda number
of incidents relating to this. In the Old Town
Square in Prague in December 1987, police
played Christmassongs through loudspeakers
in order to disrupt a meeting of anti-
governmentprotesters Index n Censorship,7/
2, p. 38). In 1980s'LatinAmerica,radio stations
critical of authoritarian egimes found them-
selves ordered to change to music formats.For
example, in Guatemala in 1983, the military
regime imposed a censorshipsystem in which
radio stationswere ordered o play only martial
music (Indexon Censorship,2/5, p. 43). Mean-
while in 1986the Paraguayan alk stationRadio
Nanduti, which had reportedon opposition to
the country'sdictator,Stroessner,was made to
broadcast only music and 'non-controversial'
news (Indexon Censorship,5/7, p. 43). We are
grateful o VanessaBastianand Dave Laing for
these examples.
2. This developmentand its associateddebatesare
examined at length in Johnson (2000, pp. 81-
105).
3. See, for example,Stockfelt 1994,esp. p. 32).
4. Not according to AC/DC guitarist, Angus
Young, as quoted in Simmons(2000,p. 84). We
are grateful o one of our students,SimonJolly,
for this reference.
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Weale, S. 1993. fim Reeves ravers silenced', Guardian (UK), 21 May
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Killing
me softlywith his
song 39
Media reports
with no byline
'Turn
down the silence, please',Sydney
Morning Herald, 15
October1999
'Oi Maamme,
Filippinit',Helsingen Sanomat
(Finland),10 February
000
'Wagnercauses discord',
Sydney Morning Herald,
10 April 2000 (syndicated rom
New York Times)
'Beethoven,
Mozartand Bach
deter rail vandals',Sun-Herald
(Sydney),
30 April 2000