Summary
Dominique Pagani approaches popular music by setting it against "people" music, or market music. Popular music expresses the singularity of a geographical here and a historical now. Pop music, broadcast from above by radio and television, plays the same hits everywhere and levels out this diversity1. Drawing on Clouscard, he links this opposition to libertarian liberalism: sales are proportional to metrical stability, the hit must be memorised as quickly as possible, and "people music has killed popular musics." He also observes this among young people in Niger2. He uses music to distinguish the people, "people" culture and the populist, and he stresses that popular music nourishes learned music, even in Bach3. He gives the examples of Kusturica and the griots, where music has not yet been turned into folklore. He calls for a music that is both unheard-of and popular, one that gives uncultivated listening the "ladder" Hegel speaks of4. Finally, he sees jazz, which holds together the popular bass line and the avant-garde, as perhaps the true classical music of the twentieth century5.
- 1P for People30 Dec 2014
- 2#5 Libertarian liberalism, libidinal consumption and music…27 Sept 2014
- 3L'île du Peuple: the debate23 Jun 2015
- 4#3 What is called modern music?3 Dec 2020
- 5John Lewis: classical or jazz?29 Jun 2022
Introduction produced automatically from the 5 sessions on this theme, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the sessions.
The 5 videos
Pagani Parle MusiqueJohn Lewis: classical or jazz?
29 Jun 2022Does John Lewis's music belong to classical or to jazz, and is jazz not the true classical music of the twentieth century?
Musicosophie#3 What is called modern music?
3 Dec 2020What do we call modern music?
Saint-Dizier Popular UniversityL'île du Peuple: the debate
23 Jun 2015What makes a group of men a people rather than a crowd, and why must the notion of totality be defended against the use of the word "totalitarian"?
A Philosophical AlphabetP for People
30 Dec 2014What is a people, and how does one distinguish the popular from the populist, from pop music, and from « people » culture?
Interviews for L’Affranchi#5 Libertarian liberalism, libidinal consumption and music…
27 Sept 2014What does the notion of "consumer society" cover, and how does Clouscard's concept of libertarian liberalism allow us to analyze contemporary capitalism, down to musical consumption?