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Narrativizing Recorded Popular Song

  • Alexander C. HardenEmail author
Chapter
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Part of the Pop Music, Culture and Identity book series (PMCI)

Abstract

This chapter explores narrativity in recorded popular song, employing a cognitive position that considers narrative to be an interpreter’s formation of a sequence of events, characters, and so on. In doing so, this chapter adapts and expands the concept of narrativization, drawn from literary theory, to describe the process in which an interpreter constructs a story in response to a text. The adaptation of narrativization for recorded popular song is synthesised with three models of musical narrativity: the enactment of a story in real-time, the telling of a story, and depicting the mental interior of an experiencing consciousness. These forms of narrativization are illustrated with examples that explore the contributions of lyrical information relayed by a persona, notated details, and the art of record production.

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Discography

  1. Jay Z. 2003. 99 Problems. Digital Download. The Black Album. Roc-A-Fella Records.Google Scholar
  2. No Doubt. 1995. Don’t Speak. CD. Tragic Kingdom. Santa Monica: Interscope.Google Scholar
  3. The Pogues. 2005. Fairytale of New York. Digital Download. The Ultimate Collection. London: Warner Music UK.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© The Author(s) 2019

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.GuildfordUK

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