“Damn Good Jazz”

Abstract

Music is similar to beauty products and clothing in many ways—a cultural commodity, mass-produced and consumed in a primarily segmented market. In common with other cultural forms previously discussed, music simultaneously marks teen identity and incorporates teens into the adult world of consumption. But it is also different in important ways. A man’s button-down shirt may be intended for wear over a T-shirt, under a suit, and with a tie to reflect a certain business status. But a teenage girl might purchase that same shirt in the men’s department or borrow it from her father’s closet with an entirely different purpose in mind. If she writes the name of her favorite singer or song lyrics on the shirt, embroiders it with brightly colored thread, and then wears the shirt untucked, unbuttoned at the neck, and over her jeans, she redefines the meaning of that shirt. Music, especially recorded music, is a more fixed entity.²

Don’t forget that father may pay for the phonograph, but sons and daughters are the ones who seem to spend money most freely for the latest records.

—Printers’ Ink, 1922¹