The Electric Guitar in Popular Culture conference issues call for papers

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The Department of Popular Culture at Bowling Green State University will host the The Electric Guitar in Popular Culture conference on March 27-28, 2015. The conference will examine the study of electric guitar and its effects on popular culture, but also look at how it has changed music itself.

Matt Donahue, conference organizer, issued the following statement: “The Electric Guitar in Popular Culture aims to examine the roles of the electric guitar in cultures throughout the world. It is intended to serve as a space for academics, professionals, hobbyists and fans to engage in dialogue about topics related to the electric guitar and its cultural influence.”

The conference organizers also suggested topics that might be of interest and solicited papers on these topics. Interested parties should send a 300 word abstract describing your individual presentation to electricguitar2015@gmail.com with “The Electric Guitar in Popular Culture” in the subject line. Questions for analysis include:

  • How has the electric guitar altered music and the lives of musicians throughout its history?
  • How has the electric guitar impacted local music scenes in northwest Ohio and those throughout the world?
  • Have changing representations of the guitar in popular culture impacted aspiring musicians?
  • How have advances in technology impacted the production of electric guitars for both producers and consumers?
  • How have various cultures and perspectives surrounding the electric guitar shifted over time?

Additional topics for consideration include:

  • Representations in Popular Culture
  • Globalization of the Electric Guitar
  • Current Trends & Artists
  • Ohio Guitar Shows
  • Guitar Collecting
  • Album Artwork
  • Guitar Magazines & Publications
  • Guitar Manufacturing
  • The Guitar and Education
  • Race/Ethnicity and the Electric Guitar
  • Gender/Sexuality and the Guitar
  • Fender vs. Gibson
  • Guitar As Icon
  • The Guitar in Video Games and Toys
  • Genres & Associated Artists

Deadline for submissions is Sunday, December 21, 2014.​

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Metal is a rebellion against Idiocracy

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For years our media saw heavy metal as a kind of deviation from normal pop, which was presumed to be innocent and healthy. Metal, on the other hand, embraced the dark and obscure, the labyrinthine and the terrifying, and — unlike most pop — failed to condemn war, conflict, murder and occultism as “evil.”

As time goes on, it becomes clear that the terms “good” and “evil” are frequently inverted, with each taking the meaning of the other. For example, totalitarian dictators have a tendency to portray normal life as evil in order to make their systems of control seem “good”; conversely, pop music and other products like to pretend they are good and metal “evil” in order to infiltrate your headphones.

Increasingly, however, research shows that pop music is instead the siren call of a civilization collapsing into idiocracy, or rule by morons for idiots. As portrayed in the movie Idiocracy, this state occurs when the thoughtless and incompetent outbreed the intelligent and insightful, resulting in the ultimate consumer society of know-nothing, apathetic people.

That condition could also describe pop music in its current form. Recent research points out that pop music is indeed dumbing us down. In a recent article entitled “Scientists Prove That Pop Music Is Literally Ruining Our Brains,” Jordan Taylor Sloan argues that:

Research proves what our parents have been saying all along: Modern pop music really is worse than older generations of pop music. Not only that, it has negative effects on your brain, too — if you’re chiefly a pop music fan, you’re likely to be less creative than any other kind of music lover.

In 2008, Adrian North of Scotland’s Heriot-Watt University published the largest study yet of musical taste, involving 36,000 people, 60 countries and three years of work. He asked each participant to rank their favorite genres of music. He discovered that the most common characteristic among all genre listeners was creativity. However, one group of listeners showed a genuine and significant lack of creativity: pop music lovers.

This suggests what metalheads have said for years is in fact true: metal embraces not just forbidden topics, but acts out the forbidden idea that some music is indeed brain-dead and should be avoided. Wimps and poseurs leave the hall!

Further, heavy metal — by the complexity of its composition, the intricacy of its thought and lyrics, and the technicality of its instrumentalism — acts as a counter-force to this great dumbing down. Unlike music which tries to be popular by challenging no one and making sugar-laden over-processed musical junk food for the inattentive, heavy metal engages its audience and speaks forth social taboos in order to expand the mind and challenge the intellectually sedentary.

It is unlikely that the mainstream media will take note of this. It only takes note of metal when it is “socially conscious,” or flattering our current pretenses of being an upward society moving toward Utopia, instead of a dying civilization creating dystopia through oblivion toward reality as a result of popular narcissism. But parents might take note as they see their children become glazed-eye zombies in the hands of media designed to support idiocracy, not challenge it.

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