Pastiche

From "Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World: Performance and Production"

The Oxford English Dictionary defines pastiche as a medley of various ingredients; a hotch potch, farrago, jumble. Subsidiary usages include an opera, cantata, or other composition, made up of various pieces from different authors or sources, a pot-pourri, and a picture or design made up of fragments pieced together or copied with modification from an original, or in professed imitation of another artist; also, the style of such a picture. These latter two definitions come closest to contemporary usage in writing about popular music. The current usage, as found in the theoretical discourse around postmodernism, began to appear in the 1970s. Pastiche became associated with postmodernism with the appearance of two closely related articles by Fredric Jameson (1983, 1984). In Jamesons famous formulation, Pastiche is the imitation of a peculiar or unique style, the wearing of a stylistic mask, speech in a dead language: but it is a neutral practice of such mimicry, without parodys ulterior motive, without the satirical impulse, without laughter, without that still latent feeling that there exists something normal compared to which what is being imitated is rather comic. (1983, 114) Described thus, the idea of pastiche blends aesthetics and sociology, as it combines aspects of form (stylistic allusion) with some notion of reception (the audiences attitude toward, and understanding of, this allusion). That is, a sense of pastiche can occur only if a member of the audience understands the reference and perceives that it does not refer to a norm. Pastiche is also linked with other oft-mentioned attributes of postmodernism: rhizome/surface as opposed to root/depth, signified versus signified, [blank] irony versus metaphysics (see Hassan 1985). Because it refers to styles that are not perceived as the artists unique voice, pastiche is often associated with extreme stylistic eclecticism. Part of what distinguishes pastiche from parody is that the reference is more subtle in pastiche than in parody, and another style may be evoked only partially, whereas parody tends to refer to the parodied style in its totality. When this partial reference refers to a style with strong links to a prior historical period, it evokes the retro phenomenon (also sometimes referred to as historicism - see Jameson 1984). Much early discussion of pastiche in popular music focused on music video due to the striking links between that mediums visual procedures and those found in advertising and avant-garde cinema (see Kaplan 1987, and GoodwIn 1987, 1992 for opposing sides of this debate). One of the earliest examples of material that verged on pastiche due to its extreme eclecticism is Frank Zappas work of the late 1960s with the Mothers of Invention, although his stylistic allusions were usually

exaggerated enough to conjure up a sense of parody. A clearer example of pastiche is the Beatles eponymous double album (sometimes referred to as the White Album). This album called into question notions about an integrated group style and progress in terms of the values of Western art music (which were embodied in Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band and continued by numerous progressive/art rock groups), while juxtaposing and alluding to a wide range of different styles. Some of these were straightforward parody, such as Back in the U.S.S.R., but many other tracks lacked such an obvious satirical impulse. Was Yer Blues a parody of blues revivalists or a heartfelt utterance in blues form? Was Good Night a spoof or a nostalgic glimpse back at the light music of the Beatles childhoods? Was Revolution No. 9 a serious avant-garde electronic music experiment or a throwaway designed to deflate pompous pop artists? As subgenres continued to proliferate in Western rock music in the 1970s and older styles continued to circulate, instances of pastiche began to rise correspondingly. David Bowie and Elvis Costello provide two contrasting examples of pasticheurs whose careers began during this period (Moore 1993, 171-79). Bowie, as one of the initiators of the glam rock style, inhabited a series of selfconsciously inauthentic personae, and released albums that alluded to a succession of musical styles, including hard rock (The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Diamond Dogs), soul/funk (Young Americans) and early techno/new wave (Heroes). Costello (aka Declan McManus), while maintaining a fairly consistent persona, adopted a series of pseudonyms (Elvis Costello, the Imposter, Napoleon Dynamite and so on) and also explored a wide range of styles, sometimes from album to album - Get Happy (soul music of the 1960s), Almost Blue (country music), Imperial Bedroom (early art rock). All of his albums until 1984 featured textural consistency due to the use (with one exception) of the same band, the Attractions. With his turn to different groups of studio musicians for most of his projects After 1986, the eclecticism has increased, and stylistic allusions can be found between tracks on the same album; this is especially true of Spike and Mighty Like a Rose (see Brackett 1995, ch. 5). During the 1990s, many artists adapted aspects of the approaches used by Zappa, the Beatles, Bowie and Costello. Beck, in a song like High 5 (Rockin the Catskills), traversed many styles in a single track, with most of the styles drawn from the 1960s and early 1970s. An artist like Bjrk created a sense of pastiche not by rapid crosscutting la Beck, but by mixing styles simultaneously within a song, between songs within an album or between albums. Historicism or retro performance was also widespread in the 1990s, with the music of an artist like Sheryl Crow on, for example, Tuesday Night Music Club, relying almost totally on styles that had existed since the early 1970s. These styles have not been updated, but have been used as models for new songs. The retro idea has been taken to an extreme by tribute bands, who base their entire repertoire, and musical and visual style, on a previous band. For example, the band Dread Zeppelin performs nothing but Led Zeppelin songs in note-perfect arrangements based on the latter groups recordings. A discussion of pastiche in popular music would not be complete without a mention of Hindi film song, which anticipated many developments in Western popular music of the 1990s. Hindi film songs have featured eclectic pastiches of material dating back to the late 1940s, initially combining light Indian classical with traditional folk music and new forms of popular music, while later drawing on an enormous range of material from around the world - in particular, different styles of Western popular music. However, the dependence of pastiche on reception complicates the straightforward attribution of this concept to musical works outside the Western cosmopolitan context, where concepts such as blank irony and stylistic originality may not either exist or have the same importance (Manuel 1988). Bibliography

Brackett, David. 1995. Interpreting Popular Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goodwin, Andrew. 1987. Music Video in the (Post) Modern World. Screen 28(3): 36-55. Goodwin, Andrew. 1992. Dancing in the Distraction Factory: Music Television and Popular Culture. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. . Hassan, Ihab. 1985. The Culture of Postmodernism. Theory, Culture and Society 2(3): 119-32. Jameson, Fredric. 1983. Postmodernism and Consumer Society. In The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, ed. Foster, Hal. Seattle, WA: Bay Press, 111-25. Jameson, Fredric. 1984. Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. New Left Review 146: 53-92. (Reprinted in Jameson, Fredric. 1991. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1-54.). Kaplan, E. Ann. 1987. Rocking Around the Clock: Music Television, Postmodernism and Consumer Culture. London: Methuen. Manuel, Peter. 1988. Popular Musics of the Non-Western World. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Moore, Allan. 1993. Rock, The Primary Text: Developing a Musicology of Rock. Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press. Oxford English Dictionary. 1989. 2nd ed. 20 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Discographical References
Beatles, The. Back in the U.S.S.R. The Beatles. Apple PCS 706718. 1968: UK. Beatles, The. Good Night. The Beatles. Apple PCS 706718. 1968: UK. Beatles, The. Revolution No. 9. The Beatles. Apple PCS 706718. 1968: UK. Beatles, The. Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. Parlophone PCS 7027. 1967: UK. Beatles, The. The Beatles. Apple PCS 706718. 1968: UK. Beatles, The. Yer Blues. The Beatles. Apple PCS 706718. 1968: UK. Beck. High 5 (Rockin the Catskills). Odelay. Geffen 24823. 1996: USA. Bowie, David. Diamond Dogs. RCA-Victor APLI 0576. 1974: USA. Reissue: Bowie, David. Diamond Dogs. Rykodisc RCD 10137. 1990: USA. Bowie, David. Heroes. RCA-Victor AFL1-2522. 1977: USA. Bowie, David. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. RCA-Victor SF 8287. 1972. USA. Reissue: Bowie, David. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Rykodisc RCD 10134 1990: USA. Bowie, David. Young Americans. RCA-Victor AQL1-0998. 1975: USA. Costello, Elvis. Almost Blue. Columbia FC 37562. 1981: USA. Costello, Elvis. Get Happy. Columbia JC 36347. 1980: USA. Costello, Elvis. Imperial Bedroom. Columbia FC 38157. 1982: USA. Costello, Elvis. Mighty Like a Rose. Warner Brothers 9-26575-4. 1991: USA. Costello, Elvis. Spike. Warner Brothers 25848-4. 1989: USA. Crow, Sheryl. Tuesday Night Music Club. A&M 31454-0126-4. 1993: USA. Zappa, Frank, and the Mothers of Invention. Absolutely Free. Verve V-5013. 1967. USA. Reissue: Zappa, Frank, and the Mothers of Invention. Absolutely Free. Rykodisc RCD 10502. 1995: USA. Zappa, Frank, and the Mothers of Invention. Freak Out!. Verve V-5055. 1966. USA. Reissue: Zappa, Frank, and the Mothers of Invention. Freak Out!. Rykodisc 10501. 1995: USA. Zappa, Frank, and the Mothers of Invention. Were Only in It for the Money. Verve V6-5045. 1968. USA. Reissue: Zappa, Frank, and the Mothers of

Invention. Were Only in It for the Money. Rykodisc 10503. 1995: USA.

Discography
Dread Zeppelin. Un-Led-Ed. IRS IRSD-13048. 1990: USA.

DAVID BRACKETT

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APA
Pastiche. (2003). In Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World: Performance and Production . Retrieved from http://literati.credoreference.com/content/entry/contpmwpp/pastiche/0

MLA
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Chicago
Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World: Performance and Production. London: Continuum, 2003. s.v. "Pastiche," http://literati.credoreference.com/content/entry/contpmwpp/pastiche/0 (accessed July 6, 2013.)

Harvard
'Pastiche' 2003, in Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World: Performance and Production, Continuum, London, United Kingdom, viewed 6 July 2013 from <http://literati.credoreference.com/content/entry/contpmwpp/pastiche/0>