Theatre space as virtual place: audio technology, the reconfigured singing body, and the megamusical

Abstract

Early popular and theoretical work in popular music studies often bestowed implicit or explicit legitimacy on forms of music cultivating or preserving a ‘live’, ‘unplugged’, ‘acoustic’ and hence ‘authentic’ sound. Over the past fifteen years, much popular music scholarship (Frith 1986; Goodwin 1992; Cutler 1984) has rightly problematised this approach. It is important to note, however, that interpretations of popular music texts or scenes that depict the electrification or digitalisation of sound as uncomplicatedly pro-social or progressive remain problematic themselves. Within popular music production today, few areas exist where these aesthetics of recorded music have failed to penetrate. But there is one sub-field of popular music where the characteristic sounds of recording studio technology are still relatively new. It warrants the attention not only of those engaged in the study of popular music, but also of those involved in the exploration of virtual environments. This sub-field is the contemporary stage musical.

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