Work-in(g)-Practice: Configurations of the Popular Music lntertext

Abstract

This chapter argues that popular music culture is driven by practice rather than objects (that is, works). It emphasises the density and many-sidedness of the intertextual bonds between musical performances and analyses Bill Laswell's studio ‘re-compositions’ of popular recordings by Bob Marley and Miles Davis. It also examines ‘signifyin(g)’, a concept that refers to the deliberate use of familiar, shared elements as a basis for subsequent transformation. This approach is an essential element in the African-American musical tradition that has passed into the general practice of Western popular music. The chapter also considers remix culture, the ramifications of intertextuality for popular music compositional practices, the ‘dialogical’ theory of semiotics associated with Mikhail Bakhtin, the individuality of musical work, the question of authoriality, the West European Classical Tradition and the intertextuality of African-American music.

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