This exercise is intended to help you all with your genre keyword assignment. Pick one of your genre’s classic hits and one of your personal favorite songs in your genre and do your best to articulate the pheno-sonic elements of both. The greater task is to identify what geno-sonic element in your favorite song draws you to it and whether it is hegemonic, negotiated or oppositional to the pheno-sonic codes and why…
Remember:
Pheno-song refers to the technical and stylistic aspects of performance.
Geno-song refers to the ‘voluptuousness’ of sound- the sonic element that reminds you that a human body is on the other end. Think of it as a sonic fingerprint- it is what gives you the sense that this recording of this performance is unique to the performer’s body and the moment that produced the record. It’s what sets it apart from any cover or imitation, as if no one could copy this one thing.
Another way to think about this is what are the musical conventions of your genre that these songs check off (that’s the pheno-song) and what is unique to your favorite band’s performance that exceeds convention and gives you a feeling of awe or novelty (it’s geno-song).
The classic hit is meant to help you get a better sense of what the pheno-sonic conventions are (but all songs also have geno-sonic elements). After identifying the geno-sonic element to your favorite song, think about whether this song or element is in a hegemonic, negotiated or oppositional relation to the stylistic conventions and expectations that your classic hit exemplifies and what this communicates about the performer(s).
Here is an example as if my genre of expertise were 80s pop (the more you convey, the better- it will only help you with the genre keywords):
Phil Collins – In The Air Tonight (Official Music Video)
The pheno-sonic elements of this song are what is known today as over-production. The beat is clean and mechanical. It lacks the noiseyness of hair metal (the other 80s genre) and is instead minimalist giving plenty of space for the vocal performance.
We can hear similar 80s drum machines and crisp sounds on my personal favorite 80s track. It is definitely a hegemonic take on 80s music, Jackson is very much essential to the music of that era.
https://youtu.be/h_D3VFfhvs4?t=55
The vocal performance is similarly centered amongst industrial sounds, even if the energy of the two tracks are radically different with Phil Collins being low energy and nostalgic and Michael Jackson being high energy and playing a heroic character.
The geno-sonic element that draws me to Smooth Criminal is undeniably Jackson’s vocal ad-libs, particularly the opening shout “Owwww” at 1:06. It’s the way his voice blends into the drum hits and guitar sounds, dragging every final syllable to further accentuate with the back beat. “As he came into the window (eh)
Was a sound (eh) of a crescendo (eh)”… “Annie Are You Okay? (ey) Are You Okay? (ey) Are You Okay Annie (ee)? The rasp in his voice as he sings “you’ve been hit by, you’ve been hit by… a smooth criminal” These are the elements that give this recording its aura, that special something that couldn’t be imitated without feeling cartoonish or derivative.
The geno-sonic elements are therefore in a negotiated relationship to the pheno-sonic codes. Jackson doesn’t perform with the crisp clean-ness that can be heard in most 80s records- his adlibs always conjure an image of him dancing or exerting himself as he performs, whereas most 80s performances aspire to be as transparent, feel as effortless as possible. His performing body demands recognition even when only heard aurally.
As another example of this sparse instrumentation to center clean effortless vocals and blend into the bear, here is another pheno-sonic classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s__rX_WL100
