Radiohead and Philosophy

Author: Brandon W. Forbes
Publisher: Open Court
ISBN: 0812697006
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 330

Book Description
Since their breakthrough hit "Creep" in 1993, Radiohead has continued to make waves throughout popular and political culture with its views about the Bush presidency (its 2003 album was titled Hail to the Thief), its anti-corporatism, its pioneering efforts to produce ecologically sound road tours, and, most of all, its decision in 2007 to sell its latest album, In Rainbows, online with a controversial "pay-what-you-want" price. Radiohead and Philosophy offers fresh ways to appreciate the lyrics, music, and conceptual ground of this highly innovative band. The chapters in this book explain how Radiohead’s music connects directly to the philosophical phenomenology of thinkers like Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Martin Heidegger, the existentialism of Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre, and the philosophical politics of Karl Marx, Jean Baudrillard, and Noam Chomsky. Fans and critics know that Radiohead is "the only band that matters" on the scene today — Radiohead and Philosophy shows why.

Radiohead and Philosophy

Author: Jason T. Eberl
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1459601041
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 458

Book Description
Not only is Radiohead the most innovative and influential rock bandit's also the most philosophically and culturally relevant. Since the 1993 breakthrough hit ""Creep,"" the band keeps on making waves, with its view of the Bush presidency (Hail to the Thief), its anti-corporatism, its ecologically conscious road tours, its videos, and its decision to sell In Rainbows online at a 'pay whatever you want' price. Composed by a team of Radiohead fans who also think for a living, Radiohead and Philosophy is packet like a crushed tin box with insights into the meaning and implications of Radiohead's work. Paranoid or not, you'll understand Radiohead better than any android. ""Can a rock band still matter? Can it be a positive force in a postmodern world? For millions, Radiohead can, and these thought-provoking essays address how and why Radiohead makes a difference by working at the margins of popular culture.""

Radiohead and the Global Movement for Change

Author: Phil Rose
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1611478618
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 259

Book Description
Even prior to the field’s invention, Susanne Langer implied that the arts are all subtopics of Communication Studies. This unique project has effectively allowed the author to combine his backgrounds in the interdisciplinary fields of popular music studies, cultural theory, communication studies, and the practice of music criticism. This book investigates the fascinating and important work of the British group Radiohead, named by Time Magazine among its Top 100 Most Influential People of 2008, and focuses particularly on their landmark recording OK Computer (1997), a document preserved as part of the Library of Congress National Recording Registry in 2015. Probing the band’s exploration of the crucial issues surrounding contemporary technological development, especially as it relates to the concern of human survival, Radiohead and the Global Movement for Change is essentially a work of criticism that in its analysis combines what is known as ‘musical hermeneutics’ with the media ecology perspective. In this way, the author delineates how Radiohead’s work operates as a clarion call that directs our attention to the troubling complex of cultural conditions that Neil Postman (1992) identifies as ‘Technopoly’ or ‘the surrender of culture to technology’—a phenomenon that must become more broadly recognized and comprehended in order for it to be successfully confronted. This book’s distinguishing features include: 1) its edifying analysis of a richly profound and celebrated musical text; 2) its extended focus upon what Martin Heidegger famously refers to as ‘the question concerning technology’; 3) its use of the media ecology scholarly tradition at whose core lies communication study; and 4) its innovative and unique deployment of the affect-script theory of American personality theorist Silvan Tomkins in the study of musical communication.

Everything in its Right Place

Author: Brad Osborn Ph.D.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019062924X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Book Description
More than any rock artist since The Beatles, Radiohead's music inhabits the sweet spot between two extremes: on the one hand, music that is wholly conventional and conforms to all expectations of established rock styles, and, on the other hand, music so radically experimental that it thwarts any learned notions. While averting mainstream trends but still achieving a significant level of success in both US and UK charts, Radiohead's music includes many surprises and subverted expectations, yet remains accessible within a framework of music traditions. In Everything in its Right Place: Analyzing Radiohead, Brad Osborn reveals the functioning of this reconciliation of extremes in various aspects of Radiohead's music, analyzing the unexpected shifts in song structure, the deformation of standard 4/4 backbeats, the digital manipulation of familiar rock 'n' roll instrumentation, and the expected resolutions of traditional cadence structures. Expanding on recent work in musical perception, focusing particularly on form, rhythm and meter, timbre, and harmony, Everything in its Right Place treats Radiohead's recordings as rich sonic ecosystems in which a listener participates in an individual search for meaning, bringing along expectations learned from popular music, classical music, or even Radiohead's own compositional idiolect. Radiohead's violations of these subjective expectation-realization chains prompt the listener to search more deeply for meaning within corresponding lyrics, biographical details of the band, or intertextual relationships with music, literature, or film. Synthesizing insights from a range of new methodologies in the theory of pop and rock, and specifically designed for integration into music theory courses for upper level undergraduates, Everything in its Right Place is sure to find wide readership among scholars and students, as well as avid listeners who seek a deeper understanding of Radiohead's distinctive juxtapositional style.

Dexter and Philosophy

Author: Richard Greene
Publisher: Open Court
ISBN: 081269726X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Book Description
What explains the huge popular following for Dexter, currently the most-watched show on cable, which sympathetically depicts a serial killer driven by a cruel compulsion to brutally slay one victim after another? Although Dexter Morgan kills only killers, he is not a vigilante animated by a sense of justice but a charming psychopath animated by a lust to kill, ritualistically and bloodily. However his gory appetite is controlled by “Harry’s Code,” which limits his victims to those who have gotten away with murder, and his job as a blood spatter expert for the Miami police department gives him the inside track on just who those legitimate targets may be. In Dexter and Philosophy, an elite team of philosophers don their rubber gloves and put Dexter’s deeds under the microscope. Since Dexter is driven to ritual murder by his “Dark Passenger,” can he be blamed for killing, especially as he only murders other murderers? Does Dexter fit the profile of the familiar fictional type of the superhero? What part does luck play in making Dexter who he is? How and why are horror and disgust turned into aesthetic pleasure for the TV viewer? How essential is Dexter’s emotional coldness to his lust for slicing people up? Are Dexter’s lies and deceptions any worse than the lies and deceptions of the non-criminals around him? Why does Dexter long to be a normal human being and why can’t he accomplish this apparently simple goal?

Doctor Who and Philosophy

Author: Courtland Lewis
Publisher: Open Court Publishing
ISBN: 0812696883
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 450

Book Description
Philosophers look at the deeper issues raised by the adventures of Doctor Who, the main character in the long-running science fiction TV series of the same name.

The Mystic Experience

Author: Jordan Paper
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791484289
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 187

Book Description
The mystic, zero, or void experience—the ecstatic disappearance of self along with everything else—is considered by those who have had it to be the most beautiful, blissful, positive, profound, and significant experience of their lives. Offering both a descriptive and a comparative perspective, this book explores the mystic experience across cultures as both a human and cultural event. The book begins and ends with descriptions of the author's own mystical experiences, and looks at self-reported experiences by individuals who do not link their experiences to a religious tradition, to determine characteristics of this universal human experience. These characteristics are compared to statements of acknowledged mystics in diverse religious traditions. The mystic experience is also situated within other ecstatic religious experiences to distinguish it from similar, but distinct, experiences such as lucid dreams, shamanism, and mediumism. Jordan Paper goes on to look at how the mystic experience has been considered in various fields, such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, biology, and comparative religious studies.

Rush and Philosophy

Author: Jim Berti
Publisher: Open Court Publishing
ISBN: 0812697162
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 334

Book Description
The progressive/hard rock band Rush has never been as popular as it is now. A documentary film about the band, Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, which was released in the summer of 2010 has been universally well received. They had a cameo in the movie I Love You Man. Their seven-part song "2112" was included in a version of "Guitar Hero" released in 2010. The group even appeared on The Colbert Report. And now this, a book about Rush written for a general audience and geared towards issues concerning popular culture and philosophy. There has been a recent explosion of Rush onto the popular culture front, and how ironic for a band that has spent the early days of their career on the outside of mainstream popularity. Even legendary trios such as Led Zeppelin, Cream, and The Police don't enjoy the commitment and devotion that Rush's fans lavish on Alex, Geddy, and Neil. In part, this is because Rush is equally devoted to its fans. Since their first album in 1974, they have released 18 additional albums and toured the world following nearly every release. Today, when other 70s-bands have either broken up or become nostalgia acts, Rush continues to sell out arenas and amphitheatres and sell albums--to date Rush has sold over 40 million albums. They are ranked fourth after The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Aerosmith for the most consecutive gold or platinum albums by a rock band. Rush and Philosophy does not set out to sway the public's opinion, nor is it an awkward gushing of how much the authors love Rush. Rush and Philosophy is a fascinating look at the music and lyrics of the band, setting out to address thought-provoking questions. For example, elements of philosophical thinking from the likes of Jean Paul-Sartre, Ayn Rand, and Plato can be found in Peart's lyrics; does this make Peart a disciple of philosophy? In what ways has technology influenced the band through the decades? Can there be too much technology for a power-trio? Can listening to Rush's music and lyrics lead listeners to think more clearly, responsibly, and happily? Is the band's music a "pleasant distraction" from the singing of Geddy Lee? In what ways is Rush Canadian? How can a band that has been referred to as "right-wing" also criticize big government, religion, and imperialism? Rush and Philosophy is written by an assortment of philosophers and scholars with eclectic and diverse backgrounds who love Rush's music and who "get" the meaning and importance of it. They discuss Rush with the enthusiasm of fans and the seriousness of college professors. The book will be a must-read for the many fans who have long known that Rush deserves as much respect as the ideas, concepts, and puzzles about human existence they write and compose music about.

Pearl Jam and Philosophy

Author: Stefano Marino
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501362801
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 281

Book Description
The first scholarly discussion on the band, Pearl Jam and Philosophy examines both the songs (music and lyrics) and the activities (live performances, political commitments) of one of the most celebrated and charismatic rock bands of the last 30 years. The book investigates the philosophical aspects of their music at various levels: existential, spiritual, ethical, political, metaphysical and aesthetic. This philosophical interpretation is also dependent on the application of textual and poetic analysis: the interdisciplinary volume puts philosophical aspects of the band's lyrics in close dialogue with 19th- and 20th-century European and American poetry. Through this widespread philosophical examination, the book further looks into the band's immense popularity and commercial success, their deeply loyal fanbase and genuine sense of community surrounding their music, and the pivotal place the band holds within popular music and contemporary culture.

Kid A Mnesia

Author: Thom Yorke
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 1838857745
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 361

Book Description
Whilst these records were being conceived, rehearsed, recorded and produced, Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood made hundreds of images. These ranged from obsessive, insomniac scrawls in biro to six-foot-square painted canvases, from scissors-and-glue collages to immense digital landscapes. They utilised every medium they could find, from sticks and knives to the emerging digital technologies. The work chronicles their obsessions at the time: minotaurs, genocide, maps, globalisation, monsters, pylons, dams, volcanoes, locusts, lightning, helicopters, Hiroshima, show homes and ring roads. What emerges is a deeply strange portrait of the years at the commencement of this century. A time that seems an age ago - but so much remains the same.