The teen machine and pop music April 2, 2008

 

Pop music and the teen machine are intrinsically linked as both possess the capability to communicate with, and shape subjectivities.  Indeed, Felix Guattari’s work on adolescent subjectivity reveals the regimes and structures, which seek to constrain and dominate the adolescent sense of self. This entry shall argue music has the potential to be an interpretive and reflective form of communication, but is absorbed and used by the teen machine to neutralize and contain potential threats. It is made into a commodity, which becomes trapped within signifying processes, and perpetually reproduced. Therefore, the political and social purpose is undermined by the teen machine. This argument will be supported by a close analysis of the grunge movement of the early 90s. Finally, the affects and flows of the machinic junkie through the musical medium will be explored. Thus, we shall see how music has the capacity for freedom and rebellion, yet is contained by the processes and production of the teen machine. 

 

When sound, particularly music, is incorporated into the cinematic frame, it has the potential to open up avenues of interpretation and perception. Gilles Deleuze suggests, the off-screen sound establishes an off-screen presence(Deleuze, 1989, 235). This sound can be divided into two categories. Diegetic sound, which both the audience and filmic world are entitled to, and non-diegetic sound, which privileges the spectator. The latter category enables the viewer to be engaged in a communication, which only they are entitled to. Deleuze outlines two purposes for pop music; to create interaction  or reflexivity (Deleuze, 1989, 236) . Though, these two categories are not static; there is a certain amount of fluidity between all categories. Pop music generally falls into the latter category, as it predominantly serves as a reflexive tool. It may imbue the image, with a particular meaning. For example, Skins Episode 2  (Paul Gay 2007) uses a piece of dream-like electronic music during Cassie’s walk through the school corridors.

 

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The school environment is usually filled with a more frenetic and chaotic sound, as was established in the previous scene. The collaboration of floating camera movement, tracking Cassie’s face, and the dream-like soundtrack, suggests her interiority operates differently to her peers. While the camera movement, suggests a steadiness and calmness, the music creates an imaginative wishful thought space. It compliments her internal plea to Sid, “look up if you like”. It acts as an reflective moment between the character and spectator, whose perception of the episodes protagonist is expanded. We are privileged with an insight into the characters interiority, which contradicts the presentation of Cassie throughout the episode. The ditzy, spaced-out girl is replaced by a perceptive and calm figure. Sound in the cinema acts as a process of interaction and reflectivity that can potentially open up the possibilities for interpretation.

 

The teen machine acts to commodify the teen experience. The machine facilitates movements and flows of desire(screenmachine, 2008), overtly and subvertly.  While, the commodity is “something transcendent”, which exists beyond its physical properties and creates value (Marx, 1867, 42). In regard to the teen machine, the overarching production purpose is the consolidation of an adolescent subjectivity. While a plethora of commodities are produced, they all seek to establish a static adolescent subject as consumer. However this defies the reality of adolescence, which remains in a constant state of mental, emotional and physical development. As Felix Guattari suggests, they are in a state of constant “becomings”  or change(Guattari, 1996, 63). Therefore the teen machine produces commodities, which will appeal to the particular subjectivity a teenager may wish to adopt, or engage with. Pop music is packaged and integrated into the machine adding to the “a-signifying systems” of adolescence (Guattari, 1996,72) . These work to connote differences and similarities amongst the teen consumers. Thus the teenage experience can be bought and sold on the market. 

Pop music can acts as medium through which the adolescent can present their subjectivity and identity, perceptually independent of other machines. As noted above, music is fluid and therefore appeals to the sensory changes in the teen body. Furthermore it can communicate with the adolescents inability to remain calm while ruptures and changes are occurring internally and externally. Guattari highlights, that adolescence is “the entrance into a sort of extremely troubled interzone where all kinds of possibilities, conflicts and sometimes extremely difficult and even dramatic clashes appear” (Guattari, 1996, 64). Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989) (which is not strictly a teen movie, but comprises many adolescents) opens with Rosie Perez engaging in a ‘dance-fight’ timed to ‘Fight the Power’

by Public Enemy.

 

The camera is static while silhouettes of Perez move through the street stage to the words ‘Fight the powers that be’. This speaks of the continual ruptures in the white patriarchal society, African American adolescents came into contact with during the late eighties and early nineties. Kimberley Bercov Monteyne noted in her work ‘The Sound of the South Bronx’, that “hip-hop in general and rapping in particular is youth culture rather than an older tradition to be passed down” (Monteyne, 2007, 93). It acted against both racial and youth categories, which sought to contain the adolescent subjectivity. Therefore popular music possesses the potential to engage with the adolescent listener and communicate with their experiences. 

Unfortunately, this idealised view of popular music modes often become subsumed by the teen machine. The name ‘popular music’ is indicative of the eventual problem of the medium. The political message of the genre is lost amongst the mass reproduction and consumption of the product. Julian Tanner conducted a sociological studies of adolescent musical consumption. They noted, the emergence of casual listeners of more specified genres, such as rap, “has been taken by some as evidence of a more postmodern youth culture in which musical tastes have become more eclectic and individualized, no longer an emblem of collective identity” (Tanner et.al, 2008, 121-122). Therefore the listeners capacity to engage with a teen collective identity, is diminished by the constant reproduction.

 

The grunge movement of the early 90s was the anti-thesis of the 80s ‘big-hair bands’, which were slick, glossy music machines. Nirvana created songs such as ‘Breed‘, ‘Smells like teen spirit‘, and ‘Come as you are‘, which spoke to the disaffected youth, who had been maligned by the music machine of the eighties. Breed describes a plea from one of Cobain’s former girlfriends, who doesn’t care if they don’t breed, they can “plant a house, [they] can build a tree”. The band attempted to defy the categorisation of adolescence, which sign -posted the moments of development including child-rearing , home-ownership, and marriage. However, grunge’s potential harm to the teen machine was diminished, by the constant reproduction of poor copies, in an attempt to repeat the success experienced by bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Egos and Icons (1997) explains the rise and fall of the genre as a deconstructive tool that was appropriated and legitimated by the mainstream. Krist Noveselic at the 2 minute mark, highlights how he had spent his life running away from the mainstream, but then found himself “assimilated into it by Nirvana’s popularity. Ultimately the genre was destroyed by the continual reproduction of the commodity, which depleted the original intensity felt at the movement’s birth. 

 

 

Grunge fashion by Marc Jacob’s for Perry Ellis, featured in US Vogue 1992. 

Pop music possess the ability to profoundly affect the listeners subjectivity and their psychological state. It can be regarded as as one of the drug Guattari discusses, which “is a way of making yourself be, of personally incarnating yourself, while the ground of the existential is blurred”(Guattari, 1996, 102). Thus, the individual can forget the subjectivity, which is forced upon them and be liberated, if only for a moment. Last Days (Gus Van Sant, 2005) explored the effects of the music machine through the character of Blake (inspired by Kurt Cobain).

He is completely absorbed in the music machine, which transports him from his dilapidated home to a creative, imaginative space where he is free to express himself. However, the camera never enters this private space, instead it slowly draws away from the window as the music builds. Indeed Van Sant acknowledges the inability to communicate the intensity of the machinic junkie’s experience through the cinematic or sound medium. It remains an individual experience. Therefore, the machinic junkie attempts to escape from reality existence through the possibilities of the machine.

 

 While pop music is capable of liberation and rebellion, it is legitimated and reproduced by the teen machine, thus constraining its independence. Sound and music can act as reflective and interactive tools, which seek to liberate thought and perception. Indeed, the political and social rebellion of popular music appeals to the adolescent who seeks to assert their independent subjectivity. However, the teen machine uses commodification to contain the teen experience. Ultimately, these messages are absorbed and neutralised by the teen machine. Indeed, freedom can only be experienced for a moment by the machinic junkie, who leaves reality to experience intensities and flows, which cannot be contained by the teen machine. Thus, the music seems incapable of freeing the adolescent, while it is constrained by the mechanisms of the teen machine. 

 

Filmography

 

Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)

 

Egos and Icons (Muchmusic, 1997) 

 

Last Days (Gus Van Sant, 2005) 

 

Skins: Episode 2 – Cassie (Paul Gay 2007)

 

Bibliography

 

 Deleuze, Gilles, 1989. ‘The Components of the Image’, The Time Image. London: The Athlone Press. 225- 261

 

Guattari, Felix, 1996. ‘Adolescent Revolution’, Soft Subversions. ed. S. Lotringer. New York: Semiotext(e). 63-72. 

 

Guattari, Felix, 1996. ‘Machinic Junkies’, Soft Subversions. 101-105.  

 

Marx, Karl, 1872. ‘The Fetishism of the Commodity and the Secret Thereof”, [Das Kapital] Karl Marx Capital: An Abridged Edition, ed. David McLellan, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. 42-50 

 

Monteyne, Kimberley Bercov, 2007. ‘The Sound of the South Bronx: Youth Culture, Genre, and Performance in Charlie Ahearn’s Wildstyle’, Youth Culture In Global Cinema. ed. Timothy Shary and Alexander Seibel. Austin: University of Texas Press. 87-105.

 

screenmachine, 2008.  Screen Machine: screen cultures television theory (online). (Cited 30 March 2008).  Available from http://screenmachine.wordpress.com/

 

Tanner, Julian et. al, 2008. ‘Our favourite melodies: musical consumption and teenage lifestyles’, The British Journal of Sociology. 59:1. 119-144.