Tracing sonic identities: hearing the artist and being yourself in popular music culture

Thesis

This thesis presents and elaborates the concept of sonic identities. A sonic identity is the sense that a listener has of who a popular artist is, deriving not only from the artist’s music but also from any discourse or material pertaining to the artist. Central to the thesis is the reciprocity of identity formation between listener and artist: ‘who’ the artist can ‘become’ depends on who the listener already is, on who the listener becomes through the artist’s music, and so on. I argue that sonic identities are integral to popular music culture, broadly conceived.

I begin this thesis by defining sonic identity, before reviewing relevant literature and establishing my conceptual and theoretical foundations. In Chapter 3, I prioritise the artist’s side of listener-artist reciprocity, as I analyse the sonic identity of Rostam via his track ‘Half-Light’. In Chapters 4 and 5, artist and listener are on equal footing, as I analyse a listening diary charting my engagement with Loretta Lynn and Janelle Monáe, two artists previously unknown to me. Following Chapter 6, in which I lay the theoretical and methodological groundwork for the remainder of the thesis, Chapters 7-10, prioritising listeners over artists, analyse interviews and listening diaries provided by respondents. The interviews focus on an artist treasured by each respondent, while the diaries trace each respondent’s familiarisation with an unknown artist. I interpret these datasets primarily through the idea of autobiographical significance (Peck & Grealey, 2020); an artist and their music are autobiographically significant if one or many listener identities inaugurated or affected by the artist and their music have endured over time. I end the thesis by summarising my findings and theorising the connections between sonic identities and the ideological values underpinning popular music production and reception, before suggesting possible uses of the sonic identity concept within the broader field of popular music studies.

Authors: Grealey, P

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-zbmvd77n0
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: identity; popular music; sonic identities
• Subjects: Autoethnography; Popular music; Phenomenology and music; Music--Psychological aspects; Sociology; Musical analysis; Music