Field notes #1

1998 album "...Baby one more time"

• "From the Bottom of my broken heart" is a song from her first album in 1998. About first love...High School...Music video made up of a lot of cliche high school romance moments...sitting in the middle of the football stadium at night with the lights on...
• "...Baby one more time" hit song of album. Slightly more promiscuous than previous video. Upbeat song...lyrics are more aggressive...different vocals...lots of background singers...her voice is less singing...
• "Your drive me crazy" lots of oooohs and ahhhhs...more about boy-girl relationships...girl thinks about boy a lot...

2000 "Oops!...I did it again"

• "oops!...i did it again" background vocals...girl toying with boys emotions...still about relationships...more "girl power"
• "Stronger" girl being strong and independent...doesn't need a boy around...upbeat...harder voice..."I don't need nobody, not anybody."

2001 "Britney"

• "I'm A Slave 4 u" sexier voice...lots of seductive sounds...oooohs and ahhhhs...song about becoming a woman..."I know I may be young...but i need to do what i feel like doing..."
• "Boys" bhangra background sounds...more sexy talking and less singing...girl power "And when a girl is with one [boys] she's in control."

2003 "in The Zone"

• "Toxic" very different by incorporating violin...bu-bum-bum bu-bum-bum beat...very sexual video...song is about how intoxicating a guy is but the video shows a typer of 'superwoman' villain that kills the guy...one outfit looks like she is wearing almost nothing...

2007 "Blackout"

• "Gimme more" takes place in a strip club...very seductive tone...vulgar language...lots of bass...less pop than other songs.

After listening to her songs from beginning to end, it is pretty evident that there has been a change in the sounds, vocals, and themes of Britney's songs. Obviously some of her more recent songs are not suitable for younger teenagers because parents would hope that teens at that young are are not exposed to a lot of vulgar language and sexual content.

As for fan sites, they range from positive to negative comments. mostly are positive and are mainly used to update on Britney's current news, such as her legal struggles, tour dates, new sites and wallpapers, and her new album. I am hoping to find a way to get in contact with some of the fans to see the age range of her current fan base and see if they are new fans, or have been for the past 10 years.

NEW ethnography topic

So, because my last topic choice was quite vague and involved too many variables, I have narrowed down my topic and almost completely changed it, but not quite.

In the past few months I have once again realized how influential of a pop icon Britney Spears is. After listening to some of her more recent songs, I became curious about the change she and her music have undergone in less than ten years. The once innocent teenage pop star has gone through marriage and divorce, rehab, and some very chaotic times up till now. Recently she has just released a new album that is very upbeat and sexual, completely different from her original albums. The interesting thing is that the style and sound of Britney Spears has not changed over night, but with each album there was a different attitude involved. What I would like to investigate for my ethnography project is the teen Britney vs. the now Britney.

Some questions I hope to address are...

• how has Britney Spears' fan base changed over time?
• what kind of influence has the media had on Britney Spears?
• how has the image of Britney Spears changed over time? what could be some of the causes for these changes?
• Why is Britney Spears so successful? is she successful?

The methods I plan on using to research this topic reading and keeping up with the fansites on-line, interviewing people to see what kind of fanbase exists now, hopefully going to one of her concerts, and also looking into the events of her life and how they have affected her music. I also want to look into her songs and find changes in her subjects and "messages."

"Riot Grrrl: The Contestation over Meaning in a Music Scene" -Schilt

Going with the title of the article, “The Contestation over Meaning in a Music Scene,” introduces Schilt’s main point about the definition of a music scene and its purpose. The flexibility of the Riot Grrrl scene that had allowed for so many members to join it was also the reason the scene had faced issues concerning the purpose of the scene; either political or musical. Schilt also brought up the point that scenes are faced with external pressures, like the mass media, as well as internal pressures from distressed members, such as the minority groups who felt left out from the middle-class white girls that dominated the Riot Grrrl scene. In this particular example with Riot Grrrl, the mass media didn’t know the meaning of the scene or the ideals that it embodied, so they took it upon themselves to turn it into a fashion trend. However, although Riot Grrrl is no longer an active scene, Schilt makes that point that the ideal of independent women embodied in Riot Grrrl is carried on through its members. The true meaning in a music scene.

This article is relevant to the class because it addresses an issue in a particular music scene. In this case, the internal and external pressure of a music scene as well as the affect media has on a scene. Schilt found an issue, and researched it by interviewing members of the scene who are in positions of authority and are well informed of the scene itself. I also think it is important to understand the meanings of the scene you are studying as well as its ideals and purpose, the way Schilt did with the Riot Grrrl scene.

Although it isn’t a scene, the band Green Day has very political lyrics. Are there other scenes that make references or are “involved” in politics? Is it inevitable for scenes with ideals that go against the norm to be mistaken as political?

Ehtnography Research Topic

I would say “when I was a teenager,” but the truth of the matter is that I am still a teenager. I look at the songs I listen to, the new and more seductive Brittney, Beyonce, Secondhand Serenade, My Chemical Romance, Mae, and I wonder how it compares to the music my brothers listened to when they were my age. Although we are less than ten years apart, I feel like the gap within our own generation is huge. I would like to research the difference between the current teen scene and the teen scene of the past. I’d like to be as general about what particular genres of music were listened to because I feel that there is a larger variety of scenes now than there were ten years ago. But, if I had to specify a scene that I want to focus on it would probably be “mainstream,” or hip-hop. I’d like to use Brittney Spears as an example of how “mainstream” music has changed over time.
My planned approach to research for this project is to look up the most popular songs during the early 90’s. I’ll listen to some of the songs and research some of the reviews of them online, looking at the lyrics of the song as well as the feeling the song invokes, and then I’ll look at the artists themselves and the type of ideas that they portray and support. If I incorporate multiple scenes in my research I will take note of the different scenes that were popular at the time. For the interview portion of my research I can interview other people my age and possibly interview graduate students to represent people from the same generation as me, but possibly influenced by a different youth scene when they were teenagers.
Some of the guiding questions for my research are:
• Are there differences between the teen scene of the early 90’s and the early 2000’s? If so what are they?
• What could have caused these differences?
• Why do you think there is a gap within a generation over such a short period of time?
• How does this difference compare to previous generations? For example, is the difference between the 90’s and 00’s more or less dramatic than the differences between the 70’s and 80’s?

"Music in Diaspora: The View from Euro-America" -Slobin

The main points that Slobin is making in his writing are about how diaspora is incorporated into the superculture of the larger community around it, diasporic communities as a subculture, and the ideas of a changeable definition for music-culture. Although many make the generic definition of “subculture” as diasporic communities, a community can be diasporic but there can be opposing ideas within it, making it different from a subculture. I think it was important to understand the role that a superculture plays in the creation and recognition of a subculture through their control over the media, money, and control. Slobin also makes the point that the future musical component of a group’s culture is “volatile, changeable, and improvisatory.” To me, Slobin’s point is that the unknown events of the future, such as a war or conspiracy, could change, not the type of music but, the sound of the music to match the native culture at the time.

This reading helped me to understand what a subculture is, which is especially important in a class where we are studying ethnography, a way to collect data about subcultures. Especially in the parts about activists and oppositionality, it helped me to understand that understanding a subculture is more than just the record labels and sales. A good ethnographer would have to take into consideration how that subculture views the music, but know that ethnicity does not apply to subcultures.


Slobin wrote that “music is central to the diasporic experience, linking homeland and here-land with an intricate network of sound. Whether through the burnished memory of childhood songs, the packaged passions of recordings, or the steady traffic of live bands, people identify themselves strongly, even principally, through their music.” Does the United States have a specific “taste” that Americans can connect to?

"Translocal Connections in the Goth Scene" -Hodkinson

The title of the chapter “Translocal Connections in the Goth Scene” summarizes what Hodkinson was trying to accomplish through his research. I felt the main point of the chapter was that the Goth scene in Britain, though it is spread around the nation, is a scene that does not vary dramatically in different localities. The reason for this general “sameness” between the scenes of different counties is probably due to the role that commerce and media play on the way new music and products that are involved with the scene are distributed. For example, various CD stores that sell Goth music get the new albums from generally the same vendor. The point that Hodkinson made was that the Goth scene is very interactive with its different localities, the Whitby Gothic Weekend, which brings all the Goths together so that they can exchange new products and sounds, as well as make friends.
This chapter was helpful in understanding the types of issues that ethnographer’s research; in this case it was ‘why and how are translocal connections in the Goth scene made?’ Since I will have to do an ethnography project this semester, Hodkinson provided a good example of how I can go about doing the research and the types of issues that I could look into. Hodkinson wrote that in his research he conducted “interviews with more than seventy individuals.”

Hodkinson wrote, “…while there were some indications that certain sounds or looks held marginally more prominence in some places than others. There seemed no sense in which, for example. The same appearance would result in veneration in one area and a total lack of it in another. This level of agreement on membership criteria is illustrated most effectively by the ease with which goths were able to identify one another, regardless of where they were.” With this in mind, why is the Goth scene so distinct in its appearance? Or, why is the appearance of the Goth scene so easily distinguishable as compared to other scenes like hip hop or indie?

"Ethnography and popular music studies" Critical Review

The main points in the reading “Ethnography and popular music studies,” by Sara Cohen were about the differences in effectiveness between ethnography and anthropology. Although anthropology uses a more statistical and theoretical method of researching about a “culture,” ethnography requires the researcher to be in contact with the people in the “culture” first hand. The main difference between ethnography and anthropology is that ethnography researches the individual, social relationships, and the many different dimensions that affect the definition of a “culture.” Cohen also talked about how living in a community to learn about the individuals within it is relative to the person doing the research and the people you choose to interact with. This led to her point, which I thought was particularly important, that “general statements tend to mask the complex interrelatedness of contexts, events, activities and relationships involved with popular music.” In a reference from Finnegan, she describes "culture," in respect to the social differences related by music, as "musical pathways," which shows how dynamic the individuals within a "culture" can be, as well as how many different "cultures" they could be grouped into.

This reading was basically about what ethnography is and how ethnographers conduct their research. This is related to the class because we are learning about different subcultures of music and which youth communities they appeal to, which is similar to learning about a specific culture and the individuals that identify with it. Also, since this class focuses on ethnography, it is good to learn about the methods used and the ideas to keep in mind.

Lawrence Grossberg suggested that “anthropology’s focus upon the ‘other’, its boundaries between us and them, bear little relation to the situation of ethnography within the contemporary advanced industrial world of mass media, where the relationship between the strange and the familiar is increasingly difficult to define…” With this suggestion in mind, can there still be specific “characteristics” of a certain ‘culture’? or is everything too intertwined and overlapping to even consider a sort of criteria?