Musical Consumption in Mid-century America

During the 1950s artists working in the genre of exotica (e.g. Les Baxter and Martin Denny) incorporated "jungle" sounds into their music through non-verbal expressions such as birdcalls, amphibian croaks, primate sounds, whoops and grunts, along with programmatic themes of Africa, Hawai'i, the Harem, the Orient, and the Jungle. This technique of exoticizing both standards and original songs is recognized as an identifying characteristic of the genre, which is often held up as an example of post-war kitsch. Thirty years later, during the 1990s, a nostalgic impulse generated the "lounge music" revival in which easy listening mid-century styles such as exotica were hailed as an antidote to mainstream "alternative" music. Participants in the lounge revival tended to emphasize the weirdness of this music, often portraying it as a generic anomaly that was in direct opposition- generationally and aesthetically-to other styles of the 1950s. Scholarly approaches to understanding what exotica was historically have situated it in the Western art music tradition by drawing attention to not only the use of birdsong, but to other compositional techniques as well. Rebecca Leydon (2003), Phil Ford (2008), and Philip Hayward (1999), provide a range of useful analytical models, but rarely have the connections between exotica and other popular music genres been made. 


My paper counters the retroactive revival narrative and broadens the discussion by drawing attention to similarities between exotica and other popular styles such as rock 'n' roll, rockabilly, rhythm and blues, doo-wop, and surf, through their related use of exotic novelty sounds and themes. That these sounds traversed a crowded landscape of diverse styles and artists challenges the accepted historical narrative of exotica as a type of unique outlier, and places it in a relational network of circulating sounds and discourses. Drawing from theories of genre (Brackett 2016; Fabbri 1982), and tracing the genealogy of select musical exoticisms, I examine the preoccupation with the exotic during the 1950s which afforded a standardized way of communicating cultural and transnational exchanges as artists leaned into the search for "new sounds." Broadly, I will explore how musical boundaries are constructed and how these boundaries can be reevaluated thereby allowing new connections to emerge.

Liberace entered the sprawling scene of US pop culture in 1952 emceeing a TV show that initially garnered higher ratings than _I Love Lucy_. _The Liberace Show_ presented staples of the classical piano repertoire in abridged versions that cut the "dull parts" and liberally added orchestrations. Liberace's heterodox practices predictably outraged prominent music critics, who ridiculed his performances and eventually deemed him the incarnation of kitsch. Turning from aesthetic criticism to an archaeological analysis of media, I examine the presentation of classical music in _The Liberace Show_ through the theory of remediation formulated by Jay Bolter and Richard Grusin. As per Bolter and Grusin, remediation entails the "representation of one medium in another," a transmedial process predicated on a "double logic" that seeks to "erase all traces of mediation in the very act of multiplying them."
Analyzing archival videos, I show how the radical alterations exerted on piano music by Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, and Liszt were inextricably tied to the telegenic mise-en-scènes staged for each episode, adapting the music to the syntax of television within the new media landscape emerging in the 1950s. Applying Bolter and Grusin's theory, I discuss how the show remediated not only the classical pieces performed by Liberace but more importantly, his live entertainer persona to nurture an intimate bond with home viewers that became captivated by the host's charming presence. I contend that this dual remediation of musical text and televisual persona drastically collapsed the specificity of performance medium that modern critics construed as immanent to the work-concept. This collapse of medium specificity substantiated an audiovisual conception of piano performance that dramatized the musical continuum in the cinematic fashion of Hollywood Golden Age's melodramas. 
My analysis concludes by scrutinizing how the show cut and reshuffled the form of each piece, manipulating the sensuous temporality elicited by the music to deliver the new kind of domestic immediacy enabled by television. I ultimately argue that in their iconoclastic difference, Liberace's audiovisual remediations disclose that musical form itself is a technology that manipulates time through sound and media in order to afford memorable experiences of immediacy.

There is nothing inherently gendered about stereo equipment. Midcentury issues of _High Fidelity_ magazine, however, would have the readers believe differently. An advertisement for Pilot Stereo in January 1960 proclaims that, "Pilot Stereo components are all 'men.' Each is a strong link in any system. Each is as responsive an instrument as you could demand." This quip correlates modular audio technology, masculine strength, and the male homosocial bonding opportunities that emerged through engagement with high fidelity (hi-fi) technology. Modular audio systems-or systems in which components such as the amplifier, receiver, and speakers are sold separately-permitted hi-fi enthusiasts to mix-and-match equipment and customize their home listening experience. Advertisements for components appealed to the reader's ability to discern quality equipment and encouraged audiophiles to audition, discuss, and tinker with devices. Rhetoric throughout _High Fidelity_ points to the formation of audile techniques specific to home audio. These techniques privileged listening to systems that could produce a wide frequency range at a high volume, but with minimal noise from the equipment. Audio enthusiasts considered hum and distortion annoyances that required repair, either by adjusting settings or replacing components. Despite the apparent normalization of hi-fi sound, magazine contributors also encouraged development of individual listening preferences and framed hi-fi systems as an expression of a man's skills and tastes.   
In this presentation, I analyze the rhetoric and images used in advertisements for modular components to shed light on the masculinized listening techniques that formed around home audio equipment. I argue that the techniques modeled in _High Fidelity_ reproduced a constellation of masculinist constructions that emerged in the U.S. midcentury. A "Hi-Fi man" was affluent, technologically skilled, had refined taste, and the way he listened was a performance of these traits. Advertisements in _High Fidelity_ not only served to sell products, but also demonstrated how, when, where, with whom, and to what music the "Hi-Fi man" should listen. Drawing on work by Keir Keightley, Tim Anderson, Jonathan Sterne, Marc Perlman, and Michael Kimmel, I conclude that these constructions continue to influence gendered rhetoric and sound technology consumption today.