1) For your fourth blog post, you will write 300-500 words about a particular music video's context or contexts. In addition to the word count, you will embed the video into the post and incorporate at least two relevant hyperlinks. DUE: September 10 @ 12:30PM.
Below is a brief analysis of Jay-Z's "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)" and the manner in which it engages particular contexts. If it helps, you may use this as a general model for your own analysis. As you will discover, the analysis ends with some broad, unsubstantiated claims. But, as you will be doing with your video, consider the context. At 300-500 words, we do not have the space to necessarily prove everyone of our charges, but they at least should be plausible and appropriately integrated into the fabric of our writing. When we write our longer, full-length projects, these will be issues that will need to be further explored.
While, no doubt, Jay-Z's "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)" may be read through the lens of many different contexts, entering the text through a literary context can be quite beneficial. Specifically, the song employs the elegiac form (i.e. the elegy), which is a poetic sub-genre that tends to "be sad or melancholy" while simultaneously considering "the meaning of death and seek[ing] some sort of consolation" (Addonizio and Laux 41). Of course, the tone of Jay-Z's elegy is far from "melancholy"; in fact, when he sings "This is death of Auto-Tune/ a moment of silence," one cannot take these words as anything but satirical when they follow such lines as "This is anti-Auto-Tune/ death of the ring tone,/ This ain't for iTunes/ this ain't for sing-a-long." Not only does Jay-Z clearly state that his song is "anti-Auto-Tune," but he also ridicules many of the contemporary technologies surrounding today's mainstream music scene by associating them with the pitch-correcting program. But the aforementioned satire found within the video appears to alter the traditional tenets of the elegy; or, we could say Jay-Z undermines our expectations for this particular context, so as to skewer those hip-(h/p)op stars that rely on Auto-Tune when creating and producing their music.
But why would Jay-Z take aim at these "singers"? Why would he find the need to level an argument against performers such as T-Pain and Weezy (aka Lil' Wayne) that have "processed" their way to celebrity status? To answer this question, one must look more closely at what Auto-Tune actually does by shifting to a technological context. The program enables performers to digitally "correct" portions of their vocal track so that it will be pitched at the same frequency as the instrumental tracks. This, ultimately, has two major ramifications: 1) the voice one hears in an Auto-Tuned song is not the singer's "authentic" voice, and 2) pitch correction homogenizes vocal tracks so that voices that were initially disparate become rather similar to one another. While the "authenticity game" played by Jay-Z can lead to many problems (not just in the world of popular culture, but also in the academic world), he rightly concerns himself with the negation of difference and the manner in which such practices can lead to not just a less vibrant culture and society, but to the oppression and domination of marginalized groups in all areas of life.
Addonizio, Kim and Dorianne Laux. The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997.
2) Come prepared for Thursday's class session to discuss the types of rhetorical strategies and appeals at work in "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)." Specifically, I would like us to focus on ethos, pathos, and logos. CDA covers these terms in chapter 4 and at greater length in chapter 7.
Below is a brief analysis of Jay-Z's "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)" and the manner in which it engages particular contexts. If it helps, you may use this as a general model for your own analysis. As you will discover, the analysis ends with some broad, unsubstantiated claims. But, as you will be doing with your video, consider the context. At 300-500 words, we do not have the space to necessarily prove everyone of our charges, but they at least should be plausible and appropriately integrated into the fabric of our writing. When we write our longer, full-length projects, these will be issues that will need to be further explored.
While, no doubt, Jay-Z's "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)" may be read through the lens of many different contexts, entering the text through a literary context can be quite beneficial. Specifically, the song employs the elegiac form (i.e. the elegy), which is a poetic sub-genre that tends to "be sad or melancholy" while simultaneously considering "the meaning of death and seek[ing] some sort of consolation" (Addonizio and Laux 41). Of course, the tone of Jay-Z's elegy is far from "melancholy"; in fact, when he sings "This is death of Auto-Tune/ a moment of silence," one cannot take these words as anything but satirical when they follow such lines as "This is anti-Auto-Tune/ death of the ring tone,/ This ain't for iTunes/ this ain't for sing-a-long." Not only does Jay-Z clearly state that his song is "anti-Auto-Tune," but he also ridicules many of the contemporary technologies surrounding today's mainstream music scene by associating them with the pitch-correcting program. But the aforementioned satire found within the video appears to alter the traditional tenets of the elegy; or, we could say Jay-Z undermines our expectations for this particular context, so as to skewer those hip-(h/p)op stars that rely on Auto-Tune when creating and producing their music.
But why would Jay-Z take aim at these "singers"? Why would he find the need to level an argument against performers such as T-Pain and Weezy (aka Lil' Wayne) that have "processed" their way to celebrity status? To answer this question, one must look more closely at what Auto-Tune actually does by shifting to a technological context. The program enables performers to digitally "correct" portions of their vocal track so that it will be pitched at the same frequency as the instrumental tracks. This, ultimately, has two major ramifications: 1) the voice one hears in an Auto-Tuned song is not the singer's "authentic" voice, and 2) pitch correction homogenizes vocal tracks so that voices that were initially disparate become rather similar to one another. While the "authenticity game" played by Jay-Z can lead to many problems (not just in the world of popular culture, but also in the academic world), he rightly concerns himself with the negation of difference and the manner in which such practices can lead to not just a less vibrant culture and society, but to the oppression and domination of marginalized groups in all areas of life.
Works Cited
Addonizio, Kim and Dorianne Laux. The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997.
2) Come prepared for Thursday's class session to discuss the types of rhetorical strategies and appeals at work in "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)." Specifically, I would like us to focus on ethos, pathos, and logos. CDA covers these terms in chapter 4 and at greater length in chapter 7.
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