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 Where Credit is Due
Cultural Practices of Recorded Music

Bas Jansen

Where Credit is Due: Cultural Practices of Recorded Music. Bas Jansen

 Bas Jansen

Where Credit is Due:

Cultural Practices of Recorded Music.
This research was supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scienctific
Research (NWO) and was part of the research project “Sound Technologies
and Cultural Practices”.

Printed by Proefschrift Maken / BOXPress BV, Oisterwijk

Layout: Alyanne de Haan
Cover front based on a picture by K. Vohsen (this picture is not covered by the creative
commons licence, all rights reserved K. Vohsen)

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0

Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit [Link]
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WHERE CREDIT IS DUE: CULTURAL PRACTICES OF RECORDED MUSIC.

ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT

ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor

aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam

op gezag van de Rector Magnificus

prof. dr. D.C. van den Boom

ten overstaan van een door het college voor promoties ingestelde

commissie, in het openbaar te verdedigen in de Agnietenkapel

op woensdag 16 februari 2011, te 12:00 uur

door Bastiaan Gerrit Jansen

geboren te Driebergen
Promotor: Professor Doctor J. T. F. M. van Dijck
Promotor: Professor Doctor K. T. Bijsterveld

Overige leden:

Professor T. DeNora BA, M.A., PhD

Doctor A. Fickers
Professor Doctor R. de Groot
Doctor H. J. Honing
Professor Doctor P. P. R. W. Pisters

Faculteit Geesteswetenschappen
 Contents

Acknowledgements 9


Chapter 1: Pop Music Production in the Digital Age: Old Ideas and
New Realities. 11
Introduction 12
The music industry’s line of argument: theme and variations 13
Hating the industry 16
A tacit metaphysics of musical communication 17
Level playing fields, generalized artistry, agency 19
Sharing economies 23
A cultural practices approach 24

Chapter 2: How the Pop Musician Became a (New) Romantic Hero. 27

Introduction 28
Empfindsamkeit and emotional communication 28
Romantic high art and the sacralization of the artist 32
A tale of two music industries, part I: sheet music 34
A tale of two music industries, part 2: gramophone records 37
How the rock musician became a romantic hero 42
Conclusion 45

Chapter 3: Concepts and Cases. 49

Introduction 50
The concept of cultural practices 50
The agency problem 52
The selection of the cases 54
The analysis, part I: mix taping 55
The analysis, part II: ccMixter 57
The analysis, part III: deejaying 60
Chapter 4: Creators or Criminals: The Case of Mix Taping. 63
Introduction 64
Looking back on a past practice 65
How mix taping became an art 66
What makes mix taping an art? 67
Mix taping as creation: the quest for coherence 70
The mix tape as a personal gift 74
A musical education 77
Taping for oneself 80
Conclusion 82

Chapter 5: Contributions and Attributions: The Case of ccMixter. 85

Introduction 86
About remixing 87
About the creative commons movement 89
What ccMixter looks like 92
A capella-based remixing 98
Collaboration and the commercial product: the case of Calendar Songs100
The ccMixter attribution paradox 102
Attribution, and the genealogical relation between works 103
Generous praise 105
Gratitude and modesty 109
Three generalized roles: remixer, reviewer, genealogist 111
Conclusions 113

Chapter 6: From Making Things to Making Things Happen:

Vinyl, Digital Media and the Practice of Deejaying. 115
Introduction 116
The DJs interviewed 116
DJs in the academic literature, and beyond 118
The charms of the gramophone record 122
Archeologists and reference persons 126
The role of the selector 130
The energetics of partying 133
Conclusion 137
Chapter 7: Conclusion 141
The credit question and two ways of solving it  142
The details of practices matter  144
Styles of credit-giving keep practices going 146
A foregrounding of the creator obscures the importance of 
other kinds of contributors 147
The commercial theory of appropriate credit may put pressure 
on styles of credit-giving 149
A remark about technology 150
A remark about cultural practices 151
Persisting romanticisms 152
A final observation 153

Nederlandstalige Samenvatting (Dutch summary) 157

Summary 167

Appendix A: The Analyzed Mix Tape Stories and their Numbering 177
Stories from Mix Tape, The art of cassette culture,
edited by Thurston Moore 177
Stories from weblogs 178
Stories from the website [Link] 180

Appendix B: The DJs Interviewed 183

Appendix C: The Original Dutch for the Citations Taken 

from DJ Interviews 185

References 195
 Acknowledgements

To acknowledge the help of others is always important, but in a dissertation discussing

the importance of credit-giving it is perhaps even more so. As someone who tends to retreat
into solitude when the going gets tough, I have not made it particularly easy for others to be of
assistance. However, several colleagues have managed to do so anyway, by giving suggestions
for literature and engaging in clarifying discussions on my research. In this regard, I want to
mention Monika Röther, Melanie Schiller, David Nieborg, Laura Schuster, Carolyn Birdsall,
and Jennifer Steetskamp. I would like to thank Martijn de Waal for granting me permanent
access to his prodigious collection of relevant books.

Drafts and early versions of my writing were discussed in sound scholar meetings in
Maastricht, and during the open peer review sessions that preceded the publishing of the
book Sound Souvenirs: Audio Technologies, Memory, and Cultural Practices (Bijsterveld & van
Dijck 2009). I want to thank Ruth Benschop, Wiebe Bijker, Jonathan Sterne, Micheal Bull,
Trevor Pinch, Timothy D. Taylor, Susan Schmidt Horning, Hans-Joachim Braun, Andreas
Fickers, Heike Weber, and Annelies Jacobs for their supportive, yet sharp commentary.

I would like to express my gratitude to the DJs interviewed for their time and candor.
Also, I would like to thank three people who have been very active in helping me come into
contact with DJs. They are Ruth Wolters, Jochem Verdonk, and Maurice Langenhoff.

I thank the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) for funding the
project “Sound Technologies and Cultural Practices” of which my own research has been a
part. Many thanks go to my supervisors José van Dijck and Karin Bijsterveld for their expert
guidance throughout this difficult project. Their discerning commentary and their firm belief
in a positive result were essential to the completion of this dissertation.

I would also like to thank my friends, my parents, and my sisters for their support
and their patience. To my paranymphs Melanie Schiller and Sophie Prins, who will stand at
my side as I defend the study below, go many thanks in advance. Finally, I want to thank my
girlfriend Alyanne de Haan for doing the DTP on this text, and for keeping an eye on my
health and sanity, but above all for love. Thank you.
10
 Chapter 1

Pop Music Production in the Digital

Age: Old Ideas and New Realities.

The received wisdom is that:

- The internet has democratised communications, so that in the digital age, all
information, including music, is going to be free
- The business model of record companies is broken. That they’re dinosaurs
that haven’t evolved and don’t deserve to survive
- And that would be a good thing for music and our culture because they were
parasites anyway.
(…) It’s up to us to explain why those points of view are wrong, why we’ve got
an exciting future as a business, one that will benefit not just for those who
make music, but everyone that loves music.
~ Geoff Taylor 1

This song is copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright 154085, for a period of
28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty
good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it.
Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.
~ Woody Guthrie (Leadbeater 2008: 58)

[T]here are systems of value other than, or in addition to, money, that are very
important to people: connecting with other people, creating an online identity,
expressing oneself – and, not least, garnering people’s attention.
~ Caterina Fake (Tapscott and Williams 2008: 206)

1: Geoff Taylor “The Role of Record Labels in the Digital Age: BPI Speech, 9 juli 2008.”
[Link] Available 08-31-2009.

11
Introduction

We used to know how pop music production worked. An artist created a song, or at
least received admiration for doing the creative part; a music industry took care of the busi-
ness side of the process; and consumers applauded the artist, provided money for the whole
transaction, and in return got to listen to music they liked. Then, after digital music technolo-
gies had been around for a short while, they turned out to have a great impact on this state of
affairs. Now, every enthusiast can home record. Sampling and manipulating preexisting music
have become much easier. Distributing music has gone from being expensive and difficult to
being easy and virtually free. To the chagrin of some and the delight of others, the question
how pop music production works no longer has a self-evident answer.
Practices, habitual ways of doing or organizing something, come with agreed-upon
ways of understanding them. Such ways of understanding are necessarily simplifications,
which generalize away a host of particularities. The traditional idea of pop music produc-
tion described above is such a simplification. For example, it divides the practice of pop
music production among three types of participants with clearly defined, separate roles. In
actuality things are not so orderly, as a by now vast corpus of literature attacking clear-cut
producer/consumer divisions makes clear (e.g. Willis et al.1990, Fiske 1995, Croteau 2006,
Jenkins 2006, Bruns 2008). Also, the traditional idea of pop music production describes
pop music production as something essentially static and fixed, while its actuality changes
continuously.
This agreed-upon way of understanding the practice of commercial pop music pro-
duction is not merely a benign simplification. It is also a habit of mind, a set of assumptions
that often seems so self-evident that it slips below the radar of critical thought and is left
uninvestigated. It is, in short, normalized. Furthermore, it is a set of assumptions which serves
the interests of some parties better than those of others. In current copyright debates, in fact,
the established idea of pop music production is one of the strongest weapons of the traditional
music industry. However, this received wisdom is in decline. The copyright debates are gradu-
ally stripping away the self-evidence of the ideas just outlined. Their demise is an opportunity
for competing theories of (pop) music production to gain influence.
Society’s ideas on pop music production, then, are changing. The objective of this
dissertation is to investigate a specific question, as well as the answers already explored. The
question, in its most succinct form, is the following: who receives what kind of reward or
acknowledgement for doing what in popular music culture? Or, in other words, what roles or
functions are performed in popular music culture, and how is ‘credit’ given to the actors who
perform them?
According to the traditional view, this is a simple question. The artist deserves both
admiration and money for her efforts, the industry deserves a financial reward inasmuch
as it provides a useful service to both artist and consumer (opinions differ), and consumers
provide these payments. This answer, however, never comfortably fitted the reality it
purportedly described. The current enthusiasm for new digital ways of engaging with music
offers a welcome opportunity to rethink it. It is best re-thought, I will argue, not by looking
for a single new overarching theory of pop music production, but by using a more piecemeal,
practice by practice, approach.

12
 In this chapter, I will first take a closer look at the traditional view of pop music
production. Subsequently, I will illustrate to what degree this view has been normalized. I will
do so by showing that even stern critics of the music industry have adhered to them. I then
discuss some of the novel ideas on pop music production, which are emerging in the wake
of the possibilities that new technologies offer, and point out places where I find these ideas
inadequate. I end this chapter with an explanation of the approach I advocate, and which I
will use throughout my dissertation.

The music industry’s line of argument: theme and variations

“PIRACY KILLS CREATIVITY” is the slogan of an anti-piracy campaign started by

a coalition of recording industry associations in Norway in 2008.2 Adding force to the catch-
phrase is a logo representing a pair of headphones laid out to resemble a skull. There is some-
thing paradoxical about this campaign. On the one hand, the slogan and logo present the risk
of piracy as a matter of great urgency. On the other hand, these eye-catchers have an almost
nostalgic feel to them. They echo a well-known and much parodied campaign launched by
the British Phonographic Industry in the 1980s. In that campaign, a tape cassette was made
to resemble a skull, and the slogan read: “HOME TAPING IS KILLING MUSIC. And it’s
illegal”(Moore 2004: 10).
This example is characteristic of an entire discourse on music recording and piracy.
The arguments advanced by the music industry in the current copyright debates are variations
on a single theme. Let me cite a brief to the Supreme Court from the case of MGM studios vs.
P2P software provider Grokster in 2005. It states this theme in a complete yet concise way:

If the work of creators is not protected, and is used around the world without
just payment, it is very likely that, in the end, neither the creator nor the copy-
right holder will be able to continue to make this work available. The losers will
not only be the artists whose talent and hard work is the creative heart on each
screen, TV and Ipod; but also the very audience that enjoys quality movies,
music and television.3

The music industry casts itself in the role of the provider of an indispensible service. If this
service is discontinued, artists, consumers, and even music itself will suffer.
This is a remarkably old argument. It was already in use in the first decade of the
twentieth century, before there was much in the way of a phonographic industry. Publishers of
sheet music put it forward in defense against the music pirates of their age, who used photo-
lithography to make cheap reproductions of the scores of popular songs. When things looked
bleakest for the music publishers, they tried to show how indispensible they were. Historian
Adrian Johns writes: “Backed into a corner, the publishers finally made a desperate gamble.
They announced that piracy had grown so endemic that they could no longer justify investing

2:  Piracy Kills Creativity [Link] Available 09-02-2009.

3:  “Internet Piracy Hurts Individual Creators, Not Just “Industries”, Say the Entertainment Unions”
[Link] [Link] Available 09-02-2009.

13
in any new works whatsoever. The entire music publishing industry shut down” (Johns 2002:
76). As it turned out, however, the sheet music industry made this ‘desperate gamble’ on the
eve of their victory, because taking pirates to court for conspiracy soon afterwards proved a
successful legal strategy.
Stern warnings against the treat of piracy reappeared half a century later. The sheet
music industry was by this time a mere shadow of its former self, and its successor, the pho-
nographic industry, faced its first piratical challenge in the form of the tape recorder. In a
1962 article in the German music retail journal Musikmarkt (Music Market), the argument is
restated as follows:

[T]he danger raises itself that the creators will loose a very large part of their
revenue for their creations, and, in the commercial area, for their products.
This road, thought to its logical conclusion, would necessarily lead to a
substantial shrinking of the record producers’ capacity to record, on which all
others involved in this area are to a large degree dependent for their livelihood.4

After this, the recording industry has successively worried about tape cassettes, DAT
tapes, CD-r’s, P2P download services, and streaming media, always relying on the same argu-
ment: if revenue is withheld, investing in the creation, recording, and distribution of music
becomes impossible. Now let me look at some of the assumptions which underlie this line of
argument. There are five points to which I would like to draw attention.
The discourse described above conceptualizes the problem of copyright protection
as one that affects three main types of players. They describe the ‘creator’ as the one who
generates the value in question. Then there are the consumers who enjoy quality content.
Finally, there is the music industry, sometimes referred to as the ‘copyright holders’, who play
a mediating role between the creator and these consumers. This mediating role works in two
directions. The industry brings artistic works from creator to audience and it brings revenue
from audience to artist. This description of pop music production provides the foundation
for the claim that the music industry plays an indispensable role in pop music production,
without which the whole system would collapse to the detriment of creators, industry, and
consumers alike.
Second, among these three categories, the category of artists or creators is given a spe-
cial position. They are not only revered by the audience, but they are also pushed forward by
the music industry (Marshall 2005: 142-6, Haynes 2005: 56). To give an example, in May 2006,
the NVPI (Dutch Society for the Phonographic Industry) launched the “True Fan” campaign.
This campaign tried to attract the audience to ‘legal’ downloading (in Holland, downloading
copyrighted content was at this point not actually illegal, although uploading was) by imply-
ing that this is what a ‘true fan’ does. The website is now defunct. The obvious reason for the
industry’s ‘artist first’ strategy is that the music industry is not very popular with the audience,
whereas the artist is. With its slogan, “Paid downloading: it creates a connection”, the NVPI
played on fan’s desires to connect with their favorite artist.5

4:  “Schallplattenindustrie hofft nun auf den Bundestag” Der Musikmarkt 4(5): 6. My translation
5:  “Truefan Campagne” [Link] [Link] Available 09-02-2009.
“Truefan” [Link] [Link] Available 09-02-2009.

14
 Third, the artist is not only placed in the forefront by the music industry, but is also
referred to in a particular vocabulary. Its central terms are ‘artist’, ‘creator’, and ‘talent’. These
words recur incessantly throughout music industry websites and in the briefs from the music
industry submitted in intellectual property court cases. This vocabulary invites a romantic
conceptualization of the pop musician (Marshall 2005). Set apart from audience members by
her talent, the artist is “the creative heart” of the production of media content, that is, the one
who makes it all come alive. She provides the magic, the immaterial value. The industry tries
to achieve a positive reputation for itself by rhetorically placing itself at the service of the artist
and her inspiration. As the site “Pro-Music” puts it:

Making music begins with an inspired idea for a song. But it doesn’t stop
there. Every song released is a collaborative process involving lots of people
with many different skills and talents. And they all share the same passion –
releasing a great track.6

Fourth, this romantic conceptualization of the artist tends to value originals over
derivative works, as becomes quite clear, for instance, when one reads the briefs of the 2003
U.S. Supreme Court case of Eldred vs. Ashcroft. Online publisher Eric Eldred challenged the
constitutionality of the so-called Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA). He
argued that further extension of copyright would atrophy the public domain and stifle the
creation of derivative works. The brief for the respondent argues:

Ultimately, petitioners wish to displace Congress’s preference for copyright-

based dissemination of works during the CTEA’s prescribed term, and instead
to allow indiscriminate exploitation by public domain copyists like petitioners.
(…) [P]etitioners assert a novel constitutional right to exploit others’ creative
expression.7

Fifth and last, another important corollary to the romantic view of the artist is the
presumption that she does not create for profit, but from an inner need for (self-) expression.
The audience pays for musical works, then, not so much to reward artists as to facilitate them.
Revenue enables artists to devote themselves to creation full-time. In terms of the citation
from the MGM vs. Grokster case above, if revenue is withheld: “the creator (…) will [not] be
able to continue to make this work available” (italics mine).
These assumptions underscore the traditional view of pop music production, which
allows the music industry to make its case persuasively. For most of the music industry’s his-
tory, these assumptions were not seriously challenged at all. On the contrary, debates between
the industry and its antagonists tended to reinforce these assumptions.

6:  “What Does it Take?” Pro-Music [Link]

Available 09-02-2009.
7:  Olson, T.B., McCallum, [Link]., Wallace, L.G., Lamken, J.A., Kanter, W. and J.S. Koppel (2002) “Brief for the
Respondent” [Eric Eldred, et al. v. John D. Ashcroft, Attorney General of the United States. 537 U.S. 186], 7, 46.
Available at “Open Law: Eldred v. Ashcroft” Berkman Center for Internet and Society
[Link] Available 09-02-2009.

15
Hating the industry

Throughout the history of recorded music, the unpopularity of the music industry has
been a constant corollary to the admiration for music artists. Geoff Taylor, Chief Executive
of the British Phonographic Industry, notes that ‘humans are a musical species’, and then
laments: “If only our Creator had gone the extra mile and hard-wired people to love the music
industry, my job would be an awful lot easier.”8 The current enthusiasm for a participatory
music culture, however, is a recent phenomenon. Older critiques of the music industry tend
to follow a different line of argument. They present the relation between artist and industry as
one that is of necessity strained, and they take the side of the artist against the industry.
Many examples of this kind of critique could be given,9 but I want to focus on a single
highly illustrative example, namely the concept album The Shaming of the True by the rela-
tively unknown late progressive rock musician Kevin Gilbert.10 It tells the tale of the musical
career of fictitious pop artist Johnny Virgil, and moves in a gray area between the uncom-
promisingly satirical and the generally bleak. Sticking closely to the rules of the genre of the
musical, it starts off with a ‘want-song’, titled “Parade”, in which the protagonist voices his
ambitions:

My name is Johnny Virgil, I play this here guitar

I play it for myself.
Got a heart that’s full of music, a head that’s full of songs
Got a love for nothing else.

Immediately at the start then, the idea of expressivism, of creation from an inner drive,
which we encountered in the previous section, is evoked. However, to express himself and to
share the content of his ‘creative heart’ is not Johnny’s only ambition. A heroic drive towards
‘great deeds’ and an ‘eternal life on the tongues of others’ is also present: “My name is Johnny
Virgil, and I’m gonna be a Star. Gonna get my share of fame.”
In “City of the Sun”, Johnny encounters the music industry officials and learns their
opinion: “Wash all that magic from your hands. Make it so we might understand.” The indus-
try wants to make a commercial product out of Johnny Virgil’s art, and an auctorial voice
warns him: “Oh Johnny, you’ve got a seed in your head. It’s the seed of your demise. Ambition
is gonna lure you away into the land of compromise.” The song “Suit Fugue (Dance of the A&R
Men)” is a carefully crafted piece of baroque-style counterpoint, in which one record indus-
try official after another joins in with the voices on Johnny Virgil’s answering machine, first
presenting a friendly face to get him to sign, and then attempting to interfere with the artistic
process. After two fugatic expositions, the A&R men form a background choir (“patronize,
patronize, pass the buck, pass the buck, weadle weadle weadle weadle, sell sell sell sell”) and
Johnny gives in to their pressure: “My name is Johnny Virgil, I play this here guitar… Ah fuck
it. My name is Johnny Virgil, I’m gonna be a star.”

8:  Geoff Taylor “The Role of Record Labels in the Digital Age: BPI Speech, 9 juli 2008.” [Link]
Available 08-31-2009.
9:  See for instance Albini, S. “The Problem with Music” [Link] Available 09-02-2009,
Love, C (2000). “Courtney Love does the Math” [Link]
10:  Gilbert, K. (2000). THE SHAMING OF THE TRUE, The Estate of Kevin Gilbert.

16
 Songs that follow satirize the careful stylization of artists (‘Image Maker’) and the
pitching of song ideas (‘Certifiable Number One Smash’). Johnny becomes a rising star.
Psychologically, however, he pays a heavy price for his willingness to compromise: “Here I
am again with everything that I could want and I am empty. With the blanket of approval and
the slaps upon my back and I am empty.” As he realizes that it is all empty, Johnny suffers a
breakdown, submits numbly to narcotic and sexual escapades (‘Fun’), and comes close to a
complete mental breakdown (‘The Ghetto of Beautiful Things’). Meanwhile, he searches fran-
tically for ways to pull himself out of the swamp of the mundane and trivial, and to reestablish
contact with something of genuine (immaterial) value: “I’m looking for a new love to show me
the way. To laugh at tomorrow and live today.” At the end our hero emerges from this private
hell, not heroic, but forgotten:

My name is Johnny Virgil. I used to be a star.

It was a long long time ago.
Sometimes I hear my records in the wee hours of the night
On the oldies radio.
People sometimes ask me for the secret of success.
I tell them what I know
Believe in what you’re doing, remember who you are
And who knows where you’ll go.

However critical this album is of the commercial production of pop music, it shares
all the cliché assumptions that I identified in the previous section, which enable the music
industry to legitimatize its practices. When both sides in a discussion entertain certain
presuppositions, then it becomes very unlikely that these will be critically investigated. Thus,
proponents and opponents of the music industry alike have contributed to the ‘normalization’
of a certain view of pop music production, and reinforced it as a paradigm that is seldom
questioned or investigated. Before I discuss contemporary challenges to this habitual view, let
me describe it in more detail.

A tacit metaphysics of musical communication

Both the music industry and its critics used to agree that pop music production was
about three main types of actors, namely artists, music industry workers, and consumers.
They agreed, furthermore, that the highest status rightfully belonged to the artist. They both
conceptualized the artist in romantically derived terminology. They jointly placed the artist
at the very start of the production process, where she enjoyed the special status of a creator,
or genius, in the original sense of the word. And finally, they both held the view that the artist
presumptively created from an inner drive or need. What constitutes the common ground
of these assumptions? I want to argue that it is a theory of pop music production, to which
people generally do not subscribe overtly, but which tends to be implicit in their thinking. It is
most easily explained by tracing the material and the immaterial aspects of music production.
Imagine the artist and the consumer of music as opposite ends of a sender-receiver
diagram. A mediating industry stands in between. The artist, being the ‘creative heart’ of the

17
music industry, is capable, because of her talent, to take something immaterial - inspiration
or emotion - and to encode that into a song. This immaterial good is subsequently placed
in a material (or virtual) carrier and distributed to a consumer. These mundane, material
aspects of the process are the task of the industry. The consumer, at the other end, decodes the
message, that is, she extracts the immaterial value (the inspiration, the emotion) from its
material carrier and is thereby touched on an immaterial level.
This implicit theory of music production and consumption has important conse-
quences. First, it tends to value originality over derivation, especially in songwriting, but to
some extent also in performance. The artist, according to this theory, is at the start of the
communicative process, ‘breathing life’ into an original song. If she derives her work from
previous sources, this dilutes her status as the sender, and, by consequence, it dilutes the status
of the work as the artist’s (self-) expression.
To be sure, this is not to say that a preference for originals holds sway over every respect
of pop music culture. Many artists proudly name their ‘influences’ and their indebtedness to
a tradition, often switching fluidly between the veneration of predecessors and the exaltation
of originality. In the next chapter, I will explain this ambiguous attitude historically from the
double roots of the contemporary view of the pop music artist in originality-oriented art
schools and tradition-oriented music styles such as blues and R‘n’B. However, the implicit
theory of pop music culture outlined above makes references to the superiority of original
over derivative works seem self-evident.
Second, the theory presumes the artist’s role as sender in an act of communication.
The artist is someone who wants to say something, to express herself, to share something of
immaterial value. Questions of revenue belong to the material level of the industry, and are
supposedly not what drives the artist. In fact, pop music culture tends to value artists more
when they are deemed to be ‘authentic’, operating from a drive towards creative expression,
and to value artists less when they are perceived to be ‘commercial’, if they are ‘in it for the
money’. Aside from originality, then, the idea of creation resulting from an intrinisic drive is
part of our commonsense standards for artistic excellence.
Third, according to this theory there is an unbreakable connection between an artist
and her work, because the immaterial value it holds will always remain her message. In the
period when these intuitions reached their contemporary form, that is, in the later 1960s,
consumers purchased, and then owned, a material carrier (a record). This carrier was then
their property, but it was only a means of access to songs – to the artist’s personal expression -
which they clearly did not own. Intellectual property is a strange kind of property. I pay for
a song, but it does not become mine. It is still the artist’s song. The expressivist intuition is
therefore of great benefit to the recording industry. But it also requires some careful rhetorical
maneuvering. A song may officially be the intellectual property of a record company and/or a
music publisher, but commonsensically it belongs to the artist. The appropriate attribution is
to the artist, not to the company. To keep this inconsistency from becoming too obvious, the
industry places the artist in a central position, and presents itself as her servant, who merely
takes the burden of the mundane technicalities of copyright from her shoulders.
Fourth, and most importantly, this implicit theory of music production provides an
answer to the question of who deserves what kind of credit for what efforts. It is this ‘distribu-
tion of credit’, which will be my main concern throughout this dissertation. According to the
implicit theory underlying the rhetoric of the music industry, the proper division is as follows:

18
 -- The industry takes care of the material aspects of music production. It provides a
service. For this, it deserves a financial reward.

-- The artist provides the immaterial value that makes the whole process worthwhile.
As explained above, the artist is apparently not ‘in it for the money’. Paradoxically,
she deserves a financial reward precisely for this reason. Revenue frees the artist from
trivial worries about the necessity of bringing home the bacon, and facilitates her
creativity. Her real reward, however, is lofty and immaterial like the value she
produces. It is the love and admiration of her audience.

-- The consumer reaps the benefit of both the immaterial value and its material carrier
(or more contemporary form of access), and must give two kinds of credit in return,
namely money to both artist and industry, and admiration only to the artist.

Older critics of the music industry such as Kevin Gilbert, whom I discussed in the previous
section, agree with what this theory says about the relation between the artist and the con-
sumer. It is the role of the industry they call into question.
This view is the result of a long history of thinking about music production, which I
will sketch out in the next chapter. Also, it is a view which is contingent on a particular prac-
tice of music production. The line of argument of the music industry is intended to keep this
practice alive by playing upon intuitions rooted in that very practice, and by presenting them
as self-evident unchanging truths. If the argument is accepted, then only one kind of music
practice is legitimate, namely the commercial production of music according to the industry’s
traditional business model. If commercial tributism is not accepted, however, a wide variety
of music practices are legitimate, each with its own ideas on what is an appropriate distribu-
tion of credit.
For the sake of convenience and clarity, allow me to make some terminological dis-
tinctions. Below, I will refer to the above theory of the material and immaterial aspects of the
trajectory of music as the “romantic metaphysics of musical communication”. I will discuss
its historical roots in the next chapter. To the traditional music industry’s answer to the credit
question, which I stated above in three points, I will refer as “the commercial theory of appro-
priate credit”. I will call the answer to the credit-question implicit in older criticisms of the
music industry, such as Kevin Gilbert’s, “the anti-commercial theory of appropiate credit”. In
general, a “theory of appropriate credit” as I will use the term, is any overarching answer to the
credit question, which is assumed to apply to all of pop music culture. Now, I turn to some of
the new ideas, which are emerging as commercial tributism is under pressure.

Level playing fields, generalized artistry, agency

In the space opened up by the gradual demise of the traditional view of pop music
production, new ideas are taking root. But whereas the rhetoric of the music industry has
been uniform, the collection of ideas competing to replace it is varied and complex, even if the
stark opposition between two camps in the copyright debates has the effect of making it look
more like a single, coherent movement. Among what the British Phonographic Industry’s

19
chief executive Geoff Taylor calls “the digital utopians,” we find both social activists who exalt
new opportunities for grassroots collaboration (Leadbeater 2008, Shirky 2008), and market
theorists who explain how a company can take advantage of all web 2.0 has to offer (Tapscott
and Williams 2008, Li and Bernoff 2008). There is a surge of enthusiasm for, amongst other
things, remix culture and engagement through reuse (Lütticken 2002, Bourriaud c.s. 2005,
Lessig 2008), for the erosion of the boundaries between consumption and production
(Croteau 2006, Jenkins 2006, Bruns 2008), and for online opportunities for collective action
(Jenkins 2006, Benkler 2007, Leadbeater 2008, Shirky 2008), and although these themes are
surely related, they are not the same thing. Moreover, there is a growing number of dissenting
voices, who either criticize the new developments or try to add nuance to the enthusiasm
(Keen 2007, Berry 2008, Schäfer 2008, van Dijck 2009). In this section and the next, I will
discuss a selection of themes which return throughout this literature, chosen for their
relevance to my main topic, the question of the appropriate distribution of credit.
One recurrent idea is that digital music technologies have made the distribution of
music easy and virtually free, and that this allows artists to dispense with the ‘middle men’
of the music industry. This argument is mostly made in weblogs by practicing independent
musicians, and often lacks the utopian flavor of the general discourse. Music blogger David
Rose writes:

I am a big proponent of the ‘direct to fan’ movement where artists by-pass the
traditional record label route and build a relationship directly with their fans.
There are now a large number of innovative, technology related options avail-
able to artists for directly reaching fans through online distribution, marketing,
commerce and viral promotions. Unfortunately, almost none of the companies
that have developed these wonderful tools have sustainable business models.11

And music blogger “Vivian” intimates:

Seriously though, when I think back on the stranglehold record companies

have had on the music industry for the last 60 years or so, I’d say all in all, I
absolutely prefer things the way they are now with this much more level playing
field.12

Notice that this response to the current situation does not seriously rethink any of the
elements of the traditonal view of pop music production or its traditional critique. The rea-
soning still involves a radical boundary between a creative artist, conceived of in romantically
derived terminology, and a passive consumer. The question remains whether the industry
deserves a place in between these two parties. According to some advocates of a more level
playing field, copyright law, too, must be rethought, because in its current form “[c]opyright
also accentuates inequality between music makers, especially between stars and small-time

11:  Rose, D. “To a Mother Concerned About File-Sharing” [Link]: Community Powered
Knowledge [Link]
[Link] Available 09-03-2009.
12:  ‘Vivian.’ “File Sharing and its Effects on the Music Bizz.” The Adventures of an Indie Star.
[Link] Available 09-03-2009.

20
music makers” (Toynbee 2004: 124). Most importantly in the present context, the ideas on
appropriate credit remain utterly unchanged. Artists deserve admiration and financial facili-
tation, and the music industry deserves payment inasmuch as it provides a valuable service.
A more radical theme, which recurs throughout the discourse on the digital future
of pop music, is the idea that with these new technologies everyone can be an artist - that
is, everyone can express herself and make this expression available to the world. This idea
might be called “generalized artistry”, and it often appears in the margin of texts which central
concern is related (sharing economy, collective intelligence, prosumption, et cetera). Charles
Leadbeater, for example, writes about guitarists who post clips of their playing on YouTube
and who sometimes reach a large audience that way:

These guitarists are classic Pro Ams [professional amateurs, BJ]: they play for
the love of it, not for money or fame, but they play to extremely high standards,
enthusiastically learning from one another. It is now easier than ever for Pro
Ams in many fields to create, publish and share content – whether in the form
of film, software, or text. (...) That capacity for collective self-expression and
self-organisation creates new options for us to become organized, to get things
done together in new ways (Leadbeater 2008: 43).

This example also makes clear what is thought to motivate this practice of playing and
posting, namely the love of music itself, or a drive towards self-expression. Just like Johnny
Virgil in Kevin Gilbert’s concept album, these boys play this-here guitar, they play it for them-
selves. As rock band and cultural activists Negativland have it:

One thing that may shake out of this situation in the long term is that, if
payment for any and all music significantly diminishes, all the home studios
motivated for reasons other than profit will hang on and continue to produce
music much longer than the big, extravagant, corporate music factories will
ever care to do. (...) At any rate, music will not disappear under such conditions:
people will keep making it whether they’re paid or not.13

This way of thinking departs significantly from the received wisdom of the traditional
view of pop music production. The line between the realm of the artist and the producer
and that of the consumer becomes blurred. Even if it is not apparent in the citation above,
arguments of this kind tend to go together with denunciations of the cult of the original. Yet
in some respects, generalized artistry is a continuation of the traditional view. It retains the
aspect of expressivism, of creation from an inner need or drive, and makes it more radical
and general. In this perspective, the line between the authentic and the commercial artist
no longer seperates those who are in it for the money from those who may be financially
facillitated but who primarily make music for the love of music itself and/or for the love of
their audience. It distinguishes between those who stop creating when they no longer receive
financial recompense and those who persist.

13:  ‘Negativland’ (2005). “Two Relationships to a Cultural Public Domain” Available at:
[Link] Available 09-03-2009, pp. 6-7.

21
 The theme of generalized artistry, then, does not result from a rethinking of pop music
production from scratch. The romantic metaphysics of musical communication remains
intact. Like the traditional view of pop music production, generalized artistry comes with an
implicit stance on the appropriate distribution of credit for effort, albeit a very different one.
Creation, being its own reward, does not require any recompense, except, in some accounts,
the admiration of listeners (notice that this, too, reproduces an aspect of commercial and
anti-commercial tributism). As amateur musician ‘Steph’ comments in an online discussion:

I put everything I write on my website with a great big download button beside
it, because for me, payment is when I have someone come up to me after a show
or wherever and goes “I listened to this track here, and seriously, that rocked”.
(...) Those are the responses that should be the payment, because I am sorry,
sure it doesn’t put food on my table, (...) but that is worth more than getting a
couple of bucks per cd.14

There is a third theme which does not reproduce the expressivism of the traditional
view of pop music production, but which is still in a sense expressivist. I want to mention
it briefly here and devote more attention to it in the next chapter. The academic literature
which contributes to the copyright debates from a cultural studies oriented position tends to
emphasize the issue of agency, the freedom of cultural subjects to act (Terranova 2004, Oram,
ed. 2001, Gillespie 2007, Baym & Burnett 2009). For instance, McCann (2005) draws upon a
detailed study of copyright and traditional Irish music to develop a nuanced theory of what
he calls “enclosure”, and Gillespie (2007) discusses the threat of digital culture being “wired
shut”. Both papers, then, deal with the (perceived) possibilities for action in culture. They are
in favor of a culture that affords a great deal of agency and they are usually opposed to forces
which seek or tend to ‘lock culture down’.
There are two important similarities between the enthusiasm for agency of cultural
scholars and the generalized artistry discussed before. These are the facts that both favor
a participatory culture and focus on the need to remove the obstacles to participation. In
this way, both arguments implicitly reinforce the assumption that cultural participation is
motivated by an internal drive on the part of the actors. Participation does not need to be
stimulated; it merely needs to be enabled.
In this section, then, I have drawn attention to three of the new themes which are
emerging as the traditional view of pop music production is under increasing pressure, and
all three have something in common. They do not raise the question what motivates musical
creativity, and thus reinforce the idea that creativity is motivated by an internal need for self-
expression. In the remainder of this dissertation, I will challenge this idea. Before I explain
my alternative, however, let me discuss another recurrent theme in the literature on the future
of pop music production, one which explicitly addresses the motivations of creative activity.

14:  “To a Mother Concerned by File-Sharing” [Link]: The Website for Working Musicians
[Comment by ‘Steph’] [Link]
sharing/ Available 09-03-2009.

22
Sharing economies

Some of the utopian literature on web 2.0. and participatory culture betrays a surge of
new interest in the ideas of sharing and sharing economies. This idea is central, for instance
in Yochai Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks, Charles Leadbeater’s We-Think, and Lawrence
Lessig’s Re-mix, while being present, albeit less prominently, in other works (Barbrook 2002,
Benkler 2007, Leadbeater 2008, Lessig 2008, Shirky 2008). Among these, I find the book of
legal scholar and legal activist Lawrence Lessig the most interesting and instructive.
The first part of Lessig’s book sings the praises of the creative reuse of existing content,
and of the new technologies which have extended and proliferated the possibilities for such
creativity. It argues that copyright law should be reformed to make such creativity legal. This
part of the book, upon first reading, hovers mostly between the stances of generalized artistry
and pro-agency partisanism. There is a flavor of generalized artistry, for example in passages
such as: “The ways and reach of speech are now greater. More people can use a wider set of
tools to express ideas and emotions differently” (Lessig 2008: 83). But remixing should be
made legal, according to Lessig, not just for the sake of artistic expression. What is at stake is
a form of freedom:

We grew up taking for granted the freedoms we needed to practice our form
of writing. (...) Our kids want the same freedom for their forms of writing. For
not just words, but for images, film, and music. (...) It is continuous with what
has always been part of RW [read-write, BJ] culture – the literacy of text. But
it is more. It is the ability for amateurs to create in contexts that before only
professionals ever knew. (Lessig 2008: 107-108)

This freedom to create, this agency, is important to legalize, and even to actively
promote, according to Lessig, even apart from anyone’s inner need for self-expression. It
should be spread because the ability to manipulate different media is a form of literacy, which
enhances the cultural citizenship of those who use it. Previous generations got essay asign-
ments in school, which prompted students to use the medium of writing, not to help them
express their emotions and not in the hope that they would enrich culture with a brilliant text,
but as a means for learning to think critically and with nuance. New technologies, according
to Lessig, should at the least be allowed, and preferably actively be made to serve the same
function for today’s youth (Lessig 2008: 80-82).
In the latter half of the book, Lessig explicitly addresses the issue of motivation as
he looks at new forms of online collaboration. The viability of such collective projects as
Wikipedia, Linux software, or the Internet Archive depends on the willingness of a large
group of people to participate without payment. In answering the question what motivates
such participation, Lessig steps away from expressivism and introduces the concept of the
sharing economy. Implicated in this concept is the idea of reciprocity, albeit a reciprocity
which is not mediated by money. Sharing economies are practices of exchange, which tend
to be damaged or destroyed by the introduction of money, and to which perceptions of fair-
ness are crucial. Aside from “generalized exchange”, motivating factors can be showing off
to peers, intellectual stimulation, improving one’s own skills, or a belief in the project one is
contributing to. Lessig believes that in the future sharing economies will become markedly

23
more prominent. Commercial economies, however, will not disappear. What will result is a
hybrid economy, and to Lessig this is not just the most probable, but also the most preferable
solution.
Remarkably, the theme of remix creativity, of which the first part of the book is an
exaltation, is virtually absent in the second part. In fact, none of the many examples of sharing
economies that Lessig provides concern artistic creativity. Even ccMixter, the online remix
community which developed around the creative commons copyright licenses which Lessig
invented, is not mentioned in the context of sharing economies. In this way, Lessig’s book
provides an especially visible exemplification of something that is more hidden in other books
on digital sharing economies: sharing an artistic work you created may well not be the same as
sharing any other thing. The principles that made Wikipedia a success are quite possibly not
the same as those that make ccMixter work.
Artistic sharing and other types of contributing or participating, then, are two
different things. But instead of sticking to the idea of formulating a new overarching theory
of pop music production, which takes this complicating fact into account, I want to take a
different approach. It might be called a “natural setting approach”, with a reference to the
method that American psychologist Ulric Neisser advocated for his own discipline (Neisser
1976). Criticizing the cognitive psychology of his day for relying too much on experiments
in the laboratory, and for thus compromising its “ecological validity”, Neisser promoted
a renewed attention for the context in which everyday behavior occurs. My own “natural
setting approach” involves analyzing pop music culture one practice at a time, rather than
building a single overarching theory for this whole field. For this purpose I want to introduce
an important concept.

A cultural practices approach

The term “cultural practices” will have a central place in my argument and deserves
some explanation. The word “practices” refers to activities that people perform in a routinized
way, so that many aspects of how they perform and conceptualize these activities are taken
for granted. A focus on practices is a useful starting point for research because it is by way of
the habitual or customary aspect of practices that human activity becomes connected to par-
ticular tools and technologies, and to a discourse. The word “culture” refers to the aggregate
of ways people use symbols and concepts to understand the world around them, ascribing
meanings to this life-world which are shared and which appear to be self-evident. I designate
the practices under discussion as cultural practices to emphasize the importance of contextual
factors and shared assumptions to the activities in question. I will use the term “cultural prac-
tices” exclusively in relation to collective activities, because, while solitary activities undeni-
ably take place in a cultural context of shared meanings, they are not informed by meanings
that are shared within the practice. In chapter three, I will explore the methodological aspects
of the concept of “cultural practices” more fully.
What the present dissertation proposes, in a nutshell, is this: collective cultural
practices all have their own agreed-upon assumptions on what is appropriate credit for
different sorts of contributions. Such shared assumptions are part of what makes a practice
work. If an emerging practice does not hit upon a way of allotting credit which makes it

24
worthwhile for all key participants to keep contributing, then it will simply dissolve again.
Instead of searching for an overarching theory of cultural participation, therefore, I propose
an approach that analyzes, practice by practice, how credit-giving actually works.
As I will argue below, the traditional view of pop music production has always
been problematic. Those engaged in the cultural practice of mix taping, for example, had
different views on the appropriate allotment of credit within this practice, and these competed
with the dominant view. While expressivism may be assumed in the discourse surrounding
a practice, it is not presupposed on a practical level - or at least not in the practices I have
investigated. In any viable practice, contributing is worth the effort; you get credit for it. One
especially important upshot of this fact is the persistent importance of attribution. Even in
practices such as remixing, where the work someone produces is a recombination of parts of
preexisting works, there is a special relation between a remixer and her particular version of
the musical material. A third and final important thing which the proposed approach enables
me to get into focus is the importance of the contributions of non-artist participants. The
traditional view constructs a radical boundary between artists and non-artists, and subse-
quently places artists above other contributors. Actual practices are not so neatly carved up,
and a cultural practices approach I better equipped to deal with the particularities of specific
situations than an overarching theory of pop music production.
In the next chapter, I will take a closer look at the history of the traditional view of
pop music production. This will enable me to add precision to my criticism of it, as well as to
my criticism of more recent expressivist stances. Furthermore, it will help me situate my own
views in relation to existing theory. The chapter following it, chapter three, is a discussion of
matters of methodology and method. After this, three case studies follow, each of which looks
at a specific cultural practice.
The first case study, in chapter four, looks at the practice of making mix tapes (the
general practice of rerecording preexisting songs onto tape cassettes, not the similarly named
practices from the hiphop and dance subcultures). In a recent wave of nostalgic blog entries,
mix taping is referred to as an art form. I suggest that this choice of terminology reflects the
influence of the commercial theory of appropriate credit, and that it obscures many aspects of
mix taping which are worthy of attention.
The second case study, in chapter five, investigates the online remix community
ccMixter. It shows how in environments where all creativity amounts to reuse of the creations
and contributions of others, the notion of rightful attribution may be reinforced, rather than
dissolved. Attribution is one of the central elements that make ccMixter work.
The third and last case study, in chapter six, studies the cultural practice of deejaying
at parties. It will give an analysis of what, according to DJs, makes someone a good DJ, and
it will show that this standard applies to DJ-producers who mix tracks together as well as to
retro DJs who play songs back to back. The status of the former tends to be markedly higher,
and this, I propose, is a consequence of the persistent influence of the commercial theory
of appropriate credit. Over the course of these three case studies, a focus on credit-giving
will illuminate the cultural practices studied in new and sometimes surprising ways. First,
however, I turn to the history of the commercial theory of appropriate credit.

25
26
 Chapter 2

How the Pop Musician Became a

(New) Romantic Hero.

27
Introduction

The previous chapter gave an overview of different positions defended in current

copyright debates, which main focus, despite some brief historical expositions, was the
contemporary situation. In this chapter, a historical perspective will be central. I will
investigate how the romantic views described in chapter one became the dominant ideology
in pop music production. There are two main benefits to this exercise.
Firstly, it shows that the romanticisms in question are not pregiven or even necessary.
Even now, as commercial tributism is under pressure, old paradigms appear difficult to sub-
vert or eradicate. The metaphysics of musical communication, and especially its expressivist
aspect, are still widely mistaken for characteristics of music production itself, rather than
characteristics of our way of thinking about music production. Showing how such ways of
thinking emerged in particular historical circumstances is a familiar strategy within cultural
analysis for undermining their apparent self-evidence.
Secondly, and more importantly, I want to show how intimately the history of these
paradigms is connected with the history of particular musical practices. The relation between
ideology and practice will remain a central issue throughout this dissertation. The commer-
cial theory of appropriate credit is inextricably intertwined with a particular practice, namely
the commercial recording of music on a material carrier. The ideology and the practice keep
each other in place, the commercial theory of appropriate credit functioning both as an expla-
nation and a legitimization of the practice.
However, the commercial theory of appropriate credit is generally used to describe
pop music in a much more general sense. This creates a paradoxical situation. The commer-
cial recording of music is just one way of engaging with music; one practice among many
others. But although these other ways of engaging with music are often practiced with no
reference whatsoever to the commercial theory of appropriate credit (or, for that matter, to the
tacit metaphysics of musical communication), they are nonetheless mostly discussed in these
terms, even if they do not fit the practice in question well.
A story similar to the one I will present might be told tying commercial tributism or
the metaphysics of musical communication to, say, late capitalism, pop music viewed as a
homogeneous field, or another overarching abstraction. Such approaches would not show
the richness and complexity of pop music culture with its multitude of practices. And more
importantly, it would not enable me to make my central point: non-solitary music practices,
when they are not compelled to explain or legitimize themselves in terms of the dominant dis-
course, have perfectly adequate discourses of their own. Among other things, such discourses
stipulate what kinds of contributions deserve what kinds of rewards, as I will show in the case
studies of the following chapters. In the present chapter, I will discuss the interplay of ideas
and practice through which the commercial theory of appropriate credit came into existence.

Empfindsamkeit and emotional communication

I have called the metaphysics of musical communication “romantic” on several

occasions. This is in keeping with how the word “romantic” is commonly used, but if we
want to be precise, the metaphysics of musical communication predates the romantic era, and

28
emerged during the Enlightenment, that is, during the latter half of the eighteenth century,
within a German current known as Empfindsamkeit (Sensitivity). However, it only became
widespread during Romanticism.
Taking a cultural practices approach towards the musical current called
Empfindsamkeit means paying close attention to people’s actions, or to be more precise,
to what music-related activities people performed in a taken-for-granted way. However,
people’s habitual actions are embedded in many contextual factors. In a cultural practice
many heterogeneous elements (discourse, technology, musical style, et cetera) work together
in a particular way, and taking a cultural practices approach also entails investigating such
elements.
The important practices of the Empfindsamkeit were attending subscription concerts
and performing chamber music in an amateur context. It may seem somewhat novel to inves-
tigate a musical current through its practices, because currents are more commonly linked
to composers and places and periods, but the approach makes sense. Looking at the fore-
most composer of the Empfindsamkeit, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788), we find, for
instance, that the Empfindsame Stil is easily recognizable in his compositions for the amateur
market and in the works he composed to play himself at the subscription concert series he
organized. In his courtly and ecclesiastic music, however, he sounded much like his father,
the now more famous Johann Sebastian Bach. Style and practice are thus connected, and the
rise of the Empfindsame Stil is less a result of a historical transition in music culture in general
than one aspect of the emergence of new practices of music making.
I want to discuss four of the heterogeneous elements that came together in the ama-
teur chamber music and subscription concert practices. They are a new economic possibility
for composers, a musical idiom, a social group, and a discourse or a set of ideas. Let me
discuss the discursive aspect first. The Empfindsamkeit shared many of the characteristics of
the literary movement known as Sturm und Drang (usually translated as ‘Storm and Stress’),
which was active in Germany in the same period, and which, tellingly, is alternatively called
‘Geniezeit’ (the period of the genius). Empfindsamkeit is generally seen as its parallel current
in music. Literary historian Gerhard Knapp describes its central concepts as:

Ecstasy of emotion and passion; boundless affirmation of nature; the idolisation

of the unique, creative, and all-powerful individual (the ‘genius’, the ‘Faustian’
personality); the veneration of art as gospel, i.e. as creation of the genius; a
multi-faceted and often indistinct notion of freedom with psychological, social,
moral, or political connotations.15

This literary movement did not exist in a vacuum. A collection of ideas we now
habitually refer to as “romantic” took hold all over northwestern Europe. In fact, literary
historian Seth MacFarlane has recently argued that ideas pertaining to originality and self-
expression were nuanced rather than reinforced during actual romanticism (MacFarlane
2007). Two influential spokesmen for the new ideology deserve to be mentioned. In Britain,
Edward Young published a book which is usually credited with being the starting point of the
cults of originality and self-expression. His 1759 book Conjectures on Original Composition

15:  Knapp, Gerhard P. Sturm Und Drang. 2003. The Literary Encyclopedia.
[Link] Available 19-05-2006.

29
radically opposed genius and imitation, arguing that “meddling ape imitation (...) destroys
all individuality” (Wittkower 1973: 306). In France, Jean-Jacques Rousseau articulated a
philosophy which centered around the affirmation of nature, including one’s inner nature, to
which one had to be true. The cult of self-expression received a strong impetus from his work.
Rousseau was also highly interested in music and he was probably the first to use the term
“genius” in a musical context (Wittkower 1973).
Influenced directly by Sturm und Drang, and indirectly by authors such as Young and
Rousseau, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach could argue in his essay Versuch über die wahre Art das
Klavier zu Spielen (1753, 1762) that a musician should express personal emotion. He writes:
“Play from the soul [...] not like a trained bird!”, and he approvingly cites the Roman poet
Horace:

Since a musician cannot move others unless he himself is moved, he must

of necessity feel all the affects that he hopes to arouse in his listeners. He
communicates his own feelings to them and thus effectively moves them to
sympathy. In languishing, sad passages, the performer must languish and
grow sad... Similarly, in lively, joyous passages, the executant must again put
himself into the appropriate mood. And so, constantly varying the passions he
will barely quiet one before he rouses another. (Horace, cited in Bach, cited in
Taruskin 2005: 410)

The task of communicating personal emotions did not only apply to the performer, but
to the composer as well. Because the metaphysics of musical communication is still so much
present in contemporary music culture, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s comments may well
sound wholly unremarkable to us. It is good, therefore, to emphasize the difference between
this view and that of Bach the elder, for whom composition still was a matter of making the
divine order of the macro-cosmos perceivable through the micro-cosmos of tonal relations,
which was its reflection (James 1993). This endeavor might result in music laden with ‘affect’,
but not in music that represented personal, human emotions.
The discourse of sensitivity and personal expression described above should be
considered in relation to a particular social group, namely the middle class. Musicologist
Carl Dahlhaus explains the Empfindsamkeit as a strategy for the emancipation of the
bourgeoisie, who, for economical reasons, could not measure themselves against the nobil-
ity in terms of display, but who around this time succeeded in establishing a discourse on
taste that valued sensitivity and refined taste over extravagances that required great wealth
(Dahlhaus 1989: 73). Sensitivity was a hallmark characteristic of a ‘nobility of the heart’.
Sensitivity showed itself, among other things, in the appreciation of simple, sensitive music.
If this nobility of the heart counted as ‘true nobility’, then the traditional hereditary nobility
did not. Thus, the sensitivist discourse helped the middle class to elevate itself in its own
estimation, and, insofar as the corresponding aesthetic was accepted by the upper class, to
blur the boundary between their own class and the nobility.
In this struggle, musical style became highly important. The style of the composers of
the Empfindsamkeit was not derived from anything going on in Germany, but from Italian
comic opera, or opera buffa, a descendant of the comic intermezzo plays, or intermezzi, that
were initially played between the acts of a serious opera, or opera seria. Several intermezzi,

30
most famously Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona, made a sensation when they traveled outside
of Italy to any major city in western Europe. Their musical idioms were much simpler than
anything the audience was accustomed to. Intermezzi and opera buffa were praised for their
naturalness, expressiveness, and realism (Taruskin 2005: 399-444).
The realism in question is closely tied to the changeability of everyday, ‘natural’, human
emotions. It is their fluidity, and the simple directness with which they are uttered, that set
‘natural’ or ‘realistic’ emotional ‘expression’ apart from the codified noble affectations of
mythological kings, as expressed by means of elaborate locutions and complex musical forms
in opera seria. At a time when it was still an undisputed truth that the purpose of art was the
imitation of nature, to argue in favor of the Italian style by praising it for its realistic imitation
of human emotions made a coherent argument about a matter of aesthetics.
Characteristic for the Empfindsamkeit was the so-called sonata form, which was
derived from the non-operatic music of Italian opera composers. In the baroque the overall
form of a piece grew ‘organically’ out of the endless development and variation of one or
two basic themes. In the Empfindsame Stil, on the contrary, the form was fixed from the
outset, so that the composer could showcase a diversity of unrelated musical material
while the sonata form guaranteed overall unity of the piece. The form thus afforded ample
opportunity for rapid changes in mood, enabling the composer to portray the mercurial
changeability of human feelings ‘realistically’. Also, it allowed for greater simplicity than the
polyphonic musical forms of the baroque, so that sentiments could be expressed with artless
naturalness.
The hallmark stylistic characteristic of the Empfindsamkeit, tellingly, is the
instrumental recitative. This is more than just a remnant of the style’s operatic origins. It
underscores the emergence of a notion of music as personal communication. Someone is
speaking to the listener, only without words. In short, an ideology of music as an emotional
language without words has taken root (Taruskin 2005: 334-442).
The economics underlying the Empfindsame Stil largely follow from the above. What
enabled the middle class to emancipate itself was first and foremost the amount of wealth it
was accumulating. This also made the middle class a market for which composers could pro-
duce. The Empfindsamkeit coincides with the beginning of the long and gradual transition by
which a market system of music production replaced the older patronage system.
Composers could tap this middle class market by organizing concerts or by publishing
sheet music for amateur performance, and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, for example, did both.
Although he still primarily relied on the patronage of court and church for his livelihood, he
had also received a privilege to publish his own music, which he put to commercial use. Apart
from having pieces he composed on commission subsequently published, he also composed
specifically for publication. The profit was in solo harpsichord and clavichord pieces and
chamber music for the newly developing amateur market. Commercial music production and
practices of domestic music making emerged in tandem. In addition, Carl Philipp Emanuel
Bach provided for a mostly middle class market by organizing subscription concerts at which
he performed as a harpsichordist (Sadie 2001: 387-398).
In these two practices, then, concert attendance and amateur music making, a set of
highly heterogeneous elements came together in a particular way. There was a discourse of
sensitivity, originality, and personal expression. There was a social group which was looking
to augment its status, and which had the spending power to make that happen. There was a

31
musical idiom which was well equipped to represent the new middle class values. And there
was a newly emerging market system of music production which enabled composers to make
money from sensitivity and emotional expression.
These elements together formed a paradigm which persisted for a substantial period
of time. One reason why the two practices in question persisted this long was that, for all
involved, it was rewarding to engage in them again and again. By giving concerts and publish-
ing sheet music, composers made money. By attending concerts and playing chamber music,
middle class citizens got to revel in their own ‘nobility of the heart’, to affirm their self-worth
and to contest the superiority of the nobility.
The contemporary metaphysics of musical communication, then, can be traced back
to the Empfindsamkeit. Isolated fragments of it could be traced much further back, but for
my historical inquiry this is the best starting point. The Empfindsamkeit might be called a
discursive catalyst. It allowed previously disparate concepts and ideas to join in an appar-
ently coherent and plausible theory of musical communication. The theory seemed to make
sense because it adequately explained (and legitimized) lived musical praxis. Once the theory
became a conceptual reflex, a habit of mind, it could retain its apparent plausibility in contexts
where it did not make sense in relation to living praxis, but before I turn to situations of that
kind I must discuss how the Empfindsamkeit’s aesthetics of emotional expression, with sub-
stantial modifications, became a widespread ideology. This happened during Romanticism.

Romantic high art and the sacralization of the artist

If Empfindsamkeit was a relatively short-lived current which influence was limited to

a few German cities, Romanticism found its way into most European countries. Nonetheless,
Germany is central to the origination of this movement too. In music, the Romantic
movement took hold slightly later than in the other arts, around 1830. The idea of music
as a means of emotional expression and communication spread all over Europe, and
eventually beyond it, together with musical Romanticism. Although Romantic ideology is
largely a continuation of the discourse of Empfindsamkeit, it also contained some important
new elements.
In line with my practice oriented approach, I will concentrate on Romantic orchestral
concert practice throughout most of this section, adding a short but crucial observation on
the publishing of musical scores towards the end. In the practices of attending and giving
orchestral concerts, we encounter a shift in aesthetics that replaced the idea of music as a
vehicle for personal emotions by a much more ‘metaphysical’ view of music. In this meta-
physical aesthetics, the composer was understood more along the lines of the visionary;
someone who was able to commune with the eternal or the divine, to capture a small piece of a
transcendental realm and to bring it into the human world (Dahlhaus 1989: 73-79). Concerts
became increasingly like religious events.
This ‘sacralization’ of art music showed itself in, for example, expanding musical forms,
the usage of instruments previously only used in church music, and ritual silence during
concert performances. It was not only the composer who was elevated to religious heights.
The conductor shared in the prestige, and became something like the high priest of the
concert ritual, waving his baton like a magic wand to produce an alternative world. The

32
virtuoso did so even more. As a solitary hero he took on the entire orchestra during the
concerto (from concertere, to struggle, to combat), thus representing the strong individualist
(Sabbe 2003: 35-40).
The metaphysical aesthetics of Romantic high art did not displace the aesthetics of
emotional expression. The two existed simultaneously. A discourse of self-expression and
sensitivity persisted in relation to the lighter and more popular genres of music. Among
other things, it continued to inform the social domestic music making practice known as
‘salon music’, in which mostly amateur performers played for one another. In fact, it was by
no means perceived as incoherent if one avowed both the metaphysical and the emotional
aesthetics. One of the primary architects of the musical Romanticism, the influential writer
and music critic E.T.A. Hoffmann, states that “[t]o touch us, to move us mightily, the artist
himself must be deeply affected in his own heart” (Lowinsky 1973: 323). However, it was also
Hoffmann who, with his analyses of Beethoven’s works, made a crucial contribution to the
shift towards the high Romantic view of music, as I will describe below.
Let me examine the same four heterogeneous aspects of musical practice that I
discussed in the previous section, this time considering them in relation to the quasi-religious
orchestral concert practice described above. The elements were discourse, social group, musi-
cal idiom, and economic strategy. For reasons of exposition I will discuss them in reverse
order.
The romantic era saw the rise of two opposed strategies for selling music. The ‘populist’
strategy consisted of producing for the masses, seeking to maximize profits by supplying a
large market. The ‘elitist’ strategy consisted of creating artificial conditions of scarcity. The bar
for compositions, for instance, was raised to the point that composers could manage a maxi-
mum of around nine symphonies in a lifetime; a far cry from the enormous output of Mozart
or Haydn. Scarcity increased the value of individual works, so that the ‘elitist’ strategy could
supply a small ‘deep pocket’ recipient community seeking distinction (Sabbe 2003: 9-17). The
‘populist’ strategy became heir to the aesthetics of emotional communication, and was in that
sense a continuation of the Empfindsamkeit.
High art music was marketed according to the ‘elitist’ strategy and adopted a
metaphysical aesthetics that stressed the autonomy of instrumental music and the elevated
status of musical creativity. The elitist strategy should be associated, first and foremost, with
the upper middle class. The upper middle class’ interest in concert attendance by this time
has probably less to do with contesting the superiority of the nobility than with their trying to
distinguish themselves from the lower middle class and the populace. One attends concerts
not only to listen, but also to be seen. One is seen, moreover, in one’s finest garments, and one
displays one’s mastery of the mores, sitting in reverent silence throughout and applauding at
the appropriate moments.
The musical style of Romanticism to a large degree took shape in an interaction
between the works of Ludwig van Beethoven and the analyses thereof by E.T.A Hoffmann,
whom I mentioned above. In his writings, Hoffmann praised, in front of a large and mostly
lay audience, Beethoven’s great innovation: pervasive thematic development through the use
of simple motifs, the persistent recurrences of which inform every aspect of the overall form.
In a sense, this development was the mirror image of the discontinuity between the styles of
John Sebastian and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. With the Viennese classics, but especially
with Beethoven, the sonata form became a structure that was to be ‘spun out of ’ the motifs of

33
its two main themes. It was through this ‘innovation’ that musical works became even more
tightly knit, indivisible wholes (Dahlhaus 1989: 73-79).
The new status of the composer, who was now a visionary who communed with
the eternal and the ex nihilo creator of musical worlds, far exceeded anything seen in the
Empfindsamkeit. The term “genius” became common as a way of referring to a composer’s
mysterious ability to create. The veneration of “natural talent” was already thematized in
the Empfindsamkeit. Outside of Germany, too, there had been denunciations of musical
‘academism’, by Herder and Rousseau among others (Lowinsky 1973: 342). But during
Romanticism, this theme was extended and radicalized. The artist was awarded a special
autonomy. He must be true only to his own talent and genius, not to any set rule or exter-
nal consideration. Relatedly, Romanticism increasingly conceptualized musical creation as
resulting from a divine spark often called inspiration - a strong inner drive on the part of
the composer to express his vision, or, in more popular contexts, his feelings. As composer
Arnold Schoenberg once put it: “Kunst kommt von Mussen” (art comes from having-to, Sabbe
2003: 3). Such “expressivism”, as I showed in the previous chapter, still informs contemporary
pop music culture.
High Romanticism understood the composer as someone who encoded immaterial
value in a material carrier. A small piece of a higher realm was captured by the composer and
incarnated in the ink and paper of a musical score. Hence, the original autographs (the first
score written by the composer himself) were highly valued. The Urtext (the original text)
was declared sacrosanct. Whereas works by Mozart had still occasionally been ‘improved’ by
conductors who performed them, such a course of action became inconceivable in relation to
Beethoven (Sabbe 2003). Thus, a theory emerged of how a printed score (such as for instance
a domestic use piano extract of a Beethoven symphony) worked as a musical commodity. The
performer extracted the immaterial value from its material carrier.
In this section, I have shown how in the Romantic period the metaphysics of musical
communication achieved much of its present form. Shortly, I will turn to the question how
this ideology became associated with the music industry. But first I must discuss the origins
of that music industry.

A tale of two music industries, part I: sheet music

In the two previous sections, I have discussed two phases of the metaphysics of musical
communication. This section paves the way for my discussion of a third, namely the commer-
cial theory of appropriate credit which I introduced in chapter one. To this end, I now want
to investigate the development of the music industry, and I will do this in a particular way,
namely by looking closely at technologies and how they relate to cultural practices.
Specific technologies play an important part in many practices. In the mentioned
practices of Empfindsamkeit and Romanticism this is not immediately clear, but in relation
to the Empfindsamkeit I might for instance have mentioned the clavichord. This is a musical
instrument, then a recent invention, with such a soft tone that it was quite unpractical to use
for performances. It became the instrument one played for one’s own individual pleasure, that
is, from one’s own inner drive towards emotional expression. The expressive possibilities of
the instrument were richer than those of any other acoustic keyboard instrument at the time.

34
The popularity of the music of the Empfindsamkeit and the popularity of this instrument
reinforced one another.
It is important to realize that the causal relation between technologies and practices
does not run in a single direction. Evidently, the ‘affordances’ of technologies condition the
practices that can emerge around them (Gibson 1979). But the practices that emerge around
technologies also in turn shape the technologies in question. For example, manufacturers
adjust technologies to what end-users actually do with them. And this is rarely the exact
thing which they were designed to do, and only that. In Science and Technology Studies
(henceforth STS) this insight is sometimes referred to as “the mutual shaping of society
and technology”, and it has been thoroughly investigated (e.g. Bijker, Hughes & Pinch 1987;
Bijker & Law 1992.) It is considered to be a useful antidote against a naive commonsensical
assumption known as “technological determinism”, according to which technological progress
influences society, but is not itself influenced by that society. In cultural studies, the insight
that this is a two-way causal process has been used to argue that consumers of technology
have substantial agency, or in other words, that they are not passive dupes forced to buy what-
ever technologies manufacturers decide on producing (du Gay, Hall, et al. 1997).
My own approach rests on the assumption that the interrelation of technology and
society is mediated by concrete practices. In human action, technologies connect with a host
of other societal factors. Only if the practice is a successful one, in the sense that it keeps itself
going, this connection will persist. One of the other societal factors at work is discourse. Like
technologies, habits of conceptualization only survive if the practices they become associ-
ated with reliably reproduce themselves. A cultural practices approach, therefore, allows me
to investigate the relation between discourses and technologies in a very concrete way; not
by means of overarching abstractions and vague analogies, but by “opening up” some of the
relevant “black boxes”, to borrow the terminology of philosopher and science and technol-
ogy scholar Bruno Latour (1987). In this section and the next, I will open up black boxes of
phonographic technology in relation to the metaphysics of musical communication. Before
I do so, however, I will discuss another music industry which preceded it, namely the sheet
music industry.
When recording enthusiast and scholar Evan Eisenberg claimed that, with the
phonograph, music first took on a material form and became a commodity (Eisenberg
1987: 13), this sounded plausible enough. Musicologist Mark Katz, looking for ontological
characteristics of the gramophone medium, agreed with Eisenberg:

As Even Eisenberg has pointed out, “For the listening public at large, in
every century but this one [now two], there was no such thing as collecting
music.” Certainly, enthusiasts sought out instruments, manuscripts, program
books, autographs, and the like. Record collecting, however, represents a new
relationship with music, for these collectors seek neither the means to create
sound or mementos of it, but sound itself. (Katz 2004: 10)

However, collecting records is not the same as collecting sound itself. Records are
in fact a means to create sound. In this, they are quite similar to sheet music, which pre-
sumably also had its collectors. It is arguable, however, that the mistake which is implicit in
Katz’ argument - a record is immaterial value, the ‘sound’ one values ‘itself ’, located in a

35
material carrier - became a self-evident habit of thought in part because the sheet music
industry relied on a similar set of ideas.
This ‘first’ music industry, like the phonographic industry, relied on certain
technologies that enabled it. The steam printer made mass-production possible, and a piano
was necessary for its consumption. The sheet music industry did something for which the
gramophone came too late: It connected with the practices of the parlor, traditionally a place
in middle-class households where art objects were displayed and where music and recitations
of poetry and literature were performed for guests. Parlor practices are highly similar to the
salons mentioned in the previous section. The difference between these two words primarily
indicates that the main spatial focus of my narration has shifted from Germany and France to
the Anglo-Saxon world. There, during the end of the nineteenth and the start of the twentieth
century, the more informal living room replaced the parlor, and the phonograph arrived too
late to be inserted into its cultural practices (Sterne 2003: 203-204). In the nineteenth century,
however, the main ingredients required for the enjoyment of domestic music were usually
sheet music, a piano, and the daughter of the house (Sabbe 2003: 21, 103).
The domestic performance of music, in the nineteenth century, counted as an act of
music consumption, rather than of music production. The prestige of the composer likely
played a role in making sheet music a viable commodity. Sheet music is a much less stringent
medium for music reproduction than the gramophone record is. The piano player has every
opportunity to manipulate the work she plays, to disregard indications of tempo and mood,
to change notes, to bring in passages from other pieces, to improvise. Such practices, however,
would undermine the value of the sheet music. A set of instructions would become a set of
suggestions, a friendly favor rather than a marketable product.
The romantic twin-cults of the composer and of the work helped to guarantee the
viability of sheet music by effectively prohibiting such divergences from the score. The value
of the musical work was conceptualized as an immaterial substance encoded into the material
score by the genius composer. The (amateur) performer had a task, an obligation, to perform
in accordance with the intention of the composer, so as to allow this immaterial value to reach
its destination, the audience.
Sociologist Cas Smithuysen describes how there was another group in society who had
an interest in this ideology of music consumption-as-obligation, namely professional pianists.
It aided them both in their capacity as performers and teachers. He writes:

The conviction that pianists, amateur pianists too, had the duty to perform the
work of great composers as faithfully as possible became the strongest trump
in pianists’ hands as they struggled to establish their profession. They could
not get a handle on the inimitable playing of Liszt, but they could get a handle
on all those who tried their hands at a re-performance of his compositions.
(Smithuysen 2001: 82, my translation)

In its guise of immaterial value in a material carrier, sheet music provided the
paradigm for how the record’s functioning as a musical commodity was to be understood.
The idea that buying a record also meant buying the immaterial value it contained was a
very useful sales argument. Consider, for example, the competition between the phonograph
and the radio as music technologies. To have a radio was to have a means of access to music

36
(and other content). To have a record and a record player, incongruously, was not merely to
have a means of access to music which afforded greater control. It was to ‘own’ the music. And
this idea had an air of self-evidence despite the fact that copyright law stipulated that to own
a record was most decidedly not to own the music.
There is a continuity, then, between the sheet music and the recording industries, in
terms of conceptualizating their commodities. There is also an important discontinuity to
which it is worth drawing attention. The sheet music industry did not link popular songs to
specific performers. In fact, even after a phonographic industry emerged, the contemporary
‘performer-song strategy’ (where it makes intuitive sense to speak of a song ‘by’ a specific
performer rather than a composer) developed gradually over a long time.
Mass produced popular music from the early days of the phonographic industry,
which lasted roughly from the early 1930s to the early 1950s, was composed music. This
corpus of songs has become known as ‘Tin Pan Ally’ music, named after a single block on
28th street in New York, in-between Broadway and 5th Avenue. Here the sheet music industry
had located a great number of composers, whose job it was to quickly write songs in line with
the latest fashions or fads. Agents took the new songs to vaudeville houses and theaters, where
they used flattery and financial incentives to have performers put them on their repertoire.
Pluggers sang the new songs in bars or in the streets. Several singers might be convinced to
record the same new song. If any one artist’s recording became popular the sheet music would
sell (Scheurer 1989: 87-88).
The sheet music industry waned after the arrival of the phonograph. A large and
profitable industry at the end of the nineteenth century, it has been gradually shrinking ever
since. Nonetheless, it succeeded in remaining influential up until the second world war, and
even today it is by no means a marginal industry of special interest products. The secret of
its resilience is copyright. In the early days of the phonographic industry, music publishers
secured their right to collect royalties for the composers, and for themselves, over the com-
positions recorded. This right has not been seriously questioned since. In contemporary pop
music, therefore, the copyright over a pop song divides into the rights to the ‘recording’, or the
performance, and the rights to the ‘publishing’, or the composition. Today’s music publishing
industry is largely an artifact of legal sedimentation. Now, let me turn my attention to the
‘second’ music industry, the one that developed around the technology of the phonograph.

A tale of two music industries, part 2: gramophone records

In the previous section, while ostensibly discussing the sheet music industry, I already
showed something of the two-way relationship between phonographic technology and
society. On the one hand, the technology of the gramophone record was instrumental in
the development of the cultural habit of attributing a pop song to a performer rather than
a composer; whereas sheet music encoded a composition, a record encodes a performance.
On the other hand, the direction in which phonographic technology developed was largely
determined by the establishment of the gramophone record as a musical commodity. And
the success of this commodity was in all probability helped substantially by the fact that the
sheet music industry had already normalized the idea that one could “own music”, an idea that
amounted to owning something of value.

37
 In this section, I want to look more closely at the societal factors that helped to shape
phonographic technology. I will concentrate on two important things that happened during
the transition from the Edison phonograph to the Berliner gramophone. The first is how
the phonograph became a music technology. It was by no means clear from the outset that
it would. The second is how the phonograph developed into what Lawrence Lessig, whom I
introduced in the previous chapter, calls a “read-only” (RO) medium. He uses this term for a
medium that enables the passive enjoyment of preexisting content, but not its manipulation,
as opposed to a read-write (RW) technology (such as the tape recorder for instance), which
enables both (Lessig 2004).
The phonograph was not conceived as a music technology at all, but was a
by-product of Edison’s investigations into telephony. In 1877, after he had successfully
developed a ‘repeater’ to make the signals of telegraph lines carry farther, a search for a similar
device to boost the signals in telephone lines made Edison realize that something entirely new
had been created: a system for the storage and retrieval of sound (Chanan 1995: 2). However
obvious its contemporary uses may seem in hindsight, it was not immediately self-evident
what the purpose of a sound recorder should be. An informal list of possibilities published by
Edison in an article for the North American Review in 1878 shows this clearly:

1. Letter writing and all kinds of dictation without the aid of a stenographer.
2. Phonographic books, which will speak to blind people without effort on
their part.
3. The teaching of elocution.
4. Reproduction of music.
5. The ‘Family Record’ - a registry of sayings, reminiscences, etc., by members
of a family in their own voices, and of the last words of dying persons.
6. Music boxes and toys.
7. Clocks that should announce in articulate speech the time for going home,
going to meals, etc.
8. The preservation of languages by exact reproduction of the manner of
pronouncing.
9. Educational purposes; such as preserving the explanations made by a
teacher, so that the pupil can refer to them at any moment, and spelling or
other lessons placed upon the phonograph for convenience in committing
to memory.
10. Connection with the telephone, so as to make that instrument an aux-
iliary in the transmission of permanent and invaluable records, instead
of being the recipient of momentary and fleeting communications.
(Edison, cited in Chanan 1995: 3)16

Edison clearly expected most from the first usage listed, and he proceeded to develop
the phonograph in the direction of what today would be called a dictaphone or memo re-
corder. However, the poor sound quality and the cumbersome handling of recording cylinders

16:  The list is also cited in: Sterne, J. (2003) The Audible Past. Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction Durham,
Duke University Press. p. 202.

38
made the apparatus ill-suited for the office, and before long Edison redirected his attention
towards the problem of incandescent lighting.
The first profitable use to which the phonograph was put was the musical coin-in-slot
machine, which gave one person at the time access to prerecorded music through ‘listen-
ing tubes’ for brief entertainment in public space (Sterne 2003: 162). On the one hand, the
coin-in-slot phonograph made use of a well-established concept, because large mechanical
instruments analogous to the music box or the barrel organ had long been providing similar
services. On the other hand, the coin-in-slot machine also capitalized on the phonograph’s
novelty value.
The phonograph, then, did not comply with the use that its inventor saw for it, instead
developing in another direction. This nicely illustrates the problems of ‘great men’ type
theories of technological progress. Societal factors determined the difference in success
between the two uses. In its transformation from phonograph to gramophone, another
important thing happened to Edison’s invention. A dictation machine is a very clear example
of an RR (read-write) technology. The Berliner gramophone, on the other hand, is strictly a
RO device.
Emile Berliner invented a variation on the phonograph, which differed in an
apparently trivial way that was to prove crucial. Whereas the phonograph used cylinders for
recording, the gramophone used discs. The great advantage of the latter was that it allowed
Berliner to devise a way of mass-producing prerecorded phonograms. Cylinders could be
recorded at most a few at one session, but gramophone records could be copied from a single
‘master’ (Chanan 1995: 27-29).
Just as it would be erroneous to think of Edison as the unique ‘father’ of the
contemporary record player, it would be fallacious to see in Berliner someone driven by
a vision of the phonograph as a machine for the passive enjoyment of preexisting musical
content. Berliner sought to capitalize on potential RW uses of phonographic technology
as well, because he was convinced there would be a market for them. But the RW services
he envisioned never took off. Announcing the gramophone in an address to the Franklin
Institute in 1888, Berliner says:

Those having one [a gramophone], may then buy an assortment of

phonautograms, to be increased occasionally, comprising recitations, songs,
and instrumental solos or orchestral pieces of every variety. In each city there
shall be at least one office having a gramophone recorder with all the necessary
outfits. There will be an acoustic cabinet, or acousticon, containing a very large
funnel, or other sound concentrator, the narrow end of which ends in a tube
leading to a recording diaphragm. At the wide opening of the funnel will be
placed a piano, and back of it a semicircular wall for reflecting the sound into
the funnel. Persons desirous of having their voices “taken” will step before the
funnel, and upon giving a signal, sing or speak, or they may perform upon an
instrument. While they are waiting the plate will be developed, and, when it is
satisfactory, it is turned over to the electrotyper, or the glass moulder in charge,
who will make as many copies as desired. (Berliner, cited in Sterne 2003: 205)

39
 Two questions arise in response to this citation. The first, and least important one
for my purposes, is why the service Berliner describes in the second part (a ‘phonographer’s
office’ one might call it, analogous to the photographer’s office) did not succeed. Jonathan
Sterne explains this from a social circumstance, namely the disappearance of the parlor,
which I already mentioned in the previous section. The parlor was traditionally a place in
middle-class households where art objects were displayed and where music and recitations
of poetry and literature were performed for guests (Sterne 2003: 203-204). Its disappearance
indicates a change in the culture of amateur performance. As the parlor was being replaced
by the living room, so was the daughter of the house’s display of musical skill on the parlor
piano replaced by gramophone background music. The middle class domestic music making
practices, which have been such a prominent part of my narrative from their importance
during the Empfindsamkeit, lost their prevalence, and the phonograph came too late to
connect with them. But the metaphysics of musical communication they helped to institute
was by this time so thoroughly normalized that it persisted regardless and went on to become,
for the first time since its inception, the explanation and legitimization of the practices around
an RO technology.
The second question that arises in relation to the passage cited above, and the more
important one for my purposes, is why Berliner’s ‘phonautogram’ business scheme did suc-
ceed. According to my methodological stance, this question is equivalent to the question how
passive domestic listening to prerecorded music could become a successful practice. Rather
than once more discuss all the elements involved in this practice, and the way they connect,
however, I will focus on the important role which the metaphysics of musical communication
played in enabling this practice to thrive, and on how it was catalyzed by previous practices.
Gramophone listening is exceptional as a way of engaging with music for two main
reasons. The first is that it severs the strong traditional connection between music and col-
lectivity. Record listening might well be solitary, and records were often marketed as personal
possessions, but prior to the birth of the recording industry non-collective music practices
were exceedingly rare. The second reason is the fact that gramophone listening is uncom-
monly passive.
Jonathan Sterne (2003: 87-136) devotes much attention to the problem of solitary
listening. He describes several practices of individual listening in the nineteenth century that,
according to him, helped to make the idea of individualized sound as such ‘thinkable’. His nar-
rative focuses on two professional practices in particular, namely the use of the stethoscope
by physicians, and the transcription of messages by ear by telegraphers. The stethoscope is
especially relevant, because it created a privatized acoustic space by means of listening tubes.
The first phonographic coin-in-slot music machines in public space came with listening tubes,
too, as did many early domestic phonographs (Sterne 2003: 87-136, 162).
More relevant in the particular case of solitary listening to music, however, is Sterne’s
contention that the practice of silent listening in the concert hall paved the way for individual
consumption of recordings by effectively atomizing the audience (Ibid.: 160-161). Indeed, the
early phonograph and gramophone are often advertized as a ‘concert at home’, and such ter-
minology is clearly meant to portray the act of listening to records as one of intensely personal
music appreciation.
There is an element that needs to be added to Sterne’s explanation of solitary
listening to music. In pop music, the aesthetics of emotional communication that, as narrated

40
above, evolved in the Empfindsamkeit, is highly influential. And, as I explained earlier, the
metaphysics of musical communication is basically a sender-receiver model. The novelty of
the Empfindsame Stil, as observable in such musical characteristics as the instrumental recita-
tive and the emphasis on domestic performance, was its view of music as private conversation,
as communication of individual emotion, as personal address. It is questionable whether the
gramophone record could have succeeded as a music technology if this turn away from music
as a collective enterprise and towards music as a personal affair had not preceded it.
With respect to the problem of passive music listening, too, it is romantic ideology and
the practices surrounding concert attendance which justified and normalized it. Attendance
of a high art music concert is a passive experience par excellence. The ideology of Romanticism
explains this passivity as an act of respect for the genius of the composer, whose abilities are
so far above those of his audience that any kind of interactivity could only be a disturbance to
his work, never an addition.
Today, passive and even silent listening to music may seem like the default option,
and not something that requires a special explanation. But the norm of reverent silence and
passivity was the upshot of a quite deliberate campaign on the part of the upper middle class
during the nineteenth century. Lawrence Levine narrates this story for the United States in his
Highbrow/Lowbrow (1988). He discusses how in the United States of America, from around
the middle of the nineteenth century onward, the elite became increasingly unnerved with the
great influx of working class immigrants from different places on the globe, because they felt
their control over public space slipping away:

[T]hese worlds of strangers did not remain contained; they spilled over into
the public spaces that characterized nineteenth-century Amerika and that
included theaters, music halls, opera houses, museums, parks, fairs, and
the rich public cultural life that took place daily on the streets of American
cities. This is precisely where the threat lay and the response of the elites was
a tripartite one: to retreat into their own private spaces whenever possible; to
transform public spaces by rules, systems of taste, and canons of behavior of
their own choosing; and, finally, to convert the strangers so that their modes of
behavior and cultural predilections emulated those of the elites.
(Levine 1988: 177)

In music, towards the end of the nineteenth century, the project to discipline
the general audience at orchestral and operatic performances became ever more force-
ful and more successful. The lower classes that came in expecting a reasonable amount of
interactivity or participation were educated to become passive, silent and attentive.
Historian James H. Johnson (1995) describes in great detail how silence during
concerts developed in Paris during the nineteenth century. Interestingly, he emphasizes the
importance of the transition from an aesthetics of emotional communication to a Romantic
sacralization of the musical experience for the process of silencing the audience. During the
nineteenth century, the idea caught root that the meaning of music was something so lofty
it could not even be put into words, and this, according to Johnson, helped to atomize the
audience:

41
 [One] effect of accepting absolute music as expressive without reference to a
determined subject was the interiorization of experience. (…) Realizing that
the elusive meaning of music was not reducible to anything so simple as a single
emotion – or perhaps emotion at all – these listeners enclosed the act of listen-
ing in a private space closed off from community and inaccessible to language.
(…) Beyond the anecdotal evidence of deeply engaged audiences, there is a
structural correlation between the belief that the meaning of music surpasses
words and absorbed listening. (Johnson 1995: 273-274)

If the idea that passive, non-interactive enjoyment of music made a worthwhile experience
had not become prominent in these ways, the gramophone record likely could not so easily
have been constructed as a desirable commodity.
In this section, I have argued that the phonographic industry benefited from the
metaphysics of musical communication from its inception. The emergence of the commercial
theory of appropriate credit in its present form, however, would still take over a half century.
In the next section, I will explain how this happened.

How the rock musician became a romantic hero

For the commercial theory of appropriate credit to appear, the performer of popular
music had to achieve an artistic status. Traditionally, as I mentioned above, the composer was
romanticized, but not the performer. In high art music, exceptions were made for conductors
and virtuosi. With their combination of artistic prestige and a substantial amount of popu-
larity, operatic singers proved very valuable to the early recording industry, allowing it both
to present itself as a serious artistic medium and to sell many records. The recordings of the
Italian tenor Enrico Caruso for Victor’s ‘red seal’ catalog played an especially important role
in this respect (Siefert 1995: 435-438). Opera singers like Caruso were both artists and stars,
but although stardom lay open to them, popular music performers did not have an artistic
status.
Although prior to the 1960s some jazz virtuosi had likely been understood in artistic
terms among a small circle of devotees, the major turn in common opinion on this mat-
ter occurred in the mid-sixties. The essential guide to how this happened is still Simon
Frith’s 1987 book Art into Pop. Studies to supplement his account have been slow to appear.
Methodologically, my account differs markedly from Frith’s, so that the retelling below might
well be thought of as an act of translation. I will look in some detail at the musical generation
of the British invasion, focusing on the practice of playing in a band.
The crossover of a romantic view of the artist from high art (music) into pop music
occurred in Britain and the new ideology spread across the world during the British invasion
of the mid-1960s. Central to Frith’s narration is what he calls the “art school connection”. A
striking number of musicians from influential late sixties rock bands had started out in Blues
and R&B (rhythm and blues) bands while they studied at an art college. Frith gives an over-
view which is far from exhaustive. It concentrates on famous names and also on the London
area, so that John Lennon, for instance, is missing. Nonetheless, the list is already impressive:

42
 Sidcup (Phil May, Dick Taylor, Keith Richards), Ealing (Ron Wood, Pete
Townshend, Thunderclap Newman, Freddy Mercury), Kingston (Eric Clapton,
Keith Relf, Sandy Denny, John Renbourne, Tom McGuiness), Camberwell (Syd
Barrett), Wimbledon (Jeff Beck), Sutton (Jimmy Page), Harrow (Charlie Watts)
and Hammersmith (Cat Stevens). (Frith 1987: 73)

Frith’s point, however, is not that all important musicians of the 1960s were from art
schools. The point is rather that “those who were, brought into music-making attitudes that
could never have been fostered under the pressures of professional entertainment” (Ibid.: 86).
The art school context catalyzed the connection of a set of heterogeneous elements which
would not likely have joined together without it. Let me describe the most important ones.
In a very practical and material sense, art schools in the 1960s offered excellent oppor-
tunities to start a band. As students, art schoolers were set free from the immediate necessity
to provide for themselves. In this they were much like other students. What was different,
however, was the fact that the curriculum they followed emphasized play and experiment
over clearly defined assignments and studying. Fine arts students especially were encouraged
to explore whatever caught their interest in order to ‘discover themselves as artists.’
Art schools also proved valuable as venues for beginning bands. Apart from the fact
that it was easier to perform there than to get a gig elsewhere, the audience was also more
open-minded and tolerant of novelty than elsewhere. One’s fellow students and their like-
minded friends came expecting to witness an experiment, not simply to be pleased. Here, a
bad performance could still make good performance art.
Finally, art school facilitated what we would today call ‘building a network’. People
with similar interests could find each other at art school. And they could learn from each
other, whether it was about Blues and R&B, the most interesting hang-outs in the area, some
aspect of counter-culture, or the appropriate figures in art history to adopt as one’s personal
heroes.
This also points at a second way in which art schools were crucial for the romanticiza-
tion of popular music. The schools formed a repository of well-preserved artistic ideology. Art
schools venerated a pantheon of exemplary artists. Adoration for some of these spilled over
into pop culture during the 1960s, and this was partly due to rock music’s ‘artistic turn’.17 Also,
art colleges mythologized individual creativity. But most importantly, they formed enclaves of
Bohemianism. For art students, and for students in the high arts especially, there existed no
such thing as a separation between school and leisure. Being an artist was a way of life.
Bohemianism and music had been connected at art schools for some time prior to
the sixties. During the 1950s, the major shibboleths of this way of life were duffel coats and
jazz. The jazz element is especially important because, when Blues and R&B found its way
into the art student community, it provided the paradigm for a low culture elitism. Jazz was
not yet considered art music. Its attraction for Bohemians was rather the fact that it was a
minority music, and a departure from Bourgeois standards of good taste. However, in 1950s
Britain jazz was also a music for specialists. It had its own “counter-cultural capital”, to borrow
Bourdieu’s terminology. Only initiates could assess the relative merits of different recordings

17:  The sleeve of the Beatles’ album [Link]’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, for instance, depicts the authors
Edgar Allen Poe and Oscar Wilde, as well as the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, among others.

43
or performances, and join in the fierce debates between the ‘trad’ (traditional) and ‘mod’
(modern) jazz camps.
The final elements that went into the making of rock music’s artistic turn were the
musical idioms of blues and R&B, and their accompanying ideology. For a new generation of
art students, many of whom had working class backgrounds, blues stood for raw emotional
self-expression, and for a more genuine subversiveness than the Bohemian pose of the jazz
lovers could provide. John Lennon, for example, has been recorded in his art student days as
sneering:

I think it is shit music, even more stupid than rock ‘n’roll, followed by students
in Marks and Spencer pullovers. Jazz never gets anywhere, never does any-
thing, it’s always the same and all they do is drink pints of beer. (Frith 1987: 81)

What the art school context made possible was a merger between the Blues and R&B
discourse on musical truth on the one hand and the Romanticism and Bohemianism of the
art colleges on the other. The two ideologies converged on several points. Both were highly
concerned with the ‘truth’ and the ‘honesty’ of expressions. And both prized a certain ‘raw-
ness’ and a disdain for Bourgeois, mainstream audiences. Their respective ideas on tradition,
however, were starkly opposed.
British blues, initially, adhered strictly to the American tradition. Its positive value
judgment of choice was ‘original’, which in this context meant something like ‘true to its ori-
gins in the blues tradition’. For art schoolers, originality referred to a negative relation to tradi-
tion; for them, tradition was something from which you tried to break free. Capitalizing on
the two ideologies’ shared interest in self-expression, art school bands appropriated the blues
and R&B discourse on originality, bending it towards their own interests until the term meant
something like ‘making something personal out of the traditional idiom’.
In doing so, art school musicians made a good deal for themselves in several ways.
Not only did getting onstage win them the attention of an audience, like it did other bands,
but it brought them artistic prestige as well. Furthermore, the experimentalism of their
approach afforded them much freedom and made it possible to work around any initial lack
of musical skill. The idea of rock music as artistic popular music then caught on with a much
wider audience than most musicians likely expected. Sixties counter-culture, which had an
interest in infusing everyday life with a sense of art and play, proved very receptive to the idea.
This made success with much larger audiences possible. The British invasion subsequently
exported pop music’s new artistic sensibility all over the western world.
This artistic sensibility developed in two rather different directions. Art rock applied
the new ideology to the music it produced, incorporating influences from classical and jazz
music, and concentrating on lengthier and more complex pieces, such as ‘epic songs’ and
concept albums. It offered its listeners a sense of engaging in superior consumption, of being
connoisseurs. The commercial success of art rock musicians prompted record labels to publish
even the most experimental music. “Creative freedom” was the creed of the era; a creed which
was rapidly revoked when album sales started to decline in the second half of the 1970s.
What Frith calls “art pop” applied the new sense of artistic prestige to the persona of
the artist. Former art school students such as the Who’s Pete Townshend introduced pop art
theories into popular music, stylizing every aspect of the musical experience and drawing

44
attention to its commerciality. Thus, Andy Warhol could become an idol for musicians like
David Bowie, who learned from Warhol first and foremost that an artist did not have to be
someone highly skilled in a single kind of manufacture, such as painting or sculpting. Instead,
someone could, like Warhol, be an artist as a result of self-stylization and of ‘living one’s life
artistically’, engaging in any kind of manufacture along the way.
The concept of the pop music artist, then, is a diffuse one. The pop musician’s claims
to an artistic status may be legitimated in different ways in different genres or subcultures. In
fact, Simon Frith describes many subsequent developments in pop music’s take on the artist,
and many more could be added for the period between 1987, when his book appeared, and
now, so as to add more nuances. For the purposes of the present argument, however, it is more
important to emphasize that the recording industry embraced all these new artistic under-
standings of the pop musician, even when that meant impopularity with the many consumers
who viewed the music industry as a perverting force which pulled authentic artists towards
shallow commercialism, as I showed in chapter one in relation to the anti-commercial theory
of appropriate credit.
During the later 1960s and most of the 1970s, commercialism itself was suspect for a
large part of the record buying audience. The heroic narrative of an authentic artist struggling
to remain true to his original creativity, while operating within a shallow commercial industry
could save more ‘serious’ artists from the suspicion that they were driven primarily by com-
mercial motivations, and this, paradoxically, helped sales. After rock music’s ‘artistic turn’, a
wealth of discussions ensued in popular culture on the subject of which artists were ‘authentic’
and which were ‘commercial’, as Frith describes in his book Sound Effects (1981: 42). For
the purposes of the present argument, the rise of this opposition between ‘authentic’ versus
‘commercial’ completes the story of how the Romanticisms identified in the first chapter
found their way into the contemporary music industry.

Conclusion

The tacit metaphysics of musical communication developed along with the practices
of the Empfindsamkeit. During romanticism it became widespread and it was supplemented
with a sacralization of music and a corresponding further elevation of the status of the com-
poser. Curiously, these ways of understanding music production became associated with the
phonographic popular music industry via two seperate routes.
On the one hand, the metaphysics of musical communication arose along with the
market for amateur sheet music during the Empfindsamkeit, and it remained the ideological
underpinning of this industry until the phonographic industry appropriated it. This, however,
was a brand of the metaphysics of musical communication that applied first and foremost to
the commodity sold, that is, to the sheet music or the gramophone record. These commodities
were thought of as material carriers containing an immaterial good.
On the other hand, the metaphysics of musical communication also found its way
into the pop music industry much later via the artistic turn in rock music. This time, it first
and foremost informed the way in which the pop musician was understood. He or she was an
artist. This could mean different things. The artistry of the pop musician might be exemplified
by superior musicianship, as in the case of art rock, or by careful self-stylization, as in the case

45
of art pop. Either way, the pop musician’s artistic status helped record sales by distancing the
artist from commercialism in the eyes of the audience.
Now, all the elements in the recording industry’s answer to the credit quetion can be
accounted for. The relationship between the artist and the listener, where the listener admires
and financially facilitates the artist, is a product of the Romantic expressivism and exaltation
of the artist. Most aspects of this relation were already in place during the Empfindsamkeit,
and one such aspect that deserves mention is the fact that the listener was then already a
consumer. He or she consumed sheet music rather than gramophone records or CD’s, but
the way in which this commodity was understood was similar, namely as an immaterial good
in a material carrier. The expressivism and the exaltation of the artist from which the music
consumer’s double task of admiration and financial facillitation stems was normalized during
the Romantic period, remained alive in art schools, and was ‘transplanted’ into popular music
culture during rock music’s artistic turn.
The recording industry since its inception had understood its role as more or less
analogous to that of the music publishers previously. In chapter one, I showed that the
rhetoric in which the music industry proclaimed itself the servant of the artist, taking care
of the mundane practicalities, already existed in the era of the sheet music industry. When
in need of self-legitimization, then, the recording industry had this argument ready to hand.
The industry provided a service both to the artist and the consumer, and for this it deserved
financial compensation. For commercial reasons, however, the recording industry had to
be permissive with regard to the heroic tale of the artist as a person who struggles to stay
true within a shallow commercial industry. This argument, in turn, helped create the anti-
commercial theory of appropriate credit, which also held that the music consumer should
admire and financially facilitate the artist, but which contested the music industry’s role in
pop music production.
The ideas of some contemporary adversaries of the recording industry in the current
copyright debate are also rooted in the history sketched out above. The proponents of new
music technologies who claim that these will create more of a level playing field for artists
still interpret the artist-consumer relation along the same lines as the commercial and anti-
commercial theories of appropriate credit. More interestingly, generalized artistry can also in
an important sense be traced back to rock music’s artistic turn. There, Romantic notions of
expressivism and originality became intertwined with the DIY mentality of Blues and R’n’B.
Beginning a rock band was a low-tresshold affair. Anyone, including people from a blue collar
background, could do it, and this was a substantial part of its attraction. Considered in this
light, generalized artistry’s tendency to attribute a will to creative self-expression to everyone
can be read as an intensification of what happened during the 1960s artistic turn in popular
music.
Most importantly, however, the history narrated in the foregoing chapter invites two
conclusions with respect to the commercial theory of appropriate credit. Firstly, the tacit
metaphysics of musical communication and the commercial theory of appropriate credit
were the product of a precise set of historical circumstances. Therefore, they do not represent
some pregiven or fixed way music culture happens to be. Secondly, I have shown that the
roots of these ways of understanding pop music culture go quite deep. Their apparent self-
evidence is therefore likely difficult to debunk. Both these points are worth keeping in mind
during the remainder of this dissertation, because the case studies which I will perform in the

46
following chapters do not only deal with particular cultural practices, but also with the
relationship between these practices and the dominant view, which is the commercial theory
of appropriate credit.

47
48
 Chapter 3

Concepts and Cases.

49
Introduction

In the previous two chapters I provided a birds-eye view of the historical roots and
contemporary parameters of a poignant socio-cultural debate, namely the discussion on
appropriating, owning, and reusing recorded music. In the first chapter, I looked at contem-
porary society and identified my topic. I took as my central concerns (a) the question of
who deserves credit for doing what in popular music culture, and (b) how the answers to
that question are changing in relation to new technologies. I described the traditional com-
mercial and anti-commercial answers to these questions as well as some novel ones, such as
generalized artistry and the advocacy of sharing economies. In the second chapter, I chose a
historical perspective and investigated the origins of these answers to the credit question, with
special emphasis on the commercial theory of appropriate credit.
In the remainder of this dissertation, I will leave the birds-eye view behind and
investigate actual practices. This is because I want to argue that different practices all come
with their own solutions to the problem of rewarding participants for their contributions. To
try and press these various ‘systems’ into the mold of a single theory that purportedly governs
all of popular music culture can only result in misleading views. The commercial theory of
appropriate credit is deceiving in this way. As explained above, it maintains that all people in
popular music culture can be divided into the categories of artist, industry, and consumer, and
that the proper reward for each of these, respectively, are financial facilitation plus admira-
tion, financial compensation, and the (passive) enjoyment of a musical product. As a result of
its ‘one size fits all’ approach, it covers up many complexities that, in my view, matter.
Unsurprisingly, therefore, the three subsequent chapters are case studies. In each of
these studies, I will look closely at a particular cultural practice, and make a careful analysis
of the complexities of credit-giving at stake. In this chapter, I prepare the way for these case
studies by elucidating matters of conceptualization and of analytic method. Below, I will first
make explicit the theoretical underpinnings of the cultural practices approach to which I have
already referred above. Subsequently, I will address an important concern that may well have
entered some readers’ minds: Is the cultural subject a kind of homo economicus who can only
be motivated to participate in culture by means of a reward? I then discuss why I selected the
cultural practices of mix taping, re-mixing, and deejaying as cases to study. And finally, I go
through the details of my analytic method.

The concept of cultural practices

In the first chapter, I defined “practices” as activities that people perform in a routi-
nized way, so that many aspects of how they perform and conceptualize these activities are
taken for granted. Idefined culture as the aggregate of ways people use symbols and concepts
to understand the world around them, ascribing meanings to this life-world which are shared
and which appear to be self-evident. The term “cultural practices”, then, refers to situation
where two kinds of self-evidence connect, namely those of habitual action and of shared ways
of understanding the world. To emphasize the importance of understandings that are shared
within cultural practices, I use the term eclusively for collective activities.

50
 My use of the concept of cultural practices is intimately connected with one of the
central points in this study: the argument that overarching theories of appropriate credit,
which are assumed to apply to pop music culture in general, have important shortcomings.
I advocate a ‘natural setting approach’, which attends to details and particulars. It is first and
foremost for this reason that I turn to the concept of cultural practices. There is no way to
investigate all of pop music culture in detail. The scholar must delimit his or her object of
study. Such delimitations, however, are not without hazard, because they influence the cul-
tural scholar’s perception of his or her object. In the case studies that will follow, I have chosen
to delimit my object by concentrating on specific cultural practices. There are several reasons
why I favor this way of marking out my object of research.
Objects of research are inevitably informed by a priori decisions about what is worth
attending to and what is not. Therefore, it can effectively blind the scholar to crucial aspects
of the object in question. In the previous chapter, I have described several historical practices
as aggregates of heterogeneous elements. In relation to the Empfindsamkeit, for instance, I
discussed the cultural practice of performing chamber music in an amateur context in terms
of a discourse derived from Sturm und Drang, a particular social group (namely the middle
class), the cultural form of the sonata, and the economic transition from a patronage system of
music production to a market system. The heterogeneity of the elements of culture that can be
taken into account using a cultural practices approach is one of its main advantages. At least
three types of elements play an important role in my research, namely discourse, technology,
and the activities of cultural subjects, or in other words, what people do, which technologies
they use, and how they think, write, or speak about this.
As an additional advantage, a cultural practices approach does not presuppose a
particular order in the way these segments of reality are interrelated, and in no way does
it presume a causal order between elements. Thus, for instance, if I assumed the causal
priority of human action, I could easily fall into a ‘great men’ narrative on technology, in
which new technologies are the products of the minds of genius inventors. On the other
hand, if I assumed the causal priority of technology, I could easily fall into technologically
determinist accounts of society according to which, say, new digital music technologies
cause the demise of the traditional consumer and the rise of prosumers, produsers, and the
like. It is necessary to keep sight of the fact that causation rarely operates unidirectionally.
It is in this sense that Raymond Williams uses the term “cultural practices” in passing in
his classic study on television, in which he devotes much attention to a critique of techno-
logical determinism (Williams 1974). Sociologist Andreas Reckwitz uses his term of choice,
“social practices”, for a similar purpose when he argues against treating ‘the social’ as some-
thing that is either mental, textual, or intersubjective. His social practices approach attempts
to give a place to minds and concepts, symbols and texts, as well as interactions (Reckwitz
2002).
The cultural practices approach I advocate uses the habitual nature of much of human
activity to get the interplay of segments of reality as heterogeneous as discourse, technology,
and human action into view. Practices have become habitual or customary, and exist only as
long as they are repeated. In this, my approach differs from that of philosopher Michel de
Certeau, who investigates practice rather than practices, and thus foregrounds human action
in relation to other aspects of culture. It is the habitual or customary aspect of practices that

51
gives human activity a chance to become connected to particular tools and technologies, and
to develop a discourse around it.
Only those practices survive in which the heterogeneous elements involved become
connected in such a way that the result is an assemblage, which successfully reproduces itself.
The way in which human action, technology, discourse, and other segments of reality are
connected may therefore differ from practice to practice, as long as the result encourages the
activity in question to be repeated. In this way, the cultural practices approach I advocate
distances itself still further from overarching theories of culture. Also, because repetition is
never exact, a cultural practice is an inherently temporal object of study, which to a certain
degree resists atemporal understandings of culture.
It must be stressed that I use the notion of cultural practices as a conceptual tool for
understanding pop music culture. It guides the way I interpret my data. These data, however,
will be mostly discursive in nature, consisting of written accounts and interviews. Discursive
data thus serve as informants on human action, technology, and the discourse that surrounds
the practice in question alike.

The agency problem

I argue that different cultural practices come with their own answers to the credit-
question, and these particular answers make more sense than the general answers invoked
in copyright debates. It must be stressed, however, that this claim about cultural practices
is rooted in two assumptions. First, practices are considered successful if they persist for
some time; activities that have occurred sporadically are excluded. And second, practices are
community-based rarther than solitary. Concerning this group of practices I propose three
things:

-- Cultural practices provide different answers to the credit question, the issue of what
kind of reward is appropriate for what kind of contribution.

-- From this it follows that a single overarching theory, like that of the commercial theory
of appropriate credit for instance, oversimplifies the issue. Practice-specific answers to
the credit question are adequate solutions only for the specific practices to which they
belong. General answers are not.

-- Practice-specific solutions to the credit-giving problem are necessary to make their

practices work. If a cultural practice does not provide an adequate system of credit-
giving, the motivation of its participants will be undermined and the practice will
dissolve.

The first two points are mostly an invitation to look more closely at what actually
happens in pop music culture. They will likely prove uncontroversial. The final point, how-
ever, may cause some eyebrows to be raised. Does it mean that people will not engage in any
activity unless they receive some reward? Does it deny the enjoyment of an activity for its

52
own sake and the pleasure of expressing oneself, replacing them with calculation? Not exactly.
There are three nuances to observe.
My notion of credit includes things that are not commonly understood to be rewards.
Getting credit may mean being acknowledged as the one who made a particular contribution.
I chose the word “credit” because its range of connotations is markedly wider than that of
the word “reward”. Here is a list to illustrate the range of meanings I want to include. Getting
credit may mean: being acknowledged as the maker of a contribution, getting attention, get-
ting praise, getting admiration, being accepted within a community, winning status within
a community, maintaining control (for example over what may be done with a creation you
made), receiving material goods, or receiving money.
Furthermore, I do not argue that credit is the only thing that motivates and activates
people. Instead, I deny the opposite, which involves a subtle but crucial difference. It is the
withholding of credit which undermines people’s motivation to participate. Suppose that I
enjoy polishing pebbles into perfect geometric shapes. I enjoy this activity for its own sake,
not needing any reward. Two things may happen to undermine my motivation if I take this
practice into a community. The first is that this activity, which is highly meaningful to me, is
deemed utterly pointless by others. This would prompt me either to stop believing in the value
of pebble-polishing or to continue my hobby in solitude. Technically speaking, the value of
a collective activity is socially constructed (Berger and Luckmann 1966), and an activity will
not be performed indefinitely in a social context that does not construct it as valuable.
Alternatively, someone could quench my motivation by passing of my cubes and
pyramids as his or her own. This is the so-called “free-rider problem”, well-known in
economics and biology and in the anthropology of gift-giving (Axelrod 1990, Hyde 1983). In
this situation, too, I would be extremely unlikely to keep polishing pebbles without seeking
to be appropriately credited. This example makes clear why I limit my claims to collective
practices. In solitary practices, where the social construction of value and the free-rider pro-
blem are not at issue, activities may well be pursued indefinitely for no other reason than their
inherent enjoyability.
The third and final nuance I want to add is that my claims concern practices and not
individuals. Consequently, my foregoing claims apply to most people, but not necessarily to
everyone. Individuals are unique. It is possible that certain people will pursue their favored
practices within a community without getting any credit whatsoever, possibly in the face
of the fact that their contributions are socially constructed as inane or that they invite free
riding. My claim, however, is that there will be too few of these persistent actors to fuel a suc-
cessful practice. For this reason incidental practices are excluded from my proposals.
Despite all these nuances, my claims impose important limitations on the individual
agency of cultural subjects. My proposals are not compatible, for instance, with the expres-
sivism that underlies the commercial and anti-commercial theories of appropriate credit and
generalized artistry. A drive towards self-expression is not properly understood as a charac-
teristic of subjects, whether in general or only in the case of exceptional talents. Rather than
emanating from isolated individuals, creativity emerges within particular contexts and prac-
tices. Creative acts are always embedded in a cultural context, which enables and constrains
them (Giddens 1984, Hall 1980).
More importantly, my claims are not entirely compatible with the widespread
enthusiasm for consumer agency that characterizes the very disciplines upon which this study

53
builds. Popular music scholars have spent much effort to dispel the passive and victimized
picture of the popular music consumer that Frankfurt school sociologist Theodor W. Adorno
had painted. In the words of popular music scholar Simon Frith:

In broad terms, the analytic response to Frankfurt pessimism has been to

accept the organizational account of mass cultural production, to ignore
the complexities of Adorno’s aesthetic theory, and to look for the redeeming
features of commodity culture in the act of consumption. The task (...) was
to find forms of mass consumption that were not “passive” and types of mass
consumers who were not stupefied. (Frith 1996: 13)

Indeed, cultural studies, and especially its Birmingham school variant, used
ethnographic studies of television viewers, among other things, to criticize the passive and
victimized picture of the media user that film studies had put forward (Brunsdon and Morley
1978, Ang 1985). The valuable insights of these initial studies were followed by a vogue for
studies that portrayed consumers in an active light. Viewers interpreted the television shows
they watched in ways that contested dominant ideology (Hall 1980). Consumers appropriated
media content and technologies, and converted them to their own needs, contesting domi-
nant ideologies in that way (Fiske 1991, Willis et al. 1990, du Gay, Hall, et al. 1997).
By emphasizing the embeddedness of individual action in contexts and practices,
and by insisting that human agency has no primacy over other segments of reality, such as
discourse and technology, I am self-consciously pouring cold water on this enthusiasm for
consumer agency. The kind of scholarship in which this type of cultural studies engages is
critical theory, which means, in Ang’s felicitous short-hand description, that it aims to be ‘on
the side’ of the subjects it investigates (Ang 1985). A cultural scholar cannot be objective, Ang
argues, but she can be explicit about her affinities. As much as I admire this sentiment and
share these affinities, however, I think it has resulted in a repetitive insistence on consumer
agency that has gradually become a paradigm, which invites cultural scholars to presume, and
consequently to find, substantial levels of agency in any act of consumption they study. With
my analysis of processes of credit-giving, I hope to elucidate the conditions of the specific
kinds of activity that actors enjoy within the cultural practices investigated. I thus focus on the
conditions of this activity rather than on the question whether subjects have or lack agency.

The selection of the cases

There are a vast number of cultural practices that involve recorded music. Therefore,
the question presents itself why I chose the three that I will discuss in the following chapters:
Mix taping, the practice of rerecording of a selection of songs onto a blanc cassette tape and
possibly giving it to someone as a personalized gift; re-mixing at ccMixter, where community
members all reciprocally reuse one anothers’ work in their own musical compositions; and
deejaying, in which preexisting recorded music is used to bring a particular mood to a party.
My choice of cases can be explained from my hypothesis, which is that different
cultural practices have their own ways of distributing credit among contributors, and these
different solutions to the credit-problem are both appropriate to the practice in question and

54
essential to its perpetuation. To show how these things work requires an in-depth analysis of
each practice, so that only a small number of practices can be investigated. My claim that the
pattern described above pertains to successful and collective practices in general is best sup-
ported if this small number of studied cases are as different from each other as possible. After
all, if my case studies were all similar in some respect, this would make my argument vulner-
able to the criticism that this pattern may well hold only for practices involving a particular
technology, or from a particular period, et cetera.
For this reason, I have selected my case studies to differ along several axes. The cases
focus on different technologies. The DJ study devotes much attention to gramophone techno-
logy whilst also including contemporary digital technologies; the mix tape study focuses on
cassette technology; and the re-mix study concentrates on online digital technologies. Thus,
different kinds of analog sound technology and different kinds of digital sound technology
are included. This variation in technologies naturally leads to a certain spread in temporality.
The heyday of mix taping coincided with the heyday of the tape cassette, and occurred in the
1980s. The re-mix practice studied in chapter five, on the other hand, is contemporary. The
data from the DJ study, finally, span several decades. The emphasis lies on current practice,
but some of the experiences that DJs narrated in the interviews date from as early as the late
1970s.
The selection of my case studies was also designed to include variation along the axis of
what might perhaps be called “apparent creatorship”. Assuming that the traditional concepts
of the artist and the consumer need no elucidation, I have chosen my three case studies to
occupy different positions on the spectrum that runs between them. A re-mixer quite clearly
creates a novel work, even if this work is more obviously derivative than the work of a tradi-
tional artist. Thus, a re-mixer seems to be more like an artist. Whether a mix tape counts as a
new artistic work is far less obvious. Mix taping is more commonly considered as something
that consumers sometimes do. The deejay is presumably located between the other two, but
deejaying falls apart in two sub-cases. DJs who play songs ‘back to back’ (that is, one after the
other) would have more trouble claiming an artistic status than would DJs who mix songs
together in a single ‘meta-song’ of sorts. In fact, there is an actual difference in the perceived
status of these two types of deejaying; a phenomenon I will discuss at length in the sixth
chapter.
Finally, one might say that two of the cases concern a type of production. A mix taper
makes a mix tape and a re-mixer makes a re-mix. A DJ, however, is a performer. Thus, the DJ
study ensures that the aspects of improvisation and ‘liveness’ also receive attention. In sum-
mary, I have selected the case studies based on their complementary nature. In the following
sections, I will discuss my method of analysis for each of these cases.

The analysis, part I: mix taping

In chapter four, I analyze one hundred mix tape stories: first person narrative accounts
created by mix tape compilers or gift tape recipients, in which the narrator reminisces
about specific mix tapes or about the practice of mix taping in general as it existed during
the 1980s and early 1990s. Stories, in other words, are my object of investigation. I will be
performing a textual analysis of a reflexive discourse of the cultural practice of mix taping.

55
In a sense, this is a forced choice, because the cultural practice of mix taping is all but extinct.
Mix taping is now a practice that exists primarily in memory. Such memories are mediated
and shared in the form of narratives (van Dijck 2007: 77-79).
Nonetheless, these narratives make highly interesting objects of analysis. Mix tape
story writers devote much attention to describing what they actually did in a material
sense. For this reason, the stories offer a window on the heterogeneous elements involved
in this practice, and the way in which they were connected. However, the corpus of mix tape
stories is more than a window upon a practice of bygone days. These mix tape stories are also
interesting in their own right, as a discourse. In these stories, tensions between the com-
mercial theory of appropriate credit and practice-specific concerns are played out. In other
words, apart from providing a window on the practice of mix taping itself, these narratives
also provide information on the mix tapers’ ideas on the credit question.
The stories I analyzed came from three different sources. Thirty-nine stories were
obtained by selecting all the mix tape stories from the book Mix Tape: The art of cassette
culture (Moore (ed.) 2004). Twenty-one stories were found on the website of the exhibition
“KassettenGeschichten: Von Menschen und ihren Mixtapes,” in Januari 2006.18 The remaining
forty stories have been obtained by using Google Blog Search with “mix tape” as the search
entry, and searching through the hits in numerical order, accepting all accounts that conform
to the above definition, and only those. This sample was obtained in December 2005. The
stories reminisce about events taking place mostly during the 1980s and occasionally the early
1990s.
The collection of stories is heterogeneous, because the three sources yielded sets of
stories from different communities. They were written both by recognized artists and by
‘ordinary consumers’, and for different reasons. In the presentation of the results of my
analysis, I will treat the mix tape stories from the three sources alike. Here, I want to briefly
discuss the differences between these samples and their possible consequences.
The mixtape stories taken from the book MixTape: The art of cassette culture come
from a community of befriended established artists. The book’s primary aim is to forcefully
assert that mix taping is highly valuable, and that it is in fact an art. The fact that the contribu-
tors to the book are mostly recognized artists lends weight to this assertion. Aside from the
references to mix taping as an artistic enterprise, what sets the mix tape stories in the book
apart from those in the other two sources is that it contains a minor number of contributions
that are more literate with respect to cultural theory than any of the mix tape stories from
the other two sources. Aside from these more ‘theoretically informed’ contributions, how-
ever, there is no discernible difference, whether in style or in content, between the mix tape
stories written by recognized artists and those written by individuals generally categorized as
consumers.
The sample of mixtape stories found through Google Blog Search contains two
professional writers. Their mix tape stories resemble articles more than blog entries. The other
thirty-eight stories from this source were written by ‘ordinary people’, whose writing was not
motivated by a request or a professional need. The inspiration for the writing of most blog
entries was provided either by Moore’s book or Hornby’s novel High Fidelity (Hornby 1995),
in which mix taping plays an important role. The bloggers have clearly been influenced by

18:  “Die Ausstellung: Unsere Kassettengeschichten” [Link] available January 9, 2006.

56
these books in the way they write about mix tapes and mix taping. Both works are occasion-
ally cited.
The sample of mixtape stories taken from the website of the KassettenGeschichten
exhibition, finally, differs from the other two samples in the sense that they are edits from
semi-structured interviews. Therefore, the choice of topics under discussion may show the
pattern of interest of the interviewer more than that of the respondent, although the research-
ers have taken pains to make the respondents talk with the least possible interruption (Herlyn
and Overdick (eds.) 2005). The most visible difference between this set of mix tape stories
and the other two is that the KassettenGeschichten-stories cover a wider range of topics. The
unsolicited stories tend to concentrate on the more anecdotal aspects of the practice, such as
making tapes as gifts, whereas the German stories also devote attention to aspects that make
less good story material, such as solitary mix taping.

The analysis, part II: ccMixter

In the fifth chapter, I present an analysis of the website of an online remix community
named ccMixter. The distinguishing characteristic of this site is the fact that all its musical
content is subject to creative commons copyright licenses. This alternative to traditional ‘all
rights reserved’ copyright enables uploaders of content to indicate what rights they wish to
retain or to waive. Consequently, reuse of ccMixter content is always legal. The website thus
provides a window on creative possibilities that can only exist where the constraints of a per-
vasive copyright regime have been lifted. In a sense, ccMixter is two things at once, namely a
remix community and an advertisement for the counter-movement to pervasive copyright.
Because the method I use for this case study is less common than those of the other two cases,
I will discuss it at greater length.
The question of how my object of investigation should be conceptualized induces any-
thing but a straightforward answer. In preparation for a discussion of this issue, let me first
point out a few elements that will be crucial to my analysis. I assume ‘remixing’ at ccMixter
to be a cultural practice, in the context of which ccMixter community members navigate and
understand their own actions with ease, as if everything about this practice is fully ‘transpar-
ent’ and self-evident. I believe, however, that much about this practice is implicit. My objective
is one of explication - to bring hidden structures to light. My actual object of investigation,
the ccMixter website, will be my informant about credit-giving within the cultural practice of
remixing at ccMixter.
I could say the ccMixter site is a text. I read this text metonymically, as a pars pro toto of
the ccMixter ‘micro culture’ of which it is a part. I use the site, in other words, as an informant
about this small slice of culture I seek to explicate. Viewed in this way, my case study could
be called a discourse analysis (Gee 1999, Potter 1996). The ccMixter website is a text which
‘speaks for’ the discourse of which it is part. However, an objection to this conceptualization
is readily apparent. This is the fact that ccMixter is not a discourse. It is the site of a cultural
practice that involves, but is not limited to, a discourse.
Alternatively, I could say that the ccMixter site is the result of a multitude of human
behaviors. I interpret these behaviors, again, metonymically, as a pars pro toto of the
ccMixter micro culture of which they are part (Forte 2005). And once again, I use the site as

57
an informant about this small slice of culture I seek to explicate. Viewed in this way, my case
study is more akin to an ethnographic thick description (Geertz 1975). The ccMixter website
provides a window on human behaviors which ‘speak for’ a cultural system. However, one
may then reasonably object that the traces of behavior I study are inextricably intertwined
with the mediated character of this behavior, and that these traces take the form of a multi-
modal text.
In the cultural form of the website in the ‘web 2.0. era’, behavior and textuality inter-
mingle in novel ways, not anticipated by the methods mentioned above, which predate the
phenomenon. The form my method takes is determined by the cultural form of the online
community website and by the objective of my analysis. I would describe it as a particular
kind of textual analysis. Any text can be read as an informant on many different issues. In
an ‘intentionalist’ reading, the text informs the scholar about the intentions of the author; in
a formalist reading, it informs the scholar about its own structure; in a ‘culturalist’ reading,
it informs the scholar about the conceptual environment from which it emerged, et cetera.
In my reading, the ccMixter text will be taken as an informant on the cultural practice of
remixing at ccMixter. However, the nature of the text makes this a special kind of reading.
Let me highlight a few of the most important differences between this and more conventional
readings.
First of all, the text is a website, and for me this has meant looking both at its content
and at its architecture, or, to put it in the terminology of Schneider & Foot (2005) perform-
ing both a discursive analysis and a structural/feature analysis. Although these two forms of
analysis often appear in isolation, the idea of combining them is by no means new (Park &
Thelwall 2008).
In line with the interests I have stated above, I will look closely at the ccMixter com-
munity’s style of credit-giving. A style of credit-giving can be instantiated both in the material
aspects of a practice and in the norms and unwritten rules that inform it. A reading of ccMix-
ter allows investigation of these two possibilities: The website’s architecture should provide
clues about the materially instantiated aspects of ccMixter’s style of credit-giving. The site’s
written content will likely give hints as to the unwritten rules of the community. (I will return
to this point below.)
Second, the text I study is vast and ever-changing. I have coped with the size of the
site by concentrating on recurrent features. This was easy for architectural elements, because
ccMixter contains a limited number of ‘types’ of pages, such that pages of a single type are
arranged according to a strict template. Each song or composition, for instance, has its own
page, and all these ‘song’ pages adhere to a single template. Furthermore, most of the general
observations I make regarding the site’s written and musical content concern aspects of the
site which are so common that it would take a considerable effort to find even a single excep-
tion, although such exceptions undoubtedly exist. Where observations concern less common-
place phenomena, this will be indicated in the text.
The ccMixter website is continuously changing, and this brings my analysis closer to
ethnographic method. The case study took place between May 19th 2008 and August 7th
2008, and future investigators of ccMixter will never be able to investigate the exact same text.
However, the main aspects of the site to which I draw attention are so general and funda-
mental that, if they change at all, they do so at a slow rate. They have not changed discernibly
between 2008 and 2010.

58
 I will analyze ccMixter’s architecture and content jointly, giving these aspects an equal
status as informants about the practice of remixing a ccMixter. This analysis can only proceed
the way it does because architecture and content display a high degree of agreement. Let me
explain this point.
The architecture of a website is both enabling and constraining to its users. It is
important to take note of this, and to analyze how users respond to such architectural choices.
In the tradition of British cultural studies, we might ask whether users submit uncritically to
the web designer’s choices, or whether they produce something like a ‘negotiated reading’ and
convert the site to their own ends, so that we may attribute agency to them. In all aspects, the
behavior of community members at ccMixter agrees very closely to the intended use of the
site. (The intended use, that is, as can be inferred from how it enables and constrains online
behavior.) But this does not mean that ccMixter members are uncritical in their acceptance
of the ccMixter website.
There are several forums on the website, and among these forums there is an active one
devoted to features. Here, members can post and discuss proposals for architectural improve-
ments. There is little need for ccMixter members, then, to engage in ‘tactics’ as Michel de
Certeau describes them (De Certeau 1988). In fact, ccMixter members are highly reflective
with regard to their remix practice, but instances where this reflexivity leads to harsh criticism
of the site or its moderators are virtually absent, as can be illustrated with the search for a
new owner for ccMixter after Creative Commons, the organization promoting the alternative
copyright system, wanted to shed the financial burden of maintaining the site in November
2009. The decision making process was highly transparent. Members were invited by means
of a forum and a survey to share their opinions, and many of them did so, in a constructive
manner and with respect for the way the site had until then been maintained. In the end,
ccMixter was bought by the company ArtisTech Media, whose CEO Emily Richards is a vocal
artist and a long-standing active member of the ccMixter community.19
Members of ccMixter, then, are not engaged in a micro-political conflict with their
website, and neither can we say that they are unreflective in their acceptance of the site’s struc-
ture. Therefore, I will approach the architecture of the ccMixture website, provided by Victor
Stone, and its content, provided by all the members quite simply as two different windows on
a single practice. This simple approach, then, is not the result of any lack of sensitivity to the
tensions between technologies and their users in general, but merely of their relative absence
in this case. In other words, if I use the architecture of the ccMixter website as an informant
about the material instantiation of ccMixter’s particular style of credit-giving, and the written
content as an informant about the norms which tacitly underlie ccMixter’s particular style of
credit-giving, this approach is only defensible because there is no discernible tension between
the two.
In my explorations, I have understood the architecture of ccMixter in terms of its
‘affordances’, that is, in terms of the possibilities for behavior it opens up (Gibson 1979, see
also DeNora 2000: 38-41; Weber 2008: 60). Discussions about research in the online world
have sometimes made much of the differences between real and virtual spaces (Turkle 1997,
Lysloff 2003: 236-8). However interesting such ontological questions may be in their own
right, I will leave them aside here. They are not relevant to the processes I describe. Instead, I

19:  “The Future of ccM” [Link] Available 03-03-2010. “Thoughts on Expanding CCM”
[Link] Available 03-03-2010.

59
opt for a pragmatist approach, in the philosophical sense. I will consider virtual spaces to be
as real as the possibilities of action they afford. In other words, a virtual button is a real button
inasmuch as pressing or clicking it means performing an action.20
I performed two studies of selected samples of written content on ccMixter. At
ccMixter, when a user uploads a new remix, community members can post short, written
comments in response, known as “reviews”. In the first subjugated case study, I studied all
reviews between June 21st 2008, 9:17 am and June 24th 2008, 12:00 pm. This limited the cor-
pus to one hundred and fifty reviews. What struck me in these reviews was the fact that they
were variations on a single theme, and the theme was praise. This made me curious about the
status relation between remixers and reviewers and led me to perform a second subjugated
case study. At ccMixter, when members upload a new remix, they can append an explanatory
text to it, known as a “commentary”. In the second subjugated analysis, I studied all commen-
taries between July 2nd 2008, 8:37 pm and July 13th 2008 5:12 pm. This limited the corpus to
one hundred commentaries. In both analyses, the selected time window was determined by
the extraction of a particular number of reviews or commentaries from a self-updating list of
recent reviews or remixes. In doing so, I acquired a sample that was free from bias towards the
parts of the site with which I was most familiar, bias towards my own musical preferences, or
similar biases. In this way, I wanted to undercut the risk that my personal surfing habits might
lead me to make general claims which are not actually generally applicable.

The analysis, part III: deejaying

In chapter six, I analyze the cultural practice of deejaying at parties, with a special
emphasis on DJs who use vinyl (or even bakelite) records. For this chapter, I have conducted
semi-structured interviews with nineteen DJs. Semi-structured interviews are a well-known
method in ethnographic research (Seale 1998, Cresswell 1994). My heuristic point of depar-
ture has been to compare DJs who have a preference for gramophone technology and older
music with DJs who prefer contemporary technology and music. Eight of the DJs I inter-
viewed could be labeled ‘conservationist’. I have chosen this term to emphasize that they have
a particular engagement with gramophone technology and/or older popular music. A ‘pre-
servationist’ impulse plays a role, more or less important for different respondents, within
their DJ activities. Another eight DJs are, or were, more or less contemporary in their choice
of technology and music. They are a very mixed bag, which has made it difficult to find a
familiar term that applies to all. I have opted to coin a neologism and to call them ‘contempo-
rist’. Three more DJs switch fluidly between analogue records and digital technology, between
contemporary and older music, and between mixing and playing songs back-to-back. I will
refer to these as ‘intermediate’ DJs.
The DJs were found by means of the ‘snowball method’. This entailed searching
starting from my own network, and asking each DJ I found to list five DJs from his own circle
of acquaintances. In using this list to approach other DJs, I gave preference to the DJ whom

20:  The limit case of this is one of the oldest websites still in existence (if not in its original incarnation):
“The Really Big Button That Doesn’t Do Anything” [Link]
Available 10-02-2010. The button itself does not even do anything (except link back to the page it is on), but the act
of pushing it definitely means doing something in particular.

60
my interviewee considered most different from himself. However, in choosing new DJs to
interview I have also taken into account my objective of comparing users of vinyl and users
of digital DJ technologies.
All of the DJs I have interviewed are party DJs, although some not exclusively. For
example, several DJs produce as well, two are also radio DJs, and one has furthermore often
performed as a turntablist with a band, while another organizes music quizzes in pubs. Despite
these differences, however, the nineteen DJs in my sample have in common that a central part
of their job consists of filling up a dance floor, whether at a venue or a pub or at a private party,
and generating a good atmosphere. Now, however, I turn my attention to the first case study,
and analyze the craft of the mix taper.

61
62
 Chapter 4

Creators or Criminals:
The Case of Mix Taping.

I play ‘Got To Get You Off My Mind’ by Solomon Burke, and everyone has a go,
just out of duty, even though only the best dancers would be able to make some-
thing of it, and nobody in the room could claim to be the best dancers, or even
among the most average. When Laura hears the opening bars she spins round
and grins and makes several thumbs-up signs, and I start to compile in my head
a compilation tape for her, something that’s full of stuff she’s heard of, and full
of stuff she’d play. Tonight, for the first time ever, I can sort of see how it’s done.
(Hornby 1995: 244-245)

63
Introduction

The citation above is the conclusion of Nick Hornby’s celebrated novel High Fidelity.
What Hornby refers to as a ‘compilation tape’ is now more commonly called a mix tape. In this
chapter, I analyze the practice of making such mix tapes. At first glance, this is a very simple
practice. It consists of rerecording a collection of preexisting songs on a blank tape cassette.
The compiler of the tape may add self-made art work, and he or she may give the tape away
to someone else, for instance as a token of love or friendship, or as a way to introduce the
recipient to new music. It was a widespread practice during the 1980s and it continued into
the 1990s.
I will use the term ‘mix taping’ exclusively to refer to the practice of re-recording
several preexisting songs onto a tape cassette. Other practices of the same name existed in the
hip hop and dance scenes, and these are not the topic of this chapter. From the mid-1970s
onward, hip hop DJs spread their performances on cassettes known as mix tapes. Starting in
the early 1990s, the term also came to be applied to tapes on which rappers recorded their
own vocals and lyrics over existing beats (Shapiro 2005). In house and related musical genres,
too, DJs made their own mixes (uninterrupted stretches of music created out of a number of
separate music tracks) and recorded these onto tape cassettes, which they then spread around
for publicity purposes. This practice began in the early 1980s and continued well into the
1990s (Shapiro 2000). Both of these practices were dominated by aspiring musicians. The
kind of mix taping I will discuss below was a low threshold, amateur practice. As explained in
the third chapter, I have chosen to focus on this type of mix taping precisely because it appears
to be closer to the ‘consumer side’ of the traditional artist-consumer dichotomy. More profes-
sional ways of engaging with recorded music are discussed in chapters five and six.
Hornby’s novel shows that, however simple the practice may seem, mix tapes matter.
The passage cited above illustrates how inextricably mix taping is intertwined with the social
dimension of life. Rob, the protagonist, has a social epiphany, which allows him to step over
his fear of commitment, but which also changes his opinion on what is a good mix tape. The
two insights are intertwined.
Hornby’s novel, written as mix taping on cassette was in its last throes, marks the
beginning of a ‘technostalgic’ discourse on the practice. In this chapter, I will investigate this
retrospective discourse by means of a reading of around one hundred mix tape stories, nar-
ratives written by mix tapers or mix tape recipients that concern specific mix tapes or the
practice of mix taping in general. I will try to give an account of a cultural practice which
does more justice to its particularity than an account departing from an overarching theory
of appropriate credit can.
In this chapter, I will argue that credit-giving was crucial to the perpetuation of the
mix taping practice. I will devote most attention to an analysis of mix taping’s unique style of
credit-giving. The specificity of this style of credit-giving, however, will only show itself fully
further on in this study, when it can be compared to the styles of credit-giving found in the
other two cases. Furthermore, I will propose that there is always a tension between a practice’s
particular style of credit-giving and the dominant commercial theory of appropriate credit
wherever the two intersect. The results of my analysis of the mix tape case, I believe, point in
this direction. Finally, I will show how the influence of the commercial theory of appropriate
credit results in an emphasis on creation and a neglect of other types of contributing and

64
participating. My point of departure will be a striking recurrent feature of the mix tape stories,
namely the statement that mix taping is an art.

Looking back on a past practice

I have found no indication that a written discourse around mix taping, as I have defined
the term, existed contemporary with the practice itself. There was some writing on cassette
culture at large, such as the “DIY corner” and “Garageland” sections in the British pop music
journals Sound and NME, or, slightly later, the book Cassette Mythos (James 1992). None of
these, however, addressed mix taping as a topic that might be interesting in itself. The music
journals discussed new releases on cassette, whereas the Cassette Mythos book celebrated the
subversive potential of the cassette medium. Both concentrated on ‘artists’, however DIY in
character, rather than on ‘consumers’.
Even today, cassette culture has its own web forum and there are websites that aggre-
gate or review new releases on cassette.21 But on these sites, too, all attention goes to the
discussion of ‘artists’ and their ‘works’. Several works on the musical underground of the late
1970s and the early 1980s mention ‘tape swapping’ and the importance of the cassette medium
to the thriving of particular genres, such as punk and new wave. Once again, however, they
discuss the recording or compiling of tapes not as a practice in its own right, but as an activity
subservient to the spread of ‘the music itself ’ (Joynson 2001, Cogan 2006). Of the handful of
academic releases which mention mix taping at all, none refer to primary sources which were
concurrent with the practice (Drew 2005; Herlyn & Overdick eds. 2005; Toal 2007; Weber
2008; Jansen 2009). Only historian David Morton refers to sponsored surveys on home taping
by Warner and the Home Recording Rights Coalition, which focus mainly on the statistics of
cassette usage, and which do not concentrate specifically on mix taping (Morton 2000: 107).
This absence may seem remarkable, especially when compared to the discourse that
emerged once the practice had disappeared, which I will discuss below. But if one thinks
back to the citation with which I started this chapter, it becomes less mysterious. Unlike a
prototypical artist, even one of the DIY variety, Rob begins to compile a tape in his mind
with a very specific intended audience, namely his (former) girlfriend Laura. The tape itself
is triggered by their interaction and by a change he senses in their relationship. If he indeed
finishes the tape (the story does not tell) he will most likely give it to her and assume it to be
self-explanatory. This, according to the research I present below, is how tape giving works.
Being meaningful only in connection to his relationship with Laura, Rob’s tape has no need
for any discourse or publicity whatsoever. The small discourse that surrounds the cassette
underground is dedicated almost entirely to the mediation between rare, obscure releases and
a small, scattered potential audience. Mix tapers, however, compiled their tapes for lovers,
friends, or for themselves, and therefore they had no need for such mediation.
The new attention for mix tapes that emerged after the practice had dissolved is of
a different type. It is about sharing memories, and such sharing is almost inevitably discur-
sive. The memories that I will discuss below are embedded in narratives, which, following

21:  Cassette Culture [Link] Available 10-03-2010; Cassette Gods reviews

[Link] Available 10-03-2010; Animal Psi [Link]
Available 10-03-2010.

65
Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore, I will call “mix tape stories” (Moore 2004). No less
importantly, the advent of the internet and web 2.0. has made it possible for individuals to
publish such narratives quickly, easily, and worldwide, with no professional means or experi-
ence required. Search engines, moreover, have made it possible to find these stories. Collecting
these stories as a type of discourse was very difficult in the era of the tape cassette.
Aside from this, reflection on phenomena tends to be late in general, as many
historians and cultural analysts have noted (See e.g. Foster 1996: 28-29) Moreover, newer
technologies do not simply make older technologies obsolete. The present discourse on mix
taping must in part be explained from the playlist functions, which have appeared in soft-
ware music players and MP3-players, as well as in many social online music services such as
LastFM, or, for that matter, the ccMixter website, which will be the topic of the next chapter.
The playlist ‘remediates’ the mix tape, and, being similar to it in some respects yet different
in others, draws renewed attention to it. One mix tape story writer describes the mix tape as
follows: “They are avant-garde too, like the cut-up. A parallel to Xerox art, an antecedent to
sampling.” (11)22

How mix taping became an art

Let me start my analysis by posing the question how the theme that mix taping is an
art became popular among mix tape writers. As I explained above, Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel
High Fidelity was the first substantial source that revealed an appreciation of mix taping as a
matter of social and even existential importance. In 1997, a website was launched, which was
devoted to the sharing of cassettes, mix-CD’s and MP3 playlists. Here, internet users could
(and still can) upload the track list they compiled, photos of the accompanying art work, and
autobiographical notes. This site was titled Art of the Mix, and it is here that we first find this
qualification applied to mix taping.23
The interest for mix tapes increased markedly around the turn of the millennium. In
America, a film version of High Fidelity, directed by Stephen Frears, appeared in 2000, while
in Germany mix taping was discussed in several novels and short stories (Stuckrad-Barre
1999, Neumeister 2001, Gasser 2003, Duve 2002). Among these, Gasser most clearly defends
an artistic status for the mix tape. He writes: “Cassette mixing is a high art. Comparable to
the writing of a poem” (Gasser 2003: 169). Karin Duve, on the other hand, highlights the
importance of mix tapes as objects that are intimately tied to memories of love relations,
a theme that from here on will become increasingly dominant in the mix tape discourse.
A project seminar on mix tapes at the ethnological institute of the university of Hamburg
in 2001 lead to an exhibition titled KassettenGeschichten: Von Menschen und ihren Mixtapes
(Cassette Stories: Of People and their Mix Tapes, see Herlyn and Overdick, eds. 2005) This
exhibition has traveled from its original location in Hamburg to Frankfurt, Nürnberg, and
Bern (Switzerland). Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore edited a collection of anecdotal
stories around mix tapes, which came out in 2004 under the title Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette
Culture. Together with the film version of High Fidelity, this book has led to a profusion of
stories about mix tapes appearing in personal weblogs. I performed this case study in 2006,

22:  The bracketed numbers which follow citations refer to the mix tape stories as numbered in appendix A.
23:  Art of the Mix [Link] Available 10-03-2010.

66
when Moore’s book had recently appeared, and while the Art of the Mix website was enjoying
increasing popularity. It is not entirely surprising, therefore, that the theme of the high, and
often artistic value of mix tapes appears frequently in my sample.
Since then, the novel Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time (Sheffield
2007) and another collection of mix tape anecdotes titled Cassette from my Ex (Bitner, ed.
2009) have mainly extended the theme of mix tapes as mementos of love relationships. A
renewed search through the blogosphere quickly shows, however, that the qualification of mix
taping as an art is still a recurrent theme in the discourse on mix taping, albeit a less dominant
one.24 Let me now turn my attention to the question how this claim of an artistic status for mix
taping is justified by the mix tape story writers.

What makes mix taping an art?

The idea that mix taping could be an art, once articulated, obviously struck a chord
among former mix tapers. Occasionally a mix tape story writer prefers another qualification
than that of “art” to describe the process of mix taping, or its product; one that is not quite so
exalted, although it is still designed to emphasize the value of the pastime:

I really liked (and miss) the physical process of making mix tapes... pressing
play on one deck and record on the other, it felt more like a craft than just
dragging, dropping, and burning. (54)

Now, mix tapes, there’s a science behind that. (56)

Such qualifications are rare, however, compared to the artistic one. As one mix taper puts it:
I was amazing (sic) at assembling disparate songs into a beautiful, cohesive work of art.” (52)
And another concurs: “Good mix-tapes were a skill. Perfect mix-tapes were an art.” (75)
Most mix tape story writers simply make the claim and leave it at that. Nonetheless,
when investigated more closely, the stories present a number of legitimizations for the idea.
For example, mix tape story writers like to emphasize that there is an element of skill involved.
Using the pause button to avoid an audible click between songs, learning to pause the tape at
just the right place before pressing record, and minding the non-recordable safety tape at the
start and the end of the cassette are examples of skills that can be acquired. Some mix tapers
take pride in their taping technique, and take pains to acquire appropriate material:

I’ve got a bag of around 25 or so tapes (…) that I made or recorded (…) from
1977 onwards. They start off rather random and badly recorded and end up
very organized and well recorded. (62)

24:  E.g. ‘Mississippy Smith’ (2009) “How to revive the lost art of the mix tape” Satellite Magazine
[Link]
Available 11-30-2009; ‘Ransom Riggs’ (2009) “The Lost Art of the Mix Tape” Mental _Floss
[Link] viewed 11-30-2009.

67
 I actually used to share info about brands of cassette tape that routinely (we
asserted) packaged their tape reels with slightly more than the 45 minutes, or
60 minutes, or 90 minutes that they were labeled as containing.(50)

Besides skill, something not unlike artistic inspiration is involved. A special momen-
tary drive is needed for the mix taper to enter into the mix taping process despite the effort
and time it will take, and to keep him or her from abandoning it half-way:

Also, I really need an impulse. If inspiration doesn’t appear of itself, it’s usually
arduous. (84)25

I usually made a whole C-90 in one sitting (or standing, as the case may be).
(55)

Also, like collage art, mix taping can lead to surprising discoveries and new insights. It
is not true that the mix tape is no more than a collection of existing art objects. In the process
of recombination, new meanings emerge:

We compose meaning from the use of distinctly different parts, but strip those
original pieces of their initial meaning and replace them with the some sort of
new meaning found only when placed in juxtaposition. Suddenly, the context
plays a larger role in the meaning, assigning greater importance to the order,
selection, and general flow of the tape. (68)

This is arguably the strongest argument one can advance in support of the artistic
value of mix taping, but it is not the most common one. That role is reserved for the more
traditional idea of self-expression. A mix tape expresses the identity, the world view, or the
emotions of the tape compiler. The work, in short, reflects the artist:

[T]he Mix Tape as Self-Portrait. Even when we make mix tapes for other
people – especially when we make mix tapes for other people – we make them
for ourselves. (42)

True, mix tape-making is essentially narcissistic - the wish to bring pleasure is

sincere, but the enterprise is mostly a celebration of the mixer’s good taste. But
it’s narcissistic like all artistic creation. (57)

At this point, two main questions present themselves. The first of these is why mix tape
story writers go to such lengths to claim an artistic status for their past activities. The argu-
ments listed above explain how an artistic interpretation of mix taping may be defensible, but
they give no clue as to why it matters to mix tape story writers that mix taping is interpreted
in this particular way.

25:  Ausserdem brauche ich unbedingt einen Impuls. Wenn die Inspiration nicht von selber kommt, ist es
meistens schwer. (my translation).

68
 To be sure, I can only speculate on this matter, because whilst the mix tape stories
address the issue of the legitimacy of the artistic interpretation, they do not touch upon the
reason why artistic status matters. Despite its speculative character, I will briefly put forward
my own tentative view, and I will do so for two reasons. Firstly, to sidestep the issue may well
be to implicitly confirm a ‘default’ explanation, provided by ‘vulgar sociological’ habits of
mind deeply ingrained in our society. This default explanation says that the reason why mix
tape story writers call their pastime an art is entirely self-evident. They want to elevate them-
selves and boost their prestige. In my opinion, this default explanation likely shortchanges
mix tape story writers. Secondly, the interpretation I will put forward discloses a motif which
we will encounter again in both of the following case studies, where evidence to support it will
be more readily available.
Let me begin by observing that the mix tape stories I found on weblogs are unusual
when compared to other discussions of music related issues on the internet in the fact that
they reserve remarkably little space for the celebration of artists. A quick survey of the com-
ments under any music video on YouTube will confirm the impression that praise for the
artist is the most common response, and by far more common than the occasional “thank you
for uploading” comment addressed at the person who posted the video. Music reviews also
tend to focus on artists, and taken together such comments and reviews represent the bulk of
music related discussion on the internet. Mix tape stories break away from this pattern. The
artist is relegated to a secondary role, and the mix taper takes center stage.
It seems plausible, then, that the artistic interpretation of mix taping is, at least in part,
a defense against the standard presupposition that the pop music artist is solely responsible
for the pleasure someone takes in popular music. This view, as I explained in the first chap-
ter, is part of both the commercial and the anti-commercial theory of appropriate credit.
Consequently, it underlies most music discussion on the internet and elsewhere. If mix taping
is considered in light of this perspective, not much of a role remains for the mix taper. The joy
that a mix taper or a gift tape recipient experiences when listening to a mix tape, according to
this view, is a result of the work of the artist. The original songs are enjoyable in themselves
because artists have made them so, and the mix taper merely draws from the pool of intrinsi-
cally enjoyable content that artists have provided. He or she does not add anything important.
What the statement that ‘mix taping is an art’ first and foremost expresses, I propose, is
that the role of the mix taper is crucial to the enjoyment of a mix tape, that a compilation tape
is not merely the sum of the songs it contains, but that it is instead a carefully crafted auditive
experience for which the mix taper deserves most of the credit. According to my interpreta-
tion then, the emphasis mix tape story writers put on the notion that mix taping is an art is, at
least in part, a response to the ideological dominance of the commercial and anti-commercial
theories of appropriate credit.
The second question that presents itself at this point is whether this reinterpretation
of mix taping as an art form comes at a price. In order to be able to answer this question later
on, I will now turn to a description of the particular style of credit-giving of the mix taping
practice.

69
Mix taping as creation: the quest for coherence

A description of mix taping’s style of credit-giving can only proceed with the aid of
analogies with other practices, of which we ostensibly know how they work. In this and the
following three sections, I will look at mix taping from four different angles, guided by four
different analogies. In this section, I discuss the first angle, which more or less continues the
theme of mix taping as an art. Looking mix tapers’ descriptions of what they actually did, is
there a non-trivial way in which mix taping can be said to be an act of creation, and in which
the mix tape can be said to be a work? The answer must be affirmative. Mix tapers tended to
spend much effort on the creation of a cohesive tape, that is, a tape that is a cohesive unity
unto its own, and not a mere collection of preexisting songs.
A mix tape is always a recombination of existing elements: a tape cassette, several
songs, possibly clippings from papers or magazines to create artistic packaging. Mix tapers
can be located on a spectrum with respect to the way they approach this aspect of bricolage.
Some interact with their material in a more playful or improvising manner, taking joy in the
traces that chance leaves in their efforts:

[W]hen I make a mix tape, I don’t put a lot of forethought into what it will
sound like to somebody else later. I put onto it whatever I want to listen to
right now, and that tends to involve a lot of terrible segues and bizarre mood
swings ... When other people hear my mix tapes, after a few songs they start
looking at me as though they’ve just discovered that I’m the tragic victim of a
hallucinatory insanity. (78)

I reworked tapes ad infinitum on loose-leaf, but despite these sessions, beauty

emerged with chance, enabling you to discover something new about a song
you thought you understood simply by placing it next to something else. There
was a cassette, 1/2 David Bowie and 1/2 Einstürzende Neubauten, that made me
imagine David Bowie had a German accent, and a pop-punk cassette whose
songs fell into a pattern that made me hate every single track. (74)

Many of the more hardcore mix tape enthusiasts, and these are likely over-represented
among mix tape story writers, lean to the other side. They seek first and foremost to create
a unit that is more than the sum of its parts, a tape which is understood as a work in its own
right rather than as a collection of disparate elements. What needs to be achieved, then, is
cohesion.
The new overall unity competes with the preexisting unity of the individual songs.
Thus, a tension appears between the whole and its parts, and this interplay allows new
meanings to emerge:

We compose meaning from the use of distinctly different parts, but strip those
original pieces of their initial meaning and replace them with the some sort of
new meaning found only when placed in juxtaposition. Suddenly, the context
plays a larger role in the meaning, assigning greater importance to the order,
selection, and general flow of the tape. (68)

70
 In order to achieve cohesion, mix tapers make sure that their compilations are
recognizably non-arbitrary. The selection and sequence of songs on a tape is subject to a
plurality of constraints. However, these constraints are not always the same. Mix tapers
impose them upon themselves, negotiating between two considerations. On the one hand,
mix tapers need to have sufficiently stringent constraints to create unity, but, on the other
hand, they must still be able to meet them. Hardcore mix tapers make a sport of walking the
fine line between a maximally challenging task and an impossible one:

I think the more limitations placed on both the listener and the creator, the
better. This is the beauty of the true mix tape. The creator must not only choose
songs that go well together, but he can’t just decide to end it after 30 minutes. He
has to fill both sides to their predetermined length, with as little blank space at
the end of each side as possible. A mix tape is a work of art. (45)

There was a certain art to finishing the tape. Choosing those last few tunes was
rough because you had to find tunes that fit the sound of the other songs, were
worthy of being on the tape and fit into the remaining amount of tape. (53)

Self-imposed constraints come in several types. First of all, there are constraints which
purely belong to the cultural form of the mix tape. A cassette may have an overarching ‘theme’,
so that all songs share a common characteristic. Some themes recur so often in different mix
tape stories that one might be justified in calling them genres. This is true, for instance, for the
love tape, the break-up tape, the party tape, the driving tape, and the ‘soundtrack of my life’
tape. Yet many mix tapers take obvious pride in the originality of their themes:

I made this cassette, Oral Surgery Disasters, in 1995, the night before I was
getting a dental implant for a tooth I lost (...) I don’t like going to the dentist to
begin with, so I thought I’d make a cassette to distract me from the drilling that
was going to be going on in my head. (32)

For me, 1995 and 1996 were the golden years of the ‘apocalypse’ and/or ‘revolu-
tion’ mix. What in the devil is that, you ask? Well, like many teenagers, I went
through a phase where I thought society was just all fucked up, maaaannn, and,
like, we need a revolution to overthrow capitalism and expose the lies of the
military industrial complex that are hiding all that alien technology that would
clean the environment and give us free energy and stuff. (41)

There were (...) obsessive projects that repeated endlessly, like Swan’s song,
wherein I looped Swans’ ‘Goddamn the Sun’ for 90 minutes. (74)

Hardcore mix tapers, of course, choose the most challenging themes they can pull off.
As one mix taper says: “Once I had to record a tape with ‘green songs’ for a girl. That became

71
too difficult at some point. So then I recorded songs, which refer to colors in general.” (97)26
Besides a theme, the aspect of ‘flow’ may be taken into account. The word ‘flow’ refers to the
aspect of sequence and the relation a song has with its adjoining neighbors. Two concepts
stand out in accounts of how a flow can be organized, namely homogeneity and variation:

I pay attention to making a cassette homogeneous, not like Up-Down-Up-

Down-Up-Down – otherwise it makes it difficult to listen to the whole tape.
(99)27

Two fast songs should be followed by a slow one or vice versa. (47)

The booklet that accompanies the exhibition KassettenGeschichten: Von Menschen und
ihren Mixtapes speaks of different ways of make a mix tape, as if the oppositional terminology
of similarity and variation signals a difference of opinion between mix tapers: “The one takes
joy in (…) the creation of seamless transitions, whereas for the other ‘breaks’ (…) are crucial.”
(Grösch, Hüners, and Rützel 2005: 32-34)28 However, this view fails to acknowledge the fact
that similarity and variation commonly occur together in the work of a single mix taper or in
a single mix tape:

When picking the next song in a mix, I … look for a “unifying dominant factor”
which is the one singular stand-out characteristic of a song that links it to the
next song even though the two song choices appear dissimilar on the surface.
(71)

If you get the right flow going, it’s possible to move from Donovan to the My
Fair Lady soundtrack to Wilco without losing continuity. (42)

In the case of gift tapes, social constraints also apply. Mix tapers have to take their own
preferences into account, as well as their assessment of the taste of the intended recipient. Mix
tapers clearly differ in the relative weight they give both of these considerations.

The message of a tape might be: I love you. I think about you all the time. Listen
to how I feel about you. Or maybe: I love me. I am a tasteful person who listens to
tasty things. This tape tells you all about me. (8)

The collection of essays that appeared along with the KassettenGeschichten exhibi-
tion provides a typology of mix tapers with respect to the relative weight they give to their
own taste and to that of the recipient (Peiseler, Radzuweit & Tsitsigias 2005: 64-68). The
“Communicator” takes both into account equally. The “Caretaker” departs from the musical
preferences of the recipient. The “Missionary” takes his or her own preferences as a starting

26:  Einmal sollte ich für ein Mädchen ein Tape aufnehmen mit Grünen Songs. Das war dan irgendwan zu
anstrengend. Also habe ich Songs genommen, bei denen es sich um Farben allgemein handelt. (my translation)
27:  Ich achte darauf, dass so eine Kassette gleichförmig ist, nicht so ein Rauf-Runter-Rauf-Runter-Rauf-Runter –
sonst kann man die Kassette nicht gut durchhören. (my translation)
28:  Der eine freut sich mit dem neu erworbenen Mischpult nahtlose Übergänge zu gestalten, während für den
anderen “Breaks” (…) unabdinglich sind. (my translation)

72
point, and tries to ‘convert’ the recipient. The “Egomaniac”, finally, displays no interest in
the recipient’s taste whatsoever, and is not even interested in feedback about the listening
experience.
Such typologies are enjoyable to people familiar with the practice, because of the sense
of recognition they can evoke. This typology, moreover, is especially useful for making clear
that the practice of mix taping is not homogenous to the extent that all mix tapers abide by
the same unwritten rules; a point to which I will return below. What this typology obscures,
however, is that the musical tastes of mix taper and recipient do not have to stand opposite
one another like enemies, so that a compromise is necessary. Instead, a mix tape may mark
out the intersection of both sets of musical preferences involved. In drawing attention to the
‘musical common ground’ of both parties involved, mix tapes come to be closely tied to a
particular interpersonal relationship. “In this respect,” Thurston Moore observes, “mix tapes
are like matchmaker forms.” (15) This point will prove important in the next section where I
approach the mix tape as a gift. Here, it needs to be emphasized that such search for ‘accom-
modation’ of both tastes sets up another productive tension for the tape compiler.
Finally, technical constraints inform the end results. Mix tapers seem to invariably
challenge themselves by trying to use this time maximally without recording any songs
incompletely:

There truly was no joy like what I experienced following a tense couple of
minutes of watching the last few inches of spooling strand of shiny brown wind
through my player’s works, hoping I would still see brown for the whole of the
last cut’s fade-out – then: YAY! The last lingering whisper … followed a split
second later by the clear non-recording segment of end-tape. (64)

Sixty or ninety minutes are the most common time spans that a mix taper has to fill.
This time frame is divided in two equal halves; the two sides of the tape, presenting opportu-
nities for structuring:

[T]he ability to connect Side A to Side B via a long fade-out or a vocal loop. (74)

“Besides, cassette tapes have two sides, allowing for a first act, an intermission,
and a second act.” (42)

Furthermore, these sides provide additional possibilities for structuring by the special
emphasis they create for particular places on the tape, namely the beginnings and endings of
sides:

I give a special value to the first song and to the fitting “side-ending song”. This
one is marked by its place and is often the reason for changing the concept.
(84)29

29:  Besunderen Wert lege ich auf den ersten Song und auf das passende “Seiten-Beendigungslied”. Dieses ist
durch den Platz bestimmmt und Häufig der Grund für das Umschmeissen des Konzepts. (my translation)

73
 If the mix taper is a gift taper and a hardcore seeker of coherence, as the ones who con-
sider mix taping an art seem to be more often, then the selection of each song will be informed
by at least five constraining considerations: First, the song must fit the overall theme. Second,
it must continue the flow of the tape. Third, it must take into account the mix taper’s musical
preferences. Fourth, it must take into account the tape giver’s assessment of the musical taste
of the recipient. And fifth, it must fit the predetermined time frame and two act structure of
the tape cassette medium. The result is a cohesive tape in which no song can be randomly
replaced with another without destroying the structure. In this particular sense, then, the mix
taper is the creator of a work. He or she devises an overall unity that competes with the pre-
existing unities of the individual songs. As an artistic work, the mix tape invites credit-giving
through expressions of admiration or feedback which betray a recipient’s contemplation of
the tape. And indeed, instances of this occur in the stories. However, there is an important
difference between the expressions of admiration and contemplation that occur in response to
mix tapes and those that occur in response to works in recognized art forms. The difference is
the personal relation that a mix tape recipient has to the creator in question. The audience of
the average art work is an anonymous multitude of people. The audience of a gift tape is usu-
ally a single person known to the maker. Approaching the mix tape only as an artistic work,
therefore, does not capture the specificities of the credit-giving associated with it. In the next
section, I will adopt a different approach.

The mix tape as a personal gift

It would be only a slight overstatement to say that the scholarly literature on gift prac-
tices consists of footnotes to anthropologist Marcel Mauss’ groundbreaking analysis Essai sur
le Don, originally published by in 1950 (Mauss 2002). I, too, will take his analysis as my point
of departure to discuss the gift-aspect of mix tapes. Two observations are central in Mauss’
account. First, in the form of a gift the giver is giving a part of him- or herself. Second, making
a gift is a rule-bound activity. It entails an obligation to give, an obligation to receive, and an
obligation to reciprocate.
The first of these points is much in agreement with the mix tape stories. So personal
is the mix tape as a gift, that a mix taper must carefully mind his or her feelings in relation to
all aspects of the tape:

While the tape was a minor success I had an itching feeling I had made a
grave error. Later, I realized that I had compromised myself by putting a The
The track on there, because she liked them. I did not, and to this day, I wish I
could go back and replace that track. I still remember this misstep vividly. I
wasn’t true to myself, and as much as the tape was filled with my chattering, my
enthusiasm, my soda-fueled proselytizing, it still rang as hollow as the empty
cans beside me. So, I’m taking this chance to say sorry, to me. Her? It was her
favorite track. (16)

74
 Recipients, moreover, understand mix tapes in the same personal way. As one
recipient”, describing a gift tape, puts it: “Listening to it again after all these years it remains
an accurate portrait of him.”
However, the rules guiding gift exchange, which Mauss identified, are not so easily
transferred to mix tape gift practices. There is no clear correlate to the obligation to give,
for instance. The obligation to receive does carry over smoothly. A gracious acceptance is as
important when receiving a gift tape as it is when receiving any other present:

When I record cassettes, then the most important songs for me are always in
them, and it’s an enormous disappointment if people don’t thank me for it
(Hasbargen & Krämer 2005: 77).30

However, the most telling aspect of the comparison between Mauss’ analysis and mix
tape gift practices is the fact that the obligation to reciprocate cannot be easily applied to mix
tape gift practices. Instances where mix tapers receive other tapes in return are mentioned,
but they are rare. Such reciprocation certainly does not occur in all cases. And this should
come as no surprise, given the fact that mix taping involves skill and knowledge. For many
recipients, reciprocating an excellent mix tape might be a tall order. But even if one drops the
presupposition that a mix tape recipient must reciprocate in kind, that is, if it does not have to
be a cassette for a cassette, it is still difficult to see how reciprocation occurs.
This is the result of an important difference between the gift-giving of traditional
cultures and western gift practices, a difference which is indicated by the existence of the
English expression “an Indian giver” (Hyde 1983: 3-4). This politically incorrect phrase
designates a person who gives a present in expectancy of another present in return, and it has
its origins, of course, in the encounters between western colonists and native Americans. The
colonists were apparently very surprised that not returning a gift for a gift was considered bad
manners in the new world. In western cultures, the obligation to reciprocate is understood
as calculating behavior and as a debasement of the altruistic motives that are supposed to
underlie the giving of a present.
However, the obligation to reciprocate also applies in western cultures. It is merely
supplemented by an additional obligation to hide the expectation of reciprocation, and to
perpetuate the myth of disinterested giving. Thus, if one always gives a friend a thoughtful
and substantial present for his or her birthday, but always receives the same bottle of wine
in return, one notices. The calculation process occurs, but it operates covertly over a longer
period. The example of the bottle of wine also brings to the fore another difference between
western gift-giving and traditional gift cultures, namely that in western culture a gift should
be selected in view of the intended recipient. The more personal a gift is, the better, at least
within reason. Gift taping exemplifies gift-giving at its most personal, and reciprocation at its
most abstract:

There is something narcissistic about making someone a tape, and the act of
giving the tape puts the recipient in our debt somewhat. Like all gifts, the mix
tape comes with strings attached. (8)

30:  Wenn ich Kassetten aufnehme, dann sind da immer die wichtigsten Lieder für mich drin und es ist eine
wahnsinnige Enttäuschung , wenn die Leute mich dafür nicht bedanken. (my translation)

75
 Mix tape gift practices make most sense if the gift tape is interpreted as an
investment in the social connection between mix taper and recipient. The tape compiler
expects reciprocation to occur within that relationship. In other words, gift tapes are made
first and foremost to win affection, not to obtain return gifts. This can be seen most clearly in
the case of love tapes:

Soon, though, I discovered that one’s musical tastes could be used to unlock
the holiest of holy places: what lived beneath the Jordache jeans of whatever
unsuspecting girl I played sensitive for. And so it has been ever since – me,
carefully constructing the sets to achieve the desired effect – be it salacious or
self-absorbed. (3)

I can’t remember what I put on the tape for my girlfriend, although I’m certain
I included “Back in your life” and “Affection” by Jonathan Richman. Because
I wanted to be back in her life, and I wanted her not to be such a chicken and
show me some affection. (8)

In the previous section, I cited Thurston Moore’s comparison of mix tapes to match
maker forms. Moore goes on to ask: “But why does your match have to be so like yourself – do
you just pretty much love yourself?” (15) This is a reasonable question, but the mystery disap-
pears if the task of a mix tape is conceptualized as representing the common ground between
the tape compiler and the recipient. Such a mix tape would not be tied so much to either of the
people involved as to their relationship. It would represent what they shared:

I’d slot these in at work, crank the volume, and be surrounded with Byorn’s
tesseract world view and cranked humor. It was a shared alternate plane that
kept me with him, even as I navigated the channels of the corporate nerd world
– my tether to the world I really loved. (12)

If mix tape gift practices are read in this way, it is not surprising that a tape must be
personalized. It represents the relation between a particular tape compiler and a particular
recipient. The citation from High Fidelity with which I began this chapter illustrates this admi-
rably. The cassette Rob starts to compile is the representation of a possibility to renew their
relationship. The personal nature of the mix tape can also be clearly observed in Rob Drew’s
(2005) critical article on brand and celebrity ‘mix tapes’. Drew views the compilation albums
and playlists that have been given or sold by some corporations as ‘mix tapes’ not only as
a corporate appropriation of a DIY practice, but also as a disingenuous pretense at being a
customer’s personal friend.
In the mix tape stories, the close connection between gift tapes and particular
relationships is underscored by the fact that giving the same ‘personal’ tape to different people
is frowned upon:

Mix Tape Cheater: I have to admit I created an achingly beautiful Ella/Billie/

Sarah/Jimmy Scott, etc., torch song mix tape for myself in the mid-90s – and

76
 then made copies for several women. With shocking effectiveness. Not very
Kosher, perhaps. But I’m all for sharing the love. For great music. (53)

I have to admit I became so chronic with always giving boys I was smitten with
tapes that I sometimes made some embarrassing mistakes. I made a tape for
Nick Cave (…) but I also made a copy of it for myself. Well, at some point for
some reason, I gave this copy to Kid Congo Powers. So we’re at a barbecue at
Kid’s house about a year later and Nick Cave is there and Kid plays the tape.
“Allison makes this tape for all the boys!” (26)

The intertwinement of relationships and gift tapes can also be illustrated by the fact
that gift tapes often share the fate of the relationship in question. Gift tapes representing rela-
tions that still last tend to be treasured. The mix tape story writers proudly reveal that they still
have them after all these years, even if they are not always sure where exactly. Tapes represent-
ing relationships that have gone sour have a tendency to disappear, or to reside with the mix
taper rather than the intended recipient:

Here’s a tape I did for an ex-Polly Shang Kuan Band member. I never gave her
it because I had a fight with her boyfriend ‘cause he’s an asshole. Then she sent
a note to us saying we can’t be friends anymore. Boofuckinghoo. So she didn’t
get the tape. She’s a loser anyway. (5)

I received a tape from a man about ten years ago which definitely pushed me
from a crush into full-blown love for him. (…) Some four years after he made
it for me, I (…) got extremely angry at him, and sent it to him in the mail.
Yeah, I gave it back. Dumped it in the mailbox and sent that right back. And
immediately regretted it. (…) Damn, how I wish I had that tape back! Not if he
remade it – it would not be the same. (26)

In their capacity as gifts mix tapes are subject to western culture’s unwritten rule that
reciprocation be covert. Consequently, credit-giving for mix tapes is a relatively hidden and
private affair.

A musical education

Above, I have explained that making a mix tape for someone else involves give and
take and a search for common ground between the musical tastes of both people involved. I
interpreted the resulting tape as having a metonymic, pars pro toto (part for whole) relation to
the relationship in question. In such a case, a mix tape is something like a dialogue between
two identities or personalities. But often, mix tapes have a more straightforward purpose,
namely to introduce the recipient to new music. This may be the sole purpose of a tape, or
it may intermingle with relational objectives to the point where they become impossible to
distinguish. In this kind of ‘educational taping’, there is also a need to accommodate both

77
the taste of the tape compiler and of the recipient. And here too, different mix tapers strike a
different balance between their own preferences and those of their recipients.
Coining a name for this type of mediation between tastes will help me to generalize
beyond this case, and to identify analogical roles in other practices. The purpose of such
generalization is to counteract the emphasis on the creator in our understanding of the cul-
tural practices of pop music culture. The presence of a role for a creator is a recurring element
in many of these practices. We tend to be well aware of this. We may for instance refer to them
as ‘creative practices’. But there are other recurring roles, too, other ways to make an impor-
tant contribution that in some form can be found in many different practices. These, however,
tend to go unnamed and unnoticed.
I will call this generalized role of which the educational taper is an example that of
the “reference person”. The term is chosen to make an analogy with the reference librarian or
the reference archivist. In libraries and archives, a reference person mediates between, on the
one hand, a user with a particular question or topic of interest and, on the other hand, a cor-
pus of books and other materials (Ferguson (ed.) 1999). The traffic at the reference desk has
decreased since the advent of internet catalogues and search engines, but in this transition, an
important change is implicit. Present-day library-goers feel that it is their own responsibility
to know what they are looking for. Many do not even realize that help to find their question,
rather than some answer, may well be available. Yet this is an important part of the job of a
reference person. As Pugh (1982: 39) has it, a reference archivist “seeks to understand the
full ramifications of the inquiry and tries to understand what the user really wants to know,
which often differs dramatically from the initial question. The archivist also helps to refine the
question in view of the sources and to conceptualize a search strategy.”
Like a reference librarian or archivist, a mix taper mediates between a person with
particular preferences and a vast corpus of music. The mix taper thus occupies the role of
the knowledgeable person, who knows what is available. But he or she is more than a human
database. The quality of the mediation depends on the quality of the mix taper’s assessment of
the recipient’s musical ‘query’. A truly excellent ‘educational’ mix tape opens up new musical
horizons for the listener.
There are two aspects to the skill of the reference person. On the one hand, being a
good reference person may mean carefully reading the musical taste of the one for whom a
mix tape is made, and introducing him or her to new things which match that taste:

Try to put songs on there that your friend hasn’t heard, but that you think
they would like … [M]ix tapes should attempt to bring to light new music and
expose someone to new things. (77)

On the other hand, being a good reference person may also mean challenging the
ears of one’s intended recipient. This is an impulse which is likely more popular among
musicologists than among exponents of cultural studies. It assumes that there is such a thing
as musical Bildung, and that there are standards of taste or ways of listening that are worth
aspiring to:

78
 Sometimes you also think: Okay, now I have to save your soul, your musical
one, and give you sensible music for a change. (98)31

The risk is evident, then, that a mix taper may merely push his or her own tastes, much
like a reference librarian may make him- or herself useless to inquirers by riding a stick horse
(Bunge 1999:18):

Resonance is very important, of course, if you are recording tapes, because

otherwise it is throwing pearls before swine – much too much work really. (81)32

Is a reference person something like the Communicator from the typology discussed
above, that is, simply another name for someone who takes both his or her own taste and
someone else’s into account? The difference between the two concepts is substantial. The con-
cept of the Communciator marks out a position on a spectrum of ways to perform the role
of mix taper, namely the spectrum of leaning more towards one’s own taste or to that of the
intended recipient when recording a mix tape. It is a matter of personal preference on the part
of the mix taper. The concept of the reference person refers to the process and purpose of mix
taping. It is one way mix tapers can carve out a role for themselves, which allows them to be of
use to others, assuming they have the social skills and musical knowledge to perform it well.
The reference person is one part of a division of labor that is crucial to making some
practices work. Not everyone has the knowledge and insight to mediate between individual
tastes and musical content. For this reason, good reference persons provide a valuable serv-
ice, for which they deserve to be credited. Whereas the Communicator figures between the
Caretaker and the Missionary, which represent other ways of occupying the same role of mix
taper, the reference person stands in contrast to the creator.
The creator, too, is one part of a division of labor that is crucial to making some
practices work. Not everyone is able to produce an artifact that is worthy of attention. For this
reason, good creators provide a valuable service, for which they deserve to be credited. The
problem with the commercial and anti-commercial theories of appropriate credit is that they
emphasize the importance of creation to the point where the difference between creators and
non-creators may seem to be the only division of labor that really matters within all of popular
music culture. Other ways of making a valuable contribution are obscured. The concept of
the reference person seeks to lift one particular way of making a valuable contribution in pop
music culture out of this obscurity. Like the role of creator, the role of reference person plays
a part in different cultural practices. One can be a musical reference person as a music blog-
ger, a record store owner, a DJ, or as a mix taper. Giving due credit to a reference person, like
giving due credit to a creator, may be important to keep a good thing going, that is, it may be
necessary to keep a valuable cultural practice in existence.
In terms of credit-giving, being a reference person can be a way of obtaining status or
prestige. A good reference person is regarded as knowledgeable and helpful, and thus makes a
valued member in several kinds of communities. Reference mix tapers, then, get appropriate

31:  Manchmal denkst du auch: OK, ich muss jetzt mal deine Seele retten, deine musikalische, und gebe dir jetzt
mal vernünftige Musik. (my translation)
32:  Resonanz ist natürlich schon ganz wichtig, wenn man tapes aufnimmt, weil das sonst Perlen vor die Säue
werfen ist - viel zu viel Arbeit eigentlich. (my translation)

79
credit if their musical knowledge and helpfulness are acknowledged and win them some
prestige. The mix tape stories show various examples of this, in the form of admiring remarks:

For the trip, the all-around stellar human being Vince Griffith – who possesses
a record collection known to send full-grown vinyl obscurants weeping to their
knees – passed me this tape for the drive. (30)

It was embarrassing, back in the 80s, when I was a teen, to admit that the
person who most greatly schooled me in rock (and personal/social politics)
was younger than me, but that’s how it was. I don’t know where I’d be today if it
wasn’t for the guiding hand of Toby Vail, but probably not anywhere so lovely
as the life I have today. Same goes for Jean Smith. I’ve learned by far more from
these two than anyone else in my life, they are my mentors for how to live, what
is important, and what matters most, and these tapes were my schoolbooks.
(25)

In this section and the two before it, I have discussed three different ways of looking at
mix tapes. A mix tape can be a work, a personal gift, or an elaborate piece of friendly advice
from someone whose musical knowledge is greater than one’s own. Each of these possibilities
implies a different kind of credit-giving. It is most likely, in fact, to be a mixture of all three,
but their relative ‘amounts’ within this mixture will differ from case to case. The recipient,
therefore, must interpret the tape to decide what it is and what kind of credit the mix taper
deserves for it. Is the tape primarily a well-crafted work, worthy of admiration; or rather a
personal gift that is best rewarded by means of affection; or is it first and foremost a piece
music education, which entitles the mix taper to a certain amount of prestige?
In this act of interpretation, the recipient likely has some freedom to read the tape
according to his or her own needs. Consider, for instance, a hypothetical situation in which
a recipient receives a probable love tape from someone to whom he or she is not attracted. In
this delicate situation, the recipient may opt to read the tape rather as a well-crafted artifact or
as an educational tape, and behave accordingly towards the mix taper. The fact that admira-
tion or prestige can be substituted for affection in this way supports the idea that displays of
interpersonal affection can indeed function as ways of credit-giving, and are in this regard
similar to admiration, acknowledgement, and financial rewards. Now, to end my analysis of
the credit-giving processes which inform the mix taping practice, let me look at mix taping
from a fourth and final angle, and discuss the solitary compiling of cassettes.

Taping for oneself

Mix taping as a solitary activity is in all probability underrepresented in the sample of

mix tape stories. Most references to taping for oneself can be found in the mix tape stories
from the KassettenGeschichten website, which are excerpts from solicited interviews. This may
well support the idea that the lesser anecdotal value of solitary taping explains its secondary
position in the nostalgic discourse on mix taping. After all, scholarly interviewers are likely
to be more interested in giving an accurate picture of the practice in all its aspects than mix

80
tape story writers, who may simply want to share a good tale. Another obvious reason for
underrepresentation is that gift taping involves two people, either of whom may go on to tell a
story about the exchange, while taping for oneself involves only one potential narrator.
And yet taping for oneself was a common practice, and this leads to the question what
its motivation was. The mix tape stories portray solitary taping as what in Greek would be a
pharmakon, that is, either a disease or the cure for a disease:

Since I was wee, I have felt to be an arbiter of mood through the sequential
playing of organized sound. (…) I amassed a massive collection of vinyl, which
I dissected over and over, laying pieces end to end on magnetic tape. These
were the purest moments of the affliction, constructing my own private radio
station, one that could match my teenage psychosis riff for riff, made for no
other consumption than mine. (3)

Why I have recorded this tape on the theme of independence? In the past, I
already liked to express themes that occupied me in music, and to use music to
‘heal’ myself. Music plays a great part in my emotional self-management. (85)33

The theme of emotional self-management also occurs in the literature on music lis-
tening in general. It is one of the ways in which people commonly put music to work in
their everyday lives (DeNora 1999: 34-44). Management of their ongoing identity is another
(DeNora 1999: 45-53). In the case of mix taping, this latter aspect of music listening in general
takes on an especially reflexive guise. However, it must not be forgotten that there are fairly
mundane reasons for solitary taping, which do not make good story material in any way, but
which should not be dismissed for that reason, such as use in the car, or simply the ability to
re-listen songs from the radio at will.
There is no credit-giving involved in solitary mix taping, and none is necessary. In
this regard it is like updating the decorations in one’s house (if one lives alone) or like writing
a diary. Such activities are undertaken because they are in some non-social way rewarding.
As explained in the third chapter, this does not undermine the case I am making for the
importance of credit-giving to the persistence of cultural practices, because the difference
between a solitary and a social practice is a crucial one. In social practices, the motivation
to engage in an effortful activity, however enjoyable in itself, may be quenched if one’s sense
of the value of one’s contribution is not shared by others. Or alternatively, the motivation
to an activity may dissolve if others recognize the value of one’s contribution, but enjoy it
without acknowledging the efforts of the contributor, which constitutes what economists and
biologists call ‘free riding’. Solitary practices do not have these constraints.

33:  Warum ich diese Kassette zum Thema Selbstständigkeit aufgenommen habe? Ich habe früher schon gerne
Themen, die mich beschäftigten, mit Musik ausgedrückt und mich selbst mit Musik “geheilt”. Musik spielt bei
meinem emotionalen Sebstmanagement eine grosse Rolle (my translation)

81
Conclusion

The cultural practice of mix taping, as I have analyzed it, falls apart in two main
sub-practices, namely a gift practice and a solitary practice. In terms of credit-giving, the
solitary practice is the less interesting one. No credit-giving is necessary, because there is no
one to challenge the mix taper’s assessment of the value of his or her pastime, and there is no
one who could reap the benefits of the mix taper’s work without acknowledging his or her
efforts. My analysis of credit-giving in the gift taping practice is much more complex. I have
looked at gift taping from three different angles. I have interpreted it as creating a work, as
making a gift, and as referring someone to new music.
Each of these angles implies a different kind of credit-giving. Taken as a work, the
mix tape invites the recipient to admire the mix taper’s skill, and to contemplate the resulting
cassette. Viewed as a gift, a mix tape should be accepted with gratitude, and its reward should
appear organically within the relationship between mix taper and recipient, in the form of
affection. If the mix tape is understood as an example of the skill of the reference person, the
mix taper deserves acknowledgement and a certain amount of prestige for his or her musical
knowledge and helpful intent. Because a mix tape can be all of these things – a work, a gift, a
schoolbook – the style of credit giving that underpins mix tape gift practices is a mixture of
all these kinds of credit-giving.
I should stress, however, that this mixture will be different for different mix tapes. In
my efforts to forefront the particularity of each cultural practice, I must not fall into the trap
of assuming that each of these particular practices is homogeneous. A gift tape presents its
recipient with a question: “what precisely have I been given?” It may be first and foremost
a declaration of love, or a carefully fashioned musical journey, or a hint that the recipient’s
musical taste could use some refinement, or many other things. A gift tape is always a singular
event within a relationship. It needs to be interpreted, and the recipient needs to establish
what credit-giving it deserves.
This analysis of credit-giving in the cultural practice of mix taping is rather intricate.
It takes several pages of explanation to present it clearly. Furthermore, the analysis above is
an attempt to make explicit some of the tacit knowledge that underpins a practice. In terms
of ease and clarity of presentation, my account of credit-giving in the cultural practice of mix
taping is no match for the theme that occupies so many of the mix tape story writers, namely
that mix taping is an art. I have proposed that the emphasis which mix tape story writers place
on this theme may be a response to the pervasive influence of the (anti-)commercial theory
of appropriate credit, which makes artists solely responsible for listeners’ enjoyment of music,
thus leaving no role of importance for the mix taper. I will return to this point in the following
chapters.
If declaring mix taping an art is indeed a tactical response to this issue, it may well be
an effective one. Nevertheless, something is lost in the process, namely the ability to recognize
anything other than creation as a valuable contribution to a practice. To make a gift that ani-
mates a relationship, or represents it, or gives it a new direction; to skillfully draw someone’s
attention to music of which they were not previously aware; or to externalize or manage one’s
emotional identity, these things are important in their own right. But their value cannot be
acknowledged as long as any contribution to a practice must be re-conceptualized as creation
before it can be seen as valuable.

82
 In this chapter, I have shown for the case of mix taping how the details of a
practice matter for determining where credit is due. The nuances which my empirically
oriented piecemeal approach brings to light would be lost to an analysis departing from the
dominant view, namely the commercial theory of appropriate credit. These nuances could not
be recognized either by the simple ‘no credit necessary’ theory of appropriate credit which is
implicit in generalized artistry. The same criticism applies to sharing economy approaches,
which start from the assumption that a single, overarching theory of appropriate credit can
and must be formulated, which is adequate to all cultural practices. The value of mix taping
can only be recognized in the details that are particular to this practice. In the following
chapter, I will bring the same approach to bear on another cultural practice, namely that of
remixing within the ccMixter online remix community.

83
84
 Chapter 5

Contributions and Attributions:

The Case of ccMixter.

The words of encouragement I’ve gotten, such as when people drop me a note
about using me in their weblog or doing a remix album of my work, or even
using me in a school project, make me feel like we’re all getting somewhere.
We’re all in this together -- and the music and the culture will gain from our
efforts.34

Brian: Thanks to the community at ccMixter for all the inspiring remixes and
support! We wouldn’t be here without ccMixter… seriously, that was our first
real step as Trifonic.
LT: Yes, thank you for all the encouragement and inspiration! I can’t wait to
see what folks do with the Emergence multi-tracks.35

34:  Spinmeister, Gurdonark (2008) “Interview with Gurdonark” eMXR: Spinmeister’s remixing blog
[Link] Available 11-02-2010.
35:  Spinmeister, Brian Trifon and Laurence Trifon “Artist Spotlight Q & A: Trifonic”
[Link] Available 15-04-2010.

85
Introduction

Both of the citations above are about encouraging feedback, and about how important
such positive reactions are. And to a substantial degree, so is this chapter. In order to be
able to say something non-trivial about the importance of social feedback towards the end
of this chapter, however, I need to depart from an entirely different concept, namely that of
authorship.
Both citations are excerpts from interviews of members of the ccMixter online remix
community. Each interview was conducted by another ccMixter member. The cultural prac-
tice of remixing at ccMixter is the topic of this chapter. I will investigate this topic by means
of an analysis of the community’s website. Arguably, this case study has a more specific focus
than the other two case studies. Whereas the previous chapter looked at mix taping in general,
and whereas the next one will look at different kinds of deejaying, this chapter does not simply
look at remixing. It concerns itself rather with remixing at ccMixter, a particular online remix
community. There are other communities and mix challenges on the internet.36 What, then,
makes ccMixter so different that remixing in this case can be considered an autonomous
practice?
All sonic content, such as samples or compositions, which users upload to ccMixter
is licensed under the creative commons alternative copyright system. More specifically, it is
licensed in a way which stipulates that its reuse in derivative works is allowed. Traditional
copyright presumptively disallows the making of derivative works by others than the copy-
right holder. Unless the remixer severely limits his or her creative options, remixing is an
illegal endeavor. At ccMixter, this constraint is lifted. As a result, a different kind of remixing
practice has developed at ccMixter; one that deserves to be called a cultural practice in its
own right.
This chapter takes an apparent paradox as its point of departure. At ccMixter, upload-
ers make a list of which previously existing materials they have reused for a new composition.
Whenever community members or visitors access this composition through its own ‘song
page’, they will see its ‘parent works’ listed there. To be sure, the myth of original artistic
creation has been unmasked as a fallacy many times over, especially in the fields of literary
studies and law. The consequences of this fact for our ideas about authorship have also been
much discussed (see e.g Barthes 1977, Martindale 1990, Luttingen 2002, Vaidhyanathan 2004,
MacFarlane 2007, Lessig 2004, 2008). Despite all this scholarly attention, the idea of original
creation remains extremely powerful. What is more, it continues to underpin western notions
of authorship, as I showed in the first chapter. But in an online remix community such as
ccMixter, the fact that all creation is in some sense appropriation is blatantly obvious. Reuse
of musical materials is the very concept behind the site and this is made explicit on virtually
every page. There is no place left for the myth of original creation.
One would expect, therefore, that the notion of personal authorship, deprived of the
myth that underpins it, would begin to wither away, and that the attribution of works to
an author would become less important. What actually happens, however, is the opposite.
Community members are extremely careful to attribute all the materials they reuse to the
‘original’ uploaders. In fact, this is only one of several ways in which they pay homage to

36:  [Link]: Your world of music [Link] Available 23-06-2010.

Remix Comps [Link] Available 23-06-2010.

86
fellow ‘mixters’ who have contributed works. The question from which I depart, therefore, is
this: in what form does a notion of authorship survive at ccMixter, and for what reason?
In what follows, I will first provide introductions on remixing, the creative commons
movement, what the ccMixter website looks like, and what is specific about the ccMixter
remix practice. After this, I will return to the paradox outlined above and describe it in more
detail. This description will then be the starting point for an analysis of ccMixter’s specific
style of credit-giving, which will be the topic of the remainder of the chapter.

About remixing

The term “remix” is used for a variety of more or less interrelated phenomena. Two of
its main uses are important for the way the term appears in ccMixter. In its narrower sense,
the word can refer to an alternate version of an existing song. In its broader sense, it denotes
any music which incorporates fragments of preexisting recorded sound. That is, the word
“remix” is sometimes used as a synonym for “sampling music”. A third, still broader usage,
where the term “remix” is also applied to non-musical phenomena is of little relevance in the
context of this chapter. The broader and the narrower use of the term, then, refer to different,
if overlapping, musical practices, which both come with their own history.
The practice of remixing in the sense of making an alternate version of a preexisting
song has its roots in Jamaican dub music, which is also in many ways the birthplace of con-
temporary dance music, deejaying, and turntablism (Hebdige 1990, Veal 2007). For its dance
parties, dub music made use of so-called “sound systems”, a mobile precursor to present-day
DJ-gear. Sound systems consisted of amplifiers, turntables, mixing equipment, and a micro-
phone. The experience of dancing to music played over a giant sound system differs markedly
from the experience of listening to music on the radio or on a record player. Because most
music was produced for the latter purpose, dub DJs developed a practice of using what fil-
ters, equalizers, and effects they had available to make the sound more appropriate to their
practice. Engineer and producer Osbourne Ruddock, better known as King Tubby, is usually
credited as the first remixer.37 He released alternate mixes, or “versions” as they were initially
called, on record from 1971 onwards.
Practiced by artists like Grandmaster Flash and Coldcut, remixing spread and grew as
an aspect of hip hop and disco music. In the early 1990s, it definitively broke into the main-
stream and became a commercially highly successful practice at the hands of producer, rap-
per, and all round businessman Sean John Combs, better known under the pseudonyms Puff
Daddy and P. Diddy.38 In the second half of the 1990s, record companies embraced remixes as
a way of augmenting revenue and opening new markets for artists. Remixing also developed
into a social practice between artists.
The success of remixing as a practice among professional musicians was at its height
as another trend was about to surge, namely that of the digital amateur home music studio.
Throughout the 1990s, programs known as “trackers”, which enabled users to insert digital
sound samples into a time table, were available for home computers. There was a lively, if

37:  “History of the Remix” (sound documentary) BBC Radio 1Xtra

[Link] Available 15-04-2010.
38:  Ibidem.

87
somewhat diffuse, community on the internet, where people exchanged productions crafted
with these programs (Lysloff 2003). Around the turn of the century, however, a new genera-
tion of software appeared which dwarfed its predecessors both in terms of ease of use and in
terms of the professionalism of the results it enabled. With programs such as ACID, Cubase,
and Logic, amateur musicians could manipulate digital samples in a variety of ways, as well as
record non-digital instruments.
Amateurs without turntable skills could now produce their own remixes and rework
the originals more thoroughly than had been possible before. They could also build their
own compositions from scratch. Between these two options lay a continuous spectrum of
degrees to which preexisting music was reworked, reused, or cited. With the exploration of
this spectrum by amateurs and professional musicians alike, the meaning of the word “remix”
broadened to the point where it could be applied to any new piece of music which reused
samples of previous music.
Thus the specific practice of remixing became hard to distinguish from the broader
practice of digital sampling. The sampling of recorded sound has its roots in the era of mag-
netic tape. From the later 1950s onwards, composers such as Pierre Schaeffer, John Cage and
Edgar Varèse used tape to create collages of sounds (McLeod 2005: 81). In popular music, the
Beatles song “Revolution #9” (1968) used a similar approach. With turntablism and dance
deejaying, the derivative use of preexisting sound became more important. However, it was
only with the advent of digital home recording that sampling attracted widespread attention.
In 2005, Wired Magazine released a theme issue on remix culture, with the tag line “rip, mash,
sample, share”. It identified digital sampling as an increasingly central aspect of culture in ge-
neral, and thus gave remix a third meaning, namely that of “reuse in any medium or context”.39
One sub-practice and one particular case deserve special attention as catalysts of this
second surge of enthusiasm for remixing. The practice in question is that of creating mash-
ups. The mash-up is a special type of remix, namely one that combines two or more preexist-
ing songs. Overtly intertextual, the challenge of the practice is to make an unlikely combina-
tion of materials ‘work’ musically. The particular case that deserves special attention is that
of DJ Danger Mouse’s Grey Album (2004). On this album DJ Danger Mouse (Brian Burton)
combined the vocals of twelve songs of The Black Album (2003) by rapper Jay-Z with a musi-
cal accompaniment built up entirely out of samples taken from the Beatles’ White Album
(1968). The Grey Album was by no means the first remix of Jay-Z’s album. As a result of the
commotion that followed, however, it is certainly the most famous, as well as the one that has
generated most attention from academics (Gunderson 2004, McLeod 2005, Duckworth 2005,
Gunkel 2008).
Being fully aware that he would never be able to release an album-sized mash-up using
Beatles songs commercially, due to copyright restrictions, DJ Danger Mouse proceeded to
make his album anyway, for the pleasure of the pursuit. Subsequently, he made three thou-
sand copies which he distributed among his friends for free. The distribution of the album
then took on a life of its own, spreading through P2P services. EMI, the rights holder to the
White Album recordings, approached Danger Mouse with threats of legal action if he did not
stop spreading The Grey Album and destroy all remaining copies. Danger Mouse complied
(McLeod 2005, Duckworth 2005).

39:  Wired July 2005.

88
 The people who spread The Grey Album via P2P networks, however, did not comply
with EMI’s cease and desist letters. Arguing that EMI used copyright law to stifle a new form
of cultural expression, a collective that called itself “Downhill Battle” organized a protest that
has become known as “Grey Tuesday.” William Duckworth writes:

[I]t consisted of a coalition of Web sites, brought together by Downhill Battle,

all agreeing to post The Grey Album and make it available for free download
for one twenty-four-hour period. Sites that were supportive of the protest but
uncomfortable with the controversy surrounding the hosting of an “illegal”
record were asked to turn their Web sites gray for the day. In all, some 400 sites
and blogs participated, with 170 or more making the album simultaneously
available for download. (…) When the historic online protest was over, more
than one million songs had been downloaded, the equivalent of one hundred
thousand albums in a single day. (Duckworth 2005: 150)

Thus the mash-up, and in particular the Grey Album, became a poster child for the
kinds of creative possibilities that were endangered of being nipped in the bud by pervasive
copyright. Here the remix and the anti-copyright movement come together, as they do at
ccMixter. More recently, the documentary R.I.P.: A Remix Manifesto (2008) has reemphasized
this connection. In the next section, I will discuss an influential source of criticism of perva-
sive copyright, namely the creative commons movement, which started ccMixter.

About the creative commons movement

As I explained in the first chapter, there is a substantial movement against the

ongoing extensions of copyright. This movement has an activist component, which can
build on a vast group of individuals, especially online, who sympathize with the idea of a
well-protected commons, or who simply dislike the culture industries. The Grey Tuesday
protest mentioned in the previous section is an example of this activist aspect of the move-
ment against pervasive copyright. The movement also has a strong academic component. A
profusion of books and articles have appeared on the subject (See e.g. Boldrin & Levine 2002,
Giollain 2002, Vaidhyanathan 2004, McLeod 2005, Gillespie 2007, Wilson 2009, Yung 2009).
Among the academic critics of pervasive copyright, Stanford law professor Lawrence
Lessig is especially prominent. I extensively discussed his book Remix: Making Art and
Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy (2008) in the first chapter. This, however, is only the
latest of his many publications on the issue (Lessig 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007). Aside from his
academic and popular publications, Lessig also has a history of active engagement with copy-
right issues. He represented the petitioners in the Supreme Court case of Eldred vs Ashcroft,
in which plaintive Eric Eldred challenged the constitutionality of the Sony Bono Copyright
Term Extension Act (Lessig 2004: 213-256). More relevant in the present context, however,
is the fact that he started the creative commons movement, which promotes an alternative
copyright system, known as creative commons licensing. Free Culture (Lessig 2004) is the
book in which he discusses this system and its benefits most elaborately.

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 Lessig noticed that the term of copyright protection in American law had undergone
several extensions. From an initial duration of fourteen years with an option to renew copy-
right protection for a second fourteen years, the term grew to seventy years after the death
of a natural author or ninety-five years after publication for a corporate author (Lessig 2004:
133-135). The reason behind this was a strong lobby on the part of media conglomerates
whenever the copyright of the first generation of copyrighted works came close to expiring.
Lessig concludes that, until the importance of a public domain receives renewed attention, the
possibility that works pass into the public domain after expiration of their term of copyright
has become entirely theoretical. Along with extension of its duration, Lessig shows, the range
of copyright has also become larger. From an initial protection for books only (which was in
practice applied almost exclusively to academic books), now all forms of cultural expression
fall under protective legislation, and they do so presumptively, without any need for an author
to register the work (Lessig 2004: 136-139).
Lessig further notes that the copyright on ever more works is held by ever fewer
parties. With the common practice of authors and musicians signing some of their rights
away to publishers and record companies, it is multinational media companies who hold most
copyrights. What is more, as a result of a series of corporate fusions, copyrights are held by
ever fewer, ever bigger companies. At the time when Lessig wrote his book, most of the music
market was in the hands of only five major companies, namely Universal Music Group, BMG,
Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI (Lessig 2004: 162). Since then,
BMG has been taken over by Sony, and EMI is currently struggling.40
Finally, Lessig points to the fact that digital technologies make new ways of reinforcing
copyright legislation possible. Companies may make works available in ways which disable
certain uses, such as DVD’s which do not play in certain areas of the world, or copy-protected
music CD’s, or music files which do not play on devices of competing hardware manufactur-
ers, such as the first generation songs from Apple’s iMusic store (Lessig 2004: 147-161).41
The threat that Lessig identifies is that culture at large is becoming the property of a
few companies. This has two important consequences. The first is that these media companies
gain a large amount of control over people’s access to culture. In this respect, Lessig refers
to court cases against p2p software providers, where in his estimation copyright legislation
is used in an attempt to stifle a new technology and maintain an existing business model,
whereas in Lessig’s opinion the public should be able to reap the benefits of technological
innovations and business models need to adjust to a new situation (Lessig 2004: 124-130).
The second important consequence is that, with most cultural expressions privately owned,
all kinds of creativity which include a re-use of existing cultural materials can only be engaged
in when the rights on the reused materials have been cleared (Lessig 2004: 21-47, 170-172,
Lessig 2008). This effectively makes much if not most ‘reuse creativity’ on the part of ordinary
citizens illegal. As a very practical partial answer to this latter problem, Lessig introduces
creative commons copyright licenses.

40:  “Sony Completes Acquisition of Bertelsmann’s 50% Stake in Sony BMG:

Music Company Becomes Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America” Sony Corporation of America
[Link] Available 23-06-2010; “EMI needs fresh cash as licensing talks col-
lapse” Reuters [Link] Available 23-06-2010.
41:  “iTunes Store goes DRM-free” Macworld
[Link] Available 23-06-2010.

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 The idea behind creative commons licenses is that a content creator may reserve ‘some’
rather than ‘all’ rights over her creation. In American law, a content creator is by default an
all-rights-reserved copyright holder, a right that she can partially ‘sign away’, for instance
to a publisher or a record label. It is legally possible, therefore, for a creator to retain some
aspects of traditional all-rights-reserved copyright, while waiving of others. Creative com-
mons licenses offer several options in this regard, formulated in legally valid prose and each
with a sign, analogical to the famous ‘circle c’, to indicate type of licensing.
The six main licenses are different recombinations using a set of four logos indicating
rights which a creator may wish to retain. An ‘attribution’ logo indicates that the licensed
work may only be copied, distributed, displayed, performed or re-used in a derivative work
with attribution to the right holder. A ‘no derivatives’ logo indicates that derivative works
may not be produced. A ‘share alike’ logo indicates that derivative works may not be licensed
under more restrictive copyright regimes than their ‘share alike’ licensed original. Finally, a
‘non-commercial’ logo indicates that others than the right holder may not use the licensed
work for commercial purposes. Each of the six primary licenses combines an “attribution”
logo with one or two of the others. In other words, in a ‘some rights reserved’ creative com-
mons copyright license, the right to proper attribution is always reserved.42
I would like to place special emphasis on the fact that the element of “attribution” has
this special place. Considered from a legal perspective, this makes sense for the reason that
there is little point in a copyright license if no legal person is addressed as the right holder.
Considered from a cultural practices perspective, however, it may be read as an indicator of
the importance of attribution, or in other words, of giving a creator credit. The explanation
of the “attribution” logo on the creative commons website deserves to be cited in this regard:
“You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work — and derivative
works based upon it — but only if they give credit the way you request.”43 The creative com-
mons copyright system is a departure from the rigid “all rights reserved” copyright system in
that it is adequate to a wider diversity of practices, because it affords a greater variety of ways
of credit-giving. Its limitation, however, is that all these ways of credit-giving are based upon
the notion of attribution, that is, of an acknowledgement of the relation between a creator and
a work. The creative commons system too, therefore, helps to reproduce the idea that only
creators deserve credit.
A substantial movement has grown around the creative commons copyright
licensing system, including several websites which offer information on the cultural commons
or which showcase works licensed under the creative commons system.44 The most active
of these is ccMixter, a site where users share songs they have made using samples, a sam-
ple being a snippet of recorded sound. Because the very idea of sampling implies reuse, the
affinity between sampling music and cc licenses is natural. Whoever reuses parts of other
songs almost inevitably trespasses on other people’s copyright on both the composition
(known as “the rights to the publishing”) and the recording in question. For the use of small
portions of copyrighted works, American copyright law (contrary to Dutch copyright law)

42:  “About Licenses” Creative Commons [Link] Available 16-04-2010

43:  Ibidem
44:  E.g. Creative Commons [Link] Available 16-04-2010; Wikimedia Commons
[Link] Available 16-04-2010;
Jamendo: [Link]/en/ Available 16-04-2010.

91
provides the doctrine of ‘fair use’, which states that pieces on the order of magnitude of a cita-
tion may be reused without infringement for certain purposes, such as parody for example.
This doctrine, however, offers less protection to makers of derivative works in practice than
it does in legal theory. Threats of legal action often occur in cases where fair use is defensible,
and they regularly succeed because the creator of a derivative work feel intimidated or cannot
afford legal help (Heins & Beckles 2005).
The ccMixter website offers users something like a small-scale public domain devoted
entirely to recorded sound. All recordings that are available on the website, from sample
packs (collections of individual samples) to complete songs, can be re-used without copy-
right infringement. In this way, the site illustrates the importance of a public domain, by
showcasing what creativity results when cultural materials are made freely available. What
is more, music lovers who do not have the musical or technological competences needed for
remixing can listen to, download, and share all this music for free without infringement.
In the previous two sections I have discussed the two main inspirations which led
to the ccMixter remix community, namely the cultural practice of remixing/sampling and
the creative commons movement. The next step is to investigate how these two things are
combined in the practice of remixing at ccMixter. For this reason, the following section will
provide a more detailed description of the ccMixter website.

What ccMixter looks like

The ccMixter website is quite a ‘large’ virtual space, containing thousands of individual
pages and a great many functions. It is dwarfed, however, by contemporary social network-
ing sites such as MySpace and FaceBook, or by Sony’s ACIDplanet remix community. It is an
extremely hyper-mediated and ‘rhizomatic’ virtual environment. Each page contains many
links to other pages, mostly inside, but also outside ccMixter. Most striking about its web
design is its unobtrusiveness and functionality. Hyperlinks appear in (mostly) bold letters,
which may be black, soft grayish green, or soft grayish blue, and some types of text, such
as reviews and forum entries have a soft grayish blue background. Bright colors are absent.
Pictures and moving images are rare. Also, the site has no advertizing, which not only helps
to make the site more pleasant, but also to make it safer (Zittrain 2008: 56). Because the site is
too elaborate to attempt an exhaustive description, I will emphasize those aspects which are
relevant to the analysis below.
At many social networking sites, users get their own profile page when they sign up. At
ccMixter, users get many pages, most of which will be visible to any visitor. There is a profile
page, but there are also separate pages devoted to this user’s uploads, recommendations for
other users’ songs, reviews of other users’ songs, playlists, and forum posts. Only pages for
which a user has provided entries are made visible.
A member’s uploads page contains a list of compositions uploaded by that member,
but this is not the only page devoted to his or her musical contributions. Two pages are de-
voted to each individual remix. On the first page (see figure 1 for screenshot) the song can be
played (in the site’s music player) or it can be streamed from the site to the visitor’s own player.
Also, because CC-licenses allow file-sharing, the remix can be downloaded by any visitor.
Furthermore, the page lists information about the song, including title, artist, and duration,

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and possibly about featured other members and speed in beats per minute. The remixer can,
and usually does, include a text of explanation, known as a “commentary”. It can deal with any
topic, but mostly it describes the inspiration for the song, elucidates the feel or style that the
mixer attempted to achieve, nods or bows to the people whose samples or a capellas are used,
or gives the lyrics if there is a vocal line.

Figure 1: Screenshot of a song page, taken 23-06-2008.

93
 The remixer may provide additional information on the technological tools used and
the compositional process to be accessed by visitors under a button marked “how I did it”.
Below the explanatory text appears a block of tags which apply to the song in the mixer’s esti-
mation. These may include indications of tempo, instrumentation, technological tools, and
style. They can be used to navigate lists of songs to which the same tag was attached. The page
also displays the number of electronic recommendations the track received and links to the
site members who recommended it. If the song is an ‘editor pick’ (I will explain this below), a
red pentagram star and the text ‘editor pick’ will also appear.
Furthermore, the page prominently displays the creative commons copyright license
which the creator attached to the track. As always with creative commons license icons, it
links to the (human-readable version of the) license itself. Underneath the caption “uses
samples from:” the license rights holders of used samples/a capellas are listed in the form
of hyperlinks via which the visitor can navigate both to the used sample or to the member
who provided it. The caption “samples are used in:” indicates the inverse relation. However,
whereas the “uses samples from:”-section inevitably refers to other parts of the ccMixter web-
site, the “samples are used in:”-section may also list other websites, podcasts, video’s, or music
albums which make use of parts of the track in question. Another small menu enables visitors
to let ccMixter know when they have used or seen (aspects of) the track used elsewhere, and
still another menu gives tools to bookmark, share, or embed the track. This is aside from the
syndication buttons appearing in the general menu, which enable visitors to subscribe to an
automatic feed which keeps them up-to-date when the content on a certain page changes.

Figure 2: Screenshot of a review page, taken 23-06-2008.

94
 Finally, a list of recent reviewers links to the other page devoted to the song (see figure
2 for screenshot). This page gives the reviews other members wrote about the track. The usual
subject matter of reviews is compliments and praise. Occasionally, politely worded criticism
appears.

Figure 3: Screenshot of ranking lists, taken 23-06-2008.

95
 The ccMixter website offers a profusion of different ways to interact with the same
data. It especially makes a point of giving visitors (as well as members) easy ways to find the
best songs. At least six ways deserve mention.
First, ccMixter has (had) at least nineteen members, called editors, who can ‘pick’
tracks they think are especially good. As mentioned above, this stamp of approval is shown
on the page of the song itself in the form of a red star. Editor picks are easily accessed from
the main menu’s in two ways. The first is via the menu made up of buttons which runs along
the top of the screen in every ccMixter page that is displayed. One of these reads “Picks”.
Navigating via this button leads a visitor to a page showing three hyperlink lists (see figure
3 for screenshot). The first and longest is a self-updating list of the latest editor picks. The
other two lists appear under the captions “What’s Hot Right Now” and “All Time Hot List”.
How these are compiled is not explained, but it seems self-evident that they are feeds linked
to a type of statistical data, possibly number of plays, listing the tracks most often listened to.
These “hot lists” provide a second way of finding music. Their place on the site is surprisingly
hidden, as they can be found only via one of the two “Editor Pick” buttons.
Editor picks can also be navigated via the menu which appears on the left hand side of
the screen in every ccMixter page. There, under the caption “Editors’Picks” a feed is shown
displaying the titles of the five latest editor picks as hyperlinks. Underneath this, a link reading
“more picks” leads to a page more elaborately listing editor picks (see figure 4 for screenshot).
For each ‘picked’ track it gives title, name and avatar icon of the creator, a short review text by
the editor and the editor’s name or pseudonym, as well as a button that plays the track from
this page, and an information button with which one can retrieve any other data about the
track without navigating away from the page.

Figure 4: Screenshot of page with Editors’ Picks, taken 23-06-2008.

96
 Third, visitors are encouraged to browse the tags that creators attach to their track
(as mentioned above). In the left hand menu, underneath the caption “visitors” appears a link
reading “find music”, can be used to navigate towards a tag cloud. Fourth, the recommen-
dation system provides another way of finding the better songs. Recommendations cannot
be found under one of the main menu’s, but they appear at the bottom in the song page of
every recommended track. The screen names of the recommenders link to their respective
recommendations pages in their profiles, which list all the tracks that this specific user has
recommended. From here, a visitor can play or navigate towards different tracks recom-
mended by this user.
Fifth, visitors can explore the ccMixter environment via playlists which have been
compiled by members. The way playlists are compiled is generally less than interesting.
They tend to consist of few tracks, usually three to seven, although playlists of thirty tracks
and of a single track (enigmatically) are no exception. They are usually a compilation of
a member’s favorite tracks. Some lists are dedicated to what a member thinks is her own
best work. Thematic compilations are virtually absent. Finally, the possibility of serendipity
surfing deserves to be mentioned. The ccMixter environment is a hyperlink rhizome where
apparently everywhere connects to anywhere. The site does its best to maximize the chance
that any page a visitor opens contains a link that seems interesting enough to click.
All this attention to helping visitors find the music they like is explicable, of course,
from ccMixter’s political goals. The site supports an idea, namely that a creative commons
from which material can be freely reused in derivative works is conducive to a culture which
invites participation and which leads to interesting and creative cultural products. The mes-
sage that the ccMixter websites hopes to convey to the world, then, is that remixing under
creative commons licenses leads to cool music. This message is best conveyed by enabling
visitors to find the music they will most probably like as quickly as possible.
Several of these ways of finding music are based upon reward systems from commer-
cial pop music culture. The “Hot Lists” are analogous to hit charts. If we assume a visitor who
navigates by the number of recommends tracks have accumulated, the recommends function
is more or less analogous to audience voting on talent shows like American Idol. The editor’s
picks are more or less analogous to the vote of the jury on the same talent shows. Thus, fami-
liar principles for deciding which music is ‘best’, which are an entrenched part of pop music
culture in general, reappear at ccMixter; there is ranking, expert voting, and more general
voting. This borrowing of familiar principles is convenient. The ways of navigating they afford
will be immediately recognizable to a casual visitor, who is familiar with pop music in general,
but not with the creative commons or this specific website.
In commercial pop music culture, charts, jury’s, and general votes also serve as a way
of giving some artists credit for their work. Scoring a chart hit or winning a vote generates
admiration and enhances the artist’s chances of financial gain. In all probability, receiving
an editor’s pick, recommends, or a position on a “Hot List” are also quite rewarding for
ccMixter members. But, in contrast to commercial pop music, the ccMixter community does
not award these competitive prestige systems an overriding importance. The more or less
hidden location of the “Hot Lists” most strongly attests to this. At the ACIDplanet remix
community, according to its members, one sometimes encounters so-called “chart whoring”
behavior, where members use their ability to rate and to comment on each others’ uploads
strategically to acquire a higher chart position (Pinch & Athanasiades, forthcoming). At

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ccMixter, social mores are impeccable, as I will show in detail below. It does not seem to be a
very competitive place.
The same point is underscored by the relative absence of remix contests at ccMixter.
The organization of such contests is a proven method for generating traffic towards a remix-
ing website. Remix contests tend to be organized around a single song by a professional art-
ist, from which different instruments and independently recorded tracks are made available
in the form of a so-called “sample pack”. Participants are invited to download the sample
pack, tinker with the samples, and send in the resulting remix. Many such competitions are
organized by individual artists. The website [Link] provides a long list of
such contests, which is informally maintained by remix enthusiasts. Sony’s remix community
[Link] always features one or more remix contests on its home page, and
lists around three hundred competitions under the category of “past events”.45 By contrast,
ccMixter lists less than twenty remix contests among its past events, and most of these are
from the early days of the web site. In other words, ccMixter is not dependent on the prizes
and prestige of competitions for evoking participation. I will return to this point at the end of
the present chapter.
It is worth noticing, finally, that the notion of the “reference person”, which I
introduced in the previous chapter, is highly relevant to two of the discussed ways for
disclosing ccMixter to visitors. In the case of editor’s picks, the editors of the site more or
less behave as reference persons. In the case of the “recommends” system, all community
members do. There are important differences, however, between these reference person roles
and the one I described in the previous chapter. At ccMixter, references are not chosen with
a particular person in mind. Whereas the mix taping reference person caters to an intended
tape recipient, an editor or recommender draws the attention of a general and anonymous
audience to a remix. In the case of a the recommender, moreover, the role of the reference
person is no longer a specialist one. It is more or less generalized.

A capella-based remixing

The word “remixing,” as I explained above, generally refers to the practice of making
an alternate version of a particular song. This idea animates most remix contests regularly
occuring on the internet. In such contests, a ‘sample pack’, containing all the individual ‘tracks’
of a particular song or set of songs, is made available to remix enthusiasts, thus providing the
building blocks they can legally use. Although ccMixter started out providing sample packs
of particular songs and sometimes organizing remix contests around such sample packs, it
quickly became apparent that this way of working made little sense when all available sounds
were creative commons licensed. To limit oneself to the samples taken from one specific song
when all samples could be freely reused made no legal sense, and as it turned out, to most
community members it made little artistic sense as well.
The ccMixter community therefore gradually developed its own distinctive practice of
remixing, in which the site’s sample collection was used as a single sample pool. Vocal lines
took on a special importance. The ccMixter community developed a practice of using more

45:  “Contests” [Link]: Your World of Music [Link]

Available 16-04-2010.

98
or less complete vocal lines or “a capellas” (often shortened to “pellas” by regular users) as the
basis for an otherwise entirely new song. Now, samples can be found on the website under one
button and a capellas under a another one.
These a capellas are often the vocal track taken from a multitrack recording or from a
fully arranged ‘original’ song, but, crucially, this is by no means always the case. The person
who records an a capella may simply have thought up a melody and lyrics, for which no
accompaniment yet exists when she uploads the file. In uploading such an a capella to ccMix-
ter, she leaves the business of arranging and producing to others. Indeed, some vocal artists
use a ccMixter membership to do exactly this.
In the cases where a capellas are indeed not taken from preexisting songs, a strange
situation occurs: different ‘remixes’, which are built around the same a capella by different
members of the community, are variations inspired by a single source, but they do not refer
back to a single complete original song. The a capella in question likely becomes the ‘original’
in such a situation. It is sometimes referred to as ‘original’ by community members. But this is
certainly no ‘original song’ in the traditional sense. Listened to on its own, it sounds awkward
and incomplete. A remixer cannot choose to ‘stay true to the original’ in the same sense that
the remixer of a complete song can. The status of the original is therefore problematic.
Some users of the website realize this. “Loveshadow” writes: “But this site is NOT only
a remix site, it is a platform to create new works as in Calendar Girl’s case. There were no
originals until CC people and visitors on her site made them.”46 Administrator “Fourstones”
(Victor Stone) responds:

In fact, this is my not so secret agenda all along laid bare by Loveshadow. By
featuring a capellas on this site and thereby giving them special status over and
above just ‘samples’ we were hoping to attract producers who would otherwise
not think of cc licensing in terms of traditional ‘remixing’, but really, as LS says
‘a platform to create new works’
It seems all to narrow if all we were setting out to prove is that CC licenses
enable great dance remixes. The point of the site was to prove that sharing any
previously recorded content for any musical context or genre will lead to better
music, period.47

Indeed, songs uploaded to ccMixter span a broad range of musical genres. Also, songs which
are not in traditional remix genres such as hip hop and dance tend to receive all the more
praise from editors and reviewers.
The relation between different compositions based on the same a cappela, if it is not
taken from a preexisting song, is something unprecedented. We might call different remixes
of the same original song ‘sibling works’, and use the term ‘parent work’ for the original in
question. If we think along these lines, then we can see what is strange exactly about the rela-
tion between different mixes based on the same a capella. The relation of both works to the
‘parent work’ is different. It is not a relation of derivation, but of completion. The resulting
‘sibling-relation’, too, is therefore subtly different. Let me call this specific way of remixing

46:  “My Views on the RFP and the Future of ccMixter” ccMixter [Link]
Available 16-04-2010
47:  “The Clarification Thread” ccMixter [Link] Available 16-04-2010.

99
– basing new compositions on a capellas – ccMixter’s a capella-based remix practice. This
practice enables new forms of musical collaboration, as is most forcefully shown by the
Calendar Songs project.

Collaboration and the commercial product: the case of Calendar Songs

In October 2006, London based singer-songwriter Tamara Barnett-Herrin, known at

ccMixter as Calendar Girl, posted a challenge to herself and the remix community both on
the ccMixter website and on her own website for the Calendar Songs project: “I write one
song a month. You remix and feedback. We make a record.”48 The result is a collection of some
400 remixes, based on twelve a capellas which are each named after the month in which they
were composed and posted online, and an album with a selection of twelve songs which is
commercially available both as a download and a physical CD. At the same time, most of these
mixes can still be legally downloaded for free and shared. The majority of the mixes were sent
in by members of the ccMixter community.
In an interview with Tamara Barnett-Herrin on the ccMixter website she explains
what inspired her to start the project:

I was tired of writing demos only to hit a wall. I’d produced two demo CD’s and
I was giving them to people but I wasn’t really hustling them around. That scene
kind of turns my stomach. I’m not afraid of playing people my songs but it feels
so uncomfortable to sit in someone’s office and sell yourself. I’d rather my songs
speak for themselves but there’s only so much talking they can do when they
sit in a pile of CD-Rs in someone’s bedroom, or lost in the mail, or whatever.49

The Calendar Songs project, then, is an inventive way of negotiating a tension which
has been ingrained in popular music culture at least since the ‘artistic turn’ in the late 1960s,
of which I spoke in the second chapter. On the one hand aspiring artists want to have profes-
sional lives as musicians, to have their music be known, to be known for their music, and to
have the artistic status that tends to go along with this. On the other hand, dealing with the
recording industry and with the commercial side of things often presents a problem. The idea
of ‘selling oneself ’ clashes with the bohemian side of the artist. To the aspiring artist it can be
difficult to reconcile such commercial self-presentation with her vision of what she actually
aspires to.
In this field of tensions, Calendar Songs makes a bold choice, opting to retain some
aspects of artistic status and to forgo others. While reproducing much of the l’art pour l’art
bohemianism of the pop artist, its disdain for the music industry and its fear of ‘selling out’
and ‘going commercial’, the project strongly undermines the cult of originality. There are
precedents for such a strategy. Most notably, the cult of originality was forcefully attacked
by the Dada movement, and especially by Marcel Duchamp with his ‘readymades’ (Judovitz
1998). This criticism of the myth of original creation did not, however, entails a complete

48:  “Calendar Songs” [Link] Available 16-04-2010.

49:  “Artist Q & A: Calendar Girl” ccMixter [Link]
Available 16-04-2010.

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break with romanticism. The Dada artists were very much Bohemians, for example, and they
firmly believed in the romantic idea of the artist as a seer, whose view, and whose diagnosis
of the present especially, was more encompassing than that of average people (Richter 1965).
The cult of originality provided a standard of artistic excellence for romanticism. The Dada
movement broke with this standard, but it also put other standards for artistic excellence in its
place, and thus prevented the erosion of the concept of the artist.
In this respect, the case of Calendar Girl is similar. She cannot even claim to have
full artistic control over her album. But on the point of artistic control she unambiguously
remarks:

Screw it! What’s the point of preciously guarding your work? Let it go, let me
interact with and mutate it. As a listener and a fan I want to hear different
interpretations of my favorite artist’s work! I’m curious about it. And I think
by opening up your work to interpretation, people will respect your vision as
an artist, and your opinion, more highly. People respect that bravery. At least
I do.50

In the new digital age, an artist worthy of the name is someone who takes part in a
communicative process of continuous reinterpretation. To connect with this process, rather
than to try and shield one’s work from it, is a standard of artistic excellence, a ‘brave move’.
For commercial reasons, however, the Calendar Songs project does not stay clear of
the notion of originality and of an original work altogether. The final album “Calendar Songs
Volume I” can be bought, and the ‘original songs’ have been registered in the U.K. with the
Performing Rights Society, which collects royalties for musicians. The original songs, in this
case, are not the a capellas, but very sparsely arranged versions which can be listened to at
the Calendar Songs website. The originals in question, however, are far from album material.
Therefore, their status as originals, although legally binding, is artistically and commonsensi-
cally questionable.
The rights to the originals are exclusively held by Tamara Barnett-Herrin herself, but
the royalties she collects in this way are shared with the remixers in question:

I had a license agreement drawn up. When you want to release a compilation
record you license music from different artists and labels so this is exactly the
same principle except that the license is directly made with each remixer/artist.
The license states that the new recording we made together is a 50/50 co-write.
Remixers shouldn’t get a one-off fee and not see any publishing. Especially in
this case where brand new music was written for my ‘pellas.51

This solution is illustrative for ccMixter’s extreme sensitivity to artist’s moral and legal
rights, which we encountered above in the form of ccMixter members’ great care to attribute
reused materials to the original uploaders. The Calendar Songs project, then, provides
another illustration of ccMixter’s attribution paradox. Tamara Barnett-Herrin’s authorship

50:  “Artist Q & A: Calendar Girl” ccMixter [Link]

Available 16-04-2010.
51:  Ibidem.

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is under threat from ‘competing claims to authorship’ to the point where she cannot even
wield full artistic control over her album. Her response is to give these ‘competing holders of
authorship’ their due as transparently and fairly as possible. This very refusal of the status of
solitary and original creator then becomes a saving grace and makes her a much respected
artist.
Looking at the a capella-based remix practice, and the way this practice was enlisted
to create a more or less traditional album in the Calendar Songs project, has given us a better
idea of how remixing works at ccMixter. This is a specific practice, to which the general terms
of the commercial theory of appropriate credit are not entirely applicable. From the vantage
point of the commercial theory of appropriate credit, ccMixter’s attribution paradox is an
insoluble riddle. Looking at the specificities of the cultural practice in question, the pheno-
menon is quite explicable. This preoccupation with fairness in attribution is simply one aspect
of ccMixter’s particular style of credit-giving. Let me now discuss this style of credit-giving in
more detail, and return to the paradox mentioned in the introduction.

The ccMixter attribution paradox

At ccMixter, the myth of original creation is radically undermined. One would expect
that the idea of authorship would suffer accordingly, and that the importance attached to attri-
bution would decrease. What happens is rather the opposite. The attribution of preexisting
contents to the ‘original’ uploaders by ccMixter community members is remarkably careful.
Let me call this ccMixter’s attribution paradox.
The statement that the ccMixter website undermines the notion of original creativity
deserves some extra explanation. This undermining happens in several ways. First of all, the
site makes it very obvious that it is about the reuse of preexisting sonic material, as is made
clear to visitors in a variety of ways, ranging from the cc-license symbols, which can be found
on any page, to the tagline under the site’s logo: “Download, Sample, Cut-up, Share.” Second,
the a capella-based remix practice, which has developed at ccMixter, and which accounts for a
substantial part of its remixes, is always explicitly collaborative. Third, and most importantly,
reuse is indicated by attribution.
Such an attribution consists of a hyperlink to the musical piece from which material
was taken, which appears on the song page of the new composition under a caption reading:
“Uses samples from:” On the song page of the reused composition, meanwhile, a caption
appears that reads: “Samples used in:”, under which a hyperlink to the new upload can be
found. Thus, in the more interesting cases, a network, or rather a rhizome of relations of deri-
vation comes into being. This ‘rhizome of reuse’ also brings into focus the paradoxical aspect
of ccMixter’s recycling aesthetic. On the one hand, it undercuts the myth of original creativity,
leading one to expect that the importance of attribution is dwindling. On the other hand,
all the reused materials in question are attributed to their ‘original’ uploaders. If ccMixter
members had not done this with great care, this network of links would not have existed at all.
From the vantage point of the commercial theory of appropriate credit, ccMixter’s
attribution paradox poses an insoluble problem. Attribution, according to such a view, con-
nects a work to a name, and thus attests to the inseparable bond between an original creator
and a work. On the one hand, attribution underpins the legal construction of copyright, which

102
seeks to give original creators financial compensation when their work is exploited or reused.
In most cases, such financial compensation does not happen at ccMixter. On the other hand,
attribution makes clear who is appropriately entitled to the admiration and praise evoked by a
particular work. It does so by naming the creator. But in the ccMixter system, attribution falls
to whoever has uploaded the material one reuses, even if this person has derived that upload
from a previous one. In this way, homage is not only paid to creators of new music, but also to
mere changers of existing music. According to the commercial theory of appropriate credit,
such homage, besides being inappropriate, is also inexplicable. Original creators allow copy-
ists to benefit from their work, and, through the act of attribution, producers of derivations
willingly make a display of their artistic inadequacy.
But if we look at ccMixter’s attribution paradox from a different angle, leaving
general theories of credit-giving aside and focusing instead on the specificities of the practice
in question, the riddle disappears. The ccMixter community’s preoccupation with attribution
is simply an aspect of its particular style of credit-giving. To have one’s work reused with
attribution is, in a sense, an honor for the uploader of the ‘original’ material, and an indication
that the material in question is valued and appreciated. Also, by being transparent about who
deserves credit for what elements in a composition, the remixer averts the risk that his or her
derivation might be read as an act of free riding. Thus, attribution plays a role in making sure
that the enthusiasm of a ccMixter user is not eroded by free riding or low valuation of his or
her effortful contribution.
Attribution, however, is just one aspect of ccMixter’s style of credit-giving. In the
following sections, I will analyze this style of credit-giving in detail, taking a closer look at
attribution, and then going on to discuss the norms of praiseful reviewing and modesty, to
which ccMixter members consistently adhere.

Attribution, and the genealogical relation between works

There are three aspects of attribution at ccMixter to which I would like to draw
attention. The first is its place in the creative commons copyright system. As I explained above,
there are six main creative commons licenses, which combine basic four elements in different
ways. These elements are “attribution”, “non-commercial”, “no derivatives”, and “share alike”,
which respectively bind anyone who reuses the work in question to append an attribution, to
use it only for non-commercial purposes, to leave it as it was, or to use the same copyright
license for derivatives. Only one of these elements appears in all six licenses, namely that of
attribution. This is because attribution is central to the functioning of any copyright system. A
copyright license must always identify a legal person as the rights holder, or it will be unclear
to whom the rights in question belong.
In part, therefore, ccMixter’s preoccupation with attribution must be explained from
its dedication to the creative commons copyright system. The site is both a remix community
and a promotional tool for the creative commons movement. It can only be successful in the
latter respect if its members make proper use of the system. Attribution therefore serves a
double purpose at ccMixter. Within the community, it helps to keep members motivated,
whereas for the outside world it produces a display of the successful application of an alterna-
tive copyright system.

103
 Secondly, I would like to emphasize that attribution at ccMixter is an effort distributed
between community members and the website as such. Some of its aspects are materially
encoded into the architecture of the website as such, whereas others are underpinned by the
norms of community. The website makes attribution easy. If the uploader of a new composi-
tion fills out the information sheet necessary to create a song page, he or she will be asked to
identify the sources of reused material in the process. A software tool retrieves information
about the reused uploads, and displays this on the new song page in a consistent format. In
this way, a minimal effort is asked of community members.
It is still the task of the remixer, however, to be aware of the sources he or she uses, to
keep track of them, and to be honest about them when uploading a new composition. An act
of assessment is also involved. It is impractical and superfluous to attribute every single-note
sample. Therefore, sample packs are only indicated in the “uses samples from:” section in
rare cases. A capellas and newly recorded instrumental solos, on the other hand, are always
attributed. For in-between cases, then, a remixer must make his or her own decision.
Presumably, a strong context of social norms is necessary to avert the danger that such
decisions gradually come to fall ever more to the side of convenience. Some remixers, how-
ever, go further than they are asked to in their efforts to attribute fairly. They do so by writing
about the vocals and instrumental lines they have reused in their song page commentaries,
usually to praise the ‘original’ material.
Thirdly, and lastly, I want to draw attention to an interesting analogy, which one
occasionally encounters at ccMixter, namely that between relations of derivation and
relations of descent. Here is a particularly interesting instance, which deserves to be cited at
some length, where “Spinmeister” explains the inspiration for his song “Unforgiven”:

This song has rather interesting DNA, although it uses only two tracks by
other artists. Nonetheless, the whole history deserves mentioning, because
that history served as the inspiration for this remix.

The DNA of this remix is:

On the father’s side: The midi file of the very handsome piano track by TheJoe,
which in turn started its life as a piano accompaniment to an a capella track by
Mandyleigh Storm.

On the mother’s side, it features the drop-dead gorgeous vocal track of Kaer
Trouz, which in turn was inspired by a stunning guitar track by Loveshadow,
which in turn was inspired by the lovely “Honeychild” a capella by Narva 9.
(Italics in original)52

This passage makes an elaborate Spiel of the descent metaphor. It underscores the
gendered division of labor on the website by referring to a male instrumentalist as “the father’s
side” and to a female vocalist as “the mother’s side”, and it stresses the quality of the ‘DNA’ in
question by praising the beauty of both parent tracks.

52:  “Unforgiven” ccMixter [Link] Available 16-04-2010.

104
 Two aspects of this commentary merit attention. The first is that Spinmeister’s
description of the origination of “Unforgiven” is highly self-effacing. He does not award him-
self a parental status. He merely brought the father and mother together, like a match-maker,
or, perhaps more appropriately in this case, like an IVF doctor. This is striking, on the one
hand, because it is a modest thing to do, and such modesty occurs frequently at ccMixter.
I will return to this point below. It is noteworthy, on the other hand, because traditionally
metaphors of descent and parenthood in art generally pertain either to a relation between
artists (history of styles) or to the relation between the artist and his work, where the artist is
the single ‘parent’ who has ‘given birth’ to the work. However, Spinmeister describes a relation
between the three uploads, not their creators. This shows that the metaphysics of musical
communication, which I described in the first chapter, is seriously undermined at ccMixter.
The second aspect of Spinmeister’s commentary that merits attention is the element
of genealogy. Aside from his efforts as an ‘IVF doctor’, Spinmeister is also a genealogist, who
has charted the family tree of his remix. I would like to take up the genealogy metaphor and
extend it. In the citation above, Spinmeister performs an unusually elaborate act of genealogy,
but in a sense every act of attribution on ccMixter is also an act of genealogy. Let me try and
conceptualize genealogy in terms of participant ‘roles’.
I understand the role of the genealogist as one that consists in keeping track of an indi-
vidual’s place within a tradition, and giving his or her predecessors their due. Like the roles
of creator and reference person, it is not bound to a single practice. Genealogists, in the novel
sense I give to the term, appear in art music, for instance when a historian of musical styles
traces the precursors of the style of a particular composer, or in popular music, for example
when a critic, or the artist him- or herself, identifies an artist’s ‘influences’.
There is an important difference, however, between the way the role of the reference
person functioned in the practice of mix taping and the way the role of genealogist functions
at ccMixter. The genealogist is what I would like to call a “generalized role.” It is not subject
to a division of labor. In the previous chapter, both trans-practical roles I discussed, namely
those of the creator and of the reference person, were specialized. In both of these cases,
giving credit involved an acknowledgement of the fact that the person in question was excep-
tional in a way crucial to the practice in question. Specialists stand out, and consequently they
are often rewarded for their contribution with a form of prestige, as we saw is the case with
both creators and reference persons.
The genealogical effort, on the contrary, is distributed over all community members,
not to mention the website itself. The result, as we saw, is an impressive hyperlink rhizome
through which the descent of any remix can be traced. But the role of the genealogist is not
the only generalized role that plays a part in ccMixter’s style of credit-giving. In the next two
sections, I will take a closer look at that of the reviewer.

Generous praise

If one considers the reviews that ccMixter users write in response to each other’s
songs, a striking pattern quickly becomes apparent. These reviews are variations on praise. A
substantial part of this is simple praise, packaged in short comments which reappear often,
such as “great stuff ”, “great piece”, “really nice mix”, “this is awesome”, et cetera. Most reviews,

105
however, attempt to stay clear of this approach, which quickly grows tedious. They do so
mostly in one of two ways (sometimes both). The first is to word one’s approval in a humoris-
tic and original manner. This occasionally leads to jocular interchanges. Generally, the humor
in question is very ‘polite’ in character. In the example below, for instance, a reviewer who
goes by the name of Narva9 exalts the scariness of a mix which has a dark and brooding
atmosphere:

I think this one should come with a warning. It didn’t really scare me or
anything, but others may not be brave as I am so they could easily be scarred
for life. For instance, it may make some people (not me) need to check under
the bed for monsters, sleep with the lights on or check the closet for evil elves.53

And the creator of the song, ‘Duckett’, responds:

My sincere apologies to all (not you) who may have been convinced that
listening to this provides a conduit for spirits of utmost darkness and madness
to slowly pervade the life and mind of the listener :P 54

The second way to make more of a review than a simple compliment is for the reviewer
to be specific about what he or she likes. Whereas a humoristic review shows the writer to
be a person of pleasant character, a specific compliment betrays the writer to be musically
knowledgeable. Here are a few examples:

Nice work on it. Love the bass drum, perfect contrast between the beat and the
smooth a capella. (‘DjiZ’)55

I’m liking the verse/chorus divisions; definitely better fitted to the pella, and
that pluck track is a nice touch. (‘Duckett’)56

Relatively rarely, criticism or advice appears, and when it does it is usually worded politely or
even hesitantly.
This culture of praise contributes to making ccMixter a friendly community. This
sends out a positive signal about ccMixter and about creative commons politics in general,
both to casual visitors and to newbie remixers, in line with the goals of the site. There is no
doubt that the ccMixter community as it presently exists is indeed a friendly community, but
it is also evident that extensive and strict moderation by the moderators of the site must have
contributed greatly to this state of affairs.
Another aspect of ccMixter’s culture of praise is that it generates a positive discourse
on the quality of the musical contributions to the site. Out of all the compliments directed

53:  “Reviews for ‘2:30 AM: The Old Asylum’” ccMixter [Link]
Available 16-04-2010.
54:  Ibidem
55:  “Reviews for ‘Miss Kiss Kiss Kiss’” ccMixter [Link]
Available 16-04-2010.
56:  “Reviews for ‘Q - Take a look at me now – DjiZ remix’” ccMixter [Link]
Available 16-04-2010.

106
towards individual songs emerges a kind of super-individual self-gratulation by which the
ccMixter website helps to construct and maintain the belief in its own high musical stan-
dards. This is not to say, however, that ccMixter users set low standards for musical quality. On
the contrary, musical quality is one of the site’s persistent preoccupations; a point to which I
will return below. However, rather than receiving critical reviews, uploads deemed of inferior
quality generally receive fewer reviews, or none at all.
Also, there is a reciprocity factor to this friendliness. The ccMixter website has no
‘befriending’ function, unlike many other online communities. Interpersonal ties are well
maintained, however, and the tool used most for this is reciprocal reviewing. The writing of a
review, then, is not only triggered by a desire to vent one’s opinion on someone else’s song. It is
generally also a matter of reciprocating the kindness of having had one’s own songs reviewed.
Naturally, a friendly and supportive review begs to be reciprocated with another friendly and
supportive review, rather than with an overly critical one.
Most importantly, however, reviews make sure that remixers will not have the experi-
ence of flinging their compositions, on which they have likely expended much effort, into a
void. Reviews acknowledge the work of the remixer, along with its value and its connection to
the person of the remixer. Reviewing, in other words, is a way of giving remixers credit. Most
of the remixers on ccMixter have no immediate prospects of achieving stardom or substantial
financial gain through making music. To keep ccMixter users active, the social capital which
can be won in the community is in all probability indispensable. At ccMixter, social capi-
tal means receiving editor picks, recommends, and positive reviews. Among core members,
uploading compositions and reviewing them reciprocally results in a positive feedback loop,
which keeps members motivated. Less talented remixers, receiving little or no reviews, are
more likely to lose motivation and become inactive members.
The citation below may serve to illustrate the importance of getting feedback on
one’s uploads. Frank Carter III, a prolific uploader of a capellas known in the community as
songboy3, says in an interview with fellow community member Victor Stone (“Fourstones”):

I wasn’t ready for the very vocal compliments about my vocal performances. I
mean, I think I can sing and you have to put yourself out there for public con-
sumption but, the love I received and still do, completely blindsided me! This
is gonna sound goofy, but I kinda feel like a minor celebrity on [Link].
(...) But most importantly, my motivation now is just to see what the fantastic
people of [Link] will come up with if provided with new songs.57

This ccMixter user, then, is not shy about admitting that the praise he received
in reviews has meant something to him. In saying that on ccMixter he feels like a minor
celebrity, he makes an explicit analogy between ccMixter’s peer praise culture and the admi-
ration and fame that are won by the successful commercial pop artist. Admiration and love
are the artist’s true reward according to the commercial and the anti-commercial theories
of appropriate credit, as I explained in the first chapter. And this reward can be obtained at
ccMixter, if only at a more modest scale than someone achieving fame in mainstream culture.
But even more important than this kind of feedback, according to Frank Carter III, is another

57:  Victor Stone, Frank Carter III (2008) “Artist Spotlight Q & A: Frank Carter III”
[Link] Available 06-03-2010.

107
type, which does not have an equivalent in commercial pop music culture. This is the joy and
honor of seeing one’s contributions reused by others, which I already mentioned above in my
discussion of attribution as credit-giving.
Reviews are also an important tool to turn newbie mixers into active members, that is,
into uploader-reviewers. Here is an example in which site regular Scott Altham addresses a
new member in an almost fatherly tone:

Welcome Simon, I see this is your first mix. Overall I like it, it has melody and
placement with the vocals is generally very good. Gating [a recording tech-
nique originally used to filter out noise, B.J.] is a technique I personally really
like, so there’s brownie points there. (…) These are just my personal sugges-
tions, clearly all of our tastes are different and in general your track is a great
starter mix. Keep it up.58

Simon Latham responds, nuancing his newbie status and focusing on the shared love for (and
knowledge of) a sound manipulation tool:

Thnx for your kind words, yep my first entry on ccMixter, been in this bizz a
long time tho :) (…) Gating is a nice tool and so much easier then it used to be
rigging up manually like I used to do 10 years ago. (…)59

And Scott Altham replies:

Ace, let’s see some more mixes! (I know what you mean re old style gating – lots
of volume control). Cheers.60

This citation also illustrates a final point that deserves to be mentioned, namely the
aspect of hierarchy internal to reviewing and praising. A distinction is possible between praise
which is directed either ‘upward’ or ’downward’. The fatherly tone employed by Scott Altham
to new member Simon Latham in the citation above is a clear example of ‘downward’ praise.
Apart from the fact that his commentary shows his knowledgeability and his auditory per-
ceptiveness, it also reinforces his status as a site regular and his ability to judge the work of
others with authority. However, this type of commentary is relatively rare on ccMixter. Most
reviews praise in an ‘upward’ direction. In reciprocal relations of positive reviewing, commu-
nity members take turns giving praise, but they also take turns receiving it. It is to this side of
the relationship that I turn below.

58:  “Reviews for ‘Overboard (Simon Latham Remix)’” ccMixter [Link]

Available 16-04-2010.
59:  Ibidem
60:  Ibidem

108
Gratitude and modesty

Gratitude appears often in ccMixter’s review sections. There are four main reasons for
thanking someone else in the review section. The first, and most common, is in response to a
positive review. Here is a clear example of a conjunction between gratitude an ‘upward praise’.
‘Loveshadow’ posts a review to a song by ‘Carosone’:

I can repay the compliment now. I love this. The chords sequence for this a
capella Is very original and has a very Donald Fagan ‘The Nightfly’ feel. The
instrumental part is cool so overall a great mix.61

And Carosone responds:

I loved Donald Fagan the nightfly when it came out back in 1981, I didn’t think
of it while doing this but perhaps things work that way, unconsciously, so per-
haps you’re right. I have a little emotion, I mean: I am replying to Loveshadow,
that is, the great Loveshadow, whose 12 songs I skipped through one after the
other during an endless night some time ago! THX for posting a comment
here.62

A second common occasion for thanks is when one’s work is reused by a fellow
remixer. It is customary for providers of samples or a capellas to review mixes in which their
uploads are reused, and when they like the new work, they sometimes show this through an
expression of gratitude. The first example below is from a provider of samples and the second
from a provider of an a capella:

Just noticed that you had included one of my tracks in this mix so thanks for
putting me into this interesting piece of work.63

Cag, I can’t exactly tell you why I like this. It’s bizarre as hell! But there is
something surrealistic, dreamy & quite soothing about it, simultaneously!
Thank you! This goes in the data bank!64

The reverse situation, where a remixer is allowed to reuse nice material, is also regularly a
reason to say thanks:

Love the clarinet!! I have used it for my weekly KlankBeeld (…) Probably will
upload it to mixter later today. Thanks for sharing!!65

61:  “Reviews for ‘When you said yes’” ccMixter [Link]

Available 16-04-2010.
62:  Ibidem.
63:  “Reviews for ‘Ballistic Affairs’” ccMixter [Link] Available 16-04-2010.
64:  “Reviews for ‘Lovemix’ ccMixter [Link] Available 16-04-2010.
65:  “Reviews for ‘Clarint (the black&white on it)’” ccMixter [Link]
Available 16-04-2010.

109
 Thank you, your sharing and your permission to use your works.66

(…) You are only hearing the result of how I’m being inspired by all the great
pellas I’ve heard. Keep posting the pellas and I’ll keep bangin’ ‘em out… ;)- 67

It’s a real privilege to have materials of this caliber to work with!68

Finally, the simple fact that someone has uploaded a beautiful composition, and that
a reviewer was able to hear it, may be sufficient reason for gratitude. Although instances of
this are the least common of the four types of gratitude that I have distinguished, they are not
actually all that rare. The indebtedness of the listener to the composer, which I analyzed in the
first chapter of this dissertation, then, makes a surprising return here:

Lovely, ethereal and fragile. I’m a great fan of Sylvia’s songs… so thank you for
giving it such a beautiful frame.69

Weird, hot, funky, and fierce! Lots of fun to hear. Thank you.70

Lovely and laid back. I like the jazzy earthy “she could be singing in front of
you” feel. Thank you.71

You’ve really captured something here. A masterpiece of music for a tragically

random act. Thanks.72

I am just becoming more and more impressed by the work you do, just very
fine intelligent and emotional music that I always enjoy listening to, thanks.73

In the context of all this ‘upward praise’ and gratitude, it is unsurprising that modesty
also makes a regular appearance. Consider the following two examples in which a remixer
responds to a positive review:

WOW! After this , I will get shy in posting new remixes there in the future, but,
as for tonight, I may go to bed!74

66:  “Reviews for ‘Ballistic Affairs’” ccMixter [Link] Available 16-04-2010.

67:  “Reviews for ‘Take A Look At Me Now by J. Lang -HELLFIRE Remix)’”
ccMixter [Link] Available 16-04-2010.
68:  “Reviews for ‘Show Me Something (A Capella)’” ccMixter [Link]
Available 16-04-2010.
69:  “Reviews for ‘Ultima Vez’” ccMixter [Link] Available 16-04-2010.
70:  “Reviews for ‘Indian(mix)’” ccMixter [Link] Available 16-04-2010.
71:  “Reviews for ‘When you said yes’” ccMixter [Link]
Available 16-04-2010.
72:  “Reviews for ‘Death of the Party’” ccMixter [Link]
Available 16-04-2010.
73:  “Reviews for ‘Language of Birds (Last Man on Earth Song)’”
ccMixter [Link] Available 16-04-2010.
74:  “Reviews for ‘When you said yes’” ccMixter [Link]
Available 16-04-2010.

110
 Hats off? Thanks!!, I didn’t expect positive comments to this, it was just a quick
example with sampled chords and so on…75

In fact, the few times that truly immodest statements appear, they are ironical. A mem-
ber who calls himself ‘Doghouse Riley’, for instance, always wields the same humoristic ‘pho-
netic mid-western’ style of writing. When reviewer Loveshadow complains:

I am sure this is witty and endearing or gorgeously twisted maybe tinkly and
pretty but I can’t get this to play, so this is a temporary review until I can
download and listen to it which might be in a couple of days or so (…) I have
to say when I saw MC Squared in your notes I thought you had started rapping
too.76

Doghouse Riley has no qualms to insert some self-aggrandizement:

Wail, ya done a purty good job summin it up already! Ceptin, a course, ya left
out the “uber-geniotically brilliant” and “horror in the face of the void” parts.
And I could not rap my way around a Christmas present. Yet. Or can I?77

To sum up, the review sections are pervaded by a culture of praise, gratitude, and mo-
desty. The ccMixter community norms are polite to the extreme. If we understand uploading
and reciprocal reviewing as a crucial part of ccMixter’s style of credit-giving, the reasons for
this are obvious. The reciprocation of pleasant reviews is instrumental in keeping all com-
munity members motivated. It confirms the value of the uploaded remix, and, by the same
token, of contributing remixes in general; it makes clear that the listener is not a free rider
who enjoys the song without acknowledging the remixer’s efforts; and it adds a pleasant social
aspect to the fun of remixing itself. Now, let me try to summarize the findings above into a
coherent analysis of ccMixter’s style of credit-giving.

Three generalized roles: remixer, reviewer, genealogist

I hope to have made clear that the cultural practice of remixing at ccMixter has its
own particular style of credit-giving; one that is different from, and markedly less com-
plex than that of mix taping, for example. Crucial to this style of credit-giving is the fact
that active ccMixter members are not only uploaders of new content. They also review and
attribute. Each community member, in other words, combines three roles, each of which is
crucial to the persistence of the practice. Let me call them the roles of remixer, reviewer, and
genealogist. These are all what I have called “generalized roles”. Central to ccMixter’s style of
credit-giving is a distribution of effort, not a division of labor.

75:  “Reviews for ‘Straniera’” ccMixter [Link] Available 16-04-2010.

76:  “Reviews for ‘Does Time Matter?’” ccMixter [Link]
Available 16-04-2010.
77:  Ibidem

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 Taken at face value, ccMixter is a community of creators. By uploading their
compositions, they make these known to each other and to the general public. As I explained
above, the ccMixter website is in many ways designed to make discovering new music easy
for casual visitors. However, these casual visitors, who stand in a more or less traditional
artist/audience relation to the remixers, seem to contribute little to the continuation of these
remixers’ enthusiasm and activity. They do not provide praise or acknowledgement or any
other kind of feedback. In fact, their very presence is almost impossible to discern. Providing
feedback is a matter of remixers among themselves. This produces an important difference
between ccMixter and commercial pop music culture. Among ccMixter community mem-
bers, the aspect of creativity is not subject to specialization (other than that between remixers
and singers, who are united by the fact that there is an element of composing in both their
types of contributing). On the contrary, this creativity is what binds them all together.
The fact that the role of remixer is a generalized role rules out credit-giving by simple
elevation and admiration, such as happens in commercial pop music culture, where relations
are based on a stable hierarchy. Both artist and audience recognize the superior status of the
artist. The ccMixter community reproduces only one half of this relation. Reviewers, to a large
degree, exemplify the ‘audience attitude’ of admiration and elevation. Because reviewing is a
reciprocal activity, however, the result is not a stable hierarchy, but one that ‘flip-flops’. If party
A reviews an upload from party B, then A will praise B, usually doing so as if departing from
a lower hierarchical position. If B reviews an upload from A, on the other hand, B will praise
A, again usually doing so as if departing from a lower hierarchical position. Meanwhile, the
uploader of the reviewed remix will not confirm the existence of any hierarchical difference
by assuming star status. On the contrary, he or she will be modest and will respond to praise
with gratitude. To sum up then, all community members downplay their own position on
the ladder of ccMixter achievement, whilst playing up the position of others. In this way, it
becomes possible for all community members to receive pleasant reviews from their peers.
A generalized role of reviewer thus supplements the generalized role of remixer. For a
complete picture of ccMixter’s style of credit-giving, a third generalized role must be added,
which I have called that of the genealogist. I want to emphasize that my use of the word must
not be confused with the Foucaultian research method. As explained above, I understand the
role of the genealogist as one that consists in keeping track of an individual’s place within a
tradition, and giving his or her predecessors their due. Like the roles of creator and reference
person, it is not bound to a single practice. Western high art and art music practices both
have an entire academic discipline devoted to the specialist pursuit of genealogical concerns,
namely the histories of artistic and musical styles. In commercial pop music culture, genea-
logical concerns are addressed by a patchwork of different participants, such as critics and the
artists ‘themselves’, for instance, when they identify musical ‘influences’.
There are important differences, however, between the role of the genealogist as it
appears at ccMixter and the role of the genealogist in music culture in general. At ccMixter,
for instance, the genealogical function is distributed between community members and the
website as such. Also, ccMixter’s genealogical practice pertains primarily to concrete relations
of derivation whereas in general genealogical concerns are first and foremost about relations
of influence which are hard to pin down. Finally, attribution on ccMixter results in a com-
plete archive, so to say, of all relations of derivation between works uploaded unto the site.
Genealogy in music culture in general, on the other hand, tends to result in canonization,

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where the emphasis on certain great artists may result in a forgetfulness of once influential
composers and musicians and of many artists who formed historical links which carried the
‘influence’ of towering figures to the present.
Three generalized roles, then, make up the particular style of credit-giving that
underpins the cultural practice of remixing at ccMixter. As long as a core group of community
members takes on the triple role of remixer-reviewer-genealogist, they will work to maintain
a pleasant social context for remixing, which undercuts the risks of free riding, which con-
structs its own practice as a meaningful one, and to which it is rewarding to contribute.

Conclusions

The foregoing lends force to my contention that the details of a particular cultural
practice matter if we want to know who deserves credit for doing what. The ccMixter com-
munity ensures the persistence of its members’ enthusiasm by means of a style of credit-giving
which is all its own. It differs markedly from the commercial theory of appropriate credit,
which both elevates and isolates the artist in making him or her an object of admiration. The
things that make contributing to ccMixter rewarding are rooted in reciprocal relationships
between peers. Also, and more importantly perhaps, ccMixter’s style of credit-giving differs
markedly from that of mix taping, which tied its practice mostly to intimate relationships
between no more than two people. Different cultural practices, we can now conclude with
confidence, do not all have the same style of credit-giving.
In the previous chapter, I showed that an emphasis on creation in the discourse on
mix taping obscured many other aspects of the practice. A similar point could be made about
ccMixter. When one first encounters the site, it is immediately clear that it hosts the works
of many remixers, the role of remixer being the one which is most analogous to that of a
traditional artist. It took a dedicated analysis of what made this community work to show
that community members do not contribute the products of their efforts to this site merely
because they feel driven to express themselves. As ccMixter members they are also reviewers
and genealogists.
A fourth role could even be added, which is less relevant to ccMixter’s style of credit-
giving, but which should not be thought of as unimportant for that reason. This is the role of
the reference person. Members of the ccMixter community help to disclose their site both to
casual visitors and to each other. The reference person can be a specialist, in the case of the
editor’s pick, or it can be another generalized role, in the case of the recommends system. The
role of these systems in helping visitors locate the music they will most probably like is indis-
pensable to ccMixter’s overall political goals. Here too, then, the overemphasis on creation
fostered by the dominance of the commercial theory of appropriate credit has a tendency to
obscure all other kinds of cultural participation.
In the next chapter, I will look at a third cultural practice, namely that of deejaying,
Starting from a comparison between DJs who use record players and Djs who use more con-
temporary technologies, I will once more investigate whether and how the details of a practice
matter for the credit question.

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114
 Chapter 6

From Making Things to

Making Things Happen:

Vinyl, Digital Media and the

Practice of Deejaying.

So what’s so beautiful about people going wild?

Yeah [smiles]. That’s just beautiful, that’s like you... (…) The magic touch, the
magic thing, you can really have that with music, and then people will sud-
denly do something they normally wouldn’t do. And that’s simply releasing the
energy they have inside them, and just dance, and yeah... so beautiful! [AF]78

But another ridiculous example is that once at an underground party here in

Utrecht a group of guys were doing some circle pit, mosh pit-like dance silli-
ness. And three meters away a girl was giving her boyfriend a lap dance. To the
same song, at the same moment. Well, if you’re deejaying there, that’s such a
rush, that’s crazy. It doesn’t mesh with each other and that free aspect, that’s also
what I really like about it. [Tom]

78:  The original transcripted Dutch text for citations taken from DJ interviews can be found in appendix C,
sorted by page number.

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Introduction

This chapter is about the collective ecstasy and euphoria that can arise during a
dance party; the situation where everybody dances and no one worries about how they look
anymore. Or, more accurately, this chapter is about the DJ as someone who is crucial to the
creation of such an experience. The DJ is someone who can create euphoria. He does not
create it in isolation, nor does he create it ex nihilo, and creating euphoria is by no means
the only thing a DJ does, but nonetheless, for virtually all the DJs I have interviewed for this
chapter, creating the best possible atmosphere seems to be essential to the practice of playing
at parties.
If enthusiasm for enlivening a crowd is something the DJs I spoke to generally have
in common, this is not because they are similar kinds of DJs. In fact, this chapter begins as
a comparison between a three particular sub-groups of DJs, which I have called ‘conserva-
tionist’, ‘contemporist’, and ‘intermediate’ DJs. The conservationist group distinguishes itself
by sticking to older pop music and record player technology. The contemporist group uses
contemporary technologies to mix contemporary dance tracks together, and the intermediate
group shares features of both groups. As I will show below, within the corpus of academic
publications on deejaying, which is small as it is, conservationist and retro DJs are omitted
entirely.
This chapter proposes an explanation for this group’s relative invisibility. The
explanation may be found, I will argue, in the pervasive influence of the commercial theory
of appropriate credit, and in the emphasis it places on the role of the creator. If we understand
DJs as would-be creators, then the craft of the conservationist DJ indeed seems less than
interesting. If on the other hand we want to appreciate the DJ as a DJ, we need to stick with
the piecemeal approach I introduced in the first chapter. And that means giving attention to
the particularities of the cultural practice of deejaying.
In what follows I will briefly introduce the sample of DJs I have interviewed. I will
then explain why conservationist DJs are a neglected group and why contemporist DJs are
awarded a higher status. Next, I will discuss why record player technology is still attractive to
conservationist DJs. Finally, I will try to describe what might be central to understanding the
DJ as a DJ, starting from a range of phenomena which virtually all DJs referred to and gave
central importance.

The DJs interviewed

For this chapter, I have conducted semi-structured interviews with nineteen DJs.
Although it is impossible to categorize these DJs into types that are separated by strict bound-
aries, my heuristic point of departure has been to compare DJs who have a preference for
gramophone technology and older music with DJs who prefer contemporary technology and
music. About eight of the DJs interviewed can be categorized as ‘conservationist’. I have cho-
sen this term to emphasize their special engagement with gramophone technology and/or
older popular music. A desire to preserve elements from the musical past plays a role in their
DJ activities. Another eight DJs are, or were, more or less contemporary oriented in their
choice of technology and music. They are a very mixed bag, which has made it impossible to

116
find a familiar term that is applicable to all of them. Therefore, I prefer to call them ‘contempo-
rist’. Three more DJs switch fluidly between analogue records and digital technology, between
contemporary and older music, and between mixing and playing songs back-to-back. I will
refer to these as ‘intermediate’ DJs.
But, as I said above, the boundaries are blurry. For example, most conservationist DJs
use vinyl, and most contemporists do not, but the distinction is not precise. DJ Blue Flamingo
plays 78 R.P.M. records, which are made of bakelite. DJ Peter Smit has played vinyl, yet I cate-
gorized him as contemporist because he classifies as a mix DJ, a Dance DJ, and a DJ-producer.
Contemporist DJ TLM plays vinyl, but in his case vinyl is not an analogue medium, but a
digital one. He uses the Serato Scratch Live system, in which vinyl records containing a time
code instead of music are used to interface with music stored digitally on a computer. In
similar ways, other criteria for distinguishing between conservationists and contemporists
fall short: Mix DJs versus non-mix DJs, DJ-producers versus ‘pure’ DJs, users of analogue
technology versus users of digital technology, et cetera. Even the distinction between retro
DJs and players of contemporary music is troublesome.
This blurriness, however, is not a problem in the context of my research project. It
is an aspect of the investigated phenomenon. Anyone who attempts to create a typological
map of the practice of deejaying is bound to find that the map will in the end exist mostly of
shades of gray. Living practices are hard to compartmentalize, and it would be a shame not
to acknowledge the richness and diversity of this practice. However, if this is so, does it still
make sense to talk about conservationist DJs as an existing phenomenon? I believe it does,
but the phenomenon only comes to the fore when different criteria are superimposed. What
is interesting about the conservationist DJ is that certain characteristics blend: Using analogue
turntables, refraining from mixing and producing, actively collecting records, playing older
popular music which is sometimes at risk of being forgotten, and having a sense that these
records or the music recorded, or both, deserve to be preserved and heard in public.
What gives the notion of the conservationist some reality is the fact that such charac-
teristics seem to have a way of clustering together. In the ‘archetypical’ conservationist DJ all
the elements mentioned and more coincide; he is a record collector who thinks it important to
introduce other people to the music he collects, for their enjoyment and for the sake of music.
In a less ‘archetypical’ conservationist DJ most elements are present, but some are absent. The
notion of a contemporist DJ, meanwhile, is merely a convenient shorthand to designate in a
single word the diverse group of DJs that are preoccupied with the new rather than the old.
The previous two chapters discussed cassette technology and digital mixing techno-
logy, whereas this chapter adds gramophone technology. The heuristic starting point of this
investigation, a comparison between DJs who use phonographic technology and DJs who use
digital technologies, is well suited to get the media specificity of phonographic technology into
focus. As stated above, however, it will quickly become apparent that the similarities between
conservationist and contemporist DJs are actually more interesting than the differences.
The DJs I interviewed were overwhelmingly highly educated and all male. These biases
are in all probability not due to the method of sampling. Deejaying, at least in Holland, does
seem to be practiced primarily by highly educated people, and it is certainly a male dominated
practice. On the thirteenth of May 2009, for example, DJ Lizzy Ocean was the highest ranking

117
woman on TheDJList, a website providing a ranking of (commercially) successful DJs, where
she appeared at number 118.79
All of the DJs I have interviewed are party DJs, although not always exclusively so. For
example, several DJs produce as well. Furthermore, Cornelis Prul and TLM are also radio
DJs, and TLM has additionally performed as a turntablist with a band. ‘Vinylogist’ Berry van
Diepen organizes music quizzes in pubs. Despite these differences, however, the nineteen DJs
in my sample have in common that a central part of their job consists of filling up a dance
floor, whether at a venue or a pub or at a private party, and generating a good atmosphere.

DJs in the academic literature, and beyond

Looking at books and articles on deejaying, one finds a pattern to which I would like
to draw attention, because I believe it to be more interesting than it may initially seem. The
pattern is that turntablism gets most attention, followed by dance deejaying, whilst atten-
tion for traditional DJs who play songs back-to-back is marginal. Thus, although histories
of deejaying mention traditional DJs, whether with a cursory glance (Brewster & Broughton
2000) or more in-depth (Poschardt 1998), they treat these practices as early stages of ‘today’s’
DJ-culture, and make turntablists and mix DJs the protagonists of the story.
Studies that interpret the cultural practice of turntablism from a cultural analytical
point of view are rather few (Kihm 2002, Snapper 2004, Katz 2004, Shiu 2007, Miyakawa
2007, Fairchild 2008, Clay 2009). Nonetheless, they considerably outnumber similar studies
on dance DJs (Langlois 1992, Fikentscher 1999), while such studies on the traditional DJ do
not even appear to exist. The conservationist DJ seems, in this regard, to fall into an uninves-
tigated no man’s land between the contemporist DJ and the record collector, who is also the
topic of various studies (E.g. Eisenberg 1987, Shuker 2004, Davis 2007).
At least two explanations can be given for this state of affairs. The first will only be
mentioned briefly here, because it is the result of academic tendencies of which cultural
scholars are well aware. Cultural analysis tends to contribute to the emancipation of minority
groups, mostly by bringing to light hidden presuppositions in everyday culture which work
to keep existing power structures in place. In this vein, turntablism has been used as a lens to
focus on issues in black and Asian American culture (Snapper 2004, Shiu 2007).
The second explanation that can be given for the relative invisibility of conservationist
and retro-deejaying, however, is in my opinion the result of a blind spot in much of the aca-
demic discourse until now. Studies on deejaying tend to aggrandize the creativity and agency
of DJs. To be sure, these are important topics, which certainly deserve discussion. However,
these studies often implicitly make creativity and agency, understood as intervention in the
musical material, the standard for what is worthy of praise and enthusiasm. In other words,
they tacitly assume that what a DJ does is more valuable the more it resembles an act of
creation.
I would argue that such scholars’s arguments fall prey to a normalized view of music
creation according to which an artist, whether in the act of songwriting or performing,
encodes immaterial value (meaning, emotion, soul) into a piece of music such that a listener

79:  “Lizzy Ocean #118” TDJL [Link] Available 13-05-2009.

118
can extract this value and have a worthwhile musical experience. As long as one thinks in
terms of this commonsensical view, it is entirely logical to assume that being more like a
creator makes a DJ eligible to more prestige and status. By implicitly subscribing to this view,
however, one limits one’s chances of discovering what value the practice of the DJ holds if he
is regarded as a DJ rather than as a more or less successful imitation of a traditional pop artist.
When measured by the standards of the creator, contemporist deejays score better
than conservationist ones. Conservationist DJs generally play songs ‘back-to-back’, that is,
one after the other, without manipulating them or mixing them together. Their creativity must
therefore lie in selecting the songs that are played and the order in which they are played.
Turntablists and dance DJs, however, go markedly further in manipulating the musical mate-
rial. Hip hop turntablists have explored the possibilities of the record player maximally, which
has led to techniques such as scratching (rhythmically moving the record by hand, to create
particular sound effects) and beat juggling (using two identical records to alter the overall
form of a song, for example extending the bridge of this song indefinitely, see e.g. Kihm 2002,
Katz 2004). In dance music, the craft of mixing two records together, so as to obscure the
transition from one song to the next, became central (See e.g. Langlois 1992).
The relative amounts of scholarly attention devoted to turntablism, dance DJs, and
conservationist DJs, then, are indicative of a status hierarchy between DJ practices. This hier-
archy remains mostly implicit, but it occasionally becomes easily detectable.

The majority of DJs – at weddings, parties, bars, rock clubs, and discotheques
- “play” records in the most rudimentary sense of the word: slap them on the
turntable one after the other. But in hip-hop and house, and in all the rave and
club-based hybrids of those two black American musics, the DJ plays records
in a different sense, one that’s closer to improvising on a musical instrument, or
playing with a plastic, mutable substance. (Reynolds 1998: 271)

The key role in the house scene is that of the DJ. It is his own transformation
from passive ‘record player’ to (virtual) musician that gives the house event its
significance. (Langlois 1992: 230)

If academic literature uncritically conforms to the general exaggeration of the

role of the creator in popular music culture, however, it is certainly not alone in doing so.
Contemporary DJ culture is characterized by an ongoing convergence between the practices
of the DJ and the dance producer. The DJ’s work as a producer, and thus as a bona fide creator,
is winning prominence in relation to his work as a performer. There are several areas in which
the consequences of this movement of convergence can be seen.
The increasing blurriness of the boundaries between deejaying and producing are
easily visible, for example, in the realm of technological equipment. DJ equipment has
developed along two lines, which I would like to call ‘remediation’ (following Bolter and
Grusin 1999) and ‘convergence’. The remediation aspect refers to the return of typical record
player features in newer technologies, so as to provide an instantly usable interface for DJs
who have longstanding mixing skills. This remediation can be seen, for instance, in the
Pioneer CDJ-1000, the CD player which is the contemporary standard at venues. On top, it
has a circular black sheath of rubber, vaguely reminiscent of a gramophone record, known as

119
a jog wheel. The rubber sheath does not rotate by itself, but it is sensitive to the touch in such
a way that clockwise or counterclockwise movement with a finger across the jog wheel will
forward or, respectively, ‘rewind’ the CD.
Another example are time code vinyl systems or vinyl emulators such as Final Scratch,
Serato Scratch Live, and Traktor Scratch - software systems which come with two special
vinyl records and a decoder box. The records contain time code information which enables
the software to determine precisely where the needle is and how it moves over the surface of
the disk. This system enables a DJ to interface with music held digitally on file as if this music
were actually on the record he manipulates. In other words, a DJ can mix and scratch with the
MP3s on his laptop as if they were on a record.
The convergence aspect of contemporary DJ culture refers to the ongoing integration
of deejaying and producing. An aspect of music production, in the sense of shaping the final
sound of the music played, has been part of deejaying from its very origins in the Jamaican
sound system, as I explained in the previous chapter. Since then, the possibilities for on-the-
fly musical intervention have developed. Contemporary mixers often feature a wide range of
effects that are commonly used in the studio, such as delay, reverb, flanger, or phaser.
The trend of DJ-producer convergence shows itself most clearly, perhaps, in one of the
most popular programs among DJs today: Ableton Live. This program is really a sequencer,
the type of program producers use to record and edit their music. In fact, many dance produ-
cers also make their own compositions in Ableton. This program is easier to handle than, but
not essentially different from, professional production tools like Cubase or Logic. Ableton
Live offers the choice between an arrangement view for editing and a session view for live
performance. In the latter, preexisting dance tracks held on digital file can easily be inserted
as samples and they can be mixed together in real time. Ableton Live even has a function that
analyzes the wave form of a track and finds the beat, which makes the process of synchroni-
zing the beats of two dance tracks easy.
Both producing and mixing, then, are made easier by Ableton, so that the threshold
to assuming the double role of DJ and producer has become markedly lower. While most DJs
generally welcome this development as a positive one, they also see negative consequences:

Ever since Ableton exists manipulating music is really child’s play. It used to
be that you really had to practice very very hard and develop skills to be able
to do it well. That’s not the case anymore. That’s also why there’s so much junk
around. (…) That way it’s all deteriorated a bit and you have this typical Ableton
Live sound. [MS]

Recently, Ableton and Serato have presented the first product of a collaboration
between their companies which they announced in 2008. This product, called “The Bridge”
is intended to blur the boundaries between deejaying and producing even more, as they
write: “The Bridge spans the gap between music production and DJing, creating a natural link
between Ableton Live and Serato Scratch Live.”80
The ongoing convergence between deejaying and producing does not only show in the
technological tools DJs use, but also in how DJs advertise themselves in order to get booked as

80:  “The Bridge: The missing link between production and deejaying” Ableton: Products
[Link] Available 06-05-2010.

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performers. Presently, venues book DJs mostly on the basis of their productions. In the past, it
was common for DJs to record some of their mixes, and to send these around to venues as an
indication of one’s music choice and mixing skills. This strategy has by now lost all effective-
ness. Venues consider the success of the productions of a DJ the best indicator for his ability to
attract a crowd. There is something strange about this, however, because there is no guarantee
that someone who is a good producer will also be a good party DJ.

There are many examples and sets I heard in clubs when I knew this is a really
cool producer, I’d like to see this one live. And then he’d start to DJ and it would
be really terrible. Of course, it’s a completely different, err... different element.
[Jar]

This citation provides another illustration of the foregrounding of the aspect of

creation that I showed in the academic literature. A DJs status as a producer is more or less
automatically taken to prevail over his abilities as a performing DJ.
The way DJs are paid shows a similar preoccupation with their status as a creator. The
law makes a distinction between DJ-producers and ‘mere’ DJs, as Charly Rhythm points out:

I once checked how it works with BTW [the Dutch version of VAT, B.J.]. Other
DJs put six percent on their invoices whereas I put down nineteen. And it’s a
bit of a gray area, but it turned out that if you make records, you can make it
six percent. And if you just play records, then you provide a service, and it’s
nineteen percent. So that’s the difference. In the one case you’re really an artist
and in the other case you’re the provider of a service. [CR]

It is also worth noting, in this context, that the rise of superstar DJs has coincided with the rise
of the DJ-producer. Whereas for a long time a DJ used to perform out of sight in a little room
above the dance floor, contemporary star DJs such as DJ Tiësto and Armin van Buuren have
all the personal visibility that used to be associated with rock stardom. Interestingly however,
prolific DJs are also expected to have a formidable output in terms of production.
In other words, as the DJ has become more like a pop or rock artist, he has also become
an official, bona fide creator. It is as if the rise in status of certain DJs requires legitimization;
as if it is uncomfortable to cheer for someone who mixes songs together, but okay to cheer for
someone who makes his own music, even if it does not actually happen at the moment the
crowd is cheering. It is an instructive fact, in this light, that some of the most successful DJs
use ‘ghost composers’.

It’s clear within the House scene, that there are really just a few people who
make the songs. And that the rest still get to sign their names. “Hey, you’re good
at making music, if I give you this amount of money I’ll put my name under it.”
DJ Jean is arguably the simplest example. He has his music made by a studio of
the Klubbheads. And at some points he will probably say something like “yeah,
this sounds pretty good and maybe that would be better like that,” and that’s it.
And then his new record is released. [HE]

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 Someone like Tiësto, for instance, in the studio will sit besides someone who
makes the music for him (…) Then they put his name on it, “Tiësto”, because
then it’ll sell. And he just sits there to give directions. [KG]

This habit of mind, which assumes that only a bona fide creator can truly carry
responsibility for the value of a musical experience, is obviously disadvantageous to tradi-
tional DJs who play songs back-to-back. The value of their practice is not judged on its own
terms, but rather by its (lack of) resemblance to something it is not, namely musical creation.
Less obviously, this view is not fair to DJ-producers either, because, however prolific they may
be as producers, the value of their efforts as DJs cannot be appreciated within this perspec-
tive. In the remainder of this chapter, therefore, there are two points I want to argue. First, I
want to describe the neglected practice of the conservationist DJ. Second, I want to try and
answer the following question: What is the value of deejaying understood as a kind of cultural
participation, instead of as a more or less successful imitation of composing or instrumental
performing?

The charms of the gramophone record

The love for vinyl is by no means limited to the more conservationist DJs I interviewed.
Only two DJs reported no special connection with the medium. On the question of the fate
of analogue vinyl, however, the opinions differed. Most of the mix DJs treat the analogue
record as a medium that is already antiquarian. In-between DJs and conservationist DJs tend
to disagree. Vinyl-DJ Stephan even reports that a “vinyl virus” is spreading through his home
town of Zwolle:

About eight years ago I really got caught by this, what do you call it, a virus,
the vinyl virus. (…) And also in this little bar where I spend a lot of time, there
all of us have this virus. (…) It started out in our hangout if you will, and it’s
spreading slowly. Yeah, that’s really funny. More and more people are joining
in. (…) In terms of audience, but also in terms of people who want to play. [Ste]

DJ Stephan believes that in ten or twenty years there will be more vinyl DJs than there are
today. Although most DJs do not quite go so far, many are confident that at the least vinyl will
outlive the CD:

Vinyl will be around longer! Vinyl has more of an intrinsic value than... A CD
is a little disc. A record keeps on really being something. [AF]

The idea that the analogue record will outlive the CD makes sense. Not only can the
CD not compete with newer media in the mass market in terms of price and direct availabi-
lity, but neither can it survive in a niche market based on the values of scarcity and materiality.
The latter is the terrain of the gramophone record. LP’s and singles are objects to be treasured.
Their tangible presence complements the intangible value they represent.

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 When asked to describe the charm that the analogue record medium holds for them
in their capacity as listeners or collectors, the first thing most DJs mention is the art work. It
is often beautifully made, and, unlike the art work of a CD, it has substance.

Well, in any case, with a cover like that you can do a lot more. So you can do
things you couldn’t with a CD. So Led Zeppelin III where you can spin it round,
with this spirograph-like thing, that would be impossible. Sticky Fingers, with a
zipper, that would be impossible. (…) Look at Yourself with a mirror like that,
by Uriah Heap, that would be impossible with a... So yeah... So there are things
you can do with a big sleeve. And it’s for a reason, Andy Warhol and the like,
with those designs, those are simply pieces of art. And then with a CD sleeve...
Well, it’s different. [Rien]

The materiality of the record plays a role in several different ways. Its fragility is dear to
some DJs. This applies especially strongly to DJ Blue Flamingo and his collection of bakelite
78 R.P.M. records:

What speaks to me is the vulnerability of the material. So you have to take enor-
mously good care of it and be really careful with it. A fellow collector once told
me when I started with this: if you really get sick if that one record that mustn’t
break does break, then you really should start collecting finger caps instead.
Every once in a while that just happens, and precisely that one record which
must not break, breaks anyway. I think back to a Dizzy Gillespie Monteca the
first pressing, that I had it in my hands and it broke. It apparently already had a
tiny crack in it or something. Those things just happen. [BF]

But collectors of vinyl, too, generally like the fact that a record is an object you have
to treat carefully. It is as if the collector’s affinity with the music in question is underscored by
the care that goes into the handling of its material carrier. For some DJs, imperfections that a
record has acquired over time add to, rather than detract from, its value.

And the fact that the sound is not perfect, for example. People think that’s very
much... Yeah, they recognize a value in that. (…) Maybe it’s the imperfection
or something. There’s a charm to that, too. It’s music, too. Music shouldn’t be
perfect. It lives, doesn’t it? Music lives. Vinyl lives. [Rien]

And several DJs comment on a certain mystery that the medium has for them, because
of the contrast between the simple object that is the disc, and the intangible sounds it contains.

That music is trapped, within the record, but as soon as you play it it becomes
something invisible again in a space. Music is one of the most intense, but also
one of the most intangible art forms that exist. [BF]

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 I have always been amazed at how that works, you know. A big black record like
that with all those grooves in it. And then you put something on it and then
sounds come from it. I thought that was something phenomenal. [Bgl]

Aside from the fact that a record gives a solid, material form to something as ephemeral as
music, it also gives solid, material form to something as ephemeral as memory.

Of course it has to do with the crackling and that it’s so big and it has a
beautiful sleeve, and for just about each record I can recall when I got it and
how that happened and stuff. Yeah, that’s really about, yeah, just pure nostalgia.
It’s just really about the thoughts behind it and such. Or that you’re at a party,
that that needle skips, you know, and that all at once you’ve lost thirty second of
a track, but that that happens because people are dancing so hard that it skips,
you know. Well, that’s just beautiful. And all that connects you to something
material. [Btf]

The fact that a record is a material item also makes it a personal possession in a way an
intangible MP3 could never be. Consequently, it is a very personal slap in the face if someone
else treats one’s records more carelessly than one would oneself. Charley Rhythm uses a per-
sonal coding system that he writes on the sleeves of his less valuable records.

For example on those ska-singles I would never do that, those are worth thirty,
forty, fifty Euros a piece. And those got stuck somewhere and another DJ had
them and he thought he’d never see me again. But I found out who had those
singles, a small box. And he was a DJ, too, a vinyl DJ as well, and he’d written
his code on them in white marker. Well, and when I got those back it really felt
like a dog had pissed all over my leg or pissed all over my records. That’s what it
felt like and it made me really angry. [CR]

The metaphor is a telling one; it underlines the fact that, by using his personal code,
the other DJ marked the singles in question as his personal territory, and that he did so with
animal-like lack of discrimination. Singles of this kind are material and rare and both factors
contribute to the fact that they feel like very personal possessions. By contrast the sense of
ownership which an easily copied MP3 file confers to someone who bought or otherwise
downloaded it is much smaller.
Some DJs like the relative labor intensiveness of the turntable as well as the fact that it
undermines any tendency to treat music as sonic wallpaper.

You see, a record, that just ‘goes’ and especially if you put on an LP, then you go
through all the songs. Whereas with a CD-player you can really easily go skip
skip skip. And that’s just the thing, that you listen to a record and that you... a
record is something you take time for. [AF]

That, to me, makes a single, from beginning to end... if it’s done, also, nothing
more happens. So at the start it begins and then after, it’s done.118 [BA]

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 Besides material artifacts and media, old records are also remnants. They refer to the
time in which they were produced. Like time capsules, they remained more or less the same
while the world changed.

Because you’re aware it’s something that’s only been made in a limited time,
just like stamps. They’re just big stamps, really. The sleeve looks pretty. It shows
something of the character of an era. You can play it. To me it’s ten times more
fun than collecting stamps, to me. [BvD]

In relation to this, a type of searching process is often involved in the acquisition of

such records, which is in some ways reminiscent of archeology. The related metaphor of dig-
ging is sometimes used for the process. In English, of course, this metaphor has become part
of hip hop parlance, where looking through records in stores is referred to as “crate digging”
(See e.g. Miyakawa 2007).
Among lovers of vinyl the opinion is widespread that analogue gramophone records,
when played on proper equipment, have a sonic fidelity which is superior to that of any digital
medium. What is striking in the comments of all the DJs I talked to is the relative unimpor-
tance of sound quality as an argument in favor of vinyl. It is regularly referred to, but always
as something which may be important for other gramophone lovers, but not for themselves.
A few DJs do, however, like the ‘warmth’ of the specific sound of vinyl.

Well you see, in terms of sound vinyl will also always be different from a CD, of
course. It simply has a somewhat warmer sound, you know. I mean, of course
people can say that a CD has ‘better’ sound, but the warmth that vinyl has you
won’t easily get out of a CD. [TLM]

It is important to note, however, that for the discussion above, I have treated the
analogue record as a single medium, but this is actually a simplification. DJ Blue Flamingo,
for instance, plays bakelite 78 R.P.M. records, which differ substantially from vinyl receords.
Furthermore, for several DJs, a single (and the maxi-single for some) is a more valuable object
than an LP. There are important distinctions to be made, then, within the category of the
analogue record.

Yes, a single, that’s one song. So therefore one pearl. It represents one color and
one feeling. At least, for me, an album, I will like that song or that song, but
a single is really a thing unto itself. (…) And that makes the thing absolutely
unique, because it’s one song on one small record, on one black little thing. (…)
You can’t combine it the way you can burn several songs by an artist onto a CD,
then listen to them, that’s not possible. You need a special machine to play it on,
which many people don’t have anymore. And usually it’s the hit song from an
album or an artist. So it’s a kind... it’s the prettiest girl in class, if you will... [BA]

To me it feels like if you have it on a single, you have it for real. [BvD]

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 All the reasons for the appreciation of the analogue record listed above really apply
to the DJ as a record collector. The overwhelming majority of the DJs I interviewed are not
immune to the charms of the big black disk. However, this may be partly due to the method
of sampling. When it comes to using records and the traditional turntable for deejaying,
on the other hand, several contemporist DJs have good practical reasons to prefer digital
technologies.

What I will reveal is that for the Balkanstets I put all the songs I’d collected
on vinyl on CD also. Purely for ease of playing, so that you can respond more
quickly. What’s more, I drink while playing and then after three hours or so
vinyl can get tricky. And CD’s are just much more convenient. [Tom]

Yet for most interviewees, the element of hands on manipulation, the directness of the
relation with the sound carrier, is a definite advantage of the turntable. The metaphors of the
organic and the machinic are sometimes used to describe the difference.

For me personally a turntable, with vinyl, has something a CD-player will never
have. And that’s, how will I say it... If I work a turntable as a DJ or turntablist,
then I perceive it almost as a kind of organic thing. Because it really moves.
I have my hand on top of something that moves. I manipulate it. And with a
CD-player I push a few buttons. And I move my hand across a static slice of
rubber. For me that CD-player feels like something dead, whereas a turntable
for me signifies something living. [TLM]

Finally, for some conservationist DJs, playing from a gramophone record is also pref-
erable because it shows that effort has gone into the acquisition of the music.

But simply the fact that you have a single, yeah, that does make clear that you
just... you’ve made an effort, otherwise you couldn’t have found a single of
something you like. [Bgl]

In sum, there is a particular charm to records and gramophone technology, which is

recognized by most DJs, conservationist and contemporist alike. Only the conservationists,
however, make this engagement with gramophone technology central to what they do. What,
then, is particular about the role they carve out for themselves in this way? What characterizes
the conservationist DJ? This is the topic of the next section.

Archeologists and reference persons

In the previous section, I explained that several DJs use the metaphor of archeology
for the way they acquire their old records. I want to pursue this metaphor, because I think it
is an apt one in many regards. For example, there is an element of ‘digging’ involved in record
aquisition, a search through artifacts from the past that happens in the absence of any pre-
knowledge of what there is to be found. This point is stressed by DJ Blue Flamingo, who plays

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78 R.P.M. records and compares the acquisition of these with digging one layer deeper in the
soil than the vinyl DJs do.

I once said in an article that I used to want to become an archeologist and that’s
true. I still love history. And then it’s simply inevitable that you just dig very
deep. (…) And if you collect 78 RPM records that brings you just that one layer
deeper in time. Yes, and if for example you start collecting piano rolls then it
really gets... That’s almost detective work, that is. But this is going in that direc-
tion, too. [BF]

The archeology metaphor is apt also in relation to what is ‘dug up’ in this process, namely a
material artifact, and a remnant from another time.

You almost have... can you say that... an archeological thing in your hand, if you
will. It’s tangible. [CR]

As a remnant of the past, an old record, like an archeological artifact, somehow seems to bring
a bit of the past into the present.

The carrier of the music also contains an important part of the feeling. (…) And
to have something in your hands from nineteen, what is it, ninteen sixtythree...
Well yeah, that was really made eleven years before I was born. And the music
probably one or two years earlier still. And to have that in your hands and... as a
physical carrier... and the song, which you recognize. (…) It’s a musical picture
of a feeling from back then, or what people were up to at that moment. [BA]

This type of engagement can again be conceptualized as a potentially trans-practical

role, similar to the reference person and the genealogist identified in the previous two chap-
ters. The conservationist DJ would then be an ‘archeologist’, someone who actively seeks out
remnants of the past, looking among these for hidden treasures which deserve to be con-
served and disclosed. As in the case of the genealogist, this archeologist must not be confused
with a Foucaultian scholar. Other examples of archaeologists in this sense can for instance
be found in folklorist practices. In a more contemporary spirit, users such as Plinianguy and
Sixties4Ever13 use YouTube to respectively disclose rare progressive rock from the 1970s and
(occasionally) obscure rock gems from the 1960s.81
In my sample, most of the DJs who play old records would like to stop, or at least to
slow down, the disappearance of gramophone technology and/or the disappearance of some
of the music that was issued in this medium. This desire to keep gramophone technology in
use tends to coincide with a drive to acquaint the audience with older music. Technological
conservationism, in other words, generally goes hand in hand with musical conservationism.
And because of this, most of the conservationist DJs I interviewed have what I would call
educational intentions.

81:  “Plinian’s Prog Rock Channel” YouTube [Link] Available 06-05-2010;

“Sixties Forever” YouTube [Link] Available 06-05-2010.

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 Conservationist DJs put themselves at the service of music which is at risk of being
forgotten. There are small scenes around many types of popular music from the past, such as
rockabilly, lindy hop, ska, boogaloo, et cetera, and each of these scenes has its own DJs. In the
sample of DJs I interviewed, northern soul DJ Cornelis Prul is probably most representative
of such dedication to a particular type of music.

In a sense it’s an addiction. Well, for me the need, that was the same with
radio... to let people hear records by... why, just listen to this! To make sure that
certain unknown music doesn’t entirely fade away. Is it a vocation? Oh well. The
research I do here is a calling, but still, maybe it’s a calling too. [CP]

Most of the conservationist DJs I have interviewed work in a wider range of genres,
but their dedication to music from the past is similar. Their efforts not only benefit the music
itself, which would otherwise fade into oblivion; they also benefit an audience that is exposed
to a very narrow range of music through the mass media, and that is often simply unaware of
the vast range of existing music.
Cornelis Prul wonders whether his DJ-work is a calling. Three other DJs compare
themselves to missionaries, albeit hesitantly.

Yes, if we concentrate on the 78 RPM story... as a vinyl DJ I saw myself

primarily as an entertainer in the final years, as someone who brought
amusement to people. And with this 78 RPM business I also kind of see myself
as someone with a mission. That sounds a little creepy maybe, but then, I love
that old music so much, and I would regret it so much if certain things simply
go to waste. So now someone who really only looked towards the future during
the nineties has ten years later become someone who tries to bring things that
are under threat of being lost back to light. [BF]

To say that the connection between an archeological and an educational impulse is

a necessary one, however, would be to overstate the case. ‘Vinylogist’ Berry van Diepen, for
instance, says:

I don’t think what I do is something educational, but it does have a conserva-

tion aspect. A bit like you’re making a museum. (…) You see, from the moment
I have them, singles don’t deteriorate anymore. Whereas everything which
circulates, if you will, on flea markets and such, just gets worse. So yes, I do have
the feeling that I conserve things. [BvD]

Berry belongs to a sub-group of three vinyl-DJs I interviewed who mainly play hit
songs which are familiar to the audience. They are closest to what is usually referred to as
retro-DJs: they play old favorites. Like conservationist deejaying, retro-deejaying is about a
re-discovery of the past. It is not so much about finding hidden gems and disclosing them,
however, as it is about using well-known old songs for the creation of an atmosphere of
togetherness based in collective memory.

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 [I play] as many old hits as I can (…) Because it’s entertaining for people to
listen to, because they recognize it and can dance to it. (…) It’s also a strong
reference to the character of an era. (…) And then people have a, what do you
call it, collective memory or something. Everyone knows “oh, that’s that song.”
It’s fun. [BA]

That retro-music also has a strong ‘ah yes’ quality. [Ste]

It must be emphasized that the educational impulse which informs the praxis of
conservationist DJs is by no means confined to this group. Several contemporist DJs mention
an element of education, or at least of acquainting people with unfamiliar music, in their
descriptions of what they do. It may stand to reason that if a DJ has an archeological bent and
‘excavates’ forgotten music, that an educational impulse to disclose this music to a broader
audience is likely to follow, but archeology is not a precondition for the educational impulse.
Naturally, DJs tend to be more interested in music than their average audience member, and
tend to be more knowledgeable with respect to the music they play. Considered in that light,
educational intentions in any type of DJ are hardly surprising.

As a DJ, in principle, you are in service of the music. And in service of the
audience. Both. As a DJ it is your task, obligation, idea to make the music which
has been created audible to people. To educate is too strong a term in my view,
but at least to introduce-to. [PS]

No DJ, however, considered himself to be just an educator. Educational intentions have

to be balanced with other aspects of deejaying if they are to work. There is a kind of skill
involved in bringing people into contact with music that is unfamiliar to them. There are
ways to place an unfamiliar or ‘difficult’ song within the sequence of songs so that it will likely
‘work’, that is, will likely receive a positive response from the audience. Difficult songs can be
sandwiched between more familiar or ‘easier’ songs, or they may be played when the audience
has been gradually prepared and the atmosphere is such that the crowd will accept a much
wider variety of music.

I’m more like... It’s better to wrap people in a warm towel than to slap them in
the face with a cold towel. And especially if your trying to get people to like
something, then that simply works a lot better. [Slo]

To me it’s always interesting to introduce people to things they don’t know yet
and which they might not appreciate at all without your DJ-context, but so that
within the context you create the penny drops. [JS]

To revisit the terminology of the previous two chapters, then, whilst conservationist
DJs are often driven by an archeological impulse, conservationist and contemporist DJs alike
may take on the role of a reference person, that is, the role of someone who is especially
knowledgeable about a corpus of, in this case, music, and who mediates between an audience
and this corpus of music not necessarily by giving them what they think they want, but by

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carefully interpreting their ‘need’ and responding with music which is likely both to pleasure
and challenge them. I will return to the topic of the DJ as a reference person below. Now, I
turn to the question I posed earlier: What is it that gives deejaying value as a kind of cultural
participation if one tries to understand it as deejaying, instead of as a more or less successful
imitation of composing or instrumental performing?

The role of the selector

In order to determine what is crucial to the cultural practice deejaying in its own right,
I focus my attention on those matters on which the DJs I interviewed, conservationist and
contemporist alike, were overwhelmingly univocal. On the question of the artistic status of
what they did, however, the DJs were strikingly divided. Some DJs enthusiastically embraced
the idea that deejaying is an art form, whereas others solemnly disavowed having any claim
to such an elevated position.

The fun part is that you see around you now that the DJ is regarded more as
an artist. And that’s actually quite correct. DJs who produce and such, that’s...
really they’re just extending the line that deejaying always was more than just
playing records. (…) They already did those things in the past only no one saw
it that way. [Rien]

Well, you’re not acting as an artist. And that’s not what it feels like.
Why not?
The artist is the one who made the record. I’m just the one who makes it public
for an audience interested in listening to it. And then you’re more subservient
to the record and the audience than that the record is subservient to you. [PS]

What is somewhat surprising is that the divide between DJs who thought of their
practice as artistic and those who did not cuts right across the conservationist/contemporist
categorization. It would not have been surprising if non-mixing DJs would have had substan-
tially more qualms about claiming an artistic status for their sets, but such is not the case.
For example, Northern Soul DJ Cornelis Prul confidently describes the sequence of music he
spins during an evening as “a very ephemeral art work.” [CP] I would argue for the interpreta-
tion that these divided opinions on the artistic status of deejaying indicate that the analogy
with the traditional pop music artist does not capture anything truly central to the cultural
practice of the DJ. Or, as DJ Michiel Stoter concluded after philosophizing for over half an
hour on the question what a DJ is exactly:

People don’t worry much about all these terms within the dance scene, do they?
Very little. [MS]

Nonetheless, I believe that a good case can be made for a common essence of all party
deejaying. There is a subtle craft to guiding the collective mood or the atmosphere of the
evening by means of song selection. For the great majority of the DJs their command of this

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craft was central to their opinions of themselves as DJs. Despite their further differences, DJs
were virtually univocal on how this craft works and they shared an implicit theory which con-
nects many of the heterogeneous elements which make up the cultural practice: the DJ, his or
her audience, the music, the technology, the collective mood, the goal of the gathering, and
usually the DJs motivation to DJ, too.
Let me begin from the fact that several DJs comment that a computer could not do
what a DJ does.

I come up with many ideas in advance, only in my experience they never get
executed. (…) Yeah, then this record will fit better at that moment than what
I’d imagined, so to say. (…) For that reason I also have this tremedous dislike
of joints where they play with computers. Yeah, there’s a computer switched
on and it can’t do anything. It’s playing music, but it can’t do anything with the
feeling. It doesn’t see what kind of people are in the room. [Ste]

What do you think of the chances that deejaying will still exist as a
practice in 10 – 20 years?
Oh, it will be around. A computer can make very technically beautiful
transitions, can make very technically beautiful sets, but what a computer can’t
do is assess the atmosphere of a room or a party. [PS]

Unlike computers, living DJs can select the next track they will play in relation to the
mood of the audience. A living DJ can make choices that are appropriate to the situation on
the dance floor at the moment in question. At present and in the foreseeable future, those of
a computer system cannot, although some engineers do have this ambition (Cliff 2006). All
the DJs I have spoken with improvise their sets, and they do so in relation to what they see
happening in the crowd and on the dance floor.

No, but improvising is, err... You have to know what you’ve got with you (…)
You always have to decide right there and then: now the room is ready for this.
And not crank out your routine. [CP]

I’ve seen DJs now and again who so to say had written out a complete set at
home. But that’s simply not the way it works. It’s something you have to sense.
[JS]

This is also the most important sense in which a DJ is a live performer. A computer
system could have access to a briljant collection of obscure, quality music, and recent tech-
nological developments have also made it possible for computers to mix songs together. But
only a living DJ can look around the venue and decide what is the right next song or track
for this situation. Or, as DJ Slowpoke puts it:“For me it’s a very atmosphere-oriented kind of
thing. Very here and now.” [Slo] But a DJ does not merely adjust music to the atmosphere of
the moment. He can steer the collective mood in a particular direction. And this ability is key
in getting a great party going.

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 … Because there’s DJ software which determines the beat for you and
synchronizes the songs and such.
True. And yet even with that software you could tell a good from a bad DJ.
Because, even if the software did the mixing for you, you’d still have to be the
one who makes sure that the choice of records is the correct one to bring the
party in a certain line of intensification for instance from, say, a somewhat
hyped level to a climax. And the program won’t do that for you. [TLM]

The DJ coaxes the moods of the people in the audience in a common direction. Usually, this
will be the direction of higher energy and disinhibited dancing, sometimes even ecstasy.
When it comes to creating a festive atmosphere, the DJ has a marked advantage over
traditional musicians as well.

What you can do as a DJ is in a broad sense conjure up all those worlds of music
for people, if you will. Whereas as an artist, as a musician you could simply
never do that. Because you could never have a band or anything (…) which
could be so incredibly diverse. That whole rainbow, that’s something you could
never make as a band. [Rien]

Unlike a DJ, a band has a relatively limited palet of moods, and energy levels to choose
from. When it comes to the capacity to create an intense atmosphere, then, the DJ is rather
uniquely suited for the job.
How should this ‘music selection-mood direction’ aspect of deejaying be conceptua-
lized? All the terms we commonly apply to the field of popular music (artist, musician, pro-
ducer, et cetera) fail to convey that this is a common way for music to be put to use. It is
something that does not really have a name. In reggae music, however, there is a word which
fits the phenomenon admirably, as two of the DJs point out.

In Jamaica you had selectors. That’s a nice one too, of course. I have that on my
site: record selector. [CR]

I see more of an analogy with the reggae DJ. There you’ll often have sound
systems where several DJs spin at a time, so that there’s the MC, the one who
speaks over the records. Then there’s the real DJ, that’s the one with the skills,
who makes the transition from one record to the next. But what’s in the end
most important, I think, at least for the parties where I play, is the selector,
the one who chooses the records and during the evening lays them out in the
right order. And then, of course, the technical skills are part of it too, because
if you make bad mixes all the time, that detracts from the evening, but it’s not
essential. It’s not an essential condition. And to me, the selector is. [Tom]

Some of the DJs I have spoken to have a vast collection of records, a prodigious
knowledge of music, excellent mixing skills, or talent for producing. Virtually all of them
seem to be in broad agreement, however, that what is crucial to being a good DJ is one’s
capacity to create a good atmosphere and to build a party that is indeed a party. What is more,

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there is a broad consensus on how this is done. Let me call this the craft of the selector, or
the selector-aspect of deejaying. In the next section, I will take a closer look at how it works.

The energetics of partying

Not all DJs consider building up to a great climax the most essential to their
performance. After all, not all occasions are suited for such a countdown to ecstacy, and
neither are all venues. And a DJ can steer the common mood in all different kinds of
directions, not just that of a wild party atmosphere. For most DJs, however, a high energy
vibe with much dancing is their goal of choice. They consider the most basic part of their job
description to be filling the floor.

For me it’s more about being able to create a certain feeling, or something, in
a club. Just so people feel comfortable in it. And then the time at which you’re
playing is very decisive, of course. Yeah, like I said, if you’re playing the first two
hours of the evening, then I like to just bring warmth, so that people come in
in a nice way, nice and relaxed, nicely getting into the evening a bit. And then
after, we’re going to hit it hard. [Jar]

In a couple of bars here in Zwolle, where I play sometimes too, you just know
people don’t dance there, they’re simply more restaurant/bar-type affairs. (…)
But if you see people nodding along to the music with their heads you know:
for here that’s enough. But like last night, in those cases my evening is not
complete before we bring down the house. [Ste]

What is striking throughout the interviews is the recurrence of describing both this
situation and the way that leads up to it in terms of energy. The most common way in which
the craft of the selector is described is in terms of an energetics, a theory about flows of energy.
During a good party, the energy gradually increases, both in the music and on the dance floor.
DJ Tommi casually likens the sequence of the songs he plays, along with the reactions they
evoke in the audience, to an “energy-chain”.
The term “energy” makes it easier to talk about what actually happens, because it
provides a common ground between aspects of the music played and the mood of the
audience. The music itself contains an energy which is often enough to get the DJ enthusiastic.

If I hear the music I’m playing, that’s the music I like myself, that already
gives me energy. So for that reason alone I won’t be able to stand behind those
turntables like I’m not interested. [TLM]

But for the creation of a collective euforic atmosphere a dialogue is necessary. The DJ
senses the energy in the crowd, and selects a track or a song which more or less matches the
energy in question while developing it in the right direction. The crowd responds to this next
track in a particular way, which can range from enthusiasm to rejection. In relation to this
response, the DJ assesses what is needed now in terms of energy-level and musical style, and

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picks the next track. In this way, what happens during an evening is emergent. The DJ is not
simply the deciding factor as to what music will be played. Rather, DJ, music, and audience
interact, and it is this interaction that shapes the course of the party.

Okay, well in any case you have, if those people are responsive to you then you
feel... yeah, this sounds very silly but maybe you’ll hear it more often, then
you feel an energy moving through that room. Its action and reaction. I play
a record, people respond, it goes back to me, that gives me a new feeling, and
that determines which record I will play next. And that also determines the
structure, err, the sequence in a set. If I notice that I peak too much and that
people are getting tired, that comes back to me because I get less energy back.
So then you know you need to give less energy away. That you have to take it
down a notch and then make the next wave again, but all that’s pure feeling.
[BF]

No, I can say it even better: what’s important, and if all goes well that’ll happen,
is that you get a lot of energy back from your audience. So much in fact that
it makes you totally hyper all over again yourself. You know, if you have that
exchange, it gives you such a great feeling. I give you something and you give
something back to me, which makes me want to give you more and you guys
just give me more in return. I’ve had gigs where I was jumping up and down
just as hard as the crowd on the floor, simply because the energy you get back
gives you such enthusiasm yourself. And yeah, that’s just wonderful, you know,
that’s really wonderful! [TLM]

Whether it is described in terms of euforia or ecstacy or whether one prefers to merely

notice that everyone dances and people enjoy themselves, when a party truly succeeds, this is
generally seen as the result of a release of energy. People, in other words, are not over-excited
or over-stimulated. On the contrary, they are letting go, and are perhaps acting ‘more like
themselves’ than they can during most of everyday life. For many of the people I interviewed,
the objective of creating such a situation is closely related to their motivation to work as a DJ.
A good party is considered a great event to witness, and a wonderful thing to contribute to.
For this reason, I used two citations that concern the beauty of seeing people acting disinhib-
itedly as the primer for this chapter. Many more could be added. At the party that is a party,
for many DJs, there is a sense that ‘something (real) is happening’.
Disinhibition seems to be the hallmark characteristic of a good party atmosphere. In
the descriptions of several DJs, the phenomenon also acquires a dimension of togetherness
or community. Euforia here appears as something that breaks down the boundaries between
people. For a few DJs, it is a downright spiritual phenomenon.

Yeah, the communal feeling, ‘all of us’, you know! As I said... I’ll just
mention it, in church, you know, it used to be everyone went to church for that
communal feeling, and now that’s a bit, yeah, some twenty years that’s been in
steady decline. But people still search for something that they can do together.
[HE]

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 Yeah, if you take it really far, what you’re doing is you’re passing along a
message of love. Peace! That’s pretty much the essence of it.
Yeah? If you play the right records there will be world peace?
Yeah! This is taking twentysix steps at a time, but basically that is... bringing
people together... that you experienced it together... [AF]

Historian William McNeill describes this process as ‘muscular bonding’ and traces it
through history, emphasizing its common connection with religion. He writes that “keeping
in time arouses warm emotions of collective solidarity, and erases personal frustrations as
words, by themselves, cannot do” (MacNeill 1995: 152).
However exalted the accounts of the DJs above may sound (and indeed, some of the
other DJs may prefer a more restrained choice of terminology), the way such a euforic state
is produced is perfectly down-to-earth. It is an effect which is not even particularly hard to
produce. It merely requires a number of elements interacting in a particular way. A detailed
explanation of the logic in question is provided by DJ Beatific, and deserves to be cited at
some length.

The audience has a certain query. Very often they won’t know it themselves.
But you’ll, during the first three or four records you’ll usually find that out.
You throw your first record on there and you simply watch what the response
is like. And so in every club you’ll notice who’s dominant. Who in the audience
is decisive for how others respond. Because the joke of it is, people are really
sheep, aren’t they? I mean to say, they respond more to each other than they do
to the music. So if one person starts jumping up and down like crazy and four
others join in, then the rest feels their energy, and they’ll feed on that. And that
stimulates them to go crazy as well and pull other people along. So it’s always
really important to know who’s relevant in the audience, who you’ve got to have
on your side. Who can make it so that if they leave, that the rest thinks, ooh,
it’s not that much fun anyway? And you’ll usually find that out during the first
few tracks. So really the chemistry that I’m talking about is that I’m creatively
interweaving tracks by others and by myself, and meanwhile that I have to do
this in such a way that this chemistry between those tracks and the response of
the audience, that this works together well to, yeah, to make a unified whole.
And yeah, there is a certain art to that. [Btf]

The DJ, then, might be described as a rather special kind of reference person, who does
not only mediate between an audience and a corpus of songs, carefully reading the implicit
‘question’ of the audience, but who also creates a kind of feedback loop which amplifies cer-
tain aspects of the current mood so as to allow the collective mood to develop in a particular
direction.
There is a subtle kind of skill involved in doing this well, which the DJs found hard to
put into words. A good ‘antenna’ for the ‘energy’ of the audience is, in any case, indispensable.

That’s also of course an element of feeling is in there. Do I have the feeling

that people are going along with what I want and do they keep dancing? Is

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 the dancefloor crowded? (…) Do certain records get cheers? It’s many little
things. Or simply a smile on a face. Are people enjoying themselves? I mean,
whether people who are talking together are also dancing. Or are they really
dancing very silently without conversation? That’s completely a different thing
of course. You can be dancing and chatting away, but then apparently the music
still comes across very differently than if people are completely cought up in
the music. [HE]

But look, I could be there in that audience dancing. Because that’s what I do
at other people’s parties. Or if that other DJ is playing. There’s a lot of overlap
there. You also think, you feed it back to yourself again, ‘what would I like to
hear right now?’ [CR]

Nearly all the contemporist DJs agree that a party should have an easy-going start,
which puts the arriving audience into a happy mood before the actual dancing starts. It is
something that beginning DJs sometimes do not understand.

People are coming in. So I always depart from how I would like to enter a club
or a party myself. Well, I don’t feel like having really loud techno on my ears
if I’m walking in somewhere at twelve o’clock. At that point I just want to be
lifted nicely into the evening by the one whose deejaying, so that I can get in
the mood. [Jar]

And that’s something you often find with people who don’t DJ a lot or who are
just starting out, that they... Say at eleven the doors open and by ten past eleven
there’s a load of pounding music coming from that room, even though there’s
no one there but bar staff. Yeah, that’s something you really have to learn, I
think. That you start out calmly and don’t, err, yes, that you also give people
some time to get in the mood and such. [KG]

The true subtlety of the craft of the selector, however, shows itself when the DJ has a
vibe going. The audience may be dancing enthusiastically, and be clearly enjoying themselves,
thus inviting the DJ to play them more in the same vein, or to intensify the atmosphere of
the moment. However, at a certain point they will tire of the particular style of music that is
being played, or their enthusiasm will be eclipsed by fatigue. It is up to the DJ to keep the
audience from ‘turning’ by anticipating the climax point of the present vibe and inserting a
radical break before it happens. A good selector, in other words, is not only immersed in the
present vibe, but also tries to predict the future and to respond to it before it happens.

No, you have to be able to break... To cut off before you come, if you will.
A musical coitus interruptus.
Yeah, that’s really, I find that difficult. Because you yourself are also caught up in
that flow of ‘are we going to push this further still?’ And then you have to dare
to have the guts and say ‘and now...’ [AF]

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 In using his skills in this way, the selector is crucial to the generation of feelings of
euphoria and community, which are highly valued by many people, and which would be very
difficult to obtain otherwise. It is an aspect of deejaying which hardly attracts attention and
for which the DJ does not get much explicit credit. However, it turns out to be central to the
value of deejaying when this cultural practice is judged on its own terms.

Conclusion

In this chapter, as in the two previous ones, I have tried to argue that the details of
a cultural practice matter if one tries to answer the question who receives credit for what.
Both in the cases of the mix tape and of ccMixter, I showed that the practice under inves-
tigation had its own style of credit-giving, its own way of acknowledging and sometimes
rewarding the contributions of key participants. These styles of credit-giving could not be
reduced to any general theory of appropriate credit which could claim to be valid for pop
music culture in general. Furthermore, these styles of credit-giving were shown to keep the
enthusiasm of participants alive, and thus to be crucial to the persistence of the practices in
question. Furthermore, in both these cases I showed that the influence of the commercial
theory of appropriate credit was perceivable in the form of an over-emphasis on the role of the
creator, which obscured other ways of contributing and kept their value from being explicitly
acknowledged.
In this chapter, I have placed much emphasis on the latter of these themes. I have
discussed how the role of the selector, which is specific to deejaying, is obscured by a general
emphasis on the role of the creator, which is tacitly understood as a valid concept to measure
all of pop music culture by. In academic cultural theory, studies on turntablists outnumber
those on mix DJs, while work on retro DJs and on playing songs back to back is simply absent.
The way DJs are hired and classified as tax payers are implicitly modeled on the paradigm
of performing and composing pop artists. The rise of the DJ-producer has furthermore
coincided with the rise of superstar DJs, who are rewarded precisely as the commercial theory
of appropriate credit prescribes: with money to facilitate them in pursuing their musical goals
professionally and with admiration for the valuable experiences they create for us. The upshot
of this foregrounding of the role of the creator is a status hierarchy, which determines the
relative value of various deejaying practices in relation to music creation. It keeps the merits
of conservationist and other traditional DJs from being acknowledged, just as it denies the
joyous experiences that contemporist DJs and DJ-producers generate in their capacity as per-
forming DJ.
The most important thing that the general emphasis on the role of the creator obscures
is the role of the selector, who is indispensible to the creation of a good, or perhaps even
a euphoric party atmosphere. However, this is not the only thing that the influence of the
commercial theory of appropriate credit hides from view. Just as in the previous two chapters,
I have identified certain trans-practical roles, which play a part in the cultural practice of
deejaying. The role of the reference person made two reappearances. I have described the
selector as a special kind of reference person, but I have also shown how DJs can be refer-
ence persons in an ‘educational’ sense. Furthermore, I have given attention to the role of the
archeologist. The activities of DJs as archeologists and educational reference persons, receive

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as little attention as their activities as selectors, and for the same reason: these are not acts of
creation. But this does not mean they are without value.
Like other cultural practices, deejaying has its own style of credit-giving. The DJ
performs a specialist role, and is thus acknowledged as having a special status at the party. He
is put on an elevated stage, he gets paid, and when he does well he probably receives positive
reactions from audience members. Furthermore, if a party ends in the atmosphere of shared
euphoria described above, the audience will seem to grow into a unity or a tribe of sorts, and
the DJ temporarily appears to transform into a high priest. Such acknowledgement is neces-
sary to keep the cultural practice of deejaying alive. If DJs were locked away in an isolated
booth and received no payment, arguably the interest in becoming a DJ would dwindle. This
is not necessarily to say that DJs are ‘in it for’ fame or money. It is rather to maintain that any
situation where one repeatedly makes an effort from which others benefit without acknow-
ledgement will tend to drain one’s motivation.
What the chapter above shows with clarity, however, is the persistent power which
the commercial theory of appropriate credit holds over our uninvestigated assumptions
about popular music culture. It might even be safe to say that this power of a notion of pop
music culture ‘in general’ can put pressure on the styles of credit-giving of particular cultural
practices, forcing DJs either to make do with less financial rewards and lower status than their
collegues, or to become more like traditional pop music artists.

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 Chapter 7

Conclusion

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 This study started in medias res, in the middle of the story of the unfolding
copyright wars. As this project is approaching its conclusion, the struggles over intellectual
property give no indication of nearing a conclusion. Although these ongoing debates formed
the starting point for my dissertation, I turned away from them for the main part of this study,
hoping that pursuing a different line of thinking, set out in a historical chapter and elaborated
in three case studies, would enable me to elucidate the issues at stake. Now, it is time to find
my way back from particular cases to a larger cultural and political perspective, and to take
stock of what has been learned.
In this final chapter, I will first give a brief review of the conceptual apparatus I
developed. Subsequently, I discuss four conclusions which emerge from the foregoing case
studies taken together. I then make remarks about technology and about the concept of
practices, before finally turning my attention towards certain other aspects of Romanticism
which still inform pop music culture, if less visibly so than the cult of the artistic creator.

The credit question and two ways of solving it

At the center of this entire study has been what I have called “the credit question.”
Many people play different roles within the cultural practices of popular music. The credit
question is the question of who gets what kind of credit for making what kind of contribution
to a practice, where “credit” can be any kind of acknowledgement or reward, ranging from a
simple “thank you” or proper attribution of reused musical materials all the way to fame and
fortune.
I found that the different positions held within the copyright debates implied
different answers to the credit question. The issue was therefore clearly relevant to the debates.
However, it was not subject to explicit reflection within these debates. My first objective,
therefore, was to bring the credit question to the center of attention. Three positions often
taken in the copyright debates proved especially important throughout this study.
Implicit in the rhetoric of the phonographic industry was an answer to the credit
question which I dubbed “the commercial theory of appropriate credit.” In the view of the
phonographic industry, pop music culture produces three types of actors, namely creative
artists who create songs, a mediating industry which takes care of all the mundane tech-
nicalities, and passive consumers who enjoy the recorded music. The artist, in this view,
deserves to be admired for her art and to be financially facilitated so that she can pursue it
full-time. The industry deserves a financial reward for the service it provides. The consumers,
finally, provide both the money and the admiration necessary for a fair reward for the other
players and are in return enabled to enjoy their music of choice. The commercial theory of
appropriate credit is closely tied to what I have called “the romantic metaphysics of musical
communication”, that is, the idea that the artist puts an immaterial good, such as soul, emo-
tion, or inspiration, into a piece of music, and that the enjoyment of this music on the part of
the audience consists of extracting this immaterial good.
Implicit in much of the rhetoric of the more recent critics of the music industry is
an answer to the credit question which I called “the egalitarian theory of appropriate credit.”
The critics in question would like to see a pop music culture which is truly participatory; a
culture where all music lovers are active partakers rather than passive consumers. They show

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a tendency, also, to believe that the main, or indeed the only thing standing in the way of
such a democratized music culture before was the unequal distribution of means and skills.
Now that the digital age provides means for musical self-expression which are both affordable
and easy to use, they expect the age of passive consumers to be over. In their view, all people
want to express themselves creatively, and will activate themselves when given half a chance.
I named this position “generalized artistry”, and the theory of appropriate credit it implies is a
very simple one: no credit-giving is necessary, because people’s cultural activity and creativity
stems from an internal drive or from an intrinsic motivation, a will to self-expression so to
say.
Generalized artistry has an important element in common with certain schools of
cultural studies, especially with the so-called Birmingham school. The critical theory coming
from this institution is likewise informed by a great appreciation for cultural participation.
And like the proponents of generalize artistry, these cultural scholars approach the activation
of consumers as a matter of taking away obstacles to such activation. Their concept of choice
is “agency”, which denotes a type of freedom, namely the ability to act. Researchers of this
persuasion investigate everyday practices and sub-cultures in order to prove that cultural sub-
jects have agency and are therefore not passive dupes of the circumstances into which their
capitalist environment places them. The answer to the credit question which theories of this
type imply is similar to general artistry’s egalitarian theory of appropriate credit: No reward or
acknowledgement whatsoever is necessary to activate people. Rather, active ways of engaging
with culture will spring up wherever they are not thwarted by, say, ideological constraints or
the expropriation of means.
Finally, I identified another type of critics of the recording industry, whose views
implied yet another answer to the credit question. These were the advocates of sharing econo-
mies. Unlike the proponents of generalized artistry, they realize that an aspect of give-and-
take is involved in social practices, and they stress the importance of norms of interaction
in sharing economies. What these norms of interaction are exactly, and how these sharing
economies work in general has yet to be established. We might therefore jocularly call the
answer to the credit-question implied by this view the ‘to be announced’ theory of appropriate
credit. There must be such a theory, but it has yet to be developed.
My own position differs from each of the above, but I have listed them in order of
decreasing divergence. My position is closest to sharing economy advocates such as Lawrence
Lessig. My only substantial criticism on his position is that it assumes there must be a single
answer to the credit-question which must hold for all of (pop music) culture, or in my termi-
nology, that there must be a theory of appropriate credit. In my view, by contrast, there can be
no such general theory. Taking a piecemeal approach to pop music culture and investigating
it practice by practice, I argued, might produce more interesting results.
My position is similar to that of Lessig and other proponents of a sharing economy
approach in that it wants to take the role of norms for social interaction in (pop music) culture
seriously. In this respect, both our views differ from those of the proponents of generalized
artistry and of certain cultural scholars, for whom the activation of music lovers is solely a
matter of taking away the obstacles which impede self-expression or agency.
Arguably, my opinion is furthest removed from that of the recording industry.
With its insistence on the tripartite division of pop music culture in artists, industry, and
consumers, and its exaltation of the artist, it is the only position which claims there is really

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only one practice in pop music culture that is ultimately worthwhile, namely the commercial
production of pop music. There is a greater diversity of ways in which one might contribute
to pop music culture than this model recognizes, and the emphasis it puts on the role of the
creator detracts from the recognition of other important types of participation.
It is in contrast to these three positions in the ongoing copyright debates, then, that
I have sketched out my line of thought. The approach I have chosen entails looking at specific
cultural practices rather then pop music culture at large, and concentrating on the styles of
credit-giving of these practices. In three case studies this position was put to the test, and I am
now in a position to evaluate the results. This leads to three firmly supported conclusions and
a tentative fourth.

The details of practices matter

Contrary to all approaches described above, my position predicts that no single answer
to the credit-question can be given that will obtain for all of pop music culture. Instead,
each successful cultural practice gives an answer to the credit-question according to its own
particularities. This leads to the question, then, whether the three cultural practices I
discussed in the foregoing case studies were indeed too different in their styles of credit-giving
to make a single answer to the credit-question possible.
The case studies show, first and foremost, that each of the cultural practices investi-
gated indeed has its own specific style of credit-giving. In the case of mix taping, the role of the
mix taper was made up of three components, each of which entitled him or her to a different
kind of credit. As a creator, the mix taper deserves admiration for his or her skill, and a serious
contemplation of the resulting cassette as a work on the part of the recipient. Inasmuch as the
mix taper is the giver of a gift, the tape should be accepted with gratitude and the mix taper’s
reward should appear organically within the relationship between mix taper and recipient, in
the form of affection. As a reference person, the mix taper is entitled to acknowledgement and
a certain amount of prestige for his or her musical knowledge and helpful intent. The task of
deciding to what degree the mix taper is each of these things falls in part to the recipient and
is not determined by the mix taper alone.
In the case of ccMixter, the peer-relation between remixers was simpler, but here too
actors combined different roles. Active members are without exception remixers, reviewers,
and genealogists at the same time. Unlike mix tapers, ccMixter members have a reciprocal
credit-giving relationship, and it is the activities of remixing, reviewing, and attributing taken
together that entitle members to have their own compositions reviewed and used with proper
attribution by others. Meanwhile, ccMixter members also have a much vaguer non-reciprocal
relationship with casual visitors of the site, to whom they are primarily creators and reference
persons, who supply compositions for passive consumption and ‘recommends’ that allow
visitors to find the best uploads.
In the case of deejaying, I concluded that all DJs I interviewed fitted the role of a
very special kind of reference person; one who not only responds adequately to the queries
people have, conscious or not, but who by doing this again and again leads the mood of a
mass of people in a certain direction. This shared role was obscured, however, by other roles
in which only some of the DJs engaged. A few DJs were what I called archaeologists. Certain

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DJs were reference persons in a more straightforward and educational sense. And some were
producers, and therefore bona fide creators. Credit-giving for all types of DJ tends to come
in the form of a financial reward and positive reactions from the crowd. However, the role
of creator, in the case of the DJ-producer, pulls the style of credit-giving towards that of the
traditional artist in commercial pop music culture, and this usually means more money and
more admiration.
From this comparison it is immediately clear that the commercial theory of
appropriate credit falls short in accounting for all that happens within pop music culture, and
consequently also in deciding who deserves credit for it. The categories of the artist and the
consumer have no clear-cut delimitations, and there are many mediating roles between, or
rather surrounding, these fuzzy categories which are not associated with the music industry.
Most importantly, perhaps, the commercial theory of appropriate credit is underpinned by a
metaphysics of musical communication according to which the artist is the one true creator
of value in the process of pop music production; he or she puts an immaterial good such
as emotion or inspiration into a song, and it is the extraction of this good which makes
listening a joyful experience for music consumers. The importance of all other roles exists
only in their supportive relation to this central aspect of communication. But this argument
is fallacious. The value of a mix tape as a personal gift was not just the value of all preexisting
songs added together, and the euphoria of a successful dance party cannot be explained with
a mere reference to the quality of the music that is played.
The question that follows is whether another theory of appropriate credit might
do better. I have discovered similarities between the actions of people who contributed to
different practices; I have even given names to these patterns and foregrounded them as the
role of the reference person, the genealogist, the archaeologist, et cetera. So could a more
careful analysis of cultural practices not ‘carve’ pop music culture ‘by the joints’, and bring to
light its true division of labor and the appropriate credit for each type of contributor? I believe
not, for two main reasons.
First, the question whether an actor performs a certain role is not an all-or-nothing
issue. In the mix tape case, I showed that the relative importance of the roles of creator, gift
giver and reference person in relation to one particular mix taper may vary, and depends in
part even upon the interpretation of the mix tape recipient. For instance, ccMixter members
differ in their relative degrees of engagement as a remixer, reviewer, and genealogist, and DJs
vary in the relative importance of reference giving, creation, and archeology to what it is they
do. This issue, moreover, is connected to the credit-question. One may interpret a love tape
as a gift and reward it with affection, or one may take it as an education and give credit in the
form of gratitude and a degree of admiration. When a DJ becomes more prolific as a producer,
this may pull his status further towards that of an artist or star.
Second, if actors fulfill similar or even analogous roles within different cultural
practices, it does not follow that the same kind of credit is returned. The way credit is given
depends upon the complete assemblage that is the cultural practice in question. For example,
a reference librarian is always paid, occasionally thanked, and rarely admired for his or her
efforts. A reference mix taper is never paid, virtually always thanked, and sometimes admired.
Members of the ccMixter remix community perform the role of reference persons in relation
to visitors of the site when they recommend certain uploads, but for this they get no credit
whatsoever from the visitors in question. The remixers at ccMixter do not recommend tracks

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for the sake of passersby, but because it is part of their culture of reciprocal praise. Even for
similar activities, then, the type of credit-giving they elicit is determined in the context of that
particular cultural practice. The details of specific practices matter.

Styles of credit-giving keep practices going

In the copyright debates, my criticism concerns two intellectual positions. The

proponents of generalized artistry voice the ideal of a pop music culture where everyone is an
active participant or even an artist, and they speak about this ideal as if its realization is solely
a matter of removing the obstacles which impede individuals’ creativity. Within academia, the
influence of British Cultural Studies and the so-called Birmingham School is still felt, and one
important aspect of this tradition is research which searches for, and exalts consumer agency
in the practices it investigates.
The element shared by both positions is an implicit notion of intrinsic motivation.
The proponents of generalized artistry assume that people are intrinsically driven to express
themselves creatively, and that they will do so unless they are thwarted in the process. Cultural
scholars who promote consumer agency assume that cultural subjects are intrinsically driven
to contest elements of culture which displease or disempower them. In fact, their work is an
understandable hypercorrection to a previous type of cultural research which saw subjects as
a product of their cultural environment ‘through and through’, leaving no place for subjective
agency whatsoever.
Yet the notion of intrinsic motivation is a problematic one. When engaging in a non-
solitary practice, actors are dependent upon a style of credit-giving to keep their motivation
going. This does not mean that everyone is a homo economicus who will only become active if
a reward offsets his or her effort. It rather means that no matter how intrinsically pleasurable
the activity, the motivation to make an effort in a social context will dwindle if others do not
recognize the value of one’s contribution, or if others benefit from these contributions without
acknowledging a person’s efforts. If this is indeed so, then there is no such thing as an intrinsic
motivation to engage actively with culture in the sense of a motivation which is truly private
and not affected by one’s social circumstances.
The idea that styles of credit-giving keep practices going is supported by all three case
studies, but most clearly so by the case of ccMixter. In a web community ostensibly devoted
to remixing alone, all remixers in the core group of active members turned out also to be
pleasant reviewers and meticulous genealogists. The concept of a style of credit-giving
provides a simple and parsimonious explanation for this fact. Members who upload poor
material or do not write any reviews are ignored and mostly become inactive. Members
who do not attribute reused materials properly or who otherwise behave unpleasantly are
presumably banned. What remains is a hard core of remixer-reviewer-genealogist members
who keep each others enthusiasm alive.
In the mix tape case, there was no close-knit community like ccMixter, and
therefore no such flywheel of reciprocal activation among core members. Rather, it seems that
the practice of mix taping kept going because mix tapers detected ever new opportunities for
rewarding action. As gift givers, they used mix tapes as a way of investing in relations of love
or friendship. Returns came in the form of affection. As reference persons, mix tapers could

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win or maintain the status of an especially knowledgeable music lover and a helpful friend. In
this practice too, credit-giving played a role in activating people. When the mix taper is con-
sidered as a creator, the role of credit-giving is less clear, because many mix tapers polished
their powers of mix tape creation in solitude, but in this case too it is at least highly plausible
that the decision to share the product of one’s effort with others tended to be informed by the
prospect of being admired for one’s skill.
Finally, DJs, amateurs and professionals alike, generally get paid to perform, even if
their financial rewards differ considerably. This indicates that a reward is deemed appropriate,
even if for some retro DJs it is hardly enough to offset the costs of record acquisition. The
relation with the crowd, meanwhile, may be just as important, although credit-giving within
this relation takes different forms, ranging from outright veneration for a star DJ to a sim-
ple smile directed at the person with the headphones by someone having a good time. The
case studies support the idea, therefore, that styles of credit-giving keep practices going by
ensuring the persistence of core participants’ motivation.

A foregrounding of the creator obscures the importance of other kinds of

contributors

In the first chapter I showed how the artist is at the center of contemporary copyright
debates. The recording industry claims to care deeply about the rights of the artist, and to be
the appropriate party to safeguard those rights. Proponents of the anti-commercial theory of
appropriate credit professed to care no less about the rights of the artist, but argued that both
the rights and the soul of the artist, if anything, needed protection from the music industry.
Among the enthusiasts for the new possibilities afforded by digital technologies, most still
place the artist at the center. Some argue that tools for music sharing help create a level play-
ing field for artists, giving everyone a more or less equal chance to be heard. To proponents of
generalized artistry, too, the interests of artists are central, but they argue that this role must
be democratized.
In short, there is a wide consensus about the central importance of the role
of the creator in pop music culture, whilst many other things are disputed. This makes a
thorough investigation of our shared assumptions regarding the importance of the artist
unlikely. Precisely for this reason, I undertook the task of denormalizing our presuppo-
sitions regarding the artist in the second chapter. I investigated the metaphysics of musical
communication, according to which the value of any musical experience for the listener
rests upon the extraction of an immaterial good which the creator encoded into the music in
question, and I showed this idea to be the product of a precise set of historical circumstances,
and therefore not a given or necessary aspect of music culture. Furthermore, I described how
this ideology found its way into popular music culture and became associated with the com-
mercial production of music.
The case studies of the foregoing chapters show what an undue emphasis on the
role of the creator obscures from view. Story writers who argue that mix taping is an art
tend to emphasize that there is a value to their compiled tapes which was not inherent in the
preexisting individual songs. By choosing to describe their practice as an art, however, they
obscure the value of mix tapes as gifts which may stand as milestones in the history of the

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relationship between two people, and they render invisible the importance of mix tapes which
introduced their recipients to new musical styles and communities.
The ccMixter community is ostensibly a place where one can display one’s creativity
by uploading remixes. In practice, however, it is a dynamic and warm social world, where
music is not only made but also discussed, and where music creation is not just a creative, but
also a social process, to the extent that even among the circle of active members one finds no
‘pure remixers’. I found that active members were virtually all remixers (or singers), reviewers,
and genealogists.
It is the case of deejaying, however, which showed most clearly the extensive blind
spot to which the preoccupation with the role of the creator gives rise. I found that the status
of a DJ depends first on foremost on their status as a producer, with DJ-producers being
regarded as bona fide artists whilst ‘mere’ DJs are considered the providers of a service. Thus,
the status of a DJ is mostly determined in relation to the notion of the creative artist rather
than in relation to the notion of DJ. This is not the result of the absence of such a function.
DJs guide the mood of a crowd in a particular direction, and thus make experiences possible
which would be very difficult to obtain in any other way. These experiences are frequently
euphoric, and are widely regarded as liberating and valuable.
I have given names to certain roles which existed within more than one cultural
practice. My main objective in doing so was showing that there are important trans-practical
roles besides that of the creator. Let me briefly revisit the three roles which have been most
central to my argument.
In all three case studies, we encountered reference persons. The role of the reference
person is evidently rather ubiquitous. The ccMixter members who recommend tracks are
reference persons only in the most simple sense of the term, mediating between a corpus of
compositions and an audience of mostly anonymous visitors navigating the ccMixter website.
In this context, a ‘recommend’ amounts to a general statement that ‘people should hear this’.
The role of the reference person becomes more interesting when the reference person
interacts with a person or group and tries to determine their ‘query’, of which they may or
may not be aware themselves. Thus, the reference mix taper can introduce the recipient of
his or her mix tape to new musical territory, designing the tape specifically to pleasure or
to challenge the specific person in question. The DJs implant this activity of ‘query reading’
into the context of a continuous relationship with the crowd, and this enables them to steer
the mood on the dance floor gradually into a particular direction and generate joyous shared
experiences.
In a popular music culture which for many people is too dense with possible musical
experiences to find one’s way, reference persons provide a vital moment of interpretation and
selection. Whereas canon-like guides such as hit charts take a ‘one size fits all’ approach, a
good reference person can take someone’s personal preferences and needs into account. Thus,
at best, reference persons help others to deepen their engagement with the culture around
them.
In the case study on deejaying, I described the role of the archeologist. While this role
is markedly less ubiquitous than that of the reference person, much can be said for its impor-
tance. On the one hand, the archeologists of pop music culture play a role in the preservation
of historical treasures. On the other hand, certain archeologists, such as conservationist DJs,
go on to disclose these remnants of the musical past to an audience.

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 In the case study on ccMixter, finally, I described the role of the genealogist, which in
this case was not a specialist role in the sense of the reference person and the archeologist, but
a role shared by all ccMixter members. In broad terms, the role of the genealogist is to give
due credit to predecessors and to tradition. Making explicit the relation between remixers and
the ones whose work they reuse is one of the most innovative aspects of ccMixter. In the rest
of popular music culture, relations to predecessors are more often obscured. DJs, for instance,
play preexisting music - an activity that raises copyright issues. However, venue holders take
care of these copyright issues behind the scenes. The commercial theory of appropriate credit
insists on reproducing the myth of original creation, and, by the same token, on obscuring
relations of genealogy. A look at ccMixter shows us how a renewed awareness of genealogical
issues can revitalize a community’s sense that making music is, in the broadest sense of the
term, a deeply social activity. The value of each of these trans-practical roles, however, and of
many other types of cultural participation, is often obscured by the traditional emphasis on
the role of the creator.

The commercial theory of appropriate credit may put pressure on styles of

credit-giving

Finally, the case studies indicate that the persistent influence of the commercial theory
of appropriate credit, at least in some cases, suppresses alternative the styles of credit-giving
and makes it more difficult for some cultural practices to thrive. This idea follows more or
less directly from my premises, because the styles of credit-giving of specific cultural prac-
tices necessarily involve the acknowledgement of types of actors which are not recognized
by the commercial theory of appropriate credit. As I showed in the first two chapters, this is
the dominant viewpoint; its apparent self-evidence is rooted in a long history. Conversely,
in order to be adequate to their specific practices, styles of credit-giving often give little
or no importance to a role which is emphatically recognized by the commercial theory of
appropriate credit, namely that of the creator.
As the case study on deejaying shows, there is a marked difference in status between
DJ-producers and ‘pure’ DJs. This difference is explicable from the influence of the com-
mercial theory of appropriate credit, according to which the first kind of DJ belongs to the
category of artist, whereas the second at most provides a service which is entirely dependent
upon the work of artists. As a result, being a DJ-producer, generally speaking, is a more viable
professional career option than just being a DJ.
The cultural practice of mix taping was an illegal one. The laws in question de
facto reproduced the commercial theory of appropriate credit. Mix taping could flourish
nonetheless because copyright law could not be reinforced in the home. Nonetheless, the
practice of mix taping was slightly impeded in two ways. On the one hand, the prices of empty
cassettes were raised as the result of a statutory fee, which aimed to offset any damages the
music industry suffered as a result of home taping (Morton 2000: 164). On the other hand,
the value and legitimacy of mix taping was continuously disputed, because media campaigns
portrayed mix taping as a mere act of theft.
It is the same copyright legislation, with its insistence on the concept of an
originating artist, which gave rise to ccMixter. Its strict adherence to creative commons

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copyright makes ccMixter an enclave within which boundaries remixing and sampling is
legal. In other words, the ccMixter remix community is a response to the problems musicians
normally face if they want to remix or sample preexisting songs.
I have chosen three relatively successful cultural practices for my case studies. I did
so for a reason. One of my main objectives was to show that successful cultural practices
have styles of credit-giving that keep the enthusiasm of their contributors going. What my
research, as a result of this choice, cannot show is whether there are cultural practices which
disappeared soon after they emerged, because the pervasive influence of the commercial
theory of appropriate credit prevented them from developing a stable style of credit-giving.
This may be an open question, but also one that needs to be asked, and one into which future
research would be welcome.

A remark about technology

The copyright debates tend to focus on legislative issues regarding the relative rights
of artists, industry, consumers, and players who, empowered by new technologies, challenge
these categories. Less conspicuously, however, these debates are also about technology. Critics
of the recording industry may claim that new digital music technologies will help create a
level playing field for artists, or argue that every music lover is an active cultural participant
or even an artist - that is, unless conservative forces keep them in place. Conversely, the
recording industry, especially in the earlier stages of the debate, perceived these new tech-
nologies as a threat to music itself.
There is an element of technological determinism in both positions. Each assumes that
technologies, which are the products of scientific progress rather than of their cultural envi-
ronment, will cause pop music culture to change in a certain direction. In the second chapter,
I criticized technological determinism by showing how past music technologies such as the
phonograph reached their stable form within the context of cultural practices in which many
heterogeneous elements came together to form a robust assemblage.
In the third chapter, however, I also discussed a very different position. Both in
Science and Technology Studies and in British Cultural Studies, scholars have put forward
studies which emphasize the agency of end-users in shaping technologies or bending them
to their needs. In the negative form in which they are usually phrased, their conclusions are
indisputably true. End-users are not passive recipients of full-fledged technologies which use
is already pre-determined. But we must be careful not to overstate the amount of agency for
the end-user that the falsity of technological determinism implies.
I have conducted three case studies involving different music technologies.
Considering these case studies from a technological perspective, two points deserve to be
made. On the one hand, they clearly do not support a technologically determinist view.
Neither remixing, nor mix taping, nor deejaying would have even existed without users who
appropriated technologies for previously unimagined uses. Read superficially, my case studies
may come across as a celebration of end-user agency.
On the other hand, however, my analysis of styles of credit-giving shows that such
end-user agency should not be interpreted too radically. I argued, for instance, that indi-
viduals who want to pursue a certain activity within a social context can only maintain their

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motivation to do so in a cultural practice with a stable style of credit-giving. This places an
unexpected limitation upon individual agency.

A remark about cultural practices

Looking back at the foregoing investigation, I find that my usage of the concept of
cultural practices comes quite close to the views of ‘the final Foucault’. While Michel Foucault
may be known primarily as the philosopher of discourse, his later work gave a central place
to practices. Taking the self-care practices of antiquity and early Christianity as his subject, he
gravitated towards an analysis of ancient Greek and to some extent ancient Roman self-care as
consisting of, as he calls it, ‘practices of freedom’ (Foucault 1986, 1988, 2004). This concept is
central in his last university lectures, which are on truth-telling (parrhesia). He there describes
Socrates as a person who invites people to enter into practices which will enable them to be
frank and honest, and to withstand the force of public opinion (Foucault 2001). The freedom
to speak one’s mind only becomes possible within the context of a practice.
There are several analogies to be drawn between Foucault’s analysis and my own.
In both, a kind of freedom is central. In the case of his final lectures it is the freedom to
speak one’s true opinion. In my case it is a form of creative agency. We both go on conclude
that these freedoms are not free-floating, but that they are rather embedded within practices.
Foucault insists, furthermore, that advancing freedom is not a simple matter of taking away
constraints. He rejects any simple opposition between the individual and power, where the
former is free to the extent that he or she is not impeded by the latter. The ability to give
shape to one’s own life, he argues, is best organized in practices of freedom (Foucault 2004:
183-184). Although I have analyzed creative practices which may seem trivial in comparison
to the ability to speak truthfully, my point has been much the same. People’s ability to engage
actively with the music culture around them is not a mere matter of lifting the constraints
which powerful institutions impose on them. To be perpetuated, people’s creativity must be
organized into cultural practices.
In this light, a conceptual distinction Foucault makes between “power” and
“domination” is telling. What is undoubtedly surprising to some is that Foucault does not
consider himself to be adverse to power. Society is pervaded by relationships of power and
this is, in his opinion, not in itself a bad thing. It makes life interesting and challenges us to
develop ourselves. What he does oppose, however, is a situation he calls “domination”, where
power relations become rigid and static rather than fluid and interesting, and where reversals
of power stop happening (Foucault 2004: 185-186).
I find my position on this matter to be similar to Foucault’s position. On the one
hand, I have argued that people’s motivation for prolonged engagement with culture is (at
least within a social context) embedded in cultural practices. This puts a constraint on indi-
vidual creative agency. Within cultural practices, all participants can be said to wield power
over one another, or at least to influence each other. Such ‘power’ or reciprocal influence,
however, is not something from which individuals need to be liberated. Rather, it is part of
what makes cultural engagement within a social context interesting and meaningful.
And yet relations of power within popular music culture could become static
and rigid. This a danger I have discussed above, in the section on the pressure which the

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commercial theory of appropriate tribute puts on cultural practices. The music industry
does not in fact dominate pop music culture in this sense. In the foregoing research, I have
discussed three examples of cultural engagement which would not have been possible had the
phonographic industry enjoyed such a degree of dominance. And yet, in the unlikely event
that the music industry were to come out utterly victorious at the end of the copyright wars,
cultural practices such as the ones I have investigated would become impossible, and the
intricate relations of reciprocal influence among their actors would give way to the static and
transparent relations indicated by the ticking of boxes marked “terms of use: I agree”.

Persisting romanticisms

In May 2010, the Dutch news paper NRC Next carried an opinion piece about the
demise of the super hit song (de Jong 2010). In this article, cultural scholar Thimon de Jong
argues that the easy availability of music through downloading and P2P sharing has produced
a pop music culture in which all listeners inhabit niches. As a result, he predicts, there will be
no new ‘evergreens’, no new songs that are known by virtually everybody. This, he argues, is
regrettable because it undermines the collective experience of culture for which the evergreen
was uniquely suited. He hopes to remedy matters by criticizing remix culture and pleading
for a return to originality.
De Jong’s diagnosis of the current situation fits a well-known narrative of our
culture, according to which uprooted individuals wander aimlessly and in isolation through a
post-modern society. The experience of a collective in which the individual is at home either
has gone or is disappearing. If we read de Jong’s analysis carefully, we find that the demise
of the super hit, in his opinion, impoverishes us in more than one way. It deprives us of an
experience of being rooted in a collective culture, but it also deprives us of a certain way
of experiencing the past. Only the super hit of the present can become an evergreen in the
future, a universally recognized ‘icon’ of the specific time-frame when it topped the charts.
The foregoing research leads to a very different outlook on pop music culture. My
investigations of particular cultural practices are full of examples of individuals who are far
from culturally uprooted. Their activities are firmly embedded in a social context. The prac-
tices in question may not connect these individuals to a collective that encompasses ‘virtually
everyone’, like evergreens do, but on the other hand they do connect them to a community
with which they actively interact. The collective recognition of evergreens rather generates an
‘imagined community’ (Anderson 1991).
The cultural practices I have investigated do not leave their participants uprooted
in terms of their relation to the past either. In this light it is worthwhile recalling that, in
the second chapter, I analyzed the commercial theory of appropriate credit in terms of the
persistent influence of a specific aspect of Empfindsamkeit and Romanticism. This aspect was
the veneration of the artist as the person who can communicate emotional or transcenden-
tal contents by means of an artistic work. Looking back at the case studies of the previous
chapters, we can now see that, outside of the dominant practice and discourse, many other
aspects of Romanticism have also survived, and found refuge in particular practices. Most
importantly, the cultural practices of the previous case studies give a remarkable degree of
importance to relations with the past and the future.

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 The archeologist brings artifacts from the past into the present and thus plays a role
in accentuating a cultural form’s relation with the past. Also, there is an element of Romantic
historicism in the activities of the archeologist. There is a sense of distance and strangeness
about the artifacts he or she ‘digs up’ and discloses. The experience of these artifacts can help
one escape the present, whether to open one’s mind to thinking outside the confines of con-
temporary standards or to revel in the past as if it were an exotic destination to which access
has not been made ubiquitous by cheap flights.
The genealogist gives credit from the present to the past. This role might therefore
be said to be most clearly analogical to practices that far predate Romanticism, by which
the ancestors are given their due. But in any case, the activities of the genealogist partake of
certain aspects of the Romantic understanding of history as a progress narrative. Genealogy
emphasizes the cumulative aspect of history; the fact that no creative feat is achieved in
isolation and that one always builds upon the work of predecessors.
The reference person, finally, can be said to push the awareness of presently
existing works into the future. This role, moreover, betrays the persistence of something like
the Romantic ideal of Bildung. There is a notion that a greater knowledge and experience of
certain cultural works can in some sense help one develop as a person, a notion that under-
lies the activities of many reference mix tapers and reference DJs. The idea that there is an
intrinsic value to deepening one’s engagement with existing culture has far from disappeared,
but this may be hard to see because it has become embedded in specific cultural practices of a
relatively modest scale and produces little or no discourse.
The temporal locatedness of these roles sharply contrasts the role of the creator, who,
being original, seemingly stands outside of time. Presently the super hit producing music
industry supports the atemporal ideology of the original creator, whereas each of the cultural
practices I have investigated in some way invests in the maintenance of a relation with the past
and the future. This at least indicates that, with regard to temporality as much as with regard
to sociality, participation in cultural practices is likely better equipped to ward of cultural
uprootedness than collective enjoyment of commercial evergreens is.

A final observation

The copyright debates with which I began this research are somewhat like a boxing
match in which to parties struggle for supremacy. In one corner we find the conservative
forces of the traditional music industry who would like to see the changes that come in the
wake of new digital music technologies contained in several important ways. In the other
corner there is a loose alliance of progressive forces who welcome this change enthusiastically.
I have criticized both sides, although I have by no means criticized them in equal measure,
and I have insisted upon a natural setting approach to pop music culture that pays attention
to the particularities of specific practices.
I see two ways in which a reader might take this insistence on the particular to heart
and put it to use. The first is fairly obvious: to take back into the copyright debates an under-
standing of the importance of credit-giving, an awareness of the value of the many ways of
participating in popular music culture that exist aside from being a creator, and an insistence
on the inadequacy of overarching theories concerning how pop music culture works or should

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work. The second is less conspicuous and therefore deserves emphasis. It is to appreciate pop
music culture’s richness in the possibilities it offers for engaging, contributing, participating,
or just enjoying. In the actual present, there is no need for us to all be consumers, as the
traditional music industry would gladly see. Neither is it necessary for all of us to be artists or
remixers, like the industry’s opponents sometimes seem to be saying.
As I performed my case studies, I came across many live individuals and narrative
accounts who provided an argument for the value and importance of their respective cultural
practices. When a DJ seemingly starts to glow when explaining the intricacies of deejaying, it
is tempting to conclude that this is because deejaying is wonderful, and more people should
try their hand at it. It might be more accurate, however, to say that the accounts of these DJs
provided an argument for the value and importance of a pop music culture which is rich and
varied enough for different people to be able to find a place for themselves, where they can
contribute in the way that fits them best, which they enjoy most, or which they find most
meaningful.
The foregoing research shows that one can engage with pop music culture as a
consumer, an artist, a mix taper, a remixer, a DJ, and probably in many other ways. One
can contribute to a cultural practice as a creator, a reference person, a genealogist, an
archaeologist, a reviewer, and presumably in many other roles. Maybe then, a ‘glowing’ DJ is
not first and foremost an argument in favor of the cultural practice of deejaying, although it
undoubtedly is that too. It might rather first and foremost be an argument in favor of taking
heed of the countless possibilities that already exist within pop music culture, and concluding
that among these there is likely something you can do which is as exciting to you as deejaying,
remixing, or mix taping is to some of the people who featured in this study.

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155
156
Nederlandstalige Samenvatting
(Dutch summary)

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 In dit proefschrift bestudeer ik culturele praktijken waarin gebruik wordt gemaakt
van geluidstechnologieën. De term “culturele praktijken” verdient wat extra uitleg. “Cultuur”
is het geheel aan manieren waarop mensen met gebruikmaking van symbolen gedeelde en
schijnbaar vanzelfsprekende betekenissen toekennen aan de wereld om hen heen. Praktijken
zijn specifieke routinematige activiteiten, die mensen verrichten op manieren waarbij ze in
veel opzichten al lang niet meer nadenken.
Ik stel in mijn onderzoek een fenomeen centraal dat naar mijn mening tot nog toe
onderbelicht is gebleven, en dat ik credit-giving noem. Credit-giving vindt plaats binnen
collectieve praktijken. De term refereert aan de beloning of erkenning die deelnemers aan
een culturele praktijk krijgen voor hun bijdrage. Onder credit kunnen zulke uiteenlopende
dingen vallen als financieel gewin, roem, bewondering, attributie, dankbaarheid, en de
erkenning van iemands moeite.

In het eerste hoofdstuk neem ik de debatten onder de loep die gaande zijn over auteurs-
recht en muziek. Ik stel vast dat er over hoe de productie van popmuziek werkt een gangbaar
idee bestaat dat vanzelfsprekend leek totdat de komst van digitale muziektechnologieën die
vanzelfsprekendheid onderuit haalde. Volgens dit gangbare idee werkte popmuziekproductie
in essentie als volgt: Een artiest maakt een liedje of wordt in elk geval bewonderd voor het
creatieve deel van het werk, de platenindustrie neemt de zakelijke kant van het productie-
proces op zich, en consumenten bewonderen de artiest, betalen alle deelnemers aan het
productieproces, en kunnen in ruil daarvoor luisteren naar de muziek die zij leuk vinden.
Nu digitale technologieën het voor iedereen steeds gemakkelijker maken om muziek te
manipuleren en te distribueren staat deze werkverdeling onder druk, met debatten over copy-
right als gevolg.
De muziekindustrie leunt in deze debatten zwaar op een argument dat zij eerder ook
al vaak heeft gebruikt. Het argument in kwestie is dat de bescherming van auteursrecht nodig
is voor een eerlijke betaling van popartiesten en platenmaatschappijen en dat zonder een
dergelijke betaling de productie van kwalitatief hoogstaande muziek niet kan worden gehand-
haafd. Deze redenering was bijvoorbeeld het hoofdargument in de rechtszaak tegen aanbieder
van peer-to-peer software Grokster in 2005, maar het was ook het hoofdargument van de
muziekuitgeverijen in het eerste decennium van de twintigste eeuw, toen fotolithografie
piraterij van bladmuziek gemakkelijk maakte. De muziekindustrie heeft het argument verder
gebruikt om haar bezwaren tegen bandrecorders, cassetterecorders, DAT, en CD-r kracht bij
te zetten. In haar retoriek stelt de muziekindustrie steeds het belang van de artiest voorop; het
is haar erom te doen het talent van de artiest in staat te stellen zich te ontplooien. Zo hameren
de platenmaatschappijen op het behoud van de traditionele werkverdeling met een creatieve
artiest, een mediërende industrie en een passieve consument.
In de laatste decennia van de vorige eeuw, voorafgaand aan de huidige debatten over
piraterij en digitale muziektechnologieën, was er al kritiek op de muziekindustrie. In deze
kritiek werd de artiest op een soortgelijke manier gerepresenteerd als in de retoriek van de
muziekindustrie zelf. Beide stelden de artiest voor als een getalenteerd iemand die muziek
maakt vanuit een innerlijke artistieke drang en die daarbij, in het belang van muziekliefheb-
bers, ondersteund dient te worden. Maar waar de muziekindustrie zichzelf presenteert als de
dienaar van de artiest, zagen deze vroege critici van de muziekindustrie haar als de uitbuiter
van de artiest.

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 Deze beide visies rusten op hetzelfde idee over hoe muziek waardevolle ervaringen
genereert. Dit idee is zo schijnbaar vanzelfsprekend dat we ons er zelden van bewust zijn.
Het stelt de relatie tussen artiest en consument voor als de relatie tussen een zender en een
ontvanger in een communicatieproces, met een mediërende industrie ertussenin. De artiest is
door haar talent in staat een immaterieel goed, zoals emotie of inspiratie, in een liedje te plaat-
sen. De industrie brengt dit liedje naar de consument. Deze beluistert het liedje, extraheert
daarbij het immateriële goed, en ontleent daaraan een waardevolle muzikale ervaring.
Het belangrijkste aspect aan deze “metafysica van de muzikale communicatie” is dat
het de gangbare ideeën over credit-giving legitimeert: De muziekindustrie verdient een finan-
ciële beloning voor zover ze een nuttige dienst levert. De artiest creëert in het ideale geval
niet voor het geld maar vanuit een innerlijke artistieke drang. Paradoxaal genoeg verdient de
artiest juist hierom een financiële ondersteuning, die haar in staat stelt zich voltijd aan haar
kunst te wijden. De werkelijke beloning van de artiest is even immaterieel als de waarde die
zij creëert. Het is de bewondering en liefde van haar luisteraars. De consument geeft credit op
twee manieren. Zij betaalt de artiest en de muziekindustrie en beloont daarnaast de artiest
met bewondering. Ik noem deze opvatting over credit-giving, zoals ze in de retoriek van de
muziekindustrie verschijnt, de commercial theory of appropriate credit, dat wil zeggen de com-
merciële theorie over hoe beloning en erkenning verdeeld dienen te worden.
Met de komst van digitale muziektechnologieën zijn deze voormalige vanzelfsprekend-
heden minder vanzelfsprekend geworden en is er ruimte ontstaan voor vernieuwende ideeën.
Ik bespreek in mijn proefschrift de vier belangrijkste. Een idee dat regelmatig terugkeert in
de auteursrechtdiscussies over popmuziek is dat de toenemende eenvoud en de afgenomen
kosten van muziekdistributie het voor artiesten mogelijk maakt hun muziek aan de man te
brengen zonder tussenkomst van een platenmaatschappij, waardoor een nieuw krachtenveld
ontstaat. Artiesten die niet gesteund worden door een groot bedrijf maken plotseling toch een
kans zichzelf in de kijker te spelen.
Een radicalere opvatting is dat de nieuwe digitale muziektechnologieën ertoe zullen
leiden dat de tijd van de passieve luisteraar voorbij is. Voorstanders van deze visie stellen dat
gereedschappen om op een eenvoudige manier muziek te maken nu binnen ieders bereik
liggen. Zij vermoeden dat iedereen de behoefte heeft zichzelf artistiek te uiten en dat het
wegnemen van de praktische obstakels rond creativiteit voldoende is om muziekliefhebbers
te activeren. Iedereen kan nu kunstenaar zijn. De amateurmusici zullen de professionals ver-
dringen. Ik noem deze visie generalized artistry.
Een derde opvatting komt van cultuurtheoretici, die de nadruk leggen op het
agentschap voor muziekliefhebbers, dat wil zeggen, hun vrijheid om te handelen. Zij
waarschuwen vooral voor de beperking van mogelijkheden tot creatieve activiteit die voor
muziekliefhebbers kan ontstaan als de muziekindustrie als winnaar uit de auteursrecht-
discussies komt.
De laatste opvatting die ik bespreek theoretiseert de mogelijke toekomst van de
popmuziekcultuur met behulp van het begrip sharing economy, de economie van het delen. Ik
bespreek het werk van rechtsgeleerde en activist Lawrence Lessig met name. Volgens hem zul-
len muzikale sharing economies, die in stand worden gehouden door een andere groep regels
en principes dan de commerciële cultuur, een plaats zal verwerven naast de commerciële
productie van popmuziek.

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 Elk van deze nieuwe visies heeft implicaties voor credit-giving. Het idee van de
artiesten die zelf hun muziek distribueren gaat nog steeds uit van de traditionele beloningen
voor de artiest, namelijk geld en bewondering, die door luisteraars worden geleverd. Alleen
de platenmaatschappijen zijn uit de transactie verwijderd. Generalized artistry impliceert dat
er helemaal geen credit-giving nodig is. Het verwijderen van de obstakels die creativiteit in
de weg staan is immers voldoende om muziekliefhebbers te activeren. Eenzelfde implicatie
schuilt in het werk van cultuurtheoretici die agentschap propageren. Ook hier voedt een
nadruk op de obstakels die creativiteit omgeven de vooronderstelling dat een drang tot
creativiteit per definitie aanwezig is. Alleen de theoretici die gebruik van het begrip
sharing economies bepleiten onderzoeken de condities van de motivatie om creatief te hande-
len. Ze proberen de sociale wetmatigheden te formuleren die een duurzame muzikale sharing
economy mogelijk maken.
Ik neem in verschillende mate afstand van elk van de bovenstaande visies. De visies
van de muziekindustrie, van haar critici in de laatste decennia van de vorige eeuw en van de
artiesten die zelf hun muziek distribueren houden in mijn optiek te veel vast aan de bestaande
wijze van credit-giving. Anderzijds stel ik in tegenstelling tot generalized artistry en de visie van
cultuurtheoretici die agentschap propageren dat credit-giving altijd nodig is om een culturele
praktijk gaande te houden. Mijn hypothese ligt dus het dichtst bij theoretici zoals Lessig, die
de toekomstige popmuziekcultuur proberen te begrijpen met behulp van het begrip sharing
economy. Mijn enige bezwaar tegen deze stroming is dat zijn voortrekkers met betrekking tot
credit-giving een enkele set regels en wetmatigheden proberen te formuleren die moet gelden
voor de gehele popmuziekcultuur. Ik stel daar als mijn eigen hypothese tegenover dat credit-
giving plaatsvindt binnen culturele praktijken en dat iedere succesvolle culturele praktijk haar
een eigen bijpassende style of credit-giving heeft, dat wil zeggen, een eigen wijze van beloning
en erkenning verdelen onder haar deelnemers.

In het tweede hoofdstuk onderzoek ik de geschiedenis van de commercial theory of

appropriate credit, die de visie is van de muziekindustrie, maar ook de gangbare manier om de
productie van popmuziek te begrijpen. Ik begin deze geschiedenis met een Duitse muzikale
stroming van beperkte omvang in de tweede helft van de achttiende eeuw: de Empfindsamkeit.
Deze stroming zag muziek, die eerder werd beschouwd als een afspiegeling van de schepping,
als een vorm van emotionele communicatie, waarbij kunstenaars hun persoonlijke emoties
deelden met een publiek dat zich graag liet voorstaan op haar gevoeligheid.
In de Romantiek werd dit idee verspreid en kreeg het een transcendentale inslag.
Er ontstond een cultus van de geniale componist en een cultus van het artistieke werk. De
geïnspireerde componist stond in contact met het tijdloze en wist een stukje van het hogere in
muziek te vangen. Het publiek extraheerde deze spirituele elementen tijdens het luisteren en
werd daardoor verheven. Zowel het idee van de muzikale inspiratie als dat van de emotionele
communicatie leeft door in de hedendaagse popmuziekcultuur en om te beschrijven hoe de
twee ideeën daarin verweven zijn geraakt richt ik mijn aandacht vervolgens op het ontstaan
van de platenindustrie.
Voorafgaand aan de platenindustrie was er al een muziekindustrie. Deze produceerde
bladmuziek. Dat bladmuziek kon functioneren als consumptieartikel kwam deels doordat de
Empfindsamkeit en de romantiek hadden gezorgd dat bepaalde ideeën gangbaar waren en
logisch leken. Het uitvoeren van een gecomponeerd stuk op de piano in de salon, zoals aan het

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eind van de negentiende eeuw zeer gebruikelijk was, kon begrepen worden als een daad van
consumptie omdat het vanzelf sprak dat de pianist het immateriële goed probeerde te repro-
duceren dat de componist in het stuk had gelegd. Daarom was bladmuziek een waardevol
product en niet een verzameling muzikale adviezen die men wel of niet kon opvolgen.
Ik beschrijf vervolgens hoe de fonograaf een muziektechnologie werd, hoewel Edison
er in eerste instantie vooral een dictafoon in zag. Voor deze verandering waren verschillende
zaken van belang. Een daarvan is dat Emile Berliner’s innovatie, de grammofoon, geluidsop-
names goedkoop reproduceerbaar maakte, zodat de platenspeler meer een afspeelmedium
dan een opnamemedium werd. Het feit dat openbare concerten het idee vanzelfsprekend had-
den gemaakt dat passief luisteren een waardevolle ervaring kon zijn hielp de grammofoon-
plaat een geloofwaardig muzikaal consumptieartikel te worden. De grammofoonplaat erfde
zijn legitimatie als waardevol product van het bladmuziek; ook de grammofoonplaat was een
immaterieel goed gevat in een materiële drager.
Een laatste stap in het verweven van de platenindustrie en de metafysica de
muzikale communicatie vond plaats in de tweede helft van de jaren zestig. Een generatie
popmuzikanten waarvan in Groot-Brittannië een uitzonderlijk groot deel afkomstig was van
kunstacademies begon naast het uitvoeren ook te componeren, introduceerde originaliteit als
een artistieke waarde in de popmuziek, en gaf popmuzikanten een groter artistiek prestige. De
zogenaamde British Invasion verspreidde deze ideeën over de gehele westerse wereld.

Het derde hoofdstuk is gewijd aan de methodologische implicaties van centrale

concepten en aan de methode van de case studies die in de volgende hoofdstukken worden
uitgevoerd. Voor de grote lijn van mijn betoog is vooral het volgende belangrijk: mijn hypo-
these dat culturele praktijken een style of credit-giving nodig hebben om zich gaande te
houden impliceert niet dat mensen alleen maar creatieve activiteiten gaan verrichten als daar
een beloning tegenover staat. Het punt ligt subtieler. Wanneer de actieve bijdrage van iemand
aan een culturele praktijk niet door de overige mensen als waardevol wordt beschouwd, of
wanneer de overige mensen in kwestie voordeel hebben van de bijdrage van iemand zonder
dit ten overstaande van de betreffende persoon op enige wijze te erkennen zal de motivatie
van de persoon in kwestie om actief te blijven afnemen.

In het vierde hoofdstuk is gewijd aan een case study over mix taping, het opnemen van
compilatiecassettebandjes met bestaande liedjes. Dit was een omvangrijke praktijk in de jaren
tachtig en de vroege jaren negentig van de vorige eeuw. De bandjes in kwestie werden vaak
cadeau gegeven aan specifieke personen waarvoor ze ook waren samengesteld. Ik analyseer
mix tape stories, verhalen over het maken en het ontvangen van mix tapes, die ik gevonden
heb in bundels van dergelijke verhalen en op weblogs.
In veel van dergelijke verhalen wordt er gesteld dat het maken van mix tapes een kunst
was. Ik beschrijf hoe dit zo kwam en welke legitimaties de schrijvers van de verhalen over
compilatiebandjes aandragen voor deze stelling. Vervolgens stel ik vast dat de mix tap stories
ongebruikelijk zijn omdat in de meeste schriftuur over popmuziek de artiest centraal wordt
gesteld en ik suggereer dat het thema van de mix taping als kunst wellicht een retorische
tactiek is om de vanzelfsprekendheid te ondergraven van de aanname dat de makers van
de afzonderlijke liedjes op het compilatiebandje verantwoordelijk zijn voor de waardevolle
ervaring van de luisteraar. Het belang van de rol van de mix taper heeft extra nadruk nodig.

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Het nadeel van deze retorische tactiek is dat ze zich conformeert aan het algemene op de
voorgrond plaatsen van de rol van de creatieve artiest, en dat ze daardoor andere waardevolle
aspecten van het maken van mix tapes naar de achtergrond dringt. Om tot een diversere
beschrijving te komen, benader ik mix taping in de rest van het hoofdstuk vanuit verschil-
lende invalshoeken.
Ik begin met de invalshoek die de schrijvers van de mix tape stories zelf vaak kiezen:
de mix taper als de maker van een artistiek werk. De mix tapers stellen een veelheid van eisen
aan een goed compilatiebandje. Er kan een thema zijn dat alle liedjes verbindt, de liedjes
moeten elkaar op de juiste manier opvolgen, de smaak van de mix taper moet in acht worden
genomen en de smaak van de beoogde ontvanger ook, en tenslotte dient de ruimte op het
bandje zo volledig mogelijk benut te worden met zo min mogelijk stilte aan het eind van elke
kant. Het resultaat van deze veelheid aan eisen is een coherent bandje waarop geen enkel
liedje door een willekeurig ander liedje vervangen kan worden zonder dat deze coherentie
wordt ondergraven. In die zin kan een mix tape beschouwd worden als een werk en de mix
taper als de auteur daarvan.
Daarnaast is een mix tape ook een geschenk. In die hoedanigheid houdt het zich aan
andere regels, zoals dat het eigenlijk not done is om identieke bandjes te maken voor meerdere
ontvangers. Als persoonlijk geschenk symboliseert en intensiveert een mix tape de band tus-
sen mix taper en ontvanger. Als geschenk nodigt een mix tape ook uit tot een andere wijze van
credit-giving dan als artistiek werk. Als werk nodigt een mix tape uit tot bewondering voor de
kunde en creativiteit van de mix taper. Als geschenk vraagt een mix tape om een beloning in
de vorm van affectie.
Verder kan een mix tape ook nog een manier zijn om de ontvanger in contact te
brengen met nieuwe muziek. De mix taper treedt dan op in een rol die ik aanduid als reference
person, oftewel “referent”. Dit naar analogie van de referent in een bibliotheek, die bezoekers
helpt die werken te vinden waaraan ze waarschijnlijk het meest zullen hebben. Wanneer een
mix tape op deze manier wordt bekeken nodigt dat uit tot een derde vorm van credit-giving,
waarbij bewondering voor de kennis van de mix taper en dankbaarheid voor diens hulpvaar-
dige intenties centraal staan. De wijze van credit-giving binnen de culturele praktijk van het
maken van compilatiebandjes is dus divers en conformeert zich dus niet aan the commercial
theory of appropriate credit. De nadruk die vertellers van mix tape stories leggen op de mix
taper als creatief maker is verklaarbaar, maar onttrekt ook de waarde van de mix tape als
geschenk en kennismaking met nieuwe muziek aan het zicht.

In het vijfde hoofdstuk voer ik de tweede case study uit en analyseer ik de website van
de online remix community “ccMixter”. Wat deze remix community bijzonder maakt is het feit
dat alle geluidsbestanden die gebruikers uploaden beschermd zijn onder een creative com-
mons auteursrechtlicentie, die minder restrictief is dan traditioneel auteursrecht. Hierdoor
kunnen leden van deze online gemeenschap elkaars werk legaal hergebruiken. Dit heeft geleid
tot een bijzondere remix-praktijk, die vooral gekenmerkt wordt door een productie van
volledig nieuwe composities rond zogenaamde a capellas, geluidsbestanden die alleen een
gezongen melodie bevatten.
Ik richt mijn aandacht op een fenomeen dat ik de attributieparadox van
ccMixter noem. De paradox in kwestie is dat men zou verwachten dat in een omgeving
als ccMixter, waar elke compositie overduidelijk voortkomt uit hergebruik van het werk

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van anderen, het idee van persoonlijk auteurschap, en daarmee het idee van persoonlijke
attributie, minder belangrijk wordt. De ccMixter online gemeenschap laat echter juist een
preoccupatie met attributie zien.
Ik beschrijf hoe leden van ccMixter het idee van afstamming gebruiken als een
metafoor voor de relatie tussen composities en benoem het verlenen van attributie als de rol
van de “genealoog”. De rol van de genealoog is anders dan die van de referent in het vorige
hoofdstuk, omdat dat een specialistische rol was, terwijl de rol van de genealoog is verdeeld
over alle leden van ccMixter en de website zelf. Bij het uploaden van een compositie geeft de
remixer aan van welke andere ccMixterleden muzikale materialen zijn hergebruikt. Op de
pagina van de nieuwe remix wordt per hyperlink naar de betreffende werken verwezen onder
het kopje “uses samples from”. Op de pagina’s van de hergebruikte remixes staat de zelfde
relatie aangegeven onder het kopje “samples are used in”. Op deze manier ontstaat een archief
van muzikale afstammingsrelaties dat de vorm heeft van een netwerk van hyperlinks.
Er is naast de rol van de genealoog nog een andere rol die niet specialistisch is, maar
over alle leden van ccMixter verdeeld. Dat is de rol van reviewer, van het schrijven van reacties
op nieuwe remixes. De inhoud van reviews bestaat uit variaties op lof. De welgemanierdheid
van leden van ccMixter is opvallend. Als ze kritiek leveren wordt dat voorzichtig verwoord.
Omgekeerd stellen diegenen die een remix uploaden zich in de toelichting, die ze op de
pagina van de betreffende remix kunnen plaatsen, zeer bescheiden op.
Op grond van dit alles kom ik tot de slotsom dat actieve ccMixterleden drie
rollen in zich verenigen. Ze zijn remixer, genealoog en reviewer tegelijk. Deze werkverdeling
vormt een style of credit-giving die ccMixter gaande houdt. Positieve reviews lokken nieuwe
positieve reviews uit en maken het eveneens lonend om een remix te uploaden, terwijl de
nauwkeurige attributie van hergebruikte materialen voorkomt dat ccMixterleden het gevoel
krijgen dat anderen mooie sier maken met hun werk.

Het zesde hoofdstuk is gewijd aan de derde en laatste case study, die over DJs gaat.
Ik heb verschillende DJs interviews afgenomen en ik vergelijk in eerste instantie twee typen
DJs met elkaar. Later zal ik meer nadruk leggen op de overeenkomsten tussen beide typen.
Het ene type gebruikt analoge grammofoonplaten, draait oudere popmuziek of jazz en mixt
liedjes niet in elkaar over. Het andere type is de ‘gebruikelijke’ DJ, die gebruik maakt van con-
temporaine technologieën, recente muziek draait, liedjes wel in elkaar over mixt, en daarnaast
meestal ook dansmuziek produceert.
Ik stel vast dat de status van de eerste categorie DJs lager is en dat ze weinig aandacht
krijgen in de academische literatuur en ik laat zien dat dit komt door een algemene nadruk
op de rol van de artiest als maker, die voortkomt uit het feit dat de commercial theory of
appropriate credit nog altijd erg invloedrijk is. Een DJ die nummers aan elkaar mixt grijpt
diep in in het muzikale materiaal en wordt daarom soms als artiest beschouwd, en een DJ die
ook muziek produceert wordt als een bona fide artiest beschouwd, terwijl een traditionele DJ
wordt gezien als ‘slechts’ de verlener van een dienst.
Nadat ik de praktijk van de ‘behoudzuchtige’ DJs en de charmes van gram-
mofoontechnologie uitgebreider heb beschreven richt ik mijn aandacht opnieuw op
dit statusverschil. De waarde van DJs wordt kennelijk gemeten met maatstaven die zijn
toegesneden op traditionele popartiesten. Dat doet geen recht aan behoudzuchtige DJs, maar
ook niet aan ‘moderne’. De vraag rijst hoe men de waarde bepaalt van ‘deejayen’, wanneer men

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het beschouwt als ‘deejayen’ en niet als een meer of minder succesvolle poging tot traditionele
muziekcreatie. Om hierachter te komen richt ik mijn aandacht vervolgens op wat beide typen
DJs verbindt.
Het blijkt dat de meningen van de DJs die ik heb geïnterviewd sterk overeenkomen
als het gaat om wat iemand een goede DJ maakt. Het belangrijkst is dat de persoon in kwestie
de sfeer op een feestje op de juiste manier kan sturen. Het voornaamste middel dat DJs voor
dergelijke sturing ten dienste staat is de selectie van platen. Met een verwijzing naar de vroege
DJ-praktijk van de Jamaicaanse sound systems, waar een specifieke DJ gespecialiseerd was in
het selecteren van de volgende platen, zou men dit de kunde van de selector kunnen noemen.
Als selector moet een DJ een goede ‘antenne’ hebben voor de sfeer op de dansvloer
en daar op een subtiele manier op inspelen. Voor het genereren van een euforische sfeer is
een voortdurende dialoog nodig tussen DJ en publiek, waarbij de DJ reageert op het publiek,
het publiek reageert op het volgende nummer dat hij draait, en de DJ weer reageert op deze
reactie. Door geleidelijk snellere of intensere muziek te gaan draaien kan de DJ de sfeer opstu-
wen tot een euforische climax, maar hij moet ook op tijd anticiperen op het toeslaan van de
vermoeidheid op de dansvloer. Deze subtiele kunde van de selector krijgt door de invloed van
de commercial theory of appropriate credit en de daaruit volgende nadruk op de rol van de
artiest als maker nauwelijks aandacht.

In het zevende en laatste hoofdstuk orden ik mijn bevindingen en trek ik conclu-

sies. Terugkijkend beschouw ik vier stellingen als voldoende onderbouwd: Ten eerste
doen de details van culturele praktijken ertoe als het gaat om credit-giving. Een algemene
theorie over credit-giving die voor de gehele popmuziekcultuur zal geen recht doen aan wat er
gebeurt in alle verschillende culturele praktijken. Ten tweede zijn styles of credit-giving nodig
om culturele praktijken gaande te houden. Ten derde heeft de grote invloed van de com-
mercial theory of appropriate credit, met zijn bijbehorende nadruk op de artiest als maker, tot
gevolg dat veel andere belangrijke wijzen van bijdragen aan culturele praktijken aan het zicht
worden onttrokken. Tenslotte suggereert het verzamelde bewijsmateriaal dat de commercial
theory of appropriate credit alternatieve wijzen van credit-giving onder druk zet, waardoor het
voor andere culturele praktijken dan commerciële muziekproductie volgens het model van
de platenindustrie moeilijker wordt om tot bloei te komen. Bij wijze van laatste observaties
beschrijf ik de interessante overeenkomsten tussen de punten die ik gemaakt heb een het
laatste werk van filosoof Michel Foucault, en stel ik vast dat naast de beschreven ‘metafy-
sica van de muzikale communicatie’ ook andere elementen uit de Romantiek tot op heden
doorwerken, zoals een preoccupatie met geschiedenis en traditie. Deze overblijfselen van de
Romantiek overleefden niet in een dominant discours, maar in een veelheid van specifieke
culturele praktijken.

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Summary

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 In this dissertation, I study cultural practices involving sound technologies. The
term “cultural practices” deserves explanation. “Culture” is the total of ways in which people
use symbols to attribute shared and apparently self-evident meanings to the world around
them. Practices are routinized activities, which people perform in ways that are largely
taken-for-granted.
My research concentrates on a phenomenon, which in my opinion has received
insufficient attention until now, and which I call credit-giving. Credit-giving takes place within
collective practices. The term refers to the reward or acknowledgement, which partakers in a
cultural practice receive for their contributions. “Credit may include such diverse things as
financial gain, fame, admiration, attribution, gratitude, and the acknowledgement of some-
one’s effort.

In the first chapter I investigate contemporary debates about music copyright. I explain
that there exists a prevailing idea on how pop music production works, which has an air
of self-evidence around it, but the self-evidence of which is undermined by the rise of new
digital music technologies. According to this idea, pop music production works as follows: an
artist makes a song, or at least is admired for doing the creative part of the work; the recording
industry takes care of the practical side of the production process; and consumers admire the
artist, pay all partakers in the production process, and in return are enabled to listen to their
music of choice. Now that digital technologies make it ever easier for anyone to manipulate
and distribute music, this division of labor is under pressure, and this has resulted in copy-
right debates.
In these debates, the music industry relies mainly on an argument that is remarkably
old The argument in question entails that protection of copyright is necessary for fair pay-
ment of both artist and industry, and that without such payment the production of quality
music will become impossible. This argument played a leading role in the court case against
peer-to-peer software provider Grokster in 2005, but it was also the leading argument of the
music publishing industry in the first decade of the twentieth century, when sheet music pira-
cy surged in the wake of the advent of photolithography. The music industry has further used
this line of argument to denounce tape recorders, cassette recorders, DAT tapes, and CD-rs.
The rhetoric of the music industry consistently forefronts the artist; the goal of the industry
is to make it possible for the artist’s talent to manifest itself. In this way, the record companies
promote their traditional division of labor of a creative artist, a mediating industry, and a
passive consumer.
In the last decades of the twentieth century, prior to the contemporary debates on
piracy and digital music technologies, the music industry was already a target of criticism.
This criticism, however, portrayed the artist in a similar light as the rhetoric of the music
industry did. Both described the artist as a talented individual who creates music because
she has an internal drive to do so, and who should be facilitated in her creative pursuits. But
whereas the music industry presents itself as being at the artist’s service, these early critics saw
the music industry as the artist’s exploiter.
Both these views rest in the same idea on how music generates worthwhile
experiences. This idea is so seemingly self-evident that we are rarely aware of it. It presents
the relation between artist and consumer much as the relation of a sender and receiver in a
communication process, with a mediating industry in-between. Because of her talent, the

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artist is able to encode an immaterial good, like emotion or inspiration, into a song. The music
industry distributes this song to a consumer, who listens to the song, extracts the immaterial
good in the process, and has a worthwhile musical experience by result.
The most important aspect of this “metaphysics of musical communication” is the
fact that it legitimizes the prevailing ideas on credit-giving: The industry deserves a financial
reward insofar as it provides a useful service. The artist, ideally, creates songs not for the
money but from an intrinsic creative drive. Paradoxically, the artist deserves financial support
precisely for this reason, so she can pursue her noble goals full-time. The artist’s ‘real’ reward
is as immaterial as the value she creates, namely the love and admiration of her audience.
Consumers give credit in two ways. The financially reward both artist and industry and they
reward the artist with attention and admiration. In the form in which it appears in the rheto-
ric of the music industry, I call this view on credit-giving the commercial theory of appropriate
credit.
With the advent of digital music technologies, the way of understanding pop music
production described above has lost some of its apparent self-evidence, so that competing
ideas are able to thrive. I discuss four of the most important ones. A recurrent notion in the
music copyright discussions is that the increased ease and the reduced costs of music distribu-
tion enable artists to sell their music without the aid of record companies. This is thought to
generate a more level playing field for pop music artists.
A more radical opinion says that the advent of digital music technologies marks the
end of the age of the passive listener. Proponents of this view argue that the tools to make
music in a low-threshold way are now within anyone’s reach. They assume that everyone
has a desire to express themselves creatively, and that taking away the practical obstacles to
creativity will be enough to activate music lovers. Now everyone can be an artist, and amateur
music making will replace the professional practice. I call this view generalized artistry.
A third perspective is that of culture analysts, who emphasize the issue of music
lovers’ agency, that is, their freedom to act. Mostly, these scholars issue warnings about
the limiting of creative opportunities for music lovers that may result if the music industry
emerges victorious from the copyright debates.
The final viewpoint I discuss theorizes the potential future of pop music culture with
the concept of sharing economies. I discuss the work of law professor and activist Lawrence
Lessig in particular detail. He explains that musical sharing cultures are held together by a set
of norms and principles that differ from those of commercial music culture, and he makes a
beginning with investigating what these norms and principles are. He is of the opinion that
musical sharing cultures will come to exist side-by-side with the commercial production of
pop music.
Each of these new visions has implications for the issue of credit-giving. The
argument about a more level playing field for musicians still departs from the traditional
rewards for the artist, namely money and admiration, which are supplied by listeners. The
only difference is the exclusion of the corporate ‘middle man’. The viewpoint of generalized
artistry implies that no credit-giving is necessary at all. After all, removing the obstacles that
stand in the way of creativity is enough, according to this view, to activate music lovers. A
similar implication is hidden in the work of cultural scholars who propagate he agency of
music lovers. Here too, an emphasis on the obstacles surrounding creativity reinforces the
assumption that people are intrinsically driven to creative action. Only the theorists who use

169
the concept of sharing economies actually investigate the conditions that underlie individu-
als’ motivation to act creatively. They attempt to articulate the social principles that make a
durable sharing economy possible.
I distance myself from each of the viewpoints discussed, but I do so to different
degrees. In my view, the opinions of the music industry, of its twentieth century critics, and
of the proponents of the level playing field argument adhere too uncritically to the existing
ways of giving credit. In contrast to the proponents of generalized artistry and the cultural
theorists who emphasize agency, on the other hand, I think that credit-giving is indispen-
sible to keep cultural practices going. My hypothesis, therefore, is closest to the opinion
of theorists like Lessig, who try to understand the future of pop music culture using the
concept of sharing economies. My sole objection to this perspective is that its champions
try to articulate a single set of principles and norms, which they hope will apply to all of pop
music culture. My own hypothesis is that credit-giving takes place within cultural practices,
and that every successful cultural practice has its own style of credit-giving, that is, a way of
distributing reward and acknowledgement among its partakers that is uniquely suited to the
particularities of the practice in question.

In the second chapter, I investigate the history of the commercial theory of appropriate
credit, which is not only the viewpoint of the music industry, but also the prevalent way of
understanding pop music production. I begin this history with a German musical current of
modest size that existed in the second half of the eighteenth century, the Empfindsamkeit. This
current regarded music, which had previously been considered an imitation of God’s creation,
as a form of emotional communication in which artists shared their personal emotions with
an audience that prided itself in its sensitivity.
In the Romantic era, this idea spread and gained transcendental overtones. Cults of
the genius composer and of the artistic work emerged. The inspired composer was deemed to
be in contact with the realm of the eternal and to be able to capture a fragment of this higher
reality and encode it into music. The audience extracted these spiritual elements in the act of
listening, and was thereby elevated. Both the notions of musical inspiration and emotional
communication survive in present-day pop music culture. To explain how these views made
their way into the present, I focus my attention on the genesis of the recording industry.
A music industry existed prior to the recording industry. It published sheet music.
The ability of sheet music to function as a commodity was partly due to the fact that during
the Empfindsamkeit and the Romantic period certain ideas had come to dominate the dis-
course on music. Performing a composed piece at the salon piano, which was a commonplace
activity at the end of the nineteenth century, could be understood as an act of consumption,
because it seemed self-evident that the pianist tried to reproduce the immaterial good that the
composer had encoded into the piece. For this reason, sheet music was a viable commodity
rather than a collection of congenial musical suggestions.
I then focus on phonographic technology and how it became a music technology
despite the fact that Edison first sought to develop it in the direction of a dictaphone. This
redirection was due to several factors. One of these is the fact that Emile Berliner’s inno-
vation, the gramophone, made sound recordings cheaply reproducible, so that the record
player became more of a sound player than a sound recorder. The fact that public concerts
had propagated the notion that passive music listening could be a valuable experience

170
helped the gramophone become a credible music commodity. The gramophone inherited its
legitimization from sheet music – the gramophone record, too, was an immaterial good
captured in a material carrier.
A final step in the process of interweaving the recording industry and the meta-
physics of musical communication took place in the second half of the 1960s. A generation of
pop musicians emerged of whom in Great Britain a remarkable number were educated at art
schools. They composed as well as performed music, introduced originality into pop music
as an artistic value, and gave pop musicians greater artistic prestige. The so-called British
Invasion spread these ideas throughout the Western world.

The third chapter is devoted to the methodological implications of central concepts as

well as to the method of the case studies that are to be performed in the following chapters.
In relation to my main line of argumentation the following is most important: my hypo-thesis
that cultural practices need a style of credit-giving to perpetuate themselves does not imply
the idea that people only engage in creative activities if they receive a reward in return. My
point is subtler. If someone’s active contribution to a cultural practice is not recognized as
valuable by the other participants, or if others reap benefits from someone’s contribution
without acknowledging this person’s efforts, the motivation of the person in question to
remain active will dwindle.

The fourth chapter presents a case study on mix taping, the compiling of cassette tapes
with rerecorded songs. This was a sizeable practice in the 1980s and early 1990s. The tapes
were often given as gifts to the specific persons for whom they were compiled. I analyze mix
tape stories, accounts about the making, giving, or receiving of mix tapes. I found these stories
in collections of such stories and on weblogs.
In many such stories mix tape making, or mix taping, is called an art. I describe
the history of this claim and the legitimizations mix tape story writers present give for it.
Subsequently, I observe that mix tape stories are unusual, because most of the discourse on
popular music gives center stage to the artist. I suggest that the theme of mix taping as an art
form may be a rhetorical tactic to undercut the prevailing assumption that the creators of the
separate songs on the tape are responsible a the listener’s worthwhile experience. The impor-
tance of the mix taper’s role needs added emphasis. The disadvantage of this rhetorical tactic
is that it conforms to the general foregrounding of the artist as creator, and consequently
obscures other valuable aspects of mix tape making. In order to reach a more diverse descrip-
tion of the mix taping, I approach the practice from several different angles.
I begin with the angle mix tape story writers mostly choose themselves: the mix taper
as the maker of an artistic work. A good mix tape generally meets a variety of demands.
There may be an overarching theme that binds all songs together, the transitions between the
songs and their sequence must be right, the musical taste of the mix taper must be taken into
account and so must the taste of the intended recipient, and finally the timeframe offered by
the cassette tape must be used as fully as possible with a minimum of silence at the end of
each side. The result of this multitude of demands is a coherent tape of which no song can be
replaced randomly without this undermining the tape’s cohesion. In this sense a mix tape can
be considered a work, and the mix taper its author.

171
 However, a mix tape is also often a gift. In that capacity, it is subject to another set
of rules and norms. It is frowned upon, for instance, to compile identical tapes for more
than one recipient. As a personalized gift, a mix tape symbolizes and intensifies the relation-
ship between mix taper and recipient. In its capacity as a gift, furthermore, mix tapes invite
another way of credit-giving than in its capacity as an artistic work. As a work, mix tapes
evoke admiration for the craft of the mix taper. As a gift, it demands requital in the form of
personal affection.
Also, mix tapes can be tools to introduce recipients to new music. The mix taper then
takes on a role for which I have coined the term reference person, drawing an analogy with ref-
erence librarians, who help visitors find the books that will be of most use to them. Regarded
in this light, mix taping invites a third way of credit-giving, where mix tapers receive admira-
tion for their musical knowledge and gratitude for their helpful intent. The way credit is given,
then, is not uniform within the cultural practice of mix taping, and does not conform to the
commercial theory of appropriate credit. The emphasis mix tape story writers put on the
motif of the mix taper as an artistic creator is explicable, but it also obscures the value of what
mix tapers do as gift givers and reference persons.

The fifth chapter is devoted to a second case study, which analyzes the website of the
online remix community “[Link]”. What makes this remix community special is the fact
that all sound files users upload are protected under creative commons copyright licenses,
which are less restrictive than traditional copyright licenses. This enables ccMixter members
to reuse each other’s work legally, which has resulted in a distinctive remix practice, charac-
terized among other things by the production of entirely new compositions around so-called
a capellas, sound files containing only a sung melody.
I focus on a phenomenon I call the ccMixter attribution paradox. The paradox in
question is that in an environment such as ccMixter, where all musical composition obviously
involves reuse of existing musical materials, one would expect the idea of personal attribu-
tion to loose importance. The ccMixter community, however, betrays a preoccupation with
attribution.
I describe how ccmixter members use the notion of descent as a metaphor for the
relationship between compositions, and in response to this I call the act of giving attribu-
tion the role of the genealogist. The role of the genealogist differs from that of the reference
person in the foregoing chapter in that this was a specialist role, whereas ccMixter distri-
butes the responsibility for proper attribution among all its members and the website itself.
When uploading a new composition, the remixer indicates what materials were reused. The
webpage of the new remix then refers back to the materials in question with the aid of hyper-
links marked “uses samples from”. The webpage of the reused materials refers back with links
marked “samples are used in”. In this way, an archive of musical genealogical relations emerges
in the form of a hyperlink rhizome.
Besides the role of the genealogist, there is another non-specialist role, which is dis-
tributed over all ccMixter members. This is the role of the reviewer, who comments on newly
uploaded compositions. These reviews mainly consist of variations on praise. The good man-
ners of the ccmixter community are striking. Occasionally, carefully worded, constructive
criticism occurs. Conversely, the commentaries remixers can append to the compositions
they upload display modesty.

172
 I conclude that ccMixter active members take on a triple role. They are remixers,
genealogists, and reviewes at the same time. This division of labor underpins the style of
credit-giving that keeps ccMixter going. Positive reviews invite positive reviews in return,
and make uploading new mixes rewarding, whereas careful attribution of reused materials
undercuts the risk that community members begin to feel that others reap the benefits of their
work.

The sixth chapter presents the third and final case study, which investigates the cultural
practice of deejaying by analyzing interviews I conducted with several DJs. As my point of
departure, I compare two types of DJ. Later in the chapter I will redirect my focus to what
both types have in common. The first type of DJ uses analogue gramophone records, plays
older pop music or jazz, and does not mix songs together. The second type is the ‘normal’ DJ,
who uses contemporary technologies, plays recent music, mixes songs together, and usually
produces dance music as well.
I observe that the DJs of the first category have a lower status and that they receive
little attention in the academic literature. I show how this is the result of a prevalent fore-
grounding of the role of the artistic creator, which is itself due to the persistent influence of the
commercial theory of appropriate credit. A DJ who mixes songs together intervenes deeply
in the musical material and may be regarded as an artist for that reason, and a DJ-producer is
considered to be a bona fide creator, but a traditional DJ is seen as ‘merely’ the provider of a
service.
After describing the practice of DJs of the first ‘conservationist’ type, as well as the
charms of the gramophone record, I focus my attention on this difference in status once more,
and conclude that the value of deejaying is apparently measured with the aid of standards
more appropriate for traditional pop music artists. This does not do justice to the practice of
the ‘conservationist’ DJs, but it is not fair to mix DJs and DJ-producers either. This leads to the
question what makes deejaying valuable as deejaying, instead of as a more or less successful
imitation of traditional music creation. To answer this question I direct my attention to what
both types of DJ have in common.
The DJs I interviewed have very similar opinions on the issue of what makes some-
one a good DJ. The most important element of deejaying is being able to steer the atmosphere
of a party in the right direction. The primary tool DJs have for doing this is record selection.
With a reference to the early DJ practice of the Jamaican sound systems, which had specific
DJs specialized in choosing the next record, one could call this the craft of the selector.
In his capacity as a selector, a DJ needs to have a good ‘antenna’ for the mood on
the dance floor, to which he must react with subtlety. To generate a euphoric atmosphere a
constant dialogue between DJ and crowd is necessary, such that the DJ responds to the crowd,
the crowd responds to the next record, and the DJ responds to this reaction. By gradually
playing faster or more intense music, a DJ can bring a party to an ecstatic climax, but he
must also anticipate the onset of fatigue on the dance floor. This subtle craft of the selector is
largely obscured by the influence of the commercial theory of appropriate credit and its fore-
grounding of the role of the artistic creator.

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 In the seventh and final chapter, I draw conclusions on the basis of the foregoing
studies. I consider four statements to be sufficiently supported. First, the details of a cultural
practice matter with regard to credit-giving. Therefore a single overarching theory of credit-
giving which applies to all of pop music culture will never be able to do justice to the details
of the different practices in pop music culture. Second, styles of credit-giving are necessary
to keep cultural practices going. Third, the persistent influence of the commercial theory
of appropriate credit, with its foregrounding of the role of the artistic creator, leads to an
obscuration of many important contributions and contributors to cultural practices. Fourth,
the evidence assembled suggests that the commercial theory of appropriate credit suppresses
alternative styles of credit-giving, and thus makes it more difficult for cultural practices aside
from commercial music production to thrive. As final observations, I notice that there are
interesting similarities between the points I have made and the last work of philosopher
Michel Foucault, and I observe that besides the metaphysics of musical communication other
elements of Romanticism have survived into the present, such as a preoccupation with history
and tradition. This Romantic remnant has not survived in a dominant discourse, but within a
multitude of specific cultural practices.

174
175
176
 Appendix A: The Analyzed Mix Tape Stories
and their Numbering



Stories from Mix Tape, The art of cassette culture, edited by Thurston Moore

[1] Thurston Moore: “Indoctrination”, pp.14-15.

[2] Lasse Marhaug, untitled, p.16.
[3] Pat Griffin: “It’s a sickness, really, this compiling, p.18.
[4] Ahmet Zappa: “Warning, sensitive pussies should not listen to this awesome
set of ditties, p.19.
[5] Karen Lollypop, untitled, p.20.
[6] Mike Watt, untitled, p.21.
[7] Glen E. Friedman, untitled, p.22.
[8] Dean Wareham: “In the future, when social scientists study the mix tape
phenomenon, they will conclude – in fancy language – that the mix tape was a
form of “speech” particular to the late twentieth century, soon replaced by
the “play list”, pp.28-30.
[9] Naomi Yang, untitled, p.31.
[10] Damon Krukowski, untitled, p.31.
[11] Matias Viegener: “The mix tape as a form of American folk art”, p.35.
[12] Lili Dwight: “Bloot-O. Snug. Margarine Hoot. What a Wonderful Doughnut.
Tape for Grey. Gal Punk.”, p.36.
[13] Mac McCaughan, untitled, p.37.
[14] Dodie Bellamy, untitled, p.38.
[15] Thurston Moore: “Love (& Ego)”, p.45.
[16] Jim O’Rourke, untitled, p.44.
[17] Leah Singer, untitled, p.45.
[18] Ryan McGinness, untitled, pp.46-48.
[19] Jutta Koether, untitled, p.50.
[20] Richard Kern, untitled, p.51.
[21] John Miller, untitled, p.53.
[22] Georganne Deen, untitled, p.53.
[23] Sue de Beer, untitled, p.54.
[24] Sharon Cheslow, untitled, p.55.
[25] Slim Moon, untitled, p.56.

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 [26] Allison Anders: “I have so many mix tape stories it’s hard to know
where to begin”, pp.62-63.
[27] Mary Gaitskill, untitled, pp.64-65.
[28] Thurston Moore: “Mixellaneous”, p.68.
[29] Camden Joy, untitled, p.72.
[30] Brett McCabe, untitled, p.73.
[31] Christian Schumann, untitled, p.74.
[32] Glen E. Friedman, untitled, p.75.
[33] Jade Gordon, untitled, p.77.
[34] Daniella Meeker: “Goodbye’s too good a word: Five byproducts of a
break-up mix”, p.78.
[35] John Sinclair, untitled, p.79.
[36] Kate Spade, untitled, p.80.
[37] Andy Spade, untitled, p.81.
[38] Tony Conrad, untitled, p.82.

Stories from weblogs

[39] A., “And I Will Name Her Rock and Roll,” Life of a Harpy [Link]
[Link]/2005/09/[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[40] Anna, “Missing Mix Tapes,” Lucky Luciano [Link]
com/2005/10/[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[41] Patrick Banks, “The Art of the Mix Tape - Patrick Banks Style,” Keep Your Coils
Clean. [Link]
[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[42] Sara Bir, “Mix Emotions: the Mix Tape, Cultural Touchstone of the Analogue
Generation,” Metroactive [Link]
[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[43] Heather Browne, “I Miss Mix Tapes,” I am Fuel, You are Friends [Link]
[Link]/2005/12/[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[44] Hud Callahan, “Hey, Remember Mix Tapes?” An Athletic Melancholy Lad who
Reads too Much [Link]
[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[45] Barrett Chase, “Philosophy of the Mix,” The Product [Link]
com/2005/10/philosophy_of_the_mix.html Available 19-05-2006.
[46] Darth Mogs, “The Venerable Art of the Mix Tape,” Diary of the Mad Pigeon
[Link]
[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[47] Dave, “Travailing in Front of the Tape Deck,” Channeled Opinions [Link]
[Link]/2005/08/[Link]
Available 19-05-2006.
[48] Diana, “I Heart Mix Tapes,” [Link] [Link]
[Link]/[Link] Available 19-05-2006.

178
[49] Fritz, “Remember Mix Tapes?” On the Fritz: Observations of modern life
[Link]
Available 19-05-2006.
[50] “iMix, reMix, we allMix for Mix ‘Tapes’” [Link]
perry032/impossible/imix_remix_we_allmix.html Available 10-01-2006.
[51] Jabartlett, “Mix and Match,” The Hits Just Keep on Coming [Link]
[Link]/2005/06/[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[52] Jeanne, “The Long Lost Art of the Mix Tape,” Out and Back. A Collection of
the Workings of One Woman’s Mind [Link]
blog/2005/09/the_long_lost_a.html Available 19-05-2006.
[53] Jim, “The Halcyon Days of the Maxell Xlii 90,” 11 a.m. Air Raid
[Link]
Available 19-05-2006.
[54] Joelpants, “Mix Tapes,” [Link] [Link]
com/[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[55] Ron Kane, “The Cassette Project, Part 2,” 20th Century Music
[Link]
Available 19-05-2006.
[56] Maelstrom, “Time to Answer... “ It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Whirl [Link]
[Link]/[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[57] Martine, “Still Crazy after All These Years,” [Link] [Link]
[Link]/blog/2005/05/[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[58] Merle, “Mix Tapes,” The Book of Merle [Link]
html Available 19-05-2006.
[59] Joey Michaels, “The Annotated Rockgrrll Tape,” The Journal of Joey Michaels
[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[60] Modernache, “Just Take Me Anywhere in the World Tonight,” The Modern Ache
[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[61] Monochromatic, “Mix Tapes,” Bad Tempered Prom Queen [Link]
[Link]/[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[62] Paulie, “Mix Tape as Muse,” Never Trust a Hippy [Link]
com/2005/06/[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[63] PeaceLove, “Jaw-Dropping Technology,” PeaceLove’s Musings
[Link]
Available 19-05-2006.
[64] Perry, “Imix, Remix, We Allmix for Mix Tapes,” [Link]
perry032/impossible/imix_remix_we_allmix.html Available 10-01-2006.
[65] Punchbowl, “Mixed Up,” National Headache [Link]
com/2005/11/[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[66] Purplebunny, [Link] [Link]
html Available 19-05-2006.
[67] Rabbit Ears, “Minimum Wage! The Great Mix Tape Debate (Side B),” Minimum
Wage [Link]
tape-debate_07.html Available 19-05-2006.
[68] Ryansenseless, The Truth is in the Details [Link]
[Link] Available 19-05-2006.

179
 [69] Silver Turtle, “Mix Tapes,” The Silver Turtle [Link]
com/2005/07/[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[70] Tazzy Star, “Mix Tape for Memorial Day,” Quarter Life Crisis [Link]
[Link]/2005/06/[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[71] Steve, “I Make Awesome Mix Tapes,” the Stevenomicon [Link]
com/[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[72] ShuffleFunction “Lots of Random Junk,” Pop Music as Pornography [Link]
[Link]/2005/06/[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[73] Steve Stinson, “Cassette Culture,” Nice Comfy Fur [Link]
com/2005/06/[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[74] Brian Stosuy, “High Fidelity: from a to B and Back Again: This Is Your Corre-
spondent, Running out of Mix Tapes,” The Village Voice [Link]
music/0524,essay,64876,[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[75] Ultrastar175g, “Perfect Timing. Mix-Tapes Rip. Long Live the Digital Age,”
Paradise Circus [Link]
[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[76] Wes, “Christmas Mix Cd,” Smash the Machine [Link]
com/2005/12/[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[77] Brad Wolfe, “Mix Tapes,” [Link] [Link]
com/2005/11/[Link] Available 19-05-2006.
[78] Daisy Wreath, “Now with Less Drama and Crazy Mix Cds!” Rough Around the
Edges [Link]
crazy-mix-cds/ Available 19-05-2006.
[79] Yvette, “Mixin’ It up - Supergoober/Pulnb Tag Team Quiz,” Yvette’s Journal http://
[Link]/[Link] Available 19-05-2006.

Stories from the website [Link]

[80] “Anna: Und jetzt kommt etwas, was mich an dunkele Zeiten erinnert”
Available 09-01-2006.
[81] “Andrè: Nur ein Stück Musik” Available 09-01-2006.
[82] “Björn: Man hat einfach mitgeschnitten was lief ” Available 09-01-2006.
[83] “Britte: So ein Zusammenhörigkeitsgefühl” Available 09-01-2006.
[84] “Doris: Das hier bin ich, und das ist meine Musik” Available 09-01-2006.
[85] “Elke: ‘Independence’” Available 09-01-2006.
[86] “Holger: Ich wurde nie eine Mix-Kassette wegschmeissen” Available 09-01-2006.
[87] “Jonas: Es muss was Überraschendes kommen” Available 09-01-2006.
[88] “Kathrin: Mädchen drücken dan einfach auf Aufnahme” Available 09-01-2006.
[89] “Kirsten: Schöne Musik kennenlernen” Available 09-01-2006.
[90] “Lena: Neuer Kontext, neue Assoziation” Available 09-01-2006.
[91] “Markus: Ein Lebenszeichen geben” Available 09-01-2006.
[92] “Martin: Einfach so eine Art Audio-Lebensgefühl” Available 09-01-2006.
[93] “Meike: Das ist ja schon was persönliches” Available 09-01-2006.
[94] “Niels: Ein Archiv” Available 09-01-2006.

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[95] ”Raphaela: Die Kassette lebt mit” Available 09-01-2006.
[96] “Sophie: Will er mir mit diesem Lied etwas sagen?” Available 09-01-2006.
[97] “Steven: Grüne Songs” Available 09-01-2006.
[98] “Steven: Ich muss jetzt mal deine Seele retten” Available 09-01-2006.
[99] “Stefan: Manchmal bin ich an so einem Punkt, da kann ich einfach nicht mehr,
dann ist das richtig ekelhaft” Available 09-01-2006.
[100] “Thomas: Ich möchte natürlich, dass sie sich gern an mich erinnern” Available
09-01-2006.

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182
 Appendix B: The DJs Interviewed

Alias or Name Abbreviation Date Transcription Type of

type° interview

Bas Aaftink* [BA] 23-01-2009 [2] In person

Alain Fènèr [AF] 23-10-2008 [1] In person
DJ Beatific [Btf] 30-01-2009 [2] In person
DJ Blue Flamingo [BF] 26-09-2008 [1] Over phone
Mr. Boogaloo [Bgl] 20-10-2008 [2] In person
Charley Rhythm [CR] 10-11-2008 [2] In person
Cornelis Prul [CP] 17-10-2008 [2] In person
Berry van Diepen* [BvD] 07-11-2008 [2] In person
Harmen Ebbinge* [HE] 28-01-2009 [2] In person
DJ Jarno [Jar] 22-01-2009 [2] In person
Johnny Smoke [JS] 27-10-2008 [2] In person
Kid Goesting [KG] 25-09-2008 [1] In person
DJ Rien [Rien] 13-11-2008 [2] In person
DJ Slowpoke [Slo] 23-10-2008 [2] In person
Peter Smit* [PS] 30-09-2008 [2] In person
DJ Stephan [Ste] 08-11-2008 [2] In person
Michiel Stoter* [MS] 22-10-2008 [2] In person
DJ TLM [TLM] 26-01-2009 [2] In person
DJ Tommi [Tom] 27-01-2009 [2] In person

° Type 1 indicates full transcription. Type 2 indicates detailed indexing of the topics
discussed per time unit and transcription of potential citations.
* This is the DJ’s real name.

183
184
 Appendix C: The Original Dutch for the
Citations Taken from DJ Interviews

p.115
Dus wat is er zo mooi aan mensen die los gaan?
Ja [lacht]. Dat is gewoon prachtig, dat is alsof je… (…) De magic touch de magic ding, dat kun
je met muziek dus ook hebben en dan gaan mensen in een keer iets doen wat ze normaal niet
doen. En dat is gewoon lekker de energie vrijlaten die ze in zich hebben. En lekker dansen en
ja, zo mooi! [AF]

Maar een ander belachelijk voorbeeld is dat een keer op een undergroundfeestje hier in
Utrecht was een aantal jongens een circle pit, mosh pit achtig iets dans flauwekul aan het
doen. En drie meter verderop gaf een meisje haar vriend een lap dance. Op hetzelfde nummer
op hetzelfde moment. Ja, als je daar dan staat te draaien, dat is zo’n kick, dat is belachelijk.
Het spoort ook niet met elkaar en dat vrije, dat is ook wat ik er heel erg tof aan vind. [Tom]

p. 120
Sinds Ableton live bestaat is het echt kinderspel om muziek te manipuleren. Vroeger moest
je eerst echt kei en keihard oefenen en vaardigheden opbouwen om het echt goed te kunnen.
Dat is tegenwoordig niet meer. Vandaar ook dat er zoveel troep is, omdat er veel minder aan-
dacht wordt besteed aan de mixage en hoe het uit je speakers komt en… Ik bedoel, ja, je drukt
op ‘render’ en het mp3tje, of wav filetje staat klaar voor je en that’s it. Vroeger zaten daar nog
heel veel schakels tussen. Op die manier is het een beetje verloederd geraakt denk ik en heb je
ook zo’n typische Ableton Live sound. [MS]

p. 121
Ja nee, er zijn legio voorbeelden en setjes die ik in clubs heb gehoord waarvan ik wist, nou,
hele toffe producer, die wil ik wel eens live zien. En dan ging ‘ie deejayen en dan was het echt
dramatisch. Het is natuurlijk een compleet ander eh… ander element. [Jar]

Ik heb het wel eens uitgezocht met BTW. Andere DJ’s die zetten zes procet op een factuur en
ik negentien. En het is een beetje een grijs gebied, maar het bleek dat als je als plaatjes maakt,
dan kan je zes procent rekenen. En als je gewoon plaatjes draait, dan lever je een dienst, en
dan is het negentien procent. Dus dat is het verschil. Bij de ene ben je echt een artiest en bij de
andere ben je een dienstverlener. [CR]

Maar dat zie je sowieso ook binnen de house scene, dat er maar een paar mensen zijn die echt
de liedjes maken. En dat de rest vaak toch maar zijn naam erachter mag zetten. ‘Hee, jij kunt
wel goed muziek maken, als ik jou zoveel geld geef en dan zet ik mijn naam eronder’. DJ Jean
is toch wel het meest simpele voorbeeld. Die laat door een studio van de Klubbheads zijn
muziek maken. En die zal wel even her en der zeggen van ja, dat klinkt wel goed en misschien

185
moet je dat effe zo doen en that’s it. En dan komt er weer een nieuwe plaat van hem uit. Maar
zo zet hij zich wel goed in de markt. Zo blijft hij bekend en zo wordt hij geboekt. [HE]

p. 122
Iemand als Tiësto, bijvoorbeeld, die zit in de studio naast iemand die voor hem de muziek
maakt (...) Dan zetten ze zijn naam erboven, Tiësto, want dan verkoopt het. En hij zit er alleen
maar naast om aanwijzingen te geven. [KG]

Een jaar of acht geleden ben ik echt weer gegrepen door dat, hoe noem je het, een virus, het
vinylvirus. (…) En zo ook in mijn cafeetje waar ik heel veel ben, daar hebben we ook allemaal
dat virus. (…) Ja, het is in ons stamcafé zeg maar begonnen inderdaad en dat breidt zich lang-
zaam uit. Ja, dat is echt heel grappig. Dat zijn steeds meer mensen die erbij komen. (…) Ook
qua publiek, maar ook qua mensen die willen gaan draaien. [Ste]

Vinyl zal langer blijven! Vinyl heeft een meer intrinsieke waarde dan… Een CD is een schijfje.
Een plaat dat blijft iets. [AF]

p. 123
Nou ja, sowieso, met zo’n hoes kan je meer. Dus je kan dingen doen die je met een CD niet
kan. Dus Led Zeppelin III waar je het kan draaien, met zo’n spirograph-achtig ding, dat kan
niet. Sticky Fingers, met een rits, dat kan niet. Weet ik veel wat. Look at Yourself, met zo’n
spiegel, van Uriah Heap, dat kan niet met een… nou ja… Dus er zijn dingen die je met een
hoes kan. En het is niet voor niks, Andy Warhol en zo met die ontwerpen ook, dat zijn kunst-
producten, gewoon. En dat heb je met een CD-hoesje… nou ja, het is anders. [Rien]

Wat mij met name aanspreekt is de kwetsbaarheid van dat materiaal. Dus je moet er enorm
goed voor zorgen en echt voorzichtig mee zijn. Een medeverzamelaar heeft ooit tegen mij
gezegd toen ik hiermee begon: als je echt ziek wordt als net die ene plaat die niet mag breken
breekt, dan moet je echt vingerhoedjes gaan verzamelen. Eens in de zoveel tijd gebeurt dat
gewoon, dat net die ene plaat die niet mag breken, dat die dan breekt, toch. Zo denk ik nog
terug aan Dizzy Gillespie Monteca de eerste persing, dat ik die in mijn handen had en dat ‘ie
brak. Er zat klaarblijkelijk al een haarscheurtje in ofzo. Die dingen die gebeuren gewoon. [BF]

En het feit dat het geluid niet perfect is, bijvoorbeeld. Dat vinden mensen ook heel veel… Ja,
herkennen ze ook een waarde in. Dus dat het ook duidelijk is dat het trans… Ik weet niet hoe
ik het moet zeggen. Misschien wel dat het onvolmaakt is ofzo. Dat heeft ook wel weer wat.
Het is ook muziek, ofzo. Muziek hoort ook niet volmaakt te zijn. Het leeft, hè? Muziek leeft.
Vinyl leeft. [Rien]

Die muziek, die is gevangen, in de plaat, maar zodra je het afspeelt is het weer onzichtbaar
in de ruimte. Muziek is een van de meest intense, maar ook een van de meest ongrijpbare
kunststromingen die er is. [BF]

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p. 124
Ja, weet je, maar dat je… Ik heb me altijd verbaasd hoe dat ook werkt, weet je. Zo’n grote
zwarte plaat met allemaal groeven erin. En je zet er dan iets op en dan komt er geluid uit. Ik
vond dat iets fenomenaals ofzo wat dat dan heeft. [Bgl]

Het heeft natuurlijk wel te maken met de kraakjes en dat het zo groot is en dat er een mooi
hoesje omheen zit en bij bijna iedere plaat weet ik ook nog wanneer ik hem kreeg en hoe
dat ookalweer ging enzo. Ja, dat heeft toch wel echt te maken met, ja, gewoon echt pure
nostalgie. Dat is gewoon echt gewoon de gedachten erachter enzo. Of dat je op een feest staat,
dat die naald skipt, weet je wel, en dat gewoon in één keer dertig seconden van de track is
overgeslagen, maar dat dat gebeurt omdat mensen zó hard aan het dansen zijn en dat ‘ie dat
overslaat weet je wel. Nou, dat is gewoon prachtig. Enne, dat verbindt je dan allemaal met iets
materialistisch. [Btf]

Bijvoorbeeld op die ska-singletjes zou ik dat nooit doen, die zijn 30/40/50 euro per stuk
waard. En die zijn blijven hangen ergens en een andere DJ had die en die dacht die ziet mij
nooit meer terug. Maar ik ben erachter gekomen wie die singletjes had, een doosje. En dat was
ook een DJ, vinyl-DJ ook, en die heeft daar met een witte stift zíjn code op zitten schrijven.
Nou, en toen ik ze terugkreeg voelde dat echt alsof een hond tegen mijn been had gepist of op
mijn platen had gepist. Zo voelde dat en ik maakte me er heel kwaad om. [CR]

Kijk, een plaat is en dat loopt en zeker als je een LP opzet, dan loop je de nummers af. Terwijl
bij een CD-speler kun je heel makkelijk skip skip skip. En dat is juist datgene, dat je een plaat
luistert en dat je… voor een plaat neem je rust. [AF]

Dat maakt een single voor mij, van begin tot eind… als hij afgelopen is dan gebeurt er ook
niks meer. Dus in het begin, dan begint ‘ie, en daarna is het af. [BA]

p. 125
Omdat je je bewust bent van dat het iets is wat maar in een beperkte tijd gemaakt is, net als
postzegels. Het zijn gewoon grote postzegels eigenlijk. Het hoesje ziet er mooi uit. Het is een
tijdsbeeld. Je kunt het draaien. Ik vind het tien keer leuker dan postzegels verzamelen, vind
ik. [BvD]

Nou kijk, qua geluid zal vinyl ook altijd anders zijn dan een CD, natuurlijk. Het heeft gewoon
een wat warmer geluid, weet je. Ik bedoel, men kan natuurlijk zeggen dat een CD ‘beter’
geluid heeft, maar de warmte van vinyl krijg je niet zo gauw uit een CDtje [TLM]

Ja, een single dat is één liedje. Dus één parel, het vertegenwoordigt één kleur en één gevoel.
Tenminste, voor mij, een album, ik vind dat nummer leuk of dat nummer, maar een single is
een totaal op zichzelf staand ding. (…) En dat maakt het ding absoluut uniek, omdat het is één
nummer op één plaatje op één zwart dingetje. (…) Je kunt het niet combineren zoals dat je
meerdere nummers van een artiest op een CDtje kunt branden om vervolgens af te luisteren,
dat kan niet. Je hebt een uniek apparaat nodig om hem op af te spelen, wat veel mensen niet
meer hebben. En het is over het algemeen het hitnummer van een album of een artiest. Dus
het is een soort… het is het mooiste meisje van de klas, zeg maar…. [BA]

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Ik heb het gevoel dat als je het op singletje hebt, dan heb je het echt. [BvD]

p. 126
Ik verklap wel bij de Balkansets heb ik wel alle nummers die ik verzameld had op vinyl ook
op CD gezet. Puur voor het gemak van het draaien, zodat je sneller kan inspelen. Bovendien,
ik drink tijdens het draaien en dan wil vinyl zo na drie uur wel lasting worden. En het gemak
van CD is gewoon veel groter. [Tom]

Voor mij persoonlijk heeft een draaitafel, met vinyl, heeft iets wat een CD-speler nooit zal
hebben. En dat is namelijk, hoe zal ik het zeggen… Als ik als DJ of turntablist met een
draaitafel bezig ben dat zie ik toch bijna als een soort organisch iets. Want het beweegt echt.
Ik heb mijn hand op iets wat beweegt. Ik manipuleer het. En met een CD-speler druk ik op
een paar knopjes. En beweeg ik mijn hand over een stilstaand plakje rubber. Voor mij voelt
zo’n CD-speler als iets doods, terwijl een draaitafel voor mij iets levends inhoudt. [TLM]

Maar het feit dat je gewoon een singletje hebt, ja, dat zegt gewoon wel dat je het gewoon… je
best hebt moeten doen, anders kun je geen singletje vinden van iets dat je mooi vindt. [Bgl]

p. 127
Ik heb in een artikel al ooit gezegd dat ik vroeger altijd archeoloog wilde worden en dat is ook
zo. Ik hou nog steeds van geschiedenis. En dan is het gewoon onvermijdelijk dat je gewoon
heel erg diep graaft.(…) En als je 78-toerenplaten verzameld dan zit je net die ene laag dieper
in de tijd. Ja, als je dan bijvoorbeeld echt pianorollen gaat verzamelen dan is het helemaal…
Dat is bijna detectivewerk is dat. Maar dat wordt dit ook al bijna. [BF]

Je hebt bijna een… kun je dat zeggen… een archeologisch ding in je hand, zeg maar. Het is
tastbaar. [CR]

De drager van de muziek herbergt ook een belangrijk gedeelte van het gevoel. (…) En om iets
in handen te hebben wat uit negentien, wat is het?, negentiendriënzestig… Ja, dat is toch echt
elf jaar gemaakt voordat ik geboren ben. En de muziek dan waarschijnlijk nog een of twee
jaar eerder. En om dat dan in handen te hebben en… als fysieke drager… en het nummer,
dat je herkent. (…) Het is een muzikale foto van een gevoel van toen, of waar mensen op dat
moment mee bezig waren. [BA]

p. 128
Het is in zekere zin een verslaving. Nou, bij mij speelt de behoefte, dat was bij de radio ook
een… mensen platen te laten horen van… Nou, moet je dit nou toch eens horen dan. Er-
voor te zorgen dat bepaalde onbekende muziek niet helemaal in het niet verzinkt. Is het een
roeping? Ach. Een roeping is het onderzoek dat ik hier doe, maar goed. Maar misschien is het
ook een roeping. [CP]

Ja, als we het dan voornamelijk over dat 78 toerenverhaal… als vinyl-DJ zag ik mezelf de
laatste jaren vooral als entertainer, dus dat je mensen vermaakt. En met het 78 toerengebeuren
zie ik mezelf ook wel als iemand een beetje ook met een missie. Dat klinkt misschien een
beetje eng, maar ja, ik hou zoveel van die oude muziek, en ik zou het zo jammer vinden als

188
sommige dingen gewoon verloren gaan. Dat iemand die in de jaren negentig eigenlijk gewoon
alleen maar in de toekomst keek en wilde vernieuwen nu tien jaar later eigenlijk iemand is die
probeert dingen die verloren dreigen te gaan eigenlijk weer boven te brengen. [BF]

Ik vind niet dat het iets educatiefs is wat ik doe, maar het heeft wel iets van conserveren.
Een beetje alsof je een museum aan het maken bent. (…) Kijk, vanaf het moment dat ik ze
heb worden singletjes niet meer slechter. Terwijl alles wat er circuleert, zeg maar, op rom-
melmarkten enzo, dat wordt alleen maar beroerder. Dus ik heb wel het idee dat ik dingen
conserveer, ja. [BvD]

p. 129
[Ik draai] zoveel mogelijk echte hitjes (…) Omdat het vermakelijk is voor veel mensen om
naar te luisteren, omdat ze het herkennen en op kunnen dansen. (…) Het is ook een heel sterk
tijdsbeeld. (…) Mensen hebben dan een, hoe noem je dat, gemeenschappelijk geheugen ofzo.
Iedereen weet, oh, da’s dat nummer. Da’s leuk. [BA]

Die retro-muziek heeft ook een groot ‘oh ja’-gehalte [Ste]

In principe ben je als DJ in dienst van de muziek. En in dienst van het publiek. Beide. Als
DJ is het jouw taak, verplichting, idee om de muziek die gemaakt is hoorbaar te maken aan
mensen, opvoeden vind ik wat te ver gezegd, maar wel in ieder geval laten kennismaken-met.
[P.S.]

Ik ben meer iemand van… je kunt dan beter iemand omringen met een warme handdoek dan
dat je met een koude handdoek in hun gezicht slaat. En zeker als je mensen iets mooi wil laten
vinden, dan werkt dat gewoon veel beter. [Slo]

Ik vind het altijd boeiend om mensen dingen te laten horen die ze nog niet kennen die ze
zonder jouw DJ-context misschien helemaal niet zouden waarderen, maar dat dan binnen de
context die jij schept het kwartje valt [J.S.]

p. 130
Het leuke is dat je nu ziet dat de DJ meer als artiest wordt gezien. En dat is ook eigenlijk wel
terecht. DJ’s die produceren en dergelijke, dat is… in feite trekken die alleen maar de lijn door
dat deejayen altijd al meer was dan alleen plaatjes draaien. (…) Dat deden ze in het verleden
ook al maar niemand zag het zo. [Rien]

Nou, je bent niet als artiest bezig. En zo voelt het ook niet.
Waarom niet?
De artiest is degene die de plaat gemaakt heeft. Ik ben alleen degene die het wereldkundig
maakt aan het publiek wat er naar wil luisteren. En dan ben je eerder iemand in dienst van de
plaat en van het publiek dan dat de plaat in dienst is van jou. [P.S.]

een zeer tijdelijk kunstwerk[CP]

189
 Mensen maken zich binnen de dance scene weinig zorgen over al die termen, hè?
Heel weinig. [M.S.]

p. 131
Ik bedenk heel veel vantevoren, alleen de ervaring is, dat komt nooit tot uitvoering. (…) Ja,
dan past die plaat toch beter op dat moment dan wat ik bedacht had, zeg maar. (…) Nee,
daarom heb ik ook altijd een verschrikkelijke hekel aan tenten waar ze met computers draai-
en. Ja, er staat daar een computer aan en die kan niks. Die staat wel muziek te spelen, maar die
kan niks met gevoel doen. Die ziet niet wat voor mensen er in de zaal zijn. [Ste]

Hoe schat je de kans in dat DJen over 10 – 20 jaar als praktijk nog bestaat?
Oh, dat zal nog wel blijven bestaan. Een computer kan technisch hele mooie overgangen
maken, kan technisch hele mooie sets maken, maar wat een computer niet kan is de sfeer
van een zaal of een feest inschatten. En dan heb je toch altijd menselijke handelingen nodig
om sets in te starten, of om te selecteren. Want een computer met emotie is er nog niet. [P.S.]

Nee, maar improviseren is eh… Je moet natuurlijk wel een beetje weten wat je in je koffer hebt
zitten, dat weet je toch wel denk ik. Je moet altijd plaatselijk besluiten: nu is de zaal hier aan
toe. En niet je riedel afdraaien. [CP]

Ik heb wel eens DJs gezien en die hadden thuis bij wijze van spreken al een hele set
uitgeschreven. Maar zo werkt het gewoon niet. Het is aanvoelen. [JS]

[H]et is voor mij heel erg sfeerwerk. Heel erg hier en nu.[Slo]

p. 132
Want je hebt wel DJ-software die de beat voor je bepaalt en liedje synchroniseert en
dergelijke.
Klopt. En zelfs met die software zou je nog het onderscheid kunnen maken tussen een goeie
en een slechte DJ, want, al zou de software voor jou mixen, jij moet nog steeds degene zijn
die ervoor zorgt dat de plaatkeuze correct is om het feest in een bepaalde lijn bijvoorbeeld
van opbouw naar, ja een wat hyper niveau tot aan een hoogtepunt te brengen. En dat niet dat
programma niet voor jou. [TLM]

Maar dat is het mooie, vind ik ook, van muziek. En dus van… wat dat vind ik dan als DJ ook
het leuke eraan. Dat wat je als DJ kan is mensen echt in brede zin al die werelden die muziek
kan creëren voortoveren, zeg maar. Daar waar je dat als artiest, als muzikant gewoon nooit
zou kunnen. Omdat je nooit een band of iets kan maken (…) wat zo totaal divers kan zijn. Die
hele regenboog, die kun je als band nooit maken. [Rien]

In Jamaica had je selectors. Da’s natuurlijke een leuke. Heb ik ook op mijn site: record
selector. [CR]

Ik zie ook veel meer een analogie naar de reggae-DJ. Heb je vaak sound systems waar dan
meerdere DJ’s tegelijkertijd draaien, waarvan je de MC hebt, degene die over de platen heen-
praat. Je hebt dan de echte DJ, dat is degene met de skills, die draait de ene plaat over in de

190
andere plaat. Maar wat uiteindelijk denk ik het belangrijkste is, in iedere geval voor de feesten
waar ik draai, is de selector, degene die de platen uitzoekt en in de juiste volgorde op de
avond klaarlegt. En dan, tuurlijk, de technische skills horen er ook bij, want om de hele tijd
slechte mixen te maken, dat breekt iets af op een avond, maar het is niet essentieel. Het is geen
essentiële voorwaarde. En de selector is dat wel voor mijn gevoel. [Tom]

p. 133
Het gaat mij er meer om dat ik een bepaald gevoel kan creëren, ofzo, in een club. Gewoon
waar mensen zich prettig bij voelen. En dan is het ook weer heel bepalend wat voor tijdstip je
staat te draaien natuurlijk. Ja, wat ik zeg, als je de eerste twee uur van de avond draait, dan vind
ik het heel lekker om juist warmte te brengen, zodat mensen lekker binnenkomen, gewoon
lekker relaxed, lekker een beetje inkomen op de avond. En dan daarna gaan we knallen. [Jar]

Ik heb in een paar café’s hier in Zwolle waar ik ook wel eens draai, daar weet je gewooon, daar
wordt niet gedanst, dat zijn gewoon meer restaurant/bar-achtige dingtjes. (…) Maar als je ziet
dat mensen met het hoofd meeknikken op de muziek weet je: voor hier is dat voldoende. Maar
zoals gisteravond, dan is mijn avond niet compleet voordat het dak eraf gaat. Dan moeten ze
allemaal van voor naar achter gewoon lekker staan te dansen. [Ste]

Als ik de muziek hoor die ik aan het draaien ben, dat is de muziek die ik ook leuk vind, dan
geeft dat mij al energie. Dan kan ik al niet als de een of andere zoutzak achter die draaitafels
staan. [TLM]

p. 134
Okee, nou dan heb je in ieder geval, als die mensen dus ontvankelijk zijn dan voel je… ja dit
is heel stom maar misschien zul je het wel vaker horen, dan voel je een energie voel je door
die zaal gaan. Het is actie en reactie. Ik draai een plaat, mensen reageren, het komt weer
terug naar mij, dat geeft mij weer een gevoel, dat bepaalt bij mij welke plaat ik vervolgens ga
draaien. En dat bepaalt ook de opbouw, eh, de volgorde van een set. Als ik merk dat ik teveel
piek en dat de mensen moe beginnen te worden dan krijg ik dat terug want dan krijg je dus
minder energie terug. Dus dan weet je dat je minder energie moet gaan uitdelen. Dat je even
moet gaan inzakken en dan weer de volgende golf maken, maar dat is allemaal puur gevoel.
[BF]

Nee, ik kan het nog beter zeggen: wat belangrijk is, en als het goed gaat gebeurt het ook, is
dat je heel veel energie terugkrijgt van je publiek. Zoveel zelfs dat je gewoon zelf echt weer
helemaal hype ervan wordt. Weet je, als je die wisselwerking hebt, dan geeft het je zo’n goed
gevoel. Ik geef jullie iets en jullie geven mij weer iets terug, waardoor ik jullie alleen maar nog
meer wil geven en jullie geven mij gewoon ook nog meer terug. Ik heb gigs gehad waar ik even
hard achter mijn draaitafel stond te springen als het publiek in de zaal, gewoon omdat je zelf
ook zo enthousiast wordt door de energie die je terugkrijgt. En ja, dat is gewoon heerlijk, weet
je, dat is echt heerlijk! [TLM]

Ja, het groepsgevoel, met zijn allen, weet je wel! Dat zei ik ook… ik noem het maar even met
de kerk, weet je, vroeger ging iedereen naar de kerk voor dat groepsgevoel en dat is nu een

191
beetje, ja, al twintig jaar wordt dat steeds minder. Maar mensen zoeken toch nog wel iets om
met zijn allen te kunnen doen. [HE]

p. 135
Ja, als je heel ver gaat, je geeft gewoon een liefdesboodschap mee. Peace! Dat is toch de essentie.
Ja? Als je de juiste platen draait dan komt er wereldvrede?
Jaah. Nu ga ik even 26 stapjes nemen, maar dat is toch wel… mensen bij elkaar brengen… dat
je het samen hebt beleeft… [AF]

[H]et publiek heeft een bepaalde vraag. Heel vaak weten ze het zelf nog niet, maar daar kom
je meestal bij je eerste drie of vier platen kom je daar achter. Je gooit je eerste plaat erop en
je kijkt gewoon hoe er wordt gereageerd. En je merkt dus ook in iedere club merk je wie
dominant is. Wie in het publiek is bepalend voor hoe anderen erop reageren. Want de grap is,
mensen zijn gewoon schapen, hè? Ik bedoel, ze reageren meer op elkaar dan op de muziek.
Dus als één iemand als een gek begint te springen en er gaan nog vier anderen meedoen, dan
voelt de rest hun energie, en daar voeden ze zich op. En dat stimuleert hun om ook los te gaan
en mensen mee te trekken. Dus het is altijd heel erg belangrijk om te weten wie is relevant
in het publiek, wie móet je mee hebben, wie kan er voor zorgen dat als zij vertrekken, dat de
rest denkt, oeh, zo heel erg leuk is het nou ook weer niet? En daar kom je meestal in de eerste
paar nummers achter. Dus eigenlijk die chemistry die ik bedoel is dat ik creatief bezig ben
met het verweven van nummers van anderen en die van mezelf, en tegelijkertijd dat ik dat
op een dusdanige manier moet doen dat die chemistry tussen die tracks en de reactie van het
publiek, dat dat goed samenwerkt tot een, ja, tot een geheel. En ja, da’s op zich wel een kunst.
[Btf]

Dat is natuurlijk ook een stukje gevoel zit erbij. Heb ik het gevoel dat mensen meegaan met
wat ik wil en blijven ze ook dansen. Is het druk op de dansvloer en dan wordt het weer leeg op
dansvloer, is het weer druk op de dansvloer. Wordt er ook gejuicht tijdens bepaalde platen?
Het zijn allemaal van die hele kleine dingetjes. Ook gewoon een lach op het gezicht. Hebben
mensen het naar hun zin? Ik bedoel, of als mensen met elkaar staan te kletsen, wel staan te
dansen. Of staan ze eigenlijk heel erg geluidloos zonder te kletsen te dansen? Dat is natuurlijk
weer heel anders. Je kunt wel dansen en lekker kletsen, maar dan komt de muziek blijkbaar
toch heel anders aan dan als mensen helemaal in de muziek zitten. [HE]

p. 136
Maar kijk, ik zou ook in dat publiek kunnen staan dansen. Want dat doe ik ook op andermans
feestjes. Of als die andere DJ draait dus. Het overlapt mekaar heel erg. Je denkt ook, je koppelt
het weer terug naar jezelf, wat zou ik nu leuk vinden om te horen? [CR]

Mensen komen binnen. Nou, ik ga altijd uit van hoe wil ik zelf een club inkomen of op een
feest komen. Nou, ik heb geen zin om meteen keiharde techno aan mijn hoofd te horen als
ik om twaalf uur ergens naar binnen kom wandelen. Dan wil ik lekker gewoon in de avond
getild worden door degene die aan het draaien is, zodat ik lekker in de stemming kom. [Jar]

En dat zie je wel bij mensen die niet vaak DJ-en of net beginnen, dat ze… zeg maar elf uur
gaat de deur open en vanaf tien over elf klinkt me al een partij beukmuziek die komt uit die

192
zaal, terwijl er niemand is behalve barpersoneel. Ja, dat moet je wel heel erg leren denk ik.
Dus dat je rustig begint en niet, eh, ja dat je mensen de tijd ook geeft om in de stemming te
komen enzo. [KG]

Nee, je moet het juist al weten te breken…. Het afkappen voor je klaarkomt zeg maar.
Een muzikale coïtus interruptus.
Ja, dat is echt, dat vind ik moeilijk, want je zit zelf ook in die flow van gaan we er nog over-
heen? En dan moet je het lef durven hebben en gewoon nú even… [AF]

193
194
 References

Anderson, B. R. O. G. (1991). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the origin and

spread of nationalism. London, Verso.

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