Globalization, Music and Cultures of Distinction: The Rise of Pop Music Criticism in Italy

236 Pages·2016·4.912 MB·English

by  Simone Varriale (auth.)

GLOBALIZATION, MUSIC AND
CULTURES OF DISTINCTION
The Rise of Pop Music Criticism in Italy
Simone Varriale
Globalization, Music and Cultures of Distinction

Simone   V arriale
Globalization, Music
and Cultures of
Distinction
The Rise of Pop Music Criticism in Italy
Simone   Varriale
University of Warwick
Coventry , United Kingdom
ISBN 978-1-137-56449-8 ISBN 978-1-137-56450-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-56450-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016945388
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Acknowledgments
Th e research for this book started at the end of 2010, but the pop music
press has been with me for much longer. My work about the early days of
this cultural institution is fi rst and foremost indebted to all the critics I’ve
been reading during the last twenty years, including those I write about
in this book and those I worked and argued with during the late 2000s,
when I used to write for Italian music web-zines. Other people deserve
gratitude for helping me turn this part of my everyday life into an object
of sociological investigation. Deborah Lynn Steinberg has provided
invaluable support during my Ph.D. and early steps as a post-doctoral
researcher; Claudio Bisoni was the fi rst to suggest, back in 2009, that
Italian music magazines could become the subject of a Ph.D. proposal
(although perhaps not in Italy). Finally, Bob Carter helped me settle into
sociology and social theory during my early days as a Ph.D. student at
Warwick, when these were pretty much new languages for me (along
with English). 
S everal friends have listened to my ramblings about music maga-
zines for way too long. I’m indebted to Albi, Giorgio Busi-Rizzi, Chiara
Checcaglini, Giacomo Di Foggia, Marco Persico and Lucia Tralli for
much more than scholarly chats. On top of these, there is a long list of
friends and colleagues I’ve met at Warwick. For their support at diff erent
stages of this journey, I wish to thank particularly Valentina Abbatelli,
v
vi Acknowledgments
Elio Baldi, Eleonora Belfi ore, Maria do Mar Pereira, Mortezā Hāshemī,
Linde Luijnenburg, Jeannette Silva-Flores and Lorenzo Vianelli.
During the last fi ve years, various colleagues have provided valuable
feedback on earlier ideas and drafts. For their constructive insights, I am
grateful to Daniel Allington, Les Back, Mark Banks, Shyon Baumann,
Pauwke Berkers, Anna Boschetti, Nick Crossley, Tymothy Dowd, Martin
G. Fuller, Leo Goretti, David Inglis, Monika Krause, Paolo Magaudda,
Lynne Pettinger, Motti Regev, Marco Santoro, Vaughn Schmutz, Jason
Toynbee and David Wright. Any mistakes or oversights are solely mine,
however.
Th is book is dedicated to Cecilia, for each day of her company, wit
and humor.
A n earlier version of the section ‘Th e morality of markets’ (Chap. 5 ) has
been published, along with Table 5.1, in the article ‘Cultural production
and the morality of markets: popular music critics and the conversion
of economic power into symbolic capital’, P oetics Vol. 51: 1–16 (2015).
Contents
1 Introduction: How Th ings Come into Being 1
Part I Situating the Study 9
2 New Forms of Distinction, New Cultural Institutions 11
3 Globalization and Artistic Legitimation:
Reconceptualizing Bourdieu 35
Part II Pop Music Criticism in Italy (1969–1977) 59
4 Young, Educated and Cosmopolitan: A New
Cultural Institution 61
5 Economic Cosmopolitanism: Th e Case of Ciao 2001 87
vii
viii Contents
6 Political Cosmopolitanism: Th e Case of Muzak
and Gong 111
Part III Evaluating Music and Music Criticism 137
7 Aesthetic Encounters: Evaluating Rock, Jazz and Soul 1 39
8 Music Magazines as Alternative Public Spheres 1 65
9 Conclusion: Th e Struggle Goes On 1 91
Appendix 1: Methodology and Fieldwork 2 01
Appendix 2: Music Coverage and Gender 2 13
Bibliography 215
Index 219
List of Tables
Table 3.1 Th e fi eld of cultural production (Adapted from
Bourdieu 1996) 38
Table 3.2 Aesthetic encounters 46
Table 4.1 Pop music magazines launched during the 1970s 69
Table 4.2 Magazines’ readership 70
Table 4.3 Critics writing for C iao 2001, Muzak and G ong
(1973–1977) 72
Table 5.1 Economic power as symbolic capital 92
Table 6.1 Main organizational breaks 117
Table 7.1 Highbrow repertoire 141
Table 7.2 Popular repertoire 142
Table 7.3 Coverage of soul and disco music 150
Table 8.1 Topics of debate 168
Table A.1 Features per magazine and genre 206
Table B.1 Music coverage and gender 214
ix