Tag Archives: Eagles

Jason Yust on the racist history of tonality

I haven’t done any culture war material lately, but Jason Yust recently published an article in the Journal of Music Theory with the title “Tonality and Racism“, and I couldn’t not respond. The arguments in the paper are relevant to my teaching life in NYU’s new and wonderful pop theory and aural skills sequence. These classes …

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Eric B and Rakim

In 1987 I remember having my ears grabbed by this track on the radio called “Pump Up The Volume” by MARRS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cak1xly8oUM Now that mashups are so common, this track doesn’t sound particularly remarkable. But in seventh grade it was startling to hear a house music track full of random samples. “Pump Up The Volume” …

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