Simon Frith
Simon Frith is a former rock
critic and a
sociologist who specializes in
popular music culture, and the brother of guitarist
Fred Frith and psychologist
Chris Frith. He read
PPE at Oxford and did a doctorate in Sociology at
UC Berkeley. He taught in the Sociology Department at
Warwick University and the English Studies Department at
Strathclyde University before coming to
University of Stirling as Professor of Film and Media in August 1999. He is the author of many books including his first,
The Sociology of Rock, ISBN 0094602204. He has chaired the judges of the
Mercury Music Prize since it began in 1992. On January 1 2006 he took up the Tovey Chair of Music at
Edinburgh University.
In
The Sociology of Rock (1978) Frith examines the
consumption,
production, and
ideology of
rock music. He explores rock as
leisure, as
youth culture, as a force for liberation or oppression, and as
background music. He argues that rock music is a
mass cultural form which derives its meaning and relevance from being a
mass medium. He discusses the differences in perception and use of rock between the music industry and music consumers, as well as differences within those groups: "The industry may or may not keep control of rock's use, but it will not be able to determine all its meanings - the problems of capitalist community and leisure are not so easily resolved."
Frith (2004, p.17-9) argued that, "'bad music' is a necessary concept for musical pleasure, for musical aesthetics." He distinguishes two common kinds of bad music; the
Worst Records Ever Made type, which include:
*"Tracks which are clearly incompetent musically; made by singers who can't sing, players who can't play, producers who can't produce,"
*"Tracks involving genre confusion. The most common examples are actors or TV stars recording in the latest style,"
and "rock critical lists," which include:
*"Tracks that feature sound gimmicks that have outlived their charm or novelty,"
*"Tracks that depend on false sentiment (...), that feature an excess of feeling molded into a radio-friendly pop song."
He later gives three common qualities attributed to bad music: inauthentic, [in] bad taste (see also: kitsch), and stupid. He argues that "The marking off of some tracks and genres and artists as 'bad' is a necessary part of popular music pleasure; it is a way we establish our place in various music worlds. And 'bad' is a key word here because it suggests that aesthetic and ethical judgements are tied together here: not to like a record is not just a matter of taste; it is also a matter of argument, and argument that matters." (p.28)
