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‘Maybellene’: meaning and the listening subject*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Sean Cubitt
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Extract

There appeared in the summer of 1982 a song written and performed by three German structuralists, a song characterised by the simplicity – to the point of banality – of its musical structure and instrumentation. Intended as a critical intervention in the production of ordinariness in popular music, ‘Da Da Da’ reached number one in the British charts, and Trio's appearance on the British TV show, Top of the Pops, was no more threatening than that of Captain Sensible or any other novelty act: welcome to the whacky world of deconstructive minimalism. Clearly the intended meanings of the song were not always the ones it evoked for the listener. Recordings have a way of taking on a life of their own in their meetings with the public; in Voloshinov's phrase, the production of meaning is intersubjective, involving artists, promotional campaigns, disc jockeys and the audience. This article addresses particularly the role of the listening subject in the construction of a song's meanings.

Type
Part 4. Reading Rock and Roll
Information
Popular Music , Volume 4 , January 1984 , pp. 207 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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