As I was reading the Ballenger text for this week, I began to realize that the skills required to make serious, meaningful revisions to our own texts are the same skills required to do serious, meaningful critical readings of the works of others. When we are looking critically at our sources, we are investigating what the purpose of the work is, why it matters, and what the thesis is. In short, the skills needed for good reading are the same skills needed for good writing.

Following our idea that we can use music as texts, I wondered if I could break down a song in the same manner that Ballenger tells us to break down our own essays. Here is my attempt with the song "We Used to Vacation" by the band Cold War Kids on their 2006 EP Up in Rags:

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While I think that the song is up to personal interpretation, I would say that the purpose of this song, not explicitly stated, is to explore the painful effects of alcoholism on both the individual and his family. I would say that the song becomes relevant to me (has a "so what" as Ballenger would say) because it helps me see what I've seen before in a way that I haven't, and it moves me emotionally. However, I would say that the way this song is most interesting to me is because there are very few remorseful songs about alcoholism told from the alcoholic's point of view. Finally, I would say that the main point of this song is to show how addictive alcohol can be, through the narrator's constant want for a drink and attempts to justify his drinking.

I think I did pretty well using a song as a text, and critically reading it for global issues. I bet I could take this a step farther and explore the organization of the song, in the same way that you will be doing for your reverse outline. The song starts with a day in the life of the speaker in which we see him drinking and the negative effects this has on his family. The audience needs the description given in the first verse in order for the bridge, where the speaker attempts to play down the awfulness of the story, to make any sense. The refrain takes us away from the speaker's justifications, and focuses on his family, who is so hurt by his actions that they have made him promise to stop drinking. However, the end of the refrain, with the repetition of "this will all blow over in time," returns to the speakers attempt to downplay his actions. The second verse is the speaker again trying to justify himself as a good person, while simultaneously showing how normal his life is. We then go back to the refrain, but this time with the inclusion of the "accident" and the alcohol anonymous "meetings," which highlight the severity of the issue. I believe that the text is organized this way to make the audience slowly aware of the problems the speaker has caused, which makes the topic easier to deal with, and allows us to feel sympathy for the speaker and not just see him as a villain.

Here, using the same strategies Ballenger provides for revision, I was able to critically read a text. These skills are not only helping me to become a better writer, they are helping me to become a better reader as well. For this post, I would like you to exercise your critical reading skills. I will not ask you to outline a song, in the same way I did. Instead, I am asking you to choose one of the three songs below; show the purpose, "so what," and thesis of that song; and provide some justifications as to how you came to the conclusions you did. 

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Before I get into this post, I want talk about the expectations for this week's blog. Since we are on spring break next week, I do not expect you to comment by 3/18. Instead, you have until 3/25 to reply to this post. Also, as I promised, here is a link for the Radiolab episode that you are supposed to listen to for class tomorrow.

As for this week's blog post,  I think the idea that publics create a worldview is fantastic. The reason I like this idea is because it goes farther than just the argument or purpose of a piece; this section of Warner's essay says that the terms we use, who we reference, the audience we address, how we circulate ideas, our style, and many more factors all come together to influence how we view our world and how we understand our place in it. Of course, I am using the word "we" here not just to refer to us as authors, but to us members of (a) public(s). For example, let's take the song "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore on his 2012 album The Heist.

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Of course there is a lot to say about this video, but I am just going to hit some of the highlights. First off the style sets Macklemore in the public of youth culture immediately. The dance beat and the standard hip-hop rhythms make this song seem really accessible via its style. Further, use of words like "pop some tags" and  "come up" show him as part of this particular public. The references in this song are interesting because they are mostly set in the past, but for his audience this is a shared past. The idea is that his audience is familiar with what John Wayne looks like, remembers R. Kelly's sex scandal, and remembers a time when Velcro sneakers were popular. What's interesting here is that Macklemore uses his language very skillfully to set himself into a particular public and genre, but he then critiques that same culture in his song. 

This song exemplifies how, even if the argument of a text is counter to the general consensus of a public, it can still demonstrate that it shares the worldview of that public. The idea that style is a self-created, unique expression of the individual that cannot be mimicked by buying expensive, brand named items flies in the face of artists like Gucci Mane (whose named after a brand), Nelly (who wrote entire songs about a type of shoe), and Kanye West (who doesn't rap "to push a fucking Rav-4"). Compared to these other artists, Macklemore almost seems like a Marxist when he says that buying a fifty dollar shirt is "getting tricked by a business." Despite this difference in his argument, Macklemore still shares the fun, care-free, confident worldview that says that young people can improve their station in the world (if not the world in general). In short, though Macklemore's argument might not seem to fit into the public, his worldview (as seen by his vernacular, medium, genre, and audience) does fit into that public. 

In Publics and Counterpublics, Warner goes on to show that utterances in a dominant public can take this "lifeworld" or worldview for granted, "misrecognizing the indefinite scope of their expansive address as universality or normalcy" (122). This is different from counterpublic utterances "in which it is hoped that the poesis of scene making will be transformative, not replicative merely" (122). In short, dominant publics can keep producing the same style because they want to keep the same general worldview; counterpublics use different styles because they want to see the worldview altered. To test this idea, let's look at a song from the number one selling record in the country: "When I was Your Man" by Bruno Mars off of his 2013 album Unorthodox Jukebox:

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Let's compare this song to the Le Butcherettes' song "Henry Don't Got Love" off their 2011 album Sin Sin Sin:

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The issue of worldview gets a bit complicated when discussing these two songs because Mars' lyrics are focused on sense and Le Butcherrettes' lyrics are less so.  What I mean is, as Warner would phrase it, Bruno Mars' lyrics can be "summarizable" (115), while Le Butcherettes are more focused on "the poetic-expressive dimensions of language" (116). 

My questions to you are these:

1.) While it is obvious that the arguments of these songs are different, how are their worldviews different (or are they)?

2.) Which worldview can you relate to more?

As Warner discussed in our last reading: "In addressing indefinite strangers, public discourse puts a premium on accessibility. But there is no infinitely accessible language, and to imagine that there should be is to miss other important needs to publics: to concretize the world in which discourse circulates, to offer its members direct and active membership through language, to place strangers on a shared footing" (108).  For Warner then, public speech uses language to show who is part of the discourse and who is not. Specific jargon, style, or reference allows for those in the public to realize that the strangers to which they communicate with all belong to the same discourse. They experience the world, and express those experiences, in the same manner, by their use of the same language. For an example of this, I would like to show the NOFX video for their song "Church and Skate" from their 2003 album The War on Errorism:

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The style here is pretty obvious. The fast instrumentation and aggressive lyricism place the band squarely in the realm of punk rock. Further, the demanding tone of the refrain mimics the standard for the music. The band also uses common themes of "conflict," "descent" the "hatred of authority," and constant use of the f-word to show themselves as belonging to the genre. References to "Duane" Peters from the band U.S.Bombs and "Fletcher" Dragge from the band Pennywise demonstrate the bands connection to their genre. With these connections made through the language and music, the band shows itself as intimately acquainted with the genre in which it speaks, and the public in which that genre exists. 

At this point in the semester, I am sure that you are all familiar with how language unites people together (while excluding other people). However, Warner goes beyond this point in this section to show that the language used not only references established relationships but also creates these relationships. According to Warner, "styles are mobilized, but they are also framed as styles. Sometimes the framing is hierarchical, a relation between marked and unmarked. Sometimes the result can be more relativizing. Quite commonly the result can be a double voiced hybrid" (108).  In this section illuminates that these objects of language use can be used either in a manner to show who is included and who is not, to invite those not included into the fold, or to simultaneously do both of these things. The song "Punk Rock Song" from the band Bad Religion on their 1996 album The Gray Race illustrates this point rather well. 

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This song simultaneously creates a binary between those who "can see somethings wrong," which seems to mean people who listen to punk, and those "small in vision and perspective" who are characterized as "robots" and "insects." There is an obvious distinction created by those in the know and those who are out of the loop. However, the lead singer uses the word "we" to invite the listener into the punk community. He offers to save them from what he has characterized as a lesser existence and into what he has characterized as a morally superior public conversation. In short, the song creates (1) an "us" verses "them" hierarchy (2) a way for people in the genre to understand themselves as united to the band, and (3) an invitation for others in the audience to join the community. 

Of course, sometimes using this type of "vernacular performance" can go too far and make the speaker seem ridiculous. As Warner shows, "Too obvious parroting of  a catchphrase . . . can mark you in some contexts as a square, unhip, a passive relay in the circulation" (102). The song "Punk Rock Girl" by the Dead Milkmen off of their 1988 album Beelzebubba demonstrates how one can become ridiculous when they get too excited about this type of performance. 

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While I believe that the song is meant to be satirical, it illustrates how the over reliance on themes such as shouting anarchy, slam dancing, and a devotion to obscure music seem ridiculous if over discussed, done at inappropriate times, or done simply for the sake of being able to talk about it later. 

My question to you is whether or not these principles of "vernacular performance" manifest themselves in the academic essay. Here are some points for consideration:

1. Does academic language create a heirarchical structure, a relativising structure or a double voiced hybrid?
2. Can academic language make someone seem ridiculous either to others in the academic audience or to a regular audience?