Fascinating rhythms : music programming, memory and materiality in visual culture

This thesis explores the ways in which music programming can participate in discourses of music heritage, and popular and visual cultures. It contributes to a growing body of work that seeks to redress the dominance of US-centric scholarship on MTV and music videos. Much of this writing is defined by an approach that relies on descriptive rather than close textual analysis, which this thesis addresses. One intention of this interdisciplinary research is to challenge scholarship on nostalgia and cultural memory to complicate readings of nostalgia and nostalgic behaviours beyond their conception as commercially-motivated and politically regressive acts. Another is the intention to challenge the traditionally ‘low’ cultural status of music programming. Chapter One examines the role of DVD, iPlayer, and YouTube in preserving music programming, and maintaining its cultural afterlife. This is framed by a discussion of the scheduling strategies of BBC Four. It is also concerned with issues of availability and the aesthetic experience of watching (or re-watching) such programming online. Chapter Two analyses the relationship between memory, materiality, and the representation of music heritage. It considers the affective and haptic potential of such programming (Marks, 1998-2015), and explores how they challenge institutionalised historical accounts through their attention to the tactile objects of music culture. The memory work they perform is reflected in their integration of ‘emotional labour’ (Hochschild, 1979) and ‘unofficial knowledge’ (Samuel, 1994). Chapter Three considers feature-length music documentaries. The analysis focusses on how these films aestheticise nostalgia and pastness and how they complicate the audience’s sense of ‘now-ness’ (Highmore, 2013). Finally, it examines the impact of documentary features on the perception of music artists, and how they are remembered. The thesis illustrates how music and memory work together, and the importance of this relationship to understanding what nostalgia is and how it functions within visual culture