by Slim Volume
Questions to consider:
What are the implications of
Tracy and the Plastics bringing dance music (back) to a punk rock crowd? I’m
especially interested in this question in terms of the potential of dance music
to do the revolutionary work of “killing the rock star” or fulfilling Sonic
Youth’s prescription to “kill your idols” not only by providing a song
structure and beat that works against heteronormative narratives of closure,
desire/faith in fulfillment, and even the authority of the state, but also by
de-centering the supposed genius artist, positioning them in a horizontal
relationship with “the crowd”.
Tracy, in her interaction
with “the Plastics,” seeks to make visible the complexities inherent in the
production of the subject in the tangled act of art-making and social
performance, to expose as a sham the romantic concept of an artist as an
individual genius—the myth that artists are expressing a well-bounded,
authentic creative self. But what happens when her music/art is consumed by a
subculture that has ritualized punk rock performances? That reads her onstage
presence in this context? That renders her identity legible in terms of
subcultural queer norms that have tended to reproduce analogs of
heteronormative popular culture such as teen heartthrobs, boy bands, etc? Where
do the intentions of the artist/producer end and the
needs/expectations/interpretations of the consumer begin?
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