Musicology is in need of generalist methodologies and perspectives for fragments, clichés, and non-sequiturs of classical music that occur in twentieth-century media and culture. Such music is related to the “vernacular imagination,” the shared phenomenon of twentieth-century American (and occasionally European) media audiences in which an artist’s imaginative priorities intersect with the past and with memory. Musicologists can adapt the notion of register, a tool used to locate a work culturally, to study this music in a way that traces the development and intersection of its fluctuating meanings, emphasizing audience reception of an expressive mass media rather than arguing for the absolute value of a musical object.

Works: Barry Manilow: Could it Be Magic (17); Kiss: Great Expectations (17); Billy Joel: This Night (18); DMX: What’s My Name? (34-40); Busta Rhymes: Gimme Some More (34, 38-40); Alan Crosland (director) and Louis Silvers (composer): score to The Jazz Singer (51-55, 73-81, 86, 177); Otto Preminger (director) and David Raksin (composer): score to Laura (42, 44-47, 52, 58-59, 76, 163); Irving Rapper (director) and Max Steiner (composer): score to Now, Voyager (59-60); Victor Fleming (director) and Max Steiner (composer): score to Gone with the Wind (69-70); Gregory La Cava (director) and Max Steiner (composer): score to Symphony of Six Million (86-101); Jefferson Airplane: White Rabbit (122-24); The Doors: Light My Fire (124); Led Zeppelin: Stairway to Heaven (126-27); Procol Harum: A Whiter Shade of Pale (129-39, 149-51); The Swingle Singers: Aria (135-37); Lawrence Kasdan (director) and Meg Kasdan (composer): soundtrack to The Big Chill (152-56); Alfred Hitchcock (director) and Bernard Herrmann (composer): score to Psycho (171-73); Robert Z. Leonard (director): soundtrack to Strange Interlude (181-83); James Whale (director) and Franz Waxman (composer): score to Bride of Frankenstein (190-95); Stephen Herek (director) and Michael Kamen (composer): score to Mr. Holland’s Opus (196-202); William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (directors) and Scott Bradley (music editor): score to Tom and Jerry, no. 29, The Cat Concerto (197-98); Friz Freleng (director): score to Merrie Melodies, episode Rhapsody Rabbit (197, 205); Carlos Santana and Dave Matthews: Love of My Life (214-16); Albert Lewin (director): The Picture of Dorian Gray (216-21); Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody (222-35); Penelope Spheeris (director): soundtrack to Wayne’s World (222-23, 231-32).

Sources: Chopin: Prelude in C minor, Op. 28, No. 20 (17); Beethoven: Piano Sonata in C Minor, Op. 13 (18); Richard Addinsell: Warsaw Concerto (34-35, 41); Bernard Herrmann: score to Psycho (34, 38-40); Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture (51-58), Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74 (59-63); Handel, “Ombra mai fu” from Serse (69-70); Ravel: Bolero (123-24); Johann Sebastian Bach, Air from Suite in D Major, BWV 1068 (133-34), Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140 (133-34, 136-37); Procol Harum: A Whiter Shade of Pale (152-56); George Antheil: Symphony No. 4; Dukas: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (190); Gottfried Huppertz: score to Metropolis (194-95); Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 (198, 204-6); The Toys: Lover’s Concerto (196, 202-9, 213); The Supremes: I Hear a Symphony (196, 202-4, 213); Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90 (214-16); Chopin: Prelude in D Minor, Op. 28, No. 24 (217-21); Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody (222-23); Mascagni: Cavalleria rusticana (227); Richard Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos (227-31).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular, Film

Contributed by: Kate Altizer