Auto-Musicologies

We all have that album, concert, song, music video, and so forth, which has stuck with us. Perhaps this moment/text shaped your career, your music tastes, your relationships, or your musicianship. This series is a space to share those moments. Writers share their reflexivity while critically engaging and situating media texts in space, place, and time, in relationship to their own experiences.

In revealing the personal, we strengthen our camaraderie through humour, knowledge exchange, and debate. There is no such thing as a “guilty pleasure,” as we are all champions for the popular!

The format these posts take is intentionally open. Please contact series editor Melissa Avdeeff at iaspmcanada@gmail.com for submissions, idea discussions, media inclusion questions, or any other queries.

Tomorrow’s Unknown Life: What Live-Evil Means to Me

By Sean Steele

21 April 2020

In this post, Sean explores his relationship to Miles Davis’s album, Live-Evil, through nostalgia, roadtrips, and the tensions between ideas of the "real" and the "imaginary."

Steel in the Age and Angels: Flying to the Future with Goodbye to Language

By Sarah Chodos

24 February 2020

Sarah traces her relationship to Daniel Lanois and Rocco DeLuca's album Goodbye to Language, with an exploration of subjectivity and meaning.

Venturing into the Slipstream: Why Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks Will Always Be a Part of My Life

By Sean Steele

16 March 2019

Sean explores his ongoing relationship to Van Morrisons's Astral Weeks, in connection to the improvisatory nature of his creative process, and the inspiration that comes about through challenges/restrictions.

The More You Change the More You Feel: Music, Memory, and the Infinite Affect(ion)

By Brian Fauteux

8 January 2019

Brian reflects on music, music, and The Smashing Pumpkins and how this album allows him to revisit and re-live key events in his youth.

A Reason to Believe: Wilson Phillips and 90s Poptimism

By Melissa Avdeeff

2 November 2018

Melissa traces the develops of her poptimism through early experiences with the Wilson Phillips, as a defining moment in her musical tastes, and scholarly interests. She works through issues of existential dread, ageing, and body positivity.

Faster, Louder, Snottier: Discovering Green Day in the 1990s

By Ty Hall

20 August 2018

Ty Hall recounts how his first rock concert, Green Day, sparked a passion for music, and learned some serious life lessons.