Towards the Rhizomic Pop Song

This dissertation looks at the impact of postmodernism and post-structuralism in the pop song. The aim is to establish a theoretical framework for the pop songwriter and listeners to reflect on the possible unexplored areas of this form. The work observes examples of music produced in the recent past, with the ultimate object of providing songwriters with a reflection on the actual songwriting practice itself. So even if it sometimes read as a theoretical and analytical work, it does not restrict itself to that level. Synthesizing the research's approach from the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Roland Barthes, and Michel Chion, the aim of this dissertation is to encourage songwriters, producers, and listeners alike to consider the pop song as a vehicle for meaning. These units of meaning are a systems in themselves, systems that present themselves as an equation, a territory, but not an equation that will generate a definitive result: a territory that is established to escape itself, to drift, the pop song as deterritorialization.... Mehr