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Semiotics as a Mode of Popular Music Analysis and Interpretation

image of Semiotics as a Mode of Popular Music Analysis and Interpretation
  • By Brian Andrew Inglis
  • Source: The Intellect Handbook of Popular Music Methodologies , pp 108-130
  • Publication Date: June 2025
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/9781835951033_9
  • Language: English
  • Accessibility Summary:  EPUB 3 and pdf file included; compatible with devices and software which can read these formats. Adjustable font size, spacing, contrast, text justification, number of columns (ePUB only). Alternative text for images. Tagged with a logical reading order to assist screen readers. Navigation between in-text citations and reference list, and endnotes and endnote markers.

This chapter provides an overview of the field of semiotics/semiology as applied to the analysis and interpretation of popular music. The first half of the chapter surveys relevant theoretical concepts, including poiesis, esthesis and paradigmatic analysis (Nattiez); introversive semiosis and extroversive semiosis/topics (Agawu); musemes and codes (Tagg), and hermeneutics.

The second half offers the first academic analysis of Sandi Thom's 2005 hit song I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (With Flowers In My Hair) as an original illustration of how theoretical tools may be practically applied. Structure is analysed paradigmatically. An extroversive approach considers the denotations and connotations of sonic coding (dactylic rhythm) within a repertoire which links Thom to other acts of the Britpop inheritance, The Divine Comedy and The Feeling. Interobjective comparisons and musematic connections support a queer-feminist hermeneutic. The potential of semiotics for analysing and interpreting popular music is seen to be considerable and ongoing.

Keywords: Dactylic rhythm ; I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (With Flowers In My Hair) ; Jean-Jacques Nattiez ; Musical hermeneutics ; Philip Tagg ; Sandi Thom ; Semiology ; Semiosis ; The Divine Comedy (band) ; The Feeling (band)

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Semiotics as a Mode of Popular Music Analysis and Interpretation
Intellect , 108 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1386/9781835951033_9
/content/books/9781835951033.c07
/content/books/9781835951033.c07
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References

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References

  1. Agawu, V. Kofi (1991), Playing with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Agawu, Kofi (2009), Music as Discourse: Semiotic Adventures in Romantic Music, Oxford Studies in Music Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press.129
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Asafiev [Asafyev], Boris (1976), Musical Form as Process, Columbia, OH: Ohio State University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Barthes, Roland (1984), Image/Music/Text (trans. S. Heath), London: Fontana.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Björnberg, Alf (1992), ‘Music video and the semiotics of popular music’, in R. Dalmonte and M. Baroni (eds), Studi e testi dal Secondo Convegno Europeo di Analisi Musicale (Conference Proceedings of the Second European Congress of Musical Analysis), Università di Trento, Trento, Italy, 24–27 October 1991, pp. 379–88.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Blacking, John (1971), ‘Deep and surface structures in venda music’, Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council, 3, pp. 91–108.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Brett, Philip , Wood, Elizabeth and Thomas, Gary (2006), Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology, 2nd ed., New York and Abingdon: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Burkhart, Benjamin (2017), ‘Popular music analysis and social semiotics: The case of the Reggae Voice’ in J. Merrill (ed.), Popular Music Studies Today, Systematische Musikwissenschaft, Wiesbaden: Springer, pp. 43–52.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Carper, Thomas and Attridge, Derek (2003), Meter and Meaning: An Introduction to Rhythm in Poetry, Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Cook, Nicholas (1998), Analysing Musical Multimedia, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Cooke, Deryck (1959), The Language of Music, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Counsell, Colin and Wolf, Laurie (2001), Performance Analysis: An Introductory Coursebook, London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Cumming, Naomi (2000), The Sonic Self: Musical Subjectivity and Signification, Advances in Semiotics, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Desroches, Monique (1996), Tambours des dieux: Musique et sacrifice d'origine tamoule en Martinique, Montréal: L'Harmattan.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Dunbar-Hall, Peter (1991), ‘Semiotics as a method for the study of popular music’, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, 22:2, pp. 127–32.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Frith, Simon and McRobbie, Angela (1990), ‘Rock and sexuality’, in S. Frith and A. Goodwin (eds), On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word, London: Routledge, pp. 317–32.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Guertin, Marcel (1981), ‘Différence et similitude dans les préludes pour piano de Debussy’, Revue de Musique des Universités Canadiennes, 2, pp. 56–83.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Kramer, Lawrence (2002), Musical Meaning: Toward a Critical History, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. LitCharts (2022), ‘Dactyl’, https://www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-and-terms/dactyl. Accessed 3 July 2022 .
  20. Longhurst, Brian (2014), Popular Music and Society, 3rd ed., Cambridge: Polity Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Machin, David (2010), Analysing Popular Music: Image, Sound, Text, London: Sage Publishing.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. McClary, Susan (1991), Feminine Endings, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Middleton, Richard (1990), Studying Popular Music, Buckingham: Open University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Monelle, Raymond (1992), Linguistics and Semiotics in Music, Contemporary Music Studies Volume 5, Chur: Harwood.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Moore, Allan (2012), Song Means: Analysing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Song, Farnham: Ashgate.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Moore, Allan (2016), ‘Interpretation: So what?’, in D. Scott (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Popular Musicology, Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 411–25.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Nattiez, Jean-Jacques (1990), Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music (trans. C. Abbate), Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Nattiez, Jean-Jacques (1995), lecture series at City University, London, January–March.
  29. Reed, Katherine (2022), ‘Rock hermeneutics’, in A. Moore and P. Carr (eds), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Rock Music Research, New York, London and Dublin: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 255–68.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Ruwet, Nicholas (1972), Langage, musique, poesie, Paris: Seuil.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Seeger, Charles (1960), ‘On the moods of a musical logic’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 13, pp. 224–61.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Shannon, C. and Weaver, W. (1949), The Mathematical Theory of Communication, Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Tagg, Philip (1987), ‘Musicology and the semiotics of popular music’, Semiotica, 66, pp. 279–98.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Tagg, Philip (1992), in R. Dalmonte and M. Baroni (eds), Studi e testi dal Secondo Convegno Europeo di Analisi Musicale, (‘Conference proceedings of the Second European Congress of Musical Analysis’), Trento, Italy, 24–27 October 1991, Trento: Università di Trento, pp. 369–78.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Tagg, Philip (2013), Music's Meanings, Larchmont, NY and Huddersfield: Mass Media Music Scholars’ Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. The Divine Comedy (1994), ‘Tonight We Fly’, Promenade, CD, UK: Setanta.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. The Divine Comedy (1996), ‘Songs of Love’, Casanova, CD, UK: Setanta.
     [Google Scholar]
  38. The Feeling (2006), ‘Fill My Little World’, Twelve Stops and Home, CD, UK: Universal Island Records.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. The Feeling (2011), ‘Another Life’, Together We Were Made, CD, UK: Universal Island Records.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. The Feeling (2013), Boy Cried Wolf, CD, UK: BMG Rights Management.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. theirishneilers (2014), Comment: ‘Sandi Thom – I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker [Official Video]’, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_TOHtOTX5g. Accessed 3 July 2022 .130
  42. Thom, Sandi (2005), ‘I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (With Flowers In My Hair)’, composed by S. Thom and T. Gilbert, CD, UK: Sony BMG.
  43. Thom, Sandi and Gilbert, Tom (2006), ‘I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (With Flowers In My Hair)’, score, UK: P&P Songs/EMI.
  44. Way, Lyndon and McKerrell, Simon (2017), Music as Multimodal Discourse: Semiotics, Power and Protest, London: Bloomsbury.
     [Google Scholar]
  45. Weber, Carl (1821), ‘Aufforderung zum Tanz’ (‘Invitation to the dance’), Berlin: Schlesinger.
  46. Whiteley, Sheila and Rycenga, Jennifer (2006), Queering the Popular Pitch, New York and Abingdon: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  47. Zak, Vladimir (1982), ‘Asaf'ev's theory of intonation and the analysis of popular song’, Popular Music, 2, pp. 91–111.
     [Google Scholar]

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