Tag Archives: music

White Paper: From Sincerity to Irony: When, How, and Why Criticism Came to Distrust Emotional Openness—and What This Shift Is Not

Posted on December 28, 2025 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary Over the past century and a half, Western critical culture has undergone a marked transformation: emotional sincerity and openness, once regarded as indicators of moral seriousness and artistic authenticity, came to be viewed with suspicion, while irony, ambiguity, … Continue reading →

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Visibility Without Power: Lead Singers, Band Identity, and the Paradox of Unequal Equality

Posted on December 27, 2025 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary This white paper examines a recurring paradox in popular music groups: lead singers who are the most visible, recognizable, and commercially symbolic members of a band nevertheless report feeling structurally unequal within those same bands. Using Peter Cetera … Continue reading →

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White Paper: Why Hit Albums Are Hard to Follow: Structural, Psychological, and Market Constraints on Musical Continuity

Posted on December 27, 2025 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary Despite increased budgets, improved studio access, greater label support, and heightened public awareness, artists who produce a breakthrough album frequently struggle to match—let alone exceed—the sales and cultural impact of that success. This phenomenon is not primarily a … Continue reading →

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White Paper: A Typology of New Wave Bands Based on the Precise Nature of Elements in Their Sound

Posted on December 27, 2025 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary New Wave is often described loosely as a post-punk, late-1970s–1980s genre blending pop accessibility with modernist aesthetics. Such descriptions obscure the fact that New Wave is better understood as a family of sound-engineering strategies, not a single musical … Continue reading →

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Strategic Ungrammaticality in Popular Songwriting: A White Paper on Intentional Deviations from Standard Grammar in Commercial Music

Posted on December 24, 2025 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary This white paper examines why accomplished, highly literate songwriters and producers sometimes choose intentionally ungrammatical lyrics, focusing on Don’t Mean Nothing by Richard Marx and The Way I Are by Timbaland featuring Keri Hilson. Despite their creators’ clear … Continue reading →

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White Paper: Metric Corruption in Cultural Industries: How Charts, Rankings, and Engagement Systems Drift from Measurement to Manipulation

Posted on December 23, 2025 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary Cultural industries increasingly rely on quantitative metrics—charts, rankings, streams, impressions, and engagement scores—to signal legitimacy, success, and public relevance. These metrics were originally designed to measure consumption patterns, but in contemporary practice they have evolved into targets to … Continue reading →

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White Paper: Gregory Abbott: The Rise, Peak, and Post-Peak Trajectory of a One-Major-Hit R&B Artist

Posted on December 22, 2025 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary Gregory Abbott’s Shake You Down (1986–87) stands as one of the most successful debut singles of the late 1980s: #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, #1 on the R&B chart, and a major international hit. Yet Abbott was … Continue reading →

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White Paper: Song Reassignment in Pop Music: Cross-Project Migration, Group Succession, and the Modularity of the Pop Music Production System

Posted on December 20, 2025 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary Pop music is built on an industrial model characterized by high specialization, modular production, and fluid ownership of creative assets. Because songs are often written by professional songwriters or production teams rather than the performers themselves, it is … Continue reading →

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White Paper: Male vs. Female Lyrics in Toto’s “Georgy Porgy” and Their Relationship to the Nursery Rhyme

Posted on December 19, 2025 by nathanalbright

1. Overview and Research Question Toto’s 1978 song “Georgy Porgy” is built around a striking contrast: Male lead vocal (Steve Lukather): introspective, guilty, lovesick first-person verses. Female vocal (Cheryl Lynn): a looping, almost accusatory nursery-rhyme hook (“Georgy Porgy, pudding and … Continue reading →

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White Paper: From Gatekeepers to Signals: The Canceling of Ebro in the Morning and the Changing Relationship Between Radio and Online Music Journalism

Posted on December 16, 2025 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary The canceling of Ebro in the Morning—a flagship hip-hop radio show associated with Apple Music and Beats 1—marks more than the end of a particular program. It reflects a structural transformation in the relationship between traditional radio authority … Continue reading →

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